"Never bottle a woman up, Alec," he said, meditatively. "What Vesuvius and Etna and thae ither volcanoes are to this worl', the legeetimate exercise o' her tongue is to a woman. It's a naitural function, Alec. Ye may bridle the ass or the mule, but—gie the tongue o' a woman (as it were) plenty o' elbow-room! Gang oot o' the hoose—like Moses to the backside o' the wilderness gin ye like, and when ye come in she will be as quaite as pussy; and if ever ye hae to contradick your mairried wife, Alec, let it be in deeds, no in words. Gang your road gin ye hae made up your mind, immovable like the sun, the mune, and the stars o' heeven in their courses—but, as ye value peace dinna be aye crying' 'Aye,' when your wife cries 'No'!"
Which things may be wisdom. But to the tale of our Jaimsie.
Sometimes, moreover, even the natural man in my kindly and long-suffering father uprose against the preacher. Jaimsie knew when he was comfortable, and no mere hint of any delicate sort would make him curtail his visit by one day. I can remember him creeping about the farm of Drumquhat all that summer, a book in his hand, contemplating the works of God as witnessed chiefly in the growth of the "grosarts." (We always blamed him—quite unjustly, I believe—for eating the "silver-gray" gooseberries on the sly.) Now he would stand half an hour and gaze up among the branches of an elm, where a cushat was tirelessly coorooring to his mate. Anon you would see him apparently deeply engaged in counting the sugar-plums in the orchard. After a little he would be found seated on the red shaft of a cart in the stackyard, jotting down in a shabby notebook ideas for the illustrations of sermons never to be written; or if written, doomed never to be preached. His hat was always curled up at the back and pulled down at the front, and till my mother made down an old pair of my father's Sunday trousers for him (and put them beside his bed while he slept), you could see in a good light the reflection of your hand on the knees of his "blacks." It is scarcely necessary to say that Jaimsie never referred to the transposition, nor, indeed, in all probability, so much as discovered it.
Jaimsie was used to conduct family worship morning and evening in the house of his sojourn, as a kind of quit-rent for his meal of meat and his prophet's chamber. To the ordinary reading of the Word he was wont to subjoin an "exposeetion" of some disputed or prophetical passage. The whole exercises never took less than an hour, if Jaimsie were left to the freedom of his own will—which, as may be inferred, was extremely awkward in a busy season when the corn was dry in the stock or when the scythes flashed rhythmically like level silver flames among the lush meadow grass.
Finally, therefore, a compromise had to be effected. My father took the morning diet of worship, but Jaimsie had his will of us in the evening. I can see them yet—those weariful sederunts, when even my father wrestled with sleep like Samson with the Philistines, while my mother periodically nodded forward with a lurch, and, recovering herself with a start, the next moment looked round haughtily to see which of us was misbehaving. Meanwhile the kitchen was all dark, save where before Jaimsie the great Bible lay open between two candles, and on the hearth the last peat of the evening glowed red.
Many is the fine game of draughts I have had with my brother Rob and Christie Wilson our herd lad, by putting the "dam-brod" behind the chimney jamb where my father and mother could not see it, and moving the pieces by the light of the red peat ash. I am ashamed to think on it now, but then it seemed the only thing to do which would keep us from sleep.
And meantime Jaimsie prosed on, his gentle sing-song working its wicked work on mother like a lullaby, and my father sending his nails into the palms of his hands that he might not be shamed before us all.
I remember particularly how Jaimsie addressed us for a whole week on his favourite text in he Psalms, "The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan—an high hill, as the hill of Bashan."
And in the pauses of crowning our men and scuffling for the next place at the draught board, we could catch strange words and phrases which come to me yet with a curious wistful thrilling of the heart. Such are "White as snow on Salmon"—"That mount Sinai in Arabia"—"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offering."
And as a concluding of the whole matter we sang this verse out of Francis Roos's psalter: