BEATTOCK FOR MOFFAT
by R. B. Cunninghame Graham, 1902

The most highly rated of R. B. Cunninghame Graham's short stories, "Beattock for Moffat," first collected in Success, has appeared in several collections and anthologies and has been much admired for the author's skill in dealing with the awkward subject of death and exile. By maintaining a low key throughout and by refusing to sentimentalize his subject, Graham steers a watchful course in his tale of a dying Scotsman's return to his native land, traveling north by train from London to Beattock, where he will be taken to Moffat and his last resting place.

From the very outset Graham signals his intentions by providing Andra, the dying man, with companions who refuse resolutely to bow to any false hopes. Their immediate task is to make sure that he survives the night and gets as far as Beattock. This is a favorite literary technique of Graham's—the drawing together of different people and the evocation of past experience through their thoughts and memories.

Jayne, the wife, is a Londoner, tearful yet self-sufficient, who only dimly understands her husband's primal need to return to his homeland. Andra's brother, Jock, is a different but equally recognizable type, the brusquely sympathetic upland sheep farmer who is tied to the land and takes his strength from its harsh rhythms.

Like others of his kind, especially Scots, Jock's religious beliefs are anchored in the knowledge that his work brings him face to face with God and that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Whereas Jayne tries to comfort her husband with thoughts of a heaven that is more music hall than Christian paradise, Jock responds with the fundamentalist belief that Andra was not the man to want an eternity in such a place, "daunderin' aboot a gairden naked, pu'in soor aipples frae the trees." It is a measure of Graham's sympathy for his characters that Andra intervenes with the thought that they should set their minds on getting him home before they start thinking about the nature of paradise.

Once started the train journey takes on the aspect of a pilgrimage, and from the outset it is impossible not to admire Graham's powers of observation and his ability to make even the smallest detail count. Old sandwich papers are tossed into the air in the train's wake as it leaves Euston, the London terminus; as it pushes on through England the flickering light inside the compartment contrasts eerily with passing brightly lit stations; ironworks light up the night, and bright frost sparkles over the surrounding hills and meadows. If this is a lovingly described journey through the real England, it is also an account of the making of a man's soul before death.

As the train travels ever farther north it is also a race against time. In the dark watches of the night Jock and Jayne fall asleep while Andra counts the miles to Scotland, wondering whether or not his strength will fail him. At Shap, the long gradient over the Cumbrian hills, he gets the first scent of the winds of home and believes that it might be possible to survive the night. Here sentimentality could easily descend into bathos—aided and abetted by the brothers' homely Scots speech—but Graham is alive to the danger and refuses to be drawn into anything so romantic or escapist.

Instead, the two brothers launch into a reasoned discussion about the funeral, Andra taking great pleasure in Jock's description of the new hearse that will carry his body to the cemetery. Jayne is scandalized by their conversation, "holding the English theory that unpleasant things should not be mentioned, and that, by this mean, they can be kept at bay." Knowing that his fellow countrymen take considerable interest in the subject and that death and funerals are a natural topic of conversation in Scotland, Graham takes obvious delight in contrasting the opposing points of view as the train crosses over the border into Scotland and home.

The only hint of emotion is reserved for the final homecoming as the train passes names familiar to both men and Jock is allowed to brush a tear from his face "as angrily as it had been a wasp." At Beattock station in the wet early morning the sad little party leaves the train with Andra barely alive. But there is to be no last-minute salvation; death comes to him on the platform with a porter's voice ringing in his ears, "Beattock, Beattock for Moffat."

As Jayne weeps silently beside her dead husband, Jock draws out a whisky bottle and salutes his brother with the thought that he had made a good fight of it. After the undertaker has been summoned, Jock walks out into the early morning rain whistling a lively Scots air. The story ends with him remarking that whatever else has happened, his brother will at least get a decent ride in the new Moffat hearse.

Satisfying though it is to end the story on such an ironic note, it would be wrong to think that Graham had severed his emotional involvement with his characters. On the contrary, his awareness of the rhythms of their speech and the strength of their quiet philosophy reveals a shrewd familiarity with the background that made them. Also, in no other story did he identify so completely with the lives and concerns of the characters he created.

—Trevor Royle