The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPenelope's ProgressThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Penelope's ProgressAuthor: Kate Douglas Smith WigginRelease date: May 19, 2009 [eBook #28877]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S PROGRESS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Penelope's ProgressAuthor: Kate Douglas Smith WigginRelease date: May 19, 2009 [eBook #28877]Language: EnglishCredits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Title: Penelope's Progress
Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
Release date: May 19, 2009 [eBook #28877]
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PENELOPE'S PROGRESS ***
E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Transcribers note:
An upper case letter A with breve is represented by [)A] and a lower case letter a with breve is represented by [)a] in this e-text.
by
* * * * *
THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 50 cents.
THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square 12mo, 60 cents.
A SUMMER IN A CAÑON. A California Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25.
TIMOTHY'S QUEST. A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, who cares to read it. 16mo, $1.00.
THE SAME. Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP, AND PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES.Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
PENELOPE'S PROGRESS. In unique Scottish binding. 16mo, $1.25.
POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
THE SAME. In Riverside School Library. 60 cents, net.
THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 16mo, $1.00.
MARM LISA, 16mo, $1.00.
NINE LOVE SONGS, AND A CAROL. Music by Mrs. WIGGIN. Words byHerrick, Sill, and others. Square 8vo $1.25.
THE STORY HOUR. A Book for the Home and Kindergarten. By Mrs.Wiggin and Nora A. Smith. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. By Mrs. Wiggin and Nora A. Smith. A Book ofNursery Logic. 16mo, $1.00.
THE REPUBLIC OF CHILDHOOD. By Mrs. Wiggin and Nora A. Smith.In three volumes, each, 16mo, $1.00.
Boston and New York.
* * * * *
Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland
by
Boston and New YorkThe Riverside Press
Boston And New YorkHoughton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1899
Copyright, 1897 and 1898, by Houghton, Mifflin and CompanyCopyright, 1898, by Kate Douglas RiggsAll Rights Reserved
Thirtieth Thousand
I. A Triangular Alliance 1
II. "Edina, Scotia's Darling Seat" 12
III. A Vision in Princes Street 18
IV. Susanna Crum couldna say 29
V. We emulate the Jackdaw 38
VI. Edinburgh Society, Past and Present 48
VII. Francesca meets th' Unconquer'd Scot 60
VIII. "What made th' Assembly shine?" 70
IX. Omnia Presbyteria est Divisa in Partes Tres 82
X. Mrs. M'collop as a Sermon-Taster 93
XI. Holyrood awakens 101
XII. Farewell to Edinburgh 117
XIII. The Spell of Scotland 124
XIV. The Wee Theekit Hoosie in the Loaning 137
XV. Jane Grieve and her Grievances 147
XVI. The Path that led to Crummylowe 161
XVII. Playing Sir Patrick Spens 168
XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw 182
XIX. Fowk o' Fife 190
XX. A Fifeshire Tea-Party 207
XXI. International Bickering 214
XXII. Francesca entertains the Green-Eyed Monster 224
XXIII. Ballad Revels at Rowardennan 234
XXIV. Old Songs and Modern Instances 244
XXV. A Treaty between Nations 255
XXVI. "Scotland's burning! Look out!" 260
XXVII. Three Magpies and a Marriage 265
"Edina, Scotia's darling seat!All hail thy palaces and towers!"
Edinburgh, April, 189-.22, Breadalbane Terrace.
We have traveled together before, Salemina, Francesca, and I, and we know the very worst there is to know about one another. After this point has been reached, it is as if a triangular marriage had taken place, and, with the honeymoon comfortably over, we slip along in thoroughly friendly fashion. I use no warmer word than "friendly" because, in the first place, the highest tides of feeling do not visit the coast of triangular alliances; and because, in the second place, "friendly" is a word capable of putting to the blush many a more passionate and endearing one.
Every one knows of our experiences in England, for we wrote volumes of letters concerning them, the which were widely circulated among our friends at the time and read aloud under the evening lamps in the several cities of our residence.
Since then few striking changes have taken place in our history.
Salemina returned to Boston for the winter, to find, to her amazement, that for forty odd years she had been rather overestimating it.
On arriving in New York, Francesca discovered that the young lawyer whom for six months she had been advising to marry somebody "more worthy than herself" was at last about to do it. This was somewhat in the nature of a shock, for Francesca has been in the habit, ever since she was seventeen, of giving her lovers similar advice, and up to this time no one of them has ever taken it. She therefore has had the not unnatural hope, I think, of organizing at one time or another all these disappointed and faithful swains into a celibate brotherhood; and perhaps of driving by the interesting monastery with her husband and calling his attention modestly to the fact that these poor monks were filling their barren lives with deeds of piety, trying to remember their Creator with such assiduity that they might, in time, forget Her.
Her chagrin was all the keener at losing this last aspirant to her hand in that she had almost persuaded herself that she was as fond of him as she was likely to be of anybody, and that, on the whole, she had better marry him and save his life and reason.
Fortunately she had not communicated this gleam of hope by letter, feeling, I suppose, that she would like to see for herself the light of joy breaking over his pale cheek. The scene would have been rather pretty and touching, but meantime the Worm had turned and dispatched a letter to the Majestic at the quarantine station, telling her that he had found a less reluctant bride in the person of her intimate friend Miss Rosa Van Brunt; and so Francesca's dream of duty and sacrifice was over.
Salemina says she was somewhat constrained for a week and a trifle cynical for a fortnight, but that afterwards her spirits mounted on ever ascending spirals to impossible heights, where they have since remained. It appears from all this that although she was piqued at being taken at her word, her heart was not in the least damaged. It never was one of those fragile things which have to be wrapped in cotton, and preserved from the slightest blow—Francesca's heart. It is made of excellent stout, durable material, and I often tell her with the care she takes of it, and the moderate strain to which it is subjected, it ought to be as good as new a hundred years hence.
As for me, the scene of my own love story is laid in America and England, and has naught to do with Edinburgh. It is far from finished; indeed, I hope it will be the longest serial on record, one of those charming tales that grow in interest as chapter after chapter unfolds, until at the end we feel as if we could never part with the delightful people.
