A man was walking on a remote beach. He came across a girl cooking fish on an open fire. The fish smelt beautiful and he was overcome with desire to taste it. The girl, seeing his longing, offered him a bowl of the fish. It was moist and tender and quite unlike any fish he had ever tasted before, even though he had eaten at all the best restaurants and could afford all the most expensive dishes. When his bowl was empty he said to the girl, ‘I have never tasted fish like that before.
’She smiled and said nothing. From that moment on, the man could think of nothing else but tasting the fish again. The next day he woke with an intense hunger. It was less a hunger of the belly than a hunger of the spirit. His hunger was for the fish, cooked by the girl over an open fire. He walked down to the beach and in the distance he saw the girl fishing. He stood and watched as she cast and played the large sea-rod. His anticipation grew along with her struggle, as she reeled the fish in. He watched her deftly gut and fillet the fish and place it on the fire to cook. His nostrils were filled once more with the delicious aroma. His whole body craved to taste the fish again. He sat beside the girl as the fish cooked. ‘I would love to taste your fish again,’ he said. ‘What can I pay you for it?’ The girl smiled. ‘I do not pay the sea,’ she said and handed him a bowl of the freshly cooked fish. Meal after meal the man came back to taste the wonderful fish, cooked over an open fire by the strangely beautiful girl who seemed to spend all her time fishing, cooking and tending her fire. No matter how many times he ate the fish, his hunger never abated and his thirst grew for understanding of the girl. He wanted to find a way to repay her, but he did not know how to. One day as they ate their fish together he said, ‘Your fish is so delicious I am sure it would fetch the highest price at the markets and would grace the tables of all the fashionable restaurants throughout the world. If you caught twenty or thirty a day instead of two or three.’ ‘Why would I want to catch twenty or thirty fish a day?’ she asked. ‘With the money that you made from catching the fish you could buy things to make your life easier,’ he continued. The girl looked at the man and smiled. ‘Two or three fish a day,’ she said, ‘is all I need. You suggest I should spend all my days fishing. How would that make life easier?’ ‘Ah,’ the man replied, ‘but with the money you made you could employ other people to catch the fish for you. You wouldn’t have to work. You could take it easy, enjoy life.’ ‘And how should I enjoy life?’ she asked. ‘Money buys freedom,’ he said. ‘You could go to the city, travel, do whatever you wanted.’ She smiled. ‘Eat fish at one of your expensive restaurants?’ The man felt that she was laughing at him. He was trying to help her and she did not seem to appreciate his advice. He looked at her, saddened. Then he noticed that her face had lost its smile and had become serious. ‘So your advice is that I catch more fish, make money by selling the fish, with the money I make employ other people to do the fishing for me, leaving myself enough time to do whatever I want to with my life?’ ‘Exactly,’ he replied. Finally, she had understood him. ‘But I do what I want now,’ she said. ‘I catch fish, I cook fish, I tend my fire. I can sit all day thinking, and all night looking at the stars. I do not have to bother with money or employees or profit, or whether I can afford to eat fish in a fancy restaurant. If I do all the things you say I will only end up where I already am. At best with more effort at worst less happy. What is the point of that?’ The man had no answer to her question. As he licked the rest of the fish from his fingers he realised that far from showing the girl a way that she could improve her life, she had perhaps shown him a way to improve his. He looked around the beach. ‘Let me stay here with you,’ he said. ‘Teach me to catch fish so that I too can sit by the fire and live as you do.’ The girl held silence for a time. ‘I catch fish, I cook fish and I eat fish,’ she said. ‘That is enough for me. But you crave fish, you dream of tasting fish, you want more and more and more. It is not the same. You would not be happy with this life.’ As she spoke, the aftertaste of the fish turned sour in the man’s mouth and he realised that she spoke the truth. As long as he stayed on the beach he would have an obsession, a craving which he could not fulfil. He would never be able to taste enough of the delicious fish and his life would become more and more miserable. He realised that the only thing for him to do was to leave the beach, leave the girl and never taste the fish again. He stood up, sad but somewhat wiser. ‘Think of me when you eat fish in one of your fancy restaurants,’ the girl said. ‘I will never eat fish in a restaurant again,’ he replied. ‘But I will think of you all the same.’ The man left the beach and only when the fire was a speck in the distance did he turn round to allow himself a last look at the girl with the perfect life. Cally Phillips 1. ‘Say, pa, I heard a couple of men talking stocks the other day. What’s stocks?’ ‘Stocks, my son, are shares. You see, when a number of men form a company each subscribes so much money, and then he is given so much stock in the company. Sometimes it’s a bank, sometimes a mercantile or manufacturing concern. Do you understand?’ ‘Well, no; I don’t think I hardly do, Have you got any stocks, pa? ‘ ‘Yes; I have got some shares in a coal company.’ ‘Oh, I’ve heard folks talking about a coal ring! Is that it?’ ‘Not exactly. Our company is a member of the coal section of the board of trade; that’s what some rascally fellows have been calling the coal ring.’ ‘The men I heard talking about it said the coal ring were a gang of thieves, who ought to be in jail. Did they mean you, pa?’ ‘No, they couldn’t mean me, my son, for I am only a stockholder in my company, and my company is in the section, or ring as they call it; so even if the ring did wrong, and were extortioners, my company is only one part of it, and I am only one in twenty in the company; so you see, I can’t be personally responsible.’ I don’t hardly see that, pa; but if you say so, then it must be so. The men said that the ring kept up the price of coal unfairly, and one man said that, as they took advantage of the people’s necessities to force them to pay more than was right, they were all the same as highway robbers.’ ‘Oh, he was some crank. Why, all business is done that way! Anybody who didn’t take all the chances that offered would get left. He’d be a fool.’ ‘If you got a chance to get hold of a man’s pocket-book when he wasn’t looking, would you take it, pa?’ ‘No, certainly not; that would be stealing.’ ‘But it would be a chance, pa, wouldn’t it?’ ‘That is not what I mean by a chance. I mean a fair chance in the way of business.’ ‘Well, if the man was so cold that he was just going to die, and you made him give you his pocket-book before you would let him into the house to get warm, would that be a fair chance?’ ‘No, my son; that would be most uncharitable, most un-Christian,’ ‘Would it be stealing, pa?’ ‘Morally it would; in the sight of God it would be.’ ‘Well, if you knew that ever so many people were almost dying of cold, and you had all the coal there was, and you said you wouldn’t let them have any till they gave you ever so much more than it was worth, would that be a fair chance, pa?’ ‘It wouldn’t be right for me, my son, to charge more than the market price, I suppose,’ ‘Well, but if you had all the coal, whatever you said would be the market price, wouldn’t it?’ ‘I suppose it would; but one man can’t own all the coal.’ ‘But the men, anyway the one you said was a crank, said that the ring had all the coal. So they could make the market price, couldn’t they, pa?’ ‘Yes, I suppose they could.’ ‘Well, didn’t they, pa?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ ‘Are the ring fools?’ ‘Well, hardly; they’re about the sharpest that’s going.’ ‘Then of course they took all the chances in the way of business, wouldn’t they, pa?’ ‘Oh, well, it’s pretty generally admitted that the rings do things which would not do for private individuals to do,’ ‘I guess if anyone did, they’d think he wasn’t much of a Christian, wouldn’t they, pa?’ ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ ‘But if your company is in the ring, then it is as bad as the rest, isn’t it?’ ‘Well, maybe it is,’ ‘Then if you are one of your company, you are just as bad as the ring, too. You are not much of a Christian, are you, pa?’ ‘Oh, nonsense, boy! A man can’t be blamed for what a company does because he happens to hold stock in it.’ ‘Well, your company gets a share of what the ring squeezes out of the people, doesn’t it, pa?’ ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ ‘And you get your share of what your company gets, don’t you?’ ‘I’m not supposed to know how every shilling of my dividends is made.’ ‘Say, pa, my Sunday-school teacher says Moses was the greatest law-giver; I reckon he wasn’t very smart, was he?’ ‘Yes, my son, Moses was the greatest law-giver that ever lived.’ ‘Well, I reckon he didn’t know everything, for all that, did he, pa?’ ‘What do you mean? Don’t you know it’s wicked to talk that way?’ ‘Well, pa, it wasn’t very smart to tell us we mustn’t steal, when all we have to do is for a lot of us to get together in a company, and then the company can steal all it likes and nobody to blame?’ ‘Oh, you are talking nonsense, boy.’ ‘Why is it nonsense? Isn’t getting a man in a fix and then making him pay more for his coal than it’s worth, stealing? You said it was. Then if the company can do this without the members being thieves, doesn’t that get round Moses’ laws. I reckon Moses didn’t know much about companies, did he, pa?’ ‘Oh, bother; don’t talk so much!’ ‘Say, pa, I read in the paper the other day about a band of thieves away out in the country, and the people got guns and went after them and killed them all. Was that true?’ ‘Very likely it was.’ ‘Well, it wasn’t right, was it, pa? ‘ ‘Oh, out there where the courts are not regularly established, the people have to take the law into their own hands sometimes.’ ‘But the members of the thieves’ company were not responsible for what the company did, were they, pa?’ ‘Why, of course they were.’ ‘But you said that even though the coal ring were extortioners that didn’t make you an extortioner. If a member of a ring isn’t to blame for what a ring does, how is a member of a thieves’ company to blame for what the company does, pa? ‘ ‘Oh, bother! you chatter too much, boy.’ ‘Say, pa, you told me once that the majority of people can make any laws they like. Can they?’ ‘Yes, to be sure they can.’ ‘Well, suppose the people who think that members of rings are just the same as thieves and highway robbers, get to be the majority, would they get their guns and go for you and the other members of the ring, like the folks out west did for the thieves, pa?’ ‘Oh, drop it! I’m tired of your senseless jabber.’ 2. ‘Say, pa, what is that big place over there?’ asked the inquisitive boy, as he was taking a walk out on Sunday afternoon. ‘That is the central prison, my son.’ ‘What is it for, pa?’ ‘Oh, for putting bad people in; thieves and such.’ ‘Oh, yes, I know now. When Bill Fisher went into Mr, Shortweight’s grocery store and bought some things, and then, when Mr. Shortweight wasn’t looking, put a whole lot of other things in his basket, they said he was a thief. He was sent to prison, wasn’t he, pa?’ ‘Yes, my son. Everybody said it served him right, too.’ ‘No, not everybody, pa. I heard one man say that the judge should have considered that Bill’s wife was sick, and he hadn’t any money except what he had just paid the grocer, and had no work, and that the things he stole were just what his wife and his little baby needed. He said the jury should be strung up. You was on the jury, wasn’t you, pa?’ ‘That man was a Socialist, or something. It would not do to allow sentiment to interfere with justice.’ ‘I heard a man say, pa, that Bill’s wife had died of a broken heart, and two of the girls had turned out bad, and it was more than likely all the others would, as no one would hire them because their father was a thief. He said, too, that Bill would come out of prison a regular criminal.’ ‘You see, my son, the way of the transgressor is hard; and the sins of the parents are visited on the children.’ ‘If ma was sick, and me and the rest were starving, and you had no money, and couldn’t get work, and had the chance to steal a loaf of bread, and couldn’t get it in any other way, what would you do, pa?’ ‘I’d — Why do you ask such foolish questions?’ ‘Because I think you’d be too mean to live if you didn’t steal it, pa. And if I had been on the jury, Bill wouldn’t be in jail and his girls wouldn’t be gone bad.’ ‘But stealing must be put down, my son.’ ‘Then it’s really and truly stealing if a man takes two dollars’ worth of goods and only pays for one of them, is it, pa? Even if he does it to keep his family from starving?’ ‘To be sure.’ ‘Say, pa, is Sam Jones working in your brickyard now? ‘Yes, and he’s a pretty good man; about as good as I’ve got.’ ‘How much do you pay him, pa?’ ‘A dollar a-day.’ ‘Well, I heard you tell ma that Sam did more work than three men; does he, pa?’ ‘Yes, my son, he is a first-class man.’ ‘Why does he work for the same as the men who don’t do as much work? Why don’t he leave, pa?’ ‘He’s hired by the year, my son, and his time is up in the slack time, when he couldn’t get another job. Then he has a lot of children, and his wife is mostly sick, so he can’t risk losing his job.’ ‘My! you got him in a fix, didn’t you, pa?’ ‘Oh, well, you see, business men have to make the most of their opportunities.’ ‘I guess Bill Fisher thought he was making the most of his opportunities when he took his chances when the grocer wasn’t looking, don’t you, pa?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Oh, nothing; only I was thinking whether there was much difference between you and Bill Fisher. He took more things from the grocer than he paid for; and you take more work from Sam Jones than you pay for. Is taking more work than you pay for stealing, pa?’ ‘No, stupid! What I make off Sam is profit; it is perfectly legitimate!’ ‘What’s legitimate, pa?’ ‘Legitimate is legal; sanctioned by law. Anything the law allows is legitimate, you must know!’ ‘Oh, I see. Taking a man’s work without paying for it is profit, because it’s legitimate; taking a man’s groceries without paying for them is stealing because it isn’t. That’s the way, is it, pa?’ ‘Oh, don’t bother; you make me tired, boy!’ ‘Say, pa, what’s law? What makes anything law?’ ‘Why, the voters; that is, those who have votes elect men to Parliament, and then Parliament says what is to be law. Do you understand, my son?’ ‘Have you a vote, pa?’ ‘Yes, I vote for four members.’ ‘Has Sam a vote, too, pa?’ ‘Yes, he has one.’ ‘Does he vote for the same men as you do?’ ‘Well, I expect him to. If I found he didn’t I might discharge him.’ ‘I reckon men who work like Sam haven’t much to say in making the laws, have they, pa?’ ‘Well, they have their votes, but intelligence counts. We generally fix things so they can’t do much harm. Last election our side nominated Mr. Straddle and the other side put up Mr. Jumper, and so, whichever was elected, we knew that the laws would be all right anyhow.’ ‘I guess if Sam and his set had the making of the laws, pa, they would send men to prison for the legitimate stealing just the same as the other kind. How would you like to be sent to jail, and have ma die and your children go bad, like Bill Fisher, and when you couldn’t say that you stole Sam Jones’s work to keep your sick wife and children from starving, either?’ ‘Tut, tut, boy, don’t be silly.’ ‘Say, pa, I heard the minister telling you that Sam and his wife are real Christians: are they?’ ‘I believe they are.’ ‘He said though they were very poor, and had no carpets and pictures, and no furniture to speak of, and hardly enough to eat, they were content and piously thankful to God. Do you believe that, pa?’ ‘Why, of course, my son.’ ‘Are you piously thankful, too, pa? ‘ ‘I hope so.’ ‘Well, you ought to be, pa. If Sam is thankful for one dollar when he works for three, you ought to be pretty thankful for two when you don’t work for any.’ ‘Run away now, and play. Here’s sixpence to go to the Zoo and see the monkeys.’ ‘I don’t want to see the monkeys; I’d rather stay and ask you questions, pa. The minister said it was the devil that tempted Bill Fisher to take the things from the grocer; was it he that put you up to making that bargain with Sam, pa?’ ‘Oh, don’t bother me; you’re talking nonsense now, boy.’ ‘Say, pa, will Sam Jones go to heaven?’ ‘Likely; he’s a good Christian.’ ‘Will you go, too, pa?’ ‘I hope so, my son.’ ‘What will you say if he asks you about that eight shillings a-day, and begins to talk about doing unto others as you would like them to do to you?’ ‘Oh, don’t chatter so; you make my head ache.’ ‘And suppose they ask you about being on that jury, pa, and about Bill Fisher and his girls?’ ‘Stop talking, I say, you young monkey!’ ‘Say, pa, have they got dictionaries in heaven?’ ‘What a question! What would they do with dictionaries?’ ‘Oh, I just thought it would be lucky for you if they had, or they mightn’t know the difference between legitimate stealing and the other kind, pa.’ ‘Be silent now! Not another word, or I’ll send you right home.’ 3. ‘What place is this, pa? ‘ ‘This, my child, is a brickyard.’ ‘Whose brickyard is it, pa?’ ‘Oh, it belongs to me, my child.’ ‘Do those big piles of bricks belong to you, pa?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do those dirty men belong to you too, pa?’ ‘No, there is no slavery in this country; those are free men.’ ‘What makes them work so hard, pa?’ ‘They are working for a living.’ ‘Why do they work for a living?’ ‘Because they are poor and are obliged to work.’ ‘Why is it that they are so poor when they work so hard, pa?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Don’t somebody steal from them what they earn, pa?’ ‘No, my child. What makes you ask such ridiculous questions?’ ‘I thought perhaps some of that dirty clay got in their eyes and blinded them. But, pa, don’t the bricks belong to them after they have made them?’ ‘No, they belong to me, my son.’ ‘What are bricks made of, pa?’ ‘Clay, my son.’ ‘What! That dirt I see down there, pa?’ ‘Yes, nothing else.’ ‘Who does the dirt belong to, pa?’ ‘It belongs to me.’ ‘Did you make the dirt, pa?’ ‘No, my child. God made it.’ ‘Did he make it for you specially?’ ‘No, I bought it.’ ‘Bought it of God, pa?’ ‘No, I bought it like I buy anything else.’ ‘Did the man you bought it of buy it of God?’ ‘I don’t know, my son; ask me something easy.’ ‘Anyway it’s a good thing you’ve got the land, isn’t it, pa?’ ‘Why, my son?’ ‘Because you’d have to make bricks for a living like those horrid men. Shall I have to work for a living when I’m a man, pa?’ ‘No, my boy. I’ll leave the land to you when I die.’ ‘Don’t people turn into clay when they’re dead, pa?’ ‘I don’t know. Why do you ask?’ ‘Nothing. Only I was thinking what a hard old brick your clay would make.’ The Orraman is on holiday so for the festive season we have rooted out an episode of 'Twixt Desk and Shelves' set in the fictional publishing offices of The Pelican, in the equally (almost) fictional town of St Congan's. This is from December 2016. A lot of things (and people) in St Congan's haven't changed much in a century! This episode deals with the fallout of an argument about who can use 'the club.'
