Penelope's Progress Part 18

Mrs. Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came out, partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell the tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce's husband should have been the gallant captain of a bark which foundered at sea and sent every man to his grave on the ocean bed. The ship's figurehead should have been discovered by some miracle, brought to the sorrowing widow, and set up in the garden in eternal remembrance of the dear departed. This was the story in my mind, but as a matter of fact the rude effigy was wrought by Mrs. Bruce's father for a ship to be called the Sea Queen, but by some mischance, ship and figurehead never came together, and the old wood-carver left it to his daughter, in lieu of other property. It has not been wholly unproductive, Mrs.

Bruce fancies, for the casual pa.s.sers-by, like those who came to scoff and remained to pray, go into the shop to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy chops out of courtesy and grat.i.tude.

On our way to the bakery, which is a daily walk with us, we always glance at a little cot in a gra.s.sy lane just off the fore street. In one half of this humble dwelling Mrs. Davidson keeps a slender stock of shop-worn articles,--pins, needles, threads, sealing-wax, pencils, and sweeties for the children, all disposed attractively upon a single shelf behind the window.

Across the pa.s.sage, close to the other window, sits day after day an old woman of eighty-six summers who has lost her kinship with the present and gone back to dwell forever in the past. A small table stands in front of her rush-bottomed chair, the old family Bible rests on it, and in front of the Bible are always four tiny dolls, with which the trembling old fingers play from morning till night. They are cheap, common little puppets, but she robes and disrobes them with tenderest care. They are put to bed upon the Bible, take their walks along its time-worn pages, are married on it, buried on it, and the direst punishment they ever receive is to be removed from its sacred covers and temporarily hidden beneath the dear old soul's black alpaca ap.r.o.n. She is quite happy with her treasures on week days; but on Sundays--alas and alas! the poor old dame sits in her lonely chair with the furtive tears dropping on her wrinkled cheeks, for it is a G.o.d-fearing household, and it is neither lawful nor seemly to play with dolls on the Sawbath!

Mrs. Nicolson is the presiding genius of the bakery; she is more--she is the bakery itself. A Mr. Nicolson there is, and he is known to be the baker, but he dwells in the regions below the shop and only issues at rare intervals, beneath the friendly shelter of a huge tin tray filled with scones and baps.

If you saw Mrs. Nicolson's kitchen with the firelight gleaming on its bright copper, its polished candlesticks, and its snowy floor, you would think her an admirable housewife, but you would get no clue to those shrewd and masterful traits of character which reveal themselves chiefly behind the counter.

Miss Grieve had purchased of Mrs. Nicolson a quarter section of very appetizing ginger cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stopped in to buy more. She showed me a large, round loaf for two shillings.

"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat very little at a time and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small piece such as my maid bought the other day."

Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular, more's the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort.

The substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three quarters might gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the former occasion was that her daughter, her son-in-law, and their three children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured three fourths of a ginger cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had a two-shilling ginger cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence so to speak, had been the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six-pennyworth in solemn grat.i.tude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger cakes were, in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a rare and expensive article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger cake and let one and sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery--A beautiful day, mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for you, mam!"

David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the dear old graybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.

He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade now banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things?

His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough, too, to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of colored ravelings.

Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal table.

All this time the "heddles" go up and down, up and down, with their ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he weaves his old-fashioned winseys.

We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been permitted the signal honor of painting him at his work.

The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well deserves and little suspects. In my foreground sit Meg and Jean and Elspeth playing with thrums and wearing the fruit of David's loom in their gingham frocks. David himself sits on his wooden bench behind the maze of cords that form the "loom harness."

The snows of seventy winters powder his hair and beard. His spectacles are often pushed back on his kindly brow, but no gla.s.s could wholly obscure the clear integrity and steadfast purity of his eyes; and as for his smile I have not the art to paint that! It holds in solution so many sweet though humble virtues of patience, temperance, self-denial, honest endeavor, that my brush falters in the attempt to fix the radiant whole upon the canvas. Fashions come and go, modern improvements transform the arts and trades, manual skill gives way to the cunning of the machine, but old David Robb, after more than fifty years of toil, still sits at his hand-loom and weaves his winseys for the Pettybaw bairnies.