I should be, at this very moment, Mrs. William Beresford, a highly respectable young matron who painted rather good pictures in her spinster days, when she was Penelope Hamilton of the great American working-class, Unlimited; but first Mrs. Beresford's dangerous illness, and then her death, have kept my dear boy a willing prisoner in Cannes, his heart sadly torn betwixt his love and duty to his mother and his desire to be with me. The separation is virtually over now, and we two, alas, have ne'er a mother or a father between us, so we shall not wait many months before beginning to comfort each other in good earnest.
Meantime Salemina and Francesca have persuaded me to join their forces, and Mr. Beresford will follow us to Scotland in a few short weeks, when we shall have established ourselves in the country.
We are overjoyed at being together again, we three women folk. As I said before, we know the worst of one another, and the future has no terrors. We have learned, for example, that:—
Francesca does not like an early morning start. Salemina refuses to arrive late anywhere. Penelope prefers to stay behind and follow next day.
Francesca scorns to travel third class. So does Salemina, but she will if urged.
Penelope hates a four-wheeler. Salemina is nervous in a hansom.Francesca prefers a Victoria.
Salemina likes a steady fire in the grate. Penelope opens a window and fans herself.
Salemina inclines to instructive and profitable expeditions. Francesca loves processions and sightseeing. Penelope abhors all of these equally.
Salemina likes history. Francesca loves fiction. Penelope adores poetry and detests facts.
Penelope likes substantial breakfasts. Francesca dislikes the sight of food in the morning.
In the matter of breakfasts, when we have leisure to assert our individual tastes, Salemina prefers tea, Francesca cocoa, and I, coffee. We can never, therefore, be served with a large comfortable pot of anything, but are confronted instead with a caravan of silver jugs, china jugs, bowls of hard and soft sugar, hot milk, cold milk, hot water, and cream, while each in her secret heart wishes that the other two were lessexigeantein the matter of diet.
This does not sound promising, but it works perfectly well in practice by the exercise of a little flexibility.
As we left dear old Dovermarle Street and Smith's Private Hotel behind, and drove to the station to take the Flying Scotsman, we indulged in floods of reminiscence over the joys of travel we had tasted together in the past, and talked with lively anticipation of the new experiences awaiting us in the land of heather.
While Salemina went to purchase the three first-class tickets, I superintended the porters as they disposed our luggage in the van, and in so doing my eye lighted upon a third-class carriage which was, for a wonder, clean, comfortable, and vacant. Comparing it hastily with the first-class compartment being held by Francesca, I found that it differed only in having no carpet on the floor, and a smaller number of buttons in the upholstering. This was really heart-rending when the difference in fare for three persons would be at least twenty dollars. What a delightful sum to put aside for a rainy day; that is, you understand, what a delightful sum to put aside and spend on the first rainy day; for that is the way we always interpret the expression.
When Salemina returned with the tickets, she found me, as usual, bewailing our extravagance.
Francesca descended suddenly from her post, and, snatching the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed traveling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean, hard-seated, ill-upholstered third-class carriage immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two babies, a man carrying a basket of fish, and an old woman with five pieces of hand-luggage and a dog; meanwhile I will exchange the tickets."
So saying, she disappeared rapidly among the throng of passengers, guards, porters, newspaper boys, golfers with bags of clubs, young ladies with bicycles, and old ladies with tin hat-boxes.
"What decision, what swiftness of judgment, what courage and energy!" murmured Salemina. "Isn't she wonderfully improved since that unexpected turning of the Worm?"
Francesca rejoined us just as the guard was about to lock us in, and flung herself down, quite breathless from her unusual exertion.
"Well, we are traveling third for once, and the money is saved, or at least it is ready to spend again at the first opportunity. The man didn't wish to exchange the tickets at all. He says it is never done. I told him they were bought by a very inexperienced American lady (that is you, Salemina) who knew almost nothing of the distinctions between first and third class, and naturally took the best, believing it to be none too good for a citizen of the greatest republic on the face of the earth. He said the tickets had been stamped on. I said so should I be if I returned without exchanging them. He was a very dense person, and didn't see my joke at all, but then, it is true, there were thirteen men in line behind me, with the train starting in three minutes, and there is nothing so debilitating to a naturally weak sense of humor as selling tickets behind a grating, so I am not really vexed with him. There! we are quite comfortable, pending the arrival of the babies, the dog, and the fish, and certainly no vender of periodic literature will dare approach us while we keep these books in evidence."
She had Laurence Hutton's "Literary Landmarks" and "Royal Edinburgh," by Mrs. Oliphant; I had Lord Cockburn's Memorials of his Time; and somebody had given Salemina, at the moment of leaving London, a work on "Scotia's darling seat," in three huge volumes. When all this printed matter was heaped on the top of Salemina's hold-all on the platform, the guard had asked, "Do you belong to these books, mam?"
"We may consider ourselves injured in going from London to Edinburgh in a third-class carriage in eight or ten hours, but listen to this," said Salemina, who had opened one of her large volumes at random when the train started.
"'The Edinburgh and London Stage-Coach begins on Monday, 13th October, 1712. All that desire … let them repair to theCoach and Horsesat the head of the Canongate every Saturday, or theBlack Swanin Holborn every other Monday, at both of which places they may be received in a coach which performs the whole journey in thirteen days without any stoppage (if God permits) having eighty able horses. Each passenger paying £4 10s. for the whole journey, alowing each 20 lbs. weight and all above to pay 6d. per lb. The coach sets off at six in the morning' (you could never have caught it, Francesca!), 'and is performed by Henry Harrison.' And here is a 'modern improvement,' forty-two years later. In July, 1754, the 'Edinburgh Courant' advertises the stage-coach drawn by six horses, with a postilion on one of the leaders, as a 'new, genteel, two-end glass machine, hung on steel springs, exceeding light and easy, to go in ten days in summer and twelve in winter. Passengers to pay as usual. Performed (if God permits) by your dutiful servant, Hosea Eastgate.Care is taken of small parcels according to their value.'"
"It would have been a long, wearisome journey," said I, contemplatively; "but, nevertheless, I wish we were making it in 1712 instead of a century and three quarters later."
"What would have been happening, Salemina?" asked Francesca politely, but with no real desire to know.
"The Union had been already established five years," began Salemina intelligently.
"Which Union?"
"Whose Union?"
Salemina is used to these interruptions and eruptions of illiteracy on our part. I think she rather enjoys them, as in the presence of such complete ignorance as ours her lamp of knowledge burns all the brighter.
"Anne was on the throne," she went on, with serene dignity.
"What Anne?"
