章节正文
Or hyphenated name?
I lo'e the gentry o' the North,
The Southern men I lo'e,
The canty people o' the West,
The Paisley bodies too.
The pawky folk o' Fife are dear,--
Sae dear are ane an' a',
That e'en to think that we maun pairt
Maist braks my hairt in twa.
So fetch me tartans, heather, scones,
An' dye my tresses red;
I'd deck me like th' unconquer'd Scots,
Wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
Then bind my claymore to my side,
My kilt an' mutch gae bring;
While Scottish lays soun' i' my lugs
M'Kinley's no my king,--
For Charlie, bonnie Stuart Prince,
Has turned me Jacobite;
I'd wear displayed the white cockade.
An' (whiles) for him I'll fight!
An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch,
Save whusky an' oatmeal,
For wi' their ballads i' my bluid,
Nae Scot could be mair leal!
I fancied that I had pitched my verses in so high a key that no one
could mistake their burlesqueintention. What was my confusion,
however, to have one of the company remark when I finished,
`Extremely pretty; but a mutch, you know, is an article of WOMAN'S
apparel, and would never be worn with a kilt!'
Mr. Macdonald flung himself gallantly into the breach. He is such a
dear fellow! So quick, so discriminating, so warm-hearted!
"Don't pick flaws in Miss Hamilton's finest line! That picture of a
fair American, clad in a kilt and mutch, decked in heather and
scones, and brandishing a claymore, will live for ever in my memory.
Don't clip the wings of her imagination! You will be telling her
soon that one doesn't tie one's hair with thistles, nor couple
collops with cairngorms."
Somebody sent Francesca a great bunch of yellow broom, late that
afternoon. There was no name in the box, she said, but at night she
wore the odorous tips in the bosom of her black dinner-gown, and
standing erect in her dark hair like golden aigrettes.
When she came into my room to say good night, she laid the pretty
frock in one of my trunks, which was to be filled with garments of
fashionable society and left behind in Edinburgh. The next moment I
chanced to look on the floor, and discovered a little card, a bent
card with two lines written on it:-
`Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no' come back again?'
We have received many invitations in that handwriting. I know it
well, and so does Francesca, though it is blurred; and the reason
for this, according to my way of thinking, is that it has been lying
next the moist stems of flowers, and unless I do her wrong, very
near to somebody's warm heart as well.
I will not betray her to Salemina, even to gain a victory over that
blind and deaf but much beloved woman. How could I, with my heart
beating high at the thought of seeing my ain dear laddie before many
days?
Oh, love, love, lassie,
Love is like a dizziness:
It winna lat a puir body
Gang aboot his business.'
Chapter XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning.
`Now she's cast aff her bonny shoon
Made o' gilded leather,
And she's put on her Hieland brogues
To skip amang the heather.
And she's cast aff her bonny goon
Made o' the silk and satin,
And she's put on a tartan plaid
To row amang the braken.'
Lizzie Baillie.
We are in the East Neuk o' Fife; we are in Pettybaw; we are neither
boarders nor lodgers; we are residents, inhabitants, householders,
and we live (live, mind you) in a wee theekit hoosie in the old
loaning. Words fail to tell you how absolutely Scotch we are and
how blissfully happy. It is a happiness, I assure you, achieved
through great tribulation. Salemina and I travelled many miles in
railway trains, and many in various other sorts of wheeled vehicles,
while the ideal ever beckoned us onward. I was determined to find a
romantic lodging, Salemina a comfortable one, and this special
combination of virtues is next to impossible, as every one knows.
Linghurst was too much of a town; Bonnie Craig had no respectable
inn; Winnybrae was struggling to be a watering-place; Broomlea had
no golf-course within ten miles, and we intended to go back to our
native land and win silver goblets in mixed foursomes; the `new toun
o' Fairlock' (which looked centuries old) was delightful, but we
could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was nice, but they
were tearing up the `fore street' and laying drain-pipes in it.
Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were in
Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it
rains during the process of deliberation. No train left this moist
and dripping hamlet for three hours, so we took a covered trap and
drove onward in melancholy mood. Suddenly the clouds lifted and the
rain ceased; the driver thought we should be having settled weather
now, and put back the top of the carriage, sayingmeanwhile that it
was a verra dry simmer this year, and that the crops sairly needed
shoo'rs.
"Of course, if there is any district in Scotland where for any
reason droughts are possible, that is where we wish to settle," I
whispered to Salemina; "though, so far as I can see, the Strathdee
crops are up to their knees in mud. Here is another wee village.
