note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). an "a" with macron is denoted by [=a]. [illustration: crofters' cottages near uig, skye.] our journey to the hebrides. by joseph pennell and elizabeth robins pennell. [illustration] london t. fisher unwin paternoster square mdcccxc preface. the greater part of "our journey to the hebrides" was published originally in harper's magazine. when it appeared it was severely criticised, and we were taken to task for not discovering in scotland and the scotch what has been made the fashion to find there--for not giving second-hand descriptions, which are the stock in trade of scotch guide-books, whether romantic or real; in a word, for not staying at home and manufacturing our journey in the british museum. it is gradually dawning upon us that this is what is wanted by the majority of critics. to go to a country and tell what really happened to you--to dare to say, for the information of future cyclers or travellers, that one small piece of road is bad, that on one day out of ten or fifteen it rained, that at one small hotel you were uncomfortable or turned away, is enough to make the critic declare that you have found everything in that country to be awry. this was our fate when we attempted to describe the most enjoyable trip we ever made--our ride across france. we have no hesitation in saying that our trip to scotland was the most miserable. we undertook to walk, owing to the misrepresentations of people who we do not believe ever in their lives walked half as far as we did a year ago. as we have shown, when tramping became unendurable we went by coach or train, by steamer or sail-boat; but we walked far enough to see the country as, we venture to think, it has seldom been seen by other travellers. for, with all its drawbacks, walking has this one advantage: not only do you stop at the correct show-places on your route, but you go slowly over the unknown country which lies between them. that the weather in the western highlands and islands is vile is a fact which cannot be denied, though to mention it is held to be a crime. but, for the benefit of those who, because we speak of the rain and of the fatigue of walking, think we shut our eyes to everything else on our journey, let us say here, once and for all, that we found the whole country beautiful and full of the most wonderful effects; but we must also add that it is the most abominable to travel through, and its people are the most down-trodden on god's earth. this is the best and most concise description of the western highlands and islands that could be given. because we saw and described the actual condition of the population, and ignored the pleasures--in which we might have joined--of a handful of landlords and sportsmen whose fathers brought about this condition, and who themselves are fighting to maintain it, we have been asked what is the use of digging up ancient history? thank heaven, it is now two years since the crofters' act was passed by parliament; but when we were in the islands the first test case of a tenant pleading against the landlord who wished to evict him was tried, and gained by the tenant. while we were in barra, the disenfranchisement of the entire island was accomplished by a trick which the most unscrupulous american politician would not have dared to play. the crofters' commission had then just begun to reduce rents--fifty-seven per cent. is the average reduction--and to cancel arrears. it has raised rents on certain estates, is an argument used by landlords, who forget to tell you that where rents have been raised they have been compelled to give back pasture-land to the crofters. it was but a few weeks after our return to london that a rebellion broke out in the island of lewis, and was quelled only by the decision of the edinburgh court, which declared deer not to be protected by law; so that for the rest of the winter crofters and cotters ate venison with their oatmeal. it was this decision, and not the war-ships, which prevented open insurrection in all the islands. some of our critics have been good enough to inform us that crofters were never turned off their crofts to make room for deer. with those who refuse to accept the testimony officially published in the blue-books there is no use to enter into a discussion. for those who know little of the subject, and for whom blue-books would necessitate long study, here are the facts--facts which no one can question--in a nutshell. we quote from an article on "the crofters of the highlands," published in the _westminster review_ for february, : "in addition to these many injustices" (injustices, that is, suffered by the crofters), "there is one which in certain districts almost overshadows them all; namely, the absorption of vast areas, embracing much fertile land in deer forests. it matters little whether crofters were actually evicted to make room for deer, or whether sheep farms have been converted to this purpose; both have happened very largely, with the result that, according to the royal commissioners, about two million acres are now devoted to deer forests. large as this figure is, it is considerably below the mark, as has been shown by even better authorities on the subject. nor must it be supposed that deer forests consist merely of barren and worthless land. unless there is a large amount of good grass-land in a forest the deer would starve, and all this good land in times past supported a large population, whose descendants are now suffering destitution in the bare and unfruitful regions near the coast." to their shame be it said, the american millionaires who are beginning to rent these deer forests are the men who are now doing the most to encourage the continuance in their present position of the sons of the land-grabbers, or, we should say, the heroes of the ancient history and romance of the country. there is another evil of these great deer forests which should not be forgotten. a crofter, after working all day, often has to sit up all night to keep these beasts, which were supposed to be private property, out of his little croft. for if the deer eat all his crops, he had no redress; if the crofter shot one of them, or hurt it in any way in driving it out, you may be sure the factor made him suffer for it--at one time he would most likely have been evicted. we want it to be understood that in these vast tracts of deer forest none but sportsmen and game-keepers are allowed to go. if your house were to lie on one side and the village on the other, you would have to go miles around to reach it. nor can you go near streams which run in the open country, for fear you may disturb the fish, which are preserved for english or american sportsmen. just as we are writing this preface we have begun to receive, for the first time in our lives, anonymous letters. hitherto we did not believe there were people stupid and imbecile enough to write such things. one of these creatures, who is ashamed of his own identity, encloses, with an amusing letter written on kansas city club paper--which, however, does not reveal whether he is the president or the hall porter of the club--an article of a column and a half from the _scotsman_, which calls our "journey to the hebrides" "sentimental nonsense," "culpable misrepresentation," "amazing impertinence." and then, without attempting to show in what the misrepresentation or nonsense or impertinence consists, the writer of this article goes on to give his own ideas on the subject of the crofters, quoting statements made from other sources, and attributing them to us, misrepresenting us, and yet not attempting to contradict any one fact brought forward in any one of the articles, but taking up space in the paper to contradict the reports of the _scotsman's_ own reporter, printed but a few months before. we are accused of exaggerating the misery of the people. we have lying by our side as we write, column after column, amounting to page after page, from the _scotsman_, which is by no means the crofters' friend, giving detailed pictures of this misery, which we, in our generalizing, could not approach. here is a specimen taken at hazard from the pile of clippings. "a tale of poverty" it is headed, and it was published january , : "quite a typical case of poverty was that of donald mackenzie, a middle-aged man, who occupied a half croft at a rental of £ . he was married, with five young children, and they had been living exclusively on potatoes, occasionally with fish, for three months, until they got a half boll of meal from a destitution fund. that was now done, and he had that day borrowed a bowlful from a neighbour. he had fished at stornoway in the summer, and had kept the family alive; but his wife assured the stranger that he had not brought home a single shilling. she added that she herself had not had shoes for four years, and the children were no better off. a very similar case was that of norman macmillan. he was a cottar and fisherman, having a half lot from another tenant. he had also not taken home a shilling from the fishing last year; and, except working on his lot, he could find nothing to do until the fishing season came on again. he had seven children, the eldest twelve years. they had eaten up their potatoes by the beginning of winter, and now they had but a little barley-meal left. he did not know what to do now, he said, unless providence opened the way for them. they had often been without food, he said, although they had kept it. there was none to relieve them. he stated that formerly they used to get credit from the merchants while they were engaged at the fishing, but that they did not get now. one of the houses visited in this township was that of the wife of donald macmillan, one of the men now standing trial in edinburgh on a charge of having taken part in the park deer raid. macmillan lived in a very small cot at the back of his father's house, which his father had used as a barn. it was very poorly furnished even for that locality. there was a family of five small children, and there was only one bed in the house, with one blanket. three of the children slept out with a neighbour. macmillan cultivated the half of his father's croft, and had one cow. he was also a fisherman, having a share in a boat of forty-one feet keel; but, though he had attended the barra fishing last summer, he had made nothing. his wife had got a boll of meal from the destitution fund, but besides that, she had only two barrels of potatoes. previous to getting that meal, they had lived exclusively on potatoes. she stated that when her husband went out to the deer raid, there was but one barrel of potatoes; but since then, she explained, she had fallen back upon the seed." here is another, from january th of the same year, when four columns were devoted to crofter affairs: "from here a drive of about four miles brought the visitors to arebruich--a township fixed in a spot which was surely never intended for human beings. as one passes onwards from balallan, the soil gradually sinks lower and lower on the north side of the loch until, when arebruich is reached, it is almost level to the water's edge. the result is that the land is literally a floating bog, and it is a miracle how the poor people, who labour away at the barren scraps of earth which show some signs of cultivation, manage to get any food raised out of them. a rude, clayish pathway extends for some little distance from the main road, but it soon stops, as if the builders had thrown up the work in disgust. there are sixteen crofts, such as they are, in the township, and these are occupied by twenty-six families. the first house visited was that of john mackinnon, a stout, good-looking man in spite of his surroundings. he lives on his mother's lot, which is rented at £ . s., exclusive of taxes. his mother, who is eighty years old, lives, along with an unmarried daughter, in an adjoining house. he paid s. two years ago to the factor, but since then he has been able to pay nothing. he fished as a hired man last year at lybster; but his earnings were so small that when his season's board was paid he had only d. left. a friend had to lend him his passage-money. at present he has three barrels of potatoes left, but neither meal nor money. he has two of a family, besides himself and wife. they have to live on potatoes. his mother never got any parochial relief, and she and her daughter have to struggle along as best they can. he has one cow and eight sheep. when the destitution meal was being distributed he got three stones, and his mother an equal quantity. he does not know what to do, and has no prospects whatever. the next house presented a worse case. it was that of widow murdo macleod, a sister of mackinnon. she said her husband was drowned at loch seaforth seven years ago, when they were only ten months married. she had one daughter, who was born shortly after her husband was drowned. she has made her living all these years by knitting and sewing and odd jobs, but never got any help from the parochial board, though she applied several times. she has neither land nor stock, and never had any. she generally gets a few potatoes from her brother at harvest time. she has half a barrel on hand at present, and about a stone of meal, the remains of what was got from the destitution fund. she always tried to be industrious, and therefore was never actually in absolute want. she always enjoyed good health, and felt very thankful for it. the hut in which this woman and her daughter live is wretchedly poor, and the single bed is barely covered with a thin blanket."[a] [a] see note at the end of preface. on january th, in a leader, the same paper declared that the facts which we have given are "distressing," and ought to excite "interest" and sympathy. there is no talk here of sentimental nonsense! distressing we should think they were. one cannot help saying that it is nothing less than infamous that a mere handful of landlords should have controlled the destiny of, and extracted every penny from, the population of these islands--the people whom they have kept for generations in poverty, not that they might improve the land, but that they might pass their own time in useless idleness and cruel sport. it is not a question of over-population. the real evil is that the islanders have been ground down and tyrannized over simply to gratify the amusements of their masters. we have heard again and again that the position of a landlord does not pay; if it did not, the landlords would sell their estates to-morrow. for weeks, early in this year ( ), every scotch and english paper, even to the _times_, had columns about the misery of the crofters--that is, columns of extracts similar to these we have quoted. whatever reasons were given for it, no one questioned their destitution. and yet within a year all these reports are forgotten; and for generalizing and not going into details--heart-breaking details--we are called sickly sentimentalists. so glaring is this complete forgetfulness and contradiction that we cannot help taking some notice of it, and calling the attention of these papers to their own reports. as to the rest of our critics, they did not even know enough to contradict themselves, except in one case, which we have pointed out elsewhere, and their other criticism is not directed against our facts. in dwelling upon the misery of the people, we do not pretend, as has been suggested, to give an off-hand settlement of the economic problems of the islands. we merely state what we saw, what it was impossible to avoid seeing, wherever we went. it must be remembered that it is not merely a minority, or even a majority, but the entire population who exist in this condition of absolute wretchedness and semi-starvation. with the exception of a few small towns on the coast for the convenience of tourists and landlords, you find throughout the islands but the occasional beautiful castle or shooting-lodge, or great farm-house, and the many crowded stone piles politely called cottages. and it was because we were more struck with this misery than with the romance of the past that, our journey over, we interested ourselves in learning something of the immediate reasons for the present condition of the western highlanders and islanders, rather than in reading about the murders and massacres of the macgregor and the macleod, the mac this and the mac that. we were not blind to the beauty, the sternness, the wildness of the country; but the sadness and sorrows of its people impressed us even more than the wonder and beauty of their land. joseph pennell. elizabeth robins pennell. westminster, _november , _.[b] [b] even while we revise this preface more news comes from the island of lewis. on lady matheson's estates rents have been reduced and per cent., and arrears cancelled and per cent. this is from the _times_ of december th: "crofters' rents.--the crofter commission yesterday issued their first decisions in relation to lady matheson's property in the island of lewis, the centre of the land agitation last winter. they have granted an average reduction of per cent. on the rental of crofter tenants in the parish of barvas, on the west side of lewis. the arrears of rent due, which was a striking feature in lewis, have been cancelled to the extent of per cent. of a total of £ , the commissioners have cancelled £ ." if there had not been injustice before, is it probable that there would now be such wholesale reductions and cancellings? we suppose it is _sentimentalism_ to record these facts. christmas-day, . contents. page in the highlands on the islands to the east coast, and back again illustrations. page crofters' cottages near uig, skye _frontispiece_ vignette for first paper tarbet, loch lomond glencroe loch restil inverary cross at inverary scotland and the hebrides kilchrennan loch leven, from ballachulish oban coast of mull ross of mull, looking towards iona headland of gribun, from ulva "one of his strange things happened" vignette for second paper in the transept of the cathedral, iona iona tomb of macleod castle bay, from barra town of barra mountains of harris, from tarbet gathering peat the "dunara castle" interior of a weaver's cottage doing skye a real highland lassie dunvegan castle graveyard of the macleod tail-piece vignette for third paper fisher-boats hauled up near buckie the only castle i drew near cullen bit of macduff near banff banff, from macduff fraserburgh in the harbor, fraserburgh gutters at work, fraserburgh coming home from the fisheries, fraserburgh entrance to the harbor at montrose ruins at arbroath [illustration] in the highlands. we never looked forward to a pleasure trip with so much misery as we did to our journey to the hebrides. we wanted a holiday. "go to scotland," suggested the editor of harper's. "let us rather wander through unexplored france," we proposed, in a long letter, though we had already explored it for ourselves more than once. "scotland would be better," was the answer in a short note. "but why not let us discover unknown holland?" we asked, as if it had not been discovered a hundred times already. "scotland would be better," was still the answer, and so to scotland we went. it was a country about which we cared little, and knew less. we had heard of highlands and lowlands, of melrose and stirling, but for our lives we could not have pointed them out on the map. the rest of our knowledge was made up of confused impressions of hearts of mid-lothian and painters' camps in the highlands, macbeths and kidnappers, skye terriers and shetland shawls, blasted heaths and hills of mist, rob roys and covenanters; and, added to these, positive convictions of an unbroken scotch silence and of endless breakfasts of oatmeal, dinners of haggis, and suppers of whiskey. hot whiskey punch is a good thing in its way, and at times, but not as a steady diet. oatmeal we think an abomination. and as for haggis--well, we only knew it as it was once described to us by a poet: the stomach of some animal filled with all sorts of unpleasant things and then sewed up. we recalled the real dinners and friendly peasants of france and italy, and hated the very name of scotland. it will easily be understood that we could not plan a route out of our ignorance and prejudice. it remained to choose a guide, and our choice, i hardly know why, fell upon dr. johnson. every one must remember--i say this though we did not even know it until we looked into the matter--that dr. johnson met boswell in edinburgh, and in his company journeyed up the east coast as far as inverness, then across the highlands to the west, and so to the hebrides, coming back by way of inverary, loch lomond, and glasgow. it looked a long journey on the map, and seemed a weary one in the pages of boswell and johnson; but as if this were not bad enough, we made up our minds, for the sake of novelty, to walk. of our preparations for the journey i will say nothing. we carried less than stanley and more than the average tramp. we took many things which we ought not to have taken, and we left behind many things which we ought to have taken. but this matters little, since our advice to all about to start on a walking tour is, _don't_. on the th of july we arrived in edinburgh, "a city too well known to admit description." if dr. johnson thought so a hundred years ago, it is not for us, who propose to be his followers, to differ from him. indeed, during our stay in that city, so eager were we to be faithful to him in all things that we should have allowed ourselves to be dined, teaed and suppered, even as he was, but for an obstacle. the only person whom we knew in edinburgh was away, and the fame of our coming had not, as with dr. johnson, gone before us. we were careful to find st. james's court, where boswell lived, and where clothes, drying in what sun there is, now hang from his windows. and we went to the old white horse inn, where the doctor, on his arrival, stayed until boswell came to carry him off in triumph; and where probably the tourist of another year will not go, for already in the court-yard are signs of the coming of the destroyer. we had resolved to reverse the order of their journey by going to the western islands first, and coming home along the east coast. in this way we should avoid the september storms which kept them in the hebrides. now we also decided to go straight to glasgow, and not to stop at hamilton, where they spent a night. on saturday, july th, we began our walk in a cab, and continued it for many miles in a railway-carriage. we represented to ourselves that the country between edinburgh and glasgow, of which we knew nothing, was stupid, and that we must get to glasgow for sunday. there was no earthly reason for this, but it was an excuse, and we made the most of it. dr. johnson says that "to describe a city so much frequented as glasgow is unnecessary," and again we are willing to take his word for it. but its cathedral was the first of the many surprises scotland had in store for us. we had heard of it, but that was all. one young lady of glasgow, fresh from a tour on the continent, told us that she had never seen it. we were therefore prepared to find it no great thing. the exterior did not disappoint our expectations, but we have seldom been more impressed with an interior, and this though we had just come from the loveliest churches of england. the crypt, or rather the under church, is its pride, as indeed it well may be. a verger stood smoking a pipe at the south door, and we told him what we thought. j----, after three years' work in the english cathedrals, felt himself no mean authority. "it's the finest in the world," said the verger. "in great britain perhaps, but not in europe," said j----; for we had been but a moment before comparing it, as it now is, a cold, bare, show-place, to the under church of assisi with the frescos on the walls, the old lamps burning before altars, the sweet smell of incense, and the monks kneeling in prayer. "i only tell you what those _qualified_ have said," and the verger settled the matter and j----'s pretensions. it was in the glasgow crypt rob roy gave the warning to frank osbaldistone. the guide-book recalled the incident, which we had forgotten. indeed the farther we went, the more we were reminded that to travel in scotland is to travel through the waverley novels, and that these to us were but a name. since our return we have tried to read them again, to be quite honest, with but indifferent pleasure. we are so wanting in appreciation that we find scott's description of the crypt stupid, and we are not thrilled by the daring deeds of the macgregor. the art gallery in glasgow was no less a surprise to us than the cathedral. its catalogue contains more titians, rembrandts. hobbemas, and other great masters than any other in europe. but if we wondered at the catalogue, we were still more astonished when we came to see the pictures! we stayed in glasgow until monday morning, when we again took the train, but this time for a few miles only. we bought tickets for kilpatrick, and a sharp lookout we had to keep for it from the carriage windows. at the stations, no one called the names, which, in true british fashion, were less easy to find than that of the best brand of mustard or of the best hotel in glasgow. at kilpatrick, when i pulled my head in after the usual search, j---- was already at the opposite door. he did not care where he was, he said; he would get out. in the distance, we could see dumbarton rock rising from the plain against a blue sky. here, as in our plans for the day's journey, it was the one prominent landmark. kilpatrick is said to have been the birthplace of st. patrick. i do not know what authority black[c] has for the legend; certainly not that of the villagers. st. patrick was no british man, one of them told us; and, moreover, he never lived in kilpatrick, but on the hill. but had we ever heard of captain shonstone, the hairbor-maister? he was a great man. [c] not william, but the guide-book black. we made a great show of briskness by going the long way round by the canal. this was the only time throughout our journey that we turned from the main road--except to take a short-cut. mr. lee meriwether, in his tramp abroad, thought it an advantage of walking that he could leave the road to see whatever was to be seen near, but not from it. for our part, after the first mile, we never took an extra step for any sight; that is, whenever our knapsacks were on our backs. at dumbarton we did not even climb the rock, though dr. johnson walked to the very top. instead, we lunched and talked politics with the british workman in a coffee tavern. after dumbarton, we left the clyde to follow the leven. it was just beyond the town we first saw ben-lomond, a blue shadow on the horizon when the clouds were heavy above; a high bare mountain, seamed and riven, when the sun shone upon it. we lost sight of it in a succession of long, stupid villages; on the shady road, where the trees met overhead, we could see it again through the net-work of branches. clouds were low on its heights, and a veil of soft light rain fell before it when, having left our knapsacks in the inn at balloch, we rowed up the leven, a little quiet river between low woods and flat meadow-land, to loch lomond. it was the first scotch lake we saw, and we thought it very like any other lake. we were off by eight in the morning. it was clear and cool, like an october day at home. our road lay for a while close to the loch, then turned and went round the parks and lawns that sloped gently to the shore, so that it was only over a stone wall or through a gap in the hedge we could see the blue water and the wooded islands. we were now on the fighting-ground of the colquhoun and the macgregor, we learned from black, who--we know it to our cost--is a better guide to the romance and history of scotland than to its roads. it is but poor comfort when you ask for a good route to be given a quotation. rob roy is the hero of loch lomond, and if you cross--as we did not--to the other side, you may see his cave and his prison and a lot of his other belongings. but i think that which is best worth seeing on the loch is the colquhoun's village of luss, with its neat, substantial cottages and trim gardens. in the highlands you can have your fill of tales of outlaws and massacres and horrors; but it is not every day you come to a village like this, where men are allowed to live a little better than their beasts. [illustration: tarbet, loch lomond.] at the colquhoun arms in luss we ate our lunch, and that was our undoing. it left us in a mood for lounging, and we had still eight miles to go. we found it harder work the second day than the first. our knapsacks weighed like lead, and did not grow lighter; each mile seemed interminable. this was the more provoking because with every step the way grew lovelier. almost all the afternoon we were within sight of the loch, while on our left the mountains now rose from the very road-side, and hedges gave place to hill-sides of ferns and heather-patched bowlders. used as we both were to cycling, the slowness and monotony of our pace was intolerable. we longed for a machine that would carry us and our knapsacks with ease over the hard, dustless road. for one mile we tried to keep each other in countenance. j---- was the first to rebel openly. the highlands were a fraud, he declared; the knapsack was an infernal nuisance and he was a fool to carry it. about three miles from tarbet he sat down and refused to go any farther. just then, by chance, there came a drag full of young girls, and when they saw us they laughed, and passed by on the other side. and likewise a dog-cart, and the man driving, when he first saw us, waved his hand, taking us to be friends; but when he was at the place and looked at us, he also passed by on the other side. but two tricyclers, as they journeyed, came where we were; and when they saw us they had compassion on us, and came to us, and gathered up our knapsacks and set them on their machines and brought them to the inn and took care of them. and yet there are many who think cyclers nothing but cads on casters! to tell the truth, had these two men been modern rob roys, we would have yielded up our knapsacks as cheerfully; nor would we have sorrowed never to see them again. as we went on our way lightly and even gayly, we came to the inn at tarbet, and were received by a waiter in a dress-coat. it was a big hotel low down by the loch, with ben-lomond for opposite neighbor. the company at dinner was made up of englishmen and englishwomen. but everybody talked to everybody else. an englishman, it seems, becomes civilized in the highlands. there, those he sits down with at dinner, as is the way with frenchmen, are his friends; at home, he would look upon them as his enemies. after dinner we went to walk with the cyclers. as a great theatrical moon came sailing up through the sky behind ben-lomond, one told us in broad scotch how from the jungfrau he had once watched the moon rise, and at the sight had bur-r-r-st into tee-eers. but just then, had i wept at all, it must have been from sheer weariness, so i turned my back upon the beauty of the evening and went to bed. [illustration: glencroe.] it was well on towards noon the next day before we were on our way. "it looks like business," said a young lady feeding a pet donkey, as she saw us start. "it feels like it too," said i, dolefully, for the knapsacks were no lighter, and our feet were tender after the sixteen miles of the day before. it was two easy miles to arrochar, a village of white cottages and a couple of inns, one with a tap, the other with a temperance sign. here we were ferried across loch long by a fisherman sad as his native hills. it was a wretched season, he told us; there were few people about. on the west side of the loch, the road was wild, and soon turned up to glencroe. at the lower end of the pass, sheep browsed on the hill-sides, and in tiny fields men and women were cutting grass. the few cottages were new. but these things we left behind when the road began to wind upward in short, sudden curves. it was shut in on both sides by mountains; the sun glittered on their sheer precipices and overhanging cliffs and on the hundreds of watercourses with which their slopes were seamed. the way was steep, and i thought i should have died before i reached the top. at the last we made a short-cut up to the stone known, out of compliment to wordsworth, as "rest and be thankful." there may be men and women with so much poetry in their souls, that after that stiff climb they will still care to find the appropriate lines in their guide-books, and then have breath enough left to repeat them. but we were too hot and tired to do anything but lie on the grass and, as we rested, look down upon and enjoy the wonderful pictures away beyond and below us. in this lonely place a little loch lies dark and peaceful among the hills. restil, its name is; i do not know what it means, but it has a pretty sound. nothing could be more monotonous to tramp over than the long stretch of road which follows kinglas water almost to the shores of loch fyne. our feet were blistered, and now ached at every step. our shoulders were sorely strained. the things we said are best not written. when the coach from inverary passed and until it was out of sight, we made a feint of not being tired. but the rest of the way we now grew eloquent in abuse, now limped in gloomy silence. it was a mistake (which we afterward regretted) going to cairndow, and i do not know why we made it, except that in mapping out our route we had little help from black. we had to learn from experience, which is but a poor way, if you find out your errors when it is too late to mend them. we were bound to inverary, dr. johnson's next stopping-place. at the top of glencroe, we should have turned to our left and walked down hell's glen to st. catharine's, where there is a steam ferry to inverary on the opposite shores of loch fyne. as it was, we had turned to our right and walked to a point almost at the top of the loch where there was no ferry, and where five miles lay between us and st. catharine's. this was the coach road from tarbet, and the guide-book has but little interest in travellers who go afoot. though one hears much of walking tours in the highlands, but few are made. in seven weeks' walking we scarcely met even a tramp. we felt our mistake the more keenly because of the unpleasantness of the inn. the landlady greeted us warmly; like the ferry-man of the morning, she found there were too few tourists abroad. but her greeting was better than her rooms or her dinner, and she herself was unco' canny. there was in the inn a young artist whose name she told us. we had never heard it, and this showed our ignorance; for he came from london, where he had won the first prize in an exhibition, and his wife, who was with him, had won the second, and altogether they were very great, and it was small wonder they did not care to dine with unknown travellers who carried sketch-books. but, indeed, i think in no country in the world except great britain will one artist not be glad to meet another when chance throws them together. an english artist wrecked on a desert island would not recognize a brother artist in the same plight as "one of the fraternity," unless the latter could make good his claims by the excellence, not of his work, but of his letters of introduction or the initials after his name. nor does he unbend in the highlands, where englishmen of other crafts become so very sociable. when we walked out after a bad dinner, the eastern hills rose against the pale yellow light of the coming moon. one star sent a shining track across the dark water, over which every now and again the wind marked its passage in long lines of silver ripples. of all the sweet still evenings of our journey, we shall always remember this as the sweetest and stillest. [illustration: loch restil.] it was in the morning that the landlady showed her canniness. she sent us off in her boat to be rowed across the loch; this, she said, we should find the shorter way to inverary. but on the water one of the boys let slip the truth. we should have half the distance to walk if we went straight from cairndow to st. catharine's, there to cross by the steam ferry. judge of our righteous wrath! when they rowed us back to the cairndow side, the boys were careful to land us a good quarter of a mile below the inn. the worst of it was that once on shore again, we did not know whom to believe, the mother or the children. we were in a fine state of doubt, until a woman in the first cottage we came to reassured us. this was by far the shorter way, and we need not hurry, she added; we could not help reaching st. catharine's in time for the ferry at eleven. [illustration: inverary.] she was right. it seemed a short walk by the loch. we stopped only once, that j---- might get an old ruin on the very water's edge. when we came to st. catharine's we had an hour or more to sit at the inn door. it was one of those hot, misty days, which are not rare during the short highland summer. the mountains were shrouded in a burning white haze. the loch was like glass. on its opposite shore, inverary, white and shining, was reflected in its waters; and close by, at the foot of the hills, the turreted castle of the argylls stood out strongly against the dark wood. here we made up our minds to go to dalmally by coach. it was much too hot to walk. this left us free to take a nearer look at the castle, which, when we saw how painfully it had been restored, we thought less fine. in the town itself, though there is plenty sketchable, there is nothing notable, save the old town-cross, with its weather-worn carvings, which stands upon the shore, with loch and hills for background. after lunch at the argyll arms, suddenly an excursion steamer and the coach from tarbet poured streams of tourists into the place. two more coaches dashed out from the hotel stables. the wide street was one mass of excursionists and landlords and waiters, and coachmen in red coats and gray beavers, and guards with bundles and boxes. there was a short, sharp struggle for seats, and in the confusion we came off with the best, and found ourselves on the leading coach, whirling from the glare of the loch, through the cool shade of a wooded glen, to the stirring sounds of the "standards on the braes of mar," shouted by a party of lowland sandies who filled the other seats. at the first pause, the coachman pointed to deer standing quietly under the graceful silver birches that shut in the road. "shush-sh-sh-sh!" screamed the sandies, in a new chorus. "why canna ye put salt on their tails?" cried one. though later, cows and sheep and ducks fled before their noise, the deer never stirred. and yet, i suppose, in the season the duke of argyll and his guests come stalking these tame creatures, and call it sport.[d] [d] it is for this supposition we have already been taken so severely to task and laughed at for our imagined ignorance of the difference between roe deer and red deer. we are glad to have afforded the critics amusement; but we have since looked into the matter, and a friend, a highlander who knows the highlands as well as if not better than any of our critics, assures us there are red deer in these woods. so much for that wild burst of criticism! but if this were not the case, our supposition would not have been unnatural when certain aspects of british sport are considered--the hunting in epping forest, the performances of her majesty's stag-hounds, for example! all that afternoon, through the woods of glenaray and across the purple moorland beyond, afar over the banks and braes and streams around, there rang out the strong voice of sandy off for a holiday. highland valleys were filled with the pathetic strains of "we started up a candy shop, john, but couldna make it pay, john anderson, my jo!" highland hills re-echoed the burden of a loving father's song: "for she's my only daughter, 'tis i myself that taught her to wear spangled clothes and twirl round on her toes, and her name it was julia mcnaughter." between songs there were jokes, as at the minstrels. "ta-ta, james; au revore," they called to men mowing in the meadows. "and havna ye a letter for us?" they asked the old woman at a lonely post-office. to a beggar by the way-side they gave witticisms with their pennies: "canna ye sing a gaelic song?" "canna ye stand on your head?" "he's a grecian!" if the point of their jokes is not very clear, the fault is not mine; i am trying to be not witty, but realistic. there was one in the party--a woman, of course--who remembered duty. "isn't it bonny country?" she kept asking. "and what's yon bonny glen, my laddie?" and she poked the guard. "and sandy, mon, ye're nae lookin' at the scenery," she said to her husband. "toot, i clean forgot the scenery," and sandy broke off in his singing to stare through his field-glass at a bare hill-side. almost within sight of loch awe we came to a hill that was so steep we all left the coach and walked a couple of miles up the shadeless hot road. an objection sometimes made to cycling is that it is half walking; but in the highlands you would walk less if you rode a cycle than if you travelled by coach. from the top of the hill we looked down to where, far below, lay loch awe and its many islands. in this high place, with the beautiful broad outlook, gypsies had camped. i never yet knew the romany who did not pitch his tent in the loveliest spot for miles around. we had no definite plan for the night. we left it to chance, and we could not have done better. at the station at dalmally we said goodby to our friends, who went gayly to another bonny glen, and we took the train for loch awe. it hurried us round the top of the loch in a few minutes to loch awe station, where on the platform were crowds of men in conventional tweed knickerbockers and norfolk jackets, and women in jockey caps and fore-and-afts; and moreover, there were pipers with their pipes under their arms. from the carriage window we had seen the loch awe hotel, perched high on the hill-side, and looking down to the gray ivy-grown ruins of kilchurn. it seemed no place for tourists who carried their baggage on their backs. but hardly had we left the carriage, when up stepped an immaculate creature in blue coat and brass buttons to tell us, with his cap in his hand, that our telegram had been received and the port sonachan boat was in waiting. that from all that elegant crowd of travellers he should have picked us out, the only two in the least disreputable-looking and travel-worn, showed, we thought, his uncommon discrimination. if, without knowing it, we had telegraphed to a hotel of which we had never heard, if in consequence a private steam-yacht was now at our disposal, why should we hesitate? indeed, we had not time, for immediately a sailor seized our shabby knapsacks and carried them off with as much respect as if they had been saratoga trunks. we followed him into a little yacht, which we graciously shared with an englishman, his wife, two children, eleven bags, and three bath-tubs. [illustration: cross at inverary.] the man in the blue coat kindly kept his boat at the pier until j---- had made quite a decent note of kilchurn castle. it has its legends, but it is not for me to tell them. mr. hamerton, who has written poetry about it and ought to know, declares they are not to be told in prose. then we steamed down the loch, past the islands, one with a lonely graveyard, another with a large house; past the high mountains shutting in the pass of brander, to a hotel perfect of its kind. it stood on a little promontory of its own. a bay-window in the dining-room commanded the view north, south, and west over the loch. as we ate our dinner we could watch the light slowly fade and the hills darken against it. the dinner was excellent, and the people at table were friendly. there was a freedom about the house that made us think of dingman's ferry in its best days, of the water gap before its splendor came upon it, of bar harbor before it was exploited. it was not a mere place of passage, like the hotels at tarbet and at loch awe; but those who came to it stayed for their holiday. all the men were there for the fishing, which is good, and most of them, tired after their day's work, came to dinner in their fishing clothes. their common sport made them sociable. they were kind to us, but in their kindness was pity that we too were not fishermen. the landlord, who was a cameron, was neither great nor obsequious. he had interest for this man's salmon and that man's trout, and good counsel for our journeying. he had been game-keeper for many years on the shores of loch awe, which he knew and loved. he had seen mr. hamerton, and his boats and his painter's camp. since we have been to loch awe we have had an admiration for mr. hamerton which his book about it never gave us. seldom do men show greater love for beauty in their choice of a home than he did, when he set up his tent on the island of the dead. as his books show, he is sufficient unto himself. before the first month had ended, many might have wearied for other company save that of the hills and the water, the dead and a madman. [illustration: scotland and the hebrides.] we left port sonachan in the morning. mr. cameron walked down to his pier with us, and a duncan rowed us across to south port sonachan, where there is another hotel, and where we took the road to loch etive. again the morning was hot and misty. in the few fields by the way men and women were getting in the hay, and the women, in their white sacks and handkerchiefs about their heads, looked not unlike french peasants. on each hill-top was a group of highland cattle, beautiful black and tawny creatures, standing and lying in full relief against the sky. two miles, a little more or less, brought us to a village wandering up and down a weed-grown, stone-covered hill-side. to our left a by-road climbed to the top of the hill, past the plain, bare kirk, with its little graveyard, and higher still to two white cottages, their thatched roofs green with a thick growth of grass, and vines growing about their doors, the loch and the mountain in the background. but the cottages, which to the right of our road straggled down to a rocky stream below, had no redeeming whitewash, no vines about their doors. the turf around them was worn away. some were chimneyless; on others the thatch, where the weeds did not hold it together, had broken through, leaving great holes in the roof. on a bench, tilted up against the wall of the lowest of these cottages, sat an old gray-haired man in tam o' shanter, his head bent low, his clasped hands falling between his knees. it was a picturesque place, and we camped out a while under an old cart near the road-side. perhaps it would have been wise if, like mr. hamerton, we could have seen only the picturesqueness of the highland clachan, only the color and sublimity of the huts, only the fine women who live within them. but how could we sit there and not see that the picturesqueness was that of misery, that whatever color and sublimity there might be--and to the sublimity, i must confess, we were blind--were but outward signs of poverty and squalor, and that the huts sheltered not only strong young women, but feeble old men like that pathetic figure with the clasped hands and bent head? we have seen the old age of the poor, when we thought it but a peaceful rest after the work of years. in english almshouses we have found it in our hearts to envy the old men and women their homes; but here despair and sadness seemed the portion of old age. i do not know why it was, but as we watched that gray-haired man, though there was a space of blue sky just above him, and the day was warm and the air sweet, it was of the winter he made us think; of the time soon to come when the cold winds would roar through the pass, and snow would lie on the hills, and he would shiver alone in the chimneyless cottage with its one tiny window. a few miles away, men in a fortnight throw away on their fishing more than these people can make in years. scotch landlords rent their wild, uncultivated acres for fabulous sums, while villages like this grow desolate. if, when you are in the highlands, you would still see them as they are in the stupid romance of scott or in the sickly sentiment of landseer, or as a mere pleasure-ground for tourists and sportsmen, you must get the people out of your mind, just as the laird gets them off his estate. go everywhere, by stage and steamboat, and when you come to a clachan or to a lonely cottage, shut your eyes and pass on; else you must realize, as we did--and more strongly as we went farther--that this land, which holiday-makers have come to look upon as their own, is the saddest on god's earth. before we left the shade of the cart a little girl went by, and we asked her the name of the village. "kilchrennan," she said, with impossible gutturals, and then she spelled it for us. it was a good sign, we thought; if highland children to-day are taught to spell, highland men and women to-morrow may learn to think, and when they learn to think, then, let the landlord remember, they will begin to act. after kilchrennan, the road crossed the moorland, ben-cruachan towering far to our right. at the foot of the one wooded hill-side in all this heather-clad moor we met with the only adventure of the morning; for it was here we espied in the road, in front of us, a black bull. it fixed its horrid eyes upon us; its horns seemed to stretch from one side of the way to the other. we cast in our minds whether to go forward or through the wood, but we thought it best to get the trees between us, and we fled up the mountain and never stopped until we had left it a goodly space behind; for indeed it was the dreadfullest bull that ever we saw. we came to another wretched village down by loch etive. here again in the sunshine was an old man. he was walking slowly and feebly up and down, and there was in his face a look as if hope had long gone from him. in england, scarce a town or village is without its charities; but in the highlands, while deer and grouse are protected by law, men are chased from their homes,[e] the aged and infirm are left to shift for themselves. i think the misery of these villages is made to seem but the greater because of the large house which so often stands close by. we looked from the weary, silent old man and the row of tiny bare cottages, to a gay young girl and a young man in a kilt, who together strolled lazily towards the large house just showing through the trees. [e] i have left this sentence as it is, though mr. william black was good enough to attack us for making such a statement. if he has any knowledge whatever on the subject, he must know that it was not until after the trial in edinburgh--a trial held a little less than a year ago, when these pages had been already set up in type for the magazine--that it was discovered that deer are not protected by law in the highlands. men, as i have shown further on, cannot now be chased without reason from their homes, fixity of tenure being the chief good accomplished by the crofter's act of . [illustration: kilchrennan.] when mr. hamerton wrote his "painters' camp in the highlands" he suggested a new route from oban to ballachulish by steamer up loch etive, and then by coach through glen etive and glencoe. this is now one of the regular excursions from oban, and one of the finest, i think, in the highlands. in the glens we met no fewer than five coaches, so that i suppose the excursion is fairly popular. i wonder that mr. hamerton had a thought for the amusement of tourists, who are to him odious, as it seems necessary they should be to all right-minded writers of travel. now, he might find loch and glens less fine. for the rest of that day, being tourists ourselves, we bore with all others patiently. with taynuilt we left behind even the sparse cultivation of the highlands. from the boat we saw that the mountain-slopes were unbroken by road or path; there was scarce a house in sight. through glen etive the road was very rough, the mountains were barren, and not a sheep or cow was on the lower grassy hill-sides. it was all a deer forest, the guard told us, and even the english tourists in the coach exclaimed against the waste of good ground. it is well to go first through glen etive. bare as it seemed to us, it was green when compared to glencoe, where rocks lay on the road and in the stream and on the hill-sides. the mountains rose bare and precipitous from their very base, and trees and grass found no place to grow. the guard gave us the story of the massacre, with additions and details of his own which i have forgotten. at the end of the drive he charged two shillings--for his trouble, i suppose. people write of the emotions roused by scenery and associations. i think it is afterwards, by reading up on the subject, that one becomes first conscious of them. however that may be, of one thing i am certain: we have rarely been more flippant than we were on that day. in glen etive j---- discovered that highland streams, where clear brownish water flows over a bed of yellow, green, and red stones, look like rivers of julienne soup. in the high moor at the head of the glen we were chiefly concerned with a lunch of milk and scones for a shilling, and grumblings over highland extortion. in glencoe, guard and driver pointed out the old man of the mountain, who is here the lord chancellor, and ossian's cave, on high in the rocky wall, and stopped to show us the queen's view. but we were more interested in two cyclers pushing their machines up the steepest, stoniest bit of road; in a man in a long black frock-coat and silk hat with crape band, who carried an alpenstock with an umbrella strapped to it, and strode solemnly up the pass; in a species of gypsy van near glencoe inn, in which, the guard explained, twelve people and a driver travelled for pleasure. a girl looking very pale and wrapped in shawls sat at the inn door. the party had stopped on her account, he said; the drive had made her ill--and no wonder, we thought. [illustration: loch leven, from ballachulish.] the stony pass led to a pleasant green valley, from which the road set out over the bridge of glencoe for the shores of loch leven and ballachulish. almost at once it brought us to a field overlooking the loch, where, apparently for our benefit, sports were being held. the droning of the pipes made quite a cheerful sound, the plaids of the men a bright picture; and when, two miles beyond, we found the hotel with its windows turned towards the loch, we made up our minds not to push on to oban, but to stay and spend sunday here. and so we had a second and longer look at the sports. young men vaulted with poles; others, in full costume, danced highland flings and the sword dance. two pipers took turns in piping. one had tied gay green ribbons to his pipe, and he fairly danced himself as he kept time with his foot. and while we watched we heard but gaelic spoken. we were in a foreign country. [illustration: oban.] the position of the hotel was the best thing about it. at dinner an irate clergyman and his daughter took fresh offence at every course, until, when it came to the rice-pudding, they could stand it no longer and left the table. we were less nice, and made a hearty meal; but we thought so poorly of it that the next day, which was sunday, we found a lunch of bread and cheese and beer more to our taste. this we ate at the inn in glencoe, in company with the clergyman and his daughter. they were still sore--why, i could not understand--about the pudding, and the clergyman was consoling himself with a glass of good whiskey. the following day we came to oban-- the most odious place in the highlands, i have heard it called; the most beautiful place in the world, mr. william black thinks. when the west wind blows and the sun shines, there is nothing like it for color, he told j----. we had to take his word for it. we found an east wind blowing and gray mist hanging over town and bay, and we could not see the hills of mull. when we walked out in the late afternoon, it seemed a town of hotels and photograph shops, into which excursion trains were forever emptying excursionists and never carrying them away again. crowds were on the parapetless, unsafe embankment; the bay was covered with boats. in front of the largest hotels bands were playing, and one or two of the musicians went about, hat in hand, among the passers-by. fancy hassler at cape may sending one of his men to beg for pennies! it was dull, for all the crowd. the show of gayety was as little successful as the attempt of a shivering cockney to look comfortable in his brand-new kilt. altogether, oban did not seem in the least lovely until we could no longer see it. but as the twilight grew grayer and the tide went out, the great curve of the embankment was marked by a circle of lights on shore and by long waving lines of gold in the bay. at the pier, a steamer, just arrived, sent up heavy clouds of smoke, black in the gathering grayness. the boats one by one hung out their lights. oban was at peace, though tourists still walked and bands still played. it was gray and inexpressibly dreary the next day at noon, when we took the boat for tobermory, in mull. through a scotch mist we watched oban and its picturesque castle out of sight; through a driving rain we looked forth on the heights of morven and of mull. sometimes the clouds lightened, and for a minute the nearer hills came out dark and purple against a space of whitish shining mist; but for the most part they hung heavy and black over wastes of water and wastes of land. sir walter scott says that the sound of mull is the most striking scene in the hebrides; it would have been fair to add, when storms and mists give one a chance to see it. pleasure parties sat up on deck, wrapped in mackintoshes and huddled under umbrellas. our time was divided between getting wet and drying off down-stairs. the excitement of the voyage was the stopping of the steamer, now in mid-stream in "macleod of dare" fashion, now at rain-soaked piers. of all the heroes who should be thought of between these two lands of romance, only the most modern was suggested to us, probably because within a few weeks we had been re-reading mr. black's novel. but, just as in his pages, so in the sound of mull, little boats came out to meet the steamer. they lay in wait, tossing up and down on the rough waters and manned with hamishes and donalds. into one stepped a real macleod, his collie at his heels; into another, an elderly lady, who was greeted most respectfully by the hamish, as he lifted into his boat trunks marked with the name of fleeming jenkin. this gave us something to talk about; when we had last seen the name it was in a publisher's announcement, which said that mr. stevenson was shortly to write a biographical notice of the _late_ fleeming jenkin. at the piers, groups of people, no better off for occupation than we, waited to see the passengers land. we all took unaccountable interest in this landing. at salen there was an intense moment when, as the steamer started, a boy on shore discovered that he had forgotten his bag. at the next pier, where a party of three got off, as their baggage was carried after them, we even went the length of counting up to forty bags and bundles, three dogs, and two maids. we left them standing there, surrounded by their property, with the rain pouring in torrents and not a house in sight. this is the way you take your pleasure in the hebrides. we were glad to see among the boxes a case of champagne. at the last moment, one of the men, from the edge of the pier, waved a brown paper parcel, and told the captain that another like it had been left aboard. i am afraid he had forgotten something else; thence to tobermory the captain did but revile him. tobermory is a commonplace town with a semicircle of well-to-do houses on the shores of a sheltered bay. at one end of the wooded heights that follow the curve of the town is a big hotel; at the other, aros house, a brand-new castle, in among the trees. the harbor is shut in by a long, narrow island, bare and flat. it seemed a place of endless rain and mist. but when we thought the weather at its worst, the landlady called it pleasant, and suggested a two miles' walk to the light-house on the coast. children played on the street as if the sun shone. we even saw fishing parties row out towards the sound. we had to stay in tobermory two interminable days, for it was impossible at first to find a way out of it. our idea was to walk along the north and then the west coast, and so to ulva; but the landlady was of the opinion that there was no getting from tobermory except by boat. fishermen in the bar-room thought they had heard of a rough road around the coast, and knew that on it we should find no inn. the landlord, to make an end of our questions, declared that we must go to iona by the boat due the next morning at eight. this seemed the only chance of escape unless we were to return to oban. in the mean time there was nothing to do, nothing to see. the hotel windows looked out on the gray, cheerless bay, dotted with yachts. once we walked in the rain to the light-house, and back across the moors. the wind never stopped blowing a gale. "if anybody wants to know what mull's like in summer," said j----, in disgust, "all they've got to do is to go to a new jersey pine barren when an equinoctial's on." at our early breakfast the next morning, the landlord told us that it was dark outside the bay. it must have been wilder even than he thought. no boat for iona came. it was after this disappointment that j----, by chance, in the post-office, met the procurator fiscal, whatever he may be. we have good reason to be grateful to him. he mapped out a walking route to salen, and thence to loch-na-keal, at the northern end of which is the island of ulva--the soft ool-a-va which always leads the chorus of the islands in mr. black's tragedy, "macleod of dare." we did not care to walk to salen in the rain; we were not willing to spend another night in tobermory. therefore, that same afternoon, when the boat from skye touched at the pier, we got on board. we believed in the roughness of the sea beyond the sound when we saw tourists prostrate in the cabin, with eloquent indifference to looks. but it was short steaming to salen, where we faced wind and rain to walk about a quarter of a mile to the hotel. here, as dr. johnson said in glenelg, "of the provisions, the negative catalogue was very copious." the landlady asked us what we should like for supper; she might have spared herself the trouble, since she had nothing to give us but ham and eggs. however, we found the outlook less depressing than at tobermory. there was no commonplace little town in sight, but only bare rolling grounds stretching to a bay, and on the shores the ruins of a real old castle, of which mr. abbey once very unkindly made a drawing, so that j----, for his own sake, thought it best to let it alone. there was, moreover, something to read. lying with the guide-books were the "life of dr. norman mcleod," "castle dangerous," and the "life of the prince consort." j---- devoured them all three, and the next day regaled me with choice extracts concerning the domestic virtues of the royal family. when we awoke, the clouds were breaking. across the sound of mull they were low on the heights of morven, but the hill-sides were green, streaked with sunshine. above were long rifts of blue sky, and in the bay a little yacht rocked on glittering water. we ate more ham and eggs, and made ready to begin our tramp at once. neither maid nor landlord could tell us if there were inns on the road to bunessan. in mull a man knows but his own immediate neighborhood. in the hotels, the farthest explorations are to the bed-rooms; in the cottages the spirit of enterprise is less. the interior of the island is an unknown country. the adventurous traveller goes no farther inland than tobermory on the east coast, or bunessan on the west. the ordinary traveller never goes ashore at all, but in the boat from oban makes the tour of mull in a day. as a consequence, there is no direct communication between the two sides of the island. it is strange that, though one of the largest of the hebrides and within easiest reach of the main-land, mull should be one of the least known and civilized. it is not even settled. people respect dr. johnson because in the days when steamboats were not, and roads at the best were few, he made a journey to the islands. but we cannot help thinking that if this respect is measured by hardships, we are far more worthy of it for having followed him to mull a century later. wherever he and boswell went, guides and horses, or boats, as the case might be, were at their disposal; the doors of all the castles and large houses in the islands were thrown open to them. we were our own guides. it may be said that the steamboat was at our service, but it could not always take us to places we wished to see. if dr. johnson had to ride over moorland on a pony too small for him, he was sure that when evening came a macquarry, a maclean, or a macleod would be eager to make him welcome. we walked on roads, it is true, but they were bad, and not only were we not wanted at the castles, but we did not want to go to them since they are now mostly in ruins; there was chance, too, of our not coming to an inn at nightfall. the inns of mull are few and far between. besides, for all one knows, those mentioned in the guide-book may be closed. if others have been opened, there is no one to tell you of them. [illustration: coast of mull.] however, we took the procurator's word for the inn at ulva, and started out again with our knapsacks, which seemed but heavier on our backs after several days' rest. all morning we tramped dreary miles of moor and hill, with the wind in our faces, and by lochs with endless curves, around which we had to go, though we saw our journey's end just before us. while we followed the northern shore of loch-na-keal, high ben-more, with its head among the clouds, was behind us. in front was the atlantic, with heavy showers passing over it, and now blotting out far staffa and the long ridge of the ross of mull, an encircling shadow between the ocean and the headland of gribun; and now sweeping across the loch and the near green island of inch-kenneth. a large house, with wide lawn and green fields and well-clipped hedges, just at the head of loch-na-keal, and one or two small new cottages shut in with flaming banks of fuchsias, showed what mull might be if in the island men were held in as high account as rabbits and grouse. we saw the many white tails of the rabbits in among the ferns, and though they live only to be shot, on the whole we thought them better off than the solemn, silent men and women who trudged by us towards salen, where it was market-day, for it is their fate to live only to starve and suffer. the one man who spoke to us during that long morning was a shepherd, with a soft gentle voice and foreign scotch, whose sheep we frightened up the hill-side. ulva lay so close to the shores of mull as scarce to seem a separate island. but the waters of the narrow sound were rough. the postman, who had just been ferried over, held the boat as we stepped into it from the slippery stones of the landing. as he waited, he said not a word. they keep silence, these people, under the yoke they have borne for generations. the ferryman was away, and the boy who had come in his place had hard work to row against wind and waves, and harder work to talk english. "i beg pardon," was his answer to every question we asked. the little white inn was just opposite the landing, and we went to it at once, for it was late and we were hungry. we asked the landlady if she could give us some meat. "of course," she said--and her english was fairly good--she could give us tea and eggs. "no, but meat," we repeated. "yes, of course," she said again; "tea and eggs." and we kept on asking for meat, and she kept on promising us tea and eggs, and i know not how the discussion had ended, if on a sudden it had not occurred to us that for her the word had none other but its scriptural meaning. while she prepared lunch we sat on low rocks by the boats drawn up high and dry on the stony beach. at the southern end of the island was ulva house, white through an opening in a pleasant wood, and surrounded by broad green pastures. just in front of us, close to the inn, a handful of bare black cottages rose from the mud in among rocks and bowlders. no paths led to the doors; nothing green grew about the walls. women with pinched, care-worn faces came and went, busy with household work, and they were silent as the people we had met on the road. beyond was barrenness; not another tree, not another bit of pasture-land was in sight. and yet, before the people were brought unto desolation, almost all the island was green as the meadows about the laird's house; and so it could be again if men were but allowed to cultivate the ground. where weeds and rushes and ferns now cover the hills and the level places were once fields of grain and grass. to-day only the laird's crops are still sowed and reaped. once there could be heard the many voices of men and women and children at work or at play, where now the only sounds are the roaring of the waters and the crack of the rifle.[f] of all the many townships that were scattered from one end of the island to the other, there remains but this miserable group of cottages. the people have been driven from the land they loved, and sent hither and thither, some across the narrow sound, others far across the broad atlantic. [f] this also has been questioned. all we can say is that we both saw and heard men in ulva shooting with rifles. what they were shooting at we did not go to see. the highlands and the hebrides are lands of romance. there is a legend for almost every step you take. but the cruelest of these are not so cruel as, and none have the pathos of, the tales of their own and their fathers' wrongs and wretchedness which the people tell to-day. the old stories of the battle-field, and of clan meeting clan in deadly duel, have given way to stories of the clearing of the land that the laird or the stranger might have his shooting and fishing, as well as his crops. at first the people could not understand it. the evicted in ulva went to the laird, as they would have gone of old, and asked for a new home. and what was his answer? "i am not the father of your family." and then, when frightened women ran and hid themselves at his coming, he broke the kettles they left by the well, or tore into shreds the clothes bleaching on the heather. and as the people themselves have it, "in these and similar ways he succeeded too well in clearing the island of its once numerous inhabitants, scattering them over the face of the globe." there must have been cruelty indeed before the western islander, who once loved his chief better than his own life, could tell such tales as these, even in his hunger and despair. [illustration: ross of mull, looking towards iona.] i know it is pleasanter to read of bloodshed in the past than of hunger in the present. a lately published book on ireland has been welcomed by critics, and i suppose by readers, because in it is no mention of evictions and crowbar brigades and horrors of which newspapers make good capital. i have never been in ireland, and it may be that you can travel there and forget the people. but in the hebrides the human silence and the desolate homes and the almost unbroken moorland would let us, as foreigners, think of nothing else. since our return we have read scott and mr. hamerton and miss gordon cumming and the duke of argyll, and many others who have helped to make or mar the romance and history of the highlands. but the true story of the highlands as they are i think we learned for ourselves when we looked, as we did at ulva, from the laird's mansion to the crofter's hovel. it is the story of the tyranny of the few, the slavery of the many, which can be learned still more fully from the reports of the royal commission, published by the english government. when we returned to the inn we had no thought but to get away at once, how, we hardly knew. the landlady suggested three plans. we could wait until the morrow, when the gomestra men, as she, a native, called them, and not gometra men, as mr. black has it, would row us out to meet the steamboat coming from iona. how "macleod of dare" like this would have been! we could be ferried over the sound, and walk back by loch-na-keal, the way we had come, then around its southern shores, and so across to loch scridain, at the head of which was an inn. or we could sail across loch-na-keal, and thus cut off many miles of the distance that lay between us and our next resting-place. we must, however, decide at once; there were two gentlemen below who would take us in their boat, but if we did not want them, they must go back to cut the laird's hay. were we willing to wait until evening, they would take us for half price. the rain now fell on the loch, but we made our bargain with the gentlemen on the spot. the landlady gave our sailing quite the air of an adventure. we need not be alarmed, she said, as indeed we had not thought of being; the only danger was to the gentlemen coming home. we found them at the landing, ballasting the boat with stones and getting on their oil-skins. we suggested that they should take us all the way to bunessan, but they would not hear of it. only the older of the two, an old gray-haired man, could speak english; they would not venture out to sea in such weather, he told us. as we sailed past the white house we asked him if he had ever heard of dr. johnson. he shook his head and then turned to the other man, and the two began to talk in gaelic. "toctor shonson, toctor shonson," we heard them say to each other. but they both kept shaking their heads, and finally the old man again said they had never heard of him. when the wind swept the rain from the hills of ulva, we could see that on the western side of the island the strange basaltic formation like that of staffa begins. near the low green shores of inch-kenneth a yacht lay at anchor. it belonged to one of the lairds of mull, the boatman said. the people, who have barely enough to live on themselves, can still afford to support a yacht for their landlord. how this can be is the real problem of the hebrides. to solve it is to explain the crofter question without the aid of a royal commission. on the gribun shore the landing-place was a long row of stones, slippery with wet sea-weed. the old man gave me his arm and led me in safety to the foot of the meadows beyond. he was the gentleman the landlady had called him. a frenchman could not have been more polite. nor was there in his politeness the servility, which in england makes one look to honest rudeness with relief. caste distinctions may be bitterly felt in the homes of the western islanders, but in their manner is something of the equality which french republicans love. they can be courteous without cringing. englishmen call this familiarity. but then the englishman who understands true politeness is the exception. it was, if anything, wetter on land than it had been on the water. to reach the road we waded through a broad meadow knee-high in dripping grass. the mist kept rising and falling, and one minute we could see the islands--ulva and gometra and inch-kenneth and even staffa--and the next only grayness. in the narrow pass over the headland between loch-na-keal and loch scridain the clouds rolled slowly down the mountains on either side, lower and lower, until presently we were walking through them. and as we went, as was proper in the land of macleod of dare, a strange thing happened; for scarcely had the clouds closed about us than a great gust of wind swept through the pass and whirled them away for a moment. then the wind fell, and again we were swallowed up in grayness, and could scarcely see. just as we were within sight of loch scridain, down poured torrents of rain. a little farther on and we were half-way up to our knees in a bridgeless stream that came rushing down the mountains across the road. [illustration: headland of gribun, from ulva.] we passed two wind-and-rain-beaten villages and occasional lonely cottages, and the ruins of others. mr. hamerton says that nothing is more lovely to an artist than a highland cottage after a rain; but the trouble is, you seldom see it after the rain, for in the hebrides the rain it raineth every day and always. we came, too, to one big dreary house and a drearier kirk. the rest of the way there was but the wet wilderness, with the wet road following the curves of the loch, and even striking a mile or so inland to cross with the bridge a river which falls into it at its head. the inn was on the opposite shore; a short-cut lay across the water; there were boats moored to the northern bank where we walked, but not a ferryman to be found. a woman in a clean white cap, who stood in a cottage door-way, did not even know if there was a ferry. towards evening the rain stopped; the light of the setting sun shone on the hills before us as it seldom does except in pictures of the hebrides; but on a walking tour when the chance for pleasure comes, one's capacity for enjoyment has gone. at the end of a day's tramp one can see little beauty, save that of a good dinner and a soft bed, both of which are the exception in the hebrides. the inn at kinloch was a two-storied cottage, with kitchen full of women and tap-room full of geese and hens below stairs, dining and sleeping rooms above. the bed-rooms were all occupied--by the family, i suppose, since we were given our choice; but after choosing, everything had to be moved out before we could move in. however, we made a shift to change our shoes and stockings, and in the dining-room we crouched over a big fire, while the steam rose in clouds from our soaked tweeds. the landlady came up at once with whiskey and glasses. "and will you accept a glass from me?" she asked. this was the highland hospitality of which one reads, and it was more to our taste than the whiskey. for supper of course we had ham and eggs, but it took no less than two hours for the landlady to cook them and to set the table. she was the sister of the landlady at ulva, she told us. "and it's a good house my sister keeps whatever," she said; and then she wanted to know, "had the wee laddie, donald, ferried us over? and we had come from salen, and were we going to bunessan? it will be twelve miles to bunessan whatever. and then to iona?" it will be a great kirk we should see there, she had heard; but she had never been to iona. she spoke excellent english, with the soft, drawling accent we thought so pleasant to hear, and we wished she could cook as well as she talked. while we waited, j----, out of sympathy, fed a lean hound on meat-lozenges. he looked so starved that we could but hope each would prove for him the substantial meal it is said to be on the label of the box, and which we had not yet found it. after supper it was two hours more before the bedroom was ready, and i think we had rarely been so tired. we sat nodding over the fire, sick with sleep. when we could stand it no longer, we made a raid upon the room while the landlady, who spent most of her time on the stairs, was on her hundredth pilgrimage below, and locked ourselves in. after that, she kept coming back with towels and one thing and another until we were in bed and asleep. we had ordered more ham and eggs for eight o'clock in the morning, and asked to be awakened at seven. we might have spared ourselves the trouble--no one called us. it was half-past nine before breakfast was on the table, and it would not have been served then had not j---- gone into the kitchen to see it cooked. the only difference between our morning and evening meal was in the bill, where, according to island reckoning, tea and ham and eggs called supper, are worth sixpence more than eggs and ham and tea called breakfast. at the last moment up came the landlady, again with whiskey and glasses. "and will you accept a glass from me?" but indeed we could not. to begin a twelve miles' walk with whiskey was out of the question. we afterwards learned that this was but good form on her part. the true highlander always expects to drink a wee drappie with the coming and the parting guest. it would have been true politeness for us to accept. however, we did not know it at the time, and the whiskey was bad. she seemed hurt by our refusal. i thought her a shade less cordial when we came to say goodby. the wind was still blowing a gale, but it drove the clouds beyond the bald mountains towards ben-more, and brought no showers with it. everything had grown bright with the morning but the cottages, and they, perhaps because of the contrast with the blue loveliness of water and sky and hills, seemed darker and more desolate than in the rain. here and there along the loch a few were gathered in melancholy groups, pathless and chimneyless, smoke pouring from door-ways and through holes in the walls, mud at the very thresholds. for every cottage standing there was another in ruins. on the top of a low hill, over which we made a short-cut, was a deserted village, conveniently out of sight of the road. no traveller, unless he chanced upon it as we did, would know of it. it was not high enough or far enough from other cottages for the shielings upon which the duke of argyll thinks so much false sentiment has been wasted. we found a few black-faced sheep in possession of the ruins, and before them, i fear, have been driven not merely cattle from summer pastures, but men from their only homes. there were several school-houses between kinloch and bunessan, and we half hoped that these were in a measure responsible for roofless walls and desolate hearths. but the truth is, the duke of argyll and other landlords of mull find it less trouble to collect rents from a few large tenants than from many small ones, and to suit their convenience the people have had to go. it is their land; why should they not do with it as they think best? almost all this ross of mull, on which we now were, belongs to the duke of argyll, the defender of scotland as it was and as it is; and i think in all the hebrides there is no place more desolate. we saw perhaps more signs of bitter poverty in skye and in barra. but in these islands the evicted have settled again upon the crofts of their friends or relations. often it is because the many are thus forced to live upon land that can scarce support the few that all are so poor. but the islander loves his home as he once loved his chief, and now hates his landlord, and he must be in extremity indeed before he will go from it. knowing this, you feel the greatness of the misery in the ross of mull, from which the people have flown as if from a plague-stricken land. the greater part of it is silent and barren as the desert. we walked for miles, seeing no living things save a mere handful of sheep grazing on the hills, and the white sea-gulls perched on the low sea-weed covered rocks of loch scridain. and beyond the barren waste of land was the sea without a sail upon its waters, and the lonely islands, which we knew were no less desolate. the cruel climate of this far northern country has had little to do with the people's flight. neither, indeed, has natural barrenness. the soil in the highlands is not naturally barren, the duke of argyll himself has said. the few large farms by the way were good proof of what might be, even in the rocky ross of mull. it seemed odd in the midst of the wilderness to meet two peddlers loaded with gay gilt frames. they thought it a "blowy" day, and so did a man who passed soon after in a dog-cart. but the women in clean white caps whom we met on the road could answer our questions only in streams of gaelic. we saw no one else but men and women getting in the harvest, or bending beneath great burdens of sea-weed as they toiled up the hill from the shores of the loch. there was a lonely graveyard by the way; but nowhere does death seem so great a blessing as we thought it must be here. it was a long twelve miles, and the knapsacks were growing heavier with each day. but we were walking for our lunch; there were no inns on our road. for one reason or another, to me it was our hardest day's work. i think i must have starved had not j---- slung my knapsack on his already heavily laden shoulders. at the last, bunessan came as a surprise. we were looking sadly at the endless line of road over the moors in front of us, when we turned a corner, and there was the little white town, with a pleasant inn, close to the waters of loch slach. we had to wait--we were growing used to waiting--for our lunch; but at last when it came it seemed a banquet. we were not asked to eat either ham or eggs. altogether, we were so well pleased that we brought the day's walk to an end. but it seemed that the maid who came to the door was less pleased with us. our knapsacks, too large for comfort, were too small for respectability. our clothes were weather-worn. the landlord bade her show us to a bedroom; but before we had finished our lunch she had locked every door in the house, carefully leaving the keys on the outer side, and, in her zeal, locking one man in. this, however, we did not learn until later, when english people staying in the inn told us what suspicious characters we were. they said she was stupid, which we had already found out for ourselves. bunessan is the show-place of the ross of mull; steamers occasionally land at a pier on the loch, two miles distant. tourists come to the inn for the fishing. if they go no farther into the island, they probably carry away with them impressions of well-to-do people and benevolent landlords--the impressions, probably, the duke of argyll wishes to produce. after kilpatrick and the other wretched groups of cottages we had passed in the morning, it did indeed seem happy and prosperous. it may be that we should have been less struck with it and its inn had it not been for the things we had already seen and experienced. certainly, at dinner, dishes which we thought luxuries were found fault with by the rest of the company. but then they had their own opinion of bunessan. they had taken it on trust, after hearing it praised; but no sooner had they come than they wished themselves away again. one suggested that friends should be induced to stay for a summer and educate the place, which might thus be made bearable for them in the future; but the others would not hear of it--one trial was quite enough. we were all very confidential about our plans, and took pleasure in mutually discouraging each other. j---- and i were foolish, they said, to go to iona, where the cathedral was so insignificant that from the steamer they mistook it for the parish church. we, on our side, declared it worse than folly for them to go from bunessan to tobermory, the dreariest spot in all the dreariness of mull. in the end we agreed that our coming to the island was a mistake, and that no one but mr. black could have a good word to say for it. somehow, we made it seem--and it was a comfort to find some one else to abuse--as if he had brought us here under false pretences. but, indeed, whoever thinks to find mull as it is described in "macleod of dare" cannot but be disappointed. castle dare must have been not very far from bunessan, on the ross of mull. it was to this very inn lady macleod wished to send gertrude white and her father; and when you have seen the home of the macleods for yourself, you would have, like mr. black, no mercy for sir keith, but you would spare his sweetheart. the fact is, mr. black's descriptions are misleading, though i must admit that even as we found fault with him, one of his strange things happened; for, far out beyond the loch and its purple hills we saw staffa, and the sea below and the sky above it, turned to gold as the sun sank into the atlantic. but then, as a rule, the things that happen in mull are less strange than disagreeable. for one evening's loveliness, you must put up with hours of cold and damp discomfort. of course, if you own a castle or a yacht, you can improve your point of view. in the morning after this beautiful sunset, the wind blew the rain through the window in gusts over our toilet-table. again no one called us. the morning hours of the hebrides are even later than those of london, which we had hitherto supposed the latest in the working world. when we went down-stairs there were cups and saucers and plates on the breakfast-table, but nothing else; when we asked for our bill the maid said we should have it in a wee bittee, which we knew to mean long hours, and j----, as at kinloch, took matters into his own hands. for the first time we felt our superiority as we shouldered our knapsacks. because of the early rain and wind, the other people in the inn had given up the boat to tobermory. already, breakfast over, the rain stopped and clouds grew light. we were on our way to iona while they still made plans to follow us with their babies and bundles. [illustration: "one of his strange things happened."] the road lay for six miles over the moors. there were two or three large houses with cultivated fields, a few black dreary cottages, and the ruins of others. but this end of the ross of mull was mostly, as when david balfour walked across it, bog and brier and big stones. the coast was all rock, great piles of red granite jutting out in uneven masses into the sound that separates iona from the ross. when we reached it the ferryman had just come and gone. it was the th of august, and men with guns, in readiness for the morrow, were getting into a dog-cart, its horses' heads turned towards bunessan. two fishermen, in a boat filled with lobster nets, rowed to the tiny landing. we asked them to take us across, but with a word they refused. there was nothing to do but to sit on the rocks and wait, in fear lest the party from bunessan, with their children and endless boxes and bundles--thirteen, one man told us he had--should overtake us and give us and our knapsacks no chance in the inns of iona. wind and rain blew in our faces. the fishermen made off in their little boat, hugging the rocky shore. above us, on the granite, were two cottages, no less naked and cold. across the sound we looked to a little white town low on the wind-swept water, and to a towered cathedral dark against the gray-green rocks. a steamer had just brought cook's daily pilgrims to st. columba's shrine. [illustration] on the islands. all things come to those who wait, even the ferry-men of the hebrides; but the steamer had carried the pilgrims far from st. columba's island towards staffa before the little ferry-boat sailed with the wind, round the rocks, into the tiny bay by the landing. one passenger was put out, and a woman ran down from the black cottages for a bundle done up in a handkerchief, from which, as she took it, fell out broken pieces of bread and meat. unconsciously, these people are always reminding you of their poverty. there was no sailing in the teeth of the wind. the ferry-man and a small boy with him rowed, keeping under the shelter of the rocks as far as possible. at first both were silent. but we were fast learning that this silence is not the stupidity or surliness which the stranger in the islands is apt to think it. it comes rather of the sadness which has been the western islander's inheritance for generations, and of his shyness in speaking the foreign scotch--that is, if he can speak it at all--for which he is so often laughed at. once you break through the silence, and show the people that you do not look upon them as children or as slaves, they are friendly enough. all this part of the ross of mull, as far as we could see, belonged to the duke of argyll, our ferry-man said. there had been trouble here as in tiree, and the commission was coming in a week. he had only his house and his boat. five shillings and sixpence a year he paid; it was not much, but it was about the land there was trouble, and he had no land. we might have agreed with him and thought his rent no great thing, had we not seen his bare cottage, stranded on the bare rocks, probably built by himself or by his father before him. as it was, it seemed to us, if there was any question of payment, it should have been the other way. our stay in iona was the one perfect part of our journey. in the first place, we were free to wander where and how we chose without thought of long miles to be walked before nightfall, and, better still, without our knapsacks, which we left in the inn. it was no small surprise to learn that we had our choice of three hotels. after careful study of "macleod of dare," we rather expected to be stranded on an almost uninhabited island. we can now recommend mr. black, on his next visit, to try the very excellent house at which we stayed. this was st. columba's inn. we went to it, not so much to do honor to the saint as because it was the biggest in the place, the nearest to the cathedral, and commanded the finest view. [illustration: in the transept of the cathedral, iona.] southward, it looked to the broken walls of the nunnery rising high above house roofs and chimneys, and farther to a sweep of water, and farther still to the ross of mull, the low black rock of erraid, the isle mr. stevenson has made famous, at its far end. in the distance, shadowy islands lay over the gray sea. to the north was the cathedral and the ruined monastery. the inn was quite full, but the landlady promised us a room in the manse, a short way down the road. iona is the show-place by which we fancied the duke of argyll must hope to answer the question, once in a great while asked, about misery, terrorism, extortion, rent, in the hebrides. strangers come to the islands only to fish or to shoot. it is the exception when, as at iona, there are sights to be seen. they have time to give only a glance to the islander and his home. in iona this home seems decent enough; if you stop to ask the islander what he thinks, however, i doubt if it will be praise alone you will hear of his model landlord. above the stony beach, where boats lie among the rocks, is the village street, lined with white cottages; and beyond, fields of tall grain and good pasture slope upward to the foot of the low green hills, whose highest peak rises to the north of the village, a background for the cathedral. many of the cottages are new, others are whitewashed into comparative cheerfulness. the crops on the lower ground, the sheep and cattle on the hills, are pleasanter to see in an island where men live than endless wastes of heather. in iona the civilization of the monks of the dark ages has survived even the modern sportsman. [illustration: iona.] it is the fashion among writers of guide and other books about iona to call it a desolate, lonely little isle. that it is little i admit; but you must go to the other side of the sound for the loneliness and desolation. in proportion to its size, it seemed to us the most cultivated island of the hebrides. i have heard it argued that for the duke of argyll not to forfeit his ownership was a true charity to his tenants, as if iona was still the desert st. columba found it. but i think its rental would be found a fair return for the charity of a landlord. as for the favorite myth that iona is far out in the hebridean sea, i hardly know how it could have arisen, since the island is within easy reach of the main land and of mull. there is no history of its old monastery that does not tell how the pilgrim coming to it from the ross of mull had but to call a summons from the granite rocks, and the monks would hear the cry and make ready to meet him in their boats. if this be true, however, his voice must have been phenomenal. the modern pilgrim could no more do this than he could wield the long sword or pull the crossbow of men of old. in our time a steamer comes to iona every day from oban, and twice a week another stops on its way to and from glasgow and the outer hebrides. if iona lay so near american shores it would long since have become a bar harbor or a campo bello. even where it is it has its crowds of visitors. the writer who on one page tells you of its loneliness, on the next mourns its daily desecration when tourists eat sandwiches among the ruins. [illustration: tomb of macleod.] these ruins, like everything else in iona, belong to the duke of argyll. they are kept locked except when the keeper of the keys opens them to sight-seers. it may interest his grace to know that we trespassed, climbing over the low stone walls into the cathedral enclosure. while we were there we were alone, save for black sheep, the modern successors of the monks. it is a fact that as we stood with our feet upon macleod of macleod's tomb, one of the black sheep--probably the very same which frightened gertrude white in the moonlight--baaed at us. but the sun was shining, and we did not screech; we merely said _shoo_ to it, and remarked upon its impudence. if our piety, with dr. johnson's, did not grow warmer among the ruins of iona, at least our way of seeing them was not unlike boswell's. perhaps this is why we think he showed more commonsense in iona than elsewhere on his journey. he did not trouble to investigate minutely, he says, "but only to receive the general impression of solemn antiquity, and the particular ideas of such objects as should of themselves strike my attention." but indeed, unless you have a lifetime to spend in iona, unless you are an architect or an archæologist, there is little need to care where the exact site of infirmary or refectory or library may be, or to whom this shrine was set up, that tombstone laid, or in what year walls were built, windows opened. it is enough to see how beautiful the monks could make the holy place they loved, here on this rough northern coast, as in among the vineyards and olives of the south, as in english fenland and wooded valley. but if boswell's impression was one of disappointment, ours was one of wonder to find the ruins so much more perfect than we had expected, and so beautiful, not only with the beauty of impressiveness as a whole, but with a grace and refinement of detail one does not look for in the far north. much early italian work is not more graceful than the carving on the capitals, the tracery in the windows, the door-way leading into the sacristy, the arches that spring from the cloister walls to their outer arcade in the monastery and church founded by st. columba. if, as has been said, no ivy covers the walls, when we were there yellow flowers had pushed their way between the stones, while windows and rounded arches made a framework for the unbroken blue of sea and sky and pale distant hills. for so long as we were in the cathedral, the sun shone as if, instead of hebridean seas, the mediterranean lay beyond. true, this did not last half a morning; it rained before night; but the very breaks in the sunshine, and the way the clouds came and went, made the day more beautiful. it is strange to see this wonderful work of other days in an island where, owing to their present masters, men can now scarce support existence. centuries of progress or deterioration--which is it?--lie between the cathedral, lovely even in ruin, and the new ugly kirk close by. and yet when men had time to make their world beautiful the harvest was as rich. there was enough to eat and to spare for the stranger when the celtic knots and twists were first carved on the cross standing by the cathedral door and looking seaward, and on the tombs lying within the chancel. but, and more's the pity, the same cannot be said to-day, when tombs are crumbling, and pale green lichens cover the carving of the cross. you feel this contrast between past and present still more in the graveyard by st. oran's chapel, into which also we made our way over a stone wall. the long grass has been cleared from the gray slabs, where lie the mitred bishops and the men in armor, or where the intricacy of the celtic designs makes space for a ship with its sails spread. they are "only gravestones flat on the earth," as boswell says, and now neatly placed in senseless rows for the benefit of the tourist. but who would exchange them for the well-polished granite obelisks of the modern stone-cutter which rise at their side? the old road leads from the cathedral, past mclean's weather-worn cross--which is so thin you wonder that it still withstands the strong winds from the sea--to the nuns' convent, whose ruins and tombs show it to have been only less fine than the monastery. here the gate was thrown open. a small steam-yacht, which we could see lying at anchor in the sound below, had just let loose a dozen yachtsmen upon the loneliness of iona, and they were being personally conducted through the nunnery. we trespassed no more, except in fields on the western side of the island, whither we walked by the very road, for all i know, along which st. columba was carried in the hour before death, that he might once more see the monks working on the land he had reclaimed, and there give them his last blessing. but if we trespassed, no one objected. the men whom we met greeted us in gaelic, which, when they saw we did not understand, they translated into a pleasant good-day or directions about our path. there were many other places we should have seen. but since the whole island was a proof of st. columba's wisdom in settling on it, nothing was to be gained by a visit to the particular spot where he landed or where he set up a cairn. and as for the spouting cave, we took the guide-book's word for it; for as dr. johnson would say, we were never much elevated by the expectation of any cave. instead of sight-seeing, we stayed on the western shore, looking out beyond the low white and grass-grown sand-dunes and the bowlder-made beach to the sea, with its many rocky isles, the fear of seamen, black upon the waters. it is just such a coast as mr. stevenson has described in his "merry men." and, indeed, since i have written this i have read in his "memoirs of an islet" that it is this very coast, though more to the south of iona, where the _christ-anna_ and the _covenant_ went down to the bottom, there to rot with the _espirito santo_ and her share of the treasures of the invincible armada. when columba sailed from ireland to hebridean seas the merry men had long since begun their bonny dance, for they are as old as the rocks against which they dash, and these rocks are older than man. when you know the dangers of this coast you have no little respect for the saint who dared them. st. columba and his disciples, who set up cross and bell on lonely st. kilda and the far färöe islands, were the stanleys and burtons of their time. people who have never heard of crofters and their troubles can tell you all about st. columba and his miracles. in iona he interested us chiefly because all that is left of his and his followers' work gives the lie to modern landlords. land in the hebrides, they say, is only fit for deer and grouse. st. columba showed that it could be made fit for man as well. the landlady of st. columba's inn is true to the traditions of the island. she is as unwilling to turn the stranger from her door as were the abbots of st. columba's monastery. in her own way she performs miracles and finds room for every one who comes. at first we thought that her miracles were worked at our expense. during our absence the party from bunessan had arrived. although their boxes were on the rocks of the ross of mull, awaiting the ferry-man's convenience, by their very numbers they had gained the advantage we feared, and had quietly stepped into the room in the manse, of which we had neglected to take possession. we were now quartered in the school-house. however, to judge from our comfort there, we lost nothing by the change. it was at the late supper that we enjoyed the "dairy produce" of which miss gordon cumming writes with rapture. it was a simple meal, such as one might have shared with st. columba himself. the breakfasts and dinners, i should add, were less saintly, and therefore more substantial. as for the rest of the island, the fare is regulated by poverty and the duke. we make a great to-do at home over the prohibition question, but in the highlands they manage these matters more easily. ducal option, we were told, reigns throughout the island. and yet the people of iona are not grateful for thus being spared the trouble of deciding for themselves upon a subject whereon so few men agree. it has been whispered that drunkenness is not unknown in the blessed isle, and that natives have been seen by strangers--oh, the scandal of it!--reeling under the very shadow of the cathedral. a white-haired clergyman, with pleasant old-fashioned manners and gladstone collar, presided at supper. he introduced us at once to his family. "my son"--and he waved his hand towards a youth we had seen crossing the fields with his color-box--"my son is an artist; he is studying in the royal academy. he has already sold a picture for forty pounds. not a bad beginning, is it? and my daughter," and he lowered his voice deferentially, "will soon be in the hands of the critics. she has just made some wonderfully clever illustrations for an old poem that hit her fancy!" it was pleasant to see his fatherly pride. for his sake we could have wished her in an easier position. evidently, when you have exhausted saintly gossip in iona you are at the end of your resources. the clergyman and two or three others with him were as eager to hear where we had been and where we were going and what we had seen, as if they had had nothing to talk about for a fortnight. we had decided to take the _dunara castle_ from glasgow, and in it to steam to coll and tiree and the long island. we had heard of the steamer, as you hear of everything in the hebrides, by chance. and now the old man was all for having us change our minds. here we were, safe in iona, he said; why should we brave the dangers of the wild coast? another man thought we had better not go to harris; he had arrived there one saturday evening, intending to remain two weeks; but the midges would give him no peace, and he had left with the steamer on monday morning. the only comfort he could give was that they would feed us well on the _dunara castle_. it is strange that in scotland, no matter what your plans may be, your fellow-tourists are sure to fall foul of them. it was after this the clergyman brought out of his pocket a handful of the new coins, which we had not then seen. "it's an ugly face," said j----, thinking only of the coin, though it would have been no libel had he referred to her gracious majesty herself. but the clergyman was down upon him at once. "i cannot let any one speak disrespectfully of my queen in my presence," he cried; "i love her too dearly to hear a word against her." and he told us how, that afternoon, he had climbed to the top of the highest hill in iona; and standing where columba had stood so many hundreds of years ago, and remembering that this was the jubilee year of his beloved sovereign, he dropped a new shilling into the cairn which marks the spot where the monks first made their home. and yet i have a friend who, in the pages of the _atlantic monthly_, has tried to prove that sentiment is fast decaying. later, when this same sentimentalist told us of the poverty, hunger, and misery in iona, we thought that the shilling might have been dropped to better purpose. it was on a gray morning that an old hamish rowed us and two other passengers and a load of freight to the "dunara castle," which had dropped anchor in the middle of the sound. on deck we found four young sportsmen in knickerbockers and ulsters, their backs turned upon the cathedral, firing at sea-gulls and missing them very successfully. in fact, i might as well say here, they kept on firing and missing so long as they were on the steamer. a man with a wife, four children, three maids, and a deckful of baggage, was already preparing to get off at bunessan. the domestic energy of the englishman is only less admirable than his business-like methods of pleasure. a party of lowlanders were playing cards. a man of universal authority was telling a small group of listeners all about the geology and religion, the fishing and agriculture, of the islands. but as we sat in a corner, sheltered from the bitter cold wind, the talk that came to us was mostly of sport. "i played that brute for half an hour!" "i was fishing with a worm, i think." "the best thing for shooting rooks is an airgun." "he wasn't a particularly good shot." and all the time the brave sportsmen kept showing us what particularly bad shots they were. is tartarin's _chasse de casquettes_ really so much funnier than what is called sport in england? suddenly one of the scotchmen, leaving his cards to look about him, gave the talk an unexpected literary turn. "that feller, louis stevverson," he said, "laid one o' the scenes o' his keednopped here," and he pointed to the ross and erraid. "woo's 'e?" said a cockney. "'arts is trumps," announced a third, and literature was dropped for more engrossing themes. emerson was right. it would be a waste of time for the literary man to play the swell. even the handsome and gentlemanly authors of boston, who are praised by arlo bates, when they become known to the world at large may be but "fellers!" from the sound we steamed past the great headland of gribun, with the caves in its dark rocks, and into loch slach to the pier near bunessan. the sportsmen were the first to alight, and, with guns over their shoulders, they disappeared quickly up the hill-side. the father of the family, like a modern noah, stood on the pier to count his wife, children, maid, boxes, bundles, fishing-rods, and gun-cases, and to see them safely on dry land. it was fortunate for the original noah that he did not have a whole ship's company to feed when he left the ark. we were some time putting off and taking on freight. at the last moment, back ran the four sportsmen, bearing one bird in triumph. they parted with it sadly and tenderly. it was pathetic to see their regret after they had given it to a fisherman, who seemed embarrassed by the gift. i think they knew that it was the last bird they would bring down that day. then again we steamed past gribun. beyond it rose inch-kenneth and ulva, really "ulva dark" this morning. and one by one we left behind us, iona, its white sands shining, its cathedral standing out boldly against the sky; staffa, for a time so near that we could see the entrance to the great cave with its clustered piers; fladda, lunga, and the dutchman's cap. it was a page from "macleod of dare." and what were the dhu harteach men saying now? we could not help asking. everywhere we looked were tiny nameless islands and bits of rock, sometimes separated only by a narrow channel. and now the sun shone upon us in our corner and made us warm. and even after the hills of mull had begun to go down on the horizon, and iona and staffa had faded into vague shadows, we could see the dutchman, like a great phrygian cap set upon the waters. straight out we went to tiree, a long, treeless strip of land with low hills at one end, and a wide, sandy, jersey-like beach. a few houses, scattered here and there, were in sight. there was no pier. a large boat, with three men at each of the four long oars, came out to meet the steamer, and into it were tumbled pell-mell men and women, and tables, and bags of meal, and loaves of bread, and boxes. it is another of the duke of argyll's islands. looking at it from the steamship point of view, one could not but wonder if as much good might not be done for people, whose only highway is the ocean, by the building of a pier as by prohibition laws enforced by a landlord. as in iona, so in tiree, no spirits can be bought or sold. it is one of the anomalies of paternal government that the men made children turn upon their kind fatherly ruler. the crofters of tiree have given trouble even as have those of skye and lewis. they are shielded from drunkenness, and yet they complain that they have been turned from the land that once was theirs to cultivate, and that their rents have been for long years so high that to pay them meant starvation for their families. though these complaints are explained by the duke as "phenomena of suggestion" to the commissioners, part at least seemed well founded on fact. instead of £ s. according to his own estimate, his grace, according to that of the commission, is now entitled to but £ s. from the island of tiree. we had not time to land, but steaming past its miserable shores, it seemed dreary enough. st. columba showed what he thought of it when he sent penitents there to test their sincerity. the island of coll, to which dr. johnson and boswell were carried in a storm, was as flat and stupid and dreary. we had come as far as coll, partly because of the doctor's visit. but from this time until we left the hebrides we were so much taken up with what we saw as scarce to give him another thought. for a while we went many miles astray from his route. when you steam from tiree and coll, a broad stretch of the atlantic lies between you and the long island. if i had my choice, i would rather cross the channel from newhaven to dieppe, and that is saying the worst that can be said. the sunshine for the day came to an end. it was cruelly cold. the sportsmen fell prone upon the deck, and the intervals between their now languid shots were long. the man of authority shut himself up in his state-room, the best on the steamer. the card-players sat sad and silent. we, for our part, could only think of our folly in coming, and wonder if we too must be sick. surely walking could not be greater misery than this. though in these seas you are never quite out of sight of land, and never clear of the big and little rocks cropping up all around you, it was not until late in the afternoon that we came again close to large islands. they were wild and desolate, with hardly a house and but few cattle and sheep on their rocky shores. one or two boats, with brown sails raised, were jumping and pitching over the waves. [illustration: castle bay, from barra.] the gray wretchedness of the afternoon was a fit prelude to barra. when we came to castle bay, rain was falling upon its waters, on the battlemented castle perched upon a rocky, sea-weed-covered islet, and on the town, set against a background of high bare hills. but the steamer stopped, and we went ashore to look about us. a few ugly new houses, shops with plate-glass windows, often cited as proofs of the island's prosperity, and then the real barra: a group of black cottages--compared to which those of mull were mansions, those of kilchrennan palaces--running up and down the rocky hill-side. only by a polite figure of speech can the stone pile in which the hebridean crofter makes his home be called a cottage. it is, as it was described many years ago, but "a heavy thatched roof thrown over a few rudely put together stones." the long low walls are built of loose stones blackened by constant rain. the thatched roof, almost as black, is held in place without by a net-work of ropes, within by rafters of drift-wood. the crofter has no wood save that which the sea yields, and yet in some districts he must pay for picking up the beams and spars washed up on his wild shores, just as he must for the grass and heather he cuts from the wilder moorland when he makes his roof. not until you come close to the rough stone heap can you see that it is a house, with an opening for door-way, one tiny hole for window. from a distance there is but its smoke to distinguish it from the rocks strewn around it. at castle bay, where many of these "scenes of misery," as pennant called them one hundred years ago, were grouped together, there was not even the pretence of a street, but just the rock, rough, ragged, and broken, as god made it. the people who live here are almost all fishermen, and, as if in token of their calling, they have fashioned the thatch of their roofs into the shape of boats; one cottage, indeed, is topped with a genuine boat. there were a few chimneys, but smoke came pouring from the doors, from holes in the thatch and walls. many of the roofs bore a luxuriant growth of grass, with here and there a clump of daisies or of the yellow flowers which give color to highland roads. but this was all the green we saw on their hill-side of rock and mud. through open door-ways we had glimpses of dark, gloomy interiors, dense with smoke. we did not cross a threshold, however; to seek admittance seemed not unlike making a show of the people's misery. the women and girls who passed in and out, and stood to stare at us, looked strong and healthy. theirs is a life which must either kill or harden. many were handsome, with strangely foreign, gypsy-like faces, and so were the bonneted men at work on the pier. it may be that there is truth in the story which gives a touch of spanish blood to the people of the outer hebrides. if the ships of the armada went down with all their treasure, it is said that their crews survived, and lived and took unto themselves wives in the islands, from which chance of deliverance was small. we heard only gaelic spoken while we were at castle bay. the people of great britain need not go abroad in search of foreign parts; but an englishman who only wants to see the misery and wrongs of nations foreign in name as well as in reality, would find little pleasure in barra. when we left the steamer the four sportsmen were getting off with their baggage, of which there was no small quantity. when we returned, hours later, they were getting in again. the one hotel in barra was full. for consolation, i suppose, they shut themselves up in their state-room, and changed their trousers for the third time that day. their return brought to an end our bargaining for their state-room. the night in the ladies' cabin was one long nightmare. the steamer pitched and tossed as if she were still crossing the open atlantic. at the many stopping-places there was a great noise of loading and unloading. at midnight a mother, with her two babies and nurse, came to fill the unoccupied berths. [illustration: town of barra.] j----, in the saloon, fared little better. but the advantage of the restless night was that it sent us up on deck in time to see the eastern hills grow purple against the golden light of coming day. as in the evening, there was still land on either side. all the morning we went in and out of lochs and bays, and through sounds, and between islands. indeed, i know of no better description of the outer hebrides than the quotation given in the guide-book: "the sea here is all islands and the land all lakes." and the farther north we went, the drearier seemed this land--a fitting scene for the tragedy enacted on it, which, though now many years old, is ever young in the memory of the people; for it was here in uist that, in , men and women were hunted like beasts, tracked by dogs to the caves and wilds where they lay in hiding, bound hand and foot, and cast upon ships waiting to carry them against their will across the atlantic. we might have thought that no life had been left upon the islands but for an occasional wire fence, a sprinkling of sheep on the greener hill-sides, and lonely cottages, with thin clouds of blue peat-smoke hovering over them to show that they were not mere rocks. once, stretching across the wilderness we saw telegraph poles following the coast-line. it is wise to let them make the best showing possible. some of the islands are cut off telegraphically from the rest of the world. we stopped often. at many of the landings not a house was to be seen. as a rule, there was no pier. the steamer would give her shrill whistle, and as it was re-echoed from the dreary hills huge black boats came sailing out to meet us. instead of boats waiting for the steamer, as in the mississippi, here she waited for them. and when they had dropped their sails, and rounded her bows and brought up alongside her lower deck, there tumbled into them men and women, and loaves, and old newspapers, and ham bones, and bits of meat, for in the islands there are always people on the verge of starvation. at loch maddy, in north uist, the brave warriors left us, and other sportsmen in ulsters and knickerbockers, and with many fishing-rods, came to take their place. on shore stood a man in plain, unassuming kilt, in which he looked at home. we liked to fancy him a laird of uist in ancestral dress, and not like the youth at oban, a mere masquerader. we asked the purser who he was. "oh, that is mr. o'brien, of liverpool," was his answer. everybody had come up on deck, for the day was comparatively fine. it kept clearing and clouding, the sun now shining on the far hills and the rain pouring upon us; but again the showers were swept landward, and we were in sunshine. as we neared harris, a little old lady came bustling up. when the steamer stopped in the sound the men in the boats all touched their bonnets to her, a few even got on board to speak to her. she was better than a guide-book, and told the passengers near her all about harris. she explained the difficulties of the channel through the sound, which, like all hebridean waters, is full of islands and rocks hidden at high tide, and is unprotected by lights. she pointed out rodil church, whose gray tower just showed above the green hills. she always called this bit of harris the switzerland of the hebrides, she said. and with its checker-board-like patches of green and yellowing grain between the hills and the water, and lying, while we were there, in sunshine, it might have looked bright and even happy, but for the wretched cottages, of which there were more in this one place than we had seen on all the journey from iona. [illustration: mountains of harris, from tarbet.] once, as we watched the boats rounding the steamer's bows, we found ourselves next to this old lady. she seemed so glad to talk that we asked her could she perhaps tell us if the people of harris were as miserable as their cottages. "oh," she said, "their condition is hopeless!" and then she went on to tell us that she lived only for harris, and that there was no one who knew better than she its poverty. she was, we learned afterwards, mrs.--or mistress, as lowlanders on board called her--thomas. her husband had been a government surveyor in the island, and since his death she had interested herself in the people, among whom, for many years, she made her home. the story of harris, as she told it and as we have since read it in the report of the commission of , is in the main that of all the islands and highlands. it is the story of men toiling on land and sea, that by the sweat of their brow they may make, not their own bread, but the venison and game of others. thousands starve that two or three may have their sport. the land in the hebrides is barren, it is argued in behalf of the sportsmen. harris is the barrenest of all, mrs. thomas declared. we could see this for ourselves; after the switzerland of the hebrides, the mountains rose a solid mass of black rock with scarce a trace of vegetation. but even harris once supported its people. that was before they were made to share the land with the deer. to-day a few valleys and hill-sides are overcrowded, crofts divided and subdivided; while others once as green are now purple with heather, and silent save for the guns of sportsmen. deer forests and large farms grow larger and larger; crofts shrink, until from the little patch of ground, long since overworked, the crofter can no longer reap even that which he sows. and yet he sees better land, where perhaps once grew his potatoes and grain, swallowed up in the cruel moors. while his harvest is starvation, deer and grouse live and multiply. many villages were cleared when the great deer forest of harris was extended, not so many years ago. the people were turned from homes where they had always lived, the old with the young, and women about to become mothers. highlanders love their land. many went back again and again, even after their cottages were but black piles of ruin. because he evicts tenants who will not pay their rent, the irish landlord is called cruel. the evicted in the hebrides have hitherto been those who interfere with the landlord's convenience or amusement. the rent has had nothing to do with it. and yet of scotch evictions but comparatively little has been heard. journalists skilled in their trade have published abroad, from one end of the land to the other, the tale of irish wrongs. but who knows the injustice that has been done in scotland in order to lay waste broad tracts of good ground? "i will tell you how rodil was cleared," said john mcdiarmid, of scalpa, to the commissioners. "there were one hundred and fifty hearths in rodil. forty of these paid rent. when young macleod (the landlord) came home with his newly married wife to rodil, he went away to show his wife the place, and twenty of the women of rodil came and met them, and danced a reel before them, so glad were they to see them. by the time the year was out--twelve months from that day--these twenty women were weeping and wailing, their houses being unroofed and their fires quenched by the orders of the estate. i could not say who was to blame, but before the year was out one hundred and fifty fires were quenched." as in rodil, so it was where now stretches the deer forest of harris--wherever, indeed, deer are hunted in the highlands. whoever wants to learn the nature of some of the blessings which come to the many from the proprietary power and right of the few--a right and power to which the duke of argyll refers all advance in the highlands--let him read the "history of the highland clearances" as told by alexander mackenzie, the "gloomy memories of the highlands," by donald macleod, himself one of the evicted. their story is too cruel for me to tell again. their country was desolate; their cities were burned with fire; their land, strangers devoured it in their presence, and it was desolate. never did negro slaves in the south fare as did the highland men and women cleared from the glens and valleys of sutherland. slaves at least represented so much money; but the crofter was and _is_ less valuable to the laird than his sheep and his deer. slaves could be sold. this was the one thing which the landlord, despite all his rights, could not do with his crofters. he could burn their cottages, starve them and their families, turn them adrift, and chase them over seas, there perhaps to meet anew starvation, disease, and death. from every part of the highlands and islands, from ross and argyllshire, as from sutherland, hundreds and thousands were forced to fly, whether they would or not. and with those who stayed at home, how fared it? the evicted squatted, we would call it, on the crofts of friends and relations in other parts of the estate. there was no place else for them to go. when there, they sought to solve the bitterest problem of life--how to make that which is but enough for one serve for two--and therein were unsuccessful. the landlord washed his hands of them and their poverty. they had brought it upon themselves, he reasoned; if crofts were overcrowded, the fault was theirs. you might as well force a man into the jungle or swamp reeking with malaria, and then when he is stricken upbraid him for living in such a hot-bed of fever. mr. alfred russel wallace does not exaggerate when he says, "for a parallel to this monstrous power of the land-owner, under which life and property are entirely at his mercy, we must go back to mediæval, or to the days when, serfdom not having been abolished, the russian noble was armed with despotic authority, while the more pitiful results of this landlord tyranny, the wide devastation of cultivated lands, the heartless burning of houses, the reckless creation of pauperism and misery out of well-being and contentment, could only be expected under the rule of turkish sultans or greedy and cruel pashas." emigration is the principal remedy suggested. the landlords of old enforced it, and now, for very shame, are content to commend it. it is the remedy most to their taste. it would leave them alone with their sheep and their game. if the only highlanders were the gillies and shepherds, there would be an end of bothersome tales of wrongs, rousing the sympathy of the public. the real reason for emigration is that "any remedies which might be expected from land law reform or land acts will be and are likely to be long deferred, while in the mean time the people are dying like dogs from starvation." it has been urged that it would be better if many of the islanders, like men of the east coast, became fishermen altogether and gave up their land. but if they did, the gain would not be theirs. in many lochs and bays the people are not allowed to fish for food because gentlemen must fish for pleasure. few have boats for deep-sea fishing; none have money to buy them. as it is, in the long island they must compete with well-equipped fishing-smacks sent into northern seas from billingsgate markets.[g] not only this, but in both harris and lewis, piers and harbors are few, and fishing-boats must be light that fishermen may pull them up on shore beyond reach of the tide. in parts of the northern highlands people have been removed from the glens to the shores in hopes that they would become fishermen; but they were given no boats, no harbors. [g] i have just heard that americans are about to send fishing-vessels over to these waters. for skye and the long island, the nearest way to the main-land is by strome ferry, where the entrance to the harbor is intricate, and so poorly lighted that once the short winter days set in, as its passage cannot be attempted after dark, traffic between the islands and the main-land is seriously interrupted. but indeed one can but wonder at the few light-houses on this dangerous west coast. here and there one erected on a lonely rock far out at sea is a triumph of engineering skill. but the most difficult channels, the wildest coasts, are left without a light. in the course of our long journey in hebridean waters i think we saw but half a dozen. the life-boat institution in british islands is now supported by charity. it seems as if the light-house service as well must fall to the benevolence of advertisers and city corporations. it is well to say what the people ought to do; it is better to explain what they cannot do. they are hampered and held back on every side, and then the stranger is told that he need not pity them, they are so lazy. they are thriftless and good-for-nothing, lowlanders on the steamer assured us. when you first go among them you believe in their laziness. their little patches of potatoes and grain are full of weeds, and their ditches are choked; broken windows are mended with rags or heather, dirt and rubbish lie waiting to be cleared away. from their doors they step into the mud. a very little industry is needed to set these things right. you wonder if, after all, it may not be their own fault that they are so poor. but this is what a doctor of raasay told the commissioners, "the prevailing disease is poverty, and the chief remedy is food." the people have not enough to eat; that is why they do not work hard. you have but to look into their faces to know that they are starving. hardly a winter passes that food has not to be begged for them. even as i write, petitions come from a school-master in lewis. unless money and meal are sent to them, the people in his district cannot live through the winter. but until two years ago had they not been from morning to night, from night to morning, weak from hunger; if fields had been made to yield a richer harvest; if crofts and houses had been kept neat and pretty, the profit would have been the landlords'. the greater the people's industry, the higher the rent they paid. if they made improvements, the rent was raised. nor did they know at what moment the fruits of their labor might be swept away. the landlord had but to say, "i want my land, you must go," and their work of years had come to naught. no matter how long the crofter lived in the cottage where dwelt his father and grandfather before him, the day never came when he could say of a surety, "to-morrow this roof will be over my head, these fields and pastures will be mine to care for." in the hebrides, the landlord has always had rights; the crofter, until the passing of the crofters' bill of , had none. i remember that on that day on the boat, with the shores of hopeless harris in sight, mrs. thomas said to me, "there are two sides to the question, of course. the landlord has a right to do as he chooses with his own land." this is the argument of the landlords. they can quote scripture in its support. "a man may do as he likes with his own," an irish land-owner reminded his tenants the other day when he threatened to sweep them off the face of his estates. it is an old, well-worn argument; to answer it french revolutions and american civil wars have been fought. englishmen have been ever ready to dispute it abroad; at home they are its advocates. probably we ought to have seen this other side; i admit that it would have been far pleasanter. a few letters of introduction--at that time, at any rate, not impossible to obtain--would have opened the doors of many of the big houses on our route, would have furnished j---- with a gun and me with days of boredom, would have introduced us to the natives in another fashion; for, according to all accounts, they would then have greeted us as if they were slaves, and not the most fearless and independent people in great britain. of course we understand that strangers in the islands who do see this side of island life, find it as delightful as strangers in the south at home once found that of the old southern gentleman. but we defy any one who visits the islands after our manner, not to be filled as we were with the thought of the people's misery; for the bondage in which they are held to-day is more cruel than was that of slaves in the slave states of america or of serfs in russia. there are good landlords in the highlands, just as there were bad slave-owners in the south--men who give the half-starved, half-frozen crofter the blankets and meal which, if he were emancipated, he could provide for himself; for the crofter is no better, but indeed worse than a slave, since he must bear the burdens both of freedom and of slavery. he is free to pay more for land than it is worth, to be taxed for roads which are never built, and for schools where his language is scorned, and, in some islands, his religion dishonored; and, moreover, in proportion to his means, to be taxed more heavily than men in any other part of scotland; in some districts he is free to cut from the moorland peat for fuel, to gather from the shore sea-weed for manure, to take from waste lands heather or grass to thatch his roof, only if he pays for the privilege. here his freedom ends. in his house--the englishman's castle--he is so little his own master that he cannot keep a sheep or a pig or a dog, unless it be the will of his laird. if he asks to lay his grievances before the factor he is called a rebel, and warned not to dare speak in such fashion; and this by a landlord praised by the great world because of the winter distribution of blankets and meal. if his complaints should be listened to, there is little chance of redress from men who value rabbits and grouse more highly than they do their tenants. he is wholly at the mercy of the factor, who usually holds all the highest offices on the estate, and has the power, as at barra, to disenfranchise an entire island. this is the account of his position given by a minister in skye: "the crofter has no protection from the large tacksmen; if he makes a complaint he can get no redress. there is no law in skye. might is the only right, and that, too, in the last decade of the nineteenth century. one great evil which sadly needs reform is the state of terrorism under which the small tenantry live through the insolent threats of subordinate officials, whose impudence increases in proportion to the smallness of their authority." it was time, indeed, when the royal commission was sent to the highlands; and yet, though the commission has reduced rents and cancelled arrears, it has not struck at the root of the evil--the existing relations between landlord and crofter. [illustration: gathering peat.] the crofter's representative in parliament is often, fortunately not always, a stranger who comes just before or after his election--as a candidate for skye came to that island while we were there--and tells the people he has never been there before, they do not know him as yet, but he hopes they may later; and then he steams away in his yacht. whether elected or not, we may feel sure he will never come again. but what is to be hoped for from parliament? "they are all landlords in the house of commons: what will they do for us?" the crofters and cotters of lewis asked the other day. that is why they are taking matters into their own hands. they know there is no one else to help them. in a body they marched upon deer forest and sheep farm, and scattered over the island or drove into the sea sheep and deer. when there were no more sheep and deer, the landlord would be glad enough to give them back land which in days of old was green with their crops. and now, in further proof of the justice done to crofters, the leaders of these raids await trial in edinburgh, to which town they cannot afford to bring their witnesses, and where no lawyers of note will defend them.[h] [h] i have explained elsewhere the result of this trial. the crofter is a slave not only to landlord and factor, but often to the merchant. the englishman, when he finds the truck system far from home, cannot too strongly revile it. a report has but come from newfoundland declaring that because of it a newfoundlander is no more master of his own destiny than was a mediæval serf or a southern negro in . the writer need not have gone miles to the colonies to expose an evil which exists in the british isles but miles from london.[i] the duke of argyll regrets that it is employed in tiree. his power as proprietor, the one power for good on his estates, stops short most unaccountably where other people might think it could be exercised to best advantage. many western islanders, like newfoundlanders, are bound hand and foot to the merchant. the latter provides them on credit with all the necessaries of life, often the poorest in quality, but always the highest in price. in return the crofter's earnings, before he has gained them, belong to the merchant, who, moreover, is at times his employer as well as his creditor. in harris the women support their families by weaving the famous harris cloth. to edinburgh and london tailors it brings good profit; to them, starvation wages, paid in tea or sugar or meal. no money is in circulation on the island. harris people have given their consent to emigrate, and then at the last moment have been kept prisoners at home because of a debt of years against them. [i] a truck act has been passed which has somewhat modified the system in the hebrides, but, as we have learned from a reliable source, it has not proved effectual. as we lay by the island of scalpa, not far from tarbert, a man came on board from one of the boats. he had a roll of cloth under his arm. he gave it to mrs. thomas, and asked if some one on board would buy it. as we looked at it he said nothing, but the pitiful pleading of his eyes, and their more pitiful disappointment as he turned away with his cloth, told the story. she tried to dispose of their cloth for them, mrs. thomas said; and we have since heard that she buys more from them than even the local merchant. [illustration: the "dunara castle."] the _dunara castle_ finally anchored at tarbert. the principal building in the village was the large white manse, half hidden in trees. a parson's first care, even if he went to the cannibal islands, would be, i fancy, to make himself, or have made for him at somebody else's expense, a comfortable home. there were also on the outskirts of the village two or three new, well-built cottages for men in lady scott's, the landlord's, direct service, and a large, excellent hotel, the only place in tarbert where spirits could be bought. the rich may have their vices, though the poor cannot. beyond was misery. wherever we went in the island we found a rocky wilderness, the mountains black as i have never seen them anywhere else, their tops so bare of even soil that in the sunlight they glistened as if ice-bound. here and there, around the lochs and sloping with the lower rocky hills, were weed-choked patches of grain and huts wreathed in smoke, their backs turned hopelessly to the road. near tarbert there was one burrowed out like a rabbit-hole, its thatched roof set upon the grass and weeds of the hill-side. just below, in the loch, lady scott's steam-yacht came and went. beyond, her deer forest, a range of black mountains, stretched for miles. within sight and low on the water were the thick woods, in the heart of which stands her shooting-lodge. the contrast gave the last bitter touch to the condition of the people. they starve on tiny crofts, their only homes; their landlord holds broad acres as play-ground for a few short weeks. the hovels were as cheerless within as without. i do not know why it is that one takes liberties with the poor which one would not dare take with the rich. it is no small evil of poverty that it is everybody's privilege to stare at it. the people of harris are hospitable, and receive the stranger with courtesy, but you can see that they resent the intrusion. it is not, i fear, to our credit that curiosity got the better of our scruples. we knocked at a cottage door, one sunday afternoon, j----, as an excuse, asking for a light. as we drew near we heard the voice of some one reading aloud. now it was silenced, and a tall old man in his shirt-sleeves came to the door with an open bible in his hands. within, on the left, was the dwelling-room of the household; on the right, the stable, cattle, and family share the only entrance. into the room, through a single pane of glass, one ray of daylight fell across the rembrandt-like shadows. on the mud floor, at the far end, a fire of peat burned with a dull red glow, and its thick, choking smoke curled in clouds about the rafters and softened the shadows. we could just make out the figures of two women crouching by the fire, the curtained bed in the corner, the spinning-wheel opposite. all other details were lost in gloom and smoke. until you see it for yourself, you could not believe that in our nineteenth century men still live like this. miss gordon cumming says that to the spinning and weaving of the women "is due much of such comfort as we may see by a peep into some of their little homes." but our peep showed us only that women weave and men work in vain, and that to speak of comfort is mockery in a cottage of harris, or, indeed, in any cottage we saw in any part of the islands, for all those we went into were alike in their poverty and their darkness. as a rule, the fire burned in the centre on a circle of stones, and over it, from the roof, hung chain and hook for the kettle. they have not changed one jot or tittle since, a century ago, they moved pennant to pity. [illustration: interior of a weaver's cottage.] as we left the hut on the hill-side, the first we visited, "i beg pardon," said the old crofter, who had not understood j----'s thanks. his words seemed a reproach. we felt that we should be begging his pardon. to force our way in upon him in his degradation was to add one more to the many insults he has had to bear. he stood at the door a minute, and then went back into the gloom of the low room, with its mud floor and smoky rafters, which he calls his home. all day long, even when the sun shone, as it did at intervals during our stay, harris was a land of sorrow and desolation, but in the evening it became a land of beauty. the black rock of the mountain-side softened into purple shadows against the gold of sky and sea, and in this glory the hovels and the people and the misery disappeared. and when the sun sank behind the western waters and the gold faded, there fell a great peace over the island, and with it began the twilight, that lingered until it grew into the coming day. it was on sunday mornings that there was greatest stir in tarbert. then the people came from far and near to meet in the little kirk overlooking the loch. we were told that comparatively few were at home. this was the season when they go to the east coast, the men to the fishing, the women to the curing-houses; but we thought they came in goodly numbers as we watched them winding with the road down the opposite hill-side, and scrambling over the rocks behind the town. boats one by one sailed into the loch and to the pier, bringing with them old women in clean white caps and tartan shawls, younger women in feathered hats and overskirts, men in bonnets and blue sailor-cloth. they were a fine-looking set of people, here and there among them a face beautiful with the rich, dark beauty of the south--all that is left of the armada. as they came up upon the pier they stopped in groups under the shelter of a boat-house, for the wind was high, the men to comb their beards and hair, the women to tie one another's bonnet-strings and scarfs, to smooth one another's shawls. and all the time scarce a word was spoken; they were as solemn at their toilet as if already they stood in church. the islanders are as melancholy as the wilderness in which they live. the stranger among them never gets used to their perpetual silence. their troubles have made them turn from the amusements they once loved. the pipes now seldom are heard in the hebrides. their one consolation, their one resource, is religion, and to them religion is a tragedy. nowhere was the great conflict in the church of scotland fought with such intensity, such passion, as in skye. that same sunday in harris, we met the people coming home over the hills, and still they walked each alone, and all in unbroken silence. and this sabbath stillness lasts throughout the week. it is not only in mr. black's novels you meet kings in the lews. from out of the boats laden with worshippers there stepped the king of scalpa. he is a campbell, we were told; and what is more, if he had his rights it is he who would bear the argyll titles, enjoy the argyll wealth, instead of the campbell who calls himself duke and writes books in the castle at inverary. his story is the usual romance of the highlands: a murder, a flight, the succession of the younger brother to titles and estates, the descendants of the murderer, exiles in a far island. and so it is that the real duke of argyll is but a merchant in scalpa. however, if the so-called duke had nothing more serious to fear than the pretensions of the king of scalpa, he might rest at ease. it is his right not to a name, but to the privilege to do with his own as he likes, that he must needs defend. he can afford to ignore the campbells of the outer hebrides; but let him fight with his deadliest weapons against the crofters who to-day pay him rent. all the arguments he has set forth in "scotland as it was, and scotland as it is," in themselves are not enough to avert the day of reckoning which even to him, apparently, seems so near at hand. we left harris, as we came to it, in the _dunara castle_, and dropped anchor in the bay of uig, in skye, one morning while the day was still young. the shores were circled about with patches of grain and potatoes and many cottages; and skye, as we first saw it, seemed fair and fertile after the rocks of harris. its people are little better off, however. it was here, about uig, on the estates of captain fraser, that crofters rebelled in as those of lewis are rebelling to-day. their rents in many cases have been reduced, their arrears cancelled. but landlords as they exist, or crofters, must go before there can be more than negative improvement in the islands. [illustration: doing skye.] when we were rowed to the shore the landlord of the uig inn stood posing as modern warden of the brand-new round tower on the hill-top. he took our knapsacks, and set us on the way to the quiraing. a steep climb up a wooded corrie brought us to the moors, the long purple distances unbroken save for the black lines marking where the peat had been cut, and the black mounds where the cuttings had been piled at intervals along the road. once we passed men and women loading a cart with them. once we saw a rude shepherd's hut, on a little hillock, surrounded by sheep. and in the long walk, that was all! when we started across the moorland the sun shone and the morning was hot. when suddenly the moorland came to an end and gave way to the tall jagged rocks of the quiraing, the sky was all gray and the mist fell fast behind us. we left the road for a foot-path, and at once lost our way. we scrambled over rocks, slipped up and down soft spongy hills, jumped streams, and skirted lochs, j---- stopping in the most impossible places to make notes. we were now ankle-deep in mud, now knee-high in wet grass and heather. the guide-book says the quiraing cannot be described; i am sure i cannot describe it, for the simple reason that i did not see it. at first i was too much taken up in trying not to kill myself; when the climbing was a little less dangerous and i looked about me, there was nothing to be seen. the mist had hidden the top of the rocks and was rolling down fast towards us. j---- was very anxiously looking at the guide-book and at the sea. suddenly he seized me and pulled me, panting, behind him, over bowlders, through bracken, down a hill as steep as a house, in our hurry starting avalanches of stones. then he jumped into the bed of a stream, down which we rushed, up to our knees in water, to the loch at the bottom. it was a mad flight. but by this time we could not see our hands before us. "i am half dead," said i. "if you don't come on we'll both be dead," said j----. and just then, more by good luck than good management, we found ourselves on a road. j---- had studied the lay of the land before our start. he knew this must be the road by the coast, twice as long on its way to uig as that over which we had come; but there was no finding our way back in the mist. it fell from above, it rose from the ground, it closed about us on all sides. in a few minutes cloaks and hoods were soaked. we tried to be as indifferent as the highlomaniac who pretends he likes this sort of thing. we sat on a stone by the way-side to eat the few sandwiches we had brought with us, and declared it an excellent joke. we walked across a dripping field as calmly as if it had been dry land, so that we might not come face to face with a monstrous bull which kept our path. and when the road came out close to the sea, and the mist turned into a driving rain, j---- even pulled out his guide-book and on its back made mysterious scrawls, which he said represented duntulm castle, a gray ruin on a high cliff, looking seaward. there were by the road many groups of huts black, soaked, chimneyless; always near them a large manse and sometimes a larger school-house, which the people must maintain if they starve for it. women with hunger on their faces looked after us. children with old brown bags tied about their waists for all clothing stood at the doors to watch, but not one smiled at the sight. and yet we must have been funny! and the villages were silent as the moorland. there was not a voice to be heard. the women to whom we spoke shook their heads; "no english," was their only answer. the one person we found who could talk it was a man, and he had so many gutturals we could scarce understand him. near duntulm castle was a shooting-lodge; on the water a steam-yacht lay at anchor. the slave-driver is found for at least six weeks in the midst of his slaves. we arrived at the inn about three in the afternoon, drenched and weary. a room was ready for us, a bright fire burning on the hearth. they always expected people to come home wet, the landlord's daughter said. she carried off our wet clothes; she lent me a dress; she brought us hot whiskey and water. one must be thoroughly tired to know what comfort means. we had our tea with two english maiden ladies of the species one meets in swiss and italian pensions. we sat in a well-warmed room at a well-spread table. in the black, smoky huts half-starved men, women, and children were eating dry oatmeal; a few, perhaps, drinking tea with it. this is the extravagance with which the crofters have been reproached. they buy, or rather go into debt for, tea and sugar as well as meal, and therefore their landlords think them prosperous. they have never been so well off before, the commissioners were told; once they lived on shell-fish throughout the summer. yes, it was true, a minister of snizort admitted, they did drink tea. but the people have no milk, now pasture-land has been taken from them. the landlord needed it for his large sheep farms and deer forests. i suppose they should go back to the shell-fish as of old. if they have food to eat, why complain of its quality? if this be so, if crofters of to-day, compared to their ancestors, live in luxury, then has the time indeed come when something should be done for them. who will call them lazy or indifferent who has considered what the life of the islander has been for generations? the wonder is that he has energy enough to keep on living. we went the next day to dunvegan. the road lay over long miles of moors, with now and then beautiful distant views of the mountains of harris, but pale blue shadows oil the western horizon, and of the high peaks of the cuchullins, dark and sombre above the moorland. here and there at long intervals we came to the wretched groups of cottages we had begun to know so well. old witch-like women and young girls passed, bent double under loads of peat or sea-weed, so heavy that were the same thing seen in italy, english people would long since have filled columns of the _times_ with their sympathy. as it is, these burdens are accepted as a matter of course, or sometimes even as but one of the many picturesque elements of highland life. from one writer one hears of the skye lassies, half hidden under bundles of heather, stopping to laugh and chatter; from another of lewis women knitting contentedly as they walked along with creels, bearing burdens that would have appalled a railway porter of the south, strapped to their backs. we saw no smiles, no signs of contentment. on the faces of the strongest women there was a look of weariness and of pain. but perhaps the most pathetic faces in this land of sorrow were those of the children, already pinched and care-worn. i know others who have felt this even as we did. an englishman who last summer spent a week in skye has since told us how day after day he and his wife went upon their excursions lunchless, because in the first village to which they came they emptied their luncheon-basket among the half-naked, half-starved children they found there. they could not bear the sight of the hungry little faces. but even in his sympathy, the general poverty seemed to him only right, he said, since it is in such perfect harmony with the dismal, dreary land in which the people live. if they were happy, however, if moors and hills were green with their crops, would it still seem so dismal? [illustration: a real highland lassie.] that day and those which had preceded and those which followed we went into many huts, talked to many people. we became bold because we wished to learn for ourselves the truth of what we had heard, and not to be prejudiced by hearsay. the crofter's hut is felt to be a disgrace to the highlands. the landlord shifts all responsibility. the crofter alone is at fault; he has no shame in living in his hovel, which is scarcely fit to shelter a dog. this is the favorite argument. how the crofter, without money, without other materials than those at his disposal, could build anything better has not as yet been explained. if, however, he does contrive to make it better, his rent is raised, and he might, until within two years, have been turned out on the morrow. if he moves into a house set up by a landlord there is again question of higher rent, though he may find it has been put up so cheaply that cold winds pour through cracks and crannies, heavy rains soak through roof and walls. in his own black hut, if he lives with his cattle he can at least keep warm. his contentment in his degradation is a myth. to many cottages we were absolutely refused admittance. ours was not the experience of miss gordon cumming. whenever we approached a cottage, a kindly voice did not bid us welcome. i remember one in particular where the door was shut against us. of a woman of the village who could speak english--and it must be borne in mind that with few rare exceptions people in the hebrides speak but gaelic--and who had already shown us her smoky, dismal home, we asked that we might be let in to see the old loom. no, was the first answer sent out; its owner will not be dressed. no, was the second; the loom will not be working. no, was the third and final; "we wass just pretending about the loom; it wass the house we wanted to see." in another, though the woman drew up chairs by the peat smouldering and smoking in the middle of the floor, there was no mistaking she looked upon us as intruders. she shook her head and said without a smile, "no english," when we spoke to her; and then she turned her back and began to comb her hair. a bright, fresh-looking girl who rowed us over the water near kingsburgh house received us more amiably. it was the usual interior, thick with smoke, all details lost in black shadow, though without the sun was shining. "you will find our houses very queer places to live in," she said. and as she ferried us across, every few minutes she turned and asked if we didn't find their cottages queer homes. nothing is left of flora macdonald's house which has made kingsburgh famous. but our ferry-woman pointed to a clump of trees on the shores of the loch where it once stood. "flora macdonald was a good friend of the people," she said; "she was a strong woman and clever, and she helped to hide prince charlie from those who were in search of him, and for that reason she will be loved and remembered." strange as it may seem, these were her words. they so struck us at the time that i wrote them down once we were on shore again. i have heard people wonder at the intelligence italian peasants show in expressing themselves; but it is not more striking than that of western islanders. when they could speak english, it always made us marvel. no one can read the report of their evidence before the royal commission without marvelling with us. it was not only in skye we talked to the people; already in harris we had much to say to those who had the english. the very fact that we were walking, a great part of the time with packs on our backs, made the people meet us on more friendly terms than if we drove in coaches or sailed in yachts. we were strangers, it was evident; but we were not sportsmen or moneyed tourists. on every side we heard the same story of hated landlords and exhausted crofts. we know that what we say can have but little influence for good or evil. and yet when we remember the sad stories to which we listened, and the cruel lot of those who told them, we would not run the smallest risk of making that lot still more cruel, those stories still more sad. there is ill-feeling enough between hebridean landlords and their slaves. in three cases at least crofters were turned from their crofts because they gave evidence to the commissioners of . it is well to be on the safe side. the chances are, not a landlord will know that we have been writing about his estates after walking over them; but we think it best to give no clew to the identity of men who told us in a friendly way that which already had been proclaimed officially. the chief complaint was the same wherever we went: "we have not enough land; we could and would pay rent willingly if we had more ground to cultivate. as it is, our crofts are not large enough to keep us in food." the outside world has been busy watching the battle in ireland; little attention has been spared to the highlands; yet every small paragraph on the subject for which newspapers can make room, between accounts of stolen breeches and besieged members of parliament, shows the determination of the men who are fighting the same battle in the far north. if troops are kept in ireland, if welsh tithes can only be collected by hussars, war-ships are sent to the islands. if irishmen, protected by a land league, refuse to pay rent, so do scotch crofters. indeed, the latter are far more determined and daring. they know, too, how to hold together. in glendale, an out-of-the-way corner of skye to which strangers seldom penetrate, not a crofter has paid rent for five years. an old man, tenant on another estate, told us about them with pride. "no, sir," he said, "they have no paid a penny for five years, but the factor he will keep friends with them. he will know ferry well if he wass not their friend it will be worse trouble that will be coming whatever." he was a fine, healthy old man, between sixty and seventy; and when he found that we sympathized, he walked about half a mile just to talk with us. he pretended he came to show us the way, but as the road was straight before us it was easy to see through his excuse. j---- asked him what he thought about the crofter question. "i will be a real old land leaguer every time," he declared; and then he went on to tell us that in his part of the island the crofters held together like one man. the commission was coming; it was slow, but they would wait for it. then, if it did not improve their condition, they would take matters into their own hands. their landlord was good enough, as landlords went; he was a civil-spoken gentleman if rents were paid on the very day they were due, but that was about all that could be said for him. rents were not so high on his estate as on others, but the taxes were heavy, and it was more land they needed. "you will see those potatoes"--and he pointed to a tiny green patch sloping down from the road to a ditch, beyond which was heather--"you will see for yourself they grow well whatever. and they would be growing as well on the other side of the ditch, where i myself have planted them in other days. but what will grow there now? heather and ferns! and it will be heather and ferns you will see as far as you can for twelve miles. if they will be giving us more land, sir, it's no trouble from the highlanders they will be having; but if they don't give it to us we will take it." [illustration: dunvegan castle.] he shook hands heartily with us both when he left. one may doubt the demagogue who uses the people's suffering for political capital; but one can but respect a man like this sturdy old crofter, himself one of the people, who knows his wrongs and determines to right them. his methods may be illegal; so have been those of many men who have struggled for freedom. at dunvegan inn we were again in civilized society. we dined with two young men from london who were followed even here by the _saturday review_ and the _standard_. they took interest in the evicted irish, and ignored the existence of highland crofters; they could tell us much of the fish, but nothing of the fishermen. they were anxious to direct us to many howling wildernesses within an easy walk of the dinner-table, where we could escape from the people; and when the people, in the shape of two aberdeen farmers, full of the crofter's wrongs, appeared at breakfast, they went from the room in disgust. i think this disgust would have been greater had they known how much more interesting we found the farmers. beyond the inn the road led through a dense wood to the castle of the macleod of macleod. trees will not grow on hebridean soil until the laird wishes to raise them for himself; then they thrive well enough. of course we did not expect to find them growing on northern exposed shores; but surely there must be other sheltered spots besides those directly around the laird's house. however, it is the same with his crops; broad acres are covered by his grain and that of his large tenants; his pasture-land is fresh and green. it is a strange fact that only when the crofter asks to cultivate the land does it become absolutely barren. it is but a step from the wild, lonely moorland to the beautiful green wood at dunvegan. landward it shuts in the castle, whose turreted keep rises high above the ivy-grown battlemented walls, crowning a rocky island in a sheltered corner of the loch. the water has been drained from the natural moat, but the rock falls sheer and steep from the castle gate, and the drawbridge still crosses the gulf below. we did not go inside; we were told that the present wife of the macleod objected to visitors, even though she admitted them. we believe there are tapestries and old armor and the usual adjuncts to be seen for the asking, such things as one can find in any museum; but it is only by going to the islands that you can see the crofters' wrongs. almost at the end of the woods, and yet sheltered by them, was a pretty old-fashioned flower-garden, surrounded by well-clipped hedges, and as well cared for as the garden of an english castle. nearer to the inn, on a low hill, was the graveyard of the macleod. we pushed open the tumble-down gate and squeezed through. a hundred years ago dr. johnson found fault with the bad english on lord lovat's tomb; to-day we could hardly find the tomb. the stone on which the inscription was carved lay in pieces on the ground. it may be that the macleod of macleod has bankrupted himself to save his tenants from starvation. this is most praiseworthy on his part. but we could not help thinking that if he and all the macleods, from one end of great britain to the other, are so anxious to be buried here, they might among them find money enough to free the enclosure of their dead from the whiskey bottles and sandwich tins left by the tourist. the resting-place of the dead macleod lies desolate; not far off is the garden, with smooth lawn and many blossoms. a few flowers less, perhaps, and at least the bottles and tins that defile what should be a holy place, could be cleared away. and this graveyard, with its broken tombs and roofless chapel, is a ruin of yesterday. a century ago dr. johnson saw it still cared for and in order. the people in dunvegan told us that twenty years since the roof fell in; it has never been repaired. we have been to the graveyard of old st. pancras in london, where every few minutes trains rush above the desecrated graves; but here the dead are unknown, or else, like mary wolstonecraft and godwin, their tombs have been removed beyond the reach of modern improvements. we have been to the protestant burying-ground in the cemetery of old st. louis in new orleans, neglected because those who lie there belong to the despised faith. and yet neither of these is dishonored as is the graveyard where sleep the macleods of the far and near past, whose greatness the living macleods never cease to sing. beneath the weeds are old gray slabs, with carvings like those of iona; in the ruined weed-grown chapel walls are fresh white marble tablets. at dunvegan the dead are not forgotten, not despised; they are only neglected. the mower comes and cuts the long grass from above their trampled graves. let the laird make hay while the sun shines, for the day is coming when the storms, forever brooding over the isle of mists, will break forth with a violence he has never felt before, and he and his kind will be swept away from off the face of the land. [illustration: graveyard of the macleod.] to-day macleod of macleod is a poor man. one year of famine, to keep the crofters from starving, he emptied his own purse. it is but another proof of the uselessness of charity in the hebrides. what did it profit the crofters that macleod became for their sake a bankrupt? they still starve. he who would really help them must be not only their benefactor, but their emancipator. from dunvegan to struan it was all moorland. the shadeless road ran for miles between the heather, from which now and again, as we passed, rose the startled grouse. far in front were the cuchullins, only their high, jagged peaks showing above the clouds that hung heavy about them. the little struan inn, which we had to ourselves, was low down by the water, at the foot of a wide hill-side planted with turnips. on the brow of the hill, like so many bowlders in the mud, were strewn the huts of a miserable village. manse and kirk were at a becoming distance across the road. though this was after the th of august, when the wilderness of skye is supposed to be of some use, we saw in miles of moorland one man fishing, and a second shooting; for the latter a carriage waited on the road below. in order that these two, and perhaps half a dozen more like them, should have a fortnight's amusement, the land from dunvegan to sligachan has been cleared of its inhabitants. on the high-road between these two places--a distance of about twenty-two or twenty-three miles--there are not above a dozen huts, and only one or two decent houses. it is true, there is a large and flourishing distillery. after struan we were still on the moors. the only breaks in the monotony were the showers, the mile-stones, and the water-falls. the mountains, upon which we had counted for the beauty of the walk, were now completely lost in the clouds. not until we were within two miles of sligachan did the thick veil before them roll slowly up, showing us peaks rising beyond peaks, rugged hollows, and deep precipices. but it fell again almost at once, and for the rest of the way we saw but one high mountain coming out and being swallowed up again in the mist and clouds. near the inn, and a hundred yards or so from the road, was a reedy pool. a man stood in the water, a woman on the shore, both silently fishing in the rain. it is in duck-puddles like this--in which, were they at home, an american boy would sail his boat or throw his line to his heart's content--that guests in highland inns, by special kindness of the landlord, are allowed to fish, this permission being advertised as a leading attraction of the inn. we intended to stay a day or two in sligachan. we wanted to see the cuchullins and the much-talked-about loch coruisk. but here we found that we were again on the tourist route from which we had gone so far astray. there was not a room to be had in the inn. it was full of immaculately dressed young ladies and young oxford men, all with their knickerbockers at the same degree of bagginess, their stockings turned down at the same angle. we might have thought that the landlady objected to tramps when the company was so elegant, had she not offered to put us up in the drawing-room and found places for us at the _table-d'hôte_ luncheon. the talk was all of hotels and lochs and glens and travels. how long have you been in skye? is this your first visit? did you come by loch maree? at what hotel did you stay in oban? but there was not a word about cottages; for there is nothing in sligachan, or near it, as far as we could see, but this swell hotel, which seemed very good. beds in the drawing-room meant to be at the mercy of the company. we did not hesitate. and still the moors stretched out before us. no one who has not tramped in skye can imagine its dreariness. in portree, a miniature oban, we lost all courage. we might have gone back to loch coruisk. we might have tramped to take a nearer view of the old man of storr, which we had already seen in the distance. we might have walked to armadale, or steamed to strome ferry. there were, in fact, many things we could and should have done; but we had seen enough of the miserable life in the islands--those great deserts, with but here and there a lovely oasis for the man of wealth. our walks had been long; we were tired physically and sick mentally. and so, early one morning, we took the boat at portree and steamed back to the main-land; past raasay, where dr. johnson stayed, and where there was a big house with beautiful green lawn and fine woods; past glenelg, where we should have landed to follow the doctor's route, but the prospect of a thirty miles' walk to reach the nearest inn made cowards of us; past armadale, now as when pennant saw it, "a seat, beautifully wooded, gracing most unexpectedly this almost treeless tract;" past one island of hills after another; and thus into the sound of mull, to get a glimpse of tobermory in sunshine. it was a lovely day; sea and sky and far islands blue, the water like glass; though, before it had come to an end, we had twice fled to the cabin from heavy showers. there were many sight-seers on board, and we could but wonder why. the women read novels, the men went to sleep. but they had done their duty--they had been to scotland for the holidays; they had probably seen the quiraing and dunvegan. but they had not gone our way. the coach roads are those from which the least misery is visible. that evening oban did its best for us. the sun went down in red fire beyond mull's now purpling hills. and as the burning after-glow cooled into the quiet twilight, we looked for the last time on the island of mull. it seemed in its new beauty to have found peace and rest. may this seeming have become reality before we again set foot on hebridean shores! note.--the crofters' act of was supposed to do away with the crofters' wrongs. as yet it has accomplished little. in some cases the commissioners appointed for the purpose have lowered the extortionate rents which crofters have been starving for years to pay. now that agitation in the islands has made it absolutely necessary that something should be done for the people, in one or two test cases, those clauses of the act which prevent landlords evicting tenants at their own pleasure have been enforced. beyond this the condition of the people is absolutely no better than it was before the act was passed. they have not enough land to support them, and when they appeal for more, their landlord answers, as lady matheson has just answered her small tenants in the lewis, "the land is mine; you have nothing to do with it." nothing has been done for the cotters who have no land at all; nothing for fishermen, who are, if possible, worse off at the end of the fishing season than they were at the beginning. the money appropriated for the building of piers and harbors and the purchase of boats has not as yet been put to its proper use. [illustration] [illustration] to the east coast, and back again. one always hears of highland scenery at its best; one usually sees it at its worst. we found the trip from oban to inverness up the caledonian canal as tedious as it is said to be charming. the day was gray and misty and rainy. in the first boat we sat in the cabin, in the second under an awning. occasionally we went on deck to look for the sights of the journey. as we steamed up loch linne a scotchman pointed out ben-nevis. "well," said j----, critically, "if you were to put a top on it, it might make a fairly decent mountain." after that we were left to find the sights for ourselves. the day would have been unbearably dull but for the exertions of a mr. macdonell. he was, i am as ashamed to say as he seemed to be, our fellow-countryman. he did not look in the least like an american, nor like an englishman, though his ulster, coat, trousers, collar, necktie, gloves, and hat were all so english. he was a middle-aged man, handsome, and gentlemanly enough until he began to talk. at the very start he told everybody on board in general and each individual in particular that he was a macdonell. as all the people about here are macdonells, no one was startled. the name in these parts is rather more common than, and about as distinguished as, smith in the directory. "i'm a macdonell," he said, "and i'm proud of it. it's a great clan. no matter what our nationality may be now, sir, we're all macdonells still. i'll tell you the way we do in our clan. not long ago one of the macdonells of lochaber was married. he was not very rich--he had about £ , a year perhaps--and the macdonells thought it would be a nice thing to give him a present of money from macdonells all over the world. there was not a macdonell who did not respond. i was in melbourne at the time, and i was proud to give my guinea. now, how different it was with grant, that man who was president of the united states. the clan grant tried to do the same thing when one of their chief's family was married, and the factor sent to this grant, and said they would be very proud and had no doubt he would be very glad to contribute to this happy occasion in the old clan. and what do you think he answered? he indorsed on the letter sent him--i saw it myself--that he was not one of the tenantry, and therefore would not contribute. that shows what a snob he was. but it's very different with the macdonells. i'll tell you what happened to me the other day near banavie. i lost one of my gloves; they were driving gloves--expensive gloves, you know. i gave the odd one to the driver, and said if he could find the other he would have a pair. the next day he came to me with both gloves. 'sir,' he said, 'i cannot keep them; i too am a macdonell!' i gave him the other glove and a guinea. that shows the fine clannish feeling." we have heard that there is a proverb about fools and americans. mr. macdonell stood on the upper deck to look towards the country of the macdonells, which he could not see through the mist. he took out his guide-book and read poetry and facts about his clan, to two american girls, until, quite audibly, they pronounced it all stuff and him a bore. he praised the macdonell chiefs to englishmen until they laughed almost in his face. "the duke of new york," they called him before evening. he sang the praises of his macdonell land to any one who would listen. "i like it better than switzerland or our own country," he said; "i'm coming back next year to rent a shooting-place. but the trouble is the people here don't like us. it's the fault of men like carnegie. he comes and gives them £ , for a library. and then what does he do? he makes a speech against their queen. it's shocking. it's atrocious." i wonder why americans, as soon as they borrow the englishman's clothes, must add his worst traits to their own faults. "that kind of american," a londoner on board said to us, "has all the arrogance and insolence of a lord combined with the ignorance and snobbishness of a cad." he was right. of all the men who rent the great deer forests of scotland, none are such tyrants as the american millionaires who come over, as mr. macdonell probably will next summer, for the shooting. more than one scotchman we met told us so plainly. there is a famous case where the cruelty of an american sportsman, who plays the laird in the highlands, so far outdid that of the real laird that the latter came forward to defend his people against it! now that the war of emancipation is being fought from one end of great britain to the other, it is to our shame that there are americans who uphold the oppressors. one might think we struggled for freedom at home only to strive against it abroad. mrs. stowe could write "uncle tom's cabin" on behalf of slaves in the united states; in great britain she saw only the nobility and benevolence of the slave-driver. from the plantations of the south there never rose such a cry of sorrow and despair as that which rang through the glens and straths of sutherland when men were driven to the sea to make room for sheep. and yet to mrs. stowe this inhuman chase was but a sublime instance of the benevolent employment of superior wealth and power in shortening the struggle of advancing civilization, and elevating in a few years a whole community to a point of education and material prosperity which, unassisted, they might never have attained. you might as well call the slavery of negroes a sublime instance of the power of traders to shorten the natural course of human development, since if left to themselves the blacks could not have advanced beyond the savage state in which they were found. i fear the american love for a lord is not exaggerated, if even mrs. stowe could be blinded by it. there was little to break the monotony of the journey except the macdonells. "if the sun only shone," mrs. macdonell explained, "there would be the lights and shadows." as it was, however, water and sky and shores were of uniform grayness. now and then we passed the ruins of an old castle. at a place whose name i have forgotten the boat stopped that everybody might walk a mile or more to see a water-fall. it may have been our loss that we did not go with the rest; certainly a party of frenchmen on their return declared it _une cascade vraiment charmante_. at fort augustus the boat was three-quarters of an hour getting through the locks, and in the mean time enterprising tourists climbed the tower of the new benedictine monastery, which stands where was once the old fort. we went instead to the telegraph office, and secured a room in inverness, and gave the landlord an order for the letters we hoped were waiting for us at the bank. young benedictines in black gowns, like students of the propaganda on the pincian, were walking out two by two. these were the day's excitements. as we neared inverness, mr. macdonell was again on deck. "i always go to the caledonian hotel in inverness," he told us. "what i like is to stay at the best hotels, where i meet the society of england and scotland--the real society. there's the royal hotel in edinburgh; it suits me because you are sure to find it full of good english and scotch society. i must always have the best society. besides, they're very good hotels, both of them. in our country we boast of the products of the chesapeake; but we have nothing so delicious, nothing so delicate, as the fresh herring they will serve you for breakfast at the caledonian." as we drove from the boat to inverness, we passed the stage of the caledonian hotel. in it sat the macdonell with a family of jews, and an englishman and his daughter who, throughout the journey, had shown themselves so superior, we should not wonder some day to find them behind the counter of an oxford street store. they were all on their way to mingle with the real society of england and scotland. it probably was a pleasure to mr. macdonell to find that the tobacconist next to the hotel, and the dry goods merchant but a few doors off, were his fellow-clansmen. in fact, every other banner--i mean sign--flung out on the outward walls of inverness bore his name. our social pretensions were more modest. we went to the station hotel for comfort, and trusted to luck for society. in the great hall of the hotel we first realized the full extent of our shabbiness. our knapsacks shrank out of sight of porters and maids. the proprietor was too busy distributing rooms to decently dressed travellers--the most gorgeous of whom gloried in his allegiance to the _police gazette_ of new york--to notice us. but as he paused for a moment, j---- asked if there were any letters for mr. pennell. "where is mr. pennell?" asked the proprietor, with interest. when he heard where he was, then came the transformation scene. two gentlemen in dress-coats, each carrying a diminutive knapsack preceded us up the stairs; two gentlemen in dress-coats, each carrying a huge bundle of letters, the accumulation of weeks, followed us. we felt like a lord mayor's procession, but we did not look it. we were led into the best bedroom, but before the door was closed we thought we saw disappointment in the eyes of the proprietor. we at once consulted the tariff on the wall to learn what it cost to send a telegram in scotland. we can only say that it did not prove very expensive, that the hotel was very good, that everybody was very attentive, and that the society may have been the best for all we knew. the next morning we started on foot, all our baggage on our backs, to the disgust of the gentlemen in dress-coats. we walked at a good pace out of the town, and on the broad, smooth road that leads to culloden. the country was quiet and pastoral, and the way, in places, pleasant and shady. it was a striking contrast to the western wilderness from which we had just come. but twenty miles lay between us and nairn; like dr. johnson, we were going out of our way to see culloden moor and cawdor castle. the road was too good. it set us thinking again of a tricycle on which we could travel at stimulating speed over country monotonous in its prosperous prettiness. walking meant steady trudging all day, and a hasty glance at castle and moor when we came to them. it was unbearable. weeks of experience had taught us all the drudgery of tramping, none of its supposed delights. we asked people we met if there was a cycle agent in inverness. no one knew. then the trees by the road-side gave place to open country with waving wheat-fields; and oh, how hot it grew! peddlers whom we had passed--the only people, besides ourselves, we saw tramping in scotland--overtook and passed us. two men went by on bicycles. how cool and comfortable they looked! how hot and dirty and dusty and miserable we felt! this was too much. "confound this walking! if ever i walk again!" said j----; and, almost within sight of culloden, he turned. after looking over to where i knew the moor must be, i meekly followed him, and in silence we went back to inverness. the roads about here being particularly good, there was not a cycle agent in the town. there was no getting a machine for love or money. it was now too late to attempt to walk to nairn. there was nothing to do but to train it. in the interval of waiting we saw inverness. it is a pretty city, with a wide river flowing through it, many bridges--one with a great stone archway--a new cathedral, and a battlemented, turreted castle high above the river. clothes dry on the green bank that slopes down to the water's edge, women in white caps go and come through the streets, which, with their gabled houses, show that curious french feeling found all over the east of scotland, and even the costumes of the women help to carry it out. in inverness, and in fact all the way to fraserburgh, j---- made many notes and sketches, the best, he says, of our journey. all but a few have been lost, and so the world will never enjoy them. this is sad, but true. if any one should happen to find the sketch-book he need not return it in hopes of a reward. j---- has no use for it at this moment. in fact, the finder had better keep it; it may be valuable some day. when the train reached nairn, "well," said j----, in triumph, "we've got through a day's work in half an hour;" and we dropped our knapsacks at the hotel and set out for cawdor, which is five miles from the town. the day so far had been fine. once we were on the road again the sun went behind the clouds, mist fell over the country before us. a lady in a dog-cart warned us of rain, and offered us a lift. to make up for the morning's weakness, we refused heroically. there was nothing by the way but broad fields of grain, which seemed broader after the wretched little patches of skye and harris, and large farm-houses, larger by comparison with hebridean hovels. when the roofs and gables of the castle came in sight, had we had our macbeth at our fingers' ends, i have no doubt we might have made an appropriate quotation. a long fence separated two fields; on each post sat a solemn rook, and hundreds more made black the near grass. but we did not call them birds of ill-omen and speak of the past as we should have done; j---- only said it was right to find so many cawing things at the gate of cawdor castle. i wish that we had found nothing worse. just as we reached it the mist turned to heavy rain. this is the depressing side of sight-seeing in scotland; you must take your holidays in water-proofs. j---- made several sketches, for the rain poured in such torrents our stay was long. we stood under the old gate-way and at the window of the porter's lodge. the sketches were very charming, very beautiful, but they are lost! we walked about in the rain and looked at the castle from every side. but as everybody who has travelled in scotland has described cawdor, there is no special reason why i should do it again. the sketches would have been original. the most provoking part of it was that we had scarce left the castle a mile behind when the rain became mist again; at the third mile-stone we were once more in a dry world. boswell called nairn "a miserable place." dr. johnson said next to nothing about it. perhaps the people laughed at them as they did at us. we thought their manners miserable, though their town now is decent enough. it is long and narrow, stretching from the railway-station to the sea. after the hotels and shops, we came to the fishermen's quarter. the houses were mostly new; a few turned old gables and chimneys to the street. women in white caps, with great baskets on their backs, strode homeward in the twilight. everywhere brown nets were spread out to dry, boats lay along the sands, beyond was the sea, and the smell of the fish was over it all. the next morning we learned from the maid that macbeth's blasted heath was but a few miles from nairn; all the theatricals went there, she said. we made a brave start; but bravery gave out with the first mile. walking was even more unbearable than it had been the day before. there could be nothing more depressing than to walk on a public highway through a well-cultivated country under a hot sun. already, when we came to the near village of auldearn, we had outwalked interest in everything but our journey's end. we would not go an extra step for the monuments the guide-book directs the tourist to see, though the graveyard was within sight of the road. macbeth seems to have shared the fate of prophets in their own country. we asked a man passing with a goat the distance to macbeth's hill, as it is called on the map. he didna know, he answered. but presently he ran after us. was the gentleman we spoke of a farmer? another man, however, knew all about it. he had never been to the top of the hill; he had been told there were trees up there, and that it wasn't different from the other hills around. and yet he had heard people came great distances to see it. he supposed we had travelled far just to go up the hill. he knew from our talk, many words of which he couldna understand, that we were no from this part of the country. but then sometimes he couldna understand the broad scotch of the people in aberdeenshire. there were some people hereabouts who could talk only gaelic. they had been turned off the western islands, and had settled here years ago, but they still talked only the gaelic. he went our way for half a mile or less, and he walked with us. his clothes were ragged, his feet bare, and over his shoulders was slung a small bundle done up in a red handkerchief. in the last three years, he said, he had had but two or three days' work. work was hard to get. here rents were high, farmers complained, and this year the crops were ruined because of the long drought. he did think at times of going to america. he had a sister who had gone to live in pittsburg. it might be a good thing. there are scotchmen who have done well in pittsburg. he left us with minute directions. the hill, though not far from the road, which now went between pine woods and heather, could not be seen from it. we came to the point at which we should have turned to the blasted heath. "it's a blasted nuisance," j---- said, and we kept straight on to the nearest railway-station. this was brodie. the porters told us there was a fine castle within a ten minutes' walk, and a train for elgin in fifteen minutes. we waited for the train. we were so tired, so disgusted, that everything put us out of patience. even a small boy who had walked with us earlier in the morning to show us the way, simply by stopping when we stopped and starting when we started, had driven us almost frantic. i mention this to show how utterly wearisome a walking tour through beautiful country can be. at the town of elgin we were in the humor to moralize on modern degeneracy among the ruins. a distillery is now the near neighbor of the cathedral. below the broken walls, still rich with beautiful carving, new and old gravestones, as at iona, stand side by side. in nave and transepts knights lie on old tombstones, under canopies carved with leaves and flowers; here and there in the graveyard without are moss-grown slabs with the death's-head and graceful lettering of the seventeenth century; near by are ugly blocks from the modern stone-mason. the guide-book quotes some of the old inscriptions; but it omits one of late date, which should, however, receive the greatest honor--that of the man who cared for the ruins with reverence and love until the government took them in charge. these ruins are very beautiful. indeed, nowhere does the religious vandalism of the past seem more monstrous than in scotland. the government official asked us to write our names in the visitors' book; he made it seem a compliment by saying that it was not everybody's name he wanted. we thought him a man of much greater intelligence than the glasgow verger. he could see, he said, that j---- knew something about cathedrals and architecture. we found nothing else of interest in elgin. it had a prosperous look, and we saw not a trace of the old timbered houses with projecting upper stories of which dr. johnson writes. the remainder of our stay we spent in a restaurant near the station, where we talked politics with a farmer. he lectured us on free-trade. scotch farmers cry for protection, he said, but they don't know what it means. free-trade is good for the bulk of the people, and what would protection do for the farmer? nothing! if he got higher prices, the landlord would say, now you can afford to pay me higher rent, and he would pocket the few shillings' difference. we talked with many other farmers in the east of scotland. sometimes we journeyed with them in railway-carriages; sometimes we breakfasted and dined with them in hotels. they all had much to say about protection and free-trade, and we found that henry george had been among them. their ideas of his doctrine of the nationalization of the land were at times curious and original. i remember a farmer from aberdeenshire who told us that he believed in it thoroughly, and then explained that it would give each man permission, if he had money enough, to buy out his landlord. after our lunch at elgin we again got through a day's work in less than an hour. we went by train to buckie, a place of which we had never heard before that afternoon. how j---- happened to buy tickets for it i cannot explain, since he never made it quite clear to me. we found it a large and apparently thriving fishing town, with one long line of houses low on the shore, another above on the hill, and a very good hotel, the name of which i am not sure we knew at the time; certainly we do not remember it now. [illustration: fisher-boats hauled up near buckie.] it was at buckie that j---- made several of the best sketches in the lost sketch-book in the evening as we watched the boats sail silently out from the harbor. the sun had just set. the red light of the after-glow shone upon the water. against it, here and there, the brown sails stood out in strong relief. other boats lay at anchor in the cool gray of the harbor. in the morning we made a new start on foot. now and then, for a short distance, the road went inland across treeless, cultivated country; but the greater part of the time it lay near the sea, and kept wandering in and out of little fishing villages, in each of which the lost sketch-book came into play. they were all much alike; there was usually the harbor, where the fishing-boats were moored, some with brown sails hung out to dry and flapping slowly in the breeze; others with long lines of floats stretched from mast to mast; and as it was not only low tide but near the end of the fishing season, all were drawn up in picturesque masses in the foreground, the light of sea and sky bright and glittering behind them. carts full of nets, men and women with huge bundles of them on their backs, were always on their way either up or down the hill at whose foot the village nestled; or on the level at its top the nets were spread like great snares, not for birds, but for any one who tried to walk across them. boxes and barrels of salted fish were piled along the street. in the air was the strong smell of herrings. in every village new houses were being or had just been built, but the soft gray smoke hovering above the roofs toned down their aggressive newness. in their midst was the plain white kirk. [illustration] there were so many villages that we could not complain of monotony; and then sometimes, on the stretch of beach beyond, dismantled boats in various stages of decline were pulled up out of reach of the tide. sometimes on the near links men were playing golf. once we passed three, each putting his little white ball on a bit of turf. they were very serious about it. "now to business," we heard one say as we went by. but it grew very hot towards noon, and in the heat our first enthusiasm melted. when cullen came in sight we were again declaring that nothing would induce us to walk another step. [illustration: near cullen.] however, a hearty lunch changed our minds. the truth is, we hated to give in. though we were quite certain we would never tramp again, we were unwilling to confess our one walk a failure. at the hotel we were told that the road to banff, our next stopping-place, kept inland, but the landlady thought that to the nearest village at least there was a path by the shore. a man on the outskirts of the town tried to dissuade us from going that way; there was such a brae to be climbed, he said. but there seemed no doubt about the path. when we persisted, he walked back with us to direct us the better, j---- talking to him about the brae as if he had never heard of a hill in his life, the man describing the difficulties before us as if ours was an alpine expedition. the hill was steep enough. at the top there was no path, but instead a field of tall prickly furze, through which we waded. oh, the misery of that five minutes' walk! at every step we were stung and pricked by hundreds of points sharper than needles. and after that we skirted wheat and turnip fields, because when we tried to cross them, as we were not sportsmen, there was some one near at hand to stop us. we went up and down ravines, and picked our way through tall grass at the very edge of sheer cliffs. the afternoon was hotter than the morning had been. a warm haze hung over the level stretch of country and the distant hills. the sky seemed to have fallen down upon the sea; there was not a line to mark where it met the water. the few brown-sailed boats looked as if they were forcing their way between, holding up the heavens on their masts. [illustration: bit of macduff.] in one place, on a high rock jutting out into the sea, was a low broken wall of rough masonry, all that is left of findlater castle. there was no use in trying to keep up any longer. our backs ached, our shoulders were cut; we were hot, dusty, exhausted, and, in a word, at the end of our physical and moral forces. this scramble on the cliffs ended our walking tour. at sandend we took the train for banff; but first we went down to the shore; for sandend was a picturesque little village, with all its gables turned towards the sea, big black boats on the beach, rocks beyond, and a pretty blue bay of its own. three artists had left their easels to eat buns out of a brown-paper bag and drink beer out of bottles, under the shade of one of the boats. j----, having already learned the exclusiveness of british artists, took out his sketch-book at a safe distance. he only spoke to them to ask the way to the station. he did not dare to talk about work. a little farther on we again asked the way, this time of a girl hanging up clothes. j----'s questions and her answers were typical of many conversations, bad for one's temper, that we held on the east coast. "where is the railway-station?" "what station?" "where the train comes in." "there;" and she pointed to a house beyond the village. "how do you get there?" "by the road." "can you go up by the hill?" "yes." "which is better?" "i don't know." "which is shorter?" "up the hill." we started up the hill, but there was no path. "there is no path," we said to her. "no, there's no path." we came to banff late in the afternoon, just as the fishing-boats were putting out to sea, one beyond another on the gray water, the farthest but faint specks on the horizon. the best thing about banff is that in fifteen or twenty minutes you can be out of it and in macduff. the shore here makes a great curve. on one point is banff, on the other macduff; half-way between, a many-arched bridge spans the river deveron, and close by the big house of the earl of fife shows through the trees of his park. high on the hill of macduff stands the white kirk; it overlooks the town, with its many rows of fishermen's houses, and the harbor, where the black masts rise far above the gray walls, and the fishermen spread out their nets to dry, and the dark-sailed boats are always coming and going, and boys paddle in the twilight. and if you go to the far end of the harbor, where the light-house is, you look to the spires and chimneys and roofs of banff climbing up their hill-side, and beyond to a shadowy point of land like a pale gray cloud-bank on the water. it was easy to see what they thought of us at the fife arms, where we stayed in banff. we were given our breakfast with the nurse and children of an a. r. a., while the great man breakfasted in state in a near dining-room. they ate very like ordinary children, but their clothes showed them to be little boys and girls of æsthetic distinction. i fear, however, we were not properly impressed. [illustration: near banff.] there was no doubt that now our walking was all done. we asked about the stage for fraserburgh, as if staging with us was a matter of course. it was a relief not to begin the day by strapping heavy knapsacks to our backs. the hours of waiting were spent partly in strolling through the streets of banff, where here and there is an old gray house with pretty turret at its corner, or quaint old inscription with coat of arms or figures let into its walls; partly in sitting on the beach looking out on a hot blue sea. but hot as it was in the morning, a sharp, cold wind was blowing when, at three o'clock, we took our seats in the little old-fashioned stage that runs between banff and fraserburgh. stage and coachman and passengers seemed like a page out of dickens transposed to scotland. inside was a very small boy, put there by a fat woman in black, and left, with many exhortations and a couple of buns, to make the journey alone; opposite to him sat a melancholy man who saw but ruin staring in the face of farmers and fishermen alike. at every corner in banff and macduff we stopped for more passengers, until the stage, elastic as it seemed, was full to overflowing, and we took refuge on the top. here the seats were crowded with men, their heads tied up in scarfs. the coachman was carrier as well, and at different points in the open country women and children waited by the road to give him, or to take from him, bundles and boxes and letters. he was the typical cheery carrier. he had a word for everybody, even for a young man who dropped his wheelbarrow to flap his arms and greet us with a vacant smile. he was a puir thing, the driver explained, who went wrong only four years ago. he was the third we had seen in two days. [illustration: banff, from macduff.] many of the carrier's jokes we lost. a commercial traveller, who sat next to us, supposed we could not understand some of the expressions hereabouts. he might better have said we could not understand the language. we could make out enough, however, to find that one joke went a long way. a man in the front seat, trying to light his pipe in the wind, set off the whole box of matches. "that's extravagance," said the carrier; and when another box was handed to the man, he told him that these were safety matches--it took only one to light a pipe; and this he kept saying over and over again, with many chuckles, for the next half-hour. we had a specimen, too, of scotch humor. at one stopping-place the commercial traveller got down and went into the public-house. a family party scrambled up and filled every seat, his with the rest. j---- remonstrated; but the man of the party answered that he paid his money for a seat as well as anybody else. "an empty seat's naebody's seat," he argued, and carrier and passengers roared at his fun. the country was dreary, for all its cultivation. the fields were without tree or hedge to break their monotony. the villages were full of new houses. there was nothing striking or picturesque until we came within sight of fraserburgh. far across a level stretch we first saw it, its spires rising high above gray and red roofs. the near meadows were dark with fishing-nets; in places fishermen were at work spreading them over the grass; and we began to pass carts heavily laden with their brown masses, and men and women bent under the same burdens. fraserburgh. we walked out after supper. rain was falling, and the evening was growing dark. down by the harbor carts were still going and coming; men were still busy with their nets. along the quay was a succession of basins, and these opened into others beyond. all were crowded with boats, and their thickly clustered masts seemed, in the gathering shadows, like a forest of branchless, leafless trees. one by one lights were hung out. on the town side of the quay, in crypt-like rooms and under low sheds, torches flamed and flared against a background of darkness. their strong light fell upon women clothed in strange stuffs that glistened and glittered, their heads bound with white cloths. they were bending over shiny, ever-shifting masses piled at their feet, and chanting a wild gaelic song that rose and fell with the wailing of all savage music. as we first saw them, from a distance, they might have been so many sorceresses at their magic rites. when we drew near we found that they were but the fish-curers' gutters and packers at work. thanks to cable and lafcadio hearn, we know something of the songs of work at home; but who in england cares about the singing in these fishing towns--singing which is only wilder and weirder than that of the cotton pressers of louisiana? to the english literary man, however--the charles reades are the exceptions--i fear the gutters would be but nasty, dirty fisher persons. now and then groups of these women passed us, walking with long strides, their arms swinging, and their short skirts and white-bound heads shining through the sombre streets. over the town was the glow of the many fires. [illustration: fraserburgh.] in the morning there was less mystery, but not less picturesqueness. we were up in time to go to the harbor with the fishermen's wives, and watch the boats come in. everything was fresh after a night of rain. it was still early, and the sun sent a path of gold across the sea just where the boats turned on their last tack homeward. each brown sail was set in bold relief against the shining east, and then slowly lowered, as the fishermen with their long poles pushed the boats into the already crowded harbor. at once nets were emptied of the fish, which lay gleaming like silver through the brown meshes. women and boys came to fill baskets with the fresh herrings; carts were loaded with them. in other boats men were hanging up their floats and shaking out their nets. the water was rich with the many black and brown reflections, only brightened here and there by lines of blue or purple or white from the distinguishing rings of color on each mast. there was a never-ending stream of men and carts passing along the quay. many fishermen with their bags were on their way to the station, for the fishing season was almost over. so they said. but when one thousand boats came in, and twenty thousand fisher-folk were that day in fraserburgh, to us it looked little like the end. in all this busy place we heard no english. only gaelic was spoken, as if we were once more in the western islands. it was the same in the streets. the day's work in the curing-houses was just about to begin. girls and women in groups of threes and fours were walking towards them. in the morning light we could see that the greater number were young. all were neat and clean, with hair carefully parted and well brushed, little shawls over their shoulders, but nothing on their heads. they carried their working clothes under their arms, and kept knitting as they walked. like the men, they all talked gaelic. [illustration: in the harbor, fraserburgh.] when they got to work, we found that those strange stuffs which had glistened in the torch-light were aprons and bibs smeared with scales and slime, that the white head-dresses were worn only for cleanliness, that the shining masses at their feet were but piles of herring. i have never seen women work so hard or so fast. their arms, as they seized the fish, gutted them, and threw them in the buckets, moved with the regularity and the speed of machines. indeed, there could not be a busier place than fraserburgh. all day long the boats kept coming in, nets were emptied, fish carted away. the harbor, the streets, the fields beyond where nets were taken to dry, the curing-houses, were alike scenes of industry. if the women put down their knives, it was only to take up their knitting. and yet these men and women, working incessantly by day and by night, were almost all western islanders--the people who, we are told, are so slovenly and so lazy! no one who comes with them to the east coast for the fishing season will ever again believe in the oft-repeated lies about their idleness. there were no signs of rest until saturday evening. then no boats went out, and the harbor and curing-houses were deserted. the streets were full of men and women walking about for pleasure. the greatest crowd was in the market-place, where a few "cheap jacks" drove their trade. two, who dealt in china, as if to make up for their poor patter, threw cups and saucers recklessly into the air, breaking them with great clatter, while the women and girls they had attracted stood by and bought nothing. the fishermen had gathered about a third, who sold cheap and tawdry ornaments, but who could patter. when we first came near he was holding up six imitation gold watch-chains, and offering the buyers prizes into the bargain. "o ye men of little faith!"