A portentous history

Front matter

THE LIBRARY

OF

LOS ANGELES

Chapter I

THERE is a land, which has inspired many masters of song — a land of lofty mountains and deep arms of the sea — of gloomy ravines and impetuous torrents — of naked rocky islands, against which the full force of the Atlantic breaks — a land of silent valleys and summits where the wind moans perpetually. It was here that the celebrated James Macdonald first saw the light. His actual birthplace was a little hamlet of not more than twoscore cottages straggling between a sea-loch and the mountains. It was a lonely, edge-of-the-world, gull-haunted sort of hamlet, inhabited only by poor and ignorant quarrymen, whither not even the insatiable angler penetrated, much less telegraph, railway, or daily paper, and its three presiding deities were the Dominie, the Rev. Simon McManus, and Dr. Spens.

Dr. Spens had been but three years in the neighbourhood and lived in the House by the Road — the road that first clambered past the Stone-Quarries, dived afterwards into the Valley of Calder, and finally surmounting the great pass of Ballandarroch reached at last the seaport of Duke's Ferry.

As it was this Doctor who ushered James into the world, a few words concerning him will not seem impertinent. He was, as his name indicates, of Northern extraction, but with a youth spent in England. It may appear curious that a medical man of undoubted intelligence (for the Doctor's face was the face of a clever and thoughtful man) should choose to lose himself so irretrievably, but the truth was that Dr. Spens met with tragedy on the threshold of his career. By the age of thirty he had been the most promising young man on the staff of St. Peter's Hospital in London — one of those upon whom destiny seemed determined to smile — a future baronet and favourite of Royalty. Before his thirty-first birthday he was settled in Tuchan with back for ever turned on London and ambition.

It was, in a way, his extraordinary promise which brought about his downfall. A very rich lady had to be operated on immediately and, as the seniors at the Hospital were all engaged, Spens was sent. He performed the operation with the utmost success but — unfortunately for him — one of the nurses was distracted by a love-affair. She left a pair of arterial forceps in the very rich lady's body and the patient — not unreasonably — died. Alas! how involved in each other's fates are we poor mortals. ; Spens might, in time, have lived down, worked down the tragedy of that first operation, but his impulse was to run away, hide his shame and disgrace. He followed it, lacking either resolution or insensibility enough to court Fortune till she smiled again.

No one in Tuchan at any rate had heard of his blasted fame. In that little Scotch village he need fear no looks askance, no mortifying repulses; could forget even that he had ever wished to be celebrated, or that a world existed in which men struggled and battled. His house-windows gave a wide prospect over the Valley of Calder, that colossal amphitheatre around which the hills lay like giant shepherds watching their flock below, their immane pccus, the huge grey ancient boulders . . . over the Valley of Calder to where those mighty mountains Ben More and Ben Moich guarded the mouth of the Ballandarroch Pass, eternal sentinels.

The Pass led to Duke's Ferry, to the life of ambition and energy, success or defeat, to all the rewards for which we poor mortals strive, but Dr. Spens had no desire to climb it.

He was content to remain, with the few hundreds a year that were his by inheritance, in the House on the Road between the Stone-Quarries and Tuchan. He was content to be out of life, to own himself beaten, and nothing now, after three such remote years, seemed worth having save the valley's silence and the majesty of the mighty mountains.

Chapter II

IT was New Year's Eve, bitter cold, with a continual driving snow. The Doctor had just finished dinner and was enjoying a pipe, when his housekeeper, a middle-aged dame from the village, tapped at the door and, putting her head into the room, said:

"Please, Doctor, Alexander Macdonald was wishing to speak wi' ye, him whose wife Euphemia is expectin'."

"Very well, show him into the consulting-room," he said a trifle irritably. "I'll be there in a minute."

The Doctor rose from his chair, pipe in mouth, with a slight look of petulance. Another maternity case! His housekeeper's news was certainly enough to disturb the placidity of a tired man expecting a few quiet pipes and then an early bed. No chance of that now at any rate and every probability of another night without any sleep at all. He knew the case. Euphemia had been ill since November, unaccountably ill for one already the mother of six. The good Doctor, as I say, rose grumbling, but then remembered how, but for his own want of resolution, he should have been calling comfortably in carriage and pair on millionaire patients, and with that his mood of half-humorous self-depreciation returned. Shaking his head over his own and other people's follies, with a gentle smile on his lips the while, he entered the consulting-room and, with every trace of ill-humour gone, gave good evening to Alexander.

