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“How did you come to live down 
here, Mac?” 
“Partly from choice and partly of 
necessity, laddie. My son, Tom, has a 
family to support: so, seeing I was 
too old’ (here McGregor chuckled), 
“too old to get regular employment to 
keep myself from the poorhouse, Tom 
bought this tract of forest and gave 
it to me.” 
FROWNED a little. Was this a 
good way to take care of one’s own 
father? 
With uneanny insight McGregor 
read my thoughts. His seamed face, 
ruddy in the firelight, turned toward 
me, and I saw the twinkle in his eyes. 
“Don’t be indignant, young man, 
or I’m apt to take offence. Tom did 
the best thing for both of us. You 
and I, laddie, are at the opposite ends 
of life. You love this life in the woods 
now; you’ll long for it when you reach 
my years. Waste no pity on the Mc- 
Gregor: he’s happy, being far from 
the ‘fash’ of life and easily able to 
supply his simple wants. In the water 
yonder are fish for the catching; in 
the woods is game; in my garden, fer- 
tilized with kelp and dead fish, I raise 
all the vegetables I need. Would it 
not be a godsend to many an old chap 
like me to have such a place as I have. 
You know the poem, laddie, 
‘Happy the man whose simple round 
A few paternal acres bound’?” 
So, McGregor was acquainted with 
the poets. I became curious. I have 
a liking for poetry, myself—certain 
homely verses like those of Edgar 
Guest, although he was not writing 
at that time. 
“Do you like poetry, Mac?” I threw 
another stick of wood on the fire. 
“Man, dear, the true son of Scotia 
thinks in poetry, and Scotland has 
produced one of the greatest poets of 
all time.” 
“You mean Robert Burns?” 
“And who else should I mean? Have 
ye read ‘The Cotter’s Saturday Night’? 
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Have ye read his tender ‘Ode to a 
Mouse’? Have ye read ‘Tam O’Shan- 
ter’?” 
“I know ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ 
That’,” said I, proudly. 
“Gie it tae us,’ urged McGregor, 
lapsing excitedly into the language he 
loved. 
So, slowly, almost chokingly (it was 
the fire smoke), I recited ‘A Man’s a 
Man.’ 
“Well and nobly spoken,” said Mac, 
generously. (He didn’t criticise my 
Scotch, as did my fiddler friend.) “You 
put life into your words, laddie An’ 
now look about ye, an’ get your 
bearin’s, for I’m goin’ tae recite for 
ye the fersome tale of ‘Tam O’Shan- 
ter 
I was about to settle down and 
listen when I heard Peter stamping 
in his stall. Then I remembered my 
intention to tether him closer to my 
tent and the fire, in case the “yellow 
devil” should be prowling about. 
“Just a minute, Mac.” I went and 
brought Peter over, explaining to my 
guest the reason for so doing. 
“Aye, forewarned is forearmed,” he 
nodded. “Now, look yonder at those 
aspen leaves quivering. There’s no 
wind: what makes them shake? Note 
how the tree shadows move as the fire 
flickers, as if there were black spirits 
in the woods. Hark!” 
SCREECH-OWL sent its loud 
and weird cry through the timber. 
You of the woods know its uncanny 
sound. Mac was a dramatist, and he 
felt the stage was well-set for his 
poem. Then, like Coleridge’s ancient 
mariner, he “fixed me with his glitter- 
ing eye,’ and took advantage of the 
setting. He laid his hand on my knee 
and began to recite in a slow, low, 
earnest voice, with just a suspicion of 
gentle mockery it it, 
“‘When chapman billies leave the 
street, 
And drouthy neighbors neighbors 
meet.’ ” 
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So he gave me the introduction to 
the tale, picturing the good-wife at 
home, waiting late into the night for 
the return of her drunken spouse from 
market, 
“Gathering her brows like gathering 
storm: 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.” 
HEN, in a tone of banter, he de- 
scribed Tam O’Shanter, “a _ bleth- 
ering, blustering, drunken blellum,” 
the words themselves being descrip- 
tive enough by sound alone without 
need of translation. 
Oh, “Tam” was a rogue, undoubt- 
edly, and he was due either to be 
“drowned in Doon, or catch’d wi’ war- 
locks” in the neighborhood of the 
haunted church. 
And now McGregor launched into 
the real tale, showing Tam in the vil- 
lage inn, before a blazing fire, drink- 
ing late into the night with his cronies, 
while outside a storm was rising: but, 
“The storm without might roar and 
rustle, 
Tam didna 
whustle.” 
mind the storm and 
Our fire had died from a flame to 
glowing embers, and I was about to 
rise and throw more wood on it, but 
Mac restrained me by a gentle pres- 
sure on my knee. 
“Listen to this, laddie: it’s most 
beautifu’.” The old man’s gray head 
sank lower, and he gazed fixedly at 
the red coals, as if he saw in them pic- 
tures of his younger days. His voice 
became a trifle tremulous as he re- 
cited the lines, 
““But pleasures like 
spread; 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed: 
Or like the snow falls in the river, 
A moment white—then melts forever: 
Or like the Borealis race 
That flit ere you can point their place: 
Or like the Rainbow’s lovely form 
Evanishing amid the storm.— 
Nae man can tether Time nor Tide.’ ” 
are poppies 
(Continued on page 241) 




And, during lulls in forest adventure, we never ceased to be fascinated by the building operations of 
industrious beavers along a little stream 
209 
