Chapter V: Part 5

"Well," said Buff, looking defiantly at Mrs. Taylor, "Cyrano fought a hundred men one after another and _he_ wasn't a savage."

Mrs. Taylor shook her head sadly. "Yer Papa would be sorry to think ye read about sich people."

"Haw!" cried Buff, "it was Father read it to me himself--didn't he Lizbeth?--and he laughed--he _laughed_ about him fighting the hundred men."

They had come to the end of the street where the Taylors lived, and they all stopped for a minute, Buff flushed and triumphant, Mrs. Taylor making the bugles of her Sabbath bonnet shake with disapproval, and Mr. Taylor still brimful of humour.

"It's as well we're leavin' this bloodthirsty young man, Mrs. Taylor," he said. "It's as well we're near home. He might feel he wanted to kill us." (Buff's expression was certainly anything but benign.)

Elizabeth shook hands with her friends, and said:

"It would be so nice if you would spend an evening with us. Not this week--perhaps Tuesday of next week?"

The Taylors accepted with effusion. There was nothing they enjoyed so much as spending an evening, and this Elizabeth knew.

"That'll be something to look forward to," Mr. Taylor said; and his wife added, "Ay, if we're here and able, but ye niver can tell."

As they walked on Elizabeth looked at her companion's face and laughed.

"Mr. Taylor is a queer little man," she said. "He used to worry me dreadfully. I simply couldn't stand his jokes--and then I found out that he wasn't the little fool I had been thinking him, and I was ashamed. He is rather a splendid person."

Mr. Townshend and Buff both looked at her.

"Yes; Father told me. It seems that years ago he had a brother who was a grief to him, and who did something pretty bad, and went off to America, leaving a wife and three children. Mr. Taylor wasn't a bit well-off, but he set himself to the task of paying off the debts his brother had left, and helping to keep the family. For years he denied himself everything but the barest necessities--no pipe, no morning paper, no car-pennies--and he told no one what he was doing. And his wife helped him in every way, and never said it was hard on her. The worst is over now, and he told Father. But I think it must have been in those hard days that he learned the joking habit, to keep himself going, you know, and so I don't find them so silly as I did, but brave, and rather pathetic somehow."

Arthur Townshend nodded. "'To know all,'" he quoted. "It seems a pity that there aren't always interpreters at hand."

"And what do you think of the Scots Kirk?" Elizabeth asked him presently.

"In the Church of England a man who could preach like your father would be a bishop."

"I dare say. We have no bishops in our Church, but we have a fairly high standard of preaching. Do you mean that you think Father is rather thrown away in that church, preaching to the few?"

"It sounds impertinent--but I think I did mean that."

"Yes. Oh! I don't wonder. I looked round this morning and wondered how it would strike you. A small congregation of dull-looking, shabby people! But as Father looks at them they aren't dull or shabby. They are the souls given him to shepherd into the Fold. He has a charge to keep. He simply wouldn't understand you if you talked to him of a larger sphere, more repaying work, and so on. People often say to me, 'Your father is thrown away in that district.' They don't see...."

"You must think me a blundering sort of idiot----" Arthur began.

"Oh no! I confess I have a leaning towards your point of view. I know how splendid Father is, and I rather want everyone else to know it too. I want recognition for him. But he doesn't for himself. 'Fame i' the sun' never vexes his thoughts. I expect, if you have set your face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, these things seem very small. And I am quite sure Father could never be a really popular minister. At times he fails lamentably. Yes; he simply can't be vulgar, poor dear, not even at a social meeting. He sees in marriage no subject for jesting. Even twins leave him cold. Where another man would scintillate with brilliant jokes on the subject Father merely says, 'Dear me!' Sometimes I feel rather sorry for the people--the happy bridegroom and the proud father, I mean. They are standing expecting to be, so to speak, dug in the ribs--and they aren't. I could do it quite well--it is no trouble to me to be all things to all men--but Father can't."

Arthur Townshend laughed. "No, I can't see your father being jocose. I was thinking when I listened to him what a tremendous thing for people to have a padre like that. His very face is an inspiration. His eyes seem to see things beyond. He makes me think of--who was it in _The Pilgrim's Progress_ who had 'a wonderful innocent smile'?"

Elizabeth nodded.

