Auld Licht Idyls

EXTRACT: THE SCHOOLHOUSE Early this morning I opened a window in my schoolhouse in the glen of Quharity, awakened by the shivering of a starving sparrow against the frosted glass. As the snowy sash creaked in my hand, he made off to the water-spout that suspends its "tangles" of ice over a gaping tank, and, rebounding from that, with a quiver of his little black breast, bobbed through the network of wire and joined a few of his fellows in a forlorn hop round the henhouse in search of food. Two days ago my hilarious bantam-cock, saucy to the last, my cheeriest companion, was found frozen in his own water-trough, the corn-saucer in three pieces by his side. Since then I have taken the hens into the house. At meal-times they litter the hearth with each other's feathers; but for the most part they give little trouble, roosting on the rafters of the low-roofed kitchen among staves and fishing-rods. Another white blanket has been spread upon the glen since I looked out last night; for over the same wilderness of snow that has met my gaze for a week, I see the steading of Waster Lunny sunk deeper into the waste. The schoolhouse, I suppose, serves similarly as a snowmark for the people at the farm. Unless that is Waster Lunny's grieve foddering the cattle in the snow, not a living thing is visible. The ghostlike hills that pen in the glen have ceased to echo to the sharp crack of the sportsman's gun (so clear in the frosty air as to be a warning to every rabbit and partridge in the valley); and only giant Catlaw shows here and there a black ridge, rearing its head at the entrance to the glen and struggling ineffectually to cast off his shroud. Most wintry sign of all, I think as I close the window hastily, is the open farm-stile, its poles lying embedded in the snow where they were last flung by Waster Lunny's herd. Through the still air comes from a distance a vibration as of a tuning-fork: a robin, perhaps, alighting on the wire of a broken fence.... James Matthew Barrie, better known under the signature of J. M. Barrie (Kirriemuir, May 9, 1860 - London, 19 June 1937), 1st Baronet, is a writer and Scottish playwright, famous for creating the character of Peter Pan. During his years of study in Glasgow, James Barrie makes friends (Stuart Gordon, Welwood Anderson), he discovers Shakespeare and the theater and up a troupe of amateurs with his comrades. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1878, which showed four years later with a Master of Arts (MA). He worked as a reporter for the Journal of Nottingham there he contracted the habit of smoking the pipe that exalt in My Lady Nicotine in 1890. He moved to London in his account in 1885 and collaborates with various newspapers. He noted in 1889 by the publication of a collection of chronicles, The Eleven of Edinburgh. In 1890 Barrie made a small room, The Phantom of Ibsen, who ridicules the Norwegian playwright popular on the London stage. His novel, The little minister some success in 1891 and in 1892 our young author Conan Doyle met with whom he becomes friends. His play, A professor's love story, also met with great success and in 1894 he married the same year, the actress Mary Ansell, but the marriage will fail. Childless, the couple divorced in 1909 at the request of the wife (who took a lover) and against the will of the writer who opposes separation. J. M. Barrie was a menu and slender man, small. It has sometimes emphasized his almost childlike approach (like his hero Peter who will not grow). It is assumed that this unusual character was asexual and it was one of the reasons for divorce (see Peter Pan Syndrome). In 1897, in Kensington Park, James Barrie meets the Llewelyn Davies children (George, Jack and Peter) for which he imagines the adventures of Peter Pan. Our author binds to parents, Sylvia, daughter of writer George du Maurier, and Arthur, respected lawyer.