The Setons Part 26

"Oh no, I don't. I don't indeed. I laugh a lot, for 'werena ma hert licht I wad dee.' I have, how shall I say? a heart too soon made glad.

But I'm only stating a fact, Father, when I say that Mr. Townshend has sung a lot of hymns to-day and seen a lot of funnies.... Oh! Father, _don't turn out the lights_. Isn't he a turbulent priest! My father, Mr. Townshend, has a pa.s.sion for turning out lights. You will find out all our peculiarities in time--and the longer you know us the odder we'll get."

"I have six more days to get to know you," said Mr. Townshend. And he said it as if he congratulated himself on the fact.

_CHAPTER XI_

"As we came in by Glasgow town We were a comely sight to see."

_Old Ballad._

Arthur Townshend was what Elizabeth called a repaying guest. He noticed and appreciated things done for his comfort, he was easily amused; also he had the air of enjoying himself. Mr. Seton liked him from the first, and when he heard that he re-read several of the _Waverley Novels_ every year he hailed him as a kindred spirit.

He won Buff's respect and admiration by his knowledge of aeroplanes.

Even Marget so far unbent towards him as to admit that he was "a wise-like man"; Ellen thought he looked "n.o.ble." As for Elizabeth--"You're a nice guest," she told him; "you don't blight."

"No? What kind of guest blights?"

"Several, but _the_ Blight devastates. Suppose I've had the drawing-room done up and am filled with pride of it, open the door and surprise myself with it a dozen times in the day--you know, or rather I suppose you don't know, the way of a house-proud woman with a new room.

The Blight enters, looks round and says, 'You've done something to this room, haven't you? Very nice. I've just come from the Puffington-Whalleys, and their drawing-rooms are too delicious. I must describe them to you, for I know you are interested in houses,' and so on and so on, and I have lost conceit of my cherished room. Sometimes the Blight doesn't say anything, but her glance seems to make one's belongings shrivel. And she is the same all the time. You stay her with apples and she prattles of nectarines; you drive her in a hired chaise and she talks of the speed of So-and-so's Rolls-Royce."

"A very trying person," said Arthur Townshend. "But it isn't exactly fulsome flattery to compliment me on not being an ill-bred sn.o.b. Do you often entertain a Blight?"

"Now that I think of it," Elizabeth confessed, "it only happened once.

Real blights are rare. But we quite often have ungracious guests, and they are almost as bad. They couldn't praise anything to save their lives. Everything is taken, as the Scotsman is supposed to have taken his bath, for granted. When you say 'I'm afraid it is rather a poor dinner,' they reply, 'Oh, it doesn't matter,'--the correct answer, of course, being, 'What _could_ be nicer?'"

"I shall remember that," said Arthur Townshend, "and I'm glad that so far you find me a fairly satisfactory guest, only I wish the standard had been higher. I only seem white because of the blackness of those who went before."

Mr. Seton carried out his plan of showing Mr. Townshend the sights of Glasgow, and on Monday morning they viewed the chrysanthemums in the Park, in the afternoon the Cathedral and the Munic.i.p.al Buildings; and whatever may have been the feelings of the guest, Mr. Seton drew great enjoyment from the outing.

On Tuesday Elizabeth became cicerone, and announced at the breakfast-table her intention of personally conducting Mr. Townshend through Glasgow on top of an electric car.

Buff was struggling into his overcoat, watched (but not helped) by Thomas and Billy, but when he heard of his sister's plan he at once took it off again and said he would make one of the party.

Thomas looked at his friend coldly.

"Mamma says," he began, "that's it's a very daft-like thing the way you get taken to places and miss school. By rights I should have got staying at home to-day with my gum-boil."

"Poor old Thomas!" said Elizabeth. "Never mind. You and Buff must both go to school and grow up wise men, and you will each choose a chocolate out of Mr. Townshend's box for a treat."

The sumptuous box was produced, and diverted Buff's mind from the expedition; and presently the three went off to school, quite reconciled to attempting another step on the steep path to knowledge.

"Isn't Thomas a duck?" said Elizabeth, as she returned to the table after watching them go out of the gate. "So uncompromising."

