What Every Woman Knows | Page 2

the Wylie family sit down with a dump. The draught-board
is on the edge of a large centre table, which also displays four books
placed at equal distances from each other, one of them a Bible, and
another the family album. If these were the only books they would not
justify Maggie in calling this chamber the library, her dogged name for

it; while David and James call it the west-room and Alick calls it 'the
room,' which is to him the natural name for any apartment without a
bed in it. There is a bookcase of pitch pine, which contains six hundred
books, with glass doors to prevent your getting at them.
No one does try to get at the books, for the Wylies are not a reading
family. They like you to gasp when you see so much literature gathered
together in one prison-house, but they gasp themselves at the thought
that there are persons, chiefly clergymen, who, having finished one
book, coolly begin another. Nevertheless it was not all vainglory that
made David buy this library: it was rather a mighty respect for
education, as something that he has missed. This same feeling makes
him take in the Contemporary Review and stand up to it like a man.
Alick, who also has a respect for education, tries to read the
Contemporary, but becomes dispirited, and may be heard muttering
over its pages, 'No, no use, no use, no,' and sometimes even 'Oh hell.'
James has no respect for education; and Maggie is at present of an open
mind.
They are Wylie and Sons of the local granite quarry, in which Alick
was throughout his working days a mason. It is David who has raised
them to this position; he climbed up himself step by step (and hewed
the steps), and drew the others up after him. 'Wylie Brothers,' Alick
would have had the firm called, but David said No, and James said No,
and Maggie said No; first honour must be to their father; and Alick
now likes it on the whole, though he often sighs at having to shave
every day; and on some snell mornings he still creeps from his couch at
four and even at two (thinking that his mallet and chisel are calling
him), and begins to pull on his trousers, until the grandeur of them
reminds him that he can go to bed again. Sometimes he cries a little,
because there is no more work for him to do for ever and ever; and then
Maggie gives him a spade (without telling David) or David gives him
the logs to saw (without telling Maggie).
We have given James a longer time to make his move than our kind
friends in front will give him, but in the meantime something has been
happening. David has come in, wearing a black coat and his Sabbath

boots, for he has been to a public meeting. David is nigh forty years of
age, whiskered like his father and brother (Alick's whiskers being worn
as a sort of cravat round the neck), and he has the too brisk manner of
one who must arrive anywhere a little before any one else. The painter
who did the three of them for fifteen pounds (you may observe the
canvases on the walls) has caught this characteristic, perhaps
accidentally, for David is almost stepping out of his frame, as if to
hurry off somewhere; while Alick and James look as if they were
pinned to the wall for life. All the six of them, men and pictures,
however, have a family resemblance, like granite blocks from their own
quarry. They are as Scotch as peat for instance, and they might
exchange eyes without any neighbour noticing the difference,
inquisitive little blue eyes that seem to be always totting up the price of
things.
The dambrod players pay no attention to David, nor does he regard
them. Dumping down on the sofa he removes his 'lastic sides, as his
Sabbath boots are called, by pushing one foot against the other, gets
into a pair of hand-sewn slippers, deposits the boots as according to
rule in the ottoman, and crosses to the fire. There must be something on
David's mind to-night, for he pays no attention to the game, neither
gives advice (than which nothing is more maddening) nor exchanges a
wink with Alick over the parlous condition of James's crown. You can
hear the wag-at-the-wall clock in the lobby ticking. Then David lets
himself go; it runs out of him like a hymn:)
DAVID. Oh, let the solid ground Not fail beneath my feet, Before my
life has found What some have found so sweet.
[This is not a soliloquy, but is offered as a definite statement. The
players emerge from their game