The quarryman was a middle-sized thick-set person with a decided and deeply-lined face framed on the cheek-bone with a little sandy whisker.

"I'm fashed to ca' upon ye at sic an hour, Doctor," said he, in a sulky tone, "but the wife is ta'en ower bad and Maggie (the quarryman made a wry face) said I maun step up and fetch ye at ance."

"Ah!" said Spens, "I've been expecting you to come for me any day this last week. Your wife's a week overdue, you know, Macdonald."

"I ken that fine, Doctor," replied the quarryman in the same sulky tone. "I'm not exac'ly blamin' Euphemia for her behaviour, but I canna help sayin' to masel' that it's ower rough on a man, when his wife has a bairn on the day o' the year itsel'."

"Come, come, Macdonald," said the Doctor, laughing in spite of himself, "I'm sure your wife would be the first to be sorry that she was spoiling your holiday — and besides you mustn't be so selfish. You ought to be sorry for your wife, not thinking about yourself at such a time. Think what she will be going through in having a child."

"Aweel," answered the quarryman. "I'm thinkin' we hae eneuch bairns without the ane that's comin'. But weemen's never reasonable. Aebody wad think it was the first frae the clammer Euphemia is making."

"Very proper, too, in a mother," said the Doctor rather sternly, for the man's egoism disgusted even while it amused him. "I'll get my instruments and come with you at once. Did your sister-in-law say when she thought the child would be born?"

"Maggie (here the quarryman made another wry face) didna say onything save that I was to step up and fetch ye at ance," he replied, "but I'm thinkin' as she's ta'en this unfortunate turn, that the bairn winna be born before the morn."

The Doctor, agreeing with Macdonald that such a thing was not wholly unlikely, fetched his instruments and after bidding his housekeeper, a resolute rawboned dame accustomed to be left alone, not to expect him back that night, sallied forth with Euphemia's husband.

"I spaed this wad happen at the beginning o' the week," continued Alexander gloomily as soon as they were on the way, "I sort o' kenned I wad lose ma holiday. It's ower rough on a mon."

The Doctor struck ahead into the cold and dark without listening unduly to the quarryman's complaints. His mind was already occupied with the trouble before him and, besides, to one of his temperament such lamentations seemed rather comical than otherwise. Alexander, however, did not seem to mind the Doctor's silence, but went on grumbling half to himself, half to his companion.

"I kenned weel it wad happen, and, Doctor, ye've no notion what it is to hae a wumman like Maggie in the hoose. She makes a mon fair sick. Sic a clamjamfry frae dawn to nicht. I hate an excitable wumman. I wush the whole business was ower."

With Alexander thus continually bemoaning himself they hurried down the hillside road and after some five and twenty good minutes' walking reached his little white-walled cottage. The excitable Maggie must have been on the alert, for their feet were hardly on the doorstep ere the door was flung open and they found themselves facing her.

"Alexander, the time ye've been," she cried reproachfully to her brother-in-law.

"Doctor, it's lucky ye were at hame. Phemie's ower bad. Ye maun come and look to her at ance."

Dr. Spens followed Maggie upstairs but could not help once more smiling to himself as she called to her brother-in-law.

"Donald an' Roderick and Mary are in the kitchen. Ye maun bide wi' em, Alexander, till Phemie L's through her troubles and see they come to nae hairm.",

So Alexander sat him down and watched, ignorant of the strange portent that Destiny was bringing, ignorant that for great portents great preparations must be made. What sorrows were not endured to bring the "old heroes" into the world? But then Alexander, naturally enough, was not acquainted with either Scandinavian or Greek or any other mythology. Euphemia, that tiny woman, lay in sore trouble upstairs. Childbirth had never before caused her any but the ordinary inconveniences. This helplessness, these strange flights of imagination, these cloudbursts of tears, endured by him for nigh on two months were new. "What ailed the wumman?"

Alexander was no seer — could not foretell that from great travails are born those at whom awe-stricken humanity marvels — never thought from what inmost miseries of spirit sprang the sweetest melodies — from what mighty convulsions of struggle emerge the great doers — that the seventh child is like the seventh wave the greatest.