--shaking his fist at them--"can't any of you favor me with a shillin'? you don't want 'em, gen'lemen? then there'll be smashin' of teeth and tearin' of hair. glory! glory hallylujah!" all this, i regret to say, was interspersed with stories that do not bear repetition. but he sold his watch-chains without trouble. "and now, gen'lemen, for any of you that wants to take home a present to your wife and chil'ren, here's an album. it'd adorn a nobleman's mansion, and wouldn't disgrace a fisherman's cottage. it's bound in moroccer and stamped with gold, and'll hold many pictures. i'll only sell half a dozen, and it's the very thing you wants. you'll have one? well, sir, i can't reach you, but these gen'lemen'll pass it along." and then he began again with the stories and the scripture until he had sold out all his stock of albums and note-books and cheap jewellery. [illustration: gutters at work, fraserburgh.] it was the hint about presents to those left behind which bore greatest weight with the fishermen. it never failed. but we remembered their cottages and the sadness of their homes, and it angered us that they should be duped into wasting their hard-won earnings on tawdry ornaments. it seems to be their fate to be cheated by every one. even the peddler, like the parson and the landlord, can pervert scripture to their discomfort. still, there was a pleasant suggestion of holiday-making in the square. it was the first time we had seen the western islanders amusing themselves. true, they did it very solemnly. there was little laughter and much silence; but at least a touch of brightness was given to the gloom of their long life of work and want. even on sunday we thought the people more cheerful. in the morning the women, the little shawls over their shoulders, their heads still bare, the men in blue cloth, many without coats, again filled the streets on their way to church. in the afternoon we walked to two near fishing villages. in one an old fisherman was talking about christ to a few villagers. we sat a while close to the sea, looking out to the next village, gray against gray gold-lined clouds, to the water with the light falling softly across it, to the little quiet pools in among the low rocks of the shore, to the big black boats drawn up on the beach. and then, as we walked back to fraserburgh, the mist fell suddenly. but the road near the town was crowded with the men in blue cloth and the women in short skirts. some were singing hymns as they walked. to us they looked strong and healthy, and even happy. it seemed as if this life on the east coast must make up for many of the hardships they endure in the deserts of their western home. that same evening in the hotel we heard about life in fraserburgh, which looks so prosperous to the stranger. a catholic priest came into the dining-room after supper. he seemed very tired. he had been visiting the sick all day, he told us. measles had broken out among the women and girls from the hebrides. many had already died; more had been carried to the hospital. the rooms provided for them by the curers were small and overcrowded. so long as they were kept in their present quarters, so long would disease and death be their portion. their condition was dreadful; but they worked hard, and never complained. he came from the west coast of ireland, he said, where irish poverty is at its worst, but not even there had he seen misery as great as that of the western islanders. he knew it well. he had lived with them in the long island, where many are catholics. if the highlands were represented by eighty-five members, all wanting home rule, more would have been heard about destitution in the hebrides. in the prosperous days of the east coast fisheries the people's burden had been less heavy; but now they came to the fishing towns of the east, the women to sicken and to die, the men to beg their way back as best they could. there were too many fishermen here, just as at home landlords thought there were too many crofters. [illustration: coming home from the fisheries, fraserburgh.] the fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. the epidemic and its causes became the town talk. the gaelic free kirk minister, differ as he might from the catholic priest on every other point, on this could but agree with him. he told us the same story in words as strong. it was shameful, he said, the way these poor girls were being killed. he had not known it before; but now that he did, he could not and would not let the matter rest. an indignation meeting of the people of fraserburgh was called for the day we left. the town was placarded with the notices. since then the report must have gone abroad. now that agitation in lewis is forcing attention to the islands and their people, in london there has been formed a committee of _ladies_ to look into the condition of the girls and women who work on the east coast. that last morning, as we stood by the hotel door, the funeral of one of the dead women passed up the street towards the station. fifty or sixty fishermen followed the coffin. when we took our seats in a third-class carriage we found the free kirk minister there before us. the coffin had just been put on the train. two girls came up to speak to him. he stretched out his hand; one took and held it as she struggled to answer his questions; the other turned away with the tears streaming down her face. as the train started they stood apart, their heads bent low, their faces buried in their shawls, both crying as if their hearts would break. and so, at the last, we saw only the sadness of fraserburgh. we had intended going to peterhead and the smaller fishing towns by the way; but our energy was less inexhaustible than the picturesqueness of the east coast. our journey had been over-long. we were beginning to be anxious to bring it to an end. now we went straight to aberdeen, where we at once fell back into ordinary city life. we even did a little shopping in its fine new streets. its large harbor seemed empty after that of fraserburgh. many fishing-boats were at sea; many had gone altogether. the fishing season here was really well over. we walked to the old town after dinner. in it there is not much to be seen but the university tower with the famous crown atop, and the cathedral, which looked massive and impressive in the twilight. we saw much more of aberdeen; but we are quite of the same mind as dr. johnson, that to write of such well-known cities "with the solemnity of geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered coast, has the appearance of a very frivolous ostentation." [illustration: entrance to the harbor at montrose.] from aberdeen to edinburgh we trained it by easy stages. we stopped often; once at montrose, where, like dr. johnson, and for that matter, every one else who comes here, we looked to the grampian hills in the distance. the town itself was not picturesque. the guide-book calls it neat and flemish, probably because it has fewer houses with high gables turned towards the street than can be seen, as a rule, in any scotch town. but the harbor, of which the guide-book says less, was fine. we spent hours near the mouth of the river, looking over to the fishermen's houses on the opposite shore. there were constant showers as we sat there; every few minutes the sun came out from the clouds, and the wet roofs glistened and glittered through the smoke hanging above them. in the morning, women, packed like herrings in the huge ferry-boats, crossed over to the curing-houses. now and then a fishing-boat sailed slowly in. one sees little from the cars. of the country through which we passed i remember only occasional glimpses of the sea and of fishing villages and of red castles, which made us wish we were still on the road. now and then, as we sat comfortably in the railway-carriage, we determined to walk back to see them, or to get a tricycle at edinburgh and "do" the whole east coast over again; but we always left our determinations with the carriage. of all the places at which we stopped, i remember best arbroath, the sight of which seemed worth his whole journey to dr. johnson. little is left of the abbey save the broken walls and towers. a street runs through the old gate-house. the public park and children's play-ground lie to one side of the ruined church. a few old tombs and tablets and bits of ornament have been gathered together in the sacristy, which is in better preservation than the rest of the building. we found them less interesting than the guide who explained them. he gave a poetical touch to the usual verger recitation, and indeed to all his talk, of which there was plenty. 'twas better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, was his manner of expressing regret for the loss of an old engraving of the abbey. there were many hard things in this world, but grass was soft; why, then, should i choose the hard things? was his way of inviting me to walk on the grass instead of the gravel. but it was not until he showed us the original copy, full of blots and corrections, of one of burns's poems that we found he too was a poet--a successful poet, it seemed, for he had sold , copies of his volume of poems--very few, he thought. if he were a member of the london society of authors he would know better. he had given the last copy to william morris, when the latter was in the town. william morris did not wear gaudy clothes, not he. he looked like a sailor in his blue flannel shirt, and there was a slit in his hat. and when he returned to london he sent his "jason" to his fellow-poet in arbroath. as we were leaving, he told us how, one day, two ladies had driven up to the abbey, looked at nothing, but at once asked him to recite his "abbey gate." he did so, and then, without a word, they slipped a guinea into his hand, and there were tears on their cheeks. he never knew who they were. after this, we felt our tribute to be very small; but he clasped our hands warmly at parting. there was something out of the common in our faces, he said. we talked to no one else in arbroath, except to a pessimistic stationer. while we bought his paper he grumbled because farmers could not sell their cattle and corn. some people said the country needed protection; "but, sir, what have we got to protect?" of the rest of the journey to edinburgh my note-book says nothing, and little remains in my memory. but i know that when we walked up from the station to waverley bridge, and looked to the gray precipice of houses of the old town, we realized that our long wanderings had not shown us anything so fine. and now our journey was at an end. like dr. johnson's, it began and finished in edinburgh, but it resembled his in little else. from the start, we continually took liberties with his route; we often forgot that he was our guide. we went to places he had never seen; we turned our backs upon many through which he and boswell had travelled. but at least he had helped us to form definite plans without weeks of hard map-study which they otherwise must have cost us. we had come back wiser in many ways. in the first place, we had learned that for us walking on a tour of this kind, or indeed of any kind, is a mistake. had we never cycled, perhaps we might not have felt this so keenly. our powers of endurance are not, i think, below the average; but the power to endure so many miles a day on foot is very different from the capacity to enjoy them; and if on such a trip one proposes, as we did, to work, without pleasure in the exercise, how can one hope for good results? but for the two days' coaching on the west coast, the necessary steaming among the islands, our utter collapse on the east coast, i am sure we never should have worked at all. day after day we were dispirited, disheartened, and only happy when we were not walking. we went to bed in the evening and got up in the morning wearied and exhausted. the usual walking tours of which one hears mean a day's climbing in the mountains, or a day's tramp with bag or knapsack sent before by train or stage. under these conditions we probably would not be the first to give in. but to be as independent as if on a tricycle, to have one's sketching traps when needed, one must carry a knapsack one's self. j----'s weighed between twenty-five and thirty pounds; mine, fifteen. never before have i appreciated so well the true significance of christian's burden. but even worse than this constant strain on our shoulders was the monotony of our pace. whether the road was good or bad, level or hilly, there was no change, no relief. in cycling, for one hard day's work you know you will have two of pleasure. as for short-cuts, they are, as a rule, out of the question. one does not know the country through which one is passing; it is the exception to meet a native. after cycling more thousands of miles than we have walked hundreds, we know it to be not mere theorizing when we declare that no comparison between the two methods of travelling is possible. one is just enough work to make the pleasure greater; the other is all work. [illustration: ruins at arbroath.] our experience has taught us to be sceptical about the tramps of other days who saw europe afoot. we wonder if they told the whole story. of modern tramps, none has given such a delightful record as has mr. stevenson of the walk he took with a donkey through the cevennes. and yet, even with him, if you read between his lines, or, for that matter, the lines themselves, you realize that, charming as his story is for us, the reality for him was wearisome, depressing, and often painful, and that probably to it is to be referred much of his after physical weakness. we have also had a new light thrown upon the life of tramps at home, who are so often supposed to have chosen the better part. theirs is as much a life of toil as if they broke stones on the same roads over which they journey. they are not to be envied, but pitied. the next time one begs from you as he passes, give him something out of your charity; he deserves it. however, many drawbacks as there were to our walk, we do not regret it. in no other way could we have come to know the country and the people with the same friendly intimacy. for pure enjoyment, it would be best to go over the greater part of our route in a yacht. from it is to be seen much beauty and little misery. the coast-line can be followed, excursions made inland. but a yacht is a luxury for the rich. besides, on it one lives one's own life, not that of the country one has come to visit. on foot, with knapsacks on our backs, we often passed for peddlers. certainly we were never mistaken to be tourists of means or sportsmen. therefore the people met us as equals and talked to us freely. we were able to correct the vague and false impressions with which we had started. if we did not master the geography of all scotland, i think--at least on the two coasts as far north as the caledonian canal--we could now pass an examination with credit. we learned that haggis and oatmeal figure more extensively in books than on hotel tables; the first we saw not at all, the second but twice, and then it was not offered to us. above all, we learned the burden of scotland, whose highlands have been laid waste, their people brought to silence. but now the people themselves have broken their long silence, and a cry has gone up from them against their oppressors. if by telling exactly what we saw we can in the least strengthen that cry, we shall feel that our journeying has not been in vain. the end. select books published by mr. t. fisher unwin london: paternoster square. st. nicholas magazine for young folks. edited by mrs. mary mapes dodge. price s. monthly. with the beginning of the seventeenth volume (_november, _) =st. nicholas= will be enlarged by the addition of eight or more pages to each number, and the magazine will be printed in a new and clearer-faced type. during the year there will be four important =serial stories= by well-known authors, and also =notable papers on athletics and outdoor sports=, as well as a multitude of occasional papers, stories, illustrated articles of character and adventure, suggestive of talks on natural history, scientific subjects, &c. _the price will remain the same._ the century illustrated monthly magazine. price s. d. monthly. =for - =, will include among other features:-- =the autobiography of joseph jefferson= ("rip van winkle"); 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"if imagination and style constitute the true elixir of literary life, dr. garnett's 'twilight of the gods' should live."--_british weekly._ the coming of the friars, and other mediæval sketches. by the rev. augustus jessopp, d.d., author of "arcady: for better, for worse," &c. third edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. _contents._--i. the coming of the friars.--ii. village life in norfolk six hundred years ago.--iii. daily life in a mediæval monastery.--iv. and v. the black death in east anglia.--vi. the building-up of a university.--vii. the prophet of walnut-tree walk. arcady: for better, for worse. by augustus jessopp, d.d., author of "one generation of a norfolk house." portrait. popular edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "a volume which is, to our minds, one of the most delightful ever published in english."--_spectator._ the romance of a shop. by the late amy levy, author of "reuben sachs," "a london plane tree, and other poems," &c. crown vo., cloth, s. 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"it is the fruit, as every page testifies, of singularly wide reading and independent thought, and the style combines with much picturesqueness a certain largeness of volume, that reminds us more of our earlier writers than those of our own time."--_contemporary review._ studies of the eighteenth century in italy. by vernon lee. demy vo., cloth, s. d. "these studies show a wide range of knowledge of the subject, precise investigation, abundant power of illustration, and hearty enthusiasm.... the style of writing is cultivated, neatly adjusted, and markedly clever."--_saturday review._ belcaro: being essays on sundry Æsthetical questions. by vernon lee. crown vo., cloth, s. "this way of conveying ideas is very fascinating, and has an effect of creating activity in the reader's mind which no other mode can equal. from first to last there is a continuous and delightful stimulation of thought."--_academy._ juvenilia: a second series of essays on sundry Æsthetical questions. by vernon lee. two vols. small crown vo., cloth, s. "to discuss it properly would require more space than a single number of 'the academy' could afford."--_academy._ "est agréable à lire et fait penser."--revue des deux mondes. baldwin: dialogues on views and aspirations. by vernon lee. demy vo., cloth, s. "the dialogues are written with ... an intellectual courage which shrinks from no logical conclusion."--_scotsman._ ottilie: an eighteenth century idyl. by vernon lee. square vo., cloth extra, s. d. "a graceful little sketch.... drawn with full insight into the period described."--_spectator._ introductory studies in greek art. delivered in the british museum by jane e. harrison. with illustrations. square imperial mo., s. d. "the best work of its kind in english."--_oxford magazine._ the fleet: its river, prison and marriages. by john ashton, author of "social life in the reign of queen anne," &c. with drawings by the author from original pictures. second and cheaper edition, cloth, s. d. romances of chivalry: told and illustrated in fac-simile by john ashton. forty-six illustrations. new and cheaper edition. crown vo., cloth, s, d. "the result (of the reproduction of the wood blocks) is as creditable to his artistic, as the text is to his literary, ability."--_guardian._ the dawn of the nineteenth century in england: a social sketch of the times. by john ashton. cheaper edition, in one vol. illustrated. large crown vo., s. d. "the book is one continued source of pleasure and interest, and opens up a wide field for speculation and comment, and many of us will look upon it as an important contribution to contemporary history, not easily available to others than close students."--_antiquary._ legends and popular tales of the basque people. by mariana monteiro. with illustrations by harold copping. popular edition. crown vo., cloth, gilt edges, s. "in every respect this comely volume is a notable addition to the shelf devoted to folk-lore ... and the pictures in photogravure nobly interpret the text."--_critic._ heroic tales. retold from firdusi the persian. by helen zimmern. with etchings by l. alma tadema. popular edition. crown vo., cloth extra, s. "charming from beginning to end.... miss zimmern deserves all credit for her courage in attempting the task, and for her marvellous success in carrying it out."--_saturday review._ pilgrim sorrow. by carmen sylva (the queen of roumania). translated by helen zimmern. portrait-etching by lalauze. square crown vo., cloth extra, s. "a strain of sadness runs through the delicate thought and fancy of the queen of roumania. her popularity as an author is already great in germany, and this little work will win her a place in many english hearts."--_standard._ chopin, and other musical essays. by henry t. finck, author of "romantic love and personal beauty." crown vo., cloth, s. "there are six essays in this compact and well-printed volume. they are all written with great thoroughness, and the interest of each one is admirably sustained throughout."--_freeman's journal._ the temple: sacred poems and private ejaculations. by mr. george herbert. new and fourth edition, with introductory essay by j. henry shorthouse. small crown, sheep, s. _a facsimile reprint of the original edition of ._ "this charming reprint has a fresh value added to it by the introductory essay of the author of 'john inglesant.'"--_academy._ songs, ballads, and a garden play. by a. mary f. robinson, author of "an italian garden." with frontispiece of dürer's "melancolia." small crown vo., half bound, vellum, s. "the romantic ballads have grace, movement, passion and strength."--_spectator._ "marked by sweetness of melody and truth of colour."--_academy._ essays towards a critical method. studies in english literature. by john m. robertson. cr. vo., cloth, s. d. "his essays are always shrewd and readable. his criticisms on the critics are enjoyable for the irony (conscious or unconscious) that is in them; and the book will not fail to please lovers of literature and literary history, and to prove suggestive to the critical."--_scotsman._ the lazy minstrel. by j. ashby-sterry, author of "boudoir ballads." fourth and popular edition. frontispiece by e. a. abbey. fcap. vo., cloth, s. d. "one of the lightest and brightest writers of vers de société."--_st. james's gazette._ caroline schlegel, and her friends. by mrs. alfred sidgwick. with steel portrait. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "this is a singularly brilliant, delicate and fascinating sketch--one of the most skilful pieces of literary workmanship we have seen for a long time.... mrs. sidgwick is a writer of very unusual equipment, power and promise."--_british weekly._ amos killbright: his adscititious adventures. with other stories. by frank r. stockton. vo., cloth, s. d. "mr. stockton is the quaintest of living humorists."--_academy._ history. battles and leaders of the american civil war. an authoritative history, written by distinguished participants on both sides. edited by robert u. johnson and clarence c. buel, of the editorial staff of "the century magazine." four volumes, royal vo., elegantly bound, £ s. lord wolseley, in writing a series of articles in the _north american review_ on this work, says: "the century company has, in my judgment, done a great service to the soldiers of all armies by the publication of these records of the great war." diary of the parnell commission. revised with additions, from _the daily news_. by john macdonald, m.a. large crown vo. the end of the middle ages: essays and questions in history. by a. mary f. robinson (madame darmesteter). demy vo., cloth, s. d. "we travel from convent to palace, find ourselves among all the goodness, the wisdom, the wildness, the wickedness, the worst and the best of that wonderful time. we meet with devoted saints and desperate sinners.... we seem to have made many new acquaintances whom before we only knew by name among the names of history.... we can heartily recommend this book to every one who cares for the study of history, especially in its most curious and fascinating period, the later middle age."--_spectator._ the federalist: a commentary in the form of essays on the united states constitution. by alexander hamilton, and others. edited by henry cabot lodge. demy vo., roxburgh binding, s. d. "the importance of the essays can hardly be exaggerated."--_glasgow mail._ the story of the nations. crown vo., illustrated, and furnished with maps and indexes, each s. "l'interessante serie l'histoire des nations formera ... un cours d'histoire universelle d'une très grande valeur."--_journal des debats._ "the remarkable series."--_new york critic._ "that useful series."--_the times._ "an admirable series."--_spectator._ "that excellent series."--_guardian._ "the series is likely to be found indispensable in every school library."--_pall mall gazette._ "this valuable series."--_nonconformist._ "admirable series of historical monographs."--_echo._ rome. by arthur gilman, m.a., author of "a history of the american people," &c. third edition. the jews. in ancient, mediæval, and modern times. by prof. j. k. hosmer. second edition. germany. by rev. s. baring-gould, author of "curious myths of the middle ages," &c. second edition. carthage. by prof. alfred j. church, author of "stories from the classic," &c. third edition. alexander's empire. by prof. j. p. mahaffy, author of "social life in greece." fourth edition. the moors in spain. by stanley lane-poole, author of "studies in a mosque," third edition. ancient egypt. by canon rawlinson, author of "the five great monarchies of the world." third edition. hungary. by prof. arminius vambÉry, author of "travels in central asia." second edition. the saracens: from the earliest times to the fall of bagdad. by arthur gilman, m.a., author of "rome." &c. ireland. by the hon. emily lawless, author of "hurrish." third edition. chaldea. by z. a. ragozin, author of "assyria," &c. second edition. the goths. by henry bradley. second edition. assyria: by zÉnaÏde a. ragozin, author of "chaldea," &c. turkey. by stanley lane-poole. second edition. holland. by professor thorold rogers. second edition. mediæval france. by gustav masson. second edition. persia. by s. g. w. benjamin, second edition. phoenicia. by canon rawlinson. media. by z. a. ragozin. the hansa towns. by helen zimmern. early britain. by prof. a. j. church, author of "carthage," &c. russia. by w. r. morfill, m.a., author of a "a grammar of the russian language." the barbary corsairs. by stanley lane-poole, author of "the moors in spain," "turkey," &c. the jews under the roman empire. by w. douglas morrison, m.a. scotland. by john macintosh, ll.d., author of "the history of civilisation in scotland." (_for further information, see "nation series" catalogue. sent to any address on application to the publisher._) biography. sir john hawkwood (l'acuto). story of a condottiere. translated from the italian of john temple-leader and guiseppe marcotti, by leader scott. illustrated. royal vo., bound in buckram, gilt tops. limited edition. _extract from preface._--"he was for more than thirty years one of the most effective dominators of italian affairs, and in her history--military, political, and social--he figures as a personage whose character and actions have an importance more than sufficient to justify the simple curiosity of biographical erudition." the life & times of william lloyd garrison. from -- . by his children. vols. iii. and iv., completing the work. portraits and illustrations. demy vo., cloth, s. compiled by mr. garrison's two sons, wendell phillips garrison, literary editor of the _nation_, and his brother, f. j. garrison, the above work is undoubtedly one of the most important contributions yet made to american history and biography. among those with whom mr. garrison was at one time or another during his career associated, may be mentioned mazzini, john bright, j. s. mill, emerson, james mott, william e. channing, whittier, maria w. chapman, caleb cushing, lafayette, wilberforce, fowell buxton, daniel o'connell, george thompson, zachary macaulay, clarkson, harriett martineau, wendell phillips, mrs. opie, haydon, lady byron, sir jonn bowring, the duchess of sutherland, and others. good men and true: biographies of workers in the fields of beneficence and benevolence. by alexander h. japp, ll.d. illustrated. crown vo., cloth, s. contents:--i. norman macleod, d.d.--ii. edward denison.--iii. arnold toynbee.--iv. john conington.--v. charles kingsley.--vi. bishop hannington.--vii. the stanleys: father and son.--viii. thomas guthrie, d.d.--ix. sir titus salt.--x. samuel plimsoll. life & times of girolamo savonarola. by pasquale villari. translated by linda villari. portraits and illustrations. two vols. second edition, with new preface. demy vo., cloth, s. anne gilchrist: her life and writings. edited by herbert harlakenden gilchrist. prefatory notice by william michael rossetti. second edition. twelve illustrations. demy vo., cloth, s. charles dickens as i knew him: the story of the reading tours in great britain and america ( - ). by george dolby. new and cheaper edition. crown vo., s. d. "it will be welcome to all lovers of dickens for dickens' own sake."--_athenæum._ ole bull: a memoir. by sara c. bull. with ole bull's "violin notes" and dr a. b. crosby's "anatomy of the violinist." portraits. second edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. johannes brahms: a biographical sketch. by dr. herman deiters. translated, with additions, by rosa newmarch. edited, with a preface, by j. a. fuller maitland. portrait. small crown vo., cloth, s. the lives of robert and mary moffat. by their son, john smith moffat. sixth edition. portraits, illustrations, and maps. crown vo., cloth, s. d.; popular edition, crown vo., s. d. "the biographer has done his work with reverent care, and in a straight-forward unaffected style."--_contemporary review._ the german emperor and empress: the late frederick iii. and victoria. the story of their lives. by dorothea roberts. portraits. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "a book sure to be popular in domestic circles."--_the graphic._ arminius vambéry: his life and adventures. written by himself. with portrait and fourteen illustrations. fifth and popular edition. square imperial mo., cloth extra, s. "the work is written in a most captivating manner."--_novoe vremya, moscow._ francis bacon (lord verulam): a critical review of his life and character, with selections from his writings. by b. g. lovejoy, a.m., ll.b. crown vo., half-bound cloth, gilt top, s. theology and philosophy. the treasure book of consolation: for all in sorrow or suffering. by benjamin orme, m.a. popular edition. crown vo., cloth extra, gilt edges, s. d. the questions of the bible, arranged in the order of the books of scripture, with connective readings and tables. by w. carnelley. demy vo., cloth, s. d. "the book will be a useful one for theologians and students."--_fireside news._ "a book of peculiar value to all who study the bible."-_christian._ the house and its builder, with other discourses: a book for the doubtful. by dr. samuel cox. third edition. small crown vo., paper, s. d.; cloth, s. "expositions." by same author. in four volumes, demy vo., cloth, price s. d. each. "we have said enough to show our high opinion of dr. cox's volume. it is indeed full of suggestion.... a valuable volume."--_the spectator._ "here, too, we have the clear exegetical insight, the lucid expository style, the chastened but effective eloquence, the high ethical standpoint, which secured for the earlier series a well-nigh unanimous award of commendation."--_academy._ "when we say that the volume possesses all the intellectual, moral, and spiritual characteristics which have won for its author so distinguished a place among the religious teachers of our time ... what further recommendation can be necessary?"--_nonconformist._ the risen christ: the king of men. by the late rev. j. baldwin brown, m.a. second and cheaper edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "we have again felt in reading these nervous, spiritual, and eloquent sermons, how great a preacher has passed away."--_nonconformist._ christian facts and forces. by the rev. newman smyth, author of "the reality of faith." new edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "an able and suggestive series of discourses."--_nonconformist._ "these sermons abound in noble and beautiful teaching clearly and eloquently expressed."--_christian._ inspiration and the bible: an inquiry. by robert horton, m.a., formerly fellow of new college, oxford. fourth and cheaper edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "the work displays much earnest thought, and a sincere belief in, and love of the bible."--_morning post._ "it will be found to be a good summary, written in no iconoclastic spirit, but with perfect candour and fairness, of some of the more important results of recent biblical criticism."--_scotsman._ faint, yet pursuing. by the rev. e. j. hardy, author of "how to be happy though married." sq. imp. mo., cloth, s. cheaper edition, s. d. "one of the most practical and readable volumes of sermons ever published. they must have been eminently hearable."--_british weekly._ the meditations and maxims of koheleth. a practical exposition of the book of ecclesiastes. by rev. t. campbell finlayson. crown vo., s. "a thoughtful and practical commentary on a book of holy scripture which needs much spiritual wisdom for its exposition.... sound and judicious handling."--_rock._ the pharaohs of the bondage and the exodus. lectures by charles s. robinson, d.d., ll.d. second edition. large crown vo., cloth, s. "both lectures are conceived in a very earnest spirit, and are developed with much dignity and force. we have the greatest satisfaction in commending it to the attention of biblical students and christian ministers."--_literary world._ short introduction to the history of ancient israel. by the rev. a. w. oxford, m.a., vicar of st. luke's, berwick street, soho, editor of "the berwick hymnal," &c. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "we can testify to the great amount of labour it represents."--_literary world._ the reality of religion. by henry j. van dyke, junr., d.d., of the brick church, n.y. second edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "an able and eloquent review of the considerations on which the writer rests his belief in christianity, and an impassioned statement of the strength of this belief."--_scotsman._ the reality of faith. by the rev. newman smyth, d.d., author of "old faiths in new light." fourth and cheaper edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "they are fresh and beautiful expositions of those deep things, those foundation truths, which underlie christian faith and spiritual life in their varied manifestations."--_christian age._ a layman's study of the english bible considered in its literary and secular aspects. by francis bowen, ll.d. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "most heartily do we recommend this little volume to the careful study, not only of those whose faith is not yet fixed and settled, but of those whose love for it and reliance on it grows with their growing years."--_nonconformist._ the parousia. a critical inquiry into the new testament doctrine of our lord's second coming. by the rev. j. s. russell, m.a. new and cheaper edition. demy vo., cloth, s. d. "critical, in the best sense of the word. unlike many treatises on the subject, this is a sober and reverent investigation, and abounds in a careful and instructive exegesis of every passage bearing upon it."--_nonconformist._ the ethic of freethought: a selection of essays and lectures. by karl pearson, m.a., formerly fellow of king's college, cambridge. demy vo., cloth, s. "are characterised by much learning, much keen and forcible thinking, and a fearlessness of denunciation and exposition."--_scotsman._ descartes and his school. by kuno fischer. translated from the third and revised german edition by j. p. gordy, ph.d. edited by noah porter, d.d., ll.d. demy vo., cloth, s. "a valuable addition to the literature of philosophy."--_scotsman._ "no greater service could be done to english and american students than to give them a trustworthy rendering of kuno fischer's brilliant expositions."--_mind._ socrates: a translation of the apology, crito, and parts of the phædo of plato. mo., cloth, s. d. "the translation is clear and elegant."--_morning post._ a day in athens with socrates: translations from the protagoras and the republic of plato. mo., cloth, s. d. 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"while many will find in this volume much from which they will dissent, there is in it a great deal that is deserving of careful consideration, and a great deal that is calculated to stimulate thought."--_scotsman._ travel. our journey to the hebrides. by joseph pennelland elizabeth robbins pennell. illustrations by joseph pennell. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "it will be easily understood that we could not plan a route out of our ignorance and prejudice. it remained to choose a guide, and our choice, i hardly know why, fell upon dr. johnson." studies in the south and west, with comments on canada. by charles dudley warner, author of "their pilgrimage." crown vo., s. d. studies of kentucky, the blue grass region, new orleans, chicago, etc., etc. ranch life and the hunting trail. by theodore roosevelt, author of "hunting trips of a ranchman." profusely illustrated. small to., cloth elegant, s. "it contains the highest excellence of letter-press and engraving."-_saturday review._ rides and studies in the canary isles. by charles edwardes. with many illustrations and maps. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "an honest piece of work done by a capable hand."--_academy._ guatemala: the land of the quetzal. by william t. brigham. twenty-six full-page and seventy-nine smaller illustrations. five maps. demy vo., cloth, £ s. "a book of laborious research, keen observation, and accurate information concerning a region about which previously scarcely anything was known."--_leeds mercury._ a summer's cruise in the waters of greece, turkey, and russia. by alfred colbeck. frontispiece. crown vo., cloth, s. d. the decline of british prestige in the east. by selim faris, editor of the arabic "el-jawaïb" of constantinople. crown vo., cloth, s. "a perusal of his book must do the english reader good."--_asiatic quarterly review._ daily life in india. by the rev. w. s. wilkins. illustrated. crown vo., cloth, s. "a very able book."--_guardian._ modern hinduism-- an account of the religion and life of the hindus in northern india. by rev. w. j. wilkins. demy vo., cloth, s. "a valuable contribution to the study of a very difficult subject."--_madras mail._ central asian questions: essays on afghanistan, china, and central asia. by demetrius c. boulger. with portrait and three maps. demy vo., cloth, s. "a mine of valuable information."--_times._ the balkan peninsula. by emile de laveleye. translated by mrs. thorpe. edited and revised for the english public by the author. map. demy vo., cloth, s. "likely to be very useful at the present time, as it is one of the best books on the subject."--_saturday review._ tuscan studies and sketches. by leader scott, author of "a nook in the apennines," "messer agnolo's household," &c. many full-page and smaller illustrations. sq. imp. mo., cloth, s. d. "the sketches are of that happy kind which appeal to the learned through their style, and to the simple through their subjects."--_truth._ letters from italy. by emile de laveleye. translated by mrs. thorpe. revised by the author. portrait of the author. crown vo., s. "a most delightful volume."--_nonconformist._ "every page is pleasantly and brightly written."--_times._ miscellaneous the letters of the duke of wellington to miss j., - . edited with extracts from the diary of the latter by christine terhune herrick. crown vo., paper boards, s. how men propose. the fateful question and its answer. love scenes from popular works of fiction, collected by agnes stevens, square imp. mo., cloth, s.; presentation edition, cloth elegant, bevelled boards, gilt edges, in box, s. d. (uniform with "how to be happy though married.") this work presents a collection of extracts from the works of prominent novelists, showing the many and various ways in which they treat the marriage proposal. no effort has been spared to include the widest range of authors and varieties of treatment. sylvan folk. sketches of bird and animal life in britain. by john watson, author of "a year in the fields," &c. crown vo., cloth, s. d. "his descriptions are so fresh that they will give genuine pleasure to everyone who reads them. the book will be especially interesting to young readers."--_nature._ industrial rivers of the united kingdom. by various well-known experts. with numerous illustrations. crown vo., cloth, s. d. these chapters are not confined to the commerce and industries which characterise the great rivers: the history of each stream is traced from the earliest times. the foundation of the trade and manufactures which distinguish the several ports and districts are noticed; and the improvement of the rivers and harbours, and the development of the trade and commerce, up to the latest possible period, are dealt with at length. crime: its causes and remedy. by l. gordon rylands, b.a. (lond.) crown vo, cloth, s. a treatise on crime and its causes, presenting many interesting statistics and tables on its fluctuations, and suggesting remedies and a new method of meeting it. the five talents of woman. a book for girls and young women. by the rev. e. j. hardy, author of "how to be happy though married," &c. sq. imperial mo., cloth, s.; presentation edition, bevelled boards, gilt edges, in box, s. d. how to be happy though married. small crown vo., cloth, s. d. bridal gift edition, white vellum cloth, extra gilt, bev. boards, gilt edges, in box, s. d. "we strongly recommend this book as one of the best of wedding presents."--_pall mall gazette._ "manners makyth man." by the author of "how to be happy though married." popular edition, small crown vo., cloth, s. d.; imp. mo., cloth, s. representative british orations. with introductions, &c., by chas. k. adams. mo., roxburgh, gilt tops, vols., in cloth box, s. the volumes may also be had without box, s. d. jottings from jail. notes and papers on prison matters. by the rev. j. w. horsley, m.a., oxon., late (and last) chaplain of h.m. prison, clerkenwell. second edition. crown vo., cloth, s. d. literary landmarks of london. by laurence hutton. fourth, revised, and cheaper edition. crown vo., illustrated cover, s. d.; cloth, s. d. english as she is taught. genuine answers to examination questions in our public schools. with a commentary by mark twain. demy mo., cloth, s.; parchment, s. mark twain says: "a darling literary curiosity.... this little book ought to set forty millions of people to thinking." proverbs, maxims and phrases of all ages. classified subjectively, and arranged alphabetically. by robert christy. vols., half cloth, gilt tops, s. books for children. daddy jake, the runaway; and short stories told after dark. by "uncle remus" (joel chandler harris). many illustrations. medium to., cloth, gilt edges, s. (uniform with "the brownies.") when mother was little. by s. p. yorke. thirteen full-page illustrations by henry j. ford. small square vo., cloth, s. d. the butterfly: its nature, development, and attributes. by john stuttard. dedicated to sir john lubbock, bart. illustrated. fscap. vo., limp cloth, s. Æsop's fables for little readers: told by mrs. arthur brookfield. twenty-five illustrations by henry j. ford. small to., cloth, s. d. "in their present shape, the fables should be very popular among the inmates of the nursery, more particularly as they are illustrated with nearly thirty clever drawings by henry ford, which are beautifully printed in monochrome."--_scottish leader._ six girls. a home story. by fannie bell irving. illustrated by f. t. merrill. crown vo., cloth, s. "the six main characters are drawn carefully, and well differentiated. the book has many a touch of simple pathos, and many a passage of light-hearted high spirits."--_scotsman._ the brownies: their book. by palmer cox. reprinted from _st. nicholas_, with many new poems and pictures. third and cheaper edition. medium to., cloth, gilt edges, s. new fairy tales from brentano. told in english by kate freiligrath kroeker, and pictured by f. carruthers gould. eight full-page coloured illustrations. square vo., illustrated, paper boards, cloth back, s.; cloth, gilt edges, s. "a really charming collection of stories."--_pall mall gazette._ fairy tales from brentano. told in english by kate freiligrath kroeker. illustrated by f. carruthers gould. popular edition. sq. imp. mo., s. d. 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"this is a really admirable selection of genuine narrative and history, treated with discretion and skill by the author. mr. hope has not gathered his stories from the highway, but has explored far afield in less-beaten tracts, as may be seen in his 'adventures of a ship-boy' and 'a smith among savages.'"--_saturday review._ the adventures of robinson crusoe. newly edited after the original editions. nineteen illustrations. large crown vo., cloth extra, s. two little confederates. by thomas nelson page. with eight full-page illustrations by e. w. kemble and a. c. redwood. square vo., cloth, s. "a charming story."--_american traveller._ the cameo series half-bound, paper boards, price s. d. each. fine edition, bound in parchment, printed on japan paper, numbered and signed, copies only printed, being for sale; terms on application from booksellers or the publisher. the lady from the sea. by henrik ibsen. translated, with the author's permission, from the norwegian by eleanor marx aveling. with a critical introduction by edmund gosse. portrait of the author and autograph. a london plane-tree, and other poems. by the late amy levy, author of "the romance of a shop," "reuben sachs," &c. illustrated by j. bernard partridge. wordsworth's grave and other poems. by william watson, author of "the prince's quest," &c. frontispiece. sakuntal[=a]; or, the fatal ring. an indian drama by kalidasa. translated by sir william jones, and edited, with an introduction, by t. w. rhys davids, ph.d., ll.d. "_unwin's novel series._" the volumes average about pp., small cr. vo., limp cloth, price s. each. gladys fane. by t. wemyss reid. fifth edition. mrs. keith's crime. by mrs. w. k. clifford. concerning oliver knox. by g. colmore. miss bayle's romance; or, an american heiress in europe. by w. fraser rae. isaac eller's money. by mrs. andrew dean. chronicles of a health resort. by a. herder. london: t. fisher unwin, paternoster square, e.c. * * * * * transcribers note: some minor obvious typographical errors have been corrected without comment. footnotes have been moved to underneath the paragraph they refer to so as to not disrupt the flow of the text. corrections made: (note: the letter "a" after the page number refers to the back advertisement pages after the main body of the book.) pg "a whole ship's company to fee [replaced with "feed"]" pg "was a pretty [inserted a comma here] old-fashioned flower-garden," pg a (back advertising section) "mr. hope has not gathered his stores [replaced with "stories"]" multiple versions of words not changed: ferryman, ferry-man bedroom, bed-rooms the genius of scotland; or sketches of scottish scenery, literature and religion. by rev. robert turnbull fourth edition. new york: robert carter, canal street . entered, according to act of congress, in the year , by robert carter, in the clerk's office of the district court of the united states for the southern district of new york. stereotyped by thomas b. smith, william street, new york preface. having been born and educated in scotland, and possessing a tolerable acquaintance with its history and literature, the author of the following work felt that he had some facilities for giving to the people of this country a just idea of his native land. the plan of his work is somewhat new, combining in a larger degree, than he has hitherto seen attempted, descriptions of scenery, with literary and biographical sketches, portraitures of character social and religious, incidents of travel, and reflections on matters of local or general interest. hence he has omitted many things which a mere tourist would not fail to notice, and supplied their place with sketches of more enduring interest. he would particularly invite attention to the sketches of knox, burns, wilson, chalmers, bruce, 'the ettrick shepherd,' and sir walter scott. his rambles through fair or classic scenes are thus enlivened with useful information. in a word, it has been his endeavor, in an easy natural way, to give his readers an adequate conception of the scenery, literature, and religion of scotland. hartford, conn. contents page preface chapter i. beauty an element of the mind--our native land--auld lang syne--general description of scotland--extent of population--spirit of the people--the highlands--the lowlands--burns's 'genius of scotland'--natural and moral aspects of the country--'the cotter's saturday night'--sources of prosperity chapter ii. the city of edinburgh--views from arthur's seat--the poems of richard gall--'farewell to ayrshire'--'arthur's seat, a poem'--extracts--craigmillar castle--the forth, roslin castle and the pentland hills--liberty chapter iii. walk to the castle--the old wynds and their occupants--regalia of scotland--storming of the castle--views from its summit--heriot's hospital--other hospitals--st. giles's cathedral--changes--the spirit of protestantism chapter iv. john knox's house--history of the reformer--his character--carlyle's view--testimony of john milton chapter v. edinburgh university--professor wilson--his life and writings, genius and character chapter vi. the calton hill--burns's monument--character and writings of 'the peasant poet'--his religious views--monument of professor dugald stewart--scottish metaphysics--thomas carlyle chapter vii. preaching in edinburgh--the free church--dr. chalmers--a specimen of his preaching--the secret of his eloquence chapter viii. biographical sketch of dr. chalmers chapter ix. dr. john brown of edinburgh--rev. john brown of whiteburn--professor john brown of haddington--rev. dr. candlish--specimen of his preaching chapter x. ride into the country--the skylark--poems on the skylark by shelley and the 'ettrick shepherd'--newhall--'the gentle shepherd'--localities and outlines of the story--its popularity in scotland chapter xi. biographical sketch of allan ramsay--lasswade--ramble along the banks of the north esk--glenesk--a character--anecdote of sir walter scott--hawthornden--drummond, the poet--his character and genius--sonnets--chapel and castle of roslin--barons of roslin--ballad of rosabella--hunting match between robert bruce and sir william st. clair chapter xii. ramble through the fields--parish schools--recollections of dominie meuross--the south esk--borthwick and crichtoun castles--new battle abbey--dalkeith--residence of the duke of buccleugh--'scotland's skaith,' by hector macneil--his character and writings--extracts from the 'history of will and jean' chapter xiii. city of glasgow--spirit of the place--trade and manufactures--the broomielaw--steam--george's square--monuments to sir walter scott, sir john moore, and james watt--sketch of the life of watt--glasgow university--reminiscences--brougham--sir d. k. sandford--professor nichol and others--high kirk, or glasgow cathedral--martyrdom of jerome russel and john kennedy chapter xiv. the necropolis--jewish burial place--monument to john knox--monuments of william macgavin and dr. dick--reminiscences--character and writings of dr. dick--pollok and 'the course of time'--grave of motherwell--sketch of his life--his genius and poetry--'jeanie morrison'--'my heid is like to rend, willie'--'a summer sabbath noon' chapter xv. dumbarton castle--lochlomond--luss--ascent of benlomond--magnificent views--ride to loch-katrine--rob roy macgregor--'gathering of clan gregor'--loch-katrine and the trosachs--the city of perth--martyrdom of helen stark and her husband chapter xvi. sabbath morning--'the sabbath,' by james grahame--sketch of his life--extracts from his poetry--the cameronians--'dream of the martyrs,' by james hislop--sabbath morning walk--country church--the old preacher--the interval of worship--conversation in the church-yard--going home from church--sabbath evening chapter xvii. lochleven--escape of queen mary from lochleven castle--michael bruce--sketch of his life--boyhood--college life--poetry--'lochleven'--sickness--'ode to spring'--death--'ode to the cuckoo' chapter xviii. dunfermline--ruins of the abbey--grave of robert bruce--malcolm canmore's palace--william henryson, the poet--william dunbar--stirling castle--views from its summit--city of stirling--george buchanan and dr. arthur johnston--falkirk--linlithgow--story of the capture of linlithgow castle--spirit of war--arrival in edinburgh chapter xix. journey to peebles--characters--conversation on politics--scottish peasantry--peebles--'christ's kirk on the green'--a legend--an old church--the banks of the tweed--its ancient castles--the alarm fire--excursion to the vales of ettrick and yarrow--stream of yarrow--st. mary's lake and dryhope tower--'the dowie dens of yarrow'--growth of poetry--ballads and poems on yarrow by hamilton, logan and wordsworth chapter xx. hamlet and church-yard of ettrick--monument to thomas boston--birth-place of the ettrick shepherd--altrieve cottage--biographical sketch of the ettrick shepherd--the town of selkirk--monument to sir walter scott--battle-field of philiphangh chapter xxi. return to the banks of the tweed--abbotsford--the study--biographical sketch of sir walter scott--his early life--residence in the country--spirit of romance--education--first efforts as an author--success of 'marmion'--character of his poetry--literary change--his novels--pecuniary difficulties--astonishing efforts--last sickness--death and funeral chapter xxii. melrose abbey--the eildon hills--thomas the rhymer--dryburgh--monuments to the author of 'the seasons' and sir william wallace--kelso--beautiful scenery--a pleasant evening--biographical sketch of leyden, poet, antiquary, scholar and traveller--the duncan family--journey resumed--twisel bridge--battle of flodden--norham castle--berwick upon tweed--biographical sketch of thomas mackay wilson, author of 'the border tales'--conclusion--'auld lang syne' genius of scotland. chapter i. beauty an element of the mind--our native land--auld lang syne--general description of scotland--extent of population--spirit of the people--the highlands--the lowlands--burns's 'genius of scotland'--natural and moral aspects of the country--'the cotter's saturday night'--sources of prosperity. the theory has become prevalent among philosophers, and even among literary men, that beauty is more an element of the mind than of external objects. things, say they, are not what they seem. their aspects are ever varying with the minds which gaze upon them. they change even under the eyes of the same individuals. a striking illustration of this may be found in the opening stanza of wordsworth's ode to immortality. there was a time when meadow, grove and stream, the earth and every common sight to me did seem apparelled in celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream. it is not now as it hath been of yore; turn wheresoe'er i may, by night or day, the things which i have seen i now can see no more. it is the mind then, which transfers its own ethereal colors to the forms of matter, and invests scenes and places with new and peculiar attractions. like the light of the moon streaming through a leafy grove and transforming its darkness into its own radiant beauty, the spirit of man diffuses its own inspiration through the universe, "making all nature beauty to the eye and music to the ear." now if this theory be true, it follows that no country will appear to us so beautiful as the one which happens to be endeared to our hearts by early recollections and pleasant associations. no matter how rude and wild,--that spot of all others on earth, will appear to us the sweetest and most attractive! 'new england,' says a native of massachusetts or of vermont, 'is the glory of all lands. no hills and vales are more picturesque than hers, no rivers more clear and beautiful.' 'visit naples, and die!' exclaims the neapolitan, proud of his classic home. 'green erin, my darling,' is the fond language of the hibernian, 'first gem of the ocean, first flower of the sea.' 'here's a health,' shouts the native of caledonia, 'bonny scotland to thee!' others may speak disparagingly of the sour climate and barren soil of scotland; but to a native of that country, the land of his fathers is invested with all the charms of poetry and romance. every spot of its varied surface is hallowed ground. he sees its rugged rocks and desolate moors mantled with the hoary memories of by-gone days, the thrilling associations of childhood and youth. therefore, with a meaning and emphasis, which all who love their native land will appreciate, he appropriates the words of the poet:-- land of the forest and the rock, of dark blue lake and mighty river, of mountains reared aloft to mock, the storm's career, the lightning's shock, my own green land forever! land of the beautiful and brave! the freeman's home, the martyr's grave! the nursery of giant men, whose deeds have linked with every glen, the magic of a warrior's name! does not scotland, however inferior, in some respects it may be deemed to other lands, possess a peculiar charm to all cultivated minds?[ ] what visions of ancient glory cluster around the time-honored name! what associations of 'wild native grandeur,'--of wizard beauty, and rough magnificence. what gleams of 'poetic sunlight,'--what recollections of martial daring by flood and field,--what hallowed faith and burning zeal,--what martyr toils and martyr graves, monuments of freedom's struggles and freedom's triumphs in moor or glen,--what 'lights and shadows' of love and passion,--what ancient songs, echoing among the hills,--what blessed sabbath calm,--what lofty inspiration of the bible and covenant,--in a word, what dear and hallowed memories of that 'auld lang syne,' indigenous only to scotland, though known throughout the world! should this be deemed enthusiastic, let it, and all else of a similar character which may be found in this volume, be ascribed to a natural and not unpardonable feeling on the part of the writer. the remembrance of 'auld lang syne' can never be extinguished. except the hope of heaven, it is our best and holiest heritage. [footnote : the following eloquent passage from an address by the honorable edward everett, before the "scots' charitable society," boston, well illustrates the fact referred to. "not to speak of the worthies of ages long passed; of the knoxes, the buchanans, and the early minstrelsy of the border; the land of your fathers, sir, since it ceased to be a separate kingdom, has, through the intellect of her gifted sons, acquired a supremacy over the minds of men more extensive and more enduring, than that of alexander or augustus. it would be impossible to enumerate them all,--the blairs of the last generation, the chalmerses of this; the robertsons, and humes; the smiths, the reids, the stuarts, the browns; the homes, the mackenzies; the mackintoshes, the broughams, the jeffreys, with their distinguished compeers, both on physical and moral science. the marys and the elizabeths, the jameses and the charleses will be forgotten, before these names will perish from the memory of men. and when i add to them those other illustrious names--burns, campbell, byron, and scott, may i not truly say, sir, that the throne and the sceptre of england will crumble into dust like those of scotland: and windsor castle and westminster abbey will lie in ruins as poor and desolate as those of scone and iona, before the lords of scottish song shall cease to reign in the hearts of men. for myself, sir, i confess that i love scotland. i have reason to do so. i have trod the soil of the land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, i have looked up to the cloud-capt summit of ben lomond; have glided among the fairy islets of loch katrine; and from the battlements of stirling castle, have beheld the links of forth sparkling in the morning sun. i have done more, sir; i have tasted that generous hospitality of scotland, which her majesty's consul has so justly commemorated; i have held converse with her most eminent sons; i have made my pilgrimage to melrose abbey, in company with that modern magician, who, mightier than the magician of old that sleeps beneath the marble floor of its chancel, has hung the garlands of immortal poesy upon its shattered arches, and made its moss-clad ruins a shrine, to be visited by the votary of the muse from the remotest corners of the earth, to the end of time. yes, sir, musing as i did, in my youth, over the sepulchre of the wizard, once pointed out by the bloody stain of the cross and the image of the archangel:--standing within that consecrated enclosure, under the friendly guidance of him whose genius has made it holy ground; while every nerve within me thrilled with excitement, my fancy kindled with the inspiration of the spot. i seemed to behold, not the vision so magnificently described by the minstrel,--the light, which, as the tomb was opened, broke forth so gloriously, streamed upward to the chancel roof, and through the galleries far aloof: but i could fancy that i beheld, with sensible perception, the brighter light, which had broken forth from the master mind; which had streamed from his illumined page all-gloriously upward, above the pinnacles of worldly grandeur, till it mingled its equal beams, with that of the brightest constellations, in the intellectual firmament of england."] as 'auld lang syne' brings scotland one and all, scotch plaids, scotch snoods, the blue hills and clear streams, the dee, the don, balgownies brig's black wall, all my boy feelings, all my gentler dreams of what i then dreamt, clothed in their own pall, like banquo's offspring; floating past me seems my childhood, in this childishness of mind; i care not;--'tis a glimpse of 'auld lang syne.' byron. beautiful is new england, resembling as she does, in many of her features, 'auld scotia's hills and dales,' and moreover being much akin to her, in religious sentiment and the love of freedom; so that a native of either might well be forgiven for clinging with peculiar fondness to the land of his birth, and, in certain moods of mind, prefering it to all the world beside. though far away, and even loving the place of his estrangement, he cannot, if he would, altogether renounce those ties which bind him to his early home. a 'viewless chain,' which crosses ocean and continent, conveys from the one to the other that subtle, yet gracious influence, which is quicker and stronger than the lightning's gleam. let no one then be surprised if a scotsman in new england, the cherished land of his adoption, should solace his mind with the recollection of early days, and endeavor to set before others the characteristic beauties and excellences of his native country. o caledonia, stern and wild, meet nurse for a poetic child! land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, land of my sires! what mortal hand, can e'er untie the filial band that knits me to thy rugged strand! "scotland," as one of her own sons has expressed it, "is a wee bit country," but possessed of "muckle pith and spirit." its surface is rough and mountainous, with beautiful patches of rich arable land along the courses of its streams, and extensive level meadows, called carses, as the carse of falkirk, and the carse of gowrie. it is of unequal breadth, being much indented with bays and creeks, and stretches some two hundred and eighty miles in length, reckoning from its most southerly point, the mull of galloway, to dunnet's head, its most northern extremity. this probably would be a little farther than from "maiden kirk to johnny groat's," the "from dan to beersheba" of scotland. clustering around its western and northern sides are the hebrides, the shetland and the orkney islands; wild and rocky isles, with rude and primitive inhabitants, constituting the ultima thule of great britain. in scotland, a considerable portion of the land is uncultivated, consisting of heathy hills, mountains and moors; and the most of that which is cultivated has been rendered productive by the hand of art and industry. like switzerland, it is comparatively a poor country, but has been made rich by the generative powers of mind. her wealth consists in the brawny arms and vigorous intellects of her sons. the climate is cold and variable, though milder in winter than that of new england, and in summer cooler, and upon the whole, more agreeable, except when dense fogs and long-continued rains prevail. the population is over two millions and a half, and is gradually increasing, though the people, like those of new england, are greatly given to migration, and may be found in every part of the world. its commerce and manufactures are, for its size, very extensive. they have increased, since , from twenty-five to thirty per cent. agriculture and the mechanic arts have been carried to a high degree of perfection. while the people are characteristically cautious and slow, "looking before they leap," to quote one of their favorite proverbs, they are bold and enterprising, and thus leap long and successfully. few nations have accomplished so much in literature or trade, in science or the arts of industry. their highest distinction, however, consists in their spirit of love and fealty, their leal-heartedness, their contempt of sham, their passionate love of freedom, their zeal for god and the truth! obstinate and wrong-headed at times, characteristically dogmatic, and perhaps a little intolerant, their very faults lean to virtue's side, and go to the support of goodness. their punctiliousness and pride, their dogged adherence to what they conceive to be right, and their vehement mode of defending it, constitute the rough and prickly bark which defends the precious tree. one thing is certain, they are transparent as daylight, and honest as their own heathy hills. they are preëminently a religious people, protestant to the backbone, occasionally rough and impetuous in the expression of their opinions, but never formal, never indecorous. a profound enthusiasm, bordering on fanaticism, a passionate, though not boisterous or canting devotion, a fine sense of the grand and beautiful, intermingled with a keen conscientiousness, an ardent love of freedom, with a boundless trust in god, form the great elements of their religious life. their theology is chiefly calvinistic, apparently philosophical and dogmatic, but rather less so than popular and practical. of cathedrals, old and dim, of masses, chants and processions, the pomp and circumstance of a magnificent ritual, they have none.[ ] but of old and glorious memories, solemn temples among the woods and hills, hallowed grave-yards, blessed sacraments, and national enthusiasm, they have abundance. their religion is a part of the soil. it is indigenous to the country. it grew up among the mountains, was nursed by 'wizard streams,' and 'led forth' with the voice of psalms, among 'the green pastures of the wilderness.' somewhat forbidding at first, like the rough aspect of the country, it appears equally picturesque and beautiful, when really known and loved. it is the religion not of form but of substance, of deep inward emotion, not of outward pretension and show. neither is it a sickly sentimentalism which lives on poetic musings, and matures only in cloistered shades and moonlight groves; but it is a healthy, robust principle which goes forth to do and to suffer the will of heaven. its head and heart are sound, and its works praise it in the gate. beautiful as the visions of fancy, it is yet strong as the everlasting hills among which it was reared. in a word, it is the religion of faith and love, the religion of the old puritans, of the martyrs and confessors of primitive times. welling out forever from the unstained fountains of the word of god, it has marked its course over the fair face of scotland, with the greenest verdure, the sweetest flowers. [footnote : this is spoken, of course, of the great body of the people.] scotland is naturally divided into highlands and lowlands. the former includes, besides the various groups of islands on the north and north-west coast, the counties of argyle, inverness, nairn, ross, cromarty, sutherland and caithness, with portions of dumbarton, stirling, perth, forfar, "aberdeen awa," banff and elgin, or the more northerly regions of the country, protected and beautified by the mighty range of the grampians, commencing at the southern extremity of loch etive, and terminating at the mouth of the dee on the eastern coast. the highlands again are divided into two unequal portions by the beautiful chain of lochs, or lakes running through the glenmore-nan-albin, or great glen of caledonia, forming some of the wildest and richest scenery in the world. to the north are the giant mountains of macdui, cairngorm, ben-aven and ben-more, while nearer the lowlands, rise the lofty ben-lomond, and the hoary ben-awe. under their shadows gleam the storied lochs, the wild tarns and trosachs, whose picturesque and romantic beauties have been immortalized by the pens of burns, scott, and wilson. to the south and east of the grampian range, and running parallel to them, you discover a chain of lower and more verdant hills, bearing the well known and poetical names of the sidlaw, campsie and ochil hills. these are divided by the fertile valleys of the tay and forth. between them and the grampians lies the low and charming valley of strathmore. the "silver tay," one of the finest rivers in scotland, rises in breadalbane, expands into lake dochart, flows in an easterly direction through the vale of glendochart, expands again into the long and beautiful loch tay, which runs like a belt of silver among the hills, whence issuing, it receives various accessions from other streams, passes on in a southerly direction to dunkeld, famous for its ancient abbey and lovely scenery, skirts the ancient and delightful city of perth, below which it is joined by its great tributary the earn, which flows, in serpentine windings, through the rich vale of strath-earn, touches the populous and thriving town of dundee, and gradually widens into the firth of tay, whose clear waters mirror the white skiff or magnificent steamer, and imperceptibly mingle with the waves of the northern sea. further north, the rapid spey, springing from the 'braes of badenoch' near lochaber, passes tumultuously through a rough and mountainous country, lingering occasionally, as if to rest itself in some deep glen, crosses the ancient province of moray, famous for its floods, so admirably described by sir thomas dick lauder, passes kinrara, "whence, for a few miles, it is attended by a series of landscapes, alike various, singular and magnificent," after which, it moves, with a monotonous aspect, and a steady pace, to the sea. portions of the country through which this river passes are exceedingly sterile and wild. covered with the birch, the alder and the pine, varied by rugged rocks and desolate moors, it admirably corresponds to our notions of caledonia, in her ancient and primitive integrity. in the more remote and northern regions of the highlands, and in most of the scottish isles, the gaelic, or erse, a primitive and energetic tongue, somewhat akin to the welsh or irish, is spoken by a majority of the inhabitants. in other parts of scotland, the english, with a scottish idiom, is the prevalent speech. the literature of the gaelic is exceedingly limited, confined chiefly to old ballads, songs and traditionary stories. the poems of ossian are doubtless the production of macpherson, their professed translator, while they probably contain a few translated fragments, and some traditionary facts and conceptions afloat among the highlanders, ingeniously interwoven with the main fabric of the work. the highlanders are a simple-hearted, primitive race, mostly poor, and imperfectly educated. those of them that are wealthy and well educated, are said to be remarkably acute, courteous, and agreeable. the lowlands of scotland comprehend the south and southeastern portions of the country, and though not the grandest and most romantic, are by far the best cultivated, and in some respects the most beautiful. including the level ground on the eastern coast to the south of the moray firth, they stretch along the coast through portions of perthshire, and the old kingdom of fife, towards the regions bounded on either side, by the river and the firth of forth, and thence to kircudbright and the english border, including the principal cities, the most fertile tracts of arable land, the rivers forth, clyde and tweed, and the range of the cheviot hills, which extend from the north of england towards the north-west, join the louther hills in the region of ettrick and yarrow, with their 'silver streams,' pass through the southern part of ayrshire and terminate at loch ryan, in the irish channel. the clyde is the most important commercial river in scotland. taking its origin among the mountains of the south, not far from the early home of its beautiful and more classic sisters, the tweed and the annan, it runs in many capricious windings, in a northwesterly direction, leaps in foaming cascades first at bonnington, and then at cora linn, rushes on through the fine country of lanarkshire, till, joined by many tributary streams, it passes through the large and flourishing city of glasgow, bearing upon its bosom the vast commerce and population of the neighboring regions, flows around the walls of old dumbarton castle, with its time-worn battlements and glorious memories, in sight, too, of the lofty ben lomond, and the beautiful lake which it protects, touches the ancient city of greenock, expands into the firth of clyde, and gradually loses itself amid the picturesque islands which adorn the western coast of scotland. were it possible, by placing ourselves upon some lofty elevation, to take in at one glance, the whole of this varied landscape of lake, river, and mountain; of tarn, trosach and moor, with verdant vales, and woody slopes between, we should confess that it was one of as rare beauty and wild magnificence as ever greeted the vision of man. and were our minds steeped in ancient and poetic lore, we should be prepared to appreciate the faithfulness and splendor of burns's allegorical description of the "genius of scotland." "green, slender, leaf-clad holly boughs, were twisted gracefu' round her brows, i took her for some scottish muse, by that same token, and come to stop those reckless vows would soon be broken. a hair-brained sentimental trace, was strongly marked in her face; a wildly witty-rustic grace, shone full upon her, her eye e'en turned on empty space, beamed keen with honor. her mantle large, of greenish hue, my gazing wonder chiefly drew, deep _lights and shadows_ mingling threw a lustre grand; and seemed, to my astonished view a _well known land_! here rivers in the sea were lost; there mountains in the skies were tost; here tumbling billows marked the coast, with surging foam; there, distant shone, art's lofty boast, the lordly dome. here doon poured down his far-fetched floods; there well fed irwine stately thuds: auld hermit ayr staw through his woods, on to the shore; and many a lesser torrent scuds with seeming roar. low in a sandy valley spread, an ancient _borough_ reared her head still as in scottish story read, she boasts a race, to every nobler virtue bred, and polished grace. by stately tower or palace fair or ruins pendent in the air bold stems of heroes here and there, i could discern; some seemed to muse, some seemed to dare with feature stern." now, imagine the whole of this country, studded at no remote intervals, with churches and schools well supported, and well attended by young and old. think of her ancient and able universities, edinburgh, glasgow, st. andrews, and aberdeen, including in the last, marischal college and kings college, with an average attendance of from to students, with their learned and amiable professors, extensive libraries, and fine collections in natural history. think of her innumerable high schools, private schools, public and private libraries, literary institutes and ancient hospitals, some for the body and some for the mind, and connect the whole with her heroic history, her poetical enthusiasm, her religious faith, her fealty to god and man, and you will have some faint conception of the beauty and glory of scotland. but the impression would be deepened, could you behold the land, beautified and ennobled by her sabbath calm, as once in seven days, she rests and worships before the lord. could you but hear the voice of her church-going bells, and go to the house of god, in company with her thoughtful but cheerful population; could you sit in some "auld warld" kirk, and hear some grey-haired holy man dispense, with deep and tender tones, the word of everlasting life; could you hear a whole congregation of devout worshippers make the hills ring again, with their simple melody; above all, could you place yourself in some deep shady glen, by the "sweet burnie," as it "wimples" among the waving willows, or the yellow broom, or sit down on the green "brae side," enamelled with "gowans," on some sacramental occasion, when thousands are gathered to hear the preaching of the gospel, and with simple ritual, to commemorate the dying love of the redeemer! could you see the devout and happy looks of the aged, and the sweet but reverent aspect of children and youth, as the tones of some earnest preacher thrilled them with emotions of holy gratitude, in view of the "loving kindness of the lord," you would instinctively feel that scotland,--free, protestant scotland, was a happy land, and would be prepared to exclaim with the sweet singer of israel: "blessed are the people that know the joyful sound, they shall walk, o lord, in the light of thy countenance." "how with religious awe impressed they open lay the guileless breast; and youth and age with fears distressed all due prepare, the symbols of eternal rest devout to share. how down ilk lang withdrawing hill, successive crowds the valleys fill; while pure religious converse still beguiles the way, and gives a cast to youthful will, to suit the day. how placed along the sacred board, their hoary pastor's looks adored,-- his voice with peace and blessing stored, sent from above, and faith and hope, and joy afford and boundless love. o'er this with warm seraphic glow, celestial beings pleased bow; and whispered hear the holy vow, 'mid grateful tears; and mark amid such scenes below their future peers."[ ] [footnote : letter to robert burns, by mr. telford, of shrewsbury, a native of scotland.] or you might leave this scene, and study the scottish character with some shepherd boy on the hills, as he reads god's word upon the greensward, and meditates on things divine, while tending his flocks far from the house of god, on the sabbath day, a circumstance to which grahame in his poem of the sabbath, has touchingly referred, and which telford has thus described: "say how, by early lessons taught, truth's pleasing air is willing caught! congenial to the untainted thought, the shepherd boy, who tends his flocks on lonely height, feels holy joy. is aught on earth so lovely known, on sabbath morn, and far alone. his guileless soul all naked shown before his god-- such prayers must welcome reach the throne and bless'd abode. o tell! with what a heartfelt joy the parent eyes the virtuous boy; and all his constant kind employ, is how to give the best of _lear_ he can enjoy, as means to live." the scenes of "the cotter's saturday night," one of the sweetest poems in any language, are exact transcripts from real life, as burns himself intimates. his father was "a godly man," and was wont, morning and evening, to "turn o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, the big ha' bible," and worship god, with his family. where in italy or in austria will you meet aught so beautiful or thrilling as the following? "the cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, they round the ingle form a circle wide, the sire turns o'er wi' patriarchal grace the big _ha' bible_ ance his father's pride: his bonnet reverently is laid aside, his lyart haffets[ ] wearing thin and bare: those strains that once did sweet in zion glide he wales a portion with judicious care; and 'let us worship god!' he says with solemn air. they chant their artless notes in simple guise, they tune their hearts, by far their noblest aim; perhaps _dundee's_ wild warbling measures rise, or plaintive _martyrs_ worthy of the name, or noble elgin beats the heavenward flame, the sweetest far of _scotia's_ holy lays. compared with these italian trills are tame; the tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise, nae unison hae they with our creator's praise. the priest-like father reads the sacred page, how abram was the friend of god on high, or moses bade eternal warfare wage with amalek's ungracious progeny; or how the royal bard did groaning lie beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire; or job's pathetic plaint and wailing cry; or rapt isaiah's wild seraphic fire; or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. perhaps the christian volume is the theme: how guiltless blood for guilty man was shed, how he who bore in heaven the second name, had 'not on earth whereon to lay his head;' how his first followers and servants sped; the precepts sage they wrote to many a land: how he who lone in patmos banished, saw in the sun a mighty angel stand; and heard great babylon's doom pronounced by heaven's command. then kneeling down to heaven's eternal king, the saint, the father, and the husband prays, hope springs exulting on triumphant wing, that thus they all shall meet in future days: there ever bask in uncreated rays, no more to sigh or shed the bitter tear, together hymning their creator's praise, in such society, yet still more dear; while circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. compared with this how poor religion's pride, in all the pomp of method and of art, when men display to congregations wide, devotion's every grace except the heart; the power incensed the pageant will desert, the pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; but haply in some cottage far apart, may hear well pleased the language of the soul, and in his book of life the inmates poor enroll." [footnote : withered cheeks.] these are the elements of a people's greatness. these are the perennial sources of their ruth and loyalty, their freedom and virtue. these guard the domestic graces, these bind the commonwealth in holy and enduring bands. better than splendid mausoleums and gorgeous temples, better than costly altars and a pompous ritual, better than organ blasts and rolling incense, better by far than mass and breviary, confessional and priestly absolution! for while the most imposing forms of religion are often heartless and dead, these sacred rites of a christianity pure and practical, ever possess a vital power,--a power to quicken and save. "from scenes like these auld scotia's grandeur springs, that makes her loved at home, revered abroad; princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 'an honest man's the noblest work of god.' * * * * * o scotia! my dear, my native soil! for whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent, long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil, be blest with health and peace and sweet content! and oh, may heaven their simple lives prevent from luxury's contagion, weak and vile! then howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, a virtuous populace may rise the while, and stand a wall of fire around their much loved isle." but we have dwelt long enough on general topics. if the reader will accompany us, we will ramble together in some particular scenes, meditating, as we go, on things new and old, and chatting, in lively or in sombre mood, as the humor may seize us. first of all then, let us visit "auld reekie," as the inhabitants often call it, or more classically, "the modern athens," the beautiful and far famed metropolis of scotland. chapter ii. the city of edinburgh--views from arthur's seat--the poems of richard gall--"farewell to ayrshire"--"arthur's seat, a poem"--extracts--craigmillar castle--the forth, roslin castle and the pentland hills--liberty. we will enter the city on the west side, as if we were coming from glasgow, pass through prince's street, with its elegant buildings and fine promenades, skirting that enclosure of walks and shrubbery, just under the frowning battlements of the castle, and adorned with the superb statue of sir walter scott, rising rapidly to its completion; then turn the corner at right-angles, cross the north bridge, enter high street, and thence plunge down the hill into the old canongate; and without waiting to look at "the heart of midlothian," or even the beautiful ruins of holyrood house, at the foot of the hill, let us turn to the right, and climb the rocky sides of "arthur's seat" with its summit of verdure overlooking the city and the neighboring country. for there the whole panorama of the city will spread itself before us, surrounded with magnificent scenery, stretching far and wide from the pentland hills on the one side to the firth of forth on the other, from stirling castle on the west to the german ocean on the east. here we are then, on the very highest point of the mountain, with the warm sunshine around us, tempered as it is by the fresh "westlin wind," at once so sweet and bland. aye, aye! this is beautiful! what a landscape! how varied and yet how harmonious! not only beautiful exceedingly, but ineffably grand and striking! beneath us is the fine old city--new and old at the same time, lying nearly square, with its lofty buildings and elegant monuments, handsome parks and green shrubberies. to the left is the older part of the city, rising gradually from the palace of holyrood at our feet, and crowned by the castle, which is built upon a granite rock, whose rough sides, terminating abruptly to the north and west, hang over prince's street and the lower part of the city. "there watching high the least alarms, thy rough rude fortress gleams afar; like some bold veteran gray in arms and pierced with many a seamy scar: the ponderous wall and massy bar, grim rising o'er the rugged rock; have oft withstood assailing war, and oft repelled the invader's shock."--burns. before us and stretching away towards the forth and the city of leith is "the new town," surmounted on this side by the calton hill, on which stand the monuments of dugald stewart and admiral nelson, the unfinished parthenon, and the monument of robert burns,--beautiful and imposing objects, reminding us of the acropolis of athens, and affording fine relief to the long ranges of smooth and polished buildings beyond. behind us are the pentland hills with their verdant slopes and historic recollections. to the right lie the city and bay of leith, "the piræus" of edinburgh, the long winding shore in the direction of portobello, and "the dark blue deep" of the ocean, studded with white sails, glistening in the summer radiance. to the north, at a distance of a few miles, you see the majestic firth of forth, and beyond, "in cultur'd beauty," the "kingdom of fife," with the distant range of the ochil and campsie hills. from this point also you can see, at a distance of some three miles, the gray ruins of craigmillar castle, famous in the annals of scotland, as the residence of queen mary, and the scene of those secret machinations, which ended in the tragedy of holyrood; inch keith with its lofty lighthouse; the isle of may, once consecrated to st. adrian, and on which stands another "star of hope" to the mariner; and old inchcolm, famous for its ancient convent founded by st. colomba, one of the patron saints of scotland. how gloriously, light and shade, land and ocean, park and woodland, old castles and hoary ruins, frowning rocks and smiling meadows mingle and blend in this rare and magnificent landscape. "traced like a map the landscape lies in cultur'd beauty stretching wide; there pentland's green acclivities, there ocean, with its azure tide; there arthur's seat, and gleaming through thy southern wing dun edin blue! while in the orient, lammer's daughters, a distant giant range are seen, north berwick law, with cone of green, and bass amid the waters." delta.[ ] [footnote : supposed to be dr. moir.] here you can easily understand the reason why edinburgh has been thought to resemble the city of athens. mr. stuart, author of the "antiquities of athens," was the first to call attention to this fact, and his opinion has often been confirmed since. dr. clarke remarks that the neighborhood of athens is just the highlands of scotland, enriched with the splendid remains of art. another acute observer states that the distant view of athens from the Ã�gean sea is extremely like that of edinburgh from the firth of forth, "though," he adds, "certainly the latter is considerably superior." "the resemblance," says j. g. kohl, the celebrated german traveller, "is indeed very striking. athens, like edinburgh, was a city of hills and valleys, and its ilissus was probably not much larger than the water of leith. athens, like edinburgh, was an inland town, and had its harbor, piræus, on the sea-coast. the mountains near edinburgh very much resemble those near athens. i have little doubt, however, that athens is more honored by being compared to edinburgh, than edinburgh to athens; for it is probable that the scenery and position of the northern are more grand and striking in their beauty, than those of the southern athens." by the way there is a beautiful poem in the scottish dialect, entitled "arthur's seat," written by richard gall, a young man of great promise, the friend and correspondent of burns. he struggled with poverty, and like fergusson and michael bruce, was cut off prematurely, but not before he had written some exquisite poems, in the style of burns, whom he greatly admired. he was contemporary with the unfortunate but gifted tannahill of paisley, and possessed a kindred taste in song writing.[ ] his "farewell to ayrshire," commencing-- "scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, scenes that former thoughts renew; scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure, now a sad and last adieu! bonnie doon sae sweet at gloaming, fare thee weel before i gang-- bonnie doon where early roaming, first i weaved the rustic sang"-- has been often printed, on account of its locality and associations, as the composition of burns. he is doubtless greatly inferior to burns, and not quite equal to bruce or even tannahill, but his verses possess great sweetness, and contain some graphic and beautiful descriptions. this is the case especially, with "arthur's seat," his longest and most elaborate poem. as its sketches of scenery in and around edinburgh, are at once accurate and pleasing, and as it is entirely unknown in america, we will take the liberty of quoting some of its finest passages. [footnote : tannahill was a weaver in paisley. he excelled in song writing. under the pressure of poverty and deep depression of spirits he committed suicide.] gazing from arthur's seat, the poet invokes the genius of burns-- "to sing ilk bonny bushy bower, adorned with many a wild-born flower; ilk burnie singing through the vale, where blooming hawthorns scent the gale; and ilka sweet that nature yields, in meadow wild or cultur'd fields; the cultur'd fields where towering strang the sturdy aik his shadows flang; where lonely druids wont to rove, the mystic tenants of the grove." he aptly and strikingly interweaves historical and poetical allusions. the following contains a fine contrast, and a striking description of the ruins of craigmillar castle, in the vicinity of edinburgh. "yes, arthur, round thy velvet chair, ilk chequered picture blushes fair, and mixed with nature's landscape green, the varied works o' art are seen. here starts the splendid dome to view, mang sylvan haunts o' vernal hue; there some auld lanely pile appears, the mouldering wreck o' former years, whose tottering wa' nae mair can stand before fell time's resistless hand; sic as craigmillar's castle gray, that now fa's crumbling to decay, a prey to ilka blast that blaws an' whistles through its royal ha's-- where mirth ance burst with joyfu' sound and melting music rang around, ah! there dull gloomy silence reigns, the mossy grass creeps o'er the stanes, and howlets loud at e'enin's fa', rejoice upon the ruined wa'." craigmillar castle naturally suggests the name of the beautiful and unfortunate mary, queen of scots, who once resided within its lordly but now forsaken halls. the poet therefore breaks out into the following animated and pathetic strains, which, it has been said, will bear a comparison with mr. burke's celebrated rhapsody on the unfortunate queen of france. "there was a time when woman's charms could fire the warlike world of arms, and breed sic wae to auld and young, as helen wept and homer sung, but mary o' ilk stay bereft, misfortune's luckless child was left; nae guileless friend to stem her grief, the bursting sigh her whole relief.-- o ye whose brave forefathers bled, and oft the rage of battle led, wha rushing o'er the crimson field, at bannockburn made edward yield; ye wha still led by glory's flame, make terror mix wi' scotia's name-- where slept your dauntless valor keen when danger met your injured queen?" his descriptions of the forth and the neighboring regions, of the pentland hills, and the scenery of the esk, are strikingly beautiful. "what varied scenes, what prospects dear in chequer'd landscape still appear! what rural sweets profusely thrang the flowery links of forth alang, o'er whose proud shivering surface blue fife's woods and spires begirt the view; where ceres gilds the fertile plain an' richly waves the yellow grain, an' lomond hill wi' misty showers, aft weets auld falkland's royal towers, nor distant far, upon the ear the popling leven wimples clear, whose ruined pile and glassy lake shall live in sang for mary's sake.[ ] * * * * * return fond muse frae haunts sae fair, to lothian's shore return ance mair, and let thy lyre be sweetly strung, for peerless esk remains unsung. romantic stream, what sweets combine to deck ilk bank and bower o' thine! for now the sun, wi' cheerfu' rays glows soft o'er a' thy woody braes, where mony a native wild flower's seen, mang birks and briars, and ivy green, an' a' the woodland chorists sing or gleesome flit on wanton wing, save where the lintie mournfully sabs sair 'aneath the rowan tree, to see her nest and young ones a' by thoughtless reaver borne awa.' * * * * * what saftening thoughts resistless start, and pour their influence o'er the heart; what mingling scenes around appear to musing meditation dear, when wae we tent fair grandeur fa' by roslin's ruined castle wa'![ ] o what is pomp? and what is power? the silly phantoms of an hour! sae loudly ance from roslin's brow[ ] the martial trump of grandeur blew, while steel-clad vassals wont to wait their chieftain at the portalled gate; and maidens fair, in vestments gay, bestrewed wi' flowers the warrior's way. but now, ah me! how changed the scene! nae trophied ha', nae towers remain; nae torches bleeze wi' gladsome light, a guiding star in dead o' night; nae voice is heard, save tinkling rill, that echoes from the distant hill." [footnote : the reference here is to the residence, or rather imprisonment of mary in lochleven castle.] [footnote : roslin castle, on the banks of the esk, about seven miles from edinburgh.] [footnote : _brow_, in scotland, is often pronounced as if spelt _brue_.] how exquisite, and how entirely and peculiarly scottish is the following: "now tent the pentlands westlin's seen, o'erspread wi' flowery pastures green; where, stretching wide, the fleecy ewes[ ] run bleating round the sunny knowes, and mony a little silver rill steals gurgling down its mossy hill; and vernal green is ilka tree on bonny braes o' woodhouselee." [footnote : _ewes_, pronounced as if it were _yowes_.] the genius of scotland is one of freedom, of independent thought, and unfettered action in matters civil and religious. this produced the reformation; this generated the recent secession from the 'kirk;' this characterizes the literature of the nation. we cannot, therefore, refrain from making one more quotation, which breathes the lofty spirit of freedom: "alas! sic objects to behold, brings back the glorious days of old, when scotia's daring gallant train, that ever spurned a tyrant's chain, for dearest independence bled, and nobly filled their gory bed-- so o'er yon mountains stretching lang, their shields the sons of freedom rang, when rome's ambition wild, burst forth, an' roused the warriors of the north, when calgach urged his dauntless train, and freedom rush'd through ilka vein, and close they met the haughty foe, and laid fu' mony a tyrant low; as fierce they fought, like freemen a', oh! glorious fought--yet fought to fa'! they fell, and thou sweet liberty, frae grampia's blood-stained heights did flee, and fixed thy seat remote, serene, mang caledonia's mountains green. fair maid! o may thy saftest smile for ever cheer my native isle!" chapter iii. walk to the castle--the old wynds and their occupants--regalia of scotland--storming of the castle--views from its summit--heriot's hospital--other hospitals--st. giles's cathedral--changes--the spirit of protestantism. let us now descend into the city. we will not linger long in old holyrood palace, interesting as it is, nor dwell upon "the stains" of rizzio's blood in queen mary's room, as these have been described a thousand times, and are familiar to every one. neither will we spend time in gazing upon the spot where once stood that quaint old gaol, called "the heart of midlothian," made classic by the pen of scott, in the beautiful story of jeanie deans. neither will we visit the old "parliament house" and the "advocates' library;" but we will pass right up through high street, amid those colossal buildings, rising, on either side, to the height of six, seven, and even eight and ten stories, swarming with inhabitants; and dive into one or two of those close, dark wynds, where reside, in countless multitudes, the poorest and most vicious of the people. here, it must be confessed, are some strange sights and appalling noises. yet it is not quite so bad as some have represented it. all large cities have their poor and vicious inhabitants, and although those of the scottish metropolis are tolerably dirty and vastly degraded, they bear no comparison to the lazzaroni of naples and the beggars of rome. some of the streets and wynds are narrow enough and vile enough, but they contain, after all, many worthy people, who own a bible, and read it too; and were you only to become thoroughly acquainted with them, you would be surprised to find how much of honesty and kindly affection still dwell in their hearts. in ancient times the houses in these very "closes" or "wynds" were inhabited by the nobility and gentry. hence grey's close, morrison's close, stewart's close, &c. they built their houses in these narrow streets in order to be more secure from the attacks of their enemies, and to be the better able to defend the principal thoroughfares into which they opened. in blythe's close may be seen the remains of the palace of the queen regent, mary of guise. in another stand the old houses of the earls of gosford and moray. one of the largest old palaces is now inhabited by beggars and rats. it would be a great improvement if these miserable dwellings could be removed, and replaced by better streets and houses; a still greater one, if the people could only be induced to abandon the use of whiskey, for then they would abandon their hovels as a matter of course. their besetting sin is the love of strong drink, though this has been gradually diminishing for the last few years throughout scotland. it is to be hoped that the pious and moral portion of the community will unite in a strong effort to reclaim this degraded class of their fellow-townsmen, and that the time will speedily come when the only reproach which rests upon their fair fame shall be wholly obliterated. but let us leave this region, the only unpleasant one in the whole of this magnificent city, and ascend to the old castle, where we shall see the regalia of scotland, preserved in a little room at the top of the castle. these regalia consist of the crown of robert bruce the hero of bannockburn, the sceptre of james the fifth, a sword presented by pope julius the second to james the sixth, and other articles of inferior note. it is somewhat singular that the regalia should have lain concealed from to the year . at the time of the union in between england and scotland, they were walled up by some scottish patriots, in order to prevent their being removed to london. what recollections of the stormy but glorious history of scotland cluster around the mind, while gazing at that antique-looking crown which adorned the head of the bruces and the ill-fated mary. the freedom and prosperity now enjoyed by the nation had a gloomy and tempestuous birth. their very religion, placid and beautiful now, was cradled amid the war of elements and the shock of battle. but, thanks to god, it is all the purer and stronger for its rough and tempestuous youth. draw near to the edge of that battlement, and look down over the frowning rock. would it be possible, think you, to storm the castle from that side? one would suppose it beyond the power of man. it has been done, however, and the circumstance illustrates the spirit of hardihood and enterprise which has ever distinguished the people of scotland. in the year , when the castle was in the possession of the english, randolph, earl of moray, was one day surveying the gigantic rock, when he was accosted by one of his men at arms with the question, "do you think it impracticable, my lord?" randolph turned his eyes upon the speaker, a man a little past the prime of life, but of a firm well-knit figure, and bearing in his keen eye and open forehead marks of intrepidity which had already gained him distinction in the scottish army. "do you mean the rock, francis?" said the earl; "perhaps not, if we could borrow the wings of our gallant hawks."[ ] [footnote : we give the version of leitch ritchie, who has thrown the facts into the form of a dialogue, and given a false name to the hero; otherwise the narration is entirely authentic.] "there are wings," replied francis, with a thoughtful smile, "as strong, as buoyant, and as daring. my father was keeper of yonder fortress." "what of that? you speak in riddles." "i was then young, reckless, high-hearted: i was screwed up in that convent-like castle; my sweetheart was in the plain below"-- "well, what then?" "'sdeath, my lord, can you not imagine that i speak of the wings of love? every night i descended that steep at the witching hour, and every morning before the dawn i crept back to my barracks. i constructed a light twelve-foot ladder, by means of which i was able to pass the places that are perpendicular; and so well, at length, did i become acquainted with the route, that in the darkest and stormiest night, i found my way as easily as when the moonlight enabled me to see my love in the distance waiting for me at the cottage door." "you are a daring, desperate, noble fellow, francis! however, your motive is now gone; your mistress"-- "she is dead; say no more; but another has taken her place." "ay, ay, it's the soldier's way. women will die or even grow old; and what are we to do? come, who is your mistress now?" "my country! what i have done for love, i can do again for honor; and what i can accomplish, you, noble randolph, and many of our comrades can do far better. give me thirty picked men, and a twelve-foot ladder, and the fortress is our own!" "the earl of moray, whatever his real thoughts of the enterprise might have been, was not the man to refuse such a challenge. a ladder was provided, and thirty men chosen from the troops; and in the middle of a dark night, the party, commanded by randolph himself, and guided by william francis, set forth on their desperate enterprise. "by catching at crag after crag, and digging their fingers into the interstices of the rocks, they succeeded in mounting a considerable way; but the weather was now so thick, they could receive but little assistance from their eyes; and thus they continued to climb, almost in utter darkness, like men struggling up a precipice in the night-mare. they at length reached a shelving table of the cliff, above which the ascent, for ten or twelve feet, was perpendicular; and having fixed their ladder, the whole party lay down to recover breath. "from this place they could hear the tread and voices of the 'check watches,' or patrol, above; and, surrounded by the perils of such a moment, it is not wonderful that some illusions may have mingled with their thoughts. they even imagined that they were seen from the battlements, although, being themselves unable to see the warders, this was highly improbable. it became evident, notwithstanding, from the words they caught here and there in the pauses of the night-wind, that the conversation of the english soldiers above related to a surprise of the castle; and at length these appalling words broke like thunder on their ears: 'stand! i see you well!' a fragment of the rock was hurled down at the same instant; and as rushing from crag to crag it bounded over their heads, randolph and his brave followers, in this wild, helpless, and extraordinary situation, felt the damp of mortal terror gathering upon their brow, as they clung with a death-grip to the precipice. "the startled echoes of the rock were at length silent, and so were the voices above. the adventurers paused, listening breathless; no sound was heard but the sighing of the wind, and the measured tread of the sentinel who had resumed his walk. the men thought they were in a dream, and no wonder; for the incident just mentioned, which is related by barbour, was one of the most singular coincidences that ever occurred. the shout of the sentinel and the missile he had thrown, were merely a boyish freak; and while listening to the echoes of the rock, he had not the smallest idea that the sounds which gave pleasure to him carried terror and almost despair into the hearts of the enemy. "the adventurers, half uncertain whether they were not the victims of some illusion, determined that it was as safe to go on as to turn back; and pursuing their laborious and dangerous path, they at length reached the bottom of the wall. this last barrier they scaled by means of their ladder; and leaping down among the astonished check-watches, they cried their war-cry, and in the midst of answering shouts of 'treason! treason!' notwithstanding the desperate resistance of the garrison, captured the castle of edinburgh." sit down here on the edge of this parapet. that huge cannon there is called mons meg, from being cast at _mons_, in flanders, and reminds us, somewhat significantly, of the terrible use to which all the arrangements of the castle are applied.[ ] how singular, that men have to be governed and controlled like bull-dogs, that castles and dungeons, halters, and cannon, are necessary to keep them from stealing each other's property, or cutting each other's throats! surely mankind have ills enough to bear without turning upon each other like tigers. [footnote : at present it is used as a barracks for soldiers and a magazine of arms.] "many and sharp the numerous ills, inwoven with our frame! more pointed still we make ourselves, regret, remorse, and shame; and man, whose heaven-erected face the smiles of love adorn, man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." burns. but all is quiet now. the tendency of the times is to peace; and edinburgh castle, mons meg, and the whole array of cannon bristling over the precipice, are but objects of natural curiosity or of poetical interest. do you see yonder turreted building, with high pointed gables and castellated walls, in the elizabethan style, just beyond the grass market. that is george heriot's hospital, one of the proudest monuments of the city, and one of the most beautiful symbols of its peaceful prosperity. it was founded by the rich and benevolent george heriot, jeweller to king james the sixth, "jingling geordie," as he is quaintly termed in the "fortunes of nigel." it is of vast extent, as you perceive, and presents a good specimen of the mixed style of architecture prevalent in the days of queen mary. the object of this noble institution is the maintenance and education of poor and fatherless boys, or of boys in indigent circumstances, "freemen's sons of the town of edinburgh." of these, one hundred and eighty receive ample board and education within its walls. by this means they are thoroughly prepared for the active business of life, each receiving at his dismissal a bible, and other useful books, with two suits of clothes chosen by himself. those going out as apprentices are allowed $ per annum for five years, and $ at the termination of their apprenticeship. boys of superior scholarship are permitted to stay longer in the institution, and are fitted for college. for this purpose they receive $ per annum, for four years. connected with this institution are seven free schools, in the different parishes of the city, for the support of which its surplus funds are applied. in these upwards of two thousand children receive a good common school education. the girls, in addition to the ordinary branches, are taught knitting and sewing. in addition to these provisions for the education of the poor, there are also ten "bursaries," or university scholarships, open to the competition of young men, not connected with the institution. the successful candidates receive $ per annum for four years. no wonder that sir walter scott felt authorized to put into the mouth of the princely founder of these charities the striking sentiment: "i think mine own estate and memory, as i shall order it, has a fair chance of outliving those of greater men." edinburgh abounds in charitable hospitals, and particularly in free educational institutions, in the support of which the citizens evince a laudable enthusiasm. thus, for example, we have watson's hospital, the merchant maiden's hospital, the trades' maiden hospital, trinity college hospital, cauvin's hospital, a little out of the city; gillespie's hospital, donaldson's hospital, chalmers's hospital, the house of refuge, the house of industry, the strangers' friend society, the institution for the relief of poor old men, and another for the relief of indigent old women, and many others. below us, on one side of high street, you see the fine old gothic cathedral of st. giles. it was founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and named after st. giles, abbot and confessor, and tutelar saint of edinburgh in the olden time. the scottish poet, gavin douglas, bishop of dunkeld, was sometime provost of st. giles. he translated virgil into english, the first version of a classic ever made in britain, and was the author of "the palace of honor," from which some have absurdly supposed that john bunyan borrowed the idea of the "pilgrim's progress." this edifice is interesting, chiefly as connecting the past with the present condition of scotland, and indicating the mighty transitions through which it has passed. in the fifteenth century incense ascended from forty different altars within its walls; now it contains three protestant places of worship. once it enshrined the relics of st. giles; now its cemetery contains the body of john knox! on the th of october, , "the solemn league and covenant" was sworn to and subscribed within its walls, by the committee of the estates of parliament, the commission of the church, and the english commission. the sacred vessels and relics which it contained, including the arm-bone of the patron saint, were seized by the magistrates of the city, and the proceeds of their sale applied to the repairing of the building. puritanism has thus often showed itself a rough and tempestuous reformer; nevertheless it possesses wonderful vitality, and has conferred upon scotland the blessings of civil and religious liberty. its outer form is often hard and defective, and its movements irregular and convulsive, but its inner spirit is ever generous and free. its rudeness and excess none will approve; its life, energy, and activity, all will admire. it came forth, like a thunder-cloud, from the mountains. its quick lightning-flashes went crashing amid the old images of papal worship. the atmosphere of spiritual pollution was agitated and purified. upon the parched ground fell gentle and refreshing showers. the sun of freedom began to smile upon hill and valley, and the whole land rejoiced under its placid influence. chapter iv. john knox's house--history of the reformer--his character--carlyle's view--testimony of john milton. let us now descend from the castle, and, passing down high street, turn to the left, at the head of the nether-bow, where we shall see the house of that stern but glorious old reformer, john knox. there it is, looking mean enough now among those miserable gin-shops, paint-shops, and so forth; yet hallowed by the recollections of the past. over the door is an inscription, invisible from the numerous sign-boards that cover it, containing the spirit and essence of that lofty puritanism which knox preached: "lufe . god . above . all . and . your . nichbour . as . yourself." in this house knox lived many years; here also he died in holy triumph; and from that little window he is said frequently to have addressed the populace. a rude stone effigy of the reformer may be seen at the corner, and near it, cut in the stone, the name of god, in greek, latin, and english. it is gratifying to know that measures have recently been taken to erect a monument to knox, near this spot, which shall be worthy of his memory. the character of knox has been terribly blackened by heartless and infidel historians, and especially by sickly sentimentalists of the werter school. nevertheless, he was a noble-hearted, truth-loving, sham-hating, god-fearing, self-sacrificing man; a hero in the proper sense of the word, a minister of righteousness, an angel of reform. not, indeed, a soft, baby-faced, puling sentimentalist; but a lofty, iron-hearted man, who "never feared the face of clay," and did god's will, in spite of devils, popes, and kings. his history possesses the deepest and most romantic interest. it is one of the most magnificent passages in scottish story. bruce battled for a crown; knox battled for the truth. both conquered, after long toils and struggles; and conquered mainly by the might of their single arm. but the glory which irradiates the head of the reformer far outshines that of the hero of bannockburn, for the latter is earthly and evanescent; the former celestial and immortal. john knox was born in haddington, not far from edinburgh, of poor but honest parents, in the year ; grew up in solitude; was destined for the church; received a thorough collegiate education; became an honest friar; wore the monk's cowl for many years; adopted silently and unostentatiously the principles of the protestant reformation; spent much of his time in teaching, and in the prosecution of liberal studies, of which he was considered a master; was suddenly and unexpectedly called, at st. andrews, by the unanimous voice of his brethren, to the preaching of the word, and the defence of their religious liberties; after a brief struggle with himself yielded to the call, nobly threw himself into the breach, at the hazard of his life, attacked "papal idolatry" with unsparing vigor, was seized by the authorities, and sent a prisoner to france in , where he worked in the galleys as a slave, but evermore maintaining his lofty courage and cheerful hope; was set at liberty two years afterwards; preached in england in the time of edward the sixth; refused a bishopric from the best of kings; retired to the continent at the accession of mary, residing chiefly at geneva and frankfort; returned to scotland in ; labored with indomitable perseverance to establish protestantism; rebuked the great for immorality, profaneness and rapacity, and succeeded in greatly strengthening the cause of truth and freedom. at the earnest solicitation of the english congregation in geneva, he went thither a second time; there he published "the first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment (government) of women," directed principally against mary, queen of england, and mary of guise, regent of scotland, two narrow-minded miserable despots; returned to scotland in ; continued his exertions in behalf of christ's truth; did much to establish common schools; finally saw protestantism triumphant in scotland; and died in , so poor that his family had scarce sufficient to bury him, but with the universal love and homage of his countrymen, a conscience void of offence, and a hope full of immortality. "he had a sore fight of an existence; wrestling with popes and principalities; in defeat, contention, life-long struggle; rowing as a galley-slave, wandering as an exile. a sore fight, but he won it. 'have you hope?' they asked him in his last moment when he could no longer speak. he lifted his finger, 'pointed upwards with his finger,' and so died. honor to him! his works have not died. the letter of his work dies, as of all men's; but the spirit of it never."[ ] [footnote : carlyle--"hero worship," p. .] knox has been much abused for his violent treatment of queen mary. his addresses and appeals to her have been characterized as impudent and cruel; but, thoroughly inspected, they will be found the reverse. strong and startling they were, but neither impudent nor cruel. doubtless they fell upon her ear like the tones of some old prophet, sternly rebuking sin, or vindicating the rights of god. mary was a woman of matchless beauty; and had she been educated differently, might have blessed the world with the mild lustre of her scottish reign; but she was the dupe of bad counsels, in spirit and practice a despot, the plaything of passion, and the reckless opposer of the best interests of her country. her beauty and sufferings have shed a false lustre over her character; above all, have aided in concealing the terrible stain of infidelity to her marriage vows, and the implied murder of her wretched husband, charges which her apologists can extenuate, but not deny. but, forsooth, it is an insufferable thing for a plain honest-hearted man like john knox to tell the truth to such an one! she was young, beautiful, fascinating; and however recklessly, madly, ruinously wrong, he must not advise her--above all, must not warn her! now, such a notion may possibly commend itself to your "absolute gentlemen, of very soft society, full of most excellent differences and great showing; indeed, to speak feelingly of them, who are the card and calendar of gentry;" but it cannot be imposed upon our plain common sense. mary was a queen, however, and john knox a poor plebeian! aye, aye! that is a difficulty! kings and queens may do what they please. the people are made for them, not they for the people. and sure enough it is a vulgar thing to oppose them in their ambitious schemes, or to tell them the honest truth be-times! poor john knox! thou must fall down and worship "a painted bredd" after all. a beautiful queen must be spared, if scotland should perish. but looking at the matter from the free atmosphere of new england, we maintain that john knox was of higher rank than mary queen of scots. he was more true, more heroic, more kingly, than all the race of the stuarts. he had a right, in god's name, to speak the truth, "to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with all long-suffering." hence, though his words were stern and appalling, they were uttered with a kind and generous intention. "madame," said knox, when he saw mary burst into tears from vexation and grief, "in god's presence i speak; i never delighted in the weeping of any of god's creatures, yea, _i can scarcely well abide the tears of mine own boys_, when mine own hands correct them, much less can i rejoice in your majesty's weeping; but seeing i have offered unto you no just occasion to be offended, i must sustain your majesty's tears, rather than i dare hurt my conscience, or betray the commonwealth by silence." yes, he was a stern old puritan, a lion of a man, who made terrible havoc among the "painted bredds" of popery, and turned back the fury of wild barons and persecuting priests. "his single voice," says randolph, "could put more life into a host than six hundred blustering trumpets." single handed, he met the rage of a disappointed government and an infuriated priesthood, and conquered by the silent might of his magnanimous audacity. in the wildest whirl of contending emotion, he never lost sight of the great end of his being, as a servant of god, nor swerved a hair's breadth from truth and right. yet this stern old covenanter was not without a touch of gentleness and even of hilarity. he loved his home, his children, and his friends. an honest, quiet laugh often mantled his pale earnest visage. "they go far wrong," says carlyle, whose thorough appreciation of such men as luther, cromwell, and knox, is truly refreshing amid the vapid inanities or coarse prejudices of ordinary historians, "who think that knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. not at all. he is one of the solidest of men. practical, cautious, hopeful, patient; a most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. in fact, he has very much the type of character we assign to the scotch at present: a certain sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than he himself knows of. * * an honest-hearted, brotherly man; brother to the high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy with both." knox, doubtless, had his faults; and what of that? he made some mistakes! and what, too, of that? was he not a true man, and a true minister of god's word? did he not accomplish a great and beneficial work of reform; and, having done this, did he not die a sweet and triumphant death? god has set his seal upon him, and upon his work; and that is enough for us. we hesitate not, with carlyle, to name the reformation under knox as the great era in scottish history, as the one glorious event which gave life to the nation. thence resulted freedom, activity, purity of morals, science, national and individual greatness. previous to this event scotland possessed only a rough, tumultuous physical life; her politics--dissensions and executions; her religion--a puerile superstition;--her literature--ballads and monkish legends; her joy--hunting, fighting, and drinking! but the reformation breathed into her the breath of a spiritual existence. her national prosperity dates from that era. thence proceeded faith and order, education, industry, and wealth. "it was not a smooth business; but it was welcome surely, and cheap at that price, had it been far rougher. on the whole, cheap at any price, as life is. the people began to _live_; they needed first of all to _do that_, at what cost and costs soever. scottish literature and thought, scotch industry, james watt, david hume, walter scott, robert burns. i find knox and the reformation acting in the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena; i find that, without the reformation, they would not have been. or what of scotland? the puritanism of scotland became that of england, of new england. a tumult in the high church of edinburgh spread into a universal battle and struggle over all these realms; and there came out of it, after fifty years' struggling, what we all call 'the glorious revolution,' a habeas corpus act, free parliaments, and much else." it has become fashionable of late, in certain quarters, to undervalue the reformation, and contemn those great and rugged spirits by whom it was accomplished. a sentimental, baby-hearted, superstition-smitten generation, cannot appreciate those mighty men, and mightier reforms of the olden time. but how well and worthily does the large-hearted and ethereal milton speak of it: "when i recall to mind, at last, after so many dark ages, wherein the huge over-shadowing train of error had almost swept all the stars out of the firmament of the church; how the bright and blissful reformation, by divine power, struck through the black and settled night of ignorance and anti-christian tyranny, methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odor of the returning gospel imbathe his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. then was the sacred bible sought out of the dusty corners, where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it, the schools opened, divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues; the princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation; the martyrs, with the unresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the red old dragon."[ ] a noble testimony like this far outweighs all the cant of a whining sentimentalism. its truth, as well as its eloquence, all must admit. [footnote : "of reformation in england." by john milton.] chapter v. edinburgh university--professor wilson--his life and writings, genius and character. we will now re-enter high street, and thence turn at right angles into south-bridge street, and proceed to the university. it is a large and imposing structure, but fails to produce its proper impression from the circumstance of being wedged in among such a mass of other buildings. we enter by a magnificent portico on the right, supported by doric columns, twenty-six feet in height, each formed of a single block of stone, and find ourselves in a spacious quadrangular court, surrounded by the various college edifices. the buildings are of free stone, beautifully polished, and of recent erection, the old buildings, which were unsightly and incommodious, having been taken down to make way for this elegant and spacious structure. the university itself was founded by king james the sixth, in the year , and has enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity to the present time. the average number of students is from ten to twelve hundred. the rev. dr. lee, one of the most amiable and learned men, is at present principal of the university, and the various chairs are filled by gentlemen of distinguished talent. the students are not resident within the college, but choose their boarding-houses, at pleasure, in any part of the city. they are not distinguished, as at glasgow and oxford by any peculiar badge; are of all ages, and enjoy the liberty of selecting the classes which they attend. those however who take degrees are required to attend a particular course, but this is not done by more than one-half or at most two-thirds of the students. the government of the university is not particularly strict. the examinations are limited and imperfect; and hence it is very possible for a young man to slip through the university, without contracting any great tincture of scholarship. it is mainly the talent of the professors, and the high literary enthusiasm they inspire, which sustain the institution. there are thirty-four foundations for bursaries or scholarships, the benefit of which is extended to eighty students. the aggregate amount is about fifty dollars a year, for each. the annual session lasts from october to may, with an occasional holiday, and a week or two's vacation at christmas. the rest of the year which includes most of the summer and autumn is vacation, which gives the professors an opportunity for rest and preparation, and the students facilities either for private study, or for teaching and other employments. this order prevails in all the other scottish universities, and is attended with many advantages. but a truce to general remarks. we have not time to visit the museum, which is quite extensive and admirably arranged, nor the library, which is distinguished by its ample dimensions and beautiful decorations. neither can we dwell upon the celebrated men who have encircled this institution with a halo of literary and scientific glory. but we will step into that door in front of us, ascend the stairs, and enter the lecture-room of professor wilson, the far famed "christopher north," poet and novelist, orator, critic and philosopher. the young gentlemen have assembled, but the professor has not yet come in. good looking but noisy fellows these! some of them, you perceive, are very young, others are considerably advanced in years. most of them are well dressed, some poorly so. a few look studious and care-worn, but the majority hearty and joyous. how their clear loud laugh rings through the hall! they are from all ranks of society, some being the sons of noblemen, others of farmers and mechanics. most of them probably have wherewithal to pay their college expenses, but not a few, you may rely on it, are sorely pinched. the scots are an ambitious, study-loving race, and quite a number of these young men are struggling up from the depths of poverty; and if they do not die in the effort, will be heard of, one of these days, in the pulpit, or at the bar. but there comes the professor, bowing graciously to the students, while he receives from them a hearty "ruff," as the scots call their energetic stamping. what a magnificent looking man! over six feet high, broad and brawny, but of elegant proportions, with a clear, frank, joyous looking face, a few wrinkles only around the eye, in other respects hale and smooth, his fine locks sprinkled with gray, flowing down to his shoulders, and his large lustrous eye beaming with a softened fire. his subject is "the passions." he commences with freedom and ease, but without any particular energy,--makes his distinctions well, but without much precision or force; for, to tell the honest truth, philosophical analysis is not his particular forte. still, it is good, so far as it goes, and probably appears inferior chiefly by contrast. but he begins to describe. the blood mantles to his forehead, thrown back with a majestic energy, and his fine eye glows, nay, absolutely burns. and now his impassioned intellect careers, as on the wings of the wind, leaping, bounding, dashing, whirling, over hill and dale, rises into the clear empyrean, and bathes itself in the beams of the sun. his audience is intent, hushed, absorbed, rapt! he begins, however, to descend, and o! how beautifully, like a falcon from "the lift," or an eagle from the storm-cloud. and, now he skims along the surface with bird-like wing, glancing in the sunlight, swiftly and gracefully. how varied and delicate his language, how profuse his images, his allusions how affecting, and his voice, ringing like a bell among the mountains. at such seasons his style, manner and tone, are unequalled. chaste and exhilarating as the dew of the morning in the vale of strathmore, yet rich and rare as a golden sunset on the brow of benlomond. but listen, he returns to his philosophical distinctions,--fair, very fair, to be sure, but nothing special, rather clumsy perhaps, except in regard to his language. true, undoubtedly, but not profound, not deeply philosophical, and to me, not particularly interesting. his auditors have time to breathe. you hear an occasional cough, or blowing of the nose. a few of the students are diligently taking notes, but the rest are listless. this will last only a moment, and now that he is approaching the close of his lecture, he will give us something worth hearing. there, again he is out upon the open sea. how finely the sails are set, and with what a majestic sweep the noble vessel rounds the promontory, and anchors itself in the bay.[ ] [footnote : the writer describes not an imaginary, but an actual lecture of professor wilson's, which he heard some years ago. we have honestly given our own impressions relative to wilson's metaphysical powers, and stated simply what we heard and saw while attending his lectures in edinburgh university. others however may have different impressions; and we cheerfully append the following from _gilfillan_ as an offset to our strictures: "it is probable that the very variety and versatility of wilson's powers have done him an injury in the estimation of many. they can hardly believe that an actor, who can play so many parts, is perfect in all. because he is, confessedly, one of the most eloquent of men, it is doubted whether he can be profound: because he is a fine poet, he must be a shallow metaphysician;--because he is the editor of _blackwood_, he must be an inefficient professor. there is such a thing on this round earth, as diffusion along with depth, as the versatile and vigorous mind of a man of genius mastering a multitude of topics, while others are blunderingly acquiring one, or as a man 'multiplying himself among mankind, the proteus of their talents,' and proving that the voltairian activity of brain has been severed, in one splendid instance, at least, from the voltairian sneer and the voltairian shallowness. such an instance as that of our illustrious professor, who is ready for every tack,--who can, at one time, scorch a poetaster to a cinder, at another cast illumination into the 'dark deep holds' of a moral question, by a glance of his genius; at one time dash off the picture of a highland glen, with the force of a salvator, at another, lay bare the anatomy of a passion with the precision and force of an angelo,--write, now, the sweetest verse, and now the most energetic prose,--now let slip, from his spirit, a single star, like the 'evening cloud,' and now unfurl a _noctes_ upon the wondering world,--now paint avarice till his audience are dying with laughter, and now emulation and sympathy till they are choked with tears,--write now 'the elder's deathbed,' and now the 'address to a wild deer,'--be equally at home in describing the sufferings of an orphan girl, and the undressing of a dead quaker, by a congregation of ravens, under the brow of helvellyn."--_literary portraits_, p. .] instead of spending our time gazing at public buildings, let us continue our conversation about the professor, whose life has been a tissue of interesting and romantic events. we shall find it profitable as well as pleasant, to glance at the principal points in his history, as they tend to throw light on the genius of scotland. john wilson is the oldest son of a wealthy manufacturer in the city of paisley, and was born there in the year , and is now therefore fifty-eight years of age. he was reared and educated, with almost patrician indulgence, and inherited from his father a considerable amount of property, variously estimated from twenty to fifty thousand pounds sterling. of course he enjoyed the best facilities for acquiring a thorough and polished education. his instructor in classical learning was mr. peddie of paisley, to whom a public dinner was given in by his friends and pupils. professor wilson was present, and on proposing the health of his venerable preceptor, delivered a brilliant oration, not the least interesting portion of which had reference to his somewhat erratic course at school. "sometimes," said he, "i sat as dux--sometimes in the middle of the class--and i am obliged to confess, that on some unfortunate occasions, i was absolutely _dolt_!" the confession was received, of course, with roars of laughter. from this school he was entered at the university of glasgow, when he was little more than thirteen years of age. but he was tall for his years, and possessed an original and remarkably exuberant mind; and though distinguished at this time, more for the vigor of his physical constitution, and the buoyancy of his spirits, than for any particular attainments in literature, he generally kept his standing among his fellow students, many of whom were greatly his seniors. from glasgow he was transferred to oxford, and here he first distinguished himself as a man of genius. he contended in the annual competition for the newdigate prize of fifty guineas for the best fifty lines of english verse, and though the contest was open to not less than two thousand individuals, he carried off the palm from every competitor. at oxford as at glasgow he was distinguished for his fine athletic frame, his joyous and even boisterous spirits, and his excessive devotion to all sorts of gymnastics, field sports and frolicking. this however was blended with an extraordinary devotion to literature, and a peculiar simplicity and frankness of character, which rendered him a universal favorite. it is well known that at oxford great latitude is enjoyed, especially by "gentlemen commoners," as they are called, to which class wilson chose to belong. it is expected that the "gentlemen commoners" shall wear a more splendid costume,--spend a good deal more money,--and enjoy various immunities, which amount occasionally to a somewhat unbridled license. "once launched on this orbit," says a fellow student of wilson's, writing to a friend in america, "mr. wilson continued to blaze away for four successive years. * * * never did a man, by variety of talents and variety of humors, contrive to place himself as the connecting link between orders of men so essentially repulsive of each other; from the learned president of his college, dr. routh, the editor of parts of plato, and of some theological selections, with whom wilson enjoyed unlimited favor, down to the humblest student. in fact from this learned academic doctor, and many others of the same class, ascending and descending, he possessed an infinite gamut of friends and associates, running through every key; and the diapason closing full in groom, cobbler, stable boy, barber's apprentice, with every shade and hue of blackguard and ruffian. in particular, amongst this latter kind of worshipful society, there was no man who had any talents, real or fancied, for thumping, or being thumped, but had experienced some taste of his merits from mr. wilson. all other pretensions in the gymnastic arts he took a pride in humbling or in honoring, but chiefly did his examinations fall upon pugilism; and not a man who could either 'give,' or 'take,' but boasted to have been punished by wilson of _mallens_ (corruption of magdalen) college." whether the statement of wilson's pugilistic attainments is not somewhat exaggerated we have not the means of deciding. all reports however go to confirm its general accuracy. his career was certainly a wild and hazardous one, and would have ruined an ordinary man. but underlying the wild exuberance of wilson's nature, there was a solid foundation of good feeling and good sense, which ever and anon manifested itself, and finally formed the principal element of his character. besides, he could never forget the holy instructions of his childhood. scotland throws a thousand sacred influences around the hearts of her children; and hence, wild and wayward in their youth, they not unfrequently live to be the safeguards of virtue and the ornaments of society. it may be well supposed that on leaving oxford, in the very hey-day of youth, with an amazing exuberance of animal spirits, and the command of an ample fortune, he must have run a somewhat extravagant career. he purchased a beautiful estate on the banks of windermere, not far from the residences of southey, coleridge and wordsworth, and yielded himself to the full enjoyment of every pleasure. having built upon his estate a new and splendid edifice, he furnished it with every appliance of taste and luxury, and succeeded by his "magnificent" style of housekeeping, in spending a large amount of his property. he gave himself up to the most diversified pursuits, now conning his literary treasures, and now frolicking in sailor jacket and trowsers, with the young men of the country. the following, from a writer already quoted, will give a lively idea of wilson's habits and appearance, at this period of his life. "my introduction to him--setting apart the introducee himself--was memorable from one circumstance, viz., the person of the introducer. _william wordsworth_, it was, who in the vale of grasmere, if it can interest you to know the place, and in the latter end of , if you can be supposed to care about the time, did me the favor of making me known to john wilson. i remember the whole scene as circumstantially as if it belonged to but yesterday. in the vale of grasmere--that peerless little vale which you, and gray, the poet, and so many others have joined in admiring as the very eden of english beauty, peace, and pastoral solitude--you may possibly recall, even from that flying glimpse you had of it, a modern house called allan bank, standing under a low screen of woody rocks, which descend from the hill of silver horn, on the western side of the lake. this house had been recently built by a wealthy merchant of liverpool; but for some reason, of no importance to you or me, not being immediately wanted for the family of the owner, had been let for a term of three years to mr. wordsworth. at the time i speak of, both mr. coleridge and myself were on a visit to mr. wordsworth, and one room on the ground floor, designed for a breakfasting room, which commands a sublime view of the three mountains, fairfield, arthur's chair, and seat sandal, was then occupied by mr. coleridge as a study. on this particular day, the sun having only just risen, it naturally happened that mr. coleridge--whose nightly vigils were long--had not yet come down to breakfast; meantime and until the epoch of the coleridgean breakfast should arrive, his study was lawfully disposable to profane uses. here, therefore, it was, that opening the door hastily in quest of a book, i found seated, and in earnest conversation, two gentlemen, one of them my host, mr. wordsworth, at that time about thirty-eight years old; the other was a younger man, by at least sixteen or seventeen years, in a sailor's dress, manifestly in robust health--_fervidus juventa_, and wearing upon his countenance a powerful expression of ardor and animated intelligence, mixed with much good nature. _mr. wilson of elleray_--delivered as the formula of introduction, in the deep tones of mr. wordsworth--at once banished the momentary surprise i felt on finding an unknown stranger where i had expected nobody, and substituted a surprise of another kind. i now understood who it was that i saw; and there was no wonder in his being at allan bank, as elleray stood within nine miles; but (as usually happens in such cases) i felt a shock of surprise on seeing a person so little corresponding to the one i had half unconsciously prefigured to myself." mr. wilson here appears in a comparatively grave and dignified aspect. the same writer describes him in quite a different scene. walking in the morning, he met him, with a parcel of young "harum skarum" fellows on horseback, chasing an honest bull, which had been driven off in the night from his peaceful meadow, to furnish sport to these "wild huntsmen." about this time, also, he was the leader of a "boating club," which involved him in great expense. they had no less than two or three establishments for their boats and boat-men, and innumerable appendages, which cost each of them annually a little fortune. the number of their boats was so great as to form a little fleet, while some of them were quite large and expensive. one of these in particular, a ten-oared barge, was believed at the time to have cost over two thousand dollars. in consequence of these and other expenses, and perhaps the loss of some of his patrimony by the failure of a trustee, subjected him to the necessity of seeking a change of life. this led to his becoming a candidate for the chair of moral philosophy in the university of edinburgh. previous to this he had formed plans of extensive travel. one was a voyage of exploration to central africa and the sources of the nile. another was concocted with two of his friends, with whom he proposed to sail from falmouth to the tagus, and landing wherever accident or fancy might determine, to purchase mules, hire spanish servants, and travel extensively in spain and portugal, for eight or nine months; then, by such of the islands in the mediterranean as particularly attracted them, they were to pass over into greece, and thence to constantinople. finally, they were to have visited the troad, syria, egypt, and perhaps nubia! but the reduction of his means, and his marriage with a young and beautiful english lady, to whom he was greatly attached, broke up these extravagant schemes. his marriage took place in . two sons and three daughters were the fruits of it; and the connection has doubtless proved one of the happiest events in the professor's life. death however has entered this delightful circle. "how characteristic of him," says gilfillan, "and how affecting, was his saying to his students, in apology for not returning their essays at the usual time, 'i could not see to read them in the valley and the shadow of death.'" his application in for the professorship of moral philosophy which he now fills, was successful, notwithstanding he had for his competitor one of the profoundest thinkers, and most accomplished writers of the age, sir william hamilton, who conducted himself in the affair with the greatest dignity and urbanity. many things were said, at the time, derogatory to wilson's personal character, and his fitness to fill the chair of moral philosophy. the matter probably was decided, more with reference to political considerations than any thing besides, as at that time party politics ran exceedingly high. professor wilson has disappointed the expectations of his enemies, to say the least, and has been gaining in the esteem and good will of all classes of the community. his splendid career as a poet, editor, critic and novelist, is well known. his poems, the principal of which are the "isle of palms," and the "city of the plague," are exquisitely beautiful, but deficient in energy, variety and dramatic power. he excels in description, and touches, with a powerful hand, the strings of pure and delicate sentiment. nothing can be finer than his "address to a wild deer"--"a sleeping child"--"the highland burial ground," and "the home among the mountains" in the "city of the plague." his tales and stories, such as "margaret lindsay," "the foresters," and those in "the lights and shadows of scottish life," are well conceived, and charmingly written. they breathe a spirit of the purest morality, and are highly honorable not only to the head but to the heart of their eloquent author. but it is in criticism and occasional sketching in which he chiefly excels. in this field, so varied and delightful, he absolutely luxuriates. his series of papers on spenser and homer are remarkable for their delicate discrimination, strength and exuberance of fancy. no man loves scotland more enthusiastically, or describes her peculiar scenery and manners with more success. here his "meteor pen," as the author of the corn law rhymes aptly called it, passes like sunlight over the glowing page. his descriptions of highland scenery and highland sports are instinct with life and beauty. in a word, to quote the eulogy of the discriminating hallam, "wilson is a writer of the most ardent and enthusiastic genius, whose eloquence is as the rush of mighty waters." professor wilson's nature is essentially poetical. it is sensitive, imaginative and generous. it is also said to be deeply religious. age and experience, reflection, and the word of god, which he greatly reveres, have tamed the wild exuberance of his youth, strengthened his better principles, and shed over his character the mellow radiance of faith and love. "the main current of his nature," says gilfillan, "is rapt and religious. in proof of this we have heard, that on one occasion, he was crossing the hills from st. mary's loch to moffat. it was a misty morning; but as he ascended, the mist began to break into columns before the radiant finger of the rising sun. wilson's feelings became too much excited for silence, and he began to speak, and from speaking began to pray; and prayed aloud and alone, for thirty miles together in the misty morn. we can conceive what a prayer it would be, and with what awe some passing shepherd may have heard the incarnate voice, sounding on its dim and perilous way." chapter vi. the calton hill--burns's monument--character and writings of "the peasant poet"--his religious views--monument of professor dugald stewart--scottish metaphysics--thomas carlyle. let us take a walk on the calton hill, this afternoon; we shall find some objects of interest there. at the termination of prince's street, commences waterloo place, in which are situated the stamp office, post office, bridewell and the jail. this also leads to calton hill, and is one of the most delightful promenades in the city. we skirt around the hill, a little to the right, pass the beautiful and spacious buildings of the edinburgh high school on the left, one of the best educational institutions in scotland, continue our walk a short distance, and come to a round building on the farther declivity of the hill. that is "burns's monument." by giving a small douceur to the keeper, we are permitted to enter the interior, in the center of which stands a statue of the poet, by flaxman. beautiful and expressive certainly, as a work of art, but it is not quite equal to one's conception of the poet. the forehead is particularly fine--open, massive and high, with an air of lofty repose. the mouth is unpoetical and vulgar--at least _something_ of this is visible in its expression. it wants the chiseled delicacy, as well as gracious expression of noble and generous feeling which we naturally look for in the countenance of burns. but the likeness, we understand, is defective. in his best days, burns had a noble, and almost beautiful countenance. in stature he was about five feet ten inches, of great agility and muscular vigor. his countenance was open and ruddy, with a fine, frank, generous expression, eyes large and radiant, forehead arched and lofty, with curling hair clustering over it, and his mouth, especially when engaged in animated conversation, or lighted with a smile, wreathed with intelligence and good humor. burns has been termed "the shakspeare of scotland." and certainly no poet has ever been regarded, in that country, with such enthusiastic love and reverence. with all his faults, some of which were bad enough, all classes of the scottish people, from the noble to the peasant, cherish him in their heart of hearts. indeed he is a sort of national idol, to whom all feel bound to do reverence, notwithstanding his admitted failings. nor is this a matter of surprise. for, taken as a whole, the poetry of burns is the poetry of nature--of the heart--and especially of the scottish heart. it represents the genius of the nation--wild, beautiful and free, shaded by thoughtfulness, and set off by devotion, at once merry as her mountain brooks, yet deep, strong and passionate as the stormy ocean which encircles her coast. "tam o'shanter," or "halloween," the "cotter's saturday night," or "mary in heaven," are the two extremes of the picture. in burns, scotland saw incarnated her poetry and song, her music and passion, her love and devotion, her seriousness and merriment, her strong-hearted adherence to integrity and truth, her occasional recklessness and madness of spirit, her love of nature, her veneration for god. the grave and the gay, the old and the young, the religious and the reckless, all saw themselves represented in the glorious fragments of his witching poetry. hence the enthusiasm with which his first volume of poems was received. it seemed as if a new realm had been added to the dominions of the british muse--a new and glorious creation fresh from the hand of nature. there the humor of smollett, the pathos and tenderness of sterne and richardson, the real life of fielding, and the description of thomson, were all united in delineations of scottish manners and scenery by the ayrshire ploughman! the volume contained matter for all minds--for the lively and sarcastic, the wild and the thoughtful, the poetical enthusiast and the man of the world. so eagerly was the book sought after, that when copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent round in manuscript among admiring circles. his songs are the songs of scotland. a few have been furnished by tannahill, fergusson, ramsay and others; but the main body of the most exquisite and most popular scottish melodies are from the pen of burns. evermore they echo among her heathy hills and bosky dells. you hear them by the sides of her "bonnie burns," and along the shores of her silver lakes and "rivers grand." at evening gray, they are heard resounding from gowan'd braes and "birken shaws," in the shadow of haunted woods, and hoary ruins; and especially, on winter nights, and "tween and supper times" from her ten thousand happy "inglesides." in burns's "cotter's saturday night" are seen his reverence for religion "pure and undefiled," combined with exquisite description and melodious verse; in "tam o'shanter," his vivid fancy and dramatic energy; in "halloween," his spirit of humor and fun; in his "lines to a mountain daisy," his fine moral sense and tenderness of spirit; and in his "address to mary in heaven," his true heartedness, and sweet lyric power. his native country is beautifully pictured in all his poetry. the "banks of the dee," "edina's lofty seat," "old coila's hills and streams"--the "braes of yarrow"--"allan water"--"bonnie doon"--"sweet afton among her green braes"--"auld hermit ayr," "stately irwine," "the birks of aberfeldy,"--where "summer blinks o'er flowery braes," the "lovely nith, with fruitful vales and spreading hawthorns,"--"gowrie's rich valley and firth's sunny shores," "the clear winding devon,"--"castle gordon,--where waters flow and wild woods rave,"--"the banks and braes and streams around the castle of montgomery,"--bannockburn, ellerslie and sheriff muir;--these, and a thousand other beautiful or storied scenes, mirror themselves in the stream of his sweet and varied verse. some vulgar and foolish things he has written; and we condemn them as heartily as others. but his poetry embodies much that is pure and beautiful and true, much of which burns had no occasion to repent, even on a deathbed, and much of which his native country may well be proud. he was somewhat intemperate, but not to the extent which is generally supposed. strong temptations,--the habits of the times--the folly of his friends, who thoughtlessly introduced him to the gaities of the metropolis, and then left him to contempt and penury, broke down his constitution, and consigned him to a premature grave. but he was not a man of base and vulgar passions. his was not the cold heart of the sceptic, nor the envenomed spirit of the villain. it was a wild and wayward heart, i grant, but honest and true, generous and kind. the temple was shattered by the lightnings of heaven, but it was a temple still; and from its broken altars ever and anon ascended the sweet incense of prayer and praise. burns could never forget his good old father, and the hallowed influences of religion, shed upon his young heart. he loved the psalms of david, and the holy melodies of his native land; and we presume often sang them, of an evening, accompanied, as he himself intimates, with "the wild woodland note," of his beloved wife. several of his letters to miss dunlop and others indicate a strong conviction of the divine existence and the immortality of the soul, his struggles against the doubts which haunted his spirit, and his earnest longing for purity and perfection. "you may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy," he says in a letter to mr. aiken, "but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul; though sceptical on some points of our current belief, yet i think, i have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourn of our present existence;" and then adds--"o thou great, unknown power, thou almighty god! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! i have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me." having expressed to mrs. dunlop his strong conviction of the immortality of the soul, he writes as follows, "i know not whether i have ever sent you the following lines, or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favorite quotations, which i keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the book of job, "against the day of battle and of war."-- spoken of religion: "'tis _this_ my friend that streaks our morning bright, 'tis this that gilds the horror of our night. when wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few; when friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 'tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, disarms affliction, or repels her dart; within the breast bids purest raptures rise. bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies." one of the most beautiful letters ever written by burns has reference to this subject, and was addressed to the same lady, on new year's day.--"this, dear madam, is a morning of wishes; and would to god that i came under the apostle james's description!--'the prayer of the righteous man availeth much.' in that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. i own myself so little a presbyterian, that i approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion for breaking in on that habitual routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. "this day, the first sunday of may, a breezy, blue skyed noon, sometime about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn,--these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holy day. * * * * i believe i owe this to that glorious paper in the spectator, "the vision of mirza;" a piece that struck my young fancy before i was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables. 'on the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, i always _keep holy_, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, i ascended the high hill of bagdad, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer.' "we know nothing, or next to nothing of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. i have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain daisy, the harebell, the foxglove, the wild brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that i view and hang over with particular delight. i never heard the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery, which like the Ã�olian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? i own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities--a god that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave." a fit comment on this and other passages of similar import in his letters is the following affecting poem, entitled "a prayer in the prospect of death." it seems to us to utter the deep throbbings of the poet's spirit: "why am i loth to leave this earthly scene? have i so found it full of pleasing charms? some drops of joy, with draughts of ill between; some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms; is it departing pangs my soul alarms? or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode? for guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms; i tremble to approach an angry god, and justly smart beneath his sin avenging rod. fain would i say, 'forgive my foul offence!' fain promise never more to disobey; but should my author health again dispense, again i might desert fair virtue's way; again in folly's path might go astray; again exalt the brute and sink the man. then how should i for heavenly mercy pray; who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan, who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran? o thou great governor of all below, if i may dare a lifted eye to thee, thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, or still the tumult of the raging sea; with that controling power assist ev'n me, those headlong furious passions to confine, for all unfit i feel my powers to be, to rule their torrent in the allowed line; o aid me with thy help, omnipotence divine!" after writing thus far, we read for the first time, "the genius and character of burns," by professor wilson, the richest garland yet wreathed around the poet's brow; and we are happy to find the views expressed above fully corroborated by that distinguished writer. it is true that wilson delineates the character of burns with enthusiastic admiration; but his views are so discriminating, and withal backed by such an array of facts, that no candid man can deny their correctness. we cannot therefore resist the temptation of making the following extract, in which the finest discrimination is blended with the largest charity. long may the literature of scotland be guarded by such a critic! but one thing must not be forgotten here, namely, that no one, and especially one personally unacquainted with burns, can pronounce in regard to his actual spiritual state. whether he was truly 'born of god,' and notwithstanding the errors of his life, died a christian and went to heaven, is happily not a question which we are called to decide. "we have said but little hitherto of burns's religion. some have denied that he had any religion at all--a rash and cruel denial--made in the face of his genius, his character, and his life. what man in his senses ever lived without religion? "the fool hath said in his heart, there is no god"--was burns an atheist? we do not fear to say that he was religious far beyond the common run of men, even them who may have had a more consistent and better considered creed. the lessons he received in the "auld clay biggin" were not forgotten through life. he speaks--and we believe him--of his "early ingrained piety" having been long remembered to good purpose--what he called his "idiot piety"--not meaning thereby to disparage it, but merely that it was in childhood an instinct. "our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name!" is breathed from the lips of infancy with the same feeling at its heart that beats towards its father on earth, as it kneels in prayer by his side. no one surely will doubt his sincerity when he writes from irvine to his father--"honor'd sir--i am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps soon, i shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary life; for i assure you i am heartily tired of it, and, if i do not very much deceive myself, i could contentedly and gladly resign it. it is for this reason i am more pleased with the th, th, and th verses of the th chapter of revelations, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me, for all that this world has to offer. ' . therefore are they before the throne of god and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. . they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. . for the lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and god shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'" when he gives lessons to a young man for his conduct in life, one of them is, "the great creator to adore;" when he consoles a friend on the death of a relative, "he points the brimful grief-worn eyes to scenes beyond the grave;" when he expresses benevolence to a distressed family, he beseeches the aid of him "who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb;" when he feels the need of aid to control his passions, he implores that of the "great governor of all below;" when in sickness, he has a prayer for the pardon of all his errors, and an expression of confidence in the goodness of god; when suffering from the ills of life, he asks for the grace of resignation, "because they are thy will;" when he observes the sufferings of the virtuous, he remembers a rectifying futurity;--he is religious not only when surprised by occasions such as these, but also on set occasions; he had regular worship in his family while at ellisland--we know not how it was at dumfries, but we do know that there he catechised his children every saturday evening;--nay, he does not enter a druidical circle without a prayer to god. he viewed the creator chiefly in his attributes of love, goodness and mercy. "in proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a superintending deity, an almighty protector, are doubly dear." him he never lost sight of, or confidence in, even in the depths of his remorse. an avenging god was too seldom in his contemplations--from the little severity in his own character--from a philosophical view of the inscrutable causes of human frailty--and most of all, from a diseased aversion to what was so much the theme of the sour calvanism around him; but which would have risen up an appalling truth in such a soul as his, had it been habituated to profounder thought on the mysterious corruption of our fallen nature. sceptical thoughts as to revealed religion had assailed his mind, while with expanding powers it "communed with the glorious universe;" and in he writes from edinburgh to a "mr. james m'candlish, student in physic, college, glasgow," who had favored him with a long argumentative infidel letter, "i, likewise, since you and i were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old women's stories, ventured on 'the daring path spinoza trod;' but experience of the weakness, not the strength of human powers, _made me glad to grasp at revealed religion_." when at ellisland, he writes to mrs. dunlop, "my idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophizings the lie. who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her god; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life! no: to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty and distress." and again, next year, from the same place to the same correspondent, "that there is an incomprehensibly great being, to whom i owe my existence, and that he must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature he has made--these are, i think, self-evident propositions. that there is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue, and consequently, that i am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave, must, i think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's reflection. i will go farther and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled, by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though _to appearance_ he was himself the obscurest and most illiterate of our species: therefore jesus was from god." indeed, all his best letters to mrs. dunlop are full of the expression of religious feeling and religious faith; though it must be confessed with pain, that he speaks with more confidence in the truth of natural than of revealed religion, and too often lets sentiments inadvertently escape him, that, taken by themselves, would imply that his religious belief was but a christianized theism. of the immortality of the soul, he never expresses any serious doubt, though now and then, his expressions, though beautiful, want their usual force, as if he felt the inadequacy of the human mind to the magnitude of the theme. "ye venerable sages, and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death; or are they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables? if there is another life, it must be only for the just, the amiable, and the humane. what a flattering idea this of the world to come! would to god i as firmly believed it as i ardently wish it." how, then, could honored thomas carlyle bring himself to affirm, "that burns had no religion?" his religion was in much imperfect--but its incompleteness you discern only on a survey of all his effusions, and by inference; for his particular expressions of a religious kind are genuine, and as acknowledgments of the superabundant goodness and greatness of god, they are in unison with the sentiments of the devoutest christian. but remorse never suggests to him the inevitable corruption of man; christian humility he too seldom dwells on, though without it there cannot be christian faith: and he is silent on the need of reconcilement between the divine attributes of justice and mercy. the absence of all this might pass unnoticed, were not the religious sentiment so prevalent in his confidential communications with his friends in his most serious and solemn moods. in them there is frequent, habitual recognition of the creator; and who that finds joy and beauty in nature has not the same? it may be well supposed that if common men are more ideal in religion than in other things, so would be burns. he who has lent the colors of his fancy to common things, would not withhold them from divine. something--he knew not what--he would exact of man--more impressively reverential than anything he is wont to offer to god, or perhaps can offer in the way of institution--in temples made with hands. the _heartfelt_ adoration always has a grace for him--in the silent bosom--in the lonely cottage--in any place where circumstances are a pledge of its reality; but the moment it ceases to be _heartfelt_, and visibly so, it loses his respect, it seems as profanation. "mine is the religion of the breast;" and if it be not, what is it worth? but it must also revive a right spirit within us; and there may be gratitude for goodness, without such change as is required of us in the gospel. he was too buoyant with immortal spirit within him not to credit its immortal destination; he was too thoughtful in his human love not to feel how different must be our affections if they are towards flowers which the blast of death may wither, or towards spirits which are but beginning to live in our sight, and are gathering good and evil here for an eternal life. burns believed that by his own unassisted understanding, and his own unassisted heart, he saw and felt those great truths, forgetful of this great truth, that he had been taught them in the written word. had all he learned in the "auld clay biggin" become a blank--all the knowledge inspired into his heart during the evenings, when "the sire turned o'er wi' patriarchal air, the big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride," how little or how much would he then have known of god and immortality? in that delusion he shared more or less with one and all--whether poets or philosophers--who have put their trust in natural theology. as to the glooms in which his sceptical reason had been involved, they do not seem to have been so thick--so dense--as in the case of men without number, who have, by the blessing of god, become true christians. of his levities on certain celebrations of religious rites, we before ventured an explanation; and while it is to be lamented that he did not more frequently dedicate the genius that shed so holy a lustre over "the cotter's saturday night," to the service of religion, let it be remembered how few poets have done so--alas! too few--that he, like his tuneful brethren, must often have been deterred by a sense of his own unworthiness from approaching its awful mysteries--and above all, that he was called to his account before he had attained his thoughtful prime." speaking of burns's last sickness, professor wilson says: "but he had his bible with him in his lodgings, and he read it almost continually--often when seated on a bank, from which he had difficulty in rising without assistance, for his weakness was extreme, and in his emaciation he was like a ghost. the fire of his eye was not dimmed--indeed fever had lighted it up beyond even its natural brightness; and though his voice, once so various, was now hollow, his discourse was still that of a poet. to the last he loved the sunshine, the grass, and the flowers; to the last he had a kind look and word for the passers-by, who all knew it was burns. laboring men, on their way from work, would step aside to the two or three houses called the brow, to know if there was any hope of his life; and it is not to be doubted that devout people remembered him, who had written the cotter's saturday night, in their prayers. his sceptical doubts no longer troubled him; they had never been more than shadows; and he had at last the faith of a confiding christian." leaving burns's monument, we ascend the hill, in the opposite direction, pass the unfinished parthenon, consisting only of a few elegant columns, and intended to commemorate the battle of waterloo, the observatory, and the monument of professor playfair, the celebrated mathematician and astronomer, and reach the elegant though not imposing monument of professor dugald stewart, not the most acute, but certainly the most finished and instructive of all the writers of the scottish metaphysical school. let us linger here, a few moments, for the name of professor stewart is peculiarly dear to scotland. no man was ever more enthusiastically regarded by his pupils, or more generally loved and revered by the community. dr. reid of glasgow university, the immediate predecessor and preceptor of stewart, was a man of an acute and original mind, though not possessed of half the grace and fluency of his illustrious pupil. it was reid however that first gave clearness and method to the metaphysics of scotland. his writings on first principles, or, as he called them, principles of common sense, gave a death-blow, at least in scotland, to the _ideal theory_ of berkeley and hume, and greatly affected the course of philosophical investigation not only in england but in france. in fact, his philosophy supplanted, for a time, the infidel metaphysics of hume and the french rationalists. it cut the roots equally of idealism and sensualism, and was eagerly received by thoughtful men in europe and in this country. it can be seen running like a sunbeam, through the speculations of royer collard, constant, jouffroy and even of cousin. based on the baconian method, it proceeded, modestly and unostentatiously, to ascertain, and then to classify the facts of mind; and, because it projected no splendid theories, or blazing fancies, it has been rejected by superficial and visionary thinkers, with some degree of contempt. after all, it may yet be recognized, by all genuine philosophers, as the only true scientific method. in the hands of stewart and of brown, his colleague and successor, it began to assume a lofty and attractive position; but alas! it has remained stationary for the want of strong and true-hearted defenders. stigmatized by the germans as "pallid and insular--timid and cold," it has been forsaken, of late, by the more popular metaphysical writers, for the brilliant and astounding, but ever varying visions of the transcendental school. smitten with the love of ontology, or the doctrine of "the absolute and the essential," scorning the methods of bacon and newton as empirical and shallow, and setting their foot on the modest, perhaps timid speculations of reid and stewart, metaphysicians have plunged one after another into the abyss of an absolute spiritualism, where, amid the glimmerings of a half-dark and lurid radiance, may be seen the disciples of kant and fichte, hegel and schelling, floundering in the gloom, changing places continually, now rising towards the light of heaven, and then sinking in the "abysmal dark." the writings of reid, stewart and brown have exerted a great influence on the thinking of scotland, which, even among the common people, has a somewhat metaphysical turn. combining with religion and poetry, it has given to both a peculiar depth and earnestness of tone. in some it is deeply practical, in others speculative and visionary. thomas carlyle, the product chiefly of scotland, but partly also of germany--or perhaps, rather, a magnificent "lusus naturæ," has a large amount of scottish shrewdness, enthusiasm and speculation, overlaid and burnished with german spiritualism and romance. a native of annandale, and imbued with the religion of the covenant, and the poetry of the hills, he has wandered off into the fields of metaphysical speculation, where, amid dreams of gorgeous and beautiful enchantment, he is evermore uttering his burning oracular words, of half pagan, and half christian, wisdom. a genuine _teufelsdröckh_,--he is yet a genuine _scot_, and cannot therefore forget the holy wisdom of his venerable mother, and his annandale home.