"I know. Isn't it wonderful, after sixty odd years in this world? There is something so oddly joyous about him. And it isn't that sort of provoking fixed brightness that some Christian people have--people who have read Robert Louis and don't mean to falter in their task of happiness. When you ask them how they are, they say _'Splendid'_; and when you remark, conversationally, that the weather is ghastly beyond words, they pretend to find pleasure in it, until, like Pet Marjorie, you feel your birse rise at them. Father knows just how bad the world is, the cruelty, the toil, the treason; he knows how bitter sorrow is, and what it means to lay hopes in the grave, but he looks beyond and sees something so ineffably lovely--such an exceeding and eternal weight of glory--that he can go on with his day's work joyfully."

"Yes," said Arthur, "the other world seems extraordinarily real to him."

"Oh! Real! Heaven is much the realest place there is to Father. I do believe that when he is toiling away in the Gorbals he never sees the squalor for thinking of the streets of gold."

Elizabeth's grey eyes grew soft for a moment with unshed tears, but she blinked them away and laughed.

"The nicest thing about my father is that he is full of contradictions. So gentle and with such an uncompromising creed! The Way is the Way to Father, narrow and hard and comfortless. And he is so good, so purely good, and yet never righteous over much. There is a sort of ingrained humility and lovableness in him that attracts the sinners as well as the saints. He never thinks that because he is virtuous there should be no more cakes and ale. And then, though with him he carries gentle peace, he is by no means a pacific sort of person. He loves to fight; and he hates to be in the majority. Minorities have been right, he says, since the days of Noah. When he speaks in the Presbytery it is always on the unpopular side. D'you remember what a fuss they made about Chinese labour in South Africa? Father made a speech defending it! Someone said to me that he must have an interest in the Mines! Dear heart! He doesn't even know what his income is. The lilies of the field are wily financiers compared to him."

Half an hour later, at four o'clock to be precise, the Setons and their guest sat down to dinner.

"I often wonder," said Mr. Seton, as he meditatively carved slices of cold meat, "why on Sabbath we have dinner at four o'clock and tea at seven. Wouldn't it be just as easy to have tea at four and dinner at seven?"

"'Sir,'" said Elizabeth, "in the words of Dr. Johnson, 'you may wonder!' All my life this has been the order of meals on the Sabbath Day, and who am I that I should change them? Besides, it's a change and makes the Sabbath a little different. Mr. Townshend, I hope you don't mind us galumphing through the meal? Father and I have to be back at the church at five o'clock."

"You don't mean," protested Arthur Townshend, "that you are going back to church again?"

"Alas! yes--Have some toast, won't you?--Father has his Bible class, and I teach a class in the Sabbath school. Buff, pass Mr. Townshend the butter."

"Thank you. But, tell me, do you walk all the way again?"

"Every step," said Elizabeth firmly. "We could get an electric car, but we prefer to trudge it."

"But why?"

"Oh! just to make it more difficult."

Elizabeth smiled benignly on the puzzled guest. "You see," she explained, "Father is on the Sabbath Observance Committee, and it wouldn't look well if his daughter ruffled it on Sabbath-breaking cars. Isn't that so, Father?"

Mr. Seton shook his head at his daughter, but did not trouble to reply; and Elizabeth went on:

"It's more difficult than you would think to be a minister's family. The main point is that you must never do anything that will hurt your father's 'usefulness,' and it is astonishing how many things tend to do that--dressing too well, going to the play, laughing when a sober face would be more suitable, making flippant remarks--their name is legion. Besides, try as one may, it is impossible always to avoid being a stumbling-block. There are little ones so prone to stumble that they would take a toss over anything."

"That will do, Elizabeth," said Mr. Seton.

"Sorry, Father." She turned in explanation to Mr. Townshend. "When Father thinks I am flippant and silly he says 'Elizabeth!' and his eyes twinkle; but when I become irreverent--I am apt to be often--he says 'That will do,' and I stop. So now you will understand. To change the subject--perhaps the most terrible experience I have had, as yet, in my ministerial career was being invited to a christening party and having to sit down in a small kitchen to a supper of tripe and kola. Alan says the outside edge was reached with him when a man who picked his ears with a pencil asked him if he were saved."

"Elizabeth," said her father, "you talk a great deal of nonsense."

"I do," agreed Elizabeth; "I'm what's known as vivacious--in other words, 'a nice bright girl.' And the funny thing is it's a thing I simply hate being. I admire enormously strong, still people. Won't it be awful if I go on being vivacious when I'm fifty? Or do you think I'll be arch then? There is something so resuscitated about vivacious spinsters." She looked gaily round the table, as if the dread future did not daunt her greatly.