"I know the Anne!" exclaimed Francesca excitedly. "She came from theMidnight Sun country, or up that way. She was very extravagant, andhad something to do with Jingling Geordie in 'The Fortunes of Nigel.'It is marvelous how one's history comes back to one!"
"Quite marvelous," said Salemina dryly; "or at least the state in which it comes back is marvelous. I am not a stickler for dates, as you know, but if you could only contrive to fix a few periods in your minds, girls, just in a general way, you would not be so shamefully befogged. Your Anne of Denmark, Francesca, was the wife of James VI. of Scotland, who was James I. of England, and she died a hundred years before the Anne I mean,—the last of the Stuarts, you know. My Anne came after William and Mary, and before the Georges."
"Which William and Mary?"
"What Georges?"
But this was too much even for Salemina's equanimity, and she retired behind her book in dignified displeasure, while Francesca and I meekly looked up the Annes in a genealogical table, and tried to decide whether "b. 1665" meant born or beheaded.
The weather that greeted us on our unheralded arrival in Scotland was of the precise sort offered by Edinburgh to her unfortunate queen, when,
"After a youth by woes o'ercast,After a thousand sorrows past,The lovely Mary once againSet foot upon her native plain."
John Knox records of those memorable days: "The very face of heaven did manifestlie speak what comfort was brought to this country with hir—to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness and all impiety—for in the memorie of man never was seen a more dolorous face of the heavens than was at her arryvall … the myst was so thick that skairse micht onie man espy another; and the sun was not seyn to shyne two days befoir nor two days after."
We could not see Edina's famous palaces and towers because of thehaar, that damp, chilling, drizzling, dripping fog or mist which the east wind summons from the sea; but we knew that they were there, shrouded in the heart of that opaque mysterious grayness, and that before many hours our eyes would feast upon their beauty.
Perhaps it was the weather, but I could think of nothing but poor Queen Mary! She had drifted into my imagination with thehaar, so that I could fancy her homesick gaze across the water as she murmured, "Adieu, ma chère France! Je ne vous verray jamais plus!"—could fancy her saying as in Allan Cunningham's verse:—
"The sun rises bright in France,And fair sets he;But he hath tint the blithe blink he hadIn my ain countree."
And then I recalled Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that "serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks;" that singing, "in bad accord," of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby for poor Mary, half Frenchwoman and all Papist!
It is but just to remember the "indefatigable and undissuadable" John Knox's statement, "the melody lyked her weill and she willed the same to be continewed some nightis after." For my part, however, I distrust John Knox's musical feeling, and incline sympathetically to the Sieur de Brantôme's account, with its "vile fiddles" and "discordant psalms," although his judgment was doubtless a good deal depressed by what he called thesi grand brouillardthat so dampened the spirits of Mary's French retinue.
Ah well, I was obliged to remember, in order to be reasonably happy myself, that Mary had a gay heart, after all; that she was but nineteen; that, though already a widow, she did not mourn her young husband as one who could not be comforted; and that she must soon have been furnished with merrier music than the psalms, for another of the sour comments of the time is, "Our Queen weareth the dule [weeds], but she can dance daily, dule and all!"
These were my thoughts as we drove through invisible streets in the Edinburghhaar, turned into what proved next day to be a Crescent, and drew up to an invisible house with a visible number 22 gleaming over a door which gaslight transformed into a probability. We alighted, and though we could scarcely see the driver's outstretched hand, he was quite able to discern a half-crown, and demanded three shillings.
The noise of our cab had brought Mrs. M'Collop to the door,—good (or at least pretty good) Mrs. M'Collop, to whose apartments we had been commended by English friends who had never occupied them.
Dreary as it was without, all was comfortable within doors, and a cheery (one-and-sixpenny) fire crackled in the grate. Our private drawing-room was charmingly furnished, and so large that, notwithstanding the presence of a piano, two sofas, five small tables, cabinets, desks, and chairs,—not forgetting a dainty five-o'clock tea equipage,—we might have given a party in the remaining space.
"If this is a typical Scotch lodging I like it; and if it is Scotch hospitality to lay the cloth and make the fire before it is asked for, then I call it simply Arabian in character!" and Salemina drew off her damp gloves, and extended her hands to the blaze.
"And isn't it delightful that the bill doesn't come in for a whole week?" asked Francesca. "We have only our English experiences on which to found our knowledge, and all is delicious mystery. The tea may be a present from Mrs. M'Collop, and the sugar may not be an extra; the fire may be included in the rent of the apartment, and the piano may not be taken away to-morrow to enhance the attractions of the dining-room floor." (It was Francesca, you remember, who had "warstled" with the itemized accounts at Smith's Private Hotel in London, and she who was always obliged to turn pounds, shillings, and pence into dollars and cents before she could add or subtract.)
"Come and look at the flowers in my bedroom," I called, "four great boxes full! Mr. Beresford must have ordered the carnations, because he always does; but where did the roses come from, I wonder?"
I rang the bell, and a neat white-aproned maid appeared.
"Who brought these flowers, please?"
"I couldna say, mam."
"Thank you; will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop?"
In a moment she returned with the message, "There will be a letter in the box, mam."
"It seems to me the letter should be in the box now, if it is ever to be," I thought, and I presently drew this card from among the fragrant buds:—
"Lady Baird sends these Scotch roses as a small return for the pleasure she has received from Miss Hamilton's pictures. Lady Baird will give herself the pleasure of calling to-morrow; meantime she hopes that Miss Hamilton and her party will dine with her some evening this week."
"How nice!" exclaimed Salemina.
"The celebrated Miss Hamilton's undistinguished party presents its humble compliments to Lady Baird," chanted Francesca, "and having no engagements whatever, and small hope of any, will dine with her on any and every evening she may name. Miss Hamilton's party will wear its best clothes, polish its mental jewels, and endeavor in every possible way not to injure the gifted Miss Hamilton's reputation among the Scottish nobility."
I wrote a hasty note of thanks to Lady Baird, and rang the bell.
"Can I send a message, please?" I asked the maid.
"I couldna say, mam."
"Will you be good enough to ask Mrs. M'Collop, please?"
Interval; then:—
"The Boots will tak' it at seeven o'clock, mam."
"Thank you; is Fotheringay Crescent near here?"
"I couldna say, mam."
"Thank you; what is your name, please?"
