The House With the Green Shutters (19 page)

It was the same sensitiveness to physical impression which won him to
Barbie that repelled him from the outer world. The scenes round Barbie,
so vividly impressed, were his friends, because he had known them from
his birth; he was a somebody in their midst and had mastered their
familiarity; they were the ministers of his mind. Those other scenes
were his foes, because, realizing them morbidly in relation to himself,
he was cowed by their big indifference to him, and felt puny, a nobody
before them. And he could not pass them like more manly and more callous
minds; they came burdening in on him whether he would or no. Neither
could he get above them. Except when lording it at Barbie, he had never
a quick reaction of the mind on what he saw; it possessed him, not he
it.

About twilight, when the rain had ceased, his train was brought up with
a jerk between the stations. While the rattle and bang continued it
seemed not unnatural to young Gourlay (though depressing) to be whirling
through the darkening land; it went past like a panorama in a dream. But
in the dead pause following the noise he thought it "queer" to be
sitting here in the intense quietude and looking at a strange and
unfamiliar scene—planted in its midst by a miracle of speed, and
gazing at it closely through a window! Two ploughmen from the farmhouse
near the line were unyoking at the end of the croft; he could hear the
muddy noise ("splorroch" is the Scotch of it) made by the big hoofs on
the squashy head-rig. "Bauldy" was the name of the shorter ploughman, so
yelled to by his mate; and two of the horses were "Prince and Rab"—just
like a pair in Loranogie's stable. In the curtainless window of the
farmhouse shone a leaping flame—not the steady glow of a lamp, but the
tossing brightness of a fire—and thought he to himself, "They're
getting the porridge for the men!" He had a vision of the woman stirring
in the meal, and of the homely interior in the dancing firelight. He
wondered who the folk were, and would have liked to know them. Yes, it
was "queer," he thought, that he who left Barbie only a few hours ago
should be in intimate momentary touch with a place and people he had
never seen before. The train seemed arrested by a spell that he might
get his vivid impression.

When ensconced in his room that evening he had a brighter outlook on the
world. With the curtains drawn, and the lights burning, its shabbiness
was unrevealed. After the whirling strangeness of the day he was glad to
be in a place that was his own; here at least was a corner of earth of
which he was master; it reassured him. The firelight dancing on the tea
things was pleasant and homely, and the enclosing cosiness shut out the
black roaring world that threatened to engulf his personality. His
spirits rose, ever ready to jump at a trifle.

The morrow, however, was the first of his lugubrious time.

If he had been an able man he might have found a place in his classes to
console him. Many youngsters are conscious of a vast depression when
entering the portals of a university; they feel themselves inadequate to
cope with the wisdom of the ages garnered in the solid walls. They envy
alike the smiling sureness of the genial charlatan (to whom professors
are a set of fools), and the easy mastery of the man of brains. They
have a cowering sense of their own inefficiency. But the feeling of
uneasiness presently disappears. The first shivering dip is soon
forgotten by the hearty breaster of the waves. But ere you breast the
waves you must swim; and to swim through the sea of learning was more
than heavy-headed Gourlay could accomplish. His mind, finding no solace
in work, was left to prey upon itself.

If he had been the ass total and complete he might have loafed in the
comfortable haze which surrounds the average intelligence, and cushions
it against the world. But in Gourlay was a rawness of nerve, a
sensitiveness to physical impression, which kept him fretting and
stewing, and never allowed him to lapse on a sluggish indifference.

