Penelope's Progress Part 17

"Neither can I. You've got as much room as I have."

"I shall tumble if you crowd me."

"Go ahead and tumble, then! There is plenty of room in the sea."

[_From one father to another, ceremoniously._]

"Pardon me, but I am afraid I shoved your wife off the rock last night."

"Don't mention it. I remember I shoved off your wife's mother last year."

We walked among the tiny whitewashed low-roofed cots, each with its silver-skinned fishes tacked invitingly against the door-frame to dry, until we came to my favorite, the corner cottage in the row. It has beautiful narrow garden strips in front,--solid patches of color in sweet gillyflower bushes, from which the kindly housewife plucked a nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls "granny's mutches;" and indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns, ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence.

Outside, looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high, perhaps. We did not recognize the head at once, and asked the little woman who it was.

"Homer, the graund Greek poet," she answered cheerily; "an' I'm to have anither o' Burns, as tall as Homer, when my daughter comes hame frae E'nbro'."

If the shade of Homer keeps account of his earthly triumphs, I think he is proud of his place in that humble Scotchwoman's gillyflower garden, with his head under the drooping petals of granny's white mutches.

What do you think her "mon" is called in the village? John o' Mary!

But he is not alone in his meekness, for there are Jock o' Meg, Willie o' Janet, Jem o' Tibby, and a dozen others. These primitive fishing-villages are the places where all the advanced women ought to congregate, for the wife is head of the house; the accountant, the treasurer, the auditor, the chancellor of the exchequer; and though her husband does catch the fish for her to sell, that is accounted apparently as a detail too trivial for notice.

When we pa.s.sed Mary's cottage, on our way to the sands next day, Burns's head had been accidentally broken off by the children, and we felt as though we had lost a friend; but Scotch thrift, and loyalty to the dear Ploughman Poet, came to the rescue, and when we returned, Robbie's plaster head had been glued to his body. He smiled at us again from between the two scarlet geraniums, and a tendril of ivy had been gently curled about his neck to hide the cruel wound.

After such long, lovely mornings as this, there is a late luncheon under the shadow of a rock with Salemina and Francesca, an idle chat, or the chapter of a book, and presently Lady Ardmore and her daughter Elizabeth drive down to the sands. They are followed by Robin Anstruther, Jamie, and Ralph on bicycles, and before long the stalwart figure of Ronald Macdonald appears in the distance, just in time for a cup of tea, which we brew in Lady Ardmore's bath-house on the beach.

XIX

"To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays, The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; The native feelings strong, the guileless ways."

_The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night._

We have lived in Pettybaw a very short time, but I see that we have already made an impression upon all grades of society. This was not our intention. We gave Edinburgh as our last place of residence, with the view of concealing our nationality, until such time as we should choose to declare it; that is, when public excitement with regard to our rental of the house in the loaning should have lapsed into a state of indifference. And yet, modest, economical, and commonplace as has been the administration of our affairs, our method of life has evidently been thought unusual, and our conduct not precisely the conduct of other summer visitors. Even our daily purchases, in manner, in number, and in character, seem to be looked upon as eccentric, for whenever we leave a shop, the relatives of the greengrocer, flesher, draper, whoever it may be, bound downstairs, surround him in an eager circle, and inquire the latest news.

In an unwise moment we begged the draper's wife to honor us with a visit and explain the obliquities of the kitchen range and the tortuosities of the sink-spout to Miss Grieve. While our landlady was on the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive, logical, and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which established its reputation and at the same moment destroyed my own.

She looked in at the various doors casually as she pa.s.sed up and down the stairs,--all save that of the dining-room, which Francesca had prudently locked to conceal the fact that we had covered the family portraits,--and I noticed at the time that her face wore an expression of mingled grief and astonishment. It seemed to us afterward that there was a good deal more pa.s.sing up and down the loaning than when we first arrived. At dusk especially, small processions of children and young people walked by our cottage and gave shy glances at the windows.

Finding Miss Grieve in an unusually amiable mood, I inquired the probable cause of this phenomenon. She would not go so far as to give any judicial opinion, but offered a few conjectures.