‘I read your dialogue on the club scandal,’ said a visitor, ‘it was quite right except for one thing, as far as I know.’ Printer: What was that? Of course the conversation was given very much as it took place. I was only mildly interested, and I knew nothing of the facts at first hand. Visitor: You spoke of whist and whisky having too much of a show. But it’s a dry club. There are no intoxicants supplied on the premises. Printer; I repeat that I gave the conversation as I got it. I am positive about certain names having been mentioned of fathers who had withdrawn from membership themselves and forbidden their sons to go because they came home later and not sober. (Here the speaker gave several names.) And that isn’t all. A teacher friend called one night, having business with one of the leading members. He found two leading members there – men well up in years – and both were in the state which is called, ‘well-to-do,’ probably on the principle of contraries. They started to quarrel over the business the teacher has broached, and words ran so high that he left in despair of getting any sense or satisfaction. Both the men called upon him next day and apologised. (Here again names were mentioned.) Visitor: That may be; but you’ll find it as I say. The old provost, one of the founders of the club, stipulated for no drink, and in this he had his way. Printer: Well of course there are two different ways of carrying it in. There is deck cargo and there is stowed cargo. Another one. ‘I read your article about the club,’ said another visitor , a young man, a day or two later. ‘I may tell you that I was one of those who voted against the use of the rooms being given. I didn’t object to the wounded men having the run of the place, but to the way the thing was gone about. I should have let the Red Cross have the sole right to the place as tenants. The club is nothing to me; though I’m going up there to have a game of billiards now. Printer (feeling there is some amount of contradiction here): But, my dear chap, what’s the good of voting against a thing if you favour it? Young Visitor: As I say, I objected to the way the thing was gone about. And for that matter I was not altogether averse to the course taken by the majority. The matter was very fully considered, and there’s a good deal to be said for the majority . Printer: Now you’re talking! Let’s hear what you have to say. I believe in giving both sides a show. Young Visitor: Well, some of those who voted against the rooms being given knew something. For one thing, the wounded are being used by some folk for self-advertisement. Miss Dugald got the loan of Andrew Wilson’s cars, and drove the men here and there. Her name alone appeared as the Lady Bountiful, while Andrew was finding both the cars and the petrol, and his name never had a look in, though it should have helped his business to have the fair acknowledgement. Petrol costs money just now. Printer: I had him in the other day, and he said he had read the article, but he offered no comment either way. Young Visitor: Yes, that’s Andrew all over. And he had had some experience of the wounded men too. He gave them the use of a room at the Harmony and they carried in drink, and were very noisy and rackety. He had to stop it. They were stopped at the Duff Arms too. They walked upon the billiard table there, and were a downright nuisance. Still, I would have been in favour of letting them the rooms outright, and holding the Red Cross responsible for any damage done. Printer: It’s a pity you didn’t carry a motion to that effect. I daresay the future before these poor fellows is calculated to make them a bit regardless. Yet Another. ‘A man was saying last night that you had stated in The Pelican what was not correct.’ So said a neighbour, coming in and starting to his tale without preliminary courtesy. ‘Good morning Mr Gill,’ said the Printer, bowing with marked elaborateness from behind his machine. The hasty visitor repeated the omitted flourish, and proceeded with his story. ‘The Pelican said that no small businesses had been closed up locally, and this man pointed out that Cunningham the painter had had to shut shop and join the colours, and that you yourself wouldn’t have got your present premises if the previous tenant hadn’t had to go up for service. Printer (smiling): Well, that’s what the Yankees call ‘a fair hoist.’ But did the Pelican say that? Oh, I remember! There was a note of four or five lines. The note stated, among other things, that while the English Tommy jeered at and insulted the slacker, the Scottish soldier congratulated him on his escape, and that I hadn’t seen a single badge being worn or heard of a business having to be sold to meet the call. This was written partly under your own inspiration. I had said that I thought the reference, in certain verses, to buying a ‘graip’ [Angled, dung-fork] from the military representative was a little below the belt; that I thought he was not to be brought in that way; and that he was independent to the point of brusqueness. You answered that, so far from being the case St Congans was famous for a great many exemptions since I came here – of young men too, and not even young men who are actually in charge of business. The whole position is different in large centres. There the members of the tribunals do not know the men who come before them; know nothing of their circumstances except what is stated in evidence; and consequently can have none of the sympathy that acquaintanceship naturally begets. Mr Gill: Well, you see that the military representative has been changed. Painter: Yes, but I take it that he has made the change himself- has resigned. I’m not denying that St Congans men have done and are doing their full share of the fighting. The casualty list shows that. But I do say that there isn’t much State-consciousness, or Community-consciousness, in the local population. I haven’t met an ardent politician since I came here. Start what subject you will, the local man tends to swing round to local gossip. Parliament is, of course, far away. There’s Taylor, the Socialist, of course. He is keen on all public questions. He is understood as an exception. He and I have a certain grim satisfaction in the way in which the war has brought home the fact of citizenship and personal political responsibility to people who have always spoken and acted as if politics didn’t matter. And now, by the Lord, it is evident that politics are all-important” If all the working men of Europe had been like Taylor and myself there wouldn’t have been a Kaiser or a war-lord in the civilised world today. The fact that working men neglected this, and turned up their noses at those whom they called ‘Socialist cranks’ is costing them their very lives. As I wrote long ago, ‘Duties neglected are as crimes committed, and may be even more deadly in their consequences.’ The penalty of neglecting to take your fair intelligent share in the government of the country is that you shall be misgoverned by other people, even to the taking of your life in a quarrel of which you don’t understand the most elementary meaning – even now. It is said that we are fighting for freedom, and I fervently hope and trust that we are; for I have always exercised my freedom to say and do what seemed to me good against the powers that be, both great and small. But is Rome fighting for freedom? Will the Czar give his own subjects freedom? Will he stop sending his subjects to Siberia without trial? Will he discontinue rewarding the leaders of the Black Hundred who massacre Jews on the holy days of the Greek Church? Freedom is not mere absence of restraint. It means the power to do things as well as the mere liberty to do them. I am free to play the fiddle or read Greek: but I never had lessons so I am without the power. A man who is uneducated is not free; the doors of opportunity are barred to him by his ignorance. The man whose means of livelihood are the property of another is not free. He has to accept the master’s terms. He has to work to accept the price the masters class is willing to give. With all his trade unionism – where he has any – he has not lessened by one penny the blackmail that the master-class is able to levy upon his labour. Only one thing will do that, and that is public ownership. And we’re going to have some of that. Gill (doubtfully): Socialism? Printer: Yes, Socialism and plenty of it. Unlimited nationalisation and municipalisation in the interests of the public as against the profit-mongers. Socialism, the only sincere politics that ever were or any good, the only politics that please everybody when once the thing is socialised. The Orraman will be back in the New Year. A wee story for Christmas - first published in December 1940 in The Gateway. For the benefit of English readers, the Auld Lichts were the Original Seceders who left the Church of Scotland because of differences of opinion alike on points of doctrine and church government. They were evangelicals who objected to ‘cauld morality’ sermons and to the law which allowed a patron to impose a minister on the parish and people without their consent and free choice. The Disruption of a hundred years later was an assertion of the same right of a congregation to choose its own pastor. This right was legally recognised by the abolition of patronage in 1874. The most unexpected element in Lichtie was in his drollery. Considering the preposterous beliefs he held in what is called religion, it was perplexing how readily his mind saw the mildly ludicrous in everyday events and sayings. He brought the gravity of a chancellor to the consideration of every topic, and made you wonder if you were not a trifler in a world of momentous solemnities. And yet he had a quirk of natural whimsicality that left you uncertain. If you asked him how he did, he would answer, ‘Oh, jist battlin’ awa.’ This reply he gave you always in the same undeviating tone. But you could never be quite sure what he meant by it – whether he intended you to infer that life was a discouraging battle or that he was enjoying the tussle. His tone gave no clue. Lichtie’s genial neighbour, Geordie Crow, had one day ‘a narrow shave.’ Geordie was a blacksmith, and his smiddy was roofed with flagstones. One of these slid off as he was passing and just missed his head by an inch or two. He told the story to Lichtie, adding ‘Wasna that Providential escape, Robbie?’ After musing a little, Robbie said gravely, ‘Weel, I dinna see ony Providence in it, Geordie.’ The blacksmith drew back a step and looked at the immobile figure. ‘Only twa inches nearer, and the flagstane would hae killed me, man,’ he cried Lichtie was unconvinced, and stated the fact in his own way. ‘If Providence threw the stane at ye, Geordie, He would either hae struck ye or made a wider deliverance – twa feet or mair.’ Geordie was puzzled by this, but tried again. ‘It’s this way, Robbie,’ he argued. ‘It cam’ sae near me that if it hadna been for the interference o’ Providence it micht hae clove my skull, man.’ The stoical Robbie could not follow this caprice. ‘I canna tak’ it in, Geordie. Providence couldna baith knock the flagstane aff the roof to kill ye, and at the same time keep it awa frae its mark.’ ‘An’ why no?’ queried the amazed blacksmith. This insistence slightly nettled Lichtie. ‘A’ I can say,’ he remarked stubbornly, ‘is this – that if Providence aimed at ye, and then repented, it would be because ye wasna fit to dee, Geordie!’ And he walked off solemnly. Did anything so simple occur to them as the loosening of the slab by ordinary natural wear and tear and then the operation of the law of gravity, the passing of the blacksmith at the moment being pure fortuity? It would be hard to say. The discussion at any rate was purely theological, and irreverently ignored the only real laws of the occurrence. The blacksmith, who thought he had proved a clear miracle, gazed after his inscrutable acquaintance in wonderment. Was Lichtie taking him off, or was he really being rebuked? He was bewildered, as Robbie’s hearers often were. Lichtie was a mason to trade. While doing some repairs at Lengar Castle, the proprietor condescendingly asked the old man if he would like to see through the building; and without waiting for a reply he opened the front door and signalled Robbie to enter. The marvels of the interior did not escape the sturdy mason. He admired in his own fashion the scope of walls, staircases and rooms; but to any remark of the complacent castellan his sole answer was ‘Ay.’ ‘A fine view from this window’ was met solemnly with ‘Ay.’ The pictures and statuary were similarly honoured. When the two arrived at the doorstep again the laird sought to draw out his guest. ‘Well, a fine mansion, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Ay,’ replied Lichtie, ‘an’ yet, d’ye ken, it wudna mak a SKYLICHT in oor Father’s hoose!’ Robbie left Willie Dow’s son Peter in the same plight. Peter had been in London for a year or more, and returned to the village in fashionable clothes. He called on Robbie as an old neighbour. Robbie gravely scrutinised him from head to heel. ‘Good fit, ain’t it?’ remarked the youth, turning himself round maliciously to allow Robbie a full view. ‘Fits ye like a coat o’ paint, sir,’ was Lichtie’s verdict. Had it been another person’s. Peter would have considered it a neat saying and would have felt flattered. But Robbie was no sartorial connoisseur, and his remark must have meant something else. Did he infer that, like a rotten paling painted, Peter had only a skin-deep respectability? Who could tell? Peter came away hurt. Then he changed his mind. In the end he remained perplexed. Fourteen miles Lichtie tramped every Sabbath. (We must not say Sunday – that was in Lichtie’s view only the profane, pagan, official name for the Lord’s own day.) His Auld Licht church was seven miles away. He was never absent unless very ill, and indeed often made the double journey in great enfeeblement. His house was one of the old type, with a hinged shutter to the window. This shutter was never opened on the Sabbath, which was thus no sun-day with his abode. His chief reason, however, was that he might not see the kind of weather until he was outside. Thus a sunny day did not tempt him to wander in his garden and neglect attending ‘the means of grace’; and if snow lay deep on the ground he did not know of it until he had stepped outside: and then, having committed himself so far, there was little to be gained by going back, even had he been tempted to do so. By this manoeuvre he held ‘the flesh’ by a firm rein. He was taciturn to the end, and his droll turn remained also. When the neighbour who attended him in his last hours asked him if he had any ‘message’ for her, he merely answered, very feebly but earnestly, ‘Dinna forget God; an’ keep yersel’ clean.’ To her last breath she did not know whether to be pleased or offended. And he left the minister in a similar haze. To him he said, ‘Never preach the gospel in a dirty collar, sir.’ To warn people against venial ‘sins’ they are not likely to commit is very Calvinistic and unpleasant; yet we were all of one mind that Robbie was a saint and a mystic; but whether he was a satirist or not remained an open question. The children seemed to understand him best. His solemnity was an amusement to them, and they were never annoyed by the equivocal sayings he uttered to their seniors. When they christened him ‘Lichtie’ it was done more in a spirit of affectionate familiarity than to proclaim his connection with the Auld Licht Kirk.