I waited in well-grounded anxiety, for I had no idea that she knew her name, or that if she had ever heard it, she could say it; but, to my surprise, she answered almost immediately, "Susanna Crum, mam!"
What a joy it is in a vexatious world, where things "gang aft agley," to find something absolutely right.
If I had devoted years to the subject, having the body of Susanna Crum before my eyes every minute of the time for inspiration, Susanna Crum is what I should have named that maid. Not a vowel could be added, not a consonant omitted. I said so when first I saw her, and weeks of intimate acquaintance only deepened my reverence for the parental genius that had so described her to the world.
When we awoke next morning the sun had forgotten itself and was shining in at Mrs. M'Collop's back windows.
We should have arisen at once to burn sacrifices and offer oblations, but we had seen the sun frequently in America, and had no idea (poor fools!) that it was anything to be grateful for, so we accepted it, almost without comment, as one of the perennial providences of life.
When I speak of Edinburgh sunshine I do not mean, of course, any such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and as transitory as a martyr's smile; but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, "I think now we shall be having settled weather!" It is a pathetic optimism, beautiful but quite groundless, and leads one to believe in the story that when Father Noah refused to take Sandy into the ark, he sat down philosophically outside, saying, with a glance at the clouds, "Aweel! the day's jist aboot the ord'nar', an' I wouldna won'er if we saw the sun afore nicht!"
But what loyal son of Edina cares for these transatlantic gibes, and where is the dweller within her royal gates who fails to succumb to the sombre beauty of that old gray town of the North? "Gray! why, it is gray, or gray and gold, or gray and gold and blue, or gray and gold and blue and green, or gray and gold and blue and green and purple, according as the heaven pleases and you choose your ground! But take it when it is most sombrely gray, where is another such gray city?"
So says one of her lovers, and so the great army of lovers would say, had they the same gift of language; for
"Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be, …Yea, an imperial city that might holdFive times a hundred noble towns in fee, …Thus should her towers be raised; with vicinageOf clear bold hills, that curve her very streets,As if to indicate, 'mid choicest seatsOf Art, abiding Nature's majesty."
We ate a hasty breakfast that first morning, and prepared to go out for a walk into the great unknown, perhaps the most pleasurable sensation in the world. Francesca was ready first, and, having mentioned the fact several times ostentatiously, she went into the drawing-room to wait and read "The Scotsman." When we went thither a few minutes later we found that she had disappeared.
"She is below, of course," said Salemina. "She fancies that we shall feel more ashamed at our tardiness if we find her sitting on the hall bench in silent martyrdom."
There was no one in the hall, however, save Susanna, who inquired if we would see the cook before going out.
"We have no time now, Susanna," I remarked. "We are anxious to have a walk before the weather changes if possible, but we shall be out for luncheon and in for dinner, and Mrs. M'Collop may give us anything she pleases. Do you know where Miss Francesca is?"
"I couldna s—"
"Certainly, of course you couldn't; but I wonder if Mrs. M'Collop saw her?"
Mrs. M'Collop appeared from the basement, and vouchsafed the information that she had seen "the young leddy rinnin' after the regiment."
"Running after the regiment!" repeated Salemina automatically. "What a reversal of the laws of nature! Why, in Berlin, it was always the regiment that used to run after her!"
We learned in what direction the soldiers had gone, and pursuing the same path found the young lady on the corner of a street near by. She was quite unabashed. "You don't know what you have missed!" she said excitedly. "Let us get into this tram, and possibly we can head them off somewhere. They may be going into battle, and if so my heart's blood is at their service. It is one of those experiences that come only once in a lifetime. There were pipes and there were kilts! (I didn't suppose they ever really wore them outside of the theatre!) When you have seen the kilts swinging, Salemina, you will never be the same woman afterwards! You never expected to see the Olympian gods walking, did you? Perhaps you thought they always sat on practicable rocks and made stiff gestures from the elbow, as they do in the Wagner operas? Well, these gods walked, if you can call the inspired gait a walk! If there is a single spinster left in Scotland, it is because none of these ever asked her to marry him. Ah, how grateful I ought to be that I am free to say 'yes,' if a kilt ever asks me to be his! Poor Penelope, yoked to your commonplace trousered Beresford! (I wish the tram would go faster!) You must capture one of them, by fair means or foul, Penelope, and Salemina and I will hold him down while you paint him,—there they are, they are there somewhere, don't you hear them?"
There they were indeed, filing down the grassy slopes of the Gardens, swinging across one of the stone bridges, and winding up the Castle Hill to the Esplanade like a long, glittering snake; the streamers of their Highland bonnets waving, their arms glistening in the sun, and the bagpipes playing "The March of the Cameron Men." The pipers themselves were mercifully hidden from us on that first occasion, and it was well, for we could never have borne another feather's weight of ecstasy.
It was in Princes Street that we had alighted,—named thus for the prince who afterwards became George IV.—and I hope he was, and is, properly grateful. It ought never to be called a street, this most magnificent of terraces, and the world has cause to bless that interdict of the Court of Sessions in 1774, which prevented the Gradgrinds of the day from erecting buildings along its south side,—a sordid scheme that would have been the very superfluity of naughtiness.
It was an envious Glasgow body who said grudgingly, as he came out of Waverley Station, and gazed along its splendid length for the first time, "Weel, wi' a' their haverin', it's but half a street, onyway!"—which always reminded me of the Western farmer who came from his native plains to the beautiful Berkshire hills. "I've always heard o' this scenery," he said. "Blamed if I can find any scenery; but if there was, nobody could see it, there's so much high ground in the way!"
To think that not so much more than a hundred years ago Princes Street was naught but a straight country road, the "Lang Dykes" and the "Lang Gait," as it was called.