It might be the tirling-pin; it might be the white satin ribbons on the curtains; it might be the guitars and banjos; it might be the bicycle crate; it might be the profusion of plants; it might be the continual feasting and revelry; it might be the blazing fires in a Pettybaw summer. She thought a much more likely reason, however, was because it had become known in the village that we had moved every stick of furniture in the house out of its accustomed place and taken the dressing-tables away from the windows,--"thae windys," she called them.

I discussed this matter fully with Mr. Anstruther later on. He laughed heartily, but confessed, with an amused relish of his national conservatism, that to his mind there certainly was something radical, advanced, and courageous in taking a dressing-table away from its place, back to the window, and putting it anywhere else in a room. He would be frank, he said, and acknowledge that it suggested an undisciplined and lawless habit of thought, a disregard for authority, a lack of reverence for tradition, and a riotous and unbridled imagination.

This view of the matter gave us exquisite enjoyment. "But why?" I asked laughingly. "The dressing-table is not a sacred object, even to a woman. Why treat it with such veneration? Where there is but one good light, and that immediately in front of the window, there is every excuse for the British custom, but when the light is well diffused, why not place the table wherever it looks well?"

"Ah, but it doesn't look well anywhere but back to the window," said Mr. Anstruther artlessly. "It belongs there, you see; it has probably been there since the time of Malcolm Canmore, unless Margaret was too pious to look in a mirror. With your national love of change, you cannot conceive how soothing it is to know that whenever you enter your gate and glance upward, you will always see the curtains parted, and between them, like an idol in a shrine, the ugly wooden back of a little oval or oblong looking-gla.s.s. It gives one a sense of permanence in a world where all is fleeting."

The public interest in our doings seems to be entirely of a friendly nature, and if our neighbors find a hundredth part of the charm and novelty in us that we find in them, they are fortunate indeed, and we cheerfully sacrifice our privacy on the altar of the public good.

A village in Scotland is the only place I can fancy where housekeeping becomes an enthralling occupation. All drudgery disappears in a rosy glow of unexpected, unique, and stimulating conditions. I would rather superintend Miss Grieve and cause the light of amazement to gleam ten times daily in her humid eye, than lead a cotillion with Willie Beresford. I would rather do the marketing for our humble breakfasts and teas, or talk over the day's luncheons and dinners with Mistress Brodie of the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, than go to the opera.

Salemina and Francesca do not enjoy it all quite as intensely as I, so they considerately give me the lion's share. Every morning, after an exhilarating interview with the Niobe of our kitchen (who thinks me irresponsible and prays Heaven in her heart I be no worse), I put on my galoshes, take my umbrella, and trudge up and down the little streets and lanes on real, and if need be, imaginary errands. The Duke of Wellington said, "When fair in Scotland, always carry an umbrella; when it rains, please yourself," and I sometimes agree with Stevenson's shivering statement, "Life does not seem to me to be an amus.e.m.e.nt adapted to this climate." I quoted this to the doctor yesterday, but he remarked with some surprise that he had not missed a day's golfing for weeks. The chemist observed as he handed me a cake of soap, "Won'erful blest in weather, we are, mam," simply because, the rain being unaccompanied with high wind, one was enabled to hold up an umbrella without having it turned inside out. When it ceased dripping for an hour at noon, the greengrocer said cheerily, "Another grand day, mam!" I a.s.sented, though I could not for the life of me remember when the last one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favorite tradespeople to convince you of that fact.

We bought our first groceries of Mrs. Robert Phin, of Strathdee, simply because she is an inimitable conversationalist. She is expansive, too, about family matters, and tells us certain of her "mon's" faults which it would be more seemly to keep in the safe shelter of her own bosom.

Rab takes a wee drappie too much, it appears, and takes it so often that he has little time to earn an honest penny for his family. This is bad enough; but the fact that Mrs. Phin has been twice wed before, and that in each case she innocently chose a ne'er-do-weel for a mate, makes her a trifle cynical. She told me that she had laid twa husbands in the kirkyard near which her little shop stands, and added cheerfully, as I made some sympathetic response, "An' I hope it'll no be lang afore I box Rab!"

