Scotland -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
And then a hot rage came on her. Why should she make excuses for her own
people, because this stranger who was less than nothing to her chose to
giggle? Wasn't he using his size, which was sheer luck, his experiences
in foreign lands, of which she was bitterly jealous, and his maleness,
which until she got a vote was a ground for hostility, to "come it over"
her? She said acidly, "I'm glad you're amused. I suppose you don't do
such things in England?" and at his laughing answer, "I don't know; I've
never been to Church in England. But I shouldn't think so," her
neatly-brushed and braided temper came down. She came to a sudden stop.
They were on the unfrequented pavement of Buccleuch Place, a street of
tall houses separated by so insanely wide a cobbled roadway that it had
none of the human, close-pressed quality of a street, but was desolate
with the natural desolation of a ravine, and under these windowed cliffs
she danced with rage, a tiny figure of fury with a paper-bag flapping
from each hand like a pendulous boxing-glove, while he stood in front of
her in a humble, pinioned attitude, keeping his elbows close to his side
lest he should drop any parcels.
He loved every word of it, from the moment she explosively told him that
it was all very well to hee-haw up there like a doited giraffe, and his
mind felt the same pleasure that the palate gets out of a good curry as
she told him that the English were a miserable, decadent people who were
held together only by the genius and application of the Scotch, that
English industry was dependent for its existence on Scotch engineers,
and that English education consisted solely of Univairsities that were
no more than genteel athletic clubs, and begged him to consider the
implication of the fact that the Scotch, though a smaller people than
the English, had defended a larger country....
He woke up at that. He had been tranced in a pleasant reverie, for
though she was angry he knew that she would not get too angry. She was
running away from him, but in a circle.
"Scotland bigger than England!" he jeered. "Think of the map! Bigger
than England!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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