What is this place, driver?"
"Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!"
"Will there be apartments to let there?"
"I cudna say, mam."
"Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I
murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at
least almost full, on our future home.
"Pettybaw! Petit bois, I suppose," said Salemina; "and there, to be
sure, it is,--the `little wood' yonder."
We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and,
alighting, dismissed the driver. We had still three good hours of
daylight, although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves
with a delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings. We
consulted the greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about
furnished apartments, and started on our quest, not regarding the
little posting establishment as a possibility. Apartments we found
to be very scarce, and in one or two places that were quite suitable
the landlady refused to do any cooking. We wandered from house to
house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, and Pettybaw looking
lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused shelter again and
again, we grew more and more enamoured, as is the manner of human
kind. The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed white a
mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its
curved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in
vines, the sheep lay close to the grey stone walls and the young
lambs nestled beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling
merrily down the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing
of the rooks in the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard.
Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly
declared that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and
proposed building a cabin and living near to nature's heart.
"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to
the innkeeper's heart," I answered. "Let us go back there and pass
the night, trying thus the bed and breakfast, with a view to seeing
what they are like--although they did say in Edinburgh that nobody
thinks of living in these wayside hostelries."
Back we went, accordingly, and after ordering dinner came out and
strolled idly up the main street. A small sign in the draper's
window, heretofore overlooked, caught our eye. `House and Garden To
Let Inquire Within.' Inquiring within with all possible speed, we
found the draper selling winceys, the draper's assistant tidying the
ribbon-box, the draper's wife sewing in one corner, and the draper's
baby playing on the clean floor. We were impressed favourably, and
entered into negotiations without delay.
"The house will be in the loaning; do you mind, ma'am?" asked the
draper. (We have long since discovered that this use of the verb is
a bequest from the Gaelic, in which there is no present tense. Man
never is, but always to be blessed, in that language, which in this
particular is not unlikeold-fashioned Calvinism.)
We went out of the back door and down the green loaning, until we
came to the wee stone cottage in which the draper himself lives most
of the year, retiring for the warmer months to the back of his shop,
and eking out a comfortable income by renting his hearth-stone to
the summer visitor.
The thatched roof on the wing that formed the kitchen attracted my
artist's eye, and we went in to examine the interior, which we found
surprisingly attractive. There was a tiny sitting-room, with a
fireplace and a microscopic piano; a dining-room adorned with
portraits of relatives who looked nervous when they met my eye, for
they knew that they would be turned face to the wall on the morrow;
four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a back garden so filled with
vegetables and flowers that we exclaimed with astonishment and
admiration.
"But we cannot keep house in Scotland," objected Salemina. "Think
of the care! And what about the servants?"
"Why not eat at the inn?" I suggested. "Think of living in a real
loaning, Salemina! Look at the stone floor in the kitchen, and the
adorable stuffy box-bed in the wall! Look at the bust of Sir Walter
in the hall, and the chromo of Melrose Abbey by moonlight! Look at
the lintel over the front door, with a ship, moon, stars, and 1602
carved in the stone! What is food to all this?"
Salemina agreed that it was hardly worth considering; and in truth
so many landladies had refused to receive her as a tenant that day
that her spirits were rather low, and she was uncommonly flexible.
"It is the lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose,"
remarked the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot
reproduce. He is a house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to
tell us that when he had a cottage he could rent in no other way he
planted plenty of creepers in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no
sae bonnie," he said, "and the linen and cutlery verra scanty, but
there is a yellow laburnum growin' by the door: the leddies see
that, and forget to ask aboot the linen. It depends a good bit on
the weather, too; it is easy to let a hoose when the sun shines upon
it."
"We hardly dare undertake regular housekeeping," I said; "do your
tenants ever take meals at the inn?"
"I cudna say, mam." (Dear, dear, the Crums are a large family!)
"If we did that, we should still need a servant to keep the house
tidy," said Salemina, as we walked away. "Perhaps housemaids are to
be had, though not nearer than Edinburgh, I fancy."
This gave me an idea, and I slipped over to the post-office while
Salemina was preparing for dinner, and despatched a telegram to Mrs.
M'Collop at Breadalbane Terrace, asking her if she could send a
reliable general servant to us, capable of cooking simple breakfasts
and caring for a house.
We had scarcely finished our Scotch broth, fried haddies, mutton-
chops, and rhubarb tart when I received an answer from Mrs. M'Collop
to the effect that her sister's husband's niece, Jane Grieve, could
join us on the morrow if we desired. The relationship was an
I lo'e the gentry o' the North,
The Southern men I lo'e,
The canty people o' the West,
The Paisley bodies too.
The pawky folk o' Fife are dear,--
Sae dear are ane an' a',
That e'en to think that we maun pairt
Maist braks my hairt in twa.
So fetch me tartans, heather, scones,
An' dye my tresses red;
I'd deck me like th' unconquer'd Scots,
Wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
Then bind my claymore to my side,
My kilt an' mutch gae bring;
While Scottish lays soun' i' my lugs
M'Kinley's no my king,--
For Charlie, bonnie Stuart Prince,
Has turned me Jacobite;
I'd wear displayed the white cockade.
An' (whiles) for him I'll fight!
An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch,
Save whusky an' oatmeal,
For wi' their ballads i' my bluid,
Nae Scot could be mair leal!
I fancied that I had pitched my verses in so high a key that no one
could mistake their burlesqueintention. What was my confusion,
however, to have one of the company remark when I finished,
`Extremely pretty; but a mutch, you know, is an article of WOMAN'S
apparel, and would never be worn with a kilt!'
Mr. Macdonald flung himself gallantly into the breach. He is such a
dear fellow! So quick, so discriminating, so warm-hearted!
"Don't pick flaws in Miss Hamilton's finest line! That picture of a
fair American, clad in a kilt and mutch, decked in heather and
scones, and brandishing a claymore, will live for ever in my memory.
Don't clip the wings of her imagination! You will be telling her
soon that one doesn't tie one's hair with thistles, nor couple
collops with cairngorms."
Somebody sent Francesca a great bunch of yellow broom, late that
afternoon. There was no name in the box, she said, but at night she
wore the odorous tips in the bosom of her black dinner-gown, and
standing erect in her dark hair like golden aigrettes.
When she came into my room to say good night, she laid the pretty
frock in one of my trunks, which was to be filled with garments of
fashionable society and left behind in Edinburgh. The next moment I
chanced to look on the floor, and discovered a little card, a bent
card with two lines written on it:-
`Better lo'ed ye canna be,
Will ye no' come back again?'
We have received many invitations in that handwriting. I know it
well, and so does Francesca, though it is blurred; and the reason
for this, according to my way of thinking, is that it has been lying
next the moist stems of flowers, and unless I do her wrong, very
near to somebody's warm heart as well.
I will not betray her to Salemina, even to gain a victory over that
blind and deaf but much beloved woman. How could I, with my heart
beating high at the thought of seeing my ain dear laddie before many
days?
Oh, love, love, lassie,
Love is like a dizziness:
It winna lat a puir body
Gang aboot his business.'
Chapter XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning.
`Now she's cast aff her bonny shoon
Made o' gilded leather,
And she's put on her Hieland brogues
To skip amang the heather.
And she's cast aff her bonny goon
Made o' the silk and satin,
And she's put on a tartan plaid
To row amang the braken.'
Lizzie Baillie.
We are in the East Neuk o' Fife; we are in Pettybaw; we are neither
boarders nor lodgers; we are residents, inhabitants, householders,
and we live (live, mind you) in a wee theekit hoosie in the old
loaning. Words fail to tell you how absolutely Scotch we are and
how blissfully happy. It is a happiness, I assure you, achieved
through great tribulation. Salemina and I travelled many miles in
railway trains, and many in various other sorts of wheeled vehicles,
while the ideal ever beckoned us onward. I was determined to find a
romantic lodging, Salemina a comfortable one, and this special
combination of virtues is next to impossible, as every one knows.
Linghurst was too much of a town; Bonnie Craig had no respectable
inn; Winnybrae was struggling to be a watering-place; Broomlea had
no golf-course within ten miles, and we intended to go back to our
native land and win silver goblets in mixed foursomes; the `new toun
o' Fairlock' (which looked centuries old) was delightful, but we
could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was nice, but they
were tearing up the `fore street' and laying drain-pipes in it.
Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were in
Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it
rains during the process of deliberation. No train left this moist
and dripping hamlet for three hours, so we took a covered trap and
drove onward in melancholy mood. Suddenly the clouds lifted and the
rain ceased; the driver thought we should be having settled weather
now, and put back the top of the carriage, sayingmeanwhile that it
was a verra dry simmer this year, and that the crops sairly needed
shoo'rs.
"Of course, if there is any district in Scotland where for any
reason droughts are possible, that is where we wish to settle," I
whispered to Salemina; "though, so far as I can see, the Strathdee
crops are up to their knees in mud. Here is another wee village.
