The Dew of Their Youth - Samuel Rutherford Crockett (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📗

"do-nothing"--in the sense that he was the busiest man in the place about other folk's business--was merely another boy at Louis's school. And as he worked, he talked, delightfully, easily, dramatically. He made the old life of Eden Valley pass before us. We heard the brisk tongue of my grandmother from the kitchen, that of Aunt Jen ruling as much of the roost as was permitted to her, but constantly made aware of herself by her mother's dominating personality.
With equal facility he recalled my father in his classes, looking out for collegers to do him credit, my mother passing silently along her retired household ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping her mother in the house, and teaching the classes for which I used to be responsible in the school.
It was a memorable day in the little house above the Meadows. Louis played with Boyd Connoway all the time, learning infinite new tricks with string, with knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting a fire.
He had presented to him Boyd's spare "sulphur" box, in which were tinder, flint and steel, matches dipped in brimstone, and a pair of short thick candles which could be set one at a time in a socket formed by the box itself, the raised lid sheltering the flame from the wind.
Never was a happier boy. And when the Advocate looked in, the surprising boyishness of Boyd rubbed off even on him. We did not inform our old friend of the high place which "the Advocate" held in the judicial hierarchy of his country. For we knew well that nothing Boyd said in our house would ever be used as evidence against him.
But no doubt my lord gained a great deal of useful information as to the habits of smugglers, their cargoes, destinations, ports of call and sympathizers. Boyd crowned his performances by inviting the Advocate down to undertake the defence of the next set of smugglers tried at the assizes, a task which the Advocate accepted with apparent gratitude and humility. For from the little man's snuff-taking and easy-going, idling ways, Boyd had taken him for a briefless advocate.
"Faith, sir, come to Galloway," he cried open-heartedly--"there's the place to provide work for the like of you lads. And it's Boyd Connoway will introduce you to all the excise-case defendants from Annan Port to Loch Ryan. It's him that knows every man and mother's son of them! And who, if ye plaise, has a better right?"


CHAPTER XXXV
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
"The strongest mental tonic in the world is solitude, but it takes a strong mind, fully equipped with thoughts, aims, work, to support it long without suffering. But once a man has made his best companion of his own mind, he has learned the secret of living."
So I had written in an essay on Senancour during the days when the little white house was but a dream, and Irma had never come to me across the cleared space in front of Greyfriars Kirk amid the thud of mallets and the "chip" of trowels. But Irma taught me better things. She knew when to be silent. She understood, also, when speech would slacken the tension of the mind. As I sat writing by the soft glow of the lamp I could hear the rustle of her house-dress, the sharp, almost inaudible, _tick-tick_ of her needle, and the soft sound as she smoothed out her seam. Little things that happen to everybody, but--well, I for one had never noticed them before.
It seemed as if this period of contentment would always continue. The present was so good that, save a little additional in the way of income, I asked for no better.
But one day the Advocate rudely shook my equanimity.
"You must have some of your family--some good woman--to be with Irma. Write at once!"
I could only look at him in amazement.
"Why, Irma is very well," I said; "she never looked better in her life."
"My boy," said the Advocate, laying his hand gently on my arm, "I have loved a wife, and I have lost a wife who loved me; I do not wish to stand by and let you do the same for the want of a friend's word. Write to-night!"
And he turned on his heel and marched off. At twenty steps' distance he turned. "Duncan," he said, "we will need all your time at the _Review_; you had better give up the Secretary's office. I have spoken to Morrison about it. I shall be so much in London for a year or two that you will be practically in charge. We will get a smart young colleger to take your place."
That night I wrote to my Aunt Janet. It was after Irma, fatigued more easily than was usual with her, had gone to bed. Four days afterwards, I was looking over some manuscript sheets which that day had to go to the printer. Mistress Pathrick, who had just arrived to prepare the breakfast (I had lit the kitchen fire when I got up), burst in upon me with the announcement that there was "sic a gathering o' folk" at the door, and a "great muckle owld woman coming in!"
I hastened down, and there in the little lobby stood--my grandmother. She was arrayed in her oldest black bombazine. A travel-crushed beaver bonnet was clapped tightly on her head. The black velvet band about her white hair had slipped down and now crossed her brow transversely a little above one bushy eyebrow, giving an inconceivably rakish appearance to her face. She held a small urchin, evidently from the Grassmarket or the Cowgate, firmly by the cuff of his ragged jacket. She was threatening him with her great blue umbrella.
"If ye hae led me astray, ye skirmishing blastie, I'll let ye ken the weight o' this!"