THREE UTOPIA’S FOR THE PRICE OF ONE…
Here’s a chance to choose the utopia you desire… First chapters of : A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA – W.D.Howells NEWS FROM NOWHERE – William Morris LOOKING BACKWARD – Edward Bellamy Complete with links to find the whole work for free on the internet. A TRAVELER FROM ALTRURIA – W.D.HOWELLS CHAPTER I I confess that with all my curiosity to meet an Altrurian, I was in no hospitable mood toward the traveler when he finally presented himself, pursuant to the letter of advice sent me by the friend who introduced him. It would be easy enough to take care of him in the hotel; I had merely to engage a room for him, and have the clerk tell him his money was not good if he tried to pay for anything. But I had swung fairly into my story; its people were about me all the time; I dwelt amid its events and places, and I did not see how I could welcome my guest among them, or abandon them for him. Still, when he actually arrived, and I took his hand as he stepped from the train, I found it less difficult to say that I was glad to see him than I expected. In fact, I was glad, for I could not look upon his face without feeling a glow of kindness for him. I had not the least trouble in identifying him, for he was so unlike all the Americans who dismounted from the train with him, and who all looked hot, worried, and anxious. He was a man no longer young, but in what we call the heyday of life, when our own people are so absorbed in making provision for the future that they may be said not to live in the present at all. This Altrurian’s whole countenance, and especially his quiet, gentle eyes, expressed a vast contemporaneity, with bounds of leisure removed to the end of time; or, at least, this was the effect of something in them which I am obliged to report in rather fantastic terms. He was above the middle height, and he carried himself vigorously. His face was sunburned, or sea-burned, where it was not bearded; and, although I knew from my friend’s letter that he was a man of learning and distinction in his own country, I should never have supposed him a person of scholarly life, he was so far from sicklied over with anything like the pale cast of thought. When he took the hand I offered him in my half-hearted welcome he gave it a grasp that decided me to confine our daily greetings to something much less muscular. “Let me have your bag,” I said, as we do when we meet people at the train, and he instantly bestowed a rather heavy valise upon me, with a smile in his benignant eyes, as if it had been the greatest favor. “Have you got any checks?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, in very good English, but with an accent new to me, “I bought two.” He gave them to me, and I passed them to our hotel porter, who was waiting there with the baggage-cart. Then I proposed that we should walk across the meadow to the house, which is a quarter of a mile or so from the station. We started, but he stopped suddenly and looked back over his shoulder. “Oh, you needn’t be troubled about your trunks,” I said. “The porter will get them to the house all right. They’ll be in your room by the time we get there.” “But he’s putting them into the wagon himself,” said the Altrurian. “Yes; he always does that. He’s a strong young fellow. He’ll manage it. You needn’t--” I could not finish saying he need not mind the porter; he was rushing back to the station, and I had the mortification of seeing him take an end of each trunk and help the porter toss it into the wagon; some lighter pieces he put in himself, and he did not stop till all the baggagethe train had left was disposed of. I stood holding his valise, unable to put it down in my embarrassment at this eccentric performance, which had been evident not to me alone, but to all the people who arrived by the train, and all their friends who came from the hotel to meet them. A number of these passed me on the tally-ho coach; and a lady, who had got her husband with her for over Sunday, and was in very good spirits, called gayly down to me: “Your friend seems fondof exercise!” “Yes,” I answered, dryly; the sparkling repartee which ought to have come to my help failed to show up. But it was impossible to be vexed with the Altrurian when he returned to me, unruffled by his bout with the baggage and serenely smiling. “Do you know,” he said, “I fancied that good fellow was ashamed of my helping him. I hope it didn’t seem a reflection upon him in any way before your people? I ought to have thought of that.” “I guess we can make it right with him. I dare say he felt more surprised than disgraced. But we must make haste a little now; your train was half an hour late, and we shall not stand so good a chance for supper if we are not there pretty promptly.” “No?” said the Altrurian. “Why?” “Well,” I said, with evasive lightness, “first come, first served, you know. That’s human nature.” “Is it?” he returned, and he looked at me as one does who suspects another of joking. “Well, isn’t it?” I retorted; but I hurried to add: “Besides, I want to have time after supper to show you a bit of our landscape. I think you’ll enjoy it.” I knew he had arrived in Boston that morning by steamer, and I now thought it high time to ask him: “Well, what do you think of America, anyway?” I ought really to have asked him this the moment he stepped from the train. “Oh,” he said, “I’m intensely interested,” and I perceived that he spoke with a certain reservation. “As the most advanced country of its time, I’ve always been very curious to see it.” The last sentence raised my dashed spirits again, and I said, confidently: “You must find our system of baggage-checks delightful.” I said this because it is one of the first things we brag of to foreigners, and I had the habit of it. “By-the-way,” I ventured to add, “I suppose you meant to say you _brought_ two checks when I asked you for them at the train just now? But you really said you _bought_ them. “Yes,” the Altrurian replied, “I gave half a dollar apiece for them at the station in Boston. I saw other people doing it,” he explained, noting my surprise. “Isn’t it the custom?” “I’m happy to say it isn’t yet, on most of our roads. They were tipping the baggage-man, to make sure that he checked their baggage in time and put it on the train. I had to do that myself when I came up; otherwise it might have got along here some time next day. But the system is perfect.” “The poor man looked quite worn out,” said the Altrurian, “and I am glad I gave him something. He seemed to have several hundred pieces of baggage to look after, and he wasn’t embarrassed like your porter by my helping him put my trunks into the car. May I confess that the meanness of the station, its insufficient facilities, its shabby waiting-rooms, and its whole crowded and confused appearance gave me rather a bad impression?” “I know,” I had to own, “it’s shameful; but you wouldn’t have found another station in the city so bad.” “Ah, then,” said the Altrurian, “I suppose this particular road is too poor to employ more baggage-men or build new stations; they seemed rather shabby all the way up.” “Well, no,” I was obliged to confess, “it’s one of the richest roads in the country. The stock stands at about 180. But I’m really afraid we shall be late to supper if we don’t get on,” I broke off; though I was not altogether sorry to arrive after the porter had disposed of the baggage. I dreaded another display of active sympathy on the part of my strange companion; I have often felt sorry myself for the porters of hotels, but I have never thought of offering to help them handle the heavy trunks that they manage. The Altrurian was delighted with the hotel; and in fact it did look extremely pretty, with its branching piazzas full of well-dressed people, and its green lawns where the children were playing. I led the way to the room which I had taken for him next my own; it was simply furnished, but it was sweet with matting, fresh linen, and pure whitewashed walls. I flung open the window-blinds and let him get a glimpse of the mountains purpling under the sunset, the lake beneath, and the deeply foliaged shores. “Glorious! glorious!” he sighed. “Yes,” I modestly assented. “We think that’s rather fine.” He stood tranced before the window, and I thought I had better say: “Well, now I can’t give you much time to get the dust of travel off; the dining-room doors close at eight, and we must hurry down.” “I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said, pulling off his coat. I waited impatiently at the foot of the stairs, avoiding the question I met on the lips and in the eyes of my acquaintance. The fame of my friend’s behavior at the station must have spread through the whole place; and everybody wished to know who he was. I answered simply he was a traveler from Altruria; and in some cases I went further and explained that the Altrurians were peculiar. In much less time than it seemed my friend found me; and then I had a little compensation for my suffering in his behalf. I could see that, whatever people said of him, they felt the same mysterious liking at sight of him that I had felt. He had made a little change in his dress, and I perceived that the women thought him not only good-looking but well-dressed. They followed him with their eyes as we went into the dining-room, and I was rather proud of being with him, as if I somehow shared the credit of his clothes and good looks. The Altrurian himself seemed most struck with the head-waiter, who showed us to our places, and while we were waiting for our supper I found a chance to explain that he was a divinity student from one of the fresh-water colleges, and was serving here during his summer vacation. This seemed to interest my friend so much that I went on to tell him that many of the waitresses, whom he saw standing there subject to the order of the guests, were country school-mistresses in the winter. “Ah, that is as it should be,” he said; “that is the kind of thing I expected to meet with in America.” “Yes,” I responded, in my flattered national vanity, “if America means anything at all it means the honor of work and the recognition of personal worth everywhere. I hope you are going to make a long stay with us. We like to have travelers visit us who can interpret the spirit of our institutions as well as read their letter. As a rule Europeans never quite get our point of view. Now a great many of these waitresses are ladies, in the true sense of the word--selfrespectful, intelligent, refined, and fit to grace--” I was interrupted by the noise my friend made in suddenly pushing back his chair and getting to his feet. “What’s the matter?” I asked. “You’re not ill, I hope?” But he did not hear me. He had run half down the dining-hall toward the slender young girl who was bringing us our supper. I had ordered rather generously, for my friend had owned to a good appetite, and I was hungry myself with waiting for him, so that the tray the girl carried was piled up with heavy dishes. To my dismay I saw, rather than heard at that distance, the Altrurian enter into a polite controversy with her, and then, as if overcoming all her scruples by sheer strength of will, possess himself of the tray and make off with it toward our table. The poor child followed him, blushing to her hair; the head-waiter stood looking helplessly on; the guests, who at that late hour were fortunately few, were simply aghast at the scandal; the Altrurian alone seemed to think his conduct the most natural thing in the world. He put the tray on the side-table near us, and in spite of our waitress’s protests insisted upon arranging the little bird-bath dishes before our plates. Then at last he sat down, and the girl, flushed and tremulous, left the room, as I could not help suspecting, to have a good cry in the kitchen. She did not come back, and the head-waiter, who was perhaps afraid to send another in her place, looked after our few wants himself. He kept a sharp eye on my friend, as if he were not quite sure he was safe, but the Altrurian resumed the conversation with all that lightness of spirits which I noticed in him after he helped the porter with the baggage. I did not think it the moment to take him to task for what he had just done; I was not even sure that it was the part of a host to do so at all, and between the one doubt and the other I left the burden of talk to him. “What a charming young creature!” he began. “I never saw anything prettier than the way she had of refusing my help, absolutely without coquetry or affectation of any kind. She is, as you said, a perfect lady, and she graces her work, as I am sure she would grace any exigency of life. She quite realizes my ideal of an American girl, and I see now what the spirit of your country must be from such an expression of it.” I wished to tell him that while a country school-teacher who waits at table in a summer hotel is very much to be respected in her sphere, she is not regarded with that high honor which some other women command among us; but I did not find this very easy, after what I had said of our esteem for labor; and while I was thinking how I could hedge, my friend went on. “I liked England greatly, and I liked the English, but I could not like the theory of their civilization or the aristocratic structure of their society. It seemed to me iniquitous, for we believe that inequality and iniquity are the same in the last analysis.” At this I found myself able to say: “Yes, there is something terrible, something shocking, in the frank brutality with which Englishmen affirm the essential inequality of men. The affirmation of the essential equality of men was the first point of departure with us when we separated from them.” “I know,” said the Altrurian. “How grandly it is expressed in your glorious Declaration!” “Ah, you have read our Declaration of Independence, then?” “Every Altrurian has read that,” answered my friend. “Well,” I went on smoothly, and I hoped to render what I was going to say the means of enlightening him without offence concerning the little mistake he had just made with the waitress, “of course we don’t take that in its closest literality.” “I don’t understand you,” he said. “Why, you know it was rather the political than the social traditions of England that we broke with, in the Revolution.” “How is that?” he returned. “Didn’t you break with monarchy and nobility, and ranks and classes?” “Yes, we broke with all those things.” “But I found them a part of the social as well as the political structure in England. You have no kings or nobles here. Have you any ranks or classes?” “Well, not exactly in the English sense. Our ranks and classes, such as we have, are what I may call voluntary.” “Oh, I understand. I suppose that from time to time certain ones among you feel the need of serving, and ask leave of the commonwealth to subordinate themselves to the rest of the state and perform all the lowlier offices in it. Such persons must be held in peculiar honor. Is it something like that?” “Well, no, I can’t say it’s quite like that. In fact I think I’d better let you trust to your own observation of our life.” “But I’m sure,” said the Altrurian, with a simplicity so fine that it was a long time before I could believe it quite real, “that I shall approach it so much more intelligently with a little instruction from you. You say that your social divisions are voluntary. But do I understand that those who serve among you do not wish to do so?” “Well, I don’t suppose they would serve if they could help it,” I replied. “Surely,” said the Altrurian, with a look of horror, “you don’t mean that they are slaves.” “Oh no! oh no!” I said; “the war put an end to that. We are all free now, black and white.” “But if they do not wish to serve, and are not held in peculiar honor for serving--” “I see that my word ‘voluntary’ has misled you,” I put in. “It isn’t the word exactly. The divisions among us are rather a process of natural selection. You will see, as you get better acquainted with the workings of our institutions, that there are no arbitrary distinctions here but the fitness of the work for the man and the man for the work determines the social rank that each one holds.” “Ah, that is fine!” cried the Altrurian, with a glow of enthusiasm. “Then I suppose that these intelligent young people who teach school in winter and serve at table in the summer are in a sort of provisional state, waiting for the process of natural selection to determine whether they shall finally be teachers or waiters.” “Yes, it might be stated in some such terms,” I assented, though I was not altogether easy in my mind. It seemed to me that I was not quite candid with this most candid spirit. I added: “You know we are a sort of fatalists here in America. We are great believers in the doctrine that it will all come out right in the end.” “Ah, I don’t wonder at that,” said the Altrurian, “if the process of natural selection works so perfectly among you as you say. But I am afraid I don’t understand this matter of your domestic service yet. I believe you said that all honest work is honored in America. Then no social slight attaches to service, I suppose?” “Well, I can’t say that, exactly. The fact is, a certain social slight does attach to service, and that is one reason why I don’t quite like to have students wait at table. It won’t be pleasant for them to remember it in after-life, and it won’t be pleasant for their children to remember it.” “Then the slight would descend?” “I think it would. One wouldn’t like to think one’s father or mother had been at service.” The Altrurian said nothing for a moment. Then he remarked: “So it seems that while all honest work is honored among you, there are some kinds of honest work that are not honored so much as others.” “Yes.” “Why?” “Because some occupations are more degrading than others.” “But why?” he persisted, as I thought, a little unreasonably. “Really,” I said, “I think I must leave you to imagine.” “I am afraid I can’t,” he said, sadly. “Then, if domestic service is degrading in your eyes, and people are not willing servants among you, may I ask why any are servants?” “It is a question of bread-and-butter. They are obliged to be.” “That is, they are forced to do work that is hateful and disgraceful to them because they cannot live without?” “Excuse me,” I said, not at all liking this sort of pursuit, and feeling it fair to turn even upon a guest who kept it up. “Isn’t it so with you in Altruria?” “It was so once,” he admitted, “but not now. In fact, it is like a waking dream to find one’s self in the presence of conditions here that we outlived so long ago.” There was an unconscious superiority in this speech that nettled me, and stung me to retort: “We do not expect to outlive them. We regard them as final, and as indestructibly based in human nature itself.” “Ah,” said the Altrurian, with a delicate and caressing courtesy, “have I said something offensive?” “Not at all,” I hastened to answer. “It is not surprising that you did not get our point of view exactly. You will by-and-by, and then, I think, you will see that it is the true one. We have found that the logic of our convictions could not be applied to the problem of domestic service. It is everywhere a very curious and perplexing problem. The simple old solution of the problem was to own your servants; but we found that this was not consistent with the spirit of our free institutions. As soon as it was abandoned the anomaly began. We had outlived the primitive period when the housekeeper worked with her domestics and they were her help, and were called so; and we had begun to have servants to do all the household work, and to call them so. This state of things never seemed right to some of our purest and best people. They fancied, as you seem to have done, that to compel people through their necessities to do your hateful drudgery, and to wound and shame them with a name which every American instinctively resents, was neither republican nor Christian. Some of our thinkers tried to mend matters by making their domestics a part of their families; and in the life of Emerson you’ll find an amusing account of his attempt to have his servant eat at the same table with himself and his wife. It wouldn’t work. He and his wife could stand it, but the servant couldn’t.” I paused, for this was where the laugh ought to have come in. The Altrurian did not laugh, he merely asked, “Why?” “Well, because the servant knew, if they didn’t, that they were a whole world apart in their traditions, and were no more fit to associate than New-Englanders and New-Zealanders. In the mere matter of education--” “But I thought you said that these young girls who wait at table here were teachers.” “Oh, I beg your pardon; I ought to have explained. By this time it had become impossible, as it now is, to get American girls to take service except on some such unusual terms as we have in a summer hotel; and the domestics were already ignorant foreigners, fit for nothing else. In such a place as this it isn’t so bad. It is more as if the girls worked in a shop or a factory. They command their own time, in a measure, their hours are tolerably fixed, and they have one another’s society. In a private family they would be subject to order at all times, and they would have no social life. They would be in the family, out not of it. American girls understand this, and so they won’t go out to service in the usual way. Even in a summer hotel the relation has its odious aspects. The system of giving fees seems to me degrading to those who have to take them. To offer a student or a teacher a dollar for personal service--it isn’t right, or I can’t make it so. In fact, the whole thing is rather anomalous with us. The best that you can say of it is that it works, and we don’t know what else to do.” “But I don’t see yet,” said the Altrurian, “just why domestic service is degrading in a country where all kinds of work are honored.” “Well, my dear fellow, I have done my best to explain. As I intimated before, we distinguish; and in the different kinds of labor we distinguish against domestic service. I dare say it is partly because of the loss of independence which it involves. People naturally despise a dependant.” “Why?” asked the Altrurian, with that innocence of his which I was beginning to find rather trying. “Why?” I retorted. “Because it implies weakness.” “And is weakness considered despicable among you?” he pursued. “In every community it is despised practically, if not theoretically,” I tried to explain. “The great thing that America has done is to offer the race an opportunity--the opportunity for any man to rise above the rest and to take the highest place, if he is able.” I had always been proud of this fact, and I thought I had put it very well, but the Altrurian did not seem much impressed by it. He said: “I do not see how it differs from any country of the past in that. But perhaps you mean that to rise carries with it an obligation to those below ‘If any is first among you, let him be your servant.’ Is it something like that?” “Well, it is not quite like that,” I answered, remembering how very little our self-made men as a class had done for others. “Every one is expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in America. How is it with you in Altruria?” I demanded, hoping to get out of a certain discomfort I felt in that way. “Do your risen men generally devote themselves to the good of the community after they get to the top?” “There is no rising among us,” he said, with what seemed a perception of the harsh spirit of my question; and he paused a moment before he asked in his turn: “How do men rise among you?” “That would be rather a long story,” I replied. “But, putting it in the rough, I should say that they rose by their talents, their shrewdness, their ability to seize an advantage and turn it to their own account.” “And is that considered noble?” “It is considered smart. It is considered at the worst far better than a dead level of equality. Are all men equal in Altruria? Are they all alike gifted or beautiful, or short or tall?” “No, they are only equal in duties and in rights. But, as you said just now, that is a very long story. Are they equal in nothing here?” “They are equal in opportunities.” “Ah!” breathed the Altrurian, “I am glad to hear that.” I began to feel a little uneasy, and I was not quite sure that this last assertion of mine would hold water. Everybody but ourselves had now left the dining-room, and I saw the head-waiter eying us impatiently. I pushed back my chair and said: “I’m sorry to seem to hurry you, but I should like to show you a very pretty sunset effect we have here before it is too dark. When we get back, I want to introduce you to a few of my friends. Of course, I needn’t tell you that there is a good deal of curiosity about you, especially among the ladies.” “Yes, I found that the case in England, largely. It was the women who cared most to meet me. I understand that in America society is managed even more by women than it is in England.” “It’s entirely in their hands,” I said, with the satisfaction we all feel in the fact. “We have no other leisure class. The richest men among us are generally hard workers; devotion to business is the rule; but, as soon as a man reaches the point where he can afford to pay for domestic service, his wife and daughters expect to be released from it to the cultivation of their minds and the enjoyment of social pleasures. It’s quite right. That is what makes them so delightful to foreigners. You must have heard their praises chanted in England. The English find our men rather stupid,I believe; but they think our women are charming.” “Yes, I was told that the wives of their nobility were sometimes Americans,” said the Altrurian. “The English think that you regard such marriages as a great honor, and that they are very gratifying to your national pride.” “Well, I suppose that is so in a measure,” I confessed. “I imagine that it will not be long before the English aristocracy derives as largely from American millionaires as from kings’ mistresses. Not,” I added, virtuously, “that we approve of aristocracy.” “No, I understand that,” said the Altrurian. “I shall hope to get your point of view in this matter more distinctly by-and-by. As yet, I’m a little vague about it.” “I think I can gradually make it clear to you,” I returned. GET THE FULL STORY ONLINE OR DOWNLOAD FREE NEWS FROM NOWHERE CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society. Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was good-tempered; for those present being used to public meetings and after- lecture debates, if they did not listen to each others' opinions (which could scarcely be expected of them), at all events did not always attempt to speak all together, as is the custom of people in ordinary polite society when conversing on a subject which interests them. For the rest, there were six persons present, and consequently six sections of the party were represented, four of which had strong but divergent Anarchist opinions. One of the sections, says our friend, a man whom he knows very well indeed, sat almost silent at the beginning of the discussion, but at last got drawn into it, and finished by roaring out very loud, and damning all the rest for fools; after which befel a period of noise, and then a lull, during which the aforesaid section, having said good-night very amicably, took his way home by himself to a western suburb, using the means of travelling which civilisation has forced upon us like a habit. As he sat in that vapour-bath of hurried and discontented humanity, a carriage of the underground railway, he, like others, stewed discontentedly, while in self-reproachful mood he turned over the many excellent and conclusive arguments which, though they lay at his fingers' ends, he had forgotten in the just past discussion. But this frame of mind he was so used to, that it didn't last him long, and after a brief discomfort, caused by disgust with himself for having lost his temper (which he was also well used to), he found himself musing on the subject- matter of discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily. "If I could but see a day of it," he said to himself; "if I could but see it!" As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five minutes' walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the Thames, a little way above an ugly suspension bridge. He went out of the station, still discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed to slip off him. It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enough to be refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railway carriage. The wind, which had lately turned a point or two north of west, had blown the sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck or two which went swiftly down the heavens. There was a young moon halfway up the sky, and as the home- farer caught sight of it, tangled in the branches of a tall old elm, he could scarce bring to his mind the shabby London suburb where he was, and he felt as if he were in a pleasant country place--pleasanter, indeed, than the deep country was as he had known it. He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, looking over the low wall to note the moonlit river, near upon high water, go swirling and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridge below, he did not notice it or think of it, except when for a moment (says our friend) it struck him that he missed the row of lights down stream. Then he turned to his house door and let himself in; and even as he shut the door to, disappeared all remembrance of that brilliant logic and foresight which had so illuminated the recent discussion; and of the discussion itself there remained no trace, save a vague hope, that was now become a pleasure, for days of peace and rest, and cleanness and smiling goodwill. In this mood he tumbled into bed, and fell asleep after his wont, in two minutes' time; but (contrary to his wont) woke up again not long after in that curiously wide-awake condition which sometimes surprises even good sleepers; a condition under which we feel all our wits preternaturally sharpened, while all the miserable muddles we have ever got into, all the disgraces and losses of our lives, will insist on thrusting themselves forward for the consideration of those sharpened wits. In this state he lay (says our friend) till he had almost begun to enjoy it: till the tale of his stupidities amused him, and the entanglements before him, which he saw so clearly, began to shape themselves into an amusing story for him. He heard one o'clock strike, then two and then three; after which he fell asleep again. Our friend says that from that sleep he awoke once more, and afterwards went through such surprising adventures that he thinks that they should be told to our comrades, and indeed the public in general, and therefore proposes to tell them now. But, says he, I think it would be better if I told them in the first person, as if it were myself who had gone through them; which, indeed, will be the easier and more natural to me, since I understand the feelings and desires of the comrade of whom I am telling better than any one else in the world does. GET THE FULL STORY ONLINE OR DOWNLOAD FREE LOOKING BACKWARD From 2000 to 1887 by Edward Bellamy AUTHOR'S PREFACE Historical Section Shawmut College, Boston, December 26, 2000 Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century, enjoying the blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the triumph of common sense, it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society is, in its completeness, less than a century old. No historical fact is, however, better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system, with all its shocking social consequences, was destined to last, with possibly a little patching, to the end of time. How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval! The readiness with which men accustom themselves, as matters of course, to improvements in their condition, which, when anticipated, seemed to leave nothing more to be desired, could not be more strikingly illustrated. What reflection could be better calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on the lively gratitude of future ages! The object of this volume is to assist persons who, while desiring to gain a more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the subject. Warned by a teacher's experience that learning is accounted a weariness to the flesh, the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative, which he would be glad to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account. The reader, to whom modern social institutions and their underlying principles are matters of course, may at times find Dr. Leete's explanations of them rather trite--but it must be remembered that to Dr. Leete's guest they were not matters of course, and that this book is written for the express purpose of inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to him. One word more. The almost universal theme of the writers and orators who have celebrated this bimillennial epoch has been the future rather than the past, not the advance that has been made, but the progress that shall be made, ever onward and upward, till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny. This is well, wholly well, but it seems to me that nowhere can we find more solid ground for daring anticipations of human development during the next one thousand years, than by "Looking Backward" upon the progress of the last one hundred. That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest in the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the treatment is the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr. Julian West to speak for himself. Chapter 1 I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. "What!" you say, "eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the present year of grace, 2000. These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add that I am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age, that no person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity. Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake, if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however, occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since the differences between them were far greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury, and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand-parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence. But how could I live without service to the world? you ask. Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grandfather had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum, you will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however, was not the fact. The sum had been originally by no means large. It was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supported upon it in idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use without consumption, of warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one's support on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live on the income of his investments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a species of tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous according to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. It had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least to limit it to the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations prevailed. At the time of which I write, the latter part of the nineteenth century, governments had generally given up trying to regulate the subject at all. By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest ascents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode. But did they think only of themselves? you ask. Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguished them? Oh, yes; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, exhorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats. It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers' sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach. I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century an incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both very curious, which partly explain it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which Society could get along, except the many pulled at the rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy. The other fact is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but, as I once rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the ground, before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, began to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grand-parents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The effect of such a delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers. In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year. Although still unmarried, I was engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on the top of the coach. That is to say, not to encumber ourselves further with an illustration which has, I hope, served its purpose of giving the reader some general impression of how we lived then, her family was wealthy. In that age, when money alone commanded all that was agreeable and refined in life, it was enough for a woman to be rich to have suitors; but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also. My lady readers, I am aware, will protest at this. "Handsome she might have been," I hear them saying, "but graceful never, in the costumes which were the fashion at that period, when the head covering was a dizzy structure a foot tall, and the almost incredible extension of the skirt behind by means of artificial contrivances more thoroughly dehumanized the form than any former device of dressmakers. Fancy any one graceful in such a costume!" The point is certainly well taken, and I can only reply that while the ladies of the twentieth century are lovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery in accenting feminine graces, my recollection of their great-grandmothers enables me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly disguise them. Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I was building for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the city, that is to say, a part chiefly inhabited by the rich. For it must be understood that the comparative desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended then, not on natural features, but on the character of the neighboring population. Each class or nation lived by itself, in quarters of its own. A rich man living among the poor, an educated man among the uneducated, was like one living in isolation among a jealous and alien race. When the house had been begun, its completion by the winter of 1886 had been expected. The spring of the following year found it, however, yet incomplete, and my marriage still a thing of the future. The cause of a delay calculated to be particularly exasperating to an ardent lover was a series of strikes, that is to say, concerted refusals to work on the part of the brick-layers, masons, carpenters, painters, plumbers, and other trades concerned in house building. What the specific causes of these strikes were I do not remember. Strikes had become so common at that period that people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds. In one department of industry or another, they had been nearly incessant ever since the great business crisis of 1873. In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months at a time. The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognize in these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of the great movement which ended in the establishment of the modern industrial system with all its social consequences. This is all so plain in the retrospect that a child can understand it, but not being prophets, we of that day had no clear idea what was happening to us. What we did see was that industrially the country was in a very queer way. The relation between the workingman and the employer, between labor and capital, appeared in some unaccountable manner to have become dislocated. The working classes had quite suddenly and very generally become infected with a profound discontent with their condition, and an idea that it could be greatly bettered if they only knew how to go about it. On every side, with one accord, they preferred demands for higher pay, shorter hours, better dwellings, better educational advantages, and a share in the refinements and luxuries of life, demands which it was impossible to see the way to granting unless the world were to become a great deal richer than it then was. Though they knew something of what they wanted, they knew nothing of how to accomplish it, and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about any one who seemed likely to give them any light on the subject lent sudden reputation to many would-be leaders, some of whom had little enough light to give. However chimerical the aspirations of the laboring classes might be deemed, the devotion with which they supported one another in the strikes, which were their chief weapon, and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them out left no doubt of their dead earnestness. As to the final outcome of the labor troubles, which was the phrase by which the movement I have described was most commonly referred to, the opinions of the people of my class differed according to individual temperament. The sanguine argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things impossible that the new hopes of the workingmen could be satisfied, simply because the world had not the wherewithal to satisfy them. It was only because the masses worked very hard and lived on short commons that the race did not starve outright, and no considerable improvement in their condition was possible while the world, as a whole, remained so poor. It was not the capitalists whom the laboring men were contending with, these maintained, but the iron-bound environment of humanity, and it was merely a question of the thickness of their skulls when they would discover the fact and make up their minds to endure what they could not cure. The less sanguine admitted all this. Of course the workingmen's aspirations were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons, but there were grounds to fear that they would not discover this fact until they had made a sad mess of society. They had the votes and the power to do so if they pleased, and their leaders meant they should. Some of these desponding observers went so far as to predict an impending social cataclysm. Humanity, they argued, having climbed to the top round of the ladder of civilization, was about to take a header into chaos, after which it would doubtless pick itself up, turn round, and begin to climb again. Repeated experiences of this sort in historic and prehistoric times possibly accounted for the puzzling bumps on the human cranium. Human history, like all great movements, was cyclical, and returned to the point of beginning. The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the imagination, with no analogue in nature. The parabola of a comet was perhaps a yet better illustration of the career of humanity. Tending upward and sunward from the aphelion of barbarism, the race attained the perihelion of civilization only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos. This, of course, was an extreme opinion, but I remember serious men among my acquaintances who, in discussing the signs of the times, adopted a very similar tone. It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation. The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more strikingly illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talk of a small band of men who called themselves anarchists, and proposed to terrify the American people into adopting their ideas by threats of violence, as if a mighty nation which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own numbers, in order to maintain its political system, were likely to adopt a new social system out of fear. As one of the wealthy, with a large stake in the existing order of things, I naturally shared the apprehensions of my class. The particular grievance I had against the working classes at the time of which I write, on account of the effect of their strikes in postponing my wedded bliss, no doubt lent a special animosity to my feeling toward them. GET THE FULL STORY online or download FREE A story in Doric by Pat Hutchison