Ellen had removed the plates and was handing round the pudding. Elizabeth begged Mr. Townshend not to hurry, and to heed in no way the scrambling table manners of his host and hostess. She turned a deaf ear to his suggestion that he would like to hear her instruct her class, assuring him that he would be much better employed reading a book by the fire. Buff, she added, would be pleased to keep him company after he had learned his Sabbath evening task, eight lines of a psalm.

"Aw," said Buff. "Must I, Father?"

"Eight lines are easily learned, my son."

"Well, can I choose my own psalm?"

His father said "Certainly"; but Elizabeth warned him: "Then make him promise to learn a new one, or he'll just come with 'That man hath perfect blessedness.'"

"I won't," said Buff. "I know a nice one to learn: quite new, about a worm."

"Dear me," said his father, "I wonder what psalm that is? Well, Lizbeth, we must go. You'll find books in the drawing-room, Mr. Townshend; and see that the fire is good."

Elizabeth's class consisted of seven little bullet-headed boys. To-night there was an extra one, whom she welcomed warmly--Bob Scott, the small boy whom she had befriended while collecting in the rain. She found, however, that his presence was not conducive to good conduct in the class. Instead of lapping up the information served out to him without comment as the other boys did, he made remarks and asked searching questions. Incidents in the Bible lesson recalled to him events, generally quite irrelevant, which he insisted on relating. For instance, the calling forth of evil spirits from the possessed reminded him of the case of a friend of his, one Simpson, a baker, who one morning had gone mad and danced on the bakehouse roof, singing, "Ma sweetheart hes blue eyes," until he fell through a skylight, with disastrous results.

Bob's manners, too, lacked polish. He attracted Elizabeth's attention by saying "Hey, wumman!" he contradicted her flatly several times; but in spite of it all, she liked his impudent, pinched little face, and at the end of the hour kept him behind the other boys to ask how things were going with him. He had no mother, it seemed, and no brothers or sisters: he went to school (except when he "plunk't"), ran messages for shops, and kept house--such keeping as it got. His father, he said, was an extra fine man, except when he was drunk.

Before they parted it was arranged that Bob should visit the Seton's on Saturday and get his dinner; he said it would not be much out of his way, as he generally spent his Saturday mornings having a shot at "fitba'" in the park near. He betrayed no gratitude for the invitation, merely saying "S'long, then," as he walked away.

On Sabbath evenings the Setons had prayers at eight o'clock, and Buff stayed up for the event. Marget and Ellen were also present, and Elizabeth played the hymns and led the singing.

"First," said Mr. Seton, "we'll have Buff's psalm."

Buff was standing on one leg, with his ill-used Bible bent back in his hand, learning furiously.

"Are you ready?" asked his father.

Buff took a last look, then handed the Bible to his father.

"It's not a psalm," he said; "it's a paraphrase."

He took a long breath, and in a curious chant, accentuating such words as he thought fit, he recited:

"Next, from the _deep_, th' Almighty King
Did _vital_ beings frame;
Fowls of the _air_ of ev'ry wing,
And fish of every name.
To all the various _brutal_ tribes
He _gave_ their wondrous birth;
At once the lion _and_ the worm
_Sprung_ from the teeming earth."

He only required to be prompted once, and when he had finished he drew from his pocket a paper which he handed to his father.

"What's this?" said Mr. Seton. "Ah, I see." He put his hand up to his mouth and appeared to study the paper intently.

"It's not my best," said Buff modestly.

"May I see it?" asked Elizabeth.

Buff was fond of illustrating the Bible, and this was his idea of the Creation so far as a sheet of note-paper and rather a blunt pencil could take him. In the background rose a range of mountains on the slopes of which a bird, some beetles, and an elephant (all more or less of one size) had a precarious foot-hold. In the foreground a dishevelled lion glared at a worm which reared itself on end in a surprised way. Underneath was printed "At once the lion and the worm"--the quotation stopped for lack of space.

"Very fine, Buff," said Elizabeth, smiling widely. "Show it to Mr. Townshend."

"He's seen it," said Buff. "He helped me with the lion's legs, but I did all the rest myself--didn't I?" he appealed to the guest.

"You did, old man. We'll colour it to-morrow, when I get you that paint-box."

