Rab and His Friends and Other Papers

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Brown John. Rab and His Friends and Other Papers

RAB AND HIS FRIENDS

HER LAST HALF-CROWN

OUR DOGS

TOBY

WYLIE

RAB

WASP

JOCK

DUCHIE

DICK

QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN

'ATXINOIA – NEARNESS OF THE NOUS – PRESENCE OF MIND

LETTER TO JOHN CAIRNS, D.D

DR. CHALMERS

DR. GEORGE WILSON

NOTES ON ART

DISTRAINING FOR RENT

THOMAS DUNCAN

PALESTRINA

HUNT THE SLIPPER

THREE LANDSEERS

THE RANDOM SHOT

THE EXECUTION OF LADY JANE GREY

NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU BEFORE HIS ABDICATION

NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

RIZPAH

THE GLEN OF THE ENTERKIN

DAWN – LUTHER IN THE CONVENT LIBRARY AT ERFURT

BEAUTY, ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE

"OH, I'M WAT, WAT."

EDUCATION THROUGH THE SENSES

THE BLACK DWARF'S BONES

HORAE SUBECIVAE

ARTHUR H. HALLAM

HENRY HALLAM

Отрывок из книги

Four-and-thirty years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary Street from the High School, our heads together, and our arms intertwisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why.

When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog-fight!" shouted Bob, and was off; and so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before we got up! And is not this boy-nature? and human nature too? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it? Dogs like fighting; old Isaac says they "delight" in it, and for the best of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man – courage, endurance, and skill – in intense action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy – be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough: it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action.

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For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed by the first intention for as James said, "Oor Ailie's skin's ower clean to beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and surrounded her bed. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short kind way, pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle, – Rab being now reconciled, and even cordial, and having made up his mind that as yet nobody required worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratus.

So far well: but, four days after the operation, my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a "groosin'," as she called it. I saw her soon after; her eyes were too bright, her cheek coloured; she was restless, and ashamed of being so; the balance was lost; mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret; her pulse was rapid, her breathing anxious and quick, she wasn't herself, as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did everything, was everywhere; never in the way, never out of it; Rab subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse; began to wander in her mind, gently; was more demonstrative in her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was never that way afore, no, never." For a time she knew her head was wrong, and was always asking our pardon – the dear gentle old woman: then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then came that terrible spectacle, she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David, and the diviner words of his Son and Lord, with homely odds and ends and scraps of ballads.

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