The Daft Days. Munro Neil

Johnny Vicar, as his mother thought, when the snow was trampled under the feet of playing children, and women ran out of their houses, and crossed the street, some of them, I declare, to kiss each other, for ’tis a fashion lately come, and most genteel, grown wonderfully common in Scotland. Right down the middle of the town, with two small flags in his hat and holly in the lapel of his coat, went old Divine the hawker, with a great barrow of pure gold, crying “Fine Venetian oranges! wha’ll buy sweet Venetian oranges? Nane o’ your foreign trash. Oranges! Oranges! – rale New Year oranges, three a penny; bloods, a bawbee each!”

      The shops opened just for an hour for fear anybody might want anything, and many there were, you may be sure, who did, for they had eaten and drunken everything provided the night before – which we call Hogmanay, – and now there were currant-loaves and sweety biscuits to buy; shortcake, sugar and lemons, ginger cordial for the boys and girls and United Presbyterians, boiled ham for country cousins who might come unexpected, and P. & A. MacGlashan’s threepenny mutton-pies (twopence if you brought the ashet back), ordinarily only to be had on fair-days and on Saturdays, and far renowned for value.

      Miss Minto’s Millinery and Manteau Emporium was discovered at daylight to have magically outlined its doors and windows during the night with garlands and festoons of spruce and holly, whereon the white rose bloomed in snow; and Miss Minto herself, in a splendid crimson cloak down to the heels, and cheeks like cherries, was standing with mittens and her five finger-rings on, in the middle door, saying in beautiful gentle English “A Happy New Year” to every one who passed – even to George Jordon, the common cowherd, who was always a little funny in his intellects, and, because his trousers were bell-mouthed and hid his feet, could never remember whether he was going to his work or coming from it, unless he consulted the Schoolmaster. “The same to you, m’em, excuse my hands,” said poor George, just touching the tips of her fingers. Then, because he had been stopped and slewed a little from his course, he just went back the way he had come.

      Too late got up the red-faced sun, too late to laugh at Wanton Wully’s jovial bell, too late for Taggart’s mighty drumming, but a jolly winter sun, – ’twas all that was wanted among the chimneys to make the day complete.

      First of all to rise in Dyce’s house, after the mistress and the maid, was the master, Daniel Dyce himself.

      And now I will tell you all about Daniel Dyce: it is that behind his back he was known as Cheery Dan.

      “Your bath is ready, Dan,” his sister had cried, and he rose and went with chittering teeth to it, looked at it a moment, and put a hand in the water. It was as cold as ice, because that water, drinking which, men never age, comes from high mountain bens.

      “That for ye to-day!” said he to the bath, snapping his fingers. “I’ll see ye far enough first!” And contented himself with a slighter wash than usual, and shaving. As he shaved he hummed all the time, as was his habit, an ancient air of his boyhood; to-day it was

      “Star of Peace, to wanderers weary,”

      with not much tone but a great conviction, – a tall, lean, clean-shaven man of over fifty, with a fine long nose, a ruddy cheek, keen grey eyes, and plenty of room in his clothes, the pockets of him so large and open it was no wonder so many people tried, as it were, to put their hands into them. And when he was dressed he did a droll thing, for from one of his pockets he took what hereabouts we call a pea-sling, that to the rest of the world is a catapult, and having shut one eye, and aimed with the weapon, and snapped the rubber several times with amazing gravity, he went upstairs into an attic and laid it on a table at the window with a pencilled note, in which he wrote —

A New Year’s Day Presentfor a Good BoyfromAn Uncle who does not like Cats

      He looked round the little room that seemed very bright and cheerful, for its window gazed over the garden to the east and to the valley where was seen the King’s highway. “Wonderful! wonderful!” he said to himself. “They have made an extraordinary job of it. Very nice indeed, but just a shade ladylike. A stirring boy would prefer fewer fal-lals.”

      There was little indeed to suggest the occupation of a stirring boy in that attic, with its draped dressing-table in lilac print, its looking-glass flounced in muslin and pink lover’s-knots, its bower-like bed canopied and curtained with green lawn, its shy scent of pot-pourri and lavender. A framed text in crimson wools, the work of Bell Dyce when she was in Miss Mushet’s seminary, hung over the mantelpiece enjoining all beholders to

Watch and Pray

      Mr Dyce put both hands into his trousers pockets, bent a little, and heaved in a sort of chirruping laughter. “Man’s whole duty, according to Bell Dyce,” he said, “‘Watch and Pray’; but they do not need to have the lesson before them continually yonder in Chicago, I’ll warrant. Yon’s the place for watching, by all accounts, however it may be about the prayer. ‘Watch and Pray’ – h’m! It should be Watch or Pray – it clearly cannot be both at once with the world the way it is; you might as well expect a man to eat pease-meal and whistle strathspeys at the same time.”

      He was humming “Star of Peace” – for the tune he started the morning with usually lasted him all day, – and standing in the middle of the floor contemplating with amusement the ladylike adornment of the room prepared for his Chicago nephew, when a light step fell on the attic stairs, and a woman’s voice cried, “Dan! Dan Dyce! Coo-ee!”

      He did not answer.

      She cried again after coming up a step or two more, but still he did not answer. He slid behind one of the bed-curtains.

      CHAPTER II

      Alison Dyce came lightly up the rest of the stair, whistling blithely, in spite of her sister Bell’s old notion that whistling women and crowing hens are never canny. She swept into the room. People in the town – which has a forest of wood and deer behind it – used to say she had the tread and carriage of a young wild roe, and I can well assure you she was the girl to walk with on a winter day! She had in her hand a book of poems called ‘The Golden Treasury’ and a spray of the herb called Honesty, that thrives in poor men’s gardens. Having laid them down on the table without noticing her brother’s extraordinary Present for a Good Boy, she turned about and fondled things. She smoothed the bed-clothes as if they covered a child, she patted the chair-backs with an air of benediction, she took cushions to her breast like one that cuddled them, and when she touched the mantel-piece ornaments they could not help it but must start to chime. It was always a joy to see Alison Dyce redding-up, as we say; though in housewifery, like sewing, knitting, and cooking, she was only a poor second to her sister Bell. She tried, from duty, to like these occupations, but, oh dear! the task was beyond her: whatever she had learned from her schooling in Edinburgh and Brussels, it was not the darning of hose and the covering of rhubarb-tarts.

      Her gift, said Bell, was management.

      Tripping round the little attic, she came back by-and-by to the table at the window to take one last wee glimpse inside ‘The Golden Treasury,’ that was her own delight and her notion of happy half-hours for the ideal boy, and her eye fell for the first time on the pea-sling and the note beside it.

      She read, and laughed, and upon my word, if laughter like Ailie Dyce’s could be bought in perforated rolls, there would be no demand for Chopin and Schumann on the pianolas. It was a laugh that even her brother could not resist: a paroxysm of coughing burst from behind the curtains, and he came out beside her chuckling.

      “I reckoned without my hoast,” said he, gasping.

      “I was sure you were upstairs,” said Alison. “You silly man! Upon my word! Where’s your dignity, Mr Dyce?”

      Dan Dyce stood for a second a little bit abashed, rubbing his chin and blinking his eyes as if their fun was a thing to be kept from brimming over. “I’m a great wag!” said he. “If it’s dignity you’re after, just look at my velvet coat!” and so saying he caught the ends of his coat skirts with his fingers, held them out at arm’s-length, and turned round as he might do at a fit-on in his tailor’s, laughing till his hoast came on again. “Dignity, quo’ she, just look at my velvet coat!”

      “Dan,