Aal Mary MacDonald sat at the cheek o the fire an gave the coals a rummle up wi the poker wi the hope that she micht get the last heat oot o the grate. She shivered wi the caal an pulled her shawl a bittie closer. The Laird’s factor hid came that mornin an teen her coal an athing else o value tae pey the back rent o the hoose. He wiz weel suited tae work for the Laird for he wiz jist like him, Godless an athoot mercy. Mary looked aroon the room in the deein licht even the deepening shadas showed it wiz empty. Athing gone barr the chair she sat on, the clyse on her back and her wee three fittid callander porridge pot that hung fae the swye abeen the fire. They micht as weel hae teen it ana because ower the past fyowe days she’d niver hin a haanfae o meal tae pit in it. Jock her aal man wiz beeriett a week syne. He’d broke his back in een o the Laird’s mills fin the laidder he wiz on cairryin a bolt o canvas hid given fae ablow him. His body hid been teen hame on a cairt an left for Mary tae deal wi. Wi nae a penny aboot her the parish hid beeriett him in a pauper’s grave. The parish hid a special coffin for paupers. The body wiz transported tae the corner o the kirkyard an lowered intae the hole an aifter ony folk that hid been there tae pey the corp last respects hid left, the gravedigger pulled a pin in the coffin an the bottom opened an the corp fell oot. The box wiz removed tae await the next pauper. Nae marker wiz allowed. Wi Jock workin in the mill the hoose wiz tied so Mary hid tae be oot o the hoose by the wikeyne or twa days hence. The worst thing aboot the factor takin aa her goods & chattles wiz he hidna even left her wi the comfort o her great granda’s bible. A big leather beuk that the factor said wid mak a fyowe shillins. She’d begged him tae leave her w’t but na na he wiz takin it richt reason or neen.Mary hid made a grab for it an he gave her a backhaan slap in the face an tore it fae her hands. A letter hid fell fae it in the struggle an that’s fit she hid in her hand as she sat at her noo oot fire shiverin wi the caal. The letter wiz worn wi age an being handled. Thirty five years hid passed since she’d been sent it fae her son’s commandin officer in India tellin her that Daavid her son hid been killed on the North West frontier in November 1845. Her only bairn hid died at the age o twenty one far far awa fae hame.. He’d been aichteen the last time she’d saw him at the jile in Banff, that hid been the day he’d been teen awa tae the army. Mary sobbed at the memory but nae tears came tae her eyes, the tears were dried up lang syne. She shivered again but this time nae wi the caal but wi the memory as tae how her bairn hid ended up bein pitten tae the army in the first place. It hid been her fault for sendin him tae the big hoose wi the curtains she’d repaired for the Laird’s wife. Mary commin fae the Heilands as she did hid been weel taught by her aunties how tae sow. She’d ayee managed tae mak an extra sair nott shillin that wye afore her hands hid gotten twisted wi age. That forenicht she sent her laddie up tae the big hoose little thinkin she wiz sendin him tae his destiny. Daavid hid left wi the curtains hoping it wid be the bonny servant deemy that wid answer the back door o the big hoose but wiz tae be disappointed fin it wiz the aal hoosekeeper that answered it. On the wye back hame he’d teen a shortcut throwe the widdies and it wiz there he’d heard the screams. Hurrying towards the sound, in a clearin he’d come across the Laird’s son an anither laddie forcing themsels on a lassie as she lay on the grun screamin for them tae stop. Daavid didna wait but plooed intae the twa lads like a carronade at Waterloo. At first they’d been shocked an back fitted, but soon they’d turned the tables on Daavid for baith o them were weel trained at fisticuffs. Daavid kent there’d be nae wye he could beat this lads fairly so he’d picked up a lump o stick like a crummoch an gave baith o them a good beettlin. He’d cairriet the lassie hame tae his mither in an affa state an she washed the lassie an tended tae her wounds as best she could. Daavid wiz mair than upset because this wiz the bonny servant lassie he’d hoped tae see fin he delivered the curtains tae the big hoose. That nicht the dragoons hid come tae the hoose an teen Daavid an the lassie awa. Her tae an asylum an David tae seven years service in the East India company. The servant lassie hid died in the asylum soon aifter and naebody hid known if she’d died by fair means or foul. Daavid wi nae proof o fit really happened hid been sentenced tae twenty years hard labour or seven years service in the ranks o The Honourable East India Company. He’d chosen the army an ended up dyin on the North West frontier. Mary sobbed as she looked doon at the time worn letter, the only link she noo hid wi her lang lost son. At least the paper and the ink hid came fae the place her bairn hid breathed his last. Mary shivered in the noo freezin room, the last o the fire wiz gone. As the shadas deepened Mary thocht tae hersel she’d licht the last inch o cannle so she could read the letter an await fitiver the future noo hid in store for her. She teen oot the flint ‘n’ fleerish fae her apron pooch for tae licht the cannle but changed her mind. Instead she stood up slowly stiff wi the caal an wupped her threedbare shawl tichter aboot her shooders an made for the door. In the dark shadas o Glen Tanner street she made her wye oot o the toon thinkin tae hersel aa the while as she passed the dimly lit windaes o the folk sittin within maybe laughin as they sat doon tae dine on their simple fare. As she passed one windae she did hear somebody laughin an the fine smell o mutton broth waffted fae the same place as the laughter. Mary made her wye past aa the hooses an headed up the Montcoffer road towards the ruined waasteens o the ancient kirk. She’s find the first o fit she wiz seekin there. By the scam o the full meen she saw the sparse winter branches o the aal aspen tree that grew aside the kirkyard. The aspen is a pagan tree an niver allowed tae growe in a Christian kirkyard. She kneeled afore the pagan tree and asked permission o’t tae tak some fallen branches fae it. Then she crawled roon the tree three times widdershins (anti-clockwise) each time sayin oot loud three names. Aifter she’d peyed her devotions tae the pagan aspen tree she picked up an oxterfae o branches. Thankin the tree Mary turned three times widdershins. Mary’s aunties werena only good wi the needle ‘n’ threed they’d been weel versed in the Black Airts and hid shown Mary some maledictions as well. Mary a deeply religious person hid niver in her life imagined hersel using that knowledge o the Black Airts, until this very day fin the factor hid teen fae her the Holy Bible that hid meant so much tae her. Next Mary made her wye back the road she’d came an wint tae the wee brigg far baith the living an the deed crossed. She struggled throwe fun bushes that tore at her legs and eventually near drappin reached the burn. She entered the freezin water wi a gasp as it came up tae her hochs and walked ablow the arch o the wee brigg. There wisna ony meenlicht here but she’d nae need o’t. Takin her shawl fae her shooders she bent doon an guddled aboot in the water till she got ten waterworn steens each aboot the size o an aipple. Pittin them intae her shawl she wint back up the bank near in a state o collapse. Her clyse were soakin aweet wi the freezin water but o that she peyed nae heed. On the side o the brigg she handled each o the ten steens in turn an threw yin back tae the water. Placing the nine chosen steens back intae her shawl she tied them up intae the mak dee bag. Pickin up the aspen branches on her wye she made the road hame. It wiz much later noo an hardly a licht showed as she passed the hooses. By the time Mary reached her ain door the bitter caal an the days athoot food were beginin tae tell on her. Exhausted she drapped the steens an the aspen branches tae the grun an thankfully sat on the seat she’d left oors afore.. Mary didna ken foo lang she sat there but wi a start she got tae her feet an staggered tae the shawl and teen oot the nine steens. She layed the steens in front o the fire and there turned each steen tae the widdershins nine times at each turn repeatin three names. Neist she teen the aspen branches an laid them oot ontae the caal fire grate then placed the nine stones on tap. Takin the flint ‘n’ fleerish fae her apron pooch she tried wi freezin hands tae garr it spark. It teen a gye few cracks at it afore the oo started tae smolder and blawin it tae flame she put it aneth the aspen and in nae time the green tinged flames were lickin roon the steens. As the aspen burned she said the names o the Laird, the Laird’s son and the factor an cursed them foriver-and-a-day. She keepit this up as she knelt afront the fire until the green flames wint oot. Aifter a while Mary teen the steens oot fae the fire an put them intae her shawl. Ower the next couple o oors Mary walked aboot the parish an ivery noo an then she’d cast awa een o the steens intae a place it wid niver be found. At each cast she cursed the three names and said “This curse will niver be lifted until the nine steens are githered once mair in one place!” Exhausted an freezin Mary made it hame tae her chair. She thocht tae hersef she micht pray for forgiveness for fit she’d jist done but thinkin hersel beyond redemption she jist sat an shivered wi the letter in her hand. How lang she’d been sittin there fin she felt a hand touch her on the richt shooder she didna ken. She slowly looked up and saw Daavd standin there smiling at her the wye he used tae. Mary stood up wi a gasp an teen her lang lost laddie in her bosie an sobbed oot his name ower an ower again while the saat tears ran doon her aal life-worn cheeks. Fin he spoke he sounded exactly the same “Mither I’ve come tae tak ye tae a far better place, nae mair pain Mam life his been far too cruel tae ye!” The room seemed fulled wi murmuring shadas an here an there she got the glimpse o fit she thocht wiz faces. Fin she looked at Daavid again the bonny wee servant lassie wiz at his side an Mary teen her intae her bosie ana.. Sittin doon in her exhaustion Mary sat an sobbed fit tae brak yer hert. Daavid kneeld doon in front o his mither huddin her hand. Mary stroked his face an said “I canna come wi ye ma laddie for I’ve sinned against God by the turnin o the steens.” Daavid smiled an cuddled his Mam sayin “Faa div ye think sent me tae ye? Yer forgiven for ye hinna sinned ava. Fit is gan tae happen tae that three men is comin their wye an they’ll nae be dodgin it.”Daavid leaned ower an picked up something fae the floor an handed it tae her. “Here mither it’s yer beloved bible.” A couple o days later Doctor Webster stood in Mary’s room shakin his heed. He’d already written the cause o death as a mixture o starvation and very low temperatures. Mary sat on her chair wi a bonny smile on her face and a letter in her hand. The doctor teen the letter and read it, unusually for him bein a doctor and used tae seein sichts like this he felt the hot tears rin doon his ain cheeks. At hame he’d a very similar letter tae this yin tellin him o the death o his only child at Bermuda. He’d contracted the fever fae the sojers he wiz treating and hid died. Doctor Webster dichtin his een turned tae see the factor and the undertakers waitin wi the pauper’s coffin. Doctor Webster nearly exploded wi anger an roared “Tak you that abomonation fae oot this hoose an bring tae me the very best coffin ye hiv in stock. This isna a pauper’s funeral! This is tae be the funeral o a devoted mither that died o a broken heart!” He looked doon an murmured “Thirty five years o unimaginable pain quine!” Turnin in anger he said “See tae it she’s layed tae rest wi aa honours and the best stone money can buy as her marker!” He teen one last look at the wee aal wifie shrunken in death but wi a bonny smile on her face an muttered “Though I think she’s awa tae a much better place.” A century ago James Leatham moved from Hull to Turriff and began a serialisation called ‘Twixt Desk and Shelves’ in his magazine The Gateway. This is the first episode, exactly 100 years after it was first published:
Twixt Desk And Shelves I. There’s nothing so funny as folk. First published in The Gateway in July 1916 ‘Come on here! I hinna had a lift this lang time,’ said a strong man, showing a double row of natural ivories. He had come forward out of pure neighbourliness, and as he hoisted his end he spoke as if it were quite a privilege to be allowed to heave at heavy boxes and still heavier machinery. ‘Some grand willing lifters in this part of the country,’ said the Printer to whom all this dunnage belonged; and he smiled encouragement to his strong helpers, as well he might. ‘What was ye deein’ pittin’ a load on the cratur like that?’ protested a cross carter to the goods foreman, who had accompanied the last load. ‘She cam up the brae wi’ ‘er belly nearhnan’ trailin’ on the grun’, ruggin’ at it.’ The foreman, be sure, had his answer ready, and just as surely the others joined in the dispute. Altogether there was some stir and a good deal of curiosity among those who happened to be about as the lorries discharged load after load of this heavy cargo at one or other of the two doors that gave admission to the premises. These consisted of two long sheds which had been occupied by a cycle agent, now called to the colours. Built of wood and concrete, the whole front, practically, consisting of windows, the premises were lined with V boards, which had just got a coat of distemper above the varnish, and the outside was now painted in cheerful green, red, and white. They formed part of a terrace, the other end of which was occupied by a monumental sculptor, whose craft was freely represented in granite tombstones of diverse shapes, sizes and hues, from the ‘Bon-Accord black’ (of Sweden) and dark, spotted Labrador pearl, up to whitest Kemnay. There were ‘In Loving Memories’ in every kind of Gothic, Italic and squab Sans-serif lettering, scattered about the railed-off half of the terrace, in which a crane and a bogey or so competed with them for place. A little glass-cased shed adjoining the road contained a display of wreaths, crosses, and other trappings of woe. But the sculptor was a very hearty man, with a cheerful hail to passers-by in the road below; and to this emporium of the memento mori a further element of cheerfulness was added by the day-long rookity-coo of pigeons. Two pairs of brown-and-white pouters straddled among the obelisks and flew noisily over the urns and crosses. There was, however, a touch of the profession even about the sculptor’s pigeon fancy. Most fantails are white; but the sculptor’s pair were of funereal black. It is one of life’s ironies that people who are content to live under leaky thatch should have a canopy of carved and polished marble or granite over their rotting remains when dead; that the Egyptians, for instance, should have put mountainous pyramids of hewn stone over their wicked and foolish dead Pharaohs, while they themselves festered in mud huts amid swarms of vermin. But the sculptor of St Congans did not give all his granite to the insensate dead. He kept some of it for the appreciative living. His own house was of granite. The polished door-jambs were of many well-blended hues; a miniature battlemented parapet of the polished stone overhung the doorway; a masonic emblem shone from the crown of an arch over the front gate. Another gate which gave entrance to the terrace had its pillars surmounted by two enormous polished balls of the precious stone. So that the dead did not have all the honour and expense. It was, all the same, a cheerful corner, resounding to the noise of vehicular traffic all day, to which on mart days was added the lowing of much bestial and the excited shouting of those that gain a livelihood as propellors of horned beasts. Birds sang loudly in the belt of tall trees that shot up on the other side of the road; and the whistle of trains that passed near by brought an extra sense of the world-stir. The printer’s new premises stood, as so far indicated, on a terrace raised up and railed off from the road, their elevation placing them well in view of all men. They were lean-to sheds built against a high bank; and the passers-by grinned when the read the undernoted announcement, printed in bold red letters on a white screen that ran across the lower portion of one of the wide windows, which was divided into four compartments by matter-of-fact mullions of painted wood: The St Congans Press. Henry Haldane. Printer and Bookseller. Office of the Pelican They grinned, and he grinned also, but on the wrong side of his face. The state of popular enlightenment was apparently on all fours here with that of the English country town he had just left. This was a matter of no direct importance to a butcher or baker, since the ignorant had their animal needs as well as the enlightened, whereas it was with the noblest part of man that a bookseller made his account. In his own native city there were ‘Presses’ galore; but these people had evidently never noted the signs or imprints of the printers who called their establishments the Caxton, Bon-Accord, St Nicholas, Adelphi, or Rosemount Press. With the perverted menatality of those who do not see the humorous when it is there, they saw only an occasion of smiling where the absurdity existed only in their own minds. They were amused apparently at the idea of a Press being established in a town of less than three thousand inhabitants. They doubtless overlooked the fact that in a smaller town lower down the railway a printer had been established for years. Nay, he could have told them of a very considerable printer which for two generations had sent out chapbooks that were sent all over the north country, and much general printing was also turned out of this office, which was quite in the open country. Those who smiled were thinking of the word ‘Press’ solely as applied to newspapers; and they were amused, doubtless, at the idea of a newspaper being produced in two lean- to sheds in a little country town. The printer was annoyed to think that Scotsmen, even in the country, did not know that newspapers formed only one branch of that great civilising agency the Press. Anyhow, the sheds were long and lofty and well lit, and had he felt any inclination towards the production of the ephemeral journalism of new potatoes, large gooseberries, and small presentations, there was room and to spare for even that. As it was, the part of his stock by which he set most store lay in rough parcels closely packed along four shelves that ran the whole length of the larger shed of the two. These parcels consisted of his own publications. Some of these had gone through edition after edition, selling away steadily year after year. There was always something just out of print and calling for reproduction. At one period he had set up a press at a farmstead, and, with the whole household assisting, he could scarce keep pace with the demand. His acquaintances sometimes remonstrated with him for wasting his time at what they were pleased to call the mechanical business of printing. In widely varying forms of appeal, they represented that he ought to give all his time to writing; that many men with less ability were making thousands a year by their pen; and that (this was the only disinterested line taken) his facility as a writer was a great trust and responsibility which he had no moral right to bury in a country printing shop; that his writings, properly marketed by a regular London publisher, would sell ten times as well, and he could produce ten times as much of his own proper work. And so on. To all this his usual reply was that he liked to work with his hands; that he grew fat and soft sitting at a desk; that the years he had given to weekly journalism did not justify a continuance in sedentary work; that if William Morris cared to dye wool and weave tapestry; if Tolstoy wanted to make boots; and if Sir Walter stuck to his dry legal work through all his literary success, surely he, a much smaller man than those giants, might be content to do work which was endlessly varied and not at all dry in itself. There might be some doubt about the value of anybody’s writing – the writing of even the front rankers – but the man who made boots or dye woollens or printed handbills was meeting the test of everyday utility. He was in his vocation whoever might be out of it. And so here he was today, helping the lorryman with the parts and packages, doing comparatively little damage to a new grey suit, and at the end of each bout of lifting, drawing the corks of the bottles of beer and stout with which the helpers were regaled. The strong man with the big teeth took his bottle and glass shamefacedly, as if he would rather not have it supposed that he had had any such recompense in view when he came to lend a hand. The fact seemed to be that all were genuinely interested in the new enterprise. They listened eagerly and asked questions as the machinery was lifted into the approximate places where it was to be erected. The printer thought this natural enough. He remembered his own wonder as a boy as to how printing could be done in all its uniformity and beautiful exactitude. There were still arts and processes about which he was not too old to be curious. He would, for instance, like to know much more about zincography, the moulding of architraves, the hammering of copper, silver point engraving, and many other processes about which he had not had favourable chances of learning. Early Callers. The cycle maker’s sign had been painted out, his own emblazoned screen was prominent enough, and the whole appearance of the building seemed to him altered; but for weeks he had slow-spoken callers who were loth to accept the new regime. ‘Could you men’ a burs’en tyre?’ said a lass one day in a hopeless tone which indicated in advance that she knew what the answer must be. ‘Oh, you’ll easily get your tyre mended, ma’am’ said the new tenant, smiling. ‘There are two cycle agents in the High Street alone. This, as you will see, is a printing office and bookseller’s shop.’ She did not go. More time was evidently required for the new order of things to soak into her mind. An absurd old rhyme came into his head as she stood, and as he hated to talk about the weather, he said, ‘Your question, reminds me of an old strowd. I wonder if you know it. ‘Hae ye ony men aboot yer toon, Hay ye ony men ava, Hae ye ony men aboot yer toon ‘At could mend a broken wa’? Ring a riddle nickadarie, Ring a riddle nicadkee. Do you know it?’ She went off as if she were insulted by the question. ‘Eyh?’ A previous tenant of the place called in one day, displaying a very offhand manner. Strolling in, he immediately asked, ‘What are you going to do here?’ Printer: It is the business of a printer to print, and the business of a bookseller to sell books. I am a printer and bookseller. Casual caller: Who are you going to print for? Printer: There must be lots of printing to do in a complete town of over 1000 population, with three churches, three lawyers, three chemists, a higher grade school, a provost, a town council, a school board, gasworks, a parish council, and a score or two of shops. But I may have all the world for my market if it comes to that. Casual Caller: Eyh? The printer took no notice of this rude interjection. He remembered as a boy having seen a captain of militia give a man a sounding welt on the face for just such a form of address, and he (the onlooker) had been thoroughly startled and impressed by the well-deserved chastisement. He had forgotten that this kind of rudeness was rather distinctively Scottish (though he suspected it was Colonial as well), and he did not like being reminded of it now. The abstract countryman was perfect, but the concrete one was often not a little of a boor, who behaved as if the word ‘Sir’ or any other courtesy would blister his mouth. Some of the most dexterously courteous and tactful people he had known belonged to the shire in which he now stood. He had known one man – a retired draper – who had always addressed his gardener as ‘Mister Adams’ and his whole demeanour was in keeping. Rochester’s celebrated poem on ‘Nothing’ enumerated Scots courtesy among the painfully non-existent things; but the printer had always resented the imputation. Yet – after all, here was the thing showing up, undeniable, and very objectionable. If a person spoke distinctly, within hearing range, and there were no noises to drown the sound, then the person who failed to hear might be deaf, but was more probably just wool gathering. In speaking to a deaf person one raised one’s voice, and got the pitch sooner or later. So if it was wool-gathering the apologetic ‘Sir’ or ‘I beg your pardon’ was only courteous. By ‘Eyh?’ was something of a local institution apparently. He had been working indoors one evening while a painter and a neighbour worked outside. When one made a remark the other never failed to say ‘Eyh?’ At the other end of the building and with a wall between him and them, the listener heard the first remark; but the two men working side by side never seemed to hear it. The result was that the one person who was not engaged in the conversation had to hear it all twice over. Thus:- Painter: They say he’s left five thoosan’’ Stonecutter: Eyh? Painter: They say he’s left five thoosan’ Stonecutter: Oh he’ll hae left the dooble o’ that. Painter: Eyh? Stonecutter: He’ll hae left the dooble o’ that. That kind of thing kept up for half an hour rather tends to get upon one’s nerves. In his wage-earning days the printer remembered that if an office man failed to catch a remark twice running, he would be sharply requested to ‘wake up’ or ‘take the wax out of your ears.’ But, other men other manners, evidently. He had known men say ‘Eyh’ at every remark who would answer you presently without having the remark repeated, if you just waited; which showed that it was not a case of failing to hear, but simply an objectionable mannerism arising from a kind of mental laziness, or a contemptuous disregard for your company. However, these were spots on the sun. Every place had its drawbacks. As he looked across at the belt of woodland on the other side of the road, with the green fields showing beyond it, while the birds warbled their cheeriest, he felt there were compensations here at any rate. To find more episodes of 'Twixt Desk and Shelves' oinline the first 10 episodes are being serialised online at McStorytellers (episode 2 HERE)
