Chapter VIII: Psychological Studies 390 (7)

6. One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset’s house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at the kitten on the opposite fence.

7. “Hey, little boy!” says Bill, “would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?”

[Sidenote: CONTRIBUTORY INCIDENT.]

[Sidenote: As a matter of technique, note that contributory incidents might be varied or omitted without altering the plot _essentially_. These are not all specifically noted in this story.]

8. The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

9. “That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars,” says Bill, climbing over the wheel.

10. That boy put up a fight like a welterweight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave, and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

[Sidenote: “Bill” and “the Kid” serve as the contesting characters.]

11. Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tail-feathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

[Sidenote: Note title of the story.]

[Sidenote: “Bill” never smiles.]

12. “Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?”

[Sidenote: Note how the author uses swift changes to humorous effect.]

13. “He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. “We’re playing Indian. We’re making Buffalo Bill’s show look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo! that kid can kick hard.”

[Sidenote: ESSENTIAL, or PLOT, SITUATION.]

14. Yes, sir, that kid seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

15. Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

[Sidenote: Somewhat overdone, but we must judge the story not as comedy but as farce, which blithely assumes the improbable as true.]

16. “I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet 'possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dasent catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can’t. How many does it take to make twelve?”

[Sidenote: ESSENTIAL SITUATION.]

17. Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky red-skin, and pick up his stick rifle and tip-toe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper, shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

18. “Red Chief,” says I to the kid, “would you like to go home?”

[Sidenote: KEY.]

[Sidenote: Use of the unexpected.]

19. “Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?”

20. “Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave a while.”

21. “All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.”

[Sidenote: A tribute throughout to the dime dreadful.]

[Sidenote: Narrator lapses now and then into “better” language.]

22. We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid he’d run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in mine and Bill’s ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

[Sidenote: Contrast.]

23. Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

24. I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]

[Sidenote: Note that the author develops his story by the use of progressive plot _situations_ and contributory (non-essential) incidents.]

25. I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

26. “What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill.

27. “Me?” says I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it.”

28. “You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?”

29. “Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.”

[Sidenote: Note the humorous use of the language of “literature”--sparingly.]

[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]

[Sidenote: KEY.]

30. I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the country-side for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading the section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. “Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!” says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.

31. When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

[Sidenote: Contrast of unexpected.]

32. “He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,” explained Bill, “and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?”

33. I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. “I’ll fix you,” says the kid to Bill. “No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!”

[Sidenote: Return to first style of narration.]

34. After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.

[Sidenote: A Frank R. Stockton expression.]

35. “What’s he up to now?” says Bill, anxiously. “You don’t think he’ll run away, do you, Sam?”

36. “No fear of it,” says I. “He don’t seem to be much of a home body. But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don’t seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. His folks may think he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbors. Anyhow, he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.”

[Sidenote: Plot situation hidden, action halts.]

37. Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

38. I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind the left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

[Sidenote: This expression is more clever than natural to “Bill.”]

39. By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: “Sam, do you know who my favorite Biblical character is?”

40. “Take it easy,” says I. “You’ll come to your senses presently.”

[Sidenote: Slaughter of the Innocents.]

41. “King Herod,” says he. “You won’t go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?”

[Sidenote: See ¶4.]

42. I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.

[Sidenote: Note the use of the incongruous.]

43. “If you don’t behave,” says I, “I’ll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?”

44. “I was only funning,” says he sullenly. “I didn’t mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if you won’t send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout to-day.”

45. “I don’t know the game,” says I. “That’s for you and Mr. Bill to decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.”

[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]

46. I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

[Sidenote: Do these men seem like actual criminals? See comment on ¶ 16.]

47. “You know, Sam,” says Bill, “I’ve stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me going. You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?”

[Sidenote: Irony.]

48. “I’ll be back some time this afternoon,” says I. “You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the letter to old Dorset.”

[Sidenote: KEY.]

49. Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. “I ain’t attempting,” says he, “to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me.”

[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR CRISIS.]

50. So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:

[Sidenote: In intelligence of expression, does this letter correspond to the general style of the narrator?]

_Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:_

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is
useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find
him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored
to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills
for his return; the money to be left at midnight at the same spot
and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafter described. If you
agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary
messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After crossing Owl
Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees
about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field
on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite
the third tree, will be found a small paste-board box.

The messenger will place the answer in this box and return
immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as
stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe
and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do
not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.

51. I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

[Sidenote: Character delineation and by-play.]

52. “Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone.”

53. “Play it, of course,” says I. “Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of a game is it?”

54. “I’m the Black Scout,” says Red Chief, “and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I’m so tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.”

55. “All right,” says I. “It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will help you foil the pesky savages.”

56. “What am I to do?” says Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

57. “You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

58. “You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

59. Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap.

[Sidenote: The two are typically in character in these paragraphs.]

60. “How far is it to the stockade, Kid?” he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

61. “Ninety miles,” says the Black Scout. “And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!”

62. The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side.

63. “For Heaven’s sake,” says Bill, “hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I’ll get up and warm you good.”

[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]

64. I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

65. When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

66. So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.

67. In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

[Sidenote: Typical O. Henry speech in this paragraph.]

68. “Sam,” says Bill, “I suppose you’ll think I’m a renegade, but I couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times,” goes on Bill, “that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of ’em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit.”

69. “What’s the trouble, Bill?” I asks him.

70. “I was rode,” says Bill, “the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I’ve got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

[Sidenote: Note the stage trick of a character in ignorance while the audience enjoys his delusion. The surprise is his, not ours.]

71. “But he’s gone”--continues Bill--“gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I’m sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the madhouse.”

72. Bill is puffing and blowing but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

73. “Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is there?”

74. “No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?”

75. “Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a look behind you.”

[Sidenote: Suggestion.]

[Sidenote: Straight delineation. The former is the better art.]

[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]

76. Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him as soon as he felt a little better.

[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]

77. I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the money later on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for any one to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

78. Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the paste-board box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.

79. I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

[Sidenote: MAIN PLOT INCIDENT.]

[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]

_Two Desperate Men._

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the
ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little
high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition,
which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny
home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree
to take him off your hands. You had better come at night for the
neighbors believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be responsible for
what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.

Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.

80. “Great pirates of Penzance!” says I, “of all the impudent--”

[Sidenote: Suggestion.]

81. But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

[Sidenote: Serio-comic.]

82. “Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the chance go, are you?”

83. “Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves, too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom, and make our get-away.”

[Sidenote: Extreme of contrast.]

84. We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

[Sidenote: DENOUEMENT.]

[Sidenote: CONTRASTING PLOT SITUATION--Summary of the plot-outcome.]

85. It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset’s hand.

[Sidenote: Note free use of simile.]

86. When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill’s leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

87. “How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.

88. “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset. “But I think I can promise you ten minutes.”

[Sidenote: Humor of hyperbole.]

89. “Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border.”

[Sidenote: RESULTANT CLIMAX.]

90. And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and half out of Summit before I could catch up with him.

BARRIE AND HIS WRITINGS

James Matthew Barrie was born at Kirriemuir (“Thrums”), Scotland, on the 9th of May, 1860. He is the son of a physician, whom he has lovingly embodied as “Dr. McQueen”; his mother and sister also will live as “Jess” and “Leeby.” He was educated at Dumfries Academy, entering the University of Edinburgh at eighteen, from which he was graduated in 1882 with the degree of M.A., taking honors in English literature. He began writing literary criticisms for the _Edinburgh Courant_ at this period. Several months after his graduation Barrie took a position on a Nottingham newspaper, leaving that city for London in 1885, where his literary career commenced in earnest; but success did not come until after the customary struggles and hindrances to which young literary aspirants are ever subject. In 1893 he married Miss Ansell, an actress, whom he divorced in 1909. Some of his best-known books are _Auld Licht Idylls_; _A Window in Thrums_; _Margaret Ogilvy_; _My Lady Nicotine_; _The Little Minister_ (afterwards dramatized); _Sentimental Tommy_; _Tommy and Grizel_ (a sequel), and _The Little White Bird_. He also wrote several plays, the most notable of which are _The Professor’s Love Story_; _Peter Pan_ (a partial dramatization of _The Little White Bird_); _Quality Street_; and _What Every Woman Knows_. It is interesting to note that Mr. Barrie did not succeed in securing the magazine publication of “The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell,” which is given herewith; it was first issued between book covers, in 1888.

