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The native writers seem to have strangely neglected the artistic wealth of all this poverty: pathos and humour reside, then, only in villages! Thrums and Drum-tochty and Galloway exhaust the human tragi-comedy. Ah! my friends, go to the ant-hill and be wise! One had to be cautious.
These were processions of the members of benefit societies through the square and wynds, and all the women walked in white, to the number of a hundred or more, behind the Tillie-drum band, Thrums having in those days no band of its own. From the northwest corner of the square a narrow street sets off, jerking this way and that, as if uncertain what point to make for.
The spire of the parish church, known as the auld kirk, commands a view of the square, from which the entrance to the kirk-yard would be visible, if it were not hidden by the town-house. The kirk-yard has long been crammed, and is not now in use, but the church is sufficiently large to hold nearly all the congregations in Thrums.
The Window in Thrums appeared in 1889 a masterpiece to set beside the French masterpiece, drawn likewise from peasant life, of almost the same date, Pecheur d'Islande. Barrie's gift, also, has been a gift making for the joy of his generation; he too has carried the flag of the True Romance slight, twinkling, fantastic thing, compared to that of Kipling, but consecrate to the same great service.
The little room which had become so familiar that it seemed one of a family party of three had to be stripped, and many of its contents were sold. Among what were brought to Thrums was a little exercise book, in which Margaret had tried, unknown to Gavin, to teach herself writing and grammar, that she might be less unfit for a manse. He found it accidentally one day.
Long before I left school, which was shortly before you came to Thrums, he had told his sister that he was determined to marry me, and she hated me for it, making me as uncomfortable as she could, so that I almost looked forward to the marriage because it would be such a humiliation to her." In admitting this she looked shamefacedly at Gavin, and then went on: "It is humiliating him too.
"I pity you from the bottom of my heart, Esther, for having to bide in Thrums, but you have never seen no better, your man having neither the siller nor the desire to take yon jaunts, and I'm thinking that is just as well, for if you saw how the like of me lives it might disgust you with your own bit house.
Wherever streets meet the square there is a house in the centre of them, and thus the heart of Thrums is a box, in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, wondering at first how he is to get out, and presently how he got in. To Gavin, who never before had seen a score of people in the square at once, here was a sight strange and terrible.
Another said, "That man has a religion to last him all through." A fourth said, "Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." A fifth said, "That's our minister. He's the minister o' the Auld Licht Kirk o' Thrums. Woe is me, we're to lose him." Many cried, "Our hearts was set hard against him. O Lord, are you angry wi' your servants that you're taking him frae us just when we ken what he is?"
The struggle at Cabbylatch itself was not of long duration; for their own horses proved the farmers' worst enemies, except in the cases where these sagacious animals took matters into their own ordering and bolted judiciously for their stables. The day was to Thrums. Individual deeds of prowess were done that day.
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