University of Virginia Library

'Tis near a year since Andrew went to sleep—
A winter and a summer. Yonder bed
Is where the boy was born, and where he died,
And yonder o'er the lowland is his grave:
The nook of grass and gowans where in thought
I found you standing at the set o' sun . .
The Lord content us—'tis a weary world.
These five-and-twenty years I've wrought and wrought
In this same dwelling;—hearken! you can hear
The looms that whuzzle-whazzle ben the house,
Where Jean and Mysie, lassies in their teens,
And Jamie, and a neighbour's son beside,
Work late and early. Andrew who is dead
Was our first-born; and when he crying came,
With beaded een and pale old-farrant face,
Out of the darkness, Mysie and mysel
Were young and heartsome; and his smile, be sure,
Made daily toil the sweeter. Hey, his kiss
Put honey in the very porridge-pot!
His smile strung threads of sunshine on the loom!
And when he hung around his mother's neck,
He deck'd her out in jewels and in gold
That even ladies envied!.. Weel!.. in time
Came other children, newer gems and gold,
And Andrew quitted Mysie's breast for mine.
So years roll'd on, like bobbins on a loom;
And Mysie and mysel' had work to do,
And Andrew took his turn among the rest,
No sweeter, dearer; till, one Sabbath day,
When Andrew was a curly-pated tot
Of sunny summers six, I had a crack
With Mister Mucklewraith the Minister,
Who put his kindly hand on Andrew's head,
Call'd him a clever wean, a bonnie wean,
Clever at learning, while the mannikin
Blush'd red as any rose, and peeping up
Went twinkle-twinkle with his round black een;
And then, while Andrew laugh'd and ran awa',
The Minister went deeper in his praise,
And prophesied he would become in time
A man of mark. This set me thinking, sir,
And watching,—and the mannock puzzled me.

Would sit for hours upon a stool and draw
Droll faces on the slate, while other lads
Were shouting at their play; dumbly would lie
Beside the Lintock, sailing, piloting,
Navies of docken-leaves a summer day;
Had learn'd the hymns of Doctor Watts by heart
And as for old Scots songs, could lilt them a'—
From Yarrow Braes to Bonnie Bessie Lee—
And where he learn'd them, only Heaven knew;
And oft, altho' he feared to sleep his lane,
Would cowrie at the threshold in a storm
To watch the lightning,—as a birdie sits,
With fluttering fearsome heart and dripping wings,
Among the branches. Once, I mind it weel,
In came he, running, with a bloody nose,
Part tears, part pleasure, to his fluttering heart
Holding a callow mavis golden-bill'd,
The thin white film of death across its een,
And told us, sobbing, how a neighbour's son
Harried the birdie's nest, and how by chance
He came upon the thief beside the burn
Throwing the birdies in to see them swim,
And how he fought him, till he yielded up
This one, the one remaining of the nest;—
And ‘O the birdie's dying!’ sobb'd he sore,
‘The bonnie birdie's dying!’—till it died;
And Andrew dug a grave behind the house,
Buried his dead, and cover'd it with earth,
And cut, to mark the grave, a grassy turf
Where blew a bunch of gowans. After that,
I thought and thought, and thick as bees the thoughts
Buzz'd to the whuzzle-whazzling of the loom—
I could make naething of the mannikin!
But by-and-by, when Hope was making hay,
And web-work rose, I settled it and said
To the good wife, ‘'Tis plain that yonder lad
Will never take to weaving—and at school
They say he beats the rest at all his tasks
Save figures only: I have settled it:
Andrew shall be a minister—a pride
And comfort to us, Mysie, in our age:
He shall to college in a year or twa
(If fortune smiles as now) at Edinglass.’
You guess the wife open'd her een, cried ‘Foosh!’
And call'd the plan a silly senseless dream,
A hopeless, useless castle in the air;
But ere the night was out, I talk'd her o'er,
And here she sat, her hands upon her knees,
Glow'ring and heark'ning, as I conjured up,
Amid the fog and reek of Edinglass
Life's peaceful gloaming and a godly fame.
So it was broach'd, and after many cracks
With Mister Mucklewraith, we plann'd it a',
And day by day we laid a penny by
To give the lad when he should quit the bield.