David has small book-learning, so he tells me; and indeed he had need to tell me, for I should never have discovered it myself,--one misses it so little when the larger things are all present!

A certain summer visitor in Pettybaw (a compatriot of ours, by the way) bought a quant.i.ty of David's orange-colored winsey, and finding that it wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word "reproduce" in her telegram, as there was one pattern and one color she specially liked. Perhaps the context was not illuminating, but at any rate the word "reproduce" was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his spectacles he told me his difficulty in deciphering the exact meaning of his fine-lady patron. He called at the Free kirk manse,--the meenister was no at hame; then to the library,--it was closed; then to the Established manse,--the meenister was awa'. At last he obtained a glance at the schoolmaster's dictionary, and turning to "reproduce" found that it meant "_naught but mak' ower again;_"--and with an amused smile at the bedevilments of language he turned once more to his loom and I to my canvas.

Notwithstanding his unfamiliarity with lang-nebbit words, David has absorbed a deal of wisdom in his quiet life; though so far as I can see, his only books have been the green tree outside his window, a glimpse of the distant ocean, and the toil of his hands.

But I sometimes question if as many scholars are not made as marred in this wise, for,--to the seeing eye,--the waving leaf and the far sea, the daily task, one's own heart-beats, and one's neighbor's,--these teach us in good time to interpret Nature's secrets, and man's, and G.o.d's as well.

XX

"The knights they harpit in their bow'r, The ladyes sew'd and sang; The mirth that was in that chamber Through all the place it rang."

_Rose the Red and White Lily_.

Tea at Rowardennan Castle is an impressive and a delightful function. It is served by a ministerial-looking butler and a just-ready-to-be-ordained footman. They both look as if they had been nourished on the Thirty-Nine Articles, but they know their business as well as if they had been trained in heathen lands,--which is saying a good deal, for everybody knows that heathen servants wait upon one with idolatrous solicitude. However, from the quality of the cheering beverage itself down to the thickness of the cream, the thinness of the china, the crispness of the toast, and the plummyness of the cake, tea at Rowardennan Castle is perfect in every detail.

The scones are of unusual lightness, also. I should think they would scarcely weigh more than four, perhaps even five, to a pound; but I am aware that the casual traveler, who eats only at hotels, and never has the privilege of entering feudal castles, will be slow to believe this estimate, particularly just after breakfast.

Salemina always describes a Scotch scone as an aspiring but unsuccessful soda biscuit of the New England sort. Stevenson, in writing of that dense black substance, inimical to life, called Scotch bun, says that the patriotism that leads a Scotsman to eat it will hardly desert him in any emergency. Salemina thinks that the scone should be bracketed with the bun (in description, of course, never in the human stomach), and says that, as a matter of fact, "th'

unconquer'd Scot" of old was not only clad in a shirt of mail, but well fortified within when he went forth to warfare after a meal of oatmeal and scones. She insists that the spear which would pierce the shirt of mail would be turned aside and blunted by the ordinary scone of commerce; but what signifies the opinion of a woman who eats sugar on her porridge?

Considering the air of liberal hospitality that hangs about the castle tea-table, I wonder that our friends do not oftener avail themselves of its privileges and allow us to do so; but on all dark, foggy, or inclement days, or whenever they tire of the sands, everybody persists in taking tea at Bide-a-Wee Cottage.

We buy our tea of the Pettybaw grocer, some of our cups are cracked, the teapot is of earthenware, Miss Grieve disapproves of all social tea-fuddles and shows it plainly when she brings in the tray, and the room is so small that some of us overflow into the hall or the garden; it matters not; there is some fatal charm in our humble hospitality.

