University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Chorus.

Scene—The Manse Parlour. Ina and Dr. Lorne searching books and papers.
Dr. Lorne.
This clean bewilders me: it is like being
Lost in a mist, and wandering round and round,
To end where you began, only more puzzled,
Weary and hopeless. What can he have done
With it, I wonder.

Ina.
Uncle, what is wrong?

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, nothing's wrong of course. It's only I
Am growing old and stupid, I suppose.
I'm puzzled, that is all.

Ina.
But what about?
And can I help you? Yet if it is dark
To you, I fear that my poor head to-day
Can bring but little light.

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, never mind;
I should not speak of it: it does not matter—
Not in the least.

Ina.
What matters anything,
In this blank desolation?

Dr. Lorne.
Don't now, Ina;
I shan't know what to do if you break down;
And people die, but still the world goes on,
And those who live must eat, and pay their bills,
And think of things.

Ina.
Ay! that's the pity of it—
To come straight from the shadows and the lights,
The awe and mystery and sacred sorrow
About the grave, to life's poor commonplace—
Not yet, at least, I cannot do it yet.

Dr. Lorne.
Well, no; but then I've seen so many drop—
Comrades and friends—and had to carry on
The battle, or be beaten: one has hardly
Time here for feelings.

Ina.
May one come to that?
Were it not better not to be than live
To find no time for what is best in us,
What purifies and elevates and makes
A larger world than our small round of tasks?
Ah me! a dreary outlook.

Dr. Lorne.
Not at all:
But for this business, now, no doubt it will
Be cleared up some day.

Ina.
What is there to clear?

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, nothing. You must not be troubled yet
With business. But your father now, he never
Went in for iron “rings” or “corners,” did he, Ina?
And no sharp fellows ever talked him over,
And blew him up with hopes of boundless wealth,
Which by and by collapsed, and left him broken?

Ina.
I do not understand.

Dr. Lorne.
Of course, you don't:
No more did he. You never heard him speak
Of mines, I daresay—copper mines in Spain,
Or silver in Peru, and how they paid
Fine dividends? No, no; you never did.
Yet parsons burn their fingers sometimes there.

Ina.
I have known papers come to him, which he
Flung in the fire, saying that it was well
He had no gold to gamble with.

Dr. Lorne.
Quite right;
One needs to know the game to play with these
Sharp fellows. Well; no doubt, he never printed
A learned Book now—one that would not sell,
Was never meant to sell, but just to be
A splendid monument of erudition,
With costly illustrations, setting forth
Highland antiquities, and early arts
Now lost in their descendants, which he sent
To all the letters of the alphabet,
Who voted him their thanks? He might have done it;
But no, he didn't? I'm at my wit's end now.
And after all, he could not drop that way
More than a thousand or so.

Ina.
What do you mean?

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, nothing; never mind; I'm only stupid,
Let's talk of something else. We're rich enough.
There; dry your eyes. I don't suppose you could
Smile on me now to say I have not vexed you.

Ina.
Indeed you have not, uncle; but I wish
That I could clear up your perplexity,
Whate'er it be.

Dr. Lorne.
No matter. By the way,
Was not the Chief most kind to do him honour,
Bearing him to his grave with kilted men
And pipers, though I hate both kilts and pipes.

Ina.
Indeed, he is a noble gentleman,
And held my father high in his esteem.
He was his pupil once—

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, and you learnt
Lessons together?—Latin and Greek and Hebrew?
'Twas all the old chap knew.

Ina.
There you are wrong, sir;
Oh, he knew many things, and taught me much
I now remember only to regret
I did not learn it better.

Dr. Lorne.
That's the way
With me too. What a deal I have forgotten
Since he and I were boys, and went to school!
Well; I must see the Chief, of course, and thank him:
It is worth thanks, although that strutting piper
Looked like a turkey-cock, and yelled as mad
As e'er a wild cat. After that we'll go
Off to Glen Chroan, and my house shall have
At last its mistress. Never wind blew yet
But it brought luck to some one, though 'tis sad
My house is filled by emptying of his.

Ina.
You are most kind, good uncle. But indeed
I have not thought yet what I ought to do.
It seems as if I could not think, for when
I try to knit my mind to any end,
My head goes swimming round, and all is blank.

Dr. Lorne.
Yes, yes! I understand. But there's no hurry,
Nor need of thinking either. You may leave
All that to me. You shall have pretty rooms,
And nestle like a dainty lady-bird
In a blush rose.

Ina.
That never was my dream
Of life; I'd prove a restless lady-bird.
I have my work to do. Death sets one thinking
What to make of one's life—how best to use it.

Dr. Lorne.
Work! Oh, your mothers' meetings, Sunday schools,
Sick-visitings, and mending poor folk's ways—
I wish they'd take a turn at mending ours;
We need it. Well; our clachan is as like
A Sontal village in the jungle lands
As one muck-heap is like another; filled
With lazy hulking men, hard-featured women
Who slave for them, and ragged dirty children
Brimful of mischief and original sin.
Work enough there to keep your hands full, Ina,
And see no end to it.

Ina.
That's very bad,
Have they no minister?