* * * * *

Barrie is a versatile story-teller, though he deals mostly with Scotch characters. His early work exhibits his short-story ability at its best. The warm human interest of _A Window in Thrums_ and _Auld Licht Idylls_, is matched only by Ian Maclaren’s _Beside the Bonnie Briar Bush_ and _The Days of Auld Lang Syne_. A quaint character-humor, with swift flashes of pathos, pervades all his work, which for local-color and insight into the character of the Scotch rural dweller has won a place of distinction among the stories of present-day writers. With Barrie, realism is rarely unpleasant; he sees all things with a gentle eye. Even when in his keen ability to penetrate to the heart of things he discovers the weaknesses of humanity, he also finds redeeming virtues. Thus his characters are continually disclosing their true natures underneath the garb and custom of picturesque life, and we feel ourselves to be kin to them, every one. His dialect in itself is masterly and often deliciously humorous, so that actions and dialogue in themselves common-place take on an extraordinary interest. No modern writer has a greater gift of character-drawing, and none is more sympathetically human in his interpretations of the Scotch commoner.

It is my contemptible weakness that if I say a character smiled
vacuously, I must smile vacuously; if he frowns or leers, I frown
or leer; if he is a coward or given to contortions, I cringe, or
twist my legs until I have to stop writing to undo the knot. I bow
with him, eat with him, and gnaw my moustache with him. If the
character be a lady with an exquisite laugh, I suddenly terrify you
by laughing exquisitely. One reads of the astounding versatility
of an actor who is stout and lean on the same evening, but what is
he to the novelist who is a dozen persons within the hour?--J. M.
BARRIE, _Margaret Ogilvy_.

There are writers who can plan out their story beforehand as
clearly as though it were a railway journey, and adhere throughout
to their original design--they draw up what playwrights call a
scenario--but I was never one of those. I spend a great deal of
time indeed in looking for the best road in the map and mark it
with red ink, but at the first bypath off my characters go. “Come
back,” I cry, “you are off the road.” “We prefer this way,” they
reply. I try bullying. “You are only people in a book,” I shout,
“and it is my book, and I can do what I like with you, so come
back!” But they seldom come, and it ends with my plodding after
them.--J. M. BARRIE, Introduction to _When a Man’s Single_.

The chief features of Barrie’s style are a quaintness of
expression, a simple directness of narrative, and an unfailing
sense of humor--often as though the author were chuckling to
himself as he wrote. His gift for descriptive writing--probably the
best test of “style”--is very marked, though he makes little of
it.--J. A. HAMMERTON, _J. M. Barrie and His Books_.

_Auld Licht Idylls_ is a set of regular descriptions of the life
of “Thrums,” with special reference to the ways and character of
the “Old Lights,” the stubborn conservative Scotch Puritans; it
contains also a most amusing and characteristic love story of the
sect (“The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell”), and a satiric political
skit.--CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER’S _Library of the World’s Best
Literature_.

By the time “Auld Licht Idylls” appeared, he had achieved a
reputation,--at least a local one. This book had an immediate
success, and ran rapidly through several editions. His mother had
been an Auld Licht in her youth.... Mrs. Barrie, knowing them
from the inside, could tell all sorts of quaint and marvellous
tales about them, whose humor was sure to please. It was from her
stories that the Idylls were mainly drawn, so she was in a sense a
collaborator with her son in their production.--HATTIE T. GRISWOLD,
_Personal Sketches of Recent Authors_.

