Jamie

“ I cannot blame him because he is constant,
True love is better than silver or gold.
⁠A costly jewel to instantly gave him,
Then in her trembling hand she took a knife;
One fatal stroke before they could save her,
Quickly put an end to her life.
⁠Great lamentation was made for this lady:
Jamie on board the ship he did steer
Unto Old England he homeward came sailing,
With a longing desire to meet with his dear.
⁠But when her father head he was returning
He wrote a letter to the batswain, his friend,
Saging, a handsome reward I will give you,
If you the life of young Jamie will end. ”

“ Just how that would have worked out, Jamie never knew because at the instant that his hand crept higher to work the blinding hair from his eyes, a long, low flash of lightning struck the breast of the ocean and for one instant lighted the rock like day. In that instant Jamie saw the white face and the big, wide eyes of a woman, eyes that he would remember while remembrance remained with him, a face that by no possibility could he ever forget. ”

“ Bowdoin had to speak to him about it. He had no long absences at lunch-time, but took a sandwich on the street. In fact, Jamie had grown to be a miser.
Great things were happening in those days, but Jamie took no heed of them. Human liberty was in the air; love of man and love of law were at odds, and clashed with each other in the streets; Jamie took no heed of them. They jostled on the pavement, but Jamie walked to his task in the morning, and back at night, between them; seeing mankind but as trees, walking; bowed down with the love of one. ”

“ She knew she dropped her goldenrod and ran—ran as she never ran before, ran as she thought she never could run—back toward the wall and Jamie. She knew that behind her the hoof-beats were gaining, gaining, always gaining. Dimly, hopelessly, far ahead of her, she saw Jamie's agonized face, and heard his hoarse cries. Then, from somewhere, came a new voice—Jimmy's—shouting a cheery call of courage.
Still on and on she ran blindly, hearing nearer and nearer the thud of those pounding hoofs. Once she stumbled and almost fell. Then, dizzily she righted herself and plunged forward. ”

“ Jamie turned to look after the English ship, but though almost shrouded in haze, he could perceive her standing off towards the south-east with all her sails set.
"An angel—a golden angel!" said Jamie, turning over the bright coin in his hard hand. "By my saul, there maun be some dark plot in the wind when these limbs o' Satan pay sae weel! Jamie Gair, Jamie Gair! tak ye tent; for this braw fee may never bring aught but dool and sorrow to thee and thine. ”

“ Then the golden orb of day unbarred his eastern shutters, tinged the far horizon with saffron and yellow, and flooded the landscape of forest, and river, and lake, with gold, but still the youth slept on. Would he never awake?
At length, when the sun was high above the tree-tops, Jamie stretched himself, then opened his eyes. As he did so his first gaze fell upon a man, somewhat past middle-age, but still strong and sturdy. He was in the garb of a hunter, for he wore a hair-fringed hunting-shirt, moccasins, and Indian leggings, while on his head was a beaver cap. ”

“ You have had all the rest: leave me one little boy!
He halts! He will stop! No; the fall of the sand
In the hour-glass deceived me. It seemed at a stand.
But whom have we here? Jamie! Harry! how? why
Just as many as ever—and Time passing by?
I can hardly believe it. But surely it's clear
My babies, my toddlers, my school-boys are here!
And I've two great big fellows (one lithe and one tall)
Besides all the rest—and more precious than all,
Jamie, my bouncer, my man-boy, my pride! ”

“ The world that opened to Jamie after the long darkness was a more beautiful world than ever it had been before. His loved mountains had never seemed so big and brave as when he was permitted to look at them again, and he was quite sure that never before had the peaks, lighted by the setting sun, been so bright and glorious with heavenly beauty at the moment when God stooped down to kiss the world good night. ”

“ There are certain male natures that fight crying. An enemy who looks straight at you with tears in his eyes is not to be contended with. And Jamie stood there, blushing fiery red, with flashing eyes, and tears streaming down his cheeks.
"James Bowdoin, you're a d—d fool!" sputtered his irate sire. "You talk as your wife might talk. This is an affair of men. Jamie," he added very gently, "you are quite right. My boy's an ass." He put his hand on Jamie's shoulder. "You'll find some fine young fellow to marry her yet, and she'll bring you—grandchildren." ”