[ ] [footnote : the following graphic description of the residence, personal appearance and conversation of carlyle is from the pen of elizur wright, junr. "passing the long lines of new buildings which have stretched from westminster up the thames, and engulphed the old village of chelsea, in omnivorous london, you recognize at last the old chelsea hospital, one of the world-famous clusters of low brick palaces, where britain nurses her fighting men when they can fight no more. a little past this and an old ivy-clad church, with its buried generations lying around it, you come to an antique street running at right angles with the thames, and a few steps from the river, you find carlyle's name on the door. a scotch lass ushers you into the second story front chamber, which is the spacious workshop of the world-maker. here are lots of books--ponderous tomes in latin, greek, and black letter english,--some are on shelves occupying nearly all the walls, and some are piled on tables and a reading rack as having just been read. the furniture speaks of scotch economy, and the whole face of things of more than common scotch tidiness. in fact, a superbly wrought bell-rope indicates that the wife is a true hero worshipper. carlyle is a mere man, ordinary size, lofty and jutting brow, keen--exceedingly keen eye, and modest unassuming manners. his voice is melodious, and with its rich scotch cadence, and rapid flow, reminds you of thalberg's music in some strange out of the way key. just set him agoing, and he runs without stopping, giving you whole masses of history, painting and poetry, and a great mass of the boundless system of carlyleism. there is nothing which he does not touch; and figures of speech come tumbling in from all corners, top and bottom of the universe, as the merest matter of course. doubt, hesitation or qualification have no place among his opinions, he having kicked them all out of doors when he began his philosophy." many inquiries have been made respecting carlyle's religious opinions; but it is difficult to say anything very decisive in reply. that he has a deep reverence for the christian faith,--that he strongly inclines to a sort of transcendental orthodoxy,--that he loves, moreover, true-hearted piety, and is himself a model of integrity and affection cannot be doubted. he often speaks of jesus as divine,--as the most perfect of all heroes--as the god man--as the divine man. he possesses a profound sympathy for the higher and more beautiful forms of christian virtue, and describes the lives and characters of good men with the liveliest relish. we incline therefore to believe, that notwithstanding his transcendental speculations, and philosophical doubts, he has a true (though not thoroughly defined) heart faith in the essential doctrines of the christian system. clouds and darkness hang upon the horizon of his spiritual vision, but gloriously irradiated with light from heaven, and here and there opening into vistas of serene and ineffable beauty. many of his followers, we think, do not understand him, and we fear, will never reach his purity and elevation of mind. they are more likely to be led astray, by the magnificent illusions of his gifted but somewhat erring fancy. instead of resting in the simple-hearted and heroic faith which he loves so much to describe, they may plunge into the abysses of doubt and despair.] chapter vii. preaching in edinburgh--the free church--dr. chalmers--a specimen of his preaching--the secret of his eloquence. edinburgh has ever been distinguished for its preachers. in former times the classic blair, the fervid walker, the impassioned logan, the judicious erskine, the learned jamieson, the exquisite alison, the candid wellwood and the energetic thomson delighted and instructed all classes of the community. to these have succeeded a host of learned and truly eloquent men, some of whom are members of "the kirk," others of the episcopal communion, and others of the various bodies of presbyterian "seceders," congregationalists and baptists. among the clergymen of the free church, dr. chalmers of course is "_facile princeps_;" dr. candlish, in effectiveness and popularity probably stands next, while drs. cunningham, bruce, gordon and buchanan, the rev. james begg, and one or two others form a cluster of influential and eloquent preachers. among the congregationalists, rev. william l. alexander is the most learned and polished. he has written ably on the tractarian controversy and on the connection of the old and new testaments, and recently received a pressing invitation to become associated with dr. wardlaw of glasgow, as assistant pastor and professor of theology. he is a fine looking man, being some six feet high, with expressive features, dark penetrating eyes, and massive black hair, clustering over a fair and lofty forehead. his manner is dignified and agreeable, but not particularly impassioned. among the "seceding" presbyterians, dr. john brown, minister of broughton place, and one of the professors of theology in the united secession church, the rev. dr. johnstone and the rev. james robertson of the same communion are among the most effective preachers in scotland. the baptists are justly proud of the learned and polished christopher anderson, author of an able work on the "domestic constitution," and an elaborate "history of the english bible"--the rev. william innes, one of the most amiable and pious of men, and the rev. jonathan watson, whose earnest practical discourses are well appreciated by his intelligent audience. mr. innes at one time was a minister of the established church, with a large salary and an agreeable situation, but abandoned it for conscience' sake, as he could not approve of the union of church and state, nor of some of the peculiarities of presbyterianism. his pious, consistent course, and liberal, catholic spirit, have won for him the admiration of all denominations of christians. bishop terrot of the episcopal church is somewhat high in his church notions, but is regarded as an amiable and learned man, while the rev. mr. drummond and others of the same church, are able and influential preachers. among those who adhere to "the kirk" as it was, the rev. dr. muir is one of the most accomplished, and the rev. dr. lee, of the university, the most learned and influential. taken as a whole, the edinburgh clergy are fair representatives of the scottish preachers generally. those therefore who wish to form a just estimate of the spirit and power of the pulpit in scotland, have only to hear them repeatedly, in their respective places of worship. they hold doctrinal views somewhat diverse, though essentially one, adopt different styles of preaching, and in certain aspects different styles of life. yet they manifestly belong to the same great family, and preach the same glorious gospel. they are remarkably distinguished for their strong common sense, laborious habits, pious spirit and practical usefulness. occasionally they come into keen polemical strife; but it amounts to little more than a gladiatorial exhibition, or rather a light skirmishing, without malice prepense, or much evil result. generally speaking, they are not pre-eminently distinguished for their learning, though certainly well informed, and devoted to the great work of their ministry. they are more practical than speculative, more devout than critical, more useful than renowned. they live in the hearts of their flocks, and the results of their labors may be seen in the integrity, good order and industry of the people. it is not our purpose to say much on the subject of the recent "break" in the scottish church, in which, as the members of the "free church" assert, the supremacy of jesus christ is concerned. the intrusion by lay patrons, of unpopular ministers upon the churches, is certainly a vicious practice, and ought to be abolished. but this is only a fragment of a greater and more vital question, pertaining to the spirituality and authority of christ's church, which must be settled one of these days. the free church movement has developed much fine enthusiasm, and no small amount of self-denial; and the results will doubtless be favorable to the progress of spiritual freedom; but this is only a single wave of a mighty and ever increasing tide, which is destined to sweep, not over scotland alone, but over the world. in this place, however, we cannot refrain from expressing our conviction that this division in the presbyterian ranks is not properly a schism or a heresy. it breaks up an existing organization, but affinity remains. the doctrines and discipline of the two churches are essentially the same. the one may be purer and stronger than the other, but they are members of the same family, professedly cherish the same spirit, and aim at the accomplishment of the same ends. this, too, may be said of nearly all the other sects; so that in scotland, there is more real unity among christians than there is in papal rome. the latter is one, only as a mountain of ice, in which all impurities are congealed, is one. the unity of the former is like that of the thousand streams which rush from the alpine heights, proceeding, as they do, from a common source, and finally meeting and blending in a common ocean. but enough of general speculation and description. dr. chalmers is to preach at dr. candlish's church, so let us go to hear him. he has lost something of his early vigor, but retains enough of it to make him the most interesting preacher in scotland or the world. let us make haste, or we shall fail of obtaining a seat. already the house is filled with an expectant congregation. the doctor comes in, and all is hushed. he is dressed in gown and bands, and presents a striking and venerable appearance. his serious, earnest aspect well befits his high office. he is of the middle height, thick set and brawny, but not corpulent. his face is rather broad, with high cheek bones, pale, and as it were care-worn, but well formed and expressive. his eyes are of a leaden color, rather dull when in a state of repose, but flashing with a half-smothered fire when fairly roused. his nose is broad and lion-like, his mouth, one of the most expressive parts of his countenance, firm, a little compressed and stern, indicating courage and energy, while his forehead is ample and high, as one might naturally suppose, covered with thin, straggling grey hair. he reads a psalm in a dry, guttural voice--reads a few verses of scripture, without much energy or apparent feeling, and then offers a brief, simple, earnest, and striking prayer. by the way, the doctor's prayers are among his most interesting exercises. he is always simple, direct, reverent, and occasionally quite original and striking. you feel while joining in his devotions, that a man of genius and piety is leading your willing spirit up to the throne of god. how striking, for example, when he calls us to remember "that every hour that strikes,--every morning that dawns, and every evening that darkens around us, brings us nearer to the end of our pilgrimage." yet he has no mouthing or mannerism, in this solemn exercise. he is not _making_, but offering a prayer. his tones are earnest and solemn; most manifest it is that his soul is holding intimate fellowship with the father of spirits. but he announces his text-- john iv. . "god is love"--a text from which he has preached before; but no matter for that.[ ] he commences, with a few broken sentences, pronounced in a harsh tuneless voice, with a strong scottish accent. the first feeling of a stranger would be that of disappointment, and apprehension that the discourse was to prove a failure. this was the case with canning and wilberforce, who went to hear dr. chalmers, when he preached in london. they had got into a pew near the door, when "the preacher began in his usual unpromising way, by stating a few nearly self-evident propositions, neither in the choicest language, nor in the most impressive voice; 'if this be all,' said canning to his companion, 'it will never do.' chalmers went on,--the shuffling in the congregation gradually subsided. he got into the mass of his subject; his weakness became strength, his hesitation was turned into energy; and bringing the whole volume of his mind to bear upon it, poured forth a torrent of most close and conclusive argument, brilliant with all the exuberance of an imagination which ranged over all nature for illustrations, and yet managed and applied each of them with the same unerring dexterity, as if that single one had been the study of his whole life. 'the tartan beats us,' said mr. canning, 'we have no preaching like that in england.'" [footnote : in looking over the doctor's printed works, we have found this discourse in a somewhat different garb from that in which we have presented it. we were not at first aware of this, or we might have selected some other discourse; for it was our good fortune to hear the doctor frequently. this and other delineations, however, are taken from personal observation.] it may be well to state here that chalmers is a slavish reader,--that is, he reads every thing he says,--but then he reads so naturally, so earnestly, so energetically, that manuscript and everything else is speedily forgotten by the astonished and delighted hearer. he proceeds with his subject--_god is love_. his object, as announced, is not so much to elucidate the thought or idea of the text, as to dislodge from the minds of his hearers, the dread and aversion for god, existing in all unregenerate men. he insists, in the first place, that it is not as a god of love, that the deity is regarded by mankind--but simply as god, as a being mysterious and dreadful, a being who has displeasure towards them in his heart. this arises from two causes--the first, that they are ignorant of this great and awfully mysterious being--the second, that they have sinned against him. this feeling then is displaced first by the incarnation of the deity in the person of his son, so that we may know him and love him as a father and a friend; and secondly, by the free pardon of our sin, through the sacrifice of the cross. the division is rather awkward; but it serves the purpose of the preacher, who thus brings out some of the most sublime peculiarities of the gospel, and applies them with overwhelming force and pathos to the sinner's heart. under the first head, he shows, in language of uncommon energy, that it is impossible for man, in his present state, to regard a being so vast, so mysterious, and so little known as god, except with superstitious dread. "all regarding him," says he, "is inscrutable; the depths of his past eternity, the mighty and unknown extent of his creation, the secret policy or end of his government--a government that embraces an infinity of worlds, and reaches forward to an infinity of ages; all these leave a being so circumscribed in his faculties as man, so limited in his duration, and therefore so limited in his experience, in profoundest ignorance of god; and then the inaccessible retirement in which this god hides himself from the observation of his creatures here below, the clouds and darkness which are about the pavilion of his throne, the utter inability of the powers of man to reach beyond the confines of that pavilion, render vain all attempts to fathom the essence of god, or to obtain any distinct conception of his person or being, which have been shrouded in the deep silence of many centuries, insomuch that nature, whatever it may tell us of his existence, places between our senses and this mighty cause a veil of interception." it is not unnatural to dread such a being. nature, though full of god, furnishes no clear and satisfying evidence of his designs; for sunshine and shower, green fields and waving harvests are intermingled with tempests and hurricane, blight and mildew, destruction and death. "while in one case we have the natural affection and unnumbered sweets of many a cottage, which might serve to manifest the indulgent kindness of him who is the universal parent of the human family; we have on the other hand the cares, the heart-burnings, the moral discomforts, often the pining sickness, or the cold and cheerless poverty, or, more palpably, the fierce contests and mutual distractions even among civilized men; and lastly, and to consummate all, the death,--the unshaken and relentless death with which generation after generation, whether among the abodes of the prosperous and the happy, or among the dwellings of the adverse and unfortunate, after a few years are visited, laying all the varieties of human fortune in the dust,--these all bespeak if not a malignant, an offended, god." but this vague uncertainty and dread are corrected and displaced by the incarnation of the deity in the person of christ--"the brightness of the father's glory and the express image of his person." "the godhead then became palpable to human senses, and man could behold, as in a picture, and in distinct personification, the very characteristics of the being that made him." upon this idea, a favorite one with dr. chalmers, he dwells with the profoundest interest, presenting it with a strength of conception and exuberance of illustration which makes it clear and palpable to the minds of all. how his heart glows, almost to bursting, with the sublime and thrilling idea that god is manifest in the flesh. how he pours out, as in a torrent of light, the swelling images and emotions of his throbbing spirit. "we could not scale the height of that mysterious ascent which brings us within view of the godhead. it is by the descent of the godhead unto us that this manifestation has been made; and we learn and know it from the wondrous history of him who went about doing good continually. we could not go in search of the viewless deity, through the depths and vastnesses of infinity, or divine the secret, the untold purposes that were brooding there. but in what way could a more palpable exhibition have been made, than when the eternal son, enshrined in humanity, stepped forth on the platform of visible things, and there proclaimed the deity? we can now reach the character of god in the human looks, in the human language of him who is the very image and visible representative of the deity; we see it in the tears of sympathy he shed; we hear it in the accents of tenderness which fell from his lips. even his very remonstrances were those of a deep and gentle nature; for they are remonstrances of deepest pathos--the complaints of a longing spirit against the sad perversity of men bent on their own ruin." not content with this clear and ample exhibition of his views, he returns to it, as if with redoubled interest, and though presenting no new conception upon the point, delights to pour upon it the exuberant radiance of his teeming imagination. the hearers, too, are as interested as he, and catch with delight the varying aspects of his peculiar oratory. in fact, their minds are in perfect sympathy and harmony with his; and tears start to every eye, as he bursts out, as if applying the subject to himself, in the following beautiful and affecting style:--"previous to this manifestation, as long as i had nothing before me but the unseen god, my mind wandered in uncertainty, my busy fancy was free to expatiate, and its images filled my heart with disquietude and terror; but in the life and person and history of jesus christ, the attributes of the deity are brought down to the observation of the senses, and i can no longer mistake them, when, in the son, who is the express image of his father, i see them carried home to my understanding by the evidence and expression of human organs--when i see the kindness of the father, in the tears that fell from the son at the tomb of lazarus--when i see his justice blended with his mercy, in the exclamation, 'o jerusalem, jerusalem!' by jesus christ, uttered with a tone more tender than human bosom or human sympathy ever uttered--i feel the judgment of god himself flashing conviction on my conscience, and calling me to repent, while his wrath is suspended, and he still waiteth to be gracious!" but a more distinct and well-grounded reason for distrust and fear in reference to the deity arises from the consciousness of guilt. in spite of ourselves, in spite of our false theology, we feel that god has a right to be offended with us, that he is offended with us, and not only so, but that we deserve his displeasure. this he shows is counteracted by the doctrine of the atonement: "herein is love, not that we loved him, but that he loved us, and sent his son into the world to be a propitiation for our sins." by the fact of the incarnation, a conquest is gained over the imagination haunted with the idea of an unknown god; so also by that of the atonement, a conquest is gained over the solid and well-grounded fear of guilt. this idea the doctor illustrates with equal force and beauty, showing that by means of the sacrifice of the cross, justice and mercy are brought into harmony, in the full and free pardon of the believing penitent. by this means the great hindrance to free communion with god is taken away. guilt is cancelled, for the sake of him who died, and the poor trembling sinner is taken to the bosom of infinite love. "in the glorious spectacle of the cross, we see the mystery revealed, and the compassion of the parent meeting in fullest harmony with the now asserted and now vindicated prerogative of the lawgiver. the gospel is a halo of all the attributes of god, and yet the pre-eminent manifestation there is of god as love, which will shed its lustre amid all the perfections of the divine nature. and here it should be specially remarked, that the atonement was made for the sins of the whole world; god's direct and primary object being to vindicate the truth and justice of the godhead. instead of taking from his love, it only gave it more emphatic demonstration; for, instead of love, simple and bending itself without difficulty to the happiness of its objects, it was a love which, ere it could reach the guilty being it groaned after, had to force the barriers of a necessity which, to all human appearance, was insuperable." with this fine idea the doctor concludes his discourse, presenting it with a mingled tenderness and vehemence of style and tone perfectly irresistible. "the love of god," he exclaims, "with such an obstacle and trying to get over it, is a higher exhibition than all the love which radiates from his throne on all the sinless angels. the affirmation that god is love, is strengthened by that other, to him who owns the authority of scripture, that god _so_ loved the world--i call on you to mark the emphatic _so_--as to give his only-begotten son. 'he spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all;' or that expression, 'herein is love, not that we loved god, but that he loved us, and gave his son to be the propitiation for our sins.' there is a moral, a depth, an intensity of meaning, a richness of sentiment that paul calls unsearchable, in the cross of christ, that tells emphatically that god is righteousness, and that god is love." such is a feeble and imperfect outline of a rich and eloquent discourse, from one of the richest and most expressive texts in the bible. but we cannot transfer to the written or printed page the tone, look and manner, the _vivida vis_, the natural and overwhelming energy, the pathos and power of tone, which thrill the hearer as with the shocks of a spiritual electricity. it is this peculiar energy which distinguishes chalmers, and which distinguishes all great orators. his mind is on fire with his subject, and transfers itself all glowing to the minds of his hearers. for the time being all are fused into one great whole, by the resistless might of his burning eloquence. in this respect chalmers has been thought to approach, nearer than any other man of modern times, the style and tone of demosthenes. his manner has a torrent-vehemence, a sea-like swell and sweep, a bannered tramp as of armies rushing to deadly conflict. with one hand on his manuscript, and the other jerked forward with electric energy, he thunders out his gigantic periods, as if winged with "volleyed lightning." the hearers are astonished,--awed,--carried away,--lifted up as on the wings of the wind, and borne "whithersoever the master listeth." chapter viii. biographical sketch of dr. chalmers. as an evangelical divine, a preacher of great strength and earnestness, a man of a truly devout and generous spirit, of great independence, energy and perseverance, a leader of the free church of scotland, and a successful advocate of the doctrine of christ's supremacy, dr. chalmers may be regarded as a fair embodiment of the religious spirit of his native land. in his mode of thinking, in his doctrinal belief and practice, especially in his devout and fervid eloquence, the doctor is eminently scottish. his whole spirit is bathed in the piety of "the covenant." on this account a brief sketch of his history will not be inappropriate in this place. thomas chalmers, d. d., was born about the year , in the town of anstruther in fifeshire, the birth-place of another man of genius, professor tennant, of st. andrews, the celebrated author of "anster fair," one of the most facetious poems in the language, and making a near approach to the dramatic energy of "tam o'shanter." young chalmers gave decided indications of genius and energy, and was sent to the college of st. andrews, and soon became "a mathematician, a natural philosopher, and though there was no regular professor of that science at st. andrews, a chemist." after having been licensed as a preacher, he officiated for sometime, as assistant minister, at cavers in roxburghshire. he was subsequently called to the care of the parish church in kilmany, beautifully situated "amid the green hills and smiling valleys," of his native county. he was ordained on the th of may, , and soon displayed the vigor and activity of his mind. in addition to his regular parochial engagements, he devoted much attention to botany and chemistry; lectured on the latter science and kindred subjects in the neighboring towns; became an officer in a volunteer corps; assisted the late professor vilant in teaching the mathematical class in the college of st. andrews; on the succeeding session opened a private class of his own, on the same branch of science, to which all the students flocked; and wrote one or two books, and several pamphlets on the topics of the day. his first publication appeared at cupar in fife on what was called the leslie controversy. it was written in the form of a letter addressed to professor playfair; and abounds in talent, wit and humor. it was published anonymously, and for a long time was not known to be his. he vindicates in it very powerfully, the divines of the church of scotland, from the imputation of a want of mathematical talent, a reproach which he thought professor playfair had thrown upon them. he also wrote a volume on the resources of the country, which attracted much attention, as a work of ability and eloquence. from these statements it must be evident that dr. chalmers had but little time to devote to the spiritual interests of his parish. he performed his _stated_ duties, it is true, but devoted his energies chiefly to literary and scientific pursuits. indeed he was in religious belief a rationalist, and had not yet adopted those profound and spiritual convictions which subsequently formed the main-spring of his ministry. in he offered himself as a candidate for the vacant chair of mathematics in the university of edinburgh, with considerable chances of success, but afterwards withdrew his name at the earnest solicitation of his friends, who wished to retain him in the church. when dr. brewster's edinburgh encyclopedia was projected dr. chalmers was engaged as one of the contributors, and wrote the article "christianity," which was subsequently published in a separate form. it was about this time that his mind underwent a radical change on the subject of vital religion. he discovered the utter inefficiency of a utilitarian morality, for the renovation and guidance of man, and eagerly embraced those peculiar views of evangelical faith, which recognize the sacrifice and intercession of christ as a ground of hope to the fallen, the necessity of "being born of the spirit," and the ineffable beauty and blessedness of "a life hid with christ in god." it is said that this change took place while writing the article referred to; he then felt the necessity of acting upon his own principles, of yielding his heart absolutely and forever, to the truths of that revelation, the reality and authority of which he was called to prove. it will be remembered by those acquainted with the article in question, that he takes the ground that a divine revelation must necessarily be mysterious; that coming from god, it must belong to the infinite and the obscure, and thus contain many things which shock our preconceptions,--that _a priori_ objections to its doctrines are therefore null and void, and that the whole must be received, without exception or modification. he insists that while we have experience of man, we have little or no experience of god, that the thoughts of such a being must infinitely transcend ours, and in all probability contradict ours, especially with reference to the great problem touching the salvation of the guilty. if then the genuineness and authenticity of the sacred books can be proved as historical facts, we have nothing to do with the revelation which they contain, but to receive it with adoring gratitude and submission. the incarnation of the godhead, the sacrifice of the cross, justification by faith, the re-birth of the soul by the holy spirit, the resurrection of the body, and eternal judgement are revealed facts or truths, already proved, and must therefore constitute the heart's-creed of every true believer. these doctrines consequently were embraced by chalmers himself, and formed thenceforward the subjects of his preaching to the people. a great excitement ensued. the community was aroused--multitudes were converted. chalmers preached with the greatest fervor and unction, and hundreds flocked to hear him from the neighboring parishes. this produced inquiry, and he found it necessary to give explanations in reference to the causes which had effected such a change in his ministry. in this view the following will be read with interest and profit: "and here i cannot but record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment which i prosecuted upwards of twelve years amongst you. for the greater part of that time i could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny--in a word upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and the disturbers of society. now, could i, upon the strength of these warm expostulations, have got the thief to give up his stealing, and the evil speaker his censoriousness, and the liar his deviations from truth, i should have felt all the repose of one who had gotten his ultimate object. it never occurred to me that all this might have been done, and yet every soul of every hearer have remained in full alienation from god; and that even could i have established in the bosom of one who stole such a principle of abhorrence at the meanness of dishonesty that he was prevailed upon to steal no more, he might still have retained a heart as completely unturned to god, and as totally unpossessed of a principle of love to him as before. in a word, though i might have made him a more upright and honorable man, i might have left him as destitute of the essence of religious principle as ever. but the interesting fact is that during the whole of that period in which i made no attempt against the natural enmity of the mind to god, while i was inattentive to the way in which this enmity is dissolved, even by the free offer on the one hand, and the believing acceptance on the other, of the gospel salvation; while christ, through whose blood the sinner, who by nature stands afar off, is brought near to the heavenly lawgiver whom he has offended, was scarcely ever spoken of, or spoken of in such a way as stripped him of all the importance of his character and offices, even at this time i certainly did press the reformations of honor, and truth, and integrity among my people; but i never even heard of any such reformations being effected amongst them. if there was anything at all brought about in this way, it was more than i ever got any account of. i am not sensible that all the vehemence with which i urged the virtues and the proprieties of social life had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. and it was not till i got impressed with the utter alienation of the heart in its desires and affections from god; it was not till reconciliation to him became the distinct and the prominent object of my ministerial exertions; it was not till i took the scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them; it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the holy spirit given through the channel of christ's mediatorship to all who ask him, was set before them as the unceasing object of their dependence and their prayers; it was not, in one word, till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and essential elements in the business of a soul providing for its interest with god, and the concerns of its eternity, that i ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations which i aforetime made the earnest and the zealous, but i am afraid, at the same time, ultimate object of my earlier ministrations. to servants, whose scrupulous fidelity has now attracted the notice and drawn forth, in my hearing, a delightful testimony from your masters, what mischief ye would have done, had your zeal for doctrines and sacraments been accompanied by the sloth and remissness, and what, in the prevailing tone of moral relaxation, is counted the allowable purloining of your earlier days! but a sense of your heavenly master's eye has brought another influence to bear upon you; and while you are thus striving to adorn the doctrine of god your saviour in all things, you may, poor as you are, reclaim the great ones of the land to the acknowledgment of the faith. you have, at least, taught me that to preach christ, is the only effective way of preaching morality in all its branches; and out of your humble cottages have i gathered a lesson, which i pray god i may be enabled to carry with all its simplicity into a wider theatre, and to bring, with all the power of its subduing efficacy upon the vices of a more crowded population." in dr. chalmers was translated to the tron church of glasgow, and here displayed all the resources of his brilliant and vigorous mind. fired with a generous ardor for the salvation of souls, he poured the truth of god upon rapt and crowded congregations. in addition to the indefatigable performance of his ministerial duties, he embarked with eagerness in plans for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. he urged the importance of free school education, and although he had to encounter much prejudice, he accomplished a large amount of good for the city of glasgow. his views upon this subject are developed in a large work, published at the time, on the "christian and civic condition of large towns,"--a production somewhat elaborate and diffuse, but abounding in important suggestions and earnest appeals. in he was invited to preach before the king's commissioner in the high church of edinburgh. his discourse on that occasion comprised the essence of his astronomical sermons, and was probably "as magnificent a display of eloquence as was ever heard from the pulpit." the effect upon the audience was immediate and electric. it broke upon them like a shower of light from the opening heavens. by means of this discourse his fame was perhaps first widely established. from that day crowds followed him wherever he went, and, to quote his own words, he began to feel the burden "of a popularity of stare, and pressure and animal heat." in dr. chalmers removed to the new church and parish of st. john's, in which place the writer, while a student at glasgow college, had the pleasure of hearing some of his thrilling discourses. he was then in the hey-day of life, full of mental and bodily vigor, and preached with a rapidity, force, and pathos perfectly overwhelming. he continued to devote himself to the interests of the poor, and indeed took part in every plan which contemplated the welfare of society. in he was elected professor of moral philosophy in the university of st. andrews, "where he imparted a very different character to this course from the mere worldly cast which it too generally assumes in our universities." firmly convinced of the great truths of the gospel, he infused into his prelections the spirit of a profound and earnest godliness. while here, he also delivered a separate course of lectures on political economy, as connected with the chair of moral philosophy. it may be supposed from his frequent changes that dr. chalmers was either a fickle or an ambitious man. but those best acquainted with the circumstances, feel assured that this could not possibly have been the case. he neither increased his income nor his popularity by means of these changes, and all, we doubt not, were made with a view to greater usefulness. in one instance, certainly, he proved his disinterestedness by refusing the most wealthy living in the church of scotland, the west parish of greenock, which was presented to him by the patron. he was more than once offered an edinburgh church, but uniformly declined it; as he had long conceived that his widest sphere of usefulness was a theological chair. he was accordingly elected to this office, in the university of edinburgh, and soon attracted the attention of a large and enthusiastic class of students. his lectures were able and brilliant; but this, in our judgment, was not the principal cause of his success. it consisted, as we believe, in his own ardor and enthusiasm, and the consequent ardor and enthusiasm which he inspired in his pupils. "at one time the object of the young men seemed to be to evade attendance on the divinity lecture; now the difficulty became to get a good place to hear their eloquent instructor." by this means much good was accomplished for the church of scotland, by diffusing amongst its ministry a true evangelical spirit. still we believe that dr. chalmer's true sphere of labor was the pulpit, and that here alone he could exert his widest influence. it is true he preached occasionally while occupying the chair of divinity, and gave a series of lectures on church establishments, which at that time he earnestly defended. "he considered that each established _church_ throughout the land may be termed a centre of _emanation_, from which christianity, with proper zeal, be made to move by an aggressive and converting operation, on the wide mass of the people; whilst a dissenting _chapel_ he views as a centre of _attraction_ only for those who are religiously disposed." recently the doctor has found his _centre_ of _emanation_ sadly curtailed. the union of church and state has proved, even to him, a prodigious hindrance and difficulty--a proof this, that theory and fact are very different things. it was while professor of theology in edinburgh, as we believe, that he visited london, and attracted so much attention by his sermons and lectures. while there, mr. canning, lord castlereagh, lord eldon, the duke of sussex, with several branches of the royal family, whom, as the journals remarked, "they were not accustomed to elbow at a place of worship," were found anxiously waiting to hear this modern chrysostom. caught by the irresistible charm of true genius and piety, they listened with wonder and delight to his honest and earnest appeals. they felt and acknowledged that his sermons, "as far transcended those of the mawkish productions to be frequently met with, as does the genius of milton or of newton surpass that of the common herd of poets and philosophers." it was a sublime sight to behold crowds of all ranks and conditions listening devoutly to the vehement exhortations of this man of god. "can earth afford such genuine state, pre-eminence, so free, as when arrayed in christ's authority, he from the pulpit lifts his awful hand; conjures, implores, and labors all he can in resubjecting to divine command the stubborn spirit of rebellious man?" wordsworth. dr. chalmers, as all are aware, is the principal leader of the free church movement. he has uniformly asserted the supremacy of christ in his own church, and the right of the people to the election of their pastors. this being denied and withheld by the legal authorities in scotland, dr. chalmers, and the noble host of ministers and churches that agreed with him, departed in a body from "the established kirk." in he relinquished his station as professor of theology in the university; and since that time has occupied the same office, in connection with "the free church of scotland." he is now considerably advanced in years. his head is silvered with gray, and much of his natural strength is abated. but his mind is yet clear and strong, his heart calm and joyful; and we can only hope and pray that he may be spared many years to come, as an ornament to his country, and an honor to the church. it is not our purpose in this place to say much on the subject of the published works of dr. chalmers. these are quite voluminous. the english edition of his works consists of twenty-five duodecimo volumes. of these the two first volumes on _natural theology_, the third and fourth on the _evidences of christianity_, the fifth on _moral philosophy_, the sixth, _commercial discourses_, the seventh, _astronomical discourses_, and the last four on _paul's epistle to the romans_, are the most interesting and valuable.[ ] in style and arrangement, in logic and definition, they possess some obvious defects, but ever indicate a genius of the highest order, a heart burning with love and zeal, a conscience void of offence toward god and toward all men; and a devotion, akin to that of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect.[ ] [footnote : all these, with the addition of four volumes of sermons, forming the theological works of dr. chalmers, have been republished, in handsome form, by mr. carter of new york.] [footnote : in the introduction to "vinet's vital christianity," i have given a more elaborate estimate of the mental peculiarities of dr. chalmers, in connection with those of vinet, "the chalmers of switzerland." since the above sketch was written dr. chalmers has gone to his rest. he died suddenly and unexpectedly on the st of may, .] chapter ix. dr. john brown of edinburgh--rev. john brown of whiteburn--professor john brown of haddington--rev. dr. candlish--specimen of his preaching. before leaving the edinburgh clergy, i wish to give you some account of the rev. dr. john brown, minister of broughton place chapel, and professor of exegetical theology in the united secession church, one of the most amiable and accomplished of the scottish ministers. he is the son of the rev. john brown of whiteburn, and the grandson of the rev. john brown of haddington, of whom i shall have something to say before the close of the chapter. dr. brown is between fifty and sixty years of age, with a fine form and expressive countenance. rather tall and slender, he looks much as one might conceive the apostle john to have done. his countenance is mild and dignified, nose slightly aquiline, brow arched and high, eyes dark and piercing, and his mouth indicative of mingled firmness and delicacy of character. his hair, once dark as the ravens, bears the marks of age and thought. in his youth, he was extremely vigorous and active; but he is evidently passing into "the sere and yellow leaf." dr. brown is a man of decided talent, though distinguished more for clearness and strength of intellect, than for genius and imagination. his mind is highly cultivated, but it seldom glows and sparkles. his discourses are always interesting and instructive, but not often thrilling or overpowering. they never fall below mediocrity, are always clear, sensible and useful, but perhaps never rise to the highest heaven of invention. in this respect he much resembles the celebrated dr. wardlaw, though, as a speaker, he is more effective. dr. wardlaw uniformly reads his sermons, dr. brown does not even use notes. he preaches probably from memory, as is the case with most of the scottish clergy. they practice "the committing" of their sermons from their youth, and acquire astonishing facility in this exercise, on which account their preaching is often distinguished as much for its accuracy, as its energy and freedom. dr. brown appears to great advantage in the pulpit. his ease, energy, gracefulness and variety of tone, attitude, and expression, are equally striking. occasionally he hesitates for a word, but never fails to find the right one. his language is remarkably full and accurate. his topics, too are uniformly well selected, clearly divided and thoroughly discussed. if he does not, like chalmers, awe and subdue his audience, he seldom fails to interest and instruct them. his style is lucid and vivacious, and well adapted to useful practical preaching. a tone of deep and fervid piety pervades the whole, giving the impression that a man of god is addressing to you the messages of heaven. dr. brown is orthodox, but liberal in his views and feelings. as a theologian he belongs to the school of the moderate calvinists. in connection with the late amiable and accomplished dr. balmer of berwick, he was called to account some years ago, for his views of the atonement, which he regards not as a restricted, but as a universal blessing, that is to say, as a blessing, intended for the benefit not of a class, but of the whole world. this gave rise to a war of words, and to much useless recrimination in the courts of the united secession church, which have left the matter pretty much where it was before. dr. brown's views, however, are becoming prevalent in scotland. dr. brown has done much to promote the study of biblical literature, which has received comparatively little attention in scotland. as theologians the scottish preachers are sound and practical, but with the exception of dr. campbell of aberdeen, and dr. mcknight of edinburgh, they have not distinguished themselves for their critical investigations. a new spirit begins to prevail among them. the highly respectable denomination with which dr. brown is connected, is making rapid advances in this interesting branch of biblical study. dr. brown has taken an active part in the discussion of the question touching the seperation of church and state, and has published one or two pamphlets upon the subject. in polemics he has always evinced a sober and generous spirit. the family, from which the subject of these remarks is descended, has been highly distinguished for its talents and piety. the most of its members have been eminent and useful preachers for several generations. dr. brown's father, the rev. john brown, of whiteburn, was for many years one of the most devout and useful ministers of the secession church. indeed, he was a perfect patriarch in the rural district, where he exercised his ministry. every one knew him and loved him, as a man of singular goodness and apostolic zeal. when a boy the writer used to attend his church, and well does he remember his meek and venerable countenance, and the thrilling tones of his musical voice. he rode about his parish on an old white pony, fat and good-natured like his master; and never failed, when he met one of his youthful parishioners, to stop and enter into conversation with him. "weel, my lad," he would say, patting my head, "how d'ye do--and how's your faither, and how's your mither? and a' the family, are they weel? gie them my compliments. and now you maun be a good boy; dinna forget to say your prayers, and god will bless you. gude day!" so off he would amble with a benignant smile, leaving a sweet and holy impression behind him, not forgotten to this very day. in preaching, mr. brown had a peculiar tone or tune, which at times was perfectly thrilling. he frequently used the scottish dialect in the more pathetic and practical parts of his discourses, and by this means produced a great impression upon his simple-hearted hearers. his style, too, was naturally quaint and terse, and this, set off by his benignant look, his varied and tender tones, often made his sermons very memorable. some of his illustrations i remember now, though i ceased to hear him preach in my eighth year, having been removed to another part of the country. the following are specimens, perhaps not the best that might be given, but certainly characteristic. "there are three sorts of folks in the world; the butterfly, the wasp, and the bee. the butterfly is the gaudy fool, the wasp is the malicious wicked, but the bee is the gude christian!" imagine this, and the following, uttered with a peculiar sing-song and most expressive look and emphasis. "when ye see reek coming out at the chimney, ye may conclude there's fire in the house; so, when ye hear a man cursing and swearing, ye may be sure that the fire of hell is kindled in that man's heart!" "o my friends, hold on and persevere in the good ways of the lord. a few more losses and crosses, a few more troubles and trials, and we'll cross the swellings o' jordan, and then, o then, we'll sit and sing thegither on the hills of zion!" "fear not, little flock, it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. o the heart of our heavenly father is a heart of tenderness and love. he will never leave you, nor forsake you. why, only think on't--ye'r his ain dear bairns; he'll tak you by the han', and lead you through the wilderness, till he bring you safe to the heavenly canaan, the hame of his children, the inheritance of his family!" good old man! he has gone, long since, to that blessed "hame" where faithful ministers meet their beloved flocks, and "sing together on the hills of zion!" mr. brown had a brother _ebenezer_, minister of inverkeithing, who was still more distinguished as a preacher. in his boyhood he was "a great rogue," and used to teaze his "douce" and pious brother john, and occasion a good deal of trouble to his worthy father. but he was converted when a young man, and became an exceedingly devout and eloquent preacher. i had the pleasure of hearing him preach once in the open air, at a sacramental occasion connected with his brother's congregation in whiteburn, but have a very indistinct recollection of the discourse. but i well remember his earnest look, and the thrilling tones of his powerful voice. he was of small stature, but spoke with great force and vehemence, and occasionally with the same sing-song voice, common among the old scottish preachers. the congregation was rapt: a solemn stillness pervaded the atmosphere all around, so that one could hear the chirpings of the grasshopper, and the song of the bird in the neighboring woods, during the pauses of his long and earnest sentences. the father of john brown of whiteburn, and grandfather of dr. john brown of edinburgh, was the celebrated professor john brown, author of the self-interpreting bible, exposition of the assembly's shorter catechism, and other works; and teacher of theology in the united secession church. he was an extraordinary man. when a poor shepherd boy, he conceived the idea of learning latin and greek, and having procured a few old books, actually accomplished the task, while tending his cattle on the hills. so successful was he, that some of the old and superstitious people in the neighborhood concluded that he must have been assisted by "the evil spirit." on one occasion he went to edinburgh, plaided and barefoot, walked into a bookseller's shop, and asked for a greek testament. "what are you going to do with a greek testament?" said the bookseller. "read it," was the prompt reply. "read it!" exclaimed the sceptical bookseller, with a smile; "ye may have it for nothing if ye'll read it." taking the book, he quietly read off a few verses, and gave the translation; on which he was permitted to carry off the greek testament in triumph. professor brown was an eminently holy man. he was equally distinguished for his simplicity and dignity of character. his preaching was much admired by old and judicious persons. on one occasion, when he and others were assisting a brother minister in services preparatory to the celebration of the lord's supper, which services in scotland usually take place on the last days of the week preceding the "sacramental sabbath," and are frequently held in the open air, a couple of gay young men had been out hunting, and on their return home drew near to the large congregation who were listening at that moment to the preaching of an eloquent but somewhat showy divine. after standing a few moments, the one said to the other, "did you ever hear such preaching as that?" "no," he replied with an oath, "but he don't believe a word of it!" after this preacher had closed, there stood up, in the "tent," (a temporary pulpit erected in the open air for the accommodation of the ministers,) an old, humble looking man, who announced his text in a trembling voice, as if he were afraid to speak in god's name. he went on, and became more and more interesting, more and more impressive. the young men were awed, and listened with reverent attention to the close, when the one, turning to the other, said, "and what d'ye think of that?" "think of it," he replied, "i don't know what to think. why, didn't you see how every now and then he turned round in the tent, as if jesus christ were behind him, and he was asking, 'lord, what shall i say next?'" this preacher was john brown, the secret of whose pulpit eloquence was, the inspiration of an humble and contrite heart, touched by the finger of the almighty; an eloquence as far transcending that of the mere orator as the divine and heavenly transcends the human and earthly. this too, was the eloquence of the early scottish preachers,--of knox and rutherford, of guthrie and erskine, of cameron and boston. this fired the hearts of the people with a holy and all-conquering zeal; this shed a glory over the death of the martyrs, and diffused among their descendants the love of "the covenant" and the love of god. may this ever continue to be the eloquence not only of the church in scotland but of the church throughout the world! there is one other preacher in edinburgh, of whom it would be desirable to give a full-length portrait. i refer to dr. candlish, certainly one of the most popular and effective preachers in the free church of scotland. but i am not in possession of the materials for such a portrait, having heard him preach only once, and being imperfectly acquainted with the events of his life. he is probably about forty-five years of age, rather short of stature, and not particularly imposing or prepossessing in appearance. his face is rather long and sallow, but set off by an immense forehead, dark bushy hair, and a pair of fine black eyes. he stands bolt upright in the pulpit, and speaks in a clear, strong, deliberate, yet rapid voice. judging from his published discourses, and the single specimen which i heard, i should think him destitute of pathetic power. he is evidently most at home in the regions of ratiocination. his language is copious, energetic, and harmonious. in clearness and finish it is decidedly superior to that of chalmers, and little inferior to robert hall's. it possesses a stateliness, combined with a bounding energy, which render it very effective. his method is remarkably lucid, and his reasoning strong and convincing. in fancy, in touching pathos, in overwhelming energy, in the vivid lightning flashes of genius, he is greatly inferior to chalmers; but in clearness of definition, in compactness and purity of style, in strength of logic, and in completeness of arrangement and finish, he must be acknowledged superior. his discourses are highly evangelical. they abound in clear and instructive statements, and defences of the cardinal truths of the gospel. if deficient, it is in directness and pungency of appeal, in holy pathos, in solemn and subduing unction. as a debater, dr. candlish stands pre-eminent. he may not possess the ponderous strength of cunningham, the overpowering energy of chalmers, the quick and versatile humor of guthrie, or the eloquent polish of buchanan. but he possesses, in unusual combination, clearness of method, logical acumen, force and beauty of style, and an easy, graceful, commanding elocution. when chalmers dies, we predict that candlish will be the leader in the courts of the free church of scotland. dr. candlish has published quite a number of occasional sermons, and a volume of lectures on the record of the creation in the book of genesis. these lectures are interesting and instructive, but to our taste, they are too diffuse and elaborate, and not sufficiently critical, or rather exegetical and compact. they say much about a thing, without actually saying the thing itself. but this is rather the fault of their design or plan, than of their execution, which as a whole indicates a high degree of talent. they contain many fine passages, and valuable suggestions. among his published discourses, one of the best is on the "incompetency of reason, and the fitness of revelation;" from acts xvii. . "whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare i unto you." the following passage from that discourse will give a fair idea of his power. speaking of the mournful condition of those who delight to investigate the works of god, but have never found god himself, he says:--"they may feel a proud and high satisfaction, arising from the importance of the knowledge acquired in the successful employment of their powers and faculties of mind. but brethren, they scarcely meet, in all the various and diversified tracks which they take, and in all the endless varieties of objects which encounter their judgments--they scarcely ever meet their god; they scarcely ever find him in the way; they scarcely ever seek him. in the wondrous elements, the richly scattered treasures of power, and wisdom and goodness, through which they make their progress, they cannot shut their eyes to the presence of god; they must acknowledge a god: but it is god with attributes of their own choosing, not the god of scripture,--the god of nature, not the god of justice. _him_ they exclude from their view; _him_ they do not like to retain in their thoughts; and in the circumstances in which they cultivate the idea of a god, if mingling in their researches at all, they strip their ideas of all which might remind them of their unsettled controversy with him. conceive of a man in such a state, so blind as to have exercised his powers of discovery, in the full blaze of all the glory and the terrible majesty of a just god and a saviour, without really finding him, condemned to carry on his future work of discovery with a clear and startling apprehension of all the moral attributes of god--his holiness,--his justice,--his truth--all as manifested in the cross of christ, and all still carried on in a carnal mind and a self-condemned heart. where now will be the joy of his lofty inquiries? where now the triumph of his lofty powers of knowledge? every object he contemplates now, is connected with the idea of a righteous god; every subject he can examine now, is fraught with the presence of a righteous god; every new ray of light that meets his eye, reveals to him a righteous god; every sound carries to his ear the name of god, repeated by a thousand echoes. he can make no experiment now that will not show him more of the wonders and terrors of god. he can look at nothing, he can think of nothing, that does not speak to him of god, and remind him of his justice: and all the bold traces of his profound discoveries regarding nature, now do but suggest reminiscences of nature's god as a god of judgment; and so the very faculty which was ever his pride and admiration,--the capacity of deep reflection and enlightened inquiry, does but add new sting and torture to his reprobate mind, by suggesting always, everywhere, and in all things, new images and representations of that awful, that almighty being, whom he has chosen to make his foe." chapter x. ride into the country--the skylark--poems on the skylark by shelley and the 'ettrick shepherd'--newhall--'the gentle shepherd'--localities and outlines of the story--its popularity in scotland. 'tis a beautiful morning in early june. the sun is peeping over arthur's seat, and glancing from the turrets of the old castle. the carriage is ready, and sandy the driver is cracking his whip with impatience. so, take your place, and let us be off. passing 'bruntsfield links' we plunge into the very heart of the country, so rich and varied, with park and woodland scenery, handsome villas, and sweet acclivities. yonder is merchiston castle, the birth-place of the celebrated napier, the inventor of logarithms. a little further on, we reach the smiling village of morningside, and pass some pretty country residences, with pleasant grounds and picturesque views. we enter a narrow and thickly wooded dell, through which tinkles a small rivulet, called the braid burn. at the bottom we come to the braid hermitage, as sweet a sylvan retreat as ever greeted the eye of the rural wanderer. those rocky heights above us are the braid hills, from which can be enjoyed some of the most splendid views in scotland. leaving the carriage a few minutes we ascend that lofty eminence, and gaze, with delight upon the vast and beautiful landscape, including the city of edinburgh, the firth of forth, with its "emerald islands," and the winding shores of fife in the distance. blackford hill, a little to the north of us is the spot mentioned in "marmion:" "still on the spot lord marmion stay'd, for fairer scene he ne'er survey'd, when sated with the martial show that peopled all the plains below, the wandering eye could o'er it go, and mark the distant city glow with gloomy splendor red; for on the smoke wreaths, huge and slow, that round her sable turrets flow, the morning beams were shed, and tinged them with a lustre proud, like that which streaks a thunder cloud; such dusky grandeur clothed the height, where the huge castle holds its state, and all the steep slope down, whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, piled deep and massy, close and high, mine own romantic town! but northward far with purer blaze on ochil mountains fell the rays, and as each heathy top they kiss'd, it gleamed a purple amethyst. yonder the shores of fife you saw; here preston bay, and berwick-law, and broad between them roll'd the gallant firth the eye might note, whose islands on its bosom float, like emeralds chased in gold." descending from the hill we resume our journey, musing on the days of old, when "shrill fife and martial drum" awakened the echoes of these peaceful vales, now resounding with the melody of birds. how delightful the gushing music of those sky-larks, which descends upon us from "heaven's gates," like a shower of "embodied gladness." why, it seems as if a hundred of them were soaring "i' the lift," and singing with a joyous energy, akin to that of the blessed spirits in heaven. to me, the lark is the noblest of all birds, the most pure and spirit-like of all aerial songsters. in scotland, too, she seems to sing the sweetest and strongest. others may praise the nightingale, if they please, and my own heart has often thrilled, to hear, at the "witching time of night," her wild and melancholy strain from some english copsewood, or italian grove. but nothing so rich and beautiful, so spirit-like and divine ever greeted my ear as the glad singing of the heaven-aspiring lark. it seemed as if the very spirit of song had taken wings, and were ascending to god, in a flood of melody. but listen to the following strains written by shelley under the inspiration of the sky-lark's song: hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert, that from heaven or near it pourest thy full heart in profuse strains of unpremeditated art. higher still and higher from the earth thou springest, like a cloud of fire! the blue deep thou wingest, and singing, still dost soar; and soaring, ever singest. in the golden lightning of the sunken sun, o'er which clouds are brightening, thou dost float and run; like an embodied joy, whose race has just begun. * * * * * all the earth and air with thy voice is loud, as, when night is bare from one lonely cloud, the moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. what thou art, we know not. what is most like thee? from rainbow clouds there flow not drops so bright to see, as from thy presence showers a rain of melody like a poet hidden in the light of thought, singing hymns unbidden till the world is wrought to sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not. * * * * * sound of vernal showers on the twinkling grass, rain awakened flowers, all that ever was joyous and fresh and clear thy music doth surpass. teach me, sprite or bird, what sweet thoughts are thine: i have never heard praise of love or wine that panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. chorus hymeneal or triumphant chaunt, match'd with thine would be all but an empty vaunt-- a thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. what objects are the fountains of thy happy strain? what fields or waves or mountains? what shapes of sky or plain? what love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? with thy clear keen joyance languor cannot be: shadow of annoyance never came near thee: thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. waking or asleep thou of death must deem, things more true and deep than we mortals dream, or how could thy note flow in such a crystal stream? we look before and after, and pine for what is not; our sincerest laughter, with some pain is fraught: our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought. better than all measures of delightful sound, better than all treasures that in books are found, thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! teach me half the gladness, that thy brain must know; such harmonious madness from my lips would flow, the world should listen then, as i am listening now. inferior to this, but still very beautiful, more natural, and more especially scottish, are the following lines to the skylark by the "ettrick shepherd:" bird of the wilderness, blithesome and cumberless, sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! emblem of happiness, blest is thy dwelling place-- o to abide in the desert with thee! wild is thy lay and loud, far in the downy cloud, love gives it energy, love gave it birth. where on thy dewy wing, where art thou journeying? thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth. o'er fell and fountain sheen, o'er moor and mountain green, o'er the red streamer that heralds the day, over the cloudlet dim, over the rainbow's rim, musical cherub, soar singing away! then when the gloaming comes low in the heather blooms, sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! emblem of happiness, blest is thy dwelling place-- o to abide in the desert with thee! filled with these pleasant images, we pursue our journey, and wind along the edge of the pentland hills, with their thrilling memories of "auld-lang-syne;" pass the "bonnie braes" of woodhouselee, and reach old glencorse church, "bosomed high 'mong tufted trees;" cross "a bonnie burn," called "logan water," and get a glimpse of "house of muir," in the vicinity of which the old scottish covenanters met with a terrible slaughter, from general dalzell of binns, the "bluidy dalzell," as the scots call him to this day. passing through the humble village of silver burn, we reach newhall, once the residence of dr. pennycuick, a poet and an antiquary, and subsequently of the forbes family highly distinguished for their talents and virtues. disposing of our carriage, let us ramble, at our "own sweet will," amid those beautiful grounds. the mansion of newhall, once a battlemented castle of the crichtoun family, stands on the left bank of the north esk, within a curvature of the stream, under the shadow of the pentland hills. on either side is a deep ravine, terminating in the glen of the esk, one of the most romantic spots in scotland. passing round on the eastern side, we gaze down into the ravine, overhung by the remains of a small round tower, and densely shaded with tangled trees. a dark rill gurgles at the bottom, here and there leaping into beautiful cascades, and flinging its glittering spray among the dark woods. passing to the other side, we come to what was formerly the site of an old prison and chapel, encircled by a pleasant walk. the ravine beneath is filled with trees and shrubbery, but has no stream. from this point the eye glances up through the wooded glen, echoing with the songs of the mavis and the linnet, and over to a mineral well, sheltered by copsewood and pines. but newhall, and the grounds around it, derive their chief interest from their connection with the well-known pastoral poem of "allan ramsay." the very air seems redolent with the poetry of "the gentle shepherd." leaving the house, we reach a little "haugh," or low sheltered spot, where the esk and the rivulets from the harbour craig mingle their waters. at the side of the stream are some romantic gray crags, directly fronting the south, and looking up a turn in the glen. these, adorned with green birches, shrubs, and copsewood, and shading the limpid stream which makes a curve, and then glides underneath their overhanging cliffs, form "a shady bield," completely protected from observation. in this spot is laid the first act of "the gentle shepherd." "beneath the south side of a craggy field, where crystal springs the halesome water yield, twa youthful shepherds on the gowans lay, tenting their flocks ae bonny morn of may." ascending the vale, and just behind the house, we come to a considerable holm or green, with the babbling burn, now gentler in its movement, winding sweetly among the white pebbles. at the head of this quiet retreat, on the edge of the burn, are the ruins of an ancient washing-house, protected by an aged thorn. it was here that the "twa lasses" proposed to wash their "claes," unseen by their lovers. "a flowery howm between twa verdant braes, where lasses use to wash and spread their claes, a trotting burnie wimpling through the ground; its channel pebbles shining smooth and round." a little further up the burn we come to a hollow, a little beyond what is called "mary's bower," where the esk divides it in the middle, and forms a linn or cascade, called the "how burn;" a small enclosure above is called the "braehead park;" and this hollow beneath the cascade with its bathing pool and little green, its rocks and birches, its wild shrubs and natural flowers, and general air of sequestered and romantic beauty, in every respect corresponds with the poet's exquisite description of the spot called "habbie's howe." "gae farer up the burn to habbie's howe, where a' the sweets o' spring and summer grow, there, 'tween twa birks out ower a little linn, the water fa's and mak's a singand din;[ ] a pule breast deep, beneath as clear as glass, kisses wi' easy whirls the bordering grass." [footnote : singing noise.] ascending yet further, at a place called the "carlops," (a contraction of "carline's loups," so called, in consequence of a witch or carline having been seen leaping, at night, from one rock to another,) two tall rocks shoot up on either side. near this, by the side of that old ash tree, stood mause's cottage. "the open field, a cottage in a glen, an auld wife spinning at the sunny end, at a sma' distance, by a blasted tree, wi faulded arms and half-raised look, ye see bauldy his lane!"[ ] "a green kail-yard; a little fount, where water poplin springs; there sits a wife[ ] wi' wrinkled front, an' yet she spins and sings." [footnote : alone.] [footnote : old woman.] with these localities in our mind, let us sit down on this "gowan'd brae," and run over the story of "the gentle shepherd," one of the most graphic pictures of scottish manners, and one of the sweetest pastorals in any language. patie or patrick, a humble shepherd-lad, born and bred in the region we have entered, about the middle of the seventeenth century, was a handsome fellow, and remarkably distinguished for his good temper and rustic accomplishments. he was of a gay-hearted cheerful disposition, and made the woods and hills ring again with his mirthful songs. moreover, he was sensible and well-informed. his mind, indeed, was superior to his station; still he was contented and happy. symon scott, a worthy man and a wealthy farmer, with whom patie had lived from his childhood, was a tenant of sir william preston's, owner of the neighboring lands, who, to save his head, he having taken part with the royalists, had fled his native country, and was living abroad, no one knew where. patie loved peggy forsyth, a "neebor lassie," of excellent character and great beauty, who fully requited his attachment. this girl was the reputed niece of glaude anderson, a comfortable farmer, and a tenant of sir william's. he had found her one summer morning, at his door, carefully wrapped in swaddling clothes. being a warm-hearted man, he had adopted the little stranger as his own relative. the interviews and conversations of the lovers, and their friends, roger and jenny, who after some embarrassments from jenny's independence, are found to be warmly attached to each other are related by the dramatist with great beauty and simplicity. the reader sees them at early morn, or amid the shadows of the gloaming, wandering by the "bonnie burnie's side," and with hearts of innocence, giving themselves up to the full enjoyment of nature's beauties and their own sweet affections. glaude and symon are fine specimens of the honest and hospitable farmers of scotland. the house of the former is such as one often sees in the rural districts: "a snug thack[ ] house, before the door a green, hens on the midden, ducks in dubs[ ] are seen. on this side stands a barn, on that a byre:[ ] a peat stack joins, an' forms a rural square. the house is glaud's;--there you may see him lean, and to his divot[ ] seat invites his frien." [footnote : thatch.] [footnote : pools.] [footnote : barn for the cows.] [footnote : turf.] the character and fate of bauldy are graphically described. he is a wealthy but vulgar minded farmer, attached to peggy, and resolved, if possible, to withdraw her affections from patie and secure them for himself. for this purpose he has recourse to mause, a sensible and worthy old woman, but reputed a witch, from her superiority to the common people. mause agrees to assist him, but secretly resolves to expose his ignorance and punish his effrontery. the following is bauldy's account of the matter: "ah! sir, the witch ca'd mause, that wins aboon the mill amang the haws, first promised that she'd help me wi' her art, to gain a bonnie thrawart[ ] lassie's heart. as she had trysted, i met wi' 'er this night; but may nae frien o' mine get such a fright! for the curst hag, instead of doing me guid, (the very thocht o'ts like to freeze my bluid!) raised up a ghaist, or deil, i kenna whilk, like a dead corse, in sheet as white as milk; black hands it had, and face as wan as death; upon me fast the witch and it fell baith, and got me down; while i like a great fool was 'laboured[ ] as i used to be at school: my heart out o' its hool[ ] was like to loup, i pithless[ ] grew wi' fear, an' had nae houp, till wi' an elritch laugh, they vanished quite; syne i, hauf dead wi' anger, fear and spite, crap up, and fled straught frae them." [footnote : wayward.] [footnote : belabored.] [footnote : place or socket.] [footnote : powerless.] tidings had arrived that sir william, who had now been absent several years, might be expected home, as the king was restored and the royal party was now predominant. this tidings created the liveliest sensations of joy among sir william's tenantry, as he was much beloved for his kindness and generosity of disposition. old symon scott and glaude anderson were especially delighted, and resolved, each of them, to celebrate the event with a feast. symon however had already begun to make preparations for a banquet, to which he invited glaude and all the old and young people of the neighborhood: "it's symon's house, please to step in, and vissy't[ ] round and round, there's nought superfluous to gie pain, or costly to be found. yet a' is clean--a clear peat ingle[ ] glances amidst the floor[ ]; the green horn spoons, beech luggies[ ] mingle on skelfs[ ] foregainst the door. while the young brood sport on the green, the auld anes think it best, wi' the brown cow[ ] to clear their een snuff, crack and tak their rest." [footnote : examine it.] [footnote : a fire of peats.] [footnote : in scotland the old peasant houses have the fire in their centre.] [footnote : cups of beech wood.] [footnote : shelves opposite the door.] [footnote : brown ale.] while they are engaged sir william appears among the young people on the green, in the garb of a fortune teller. jenny runs into the house and tells her father, who, particularly good-natured and hospitable at such an hour, replies:-- "gae bring him in; we'll hear what he can say, nane shall gae hungry by my house the day. [_exit jenny._ but for his telling fortunes, troth i fear he kens nae mair o' that than my grey mare. _glaud._--spae men![ ] the truth o' a' their saws i doubt, for greater lears never ran thereout. [_jenny returns bringing in sir william;--with them patie._ _symon._--ye're welcome honest carle, here take a seat. _sir w._--i gie ye thanks, gudeman, i'se be no blate.[ ] _glaud._--come, t'ye[ ] frien. how far came ye the day? _sir w._--i pledge ye, neibour, e'en but little way. _symon._--ye're welcome here to stay a' night wi' me. and tak sic bed and board as we can gie. _sir w._--that's kind unsought.--weel gin[ ] ye hae a bairn. that ye like weel, an wad his fortune learn, i shall employ the farthest o' my skill, to spae it faithfully, be't good or ill. _symon_ (_pointing to patie_).--only that lad: alake! i hae nae mae either to mak me joyfu' now or wae. _sir w._--young man, let's see your hand; what gars[ ] ye sneer? _patie._--because your skill's but little worth, i fear. _sir w._--ye cut before the point: but, billy, bide, i'll wager there's a mouse-mark on your side. [footnote : fortune-tellers.] [footnote : bashful.] [footnote : your health.] [footnote : if.] [footnote : makes.] this being the case, all are astonished at the old man's knowledge, who goes on to predict that patie, one of these days, will be a rich laird. _elspa._--hear, ye gudeman, what think ye now? _symon._--i dinna ken! strange auld man, what art thou? fair fa[ ] your heart, it's guid to bode o' wealth come, turn the timmer to laird patie's health. (_patie's health goes round._) [footnote : good befall.] old symon, by the request of the spaeman, goes out to meet him, and they have much conversation together. at length-- "sir william drops his masking beard, symon transported sees the welcome knight, wi' fond regard, an' grasps him round the knees." they converse concerning patie, who is actually sir william's son and heir, and agree to make known his true position. this is accordingly done, and produces great excitement among the parties. patie is glad and sorrowful at the same time, and peggy sees nothing in it but disappointment and grief. a gulf has intervened between her and patie, and she feels that she must give him up for ever. but patie assures her of his constant affection, and the "puir thing" absolutely "greets for joy to hear his words sae kind." next morning-- "while peggy laces up her bosom fair wi' a blue snood, jenny binds up her hair; glaud by his morning ingle, taks a beek,[ ] the rising sun shines motty[ ] thro' the reek,[ ] a pipe his mouth, the lasses please his een, an' now and then his joke must intervene." [footnote : a glass of beer.] [footnote : mottled.] [footnote : smoke.] but all parties are sent for to symon's house-- "to hear and help to redd[ ] some odd debate 'tween mause and bauldy, 'bout some witchcraft spell, at symon's house: the knight sits judge himsell." [footnote : clear up, unravel.] all then are assembled-- "sir william fills the twa armed chair, while symon, roger, glaud, and mause, attend, and wi' loud laughter hear daft bauldy bluntly plead his cause: for now it's tell'd him that the taz[ ] was handled by revengeful madge, because he brak guid breeding's laws, and wi' his nonsense raised their rage. [footnote : _birch_ or strap.] bauldy, however, confesses his wrong, and adds-- "but i had best haud in my tongue, for yonder comes the _ghaist_[ ] an' the young bonny _witch_, whose rosy cheek sent me, without my wit, the de'il to seek." _sir william_ (_looking at peggy_). --whose daughter's she that wears the aurora gown, with face so fair, and locks o' lovely brown? how sparkling are her eyes? what's this i find, the girl brings all my sister to my mind. such were the features once adorned a face, which death so soon deprived of sweetest grace. is this your daughter glaud? _glaud._--sir, she's my niece, an' yet she's not, but i shoud haud my peace. _sir wil._--this is a contradiction. what d' ye mean? she is, and is not! pray thee, glaud, explain. _glaud._--because i doubt, if i shou'd mak' appear, what i hae kept a secret thirteen year-- _mause._--you may reveal what i can fully clear. _sir wil._--speak soon; i'm all impatience. _patie._--sae am i! for much i hope, an' hardly yet ken why. _glaud._--then, since my master orders, i obey. this _bonny foundling_, ae' clear morn o' may, close by the lea-side o' my door i found, a' sweet an' clean an' carefully hapt[ ] 'round, in infant weeds, o' rich and gentle make. what could they be, thought i, did thee forsake? wha, worse than brutes, cou'd leave exposed to air sae much o' innocence sae sweetly fair, sae helpless young? for she appeared to me only about twa towmands[ ] auld to be. i took her in my arms; the bairnie smiled, wi' sic a look, wad mak a savage mild. i hid the story: she has pass'd sinsyne[ ] as a poor orphan, an' a niece o' mine: nor do i rue my care about the wean, for she's weel worth the pains that i hae tane. ye see she's bonny; i can swear she's guid, an' am right sure she's come o' gentle bluid, o' wham i kenna.[ ] naething i ken mair, than what i to your honor now declare. _sir wil._--this tale seems strange! _patie._--the tale delights my ear! _sir wil._--command your joys, young man, till truth appear. _mause._--that be my task. now sir, bid a' be hush; peggy may smile; thou hast nae cause to blush. lang hae i wish'd to see this happy day, that i may safely to the truth gi'e way; that i may now sir william worthy name, the best and nearest friend that she can claim: he saw 't at first, an' wi' quick eye did trace his sister's beauty in her daughter's face. _sir wil._--old woman, do not rave,--prove what you say, it's dangerous in affairs like this to play. _patie._--what reason, sir, can an auld woman have to tell a lie when she's sae near her grave? but how or why, it should be truth i grant i every thing that looks like reason want. _omnes._--the story's odd! we wish we heard it out. _sir wil._--make haste, good woman, and resolve each doubt. [_mause goes forward, leading peggy to sir william._] _mause._--sir, view me weel; has fifteen years sae plow'd a wrinkled face that you hae often viewed, that here i as an unknown stranger stand. wha nursed her mother that now hauds my hand? yet stronger proofs i'll gie, if you demand. _sir wil._--ha! honest nurse, where were my eyes before? i know thy faithfulness, and need no more; yet from the lab'rinth to lead out my mind, say, to expose her, who was so unkind? [_sir william embraces peggy and makes her sit by him._] yes surely thou'rt my niece; truth must prevail, but no more words till mause relates the tale." [footnote : ghost.] [footnote : covered.] [footnote : two years.] [footnote : since then.] [footnote : know not.] mause then relates how peggy's life being threatened by a wicked aunt, who wished to take possession of her estate, she herself had stolen her away, in the dead of night, and travelled with her some fifty miles, and left her at glaud's door; that she had taken a cottage in the vicinity, and had watched over the child ever since. all of course are delighted with this discovery. the betrothment of patie and peggy is sanctioned by sir william; and even bauldy "the bewitch'd, has quite forgot fell madge's taz, and pawky madge's plot," and exclaims: "i'm friends wi' mause,--wi' very madge i'm greed, although they skelpit[ ] me when woodly flied:[ ] i'm now fu' blithe, an' frankly can forgive to join and sing, 'lang may sir william live.'" [footnote : whipt.] [footnote : sorely frightened.] sir william bestows upon "faithful symon," and "kind glaud," and upon their heirs, "in endless fee," their "mailens," or farms, and takes old mause into his family, in peace "to close her days, with naught to do but sing her maker's praise." glaud consents to give jenny to roger, who says; "i ne'er was guid o' speaking a' my days, or ever loo'd to make o'er great a fraise;[ ] but for my master, father, an' my wife, i will employ the cares o' a' my life." [footnote : fuss or perhaps flattering speech.] to which, sir william adds, summing up the whole: "my friends i'm satisfied you'll all behave, each in his station as i'd wish or crave. be ever virtuous, soon or late you'll find reward and satisfaction to your mind. the maze o' life sometimes looks dark and wild; and oft when hopes are highest, we're beguiled. oft when we stand on brinks of dark despair, some happy turn, with joy, dispels our care." thus ends the "gentle shepherd," which with all its faults, possesses an inimitable charm. in scotland it is a sort of household poem. every one, young and old, reads it with delight. indeed, it is probably the most popular pastoral drama ever written. the common people, in the rural districts of scotland, know it by heart. the bible, the pilgrim's progress, robinson crusoe and "the gentle shepherd" are read by them a thousand times more than any other book. chapter xi. biographical sketch of allan ramsay--lasswade--ramble along the banks of the north esk--glenesk--a character--anecdote of sir w. scott--hawthornden--drummond the poet--his character and genius--sonnets--chapel and castle of roslin--barons of roslin--ballad of rosabelle--hunting match between robert bruce and sir william st. clair. leaving habbie's howe, we will let sandy drive us along the banks of the river, through auchindinny, roslin and hawthornden, to the pretty village of lasswade, where we will spend the night. sandy can take the carriage back to edinburgh, and to-morrow we will ramble on foot through the classic shades of roslin and hawthornden, visit dalkeith and some other places, and return to edinburgh by the railway. in the meantime i will give you some account of allan ramsay. allan was born on the th of october, , in crawford muir, lanarkshire, and died in the city of edinburgh, in the year . he was at first a wigmaker, and afterwards a bookseller. in he kept a little bookstore opposite niddry's wynd in the city of edinburgh, whence he removed to another, somewhat more commodious at the east end of the luckenbooths, having exchanged his old sign of mercury for the heads of ben jonson and drummond of hawthornden, whom he greatly admired. his early education was limited. he attended the village school at leadhills, where, as he himself informs us, he acquired just learning enough to read horace "faintly in the original." of a vigorous constitution, and a cheerful temper, he spent his time happily in the country, till his fifteenth year, though his lot seems to have been a hard one. "wading through glens wi' chorking feet, where neither plaid nor kilt could fend[ ] the weet; yet blithely would he bang out o'er the brae, and stend o'er burns as light as ony rae, hoping the morn[ ] might prove a better day." [footnote : keep off.] [footnote : to-morrow.] he went to edinburgh, a poor country boy, and gradually made his way to competence, and respectability. whether he was particularly successful as a wigmaker we are not informed; but he found the trade of bookseller infinitely more congenial. ensconced behind his counter, he could study, write poetry, chat with his customers, and publish his own lucubrations. his first principal poem was "christ's kirk on the green," a continuation of king james's poem of the same name, a rough but graphic and humorous picture of rustic revelry. its indelicacy is rather gross, but it has all the vigor and humor of hogarth's pictures. his other poems, containing songs, fables, pastorals, complimentary verses (of which he has a very large number,) stories and epistles are quite numerous. they contain a large amount of trash, with here and there some beautiful gems. he is mainly successful in scottish verse. his imitations of the english poets are rather poor. "_the vision_" is one of his ablest productions. the genius of scotland is painted "with a touch of the old heroic muse:" "great daring darted frae his ee, a braid sword shaggled[ ] at his knee, on his left arm a targe; a shining spear filled his right hand, of stalwart make in bane and brawnd, of just proportions large; a various rainbow colored plaid owre his left spaul[ ] he threw, down his braid back, frae his white head the silver wimplers[ ] grew. amazed, i gazed to see, led at command, a stampant and rampant fierce lion in his hand." [footnote : dangled.] [footnote : shoulder.] [footnote : tassels or dangles.] but his most popular production is the "gentle shepherd" which appeared in --and was received with enthusiasm, not only in scotland, but in england and ireland. it was much admired by pope and gay, the latter of whom, when on a visit to scotland, with the duke and duchess of queensberry, used to lounge in allan ramsay's shop, and obtain from him explanations of the scottish expressions that he might communicate them to pope. allan uniformly had an eye to the "main chance." he sedulously courted the great, and managed to accumulate a good many pennies. "in the mingled spirit of prudence and poetry," he contrived "to theek[ ] the out and line the inside of many a douce and witty pash,[ ] and baith ways gathered in the cash." [footnote : thatch.] [footnote : head.] he was foolish enough however to lay out his gains in the erection of a theatre which was prohibited by the magistrates, as an injury to good morals. so that allan lost his cash and his pains together, and not only so, but his good temper. this exposed him to much obloquy, in part perhaps deserved. he was somewhat jacobinical in his views, and hated the presbyterian clergy, who were afraid of him, as "a half papist," and a some what licentious writer. hence he lampooned them with great severity, in consequence of which he was pretty well lampooned in his turn. after all allan was a true poet, and by no means a bad man. he was honest, kind-hearted and cheerful. some of his poetical strains indicate much elevation and tenderness of spirit. in personal appearance he was somewhat peculiar. the following amusing description he has given of himself: "imprimis, then, for tallness, i am five foot and four inches high, a black a viced[ ] snod dapper fellow, nor lean, nor overlaid wi' tallow; with phiz of a morocco cut, resembling a late man of wit, auld gabbet spec[ ] who was sae cunning, to be a dummie ten years running. then for the fabric of my mind, 'tis mair to mirth than grief inclined: i rather choose to laugh at folly than show dislike by melancholy; well judging a sour heavy face is not the truest mark of grace. i hate a drunkard or a glutton, yet i'm nae fae[ ] to wine and mutton: great tables ne'er engaged my wishes when crowded with o'er many dishes; a healthfu' stomach, sharply set, prefers a back-say,[ ] piping het, i never could imagine 't vicious of a fair fame to be ambitious; proud to be thought a comic poet, and let a judge of numbers know it, i court occasion thus to show it." [footnote : of a dark complexion.] [footnote : does this mean spectator?] [footnote : foe.] [footnote : sirloin.] allan never suffered his poetry to interfere with his business. indeed he abandoned verse altogether in the latter part of his life, rightly judging that he might not equal his earlier productions, and feeling moreover that other and more serious engagements demanded his attention. the following epistle to mr. smibert, an eminent painter and intimate friend, dated edinburgh, th may, , is highly characteristic; "my dear old friend:-- your health and happiness are ever _ane_ addition to my satisfaction. god make your life ever easy and pleasant. half a century of years have now row'd oe'r my brow, that begins now to be _lyart_;[ ] yet thanks to my author, i eat, drink, and sleep as sound as i did twenty years _syne_;[ ] yes, i laugh heartily too, and find as many subjects to employ that faculty upon as ever; fools, fops and knaves, grow as rank as formerly, yet here and there are to be found good and worthy men, who are _ane_ honor to _human_ life. we have small hopes of seeing you again in our world; then let us be virtuous and hope to meet in heaven. my good _auld_ wife is still my bedfellow; my son allan has been pursuing your science since he was a dozen years _auld_--was with mr. hyffidg, at london, for some time, about two years ago--has been since at home, painting here like a raphael--sets out for the seat of the beast, beyond the alps, in a month hence--to be away about two years. i'm _sweer_[ ] to part with him, but _canna_ stem the current which flows from the advice of his patrons and his own inclination. i have three daughters, one of seventeen, one of sixteen, and one of twelve years of old, and no _rewayled dragle_[ ] among them, all fine girls. these six or seven years past i have not written a line of poetry. i e'en gave over in good time, before the coolness of fancy, that attends advanced years, should make me risk the reputation i had acquired. frae twenty-five to five and forty, my muse was neither _sweer_[ ] nor _dorty_,[ ] my pegasus wad break her _tether_,[ ] e'en at the _shagging_ of a feather; and _throw_[ ] ideas scour like _drift_, _streaking_ his wings up to the lift; then when my soul was in a low[ ] that gart[ ] my numbers safely row;[ ] but _eild_[ ] and judgment _gin_[ ] to say, let be your _sangs_ and learn to pray. i am, sir, your friend and servant, allan ramsay." [footnote : wrinkled.] [footnote : since.] [footnote : loth.] [footnote : uncouth sloven.] [footnote : reluctant.] [footnote : proud or stiff.] [footnote : halter.] [footnote : through.] [footnote : blaze.] [footnote : caused.] [footnote : roll.] [footnote : age.] [footnote : begin.] in his circumstances were such as enabled him to build a small octagon shaped house on the north side of the castle hill, which he named ramsay lodge, but which some of his witty friends compared to a goose pie. he told lord elibank one day of this ungracious comparison. "what," said the witty peer, "a goose pie! in good faith, allan, now that i see _you_ in it, i think the house is not ill named." he lived in this odd-looking edifice till the day of his death, enjoying the society of his friends, and cracking his jokes with perhaps greater quietness, but with as much gust and hilarity as ever. he was a man of genius, and has exerted great influence on the lighter literature of scotland. he was an immense favorite with burns, his equal in genius, his superior in depth of feeling, in tenderness and beauty of expression. but burns doubtless owed something to the "wood notes wild," of his illustrious predecessor. both have done much to illustrate and beautify their native land. next morning at early dawn we are rambling in and around the pretty village of lasswade, which lies so sweetly on the left bank of the north esk. the river runs in many charming sinuosities through the parish, now passing over a smooth ledge of rocks, then "wimpling" over shining pebbles, then gliding with a scarcely perceptible motion "among the green braes," now wetting the pendant branches of the birch and broom, anon sleeping in a deep pellucid pool, then leaping "o'er a linn," and then gushing with a hollow murmur, among the loose gray rocks. nothing can be more beautiful and picturesque. many pretty cottages and handsome villas adorn the neighborhood. de quincy, the celebrated english "opium eater" lives here, and sir walter scott at one time occupied a cottage in the vicinity. the following is a happy description from his pen, of the enchanting scenes through which the north and south esk flow. it is taken from his ballad of the "grey brother." sweet are the paths--o passing sweet! by esk's fair streams that run, o'er airy steep, through copsewood's deep, impervious to the sun. there the rapt poet's step may rove, and yield the muse the day; there beauty led by timid love, may shun the tell-tale ray. from that fair dome[ ] where suit is paid, by blast of bugle free, to auchindinny's hazel glade, and haunted woodhouselee. who knows not melville's beechy groove, and roslin's rocky glen, dalkeith, which all the virtues love, and classic hawthornden. [footnote : pennycuick house, the romantic and elegant residence of sir george clerk, baronet. "it stands on a flat, in a curve of the river, with a picturesque glen behind, carrying up the view to the ruins of branstane castle, and the western extremity of the pentlands--a a little plain in front, gemmed with a beautiful artificial pond, and overhung by ascents which are mantled all over with wood--and swells and eminences on each side, dissevered by ravines, and moulded into many curvatures of beauty. on the opposite side of the river, at the end of an avenue at the top of a bank, stands an obelisk, raised by sir james clerk, to the memory of his friend and frequent inmate, allan ramsay."] it is not surprising that multitudes from edinburgh come to reside here in the summer time; for what with the varied scenery of rock and river, copsewood and fell, the pleasant associations of the present, and the thrilling memories of "auld lang syne," no region can be more attractive and agreeable. sauntering along, we approach glenesk, so called from the deep and charming glen, formed by the winding river. yonder is an old man at work in his garden, who looks quite patriarchal, and i dare say knows a good deal of the neighborhood. let us accost him. "good morning, sir!" "gude mornin' gentlemen!" "you seem to be quite early in your garden this morning." "ou aye, we maun mak hay while the sun shines, ye ken, and this is a graund time for planting." "you have lived in the neighborhood a considerable time, i presume." "a' my days." "well, it's a beautiful country." "ou aye, it's weel eneuch. my faither before me lived in that bit housie out yonder amang the trees, and he used aften to say, gude auld man! that the lines had fallen to us in pleasant places, and that we had a goodly heritage. for my pairt, i like the country unco weel. the burn there is verra pleasant, its sae caller[ ] like, wimpling amang the rocks and bushes. and what's mair to the pint, it has got a fouth[ ] of fine fish in 't, though thae new fangled mills are frightening them awa." [footnote : fresh.] [footnote : abundance.] "trout, i suppose." "yes, sir, and fine anes too. ah! mony's the day i hae paidlt in that burn, when a wee bit callant, catching the trout amang the stanes, when the water was low." "did you know any thing of sir walter scott? he used to live near lasswade, and i dare say often wandered this way to fish." "ken him! that i did fu' weel. and an honest freendly man he was. he cam up the burn every noo and then, sometimes wi' a fishing-rod, and sometimes wi' a staff in his han. he and i got weel acquaint after a time, for he was nane o' your upstarts, but an unco frank, freespoken kind of a man. not that he talked sae muckle himsel, but he was aye askin about something or ither, and kept my tongue waggin' a' the time. ah yes, sir walter was a canny man. he knew the hail kintra side, and used to spier a great many questions about the ways o' the auld folks. one day he cam alang the burn side, wi' anither gentleman. i happened to be working down there. his line got tangled in a stane, and he got me to fetch it out. he then coost it into the deep pule below, making the flee skim alang the top o' the water, as skeelfully as onything ye ever saw. when up louped a muckle spotted trout, and in a moment dragged the line to the other side, then spanked up the burn at an unco rate, running the line aff the reel, which birred like a spinnin' wheel. sir walter hobbled after it as weel as he could. he was lame, ye ken, but managed to move pretty quick. the trout plunged and flounced over the shallow water, got into another deep pule, and ran into the bank, in the hollow of twa big stanes that were lying there. now, cried sir walter, i have you my boy; so he kept jerkin awa at him, and out he cam again, when sir walter gave him a wallop, and laid him flat amang the gowans. 'twas a bonny sight, i tell you. the trout was nae less than a fit and a quarter lang, as thick as my arm, and spotted all o'er wi' shining spots, like a leopard. sir walter was unco pleased--rubbed his hans', and every now and then broke into a smile, as he cracked some joke about the trout. hech! it was a guid sight for sair een--to see sir walter after the trout, and specially to see the trout walloping amang the gowans." "but don't you think that it was rather cruel sport?" "cruel! why man, the fish kens naething ava, and out o' its ain element, it gets choked in a minute. and, for my pairt, i dinna see what fish is guid for, if not to be catch'd and eaten, specially the big anes! my gude auld faither used often to say to us, 'boys, ye mauna be cruel to the dumb beasts, and when ye gang a fishing, be sure to let the wee fish gae.'" "your father was a worthy man, i dare say." "that he was, i can assure you. he was respeckit by the hail kintra side. when auld and feeble, he wud sit before the door, on a divot seat, the hail simmer day, wi' a braid bonnet on his head, and a lang staff by his side, reading the bible, or maybe 'pilgrim's progress,' or takin' wi' the neebors wha cam to see him." "did he belong to the established kirk?" "na, na, he was ane o' the auld covenanters, and used to talk a deal about cameron and mcmillen, as unco powerfu' preachers. he thocht the present times were wonderfu' degenerate, that the solemn league and covenant o' scotland was amaist forgotten, and that the people now-a-days were a sort o' inferior race. but he was a gude man; unco pleasant to look upon, and unco pleasant to hear, when he talked o' the faithfulness o' israel's god, and the comfort and blessedness of being his children. when he deed, he seemed to fa' asleep. a smile was on his pale face, and his han' lay upon his breast, as it were in token of resignation to the will o' heaven. he lies buried in the auld kirk-yard, o'er yonder, wi' the words on his head-stane at his ain request, 'blessed are the deed that dee in the lord.'" "are you too a cameronian?" "why no, to tell ye the honest truth. the auld cameronians are amaist a' gane; and i just gang o'er here to the free kirk, where, to my notion, we hae as guid sound preachin as ye'll meet wi' in the hail kintra side. i'm no sae gude a man as my faither; but i canna forget his counsels and his prayers." "have you any family, my friend?" "ou aye. a bit callant, and twa strapping lasses, one of whom is married." "well, that's a comfort." "a great comfort, sir, in my auld days. jeanie is weel married, and has bairns o' her ain. marion wad a been married, but she was kind a skary, and so she stays at hame. the bit callant is no my ain, but a neebor's son that we adopted frae pity, seeing his mither is puir, and his faither was lost at sea." "and your wife, is she well?" "well! aye, that she is--in heaven! she's been gane these five years--(here the tears started in the old man's eyes.) we maun a' dee. (a brief pause.) but, as my gude auld faither used to say, 'the lord gave, and the lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the lord.'" "yes, my good old friend, the hope of a christian, which you seem to cherish, is a source of infinite comfort. it sweetens the cares of life, and robs death of its sting. good morning." "gude mornin; and the lord bless you!" ascending the river a short distance, we come to hawthornden, once the property and residence of the celebrated poet and historian, william drummond, the friend of shakspeare and ben jonson. the house, originally constructed with reference to strength, surmounts the very edge of a precipitous cliff, which rises above the river. winding around it are charming walks, among the green foliage, which fringes the summit and sides of the rock, down to the very edge of the water. wild tangled bushes, flowering shrubs, birches and oak trees, are mingled in most picturesque and delightful confusion; while the gray cliffs here and there, peep out from their sylvan garniture as if sunning themselves in the summer radiance. below, the stream, impeded in its course by huge ledges of rocks, hurries unseen, but distinctly heard, amid the woods; further on, emerges into the light of day, and forms a broad clear pool, on the banks of which you may see some industrious fisherman plying his rod. "the spot is wild, the banks are steep, with eglantine and hawthorn blossomed o'er, lychnis and daffodils, and hare-bells blue. from lofty granite crags precipitous, the oak with scanty footing topples o'er, tossing his limbs to heaven; and from the cleft, fringing the dark brown, natural battlements, the hazel throws his silvery branches down: there starting into view, a castled cliff, whose roof is lichen'd o'er, purple and green, o'erhangs thy wandering stream, romantic esk, and rears its head among the ancient trees." standing in front of it you see certain artificial caves, hollowed with immense labor, out of the solid rock. these communicate with each other, and contain a well of prodigious depth bored from the court-yard of the mansion. the caves are reported by tradition to have been a stronghold of the ancient pictish kings, and three of them bear respectively the name of 'the king's gallery, the king's bed-chamber and the king's guard-room.' they were doubtless hewn out, as places of refuge, during the terrible wars between the english and the picts, or the english and the scots. in the reign of david ii, when the english had possession of edinburgh, they and the neighboring caves of gorton afforded shelter to the heroic sir alexander ramsay of dalhousie and his adventurous band. adjoining the house, and overlooking the stream, a kind of seat is cut in the face of the rock, called 'cypress grove,' where drummond is reported to have sat, in the fine summer weather, and composed many of his poems. the magnificent woods in the vicinity suggested to peter pindar the caustic remark respecting dr. samuel johnson, that he "went to hawthornden's fair scene by night, lest e'er a scottish tree should wound the sight." crossing the river at a suitable place, we will saunter towards roslin on the other side, and while doing so, will beguile the way by talking of drummond, whose genius haunts every nook and corner of the shady dell. william drummond was born in and died in . his father, john drummond, was gentleman usher to king james. he was hence educated in profound reverence for royalty and its prerogatives. indeed his feelings upon this subject were entirely slavish; and it is said that his strong grief at the death of charles the first hastened his death. he was well versed in classic literature, and enjoyed the advantages of a refined and liberal education. having studied civil law for four years in france, he succeeded in to an independent estate, and took up his residence in hawthornden. its cliffs, caves, and wooded dells were in harmony with his genius, and he spent many happy years in this beautiful retreat. his first publication was a volume of occasional poems, of various merit, to which succeeded a moral treatise, in prose, called "cypress grove," in allusion probably to the fairy nook on the face of the rock where he meditated and wrote, and a second poetical work entitled "flowers of zion." he also wrote the history of the five james's, a production of no great merit, in which he urges, to an extravagant length, the doctrine of the absolute supremacy of kings. "the cypress grove" contains reflections upon death, written in a solemn and agreeable strain, and contains some fine passages. "this earth," says he, "is as a table book, and men are the notes; the first are washen out, that new may be written in. they who forewent us did leave room for us; and should we grieve to do the same to those who should come after us? who, being suffered to see the exquisite rarities of an antiquary's cabinet, is grieved that the curtain be drawn, and to give place to new pilgrims? and when the lord of the universe hath shown us the amazing wonders of his various frame, should we think it hard, when he thinketh time, to dislodge? this is his unalterable and inevitable decree; as we had no part of our will in our entrance into this life, we should not presume to any in our leaving it; but soberly learn to will that which he wills, whose very will giveth being to all that it wills." the death of a beautiful young lady, to whom he was betrothed, affected him deeply; and he sought relief to his wounded feelings in foreign travel. on returning, some years afterwards, he met a young lady by the name of logan, bearing a strong resemblance to the former object of his affections; on account of which he solicited and obtained her hand in marriage. drummond was intimate with drayton and ben jonson. the latter paid him a visit at hawthornden, and they had much free conversation together. drummond kept private notes of these conversations, which subsequently saw the light, and were found to be somewhat injurious to jonson's memory. but drummond himself had no hand in their publication. as a poet drummond belonged to the school of spenser, though far inferior to the latter in strength of conception and splendor of imagination. his poems are distinguished for their singular harmony and sweetness of versification. they seem to partake of the character of the quiet romantic scenery amid which they were composed. his "tears on the death of moeliades," (prince henry, son of james i.,) and his "river forth feasting," have been much admired. his sonnets, however, are his best productions. they flow with as much grace and beauty, (though not perhaps with the same variety,) as the romantic river which murmurs past his "wooded seat." his madrigals, complimentary verses, and other short pieces, abound in foolish conceits, and what is worse, in coarse and licentious language. but he was one of the best poets of the age, and only inferior to two or three of his great contemporaries. the following sonnet--"to his lute"--is very sweet. it was probably written after the death of the lady to whom he was betrothed; my lute be as thou wert when thou didst grow, with thy green mother, in some shady grove, when immelodious winds but made thee move, and birds their ramage[ ] did on thee bestow. since that dear voice which did thy sounds approve, which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, is reft from earth to join the spheres above, what art thou but a harbinger of woe? thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more, but orphan wailings to the fainting ear, each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear; for which be silent as in woods before; or if that any hand to touch thee deign, like widowed turtle still her loss complain. [footnote : warbling.] his sonnet "in praise of a solitary life" was written, we can well imagine, in his summer bower on the banks of the esk. it is peculiarly harmonious: thrice happy he who by some shady grove, far from the clamorous world doth live his own, thou solitary, who is not alone, but doth converse with that eternal love. o how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan, or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove, than those smooth whisperings near a prince' throne, which good make doubtful, do the ill approve! o how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath, and sighs embalm'd, which new-born flowers unfold, than that applause vain honor doth bequeath. how sweet are streams, to poison drank in gold! the world is full of horror, troubles, slights: woods, harmless shades have only true delights. the following, "to a nightingale," is still more beautiful: sweet bird! that singst away the early hours of winters past or coming, void of care, well pleased with delights which present are, fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers: to rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers, thou thy creator's goodness dost declare, and what dear gifts on thee he did not spare, a stain to human sense in sin that lowers. what soul can be so sick as by thy songs (attired in sweetness) sweetly is not driven quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites and wrongs, and lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven? sweet, artless songster! thou my mind dost raise to airs of spheres--yes, and to angels' lays. but we have entered the vale of roslin, and there, in its beauty, stands the chapel of roslin, one of the most exquisite architectural ruins in scotland. it was founded in , or even earlier than that, by the earl of caithness and orkney. the whole chapel is profusely decorated with the most delicate sculpture both within and without. the roof, the capitals, key-stones and architraves, are all overlaid with sculpture, representing foliage and flowers, grotesque figures, sacred history and texts of scripture. the fine fluted column called the "apprentice's pillar," so named from a tradition which no one believes, and which therefore we do not repeat, is exceedingly beautiful, being ornamented with wreaths of foliage and flowers twining around it in spiral columns. so perfect are these alto relievos, that the author of a pamphlet describing them, says that he can liken them to nothing but brussels lace. how solemn a thing it is in this chequered light, to wander amid these sounding aisles and ancient monuments! in the vaults beneath lie the barons of roslin, all of whom, till the time of james the seventh, were buried without a coffin, in complete armor. this circumstance, and the vulgar belief that on the night preceding the death of any of these barons, the chapel appeared in flames, has been finely described by walter scott, in his touching ballad of rosabelle. o listen, listen, ladies gay! no haughty feats of arms i tell; soft is the note, and sad the lay, that mourns the lovely rosabelle. "moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew! and gentle ladye deign to stay! rest thee in castle ravensheuch, nor tempt the stormy firth to-day. "the blackening wave is edged with white, to inch and rock the sea-mews fly; the fishers have heard the water sprite, whose screams forebode that wreck is nigh. "last night the gifted seer did view, a wet shroud swathed round ladye gay! then stay thee, fair, in ravensheuch; why cross the gloomy firth to-day?" "'tis not because lord lindesay's heir, to-night at roslin leads the ball, but that my ladye mother there, sits lonely in her castle hall. "'tis not because the ring they ride-- and lindesay at the ring rides well-- but that my sire the wine will chide if 'tis not filled by rosabelle." o'er roslin all that dreary night, a wondrous blaze was seen to gleam, 'twas broader than the watchfire's light, and redder than the bright moonbeam. it glared on roslin's castled rock, it ruddied all the copsewood glen, 'twas seen from dryden's grove of oak, and seen from cavern'd hawthornden. seem'd all on fire that chapel proud, where roslin's chiefs uncoffined lie, each baron, for a sable shroud, sheathed in his iron panoply. seem'd all on fire, within, around, deep sacristy and altar pale; shone every pillar, foliage bound, and glimmer'd all the dead men's mail. blazed battlement and pinnet high, blazed every rose-carved buttress fair,-- so still they blaze, when fate is nigh the lordly line of high st. clair. there are twenty of roslin's barons bold, lie buried within that proud chapelle; each one the holy vault doth hold-- but the sea holds lovely rosabelle. and each st. clair was buried there, with candle, with book, and with knell, but the sea caves rung, and the wild winds sung, the dirge of lovely rosabelle. we now pass over a bridge of great height, spanning a deep cut in the solid rock, and reach roslin castle, with its triple tier of vaults, standing upon a peninsular rock overhanging the romantic glen of the esk. this castle was, for ages, the seat of the st. clairs, or sinclairs, descended from william de sancto clare, the son of waldernus de clare, who came to england with william the conqueror, and fought at the battle of hastings. the enumeration of their titles, says sir walter scott, would take away the breath of a herald. among others, they were princes of the orcades, dukes of oldenburgh, lord admirals of the scottish seas, grand justiciaries of the kingdom, wardens of the border, earls of caithness, titularies of more than fifty baronies, patrons and grand masters of masonry in scotland, &c. &c. of the grandeur and opulence of the family, some conception may be derived from the following description, given in a manuscript in the "advocate's library," of the state maintained by william st. clare, founder of the chapel.--"about that time ( ) the town of roslin, being next to edinburgh and haddington in east lothian, became very populous by the great concourse of all ranks and degrees of visitors that resorted to this prince, at his palace of the castle of roslin; for he kept a great court, and was royally served at his own table, in vessels of gold and silver, lord dirleton being his master of the household, lord borthwick his cup-bearer, and lord fleming his carver, &c. he had his halls and other apartments richly adorned with embroidered hangings. he flourished in the reigns of james the first and second. his princess, elizabeth douglass, was served by seventy-five gentlewomen, whereof fifty-three were daughters of noblemen, all clothed in velvets and silks, with their chains of gold and other ornaments, and was attended by two hundred riding gentlemen in all her journeys; and if it happened to be dark when she went to edinburgh, where her lodgings were at the foot of blackfriars' wynd, eighty lighted torches were carried before her." the old castle is almost entirely gone, and the present structure is a comparatively modern one. it belongs to the earl of rosslyn, descended from a collateral branch of the st. clair family. it is interesting to think of the magnificent old barons who kept state in the mouldering castles which everywhere adorn the scottish landscape. some of them were noble specimens of humanity, but the greater proportion of them were but splendid barbarians. they led a sort of rude animal life, and were distinguished chiefly for their towering pride and ungovernable passion. the following story of a hunting match between king robert bruce and sir william st. clair, throws an interesting light on the spirit of the age and the history of the st. clair family. "the king had been repeatedly baulked by a fleet white deer which he had started in his hunt among the pentland hills; and having asked an assembled body of his nobles whether any dogs in their possession could seize the game that had escaped the royal hounds, sir william st. clair promptly offered to pledge his head that two favorite dogs of his called 'help and hold,' would kill the deer before she crossed the march burn. the king instantly accepted the knight's bold and reckless offer, and promised himself to give the forest of pentland moor in guerdon of success. a few slow hounds having been let loose to beat up the deer, and the king having taken post on the best vantage-ground for commanding a view of the chase, sir william stationed himself in the fittest position for slipping his dogs, and in the true style of a romanist, who asks a blessing upon a sin, and supposes the giver of the blessing to be a creature, earnestly prayed to st. katherine to give the life of the deer to his dogs. away now came the raised deer, and away in full chase went sir william on a fleet-footed steed; and hind and hunter arrived neck and neck at the critical march burn. sir william threw himself in a desperate fling from his horse into the stream; 'hold,' just at this crisis of fate, stopped the deer in the brook, and 'help' the next instant came up, drove back the chase, and killed her on the winning side of the stream. the king, who had witnessed the nicely poised result, came speedily down from his vantage-ground, embraced sir william, and granted him, in free forestry, the lands of logan house, kirkton, and carncraig. sir william, in gratitude for the fancied interference of st. katherine in his favor, built the chapel of st. katherine in the hopes. the tomb of the wildly adventurous knight who was so canine in his nature as to reckon his life not too high a pledge for the fleetness and fierceness of his dogs, is still to be seen in roslin chapel; and it very properly represents the sculpture of his armed person to be attended by a greyhound, as a joint claimant of the honor and fame of his exploits." in the neighboring moor of roslin is the scene of a great battle, in , in which the scottish army gained, in one day, three successive victories, a circumstance touchingly referred to by _delta_, dr. moir of musselburgh, author of 'casa wappy,' 'wee willie,' and many other exquisite contributions to blackwood's magazine. "three triumphs in a day! three hosts subdued by one! three armies scattered like the spray, beneath one summer sun who pausing 'mid this solitude of rocky streams and leafy trees,-- who, gazing o'er this quiet wood, would ever dream of these? or have a thought that ought intrude save birds and humming bees?" how delightful, as we wander amid these hoary ruins and leafy bowers, so still and beautiful under the rich light of a summer noon, to think that the old stormy times of feudal warfare have passed away forever, and that peace, with balmy wing, is brooding over this and other christian lands. but in this everyday life, the wants of nature must be met. let us hie then to the village inn, just beyond the chapel. with our keen appetites, a snug dinner there will relish better than the most splendid banquet of the st. clairs. chapter xii. ramble through the fields--parish schools--recollections of dominie meuross--the south esk--borthwick and crichtoun castles--newbattle abbey--dalkeith--residence of the duke of buccleugh--"scotland's skaith," by hector macneil--his character and writings--extracts from the "history of will and jean." recrossing the north esk, we ramble through the country in a north-easterly direction, passing through highly cultivated farms, with large comfortable homesteads. the fields everywhere are filled with laborers, hoeing, ploughing, and weeding, most of them cheerful as larks, and making the woods ring with 'whistle and song.' that plain but substantial edifice, under the shadow of the great oak tree hard by the old church, is a parish school-house, in which perhaps are gathered some fifty or sixty boys and girls, from all ranks of society, plying their mental tasks, under the supervision of an intelligent schoolmaster. every morning in that school-house the word of god is reverently read, and earnest prayer offered, exerting upon all minds a healthful moral influence, and producing impressions of a religious kind, which may last forever. any boy may be fitted for college, or for commercial pursuits, in such a school, and the expense to the parent will be next to nothing. what then must be the amount of good accomplished by the combined influence of all the parish schools in scotland, equally endowed, and supplied with adequate teachers? popular education has made great advances in scotland within a few years. the greatest zeal for learning exists among the people, and they require no compulsive acts, as in germany, to induce them to send their children to school. not to be able to read and write is regarded, in scotland, as a great disgrace; and hence the poorest people are equally ready with the rich to avail themselves of the benefits of instruction. good teachers are uniformly secured, because they receive an ample compensation, and none but well-educated and truly moral men would be accepted. in this respect their situation is greatly superior to that of parish schoolmasters in germany or in the united states. on this subject, kohl, the german traveller, mentions an amusing conversation which he had with the parish schoolmaster at muthil. having stated to the latter that the situation of scottish teachers was far superior to that of teachers in his country, he inquired what was the average pay of schoolmasters there. "it varies a good deal," was the reply of kohl. "some have a hundred, some a hundred and fifty, but many no more than fifty dollars." "how many pounds go to a dollar?" asked he. "seven dollars go to a pound." "what!" he exclaimed, springing up from his chair, "do you mean to tell me that they pay a schoolmaster with _seven pounds_ a year?" "even so," was the reply, "seven pounds; but how much then do they get with you?" "i know no one who has less than from forty to fifty pounds in all scotland; but the average is seventy or eighty pounds; and many go as high as a hundred and fifty pounds." "what!" cried kohl, springing up in his turn, "a hundred and fifty pounds! that makes one thousand and fifty dollars. a _baron_ would be satisfied in germany with such a revenue as that; and do you mean to say that there are schoolmasters who grumble at it?" "yes," said he; "but recollect how dear things are with us. sugar costs eighteenpence a pound; coffee two shillings; chocolate is still dearer, and tea not much cheaper. and then how dear are good beef, and pork, and plums, and puddings, and everything else!" "i could not deny this," adds kohl; "but i thought that our poor schoolmasters were content if they had but bread." in former times the parish schoolmasters did not receive so much as they now do; but then they were clerks of the parish, frequently _precentors_ in the church, and received a multitude of little perquisites. their support has been made quite ample, having an average salary of a hundred pounds, with a free house. but the sight of that school-house brings back the days of "lang syne." well do i remember the old parish school--a long thatched building, at the "kirk of shotts," where i received my preparation for college, under the free and easy, but most efficient, administration of 'dominie meuross,' famed through all the country for his great classical attainments, his facetious disposition, his kind-heartedness, and his love of the pure 'glenlivet.' those were not the days of temperance societies, and the dominie had so much to do with christenings and weddings, parish difficulties, "roups" and law-suits, that he was greatly tempted by the bottle. but he was a worthy man, and an enthusiastic teacher, especially of the classics. teaching a, b, c, was rather a dull business to the dominie; but oh, how _merrily_ he would construe the odes of horace, what jokes he would crack over our lessons, and what effulgent light he would cast upon the classic page! yet dominie meuross was a dignified man--no one more so. the boys, indeed, enjoyed considerable latitude, especially at that end of the school opposite the one in which the dominie sat, and many facetious tricks were played upon the duller boys, the "sumphs," as we used to call them. but the dominie had only to pull down his glasses from his forehead, where they were usually perched, and direct a keen glance to "the other end," instantly to bring us all to perfect order. dear old man! he has long ago "gone to the yird," but his memory is green as the grass which waves upon his grave. the school and the church, the light of learning, and the light of religion, form the glory of scotland. these have twined around her rustic brow a wreath of fadeless glory. these have given her stability and worth, beauty and renown. but we have reached dalhousie castle, with its charming and romantic grounds, situated on a branch of the south esk, a stream similar to the north esk, and running in the same direction. these streams, after passing through scenery the most picturesque and beautiful, and watering a hundred spots consecrated by song and story, as if by a mutual attraction, unite a little above dalkeith, and fall near the old town of musselburgh into the firth of forth. behind us, at the distance of a few miles, are the celebrated ruins of borthwick and crichtoun castles, the one on a branch of the south esk, the other somewhat to the right, in the vale of tyne. it was into borthwick castle that queen mary retired after the death of darnley, and her unhappy marriage with bothwell, and from which she was obliged, a few days afterwards, to flee to dunbar in the guise of a page. crichtoun castle is beautifully described by sir walter scott, in marmion, and as we cannot visit this interesting ruin, take his description of it as the best substitute. "that castle rises on a steep of the green vale of tyne; and far beneath, where slow they creep from pool to eddy, dark and deep, where alders moist, and willows weep, you hear her streams repine. the towers in different ages rose; their various architecture shows the builders' various hands; a mighty mass, that could oppose, when deadliest hatred fired its foes, the vengeful douglas' bands. "crichtoun! though now thy miry court but pens the lazy steer and sheep, thy turrets rude and tottered keep, have been the minstrel's loved resort. oft have i traced within thy fort, of mouldering shields the mystic sense, scutcheons of honor or pretence, quartered in old armorial sort, remains of rude magnificence. nor wholly yet hath time defaced thy lordly gallery fair; nor yet the stony cord unbraced, whose twisted knots with roses laced, adorn thy ruined stair. still rises unimpaired below, the court-yard's graceful portico: above its cornice, row and row, of fair hewn facets richly show, their pointed diamond form, though there but houseless cattle go, to shield them from the storm. and shuddering still may we explore, where oft whilom were captives pent, the darkness of thy massy more;[ ] or from thy grass-grown battlement. may trace, in undulating line, the sluggish mazes of the tyne." [footnote : the prison vault.] proceeding along the stream, we pass cockpen, reminding us of the laird of cockpen and his amusing courtship, when "dumb-founder'd was he, but nae word did he gae; he mounted his mare, and he rade cannilie. but aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen, she's a fule to refuse the laird o' cockpen." we linger a few minutes by newbattle abbey, founded by david i., for a community of cistercian monks, brought hither from melrose, but now the residence of the marquis of lothian; and soon after reach the old "burgh town" of dalkeith, most delightfully situated between the two esks, and reminding us forcibly of "mansie waugh," the _pawkie tailor_ of dalkeith, whose amusing history we read in our boyhood. dalkeith is a considerable place, and has many elegant residences. in its immediate vicinity is dalkeith palace, seat of the duke of buccleugh, standing on an overhanging bank of the north esk. here too, in earlier times, lived the grahams, and the douglases; and into this strong retreat, then called the "lion's den," retired the celebrated regent morton, who was subsequently beheaded. we might enter the house, as this favor is often granted to strangers, but we will not now; though it boasts the possession of some fine old paintings, and some exquisite pieces of furniture. but the grounds around it are infinitely more attractive, adorned, as they are, with magnificent trees and shrubbery, and the serpentine windings of the two esks, whose waters unite in the park, a little distance below the house. how placidly the stream glides through the verdant meadows, and mirrors the green foliage of the overhanging trees, or the branching horns of some deer, bent to drink its clear waters! how softly and delicately the pencil rays of green and yellow light glimmer through those shady retreats to the right. see the startled deer bounding through the woods! how softly and lovingly sleeps the sunshine on that wide pool at the bottom of the green slope, adorned with flowers and honeysuckles! and see, through that shady vista the open sky in the distance, "so darkly, deeply, beautifully blue." the birds too, mavis, lintie, and bulfinch, are caroling among the trees, as if their little hearts were filled with boundless joy. the cottage of "jeanie gairlace," supposed to be conferred upon her by the duchess of buccleugh, is placed by macneil, the author of "scotland's skaith," in this beautiful vicinity. as we have yet to wait some time for the rail cars that are to take us to edinburgh, let us sit down on this rustic seat, and i will give you some account of macneil, and his touching poem of "will and jean." hector macneil was born in , and died in . he was brought up to mercantile pursuits, but did not succeed in business. he cultivated in secret his passion for the muses, and published at intervals several poetical effusions, among which were "the harp, a legendary poem,"--"the links of the forth, or a parting peep at the carse of sterling," and "scotland's skaith, or the history of will and jean," his most natural and successful production. though not successful in lyrical effusions, or in song writing, he is the author, we believe, of that exquisite ballad, "bonny wee mary o' castlecary." he also wrote some prose tales, in which he laments the effects of modern changes and improvements. in the latter years of his life, he resided in comparative comfort, at edinburgh, enjoying the congenial society of its refined and literary circles. "scotland's skaith (curse) or the history of will and jean," is intended to depict the ruinous effects of intemperance, and the possibility of reform, with the happiness thence resulting. a happy couple, in humble life are gradually drawn into the vortex of intemperance, and at last are reduced to the deepest extremities. the husband enlists as a soldier, and the wife is compelled, with her children, to beg her bread. in the commencement of the poem willie is represented as passing a rustic alehouse, whose attractions prove too much for him. the situation of the alehouse, and the commencement of willie's career as a drunkard, are admirably described. the rhythm of the poem is peculiarly harmonious and lively. in a howm[ ] whose bonnie burnie, whimpering rowed its crystal flood, near the road where travellers turn aye, neat and bield[ ] a cot house stood. white the wa's, wi' roof new theckit,[ ] window broads[ ] just painted red; lown[ ] 'mang trees and braes it reekit,[ ] hafflins[ ] seen and hafflins hid. up the gavel[ ] end thick spreading, crap the clasping ivy green, back owre firs the high craigs cleadin,[ ] raised around a cosey screen. down below a flowery meadow; joined the burnies rambling line, here it was that howe the widow that same day set up her sign. brattling[ ] down the brae, and near its bottom, will first marvelling sees 'porter, ale, and british spirits,' painted bright between twa trees. 'godsake tam! here's walth for drinking! wha can this new-comer be?' 'hout,' quo tam, 'there's drouth in thinking-- let's in will, and syne[ ] we'll see.' [footnote : hollow, or glen.] [footnote : sheltered.] [footnote : thatched.] [footnote : boards.] [footnote : serene and lonely.] [footnote : smoked.] [footnote : half.] [footnote : gable.] [footnote : clothing.] [footnote : rattling, or running.] [footnote : then.] the two thoughtless friends have "a jolly meeting," and do not break up till "'tween twa and three" next morning. a weekly club is set up at the alehouse, a newspaper is procured, and things move on bravely. willie becomes a "pot-house politician," and a hard drinker, the consequence of which is that he speedily goes to ruin. his wife also, to drown her sorrows, takes to drinking. the contrast between their past and present condition is touchingly described by the poet. wha was ance like willie gairlace? wha in neeboring town or farm? beauty's bloom shone in his fair face, deadly strength was in his arm. when he first saw jeanie miller, wha wi' jeanie could compare? thousands had mair braws and siller.[ ] but war ony half so fair? see them now! how chang'd wi' drinking! a' their youthfu' beauty gane! davered,[ ] doited,[ ] dazed[ ] and blinking-- worn to perfect skin and bane. in the cauld month o' november, (claise,[ ] and cash, and credit out,) cowering o'er a dying ember, wi' ilk face as white's a clout.[ ] bond and bill, and debts a' stoppit, ilka sheaf selt[ ] on the bent;[ ] cattle, beds, and blankets roupit,[ ] now to pay the laird his rent. no anither night to lodge here-- no a friend their cause to plead! he's ta'en[ ] on to be a sodger, she wi' weans[ ] to beg her bread! [footnote : fine clothing and money.] [footnote : bewildered.] [footnote : foolish.] [footnote : stupid.] [footnote : clothes.] [footnote : cloth.] [footnote : sold.] [footnote : stubble field.] [footnote : sold at auction.] [footnote : engaged.] [footnote : children.] fortunately, jeanie attracts the attention of the duchess of buccleugh, and obtains from her a pretty cottage, rent free, and such aid and protection as her circumstances demand. willie loses a leg in battle, and returns a changed man, with a pension from government. finding his wife and family, he is received to their embrace. the soldier's return, and the situation of the cottage are beautifully depicted. sometimes briskly, sometimes flaggin', sometimes helpit, will gat forth; on a cart or in a wagon, hirplin[ ] aye towards the north. tired ae e'ening, stepping hooly,[ ] pondering on his thraward[ ] fate, in the bonny month o' july, willie, heedless, tent[ ] his gate.[ ] saft the southland breeze was blowing, sweetly sughed[ ] the green oak wood; loud the din o' streams fast fa'ing, strack the ear with thundering thud. ewes and lambs on braes ran bleating; linties chirped on ilka tree; frae the west the sun near setting, flamed on roslin's towers sae hie.[ ] roslin's towers and braes sae bonny! craigs and water, woods and glen! roslin's banks unpeered by ony, save the muses' hawthornden! ilka sound and charm delighting, will (though hardly fit to gang,)[ ] wandered on through scenes inviting, listening to the mavis' sang. faint at length, the day fast closing, on a fragrant strawberry steep, esk's sweet dream to rest composing, wearied nature drapt asleep. 'soldier, rise!--the dews o' e'ening, gathering fa' wi' deadly skaith!-- wounded soldier! if complaining, sleep na here, and catch your death.' [footnote : limping.] [footnote : carefully.] [footnote : untoward.] [footnote : lost.] [footnote : way.] [footnote : sighed.] [footnote : high.] [footnote : walk.] accepting an invitation to take shelter in a neighboring cottage, slowfully and painfully he followed his guide. silent stept he on, poor fellow! listening to his guide before, o'er green knowe, and flowery hollow, till they reached the cot-house door. laigh[ ] it was, yet sweet and humble: decked wi' honeysuckle round; clear below esk's waters rumble, deep glens murmuring back the sound. melville's towers sae white and stately, dim by gloaming glint[ ] to view; through lasswade's dark woods keek[ ] sweetly, skies sae red and lift sae blue. entering now in transport mingle, mother fond, and happy wean,[ ] smiling round a canty[ ] ingle, bleezing on a clean hearth-stane. 'soldier, welcome! come, be cheery! here ye'se[ ] rest, and tak' your bed-- faint, waes me! ye seem and weary, pale's your cheek, sae lately red!' 'changed i am,' sighed willie till[ ] her; 'changed nae doubt, as changed[ ] can be; yet, alas! does jeanie miller naught o' willie gairlace see?' hae ye mark'd the dews o' morning, glittering in the sunny ray, quickly fa' when, without warning, rough blasts came and shook the spray? hae ye seen the bird fast fleeing, drap when pierced by death mair fleet? then see jean, wi' color deeing,[ ] senseless drap at willie's feet. after three lang years' affliction, a' their waes now hush'd to rest, jean ance mair, in fond affection, clasps her willie to her breast. [footnote : low.] [footnote : gleam.] [footnote : peep.] [footnote : child.] [footnote : merry.] [footnote : you shall.] [footnote : to.] [footnote : as much as possible.] [footnote : dying.] but hark! the first bell rings for the cars; so let us be off, and get our places. the sun has slipped down behind the trees yonder, and it will be gloaming, if not ''tween and supper time,' before we get to edinburgh. all is right, and off we go, whirring through the quiet and beautiful scenery of these highly cultivated regions. we pass through "samson's ribs," that is, the granite rocks of duddingston, by means of a tunnel, glide along the base of arthur's seat, on whose summit linger the last rays of evening; and land at the upper end of the city, well prepared to relish a scottish supper of substantial edibles, and after that, "tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." chapter xiii. city of glasgow--spirit of the place--trade and manufactures--the broomielaw--steam--george's square--monuments to sir walter scott, sir john moore, and james watt--sketch of the life of watt--glasgow university--reminiscences--brougham--sir d. k. sandford--professor nichol and others--high kirk, or glasgow cathedral--martyrdom of jerome russel and john kennedy. taking the steam-cars from edinburgh, we arrive at glasgow, a distance of forty-four miles, in a couple of hours. as edinburgh is the representative of scottish literature and refinement, glasgow is the representative of its commerce and manufactures. it is an immense city, and contains a prodigious number of inhabitants. at the period of the union it had a population of only twelve thousand: since which time it has doubled this number twelve or thirteen times, and now contains nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants. it owes this unprecedented increase to its trade, domestic and foreign, which is almost unparalleled in its extent. there is probably not a single inland town in great britain, with the exception of london, which can show such a shipping list. glasgow has ever been distinguished for its mechanical ingenuity, its industry and enterprise. its situation doubtless is highly favorable, but without an intelligent, ingenious and active population, it could never have reached such a height of prosperity. but it is not our intention to visit this commercial city as tourists. there are enough such to describe her agreeable situation, and handsome public edifices, her long and elegant streets, her beautiful "green," and magnificent river. at present we shall not fatigue ourselves with visiting the royal exchange, the royal bank, the tontine and the assembly rooms. neither shall we trouble our readers to go with us through queen street, st. vincent street, greenhill place, or woodside crescent. it might be worth while however, to look into some of those immense factories; from which rise innumerable huge chimnies, some of which overtop the steeples and towers of the churches, and reach far up into the heavens.[ ] thousands and thousands of spindles and power looms, with thousands and thousands of human hands and heads are moving there from morn to night, and from night to morn. what masses of complicated and beautiful machinery! what prodigious steam-engines, great hearts of power in the centres of little worlds, giving life energy and motion to the whole. here is a single warehouse, as it is called, for the sale of manufactured goods, containing no less than two hundred clerks. what piles of silks and shawls, cottons and calicoes! the productions of glasgow reach every part of the world. you will find them in india, china, and the united states, in the wilds of africa and the jungles of burmah, amid the snows of labrador, and the savannahs of georgia. [footnote : one of these chimnies is said to be over feet high.] but let us go down to the broomielaw, and take a look at the river clyde. that mile of masts, and those immense steamers, plying up and down the river, connect glasgow with every part of the british empire and the world. what grand agency has accomplished all this? steam!--steam, under the guidance and control of genius and enterprise. the extended prosperity of glasgow commenced with the inventions of watt, the greatest mechanical genius of the age, and the first man that constructed a steam-engine of much practical use. steam has raised all those huge factories which we have been admiring, and keeps their innumerable wheels and pistons, spindles and power looms in motion. steam it is which brings untold masses of coal and iron from the bowels of the earth, and converts them into machinery and motive power. yonder it comes, rolling and dashing, in a long train of cars and carriages filled with the produce and population of the land. here it gives life and energy to a cotton mill with a thousand looms! there it casts off, from day to day, the myriads of printed sheets which spread intelligence through the country. all around us it moves the cranks and pullies, ropes and wires, wheels and tools, which work such wonders in beating and grinding, cutting and carving, polishing and dyeing. steam has added thousands, nay millions to the annual income of glasgow. it has augmented the resources of great britain to such an extent that it saves seventy millions of dollars annually in the matter of motive power alone! no pen can describe the additions which it has made in other parts of the world to their manufactures and commerce. it has brought all nations into more intimate relations, and is yet destined, in many respects, to revolutionize the world. let us go then to george's square, near the centre of the city, and look at chantrey's monument of the man who has done so much to bring about such a change. the square contains also a fine monument of sir walter scott, in the form of a fluted doric column, about eighty feet high, surmounted by a colossal statue of "the great magician of the north." he is represented standing in an easy attitude, with a shepherd's plaid thrown half around his body. the likeness is said to be remarkably good. it has that expression of shrewdness, honesty and good nature for which he was distinguished, but none of that ideal elevation which graces the countenances of schiller, goethe and shakspeare. immediately in front of this monument, is a beautiful pedestrian statue in bronze, by flaxman, of sir john moore, the subject of wolfe's exquisite lyric,-- "not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, as his corpse to the ramparts we hurried, not a soldier discharged his farewell shot, o'er the grave where our hero we buried." sir john moore was a citizen of glasgow, and his townsmen have erected this statue as expressive of their veneration for his memory. to the right of this monument, in the south-west angle of the square, you see in bronze, and of colossal magnitude, the noble figure of james watt. he is represented in a sitting posture on a circular pedestal of aberdeen granite. it is considered one of the happiest productions of the distinguished chantrey. the fine meditative features of the great inventor are strikingly developed. watt was born in greenock, on the th of january, , but conducted his experiments chiefly in glasgow. he came thither in , first as a mathematical instrument maker to the college, and subsequently as an engineer. in early life he gave indications of his peculiar genius, by various little mechanical contrivances. at the age of six years, he was occasionally found stretched on the floor, delineating with chalk the lines of a geometrical problem. at other times he greatly obliged his young companions by making and repairing their toys; and before he had reached his seventeenth year he had amused them with the wonders of an electrical machine of his own construction. he had also instructed himself by making experiments on the steam of a tea-kettle. he subsequently stored his mind with the wonders of physics, chemistry and medicine. in the university of glasgow, watt was employed to fit up the instruments of the macfarlane observatory, which gave him an opportunity of becoming acquainted with adam smith, joseph black, and robert simson, names immortal in the scientific annals of scotland. here also he formed an intimacy with john robinson, then a student at college, and subsequently the celebrated dr. robinson, who first called the attention of watt to the subject of steam engines, and threw out the idea of applying them to steam carriages and other purposes. the steam-engine had existed before this time, but it was extremely imperfect, and, moreover, of no great practical use. hence mr. watt was not, properly speaking, the inventor but the improver of the steam-engine. still his improvement was equal to an invention of the highest order. it made the instrument _available_ for the highest practical purposes. "he found the crazy machines of savery and newcomen laboring and creaking at our mine heads, and occupying the same rank as prime movers with the wind-mill and the water-wheel; and by a succession of _inventions_ and _discoveries_, deduced from the most profound chemical knowledge, and applied by the most exquisite mechanical skill, he brought the steam-engine to such a degree of perfection as to stamp it the most precious gift which man ever bequeathed to his race."[ ] [footnote : edinburgh review.] watt had "a sore fight of existence," at least in the early part of his career, and he came near being deprived of the emolument which was his just due as a benefactor of his race. but he eventually triumphed over all opposition, retired from business, and continued to reside during the rest of his life on his estate at heathfield soho. he was exceedingly happy in his domestic relations, though called, in , to suffer a painful bereavement in the loss of his youngest son gregory, who had given high promise of literary and scientific eminence. in he was elected a corresponding member of the institute of france; and in , he was nominated by the academy of sciences as one of its _eight_ foreign correspondents. in his health suffered a rapid decline, and he himself felt that this was his last illness. "resigned, himself, he endeavored to make others resigned. he pointed out to his son the topics of consolation which should occupy his mind; and expressing his sincere gratitude to providence for the length of days he had enjoyed, for his exemption from most of the infirmities of age, and for the serenity and cheerfulness which marked the close of his life; he expired at heathfield on the th of august, ." he was interred in the parish church of handsworth; and over his tomb his son erected an elegant gothic chapel, containing a beautiful marble bust by chantrey. another bust by the same artist has been placed in one of the halls of glasgow college. a colossal statue of carrara marble, procured at great expense by public subscription, graces the recesses of westminster abbey. the most useful memorial of watt, however, exists in greenock, in the form of a large and handsome building for a public library, erected by his son, in which the citizens have caused to be placed a handsome marble statue, with an inscription from the pen of lord jeffrey. lord brougham concluded an eloquent speech on the merits of mr. watt, in the following striking terms:--"if in old times the temples of false gods were appropriately filled with the images of men who had carried devastation over the face of the earth, surely our temples cannot be more worthily adorned with the likenesses of those whose triumphs have been splendid indeed, but unattended by sorrow to any--who have achieved victories, not for one country only, but to enlarge the power and increase the happiness of the whole human race." passing up high street, we come to an arched gateway, and find ourselves in a quadrangular court, with antique looking buildings on each side. beyond this we come to another quadrangle, also surrounded by buildings of perhaps more recent date. passing straight on we reach a handsome edifice of polished freestone, directly in front of us, and standing alone, which is nothing less than the hunterian museum. these then are the buildings of glasgow university. beyond us is the college-green, ornamented with trees, and divided into two parts by a sluggish stream which passes through the centre. a number of the students, having laid aside their scarlet gowns, are playing at football, a violent but delightful and invigorating exercise. the university of glasgow was founded in , in the time of james the second. bishop turnbull was then in possession of the see, and his successors were appointed chancellors. the history of the institution has been various; but, generally speaking, it has enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. of late years the number of students has declined, from what cause we know not. the number, in all the departments, does not exceed a thousand, whereas, in , when the writer was a student in glasgow, there were from fourteen to fifteen hundred. well does he remember the enthusiasm with which they welcomed their popular candidate for rector, henry brougham, esq., m. p., as he was then termed, and the eager interest with which they listened to his inaugural discourse. sir james mcintosh, a fine hearty looking man, with bland expressive eyes, and two of the sons of robert burns, tall, good looking young men, but with no particular resemblance to their illustrious father, were present, with others, to grace the occasion. brougham was in the maturity of his strength, and the hey-day of his fame. tall, muscular, and wiry, with searching visage, dark complexion, keen piercing eyes, ample forehead, and long outstretched finger, he stood up the very personification of strength and eloquence. but brougham has been frequently described, and we therefore pass him by. the next rector that was chosen was thomas campbell, the poet, once a member of the college, and one of its most distinguished ornaments. a large portion, if not the whole of the "pleasures of hope" was written while he was a student at college. many distinguished men have been professors in this institution. among these dr. reid and dr. hutcheson, dr. simpson and dr. moore, adam smith, and professor sandford stand pre-eminent. well does the writer remember the accomplished, but unfortunate sandford, and the profound enthusiasm for the greek classics which he inspired in his students. he was a son of the venerable bishop sandford, a distinguished graduate of oxford, and a man of the highest attainments in greek and english literature. of small stature, he yet possessed an elegant and commanding form. his pale face, finely chiselled mouth, dark eyes, and marble forehead are before me now. i hear his clear, musical voice, rolling out, _ore rotundo_, the resounding periods of homer, or the energetic lines of eschylus. no man ever recited greek with such enthusiasm and energy. it was a perfect treat to hear him read the odes of anacreon or the choral hymns of eschylus; to say nothing of his elegant translations, or his fine critical remarks. he was created a baronet by the government, and bade fair to be one of the most distinguished and influential literary men in the country. but he was seduced into party politics, was sent as the representative of glasgow to parliament, and failed--failed utterly and forever; for his want of success in the house of commons preyed upon his spirits, and caused his death. among the distinguished men now occupying places in this university we find mr. lushington, of trinity college, cambridge, professor of greek, and dr. nichol, author of the popular lectures on the wonders of the heavens, professor of practical astronomy. mr. mylne, professor of moral philosophy, and mr. buchanan, professor of logic, are acute and learned men. leaving the college, we ascend high street, and after reaching the top of the hill, a little to the right, we see before us the "high kirk," or rather the old cathedral of glasgow, one of the finest remains of antiquity, surrounded by a vast church-yard, containing many rich and ancient monumental tombs, and the mouldering bones of many by-gone generations. it has a superb crypt, "equalled by none in the kingdom,"--once used as a place of worship, but now as a place for burying the dead. the author of waverley has invested it with additional interest by making it the scene of a striking incident in rob roy. the whole edifice has a most commanding appearance. at the north-east end of the cathedral the spot is yet to be seen where papal bigotry and superstition lighted the fires of religious persecution. there in the year , jerome russel, a member of the convent of franciscan friars, in glasgow, a man of considerable talents, and john kennedy, a young man from ayr, of high family, only about eighteen years of age, were burned for having embraced the doctrines of the infant reformation. they sustained the terrible ordeal through which they passed to glory with a becoming dignity and fortitude. "this is your hour and power of darkness," said russel, "now you sit as judges, and we are wrongfully condemned, but the day cometh which will clear our innocency, and you shall see your own blindness to your everlasting confusion--go on and fulfil the measure of your iniquity." is it surprising that the reaction of reform which followed such proceedings should occasionally have gone to unjustifiable lengths, and that the people should have torn down "the rookeries," which sheltered those birds of prey, as the papal tyrants of that day might well be termed? never were a nobler or more heroic set of men than the martyrs and confessors of that trying time! knox, melville, and wishart might be stern, but they were men of godlike temper and heroic zeal, of whom the world was not worthy; and whatever poetasters and novelists, sentimental journalists, and infidel historians may say of them, they will be found at last, occupying an honored place, at god's right hand. chapter xiv. the necropolis--jewish burial place--monument to john knox--monuments of william macgavin and dr. dick--reminiscences--character and writings of dr. dick--pollok and 'the course of time'--grave of motherwell--sketch of his life--his genius and poetry--'jeanie morrison.'--'my heid is like to rend, willie.'--'a summer sabbath noon.' east of the cathedral, a few steps, lies the necropolis, on the brow of a hill which overlooks the city and the surrounding regions. we pass over the "bridge of sighs," so named from its leading to the cemetery, and consisting of a handsome arch, spanning the "molendinar burn," a brawling rivulet, whose waters, collected into a small basin, dash over an artificial cascade into the ravine below. the necropolis covers the rocky eminence formerly crowned with dark firs, and supposed, in ancient times to have been a retreat of the druids, who here performed their fearful rites. but how sweet and peaceful now, ornamented with fine trees and shrubbery, shady walks, and beautiful monuments, a serene retreat for the peaceful dead. in point of situation and appearance, the necropolis is superior to "pere la chaise," though certainly inferior to "greenwood" and "mount auburn," in our opinion the most attractive burying-places in the world. still, each of these has a beauty of its own, well fitted to soften and subdue those feelings of grief and horror naturally excited by death and the grave. such sweet and attractive places of burial are in harmony with the genius of the gospel. the ancient greeks, from their very horror of death and their ignorance of futurity, endeavored to invest the tomb with festal associations. why, then, should not we, upon whom the light of immortality has descended, lay those we love in scenes of quiet beauty, where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest?" does not holy writ declare, "_blessed_ are the dead that die in the lord?" it is therefore meet to place their bodies only in scenes which remind us of rest, of hope, and of heaven. "the dead cannot grieve, not a sob nor a sigh meets mine ear, which compassion itself could relieve. ah, sweetly they slumber, nor love, hope, or fear; peace! peace is the watchword, the only one here." let affection, then, bury her dead and build her tombs amid the trees and the flowers, which preach to us of the resurrection-morn and the paradise of god. "the first tabernacle to hope we will build, and look for the sleepers around us to rise! the second to faith which insures it fulfilled; and the third to the lamb of the great sacrifice, who bequeathed us them both when he rose from the skies!" this cemetery was founded in , and the first sale was to the jews, who require a burying-place for themselves. it lies in the north-west corner of the grounds. the enclosure contains the requisite accommodations for washing the bodies before interment as required by the jewish law, which also forbids one body to be deposited above another. the place is ornamented with excellent taste. on the left is a beautiful pillar, in imitation of absalom's pillar in the "king's dale." on the front of this column, and immediately under its capital, is a piece of fret-work, formed of hebrew letters, representing the words, "who among the gods is like unto jehovah?" on the shaft of the column are those touching stanzas from byron's hebrew melodies, concluding thus: "tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, where shall ye flee away and be at rest; the wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, mankind their country--israel but the grave." on the lower part of the column is the following: "leave thy fatherless children, i will preserve them alive, and let thy widows trust in me." on the other side of the gateway are engraved the following verses: "a voice was heard in ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping: rachel weeping for her children, refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not." "thus saith the lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the lord, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy." "and there is hope in thine end, saith the lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border." and on the opposite pillar is the following: "how hath the lord covered the daughter of sion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty of israel, and removed not his footstool in the day of his anger." "but though he caused grief, yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies. for he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." on the summit of the hill, and towering above the rest, is the commanding monument of john knox, intended to be commemorative of the reformation. on a lofty square pedestal, stands the statue of the stern old reformer, with the bible in one hand, and the other stretched out, as if in the act of addressing the multitude. on one side of the pedestal is the following inscription: to testify gratitude for inestimable services in the cause of religion, education, and civil liberty, to awaken admiration of that integrity, disinterestedness and courage, which stood unshaken in the midst of trials, and in the maintenance of the highest objects-- finally, to cherish unceasing reverence for the principles and blessings of that great reformation, by the influence of which our country, though in the midst of difficulties, has risen to honor, prosperity, and happiness, this monument is erected by voluntary subscription, to the memory of john knox, the chief instrument, under god, of the reformation in scotland, on the d day of sept. . he died rejoicing in the faith of the gospel, at edinburgh, on the th of nov. , in the th year of his age. on the other sides are the following: "the reformation produced a revolution in the sentiments of mankind, the greatest as well as most beneficial that has happened since the publication of christianity." "in , and in the city where his friend george wishart had suffered, john knox, surrounded with dangers, first preached the doctrines of the reformation. in , on the th of august, the parliament of scotland adopted the confession of faith, presented by the reformed ministers, and declared popery no longer to be the religion of this kingdom. "john knox became then a minister of edinburgh, where he continued to his death, the incorruptible guardian of our best interests. "'i can take god to witness,' he declared, 'that i never preached in contempt of any man, and wise men will consider that a true friend cannot flatter; especially in a case that involves the salvation of the bodies and the souls, not of a few persons, but of the whole realm.' when laid in the grave, the regent said: 'there lieth he who never feared the face of man, who was often threatened with pistol and dagger, yet hath ended his days in peace and honor.' "patrick hamilton, a youth of high rank and distinguished attainments, was the first martyr in scotland in the cause of the reformation. he was condemned to the flames in st. andrews, in , and the th year of his age. "from to , persecution raged in every quarter, many suffered the most cruel deaths, and many fled to england and the continent. among these early martyrs were jerome russel and alexander kennedy, two young men of great piety and talent, who suffered at glasgow. william wishart returned to scotland, from which he had been banished, and preached the gospel in various quarters. in , this heavenly-minded man, the friend and instructor of knox, was committed to the flames at st. andrews." let the thoughtful ponder these interesting memorials, and say whether the reformation in scotland was not a glorious event! at a little distance from knox's monument, is one to the memory of mr. macgavin, a banker in glasgow, and author of "the protestant;" and another of great elegance and beauty, to the memory of dr. dick, late professor of theology in the united secession church. "say not that the good ever die," and "he sleeps a sacred sleep," are engraven, in greek, upon the sides of the monument, beautiful and appropriate sentiments for the tomb of a christian. dr. dick was pre-eminently a good man, and not only so but a man of the highest attainments. well does the writer remember his dignified bearing, fine countenance, and silver hair. but a few years ago, he sat at the feet of this venerable man, as his instructor in theology, and received from his lips lessons of holy wisdom. while professor of theology, the reverend doctor was also pastor of one of the largest and most influential of the secession churches in the city of glasgow. he was greatly venerated, both by the people of his charge and by his theological pupils, for his dignity and purity of character, his clear, well balanced intellect, his calm and consistent piety. he wrote lucidly and elegantly on the "inspiration of the scriptures," a work which a distinguished english bishop so much admired that he carried it about with him in his pocket. his "lectures on the acts of the apostles," though inferior to the production just named, is also a valuable work. since his death, his "theological prelections" have been published, and are much esteemed for their clear statement, and defence of evangelical truth. always lucid, always logical and satisfactory, he is never profound or original. his style glides in pellucid beauty, like a rivulet through the meadow, mirroring in its calm depths the green foliage which adorns its banks, and the blue heavens bending above it, but never cutting itself a new channel, or sweeping onward, with majestic force, like a torrent to the sea. the labors of dr. dick were pre-eminently useful; and a host of young men, educated under his influence, now fill posts of the highest responsibility in scotland, and in other parts of the world. pollok was a student of the doctor's at the same time with the writer, but was not known to be possessed of any extraordinary genius till after the publication of "the course of time." he was considered a man of talent, however, and had written two or three sermons, containing passages of considerable power. but his heart was in his great poem during the whole of his student life. so intensely did he work upon it, that he had often to be assisted to bed, from sheer exhaustion. "the course of time" has many obvious faults, but abounds in strokes of genius and power. a great soul has poured itself into this rugged and sometimes gloomy channel, which, traversing the whole course of time, finally loses itself in the ocean of eternity. pollok was tall, well proportioned, of a dark complexion, "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought," with deep-set eyes, heavy eyebrows and black bushy hair. a smothered light burned in his dark orbs, which flashed, with a meteor brilliancy, whenever he spoke with enthusiasm and energy. he was born in , at north muirhouse, in the parish of eaglesham, renfrewshire,-- "'mong hills and streams and melancholy deserts, where the sun saw as he pass'd, a shepherd only here and there, watching his little flock; or heard the ploughman talking to his steers." his father was an honest farmer, and his early home a scene of much domestic endearment. to the trees which overshadowed the paternal mansion he thus pays homage in his verse: "much of my native scenery appears, and presses forward, to be in my song; but must not now; for much behind awaits, of higher note. four trees i pass not by, which o'er our house their evening shadow threw;-- three ash, and one of elm. tall trees they were, and old; and had been old a century before my day. none living could say aught about their youth; but they were goodly trees; and oft i wondered, as i sat and thought beneath their summer shade, or in the night of winter heard the spirits of the wind growling among their boughs--how they had grown so high, in such a rough, tempestuous place: and when a hapless branch, torn by the blast fell down, i mourned as if a friend had fallen." pollok had just finished his studies, and was licensed as a preacher, by the united secession church, when he published his poem which thrilled all hearts in scotland, and struck his fellow-students with perfect amazement, not unmingled, however, with delight. but he was then sick. his over-wrought frame began to yield, and he sought health in a foreign country, which he did not live to reach. he died in england in the autumn of , the same year in which he had published his poem, having lived just long enough to complete it, and receive the applause of his countrymen. before leaving the necropolis, we must visit a grave at one corner of the grounds, in a quiet, shady spot, as if retired somewhat from the rest. there it is, the grave of william motherwell, one of the sweetest of the scottish poets, the author of "bonnie jeanie morrison" and "my heid is like to rend, willie," and many other poems of exquisite grace and pathos. william motherwell was born in the city of glasgow in the year , and died there in . in his eleventh year he was transferred to the care of his uncle in paisley, who brought him up. here he received a liberal education, and commenced the study of law. at the age of twenty-one he was appointed deputy to the sheriff-clerk of paisley, a highly respectable but not lucrative situation. he early evinced a love of poetry, and in became editor of a miscellany, called "the harp of renfrewshire," which he conducted with much taste and judgment. a relish for antiquarian research led him to investigate the subject of the ballad poetry of scotland, the results of which he published in , in two volumes, entitled "minstrelsy, ancient and modern." his introduction to this collection is admirably written, and must form the basis of all future investigations upon this subject. he seems to have been unusually successful in recovering many of the old ballads, which were never committed to writing, and known to very few persons. some of these, though rude and grotesque in thought or style, are exquisitely beautiful. allan cunningham, another of scotland's sweetest poets, had labored in this field, but not with the same success. but the genius of both of these poets was deeply imbued with the spirit of the old ballad rhymes. they had conned them in their minds so frequently that they naturally wrote their own effusions in the same simple and touching style. soon after the publication of his "ancient minstrelsy," motherwell became editor of a weekly journal in paisley, and established a magazine there, to which he contributed some of his finest poems. the talent and spirit which he evinced in these literary labors, were the occasion of his being removed to the city of glasgow, to the editorial care of the glasgow courier, in which situation he continued till his death. he conducted this paper with great ability. motherwell was of small stature, but thick set and muscular. his head was large and finely formed; his eyes were bright and penetrating. in mixed society he was rather reserved, "but appeared internally to enjoy the feast of reason and the flow of soul." somewhat pensive in his mood, he lived much in the solitude of his own thoughts, and at times gave way to a profound melancholy. this spirit pervades his poetry. the wailings of a wounded heart mingle with his fine descriptions of nature, and his lofty aspirations after the beautiful and true. in he collected and published his poems in one volume. he was also associated with the ettrick shepherd in editing the works of burns, and at the time of his death was collecting materials for the life of tannahill, an humble weaver in paisley, but one of the finest song-writers scotland has ever produced. "accompanied by a literary friend, on the first of november, , he had been dining in the country, about a couple of miles from glasgow, and on his return home, feeling indisposed, he went to bed. in a few hours thereafter he awakened, and complained of a pain in the head, which increased so much as to render him speechless. medical assistance was speedily obtained; but alas! it was of no avail--the blow was struck, and the curtain had finally fallen over the life and fortunes of william motherwell. one universal feeling of regret and sympathy seemed to extend over society, when the sudden and premature decease of this accomplished poet and elegant writer became known. his funeral was attended by a large body of the citizens, by the most eminent and learned of the literary professions, and by persons of all shades of political opinions. he was interred in the necropolis of glasgow, not far from the resting-place of his fast friend, mr. william henderson." though motherwell's death was thus sudden and unexpected, he seems to have had something like a premonition of it. the following touching lines were given to a friend, a day or two before his decease: when i beneath the cold red earth am sleeping, life's fever o'er, will there for me be any bright eye weeping, that i'm no more? will there be any heart still memory keeping, of heretofore? when the great winds through leafless forests rushing, sad music make? when the swollen streams, o'er crag and gully gushing, like full hearts break, will there then one whose heart despair is crushing, mourn for my sake? when the bright sun upon that spot is shining, with purest ray, and the small flowers their buds and blossoms twining, burst through that clay, will there be one still on that spot repining, lost hopes all day? when no star twinkles with its eye of glory, on that low mound, and wintry storms have with their ruins hoary, its loneness crowned; will there be then one versed in misery's story, pacing it round? it may be so,--but this is selfish sorrow, to ask such meed-- a weakness and a wickedness to borrow from hearts that bleed, the waitings of to-day for what to-morrow shall never need. lay me then gently in my narrow dwelling, thou gentle heart; and though thy bosom should with grief be swelling, let no tear start; it were in vain--for time hath long been knelling-- sad one, depart! these are mournful, but somewhat hopeful strains; for one who feels that "time has long been knelling, sad one, depart!" must, if not a sceptic, have looked beyond the grave, and descried in better worlds, rest and solace for the aching heart. here, in his "narrow dwelling," he gently sleeps, while pilgrims from afar drop tears of sympathy upon its "grassy mound." motherwell was a man of pure genius. his poems are distinguished for their deep tenderness and exquisite melody. they are gemmed, moreover, with beautiful conceptions, with original and striking expressions. there is nothing, in the whole range of scottish poetry, except burns's "highland mary," equal in beauty and pathos to "jeanie morrison." i've wandered east i've wandered west, through mony a weary way; but never, never can forget, the luve o' life's young day! the fire that's blawn on beltane[ ] e'en, may weel be black 'gin[ ] yule,[ ] but blacker fa' awaits the heart when first fond luve grows cule. o dear, dear jeanie morrison, the thochts of bygane years, still fling their shadows o'er my path, and blind my een wi' tears: they blind my een wi' saut,[ ] saut tears, and sair and sick i pine, as memory idly summons up the blithe blinks[ ] o' lang syne. 'twas then we luvit ilk[ ] ither weel, 'twas then we twa did part; sweet time--sad time! twa bairns at school, twa bairns and but ae[ ] heart! 'twas then we sat on ae laigh[ ] bink, to lier[ ] ilk ither lear; and tones, and looks, and smiles were shed, remembered evermair. i wonder, jeanie, aften yet, when sitting on that bink, cheek touchin' cheek, loof[ ] locked in loof, what our wee heads could think. when baith bent down o'er ae braid page wi' ae buik on our knee, thy lips were on thy lesson, but my lesson was in thee. o mind[ ] ye how we hung our heads, how cheeks brent red wi' shame, whene'er the schule[ ] weans laughin' said, we cleeked[ ] thegither hame? and mind ye o' the saturdays, (the schule then skail't[ ] at noon,) when we ran aff to speel[ ] the braes, the broomy braes o' june? my heid runs round and round about, my heart flows like a sea, as ane by ane the thochts rush back, o' schule time and o' thee. o mornin' life! o mornin' luve! o lichtsome days and lang, when hinnied[ ] hopes around our hearts, like simmer blossoms sprang! o mind ye, luve, how aft we left the deavin'[ ] dinsome[ ] toun, to wander by the green burnside, and hear its waters croon?[ ] the simmer leaves hung ower our heads, the flowers burst round our feet, and in the gloamin' o' the wood, the throssil[ ] whusslit sweet. the throssil whusslit in the wood, the burn sang to the trees, and we wi' nature's heart in tune, concerted harmonies; and on the knowe[ ] abune the burn, for hours thegither sat: in the silentness o' joy, till baith wi' very, very gladness grat.[ ] ay, ay, dear jeanie morrison, tears trinkled down your cheek, like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane had ony power to speak! that was a time, a blessed time, when hearts were fresh and young, when freely gushed all feelings forth, unsyllabled,--unsung! i marvel, jeanie morrison, gin[ ] i hae been to thee, as closely twined wi' earliest thochts, as ye hae been to me? o! tell me gin their music fills thine ear as it does mine; o! say gin e'er your heart grows[ ] grit wi' dreamings o' lang syne? i've wandered east, i've wandered west, i've borne a weary lot; but in my wanderings far or near, ye never were forgot. the fount that first burst frae this heart, still travels on its way; and channels deeper as it runs, the luve o' life's young day. o dear, dear jeanie morrison, since we were sindered young, i've never seen your face, nor heard the music o' your tongue; but i could hug all wretchedness, and happy could i die, did i but ken your heart still dreamed, o' bygane days and me! [footnote : holyrood day.] [footnote : until.] [footnote : christmas.] [footnote : salt.] [footnote : gleams, or flashes.] [footnote : each other.] [footnote : one.] [footnote : low bench.] [footnote : to teach.] [footnote : hand.] [footnote : remember.] [footnote : school children.] [footnote : clasped.] [footnote : dismissed.] [footnote : climb.] [footnote : honied.] [footnote : deafening.] [footnote : noisy.] [footnote : murmur.] [footnote : thrush or mavis.] [footnote : knoll.] [footnote : wept.] [footnote : if.] [footnote : swells.] equally beautiful and still more pathetic, is "_my heid is like to rend, willie_." indeed, we know of nothing so affecting as the last stanzas of this exquisite ballad. the poor heart-broken girl gives abundant evidence of her profound penitence: o! dinna mind my words, willie, i downa seek to blame,-- but o! it's hard to live, willie, and dree a world's shame! het tears are hailin' ower your cheek, and hailin' ower your chin; why weep ye sae for worthlessness, for sorrow and for sin. i'm weary o' this warld, willie, and sick wi' a' i see,-- i canna live as i hae lived, or be as i should be. but fauld unto your heart, willie, the heart that still is thine,-- and kiss ance mair the white, white cheek, ye said was red lang syne. a stoun[ ] gaes through my heid, willie, a sair stoun through my heart,-- o! hand me up, and let me kiss thy brow, ere we twa pairt. anither, and anither yet!-- how fast my life's strings break!