As a literary artist he belongs in the foremost rank. He has that
sense of the typical in incident, of the universal in feeling, and
of the suggestive in language, which mark the chiefs of letters.
No one can express an idea with fewer strokes; he never expands a
sufficient hint into an essay. His management of the Scotch dialect
is masterly: he uses it sparingly, in the nearest form to English
compatible with retaining the flavor; he never makes it so hard as
to interfere with enjoyment; in few dialect writers do we feel so
little alienness.--CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER’S _Library of the World’s
Best Literature_.

FURTHER REFERENCES FOR READING ON BARRIE

_My Contemporaries in Fiction_, by J. D. C. Murray (1897); _Theology of Modern Literature_, by S. Law Wilson (1899); _Fame and Fiction_, by E. A. Bennett (1901); _J. M. Barrie and His Books_, by J. A. Hammerton (1902).

FOR ANALYSIS

THE COURTING OF T’NOWHEAD’S BELL
BY JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE

For two years it had been notorious in the square that Sam’l Dickie was thinking of courting T’Nowhead’s Bell, and that if little Sanders Elshioner (which is the Thrums pronunciation of Alexander Alexander) went in for her he might prove a formidable rival. Sam’l was a weaver in the Tenements, and Sanders a coal-carter whose trade-mark was a bell on his horse’s neck that told when coals were coming. Being something of a public man, Sanders had not so high a social position as Sam’l, but he had succeeded his father on the coal-cart, while the weaver had already tried several trades. It had always been against Sam’l, too, that once when the kirk was vacant he had advised the selection of the third minister who preached for it on the ground that it came expensive to pay a large number of candidates. The scandal of the thing was hushed up, out of respect for his father, who was a God-fearing man, but Sam’l was known by it in Lang Tammas’ circle. The coal-carter was called Little Sanders to distinguish him from his father, who was not much more than half his size. He had grown up with the name, and its inapplicability now came home to nobody. Sam’l’s mother had been more far-seeing than Sanders’. Her man had been called Sammy all his life because it was the name he got as a boy, so when their eldest son was born she spoke of him as Sam’l while still in his cradle. The neighbours imitated her, and thus the young man had a better start in life than had been granted to Sammy, his father.

2. It was Saturday evening--the night in the week when Auld Licht young men fell in love. Sam’l Dickie, wearing a blue glengarry bonnet with a red ball on the top, came to the door of a one-story house in the Tenements and stood there wriggling, for he was in a suit of tweeds for the first time that week, and did not feel at one in them. When his feeling of being a stranger to himself wore off, he looked up and down the road, which straggles between houses and gardens, and then, picking his way over the puddles, crossed to his father’s henhouse and sat down on it. He was now on his way to the square.

3. Eppie Fargus was sitting on an adjoining dike knitting stockings, and Sam’l looked at her for a time.

4. “Is’t yersel, Eppie?” he said at last.

5. “It’s a’ that,” said Eppie.

6. “Hoo’s a’ wi’ ye?” asked Sam’l.

7. “We’re juist aff an’ on,” replied Eppie cautiously.

8. There was not much more to say, but as Sam’l sidled off the henhouse he murmured politely, “Ay, ay.” In another minute he would have been fairly started, but Eppie resumed the conversation.

9. “Sam’l,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye, “ye can tell Lisbeth Fargus I’ll likely be drappin’ in on her aboot Munday or Teisday.”

10. Lisbeth was sister to Eppie, and wife of Tammas McQuhatty, better known as T’Nowhead, which was the name of his farm. She was thus Bell’s mistress.

11. Sam’l leaned against the henhouse as if all his desire to depart had gone.

12. “Hoo d’ye kin I’ll be at the T’Nowhead the nicht?” he asked, grinning in anticipation.

13. “Ou, I’se warrant ye’ll be after Bell,” said Eppie.

14. “Am no sure o’ that,” said Sam’l, trying to leer. He was enjoying himself now.

15. “Am no sure o’ that,” he repeated, for Eppie seemed lost in stitches.

16. “Sam’l--”

17. “Ay.”

[Sidenote: Asking her.]

18. “Ye’ll be spierin’ her sune noo, I dinna doot?”

19. This took Sam’l, who had only been courting Bell for a year or two, a little aback.

20. “Hoo d’ye mean, Eppie?” he asked.