And years wore on; and year on year was cheer'd
By thoughts of Andrew, drest in decent black,
Throned in a Pulpit, preaching out the Word,
A house his own, and all the country-side
To touch their bonnets to him. Weel, the lad
Grew up among us, and at seventeen
His hands were genty white, and he was tall,
And slim, and narrow-shoulder'd: pale of face,
Silent, and bashful. Then we first began
To feel how muckle more he knew than we,
To eye his knowledge in a kind of fear,
As folk might look upon a crouching beast,
Bonnie, but like enough to rise and bite.
Up came the cloud between us silly folk
And the young lad that sat among his books
Amid the silence of the night; and oft
It pain'd us sore to fancy he would learn
Enough to make him look with shame and scorn
On this old dwelling. 'Twas his manner, sir!
He seldom lookt his father in the face,
And when he walkt about the dwelling, seem'd
Like one superior; dumbly he would steal
To the burnside, or into Lintlin Woods,
With some new-farrant book,—and when I peep'd,
Behold a book of jingling-jangling rhyme,
Fine-written nothings on a printed page,
And, press'd between the leaves, a flower perchance,
Anemone or blue forget-me-not,
Pluckt in the grassy woodland. Then I look'd
Into his drawer, among his papers there,
And found—you guess?—a heap of idle rhymes,
Big-sounding, like the worthless printed book:
Some in old copies scribbled, some on scraps
Of writing paper, others finely writ
With spirls and flourishes on big white sheets.
I clench'd my teeth, and groan'd. The beauteous dream
Of the good Preacher in his braw black dress,
With house and income snug, began to fade
Before the picture of a drunken loon
Bawling out songs beneath the moon and stars,—
Of poet Willie Clay, who wrote a book
About King Robert Bruce, and aye got fou,
And scatter'd stars in verse, and aye got fou,
Wept the world's sins, and then got fou, again,—
Of Ferguson, the feckless limb o' law,—
And Robin Burns, who gauged the whisky-casks
And brake the seventh commandment. So at once
I up and said to Andrew, ‘You're a fool!
You waste your time in silly senseless verse,
Lame as your own conceit: take heed! take heed!
Or, like your betters, come to grief ere long!’
But Andrew flusht and never spake a word,
Yet eyed me sidelong with his beaded een,
And turn'd awa', and, as he turn'd, his look—
Half scorn, half sorrow—stang me. After that,
I felt he never heeded word of ours,
And tho' we tried to teach him common-sense
He idled as he pleased; and many a year,
After I spake him first, that look of his
Came dark between us, and I held my tongue,
And felt he scorn'd me for the poetry's sake.
This coldness grew and grew, until at last
We sat whole nights before the fire and spoke
No word to one another. One fine day,
Says Mister Mucklewraith to me, says he,
‘So! you've a Poet in your house!’ and smiled;
‘A Poet? God forbid!’ I cried; and then
It all came out: how Andrew slyly sent
Verse to he paper; how they printed it
In Poet's Corner; how the printed verse
Had ca't a girdle in the callant's head;
How Mistress Mucklewraith they thought half daft
Had cut the verses out and pasted them
In albums, and had praised them to her friends.
I said but little; for my schemes and dreams
Were tumbling down like castles in the air,
And all my heart seem'd hardening to stone.
But after that, in secret stealth, I bought
The papers, hunted out the printed verse,
And read it like a thief; thought some were good,
And others foolish havers, and in most
Saw naething, neither common-sense nor sound—
Words pottle-bellied, meaningless, and strange,
That strutted up and down the printed page,
Like bailies made to bluster and look big.

'Twas useless grumbling. All my silent looks
Were lost, all Mysie's flyting fell on ears
Choke-full of other counsel; but we talk'd
In bed o' nights, and Mysie wept, and I
Felt stubborn, wrothful, wrong'd. It was to be!
But mind you, though we mourn'd, we ne'er forsook
The college scheme. Our sorrow, as we saw
Our Andrew growing cold to homely ways,
And scornful of the bield, but strengthen'd more
Our wholesome wish to educate the lad,
And do our duty by him, and help him on
With our rough hands—the Lord would do the rest,
The Lord would mend or mar him. So at last,
New-clad from top to toe in homespun cloth,
With books and linen in a muckle trunk,
He went his way to college; and we sat,
Mysie and me, in weary darkness here;
For tho' the younger bairns were still about,
It seem'd our hearts had gone to Edinglass
With Andrew, and were choking in the reek
Of Edinglass town.

It was a gruesome fight,
Both for oursel's at home, and for the boy,
That student life at college. Hard it was
To scrape the fees together, but beside,
The lad was young and needed meat and drink.
We sent him meal and bannocks by the train,
And country cheeses; and with this and that,
Though sorely push'd, he throve, though now and then
With empty wame: spinning the siller out
By teaching grammar in a school at night.
Whiles he came home: weary old-farrant face
Pale from the midnight candle; bringing home
Good news of college. Then we shook awa'
The old sad load, began to build again
Our airy castles, and were hopeful Time
Would heal our wounds. But, sir, they plagued me still—
Some of his ways! When here, he spent his time
In yonder chamber, or about the woods,
And by the waterside,—and with him books
Of poetry, as of old. Mysel' could get
But little of his company or tongue;
And when we talkt, atweel, a kind of frost,—
My consciousness of silly ignorance,
And worse, my knowledge that the lad himsel'
Felt sorely, keenly, all my ignorant shame,
Made talk a torture out of which we crept
With burning faces. Could you understand
One who was wild as if he found a mine
Of golden guineas, when he noticed first
The soft green streaks in a snowdrop's inner leaves?
And once again, the moonlight glimmering
Thro' watery transparent stalks of flax?
A flower's a flower! . . . But Andrew snooved about,
Aye finding wonders, mighty mysteries,
In things that ilka learless cottar kenn'd.
Now, 'twas the falling snow or murmuring rain;
Now, 'twas the laverock singing in the sun,
And dropping slowly to the callow young;
Now, an old tune he heard his mother lilt;
And aye those trifles made his pallid face
Flush brighter, and his een flash keener far,
Than when he heard of yonder storm in France,
Or a King's death, or, if the like had been,
A city's downfall.

He was born with love
For things both great and small: yet seem'd to prize
The small things best. To me, it seem'd indeed
The callant cared for nothing for itsel',
But for some special quality it had
To set him thinking, or at least bestow
A tearful sense he took for luxury.
He loved us in his silent fashion weel;
But in our feckless ignorance we knew
'Twas when the humour seized him—with a sense
Of some queer power we had to waken up
The poetry—ay, and help him in his rhyme!
A kind of patronising tenderness,
A pitying pleasure in our Scottish speech
And homely ways, a love that made him note
Both ways and speech with the same curious joy
As fill'd him when he watch'd the birds and flowers.

He was as sore a puzzle to us then
As he had been before. It puzzled us,
How a big lad, down-cheek'd, almost a man,
Could pass his time in silly childish joys . . .
Until at last, a hasty letter came
From Andrew, telling he had broke awa'
From college, pack'd his things, and taken train
To London city, where he hoped (he said)
To make both fortune and a noble fame
Thro' a grand poem, carried in his trunk;
How, after struggling on with bitter heart,
He could no longer bear to fight his way
Among the common scholars; and the end
Bade us be hopeful, trusting God, and sure
The light of this old home would guide him still
Amid the reek of evil.