The Alexanders do not realise these things. All he did realise was that everything had been extremely inconvenient; that this baby — about to make its appearance - was more of a nuisance than all the others put together; that he had, in fact, a distinct dislike to it already.

Tiny Euphemia lay moaning on the bed of pain, halfalive, white with agony, dripping with perspiration, racked with intolerable cramps. Tiny chicken-brained Euphemia bore her horrible trial with the brave dignity of maternity.

"Onyway," thought she, whenever the power of thinking lucidly came back to her, " I'm bringin' a bairn into the world. My pains are for a guid end."

Tiny chicken-brained, plucky Euphemia was at her best, but did any premonition of the great Destiny of the coming child haunt, in these anguished moments, her half delirious mind? Did a flash from the future strike her as she hovered on the brink of eternal darkness?

No.

How strange!

Chapter III

THE three elder children had been taken by a neighbour for the night, but luckless Alexander felt sufficiently ill-used in having to rock the cradle of the little baby-girl Mary and keep an eye on the boys Roderick and Donald, whose bed had been made up in a corner of the kitchen. From time to time it may be that he fell into a doze, but the fact that little Mary whimpered whenever her cradle stopped rocking prevented him from taking any but the merest snatches of sleep, and moreover from overhead came muffled footsteps, mysterious mutterings, occasional groans. Sometimes (worst of all) there was silence.

The hours dragged on towards early morning, and as yet neither Maggie nor Dr. Spens had appeared in the kitchen to announce that another child had been born to the quarryman; the hours dragged on, taking with them the last hope of his New Year Holiday. With a dumb anger against everything and everybody Alexander submitted to the inevitable. Why should the child make its appearance on this very day? Why hadn't it come a week ago when it was expected? Well, from the beginning of the week he'd known this would happen. Destiny. Always the way. Damn it! The hours dragged on, and by degrees his own grievances became forgotten in the lingering suspense. Was there really some difficulty? But how could Euphemia, already the mother of six, be actually in danger? Alexander sat before the ashes of the kitchen fire, himself grey as ashes and almost immovable. And still the hours dragged on. Suddenly he jumped from his chair with every nerve a-twitter. Maggie's blubbered countenance peered thro' the half-opened door. "Alexander, Phemie's in a sair state. The Doctor canna say either way." With these words she disappeared. Phemie in danger of her life? Phemie, the mother of six without trouble, hanging in the balance? Alexander was in his own way devoted to his wife, and till then had not realised her situation, but now, when an hour later Dr. Spens came down the stairs with tired, heavy tread and put his nose out of doors for a little fresh air, he hardly recognised in the quarryman the same man, as he stopped rocking the cradle with his foot for a moment and called softly to the Doctor.

"How is she the noo?"

"She's under the anaesthetic, Macdonald," answered Spens. "We must hope for the best. At any rate she'll not suffer any more."

Then he, too, went upstairs again to the bedroom.

But what is this strange dishevelled, blowsy, tear-bedewed, lead-footed, Dervish-dancing tornado of skirts, arms, and hair that flings itself almost without heed of direction or perception of tune or space into Alexander's kitchen about noon of New Year's Day as he sits in the extremest stages, bereft even of children, removed by another kind neighbour for their breakfast, that sheds weepings like a tropical thunderstorm, shakes itself in ecstacy by its own hand, vociferates utterly incoherent babbles? Is it not Maggie in the most distraught conditions of Maggie-ness? Maggie with tidings? Maggie in almost uncommunicable triumph? "Alexander, Alexander," she laughs in frenzied jubilation, "she's safe. They're baith safe. It's an enormous bairn, an' och! Alexander man, it's a boy."

Then suddenly, ere her brother-in-law could divine her intention, this terrible Maggie bent down, kissed him, and twirled from the kitchen as tempestuously as she had twirled in. Many were the outrages which Alexander had suffered at her hands but tlu's was . . . this was the summit of everything. For a minute the enraged quarryman was rooted to his chair. Then starting up and raising both clenched fists to the ceiling, cried:

"Och! Maggie. The day I can get yeoot o' ma hoose."

And this is all the philosopher can tell you about the birth of James Macdonald. Considering his celebrity in after life it is indeed little enough. We are informed however that even the gentle Spens felt a certain amount of irritation at having been kept at it again all night.