21. “Maybe ye’ll do’t the nicht.”

22. “Na, there’s nae hurry,” said Sam’l.

23. “Weel, we’re a’ coontin’ on’t, Sam’l.”

24. “Gae wa wi’ ye.”

25. “What for no?”

26. “Gae wa wi’ ye,” said Sam’l again.

27. “Bell’s gie an’ fond o’ ye, Sam’l.”

28. “Ay,” said Sam’l.

29. “But am dootin’ ye’re a fell billy wi’ the lasses.”

30. “Ay, oh, I d’na kin, moderate, moderate,” said Sam’l, in high delight.

31. “I saw ye,” said Eppie, speaking with a wire in her mouth, “gaein’ on terr’ble wi’ Mysy Haggart at the pump last Saturday.”

32. “We was juist amoosin’ oorsels,” said Sam’l.

33. “It’ll be nae amoosement to Mysy,” said Eppie, “gin ye brak her heart.”

34. “Losh, Eppie,” said Sam’l, “I didna think o’ that.”

35. “Ye maun kin weel, Sam’l, 'at there’s mony a lass wid jump at ye.”

36. “Ou, weel,” said Sam’l, implying that a man must take these things as they come.

37. “For ye’re a dainty chield to look at, Sam’l.”

38. “Do ye think so, Eppie? Ay, ay; oh, I d’na kin am onything by the ordinar.”

39. “Ye mayna be,” said Eppie, “but lasses doesna do to be ower partikler.”

40. Sam’l resented this, and prepared to depart again.

41. “Ye’ll no tell Bell that?” he asked anxiously.

42. “Tell her what?”

43. “Aboot me an’ Mysy.”

44. “We’ll see hoo ye behave yersel, Sam’l.”

45. “No 'at I care, Eppie; ye can tell her gin ye like. I widna think twice o’ tellin’ her mysel.”

46. “The Lord forgie ye for leein’, Sam’l,” said Eppie, as he disappeared down Tammy Tosh’s close. Here he came upon Henders Webster.

[Sidenote: Alley, or court.]

47. “Ye’re late, Sam’l,” said Henders.

48. “What for?”

49. “Ou, I was thinkin’ ye wid be gaen the length o’ T’Nowhead the nicht, an’ I saw Sanders Elshioner makkin’s wy there an oor syne.”

50. “Did ye?” cried Sam’l, adding craftily, “but it’s naething to me.”

51. “Tod, lad,” said Henders, “gin ye dinna buckle to, Sanders’ll be carryin’ her off.”

52. Sam’l flung back his head and passed on.

53. “Sam’l!” cried Henders after him.

54. “Ay,” said Sam’l, wheeling round.

55. “Gie Bell a kiss frae me.”

56. The full force of this joke struck neither all at once. Sam’l began to smile at it as he turned down the school-wynd, and it came upon Henders while he was in his garden feeding his ferret. Then he slapped his legs gleefully, and explained the conceit to Will’um Byars, who went into the house and thought it over.

57. There were twelve or twenty little groups of men in the square, which was lit by a flare of oil suspended over a cadger’s cart. Now and again a staid young woman passed through the square with a basket on her arm, and if she had lingered long enough to give them time, some of the idlers would have addressed her. As it was, they gazed after her, and then grinned to each other.

58. “Ay, Sam’l,” said two or three young men as Sam’l joined them beneath the town clock.

59. “Ay, Davit,” replied Sam’l.

60. This group was composed of some of the sharpest wits in Thrums, and it was not to be expected that they would let this opportunity pass. Perhaps when Sam’l joined them he knew what was in store for him.

61. “Was ye lookin’ for T’Nowhead’s Bell, Sam’l?” asked one.

62. “Or mebbe ye was wantin’ the minister?” suggested another, the same who had walked out twice with Christy Duff and not married her after all.

63. Sam’l could not think of a good reply at the moment, so he laughed good-naturedly.

64. “Ondoobtedly she’s a snod bit crittur,” said Davit archly.