Sae it was!
We twa were less amazed than you may guess,
Though we had hoped, and fear'd, and hoped, so long!
But it was hard to bear—hard, hard, to bear!
Our castle in the clouds was gone for good;
And as for Andrew—other lads had ta'en
The same mad path, and learn'd the bitter task
Of poverty and tears. She grat. I sat,
In silence, looking on the fuffing fire,
Where streets and ghaistly faces came and went,
And London city crumbled down to crush
Our Andrew; and my heart was sick and cold.
Ere long, the news across the country-side
Speak quickly, like the crowing of a cock
From farm to farm—the women talkt it o'er
On doorsteps, o'er the garden rails; the men
Got fu' upon it at the public-house,
And whisper'd it among the fields at work.
A cry was quickly raised from house to house,
That all the blame was mine, and canker'd een
Lookt cold upon me, as upon a kind
Of upstart. ‘Fie on pride!’ the whisper said,
‘The fault was Andrew's less than those who taught
His heart to look in scorn on honest work,—
Shame on them!—but the lad, poor lad, would learn!’
O sir, the thought of this spoil'd many a web
In yonder—tingling, tingling, in my ears,
Until I fairly threw my gloom aside,
Smiled like a man whose heart is light and young,
And with a future-kenning happy look
Threw up my chin, and bade them wait and see . . .
But, night by night, these een lookt London-ways,
And saw my laddie wandering all alone
'Mid darkness, fog, and reek, growing afar
To dark proportions and gigantic shape—
Just as the figure of a sheep-herd looms,
Awful and silent, thro' a mountain mist!

You may be ken the rest. At first, there came
Proud letters, swiftly writ, telling how folk
Now roundly call'd him ‘Poet,’ holding out
Bright pictures, which we smiled at wearily—
As people smile at pictures in a book,
Untrue but bonnie. Then the letters ceased,
There came a silence cold and still as frost,—
We sat and hearken'd to our beating hearts,
And pray'd as we had never prav'd before.
Then lastly, on the silence broke the news
That Andrew, far awa', was sick to death,
And, weary, weary of the noisy streets,
With aching head and weary hopeless heart,
Was coming home from mist and fog and noise
To grassy lowlands and the caller air.

'Twas strange, 'twas strange!—but this, the weary end
Of all our bonnie biggins in the clouds,
Came like a tearful comfort. Love sprang up
Out of the ashes of the household fire,
Where Hope was fluttering like the loose white film;
And Andrew, our own boy, seemed nearer now
To this old dwelling and our aching hearts
Than he had ever been since he became
Wise with book-learning. With an eager pain,
I met him at the train and brought him home;
And when we met that sunny day in hairst,
The ice that long had sunder'd us had thaw'd,
We met in silence, and our een were dim.
Ah!—I can see that look of his this night!
Part pain, part tenderness—a weary look
Yearning for comfort such as God the Lord
Puts into parents' een. I brought him here.
Gently we set him down beside the fire,
And spake few words, and hush'd the noisy house;
Then eyed his hollow cheeks and lustrous een,
His clammy hueless brow and faded hands,
Blue vein'd and white like lily-flowers. The wife
Forgot the sickness of his face, and moved
With light and happy footstep but and ben,
As though she welcomed to a merry feast
A happy guest. In time, out came the truth:
Andrew was dying: in his lungs the dust
Of cities stole unseen, and hot as fire
Burnt—like a deil's red een that gazed at Death.
Too late for doctor's skill, tho' doctor's skill
We had in plenty; but the ill had ta'en
Too sure a grip. Andrew was dying, dying:
The beauteous dream had melted like a mist
The sunlight feeds on: a' remaining now
Was Andrew, bare and barren of his pride,
Stark of conceit, a weel-belovëd child,
Helpless to help himsel', and dearer thus,
As when his yaumer —like the corn-craik's cry
Heard in a field of wheat at dead o' night—
Brake on the hearkening darkness of the bield.