"Yes," said Buff, crossing the room to show his picture to Marget and Ellen, while Mr. Seton handed Arthur Townshend a hymn-book and asked what hymn he would like sung, adding that everyone chose a favourite hymn at Sabbath evening prayers. Seeing Arthur much at a loss, Elizabeth came to his help with the remark that English hymn-books were different from Scots ones, and suggesting "Lead, kindly Light," as being common to both.

Marget demanded "Not all the blood of beasts," while Ellen murmured that her favourite was "Sometimes a light surprises."

"Now, Buff," said his father.

"Prophet Daniel," said Buff firmly.

Both Mr. Seton and Elizabeth protested, but Buff was adamant. The "Prophet Daniel" he would have and none other.

"Only three verses, then," pleaded Elizabeth.

"It all," said Buff.

The hymn in question was a sort of chant. The first line ran "Where is now the Prophet Daniel?" This was repeated three times, and the fourth line was the answer: "Safe in the Promised Land."

The second verse told the details: "He went through the den of lions" (repeated three times), "Safe to the Promised Land."

After the prophet Daniel came the Hebrew children, then the Twelve Apostles. The great point about the hymn was that any number of favourite heroes might be added at will. William Wallace Buff always insisted on, and to-night as he sang "He went up from an English scaffold" he gazed searchingly at the English guest to see if no shade of shame flushed his face; but Mr. Townshend sat looking placidly innocent, and seemed to hold himself entirely guiltless of the death of the patriot. The Covenanters came after William Wallace, and Buff with a truly catholic spirit wanted to follow with Graham of Claverhouse; but this was felt to be going too far. By no stretch of imagination could one picture the persecutor and the persecuted, the wolf and the lamb, happily sharing one paradise.

"That will do now, my son," said Mr. Seton; but Buff was determined on one more, and his shrill treble rose alone in "Where is now Prince Charles Edward?" until Elizabeth joined in, and lustily, almost defiantly, they assured themselves that the Prince who had come among his people seeking an earthly crown had attained to a heavenly one and was "Safe in the Promised Land."

Mr. Seton shook his head as he opened the Bible to read the evening portion. "I hope so," he said, and his tone was dubious--"I hope so."

"Well!" said Elizabeth, as she said good-night to her guest, "has this been the dullest day of your life?"

Arthur Townshend looked into the mocking grey eyes that were exactly on a level with his own, and "I don't think I need answer that question," he said.

"The only correct answer is, 'Not at all.' But I'm quite sure you never sang so many hymns or met so many strange new specimens of humanity all in one day before."

Mr. Seton, who disliked to see books treated lightly, was putting away all the volumes that Buff had taken out in the course of the evening and left lying about on chairs and on the floor. As he locked the glass door he said:

"Lizbeth turns everything into ridicule, even the Sabbath Day."

His daughter sat down on the arm of a chair and protested.

"Oh no, I don't. I don't indeed. I laugh a lot, for 'werena ma hert licht I wad dee.' I have, how shall I say? a heart too soon made glad. But I'm only stating a fact, Father, when I say that Mr. Townshend has sung a lot of hymns to-day and seen a lot of funnies.... Oh! Father, _don't turn out the lights_. Isn't he a turbulent priest! My father, Mr. Townshend, has a passion for turning out lights. You will find out all our peculiarities in time--and the longer you know us the odder we'll get."

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

_CHAPTER XI_

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

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

He won Buff's respect and admiration by his knowledge of aeroplanes. Even Marget so far unbent towards him as to admit that he was "a wise-like man"; Ellen thought he looked "noble." As for Elizabeth--"You're a nice guest," she told him; "you don't blight."

"No? What kind of guest blights?"

"Several, but _the_ Blight devastates. Suppose I've had the drawing-room done up and am filled with pride of it, open the door and surprise myself with it a dozen times in the day--you know, or rather I suppose you don't know, the way of a house-proud woman with a new room. The Blight enters, looks round and says, 'You've done something to this room, haven't you? Very nice. I've just come from the Puffington-Whalleys, and their drawing-rooms are too delicious. I must describe them to you, for I know you are interested in houses,' and so on and so on, and I have lost conceit of my cherished room. Sometimes the Blight doesn't say anything, but her glance seems to make one's belongings shrivel. And she is the same all the time. You stay her with apples and she prattles of nectarines; you drive her in a hired chaise and she talks of the speed of So-and-so's Rolls-Royce."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas looked at his friend coldly.