65. “An’ michty clever wi’ her fingers,” added Jamie Deuchars.

66. “Man, I’ve thocht o’ makkin’ up to Bell mysel,” said Peter Ogle. “Wid there be ony chance, think ye, Sam’l?”

67. “I’m thinkin’ she widna hae ye for her first, Pete,” replied Sam’l, in one of those happy flashes that come to some men, “but there’s nae sayin’ but what she micht tak ye to finish up wi’.”

68. The unexpectedness of this sally startled everyone. Though Sam’l did not set up for a wit, however, like Davit, it was notorious that he could say a cutting thing once in a way.

69. “Did ye ever see Bell reddin’ up?” asked Pete, recovering from his overthrow. He was a man who bore no malice.

70. “It’s a sicht,” said Sam’l solemnly.

71. “Hoo will that be?” asked Jamie Deuchars.

[Sidenote: Little ones.]

72. “It’s well worth yer while,” said Pete, “to ging atower to the T’Nowhead an’ see. Ye’ll mind the closed-in beds i’ the kitchen? Ay, well, they’re a fell spoilt crew, T’Nowhead’s litlins, an’ no that aisy to manage. Th’ither lasses Lisbeth’s hae’n had a michty trouble wi’ them. When they war i’ the middle o’ their reddin’ up the bairns wid come tumlin’ about the floor, but, sal, I assure ye, Bell didna fash lang wi’ them. Did she, Sam’l?”

73. “She did not,” said Sam’l, dropping into a fine mode of speech to add emphasis to his remark.

74. “I’ll tell ye what she did,” said Pete to the others. “She juist lifted up the litlins, twa at a time, an’ flung them into the coffin-beds. Syne she snibbit the doors on them, an’ keepit them there till the floor was dry.”

75. “Ay, man, did she so?” said Davit admiringly.

76. “I’ve seen her do’t mysel,” said Sam’l.

77. “There’s no a lassie makes better bannocks this side o’ Fetter Lums,” continued Pete.

78. “Her mither tocht her that,” said Sam’l; “she was a gran’ han’ at the bakin’, Kitty Ogilvy.”

79. “I’ve heard say,” remarked Jamie, putting it this way, so as not to tie himself down to anything, “'at Bell’s scones is equal to Mag Lunan’s.”

80. “So they are,” said Sam’l, almost fiercely.

81. “I kin she’s a neat han’ at singein’ a hen,” said Pete.

82. “An’ wi’t a’,” said Davit, “she’s a snod, canty bit stocky in her Sabbath claes.”

83. “If onything, thick in the waist,” suggested Jamie.

84. “I dinna see that,” said Sam’l.

85. “I d’na care for her hair either,” continued Jamie, who was very nice in his tastes; “something mair yallowchy wid be an improvement.”

86. “A’body kins,” growled Sam’l, “'at black hair’s the bonniest.”

87. The others chuckled.

88. “Puir Sam’l!” Pete said.

89. Sam’l not being certain whether this should be received with a smile or a frown, opened his mouth wide as a kind of compromise. This was position one with him for thinking things over.

90. Few Auld Lichts, as I have said, went the length of choosing a helpmate for themselves. One day a young man’s friends would see him mending the washing-tub of a maiden’s mother. They kept the joke until Saturday night, and then he learned from them what he had been after. It dazed him for a time, but in a year or so he grew accustomed to the idea, and they were then married. With a little help he fell in love just like other people.

91. Sam’l was going the way of the others, but he found it difficult to come to the point. He only went courting once a week, and he could never take up the running at the place where he left off the Saturday before. Thus he had not, so far, made great headway. His method of making up to Bell had been to drop in at T’Nowhead on Saturday nights and talk with the farmer about the rinderpest.