"'Mamma' must be a frank and fearless commentator," said Mr. Townshend.

"Thomas makes her sound so," Elizabeth admitted. "But when I meet her--I only know her slightly--she seems the gentlest of placid women.

Well, can you be ready by eleven-thirty? _Of course_ I want to go. I'm looking forward hugely to seeing Glasgow through your eyes. Come and write your letters in the drawing-room while I talk to Marget about dinner."

Punctually they started. It was a bright, frosty morning, and the trim villas with their newly cleaned doorsteps and tidily brushed-up gardens looked pleasant, homely places as they regarded them from the top of a car.

"This is much nicer than motoring," said Elizabeth. "You haven't got to think of tyres, and it only costs twopence-ha'penny all the way."

She settled back in her seat, and "You've to do all the talking to-day," she said, nodding her head at her companion. "On Sunday I _deaved_ you, and you suffered me gladly, or at least you had the appearance of so doing, but it may only have been your horribly good manners; anyway, to-day it is your turn. And you needn't be afraid of boring me, because I am practically unborable. Begin at the beginning, when you were a little boy, and tell me all about yourself." She broke off to look down at a boy riding on a lorry beside the driver. "Just look at that boy! He's being allowed to hold the whip and he's got an apple to eat! What a thoroughly good time he's having--and playing truant too, I expect."

Arthur Townshend glanced at the happy truant, and then at Elizabeth smiling unconsciously in whole-hearted sympathy. She wore a soft blue homespun coat and skirt, and a hat of the same shade crushed down on her hair which burned golden where the sun caught it. Some nonsensical half-forgotten lines came into his mind:

"Paul said and Peter said, And all the saints alive and dead Vowed that she had the sweetest head Of yellow, yellow hair."

Aloud he said, "You're fond of boys?"

"Love them," she said. "Even when they're at their roughest and naughtiest and seem all tackety boots. What were you like when you were little?"

"Oh! A thoroughly uninteresting child. Ate a lot, and never said or did an original thing. Aunt Alice cherishes only one _mot_. Once, when the nursery clock stopped, I remarked, 'No little clock now to tell us how quickly we're dying,' which seems to prove that besides being commonplace I was inclined to be morbid. I went to school very early, and Aunt Alice gave me good times in my holidays; then came three years at Oxford--three halcyon years--and since then I have been very little in England. You see, I'm a homeless, wandering sort of creature, and the worst of that sort of thing is, that when the solitary, for once in a way, get set in families, they don't understand the language. Explain to me, please, the meaning of some of your catch-words. For instance--_Fish would laugh_."

"You mean our ower-words," said Elizabeth. "We have a ridiculous lot; and they must seem most incomprehensible to strangers. _Fish would lawff._ It is really too silly to tell. When Buff was tiny, three or four or thereabouts, he had a familiar spirit called Fish. Fish was a loofah with a boot-b.u.t.ton for an eye, and, wrapped in a duster or anything that happened to be lying about, he slept in Buff's bed, sat in his chair, ate from his plate, and was unto him a brother. His was an unholy influence. When Buff did anything wicked, Fish said 'Good,'

or so Buff reported. When anyone did anything rather fine or n.o.ble, Fish 'lawffed'--you know the funny way Buff says words with 'au'? Fish was a Socialist and couldn't stand Royalties, so when we came to a Prince in a fairy tale we had to call him Brother. He whispered nasty things about us to Buff: his mocking laughter pursued us; his boot-b.u.t.ton eye got loose and waggled in the most sinister way. He really was a horrid creature--but how Buff loved him! Through the day he alluded to him by high-sounding t.i.tles--Sir John Fish, Admiral Fish, V.C., Brigadier-General Fish--but at night, when he clutched him to his heart in bed, he murmured over him, _'Fishie beastie!'_ He lost his place in time, as all favourites do; but the memory of him still lives with us, and whenever anyone bucks unduly, or too obviously stands forth in the light, we say, _Fish would lawff!_"

The thought of Fish so intrigued Arthur that he wanted to hear more of him, but Elizabeth begged him to turn his eyes to the objects of interest around him.