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

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

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

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

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

"Thomas makes her sound so," Elizabeth admitted. "But when I meet her--I only know her slightly--she seems the gentlest of placid women. Well, can you be ready by eleven-thirty? _Of course_ I want to go. I'm looking forward hugely to seeing Glasgow through your eyes. Come and write your letters in the drawing-room while I talk to Marget about dinner."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You mean our ower-words," said Elizabeth. "We have a ridiculous lot; and they must seem most incomprehensible to strangers. _Fish would lawff._ It is really too silly to tell. When Buff was tiny, three or four or thereabouts, he had a familiar spirit called Fish. Fish was a loofah with a boot-button for an eye, and, wrapped in a duster or anything that happened to be lying about, he slept in Buff's bed, sat in his chair, ate from his plate, and was unto him a brother. His was an unholy influence. When Buff did anything wicked, Fish said 'Good,' or so Buff reported. When anyone did anything rather fine or noble, Fish 'lawffed'--you know the funny way Buff says words with 'au'? Fish was a Socialist and couldn't stand Royalties, so when we came to a Prince in a fairy tale we had to call him Brother. He whispered nasty things about us to Buff: his mocking laughter pursued us; his boot-button eye got loose and waggled in the most sinister way. He really was a horrid creature--but how Buff loved him! Through the day he alluded to him by high-sounding titles--Sir John Fish, Admiral Fish, V.C., Brigadier-General Fish--but at night, when he clutched him to his heart in bed, he murmured over him, _'Fishie beastie!'_ He lost his place in time, as all favourites do; but the memory of him still lives with us, and whenever anyone bucks unduly, or too obviously stands forth in the light, we say, _Fish would lawff!_"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then she had one of her sudden repentances.

"I didn't mean that nastily--but of course, you know, where one is in the process of rising one is apt to be slightly ridiculous. There is always a striving, an uneasiness, a lack of repose. To be so far down as to fear no fall, and to be so securely up as to fear no fall, tends to composure of manner. You who have, I suppose, lived always with the 'ups,' and I who consort almost entirely with the 'downs,' know that for a fact. It is an instructive thing to watch the rise of a family. They rise rapidly in Glasgow. In a few years you may see a family ascend from a small villa in Pollokshields and one servant--known as 'the girrl'--to a 'place' in the country and a pew in the nearest Episcopal church; and if this successful man still alludes to a person as a 'party' and to his wife in her presence as 'Mistress So-and-so here,' his feet are well up the ladder. A few years more and he will cut the strings that bind him to his old life: his boys, educated at English schools, will have forgotten the pit from whence they were dug, his daughters will probably have married well, and he is 'county' indeed. But you mustn't think Glasgow is full of funnies, or that I am laughing at the dear place--not that it would care if I did, it can stand a bit of laughing at. I have the most enormous respect for Glasgow people for all they have done, for their tremendous capacity for doing, for their quite perfect taste in things that matter, and I love them for their good nature and 'well-pleasedness.' A very under-sized little man--one whose height might well have been a sore point--said to me once, 'They tell me my grandfather was six-foot-four--he would laugh if he saw me. And he thoroughly enjoyed the joke."

"But tell me," said Arthur, "have you many friends in Glasgow?"

"Heaps, but I haven't much time for seeing them. The winter is so crowded with church-work; then in spring, when things slacken off, I go to London to Aunt Alice; and in summer we are at Etterick. But I do dine out now and again, and sometimes we have little parties. Would you care to meet some people?"

He hastily disclaimed any such desire, and assured her he was more than content with the company he had. "But," he added, "I should like to see more of the church people."

"You shall," Elizabeth promised him.

One o'clock found them again in Sauchiehall Street, and Arthur asked Elizabeth's advice as to the best place for luncheon.

"This is my day," she reminded him. "You will have lunch with me, please. If you'll promise not to be nasty about it, I'll take you to my favourite haunt. It's a draper's shop, but don't let that prejudice you."

He found himself presently in a large sunny room carpeted in soft grey and filled with little tables. The tablecloths were spotless, and the silver and glass shone. Elizabeth led the way to a table in the window and picked up a menu card.

"This," she said, "is where Glasgow beats every other town. For one-and-sixpence you get four courses. Everything as good as can be, and daintily served." She nodded and smiled to a knot of waitresses. "I come here quite often, so I know all the girls; they are such nice friendly creatures, and never forget one's little likes and dislikes. Let's choose what we'll have. What do you say to asparagus soup, fish cakes, braised sweetbreads, fruit salad, and coffee?"

"What! All for for one-and-sixpence?"