We looked down over the grassy chasm that separates the New from the Old Town; looked our first on Arthur's Seat, that crouching lion of a mountain; saw the Corstorphine hills, and Calton Heights, and Salisbury Crags, and finally that stupendous bluff of rock that culminates so majestically in Edinburgh Castle. There is something else which, like Susanna Crum's name, is absolutely and ideally right! Stevenson calls it one of the most satisfactory crags in nature—a Bass rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing trains, carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and describing its warlike shadow over the liveliest and brightest thoroughfare of the new town. It dominates the whole countryside from water and land. The men who would have the courage to build such a castle in such a spot are all dead; all dead, and the world is infinitely more comfortable without them. They are all gone, and no more like unto them will ever be born, and we can most of us count upon dying safely in our beds, of diseases bred of modern civilization. But I am glad that those old barbarians, those rudimentary creatures working their way up into the divine likeness, when they were not hanging, drawing, quartering, torturing, and chopping their neighbors, and using their heads in conventional patterns on the tops of gate-posts, did devote their leisure intervals to rearing fortresses like this. Edinburgh Castle could not be conceived, much less built, nowadays, when all our energy is consumed in bettering the condition of the "submerged tenth"! What did they care about the "masses," that "regal race that is now no more," when they were hewing those blocks of rugged rock and piling them against the sky-line on the top of that great stone mountain! It amuses me to think how much more picturesque they left the world, and how much better we shall leave it; though if an artist were requested to distribute individual awards to different generations, you could never persuade him to give first prizes to the centuries that produced steam laundries, trolleys, X rays, and sanitary plumbing.
What did they reck of Peace Congresses and bloodless arbitrations when they lighted the beacon-fires, flaming out to the gudeman and his sons ploughing or sowing in the Lang Dykes the news that their "ancient enemies of England had crossed the Tweed"!
I am the most peaceful person in the world, but the Castle was too much for my imagination. I was mounted and off and away from the first moment I gazed upon its embattled towers, heard the pipers in the distance, and saw the Black Watch swinging up the green steeps where the huge fortress "holds its state." The modern world had vanished, and my steed was galloping, galloping, galloping back into the place-of-the-things-that-are-past, traversing centuries at every leap.
"To arms! Let every banner in Scotland float defiance to the breeze!" (So I heard my newborn imaginary spirit say to my real one.) "Yes, and let the Deacon Convener unfurl the sacred Blue Blanket, under which every liege burgher of the kingdom is bound to answer summons! The bale-fires are gleaming, giving alarm to Hume, Haddington, Dunbar, Dalkeith, and Eggerhope. Rise, Stirling, Fife, and the North! All Scotland will be under arms in two hours. One bale-fire: the English are in motion! Two: they are advancing! Four in a row: they are of great strength! All men in arms west of Edinburgh muster there! All eastward, at Haddington! And every Englishman caught in Scotland is lawfully the prisoner of whoever takes him!" (What am I saying? I love Englishmen, but the spell is upon me!) "Come on, Macduff!" (The only suitable and familiar challenge my warlike tenant can summon at the moment.) "I am the son of a Gael! My dagger is in my belt, and with the guid broadsword at my side I can with one blow cut a man in twain! My bow is cut from the wood of the yews of Glenure; the shaft is from the wood of Lochetive, the feathers from the great golden eagles of Lochtreigside! My arrowhead was made by the smiths of the race of Macphedran! Come on, Macduff!"
And now a shopkeeper has filled his window with Royal Stuart tartans, and I am instantly a Jacobite.
"The Highland clans wi' sword in hand,Frae John o' Groat's to Airly,Hae to a man declar'd to standOr fa' wi' Royal Charlie.Come through the heather, around him gather,Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegither,And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king,For wha'll be king but Charlie?"
It is the eve of the battle of Prestonpans. Is it not under the Rock of Dunsappie on yonder Arthur's Seat that our Highland army will encamp to-night? At dusk the prince will hold a council of his chiefs and nobles (I am a chief and a noble), and at daybreak we shall march through the old hedgerows and woods of Duddingston, pipes playing and colors flying, bonnie Charlie at the head, his claymore drawn and the scabbard flung away! (I mean awa'!)
"Then here's a health to Charlie's cause,And be 't complete an' early;His very name my heart's blood warmsTo arms for Royal Charlie!
"Come through the heather, around him gather,Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' thegither,And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king,For wha'll be king but Charlie?"
I hope that those in authority will never attempt to convene a peace congress in Edinburgh, lest the influence of the Castle be too strong for the delegates. They could not resist it nor turn their backs upon it, since, unlike other ancient fortresses, it is but a stone's throw from the front windows of all the hotels. They might mean never so well, but they would end by buying dirk hat-pins and claymore brooches for their wives, their daughters would all run after the kilted regiment and marry as many of the pipers as asked them, and before night they would all be shouting with the noble Fitz-Eustace,
"Where's the coward who would not dareTo fight for such a land?"
While I was rhapsodizing, Salemina and Francesca were shopping in the Arcade, buying some of the cairngorms, and Tam O'Shanter purses, and models of Burns's cottage, and copies of "Marmion" in plaided covers, and thistle belt-buckles, and bluebell penwipers, with which we afterwards inundated our native land. When my warlike mood had passed, I sat down upon the steps of the Scott monument and watched the passers-by in a sort of waking dream. I suppose they were the usual professors and doctors and ministers who are wont to walk up and down the Edinburgh streets, with a sprinkling of lairds and leddies of high degree and a few Americans looking at the shop windows to choose their clan-tartans; but for me they did not exist. In their places stalked the ghosts of kings and queens and knights and nobles: Columba, Abbot of Iona; Queen Margaret and Malcolm—she the sweetest saint in all the throng; King David riding towards Drumsheugh forest on Holy Rood-day, with his horns and hounds and huntsmen following close behind; Anne of Denmark and Jingling Geordie; Mary Stuart in all her girlish beauty, with the four Maries in her train; and lurking behind, Bothwell, "that ower sune stepfaither," and the murdered Rizzio and Darnley; John Knox, in his black Geneva cloak; Bonnie Prince Charlie and Flora Macdonald; lovely Annabella Drummond; Robert the Bruce; George Heriot with a banner bearing on it the words "I distribute chearfully;" James I. carrying The King's Quair; Oliver Cromwell; and a long line of heroes, martyrs, humble saints, and princely knaves.
Behind them, regardless of precedence, came the Ploughman Poet and the Ettrick Shepherd, Boswell and Dr. Johnson, Dr. John Brown and Thomas Carlyle, Lady Nairne and Drummond of Hawthornden, Allan Ramsay and Sir Walter; and is it not a proof of the Wizard's magic art, that side by side with the wraiths of these real people walked, or seemed to walk, the Fair Maid of Perth, Jeanie Deans, Meg Merrilies, Guy Mannering, Ellen, Marmion, and a host of others so sweetly familiar and so humanly dear that the very street-laddies could have named and greeted them as they passed by?
Life at Mrs. M'Collop's apartments in 22, Breadalbane Terrace is about as simple, comfortable, dignified, and delightful as it well can be.