What is this place, driver?"
"Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!"
"Will there be apartments to let there?"
"I cudna say, mam."
"Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I
murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at
least almost full, on our future home.
"Pettybaw! Petit bois, I suppose," said Salemina; "and there, to be
sure, it is,--the `little wood' yonder."
We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and,
alighting, dismissed the driver. We had still three good hours of
daylight, although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves
with a delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings. We
consulted the greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about
furnished apartments, and started on our quest, not regarding the
little posting establishment as a possibility. Apartments we found
to be very scarce, and in one or two places that were quite suitable
the landlady refused to do any cooking. We wandered from house to
house, the sun shining brighter and brighter, and Pettybaw looking
lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused shelter again and
again, we grew more and more enamoured, as is the manner of human
kind. The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed white a
mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its
curved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in
vines, the sheep lay close to the grey stone walls and the young
lambs nestled beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling
merrily down the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing
of the rooks in the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard.
Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly
declared that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and
proposed building a cabin and living near to nature's heart.
"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to
the innkeeper's heart," I answered. "Let us go back there and pass
the night, trying thus the bed and breakfast, with a view to seeing
what they are like--although they did say in Edinburgh that nobody
thinks of living in these wayside hostelries."
Back we went, accordingly, and after ordering dinner came out and
strolled idly up the main street. A small sign in the draper's
window, heretofore overlooked, caught our eye. `House and Garden To
Let Inquire Within.' Inquiring within with all possible speed, we
found the draper selling winceys, the draper's assistant tidying the
ribbon-box, the draper's wife sewing in one corner, and the draper's
baby playing on the clean floor. We were impressed favourably, and
entered into negotiations without delay.
"The house will be in the loaning; do you mind, ma'am?" asked the
draper. (We have long since discovered that this use of the verb is
a bequest from the Gaelic, in which there is no present tense. Man
never is, but always to be blessed, in that language, which in this
particular is not unlikeold-fashioned Calvinism.)
We went out of the back door and down the green loaning, until we
came to the wee stone cottage in which the draper himself lives most
of the year, retiring for the warmer months to the back of his shop,
and eking out a comfortable income by renting his hearth-stone to
the summer visitor.
The thatched roof on the wing that formed the kitchen attracted my
artist's eye, and we went in to examine the interior, which we found
surprisingly attractive. There was a tiny sitting-room, with a
fireplace and a microscopic piano; a dining-room adorned with
portraits of relatives who looked nervous when they met my eye, for
they knew that they would be turned face to the wall on the morrow;
four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a back garden so filled with
vegetables and flowers that we exclaimed with astonishment and
admiration.
"But we cannot keep house in Scotland," objected Salemina. "Think
of the care! And what about the servants?"
"Why not eat at the inn?" I suggested. "Think of living in a real
loaning, Salemina! Look at the stone floor in the kitchen, and the
adorable stuffy box-bed in the wall! Look at the bust of Sir Walter
in the hall, and the chromo of Melrose Abbey by moonlight! Look at
the lintel over the front door, with a ship, moon, stars, and 1602
carved in the stone! What is food to all this?"
Salemina agreed that it was hardly worth considering; and in truth
so many landladies had refused to receive her as a tenant that day
that her spirits were rather low, and she was uncommonly flexible.
"It is the lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose,"
remarked the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot
reproduce. He is a house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to
tell us that when he had a cottage he could rent in no other way he
planted plenty of creepers in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no
sae bonnie," he said, "and the linen and cutlery verra scanty, but
there is a yellow laburnum growin' by the door: the leddies see
that, and forget to ask aboot the linen. It depends a good bit on
the weather, too; it is easy to let a hoose when the sun shines upon
it."
"We hardly dare undertake regular housekeeping," I said; "do your
tenants ever take meals at the inn?"
"I cudna say, mam." (Dear, dear, the Crums are a large family!)
"If we did that, we should still need a servant to keep the house
tidy," said Salemina, as we walked away. "Perhaps housemaids are to
be had, though not nearer than Edinburgh, I fancy."
This gave me an idea, and I slipped over to the post-office while
Salemina was preparing for dinner, and despatched a telegram to Mrs.
M'Collop at Breadalbane Terrace, asking her if she could send a
reliable general servant to us, capable of cooking simple breakfasts
and caring for a house.