Though he could not understand things, he could not escape them; they
thrust themselves forward on his notice. We hear of poor genius cursed
with perceptions which it can't express; poor Gourlay was cursed with
impressions which he couldn't intellectualize. With little power of
thought, he had a vast power of observation; and as everything he
observed in Edinburgh was offensive and depressing, he was constantly
depressed—the more because he could not understand. At Barbie his life,
though equally void of mental interest, was solaced by surroundings
which he loved. In Edinburgh his surroundings were appalling to his
timid mind. There was a greengrocer's shop at the corner of the street
in which he lodged, and he never passed it without being conscious of
its trodden and decaying leaves. They were enough to make his morning
foul. The middle-aged woman, who had to handle carrots with her frozen
fingers, was less wretched than he who saw her, and thought of her after
he went by. A thousand such impressions came boring in upon his mind and
made him squirm. He could not toss them aside like the callous and
manly; he could not see them in their due relation, and think them
unimportant, like the able; they were always recurring and suggesting
woe. If he fled to his room, he was followed by his morbid sense of an
unpleasant world. He conceived a rankling hatred of the four walls
wherein he had to live. Heavy Biblical pictures, in frames of gleaming
black like the splinters of a hearse, were hung against a dark ground.
Every time Gourlay raised his head he scowled at them with eyes of
gloom. It was curious that, hating his room, he was loath to go to bed.
He got a habit of sitting till three in the morning, staring at the dead
fire in sullen apathy.

He was sitting at nine o'clock one evening, wondering if there was no
means of escape from the wretched life he had to lead, when he received
a letter from Jock Allan, asking him to come and dine.

That dinner was a turning-point in young Gourlay's career. It is lucky
that a letter describing it has fallen into the hands of the patient
chronicler. It was sent by young Jimmy Wilson to his mother. As it gives
an idea—which is slightly mistaken—of Jock Allan, and an idea—which
is very unmistakable—of young Wilson, it is here presented in the place
of pride. It were a pity not to give a human document of this kind all
the honour in one's power.

"Dear mother," said the wee sma' Scoatchman—so the hearty Allan dubbed
him—"dear mother, I just write to inform you that I've been out to a
grand dinner at Jock Allan's. He met me on Princes Street, and made a
great how-d'ye-do. 'Come out on Thursday night, and dine with me,' says
he, in his big way. So here I went out to see him. I can tell you he's a
warmer! I never saw a man eat so much in all my born days—but I suppose
he would be having more on his table than usual to show off a bit,
knowing us Barbie boys would be writing home about it all. And drink!
D'ye know, he began with a whole half tumbler of whisky, and how many
more he had I really should
not
like to say! And he must be used to
it, too, for it seemed to have no effect on him whatever. And then he
smoked and smoked—two great big cigars after we had finished eating,
and then 'Damn it,' says he—he's an awful man to swear—'damn it,' he
says, 'there's no satisfaction in cigars; I must have a pipe,' and he
actually smoked
four
pipes before I came away! I noticed the cigars
were called 'Estorellas—Best Quality,' and when I was in last Saturday
night getting an ounce of shag at the wee shoppie round the corner, I
asked the price of 'these Estorellas.' 'Ninepence a piece!' said the
bodie. Just imagine Jock Allan smoking eighteen-pence, and not being
satisfied! He's up in the world since he used to shaw turnips at
Loranogie for sixpence a day! But he'll come down as quick if he keeps
on at yon rate. He made a great phrase with me; but though it keeps down
one's weekly bill to get a meal like yon—I declare I wasn't hungry for
two days—for all that I'll go very little about him. He'll be the kind
that borrows money very fast—one of those harum-scarum ones!"

Criticism like that is a boomerang that comes back to hit the emitting
skull with a hint of its kindred woodenness. It reveals the writer more
than the written of. Allan was a bigger man than you would gather from
Wilson's account of his Gargantuan revelry. He had a genius for
mathematics—a gift which crops up, like music, in the most unexpected
corners—and from plough-boy and herd he had become an actuary in Auld
Reekie. Wilson had no need to be afraid, the meagre fool, for his host
could have bought him and sold him.

Allan had been in love with young Gourlay's mother when she herself was
a gay young fliskie at Tenshillingland, but his little romance was soon
ended when Gourlay came and whisked her away. But she remained the one
romance of his life. Now in his gross and jovial middle age he idealized
her in memory (a sentimentalist, of course—he was Scotch); he never saw
her in her scraggy misery to be disillusioned; to him she was still the
wee bit lairdie's dochter, a vision that had dawned on his wretched
boyhood, a pleasant and pathetic memory. And for that reason he had a
curious kindness to her boy. That was why he introduced him to his boon
companions. He thought he was doing him a good turn.