Mrs. M'Collop herself is neat, thrifty, precise, tolerably genial, and "verra releegious."
Her partner, who is also the cook, is a person introduced to us as Miss Diggity. We afterwards learned that this is spelled Dalgety, but it is not considered good form, in Scotland, to pronounce the names of persons and places as they are written. When, therefore, I allude to the cook, which will be as seldom as possible, I shall speak of her as Miss Diggity-Dalgety, so that I shall be presenting her correctly both to the eye and to the ear, and giving her at the same time a hyphenated name, a thing which is a secret object of aspiration in Great Britain.
In selecting our own letters and parcels from the common stock on the hall table, I perceive that most of our fellow lodgers are hyphenated ladies, whose visiting-cards diffuse the intelligence that in their single persons two ancient families and fortunes are united. On the ground floor are the Misses Hepburn-Sciennes (pronounced Hebburn-Sheens); on the floor above us are Miss Colquhoun (Cohoon) and her cousin Miss Cockburn-Sinclair (Coburn-Sinkler). As soon as the Hepburn-Sciennes depart, Mrs. M'Collop expects Mrs. Menzies of Kilconquhar, of whom we shall speak as Mrs. Mingess of Kinyukkar. There is not a man in the house; even the Boots is a girl, so that 22, Breadalbane Terrace is as truly acastra puellarumas was ever the Castle of Edinburgh with its maiden princesses in the olden time.
We talked with Miss Diggity-Dalgety on the evening of our first day at Mrs. M'Collop's, when she came up to know our commands. As Francesca and Salemina were both in the room, I determined to be as Scotch as possible, for it is Salemina's proud boast that she is taken for a native of every country she visits.
"We shall not be entertaining at present, Miss Diggity," I said, "so you can give us just the ordinary dishes,—no doubt you are accustomed to them: scones, baps or bannocks with marmalade, finnan-haddie or kippered herrings for breakfast; tea,—of course we never touch coffee in the morning" (here Francesca started with surprise); "porridge, and we like them well boiled, please" (I hope she noted the plural pronoun; Salemina did, and blanched with envy); "minced collops for luncheon, or a nice little black-faced chop; Scotch broth, peas brose or cockyleekie soup, at dinner, and haggis now and then, with a cold shape for dessert. That is about the sort of thing we are accustomed to,—just plain Scotch living."
I was impressing Miss Diggity-Dalgety,—I could see that clearly; but Francesca spoiled the effect by inquiring, maliciously, if we could sometimes have a howtowdy wi' drappit eggs, or her favorite dish, wee grumphie wi' neeps.
Here Salemina was obliged to poke the fire in order to conceal her smiles, and the cook probably suspected that Francesca found howtowdy in the Scotch glossary; but we amused each other vastly, and that is our principal object in life.
Miss Diggity-Dalgety's forbears must have been exposed to foreign influences, for she interlards her culinary conversation with French terms, and we have discovered that this is quite common. A "jigget" of mutton is of course agigot, and we have identified an "ashet" as anassiette. The "petticoat tails" she requested me to buy at the confectioner's were somewhat more puzzling, but when they were finally purchased by Susanna Crum they appeared to be ordinary little cakes; perhaps, therefore,petits gastels, since gastel is an old form ofgâteau, as wasbelforbeau. Susanna, on her part, speaks of the wardrobe in my bedroom as an "awmry." It certainly contains no weapons, so cannot be an armory, and we conjecture that her word must be a corruption ofarmoire.
"That was a remarkable touch about the black-faced chop," laughed Salemina, when Miss Diggity-Dalgety had retired; "not that I believe they ever say it."
"I am sure they must," I asserted stoutly, "for I passed a flesher's on my way home, and saw a sign with 'Prime Black-faced Mutton' printed on it. I also saw 'Fed Veal,' but I forgot to ask the cook for it."
"We ought really to have kept house in Edinburgh," observed Francesca, looking up from "The Scotsman." "One can get a 'self-contained residential flat' for twenty pounds a month. We are such an enthusiastic trio that a self-contained flat would be everything to us; and if it were not fully furnished, here is a firm that wishes to sell a 'composite bed' for six pounds, and a 'gent's stuffed easy' for five. Added to these inducements there is somebody who advertises that parties who intend 'displenishing' at the Whit Term would do well to consult him, as he makes a specialty of second-handed furniture and 'cyclealities.' What are 'cyclealities,' Susanna?" (She had just come in with coals.)
"I couldna say, mam."
"Thank you; no, you need not ask Mrs. M'Collop; it is of no consequence."
Susanna Crum is a most estimable young woman, clean, respectful, willing, capable, and methodical, but as a Bureau of Information she is painfully inadequate. Barring this single limitation she seems to be a treasure-house of all good practical qualities; and being thus clad and panoplied in virtue, why should she be so timid and self-distrustful?
She wears an expression which can mean only one of two things: either she has heard of the national tomahawk and is afraid of violence on our part, or else her mother was frightened before she was born. This applies in general to her walk and voice and manner, but is it fear that prompts her eternal "I couldna say," or is it perchance Scotch caution and prudence? Is she afraid of projecting her personality too indecently far? Is it the influence of the "catecheesm" on her early youth? Is it the indirect effect of heresy trials on her imagination? Does she remember the thumb-screw of former generations? At all events, she will neither affirm nor deny, and I am putting her to all sorts of tests, hoping to discover finally whether she is an accident, an exaggeration, or a type.
Salemina thinks that our American accent may confuse her. Of course she means Francesca's and mine, for she has none; although we have tempered ours so much for the sake of the natives, that we can scarcely understand each other any more. As for Susanna's own accent, she comes from the heart of Aberdeenshire, and her intonation is beyond my power to reproduce.
We naturally wish to identify all the national dishes; so, "Is this cockle soup, Susanna?" I ask her, as she passes me the plate at dinner.
"I couldna say."
"This vegetable is new to me, Susanna; is it perhaps sea-kail?"
"I canna say, mam."
Then finally, in despair, as she handed me a boiled potato one day, I fixed my searching Yankee brown eyes on her blue-Presbyterian, non-committal ones and asked, "What is this vegetable, Susanna?"
In an instant she withdrew herself, her soul, her ego, so utterly that I felt myself gazing at an inscrutable stone image, as she replied, "I couldna say, mam."