We had scarcely finished our Scotch broth, fried haddies, mutton-
chops, and rhubarb tart when I received an answer from Mrs. M'Collop
to the effect that her sister's husband's niece, Jane Grieve, could
join us on the morrow if we desired. The relationship was an
- intention [in´tenʃən]
n.意图；打算；意义 (初中英语单词) - handwriting [´hænd,raitiŋ] n.笔迹；书法 (初中英语单词)
- betray [bi´trei] vt.背叛；辜负；暴露 (初中英语单词)
- victory [´viktəri] n.胜利，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- beloved [bi´lʌvd] a.为....所爱的 n.爱人 (初中英语单词)
- absolutely [´æbsəlu:tli] ad.绝对地；确实 (初中英语单词)
- delightful [di´laitful] a.讨人喜欢的 (初中英语单词)
- carriage [´kæridʒ] n.马车；客车；货运 (初中英语单词)
- meanwhile [´mi:n´wail] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- establishment [i´stæbliʃmənt] n.建(成)立；研究所 (初中英语单词)
- delicious [di´liʃəs] a.美味的，可口的 (初中英语单词)
- possibility [,pɔsə´biliti] n.可能(性)；希望；前途 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- accordingly [ə´kɔ:diŋli] ad.因此；从而；依照 (初中英语单词)
- assistant [ə´sistənt] n.助手；助理；助教 (初中英语单词)
- unlike [,ʌn´laik] a.不同的 prep.不象... (初中英语单词)
- old-fashioned [´əuld´feʃənd] a.老式的；过时的 (初中英语单词)
- cottage [´kɔtidʒ] n.村舍；小屋；小别墅 (初中英语单词)
- income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
- interior [in´tiəriə] n.&a.内部地(的) (初中英语单词)
- attractive [ə´træktiv] a.有吸引力；诱人的 (初中英语单词)
- nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- undertake [,ʌndə´teik] vt.从事；承担；担保 (初中英语单词)
- telegram [´teligræm] n.电报 (初中英语单词)
- capable [´keipəbəl] a.有能力；能干的 (初中英语单词)
- grieve [gri:v] v.&n.(使)悲痛；哀悼 (初中英语单词)
- breach [bri:tʃ] n.&v.破坏；违犯 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- scotch [skɔtʃ] vt.&n.刻痕(于)；划伤 (高中英语单词)
- onward [´ɔnwəd] ad.&a.向前(的) (高中英语单词)
- lodging [´lɔdʒiŋ] n.寄宿，住宿 (高中英语单词)
- deliberately [di´libərətli] ad.故意地；慎重地 (高中英语单词)
- hamlet [´hæmlit] n.村庄 (高中英语单词)
- melancholy [´melənkəli] n.忧郁 a.忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- saying [´seiŋ, ´sei-iŋ] n.言语；言论；格言 (高中英语单词)
- regarding [ri´gɑ:diŋ] prep.关于 (高中英语单词)
- landlady [´lænd,leidi] n.女房东；女店主 (高中英语单词)
- solitude [´sɔlitju:d] n.孤独；寂寞；荒凉 (高中英语单词)
- sewing [´səuiŋ] n.缝纫；(书的)装订 (高中英语单词)
- stuffy [´stʌfi] a.不通气的；闷热的 (高中英语单词)
- tenant [´tenənt] n.租户，佃户 (高中英语单词)
- scanty [´skænti] a.贫乏的；节省的 (高中英语单词)
- post-office [´pəust-´ɔfis] a.邮政的 (高中英语单词)
- terrace [´terəs] n.梯田 vt.使成梯田 (高中英语单词)
- relationship [ri´leiʃənʃip] n.关系；联系；亲属关系 (高中英语单词)
- scottish [´skɔtiʃ, ´skɑtiʃ] a.&n.苏格兰人(的) (英语四级单词)
- edinburgh [´edinbərə] n.爱丁堡 (英语四级单词)
- deliberation [dilibə´reiʃ(ə)n] n.仔细考虑；商量 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- heretofore [,hiətu´fɔ:] ad.以前，迄今为止 (英语四级单词)
- favourably [´feivərəbli] ad.善意地 (英语四级单词)
- blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
- considering [kən´sidəriŋ] prep.就...而论 (英语四级单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- gentry [´dʒentri] n.上流社会人士，绅士 (英语六级单词)
- heather [´heðə] n.石南属植物 (英语六级单词)
- burlesque [bə:´lesk] n.&a.滑稽戏(的) (英语六级单词)
- simmer [´simə] v.煨，炖；内心充满 (英语六级单词)
- wayside [´weisaid] n.&a.路边(的) (英语六级单词)
- microscopic [,maikrə´skɔpik] a.(象)显微镜的 (英语六级单词)
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