It was true that Allan made a phrase with a withered wisp of humanity
like young Wilson. Not that he failed to see through him, for he
christened him "a dried washing-clout." But Allan, like most
great-hearted Scots far from their native place, saw it through a veil
of sentiment; harsher features that would have been ever-present to his
mind if he had never left it disappeared from view, and left only the
finer qualities bright within his memory. And idealizing the place he
idealized its sons. To him they had a value not their own, just because
they knew the brig and the burn and the brae, and had sat upon the
school benches. He would have welcomed a dog from Barbie. It was from a
like generous emotion that he greeted the bodies so warmly on his visits
home—he thought they were as pleased to see him as he was to see them.
But they imputed false motives to his hearty greetings. Even as they
shook his hand the mean ones would think to themselves: "What does he
mean by this now? What's he up till? No doubt he'll be wanting something
off me!" They could not understand the gusto with which the returned
exile cried, "Ay, man, Jock Tamson, and how are ye?" They thought such
warmth must have a sinister intention.—A Scot revisiting his native
place ought to walk very quietly. For the parish is sizing him up.

There were two things to be said against Allan, and two only—unless, of
course, you consider drink an objection. Wit with him was less the
moment's glittering flash than the anecdotal bang; it was a fine old
crusted blend which he stored in the cellars of his mind to bring forth
on suitable occasions, as cob-webby as his wine. And it tickled his
vanity to have a crowd of admiring youngsters round him to whom he might
retail his anecdotes, and play the brilliant
raconteur
. He had cronies
of his own years, and he was lordly and jovial amongst them—yet he
wanted another
entourage
. He was one of those middle-aged bachelors
who like a train of youngsters behind them, whom they favour in return
for homage. The wealthy man who had been a peasant lad delighted to act
the jovial host to sons of petty magnates from his home. Batch after
batch as they came up to College were drawn around him—partly because
their homage pleased him, and partly because he loved anything whatever
that came out of Barbie. There was no harm in Allan—though when his
face was in repose you saw the look in his eye at times of a man
defrauding his soul. A robustious young fellow of sense and brains would
have found in this lover of books and a bottle not a bad comrade. But he
was the worst of cronies for a weak swaggerer like Gourlay. For Gourlay,
admiring the older man's jovial power, was led on to imitate his faults,
to think them virtues and a credit; and he lacked the clear, cool head
that kept Allan's faults from flying away with him.

At dinner that night there were several braw, braw lads of Barbie Water.
There were Tarmillan the doctor (a son of Irrendavie), Logan the
cashier, Tozer the Englishman, old Partan—a guileless and inquiring
mind—and half a dozen students raw from the west. The students were of
the kind that goes up to College with the hayseed sticking in its hair.
Two are in a Colonial Cabinet now, two are in the poorhouse. So they go.

Tarmillan was the last to arrive. He came in sucking his thumb, into
which he had driven a splinter while conducting an experiment.

"I've a morbid horror of lockjaw," he explained. "I never get a jag from
a pin but I see myself in the shape of a hoop, semicircular, with my
head on one end of a table, my heels on the other, and a doctor standing
on my navel trying to reduce the curvature."

"Gosh!" said Partan, who was a literal fool, "is that the treatment they
purshoo?"

"That's the treatment!" said Tarmillan, sizing up his man. "Oh, it's a
queer thing lockjaw! I remember when I was gold-mining in Tibet, one of
our carriers who died of lockjaw had such a circumbendibus in his body
that we froze him and made him the hoop of a bucket to carry our water
in. You see he was a thin bit man, and iron was scarce."

"Ay, man!" cried Partan, "you've been in Tibet?"

"Often," waved Tarmillan, "often! I used to go there every summer."

Partan, who liked to extend his geographical knowledge, would have
talked of Tibet for the rest of the evening—and Tarmie would have told
him news—but Allan broke in.

"How's the book, Tarmillan?" he inquired.

Tarmillan was engaged on a treatise which those who are competent to
judge consider the best thing of its kind ever written.