-- farewell! farewell! through yon kirk-yard step lichtly for my sake! the lav'rock[ ] in the lift,[ ] willie, that lilts[ ] far ower our heid, will sing the morn as merrilie abune the clay-cauld deid; and this green turf we're sittin' on, wi' dew-draps shimmerin' sheen, will hap[ ] the heart that luvit thee, as warld has seldom seen. but o! remember me, willie, on land where'er ye be,-- and o! think on the leal, leal heart, that ne'er luvit ane but thee! and o! think on the cauld, cauld mools,[ ] that file[ ] my yellow hair,-- that kiss the cheek, that kiss the chin, ye never sail kiss mair. [footnote : a darting pain.] [footnote : lark.] [footnote : sky.] [footnote : sings.] [footnote : cover.] [footnote : clods.] [footnote : soil.] as a specimen of motherwell's descriptive powers, the exquisite grace of his diction, and the deep-toned melody of his verse, and not only so, but of his high devotional feelings, we give the following: a sabbath summer noon. the calmness of this noontide hour, the shadow of this wood, the fragrance of each wilding flower are marvelously good; o! here crazed spirits breathe the balm, of nature's solitude! it is a most delicious calm that resteth everywhere,-- the holiness of soul-sung psalm, of felt, but voiceless prayer! with hearts too full to speak their bliss, god's creatures silent are. they silent are; but not the less in this most tranquil hour, of deep, unbroken dreaminess, they own that love and power, which like the softest sunshine rests, on every leaf and flower. how silent are the song-filled nests that crowd this drowsy tree,-- how mute is every feathered breast that swelled with melody! and yet bright bead-like eyes declare, this hour is exstacy. heart forth! as uncaged bird through air, and mingle in the tide of blessed things, that, lacking care, how full of beauty glide, around thee, in their angel hues of joy and sinless pride. here on this green bank that o'er-views the far retreating glen, beneath the spreading beech-tree muse, on all within thy ken; for lovelier scene shall never break, on thy dimmed sight again. slow stealing from the tangled brake, that skirts the distant hill, with noiseless hoof two bright fawns make for yonder lapsing rill; meek children of the forest gloom, drink on, and fear no ill! and buried in the yellow broom, that crowns the neighboring height, couches a loutish shepherd groom, with all his flocks in sight; which dot the green braes gloriously, with spots o' living light. it is a sight that filleth me with meditative joy, to mark these dumb things curiously crowd round the guardian boy; as if they felt this sabbath hour of bliss lacked all alloy. i bend me towards the tiny flower, that underneath this tree, opens its little breast of sweets in meekest modesty, and breathes the eloquence of love, in muteness, lord! to thee. * * * * * the silentness of night doth brood o'er this bright summer noon; and nature, in her holiest mood, doth all things well attune, to joy in the religious dreams of green and leafy june. far down the glen in distance gleams, the hamlet's tapering spire, and glittering in meridial beams its vane is tongued with fire; and hark, how sweet its silvery bell,-- and hark, the rustic choir! the holy sounds float up the dell to fill my ravished ear, and now the glorious anthems swell,-- of worshippers sincere,-- of hearts bowed in the dust, that shed faith's penitential tear. dear lord! thy shadow is forth spread, on all mine eye can see; and filled at the pure fountain-head of deepest piety, my heart loves all created things, and travels home to thee. around me while the sunshine flings, a flood of mocky gold, my chastened spirit once more sings, as it was wont of old, that lay of gratitude which burst from young heart uncontrolled. when in the midst of nature nursed, sweet influences fell, on childly hearts that were athirst, like soft dews in the bell of tender flowers, that bowed their heads, and breathed a fresher smell. so, even now this hour hath sped, in rapturous thought o'er me, feeling myself with nature wed,-- a holy mystery,-- a part of earth, a part of heaven, a part, great god! of thee. fast fade the cares of life's dull even, they perish as the weed, while unto me the power is given, a moral deep to read, in every silent throe of mind, eternal beauties breed. it would be pleasant, but we have not time, to make the acquaintance of some of the glasgow clergy, particularly of the classic wardlaw, the vigorous heugh,[ ] the accomplished king, the energetic robson, the intelligent buchanan, the eloquent willis, the strong "in knee'd" anderson, and others of equal distinction. a fair specimen of the scottish clergy has been given in the ministers of edinburgh, and that must suffice for the present. [footnote : since the above was written, the rev. dr. heugh has gone to his reward in heaven. he was a man of fine talents, deep piety, and most engaging manners. we met him some years ago on the banks of lake leman, whither he had gone for his health, in company with merle d'aubigne, joseph j. gurney and others; on which occasion dr. heugh gave an interesting and graphic account of the free church movement, which was translated for the benefit of those who did not understand english, by professor la harpe. never shall we forget that interview. there were present, french and english, german and swiss, scots and americans. some of these were presbyterians, others episcopalians, and others baptists, lutherans and quakers; but all were "one in christ jesus." joseph j. gurney closed our interview with a prayer in the french language, the most simple, solemn, and touching we ever heard. ah! little did we think that one of the most agreeable of that happy company was so soon to pass away from the scenes of earth. the following sketch of dr. heugh as a preacher, is from a funeral sermon by dr. john brown, of edinburgh. "as a preacher, he was judicious, faithful, discriminating; not exclusively doctrinal or practical, or experimental, but all by turns, and often all in the same discourse. the matter of his discourses was drawn from the living oracles, and his constant aim was to explain and to apply the saving doctrines of the cross--to bring the mind and hearts of men into harmony with the mind and will of god, especially as those are revealed in the person and work of his incarnate son. he was eminently a scriptural preacher, both in substance and in form. the commands of the master, 'divide rightly the word of truth,' 'feed my sheep,' 'feed my lambs,' seemed to be ever present to his mind, and to guide all his ministerial studies; and hence it was that his pulpit services were marked by a lucid, pointed, and affectionate inculcation of those varied truths which the circumstances of his hearers required. there was nothing trivial or extraneous in his discussions. he stated massy important thoughts, wide and comprehensive views--the result of much reflection and experience--illustrative of his subject and suited to the occasion--in simple and appropriate words; and the hearer was made to feel that he was not listening to human speculations, but that christ was, by the preacher, unfolding his mind and will--'making manifest the savor of his knowledge.' "his manner in the pulpit was singularly easy, graceful and pleasing. all that he said and did was natural and becoming. his fine open countenance, his animated appearance, his fluency of utterance, the pleasantly modulated tones of his voice, his graceful action, and the solemn devotional feeling which obviously pervaded all these, rivetted attention, and threw a peculiar charm over his whole discourse. there was no seeking for effect, no going out of the way for ornaments, no efforts to dazzle and to overwhelm. he was occupied with his subject, and sought to fill the minds of his hearers with it, as his own mind was filled with it. there were occasionally passages of great beauty, touchingly tender statements, stirring suddenly the deeper emotions of the heart; but the ordinary character of his eloquence was instructive and pleasing, rather than affecting or overpowering."] chapter xv. dumbarton castle--lochlomond--luss--ascent of benlomond--magnificent views--ride to loch-katrine--rob roy macgregor--'gathering of clan gregor'--loch-katrine and the trosachs--the city of perth--martyrdom of helen stark and her husband. embarking in a steamer at glasgow, we glide down the clyde as far as dumbarton castle, which rises, in stern and solitary majesty, from the bosom of the river,-- "a castled steep, whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower so idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it a metaphor of peace." in ancient times, however, those old battlements frequently stood the shock of invading war. dumbarton was the "alcluith" of the ancient britons, subsequently "dumbriton," or "the fortified hill of the britons." the vale of the clyde was called "strathclutha," and here was the capital of the kingdom of the "strathclyde britons." "alcluith" is the "balclutha" of ossian; _balla_ signifying a _wall_ or _bulwark_, from the latin _vallum_, a _wall_. "i have seen the walls of balclutha," sings ossian, in the poem of carron, "but they were desolate. the fire had resounded in the halls; and the voice of the people is heard no more. the stream of the clutha (clyde) was removed from its place by the fall of the walls. the thistle shook here its lonely head; the moss whistled to the wind. the fox looked out from the windows; the rank grass of the walls waved round its head. desolate is the dwelling of morna; silence is in the house of her fathers." in the reign of queen mary this stronghold was taken by an escalade. this was accomplished by captain crawford, an officer of great energy and talent, who acted for the confederated lords who opposed queen mary after the death of her husband, henry darnley. provided with scaling-ladders, and whatever else was necessary, crawford set out from glasgow with a small but determined body of men. the night was dark and misty, when they reached the castle-walls. crawford, and a soldier who acted as a guide, scrambled up to a ledge of rock, where they fastened a ladder to a tree, which grew on one of its cliffs. ascending by this means, the whole party stood together with their chief on this natural parapet. but they were far from the point which they hoped to reach. again the ladder was planted, and the ascent begun. but all at once one of the foremost soldiers, when half way up the ladder, was seized with a sudden fit, and clung to the ladder stiff and motionless. all further progress was at an end. what to do they knew not. to cut him down would be cruel, and besides might awaken the garrison. in this emergency, crawford had the man secured, by means of ropes to the ladder, which was turned over and all passed up in safety to the foot of the wall. day began to break, and they hastened to scale the wall. the first man who reached the parapet was seen by a sentinel, who was quickly knocked in the head. the whole party, with furious shouts, rushed over the wall, and took possession of the magazine, seized the cannon, and before the besieged could help themselves, had entire control of the castle. but we cannot linger here; so, bidding adieu to dumbarton, with its martial associations, we strike off from the river at right angles, and, after a pleasant ride of four or five miles, through a peaceful and agreeable country, we reach the south end of lochlomond, the "queen of the scottish lakes," where we find a little steamer in waiting, which takes us, and a company of sportsmen, travellers and others, over the placid waves of this magnificent sheet of water. the lake is some thirty miles in length, and of unequal breadth, being sometimes four or five miles, and then again not more than a single mile in width, gorgeously begemmed with verdant and beautifully wooded islands, of larger and smaller size, to the number of thirty, and shaded here and there by mountains, covered with verdure and trees to their summits, or grim cliffs, towering, in solitary grandeur, above the dark and heaving waters beneath. how finely our little steamer dashes the water from her prow, as if she really enjoyed the trip, among the beautiful scenery of this charming lake! what variety of light and shade! what diversity of scene, as isle after isle, bold headland, lofty cliff, or wooded acclivity, meets the gaze! how earth and air and sky, yon fleecy clouds that skirt the horizon, wild crags, and verdant slopes, clumps of trees on the water's edge, islands of green mirroring their foliage in the bosom of the lake, mingle and intermingle in ever varying forms of beauty and grandeur! yonder, too, is benlomond, the genius of the place, towering above the lesser mountains, and looking down, as if protectingly, upon the lake he loves. the shores are exceedingly beautiful; on one side lying low, "undulating with fields and groves, where many a pleasant dwelling is embowered, into lines of hills that gradually soften away into another land. on the other side, sloping back, or overhanging, mounts beautiful in their bareness, for they are green as emerald; others, scarcely more beautiful, studded with fair trees, some altogether woods. they soon form into mountains, and the mountains become more and more majestical, yet beauty never deserts them, and her spirit continues to tame that of the frowning cliffs." "the islands," continues professor wilson, from whom we make this fine extract, "are forever arranging themselves into new forms, every one more and more beautiful; at least so they seem to be, perpetually occurring, yet always unexpected; and there is a pleasure even in such a series of slight surprises that enhances the delight of admiration." the southern part of the lake is the most beautiful, but the northern the most sublime. the channel narrows, and the mountains rise higher and higher, casting dark shadows into the water. for a moment it seems gloomy, but high up in the mountains you discover spots of green; and the sunlight glancing down, between the masses of shadow, lights up the waves of the lake with a strange beauty, as if it were something purer and more spirit-like than the beauty of the ordinary world. but we will stop at the village of luss, near the edge of the lake, surrounded by mountain scenery, in some places rough and bleak, but charmingly diversified by deep wooded glens, and romantic ravines. the sun is sinking behind the western hills--the evening shadows are resting in the vallies, while the tops of those craggy heights around us are still burning with the last rays of departing day. we wander towards the southern part of the parish, with feelings subdued by the magnificent scenery which everywhere meets our gaze, and the solemn stillness which reigns among the mountains, broken only by the tinkling of a small stream winding its way to the lake, as if seeking a home in its bosom, like the soul of a true christian, which is ever tending onward to the infinite and immortal. at length, while the sweet and long continued "gloaming" of the scottish summer envelopes everything in its soft and dubious light, we reach the remains of a large cairn, a mound of stones and earth, called "carn-na-cheasoig," the cairn of st. kessog. here then, according to tradition, lies the dust of st. kessog, who is said to have suffered martyrdom near the site of this cairn, in the sixth century, and who anciently was venerated as the guardian saint of luss. was st. kessog a true martyr? we trust he was, and can easily imagine the cruel but triumphant death of the holy man. at such an hour, and in such a scene, with the shadow of these great, sky-pointing mountains, resting on our spirits, we might almost believe anything; anything, at least, lofty and heart-stirring. it is not surprising that the highlanders are superstitious: but it is surprising that they are not more religious. an infidel or a fanatic among the hills seems an impossibility. nor are the inhabitants of these high regions inclined either to scepticism or fanatacism. but they are ignorant of christianity in its purer forms; and hence are easily subjected to superstitious fears. but we are not yet among the highlanders; for luss and the regions around are naturally subjected to lowland influences. next morning we pass over the lake in a small boat to rowardennan, on the eastern shore, whence we commence the ascent of benlomond, which rises to a height of something more than three thousand feet. the distance from rowardennan to the top is generally reckoned about six miles. wending along the sides of the mountain we gradually ascend to the bare and craggy summit, but not without resting here and there, and stopping to gaze upon the expanding landscape, as it spreads further and further towards the distant seas. we are somewhat fatigued, but how refreshing the mountain breeze, and how exhilarating the magnificent scenery which opens on every side, and absolutely reaches from sea to sea! there, beneath us, like a belt of liquid light, stretches the long and beautiful lochlomond, sparkling under the rays of the sun, fringed with hills, rocks, and woods, and adorned with green isles, reposing on its heaving bosom, like gems of emerald chased in gold. far off are the islands of bute and arran, and nearer the fertile strath-clutha, through which flows the river clyde, adorned with villages, castles and country-seats, the city of glasgow, covered with a misty vapor, the whole of lanarkshire, the city of edinburgh, and the vast and delightful tract of country beyond, the firth of forth, stirling castle, and the links of the forth gliding in peaceful beauty through its green and wooded vale. to the north a scene presents itself of wild and varied grandeur, long ranges of alpine heights, mighty crags towering to the sky, dark lakes, and deep-cloven ravines, wild and desolate moors, straggling forests, and rich secluded vales. near us rises the hoary benvoirloich; and further north, among inferior mountains, bencruachan and bennevis lift their lofty heads. taking a wider range we get a distant glimpse of the wide atlantic, and the coast of green erin, the mountains of cumberland, and the german ocean, washing the north-eastern coasts of scotland. but the eye rests, as if by enchantment, upon the magnificent mountain scenery to the north, inferior only in grandeur and beauty to the mountains of switzerland. "crags, knolls and mounds, confusedly hurled, the fragments of an earlier world; and mountains that like giants stand, to sentinel enchanted land." how elevating such a position, and such scenery. how the soul dilates and rejoices, as if it were a part of the mighty spectacle. ah! this were a place for angels to light upon, and hymn the praise of that infinite being "whose are the mountains, and the vallies, and the resplendent rivers." but it is time to descend, though it would be pleasant, doubtless, to linger here till sunset, and see those mountain heights shining like stars in the departing radiance, while all beneath was covered with shadow; and if the evening were still, to listen to the mingled murmur which ever ascends through the calm air, from a region of streams and torrents. coasting along the lake we reach inversnaid mill at its upper extremity, and securing some highland ponies, little tough shaggy fellows, sure-footed and self-willed, we ramble through a lonely, rock-bound glen, the scene of the feats of rob roy macgregor. in one of the smoky huts of this glen we are shown a long spanish musket, six feet and a half in length, said to have belonged to the famous outlaw, whose original residence was in this lonely region. we also pass the hut in which helen macgregor, his wife, was born and brought up. by forgetting a few years, one can easily imagine the whole region filled with wild 'kilted' highlanders, shouting the war-cry of macdonald, glengarry, or macgregor. the spirit of these wild clans has been admirably depicted by sir walter scott. nothing can be more spirited than his "gathering of clan-gregor," which in this rough glen, seems to gather a peculiar intensity of meaning. "the moon's on the lake, the mist's on the brae, and the clan has a name that is nameless by day; then gather, gather, gather, gregalich! our signal for fight that from monarchs we drew, must be heard but by night in our vengeful haloo; then haloo, gregalich, haloo gregalich! glen orchy's proud mountains, coalchuirn and her towers, glenstrae and glenlyon no longer are ours; we're landless, landless, gregalich! but doomed and devoted by vassal and lord, macgregor has still both his heart and his sword; then courage, courage, courage, gregalich! if they rob us of name, and pursue us with beagles, give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles; then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, gregalich! while there's leaves in the forest, or foam on the river, macgregor despite them, shall flourish forever! come then, gregalich! come then, gregalich! through the depths of lochkatrine the steed shall career, o'er the peak of benlomond the galley shall steer, and the rocks of craig-royston, like icicles melt, ere our wrongs be forgot, or our vengeance unfelt! then gather, gather, gather, gregalich!" we reach lochkatrine, a narrow sheet of water, ten miles in length, winding, in serpentine turns, among the huge mountains which guard it on every side. this, and the wild glen called the trosachs, are embalmed in the poetry of sir walter scott, whose ethereal genius has imparted to them a charm which they would not otherwise possess. wild and grand the scenery certainly is, secluded so far among the mountains, and guarded so wondrously by "rocky summits, split and rent," which, gleaming under the rays of the morning sun, appeared to the eye of poetical inspiration, "like turret, dome or battlement, or seemed fantastically set with cupola or minaret, wild crests as pagod ever deck'd, or mosque of eastern minaret." and not only so, but richly adorned with forest-trees and wild flowers among the rifted rocks and the "smiling glades between," lovelier by far than ever met any but a poet's eye. "boon nature scattered free and wild, each plant or flower, the mountains' child. here eglantine embalmed the air, hawthorne and hazel mingled there; the primrose, pale and violet flower, found in each cliff a narrow bower; foxglove and nightshade, side by side, emblems of punishment and pride, group'd their dark hues with every stain the weather-beaten crags retain. with boughs that quaked at every breath gray birch and aspen wept beneath; aloft the ash and warrior oak, cast anchor in the rifted rock; and higher yet the pine tree hung his shattered trunk, and frequent flung, when seemed the cliffs to mount on high, his boughs athwart the narrow'd sky. highest of all, where white peaks glanced, where glistening streamers waved and danced, the wanderer's eye could barely view the summer heaven's delicious blue; so wondrous wild, the whole might seem the scenery of a fairy dream." the scenery at the east end of lochkatrine, where the lake narrows, like a placid river, under the eye of benvenue, the lower parts of which are richly wooded, is exceedingly beautiful. through the whole of this glen, the highland guides point out the localities and incidents mentioned in the "lady of the lake," as if it were a historical verity. such is the power of genius, which "gives to airy nothings a local habitation and a name." "oh! who would think, in cheerless solitude, who o'er these twilight waters glided slow, that genius, with a time-surviving glow, these wild lone scenes so proudly hath imbued! or that from 'hum of men' so far remote, where blue waves gleam, and mountains darken round, and trees, with broad boughs shed a gloom profound, a poet here should from his trackless thought elysian prospects conjure up, and sing of bright achievement in the olden days, when chieftain valor sued for beauty's praise, and magic virtues charmed st. fillan's spring; until in worlds where chilian mountains raise their cloud-capt heads admiring souls should wing hither their flight, to wilds whereon i gaze." leaving lochkatrine, we pass in a south-easterly direction, through callendar to auchterarder, a parish famous in the annals of the free church of scotland, and thence, travelling through a delightful country, reach "the bonnie town o' perth," which lies so charmingly on the banks of the tay. surrounded by some of the finest scenery in scotland, with kinnoul house and kinfauns castle on the one side, and scone, the old palace in which the kings of scotland were crowned, on the other, clustering with memories of the olden time, and withal being a well-built city, with some venerable churches and handsome public edifices, perth is one of the most interesting places in scotland. moreover, it was anciently the capital of the kingdom, and contains a good many relics of its former glory. here the doctrines of the reformation early took root, and some of the citizens suffered martyrdom for christ's sake. helen stark and her husband, for refusing to pray to the virgin mary, were condemned to die. she desired to be executed with her husband, but her request was refused. on the way to the scaffold, she exhorted him to constancy in the cause of christ, and as she parted with him, said, "husband, be glad; we have lived together many joyful days, and this day of our death we ought to esteem the most joyful of them all, for we shall have joy forever; therefore, i will not bid you good night, for we shall shortly meet in the kingdom of heaven." after the men were executed, helen was taken to a pool of water yard by, when, having recommended her dear children to the charity of her neighbors, her infant having been taken from her breast, "she was drowned, and died," says the historian of the town, "with great courage and comfort." perth rejoices in the possession of two beautiful "commons," or "inches," as they are called, green as emerald, and bordered by long avenues of magnificent trees. the tay gleams through the verdant foliage, and is seen winding, in serene beauty, far down among the rich meadows and smooth lawns which adorn its banks. behind it are the sidlaw hills, and looming up, in the distance, the blue ridges of the grampians. the lands around it are highly cultivated, and support a numerous race of farmers, many of whom have grown rich from the produce of the soil. but the shadows of evening are beginning to fall upon the landscape; to-morrow is "the rest of the holy sabbath," and a comfortable "'tween and supper-time" awaits us at the house of a friend at some distance from perth, which we must immediately leave. chapter xvi. sabbath morning-- 'the sabbath,' by james grahame--sketch of his life--extracts from his poetry--the cameronians--'dream of the martyrs,' by james hislop--sabbath morning walk--country church--the old preacher--the interval of worship--conversation in the church-yard--going home from church--sabbath evening. sabbath morning dawns upon us, bright and clear, and all around a hushed stillness pervades the air. "with silent awe i hail the sacred morn, that scarcely wakes while all the fields are still; a soothing calm on every breeze is borne, a graver murmur echoes from the hill, and softer sings the linnet from the thorn; the skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. hail, light serene! hail, sacred sabbath morn! the sky a placid yellow lustre throws; the gales that lately sighed along the grove have hushed their drowsy wings in dead repose; the hovering rack of clouds forgets to move, so soft the day when the first morn arose." thus sang leyden, the celebrated scholar, poet, and traveller, who, like all true sons of scotland, revered the holy sabbath, regarding it as the best of days, the sweetest, purest, calmest of the seven! the same images, borrowed not from leyden, but from nature and his own heart, are used by grahame, in his delightful poem of 'the sabbath,' a production not without defects, but one of the most popular in scotland. "how still the morning of the hallowed day! mute is the voice of rural labor, hush'd the ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song. the scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers, that yestermorn bloomed waving in the breeze. sounds the most faint attract the ear--the hum of early bee, the trickling of the dew, the distant bleating, midway up the hill. calmness seems throned on yon unmoving cloud. to him who wanders o'er the upland leas, the blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale; and sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook murmurs more gently down the deep-sunk glen; while from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke o'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals the voice of psalm, the simple song of praise." the rev. james grahame, the author of 'the sabbath,' 'the birds of scotland,' 'biblical pictures,' and so forth, was born in , in the city of glasgow. he studied law, but afterwards took orders in the church of england, and officiated as curate in the counties of gloucester and durham. he is said to have been a popular and useful preacher. possessed of great simplicity of character, purity of morals, and kindness of heart, he won the affections of all his parishioners. suffering from ill health, he gave up his curacy, and returned to scotland, where he acted, we believe, as a school-teacher. his poems, particularly that of 'the sabbath,' attracted much attention in his native land, which he dearly loved. a deep religious vein pervades the whole. attached to the ritual of his own church, he could yet appreciate the solemn 'hill worship' of the covenanters. his descriptions of scottish scenery are accurate and beautiful. his sabbath is the sabbath of scotland. all its pictures are drawn from real life. his verse may seem prosaic at times, but it is melodious as a whole. nothing can be more natural or agreeable, in its easy gentle flow. moreover, it often sparkles with original turns of thought, and felicitous expressions. an interesting anecdote is told of grahame in connection with the publication of 'the sabbath.' he had finished the poem, and sent it to the press unknown to his wife. when it was issued he brought her a copy, and requested her to read it. as his name was not prefixed to the work, she did not dream that he had anything to do with it. as she went on reading, the sensitive author walked up and down the room. at length she broke out in praise of the poem, and turning to him said: "ah! james, if you could but produce a poem like this." judge then of her delighted surprise when told that he was its author. the effect upon her is said to have been almost overwhelming. after describing the solemn and delightful worship of god's house, particularly the music, ascending in 'a thousand notes symphonious,' he touchingly adds: "afar they float, wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch: raised on his arm, he lists the cadence close, yet thinks he hears it still: his heart is cheered; he smiles on death; but, ah! a wish will rise-- would i were now beneath that echoing roof! no lukewarm accents from my lips would flow; my heart would sing: and many a sabbath day my steps should thither turn; or wandering far in solitary paths, where wild flowers blow, then would i bless his name who led me forth from death's dark vale, to walk amid those sweets-- who gives the bloom of health once more to glow upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye." his description of the shepherd boy's sabbath worship among the hills is a passage of great beauty. "it is not only in the sacred fane that homage should be paid to the most high; there is a temple, one not made with hands, the vaulted firmament. far in the woods, almost beyond the sound of city chime, at intervals heard through the breezeless air; when not the limberest leaf is seen to move, save when the linnet lights upon the spray when not a flow'ret bends its little stalk, save when a bee alights upon the bloom-- then rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love the man of god will pass his sabbath noon; silence his praise; his disembodied thoughts loosed from the load of words, will high ascend beyond the empyrean. nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne, the sabbath service of the shepherd boy! in some lone glen, when every sound is lulled to slumber, save the tinkling of the rill, or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry, stretched on the sward, he reads of jesse's son; or sheds a tear o'er him to egypt sold, and wonders why he weeps: the volume closed, with thyme sprig laid between the leaves, he sings the sacred lays, his weekly lesson conned with meikle care beneath the lowly roof, where humble love is learnt, where humble worth pines unrewarded by a thankless state. thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen, the shepherd boy the sabbath holy keeps, till on the heights he marks the straggling bands returning homeward from the house of prayer." the hill worship of the covenanters is also described with much beauty and pathos. "with them each day was holy, every hour they stood prepared to die, a people doomed to death--old men, and youths, and simple maids. with them each day was holy; but that morn on which the angel said, 'see where the lord was laid,' joyous arose--to die that day was bliss. long ere the dawn, by devious ways, o'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought the upland moors, where rivers, there but brooks dispart to different seas. fast by such brooks a little glen is sometimes scooped, a plat with greensward gay, and flowers that strangers seem amid the heathery wild, that all around fatigues the eye: in solitudes like these thy persecuted children, scotia, foiled a tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws; there, leaning on his spear, (one of the array that in the times of old had scathed the rose on england's banner, and had powerless struck the infatuate monarch and his wavering host, yet ranged itself to aid his son dethroned,) the lyart veteran heard the word of god by cameron thundered, or by renwick poured in gentle stream: then rose the song, the loud acclaim of praise; the wheeling plover ceased her plaint; the solitary place was glad. and on the distant cairns, the watcher's ear caught doubtfully at times, the breeze-borne note. but years more gloomy followed, and no more the assembled people dared, in face of day, to worship god, or even at the dead of night, save when the wint'ry storm raved fierce, and thunder peals compelled the men of blood to crouch within their dens, then dauntlessly the scattered few would meet, in some deep dell by rocks o'ercanopied, to hear the voice, their faithful pastor's voice: he, by the gleam of sheeted lightning, oped the sacred book, and words of comfort spoke: over their souls his accents soothing came--as to her young the heathfowl's plumes, when at the close of eve she gathers in her mournful brood, dispersed by murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads fondly her wings, close nestling 'neath her breast they cherished, cower amid the purple blooms." this is finely pictured; and, coming from a member of the episcopal church, does honor to his heart and head. sir walter scott has somewhat injured the memory of the scottish covenanters, by presenting the darker features of their character, and forgetting utterly their earnest piety, their generous fervor, their heroic endurance. many of them, doubtless, were deficient in high-bred courtesy and learned refinement. others were narrow-minded and superstitious. but the great mass of them were men of lofty faith, of generous self-sacrifice. they feared god, and perilled their lives for freedom, in the high places of the field. "lately," says a vigorous writer in blackwood's magazine, "the mighty warlock of caledonia has shed a natural and a supernatural light round the founders of the cameronian dynasty; and as his business was to grapple with the ruder and fiercer portion of their character, the gentle graces of their nature were not called into action, and the storm and tempest and thick darkness of john balfour of burley, have darkened the whole breathing congregation of the cameronians, and turned their sunny hillside into a dreary desert." it requires men of no ordinary character to become martyrs for principle, especially when that principle is one of the highest order, and has been chosen calmly, deliberately, and in the fear of god. when such men go forth to defend the right, and shed their life's blood for its enthronement, their's is no vulgar enthusiasm, no unnatural and infuriate fanaticism. read the following from james hislop, once a poor shepherd boy, and afterwards a school-teacher, written near the grave of the pious and redoubtable cameron, and several of his followers, slain by tyrants in the moor of aird's-moss, and say whether such martyrs for truth are worthy of our reverence! "in a dream of the night i was wafted away to the muirland of mist where the martyrs lay, where cameron's sword and his bible are seen, engraved on the stone where the heather grows green. 'twas a dream of those ages of darkness and blood, when the minister's home was the mountain and wood; when in wellwood's dark valley the standard of zion, all bloody and torn 'mong the heather was lying. 'twas morning, and summer's young sun from the east lay in loving repose on the green mountain's breast; on wardlaw and cairntable the clear shining dew, glistened there 'mong the heath bells and mountain flowers blue. and far up in heaven near the white sunny cloud, the song of the lark was melodious and loud, and in glenmuir's wild solitude, lengthened and deep, were the whistling of plovers and bleating of sheep. and wellwood's sweet valley breathed music and gladness, the fresh meadow blooms hung in beauty and redness; its daughters were happy to hail the returning, and drink the delights of july's sweet morning. but oh! there were hearts cherished far other feelings, illumed by the light of prophetic revealings, who drank from the scenery of beauty but sorrow, for they knew that their blood would bedew it to-morrow. 'twas the few faithful ones, who with cameron were lying concealed 'mong the mist where the heathfowl was flying, for the horsemen of earlshall around them were hovering, and their bridle reins rung through the thin misty covering. their faces grew pale, and their swords were unsheathed, but the vengeance that darkened their brow was unbreathed; with eyes turned to heaven, in calm resignation, they sung their last song to the god of salvation. the hills with the deep mournful music were ringing, the curlew and plover in concert were singing: but the melody died 'mid derision and laughter, as the host of ungodly rushed on to the slaughter. though in mist and in darkness and fire they were shrouded, yet the souls of the righteous were calm and unclouded, their dark eyes flashed lightning, as firm and unbending, they stood like the rock which the thunder is rending. the muskets were flashing, the blue swords were gleaming, the helmets were cleft, and the red blood was streaming, the heavens grew dark, and the thunder was rolling, when in wellwood's dark muirlands the mighty were falling. when the righteous had fallen, and the combat was ended, a chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended, its drivers were angels on horses of whiteness, and its burning wheels turned on axles of brightness. a seraph unfolded its doors bright and shining, all dazzling like gold of the seventh refining, and the souls that came forth out of great tribulation have mounted the chariot and steeds of salvation. on the arch of the rainbow the chariot is gliding, through the path of the thunder the horsemen are riding; glide swiftly, bright spirits! the prize is before ye, a crown never fading, a kingdom of glory!" but we are forgetting ourselves; and as we propose spending the sabbath in a small country hamlet, at some distance, we must be off immediately. it would be gratifying to return to perth and hear some of the clergymen there, dr. young especially, who is a preacher of great depth and energy; but the sabbath will be sweeter amidst the woods and hills. we enter a quiet unfrequented road, skirting around those fine clumps of trees, and that green hill to the west, and after wandering a few miles, we pass into a narrow vale, through which a small wooded stream makes its noiseless way, and adorned on either side with rich green slopes, clumps of birches, and tufts of flowering broom. as you ascend the vale, it gradually widens, the acclivities on either side recede to a considerable distance, and the road, taking a sudden turn, runs over the hill to the left, and dives into a sort of natural amphitheatre, formed by the woods and braes around it. on the further side you descry a small antique-looking church, with two or three huge ash trees, and one or two silver larches shading it, at one end, a pretty mansion built of freestone, and handsomely slated, at a little distance at the other. approaching, we find a few stragglers, as if in haste, entering the church door; the bell has ceased tolling, and the service probably is about to commence. we enter, and find seats near the door. how tenderly and solemnly that old minister, with his bland look, and silver locks, reads the eighty-fourth psalm, and how reverently the whole congregation, with book in hand, follow him to the close. a precentor, as he is called, sitting in a sort of desk under the pulpit, strikes the tune, and all, young and old, rich and poor, immediately accompany him. the minister then offers a prayer, in simple scripture language, somewhat long, but solemn and affecting. he then reads another psalm, which is sung, as the first was, by the whole congregation, and with such earnest and visible delight, that you feel at once that their hearts are in the service. the preacher then rises in the pulpit and reads the twenty-third psalm, as the subject of his exposition, or lecture, as the scottish preachers uniformly style their morning's discourse. his exposition is plain and practical, occasionally rising to the pathetic and beautiful. ah, how sweetly he dwells upon the good shepherd of the sheep, and how tenderly he depicts the security and repose of the good man passing through the dark valley and the shadow of death. his reverend look, the tremulous tones of his voice, his scottish accent, and occasionally scottish phrases, his abundant use of scriptural quotations, and a certain oriental cast of mind, derived, no doubt, from intimate communion with prophets and apostles, invest his discourse with a peculiar charm. it is not learned; neither is it original and profound; but it is _good_, good for the heart--good for the conscience and the life. old preachers, like old wine, in our humble opinion, are by far the best. their freedom from earthly ambition, their deep experience of men and things, their profound acquaintance with their own heart, their evident nearness to heaven, their natural simplicity and authority, their reverend looks and tremulous tones, all unite to invest their preaching with a peculiar spiritual interest, such as seldom attaches to that of young divines. everything, of course, depends upon personal character, and a young preacher may be truly pious, and thus speak with much simplicity and power. but, other things being equal, old preachers and old physicians, old friends and old places possess qualities peculiar to themselves. after the sermon, prayer is offered, and the whole congregation unite in a psalm of praise. the interval of worship, it is announced, will be one hour. a portion of the congregation return to their homes, but most of them remain. some repair to a house of refreshment in the neighborhood, where they regale themselves on the simplest fare, such as bread and milk, or bread and beer. others wander off, in parties, to the green woods or sunny knolls around, and seated on the greensward, eat their bread and cheese, converse about the sermon, or such topics as happen to interest them most. the younger people and children are inclined to ramble, but are not permitted to do so. yet the little fellows will romp, '_a very little_,' and occasionally run off, but not so far as to be beyond call. a large number of the people have gone into the grave-yard connected with the church. some are seated on the old flat tombstones, others on the greensward, dotted all around with the graves of their fathers. see that group there. the old man, with "lyart haffets" and broad bonnet, looks like one of the old covenanters. the old lady, evidently his wife, wears a sort of hooded cloak, from which peeps forth a nicely plaited cap of lace, which wonderfully sets off her demure but agreeable features. these young people around them are evidently their children and grandchildren. how contented they look, and how reverently they listen to the old man. let us draw near, and hear the conversation. "why, grandfaither," says one of the younger lads, "don't you think the auld covenanters were rather sour kind o' bodies?" "sour!" replies the old man, "they had eneuch to mak' them sour. hunted from mountain to mountain, like wild beasts, it's nae wonder if they felt waefu' at times, or that they let human passion gain a moment's ascendancy. but they were guid men for a' that. they were the chosen o' god, and wrastled hard against principalities and powers, against the rulers o' the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. reading their lives, i've aften thocht they must ha'e been kind o' inspired. like the auld prophets and martyrs, they were very zealous for the lord god, and endured, cheerfully, mair distress and tribulation than we can well imagine." "weel, weel!" says one of the girls, "i wish they had been a wee bit gentler in their ways, and mair charitable to their enemies." "ah, nancy," is the quick reply of the old man, "ye ken but little about it. a fine thing it is for us, sitting here in this peacefu' kirk-yard, wi' nane to molest us or mak' us afraid, to talk about gentleness and charity. but the auld covenanters had to encounter fire and steel. they wandered over muir and fell, in poverty and sorrow, being destitute, afflicted, tormented. but oh, my bairns! they loved and served the lord! they endured as seeing him who is invisible; and when they cam' to dee, they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer for his name. nae doot, some of them were carnal men, and ithers o' them had great imperfections. but the maist o' them were unco holy men, men o' prayer, men o' faith, aye, and men of charity of whom the world was not worthy." this answer silences all objections. but the bell, from the old church tower, begins to toll. "slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground, the aged man, the bowed down, the blind led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes with pain, and eyes the new-made grave, well-pleased, these, mingled with the young, the gay, approach the house of god--these, spite of all their ills, a glow of gladness feel; with silent praise they enter in; a placid stillness reigns, until the man of god, worthy the name, opens the book, and reverentially the stated portion reads." the services of the afternoon are much the same as those of the morning, except that the preacher comments briefly on the portion of scripture read at the opening of the service, and delivers a regular discourse, from a single text. the congregation follow the preacher with evident attention, and look up in their bibles, which all have in their hands, the passages of scripture cited as proofs and illustrations. this, with an occasional cough, and a little rustling from the children, are the only sounds which break the solemn stillness of the scene. dismissed, with a solemn benediction, all take their several ways homeward. the sun is going down; but its mellow light yet lingers upon the uplands, and tinges the foliage of the trees with supernal tints. a sabbath stillness reigns over hill and dale. the very trees appear to slumber; the birds are silent, except a single thrush, which, in the deep recesses of that shadowy copsewood, appears to be singing "her hymn to the evening." a little later, you might hear the voice of psalms from the low thatched cottage, on the hillside or in the glen. for, in scotland, family worship is generally maintained, and singing, in which the whole family join, always forms a part of the exercises. "they chant their artless notes in simple guise; they tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; perhaps _dundee's_ wild warbling measures rise, or plaintive _martyrs_, worthy of the name, or noble _elgin_ beets the heavenward flame, the sweetest far of scotia's holy lays." wandering thus, through the fields, with sabbath influences all around us, it is impossible not to be grateful and devout. a holy calm steals upon the mind--a heavenly beatitude, akin to that of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. "oh scotland! much i love thy tranquil dales; but most on sabbath eve, when low the sun slants through the upland copse, 'tis my delight, wandering and stopping oft, to hear the song of kindred praise arise from humble roofs; or when the simple service ends, to hear the lifted latch, and mark the grey-haired man, the father and the priest, walk forth alone into his garden plat and little field, to commune with his god in secret prayer-- to bless the lord that in his downward years his children are about him: sweet, meantime the thrush that sings upon the aged thorn, brings to his view the days of youthful years, when that same aged thorn was but a bush! nor is the contrast between youth and age to him a painful thought; he joys to think his journey near a close; heaven is his home." thus, in his own simple and charming style, grahame describes the sabbath evening. so beautiful it is, so sabbath-like, in its spirit and tone, that we venture one extract more. "now, when the downward sun has left the glens, each mountain's rugged lineaments are traced upon the adverse slope, where stalks gigantic the shepherd's shadow, thrown athwart the chasm, as on the topmost ridge he homeward hies. how deep the hush! the torrent's channel dry, presents a stony steep, the echo's haunt. but hark, a plaintive sound floating along! 'tis from yon heath-roofed shieling; now it dies away, now rises full; it is the song which he, who listens to the hallelujahs of choiring seraphim, delights to hear; it is the music of the heart, the voice of venerable age, of guileless youth, in kindly circle seated on the ground before their wicker door. behold the man, the grandsire and the saint; his silvery locks beam in the parting ray; before him lies, upon the smooth-cropt sward the open book, his comfort, stay, and ever new delight; while heedless at his side, the lisping boy fondles the lamb that nightly shares his couch." chapter xvii. lochleven--escape of queen mary from lochleven castle--michael bruce--sketch of his life--boyhood--college life--poetry--"lochleven"--sickness--"ode to spring"--death--"ode to the cuckoo." pursuing our journey southward, next day finds us on the banks of lochleven, distinguished not so much from the beauty of its situation, as from its poetic and historical associations. it is adorned with four small islands, the principal of which are st. serf's isle near the east end, so called from its having been the site of a priory dedicated to st. serf, and another near the shore on the west side, which immediately attracts the eye, from its containing the picturesque ruins of lochleven castle, in which mary, queen of scots, was confined, and from which she made her wonderful escape. here, also, patrick graham, archbishop of st. andrews, and grandson of robert the third, was imprisoned, in consequence of a generous attempt to reform the profligate lives of the catholic clergy. in this place he died, and was buried in the monastery of st. serf. the keys of the castle, thrown into the lake at the time of queen mary's flight, have recently been found by a young man belonging to kinross, and are now in the possession of the earl of morton. the castle, with its massive tower yet standing, looks dismal enough, but how much it is beautified by the fine old trees and shrubbery which encircle it, and the mellow light which mantles its hoary sides! "gothic the pile, and high the solid walls, with warlike ramparts, and the strong defence of jutting battlements: an age's toil! no more its arches echo to the noise of joy and festive mirth. no more the glance of blazing taper through its window beams, and quivers on the undulating wave; but naked stand the melancholy walls, lash'd by the wint'ry tempest, cold and bleak that whistles mournful through the empty halls and piecemeal crumble down the towers to dust." this description is by michael bruce, whose early promise and premature death have awakened so much sympathy among all classes in scotland. he was born in the vicinity of lochleven, and has written a poem of considerable merit descriptive of the lake and surrounding scenery. his "ode to spring," and especially his "ode to the cuckoo," now universally acknowledged to be his, are among the most beautiful poems in the english language. he was born at kinnesswood, parish of portmoak, on the th of march, . by going round to the north-east bank of the lake, we shall find this village, insignificant in itself, but sweetly situated on the south-west declivity of the lomond hills. ascending a narrow lane, we reach, near its centre, the house in which bruce was born. it consists of two stories, with a thatched roof. michael's parents were very poor, and occupied only the upper part of the house, which served them at once for a workshop and dwelling. "a true nestling place of genius," exclaims his biographer, quoting the words of washington irving respecting the birth-place of shakspeare, "which delights to hatch its offspring in bye corners." mean as it is, an angelic soul has been here, and a charm lingers upon its homely walls. dr. huie of edinburgh has given the following touching account of a visit which he paid to this place, in company with one of bruce's old friends. "on returning," says he, "from portmoak church-yard, where bruce is buried, i attended my venerable guide to the lowly dwelling where the parents of the poet resided. we first entered the garden: 'this,' said mr. b. 'was a spot of much interest to michael. here he used alternately to work and to meditate. there stood a row of trees which he particularly cherished, but they are now cut down,' added the good old man, and as he said this, he sighed. 'here again,' said he, 'was a bank of soft grass on which michael was accustomed to recline after he became too weak to walk; and here his father would sit beside him in the evening, and read to amuse him.' we next entered the house. i experienced an involuntary feeling of awe when i found myself in the humble abode, where neglected worth and talents had pined away and died. the little square windows cast but a feeble light over the apartment, and the sombre shades of evening, for the sun had now set, were strikingly in unison with the scene. 'there,' said my conductor, 'auld saunders used to sit at his loom. in that corner stood the bed where the auld couple slept, in this the bed which was occupied by michael, and in which he died,' the good old man's eyes filled as he spoke. i found it necessary to wipe my own. i was not ashamed of my tears. they were a tribute to departed genius, and there was nothing unmanly in their flow." saunders bruce, as he was called, the father of michael, had eight children, and as the business of weaving has always been a poor one in scotland, it was with extreme difficulty that he was enabled to give michael a suitable education, though early perceiving in him the seeds of genius. saunders was a pious thoughtful man, universally respected, and a sort of village chronicle. he is supposed to be referred to in the poem of lochleven, in the lines commencing,-- "i knew an aged swain whose hoary head was bent with years, the village chronicle," etc. of his mother we have no means of forming a judgment, and suspect that her character was not particularly marked. it is his father to whom michael himself, and the friends that knew him, chiefly refer in connection with his early studies and pursuits. some indeed have intimated that the stern orthodoxy of the old man was called into requisition to repress the youthful aspirings of his son, particularly in the matter of books, but of this not the slightest evidence can be adduced. he succeeded in procuring copies of shakspeare, pope, milton, fontenelle and young, all of which he devoured with avidity and delight. the scriptures he read at home and at school, and thus became familiar with the magnificent images and thrilling conceptions of oriental inspiration. michael was a great favorite at school, and made rapid progress in his studies. but he was frequently called away from school, partly by sickness, to which he was subject at an early age, and partly by his fathers straitened circumstances. on this latter account he was employed for a time as a shepherd, on the lomond hills, which rise in verdant beauty behind his native village. this, however, was rather a benefit than an injury to his mind as well as body. his poem of "lochleven" is made up of reminiscences of the romantic scenes with which at that time he became familiar:-- "where he could trace the cowslip-covered bank of leven, and the landscape measure round." "the late proprietor of the upper kinneston, a small estate upon the south-west declivity of the lomond hills, used to relate with much feeling, the amusing stories told him, and the strange questions put to him by michael when herding his father's cattle, and how he would offer his services to carry the boys' meals to the hill, for the sake of having half an hour's conversation with this interesting youth."[ ] while his progress in learning was much interrupted in this way, his mind was advancing, nevertheless, by communion with nature and his own individual heart. besides, his frequent absence from school was compensated by the prosecution of his studies on the hillside, or by his father's ingle, so that when he returned to school, it took him but a few days to reach the top of his class. though modest, and even shy, he had great influence with his school-fellows. somehow they regarded him as a sort of superior being, and his word among them was law. this, doubtless, arose from the originality of his character, which developed itself at a very early age. [footnote : memoir of bruce, by dr. mackelvie, to which i am chiefly indebted for the facts of which the accompanying sketch is composed.] "silent when glad, affectionate though shy, and now his look was most demurely sad, and now he laughed aloud, and none knew why, and neighbors stared and sighed, and bless'd the lad; some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad." beattie's minstrel. the same deference, it is said, was paid him at home. indeed, he was the pet of the family, and all vied to make michael comfortable and happy, a homage to genius and worth infinitely more precious than the plaudits of the world. while attending school, he formed some interesting friendships, particularly with william arnot, a peculiarly amiable young man, who died in early life, and to whom bruce makes a touching reference in "lochleven." through the son he became acquainted with the father, a wise and liberal man, who greatly assisted michael in his studies, and gave him the free use of his library. it is to him the following description refers. "how blest the man, who, in these peaceful plains, ploughs his paternal field; far from the noise, the care and bustle of a busy world! all in the sacred, sweet, sequestered vale of solitude, the secret primrose path of rural life he dwells; and with him dwells peace and content, twins of the sylvan shade, and all the graces of the golden age. such is agricola, the wise, the good; by nature formed for the calm retreat, the silent path of life. learned, but not fraught with self-importance, as the starched fool who challenges respect by solemn face, by studied accent, and high-sounding phrase, enamored of the shade, but not morose, politeness, raised in courts by frigid rules with him spontaneous grows. not books alone, but man his study, and the better part; to tread the ways of virtue, and to act the various scenes of life with god's applause. deep in the bottom of the flowery vale, with blooming sallows, and the leafy twine of verdant alders fenced, his dwelling stands complete in rural elegance. the door by which the poor or pilgrim never passed still open, speaks the master's bounteous heart. then, o how sweet! amid the fragrant shrubs, at evening cool to sit; while, on their boughs the nested songsters twitter o'er their young; and the hoarse low of folded cattle breaks the silence, wafted o'er the sleeping lakes, whose waters glow beneath the purple tinge of western cloud; while converse sweet deceives the stealing foot of time!" he found an opportunity of acquiring the latin language and preparing for college, with a mr. dun, who, for the sake of his son, formed a class of boys, of which michael was decidedly the best scholar, as all acknowledged. but he was of a slender make, and gave early indications of pulmonary consumption. in his personal appearance he is said to have resembled shelley; having yellowish curling hair, a long neck and narrow chest, skin white and shining, and his cheeks "tinged with red rather than ruddy." he was "early smitten with the love of song," and began occasionally to write verses. possessed of a fine musical ear, he was impatient to get hold of all sorts of old ballads and songs; and while the other children of the village or school were amusing themselves with play, or spending their money on trash, he was poring with delighted eyes over "chevy chase," or "the flowers of the forest." when he had made himself familiar with the music and sentiments of these ballads, he would endeavor "to supply his lack of novelty with verses of his own." it is in this way, probably, that his fine ballad of "sir james the ross," and some of his pastorals originated. after he had left school, and saw no way of pursuing his studies, a relative left him the sum of two hundred merks scots, about sixty dollars, when it was resolved forthwith that michael should repair to edinburgh university. mr. arnot encouraged him in this enterprise, and promised some assistance, in the shape of provisions and so forth. accordingly he set out for the metropolis, and entered college. but he was often subjected to severe privations. some of his fellow students who suspected his poverty were willing to share their meals with him, but he could not bear the thought of being fed out of pity, and whenever he imagined the invitation to proceed from this feeling he uniformly declined it. he was high-spirited; and yet he was truly pious. indeed, he had devoted himself to heaven in his boyhood, and never swerved from the high principles of christian integrity. at college bruce became acquainted with several young men who subsequently acquired distinction. dr. lawson and the rev. john logan were his fellow students and warmly attached friends. his relations with logan subsequently became involved, much to the discredit of the latter, who is suspected of having dealt ungenerously with his friend's poems, which, after the death of bruce, were committed to his care. he is charged particularly with purloining the "ode to the cuckoo," and publishing it as his own. logan was a singular man--an orator of a high order, an accomplished scholar, and an elegant poet. some of his poems, particularly his "visit to the country in autumn," "the braes of yarrow," "the lament of nature," and other odes and hymns, are beautiful and finished productions. some of his discourses, preached at leith, though not profound, are eloquent and effective. but he was imperfectly imbued with the high principles which he endeavored to recommend to others, and he has greatly tarnished his fair fame by the use which he is supposed to have made of the labors of bruce. it is probable, however, that the "ode to the cuckoo" was only drafted by bruce, and subsequently polished into its present state of perfection by the classic pen of logan. the companion to whom, of all others, bruce became the most attached at college, was mr. william dryburgh, from dysart. like bruce, he was possessed of piety and genius, and like him, too, suffered from pulmonary disease, and died in early life. both had a presentiment that they were destined to a premature grave. and this, with their bright hope of a blessed immortality, was the frequent subject of their conversations. dryburgh died in his eighteenth year, and bruce followed him in less than a year after. how keenly he felt this separation may be gathered from the following letter to a friend, written on receiving the intelligence of dryburgh's death:-- "i have not many friends, but i love them well. death has been among the few i have. poor dryburgh!--but he is happy. i expected to have been his companion through life, and that we should have stepped into the grave together; but heaven has seen meet to dispose of him otherwise. what think you of this world? i think it very little worth. you and i have not a great deal to make us fond of it; and yet i would not exchange my condition with any unfeeling fool in the universe, if i were to have his dull hard heart into the bargain. farewell, my rival in immortal hope! my companion, i trust, for eternity! though far distant, i take thee to my heart; souls suffer no separation from the obstruction of matter, or distance of place. oceans may roll between us, and climates interpose in vain--the whole material creation is no bar to the winged mind. farewell! through boundless ages, fare thee well! may'st thou shine when the sun is darkened. may'st thou live and triumph when time expires! it is at least possible that we meet no more in this foreign land, in this gloomy apartment of the universe of god. but there is a better world in which we may meet to part no more. adieu." but the grief of a true poet embodies itself in verse. the following lines, on the death of dryburgh, were found among bruce's papers. alas! we fondly thought that heaven designed his bright example mankind to improve; all they should be was pictured in his mind, his thoughts were virtue, and his heart was love. calm as the summer sun's unruffled face, he looked unmoved on life's precarious game, and smiled at mortals toiling in the chase of empty phantoms, opulence and fame. steady he followed virtue's onward path, inflexible to error's devious way, and firm at last, in hope and fixed faith through death's dark vale he trod without dismay. whence then these sighs? and whence this falling tear in sad remembrance of his merit just? still must i mourn! for he to me was dear and still is dear, though buried in the dust. bruce's father made great efforts, by means of saving and borrowing, to assist his son during his college course, and mr. arnot continued to send him occasional supplies from his farm and dairy. but he was sadly straitened in the matter of books. the following letter upon this subject is characteristic and striking. "edinburgh, nov. , .--i daily meet with proofs that money is a necessary evil. when in an auction, i often say to myself, how happy should i be if i had money to purchase such a book! how well should my library be furnished, 'nisi obstat res angusta domi,' 'my lot forbids, nor circumscribes alone my growing virtues, but my crimes confines.' whether any virtues would have accompanied me in a more elevated station is uncertain, but that a number of vices of which my sphere is incapable, would have been its attendants, is unquestionable. the supreme wisdom has seen this meet, and the supreme wisdom cannot err." the annual session in the colleges of scotland lasts only from six to eight months, and thus leaves considerable time for relaxation and private study, or for other occupations necessary to recruit the students' exhausted finances. at the end of each of these terms, michael returned home, much exhausted by his application to study. his system, however, soon recovered its wonted energy in the congenial scenes of his boyhood, and the kind attentions of the proprietor of portmoak. still he was seldom in perfect health, and often complained of headache and depression of spirits. most of his time during the summer months, the season of vacation, was spent either in reading or in writing poetry. during his last session at college, michael accepted a proposal to teach a small school at gairney bridge, which lies on a small stream running into lochleven. he finished his collegiate studies honorably, having distinguished himself chiefly in _rhetoric_ and _belles lettres_. at gairney bridge he had some thirty or forty pupils under his care, whom he governed entirely without the rod, then pretty thoroughly used in scotland. but the compensation was a mere trifle, not exceeding more than sixty or seventy dollars a year. it was in this place that he wrote several of his poems, and became deeply attached to a beautiful young woman in the neighborhood, to whom, however, he never declared his passion. about this time he joined the church in kinross, under the pastoral care of the rev. mr. swanston, recently appointed professor of theology in the united secession church. this learned and amiable man conceived a strong attachment for michael, and ever treated him with the greatest consideration and kindness. subsequently he engaged to teach a school at forest mill, a dreary sort of place, with miserable school accommodations. his health too, was declining. while fording the devon on horseback, the horse stumbled and immersed him in the stream, a circumstance which greatly aggravated his consumptive tendency. moreover he was disappointed in his school, and his health and spirits rapidly declined. in a letter to mr. arnot, he says, "i expected to be happy here, but i am not. the easiest part of my life is past. i sometimes compare my condition with that of others, and imagine if i was in theirs it would be well. but is not everybody thus! perhaps he whom i envy thinks he would be glad to change with me, and yet neither would be better for the change. since it is so, let us, my friend, moderate our hopes and fears, resign ourselves to the will of him who doeth all things well, and who hath assured us that he careth for us. 'si res sola potest facere et servare beatum hoc primus repetas opus, hoc postremus omittas.' "things are not very well in the world, but they are pretty well. they might have been worse, and such as they are may please us who have but a few short days to use them. this scene of affairs, though a very perplexed, is a very short one, and in a little while all will be cleared up. let us endeavor to please god, our fellow creatures and ourselves. in such a course of life we shall be as happy as we can expect in such a world as this. thus you, who cultivate your farm with your own hands, and i who teach a dozen blockheads for bread, may be happier than he, who having more than he can use, tortures his brain to invent some new methods of killing himself with the superfluity." in this letter, worthy of cowper or of foster, we see a brave spirit struggling with the direst misfortunes, poverty and disease, and overcoming both by the silent might of a believing spirit. another thing which greatly afflicted bruce at forest mill, was the total want of agreeable scenery, and it was only by an effort of memory and imagination that he could, in some measure make up this deficiency, by recalling the delightful scenery of his early home. to this combination of unfavorable circumstances he touchingly refers in the poem of lochleven, which was actually produced under their influence, as a means of relaxation and enjoyment. "thus sang the youth amid unfertile wilds, and nameless deserts, unpoetic ground! far from his friends he strayed, recording thus the dear remembrance of his native fields, to cheer the tedious night, while slow disease preyed on his pining vitals, and the blasts of dark december shook his humble cot." "lochleven" is his longest, and in most respects, his most beautiful poem. it has defects, obvious enough to a critical eye, but its general excellence strikes every reader. its descriptions and delineations are natural and striking, its imagery is simple and poetical, and its measure sweet and melodious. nearly the whole of it has been "used up," in beautiful extracts by different writers of distinction. but the composition of this poem seems to have been too much for bruce's shattered frame; for he was compelled almost immediately to relinquish his school. he had just strength to walk home to kinnesswood, a distance of nearly twenty miles, resting only a short time at turf-hills on the way. though nowhere on earth could he be happier than in the humble cottage of his parents, it was yet the worst place in the world for his disease. "the vapors rising from the lake," says his biographer, "particularly in spring, keep the atmosphere constantly in a state of moisture, whilst in the mornings and evenings the eastern haars, as the fogs which come up from the sea are called by the inhabitants, come rolling down the hills, and hang suspended over kinnesswood like a dripping curtain." he had expected, in the quiet of his father's home and in the vicinity of his dear lochleven, a restoration of health; but in this hope he was disappointed. the mark of death was upon him. the heart of the beauteous tree was poisoned by disease, and all its leaves faded and fell to the ground. it was under the consciousness of this fact, that he wrote his beautiful and affecting "ode to spring," which he sent to a dear friend to apprise him of his approaching dissolution. the following are its concluding stanzas. now spring returns: but not to me returns the vernal joy my better years have known; dim in my breast, life's dying taper burns, and all the joys of life with health are flown. starting and shivering in the inconstant wind, meagre and pale, the ghost of what i was, beneath some blasted tree i lie reclined, and count the silent moments as they pass: the winged moments, whose unstaying speed no art can stop, or in their course arrest; whose flight shall shortly count me with the dead, and lay me down in peace with them at rest. oft morning dreams presage approaching fate; and morning dreams, as poets tell, are true; led by pale ghosts, i enter death's dark gate, and bid the realms of light and life adieu. i hear the helpless wail, the shriek of wo; i see the muddy wave, the dreary shore, the sluggish streams that slowly sleep below, which mortals visit, and return no more. farewell, ye blooming fields! ye cheerful plains! enough for me the church-yard's lonely mound, where melancholy with still silence reigns, and the rank grass waves o'er the cheerless ground. there let me wander at the shut of eve, when sleep sits dewy on the laborer's eyes; the world and all its busy follies leave, and talk with wisdom where my daphne lies. there let me sleep, forgotten in the clay, when death shall shut these weary, aching eyes; rest in the hopes of an eternal day, till the long night is gone, and the last morn arise. he intimated his approaching death to another friend, in prose, as affecting as his poetry, and if possible, more instructive. "a few mornings ago, as i was taking a walk on an eminence which commands a view of the forth, with the vessels sailing along, i sat down, and taking out my latin bible, opened by accident, at a place in the book of job, chap, ix: , 'now my days are passed away as the swift ships.' shutting the book, i fell a musing on this affecting comparison. whether the following happened to me in a dream or waking reverie i cannot tell, but i fancied myself on the bank of a river or sea, the opposite side of which was hid from view, being involved in clouds of mist. on the shore stood a multitude, which no man could number, waiting for passage. i saw a great many ships taking in passengers, and several persons going about in the garb of pilots, offering their service. being ignorant, and curious to know what all these things meant, i applied to a grave old man who stood by giving instructions to the departing passengers. his name, i remember, was the genius of human life. 'my son,' said he, 'you stand on the banks of the stream of time. all these people are bound for eternity, that undiscovered country whence no traveller ever returns. the country is very large, and divided into two parts, the one is called the _land of glory_, the other the _kingdom of darkness_. the names of those in the garb of pilots, are _religion_, _virtue_, _pleasure_. they who are so wise as to choose religion for their guide, have a safe, though frequently a rough passage; they are at last landed in the happy climes where sorrow and sighing forever flee away. they have likewise a secondary director, _virtue_; but there is a spurious virtue, who pretends to govern by himself; but the wretches who trust to him, as well as those who have pleasure for their pilot, are either shipwrecked or are cast away on the kingdom of darkness. _but the vessel in which you must embark, approaches, and you must be gone._ remember what depends upon your conduct.' no sooner had he left me, than i found myself surrounded by those pilots i mentioned before. immediately i forgot all that the old man said to me, and seduced by the fair promises of pleasure, chose him for my director. we weighed anchor with a fair gale, the sky serene, the sea calm. innumerable little isles lifted their green heads around us, covered with trees in full blossom; dissolved in stupid mirth, we were carried on regardless of the past, of the future unmindful. on a sudden the sky was darkened, the winds roared, the seas raged; red rose the sand from the bottom of the deep. the angel of the waters lifted up his voice. at that instant, a strong ship passed by; i saw religion at the helm. 'come out from among these,' he cried. i and a few others threw ourselves out into his ship. the wretches we left were now tossed on the swelling deep. the waters on every side poured, through the riven vessel. they cursed the lord; when lo! a fiend rose from the deep, and in a voice like distant thunder, thus spoke:--'i am abaddon, the first-born of death;--ye are my prey. open thou abyss to receive them!' as he thus spoke they sunk, and the waves closed over their heads. the storm was turned into a calm, and we heard a voice saying, 'fear not, i am with you. when you pass through the waters they shall not overflow you.' our hearts were filled with joy. i was engaged in discourse with one of my new companions, when one from the top of the mast cried out, 'courage, my friends, i see the fair haven, the land that is yet afar off.' looking up, i found it was a certain friend, who had mounted up for the benefit of contemplating the country before him. upon seeing _you_, (the friend to whom he was writing,) i was so affected that i started and awaked. farewell, my friend,--farewell!" see that fragile form, then, with the glowing spirit within, panting for freedom and its "native skies," borne along in the vessel of religion, upon a calm and sunny sea. he looks aloft, and anticipates with serene and joyful trust, his entrance into the port of everlasting peace. the vessel glides, with increasing velocity, her sails all set, and gleaming in the reflected radiance of the spirit-world. now she enters the port, and nears that blessed shore, "where tempests never beat, nor billows roar." the few days which remained to michael on earth, he spent in correcting his poem of the "last judgment," and in pluming his spirit for its upward flight. his bodily strength was exhausted, and he was obliged to keep his bed. his mind was meditative and hopeful, dwelling almost wholly upon various passages of holy writ, which he would repeat and comment upon to his friends. mr. george lawson, afterwards dr. lawson, professor of theology in the "secession church," being called to preach for a settlement in the neighborhood of kinnesswood, hastened upon his arrival there, to see his friend bruce. he found him in bed, with his countenance pale as death, while his eyes shone like lamps in a sepulchre. the poet was delighted to see him, and spoke with as much ease and freedom as if he had been in perfect health. mr. lawson remarked to him that he was glad to see him so cheerful. "and why," said he, "should not a man be cheerful on the verge of heaven?" "but," said mr. l., "you look so emaciated. i am afraid you cannot last long." "you remind me," he replied, "of the story of the irishman, who was told that his hovel was about to fall, and i answer with him, _let it fall, it is not mine!_" this cheerfulness continued during his illness, till his mother, one morning, announced to him, just as he was awaking out of sleep, that mr. swanston was dead. he looked at her with a fixed stare, as if stunned by the intelligence. upon recovering he satisfied himself as to the correctness of the statement, and was never afterwards seen to smile! still we do not attach much importance to this circumstance; for it often happens that when the countenance is cold and ghastly, the heart within is warm and serene. he lingered for a month, manifesting little interest in what was said or done around him, and on the th of july, calmly and imperceptibly fell asleep, aged twenty-one years and three months. so fades a summer cloud away, so sinks the gale when storms are o'er, so gently shuts the eye of day, so fades a wave along the shore. life's labor done, as sinks the clay, light from its load the spirit flies, while heaven and earth combine to say, how bless'd the christian when he dies! his bible was found upon his pillow, marked down at jer. xxii: , "weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him;" and on the blank leaf this homely but expressive verse was written:-- "'tis very vain for me to boast, how small a price my bible cost; the day of judgment will make clear, 'twas very cheap or very dear." he was buried in the church-yard of portmoak, in the very centre of the scenes hallowed and beautified by his muse. a monument has been erected to bruce through the subscription of his friends, of which the following is the simple but appropriate inscription: michael bruce, born in at kinnesswood, in the county of kinross, died at the age of twenty-one. in this brief space, under the pressure of indigence and sickness, he displayed talents truly poetical. for his aged mother's and his own support he taught a school here. the village was then skirted with old ash trees, the cottage in which he dwelt was distinguished by a honeysuckle which he had trained round its lashed window. certain inhabitants of his native county, his admirers, have erected this stone to mark the abode of genius and virtue. bruce was designed for the service of the church. in this view, as well as with reference to the cultivation of his fine poetical talents, his death may be deemed a calamity. and yet, such a view of the case may fairly be questioned. for himself, is he not happier, in the bosom of his god; and for us, does he not, by means of his christian life, his heroic death, his ethereal strains, embalmed in blessed memories of the past, preach more effectually than he could have done, even had he lived to occupy a material pulpit. "being dead he yet speaketh," and speaketh with a power and pathos which can be reached only by the dead. had we room we might give many pleasant extracts from his poetry; but we must content ourselves with his "ode to the cuckoo," in our judgment one of the most beautiful and perfect little poems in any language. to the cuckoo. hail, beauteous stranger of the grove! thou messenger of spring! now heaven repairs thy rural seat, and woods thy welcome sing. what time the daisy decks the green, thy certain voice we hear; hast thou a star to guide thy path, or mark the rolling year? delightful visitant! with thee, i hail the time of flowers, and hear the sound of music sweet, from birds among the bowers. the schoolboy wandering through the wood, to pull the primrose gay, starts the new voice of spring to hear,[ ] and imitates thy lay. what time the pea puts on the bloom, thou fliest thy local vale, another guest in other lands, another spring to hail. sweet bird! thy bower is ever green, thy sky is ever clear; thou hast no sorrow in thy song, no winter in thy year! o could i fly, i'd fly with thee! we'd make, with joyful wing, our annual visit o'er the globe, companions of the spring. [footnote : in his own copy bruce had written, "starts thy curious voice to hear;" _curious_ is a scotticism, being equivalent to _strange_. this logan probably altered to save the quantity. but the original expression is preferred by good judges, as more natural and poetical. "it marks the unusual resemblance of the note of the cuckoo to the human _voice_ the cause of the _start_ and _imitation_ which follow."] chapter xviii. dunfermline--ruins of the abbey--grave of robert bruce--malcolm canmore's palace--william henryson, the poet--william dunbar--stirling castle--views from its summit--city of stirling--george buchanan and dr. arthur johnston--falkirk--linlithgow--story of the capture of linlithgow castle--spirit of war--arrival in edinburgh. bidding adieu to lochleven, we journey slowly through a pleasant and highly cultivated region, till we reach the ancient town of dunfermline, in which some of the old scottish kings formerly held court, and which is yet adorned with the remains of a magnificent abbey. robert bruce was interred here, in complete armor, and much interest was excited, a few years ago, by the discovery of his skeleton. in the vicinity are the ruins of malcolm canmore's palace and stronghold, standing on the edge of a deep romantic glen, in which, more than three hundred years ago, the poet henryson, a schoolmaster in dunfermline, was wont to wander, singing his beautiful lays, in the quaint and difficult dialect of former times. "in myddis of june, that jolly sweet sessoun, quhen that fair phoebus, with his beamis brycht, had dryit up the clew fra daill and doun, and all the land made with his lemys lycht; in a morning betwene mid-day and nycht, i raiss and put all sluith and sleep on syde; ontill a wod i went allone, but gyd. (glad?) sueit was the smell of flowris quhyt and reid, the noyis of birdis rycht delitious; the bewis brod blumyt abune my heid; the grund gowand with grassis gratious of all pleasans that place was plenteous, with sueit odours and birdis armonie; the mornyng mild my mirth was mair forthy. henryson was contemporary with william dunbar, a poet, says sir walter scott, unrivalled by any that scotland has ever produced. he flourished at the court of james iv. his poems are of all sorts, allegorical, moral and comic. the following lines on the brevity of human existence are a fair specimen of his style. this wavering warld's wretchedness, the failing and fruitless business, the misspent time, the service vain, for to consider is ane pain. the sliding joy, the gladness short, the perjured love, the false comfort, the seveir abade (delay), the slightful train (snare), for to consider is ane pain. the sugared mouths, with minds therefra, the figured speech, with faces tway; the pleasing tongues, with hearts unplain, for to consider is ane pain. in another poem he takes a more cheerful view of life. be merry, man, and tak' not sair in mind the wavering of this wretched world of sorrow; to god be humble, to thy friend be kind, and with thy neighbors gladly lend and borrow, his chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow, &c. from dunfermline, we cross the country in the direction of stirling, and of course linger to view the famous battle-ground of bannockburn, immortalized by the prowess of scotland, and the poetry of burns. but we approach stirling castle, one of the oldest and most imposing strongholds in the country. how often have these old rocks rung again, "with blast of bugle free;" and how frequently has the ground at its base been soaked with human blood! the castle stands on a huge ledge of basaltic rock, rising rapidly from the plain, and overlooking the country far and near, and backed by the rising ground on which the city is built. ascending to the summit we pass round it, by a narrow pathway cut in the sides of the mountain, and thence enjoy the most extensive and delightful views. how charmingly the links of the forth, as the serpentine windings of the river are called, adorn the rich vale, in which they love to linger, as if loth to depart. to the north and east are the ochil hills, "vestured" in blue, and looking down upon fertile fields, umbrageous woods, and stately mansions. on the west lies the vale of menteith, and far off the highland mountains, lost in the mist. on another side are the pastoral hills of campsie, and underneath our eye the town of stirling, the abbey craig, and the ruins of cambuskenneth abbey. the forth, with "isles of emerald," and white sails skimming its glassy surface, expands into the german ocean; and edinburgh castle, just descried amid the haze, crowns the distant landscape. stirling was a favorite residence of the stuarts; but the castle is now employed only as a barracks for soldiery. leaving the castle we pass into the city, by high street, adorned with several palaces of the old nobility, antique-looking edifices, of a solid structure. here was the palace of the regent, earl of mar, whose descendants were the keepers of stirling castle. here too was the palace of sir william alexander, "the philosophical poet" of the court of james the sixth, and tutor to charles the first, who created him earl of stirling. but an object of still greater interest is the tower where george buchanan, the historian of scotland, and one of the first scholars of his age, lived and wrote. he was tutor to james the sixth of scotland, and first of england. he wrote a paraphrase of the psalms in elegant latin verse, of which he was a perfect master. most of this work was composed in a monastery in portugal, to which he had been confined by the inquisition about the year . it was continued in france, and finished in scotland. his prose works, particularly his history of scotland, are characterized by clearness and research. his celebrated contemporary, dr. arthur johnston, was equally distinguished for the variety of his attainments, and his perfect command of the latin tongue; so that the one has been called the scottish virgil, and the other the scottish ovid. the latin version of the psalms by buchanan is still used in some of the scottish schools. it is elegant and faithful, but somewhat formal and paraphrastic. there are many objects of interest in stirling, and the scenery around is rich and beautiful, and, moreover, associated in every part, with recollections of the olden time; but we cannot linger here. the stage-coach is waiting to take us to falkirk, a town of great antiquity, having been the site of one of those military stations on the wall made by the romans at their invasion of the country, known by the name of the forts of agricola. it was also the scene of one or two famous battles in the days of wallace and bruce. being the principal town in the midst of a rich agricultural country, it is now the scene of immense fairs or _trysts_, as they are called, to which large droves of highland cattle are brought annually for sale, and where an immense amount of business is transacted. but there is nothing here of sufficient interest to detain us; so we proceed in the rail-cars to edinburgh. in passing, we get a glimpse of the castle and palace of linlithgow; in the twefth century one of the most important burghs in scotland, the residence of several of the kings of scotland, and the birth-place of queen mary. "of all the palaces so fair built for the royal dwelling in scotland, far beyond compare linlithgow is excelling. and in its park, in genial june, how sweet the merry linnet's tune, how blythe the blackbird's lay, the wild buck bells from thorny brake the coot dives merry on the lake, the saddest heart might pleasure take to see a scene so gay."--_marmion._ when robert bruce was lying in torwood castle, not far from falkirk, a man by the name of binnoch, a farmer in the neighborhood, who supplied the garrison at linlithgow, then in possession of the english king, proposed to bruce to take possession of the garrison by a stratagem, which he accomplished. this incident has been wrought into a lively form by wilson, not professor wilson, but john mackie wilson, author of the border tales, of whom i shall have something to say by and by. the following is his account of the matter, somewhat condensed. having been introduced to bruce at torwood, binnoch intimated that he had something of great importance to communicate, and inquired whether he might speak with confidence. being assured that he might, he proceeded thus: "aweel sir, the business i cam' upon is just this. i supply the garrison, ye see sir, o' lithgow wi' hay; now i've observed that they're a' wheen idle, careless fellows, mair ta'en up wi' their play than their duty." bruce's eye here kindled with a sudden fire, and his whole countenance became animated with an expression of fierce eagerness that strongly contrasted with its former placidity. he was now all attention to the communication of his humble visitor. "what! the castle of linlithgow, friend!" exclaimed bruce, with a slight smile of mingled surprise and incredulity. "_you_ take the castle of linlithgow! pray, my good fellow, how would you propose to do that?" "why sir, by a very simple process," replied binnoch, undauntedly, "i wad put a dizen or fifteen stout weel armed, resolute fellows, in my cart, cover them owre wi' hay, and introduce them into the garrison as a load o' provender. if they were ance in, an' the cheils were themselves of the richt stuff, i'll wad my head to a pease bannock that the castle's ours in fifteen minutes." "and would you undertake to do this, my good friend?" said bruce, gravely, struck with the idea, and impressed with its practicability. "readily, and wi' a richt guid will, sir," replied binnoch, "provided ye fin' me the men; but they maun be the very wale o' your flock; its no a job for faint hearts or nerveless arms." "the men ye shall have, my brave fellow; and if ye succeed your country will be indebted to you. but it is a perilous undertaking; there will be hard fighting, and ye may lose your head by it. have you thought of that?" "i have, sir," replied binnoch, firmly. "as to the fechtin', we are like to gie them as guid as we get. and for the hangin', the scotsman is no deservin' o' the name that's no ready to brave death, in any form, for his country." bruce caught the enthusiasm of the speaker; a tear started into his eye, and seizing the hand of the humble patriot-- "my noble fellow," he said, "would to god all scotsmen were like thee. beneath that homely plaid of thine there beats a heart of which any knight in christendom might be proud. lose or win, this shall not be forgotten." having made the necessary arrangements, and agreed upon a sign, for communicating with each other, binnoch took his departure from the castle of torwood. the next day the men selected by bruce were at binnoch's house, having been admitted through the preconcerted signal. they repaired to the barn, and were snugly packed away in the hay cart, armed with steel caps and short swords. everything being in readiness, binnoch hid a sword amongst the hay, for his own use, and in such a situation that he could easily seize it when wanted. he also provided himself with a poniard, which he concealed beneath his waistcoat. thus prepared at all points, the intrepid peasant set forward with his load of daring hearts, and having arrived at the castle, he and his cart were immediately admitted. they proceeded onwards till they came to the centre of the court-yard, when binnoch gave the preconcerted signal to his associates, which was conveyed in the words, spoken in a loud voice--"forward, greystail, forward!" as if addressing his horse, which he at the same time struck with his whip to complete the deception. these words were no sooner uttered than the hay, with which the daring adventurers were covered, was seen to move, and the next instant it was thrown over upon the pavement, to the inexpressible amazement of the idlers who were looking on; and, to their still greater surprise, fifteen armed men leapt, with fearful shouts, into the court-yard, when, being instantly headed by binnoch, the work of death began. every man within their reach at the moment was cut down. the guard-room was assailed, and all in it put to death, and passing from apartment to apartment, they swept the garrison, and took possession of it. the attack had been so sudden, so unexpected, and so vigorous, that its unfortunate occupants, six times their number, had no time to rally or defend themselves, and thus fell an easy prey to the bold adventurers. we have only to add that binnoch was rewarded by bruce, for this important service, with some valuable lands in the parish of linlithgow; and that his descendants had for their arms a _hay-wain_, with the motto, _virtute doloque_.[ ] [footnote : the following is a different, and probably a more correct version of binnoch's adventure, from sir w. scott's tales of a grandfather. "binnoch had been ordered by the english governor to furnish some cart-loads of hay, of which they were in want. he promised to bring it accordingly; but the night before he drove the hay to the castle, he stationed a party of his friends, as well armed as possible, near the entrance, where they could not be seen by the garrison, and gave them directions that they should come to his assistance as soon as they should hear him cry a signal, which was to be, 'call all, call all!' then he loaded a great waggon with hay. but in the waggon he placed eight strong men, well armed, lying flat on their breasts, and covered over with hay, so that they could not be seen. he himself walked carelessly beside the waggon; and he chose the stoutest and bravest of his servants to be the driver, who carried at his belt a strong axe or hatchet. in this way binnoch approached the castle, early in the morning; and the watchmen, who only saw two men, binnoch being one of them, with a cart of hay, which they expected, opened the gates, and raised up the portcullis, to permit them to enter the castle. but as soon as the cart had gotten under the gateway, binnoch made a sign to his servant, who, with his axe, suddenly cut asunder the _soam_, that is, the yoke which fastens the horses to the cart, and the horses finding themselves free, naturally started forward, the cart remaining behind under the arch of the gate. at the same time binnoch cried, as loud as he could, 'call all, call all!' and drawing his sword, which he had under his country habit, he killed the porter. the armed men then jumped up from under the hay where they lay concealed, and rushed on the english guard. the englishmen tried to shut the gates, but they could not, because the cart of hay remained in the gateway, and prevented the folding doors from being closed. the portcullis was also let fall, but the grating was caught in the cart, and so could not drop to the ground. the men who were in ambush near the gate hearing the cry, 'call all, call all!' ran to assist those who had leaped out from among the hay; the castle was taken, and all the englishmen killed or made prisoners. king robert rewarded binnoch by bestowing on him an estate, which his posterity long afterward enjoyed. the binnings of wallyford, descended from that person, still bear in their coat armorial a wain loaded with hay, with the motto, 'virtute doloque.'"] by the way, these two words, _courage_ and _stratagem_, express the very spirit and essence of ancient war, and indeed of all war, a relic of barbarism, the most foul and horrible the world has ever seen. defensible, perhaps, in cases of extremity, when it is the last and only means of protecting our homes and altars, but in all other cases a fearful atrocity, fit only for cannibals and demons! but yonder are the peaceful towers of edinburgh, bathed in the sombre light of evening. the very castle looks like an image of repose, as it silently looms up amid the smoke and hum of the busy city. signs of peace and prosperity are every where around us, indicating, if we have not yet reached, that at least we are approaching that happy time when "men shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks." "o scenes surpassing fable, and yet true, scenes of accomplished bliss! which who can see, though but in distant prospect, and not feel his soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy?" chapter xix. journey to peebles--characters--conversation on politics--scottish peasantry--peebles--"christ's kirk on the green"--a legend--an old church--the banks of the tweed--its ancient castles--the alarm fire--excursion to the vales of ettrick and yarrow--stream of yarrow--st. mary's lake and dryhope tower--"the dowie dens of yarrow"--growth of poetry--ballads and poems on yarrow by hamilton, logan and wordsworth. on a cold, drizzly morning we start, in a substantial stage-coach, well lined with cushions inside, for the ancient town of peebles, which lies to the south of edinburgh, some twenty-five miles or more. the 'outsides' are wrapped in cloaks and overcoats, and literally covered in with umbrellas; and from their earnest talking seem to be tolerably comfortable. the "scottish mist," cold and penetrating, would soon reach the skin of an unsheltered back; all hands, therefore, and especially the driver in front, and the guard behind, are muffled to the neck with cravats and other appliances. eyes and mouth only are visible, not indeed to the passers by, but to the denizens of the stage-coach, who cling together for warmth and sociability. our travelling companions inside are a dominie from auchingray, fat as a capon, with face round, sleek and shiny, little gray eyes glancing beneath a placid forehead, and indicating intelligence and good nature; and a south-country laird, a large, brawny man, with a huge face and huger hat, corduroy breeches and top boots, a coat that nearly covers the whole of his body, and a vest of corresponding dimensions. a mighty cravat is tied neatly around his capacious throat, and a couple of large gold seals dangle from beneath his vest. in addition to these two, a little man, thin and wrinkled, but with a clear, quick, restless eye, is sitting in the corner, squeezed into a rather straight place by the laird and the dominie. from his appearance and conversation, we should take him to be a lawyer. with some little difficulty we get into conversation, but once set agoing, it jogs on at a pretty fair pace. insensibly it glides into politics, and becomes rather lively. the lawyer is evidently a whig, the laird a tory of the old stamp, and the dominie neither the one nor the other, but rather more of a tory than anything else, as he is dependent, in some sense, upon 'the powers that be.' "for my part," says the laird, taking hold of his watch-seals, and twirling them energetically, "i do not believe in your two-faced radicals, who have more impudence in their noddles than money in their pockets, and who go routing about the country, crying up democracy and all that sort of stuff, to the great injury of her majesty's subjects." "but, my dear sir," replies the lawyer, "you forget that money is not the _summum bonum_ of human life, and that the gentlemen to whom you refer are not impudent radicals, but clear-headed and patriotic whigs." "all gammon, sir! all gammon!" is the rejoinder of the laird, "i wouldn't give a fig for the whole pack. one or two of them, i admit, are tolerably respectable men. lord john russel belongs to the old nobility, and is a man of some sense, but sadly deceived, full of nonsensical plans and dangerous reforms. as to dan. o'connel, he is an old fox, a regular irish blackguard, who has not heart enough to make a living by honest means, but fleeces it out of the starving irish, in the shape of repeal rent! hang the rascal, i should be glad to see him gibbeted! hume is a mean, beggarly adventurer. and even sir robert peel, with all his excellences, has made sad mistakes on the subject of reform and the corn laws. he's not the thing, after all! sadly out of joint, sir, sadly out of joint!" all this is said with such terrible energy, and such a menacing frown, that even the lawyer cowers a little, and the dominie is almost frightened. we think it best, upon the whole, to say little. but, plucking up courage, the lawyer replies: "sir, you come to conclusions that are too sweeping. that lord john russel is a man of clear intellect and admirable forethought no one will think of denying. his plans are well matured, and, moreover, aim at the good of his country. hume is a great political economist: sir r. peel is a man of the highest order of mind; and daniel o'connel, with all his faults, possesses uncommon powers of eloquence, and, doubtless, seeks the good of his country." "the good of his country! all humbug, sir! if you had said his own good, you would have come nearer the mark. he's a rascal, sir, rely on it, a mean cowardly rascal, who, pretending to benefit the poor irish, fills his own pockets with their hard earnings. i appeal to mr. cooper here, my respected friend, the parish schoolmaster of auchingray." to which the dominie replies demurely: "as to my opinion, gentlemen, it is not of much consequence, but such as it is i give with all candor. in the first place i opine that we are liable somewhat to yield to our prejudices in estimating the characters of public men; for, as my old friend, the rev. mr. twist, used to say, they have 'twa maisters to serve, the government and the public, and it's unco difficult sometimes to sail between scylla and charybdis.' moreover, these are trying times, and much of primitive integrity and patriotism are lost. for myself, i do not approve altogether of the course of the whigs, and especially of the radicals. daniel o'connel is a devoted catholic, with no generous aspirations, or enlarged conceptions of the public weal. a great man, certainly, a wonderful orator, no doubt, but much tinctured with selfishness, and carried away by wild and prurient schemes. lord john russel is a man of decided talent and fine character, but i have not much confidence, after all, in his practical wisdom, and good common sense. sir robert peel, however is, with some slight exceptions, a model statesman, a man of a wonderfully clear, well balanced mind, and a deep insight into men and things. still, as my friend on the left says, he's somewhat out of joint just now, and, for my own part, i could never altogether approve his schemes." "there sir," quickly interposed the laird, "there sir! didn't i tell you, sir? all humbug, sir! nothing safe--nothing useful about the whigs! give me the good old days of my grandfather, when the rascals dared not peep or mutter!" "but you forget, sir," is the answer of the lawyer, "that your friend, the schoolmaster here, has admitted nearly all for which i contend." "admitted nothing, sir! comes to nothing, sir! and to tell you the plain honest truth, i believe the whole pack of them are a set of humbugs! all sham, sir! nothing but hypocrisy and humbug!" "but a modification of the corn laws is certainly desirable for the sake of the poorer classes, many of whom are living upon the merest trifle:"--we venture to remark. "all a mistake, sir! all a mistake! an honest, sensible man can always make his way, and secure bread for his family!" "well, but surely you consider a shilling or eighteen pence a day rather miserable support!" "not at all, sir! not at all! they're used to it, and thousands of them are happier than you or i!" "upon this point we beg leave to doubt, and hope the time is not far distant when the common people will have cheap bread:"--we quietly rejoin. "amen!" responds the dominie. "that i am confident would be an improvement; but how it is to be brought about is a question of great difficulty. the common people of scotland are not so poorly off as foreigners represent them. their habits are primitive and simple, and i certainly have known many families, particularly in the country, make themselves very comfortable on eighteen pence or a couple of shillings a day." "give us an example, if you please!" "why, there is james thomson, a working man, who makes, upon an average, say eighteen pence or a couple of shillings sterling (fifty cents) daily, through the year. he has a wife and four children. he built himself a kind of stone and turf cottage on the edge of one of lord b.'s plantations, with a but and a ben,[ ] and a little out-house. one day i called in to see him about one of his children, and, in the course of conversation, asked him how he got along." [footnote : two apartments.] "brawly;"[ ] was the reply. [footnote : finely.] "can you make 'the twa ends meet' at the close of the year?" "yes," said he, "and something mair than that. last candlemas i laid up nae less than ten and saxpence." "but how can you do it. have you any land to cultivate?" "a wee bittock," was the answer, "but it's graund for taties and turnips." "have you a cow?" "o aye, we have a coo, and a gude coo she is." "well, what have you for victuals?" "the best o' parritch and milk in the morning, and at nicht. and as for denner, we ha' nae great variety, but what's wholesome eneuch. and ye ken, dominie c., that hunger's the best sauce." "true enough, but excuse me, i should like to know what you generally have for dinner." "ou," said he, laughing, "the graundest kail i' the world, made o' barley, butter and vegetables, wi' a bit o' beef, or a marrow bane in't once in a while, and mealy tatties, scones and cakes, the very best in the kintra!" "well, you're content!" "to be sure we are! and gratefu', besides, to the giver o' a' gude." "but you have a little pinch occasionally--in the cold and stormy winter weather?" "why ye-s--but it's nae mair than a body may expeck, and it's a great deal less than we deserve. for mysel' i ha' nae great reason to complain, but sandy wilson, ower the way, has had a sair time on't." "what's the matter?" "why, ye see, sandy is no very able-bodied, and maybe a little shiftless, and he fell sick about the middle o' winter. his wife is a proud kind o' body, and she said naething to the neebors, and i jalouse they had a sair pinching time on't. the wee bit lassie seemed to be dwining awa', and sandy, puir fellow, was just at death's door. but the minister o' the parish found it out, and sandy was soon provided for. hech sir! we ought to be thankfu' that we hae our health. it's a great blessing. for if a man only has health and a clear conscience he needna fear famine or the deevil." "sandy then got over his troubles, did he?" "in a measure," was the cautious reply, "but the puir wee lassie grew paler and paler; and noo her bonny brown hair is covered wi' the yird. she was a sweet bit lassie, but she was frail in the constitootion, ye see, and the hard famishing winter was ower muckle for her feeble frame. but she was weel cared for on her sick bed. and when she died, the hail kintra side turned out to attend the funeral, and mony tears were shed upon her wee bit grave. my mary, who gaed to school wi' her, canna get ower it to this day. she was an unco bonny thing--sweet as the mornin' wat wi' dew, and gentle as a pet lamb. but her grave is green by this time, and sandy is better off than he used to be." the burly laird listened attentively to this narrative, and at the close of it, a tear dimmed his eye. he gave a slight cough, as if to repress and to hide his rising emotion, and looking out the coach window, exclaimed, "there's peebles, at last, and yonder's the sign of the black bull," as if he were prodigiously relieved. the day is brightening, and this ancient city on the tweed, looks quite agreeable, reminding us of the days of old, when the kings and nobles of scotland used to witness, on its beautiful green, games of archery, golf, and so forth. it is supposed to be the scene referred to in the opening stanza of "christ's kirk on the green," by james the first, the royal poet of scotland. "was never in scotland hard nor sene, sic dansing nor deray, nouther at falkland on the green, nor pebllis in the play; as wes of wowarris as i wene, at christ's kirk on ane day; thair came our kittles washen clene, in thair new kirtillis of gray full gay, at christ's kirk o' the grene that day." this old town was burnt and laid waste more than once during the invasions of the english. still, from its sequestered situation, it never figured largely in any great event. an antique bridge, consisting of five arches, connects the old and new towns, which lie on either bank of the river. rambling through the place, we come to a large massive building, in a castellated form, known to have belonged to the queensberry family, and believed to be the scene of a romantic incident, thus related by sir walter scott:--"there is a tradition in tweedale, that when nidpath castle, near peebles, was inhabited by the earls of march, a mutual passion subsisted between a daughter of that noble family and the son of the laird of tushielaw, in ettrick forest. as the alliance was thought unsuitable by her parents, the young man went abroad. during his absence, the young lady fell into a consumption, and at length, as the only means of saving her life, her father consented that her lover should be recalled. on the day when he was expected to pass through peebles, on the road to tushielaw, the young lady, though much exhausted, caused herself to be carried to the balcony of a house in peebles, belonging to the family, that she might see him when he rode past. her anxiety and eagerness gave such force to her organs that she is said to have distinguished his horses' footsteps at an incredible distance. but tushielaw, unprepared for the change in her appearance, and not expecting to see her in that place, rode on, without recognizing her, or even slackening his pace. the lady was unable to support the shock, and after a short struggle died in the arms of her attendants." here are the ruins of some very old churches, one in particular, at the western extremity of the old town. this was the original parish church of peebles, and was built upon the site of one still more ancient, occupied by the culdees, (probably from cultores dei, worshipers of god,) an ancient class of monks, whose forms of worship and doctrinal belief were extremely simple, and, as some suppose, evangelical. they had monasteries at jona, and in various parts of scotland, before the anglo-saxon period, and preserved for many years, the pure worship of god. an altar in st. andrew's church, was dedicated to st. michael, with a special endowment for the services of "a chapellane, there perpetually to say mes, efter the valow of the rents and possessions gevin thereto, in honor of almighty god, mary his modyr, and saint michael, for the hele of the body and the sawl of jamys, king of scotts, for the balyheis, ye burges, and ye communite of the burgh of peebles, and for the hele of their awn sawlis, thair fadyris sawlis, thair modyris sawlis, thair kinnis sawlis, and al chrystyn sawlis." part of the tithes of this church are now used to support a grammar school, and while the people still worship almighty god, they have but little reverence for "mary his modyr, and st. michael." let us wander along the banks of this far-famed and beautiful river, gliding sweetly through one of the most beautiful vales in scotland, and once adorned with numerous castles and monasteries, whose mouldering remains yet diversify the landscape. the whole vale of the tweed, both above and below peebles, was studded with a chain of castles, built in the shape of square towers, and ordinarily consisting of three stories, to serve as a defence against the invasion of the english freebooters. they were built alternately on each side of the river, and at such distances that one could be seen from the other. a fire kindled on the top of one of these, to give warning of a hostile incursion, could thus be perpetuated through the whole, till a tract of country seventy miles long, "from berwick to the bield," and fifty broad, was alarmed in a few hours. what objects of terror and sublimity these blazing summits, lighting, in a dark night, the whole valley of the tweed, and flashing their ruddy gleam upon copsewood and river, hill-top and castle turret! "a score of fires, i ween, from height, and hill, and cliff were seen, each with warlike tidings fraught, each from each the signal caught; each after each they glanced in sight, as stars arise upon the night: they gleamed on many a dusky tarn haunted by the lonely earn,[ ] on many a cairn's grey pyramid, where urns of mighty chiefs lie hid." _lay of the last minstrel._ [footnote : the scottish eagle.] but the grey mist of evening is beginning to settle upon the vale of the tweed, and the quaint old town of peebles, "with its three old bridges, and three old steeples, by three old churches borne." with fair weather, and in admirable spirits, we set off next morning, after breakfast, and travel at an easy pace down the fair banks of the "silver tweed," till we reach the pretty village of innerleithen, at the bottom of a sequestered dell, encircled on one side by high and partially wooded hills, and enlivened by the clear waters of the tweed, rolling in front. passing a handsome wooden bridge which crosses the river, we reach the hamlet of traquair and traquair house, and naturally enquire for the far-famed "bush aboon traquair." it is pointed out at the bottom of the hill which overlooks the lawn, where a few birch trees may be seen, the only remains of that dear old spot, made sacred by melody and song. continuing our journey across the country, we get among the hills, and after travelling some time through a deep glen, we see before us the "haunted stream of yarrow," the very name of which has become a synonym for all that is tender in sentiment and beautiful in poetry. "and is this yarrow? this the stream, of which my fancy cherished so faithfully a waking dream, an image that hath perished?" following in somewhat pensive mood, "its beautiful meanderings" through this hill-guarded valley, we come to st. mary's lake, lying in solemn but beautiful serenity among the mountains, whose heathy sides and bare cliffs are mirrored in her pellucid depths. "nor fen nor sedge pollute the pure lake's crystal edge; abrupt and sheer the mountains sink at once upon the level brink; and just a trace of silver sand marks where the water meets the land. far, in the mirror bright and blue, each hill's huge outline you may view; shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, save where of land, yon slender line bears thwart the lake the scattered pine. nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy, where living thing concealed might lie; nor point retiring hides a dell where swain or woodman lone might dwell; there's nothing left to fancy's guess, you see that all is loneliness; and silence adds,--though the steep hills send to the lake a thousand rills, in summer tide so soft they weep, the sound but lulls the ear asleep; your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, so stilly is the solitude." _marmion._ passing to the eastern extremity of the lake, we come to dryhope tower, the birth-place of mary scott, the famous "flower of yarrow." her lover, or husband, was slain by scott of tushielaw, from jealousy, or from a desire to secure her fortune, her father having promised to endow her with half his property. seized by the imagination of the ancient minnesingers, this incident became the subject of a ballad, or ballads of great beauty and pathos, well known through scotland, and frequently sung "amang her green braes." this has invested yarrow with a deep poetical charm, and given rise to a great variety of sweet and pathetic strains, affording a fine exemplification of the manner in which poetry grows, as by a natural law of progress. a single incident gathers around itself all beautiful images, all tender thoughts, feelings and passions, till the region in which it occurred becomes instinct with fantasy, and absolutely glows with a sort of conscious beauty. the very air is burdened with a melancholy charm. the stream meandering through the vale, and the winds whispering through the mountain glens or rippling the surface of st. mary's lake, "murmur a music not their own." in a word, we have come from the real, everyday world, into one that is ideal, where, in the deep stillness of nature, the voices of the past reveal themselves to the listening soul. in this view we know not a more interesting or instructive series of poems than those relating to yarrow. the first is the ballad of the "dowie dens," or rather, "downs of yarrow." this is variously printed, but we give the version of motherwell. there were three lords birling at the wine, on the dowie dens of yarrow; they made a compact them between, they would go fecht to-morrow. "thou took our sister to be thy wife, and thou ne'er thocht her thy marrow, thou stealed her frae her daddy's back, when she was the rose of yarrow." "yes, i took your sister to be my wife, and i made her my marrow; i stealed her frae her daddy's back, and she's still the rose of yarrow." he is hame to his lady gane, as he had done before, o; says, "madam i must go and fecht, on the dowie downs o' yarrow." "stay at hame, my lord," she said, "for that will breed much sorrow; for my three brethren will slay thee, on the dowie downs o' yarrow." "hold your tongue, my lady fair; for what needs a' this sorrow? for i'll be hame gin' the clock strikes nine, from the dowie downs o' yarrow." he wush his face, and she combed his hair, as she had done before, o; she dressed him up in his armour clear, sent him forth to fecht on yarrow. "come ye here to hawk or hound, or drink the wine that's sae clear, o; or come ye here to eat in your words, that you're not the rose o' yarrow?" "i came not here to hawk or hound, nor to drink the wine that's sae clear, o; nor came i here to eat in my words, for i'm still the rose o' yarrow." then they all begud to fecht, i wad they focht richt sore, o; till a cowardly man cam' behind his back, and pierced his body thorough. "gae hame, gae hame, its my man john, as ye have done before, o: an tell it to my gaye ladye that i soundly sleep on yarrow." his man john he has gane hame, as he had done before, o; and told it to his gay ladye. that he soundly slept on yarrow. "i dreamed a dream, now since the 'streen,[ ] god keep us a' frae sorrow! that my lord and i was pu'ing the heather green, from the dowie downs o' yarrow." sometimes she rode, sometimes she gade,[ ] as she had done before, o; and aye between she fell in a swoon, lang or she cam' to yarrow. her hair it was five quarters lang, 'twas like the gold for yellow; she twisted it round his milk white hand, and she's drawn him hame frae yarrow. out and spak her father dear, says, "what needs a' this sorrow? for i'll get you a far better lord than ever died on yarrow." "o hold your tongue, father," she said, "for you've bred a' my sorrow; for that rose'll ne'er spring so sweet in may, as that rose i lost on yarrow!" [footnote : yesternight.] [footnote : walked.] more than a century ago, william hamilton, of bangor, a gentleman of rank, education, and poetical talents, wrote the following exquisite ballad:[ ] [footnote : we quote only a portion of hamilton's ballad.] the braes of yarrow. busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride, busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow! busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny bride, and think nae mair o' the braes o' yarrow. whare gat ye that bonny, bonny bride? whare gat ye that winsome marrow? i gat her where i darena weil be seen pouing the birks on the braes o' yarrow. weep not, weep not, my bonny, bonny bride, weep not, my winsome marrow! nor let thy heart lament to leave pouing the birks on the braes o' yarrow. lang maun she weep, lang maun she weep, lang maun she weep with dule and sorrow, and lang maun i nae mair weil be seen, pouing the birks on the braes o' yarrow. why runs thy stream, o yarrow, yarrow, red? why on thy braes heard the voice o' sorrow? and why yon melancholious weeds, hung on the bonny birks o' yarrow? what's yonder floats on the rueful flude? what's yonder floats, o dule and sorrow! 'tis he, the comely swain i slew, upon the duleful braes o' yarrow. wash, o wash his wounds in tears, his wounds in tears with dule and sorrow, and wrap his limbs in mourning weeds, and lay him on the braes o' yarrow. sweet smells the birk, green grows the grass, yellow on yarrow bank the gowan, fair hangs the apple frae the rock, sweet the wave of yarrow flowan. flows yarrow sweet, as sweet flows tweed, as green its grass, its gowan as yellow, as sweet smells on its braes the birk, the apple frae the rock as mellow. busk ye, then busk, my bonny, bonny bride, busk ye, busk ye, my winsome marrow, busk ye and lue me on the banks o' tweed, and think nae mair on the braes o' yarrow. how can i busk a bonny, bonny bride, how can i busk a winsome marrow, how lue him on the banks o' tweed that slew my love on the braes o' yarrow? o yarrow fields, may never, never rain, nor dew thy tender blossoms cover, for there was basely slain my love, my love, as he had not been a lover. the boy put on his robes o' green, his purple vest, 'twas my ain sewing ah! wretched me! i little kenned he was in these to meet his ruin. the boy took out his milk-white steed, unheedful of my dule and sorrow, but ere the to-fall of the night he lay a corpse on the braes o' yarrow. much i rejoiced that waeful day; i sang, my voice the woods returning, but lang ere night the spear was flown, that slew my love, and left me mourning. * * * * * yes, yes, prepare the bed of love, with bridal sheets my body cover, unbar, ye bridal maids, the door, let in the expected husband lover but who the expected husband is? his hands, methinks, are bathed in slaughter. ah me! what ghastly spectre's yon, comes in his pale shroud, bleeding after? pale as he is, here lay him down, o lay his cold head on my pillow; take off, take off these bridal weeds, and crown my careful head with willow. * * * * * return, return, o mournful bride, return and dry thy useless sorrow; thy lover heeds naught of thy sighs, he lies a corpse on the braes o' yarrow. somewhat more than half a century later, logan wrote a song with the same title, of which the following are the concluding stanzas. "sweet were his words when last we met; my passion i as freely told him; clasped in his arms i little thought that i should never more behold him! scarce was i gone, i saw his ghost; it vanished with a shriek of sorrow; thrice did the water wraith ascend and gave a doleful groan through yarrow. "his mother from the window look'd with all the longing of a mother; his little sister weeping walk'd the green wood path to meet her brother. they sought him east, they sought him west, they sought him all the forest thorough; they only saw the cloud of night, they only heard the roar of yarrow! "no longer from thy window look, thou hast no son, o tender mother! no longer walk, thou lovely maid! alas! thou hast no more a brother! no longer seek him east or west, and search no more the forest thoro'; for wandering in the night so dark, he fell a lifeless corpse in yarrow. "the tear shall never leave my cheek, no other youth shall be my marrow; i'll seek thy body in the stream, and then with thee i'll sleep in yarrow." the tear did never leave her cheek, no other youth became her marrow; she found his body in the stream, and now with him she sleeps in yarrow. we are now prepared to read wordsworths' two exquisite poems, "yarrow unvisited," and "yarrow visited," the splendid flowering, so to speak, of this poetical growth. from stirling castle we had seen the mazy forth unravelled; had trod the banks of clyde and tay, and with the tweed had travelled; and when we came to clovenford, then said 'my _winsome marrow_,' "whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, and see the braes o' yarrow." "let yarrow folk _frae_ selkirk town, who have been buying, selling, go back to yarrow, 'tis their own; each maiden to her dwelling! on yarrow's banks let herons feed, hares couch and rabbits burrow! but we will downward with the tweed, nor turn aside to yarrow. "there's galla water, leader haughs, both lying right before us; and dryborough where with chiming tweed the lintwhites sing in chorus; there's pleasant tivoitdale, a land made blithe with plough and harrow, why throw away a needful day to go in search of yarrow? "what's yarrow but a river bare, that glides the dark hills under? there are a thousand such elsewhere as worthy of your wonder." --strange words they seemed of slight and scorn; my true love sigh'd for sorrow; and looked me in the face to think i thus could speak of yarrow! "oh green, said i, are yarrow holms and sweet is 'yarrow flowing!' fair hangs the apple frae the rock, but we will leave it growing. o'er hilly path and open strath, we'll wander scotland thorough; but though so near we will not turn into the dale of yarrow. "let beeves and home-bred kine partake the sweets of burnmill meadow; the swan, on still st. mary's lake, float double, swan and shadow! we will not see them; will not go, to-day, nor yet to-morrow; enough if in our hearts we know there's such a place as yarrow. "be yarrow stream unseen, unknown! it must, or we shall rue it; we have a vision of our own; ah! why should we undo it? the treasured dreams of times long past, we'll keep them 'winsome marrow!' for when we're there, although tis fair, 'twill be another yarrow! "if care with freezing years should come, and wandering seem but folly,-- should we be loth to stir from home, and yet be melancholy; should life be dull, and spirits low, 'twill soothe us in our sorrow, that earth has something yet to show, the bonny holms of yarrow." this is beautiful, but the following is more so. indeed it is the very perfection of descriptive poetry. yarrow visited. and is this--yarrow?--this the stream of which my fancy cherished so faithfully a waking dream? an image that has perished! o that some minstrel's harp were near, to utter notes of gladness, and chase this silence from the air, that fills my heart with sadness! yet why?--a silvery current flows with uncontrolled meanderings; nor have these eyes by greener hills been soothed in all my wanderings. and, through her depths, st. mary's lake is visibly delighted; for not a feature of those hills is in the mirror slighted. a blue sky bends o'er yarrow vale, save where that pearly whiteness is round the rising sun diffused, a tender hazy brightness; mild dawn of promise! that excludes all profitless dejection; though not unwilling here to admit a pensive recollection. where was it that the famous flower of yarrow vale lay bleeding? his bed perchance was yon smooth mound on which the herd is feeding: and haply from this crystal pool, now peaceful as the morning, the water wraith ascended thrice, and gave his doleful warning. delicious is the lay that sings the haunts of happy lovers, the path that leads them to the grove, the leafy grove that covers; and pity sanctifies the verse that points, by strength of sorrow, the unconquerable strength of love; bear witness rueful yarrow! but thou, that didst appear so fair to fond imagination, dost rival in the light of day her delicate creation: meek loveliness is round thee spread, a softness still and holy; the grace of forest charms decayed and pastoral melancholy. that region left, the vale unfolds rich groves of lofty stature, with yarrow winding through the pomp of cultivated nature; and rising from those lofty groves, behold a ruin hoary! the shattered front of newark's towers renowned in border story. fair scenes for childhood's opening bloom, for sportive youth to stray in, for manhood to enjoy his strength; and age to wear away in! yon cottage seems a bower of bliss, a covert for protection of tender thoughts that nestle there, the brood of chaste affection. how sweet on this autumnal day, the wild wood fruits to gather, and on my true-love's forehead plant a crest of blooming heather! and what if i enwreathed my own! 'twere no offence to reason; the sober hills thus deck their brows to meet the wintry season. i see, but not by sight alone, loved yarrow, have i won thee; a ray of fancy still survives-- her sunshine plays upon thee! thy ever youthful waters keep a course of lively pleasure; and gladsome notes my lips can breathe, accordant to the measure. the vapors linger round the heights, they melt,--and soon must vanish; one hour is their's, nor more is mine-- sad thought, which i would banish, but that i know, where'er i go, thy genuine image, yarrow! will dwell with me, to heighten joy, and cheer my mind in sorrow. chapter xx. hamlet and church-yard of ettrick--monument to thomas boston--birth-place of the ettrick shepherd--altrieve cottage--biographical sketch of the ettrick shepherd--the town of selkirk--monument to sir walter scott--battle-field of philiphaugh. proceeding westward from st. mary's lake about half a mile, we come to the hill of merecleughhead, where king james the fifth entered the district to inflict summary vengeance upon the outlaws who frequented the ettrick forest in the days of old, a circumstance which gave rise to many of the old scottish ballads. at the centre of the parish lie the hamlet and church-yard of ettrick, on the stream of that name. entering the burying-ground we behold the recently erected tomb of thomas boston, author of the well known work called "the fourfold state," one of the best and holiest men that ever "hallowed" the "bushy dells" of ettrick. with apostolic fervor did he preach the gospel among these hills and vales, and his work, for more than three generations, has instructed the scottish peasantry in the high doctrines of the christian faith. his memory will ever be fragrant among the churches of scotland. not far from the burying-ground a house is pointed out in which the celebrated "ettrick shepherd" was born. passing to the east end of the lake we see before us altrieve cottage, "bosomed low mid tufted trees," and nearly encircled by the "sweet burnie," in whose limpid waters the green foliage is mirrored. here the poet lived, in the latter period of his life, and here also he died. the scenes around, moor, mountain and glen, lake, river and ruin, are hallowed by the genius of the "shepherd bard," who, to quote his own words, "found in youth a harp among the hills, dropt by the elfin people; and whilst the moon entranced, hung o'er still saint mary's loch, harped by that charmed water, so that the swan came floating onwards through the water blue,-- a dream-like creature, listening to a dream; and the queen of the fairies rising silently through the pure mist, stood at the shepherd's feet, and half forgot her own green paradise, far in the bosom of the hill--so wild! so sweet! so sad! flowed forth that shepherd's lay." james hogg, born in , was descended from a family of shepherds, and spent his boyhood and youth herding his flocks among the hills. far from the bustle of the world, in the deep solitudes of nature, his young and vigorous imagination became familiar with all wild and beautiful sights, all sweet and solemn sounds. alone with nature during the day, he spent his evening hours in listening to ancient ballads and legends, of which his mother was a great reciter. this fed his imagination, and supplied it with an infinite variety of strange and beautiful imagery. to this fact he has himself thus strikingly referred. "o list the mystic lore sublime, of fairy tales of ancient time! i learned them in the lonely glen, the last abodes of living men; where never stranger came our way, by summer night or winter day; where neighboring hind or cot was none-- our converse was with heaven alone-- with voices through the cloud that sung and brooding storms that round us hung. o lady judge, if judge ye may, how stern and ample was the sway of themes like these, when darkness fell and gray-haired sires the tales would tell! when doors were barred and elder dame plied at her task beside the flame, that through the smoke and gloom alone on dim and cumbered faces shone-- the bleat of mountain goat on high, that from the cliff came quavering by; the echoing rock, the rushing flood, the cataract's swell, the moaning wood; the undefined and mingled hum-- voice of the desert never dumb! all these have left within this heart a feeling tongue can ne'er impart a wildered and unearthly flame, a something that's without a name." another circumstance in the early life of hogg tended to nurse his fancy. he had, in all, something like six months' schooling, and having entered the service of mr. laidlaw, another great lover of legends, songs and stories of the olden time, he subscribed to a circulating library at peebles, whose diversified contents he devoured within a short time. he read poetry, romances and tales with avidity, and stored his mind with traditionary ballads, songs and stories. this circumstance will account for his wayward, changeable life, as well as for the wildness and strength of his imagination. in the field of reality he was nothing, in that of fancy everything. he is said to have been a remarkably fine-looking young man, having a florid complexion, and a profusion of light brown hair, which he wore, coiled up, beneath his "blithe blue bonnet." an attack of illness induced by over-exertion, on a hot summer's day, so completely altered his appearance, that his friends scarcely recognized him as the same person. of a jovial and merry disposition, he was a great favorite in all companies, and at times partook too freely of "the mountain dew." being introduced by the son of his employer to sir walter scott, the ettrick shepherd assisted him in the collection of old ballads for the "border minstrelsy." he soon began to try his own hand in imitation of these traditionary poems, and published a volume of ballads, which attracted some attention, but never became very popular. having embarked in sheep farming, and attempted one or two speculations in which he failed utterly, he resolved to repair to the city of edinburgh, and support himself by his pen. "the forest minstrel," a collection of songs, was his first publication here; his second, "the spy," a light periodical, which enjoyed a brief and precarious existence. it was not till the publication, in , of his principal poetical production, "the queen's wake," that his reputation as a poet was firmly established. the plan was so simple and striking, and the execution so vigorous and delightful, that it "took" at once, and became universally popular. the old "wake" or festival in scotland was ordinarily celebrated with various kinds of diversions, among which music and song held the principal place. the "queen's wake" consists of a collection of tales and ballads supposed to be sung by different bards to the young queen of scotland,-- "when royal mary, blithe of mood, kept holyday at holyrood." the various productions of the minstrels are strung together by a thread of light and graceful narrative. the "wake" lasts three successive nights, and a richly ornamented harp is the victor's reward. rizzio is among the number of the competitors; but gardyne, a native bard, obtains the prize. the plan supplies the ettrick shepherd with an opportunity of displaying the extreme facility with which he could adapt himself to all kinds of style, a facility so great that he subsequently published, under the title of "the mirror of the poets," a collection of poems ascribed by him to byron, campbell, scott, southey, crabbe, wordsworth and others, in which the deception is so admirable, that multitudes actually supposed them genuine productions. conscious of his strength, he breaks forth in the "queen's wake," in the following exulting strains. "the land was charmed to list his lays; it knew the harp of ancient days. the border chiefs that long had been in sepulchres unhearsed and green, passed from their mouldy vaults away in armor red, and stern array, and by their moonlight halls were seen in visor, helm, and habergeon. even fairies sought our land again, so powerful was the magic strain." scott had advised him to abandon poetry, as "a bootless task," a circumstance to which he thus refers: "blest be his generous heart for aye! he told me where the relic lay; pointed my way with ready will, afar on ettrick's wildest hill; watched my first notes with curious eye; and wondered at my minstrelsy: he little weened a parent's tongue such strains had o'er my cradle sung. "but when to native feelings true i struck upon a chord was new; when by myself i 'gan to play, he tried to wile my harp away. just when her notes began with skill to sound beneath the southern hill, and twine around my bosom's core, how could we part forevermore? 'twas kindness all--i cannot blame-- for bootless is the minstrel's flame: but sure a bard might well have known another's feelings by his own!" scott, it is said, was grieved at this reference to his friendly counsel, given at a time when he knew not the powers of hogg. this, however, illustrates a fact often occurring in the history of genius, which often struggles hard to develop itself, alone conscious of its native powers. when sheridan first spoke in the house of commons he made an utter failure. but instead of being discouraged, he remarked with energy, "i know that it is in me, and i _must_ have it out!" campbell offered his "pleasures of hope" to nearly all the book publishers in scotland, who refused it. not one of them could be prevailed upon even to risk paper and ink upon the chance of its success; and at last, it was only with considerable reluctance that mundell & son, printers to the university, undertook its publication, with the _liberal_ condition that the author should be allowed fifty copies at the _trade price_, and in the event of its reaching a second edition, a thing hardly anticipated, that he should receive the _immense_ sum of fifty dollars! the ettrick shepherd continued for a number of years to publish sketches, stories, and so forth, in prose and verse. he describes well, and in his prose compositions often breaks out into flashes of keen broad humor, but he is not particularly successful in the construction of plots, or in the arrangement of incidents. he is most at home in the regions of pure fancy. the moment he sets foot in fairyland he becomes inspired, and pours out "in delightful profusion" his beautiful imaginings. inferior to burns in depth of passion, in keen perception of the beautiful, and in the description of actual scenes, he is perhaps superior to him in the wild delicacy of his inventions and in the rich coloring of his imaginative pictures. burns was the poet of nature, and went far beyond his scottish contemporaries and successors, in strength of conception, beauty of imagery, intensity of feeling, and melody of verse. but hogg excelled in imaginative musing, and became, by natural right, the acknowledged "bard of fairyland." his legend of "bonny kilmeny" has been universally admired. bonny kilmeny gaed up the glen, but it was na to meet duneira's men; nor the rosy monk of the isle to see, for kilmeny was pure as pure could be. it was only to hear the yorlin sing, and pu' the cress flower round the spring; the scarlet hypp and the hind berrye, and the nut that hung frae the hazel tree; but kilmeny was pure as pure could be. but lang may her minny[ ] look o'er the wa', and lang may she seek i' the greenwood shaw; lang the laird of duneira blame, and lang, lang greet or kilmeny come hame! when many a day had come and fled, when grief grew calm, and hope was dead, when mass for kilmeny's soul had been sung, when the beads-man had prayed, and the dead-bell rung, late, late in a gloamin, when all was still, when the fringe was red on the western hill, the wood was sere, the moon i' the wane, the reek o' the cot hung over the plain, like a little wee cloud in the world its lane;[ ] when the ingle lowed[ ] with an eiry[ ] leme, late, late in the gloamin, kilmeny came hame! kilmeny, kilmeny, where have you been? lang hae we sought baith holt and dean,[ ] by linn, by ford and greenwood tree, yet you are halesome and fair to see. where gat you that joup[ ] o' the lily scheen? that bonny snook[ ] o' the birk sae green? and these roses, the fairest that ever were seen? kilmeny, kilmeny, where have you been? kilmeny looked up wi' a lovely grace, but nae smile was seen on kilmeny's face; as still was her look, and as still was her ee, as the stillness that lay on the emerant lea, or the mist that sleeps on a waveless sea. for kilmeny had been she knew not where, and kilmeny had seen what she could not declare; kilmeny had been where the cock never crew, where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew, but it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung, and the airs of heaven played round her tongue, when she spake of the lovely forms she had seen, and a land where sin had never been, a land of love and a land of light, withouten sun, or moon, or night; where the river swa'd[ ] a living stream, and the light a pure celestial beam: the land of vision it would seem, a still, an everlasting dream. in yon greenwood there is a waik, and in that waik there is a wene, and in that wene there is a maike,[ ] that neither hath flesh, blood nor bane, and down in yon greenwood he walks his lane! in that grene wene kilmeny lay her bosom happed wi' the flowrets gay; and the air was soft, and the silence deep, and bonny kilmeny fell sound asleep; she kenn'd nae mair, nor opened her ee, till waked by the hymns of a far countrye, she wakened on couch of the silk sae slim, all striped wi' the bars of the rainbow's rim; and lovely beings around her were rife, who erst had travelled mortal life. they clasped her waist and her hands sae fair, they kissed her cheek, and they kamed her hair, and round came many a blooming fere, saying, "bonny kilmeny, ye're welcome here." * * * * * they lifted kilmeny, they led her away, and she walked in the light of a sunless day, the sky was a dome of crystal bright, the fountain of vision, and fountain of light; the emerant fields were of dazzling glow, and the flowers of everlasting blow. then deep in the stream her body they laid, that her youth and beauty might never fade; and they smiled on heaven, when they saw her lie in the stream of life that wandered by; and she heard a song, she heard it sung, she kenn'd not where, but so sweetly it rung, it fell on her ears like a dream of the morn: "o, blest be the day kilmeny was born! now shall the land of spirits see, now shall it ken what a woman may be! the sun that shines on the world so bright, a borrowed gleam from the fountain of light: and the moon that sleeks the sky sae dun, like a gowden bow, or a beamless sun, shall skulk away, and be seen nae mair, and the angels shall miss them travelling the air. but lang, lang after both night and day, when the sun and the world have 'eelged[ ] away, when the sinner has gane to his waesome doom, kilmeny shall smile in eternal bloom!" they sooft[ ] her away to a mountain green, to see what mortal had never seen; and they seated her high on a purple sward, and bade her heed what she saw and heard; and note the changes the spirits wrought, for now she lived in the land of thought. she looked and she saw no sun nor skies, but a crystal dome of a thousand dyes. she looked and she saw no lang aright, but an endless whirl of glory and light. and radiant beings went and came, far swifter than wind, or the linked flame; she hid her een from the dazzling view, she looked again, and the scene was new. she saw a sun on a simmer sky, and clouds of amber sailing by; a lovely land aneath her lay, and that land had lakes and mountains gray; and that land had valleys and hoary piles, and merlit seas, and a thousand isles; she saw the corn wave on the vale; she saw the deer run down the dale; and many a mortal toiling sore, and she thought she had seen the land afore. * * * * * to sing of the sights kilmeny saw, so far surpassing nature's law, the singer's voice would sink away, and the string of his harp would cease to play, but she saw while the sorrows of man were by, and all was love and harmony; while the sterns of heaven fell lonely away, like the flakes of snow on a winter's day. then kilmeny begged again to see the friends she had left in her ain countrye, to tell of the place where she had been, and the glories that lay in the land unseen. with distant music soft and deep, they lulled kilmeny sound asleep; and when she awakened, she lay her lane, all happed with flowers in the greenwood wene when seven lang years had come and fled, when grief was calm and hope was dead, when scarce was remembered kilmeny's name. late, late in the gloamin kilmeny came hame! and oh! her beauty was fair to see, but still and steadfast was her ee; such beauty bard may never declare, for there was no pride nor passion there; and the soft desire of maiden's een, in that mild face could never be seen. her seyman was the lily flower, and her cheek the moss-rose in the shower; and her voice like the distant melodye, that floats along the twilight sea. but she loved to range the lanely glen, and keeped afar frae the haunts of men, her holy hymns unheard to sing, to suck the flowers and drink the spring; but wherever her peaceful form appeared, the wild beasts of the hill were cheered; the wolf played blithely round the field, the lordly bison lowed and kneeled, the dun deer wooed with manner bland, and cowered aneath her lily hand. and when at eve the woodlands rung, when hymns of other worlds she sung, in ecstacy of sweet devotion, oh, then the glen was all in motion; the wild beasts of the forest came, broke from their bughts and faulds the tame, and gooed around, charmed and amazed; even the dull cattle crooned and gazed, and murmured and looked with anxious pain for something the mystery to explain. the buzzard came with the throstle cock; the corby left her houf in the rock; the blackbird along with the eagle flew; the hind came tripping o'er the dew; the wolf and the kid their raike began, and the tod, and the lamb, and the leveret ran; the hawk and the hern attour them hung, and the merl and the mavis forhooyed[ ] their young; and all in a peaceful ring were hurled: it was like an eve in a sinless world! when a month and a day had come and gane, kilmeny sought the greenwood wene, there laid her down on the leaves so green, and kilmeny, on earth was never mair seen! [footnote : mother] [footnote : alone.] [footnote : blazed.] [footnote : lonesome flame.] [footnote : hollow and den.] [footnote : ornament.] [footnote : snood or headband.] [footnote : swelled or swept.] [footnote : briefly the meaning is, that in the greenwood there is a sweet lonely place where a spiritual being wanders alone.] [footnote : vanished.] [footnote : swept or spirited away, with a rapid motion.] [footnote : forsook.] the close of "the queen's wake" is graceful and touching. now my loved harp a while farewell; i leave thee on the old gray thorn; the evening dews will mar thy swell that waked to joy the cheerful morn. farewell, sweet soother of my woe, chill blows the blast around my head; and louder yet that blast may blow, when down this weary vale i've sped. the wreath lies on st. mary's shore; the mountain sounds are harsh and loud; the lofty brows of stern clokmore are visored with the moving cloud. but winter's deadly hues shall fade on moorland bald and mountain shaw, and soon the rainbow's lovely shade sleep on the breast of bowerhope law; then will the glowing suns of spring, the genial shower and stealing dew, wake every forest bird to sing, and every mountain flower renew. but not the rainbow's ample ring, that spans the glen and mountain gray though fanned by western breeze's wing, and sunned by summer's glowing ray, to man decayed can ever more renew the age of love and glee! can ever second spring restore to my old mountain harp and me. but when the hue of softened spring spreads over hill and lonely lea, and lowly primrose opes unseen, her virgin bosom to the bee; when hawthorns breathe their odors far, and carols hail the year's return, and daisy spreads her silver star unheeded, by the mountain burn, then will i seek the aged thorn, the haunted wild and fairy ring, where oft thy erring numbers borne, have taught the wandering winds to sing. hogg was unfortunate in all business transactions. but the duchess of buccleugh made him a present of some seventy acres of moorland, on which he built a pretty cottage. here he lived during the latter years of his life, engaged in literary labors, which he relieved by angling and field sports, for which he had quite a passion. when he could no longer fish and hunt, he avowed his belief that his death was near. he was seized with a dropsical complaint in the autumn of , and died, after some days of insensibility, "with as little pain as he ever fell asleep in his gray plaid upon the hillside." with many imperfections, he possessed a leal scottish heart, and has left behind him memorials of genius, which posterity will not "let die." but we have arrived at the ancient town of selkirk, on the ettrick, famous for its 'sutors' or shoemakers, from time immemorial burgesses of the town, and distinguished for their loyalty. in the market-square are a public well, ornamented with the arms of the city, and a handsome monument erected by the county, in , in memory of sir walter scott, who was sheriff of the county from to . on one of its sides are the following lines from one of his poems: "by yarrow's stream still let me stray, though none should guide my feeble way, still feel the breeze down ettrick break, although it chill my withered cheek." in the immediate neighborhood of selkirk is philiphaugh, the celebrated battle-field, where general leslie, fighting for freedom and the covenant, routed the fierce montrose, who cut his way through the enemy and fled for his life. this defeat destroyed the fruit of montrose's six splendid victories, and ruined the royal cause in scotland. chapter xxi. return to the banks of the tweed--abbotsford--the study--biographical sketch of sir walter scott--his early life--residence in the country--spirit of romance--education--first efforts as an author--success of 'marmion'--character of his poetry--literary change--his novels--pecuniary difficulties--astonishing efforts--last sickness--death and funeral. leaving the ettrick, we proceed once more in the direction of the tweed, which we soon reach. how sweetly the river winds through this wooded region--quick and even impetuous in its flow, but so translucent that the white pebbles at the bottom are distinctly visible. what a picture of peaceful enjoyment is presented by that shepherd boy, leaning against the rock, and basking himself in the sun, while his sheep are nibbling the short grass on the edge of the water. but yonder is abbotsford, with its castellated walls and pointed gables, shooting up from a sylvan declivity on the banks of the river, which almost encircles the place with a graceful sweep, and contrasts beautifully with the deep-green foliage of the straggling clumps of trees. but every traveller in scotland visits abbotsford, and therefore we say nothing about its singular construction, its curious ornaments, its ancient relics, its broad-swords and battle-axes, its coats armorial, oak carvings and blazoned windows, its old portraits and fine library. we will not describe the door taken from the old tolbooth in edinburgh, nor the pulpit from which ralph erskine preached; nay more, we shall not even moralize on "the broad-skirted blue coat, with metal buttons, the plaid trowsers, heavy shoes, broad-brimmed hat and stout walking stick," the last worn by "the great magician of the north," when he took to his bed in his last illness. we will pass, however, into his study, a room about twenty-five feet square, containing a small writing table in the centre, on which sir walter was accustomed to write, and a plain arm-chair, covered with black leather, on which he sat. a subdued light enters from a single window, and a few books lie on the shelves, used chiefly for reference. by the permission of the good lady who has charge of the house, we are permitted to seat ourselves, and linger here for an hour, calling up the memory of the most wonderful genius that scotland has ever produced. the father of sir walter scott was a writer to the signet in edinburgh, an excellent and highly respectable man. his mother, anne rutherford, a noble and gentle-hearted woman, was the daughter of a physician, in extensive practice, and professor of medicine in the university of edinburgh. by both parents he was remotely connected with some ancient and respectable scottish families, a circumstance to which he frequently referred with satisfaction. he was born on the th of august, in the year . in consequence of lameness and a delicate state of health, produced by a fall, he was sent, in early life to sandyknowe, a romantic situation near kelso, and placed under the care of his grandfather. here he fortified his constitution by long rambles on foot and on horseback among the picturesque scenery and old ruins of the neighborhood. smallholm, a ruined tower, and the scene of scott's ballad, "the eve of st. john's," was close to the farm, and beside it were the eildon hills, the ruins of ercildoune, the residence, in ancient times, of thomas the rhymer, dryburgh abbey, the "silver tweed," with its storied banks, and other localities renowned in song and story. it was here also that he delighted in supplying his memory with the tales of his nurse, and some old grandames, deeply versed in the traditions of the country. all these left indelible impressions on his young imagination, and nursed the latent germ of poetry and romance, so late, but so beautiful in its flowering. subsequently he resided with another relation at kelso. here, under the shadow of a great platanus or oriental palm tree, in an old garden, he devoured "percy's reliques of ancient poetry," and permitted his fancy to wander at will amid the scenes of border romance. this explains, in some degree, the peculiar characteristics of his first poems, and that fine strain of romantic feeling which runs through his tales. speaking of this matter, he says himself: "in early youth i had been an eager student of ballad poetry, and the tree is still in my recollection beneath which i lay and first entered upon the enchanting perusal of 'percy's reliques of ancient poetry,' although it has long perished in the general blight which affected the whole race of oriental platanus, to which it belonged. the taste of another person had strongly encouraged my own researches into this species of legendary lore. but i had never dreamed of an attempt to imitate what gave me so much pleasure. excepting the usual tribute to a mistress's eyebrow, which is the language of passion rather than poetry, i had not for ten years indulged the wish to couple so much as _love_ and _dove_, when finding lewis in possession of so much reputation, and conceiving that, if i fell behind him in poetical powers, i considerably exceeded him in general information, i suddenly took it into my head to attempt the style by which he had raised himself to fame." he refers to the same thing in the following lines: "thus, while i ape the measure wild, of tales that charmed me--yet a child, rude though they be, still with the chime return the thoughts of early time; and feelings roused in life's first day, glow in the line, and prompt the lay; then rise those crags, that mountain tower, which charmed my fancy's wakening hour. though no broad river swept along, to claim perchance heroic song; though sigh no groves in summer gale, to prompt of love a softer tale, yet was poetic impulse given by the green hill and clear blue heaven. it was a barren scene, and wild, where naked cliffs were rudely piled, but ever and anon between lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; and well the lovely infant knew recesses where the wall-flower grew. and honeysuckle loved to crawl up the low crag and ruined wall. i deemed such nooks the sweetest shade the sun in all its round surveyed; and still i thought that shattered tower the mightiest work of human power; and marvelled as the aged hind, with some strange tale bewitched my mind, of foragers who, with headlong force down from that strength had spurred their horse, their southern rapine to renew far in the distant cheviot's blue, and home returning filled the hall, with revel, wassail-route and brawl.-- methought that still with tramp and clang the gateway's broken arches rang; methought grim features seamed with scars, glared through the window's rusty bars. and even by the winter hearth; old tales i heard of woe or mirth, of lovers' sleights, of ladies' charms, of witches' spells, of warriors' arms; of patriot battles won of old by wallace wight and bruce the bold; of later fields of feud and fight, when pouring from their highland height, the scottish clans in headlong sway, had swept the scarlet ranks away. while stretched at length upon the floor, again i fought each combat e'er, pebbles and shells in order laid the mimic ranks of war displayed; and onward still the scottish lion bore, and still the scattered southron fled before." in addition to this, young scott was a perfect _helluo librorum_. he had access to a large library filled with romances, histories, biographies, and so forth, which he indiscriminately devoured. his memory was quick and tenacious, and his mind became stored with all sorts of facts, fables and fancies. still, even in youth, he possessed a sound judgment, a clear, well balanced mind, and separated the chaff from the wheat with tolerable discrimination. his father was a good presbyterian, and did what he could to imbue his mind with religious principles, which never deserted him. among the first lines he is known to have written are the following. they were found wrapped up in a paper inscribed by dr. adam of the edinburgh high school, 'walter scott, july, .' on the setting sun. those evening clouds, that setting ray, and beauteous tints, serve to display their great creator's praise; then let the short-lived thing called man whose life's comprised within a span, to him his homage raise. we often praise the evening clouds, and tints so gay and bold, but seldom think upon our god, who tinged these clouds with gold. scott was educated at the edinburgh high school, and university. he had an aversion to greek, a singular fact, but made some proficiency in latin, moral philosophy and history. he also made himself tolerably familiar with the french, german and italian tongues. being much at home, he indulged in reading romances and poetry. from early life, he was an industrious collector of old ballads, many of which he committed to memory. apprenticed to his father, as "a writer," he commenced the study of law, and began to practice in his twenty-first year. as his health was now vigorous, he made long excursions into the country, which he facetiously denominated _raids_, rambling over scenes of external beauty or of historic interest, making acquaintance with the country people, and picking up information about men and things. by this means he amassed an immense store of everyday facts, and an intimate knowledge of character, which were of immense service to him in the construction of his novels. scott's first appearance as an author was in the translation from the german of burger's leonore, and "der wilde jäger," or the "wild huntsman," ballads of singular wildness and power. these, however, made little impression on the public mind. of this he says, "the failure of my first publication did not operate, in any unpleasant degree, either on my feelings or spirits. to speak candidly, i found pleasure in the literary labor in which i had, almost by accident, become engaged, and labored less in the hope of pleasing others, though certainly without despair of doing so, than in the pursuit of a new and agreeable amusement to myself." he continued to read the german, and to make translations from it, and became more and more interested in the ballad poetry. he was delighted to find the affinity of the old english, and especially of the scottish language to the german, not in sound merely, but in the turn of phrase, so that they were capable of being rendered line for line, with very little variation. by degrees he acquired sufficient confidence to attempt the imitation of what he so much admired. his first original poem was "glenfinlas." next followed "the eve of st. john." owing to unfortunate circumstances these had no great success. nothing daunted, however, he again appeared before the public with his "minstrelsy of the scottish border," which immediately became popular. the success of this last work, not only established his reputation as an author, but encouraged him to devote himself to literary pursuits. under appointment as sheriff of selkirkshire, he enjoyed the kind of associations and employments favorable to the cultivation of his poetical powers. among other things, he edited the metrical romance of "sir tristrem," supposed to be written by "thomas the rhymer," or thomas of ercildoune, laird, poet and prophet, who flourished about the year . the dissertations which accompanied this work, and the imitation of the original to complete the romance, evinced his antiquarian attainments and fine poetical taste. at length appeared "the lay of the last minstrel," a higher, purer strain, which was received with universal enthusiasm, and stamped him a great and original poet. his fine conception of the minstrel, his easy versification, his admirable narrative, his glowing pictures, his wild ballad enthusiasm, his legendary lore, and his exquisite touches of the marvellous and supernatural, combined to render the poem popular beyond all precedent. thirty thousand copies were speedily sold by the trade. then, in quick succession, followed that splendid series of poems, so popular in their day, and still so interesting and delightful. intrinsically, they are inferior to some of the higher strains of english poetry, but they possess certain qualities which gained the public ear, and found a place in the national heart. these doubtless were the novelty of their style, their natural and simple versification, their easy, dramatic narrative, and their lively descriptions of national scenes and manners, in contrast with the formal hexameters, with "all their buckram and binding," of which the public had become tired. being in easy, and almost in affluent circumstances, scott became ambitious of founding a family. for this purpose he bought land on the banks of the tweed, and built abbotsford, at a very considerable expense. he received the order of knighthood, and looked forward to days of ease and prosperity. devoting himself almost entirely to literary pursuits, he formed connections in business with james ballantyne, then rising into extensive business in the city of edinburgh. this involved the necessity of large advances, and scott became involved in large pecuniary responsibilities. he received an appointment as one of the principal clerks of the court of session, with perhaps six thousand dollars per annum. this, with the gains of the printing establishment, and other sources of revenue, would have secured to him and his family an ample provision. with his customary sagacity, sir walter perceived that his peculiar style of poetry would not continue popular, and therefore he betook himself to a new field of literary enterprise, which proved still richer, and, by far, more congenial. then appeared his historical novels, which became so popular, that his fame as a poet was almost forgotten. volume after volume came from the press, and spread like wildfire over the land. translated into french, german, and italian, they reached every part of europe, and completely superseded the old run of novels, with their unnatural plots and extravagant nonsense. it was scott's ambition to elevate this species of literature, and whatever objections may be made against it, on the score of moral influence, this much must be conceded to him. in his hands novel writing became comparatively pure and dignified, nay, as some, with considerable show of reason, contend, beneficial. the moral tone of all sir walter's productions is pre-eminently pure. they are characterized by shrewd sense, a profound insight into men and things, a keen perception of the beautiful and brave, the generous and leal, a fine sense of honor, reverence for god, and a deep sympathy with all the wants and woes, the hopes and joys of our common humanity. sir walter is the shakspeare of novel writing, and if he falls below the great dramatic poet, in the quickness and universality of his genius, he approaches him in the soundness of his intellect, the breadth of his imagination, and the versatility of his powers. from his tory and high church predilections he has done some injustice to the old covenanters and puritans of scotland; but he possessed a noble and generous heart, a spirit of faith and reverence, a love for god and all his creatures. his soul was naturally blithe and joyous, hopeful and strong. he loved scotland with intense affection, and has spread the light of his genius over all her hills and vales. under the magic influence of his pen the hoary mountains, the dark tarns and trosachs of the highlands gleam with supernal beauty. tweed murmurs his name, while the firth and tay repeat it through all their windings. his "own romantic town" glories in his memory; every city, village and hamlet of the lowlands, with strath, meadow and moorland, echo his praise. the genius of his country has crowned him with the same wild wreath which erst she hung upon the head of burns, and the world has acknowledged the consecration. it was in the year that ballantyne and company became insolvent, and sir walter scott, in the very midst of his splendid career, found himself involved to the amount of $ , . but he nobly refused to become a bankrupt, considering, says allan cunningham, "like the elder osbaldistone of his own immortal pages, commercial honor as dear as any other honor." all he asked for was time; and in seven years he paid off more than the half of this sum by the labors of his pen. his efforts to accomplish this sublime purpose were gigantic, but they broke down his constitution. "sometime in the beginning of the year ," says his friend cunningham, "a sore illness came upon him; his astonishing efforts to satisfy his creditors, began to exhaust a mind apparently exhaustless; and the world heard with concern that a paralytic stroke had affected his speech and his right hand, so much as to render writing a matter of difficulty. one of his letters to me at this period, is not written with his own hand: the signature is his, and looks cramped and weak. i visited him at abbotsford, about the end of july, : he was a degree more feeble than i had ever seen him, and his voice seemed affected; not so his activity of fancy, and surprising resources of conversation. he told anecdotes and recited scraps of verse, old and new, always tending to illustrate something passing. he showed me his armory, in which he took visible pleasure; and was glad to hear me commend the design of his house, as well as the skill with which it was built. * * * in a small room, half library and half armory, he usually sat and wrote: here he had some remarkable weapons, curious pieces of old scottish furniture, such as chairs and cabinets, and an antique sort of a table, on which lay his writing materials. a crooked headed staff of abbotsford oak or hazel usually lay beside him to support his steps as he went and came." "when it was known," continues cunningham, "that sir walter scott's health declined, the deep solicitude of all ranks became manifest; strangers came from far lands to look on the house which contained the great genius of our times; inquirers flocked around, of humble and of high degree, and the amount of letters of inquiry or condolence was, i have heard, enormous. amongst the visitors, not the least welcome was wordsworth, the poet, who arrived when the air of the northern hills was growing too sharp for the enfeebled frame of scott, and he had resolved to try if the fine air and climate of italy would restore him to health and strength. "when government heard of sir walter's wishes, they offered him a ship; he left abbotsford as many thought forever, and arrived in london, where he was welcomed as never mortal was welcomed before. he visited several friends, nor did he refuse to mingle in company, and having written something almost approaching to a farewell to the world, which was published with 'castle dangerous,' the last of his works, he set sail for italy, with the purpose of touching at malta. he seemed revived, but it was only for a while: he visited naples, but could not enjoy the high honors paid to him: he visited rome, and sighed amid its splendid temples and glorious works of art, for gray melrose and the pleasant banks of tweed, and passing out of italy, proceeded homewards down the rhine. word came to london, that a dreadful attack of paralysis had nearly deprived him of life, and that but for the presence of mind of a faithful servant he must have perished. this alarming news was followed by his arrival in london: a strong desire of home had come upon him; he travelled with rapidity, night and day, and was all but worn out, when carried into st. james's hotel, jermyn street, by his servants." as soon as he recovered a little, he resumed his journey to scotland, reached abbotsford, and seemed revived, smiled when he was borne into his library, and enjoyed the society of his children. when he was leaving london the people, wherever he was recognized, took off their hats, saying, "god bless you, sir walter!" his arrival in scotland was hailed with equal enthusiasm and sympathy; and so much was he revived that hopes were entertained of his recovery. but he gradually declined, listening occasionally to passages from the bible, and from the poems of crabbe and wordsworth. once he tried to write, but failed in the attempt. "he never spoke of his literary labors or success." occasionally his mind wandered, and then he was preparing for the reception of the duke of wellington at abbotsford, or exercising the functions of a judge, as if presiding at the trial of members of his own family. it may be regarded as a singular fact, that in his delirium, his mind never wandered toward those works which had filled the world with his fame. but the flame of life now flickered feebly in its socket, and gave unerring indications of its speedy extinction. "about half past one, p. m.," says mr. lockhart, his son-in-law and biographer, "on the st of september, , sir walter breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. it was a beautiful day--so warm that every window was open--and so perfectly still that the sound, of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible, as we knelt around his bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes." the remains of sir walter were buried in dryburgh abbey. "as we advanced," says one who was present at the funeral, which was conducted with the greatest simplicity and solemnity, "the ruined abbey disclosed itself through the trees; and we approached its western extremity, where a considerable portion of vaulted roof still remains to protect the poet's family place of interment, which opens to the sides in lofty gothic arches, and is defended by a low rail of enclosure. at one extremity of it, a tall thriving young cypress rears its spiral form. creeping plants of different kinds, 'with ivy never sere,' have spread themselves very luxuriantly over every part of the abbey. these perhaps were in many instances the children of art; but however this may have been, nature had herself undertaken their education. in this spot especially, she seems to have been most industriously busy in twining her richest wreaths around those walls which more immediately form her poet's tomb. amongst her other decorations, we observed a plum tree, which was perhaps at one period a prisoner, chained to the solid masonry, but which having long since been emancipated, now threw out its wild pendent branches, laden with purple fruit, ready to drop, as if emblematical of the ripening and decay of human life. "in such a scene as this, then, it was that the coffin of sir walter scott was set down on trestles placed outside the iron railing; and here that solemn service, beginning with those words, so cheering to the souls of christians, 'i am the resurrection and the life,' was solemnly read. the manly soldier-like features of the chief mourner, on whom the eyes of sympathy were most naturally turned, betrayed at intervals the powerful efforts which he had made to master his emotions, as well as the inefficiency of his exertions to do so. the other relatives who surrounded the bier were deeply moved; and amid the crowd of weeping friends, no eye, and no heart could be discovered that was not altogether occupied in that sad and impressive ceremonial, which was so soon to shut from them forever, him who had been so long the common idol of their admiration, and of their best affections. here and there, indeed, we might have fancied that we detected some early and long tried friends of him who lay cold before us, who, whilst tears dimmed their eyes, and whilst their lips quivered, were yet partly engaged in mixing up and contrasting the happier scenes of days long gone by, with that which they were now witnessing, until they became lost in dreamy reverie, so that even the movement made when the coffin was carried under the lofty arches of the ruin, and when _dust was committed to dust_, did not entirely snap the thread of their visions. it was not until the harsh sound of the hammers of the workmen who were employed to rivet those iron bars covering the grave, to secure it from violation, had begun to echo from the vaulted roof, that some of us were called to the full conviction of the fact, that the earth had forever closed over that form which we were wont to love and reverence; that eye which we had so often seen beaming with benevolence, sparkling with wit, or lighted up with a poet's frenzy; those lips which we had so often seen monopolizing the attention of all listeners, or heard rolling out, with nervous accentuation, those powerful verses with which his head was continually teeming; and that brow, the perpetual throne of generous expression, and liberal intelligence. overwhelmed by the conviction of this afflicting truth, men moved away without parting salutation, singly, slowly, and silently. the day began to stoop down into twilight; and we, too, after giving a last parting survey to the spot where now repose the remains of our scottish shakspeare, a spot lovely enough to induce his sainted spirit to haunt and sanctify its shades, hastily tore ourselves away." chapter xxii. melrose abbey--the eildon hills--thomas the rhymer--dryburgh--monuments to the author of 'the seasons' and sir william wallace--kelso--beautiful scenery--a pleasant evening--biographical sketch of leyden, poet, antiquary, scholar and traveller--the duncan family--journey resumed--twisel bridge--battle of flodden--norham castle--berwick upon tweed--biographical sketch of thomas mackay wilson, author of 'the border tales'--conclusion--'auld lang syne.' after visiting "fair melrose," whose rains, rising in the centre of a rich landscape, and rendered immortal by the exquisite descriptions of sir walter scott, are the most interesting and beautiful of any in scotland;--wandering over the eildon hills, the trimontium of the romans, from the summits of which some thirty miles of wild and varied scenery can be surveyed; gazing on the ruins of ercildoune, the manor-house of thomas the rhymer, whose real name was thomas learmont, author of "the romance of tristan," a poem of the thirteenth century, in the language of antique chaucer; lingering in dryburgh abbey, embosomed in a richly wooded haugh on the banks of the tweed; and especially gazing, in reverent homage, on the grave of "the great magician of the north," in st. mary's aisle, so sad and yet so fair; crossing the tweed, and pausing a few moments, to examine a circular temple on the banks of the river, dedicated to the muses, and surmounted by a bust of thomson, author of "the seasons," and a little further on the colossal statue of sir william wallace, the hero of scotland, which stands upon a rocky eminence and overlooks the river, and a fine prospect of "wood and water, mountain and rock scenery," we pass along the banks of the tweed, till we come to the handsome town of kelso, on the margin of the river, with its ancient abbey and delightful environs. as the day is far spent, we will stay here for the night. but, before the sun goes down, let us wander over the neighborhood, which is singularly beautiful, and redolent with the genius of scott and of leyden, who has described it in his "scenes of infancy." "bosom'd in woods where mighty rivers run, kelso's fair vale expands before the sun; its rising downs in vernal beauty swell, and fringed with hazel, winds each flowery dell, green spangled plains to dimpled lawns succeed, and tempe rises on the banks of tweed: blue o'er the river kelso's shadow lies, and copse-clad isles amid the water rise." as the view from the bridge which spans the river is said to be one of the richest in scotland, we linger there till the sun goes down. 'tis a soft, still, summer afternoon, beginning to glide into the long and beautiful twilight. the rays of the sun are yet upon the mountains, and tinge the summits of the woods, the rocks, and the castellated edifices, which adorn the landscape. the tweed is gliding, in shadow, through the wooded vale, and the songs of the mavis and blackbird are echoing among the trees. a little above the bridge the clear waters of the teviot and the tweed flow together, as if attracted by each other's beauty. beyond are the picturesque ruins of roxburgh castle, and somewhat nearer the ducal palace of fleurs, rising amid a rich expanse of wooded decorations, sloping down to the very margin of the river; in front are gleaming two green islets of the tweed, and between that river and the teviot reposes the beautiful peninsula of friar's green, with the soft meadow in its foreground. on the south bank of the river are the mansion and woods of springwood park, and the bridge across the teviot, on which are reposing the mellow rays of the setting sun. on the right the town lies along the bank of the river, with its elegant mansions and venerable abbey. there too is ednam house, near which the poet thomson had his birth. far beyond these, the eye rests pleasantly on "the triple summits" of the eildon hills, looking down protectingly upon the vale of tweed, the hills of stitchell and mellerstain, and the striking ruin of home castle, still arrayed in the purple and gold of departing day. intermingled with all these are the windings and rippling currents of the river, clumps of rich green foliage, orchards laden with fruit, tufted rocks, verdant slopes, single trees of lofty stature, standing out from the rest, in the pride and pomp of their "leafy umbrage," cattle browsing peacefully on the banks of the stream, here and there a sylvan cottage, and an infinite variety of light and shade, of blending colors and changing forms, hallowed, moreover, by the hoary memories and poetical associations of by-gone days. no wonder that leyden loved to wander in such scenes, or that scott, a more transcendent genius, should have ascribed to this influence the awakening in his soul "of that insatiable love of natural scenery, more especially when combined with ancient ruins, or remains of our fathers' piety and splendor," which gave a charm to his life, and imparted to the productions of his genius a warmth and richness of coloring unequalled in the history of literature. but it is time to return to our comfortable hotel in kelso, where mine host, who is an honest, round-faced, rosy-cheeked, good-natured scot, will give us good cheer for supper, and a bed soft as down upon which to repose our weary limbs. well now, this is pleasant! here in this snug room, with a cheerful cup of tea, and such toast, broiled chicken, and other edibles, as mine host only can produce, we feel as easy and independent as kings, aye, and a great deal more so; for who so satisfied and happy as the man, whatever his estate, who has a clear conscience, a mind brimful of sweet memories, a heart grateful to god and attached to those he loves? let any person only do what is right, trust in god, enjoy nature, cultivate his mind, exercise his body, and he may secure as much happiness as falls to the lot of mortals. trials may come, but joys will come also. all things shall "work together for good." but it is easy moralizing over a good cup of tea, with a cheerful fire blazing in the grate, and a soft bed in prospect for weary limbs. moreover, i promised to give you some account of leyden, poet and antiquary, scholar and traveler. john leyden was born in , in denholm, roxburghshire, not far from kelso, of poor but honest parents. he displayed in early life the most eager desire for learning, but possessed few opportunities for gratifying it, as he had to spend much of his time in manual toil. his parents, however, seeing his thirst for knowledge, resolved to send him to edinburgh university. he entered this institution in his fifteenth year, and made unusual progress in his studies. he distinguished himself in the latin and greek languages, acquired the french, spanish, italian and german, besides forming some acquaintance with the hebrew, arabic and persian. during his college vacations he returned to the humble roof of his parents, and as the accommodations of the house were scanty, he looked for a place of study elsewhere. "in a wild recess," says sir walter scott, who has furnished an animated biography of leyden, "in the den or glen which gives name to the village of denholm, he contrived a sort of furnace for the purpose of such chemical experiments as he was adequate to performing. but his chief place of retirement was the small parish church, a gloomy and ancient building, generally believed in the neighborhood to be haunted. to this chosen place of study, usually locked during week days, leyden made entrance by means of a window, read there for many hours in the day, and deposited his books and specimens in a retired pew. it was a well chosen spot for seclusion, for the kirk, (excepting during divine service,) is rather a place of terror to the scottish rustic, and that of cavers was rendered more so by many a tale of ghosts and witchcraft, of which it was the supposed scene, and to which leyden, partly to indulge his humor, and partly to secure his retirement, contrived to make some modern additions. the nature of his abstruse studies, some specimens of natural history, as toads and adders, left exposed in their spirit vials, and one or two practical jests played off upon the more curious of the peasantry, rendered his gloomy haunt, not only venerated by the wise, but feared by the simple of the parish." leyden was originally intended for the clerical profession, but abandoned it for more secular employments. his spirit was intense, restless and ambitious, and he longed for foreign travel and literary distinction. after spending five years at college, he became tutor to a highly respectable family, with whose sons he repaired to the university of st. andrews, where he pursued his oriental studies, and in published a history of african discoveries. he was the author, also, of various translations and poems, which attracted considerable attention and introduced him to the best society. in he was ordained as a minister, and his discourses were highly popular; but he was dissatisfied with them, and felt that he was called to a different sphere. he continued to write and compose, contributed to lewis's "tales of wonder," and scott's "border minstrelsy." he was an enthusiastic admirer of the old ballads, and on one occasion actually walked between forty and fifty miles for the sole purpose of visiting an old person who possessed an ancient historical ballad. he edited the "scot's magazine," for a year, and published "the complaynt of scotland," an old work written about , which he accompanied with a learned dissertation, notes and a glossary. his strong desire to visit foreign lands induced his friends to procure for him an appointment in india, where he might study the oriental languages and literature. the only situation which they found available was that of assistant surgeon, for which it was necessary to have a medical diploma. but such was the energy, decision and perseverance of leyden's character, that he qualified himself in six months; and not long after set out for madras. before taking his departure he finished his "scenes of infancy," as it were, the last token of his love for scotland, which he never again beheld. he was resolved to distinguish himself or die in the attempt. indeed a premonition of such an issue seems to have haunted his mind, and was expressed, with touching beauty, in his "scenes of infancy." "the silver moon at midnight cold and still, looks sad and silent o'er yon western hill; while large and pale the ghostly structures grow, reared on the confines of the world below. is that dull sound the hum of teviot's stream? is that blue light the moon's or tomb-fire's gleam? by which a mouldering pile is faintly seen, the old deserted church of hazeldean, where slept my fathers in their natal clay, till teviot's waters rolled their bones away? their feeble voices from their stream they raise-- 'rash youth! unmindful of thy early days, why didst thou quit the simple peasant's lot? why didst thou leave the peasant's turf-built cot, the ancient graves where all thy fathers lie, and teviot's stream that long has murmur'd by? and we, when death so long has clos'd our eyes, how wilt thou bid us from the dust arise, and bear our mouldering bones across the main. from vales that knew our lives devoid of stain? rash youth! beware, thy home-bred virtues save, and sweetly sleep in thy paternal grave.'" after his arrival in madras, his health became impaired, and he removed to prince of wales island. he resided there some time, visiting the neighboring countries, and amassing curious information on the literature and history of the indo-chinese, which he embodied in an elaborate dissertation read before the asiatic society at calcutta. quitting prince of wales island, leyden was appointed a professor in the bengal college, which he soon exchanged for the office of judge, a more lucrative employment. his spare time was devoted to the prosecution of his oriental studies. "i may die in the attempt," he wrote to a friend, "but if i die without surpassing sir william jones a hundredfold in oriental learning, let never a tear for me profane the eye of a borderer." in he accompanied the governor general to java. his spirit of bold adventure led him literally to rush upon death. he threw himself into the surf in order to be the first briton who should set foot upon java. when the invaders had taken possession of batavia, the same reckless eagerness took him into a cold damp library, in which were many books and manuscripts. affected perhaps by the disease of the climate he had a fit of shivering on leaving the library, and declared that the atmosphere was enough to give any one a mortal fever. in three days after he died, august , , on the eve of the battle which secured java to the british empire. leyden's poetical remains were published in , with a memoir. in addition to the "scenes of infancy," it contains some vigorous ballads. to one of these, "the mermaid," as well as to the untimely death of its author, sir walter scott has referred in his "lord of the isles." "scarba's isle, whose tortured shore still rings to corrievreckin's roar, and lovely colonsay; scenes sung by him who sings no more: his bright and brief career is o'er, and mute his tuneful strains; quenched is his lamp of varied lore, that loved the light of song to pour: a distant and a deadly shore has leyden's cold remains." his "scenes of infancy" is distinguished for the sweetness of its versification, and its pleasant pictures of the vale of teviot. in strength and enthusiasm, it is much inferior to his ballads. the opening of "the mermaid," has been praised by sir walter scott "as exhibiting a power of numbers, which for mere melody of sound has rarely been excelled." on jura's heath how sweetly swell the murmurs of the mountain bee! how softly, mourns the writh'd shell, of jura's shore, its parent sea. but softer, floating o'er the deep, the mermaid's sweet, sea-soothing lay, that charmed the dancing waves to sleep, before the bark of colonsay. but better known, and far more affecting, is leyden's "ode to an indian gold coin," written in cherical, malabar, which in addition to its vigor and beauty, has a fine moral which it is not necessary to point out. slave of the dark and dirty mine! what vanity has brought thee here? how can i love to see thee shine so bright, whom i have bought so dear? the tent-ropes flapping lone i hear, for twilight converse arm in arm; the jackal's shriek bursts on my ear, when mirth and music wont to cheer. by cherical's dark wandering streams, where cane-tufts shadow all the wild, sweet visions haunt my waking dreams of teviot loved while still a child; of castled rocks stupendous piled by esk or eden's classic wave, where loves of youth and friendship smiled uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave! fade, day-dreams sweet, from memory fade! the perished bliss of youth's first prime, that once so bright on fancy played, revives no more in after time. far from my sacred natal clime i haste to an untimely grave; the daring thoughts that soared sublime are sunk in ocean's southern wave. slave of the mine, thy yellow light gleams baleful as the tomb-fire drear. a gentle vision comes by night my lonely widowed heart to cheer. her eyes are dim with many a tear, that once were guiding-stars to mine; her fond heart throbs with many a fear! i cannot bear to see thee shine. for thee, for thee, vile yellow slave, i left a heart that loved me true! i crossed the tedious ocean wave, to roam in climes unkind and new. the cold wind of the stranger blew chill on my withered heart; the grave dark and untimely met my view-- and all for thee, vile yellow slave! ha! com'st thou now so late to mock a wanderer's banished heart forlorn, now that his frame, the lightning shock of sun-rays tipt with death has borne? from love, from friendship, country, torn, to memory's fond regrets the prey: vile slave, thy yellow dross i scorn! go mix thee with thy kindred clay! while conversing about leyden, we must not forget a gentler, purer spirit, mary lundie duncan, who first saw the light "amid the blossoms of kelso," and whose young heart first warbled its poetic strains on the banks of the tweed. her "memoir," by her gifted mother, is one of the most beautiful and touching biographies in the english language. possessed of genius and piety, at once pure and tender, her brief life was the fair but changeful spring-time which preceded the long summer of eternity. sweet bird of scotia's tuneful clime, so beautiful and dear, whose music gushed as genius taught, with heaven's own quenchless spirit fraught, i list--thy strain to hear. bright flower on kelso's bosom born, when spring her glories shed, where tweed flows on in silver sheen, and tiviot feeds her valleys green, i cannot think thee dead. fair child--whose rich unfoldings gave a promise rare and true, the parent's proudest thoughts to cheer, and soothe of widowed woe the tear,-- why hid'st thou from our view? young bride, whose wildest thrill of hope bowed the pure brow in prayer, whose ardent zeal and saintly grace, did make the manse a holy place, we search--thou art not there. fond mother, they who taught thy joys to sparkle up so high; thy first born, and her brother dear catch charms from every fleeting year:-- where is thy glistening eye? meek christian, it is well with thee, that where thy heart so long was garnered up, thy home should be;-- thy path with him who made thee free;-- thy lay--an angel's song. _lydia h. sigourney._ some of mary lundie duncan's poems are characterized not merely by purity and elevation of sentiment, but by sweetness and melody of versification. the following written at "callander," though not without defects, indicates the possession of true poetical genius. how pure the light on yonder hills, how soft the shadows lie; how blythe each morning sound that fills the air with melody! those hills, that rest in solemn calm above the strife of men, are bathed in breezy gales of balm from knoll and heathy glen. in converse with the silent sky, they mock the flight of years; while man and all his labors die low in this vale of tears. meet emblem of eternal rest, they point their summits grey to the fair regions of the blest, where tends our pilgrim way. the everlasting mountains there reflect undying light; the ray which gilds that ambient air, nor fades, nor sets in night. then summer sun more piercing bright. that beam is milder too; for love is in the sacred light that softens every hue. the gale that fans the peaceful clime is life's immortal breath, its freshness makes the sons of time forget disease and death. and shall we tread that holy ground, and breathe that fragrant air; and view the fields with glory crowned in cloudless beauty fair? * * * * * look up! look up, to yonder light, that cheers the desert grey: it marks the close of toil and night, the dawn of endless day. how sweet your choral hymns will blend with harps of heavenly tone; when glad you sing your journey's end around your father's throne. mary's contributions to "the philosophy of the seasons," over the signature of m. l. d., such as "the rose," "the bat," "sabbath morning," an "autumnal sabbath evening," are simple and elegant, indicating the possession of good sense and a refined imagination. like her brother archibald lundie, who went to the south sea islands in order to benefit his health, and to labor in the sublime work of christian missions, mary passed away in the morning of her days, but not without leaving a blessed fragrance behind her, which yet lingers, not over scotland alone, but over the whole christian world. and well might her stricken yet resigned and hopeful mother say, in the words quoted at the close of her daughter's _memoir_: "i know thou art gone where thy forehead is starred with the beauty that dwelt in thy soul; where the light of thy loveliness cannot be marred, nor thy heart be flung back from its gaol: i know thou hast drank of the lethe that flows through a land where they do not forget; that sheds over memory only repose; and takes from it only regret. "and though like a mourner that sits by a tomb, i am wrapt in a mantle of care; yet the grief of my bosom--oh! call it not gloom-- is not the black grief of despair. by sorrow revealed, as the stars are by night, far off thy bright vision appears; and hope like the rainbow, a creature of light, is born like the rainbow--in tears." _j. k. hervey._ the duncan family to which mary lundie, by her marriage with one of the sons, belonged, is one of the most interesting in scotland. all of its members seem possessed of fine talents, devoted piety, and generous affections. two of the sons, with the father, were ministers of the established church of scotland at the time of the secession of the free church from that body, and made a sacrifice, for conscience' sake, of agreeable situations and handsome incomes. without the slightest hesitation, and without a murmur even, they abandoned their beautiful manses, their churches and people, and threw themselves, with their brethren of the free church, upon the providence of god, not knowing what might be the issues of that sublime movement. "the philosophy of the seasons,"[ ] though written mainly by the father, the rev. dr. duncan of ruthwell, received contributions from all the members of the family, and remains a splendid monument of their talents, piety and mutual affection. it is fast becoming a classic. filled with information, and imbued with a spirit of fervid piety, and, moreover, written in a lucid, flowing style, it is well fitted at once to instruct and please. [footnote : published by r. carter, in four handsome octavos.] as dr. duncan has recently deceased, a brief sketch of his life may not be uninteresting in this connection. dr. henry duncan was "a son of the manse." he was born in , at lochrutton, in the stewartry of kirkcudbright, of which his father and his grandfather were ministers successively, during a period of eighty years, a striking instance of pastoral permanence. if wealth consists "in the number of things we love," then those good men must have been rich beyond the common lot of ministers; and young henry must have received from them a rich heritage of blessings. he was educated at the universities of st. andrews, glasgow, and edinburgh. while attending the latter he was a member of the "speculative society," to which many of the most distinguished literary characters belonged, and associated freely with lord brougham, the marquis of landsdowne, dr. andrew thomson and others. he became the pastor of the established church in ruthwell, dumfriesshire, where he labored with great success for many years. he died in the forty-seventh year of his ministry. dr. duncan was imbued with a spirit of enlarged christian benevolence, and felt a peculiar interest in the amelioration of the condition of the poorer classes. hence he formed the scheme of the "cheap repository tracts," addressed to the working classes, and designed to enforce the most useful lessons suited to their condition. it was in this collection that his "cottage fireside" was first published, a production which became exceedingly popular, and passed through many editions. the book abounds in happy delineations of scottish manners, fine strokes of humor, and admirable lessons of practical wisdom. "the south country weaver," possesses the same qualities and aims; and, in a time of excessive political excitement, did much to allay the discontent and revolutionary tendency of the people. he is also said to be the author of another work of a higher grade, written in the same style of fictitious narrative, and intended to vindicate the principles and proceedings of the scottish covenanters, from the aspersions cast upon them by the author of waverley. this production has been highly esteemed by good judges of literary merit, but it never became popular. it may well be supposed that dr. duncan felt a peculiar interest, not only in the spiritual but also in the temporal condition of his own parish, and hence he was ever devising plans for its benefit. in this respect he much resembled the benevolent oberlin, whose well directed schemes turned the barren parish of waldbach into a little paradise. entering upon the duties of his charge at a time of national scarcity and distress, he imported from liverpool, at considerable expense, and with great personal inconvenience, large quantities of food which he distributed among his poor parishioners he also devised new modes and sources of employment, and cheered them amid their privations by his counsel and sympathy. he instituted among them two admirable "friendly societies," one for males and another for females, the advantages of which are enjoyed to this day. but perhaps his highest claim to distinction as a philanthropist was the establishment of "the ruthwell parish bank," the first "savings bank" in europe, which, it is said, was suggested to him partly by the beneficial results and partly by the admitted defects of the friendly societies. his undoubted title to be regarded as the originator of "savings banks," has been acknowledged by the highest authorities; but it is not so generally known at what an immense expenditure of time, talent, energy and pecuniary means he succeeded in accomplishing this good object. dr. duncan's learning and talents were of a high order, and these were devoted exclusively to the benefit of his fellow men. his principal literary work, "the sacred philosophy of the seasons," was planned and written in a single year, an astonishing instance of mental energy, industry and talent. "never were the different kingdoms and varying aspects of nature, the characteristics of the seasons, and all the grand and beautiful phenomena of the year, more philosophically and more eloquently described than in this charming book. the comprehensive views of the philosopher, the poetic feeling of the lover of nature, and the pious reflection of the christian divine, are all combined in its pages, and win at once the admiration and affection of the reader." here genius and piety, the love of nature and the love of god spread their sunlight over the face of creation, and make visible to all reverent and thoughtful minds "the gospel of the stars--great nature's holy writ." as a preacher dr. duncan was interesting and instructive, but not particularly striking and popular. in he was elected moderator of the general assembly, the highest honor the church could confer. warmly attached to evangelical religion, and deeply interested in the purity and progress of the church of christ throughout the world, he earnestly promoted the cause of christian missions, and kindred schemes of benevolence. he was intimately associated with dr. chalmers and others, in sustaining the great principles of vital christianity, the supremacy of christ in his own church, and particularly the freedom and independence of his ministers. "true, therefore, to the principles he had espoused, and ever warmly defended--true to what he considered the genuine constitution of the scottish church, this venerable and amiable father left, in the ever memorable year , that manse, which he had inhabited for four and forty long and happy years, and which his own fine taste had so greatly beautified and adorned--that hallowed home in which his dutiful and attached children had been reared--in which his first beloved wife had died, and which was associated with many delightful recollections of joy and kindness, and prayer, indelibly engraven on many hearts--for _there_ was many a young idea fostered, and many a guest and many a stranger hospitably entertained. but with a cloud of many eminent witnesses, whose names will be embalmed in the records of their country, dr. duncan lifted up his testimony for the glorious prerogative of zion's king, and counted the reproach of christ greater riches than all the treasures of earth. and actuated by the same spirit of faith as the martyrs and confessors of other days--the men of whom the world was not worthy--he abandoned, at an advanced age, all the comforts of his lovely and endeared home, and all the emoluments and delights connected with it, and meekly took up his lowly dwelling in an humble cottage by the way-side, willingly enduring hardship, and submitting to ingratitude from man, that he might honor his god and hold fast his integrity, dearer to him than life. he was one of seven moderators of the old general assembly, men like himself of high name and holy deeds, who sacrificed all their honors and emoluments, and cast in their lot with the free church of scotland, that they might display a banner for the truth, and who, when driven by a cruel and miserable policy from those altars which they sanctified, went forth, a veteran band of christian heroes, and preached the gospel of peace and salvation under the broad canopy of heaven, with gray hairs streaming in the breeze." during the summer of dr. duncan preached in the open air, but finally succeeded by great efforts, in securing a site, and erecting upon it a church and a manse, a school and a schoolmaster's house. a suitable successor was appointed to this charge, and dr. duncan removed his residence to the city of edinburgh. but his affections lingered around his beloved ruthwell, and he undertook a journey to england to secure funds to pay off the debt upon the new buildings and bring them to a state of completion. having accomplished his object, he returned to scotland in excellent spirits, and reached comlogan castle, the residence of his brother-in-law. on that and the succeeding day he occupied himself in laying out the grounds about the manse and giving directions respecting the buildings. on the following sabbath he preached to an overflowing audience. monday and tuesday were devoted to visiting his old parishioners. he was invited to address a prayer meeting at the house of an elder of the established church, and it was while engaged in the performance of that duty that the messenger of death met him. he had not spoken ten minutes, when his voice trembled, his body shuddered, and it was evident to all that he was struck with a sudden paralysis. he was immediately conveyed to comlogan castle. "on his way, though his speech was much affected, his consciousness was entire, and he repeatedly lifted up his hand, in devout admiration of god's beautiful works, for the moon, surrounded by thousands of stars, was shedding its calm and chastened lustre over the face of nature, and presented a meet emblem of the inward peace of the dying saint, whose characteristic taste and love of nature's beauties were still manifested even in this trying hour."