Dr. Lorne.
You women, now,
Think that a minister is everything,
That if you plant a parson on a moor,
He'll make an Eden of it, just by dropping
His texts and preachments to the right and left—
Well, yes, there is a minister, but he
Is twenty miles away, and might as well
Be twenty thousand. They are mostly there
Of the old Roman way.

Ina.
But there will be a priest then?

Dr. Lorne.
Ay, he comes now and then, and gives their souls
A hasty wipe that leaves them as they were
Ere a week's over.

Ina.
And can you do nothing?

Dr. Lorne.
Me, Ina! It is hardly in my line
To cast out devils. They'd turn and preach at me.
I give the priest his dinner, and the children
Pennies to wash their faces.

Ina.
Ah, poor folk,
With none to care for them.

Dr. Lorne.
But now you're coming
Home with me, and they'll maybe do for you
What is like sowing corn upon the rocks
Among the whelks and limpets, when I try it.
Ina, I can't say pretty things to you:
I've not a bit of sentiment in me,
And never had: I take my stand on facts,
And do not blow my feelings into bubbles
To see them break, and break my heart for them.
But see, my house is nothing but a house,
Till you shall make a home of it—a nook
Where the old dog may curl up in the sun,
And sleep away his age.

Ina.
But I have neither
The wealth nor will to lead an idle life.

Dr. Lorne.
Well, there is ample work in our wild Clachan—
Souls to be saved, and bodies to be healed,
And dirt enough to cleanse. And as for wealth,
We'll ruffle it with the best, if that will please you.

Ina.
That is not what I mean. We Highland maidens
Like independence, uncle.

Dr. Lorne.
Oh, you'd rather
A trifle of your own than hang on me?
And so you should have had, and that is just
What puzzles me. Your father made a will,
Only there was not anything to will
Except a squash of sermons.

Ina.
How could he
Have aught to leave, with only this poor parish?
You know his hand was open.

Dr. Lorne.
If his head
Had been but half as open to ideas!
But that was always shut, and his hand never.

Ina.
He was a good man, uncle.

Dr. Lorne.
Far too good.
There should have been a world made just for him,
Where no rogues grew, for never idle tramp
Whined at his door, I wager, but he fingered
Some of his coppers. He was never wise.

Ina.
Yet goodness has a wisdom of its own,
And oft sees deeper than a shrewder wit.
And since I saw him lying cold and dead,
The idea of his life, which my poor breath
Had sometimes clouded, seems to come out clear,
And pure, and shining with a saintly beauty.

Dr. Lorne.
Yes, yes, a saint; but saints, you know, are not
For earth, but heaven. I pray you, do not set
The pretty fountains of these eyes a-playing,
Or you shall quite unman me. I'm at sea
About that will of his—that you should be
Left penniless, and even more, that I
Should somehow have been cheated. Did you never
Hear of my being dead in India?

Ina.
Yes, years ago, and oh, how bitterly
He mourned for you.

Dr. Lorne.
And yet I dare be sworn
He never said a prayer for my poor soul,
Although he feared 'twas in an evil case.
He might have risked the heresy upon
The chance of giving me a lift somehow.
No matter. Was there nothing came to him
From India then?

Ina.
No, nothing; but some debts
Of yours—they were not much—he had to pay,
Which pinched us for a while.

Dr. Lorne.
The devil it did!
Some debts of mine, and no memorial else
Of his dead brother!

Ina.
But you were not dead.

Dr. Lorne.
True; but you see I was the prodigal
O' the family, and had eaten my swine's husks;
And though I did not pine for fatted calves,
I thought of him, old fellow,—the elder brother,
Who was not a curmudgeon. At that time
It suited my convenience to be dead,
Or to be thought so for a while at least,
I'll tell you more some day. Old uncles, Ina,
Are mostly useful when they're dead; and I,
Living, had been a sorrow to my folk,
A vagabond that had no touch of grace,
And now, it seems, my dying did no better.
Well; I must see to this; there's plainly some
Rogue-work to ferret out, and I will do it.
No money! and even debts of mine to pay!

Ina.
Nay, do not think of them; they were but trifles,
And cheerfully he paid them for the honour
Of your good name, and would have done far more
To know that you were living.

Dr. Lorne.
But it looks
As if I had shammed death to get my bills
Settled for me; and that is bad. Moreover,
'Tis plain I have been tricked and overreached,
And that I can't abide, and never could.
They'll need their wits who play that game with me.—
I daresay now you did without a frock,
Until those debts were paid, and turned and trimmed
Old hats with faded ribbons. My poor Ina,
You shall be dressed the handsomer for that,
There's plenty for us both, lass, at Glen Chroan—
Big empty rooms that will have ghosts betimes
If you come not to lay them, and a waste
Of meat and drink for lack of house-keeping.
'Tis somewhat lonely too; old faces flit
About i' the gloaming, that I'd rather not
Be seeing there; and if you do not come,
I'll sell it, and be off again. I'd rather
Squat by a jungle fire, and hear the tigers
Growl in the nullah than sit there alone,
With gnawing mice and memories.

Ina.
No, Uncle,
You must not go off wandering again,
Although a life of indolence and ease
Fits not my humour.

Dr. Lorne.
Busy idleness
Is just a woman's work.

Ina.
Nay, I hope not.

[Exeunt.
Chorus.