But now when we could have servants for ourselves I shrank from the thought. It would not be the same house; we should have to dissemble; I saw myself speaking English the long day through. You only know the shell of a Scot until you have entered his home circle; in his office, in clubs, at social gatherings where you and he seem to be getting on so well he is really a house with all the shutters closed and the door locked. He is not opaque of set purpose, often it is against his will - it is certainly against mine, I try to keep my shutters open and my foot in the door but they will bang to. In many ways my mother was as reticent as myself, though her manners were as gracious as mine were rough (in vain, alas! all the honest oiling of them), and my sister was the most reserved of us all; you might at times see a light through one of my chinks: she was double-shuttered. Now, it seems to be a law of nature that we must show our true selves at some time, and as the Scot must do it at home, and squeeze a day into an hour, what follows is that there he is self-revealing in the superlative degree, the feelings so long dammed up overflow, and thus a Scotch family are probably better acquainted with each other, and more ignorant of the life outside their circle, than any other family in the world. And as knowledge is sympathy, the affection existing between them is almost painful in its intensity; they have not more to give than their neighbours, but it is bestowed upon a few instead of being distributed among many; they are reputed niggardly, but for family affection at least they pay in gold. In this, I believe, we shall find the true explanation why Scotch literature, since long before the days of Burns, has been so often inspired by the domestic hearth, and has treated it with a passionate understanding.
Must a woman come into our house and discover that I was not such a dreary dog as I had the reputation of being? Was I to be seen at last with the veil of dourness lifted? My company voice is so low and unimpressive that my first remark is merely an intimation that I am about to speak (like the whir of the clock before it strikes): must it be revealed that I had another voice, that there was one door I never opened without leaving my reserve on the mat? Ah, that room, must its secrets be disclosed? So joyous they were when my mother was well, no wonder we were merry. Again and again she had been given back to us; it was for the glorious to-day we thanked God; in our hearts we knew and in our prayers confessed that the fill of delight had been given us, whatever might befall.
We had not to wait till all was over to know its value; my mother used to say, 'We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it,' and there can be few truer sayings, but during her last years we exulted daily in the possession of her as much as we can exult in her memory. No wonder, I say, that we were merry, but we liked to show it to God alone, and to Him only our agony during those many night-alarms, when lights flickered in the house and white faces were round my mother's bedside. Not for other eyes those long vigils when, night about, we sat watching, nor the awful nights when we stood together, teeth clenched - waiting - it must be now. And it was not then; her hand became cooler, her breathing more easy; she smiled to us. Once more I could work by snatches, and was glad, but what was the result to me compared to the joy of hearing that voice from the other room?
There lay all the work I was ever proud of, the rest is but honest craftsmanship done to give her coal and food and softer pillows.
My thousand letters that she so carefully preserved, always sleeping with the last beneath the sheet, where one was found when she died - they are the only writing of mine of which I shall ever boast. I would not there had been one less though I could have written an immortal book for it.
How my sister toiled - to prevent a stranger's getting any footing in the house! And how, with the same object, my mother strove to 'do for herself' once more. She pretended that she was always well now, and concealed her ailments so craftily that we had to probe for them:-
'I think you are not feeling well to-day?'
'I am perfectly well.'
'Where is the pain?'
'I have no pain to speak of.'
'Is it at your heart?'
'No.'
'Is your breathing hurting you?'
'Not it.'
'Do you feel those stounds in your head again?'
'No, no, I tell you there is nothing the matter with me.'
'Have you a pain in your side?'
'Really, it's most provoking I canna put my hand to my side without your thinking I have a pain there.'
'You have a pain in your side!'
'I might have a pain in my side.'
'And you were trying to hide it! Is it very painful?'
'It's - it's no so bad but what I can bear it.'
Which of these two gave in first I cannot tell, though to me fell the duty of persuading them, for whichever she was she rebelled as soon as the other showed signs of yielding, so that sometimes I had two converts in the week but never both on the same day. I would take them separately, and press the one to yield for the sake of the other, but they saw so easily through my artifice. My mother might go bravely to my sister and say, 'I have been thinking it over, and I believe I would like a servant fine - once we got used to her.'
'Did he tell you to say that?' asks my sister sharply.
'I say it of my own free will.'
'He put you up to it, I am sure, and he told you not to let on that you did it to lighten my work.'
'Maybe he did, but I think we should get one.'
'Not for my sake,' says my sister obstinately, and then my mother comes ben to me to say delightedly, 'She winna listen to reason!'
But at last a servant was engaged; we might be said to be at the window, gloomily waiting for her now, and it was with such words as these that we sought to comfort each other and ourselves:-
'She will go early to her bed.'
'She needna often be seen upstairs.'
'We'll set her to the walking every day.'
'There will be a many errands for her to run. We'll tell her to take her time over them.'
'Three times she shall go to the kirk every Sabbath, and we'll egg her on to attending the lectures in the hall.'
'She is sure to have friends in the town. We'll let her visit them often.'
'If she dares to come into your room, mother!'
'Mind this, every one of you, servant or no servant, I fold all the linen mysel.'
'She shall not get cleaning out the east room.'
'Nor putting my chest of drawers in order.'
'Nor tidying up my manus.'
'I hope she's a reader, though. You could set her down with a book, and then close the door canny on her.'
And so on. Was ever servant awaited so apprehensively? And then she came - at an anxious time, too, when her worth could be put to the proof at once - and from first to last she was a treasure. I know not what we should have done without her.