[ ] after two days, in which he suffered little pain, he gently "fell asleep in jesus," on thursday evening, th of february, . [footnote : "dumfries advertiser and galloway standard," from which we quoted a preceding extract.] behold the western evening light, it melts in deepening gloom; so calmly christians sink away, descending to the tomb. the winds breathe low; the yellow leaf scarce whispers from the tree; so gently flows the parting breath, when good men cease to be. how beautiful on all the hills, the crimson light is shed! 'tis like the peace the christian gives to mourners round his bed. how mildly on the wandering cloud the sunset beam is cast! so sweet the memory left behind, where loved ones breathe their last and lo! above the dews of night the vesper star appears; so faith lights up the mourner's heart, whose eyes are dim with tears. night falls, but soon the morning light its glories shall restore; and thus the eyes that sleep in death shall wake to close no more. _peabody._ daylight is on the hills, and we are off once more down the tweed, which gathers volume by accessions from tributary streams, and mirrors in its clear bosom many a happy home, nestling among the trees on its banks. we pass coldstream, on the north bank of the tweed, from its proximity to england a sort of gretna green in former times, where lord brougham was married at one of the hotels; whence we journey to tillmouth; at which place the till, a narrow, deep, sullen stream, flows into the tweed. beneath twisel castle, which stands upon its banks, you see the ancient bridge by which the english crossed the till before the battle of flodden. --"they cross'd the till, by twisel bridge. high sight it is, and haughty, while they drew into the deep defile; beneath the cavern'd cliff they fall, beneath the castle's airy wall. by rock, by oak, by hawthorn-tree, troop after troop are disappearing; troop after troop their banners rearing, upon the eastern bank you see, still pouring down the rocky den where flows the sullen till, and rising from the dim wood glen standards on standards, men on men in slow succession still, and sweeping o'er the gothic arch, and passing on, in ceaseless march to gain the opposing hill." _marmion._ flodden field, on which the "flowers of the forest," were cut down so mercilessly, is not far from here, and the whole region seems invested with an air of "dule and wae." "dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the border! the english, for once by guile won the day; the flowers of the forest, that focht aye the foremost. the prime o' our land are cauld in the clay. "we hear nae mair lilting at our yowe-milking, women and bairns are heartless and wae; sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning-- the flowers of the forest are a' wede away."[ ] [footnote : "the flowers of the forest," by miss jane elliot, one of the sweetest and most affecting ballads of scotland. by the 'flowers of the forest' are meant the young men of ettrick forest, slain at flodden field.] pursuing our way, we come to norham castle, so magnificently described in marmion. "day set on norham's castle steep, and tweed's fair river broad and deep, and cheviot's mountains lone; the battled towers, the donjon keep, the loop-hole grates where captives weep, the flanking walls that round it sweep, in yellow lustre shone." nine miles further on, we arrive at "berwick upon tweed," where the river falls into the german ocean, and where our wanderings in scotland cease,--the scene of fierce struggles between the scots and english. north berwick was sometimes in the hands of the one, sometimes in the hands of the other. its streets often ran blood; its walls echoed the tramp of armies, the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying. its old ramparts are yet standing; but all is quiet and passionless now. a sort of stillness pervades the place, in striking contrast with the havoc and turmoil of the ancient border wars. the environs are full of historic recollections, which have been well illustrated in the "border tales," by john mackie wilson, who was a native of berwick, and resided here till his death. this event took place, suddenly and unexpectedly, on the d of september, , when he was only thirty-one years of age. his early days were spent, in peace and happiness, under the parental roof. at school he was distinguished for his love of knowledge, and the rapidity with which he executed all his tasks. at a suitable age he was apprenticed to a printer, and found the employment congenial, as it brought him into contact with books. eagerly thirsting for knowledge, he soon exhausted his scanty means of gratifying his taste in berwick on tweed, and leaving the place of his nativity, repaired to london, where he encountered the greatest difficulties and hardships. it is said that some of the most touching descriptions of the sufferings endured by the aspirant for fame were actually endured by himself, and "that the sobs and tears which involuntarily burst from the family circle when these tales were read, were poured forth for him whose pen had described them." often amid the splendor of london, did he wander "homeless and friendless." but nothing could repress the native ardor and buoyancy of his mind. and amid all the darkness of the night which enveloped his pathway, he was ever looking for sunrise. despair and poverty, however, drove him from the british metropolis, and he was forced to seek in the provinces what he could not find in london, nor did he seek in vain. he reaped "a golden harvest of opinions;" but poverty continued to be his companion for years. during a sojourn in the city of edinburgh, he published several dramas and other poems, which had a share of success. he wrote a series of "lectures and biographical sketches," which he delivered with considerable eclat in different towns of scotland and england. three years before his death "he rested from his wanderings," in his native village, among his friends and early associates, having been invited to become editor of "the berwick advertiser," which he conducted with great spirit. amid his labors as an editor, he found time to indulge his taste for literature, and the matter of his journal was often enlivened by his own literary and poetical effusions. but it was "the border tales," which made him a decided favorite with the public, and gave him a warm place in the scottish heart. they were published in a fugitive form, and commanded a circulation far beyond the author's most sanguine hopes. it was from these that he and his friends saw a prospect of reward for his toils. but the scene which was thus opening upon him was blighted,--and from the high place which he had gained in the estimation of his townsmen, from the caresses of his friends, and from the reproaches of his foes, he now lies "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." we do not admire wilson's poetry as a whole; and yet some beautiful strains might be culled from it. he wrote rapidly and diffusely; throwing off everything at a first draft, without much correction or polish. his "border tales" are quite miscellaneous in their character, and contain much that he would doubtless have thrown out, had he lived to place them in a permanent form. they are written diffusely and carelessly. but with all their faults, they give indications of genius, humor and pathos, a keen insight into character, great descriptive powers, and a fine conception of the beautiful and true. some of them are told with great pith and raciness; and though inferior in some respects, to professor wilson's "lights and shadows of scottish life," are more natural and easy, more characteristic and amusing. upon the whole, they give a better idea of the scottish character than the professor's splendid, but exaggerated pictures. james mackay wilson died too young for his fame; but his simple tales will be read, for many a day, in the homes of "bonny scotland." among other things, they give a just representation of the religious character of the scottish peasantry. while their faults and foibles are depicted with graphic power, their solemn faith, their profound enthusiasm, and their leal-hearted piety are exhibited in beautiful relief. justice is done to the old covenanters, whose rough patriotism and burning zeal were the salvation of their native land. long may their martyr spirit, softened by charity, prevail in scotland; and generations yet unborn shall "rise up and call her blessed." in this series of sketches, now brought to a close, it has been the author's aim to make a contribution to literature, which, while it might prove attractive, would yet exert a pure moral influence. such an excursion beyond the peculiar limits of his profession, he thinks, was permitted him, and may tend in some slight degree to promote the great object for which he desires to live. at all events, if he has accomplished nothing more, he has yet succeeded in calling up "a gentle vision" of "auld lang syne," by which his own heart has been solaced and cheered. "lang syne! how doth the word come back, with magic meaning to the heart, as memory roams the sunny track, from which hope's dreams were loath to part! no joy like by-past joy appears; for what is gone we fret and pine; were life spun out a thousand years, it could not match lang syne! "lang syne!--ah, where are they who shared with us its pleasures bright and blithe? kindly with some hath fortune fared; and some have bowed beneath the scythe of death; while others scattered far o'er foreign lands, at fate repine, oft wandering forth 'neath twilight's star, to muse on dear lang syne! "lang syne!--the heart can never be again so full of guileless truth; lang syne!--the eyes no more shall see ah, no! the rainbow hopes of youth. lang syne!--with thee resides a spell to raise the spirit, and refine. farewell!--there can be no farewell to thee, loved, lost lang syne!" _dr. moir._ the spell of scotland +--------------------------------------------------------+ | | | the spell series | | | | _each volume with one or more colored plates and | | many illustrations from original drawings or special | | photographs. octavo, decorative cover, gilt top, | | boxed._ | | | | _per volume, net $ . ; carriage paid $ . _ | | | | by isabel anderson | | | | the spell of belgium | | the spell of japan | | the spell of the hawaiian islands and the philippines | | | | by caroline atwater mason | | the spell of italy | | the spell of southern shores | | the spell of france | | | | by archie bell | | the spell of egypt | | the spell of the holy land | | | | by keith clark | | the spell of spain | | the spell of scotland | | | | by w. d. mccrackan | | the spell of tyrol | | the spell of the italian lakes | | | | by edward neville vose | | the spell of flanders | | | | by burton e. stevenson | | the spell of holland | | | | by julia de w. addison | | the spell of england | | | | by nathan haskell dole | | the spell of switzerland | | | | the page company | | beacon street boston, mass. | +--------------------------------------------------------+ [illustration: _the pass of killiecrankie_ (_see page _)] the spell of scotland by keith clark author of "the spell of spain," etc. "a traveller may lee wi authority." (scotch proverb) [illustration] illustrated boston the page company mdccccxvi copyright, , by the page company all rights reserved first impression, november, the colonial press c. h. simonds company, boston, u. s. a. to the lord marischal contents chapter page i. hame, hame, hame! ii. scotts-land iii. border towns iv. the empress of the north v. the kingdom of fife vi. to the north vii. highland and lowland viii. the circle round ix. the western isles x. the lakes xi. the west country bibliography index list of illustrations page the pass of killiecrankie (_in full colour_) (_see page _) _frontispiece_ map of scotland james vi queen mary james ii melrose abbey abbotsford (_in full colour_) the study, abbotsford st. mary's aisle and tomb of sir walter scott, dryburgh abbey jedburgh abbey hermitage castle newark castle interior view, tibbie shiel's inn st. mary's lake edinburgh castle (_in full colour_) mons meg greyfriars' churchyard moray house interior of st. giles john knox's house james graham, marquis of montrose holyrood palace james iv margaret tudor, queen of james iv bothwell castle (_in full colour_) princes street john graham of claverhouse, viscount dundee tantallon castle st. andrews castle drawing-room, linlithgow palace, where queen mary was born huntington tower glamis castle glen tilt invercauld house balmoral castle marischal college dunnottar castle spynie castle cawdor castle (_in full colour_) battlefield of culloden the old man of hoy earl's palace, kirkwall invergarry castle kilchurn castle aros castle entrance to fingal's cave cathedral of iona and st. martin's cross dumbarton castle loch katrine the brig o' turk the trossachs (_in full colour_) stirling castle (_in full colour_) doune castle portrait of thomas carlyle, by whistler ayr river (_in full colour_) burns' cottage, birth-place of robert burns, ayr caerlaverock castle [illustration: scotland] the spell of scotland chapter i hame, hame, hame! "it's hame, and it's hame, hame fain wad i be, and it's hame, hame, hame, to my ain countree!" time was when half a hundred ports ringing round the semi-island of scotland invited your boat to make harbour; you could "return" at almost any point of entry you chose, or chance chose for you. to-day, if you have been gone for two hundred and fifty years, or if you never were "of scotia dear," except as a mere reading person with an inclination toward romance, you can make harbour after a transatlantic voyage at but one sea-city, and that many miles up a broad in-reaching river. or, you can come up the english roads by carlisle or by newcastle, and cross the border in the conquering way, which never yet was all-conquering. there is shipping, of course, out of the half hundred old harbours. but it is largely the shipping that goes and comes, fishing boats and coast pliers and the pleasure boats of the western isles. you cannot come back from the far corners of the earth--to which scotland has sent such majorities of her sons, since the old days when she squandered them in battle on the border or on the continent, to the new days when she squanders them in colonization so that half a dozen of her counties show decline in population--but you must come to glasgow. the steamers are second-class compared with those which make port farther south. they are slower. but their very lack of modern splendour and their slow speed give time in which to reconstruct your scotland, out of which perhaps you have been banished since the covenant, or the fifteen, or the forty five; or perhaps out of which you have never taken the strain which makes you romantic and cavalier, or presbyterian and canny. we who have it think that you who have it not lose something very precious for which there is no substitute. we pity you. more clannish than most national tribesmen, we cannot understand how you can endure existence without a drop of scotch. always when i go to scotland i feel myself returning "home." notwithstanding that it is two centuries and a bittock since my clerical ancestor left his home, driven out no doubt by the fluctuant fortunes of covenanter and cavalier, or, it may be, because he believed he carried the only true faith in his chalice--only he did not carry a chalice--and, either he would keep it undefiled in the new world, or he would share it with the benighted in the new world; i know not. all that i know is that in spite of the fact that the scotch in me has not been replenished since those two centuries and odd, i still feel that it is a search after ancestors when i go back to scotland. and, if a decree of banishment was passed by the unspeakable hanoverians after the first rising, and lands and treasure were forfeited, still i look on entire scotland as my demesne. i surrender not one least portion of it. not any castle, ruined or restored, is alien to me. highlander and lowlander are my undivisive kin. however empty may seem the moorlands and the woodlands except of grouse and deer, there is not a square foot of the twenty-nine thousand seven hundred eighty-five square miles but is filled for me with a longer procession, if not all of them royal, than moved ghostly across the vision of macbeth. nothing happens any longer in scotland. everything has happened. quite true, scotland may some time reassert itself, demand its independence, cease from its romantic reliance on the fact that it did furnish to england, to the british empire, the royal line, the stewarts. even queen victoria, who was so little a stewart, much more a hanoverian and a puritan, was most proud of her stewart blood, and regarded her summers in the highlands as the most ancestral thing in her experience. scotland may at sometime dissolve the union, which has been a union of equality, accept the lower estate of a province, an american "state," among the possible four of "great britain and ireland," and enter on a more vigorous provincial life, live her own life, instead of exporting vigour to the colonies--and her exportation is almost done. she may fill this great silence which lies over the land, and is fairly audible in the deserted highlands, with something of the human note instead of the call of the plover. but, for us, for the traveler of to-day, and at least for another generation, scotland is a land where nothing happens, where everything has happened. it has happened abundantly, multitudinously, splendidly. no one can regret--except he is a reformer and a socialist--the absence of the doings of to-day; they would be so realistic, so actual, so small, so of the province and the parish. whereas in the golden age, which is the true age of scotland, men did everything--loving and fighting, murdering and marauding, with a splendour which makes it seem fairly not of our kind, of another time and of another world. you must know your scottish history, you must be filled with scottish romance, above all, you must know your poetry and ballads, if you would rebuild and refill the country as you go. not only over fair melrose lies the moonlight of romance, making the ruin more lovely and more complete than the abbey could ever have been in its most established days, but over the entire land there lies the silver pall of moonlight, making, i doubt not, all things lovelier than in reality. we truly felt that we should have arranged for "a hundred pipers an' a' an' a'." but we left king's cross station in something of disguise. the cockneys did not know that we were returning to scotland. our landing was to be made as quietly, without pibroch, as when the old pretender landed at peterhead on the far northeastern corner, or when the young pretender landed at moidart on the far western rim of the islands. and neither they nor we pretenders. the east coast route is a pleasant way, and i am certain the hundred pipers, or whoever were the merry musicmakers who led the english troops up that way when edward first was king, and all the edwards who followed him, and the richards and the henrys--they all measured ambition with scotland and failed--i am certain they made vastly more noise than this excellently managed railway which moves across the english landscape with due english decorum. we were to stop at peterborough, and walk out to where, "on that ensanguined block at fotheringay," the queenliest queen of them all laid her head and died that her son, james sixth of scotland, might become first of england. we stopped at york for the minster, and because alexander iii was here married to margaret, daughter of henry iii; and their daughter being married to eric of norway in those old days when scotland and norway were kin, became mother to the maid of norway, one of the most pathetic and outstanding figures in scottish history, simply because she died--and from her death came divisions to the kingdom. [illustration: james vi.] we paused at durham, where in that gorgeous tomb st. cuthbert lies buried after a brave and scottish life. we only looked across the purpling sea where already the day was fading, where the slant rays of the sun shone on lindisfarne, which the spirit of st. cuthbert must prefer to durham. all unconsciously an old song came to sing itself as i looked across that wide water-- "my love's in germanie, send him hame, send him hame, my love's in germanie, fighting for royalty, he's as brave as brave can be, send him hame, send him hame!" full many a lass has looked across this sea and sung this lay--and shall again. the way is filled with ghosts, long, long processions, moving up and down the land. a boundary is always a lodestone, a lodeline. why do men establish it except that other men dispute it? in the old days england called it treason for a borderer, man or woman, to intermarry with scotch borderer. the lure, you see, went far. even so that kings and ladies, david and matilda, in the opposing edges of the border, married each other. and always there was gretna green. agricola came this way, and the emperor severus. there is that interesting, far-journeying Ã�neas sylvius piccolomini, the "gil blas of the middle ages," who later became pius ii. he came to this country by boat, but becoming afraid of the sea, returned by land, even opposite to the way we are going. froissart came, but reports little. perhaps chaucer, but not certainly. george fox came and called the scots "a dark carnal people." with the act of union the stream grows steady and full. there is ben jonson, trudging along the green roadway out yonder; for on foot, and all the way from london, he came northward to visit william drummond of hawthornden. who would not journey to such a name? but, alas, a fire destroyed "my journey into scotland sung with all the adventures." all that i know of ben is that he was impressed with lomond--two hundred years before scott. and there trails taylor, "water poet," hoping to rival rare ben, on his "pennyless pilgrimage," when he actually went into scotland without a penny, and succeeded in getting gold to further him on his way--"marr, murraye, elgin, bughan, and the lord of erskine, all of these i thank them, gave me gold to defray my charges in my journey." james howell, carries a thin portfolio as he travels the highway. but we must remember that he wrote his "perfect description of the people and country of scotland" in the fleet. here is doctor johnson, in a post chaise. of course, sir! "mr. boswell, an active lively fellow is to conduct me round the country." and he's still a lively conductor. surely you can see the doctor, in his high boots, and his very wide brown cloth great coat with pockets which might be carrying two volumes of his folio dictionary, and in his hand a large oak staff. one tries to forget that years before this journey he had said to boswell, "sir, the noblest prospect that a scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to london." and, was there any malice in boswell's final record--"my illustrious friend, being now desirous to be again in the great theater of life and animated existence"? the poet gray preceded him a little, and even john wesley moves along the highroad seeking to save scottish souls as well as english. a few years afterward james hogg comes down this way to visit his countryman, tammas carlyle in london; who saw hogg as "a little red-skinned stiff rock of a body with quite the common air of an ettrick shepherd." there is scott, many times, from the age of five when he went to bath, till that last journey back from italy--to dryburgh! and shadowy jeanie deans comes downward, walking her "twenty-five miles and a bittock a day," to save her sister from death. disraeli comes up this way when he was young and the world was his oyster. stevenson passes up and down, sending his merry men up and down. and one of the most native is william winter--"with a quick sense of freedom and of home, i dashed across the border and was in scotland." there is a barricade of the cheviots stretching across between the two countries, but the romans built a wall to make the division more apparent. in the dawn of the centuries the romans came hither, and attempting to come to ultima thule, picts and scots--whatever they were, at least they were brave--met the romans on the border, as yet unreported in the world's history and undefined in the world's geography, and sent them back into what is england. the romans in single journeys, and in certain imperial attempts, did penetrate as far as inverness. but they never conquered scotland. only scotland of all the world held them back. and in order to define their defeat and to place limits to the unlimited roman empire, the great wall was built, built by hadrian, that men might know where civilization, that splendid thing called roman civilization, and barbarism did meet. scotland was barbarism. and i think, not in apology but in all pride, she has remained something of this ever since. never conquered, never subdued. the wall was, in truth, a very palpable thing, stretching from the solway to the north sea at the tyne, with ample width for the constant patrol, with lookout towers at regular and frequent intervals, with soldiers gathered from every corner of the empire, often the spawn of it, and with much traffic and with even permanent villas built the secure side of the barrier. if you meet puck on pook's hill, he will tell you all about it. our fast express moves swiftly northward, through the littoral of northumberland, as the ship bearing sister clare moved through the sea-- "and now the vessel skirts the strand of mountainous northumberland; towns, towers, and hills successive rise, and catch the nun's delighted eyes." _berwick_ the voyager enters berwick with a curious feeling. it is because of the voyagers who have preceded him that this town is singular among all the towns of the empire. it is of the empire, it is of britain; but battled round about, and battled for as it has been since ambitious time began, it is of neither england nor scotland. "our town of berwick-upon-tweed," as the phrase still runs in the acts of parliament, and in the royal proclamations; not england's, not scotland's. our town, the king's town. for it is an independent borough ( ) since the men who fared before us could not determine which should possess it, and so our very own time records that history in an actual fact. i do not suppose the present serious-looking, trades-minded people of the city, with their dash of fair danish, remember their singular situation day by day. the tumult and the shouting have died which made "the border" the most embattled place in the empire, and berwick-upon-tweed the shuttlecock in this international game of badminton. it is a dual town at the best. but what has it not witnessed, what refuge, what pawn, has it not been, this capital of the debatable land, this key of the border. the tweed is here spanned by the royal border bridge, opened in , and called "the last act of union." but there is another bridge, a roman bridge of many spans, antique looking as the roman-moorish-spanish bridge at cordova, and as antique as , an act of union following swiftly on the footsteps of king james vi--who joyously paused here to fire a salute to himself, on his way to the imperial throne. the walls of berwick, dismantled in and become a promenade for peaceful townsfolk and curious sightseers, date no farther back than elizabeth's time. but she had sore need of them; for this "our town," was the refuge for her harriers on retaliatory border raids, particularly that most terrible monday-to-saturday foray of , that answer to an attempt to reassert the rights of mary, when fifty castles and peels and three hundred villages were laid waste in order that scotland might know that elizabeth was king. it was her kingly father, the eighth henry, who ordered hertford into scotland--"there to put all to fire and sword, to burn edinburgh town, and to raze and deface it, when you have sacked it and gotten what you can of it, as there may remain forever a perpetual memory of the vengeance of god lighted upon it for their falsehood and disloyalty. sack holyrood house and as many towns and villages about edinburgh as ye conveniently can. sack leith and burn it and subvert it, and all the rest, putting man, woman and child to fire and sword without exception, when any resistance is made against you. and this done, pass over to the fife land, and extend like extremities and destructions in all towns and villages whereunto ye may reach conveniently, not forgetting among the rest, so to spoil and turn upside down the cardinal's town of st. andrews, as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another, sparing no creature alive within the same, especially such as either in friendship or blood be allied to the cardinal. the accomplishment of all this shall be most acceptable to the majesty and honour of the king." berwick has known gentler moments, even marrying and giving in marriage. it was at this border town that david, son of the bruce, and joanna, sister of edward iii, were united in marriage. even then did the kingdoms seek an act of union. and prince david was four, and princess joanna was six. there was much feasting by day and much revelry by night, among the nobles of the two realms, while, no doubt, the babies nodded drowsily. [illustration: queen mary.] at berwick john knox united himself in marriage with margaret stewart, member of the royal house of stewart, cousin, if at some remove, from that stewart queen who belonged to "the monstrous regiment of women," and to whose charms even the calvinist john was sensitive. one remembers that at berwick john was fifty, and margaret was sixteen. there is not much in berwick to hold the attention, unless one would dine direct on salmon trout just drawn frae the tweed. there are memories, and modern content with what is modern. perhaps the saddest eyes that ever looked on the old town were those of queen mary, as she left jedburgh, after her almost fatal illness, and after her hurried ride to the hermitage to see bothwell, and just before the fatal affair in kirk o' field. even then, and even with her spirit still unbroken, she felt the coming of the end. "i am tired of my life," she said more than once to le croc, french ambassador, on this journey as she circled about the coast and back to edinburgh. she rode toward berwick with an escort of a thousand men, and looked down on the town from halidon hill, on the west, where two hundred years before ( ) the scots under the regent douglass had suffered defeat by the english. it was an old town then, and belonged to elizabeth. but it looked much as it does to-day; the gray walls, so recently built; the red roofs, many of them sheltering berwickians to-day; the church spires, for men worshiped god in those days in churches, and according to the creeds that warred as bitterly as crowns; masts in the offing, whence this last time one might take ship to france, that pleasant smiling land so different from this dour realm. at all these mary must have looked wistfully and weariedly, as the royal salute was fired for this errant queen. she looked also, over the border, then becoming a hard-and-fast boundary, and down the long, long road to fotheringay, and to peace at last and honour, in the abbey. it is well to stand upon this hill, before you go on to the west and the border, or on to the north and the gray metropolis, that you may appreciate both the tragedy and the triumph that is scotland's and was mary's. the north sea is turning purple far out on the horizon, and white sea birds are flying across beyond sound. the long level light of the late afternoon is coming up over england. in the backward of the border a plaintive curlew is crying in the west, as he has cried since the days of mary, and æons before. _flodden_ you may go westward from here, by train and coach, and carriage and on foot, to visit this country where every field has been a battlefield, where ruined peel towers finally keep the peace, where castles are in ruins, and a few stately modern homes proclaim the permanence of scottish nobility; and where there is no bird and no flower unsung by scottish minstrelsy, or by scott. scott is, of course, the poet and prose laureate of the border. "marmion" is the lay, almost the guide-book. it should be carried with you, either in memory or in pocket. if the day is not too far spent, the afternoon sun too low, you can make norham castle before twilight, even as marmion made it when he opened the first canon of scott's poem-- "day set on norham's castle steep and tweed's fair river, broad and deep, and cheviot's mountains lone; the battled towers, the donjon keep, the loophole grates, where captives weep, the flanking walls that round it sweep, in yellow luster shone." there is but a fragment of that castle remaining, and this, familiar to those who study turner in the national gallery. a little village with one broad street and curiously receding houses attempts to live in the shadow of this memory. the very red-stone tower has stood there at the top of the steep bank since the middle eleven hundreds. henry ii held it as a royal castle, while his craven son john--not so craven in battle--regarded it as the first of his fortresses. edward i made it his headquarters while he pretended to arbitrate the rival claims of the scottish succession, and to establish himself as the lord superior. on the green hill of holywell nearby he received the submission of scotland in --the submission of scotland! ford castle is a little higher up the river, where lodged the dubious lady with whom the king had dalliance in those slack days preceding flodden--the lady who had sung to him in holyrood the challenging ballad of "young lochinvar!" james was ever a stewart, and regardful of the ladies. "what checks the fiery soul of james, why sits the champion of dames inactive on his steed?" the norman tower of ford (the castle has been restored), called the king's tower, looks down on the battlefield, and in the upper room, called the king's room, there is a carved fireplace carrying the historic footnote-- "king james ye th of scotland did lye here at ford castle, a. d. ." somehow one hopes that the lady was not sparring for time and surrey, and sending messages to the advancing earl, but truly loved this fourth of the jameses, grandfather to his inheriting granddaughter. coldstream is the station for flodden. but the village, lying a mile away on the scotch side of the tweed, has memories of its own. it was here that the most famous ford was found between the two countries, witness and way to so many acts of disunion; from the time when edward i, in , led his forces through it into scotland, to the time when montrose, in , led his forces through it into england. "there on this dangerous ford and deep where to the tweed leet's eddies creep he ventured desperately." the river was spanned by a five-arch bridge in , and it was over this bridge that robert burns crossed into england. he entered the day in his diary, may , . "coldstream--went over to england--cornhill--glorious river tweed--clear and majestic--fine bridge." it was the only time burns ever left scotland, ever came into england. and here he knelt down, on the green lawn, and prayed the prayer that closes "the cotter's saturday night"-- "o thou who pour'd the patriot tide that streamed through wallace's undaunted heart, who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride or nobly die, the second glorious part, (the patriot's god, peculiarly thou art, his friend, inspirer, guardian and reward!) o never, never, scotia's realm desert; but still the patriot and the patriot bard, in bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!" surely a consecration of this crossing after its centuries of unrest. general monk spent the winter of in coldstream, lodging in a house east of the market-place, marked with its tablet. and here he raised the first of the still famous coldstream guards, to bring king charles "o'er the water" back to the throne. coldstream is the gretna green of this end of the border, and many a runaway couple, noble and simple, has been married in the inn. four miles south of coldstream in a lonely part of this lonely border--almost the echoes are stilled, and you hear nothing but remembered bits of marmion as you walk the highway--lies flodden field. it was the greatest of scotch battles, not even excepting bannockburn; greatest because the scotch are greatest in defeat. it was, or so it seemed to james, because his royal brother-in-law henry viii was fighting in france, an admirable time wherein to advance into england. james had received a ring and a glove and a message, from anne of brittany, bidding him "strike three strokes with scottish brand and march three miles on scottish land and bid the banners of his band in english breezes dance." james was not the one to win at flodden, notwithstanding that he had brought a hundred thousand men to his standard. they were content to raid the border, and he to dally at ford. "o for one hour of wallace wight, or well skill'd bruce to rule the fight, and cry--'saint andrew and our right!' another sight had seen that morn from fate's dark book a leaf been torn, and flodden had been bannockburn!" the very thud of the lines carries you along, if you have elected to walk through the countryside, green now and smiling faintly if deserted, where it was brown and sere in september, . one should be repeating his "marmion," as scott thought out so many of its lines riding over this same countryside. it is a splendid, a lingering battle picture-- "and first the ridge of mingled spears above the brightening cloud appears; and in the smoke the pennon flew, as in the storm the white sea mew, then mark'd they, dashing broad and far, the broken billows of the war; and plumed crests of chieftains brave, floating like foam upon the wave, but nought distinct they see. wide ranged the battle on the plain; spears shook, and falchions flash'd amain, fell england's arrow flight like rain, crests rose and stooped and rose again wild and disorderly." thousands were lost on both sides. but the flower of england was in france, while the flower of scotland was here; and slain--the king, twelve earls, fifteen lords and chiefs, an archbishop, the french ambassador, and many french captains. you walk back from the field, and all the world is changed. the green haughs, the green woodlands, seem even in the summer sun to be dun and sere, and those burns which made merry on the outward way--can it be that there are red shadows in their waters? it is not "marmion" but jean elliott's "flower of the forest" that lilts through the memory-- "dule and wae was the order sent our lads to the border, the english for once by guile won the day; the flowers of the forest that foucht aye the foremost, the pride of our land are cauld in the clay. "we'll hear nae mair liltin' at the eve milkin', women and bairns are heartless and wae; sighin' and moanin' on ilka green loanin'-- the flowers of the forest are a' wede away." i know not by what alchemy the scots are always able to win our sympathy to their historic tragedies, or why upon such a field as flodden, and many another, the tragedy seems but to have just happened, the loss is as though of yesterday. chapter ii scotts-land it is possible to enter the middle marches from berwick; in truth, kelso lies scarcely farther from flodden than does berwick. but flodden is on english soil to-day, and memory is content to let it lie there. these middle marches however are so essentially scottish, the splendour and the romance, the history and the tragedy, that one would fain keep them so, and come upon them as did the kings from david i, or even the celtic kings before him, who sought refuge from the bleak scottish north in this smiling land of dales and haughs, of burns and lochs. not at any moment could life become monotonous even in this realm of romance, since the border was near, and danger and dispute so imminent, so incessant. preferably then one goes from edinburgh (even though never does one go from that city, "mine own romantic town," but with regret; not even finally when one leaves it and knows one will not return till next time) to melrose; as scottish kings of history and story have passed before. there was james ii going to the siege of roxburgh, and not returning; there was james iv going to the field of flodden and not returning; there was james v going to hunt the deer; there was james vi going up to london to be king; mary queen on that last journey to the south countrie; charles i and charles ii losing and getting a crown; charles iii--let us defy history and call the bonnie prince by his title--when he went so splendidly after prestonpans. [illustration: james ii.] it is a royal progress, out of edinburgh into the middle marches; past dalkeith where james iv rode to meet and marry margaret of england; past borthwick, where queen mary spent that strange hot-trod honeymoon with bothwell--of all place of emotion this is the most difficult to realize, and i can but think mary's heart was broken here, and the heartbreak at carberry hill was but an echo of this; past lauder, where the nobles of ignoble james iii hung his un-noble favourite from the stone arch of the bridge; into the level rays of a setting sun--always the setting sun throws a more revealing light than that of noonday over this scotland. _melrose_ i remember on my first visit to melrose, of course during my first visit to scotland, i scheduled my going so as to arrive there in the evening of a night when the moon would be at the full. i had seen it shine gloriously on the front of york, splendidly on the towers of durham. what would it not be on fair melrose, viewed aright? i hurried northward, entered edinburgh only to convey my baggage, and then closing my eyes resolutely to all the glory and the memory that lay about, i went southward through the early twilight. i could see, would see, nothing before melrose. the gates of the abbey were, of course, closed. but i did not wish to enter there until the magic hour should strike. the country round about was ineffably lovely in the rose light of the vanishing day. "where fair tweed flows round holy melrose and eildon slopes to the plain." the abbey was, of course, the center of thought continually, and its red-gray walls caught the light of day and the coming shadows of night in a curious effect which no picture can report; time has dealt wondrously with this stone, leaving the rose for the day, the gray for the night. i wandered about, stopping in the empty sloping market-place to look at the cross, which is as old as the abbey; looking at the graveyard which surrounds the abbey, where men lie, common men unsung in scottish minstrelsy, except as part of the great hosts, men who heard the news when it was swift and fresh from bannockburn, and flodden, and culloden; and where men and women still insert their mortality into this immortality--elizabeth clephane who wrote the "ninety and nine" lies there; and out into the country and down by the tweed toward the holy pool, the haly wheel, to wonder if when i came again in the middle night, i, too, should see the white lady rise in mist from the waters, this lady of bemersyde who had loved a monk of melrose not wisely but very well, and who drowned herself in this water where the monk in penance took daily plunges, come summer, come winter. how often this is the middle-age penalty! far across the shimmering green meadows and through the fragrant orchards came the sound of bagpipes--on this my first evening in scotland! and whether or not you care for the pipes, there is nothing like them in a scottish twilight, a first scottish twilight, to reconstruct all the scotland that has been. the multitudes and the individuals came trooping back. at a time of famine these very fields were filled with huts, four thousand of them, for always the monks had food, and always they could perform miracles and obtain food; which they did. that for the early time. and for the late, the encampment of leslie's men in these fields before the day when they slaughtered montrose's scant band of royalists at philipshaugh, and sent that most splendid figure in late scottish history as a fugitive to the north, and to the scaffold. i knew that in the abbey before the high altar lay the high heart of the bruce, which had been carried to spain and to the holy land, by order of bruce, since death overtook him before he could make the pilgrimage. lord james douglass did battle on the way against the moslems in southern spain, where "a douglass! a douglass!" rang in battle clash against "allah, illah, allah," and the douglass himself was slain. the heart of the bruce flung against the infidel, was recovered and sent on to jerusalem, and then back to melrose. the body of douglass was brought back to scotland, to st. bride's church in douglass, and his heart also lies before the high altar of melrose. "in their death they were not divided." there lies also buried michael scot "buried on st. michael's night, when the bell toll'd one and the moon was bright." on such a night as this, i hoped. and scot is fit companion for the twilight. this strange wizard of a strange time was born in upper tweedale, which is the district of merlin--the older wizard lies buried in a green mound near drummelzier. michael traveled the world over, oxford, paris, bologna, palermo, toledo, and finally, perhaps because his wizardry had sent him like a wandering jew from place to place, back to the border, his home country, where he came and served the evil one. dante places him in the purgatory of those who attempt blasphemously to tear the veil of the future. the thirteenth century was not the time in which to increase knowledge, whether of this world or the next. even to-day perhaps we save a remnant of superstition, and we would not boast "i could say to thee the words that cleft the eildon hills in three." very dark against the gathering dark of the night sky rose the eildon hills above, cleft in three by the wizardry of scot. to that height on the morrow i should climb, for it is there that sir walter scott, a later wizard, had carried our washington irving, just a century ago, and shown him all this borderland--which lay about me under the increasing cover of night. "i can stand on the eildon hill and point out forty-three places famous in war and verse," sir walter said to our irving. "i have brought you, like a pilgrim in the pilgrim's progress, to the top of the delectable mountains, that i may show you all the goodly regions hereabouts. yonder is lammermuir and smailholm; and there you have galashiels and torwoodelee and gala water; and in that direction you see teviotdale and the braes of yarrow; and ettrick stream winding along like a silver thread to throw itself into the tweed. it may be pertinacity, but to my eye, these gray hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. when i have been for some time in the rich scenery about edinburgh, which is like an ornamented garden land, i begin to wish myself back again among my own honest gray hills; and if i did not see the heather at least once a year, i think i should die." on the morrow. but for to-night it was enough to remember that perfect picture as imagination painted it in andrew lang's verse-- "three crests against the saffron sky, beyond the purple plain, the kind remembered melody of tweed once more again. "wan water from the border hills, dear voice from the old years, thy distant music lulls and stills, and moves to quiet tears. "like a loved ghost thy fabled flood fleets through the dusky land; where scott, come home to die, has stood, my feet returning, stand. "a mist of memory broods and floats, the border waters flow; the air is full of ballad notes borne out of long ago. "old songs that sung themselves to me, sweet through a boy's day dream, while trout below the blossom'd tree plashed in the golden stream. "twilight, and tweed, and eildon hill, fair and too fair you be; you tell me that the voice is still that should have welcomed me." i did not miss the voice, any of the voices. they whispered, they sang, they crooned, they keened, about me. for this was melrose, _mael ros_, so the old celtic goes, "the naked headland in the wood." and i was seeing, was hearing, what i have come to see and hear; i, a scot, if far removed, if in diluted element, and scott's from the reading days of auld lang syne. and should i not within the moonlight see the white lady rise from the haly wheel? and should i not see the moonlight flooding the abbey, melrose abbey? out of a remembered yesterday, out of a confident midnight--surely there was a budding morrow in this midnight--i remembered the lines-- "if thou would'st view fair melrose aright, go visit it by the pale moonlight; for the gay beams of lightsome day gild but to flout the ruins gray. when the broken arches are black in night, and each shafted oriel glimmers white, when the cold light's uncertain shower streams on the ruined central tower; when buttress and buttress alternately seem framed of ebon and ivory; when silver edges the imagery, and the scrolls that teach thee to live and die; when distant tweed is heard to rave, and the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, then go--but go alone the while-- then view st. david's ruined pile; and, home returning, soothly swear was never scene so sad and fair." the moon did not rise that night. i walked about the fields, lingered about the cross in the market, looked expectantly at the abbey, until two in the morning. "it was near the ringing of matin bell, the night was well nigh done." the moon did not rise, and neither did the white lady. it was not because there was a mist, a scottish mist, over the heavens; they were clear, the stars were shining, and the pole star held true, charles' wain--as charles should in bonnie scotland--held true to the pole. but it was a late july moon, and those eildon hills and their circling kin rose so high against the night sky--daytime they seemed modest enough--that the moon in this latitude as far north as sitka did not circle up the sky. neither does the sun in winter, so the guardian explained to me next day. fair melrose is fairest, o' nights, at some later or earlier time of the year. it was then that i resolved to return in december, on december , when the festival of st. john's is celebrated with torch lights in the ruins of the abbey--and michael scot comes back to his own! but then i reflected that the moon is not always full on the eve of st. john's. "i cannot come, i must not come, i dare not come to thee, on the eve of st. john's, i must walk alone, in thy bower i may not be." i chose, years later, an october moon, in which to see it "aright." viewed by day, melrose is surely fair; fair enough to enchant mortal vision. it is the loveliest ruin in the land where reform has meant ruin, and where from kelso to elgin, shattered fanes of the faith proclaim how variable is the mind of man through the generations, and how hostile when it forsakes. melrose is an old foundation. in truth the monastery was established at old melrose, two miles farther down the tweed, and is so lovely, so dramatic a corner of the tweed, that dorothy woodsworth declared, "we wished we could have brought the ruins of melrose to this spot." she missed the nearby murmur of the river as we do. this oldest harbour of christianity was founded in the pagan world by monks from iona. therefore by way of ireland and not from rome, blessed by saint columba sixty years before saint augustine came to canterbury. it was the chief "island" between iona and lindisfarne. very haughty were these monks of the west. "rome errs, alexandria errs, all the world errs; only the scots and the britons are in the right." there is surely something still left of the old spirit in scotia, particularly in spiritual scotia. [illustration: melrose abbey.] near melrose was born that cuthbert who is the great saint of the north, either side the border, and who lies in the midst of the splendour of durham. a shepherd, he watched his sheep on these very hills round about us, and saw, when abiding in the fields, angels ascending and descending on golden ladders. entering melrose as a novice he became prior in , and later prior at lindisfarne. when the monks were driven from the holy island by the danes they carried the body of st. cuthbert with them for seven years, and once it rested at melrose-- "o'er northern mountain, march and moor, from sea to sea, from shore to shore, seven years st. cuthbert's corpse they bore, they rested them in fair melrose; but though alive he loved it well, not there his relics might repose." when king david came to the making of scotland, he came into the middle marches, and finding them very lovely--even as you and i--this "sair sanct to the croon," as his scottish royal descendant, james vi saw him--and james would have fell liked to be a saint, but he could accomplish neither sinner nor saint, because darnley crossed mary in his veins--david determined to build him fair abbeys. of which, melrose, "st. david's ruined pile," is the fairest. he brought cistercians from rievaulx in yorkshire, to supplant the culdees of iona, and they builded them a beautiful stone melrose to supplant the wooden huts of old melrose. it centered a very active monastic life, where pavements were once smooth and lawns were close-clipped, and cowled monks in long robes served god, and their abbot lorded it over lords, even equally with kings. but it stood on the highway between dunfermline and london, between english and scottish ambitions. and it fell before them. edward i spared it because the abbots gave him fealty. but edward ii, less royal in power and in taste, destroyed it. the bruce rebuilded it again, greater splendour rising out of complete ruin. when richard ii came to scotland he caused the abbey to be pillaged and burned. and when hertford came for henry viii, after the thirty nine articles had annulled respect for buildings under the protection of rome, the final ruin came to st. david's church-palace. yet, late as , church service, reformed, of course, was held in a roofed-over part of the abbey ruin. to-day it is under the protection of the dukes of buccleuch. and, we remember as we stand here, while the beams of lightsome day gild the ruin, the mottoes of the great family of the border, _luna cornua reparabit_, which being interpreted is, "there'll be moonlight again." then to light the raids, the reiving that refilled the larder. but to-morrow for scenic effect. examined in this daylight, the beauty of melrose surely loses very little. it is one of the most exquisite ruins in the united kingdom, perhaps second to tintern, but why compare? it is of finest gothic, out of france, not out of england. in its general aspect it is nobly magnificent-- "the darken'd roof rose high aloof on pillars, lofty, light and small; the keystone that locked each ribbed aisle was a fleur de lys or a quatre feuille, the corbels were carved grotesque and grim; and the pillars with clustered shafts so trim, with base and with capital flourish'd around seem'd bundles of lances which garlands had bound." and, as a chief detail which yields not to tintern or any other, is the east window over the high altar, through which the moon and sun shines on those buried hearts-- "the moon on the east oriel shone through slender shafts of shapely stone, by foliaged tracery combined. thou would'st have thought some fairy'd hand 'twixt poplars straight the osier wand in many a freakish knot had twined, then framed a spell when the work was done, and changed the willow wreaths to stone. the silver light, so pale and faint, showed many a prophet and many a saint, whose image on the glass was dyed, full in the midst his cross of red triumphant michael brandish'd, and trampled on the apostate's pride; the moonbeams kissed the holy pane, and threw on the pavement a bloody stain." _abbotsford_ if "scott restored scotland," he built the "keep" which centers all the scott-land of the border side. two miles above melrose, a charming walk leads to abbotsford; redeemed out of a swamp into at least the most memory-filled mansion of all the land. scott, like the monks, could not leave the silver wash of the tweed; and, more loving than those who dwelt at melrose and dryburgh, he placed his abbot's house where the rippling sound was within a stone's throw. the tweed is such a storied stream that as you walk along, sometimes across sheep-cropped meadows, sometimes under the fragant rustling bough and athwart the shifting shadows of oak, ash, and thorn--puck of pook's hill must have known the border country in its most embroidered days--you cannot tell whether or not the deep quiet river is the noblest you have seen, or the storied hills about are less than the delectable mountains. the name "tweed" suggests romance--unless instead of having read your scott you have come to its consciousness through the homespun, alas, to-day too often the factory-spun woolens, which are made throughout all scotland, but still in greatest length on tweedside. dorothy wordsworth, winsome marrow, who loved the country even better than william, i trow--only why remark it when he himself recognized how his vision was quickened through her companionship?--has spoke the word tweed--"a name which has been sweet in my ears almost as far back as i can remember anything." the river comes from high in the cheviot hills, where east and west marches merge and where-- "annan, tweed, and clyde rise a' out o' ae hillside." and down to the sea it runs, its short hundred miles of story-- "all through the stretch of the stream, to the lap of berwick bay." as you walk along tweedside, you feel its enchantment, you feel the sorrow of the thousands who through the centuries have exiled themselves from its banks, because of war, or because of poverty, or because of love-- "therefore i maun wander abroad, and lay my banes far frae the tweed." but now, you are returned, you are on your way to abbotsford, there are the eildons, across the river you get a glimpse of the catrail, that sunken way that runs along the boundary for one-half its length, and may have been a fosse, or may have been a concealed road of the romans or what not. scott once leaped his horse across it, nearly lost his life, and did lose his confidence in his horsemanship. [illustration: _abbotsford_] "and all through the summer morning i felt it a joy indeed to whisper again and again to myself, this is the voice of the tweed." it is not possible to approach abbotsford, as it should be approached, from the riverside, the view with which one is familiar, the view the pictures carry. or, it can be done if one would forego the walk, take it in the opposite direction, and come hither by rail from galashiels--that noisy modern factory town, once the housing place for melrose pilgrims, which to-day speaks nothing of the romance of gala water, and surely not these factory folk "can match the lads o' gala water." it is a short journey, and railway journeys are to be avoided in this land of by-paths. but there, across the water, looking as the pictures have it, and as scott would have it, rises abbotsford, turreted and towered, engardened and exclusive. it stands on low level ground, for it is redeemed out of a duckpond, out of clarty hole. sir walter wished to possess the border, or as much of it as might be, so he made this first purchase of a hundred acres in . as he wrote to james ballantyne-- "i have resolved to purchase a piece of ground sufficient for a cottage and a few fields. there are two pieces, either of which would suit me, but both would make a very desirable property indeed, and could be had for between , and , pounds, or either separate for about half that sum. i have serious thoughts of one or both." he began with one, and fourteen years later, when the estate had extended to a thousand acres, to the inclusion of many fields, sheep-cropped and story-haunted, he entered in his diary-- "abbotsford is all i can make it, so i am resolved on no more building, and no purchases of land till times are more safe." by that time the people of the countryside called him "the duke," he had at least been knighted, and was, in truth, the chief of the border; a royal ambition which i doubt not he cherished from those first days when he read percy under a platanus. he paid fabulous prices for romantic spots, and i think would have bought the entire border if the times had become safer, in those scant seven years that were left to him. even scott could be mistaken, for he bought what he believed was huntlie bank, where true thomas had his love affair with the fair ladye-- "true thomas lay on huntlie bank; a ferlie he spied wi' his e'e; and there he saw a ladye bright come riding down by the eildon tree. "her skirt was o' the grass-green silk, her mantle o' the velvet fyne; at ilka tett o' her horse's mane hung fifty siller bells and nine." and now the experts tell us that it is not huntlie bank at all, but that is in an entirely different direction, over toward ercildoune and the rhymer's tower. there is a satisfaction in this to those of us who believe in fairies and in scott. for fairies have no sense of place or of time. and of course if they knew that scott wished them to have lived at his huntlie bank, they straightway would have managed to have lived there. always, as you go through this land of romance, or any romance land, and wise dull folk dispute, you can console yourself that scott also was mistaken(?). the castle began with a small cottage, not this great pile of gray stone we can see from the railway carriage across the tweed, into which we make our humble way through a wicket gate, a restrained walk, and a basement doorway. "my dreams about my cottage go on," he wrote to joanna baillie, as we all dream of building cottages into castles. "my present intention is to have only two spare bedrooms," but "i cannot relinquish my border principles of accommodating all the cousins and duniwastles, who will rather sleep on chairs, and on the floor, and in the hay-loft, than be absent when folks are gathered together." so we content ourselves with being duniwastles, whatever that may be, and are confident that sir walter if he were alive would give us the freedom of the castle. in any event, if we feel somewhat robbed of any familiar intercourse, we can remember that ruskin called this "perhaps the most incongruous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever designed." this may content the over-sensitive who are prevented ever hearing the ripple of the tweed through the windows. scott was a zealous relic hunter, and if you like relics, if you can better conjure up persons through a sort of transubstantiation of personality that comes by looking on what the great have possessed, there can be few private collections more compelling than this of abbotsford. [illustration: the study, abbotsford.] in the library are such significant hints for reconstruction as the blotting book wherewith napoleon cleared his record, the crucifix on which queen mary prayed, the quaigh of her great great and last grandson, the tumbler from which bobbie burns drank--one of them--the purse into which rob roy thrust his plunder, the pocket book of flora macdonald, which held nothing i fear from the generosity of the bonnie prince. in the armoury are scott's own gun, rob roy's gun, dirk and skene dhu, the sword of montrose, given to that last of the great cavaliers by his last king, charles i, the pistol of claverhouse, the pistol of napoleon, a hunting flask of james iii; and here are the keys of loch leven castle, dropped in the lake by mary queen's boatman; and the keys of the edinburgh tolbooth turned on so many brave men, yes, and fair women, in the old dividing days, of jacobite and covenanter. the library of scott, twenty thousand volumes, still lines the shelves, and one takes particular interest in this place, and its little stairway whereby ascent is made to the balcony, also book-lined, and escape through a little doorway. when scott first came to the cottage of abbotsford he wrote, furiously, in a little window embrasure with only a curtain between him and the domestic world. here he had not only a library, but a study, where still stands the desk at which the waverleys were written, and the well-worn desk chair. after he had returned from italy, whither he went in search of health and did not find it, he felt, one day, a return of the old desire to write, the ruling passion. he was wheeled to the desk, he took the pen,--nothing came. he sank back and burst into tears. as lockhart reports it--"it was like napoleon resigning his empire. the scepter had departed from judah; scott was to write no more." scott has always seemed like a contemporary. not because of his novels; i fear the waverleys begin to read a little stilted to the young generation, and there are none left to lament with lowell that he had read all of scott and now he could never read him all over again for the first time. it is rather because scott the man is so immortal that he seems like a man still living; or at least like one who died but yesterday. into the dining-room where we cannot go--and perhaps now that we think it over it is as well--he was carried in order that out of it he might look his last on "twilight and tweed and eildon hill." and there he died, even so long ago as september, . "it was a beautiful day," that day we seem almost to remember as we stand here in the vivid after glow, "so warm that every window was wide open, and so peacefully still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the tweed, was distinctly audible." _dryburgh_ five days after they carried him to rest in the abbey--rival certainly in this instance of the abbey of england, where is stored so much precious personal dust. the time had become thrawn; dark skies hung over the cheviots and the eildon, and over the haughs of ettrick and yarrow; the silver tweed ran leaden, and moaned in its going; there was a keening in the wind. the road from abbotsford past melrose to dryburgh is--perhaps--the loveliest walk in the united kingdom; unless it be the road from coventry past kenilworth to stratford. it was by this very way that there passed the funeral train of scott, the chief carriage drawn by scott's own horses. thousands and thousands of pilgrims have followed that funeral train; one goes to holy trinity in stratford, to the invalides in paris, but one walks to dryburgh through the beautiful tweedside which is all a shrine to sir walter. the road runs away from the river to the little village of darnick, with its ivy-shrouded tower, across the meadows to the bridge across the river, with the ringing of bells in the ear. for it was ordered on that september day of , by the provost, "that the church bell shall toll from the time the funeral procession reaches melrose bridge till it passes the village of newstead." i do not suppose the people of this countryside, who look at modern pilgrims so sympathetically, so understandingly, have ever had time to forget; the stream of pilgrims has been so uninterrupted for nearly a century. through the market-place of melrose it passed, the sloping stony square, where people of the village pass and repass on their little village errands. and it did not stop at the abbey. the day was thickening into dusk then; it is ripening into sunset glory to-day. and the abbey looks very lovely, and very lonely. and one wonders if michael scot did not call to walter scott to come and join the quiet there, and if the dust that once was the heart of bruce did not stir a little as the recreator of scotland was carried by. to the village of newstead you move on; with the sound of immemorial bells falling on the ear, and pass through the little winding street--and wonder if the early roman name of trimontium, triple mountains, triple eildon, was its first call name out of far antiquity as scott believed. then the road ascends between hedgerows, and begins to follow the tweed closely--and perhaps you meet pilgrims on leaderfoot bridge who have come the wrong way. there is a steep climb to the heights of bemersyde, where on the crest all melrose glen lies beautifully storied before you. and here you pause--as did those horses of scott's, believing their master would fain take one last look at his favourite view. there is no lovelier landscape in the world, or in scotland. the blue line of the cheviots bars back the world, the dunion, the ruberslaw, the eildon rise, and in the great bend of the river with richly wooded braes about is the site of old melrose. small wonder he paused to take farewell of all the country he had loved so well. the road leads on past bemersyde village with woodlands on either side, and to the east, near a little loch, stands sandyknowe tower. near the tower lies the remnant of the village of smailholm, where scott was sent out of edinburgh when only three years old. it is in truth his birthplace, for without the clear air of the border he would have followed the other scott children; and without the romance of the border he might have been merely a barrister. sandyknowe is brave in spite of its ruin, for it is built of the very stone of the eternal hills, and has become part of the hills. from its balcony, sixty feet high, a beautiful scottish panorama may be glimpsed, and here scott brought turner to make his sketch of the border. and here, because a kinsman agreed to save sandyknowe tower from the mortality that comes even to stone if scott would write a ballad and make it immortal, is laid the scene of "eve of st. john's"--with these last haunting intangible lines-- "there is a nun in dryburgh bower ne'er looks upon the sun; there is a monk in melrose tower he speaketh a word to none." then, back to the tweed, where the river sweeps out in a great circle, and leaves a peninsula for dryburgh. the gray walls of the ruin lift above the thick green of the trees; yew and oak and sycamore close in the fane. druid and culdee and roman have built shrines in this lovely spot, but to-day pilgrimage is made chiefly because in the quiet sheltered ruined st. mary's aisle sleeps sir walter. it would make one-half in love with death to think of being buried in so sweet a place. [illustration: st. mary's aisle and tomb of sir walter scott, dryburgh abbey]. dryburgh is also one of st. david's foundations, in the "sacred grove of oaks," the darach bruach of the worship that is older than augustus or columba. these were white monks that david brought up from alnwick where his queen had been a northumbrian princess, and their white cloaks must have seemed, among these old old oaks, but the white robes of the druids come back again. it is a well-kept place, vines covering over the crumbling gray stone, kept by the lords of buchan. and, perhaps too orderly, too fanciful, too "improved"; one likes better the acknowledged ruin of melrose, and one would prefer that sir walter were there with his kin, instead of here with his kindred. but this is a sweet place, a historic place, begun by hugh de moreville, who was a slayer of thomas à becket, and was constable of scotland. his tomb is marked by a double circle on the floor of the chapter house, and there is nothing of the chapter house; it is open to beating rain and scorching sun--fit retribution for his most foul deed. it is not this remembrance you carry away, but that of st. mary's aisle, in "dryburgh where with chiming tweed the lintwhites sing in chorus." chapter iii border towns _kelso_ it is a very great little country which lies all about melrose, with never a bend of the river or a turn of the highway or a shoulder of the hill, nay, scarce the shadow of any hazel bush or the piping of any wee bird but has its history, but serves to recall what once was; and because the countryside is so teeming seems to make yesterday one with to-day. the distances are very short, even between the places the well-read traveler knows; with many places that are new along the way, each haunted with its tradition, soon to haunt the traveler, while the people he meets would seem to have been here since the days of the winged hats. perhaps in order to get into the center of the ecclesiastical country--for after this being a borderland, and a scott-land, it is decidedly abbots-land, even before abbotsford came into being with its new choice of old title--the traveler will take train to kelso, or walk there, a scant dozen miles from melrose. the journey is down the tweed, which opens ever wider between the gentle hills that are more and more rounding as the flow goes on to the sea. there is not such intense loneliness; here is the humanest part of the scottish landscape, and while even on this highway the cottages are not frequent, and one eyes the journeymen with as close inspection as one is eyed, still it is a friendly land. the southern burr--we deliberately made excuse of drinking water or asking direction in order to hear it--is softer than in the north; yet, you would not mistake it for northumberland. we wondered if this was the accent scott spoke with; but to him must have belonged all the dialect-voices. it was at roxburgh castle that king david lived when he determined to build these abbeys of the middle marches, of which the chief four are melrose, dryburgh, jedburgh and kelso, with holyrood as their royal keystone. roxburgh was a stronghold of the border, and therefore met the fate of those strongholds, when one party was stronger than the other; usually the destruction was by the english because they were farther away and could hold the country only through making it desolate. who would not desire loveliness and desire to fix it in stone, if he lived in such a lovely spot as this where the tweed and teviot meet? david had been in england. he was brother to the english queen maude, wife of henry i, and had come in contact with the norman culture. or, as william of malmesbury put it, with that serene assurance of the englishman over the scot, he "had been freed from the rust of scottish barbarity, and polished from a boy from his intercourse and familiarity with us." ah, welladay! if residence at the english court and norman culture resulted in these lovely abbeys, let us be lenient with william of malmesbury. incidentally david added to the scotland of that time certain english counties, northumberland and cumberland and westmoreland--as well as english culture! david was son to saxon margaret, st. margaret, and from her perhaps the "sair sanct" inherited some of his gentleness. but also he had married matilda of northumberland, wealthy and a widow, and he preferred to remain on the highway to london rather than at dunfermline. so he was much at roxburgh. but the castle did not remain in scottish or english hands. it was while curiously interested in a great flemish gun that james ii was killed by the explosion--and the siege of roxburgh went on more hotly, and the castle was razed to its present low estate. to-day the silly sheep are cropping grass about the scant stones that once sheltered kings and defied them; and ash trees are the sole occupants of the once royal dwelling. to the american there is something of passing interest in the present seat of the duke of roxburgh, floors castle across the teviot. for the house, like many another scottish house, still carries direct descent. and an heiress from america, like the heiress from northumberland, unites her fortune with this modern splendour--and admits americans and others on wednesdays! the town of kelso is charming, like many tweed towns. it lies among the wooded hills; there is a greater note of luxury here. scott called it "the most beautiful if not the most romantic village in scotland." seen from the bridge which arches the flood, that placid flood of tweed, and a five-arched bridge ambitiously and successfully like the waterloo bridge of london, one wonders if after all perhaps wordsworth wrote his bridge sonnet here--"earth hath not anything to show more fair." surely this bridge, these spires and the great tower of the abbey, "wear the beauty of the morning," the morning of the world. the hills, luxuriously wooded, rise gently behind, the persistent eildons hang over, green meadows are about, the silver river runs--and the skies are scottish skies, whether blue or gray. the abbey, of course, is the crown of the place, bolder in design and standing more boldly in spite of the havoc wrought by men and time, and hertford and henry viii; calmer than melrose, less ornamental, with its north portal very exquisite in proportion. the abbot of kelso was in the palmy early days chief ecclesiastic of scotland, a spiritual lord, receiving his miter from the pope, and armoured with the right to excommunicate. there have been other kings here than david and the abbot. the latter days of the stewarts are especially connected with kelso, so near the border. baby james was hurried hither and crowned in the cathedral as the iii after roxburgh. mary queen lodged here for two nights before she rode on to berwick. here in the ancient market-place, looking like the square of a continental town, the old chevalier was proclaimed king james viii on an october monday in , and the day preceding the english chaplain had preached to the troops from the text--"the right of the first born is his." quite differently minded from that whig minister farther north, who later prayed "as for this young man who has come among us seeking an earthly crown, may it please thee to bestow upon him a heavenly one." when this rising of the forty five came, and he who should have been charles iii (according to those of us who are scottish, and royalist, and have been exiled because of our allegiance) attempted to secure the throne for his father, he established his headquarters at sunilaw just outside kelso; the house is in ruins, but a white rose that he planted still bears flowers. to the citizens of kelso who drank to him, the prince, keeping his head, and having something of his royal great uncle's gift of direct speech, replied, "i believe you, gentlemen, i believe you. i have drinking friends, but few fighting ones in kelso." scott knew kelso from having lived here, from going to school here, and it was in out of the kelso library--where they will show you the very copy--that he first read percy's reliques. "i remember well the spot ... it was beneath a huge platanus, in the ruins of what had been intended for an old fashioned arbour in the garden.... the summer day had sped onward so fast that notwithstanding the sharp appetite of thirteen, i forgot the dinner hour. the first time i could scrape together a few shillings i bought unto myself a copy of the beloved volumes; nor do i believe i ever read a book half so frequently or with half the enthusiasm." was it not a nearer contemporary to percy, and a knight of romance, sir philip sidney, who said, "i never read the old song of percie and douglas that i found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet"? for myself i have resolutely refused to identify the word, platanus, lest it should not be identical with the spot where i first read my percy. scott also knew kelso as the place of his first law practice, and of his honeymoon. here flowered into maturity that long lavish life, so enriched and so enriching of the border. horatio bonar was minister here for thirty years--i wondered if he wrote here, "i was a wandering sheep." while james thomson, who wrote "the seasons," but also "rule, britannia"--if he was a scotsman; perhaps this was an act of union-- "rule, britannia, rule the waves; britons never will be slaves!" was born at a little village nearby, back in the low hills of tweed, in , seven years before the union. _jedburgh_ from kelso i took train to the border town which even the baedeker admits has had "a stormy past," and where the past still lingers; nay, not lingers, but is; there is no present in jedburgh. it is but ten miles to the border; more i think that at any other point in all the blue line of the cheviot, is one conscious of the border; consciousness of antiquity and of geography hangs over jedburgh. it lies, a hill town, on the banks of the jed; "sylvan jed" said thomson, "crystal jed" said burns; a smaller stream than the tweed, more tortuous, swifter, rushing through wilder scenery, tumultuous, vocative, before border times began--if ever there were such a time before--and disputatious still to remind us that this is still a division in the kingdom. one of the most charming walks in all scotland--and i do not know of any country where foot-traveler's interest is so continuous (i wrote this before i had read the disastrous walking trip of the pennell's)--is up this valley of the jed a half dozen miles, where remnants of old forest, or its descendants, still stand, where the bracken is thick enough to conceal an army crouching in ambush, where the hills move swiftly up from the river, and break sharply into precipices, with crumbling peel towers, watch towers, to guard the heights, and where outcropping red scars against the hill mark sometimes the entrance to caves that must have often been a refuge when border warfare tramped down the valley. in jedburgh we lodged not at the inn; although the name of spread eagle much attracted us; but because every one who had come before us had sought lodging, we, too, would "lodge," if it be but for a night. mary queen had stayed at an old house, still standing in queenstreet, prince charles at a house in castlegate, burns in the canongate, the wordsworths, william and dorothy, in abbey close, because there was no room in the inn. i do not know if it were the spread eagle then, but the assizes were being held, jethart justice was being administered, or, juster justice, since these were more parlous times, and parley went before sentence. scott as a sheriff and the other officials of the country were filling the hostelry. but sir walter, then the sheriff of selkirk, sheriff being a position of more "legality" than with us, and no doubt remembering his first law case which he had pled at jedburgh years before, came over to abbey close after dinner, and according to dorothy wordsworth "sate with us an hour or two, and repeated a part of the 'lay of the last minstrel.'" think of not knowing whether it was an hour or two hours, with scott repeating the "lay," and in jedburgh. we lodged in a little narrow lane, near the queen in the backgate, with a small quaint garden plot behind; there would be pears in season, and many of them, ripening against these stone walls. the pears of the border are famous. our landlady was removed from yetholm only a generation. yetholm is the gipsy capital of this countryside. and we wondered whether meg faa, for so she ambitiously called herself, by the royal name of scottish romany, was descended from meg merrilies. mrs. faa had dark flashing eyes in a thin dark face, and they flashed like a two-edged dagger. she was a small woman, scarce taller than a jethart ax as we had seen them in the museum at kelso. i should never have dared to ask her about anything, not even the time of day, and, in truth, like many of the scotch women, she had a gift of impressive silence. all the night i had a self-conscious feeling that something was going to happen in this town of jed, and in the morning when i met mrs. faa again and her eyes rather than her voice challenged me as to how i had slept, i should not have dared admit that i slept with one eye open lest i become one more of the permanent ghosts of jed. [illustration: jedburgh abbey.] the abbey is, in its way, its individual way, most interesting of the chief four of "st. david's piles." it is beautifully lodged, beside the jed, near the stream, and the stream more a part of its landscape; smooth-shaven english lawns lie all about, a veritable ecclesiastical close. it is simpler than melrose, if the detail is not so marvelous, and there is substantially more of it. the norman tower stands square; if witches still dance on it they choose their place for security. the long walls of the nave suggest almost a restoration--almost. when the abbey flourished, and when alexander iii was king, he was wedded here ( ) to joleta, daughter of the french count de dreux. always french and scotch have felt a kinship, and often expressed it in royal marriage. the gray abbey walls, then a century and a half old, must have looked curiously down on this gay wedding throng which so possessed the place, so dispossessed the monks, austin friars come from the abbey of st. quentin at beauvais. suddenly, in the midst of the dance, the king reached out his hand to the maiden queen--and death, the specter, met him with skeleton fingers. it may have been a pageant trick, it may have been a too thoughtful monk; but the thirteenth century was rich with superstition. six months later alexander fell from his horse on a stormy night on the fife coast--and the prophetic omen was remembered, or constructed. the abbey was newly in ruin when mary queen rode down this way, only twenty-one years after hertford's hurtful raid. court was to be held here, the assizes of october, , at this border town. for the border had been over-lively and was disputing the authority of the scottish queen as though it had no loyalty. bothwell had been sent down as warden of the marches to quell the marauding free-booters. he had met with little jock elliott, a jethart callant, a border bandit, to whom we can forgive much, because of the old ballad. "my castle is aye my ain, an' herried it never shall be; for i maun fa' ere it's taen, an' wha daur meddle wi' me? wi' my kuit in the rib o' my naig, my sword hangin' doun by my knee, for man i am never afraid, an' wha daur meddle wi' me? wha daur meddle wi' me, wha daur meddle wi' me? oh, my name is little jock elliott, an' wha daur meddle wi' me? "i munt my gude naig wi' a will when the fray's in the wind, an' he cocks his lugs as he tugs for the hill that enters the south countrie, where pricking and spurring are rife, and the bluid boils up like the sea, but the southrons gang doon i' the strife, an' wha daur meddle wi' me?" and perhaps we can forgive the reiver, since he dealt a blow to bothwell that those of us who love mary have longed to strike through the long centuries. bothwell took elliott in custody, elliott not suspecting that a scot could prove treacherous like a southron, and was carrying him to the hermitage. jock asked pleasantly what would be his fate at the assize. "gif ane assyises wald mak him clene, he was hertlie contentit, but he behuvit to pas to the quenis grace." this was little promise to little jock elliott. he fled. bothwell chased. bothwell fired, wounded jock, overtook him, and jock managed to give bothwell three vicious thrusts of his skene dhu--"wha daur meddle wi' me!"--before bothwell's whinger drove death into little jock elliott. bothwell, wounded, perhaps to death, so word went up to edinburgh, was carried to the hermitage. buchanan, the scandalous chronicler of the time--there were such in scotland, then, and always for mary--set down that "when news thereof was brought to borthwick to the queen, she flingeth away in haste like a madwoman by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter, first to melrose, and then to jedworth." it happened to be the crisp, lovely, truly scottish time, october, and mary opened court at jedburgh october , presiding at the meetings of the privy council, and then rode to the hermitage october . she rode with an escort which included the earl of moray, the earl of huntley, mr. secretary lethington, and more men of less note. for six days the girl queen (mary was only twenty-four in this year of the birth of james, year before the death of darnley, the marriage with bothwell, the imprisonment at loch leven) had been mewed to state affairs, and a ride through the brown october woods, thirty miles there and thirty miles back again, must have lured the queen who was always keen for adventure, whether bothwell was the goal, or just adventure. [illustration: hermitage castle.] the mist of the morning turned to thick rain by night, and the return ride was made in increasing wet and darkness. once, riding ahead and alone and rapidly, the queen strayed from the trail, was bogged in a mire, known to-day as the queen's mire, and rescued with difficulty. next day mary lay sick at jedburgh, a sickness of thirty days, nigh unto death. news was sent to edinburgh, and bells were rung, and prayers offered in st. giles. on the ninth day she lay unconscious, in this little town of jedburgh, apparently dead, twenty years before fotheringay. "would god i had died at jedburgh." she did not die. darnley visited her one day, coming from glasgow. bothwell came as soon as he could be moved, and the two made convalescence together in this old house of jedburgh, perhaps the happiest house of all those where the legend of mary persists. even to-day it has its charm. the windowed turret looks out on the large fruit garden that stretches down to the jed, very like that very little turret of "queen mary's lookout" at roscoff where the child queen had landed in france less than twenty years before. five years later, when mary was in an english prison, a proclamation was read in her name at the town cross of jedburgh, the herald was roughly handled by the provost who received his orders from england, and buccleuch and ker of fernihurst revenged themselves by hanging ten loyal (?) citizens who stood with the provost. later, a century later, when at the town cross the magistrates were drinking a health to the new sovereign, a well-known jacobite came by. they insisted on his joining in the toast. and he pledged--"confusion to king william, and the restitution of our sovereign and the heir!" bravo, the borderers! _selkirk_ the sentimental journeymen--with whom i count myself openly--may hesitate to visit yarrow. it lies so near the melrose country, and is so much a part of that, in song and story, that it would seem like leaving out the fragrance of the region to omit yarrow. and yet--. one has read "yarrow unvisited," one of the loveliest of wordsworth's poems. and one has read "yarrow visited." and the conclusion is too easy that if the unvisitings and visitings differ as much as the poems it surely were better not to "turn aside to yarrow," to accept it as "enough if in our hearts we know there's such a place as yarrow.... for when we're there although 'tis fair, 'twill be another yarrow." there is peril at times in making a dream come true, in translating the dream into reality, in lifting the mists from the horizon of imagination. should one hear an english skylark, an italian nightingale? should one see carcassonne, should one visit yarrow? ah, welladay. i have heard, i have seen. just at first, because no dream can ever quite come true, not the dream of man in stone, or of song in bird-throat, or even of nature in trees and sky and hills, there is a disappointment. but after the reality these all slip away into the misty half-remembered things, even carcassonne, even yarrow; the dream enriched by the vision, the vision softened again into dream. and so, i will down into yarrow. coaches run, or did before the war, and will after the war, through the pleasant dales of yarrow and moffat, dales which knew battles long ago and old unhappy far off things, but very silent now, too silent; almost one longs for a burst of border warfare that the quiet may be filled with fitting clamour. the coaches meet at tibbie shiel's on st. mary's and it is to tibbie's that you are bound, as were so many gallant gentlemen, especially literary gentlemen, before you. selkirk is the starting point. and selkirk is a very seemly, very prosperous town, looking not at all like an ecclesiastic city, as it started to be in the dear dead days of david the saint, looking very much as a hill city in italy will look some day when italy becomes entirely "redeemed" and modern, and exists for itself instead of for the tourist. selkirk is indifferent to tourists, as indeed is every scottish town; scotland and scotsmen are capable of existing for themselves. selkirk hangs against the hillside above the ettrick, and its show places are few; the spot where montrose lodged the night before the defeat at philipshaugh, the statue of scott when he was sheriff, "shirra," the statue of mungo park near where he was given his medical training, and the home of andrew lang. there is no trace of the "kirk o' the shielings," founded by the religious from iona, from which by way of scheleschyrche came selkirk. nor is there trace of davis's pile, ruined or unruined, in this near, modern, whirring city. it is the sound of the looms one remembers in selkirk, making that infinity of yards of scotch tweed to clothe the world. selkirk and galashiels and hawick form the glasgow of the border. always industrious, in the time of flodden it was the "souters of selkirk" who marched away to the killing-- "up wi' the souters of selkirk and down wi' the earl o' home." these same souters--shoemakers--were busy in the time of prince charles edward and contracted to furnish two thousand pair of shoes to his army; but one does not inquire too closely into whether they furnished any quota of the four thousand feet to go therein. it was a warm sunny day when i made my pilgrimage up the yarrow to st. mary's. although yarrow has always sung in my ears, i think it was rather to see one sight that i came for the first time to scotland, to see "the swan on still st. mary's lake float double, swan and shadow." i rather think it was for this i had journeyed across the atlantic and up the east coast route. such a sentimental lure would i follow. but then, if that seems wasteful and ridiculous excess of sentiment, let us be canny enough, scotch enough, to admit that one sees so many other things, incidentally. the "wan waters" of the yarrow were shimmering, glimmering, in the morning light as i coached out of selkirk, and by carterhaugh. "i forbid ye, maidens a', that wear gowd in your hair, to come or gae by carterhaugh; for young tamlane is there." these round-shouldered hills, once covered with the wood of caledon, and the forest of ettrick, and the forest of yarrow, are very clear and clean in their green lawns to-day, scarce an ancient tree or a late descendant standing; here and there only gnarled and deformed, out of the centuries, out of perhaps that "derke forest" of james iv. his son, the fifth james, thought to subdue the border and increase his revenue by placing thousands of sheep in this forest; and these ruining the trees have decreased the tourists' rightful revenue. it is because of this absence of trees that one is perhaps more conscious of the shining ribbon of river; longer, clearer stretches may be seen in the green plain: "and is this--yarrow? this the stream of which my fancy cherished so faithfully a waking dream? an image that has perished! o that some minstrel's harp were near to utter notes of gladness, and chase this silence from the air that fills my heart with sadness!" about philipshaugh, two miles from selkirk, the trees are in something of large estate, with oak and birch and fir and rowan, making dark shadows in the fair morning, as the historically minded traveler would fain have it. for it was there that montrose met defeat, his small band against leslie's many men. all about there lie legends of his fight and his flight across the minchmoor and on to the north. and through here scott loved to wander. here he let the minstrel begin his last lay-- "he paused where newark's stately tower looks down from yarrow's birchen bower." and it was hither the scotch poet came with wordsworth, as the english poet describes it-- "once more by newark's castle gate long left without a warder, i stood, looked, listened, and with thee great minstrel of the border." nearby, and near the highways, is the deserted farm cottage, the birthplace of mungo park, who traveled about the world even as you and i, and i fancy his thought must often have returned to the yarrow. the driver will point out the trench of wallace, a redout a thousand feet long, on the height to the north; and here will come into the border memories of another defender of scotland who seems rather to belong to the north and west. soon we reach the kirk of yarrow, a very austere "reformed" looking basilica, dating back to , which was a reformed date, set among pleasant gardens and thick verdure. scott and wordsworth and hogg have worshiped here, and from its ceiling the heraldic devices of many borderers speak a varied history. [illustration: newark castle.] crossing the bridge we are swiftly, unbelievingly, on the dowie dens of yarrow. "yestreen i dream'd a dolefu' dream; i fear there will be sorrow! i dream'd i pu'd the heather green, wi' my true love on yarrow. "but in the glen strive armed men; they've wrought me dole and sorrow; they've slain--the comeliest knight they've slain-- he bleeding lies on yarrow. "she kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair, she search'd his wounds all thorough; she kiss'd them till her lips grew red, on the dowie houms of yarrow." then we come into the country of joseph hogg. the farm where he was tenant and failed, for hogg was a shepherd and a poet, which means a wanderer and a dreamer. and soon to the gordon arms, a plain rambling cement structure, where hogg and scott met by appointment and took their last walk together. hogg is the spirit of all the ettrick place. can you not hear his skylark--"bird of the wilderness, blithesome and cumberless"--in that far blue sky above altrive, where he died--"oh, to abide in the desert with thee!" and now the driver tells us we are at the douglass glen, up there to the right lies the shattered keep of the good lord james douglass, the friend of bruce. here fell the "douglass tragedy," and the bridle path from yarrow to tweed is still to be traced. "o they rade on and on they rade, and a' by the light of the moon, until they came to yon wan water, and there they lighted down." _st. mary's_ and soon we are at st. mary's loch--which we have come to see. to one who comes from a land of lakes, from the land of the sky blue water, there must be at first a sudden rush of disappointment. this is merely a lake, merely a stretch of water. the hills about are all barren, rising clear and round against the sky. they fold and infold as though they would shield the lake bereft of trees, as though they would shut out the world. here and there, but very infrequent, is a cluster of trees; for the most part it is water and sky and green heathery hills. the water is long and narrow, a small lake as our american lakes go, three miles by one mile; but large as it looms in romance, rich as it bulks in poetry. [illustration: interior view, tibbie shiel's inn.] tibbie shiel's is, of course, our goal. one says tibbie shiel's, as one says ritz-carlton, or the william the conqueror at dives. for this is the most celebrated inn in all scotland, and it must be placed with the celebrated inns of the world. there is no countryside better sung than this which lies about st. mary's, and no inn, certainly not anywhere a country inn, where more famous men have foregathered to be themselves. perhaps the place has changed since the most famous, the little famed days, when scott stopped here after a day's hunting, deer or border song and story, up meggatdale; and those famous nights of christopher north and the ettrick shepherd, nights deserving to be as famous as the arabian or parisian or london. the world has found it out, and times have changed, as a local poet complains-- "sin a' the world maun gang and picnic at st. mary's." the inn, a rambling white house, stands on a strip between two waters, added to no doubt since tibbie first opened its doors, but the closed beds are still there--it was curious enough to see them the very summer that the graham moffatts played "bunty" and "the closed bed"--and the brasses which tibbie polished with such housewifely care. for tibbie was a maid in the household of the ettrick shepherd's mother. she married, she had children, she came here to live. then her husband died, and quite accidentally tibbie became hostess to travelers, nearly a hundred years ago. for fifty-four years tibbie herself ran this inn; she died in what is so short a time gone, as scottish history goes, in . during that time hosts of travelers, particularly, wandered through the border, came to this "wren's nest" as north called it. hogg, of course, was most familiar, and here he wished to have a "bit monument to his memory in some quiet spot forninst tibbie's dwelling." he sits there, in free stone, somewhat heavily, a shepherd's staff in his right hand, and in his left a scroll carrying the last line from the "queen's wake"--"hath tayen the wandering winds to sing." edward irving, walking from kirkcaldy to annan, was here the first year after tibbie opened her doors so shyly. carlyle, walking from ecclefechan to edinburgh, in his student days, caught his first glimpse of yarrow from here--and slept, may it be, in one of these closed beds? gladstone was here in the early ' 's during a midlothian campaign. dr. john brown--"rab"--came later, and even r. l. s. knew the hospitality of tibbie shiel's when tibbie was still hostess. it is a long list and a brave one. in this very dining-room they ate simply and abundantly, after the day's work; in this "parlour" they continued their talk. and surely st. mary's lake was the same. down on the shore there stands a group of trees, not fir trees, though these are most native here. and here we loafed the afternoon away--for fortunately we were the only ones who "picnic at st. mary's." there were the gentleman and his wife whom we took for journalistic folk, they were so worldly and so intelligent and discussed the world and the possibilities of world-war--that was several years ago--until at the kirk of yarrow the local minister, dr. borlund, uncovered this minister, james thomson, from paisley. if all the clergy of scotland should become as these, austerity of reform would go and the glow of culture would come. we all knew our history and our poetry of this region, but none so well as the minister. it was he who recited from marmion that description which is still so accurate-- "by lone st. mary's silent lake; thou know'st it well--nor fen nor sedge pollute the clear lake's crystal edge; abrupt and sheer the mountains sink at once upon the level brink; and just a trace of silver strand marks where the water meets the land. far in the mirror, bright and blue, each hill's huge outline you may view; shaggy with heath, but lonely, bare, nor tree nor bush nor brake is there, save where of land, yon silver line bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. yet even this nakedness has power, and aids the feelings of the hour; nor thicket, dell nor copse you spy, where living thing conceal'd might lie; not point, retiring, hides a dell where swain, or woodman lone might dwell; there's nothing left to fancy's guess, you see that all is loneliness; and silence aids--though the steep hills send to the lake a thousand rills; in summer time, so soft they weep. the sound but lulls the ear asleep; your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, so stilly is the solitude." [illustration: st. mary's lake.] across the water is the old graveyard of vanished st. mary's kirk. and it was the low-voiced minister's wife--a babbie a little removed--who knew "what boon to lie, as now i lie, and see in silver at my feet st. mary's lake, as if the sky had fallen 'tween those hills so sweet, and this old churchyard on the hill, that keeps the green graves of the dead, so calm and sweet, so lone and wild still, and but the blue sky overhead." we sat in the silences, the still silent afternoon, conscious of the folk verse that goes-- "st. mary's loch lies shimmering still, but st. mary's kirkbell's lang dune ringing." suddenly, over the far rim of the water, my eye caught something white, and then another, and another. and i knew well that were i but nearer, as imagination knew was unnecessary, i might see the swan on still st. mary's lake, and their shadow breaking in the water. chapter iv the empress of the north i suppose the scotsman who has been born in edinburgh may have a pardonable reluctance in praising the town, may hesitate in appraising it; stevenson did; scott did not. and i suppose if one cannot trace his ancestry back to edinburgh, or nearly there, but must choose some of the other capitals of the world as his ancestral city, one might begrudge estate to edinburgh. i have none of these hesitations, am hampered by none of these half and half ways. being an american, with half a dozen european capitals to choose from if i must, and having been born in an american capital which is among the loveliest--i think the loveliest--i dare choose edinburgh as my dream city. i dare fling away my other capital claims, and all modification, ever scotch moderation, to declare without an "i think" or "they say," edinburgh is the most beautiful, the most romantic, the singular city of the world. those who come out of many generations of migration grow accustomed to choosing their quarter of the world; they have come from many countries and through nomadic ancestors for a century, or two, or three. and perhaps they, themselves, have migrated from one state to another, one city to another. every american has had these phases, has suffered the sea change and the land. surely then he may adopt his ancestral capital, as correctly as he adopts his present political capital. it shall be edinburgh. and while constantinople and rio and yokohama may be splendid for situation, they have always something of foreign about them, they can never seem to touch our own proper romance, to have been the setting for our play. edinburgh is as lovely, and then, the chalice of romance has been lifted for centuries on the high altar of her situation. edinburgh is a small city, as modern cities go; but i presume it has many thousands of population, hundreds of thousands. if it were glasgow numbers would be important, fixative. but edinburgh has had such a population through the centuries that to cast its total with only that of the souls now living within her precincts were to leave out of the picture those shadowy and yet brilliant, ever present generations, who seem all to jostle each other on her high street, without respect to generations, if there is very decided respect of simple toward gentle. edinburgh is, curiously, significantly, divided and scarce united, into old town and new town. and yet, the old town with its ancient _lands_ so marvelously like modern tenements, and its poverty which is of no date and therefore no responsibility of ours, is neither dead nor deserted, and is still fully one-half the town. while new town, looking ever up to the old, looking across the stretch to leith, and to the sea whence came so much threatening in the old days, and with its memories of hume and scott who are ancient, and of stevenson, who, in spite of his immortal youth, does begin to belong to another generation than ours--new town also, to a new american, is something old. it has all become edinburgh, two perfect halves of a whole which is not less perfect for the imperfect uniting. there is no city which can be so "observed." i venture that when you have stood on castle hill--on the high street with its narrow opening between the _lands_ framing near and far pictures--on calton hill--when you have been able to "rest and be thankful" at corstorphine hill--when you have climbed the salisbury crags--when you have mounted to arthur's seat and looked down as did king arthur before there was an edinburgh--you will believe that not any slightest corner but fills the eye and soul. there is, of course, no single object in edinburgh to compare with objects of traveler's interest farther south. the castle is not the tower, holyrood is a memory beside windsor, st. giles is no canterbury, st. mary's is not st. paul's, the royal scottish art gallery is meager indeed, notwithstanding certain rare riches in comparison with the national. but still one may believe of any of these superior objects, as t. sandys retorted to shovel when they had played the game of matching the splendours of thrums with those of london and shovel had named saint paul's, and tommy's list of native wonders was exhausted, but never tommy--"it would like to be in thrums!" all these lesser glories go to make up the singular glory which is edinburgh. _the castle_ and there is the castle. nowhere in all the world is castle more strategically set to guard the city and to guard the memories of the city and the beauty. for the castle is edinburgh. it stood there, stalwart in the plain, thousands and thousands of years ago, this castle hill which invited a castle as soon as man began to fortify himself. it has stood here a thousand years as the bulwark of man against man. certain it will stand there a thousand years to come. and after--after man has destroyed and been destroyed, or when he determines that like night and the sea there shall be no more destruction. castle hill is immortal. [illustration: _edinburgh castle_] always it has been the resort of kings and princes. first it was the keep of princesses, far back in pictish days before christian time, this "castell of the maydens." from b. c. down to , when mary was lodged here for safe keeping in order that james might be born safe and royal, the castle has had royalties in its keeping. it has kept them rather badly in truth. while many kings have been born here, few kings have died in its security; almost all scottish kings have died tragically, almost all scottish kings have died young, and left their kingdom to some small prince whose regents held him in this castle for personal security, while they governed the realm, always to its disaster. there is not one of the stewart kings, one of the jameses, from first to sixth, who did not come into the heritage of the kingdom as a baby, a youth; even the fourth, who rebelled against his father and won the kingdom--and wore a chain around his body secretly for penance. and these baby kings and stripling princes have been lodged in the castle for safe keeping, prologues to the swelling act of the imperial theme. history which attempts to be exact begins the castle in the seventh century, when edwin of deira fortified the place and called it edwin's burgh. it was held by malcolm canmore, of whom and of his saxon queen margaret, dunfermline tells a fuller story; held against rebels and against english, until malcolm fell at alnwick, and margaret, dead at hearing the news, was carried secretly out of the castle by her devoted and kingly sons. after edward i took the castle, for half a century it was variously held by the english as a border fortress. once bruce retook it, a stealthy night assault, up the cliffs of the west, and the bruce razed it. rebuilt by the third edward, it was taken from this king by a clever ruse planned by the douglass, black knight of liddesdale. a shipload of wine and biscuits came into harbour, and the unsuspecting castellan, glad to get such precious food in the far north, purchased it all and granted delivery at dawn next morning. the first cart load upset under the portcullis, the gate could not be closed, the cry "a douglass," was raised, and the castle entered into scottish keeping, never to be "english" again until the act of union. henry iv and richard ii attempted it, but failed. richard iii entered it as friend. for three years it was held for mary by kirkcaldy, while the city was disloyal. charles i held it longer than he held england, and cromwell claimed it in person as part of the protectorate. prince charles, the third, could not take it, contented himself with the less castellated, more palatial joys, of holyrood; a preference he shared with his greatest grandmother. to-day perhaps its defense might be battered down, as some one has suggested, "from the firth by a japanese cruiser." but it looks like a gibraltar, and it keeps impregnably the treasures of the past; as necessary a defense, i take it, as of any material treasure of the present. if you are a king you must wait to enter; summons must be made to the warder, and it must be certain you are the king; even edward vii, most stewart of recent kings had to prove himself not edward i, not english, but "union." if you are a commoner you know no such difficulties. first you linger on the broad esplanade where a regiment in kilts is drilling, perhaps the black watch, the scots greys. no doubt of late it has been tramped by regiments of the "first hundred thousand" and later, in training for the wars. as an american you linger here in longer memory. for when charles was king--the phrase sounds recent to one who is eternally jacobite--this level space was a part of nova scotia, and the scotsmen who were made nobles with estates in new scotland were enfeoffed on this very ground. so close were the relations between old and new, so indifferent were the men of adventuring times toward space. or, you linger here to recall when cromwell was burned in effigy, along with "his friend the devil." you pass through the gate, where no wine casks block the descent of the portcullis, and the castle is entered. there are three or four points of particular interest. queen margaret's chapel, the oldest and smallest religious house in scotland, a tiny place indeed, where margaret was praying when word was brought of the death of malcolm in battle, and she, loyal and royal soul, died the very night while the enemies from the highlands, like an army of macbeth's, surrounded the castle. the place is quite authentic, saxon in character with norman touches. i know no place where a thousand years can be so swept away, and saxon margaret herself seems to kneel in the perpetual dim twilight before the chancel. there is mons meg, a monstrous gun indeed, pointing its mouth toward the forth, as though it were the guardian of scotland. a very pretentious gun, which was forged for james ii, traveled to the sieges of dumbarton and of norham, lifted voice in salute to mary in france on her marriage to the dauphin, was captured by cromwell and listed as "the great iron murderer, muckle meg," and "split its throat" in saluting the duke of york in , a most jacobite act of loyalty. after the rising of the forty five this gun was taken to london, as though to take it from scotland were to take the defense from jacobitism. but sir walter scott, restoring scotland, and being in much favour with george iv, secured the return of mons meg. it was as though a prince of the realm has returned. now, the great gun, large enough to shoot men for ammunition, looks, silently but sinisterly, out over the north sea. [illustration: mons meg.] history comes crowding its events in memory when one enters old parliament hall. it is fitly ancestral, a noble hall with an open timbered roof of great dignity, with a collection of armour and equipment that particularly re-equips the past. and in this hall, under this roof, what splendour, what crime! most criminal, the "black dinner" given to the black douglasses to their death. unless one should resent the dinner given by leslie to cromwell, when there was no black bull's head served. by a secret stair, which commoners and jacobites may use to-day, communication was had with the royal lodgings, and often must queen mary have gone up and down those stairs, carrying the tumult of her heart, the perplexity of her kingdom; for mary was both woman and sovereign. the royal lodgings contain queen mary's rooms, chiefly; the other rooms are negligible. it is a tiny bedchamber, too small to house the eager soul of mary, but very well spaced for the niggard soul of james. one merely accepts historically the presence of mary here; there is too much intertwining of "h" and "m." no jacobite but divorces darnley from mary, even though he would not effect divorce with gunpowder. king james i, when he returned fourteen years after to the place where he was vi, made a pilgrimage to his own birth-room on june , . i suppose he found the narrow space like unto the majesty that doth hedge a king. mary must have beat her heart against these walls as an eagle beats wings against his cage. she never loved the place. who could love it who must live in it? it was royally hung; she made it fit for living, with carpets from turkey, chairs and tables from france, gold hangings that were truly gold for the bed, and many tapestries with which to shut out the cold--eight pictures of the judgment of paris; four pictures of the triumph of virtue! here she kept her library, one hundred and fifty-three precious volumes--where are they now? "the queen readeth daily after her dinner," wrote randolph, english envoy, to his queen, "instructed by a learned man, mr. george buchanan, somewhat of lyvie." and i wondered if here she wrote that prayer which but the other day i came upon in the bookshop of james thin, copied into a book of a hundred years back, in a handwriting that has something of queen mary's quality in it-- "o domine deus! speravi in te; o care mi iesu! nunc libera me: in dura catena, in misera poena desidero te; languendo, gemendo, et genuflectendo adoro, imploro, ut liberes me!" her windows looked down across the city toward holyrood. almost she must have heard john knox thunder in the pulpit of st. giles, and thunder against her. and, directly beneath far down she saw the grassmarket. sometimes it flashed with gay tournament folk; for before and during mary's time all the world came to measure lances in edinburgh. sometimes it swarmed with folk come to watch an execution; in the next century it was filled in the "killing time," with covenanter mob applauding the execution of royalists, with royalist mob applauding the execution of covenanters; mary's time was not the one "to glorify god in the grassmarket." at the top of the market, near where the west bow leads up to the castle, was the house of claverhouse, who watched the killings. at the bottom of the market was the west port through which bonnie dundee rode away. "to the lords of convention, 'twas claverhouse spoke, ere the king's crown go down there are crowns to be broke, so each cavalier who loves honour and me, let him follow the bonnet of bonnie dundee. come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, come saddle my horses and call up my men, fling all your gates open, and let me gae free, for 'tis up with the bonnets of bonnie dundee." and to-day, but especially on saturday nights, if you care to take your life, or your peace in hand, you can join a strange and rather awful multitude as it swarms through the grassmarket, more and more drunken as midnight comes on, and not less or more drunken than the mob which hanged captain porteous. it is a decided relief to look down and find the white hart inn, still an inn, where dorothy and william wordsworth lodged, on thursday night, september , --"it was not noisy, and tolerably cheap. drank tea, and walked up to the castle." the cowgate was a fashionable suburb in mary's time. a canon of st. andrews wrote in , "nothing is humble or lowly, everything magnificent." on a certain golden gray afternoon i had climbed to arthur's seat to see the city through the veil of mist-- "i saw rain falling and the rainbow drawn on lammermuir. harkening i heard again in my precipitous city beaten bells winnow the keen sea wind." it was late, gathering dusk and rain, when i reached the level and thinking to make a short cut--this was once the short cut to st. cuthbert's from holyrood--i ventured into the cowgate, and wondered at my own temerity. stevenson reports, "one night i went along the cowgate after every one was a-bed but the policeman." well, if scott liked to "put a cocked hat on a story," stevenson liked to put it on his own adventures. the cowgate, in dusk rain, is adventure enough. across the height lies greyfriar's. the church is negligible, the view from there superb, the place historic. one year after jenny geddes threw her stool in st. giles and started the reformation--doesn't it sound like mrs. o'leary's cow?--the covenant was signed (feb. , ) on top of a tomb still shown, hundreds pressing to the signing, some signing with their blood. the reformation was on, not to be stopped until all scotland was harried and remade. i like best to think that in this churchyard, on a rainy sunday, scott met a charming girl, fell in love with her, took her home under his umbrella, and, did not marry her--his own romance! because no king shall ever wear the crown again, nor wave the scepter, nor wield the sword of state, the regalia, housed in the crown room, and guarded from commoner and king by massive iron grating, is more interesting than any other appanage of royalty in the world. the crown which was worn by bruce, and which sat rather uneasily on the very unsteady head of charles ii at what time he was crowned at scone and was scolded, is of pure gold and much bejeweled. the scepter, made in paris for james v, carries a beryl, come from egypt three thousand years ago, or, from a druid priest in the mist of time. the sword was a gift from pope julius to james iv; in those days the scottish sovereign was surely the "most catholic majesty." [illustration: greyfriars' churchyard.] england has no ancient regalia; hers were thrown into the melting pot by cromwell. the protector--and destructor--would fain have grasped these "honours," but they were spirited away, and later concealed in the castle. here they remained a hundred and ten years, sealed in a great oak chest. the rumour increased that they had gone to england. and finally sir walter scott secured an order from george iv to open the chest (feb. , ). it was a tremendous moment to scott. could he restore the honours as well as the country? there they lay, crown of the bruce, scepter of james v, sword of pope and king. the castle guns thundered--how mons meg must have regretted her lost voice! and still we can hear the voice of scott, when a commissioner playfully lifted the crown as if to place it on the head of a young lady near--"no, by god, no!" never again shall this crown rest on any head. that is assured in a codicil to the act of union. and--it may be that other crowns shall in like manner gain a significance when they no longer rest on uneasy heads. the view from the king's bastion is royal. where is there its superior? and only its rival from calton hill, from arthur's seat. the gardens lie below, the new town spreads out, the city runs down to leith, the firth shines and carries on its bosom the inchkeith and the may; the hills of fife rampart the north; the highlands with ben lomond for sentinel form the purple west; and south are the braid hills and the heathery pentlands--the guide has pointed through a gap in the castle wall to the hills and to the cottage at swanston. "city of mists and rain and blown gray spaces, dashed with the wild wet colour and gleam of tears, dreaming in holyrood halls of the passionate faces lifted to one queen's face that has conquered the years. are not the halls of thy memory haunted places? cometh there not as a moon (where blood-rust sears floors a-flutter of old with silks and laces) gilding a ghostly queen thro' the mist of tears? "proudly here, with a loftier pinnacled splendour throned in his northern athens, what spells remain still on the marble lips of the wizard, and render silent the gazer on glory without a stain! here and here, do we whisper with hearts more tender, tusitala wandered thro' mist and rain; rainbow-eyes and frail and gallant and slender, dreaming of pirate isles in a jeweled main. "up the canongate climbeth, cleft a-sunder raggedly here, with a glimpse of the distant sea, flashed through a crumbling alley, a glimpse of wonder, nay, for the city is throned in eternity! hark! from the soaring castle a cannon's thunder closeth an hour for the world and an æon for me, gazing at last from the martial heights whereunder deathless memories roll to an ageless sea." _high street_ if the baedeker with a cautious reservation, declares princes street "perhaps" the handsomest in europe, there is no reservation in the guide-book report of taylor, the "water poet," who wrote of the high street in the early sixteen hundreds, "the fairest and goodliest streete that ever my eyes beheld." surely it was then the most impressive street in the world. who can escape a sharp impression to-day? it was then the most curious street in the world, and it has lost none of its power to evoke wonder. a causeway between the castle and holyrood, a steep ridge lying between the nor' loch (where now are the princes' gardens) and the sou' loch (where now are the meadows, suburban dwelling) the old height offered the first refuge to those who would fain live under the shadow of the castle. as the castle became more and more the center of the kingdom, dwelling under its shadow became more and more important, if not secure. the mightiest lords of the kingdom built themselves town houses along the causeway. french influence was always strong, and particularly in architecture. so these tall _lands_ rose on either side of the long street, their high, many-storied fronts on the high street, their many more storied backs toward the lochs. they were, in truth, part of the defense of the town; from their tall stories the enemy, especially the "auld enemy," could be espied almost as soon as from the castle. and the closes, the wynds, those dark tortuous alleys which lead between, and which to-day in their squalor are the most picturesque corners of all europe, were in themselves means of defense in the old days when cannon were as often of leather as of iron, and guns were new and were little more reaching than arrows, and bludgeons and skene dhus and fists were the final effective weapon when assault was intended to the city. the ridge divides itself into the lawnmarket, the high street, and the canongate; st. giles uniting the first two, and the netherbow port, now removed, dividing the last two. the lawnmarket in the old days was near-royal, and within its houses the great nobles lodged, and royalty was often a guest, or a secret guest. the high street was the business street, centering the life of the city, its trade, its feuds--"a la maniére d'edimborg" ran the continental saying of fights--its religion, its executions, its burials. the canongate, outside the city proper and outside the flodden wall and within the precincts of holyrood, therefore regarded as under the protection of holy church, became the aristocratic quarters of the later stewarts, of the wealthy nobles of the later day. i suppose one may spend a lifetime in edinburgh, with frequent days in the old town, wandering the high street, with the eye never wearying, always discovering the new. and i suppose it would take a lifetime, born in old town and of old town, to really know the quarter. i am not certain i should care to spend a lifetime here; but i have never and shall never spend sufficient of this life here. it is unsavoury of course; it is slattern, it is squalid, danger lurks in the wynds and drunkenness spreads itself in the closes. if the old warning cry of "gardey loo!" is no longer heard at ten o' the night, one still has need of the answering "haud yer hand!" or, your nose. dr. samuel johnson, walking this street on his first night in edinburgh, arm in arm with boswell, declared, "i can smell you in the dark!" no sensitive visitor will fail to echo him to-day. there are drains and sewers, there is modern sanitation in old edinburgh. but the habits of the centuries are not easily overcome; and the old town still smells as though with all the old aroma of the far years. still, it is high, it is wind-swept--and what of venice, what of the latin quarter, what of mile end, what of the east side? but there is still splendour and power, bequeathed as taylor said, "from antiquitie to posteritie," in spite of the decline and the decay. if the palace of mary of lorraine on castle hill is fallen and the doorways are in the museum--mary who was mother to mary queen, and contemporary worthy to catherine of medici--there are still, at the end of the long street, moray house and queensberry house. moray is where cromwell lodged in , and gave no hint of what was coming in ; if he had, history might have been different; to-day moray house is the united free church training college! queensberry house is where lived those queensberry marquises of fighting and sporting renown, and where the marquis lived who forced through the act of union--"there ended an old song"; and now it is the refuge for the destitute! [illustration: moray house.] there is still beauty shining through the dust and the cobwebs; here a doorway with bold insignia and exquisite carving, leading to--nowhere; here a bit of painting, norrie's perhaps, or a remnant of timbered ceiling; and everywhere, now as then--more now than then, since sanitary destruction has had its way here and there--glimpses of the city and the moors and the mountains. it is invidious to compare, to choose from these closes. each has its history, its old habitations, its old associations, its particular picturesqueness; lady stair's, baxter's, byer's, old stamp office, white horse, and many more. through this street what glory that was scotland has not passed and what degradation, what power has not been displayed and what abasement? to see it now, filled with people and with marching troops in honour of the visiting king, is to get back a little of ancient history, of greater glory. it lends itself to such majesty, dull and deserted as it is for the most part. when the king came to edinburgh following on his coronation, making a pilgrimage of his realm, he came to st. giles, as has come every sovereign of scotland, from malcolm who may have worshiped in the culdee church, to george in whose honour the chapel of the thistle and the rose was unveiled. "for noo, unfaithfu' to the lord auld scotland joins the rebel horde; her human hymn-books on the board she noo displays, an' embro hie kirk's been restored in popish ways." on a sunday morning i hurried to st. giles to see the trooping of the colours. (later, listening to dr. white, in a recently built reformed church on princes street, i heard a sermon from the text, "you shall see the king in all his beauty." but, no mention of king george! it was even as it was in the old days.) in truth it was a brave sight to find the high street thronged with people, and the regiments marching down from st. giles to holyrood. the king did not enter town till next day. (i saw, with some resentment, over the door of a public house, the motto, "will ye no come back again?") but, somehow, so many kings gone on, the play was rather better staged with the sovereign not there. i learned then how gorgeous the old days must have been with their colour and glitter and flash. [illustration: interior of st. giles.] i suppose there was a tall _land_ where in my day stood and still stands hogg's hotel, just above the tron kirk; the _lands_ on the south side the high burned a century ago. but, to the american gazing down on ancient memories and present sovereignties, there was a wonderful courtesy shown by the hotel. i had interrupted their quiet sabbath; it can still be quiet in edinburgh notwithstanding that a tram car carried me on my way hither. the dining-room of this hotel looked out on the high, and it was breakfast time for these covenanting-looking guests from the countryside. but i, an invader, was made welcome and given the best seat on the balcony; a stranger and they took me in. sometime i shall take up residence in this latin quarter, and if not in lady stair's close, then in hogg's hotel. the name sounds sweeter if you have just come up from ettrick. nor did i miss the king. for "i saw pale kings, and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all; who cry'd--'la belle dame sans merci hath thee in thrall!'" it was the belle dame, it was the queen, i saw most often on the high street, riding to and fro from the time of the "haar" on her return from france, till that last terrible night and the ride to loch leven. after that you may visit the john knox house if you will, and read for your edification its motto. "lyfe god aboune al and yi nicht-bour as yi self," and buy a book or two in its book shop. i took particular pleasure in buying a girlish picture of mary queen, and a book of the poems of robert fergusson, neither of which would have pleasured john. after that you may look at the "i. k." in the pavement, and realize that dr. johnson's wish for knox has been fulfilled--"i hope in the highway." after that you may look on the heart stamped in the pavement near st. giles, where once stood the heart of midlothian, the old tolbooth. there is only one other memory of high street and of scotland that for me equals that of mary. it is montrose. up the canongate comes the rumbling of a tumbril, like the french revolution. and out of the high _lands_ there look the hundreds of covenanting folk, triumphant for the moment. and on the balcony of moray house, within which the marriage of lady mary stewart to the marquis of lorne has just been celebrated, there stands the wedding party, and among them the earl of argyle. up the street comes the cart. and within it clad like a bridegroom--"fyne scarlet coat to his knee, trimmed with silver galoons, lined with taffeta, roses in his shoon, and stockings of incarnet silk"--stands the marquis of montrose, the loyalest scotsman that ever lived. [illustration: john knox's house.] after the field of kylsyth, after the field of philipshaugh, and the flight to the north and the betrayal, he has been brought back to edinburgh, to a swift and covenanting sentence, and to death at the tron. his eyes meet proudly those of argyle who has deserted his king and who thinks to stand in with the covenant and with the future. it is the eyes of argyle which drop. and montrose goes on. his head is on the picket of the netherbow port. his four quarters are sent to the four corners of the kingdom, glasgow, perth, aberdeen, inverness. but the end is not yet. the tables turn, as they turned so often in those unstable times. it is argyle who goes to the scaffold. charles is king, the second charles. there is an edict. the body of montrose is dug up out of the boroughmoor. it is buried in holyrood. the four quarters are reassembled from glasgow and perth and aberdeen and inverness. a procession fairly royal moves from holyrood to st. giles. at the netherbow it pauses. the head is taken down from the pike. the body of montrose is whole again. an honourable burial takes place in the cathedral sanctuary. even though when search was made at the restoring of the church and the erection of the effigy the remains could not be found, there has been that justification by procession and by faith, that justification of loyalty that we remember when we remember montrose-- "he either fears his fate too much, or his deserts are small, that dares not put it to the touch, to gain or lose it all." _holyrood_ holyrood, ruined as it is, empty as it is, spurious as it is, still can house the stewarts. nowhere else are they so completely and splendidly stewart. it is the royalest race which ever played at being sovereign; in sharp contrast with the heavier, more successful tudors; crafty but less crafty than the medici; amorous but more loyal than the bourbons. [illustration: james graham, marquis of montrose.] never did kings claim sovereignty through a more divine right--and only one (whisper sometimes intimates that he was not stewart, but substitute; but he left a stewart descent) failed to pay the penalty for such assertion. it was the splendour which was stewart while they lived, the tragedy that was stewart when they came to die, which makes them the royal race. there were born in holyrood not one of them, unless it be james v. but almost all of them were married in holyrood, held here their festive days, and, not one of them died in holyrood. it is their life, the vivid intense flash of it, across those times that seem mysterious, even legendary in remembered times north of the border. life was a holiday to each of the stewarts, and he spent it in the palace and in the pleasance of holyrood. the abbey, with the monastery which was attached to it, begins far back before the stewarts. it was founded by david i, the abbey-builder. legend has it that he went a-hunting on a holy day, and straying from the "noys and dyn of bugillis," a white stag came against him. david thought to defend himself, but a hand bearing a cross came out of the cloud, and the stag was exorcised. david kept the cross. in dream that night within the castle he was commanded to build an abbey where he had been saved, and the hunting place being this scant mile and a quarter from the castle--then a forest where now it is treeless--david placed this convenient abbey where it has stood for six centuries, defying fire and war and reformation, until the citizens of edinburgh ravaged it when the roof fell in in the middle of the eighteenth century. there is a curious feeling when one crosses the girth stones at the lower end of the canongate. it is a century and more since this was sanctuary. but it is impossible to step across these stones, into the "liberty of holyrood," and not wonder if there may not perhaps be some need in your own soul of sanctuary. thousands and thousands of men--"abbey lairds" as they were pleasantly called--have stepped across this line before me, through the centuries. who am i to be different, unneedful? may i not need inviolate sanctuary? may it not be that at my heels dogs some sinister creditor who will seize me by the skirts before i reach the boundary beyond which there is no exacting for debt? a marvelous thing, this ancient idea of sanctuary. it made an oasis of safety in a savage world. surely it was super-christian. and here, at holyrood, as the medieval statute declares, "qukilk privelege has bene inviolabie observit to all maner of personis cuman wythin the boundes ... past memorie of man." what has the modern world given itself in place of ancient sanctuary? justice, i suppose, and a jury trial. [illustration: holyrood palace.] but, once across the girth, one becomes, not a sanctuarian, but a stewart. the situation is a little dreary, a little flat. and the palace, as a palace, is altogether uninteresting to look on. it is not the building of david or of the earlier stewarts. but of that merry monarch who harboured so long in france, when england was determining whether it would be royal or republican, and scotland was determining whether it would be covenanted or uncovenanted. the merry monarch was ever an uncovenanted person, not at all scottish, although somewhat like the errant james--whose errancy was of his own choosing. charles had acquired a french taste at the court of his cousin, louis the grand. so the new holyrood was built in french baronial style. and no monarch has ever cared to inhabit it for any length of time. only king edward vii, who would have been a happy successor to james, but edward was very studious in those days of , when he lodged here and studied under the direction of the rector of the royal high school. still i can but think that it was in this stewart place that edward developed his stewartship. there is not a stone to speak of the magnificence, of the strength, of david. the abbey was burned and burned again, by edward and richard the second, and entirely rebuilt when the stewarts were beginning to be splendid and assured. over the west doorway, high-arched and deep-recessed, early english in its technique, charles i, who was crowned here in , caused the stone to be placed. "he shall build ane house for my name and i will stablish the throne of his kingdom forever." the tablet still stands above the doorway. but charles is lying for his sins in a vault at st. george's chapel at windsor far in the south, having paid his penalty on the scaffold in whitehall. and the house is in ruins, "bare ruined choir," where not even "the late birds sing." although mendelssohn in speaking of the impression the abbey made on him, does say, "i think i found there the beginnings of my scotch symphony." this "magnificent abbey-kirk of halirude" was no doubt very splendid; although in architectural beauty it cannot compare with melrose, not even the great east window with its rich quatrefoil tracing. but what scenes have been staged in that historic drama, that theatrical piece, we call the history of the stewarts! before the high altar, under that east window, when james i was kneeling before god in prayer, there appeared the lord of the isles, come repentant from burning inverness and other rebellion, to kneel before the king, his own sword pointed at his breast. before this altar james ii was married to mary of gueldres. james iii was married to margaret of denmark, who brought the orkneys as her dower. james iv was married to margaret tudor, the union of the "thistle and the rose." james v was not married here, he went to france for his frail bride, magdalene, who lived but seven weeks in this inhospitable land, this hospitable holyrood. she was buried in holyrood chapel, only to be dug up and tossed about as common clay when the edinburgh citizens made football of royal skulls. the two sons of james vi, henry who should have been king and who might have united royalist and commoner had fate granted it, and charles who was to become king, were both christened here. james vii, brother to charles ii, restored this chapel royal and prepared it for the roman ritual. james viii was never here, or but as a baby. charles iii--did the bonnie prince in that brief brilliant edinburgh moment of his, ever kneel before this then deserted altar and ask divine favour while he reasserted the divine right of kings? here--or was it secretly, in stirling?--the queen--one says the queen and all the world knows--gowned in black velvet, at five o'clock on a july morning, was married to her young cousin, henry darnley. a marriage that endured two long terrible tumultuous years. here--or was it in the drawing-room?--at two o'clock on a may morning, the queen was married to bothwell, by adam bothwell, bishop of orkney, not with mass as she had been wed to her boy-cousin, but with preaching as she wed the bishop's cousin. and "at this marriage there was neither pleasure nor pastime used as use was wont to be used when princes were married." so says the diurnal occurents of scotland. a marriage that endured a brief, perhaps happy, tragedy-gathering month. and the queen beautiful was destroyed, by the reformation, like an abbey. [illustration: james iv.] the bones of darnley were ravaged by the citizens of edinburgh out of the ruins of this chapel. or were they carried to westminster by that unroyal son who was so laggard in caring for the remains of his queenly mother? i hope that darnley does not rest beside her. for i think those exquisite marble fingers of the effigy in henry vii's chapel, looking i fain believe as those of mary looked, tapering, lovely, sinister, would not so fold themselves in prayer without unfolding through the long centuries. in the old palace the most glorious days were those when james iv was king. as the most glorious days of scotland were those which are almost legendary. the palace still had the grandeur that was norman and the grace that was early english under david. its front, towered and pinnacled, suggesting more fortress security than this dull château, opened upon a great outer court that lay between the palace and the walls. coming down the canongate from the castle it must have looked very splendid to james. and yet he did not care to remain in it long. all the stewarts had errant souls, and they loved to wander their kingdom through. it presented ample opportunity for adventure; scarce a stewart ever left scotland. that last prince, who flashed across scotland in one last stewart sword thrust--"my friends," he said in holyrood the night before prestonpans, "i have thrown away the scabbard"--was but treading in the steps of his royal forebears, the royal fore-errants. in the days of james iv--we say it as one should say in the days of haroun al raschid, and indeed edinburgh was in those early years of the fifteen hundreds the bagdad of the world, and her days as well as her nights were truly arabian--the world must have looked much as it does on the pleasant morning when we make our royal entry into holyrood. the abbey grounds, a regal area then, and still a regality, were rich with woodland and orchard, and terraced and flowered into southern beauty. the red crags of the salisbury ridge rose bold above as they do to-day, and crowning the scene the leonine form of arthur's seat above the green slopes, the lion keeping guard against the invading lion of england! i think james must often have climbed to that height to look forth over his domain, over his city, to watch the world, as king arthur--whom he did not resemble--did legendary centuries before. it was a busy time in edinburgh; men's hands and wits were working. in leith, then as now the port, then as now a separate burgh, there was much shipping and much building of ships; king james dreamed of a navy, and he had an admirable admiral in sir anthony wood. in the castle there was the forging of guns, the "seven sisters of brothwick," under direction of the king's master gunner, while mons meg looked on, and perhaps saw the near terrible future when these sisters of hers should be lost at flodden. in the city there was the splendid beginning of that intellectual life which has ever been quick in edinburgh. it was a joyous time; witness the account from the lord high treasurer-- "on the th of february, , we find the king bestowing nine pounds on gentil john, the english fule; on the th of june we have an item to english pipers who played to the king at the castle gate, of eight pounds eight shillings; on the thirty-first of august patrick johnson and his fellows, that playit a play to the king, in lithgow, receives three pounds; jacob the lutar, the king of bene, swanky that brought balls to the king, twa wemen that sang to his highness, witherspoon the foular, that told tales and brought fowls, tom pringill the trumpeter, twa fithelaris that sang grey steill to the king, the broken-bakkit fiddler of st. andrew's, quhissilgyllourie a female dancer, willie mercer who lap in the stank by the king's command." oh, a royal and democratic and merry time. it was flodden that made men old, that tragic climax to this splendour. "in the joyous moneth tyme of june," in the pleasant garden of the town-house of the great earl of angus, looking down on the still waters of the nor' loch, and across the woods and moors to the glittering blue firth, there sat the pale stripling, gavin douglass, third son of douglass, archibald bell-the-cat, late in orders at mony musk, but now come up to st. giles as prior in spite of his youth, and more absorbed in poetry than men. "more pleased that in a barbarous age he gave rude scotland virgil's page, than that beneath his rule he held the bishopric of fair dunkeld." here i would dispute scott. after all, dark ages are not always as dark as they look to those who come after. and if the "dark ages" of europe were brilliantly luminous in moslem capitals, bagdad and cordova, so "rude scotland" was more polished under james iv than england under henry vii, or france under louis xii. as gavin has recorded in "the palice of honour," he had interview with venus in her proper limbo, and she had presented him with a copy of virgil, bidding him translate it. and so, quite boldly, before any englishman had ventured, and all through the winter, forgetful--except when he wrote his prefaces of scharp soppis of sleit and of the snypand snaw he had worked over his translation, from the latin into the scottish, and now it was nearly ready "to go to the printer," or more like, to be shown to the king. in sixteen months he had completed thirteen books; for he had added a book of maphæus vegius, without discrimination. he was certain of the passage _facilis descensus averni_, for gavin was scotch, the time was stewart. it ran in this wise-- "it is richt facill and eithgate, i tell thee for to descend, and pass on down to hell, the black zettis of pluto, and that dirk way stand evir open and patent nicht and day. but therefore to return again on hicht and heire above recovir this airis licht that is difficul werk, thair labour lyis, full few thair bene quhom hiech above the skyis, thare ardent vertue has raisit and upheit or zit quhame equale jupiter deifyit, thay quhilkie bene gendrit of goddes may thy oder attane all the mydway is wilderness unplane or wilsum forest; and the laithlie flude cocytus, with his drery bosom unrude flows environ round about that place." but he was not quite certain that he had been splendid enough, and daring enough, in his application of the royal lines-- "hic cæsar et omnis iuli progenies, magnum caeli ventura sub axem." so he had sent for his friend, william dunbar, kynges makar, laureate to the sovereign. and dunbar was never loath for a "flyting," a scolding. he had them on every hand, with every one, and not only those he held with "gude maister walter kennedy," and published for the amusement of the king and his court. it was a more solemn event when the future bishop of dunkeld summoned him. though gavin was fifteen years younger than william, he was more serious with much study, and under the shadow of future honours, and then, too, he was a douglass. so dunbar came, striding up the canongate between the tall inquisitive houses--even he found them "hampered in a honeycaim of their own making"--a very handsome figure, this dunbar, in his red velvet robe richly fringed with fur, which he had yearly as his reward from the king, and which i doubt not he preferred to the solemn franciscan robe he had renounced when he entered the king's service. james was away at stirling. james was a poet also. surely, on internal evidence, it is the fourth james and not the fifth, who wrote those charming, and improper poems, "the gaberlunzieman" and "the jolly beggar." "he took a horn frae his side, and blew baith loud and shrill, and four and twenty belted knights came skipping o'er the hill. "and he took out his little knife, loot a' his duddies fa'; and he was the brawest gentleman that was amang them a'." "and we'll gang nae mair a roving, so late into the night; and we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys, let the moon shine ne'er so bright." dunbar, official makar, would fain secure the criticism of young gavin on this joyous lament he had writ to the king in absence-- "we that here in hevenis glory ... i mean we folk in paradyis in edinburgh with all merriness." and perhaps the young gavin and the old dunbar in their common fellowship of poetry, would drink a glass of red wine in memory of friends passed into death's dateless night--_timor mortis conturbat me_. "he has blind harry and sandy traill slaine with his schour of mortall haill.... in dunfermelyne he had done rovne with maister robert henrisoun." and dunbar, who was so much more human than gavin, if older, would quote those immortal new lines of henryson-- "robene sat on gude grene hill kepand a flok of fe, mirry makyne said him till, robene, thow pity on me." while gavin, so much elder than his looks, and mindful of scottish as well as of trojan history, would quote from blind harry in the name of wallace-- "i grant, he said, part inglismen i slew in my quarrel, me thocht nocht halff enew. i mowyt na war but for to win our awin (own). to god and man the rycht full weill is knawin (known)." then dunbar would wrap his rich red robe about him--i hope he wore it on ordinary days, or were there any when james the fourth was king?--and stride back, through the canongate to holyrood, back to the court, where he would meet with young david lindsay, of a different sort from young gavin douglass. and they would chuckle over "kitteis confessioun," a dialogue between kitty and the curate, which lindsay had just written--and would not dunbar be gracious and show it to the king? quod he, "have ye na wrangous geir?" quod scho, "i staw ane pek o' beir." quod he, "that suld restorit be, tharefore delyver it to me." quod he, "leve ye in lecherie?" quod scho, "will leno mowit me." quod he, "his wyfe that sall i tell, to mak hir acquentance with my-sell." quod he, "ken ye na heresie?" "i wait nocht quhat that is," quod scho. quod he, "hard he na inglis bukis?" quod scho, "my maister on thame lukis." quod he, "the bischop that sall knaw, for i am sworne that for to schaw." quod he, "what said he of the king?" quod scho, "of gude he spak naething." quod he; "his grace of that sall wit, and he sall lose his lyfe for it." perhaps warbeck was listening, perkin warbeck who pretended to be duke of york, pretended to the english crown. so scotland harboured him, and holyrood was hospitable to him. james married him to lady jane gordon, and for years, until he wearied of it, maintained a protectorate over this pinchbeck pretender. i am certain that dom pedro de ayala did not linger in the court to gossip with dunbar, or with the hangers-on. dom pedro had come up from spain on a strange ambassadorial errand, to offer to james in marriage a spanish princess, knowing well that there might be no spanish princess (maria was betrothed to portugal); but no doubt believing that there ought to be, since james was slow in marrying, and surely a spanish princess would best mate this royalest of the stewarts. dom pedro better liked the extravagant kingly court at holyrood than the niggardly court at windsor. he wrote home to ferdinand and isabella, "the kingdom is very old, and very noble, and the king possessed of great virtues, and no defects worth mentioning." no defects! certainly not. james had the qualities of his defects, and these were royal. james could speak--not keep still--in eight languages, and could and did say "all his prayers." so dom pedro reports to his most catholic majesty. when he was thirty years old, this king errant married, not the hypothetical daughter of spain, but the substantial youthful margaret tudor, aged fourteen. the scottish king would none of the alliance for years; james preferred hypothetical brides and errant affairs. but the english king saw the advantage and pressed it. he had united the roses, red and white, of england; he would fain join the thistle to the rose. [illustration: margaret tudor, queen of james iv.] so james, in august, , journeyed out to dalkeith, whither margaret had come. he returned to "hys bed at edinborg varey well countent of so fayr a meetyng." a few days later, margaret made her entry into edinburgh, james having met her, gallantly dressed in "a jacket of crimson velvet bordered with cloth of gold." leaving his restive charger, "mounting on the pallefroy of the qwene, and the said qwene behind hym, so rode throw the towne of edinburgh." their route lay through the grassmarket up to the castle hill, and down the high street and the canongate, to the abbey. here they were received by the archbishop of st. andrews. next day they were married by the archbishop of glasgow, the archbishop of york joining in the solemn and magnificent celebration. it is the most splendid moment in edinburgh history, within the abbey and the palace, and within the city. the town cross ran with wine, the high _lands_ were hung with banners and scarlet cloth, and morality plays were performed before the people. in the palace there was a royal scene. and our friend, william dunbar, kynges makar, read his allegory of "the thrissl and the roiss," which is still worth reading, if chaucer is worth reading. but, at night, in the royal apartment, the night before the wedding, perhaps in the fragment of the old palace which remains, the gallant king played to the little princess upon the virginal; and then, on bended knee and with unbonneted head, he listened while she played and sang to him. out of the dark of the time it is a shining scene; and out of the splendour of the moment it brings a note of tenderness. another decade, another august, and the boroughmoor (where now run the links of burntland) was covered with the white of a thousand tents, scotland was gathered for war, the "ruddy lion ramped in gold" floated war-like over all, and james and all scotland prepared to march down to flodden, heeding not the warning which had sounded at midnight in ghostly voice at the town cross; a warning no doubt arranged by margaret, never a stewart, always a tudor. and--all scotland was turned into a house of mourning. half a century later the history of scotland came to a climax, and mary stewart came to holyrood; that queen who then and ever since held half the world in thrall, like another iseult. the covenanted world has rejected her, as no doubt it would reject iseult. shrouded in a gray "haar" from off the north sea, rising like a venus out of the mists of the sea, mary stewart, dowager of france, queen of scotland, heiress of england, came unto her own. and, her own received her, and, received her not. the castle hanging high in air no longer hung there. the palace lying low on the plain was not there, on that august , . there was nothing but what was near at hand; mary could not see a hundred feet into her kingdom. in truth she arrived at port a week before the ship was expected--and mary also flashed through her kingdom; witness the ride across the marches to the hermitage, and the ride through the north to punish huntley. hers was a restless soul, a restless body. on her return to the kingdom she was accompanied by a great retinue, three of her french uncles of guise and of lorraine, her four maries, and many ambassadors. it was a suspended moment in the world, the sixth decade of the sixteenth century. and nowhere were affairs in such delicate balance, or so like to swing out of balance as in scotland; where religion, sovereignty, feudalism, morality, were swaying dizzily. so all the world sent their keenest ambassadors to observe, to foresee if possible, to report. yet mary rode through the mists. "si grand brouillard," says the sieur de brantome, that gossipy chronicler, and mary and her french courtiers and scotch maries, rode through the "haar," from leith up whatever was the leith walk of that day to holyrood. the palace must have rung with french chatter, of these wondering and inquisitive and critical folk; for all the cultured world was french in those days, and mary and her maries had been only five or six when they left stormy scotland for the pleasant smiling land of france. not for long was she permitted to believe she had brought france back with her and there was no reality in scotland but as she made it. reformation pressed in upon her, even through the windows of this turret where again she seems to listen to that prophetic and pious serenade, scottish protestant psalms accompanied by fiddles and sung to a french catholic queen. "vile fiddles and rebecks," complains brantome, hesitating to call vile the mob of five hundred gathered in the scotch mists; but they sang "so ill and with such bad accord that there could be nothing worse. ah, what music, and what a lullaby for the night!" the rooms of mary are still inclosed, the walls still stand about them, and a romantic care withholds the ravages of time from those tapestries and silken bed hangings, dark crimson damask, which mary drew about her on that night of her return. and here hangs a picture of queen elizabeth, authentic, tudoresque, which did not hang here when mary returned; but what dark shadow of elizabeth lurked behind these hangings! the very guard to whom you protest the picture understands--"i think it an insult to her memory." it is here that queen mary still reigns. all the old palace was burned, carelessly, by cromwell's soldiers, at what time men were caring nothing for palaces, and less for royalty. but, fate was royal, was jacobite, and this gray turret of the northwest corner a building of james v on a foundation of james iv--perhaps where he had listened in the evening to margaret and her virginal--was saved from the wrath of the commonwealth. within these very walls mary played on the virginal, perhaps on the rebeck, and many sought to know her stops--"you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me." here she was loved, as she still is loved. here she made love, the mystery!--as always. here she flashed those bright eyes on courtiers and commoners and straightway these fell into bondage--the stewarts never drew the line of division. here those eyes battled with john knox as he met her in dialogues, as john has faithfully recorded. and here those bright eyes filled with a storm of tears at his denunciation; but knox felt their power. here she met darnley, in the chapel married him, and knox called after dinner to declare that the reformation did not approve. here by the very stairs of the turret darnley led the murderers on rizzio, from his private apartments to hers. (i find it fit that ker of fawdonside, one of the murderers, should have married later the widow of knox.) mary was held here a prisoner; they would "cut her into collops and cast her over the wall" if she summoned help. but mary could order that the blood stains of the fifty-six wounds of rizzio should remain "ane memoriall to quychen her revenge." they quicken our thought of mary to-day--if we accept them. from holyrood mary went to kirk o' field on a sunday night in february to visit darnley who lay "full of the small pox." he had come back from bothwell castle on mary's urging; but he had gone to bothwell to escape her revenge for rizzio. she returned to holyrood--"the queen's grace gang and with licht torches up the black friar's wynd"--where the wedding festivities of a member of her household were in progress. and, i doubt not, devoted to mary as i am, that she was the merriest of the company. [illustration: _bothwell castle_] then the dark. then, at two in morning, an explosion that shook all edinburgh, that astonished the world, that still reverberates through the world. then--the dark. a marriage, at two in the morning, a flight to borthwick, a meeting at carberry, one more night in edinburgh, in a house as mean as that of kirk o' field, a day at holyrood, and a forced ride with ruffian nobles, lindsay and ruthven on each hand, to loch leven, thirty miles in the night of june , --and edinburgh and holyrood and the crown of scotland know her no more. "helen's lips are drifting dust, ilion is consumed in rust." and mary. and holyrood. there is one more holyrood scene descending from this. on a saturday evening, march , , the son of mary, the king of scotland, supped with the queen, perhaps in that small supper room where rizzio was supping with a queen; and they had retired. "the palace lights were going out, one by one." and sir robert carey, three days out from london, clattered into the courtyard, the king was roused, sir robert knelt before him-- "queen elizabeth is dead, and your majesty is king of england!" james i of england, james vi of scotland, son of mary, son of darnley, son of the ninth generation from bruce, the bruce. the "auld enemy" is finally defeated; and to borrow again from rosaline masson, "the lights of holyrood went out, one by one." in the long picture gallery of this dull modern palace, nothing of which either mary or james ever saw, there hangs a series of portraits, one hundred pictures of scottish kings, painted under order of charles ii in , by the fleming, dewitt, who agreed to furnish the pictures in two years for one hundred and twenty pounds. they begin with fergus i, b. c. they are the kings who passed before the prophetic vision of banquo. enough to frighten macbeth! one brief brilliant ghost of stewart glory returns. in this gallery was held the ball of prince charles edward, described in "waverley." and after this theatric moment, and after the prince had defeated the "royalists" at falkirk, hardy's dragoons slashed these pictures of scottish kings, since the prince they could not reach. _princes gardens_ there are certain public places of beauty where the beauty is so enveloping that the place seems one's very own, seems possessed. that, i take it, is the great democratic triumph, in that it has made beauty a common possession and places of beauty as free to the people as is the air. chief of these is princes street gardens. i could, in truth i have, spent there days and half-days, and twilights that i would willingly have lengthened to midnights, since the northern night never quite descends, but a romantic gray twilight veils everything, and evokes more than everything. for any lengthened visit in edinburgh i dare not inhabit a hotel room on the garden side, since all my time would be spent at the window. for a shorter visit, such a room lengthens the day, defies the closed gate of the gardens. it was from such a window as this, "from a window in princes street" that henley looked forth-- "above the crags that fade and gloom starts the bare knee of arthur's seat; ridged high against the evening bloom the old town rises, street on street; with lamps bejeweled, straight ahead, like rampird walls the houses lean, all spired and domed and turreted, sheer to the valley's darkling green; ranged in mysterious array, the castle menacing and austere, looms through the lingering last of day; and in the silver dusk you hear, reverberated from crag and scar, bold bugles blowing points of war." princes street is, i believe, not a mile long, a half-mile the part which is gardened. it is the loveliest street in the world. it seems infinite instead of half-mile. of course to the loyal american that praise is received half-way. for he remembers riverside drive with the majesty of the hudson, north shore drive with the shoreless infinity of lake michigan, summit avenue with the deep gorge of the upper mississippi, quebec and its esplanade. but even these "handsome streets" cannot match princes for history and beauty in one, for the old and the new, for the old town and the new town. [illustration: princes street.] princes street, to speak briefly of its geography, is a broad thoroughfare, with a medley of buildings on the north side, but uniform in gray stone, where hotels and shops furnish the immediate life of the city. there are electric cars running the full length of the street; and it is the only street i know which is not spoiled through the presence of these necessary carriers. there are cabs, and there are sight-seeing cars, from which in high advantage, and in half a day, you can see everything in edinburgh. yes, actually. i who speak to you have done it, partly for the greed of seeing it steadily and seeing it whole, and partly for the comment of these scotch coach drivers and guards, who are not merely scottish but the essence of scotland. i shall never forget how an american traveler--of course they are all americans in these tally-hos--commenting on the driver's remark that the "old queen" wanted to build a palace where donaldson's hospital now stands and she was refused--"but she was the queen!" nevertheless, asserted mr. sandy coachman, "she was refused." not so in the old days of queenship. the entire life of edinburgh, of scotland, streams through this broad straight street. on the opposite side lie the gardens, stretching their way parallel with the street, a wide, green-lawned, tree-forested purlieu, terraced and flowered, with a "sunken garden" near the castle-side, through which trains are conveyed. the smoke, so much lamented, does often rest with grace and gray loveliness in the hollows of the place, so that one does not miss the waters of the nor' loch that once flowed here as moat. above rises the castle in greater majesty than from any other point. down from the castle runs the ridge of the high street, and the high _lands_ with flags of washing hanging out the windows which answer the flags red and leoninely rampant, on the buildings of princes street. the crown of st. giles and the spire of the tronkirk hanging above all. to the west is st. john's, where in the graveyard raeburn is buried; and old st. cuthbert's, where in the graveyard de quincey is buried. there are raeburns in the royal gallery which stands on the island dividing the gardens, and there are many raeburns here and there, in private rooms of banks and other institutions, rare raeburns with that casual, direct, human look he could give men and women. the galleries are worth a visit both for their best, and for their not-best. there are statues of famous scotsmen on the terraces, and of course the scott monument, beautifully gothic, and as sacred as a shrine. there are goods to be bought in the shops, pebbles and cairngorms in jewelry and kickshaws of that ilk; rugs and plaidies, sashes and ties, and scott and stevenson books bound in the royal stewart silk. unhappy the traveler who has not provided himself beforehand with a tartan. almost every one can if he will. and there is always the college of heraldry to help one out. or the audacity of choosing the tartan you like best; an affront, i assure you, to all good scots. for however unlovely a scotch tartan may be in the eyes of the world--nominations are invidious--in the eyes of the clansman there is nothing so "right" as his own particular tartan. he would not exchange it for a douglass or a stewart. these tartans have exerted a very marked effect on the scottish sense of taste. on princes street you may not find such richly dressed women as on regent street, but the harmony of colouring will please you better. while no doubt this is due to the fact that for several hundred years the scottish taste has had the benefit of intimate association with the french, it can also be traced to the longer centuries during which tartans have brought an understanding of colour harmonies. because there has been this love of colour, there has come with it vanity. with vanity there has come that rare ability of the women of the race to maintain a unity, a harmony, a complete relationship between skirts and waists. there is no country in europe where the "act of union" at the feminine waistline is so triumphant as in scotland, particularly in edinburgh. the universal american achievement has been equaled in europe only in scotland. there are teashops which invite you in, when the wind sweeps too harshly, or the rain beats itself into more than a scotch mist, or even when the sun shines too hot. there is a garden tea place on top of a high hotel which confronts the castle. even in this far north there is much open air dining, and more especially open air tea-ing. i am not certain that dr. johnson would have much cared for this modern tea room, where he might review the world. it seems that he drank much tea when he was the guest of boswell, especially when he was the guest of mrs. boswell, in james court the other side the gardens. "boswell has handsome and very spacious rooms, level with the ground on one side of the house, and the other four stories high." and boswell says of johnson, "my wife had tea ready for him, which it is well known he delights to drink at all times, particularly when sitting up late." from this roof tea garden one can see james's court at the top of the mound, although the boswell lodgings are burned down. and one can almost see holyrood, where tea was introduced by james vii. after you have shopped and had your tea, and the past retakes possession, you will return to the green valley of the gardens, to forget the clang of the tram cars, to look up at the great castle hill, green until it meets the buff-coloured stone and the buff-coloured buildings that seem to grow out of the stone, if it is a clear day; while the ramparts seem temporarily to have blossomed with red geraniums, if red coats are leaning over the edge. a clear day in edinburgh is possible. i have spent a month of such days, and have longed for the mists, a touch of them, that the castle might turn to a purple wonder, and the deep blue shadows sink over it, and the gray precipice of the high street look higher than ever. gray is in truth the colour of edinburgh, "the gray metropolis of the north." but it is never a dreary gray, never a heavy gray like london. there the gray is thick, charged with soot; one can rub it from his face. in edinburgh the gray is luminous, a shifting playing colour, with deep shadows turning to deep blue, with rifts or thinnings of the cloud, through which yellow and brown glimmers make their way. above all, edinburgh is never monotonous. that is perhaps its charm, a something that every feminine city knows; edinburgh is feminine, and paris, and venice, and new orleans. and there hangs the castle, sometimes in midair-- "hast thou seen that lordly castle, that castle by the sea? golden and red above it the clouds float gorgeously." sometimes standing stalwart and stern, a challenge to daring, a challenge to history. that farther edge of the castle hill as it is silhouetted against the west sky--if you walk around on lothian street you can see the full face of the rock--has invited many an adventurer, both from within and without. it was down that steep hill that the sons of margaret carried their queen mother, when the hosts of donalbane were besieging the place, and a scotch "haar" rolling in from the sea and shutting off the castle enabled the little procession to pass safely with its precious burden, and swiftly down to the queen's ferry, and across to dunfermline. up the face of that rock when the bruce did not hold this stronghold there stole in the night of a thirteenth century winter--it must have been much colder, even in edinburgh, in the thirteenth century--a picked band of men; picked by randolph afterward earl of moray, and led by frank, who, years before when he had been a soldier in the castle garrison and night leave was forbidden, used to make his way down this cliff to visit a bonnie lassie in the west bow. now, on a wind-swept night, which can be very windy around that castle profile--the wind has not abated since the thirteenth century--frank led the remembered way. i wonder if he remembered the lassie. but his footing was sure. once, it is true, the sentinel seemed to have discovered them. but it was only the boast the sentinel makes to the night when he makes his last round. the men huddled against the face of the rock. then they moved onward. the ladders were too short to reach the rampart. two were bound together. the men over, the cry "a moray!" rings in the castle. scotland has won it again. another century, and james iii is king. this least royal of the stewarts, jealous of his more royal brother, locked the duke of albany in the castle, and felt secure. but the duke had friends. a french clipper came into leith. it brought wine to albany, and the wine cask contained a rope. inviting his guardians to sup with him, he plied them with heated wine, perhaps drugged wine, then, the dagger. albany's servant insisted on going down the rope first. it was short, he fell the rest of the distance. albany hurried back for the sheets from his bed, made his safe way down. he carried the servant man all the way to leith--he had just "whingered" the guard--found the boat, and safety, and france. up the rock, in covenanting days, stole claverhouse, the bonnie dundee, to a secret conference with the duke of gordon, hoping to win him away to stewart loyalty and the north. i cannot remember that any of scott's characters went this way. he thought it "scant footing for a cat." but stevenson knew the way. perhaps not actually, but he sent more than one of his characters up or down the rock--st. ives with a rope that was long enough to reach. [illustration: john graham of claverhouse, viscount dundee.] _calton hill_ perhaps the best view of edinburgh--only perhaps, for each view differs, and you have not seen the whole city unless you have seen it from the various vantage points--is that from the calton hill. for a very good reason. the hill itself is negligible enough, although it is impossible to understand edinburgh, to understand scotland, unless you have looked on the architectural remnants on this hill, and considered them philosophically. but, as stevenson said--"of all places for a view, the calton hill is perhaps the best; since you can see the castle, which you lose from the castle, and arthur's seat, which you cannot see from arthur's seat." an excellent reason, which also places the castle and arthur's seat. calton hill does not tower so high over the city as these other two points; one may still look up to arthur's seat, one may look across to the castle. yet, the city lies near. yet, the country rolls out to the firth, and out to the pentlands. perhaps a gray-sea haze dulls the far edge of the far kingdom of fife. perhaps a blue haze hangs over the pentlands. perhaps a smoke-cloud makes a nearer sky for the town itself, this auld reekie. not only perhaps, but very probably. there are clear days in edinburgh. they are to be treasured. there is no air more stimulating in all the world. october sometimes slips into the other months of the year, fills the air with wine, clears the air of filament. but, not often, not often for the tourist from beyond seas who makes edinburgh in the summer. but still it is possible from calton hill to catch the farthest glory of the encircling hills, and the near glory of the ever glorious city. the hill itself is a place of monuments, and a very pretentious place. also, very absurd. i suppose it is possible to be of two minds about the remnant of the parthenon which stands so conspicuously on the highest plateau, a construction dating back to that royal time when george the fourth came to this northern capital, and was--alas!--received as though he were bonnie prince charlie himself; and was received--again alas!--by sir walter clad in a campbell plaid, and as loyal to the regent, the florid florizel, as he had been to prince charles in the "waverleys." because of all these loyalties this never finished monument, with its twelve columns and architrave spread above, looks sufficiently pathetic, and sufficiently absurd. "a very suitable monument to certain national characteristics," said a later scots writer, who perhaps never ceased being a jacobite. there are monuments; one to dugald stewart, and the visitor not philosophical is apt to ask, who was dugald stewart? there is a memorial to burns whose friend willie that brewed a peck o' malt lies in the old calton burying ground near by. hume lies there, too, and dr. john brown, and stevenson's dead. "there on the sunny frontage of a hill, hard by the house of kings, repose the dead, my dead, the ready and the strong of word. their works, the salt-encrusted, still survive; the sea bombards their founded towers; the night thrills pierced with their strong lamps. the artificers one after one, here in this grated cell, where the rain erases and the dust consumes, fell upon lasting silence." there is a monument to lord nelson. and looking as though he belonged there is a bronze figure of abraham lincoln. all this lies about, with casual sheep cropping the grass. but, there lies the city. and there lies the country. to the south rises arthur's seat, the lion. the much castellated jail, is beneath you, another absurd elaborate building, a castle after castle-days. farther a-city lies holyrood, with the ruined abbey, the queen mary wing, and the scarlet patch of the sentinel moving to and fro and guarding all this vanished greatness. nothing more appeals than this sentinel-watch of the ghosts of the past. turn but a little and the old town lies before you, the castle splendid, still the guardian, the long ridge of the high street with its jagged buildings that from here rise almost to the purple edge of the hilly pentland background, with the spire of the tolbooth and the crown of st. giles breaking against the sky. and down at the foot of the vantage hill stretches princes street with the scott monument rising athwart the haze of city and sky. from the north edge of calton there is a more empty panorama, but still significant. now it is bound in with tenements high and thick, but in the golden days it was a steep hillside leading down to a jousting ground. tradition has it that bothwell launched his horse down its almost-precipice, and so entered the tilting ground, while ladies' bright eyes rained influence and gave the prize; but most glowing were the eyes of mary. beyond, the suburbs fill in the two miles that stretch to leith, and to the firth, glittering out to the far sea. at night, if you have no fear of hobgoblins or of hooligans, calton hill is an experience. it is a still place, the silence the greater because the city lies so near, and looks so busy with its twinkling lights. a gulf of gloom lies between. the night is velvet black, a drop curtain against which is thrown the star-pricked map of the city. one can well believe how the young stevenson, in those romantic days when he carried a lantern under his jacket, used to climb this hill venturesomely, and with the dog in "chanticler," exclaim, "i shall never forget the first night i lapped up the stars." it is something to lap stars from the black pool which is edinburgh by night. if you have, happily, lived in a high city, boston, seattle, duluth, denver, st. paul, san francisco, with water and land combined, you, too, have lingered upon a heaven-kissed hill on such a night as this, and edinburgh seems native. scott, of course, must have known calton hill, although salisbury crags under arthur's seat, with its more feasible promenade, better appealed to him when he was writing the "waverleys." there is an american who has written of the hill, a young inland american whom the gods loved to an early death. i remember hearing arthur upson talk of days and nights on the calton, and his sonnet catches the note-- "high and alone i stood on calton hill above the scene that was so dear to him whose exile dreams of it made exile dim. october wooed the folded valleys till in mist they blurred, even as our eye upfill under a too-sweet memory; spires did swim, and gables, rust-red, on the gray sea's brim-- but on these heights the air was soft and still, yet, not all still; an alien breeze will turn here, as from bournes in aromatic seas, as round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn with incense of rich earthly reveries. vanish the isles: mist, exile, searching pain, but the brave soul is freed, is home again." chapter v the kingdom of fife from edinburgh as i looked out on the forth from every vantage point, i was conscious of the hills of fife ever backing in the prospect. and i kept repeating to myself the old rhyme of the witches-- "the thane of fife had a wife, ah, where is she now!" i determined to set sail and find not the wife, but the kingdom. it is a continuing splendour, this name--the kingdom of fife. than the thing nothing could be less royal, more democratic. for fifeshire is given over to farm lands and coal fields and treeless stretches, and the fringe of fife is made up of fishing villages "a hodden gray plaid wi' a gowden fringe," said a king jamie. it lies there, separate from scotland, although very scottish, between the firths of the forth and the tay, with the ochil hills a barrier on the landside. the separating firths are now connected with scotland by great bridges, over which the trains pass with reluctance. and the wind is always blowing in fife, a cold, stern, relentless, calvinistic wind, off the north sea. not by every wind of doctrine but by a disciplining calvinistic wind is this kingdom swept into conformity. there is no end of castles and of historic memories lying like pebbles upon the seashore of the firth. pick up any sea shell--i do not remember seeing any, so combed have these beaches been from the memory of man--and it will whisper a tale in your ear. but there is for me but one pilgrimage to be made in fifeshire, to kirkcaldy; to the place, not of ravenscraig castle, nor because adam smith and political economy were here born twins, nor because carlyle taught here for two years, nor because edward irving preached here; their dwellings and schools and graves can be seen. but because marjorie fleming was born here, passed to and fro, from granton to burntisland, in those brief beautiful nine years that were granted to her, and to us, and lies buried in the old kirkyard of abbotshall. perhaps you do not know marjorie. she was the friend, the intimate friend of sir walter scott. and i can but think how large and void the world was a century ago, in that charles lamb was living in london when marjorie was living in kirkcaldy, and was dreaming of his "dream children," when he might have known this most precious child, fit to be the friend of lamb as she was of sir walter. other men who have loved her with a tenderness which can belong but to the living child, immortally living, are dr. john brown who wrote the wonder book about her fifty years ago, through which most of us have claimed marjorie as our own, and mark twain, who only a month before he died--and joined her--wrote as tenderly and whimsically of her as he ever wrote of any child or any maid. among such august company we almost hesitate to enter, but surely at this distance of time we may lay our love beside that of the great men who found pet marjorie one of the most precious human treasures the world has ever held. she was but a little girl, and only nine years all told, when the last day came to her a hundred and more years ago, december , . the first six years she lived in kirkcaldy, "my native town which though dirty is clene in the country," marjorie wrote this from edinburgh a little patronizingly, and marjorie was never strong on spelling. the next three years she lived with her aunt in the scottish capital, where she wrote those journals and letters which have kept her memory warm to this day. in july of she returned to the town by the north sea, and in december she was gone. in the morning of the day on which i made my pilgrimage i went up to the parliament buildings in the old town, looked them about, saw the lawyers pacing to and fro, as stevenson had paced, but not for long--the absurdity of it!--and then down the hill in the shadow of three men. "one november afternoon in "--(the year in which the "lady of the lake" was published) "three men, evidently lawyers, might have been seen escaping like school boys from the parliament house, and speeding arm in arm down bank street and the mound, in the teeth of a surly blast of sleet." they were lord erskine, william clerk--and the third we all know; what service of romance has he not performed for us! as the snow blattered in his face he muttered, "how it raves and drifts! on-ding o' snaw--aye, that's the word, on-ding." and so he approached his own door, castle street, no. . there, over the door, looking forth on the world, is his face to-day, looking up young street. then, as he grew restless and would awa, i followed him through young street up to no. , north charlotte street. it is a substantial building, still of dignified and fair estate; neighbourhoods are not transformed in a scots century as they are in america. but it carries no tablet to tell the world that here marjorie lived. it was here that at the age of six she wrote her first letter to isa keith. it was here that marjorie saw "regency bonnets" and with eyes of envy; as indeed she envied and desired with the passionate depths of her nature all lovely and strange things. here she read the newgate calendar, and found it a fascinating affair--marjorie less than nine! and here that isabel keith, her adored cousin, would not permit the little bookworm to read much of lovers or to talk of them. marjorie says very gravely, "a great many authors have expressed themselves too sentimentally," but isa was never able quite to cure marjorie of her interest in love. that evening sir walter carried her, through the "on-ding o' snaw," in a shepherd's plaid, over to castle street. i walked through the narrow stone-lined thoroughfare on a hot july morning--and i could feel the cold and snow of that winter a century back, and see the strong, lame, great man, carrying the wee wifie in the neuk of his plaid, to the warm firelight of his castle. marjorie and he would romp there the evening long. she would hear him say his lessons, "ziccoty, diccoty, dock," or "wonery, twoery, tickery, seven," while marjorie "grew quite bitter in her displeasure at his ill behaviour and stupidness." then they would read ballads together; and then "he would take her on his knee, and make her repeat constance's speeches in king john till he swayed to and fro sobbing his fill. fancy the gifted little creature, like one possessed, repeating-- "'for i am sick, and capable of fears, oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears; a widow, husbandless, subject to fears; a woman, naturally born to fears.'" i walked out through what used to be fields, and is now much suburban dwelling, toward braehead.--"i am going to-morrow to a delightful place, braehead by name, where there is ducks, cocks, bubblyjocks, dogs, cats and swine which is delightful"--to ravelston--"i am at ravelston enjoying nature's fresh air. the birds are singing sweetly, the calf doth frisk and nature shows her glorious face." ravelston is still a place of delight, with its great cliffs breaking the surface of the park and a deep-lying lake with dark woodlands. i wish marjorie might have known the ballad by sydney dobell; it has the magic quality she would have felt. "ravelston, ravelston, the merry path that leads down the golden morning hill, and through the silver meads; "she sang her song, she kept her kine, she sat beneath the thorn, when andrew keith of ravelston rode thro' the monday morn. "year after year, where andrew came, comes evening down the glade, and still there sits a moonshine ghost where sat the sunshine maid. "she makes her immemorial moan, she keeps her shadowy kine; o keith of ravelston the sorrows of thy line!" in the late afternoon i took tram for leith, changing of course at pilrig, because leith remains haughtily aloof from edinburgh and emphasizes it through this break at the boundary. "when we came to leith," says boswell, "i talked perhaps with too boasting an air, how pretty the frith of forth looked; as indeed, after the prospect from constantinople, of which i have been told, and that from naples, which i have seen, i believe the view of the frith and its environs from the castle-hill of edinburgh is the finest prospect in europe, 'aye,' replied dr. johnson, 'that is the state of the world. water is the same everywhere.'" and so, down to the pier, stopping on the way to look at a new haven fishwife in her picturesque costume, which she has worn ever since the danes came over. yes, and looking for a suitable piece of earth for queen magdalene to kiss, "scottis eard!" well, if not here, there is scottis eard worthy elsewhere. i asked for the ferry to burnt-is-land. the conductor of the tram looked, yes, and laughed. burnt-island, he dared, _dared_ to repeat. and so, i took ferry from granton to--burnt-island. it is a long journey across the firth. far down the waters rises the bold rock of the bass, around which i had sailed a day before, looking for a landing for some one more ponderous than solan geese or kittie wake, and not finding it; although i was told that from canty bay--excellent scots name--the innkeeper will row you o'er, and you may walk where james i was waiting for the boat which should carry him to safety in france, and getting instead the boat which carried him to prison in england. still i like to remember that henry iv declared in explanation that he "could speak very good french" himself, if that were what they were sending scottish jamie o'er the water for; henry who had years of the hundred years' war behind him. [illustration: tantallon castle.] the rock is rent by a cavern running clean through. it's quite a terrific place, and seven acres of benty grass must have seemed small refuge for the covenanters who were lodged here numerously in killing time. on the mainshore, the lothian, rises tantallon castle, where marmion dared to beard angus bell-the-cat. it still looks pretty tremendous, and still stands, like the coliseum. "ding doon tantallon? build a brig to the bass!" runs the proud proverb. but we are on our way across the firth. there was a certain magic about it on my day of pilgrimage. the north shore lay sparkling in the late afternoon sun, blue shimmering land against a clear blue sky, the thin rim of the continent playing here and there with opalescent colour where man had builded village or castle, or where man had not destroyed the ancient green. the south shore lay vague and gray, and growing darker, against the falling afternoon, while the lammermuirs stood up in paler dusk in the background, and the sun blazed behind them. and all about the firth glittered like an inland lake, a great lake. i thought of how the roman galleys and norse fleets had come this way, and looked and departed. and how kings had brought their armies here, and looked, perhaps besieged, and departed. and how time and time and time again, french fleets had sailed in here to help their continuing ally, scotland. and how kings had sailed out from here to france, and how scots knights had sailed out from here for france, the crusades, anywhere that promised adventure. and here saxon margaret had sailed in to be scotland's queen. and here scottish mary had sailed in to be scotland's queen, and not to be. far out in the offing the sun shone golden upon the brown sails of a single fishing boat, tacking to catch a homing wind, a ghost where once had sailed the war and merchant fleets of nations. at burntisland i did not pause to visit rossend castle where mary is supposed to have had her affair with chastelard; certainly not. nor at kinghorn, where alexander iii, within a few months after he had married in haunted kelso, and within a few hours perhaps after he had drunk the blude red wine in dunfermline, came galloping by this way, the horse stumbled, the king fell, and "quhen alysandyr oure king was dede that scotland led in luve and le ... succoure scotland and remede that stands in perplexite." _kirkcaldy_ if kirkcaldy was a "lang toun" in the olden days, it is longer to-day, stretching from linktown to dysart, and broadening inland to gallatown, where they make the famous wemyss pottery. to-day kirkcaldy makes linoleum and jute and engineering works, and it is the center of a string of fishing villages, a "metropolitan borough system," hundreds of boats fishing the north sea with ky marked as their home port, when their sailor men make home in any of these picturesque and smelling villages, st. monan, pittenweem, cellardyke, crail where mary of lorraine landed, largo where sir andrew wood the admiral lived, and where alexander selkirk lived what time he did not live as crusoe in juan fernandez, and anstruther-- "wha wad na be in love wi' bonny maggie lauder, a piper met her gaen to fife and speired what wast they ca'd her.... i've lived in fife baith maid and wife these ten years and a quarter, gin ye should come to anster fair speir ye for maggie lauder." there is also some castellated splendour, ravenscraig, and wemyss on the site of the castle of macduff, then of fife, this wemyss being the ill-fated place where mary first met darnley. abbotshall kirkyard is at the right of the railway station as the train pulls in to kirkcaldy. in his book of scotch pilgrimages when william winter was on his way to st. andrews, past kirkcaldy, he wrote "gazing as i pass at its quaint church among the graves." i suppose he did not know what grave. but first i would find where she had lived. kirkcaldy is close set against the sea. here on winding high street, i found the house in which she had lived, standing much as it did no doubt a hundred years ago, except for a new coat of tan on the stone. from those upper windows marjorie looked out on the coach going away toward edinburgh. the ground floor is occupied by a book store, where i could buy no book about marjorie. under a window you enter the archway and find yourself in a little green-grassed court, which is all that is left of marjorie's garden. the house proper fronted the garden in that comfortable excluding way which british people still prefer for their places of habitation. it is still occupied as a dwelling, and the nursery still looks as it did in marjorie's day, and the drawing-room, where she wrote that letter to isa keith--"i now sit down on my botom to answer all your kind and beloved letters." the door of the nursery was open. i remembered those last days, when lying ill, her mother asked marjorie if there was anything she wished. "oh, yes, if you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play 'the land o' the leal,' and i will lie still and think and enjoy myself." "i'm wearin' awa', jean, like snaw wreaths in thaw, jean, i'm wearin' awa', to the land o' the leal." the kirkyard lies on the outskirts of the town. it was a beautiful place as the scotch sun sank behind the fife hills and the firth. the organist was playing and the music drifted out through the narrow lancet windows when i found the little white cross marked "pet marjorie," and the old gray tombstone with its simple token, "m. f. ." for a hundred years then she has been lying there. but marjorie has become one of the immortal dream children of the world. i laid my fresh flowers beside another's which had withered, and went my ways into the dusk. _st. andrews_ past kirkcaldy the road leaves the sea and runs northward through meadows between fields which have the look of centuries-old cultivation, at peace like the fields and villages of the english midland, to st. andrews. "st. andrews by the northern sea, a haunted town it is to me! a little city, worn and gray, the gray north ocean girds it round; and o'er the rocks, and up the bay, the long sea-rollers surge and sound; and still the thin and biting spray drives down the melancholy street, and still endure, and still decay, towers that the salt winds vainly beat. ghost-like and shadowy they stand dim mirrored in the wet sea-sands. "st. leonard's chapel, long ago we loitered idly where the tall fresh-budded mountain ashes blow within thy desecrated wall; the tough roots rent the tombs below, and april birds sang clamorous, we did not dream, we could not know how hardly fate would deal with us! "o broken minster, looking forth beyond the bay, above the town, o winter of the kindly north, o college of the scarlet gown!" small wonder st. andrews is the ecclesiastical capital of scotland, and smaller wonder, remembering the calvinistic wind, that here happened the brunt of the fight between the old faith and the new. it is a clean and seemly town, with much historic memory and much present day dignity, a small gray town, "the essence of all the antiquity of scotland in good clean condition," said carlyle. its ancient sights the cathedral and the castle; its living sight the university and the golf links. the town stands on a promontory, three long streets converging on the cathedral and castle lying in ruins. the cathedral, a hundred years in the building, and very splendid in its wealth of detail, its vastness of space like that of york or amiens, was dedicated in the days of the bruce, with the king present to endow it with a hundred marks "for the mighty victory of the scots at bannockburn, by st. andrew's, the guardian of the realm." for three hundred years its wax tapers lighted the old rites according to which the bruce worshiped; he was not covenanted. then the torch of the reformation was applied to it, the torch of the flaming tongue of john knox. to-day there are three towers left of the five--dr. johnson hoped that one which looked unstable on the day of his visit, would "fall on some of the posterity of john knox; and no great matter!" there are massive walls. there is no roof between us and the sky, which, after all, does shelter the true faith, and if one misses the chanting of the monks echoing through these arches, under this roofless space, there is the moan of the sea, sobbing at the foot of the crag, the sea which is of no faith and never keeps faith. and if one misses the scarlet robes of cardinal beaton as he swept through these aisles in splendid procession with all the gorgeous trappings of his retinue, there are mosses and wild flowers to give glows of colour--one must content himself. those were evil days, whatever the faith; there was not much division in matters of conduct; there may have been in matters of morals. [illustration: st. andrews castle.] the castle stands stalwart on the rock promontory washed by the ocean, and the ocean breaks angrily at its base like a creature robbed over long of its prey. it is not the castle in which the cardinal lived, but it was built soon after, and wrecked so thoroughly, and looks so very ancient, that one would fain believe; and the guide will tell, unless you prevent him, that it was at these windows that the cardinal sat at his ease and witnessed the entertainment of the auto da fe of the non-conformist, george wishart, burned alive on march , ; about the time philip the second was burning heretics in the old plaza at madrid, and a little before queen mary spouse to philip, was burning them in england. and it was only two months later, may , when workmen were strengthening the castle at the orders of the cardinal against this very thing that happened, that the reformers made their way in, killed the cardinal, and hung him "by the tane arm and the tane foot," from the very balcony where he had sat to enjoy wishart's burning. a very barbarous time. as wishart had lain in the bottle dungeon months before his burning, so beaton lay in the dungeon in salt, seven months before his burial. john knox joined the reformers, holding the town until it was taken by the french fleet--"defended their castle against scotland, france, and ireland all three"--surrendering to strozzi, prior of capua, a knight of rhodes; so was the great world made small in those days by errant knights and captains and hired mercenaries. the french captain entered, "and spoiled the castle very rigorously," lest it should be "a receptacle for rebels." all this in the time of the regency of mary of lorraine. knox was taken and sent to the galleys for a year. then he returned, and was frequently in st. andrews, preaching in the town kirk, founded, perhaps, by the confessor of saint margaret, preaching here some of his last sermons. "i saw him everie day of his doctrine go hulie and fear," wrote james melville, "with a furrning of martriks about his neck, a staff in the an hand," and lifted up to the pulpit "whar he behovite to lean at his first entrie; bot or he had done with his sermont, he was so active and vigorus, that he lyk to ding that pulpit in blads and fly out of it." the pulpit held. and so did the doctrine of knox. the square tower of st. regulus, a pre-norman bit of architecture, perhaps culdee, stands southeast of the cathedral. dr. johnson was indignant with boswell that he missed it. this with the many other towers of church and college make st. andrews a towered town. there is an air, an atmosphere, in st. andrews; it is an academic town, serene, certain of itself, quiet, with wide streets and gray stone buildings. it is full of dignity, full of repose, as a northern oxford combined with a northern canterbury should be. there is a spell of ancientry over the gray old walls, but it is unbroken ancientry; if there is a bar sinister, the present generation has forgotten it. and, of course--oh, not of course, but primarily--there is golf. there is golf everywhere in scotland. the golf ball and not the thistle is the symbol of scotland to-day, and from the tee at st. andrews the golf ball has been driven round the world. james vi, careful scot, recognized golf as an industry, and granted letters patent in for the manufacture of golf balls--the old leather, feather-stuffed sphere--to james melville and william berwick. edinburgh is ringed about with golf courses, public and private. so is scotland. the firth of forth is continuous with them, from north berwick where the fleeting traveler is as certain to see golf balls as he is to see the bass, up to st. andrews. the links of leith are the most historic, for it was on these that charles i was playing when news came of the irish rebellion--and all that it led to. and here, his son, later james ii, played against two english noblemen who had declared they could beat him, and james, cannily--true scot!--chose the best player in scotland, one paterson an edinburgh cobbler--and gave him the wager, and doubled it, out of which paterson built for himself golfer's _land_ in the canongate. the links of the forth are not a golf course, although there may be some who assert that they were once an ancient course, say, for king arthur and his knights. sealand, shoreland, it seems, makes the ideal golf course, the soil growing with short crisp grass that makes a springy and slippery turf, and makes a keen game; the inlander, of course, and the american inlander, may not understand that golf can never quite be golf, certainly never be the true scottish rite, unless it is played near the sea, with the tang of the sea and of golf entering into one's blood--and, preferably at st. andrews. at st. andrews golf is a business, a sublimated business; or better, an education. degrees are taken in it quite as high and requiring as thorough a training as at the university. it is to st. andrews that the good golfer goes when he dies. and he aspires to go there before. or, rather at st. andrews golf is a religion. half the stories told of golf are, as might be expected of a game which came to its flowering in scotland, religious, or irreligious. and one of the best of them is told in stewart dick's book on "the forth." a scots minister was playing and playing rather badly, and expressing himself in words if not in strokes. (only those of you who have read "sentimental tommy" will understand that unconsciously i have played on the word "stroke!") the minister exclaimed bitterly as he emerged from his unholy battle with the bunker--is bunker hill, perhaps a hazard in golf?--"ah maun gie it up! ah maun gie it up!" "what!" cried his partner alarmed, "gie up gowf?" "naw, naw," returned the minister, "gie up the meenistry." perhaps to amend again, golf at st. andrews is life. and in their death they are not divided. the graveyard near the abbey, with stones hoary from the sixteenth century, is renowned to-day because it contains the graves of good golfers, allan robertson, old tom morris, and young tom morris, the greatest golfer since paterson, dead at the pathetic age of ; after that comes a man's best golfing years, that is, for his pleasure. young tom's grave is marked by an elaborate monument with an inscription that befits a king. chapter vi to the north one leaves edinburgh for the north--the haunted north--as in a royal progress. the train moves out of the waverley station, and through the gardens, under the very shadow of castle rock. and it moves through the scant few miles of country, richly cultivated, suburban fairly, yet there are level wheatlands, and country cottages and orchards; it is southern, english, these few miles down to the forth. "the blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean, we bowled along a road that curved its spine superbly sinuous and serpentine thro' silent symphonies of summer green, sudden the forth came on us--sad of mien, no cloud to colour it, no breeze to line; a sheet of dark dull glass, without a sign of life or death, two beams of sand between, water and sky merged blank in mist together, the fort loomed spectral, and the guardship's spars traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze: we felt the dim, strange years, the gray, strange weather, the still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars, where lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze." to every one comes this sense of strange years and a strange land, even at queensferry, even to henley. the inn, where we have all put up in imagination, with scott, and again with stevenson, lies under the bridge, as though it would escape the quick curious gaze from these iron girders so high above what scott ever dreamed or davy balfour. and then, the train creeps out over this modern audacity, this very ugly iron spanning of the river. fortunately we are upon it and cannot see its practical, monstrous being, "that monster of utility," as lord rosebery called it. he should know its phrase, since it is ever present in the view from his dalmeny park, lying east of the bridge and south of the forth. this is precisely where queen margaret was ferried to and fro a thousand years ago. the monks who had charge of the ferry took from the toll every fourth and every fortieth penny--a delightful bit of geometric finance. who could calculate and who would dispute the calculation, of fourth and fortieth? _dunfermline_ "the king sits in dunfermline toun drinking the blude-red wine." because of such lines as these i would cross far seas, merely to have been, if far lonely destructive centuries after, in the very place of their being. for dunfermline is surely a very kingly name for a king's town, and "blude-red" wine is of such a difference from mere red, or blood-red wine. what wonder that alexander iii, of whom it is written, went to his death over at kinghorn in such a tragic way! but the king who forever sits in dunfermline is that malcolm of the eleventh century who brings hither something more than legend yet something as thrilling, as "authentic" as legend. malcolm is the son of duncan, in shakespeare's play, and in history. "the son of duncan from whom this tyrant holds the due of birth, lives in the english court; and is received of the most pious edward with such grace that the malevolence of fortune nothing takes from his high respect." malcolm, after "the deep damnation of his taking off," fled from the red wrath of macbeth and into the far prophecy of banquo, to the court of edward the confessor. there perhaps he met margaret; or perhaps not, since she was grand-niece to the confessor, and malcolm was a middle-aged man when this first royal scottish romance occurs. when he returned he built himself a castle here on the safe north side of the forth; if ever any place were safe in that eleventh century. he waited here the coming of margaret, and she came, the first margaret of england. it was the first year after the conquest, and princess margaret with her brother and sister were fleeing to her mother's people in bohemia. they were wrecked far north in the firth of forth--which thereby becomes part of the legendary coast of bohemia. she landed at st. margaret's hope, the first bay to the west of north queensferry. malcolm saw her from his high tower--and they were married--and they lived happily ever after, and richly for a quarter of a century; and they live immortally now. their history is certain, but it reads like a romance. it may be read, very exquisitely set forth, in "the tides of spring," a one-act drama by arthur upson, the young american poet whose sonnet on calton hill i have just quoted; a poet who went to his death so tragically and so beautifully in lake bemidji in minnesota, a few years ago. the story in the play, of malcolm and margaret, is all apple blossoms and spring tides; it is very lovely. margaret has met malcolm before, and destiny brings her to scotland and to the king. it is a beautiful beginning to a long enduring love story that through all the reality of history shows a tender devotion from this stern northern king to the saintly queen from the saxon south. they safeguarded themselves and their royal flock in edinburgh, but they lived in dunfermline. margaret knew a richer and a more religious life than malcolm, and she it was who laid the foundations of the kingdom, in court and church. "whatever she refused, he refused also; whatever pleased her, he also loved, for the love of her," says her confessor. english margaret, unlike the later english margaret of alexander iii, did not find the north "a sad and solitary place"; and unlike the english margaret of james iv she was saintly, a white pearl in this wild red time. malcolm and margaret became the father and mother of a royal brood, four kings of scotland, and of queen matilda of england--surely banquo saw clearly on that terrible night; his prophecy began with a royal rush. but who would not live a lovely and pleasant life in this well-placed royal burg, serene upon her hill? rich green fields spread down to the forth, the red network of the bridge lifts itself into view, far to the left sweeps the firth out to north berwick law and the bass, and edinburgh swims in the haze against the leonine mountain that is ever her guard. the abbey gives the town its special dignity. there is nothing left of the church built by queen margaret--where she robbed the box of the money the king had just given at mass if she found the poor requiring more immediate help. but this ancient nave built by margaret's son david is so very ancient that one could well spare the accurate historic knowledge that it is a generation too late for emotion. there are ponderous round pillars that could have sustained all the history we require of them, high casements, a bare triforium, altogether a davidic place, a simplicity, a truth about it, that we would not dispute. the new church was built a century ago over the old, and the ancient nave is like an aisle in the new. certain details, like the little norman doorway, once walled-up in the time of knox, reward us with their preserved beauty. the tombs of malcolm and margaret are without the wall. malcolm perhaps is there; they carried bodies far in those days of material resurrection, and would have brought malcolm from northumberland. but margaret, canonized next century, was too precious to remain in ultima thule, so spain carried her away--and who knows where she rests? but within, before the high altar--or shall we say since this is a reformed place, before the pulpit?--rests the body of the bruce. it is no doubt the bruce. for dunfermline was forgotten in rebellious times, and the tombs were undisturbed. even in the north transept there rest the bones of eleven kings earlier than the bruce. yes, it is very certain the bruce, wrapped in gold cloth in the thirteenth century, his heart only missing and lying at melrose. scott who was everywhere and investigating everything saw the tomb opened and pronounced--king robert bruce. one could wish the great letters about the modern tower looking like an electric sign, were "reformed." but here within the quiet, to stand at the very spot where is the dust of so mighty a man, mighty in valour, mighty in sovereignty--i find it a more substantial emotion than i have felt in the invalides. ancientry preserves its unbroken descent outside the church. the mother of wallace is buried here, and the thorn he planted to mark her grave still flourishes, to the ninth century after. the people who sit in dunfermline town have not too much concern for king robert and king alexander. nor do they do much sitting, these busy industrious dunfermliners. they are living their own lives, and making for themselves profit through the generosity of a later fellow citizen. dunfermline is a center of great coal fields, and center of the scotch linen making. so the town is modern, looks modern, and the people move briskly. if they know you are a tourist on ancient errand bent, they look curiously. you come from so far to recapture ancient life, when you might have so much modern life in your own country. they know what america means. for andrew carnegie is their fellow citizen, or would be had he not become an american. seventy years ago he was born in a cottage toward which the dunfermline folk look with the attention we show the abbey. and carnegie has not only given a library to dunfermline--yes, a library--malcolm could not read margaret's books, but he had them richly bound and bejeweled and kissed them in reverence of her. but the laird has given a technical school, and the pittencrieff glen, which is a lovely pleasure ground with the scant stones of malcolm's palace above, and a trust of two million and a half dollars, which the wise town corporation is busy utilizing for the advancement of dunfermline town. _loch leven_ and on to loch leven. i cannot think that any one can come upon this castle without emotion. or he should never come to scotland. it is a famous fishing lake, a peculiar kind of trout are abundant, twenty-five thousand taken from it each year; rather i have given the round numbers, but an exact toll of the fish taken is required by law, and for the past year it was, with scottish accuracy, something more or something less than twenty-five thousand. the lake is controlled altogether by an anglers association. no boat can row on it, no fisherman can cast his line, but by permission. there is a small shop in edinburgh where tickets and tackle can be taken, and much advice from the canny scot who keeps the shop, and who would make your fishing expedition a success. "i don't know what your scruples are," he ventured, "but if ye want the loch leven boatmen to be satisfied, i'd advise ye to take wi' a bit o' scotch. a wee bit drappie goes a long wa." "just a wee deoch and doris!" we remembered harry lauder, and wondered if we could say "it's a braw bricht moon licht nicht." or would those redoutable boatmen ken that we were but pretending to scotch and even suspect our "scotch"? they did not. the green hotel is an excellent place to stay, kept by a scotchman who knows that in america every one knows every one else. we slept in feather beds, and we inspected the collection of "stanes," one of the best i have ever seen in scotland, a great variety, some of them natural boulders, some wood with iron weights--someday i must brave the rigours of a scotch winter and see them curl on duddingston or on leven. and i should like to see bob dunbar of st. paul, champion curler of america, measure his skill against the champion of scotland. and, of course, there was talk with the scot host. "so ye're american. well, maybe ye ken a mon that lives in minn'apolis. he's twa sisters live here; and he's built a hoose for them." it happened that we did ken of this man, who came from kinross to minneapolis with only his scotch canniness, and has built the donaldson business into one of the great department stores of america. and next day, after we had slept on feather beds, we had our fishing in loch leven, with thousands of wild swan disputing our possession; a big boat, with big oars, sweeps, one man to each oar, one a loquacious fellow with no dialect (he might as well have been english), and the other taciturn with a dialect thick as mud or as lauder's. and we caught two of the twenty-five thousand odd which were credited to that year. as the train came alongside loch leven on its way to kinross station, suddenly i felt mary as i never have realized her, before or since. there across the lake lay st. serf's isle, and there rose the keep of the old castle. and over that water, as plainly--more plainly, than the fishing boats that lay at their ease--i saw her take boat on a still evening, may , , at half past seven o'clock from prison--to liberty--to prison! i was not mistaken. she who was with me saw it, as distinctly, as vividly. perhaps it was that all our lives this had been to us one of the great adventuring moments--for which we would exchange any moment of our lives. we were idolaters always, mariolaters. and now we know that places are haunted, and that centuries are of no account; they will give up their ghosts to those who would live in them. "put off, put off, and row with speed, for now is the time and the hour of need, to oars, to oars, and trim the bark, nor scotland's queen be a warder's mark; yon light that plays 'round the castle moat, is only the warder's random shot; put off, put off, and row with speed, for now is the time and the hour of need. "those pond'rous keys shall the kelpies keep, and lodge in their caverns, so dark and deep, nor shall loch leven's tower and hall hold thee, our lovely lady, in thrall; or be the haunts of traitors sold, while scotland has hands and hearts so bold. then onward, steersman, row with speed, for now is the time and the hour of need. "hark! the alarum bell has rung, the warder's voice has treason sung, the echoes to the falconets roar, chime sweetly to the dashing shore; let tower, hall, and battlement gleam, we steer by the light of the taper's gleam, for scotland and mary on with speed, now, now, is the time and the hour of need!" because of that experience, because of the feeling i have for queen mary, i have never landed upon st. serf's island. it has happened, quite without my making intentional pilgrimage, that i have been in many places where queen mary has been; and willingly i have made my accidental pilgrimages of loyalty. i have stood in the turret at roscoff where she landed when only five, hurried from scotland that she might escape sinister england; in the chapel in notre dame where she was married to the dauphin; in the château at orleans where she lived with him much of that brief happy french life she loved so dearly; in the two small garret chambers where she lodged in coventry; in hardwick hall, where bess of hardwick was her stern jailer; at fotheringay where nothing remains of that ensanguined block but a low heap of stones which the grass covers; in peterborough where she found her first resting place; in westminster her last final resting place; and in many and many a haunted place of this scottish land. and just before starting north i made a little journey to linlithgow which lies twenty miles west of edinburgh. the palace overlooks a quiet blue loch, a blue smiling bit of water, on which much royalty has looked forth, and on which the eyes of mary first looked. there, in the unroofed palace of linlithgow, in the "drawing-room," in december, , was born that queen who ever since has divided the world. "of all the palaces so fair built for the royal dwelling, in scotland far beyond compare linlithgow is excelling. and in the park in jovial june how sweet the merry linnet's tune, how blithe the blackbird's lay." it was the dower-house of scottish queens, and hither james v brought mary of lorraine after he had married her at st. andrews. (i wondered if there was any haunting memory of margaret of denmark who sat here sewing when the nobles raged through the palace seeking the life of james iii. or of margaret of england as she sat here waiting for james iv to return from flodden.) [illustration: drawing-room, linlithgow palace, where queen mary was born.] of the regency of mary of lorraine, when james v died and mary was a baby, knox spluttered that it was "as semlye a sight (yf men had eis) as to putt a sadill upoun the back of ane unrowly kow." knox did not pick his language with any nicety when he said his say of women and the monstrous regiments of them. and to his puritan soul there could come no approval of the love affairs of mary of lorraine, such as that one sung by the master of erskine, who was slain at pinkiecleuch-- "i go, and wait not quhair, i wander heir and thair, i weip and sichis rycht sair with panis smart; now must i pass away, away, in wilderness and lanesome way, alace! this woeful day we suld departe." and now there is neither margaret nor mary, neither regent nor reformer, palace of neither linlithgow nor leven. how the destructions of man have thrown palaces and doctrines open to the winds of heaven. and how purifying this destruction. and what precious things have passed with them, what tears of women have been shed, and how are the mouths of men become dust. loch leven has one lovely gracious memory of mary in the days before everything was lost. she was lodging here, and had sent for knox to come from edinburgh. "she travailed with him earnestly for two hours before her supper, that he would protect the catholic clergy from persecution." knox slept in the castle, but "before the sun," as he records, he was awakened by the sound of horns and of boats putting off to the mainland. for the queen would go a-hawking. presently knox was roused. the queen would have him join her "be-west kinross," to continue the conversation. the reformer did not rise as early as the queen--the serenity of that righteous conscience! he rose reluctantly at her summons. his reforming eyes, no doubt, looked with displeasure on the exquisite beauties of the unreformed morning, the mists lying soft on the lomonds, day just emerging from night. so he joined her, and they rode together, she on her horse, he on his hackney. and the morning came on, and the day was a glory. mary warned knox that a certain bishop sought to use him, and knox afterward acknowledged the value of her warning. she asked him to settle a quarrel between argyle and his wife, her half sister, as knox had done before. and often no doubt she glanced at her hawk hanging in the high scottish sky. and finally she declared--"as touching our reasoning of yesternight, i promise to do as ye required. i shall summon the offenders and ye shall know that i shall minister justice." and the reformer, softened by the morning, and by mary's eyes--"i am assured then that ye shall please god and enjoy rest and prosperity within your realm." and knox rode off. and mary rode hawking. the time was not yet come when mary should say--"yon man gar me greet and grat never tear himself. i will see if i can gar him greet." or, for knox to pray--"oh, lord, if thy pleasure be, purge the heart of the queen's majestie from the venom of idolatry, and deliver her from the bondage and the thralldom of satan." _perth_ perth may be the fair city, but it is scarce fair among cities, and is chiefly regarded even by itself as a point of departure, the gate of the highlands. the railway platform is at least a third of a mile long, and very bewildering to the unsuspecting visitor who thought he was merely coming to the ancient celtic capital. for, very far backward, this was the chief city of the kingdom, before scotland had spread down to the forth, and down to the border. even so recently (?) as the time of james the first it was held the fairest city in the kingdom. but the assassination of that monarch must have led the jameses to seek a safer city in which to be fair. there is a touch of antiquity about the town. one is shown the house of the fair maid; in truth that being the objective of the casual traveler signs in the street point the way. it may or may not be. but we agreed to let scott decide these things and he, no doubt, chose this house. curfew street that runs by, looking like a vennel--vennel? i am certain--was inhabited rather by lively boys, and no fair head looked out from the high window that would have furnished an excellent framing for the fair face of catherine glover. the north inch i found to be not an island in the tay, but a meadow, where every possible out-door activity takes place among the descendants of clans chattan and quhele--there is race-course, golf links, cricket field, football, grazing, washing. i trust the clans are somewhat evener now in numbers, although there were left but one chattan to level the quheles. coming from the chattan tribe i must hope the centuries since that strifeful day have brought reëxpansion to the chattans. farther up the inch, onto the whin, the eye looks across to scone. the foot does not cross, for there is nothing left of the old abbey, not even of the old palace where charles ii, last king crowned in scotland, suffered coronation--and was instructed in the ways of well doing according to the covenant. even the stone of destiny was gone then, brought from dunstaffnage, and taken to westminster. there is nothing, or only stones, left of the blackfriar's monastery in which james, the poet-king, suffered death. surely he was born too soon. as last instead of first of the jameses, what might he not have done in the ways of intelligence and beauty, as england's king as well as scotland's? very beautifully runs his picture of lady joanna beaufort, seen from a window in windsor-- "the fairest and the freshest flower, that ever i saw before that hour, the which o' the sudden made to start the blood of my body to my heart ... ah, sweet, are ye a worldly creature, or heavenly thing in form of nature?" he came back from his enforced habitation in england accompanied by lady joanna as queen, and determined "if god gives me but a dog's life, i will make the key keep the castle and the brachen bush the cow." it was a dog's death the gods gave. the nobles, the grahams, would not keep the castle. so in blackfriars the king was "mercilessly dirked to death," notwithstanding that catherine douglass--the douglasses were with james then--made a bar across the door with her arm where the iron had been sinisterly removed. a dark scene, with "the fairest flower" looking on. so, i think it not so ill, even though time delayed over a hundred years, that john knox (may, ) should have preached such an incendiary sermon that in three days there was nothing left of black or gray friary but the broken stones. nor is there anything left of gowrie house, where james vi was almost entrapped and almost slain--"i am murdered--treason--treason"; the jail stands on its site. huntington tower still stands down the tay; and there also james very nearly came to his death, at the plotting of the son of that ruthven who killed rizzio and forced mary to abdicate. [illustration: huntington tower.] kinnoul hill overlooks the town, and furnishes a very fair view of the fair city. no doubt it was from this height that the roman looked down upon the tay-- "behold the tiber! the vain roman cried, viewing the ample tay from baiglie's side; but where's the scot that would the vaunt repay, and hail the puny tiber for the tay?" it is more wonderful to-day to know that salmon weighing seventy pounds are sometimes taken from this tay. the river leads down through the rich carse of gowrie, toward dundee and marmalade. thither we shall not go; but it shall come to us. ruskin spent his childhood in perth and did not like it. but ruskin liked so little in the world, except--"that scottish sheaves are more golden than are bound in other lands, and that no harvests elsewhere visible to human eye are so like the 'corn of heaven,' as those of strath tay and strath earn." that is the way for to admire, for to see; all, or nothing was ruskin's way. ruskin married in perth, one of its fairest maids, who lived on the slope of kinnoul hill; and then, unmarrying, the fair lady, looking very fair in the painted pictures, married a painter who once was very much about perth. perth is also the "muirton" of "the bonnie brier bush." so some have found these environs bonny. in truth it is a lovely surrounding country. and have you not from childhood, if you read "macbeth" as early as did justice charles e. hughes, thought birnam and dunsinane the loveliest names in the world? six miles up the tay through bonny country, stands dunsinnan hill; not so lovely as our dunsinane; once it was dunscenanyse! but shakespeare always gave words their magic retouching. and once there stood here the castle of dunsinane where a certain lady walked in her sleep, and then slept. and below, you see birnam wood-- "till great birnam wood do come to dunsinane." to see that wood wave in the wind is fairly eerie! dunkeld is less of a city, more of a memory, exquisite in its beauty, lodged in a close fold of the highlands. and you reach it through the station, cis-tay, called birnam! it is a quiet peaceful place, more like a now quiet border town. hither to this cathedral, the precious remains of saint columba were brought by the macalpine. so i suppose they still rest here, that wandering dust, that missionary zeal. also, inharmony, here rest (?) the remains of the wolf of badenoch, wicked son of robert ii, and--i am certain the pun has been ventured before--bad enough. gavin douglass of the vergilian measure was bishop here, and mrs. oliphant has written stories round about. "cam ye by athole, lad wi' the philabeg?" we are getting into the highlands, we are at them, from now on nothing but philabegs, pibrochs, pipes, tartans and heather, nothing but the distilled essence of heather--heather ale? the secret was lost when the picts were conquered. chapter vii highland and lowland many ways lead out of perth, but best of these is the foot-path way, picked up anywhere in the highlands. by rail the road leads down to the sea, past glamis castle, built in , where the room is shown in which duncan was murdered in , although shakespeare says it was at inverness; and to kirriemuir, if one would match the "bonnie brier bush" with "the window in thrums." or by rail the road leads to the lakes of the west, and to the highlands of the north. for one short space i took it northward to the pass of killiecrankie, almost in fear, as a regiment of english mercenaries is said to have been a-feared in the forty five, three-quarters of a century after killiecrankie. for here in a last splendid moment, graham of claverhouse, viscount of dundee, and sometime bonnie dundee, was killed, the battle having gone gloriously his way, for the glorious cause of stewart and _mon droit_--some say by a silver bullet, the devil having charmed the leaden bullets that were showered against his magic life; those who say it are whigs. [illustration: glamis castle.] always called bonnie dundee by those of us who care for romance. to quote from samuel crothers, "and you say they are the same? i cannot make them seem the same. to me there are two of them: graham of claverhouse, whom i hate, and the bonnie dundee, whom i love. if it's all the same to you, i think i shall keep them separate, and go on loving and hating as aforetime." the pass is lovely enough, on a summer morning, with the sun shining fair on the highlands, the blue hills misty in the distance, the trees thick green on both sides the bending garry, and not a living thing in view, nothing which belongs to the duke of atholl who owns everything hereabout, except the air and the beauty and the memory, which i packed in my pilgrim's wallet. because the duke owns the cathedral i did not claim any memory beside the dust of bonnie dundee-- "fling open the westport and let me gae free." and now, to a certain defeat which i suffered near the pass of killiecrankie, when i "cam by athole." i was without a philabeg. if i had had it--it sounds so enhearteningly like usquebaugh--i think my courage would have been great enough to do the thing i had crossed over seas to do--to walk from blair athole through glen tilt and between the great lift of the cairngorms, to braemar. i had felt that i owed it to scottish ancestors and to those who had lost in the risings. i remembered that queen mary had longed to be a man. when she had come into this north to punish huntley, so the scottish calendar states, "she repenteth of nothing, but when the lords and others came in the morning from the watch, that she was not a man to know what life it was to lie all night in the fields, or to walk upon the causeway with a jack and a knapschall (helmet), a glasgow buckler, and a broadsword." her father's errant soul was hers. and once she ventured it, but in fear of her life, when she fled from the wraith of darnley, to the scandalizing of the mongers, "her majestie, in mennis claithes, buttit and spurrit, departed that samin nicht of borthwick to dunbar, quhairof no man knew saif my lord duke and sum of his servants, wha met her majestie a myll off borthwick and conveyed her hieness to dunbar." [illustration: glen tilt.] i added another scottish defeat. for it was excessively warm that summer, and scotland can be as warm and as dry as kansas. it is thirty miles, the mountain way. there is no inn. there is possibility--there is danger--of losing the way. there are no wolves, i suppose, and certainly no wolf of badenoch. but there were the unknown terrors. so we walked a certain stent into glen tilt, enough to know that it is wild, gloomy, one of the strangest wildest places, ben-y-gloe, the "mountain of the mist," rising out of the early morning mist, yet not so mysteriously or majestically as the mountain going to the sun. but no valley in our mountain west has ever seemed more empty. and i suppose since pictish time this glen has been deserted. there were deer, red deer, that thought they were free, and who looked out of their coverts indifferently. we had not the heart to tell them that they belonged, body and soul, to the duke of atholl. after the porteous riots, queen caroline, presiding in the place of george who was absent in his favourite hanover, threatened "to turn scotland into a hunting field." the duke of argyle thereupon hinted that he would have to "return to look after my hounds." queen caroline seems sovereign to-day. and especially on august eleventh, the day before st. grouse day, there is an ominous quiet. so we returned by way of coupar angus--meekly remembering the proverb, "he that maun to coupar, maun to coupar." here we changed cars, nearly losing the train, because we were so engrossed in watching the loading of the luggage, the scotch porter cheering on his assistant, "we're twa strong men, haud awa, let's be canny." and in the great gold sunset that was like the glory of god upon the heavenly highlands. we came to blairgowrie, where we heard in the twilight on the hills above the town a bird of magic such as i have never heard elsewhere. was it a nightingale, or a night lark? it sang like these. next morning we took coach across these great hills, by way of glenshee, a very lovely way of going, and not to be regretted, in its dashing splendour of a coach and six--except that it was not a thirty-mile walk. but it is to be historically remembered, because it is the way mar's men came down to the strath of tay, and brought the rising into the lowlands. we would go to meet them. it was a memorable day. not even the simplon pass taken on a june day when the road ran between fresh coach-out-topping walls of glittering snow can make one forget the road over the spittal of glenshee. there were impossibly purple mountains, indigo-deep, deeper purple than any hills i have ever seen, so does the ripened heather dye the distances more deeply. there were rocky glens, great loneliness, a mansion here and there only just on leaving blairgowrie, tullyveolan, of course; scarce a cottage even on the roadside; once a flock of sheep, near the spittal, being worked by scotch collies, with an uncanny, or, canny, second sense to get the master's direction. there was lunch at the spittal, a one-time hospice, like that on the simplon. and i wondered if the song ran of this lovely little glen set in the midst of so much primeval world-- "o wharawa got ye that auld crookit penny, for ane o' bright gowd wad ye niffer wi' me? richt fou are baith ends o' my green silken wallet, and braw will your hame be in bonnie glenshee. "for a' the bricht gowd in your green silken wallet i never wad niffer my crookit bawbee." the road at the top of the world runs smoothly enough. but when the devil's elbow is reached, a tremendous and dangerous turn in the road, every one dismounts from the coach, and the sight of an adventurous motor car coming down the turn does not decrease one's sense of peril. _braemar_ and then the sight of braemar, and a consciousness that if you are about to spend more money at the fife arms or the invercauld than any but royalty has a right to spend--royalty not having earned it--the adventure has been worth it. and to have forgotten but as the coach flashes by to read the tablet-- "here robert louis stevenson lived in the summer of , and wrote 'treasure island.'" this is to be home again. of course our first pilgrimage was to the invercauld arms, where we again set up the standard on the braes of mar. it was here that malcolm canmore instituted the highland gathering which persists to this day. and here, under cover of the hunt, so did the loyal jacobites conceal their intention, the rising of the fifteen was planned--and the hunters became the hunted. [illustration: invercauld house.] it was evening, it was the highlands, the great circle of mountains lay round about. and if king james viii and iii had been defeated these two hundred years, and dead a lesser time, and our loyalty had always been to the prince who came rather to establish his father than himself, the fifteen seemed like yesterday. in this remote high corner of the world anything is possible, even the oblivion of time. it seemed very vital, that faraway moment, which in truth few persons to-day take into reckoning; even history recks little of it. but very near in this illusory twilight--was that the fiery cross that glimmered in the darkness? "the standard on the braes o' mar is up and streaming rarely; the gathering pipe on lochnagar is sounding loud and clearly. the highlandmen frae hill and glen, in martial hue, wi' bonnets blue, wi' belted plaids and burnished blades, are coming late and early. "wha' wadna join our noble chief, the drummond and glengarry? macgregor, murray, rollo, keith, panmure and gallant harry, macdonald's men, clanranald's men, mackenzie's men, macgilvrary's men, strathallan's men, the lowland men of callander and airlie." next day we met a gentleman we forever call "the advocate of aberdeen." in any event the lawyers of aberdeen have styled themselves "advocates" since so addressed by king james. we did not know that when we named him, but we preferred it to any sandy or "mac" he might legally carry. having been informed by him that our name was lowland and we were entitled to none of the thrills of the highlands, we failed to mount farther than the third stage of the morrone hill. the wind blew a gale from the nor'nor'west, like those better known to us from the sou'sou'west. it was humiliating to have the advocate of aberdeen instruct us when we returned that if we had gone on we might have proved our highland blood. we did not attempt ben macdui, although it may be approached by the ever-easy way of pony-back, even the queen--not mary--having mounted it in this fashion. we were content to master, almost master, its pronunciation according to the pure gaelic--muich dhui. and then we learned that by more accurate and later scientific measurement, macdui is not the tallest mountain in the kingdom, but ben nevis out-tops it. to make our peace with an almost forfeited fate, we took a dander, that is, we walked back toward glen tilt by the way we had not come. there is a happy little falls a couple of miles from the town, corrimulzie, plunging down a long fall through a deep narrow gorge, but very pleasantly. we passed white milestone after white milestone, measured in particular scottish accuracy--we timed ourselves to a second and found we could measure the miles by the numbers of our breaths. the forest is thick and bosky, not an original forest, doubtless. but i was reminded that taylor, on his pennyless pilgrimage came to braemar three hundred years ago, and wrote "as many fir trees growing there as would serve for masts (from this time to the end of the worlde) for all the shippes, caracks, hoyes, galleyes, boates, drumiers, barkes, and water-crafte, that are now, or can be in the worlde these fourty yeeres." he lamented the impossibility of sending them down to tide water where they might meet their proper fate. only once did we meet a carriage in which we suspected that royalty, or at least ladies-in-waiting--if duke's wives who are royal have such appendages--might be sitting. and on to the linn of dee, which is truly a marvelous place. the advocate of aberdeen when we had asked him why so many of his townfolk came this way, explained with a sense of possession of the greater dee, "we like to see what the dee can do." surely it can do it. in these rock walls it has spent centuries carving for itself fantastic ways, until not the dalles of the st. croix can excel its rock-bound fantasy. given time, the dee can "do" pretty much as it pleases in granite. the few miles we ventured beyond the linn were enough to prove that the way was long, the wind was cold, the minstrel was infirm and old. had we walked all the mountain way we should have been much in need of a "plaidie to the angry airts." this air is very bracing. but we sang many jacobite songs in memory of the risings. "wha'll be king but charlie?" and "charlie is my darling," and "over the sea charlie is coming to me," and "will ye no come back again." and we sang with particular satisfaction that we were not, after all, to suffer royal wrongs--surely there is a falling away in the far generations in the far places, since a king's son could so adventure-- "dark night cam' on, the tempest roar'd, loud o'er the hills and valleys, an' where was't that your prince lay down who's hame should been a palace? he row'd him in a highland plaid, which cover'd him but sparely, an' slept beneath a bush o' broom, oh, wae's me for prince charlie." on these braes of mar, and in these hills and beside these very streams, the prince made his adventure--yes, and simply because of that adventure will be forever remembered by those who believe in the heroic mood. [illustration: balmoral castle.] to leave braemar the road leads down to ballater, with motor cars to take it swiftly; past the castles of mar old and new, where betimes sits the present earl of mar, not conning risings but writing to the magazines his idea of a free scotland, which shall have its home rule like ireland--which was once scotland--and which may have it at the great peace; down through an increasingly pleasant country. balmoral castle looks deserted now of its queen--and when queens desert, places are much emptier than when kings leave. but "queen's weather" is still possible here, even though the castle and our way are overshadowed by lochnagar, on which we bestow more than passing glance in memory of that gordon who was lord byron. "ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd; my cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; on chieftains long perished my memory ponder'd, as daily i strove through the pine-cover'd glade; i sought not my home till the day's dying glory gave place to the rays of the bright polar star; for fancy was cheer'd by traditional story, disclosed by the natives of dark loch na garr." and one glance at lumphanan-- "this macbeth then slew they there in the wood of lumphanan," so runs the old chronicle. _aberdeen_ there is no city in scotland which seems to me to have more personality, a more distinct personality, than aberdeen. it is plainly a self-sufficient city, and both in politics and in religion it thinks for itself, mindless if its thinking is not that of the rest of the kingdom. its provost cannot leave its borders; once he attended a battle, many and many a year ago, nineteen miles from the city at harlow, and sad to say, he was killed. so now the provost remains in the city, he cannot leave it more than president can leave republic, or pope the vatican. [illustration: marischal college.] in religion, aberdeen is strongly episcopalian, where it is not catholic. in truth there is a band of catholicism running across the country, from aberdeen to skye, through the heart of the highlands. as might be expected, the highlands never yielded to the reformatory methods of john knox, but remained of the faith. there is no city that looks so scottish, and yet so different, as aberdeen. it is a dignified and an extraordinarily clean city. after a rain its granite glitters as though it had been newly cut, and to one accustomed to smoke-grimed american cities aberdeen looks as though it were built this morning, when no doubt much of this granite has a right to the hoar of antiquity. marischal college, founded by the keiths, who were earl marischals, boasts of being the greatest granite pile in the world, after the escorial. having walked a day through a circumscribed portion of that spanish granite, i chose to limit my footsteps in marischal college. only to verify the stone did i enter. and there it stood, over the doorway of the inner entrance hall, that stone which gives me a certain ancestral right of hauteur-- thay half said. quhat say thay? lat thame say. scots are astonishingly fond of mottoes. they carve them, like orlando's verse, if not on every tree, on every lintel and over every fireplace; from _nemo me impune lacessit_ of the royal thistle race, to every clan and every cottage. king's college ( ) is an older foundation than marischal ( ), and where once they were rivals, since the eighteen sixties they have been harmonized, and since mr. carnegie gave them his benefaction, education is free in this university of aberdeen. king's college, if not the next greatest granite pile, has a stone cross, which is the typical capping of noble edifice in scotland; in truth it begins at newcastle on tyne when one enters the english beginning of the border. the cathedral of st. machar's, first founded by the saint who was a disciple of columba, was refounded by the saint who was david i--of course; what a busy saint this was--and looks the part of age, but of strength rather than arrogance, with its low lying towers. there is an old town even in the new town, and the contrast is sharp. if one gets lost, turns suddenly into this old part, it is a curious experience. the buildings look medieval, french provincial, and the people look strange and foreign; also they treat you, a foreigner, with all that curiosity, and something of that disrespect which you, of course, deserve, having interloped into their sanctuary. the duke of cumberland lived here for six weeks before advancing on culloden, and while he did not "butcher" here to deserve his name, his soldiers left as ugly a fame behind them as montrose's men, what time he made bloody assault on the city. and in broad street may be found the house in which george gordon, lord byron, lived in his school days. in don juan, he autobiographically remembers-- "as 'auld lang syne' brings scotland one and all, scotch plaids, scotch snoods, the blue hills, and clear streams the dee, the don, balgownie's brig's black wall, all my boy feelings, all my gentle dreams of what i then dreamt, clothed in their own pall like banquo's offspring;--floating past me seems my childhood in this childishness of mine: i care not--'tis a glimpse of 'auld lang syne.'" aberdeen is a sea city, lying between the mouths of the dee and the don. a bridge, dating from , crosses the don, and byron steadfastly avoided it, lest he, a single son, might be found thereon on the single foal of a mare, and the prophecy be filled, the brig fall down. one day in a small booth off union street i stopped to buy strawberries--if you pick up southern england in early may and make inverness in late august, you can follow red strawberries and red poppies in the wheat all the way from land's end to john o' groat's. i asked the price of the berries and was told. i asked again, and again. finally, not ears but intuition told me. it was a scandinavian-gaelic-english. i remembered that in edinburgh i had once asked a policeman the way, and hearing his reply i turned to my friend--"wouldn't you think you were in minneapolis?" for especially in aberdeen you are looking to that norway with which scotland was so closely linked, as with all the scandinavian countries, in the early centuries, till the maid of norway, granddaughter to alexander iii died on her way to take the crown, and till after margaret of denmark brought the orkneys and the hebrides to james iii as her dowery. "to norroway, to norroway, to norroway o'er the faem; the king's daughter of norroway, 'tis thou maun bring her hame." and i remember the tragedy of that frustrated journey-- "o forty miles off aberdeen, 'tis fifty fathoms deep, and there lies gude sir patrick spens, wi' the scots lords at his feet." remembering the sea, which i had not yet seen, i tried to make my way down to the shore, but aberdeen is a sea-port, and docks instead of shore line its sea edge. what i was seeking was rather rocks-- "on the rocks by aberdeen, where the whistlin' wave had been as i wandered and at e'en was eerie--" and after a visit to the fishmarket, which is a truly marvelous monstrous place, i set out to find the rocks, toward the south. there is never a place more rock-bound, more broken into fantastic shapes, and worn daily and increasingly by the waves, than this east coast. neither biarritz nor brittany nor nova scotia is more broken or more thunderous in resentment. i have not seen the magellan straits. one is constantly conscious of fish on this east coast. the railroads form the great east fish route. i have been coming up in the night from london and had to hold my breath until we passed these swift fish trains which have the right of way to the metropolitan market. a little south of aberdeen is the village of findon; whence finnan haddie. _dunnottar_ the rocks which were my goal were those just below stonehaven. at stonehaven the french had landed supplies for the forty five--as from montrose, a few miles farther down the coast, king james had sailed after the failure of the fifteen. fishing vessels lay idly in the narrow harbour, their tall masts no doubt come "frae norroway o'er the faem," since the trees on the east coast have not increased from that day when dr. johnson found the sight of a tree here equal to that of a horse in venice. dunnottar stands on a great crag of this coast, against which the sea has beaten angrily since time and the coast began, against which it moans and whines at low tide, and then, come high tide, rushes thunderously in to see what havoc it can work once more. [illustration: dunnottar castle.] dunnottar is impregnable. i cannot believe that sixteen inch guns--is it seventeen, now?--would make impression on this great red crag. i know they would; after liege and namur one knows that modern guns can outlaw any impregnability of the past. but i do not believe. the road from stonehaven runs for two miles over level country, and then, suddenly, the edge breaks in a sheer cliff. across a natural moat of great depth, on a cliff crag, stands the castle. the road picks its way down perilously; only a mule path, and that precipitous. then it crosses the dry bed where once may have hung a draw bridge, and, entering through a portcullis, it climbs to the castle, through a winding, tortuous way, sometimes a climb, sometimes a flight of steps, sometimes open to the sky but ramped sternly on either side, sometimes through stone canyons; a place impossible to surprise. finally you reach the top, the sky. the top is three acres large. far back, no doubt in culdee times, a church stood there. because churches must be sanctuary they took the high places; otherwise why should one lift prayer to god when the mad sea was continually contradicting the faith? sir william keith, being a warrior with a warrior's eye, looked on the place, found it strategically good, and built a tower thereon. he was excommunicated by the bishop of st. andrew's--who did not anticipate the lords of the congregation and the covenanters. sir william appealed to rome. rome ordered the ban removed. and ordered sir william to build a church on the mainland, beyond the protestantism of the waves. it began its war history early. in four thousand english took refuge here to escape wallace. nothing daunted, wallace scaled the cliff, entered a window--the proof is there in the window--opened the gate, let in his men, and slaughtered the four thousand. edward iii took it, and montrose besieged it. then it swung back into loyal legal possession, and experienced a bit of history worth the telling. in --montrose had been dead two years--the countess dowager had taken into safe keeping the regalia of scotland. the castle was besieged by those who had killed their king and would destroy the king's insignia. if the castle should fall the very symbol of the king's royalty would be melted, as cromwell melted the regalia of england. the defense was not strong. at any moment it might be forced to surrender. but the regalia must be saved. so the lady keith plotted. it was a woman's plot--always there is the woman in jacobitism. the wife of the minister at kinneff paid a visit to the wife of the governor of dunnottar; mrs. grainger called on mrs. ogilvie. she had been "shopping" in stonehaven, and was returning to kinneff five miles down the sea. when mrs. grainger left the castle she carried with her the crown of scotland. sitting on her horse she made her way through the besieging lines, and her maid followed with the scepter of scotland and the sword in a bag on her back. the english besiegers showed every courtesy to the harmless woman--and to the honours of scotland. mrs. grainger carefully buried the treasure beneath the paving of kinneff church, and not until her death did she betray their hiding place to her husband. meanwhile lady keith sent her son sir john to france. a little boat escaping in the night carried him to the french vessel lying off shore, and the lady sent forth the rumour that sir john had carried the regalia to the king o'er the water, to charles ii at paris. it was after the restoration that the aureate earth at kinneff was dug up. the women had saved the scottish crown for the rightful lawful king. a dark chapter runs a quarter of a century later. the castle was still loyal. in truth it was always loyal except in brief usurpations, as all this corner of scotland was loyal and royal and jacobite. in in "whig's vault" there lodged one hundred and sixty-seven covenanters as prisoners, and they lodged badly. many died, a few escaped, the rest were sold as slaves. coming on ship to new jersey as the property of scott of pitlochry, scott and his wife died and almost all the covenanting slaves. only a few saw the plantations of the new world, and could resume the worship of their god. the story of dunnottar is dark. the castle looks the dark part it played. in dunnottar churchyard on the mainland there is a covenanter's stone, where "old mortality" was working when scott came upon him. the stone carries a simple stern legend of heroism--and almost wins one to the cause. and yet, there is evidence that in stern dunnottar life had its moments other than war and siege. the remnants of the castle are of great extent; bowling gallery, ballroom, state dining-room, a library, a large chapel, speak a varied existence. there is a watch tower, a keep, rising forty sheer feet above the high rock, with ascent by a winding stair, somewhat perilous after the centuries; but from the watchman's seat what a prospect, landward and seaward! what a sense of security in the midst of peril! and on the farther corner of the giddy height, above the rock and above the waves dashing far below, i found growing blue bells of scotland. there is one corner of the castle where i fain would inhabit, the northwest corner that looks down on the sea raging cruelly upon the rocks that are the first line of defense against the onslaught of the sea, and that looks far over the north sea; that sea which is more mysterious to me and more lovely than the mediterranean; i have seen it a beautiful intense italian blue, with an italian sky above it. i have never seen it still, always surging, raging, always cruel. yet i should be willing to look out on it for many unbroken days. and to hear the somber movement of the "keltic" sonata played upon the rocks. the earl marischal liked the view, whatever his generation. the north was in his blood, and the sea, even though he was a landsman, spoke adventure. the earl's bedroom is almost habitable to-day. once it was a place of luxury. the plaster still clings to the walls in places, and there is a fireplace where still one could light a fire against the chill of the north. the date above is , when charles was still king, and there was no threat of disloyalty. the tablet unites the arms of the keiths and the seatons, the stone divided by a pillar surmounted by two hearts joined. the keith motto, _veritas vincit_, underlines the keith shield; but i like better the seaton motto--_hazard yit forvard_. the earl's library opens out of this. and i doubt not it was richly stored in the days when the last lord marischal won here that mental habitude which made him equal in wit and wisdom to voltaire. and no doubt here sat his mother, loyal jacobite, steadfast catholic, sending her two sons forth to battle for the lost cause of the stewarts--never lost while women remember--while she looked forth on these waters and watched for the return. the story runs in the jacobite ballad of "lady keith's lament"-- "i may sit in my wee croo house, at the rock and the reel fu' dreary, i may think on the day that is gane, and sigh and sab till i grow weary.... "my father was a good lord's son, my mother was an earl's daughter, an' i'll be lady keith again, that day our king comes o'er the water." chapter viii the circle round the iron road from aberdeen to inverness must follow somewhat the road which gallant mary took on her way to punish huntley. there is a bleak stern look about this country as a whole, but here and there stand castles, or lie low the ruins of castles, in many a chosen place of beauty; for harsh as were these lords, and devastating as were their deeds, life must have had its moments of wonder and of delight. if malcolm canmore destroyed inverness before the twelve hundreds, and the fat georges destroyed inverugie late in the seventeen hundreds, and all through the centuries that stretched between strong men built strongholds and stronger men took them and made mock of them, still there must have been gentleness and beauty. there were women, other than lady macbeth; there were young men and maidens noble or common; and i suppose the glamour of romance, the reality or the illusion of love, was invented before peace and commerce became the occupations of men. _peterhead_ one brief journey i made along the bleak coast up to the town of peterhead, which looks nearest to norroway across the foam, and has a most uncompromising aspect. peterhead is a penal town to-day; and it is one of a string of fishing villages, picturesque as fishing villages are, except to the nose, "that despised poet of the senses"; and not picturesque to the people, who lack the colour of fisherfolk in brittany. but i wished to see with mine own eyes the ruins of inverugie. it is one of the castles belonging to the lords marischal. it came to them in a curious way of forfeiture, an abbot dispossessed or some such thing, like dunnottar, but without the appeal to rome. and one of the stones of the castle carried the promise, and the threat-- "as lang's this stane stands on this croft the name o' keith shall be abaft, but when this stane begins to fa' the name o' keith shall wear awa'." the last lord marischal came hither, late, late, in the seventeen hundreds. he had seen a century move through strife to peace. in person he had taken part in the rising of the fifteen, a young man, but still hereditary lord marischal, and loyal to the stewart cause. he had taken no part in the rising of the forty five; he was not "out" on that dark night. but the sweeping revenge of those english times made the keiths attaint and--the stone dropped from its croft. the lord marischal and his brother made the continent their refuge, paris in particular, although the activities of the proposed restoration took their lordships to madrid and rome and berlin and st. petersburg. the younger brother, james, was made a field marshal by catherine of russia, and that amorous termagant making love to him in the natural course of proximity, he discreetly fled, became field marshal for frederick the great, and not marrying--whatever the romance of the swedish lady--he fell at the battle of hochkirch in , and lies buried in the _garison kirche_ of berlin. a statue stands in the hochkirch kirche, and in the king of prussia presented a replica to peterhead. and even so late as , the kaiser, remembering the great king's field marshal, named one of the silesian war units, the keith regiment. there is no statue to the lord marischal--_maréschal d'ecosse_, always he signed himself. he was the friend of the wittiest and wisest and wickedest men of his time, of david hume, and voltaire, and rousseau, and frederick the great. neither did he marry. dying at the age of ninety-two, he was buried in potsdam. there is no statue to him, there or here. and inverugie lies in low ruins. hither he came, when attaint was lifted, late in those tottering years. he drove out to the castle, remembering all it had meant, the long splendid records of the earls marischal, and how the king, james iii and viii--banquo saw him also-- "and yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass which shows me many more." james, not pretending but claiming, landed at peterhead, lodged at inverugie, summoned the loyal and they came. the standard was lifted for a moment, and then fell. breaking into tears the old lord marischal realized all, an epoch closed, a scotland no longer requiring a marischal. he left inverugie, even this ruin. all this northeast territory, no larger than a county in dakota, bears these scars of the past. at elgin there are the ruins of a cathedral; ruined, not by the english but by the wolf of badenoch, because my lord bishop had given a judgment which did not please my lord of badenoch. and the wolf, his fangs drawn, was compelled to stand barefooted three days before the great west gate. at canossa! lands and seas and centuries divide--but there is slight difference. a scant mile or two to the north of elgin lies the ruined spynie castle of the lord bishop, a great place for strength, with massive keep--and fallen. "a mighty fortress is our god." cathedrals, castles, bishops and lords, all pass away. _cawdor_ as we neared one of the last of the northern stations, we turned to each other and asked, "how far is't called to forres?" and suddenly all was night and witch dance and omen and foretelling. for it is here in the palace that banquo's ghost appeared and foretold all that history we have been meeting as we came northward. and next is the town of nairn, which has become something of a city since boswell found it "a miserable place"; it is still long and narrow, stretching to the sea with its fisherfolk cottages and bonneted women like the fisher wives of brittany; and stretching to the highlands at the other end, as king james said. [illustration: spynie castle.] it was here that wordsworth heard "yon solitary highland lass, reaping and singing by herself; ... perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago.... the music in my heart i bore long after it was heard no more." but one leaves the train with a curious feeling. of course one may be a little tired. arm chair travel and arm chair tragedy have their advantages. but--nairn is the nearest point to the blasted heath. "where's the place? upon the heath, there to meet macbeth." it is not entirely necessary that one should make nairn and walk out to the heath. any of these northern silent scottish blasted heaths will serve. it is as though the witches had made their mysterious incantations anywhere, everywhere. and if shakespeare was in scotland in --as i like to think he was--it is doubtful if he saw the heath. johnson told hannah more, so she reports, that when he and boswell stopped for a night at a spot where the weird sisters appeared to macbeth, they could not sleep the night for thinking of it. next day they found it was not the heath. this one is, in all faith, apocryphal. still, if you come hither toward evening, when "good things of day begin to droop and drowse" it is fearsome enough. such heaths demand their legend. "the thane of cawdor lives a prosperous gentleman." not so prosperous now as when he lived in the life. shakespeare took liberties with the thane. he immortalized him into macbeth! and cawdor castle, out from nairn a few paces on the burn of cawdor, might have been the very home of macbeth. it is pleasant, flowery, lovely. but also, it is stern and looks like a castle for tragedy. but not for mystery. i did not hear a bird of prey, as some travelers report-- "the raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of duncan under my battlements." [illustration: _cawdor castle_] there are iron girded doors and secret apartments; not for macbeth, but for lovat. this lord of the last rising lived secretly for many months in cawdor while the prince was moving restlessly to and fro in the islands. but the prince was only twenty-five, and lord lovat was over eighty. i like to think he was as young and keen to adventure as the prince. and i do not like to think of that beheading in the tower-- "i must become a borrower of the night." _inverness_ the four chief cities of scotland are arranged like a diamond for excursion and for history. always scotland, unlike gaul, has been divided into four parts. places of pilgrimage were scone, dundee, paisley, melrose. places for the quartering of montrose were glasgow, perth, aberdeen, stirling. and now four places are rivals; in trade somewhat, but glasgow leads in beauty, but edinburgh, after all, is unique in dignity, but aberdeen is unbending; in the picturesque there remains inverness. the city deserves its honours. (william black has painted it in "wild eelin.") it has a life of its own. for when i first came to inverness there was a cattle fair on, and sheep from all over the kingdom, from shropshire and from the cheviots, came to be judged in inverness; and men came with them who looked very modern and capable and worldly and commercial. it was all like a county fair of iowa, only more dignified, with no touch of sideshow. and, of course, there is the highland gathering in september, which has become too much like the sideshow, too much a show, to attract the groundlings, and not a gathering of the clans. still--if one must take scotland in a gulp--this is a very good chance at highland colour and sound and remnants of valour. the town itself is full of pictures. it does not announce itself. there is a close-built part, looking like a french provincial town, with gabled houses, and down on the banks of the ness the women spread their clothes to dry as they do on a french river bank. there is a new cathedral, very new, with an angel at the font we remembered william winter had liked, so we paid it respectful attention. there is a park on the ness to the west, where many islands and many bridges form a spot of beauty. and there is tomnahurich--the hill of the fairies--a sudden steep hill-mound, where inverness carries its dead--like the indians who carried them to indian mounds high above the rivers of the american west. the dark yews make it even more solemn; one wonders if the fairies dare play in these shades. but it is a sweetly solemn place, and we decided to care not what invernessians lay buried here if we might sit on its convenient park benches and look at far rolling scotland and think of fairies and of thomas the rimer, who, it seems, came hither all the way from ercildoune from melrose to heap this mound for his burial! the errant scots! there remains no stone of macbeth's castle to which the gentle duncan came--"and when goes hence?" the county buildings--and a jail!--stand on its site, a most modern pile. malcolm razed that castle after he had returned from england, and after birnam wood had come to dunsinane. it was builded again; inverness was a vantage point. perhaps that one was burned by the lord of the isles who afterward came to repentance and to holyrood. and builded again so that huntley could defy mary, and she could take the castle and order it razed. and builded again so that cromwell could destroy it. and builded again as one of the five fortresses whereby he sought to hold scotland "protected." and destroyed at the restoration which sought to destroy all the protectorate had built. but builded again so it might be destroyed by prince charles edward. no, i scarce think there is even the dust of the castle of macbeth left in inverness, or incorporated into modern fort george. the "knock, knock, knock," which the porter heard at the gate, has battered down a score of ominous strongholds. but still "the castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses." for all the north of scotland, away from the east winds, is pleasant and lovely, with the mean climate that of london, and possible in winter and summer. in the grounds there stands a statue of flora macdonald looking out to the west, and carrying the legend-- "on hills that are by right his ain he roams a lanely stranger." could legend be better chosen to compress and carry all that story of loyalty and courage and devotion? and so we moved out to culloden. it was on a gray wind-swept afternoon that we made our pilgrimage. there was no sense of rain. it was a hard sky. it spread leaden to the world. we chose to walk the six mile stretch. not with comfort or any show of splendour, not even with a one-horse carriage, would we approach culloden. the road leads over lonely drumossie moor through a plantation of firs, to a wild and naked spot--where all that was scotland and nothing else was burned out of the world by the withering fire of cumberland, and the remnant that would not save itself but fought to the last was cut to pieces by his order. i do not suppose that even on a hot sweet afternoon could any one with a drop of scotch blood come hither and not feel in his face the rain and sleet of that seventeenth of april day, . if one comes on that day the cairn is hung with flowers, white roses of course, for there are still jacobites left in the world who have given to no other king their allegiance. "pretender!" cried lady strange to one who had mis-spoken in her presence, "pretender and be dawmned to ye!" no, it was not the pass of thermopylæ, nor a pickett's charge. nor was it even war. nevertheless it was one of the brave moments in human history. if hopeless and even meaningless, does not bravery give it meaning? the highlanders--they were the last jacobites left, as the army of the butcher, cumberland, george second's fat son swept northward and stopped for their larder to be well-filled before they went on--had had only a biscuit, the day before! they were five thousand to the english ten thousand. at eleven in the morning the highlanders moved forward, the pipers playing brave music, and they recked not that the english had the chosen ground; theirs was not even a forlorn hope. not if the macdonalds, sulky because they were on the left when since bannockburn they had been on the right, had fired a shot would the end have been different. [illustration: battlefield of culloden.] on the battlefield, looking at these mounds, the long trench of the dead, one realizes that scotland lies buried here. m'gillivray, m'lean, m'laughlin, cameron, mackintosh, stuart of appin--so many brave names. "the lovely lass of inverness, nae joy nor pleasure can she see, for e'en and morn she cries, alas! and ay the saut tear blin's her e'e-- "drumossie muir, drumossie day! a waefu' day it was to me! for there i lost my father dear, my father dear, and brothers three. "their winding sheet the bluidy clay-- their graves are growing green to see; and by them lies the dearest lad that ever blest a woman's e'e. "now wae to thee, thou cruel lord! a bluidy man i trow thou be; for mony a heart thou hast made sair that ne'er did wrong to them or thee." the small remnant that was left, and was not butchered by cumberland, fled to the west. sometimes one could wish prince charles had died at culloden! and yet one would not spare the wanderings, or flora macdonald. thousands of the men fled to america; thousands of scots in america to-day can say, "my great grandfather fought at culloden." hundreds of scots to-day are sent "home" from america to be educated. i have met in the magnificent highlands of montana, scotchmen, true highlanders, who had been sent to edinburgh university that they might be scots, even though they carried "american" blood in their veins. when boswell and johnson came here in , twenty-seven years after the forty five, they found that many of the highlanders were going to america, leaving the lairds and the land. one m'queen of glenmorison was about to go. "dr. johnson said he wished m'queen laird of glenmorison, and the laird to go to america. m'queen very generously answered he should be sorry for it; for the laird could not shift for himself in america as he could do." small wonder that prince charles, knowing of this exodus, and believing life still held for him its chances, its glories, away from rome and even if he was fifty-five, looked longingly over the sea, in , thinking that he might lead these rebellious colonists, so many of them of his rebellious people, and reëstablish the house of stewart in the new world. surely burr, coming with blennerhasset, thirty years after, had something of the stewart in him. _the orkneys_ scotland is divided by a deep geologic cleft. glenmore, the great glen, runs southwesterly from inverness to fort william and oban, cutting the country into two parts. one is scotland; the other is the west, the highlands and the islands. one is known, the other unknown. one has been prosperous, royal, noble; the other has been wild, independent, chief and clans holding together. to-day, if the east is strangely quiet, the west is strangely silent. in the east you know things have happened; remnants remain, ruined castles testify; in the west it is as though they had not happened, those far historic things; castles are heaps of blackened or crumbled stone; or, if they stand, they stand like prehistoric remnants, and the clachans are emptied; the risings, the migrations, the evictions, the extensions of deer forests and sheep pastures and grouse preserves, the poverty, yes, and the wandering spirit of the people leading them ever afar--where always they are scottish down to the last drop, always looking toward home, but ever leaving it empty of their presence. it is a stranger land, though so lovingly familiar, than any i have ever been in. i have been in valleys of the rockies which were not so lonely as glens in scotland. when hood wrote his sonnet on "silence," beginning "there is a silence where hath been no sound," he went on to a correction-- "but in the antique palaces where man hath been." he missed the note of glens and valleys where man has been and is not. from the great glen, a series of lochs lying in a geologic "fault," and connected more than a century ago by a series of locks, excursion may be had into remote places, so very remote even if they lie but a half dozen miles in the backward; the farther ones, to the orkneys, to john o' groat's, to skye, the island of mist and of prince charlie and dr. johnson and fiona mcleod, and vast numbers of places known to those who seek beauty only. three forts were built in the rebellious seventeen hundreds to hold this far country. the forts rather betray history. and they form convenient places of departure for those who would conquer the highlands and the islands for themselves. fort george, near inverness, is still used as a depot for military stores and for soldiers. fort augustus has been surrendered to the benedictines who are gradually developing here a great monastery which in these silences should rival the monasteries of old--if that may be. fort william, most strategic of all, is also strategic for traveler's descent. thus is the iron hand that succeeded the bloody hand at culloden become rust. [illustration: the old man of hoy.] to the men of old the orkneys seemed at the back of beyond and a little farther. yet, i cannot think how it has reduced the distance to a comprehensible length if farther ends of the world and endless waters have been reached; distance is three parts imagination in any event. as a man thinketh so is distance. the run up the coast to scrabster, the port of thurso, is very much on the coast, with wild barren land on one side, and wild waste water on the other; with here and there a resting-place for the eye or mind, like skibo castle for our american laird of skibo, dunrobin castle for the magnificent sutherlands, and on a branch line leading out to the sea the house of john o'groat, perhaps the best known citizen above land's end. from scrabster the old man of hoy lifts his hoary head over the seas, and invites to ultima thule, if this be ultima thule. and i suppose that ever since agricola came up this way the old man has sent forth his invitation. the romans did not answer it, although tacitus wrote about it; and it was left for much later folk to dispute the picts and take the islands for themselves. an archipelago of fifty-six islands lies scattered over the water, with only half of them inhabited, but not all the rest habitable; if, like sancho panza, you are looking for an island, you will not find the isle of heart's desire here. the scant inhabited twenty odd are not over filled with population; these islands are not hospitable to large numbers, not even of their own. they came to us through margaret of denmark, queen to james iii, and were confirmed when anne of denmark came to be queen to james vi. the sail over the pentland firth may be taken on a still day when the historic waters, as vexed as those of the bermoothes, lie like glass. the rage of water, of any water, is not the frequent mood; but always it is the memorable. blue above and blue below was the day of our going, twenty miles past high "continental" shores, like dunnet's head, and between the outliers of the orcadian group, at the end of a summer day that never ends in this north. yet i cannot think how i should ever again approach "mainland" and the port of kirkwall with such indifference to everything except the exquisite cool softness of this northern air of mid-summer, with an indolent interest in the land ahead, hardly quickened into active interest which is the traveler's right, when we approached scapa in the twilight. i did remember that the vikings were once here as kings. and when king haakon of norway was returning from the defeat at largs in the west where his fleet suffered the blow repeated later against the spanish armada, one ship was sucked down into a whirlpool near stroma. and haakon died here of a broken heart. all these seemed like old, far-off things that are not unhappy. yet there was a suggestion of fate in the place; perhaps there always is in a northern twilight. to approach kirkwall after this, will always be to remember the hampshire, going to its death in a water more dangerous than that of whirling stroma, and lord kitchener going with it. kirkwall is a pleasant old town; or was, till war made it busy and new. it lies inland a mile or two across the isthmus, but no doubt stretching actively down to the south pier at scapa during the years of the great war, when all the british fleet hovered about. the town is gray, like all scottish towns; nature does these things with perfect taste. and, in the midst, man has builded for his worship a church of red sandstone, the cathedral of st. magnus, older and in better condition than churches of scotland more exposed to the change of faith; with a long dim interior that speaks the north, with massive norman arches; one wonders how the reformed faith can conduct itself in this dim religious light. but the earl's palace remains a thing of beauty. earl patrick builded it, the son of robert who was half brother to mary. if the palace had been built in mary's day i should, in truth, have lamented that she did not come hither after the escape from loch leven, instead of going to defeat at langside. mary was valiant, and the stern north was, after all, in her blood. but patrick as "jarl" came a generation later, and he taxed the islands mercilessly to build this very beautiful palace. the roof is gone, but the beauty remains, oriel windows, fireplaces, and towers and turrets. no doubt when "the wind is blowing in turret and tree," patrick's palace can be ruined enough. but on a day when the blue sky is sufficient vaulting, the palace is a place to dream in. [illustration: earl's palace, kirkwall.] over at birsay, twenty miles across the mainland--there are twenty mile stretches in this mainland--there is another palace, built by robert, himself, who was, incidentally, abbot of holyrood as well as earl of the orkneys. the motto-stone declares-- "dominus robertus stuartus filius jacobi quinti rex scotorum hoc opus instruxit." "rex" said robert, not "regis"; perhaps his latin knew no better, but his spirit knew this was right. the nominative agreed with robertus, not with jacobi. still, the ruler of the orkneys was a supreme lord at this remove from king and counselors. here and there, but only here and there through the islands, lies traveler's lure. motor boats make the run for tourist pleasure, and many of the "points of interest" can be seen from the waters; particularly the "brochs," the cairn-like towers of perhaps pictish building; and the round tower of st. magnus on egilsay, which must date back very far, perhaps to the time when columba came hither from ireland and converted these people and gave them hints of irish building. there are remnants of life earlier than columba, of faith earlier, though we know not the faith. the circle of bogar, old gray pillar-like stones, set in purple heather, are comparable with stonehenge and locmariaqueur. scott found them equal; scott who had such an admirable way of finding in scotland the equal of the world. in "the pirate" he describes these stones, indeed he describes these orkneys in this accurate guide book which is still "up to date." to the blood shed and violence of old days has succeeded the quiet pursuit of agriculture; and instead of the boats that used to sail to the new world, h. b. c. boats and those to the plantations, and to russia for the northwest passage, and to the arctic for the pole, are the quiet boats of the fisherfolk. except--when war fleets ride at anchor. _the caledonian canal_ the great glen itself is a necessary journey, even though no side trips be made. i must believe that every one who has ever taken it and written account, journeyed down this waterway in a scotch mist; which, of course, is not a mist at all, but something finite and tangible. i, myself, went my ways that way. and, of course, those who had come north the day before me, and those who came south the day after, came through magnificent clearness, and marvels of marvels, ben nevis cleared of mists to his very crest and beyond, shining splendid and majestic and out-topping all scotland, against the brilliant cloud-swept northern sky! frankly, i am always tempted to be suspicious when any one tells me he has traveled the great glen and seen it all. the scenery on both sides is wild, desolate, mountainous, a daring of nature. there are sheer hillsides where all is revealed; again, there are wooded hills where the men of the forty five might be still lurking. dochfour, ness, oich, lochy, are the names of these "great lakes" that make the chain. there is quality to their names, like superior, huron, erie, ontario. but the scottish chain is sixty miles long and can be made from morning to evening, with enough of the day left to go through loch linnhe and so to oban; as one should add, through the st. lawrence and so to quebec. yet when one has passed from inverness to oban the mind is as full, it has come through as much contact, nay, more, as in the journey from duluth to quebec. there are ruined castles by the way. urquhart, looking very picturesque, especially if the mist is but half come down over the world and the purple of the distances is of that deep royal purple so characteristic of the water and mountain distances of this wild west country. yet the sunny distances are as much a marvel of colour in their pale blue that has so much intensity, so much real vivacity. purple one has learned to associate with distance; or, since some painter has shown us the truthful trick. but blue, this particular scottish blue, i have never seen elsewhere. it is woven of mists and sunlight in equal proportions. and so, urquhart in its ruin, standing romantically on a fir clad promontory, is most alluring as the boat rounds it on its early way. i do not know anything of urquhart. the name rather suggests the middle name carried by a once famous actress. somehow i half believe that in that castle charlotte corday may have stabbed marat. but then, facetious and unromantic, i wonder at the baths in urquhart in the old days when skene dhus served in the place of daggers. there are other romantic lures in the names which seem to have dropped so carelessly anywhere. inverarigaig--which sounds more musical than it looks on the page--stands at the head of the pass through which the prince came after that day at culloden on his way to the west as wanderer. far down the stretch of water rises mealfourvournie, a rounded naked hill overlooking the ravine where once the church of cilles christ stood; and once, full of mackenzies, was set on fire by the macdonalds, and all the mackenzies burned. the act is not singular among the clans. mcleod of dare gives it to the macdonalds and mcleods. and so one comes to believe the story of a traveler coming on a highland cottage and asking if there were any christians within, got back the reply,--"no, we're all macdonalds." surely saint columba was needed in later centuries than the sixth. the falls of foyers are across the lake, surrendered now to aluminum works. and yet burns wrote of them "among the heathery hills and rugged woods the roaring foyers pours his moving floods." christopher north wrote a better, a prose poem, which sounds somewhat curiously in american ears. "what a world of waters now comes tumbling into the abyss! niagara! hast thou a fiercer roar? listen--and you think there are momentary pauses of thunder, filled up with goblin groans! all the military music-bands of the army of britain would here be dumb as mutes--trumpet, cymbal and the great drum!" fort augustus closes the end of the loch, and here the benedictines, black-robed, move in somber file where once the red-coated soldiers marched. five locks raise the steamer fifty feet, into the highlands. and while the boat is waiting the rise, here, as at any of the locks, there is entertainment. fellow travelers get out to stretch their legs, and that is amusing enough, tolerantly considered. there are tea houses at every lock, many of them, sometimes charmingly rose-embowered like the houses along the thames. there are pipers who march majestically up and down, swinging their sporrans, swaying their kilts; one is almost afraid to give a penny. and i remember at one of these pausing places where the passengers remained on the boat, that a very pleasing gentleman who looked as george washington may have looked on gala occasions did sing for my entertainment and that of my fellow passengers; except one fellow american who expressed her disapproval. perhaps george washington did not dress so gaily; it was just the hat. there was a black coat, white breeches, crimson waistcoat, blue stockings, silver buckled shoes, and a cocked hat. and this pleasing gentleman sang to a tune that was no tune but very cheering, about "the hat me faither wore." and he was so doing his best, which was very good indeed, that i was forced to get change for a sixpence--it cannot be ethical, and certainly is not fun to throw a little silver disk when six large coppers may be thrown. and the american female fellow passenger said, "doesn't it seem as though he could get something nearer a man's job?" yet he was such a pleasant person. and they're not common to be met on the highway. from fort augustus on there are memories of the risings, chiefly of prince charlie, in the glorious before, in the tragic aftermath. he came hither as conqueror, that mere stripling, belted and plaided as a royal stewart, and retook his kingdom. the coat skirts of johnny cope you can still see in retreat to inverness, if you look well. from gairlochy the way leads to glenfinnan where he raised his standard, and the castle of lochiel, ruined because of him. and hither he came, after culloden. at fort augustus the head of roderick mackenzie was presented to the butcher as that of prince charles, and near gairlochy, and near lochiel--"beware of the day"--is the "cage" of cluny macpherson where he harboured during those days of red pursuit. and the thirty thousand pounds are yet to be paid for betrayal. loch oich, littlest and highest, with wooded islands and heavily wooded shores, larches and delicate silver birches, is the exquisite bit of the way. and here stands invergarry castle, which saw prince charles when first he came gallant from the west and moidart, and saw him when last he came defeated to the west. laggan avenue runs between loch oich and loch lochy, a narrow waterway with soft fir-trees lining the way in a most formal fashion; it has a peculiar magic when the mist has shut out the rounded hills of the higher background. banavie--to move according to the schedule--is at the top of the locks, three miles of them, neptune's staircase, leading down to fort william and to the sea. the railroad is the swifter way and breaks the journey, and passes the ruins of inverlochy. it is a place to which french and spanish merchants came in far days of the seven hundreds. but better, a place where montrose won a victory. [illustration: invergarry castle.] here took place ( ) the battle between the marquis of montrose and the marquis of argyle, and so splendidly that montrose and charles thought the kingdom was coming back to its own. montrose had started through the great glen for inverness, but hearing that the campbells were massing at inverlochy, he turned back, and gave battle. the victory was so tremendously with the royal montrose that he wrote a letter to charles, then negotiating with the parliamentarians, and charles believed so that he broke off the parleying-- "give me leave, after i have reduced this country, and conquered from dan to beersheba, to say to your majesty, as david's general to his master, 'come thou thyself, lest this country be called by my name.'" in five years, the two were both beheaded, one at whitehall in london, the other at the tolbooth in edinburgh, the marquis sixteen months later than the king. "to carry honour and fidelity to the grave." at inverlochy looks down the mountain of them all, ben nevis, taller than ben muich dhui, taller than snowdon or helvellyn. and from its vantage point, the observatory tower, one may look over all the territory in many directions whither one proposes to go; the routes can be planned from this top of scotland. as sir archibald geikie mapped it in his glorified geography-- "while no sound falls upon his ears, save now and then a fitful moaning of the wind among the snow-rifts of the dark precipice below, let him try to analyze some of the chief elements of the landscape. it is easy to recognize the more marked heights and hollows. to the south, away down loch linnhe, he can see the hills of mull and the paps of jura closing the horizon. westward, loch eil seems to lie at his feet, winding up into the lonely mountains, yet filled twice a day with the tides of the salt sea. far over the hills, beyond the head of the loch, he looks across arisaig, and can see the cliffs of the isle of eigg and the dark peaks of rum, with the atlantic gleaming below them. farther to the northwest the blue range of the coolin hills rises along the skyline, and then, sweeping over all the intermediate ground, through arisaig and knoydart and the clanranald country mountain rises after mountain, ridge beyond ridge, cut through by dark glens, and varied here and there with the sheen of lake and tarn. northward runs the mysterious straight line of the great glen, with its chain of locks. then to east and south the same billowy sea of mountain tops stretches out as far as eye can follow it--the hills and glens of lochaber, the wide green strath of spean, the gray corries of glen treig and glen nevis, the distant sweep of the moors and mountains of brae lyon and the perthshire highlands, the spires of glencoe, and thence again to the blue waters of loch linnhe." this may not be "the roof of the world," but it is a very high gable. chapter ix the western isles _oban_ there is something theatrical about oban, artificial, and therefore among scottish towns oban is a contrast. it is as uncovenanted as--joy! and it is very beautiful, "the gay and generous port of oban," as william winter calls it, set in its amphitheater of high hills, and stretching about its harbour, between confining water and hill. an embankment holds it in, and at twilight the scimeter drawn from the scabbard of night flashes with light, artificial, but as wonderful at oban as at monte carlo. one is content to be, at oban. quite certainly oban has centered its share of scottish history and romance, history from the time of the northmen, romance from the time resurrected by scott and continued indigenously by william black. but in oban and round about oban, one is quite content to take that past as casually as one takes yesterday. it is very interesting, very fascinating; one wakes now and then, here and there, to keen remembrance, to a sensitiveness that so much beauty could not be only for to-day and of to-day, that men must have come hither to claim it or dispute possession of it in the beginning of time. of course the stewarts came out of this island west! but, either because one has made a round circle of scotland from out of romantic edinburgh, or because one has come from practical glasgow and is about to make a round circle of scotland, oban has a peculiarly satisfying and yet undemanding beauty. it is set for pageantry; life is always, has been always, a procession at oban. if ever the history of scotland is set forth as pageant--i do not know that this has ever been done, but it should be--it should be staged at oban, on the esplanade. life moves swiftly through the streets and across the waters. for it is a place that all the world comes to, in its search for the next beautiful place. steamers from the caledonian canal and inverness, steamers from the crinan canal and glasgow, coaches from the near country, railroads from the east and north, bring the world to oban. and from oban boats move out on the firth of lorne and the sound of mull and through the broken waters of the hebrides, out into the unbroken waters of the atlantic. people come and go, come and go. it is not that oban is filled with people. very often the inns are filled and the careless traveler may seek eagerly if not vainly for a lodging for the night, to find his landlady a campbell of the campbells. but there is seldom a feeling of too many people in oban. they come and go, night and morning. they do not stay. in the evening the esplanade may be filled and the crowd very gala; the circle of lights marking the embankments, steamers lying at their ease after the day's work, looking, yes, like pirates, retired pirates, rakish, with tapering spars and brave red funnels, the soft plash of oars out on the bay and the moving lights of the rowboats, with perhaps--no quite certainly--a piper, or two or three, dressed in tartan, more like the red and black of the campbells in this historic region of argyle, piping up bravely "the campbells are coming, yoho, yoho." it is lively in the evening, there is always a touch of pageantry. yet oban is a very good place in which to stay and make the little foot excursions that penetrate only a few miles into the circumurban territory. the most constrained walker may find rich foot-interest out of oban; nowhere do comfort and beauty and story combine in more continuous lure. easy and attainable is dunolly castle, much more attainable than it was in the old days when the lord of the isles made his permanent seat here, and defied the world and the king; more attainable now than when scott came this way seeking "copy" and "colour" and declaring "nothing can be more beautifully wild than dunolly." to-day dunolly is beautiful, but scarcely wildly beautiful; that is, in comparison with other wild castles of this wild west; and very attainable, the walk being provided with seats all the way, casual "rest and be thankfuls," of the municipal corporation. but beyond dunolly, four miles of good highway, with loch linnhe breaking magnificently on the eye, and loch etive reaching off endlessly into the deep purple, is dunstaffnage, which, before stirling, or perth, or edinburgh, was capital of scotland and the place of destiny. very redoutable it sits on its high crag, as picturesque a castle as there is in the world--and we are in a land of castles picturesquely set. the walls above the waters lift themselves in lofty height, and promise to remain, with their great thickness presented to the consuming world. it is still towered for strength and scope, and looks its part of royal residence. here was found the stone of destiny--after jacob or another had carried this jacobite sleeping pillow hither from palestine. kenneth mcalpine, somewhat sacrilegiously, carried the stone away to perth. and edward sacrilegiously carried it down to westminster, where george v sat on it, in , or nearly on it, so as to prove his destined right. bruce took the castle from the lord of lorne, at what time he was taking all the castles of scotland. and even the bruce in his busy days of castle-storming, must have paused in this height, at these bastions, to look over this western world and decide that it was good and should be added to his scottish world. across loch linnhe he could see the bens of morven and of appin, and up loch etive, ben cruachan--even as you and i. the highlands and the islands are still primitive, man dwindles here, and the world becomes what it was before the sixth day. but the bruce did not see these brass cannon from a wreck of the armada, the bruce lived too far before that great day to see the coast "strewn with the ruined dream of spain." and he was too early for the ancient ruined gothic chapel of much austere beauty which stands near. it is from pulpit hill that oban gives the best view of all the lyric lay of this water and land world; on a clear day when the wind is from the west, when sunshine has been drenching the world, and when the sun is about to sink behind ben more. pulpit hill is a wooded steep bluff to the east of oban, at its foot parklike drives and forest-embowered cottages with their windows open to the sea, with rich roses filling the air and flaunting fuchias filling the eye. it is an easy climb, even after a day of scotch-seeing in the backward of the land. here one may sit and meditate on the life and character of david mccrae, to whom the pulpit is dedicated. or one may look over the land and "soothly swear was never yet a scene so fair." or, to borrow again from that same scottish scene painter, and another scene--"one burnished sheet of living gold." the eye runs far out over the world, across the bay of oban, across the island of kerrera, across the island of mull set against the late sky, and over to lismore which lies shining and tender against the deepening purple background of morven. the sun casts slant rays across the land and across the bay, bathing the far land in tender lilac, the sea in steely blue, while kerrera lies in patches of dark and light, a farmhouse sharp against a rose mist that rises in shallow places and quickly fades, leaving all the world purple in hue. shepherd lads and shepherd dogs may be seen at this last moment preparing to watch the flocks by night, and long horned shaggy cattle browse at peace in the fading light. flocks of birds fly over, starlings in scattered black patches, sea swallows poising for prey, and sea gulls resting on the wave after a weary day. everything is at peace. two longer excursions one must make from oban; to loch awe, to glencoe. each is possible in a day, and yet a night in glencoe is almost imperative if one would be played upon by its full tragic compass; and a lifetime of summers would not exhaust loch awe. the loch i would visit; because of its beauty; and because of kilchurn castle, which is picturesque in fact as well as in picture, on its densely wooded island with its broken outline lying against the farther mountain; because of ardchonnel castle, ivy covered, and "it's a far cry to loch awe"; because of fraoch-eilean (isle of heather) which is the island of ossian's hesperides; and because, capitally because, innishail is the island where philip gilbert hamerton established his camp through so many summers and through a number of scottish winters. [illustration: kilchurn castle.] one must belong, oh, quite to "another generation," to admit any debt of instruction or pleasure to philip gilbert hamerton. i do not think that this generation knows him, hardly as a name. but when i was young, collegiately young, hamerton was an authority on life and art, and a preceptor of beauty. and, if one read "the intellectual life," then, of course, one read the rest of him. and so, one came to loch awe before one came to loch awe. to the lake i went quite shamelessly on train. but repenting half way, over-awed by ben cruachan, as who should not be, i left the train at the "platform" and won the memory on foot. the mountain looks as high and as mighty as a rocky, and the white foaming threads of falls, hundreds of feet high, dashed down the sides in a true "rocky" splendour; like those on the cut bank or the piegan trails in glacier park, yet not quite so high. i did not climb ben cruachan to look on the atlantic--but i have not made my last journey to scotland. on foot and alone, i threaded "the dark pass of brandir," and felt in my blood and bone that something in me ancestral had been there before. perhaps we inherit where we hero-worship. in any event, sir william wallace went through this defile in , and king robert bruce in , with his faithful friend sir james douglass, fighting john of lorn (the dead are still heaped beneath these gray cairns), and going on to take dunstaffnage. sir walter scott came here when he sought environ for "the highland widow." on one side is the sheer cliff which guards the foot of ben cruachan. on the other the rapid awesome dash of the river awe. "you will not find a scene more impressive than the brandir pass, where the black narrowing water moves noiselessly at midnight between its barren precipices, or ripples against them when the wind wails through its gates of war." in the loch lies the island of innishail, still green, and not less solitary than when hamerton entertained travelers, unaware of his identity. it still carries old gravestones, for islands in the far days were the only safe places, safe for the dead as for the living; war and ravage would pass them by. throughout this western land you will find island graveyards, and the procession of quiet boats carrying the dead to their rest must have been a better expression than can be had by land. from here one sees ben cruachan to advantage, even as one saw it in with hamerton. "at this moment the picture is perfect. the sky has become an exquisite pearly green, full of gradations. there is only one lonely cloud, and that has come exactly where it ought. it has risen just beyond the summit of cruachan and pauses there like a golden disk behind a saint's white head. but this cloud is rose-colour, with a swift gradation to dark purple-gray. its under edge is sharply smoothed into a clearly-cut curve by the wind; the upper edge floats and melts away gradually in the pale green air. the cloud is shaped rather like a dolphin with its tail hidden behind the hill. the sunlight on all the hill, but especially towards the summit, has turned from mere warm light to a delicate, definite rose-colour; the shadows are more intensely azure, the sky of a deeper green. the lake, which is perfectly calm, reflects and reverberates all this magnificence. the islands, however, are below the level of the sunshine, and lie dark and cold, the deep green scotch firs on the black isles telling strongly against the snows of cruachan." it was even as hamerton had told me so long ago, a trifle different in july from what he saw it in december, but equal in magnificence, and the outlines had not changed in a half-century. and so i did not hesitate to go with hamerton to glencoe, lovely and lonely and most terrible glen. there is such a thing as being haunted, the dead do cry for revenge, the evil that men do does live after them. it is a wide valley, yet closed in by great granite precipices, for safe guarding against betrayal. the first section of the strath is calm enough, human, green, habitable, with loch leven, a branch of loch etive, sparkling in the sun. the second wide opening is terrible as massacre, not green, very stern, and wild as scottish nature, human or not, can become. even the little clachan of the macdonalds seems not to welcome the world except on suspicion. and that murder, that assassination (february , ) when william was king--william who might have been "great" except for boyne and glencoe--still fills the memory. hamerton painted the picture--"in the vastness of the valley, over the dim, silver stream that flowed away into its infinite distance, brooded a heavy cloud, stained with a crimson hue, as if the innocent blood shed there rose from the earth even yet, to bear witness against the assassins who gave the name of glen coe such power over the hearts of men. for so long as history shall be read, and treachery hated, that name, glen coe, shall thrill mankind with undiminished horror! the story is a century old now ( ). the human race has heard it talked of for over a hundred years. but the tale is as fresh in its fearful interest as the latest murder in the newspapers." yet, a half century still later, i have heard those who declared glencoe lovely and not terrible. no doubt the generation does not read history and does not feel story. we did not go on to the king's house, built in the days of king william, when roads were being driven through the highlands in order that they might be held to a doubtful stewart sovereignty. for we had read how hamerton thought it more than enough to drink a glass here, and we doubted not he had read of the trials of dorothy wordsworth, sheets that must be dried for hours before the beds could be made, the one egg for breakfast, and--could we have found that china cup that dorothy forgot? rather, we chose to return down the lake side for another look at the red roofs of the home of lord strathcona, that wizard of the nineteenth century, who had left scotland with only his wits and returned from america with his millions and a title. _iona_ there is no pilgrimage which can be taken to any shrine excelling pilgrimage to iona. and all the pilgrim way is lined with memory and paved with beauty. on almost every promontory stand ruined castles, not so frequent as the watch towers on the mediterranean heights, and therefore not so monotonous. one knows that each of these, as of those, has had its history, and here one ponders that history, perhaps tries to remember it, or, tries to evoke it. dunolly which we visited in the day's drift from oban stood up on the right with the city still in view. but it is when the firth opens into the sound that the glory of the water-world of the west comes on you. [illustration: aros castle.] the sound of mull is, so sir walter has said, "the most striking water of the hebrides." it is very lovely in this shell-pink light of early morning, it could not have looked lovelier when sir walter estimated it. the hills begin to stand boldly forth, for the gray mists of the morning are rising. it is to be a fine day, which here because of its exception means a brilliant sun-stricken day, and all things clear as geography. but, at least once, one should see things one wishes always to keep as material for remembrance and for imagination, not in the mist dimly, but face to face like this. or, as the maid of lorn in ardtornish, when she was led "to where a turret's airy head slender and steep and battled round, o'erlooked, dark mull! thy mighty sound. where thwarting tides, with mingled roar part thy swarth hills from morven's shore." on the left of mull stands the grim castle of duart on its high rock, on the right on morven the castle of ardtornish, and aros a little farther on, and kinlochalive at the top of the bay of the loch--mighty were these lords of the islands, and most mighty the lord of the isles. perhaps--it has been suggested--sir walter overstated the might of the lord, the grandeur of the islands, the splendour of those thirteenth century days. it depends on what light one views them in. tobermory is the capital of mull, and is a place of some resort. like all these little capitals it is set in the wilderness world, and what one would like best to do instead of sailing past them is to stay with them and go far into the backward. perhaps traversing mull as did mcleod of dare when he hunted so royally--and in such a moonstruck way; or david balfour when he was shipwrecked and walked through mull; or the pennells when they sought to walk through and did not take pleasure in it. it is the pilgrims who won their goal one chooses to remember--not the defeated pennells. and here--i am leaving mull and tobermory behind me, perhaps for always. suddenly one sweeps out into the atlantic! the stretch is wide, oceanic, although far and away there are islands, black lines thickening here and there the horizon edge. the sea is exquisitely, deeply blue, like the mediterranean at its best. one passes ardnamurchan point, the most westerly point of the mainland of great britain, "cape of the great seas"; how one loves the poetic grandeur, the sufficing bigness of these names, and the faith, and the limitations back of them; as though there should never be a greater world with greater seas and mountains in the greater west. to the south the boat passes trehinish isles, black gems lying on the sea. [illustration: entrance to fingal's cave.] far out on the horizon lie col and tiree, low clouds in the line. "col," i heard the professorial people--from oberlin--speak the name. "col! so that is col!" they said to each other, "so that is col off there!" "col," i said to myself, "so that is col." and we all became related through the great doctor. one is bound to staffa, incidentally, on the way to iona, and for the sake of mendelssohn. always afterward one is bound to staffa because of itself. if only one could have staffa for one's self. but there are always fellow travelers, there is no inn, no habitation here, not even a shepherd's shieling, visible from the water. there are a few sheep, a shepherd, and so there must be a shieling. to be marooned here--was it here stevenson understudied for bill gunn, and "cheese, toasted mostly"? the cave is truly wonderful, a superb cathedral nave, with dark basaltic columns lifted in marvelous regularity, and arches lifting over with groining the hand of god. "nature herself it seemed would raise a minster to her maker's praise." the broken surfaces of the walls are in mosaic with green sea grasses and gleaming limpets, and the floor is a shifting thing of surging waves. the ocean thunders through the narrow gate as it has done since the time staffa began, and since mendelssohn, a mighty organ surge, like the "overture to fingal's cave," and yet, more than that. to be here alone, to be the shepherd of staffa, and come to this cathedral, with the might and mystery of the night about, and the winds and the sea making symphony--life will always hold many things in possibility, which cannot die! from the top of staffa, if one flees the passengers a moment, may be seen the islands lying about whose names are romance, trehinish, and inchkenneth on mull and skerryvore, "the noblest of all deep sea light," a mere speck on the far atlantic--what vigils the man must have in the house of light built by stevenson's father; and on to the far north and skye; and to the near south and iona. "where is duncan's body? carried to colme-kill, the sacred storehouse of his predecessors, and guardian of their bones." very definite was shakespeare about these things. a more modern antiquarian would have doubted, and sent us wandering from pillar to post of royal burial places. but not the man who created what he declared. icolmkill--iona--certainly. that such a little island could have had such a large history. it is so small a place, yet a beautiful island withal, and with its cathedral, now alas, "restored" and "reformed," and all its far sounding memories of columba. he came up from the south as we came down from the north, but his voyage was across the wide seas to unknown goals; while we have the advantage of having come after him to iona. and yet, to columba, valiant adventuring saint, iona nor any other place was unknown goal. there was to him but one purpose in life, one goal. and he found it everywhere. it was a large life and simple, austere but with unlimited horizon, that columba lived here. it is a small exquisite life that is lived here to-day. or, perhaps my belief in its proportion and perfection came because of contact with a certain two persons, man and woman, who had taken this life to themselves. while being practical in that they sold exquisite wares, in silver and gold and brass and bronze, each article, large or little, carrying some ionian insignia, still they must have a very beautiful life, ever making things of beauty out of the historic heritage of this island. it was a large accumulation of jeweled hints they discovered here, in the ornamentations of the stones of iona. they have used them to very lovely ends. and they have lived the life of memories and of the keen sea air. one may have forty minutes, or day after day in iona. and, of course, the reward and the intimacy is in proportion. it is a quiet fragment of land, the little village with its white-washed cottages in prim lines, and its simple cotters, perhaps a little more sophisticated than those of other western islands because of their continuing contact with a curious world; and yet these men and women and serious children live here the year round, and in winter there is no world, and the atlantic thunders on the little land as though one beat of the wave would carry all into the abyss, or smashes on the rough granite coast of mull across the strait. the western shore of the island is cruel, even on a summer day. and if the "merry men" ran their violent ways on the shore of mull, there are other merry men just as merry, just as lurking. as mcleod of dare saw it-- "could anything have been more beautiful than this magnificent scene ... the wildly rushing seas, coming thunderingly on the rocks, or springing so high in the air that the snow-white foam showed black against the glare of the sky; the near islands gleaming with a touch of brown on their sunward side; the dutchman's cap with its long brim and conical center, and lunga also like a cap with a shorter brim and a higher peak in front, becoming a trifle blue. and then col and tiree lying like a pale strip on the far horizon; while far away in the north the mountains of rum and skye were faint and spectral in the haze of sunlight. then the wild coast around, with its splendid masses of granite; and its spare grass a brown-green in the warm sun, and its bays of silver sand; and its sea birds whiter than the clouds that came sailing over the blue." on many of these western islands, and the northern, and it is said particularly on the far northern shetlands, there are some dark somber faces remaining over from the armada. the sea has never been kind; it breaks the rocks, it breaks men. there are low-lying hills, the chief is dun i, there are pasture lands, and still there are fields of wheat and clover. just before he died, columba was carried out to see the men at work in the fields. no doubt he lifted his eyes and looked around, on his little island, and the great sea, and the great world beyond. no doubt he wished he might live longer and labour farther. st. columba who carried the gospel and his gentle irish gospel from the sixth century of ireland into the far north until it swung round and met in durham and york the gospel and the culture coming up from rome; and that neither so polished nor so christian. yes, even columba regretted leaving the world behind him, though he was going to the other world. yes, i am certain he regretted leaving the island world behind him. did he not sing of his longing-- "delightful would it be to me to be in _uchd ailiun_ on the pinnacle of a rock, that i might often see the face of the ocean; that i might hear the song of the wonderful birds, source of happiness; that i might hear the thunder of the crowding waves upon the rocks; at times at work without compulsion-- that would be delightful; at times plucking dulse from the rocks; at times fishing." thirteen hundred years ago; and the song is undimmed, and the world has not faded. the port of the coracle on the far side is still open to boats adventuring across pleasant or perilous seas. the very rock on which columba landed, the traveler seeking the subtle transubstantiation from the past may stand on. and there is the white beach of the monks, where the companions of columba paced to and fro in those days and in this lovely land that seems too far away to be believed in. [illustration: cathedral of iona and st. martin's cross.] the entire island is the shrine of the saint, and not only the cathedral of iona. in truth this particular church dates from six hundred years later than columba, six hundred years backward from us. the crosses that stand in the cemetery of st. oran, st. martin's and the maclean, the only two left out of nearly four hundred, cannot date much farther back than this, or than "gentle duncan." there is a long line of graves, each with its aged granite slab, of the kings, norwegian and irish and scottish, of those early centuries. i do not remember that i saw the one that speaks of duncan. but i do remember that the carvings were very curious and often very fascinating, the "pattern" intricate and intriguing. once the cathedral was a place of magic, an unroofed broken shrine, where the winds might wander in search of the past, and where the moonlight might shine through as lovely a casement, tracery as exquisite, as at fair melrose. if the generations coming six hundred years after us are to know of st. columba, and not to reproach us for our coöperation with time the vandal, these roofs, this protection, must be afforded. still, the gate is so close locked to-day that even joseph pennell could not steal in, and so closely watched that no black lamb or ram or other hobgoblin could affright miss gertrude white or cause her to cease loving the daring mcleod of dare. yet, if one resolves as did boswell, to leave the close inspection to dr. johnson, and "to stroll among them at my ease, to take no trouble to investigate minutely, and only receive the general impression of solemn antiquity," one will come upon much that is of particular impression, like the carvings about and on the capitals, with the early grace of the later italians; quite worth careful preserving. and here is the altar, and i doubt not at this very spot--church shrines continue in this steadfast scotland--columba knelt before the god whose worship he had brought over the seas, and was to carry still farther over land and seas. there may be one shrine in the christian world more sacred. but not more than one. dr. johnson is still quite right--"the man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of iona." the storm did not come, although we waited three days for it. nothing but calm in the island of iona, and peace on the deep of the atlantic; tender dawns, still high noons, twilights of soft visible gray that lasted over to the next morning; a land of hushed winds and audible sounds, the seas lying like glass. not even on a sunday morning when in a coracle, or some such smaller boat than one usually cares to venture, perhaps a lug, whatever that may be, we accompanied the clergyman to the mainland of mull, and watched the stern sad faces of these far away folk as they listened to a very simple sermon of an old simple story. i remembered that at earraid, robert louis stevenson had been interested in the religious services held for the workmen who were cutting stone for a lighthouse building by thomas stevenson. from these people religion will go very late, if at all. surely men and women need what columba brought hither, now as ever. and because of david balfour i walked a little way into mull, which still must look as he saw it, for except for the roadway it looked as though i were the first who had ever ventured that way since time and these rough granite heaps began. "sing me a song of a lad that is gone, say, could that lad be i? merry of soul he sailed on a day over the sea to skye. "mull was astern, rum on the port, egg on the starboard bow; glory of youth glowed in his soul: where is that glory now? "give me again all that was there, give me the sun that shone! give me the eyes, give me the soul, give me the lad that's gone!" chapter x the lakes all the world goes to the trossachs. yet there are only two kinds of people who should go, and they are as widely separated as the poles; those who are content and able to take the trossachs as a beautiful bit of the world, like any lake or mountain country which is unsung, and then they will not take it but merely look at it; and those who know the trossachs as theirs, the trossachs, who can repeat it all from-- "the stag at eve had drunk his fill where danced the moon on monan's rill, and deep his midnight lair had made in lone glenartney's hazel shade. on to "the chain of gold the king unstrung the links o'er malcolm's neck he flung then gently drew the golden band and laid the clasp in ellen's hand." half knowledge is exasperating to those who have whole knowledge; and half love--half love is maddening, should lead to massacre by those whose love is all in all. i cannot remember when i did not know "the lady of the lake"--which, of course, is the trossachs. it is as though i knew it when i first knew speech, lisped in numbers and the numbers came. it was the first grown-up book i ever owned, and i own the copy yet. it is not a first edition, this my first and only edition. i presume that in those far away days when it was given to me, "a christmas gift"--i always chose to receive it from my scottish grandmother, though she had been dead thirty years before i came--i might have had a first edition for a song; but the preciousness of first editions had not yet become a fetich. since then i have looked with respect and affection on that impress of " ." i have never looked on it with longing. so much better, that first edition of mine, an ordinary sage-green cloth-bound book, with ornamental black and gold title, such as the inartistic eighties sent forth; i do like to note that the year of its imprint is the year of my possession. it has not even a gilt edge, i am pleased to state. the paper is creamy, the ink is not always clear. and because it went through one fire and flood, the pages have little brown ripples, magic marginal notes. there is not a penciled margin in the whole volume. that, in a book owned by one who always reads with a pencil in hand, is beyond understanding! and yet it was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea. memory was tremendously active then, not quite the memory of a macaulay, but still one reading, or at least one and a half, was sufficient to thrust the rimes of these two-edged couplets into unsurrendering possession. criticism was in abeyance; there is not even a mark among the notes. i cannot be certain that i read them. who reads notes at the age of eight? i remember how my acquaintance began with "the lady of the lake," even before i read it. in those days there was little literature for children, and there was prejudice against that which was provided. there was especial prejudice in my own household. i think my teacher in school may have shared it. if he were an adult he would read, ostensibly to us, but for himself, something he could tolerate. yes, it was he; an exception in those days, for in the public schools men seldom taught in "the grades." he must have been a young man, not more than nineteen or twenty, waiting to mature in his profession. and scotch, as i think it now; not only because his name was kennedy, but because of his highland dark eyes and hair, and because of certain uncanny skill in mathematics--as i thought who had not even a moiety--and because, oh, very much because, of the splendid tussle he had--tulzie! that's the word--a very battle royal to my small terrified fascinated vision, there on the school-room floor, with the two dempsey boys, who were much older than the rest of us; they must have been as old as fourteen! one merited the punishment and was getting it. the other, with clan loyalty, came to his rescue. and the highlander, white to the lips, and eyes black-and-fire, handled them both. oh, it was royal understudy to the combat at coilantogle ford-- "ill fared it then with roderick dhu when on the field his targe he threw." _the trossachs_ to write a guide to the trossachs--that has been done and done more than once; done with much minutiæ, with mathematics, with measurement; to-day it is possible to follow the stag at eve, and all the rest of it, in all its footsteps; to follow much more accurately than did even sir walter; to follow vastly more accurately than did james fitz james. for, in the first place, the world is not so stupendous a place as it was in the days of fitz james, or of sir walter. the rockies and the andes have been sighted, if not charted, and beside them the grampians look low enough. yet, fortunately, the situation can never be "beside them." the most remembering traveler has crossed the seas and buried his megalomanian american memories, let it be hoped, in the depths of the atlantic. neither rockies nor andes carry so far or so rich memories. sir walter has never projected an imaginary roderick dhu or a king errant into any of the majesty or loveliness of those empty lakes and mountains. i can imagine in what spirit the pennells came to loch lomond and declared that it "looked like any other lake." dr. johnson was quite right, sir. "water is the same everywhere," to those who think water is water. of course the traveler should not come upon the land by way of lomond. fitz james came from stirling. he came to subdue the highlands. they were seething in revolt--for no other reason than that highlanders so long as they were highlanders had to seethe and revolt. and if we would subdue the highlands or have them subdue us, we must follow the silver horn of the knight of snowdoun when he rode out of stirling; to subdue, yes, and to adventure. yet perhaps it is better to have possessed scotland, en tour, and to go back to stirling with fitz james, as a captive, but bearing the golden ring-- "ellen, thy hand--the ring is thine, each guard and usher knows the sign." so one leaves glasgow, the unromantic, threading through its miles of prosperity and unbeauty, passing dumbarton where wallace was prisoner, passing the river leven, which ought to interest us, for once its "pure stream" on his own confession laved the "youthful limbs" of tobias smollett, until the open country is reached and loch lomond swims into sight. "by yon bonnie banks, and by yon bonnie braes where the sun shines bright on loch lomond, there me and my true love spent mony happy days, on the bonnie bonnie banks of loch lomond." no, the pennells might criticize "me and my true love." as for us, we mean to be romantic and sentimental and unashamed and ungrammatical. and spend mony days; harry lauder would spell and spend it, "money." [illustration: dumbarton castle.] the lake opens wide and free in the lowland country of balloch. at the left lies glenfruin, the glen of wailing, where took place the terrible clan battle between the macgregors and colquhouns, where the macgregors were victorious. but as scott wrote, "the consequences of the battle of glenfruin were very calamitous to the family of macgregor." sixty widows of the colquhouns rode to stirling each on a white palfrey, a "choir of mourning dames." james vi, that most moral monarch, let loose his judicious wrath, the very name of the clan was proscribed, fire and sword pursued the macgregors. the highlanders are dauntless. there still exist macgregors and with the macgregor spirit. and who that heard the glasgow choir sing the superb "macgregors gathering"--thain' a grigalach--but will gather at the cry, "the macgregor is come!" "the moon's on the lake, and the mist's on the brae, and the clan has a name that is nameless by day; then gather, gather, gather, grigalach! gather, gather, gather. "if they rob us of name and pursue us with beagles, give their roofs to the flame, and their flesh to the eagles, then vengeance, vengeance, vengeance, grigalach! vengeance, vengeance, vengeance. "through the depths of loch katrine the steed shall career, o'er the peak of ben lomond the galley shall steer, then gather, gather, gather, grigalach! gather, gather, gather." there are twenty-four islands marooned in this part of the lake; for according to the old legend, one of these was a floating island and so to chain one they chained all. the first island is inch murrin, at which i looked with due respect, for it is a deer park of the present duke of montrose. i know not if he is descended from the montrose, or from malcolm graeme and fair ellen, but let us believe it; it does not do to smile at the claims of long descent in this persisting scotland. the duke lives in buchanan castle, near the lake. also he owns ben lomond. also--i read it in "more leaves" of queen victoria's journal--"duke of montrose to whom half of loch lomond belongs." it was here that dorothy wordsworth looked and recorded, "it is an outlandish scene; we might have believed ourselves in north america." and so, i knew the lomond country for my own. the steep, steep sides of ben lomond are in view at the top of the loch, but the ballad may well have contented itself with the sides. for i know one traveler who wished to be loyal to the ben, and having seen it in , and not seen it for the thick scotch mist, returned again in , and had her only day of rain in sailing across loch lomond. the ballad turned into a coronach-- "but the broken heart kens nae second spring though resigned we may be while we're greetin'. ye'll tak the highway and i'll tak the low way." it is all macgregor country, that is to say rob roy country. we are bound for inversnaid, so was he. all about lomond he had his ways, rob roy's prison, rob roy's cave, rob roy's grave, and all. and though there are other claims hereabout, and although robert bruce himself preceded robert roy in the cave, such is the power of the wizard that it is the later robert one permits to inhabit these places. we remembered that queen victoria had preferred the roads to the steamer. so we left the boat at rowardennan pier. not to walk the pleasant ambling highways, that by some good public fortune run near the "bonny bonny banks," and, in spite of the duke of montrose, make the lake belong to us, to whom, of course, it does belong, but to walk to the top of the ben. the path, if one keeps the path, and he should, is safe, the gradation easy; an american is like to smile at the claims of long ascent of a mountain which is but feet from the sea to top. but let one wander ever little from the path, attempt to make a new and direct descent, and let one of those mists which hang so near a scotch day actually descend upon the top of the ben--it is not the mildest sensation to find one's foot poised just at the edge of a precipice. it is not well to defy these three thousand feet because one has climbed higher heights. ben lomond can do its bit. and it can furnish a panorama which the taller ben nevis cannot rival, cannot equal. the castle rocks of stirling and of edinburgh, on a clean clear day; nearer, ben ledi and ben venue, names to thrill a far remembrance; ben cruachan, bringing the mull country from near remembrance. and farther across, pale but apparent, the mountains of ireland. a marvel of vision. at inversnaid one is again with dorothy wordsworth. it was here or hereabouts that william dropped the package of lunch in the water. so like william! i wonder dorothy let him carry it. it was here william saw the highland girl, and wrote those lovely lines of her-- "now thanks to heaven! that of its grace hath led me to this lonely place. joy have i had; and going hence i bear away my recompense. in spots like these it is we prize our memory; feel that she hath eyes.... for i, methinks, till i grow old, as fair before me shall behold, as i do now, the cabin small, the lake, the bay, the waterfall; and thee, the spirit of them all!" and now one really begins to thrill. one is really going to loch katrine, to the trossachs. the road is preferable, five miles of foot-pleasure, as against the filled coaches with perhaps "gallant grays," and certainly fellow travelers who quote and misquote the lines. no, it shall be on foot, up through the steep glen of arklet water, out on the high open moor where the highland cattle browse, with ben voirlich constantly in view, and ben venue coming even to meet us; with william and dorothy wordsworth and coleridge walking beside us all the way. (dorothy always called it "ketterine," but then, she came hither seven years before "the lady" was published.) the old highland fort was a perplexity to the wordsworths. william thought it a hospice like those he had seen in switzerland, and even later when told it was a fort dorothy did not quite believe. it was built at the time of the fifteen to keep caterans--of which rob roy was one--in subjection. and the american looks with interest because here, in his youth--which was all he ever had in truth--general wolfe, who fell on the heights of abraham but won quebec, commanded the fort of this highland height. i could but wonder how the french travelers who throng these scotch highways feel when they remember this victor over montcalm. now that they have fought together "somewhere in france," no doubt they feel no more keenly than an englishman at bannockburn. there is not too much lure to keep one's mind and one's feet from loch katrine. there was a piper on the way, tall and kilted in the tartan of the macgregor. (helen macgregor, wife of rob roy, was born at loch arklet, and across the hill in glengyle rob roy was born, conveniently.) the piper piped most valiantly. i should like to have set him a "blawin'" o' the pipes with our piper on the caledonian loch, something like the tilt which alan breck had with robinoig, son of rob roy. [illustration: loch katrine.] the road drops down to stronachlachar. through the hill defile one catches the gleam, and quickly "the sheet of burnished gold" rolls before the eye. it is more splendid than when dorothy wordsworth viewed it, "the whole lake appeared a solitude, neither boat, islands, nor houses, no grandeur in the hills, nor any loveliness on the shores." poor dorothy! she was hungry and tired, and did not know where she should lay her head. later, next day, at the farther end, she loved it, "the perfection of loveliness and beauty." as for us, it was early morning, we had breakfasted, fate could not harm us, and we knew our way. we were approaching it from the direction opposite to majesty, the soft gray clouded stillness, early out of the morning world. but scott had seen this picture also-- "the summer's dawn reflected hue to purple changed loch katrine blue; mildly and soft the western breeze just kissed the lake, just stirr'd the trees, and the pleased lake, like maiden coy trembled but dimpled not for joy; the mountain shadows on her breast were neither broken nor at rest; in bright uncertainty they lie, like future joys to fancy's eye. the water-lily to the light her chalice rear'd of silver bright; the doe awoke and to the lawn begemm'd with dewdrops, led her fawn. the gray mist left the mountain side, the torrent show'd its glistening pride, invisible in flecked sky, the lark sent down her revelry; the black-bird and the speckled thrush good morrow gave from brake and bush; in answer coo'd the cushat dove, her notes of peace, and rest, and love." here we hit upon a device to possess loch katrine, both "going and coming," to see the lake at dawn, simply as beauty, and then to come upon it as came fitz james. with a glass of milk for fast-breaking--we had had a substantial breakfast at inversnaid, and this glass was but for auld lang syne, a pledge of my companion to her early memories--we set out for "far loch ard or aberfoyle." i think had we known how very modern is this way which curves about the west side of katrine we might have shunned it. certain the stag would have done it. he did, you remember; refusing to charge upon ben venue, and thus avoiding the future site of the water works of the corporation of the city of glasgow. perhaps glasgow is the best equipped municipality in the world. yet, what city but glasgow would have tapped loch katrine to furnish water for glaswegians! our road ran in the deep defile that lies between the two great bens, lomond ( ) and venue ( ). the top of lomond was clear in the increasing sunlight, but mists still skirted his feet; while venue was mist-clad from base to summit, the thin white veils tearing every now and then, as they swayed against the pine trees jagged tops, and lifting and then settling again. and soon, we were at "far loch ard." it is a lovely little bit of water; we wondered why the stag was not tempted to turn aside hither--but then, we remembered, the stag did know, did save himself. fishermen were out in their boats, and altogether we decided that if the stag did not come here we should, in the distant time when we should spend a summer in this highland peace. ard is little, but a large-in-little, a one-act play to lomond's big drama. we chose our "seat," and we hoped that the owner of the glashart would be gracious when we sent him word of his eviction. glashart is a short way above the pass of aberfoyle where, to our pleasure, the troops of cromwell were defeated by graham of duchray. but this time, after twelve miles of walk, come noontide and a keen appetite, like the stag who "pondered refuge from his toil" we were content to house ourselves in the hotel at aberfoyle. we chose the one called "baillie nicol jarvie," because this is all rob roy country. in truth we felt at home with the baillie, and with the forth flowing in front of the town, and the old clachan of aberfoyle marked by a few stones. in the late afternoon of this already full day we found there was a coach leaving for lake menteith which would return in the late twilight, too late for dinner, but baillie nicol was kind and we could have supper on our return. so we were off to menteith, and to an old memory, reaching back to the daughter of james fitz james. but at this far distance she seemed to belong to an older day. menteith is a little lake, a fragment of the abundant blue of scotland's waters, and it is surrounded by hills that are heather clad; only the southern shore is wooded. near the southern shore lies anchored the island of inchmahone--isle of rest--where once stood a priory, and now only a few arches keep the shadowy memory in their green covert. the stones of the dead lie about, for the isle of rest was an island of burial. hither came mary queen of scots, when she was five years old, here for an island of refuge, since the defeat at pinkie meant that henry viii was nearer and nearer the little life that stood between him and scotland's throne-- "o ye mariners, mariners, mariners, that sail upon the sea, let not my father nor mother to wit, the death that i maun die!" she came with her four maries, and together they went to france, together they made merry and made love at the french court, and, all unscathed, they returned fifteen years later-- "yestreen the queen had four maries, to-night she'll hae but three; there was marie seton, and marie beatoun, and marie carmichael and me--" it was as though she were lost from the world, as we went back in the dimming day; almost the only time i have ever lost her since historic memories came to be my own personal memories. and yet, i knew i should find her again. mary is one of the women who do not go into exile once they have made harbour in the affections. next day, half by a hill-road and half by a foot-path, with mountains whose names were poems evoking the one poem of the region, with the far view, and with birches closing in the highway now and then, and now and then opening into a near-far view of glen and stream and strath and path, we came to--the trossachs. it is a walk of perhaps eight miles through a charming memory-haunted land, lovely certainly, lonely; there were few people to be met with, but there was no sense of desertion. it was a day of quick clouds, rushing across a deep blue, compact white clouds which say nothing of rain, and very vivid air, the surfaces and the shadows being closely defined. the birch leaves played gleefully over the path as we left the highway, and that sweet shrewd scent of the birch leaf, as i "pu'd a birk" now and then, completed the thrill, the ecstasy--if one may be permitted the extravagance. "but ere the brig o' turk was won the headmost horseman rode alone, alone, but with unbated zeal--" here i should take up the thread of the old poem and weave it entire. but first because i had come adventuring, even like the gudeman o' ballengeich, and taking my chances as they came along, and meeting no highland girl and no fair ellen, i did seek out lodgings in one of the cottages which cluster about the foot of glen finglas, typical highland cottages. not the kind, i regret and do not regret, which dorothy wordsworth describes with such triumph, where william and dorothy and coleridge put up--"we caroused our cups of coffee, laughing like children," over the adventure; but still a cottage, with a single bed room. these cottages, no doubt because artists now and then inhabit them and because all the world passes by and because they are on montrose property, are what the artist and the poet mean by a cottage, low-browed, of field stone, and rose-entwined. [illustration: the brig o' turk.] the hurried traveler with no time to spare and no comforts, lodges at the trossachs hotel, which aspires to look like a lady-of-the-lake abbotsford, and is, in truth, of an awesome splendour like some del monte or ponce de leon. there is a parish church--i heard the bell far off in the woods--near the hotel, but standing mid "the copsewood gray that waved and wept on loch achray." it waved gently, and wept not at all that peaceful sunday morning when we made our way by path and strath into the dell of peace. the people coming from the countryside repossess their own, and of course the tourists are not in the church, or if there, with a subdued quality. the coaches do not run, and there fell a peace over all the too well known, too much trodden land, which restored it to the century in which it truly belongs. in the late afternoon, under that matchless sky which the wind had swept clear of even rapid clouds--we were glad we could match it by no other scottish sky, and only by the sky which shone down when we first came to the lake, that æon ago--and by the scant two miles that lie between the brig and the lake, "stepping westward," we followed the far memory till it was present. the road leads through the forest beautifully, peacefully. if on that early september day no birds sang, still one missed nothing, not even the horn of the knight of snowdoun. the paths twine and retwine, through this bosky birchen wood, with heather purple, and knee deep on either side, and through the trees swift glimpses of the storied mountains. suddenly the way changes, the ground breaks, rocks heap themselves, a gorge appears,--it is the very place! "dashing down a darksome glen, soon lost to hound and hunter's ken, in the deep trossachs' wildest nook his solitary refuge took." i can never forget the thrill i had in the old schoolroom when mr. kennedy first read the story and i knew that the stag had escaped. i felt even more certain of it in this wild glen. surely he must be in there still. and so i refused to go and find him. [illustration: _the trossachs_] i could not discover where fell the gallant gray. i mean i was without guide and could map my own geography out of my own more certain knowledge. so i chose a lovely green spot--notwithstanding my remembrance of "stumbling in the rugged dell"--encircled with oak and birch, the shadows lying athwart it as they would write the legend. "woe worth the chase, woe worth the day, that costs thy life, my gallant gray." and then, by a very pleasant path, instead of the tortuous ladderlike way which james fitz james was forced to take, i came again to the lake, splendid in the evening as it had been mysterious in the morning. "the western waves of ebbing day roll'd o'er the glen their level way; each purple peak, each flinty spire, was bathed in floods of living fire. but not a setting beam could glow within the dark ravine below, where twined the path in shadow hid, round many a rocky pyramid, shooting abruptly from the dell its thunder-splintered pinnacle." no shallop set out when i raised my imaginary horn and blew my imaginary salute to the lovely isle. there were no boats to hire, on this sunday, and i was not malcolm græme to swim the space. but there it lay, bosky and beautiful, a green bit of peace in a blue world. nothing could rob me of my memory of loch katrine, not even the very lake itself. _stirling_ stirling stands up boldly--in the midst of scotland. that is the feeling i had in coming on it by train from the west. highlanders coming on it from the north, english coming on it from the south, must have seen even more conclusively that stirling rises out of the midst of scotland. i should have preferred to approach it on foot. but then, this is the only conquering way in which to make one's descent on any corner of the world one seeks to possess; either on one's own valiant two feet or on the resounding four feet of a battle charger. alas, to-day one does neither. but--there lies stirling rising from the water-swept plain, through the gray of a scotch morning, entirely worthy of being "taken," and looking completely the part it has played in scottish history. scotland is curiously provided with these natural forts, the rocks of edinburgh and dumbarton and stirling. they have risen out of the plain, for the defense and the contention of man. and because stirling lies, between east and west, between north and south, it has looked down on more history, seen more armies advance and retreat than--any other one place in the world? standing upon its wind-swept battlements--i can never think that the wind dies down on the heights of stirling--one looks upon the panorama of scottish history. the lomonds lie blue and far to the east, the grampians gray and stalwart to the north, and on the west the peaks of the highlands, ben lomond and all the hills that rampart "the lady of the lake." all around the sky were ramparts of low-lying clouds, lifting themselves here and there at the corners of the world into splendid impregnable bastions. stirling looks a part of this ground plan, of this sky battlement. soldiers, from yonder heights!--and you know the rest. from this height you who are far removed from those our wars, a mere human speck in the twentieth century look down on seven battlefields. did pharaoh see more, or as much, from cheops? the long list runs through a thousand years and is witness to the significance of stirling. here, in , was fought the battle of cambuskenneth, and the painted people fell back, and kenneth, who did not paint, made himself king of an increasing scotland. here, in , was fought the battle of stirling bridge, and william wallace with a thousand men--but scotsmen--defeated the earl of surrey and the abbot cressingham with five thousand englishmen. here, in , was fought the battle of falkirk, and wallace was defeated. but not for long. dead, he continued to speak. here, in , was fought the battle of bannockburn, forty thousand scots against a hundred thousand english, irish and gascons. and the bruce established scotland forever. here, in , was fought the battle of sauchieburn, the nobles against james iii, and james flying from the field was treacherously slain. here, in , was fought the battle of sheriffmuir, when mar and albany with all their men marched up the hill of muir and then marched down again. here, in , prince charles experienced one of his great moments; how his great moments stand forth in the pathos, yes, and the bathos, of his swift career. it is a tremendous panorama. "scots, wha ha'e wi' wallace bled! scots, wham bruce has aften led!" i listened while the guide went through with the battle, which, of course, is the battle of bannockburn. how the bruce disposed his army to meet the english host he knew was coming up from the south to relieve the castle garrison; how they appeared at st. ninians suddenly, and the ever-seeing bruce remarked to moray, who had been placed in charge of that defense--"there falls a rose from your chaplet"--it is almost too romantic not to be apocryphal; and how moray (who was the randolph moray who scaled the crags at edinburgh that march night) countered the english dash for the castle and won out; how in the evening of the day as king robert was inspecting his lines for the battle of the to-morrow, a to-morrow which had been scheduled the year before--"unless by st. john's day"; they had then a sense of leisure--the english knight sir henry de bohun spurred upon him to single combat; it is worth while listening to the broad scots of the guide as he repeats his well-conned, his well-worn, but his immortal story-- "high in his stirrups stood the king and gave his battle-ax the swing, right on de boune, the whiles he passed, fell that stern dint--the first, the last, such strength upon the blow was put, the helmet crashed like hazel nut." and all the battle the next day, until king edward rides hot-trod to berwick, leaving half his host dead upon this pleasant green field that lies so unremembering to the south of the castle. there is no more splendid moment in human history, unless all battles seem to you too barbaric to be splendid. but it made possible a nation--and, i take it, scotland has been necessary to the world. if this is too overwhelming a remembrance, there is an opposite to this, looking across the level lands of the carse. the view leads past the bridge of allan, on to dunblane, near which is the hill of sheriffmuir. you can see the two armies in the distance of time and of the plain, creeping on each other unwittingly--and the guide, too, is glad to turn to a later and less revered moment-- "some say that we wan, some say that they wan, and some say that nane wan at a', man; but o' ae thing i'm sure, that at sheriffmuir a battle there was that i saw, man; and we ran, and they ran, and they ran, and we ran, and they ran and we ran awa', man." to-day the wind has swept all these murmurs of old wars into the infinite forgotten. the world is as though macalpine and wallace and the bruce and prince charles had not been. or, is it? it looks that way, at this quiet moment, in this quiet century, and in this country where there is such quiet; a country with such a long tumult, a country with such a strange silence. but the rest of the world would never have been as it is but for the events that lie thick about here, but for the race which was bred in such events. "and the castle stood up black with the red sun at its back." there is something more dour about stirling than edinburgh. it is, in the first place, too useful. one never thinks of the castle at edinburgh as anything but romantic, of the troops as anything but decorative. stirling is still used, much of it closed, and it has the bare, uninviting look of a historic place maintained by a modern up-keep. evidently when burns visited it he found a ruin, and was moved to express his jacobitism--would a poet be anything but a jacobite?-- "here stuarts once in glory reign'd, and laws for scotland's weal ordain'd; but now unroof'd their palace stands, their scepter's sway'd by other hands; the injured stuart line is gone, a race outlandish fills their throne--" soon after you enter the gate you come upon the dungeon of roderick dhu, and here you get the beginnings of that long song of the lake, which lies to the west, when allan bane tunes his harp for roderick-- "fling me the picture of the fight, when my clan met the saxon's might, i'll listen, till my fancy hears the clang of swords, the crash of spears!" you may look into the douglass room, where james ii stabbed the earl of douglass ( ). it is a dark room for a dark deed. and the guide repeats douglass's refusal to the king: [illustration: _stirling castle_] "no, by the cross it may not be! i've pledged my kingly word. and like a thunder cloud he scowled, and half unsheathed his sword. then drew the king that jewel'd glaive which gore so oft had spilt, and in the haughty douglass heart he sheathed it to the hilt." the douglasses, we see, still thought themselves "peer to any lord in scotland here," and the provocation to the stewart, merely a second stewart, must have been great--"my kingly word"! and a "half sheathed" sword! perhaps we shall have to forgive this second james about whom we know little but this affair, who seems as ineffective a monarch as james the second of two centuries later. it is rather with mary, and with her father and her son, that we associate stirling. james v took his commoner title of "the gudeman of ballengeich" from here, when he went abroad on those errantries which all the stewarts have dearly loved. at stirling it seems more possible that james v did write those poems which, yesterday in edinburgh i felt like attributing to james iv. north of the bridge there is a hill, moat hill, called familiarly hurley haaky, because the fifth james enjoyed here the rare sport of coasting down hill on a cow's skull. the scot can derive coasting from "hurley" and skull from "haaky"--a clever people! queen mary was brought to stirling when a wee infant and crowned in the old high church, september , --and cried all the time they were making her queen. surely "it came with ane lass and it will pass with ane lass." it was from stirling that she was taken to france, and when she returned she included stirling in her royal progress. i cannot think she was much here. mary was not dour. still, historic rumour has her married here, secretly to darnley, and, in the rooms of rizzio! and she came here once to see her princely son, hurriedly, almost stealthily, as if she felt impending fate. that son was much here. stirling was considered a safer place for james vi than edinburgh, and then, of course, it was such a covenanted place. james was baptized here also, and his royal mother was present, but not darnley. he refused to come, but sat carousing--as usual--in willie bell's lodging, still standing in broad street, if you care to look on it. young james merely looked at the ceiling of the high church, and pointing his innocent finger at it, gravely criticized, "there is a hole." james was crowned in the high church, mary being at loch leven, and the coronation sermon was preached by knox, who "enjoyed the proudest triumph of his life." then, i know, baby james had to sit through a two or three hour sermon. for once i am sorry for him. from the courtyard one sees the iron bars in the palace windows placed there to keep james from falling out--and others from stealing in? and here in the royal apartments, king james was taught his latin and greek like any other scots boy, and by that same george buchanan who was his mother's instructor--and her defamer. perhaps he was the author of the betraying casket letter; in spite of froude's criticism based on internal evidence, that only shakespeare or mary could have written it. i can almost forgive buchanan, for at one time when james was making more noise than beseemed a pupil of buchanan, this schoolmaster birched him then and there, whereupon the royal tear fell, and the royal yowl was lifted--and lady mar rushed in to quiet this uproarious division in the kingdom. the archives of stirling were once rich in scottish records. but general monk removed them to london when he moved on that capital with the king also in his keeping. years and years after, when scotland demanded back her records, they were sent by sea, the ship foundered, and sunk--and we have a right to accept legend as history in this land of lost records. one may use stirling castle for lovelier ends than history or battle, for temporal ends of beauty--which is not temporal. else would the prospect from these ramparts not linger immortally in the memory and flash upon the inward eye as one of the most wonderful views in all the world. from queen mary's lookout there is the king's park, with the king's knot, the mysterious octagonal mound; it may have looked lovelier when mary looked down on its flower gardens and its orchards, but this green world is sightly. from the battlements above the douglass garden there is a magnificent survey; the rich carse of broad alluvial land with the links of the firth winding in and out among the fields, shining, and steely, reluctant to widen out into the sea. the ochils from the far background, and nearer is the abbey craig, thickly wooded and crowned by the wallace monument, which while it adds nothing to the beauty of the scene, would have made such a commanding watch tower for wallace. just below is the old bridge which--not this bridge, but it looks old enough with its venerable five hundred years--divided the english forces. near by, on one of the links, stands the tower of cambuskenneth abbey, a pleasant walk through fields and a ferry ride across the forth, to this memoried place, which once was a great abbey among abbeys; i doubt not david founded it. bruce once held a parliament in it. now it is tenanted chiefly by the mortal remains of that third james who took flight from sauchieburn, and whose ghost so haunted his nobles for years after. queen margaret also lies here, she who sat stitching, stitching, stitching, while those same nobles raged through linlithgow and sought their king. cambuskenneth--the name is splendid--is but a remnant of grandeur. but there are a few charming cottages nearby, rose-embowered, perhaps with roses that descend from those in mary's garden. across to the north is the bridge of allan, come to be a celebrated watering place-- "on the banks of allan water none so fair as she." far across to the north is dunblane, with a restored-ruined cathedral-- "the sun has gone down o'er the lofty ben lomond and left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene, while lanely i stray in the calm simmer gloamin' to muse on sweet jessie the flower o' dunblane." in the green nestle of the woods, away to the right, are the battlements of doune-- "oh, lang will his lady look frae the castle doune, ere she see the earl o' moray come sounding through the toun." the bonnie earl was murdered at donibristle castle, on inverkeithing bay across the forth from edinburgh, where the king sent his lordship--"oh, woe betide ye, huntly"--to do the deed. it was our same kingly james vi, and i like to think that his life had its entertaining moments, even if anne of denmark did have to look long and longingly down from the battlements of doune. the lookout to the north is called the victoria--as if to link victoria with mary! but the old queen was proudest of her blood from the eternally young queen. an inscription on the wall registers the fact that queen victoria and the prince consort visited the castle in . and not any sovereign since until . [illustration: doune castle.] i had reached the city in the mid-afternoon, unconscious of royalty, that is, of living royalty, as one is in scotland. it seems that the king and queen, george and mary, were making a visit to stirling. consequently there were no carriages at the station--and one must be very careful how one walked on the royal crimson carpet. two small boys who scorned royalty, were impressed into service, to carry bags to the hotel. but the press of the people was too great. the king and queen had issued from the castle, were coming back through the town "the castle gates were open flung, the quivering drawbridge rock'd and rung, and echo'd loud the flinty street beneath the coursers' clattering feet, as slowly down the steep descent fair scotland's king and nobles went." i took refuge in a bank building, and even secured a place at the windows. for some reason the thrifty people had not rented these advantageous casements. the king and queen passed. i saw them plainly--yes, plainly. and the people were curiously quiet. they did not mutter, they were decorous, there was no repudiation, but--what's a king or queen of diluted stewart blood to scotsmen of this undiluted town? that afternoon in the castle i understood. an elderly scotsman--i know of no people whom age so becomes, who wear it with such grace and dignity and retained power--looking with me at the memorial tablet to queen victoria and prince albert, in the west lookout, explained--"it's seventy years since royalty has been here. not from that day to this." it seems that on the old day, the day of , when royalty rode in procession through the streets of stirling, the commoners pressed too close about. it offended the queen; she liked a little space. (i remembered the old pun perpetrated by lord palmerston, when he was with queen victoria at the reviewing of the troops returned from the crimea, and at the queen's complaining that she smelled spirits, "pam" explained--"yes, esprit de corps.") so she returned not at all to stirling. i could wish king edward had, the one hanoverian who has succeeded in being a stewart. the view is almost as commanding from ladies rock in the old cemetery, whither i went, because in the very old days i had known intimately, as a child reader, the "maiden martyr," and here was to find her monument. there are other monuments, none so historic, so grandiose, so solemn. the friends of a gentleman who had died about mid-century record that he died "at plean junction." somehow it seemed very uncertain, ambiguous, capable of mistake, to die at a junction out of which must run different ways. and one man, buried here, was brought all the way, as the tombstone publishes, from "st. peter, minnesota." it's a historic town, to its own people. but what a curious linking with this very old town. i thought of a man who had hurried away from montana the winter before, because he wanted to "smell the heather once more before i die." and he had died in st. paul, minnesota, only a thousand miles on his way back to the heather. viewed from below, the castle is splendid. the road crosses the bridge, skirts the north side of the rock, toward the king's knot; a view-full walk, almost as good, almost, as edinburgh from princes gardens; this green and pastoral, that multicoloured and urban. the whole situation is very similar, the long ridge of the town, the heaven-topping castle hill. stirling is the old town of edinburgh minus the new town. and so we confess ourselves modern. stirling is not so lovely; yet it is more truly, more purely scottish. edinburgh is a city of the world. stirling is a town of scotland. chapter xi the west country _glasgow_ i cannot think why, in a book to be called deliberately "the spell of scotland," there should be a chapter on glasgow. i remember that in his "picturesque notes," to the second edition robert louis stevenson added a foot-note in rebuke to the glaswegians who had taken to themselves much pleasure at the reservations of stevenson's praise of edinburgh--"but remember i have not yet written a book on glasgow." he never did. and did any one ever write "picturesque notes on glasgow"? i remember that thirty years ago when a college professor was making the "grand tour"--thirty years ago seems as far back as three hundred years when james howell was making his "grand tour"--he asked a casually met glaswegian what there was to be seen, and this honest scot, pointing to the cathedral declared, "that's the only aydifyce ye'll care to look at." i should like to be singular, to write of picturesque points in glasgow. but how can it be done? glasgow does not aspire to picturesqueness or to historicalness. glasgow is content, more than content, in having her commerce and her industry always "in spate." glasgow is the second city of size in the united kingdom, and the first city in being itself. london is too varied and divided in interests; it never forgets that it is the capital of the world, and a royal capital. glasgow never forgets that it is itself, very honestly and very democratically, a city of scots. not of royal stewarts, and no castle dominates it. but a city made out of the most inveterate scottish characteristics. or i think i would better say scotch. that is a practical adjective, and somewhat despised of culture; therefore applicable to glasgow. while scottish is romantic and somewhat pretending. glasgow is the capital of the whig country, of the democratic scotland of covenanting ancestry. glasgow is precisely what one would expect to issue out of the energy and honesty and canniness and uncompromise of that corner of the world. historically it belongs to wallace, the commoner-liberator. and if burns is the genius of this southwestern scotland, as scott is of the southeastern, it is precisely the difference between the regions; as edinburgh and glasgow differ. the towns are less than an hour apart by express train. they are all of scotch history and characteristics apart in quality and in genius. edinburgh is still royal, and sits supreme upon its hill, its past so present one forgets it is the past. glasgow never could have been royal; and so it never was significant until royal scotland ceased to be, and democratic scotland, where a man's a man for a' that, came to take the place of the old, to take it completely, utterly. so long as the world was old, was the old world, and looked toward the east, edinburgh would be the chief city. when the world began to be new, and to look toward the new world, glasgow came swiftly into being, and the race is to the swift. [illustration: portrait of thomas carlyle, by whistler.] there is history to glasgow, when it was a green pleasant village, and there was romance. it is but a short way, a foot-path journey if the pleasant green fields still invited, out to bothwell castle; splendid ruin, and, therefore, recalling mary and darnley and the lennoxes, but not bothwell. but landside, where mary was defeated, is a glaswegian suburb, kelvingrove--"let us haste"--is a prosperous residence district. the broomielaw, lovely word, means simply and largely the harbour of glasgow, made deliberately out of clyde water in order that glasgow's prosperity might flow out of the very heart of the city. "lord, let glasgow flourish according to the preaching of thy word," ran the old motto. it has been shortened of late. the heart of the city is dreary miles of long monotonous streets, where beauty is never wasted in grass blade or architecture. george's square may be noble, it has some good monuments, but it is veiled in commercial grime, like all the town. what could be expected of a city that would name its principal business street, "sauchieburn," memorializing and defying that petty tragedy? there is an art gallery with whistler's "carlyle," and a few other notable pictures (john lavery's i looked at with joy) to redeem miles of mediocrity. (here i should like to be original and not condemn, but there are the miles.) there is a cathedral, that "aydifyce" of note, touched almost nothing by the spirit of "reform"; for the burghers of glasgow, then as now, believing that their cathedral belonged to them, rose in their might and cast out the despoilers before they had done more than smash a few "idols." therefore this shrine of st. kentigern's is more pleasing than the reformed and restored shrine of st. giles. the crypt is particularly impressive. and the very pillar behind which rob roy hid is all but labeled. of course it is "authentic," for scott chose it. what unrivaled literary sport had scott in fitting history to geography! there is a university, one of the first in the kingdom; the city universities are gaining on the classic oxford and st. andrews. but chiefly there are miles of houses of working men, more humble than they ought to be. if glasgow is one of the best governed cities in the world, and has the best water supply in the world--except that of st. paul--would that the corporation of the city of glasgow would scatter a little loveliness before the eyes of these patient and devoted workingmen. but what a chorus their work raises. in shipyards what mighty work is wrought, even such tragically destined work, and manufactured beauty, as the _lusitania_! from glasgow it is that the scot has gone out to all the ends of the earth. if the "darien scheme" of wresting commerce from england failed utterly, and glasgow failed most of all, that undoing was the making of the town. it is not possible to down the scot. the smallest drop of blood tells, and it never fails to be scottish. most romantic, most poetic, most reckless, most canny of people. the highlander and the lowlander that mr. morley found mixed in the character of gladstone, and the explanation of his character, is the explanation of any scot, and of scotland. _ayr_ always the west is the democratic corner of a country; or, let me say almost always, if you have data wherewith to dispute a wholesale assertion. sparta was west of athens, la rochelle was west of paris, switzerland was west of gesler; norway is west of sweden, the american west is west of the american east. and galloway and ayrshire are the west lowlands of scotland. the west is newer always, freer, more open, more space and more lure for independence. the west is never feudal, until the west moves on and the east takes its place. here men develop, not into lords and chiefs, but into men. wallace may come out of the west, but it is after he has come out that he leads men, in the establishment of a kingdom, but more in a wider fight for freedom; while he is in the west he adventures as a man among men, on the waters of irvine, in laglyne wood, at cumnock. and a bruce, struggling with himself, and setting himself against a comyn, may stagger out of a greyfriars at dumfries, and, bewildered, exclaim, "i doubt i have slain the comyn!" when a follower makes "siccar," and all the religious and human affronts mass to sober the bruce, a king may come out of galloway, out of a brawl, if a church brawl, and establish the kingdom and the royal line forever. if a wallace, if a bruce, can proceed out of these lowlands--and a paul jones!