“Seeing is Believing”

Sir James Matthew Barrie, elfin creator of Peter Pan, stood up at a bazaar, in Jedburgh, Scotland, last week, and solemnly informed his audience that on the previous night he had walked hand in hand through their village with the late Mary Queen of Scots (died A. D. 1558).

Sir James is neither cracked nor a spiritualist, but years ago he invented the hypnotic question, “You do believe in fairies, don’t you?”; and ever since some people have enjoyed making believe in Peter Pan or fairies or anything else favorably presented to their notice by Elf Barrie. Last week it was Mary Queen of Scots. The bazaar was in her honor. Proceeds would go to a fund for the purchase and preservation of a house in Jedburgh where Her Majesty once lay sick abed.

Therefore Sir James was making believe in a sound spot-cash cause, when he took the platform and quaintly whispered:

“Sh! Lock all the doors! We must have no Government spies here. Sh! It is quite possible tomorrow’s papers will hear the striking headline:

Extraordinary Jacobite Gathering at Jedburgh!

J.M. Barrie Escapes to France!

“My secret is that I walked with Mary Queen of Scots, last night, here in Jedburgh ! Wherever a Scot may be he always has at least one moment in the day when he leans against the nearest object and thinks of Mary Queen of Scots. That’s our romantic secret! . . .

“Yesterday I saddled my steed and galloped to Jedburgh … to her very house. … I found myself in her presence. . . .

“She was a moving part of the night, but a mother will forget her child and water will run uphill before a Scotsman will be unable to recognize that form and face. I went on one knee to her and she extended her pretty hands. I called her my liege.

“You know how hasty she was. She put her hands in mine in that confiding waywhich is either the best or worst thing in women — she was dressed in black velvet with a white ruff, and from her neck a thin white veil was flying—and so we came to the bazaar—and by the longest route. Then I did a foolish thing. I asked her whether she would buy some little article for herself—and at that she began to fade away—sure proof that she was not French but Scotch to the core.

“Before she was obliterated—there was no more of her than the veil—she placed in my hand a sprig of heather.”

Pause. Then slowly, gravely Sir James drew a sprig of heather from his buttonhole and held it up for all to see.

“Seeing is believing, you know,” he said.