This was too much! Her mother may have been frightened, very badly frightened, but this was more than I could endure without protest. The plain boiled potato is practically universal. It is not only common to all temperate climates, but it has permeated all classes of society. I am confident that the plain boiled potato has been one of the chief constituents in the building up of that frame in which Susanna Crum conceals her opinions and emotions. I remarked, therefore, as an apparent afterthought, "Why, it is a potato, is it not, Susanna?"
What do you think she replied, when thus hunted into a corner, pushed against a wall, driven to the very confines of her personal and national liberty? She subjected the potato to a second careful scrutiny, and answered, "I wouldna say it's no!"
Now there is no inherited physical terror in this. It is the concentrated essence of intelligent reserve, caution, and obstinacy; it is a conscious intellectual hedging; it is a dogged and determined attempt to build up barriers of defense between the questioner and the questionee: it must be, therefore, the offspring of the catechism and the heresy trial.
Once again, after establishing an equally obvious fact, I succeeded in wringing from her the reluctant admission, "It depends," but she was so shattered by the bulk and force of this outgo, so fearful that in some way she had imperiled her life or reputation, so anxious concerning the effect that her unwilling testimony might have upon unborn generations, that she was of no real service the rest of the day.
I wish that the Lord Advocate, or some modern counterpart of Braxfield, the hanging judge, would summon Susanna Crum as a witness in an important case. He would need his longest plummet to sound the depths of her consciousness.
I have had no legal experience, but I can imagine the scene.
"Is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?"
"I couldna say, my lord."
"You have not understood the question, Susanna. Is the prisoner your father?"
"I couldna say, my lord."
"Come, come, my girl! you must answer the questions put you by the court. You have been an inmate of the prisoner's household since your earliest consciousness. He provided you with food, lodging, and clothing during your infancy and early youth. You have seen him on annual visits to your home, and watched him as he performed the usual parental functions for your younger brothers and sisters. I therefore repeat, is the prisoner your father, Susanna Crum?"
"I wouldna say he's no, my lord."
"This is really beyond credence! What do you conceive to be the idea involved in the word 'father,' Susanna Crum?"
"It depends, my lord."
And this, a few hundred years earlier, would have been the natural and effective moment for the thumb-screws.
I do not wish to be understood as defending these uncomfortable appliances. They would never have been needed to elicit information from me, for I should have spent my nights inventing matter to confess in the daytime. I feel sure that I should have poured out such floods of confessions and retractations that if all Scotland had been one listening ear it could not have heard my tale. I am only wondering if, in the extracting of testimony from the common mind, the thumb-screw might not have been more necessary with some nations than with others.
Invitations had been pouring in upon us since the delivery of our letters of introduction, and it was now the evening of our début in Edinburgh society. Francesca had volunteered to perform the task of leaving cards, ordering a private victoria for the purpose, and arraying herself in purple and fine linen.
"Much depends upon the first impression," she had said. "Miss Hamilton's 'party' may not be gifted, but it is well dressed. My hope is that some of our future hostesses will be looking from the second-story front windows. If they are, I can assure them in advance that I shall be a national advertisement."
It is needless to remark that as it began to rain heavily as she was leaving the house, she was obliged to send back the open carriage, and order, to save time, one of the public cabs from the stand in the Terrace.
"Would you mind having the lamiter, being first in line?" askedSusanna of Salemina, who had transmitted the command.
When Salemina fails to understand anything, the world is kept in complete ignorance,—least of all would she stoop to ask a humble maid servant to translate the vernacular of the country; so she replied affably, "Certainly, Susanna, that is the kind we always prefer. I suppose it is covered?"
Francesca did not notice, until her coachman alighted to deliver the first letter and cards, that he had one club foot and one wooden leg; it was then that the full significance of "lamiter" came to her. He was covered, however, as Salemina had supposed, and the occurrence gave us a precious opportunity of chaffing that dungeon of learning. He was tolerably alert and vigorous, too, although he certainly did not impart elegance to a vehicle, and he knew every street in the court end of Edinburgh, and every close and wynd in the Old Town. On this our first meeting with him, he faltered only when Francesca asked him last of all to drive to "Kildonan House, Helmsdale;" supposing, not unnaturally, that it was as well known an address as Morningside House, Tipperlinn, whence she had just come. The lamiter had never heard of Kildonan House nor of Helmsdale, and he had driven in the streets of Auld Reekie for thirty years. None of the drivers whom he consulted could supply any information; Susanna Crum couldna say that she had ever heard of it, nor could Mrs. M'Collop nor Miss Diggity-Dalgety. It was reserved for Lady Baird to explain that Helmsdale was two hundred and eighty miles north, and that Kildonan House was ten miles from the Helmsdale railway station, so that the poor lamiter would have had a weary drive even had he known the way. The friends who had given us letters to Mr. and Mrs. Jameson-Inglis (Jimmyson-Ingals) must have expected us either to visit John o' Groats on the northern border, and drop in on Kildonan Houseen route, or to send our note of introduction by post and await an invitation to pass the summer. At all events, the anecdote proved very pleasing to our Edinburgh acquaintances. I hardly know whether, if they should visit America, they would enjoy tales of their own stupidity as hugely as they did the tales of ours, but they really were very appreciative in this particular, and it is but justice to ourselves to say that we gave them every opportunity for enjoyment.
But I must go back to our first grand dinner in Scotland. We were dressed at quarter past seven, when, in looking at the invitation again, we discovered that the dinner-hour was eight o'clock, not seven-thirty. Susanna did not happen to know the exact or approximate distance to Fotheringay Crescent, but the maiden Boots affirmed that it was only two minutes' drive, so we sat down in front of the fire to chat.
It was Lady Baird's birthday feast to which we had been bidden, and we had done our best to honor the occasion. We had prepared a large bouquet tied with the Maclean tartan (Lady Baird is a Maclean), and had printed in gold letters on one of the ribbons, "Another for Hector," the battle-cry of the clan. We each wore a sprig of holly, because it is the badge of the family, while I added a girdle and shoulder-knot of tartan velvet to my pale green gown, and borrowed Francesca's emerald necklace, persuading her that she was too young to wear such jewels in the old country.
Francesca was miserably envious that she had not thought of tartans first. "You may consider yourself 'gey an' fine,' all covered over with Scotch plaid, but I wouldn't be so 'kenspeckle' for worlds!" she said, using expressions borrowed from Mrs. M'Collop; "and as for disguising your nationality, do not flatter yourself that you look like anything but an American. I forgot to tell you the conversation I overheard in the tram this morning, between a mother and daughter, who were talking about us, I dare say. 'Have they any proper frocks for so large a party, Bella?' asked the mother.
