Friend Mac Donald

Here is one among many; it is a reminiscence of my visit in a country seat not far from Edinburgh.

"I want to introduce you to an old lady, who wishes very much to make your acquaintance," said my host to me one day.

"Who is the lady?" I asked.

"It is an old servant who has been in the family more than eighty years. It was she who brought up my father, myself, and my children. She is ninety-eight years old to-day, and with our care we hope to see her live to a hundred."

We went upstairs, and on the third floor we entered a little suite of apartments, consisting of two most comfortable rooms, a bedroom and a little parlour. There we found the old lady, sitting in an arm-chair, and having a chat with one of the young ladies of the house.

"Janet," said my host, "I bring you our friend who wishes to present his respects to you."

"I am no as active as I was," said the good old soul to me, "but I am wonderfu' weel for my age. I shall soon be a hundred years of age."

"Nonsense," said my host kissing his old nurse, "who told you that? You have forgotten how to count, Janet; don't get absurd ideas into your head."

"We never leave her alone," he said to me; "my wife and daughters take it in turn to pass the day with her and amuse her. They bring their needlework and help poor old Janet to forget time."

I looked around me. The walls were covered with drawings and a thousand ornaments that only the heart of woman knows how to invent. Never a good dish came on the table without Janet having her share. At night all the family met in her little parlour for prayers and Bible reading.

I shook hands with the old servant and went away greatly touched.

"She is no longer a servant," said my host to me; "she has property, and all the household call her the old lady. She will be buried with us. I have already seen to the carrying out of her wishes on this subject. She wants to lie at the feet of the family, and has begged to have her grave made across the foot of ours. So I have bought a piece of ground next to our vault, and Janet's desire is to be carried out. We hope to keep her many years yet; we shall all miss her when she is gone."

All this was said without apparent emotion, without the least ostentation.

"Well," I said to myself, "in Scotland more than anywhere one must not judge people by their exterior."

CHAPTER XV

Little Sketches of Family Life in Scotland. – The Scotchman of "John Bull and his Island." – Painful Explanations. – As a Father I love you, as a Customer I take you in. – A Good Investment. – Killing two Birds with one Stone. – A Young Man in a Hurry.

What letters of recrimination I received on the subject of a certain Scotchman presented to the readers of John Bull and His Island! What downpours!

Some accused me of caricaturing, some of imposture. Others, with more delicacy, hinted that I should do better at novel writing than at impressions de voyage.

For a month my letter-box was besieged, and at each rat-tat of the postman I used to say to myself: "One more indignant Scotchman."

After all, what had I done to draw down such thunders?

Here is the offending passage:

"A young literary Scotchman of my acquaintance generally passes a month once a year in the house of his father on the outskirts of Edinburgh. His father is a Presbyterian minister in a very enviable position. On the day of his departure, my friend invariably finds beside his plate at breakfast, a little paper carefully folded: it is the detailed account of the repasts he has taken during his stay under the paternal roof; in other words, his bill."

I never pretended to say that this kind of father was common in Scotland. I did not say I knew of two such fathers, I said I knew of one.

The Scotch have not yet digested my delicious Papa. In all parts of Scotland I was taken to task in the same manner.

"Come, come, my dear sir, own that it was not true, confess that it was a little bit of your own invention."

"His name, what is his name?" cried a few indiscreet ones.

I convinced a few, a few remained undecided; I even saw two or three go away still firmly believing the story was a creation of my brain.

I can only say that my friend did not appear to grumble at his father's treatment, for he finished by adding:

"On the whole, I do not complain, the bill is always very reasonable."

For that matter, I have come across a better case still.

I know of a Scotch father who bought a house for a thousand pounds and sold it to his son, six months later, for twelve hundred.

That is not all.

The son had not the money in hand, and it was the father who advanced the cash – at five per cent.

Considering the price money is at nowadays, it was an investment to be proud of.

Do not imagine that the father ran the least risk of losing the capital: he took a mortgage on the house.

The son, seeing that the money had been advanced to him at high interest, paid off his father as quickly as he could. He is now his own landlord, and Papa is on the look-out for another good investment.

I should pity the reader, even were he a Scotchman as seen through Sydney Smith's spectacles, if he took this Caledonian for a typical portrait of the Scotch father.

At the beginning of this volume, I compared the Scot to the Norman, and I may say that I have witnessed, in Normandy, little scenes of family life which are quite a match for those I have just described. But the actors in them were peasants.

I am indebted to a doctor in the neighbourhood of Aberdeen for the following anecdote:

"I was one day called to the bedside of an old farmer who was dangerously ill," said the doctor to me. "On leaving the patient's room, I took his son aside and told him that it was useless for me to deceive him as to the state of his father, and that I very much feared he had not an hour to live, or, at the best, could not outlast the day."

"'Are you quite sure?' said the son, scrutinising me keenly.

"'I am only too sure,' I replied.

"I shook the young man's hands and drove away. I had scarcely been at home an hour, when a little cart drew up before my door. I saw the young farmer alight from it and, a minute later, he entered my consulting room. He held his cap in his hand, twisting it uneasily.

"'Is your father worse?' I asked.

"'No, doctor, just the same. I have come, because I had a little business in town … and I wanted to ask you at the same time… Well, I thought that perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me Father's certificate of death now… As you say it is certain he won't pull through the day, I suppose you don't mind whether it is to-day or to-morrow that you give it me, and it will save me the trouble of coming in again on purpose.'

"It was all I could do to make the young fellow understand that I could not sign the certificate of death of a man who was still alive.

"The old farmer died next morning at nine o'clock.

"At ten, the son came to announce the news and to ask me for the certificate."

CHAPTER XVI

Matrimonial Ceremonies. – Sweethearts. – "Un Serrement de main vaut dix serments de bouche." – "Jack's kisses were nicer than that." – A Platonic Lover. – "Excuse me, I'm married." – A wicked Trick.