Within the living room were gathered the household treasures, the Lares and Penates of the little stone rose-covered cottage “at hame awa' ayont the sea.” On the mantel a solid hewn log of oak, a miracle of broad-axe work, were “bits o' chiny” rarely valuable as antiques to the knowing connoisseur but beyond price to the old white-haired lady who daily dusted them with reverent care as having been borne by her mother from the Highland home in the far north country when as a bride she came by the “cadger's cairt” to her new home in the lonely city of Glasgow. Of that Glasgow home and of her own home later the walls of the log cottage were eloquent.
The character giving bit of furniture, however, in the living room was a book-case that stood in a corner. Its beautiful inlaid cabinet work would in itself have attracted attention, but not the case but the books were its distinction. The great English poets were represented there in serviceable bindings showing signs of use, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Browning, Keats, and with them in various editions, Burns. Beside the poets Robert Louis had a place, and Sir Walter, as well as Kipling and Meredith and other moderns. But on the shelf that showed most wear were to be found the standard works of economists of different schools from the great Adam Smith to Marx and the lot of his imitators and disciples. This was Malcolm's book-case. There was in another corner near the fire-place a little table and above it hung a couple of shelves for books of another sort, the Bible and The Westminster Confession, Bunyan and Baxter and Fox's Book of Martyrs, Rutherford and McCheyne and Law, The Ten Years' Conflict, Spurgeon's Sermons and Smith's Isaiah, and a well worn copy of the immortal Robbie. This was the mother's corner, a cosy spot where she nourished her soul by converse with the great masters of thought and of conscience.
In this “cosy wee hoosie” Malcolm McNish and his mother passed their quiet evenings, for the days were given to toil, in talk, not to say discussion of the problems, the rights and wrongs of the working man. They agreed in much; they differed, and strongly, in point of view. The mother was all for reform of wrongs with the existing economic system, reverencing the great Adam Smith. The son was for a new deal, a new system, the Socialistic, with modifications all his own. All, or almost all, that Malcolm had read the mother had read with the exception of Marx. She “cudna thole yon godless loon” or his theories or his works. Malcolm had grown somewhat sick of Marx since the war. Indeed, the war had seriously disturbed the foundations of Malcolm's economic faith, and he was seeking a readjustment of his opinion and convictions, which were rather at loose ends. In this state of mind he found little comfort from his shrewd old mother.
“Y'e have nae anchor, laddie, and ilka woof of air and ilka turn o' the tide and awa' ye go.”
As for her anchor, she made no bones of announcing that she had been brought up on the Shorter Catechism and the Confession and in consequence found a place for every theory of hers, Social and Economic as well as Ethical and Religious, within the four corners of the mighty fabric of the Calvinistic system of Philosophy and Faith.
One of the keen joys of her life since coming to the new country she found in her discussions with the Rev. Murdo Matheson, whom, after some considerable hesitation, she had finally chosen to “sit under.” The Rev. Murdo's theology was a little narrow for her. She had been trained in the schools of the Higher Critics of the Free Kirk leaders at home. She talked familiarly of George Adam Smith, whom she affectionately designated as “George Adam.” She would wax wrathful over the memory of the treatment meted out to Robertson Smith by a former generation of Free Kirk heresy hunters. Hence she regarded with pity the hesitation with which her Minister accepted some of the positions of the Higher Critics. Although it is to be confessed that the war had somewhat rudely shattered her devotion to German theology.
“What d'ye think o' yere friend Harnack the noo?” her son had jibed at her soon after the appearance of the great manifesto from the German professors.
“What do A think o' him?” she answered, sparring for time. “What do A think o' him?” Then, as her eye ran over her son's uniform, for he was on leave at the time, she blazed forth, “A'll tell ye what A think o' him. A think that Auld Hornie has his hook intil him and the hale kaboodle o' them. They hae forsaken God and made tae themselves ither gods and the Almichty hae gi'en them ower tae a reprobate mind.”
But her Canadian Minister's economic positions satisfied her. He had specialised in Social and Economic Science in his University Course and she considered him sound “in the main.”
She had little patience with half baked theorists and none at all with mere agitators. It was therefore with no small indignation that she saw on a Sunday morning Mr. Wigglesworth making his way up the lane toward her house door.