92. The farm kitchen was Bell’s testimonial. Its chairs, tables, and stools were scoured by her to the whiteness of Rob Angus’s sawmill boards, and the muslin blind on the window was starched like a child’s pinafore. Bell was brave, too, as well as energetic. Once Thrums had been overrun with thieves. It is now thought that there may have been only one, but he had the wicked cleverness of a gang. Such was his repute that there were weavers who spoke of locking their doors when they went from home. He was not very skilful, however, being generally caught, and when they said they knew he was a robber he gave them their things back and went away. If they had given him time there is no doubt that he would have gone off with his plunder. One night he went to T’Nowhead, and Bell, who slept in the kitchen, was wakened by the noise. She knew who it would be, so she rose and dressed herself and went to look for him with a candle. The thief had not known what to do when he got in, and as it was very lonely he was glad to see Bell. She told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and would not let him out by the door until he had taken off his boots so as not to soil the carpet.

93. On this Saturday evening Sam’l stood his ground in the square, until by and by he found himself alone. There were other groups there still, but his circle had melted away. They went separately, and no one said good-night. Each took himself off slowly, backing out of the group until he was fairly started.

94. Sam’l looked about him, and then, seeing that the others had gone, walked round the townhouse into the darkness of the brae that leads down and then up to the farm of T’Nowhead.

95. To get into the good graces of Lisbeth Fargus you had to know her ways and humour them. Sam’l, who was a student of women, knew this, and so, instead of pushing the door open and walking in, he went through the rather ridiculous ceremony of knocking. Sanders Elshioner was also aware of this weakness of Lisbeth’s, but, though he often made up his mind to knock, the absurdity of the thing prevented his doing so when he reached the door. T’Nowhead himself had never got used to his wife’s refined notions, and when any one knocked he always started to his feet, thinking there must be something wrong.

96. Lisbeth came to the door, her expansive figure blocking the way in.

97. “Sam’l,” she said.

98. “Lisbeth,” said Sam’l.

99. He shook hands with the farmer’s wife, knowing that she liked it, but only said, “Ay, Bell,” to his sweetheart, “Ay, T’Nowhead,” to McQuhatty, and “It’s yersel, Sanders,” to his rival.

100. They were sitting round the fire, T’Nowhead, with his feet on the ribs, wondering why he felt so warm, and Bell darned a stocking, while Lisbeth kept an eye on a goblet full of potatoes.

101. “Sit into the fire, Sam’l,” said the farmer, not, however, making way for him.

102. “Na, na,” said Sam’l, “I’m to bide nae time.” Then he sat into the fire. His face was turned away from Bell, and when she spoke he answered her without looking round. Sam’l felt a little anxious. Sanders Elshioner, who had one leg shorter than the other, but looked well when sitting, seemed suspiciously at home. He asked Bell questions out of his own head, which was beyond Sam’l, and once he said something to her in such a low voice that the others could not catch it. T’Nowhead asked curiously what it was, and Sanders explained that he had only said, “Ay, Bell, the morn’s the Sabbath.” There was nothing startling in this, but Sam’l did not like it. He began to wonder if he was too late, and had he seen his opportunity would have told Bell of a nasty rumour that Sanders intended to go over to the Free Church if they would make him kirk-officer.

103. Sam’l had the good-will of T’Nowhead’s wife, who liked a polite man. Sanders did his best, but from want of practice he constantly made mistakes. To-night, for instance, he wore his hat in the house because he did not like to put up his hand and take it off. T’Nowhead had not taken his off either but that was because he meant to go out by and by and lock the byre door. It was impossible to say which of her lovers Bell preferred. The proper course with an Auld Licht lassie was to prefer the man who proposed to her.

104. “Ye’ll bide a wee, an’ hae something to eat?” Lisbeth asked Sam’l, with her eyes on the goblet.

105. “No, I thank ye,” said Sam’l, with true gentility.

106. “Ye’ll better?”

107. “I dinna think it.”

108. “Hoots aye; what’s to hender ye?”

109. “Weel, since ye’re sae pressin’, I’ll bide.”

110. No one asked Sanders to stay. Bell could not, for she was but the servant, and T’Nowhead knew that the kick his wife had given him meant that he was not to do so either. Sanders whistled to show that he was not uncomfortable.

111. “Ay then, I’ll be stappin’ ower the brae,” he said at last.

