Jock

“ Lord, how Jock ran! He was all bespattered with blood, some of it his own, and some of it his master's; wanted the bonnet, and had the bloody knife in his hand; and was, without all doubt, a wild frightsome-looking boy. As he sped through the wood, he heard the groans and howls of his master in the agonies of death behind him. Every one of them added to Jock's swiftness, till it actually became beyond the speed of mortal man. If it be true that love lends a pair of wings, [224] fear, mortal fear, lends two pair. There is nought in life I regret so much as that I did not see Jock in this flight ”

“ Some of the pictures Jock recognized as old friends that had gazed familiarly at him from subway trains and street cars and theater programmes. Golf clubs, tennis rackets, walking sticks, billiard cues were stacked up in corners. And yet there was a bare and orderly look about the place. Two silent, shirt-sleeved men were busy at drawing boards. Through a doorway beyond Jock could see others similarly engaged in the next room. On a platform in one corner of the room posed a young man in one of those costumes the coat of which is a mongrel mixture of cutaway and sack. ”

“ Then Jock said, "Where in the world did you learn to sing like that?"
Yvonne disregarded the question. "The only kick I get out of life any more," she said, "is driving seventy miles an hour. You love it, too, don't you?" Then, as Jock nodded, "You would, of course. You're like me. Mad. All the people worth knowing are a little mad."
She thrust a hand down the front of her gown and brought forth a powder puff and an eyebrow pencil wrapped in a scented handkerchief. ”

“ So saying he almost doubled in two with laughter, and tossing his bright cap into the air, left the presence of the frowning queen.
Straight to the heart of the merry green woods ran Jock. He played leap-frog with elves and danced with wood-nymphs. They all loved him because he was so merry, and he feared no one because his heart was innocent as that of a little child.
By and by Jock told about his conversation with Queen Discord, and when he had finished252 such a merry shout went up from every elf, wood-nymph and fairy that the very leaves shook and an acorn fell to the ground. ”

“ Just at this moment the bungalow's door swung wide and Bradley Hathaway's figure was silhouetted, black against yellow. He bent to place a milk bottle on the porch, then straightened suddenly as Jock howled, "Hul-lo, Brad!"
"Hello yourself! Who is it, anyway?"
"Jock Hamill, and three of the better eggs."
"Jock—why, come in here this minute, you big bum! We've been wondering when you'd be along!"
"You see," said Bill, sotto voce. "Nobody's invited in but Jock. I do admire a husband with some idea of the fitness of things!" ”

“ With trembling hands, she began to feed the child.
The morning was wearing on. Jock supped his porridge, put on his coat, and made his way to the smithy. He paused opposite the cottage, but there was nobody visible. Whistling a tune, he took down his shutters. He turned round to look over the way again. The door of the cottage was closed, and the shutters were up. Queer, thought Jock. He entered the smithy and commenced work. No use; he found himself shaking his head, looking over the way, and wondering.
“Can onything hae gane wrang wi’ the lassie?” said Jock to himself. ”

“ I was hopelessly beaten, but Jock could see him well enough; he crouched beside me with ears cocked, and his eyes, all ablaze, were fixed intently on the spot, except for an occasional swift look up to me to see what on earth was wrong and why the shot did not come; his hind legs were tucked under him and he was trembling with excitement. Only those will realise it who have been through the tantalising humiliating experience. There was nothing to be done but wait, leaving the buck to make the first move. ”

“ For an hour, while the fire blazed at their feet and their cigarettes filled the room with a thin fine mist, they talked generalities. A long dreamy lazy hour, full of a brooding peace. Jock felt drugged with it. He felt that he wanted it never to end. . . . Firelight and Yvonne. Little quiet-leaping flames, and Yvonne's voice, like a lullaby. And Yvonne's beauty to look at, to drink up with the eyes. . . . Incredible to remember that somewhere men were playing football and other men were watching them and there was a tumult and a roar and a delirium. ”

