第53章

The substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three- quarters might gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the former occasion was that her daughter, her son- in-law, and their three children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured three-fourths of a ginger-cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had a two-shilling ginger-cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence, so to speak, had been the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six penny-worth in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to happen the next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger-cakes were, in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a rare and expensive article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger- cake and let one-and-sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery.--A beautiful day, mam! Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for you, mam!"

. . . .

David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the dear old greybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.

He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade now banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things?

His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough, too, to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured ravellings. Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal table.

All this time the `heddles' go up and down, up and down, with their ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he weaves his old-fashioned winceys.

We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been permitted the signal honour of painting him at his work.

The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well deserves and little suspects. In my foreground sit Meg and Jean and Elspeth playing with thrums and wearing the fruit of David's loom in their gingham frocks. David himself sits on his wooden bench behind the maze of cords that form the `loom harness.'

The snows of seventy winters powder his hair and beard. His spectacles are often pushed back on his kindly brow, but no glass could wholly obscure the clear integrity and steadfast purity of his eyes; and as for his smile, I have not the art to paint that! It holds in solution so many sweet though humble virtues of patience, temperance, self-denial, honest endeavour, that my brush falters in the attempt to fix the radiant whole upon the canvas. Fashions come and go, modern improvements transform the arts and trades, manual skill gives way to the cunning of the machine, but old David Robb, after more than fifty years of toil, still sits at his hand-loom and weaves his winceys for the Pettybaw bairnies.

David has small book-learning, so he tells me; and indeed he had need to tell me, for I should never have discovered it myself,--one misses it so little when the larger things are all present!

A certain summer visitor in Pettybaw (a compatriot of ours, by the way) bought a quantity of David's orange-coloured wincey, and finding that it wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word `reproduce' in her telegram, as there was one pattern and one colour she specially liked. Perhaps the context was not illuminating, but at any rate the word `reproduce' was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his spectacles he told me his difficulty in deciphering the exact meaning of his fine-lady patron.

He called at the Free Kirk manse,--the meenister was no' at hame; then to the library,--it was closed; then to the Estaiblished manse,--the meenister was awa'. At last he obtained a glance at the schoolmaster's dictionary, and turning to `reproduce' found that it meant `nought but mak' ower again';--and with an amused smile at the bedevilments of language he turned once more to his loom and I to my canvas.

Notwithstanding his unfamiliarity with `langnebbit' words, David has absorbed a deal of wisdom in his quiet life; though so far as I can see, his only books have been the green tree outside his window, a glimpse of the distant ocean, and the toil of his hands.

But I sometimes question if as many scholars are not made as marred in this wise, for--to the seeing eye--the waving leaf and the far sea, the daily task, one's own heart-beats, and one's neighbour's,--these teach us in good time to interpret Nature's secrets, and man's, and God's as well.