"'I thought I explained in the beginning, mamma, that they areAmericans.'
"'Still, you know they are only traveling,—just passing through, as it were; they may not be familiar with our customs, and we do want our party to be a smart one.'
"'Wait until you see them, mamma, and you will probably feel like hiding your diminished head! It is my belief that if an American lady takes a half-hour journey in a tram she carries full evening dress and a diamond necklace, in case anything should happen on the way. I am not in the least nervous about their appearance. I only hope that they will not be too exuberant; American girls are so frightfully vivacious and informal, I always feel as if I were being taken by the throat!'"
"A picturesque, though rather vigorous expression; however, it does no harm to be perfectly dressed," said Salemina consciously, putting a steel embroidered slipper on the fender and settling the holly in the silver folds of her gown; "then when they discover that we are all well bred, and that one of us is intelligent, it will be the more credit to the country that gave us birth."
"Of course it is impossible to tell what country did giveyoubirth," retorted Francesca, "but that will only be to your advantage—away from home!"
Francesca is inflexibly, almost aggressively American, but Salemina is a citizen of the world. If the United States should be involved in a war, I am confident that Salemina would be in front with the other Gatling guns, for in that case a principle would be at stake; but in all lesser matters she is extremely unprejudiced. She prefers German music, Italian climate, French dressmakers, English tailors, Japanese manners, and American—American something,—I have forgotten just what; it is either the ice-cream soda or the form of government,—I can't remember which.
"I wonder why they named it 'Fotheringay' Crescent," mused Francesca. "Some association with Mary Stuart, of course. Poor, poor, pretty lady! A free queen only six years, and think of the number of beds she slept in, and the number of trees she planted; we have already seen, I am afraid to say how many. When did she govern, when did she scheme, above all when did she flirt, with all this racing and chasing over the country? Mrs. M'Collop calls Anne of Denmark a 'sad scattercash' and Mary an 'awfu' gadabout,' and I am inclined to agree with her. By the way, when she was making my bed this morning, she told me that her mother claimed descent from the Stewarts of Appin, whoever they may be. She apologized for Queen Mary's defects as if she were a distant family connection. If so, then the famous Stuart charm has been lost somewhere, for Mrs. M'Collop certainly possesses no alluring curves of temperament."
"I am going to select some distinguished ancestors this very minute, before I go to my first Edinburgh dinner," said I decidedly. "It seems hard that ancestors should have everything to do with settling our nationality and our position in life, and we not have a word to say. How nice it would be to select one's own after one had arrived at years of discretion, or to adopt different ones according to the country one chanced to be visiting! I am going to do it; it is unusual, but there must be a pioneer in every good movement. Let me think: do help me, Salemina! I am a Hamilton to begin with; I might be descended from the logical Sir William himself, and thus become the idol of the university set!"
"He died only about thirty years ago, and you would have to be his daughter: that would never do," said Salemina. "Why don't you take Thomas Hamilton, Earl of Melrose and Haddington? He was Secretary of State, King's Advocate, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, and all sorts of fine things. He was the one King James used to call 'Tam o' the Cowgate.'"
"Perfectly delightful! I don't care so much about his other titles, but 'Tam o' the Cowgate' is irresistible. I will take him. He was my—what was he?"
"He was at least your great-great-great-great-grandfather; that is a safe distance. Then there's that famous Jenny Geddes, who flung her fauld-stule at the Dean in St. Giles's,—she was a Hamilton, too, if you fancy her!"
"Yes, I'll take her with pleasure," I responded thankfully. "Of course I don't know why she flung the stool,—it may have been very reprehensible; but there is always good stuff in stool-flingers; it's the sort of spirit one likes to inherit in diluted form. Now whom will you take?"
"I haven't even a peg on which to hang a Scottish ancestor," saidSalemina disconsolately.
"Oh, nonsense! think harder. Anybody will do as a starting-point; only you must be honorable and really show relationship, as I did with Jenny and Tam."
"My aunt Mary-Emma married a Lindsay," ventured Salemina hesitatingly.
"That will do," I answered delightedly.
"'The Gordons gay in English bludeThey wat their hose and shoon;The Lindsays flew like fire abootTill a' the fray was dune.'
You can play that you are one of the famous 'licht Lindsays,' and you can look up the particular ancestor in your big book. Now, Francesca, it's your turn!"
"I am American to the backbone," she declared, with insufferable dignity. "I do not desire any foreign ancestors."
"Francesca!" I expostulated. "Do you mean to tell me that you can dine with a lineal descendant of Sir Fitzroy Donald Maclean, Baronet, of Duart and Morven, and not make any effort to trace your genealogy back further than your parents?"
"If you goad me to desperation," she answered, "I will wear an American flag in my hair, declare that my father is a Red Indian, or a pork-packer, and talk about the superiority of our checking system and hotels all the evening. I don't want to go, anyway. It is sure to be stiff and ceremonious, and the man who takes me in will ask me the population of Chicago and the amount of wheat we exported last year,—he always does."
"I can't see why he should," said I. "I am sure you don't look as if you knew."
"My looks have thus far proved no protection," she replied sadly. "Salemina is so flexible, and you are so dramatic, that you enter into all these experiences with zest. You already more than half believe in that Tam o' the Cowgate story. But there'll be nothing for me in Edinburgh society; it will be all clergymen"—
"Ministers," interjected Salemina.
—"all ministers and professors. My Redfern gown will be unappreciated, and my Worth evening frocks worse than wasted!"
"There are a few thousand medical students," I said encouragingly, "and all the young advocates, and a sprinkling of military men,—they know Worth frocks."
"And," continued Salemina bitingly, "there will always be, even in an intellectual city like Edinburgh, a few men who continue to escape all the developing influences about them, and remain commonplace, conventional manikins, devoted to dancing and flirting. Never fear, they will find you!"
This sounds harsh, but nobody minds Salemina, least of all Francesca, who well knows she is the apple of that spinster's eye. But at this moment Susanna opens the door (timorously, as if there might be a panther behind it) and announces the cab (in the same tone in which she would announce the beast); we pick up our draperies, and are whirled off by the lamiter to dine with the Scottish nobility.