And as he nearer grew to God the Lord,
Nearer and dearer ilka day he grew
To Mysie and mysel'—our own to love,
The world's no longer. For the first last time,
We twa, the lad and I, could sit and crack
With open hearts—free-spoken, at our ease;
I seem'd to know as muckle then as he,
Because I was sae sad.

Thus grief, sae deep
It flow'd without a murmur, brought the balm
Which blunts the edge of worldly sense and makes
Old people weans again. In this sad time,
We never troubled at his childish ways;
We seem'd to share his pleasure when he sat
List'ning to birds upon the eaves; we felt
Small wonder when we found him weeping o'er
His old torn books of pencill'd thoughts and verse;
And if, outbye, I saw a bonnie flower,
I pluckt it carefully and bore it home
To my sick boy. To me, it somehow seem'd
His care for lovely earthly things had changed—
Changed from the curious love it once had been,
Grown larger, bigger, holier, peacefuller;
And though he never lost the luxury
Of loving beauteous things for poetry's sake,
His heart was God the Lord's, and he was calm.
Death came to lengthen out his solemn thoughts
Like shadows to the sunset. So we ceased
To wonder. What is folly in a lad
Healthy and heartsome, one with work to do,
Befits the freedom of a dying man . . .
Mother, who chided loud the idle lad
Of old, now sat her sadly by his side,
And read from out the Bible soft and low,
Or lilted lowly, keeking in his face,
The old Scots songs that made his een so dim!
I went about my daily work as one
Who waits to hear a knocking at the door,
Ere Death creeps in and shadows those that watch;
And seated here at e'en i' the ingleside,
I watch'd the pictures in the fire and smoked
My pipe in silence; for my head was fu'
Of many rhymes the lad had made of old
(Rhymes I had read in secret, as I said),
No one of which I minded till they came
Unsummon'd, murmuring about my ears
Like bees among the leaves.

The end drew near.
Came Winter moaning, and the Doctor said
That Andrew couldna live to see the Spring;
And day by day, while frost was hard at work,
The lad grew weaker, paler, and the blood
Came redder from the lung. One Sabbath day—
The last of winter, for the caller air
Was drawing sweetness from the barks of trees—
When down the lane, I saw to my surprise
A snowdrop blooming underneath a birk,
And gladly pluckt the flower to carry home
To Andrew. Ere I reach'd the bield, the air
Was thick wi' snow, and ben in yonder room
I found him, Mysie seated at his side,
Drawn to the window in the old arm-chair,
Gazing with lustrous een and sickly cheek
Out on the shower, that waver'd softly down
In glistening siller glamour. Saying nought,
Into his hand I put the year's first flower,
And turn'd awa' to hide my face; and he . .
. . He smiled . . and at the smile, I knew not why,
It swam upon us, in a frosty pain,
The end of a' was come at last, and Death
Was creeping ben, his shadow on our hearts.
We gazed on Andrew, call'd him by his name,
And touch'd him softly . . and he lay awhile,
His een upon the snow, in a dark dream,
Yet neither heard nor saw; but suddenly,
He shook awa' the vision wi' a smile,
Raised lustrous een, still smiling, to the sky,
Next upon us, then dropt them to the flower
That trembled in his hand, and murmur'd low,
Like one that gladly murmurs to himsel'—
‘Out of the Snow, the Snowdrop—out of Death
Comes Life;’ then closed his eyes and made a moan,
And never spake another word again.
. . And you think weel of Andrew's book? You think
That folk will love him, for the poetry's sake,
Many a year to come? We take it kind
You speak so weel of Andrew!—As for me,
I can make naething of the printed book;
I am no scholar, sir, as I have said,
And Mysie there can just read print a wee.
Ay! we are feckless, ignorant of the world!
And though 'twere joy to have our boy again
And place him far above our lowly house,
We like to think of Andrew as he was
When, dumb and wee, he hung his helpless arms
Round Mysie's neck; or—as he is this night—
Lying asleep, his face to heaven—asleep,
Near to our hearts, as when he was a bairn,
Without the poetry and human pride
That came between us to our grief, langsyne!