"Now," she said, "we are on the Broomielaw Bridge, and that is Clyde's 'wan water.' I'm told Broomielaw means 'beloved green place,' so it can't always have been the coaly hole it is now. I don't know what is up the river--Glasgow Green, I think, and other places, but"--pointing down the river--"there lies the pathway to the Hebrides. It always refreshes me to think that we in Glasgow have a 'back-door to Paradise.'"

"Yes," said Mr. Townshend, leaning forward to look at the river.

"Edinburgh, of course, has the Forth. I've been reading _Edinburgh Revisited_--you know it, I suppose?--and last week when I was there I spent some hours wandering about the 'lands' in the Old Town. I like Bone's description of the old rooms filled with men and women of degree dancing minuets under guttering sconces. You remember he talks of a pause in the dance, when the musicians tuned their fiddles, and ladies turned white shoulders and towering powdered heads to bleak barred windows to meet the night wind blowing saltly from the Forth? I think that gives one such a feeling of Edinburgh."

"I know. I remember that," said Elizabeth. "Doesn't James Bone make pictures with words?"

"Oh! It's extraordinary. The description of George Square as an elegant old sedan-chair gently decaying, with bright gla.s.s still in its lozenge-panels! I like the idea of the old inhabitants of the Square one after another through the generations coming back each to his own old grey-brown house--such a company of wit and learning and bravery."

"And Murray of Broughton," she cried, her grey eyes shining with interest, "Murray, booted and cloaked and m.u.f.fled to the eyes, coming down the steps of No. 25 and the teacup flying after him, and the lame little boy creeping out and picking up the saucer, because Traitor Murray meant to him history and romance! Yes.... But it isn't quite tactful of you to dilate on Edinburgh when I am trying to rouse in you some enthusiasm for Glasgow. You think of Edinburgh as some lovely lady of old years draped as with a garment by memories of unhappy far-off things. But you haven't seen her suburbs! No romance there. Rows and rows of smug, well-built houses, each with a front garden, each with a front gate, and each front gate remains shut against the casual caller until you have rung a bell--and the occupants have had time to make up their minds about you from behind the window curtains--when some mechanism in the vestibule is set in motion, the gate opens, and you walk in. That almost seems to me the most typical thing about Edinburgh. Glasgow doesn't keep visitors at the gate. Glasgow is on the doorstep to welcome them in. It is just itself--cheerful, hard-working, shrewd, kindly, a place that, like Weir of Hermiston, has no call to be bonny: it gets through its day's work. Edinburgh calls Glasgow vulgar, and on the surface we are vulgar. We say 'Ucha,' and when we meet each other in July we think it is funny to say 'A good New Year'; and always our accent grates on the ears of the genteel. I have heard it said that nothing could make Glasgow people gentlefolks because we are 'that weel-pleased'; and the less apparent reason there seems for complacency the more 'weel-pleased' we are. As an Edinburgh man once said to me in that connection, 'If a Glasgow man has black teeth and bandy legs he has cheek enough to stand before the King.' But we have none of the subtle vulgarity that pretends: we are plain folk and we know it.... I am boring you. Let's talk about something really interesting. What do you think of the Ulster Question?"

The car went on its way, up Renfield Street and Sauchiehall Street, till it left shop-windows behind, and got into tracts of terraces and crescents, rows of dignified grey houses stretching for miles.

Elizabeth and her companion got out at a stopping-place, and proceeded to walk back to see the University. Arthur, looking round, remarked that the West End of one city was very like the West End of any other city.

"It's the atmosphere of wealth I suppose," he said.

Elizabeth agreed that it was so. "What do you think wealth smells like?" she asked him. "To me it is a mixture of very opulent stair-carpets and a slight suspicion of celery. I don't know why, but the houses of the most absolutely rolling-in-riches-people that I know smell like that--in Glasgow, I mean."

"It is an awesome thought," Arthur said, as he looked round him, "to think that probably every one of those houses is smelling at this moment of carpets and celery."

"This," said Elizabeth, "is where the city gentleman live--at least the more refined of the species. We in the South Side have a cruder wealth."

"There is refinement, then, in the West End?" Elizabeth made a face.

"The refinement which says 'preserves' instead of 'jam.'"