“ How, then, did Jamie live? For no man can live quite without hope, as we believe,—hope of some event, some end of suffering, at least of some worthier act.
With Jamie it was the hope of restitution. He wished to leave behind him, as the score of his life, that he had been true to his employer and had loved his little ward. And if the time could ever come when he could do more for her, it would not be until his theft was made good, and his hands were free, as his heart, to serve her again. For the one thing that Jamie stood for was integrity ”

“ Of the greater part of that day Jamie had no very clear memory remaining. The most he knew was that he had alternated walking as long as he could walk with dropping any place he could sit or lie when he could go no farther. Just where he got into a road that led him into a canyon, he did not know. ”

“ Jamie will just have to tell him about yourself, and he will send the lad off with a laugh, or maybe a charge not to forget the ship’s sailing-day. Hope well, and have well, lassie.”
“You’ll be far mistaken, Mother. I am not expecting Jamie for more than two or three trips—but he’ll be thinking of me, and I can not help thinking of him.”
“Think away, Christina. Loving thoughts keep out others, not as good. I wonder how it would do to walk as far as Largo, and find out all about the marriage from Griselda Kilgour. ”

“ As for Jamie—poor Jamie! The great sorrow of his life is that he knows now he can never walk. For a time we all had hopes. He was here at the Sanatorium under Dr. Ames for a year, and he improved to such an extent that he can go now with crutches. But the poor boy will always be a cripple—so far as his feet are concerned, but never as regards anything else. Someway, after you know Jamie, you seldom think of him as a cripple, his SOUL is so free. I can't explain it, but you'll know what I mean when you see him ”

“ Twice the little Scout had been in the garden for a short visit after school hours. Each time Jamie parted with his new friend with deeper regret. Each time he had seen some new emanation of the mentality of the youngster that had surprised, sometimes shocked, sometimes delighted him, and as for the question of sex, he was not a bit nearer the solution than he had been the first day.
After supper on the ninth day, for the second time Jamie made his way the length of the back walk, across the beach, and climbed to the throne. ”

“ For some moments after Jack had left him, Jamie thought over the matter, hesitating between the pound and Aunt Betty in regard to his favorite, until at last the dog, which Jamie had named Nep, reminded his master of his presence by poking his cold nose as far into Jamie's neck as possible, and laying his fore-paws gently upon his arm. The boy could not resist that, and in a moment he had squeezed Neppie's breath almost out of his body, and exclaimed, "I'll just keep you, you darling; you shall stay with me." ”

“ Countless multitudes of such men as Jamie must there be, to hold the fabric together and make possible the daring spins of you, my lords Lovelace, and you, Launcelots and Tristrams, and Miss Vivien here ”

“ It was spring, after all; and the light reminded Jamie of the South. She was there, and alone.
He had tried to save his own good name, and it was all in vain. He might at least do what he could for her.
He did not go home, but wandered on, walking. Unconsciously his steps followed the southwest, toward the light (we always walk to the west in the afternoon) , and he found himself by the long beach of the Back Bay, the railroad behind him. The tide was high, and the west wind blew the waves in froth at his feet. ”

“ Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie,
⁠Thou hast me forsaken;
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie,
⁠Thou hast me forsaken.
Thou canst love another jo,
⁠While my heart is breaking:
Soon my weary e'en I'll close,
⁠Never more to waken, Jamie.
⁠Never more to waken. ”

“ He was worried. The fairy business was played out, and he felt that he must begin again. Children were by no means as easy to handle as he had thought. He racked his brains, and suddenly bethought him of another move.
In spite of Jamie’s whimpering, he went to the cupboard and produced a tin of molasses. This he carefully opened in full view of Vada’s questioning eyes. Jamie had also become silent, watching him intently. He dug his finger into the sticky contents and drew it out. Then he licked his finger with tremendous enjoyment. ”