‘Rise, Robin, rise ! The partans are on the Sands!’ The crying at our little window raised me out of a sound sleep, for I had been out seeing the Myreside lasses late the night before, and was far from being wake-rife at two by the clock on a February morning. It was the first time the summons had come to me, for I was then but young. Hitherto it was my brother John who had answered the raising word of the free-traders spoken at the window. But now John had a farm-steading of his own, thanks to Sir William Maxwell and to my father's siller that had paid for the stock. So with all speed I did my clothes upon me, with much eagerness and a beating heart, — as who would not, when, for the first time, he has the privilege of man ? As I went out to the barn I could hear my mother (with whom I was ever a favourite) praying for me. 'Save the laddie — save the laddie!' she said over and over. And I think my father prayed too; but, as I went, he also cried to me counsels. 'Be sure you keep up the grappling chains— dinna let them clatter till ye hae the stuff weel up the hill. The Lord keep ye! Be a guid lad an' ride honestly. Gin ye see Sir William, keep your head doon, an' gae by withoot lookin'. He 's a magistrate, ye ken. But he’ll no' see you, gin ye dinna see him. Leave twa ankers a-piece o' brandy an' rum at our ain dyke back. An' abune a', the Lord be wi' ye, an' bring ye safe back to your sorrowing parents!' So, with pride, I did the harness graith upon the sonsy back of Brown Bess, — the pad before where I was to sit, — the lingtow and the hooked chains behind. I had a cutlass, a jockteleg (or smuggler's sheaf - knife), and a pair of brass-mounted pistols ready swung in my leathern belt. Faith, but I wish Bell of the Mains could have seen me then, ready to ride forth with the light- horsemen. She would never scorn me more for a lingle-backed callant, I'se warrant. ‘Haste ye, Robin! Heard ye no' that the partans are on the sands ' It was Geordie of the Clone who cried to me. He meant the free-traders from the Isle, rolling the barrels ashore. 'I am e'en as ready as ye are yoursel' ! ' I gave him answer, for I was not going to let him boast himself prideful all, because he had ridden out with them once or twice before. Besides, his horse and accoutrement were not one half so good as mine. For my father was an honest and well-considered man, and in good standing with the laird and the minister, so that he could afford to do things handsomely. We made haste to ride along the heuchs, which are very high, steep, and rocky at this part of the coast. And at every loaning-end we heard the clinking of the smugglers chains, and I thought the sound a livening and a merry one. 'A fair guid-e'en and a full tide, young Airyolan!' cried one to me as we came by Kiilantrae. And I own the name was sweet to my ears. For it was the custom to call men by the names of their farms, and Airyolan was my father's name by rights. But mine for that night, because in my hands was the honour of the house. Ere we got down to the Clone we could hear, all about in the darkness, athwart and athwart, the clattering of chains, the stir of many horses, and the voices of men. Black Taggart was in with his lugger, the ' Sea Pyet,' and such a cargo as the Clone men had never run, — so ran the talk on every side. There was not a sleeping wife nor yet a man left indoors in all the parish of Mochrum, except only the laird and the minister. By the time that we got down by the shore, there was quite a company of the Men of the Fells, as the shore men called us, — all dour, swack, determined fellows. ‘Here come the hill nowt!' said one of the village men, as he caught sight of us. I knew him for a limber-tongued, ill-livered loon from the Port, so. I delivered him a blow fair and solid between the eyes, and he dropped without a gurgle. This was to learn him how to speak to innocent harmless strangers. Then there was a turmoil indeed to speak about, for all the men of the laigh shore crowded round us, and knives were drawn. But I cried, *’Corwald, Mochrum, Chippermore, here to me ! ' And all the stout lads came about me. Nevertheless, it looked black for a moment, as the shore men waved their torches in our faces, and yelled fiercely at us to put us down by fear. Then a tall young man on a horse rode straight at the crowd which had gathered about the loon I had felled. He had a mask over his face which sometimes slipped awry. But, in spite of the disguise, he seemed perfectly well known to all there. 'What have we here ? ' he asked, in a voice of questioning that had also the power of command in it. ' 'T is these Men of the Fells that have stricken down Jock Webster of the Port, Maister William ! ' said one of the crowd. Then I knew the laird's son, and did my duty to him, telling him of my provocation, and how I had only given the rascal strength of arm. ' And right well you did,' said Maister William, ' for these dogs would swatter in the good brandy, but never help to carry it to the caves, nor bring the well-graithed horses to the shore-side! Carry the loon away, and stap him into a heather hole till he come to.' So that was all the comfort they got for their tale-telling. ‘And you, young Airyolan,’ said Maister William, 'that are so ready with your strength of arm, — there is even a job that you may do. Muckle Jock, the Preventive man, rides to-night from Isle of Whithorn, where he has been warning the revenue cutter. Do you meet him and keep him from doing himself an injury.' 'And where shall I meet him, Maister William?' I asked of the young laird. ‘Oh, somewhere on the heuch-taps,' said he, carelessly ; ' and see, swing these on your horse and leave them at Myrtoun on the by-going.' He called a man with a torch, who came and stood over me, while I laid on Brown Bess a pair of small casks of some fine liqueur, of which more than ordinary care was to be taken, and also a few packages of soft goods, silks and lace as I deemed. ' Take these to the Loch Yett, and ca' Sandy Fergus to stow them for ye. Syne do your work with the Exciseman as he comes hame. Gar him bide where he is till the sun be at its highest to-morrow. And a double share o' the plunder shall be lyin' in the hole at a back of the dyke at Airyolan when ye ride hame the morn at e'en.' So I bade him a good-night, and rode my ways over the fields, and across many burns to Myrtoun. As I went I looked back, and there, below me, was a strange sight, — all the little harbour of the Clone lighted up, a hurrying of men down to the shore, the flickering of torches, and the lappering of the sea making a stir of gallant life that set the blood leaping along the veins. It was, indeed, I thought, worth while living to be a free-trader. Far out, I could see the dark spars of the lugger ' Sea Pyet,' and hear the casks and ankers dumping into the boats alongside. Then I began to bethink me that I had a more desperate ploy than any of them that were down there, for they were many, and I was but one. Moreover, easily, as young Master William might say, ‘Meet Muckle Jock, and keep him till the morn at noon ! ' the matter was not so easy as supping one's porridge. Now, I had never seen the Exciseman, but my brother had played at the cudgels with Jock before this. So I knew more of him than to suppose that he would bide for the bidding of one man when in the way of his duty. But when the young laird went away he slipped me a small, heavy packet. 'Half for you and half for the gauger, gin he hears reason,' he said. By the weight and the jingle I judged it to be yellow Geordies, the best thing that the wee, wee German lairdie ever sent to Tory Mochrum, And not too plenty there, either! Though since the Clone folk did so well with the clean-run smuggling from the blessed Isle of Man, it is true that there are more of the Geordies than there used to be. So I rode round by the back of the White Loch, for Sir William had a habit of daunering, over by the Airlour and Barsalloch, and in my present ride I had no desire to meet with him. Yet, as fate would have it, I was not to win clear that night. I had not ridden more than half-way round the loch when Brown Bess went floundering into a moss-hole, which are indeed more plenty than paved roads in that quarter. And what with the weight of the pack, and her struggling, we threatened to go down altogether. When I thought of what my father would say, if I went home with my finger in my mouth, and neither Brown Bess nor yet a penny's-worth to be the value of her, I was fairly a-sweat with fear. I cried aloud for help, for there were cot-houses near by. And, as I had hoped, in a little a man came out of the shadows of the willow bushes. ‘What want ye, yochel?' said he, in a mightily lofty tone. ‘I’ll yochel ye, gin I had time. Pu' on that rope,' I said, for my spirit was disturbed by the accident. Also, as I have said, I took ill-talk from no man. So, with a little laugh, the man laid hold of the rope, and pulled his best, while I took off what of the packages I could reach, ever keeping my own feet moving, to clear the sticky glaur of the bog-hole from them. ‘Tak' that hook out, and ease doon the cask, man! ' I cried to him, for I was in desperation; 'I'll gie ye a heartsome gill, even though the stuff be Sir William's ! ' And the man laughed again, being, as I judged, well enough pleased. For all that service yet was I not pleased to be called 'yochel.' But, in the meantime, I saw not how, at the moment, I could begin to cuff and clout one that was helping my horse and stuff out of a bog-hole. Yet I resolved somehow to be even with him, for, though a peaceable man, I never could abide the calling of ill names. 'Whither gang ye ? ' said he. 'To the Muckle Hoose o' Myrtoun,' said I, 'and gang you wi' me, my man; and gie me a hand doon wi' the stuff, for I hae nae stomach for mair warsling in bog-holes. And wha kens but that auld thrawn Turk, Sir William, may happen on us?' 'Ken ye Sir William Maxwell?' said the man. ' Na,' said I. ' I never so muckle as set e'en on the auld wretch. But I had sax hard days' wark cutting doon bushes, and makin' a road for his daftlike carriage wi' wheels, for him to ride in to Mochrum Kirk' 'Saw ye him never there?' said the man, as I strapped the packages on again. ' Na,' said I, ' my faither is a Cameronian, and gangs to nae Kirk hereaboots.' ‘ He has gi'en his son a bonny upbringing, then! ' quoth the man. Now this made me mainly angry, for I cannot bide that folk should meddle with my folk. Though as far as I am concerned myself I am a peaceable man. 'Hear ye,' said I, ' I ken na wha ye are that speers so mony questions. Ye may be the de'il himsel', or ye may be the enemy o' Mochrum, the blackavised Commodore frae Glasserton. But, I can warrant ye that ye’ll no mell and claw unyeuked with Robin o' Airyolan. Hear ye that, my man, and keep a civil tongue within your ill lookin' cheek, gin ye want to gang hame in the morning wi' an uncracked croun ! ' The man said no more, and by his gait I judged him to be some serving man. For, as far as the light served me, he was not so well put on as myself. Yet there was a kind of neatness about the creature that showed him to be no outdoor man either. However, he accompanied me willingly enough till we came to the Muckle House of Myrtoun. For I think that he was feared of his head at my words. And indeed it would not have taken the kittling of a flea to have garred me draw a staff over his crown. For there is nothing that angers a Galloway man more than an ignorant, upsetting town's body, putting in his gab when he desires to live peaceable. So, when we came to the back entrance, I said to him ; ' Hear ye to this. Ye are to make no noise, my mannie, but gie me a lift doon wi' thae barrels cannily. For that dour old tod, the laird, is to ken naething aboot this. Only Miss Peggy and Maister William, they ken. 'Deed, it was young William himsel' that sent me on this errand.' So with that the mannie gave a kind of laugh, and helped me down with the ankers far better than I could have expected. We rolled them into a shed at the back of the stables, and covered them up snug with some straw and some old heather thatching. ‘Ay, my lad,' says I to him, ‘for a' your douce speech and fair words I can see that ye hae been at this job afore! ' ‘Well, it is true,' he said, ' that I hae rolled a barrel or two in my time.' Then, in the waft of an eye I knew who he was. I set him down for Muckle Jock, the Excise officer, that had never gone to the Glasserton at all, but had been lurking there in the moss, waiting to deceive honest men. I knew that I needed to be wary with him, for he was, as I had heard, a sturdy carl, and had won the last throw at the Stoneykirk wrestling. But all the men of the Fellside have an excellent opinion of themselves, and I thought I was good for any man of the size of this one. So said I to him : ‘Noo, chiel, ye ken we are no' juist carryin' barrels o' spring water at this time o' nicht to pleasure King George. Hearken ye : we are in danger of being laid by the heels in the jail of Wigton gin the black lawyer corbies get us. Noo, there's a Preventive man that is crawling and spying ower by on the heights o' Physgill. Ye maun e'en come wi' me an' help to keep him oot o' hairm's way. For it wad not be for his guid that he should gang doon to the port this nicht! ' The man that I took to be the gauger hummed and hawed a while, till I had enough of his talk and unstable ways. 'No back-and-forrit ways wi' Robin,' said I. 'Will ye come and help to catch the King's officer, or will ye not?' 'No' a foot will I go,' says he. 'I have been a King's officer, myself ! ' Whereupon I laid a pistol to his ear, for I was in some heat. 'Gin you war King Geordie himsel', aye, or Cumberland either, ye shall come wi' me and help to catch the gauger,' said I. For I bethought me that it would be a bonny ploy, and one long to be talked about in these parts, thus to lay by the heels the Exciseman and make him tramp to Glasserton to kidnap himself. The man with the bandy legs was taking a while to consider, so I said to him : ‘She is a guid pistol and new primed ! ' ‘I’ll come wi' ye!' said he. So I set him first on the road, and left my horse in the stables of Myrtoun. It was the gloam of the morning when we got to the turn of the path by which, if he were to come at all, the new ganger would ride from Glasserton. And lo ! as if we had set a tryst, there he was coming over the heathery braes at a brisk trot. So I covered him with my pistol, and took his horse by the reins, thinking no more of the other man I had taken for the gauger before. 'Dismount, my lad,' I said. ‘Ye dinna ken me, but I ken you. Come here, my brisk landlouper, and help to haud him!' I saw the stranger who had come with me sneaking off, but with my other pistol I brought him to a stand. So together we got the gauger into a little thicket or planting. And here, willing or unwilling, we kept him all day, till we were sure that the stuff would all be run, and the long trains of honest smugglers on good horses far on their way to the towns of the north. Then very conscientiously I counted out the half of the tale of golden guineas Master William had given me, and put them into the pocket of the gauger's coat. 'Gin ye are a good, still-tongued kind of cattle, there is more of that kind of yellow oats where these came from,' said I. 'But lie ye here snug as a paltrick for an hour yet by the clock, lest even yet ye should come to harm !' So there we left him, not very sorely angered, for all he had posed as so efficient and zealous a King's officer. ' Now,' said I to the man that had helped me, ' I promised ye half o' Maister William's guineas, that he bade me keep, for I allow that it micht hae been a different job but for your help. And here they are. Ye shall never say that Robin of Airyolan roguit ony man, — even a feckless toon's birkie wi' bandy legs ! ' The man laughed and took the siller, saying, ‘Thank'ee!' with an arrogant air as if he handled bags of them every day. But, nevertheless, he took them, and I parted from him, wishing him well, which was more than he did to me. But I know how to use civility upon occasion. When I reached home I told my father, and described the man I had met. But he could make no guess at him. Nor had I any myself till the next rent day, when my father, having a lame leg where the colt had kicked him, sent me down to pay the owing. The factor I knew well, but I had my money in hand and little I cared for him. But what was my astonishment to find, sitting at the table with him, the very same man who had helped me to lay the Exciseman by the heels. But now, I thought, there was a strangely different air about him. And what astonished me more, it was this man, and not the factor, who spoke first to me. 'Aye, young Robin of Airyolan, and are you here ? Ye are a chiel with birr and smeddum ! There are the bones of a man in ye! Hae ye settled with the gauger for shackling him by the hill of Physgill?' Now, as I have said, I thole snash from no man, and I gave him the word back sharply. 'Hae ye settled wi' him yoursel', sir ? For it was you that tied the tow rope!' My adversary laughed, and looked not at all ill-pleased. He pointed to the five gold Georges on the tables. 'Hark ye, Robin of Airyolan, these are the five guineas ye gied to me like an honest man. I’ll forgie ye for layin' the pistol to my lug, for after all ye are some credit to the land that fed ye. Gin ye promise to wed a decent lass, I’ll e'en gie ye a farm o' your ain. And as sure as my name is Sir William Maxwell, ye shall sit your lifetime rent free, for the de'il's errand that ye took me on the nicht of the brandy-running at the Clone.' I could have sunken through the floor when I heard that it was Sir William himself, — whom, because he had so recently returned from foreign parts after a sojourn of many years, I had never before seen. Then both the factor and the laird laughed heartily at my discomfiture. ‘Ken ye o' ony lass that wad tak' up wi' ye, Robin?' said Sir William. ‘Half a dozen o' them, my lord,' said I. ‘Lassies are neither ill to seek nor hard to find when Robin of Airyolan gangs a- coortin'!' ‘Losh preserve us ! ' cried the laird, slapping his thigh, ‘but I mysel' never sallied forth to woo a lass so blithely confident!’ I said nothing, but dusted my kneebreeks. For the laird was no very good looking man, being grey as a badger. ‘An' mind ye maun see to it that the bairns are a' loons, and as staunch and stark as yoursel' ! ' said the factor. ‘A man can but do his best,' answered I, very modestly as I thought. For I never can tell why it is that the folk will always say that I have a good opinion of myself. But neither, on the other hand, can I tell why I should not. This was first published in the collection ‘Tales of Our Coast’ in 1896 along with stories by Harold Frederic , Arthur Quiller-Couch , Gilbert Parker and William Clark Russell.
THE PATRIOT GAME