At four o'clock one of us is obliged to be, like Sister Anne, on the housetop; and if company approaches, she must descend and speed to the plumber's for sixpenny worth extra of cream. In most well-ordered British households Miss Grieve would be requested to do this speeding, but both her mind and her body move too slowly for such domestic crises; and then, too, her temper has to be kept as unruffled as possible, so that she will cut the bread and b.u.t.ter thin. This she generally does if she has not been "fair doun-hadden wi' wark;" but the washing of her own spinster cup and plate, together with the incident sighs and groans, occupies her till so late an hour that she is not always dressed for callers.

Willie and I were reading "The Lady of the Lake," the other day, in the back garden, surrounded by the verdant leaf.a.ge of our own kail-yard. It is a pretty spot when the sun shines, a trifle domestic in its air, perhaps, but restful: Miss Grieve's dish-towels and ap.r.o.ns drying on the currant bushes, the cat playing with a mutton-bone or a fishtail on the gra.s.s, and the little birds perching on the rims of our wash-boiler and water-buckets. It can be reached only by way of the kitchen, which somewhat lessens its value as a pleasure-ground or a rustic retreat, but Willie and I retire there now and then for a quiet chat.

On this particular occasion Willie was declaiming the exciting verses where FitzJames and Murdoch are crossing the stream

"That joins Loch Katrine to Achray,"

where the crazed Blanche of Devan first appears:--

"All in the Trosachs' glen was still, Noontide was sleeping on the hill: Sudden his guide whoop'd loud and high-- 'Murdoch! was that a signal cry?'"

"It was indeed," said Francesca, appearing suddenly at an upper window overhanging the garden. "Pardon this intrusion, but the castle people are here," she continued in what is known as a stage whisper,--that is, one that can be easily heard by a thousand persons,--"the castle people and the ladies from Pettybaw House; and Mr. Macdonald is coming down the loaning; but Calamity Jane is making her toilette in the kitchen, and you cannot take Mr. Beresford through into the sitting-room at present. She says this hoose has so few conveniences that it's 'fair sickenin'.'"

"How long will she be?" queried Mr. Beresford anxiously, putting "The Lady of the Lake" in his pocket, and pacing up and down between the rows of cabbages.

"She has just begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, and she can come through the kitchen any time and join us; but naturally you don't want to be separated, that's the worst of being engaged. Of course I can lower your tea in a tin bucket, and if it should rain I can throw out umbrellas. Would you like your golf-cape, Pen?

'Won'erful blest in weather ye are, mam!' The situation is not so bad as it might be," she added consolingly, "because in case Miss Grieve's toilette should last longer than usual, your wedding need not be indefinitely postponed, for Mr. Macdonald can marry you from this window."

Here she disappeared, and we had scarcely time to take in the full humor of the affair before Robin Anstruther's laughing eyes appeared over the top of the high brick wall that protects our garden on three sides.

"Do not shoot," said he. "I am not come to steal the fruit, but to succor humanity in distress. Miss Monroe insisted that I should borrow the inn ladder. She thought a rescue would be much more romantic than waiting for Miss Grieve. Everybody is coming out to witness it, at least all your guests,--there are no strangers present,--and Miss Monroe is already collecting sixpence a head for the entertainment, to be given, she says, to Mr. Macdonald's sustentation fund."

He was now astride of the wall, and speedily lifted the ladder to our side, where it leaned comfortably against the stout branches of the draper's peach vine. Willie ran nimbly up the ladder and bestrode the wall. I followed, first standing, and then decorously sitting down on the top of it. Mr. Anstruther pulled up the ladder, and replaced it on the side of liberty; then he descended, then Willie, and I last of all, amidst the acclamations of the on-lookers, a select company of six or eight persons.

When Miss Grieve formally entered the sitting-room bearing the tea-tray, she was buskit braw in black stuff gown, clean ap.r.o.n, and fresh cap trimmed with purple ribbons, under which her white locks were neatly dressed.

She deplored the coolness of the tea, but accounted for it to me in an aside by the sickening quality of Mrs. Sinkler's coals and Mr.

Macbrose's kindling-wood, to say nothing of the insulting draft in the draper's range. When she left the room, I suppose she was unable to explain the peals of laughter that rang through our circ.u.mscribed halls.