"All except the coffee, and seeing that this is no ordinary day we shall commit the extravagance. It's a poor heart that never rejoices."

One of the smiling waitresses took the order, and conveyed it down a speaking-tube to the kitchen far below.

"I always sit here when I can get the table," Elizabeth confided to Arthur. "I like to hear them repeating the orders. Listen."

A girl was speaking. "Here, I say! Hurry up with another kidney: that one had an accident. Whit's that? The kidneys are finished! Help!"

The luncheon-room, evidently a very popular one, was rapidly filling up. Arthur Townshend fixed his monocle in his eye and surveyed the scene. The majority of the lunchers were women--women in for the day from the country, eagerly discussing purchases, purchases made and purchases contemplated; women from the suburbs lunching in town because their men-folk were out all day; young girls in town for classes--the large room buzzed like a beehive on a summer's day. A fat, prosperous-looking woman in a fur coat sat down at a table near and ordered--"No soup, but a nice bit of fish."

"Isn't her voice nice and fat?" murmured Elizabeth--"like turtle-soup."

A friend espied the lady and, sailing up to the table, greeted her with "Fancy seeing you here!" and they fell into conversation.

"And what kind of winter are you having?" asked one.

"Fine," said the other. "Mr. Jackson's real well, his indigestion is not troubling him at all, and the children are all at school, and I've had the drawing-room done up--Wylie and Lochhead--handsome. And how are you all?"

"Very well. I was just thinking about you the other day and minding that you have never seen our new house. I've changed my day to first Fridays, but just drop a p.c. and come any day."

"Aren't the shops nice just now? And it's lovely to see the sun shining.... Are you going? Well, be sure you come soon. Awful pleased to have met you. Good-bye."

"An example of 'wee-pleasedness,'" said Elizabeth.

"I find," said Arthur, "that I like the Glasgow accent. There is something so soft and--and----"

"Slushy?" she suggested. "But I know what you mean: there is a cosy feeling about it, and it is kindly. But don't you think this is a wonderfully good luncheon for one-and-sixpence?"

"Quite extraordinarily good. I can't think how they do it."

"An Oxford friend of Alan's once stayed with us, and the only good thing he could find to say of Glasgow was that in the tea-shops you could make a beast of yourself for ninepence."

Elizabeth laid down her coffee-cup with a sigh.

"I'm always sorry when meals are over," she said. "I like eating, though Mrs. Thomson would say, in her frank way, that I put good food into a poor skin--meaning that I'm a thin creature. I don't mind a bit a home--I'm quite content with what Marget gives me--but when I am, say, in Paris, where cooking is a fine art, I revel."

"And so ethereal-looking!" commented Arthur.

"That's why I can confess to being greedy, of course," said she. "Well, Ulysses, having seen yet another city, would you like to go home?"

Arthur stooped to pick up Elizabeth's gloves and scarf which had fallen under the table, and when he gave them to her he said he would like to do some shopping, if she were agreeable.

"I promised Buff a paint-box, for one thing," he said.

"Rash man! He will paint more than pictures. However, shopping of any kind is a delight to me, so let's go."

The paint-box was bought (much too good a one, Elizabeth pointed out, for the base uses it would almost certainly be put to), also sweets for Thomas and Billy. Then a book-shop lured them inside, and browsing among new books, they lost count of time. Emerging at last, Arthur was tempted by a flower-shop, but Elizabeth frowned on the extravagance, refusing roses for herself. In the end she was prevailed upon to accept some flowering bulbs in a quaint dish to take to a sick girl she was going to visit.

"What is the use," she asked, "of us having a one-and-sixpenny luncheon if you are going to spend pounds on books and sweets and flowers? But Peggy will love these hyacinths."

"Are you going to see her now?"

"Yes. Will you take the purchases home? Or wait--would it bore you very much to come with me? If Peggy is able to see people, it would please her, and we'd only stay a short time."

Arthur professed himself delighted to go anywhere, and meekly acquiesced when Elizabeth vetoed the suggestion of a taxi as a thing unknown in church visitation. "It isn't far," she said, "if we cross the Clyde by the suspension bridge."

The sun was setting graciously that November afternoon, gilding to beauty all that, in dying, it touched. They stopped on the bridge to look at the light on the water, and Arthur said, "Who is Peggy?"

