http://www.arcamax.com/fiction/b-1575-1
Auld Licht Idyls
AULD LICHT IDYLS
BY
J.M. BARRIE
TO
FREDERICK GREENWOOD
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE SCHOOL-HOUSE II. THRUMS III. THE AULD LICHT KIRK IV.
LADS AND LASSES V. THE AULD LICHTS IN ARMS VI. THE OLD DOMINIE
VII. CREE QUEERY AND MYSY DROLLY VIII. THE COURTING OF T'NOWHEAD'S
BELL IX. DAVIT LUNAN'S POLITICAL REMINISCENCES X. A VERY OLD
FAMILY XI. LITTLE RATHIE'S "BURAL" XII. A LITERARY CLUB
AULD LICHT IDYLS.
CHAPTER I.
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE.
Early this morning I opened a window in my school-house in the glen of
Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the
frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to
the waterspout that suspends its "tangles" of ice over a gaping tank,
and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast,
bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in
a forlorn hop round the henhouse in search of food. Two days ago my
hilarious bantam-cock, saucy to the last, my cheeriest companion, was
found frozen in his own water-trough, the corn-saucer in three pieces
by his side. Since then I have taken the hens into the house. At
meal-times they litter the hearth with each other's feathers; but for
the most part they give little trouble, roosting on the rafters of the
low-roofed kitchen among staves and fishing-rods.
Another white blanket has been spread upon the glen since I looked out
last night; for over the same wilderness of snow that has met my gaze
for a week, I see the steading of Waster Lunny sunk deeper into the
waste. The school-house, I suppose, serves similarly as a snow-mark
for the people at the farm. Unless that is Waster Lunny's grieve
foddering the cattle in the snow, not a living thing is visible. The
ghostlike hills that pen in the glen have ceased to echo to the sharp
crack of the sportsman's gun (so clear in the frosty air as to be a
warning to every rabbit and partridge in the valley); and only giant
Catlaw shows here and there a black ridge, rearing his head at the
entrance to the glen and struggling ineffectually to cast off his
shroud. Most wintry sign of all I think, as I close the window
hastily, is the open farm-stile, its poles lying embedded in the snow
where they were last flung by Waster Lunny's herd. Through the still
air comes from a distance a vibration as of a tuning-fork: a robin,
perhaps, alighting on the wire of a broken fence.
In the warm kitchen, where I dawdle over my breakfast, the widowed
bantam-hen has perched on the back of my drowsy cat. It is needless to
go through the form of opening the school to-day; for, with the
exception of Waster Lunny's girl, I have had no scholars for nine
days. Yesterday she announced that there would be no more schooling
till it was fresh, "as she wasna comin';" and indeed, though the smoke
from the farm chimneys is a pretty prospect for a snowed-up
school-master, the trudge between the two houses must be weary work
for a bairn. As for the other children, who have to come from all
parts of the hills and glen, I may not see them for weeks. Last year
the school was practically deserted for a month. A pleasant outlook,
with the March examinations staring me in the face, and an inspector
fresh from Oxford. I wonder what he would say if he saw me to-day
digging myself out of the school-house with the spade I now keep for
the purpose in my bedroom.
The kail grows brittle from the snow in my dank and cheerless garden.
A crust of bread gathers timid pheasants round me. The robins, I see,
have made the coal-house their home. Waster Lunny's dog never barks
without rousing my sluggish cat to a joyful response. It is Dutch
courage with the birds and beasts of the glen, hard driven for food;
but I look attentively for them in these long forenoons, and they have
begun to regard me as one of themselves. My breath freezes, despite my
pipe, as I peer from the door: and with a fortnight-old newspaper I
retire to the ingle-nook. The friendliest thing I have seen to-day is
the well-smoked ham suspended, from my kitchen rafters. It was a gift
from the farm of Tullin, with a load of peats, the day before the snow
began to fall. I doubt if I have seen a cart since.
This afternoon I was the not altogether passive spectator of a curious
scene in natural history. My feet encased in stout "tackety" boots, I
had waded down two of Waster Lunny's fields to the glen burn: in
summer the never-failing larder from which, with wriggling worm or
garish fly, I can any morning whip a savory breakfast; in the winter
time the only thing in the valley that defies the ice-king's
chloroform. I watched the water twisting black and solemn through the
snow, the ragged ice on its edge proof of the toughness of the
struggle with the frost, from which it has, after all, crept only half
victorious. A bare wild rose-bush on the farther bank was violently
agitated, and then there ran from its root a black-headed rat with
wings. Such was the general effect. I was not less interested when my
startled eyes divided this phenomenon into its component parts, and
recognized in the disturbance on the opposite bank only another fierce
struggle among the hungry animals for existence: they need no
professor to teach them the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. A
weasel had gripped a water-hen (whit-tit and beltie they are called In
these parts) cowering at the root of the rose-bush, and was being
dragged down the bank by the terrified bird, which made for the water
as its only chance of escape. In less disadvantageous circumstances
the weasel would have made short work of his victim; but as he only
had the bird by the tail, the prospects of the combatants were
equalized. It was the tug-of-war being played with a life as the
stakes. "If I do not reach the water," was the argument that went on
in the heaving little breast of the one, "I am a dead bird." "If this
water-hen," reasoned the other, "reaches the burn, my supper vanishes
with her." Down the sloping bank the hen had distinctly the best of
it, but after that came a yard, of level snow, and here she tugged and
screamed in vain. I had so far been an unobserved spectator; but my
sympathies were with the beltie, and, thinking it high time to
interfere, I jumped into the water. The water-hen gave one mighty
final tug and toppled into the burn; while the weasel viciously showed
me his teeth, and then stole slowly up the bank to the rose-bush,
whence, "girning," he watched me lift his exhausted victim from the
water, and set off with her for the school-house. Except for her
draggled tail, she already looks wonderfully composed, and so long as
the frost holds I shall have little difficulty in keeping her with me.
On Sunday I found a frozen sparrow, whose heart had almost ceased to
beat, in the disused pigsty, and put him for warmth into my
breast-pocket. The ungrateful little scrub bolted without a word of
thanks about ten minutes afterward, to the alarm of my cat, which had
not known his whereabouts.
I am alone in the school-house. On just such an evening as this last
year my desolation drove me to Waster Lunny, where I was storm-stayed
for the night. The recollection decides me to court my own warm
hearth, to challenge my right hand again to a game at the "dambrod"
against my left. I do not lock the school-house door at nights; for
even a highwayman (there is no such luck) would be received with open
arms, and I doubt if there be a barred door in all the glen. But it is
cosier to put on the shutters. The road to Thrums has lost itself
miles down the valley. I wonder what they are doing out in the world.
Though I am the Free Church precentor in Thrums (ten pounds a year,
and the little town is five miles away), they have not seen me for
three weeks. A packman whom I thawed yesterday at my kitchen fire
tells me that last Sabbath only the Auld Lichts held service. Other
people realized that they were snowed up. Far up the glen, after it
twists out of view, a manse and half a dozen thatched cottages that
are there may still show a candle-light, and the crumbling gravestones
keep cold vigil round the gray old kirk. Heavy shadows fade into the
sky to the north. A flake trembles against the window; but it is too
cold for much snow to-night. The shutter bars the outer world from the
school-house.