Salemina objects to the shop because it is so disorderly. Soap and sugar, tea and bloaters, starch and gingham, lead pencils and sausages, lie side by side cosily. Boxes of pins are kept on top of kegs of herrings. Tins of coffee are distributed impartially anywhere and everywhere, and the bacon sometimes reposes in a gla.s.s case with small wares and findings, out of the reach of Alexander's dogs.

Alexander is one of a brood, or perhaps I should say three broods, of children which wander among the barrels and boxes and hams and winseys seeking what they may devour,--a handful of sugar, a prune, or a sweetie.

We often see the bairns at their luncheon or dinner in a little room just off the shop, Alexander the Small always sitting or kneeling on a "creepie," holding his plate down firmly with the left hand and eating with the right, whether the food be fish, porridge, or broth. In the Phin family the person who does not hold his plate down runs the risk of losing it to one of the other children or to the dogs, who, with eager eye and reminding paw, gather round the hospitable board, licking their chops hopefully.

I enjoy these scenes very much, but alas, I can no longer witness them as often as formerly.

This morning Mrs. Phin greeted me with some embarra.s.sment.

"Maybe ye'll no ken me," she said, her usually clear speech a little blurred. "It's the teeth. I've mislaid 'em somewhere. I paid far too much siller for 'em to wear 'em ilka day. Sometimes I rest 'em in the tea-box to keep 'em awa' frae the bairns, but I canna find 'em theer.

I'm thinkin' maybe they'll be in the rice, but I've been ower thrang to luik!"

This anecdote was too rich to keep to myself, but its unconscious humor made no impression upon Salemina, who insisted upon the withdrawal of our patronage. I have tried to persuade her that, whatever may be said of tea and rice, we run no risk in buying eggs; but she is relentless.

The kirkyard where Rab's two predecessors have been laid, and where Rab will lie when Mrs. Phin has "boxed" him, is a sleepy little place set on a gentle slope of ground, softly shaded by willow and yew trees. It is inclosed by a stone wall, into which an occasional ancient tombstone is built, its name and date almost obliterated by stress of time and weather.

We often walk through its quiet, myrtle-bordered paths on our way to the other end of the village, where Mrs. Bruce, the flesher, keeps an unrivaled a.s.sortment of beef and mutton. The headstones, many of them laid flat upon the graves, are interesting to us because of their quaint inscriptions, in which the occupation of the deceased is often stated with modest pride and candor. One expects to see the achievements of the soldier, the sailor, or the statesman carved in the stone that marks his resting-place, but to our eyes it is strange enough to read that the subject of eulogy was a plumber, tobacconist, maker of golf-b.a.l.l.s, or a golf champion; in which latter case there is a spirited etching or bas-relief of the dead hero, with knickerbockers, cap, and clubs complete.

There, too, lies Thomas Loughead, Hairdresser, a profession far too little celebrated in song and story. His stone is a simple one and bears merely the touching tribute:--

_He was lovely and pleasant in his life_,

the inference being to one who knows a line of Scripture, that in his death he was not divided.

These kirkyard personalities almost lead one to believe in the authenticity of the British tradesman's epitaph, wherein his practical-minded relict stated that the "bereaved widow would continue to carry on the tripe and trotter business at the old stand."

One day when we were walking through the little village of Strathdee we turned the corner of a quiet side street and came suddenly upon something altogether strange and unexpected.

A stone cottage of the every-day sort stood a little back from the road and bore over its front door a sign announcing that Mrs. Bruce, Flesher, carried on her business within; and indeed one could look through the windows and see ruddy joints hanging from beams, and piles of pink and white steaks and chops lying neatly on the counter, crying, "Come, eat me!" Nevertheless, one's first glance would be arrested neither by Mrs. Bruce's black-and-gold sign, nor by the enticements of her stock in trade, because one's attention is knocked squarely between the eyes by an astonishing shape that arises from the patch of lawn in front of the cottage, and completely dominates the scene. Imagine yourself face to face with the last thing you would expect to see in a modest front dooryard,--the figurehead of a ship, heroic in size, gorgeous in color, majestic in pose! A female personage it appears to be from the drapery, which is the only key the artist furnishes as to s.e.x, and a queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this is seen from the front, but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice broken and glued together.