O. Douglas

“ Elizabeth sat up very straight.
"Oh! If you look at life from that sort of 'from-hour-to-hour-we-ripe-and-ripe-and-then—from-hour-to-hour-we-rot-and-rot' attitude, it is a tragic thing to grow old. But surely life is more than just a blooming and a decay. Life seems to me like a Road—oh! I don't pretend to be original—a road that is always going round corners. And when we are quite young we expect to find something new and delightful round every turn. ”

“ Heaven is much the realest place there is to Father. I do believe that when he is toiling away in the Gorbals he never sees the squalor for thinking of the streets of gold."
Elizabeth's grey eyes grew soft for a moment with unshed tears, but she blinked them away and laughed.
"The nicest thing about my father is that he is full of contradictions. So gentle and with such an uncompromising creed! The Way is the Way to Father, narrow and hard and comfortless. And he is so good, so purely good, and yet never righteous over much. ”

“ Veitch, while at home Marget stood gazing, speechless with wrath, at the wreck Buff had made of her tidy stick-house.
When Elizabeth reached her destination and knocked, the door was opened by Mrs. Veitch's daughter Kate, who took her into the room and asked her to take a seat for a minute and she would come. Left alone, Elizabeth looked round the cherished room and noticed that dust lay thick on the sideboard that Mrs. Veitch had dusted so frequently and so proudly, and that the crochet antimacassars on the sofa hung all awry. ”

“ Elizabeth asked her guest.
He did as he was bid, and remained standing at the mantelpiece looking at the picture which hung above it.
"Your mother, isn't it?" he asked. "She was beautiful; Aunt Alice has often told me of her."
He looked in silence for a minute, and then went back to his chair and lit another cigarette.
"I never knew my mother, and I only remember my father dimly. I was only her husband's nephew, but Aunt Alice has had to stand for all my home-people, and no one knows except myself how successful she has been."
"She is the most golden-hearted person," said Elizabeth. ”

“ The piano stood open, with "The Rosary" on the stand; the incandescent lights in their pink globes were already lit, and a fire—a small one, for the room would get hot presently—burned in the yellow-tiled grate.
Mr. and Mrs. Thomson paused for a moment in the doorway in order to surprise themselves.
"Well, well," said Mr. Thomson, while his wife hurried to the fireside to sweep away a fallen cinder. "You've been successful with your colour scheme, Mamma, I must say that. The yellow and white's cheery, and the blue of the carpet makes a fine contrast. You've taste right enough." ”

“ James Seton smiled at his daughter. "Lazy, Lizbeth, that's all—lazy and growing old!"
"Old?" said Elizabeth. "Why, Father, you're the youngest person I have ever known. You're only about half the age of this weary worldling your daughter. You can never say you're old, wicked one, when you enjoy fairy tales just as much as Buff. I do believe that you would rather read a fairy tale than a theological book. He can't deny it, Kirsty. ”

“ Why, something delightful might happen almost any minute: there was no saying what dazzling adventures might lurk round any corner. The Saga of Monday as sung by Elizabeth helped down the milk, cheered the heart of Buff, and sent him off on his daily quest for knowledge in a more resigned spirit than five minutes before had seemed possible. Then Elizabeth gathered up the letters and went into the study, where she found her father brooding absorbed over the pots of bulbs that stood in the study windows. ”

“ There never was any lack of callers at Jeanieville. It was such a vastly comfortable house to call at. The fire burned so brightly, the tea was so hot and fresh, the scones so delicious, and the shortbread so new and crimpy; and when Mrs. Thomson with genuine welcome in her voice said, "Well, this is real nice," no matter how inclement the weather outside each visitor felt the world a warm and kindly place. ”