BY BRENDAN GISBY It is 1961, forty years after the end of Ireland’s War of Independence. In a village in the north of County Longford, Eire, an elderly man recalls the part he played in that War. Come all ye young rebels, and list while I sing, For the love of one's country is a terrible thing. It banishes fear with the speed of a flame, And it makes us all part of the patriot game. Dominic Behan, The Patriot Game I see that fella Dominic Behan has written a new song. You know the fella I mean. Brother of Brendan Behan, the playwright. Likes the drink, does Brendan, so I hear. A bit like me, I suppose, except I’m not the toast of New York City these days. Not that I’ve ever been the toast of anywhere, of course – not even here in Moyne, my own village, despite what I did for my country, despite what I went through for dear ould Ireland. Anyway, that song by the brother, Dominic. I’m just after hearing it being sung down at McCloskey’s. Brought a tear to my eye, so it did. And brought back all those memories from the War – not that the memories are ever far away, mind you. Aye, it’s a grand song. The Patriot Game, it’s called. Apparently, it’s about the young fella who was killed during that IRA raid across the Border a few years back, the New Year’s Day raid on the RUC barracks up in Fermanagh. ’57, I think it was. There’s already been a song written about the raid, Seán South of Garryowen. You’re bound to know it. It’s sung in all the pubs. Now, what was the name of the young fella again? O’Hanlon, that’s it. Fergal O’Hanlon. Aye, it’s in the song: My name is O'Hanlon, and I've just turned sixteen. I joined the IRA when I was about the same age, but that was more than forty years before young Fergal did – and of course I didn’t get myself killed. It might have been better if I had, you know, if the Tans had taken me out the back of that gaol and shot me, like they did the others. It would have saved me and a load of other people a lot of trouble… Ach, but that’s just stupid talk. One Bushmill too many at McCloskey’s, making me feel sorry for myself again. Of course it wouldn’t have been better if the Tans had shot me. Where would all my beautiful children have come from, eh? And grandchildren now, I believe. Grandchildren I’ll probably never see. I’m sixty-one now and very ill. That operation in Dublin a few years ago was meant to fix the problem, but I think it’s done for me. I doubt if I’ll live long enough to celebrate my next birthday. I shouldn’t be dwelling on all that, though. It’s the song I was talking about, The Patriot Game. Sure ’n’ it took me right back to the day I joined. It was 1917, the year after the Rising. I was seventeen, and a smaller, skinnier and more gangling boy you couldn’t have come across. After what they did to the leaders of the Rising, the whole country was on fire. And the fire burned brightest among us young lads. We all wanted to fight for the cause. You know, when the Rising took place, most of Ireland, and particularly the Dublin folk, thought it was a nuisance, the work of some lunatics that would be put down quickly. And that would have been that, the whole incident forgotten about after a few years. But, no, with their usual arrogance the Brits decided to execute the leaders – to teach us all a lesson, they said. And what a fuckin’ botch they made of it. The story was that yon sick, ould man Tom Clarke was shaking in agony after surviving the firing squad and that an officer had to put a bullet in his head to finish the job. And what about Connolly, eh? He was already at death’s door and also in agony from his wounds. He couldn’t stand, so they strapped him to a fuckin’ chair before they executed him. It was just like in Behan’s song: They told me how Connolly was shot in his chair, his wounds from the fighting all bloody and bare. Aye, a total botch it was. What was it Yeats wrote in his poem? A terrible beauty is born. Those executions were what made me want to fight. Forty years later, I’ve no doubt those same stupid actions by the Brits were what inspired young Fergal O’Hanlon to join the IRA. A terrible beauty, for sure. Anyway, back to that day I went to see Seamus Brady, the Commanding Officer of the 5th Battalion. He looks me up and down with those cold grey eyes of his before saying, “And how is a skinny runt of a farm-boy like you goin’ to be of any help to us in the struggle? Fuck, never mind the Brits, the first strong wind that got up would blow you over.” I have to admit I was trembling with nerves and stumbling over my words, but Jim McNamee, our neighbour and a second-lieutenant by that time, put in a good word for me. “It’s all right, Seamus,” he says, “I’ll vouch for young Pat here. I know his father Hugh well and his uncle Patrick. They’re both good men, loyal to the cause. And this skeleton of a boy might bend with the wind, but he has some special qualities. He’s a genius with his hands. Sure ’n’ he built that motorcycle of his with his own hands. And he knows about guns, all types of guns.” Well, Brady looked at me with fresh eyes after that. It was the motorcycle that did it, I think. Up here in North Longford, they needed riders who could move quickly round the countryside, delivering messages and the like between the different Companies. And they needed men who knew the countryside like the backs of their hands. Sure ’n’ didn’t I know every inch of the Three Corners – every inch of the country where County Longford meets County Leitrim and County Cavan? “All right, you’re in,” says Brady. “But don’t you be letting me down, you hear?” That was it. I was now in the Irish Republican Army. I was a member of what became known as Moyne Company, 5th Battalion, Longford. And so began my glory years with the bold fighting men. Part Two – On Active Service When I look back now, I think the years between me joining the IRA in ’17 and the Truce in ’21 were probably the best years of my life. Everything since those years has been a blur. It’s been like a life without a purpose, a wasted life. Ach, for Jesus’ sake, will you listen to me now, all maudlin again? Anyway, ’17 to ’21. Those were exciting and dangerous times, for sure. Young as I was, I was a part of it, a part of the struggle, with my own role to play. And the details of that role are very clear to me, even forty years later. That’s mostly because not so long ago I had to remember all the details and write them down. Bear with me and I’ll explain why. About a half-dozen years back, I was in a pretty poor way. I was well into my fifties and doing the odd labouring job here and there to keep me in food – and drink, of course. Then one day I found that I couldn’t labour any more. My ould body was past it. Which meant that I had no money coming in at all. Now, the boys down at McCloskey’s kept saying to me that I should be applying for one of those Military Service Pensions on account of my IRA service during the Black and Tan War. Well, you know me: I can’t abide authority – even if it is our own Irish boys running the authority – and I can’t be doing with paperwork, so naturally I didn’t do anything about it. But by that time I had no choice in the matter and I went ahead and applied. Jeez, though, what a rigmarole that was. Apart from having to put down every detail in the application form, I had to go and ask some of the senior men I served with to testify on my behalf. The whole thing took years, but I got the pension in the end – and a medal into the bargain. Not that it’s of much use to man nor beast, but the medal is around here somewhere – a medal with bar for rendering active service during the period of the War. Aye, for rendering active service. Continuous active service, it was. You know, for the best part of four years I was on duty during every single military operation by our Company. That fact only hit home to me after I had filled the form in. And that form. Well, for each of the four years it wanted to know things like the Districts I operated in and who the commanding officer was in each District. Then it asked for actual particulars of the military operations I took part in and the services I provided each time. Those “services” were manifold, I can tell you, so much so that I was after writing “other duties too numerous to mention” all over the form. It also only struck me afterwards about the sheer amount of work I did during those four years. It wasn’t like that to begin with, of course, when the Army network was still being put together. In that first year or so, my principal duty was as a rider, a messenger. Aye, me and my motorcycle travelling all over the Three Counties at all hours, delivering messages from Company to Brigade HQ and from Company to Company. That was how I met the Commander-in-chief, the great man himself, Michael Collins. Mick was up in this neck of the woods a lot in the early years, helping to organise things. Most of the time, he stayed at the Longford Arms down in Granard. I took many messages to him and delivered as many for him, and we became good friends. He used to say to me, “Your my right-hand man up here, Pat, you know.” But I knew that wasn’t the case. It was only Mick’s way of encouraging us young fellas. Now, a lot of people – not just the Brits and Ulstermen; that Anti-Treaty crowd as well – they used to call The Big Fella a thug and a murderer. But I swear to you a kinder and more gentle giant you couldn’t hope to meet. As for being a murderer, I don’t think he ever killed anybody or even shot a gun in anger. Then the Republican morons had to go and murder him in an ambush down in Cork in ’22, the greatest leader of a free Ireland that ever drew breath. And what did we get in his place, eh? De Valera. The Long Fella, all right. The long streak of putrid shite that we call our noble President… But, sure, I’m getting ahead of myself there. I was talking about my duties during the War. After a while, it wasn’t just my motorcycle the Company wanted. There was also the business of the guns. As Jim McNamee said on my first day, “He knows about guns, all types of guns.” And so I did – how to fire them, maintain them, keep them clean and repair them. Sure ’n’ what lad from a smallholding out here in the country didn’t know about guns back then? Not if he wanted to put food in the family’s larder with a bit of hunting and poaching. Next thing I’m being asked to repair some guns. Then it’s to clean some others and hide them. In no time at all, I’m in charge of storing and maintaining the Company’s whole arsenal of guns and ammunition and explosives. Not only that, but I’ve become the official arms instructor – and not just for Moyne Company; for Dromard Company as well. Sure ’n’ by the time I turn twenty, I’m holding the rank of lieutenant colonel. And on top of all that I’m the rider for both Companies, delivering messages all over the place. So you’ll see what I mean now when I said I was on duty for every military operation. I had to be. It was my job to issue the guns and explosives for each engagement. And to collect them afterwards. I also needed to be there to collect and store any guns that were captured. It was exhausting work, I can tell you. But it was all worth it. Up here in the Three Corners, it seemed like we were winning the War. I was there in ’20 when the 5th Battalion captured the Barracks at Arva just up the road in County Cavan. And it was only months later a few miles south of here when the bold boys of the North Longford Flying Column drove the British Army out of Ballinalee and stopped the bastards from burning down the village. Three hundred IRA men up against a force of nine hundred soldiers. What a momentous victory that was! Now, I don’t know if I had grown too cocky by then or if I was just plain tired and wanted to get home, but one night in the Spring of ’21, I slipped up badly. I was on my way to one of my arms caches to return some guns that had been used in an engagement earlier in the night. Not thinking properly, I decided against riding along one of the back lanes and took the main road instead, which was quicker. And of course I ran straight into a bunch of Auxiliaries in an armoured car, with a truckload of Black and Tans in tow. I was done for. Part Three – Betrayal I was well and truly caught. With four rifles and six revolvers bundled up and strapped on the back of my motorcycle, it was red-handed at that. The Auxies and Tans were on their way down to Longford town, and that’s where they took me. The Auxies kept the guns and the Tans put me into the back of their truck. The Tans gave me a few punches and kicks to begin with, but that was all – they must have been ordered to make sure I was still in one piece for my interrogation. Sitting on the floor of the truck at the feet of those brutes, there’s no shame in admitting that I wept – for myself, for what was about to pass. In all my young life, I had never felt so small and frightened and lonely. In Longford, I was taken to the police building, where two of the Tans dragged me down the stairs, threw me headlong into one of the cells and planted another couple of hefty kicks on me. Then they left me there on my own. Nothing happened for a while. Occasionally, I could hear screams coming from the floor above. And twice I heard footsteps out in the corridor – men marching, dragging something, the back door being unlocked, a single shot ringing out. Neither time did the executed man utter a sound – no whimpering or wailing, no plea for mercy. I prayed to God that I would have their courage when it came to my turn. Eventually, the same two Tans returned for me and took me back up the stairs to the interrogation room. All there was in the room was an ould wooden table with a chair at either side of it. I was pushed down into one of the chairs. Then two more men came into the room. One was a gaunt young officer, a stiff upper lip type with one of those pencil moustaches. He looked totally bored, and that’s a fact. The other I can only describe as a thug. He was Scottish – from Glasgow, I think. It was said that Churchill emptied Barlinnie Prison of all the thieves and rapists and murderers when he formed the Black and Tans. And this specimen was surely proof of that. The officer sat down across the table from me. He asked what I imagine were the usual questions – you know, wanting information about me and my comrades in the IRA, all that sort of thing. And, of course, he was after knowing where I was coming from and where I was going to with a bunch of guns in the middle of the night. When all I told him was my name and the name of my village, he sighed, stood up and nodded to the thug. “Have it your own way then, Paddy,” he said to me. Then he dragged his chair over to a corner of the room and lit a cigarette. He sat there smoking during the rest of the proceedings. That’s when the thug took over the interrogation. But using a pair of pliers instead of words. Jesus, though, didn’t he relish his job? Having your fingernails ripped out is not something you ever want to experience. The pain is excruciating. And I don’t mind saying that I squealed like a stuck pig with each nail. After the third one, I felt like I was dying. I wanted to tell them everything. Sure ’n’ wasn’t it the Big Fella himself who told us not to be martyrs if we were captured? “There’s too many of you young lads getting yourselves killed during interrogation,” I remember him saying. “All I would say is not to be stupid about it. Hold out for as long as you can, for sure. But remember your absence will be noticed by the men in your Unit, and they’ll take steps to make sure they’re not captured as well. So when you’ve had enough, go ahead and tell them. Tell them what you know. But try and mix the real information with some made-up stuff. The bastards are confused enough at the best of times; confuse them even more with some false trails. Have the fuckers running about the countryside like blue-arsed flies. But don’t die into the bargain, you hear?” Well, I surprised myself and held out until all the nails on my right hand had gone. But when the thug went for the left hand, that’s when I talked. I did as Mick advised. I gave some real names, but I also threw in the names of a couple of fellas who I knew were dead. It was the same with the guns. I told them the locations of some of my caches, as well as the locations of a couple of caches that didn’t exist. The officer wrote everything down in his little notebook and left the room. And then the thug started on my left hand. You see, it didn’t matter to him. None of it fuckin’ mattered. The sadistic bastard was always going to have his way whatever happened. After it was over, after the thug was finished, the Tans dragged me downstairs and put me back in the cell. I really did want to die then. It wasn’t just the pain, though that was awful enough. It was the shame as well. No matter that Mick had told us to do it, it was the shame of having betrayed the men in my Company. So I lay there in that cell, praying for them to come soon and take me out the back and shoot me like I had heard with the others. But it seemed like days passed and nothing happened. And when they did come, Jesus wept, it was for to release me. Now, I still don’t know to this day why I was released. Maybe it was because the Truce was about to be declared and the Tans had received orders to unload their prisoners. Or maybe they just wanted to cause trouble, making me out to be some kind of traitor. If it was the second reason, it certainly worked in some quarters, I can tell you. But sure ’n’ I’ll come to that in a minute. Anyway, before they finally let me go, the Tans had a little surprise up their sleeves – a sort of parting gift, if you like. A group of them drove me into Moyne. We got out at the start of the village, where they tied a big Union Jack round me. Then they made me march along Main Street, with them following and one of the galoots beating a drum so as to attract everybody’s attention. Aside from the torture, I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since being captured, so I was very weak and I stumbled rather than marched. I fell a couple of times, but a few dunts from their rifle butts on my back and shoulders had me up again soon enough. Then, when we got to the other end of the street, they just left me there, still wrapped in the Union Jack. I was on my knees and crying in front of the whole village. The final humiliation. My mother and father came for me and took me home. And that’s where I stayed hidden away and recovering for weeks, months. By that time, the Truce was in force and the War, for me at least, was over. But only for another one – the Civil War – to start up. That war, with all those people killed in it, was the fault of just one man – that slimy American gobshite De Valera. Aye, him and Churchill – two fuckin’ American gobshites together. I was on Michael Collins’ side, of course, a Free Stater, but I didn’t have the stomach to get involved in the fighting, going up against my own countrymen, many of them good friends from the 5th Battalion. Thankfully, the fighting didn’t last long. The Staters came out on top and Ireland became a free country, but with De Valera as President and not the Big Fella. The fuckin’ irony of it! And the lanky bastard’s still there after all these years, still strangling the life out of Ireland. Anyway, when things settled down after the Civil War, I tried to get on with my life in Moyne. But it was impossible. There were fingers constantly pointing at me. The two men who were murdered back at that gaol in Longford happened to come from the village. It was no coincidence that I had been caught as well. We had all been returning from the same engagement that night. We had all been betrayed. Unfortunately, the families of the two men were convinced I was the traitor. I knew and God knew that the men were captured long before I was, but there was no talking to those people. They just wouldn’t listen. I had to get out of there, so I left to stay with a relative over in Arva. I was twenty-three by then and needed to start my life again. And so I did. It wasn’t long before I met the dark and sultry Kate. Nor was it long before we were married. We had six children – three fine sons and three beautiful, raven-haired daughters. And we had a good life, with me doing a job as a carpenter, working with my hands again. But as the years passed, I became restless. There was something not right, something eating at me. And do you know what it was? It was this country. It seemed that the whole of Ireland – with a lot of help from De Valera, of course – just wanted to forget everything that had happened since the Rising in ’16. Now, I could understand why people would want to erase the Civil War from their memories. But not the War of Independence. Not all the deaths and sacrifices and suffering that were involved. Surely not that. Fuck, it’s only been in recent years that they brought out those pensions and medals for the men who served in the IRA. After all that time, they began to remember the heroes of their country. And there’s even talk of some kind of celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Rising. Ach, but it’s all a bit late for me. I don’t suppose I’ll live long enough to celebrate that anniversary. Anyway, back then I became so depressed about the whole matter that I took to the drink. I stopped working. I neglected my family. And then disaster of all disasters, Kate fell ill. It was more mental than physical, you understand, and probably caused by my drinking. The poor woman was put in a sanatorium. I was incapable of looking after the children, so they were farmed out to other members of the family. As for me, I eventually returned here to Moyne and I’ve been limping along ever since. So that’s my sorry tale, I suppose. Kate’s still in that sanatorium, but I haven’t gone to see her in many a year. And I hardly ever see any of my sons and daughters. Two of the boys are serving in the Army, the legitimate Irish Army – now, isn’t that something to be proud of? Ach, but I don’t blame the children for staying away from me. I was a poor father to them. And a poor husband to Kate. To my credit, though, didn’t I fight for my country’s freedom and didn’t I suffer as a result? Did I mention, by the way, there was no place in that pensions form for me to write down that I was beaten and tortured for Ireland? At the end of the day, I don’t know which was worse. Me betraying my family. Or my country betraying me. What was the line in that Behan fella’s song again? For the love of one's country is a terrible thing. Sure ’n’ I can vouch for that. Patrick died the following year, alone and unmourned. Four years later, his arch-enemy Éamon de Valera presided over Eire’s celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. De Valera went on to live for almost another decade, dying in 1975. They say the Devil always has the last laugh. This was first published as a series of short stories in McStorytellers. For many more stories by Brendan Gisby and other Scottish writers why not check it out www.mcstorytellers.com McStorytellers is ‘the’ Scottish short story website and the great news is it’s free for all!