112. He did not go, however. There was sufficient pride in him to get him off his chair, but only slowly, for he had to get accustomed to the notion of going. At intervals of two or three minutes he remarked that he must now be going. In the same circumstances Sam’l would have acted similarly. For a Thrums man it is one of the hardest things in life to get away from anywhere.

113. At last Lisbeth saw that something must be done. The potatoes were burning, and T’Nowhead had an invitation on his tongue.

114. “Yes, I’ll hae to be movin’,” said Sanders, hopelessly, for the fifth time.

115. “Guid nicht to ye, then, Sanders,” said Lisbeth. “Gie the door a fling-to, ahent ye.”

116. Sanders, with a mighty effort, pulled himself together. He looked boldly at Bell, and then took off his hat carefully. Sam’l saw with misgivings that there was something in it which was not a handkerchief. It was a paper bag glittering with gold braid, and contained such an assortment of sweets as lads bought for their lasses on the Muckle Friday.

117. “Hae, Bell,” said Sanders, handing the bag to Bell in an off-hand way as if it were but a trifle. Nevertheless he was a little excited, for he went off without saying good-night.

118. No one spoke. Bell’s face was crimson. T’Nowhead fidgeted on his chair, and Lisbeth looked at Sam’l. The weaver was strangely calm and collected, though he would have liked to know whether this was a proposal.

119. “Sit in by to the table, Sam’l,” said Lisbeth, trying to look as if things were as they had been before.

120. She put a saucerful of butter, salt, and pepper near the fire to melt, for melted butter is the shoeing-horn that helps over a meal of potatoes. Sam’l, however, saw what the hour required, and jumping up, he seized his bonnet.

121. “Hing the tatties higher up the joist, Lisbeth,” he said with dignity; “I’se be back in ten meenits.”

122. He hurried out of the house, leaving the others looking at each other.

123. “What do ye think?” asked Lisbeth.

124. “I d’na kin,” faltered Bell.

125. “Thae tatties is lang o’ comin’ to the boil,” said T’Nowhead.

126. In some circles a lover who behaved like Sam’l would have been suspected of intent upon his rival’s life, but neither Bell nor Lisbeth did the weaver that injustice. In a case of this kind it does not much matter what T’Nowhead thought.

127. The ten minutes had barely passed when Sam’l was back in the farm kitchen. He was too flurried to knock this time, and, indeed, Lisbeth did not expect it of him.

128. “Bell, hae!” he cried, handing his sweetheart a tinsel bag twice the size of Sander’s gift.

129. “Losh preserve’s!” exclaimed Lisbeth; “I’se warrant there’s a shillin’s worth.”

130. “There’s a’ that, Lisbeth--an’ mair,” said Sam’l, firmly.

131. “I thank ye, Sam’l,” said Bell, feeling an unwonted elation as she gazed at the two paper bags in her lap.

132. “Ye’re ower extravegint, Sam’l,” Lisbeth said.

133. “Not at all,” said Sam’l; “not at all. But I widna advise ye to eat thae ither anes, Bell--they’re second quality.”

134. Bell drew back a step from Sam’l.

135. “How do ye kin?” asked the farmer shortly, for he liked Sanders.

136. “I spiered i’ the shop,” said Sam’l.

137. The goblet was placed on a broken plate on the table with the saucer beside it, and Sam’l, like the others, helped himself. What he did was to take potatoes from the pot with his fingers, peel off their coats, and then dip them into the butter. Lisbeth would have liked to provide knives and forks, but she knew that beyond a certain point T’Nowhead was master in his own house. As for Sam’l, he felt victory in his hands, and began to think that he had gone too far.

138. In the meantime Sanders, little witting that Sam’l had trumped his trick, was sauntering along the kirk-wynd with his hat on the side of his head. Fortunately he did not meet the minister.

139. The courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell reached its crisis one Sabbath about a month after the events above recorded. The minister was in great force that day, but it is no part of mine to tell how he bore himself. I was there, and am not likely to forget the scene. It was a fateful Sabbath for T’Nowhead’s Bell and her swains, and destined to be remembered for the painful scandal which they perpetrated in their passion.