"Well, Macdonald," he said, "we've pulled her through. We've managed it, but it's been a tough job, a very tough job. You and Maggie will have to watch her carefully to-day and, if she takes worse, come for me at once. I never saw such a monstrous child. That must have been the trouble all along. I hope he won't prove such a nuisance in the future as he has been in making his appearance in the world. No holiday for either of us to-day, I'm afraid. This is the second night in succession I've been up. I must go home and rest."

A monstrous child! This much also the records tell us. A monstrous child! The quarryman picked disconsolately at his little sandy side-whiskers. Maggie, a monstrous child, and no New Year's Holiday! From this the philosopher guesses that with Euphemia (barring complications) now out of the wood, our quarryman's sense of personal annoyance and discomfort returned with quadrupled force.

"Monstrous, is he!" cried Alexander, remembering the phrase with a peculiar bitterness of heart and furthermore denying any sense of obligation to His Hugeness.

Chapter IV

EUPHEMIA gradually recovered from her ordeal. As the phrase goes "mother and child did well"; but Alexander found the time of convalescence pass slowly for, with her sister incapacitated from ordinary household duties, Maggie still remained beneath the roof — Maggie, the enemy of quiet, the excitable, the freckled, the abhorred. In less equivocal circumstances he might have throbbed with paternal joy at sight of Euphemia pale, proud, with bairn at breast, but alas! the feeling that James was an intolerable nuisance still dominated the quarryman. It certainly was a child enormous. None born within gossip's memory had ever even approached it in size and weight. Chicken-brained Euphemia, far from sharing her lord's resentment against the phenomenon, nearly burst with pride and received a regular procession of matrons at her bedside.

She imparted strange tidings to her astonished audience.

"There never was a bairn to eat sae hearty, I'm assurin' ye," and here would plunge into the mysteries of young Jim's diet, whither it is unseemly to follow.

All this "clamjamfry" served but to prejudice Alexander still further against James, for he was a lover of quiet besides being a trifle selfish. Often he would exclaim with sense of deepest ill-usage:

"Why couldna Phemie hae a bairn o' rational dimensions? Ony mon would be fashed to hae a conteenual pack o' weemen in the hoose — and sic endless talk aboot naething mair important than a bairn."

Or again,

"I'm no partial to the extraordinair! There was'na sic a pother wi' the ithers."

There is however no time of trouble utterly unrelieved, and it was a joyful day enough for Alexander when Dr. Spens pronounced Euphemia well enough to get out of bed, and Tuchan forthwith knew the excitable Maggie no more.

One can guess in what an atmosphere she departed — an atmosphere of tears and kisses and huggings, especially of the reluctant James whom she had assisted into the world. Was not the gratified Euphemia assured times out of number that he would become a credit to kin and to Scotland? Was not each prophecy signal for a fresh outburst of tears? Alexander consoled himself during these dewy manifestations of "Maggie-ness" with the ineffable thought that they were the last of her, portending a return to normal conditions. "Sae far, sae guid" said he (pigheaded Alexander), and thereby intimated that James should (as was high time) begin to take a back-seat.

And now the philosopher turns up his cuffs, settles his blotting-pad, dips his pen in the ink, and prepares in good earnest to tackle the great task before him — the biography of the celebrated James Macdonald. Jim has been brought into the world not without trouble, and, huge, hairless, unconscious of anything definite save pap tho' he be, we have him fairly started on life's tortuous and mysterious journey. The reader may find various apologies for Jim in the course of the narrative, but will he be charitably disposed towards the biographer? Before embarking therefore on the story proper, when interference with the course of the narrative would doubtless be justly resented, willingly would this same biographer say something on his own behalf. Like the immortal fiddler he has done his best. The materials for such a biography were of the slightest. Jim, as anyone in the course of a few chapters may see, tho' of an amiable and obliging disposition towards his friends, is not endowed with the most exquisite sample of grey matter in his cerebellum, slow of speech, incapable of accurate self-expression. What he did actually bring forth was extracted with groans, head-scratchings, and much twisting of the body, and even that much seemed very slender information when compared with the mass of material at the service of most compilers of great men's lives. How came the initial impulse, you may ask? The truth is that the sight of James Macdonald inflamed this biographer in one of his mad moments to attempt this work, one considerably longer and more ambitious than he has ever before attempted, and a subsequent acquaintance with our amiable friend (whom so many of you have seen with an exquisite and refined pleasure) confirmed him in his first impressions. It was not therefore till he had so thoroughly imbued his mind with the spirit of undertaking that withdrawal seemed hardly possible, and already paid a visit to the little Scotch village, our James' birthplace, that this same foolish biographer remembered how he had but the slightest acquaintance with Scotch and Scotchmen. Without a doubt the history of Jim should have been written by a compatriot, and had a native of North Britain come forward, as was meet, the biographer would willingly have surrendered his task and such materials as he had already collected to the Volunteer, but as none ever presented themselves — in the face of many difficulties and discouragements (not the least being his almost complete ignorance of the Scotch language) he has persevered. With the sincere hope therefore that the proud and independent natives of that country will pardon him for so many inaccuracies and absurdities in rendering their speech, the philosopher dips his pen in the ink, and brings you, in the course of the story, to James' christening.