THE DOOM OF THE GREAT CITY
BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A SURVIVOR WRITTEN A.D. 1942 BY WILLIAM DELISLE HAY "— How can I Repress the horror of my thoughts, which fly The sad remembrance?" Sir J. Denham EPISODE THREE All killed! The words went to my heart like a knife. Can you fancy the very extravagance of dread? It was mine then. Can you imagine the utmost, climax of terror? I knew it at that moment. How I looked, what I said or did, what I thought even, these things I know not. The awful pang had shot into my heart and brain, had benumbed my inmost soul. Fear! It was scarcely such a sense: I had no thought of personal danger, hardly a recollection even of the too possible fate of those dear ones who were more to me than life; the agony that held me then, that has pursued me through sixty years of time to hold me now, was no common sense of fear. It was that overwhelming, all-mastering dread which men alone can know who are on a sudden taught their own immeasurable littleness; who are witnesses of some stupendous event, whose movement shows the hand sublime of Nature, the supremacy of Nature, the supremacy of offended God. Yes, you know now, though I knew not then, the full, extent of that hideous catastrophe: how, like the sudden overflow of Vesuvius upon the town below; like of yore the wings of the angel of death had overshadowed the sleeping hosts of Assyria, or like that yet older tale a world had sunk beneath the waters, so, in like manner, the fog had drawn over midnight London an envelope of murky death, within whose awful fold all that had life had died. Can you understand now the train of reasoning which led your, grandfather to expatiate on all that was vile and wicked in the once-entitled "Modern Babylon"? Do you not see why I rather recall the evil and forget the good? Else were not my grief multiplied a thousand- fold, my anguish of pity more absorbing? And thus reflecting, may I not look up to Heaven still reverencing Just God; still dwelling in earnest faith on the love and mercy of Him Who is the Father of His creatures? Although our knowledge of what had actually taken place was as yet extremely vague and limited, still we were sensible that the "Great City" beyond us lay stupefied, paralysed, to all seeming devoid of life, and that at an hour — it was now approaching noon — when it was usually busiest. This was alone unparalleled and horrifying, and as minute chased minute by and still no news relieved prevailing fears, and still the horrid fever of suspense made things seem darker, so the first consternation spread and deepened until a vast wave of awful, unheard-of terror rushed back from the outskirts of London. By this time every vehicle that could be put in motion was loaded with goods and with women and children, while crowds of people of all stations and sexes were hurrying along the roads which led to the country. Whither, none knew or cared; their only anxiety was to get away beyond the influence of the LONDON FOG, which their magnified panic believed was steadily advancing outward from the town. I cannot think that my own faculties had remained unshaken amid the frenzy of fear that boiled up around me; yet the deep sense of awe that fell upon me seemed to banish all merely personal fears. By-and-by, soon after noon I think, I noticed a sensible alteration in the fog; it became lighter around us, while puffs of wind were now to be felt at short intervals. The line of mansions along the crest of Champion Hill, previously invisible from the lower ground where we were, now came out into view. O was pretty sure that the fog was becoming more tenuous — "lifting," in short. The recollection of my mother and sister came before my mind so strongly that I resolved instantly to make my way to them. I intimated my resolution to the Forresters, my companions. They did not attempt to dissuade me, but the old man wrung my hand and said, "Come back to us, my lad, if — " and he nodded and turned away. Then I passed on my road into London. It was but a step away from the remaining groups of people collected about the railway station and the last houses of East Dulwich, and I was at once alone. My way at first lay up Champion Hill, along a road bordered by fields and gardens belonging to the mansions higher up. .Once these were passed, rows of smaller dwellings lined the road which passed along the crest of the high ground to Denmark Hill, whence the streets were continuous and part of London. As I came down the street that emerged upon Denmark Hill, I began to be dreadfully affected by the fog, that seemed to become worse at every step. It was very thick and dark upon the Camberwell side of the hill., and appeared to have a peculiar irritating pungency which made me cough incessantly, until. I found that by muffling my nose and mouth in my woollen wrapper I was able to endure it better. After a while, either the density of the fog had greatly decreased or my throat became more callous to it, for I was able to breathe without any difficulty. At this time I was still oppressed by a feeling of unutterable awe; which absorbing presence seemed to leave no room for any other sentiment. Added to this there now came over me a terrible sense of loneliness, indescribably horrible indeed in such a situation. I traversed the foggy street, seeing objects but indistinctly at ten yards distance. I saw no living being, no faces at the shrouded windows, no passers by, no children playing in the gardens or the road; not even a sparrow fluttered past to convey to me the sense of companionship. And then the frightful, muffled stillness that seemed to hold me down in a nightmare trance; not a sound of traffic, no rattle of carriages and carts, no scream and rumble of trains, no clamour of children or costermongers, no distant hum of the midday city, no voice or whisper of a wind; not the rustling of a leaf, not the echo of a foot-fall, nothing to break the deathly stillness but the panting of my laboured chest and the beating of my trembling heart. Below the brow of Denmark Hill, in the street leading into Camberwell, I stumbled over something in the path. It was the body of a policeman lying stretched across the pavement. Horrified, I stooped beside him, striving to find a spark of life, but he was cold and dead. There he lay, as he had probably been struck down upon his beat, the face fixed and set, the skin of a mottled bluish cast, some black moisture hanging about the nose and lips and on the beard. It seemed to me the first realization of some horrible dream; I would have shouted for aid, but my voice sank back upon my lips and I dared not cry aloud. Hastily I fled on upon my way. Alas! horror lay thick before me, and thicker yet. As I came out into the open square called Camberwell Green I saw three cabs standing on the rank; the horses had fallen and were lying dead between the shafts, while at a little distance an indistinct mass upon the sidewalk was probably the bodies of the drivers; I ventured not to approach them. I faced the road leading to London Bridge, meaning to take it; some huge object loomed up before me through the fog. Approaching, I found this to be an omnibus; but, O God! did ever man before me witness such a sight? I supposed subsequently that this was some belated car from the Middlesex side of the river, that with its load of passengers had struggled bravely on through the gathering gloom of the preceding night to this point, where it had been overtaken by the death-dealing acceleration of fog. We know from the printed accounts that there was abundant evidence discovered to prove that the crisis occurred at different hours in several localities. This was the object that barred my road, seen indistinctly and weirdly in the misty light, as I suddenly came upon it. Drawn across the roadway, probably by the plunging of the horses in their last suffocative agony, it presented a spectacle more appallingly hideous than the most distempered imagination could easily picture to itself. Ah! I can see it yet, in all the vivid ghastliness that was burnt indelibly into my remembrance. The driver, and those who occupied the front seats, still sat, but not as they sat in life. The attitudes of the corpses showed the sudden agony and spasm of their deaths. The driver hung forward sustained by the belted apron, his clenched hands thrown out before him, and in one he still clutched a portion of his whip that he had broken possibly in the final struggle. On either side of him were other bodies showing too plainly the effects of the convulsion that had overpowered them. One sat still upright, his arms thrown back and grasping at the rail, his head, supported from behind, was erect and left the face in view. Oh, the insupportable horror of that dead man's look! The staring eyes, the gasping mouth, the livid skin, the strained and tortured whole. Below them lay the horses, dead in their harness; above and behind, the roof of the vehicle that had been full-occupied with men, was now loaded with their bodies. One or two had dropped from the top and lay upon the ground below, while one hung head-downwards over the side. I could see the interior of the car where women had chiefly sat. Poor creatures! they had been coming home, perhaps, after their day's work or evening's pleasure, and now I saw them entwined together in a twisted, contorted heap, that made me fancy I could even behold the writhing, the piteous interlacing of hands, the convulsive catching at each other, and hear the choking shrieks and cries for succour that too surely here had made more dreadful the spasm and terror of sudden death. Oh, pitying heaven! For sixty years I have prayed unceasingly that the hideous memories of that awful day might be blotted from my mind. I turned in an excess of horror from that grim load of dead, and rather than pass by it I took another road. So great was the effect of these horrors upon my mind, so terrible was the emotion I experienced, that I pursued my way with difficulty. Sometimes I fell upon my face or upon my knees in a very frenzy of agitation, while my mind kept working in a voiceless prayer to the Supreme. Tottering and shaking in every limb I went on my way, swaying and staggering with the palsy and delirium of abject dread. Scarcely knowing what I did, I followed the tramway rails in the centre of the road, caring little in which direction they led me. But the fog, unmerciful before, had mercy to me then; its loathsome mantle shrouded numberless deadly horrors from my view, and veiled a veritable Valley of the Shadow of Death as I passed through it. Gradually I recovered in some degree from the first intensity of my emotions, and walked on, still. trembling, but calmer. I kept my eyes bent upon the ground, and held along the tramway, not daring to look up in case my eyes might again encounter some fearful spectacle. Often I passed by dark object of whose dismal character I was but too well convinced, though I avoided their inspection.. Several times I saw the body of a man or of a woman lying close to the track. At length I came to a bridge; it was Vauxhall Bridge, and here I lingered for a while, listening to the sound of the waters beneath. The plashing of the river was a friendly sound in my ears, the first sound that had broken the deep stillness of the fog-hound region since I had entered it; it cheered me up in some indescribable way. I passed across the bridge and again took my way onward through the streets of the silent city. Not far from the bridge, upon the Middlesex side, I came upon another awful sign of the impartiality and completeness of the tremendous catastrophe. Close to the edge of the pavement there stood a carriage — one of those elegant and voluptuously-appointed vehicles which the wealthiest people were wont to use. The spot I had now reached was no great distance from the fashionable quarter of London, where every night one might see numbers of such carriages conveying aristocratic parties to and from their residences. It seemed as though this equipage must have missed its way in the obscurity, and been brought to a stand, for one of the gorgeously-liveried flunkeys lay prone beside the door, while his fellow had fallen from his perch behind. The mailman, huddled up upon his seat, appeared as though watching his horses, which lay in a confused heap below him, their smooth and silken coats still handsome beneath the bravery of silver harness. I noticed a coronet upon the, emblazoned panels, and as I looked through the window of this splendid carriage my eye was caught by the glitter of jewellery, the gleam of white skins, and the flash of bright colours. O sad, heartrending spectacle! An elderly lady reclined in a corner, while stretching forward, with arms encircling her as though imploring help, were two fair girls. The piteous agony and terror that distorted those once lovely faces was rendered more fearfully startling by the magnificence of their dress and adornments. Weak and unstrung in nerve as I was, my tears flowed at the sight of these patrician beauties, fresh from the tender frivolities of the Court or the ball-room, lying out here, the victims of that clammy, relentless fog. Again I turned and fled, but not for far, till once more my steps were arrested. And here was a strange and woeful antithesis to the last picture — one of those sights too common to be noticeable in living London, yet how infinitely, solemnly mournful in the city of the dead! Two miserable little bodies in the gutter, two poor little ragged urchins, barefooted, filthy, half-naked outcasts of the stony streets, their meagre limbs cuddled round each other in a last embrace, their poor pinched faces pressed together and upturned to heaven. To them, perhaps, death had been but release from life. What a contrast to the occupants of that carriage, not a stone's-throw off! One common doom, one common sepulchre of gloomy fog, there was for the richest and the poorest, the best and the worst alike. I went hurriedly on, my faculties whirling confusedly with these accumulating shocks. I felt as though I were left alone on earth, and indeed I was the only living creature amid multitudes of dead that but a few hours ago had filled the houses and the streets around me with life. Why had I been left to live when Death had garnered such a mighty harvest? O London! surely, great and manifold as were thy wickednesses, thy crimes, thy faults, who stayed to think of these in the hour of thy awful doom, who dared at that terrible moment to say thy sentence was deserved? And I, a lingering survivor of thy slain, oh, pity that it should have been my task to tell of thy CORRUPTION, to bear witness to thy PUNISHMENT! It was strange that all this while I had not felt any distinct apprehension for my mother and sister. I had not connected them in my mind with the idea of death. I had yearned to be with them when danger and alarm was all around. I longed intensely to see their dear faces, to hear their dear voices, and to lead them beyond the bounds of the ghastly metropolis; but I had somehow no realised sense of the approach of danger to them personally. But now the first shadowy suspicion of what might be came into my mind; vague, it may be yet sufficient to spur my footsteps more quickly onward. The thought that the all-pervading death could seize upon my treasures had not definitely come before my mind; such a fear was too monstrous, too appalling for me to entertain; for you know, my grandchildren, that those two darling women were all the ties I had in the world; on them my whole affections were centred; they were the sum and substance of my life. Now that I had conceived the dim possibility of the approach of evil to them I was instantly overwhelmed by the desire to be with them. These thoughts were mingled with those terrifying emotions that I have told you were evoked by the scenes I was witnessing. Pressing my hands over my eyes to try and shut out the now more frequently recurring spectacles of death, I staggered forward till at length I came beneath the wall of Buckingham Palace. There was a slight stir in the air, and a perceptible lightening of the grimy vapours, as I turned into the space before the palace. I saw the outline of the trees in St. James's Park, and above the high facade of the palace I caught a glimpse of the flagstaff, with the drooping standard hanging almost motionless. I passed the gates a sudden dazzle of scarlet caused me to start; it was the sentry in his box. Standing upright as though in life, propped against the wall of the sentry-box, his rifle resting butt-end upon the ground, his hands crossed upon the barrel, the heavy bearskin oil his brows adding to the look of stern, resolved despair that was expressed in his set and staring eyes. There he remained, steadfast in death — a dead sentinel watching the dead. Not far in front of the gate lay the body of a woman — God knows who or what! She lay there upon her face with extended arms, her rich furs and silks dabbled in the mud, her delicately-gloved and jewelled hands vainly grasping at the stones, her painted cheek and yellow hair pressed into the mire of the gutter. Bethink you, was it not enough to unman me to pass through these familiar places in the hours of daylight, and. to see nothing but a dreadful series of deaths spread out into a continuous panorama of horror before me? Aye! do you wonder now that sixty years have failed to efface these awful details from my mind? Imprinted, burnt upon my memory, such recollections must remain with me till I, too, am claimed by Death! I think that at this juncture some kind of madness came over me. For some time past my brain had seemed to reel, sickened with its terrible impressions; yet still striving with outstretched hands to blind my sense of sight, unsteadily yet frantically I hurried forward. Down the Mall, behind terraces of palatial mansions, and through Trafalgar Square, I reached the Strand. Scarcely can I portray in words the dire and dismal scenes that met my vision here. From Charing Cross and onwards, I crept along, one solitary shuddering wretch, amid such a hecatomb of deathly woe, as may well defy the power of man to truthfully describe. For here, where on the previous night had throbbed hot and high the flood-tide of London's evening gaiety, was now presented to my poor fevered sight, the worst, most awful features of the whole terrific calamity. I had entered into the very heart and home of Horror itself. Somewhere near the middle of the Strand, an impulse I can scarcely define drove me to seek refuge from the piled horrors of the street. Although it was so central a thoroughfare as to have gained for itself the cant name of "High Street, London," yet I had but little personal acquaintance with it. One place I knew slightly, a tavern-restaurant, where I had occasionally dined or supped with acquaintances. Thither I bent my steps, picking my way in shivering dread among the corpses that strewed the way — aye! strewed the pavement and the roadway so thickly, O God! so thickly! Somehow I think I must have hoped to find there friendly, sympathizing, living faces; I know not else why I, a lonely wanderer among those thousand mute, stricken victims, should have been seized with another soul-shaking shock, another paroxysm of maddening fear. I had entered the half-open doors of the restaurant, and passed within the bar, where still many of the gas-lamps burnt brightly, mixing with the murky daylight and adding a baleful ghastliness to the scene. No voice, no sound were there to welcome or to check me. I stood unheeded in a house of the dead. Behind the bar a heap of women's clothes huddled in a corner caught my eye: I needed not to look more closely to see that it was a barmaid, for nearer to me was another, drawn down as though by some unseen force from behind, her hands still grasping the handles of the beer-engine, her head fallen back upon her shoulders, her body half-hanging, half-crouched upon the floor. Poor girls! The last time I had seen them only a few days before they had stood there in all the vanity of youth and beauty, decked with flowers, cheap jewellery, and flashy clothes, smiling on the customers they supplied, bandying "chaff " with their admirers, and listening greedily to the vapid compliments of the boozy dandies, some of whose bodies now lay prostrate at my feet. So had they been occupied up to the sudden awful moment when the FOG-KING had closed down upon his prey. I dared not pass beyond the threshold of the house, yet the one rapid glance that my eye took of the scene within sufficiently impressed its details on my memory. There were the half-empty glasses upon the counter, those who had been drinking from them lying stark upon the floor men in all the frippery of evening dress, the cigar or cigarette just fallen from their twisted lips; men in less conspicuous attire; here and there a woman or two; most of them, alas! showing too plainly by the garish ostentation of their garments the class to which they belonged; further on, in the supper-room behind, I could see the dishes and supper equipage upon the tables, while, in the chairs around them, on the floor below, and leaning across the tables themselves, in all the dreadful confusion of sudden death, in all the hideous contortion of paralyzed panic, were the mortal remains of those who had been sitting there joyously supping, when the hour of doom had struck. Ah! and there was one sad group that struck me more than all the rest, from which, too, they seemed to differ strangely; it was a, man and a woman boy and girl, perhaps I should rather say —who occupied the corner of a couch close to the door. Her arms were thrown around his neck, her face was pressed down into his bosom, and he, holding her to him with convulsive embrace, lay back in his seat, his strangled face upturned with such a yearning agony of entreaty for aid where aid there was none, with such expression in the glassy eye, in the parted lips, from which. I fancied I could still hear issue the hoarse accents of despairing prayer and frenzied supplication. that the sight seemed to congeal the remaining life-current within me. Dizzy with aright, my whirling brain drew some strange analogy between that young man and myself, between the dead girl he clasped in his dead arms and my sister. Again I was in the Strand, striving to pass a hideous barrier of carriages and cabs, interlocked, overturned and confounded in one still medley of death; the bodies of horses, of men, and of women intermixed in the horrible confusion. I crossed the street the better to avoid it, and came under the portals of one of the principal theatres. The doors stood open and the gas-lights were flaming within; but few bodies lay about the entrance as I stepped inside, impelled by a swift fascination I was powerless to resist. I passed down the gay and glittering corridor that led into this temple of pleasure; becoming in some degree accustomed to the sight of death, I walked unheeding past the silent, crouching forms of those who had been the guardians of the place. Proceeding, I opened a swing door, drew aside a curtain and stood within the theatre. Pity me, my grandchildren, pity me. Oh, if you have hearts that feel — and I know you have you will pity your miserable grandfather. Of all the awful sights imprinted on these eyes that day, relentlessly impressed upon a too-faithful memory, I witnessed then the most horrible, the most gruesome, the most ghostly and unutterably terrific of all. I stood upon the floor of the theatre, close to the stage, within the portion of the house then called "the stalls," and from that point I had a full and instant view of the whole interior. The gas still burnt, and threw a light upon the scene more brilliant than perhaps it had been on the previous night; and the people no, not the people, the DEAD! — there under the glaring light they sat, they lay, they hung over the benches, the galleries, the boxes, in one tremendous picture of catastrophe! Beside me were soft and delicate women with their shimmering silks and dainty dresses, with jewels 'sparkling on their necks and arms, with bouquets and fans and other frivolous etcetera, still emanating the perfume and rich odours of the toilette; and with them were men in their sombre garments and starched courtliness, all huddled in their places in every attitude of frantic woe. Behind them stretched the "pit," filled with its crowd of commoner folk, mingled and inextricably involved in a chaos of heads and limbs and bodies, writhed'and knotted together into one great mass of dead men, dead women, and dead children, too. Overhead, tier above tier, rose the galleries, loaded with a ghastly freight of occupants, some of whose bodies hung forward across the front. And the orchestra and stage had also their grim array of horrors. The scenery was set to represent some ancient palace hall, and the stage was open to its furthest limit. Piled upon the boards in fantastic heaps were the bodies of numbers of ballet girls, whose spangled, thousand-hued and tinselled costumes, and all the gorgeous effects of spectacle and ballet, made infinitely more fearful that still and silent scene. Right in the centre and front of the stage there lay one corpse, still fair in death, with streaming hair and jewelled arms, with royal robes and diadem, the queen and sovereign of the pageant; and she — oh, mercy! had fallen prone upon the footlights. The dull, low flames had scorched and burned some of her drapery, and a sickening smoke, still rose from the spot where a once white and rounded bosom pressed down upon the jets, now charred and — oh, why was reason left me to remember these sights? I turned to hasten out once more into the only less terrible street, and as I moved I stumbled over the body of a man. He had passed for youthful, possibly, the night before, but death had lifted the mask that art had made, and I saw the wrinkled face beneath the cracking paint, the false teeth half ejected from the drawn lips in their last fearful gasp, the claw-like hands clutching desperately at the chair, and the whole false roundness of the form lost in a shrunken, huddled heap. Sickened almost to death at the horrors before me, like a drunken man I reeled out into the street again. What boots it to recall the long succession of frightful sights I witnessed by the way? All up the Strand bodies lay thick as on some battle-field, save that never battle-field was so grimly terrible as this. Here was a part of the town that had been thronged with pleasure-seekers and with those who catered for them, when the crisis came. Cabs, carriages, and omnibuses were numerous here, some overturned in the struggle of their horses, some grouped together or standing singly in all directions, but all silent and motionless, with dead horses fallen from their shafts, with dead men and dead women upon and within them. Oh, appalling and doleful memory, why cannot I fly the remembrance? And bodies of men, of women, and even of children, gaily-dressed and ragged intermixed, were piled upon the pavements. Yes, there they lay, the old, the young, the rich, the poor ; of all ranks, and stations, and qualities, all huddled in one cold and hideous death; while open eyes, piteous faces, distorted limbs, and strange, unnatural attitudes, told the tremendous tale of that sudden midnight agony. At length. I reached our home; I entered the house and descended to the basement where we dwelt. Impatiently and fearfully I opened the door and passed into the sitting-room. Yes, there they were. The fire was cold and gray, but the cat lay curled upon the rug in her accustomed place. In the armchair sat my mother, and beside her, on a stool, my sister, just as they often loved to sit, with arms embracing each other. Was it my voice that broke the horrid stillness of the room — so hoarse, so changed? "Mother! sister! darlings!" No answer. Nearer I went, treading slowly and tremblingly. Again my hoarse accents jarred the heavy air as I knelt and took my mother's hand. "Mother! sister awake! " Ah! God of mercy! The horrid truth came home tome at last. Dead! dead!! * * * * * Children, I can write no more. I am shaken unutterably shaken by these recollections. Much more I saw and knew, but, in pity's sake, press me not to tell you of it. And when you read elsewhere, or others tell you of THE DOOM of that GREAT CITY, think with tender sorrow of the awful load of memory that has so long been borne by YOUR GRANDFATHER. "The rich, the poor, one common bed Shall find in the unhonour'd grave Where weeds shall crown alike the head Of tyrant and of slave." Marvell. |
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