White Heather: A Novel (Volume 3 of 3). William Black
I'm ill, I deserve to be, and that's the fact, lass. Let be – let be, woman; I'm obliged to ye – some other time – some other time.'
'Then if you winna, I will,' she said, and she got hold of the bottle and opened it and poured out a glass of the foaming fluid.
'And dinna I ken better what's good for ye than ye do yersel'?' said she boldly. 'Ay, if ye were ruled by me, and drank nothing but what ye get in this house, there would be little need for ye to be frightened at what a wean might drink. Ye dinna ken your best friends, my lad.'
'I know you wish me weel, Katie, lass,' said he, for he did not wish to appear ungrateful, 'but I'm better without it.'
'Yes,' said she tauntingly. 'Ye're better without sitting up a' night wi' a lot o' roystering fellows, smoking bad tobacco and drinking bad whisky. What mak's your face sae white? It's fusel-oil, if ye maun ken. Here, Ronald, what canna hurt a woman canna hurt a man o' your build – try it, and see if ye dinna feel better.'
She put a good dash of bitters into the glass, and poured out the champagne, and offered it to him. He did not wish to offend her; and he himself did not believe the thing could hurt him; he took the glass and sipped about a teaspoonful, and then set it down.
Kate Menzies looked at him, and laughed aloud, and took him by the shoulders and pushed him back into his chair.
'There's a man for ye! Whatna young ladies' seminary have ye been brought up at?'
'I'll tell ye, lass,' he retorted. 'It was one where they taught folk no to force other folk to drink against their will.'
'Then it was different frae the one where I was brought up, for there, when the doctor ordered anybody to take medicine, they were made to take it. And here's yours,' she said; and she stood before him with the glass in her hand. She was good-natured; it would have been ungracious to refuse; he took the glass from her and drank off the contents.
Now a glass of champagne, even with the addition of a little angostura bitters, cannot be called a very powerful potion to those accustomed to such things; but the fact was that he had not touched a drop of any alcoholic fluid for two days; and this seemed to go straight to the brain. It produced a slight, rather agreeable giddiness; a sense of comfort was diffused throughout the system; he was not so anxious to get away. And Kate began talking – upbraiding him for thinking that she wanted to see him otherwise than well and in his usual health, and declaring that if he were guided by her, there would be no need for him to torture himself with total abstinence, and to reduce himself to this abject state. The counsel (which was meant in all honesty) fell on yielding ears; Kate brought some biscuits, and filled herself out another glass.
'That's what it is,' she said boldly, 'if you would be ruled by my advice there would be no shaking hands and white cheeks for ye. Feeling better, are ye? – ay, I warrant ye! Here, man, try this.'
She filled his glass again, adding a good dose of bitters.
'This one I will, but not a drop more,' said he. 'Ye're a desperate creature, lass, for making folk comfortable.'
'I ken what's the matter wi' you better than ye ken yoursel', Ronald,' said she, looking at him shrewdly. 'You're disappointed – you're out o' heart – because thae fine American friends o' yours hae forgotten you; and you've got sick o' this new work o' yours; and you've got among a lot o' wild fellows that are leading ye to the devil. Mark my words. Americans! Better let a man trust to his ain kith and kin.'
'Well, Katie, lass, I maun say this, that ye've just been ower kind to me since ever I came to Glasgow.'
'Another glass, Ronald – '
'Not one drop – thank ye' – and this time he rose with the definite resolve to get away, for even these two glasses had caused a swimming in his head, and he knew not how much more he might drink if he stayed.
'Better go for a long walk, then,' said Kate, 'and come back at three and have dinner with us. I'll soon put ye on your legs again – trust to me.'
But when he went out into the open air, he found himself so giddy and half-dazed and bewildered that, instead of going away for any long walk, he thought he would go back home and lie down. He felt less happy now. Why had he taken this accursed thing after all his resolves?
And then it was – as he went up Renfield Street – that he caught his first glimpse of Meenie. No wonder he turned and slunk rapidly away – anxious to hide anywhere – hoping that Meenie had not seen him. And what a strange thing was this – Meenie in Glasgow town! Oh, if he could only be for a single day as once he had been – as she had known him in the happy times when life went by like a laugh and a song – how wonderful it would be to go along these thoroughfares hoping every moment to catch sight of her face! A dull town? – no, a radiant town, with music in the air, and joy and hope shining down from the skies! But now – he was a cowering fugitive – sick in body and sick in mind – trembling with the excitement of this sudden meeting – and anxious above all other things that he should get back to the seclusion of his lodging unseen.
Well, he managed that, at all events; and there he sate down, wondering over this thing that had just happened. Meenie in Glasgow town! – and why? And why had she sent him the white heather? Nay, he could not doubt but that she had heard; and that this was at once a message of reproach and an appeal; and what answer had he to give supposing that some day or other he should meet her face to face? How could he win back to his former state, so that he should not be ashamed to meet those clear, kind eyes? If there were but some penance now – no matter what suffering it entailed – that would obliterate these last months and restore him to himself, how gladly would he welcome that! But it was not only the bodily sickness – he believed he could mend that; he had still a fine physique; and surely absolute abstention from stimulants, no matter with what accompanying depression, would in time give him back his health – it was mental sickness and hopelessness and remorse that had to be cured; and how was that to be attempted? Or why should he attempt it? What care had he for the future? To be sure, he would stop drinking, definitely; and he would withdraw himself from those wild companions; and he would have a greater regard for his appearance; so that, if he should by chance meet Meenie face to face, he would not have to be altogether so ashamed. But after? When she had gone away again? For of course he assumed that she was merely here on a visit.
And all this time he was becoming more and more conscious of how far he had fallen – of the change that had come over himself and his circumstances in these few months; and a curious fancy got into his head that he would like to try to realise what he had been like in those former days. He got out his blotting-pad of fragments – not those dedicated to Meenie, that had been carefully put aside – and about the very first of them that he chanced to light upon, when he looked down the rough lines, made him exclaim —
'God bless me, was I like that– and no longer ago than last January?'
The piece was called 'A Winter Song'; and surely the man who could write in this gay fashion had an abundant life and joy and hope in his veins, and courage to face the worst bleakness of the winter, and a glad looking-forward to the coming of the spring?
Keen blows the wind upon Clebrig's side,
And the snow lies thick on the heather;
And the shivering hinds are glad to hide
Away from the winter weather.
Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing,
And we will sing too, my dear,
To give good welcoming to the spring
In the primrose time o' the year!
Hark how the black lake, torn and tost,
Thunders along its shores;
And the burn is hard in the grip of the frost,
And white, snow-white are the moors.
Chorus: But soon the birds will begin to sing, etc.
O then the warm west winds will blow,
And all in the sunny weather,
It's