"Peggy?" Elizabeth was silent for a minute, then she said, "Peggy Donald is a bright thing who, alas! is coming quick to confusion. She is seventeen and she is dying. Sad? Yes--and yet I don't know. She has had the singing season, and she is going to be relieved of her pilgrimage before sorrow can touch her. She is such an eager, vivid creature, holding out both hands to life--horribly easy to hurt: and now her dreams will all come true. My grief is for her parents. They married late, and are old to have so young a daughter. They are such bleak, grey people, and she makes all the colour in their lives. They adore her, though I doubt if either of them has ever called her 'dear.' She doesn't know she is dying, and they are not at all sure that they are doing right in keeping it from her. They have a dreadful theory that she should be 'prepared.' Imagine a child being 'prepared' to go to her Father!... This is the place. Shall I take the hyacinths?"

As they went up the stair (the house was on the second floor) she told him not to be surprised at Mrs. Donald's manner. "She has the air of not being in the least glad to see one," she explained; "but she can't help her sort of cold, grudging manner. She is really a very fine character. Father thinks the world of her."

Mrs. Donald herself opened the door--a sad-faced woman, very tidy in a black dress and silk apron. In reply to Elizabeth's greeting, she said that this happened to be one of Peggy's well days, that she was up and had hoped that Miss Seton might come.

Arthur Townshend was introduced and his presence explained, and Mrs. Donald took them into the sitting-room. It was a fairly large room with two windows, solidly furnished with a large mahogany sideboard, dining-table, chairs, and an American organ.

A sofa heaped with cushions was drawn up by the fire, and on it lay Peggy; a rose-silk eiderdown covered her, and the cushions that supported her were rose-coloured with dainty white muslin covers. She wore a pretty dressing-gown, and her two shining plaits of hair were tied with big bows.

She was a "bright thing," as Elizabeth had said, sitting in that drab room in her gay kimono, and she looked so oddly well with her geranium-flushed cheeks and her brilliant eyes.

Elizabeth put down the pot of hyacinths on a table beside her sofa, a table covered with such pretty trifles as one carries to sick folk, and kneeling beside her, she took Peggy's hot fragile little hands into her own cool firm ones, and told her all she had been doing. "You must talk to Mr. Townshend, Peggy," she said. "He has been to all the places you want most to go to, and he can tell stories just like _The Arabian Nights_. He brought you these hyacinths.... Come and be thanked, Mr. Townshend."

Arthur came forward and took Peggy's hand very gently, and sitting beside her tried his hardest to be amusing and to think of interesting things to tell her, and was delighted when he made her laugh.

While they were talking, Mrs. Donald came quietly into the room and sat down at the table with her knitting.

Arthur noticed that in the sick-room she was a different woman. The haggard misery was banished from her face, and her expression was serene, almost happy. She smiled to her child and said, "Fine company now! This is better than an old dull mother." Peggy smiled back, but shook her head; and Elizabeth cried:

"Peggy thinks visitors are all very well for an hour, but Mothers are for always."

Elizabeth sat on the rug and showed Peggy patterns for a new evening dress she was going to get. They were spread out on the sofa, and Peggy chose a vivid geranium red.

Elizabeth laughed at her passion for colour and owned that it was a gorgeous red. But what about slippers? she asked. The geranium could never be matched.

"Silver ones," said Peggy's little weak voice.

"What a splendid idea! Of course, that's what I'll get."

"I should like to see you wear it," whispered Peggy.

"So you shall, my dear, when you come to Etterick. We shall all dress in our best for Peggy. And the day you arrive I shall be waiting at the station with the fat white pony, and Buff will have all his pets--lame birds, ill-used cats, mongrel puppies--looking their best. And Father will show you his dear garden. And Marget will bake scones and shortbread, and there will be honey for tea.... Meanwhile, you will rest and get strong, and I shall go and chatter elsewhere. Why, it's getting quite dark!"

Mrs. Donald suggested tea, but Elizabeth said they were expected at home.

"Sing to me before you go," pleaded Peggy.

"What shall I sing? Anything?" She thought for a moment. "This is a song my mother used to sing to us. An old song about the New Jerusalem, Peggy;" and, sitting on the rug, with her hand in Peggy's, with no accompaniment, she sang:

"There lust and lucre cannot dwell,
There envy bears no sway;
There is no hunger, heat nor cold,
But pleasure every way.

Thy walls are made of precious stones,
Thy bulwarks diamonds square;
Thy gates are of right Orient pearls,
Exceeding rich and rare.

Thy gardens and thy gallant walks
Continually are green!
There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.