“ I shall never forget going there to a children's party with David and Jock. Great-aunt Alison warned us most solemnly before we left home about marking the cloth, so we went rather tremblingly. There was a splendid tea in the dining-room with silver candlesticks and pink shades, and lovely china, and a glittering cloth, and heaps of good things to eat—grown-up things like sandwiches and rich cakes, such as we hardly ever saw. Jock was quite small and loved his food even more than he does now, dear lamb. ”

“ I firmly believe that Jock is the true fairy-tale hero who marries the princess and lives happily ever afterwards, even as he deserves. But he will always suffer for the suffering of others. He confided to me with shame that certain books brought him inexplicable sensations rather like wanting to cry. ‘It’s a sort of soft spot in my wooden heart,’ he explained. All alone in the ward he would solace himself by singing Burns’s songs—with tears in his eyes. ”

“ He would live as if all things might come to him, as to other men. It should be, day by day, and he would accept these people—if they would accept him—not as minister and parishioners, but in the larger, deeper sense—as brothers. With this outlook determined upon, a change for the better began. Before it, while the old weakness possessed him, Jock Filmer, sitting daily by his bed, was merely some one who was helping nurse the fever-racked body; afterward, Jock materialized into the most important and satisfying personality to be imagined. ”

“ Jock sat over it often in the most profound contemplation, thinking how delightfully a slice of bacon would fry on it,—how he would lay the slice on his hard bannock, and how the juice would ooze out of it! Never was there a man who had richer prospects than Jock had: still his happiness lay only in perspective. But experience teaches man wisdom, and wisdom points out to him many expedients.
Among Jock's fat sheep there was one fat ewe lamb, the flower of the flock, which the goodwife and the goodman both [204] loved and valued above all the rest. ”

“ I was sitting against a tree only three or four yards from the koodoo, and the boys, who had lighted a fire in anticipation of early tit-bits which would grill while they worked, were getting along well with the skinning, when one of them saw fit to pause in order to hold forth in the native fashion on the glories of the chase and the might of the white man. Jock’s head lay on his paws and his mouth was shut like a rat-trap; his growling grew louder as the bombastic nigger, all unconscious of the wicked watching eyes behind him, waved his blood-stained knife and warmed to his theme. ”

“ But it was slow, and Alfred seemed like a rudderless boat at sea till he met Jock.
Jock is a story all to himself. Suffice it to say of him that his vocation was to be a guardian angel. Every Scottish soldier is Jock in hospital, and perhaps other hospitals have found Jocks like ours—always unselfish, cheery, uncomplaining, infinitely pitiful to every trouble but their own ”

“ Jock fared better than we did, finding openings and game tracks at his own level, which were of no use to us; he also knew better than we did what was going on ahead, and it was tantalising in the extreme to see him slow down and stand with his nose thrown up, giving quick soft sniffs and ranging his head from side to side, when he knew there was something quite close, and knew too that a few more toiling steps in that rank grass would be followed by a rush of something which we would never see. ”

“ Then one day Jock invented a new crime He dashed upon a hapless chick, strayed from the last cottage in the village. before I knew what he was about—my eyes, greedy for pink, were set on the green lane ahead—had it, squawking, by the wing. I choked him off—he was very pleased and proud, and his mouth was full of feathers—bore him by the scruff of the neck to the hedge, ripped out a little switch, and began to make it clear to him that for practical and penal purposes a chicken is the same as a stuffed parrot. ”

“ Jim became Jock’s devoted champion, and more than once, as will be seen, showed that he would face man or beast to stand by him when he needed help.
This day when I returned to the waggons Jim was sitting with the other drivers in the group round the big pot of porridge. I saw him give one quick look my way and heard him say sharply to the others, “Where is the dog? Where is Jock?” He stood there looking at me with a big wooden spoon full of porridge stopped on the way to his mouth. ”