--a poet must come also. and a poet who is as much the essence of that west country as chieftain or king. everything was ready to produce burns in . william burns had come from dunnottar, a silent, hard-working, god-fearing covenanter, into this covenanting corner of scotland. it was filled with men and women who had grown accustomed to worshiping god according to their independent consciences, and in the shelter of these dales and hills, sometimes harried by that covenanter-hunting fox, claverhouse--to his defeat; finally winning the right to unconcealed worship. seven years gone, and william burns having built the "auld clay biggan" at alloway, he married a carrick maid, agnes broun, a maid who had much of the celt in her. and robert burns was born. it is of course only after the event that we know how fortunate were the leading circumstances, how inevitable the advent of robert burns. father and mother, time and place, conspired to him. and all scotland, all that has been scotland since, results from him. it is scott who reconstructed scotland, made the historic past live. but it is burns who is scotland, scotland remains of his temper; homely, human, intense, impassioned; with a dash and more of the practical and frugal necessary for the making of a nation, but worse than superfluous for the making of a burns. three towns of this scottish corner contend not for the birth but for the honours of burns. if dumfries is the capital of burnsland and the place of his burial, ayr is gateway to the land and the place of his birth; while kilmarnock, weaver's town and most unpoetic, but productive of poets and poetesses, claims for itself the high and distinct literary honours, having published the first edition in an attic, and having loaned its name as title for the most imposing edition, and having in its museum possession all the published burns editions. to follow his footsteps through burnsland were impossible to the most ardent. for burns was a plowman who trod many fields, and turned up many daisies, and disturbed many a wee mousie, a poet who dreamed beside many a stream, and if he spent but a brief lifetime in all, it would take a lifetime, and that active, to overtake him. "i have no dearer aim than to make leisurely pilgrimages through caledonia; to sit on the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers, and to muse on the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes." he did this abundantly. we have followed him in many a place. but in burnsland it were all too intimate, if not impossible. he knew all the rivers of this west country, nith, doon, ayr, afton. "the streams he wandered near; the maids whom he loved, the songs he sung, all, all are dear." he did not apparently know the sea, or love it, although he was born almost within sound of it; and he sings of it not at all. he knew the legends of the land. "the story of wallace poured a scottish prejudice into my veins," and he deliberately followed the bruce legend, hoping it would enter into his blood and spirit, and something large and worthy would result. it did, not an epic, but the strong song of a nation, "scots wha hae." [illustration: _ayr river_] his land was the home of lollards and covenanters. independence was in the blood. it was the land of the "fighting kennedys," who disputed with each other, what time they were not furnishing an abbot of crossraguel to dispute with john knox, or a gude maister walter kennedy to have a "flytting" with the kynge's makar, william dunbar. where burns secured his jacobitism i do not know, but, of course, a poet is by nature a jacobite; as he himself said, "the muses were all jacobite." burnsland is rich in other literary associations. johannes scotus is reckoned to have been born also at ayr; and there are john galt, james boswell, james montgomery, alexander smith, ainslie, cunningham, and the carlyles, and scott in some of his most lively romances. the book of taliessin is written in part of this land, the admirable crichton was born here. it is a close-packed little port-manteau of land. there is pursuit enough for at least a summer's travel. and, without doubt, there are as many pilgrims who explore ayrshire as warwickshire, and much more lovingly. the entrance is by ayr. and this i think can be made most claimingly, most fitly, by steamer from belfast. for one thing, it avoids entrance at glasgow. ayr is still a sea port of some importance; and ireland, democratic, romantic, intimate, is a preparation for this similar country of galloway and about; both lands are still celtic. ayr looks well from the sea as one comes in, although in the day of burns the ratton-key was a more casual place, and harbour works to retain the traffic were not yet built. but the town sits down well into the waterside of its doon and ayr rivers, much like a continental town where fresh waters are precious. there is long suburban dwelling, not as it was a hundred and fifty years ago. and ayr looks out on the sea with a magnificent prospect from any of her neighbouring segments of coast, with ruined castles set properly, with the dark mass of romantic arran purple across the waters, with ailsa rock evident, and to a far-seeing eye the blue line of ireland whence we have come. there is small reason for staying in ayr, unless for a wee bit nappie in tam o' shanter's inn, which still boasts itself the original and only tam and hangs a painting above the door to prove itself the starting point, this last "ca' hoose," for alloway. to alloway one may go by tram! it sounds flat and unprofitable. but the gray mare meg is gone, has followed her tail into the witches night. and if it were not the tram it would be a taxi. and what have witches and warlocks to do with electricity, in truth how can they compete with electricity? "nae man can tether time or tide; the hour approaches tam maun ride; that hour, o' night's black arch the keystane, that dreary hour he mounts his beast in; an' sic a night he taks the road in as ne'er poor sinner was abroad in." to follow, in a tram, in broad daylight, oh, certainly the world has changed, and the deil too since "the deil had business on his hand." the occupations that are gone! it is a highway one follows to-day, suburban villas and well-kept fields line the way; no need to "skelpit on thro' dub and mire." tam would be quite without adventure. and to-day one wonders if even the lightning can play about this commonplace way. there is however the race-course--some reminder of meg! yet, it is possible to forget this pleasant day, and to slip back into old night as "before him doon pours a' his floods; the doubling storm roars through the woods; the lightnings flash frae pole to pole; near and more near the thunders roll; when, glimmering through the groaning trees, kirk alloway seem'd in a bleeze." the walls of the auld kirk lie before us--and "auld nick in shape o' beast" is sitting under "the winnock bunker i' the east." who would deny that he also like tammie "glower'd amazed and curious"? "the piper loud and louder blew, the dancers quick, and quicker flew; they reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, till ilka carlin swat and reekit, and coost her duddies to the wark, and linket at it in her sark." the ride on this tram has developed a dizziness. "wi' tippenny we fear nae evil; wi' usquebae we'll face the devil!" did we cry "weel done, cutty sark!" then we, too, must descend and hurry on foot to the old brig o' doon. not pausing long for the monument, even to look at the wedding ring of jean armour, or the bible burns gave to highland mary; but on to the auld kirk which stands opposite. to burns we owe this church in more ways than one. when a certain book of "antiquities" was being planned, burns asked that the auld kirk of alloway be included. if burns would make it immortal? yes. so the story of tam o' shanter came to make kirk alloway forever to be remembered. what would william burns, covenanter, have thought? for i cannot but think that william looked often askance at the acts of his genius-son. but william was safely buried within the kirk, and if the epitaph written by the son reads true, william was excellently covenanted. "o ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, draw near with pious rev'rence and attend. here lies the loving husband's dear remains, the tender father, and the gen'rous friend. the pitying heart that felt for human woe, the dauntless heart that fear'd no human pride, the friend of man, to vice alone a foe, for 'ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side.'" the auld clay biggan still stands in alloway, and "the banks and braes o' bonnie doon" bloom as "fresh and fair" to-day as they did a century and a half ago. it is a simpler place than the birth house on high street in stratford, and a simpler environment than college wynd in edinburgh. this is a true cotter's home, and saturday nights within must have been of the description. somehow it is less of a tourist's way of forced entry, this through the barn, than the basement door at abbotsford; and so one passes through the byre and into the kitchen, where stands the bed in which robert burns was born. it is all beautifully homely, as lowly as a manger; and, how the world has been filled by what was once small frail life herein! it is difficult to divide the poet's relics among so many claimant places, but here and in the museum are many mementoes of the poet. for this as well as kirk alloway is a national monument, or something like. there was a century during which this was merely a clay biggan, and a public house, and that offended no one, least of all the friends of the poet. except keats. he came hither in . the host was drunk most of the time, and garrulous. keats complained that it affected his "sublimity." and, for once, keats turned severe self-critic. "the flat dog made me write a flat sonnet." [illustration: burns' cottage, birth-place of robert burns, ayr.] it was while living at mount oliphant, two miles east of ayr, when burns was fifteen, that he began that long, long list of lasses whom he loved and whom he made immortal with a verse. he might have said with james v,--and much he resembled that gudeman o' ballangeich--"it came wi' ane lass and it will gae wi' ane lass." the first was nelly kilpatrick, daughter of the miller of perclewan-- "o, ance i lov'd a bonnie lass, ay, and i love her still." the last was jessie lewars, who ministered to him in those last days in the millhole brae in dumfries-- "o wert thou in the cauld blast on yonder lea, on yonder lea, my plaidie to the angry airt, i'd shelter thee, i'd shelter thee." to kilmarnock one goes for its name. but "the streets and neuks o' killie" are changed since that burns' day. it is a sprawling, thriving factory town, a town of weavers--and a town of poets. there is something in the whirr of wheels, to those who are within it, which establishes rhythm in the ear, and often leads to well-measured poetry! surely a weaver is equal to a plowman, and i fancy that many a workingman and working lass with lines running through the head walk this waterloo street, pass tam o' shanter's arms, and looks above the loan office at the attic where that precious first edition was printed in . poems and pawn broking--waterloo street is a suggestive grub street. from kilmarnock to dumfries by train is a burns pilgrimage, even though it be taken without break, and in seventy-seven minutes! and interspersed are other memories. it is entirely what burnsland should be, nothing set down in high tragedy, but all lyrical, with gentle hills, whispering rivers, and meadows and woodlands all the way. mauchline, where the burst of song was like that of a skylark, the very outpouring of the man's soul; here lies the field where he turned up the daisy and found an immortal lyric. auchinleek, where boswell and dr. johnson paused on their journey and where to the hot-flung query of the doctor, "pray, what good did cromwell ever do the country?" the judicial and wrathful father of our boswell flung the hotter retort--"he gart kings ken they had a lith in their necks." the scottish tongue is the tongue of rebellions. should we stay in this corner of the world longer we might turn covenanting and cromwellian! cumnock, which william wallace made his headquarters between the battle of stirling bridge and that of falkirk. new cumnock, whence the afton so sweetly falls into the nith-- "flow gently, sweet afton, amang thy green braes, flow gently, i'll sing thee a song in thy praise." kirkconnel, which is said not to be the kirkconnel where fair helen lies--but like the blasted heath, will it not serve? "i wish i were where helen lies, baith night and day on me she cries." and in any event "the bairnies cuddle doon at nicht" were "waukrife rogues" in kirkconnel. sanquhar to thornhill, with rounding green hills along the nith, with memories of old queensberry and defoe and wordsworth and coleridge and allan ramsay and dr. john brown, and carlyle. thornhill is dalgarnock, where fairs were held-- "but a' the niest week, as i petted wi' care, i gaed to the tryste o' dalgarnock, and wha but my fine, fickle lover was there? i glowr'd as i'd seen a warlock, a warlock, i glowr'd as i'd seen a warlock." dunscore lies to the right with "redgauntlet" memories, and a few miles farther on is craigenputtock. ellisland a brief moment, where immortal "tam" was written as under the spell of a warlock. _dumfries_ it is a proud little city, more than a bit self-satisfied. it realizes that its possession of the mortal remains of burns gives it large claim in his immortality, and the burns monument is quite the center of the town. yet dumfries is well satisfied from other argument. historically, it goes back to bruce and comyn, and even to a roman beyond. but there is nothing left of old greyfriars where the killing of comyn took place. dumfries had its moment in the forty five, for the bonnie prince was here as he went down to the invasion of england, and his room in what is now the commercial hotel may be looked into but not lodged in; dumfries, in spite of covenant, has its modicum of jacobitism. [illustration: caerlaverock castle.] it is in "humphrey clinker" that smollett compels some one to say "if i was confined to scotland i would choose dumfries as my place of residence." confined to scotland, forsooth! dumfries is larger than it was in the days of burns, and very busy withal, in factories and railroads. but it is still a country town, still hints at something of dales and woods and streams, even on high street. the land about is true burnsland; low, gentle hills closing in the horizon in a golden sea of warmth and sunlight, and the nith a pleasant stream. it makes a great bend about dumfries, with maxwelltown across the water, and still "maxwellton's braes are bonny where early fa's the dew." farther a-field there lies sweetheart abbey, built by the lady devorgilla, widow of john balliol, and founder of balliol at oxford; one of the most beautiful ruins not only in scotland but in the kingdom. caerlaverock castle, the ellangowan of "guy mannering," stands on the solway, which still, like love, ebbs and flows. ecclefechan lies east. "o, wat ye wha's in yon toun," burns sang from here, but later it was made a place of pilgrimage, with its immortal dust come back from london for scottish rest. and in st. michael's burns was laid to rest in , and twenty years later was placed in this mausoleum in the corner of the churchyard. a sumptuous monument for so simple a man. "he came when poets had forgot how rich and strange the human lot; how warm the tints of life; how hot are love and hate; and what makes truth divine, and what makes manhood great. "a dreamer of the common dreams, a fisher in familiar streams, he chased the transitory gleams that all pursue; but on his lips the eternal themes again were new." the road leads southward, the via dolorosa mary took after langside, the via victoriosa which prince charles took-- "wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', we'll up and gie them a blaw, a blaw, wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'. oh, it's ower the border awa', awa', it's ower the border awa', awa', we'll on an' we'll march tae carlisle ha' wi' its yetts and castles an' a', an' a'. wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'." bibliography allardyce, a.: balmoral. f. (for deeside and dunnottar.) anderson: guide to the highlands, vols. armstrong, sir walter: raeburn. barr, robert: a prince of good fellows. f. (james v.) barrie, james: auld licht idylls. f. -- little minister. f. barrington, michael: the knight of the golden sword. f. (claverhouse.) baxter, j. dowling: the meeting of the ways. f. (the roman wall.) bell, j. j.: wee macgreegor. f. black, william: wild eelin. f. (inverness.) -- macleod of dare. f. mull. -- strange adventures of a phaëton. f. (moffat.) borland, robert: border raids and reivers. buchan, john: the marquis of montrose. carlyle, thomas: burns, in the hero as man of letters. -- knox, in the hero as priest. chambers, robert: traditions of edinburgh. cowan, samuel: mary queen of scots, and who wrote the casket letters? crockett, w. s.: footsteps of scott. -- the scott country. crockett, s. r.: raiderland. (galloway.) -- the men of the moss hags. f. ( ) f. -- the standard bearer of galloway. f. cunningham, allan: life and land of burns. -- sir michael scot. f. debenham, mary h.: an island of the blest. f. (iona.) dick, stewart: the pageant of the forth. dougall, charles s.: the burns country. douglass, sir george: ed. the book of scottish poetry. -- the new border tales. f. fleming, guy: the play acting woman. f. (contemp.) fraprie, frank s.: castles and keeps of scotland. galt, john: the ayrshire legatees. f. -- annals of the parish. f. -- the provost. f. -- lawrie todd. f. -- ringan gilhaize, or the covenanters. f. geikie, sir archibald: the scenery of scotland, viewed in connection with its physical geography. gibbon, john murray: hearts and faces. f. (contemp.) hamerton, philip gilbert: a painter's camp. (awe.) hamilton, lord e.: mary hamilton. f. hawthorne, nathaniel: our old home. henderson and watt: scotland of to-day. hewlett, maurice: the queen's quair. f. hill, g. birkbeck: footsteps of dr. johnson. hume-brown: scotland in the time of queen mary. -- early travellers in scotland. hume, martin: love affairs of mary queen of scots. jackson, h. h.: glimpses of three coasts. james, g. p. r.: gowrie, the king's plot. f. johnson, samuel: boswell's journal of a tour to the hebrides. jusserand, j. j.: a journey to scotland in the year . (in english essays.) kipling, rudyard: puck of pook's hill. f. -- a centurion of the th. -- on the great wall. -- the winged hats. lang, andrew: short history of scotland. -- the mystery of mary stuart. -- st. andrews. lang, jean: a land of romance. (the border.) lauder, sir thomas dick: the wolf of badenoch. f. leslie, amy: bawbee jack. (contemp.) lindsay, robert, of pitscottie: history of scotland. (sixteenth cent.) lockhart, john: life of scott. m'aulay, allan: the safety of the honours. f. maclaren, ian (john hay): graham of claverhouse. f. -- the bonnie brier bush. f. mason, a. e. w.: clementina. f. ( .) masson, david: edinburgh sketches and memories. masson, rosaline: edinburgh. moncrieff, a. r. hope: bonnie scotland. -- the heart of scotland (perthshire). -- the highlands and the islands. morley, john: burns. munro, neil: john splendid. f. (for montrose, royalist.) -- the new road. f. pennell, joseph and elizabeth r.: our journey to the hebrides. percy: reliques. porter, jane: scottish chiefs. f. (wallace and bruce.) queen victoria's highland journals. scott, sir walter: the abbot. f. (mary stuart.) -- the antiquary. f. (east fife.) -- black dwarf. f. (lowlands and border.) -- the bride of lammermuir. f. (east lothian.) -- the fair maid of perth. f. -- guy mannering. f. (caerlaverock castle.) -- the heart of midlothian. f. (edinburgh.) -- lady of the lake. poetry. (katrine and stirling.) -- lay of the last minstrel. poetry. (border.) -- the legend of montrose. f. -- the lord of the isles. poetry. (hebrides.) -- the monastery. f. (melrose.) -- marmion. poetry. (flodden.) -- old mortality. f. (covenanters.) -- the pirate. f. (orkneys.) -- redgauntlet. f. ( .) -- roy roy. f. (trossachs region and glasgow.) -- st. ronan's well. f. (tweedale.) -- tales of a grandfather. -- waverley. f. (prince charles edward.) short, josephine h.: the charm of scotland. stevenson, r. l.: david balfour. f. (after .) -- kidnapped. f. (after .) -- the master of ballantrae. f. -- picturesque notes of edinburgh. -- st. ives. f. (after .) shakespeare: macbeth. shelley, mary: the fortunes of perkin warbeck. f. smollett, tobias: humphrey clinker. f. steuart, j. a.: the red reaper. (for montrose, covenanter.) swinburne, algernon s.: bothwell, a tragedy. -- chastelard, a tragedy. -- mary stuart, a tragedy. sutcliffe, halliwell: willowdene will. f. ( .) -- the lone adventure. f. taylor, bayard: in picturesque europe. todd, g. eyre: cavalier and covenanter. f. (charles ii.) upson, arthur: the tides of spring. (poetic drama.) watkeys, frederick w.: old edinburgh. wesley, john: journal. vol. . warrender, miss: walks near edinburgh. whyte-melville, g. j.: the queen's maries. f. wiggin, kate douglas: penelope in scotland. williamson, m. g.: edinburgh. (ancient cities series.) winter, william: brown heath and blue bells. -- in gray days and gold. wordsworth, dorothy: tour in scotland. index a abbottsford, - aberdeen, , , - aeneas sylvius, agricola, , alexander iii, , , , - , , alloway kirk, anne of brittany, ardchonnel, ard, loch, ardnamurchan, arthur's seat, , , augustus, fort, awe, loch, - ayala, dom pedro de, b badenoch, wolf of, , , balmoral castle, bannockburn, , , , , , - banquo, , bass, the, - beaton, cardinal, - bemersyde, , berwick, - , , birnam, blairgowrie, bonar, horatio, border, the, , , , , , borlund, dr., borthwick, , , boswell, james, , , , bothwell castle, , bothwell, james, , , , , , , , braehead, braemar, brandir, pass of, - brantome, sieur de, brown, dr. john, , bruce, the, , , , , , , , , , , , , buccleuch, duke of, , buchan, lords of, buchanan, george, , , burns, robert, , , , , - (quoted), , , , , , byron, george gordon, lord, , c calton hill, , , - cambuskenneth, abbey, battle, canongate, , - , , , carberry, , carlyle, thomas, , , , carnegie, andrew, , carterhaugh, catrail, cawdor castle, - charles i, , , , , , charles ii, , , , , , , , charles, prince, , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , chastelard, chaucer, , cheviots, io, , , cistercians, claverhouse (bonnie dundee), , , , - clephane, elizabeth, closes, the, col, coldstream, , , coleridge, columba, saint, , , , , - corriemulzie, cowgate, the, craigenputtock, cromwell, , , , , , , , cruachan, ben, , , culdee, , , culloden, , - , cuthbert, saint, , d dalkeith, , danes, darien scheme, darnick, darnley, , , , , , , , , , david i, , , , , , , - , deans, jeanie, dee, , disraeli, donaldson hospital, douglass, gavin, - , lord james, , douglasses, the, , , , , , doune, drummelzier, drummond, william, dryburgh, , - dumbarton castle, , dumfries, , , - dunbar, bob, champion curler, william, - , dunblane, dunfermline, , , , , - dunnolly castle, dunnottar castle, - , dunsinane, dunstaffnage castle, , - e edinburgh, , , - edward i, , , , , edward vii, , , eildon hills, , , , , elgin, , elizabeth, , , elliott, jean (quoted), ettrick, , f fair maid, falkirk, , , fergusson, robert, fife, , - findon, fleming, marjorie, - , - flodden, , , , , , , , ford castle, , , forres, fotheringay, , , , fox, george, froissart, g galashiels, , gala water, george iv, george v, , gladstone, , glamis castle, glasgow, , glencoe, - glenshee, , golf, - gordon, lady jane, grassmarket, , , great glen, , , - greyfriars, - h hadrian, halidon hill, hamerton, philip gilbert, henley (quoted), , henry viii, , , hermitage castle, , , , hogg, james, , , holyrood palace, , , , - , howell, james, , hume, , , huntlie bank, , huntly, , , , i innishail, inveraragaig, inversnaid, inverugie castle, , iona, , , , , - irving, edward, , washington, j james i, , - , , - james ii, , , , james iii, , , , , james iv, , , , , , , , , - , , james v, , , , , , , , , james vi, , , , , , , , , , , , james ii of england, vii of scotland, , , , james the chevalier, , , , , , jedburgh, , - johnson, dr. samuel, , , - , , , , , , , jonson, ben, k katrine, lake, - , keats (quoted), , kelso, , - ker of fernihurst, kerrera, kilchurn castle, killiecrankie, pass of, - kilmarnock, , - king arthur, , kinghorn, , kirkcaldy, , , general, kirk o' field, , - kirkwall, knox, john, , , , , , , - , , , l "lady of the lake," - lamb, charles, _lands_, , , , , lang, andrew, , (quoted), , lauder, harry, , , lavery, john, lawnmarket, le croc, leith, , , , lethington, mr., secretary, lincoln, abraham, lindisfarne, , lindsay, sir david, linlithgow palace, - loch leven, , , , lockhart (quoted), lomond, ben, lomond, loch, , - m macbeth, , , , , , , , macdonald, flora, , , macdui, ben, magdalene, queen, , maid of norway, , malcolm canmore, , , , , , , , margaret of denmark, , , saint, , , , , , , - tudor, - , , maries, the four, , , marischal, earl, , , , - marmion, , , , , mary, queen of scots, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , - , , , , , - , , , , , masson, rosaline (quoted), mcleod of dare, meg merrilies, melrose, , , , , , , mendelssohn, , menteith, lake, merlin, moffat, monk, general, mons meg, - , , montrose, marquis of, , , , , , - , , - (quoted), moray house, , moreville, hugh de, mull, , , , , n nairn, napoleon, , , nelson, lord, netherbow port, nevis, ben, , , - norham castle, , north, christopher, , inch, perth, noyes, alfred (quoted), o oban, , - ossian, p park, mungo, , pennells, the, , , , percy's reliques, , , perth, - , peterhead, , - philipshaugh, , , prestonpans, pulpit hill, oban, q queensberry house, queensferry, , r raeburn, , ravelston, - regalia, - , - richard ii, , , rizzio, , , , rob roy, , , , roman, , , , , roscoff, rosebery, lord, rosetti (quoted), roxburgh, - ruskin, , s st. andrews, , - st. cuthbert's church, , st. giles church, , , , , , , st. john's church, st. mary's loch, sandyknowe, , sauchieburn (battle), , scone, , scotch plaids, scot, michael, , , , scott monument, , scott, sir walter, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , (quoted), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , sentimental tommy, , severus, emperor, shakespeare (quoted), , , , , sheriffmuir (battle), , skerryvore, skye, smailholm, smith, adam, smollett, tobias, , spynie castle, staffa, - stevenson, , , , , , , , , , , , , , (quoted), , , , , stewart, margaret, the, , - , , , , , , stirling (battle), , stonehaven, strathcona, lord, stronochlachar, t tam o'shanter inn, tantallon castle, tay, , , taylor, the water-poet, , , , teviot, , thomas of ercildoun, , , thomson, james, tibbie shiel, , tilt, glen, , , tiree, tolbooth, , tomnahurich, town cross, edinburgh, trehinish isles, , tronkirk, turner, , , , , twain, mark, tweed, , , , , , u upson, arthur, , urquhart, v victoria, queen, , , , , w wallace, william, , , , , , - wall, the, , warbeck, perkin, watson, william (quoted), waverleys, the, , , wesley, john, west bow, westminster abbey, whistler, william, fort, , winter, william, , , , wishart, george, wolfe, general, wordsworth, dorothy, , , , , , , , , - william, , , , , , , , y yarrow, , , - yetholm, none provided by the internet archive highways and byways in the border by andrew lang and john lang with illustrations by hugh thomson [illustration: ] [illustration: ] preface at the time of his death, my brother had proceeded but a little way in this task which he and i began together, and i must frankly own my inability to cope with it on the lines which he would doubtless have followed. it is probable, for example, that his unrivalled knowledge of "the memories, legends, ballads, and nature of the border" would have led him to show various important events in a light different from that in which my less intimate acquaintance with the past has enabled me to speak of them; whilst, as regards the ballad literature of the border, i cannot pretend to that expert knowledge which he possessed, i do not think, therefore, it is fitting that i should attempt to carry out his intention to deal more fully with those of the ballads which are most closely connected with places treated of in this volume. to him, more perhaps than to any other borderer, every burn and stream, every glen and hill of that pleasant land was ". . . lull ot ballad notes, borne out of long ago." it is many a year since he wrote those verses wherein he spoke of " old songs that sung themselves to me, sweet through a boy's day-dream." but it was not alone in a boy's day-dream that they sounded. to the end, they echoed and re-echoed in his heart, and no voice ever spoke to him so eloquently as that of tweed,--by whose banks, indeed, in a spot greatly loved, had it been permitted he would fain have slept his long sleep. john lang. _the artist wishes to call attention to the fact that his drawings were made during the long drought of , when all the rivers were exceptionally low._ list of illustrations kelso abbey....................................frontispiece halidon hill and the two bridges, berwick............... old bridge at berwick................................... buttresses with canopied niches at edrom................ at chirnsibe........................................... doorway in graveyard at edrom........................... norham castle........................................... lady kirk............................................... ford castle from the road............................... looking up the till from twizel bridge.................. the ridge on which the scottish army was entrenched before the battle of flodden............................ twizel bridge........................................... the slopes at branxton on which the battle of flodden was fought............................ sybil grey's well at flodden............................ bridge over the leet, coldstream........................ the cheviots from coldstream ferry...................... floors castle from kelso................................ kelso................................................... kelso abbey............................................. kelso. teviot in foreground............................. meeting of tweed and teviot near kelso.................. ruins of roxburgh castle................................ jedburgh from the park.................................. jedburgh abbey.......................................... queen mary's house, jedburgh............................ fernihirst castle....................................... catcleuch reservoir looking south....................... bridge over jed water at old souden kirk. the cheviots behind..................................... otterburne.............................................. otterburne.............................................. souden kirk............................................. john leyden's birthplace, denholm....................... cavers.................................................. hawick.................................................. the tower inn, hawick................................... hornshole bridge........................................ st. mary's, hawick...................................... vale of the borthwick water looking towards hawick...... a glimpse of harden..................................... goldielands tower and the teviot........................ branksome............................................... branksome............................................... looking down teviotdale from caerlanrig................. teviothead kirk......................................... tomb of sir walter scott, dryburgh...................... smailholme tower........................................ the eildons from bemersyde hills........................ earlston................................................ the river at dryburgh abbey............................. eildon hills and gorge of the tweed from lessudden...... melrose from newstead................................... melrose cross........................................... east window, melrose abbey.............................. darnick tower........................................... abbotsford.............................................. the rhymer's glen....................................... galashiels, the eildons in the distance................. the tweed from the ferry, abbotsford.................... tor wood lee............................................ abbotsford from the left bank of the tweed. the eildon hills behind................................. where tweed and ettrick meet............................ selkirk from the heatherlie............................. the ettrick from the outskirts of selkirk............... selkirk................................................. the ettrick at bowhill.................................. oakwood tower........................................... kirkhope tower.......................................... looking up ettrickdale from hyndhope.................... ettrick water at the deloraines......................... the bridge at tushielaw................................. ettrick vale from hyndhope.............................. buccleuch............................................... a glimpse of clearburn loch............................. ettrick kirk............................................ mill gang at ettrick.................................... hyndhope burn........................................... st. mary's loch and the loch of the lovers.............. st. mary's loch......................................... site of st. mary's church............................... the douglas burn and blackhouse tower................... cockburne's grave....................................... coppercleuch post-office and a glimpse up meggetdale.... tibbie shiel's.......................................... dryhope tower........................................... the gordon arms......................................... vale of yarrow--the gordon arms in the distance......... deuchar bridge.......................................... the dowie dens.......................................... newark.................................................. yair bridge............................................. fairnilee............................................... caddonfoot looking towards yair......................... the inn at clovenfords.................................. thomas purdie's grave, melrose abbey.................... the tweed at ashiesteel................................. the tweed between ashiesteel and thornilee.............. tower of elibank........................................ innerleithen............................................ a road beside the tweed, near caddonfoot................ the closed gates at traquair house...................... traquair house.......................................... where the quair enters the tweed above innerleithen..... on the road to peebles.................................. neldpath castle......................................... peebles from neidpath................................... the "black dwarf's cottage in the manor valley.......... looking up the manor valley............................. bridge over the lyne water.............................. looking up talla from tweedsmuir post-office............ bridge over tweed at tweedsmuir......................... tweedsmuir.............................................. talla reservoir from talla linn......................... a sketch on the gameshope burn.......................... the devil's beef tub.................................... hermitage castle........................................ meeting of the hermitage and liddel..................... millholme or milnholm cross............................. on the liddel at mangerton.............................. carlisle castle......................................... carlisle and the river eden............................. carlisle from the castle ramparts....................... a byway in carlisle..................................... the market cross, carlisle.............................. dick's tree. the blacksmith's shop where kinmont willie's fetters were taken off................. the reputed grave of kinmont willie in sark graveyard... sark bridge and toll-bar................................ the blacksmith's shop, gretna green..................... solway moss............................................. ancient cross, arthuret................................. gorge on the liddel..................................... study in carlisle cathedral............................. brampton................................................ bewcastle church and castle............................. bewcastle cross......................................... naworth castle.......................................... bewcastle cross......................................... kirk andrews tower, netherby............................ the armstrong tower on the esk.......................... gilnockie bridge........................................ on the esk at hollows................................... langholm................................................ map--the english and scottish border..........end of volume { } highways and byways in the border chapter i berwick, tweed, whitadder |the "border" is a magical word, and on either side of a line that constantly varied in the course of english and scottish victories and defeats, all is enchanted ground, the home of memories of forays and fairies, of raids and recoveries, of loves and battles long ago. in the most ancient times of which record remains, the english sway, on the east, might extend to and include edinburgh; and forth, or even tay, might be the southern boundary of the kingdom of the scots. on the west, strathclyde, originally cymric or welsh, might extend over cumberland; and later scottish kings might hold a contested superiority over that province. between east and west, in the forest of ettrick, the place-names prove ownership in the past by men of english speech, of cymric speech, and of gaelic speech. from a single point of view you may see penchrise (welsh) glengaber (gaelic) and skelfhill (english). once the border, hereabouts, ran slantwise, from peel fell in the cheviots, across the slitrig, a water which joins teviot at{ }hawick, thence across teviot to commonside hill above branksome tower, to the rankle burn, near buccleuch, an affluent of ettrick. thence, across ettrick and yarrow, over minchmuir, where montrose rode after the disaster at philiphaugh, across tweed, past the camp of rink, to torwoodlee, goes that ancient border, marked by the ancient dyke called the catrail, in which sir walter scott once had a bad fall during his "grand rides among the hills," when he beat out the music of _marmion_ to the accompaniment of his horse's hooves. the catrail was a border, once, and is a puzzle, owing to its ditch between two ramparts. there are many hill forts, mounds even now strong and steep in some places, on the line of the catrail. the learned derive the word from welsh _cad_, gaelic _cath_, "a battle," and some think that the work defended the border of the christian cymric folk of strathclyde from the pagan english of northumbria. in that case, sir herbert maxwell has expressed the pious hope that "the britons were better christians than they were military engineers." is it inconceivable that the word catrail is a mere old english nickname for a ditch which they did not understand, _the cat's trail_, like catslack, the wild cat's gap, and other local cat names? i am no philologist! once when taking a short cut across a hill round which the road runs from branksome to skelfhill, i came upon what looked like the deeply cut banks of an extinct burn. there was no water, and the dyke was not continued above or below. walking on i met an old gentleman sketching a group of hill forts, artificial mounds, and asked him what this inexplicable deep cutting might be. "it is the catrail," he said: i had often heard of it, and now i had seen it. the old man went on to show that the border is still a haunted place. "man, a queer thing happened to me on friday nicht. i was sleeping at tushielaw inn, (on the upper ettrick) i had steikit the door and the windows: i woke in the middle o' the nicht,--there { }was a body in the bed wi' me!" (i made a flippant remark. he took no notice of it.) "i got up and lit the candle, and looked. there was naebody in the bed. i fell asleep, and wakened again. the body was there, it _yammered_. i canna comprehend it." nor can i, but a pah of amateur psychical researchers hastened to sleep a night at tushielaw. _they_ were undisturbed; and the experience of the old antiquary was "for this occasion only." "my work seeks digressions," says herodotus, and mine has already wandered far north of the old border line of tweed on the east, and esk on the western marches, far into what was once the great forest of ettrick, and now is mainly pasture land, _pastorum loca vasta_. in the old days of the catrail and the hill forts this territory, "where victual never grew," must have been more thickly populated than it has been in historic times. [illustration: ] we may best penetrate it by following the ancient natural tracks, by the sides of tweed and its tributaries. we cross the picturesque bridge of tweed at berwick to the town which first became part of the kingdom of scotland, when malcolm ii, at carham fight, won lothian from northumbria. that was in , nine centuries agone. thenceforward berwick was one of the four most important places of scottish { }trade; the scots held it while they might, the english took it when they could; the place changed hands several times, to the infinite distress of a people inured to siege and sack. they must have endured much when malcolm mastered it; and again, in , when richard de lacy and humphrey de bohun, at war with william the lion, burned the town. william, after he inadvertently, in a morning mist, charged the whole english army at alnwick, and was captured, surrendered berwick to england, by the treaty of falaise, when he did homage for his whole kingdom. the english strongly fortified the place, though the fragments of the girdling wall near the railway station, are, i presume, less ancient than the end of the twelfth century. william bought all back again from the crusading richard of the lion heart: the two kings were "well matched for a pair of lions," but william the lion was old by this time. in , alexander ii attacked england at norham castle, but king john, though seldom victorious, was man enough to drive alexander off, and brute enough to sack berwick with great cruelty, setting a lighted torch to the thatch of the house in which he had lain; and "making a jolly fire," as a general of henry viii later described his own conduct at edinburgh. fifty years later the woman-hating friar who wrote _the chronicle of lanercost_ describes berwick as the alexandria of the period; the tweed, flowing still and shallow, taking the place of the majestic river of egypt. one is reminded of the peebles man who, after returning from a career in india, was seen walking sadly on peebles bridge. "i'm a leear," he said, "an unco leear. in india i telled them a' that tweed at peebles was wider than the ganges!" and he had believed it. however, berwick _was_ the scottish alexandria, and paid into the coffers of the last of her "kings of peace," alexander iii, an almost incredible amount of customs dues. after three peaceful reigns, scotland was a wealthy country, and berwick was her chief emporium. but then came the death of the { }maid of norway, the usurpation by edward i, the endless wars for independence: and berwick became one of the cockpits of the long strife, while scotland, like st. francis, was the mate of poverty. while edward was in france, his "toom tabard," king john, (balliol) renounced his allegiance. edward came home and, in the last days of march , crossed tweed and beleaguered berwick, in which were many trading merchants of flanders. the townsfolk burned several of his ships, and sang songs of which the meaning was coarse, and the language, though libellous, was rather obscure. edward was not cruel, as a rule, but, irritated by the check, the insults, and the reported murder by the scots of english merchants, he gave orders for a charge. the ditch and stockade were carried, and a general massacre followed, of which horrible tales are told by a late rhyming chronicler. hemingburgh, on the english side, says that the women were to some extent protected. the scots avenged themselves in the same fashion at corbridge, that old roman station, but the glory and wealth of berwick were gone, the place retaining only its military importance. to berwick edward ii fled after bannockburn, as rapidly as sir john cope sought the same refuge after prestonpans. berwick is, for historically minded tourists, (not a large proportion of the whole), a place of many memories. in july, , bruce took the castle after a long blockade; an english attempt to recover it was defeated mainly through the skill of crab, a flemish military engineer. guns were not yet in use: "crakkis of war," (guns) were first heard in scotland, near berwick, in . in , after a terrible defeat of the scots on the slopes of halidon hill, a short distance north of berwick, the place surrendered to edward iii, and became the chief magazine of the english in their scottish wars. by , the scots recovered it, but in , the nobles of james iii mutinied at lauder bridge, hanged his favourites, and made no attempt to drive crook-backed richard from his { }siege of berwick. since then the town has been in english hands, and was to them, for scottish wars, a calais or a gibraltar. the present bridge of fifteen arches, the most beautiful surviving relic here of old days, was built under james vi and i. [illustration: ] they say that the centre of the railway station covers the site of the hall of the castle of edward i, in which that prince righteously awarded the crown of scotland to john balliol. the town long used the castle as a quarry, then came the railway, and destroyed all but a few low walls, mere hummocks, and the bell tower. naturally the ancient churches perished after the blessed reformation: indeed the castle was used as a quarry for a new church of the period of the civil war. immediately above berwick, and for some distance, tweed flows between flat banks, diffusely and tamely: the pools are locally styled "dubs," and deserve the title. the anti-scottish satirist, churchill, says, { } "waft me, some muse, to tweed's inspiring stream where, slowly winding, the dull waters creep and seem themselves to own the power of sleep." "in fact," replies a patriotic scot, "'the glittering and resolute streams of tweed,' as an old cromwellian trooper and angler, richard franck, styles them, are only dull and sleepy in the dubs where england provides their flat southern bank." not flat, however, are the banks on either side of whitadder, tweed's first tributary, which joins that river two or three miles above berwick. from its source in the lammermuirs, almost to its mouth, a distance of between thirty and forty miles, the whitadder is quite an ideal trouting stream, "sore fished" indeed, and below chirnside, injured, one fears, by discharge from paper mills there, yet full of rippling streams and boulder-strewn pools that make one itch to throw a fly over them. but most of the water is open to the public, and on days when local angling competitions are held it is no uncommon sight to see three, or maybe four, competitors racing for one stream or pool, the second splashing in and whipping the water in front of the first, regardless of unwritten sporting law; a real case of "deil tak the hindmost." "free-fishing" no doubt, from some points of view, is a thing to be desired, but to him who can remember old times, when the anglers he met in the course of a day's fishing might easily be counted on the fingers of one hand, the change now is sad. yet men, they say, do still in the open stretches of whitadder catch "a pretty dish" now and again. they must be very early birds, one would suppose--and perhaps they fish with the lure that the early bird is known to pick up. on both sides of whitadder are to be seen places of much interest. first, edrington castle, on the left bank a few miles from the river's mouth, once a place of great strength, now crushed by the doom that has wrecked so many of the old strongholds in this part of the country--it was for ages used as { }a convenient quarry. then, on the right bank, higher up, on an eminence overhanging the stream, stands hutton hall, a picturesque old keep of the fifteenth century, with additions of later date. the original tower was probably built by the lord home, who obtained the lands in by his marriage with the daughter of george ker of samuelton. nearly opposite hutton, about a mile away, are the ruins of an old castle at edington. it is remarkable the number of names in this district, all beginning with "ed":--edrington, edington, ednam, eden, edrom, edinshall, all probably taking their origin from edwin, king of northumbria, - . or does the derivation go still further back, to odin? higher up, we come to allanton and the junction of whitadder with its tributary, blackadder. near this lies allanbank, haunt for many generations of that apparition so famous in scotland, "pearlin jean." jean, or rather jeanne, it is said, was a beautiful young french lady, in paris or elsewhere loved and left by a wicked baronet of allanbank, sir robert stuart. the tale is some hundreds of years old, but "pearlin jean" and her pathetic story still retain their hold on the imagination of border folk. the legend goes that when the false lover, after a violent scene, deserted his bride that should have been, the poor lady accidentally met her death, but not before she had vowed that she would "be in scotland before him." and sure enough, the first thing that greeted the horrified gaze of the baronet as he crossed the threshold of his home, bringing another bride than her he had loved and left, wras the dim form of jeanne, all decked, as had ever been her wont, in the rich lace that she loved, and from which the apparition derived the name of pearlin jean, "pearlin" being the scottish term for lace. tradition says nothing as to the end of the false lover, but the ghost was still known--so say the country people--to have haunted the house until it was pulled down sometime early in last century. sir thomas dick lauder in his "scottish rivers" tells how { }an old woman then anxiously enquired: "where will pearlin jean gang noo when the house is dismolished?" that is the tale of "pearlin jean" as it is generally told. there is another story, however, less known but much more probable. when the reckless extravagance of succeeding generations ended as it always must end; when cards and dire and the facile aid of wine and women had sent bit after bit of the broad lands of an old family into alien keeping, and not tardily the day had come when the last acre slipped through heedless fingers, and even the household furniture--all that remained to the last baronet of allanbank--was brought to the hammer, there was one room in the old house into which, ere the gloaming fell, the country folk peered with awe greater even than their curiosity. it was a room in which for near on two generations the dust had been left to lie undisturbed on table and chair and mantel-shelf, a room whose little diamond shaped window panes the storms of more than fifty winters had dimmed, and on whose hearth still lay the ashes of a fire quenched half a century back. here it was that pearlin jean had passed those few not unhappy months of her life, while yet a false lover was not openly untrue to her. but into this chamber, since jean quilted it for the last time no servant would venture by day or by night, unaccompanied, lest in it might be seen the wraith of that unfortunate and much wronged lady. it is a story common enough, unhappily, that of jeanne. she was the daughter of a flemish jew, very beautiful, very young, very light-hearted and loving, and unsuspecting of evil, of a disposition invincibly generous and self-sacrificing. in an evil hour the fates threw across her path sir robert stuart of allanbank, then visiting the hague during his travels on the continent. sir robert was a man now no longer in his first youth, self-indulgent, callous of the feelings and rights of others where they ran athwart his own wants or desires, one { }to whom the seamy side of life had long been as an open book. his crop of wild oats, indeed, was ere now of rankest growth, and already on the face of the sower were lines that told of the toil of sowing. but he was a handsome man, with a fluent, honeyed tongue, and it did not take him long to steal the heart from one who, like the poor little jeanne, suspected no evil. to the merse and to allanbank there came word that the land was returning to his home. the house was to be put in order, great preparations to be made. no doubt, folk thought, all pointed to a wedding in the near future; the wild young baronet was about to settle down at last--and not before it was time, if what folk said regarding his last visit to allanbank might be trusted. but the local newsmongers were wrong, in this instance at least of the home-coming and what might be expected to follow. when sir robert's great coach lumbered up to the door of allanbank, there stepped down, not the baronet alone, but a very beautiful young woman, a vision all in lace and ribbons, whom the wondering servants were instructed to regard in future as their mistress. and though neighbours--with a few male exceptions--of course kept severely aloof, steadily ignoring the scandalous household of allanbank, yet after a time, in spite of the fact that no plain gold band graced the third finger of jeanne's left hand, servants, and the country folk generally, came to have a great liking, and even an affection, for the kindly little foreign lass with the merry grey eyes and the sunny hair, and the quaintly tripping tongue. and for a time jeanne was happy, singing gaily enough from morning to night some one or other of her numberless sweet old french _chansons._ she had the man she adored; what mattered neighbours? and so the summer slid by. but before the autumn there came a change. the merry lass was no longer so merry, songs came less often from her lips, tears that she could not hide more and more often { }brimmed over from her eyes; and day by day her lover seemed to become more short in the temper and less considerate of her feelings, more inclined to be absent from home. in a word, he was bored, and he was not the man to conceal it. then when april was come, and the touch of spring flushed every bare twig in copse or wooded bank down by the pools where trout lay feeding, when thrush and blackbird, perched high on topmost hough, poured out their hearts in a glory of song that rose and fell on the still evening air, a little daughter lay in jeanne's arms, and happiness again for a brief space was hers. but not for long. the ardour born anew in her man's self-engrossed heart soon died down. to him now it seemed merely that a squalling infant had been added to his already almost insufferable burden of a peevish woman. more and more, jeanne was left to her own society and to the not inadequate solace of her little child. then "business" took stuart to edinburgh. months passed, and he did not return; nor did jeanne once hear of him. but there came at last for her a day black and terrible, when the very foundations of her little world crumbled and became as the dust that drives before the wind. from edinburgh came a mounted messenger, bearing a letter, written by his man of business, which told the unhappy girl that sir robert stuart was about to be married to one in his own rank of life; that due provision should be made for the child, and sufficient allowance settled on herself, provided that she returned to her own country and refrained from causing further scandal or trouble. she made no outcry, poor lass; none witnessed her bitter grief that night. but in the morning, she and the child were gone, and on her untouched bed lay the lace and the jewels she once had liked to wear because in early days it had pleased her to hear the man she loved say that she looked well in them. time went by, and stuart, unheeding of public opinion, brought his bride to allanbank. of jeanne he had had { }no word; she had disappeared--opportunely enough, he thought. probably she had long ago gone back to her own land, and by this time the countryside had perhaps found some other nine days' wonder to cackle over. so he returned, driving up to the house in great state--as once before he had driven up. surely an ill-omened home-coming, this, for the new bride! as the horses dashed up the avenue, past little groups of gaping country people uncertain whether to cheer or to keep silence, suddenly there darted from a clump of shrubbery the flying figure of a woman carrying in her arms a little child, and ere the postilions could pull up, or any bystander stop her, she was down among the feet of the plunging horses, and an iron heel had trodden out the life of the woman. it was the trampled body of that jeanne whom he had lightly loved for a time and then tossed aside when weary of his toy, that met the horrified gaze of the white-lipped, silent man who got hurriedly down from inside that coach, leaving his terrified bride to shrink unheeded in her corner. and perhaps now he would have given much to undo the past and to make atonement for the wrong he had done. at least, he may have thought, there was the child to look after; and his heart--what there was of it--went out with some show of tenderness towards the helpless infant. but here was the beginning of strife, for jeanne's baby did by no means appeal to the new-made bride. nor was that lady best pleased to find in her withdrawing room a fine portrait in oils of her unlawful predecessor. and so there was little peace in that house; and as little comfort as peace, for it came to pass that no servant would remain there. from the day of her death pearlin jean "walked", they said, and none dared enter the room which once she had called her own. that, of all places, was where she was most certain to be seen. for one day, when the master entered the room alone, they that were near heard his { }voice pleading, and when he came out it was with a face drawn and grey, and his eyes, they said, gazed into vacancy like those of one that sees not. so the place got ever an increasingly bad name, and the ghost of the poor unhappy jeanne could get no rest, but went to and fro continually. and long after that day had arrived when her betrayer, too, slept with his fathers, the notoriety of the affair waxed so great that seven learned ministers, tradition says, united vainly in efforts to lay the unquiet spirit of pearlin jean. so long as the old house stood, there, they will tell you, might her ghost be seen, pathetically constant to the place of her sorrow. and there may not be wanting, even now, those who put faith in the possibility of her slender figure being seen as it glides through the trees where the old house of allanbank once stood. some miles above allanton, on the left bank of whitadder, stands blanerne, home of a very ancient scottish family. and farther back from the river are the crumbling fragments of billie castle--"bylie," in twelfth century charters,--and of bunkle, or, more properly, bonkyll, castle. all these have met the fate assigned to them by the old local rhyming prophecy: "bunkle, billie, and blanerne, three castles strang as aim, built whan davy was a bairn; they'll a' gang doun wi' scotland's crown, and ilka ane sail be a cairn." a cairn each has been, without doubt, or rather a quarry, from which material for neighbouring farm buildings has been ruthlessly torn. of blanerne, i believe the keep still exists, as well as some other remains, to tell of what has been; but billie castle is now little more than a green mound at foot of which runs a more or less swampy burn, with here and there a fragment of massive wall still standing; whilst bunkle is a mere rubble of loose stones. ah these were destroyed in hertford's { }raid in , when so much of the border was "birnd and owaiertrown." [illustration: ] more ruthless than hertford's, however, was the work at bunkle of our own people in . they pulled down an eleventh century church in order to build the present edifice. only a fragment of the original building remains, but many of its carved stones may be seen in the walls of the existing { }church. possibly the old structure was in a bad state of repair. one does not know for certain; but at date of its demolition the building appears to have been entire. [illustration: ] our ancestors of a hundred years ago were not to be "lippened to" where ecclesiastical remains were concerned. they had what amounted to a passion for pulling down anything that was old, and where they did not pull down, they generally covered with hideous plaster any inside wall or ornamental work, which to them perhaps might savour of "papistry." parish ministers, even late in the eighteenth and early in the nineteenth centuries, appear to have taken no interest in those beautiful norman remains, numerous fragments of which even now exist in berwickshire; of all those ministers who compiled the old statistical account of this county, but one or two make any mention of such things. one fears, indeed, that to some of those reverend gentlemen, or to others like them of later date, we are indebted for the destruction of priceless relics of the past. at duns, for instance, as late as the original chancel of an old norman church was pulled down by order of the incumbent, "to improve the church-yard." then, as already mentioned, there is bunkle, an instance of very early norman work, pulled down in . at chirnside, the tower of its norman church was sacrificed in . though great part of the old church walls remain; in the south side is a norman doorway six feet ten inches in height to the lintel and two feet ten and three-quarter inches wide. of edrom church, a very beautiful norman doorway, said to be "the finest of its style in scotland," has been preserved, entirely owing, apparently, to { }the fact that it had been made the entrance to a burial vault. at legerwood, near earlstoun, where stands the chancel of a norman church, the arch is still entire but is defaced with plaster. berwickshire, however, is not the only part of the border where such things have been done. [illustration: ] higher up tweed, at stobo in peeblesshire, there is an interesting old church of norman structure, with sixteenth and seventeenth century alterations; roof and interior fittings are modern, and the building is still used as the parish church. sixteenth and seventeenth century alterations have now at least age to commend them, but it is difficult to see what plea can be advanced for some of those of comparatively recent date. according to "ecclesiastical architecture of scotland," the most serious injury inflicted on the building was the entire destruction of the norman chancel arch, in order to insert a modern pointed one, at the restoration of the church in . over in teviotdale, too, the same passion for altering, or for sweeping away relics of old times, ran its course. in , the town council of hawick gave orders for the destruction of the town's cross. so popish a thing as a cross could not be { }tolerated by those worthy and "unco" pious persons. the treasurer's accounts of the time show that tenpence per day was paid to two men for the work of taking down the cross, and the carved stones seem to have been sold afterwards for eleven shillings and sixpence. no doubt the worthy bailies congratulated themselves on having not only rid the town of an emblem of popery, but on having made quite a handsome monetary profit over the transaction. but to return to whitadder. in his "scottish rivers," sir thomas dick lauder writes of billy castle as the scene of a grisly tale connected with the homes. he tells how, to the best of his reckoning about a century prior to the date at which he wrote, an old lady of that family resided here in a somewhat friendless condition, but with a considerable household of servants, chief of whom was a butler who had been in her service for many years, and in whose integrity she had entire confidence. this old lady, it seems, was in the habit of personally collecting rents from her tenants, and as there were then no country banks in which to deposit the money, it was her custom to count it in presence of the butler, prior to locking the guineas away in a strong cupboard in her bedroom. the door of this room was secured by an ingenious arrangement, whereby a heavy brass bolt, or cylinder, was allowed to fall by its own weight into an opening made exactly to fit it. to an eye in the head of the cylinder was attached a cord which worked through a pulley fastened to the ceiling, and thence by a series of running blocks passed to the bedside. thus the old lady, without troubling to get out of bed, could bolt or unbolt her door at will, and so long as the cylinder was down, no one could possibly enter the room. now, the butler had for years witnessed this counting and stowing away of the rent monies, and temptation had never yet assailed him. he might, indeed, plume himself on his honesty, and say with verges: "i thank god i am as honest as any man living that is an old { }man and no honester than i." but alas! there came a night when the guineas chinked too seductively, and the devil whispered in the butler's ear. perhaps some small financial embarrassment of his own was troubling the man. anyhow, it came to his mind that if he could quietly fill up the hole into which the bolt of his mistress's bedroom door dropped, he might help himself to as much money as he needed. the time of year was the cherry season. what so easy as to fill up the bolt hole with cherry stones? the "geans" grew thick in scotland, and they were black ripe now. "at midnight," says sir thomas, "he stole into his mistress's chamber, cut her throat from ear to ear, broke open her cabinet, and possessed himself of her money; and although he might have walked down stairs and out at the door without exciting either alarm or suspicion, he opened the window and let himself down nearly two stories high, broke his leg, and lay thus among the shrubbery till morning, without ever attempting to crawl away. he was seized, tried, condemned, and executed." it is grisly enough, but hardly so grisly as the real story of what happened. the scene of the murder, however, was not billy castle--which, indeed, had then been dismantled and in ruins for two hundred years--but linthill house, a fine old mansion standing on a "brae" overhanging eye-water, five or six miles from billy. linthill is now inhabited by families of work-people, but it is still in good preservation, and at date of sir thomas dick lauder's story ( ), must have been a very-fine specimen of the old scottish château. the old lady's room was entered as sir thomas describes, but the butler did not immediately cut her throat. she was awakened by the sound of the stealthy rifling of the cupboard, or strong iron-bound box, in which her valuables were kept, and with that pluck which is characteristic of the old-time scottish lady, she jumped up to grapple with the robber. then he cut her throat, and leaving her for dead on the bed, { }proceeded with his rifling. a slight noise, nowever, disturbed him, and, looking round, a terrifying sight met his gaze; the woman whom he had believed to be dead was on her feet, blindly groping her bloody way along the wall to the bell. before he could seize her and complete his work, she had pulled the rope with all the strength left to her, and had alarmed the other servants. thus the murderer had no opportunity to leave by way of the stairs. he jumped from the window--no great feat for an active man with his wits about him. but the butler was flurried; perhaps, also, he was stout, as is not uncommon with pampered servants. in any case, he missed his footing, came down badly, and broke his leg. he did not, however, lie where he fell, inert and helpless. with painful, effort the man dragged himself to a field near by, where, amongst sweet-scented flowering beans, he lay concealed for some days. on the fourth day, as he lay groaning beside a tiny spring of water which still flows near the middle of the field, he chanced to be seen by some children, who gave information. the wretched man was taken, tried, and executed--the last instance in scotland of a criminal being hung in chains. the blood of a murdered person, they say, refuses to be washed clean from any wood-work into which it may have soaked--witness that ghastly dark patch that disfigures a floor in holyrood. here at linthill at least there is no doubt of the fact that those marks remain; in spite of very visible attempts to remove the stains from the wood-work by planing them out, the prints of the poor lady's bloody hands still cling to the oak wainscoting of the gloomy old room where the deed was committed. about house and grounds there hangs now an air of dejection and decay, though eye ripples cheerily just beyond the garden foot and the surrounding landscape is bright with pleasant woods and smiling fields. surely if ever ghost walked, it should be here at linthill; that midnight bell should clang, a window be thrown open, the thud be heard of a heavy body falling on the ground. { }but it is not mistress or man that haunts that house. it is of other things they tell who have been there; of an upper chamber, to which nightly comes the shuffling tramp of men bearing from a vehicle which is heard to drive up to the house door, a heavy weight, which they deposit on the floor. more shuffling, a room door quietly closed, the sound of retreating steps, then silence. "hout!" say the womenfolk of those who now inhabit part of the old house, "it'll no be naething." but they look behind them with a glance not too assured, and the voice that says t is "naething" is not over-steady in tone. a little higher up the river than blanerne we come to broomhouse, where also once stood a castle. in a field on this estate is a spot, still called "bawtie's grave," where the body of sir anthony darcy--"le sieur de la beauté"--warden of the marches in , is said to lie buried. darcy, or de la bastie (or de la beauté), as he was generally called, was a frenchman, a man possessed of great personal beauty and attraction; but the fact that he had been appointed warden of the marches and captain of dunbar castle in room of lord home, who had been treacherously put to death in edinburgh, rendered him very obnoxious to the inhabitants of that part of berwickshire in which the homes held sway. it was through darcy that lord home and his brother had been decoyed to edinburgh, said the kin and supporters of the home family. vengeance must be taken. nor was time wasted over it. an occasion soon arose when darcy in his capacity of warden had to visit langton tower, (no great distance from duns), in order to settle some family feud of the cockburns, relatives by marriage of the homes. here, outside the tower, sir david home, with a party of horsemen, came up, and speedily picked a quarrel with the sieur. swords were out in a minute, and home's band was too strong for darcy and his men. several of the french attendants of the sieur fell, and as the rest of his party were mostly borderers, and therefore not very eager to fight for him, the warden found himself { }compelled to ride for it. he headed in the direction of dunbar. but the ground over which he had to gallop was swampy, and de la beauté's heavy horse sank fetlock deep at every stride, finally "bogging" in a morass some distance to the east of duns. darcy is said to have continued his flight on foot, but the chase did not last long; home and his followers bore down upon him--a well-mounted "little foot-page," they say, the first man up. "the leddies o' france may wail and mourn, may wail and mourn fu' sair, for the bonny bawtie's lang broun lucks they'll never see waving mair." they were on him at once; his head was fiercely hewn off, carried in triumph to home castle, and there fastened to the end of a spear on the battlements, to gaze blind-eyed over the wide merse, the land he had tried to govern. pitscottie says that sir david home of wedderburn cut off darcy's long flow ing locks, and plaiting them into a wreath, knit them as a trophy to his saddle bow. perhaps the sieur in the end got no more than his deserts, or at least no more than he may frequently have dealt out to others. he came of a stock famed in france for cruelty and oppression; and the peasants round allevard, in the savoie,--where stand the fragments of what was once his ancestral home--still tell of that dreadful night when messire satan himself wras seen to take his stand on the loftiest battlement of the castle. and they relate how then the walls rocked and swayed and with hideous crash toppled to the ground. perhaps it was this very catastrophe which sent the "bonny bawtie" to scotland. a cairn once marked the spot where the sieur's body found a resting place. but, unfortunately, such a ready-made quarry of stones attracted the notice of a person who contracted to repair the district roads. it is many years ago now, and there was no { }one to say him nay. he carted away the interesting land-mark and broke up the cairn into road metal. home castle still dominates this part of the border, but no longer is it the building of "bawtie's" day. that was pulled down in the time of the protector, by cromwell's soldiers under colonel fenwick. thomas cockburn, governor in when fenwick summoned the castle to surrender, was valiant only on paper; a few rounds from the english guns caused his valour to ooze from his fingers' ends, and sent up the white flag. that was the end of the old castle. fenwick dismantled it and pulled down the walls; the present building, imposing as it seems, standing grim and erect on its rocky height, is but a dummy fortress, built in the early eighteenth century on the old foundations, from the old material, by the earl of marchmont. the original building dated from the thirteenth century, and a stormy life it had, like many border strongholds alternately in scottish and in english hands. in , after a gallant defence by the widow of the fourth lord home, it was taken by the english under somerset; two years later it was recaptured by that lady's son, the fifth lord home. "too old at forty," is the cry raised in these days--presumably by those who have not yet attained to that patriarchal age--but when a state of war was the chronic condition of the border-land, men of vastly greater age than forty were not seldom able to show the way to warriors young enough to be their grandsons. at this taking of home castle in the closing days of december , it was a man over sixty, one of the name of home, who was the first to mount the wall. the attack was made at night, on the side where the castle was both naturally and artificially strongest, and where consequently least vigilant guard might probably be kept. as home, ahead of his comrades, began to slide his body cautiously over the parapet, the suspicions of a sentry pacing at some little distance were roused, and he challenged and { }turned out the guard. this man had not actually _seen_ anything, the night was too dark for that, but he had, as it were, _smelt_ danger, with that strange extra sense that sometimes in such circumstances raises man more nearly to the level of his superior in certain things--the wild animal. however, in this case the sentry got no credit, but only ridicule, from his comrades, for examination showed that there was no cause whatever for his having brought the guard out into the cold, looking for mares' nests over the ramparts. home and his party had dropped hurriedly back, and during the time that the englishmen were glancing carelessly over the wall, they lay securely hidden close at its base. as soon, however, as the english soldiers had returned to the snug warmth of their guard-room, and the mortified sentry was once more pacing up and down, home was again the first of the scots to clamber up and to fall upon the astonished englishman, whom this time he slew, a fate which overtook most of the castle's garrison. "treachery helped the assailants," said the english. "home castle was taken by night, and treason, by the scots," is the entry in king edward's journal. again, in , it was battered by the heavy siege guns of the earl of sussex and once more for a time was held by-england; finally in came its last experience of war. it was at home castle that mary of gueldres, queen of james ii of scotland, lay whilst her husband besieged roxburgh in . one hundred and six years later, mary queen of scots was there on her way to craigmillar from jedburgh. in days when the bale-fire's red glare on the sky by night, or its heavy column of smoke by day, was the only means of warning the country of coming invasion from the south, home castle, with its wide outlook, was the ideal centre of a system of beacon signals on the scottish border. the position was matchless for such purpose; nothing could escape the watchful eyes of those perched on the lofty battlements of this "sentinel of the merse," no flaming signal from the fords over { }tweed fail to be seen. in an instant, at need, fires would be flashing their messages over all the land, warning not only the whole border, but dunbar, haddington, edinburgh, and even the distant shores of life. "a baile is warnyng of ther cumyng quhat power whatever thai be of. twa bailes togedder at anis thai cumyng in deide. four balis, ilk ane besyde uther and all at anys as four candills, sal be suthfast knawlege that thai ar of gret power and menys." so ran part of the instructions issued in the fifteenth century. but almost in our own day--at least in the days of the grandfathers of some now living--home castle flashed its warning and set half scotland flying to arms. britain then lived under the lively apprehension of a french invasion. with an immense army, fully equipped, napoleon lay at boulogne waiting a favourable opportunity to embark. little wonder, therefore, that men were uneasy in their minds, and that ere they turned in to bed of a night country folk cast anxious glances towards some commanding "law" or fell, where they knew that a beacon lay ready to be fired by those who kept watch. in the dull blackness of the night of st january, , the long-looked-for summons came. all over the border, on hill after hill where of old those dreaded warnings had been wont to flash, a tiny spark was seen, then a long tongue of flame leaping skyward. the french were coming in earnest at last! just as ready as it had been in the fiercest days of border warfare was now the response to the sudden call to arms. over a country almost roadless, rural members of the various yeomanry corps galloped through the mirk night, reckless of everything save only that each might reach his assembly point in time to fall in with his comrades. scarce a man failed to report himself as ready for service--in all the border i believe there were but two or three. and though it turned out that the alarm fires had been lit through an error of judgment on the part of one of the watchers, there is no doubt that to the bulk of the men who turned out so full of courage and enthusiasm that night, the { }feeling at first, if mixed with relief, was one of disappointment that they had had no chance of trying a fall with "boney" and his veterans. the man who was the first to fire his beacon on that st of january was a watcher at home castle. peering anxiously through the gloom, he imagined that he saw a light flare up in the direction of berwick. it was in reality only a fire lit by northumbrian charcoal-burners that he saw, and its locality was many points to the south of berwick, but as the blaze sprang higher, and the flames waxed, the excited watcher lost his head, and, forgetting to verify the position, feverishly set a light to his own beacon and sent the summons to arms flying over the border. had it not chanced that the watcher by the beacon on st. abb's head was a man of cool temperament, all scotland had been buzzing that night like a hornets' nest. this man, however, reasoned with himself that news of an invasion, if it came at all, must necessarily come from a coastal, and not from an inland station, and therefore he very wisely did not repeat the signal. the spirit shown on the occasion of this false alarm, and the promptitude with which yeomanry and volunteers turned out, are things of which borderers are justly proud. many of the yeomanry rode from forty to fifty miles that night in order to be in time; and even greater distances were covered. sir walter scott himself was in cumberland when word of the firing of the beacons came to him, but within twenty-four hours he and his horse had reached dalkeith, where his regiment was assembled, a distance of one hundred miles from his starting point. in one or two instances, where members of a corps chanced to be from home, in edinburgh on private business, mother or wife sent off with the troop when it marched, the horse, uniform, and arms of husband or son, so that nothing might prevent them from joining their regiment at dalkeith. the substance of the message then sent to her son by the widowed mother of the writer's grandfather, will be found in sir walter's notes to _the antiquary_. if in our day { }like cause should unhappily arise, if the dread shadow of invasion should ever again fall on our land, no doubt the response would be as eager as it was in ; the same spirit is there that burned in our forefathers. but of what value now-a-days are half-trained men if they come to be pitted against the disciplined troops of a continental power? of no more avail than that herd of wild bulls that the spaniards in tried to drive down on morgan's buccaneers at panama. many a tale is still told of the events of that stirring night of st january, . one of the selkirk volunteers, a man named chisholm, had been married that day; but there was no hesitation on his part. "weel, peggy, my woman," he said in parting with his day-old bride, "if i'm killed, ye'll hear tell o't. and if i'm no killed, i'll come back as sune as i can." a particularly "canny" scot was another volunteer, whose mother anxiously demanded ere he marched if he had any money with him in case of need. "na, na!" he said, "they may kill me if they like, but they'll get nae siller off _me_." a few cases of the white feather there were, of course; in so large a body of undisciplined men there could hardly fail to be some who had no stomach for the fight, but instances of cowardice were surprisingly few. one or two there were who hid under beds; and one youth, as he joined the ranks, was heard to blubber, "oh, mother, mother, i wish i'd been born a woman." but of those who should have mustered at kelso, only two out of' five hundred failed to answer to their names, and possibly they may have had legitimate cause for their absence. many of the members of foot regiments were long distances away when the alarm was given. of the duns volunteers, for instance, two members were fifteen miles distant when the beacons blazed up. yet they made all speed into the town, got their arms and accoutrements, marched all through the night, and fell in alongside their comrades at haddington next forenoon. many--all the men of lessudden, for example--marched without uniforms. an{ }unpleasant experience had been theirs had they fallen, in civilian dress, into the hands of the enemy. to return to whitadder.--some miles above broomhouse we come to cockburn law, a conical hill of about feet in height, round three sides of which the river bends sharply. on the northern slope of the hill is the site, and what little remains to be traced, of edinshall, a circular tower dating probably from the seventh century. according to the oid statistical account of the parish, the walls of this tower,--edwin's hall,--measured in diameter feet inches, and in thickness feet inches, enclosing in their depths many cells or chambers. their height must once have been very considerable, for even at date of the statistical account--the end of the eighteenth century--they stood about eight feet high, and were surrounded on all sides by a scattered mass of fallen stones. the ground around shows traces of having been fortified, but the tower itself probably was never a place of strength. the stones of which the building was constructed were large, and close fitting, but not bound together with mortar, which indeed was not in use in scotland so early as the date of the building of edinshall,--hence the tower was a quarry too convenient to be respected by agriculturists of a hundred years ago. most of the material of the ancient build ing has been taken to construct drains, or to build "dry stane dykes." the "rude hand of ignorance" has indeed been heavy on the antiquities of scotland. where the stream bends sharply to the left as one fishes up those glorious pools and boulder-strewn rapids, there stands a cottage not far removed from edinshall, which on the ordnance survey maps bears the very un-scottish name of elba. it has, however, not even a remote connection with the place of exile of an emperor. the learned would have us believe that the name is derived from the gaelic "eil," a hill, and "both," a dwelling. it may be so; but it seems much more likely that "elba" is merely the ordnance survey people's spelling of the { }word "elbow," as it is pronounced in scotland; the river here makes an extremely sharp bend, or elbow. near elba is an old copper mine which was worked to advantage by an english company midway in the eighteenth century. abandoned after a time, it was reopened in , but was soon again closed. copper was not there in sufficient quantity to pay; probably it had been worked out before. four or five miles from here we come to abbey st. bathans, a name which conjures up visions of peaceful old ruins nestling among whispering elms by clear and swift flowing waters. there is now, however, little of interest to be found. st. bathans was originally a convent of cistercian nuns, with the title of a priory, and was founded towards the end of the twelfth century by ada, daughter of william the lion. as late as , the then recently written statistical account of the parish says that the north and east walls of the church "still bear marks of antiquity," and that in the north wall is "an arched door which communicated with the residence of the nuns"; but, says the account, this door "is now built up." "adjoining the church, and between it: and the whitadder, remains of the priory were visible a few years ago." where are they now? built into some wall or farm building, no doubt, or broken up, perhaps, to repair roads or field drains. and where is the font, with its leaden pipe, that stood "in the wall near the altar"? perhaps--if it still exists, unbroken,--it may now be used as a trough for feeding pigs, as has been the fate of many another such vessel. it is hard to forgive the dull, brutish ignorance that wilfully wrecked so much of the beauty and interest that the past bequeathed to us. it is not easy to say who was the saint from whom abbey st. bathans inherited its name. probably it was bothan, prior of old mailros in the seventh century, a holy man of great fame in the border. there is a well or spring not far distant from the church of st. bathans, whose miraculous powers of healing all sickness or disease were doubtless derived { }from the good father. these powers have now long decayed, but as late as --possibly even later--some curious beliefs regarding the well were held in the neighbourhood, and its waters, it was well known, would "neither fog nor freeze" in the coldest weather. shortly after leaving abbey st. bathans, as we gradually near the lammermuirs, the land on both sides of whitadder begins more to partake of the hill-farm variety, where grouse and blackgame swarm thick on the stooked corn in late autumn. from the south side, a little above ellemford, there enters a considerable stream, the water of dye, said to be of good repute as regards its trout. one of these high, round backed hills here is probably the scene of some great battle of old times. "manslaughter law" is the satisfying name of the hill. there is a tumulus still remaining on the north side of it, and near at hand weapons have been dug up, says the statistical account. one wonders what their fate may have been. they, at any rate, would surely be preserved? it is by no means so sure. one sword, at least, that was found many years ago on the west side of manslaughter law, met with the fate one might expect from the kind of people who used to quarry into beautiful old abbeys in order to get material to build a pig-stye. it was taken to the village smithy, and there "improved" out of existence--made into horseshoes perhaps, or a "grape for howkin' tatties." had it been a helmet that was then unearthed, no doubt a use would have been found for it such as that which the elizabethan poet sadly suggests for the helmet of the worn out old man-at-arms: "his helmet now shall make a hive for bees." eastward from the spot where this sword was found is a barrow which, says the statistical account, "probably covers more arms"; and on a hill by waich water, a tributary of the dye, are the twin-law cairns, which are supposed to mark the resting place of twin brothers who fell here,--perhaps in pre-historic { }times. tradition says that these two were commanders of rival armies, scottish and saxon, and that, neither at the time being aware of their relationship, they undertook to fight it out, as champions of the rival hosts. when both lay dead, some old man, who had known the brothers in their childhood, gazing on them, with grief discovered the relationship of the slain men; and to commemorate the tragedy, the soldiers of both hosts formed lines from waich water to the hill's summit, and passed up stones wherewith they built these cairns. at byrecleuch ridge, towards the head of dye water, is another enormous and very remarkable cairn called the mutiny stones. this great mass of piled up stone measures two hundred and forty feet in length; where broadest, seventy-five feet; and its greatest height is eighteen feet. what does it commemorate? a great fight, say some, that took place in between the earl of dunbar and hepburn of hailes, in which the latter was killed. a prehistoric place of sepulture, hazards sir herbert maxwell. but it was not here that hepburn fell; that was elsewhere in the merse. and they were little likely in the fifteenth century to have taken such titanic pains to hand his memory down to posterity. the prehistoric place of sepulture sounds the more probable theory. but why "mutiny stones"? there must surely be some local tradition more satisfying than that of the hepburn-dunbar fight. the upper part of whitadder must once have been well fitted to check hostile raids from the south whose object was to strike the fat lothians through the passes over the lammermuirs. in the few miles of wild hill country that sweep from its source on clint's dod down to its junction with dye water, there formerly stood no fewer than six castles, chambers tells us,--john's cleuch, gamelshiel, (the lady of which was killed by a wolf as she walked near her home one evening in the gloaming) penshiel, redpath, harehead, and cranshaws. except in the case of cranshaws, there are now { }few traces left standing of these strongholds. cranshaws, a building of the sixteenth century, is in good preservation; of gamelshiel there remains a bit of wall, of penshiel a fragment of vaulting; of the others no stone. cranshaws of old, it is said, was long the haunt of one of those brownies, or familiar spirits, that were wont in the good old days of our forefathers mysterious ly to do by night, when the household slept, all manner of domestic or farm work for those who humoured them and treated them well in the matter of food, or other indulgence affected by their kind. there was nothing a brownie would not do for the family he favoured, provided that he was kept in good humour; otherwise, or if he were laughed at or his work lightly spoken of, it were better for that family that it had never been born; their sleep was disturbed o' nights, malevolent ill-luck dogged them by day, until he was propitiated. but leave out for him each night a jug of milk and a barley bannock,--they were not luxurious in their tastes, those brownies,--and at dawn you would find ".... how the drudging goblin sweat to earn his cream bowl duly set; when in one night, ere glimpse of morn, his shadow'y flail hath threshed the corn that ten day-lab'rers could not end; then lies him down, the lubber-fiend, and stretched out all the chimney's length, basks at the tire his hairy strength; and crop-full out of doors he flings ere the first cock his matin rings." they tell that this particular brownie at cranshaws, being offended at some reflection made on his work, the following night took up an entire crop that he had thrashed, curried it to the raven craig, two miles down the river, and threw it over the cliff. belief in the brownie died hard in the border i am not sure that in remote "up the water" districts he did not survive almost till the advent of motor cars and bicycles. chapter ii blackadder, norham, florden, coldstream, warr, and the eden |but { }a step over the moor from waich water, across by twin-law cairns and down by the harecleuch hill we come to the head-waters of the most considerable of whitadder's tributaries--blackadder, "vulgarly so pronounced," says the old statistical account. its real name is "blackwater," according to that authority, because it rises out of peaty swamps that impart to its waters a look of sullen gloom. i am unable to say what now may be its reputation as a trout stream, but long years ago it abounded with "a particular species of trout, much larger than the common burn trout, and remarkably fat." the statistical account mentions a notable peculiarity of blackadder, on the accuracy of which one would be inclined to throw doubt. it says that though every other stream in the country which eventually mingles its waters with tweed, swarms with salmon in the season, yet into blackwater they do not go; or if they enter at all, it is found that they die before they can ascend many miles. the swampy source of the stream "is commonly ascribed as the reason why the fish cannot frequent the river," says the account. drainage, one would be inclined to think, has long ago removed that fatal nature from the water, if it ever existed. trout throve on it, at all events, red-fleshed beauties, "similar," says the clerical { }writer of the statistical account of the parish of fogo--a man and a fisher, surely--"to those of eden water, which joins tweed three miles below kelso. the eden rises also in a marshy district, which may be the cause of this similarity of the fish." but most border streams take their rise in more or less marshy districts, though they may not flow direct from a swamp. was it in the eden that thomson, author of "the seasons," learned to fish? or was it in jed? he was born at ednam,--edenham,--a village on the eden, and he may have loved to revisit it in later years, and to catch the lusty speckled trout for which the stream has always been famous. probably, however, he learned to throw a fly on jed, for he passed his boyhood at southdean--to which parish his father had been transferred as minister long ere the son was fit to wield a rod--and he himself got his early education at jedburgh. in jed or in eden, then, and perhaps in teviot and ale--he was much at ancrum--he learned the art; and not unskilled in it indeed must he have been. where in all literature can one find a description of trout-fishing so perfect as the following? "just in the dubious point, where with the pool is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank reverted plays in undulating flow, there throw, nice judging, the delusive fly; and, as you lead it round in artful curve, with eye attentive mark the springing game. strait as above the surface of the flood they wanton rise, or, urged by hunger, leap, there fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook; some lightly tossing to the grassy bank and to the shelving shore slow dragging some with various hand proportion'd to their force. if yet too young, and easily deceived, a worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod, him, piteous of his youth, and the short space he has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven, soft disengage, and back into the stream { } the speckled captive throw; but, should you lure from his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook, behoves you then to ply your finest art. long time he, following cautious, scans the fly, and oft attempts to seize it, but as oft the dimpled water speaks his jealous fear. at last, while haply o'er the shaded sun passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death with sullen plunge: at once he darts along, deep struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line, then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed, the cavern'd bank, his old secure abode, and (lies aloft, and flounces round the pool, indignant of the guile. with yielding hand that feels him still, yet to his furious course gives way, you, now retiring, following how, across the stream, exhaust his idle rage, till floating broad upon his breathless side, and to his fate abandon'd, to the shore you gaily drag your unresisting prize." many a long day of spring and summer must the man who could paint so perfect a picture have passed, rod in hand and creel on back, by the hurrying streams and quiet pools of some border water, many a time have listened to the summer breeze whispering in the leafy banks, and heard, as in a dream, the low murmur of jed or ale. and what sport must they have had in the old days when thomson fished--and even in the days when stoddart fished--when farmers were ignorant, or careless, of the science of drainage, and rivers ran for days, nay, for weeks after rain, clear and brown, dimpled with rising trout. what sport indeed of all kinds must there have been here in the south of scotland in very ancient days when the country was mostly forest or swamp, and wild animals, now long extinct, roamed free over hill and dale. it has been mentioned a page or two back how the lady of gamelshiel tower was killed by a wolf. here, at the bead waters of blackadder--as the crow flies not a dozen miles from gamel{ }shiel--we are in the midst of a district once infested by wolves. westruther, through which parish blackadder runs, was originally "wolfstruther," the "swamp of the wolves." and all over the surrounding country, place names speak of the beasts of the field. an ms. account of berwickshire tells how westruther was "a place of old which had great woods, with wild beasts, fra quhilk the dwellings and hills were designed, as wolfstruther, raecleuch, hindside, hartlaw and harelaw." "there's hart and hynd, and dae and rae, and of a' wilde hestis grete plentie," as we read in the "sang of the outlaw murray. the last-mentioned name, harelaw, calls up visions of another chase than that of the hare. sir thomas dick lauder in his "scottish rivers," (written sometime about ), mentions that one of the most curious facts connected with harelaw moor was that a man, who, sir thomas says, died "not long ago," recollected having seen sir john cope and his dragoons in full flight across it from the battle of prestonpans, breathlessly demanding from all the country people they met information as to the shortest road to coldstream. "says the berwickers unto sir john, 'o what's become o' all your men?' 'in faith,' says he, 'i dinna ken; i left them a' this morning.'" he must have been a very aged man, but if "not long ago" meant any time, as late, say, as the twenties of last century, no doubt it would be possible that as a boy of eight or ten, he might have seen the panic-stricken dragoons spurring over the moor. such a sight would remain vivid in the memory of even a very old man. childhood's incidents outlive all others. above harelaw moor, on a feeder of the blackadder, is wedderlie, formerly an old border keep of the usual pattern, but towards the close of the seventeenth century embodied with a fine building in the scottish style of that day. it is { }said to have belonged originally to that family, the edgars, the graves of two members of which are commemorated by the twin-law cairns. the family name lives still in that of the neighbouring edgar-burn, near to which streamlet is gibb's cross, said to be the scene of a martyrdom for sake of the reformed faith; and hard by is evelaw tower--a house apparently without a history--still in tolerable preservation. at wedderlie, of old time, says sir thomas dick lauder, there stood a very ancient chapel, of which some traces of a vault remain, or remained at a recent date. local tradition had it that at time of the reformation the monks hid in this vault all their church plate and other precious possessions, meaning at the first convenient opportunity to remove them to a place of greater safety. the convenient opportunity, it was thought in more modern times, had never come, for in a cave hard by the vault there was one day discovered a great quantity of coins--all of which, by the way, speedily and mysteriously disappeared. it is said, however, that they were not of dates that could in any degree connect this _cache_ with the reformation, and it is suggested in sir thomas's book that they were concealed there by the inhabitants of wedderlie during the religious wars of the seventeenth century. those "in the know" may all have been killed, of course; the secret of the hiding place was not likely to be within the ken of more than one or two. these finds of coins of all dates are by no means rare in the scottish border counties. one would fain know something of those who hid them, and of the events which were passing at the time when they were buried. were they the spoil of some reiver, ravished from a roof-tree blackened and left desolate south from cheviot and tweed; spoil for convenience sake thus put away by one to whom the chance of a more convenient season to recover it was ended by a bloody death? or were they, sometimes, store, of coins hastily secreted by quiet country folk fleeing in terror from the violence of english { }soldiery--men such as they who came north with hertford in , whose orders were to put man, woman, and child to fire and the sword, without exception, if any resistance should be met with? what wonder if the harmless country people then left all, and fled for their lives and the honour of their women! for what so easy as to find excuse to carry out such orders? a child ill treated, a woman outraged; and a man--husband, father, lover--mad with horror and impotent rage, "resisting!" coins, in greater or less number, are continually turning up in all sorts of unlikely spots. sometimes in a marshy field (where one would least expect buried treasure), the spade of an irish drainer has been known to throw out elizabethan crowns. how did _they_ get there? perhaps it might have been when the horse of some rider, bogged and struggling to get clear, in its violent efforts burst the fastenings of a saddle bag or wallet, or unseated its rider, emptying whatever may have been the equivalent of a trousers' pocket in days when men wore mail. some of these elizabethan coins, perhaps, found their resting place in , when the english under the earl of sussex harried and burnt the border, in "tyvydale bernyng on bothe hands at the lest two myle, levyng neyther castell, towne, nor tower unbrent, tyll we came to jedworth." and so on, across by hawick and branxholm, up by oxnain water and kale and bowmont, and round about kelso, burning and destroying homes, and hanging prisoners. "thus," says lord hunsdon in a letter to sir w. cecil, "thus hathe hyr majesty had as honorable a revenge of the recevars of hyr rebels, and of all such as have byn common spoylars of hyr pepoll, and burners of her cuntrey, as ever any of hyr predecessors had." they were not weakly addicted to half measures in those days, whichever side was "top dog." "and so we pray to god to send youre majestie a longe and prosperowse raigne, and all youre enemyes to feare youe as moch as the scottish borderers feare youe at this present," { }ended lords sussex and hunsdon in a despatch written by them to the queen from "barwick" on rd april, . the lost pay-chest of montrose's army at philiphaugh has given rise to many a story of treasure hunted for or recovered. sir walter scott tells how on the day of the battle the earl of traquair and one of his followers, a blacksmith, carrying with them a large sum of money, the pay of the troops, were on their way across the hills to join montrose at selkirk. when as far away as minchmuir, they heard the sound of heavy firing, to which lord traquair attached little importance, believing it to be merely montrose exercising his men, but which, from the long continued and irregular nature of the firing, the blacksmith made certain was an engagement. by the time they reached broadmeadows, there was no question as to whose conjecture was the correct one. by ones and twos, like the first heavy drops, forerunners of a deluge to follow from some ink-black cloud, came men flying for their lies, on horses pushed beyond the utmost limits of their speed; then more fugitives, and more, and hard on their heels, leslie's troopers thundering. lord traquair and the blacksmith turned and fled with the throng. but the money was in lord traquair's saddle-bags, and the weight was great; he was like to be captured, for his horse thus handicapped could not face the hill and the heavy ground. whether the blacksmith offered to sacrifice himself to save his master, or the master ordered the servant to dismount, one does not know, but the outcome was that lord traquair fled over the moor on the blacksmith's comparatively fresh horse, and the blacksmith, on a spent animal, was left to make the best of his way with the silver. leaving the press of fugitives, he fled up yarrow at the top speed of his tired horse, but finding himself closely pursued, to save himself and to lighten the animal's load, he flung away the bags of money. he said afterwards that he threw them into a well or pond near tinnis, a little above hangingshaw, and many a well and many a pond has since been vainly dragged for the lost treasure. no man { }has yet recovered it. probably that blacksmith knew a thing or two, and he was not likely to give away the show. whether or no, however, it is certain that many silver coins having dates of about the time of the battle were in sir walter's day ploughed up on the river haughs of tinnis. and at a much later date, a quantity of coins and some silver plate were unearthed nearer philiphaugh, on the actual scene of the fight. these coins were claimed by the exchequer. a dozen wine bottles, also, of old pattern, were found buried here, but what had been the liquor contained in them it was not possible to say; the bouquet had entirely perished, and even the colour. there is a pool in yarrow, near harehead, into which tradition says that montrose flung his treasure chest, telling the devil to keep it till he should return to claim it. up to the present the foul fiend has not released his care, for when--as is said,--the pool was run dry, or nearly dry, a good many years ago, only a lochabar-axe was found in it. a somewhat more probable story of the chest is that the bearer, as he hurried past, flung it into a cottage, near foulshiels, and then rode for his life. some of leslie's men got it there, and looted it. whose is the portrait that is contained in the little locket which was found, years ago, on the field of philiphaugh? on the one side is the representation of a heart pierced by darts, and the motto "i dye for loyalty"; on the other, a long straight sword is engraved. inside is a portrait, and opposite the portrait, the words "i mourne for monarchie." sometimes coins have been found, too, as at blackcastle rings, on blackadder, at its junction with the faungrist burn. here, on the northern bank of the river, is what must once have been a strongly fortified camp; opposite, on the southern side, and running along the river's bank for fully half a mile, after which it branches to the south, is a well marked line of entrenchment. eighty years ago, or thereabouts, an old silver chain was unearthed in the camp; and in the { }trench, a little distance away, when turf was being removed, they came upon quite a number of gold and silver coins of the reign of edward iii. it was somewhere in this neighbourhood, (though probably nearer duns,) that lord percy the english warden, at the head of seven thousand men, lay encamped in the year , when (as is mentioned by redpath), his host was dispersed, or at least was said to have been compelled to retire across the tweed, on foot and without their baggage, owing to a simple stratagem of the scots. to scare away from their poor little crops the deer and wild cattle that were wont when night fell to ravage the ill-cultivated patches, the country folk of that district were accustomed to sound at frequent intervals a primitive kind of drum. to the ends of long poles were fixed what may best be termed huge rattles, made of dried skins tightly stretched over semi-circular ribs of wood. inside each skin were put a few round pebbles. obviously, when shaken vigorously, these rattles would give out a noise quite terrifying to any four footed animal, especially when heard in the stillness of night. accordingly, one pitchy night, in the hour before dawn when sleep lay heavy on the invading force, a certain number of the scots, bearing with them those unwarlike instruments, stole quietly through the tangled growth to the heights on either side of the english camp. then broke out a din truly infernal. picketed horses, mad with terror, strained back on their head-ropes, and breaking loose, stampeded through the camp, trampling over the recumbent forms of men wearied and even yet but halt-awake, many of the younger among them more than ready to share the panic of their horses. if the tale be not exaggerated, daylight showed an army deprived of its transport animals, its horsemen compelled to foot it, their steeds the prey of the wily scots; a baggageless force compelled to fall back in disorder across tweed. in this part of berwickshire you may still faintly trace here and there the outline of a ditch and earthen rampart called { }herrits dyke, which, local tradition says, once ran from berwick inland to near legerwood on leader water,--a work not dis-similar to the catrail, (which cuts across something like fifty miles of the border, from peel fell in the cheviots to torwoodlee on gala), but without the double wall of catrail. there are various sections of defensive works of this nature in the border--if they were defensive, for instance, on the hill less than half a mile from the old castle of holydean, near st. boswells, in roxburghshire, there is a particularly well-marked ditch and double rampart running for some distance across the moor. it can scarcely be a continuation of herrits dyke, for its construction is different, and its course must run almost at a right angle to herrits, which is, indeed, many miles away from holydean. this ditch points almost directly towards torwoodlee, but it is out of the accepted catrail track, unless the latter, instead of stopping at torwoodlee, (as one has been taught), turned sharply and swept down the vale-of gala, and once more crossed tweed. it is curious, if these works are defensive, that no ancient weapons have ever been found in or near them. down the water a few miles from blackcastle rings stands the little town of greenlaw, a settlement which dates from very early times, but not on its present site. originally the village stood about a mile and a half to the south east, on the isolated green "law" or hill from which it takes its name. the history of the present town goes no farther back than the end of the seventeenth century, a date about contemporaneous with that of its market cross, which stands now on the west side of the place. this cross is said to have been erected by sir patrick home of polwarth (afterwards created earl of march-mont) in the year . in it was pulled down, to make room for something else--in the maddening fashion that possessed our ancestors of the period--and, in the usual manner, it was chucked aside as "auld world trash." in , however, the cross, or at least the greater part of it, minus the top, which { }originally bore a lion rampant, was discovered in the basement of the old church tower, and was then re-erected where it now stands. still farther down the river is the roman camp at chesters. but even as long ago as , the writer of the statistical account of the parish of fogo complained that the old camp was "very much defaced," and that the stones had mostly been "removed to make room for the plough." the rage for agricultural improvement was in but in extreme infancy; and as no society for the preservation of ancient monuments came into existence for many a long year afterwards, and interest in such things was confined to the very few, it is safe to infer that not a great deal of this camp now exists. from chesters to marchmont is but a step. marchmont house dates from about , and was built by the third earl of marchmont, near the site of redbraes, the residence of his grandfather, that sir patrick home of polwarth who erected the cross in greenlaw. the village and church of polwarth are at no great distance. the original church was consecrated in the tenth century, and was restored in , from which date it stood till , when sir patrick home (then earl of marchmont) rebuilt it. in the family vault of this church, sir patrick lay in hiding for several weeks in , when the search for him was hot and discovery would have cost him his head. the secret of his whereabouts was known to three persons--to his wife, his daughter grisell (whose name as lady grisell baillie, lives still in the affectionate remembrance of the scottish border), and to jamie winter, a faithful retainer. grisell home, then a girl of eighteen, during all the time of his concealment contrived, with very great risk and difficulty, to convey food to her father in his gruesome lodging. each night, she slipped stealthily from the house, and--sorest trial of all to the nerves of an imaginative scot,--made her cautious way in the darkness across the "bogle"-haunted churchyard to her father's lair. many a shift were she and her { }mother put to in order to get food sufficient for their prisoner without rousing suspicion among the servants, and more than once the situation was all but given away by the innocent hut embarrassing comments of young and irresponsible members of the family. sometimes the servants cannot have been present at meals, one would think; or else they smelt a rat, and were discreetly blind. one day at dinner, grisell had with careful cunning succeeded in smuggling an entire sheep's head off the dish on to her own lap, thence presently to be borne surreptitiously from the room, when her young brother, with the maddening candour and persistency of childhood, called the company's attention to his sister's prodigious appetite, which not only enabled her to gobble up in next to no time so much good meat, but even rendered her able to make the very bones vanish. but the scent at length began to grow hot; they had nearly run the fox to his earth. suspicion hovered over the neighbourhood of the church, and no longer could the vault be deemed even a moderately safe hiding place. a new den was necessary; and a new den was found, one perhaps even more cramped than the old quarters, if a trifle less insanitary. a large deal box was made by the faithful jamie winter, and was secretly conveyed into a cellar at redbraes, of which lady home kept the key. but to get the "muckle kist" snugly into its resting place, it was necessary to scrape away the earthen floor of the cellar under the flooring hoards, so that the box might be entirely hidden when the boards were re-laid. this work could not be done with pick and shovel, lest the noise should betray what was going on. grisell, therefore, and jamie winter literally with their own hands carried out the arduous job; the earth was _scraped_ away, and poor grisell home's nails had almost entirely disappeared ere the work wyas finished and the hiding place made ready for her father. it was scarcely an ideal place of concealment; water oozed in so quickly that one night when sir patrick was about { }to descend into his narrow lodging, it was found that the bedding on which he was used to lie was afloat. and, with its other drawbacks, it had not even the advantage, as a hiding place, of being above suspicion. had it not been, indeed, for the presence of mind of a kinsman and namesake, home of halyburton, a party of dragoons had certainly captured sir patrick one day. but halyburton's liquor was good, and after their thirty mile march from edinburgh, the temptation to wet their whistle could not be resisted. it did not take long, but it was long enough; a groom on a fast, powerful horse slipped away over the moor to redbraes, bearing with him no word of writing, but a letter addressed to lady home, of which the contents were nothing but a feather,--a hint sufficiently well understood. ere the dragoons arrived at redbraes, sir patrick was clear away and well on the road to the coast and holland, and safety. as we travel down blackadder towards its junction with the whitadder, about equidistant between the two rivers we come to the only town of any importance in the district--duns, or dunse as it used, not very appropriately, to be spelled from to , in which latter year the ancient spelling was revived. the original hamlet or settlement stood on the dun or law which adjoins the present town. but hertford wiped that pretty well out of existence in , as he wiped out many another stronghold and township in the south of scotland. what was left of the place soon fell into utter decay and ruin, and a new settlement on the present site, then guarded on three sides by a more or less impassable swamp, sprung up in . duns is one of several places which claim the honour of having been the birthplace of the learned duns scotus ( - ), but even though she be unable quite to substantiate this claim, her record of worthy sons is no short one. and was not that woman, famed in the seventeenth century, she who was possessed of an evil spirit which caused her, an illiterate person, to talk fluently in the latin tongue, a { }native of duns! the privy council record, under date th july, , contains an order for bringing before it margaret lumsden, "the possessed woman in duns," along with her father-in-law and her brother, that order might be taken in the case, "as the importance and nature of such a great cause requires." a fast for her benefit was even proposed by sundry clergymen; interest in her case was acute and widespread. twenty-nine years later, an account of the circumstances was written by the earl of lauderdale, and was published in baxter's "certainty of the world of spirits." lord lauderdale was a schoolboy in , but he was accustomed to hear the case very fully discussed by his father and the minister of duns, the latter of whom, at least, firmly believed that the woman was possessed by an evil spirit. the earl wrote as follows to baxter: "i will not trouble you with many circumstances; one only i shall tell you, which i think will evince a real possession. the report being spread in the country, a knight of the name of forbes, who lived in the north of scotland, being come to edinburgh, meeting there with a minister of the north, and both of them desirous to see the woman, the northern minister invited the knight to my father's house (which was within ten or twelve miles of the woman), whither they came, and next morning went to see the woman. they found her a poor ignorant creature, and seeing nothing extraordinary, the minister says in latin to the knight: '_nondum audivimus spiritum loquentem_.' presently a voice comes out of the woman's mouth: '_andis loquentem, audis loquentem_.' this put the minister into some amazement (which i think made him not mind his own latin); he took off his hat, and said: '_misereatur deus peccatoris!_' the voice presently out of the woman's mouth said: '_dic peccatricis, dic peccatricis_'; whereupon both of them came out of the house fully satisfied, took horse immediately, and returned to my father's house at thirlestane castle, in lauderdale, where they related this passage. this i do exactly remember. many more particulars { }might be got in that part of the country; but this latin criticism, in a most illiterate ignorant woman, where there was no pretence to dispossessing, is enough, i think." it was, of course, an infallible sign of demoniac possession that the victim, mostly an illiterate person, should break out into latin or greek, hebrew or what not. that was how the devil usually betrayed himself; he could by no means control his weakness for talking--generally very badly--in foreign tongues. [illustration: ] the wonders of duns in the seventeenth century by no means ceased, however, with this demon-possessed margaret lumsden. in , when leslie camped on duns law with the covenanting army and its superfluity of ministers, there occurred a remarkable land-slide which the excited imaginations of those witnessing its effects could not fail to interpret as an assured sign that providence meant to fight on their side. a bank on the slope of the hill near to the camp slid down,--it had probably become water-logged as the result of heavy rain.--disclosing "innumerable stones, round, for the most part, in shape, and perfectly spherical,... like ball of all sizes, from a pistol to fixed pieces, such as sakers or robenets, or battering pieces upwards." men looked on them with awe, and bore { }about with them specimens in their pockets, gravely showing them to excited throngs. "nor wanted there a few who interpreted this stone magazine at duns hill as a miracle, as if god had sent this by ane hid providence for the use of the covenanters." [illustration: ] we return now to tweed, where on a steep slope stand the mighty ruins of norham castle, guarding the ford; we all know the scene, castle and ford in the gloaming, from turner's beautiful plate in _liber studiorum_. bishop flambard of durham built the castle to bridle the wild scots, in ; some twenty years later it was taken, under david; but the eastern side shows the remains of the warlike prelate's work. "the { }norman keep still frowns across the merse," and few of the castles of the age of chivalry display more of their ancient strength than norham. yet it yielded promptly to james iv. in the first week of the campaign which closed in the terrible defeat of flodden edge. in this castle, in the lent of , william the lion kept his fast on fourteen kinds of fish, including salmon; he certainly "spelled his fasts with an e." while berwick yielded to the scots in the dark days of edward ii., good sir thomas de grey, of that ancient northumbrian house, held norham stoutly, with pretty circumstances of chivalry, as his son tells in _scalacronica_. over against norham is ladykirk, with its ancient church, dedicated, tradition says, by james iv. to the virgin mary, in gratitude for his narrow escape from death here when fording the swollen tweed. a field to the east of the village shows some, remains of military works, ramparts for guns probably, from which to fire on norham. in a line between this spot and the castle there was found in the river a stone cannon-ball, fifty-seven inches in girth, probably one fired from "mons meg" when she was here in . following the light bank of tweed we reach carham burn, where malcolm ii. won lothian in battle; from carham to the sea the right bank is english. the next important tributary on the english side, as we ascend the stream is till, formed by bowmont and breamish waters, which rise in the "cheeviots," as the scots pronounce the name. "t weed says to til' 'what gars ye rin sae still?' says till to tweed, 'though ye run wi' speed, and i rin slaw, whaur ye droon ae man, i droon tw'a.'" the ominous rhyme sounds with the slow lap of the green-grey waters of till among her alders, and appears to hint at { }the burden of the ruinous fight of flodden. [illustration: ] on august nd, james iv., "a fey man," kept his plighted word to france, which henry viii. was invading, and led the whole force of highlands and lowlands across the border. he made his quarters at ford castle, where he did not, as legend says, dally with lady heron, still less did his young son, the archbishop of st. andrews, fleet the time carelessly with her daughter. { }james cleared his position by capturing wark (now scarcely visible in ruin), chillingham, and eital castles. [illustration: ] surrey with the english levies, including the stanleys, sent a challenge from alnwick. on september rd, the scots are said to have wrecked ford castle, now a substantial and comfortable home, still containing the king's rooms. james crossed the till by a bridge at ford, as the tourist also does, if he wishes to see the field of the famous battle. we climb to the crest of flodden edge; look south to the wooded hills beyond the till, and northwards note three declivities like steps in a gigantic staircase. the scots were well provisioned, and should easily have held the hill-crest against surrey's way-worn and half-starved mutinous men. [illustration: ] they pitched their camp on the wide level of wooler haugh, six miles to the right of flodden; and on this plain surrey challenged james to meet him, "a fair field and no favour." for once chivalry gave place to common sense in james's mind: "he would take and keep his ground at his own pleasure." but he neglected his scouting, though he had hundreds of border riders under home, who should never have lost touch of surrey. that wily "auld decrepit carl in a chariot" as pitscottie calls him, disappeared; james probably thought that he was retiring to berwick. really, he was throwing himself, unseen, on james's line of communication with the north: he camped at barmoor wood, and then recrossed till by twizel bridge. scott, in _marmion_ and elsewhere, blames the king for failing to see this manouvre and discuss surrey before his men could deploy after crossing by twizel bridge and at millford. but twizel bridge you cannot see from flodden edge; sir walter had forgotten the lie of the ground. unseen, the english crossed and formed, advancing from the north towards the second of the three great steps in the declivity, called branxton hill. in the early evening, _angli se ostentant_, the english come into view. in { }place of holding his ground, which he is said to have entrenched, james yielded to his impetuous temper, fired his camp, and his men throwing off their boots, for the ground was wet and slippery, rushed down to the branxton plateau. [illustration: ] "the haggis, cott pless her, could charge down a hill," like dundee's men at killiecrankie, but the expected impetus must have been lost before james's highlanders under lennox and argyll, his right wing, could come to sword-strokes. james's right, in addition to the clans, had a force led by d'aussi and both well, with whom may have been the ancestors of john knox, as the reformer told the wild earl, queen mary's lover. the main body, the centre, under the flower of scottish _noblesse_, were with the king; who "always fought before he had given his orders," says ayala, the ambassador of spain. his left was led by crawford and errol; his extreme left by huntly with the gay gordons; and home with his border spears, mounted men. { }the english front appears to have been "refused" so that edward howard was nearest to home, and, slanting back wards to the right of james, were the forces of edmund howard, the admiral, the constable, dacre, surrey with the rear, and the large body of cheshire and lancashire, led by stanley. [illustration: ] the admiral sent a galloper to bring surrey forward; and home and huntly charged edward howard, while dacre's tyneside men ran, as he advanced to support howard. the borderers, fond of raiding each other, could never be trusted to fight each other in serious war; they were much intermarried. brian tunstal fell, dacre stopped huntly; home's men vanished like ghosts, no man knew whither; for they appeared on the field next morning. probably they were plundering, but "down wi' the earl o' home," says the old song of the souters of selkirk. in the centre of the vanguard the admiral and the percys clashed with crawford and errol. both leaders fell, and james threw the weight of his centre against surrey. to slay that general with his own hand was the king's idea of the duty of a leader. but the english guns { }mowed down his ranks, and the scots could not work their french artillery. the king pressed in with herries and maxwell at his side; the ranks of england reeled, but the admiral and dacre charged james's men in flank. "stanley broke lennox and argyll" on the king's right; the noble leaders fell, and the nimble highlanders rapidly made a strategic movement in the direction of safety. stanley did not pursue them, but fell on james's right, which now had the enemy on each flank and in front. "the stubborn spearmen still made good their dark impenetrable wood" under a rain of arrows, against the charging knights, and the terrible bill strokes of the english infantry. the king was not content to remain within the hedge of spears. running out in advance, he fought his way to "within a lance's length" of surrey, so surrey wrote; his body was pierced with arrows, his left arm was half severed by a bill-stroke, his neck was gashed, and he fell. james was not a king to let his followers turn his bridle-rein; he fought on foot, like a paladin, and died with honour. his nobles advanced; the spears defended the dead, and the bodies of thirteen of his peers and of two bishops who, like archbishop turpin at roncesvaux, died in harness, lay round him. an episcopal ring with a great sapphire, found at flodden, is in the gold room at the british museum. such was the great sorrow of scotland; there is perhaps not a family of gentle blood in the lowlands which did not leave a corpse on branxton slope, where "groom fought like noble, squire like knight, as fearlessly and well." as matter of plain history, this honourable defeat was to my country what, as matter of legend, the rear-guard action of roncesvaux has been to france. it was too late in literary times for an epic like the _chanson de roland_; the burden of { }the song was left for the author of marmiott. but flodden, till my own boyhood, left its mark on scottish memories. when any national trouble befell us, people said, "there has been nothing like it since flodden." [illustration: ] my friend the late lord napier and ettrick told me that when his father took him to flodden in his boyhood, tears stood n the eyes of the senior. this is the difference between us of the north, and you of the south. along the border line, my heart, so to speak, bleeds at halidon and homildon hills, where our men made a { }frontal attack, out-flanked on either hand by lines of english archers, and left heaps as high as a lance's length, of corpses on corpses, (as at dupplin); but an englishman passes bannock burn "more than usual calm," and no more rejoices on the scene of the victories ol his ancestors, than he is conscious of their defeats. pinkie is nothing to him, and a bitter regret to us! dunbar to him means nothing; to us it means the lost chance which should have been a certainty, of annihilating cromwell's force. our preachers ruined our opportunity, bidding leslie go down, in accordance with some biblical text, from his safe and commanding position, after they had purged our army of the royalist swords. surrey "had his bellyful" at flodden. in edinburgh "the old men girt on their old swords, and went to man the wall," which was hastily erected. but the english general had enough, and withdrew southwards. i visited flodden edge on my return from the west of ireland, where i found the living belief in fairies. i picked up a trifle of the faith at flodden. the guide, a most intelligent elderly man, named reidpath, told me this yarn: "a woman came to my brother," (i knew that he meant a woman of the faery), "and told him to dig in such a place. he would find a stone, below it a stone pillar; and another stone, and beneath it a treasure. my brother and my father dug, found the stone, and the pillar, and the stone below--but no treasure!" probably you will not find even this last trace of the fairy belief on the border, but, from notes of my grandfather, it was not quite dead in his day. here we leave till to those who choose to fish it up towards the cheviots, and move up the right bank of tweed towards its junction with teviot. before reaching that point, however, there are one or two places to notice on both sides of the river--coldstream, for { }example, where leet water enters tweed; eden water, a few miles higher up; and, on the english side, wark castle. [illustration: ] regarding the leet, in order to find oneself filled with envy and with longing unutterable, it is only necessary to read stoddart's account of the fishing to be had in his day in that curious little stream. "of all streams that i am acquainted with," says stoddart, "the leet, which discharges itself into the tweed above coldstream, was wont, considering its size, to contain the largest trout. during the summer season it is a mere ditch, in many places not above four or five span in width, and, where broadest, still capable of being leapt across. the run of water is, comparatively speaking, insignificant, not exceeding on the average a cubic foot. this, however, as it proceeds, is every now and then expanded over a considerable surface, and forms a pool of some depth; in fact, the whole stream, from head to foot, pursuing, as it does, a winding course for upwards of twelve miles, is a continued chain of { }pools, fringed, during the summer, on both sides, with rushes and water-flags, and choked up in many parts with pickerel weed and other aquatic plants. the channel of leet contains shell marl, and its banks, being hollowed out beneath, afford, independent of occasional vines and tree roots, excellent shelter for trout. not many years ago the whole course of it was infested with pike, but the visit of some otters, irrespective of the angler's art, has completely cleared them out, and thus allowed the trout, which were formerly scarce, to become more numerous. on the first occasion of my fishing leet, which happened to be early in april , before the sedge and rushes had assumed the ascendency, i captured, with the fly, twenty-six trout, weighing in all upwards of twenty-nine pounds. of these, five at least were two-pounders, and there were few, if any, small-sized fish." on another occasion, in june , stoddart caught in the same water, in four hours, three dozen and five fish, the biggest of which weighed lbs., and a dozen of the others lb. apiece. this stream, in its characteristics so unlike the usual scottish burn, is not open to the public, but it may be assumed that no such fishing is now obtainable there, any more than it is to be got elsewhere in scotland. once they establish themselves and make unchecked headway, pike are very hard to extirpate; it is not in every stream that one finds otters so accommodating, and so careful of the interests of anglers, as they appear to have been in leet in stoddart's day. coldstream, where leet joins tweed, was of old chiefly known for its ford, the first of any consequence above berwick. it was here that the invading army of edward the first crossed the river into scotland in ; here, indeed, it was that most armies, english or scottish, plunged into country hostile to them once they had quitted their own bank of the river; it was here that all scottish travellers, from royalty to peasant, must halt when southward bound, and await the falling of the waters should tweed chance to be in flood. consequently, at { }a very early date a settlement sprang up, and in it many an historical personage has temporarily sojourned. sir thomas dick lauder says that as late as his own day an old thatched two storied building in the village was pointed out as the house in which "many persons of distinction, including kings and queens of scotland, are enumerated by tradition as having resided.... occasionally several days at a time," waiting till the river was fordable. it was not till , when smeaton completed his fine bridge, that any other crossing of the stream than by the ford was possible. in pre-reformation times, there was in coldstream a rich priory of cistercian nuns, not a stone of which, however, now remains. but in its little burial ground, between the river and what used to be the garden of the priory, in there was dug up a great quantity of human bones, and a stone coffin. the bones were supposed to be probably those of various scottish persons of rank who fell but a short five or six miles away on the fatal field of flodden. tradition tells that the abbess of that day, anxious to give christian burial to her slain countrymen, caused the bodies of many scots of rank and birth to be borne from the field of battle to the priory, and there laid them to rest in consecrated ground. till about there stood in the village another interesting old house, and on the building which now occupies its site may be read the following inscription: "headquarters of the coldstream guards, ; rebuilt, ." here it was that general monk formed that famous regiment, than which there is but one in the british army whose history goes further back, none which in achievements can surpass it. in one of his works on england at the period of the restoration of charles the second, m. guizot, the french historian, records that monk "spent about three weeks at coldstream, which was a favourable spot for the purpose, as the tweed was there fordable; but he seems to have found it a dismal place to quarter in. on his first arrival, he could get no provisions for his own { }dinner, and was obliged to content himself with a quid of tobacco. his chaplains, less easily satisfied, roamed about till they obtained a meal at the house of the earl of home, near by." this place, to which the fine instinct of those preachers guided them, was no doubt the hirsel, which is at no great distance from coldstream. [illustration: ] there is yet another thing for which this little town was famed in former days. in the time of our grandsires, and indeed, down to as late a date as , when clandestine weddings were prohibited by act of parliament, it was a common sight to see a post-chaise come racing over coldstream bridge, or, in days before a bridge existed, splashing through the water from the english side, bearing in it some fond couple (like mr. alfred jingle and the spinster aunt), flying on love's wings from stony-hearted parent or guardian. coldstream was almost as famous a place for run-away marriages as was gretna green itself. at the former place, the ceremony was usually performed in the toll-house at the scottish end of the bridge, where "priests" were always in readiness to tie up the run-away { }couples, and to issue to them thereafter a certificate of marriage, such as the following, which is a copy of one issued in : "this is to certify that john chambers, husbandman, from the broomhouse, in the parish of chatton, with mary walker from kelso, in the parish of kelso, in roxboroughshire, was married by me this day. as witness to my hand, william alexander, coldstream, th dec., . witnesses' names: miss dalgleish, miss archer." but though for convenience' sake, and probably for speed of dispatch, the toll-house was chiefly patronised, those who had command of money and were not unduly pressed for time could arrange to have their nuptials celebrated in less public fashion than would probably be the case at the bridge-end. it is i believe an undoubted fact that in lord brougham was married in the chief inn of the village. those irregular marriages were in the eighteenth century a great source of trouble and annoyance to the kirk session of kelso. a good many of them at one time were celebrated by a certain mr. blair, whom the privy council had ejected from the incumbency of coldstream in because he had refused to pray for the king and queen, (william and mary), and would neither read the proclamation of the estates nor observe the national thanksgiving. mr. blair, however, after the loss of his incumbency continued to live in the village, and, it was alleged, was, in the matter of these marriages sometimes over accommodating and good-natured regarding dates; in his certificates he did not always rigidly adhere to the true day of month or year in cases where it might be represented to him that a fictitious date would be less compromising to the contracting parties. mr. blair was "sharply rebukit" by the session. the reverend gentleman was not in coldstream later than , and he died at preston, in northumberland, in , { }at the age of eighty-five. the following is the epitaph composed on him: "here lies the reverend thomas blair, a man of worth and merit, who preached for fifty years and mair, according to the spirit. he preached off book to shun offence, and what was still more rare, he never spoke one word of sense-- so preached tammy blair." in examining scottish border records of those times, nothing strikes one more than the power of the kirk sessions; it is indeed hard to imagine a country more priest ridden than scotland in the eighteenth century. the "sabbath" was then as easy to break as a hedge-sparrow's egg, and there were a thousand--to modern eyes not very heinous--ways of breaking it. what in the way of punishment may have been meted out to the unfortunate who fell asleep under the infliction of a long, dull, prosy sermon in a stuffy, ill-ventilated church on a warm summer's day, one hardly cares to conjecture, so rigidly enforced was the duty of listening to sermons; whilst to be abroad "in time of sermon" was sin so heinous that elders were, so to speak, specially retained to prowl around and nose out offenders. walking on the sabbath day--"vaguing," they called it,--was looked on with horror, and called for stern reprimand. in , it was observed that sundry persons in kelso were "guiltie of profaning the sabbath by walking abroad in the fields after sermons," and the session called on the parish minister to "give them a general reproof out of the pulpit the next loird's day, and to dehort them from so doing in time coming, with certification that the session will take strict notice of any one guiltie of it." for less than "vaguing," however, a man might be brought before the session. in , alexander graemslaw of maxwellheugh was "dilated for bringing in cabbage to his house the last lord's day between sermons," { }and was "cited to the next session." ("dilate" is probably less painful than it sounds). he was only "rebuked" about the cabbages: but then they fell on him and demanded an explanation of his not having been at church. altogether they made things unpleasantly warm for alexander. in , alexander handiside and his son, and a woman named jean ker were had up for "walking to and fro on the sabbath." at first they "compeared not" on being cited, but on a second citation handiside "compeared," and vainly advanced the plea that his walking to and fro was occasioned by the fact that he had been attending a child who had broken a leg or an arm. he "was exhorted to be a better observer of the sabbath." a scot, apparently, might not upon the scottish sabbath draw from a pit his ox or his ass which had fallen in. this same year, "those who searched the town" discovered two small boys "playing on the sabbath day in time of sermon." the session dealt sternly with the hardened ruffians. amongst other cases that one reads of there is that of katherine thomson. one's sympathies rather go with katherine, who when reproved by a sleuth-hound elder for "sitting idly at her door in time of sermon," abused her reprover. but the session made it warm for a woman who thus not only, as they said, "profaned the sabbath," but was guilty of "indescreet carriage to the elder." one trembles to think how easy it was to slip into sin in those days. but over and above this juggernaut power of the session, there was another weapon much used by eighteenth century ministers, whereby they kept a heavy hand on the bowed backs of their congregations. it was their habit, where the conduct, real or fancied, of any member of their flock offended them, to speak _at_ the culprit during service on sundays, and to speak at him in no uncertain voice. the practice is probably now dead, even in remote country parishes, but fifty years ago it was still a favourite weapon in the hands of old-fashioned ministers, and in the eighteenth century it seems to have been in almost { }universal use. the reverend mr. ramsay, minister of kelso from till his death in , was a dexterous and unsparing wielder of this ecclesiastical flail. it chanced once that there "sat under" him--as we say in scotland--a highlander, a man who had deserted from the ranks of the rebel army in the ' , and had afterwards managed to get appointed to a post in the excise at kelso. this man's seat in church was in the front pew of the gallery, immediately facing mr. ramsay, and his every movement, therefore, was likely to catch the minister's eye. now, the exciseman had a habit which greatly annoyed mr. ramsay. as soon as the sermon commenced, the highlander produced a pencil, with which he proceeded to make marks on a slip of paper. he may, perhaps, have been making calculations not unconnected with his duties as exciseman,--a scandalous proceeding when he should have been all ears for the word as expounded by the minister; or, again, on the other hand he may really have been devoutly attentive to the sermon, and engaged in making notes on it,--a thing perhaps not over and above likely in an ex-highland rebel. in any case he annoyed mr. ramsay, and one day the irritation became acute. pausing in his discourse in order to give emphasis to his words, and looking straight at the exciseman, he cried: "my brethren, i tell ye, except ye be born again, it is as impossible for you to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a hielander no to be a thief! man wi' the keel-o-vine," he thundered, "do ye hear _that?_" (for the benefit of non-scottish readers it may be necessary to explain that a "keel-o-vine" is a pencil). a few miles above coldstream, after a course of about four and twenty miles, the beautiful little eden water joins tweed. its capabilities as a trout stream are spoken of elsewhere in this volume, and the little river is now mentioned only to record a tragedy of unusual nature which occurred in it in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. two young ladies, sisters of the then proprietor of newton don, a beautiful estate on the right bank of eden, had come from edinburgh to { }pass the summer and autumn at their brother's house. with them was a friend, a miss ramsay. it chanced that one afternoon these three young ladies were walking along the banks of the river, on the side opposite to newton don. they had strolled farther than at starting had been their intention, and time had slipped past unnoticed, and while they still had some distance to go on their return way, they were surprised by the sound of the house bell ringing for dinner. now, a little below the spot where they then were, it was possible to cross the river by stepping stones, an easy, and to every appearance a perfectly safe way by which anybody beyond the age of childhood might gain the other side, without much risk even of wetting a shoe. the three girls, accordingly, started to go over by these stones. the water was low and clear, the weather fine; there had been no thunderstorm that might have been capable of bringing down from the hills a sudden spate; the crossing could have been made a million times in such circumstances without peril greater than is to be met with in stepping across a moorland drain. yet now the one thing happened that made it dangerous. at some little distance up stream there stood a mill, the water power of which was so arranged, that if the sluice of the mill should for any reason be suddenly closed, that body of water which normally flowed down the mill dam after turning the wheel, was discharged into the river some way above the stepping stones. in the narrow channel of the eden at this point, this sudden influx of water was quite sufficient to raise the stream's level to a height most dangerous to anyone who at the time might be in the act of crossing by these stones. unhappily, at the exact moment when the three poor girls were stepping cautiously and with none too certain foot from stone to stone, and had reached to about mid-channel, the miller, ignorant of their situation and unable from where he stood to command a view to any distance down stream, closed his sluice. down eden's bed surged a wave crested like some inrushing sea that sweeps far up a shingly beach. in an instant the three girls, { }afraid to make a dash for the safety of the hank, were swept off the stones where they clung, and were carried shrieking down the swollen stream. one, miss ramsay, buoyed to a certain extent by the nature of her dress, floated until she was able to grasp the overhanging branch of a tree, and she succeeded in getting out. the other two, rolled over and over, buffeted by the sudden turmoil of waters, were swept away and drowned. no one was near to give help; none even heard their cries. on the southern bank of tweed, a mile or two up the river from coldstream and cornhill, stands all that is left of wark castle, a place once of formidable strength, and greatly famed in border history. except a few green mounds, and portions of massive wall, there remains now but little to speak of its former greatness, or to remind one of the mighty feats that were performed here during its countless sieges and bloody fights. but the old northumbrian saying still tells its tale with grim simplicity: "auld wark upon the tweed has been mony a man's dead." regarding this couplet, the following comment is made in the _denham tracts_: "mark's history, from the twelfth down to at least the sixteenth century, is perhaps without a parallel for surprises, assaults, sieges, blockades, surrenders, evacuations, burnings, restorations, slaughters. these quickly recurring events transformed the mount on which the castle stood into a golgotha, and gave a too truthful origin to the couplet which still occurs on the borders of the once rival kingdoms." the castle was erected during the reign of king henry i., by walter d'espec, somewhere about the year ; and before it had been many years in existence, in , david i. of scotland captured it. from that time onwards, at least down to , when sussex spent a night within its walls on his way to harry teviotdale, there is not one item of that formidable list of "surprises, assaults, sieges, blockades, surrenders, { }evacuations, burnings, restorations, slaughters," that has not been amply borne out by its history, many of them again and again. david took it in , but restored it to england in the following year. twice afterwards, the same monarch vainly attempted to take it by storm, but finally, after the fall of norham, he reduced it by means of a long blockade. after this it remained in scottish possession till , when england again seized, and at great expense rebuilt, the castle. in it was destroyed by fire; in , reduced by king robert the bruce; in , taken by storm by the scots. then in , william halliburton of fast castle surprised the english and took the castle, putting all the garrison to the sword. but the same fate was dealt out to the scots themselves a few months later; sir robert ogle and his men gained access to the building by way of a sewer from the kitchen, which opened on the bank of tweed. creeping up this unsavoury passage, they in their turn surprised and slew the scotsmen. again in , after the widow of james ii. had dismantled roxburgh and razed it almost to the foundations, the scots forded tweed and retook wark. but they did not hold it long. more valuable now to the english than ever it had been before, owing to the loss of roxburgh, it was partially repaired by them, only, however, to be again pulled down by the scots before the battle of flodden; after which surrey for the last time restored and strengthened it. after the accession of james vi to the throne of england, wark, like other border strongholds, began to fall into decay; the need for them was gone. buchanan, the historian, has left a description of wark as it was in , when he was with the scottish army at coldstream, which then besieged it. "in the innermost area," he says, "was a tower of great strength and height; this was encircled by two walls, the outer including the larger space, into which the inhabitants of the country used to fly with their cattle, corn, and flocks in time of war; the inner of much smaller extent, but fortified more strongly by ditches and { }towers. it had a strong garrison, good store of artillery and ammunition, and other things necessary for defence." on this occasion the scottish commander sent against the castle a picked force of scottish and french troops, supported by heavy siege artillery, all under the command of ker of fernihurst. "the french," says sir walter scott, "carried the outer enclosure at the first assault, but were dislodged by the garrison setting fire to the corn and straw laid up in it. the besiegers soon recovered their ground, and by their cannon effected a breach in the inner wall. the french with great intrepidity mounted the breach, sustaining great loss from the shot of that part of the garrison who possessed the keep; and being warmly received by the forces that defended the inner vallum, were obliged to retire after great slaughter. the attack was to have been renewed on the succeeding day, but a fall of rain in the night, which swelled the tweed and threatened to cut off the retreat of the assailants to the main army, and the approach of the earl of surrey, who before lay at alnwick with a large force, obliged the duke [of albany] to relinquish his design and return into scotland." wark, it is said, once belonged to the earl of salisbury, and the tale is told how, in the time of king david bruce, a gallant deed was done by sir william montague, lord salisbury's governor of the castle. king david, returning from a successful foray into england, passed close to wark, making for the ford over tweed at coldstream, and his rear-guard, heavily laden with plunder, was seen from the castle walls by montague's garrison. the rear was straggling. such an opportunity was not to be wasted. the governor, with forty mounted men, made a sudden dash, slew a great number of the scots, cut off one hundred and sixty horses laden with booty, and brought them safely into the castle. david instantly assaulted the place, but without success; and he thereupon determined to take it by siege. there was but one way whereby the place might be saved; a message must be conveyed to king edward iii., { }who was then on his way north with a great army. the risk was great; failure meant death, and the castle was closely invested. sir william himself took the risk. in a night dark and windy, with rain falling in torrents, the governor dashed out on a swift horse and cut his way through the scottish lines before almost the alarm had been raised; and so rapidly did edward advance on hearing of the plight of the garrison, that the rear of the scottish force was barely over the ford before the english van had reached the southern bank of tweed. it is of this occasion that the more or less mythical tale of king edward and the countess of salisbury's garter is told. in the great hall of wark castle the story finds a dubious resting place. the countless war-like events that have taken place in and around wark give to the place an interest which is perhaps hardly appreciated by the majority of us, and that interest is largely added to when one thinks of the many characters noted in history who from time to time sojourned within its walls. king stephen lay here with a large army in ; henry iii remained in the castle for some time with his queen in ; in edward i paid it a visit: edward ii mustered here his army in before his crushing defeat at bannockburn, and, as already stated, edward iii, after he had driven off the scottish marauding force, was entertained here for a time by the countess of salisbury. wark, one thinks, would be an ideal place in which to conduct excavations,--though, indeed, a little in that line has already been undertaken. in the volume for - of the "proceedings of the berwickshire naturalists' club," it is recorded that a good many years ago mr. richard hodgson had traced a wide sewer to the north of the castle, opening on to the river bank. this sewer is said to be so wide that it might easily have been used for the passage of men or material. probably it was by this bidden way that sir robert ogle in forced his way into the interior. but if the opening was so wide, { }how came it to be undefended? was there a traitor inside who kept guard that night, a northumbrian perhaps, masquerading as a scot, whose burr did not betray him? in the course of his investigations mr. hodgson came also on a "long flight of stone steps leading from the keep to the outer court, with a portcullis about half way." quantities of cannon balls have also been found, but there must surely be unlimited scope for the discovery of such like treasure trove in the fields surrounding the castle, and down by the ford where so many armies of both nations have crossed tweed. they did not always make a leisurely and altogether unmolested passage. chapter iii kelso, roxburgh, teviot, kale, and oxnam |coming{ } now to kelso,--with melrose the most pleasing of the towns on tweed,--we pass the meeting of the waters of tweed and its largest affluent, teviot. kelso has a fine airy square, good streets, and an air of quiet gentility, neighboured as it is by floors, the palatial seat of the duke of roxburghe, and by the trees of springwood park, the residence of sir george douglas. we are now in the region of the clan of ker of cessford, from which the ducal family descends: while the lothian branch descends from the kers of fernihurst. the name, ker, is said to mean "left handed," and like the left handed men of the tribe of benjamin, the kers were a turbulent and grasping-clan, often at deadly feud with their neighbours and rivals, the scotts of buccleugh. these, with the douglases, for long predominant, were the clans that held the marches, and freely raided the english borderers, while they fought like fiends among themselves. it is in the early sixteenth century that the chiefs of the two branches of ker, or kerr, and of the scotts, become more and more prominent in history, both as warriors and politicians. from these houses the wardens of the border were often chosen, and were not to be trusted to keep order; being more disposed to use sword and axe. within a century the chiefs { }throve to earl's estate, and finally "warstled up the brae" to dukedoms. [illustration: ] meanwhile the douglases, for long the most powerful house in scotland, the rivals of the crown, were crushed by james ii, and of the douglases, sir george, of springwood park, is descended from the house of cavers, (on teviot, below hawick), scions sprung from archibald, natural son of the earl of douglas who fell at otterburne ( ) and is immortal in the ballad. the whole land is full of scenes made famous by the adventures of these ancient clans; they may be tracked by blood from hermitage castle to the dowie dens of yarrow and the peel tower on the douglas burn. sir herbert maxwell, in "the story of the tweed" (p. ) not unnaturally laments the "sadly suburban" name of springwood park, standing where it ought not, in place of the { }ancient name of maxwell, originally "maccus whele," "the pool of maccus," on tweed. [illustration: ] maccus was a descendant of the primeval maccus, who, before the norman conquest, signed himself, or was described, as maccus archipirata, "the leading pirate." to a later maccus david i gave the salmon fishing at kelso; the pool, called "maccus whele" became maxwell, and the lairds "de maxwell." the maxwells moved to the western border to caerlaverock and into galloway; and of all { }this history only the name, "max wheel," of a salmon cast below the pretty bridge of kelso, is left. the name kelso is of cymric origin: _calch myadd._ "chalk hill." to be sure, as the man said of the derivation of _jour_ from _dies_, the name is _diablement change en route_. the ruins of kelso abbey are the chief local remains of the ages of faith. when david i, not yet king, brought french bénédictines to scotland, he settled them in ettrick forest. here they raised the schele chirche--the monastery, on a steep hill above ettrick (now selkirk), and here they "felt the breeze down ettrick break" with its chill showers, and wept as they remembered pleasant picardy; the climate of selkirk being peculiarly bitter. david, when king, moved his benedictines to the far more comfortable region of kelso, or "calkow," where they began to build in . the style of their church is late norman, and the tower was used in war as a keep in the fierce wars of henry viii. the place was gutted and the town burned by dacre, in ; and suffered again from norfolk, in , and hertford in . henry viii chivalrously destroyed this part of the border from the cottage to the castles of the kers and the pleasant holy places of the church, during the childhood of his kinswoman, mary stuart, queen of scots. his aim was always to annex scotland; and, of course, to introduce the gospel. in , after overcoming the garrison of the church tower, hertford's men wrecked the whole place, leaving little more than we see to day; though that little is much compared with what the reformers have left of st. andrews and lindores. kelso saw more than enough of very ugly fighting in those days; not even her monks stood aloof when blows fell fast and their cloisters were threatened. in , twelve monks and ninety laymen gallantly held the abbey against the english, and when at length hertford's guns created a practicable breach, they retreated to the church tower. hill burton says, in his history of scotland, that then "the assault was given to the spaniards, but, when they rushed in, they found the place kelso abbey. { }cleared. [illustration: ] the nimble garrison had run to the strong square tower of the church, and there again they held out. night came before they could be dislodged from this their last citadel, { }so the besiegers had to leave the assault till the morning, setting a good watch all night about the house, which was not so well kept but that a dozen of the scots in the darkness of the night escaped by ropes out at back windows and corners, with no little danger of their lives. [illustration: ] when the day came, and the steeple eftsoons assaulted, it was immediately won, and as many scots slain as were within." so may kelso abbey be said to have been finally wrecked; though, fifteen years later, the reformers did their own little bit of work in the same line. the abbey buildings, however, or part of them, continued to be used long after this date; from to the transept, roughly ceiled over, served as the parish church, but it was given up in the year last mentioned owing to a portion of the roof falling in whilst service was being held. the kirk "skailed" that day in something under record time; thomas the rhymer's prediction that "the kirk should fall at the fullest" was in the people's mind, and they stood not much upon the order of their going. kelso was the most southern point reached by montrose in { }his efforts to join hands w ith charles the first after his year of victories. the border chiefs who had promised aid all deserted him; the gordons and colkitto had left him, and he marched north to the junction of ettrick and tweed and the fatal day of philiphaugh. [illustration: ] in , kelso for two days saw prince charlie, in his feint against general wade; from kelso he turned to carlisle, his actual, and by no fault of his, hopeless line of invasion of england. the prince's own strategy, as he wrote to his father, was "to have a stroke for't," as near the border and as promptly as possible he therefore wished to cross the tweed near kelso, and beat up the quarters of the senile marshal wade at newcastle. if he discussed wade to the same tune as he had settled cope, english jacobites might join him. holding newcastle, he could thereby admit french reinforcements, while, if defeated, he was near the sea, and had a better route of retreat than if he were defeated going by carlisle and the western route, in the heart of england. his council of chiefs, unhappily, forced him to take the western route. halting at kelso, he sent the best of the border { }cavaliers, henry ker of graden, to make a feint on wade; he rode as far as wooler, near flodden. next day the prince marched up teviot, and up jed, to jedburgh, with the flower of the fighting clans; then up rule water, another of the tributaries of tweed, to haggiehaugh on the liddell, and so into england near carlisle. of old he would have picked up the kers, elliots, and scotts; haggiehaugh, where he slept, is larriston, the home of the elliot chief, "the lion of liddes-dale." but the tartans waved and the bagpipes shrilled in vain, and the blue bonnets did not go over the border. one of the writers of this book possesses the armchair in which the prince rested at haggiehaugh. it was at kelso, one remembers, that sir walter scott first met james ballantyne, with whose fortunes his own were afterwards to become so inextricably blended. scott was then but a growing boy f his health had been giving trouble, and he was sent by his father to stay for six months with an aunt "who resided in a small house, situated very pleasantly in a large garden to the eastward of the churchyard of kelso, which extended down to the tweed." during the time of scott's stay, ballantyne and he were class-mates under mr. lancelot whale, master of the kelso grammar school. the acquaint ance then formed was never quite broken off, and all the world knows the story of its outcome. we now follow prince charles into "pleasant teviotdale, a land made blithe with plough and harrow," a rich, well-wooded grassy land, cultivated of old under the benedictines of kelso. little more than a mile from that town, by the road leading to st. boswells up tweed's southern bank, on a wooded ridge overhanging teviot and separated from tweed by but a narrow flat haugh, stands all that is left of roxburgh castle,--a few isolated portions of massive wall defended on the north and, { }east sides by a ditch. [illustration: ] at the west end a very deep cutting divides this ridge from the high ground farther to the west. ditch and cutting apparently were in former times flooded with water run in from teviot, for even as late as the end of the eighteenth century remains of a weir or dam could still be { }seen stretching across the river. no trace of it now remains. those who razed the castle took care that the dam should be broken beyond repair, and countless winter floods have long since swept away the little that may have been left. close to the castle probably stood the once important town of roxburgh, with its streets and churches, its convent and schools, and its mint, where many of our scottish coins were struck. where are those streets and churches now? not a trace of them is to be found. the houses were of wood, no doubt, and easily demolished, but the churches, the convent, and the mint, one would expect to have been of build substantial enough to leave some indication of where they had stood. roxburgh, more than any other border town, experienced the horrors of war. her castle was one of four great scottish strongholds--edinburgh, stirling, berwick, roxburgh--and it mattered little whether it were temporarily held by england or by scotland, on the inhabit ants of the town fell the brunt of those horrors. castle and town were continually being besieged, continually changing hands, sometimes by stratagem--as when on shrove tuesday, , the good sir james douglas, with sixty men, surprised the garrison and took the castle from the english;--sometimes by siege and assault, as when james ii was killed by the bursting of "the lion," one of his own clumsy pieces of ordnance, a gun similar to that ancient weapon, "mons meg," which is still to be seen in edinburgh castle. to the queen of james ii was due the complete destruction of roxburgh as a stronghold. the castle had been for something like a hundred years continuously in england's hands,--a rankling sore in scotland's body. the knife must be used unflinchingly. under her orders, therefore, when the castle was captured after james's death, the place was thrown down and made entirely untenable; and probably at this time also the dam across teviot was cut, thus permanently emptying fosse and ditch. roxburgh ceased then almost entirely to be a place of { }strength, and time and decay have wiped her out; no man may-say where stood any portion of a town which, in point of population, was once the fourth most important burgh in scotland. of the last siege, and the death of james, the historian pitscottie writes: "the king commanded the souldeouris and men of weir to assault the castell, but the inglischemen défendit so walieiantlie within, the seige appeirlt so to indure langer nor was beleiffit, quhairthrow the king déterminât to compell them that was within the house be lang tairrie to rander and gif it ower." reinforcements at this time arrived, "which maid the king so blyth that he commanded to chairge all the gunnis to gif the castell ane new wollie. but quhill this prince, mair curieous nor becam him or the majestie of ane king, did stand neir hand by the gunneris quhan the artaillyerie was dischargeand, his thie bane was doung in twa with ane piece of ane misframit gun that brak in the schutting, be the quhilk he was strickin to the grund and dieit haistilie thereof, quhilk grettumlie discuragit all his nobill gentlemen and freindis that war stand aboot him." near at hand on the farther bank of tweed stands, or until lately stood, an old thorn tree which is said to mark the spot where the king fell. the ancient roxburgh has utterly disappeared; "fallen are thy lowers, and where the palace stood in gloomy grandeur waves yon hanging wood; crushed are thy halls, save where the peasant sees one moss-clad ruin rise between the trees." but there lingers yet one relic of the days when her markets and trysts were famed throughout the country. st. james's fair, which w-as held at roxburgh as long ago as the days of king david i, is still kept each august in the pleasant haugh by the ruins of the castle, between teviot and tweed. there, on a little eminence, the town clerk of jedburgh each year reads this proclamation: "oyez, oyez, oyez." { }whereas the fair of st. james is to be held this ----th day of august ----, and is to continue for the space of eight days from and after this proclamation. therefore, in name and authority of our sovereign king george v, by the grace of god of the united kingdom of great britain and ireland, king, defender of the faith, and in name and authority of the honourable the provost and bailies of the royal borough of jedburgh, and in name and authority of a high and potent prince the duke of roxburgh, and his bailie of kelso, i make due and lawful proclamation that no person or persons shall presume to trouble or molest the present fair, or offer any injury one to another, or break the king's peace,--prohibiting all old feuds and new feuds, or the doing of anything to disquiet the said fair, under the highest pains of law. as also--that no person or persons make any private bargains prejudicial to the customs and proprietors of said fair,--certifying those who contravene any part of said customs that they will be prosecuted and fined according to law. "god save the king." in these degenerate days, the fair lasts but one day in place of eight, and feuds, new or old, are unknown. but not so very long ago the rivalry at this fair of the neighbouring towns of kelso and jedburgh was very bitter. roxburgh had ceased to be, indeed, but the fair survived, and it chanced that the provost and bailies of jedburgh--like roxburgh, a royal burgh,--having under some old charter acquired a right to "proclaim" the fair and collect the market dues, duly came in state each august in order to exercise this privilege at the ancient stance. now, kelso in the course of time became a larger and more important town than jedburgh; it is, moreover, in close proximity to the ground on which the fair is held, whereas jedburgh was no better than a foreign land, miles removed--ten, at least,--from roxburgh. hence kelso resented what it considered to be an outrage on the part of her officious neighbour. what was jedburgh that she should oust them from those market tolls and dues! a beggarly interloper, no less! the outcome of such a frame of mind was generally what might be expected amongst men whose forebears for many { }hundreds of years had been fierce fighters. as the procession of jedburgh magistrates, all in their robes and escorted by a compact body of townsmen, advanced towards the place of proclamation, taunts of "pride and poverty!"--"pride and poverty!" were hurled at their ears by the irritated men of kelso. "doo tairts an' herrin' pies!" fiercely retorted jedburgh's inhabitants. it is difficult now-a-days to see where came in the sting of the original taunt, or the appositeness of the "countercheck quarrelsome." but in those old days they were amply sufficient. some man, more hasty, or less sober, than his neighbour would follow up the taunt by a push or a blow, and st. james's fair was speedily as lively a spot as now could be any fair even in ireland. kelso and jedburgh were "busy at each other"; and sometimes one prevailed, sometimes the other. an attempt that kelso once made to hold the fair on its own side of the river was utterly defeated; jedburgh marched across the bridge and made things so warm that the experiment of shifting the venue of st. james's fair has never been repeated. no doubt, when roxburgh ceased to be a royal burgh, its rights naturally devolved on jedburgh, the only other royal burgh in the country. but jedburgh tradition tells of a time when the english, taking advantage of heavy floods which prevented kelso men from crossing the river, raided the fair and carried off rich plunder. then jedburgh, coming to the rescue, smote the english and recaptured the booty, and for their gallant conduct were awarded those privileges which they still exercise. the kelso taunt of "pride and poverty" may possibly have originated from a custom to which the economical burgesses of jedburgh seem to have been addicted. in a letter written in , sir walter scott mentions that when he himself visited the fair in that year, he found that, there not being in possession of the men of jedburgh enough riding boots to accommodate all the riders in the procession, the magistrates had ruled that only the outside men of each rank should wear boots, or, rather { }each a boot on his _outer_ leg. thus, as the men rode in threes, one pair of boots would be sufficient to maintain the dignity of each rank,--a device worthy of caleb balderstone himself. it is easy enough to assign an origin to "pride and poverty," but the local custom which gave occasion for the bitter taunt of "doo tairts and herrin' pies" is baffling. there are many such taunts in the border, hurled by town at rival town. "selkirk craws," is the reproach flung at that burgh by its neighbour, galashiels; and "galashiels herons, lockit in a box, daurna show their faces, for selkirk gamecocks," is, or was, the jibe that stung gala lads to fury. before quitting the subject of roxburgh, it may be of interest to mention that in the churchyard of the present village of that name there is a gravestone to the memory of the original of edie ochiltree, the bluegown of sir walter's _antiquary_. andrew gemmels was his name. he died in at roxburgh newtown, a farm on the banks of tweed a few mi es from roxburgh, at the great age of one hundred and six. the first tributary received by teviot on the right bank is the kale water, running through the parish of linton, which was in king david's time an appanage of kelso abbey. the church has been restored, but the walls are, like those of kelso, norman work, and in the porch is an enigmatic piece of sculptors' work; apparently somebody is fighting a dragon--sir herbert maxwell suggests st. george, but st. michael was the more orthodox dragon slayer. about the object grew an aetiological myth; a somerville of old times "slew the worm of worrnes glen and wan all lintoun parochine." the dragon-slaying story is found in most parts of the world, from troy to dairy in the glenkens. here the worm twisted himself round the mote, or tumulus (apparently the basis of an old fort), and was killed by the local blacksmith. { }in - , linton tower was among the scores of such border keeps which the english destroyed. they could hold their own against a border raid; not in face of a regular english army. roxburghshire was not so deeply tainted by covenanting principles as galloway, lanarkshire, and the south-west, ayrshire and renfrewshire. covenanters needed wild hills and wild wastes. they are said to have held coil venticles in a deep glen of kale; but, as a rule, they knew enough to preach in places of wide outlook, where they could detect the approach of parties of dragoons. in the bed of a burn they would be at great disadvantage. a tower more interesting than that of linton, namely ormistoun, fell when linton fell; but it must have been rebuilt, for here, in mary stuart's day, dwelt the black laird of ormistoun, james, with hob, his brother, two of bothwell's most cruel and desperate "lambs." the black laird was with bothwell, hay of talla (on upper tweed), and one of bothwell's own clan, hepburn of bowton, when they placed the powder under darnley's chamber in kirk o'-field (february - , ), and so, in the feeling words of bothwell, "sent him fleeing through the air." after doing another deed as treacherous as this murder, the black laird was taken, tried, and hanged in . bothwell was warden of the border, which he ruled from hermitage castle on the liddel water, and all these loose border lairds rode and slew at his bidding. they had probably, in that twilight of faith, no religion in particular; catholicism lingered in the shape of oaths, calvinism was not yet well settled in these regions. but, probably in prison, the black laird "got religion." he professed to be of the elect, and confident of his salvation, while he drew a dark enough picture of life among lairds of his quality. on the day of his hanging he said, "with god i hope this night to sup.... of all men on the earth i have been one of the proudest and most high-minded, and most filthy of my body. but specially, i have shed innocent blood { }of one michael hunter with my own hands. alas, therefore, because the said michael, having me lying on my back, having a pitchfork in his hand, might have slain me if he pleased, but did it not, which of all things grieves me most in conscience. within these seven years i never saw two good men, nor one good deed, but all kinds of wickedness." this wretch, once on his feet, must have butchered some poor hind who had spared him. in reading pitcairn's _criminal trials_, and the register of privy council for the period of the reformation, we find private war, murder, and rapine to have been almost weekly occurrences, from the upper tweed to the esk. the new gospel light made the darkness visible, and we see robberies and vendettas among the dwellers in the peel towers, of which the empty shells stand beside every burn in the pleasant lands then clouded with smoke from blazing barn and tower and cottage. the later ormistouns had "particularly deadly feud" with the kers of cessford; the kers annexed their lands, and the last ormistoun was a public hangman; the ancestral orm was a flourishing and pious gentleman of the twelfth century, a benefactor of the early monks of melrose. meanwhile, the castle of cessford, the ancestral hold of that line, is not far from a place called morbattle in the black laird's day, and now, more pleasantly, morebattle. the name has no connection either with festivity or feud, and "more" is not the celtic _mor_, "great." "more" is "mere," a lake, and "botl" is anglo-saxon, "a dwelling." cessford castle had the name to be only second to bothwell's castle of dunbar, and logan of restalrig's eyrie on a jutting rock above the sea, fastcastle. in the great english raid of , "dand ker," sir andrew, the head of the clan, rather feebly surrendered the place, which was secure in walls fourteen feet thick. an interesting find was made at cessford in . whilst excavating, a few yards from the north wall of the castle, a workman unearthed a very fine old sword, and a dagger, both in fair preservation. the dagger measured about twenty-six inches, and bore on its blade the scottish thistle, surmounted by a crown. the sword was basket hilted, richly carved and embossed in silver. it measured forty inches in length; on one side of the blade was the scottish crown; on the other, the date . it was a ker of cessford, tradition tells, who in tried to carry off the goods and gear of hobbie hall of haughhead, father of the famous covenanter, henry hall. hobbie, apparently, was quite able to take care of himself, as is testified by a large stone which stands on a knoll amid trees, near kale water, on which is carved: here hoby hall boldly maintained his right 'gainst reef plain force armed w. lawless might for twenty pleughs harnessed in all their gear could not this valiant noble heart make fear but w. his sword he cut the formost soam in two: hence drove both pleughs and pleughmen home." . the stone was repaired and restored in by lady john scott. higher up than kale comes oxnam (locally, ousenam) water, which joins teviot hard by crailing. once a nice trout stream, there is not left at this day much to tempt the angler whose dreams are of giant fish, though doubtless many a "basket" can be caught of fingerlings. in none of the border streams, unhappily, is any restriction made as regards the size of the fish that may be taken. everything goes into the creel of the fisher with worm in "drummly" waters, and of the holiday sportsman; moved by no compunctions, trammelled by no absurd qualms,--to them a fish is a fish; and as the latter, at least, probably never even sees a big trout, he attaches vast importance to the capture of a "triton of the minnows." the writer, who had one day fished a border river with all the little skill at his command, and had succeeded neither with dry fly nor with wet in capturing anything worthy to be kept, once came upon a sportsman of this holiday breed, rigged out with all the latest appliances which should inevitably lure the wiliest of trout from his native element. he "had had a splendid day," he said, in reply to enquiries. "what had he got them with? oh-h, fly." but what fly, he would not say. it was just "fly." "might he see the basket?" the baffled enquirer asked proudly the lid was thrown back, and the contents displayed--a basket half filled with parr, and with trout, not one of which could have been six inches in length. thus are the streams depleted. it is a pleasant valley, that of the oxnam. across it runs the old roman road,--in days not very remote a favourite camping place of gipsies,--and up the valley to the south lies that noble sweep of blue hills, the cheviots, smiling and friendly enough in summer, but dour and forbidding when the north east blast of winter strikes their blurred and gloomy faces. did those "muggers" and "tinklers," who of old frequented the roman road that runs south over teviot and jed and oxnam, and away over the cheviots down into rede valley past bremenium (high rochester), did they ever come upon buried treasure or hoarded coins, one wonders. it is not many years since a well-known professor, as he sat resting one day by the side of the old road a little farther south than oxnam valley, idly pushed his walking stick into a rabbit hole close to where he was seated. a few scrapes with the point of the stick, and something chinked and fell; then another, and another. but this buried treasure consisted only of copper coins, a vast number, none very rare; and no farther search revealed anything of value. yet there must be plenty along that route, if one could but chance upon the proper spots. and surely, wherever there befell one of those countless fights or skirmishes that were for ever taking place in these border hills, both in the days of the romans and since, there must lie buried weapons. at bloodylaws, up oxnam, for instance. the { }name is suggestive; but what occurred there, one cannot say--though there is the vague tradition of a mighty battle that left oxnam for three days running red with blood. the country people, if you enquire from them the name of that hill, pronounce it with bated breath;--"bluidylaws," they say in lowered voice. but i doubt that their tone is less the effect of old unhappy tradition telling how some great slaughter took place here, than the fact that "bluidy" is a word banned by the polite. this "three days red with blood," too, is an expression curiously common in the account given by country folk of any battle of which they may have local tradition. you will rind it used in connection with at least half a dozen other places in the border-land besides bloodylaws; and in the ballad of "the lads of wamphray" there occurs the line: "when the biddes-burn ran three days blood." wamphray is in annandale, and the fight alluded to was between the johnstons and the crichtons in . but the affair was a mere skirmish; "three days blood" is but a figure of speech in this and probably in most other instances. still, on a spur of bloodylaws there exists a well-defined circular camp, and there may be foundation for the local tradition of some grim slaughter. chapter iv jedburgh, and the jed |two{ } or three miles up teviot from the junction of oxnam water, we come to jed, a beautiful stream, on whose banks dreams the pleasant county town where, close on ninety years ago, they cried that cry of which they do not now like to think--"burke sir walter!" in all the border there stands no place more picturesquely situated than jedburgh, nor in historical interest can any surpass it. and though its ancient castle, and the six strong towers that once defended the town, have long since vanished, there remain still the noble ruins of its magnificent abbey, and other relics of the past, less noticeable but hardly less interesting; whilst the surrounding countryside brims over with the beauty of river, wood, and hill. history gives no very definite information as to the date at which first took place the building of a castle at jedburgh, but it appears certain that as early as the year a.d. there existed in these parts some great stronghold, if, at least, "judan-byrig"--where, when he had suppressed an insurrection in northumbria, king edred of england confined the rebel archbishop of york--may be identified with "jedburgh." probably, however, there was in this neighbourhood a castle of sorts long prior to the date above mentioned, for both "gedde-wrdes," or "jedworths," the old and the new, were known { }settlements before the expiry of the earlier half of the ninth century, and in those turbulent days no community was rash enough to plant itself in hamlet or town except under the protecting shield of castle or strong place of arms. [illustration: ] in any case, before the end of the eleventh century, there certainly existed at jedburgh a castle of formidable strength, which at frequent intervals continued to be used by the scottish kings as a royal residence. here, in , died malcolm the maiden. from jedvvorth was issued many a charter by malcolm's predecessor, david i, by william the lion, by alexander ii. here, too, the queen of alexander iii bore him a son in the year ; and here at a masque held after alexander's second marriage in , appeared and vanished the grizzly skeleton that danced a moment before the king, threading its ghastly way through the ranks of dismayed guests; frightened women shrank screaming from its path, men brave to face known dangers yet fell back from this horror, hurriedly crossing themselves. an evil omen, they said, a presage of misfortune or of death to the highest in the land. and surely the portent was borne out, for less than six months saw scotland mourning the violent death of her king. like its not distant neighbour, the more famed castle of roxburgh, jedburgh castle as time went on became a stronghold continually changing hands; to-day garrisoned by scots, to-morrow held by english, taken and retaken again and again, too strong and of importance too great to be anything but a continuous bone of contention between the two nations, yet more often, and for longer periods, in english than in scottish keeping. when in the summer of the year , king robert the bruce went to ireland, sir james douglas was one of the wardens left by him in charge of the scottish kingdom. jedburgh castle, probably with a garrison far from strong, was then in english keeping. douglas established himself at lintalee, little more than a mile up the river from jedburgh, where, by throwing across the neck of a promontory between the river and a precipitous glen, fortifications which even now are not quite destroyed, he converted a post of great natural strength into a position almost unassailable. here, or in the immediate neighbourhood, in he inflicted two severe defeats on separate bodies of english troops, detachments from a larger army under the earl of arundel. as the outcome of these victories, jedburgh castle was probably regained by the scots, for the english monks in jedburgh abbey were expelled by their scottish brethren in february, , a step they would scarcely have dared to attempt had an english garrison still been in the castle. in town and castle were bestowed by the bruce on sir james douglas, and five years later the grant was confirmed, with further additions of land. but in edward baliol, who two years earlier had assumed the crown of scotland, handed over to king edward iii, to remain for ever in the possession of england, amongst other places, the town, castle, and forest of jedworth. these edward now bestowed on henry percy, thus providing ground for a very pretty quarrel between the douglases and { }percies. from now onward, practically for seventy-five years, jedburgh castle remained in english hands. ultimately, its fate was as that of a land wilfully devastated by its own people to hamper the march of an invading army. if the scots could not permanently hold it, neither, they resolved, should it any more harbour those vermin of england. accordingly, when in the men of teviotdale, fierce progenitors of the more modern reiving border elliots and scotts, wiping out the english garrison, retook the castle, they at once set about its final destruction. burnt, so far as it would burn, cast down bit by bit to its very foundations, with strenuous toil riven asunder stone from stone, ere their work was ended little part of its massive walls remained to speak of former glories. walter bower, abbot of inchcolm, who was a young man at the time of its destruction writes in the "scotichronicon" that: "because the masonry was exceedingly holding and solid, not without great toil was it broken down and demolished." perched above the town on a commanding eminence that on one side sloped steeply to the river, and on the other to a deep glen or ravine, defended also, doubtless, on the side farthest from the burgh by a deep fosse, the castle must once have been of great strength--how strong as regards position may best be judged from the bird's-eye view of it to be gained if one climbs at the back of jedburgh the exceedingly steep direct road that runs to lariton village. from this point, too, one sees to advantage the venerable abbey nestling among the surrounding houses, and can best appreciate the wisdom of the old monks, who chose for their abode a site so pleasant. a valley smiling in the mellow sunshine; a place to which one may drop down from the heights above where bellows and raves a north westerly gale, to find peace and quiet, undisturbed by any blustering wind; a valley rich in the fruits of the earth, and wandering through it a trout stream more beautiful than almost any of the many beautiful border "waters," a stream { }that once was, and now should be, full of lusty yellow trout rising under the leafy elms in the long, warm, summer evenings. an ideal water for trout in jed, and many a pretty dish must those old monks have taken from it, by fair means or foul; pity that woollen-mills below, and netting, and the indiscriminate slaughter of fingerlings, above the town, should have so greatly damaged it as a sporting stream. possibly upper jed is not now quite so bad as it was a few years ago, but what of the lower part of that beautiful river? the same may be said of it that may be said of teviot immediately below hawick, or of gala, and, alas! of tweed, below galashiels. the waters are poisoned by dyes and by sewage, rendered foul by sewage fungus, reeking with all manner of uncleanness, an offence to nostril and to eye. five and thirty years ago ruskin wrote: "after seeing the stream of the teviot as black as ink, a putrid carcase of a sheep lying in the dry channel of the jed, under jedburgh abbey, the entire strength of the summer stream being taken away to supply a single mill, i know finally what value the british mind sets on the beauties of nature." what, indeed, are the 'beauties of nature' that they should interfere with the glories of commerce! truly we are a commercial nation. here is the condition of things that ruskin found in the borderland in the mid-seventies of last century, as described by him in a lecture delivered at oxford in . "two years ago," he said, "i went, for the first time since early youth to see scott's country by the shores of yarrow, teviot, and gala waters." then to his hearers he read aloud from "marmion" that picture of the border country which is familiar to everyone: " oft in my mind surh thoughts awake, by lone st. mary's silent lake; thou know'st it well,--nor fen, nor sedge, pollute the clear lake's crystal edge; abrupt and sheer, the mountains sink at once upon the level brink; { } and just a trace of silver sand marks where the water meets the land. far in the mirror, bright and blue, each hill's huge outline you may view; shaggy with heath, but lonely bare, nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there, save where, of land, yon slender line bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. yet even this nakedness has power, and aids the feeling of the hour: nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy, where living thing conceal'd might lie; nor point, retiring, hides a dell, where swain, or woodman lone, might dwell; there's nothing left to fancy's guess, you see that all is loneliness: and silence aids--though the steep hills send to the lake a thousand rills; in summer tide, so soft they weep, the sound but lulls the ear asleep; your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude, so stilly is the solitude. nought living meets the eye or ear, but well i ween the dead are near; for though, in feudal strife, a foe hath laid our lady's chapel low, yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil, the peasant rests him from his toil, and, dying, bids his bones be laid, where erst his simple fathers pray'd." "what i saw myself, in that fair country," continued ruskin, "of which the sight remains with me, i will next tell you. i saw the teviot oozing, not flowing, between its wooded banks, a mere sluggish injection, among the poisonous pools of scum-covered ink. and in front of jedburgh abbey, where the foaming river used to dash round the sweet ruins as if the rod of moses had freshly cleft the rock for it, bare and foul nakedness of its bed, the whole stream carried to work in the mills, the dry stones and crags of it festering unseemly in the { }evening sun, and the carcase of a sheep, brought down in the last flood, lying there in the midst of the children at their play, literal and ghastly symbol, in the sweetest pastoral country in the world, of the lost sheep of the house of israel." that is how these once fair scenes struck the outraged eye of one who was a sincere lover of our beautiful border land. what might he say of these rivers now that five and thirty years have passed? compared to teviot, ink is a fluid that may claim to be _splendidior vitro_, and jed below the town is in little better case. however, to return to jedburgh. of the old castle no trace now remains; but early in the nineteenth century a small portion of one wall yet stood, some outline of foundations yet met the eye. probably the fosse was filled up when the buildings were razed--it was a convenient place to shoot rubbish; indeed, when about the site was being cut down preparatory to the erection of a new "castle" (until recent years used as a county prison), charred oaken beams and blackened stones were unearthed, relics certainly of the ancient building. a few coins have also been found, and at various dates an iron lock, a key of curious design, a rusty dagger, arrowheads, and portions of a gold chain. jedburgh, deprived of her castle, was yet a strong place; but if her townsmen and the fierce men of teviotdale imagined that by harrying and destroying the nest that so long had sheltered them, the english birds of prey would be permanently-scattered down the wind, they made a vast mistake. no more than a year had passed ere the english returned under sir robert umphraville and burned the town about their ears; and in the same commander repeated the performance of six years earlier. again and again as the years rolled on were fire and sword the fate of jedworth. the town, with its flanking towers, was strong, strong in natural position, and, owing to the manner of building of its houses, difficult of access except by one or other of its four ports; but it had no walls or { }defending fosse, and however brave its men, however skilled in the use of arms, their numbers were generally too meagre to cope with the formidable bands the english could bring against them. time and again the place was sacked, and on each occasion her magnificent abbey suffered grievously at the hands of the stormers. founded about the year , the ancient abbey occupies the site of a building more ancient still by probably two or three hundred years, a church built in the ninth century by ecgred, bishop of lindisfarne, who died a.d. . osbert was the first abbot of jedburgh ( - ); previous to his day the establishment ranked merely as a priory. in the troublous times between and , the abbey suffered much. sacked and partially destroyed, the lead stripped from its roof, the conventual buildings to such an extent gutted that the brethren, fleeing, were forced to seek refuge for a time in abbeys and monasteries south of the border, it can have been but the massiveness of its walls that then preserved it from total destruction. but compared to the treatment later meted out to abbey and town by the earl of surrey, all former chastenings were as a comparatively mild scourging with whips; surrey chastised with scorpions. in this matter, his little finger was thicker than the loins of those who had preceded him. in , an english force--compared to the meagre number of defenders, a vast army--marched on the town. all that human power could do in defence of hearth and home was done that day by the men of jedworth. when, since history began, has it ever been recorded of them that they shrank from battle? "and how can man die better than facing fearful odds," summed up their creed, then and ever. there were of them, now, but two thousand at the most, opposed to an army many times their number one man as against four, or perhaps even { }as one to five. yet so stubborn was their resistance, so fiercely they fought, that at the last it was only by the aid of fire that this wasps' nest was laid waste. driven back at length by superior numbers, forced to retire to the towers and to the abbey, the attack could be pushed home no farther till surrey gave orders to set fire to the town. even then, jedworth held out till far in the night, when the entire place was little more than a smouldering heap of embers. "i assure your grace," wrote the earl to his king, "i fownd the scottis at this tyme the boldest men and the hottest that ever i sawe any nation, and all the journey upon all parts of the armye kepte us with soo contynual skyrmish that i never sawe the like."