It was Euphemia led the procession to the kirk staggering under the burden of the gigantic James, whom she had insisted on carrying herself. Behind her, a pace or two, came Alexander "in his blacks," a somewhat sulky and unwilling figure, and after that an admiring body of female neighbours, eager to view the ceremony of His Hugeness's christening, and hauling along with them the other Macdonald children. Our quarryman (amongst his other defects as an erring mortal) was nothing if not obstinate, and we are thoroughly justified, writing as we do from a philosophical standpoint, in again calling him "pigheaded Alexander." A notion once stuck in his head could not be got out by ordinary means. And now, walking with sour and covert glances, he grumbled: "A' they weemen! Why canna they bide at name and mind their ain business? The world's gane gyte ower Jim." In truth this admiring bevy of female neighbours put him in an ill-suppressed frenzy. Was Jim never to be treated as an ordinary infant? Had not even the Minister, whose patronising airs irritated him so much, gone so far as to congratulate him on His Hugeness's arrival in his usual patronising way? It was a regular conspiracy to impair his ease (thought Alexander) as he trudged along, and the worst of it all was that this universal excitement over Jim seemed justified. The bairn was not an ordinary bairn. Whenever he looked at him, Alexander saw trouble — trouble distinct and inevitable.

Down through the village passed the little procession, down to the shores of the loch where stood the kirk. Over against it on a hillside, with agreeable garden surrounded by red walls and shadowed by scattered clumps of fir-trees, was the Manse — residence of the Reverend Simon McMunub.

"So here is our young prodigy," said the Reverend Simon (a square-shouldered man with a square white face and a square white hand) as Mrs. Macdonald withdrew the shawl from the countenance of her last-born. " Blessed is he that has his quiverful!" The Reverend Simon rolled his eyes up to the roof. "He is a fine boy — a wonderfully fine boy."

Euphemia curtsied and kissed the slumbering James, who promptly gave vent to a terrific yell. Mr. McManus frowned slightly and performed the function of receiving James into the Church to the accompaniment of that ceaseless obligato. When the ceremony was over the Reverend Simon, who always attempted to comport himself with the benignity incumbent on members of his profession, said in a hearty voice, and with a smile that creased his white face:

"He has fine lungs, Mrs. Macdonald. I hope he'll be a comfort to you. I'm glad to see the other bairns looking so well."

James' brothers and sisters bobbed uneasily and grinned at each other.

"I hope you're well, Alexander."

"Weel eneuch, Meenister," replied the quarryman with the same sulky air that had characterised him throughout the ceremony.

"Well, well. That's all over," said the Reverend Simon in the same hearty tone but with a suspicion of a frown at Alexander's want of manners. "It's always a pleasure to me to welcome a newcomer into this beautiful world, especially such a fine boy as that. He is a fine boy, a remarkably fine boy. I feel that he'll be a credit to you. Good-bye, Mrs. Macdonald! Good-bye Alexander!"

The little procession went slowly back. Euphemia dandled her son in her arms, with tears of joy rolling down her still pale cheeks. James had once more fallen to sleep and over the unconscious infant poured his mother's perpetual croon.

