Erchie, My Droll Friend. Munro Neil

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IV THE BURIAL OF BIG MACPHEE

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      Erchie looked pityingly at Big Macphee staggering down the street. “Puir sowl!” said he, “whit’s the maitter, wi’ ye noo?”

      Big Macphee looked up, and caught his questioner by the coat collar to steady himself. “Beer,” said he; “jist beer. Plain beer, if ye want to ken. It’s no’ ham and eggs, I’ll bate ye. Beer, beer, glorious beer; I’m shair I’ve perished three gallons this very day. Three gallons hiv I in me, I’ll wager.”

      “Ye wad be far better to cairry it hame in a pail,” said Erchie. “Man, I’m rale vexed to see a fine, big, smert chap like you gaun hame like this, takin’ the breadth o’ the street.”

      “Hiv I no’ a richt to tak’ the breadth o’ the street if I want it?” said Big Macphee. “Am I no’ a ratepayer? I hiv a ludger’s vote, and I’m gaun to vote against Joe Chamberlain and the dear loaf.”

      “Och! ye needna fash aboot the loaf for a’ the difference a tax on’t’ll mak’ to you,” said Erchie. “If ye gang on the wye ye’re daein’ wi’ the beer, it’s the Death Duties yer freends’ll be bothered aboot afore lang.”

      And he led the erring one home.

      Big Macphee was the man who for some months back had done the shouting for Duffy’s lorry No. 2. He sustained the vibrant penetrating quality, of a voice like the Cloch fog-horn on a regimen consisting of beer and the casual hard-boiled egg of the Mull of Kintyre Vaults. He had no relatives except a cousin “oot aboot Fintry,” and when he justified Erchie’s gloomy prediction about the Death Duties by dying of pneumonia a week afterwards, there was none to lament him, save in a mild, philosophical way, except Erchie’s wife, Jinnet.

      Jinnet, who could never sleep at night till she heard Macphee go up the stairs to his lodgings, thought the funeral would be scandalously cold and heartless lacking the customary “tousy tea” to finish up with, and as Duffy, that particular day, was not in a position to provide this solace for the mourners on their return from Sighthill Cemetery, she invited them to her house. There were Duffy and a man Macphee owed money to; the cousin from “oot aboot Fintry” and his wife, who was, from the outset, jealous of the genteel way tea was served in Jinnet’s parlour, and suspicious of a “stuckupness” that was only in her own imagination.

      “It’s been a nesty, wat, mochy, melancholy day for a burial,” said Duffy at the second helping of Jinnet’s cold boiled ham; “Macphee was jist as weel oot o’t. He aye hated to hae to change his jaicket afore the last rake, him no’ haein’ ony richt wumman buddy aboot him to dry’t.”

      “Och, the puir cratur!” said Jinnet. “It’s like enough he had a disappointment ance upom a time. He was a cheery chap.”

      “He was a’ that,” said Duffy. “See’s the haud o’ the cream-poorie.”

      The cousin’s wife felt Jinnet’s home-baked seedcake was a deliberate taunt at her own inefficiency in the baking line. She sniffed as she nibbled it with a studied appearance of inappreciation. “It wasna a very cheery burial he had, onyway,” was her astounding comment, and at that Erchie winked to himself, realising the whole situation.

      “Ye’re richt there, Mistress Grant,” said he. “Burials are no’ whit they used to be. ‘Perhaps—perhaps ye were expectin’ a brass band?” and at that the cousin’s wife saw this was a different man from her husband, and that there was a kind of back-chat they have in Glasgow quite unknown in Fintry.

      “Oh! I wasna sayin’ onything aboot brass bands,” she retorted, very red-faced, and looking over to her husband for his support. He, however, was too replete with tea and cold boiled ham for any severe intellectual exercise, and was starting to fill his pipe. “I wasna saying onything aboot brass bands; we’re no’ used to thae kind o’ operatics at burials whaur I come frae. But I think oor ain wye o’ funerals is better than the Gleska wye.”

      Erchie (fearful for a moment that something might have been overlooked) glanced at the fragments of the feast, and at the spirit-bottle that had discreetly circulated somewhat earlier. “We’re daein’ the best we can,” said he. “As shair as death your kizzen—peace be wi’ him!—‘s jist as nicely buried as if ye paid for it yersel’ instead o’ Duffy and—and Jinnet; if ye’ll no’ believe me ye can ask your man. ‘Nae doot Big Macphee deserved as fine a funeral as onybody, wi’ a wheen coaches, and a service at the kirk, wi’ the organ playin’ and a’ that, but that wasna the kind o’ man your kizzen was when he was livin’. He hated a’ kinds o’ falderals.”

      “He was a cheery chap,” said Jinnet again, nervously, perceiving some electricity in the air.

      “And he micht hae had a nicer burial,” said the cousin’s wife, with firmness.

      “Preserve us!” cried Erchie. “Whit wad ye like?—Flags maybe? Or champagne wine at the liftin’? Or maybe wreaths o’ floo’ers? If it was cheeriness ye were wantin’ wi’ puir Macphee, ye should hae come a month ago and he СКАЧАТЬ