“ When the first of The Seasons—Winter it was, I believe—had been completed at press, Jamie thought, by a presentation copy, to triumph over his uncle's scepticism, and to propitiate his good opinion he had the book handsomely bound. The old man never looked inside, or asked what the book was about, but turning it round and round with his fingers in gratified admiration, exclaimed: 'Come, is that really our Jamie's doin' now? ”

“ Passing away from us in ripened perfection, we behold a being but little lower than the angels, heir of God and joint heir with Christ, crowned with glory and honor and immortality.
Come up, then, Jamie, my King, into the presence of the great congregation! There are poets here, and philosophers, wise men of the East who can speak of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. But fear them not, little Jamie! you are of more value, even to science, than many fishes. ”

“ A little later, after I had talked a few minutes with the boy, my sister and I went up-stairs to her own rooms; and there she talked to me—of Jamie. Not of the old Jamie, as she used to, with tear-wet eyes and hopeless sighs, but of the new Jamie—and there were no sighs nor tears now. There was, instead, the eagerness of enthusiastic interest.
"'Della, he's wonderful,' she began. 'Everything that is best in music, art, and literature seems to appeal to him in a perfectly marvelous fashion, only, of course, he needs development and training. That's what I'm going to see that he gets. ”

“ Jamie, sick though he might have been, Scot though he surely was, remembered back dimly to the time when he was a boy and fought imaginary Indians and hunted with wooden guns and flourished wooden swords and made wagons with rocking wheels and carried in his anatomy a stomach that was for ever empty. ”

“ But Mercedes only thought how nice it was to have such a gentleman for grandfather; and when she got back to the little house on Salem Street she acted out all the play to an admiring audience. Jamie met her at the wharf and walked home with her. It was hot and stuffy in the city streets, but the flush of pleasure lasted well after she got home. And she told what soft linen they had had at dinner, and pink bowls to rinse their hands, and a man in a red waistcoat to wait upon them.
"Isn't she wonderful! Just like a lady born," said Jamie. ”

“ Jamie showed me the great Gloire de Dijon roses growing on the stone walls of his home, and the ivy covering the gate that gives passage from the lower side of the garden to the meadows and the bright-glancing Earn. Before you step out through it, it frames the misty blue Grampians beyond the river. Jamie used to describe all this to me that winter in Lamoral; but the reality is more beautiful than any description.
The Doctor was with us for three weeks in August. We celebrated Jamie's birthday by repeating Gordon's celebration of it so long ago. ”

“ He seldom spoke of matters personal to himself, so seldom that Jamie's great joke, perpetrated in his mother's presence and mine, was to the effect that "Ewart and Cale and Marcia are all enlisted in the reserves, mother; and only you, the Doctor, and I are able to fight in the open." The full significance of which good-natured raillery I understood, and answered him accordingly:
"All in good time, Jamie. There is so little to tell, it's worth while to keep you guessing." ”

“ And Jamie writes under it—“This is Paul’s work, pa; but he says it’s a love blot, only he loves you ten hundred times more.”
And after your return Jamie will insist that you should go with him to the brook, and sit down with him upon a tuft of the brake, to fling off a line into the eddies, though only the nibbling roach are sporting below. You have instructed the workmen to spare the clumps of bank-willows, that the wood-duck may have a covert in winter, and that the Bob-o’-Lincolns may have a quiet nesting place in the spring. ”

“ By the way, I wonder how long grown persons would sit still, if they were obliged to assume this position. But Jamie maintains himself heroically, his active soul subdued to silence, till Nature avenges herself, not merely with a palpable, but a portentous yawn. ”

“ When I was feeling in the “dumps” Jamie’s quaint drolleries would act like a charm, and restore my wonted cheerfulness. Often when he was out in his wheel-chair he would hear all sorts of humorous things, which he never failed to retail to me in his own inimitable way, not infrequently illustrating the same with a few deft strokes of his pencil. The simple villagers little thought that they were being analyzed, and all their weaknesses and peculiarities cartooned, mentally if not actually, by one of themselves.
“I had a visit frae auld Joseph Shand the day,” he{70} said to me on one occasion. ”