“ When nice people come to a house they should just stay on and on, after the fashion of princes in fairy-tale stories seeking their fortunes. They stayed about twenty years before it seemed to strike them that their people might be getting anxious."
"For myself," said Arthur, "I ask nothing better. You know that, don't you?"
"One two—one two," Elizabeth counted. She looked up from her knitting with twinkling eyes. "Did you hate very much coming? or were you passive in the managing hands of Aunt Alice?" ”

“ I do hope they will be very happy. Dear old Kirsty!"
"Yes," said Mrs. Christie, "but we can't look forward. We know not what a day may bring forth—nor an hour either, for that matter. Just last night I got up to ring the bell in the dining-room—I wanted Janet to bring me a hot-water bottle for my feet—and before I knew I had fallen over the coal-scuttle, and Janet had to carry me back to the sofa. I felt quite solemnised to think how quickly trouble would come. No, no, we can't look forward——Well, well, here's Mr. M'Cann. Don't go away, Elizabeth; I can't bear the man!" ”

“ No khaki-clad men disturbed the peace of the glen, no trains rushed past crowded with troops, no aeroplanes circled in the heavens. The hills and the burn and the peeweets remained the same, the high hollyhocks flaunted themselves against the grey garden wall; nothing was changed—and yet everything was different.
Buff and Thomas and Billy, as pleased and excited as if it were some gigantic show got up for their benefit, equipped themselves with weapons and spent laborious days tracking spies in the heather and charging down the hillside ”

“ It was surprising to hear how bitterly this apostle of Freedom spoke of the "bit servant lasses" on whose woes he loved to dilate from the pulpit when he was inveighing against the idle, selfish rich.
Two imps of mischief woke in Elizabeth's grey eyes as she listened.
"Yes," she agreed, as her companion paused for a second in his indictment. "Servants are a nuisance. What a relief it would be to have slaves!"
"Whit's that?" said Mr. M'Cann, evidently not believing he had heard aright. ”

“ We say 'Ucha,' and when we meet each other in July we think it is funny to say 'A good New Year'; and always our accent grates on the ears of the genteel. I have heard it said that nothing could make Glasgow people gentlefolks because we are 'that weel-pleased'; and the less apparent reason there seems for complacency the more 'weel-pleased' we are. As an Edinburgh man once said to me in that connection, 'If a Glasgow man has black teeth and bandy legs he has cheek enough to stand before the King.' But we have none of the subtle vulgarity that pretends: we are plain folk and we know it.... ”

“ It made the thought of tea-time at home so very attractive.
She jumped on a tram-car and squeezed herself in between two stout ladies. The car was very full, and the atmosphere heavy with the smell of damp waterproofs. Dripping umbrellas, held well away from the owners, made rivulets on the floor and caught the feet of the unwary, and an air of profound dejection brooded over everyone. Generally, Elizabeth got the liveliest pleasure from listening to conversation in the car, but to-day everyone was as silent as a canary in a darkened cage. ”

“ A piano, a table or two, a few large arm-chairs, and a sofa covered in bright chintz made up the furniture of what was a singularly lovable and home-like room.
Elizabeth's dusting of the drawing-room was something of a ceremonial: it needed three dusters. With a silk duster she dusted the white bookcases and the cherished china; the chair legs and the tables and the polished floor needed an ordinary duster; then she got a selvyt-cloth and polished the Sheffield-plate, the brass candlesticks and tinder-boxes. ”

“ How triumphantly true it is that the meek inherit the earth! Flowers are left to him, flowers and the air and the sky and the sun; spring mornings, winter nights by the fire, and books—and I may just mention in passing those two unconsidered trifles Buff and me! As I write, I have a picture in my mind of Father in retirement. He will be interested in everything, and always apt at the smallest provocation to be passionately angry at Radicals. (They have the same effect on him as Puritans had on gentle Sir Andrew Aguecheek—you remember?) ”

“ Unless spoken to, Buff seldom offered a remark, but talked rapidly to himself in muffled tones, to the great bewilderment of strangers, who were apt to think him slightly deranged.
Ellen had brought in the pudding when Elizabeth noticed that her young brother was sitting with a tense face, his hands clenched in front of him and his legs moving rapidly.
She touched his arm to recall him to his surroundings. "Don't touch me," he said through his teeth. "I'm a motor and I've lost control of myself." ”

“ Heaven will be what we love most on earth. At Etterick——"
"Tell me about Etterick," begged Arthur. "It's a place I want very much to see. Aunt Alice adores it."
"Who wouldn't! It's only a farmhouse with a bit built on, and a few acres of ground round it but there is a walled garden where old flowers grow carelessly, and the heather comes down almost to the door. And there is a burn—what you would call a stream—that slips all clear and shining from one brown pool to another; and the nearest neighbours are three good miles away, and the peeweets cry, and the bees hum among the wild thyme. ”

“ Elizabeth was knitting a stocking for her young brother, and counted audibly at intervals; Arthur lay in a large arm-chair and looked into the fire.
"Buff is frightfully sorry to lose you. One two—one two. This is a beautiful 'top,' don't you think? Rather like a Persian tile."
"Yes," said Arthur rather absently.
There was silence for a few minutes; then Elizabeth said, "There is something very depressing about last nights—we would really have been much better at the Band of Hope, and I would have been doing my duty, and thus have acquired merit. I hate people going away. ”

“ We've had our sad times—and the queer thing is that out there it isn't sad to think about Mother and Sandy: it's comforting, you would wonder!—but when we are happy we are much happier than most people. I haven't got any premonition, you know, or anything like that; indeed, I hope to come bounding home again in spring, but just in case—remember, I was glad to go."
He put his hand gently on his sister's bowed golden head. Sandy had had just such gentle ways. Elizabeth caught his hand and held it to her face, and her tears fell on it.
"Oh! Lizbeth, are you giving way to sentiment? ”

“ Kirsty reminded him.
Andrew took her arm and looked very tenderly at her as he answered, laughing, "Oh! Kirsty, since when did an Anglican bishop direct your conscience and mine?" They walked slowly towards the house.
On the doorstep Kirsty turned.
"Andrew," she said, "have you thought it all out? Have you thought what it may mean? Leaving the people here—perhaps they won't keep your place open for you, for no man knows how long the war'll last—leaving your comfortable home and your wife who—who loves you, and going away to a life of hardship and exposure, and in the end perhaps—death. ”

“ Arthur asked, "for it was a very sedate lady I found in Glasgow. Tell me, Lizbeth, why were you so discouraging to me then? You must have known I cared."
"Well, you see, I'm a queer creature—affectionate but not very loving. I never think that 'love' is a word to use much if people are all well and things in their ordinary. And you were frightfully English, you can't deny it, and a monocle, and everything very much against you. And then Aunt Alice's intention of being a sort of fairy godmother was so obvious—it seemed feeble to tumble so easily in with her plans. ”

“ I wish, Elizabeth, you would tell me some new puddings. Archie says ours are so dull."
Elizabeth immediately threw herself into the subject of puddings.
"I know one new pudding, but it takes two days to make and it's very expensive. We only have it for special people. You know 'Aunt Mag,' of course? and 'Uncle Tom'? That's only 'Aunt Mag' with treacle. Semolina, sago, big rice—we call those milk things, we don't dignify them by the name of pudding. What else is there? Tarts, oh! and bread puddings, and there's that greasy kind you eat with syrup, suet dumplings. ”

“ You will be startled to hear that I rise at 6 a.m. I like to get as much done as possible before breakfast, and I find that when I have done 'the nastiest thing in the day' and get my feet on to the floor, it doesn't matter whether it is six o'clock or eight. Only, my cold bath is very cold at that early hour—but I think of you people in France and pour contempt on my shivering self. To lighten our labours, we have got a vacuum cleaner, one of the kind you stand on and work from side to side. Buff delights to help with this thing, and he and I see-saw together. ”