Yes, that was he—that was Donald, pale and draggled and dead; her Donald, with his poor, empty sleeve pinned across his breast!
Oh the pity of it! oh the anguish! But there, the curtain drops on that act, and I am glad it does. Let me just add that ill-health after this reduced Mrs. Mackenzie more and more, till we find her living in this one room, her boy and girl alone to cheer her, and give her some little excuse for hanging on to life.
But compared with many of the large houses in many parts of Glasgow, No. 73 Summer Loaning was very quiet.
Yes, it was quiet, except perhaps on a Saturday night, when, it must be conceded, one or two working-men did come up the long stone stair singing to themselves. Although a lady by birth and education, Mrs. Mackenzie, in her one room, did not keep all her neighbours at bay. They called her the "shuestress," which is a kind of Scotch for dressmaker. They knew she had seen far better days, and that she was poorer now than any of them, because she was unable to do much work. As the song says,—
"The poor make no new friends,
But ah! they love the better far
The few the Father sends."
Now, it might be thought by some that, for sake of her children, Mrs. Mackenzie ought to have written to her late husband's mother or rich relations, and asked for help.
Asked for help? No, a thousand times no; that would have been begging! Mrs. Mackenzie was far too proud to do that. Sooner would she die. But her pride did not forbid her from courting the companionship of the neighbours on the stair. If they were, like herself, poor, or not so poor, they were honest. And really neighbours like these need to be friendly. If you are in the grip of grim poverty, and sick and ill, you will find few more attentive to you, and few whose attentions you will more readily suffer, than those of neighbours who are just as poor as you.
Well-meaning ladies sometimes called upon the Mackenzies with bundles of tracts and Pharisaical advice, and out of politeness Mrs. Mackenzie suffered them. When, however, about a year and two months after little Jack's adventure at the Morgans', his poor mother fell sick, and was confined for weeks to bed, it wasn't to her rich visitors in sealskin sacks and gloves of kid she had to look for comfort and help.
Luckily, in expectation of just such an illness as this, Mrs. Mackenzie had saved a little money. But there lived on the stair immediately below a Mrs. Malony, whose husband was a blacksmith, who sometimes, sad to say, took a dram. He wasn't by any means a bad fellow, however, and often took Johnnie Greybreeks off with him for a whole day to the smithy to see the sparks fly, and always shared his dinner with Johnnie. The blacksmith had no family, and his wife used sometimes to go out charing, so her hands were hard and rough. But her heart wasn't.
Mrs. Malony would often come up to borrow a flat-iron or a "brander," or even a red herring for her man's supper, when hard up. On the other hand, if she happened to make a good bargain down town on a Saturday night, she would never forget to bring "the shuestress" some portion of it—a piece of fish, a few potatoes, a couple of sausages, or a bundle of greens. Often, too, in the long, dreary winter forenights, Mrs. Malony would spend hours in her neighbour's room. She would at times bring her husband also, when he was washed and tidied up; and he did nothing but sit in a corner and smoke and smile. But Johnnie and his sister would "hurkle" down by the fire, nursing the cat between them while they listened to Mrs. Malony's wonderful tales of Ireland and the down-trodden Irish. Evenings like these passed pleasantly enough away.