Our Lady sings Magnificat,
In tones surpassing sweet;
And all the virgins bear their part,
Sitting about her feet."

Mrs. Donald came with them to the door and thanked them for coming. They had cheered Peggy, she said.

Elizabeth looked at her wistfully.

"Do you think it unseemly of me to talk about new clothes and foolish things to little Peggy? But if it gives her a tiny scrap of pleasure? It can't do her any harm."

"Mebbe no'," said Peggy's mother. "But why do you speak about her going to visit you in summer? She is aye speaking about it, and fine you know she'll never see Etterick." Her tone was almost accusing.

Elizabeth caught both her hands, and the tears stood in her eyes as she said, "Oh! dear Mrs. Donald, it is only to help Peggy over the hard bits of the road. Little things, light bright ribbons and dresses, and things to look forward to, help when one is a child. If Peggy is not here when summer comes, we may be quite sure it doesn't vex her that she is not seeing Etterick. She"--her voice broke--"she will have far, far beyond anything we can show her--the King in His beauty and the land that is very far off."

_CHAPTER XII_

"They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims."

"Let's walk home," suggested Arthur, as they came out into the street. "It's such a ripping evening."

Elizabeth agreed, and they started off through the busy streets.

After weeks of dripping weather the frost had come, and had put a zest and a sparkle into life. In the brightly lit shops, as they passed, the shop-men were serving customers briskly, with quips and jokes for such as could appreciate badinage. Wives, bare-headed, or with tartan shawls, ran down from their stair-heads to get something tasty for their men's teas--a kipper, maybe, or a quarter of a pound of sausage, or a morsel of steak. Children were coming home from school; lights were lit and blinds were down--life in a big city is a cheery thing on a frosty November evening.

Elizabeth, generally so alive to everything that went on around her, walked wrapped in thought. Suddenly she said:

"I'm _horribly_ sorry for Mrs. Donald. Inarticulate people suffer so much more than their noisy sisters. Other mothers say, 'Well, it must just have been to be: everything was done that could be done,' and comfort themselves with that. She says nothing, but looks at one with those suffering eyes. _My dear little Peggy!_ No wonder her mother's heart is nearly broken."

Arthur murmured something sympathetic, and they walked on in silence, till he said:

"I want to ask you something. Don't answer unless you like, because it's frightful cheek on my part.... Do you really believe all that?"

"All what?"

"Well, about the next world. Are you as sure as you seem to be?"

Elizabeth did not speak for a moment, then she nodded her head gravely.

"Yes," she said, "I'm sure. You can't live with Father and not be sure."

"It seems to me so extraordinary. I mean to say, I never heard people talk about such things before. And you all know such chunks of the Bible--even Buff. Why do you laugh?"

"At your exasperated tone! You seem to find our knowledge of the Bible almost indecent. Remember, please, that you have never lived before in Scots clerical circles, and that ministers' children are funny people. We are brought up on the Bible and the Shorter Catechism--at least the old-fashioned kind are. In our case, the diet was varied by an abundance of poetry and fairy tales, which have given us our peculiar daftness. But don't you take any interest in the next world?"

Arthur Townshend screwed his short-sighted eyes in a puzzled way, as he said:

"I don't know anything about it."

"As much as anybody else, I daresay," said Elizabeth. "Don't you like that old song I sang to Peggy?--

'Thy gardens and thy _gallant walks_
Continually are green....'

One has a vision of smooth green turf, and ladies 'with lace about their delicate hands' walking serenely; and gentlemen ruffling it with curled wigs and carnation silk stockings. Such a deliciously modish Heaven! Ah well! Heaven will be what we love most on earth. At Etterick----"

"Tell me about Etterick," begged Arthur. "It's a place I want very much to see. Aunt Alice adores it."

"Who wouldn't! It's only a farmhouse with a bit built on, and a few acres of ground round it but there is a walled garden where old flowers grow carelessly, and the heather comes down almost to the door. And there is a burn--what you would call a stream--that slips all clear and shining from one brown pool to another; and the nearest neighbours are three good miles away, and the peeweets cry, and the bees hum among the wild thyme. You can imagine what it means to go there from a Glasgow suburb. The day we arrive, Father swallows his tea and goes out to the garden, snuffing the wind, and murmuring like Master Shallow, 'Marry, good air.' Then off he goes across the moor, and we are pretty sure that the psalm we sing at prayers that night will be 'I to the hills will lift mine eyes.'"

"Etterick belongs to your father?"