“ You might pike aft and try to get a yarn out of Jock when ‘Pack up!’ sounds. He’s a close-mouthed tyke, though, and if you can get him to tell how he played the human proj, you’ll be doing more’n anyone else has been able to pull off down to now. He’s half clam and half sphinx, I think Jock is, and that makes a ‘dour lad’ when crossed with a ‘Glasgie’ strain. Which makes it all the sadder to have him qualify for membership in the ‘Black Marias,’ and me, because I finished in the Bow, froze out. ”

“ But the bannock ran in behind the goodman's chair. Jock fell among the sprits. The goodman cast a binning, and the goodwife the spurtle. But it was too clever for Jock and her both. It was off and out of sight in a crack, and through among the whins, and down the road to the next house, and in and snug by the fireside. The folk were just sitting down to their soup, and the goodwife scraping the pot. "Look," quoth she, "there's a wee bannock come in to warm itself at our fireside." ”

“ If we except the old heron who was no longer as smart as he had been in the days of his youth, and now stood on one leg as often as he did on two, and missed his stroke as often as he made it, Jock had no enemies in the water, and this is as it should have been, for there never was a more harmless little animal.
He wore a brown coat well oiled, and carried a black tail with a white tip, of which he was absurdly proud, for such a decoration in water-rat land denotes that the wearer is of good family, and Jock had cousins and distant relatives by the score who could not boast such an adornment. ”

“ Whoever had an empty snuff-box, Jock's was always full; whoever might be seen at church with coarse or ill-washed linen, Jock was not among the number; whoever went to the public-house, or to the houses of their neighbours, for amusement, Jock came always home "to his ain fireside;" and, when others were heard to complain of the thriftlessness of their wives, he only said that "he had aye been a hantle better since he got Nelly than ever he was afore." ”

“ A fine lad was Jock, merry and free as becomes one whose life is mostly spent in the greenwood: his limbs were finely made, he was straight and strong, and there were none in all the country-side who could run, fence, or box like he, or who could shoot straighter or further with the bow. A right proper lad, such as an English maiden loves. His father was steward to the Lord of Mottram, and to that position young Jock looked one day to succeed. In the meantime he discharged such tasks as were set him with diligence, and drank his fill of happiness with that bonny yeoman’s daughter, Bess Andrew. ”

“ Day after day at the outspans the puppies went through every stage of the business, to our constant amusement and to my unconcealed pride; for Jock was thenceforth cock of the walk. If they saw him some distance off moving towards them or even staring hard and with his ears and tail up, the retreat would be made with a gloomy and dignified air, sometimes even with growls just loud enough to please themselves without provoking him ”

“ Bones left his dresser and came to perch on the edge of the desk, from which elevation he looked down upon his roommate with anxiety. "See here, Jock," he began. "I get it. I get it straight. You're all gloomed up over this Hathaway thing, and no wonder, what with the way the boys are taking it and Bad News down the street bombarding you with notes and all. But listen, that'll straighten itself out if you give it time, and then——"
"That's not it," insisted Jock. "You're way out of bounds. I'd never let a little rumor hound me out of college if I didn't want to go, you ought to know that. ”

“ The workmen used, on the mornings after big greater narratives, to look one another full in the face, and ask, with a smile rather incipient than fully manifest, whether "Jock wasna perfectly wonderfu' last nicht?"
He had several times visited the south of Scotland, as one of a band of Highland reapers, for employment in his proper profession very often failed poor Jock; and these journeys formed the grand occasions of his adventures. One of his narratives commenced, I remember, with a frightful midnight scene in a solitary churchyard. Jock had lost his way in the darkness ”

“ This accomplished, the most important invitation of all remained to the last, to wit, that of his honour the most noble Master Jock, which had to be given in due order.
Now, this was no joke, for Master Jock had the amiable habit of keeping tame bears in his courtyard, which devour a man without the slightest regard to his official position; or the poor man might stray among the watch-dogs, and be torn to ribbons. Fortunately, however, on this occasion a red-liveried menial was lounging about the gate, from whom it was possible to get a peaceful answer. ”