"Ye sudna hae greeted in the kirk, Jamie, my wee Jim. Fie on ye, ye sudna hae greeted sae sair. But a' the same the Meenister thocht fine o; ye, Jim. He said ye'd be a credit to the family, Jamie. Sae mind ye grow up an honest, God-fearing laddie and a'ways heed what that guid mon the Meenister tells ye."

Thus did she murmur, as she hugged him close to breast, but upon her sweet and foolish moans broke Alexander's rough voice:

"Mebbe that bairn'll be a credit to us, but it seems to me he's mair likely to be a disgrace."

Euphemia squeezed the accused child even nearer her bosom as if to defend him from accusation.

"An' what's wrang with him the noo?" she cried shrilly. "Is he no the prettiest sicht asleep?"

"There's mebbe naethin' wrang the noo," replied Alexander, "but whiles agae in the kirk he greeted sae loud that I was fair shamed for him."

"He was frichted, puir laddie," said his wife with a fond glance at Jim.

"It wasna sae with the ithers at ony rate," replied her husband. "I'm no a fancifu' mon as a rule, but I canna ding it oot o' ma heid there's something verra queer aboot that laddie. For why did ye suffer sae with him and no with the ither six? For why did he choose the day o' the year itsel' to be born? For why is he sic an enormous size, gey oot o' the ordinair for a babe five weeks auld? A trouble he's been to us sae far an' I'm thinking he'll . . ."

"For shame, for shame, Alexander, your ain bairn!" cried Euphemia. "Onyway the Meenister thocht fine of ye, Jim, did he not, my wee mon?"

"Och* — the Meenister — " exclaimed Alexander with violence. "I canna bide that mon wi' his patronisin'."

"Losh! Alexander — what ails ye?" cried his wife in surprise.

"I'm no Alexander to him. I'm Mr. Macdonald."

"Eh?" asked Euphemia, slow at the uptake.

"The Meenister ca'd me Alexander again. I'm fair sick o' his patronisin'."

"And if he does patronise, who has mair richt than that guid man," answered Euphemia shrilly. "He thocht fine of oor Jim. Fie, Alexander, wad ye quarrel wi' the Meenister on sic a day as this — the day oor Jamie is received intae the kirk ? Oh ! ye ungratefu' man."

Alexander kicked sulkily at a stone.

"Onyway I'm no fond o' bein' ca'd Alexander by the Meenister, " he muttered. " Aweel, Phemie, " he continued, "a' this fuss and flummox is ower and we can set doon to a quiet life ance mair. 'Deed, it's to be hoped Jim'll turn out weel after a'."

Even Euphemia's habitual mildness was impaired by her husband's last remark.

"Fuss and flummox! Fuss and flummox!" she cried, laughing satirically. "An' wha's had the maist of it? Not you, I'm thinkin', Alexander. Oh! ye men — ye ungratefu' men. Donald, ye little muck, come awa' frae the gutter! How daur ye spoil your braw claes? Jim, my mannie, listen to what I'm tellin' ye and mind ye graw up and be a comfort to your auld mither."

Alexander sniffed as he followed his wife into the house.

He wished Jim had been a girl.

Chapter V

IT is at such an early stage as this in our "Portentous History" that we begin to realise how Alexander's hope that the fuss about his son Jim might subside and the Macdonald family retire once more into the obscurity of a quiet life was from the beginning doomed to disappointment.

Jim might have been brought into the world for the special purpose of plaguing the worthy quarryman out of his senses.

He was born the babe enormous, and, as he grew older, his size increased out of all proportion to his age. Everything was on a gigantic scale in his case — including his infant war cry.

Old friends congratulated Alexander on being father to a prodigy, but the quarryman shook his head dismally over such congratulations. He reflected that in all probability "the prodigy" would fill his capacious lungs and set up a cataclysmal bawling directly he set foot in his cottage, continuing till exhaustion made him stop. He was undoubtedly the sire of six, but till this Jim came on the scene, never had he realised how much parents might have to put up with.

Decidedly he found no cause for jubilation and would exclaim with deepest feeling as he surveyed the grinning faces of his friends, in a kind of melancholy abstraction,

'Deed, I've no partiality for the extraordinair'."

Then the foreman of the quarry, a noted wag, kept on insisting, with pawky humour, that Alexander must have persistently shirked for years.

"Ony ane capable of producin' sic a bairn should be capable of wark oot o' the usual."