The youth was guarding himself with one hand and declaring alternately that, "This is the hoose, mem," and, "I want my saxpence!"
A little behind two sturdy porters, laden with a box apiece, blocked up the doorway, and loomed large across the garden.
"Eh, Duncan, but this is an awesome place," cried my grandmother. "So many folk, and it's pay this, and so much for that! It's a fair disgrace. There's no man in Eden Valley that wadna hae been pleased to gie me a lift from the coach wi' my bit boxes. But here, certes, it's sae muckle for liftin' them up and sae muckle more for settin' them doon, and to crown a' a saxpence to a laddie for showin' me the road to your house! It's a terrible difference to Heathknowes, laddie. Now, I wadna wonder if ye hae to pay for your very firewood!"
I assured her that we had neither peat nor woodcutting privileges on the Meadows, and to change the subject asked her if she would not go up and see Irma.
"A' in guid time," she said. "I hae a word or two to ask ye first, laddie. No that muckle is to be expected o' a man that wad write to puir Janet Lyon instead o' to _me_, Duncan MacAlpine!"
As I did not volunteer anything, she exclaimed, stamping her foot, "Dinna stand there glowering at me. Man alive, Duncan lad, ye can hae no idea how like an eediot ye can look when ye put your mind to it!"
I had been reared in the knowledge that it was a vain thing to argue with my grandmother, so I listened patiently to all she had to say, and I answered, to the best of my ability, all the questions she asked. Most she seemed to have no need to ask at all, for she knew the answers before they were out of my mouth, and paid no attention to my words when I did get in a word.
"Humph, you are stupider than most men, and that's saying no trifle!" was her comment when all was finished.
I asked Mary Lyon if there was nothing I could do to assist her--help with her unpacking, or any trifle like that.
"Aye, there is," she answered, with her old verve, "get out o' the house, man, and leave me to my work while you do yours."
I took my hat, the cane which the Advocate had given me, and with them my way to the office of the _Universal Review._ I had a busy day, which perhaps was as well, for all the time my mind was wandering disconsolate about the little white house above the Meadows.
I returned to find all well, my supper laid in the kitchen and the contents of grandmother's trunks apparently filling the rest of the house. Irma gave me a little, perfunctory kiss; said, "Oh, if you could only----!" and so vanished to where my grandmother was unfolding still more things and other treasures to the rustle of fine tissue paper, and the gasps and little hand-clappings of Irma.
Those who know my grandmother do not need to be told that she took possession of our house and all that was therein, of Irma so completely that practically I was only allowed to bid my wife "Good-morning" under the strictest supervision, and of Mistress Pathrick--who, after one sole taste of my grandmother's tongue, had retired defeated with the muttered criticism that "that tongue o' the auld leddy's could ding a' the Luckenbooths--aye, and the West Bow as weel." However, once subjected, she proved a kindly and a willing slave. I have, however, my suspicions that in these days Mr. Pathrick McGrier, ex-janitor of the Latin classroom, had but a poor time of it so far as the preparation of his meals went, and as to housekeeping she was simply not there.
For she slept now under the stairs in a lair she had rigged up for herself, which she said was "rale comfortable," but certainly to the unaccustomed had an air of great stuffiness.
But I need not write at large what, after all, is no unique experience. One night, upon my grandmother's pressing invitation, I walked out on Bruntsfield Links, and kicked stones into the golfers' holes for something to do. It was full moon, I remember, and away to the north the city slept while St. Giles jangled fitfully. I had come there to be away from the little white house, where Irma was passing through the first peril of great waters which makes women's faces different ever after--a few harder, most softer, none ever the same.
Ten times I came near, stumbling on the short turf, my feet numb and uncertain beneath me, my limbs flageolating, and my heart rent with a man's helplessness. I called upon God as I had not done in my life before. I had been like many men--so long as I could help myself, I saw no great reason for troubling the Almighty who had already so much on His hands. But now I could do nothing. I had an appalling sense of impotence. So I remembered that He was All-powerful, and just because I had never asked anything with true fervour before, He would the more surely give this to me. So at least I argued as I prayed.
And, sure enough, the very next time I coasted the northern shore of the Meadows, as near as I dared, there came one running towards me, clear in the moonlight--Mistress Pathrick it was and no other.
"A laddie--a fine laddie!" she panted, waving both her hands in her enthusiasm.
"And Irma?" I cried, for that did not interest me at that moment, no, not a pennyworth.
"A bhoy--as foine a bhoy----"
"Tell me, how is Irma?" I shouted--"quick!"
"Wud turn the scale at eleven, divil a ounce less----"
"Woman, tell me how is my wife!" I thundered, lifting up my hands,