... "could , such men be assembled," he says in the same letter, "it would bee a dreadful enterprise to withstand them." if valour alone could have won the day, to the men of jedburgh had now been the victory. they fought like fiends incarnate. the devil himself, in truth, must have been amongst them, for, says surrey farther: "i dare not write the wonders that my lord dacre and all hys company doo saye they sawe that nyght six tyms of sperits and fereful syghts. and universally all their company saye playnly the devyl was that nyght among theym six tyms." thus was jedburgh wiped out, "soo surely brent that no garnysons nor none others shal bee lodged there unto the tyme it bee newe buylded." and to rebuild equal to what it had been, would surely be no light undertaking, for, says surrey, "the towne was much better than i went (weened) it had been, for there was twoo tymys moo houses therein than in berwicke, and well buylded, with many honest and faire houses therein sufficiente to have lodged a thousand horsemen in garnyson, and six good towres therein, which towne and towres be clenely destroyed, brent, and throwen downe." the slaughter of jedworth's defenders no doubt must also have been great. but that the inhabitants were not indiscriminately put to the sword is evidenced by the fact that some time during { }the night, wlien lord dacre's picketed horses--terrified no doubt by the same scottish devil that had troubled the hearts of the storniers in the town--suddenly stampeding, galloped wildly through surrey's camp, over two hundred of them, bursting in amongst the still burning houses, were caught and carried off by the scottish women who still clung to the place--"keening," probably, over their devastated hearths. in all, before this stampede ended, surrey lost upwards of eight hundred horses; for when the maddened beasts came thundering through his camp, the english soldiers, imagining that they were being attacked by a fresh army of scots, loosed off into the mob flights of arrows, and fired into the terrified animals with musketry. it is scarcely the method best suited to calm a maddened mob of horses; little wonder that many in their helpless terror plunged over the great "scaurs," or cliffs, that near the town overhang jedwater, and were dashed to pieces. in his letter of th september, to henry viii, surrey thus describes the incident: "and he [lord dacre] being with me at souper, about viij a clok, the horses of his company brak lowse, and sodenly ran out of his feld, in such nombre, that it caused a marvellous alarome in our field; and our standing watche being set, the horses cam ronnyng along the campe, at whome were shot above one hundred shief of arrowes, and dyvers gonnys, thinking they had been scotes that wold have saulted the camp; fynally, the horses w'ere so madde that they ran like wilde dere into the feld, above xv c at the leest, in dyvers companys; and in one place above felle downe a gret rok, and slew theymself, and above it ran into the towne being on fire, and by the women taken, and carried awaye right evill brent, and many were taken agayne. but, fynally, by that i can esteme by the nombre of theym that i sawe goe on foote the next daye, i think there is lost above viij c horses, and all with foly for lak of not lying within the campe." { }so, for a time, jedburgh perished. but the recuperative power of settlements in those days was great--like the eels, they were used to the process of skinning--and in no long time a rejuvenated township sprang from the ashes of the old burgh. when surrey gave orders that the towers should be "throwen downe," possibly his commands were not obeyed to the letter. in a district where a plentiful supply of stone is not lack ing, doubtless these defending towers would be massive buildings constructed of that material, run together--as was the custom in those days--with a semi-liquid mortar, or kind of cement, which, when it hardened, bound the entire mass into a solid block that clung stone to stone with extraordinary tenacity. probably the towers may not have been so "clenely destroyed" as he supposed them to be. in any case, in twenty years' time the place was again formidable, its men as prone as had been their fathers to shout the old battle-cry of "jethart's here," and fly at the throat of their hereditary foe. nor was the hereditary foe in any way reluctant to afford them opportunity. in lord evers stormed and captured the town; and again the roar and crackle of flaming houses smote on the ears of jedburgh's women. according to an englishman's account of "the late expedition in scotland made by the king's highness' army under the conduct of the right honourable the earl of hertford, the year of owr lord god ," an account "sent to the right honourable lord russell, lord privy seal; from the king's army there, by a friend of his," the men of jedburgh on this occasion did not behave with their wonted valour. but if this writer is to be trusted, nowhere during hertford's entire campaign of did the scots make a stand. it was a sort of triumphal english progress; everywhere the scots fled almost without striking a blow, everywhere they were cut down. only occasionally, and almost as it were by accident, was an englishman hurt, whilst the slaughter among the scots was prodigious. they "used for their defence their light feet, and fled in so much haste that divers { }english horses were tired in their pursuit: but overtaken there was a great number, whereof many were slain, partly by the fierceness of the englishmen, partly by the guilty cowardice of the scots.... and yet in this skirmish, not one englishman taken, neither slain: thanks be to god." everywhere it is the same story--a pleasant picnic for hertford and his men; death and destruction, and panic flight for the scots. men, women, and children, it was all the same apparently in that campaign, if one may judge by incidents such as this at dunbar: "and by reason that we took them in the mornynge, who, having wautched all nyghte for our comynge and perceyvynge our army to dislodge and depart, thoughte themselves safe of us, were newly gone to their beds; and in theyr fyrste slepes closed in with fyre, men, women, and children were suffocated and burnt.... in these victories," comments this pious and humane scribe, "who is to bee moste highest lauded but god?" but war is a rough game, and such happenings were the natural outcome at that time of henry's orders anent the giving of quarter, and to the "putting man, woman and child to fire and sword, without exception, when any resistance shall be made against you." here, at jedburgh, "upon the approachment of the men to their entries, the scots fled from their ordnance, leaving them unshot, into the woods thereabout, with all other people in the same town." thereafter, having caught and slain something over one hundred and sixty scots, with "the loss of six english men only," abbey, and grey friars, the town, and "divers hostel and fortified houses" were sacked and given to the flames, "the goods of the same toune being first spoyled, which laded, at their departing, five hundred horses." again, in his notice of the capture of skraysburgh, "the greatest towne in all teviotdale," we are told that "it is a marvellous truth.... not one englishman was either hurt or wounded." a craven band, those scots, it would appear, fallen strangely from the level at which surrey had found them so few years before--{ } "the boldest men and the hottest that ever i sawe any nation"; far sunk, too, beneath the level of their immediate descendants, the men who turned the day in the fight of the redeswire in . and yet one remembers to have heard of a certain fight about this period, in the near neighbourhood of jedburgh, at a place called ancrum moor, when angus, arran, and scott of buccleuch, with a force numerically very inferior, turned the tables on the "auld enemy" to a lusty tune. it may all be quite accurate, of course, this story told to lord russell, but it smacks somewhat of a tale told by one who himself was not a very bold fighting man. the warrior whose place is ever the forefront of the battle is not the man who belittles his enemies, nor is he usually one who regards with complacency the sufferings of helpless women and children. accurate, or not, however, hertford seems to have had a partiality for harrying this district and slaying its hapless people, for he returned the following year with a larger following--a mongrel gang, in which turks and russians were almost the only european nations unrepresented--and completed his work of destruction so far as it lay in his power. he could not utterly destroy the glorious abbey, but the brethren were scattered, never to return, and so far as it could be done, the building that for four hundred years had sheltered them was wrecked. mute now the solemn chants that had been wont to echo through its dim lit aisles, gone for ever the day of matins and vespers; in jedburgh the sway of the church was over. black with the smoke of sacrilegious fires, stained by the flames that had licked its desecrated walls, still a rudely fitted fragment of the great abbey for a little time continued to be used by worshippers; for the rest, the building would appear to have been regarded chiefly as an excellent and useful outlook or watch tower. it was the followers of the reformed faith that next held public worship there. did no one of the old-time abbots who lie asleep within its ancient walls turn in his grave, one wonders, { }when in the south aisle was pulled down, and "a wall built between the pillars to make the church more comfort able"? [illustration: ] they had no room in their compositions for any sentiment of reverence, little use for such a thing as respect for historical buildings, those eighteenth century scottish ancestors of ours. our old foes of england at least had the excuse that what they did was done in the heat of conflict; it was left to our own people in cold blood to lay sacrilegious hands on a glorious relic of the past; like monkeys to deface and tear to pieces something the beauty and value of which they had not wit to recognise. all that could be done, however, to atone for past misdeeds was done in by the marquess of lothian. the "comfortable church" of has { }been removed, and what remains of the abbey is reverently cared for. safe now from further desecration, "the shadows of the convent towers slant down the snowy sward;" and in the peace of long-drawn summer twilights only the distant cries of children, the scream of swift or song of thrush, may now set the echoes flying through those ruined aisles. the presbyterian manse that once stood in the abbey grounds--itself no doubt, like other houses in the town, built wholly or in part of stone quarried from the abbey ruins--has long since been removed, and little now remains which may break the tranquil sadness that broods over these relics of past grandeur. a few hundred yards from the abbey, down a back street, there stands a picturesque old house, robbed now of some of its picturesqueness by the substitution of tiles for the old thatched roof that once was there. it is the house where, in a room in the second story whose window overlooks a pleasant garden and the once crystal jed, mary, queen of scots lay many days, sick unto death,--a house surely that should now be owned and cared for by the burgh. local tradition (for what it may be worth) has it that the queen lodged first in the house which is now the spread eagle hotel, but that a fire breaking out there, she was hastily removed to that which now goes by the name of "queen mary's house." it stands in what must in her day have been a beautiful garden, sloping to the river. hoary, moss-grown apple trees still blossom there and bear fruit. "with its screen of dull trees in front," says dr. robert chambers, "the house has a somewhat lugubrious appearance, as if conscious of connection with the most melancholy tale that ever occupied the page of history." in those long past days, however, its appearance must have been far from lugubrious; and indeed even now, on a pleasant sunny evening of late spring when thick-clustered { }apple and pear blossom drape the boughs, and thrushes sing, and jed ripples musically beneath the worn arches of that fine [illustration: ] { }old bridge near at hand, (across which they say that the stones for building the abbey were brought these many centuries agone), it is more of peace than of melancholy that the place speaks. yet there is sadness too, when one thinks of the--at least on _this_ occasion--sorely maligned woman who lay there in grievous suffering in the darkening days of that october of . "would that i had died at jedworth," she sighed in later years. she had been spared much, the fates had been less unkind, if death had then been her part. and not least, she might have been spared the malignant slanders of the historian buchanan, who, at any rate in this matter, showed himself a master of the art of suppressing the true and suggesting the false. when, according to buchanan, news was brought to mary at borthwick castle of the wounding of bothwell by "a poor thief, that was himself ready to die,"--how, one wonders, would the famous "little jock elliot" have relished that description of himself?--"she flingeth away in haste like a mad woman, by great journeys in post, in the sharp time of winter." as a matter of fact, when the news of bothwell's mishap reached the queen, she was already on her way to jedburgh, to hold there a circuit court; and the time, of course, was not winter, but early october, not unusually one of the pleasantest times of the whole year in the south of scotland. arrived at jedburgh, says buchanan, "though she heard sure news of his life, yet her affection, impatient of delay, could not temper herself, but needs she must bewray her outrageous lust, and in an inconvenient time of the year, despising all discommodities of the way and weather, and all danger of thieves, she betook herself headlong to her journey, with such a company as no man of any honest degree would have adventured his life and his goods among them." buchanan's estimate of the queen's escort on this occasion is not flattering to the earl of moray, (the "good regent," mary's half-brother,) the earl ol huntly, (bothwell's brother-in-law,) { }and mr. secretary lethington, who formed part of that escort. these, one would suppose, were scarcely the men most likely to have been selected to accompany her had it been "outrageous lust" that prompted her journey. and as to this "headlong" dash to the side of the wounded bothwell, of which buchanan makes so much, they would call now by an ugly name such statements as his if they chanced to be made on oath. buchanan must have known very well that the queen transacted business for a week in jedburgh before she set out to visit her wounded warden of the marches,--a visit which, after all, was official, and which under any circumstances it had been ungracious in her to refrain from making. there was no justification for speaking of her visit as "headlong," there is no warrant for such words as "hot haste," and "rode madly," which have been employed by other writers in speaking of her journey. if she made "hot haste" there, (at the end of a week devoted to business,) she made equally hot haste back again that same day. when one has to ride fifty or sixty miles across trackless hills and boggy moors in the course of a day in mid-october, when the sun is above the horizon little more than ten hours, there is not much time for loitering by the way; the minutes are brief in which one may pause to admire the view. suppose that she left jedburgh soon after sunrise, (that is to say, at that time of year in scotland, a few minutes before o'clock) going, as she certainly must have done, across swinnie moor into rule water, thence across earlside moor and over the slitrig some miles above hawick, then up and between the hills whose broad backs divide slitrig from allan water, up by the priesthaugh burn and over the summit between cauldcleuch head and greatmoor hill, thence by the braidlee burn into hermitage water, and so, skirting the deer park, on to the castle,--she would do well, in those days when draining of swamp lands was a thing unknown, and the way, therefore, not easy to pick, if she did the outward journey in{ } anything under five hours. hawick local tradition claims that the queen on her way to hermitage visited that town, and rested for a time in what is now known as the tower hotel; and, as corroborative evidence, a room in that inn is said to be known as "queen mary's room." it may be that she did pay a flying visit to hawick, but the chances are against her having made such a detour. it would have considerably added to the length of her journey, and there can have been small time to spare for resting. in mid-october the sun sets a few minutes after o'clock. therefore, in returning, the queen and her escort must have made a reasonably early start; for to find oneself, either on horseback or afoot, among peat bogs and broken, swampy ground after dark is a thing not to be courted. as it was, mary and her horse were bogged in what has ever since been called the queen's mire, where years ago was found a lady's spur of ancient design--perhaps hers. the day had turned out wet and windy,--it is a way that october days have, after fine weather with a touch of frost,--and the queen and her escort were soaked to the skin, bedraggled, and splashed to the eyes with black peaty mud from the squelching ground through which their horses had been floundering. even in these days, when the border hills are thoroughly drained, you cannot ride everywhere across them in "hot haste" without having frequently to draw rein. what must they have been like in the sixteenth century, when, in addition to the rough, broken surface, and the steep braes, every hillock was a soaking mossy sponge, every hollow a possibly treacherous bog, when spots such as the "queen's mire" were on every hand, and every burn brimmed over with the clear brown water that the heart of the ardent trout fisher now vainly pants after? going and coming, between jedburgh and hermitage, a party in mary's day, travelling as she travelled, could not well have done the journey in less that nine hours. truly it does not leave much time for the dalliance suggested by buchanan,--{ }more especially as the privy seal register of that date testifies that the queen transacted a not inconsiderable amount of public business whilst at the castle. but, poor lady, she could do no right in the eyes of certain of her subjects. she was a catholic; and that was sufficient; even her very tolerance of other people's religion was an offence, a trap set for the unwary. every suggestion of evil with regard to her conduct was eagerly seized on and greedily swallowed by her enemies and ill-wishers. it is so fatally easy to take away character. especially, for some reason, in the case of one high in rank are certain people prone to believe evil, strangely gratified if they may be the first to unfold to a neighbour some new scandal against their betters. away to the winds with christian charity! all is fish that comes to _their_ net; to them every scandalous tale is true, and needs no enquiry, provided only it be told against one of exalted station. queen mary rode that day in the wind and the wet a matter of fifty or sixty miles. she was used to long rides, no doubt,--there was indeed no other means for her to get about the country,--and she was never one who shrank from rough weather. but wet clothes, if worn for too long a time, have a way of finding out any weak spot there may chance to be in one's frame, and the exposure and the wetting dealt hardly this time with the queen. she was never physically strong, and of late a world of anxiety, worry, and sorrow, caused by the conduct of her husband, had drained the strength she possessed. moreover, ever since her confinement three months earlier, she had been subject to more or less severe attacks of illness, accompanied by much pain. in her normal condition, probably the fatigue and exposure might have affected her not at all; now, it brought on a serious malady. by the morning of the th--the day following her long ride--she was in a high fever, and in great pain. as the disease progressed, she was seized with violent paroxysms, vomiting blood; and day by day her condition gave rise to ever more grave fear. she herself, believing that { }her end was at hand, took leave of the earl of moray and of other noblemen, expressing at the same time great anxiety regarding the affairs of the kingdom and the guardianship of her infant son after her death. but never throughout the illness did her courage falter. lack of courage, at least, is a thing of which not even her bitterest enemies can accuse mary stuart. on the evening of the ninth day of this severe illness, after a particularly acute attack of convulsions, the queen sank, and her whole body became cold and rigid. "every one present, especially her domestic servants, thought that she was dead, and they opened the windows. the earl of moray began to lay hands on the most precious articles, such as her silver plate and jewels. the mourning dresses were ordered, and arrangements were made for the funeral." * john leslie, bishop of ross, writing from jedburgh at the time, says that on the friday "her majesty became deid and all her memberis cauld, her eene closit, mouth fast, and feit and armis stiff and cauld." * ms. in british museum, by claude nau, secretary to queen mary, - . buchanan's account is that, after leaving hermitage, "she returneth again to jedworth, and with most earnest care and diligence provideth and prepareth all things to remove bothwel thither. when he was once brought thither, their company and familiar haunt together was such as was smally agreeing with both their honours. there, whether it were by their nightly and daily travels, dishonourable to themselves and infamous among the people, or by some secret providence of god, the queen fell into such a sore and dangerous sickness that scarcely there remained any hope of her life." it would be hard to conceive anything more poisonous than this, or anything less in accord with the facts. buchanan's zeal outran his love of the truth; with both hands he flung mud at the queen. in his eyes, any story against her was worthy of credence--or at least he wished it to appear so. as a matter of { }fact, before bothwell reached jedburgh the queen had been dangerously ill, and incapable of making any preparation to receive him had she wished to do so, for close on ten days, and the day after his coming she lay for several hours unconscious, and as one dead. writing on th october to the archbishop of glasgow, m. le groc, the french ambassador, can only say that he hopes "in five or six days the queen will be able to sign" a dispatch; but on the following day her illness again took an unfavourable turn. she left jedburgh within fifteen days of the date of m. le croc's letter, not an excessive time in which to recover from an illness which admittedly had brought her to the point of death, and which must have left her in a condition of extreme weakness. yet, according to buchanan, this time of convalescence was devoted to "their old pastime again, and that so openly, as they seemed to fear nothing more than lest their wickedness should be unknown." his conscience must have been of an elastic nature, if, having any knowledge of the facts, he could so write; and if he had no knowledge of the farts, one wonders how it is possible that a man of his position and ability should commit himself to statements so foul and uncharitable. but at any cost, and by any means, he wanted to make out his case; and he knew his audience. buchanan's bias against the unfortunate queen was very great. it even caused him to lend himself here to the task of bolstering up the case of that petulant, contemptible creature, darnley. in view of the latter's known degrading habits and evil practices, as well as of his general conduct towards the queen, the following sentence from the historian's waitings is almost grotesque: "when the king heard thereof," [mary's illness] "he hasted in post to jedburgh to visit the queen, to comfort her in her weakness by all the gentle services that he could, to declare his affection and hearty desire to do her pleasure." of course darnley did nothing of the sort. when he did come, (twelve days after her illness began,) he came { }most reluctantly and tardily from his "halkand and huntand" in the west country. he "has had time enough if he had been willing; this is a fault which i cannot excuse," wrote m. le croc on the th october. according to buchanan, darnley, when he did reach jedburgh, found no one ready to receive him, or "to do him any reverence at all"; the queen, he says, had "practised with" the countess of moray to feign sickness and keep her bed, as an excuse for not receiving him. "being thus denied all duties of civil kindness, the next day with great grief of heart he returned to his old solitary corner." a pathetic story, if it were wholly true; a heart-stirring picture, that of the "solitary corner." but all the king's horses and all the king's men could not have set darnley back again in the place he had forfeited in the esteem of the nobles, and in the esteem of the country at large. if the nobles were not pleased to welcome him, if he was forsaken of all friends, whose fault was that but darnley's? "the haughty spirit of darnley, nursed up in flattery, and accustomed to command, could not bear the contempt into which he had now fallen, and the state of insignificance to which he saw himself reduced." * darnley was an undisciplined cub. it was the sulky petulance of a spoilt child, that delayed his visit to jedburgh; it was the offended dignity of an unlicked schoolboy that took him out of it again so hurriedly. the queen's sufferings were as nought, weighed in the scale against a petty dignity offended by the lack of "reverence" with which he was received in jedburgh. truly, queen mary at her marriage had "placed her love on a very unworthy object, who requited it with ingratitude and treated her with neglect, with violence, and with brutality." ** * robertson's history of scotland. ** robertson. buchanan, the historian, queen mary's traducer, died in september, . his contemporary, sir james melville of halhill, in writing of him says he was "a man of notable endowments for his learning and knowledge in latin poesy, { }much honoured in other countries, pleasant in conversation, rehearsing at all occasions moralities short and instructive, whereof he had abundance, inventing where he wanted. he was also religious, but was easily abused, and so facile that he was led by every company that he haunted, which made him factious in his old days, for he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him; for he was become careless, following in many things the vulgar opinion; for he was naturally popular, and extremely revengeful against any man who had offended him, which was his greatest fault." truly these phrases: "he spoke and wrote as those who were about him informed him"; "inventing where he wanted"; "easily abused, and so facile that he was led by every company that he haunted"; "extremely revengeful against any who had offended him," seem to be not without application to much of what he wrote regarding mary stuart. on th november jedburgh saw its last of this most unfortunate among women. on that day the queen and her court set out for craigmillar, travelling on horseback by way of kelso, home castle, berwick, and dunbar. but the effects of that grievous sickness at jedburgh long remained with her. many, in the days that are long dead, were the burgh's royal visitors; but no figure more romantic in history has ever trod its streets than his who in passed one night there on his disastrous march southward. at no great distance from the house where mary lay ill, stands a fine old building, occupied once by a being no less ill-fated than was the unfortunate queen of scots. in a "close" leading from the castle gate you find the door of this house--on its weather-beaten stone lintel the date . the sorely worn stone steps of a winding old staircase lead to rooms above, all panelled in oak. but as in the case of the "comfortable church" that once took away from the beauty and dignity of the grand old abbey, so here the ruthless hand of modern "improvement" has been at work. the tenants of the building--there are several--pre{ }sumably finding the sombre oak all too gloomy to meet their view of what is fitting in mural decoration, have remedied this defect by papering the panels, and in some instances by giving them what is call "a lick of paint." sadly altered, therefore, is the interior of the building from what it was that night in november, , when bonnie prince charlie slept within its massive walls. but the outside, with its quaint double sun-dial set in the wall facing the castle-gate, is no doubt now as it was then. of this visit, local tradition has not much to tell. there is the story that the advance guard of that section of the prince's army which he himself led, marching from kelso, reached jedburgh on the sunday when the entire community was at church, and it is said that a message was sent to the minister of the abbey church requiring him to close the service and send his congregation home to prepare rations for the main body of the army. the order, if it were really given, was apparently not resented, for when the prince himself marched in, the women of jedburgh, at least, flocked into the street to kiss his hand. the regard and homage of the women he got here, as elsewhere, but of that of which he stood most in need, the swords of the men, he got none. as at kelso, not a single recruit followed him. one, indeed, a neighbouring farmer, did ride in to join the royal standard, but he was a day after the fair; the army had already marched. did the sound that tradition says jedburgh heard long ere the prince's arrival, the sound as of an army on the march, the distant rumble of moving artillery, the tramp of innumerable feet, and the dull throb of drums pulsing on the still night air, scare borderers away from his enterprise? was it superstition, or was it a real lack of interest, or was it merely "canniness," that so effectually damped the ardour of recruits both at kelso and at jedburgh? whatever the cause, no man followed him; only the blessings and good wishes of the women were his wherever he went. after leaving jedburgh, the prince's army made over the { }hills in two divisions, one following the old whele-causeway (over which the main scottish army marched on carlisle in , what time douglas's flying column made a dash into england down the rede valley from froissart's "zedon"); the other marching by note o' the gate, the neighbouring pass that runs between dog knowe and rushy rig. these were then the only two practicable ways over the hills into upper liddesdale. "note o' the gate" is a puzzle. what does the name mean? "note" may be merely the cumberland "knot" or "knote," a knob or projection on a hillside. i understand the term is common enough in that part of the country, as in helmside knot, hard knot, etc. but even if this word, though differently spelled, does bear the same meaning both in cumberland and in liddesdale, i do not know that it gets us any nearer the "gate." there is no rugged pass here, no gate between precipitous mountains. one explanation--for what it may be worth--comes from a tradition that the name was given by prince charlie himself, through his misunderstanding a remark made by one of his officers. as they tramped over the moorland pass, the prince overheard this officer say to another: "take note of the gait," _i.e._, "take note of the way." that night, when they were at larriston, the prince puzzled everyone by referring to something that had taken place back at "note of the gate." the story seems far fetched. many a tale survives of the doings and iniquities of the prince's wild highlanders as they straggled over these lonely border moors. "straggled," seems to be a more appropriate term than "marched," for, according to the testimony of eyewitnesses, the men appear to have kept no sort of military formation. or at least what formation they did keep was of the loosest, and no check on plundering. it is a lonely countryside at best; human habitations were few and widely separated, but from the infrequent cottages, property of an easily portable nature took to itself wings as the army passed, { }and sheep grazing on the hills melted from sight like snow before the softening breath of spring. once they caught and killed some sheep in a "stell," and they cooked one of them in an iron pot that lay in the stell, unfortunately, they did not take the precaution to cleanse the pot, and the resulting brew disagreed so sorely with one of the thieves that the spot is called the hielandman's grave to this day. some others, that evening when they were encamped, forced a man to kill and cut up sheep for them, and for this work he was given a guinea. the pay did not benefit him much; for a part of highlanders, as the man went towards home, put a pistol to his head and made him refund. they tried the same game on a man named armstrong, down on the liddel at whit-haugh mill. but armstrong was too much for them; one who shared the old reiver blood was not to be intimidated, and he knocked the pistol out of the hand of the threatening highlander, secured it himself, and turned the tables most unpleasantly. one unlooked-for result of the prince's march through those desolate regions, was a very great increase in the number of illicit stills, and in the consumption of whisky that had paid no revenue to king george. so impressed were the highlanders with the wild solitude of the glens on all sides of their line of march, and with the facilities presented by the amber-clear burns that tinkle through every cleuch, that when the rebels were returning from derby, numbers of the men got no farther north than the hills of liddesdale and the border, but entered there on the congenial pastime of whisky-making. though the proportion of borderers who followed prince charlie down into england, or throughout his campaign, was so very meagre, yet there lived among those solemn border hills many faithful hearts, whose king he was to the end. "follow thee! follow thee! wha wadna follow thee? king o' our highland hearts, bonnie prince charlie," { }they were not only highland hearts that were true to him. in her _border sketches_, mrs. oliver mentions a hawick man, named millar, who accompanied his master, scott of gorrenberry, all through the campaign of - , and who to the end of his days had an undying devotion to his prince, and till the day of the latter's death, an imperishable faith that he would come to his own again. long after the ' , miller became "minister's man" in one of the hawick churches, and his grief, one sunday morning in , was overwhelming when the news was told to him that the prince was dead. "e-eh! doctor," he cried brokenly to his * reverend informant, "if i'll get nae good o' your sermon the day; i wish ye hadna telled me till this afternoon. if it had been the german lairdie, now, there wad hae been little mane made for _him_ but there'll be mony a wae heart forby mine this day." indeed, who even now can read of bonnie prince charlie's end, and _not_ have "a wae heart"? few of the scottish border towns in showed open hostility, or indeed anything but a luke-warm friendship, for the gallant young pretender. dumfries, however, was an exception. the inhabitants of that town, with men from galloway, nithsdale, and annandale, full of zeal for king george and secure in the belief that the fighting men of the prince's army were all safely over the march into england, hurried to intercept the rebel baggage train as it passed near lockerbie, and carried off thirty-two carts to dumfries. the highlanders, however, getting word of this affair before the army marched from carlisle, detached a party to dumfries to demand the return of the waggons or the payment of an indemnity, "the notice of which has put dumfries in greater fear and confusion than they have since the rebellion broke out, and expect no mercy." but the prinnce's party was recalled before it had reclaimed the lost baggage-carts or exacted this alternative sum of £ , , and dumfries imagined that now all was weil. they had the waggons; and for a little { }time they triumphed. so triumphant, indeed, were they, and so filled with confidence in their own warlike powers, that when false rumours reached them that the highlanders had been utterly routed and cut to pieces at lancaster, not only were there "great rejoicings in dumfries by ringing of bells and illuminating their windows," but "a considerable party of our light horse were sent off immediately, after the chevalier," and "about three hundred militia, composed of townspeople and the adjacent paroches... are to go to the water of esk to stop their passing and to apprehend any small parcels of them flying." dumfries was not so warlike a couple of weeks or so later, when lord elcho at the head of five hundred men of the prince's advance guard marched in and demanded the immediate payment of £ , in money and the delivery of a thousand pairs of shoes, two hundred horses, and a hundred carts. not all that the prince demanded was paid before the northward march was resumed, but his visit cost the town something like £ , --irrespective of what the highlanders took. whilst he remained in dumfries, the prince lodged in the market place, in a private house which is now the commercial inn. it is said that when his army marched up nithsdale, halting for the night at the duke of queensberry's property, drumlanrig, the highlanders in the morning, to show their loyalty to king james, slashed with their swords portraits of king william and queen mary which had been presented to the duke by queen anne,--an inconvenient method of declaring allegiance. though of minor interest, there are other houses in jedburgh besides queen mary's and that in which prince charlie lodged, in which the townsfolk take some pride. there is the building in which sir david brewster was born in ; that where burns lodged when he visited jedburgh in ; that in abbey close in which wordsworth and his sister had lodgings in , when sir (then mr.) walter scott visited them and read to them part of the then unpublished "lay of the last { }minstrel"; there is the old black bull inn,--no lunger an inn,--and interesting only as the place where in sir gilbert eliott of stobs stabbed colonel stewart of stewartfield with his sword one evening as they sat at supper. claret was plentiful and good in. scotland in those days, and colonel stewart had not given his vote to sir gilbert, who was candidate for the county. swords flew out on slender excuse in the eighteenth century. this particular sword was long kept in the family of sir gilbert elliot's butler, and after passing through the hands of a resident in the village of denholm, became the property of mr. forrest, the well-known gun-maker of jedburgh, by whom it was finally deposited in the marquess of lothian's museum at monteviot. jedburgh, of course, amongst other claims to distinction was famed for its witches--as what place was not, indeed, in times when harmless old women were adjudged innocent or guilty of the charge of witchcraft according as they sank or floated when thrown into deep water. if they sank--well and good, that meant that they were innocent, and they went to heaven, having at any rate the satisfaction of knowing beforehand that, in such case, at least their memory would be cleared of the suspicion under which they had lain; if they floated--again well and good; that proved conclusively that the charge against them was a true one, and they were rescued from the water only to be burned alive. "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," was the text which our ancestors regarded as the eleventh commandment. we were not a whit better even at as late a date as the seventeenth century, than are those west african tribes of the present day whose medicine-men still "smell out" witches. only, the west africans practise the art now more or less in secret, and they are more humane in the death they inflict than were our ancestors; they do not burn. jedburgh's testing place for witches was a pool below the spot where now the townfoot bridge crosses the river. there is a story told of a notorious witch who was ducked here along with { }a batch of her sinful associates. no doubt _they_ all floated right enough; their reputation as witches of the most mischievous description had long been almost too well established to need such a test as that of the river. but this is what led to their final overthrow. the chief witch of this "covine" had a husband, the village pedagogue, a man of repute for piety and for the rigour of his sabbath keeping, and it was notorious that in season and out of season this good man would remonstrate with his wife--without doubt, people said, endeavouring to wean the woman from her sinful habits. now, one must of course admit that such continued efforts to save could not fail to be excessively irksome to any witch, and must goad not only her, but also her accomplices, as well as her master, the devil, to revenge. hence, when the schoolmaster's dead body was found one fine morning floating in the river, the majority of the drowned man's neighbours had no hesitation in believing that his wife and her partners in iniquity had dragged him in the night from his hard-earned rest, and had thrown him into the deepest pool in jed. and this was the more certain, because the deceased man had several times confided to friends a pitiful tale of how he stood in terror of his life, and how his wife and her "covine," had already more than once hauled him through the roughest streams of jed. sundry pious elders, moreover, affirmed that they had attended with him a sederunt of their church rulers the previous evening--when, perhaps, a trifle of something may have been taken in a quiet way to keep out the cold--and that at a late hour afterwards they accompanied him to his own door, whence, they admitted, they had come away in a hurry because of the wrathful and threatening tones in which they heard this witch addressing her husband. and this evidence was to some extent corroborated by the neighbours, who told how they had been awakened from sound sleep that night by the noise made by the poor victim loudly singing the twenty-third psalm as the horrid troupe hurried him down the street towards the river--a rope { }about his neck, said some. moreover, it was told, on evidence which people saw no reason to doubt, that at the time this poor man was being hurried to his death, a company of fairies was seen dancing on the top of the tower of jedburgh abbey, where after the drowning of the unfortunate schoolmaster by the witches, the whole company regaled themselves liberally with wine and ale. certainly, both wine and ale _were_ found to be missing from a neighbouring cellar the following day; and as the door of the cellar had been locked, obviously the loss could only be attributed to the schemes of fairies or witches. the one tale lent an air of truth to the others; therefore people were not backward in crediting both. he who accepted the story of the dancing fairies could have little difficulty in giving credence to that of the witches' "covine" dragging their unresisting prey through the streets. and so another wretched victim or two went to her long home by a fiery death. the schoolmaster was probably insane on some points, and trumped up the story of the witches having repeatedly ducked him. our ancestors could swallow anything in the way of marvel. this story of the jedburgh schoolmaster is told in "historical notices of the superstitions of teviotdale"; and it is added therein that popular tradition says that "a son of lord torpichen, who had been taught the art of witchcraft by his nurse," was of the party of witches, and that it was he who first gave information regarding the murderers. the ettrick shepherd must have known this story well. perhaps it suggested some of the verses in "the witch of fife," in "the queen's wake." "where have ye been, ye ill woman, these three lang nichts frae hame? what gars the sweit drap frae yer brow, ' like clots o' the saut sea faem? "it fears me muckle ye have seen what guid man never knew; it fears me muckle ye have been where the grey cock never crew." { } "sit down, sit down, my leal auld man, sit down and listen to me; i'll gar the hair stand on yer crown and the cauld sweit blind yer e'e. "the first leet nicht, when the new moon set, when all was douf and mirk, we saddled our naigs wi* the moon fern leaf, and rode frae kilmorran kirk. "some horses were of "the broom-cow framed, and some of the green bay tree: but mine was made of a hemlock-shaw, and a stout stallion was he. "we rode the tod doon on the hill, the martin on the law; and we hunted the hoolit out o' breath, and forcit him doon to fa'." "what guid was that, ye ill woman? what guid was that to thee? ye wad better have been in yer bed at hame wi' yer dear little bairns and me." "and aye we rade and sae merrylie we rade, through the merkist gloffs o' the night; and we swam the flood, and we darnit the wood, till we cam to the lommond height. "and when we cam to the lommond height, sae blythlie we lighted down; and we drank frae the horns that never grew the beer that was never brewin. "and aye we danced on the green lommond till the dawn on the ocean grew, nae wonder i was a weary wicht when i cam hame to you. and we flew ow'r hill, and we flew ow'r dale, and we flew ow'r firth and sea, until we cam to merry carlisle, where we lightit on the lea. { } "we gaed to the vault beyond the tow'r where we entered free as air, and we drank, and we drank of the bishop's wine, until we could drink nae mair." if, however, our forbears were drastic in their manner of dealing with witches and warlocks, and rigid in the infliction of capital punishment on criminals guilty of very minor offences, they were extraordinarily lax as regards the condition in which they kept their prisons. it is told that, sometime during the eighteenth century, the chief magistrate of jedburgh was waited on by the burgh gaoler, who complained that the main door of the gaol had parted company with its hinges--which, in fact, had long been eaten through with rust. he had no means of securing his prisoners. what was he to do? it was a question calculated to puzzle any ordinary person. but the magistrate was a man of resource. "get a harrow," said he. "and set it on end in the doorway, wi' its teeth turned inwards. if that winna keep them in,--'deed then they're no worth the keepin'." to as late a date as , selkirk also was not much better off than this, as regards its prison. the writer of the statistical account of the parish at that date complains that prisoners "_have been frequently in the practice of coming out in the evening, and returning again before the jailor's visit in the morning._" if by chance there was ever a period of his life when the poet burns was _not_ susceptible, it certainly was not at the time when he visited jedburgh in . regarding that visit he has left in his diary some very characteristic notes. he was "waited on by the magistrates and presented with the freedom of the burgh," he records; he meets and dines with "a polite soldier-like gentleman, a captain rutherfurd, who had been many years in the wilds of america, a prisoner among the indians," and who apparently rather bored the poet. captain rutherfurd's adventures were assuredly such as could not fail to be well worth listening to, but what between burns' respectful { }admiration of an armchair that the old soldier possessed, which had been the property of james thomson, author of "the seasons," and his latest attack of love's sickness, host and guest do not seem to have been quite in accord. perhaps the old soldier prosed, and told his battles o'er again to too great an extent--it is a failing not unknown in old gentlemen; perhaps the poet wanted to compose a sonnet to his new mistress's eyebrows.--or whatever may have been burns' equivalent. (he had just met by the "sylvan banks" of jed a young lady possessed of charms that ravished his too tender heart). anyhow, he left the district in a very despondent frame of mind, relieved only by such consolation as might be gleaned from presenting the lady with a copy of his latest portrait. in his diary is the following entry: "took farewell of jedburgh with some melancholy, disagreeable sensations. jed, pure be thy crystal streams and hallowed thy sylvan banks! sweet isabella lindsay, may peace dwell in thy bosom uninterrupted, except by the tumult throbbings of rapturous love! that love enkindling eye must beam on another, not on me; that graceful form must bless another's arms, not mine." burns' loves were almost as many in number as the birds of the air, and scarcely less trammelled. as one proceeds up jed from the ancient royal burgh, probably the first thing that forces itself on the mind is that the old coach road was not constructed for present-day traffic. in less than a couple of miles the river is crossed no fewer than four times by bridges which are curiously old fashioned, turning blindly across the stream in some instances almost at right angles to the road, and in the steepness of their ascent and descent conveying to the occupant of a motor car a sensation similar to that given to a bad sailor by a vessel at sea when she is surmounting "the league-long rollers." nor are some of the gradients on the road a few miles farther out such as entirely commend themselves to motorists, two or three of them being as abrupt as one in twelve, and one in thirteen. { }nevertheless the beauties of road and country are great, especially if it should chance that a visit is paid to the district when the tender flush of early spring lies sweet on jed's thick-wooded banks, and the trout have begun to think at last of rising again freely to the natural fly. or better still, perhaps, when the green and gold, the russet and yellow, the crimson of autumn combine with and melt into the crumbling red cliffs,--surely more generous tinted than ever were cliffs before. above, a sky of tenderest blue, an air windless yet brisk, and just a leaf here and there fluttering leisurely into the amber clear water that goes wandering by; and from the hushes the sweet thin pipe of a robin, or the crow of pheasant from some copse. that is the indian summer of scotland, her pleasantest time of year,--if it were not for the shortening days, and the recollection that trout fishing is dead till another season. it was a heavily wooded district this in former days, and one or two of the giants of old still survive,--the widespreading "capon tree," for instance, that you pass on the road a mile from jedburgh (but why "capon" it passes the knowledge of man to decide); and the "king of the woods," near fernihirst, a beautiful and still vigorous oak, with a girth of feet, four feet from the ground. on the right, across the river, as you begin to quit the precincts of the town, there hangs the precipitous red "scaur" over which, that grim night in , surrey's horses came streaming, an equine cascade. farther on, a mile or so, there perches douglas's camp at lintalee. but his "fair manor" is gone, and that great cave in the face of the cliff where he kept stock of provisions "till mak gud cher till hys men"; a fall of rock swept away that, or most part of it, in . it was to this cave, within douglas's camp, that in a priest named ellis brought a body of three hundred english soldiers, whilst douglas was elsewhere, dealing with sir thomas richmond and his men. but, (as the song says), father ellis "had better have left that beggar alone." douglas returned { }while yet the holy man and his unruly flock were feasting in the cave. and "then"--it is needless to say,--"there began a slaughter grim and great," and whatever else father ellis and his men had feasted on, at least they got now a bellyful of fighting. it was the last meal of which the most part of those englishmen partook. the cave is gone, but there still remain, guarding the neck of the promontory--ruined indeed, and partially filled up, but still prominent to the eye--the double wall and fosse that douglas threw across it six hundred years ago. of caves, such as this douglas cave at lintalee, there is a vast number scattered along the cliffy banks of jed and teviot, and by some of their tributary waters or burns. at mossburn-foot, on jed, there is a cave, others are at hundalee, and elsewhere. near cessford castle, on a small affluent of the kale there is one, habbie ker's cave, the same wicked habbie--"a bloodie man in his youth"--whose ghost to this day walks by the old draw-well at the ruined castle of holydene; on kale itself there are several of considerable size; in the cliff overhanging oxnam, near crailing, are others, and at ancrum, on the ale; whilst at sunlaws, near roxburgh, in the red sandstone cliffs of teviot, is a group of five caves, arranged in two tiers, some of them of fair dimensions, the largest about twenty six feet long, with a height of eight feet and a width of eight and a half feet. another in the upper tier has a length of twenty three feet, but at the mouth is no more than three feet in height. in the lower tier, in one of the caves it is said in the statistical account that horses were hid in , to save them from being taken for the use of the rebel army, when the detachment under prince charlie's own command marched from kelso to jedburgh. many of the caves in different parts of the country are so well concealed that a stranger might pass very near to the mouth without suspecting their existence; some, on the other hand, force themselves on the eye. but probably in olden times thick undergrowth shut them from view. there { }is no doubt that most of them at various times have been used as places of concealment; probably during the cruel old english wars they were much resorted to; certainly some of them were places of refuge in covenanting times. very efficient places of refuge no doubt they were, so long as the entrance was not discovered, but many of them would probably be easy enough to smoke out. it is mentioned in patten's "account of somerset's expedition into scotland," how "a gentleman of my lord protector's... happened upon a cave in the grounde, the mouth whereof was so worne with fresh printe of steps, that he seemed to be certayne thear wear some folke within; and gone doune to trie, he was redily receyved with a hakebut or two. he left them not yet, till he had known wheyther thei wold be content to yield and come out, which they fondly refusing, he went to my lord's grace, and upon utterance of the tbynge, gat licence to deale with them as he coulde; and so returned to them with a skore or two of pioners. three ventes had that cave, that we wear ware of, whereof he first stopt up one; another he fill'd full of strawe, and set it a fyer, whereat they within cast water apace; but it was so wel maynteyned without, that the fyer prevayled, and thei within fayn to get them belyke into anoothur parler. then devysed we (for i hapt to be with him) to stop the same up, whereby we should eyther smoother them, or fynd out their ventes, if thei hadde any mor: as this was done at another issue, about xii score of, we moughte see the fume of their smoke to come out: the which continued with so great a force, and so long a while, that we coulde not but thinke they must needs get them out, or smoother within: and forasmuch as we found not that they did the tone, we though it for certain thei wear sure of the toother." who first made and used those caves, one wonders. the stone is soft, and easy to work, and i do not think it was beyond the skill and the tools of our very remote forbears to have patiently hollow'ed them out, in suitable places, from the { }solid face of the cliff. tool marks may yet be plainly seen in some of them, marks not such as would be made by anything in the nature of a chisel, but such as are more suggestive of a pick, of sorts, an implement--single pointed--not unknown to even very primitive races. scattered all over the jedburgh district are many ancient camps--hoary even in the day when douglas fortified lintalee; many old castles and peel-towers, all, or nearly all, now in ruins, some indeed with very little left save tradition to indicate where once they stood; and here and there are found vestiges of chapels or shrines, of which possibly there may remain hardly more in some instances than the green mounds which cover their fallen walls. the monks wandered far up this pleasant vale of jed, carrying the gospel of peace through a land that knew of little save war, but the history of their resting places is even more vague than is now the outline of their chapel walls. at old jed ward, however, five miles up stream from jedburgh, you may still in some measure trace the line of foundations of that venerable little building which is said to have been built here away back in the ninth century. of camps, the number is legion. that near monklaw, the writer has not seen, but it is said to be roman, and its measurements are something like one hundred and sixty yards each way. at scraesburgh there is a circular camp, with a diameter of about one hundred and eighty feet, and with ramparts still nearly twenty feet in height,--surely that "skraysburgh, the greatest towne in all teviotdale," which, according to the english version, seems in to have fallen almost as fell jericho of old, when the enemy shouted and blew their trumpets. of castles and peel-towers the most are utterly ruined, but fernihirst (to which we come presently), still stands, and, over the hill towards teviot, lanton tower, the latter now incorporated with a comfortable modern dwelling. lanton in the twelfth century was the property of richard inglis, who also owned the adjacent tower of hunthill. both these towers { }were sacked and burned in , after flodden, by an english flying column under sir roger fenwicke, and its existence at the present day lanton tower may owe to the fact that when evers swept the country side in , and hertford brought fire and sword in the following year, it had possibly neither been repaired nor was inhabited. it was over near jedburgh, too, to have escaped the notice of surrey in . hunthill was burned again in , and had lanton then been anything but dismantled, it could scarcely have escaped the attentions of the party sent from jedburgh by the earl of rutland to attack d'essé's rear-guard at ancrum ford. a force coming over the hill from jedburgh and making for ancrum would necessarily pass within easy hail of lanton. in any case, however, there it stands, its solid walls of a tenacity not shared by buildings put together with modern mortar. strange are the vicissitudes of places and of people. over this forest of jedworth, and here at lanton, where of old too often were heard the blast of trumpet, shouts and oaths of fiercely striving men, the roar and crackle of burning houses, you will hear now no sound more startling than the "toot-toot" of the master's horn and the babble of fox hounds; for at lanton tower are the kennels of the jedforest hunt, and many a glorious run is had with this pack, sometimes in enclosed country, sometimes among the great round backed border hills towards carterfell, over country that will tail off all but the best of men and horses. { } chapter v jed (continued), fernihirst, raid ok the redeswire, otterburne |across jed, on a high and leafy bank nearly opposite to lintalee, stands the picturesque old stronghold of fernihirst. the original castle was erected by sir thomas ker probably about the year , and the present building dates only from . its predecessor "stode marvelous strongly within a grete woode," as daere and surrey found to their cost in ; yet they took it, after "long skirmyshing and moche difficultie," as surrey reported. brief and stormy was the existence of this original fernihirst, stirring, and in some instances horrible, the deeds done within and around its walls. in the english held it, shrewsbury, when he returned to the south in that year, having left there a garrison of something like eighty or ninety men. at this period scotland, still dazed and stricken under the stunning blow of pinkie in , was in a deplorable, and apparently a very helpless, condition. most of her strongholds were in english hands; her chief men for the greater part had come in and made submission to somerset; the poorer sort in most parts of the border were at the mercy of the hated invader. here, at fernihirst, the english garrison was under the command of one whose oppression and cruel lust were devilish, and whose treatment of unprotected country-folk was such as would justify almost any conceivable form of revenge { }on the part of the men of jedforest. m. de beaugué, a french officer who was then in scotland, and who in his "_histoire de la guerre d'ecosse_" chronicles the campaigns of , , says that during all the time this savage licentious devil remained near jedburgh "he never came across a young girl but he outraged her, never an old woman but he put her to death with cruel torture." [illustration: ] and, as the proverb has it: "like master, like man"; where their captain forgot his manhood, and disgraced the name of englishman, how were the men under his command likely to conduct themselves? the people of the forest of jedworth thus had ghastly wrongs to wipe out; and when their chance came, they seized on it with avidity. the cruelties inflicted on each other by both nations at this period were detestable and revolting. "put men, women, and children to fire and sword without exception, when any { }resistance shall be made against you," wrote henry viii. to lord hertford in , instructions which were most faithfully carried out. here at femihirst our countrymen went, if possible, "one better," and their treatment of prisoners was of the most inhuman and savage nature. yet if their wrongs were such as are depicted by de beaugué, can one wonder that, like wild beasts, they tore and mangled? early in there came to jedburgh a large body of french troops under the sieur d'essé, sent to recapture that town, which at the moment was held for the english by a force chiefly composed of spanish mercenaries. the spaniards made no great stand, and for the moment the sieur and his little army were left with time on their hands. to the sieur went sir john ker, then laird of fernihirst, suggesting that the french general should aid him in recapturing the castle. french and scots--a small body of the latter, the personal following of sir john ker--accordingly made a combined attack and quickly carried the outwork, the garrison retreating to the keep. here, whilst a party laboured hard to effect a breach in the wall, french arquebusiers were so planted that no man of the garrison could show his face with impunity, or dared to attempt to interfere with the working party, who already in little over one hour had made a practicable breach, large enough at least to admit a man's body. about this time the main french force had come up, and the english garrison could not but see that their position was now desperate. accordingly they showed a flag of truce, and the english commander, on receiving assurance that he would be allowed to return, came out through the hole in the wall and offered to give up the castle, provided that the lives of the garrison were spared. the sieur d'essé, however, would listen to no conditions; the surrender, he said, must be unconditional, and the englishman therefore returned to his men. meantime, news of the attack on fernihirst had flown abroad over the countryside, and men of jedforest came { }hurrying to the scene, breathless with the lust of slaughter, panting with unquenchable thirst for a bloody vengeance. letting their horses go, and, regardless of everything, rushing in, they burst open and swarmed through the doors of the lower court. and now the bowels of the english leader turned indeed to water, for well he knew what fate would be his were he once to fall into the hands of those frenzied men. therefore once more hurriedly pressing through the breach, he surrendered himself to two french officers, mm. dussac and de la mothe-rouge. scarcely, however, had he done so, and even as they led him away, a prisoner, there rushed up a scot, a dweller in the neighbouring forest of jed, one who had only too terrible a reason to remember the face of this fiend who had outraged his wife and his young daughter. he said no word, but with a roar as of a wounded beast that charges, he smote with all his strength. and the head of a man went trundling and bumping loosely over the trampled grass, as the knees doubled under a headless trunk that sank almost leisurely to the ground. then those scots who most had foul reason to execrate the memory of this treacherous brute, joyfully plunged their hands into his blood as it gushed, and with shouts of exultation seizing his head, they placed it on a long pole and stuck it up by a stone cross that stood by the parting of three ways, that all might see and rejoice over their vengeance. that was but the beginning of a scene long drawn and terrible in its ferocity. prisoners were ruthlessly butchered, and when the scots had murdered all whom they themselves had taken, their lust for blood was so far from slaked that they brought others from the frenchmen--bartering even some of their arms in exchange--and slew these also with extreme barbarity. "i myself," writes m. de beaugué, "sold them a prisoner for a small horse. they tied his hands and feet and head together, and placed him thus trussed in the middle of an open space, and ran upon him with their lances, armed as they were and on horseback.... until he was dead and his { }body hacked in a thousand pieces, which they divided among them and carried away on the iron points of their spears." "i cannot," naively adds the chronicler, "greatly praise the scots for this practice, but the truth is the english tyrannised over the borders in a most barbarous manner, and i think it was but fair to repay them, as the saying goes, in their own coin." so sir john ker got back his strong castle. but it did not long remain undisturbed in the family possession. in there came into scotland that english expedition under the earl of sussex and lord hunsdon which played such havoc in the border, and once more the merse and teviotdale were burned and laid waste. "apon monday last," writes lord hunsdon from berwick to sir w. cecil, under date rd april, , "beyng the th of thys ynstant, we went owt of thys towne by a cloke at nyght and rode to warke, where we remayned tyll three or four yn the mornyng; and then sett forward the hole army that was with us att that present, ynto tyvydale bernyng on bothe hands at the lest two myle; levyng neythercastell, towne, nortowerunburnt tyllwecametojedworth. many of the townes beyng bukklews, and a proper tower of hys, called the mose howse, wythe three or four caves, wheryn the cuntrey folk had put such stufe as they had: and was very valyantly kept by serten of the cuntrey for two or three owars, but at last taken.... the next day we marchyd to hawyke; wher by the way we began with farnhurst and hunthylle, whose howsys we burnt, and all the howsys about them. we could nott blow up farnhurst, but have so torne ytt with laborars, as ytt wer as goode ley flatt." the building must have been of remark able solidity, for in spite of its being burnt, and left roofless and dismantled, "torne with laborars," in , there can belittle doubt that in less than two years it was again at least tenable, for in lord ruthven, after dispersing at hawick the forces of buccleuch and fernihirst, (who supported the cause of the abdicated queen,) on his return march to jedburgh "tuik the { }housses of pherniherst, and put men in them," and the place was held for some time after this by the king's troops. possibly it was more thoroughly knocked about in than it had been at any other period of its existence. sir andrew ker, then head of the house, when summoned to appear before james and his privy council at jedburgh to answer for his part in aiding the schemes of the earl of both well, and for other acts, had failed to put in an appearance, and had consequently been outlawed and declared a rebel. it was also proposed to render him homeless, for on th october of that year carey reports to burghley that "the king has proclaimed to remain at jedworth fifteen days, and summoned the barons, gentlemen and freeholders to attend him, minding this day or tomorrow to pull down the lairds of fernhirst and hunthill's houses, and all others who have succoured bothwell." probably the threat was carried into execution, to a greater or less extent. in any case, saw a renovated fernihirst, much as it stands at the present day, when, according to "castellated and domestic architecture of scotland," it presents "a charming example of a scottish mansion of the period." built into the wall above the main doorway of the mansion, (as may be seen in mr. hugh thomson's sketch,) are two panels, that to the left showing the armorial bearings of the kers, and above, on a scroll, the words: s. solideo "forward in y" name of god"; at the foot, a.k. . . . on the panel to the right is the word "forward"; in the centre of the panel the arms of sir andrew's wife, dame ann d. solideo stewart, and beneath, a.s. . . . . as late as the house seems to have been occasionally used by the lord lothian of that day, but it was even then showing signs of dilapidation. it was, however, occupied by farming tenants down to a recent date, as late, i believe, as . about that year extensive repairs were carried out; { }the ivy which--however picturesque it may have been--was slowly throttling the old walls, was removed, the panels were refaced, the roof made wind and weather proof, and the interior to a great extent restored. at smailcleuchfoot, a little higher up the river, and nearly opposite to fernilhirst mill, almost, as one might say, within a stone's cast of the castle, stood once the house of a man greatly famed in jedforest,--auld ringan oliver. no vestige of the house now remains, but the memory of ringan and the story of the siege he stood within his cottage here still live in border lore, and were sung of in james telfer's "border ballads" close on a century ago. "the crystal jed by smailcleuchfoot flows on with murmuring din; it seems to sing a dowie dirge for him that dwelt therein." ringan's forebears, men of mark all of them in their day, dwelt here at smailcleuchfoot for many a generation. they were there, no doubt, when the sieur d'essé recaptured ferni-hirst for sir john ker; there when dacre stormed it in ; there perhaps, helping douglas, when father ellis and his englishmen were caught feasting on the good fare at lintalee in . with ancestors such as these, whose whole lives were passed in the midst of endless strife, men ever ready, and glorying in their readiness, to turn out against invading southern bands, or to slip over carterfell into redesdale to plunder those same southrons, how could ringan fail to be, what he was, a born fighter! with his enormous frame, immense personal strength, and dauntless courage, there was none in the border so famed as he. endless were the tales told of him,--how he could take "a ten half-fou boll of barley in the wield of his arm and fling it across a horse's back with the utmost ease"; how in his youth he raided newcastle jail, and rescued two of his friends, who had been, as he thought, unjustly imprisoned therein. the stories of him are endless. { }ringan lived in the stirring times of the covenant, and with a disposition such as his, dourly religious, it is almost needless to say that he was prominent among the more militant section of the covenanters of the seventeenth century. he was probably present at drumclog, and he was certainly present at both well brig, in , fighting as few fought that bloody day. his home was in caves and among rocks, beneath dripping peat-hags, and in holes in the ground, for many a day after this, but in he joined the outlawed hall of haughhead, and was in the tussle when that champion of the covenant was taken at queensferry what time "those two bloody hounds the curates of borrowstonness and carriden smelled out mr. cargill and his companion." hall was killed, or at least died of his wounds before he could be brought to edinburgh; but ringan oliver and "worthy mr. cargill" escaped the net of the fowler. then, in , he was with mackay at killicrankie; and the following day though exhausted with the precipitate flight from the battlefield, he fought at dunkeld his famous duel with the highland champion, rory dhu mhor, whom he slew after a most desperate and bloody fight. bleeding from half a score of wounds, ringan had been beaten to his knees, and the affair seemed a certain victory for the highlander. but the latter was over-confident; he thought he had a beaten man at his mercy, and one instant's carelessness gave ringan his chance. before his adversary could recover, the point of the borderer's sword was out between the highlander's shoulders, and with a roar of astonishment and wrath he fell dead. but perhaps it was for the siege he stood at smailcleuchfoot when he was now an old man, that ringan is best remembered. after a stormy youth and middle age, he had at length settled down in his ancestral home, where he was leading the quiet life of a farmer. as the story is told, it seems that ringan's strict integrity and high sense of honour had gained for him the respect and friendship of his powerful neighbour at fernibirst--probably either the first or the second marquess of { }lothian. perhaps, too, there may have been something in the mutual belief and manner of thought of the two men that drew them together. (there was a ker of about that date, or a little earlier, who was a zealous covenanter.) in any case, the friendship was of such a nature that when lord lothian found himself, towards the close of his life, compelled to undertake what was then the long and trying journey to london, he left ringan in charge of his private papers, and entrusted him with the key of a locked room in which valuable documents were kept, and into which he desired that no one should be permitted to enter whilst he himself was absent in the south. as it chanced, after lord lothian had started on his journey, his heir, considering, as a matter of course perhaps, that the old lord's prohibition did not apply to him, sent to ringan demanding the key of the room, into which he had, or said he had, occasion to go. ringan naturally, but perhaps not very deferentially or even politely, refused to give it up. thereupon arose hot words, and bitter enmity on the part at least of the younger man, who, with that rather irrational form of vanity not uncommon in youth, imagined himself to be slighted. and hence came serious consequences to the old covenanter. for the marquess died, and the man whom ringan had offended succeeded to the title and estates. he had always--so the story goes--nursed his wrath to keep it warm, and he might be depended on to pay off, with interest, all old scores against him whom he talked of as that "dour old cameronian devil." so it happened one day, towards the time of harvest, when corn lay waiting for the sickle in the smiling haughs of jed, the young lord and his friends, attended by servants in charge of several dogs, came on horseback across the river and began to ride up and down through ringan's crop, ostensibly looking for hares. the old man remonstrated in vain; no heed was paid to him, and at length, goaded to fury as he saw the havoc being played among his good oates and bere, he snatched up an old musket (that perhaps had seen service at bothwell brig) { }and shot one of the dogs dead. that was enough; the old man had put himself now in the wrong. for the marquess could plead that, after all, he had only been riding on his own land; and he and his friends could assert that the harm they had done, if any, had been infinitesimal. so the young lord rode off to jedburgh, and had a summons issued by the sheriff against ringan. it was one thing, however, to issue the summons, quite another to serve it, or afterwards to get ringan to obey the call. if he persisted in ignoring the summons, there were not many to be found bold enough to go to smailcleuehfoot for the purpose of haling him before the court; old as he now was, ringan's reputation for strength and courage, and for reckless daring, was still great enough to keep the wolves of the law at bay. "but," said the sheriff, "the law cannot thus be flouted; if he does not come willingly, then he must be _made_ to come." which of course was quite the right thing to say, especially if he had at hand the force necessary to carry out his threat. but that was where the difficulty came in. finally, the sheriff had to go himself to arrest old ringan, impressing on his way everybody whom he could find capable of helping, including the marquess himself. ringan was warned of their coming, and advised to fly. "no!" said the old man. "i've dune no wrong. let them touch me wha daur!" but he set about barricading his house, and when the sheriff and his parry came on the scene they found a building with doors fast and windows shuttered, and no one visible. at their knock, ringan appeared at a small upper window, but entirely declined to be taken, or to open the door. then commenced a vigorous assault by the sheriff and his party. they attempted to break in the door and to rush the building. ringan opened fire on them with his old musket, and drove them back. and then for a time there occurred nothing more than a fruitless exchange of shots, as one or other of the sheriff's { }men left cover or ringan showed himself at one of the windows. it appears, however, that there was in the house with the old man a young girl, either his adopted daughter or a domestic who looked after household affairs. this girl had been told to keep out of harm's way, to shelter in a "press" or cupboard well out of any possible range of bullet; but in the heat of battle the old man did not notice that curiosity had drawn her from the safety of this hiding place, and had brought her right behind him at the moment that he fired a shot through the window. it was a good shot, for it clipped away a curl from the sheriff's wig, and perhaps in his satisfaction at going so near to his mark the old man may have showed himself a little too openly. anyhow, at that moment two or three muskets replied, the heavy bullets coming with sullen "phut" into the woodwork of the little window-frame. but one flew straighter than the others; ringan heard behind him a sound, half gasp, half sob, and turned just in time to see the lass sink on the floor, blood pouring from her throat. the old man tried to stanch the wound, but it needed hardly more than a glance to tell that it was far beyond his simple skill, and that she was past hope. then the lust of battle seized him, blind fury filled his breast, and he thought only of revenge. he forgot his age, forgot that his fighting days should have been long over, forgot everything but the mad desire to clutch the throats of his foes and to choke the life out of them. so, tearing down the barricades of his door, he rushed out on his enemies like a wild bull charging. but alas for ringan! part of the discarded barricade caught his foot as he burst over the threshold, and down he came with a crash. before he could struggle even to his knees, the enemy was on him, and he was down again on his face, half a dozen men swarming over him. even yet, however, old and hopelessly outnumbered as he was, the fight for a time was not so very unequal, and he might in the end have cast off the crowd that strove to hold and bind him. { }an ill day it would have been for some of them had he succeeded. but a treacherous pedlar, who had joined the fray for the sake of hire, watching his chance, came behind, and with a blow from a hammer smashed ringan's jaw and brought him to the ground, stunned. the old man was taken then, bound hand and foot, and carted off to edinburgh. there, in the foul air of the tolbooth he lay for eight weary years, suffering tortures great part of the time, not only from the broken jaw, but from old wounds which had broken out afresh, and which from the insanitary condition of the prison now refused to heal. it was a broken, frail old man who came out from that long imprisonment. and he never got back to his beloved jed. ringan oliver died in edinburgh in ; his huge frame sleeps in greyfriars churchyard. as one travels up jed by the old coach road--whose windings do not invariably desert even the abruptest elbow of the stream--road and river finally part company at the bridge below camptown. here the latter's course swings gradually to the right, through leafy banks and under spreading trees, whilst the former, following a straighter route, enters on a long, steady bit of collar-work up the side of a pine-clad brae where, on one hand, lies the old camp from which the adjacent little settlement derives its name, and, on the other, edgerston, sleeping in its woods. here once stood edgerston castle, which hertford's men took "by pollicie" in ;--someone sold the rutherfurd of that day. castle and lands then belonged to the rutherfurds, one of the most ancient families in scotland, and still the lands are theirs. a little way past edgerston the road begins its long two mile climb to an elevation of close on feet near the summit of catcleuch shin. there, immediately after passing the carter bar, it crosses the border line, and drops steadily down into redesdale, past the new catcleuch reservoir that supplies newcastle with water, a work which has wiped out of existence one of the pleasantest bits of fishing in the kingdom, where trout were many and game, and of enviable size. perhaps the trout are there still--for those who may take them--but the capture of a dozen fish in still water cannot match the joy experienced in fighting one good rede trout in the strong rushing stream where he has passed all his days. [illustration: ] beyond the catcleuch reservoir, a road of easy gradients sweeps down the delightful rede valley, past innumerable old camps, british and roman; past rowchester, into whose little school house, that stands solitary in the angle of two ways, are built numerous stones (carved and otherwise) handily quarried from the adjacent old roman station of bremenium; and high up, on the roof of the building, from the same source are various large round stone balls that may have formed part of the ammunition for a roman ballista. it was this route that the roman legions followed over the cheviots in their northward march from the mighty wall they had stretched across england from sea to sea. a few miles east from catcleuch shin, their military road bursts suddenly into view of that glorious sweep of country where the triple-peaked eildons dominate the scene, a landmark that no doubt led them first to the site of their famous newstead camp. { }in early nineteenth century days, when his majesty's mail coaches between newcastle and edinburgh came jangling over the crest of this bleak, unprotected bit of road at catcleueh shin, taking at a gallant trot the long, stiff gradient that faced them whether they were heading to the south or to the north, the trials of outside passengers in winter time must not seldom have been of a nature truly unenviable. bitter sleet, driving before a westerly gale, lashed their faces and stole chill wet fingers inside their wraps and upturned collars; drifting, blinding snow, swirling on the wings of a wild north-easter, blurred the guiding line of snow-posts, and even at times hid his leaders from the coachman's sight, so that his first warning of being off the road and on the moor, was a heavy lurch as the coach buried its side in some blind hollow; frost, and a thermometer in the neighbourhood of zero, nipped from ears and nose and toes every vestige of feeling, and chilled to the very bone those whom duty or business forced to travel. it was truly a large assortment of evils that our ancestors had to choose from, in the winter, on that road over into england by the carter bar. but if winter was bad, surely in the better time of year there were pleasures that atoned for all they had suffered. in the long twilight of a summer's evening, when moorland scents fill all the air and the crow of grouse echoes from the heathery knolls, what pleasure more satisfying could there be in life than to sit behind a free-going team of bays, listening lazily to the rhythm of the chiming hoofs, to the ring of steel bitts and the merry jingle of the splinter-bars? and as the coach breasted the summit, and began to make up time on the down gradient, the glorious view that broke on the eye of the north bound passenger of itself would make amends for halt the ills of life. away to the west, stretched ever more dim in the fading sunset glow, the long-flung line of cheviots--carterfell, the carlin's tooth (where springs the infant jed), peel fell, hartshorn pyke, all blending, far down, into the round green { }hills of liddesdale; then, more to the north-westward, set in the wide expanse, the windburgh hill and cauldcleuch head; farther off, away over the high land of upper teviotdale, "the far grey riot of the ettrick hills," and the dim shapes of the mighty "laws" of peeblesshire--broad law, dollar law, black law. then far below this vantage point on catcleuch shin, in middle foreground edgerston's darkening woods; beyond, ruberslaw, minto crags,--"where falcons hang their giddy nest,"--and the dunion; then, to the right, eildon's cloven peak, and, near-by, the blac k hill at earlston, with the lammermuirs in dimmest background; to the right again, smailholme tower, erect and watchful; east of that, the green merse, wide-spread like a map, stretched almost to the sea, and on the extreme right, far off, cheviot himself, blocking the view. what a truly magnificent sweep of country it is! a sense of space, and room to breathe, such as one finds seldom in this country. three hundred and thirty-eight years ago, however, there were scots and english assembled on that catcleuch ridge one summer's day, who had no eyes for the view; "the seventh of july, the suith to say, at the reidswire the tryst was set; our wardens they affixed the day, and, as they promised, so they met. alas! that day i'll ne'er forget!" as was customary, the english and scottish wardens of the marches had met for the discussion and settlement of border claims and disputes, and for the redressing of wrongs. sir john carmichael in this instance acted for scotland, sir john forster for england. the former was accompanied by the young scott of buccleuch,--according to sir walter the same who, twenty-one years later, was famous for the rescue of kinmont willie from carlisle castle,--by sundry armstrongs, { }elliots, douglases, turnbulls of rule water, and other wild borderers. "of other clans i cannot tell because our warning was not wide." but it was a turbulent band, one would think, and not easy of control. forster had at his back fenwicks--"five hundred fenwicks in a flock," says the ballad,--shaftoes, collingwoods, and other of the great english border families, the men from hexham and thereabout, and many of the fiercest fighters of redesdale and tynedale, the two latter said to be then the most lawless people of the north of england. indeed, their reputation was so evil that the merchants of newcastle passed a by-law in the year that no apprentices should be taken "proceeding from such leude and wicked progenitors."; thus it may be seen that both nations were strongly represented, and that on both sides there was superabundance of most inflammable material waiting but for a spark to set it ablaze. in most promising and peaceful fashion, however, the proceedings opened: "yett was our meeting meek eneugh; begun wi' merriment and mowes. some gaed to drink, and some stude still, and some to cards and dice them sped." and all went smoothly and well, till the case of one robson, a notorious redesdale horse and cattle-thief, came up for discussion. the scottish warden, following the usual border custom in such cases, demanded that the culprit, having been guilty of theft on the northern side of the march, should be given into scottish custody till such time as reparation be made to the parties robbed by the redesdale man. sir john forster demurred, giving as his reason for evading the usual practice in such cases, that robson had fled and could not be captured. "oh! play fair!" cried carmichael contemptuously. whereupon forster not unnaturally lost his temper, and made a fierce and insulting reply. hot words leapt from angry lips, and { }swords, which in those days were never long idle, began to flash in the warm sunshine as they left the scabbards. and then the tynedale men--"fy, tyndale, to it!"--eager to take time by the forelock, and determined not to stand out of what fray might be going, loosed off a flight of arrows among the scots. and all the fat was in the fire. like fiercest wolves, the two sides flew at each other's throats, trampling over the heathery ground, cursing, slashing, stabbing. the scots at first were getting rather the worst of the affray; carmichael was down, and a prisoner; others were disabled. the english had the slope of the hill slightly in their favour and made the most of their advantage, gradually forcing their foes to fall back in tardy and sullen retreat. then came to the hot headed tynedale men the irresistible temptation to plunder. it was customary at those wardens' meetings for pedlars or small tradesmen to erect on the ground selected for the meeting, tents, or, as we say in scotland, "crames," sort of temporary shop-counters sheltered by canvas, in or on which they displayed the wares they had for sale. so it had been at this reidswire meeting. and as the scots were forced back past those "crames," the desire for loot proved too strong for some of the english combatants. by ones and twos, as opportunity offered, they edged away from the fight, and, like marauding wasps to crop of ripe plums, made for this booty that might be had for the taking. fighting and plunder were equally congenial to the men of tynedale. at that very moment, however, in which a large number had so withdrawn themselves, unfortunately for them reinforcements arrived for the scots. "jethart's here!" rang out over the roar and stress of the fight, and into the "tulzie" plunged the men of jedburgh, hot off their ten mile march. "bauld rutherfurd, he was fou stout, wi' a' his nine sons him about; he led the toun o' jedburgh out, all bravely fought that day." { }the tables were badly turned on the english; now they in turn began to give way, and to be forced back up the hill down which till now they had been successfully pressing the scots. too late the tynedale men tried to retrieve their error; the scots got them on the run and gave no breathing space; speedily the run became a rout. over the crest into redesdale fled the discomfited english, dropping here a man, there a man, as they fled. "sir george hearoune of schipsydehouse," (sir george heron miles of chipchase castle,) fell early in the fight, and four and twenty dead bowmen kept him company. the wounded on both sides were many; and among the prisoners taken by the scots were the english warden, sir james ogle, sir cuthbert collingwood, sir francis russell (son of the earl of bedford), several fenwicks, and other leading men from the english side of the border. carmichael took his prisoners to edinburgh--not greatly to the comfort of the scottish regent, the earl of morton; for england and scotland were then, for once in a way, at peace, and such an incident as this raid of the reidswire was but too likely to result in further war between the nations. therefore, after a day or two's detention, or rather, perhaps, after a day or two's entertainment, morton, with every expression of regret and of regard, sent all the prisoners back to england, apparently not ill pleased with their treatment. no international complications followed the affair. carmichael was sent to york to explain matters, and he seems to have been able to show satisfactorily that the scots were within their rights throughout; that, in fact, as the ballad says: " . . . . pride, and breaking out of feuid garr'd tindaill lads begin the quarrel." some years ago, a very handsome silver mounted sword, and a fine specimen of a dagger, were unearthed by a man employed in cutting drains on the hillside where the battle was fought that july day of . the sword was a beautiful { }weapon, of fine temper, and it probably belonged to one of the english leaders. unfortunately it has been lost. both it and the dagger have, as i understand, mysteriously disappeared from the house in which they were kept. somebody too greatly admired them, one may suppose, and followed the example set by the men of tynedale in the heat of battle that day. [illustration: ] the scene of the fight is that fairly level bit of moorland to the left of the road just after you quit the carter bar, going south. harking back now for a moment to jed,--five or six miles above the bridge at camptown where we quitted the line of river to follow the old coach road over carter fell, we come to southdean. here are the ruins of an ancient church, (the foundations, at least, and part of the walls and tower,) which have lately been dug out from the great green mound with its big ash trees atop, which lay these two hundred years and more between hillside and river, down by the little grey { }bridge. this is the "churche in a fayre launde called zedon," wherein, says froissart, douglas and the other scottish leaders met on the eve of that expedition into england which ended with the glorious fight of otterbourne. "i never heard the old song of percy and douglas," wrote sir philip sidney, "that i found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet;" and who is there to-day, in spite of lapse of centuries, whose blood does not quicken at the very sound of the word "otterbourne." it used to be said that the "zedon" of froissart was more applicable to yetholm than to southdean. some, indeed, still maintain that, as far at least as _sound_ is concerned, "zedon" (the "z", as was formerly not uncommon, being treated as a "y") bears a much greater resemblance to "yethoim" than to "southdean." one may readily admit that as it is spelled, "south-dean" is not in the least like "zedon." but it is an entirely different affair when we come to a matter of local pronunciation. in this case the pronunciation is, as near as may be, "seuden." if we very slightly soften the sound of the letter "z," and allow for the fact that the "e" of zedon would naturally be used by froissart with the same value that it bears in his own language, we arrive absolutely at the local pronunciation of the name--"seuden." in any case, it seems most unlikely that the point of assembly could have been yetholm, if only for the reason that when marching from there into england,--presumably by way of the bowmont valley, and so past wooler and through northumberland,--douglas would have exposed himself to be struck in rear and on his left flank from the adjacent vantage points of roxburgh and wark, both of which formidable strongholds were then in english hands, and, (seeing that the intention of the scots to make an invasion had long been known in northumberland,) probably held in force. and certainly, if the column came by way of ottercops and rothely crags, as it is said to have done, its starting point was not { }yetholm. obviously, too, a scottish army concentrated at southdean was in a much better strategical position than any that it could have occupied in the neighbourhood of yetholm. from southdean it could strike either way at will, either over the easy, and necessarily well known, pass by catcleuch shin, or across the hills by the old roman way, the whele causeway, into liddesdale, and thence on to carlisle. this scottish plan, to assemble an army here at southdean, was the outcome of a meeting held some time previously at aberdeen, a city "on the fronter of the wylde scottes," and, so far as was possible, the business had been kept secret; even to the king himself no hint was given of what the nobles designed, "for," said they among themselves, "the king is no manne of warre." but "the scottes coude nat do their maters so secretly, but the lords of englande knewe howe men rose in scotland, and how they shulde mete agayne at gedeours." spies brought word to northumberland of what was afoot, and the english took all necessary steps to upset the scottish plan of campaign. if the scots decided to come by way of carlisle, then the english resolved that they, on their part, would burst into scotland by way of berwick, or by dunbar. thus, said they, "we shall do them more dommage than they can do us, for their countrey is all open; we maye go where we lyst, and our countre is strong, and the townes and castelles well closed." now the scots had gathered at southdean this august of so vast an army that "in threscore yere before there was nat assembled toguyder in scotlande suche a nombre of good men; there were xii hundred speares and xl thousande men besvde with their archers; but in tyme of nede the scottes can lytell skyll with their bowes; they rather beare axes, wherwith they gyve great strokes." and this army, "whan they were thus mette togyder in the marchesse of gedours.... were mery, and sayd, they wolde never entre againe into their owne houses tyll they had ben in englande, and done suche dedes there that it shulde be spoken of xx yere after." { }to this gathering at southdean came an english spy, one who "knewe right well the marchesse of scotlande, and specially the forest of gedeours." without arousing suspicion, this man made his way into the church, and overheard the scottish leaders discuss their plans. and when he had picked up information enough for his purpose, he withdrew quietly from the building and went to get his horse, which he had left in a convenient spot, tied to a tree. but never a trace of horse nor of harness was there now, "for a scotte, who be great theves, had stollen hym awaye." it was a very tight corner for the spy. he durst make no great outcry, lest he betray himself; so, in default, he started "forthe afote, boted and spurred," thinking maybe to slip out of the camp unobserved and make over the cheviots into rede valley. in any other place but the border, perhaps he might have got clear away. but the borderers have ever been horse lovers, and now the unwonted sight of a man, booted and spurred, footing it, at once drew eyes to him that might have taken little heed had he been mounted. "a filthie thing," says bishop leslie, writing of the borderers in the sixteenth century, "a filthie thing thay estcime it, and a verie abjecte man thay halde him that gangis upon his fete, ony voyage. quhairthrough cumis that al are horsmen." so the spy had not gone many furlongs ere he was stopped by two mounted men. "felowe," said one of the two to the other, "i have sene a marveyle; beholde yonder a man goeth alone, and as i thynke, he hath lost his horse, for he came by and spake no worde; i wene he be none of our company; lette us ryde after him to prove my saying." so, says froissart, they went after him. and "whane he sawe them commynge, he wolde gladly have ben thens." the spy's answers to questions not being satisfactory, "they brought hym againe to the church of zedon and presented him to the erle duglas and to other lordes." and there "they handled hym in suche wise that he was fayne to shewe all the mater." their methods were not gentle in { }those days; one wonders what they did. anyhow, "they knew by hym that the lordes of northumberland had sent hym thyder, to know the estate of their enterprise, and whiche waye they wolde drawe. hereof the scottes were right joyous, and wolde nat for a great good but that they had spoken with this squyer." scottish arguments proved too strong for the unhappy englishman: "sirs," said he at last, "sithe it behoveth me to saye the truthe, i shall." so he gave information of the whereabouts of the english army, and disclosed the whole of the english plans, telling how, the force at the disposal of the northumbrian lords not being strong enough to stand up against the scottish host, the intention of the english leaders was that if the scots should "take the waye into gales [cumberland] they wyll go by berwike, and so to dunbare, to edinborowe, or els to alquest [dalkeith]; and if ye take nat that waye, then they wyll go by carlyle, and into the mountayns of the countrey. whan the lordes herde that, eche of them regarded other." as indeed they had excellent cause, for this information put into their hands a card that could most effectually trump their adversary's strongest suit. they were "ryght joyfull," says froissart, and "demannded counsayle what way was best for them to take." accordingly, the main army was despatched over the hills, probably, and most naturally, up jed and the raven burn, and across into liddesdale by the old roman road that leaves carlin tooth and wheelrig head on its left, and follows down peel burn to liddel water; thence down the liddel valley the marching would be easy to longtown and on to carlisle; whilst douglas, with a flying column consisting of "thre hundred speares of chosen men, and of two thousande other men and archers," went up the carter burn and over the easy pass at catcleuch shin into redesdale, with intent to "drawe towardes newcastell upon tyne, and passe the ryver and entre into the bysshoprike of durham, and burne and exyle the country." { }"thus these two hoostes departed eche from other, echo of them prayenge other, that if the englysshmen folowed any of their armyes, nat to fyght with them tyll bothe their armyes were joyned toguyder. thus in a mornyng they departed fro gedeours, and toke the feldes." down the rede valley--all fairly easy going in the dry august weather, even at that day, one may suppose; froissart says the weather was "fayre and temperate,"--and across tyne, douglas pushed rapidly, pausing neither to burn nor to slay, until he came into durham, "where they founde a good countrey. than they beganne to make warre, to slee people, and to brinne vyllages, and to do many sore displeasures." everyone knows what happened after this; how at length, having skirmished right up to the walls of durham, and beyond, douglas and his men turned again northward and halted two days before newcastle, where lay percy, and english knights so many that "they wyst not where to lodge"; how, wjilst the scots remained here, douglas and percy fought, and douglas overthrew percy and took from him a trophy which the latter swore to redeem before it could be carried from northumberland; and how percy, coming up with the scots at otterburne, strove to regain that which he had lost at newcastle, and was defeated and made prisoner; how the fight raged throughout the moon lit night far into the morning, and the trampled heath lay red with more than the bloom of heather; and how earl douglas was slain. it is all told in the ballad, and how valiantly each fought where cowards had no place. it fell about the lammas tide, when the muir-men win their hay, the doughty douglas bound him to ride into england to drive a prey. he chose the gordons and the graemes, with them the lindsays, licht and gay, but the jardines wald not with him ride, and they rue it to this day. { } and he has harried the dales o' tyne and half o' bambroughshire; and three good towers on reidswire fells, he left them a' on fire. and he march'd up to new castel, and rade it round about: "o, wha is the lord o' this castel, or wha is the ladie o't?" but up spak proud lord percy then, and o but he spak hie! "it's i am the lord o' this castel, my wife's the ladie gay." "if thou art the lord o' this castel, sae weel it pleases me! for ere i cross the border fells, the ane o' us shall dee." he took a lang spear in his hand, shod with the metal free; and forth to meet the douglas there, he rade right furiouslie. but o, how pale his ladie look'd frae aff the castel wall, when down before the scottish spear she saw proud percy fa'! "had we twa been upon the green, and never an eye to see, i wad hae had you, flesh and fell, but your sword shall gae wi' me." "but gae ye up tae otterbourne, and bide there dayis three; and gin i come not ere they end, a fause knight ca' ye me." "the otterboume's a bonny burn, 'tis pleasant there to be; but there is nought at otterbourne to feed my men and me. { } "the deer rins wild on hill and dale, the birds fly wild frae tree to tree; but there is neither bread nor kail to fend my men and me. "yet i will stay at otterbourne, where you shall welcome be; and, if you come not at three dayis end, a fause knight i'll ca' thee." "thither will i come," proud percy said, "by the micht of our ladye!" "there will i bide thee," said the douglas, "my troth i plight to thee." they lichted high on otterbourne, upon the brent sae brown; they lichted high on otterbourne, and threw their pallions down. and he that had a bonnie boy, sent out his horse to grass; and he that had not a bonnie boy, his ain servant he was. then up and spak a little page, before the peep of dawn: "o waken ye, waken ye, my good lord, for percy's hard at hand." "ye lie, ye lie, ye liar loud! sae loud i hear ye lie; for percy had not men yestreen to fight my men and me. "but i hae dreamed a dreary dream, beyond the isle of skye: i saw a dead man win a fight, and i think that man was i." he belted on his gude braid sword, and to the field he ran; but he forgot the helmet good that shou'd have kept his brain. { } when percy with the douglas met, i wat he was fu' fain! they swakkit swords till sair they swat, and the blood ran down like rain. but percy, wi' his good braid sword, that could sae sharply wound, has wounded douglas on the brow, till he fell till the ground. then he call'd on his little foot-page, and said--"run speedilie, and fetch my ain dear sister's son, sir hugh montgomerie." "my nephew good," the douglas said. "what recks the death o' ane! last nicht i dream'd a dreary dream, and i ken the day's thy ain. "my wound is deep; i fain would sleep; take thou the vanguard of the three, and hide me by the bracken bush that grows on yonder lily lee. "o, bury me by the bracken bush, beneath the blooming brier; let never living mortal ken that a kindly scot lies here." he lifted up that noble lord, with the saut tear in his ee; he hid him in the bracken bush, that his merrie men might not see. the moon was clear, the day drew near, the spears in flinders flew but mony a gallant englishman ere day the scotsmen slew. the gordon's gude, in english bluid they steep'd their hose and shoon; the lindsays flew like fire about, till a' the fray was dune. { } the percy and montgomerie met, that either of other was fain; they swakkit swords, and they twa swat, and aye the bluid ran down between. "now yield thee, yield thee, percy," he said, "or else i vow i'll lay thee low!" "to whom must i yield," quoth earl percy, "sin' i see that it maun be so?" "thou shall not yield to lord or loun, nor yet shalt thou yield to me; but yield ye to the brarken bush that grows upon yon lilye lee!" "i will not yield to a bracken bush, nor yet will i yield to a brier; but i would yield to earl douglas, or sir hugh montgomerie if he were here." as soon as he knew it was montgomerie, he stuck his sword's point in the gronde; montgomerie was a courteous knight, and quickly took him by the hond. this deed was done at otterbourne, about the breaking o' the day; earl douglas was buried by the bracken bush, and the percy led captive away. froissart says he was told by two english squires who took part in the fight, "how this batayle was as sore a batayle fought as lyghtly hath been harde of before of such a nombre, and i believe it well. for englysshmen on the one partye and scottes on the other party are good men of warre: for whan they mete there is a hard fight without sparvnge; there is no hoo bytwene them as long as speares, swordes, axes, or dagers wyll endure, but lay on eche upon other, and whan they be well beaten, and that the one parte hath optaygned the victory, they than glorifye so in their dedes of armes and are so joyfull, that suche as be taken they shall be raunsomed or { }they go out of the felde, so that shortly eche of them is so contente with other that at their departynge curtoysly they wyll saye, god thanke you. but in fyghtynge one with another there is no playe nor sparynge; and this is trewe, and that shall well apere by this sayd rencounter, for it was as valyauntly foughten as coulde be devysed." with hand to hand fighting so close and so fierce as here befell at otterburne, the slaughter could not fail to be very great. according to godscroft, the english alone lost one thousand eight hundred and forty killed, and over a thousand wounded. the total scottish loss in killed, wounded and missing appears to have been less than half that of the enemy in killed alone. the english lost also over a thousand men who were captured by the scots; indeed, the latter had so many prisoners that they were greatly put to it to know what to do with them at the moment when the bishop of durham with his ten thousand fresh troops came on the scene and seemed likely to renew the battle. many of the prisoners were men of distinction. percy himself was taken by the earl of montgomery; his brother, ralph percy, by sir john maxwell; sir matthew reedman, governor of berwick, by sir james lindsay. and many another scottish knight or squire held his brother of england to ransom. froissart describes more than one picturesque incident of the fight, and none, surely, is more vivid and alive than that in which he tells how sir matthew reedman, governor of berwick, fled from the field, pursued by sir james lindsay. when all was done that man could do, and all was done in vain, sit matthew turned to save himself. lindsay chanced to be near at hand, and saw him gallop out from the stress of battle. "and this sir james to wyn honour, followed in chase.... and came so nere hym that he myght have stryken him with his speare if he had lyst. than he said, 'ah, sir knyght, tourne, it is a shame thus to flye: i am james of lindsay: if ye wyll nat tourne i shall stryke you on the backe { }with my speare.' sir matthew spake no worde, but strake his horse with the spurrs sorer than he dyde before. in this manner he chased hym more than thre myles, and at lasts sir mathue reedman's horse foundred and fell under hym. than he stept forth on the erthe, and drewe oute hys swerde, and toke corage to defende hymselfe; and the scotte thought to have stryken hym on the brest, but sir mathewe reedman swerved fro the stroke, and the speare poynt entered into the erthe: than sir mathue strake asonder the speare with his swerde. and whan sir james lynsay sawe howe he had loste his speare, he caste awaye the trounchon and lyghted afote, and toke a lytell batayle axe that he caryed at his backe, and handeled it with his one hande, quiekely and delyverly, in the whiche feate scottes be well experte. and than he sette at sir mathue, and he defended hymselfe properly. thus they tourneyed toguyder, one with an axe, and the other with a swerde, a longe season, and no man to lette them. fynally, sir james lynsay gave the knyght suche strokes, and helde hym so shorte, that he was putte out of brethe, in such wyse that he yelded hymselfe, and sayde: 'sir james lynsay, i yelde me to you.' 'well,' quod he, 'and i receyve you, rescue or no rescue.' 'i am content,' quod reedman, 'so ye deale with me lyke a good campanyon.' 'i shall not fayle that,' quod lynsay, and so put up his swerde. 'well, sir,' quod reedman, 'what wyll you nowe that i shall do? i am your prisoner, ye have conquered me; i wolde gladly go agayn to newcastell, and within fyftene dayes i shall come to you into scotlande, where as ye shall assigne me.' 'i am content,' quod lynsay: 'ye shall promyse by your faythe to present yourselfe within this iii wekes at edenborowe, and wheresoever ye go, to repute yourself my prisoner.' all this sir mathue sware and promysed to fulfyll. than eche of them toke their horses and toke leave eche of other." they were to meet again, however, in less than the stipulated time. sir james turned his horse towards otterburne, { }intent on rejoining his friends. but a mist came down over the hills and blotted out the moorland; he could only feel his way in the direction he desired to go. and when at length through the haar and thickness there came to his ears the muffled sound of voices, the ring of bridles and snort of horses, in full assurance that the sounds came from a body of his own men returning from pursuit of the broken english, he rode confidently forward, it was to find himself face to face with five hundred horse under the bishop of durham. and said the bishop to lindsay: "'ye shall go with me to newcastell.' 'i may nat chose,' quod lynsay, 'sithe ye wyll have it so; i have taken, and i am taken, suche is the adventures of armes.' "'whom have ye taken': quod the bysshop. 'sir,' quod he, 'i toke in the chase sir malhue redman.' 'and where is he?' quod the bysshop. 'by my faythe, sir, he is returned to newcastell; he desyred me to trust hym on his faythe for thre wekes, and so have i done.' 'well,' quod the bysshop, 'lette us go to new castell, and there ye shall speke wyth hym.' thus they rode to newcastell toguyder, and sir james lynsay was prisoner to the bysshop of durham." so the twain met again, and "'by my faythe, sir mathewe,' said lindsay, 'i beleve ye shall nat nede to come to edenborowe to me to make your fynaunce: i thynke rather we shall make an exchaunge one for another, if the bysshoppe be so contente.'" whereupon, reedman---as has ever been the wont of englishmen--proposed that they should mark the occasion by a dinner; and, says froissart, "thus these two knyghts dyned toguyder in newcastell." he was not a valiant person, apparently, this bishop of durham. had he been a very militant prince of the church, it had surely gone hard now with the scots, for, outnumbered as they had been throughout the fight, they were sore spent ere ever the bishop hove in sight with his ten thousand fresh troops, and it could scarcely have taken very much to drive them from the field in headlong rout. but the english leader was not a very intrepid man; and when he found the scots { }drawn together in a position so defended by swamp and morass that entry could be forced only by the one way, the bishop hesitated. then the scottish leaders ordered their "mynstrels to blowe up all at ones, and make the greatest revell of the worlde"; for, as froissart says, "whan they blowe all at ones, they make suche a noyse that it may be herde nighe iiii myles of; thus they do to abasshe their enemyes, and to rejoyse themselfes." the instruments used were horns, we are told. had they been bagpipes, one might perhaps have understood the consternation of the english. says froissart: "whan the bysshoppe of durham, with his baner, and xm men with hym, were aproched within a leage, than the scottes blew their homes in suche wise that it seemed that all the devyls in hell had been amonge them, so that such as herde them, and knewe nat of their usage, were sore abasshed." nevertheless, the bishop, with his host in order of battle, advanced to within about two bow-shot of the scots, and there came to a halt in order to reconnoitre their position. the more he looked at it, the less he liked it; losses were certain to be heavy, victory by no means assured. so the english drew off; and the scots, we are told, "wente to their lodgynges and made mery." then, the next day, having burned their camp, they marched unmolested back up the rede valley into scotland; and with them they bore the honoured bodies of douglas and of others who had fallen in the fight. percy went with them, a captive, and many another distinguished englishman against his will sadly followed the victors. but those prisoners who were too badly hurt to endure the march into scotland were sent under parole back to newcastle, among them sir ralph percy, who was returned in a horse litter. huge sums are mentioned as having been paid in ransom by the english prisoners, the estimate of some writers reaching the extravagant figure of £ , , a sum that in those days would have enriched the entire scottish nation beyond the dreams of avarice. even that number of pounds { }scots (equal to £ , ) seems beyond reason. froissart's , francs (£ , in our money) is probably about what was paid--in that day a most handsome sum. [illustration: ] a cheerful little village is the otterburne of the present day,--even though there are not wanting evidences that some part of it, down by the inn, for example,-has planted itself in too close proximity to a river and a burn which still, as in those early eighteenth century days of "mad" jack hall, are capable of sudden and vindictive flood. as regards the battlefield, however, there is not a great deal to see. the so-called percy's cross, which stands in a thin clump of trees to the east of the road three-quarters of a mile on the scottish side of the village, is a comparatively modern erection. the true site ot the original "battle stone," according to maps of date , was about a couple of hundred yards more to the east, and there it stood, or rather, lay, till , when the then proprietor of the land, a { }mr. ellison, put up the cross now standing, within view of the new turnpike road which was then being made up the valley of the rede. mr. ellison used the ancient socket of the original cross, but the rough pedestal on which the socket stands has nothing to do with the old memorial. [illustration: ] nor has the present shaft, which, says mr. robert white in his "history of the battle of otterburne" ( ), was nothing but "an old architrave which had been removed from the kitchen fireplace at otterburne hall. this stone, the cross-section of which is fifteen and a half by eight inches, still shows a bevelled corner throughout its length; besides, two small pieces of iron project from one of its sides, which, in its former period of usefulness, were probably connected with some culinary apparatus. on its top is another stone, tapering to a point, which completes the erection. the entire length of the shaft above the base is nine and a half feet. the socket is a worn, weather-beaten { }sandstone, about two feet square, without any tool-marks upon it, and appears to have been in use much longer than any of the stones connected with it." a still more modern memorial of the battle is a large semicircular seat cut in freestone, bearing on darker coloured panels various inscriptions, which stands by the road-side a little farther to the north. this was erected in by mr. w. h. james, then m.p. for gateshead. it may be noted that one of the panels gives the date of the battle as _tenth_ august, , which is almost certainly a mistake. douglas, of course, had satisfactory reasons for camping that night where he did,--reasons not unconnected probably with the question of shelter from english arrows. a wood protected him, it is said. had he gone four or five miles farther on up the valley, he might have occupied the old roman camp of bremenium, a strong position, not sheltered from arrow-flight by trees, it is true, but protected on two sides by what in old days must have been swamps, and surrounded by a heavy wall which, even in its present condition, would be, to a defending force, a considerable protection in hand to hand fighting. five hundred years ago, before the day of agricultural improvement and the custom of using ancient monuments as a quarry, such a defence must have made the camp a place of very considerable strength. portions only now remain of the formidable wall which originally protected bremenium, but enough stands to show what its strength must have been in the days when the roman legions manned it. the face is composed of great blocks of hewn freestone, accurately fitted; in height it must have been about fourteen feet, in thickness something like seventeen,--the inner portion, of course, being rubble work; outside there were two or more fosses. one of the gateways is still intact to a very considerable height, but the camp as a whole has to a most pitiable extent been used as a quarry, perhaps for hundreds of years. even yet, one doubts if it is held quite sacred from vandal raids. as late as , when { }members of the berwickshire naturalists' club visited the camp they found masons deliberately quarrying stones from one corner of the wall, in order to build a hideous modern cottage, and i daresay some of the houses in the immediate neighbourhood may be composed entirely of stones taken from the old walls. the writer has not seen the roman tombs which exist about half a mile to the east of the camp. the largest of these is said to have still two courses of stones standing, besides the flat stones of the foundation. this tomb has in front a small carving, regarding which dr. collingwood bruce, in "the roman wall," suggests that it may have been intended to represent "the head of a boar--the emblem of the twentieth legion." the writer is given to understand that the carving bears no resemblance whatever to the head of a boar. a coin of the emperor alexander severus was found in this tomb, together with a jar containing calcined bones, and a coin of the emperor trajan was found in the camp. how many of douglas's wounded, one wonders, were carried from the field of battle over to southdean, and, succumbing there to their wounds, were buried at the church? two or three years ago, when the ash-trees were cut down and the grassy mound carted away that had so long concealed the ruins of the old building, quantities of human bones were dug up within and about the walls, some of the skulls showing unmistakably that the owners had died no peaceful death. no doubt the main body of the scottish army would follow the dead douglas to his tomb in melrose abbey, and would therefore never come so far west as southdean, but the severely wounded would naturally be left wherever they could be attended to. it is certain that the southdean district was in old days much less sparsely populated than is now the case; two important yearly fairs, for instance, used formerly to be held at lethem, (three miles nearer the border than southdean,)--where also, on a knoll still called the chapel knowe, was a chapel, subsidiary to the church of southdean. these fairs were for the sale of { }"horse, nolt, sheep, fish, flesh, malt, meal," and all sorts of merchandise, and in the permit to hold the fairs lethem is described as being "by reason of its situation, lying near the border, a very convenient and fit place for traffic and trade." [illustration: ] the church of southdean, therefore, as its ruins indicate, was probably of considerable importance, surrounded by a settlement of some size, where wounded men might well be left to take their chance of recovery. whether the scots returned from otterburne up rede valley and over the pass by way of catcleuch shin, or (as is more probable) followed the roman road which passes bremeirum camp and runs over the cheviots some miles to the east of carter-fell, and thence crossing kale, oxnam, jed, and teviot, goes in more or less direct line towards newstead and melrose, it would be easy and natural for them to detach a party with the wounded, and perhaps with the bodies of some of the more notable dead, to { }southdean. and those of them who died there would of course be buried in or close to the church. during the excavations, it is of interest to note that numbers of skulls were found all together at one spot, pointing to the probability of many bodies having been, from some common cause, buried in a common grave. the inference seems not illegitimate that this cause was the fight at otterburne. the english appear to have carried away from the field many of their dead, as well as their wounded: "then on the morne they mayde them beerys of birch and haysell graye; many a wydowe, with wepynge teyrs ther makes they fette awaye." it is not unlikely that the scots also brought away some, at least, of their dead, and, as southdean was the nearest spot in their own country where they could find consecrated ground, the probability is that these bodies, as well as those of the wounded who died later, would find rest there. in his "history and poetry of the scottish border," professor veitch mentions that "a recent discovery made at elsdon church, about three miles from the scene of conflict, may be regarded as throwing some light on the slaughter. there skulls to the amount of a thousand have been disinterred, all lying together. they are of lads in their teens, and of middle-aged men; but there are no skulls of old men, or of women. not improbably these are the dead of otterburne." the length of the old building at southdean, including tower and chancel, was ninety-seven feet, and the nave was about twenty-three feet in width. many notable things were unearthed during the work of excavation, those of most interest possibly being a massive octagonal font, cut from one block of stone, and a small stone super-altar incised with the usual five crosses. at southdean, as elsewhere, the old church has for generations been used as a quarry. the retaining wall of the adjacent { }newcastle road is full of dressed stones taken from the building, and others, some of them carved, have been built into the walls of an adjoining barn. certainly our ancestors in this instance had more excuse than usual to offer for their depredations, for the building was a hopeless ruin. the roof of the church fell in one sunday in the year , and the walls--not unhelped by human hands--speedily followed suit. stones from the principal doorway seem to have been used in in the building of a new church at chesters. that too is now in ruins. { } chapter vi ale, rule water, teviot, hawick |as we ascend teviot, after jed its next important tributary is the ale, not so named from the resemblance of its waters, when flooded, to a refreshing beverage. sir herbert maxwell says that the name was originally written "alne" (as in aln, alnwick) and this form survives in the place-name in ale, ancrum, the site of a desirable scottish victory. the word would at first be alne crumb, the crook of alne or "ale." crom does mean "crook" in gaelic, i understand, and ale does make a crook or bend round ancrum, so the names are tokens of the possession of the dale by gaelic-speaking people, very long ago. in timpendean, the name of a ruined tower opposite the point where ale enters teviot, we have the english "dene" or "den," as in the neighbouring hassendoan the places of most historical interest on lower ale are ancrum moor and lilliard's edge, the scene of a battle in which the scots partly avenged the incessant burnings and slayings by the men of henry viii, inflicted while the prince was furious at his failure to secure the hand of the baby queen, mary stuart, for his puny son, later edward vi. henry first hoped, by the aid of these professional traitors, chiefs of the douglases,--the earl of angus and his brother, sir george--to obtain the royal child and the great castles, and the { }crown of scotland, without drawing sword. baffled in this by the adroitness and patriotic courage of cardinal beaton, he sent his forces to rob, burn, and slay through all the eastern and central marches. in february , hertford had finished his own work of ruin, despite which the earl of angus declared that he loved henry viii "best of all men." there followed a breach in this tender sentiment, _amantium irai._ hertford's lieutenants, evers and laiton, with "assured scots" of teviotdale, wearing st george's cross, were harrying the border. the scottish regent, the fickle, futile, good-humoured earl of arran, called for forces, but met little response, for, as a contemporary diarist writes, all men suspected the treachery of henry's lover, and of the douglases, "ever false, as they alleged." yet scott, in his ballad of "the eve of st john," speaks of "the douglas true and the bold buccleugh"; the scotts of buccleuch, in fact, were ever loyal. the laird, approached with bribes in english gold, rejected them in language of such pardonable profanity as frightened and astonished the english envoy, accustomed to buy scottish traitors by the gross. so mixed were affairs that while wharton was trying to kidnap sir george douglas for henry, sir george was endeavouring to betray arran to the english. they worsted the pacific regent near melrose, burned town and abbey, and desecrated the ancestral graves there of the douglases, among them the resting place of the earl who fell, when "a dead man won a fight," at otterburne. the english clearly did not understand that angus and his brother were eager to make their peace with henry by relieving their treacheries to their country. the ruining of his ancestors' tombs aroused the personal fury of angus, moreover henry had made large gifts of angus's lands to evers and laiton. angus therefore gathered his forces, breathed out threats, and joined hands with arran, who was also supported by a very brave man, norman leslie, { }presently to be one of the assassins of cardinal beaton--in henry's interest. norman, however, was patriotic for the moment, and the bold buccleuch was ever trusty. as angus and arran followed the english, leslie and buccleuch "came lightly riding in" and the scots united on the wide airy moor of ancrum. the english saw their approach, and saw their horses moving to the rear. supposing that the scots were in retreat, (they meant to fight on foot, and only sent their mounts to the rear,) the lances of evers and laiton galloped gaily in pursuit. but what they found was "the dark impenetrable wood" of stubborn spears. with the sun and the wind and blown smoke in their faces, the english cavalry charged, and were broken on the _schiltroms_ or serried squares as they were broken at bannockburn. hereon the clan ker, the men of cessford and ferniehirst, "assured scots," tore off their crosses of st. george, and charged with leslie, the douglases, and buccleuch. the english were routed, the country people rose against them; evers and laiton lost their new lands with their lives, eight hundred of the english were slain, and two thousand were taken alive--which is rather surprising. the english evacuated jedburgh, and the scots recovered coldingham. meanwhile the good-natured, false, feckless regent arran wept over the dead body of sir ralph evers. "god have mercy on him, for he was a fell cruel man, and over cruel. and welaway that ever such a slaughter and blood shed should be among christian men," sobbed the regent. his heart was better than his head. even george douglas had warned henry viii of what would result from "the extreme war that is used in killing women and young children." in my childhood i heard and never forgot, the country rhyme on an amazon of a girl, who, to avenge her lover, took arms at ancrum moor. she fell, and on her tomb, which has been many times restored, the following epitaph is { }engraved: "fair maiden lilliard lies under this stane; little was her stature, but muckle was her fame. upon the english loons she laid many thumps, and when her legs were cuttit oft she fought upon her stumps." clearly this is a form of "for widrington i must bewail as one in doleful dumps, for when his legs were cutten off he fought upon his stumps." lilliard's edge, the ancient name of the scene of this fair lady's fall, must have suggested the idea of a girl styled lilliard, and her story was thus suggested to the rhymer and became a local myth. about ancrum the ale, like the jed, and, over the border, the eden and coquet, beautifies itself by cutting a deep channel through the fine red sandstone of which melrose abbey is built. these channels are always beautiful, but ale, otherwise, as we ascend its valley, is a quiet trout stream "that flows the green hills under." in my boyhood, long, long ago, ale abounded in excellent trout, and was my favourite among all our many streams. it does not require the angler to wade, like tweed and ettrick; it is narrow and easily commanded. the trout were almost as guileless as they were beautiful and abundant; but i presume that they are now almost exterminated by fair and unfair methods. the scot, when he does not use nets, poisons, and dynamite, is too often a fisher with the worm, and, as i remember him, had no idea of returning even tiny fish to the water, as james thomson, author of the seasons, himself a border angler, advises us to do. guileless, indeed, since old time has been the character of the trout of ale. sir thomas dick lauder tells how in his boyhood he went once with a chance-met "souter" from selkirk to the long pool in ale above midlem bridge, and how there, { }by a most unsporting device, they captured the innocent trout almost by the sack-load. "we came," he says, "to a very long gravelly-bottomed pool, of an equal depth all over of from three to four feet. here the souter seated himself; and, shortening both our rods, and fitting each of them with the three hooks tied back to back, he desired us to follow him, and then waded right into the middle of the pool. the whole water was sweltering with fine trouts, rushing in all directions from the alarm of our intrusion among them. but after we had stood stock still for a few moments, their alarm went off, and they began to settle each individually in his own place. 'there's a good one there,' said the souter, pointing to one at about three yards from him; and throwing the hooks over him, he jerked him up, and in less than six seconds he was safe in his creel. we had many a failure before we could succeed in catching one, whilst the souter never missed; but at length we hit upon the way; and so we proceeded with our guide, gently shifting our position in the pool as we exhausted each particular spot, until the souter's creel would hold no more, and ours was more than half filled with trouts, most of which were about three-quarters of a pound in weight; and very much delighted with the novelty of our sport, we made our way back to melrose by the western side of the eildon hills, and greatly astonished our companion with the slaughter we had made, seeing that he had been out angling for a couple of hours in the tweed, without catching a single fin." a slaughter of the innocents, indeed! but the most inveterate poacher could not now, in any border stream, hope to rival a feat so abominable in the eyes of present-day fishers. nor, if he did attempt it, would he be likely to find trout so utterly devoid of guile as to submit thus quietly to be hooked out of the water one by one till the pool was emptied. trout are better educated, if fewer in number, than they appear to have been eighty or ninety years ago. it is difficult, too, to see where the fun of this form of fishing comes in, after the rather { }cheap excitement of catching the first one or two. but they did curious things in the name of sport in the earlier half of last century. many of the methods of catching salmon that are written of approvingly by scrope, that great angler of sir walter's day, are now the rankest of poaching, and are prohibited by law. the mid course of ale is through "ancient riddel's fair domain," as scott says in the great rhymes of william of deloraine's midnight ride from branksome tower to melrose. there is now no riddel of riddel. here i shall mercilessly quote the whole of william of deloraine's itinerary from branksome tower till he rides ale when "great and muckle o' spate." "soon in his saddle sate he fast and soon the steep descent he past, soon cross'd the sounding barbican, and soon the teviot side he won. eastward the wooded path he rode, green hazels o'er his basnet nod; "he pass'd the peel of goldiland, and cross'd old borthwick's roaring strand; dimly he view'd the moat-hill's mound. where druid shades still flitted round; in ilawick twinkled many a light; behind him soon they set in night; and soon he spurr'd his coarser keen beneath the tower of hazeldean. "the clattering hoofs the watchmen mark:-- 'stand, ho! thou courier of the dark.'-- 'for branksome, ho!' the knight rejoin'd, and left the friendly tower behind. he turn'd him now from teviotside, and guided by the tinkling rill, northward the dark ascent did ride, and gained the moor at horslichill; broad on the left before him lay, for many a mile, the roman way. { } "a moment now he slack'd his speed, a moment breathed his panting steed; drew saddle-girth and corslet-band, and loosen'd in the sheath his brand. on minto-crags the moonbeams glint, where barnhill hew'd his bed of flint; who flung his outlaw'd limbs to rest, where falcons hang their giddy nest, mid cliffs, from whence his eagle eye from many a league his prey could spy; cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne, the terrors of the robbers' horn; cliffs, which, for many a later year, the warbling doric reed shall hear, when some sad swain shall teach the grove, ambition is no cure for love! "unchallenged, thence pass'd deloraine, to ancient riddel's fair domain, where aill, from mountains freed, down from the lakes did raving come; each wave was crested with tawny foam, like the mane of a chestnut steed. in vain! no torrent, deep or broad, might bar the bold moss-trooper's road. at the first plunge the horse sunk low, and the water broke o'er the saddlebow; above the foaming tide, i ween, scarce half the charger's neck was seen; for he was barded from counter to tail, and the rider was armed complete in mail; never heavier man and horse stemm'd a midnight torrent's force. "the warriors very plume, i say, was daggled by the dashing spray; yet, through good heart, and our ladye's grace, at length he gained the landing place." above the point where william rode the water, the scenery is quiet and pastoral; about ashkirk and synton we are in the { }lands of lairds whose genealogies are recounted in the rhymes of old satchells, who "can write nane but just the letters of his name." further up, ale rests in the dull deep loch of alemuir, which looks as if it held more pike than trout. and so we follow her into the hills and the water-shed that, on one side, contributes feeders to the ettrick. it is a lofty land of pasture and broken hills, whence you see the airy peaks of skelfhill, penchrise, the dumon, and the ranges of "mountains" as scott calls the hills through which the border waters run, yarrow, ettrick, borthwick water and ale water. a "water" is larger than a "burn," but attains not to the name of a river. rule, the next tributary as we ascend teviot, is but a "water," a pretty trout stream it would be if it had fair play. the question of fishing in this country is knotted. almost all the trout streams were open to everybody, in my boyhood, when i could fish all day in tweed or ale, and never see a rod but my own. the few anglers were sportsmen. "duffer" as i was, i remember a long summer day on tweed at yair, when, having come too late for the ten o'clock "rise" of trout, i had an almost empty creel. just before sunset i foregathered with old adam linton, his large creel three-quarters full of beauties. "what did you get them with?" i asked. at the moment he was using the tiniest midges, and the finest tackle. "oh, wi' ae thing and another, according to the time o' day," he answered. i daresay he used the clear water worm, fished up stream; deadly sin m hampshire, but not in the forest. since these days the world has gone wild on angling, the waters are crowded like the regent's canal with rods. now i am all for letting every man have his cast; but the only present hope for the survival of trout is in the associations of anglers who do their best to put down netting and dynamiting. a close time when trout are out of season, we owe to sir herbert maxwell, opposed as he was by the radical member for the border burghs. i { }am not sure that there is a rule against slaying trout under, shall we say, seven inches? however it may be, i had my chance and wasted it; being a duffer. trout may become extinct like the dodo; it makes no odds to me. i never cast fly in rule, nor even examined "the present spiritless parish church," on the site of a norman church of the early twelfth century. the few relics of carved stone fill sir herbert maxwell's heart with bitterness against the dull destroyers. our presbyterian forefathers, as far as in them lay, destroyed every vestige of the noble art whereof these glens were full, when, in the twelfth century, the border was part of a civilised country. for all that i know, they were innocent of ruin at bedrule; the english of henry viii may here, as all through this region, have been the destroyers. they were protestants of a sort. moreover in rule dwelt the small but fierce clan of turnbull, who, between scotts and kers, fought both of these great clans, and now, as a power, "are a' wede awa'." perhaps an enemy of theirs took sanctuary in the church, and they "burned the chapel for very rage," as the scotts burned st. mary of the lowes shortly before the reformation. somewhere about , rule water had her minstrel, named robin, nick-named "sweet-milk," from the place of his residence. in my opinion these singers of the late days of james vi and i, were the survivors of the border minstrels who, says queen mary's bishop of ross, lesley, the historian, made their own ballads of raids and rescues, such as _jock o' the cow_, and as much as is not scott's of _kinmont willie_. there was a rival minstrel, willie henderson, whom i take to have sided with the scotts, while robin was the demodocus of the eliotts of stobs. the pair met, drank, fought, and willie pinked "sweet-milk" robin, the eliotts' man. "tuneful hands with blood were dyed," says sir walter, but what was the cause of the quarrel? i have a hypothesis. the famous ballad of _jamie telfer_ exists in two { }versions. in one the scotts are covered with laurels, while martin eliott plays the part of a cur. in the other, the eliotts gain all the glory, while scott of buccleuch acts like a mean dastard. one of these versions is the original, the other is a perversion. the ballad itself, which takes us all through the border, from bewcastle on the english side, to the fair dodhead on upper ettrick, is not of the period of the incidents described. as far as these are historical, the date is about . the author of the ballad does not know the facts, and makes incredible statements. consequently he is late, writes years after the union of the crowns ( ) and the end of border raids. i guess that either will henderson was the author of the ballad in favour of the scotts, and that robin, the minstrel of the eliotts, perverted it into the eliott version, or _vice versa_, robert was the original author, will the perverter. here, in any case, was infringement of copyright and deadly insult. the poets fought. certainly, robin fell, and the eliotts hanged will, gave him "jeddart justice." to the ballad we shall return; it is, though inaccurate, full of the old border spirit, and is in itself an itinerary of the marches. these high powers, the scott and eliott clans, like the states of europe, were now allies, cementing their federacy by intermarriages; and again were bitter foes. the strength of the chief of the eliotts was in liddesdale, of the scotts, in teviotdale. they were allies for young james v against his keepers, the douglases, "when gallant cessford's life-blood dear reeked on dark eliott's border spear" at "turn again," a spot on scott's estate of abbotsford. they were foes in - , in queen mary's reign, when martin eliott, chief of his clan, plotted with the armstrongs to betray her strong fortress of hermitage to the english. in this feud the eliotts attacked scott of hassendean in his tower on hassendean burn, the next tributary of teviot, but { }the ballad of _kinmont willie_ makes gilbert eliott of stobs ride with the bold buccleuch to the rescue of willie from carlisle castle ( ). unluckily, in gilbert eliott was not yet the laird of stobs. [illustration: ] this gilbert, at all events, married the daughter of the flower of yarrow, the wife of auld wat scott of harden, himself the neighbour and foremost fighting man of the laird of branksome in teviot, the bold buccleuch. his descendant, sir walter, has made auld wat's name immortal, and, in jamie telftr, has certainly interpolated a spirited stanza. in the village of denholm, on teviot, opposite to hassendean, was born john leyden, the great friend of scott, a poet in his way, but much more remarkable as a man of amazing energy of character, an orientalist, and a collector of ballads. but few now know what "distant and deadly shore holds leyden's cold remains," his memory is twined with that of sir walter, and he is one of { }the most living figures in lockhart's life of scott. leyden had the poetic quality, not judiciously cultivated, of the old border minstrels, while the energy which the clans expended in war was given by him to omnivorous studies. below denholm, but on the other side of the river, nearly opposite the junction of rule water with teviot, is minto, in the fourteenth century a property owned by one of that unruly clan, the turnbulls. later, it passed to the family of stewart, and finally, somewhere about the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was bought by sir gilbert elliot, ancestor of the minto branch of that family. the present house dates only from , but it has a curious legend attached to it, which is mentioned in sir walter scott's diary, under date rd december, . he says: "it is very odd that the common people about minto and the neighbourhood will not believe at this hour that the first earl is dead." [he died in june, .] "they think he had done something in india which he could not answer for--that the house was rebuilt on a scale unusually large to give him a suite of secret apartments, and that he often walks about the woods and crags of minto at night, with a white nightcap and long white beard. the circumstances of his having died on the road down to scotland is the sole foundation of this absurd legend, which shows how willing the public are to gull themselves when they can find no one else to take the trouble. i have seen people who could read, write, and cipher, shrug their shoulders and look mysterious when this subject was mentioned. one very absurd addition was made on occasion of a great ball at minto house, which it was said was given to draw all people away from the grounds, that the concealed earl might have leisure for his exercise." to the east of minto house are minto crags, towering precipitous to a height of over seven hundred feet. on the summit is the ruin called fatlips castle, which is said to have been the stronghold of the fourteenth-century owner of minto, { }turnbull of barnhill, a notorious border freebooter. a small grassy platform, or level space, a little below the ruin, is called barnhill's bed, "where barnhill hew'd his bed of flint,"--a convenient spot, no doubt, in old days on which to station a sentry or look-out. the third sir gilbert elliot of minto was apparently in his own way something of a poet, but the ever tolerant sir walter scott, to whom he used to read his compositions, confesses that the verses were "but middling," sir gilbert had, however, a better title, at least to collateral fame; he was the brother of the jean elliot who wrote that undying lament, the "flowers of the forest." it is curious to note that in the church of minto belonged to the diocese of lincoln. here at minto, if credence in the reality of fairies no longer lingers amongst the people,--one of the writers of this volume records, some chapters back, that he found traces of the belief not very many years ago still surviving at flodden edge,--at least but a very few generations have passed since it died. throughout teviotdale, perhaps to a greater extent than in any other part of the border, tales still are told which show how strong was once this belief in the existence of the little folk, and many of the customs that, we are told, were followed by country dwellers in order to propitiate the good people, or to thwart their malevolence, are very quaint, should it chance, for instance, that at the time a child was born the blue bonnet usually worn by the husband was not kept continually lying on the mother's bed, then there would be the most imminent danger of that child being carried off by the fairies, and a changeling being left in its place. many a fine child has been lost through neglect of this simple precaution. generally, if the abduction took place before the child had been christened, a pig or a hedgehog, or some such animal, was substituted for the infant; but if the fairies did not succeed in their design till after the child's baptism, then they left another bairn in its { }place, usually a peevish, ill-thriven, wizen-faced little imp. a tale is told of a woman who lived at minto cragfoot, and whose child, in consequence of some trifling lark of precaution in the matter of the blue bonnet, was carried off, and in the end was rescued only by the superior knowledge and power of a presbyterian minister. whilst she herself was engaged one day in gathering sticks for her fire, the woman had laid her child beside a bush on the hill side. she neither heard nor saw anything unusual, but on going to pick up her child at the close of her task, instead of her bonny, smiling little son she found only a thin, wasted, weird little creature, which "yammered" and wept continually. recourse was had to the reverend mr. borland, (first presbyterian minister of bedrule after the reformation,) and that gentleman at once unhesitatingly pronounced that this was no mere human child. the mother must go to the cliffs, said mr. borland, and there gather a quantity of the flowers of the fox glove, (locally called "witches thimbles,") and bring them to him. these mr. borland boiled, poured some of the extract into the bairn's mouth, scattered the boiled flowers all over its body, then put it in its cradle wrapped in a blanket, and left it all night alone in the barn. mr. borland took the key of the door away with him, and gave instructions that under no circumstances was anybody to enter the barn until he returned next day. the anxious mother watched all night by the door, but heard no sound; never once did the child wail. and next morning when mr. borland arrived he was able to hand to the mother her own child, fat and smiling as when carried off by the fairies. it was a heroic remedy, but probably the sick child did not swallow much of that decoction of _digitalis_. in any case, they did not have coroners' inquests in those days, and had the worst come to the worst, the uncomplaining fairies would have borne the blame. it was up teviot, in the days when witches flourished, that a poor woman lived, whose end was rather more merciless than { }that inflicted on most of her kind. a man's horse had died suddenly,--elf-struck, or overlooked by a witch, of course. to break whatever spell the witch or elf might have cast over other animals the owner of the dead horse cut out and burnt its heart. whilst the fire was at its fiercest and the heart sizzling in the glow, there rushed up a large black greyhound, flecked all over with foam and evidently in the last stage of fatigue, which tried persistently to snatch the heart from the fire. one of the spectators, suspecting evil, seized a stick and struck the animal a heavy blow over the back, whereupon, with a fearful yell, it fled, and disappeared. almost at that instant, a villager ran up, saying that his wife had suddenly been taken violently ill; and when those who had been engaged in burning the heart went in to the man's cottage, they found his wife, a dark-haired, black-eyed woman, lying, gasping and breathless, with her back, to their thinking, broken. she, poor woman, was probably suffering from a sudden and particularly acute attack of lumbago. but to those wise men another inference was only too obvious. she was, of course, a witch, and it was _she_ who, in the guise of a greyhound, had tried to snatch the horse's heart from the fire, and who had then got a stroke across her back that broke it. they insisted that she should repeat the lord's prayer,--an infallible test, for if she were a witch she would be sure to say: "lead us into temptation, and deliver us not from evil." and so, when the poor woman, her pain failed to get through the prayer to their satisfaction, they bound her, carried her away, and burnt her alive in the fire where the horse's heart had been roasted. two or three miles across the river from minto is ruberslaw, a rugged hill, towering dark and solitary, a land-mark for half the border. more than any of its distant neighbours in the cheviot range, it seems to draw to itself the hurrying rain clouds, more than any other it seems to nurture storms. about its grim head all teviotdale { }may "see with strange delight the snow clouds form when ruberslaw conceives the mountain storm-- dark ruberslaw, that lifts his head sublime, rugged and hoary with the wrecks of time; on his broad misty front the giant wears the horrid furrows of ten thousand years." like many another wild border hill, ruberslaw was a favourite lurking place for the persecuted covenanters, and near its top is a craggy chasm from which, it is said, wodrow's "savoury mr. peden" used to preach to his scattered congregation. it was on this hill that the pursuing dragoons all but caught the preacher and his flock one day; they were caught, indeed, like rats in a trap, had it not been for ruberslaw's well known character for breeding bad weather. the soldiers were advancing in full view of the conventicle. way of escape there was none, nor time to disperse; mounted men from every quarter were scrambling up the steep face of the hill, and in that clear light what chance was left now to hide among the rocks and boulders!" "o lord," prayed peden with extreme fervour, "lap the skirts of thy cloak ower puir auld sandy." and as if in answer to his petition, there came over the entire hill a thick "liddesdale drow," so dense that a man might not see two feet around him. when the mist cleared again, there was no one left for the dragoons to take. above hassendean, but on the other side of teviot, is one of the few remaining possessions in this country, namely cavers, of the great and ancient house of the black douglases. the relics are a very old flag; its date and history are variously explained by family legend and by antiquaries. it is not a pennon, therefore not hotspur's pennon taken by the earl of douglas before the battle of otterburne. it is nothing of the percys', for it bears the douglas heart and a douglas motto. on the whole it seems to have belonged not to the black, but to their rivals and successors, the red douglases, who were as unruly, and "ill to lippen to" by scottish kings, as the elder branch. { }the lady's embroidered glove, with the letters k.p., ought to have belonged to hotspur's wife, who is kate in shakespeare, a better authority than you mere genealogists. [illustration: ] as we ascend, the water of teviot becomes more and more foul; varying, when last i shuddered at it, from black to a most unwholesome light blue. it is distressing to see such a fluid flowing through beautiful scenes; and possibly since i mingled my tears with the polluted stream, the manufacturers of hawick have taken some order in the way of more or less filtering their refuse and their dyes. hawick, to the best of my knowledge, contains no objects of interest to the tourist who "picturesques it everywhere." a { }hotel is called the tower hotel, and contains part of an ancient keep of the douglases--"doulanwrack's (douglas of drumlanrig's) castell," which sussex spared in when he "made an ende of the rest" of hawick,--but "you would look at it twice before you thought" of a castle of chivalry. [illustration: ] the people of hawick have retained many of the characteristics of the old borderers; they are redoubted foes at football; and are said to be not very scrupulous raiders--of mushrooms. their local patriotism is fervid, and they sing with passion their song of "teribus and teriodden," which refers to "sons of heroes slain at flodden,"--among other flowers of the forest. and, like their neighbours at selkirk, they cherish a banner, said to have been captured from the english. the hawick { }trophy, however, is not attributed to flodden, but to a slightly later fight at hornshole, near hawick, when those who were left of the townsfolk fell on, and defeated with great slaughter, an english raiding party. [illustration: ] that the mysterious words teribus { }and teriodden, or odin, are a survival of a pious ejaculation imploring the help of thor and odin, i can neither affirm nor deny. [illustration: ] it would be a gratifying thing to prove that the memory of ancient scandinavian deities has survived the sway of the mediaeval church and the kirk of john knox. but i have not heard that the words occur in documents before the eighteenth century. the town has a site naturally beautiful, as slitrig, a very rapid stream, here joins teviot, which, above the mills of hawick is _electro clarior_; not of a pure crystal translucency, but of a transparent amber hue. slitrig takes its rise on the windburgh hill, on the northern side of the liddesdale watershed, a hill of old the known resort of the good people, whose piping and revels might { }often be heard by the solitary shepherd. [illustration: ] the rivulet is said to well out from a small, black, fathomless little loch high up on the hill. here, as all knew, dwelt the keipic, or other irritable spirit prone to resent human intrusion, and if a stone should chance to be thrown into the depths of the lakelet, { }resentment was pretty sure to be expressed by a sudden dangerous overflow of water into the burn, whereby destruction would be carried down the valley. that, tradition tells, is how hawick came to be devastated, and all but swept away, early in the eighteenth century. a shepherd, it was said, had quite accidentally rolled a large stone into the lake, and had thus roused the spirit of the mountain to ungovernable fury. leyden thus writes of the tradition: "from yon green peak, black haunted slata brings the gushing torrents of unfathomed springs: in a dead lake, that ever seems to freeze, by sedge enclosed from every ruffling breeze, the fountains lie; and shuddering peasants shrink to plunge the stone within the fearful brink; for here,'tis said, the fairy hosts convene, with noisy talk, and bustling steps unseen; the hill resounds with strange, unearthly cries; and moaning voices from the waters rise. nor long the time, if village-saws be true, since in the deep a hardy peasant threw a pondrous stone; when murmuring from below, with gushing sound he heard the lake o'erflow. the mighty torrent, foaming down the hills, called, with strong voice, on all her subject rills; rocks drove on jagged rocks with thundering sound, and the red waves, impatient, rent their mound; on hawick burst the flood's resistless sway, ploughed the paved streets, and tore the walls away, floated high roofs, from whelming fabrics torn; while pillared arches down the wave were borne." borthwick water, too, as well as slitrig, was famed for its fairies--and for worse than fairies, if one may judge by the name given to a deep pool; the deil's pool, it is called, a place to be shunned by youthful fishers. but probably the youthful fisher of the twentieth century cares neither for deil nor for fairy. higher up the stream than this pool is the fairy knowe, where a shepherd was once flung into the flooded { }burn by the fairies,--at any rate he was carried down the burn one evening, late, and he _said_ it was the fairies, and no other spirits, that had flung him in. [illustration: ] one very odd relic hard by hawick is a mote, or huge tumulus, of the kind so common in galloway. probably above it was erected a palisaded wooden fortress, perhaps of the twelfth century. the area, as far as an amateur measurement can determine, is not less than that of the tower of goldielands, an old keep of the scotts, some two miles further up the water, almost opposite to the point where borthwick water flows { }into teviot on the left. [illustration: ] if we cross the bridge here and follow the pretty wandering water through a level haugh, and then turn off to the right, we arrive at a deep thickly wooded dene, and from the crest above this excellent hiding place of raided cattle looks down the old low house of harden, (the stammschloss of sir walter scott,) now the property of lord polwarth, the head of this branch of the scotts of buccleuch. the house is more modern than the many square keeps erected in the old days of english invasions and family feuds. the borthwick water turns to the left, and descends from the heights of howpasley, whence the english raiders rode down, "laigh down in borthwick water," in the ballad of _jamie telfer_. a mile or a little more above goldielands tower, on the left side of teviot is branksome tower, the residence of the lady of branksome in _the lay of the last minstrel._ { }at branksome tower we are in the precise centre of the scottish border of history and romance, the centre of scott's country. [illustration: ] yet, looking at mr. thompson's excellent sketch, you would scarce guess it. the house stands very near the teviot, but still nearer the public road. thanks to the attentions of the english at various periods, especially when the bold { }buccleuch stood for the fairest of ladies, mary queen of scots, against preachers, presbyters, puritans, and their southern allies, perhaps no visible part of the echlice older than remains except the tower. [illustration: ] the lady of branksome who finished the actual house after the old stronghold had been burned, appears to have thought that square keeps and barmkyns were obsolete in war, owing to the increasing merits of artillery; and she did not build a house of defence. manifestly "nine and twenty knights of fame" never "hung their shields in" _this_ "branksome hall," and never were here attended by "nine and twenty squires of name," and "nine and twenty yeomen tall." { }there is no room for them, and at branlcsome, probably, there never was. it is not to be credited that, at any period, ten of the knights went to bed "sheathed in steel," to be ready for the english, or "carved at the meal, with gloves of steel, and drank the red wine through the helmet barred." * the minstrel gave free play to his fancy. the laird of branksome, though warden of the marches, never had, never needed, so vast a retinue, and was so far from "warkworth or naworth, or merry carlisle" that no scrope, or howard, or percy, could fall on him at unawares. * the conjectural reading of srhlopping, "carved at the veal" though ingenious (for, as he observes, "the ancient scots did not carve oat-meal") has no manuscript authority. the scotts, in the reign of james i, already owned the wild upland pastoral region of buccleuch between teviot and ettrick, and eckford in teviotdale; also murdiestone on the lower clyde, a place now too near the hideous industrial towns and villages near glasgow. meanwhile a pacific gentleman named inglis was laird of branksome. he grumbled, it is said, to sir walter scott of murdiestone about the inconveniences caused by english raiders; though, as they had a long way to ride, inglis probably suffered more at branksome from the kers, douglases, and ferocious turnbulls. scott was not a nervous man, and he offered to barter murdiestone for half of branksome, which came into his pastoral holdings at buccleuch. inglis gladly made the exchange, and scott's son obtained the remaining half of the barony of branksome, in reward of his loyalty to james ii, during his struggle with the black douglases, (during which he dirked his guest, the earl, at the hospitable table.) the scott lands, carved out of those of the fallen douglases, extended from lanarkshire to langholm; and as they were loyal to their country, (at least till the reign of charles i,) and withal were fighting men of the best, they throve to earl's estate, the dukedom coming in with the ill { }fated marriage of the heiress to james, son of charles ii, duke of monmouth. of course if charles ii really married lucy walters, (as monmouth's pious whiggish adherents asserted,) the duke of buccleuch would be our rightful king. [illustration: ] but the good king, charles ii, firmly denied the marriage, fond as he was of his handsome son by lucy walters; and the good house of buccleuch has never believed in the whig fable of the black box which contained the marriage lines of lucy walters and charles ii. the marriage of monmouth with the heiress of buccleuch was made in their extreme youth and was unhappy. monmouth was in love, like lord ailesbury, with lady henrietta wentworth, whom he (according to ailesbury,) spoke of as "his wife in the sight of god," which means that she was not his wife at all. the house of branksome makes a picturesque object in the middle distance of the landscape; but is not otherwise { }interesting. in front of the door lies, or used to lie, a rusty iron breach-loading culverin of the fourteenth century; of old, no doubt, part of the artillery of the castle, when it was a castle. [illustration: ] returning from branksome tower to the right bank of teviot, now a clear and musical stream, we cross one of the many allan waters so common in scotland, and arrive at caerlanrig, where there is a tablet with an inscription bitterly blaming james v, for his treachery to johnny armstrong of gilnockie in eskdale, hanged in . the armstrongs, being next neighbours of england on the border, were a clan of doubtful allegiance, given to intermarrying with the english, and sometimes wearing the cross of st. george as "assured scots." they were the greatest of reivers on both sides of the border. in , james v, who had escaped from the douglases, and driven angus, their chief, into the service of henry viii, tried to bring the country into order. he first arrested the chief men--bothwell (hepburn), ferniehirst (ker), max{ }well, home, buccleuch (his old ally), polwarth, and johnston; and, having kept them out of mischief, led a large force into their region. he caught scott of tushielaw in ettrick, and cockburn of henderland on meggat water. cockburn was tried in edinburgh for theft and treason, and beheaded; not hanged at his own door as legend fables. he was in the conspiracy of henry viii and angus, and had sided with invaders. tushielaw suffered for oppression of his tenants. numbers of lairds, kers, douglases, rutherfurds, turnbulls, swintons, veitches, put themselves on the king's mercy and gave sureties for quiet behaviour. gilnockie, according to the ballad, came to the king at caerlanrig in royal array, with forty retainers. i find no contemporary account of the circumstances, for lindsay of pitscottie gives but late gossip, as he always does. calderwood, still later, says that johnie "was enticed by some courtiers." calderwood adds that one of the sufferers with johnie had burned a woman and her children in her house. the evidence for royal treachery is that of the ballad of johnie armstrong, which may have been the source and authority of ritscottie. we may quote it. it was a favourite of sir walter scott. johnie armstrang. sum speikis of lords, sum speikis of lairds, and sik like men of hie degrie; of a gentleman i sing a sang, sum tyme called laird of gilnockie. the king he wrytes a luving letter, with his ain hand sae tenderly, and he hath sent it to johnie armstrang to cum and speik with him speedily the eliots and armstrangs did convene; they were a gallant cumpanie-- "we'll ride and meit our lawful king, and bring him safe to gilnockie. { } "make kinnen * and capon ready, then, and venison in great plentie; we'll wellcum here our royal king; i hope he'll dine at gilnockie!" they ran their horse on the langholme howm, and brak their spears wi' mickle main; the ladies lukit frae their loft windows-- "god bring our men weel hume again!" when johnic cam before the king, wi' a' his men sae brave to see, the king he movit his bonnet to him; he ween'd he was a king as weel as he. "may i rind grace, my sovereign liege, grace for my loyal men and me? for my name it is johr.ie armstrong, and a subject of yours, my liege," said he. "away, away, thou traitor strang! out o' my sight soon may'st thou be! i grantit never a traitor's life, and now i'll not begin wi' thee." "grant me my life, my liege, my king! and a bonny gift i'll gie to thee-- full four-and-twenty milk-white steids, were a' foal'd in ae yeir to me. "i'll gie thee a' these milk-white steids, that prance and nicker at a speir; and as mickle gude inglish gilt, as four o' their braid backs dow bear." "away, away, thou traitor strang! out o' my sight soon may'st thou be! i grantit never a traitor's life, and now i'll not begin wi' thee!" "grant me my life, my liege, my king! and a bonny gift i'll gie to thee-- gude four-and-twenty ganging mills, that gang thro' a' the yeir to me. * rabbits. { } "these four-and-twenty mills complete sail gang for thee thro' a' the yeir; and as mickle of gude reid wheit, as a' their happers dow to bear." "away, away, thou traitor strang! out o' my sight soon may'st thou be! i grautit never a traitor's life, and now i'll not begin wi' thee!" "grant me my life, my liege, my king! and a great great gift i'll gie to thee-- bauld four-and-twenty sisters' sons, sail for thee fecht, tho' a' should flee!" "away, away, thou traitor strang! out o' my sight soon may'st thou be! i grantit never a traitor's life, and now i'll not begin wi' thee!" "grant me my life, my liege, my king! and a brave gift i'll gie to thee-- all between heir and newcastle town sail pay their yeirly rent to thee." "away, away, thou traitor strang! out o' my sight soon may'st thou be! i grantit never a traitor's life, and now i'll not begin wi' thee!" "ye lied, ye lied, now king," he says, t altho' a king and prince ye be! for i've luved naething in my life, i weel dare say it, but honesty-- "save a fat horse, and a fair woman, twa bonny dogs to kill a deir; but ingland suld have found me meal and mault,, gif i had lived this hundred yeir! "she suld have found me meal and mault, and beef and mutton in a' plentie; but never a scots wyfe could have said, that e'er i skaithed her a puir flee. { } "to seik het water beneith cauld ice, surely it is a greit folie-- i have asked grace at a graceless face, but there is nane for my men and me! * "but had i kenn'd ere i cam frae liame, how thou unkind wad'st been to me! wad have keepit the border side, in spite of all thy force and thee. "wist england's king that i was ta'en, o gin a blythe man he wad be! for ance i slew his sister's son, and on his breist bane brak a trie." john wore a girdle about his middle, imbroidered ower wi' burning gold, bespangled wi' the same metal, maist beautiful was to behold. there hang nine targats ** at johnie's hat, and ilk ane worth three hundred pound-- "what wants that knave that a king suld have but the sword of honour and the crown? "o where gat thou these targats, johnie, that blink sae brawly abune thy brie?" "i gat them in the field fechting, where, cruel king, thou durst not be. "had i my horse, and harness gude, and riding as i w ont to be, it suld hae been tauld this hundred yeir, the meeting of my king and me! "god be with thee, kirsty, my brother, lang live thou laird of mangertoun! lang may'st thou live on the border syde ere thou see thy brother ride up and down! "and god be with thee, kirsty, my son, where thou sits on thy nurse's knee! but an' thou live this hundred yeir, thy father's better thou'lt never be. * this and the three preceding stanzas were among those that sir walter scott most delighted to quote. ** tassels. { } "farewell! my bonny gilnoek hall, where on esk side thou standest stout! gif i had lived hut seven yeirs mair, i wad hae gilt thee round about." [illustration: ] john murdered was at carlinrigg, and all his gallant companie; but scotland's heart was ne'er sae wae, to see sae mony brave men die-- { } because they saved their country deir frae inglishmen! nane were sa bauld, whyle johnie lived on the border syde, nane of them durst cum neir his hauld. it will be observed that gilnockie puts forward as his claim to respect the very robberies in england for which, says the poet, he was hanged. the only sign of treachery is that johnnie did come to caerlanrig, probably in hope of making his peace like many other lairds. whether he were "enticed by some courtiers," or whether he risked the adventure is not manifest. according to pitscottie he had held england as far as newcastle under blackmail. above caerlanrig, teviot winds through the haughs and moors and under the alders to its source at teviot-stone. { } chapter vii tweed, st. boswells, dryburgh, newstead, and the leader |we now return from teviotdale to tweed, which we left at kelso. the river passes through one of its rock-fenced and narrow defiles at the trows of makerstoun, (accent the penultimate,) itself the home from ancient days of a branch of the once great argyll clan--and generally western clan--of mac-dougal. how they came so far from their celtic kindred, potent in dalriadic scotland before the campbells came to the front as allies of robert bruce, is not known to me. as foes of bruce, the macdougals of lome suffered much loss of lands after the king's triumph. at the trows the river splits into very deep and narrow channels, and to shoot one of them in a canoe needs a daring and a fortunate paddler. in former years there were four of these channels, two of very great depth--thirty feet and more, it is said--but so narrow that, with the river at summer level, it was possible for an active man to jump from stone rib to stone rib, across the swift rushing stream. the feat was attempted once too often, however, with fatal result, and since then the middle rib has been blasted out, so that it is no longer possible for any one to tempt fate in this manner. even an expert and powerful swimmer, filling in there, would have but a slender chance of coming out alive, for if he were not sucked under by the eddies of that boiling current and jammed beneath some sunken ledge, { }the odds would be very great on his brains being knocked out amongst the rocks that thrust their ugly fangs here and there above the surface of the stream. both below and above the trows, the trout fishing--for those who may fish--is extremely good, but the wading is licklish; pot-holes, ledges, and large boulders are apt to trap the unwary to their undoing. there are, too, some excellent salmon casts in the makerstoun water, and it was in one of them that the famous rob o' the trows--rob kerss, a great character in sir walter's day,--nigh on a hundred years ago landed a fish so huge, that even a master of the art so skilled as rob,--stoddart says he had few equals as a fisher--was utterly spent when at length his silvery prize lay gasping on the bank. before taking the fly from its mouth, rob turned half aside to pick up a stone which might conveniently be used as a "priest"; but even as he turned, out of the tail of his eye he saw the monster give a wallop. rob leapt for the fish. alas! as he jumped, his foot caught the line and snapped it, and walloping fish and struggling man plunged together off a shelf into the icy water,--from which rob emerged alone. the rod with which kerss killed so many hundreds of fish is still in the possession of one of his descendants, near beattock. compared with present-day masterpieces of greenheart or split cane, it is a quaint and clumsy weapon, of extraordinary thickness in the butt, and of crushing weight. the writer has handled it, and he is convinced that one hour's use could not fail to choke off for the rest of the day even the most enthusiastic of modern salmon fishers. it is not often that ancient weapons are found in tweed, but some years ago, when the river was unusually low, a moss-trooper's spear was recovered at a spot a little above makerstoun. it was lying at the bottom, below what used to be a ford of sorts across the river. curiously enough, shaft and head were both intact, and in fair preservation after their long immersion. if the spear was not used by some trooper in days when fighting was the borderer's chief { }delight and occupation, it is difficult to imagine to what use it could have been put. salmon cannot be successfully speared with a single-pointed unbarbed weapon; so that it is certain this was no poacher's implement. above makerstoun is rutherford, once the home of the rutherfurds of that ilk, but now it knows them no more. a like doom, as i write, hangs over mertoun, long the beautiful home of the scotts of harden, lord polwarth's family. "and minstrel burne cannot assuage his grief, while life endureth, to see the changes of this age, that fleeting time procureth; for mony a place stands in hard case, where blythe folk ken'd nae sorrow, wi' homes that dwelt on leader-side, and scotts that dwelt in yarrow!" mertoun is a modern house; hard by it, across the river, the strong ruins of littledean tower (once the kers') speak of old border wars. following the curves of tweed we reach st. boswells, named after an anglo-saxon saint to whom st. cuthbert came, laying down his spear, and entering religion. at st. boswells are sheep fairs; hogg preferred to attend one of these festivals rather than go to london and see the coronation of george iv. my sympathies are with the shepherd! the paths near lessudden, hard by, are haunted by a quiet phantasm in costume a minister of the kirk of the eighteenth century. i know some of the percipients who have seen him individually and collectively. there is no tradition about the origin of this harmless appearance, a vision of a dream of the dead; walking "in that sleep of death." above lessudden the tweed winds round and at the foot of the beautiful ruins of dryburgh abbey, softly mourning for him who lies within that sound "the dearest of all to his ear," sir walter scott. the great magician lies, with lockhart at { }his feet, within the ruined walls, in the place which, as he wrote to his bride that was to be, he had already chosen for his rest. the lady replied with spirit that she would not endure any such sepulchral reflections. [illustration: ] this is one of the most sacred places, and most beautiful places in broad scotland. approaching dryburgh, not from the riverside but from the road, we come by such a path through a beautiful wood as { }that in which proud maisie was "walking so early," when "bold robin on the bush singing so rarely," spaed her fortune. the path leads to a place of such unexpected beauty as the ruinous palace where the sleeping beauty slumbered through the ages. the beauty is that of dryburgh itself, delicately fair in her secular decay; fallen from glory, indeed, but still the last home of that peace which dwelt in this much harried borderland in the days of the first white friars, and of good st. david the king. they were englishmen out of northumberland, teachers of good farming and of other good works. what remains of their dwellings is of the age when the round norman arch blended with the pointed gothic, as in the eastern end of the cathedral of st. andrews. thrice the english harmed it, in the days of bruce ( ) during a malicious and futile attack by edward ii; again, under robert ii, when richard ii played the vandal; and, lastly, during the wasting of the border in , which was the eighth henry's rough wooing for his son, of the babe mary stuart. the grounds, the property of a member of the house of scott's eccentric earl of buchan, are kept in charming order. the earl was the only begetter of a huge statue of sir william wallace, who used ettrick forest now and again in his guerilla warfare, and from the forest drew his archers, tall men whom n death the english of edward i admired on the lost field of falkirk. the said earl of buchan rather amused than consoled scott, during a severe illness, by promising to attend to his burial in the place so dear to him, which, till the ruin of his paternal grandmother, had belonged to the haliburtons, also n old days the lords of dirleton castle. readers of lockhart remember the great border gathering at the funeral of the latest minstrel, and how his horses, which drew the hearse, paused where they had been wont to rest, at a spot where it had been sir walter's habit to stop to admire the landscape. his chief, the young duke of buccleuch, was prevented by important { }business from being an attendant. you would never guess what the business was! no man knows but i only; and if scott could have known, i doubt whether he would have drawn his shaggy brows into a frown, or laughed; for the business was----but i must not reveal so ancient a secret! moving up the river on the left bank, we reach that ancient house concerning which thomas of ercildoune's prophecy is still unbroken. "betide, betide, whate'er betide, there shall aye be a haig in bemersyde." the family were at home in bemersyde in the days of malcolm the maiden. one of them was condemned to pay a dozen salmon yearly to the monastery of melrose, for some scathe done to the brethren. it must have been an ill year for the angler when haig expressed a desire to commute the charge for an equivalent in money as he could not get the fish. there was scarce a border battle in which the haigs did not leave a representative on the field of honour. here, too, befell "the affliction of bemersyde," when the laird, after a long fight with a monstrous salmon, lost him in the moment of victory. the head of the fish would not go into the landing net, his last wallop freed him; he was picked up dead, by prowlers,--and he weighed seventy pounds. probably no salmon so great was ever landed by the rod from tweed. only the keep of the mansion is of great antiquity. it may be worth while to leave the river and climb to smail-holme 'i'cwer, where scott's infancy was passed. the tower, standing tall and gaunt above a tarn, is well known from turner's drawing, and is the scene of scott's early ballad, _the eve of st. john_. perhaps the verses which have lingered longest in my memory are those which tell how "the baron of smailholme rose with day, and spurred his charger on, without stop or stay down the rocky way that leads to brotherton." { } [illustration: ] { }he did not go, as we remember, to ancrum fight, but he returned with armour sorely dinted, having slain in private quarrel a knight whose cognisance was "a hound in a silver leash bound and his crest was a branch of the yew." and that same eve the dead man was seen with the lady of smailholme. the story is a version of that ancient tale, the beresford ghost story, which can be traced from the chronicle of william of malmesbury to its irish avatar in the eighteenth century--and later. do ghosts repeat themselves? it looks like it, for the irish tale is very well authenticated. it was not actually in the tower, but in the adjacent farmhouse of sandyknowe, his grandfather's, that scott, at first a puny child, passed his earliest years, absorbing every ballad and legend that the country people knew, and the story of { }every battle fought on the wide landscape, from turn again to ancrum moor. we have reached the most beautiful part ol tweed, dominated by the triple crest of the pyramidal eildons, where the river lovingly embraces the woods of gladswood and ravens-wood, and the site of old melrose, a celtic foundation of aidan, while as yet the faith was preached by the irish mission aries of st. columba. this is the very garden of tweed, a vast champaign, from which rise the eildons, and far away above rule water "the stormy skirts of ruberslaw," with the lammermuir and cheviot hills blue and faint on the northern and southern horizons. on the ground of drygrange, above bemersyde, but on the right bank of tweed at newstead, the greatest stationary camp in scotland of agricola's time has been excavated by mr. curie, who also describes it in a magnificent and learned volume. here were found beautiful tilting helmets, in the shape of heads of pretty greek girls, and here were the enamelled brooches of the native women who dwelt with roman lovers. but these must be sought, with coins, gems, pottery, weapons and implements of that forgotten day, in the national museum in edinburgh. the chief tributary on the northern side as we mount the stream is leader water, where homes had aince commanding." sing erslington and cowdenknowes, where humes had aince commanding; and drygrange, with the milk-white yowes, twixt tweed and leader standing: the bird that flees through redpath trees and gladswood banks ilk morrow, may chant and sing sweet leader haughs and bonnie howms of yarrow. it is scarcely possible to conceive a scene more beautiful than that where leader winds her cheery way through the woods of drygrange. when the borderland is starred thick { }with primroses, and the grassy banks of leader are carpeted with the blue of speedwell and the red of campion; when a soft air and warm sun hatch out a multitude of flies at which the trout rise greedily, then is the time to see that deep, leafy glen at the bottom of which sparkles the amber-clear water over its gravelly bed. in cliff or steep bank the sides tower up perhaps to the height of a couple of hundred feet, thick clad with rhododendrons and spreading undergrowth, and with mighty larch, beech, elm, or ash, and everywhere the music of heaven's feathered orchestra smites sweetly on the ear. it is, i think, to this paradise that good birds go when they die, where the ruthless small boy's raiding hand is kept in check, and every bird may find ideal nesting place. the district is most famous in ballad, song and story, leaderdale, being apparently equivalent to lauderdale, giving a title to the earl of lauderdale, the chief of the maitlands. "they call it leader town," says the enigmatic ballad of _auld maitland_, speaking of the stronghold of a maitland of the days of wallace, a shadowy figure still well remembered in the folk lore of the reign of mary stuart. the ballad has some good and many indifferent verses. it was known to the mother and uncle of james hogg, the ettrick shepherd. he copied it out for will laidlaw, scott's friend and amanuensis, and this began the long and valuable association of hogg with the sheriff. the authenticity of the ballad has been impugned, hogg and scott, it has been asserted, composed it and scott gave it to the world as genuine. this is demonstrably an erroneous conjecture, (as i have shown in _sir walter scott and the border minstrelsy_). letters which had not been published refute all suspicions of forgery by hogg or scott or both. but the ballad had, apparently, been touched up, perhaps in the seventeenth or eighteenth century, probably by one of the witty and literary family of maitland. it came to hogg's mother from "auld babby metlan," (maitland,) housekeeper to the last of the scotts of tushielaw; herself perhaps a reduced { }member of the impoverished family of "the flower of the wits of scotland," queen mary's secretary of state, maitland of lethington. though the legendary "maitland or auld beard grey" may have stoutly held his house of thirlestane against edward i, (as he does in the ballad of _auld maitland_), i have found no record of the affair in the state papers of the period. thereafter the maitlands of lethington, though a family of ancient origin, play no conspicuous part in scottish history, till we reach old sir richard, who died at the age of ninety in . he was not openly recalcitrant against, but was no enthusiast for, the new doctrines of knox and his company. a learned, humorous, peaceful man, he wrote scottish verses and collected and preserved earlier poetry in manuscripts. of his sons the eldest, william, was--setting knox aside--the most extraordinary scott of his time. knox was essentially scottish in the good and not so good of his character, and was essentially an extreme calvinist of his period; "judged too extreme," he says, by his associates. young maitland of lethington, on the other hand, might have been french or italian, hardly english. he was an absolutely modern man. in religion, even before the revolution of , he was in favour of the new ideas, but also in favour of compromise and, if possible, of peace. we first meet him i i private discussion with knox,--pleading for compromise, but yielding, with a smile, or a sigh, to the amazingly confident fallacies of the reformer. he serves the queen mother, mary of guise, a brave unhappy lady, as secretary of state, till he sees that her cause is every way impossible, and goes over to the reformers, and wins for them the alliance of england, and victory. he had a great ideal, and a lofty motive, a patriotic desire for honourable peace and alliance with england. on all occasions when he encountered knox, he met him with the "educated insolence" of his wit, with the blandest _persiflage_; knox writhed and reports his ironies, and--knox, in the long run, { }had the better of this smiling modern man, no fanatic, no believer in any preacher's infallibility. maitland served queen mary loyally, while he might; when things went otherwise than he wished, was behind the scenes of the murder of riccio; but was frankly forgiven as the husband of the dearest of the four maries, mary fleming, and as indispensable. he and his brother john, later the able minister of james vi, were in the conspiracy to murder darnley; that is the central mystery in his career, his part in that brutal, blundering needless crime. he was partner with the violent bothwell, a brute of culture, who hated, captured, bullied, and threatened him; for maitland discountenanced, with remarkable and solitary courage, bothwell's marriage. escaping from bothwell's grip, he fled to the nobles who had risen against bothwell; he corrupted mary's commander in edinburgh castle; when she was a captive, he is said, by the english agent, randolph, to have urged that she should be slain,--for, as she said, "she had that in black and white which would hang lethington." she escaped, and his policy was, in his own interests, to appear to prosecute her, and secretly to advise and aid her; to win, if not her forgiveness, an amnesty, if she returned to power, which he believed to be inevitable. she hated no man more bitterly, but she needed no man so much. as he had lost for her edinburgh castle, he gained it for her once more by winning to her cause the gallant kirkcaldy of grange, commanding therein for her enemies. he lived, a disease-stricken man. through the siege of the castle, meeting knox once or twice with the old insolent smooth-spoken disdain of the prophet. he escaped the gibbet by a natural death, when the castle surrendered and kirkcaldy was hanged. this "michael wiley," (scots for macchiavelli,) had trusted too absolutely to his own wit, his own command over violent men.--trusted too much to sheer intellect; been too contemptuous of honour there is no one who at all resembles him in the history of scotland; he { }fascinates and repels us; one likes so much in him, and detests so much. from a brother's descendants came the notorious lauderdale of the covenant and the great rebellion; a scholar; at one time professedly godly; the natural and deadly opposite of the great montrose, the coarse voluptuary and greedy governor of scotland, and the servile buffoon of charles ii during the restoration. he paid a trifling pension to the descendants of lethington, who are so impoverished that i guess at one of them in "auld babby metlan," "other than a gude ane," who handed on the ballad of _auld maitland_ and was housekeeper to the last scott of tushielaw on upper ettrick. these two are the great men of leader water (an ideal trout stream if not poached out), lethington and--st. cuthbert! it was while he watched his flocks by night on the braes of leader that cuthbert saw, either some meteoric phenomenon which he misconstrued, or the soul of bishop aidan passing heavenward in glory. next day he walked or rode to old melrose, leaned his spear on the wall at the portal, and confided to boisil (st. boswells) his desire to enter into religion. from his noble biography by the venerable bede (he has "got his step" now, i think, and is blessed bede, _beatus_), we know this great and good man, cuthbert, chief missionary on the violent border, who sleeps in durham cathedral. the english have captured him, the great glory of leader water, but m his region, in his day, the people were already english by blood to a great degree, and in language. cuthbert, despite the reformation, continued to be a favourite christian name north of tweed, witness cuddie headrig, whose mother, mause, had nothing papistical in her convictions! by a burn that takes its rise far up leader near a summit of the lammermuirs called nine cairn edge, is the well of the holy water cleuch. it was here that st. cuthbert spent his shepherd boyhood; here that he saw the vision which sent { }him to mailros. and here, after cuthhert's death, they built in his honour, beside the holy well, the childeschirche, the name of which survives to us now as channelkirk. were one of border birth to quit "sweet leader haughs," leaving unnoticed "true thomas," thomas of ercildoune, i do not know how he might again face his fellow borderers. for, though thomas may not have been a great man, in the same sense that st. cuthbert and lethington were great, yet to most of his countrymen he is better known than either. for one at the present day to whom the name of cuthbert is familiar, or one to whom "lethington" conveys any very definite idea, you will find a hundred who take an intelligent interest in thomas the rhymer, and who believe with spottis-woode, who wrote of him early in the seventeenth century: "sure it is that he did divine and answer true of many things to come." fact regarding the rhymer is so vague, and so beautifully blended with fiction, that i doubt if most borderers do not more than half persuade themselves still to accept as fact much of the fiction that they learned of him in childhood. to border children, not so very long ago, nothing was more real than the existence of a tree, still alive and growing somewhere about the enchanted land of eildon, which must necessarily be _the_ eildon tree: "syne he has kissed her rosy lips all underneath the eildon tree;" nothing was more certain than that true thomas, at the call of the queen of faëry, rose and obediently followed the hart and the hind into the forest, and returned no more. "first he woxe pale, and then woxe red, never a word he spake but three;-- 'my sand is run, my thread is spun, this sign regardeth me.'" no spot was looked on, in early youth, with more awe than that bogle burn whose stony bed crossed over the st. boswells and melrose road in the cheerless hollow beside a gloomy wood; it was here that true thomas beheld things unseen by mere mortal eye. who could doubt? was there not still standing in earlston the remains of his old tower to confute all scoffers! [illustration: ] "the hare sail kittle on my hearth stane, and there never will be a laird learmunt again." and, a hundred years ago and more, did not a hare actually produce its young on the shattered, grass-grown hearth-stone of the rhymer's dwelling? so everybody believed. but if doubt yet lingered anywhere regarding some portion of true thomas's story, it was easily set at rest by the words cut on that old stone built into the wall ot the church at earlston. "auld rymer's race lyes in this place," it says; and somehow it gave one a peg to hang one's faith upon. the whole, or at least a sufficient part of it, is quite real in that countryside by the rhymer's glen where true thomas lay "on huntlie bank." and where flourished the eildon tree; and that true thomas's still unfulfilled prophecies will yet one day come to pass, is a sound article of belief. though how the ruthless prediction is to come about regarding the house of cowdenknowes, (which is not far removed from the rhymers old tower,) one does not quite see. but it was a doom pronounced against a pitiless home who there "had aince commanding." and the homes are gone. "vengeance! vengeance! when and where? on the house of coldingknow, now and ever mair!" perhaps, too, that was not of true thomas's foretelling. one prefers rather to think of cowdenknowes in connection with the ballad: "o the broom, and the bonny, bonny broom, and the broom of the cowdenknowes! and aye sae sweet as the lassie sang, i' the bught, milking the ewes." { } chapter viii st. boswells green, melrose, darnick, abbotsford, and the ellwand |all the way up tweed from a mile below mertoun bridge, up past the cauld where the pent water spouts and raves ceaselessly, along the bank where lies st. boswells golf course, round that noble sweep where the river holds dryburgh lovingly in the crook of its arm, up by the boulder-strewn streams above, and round the elbow by the foot suspension-bridge, past the lofty red scaurs and the hanging woods to the monk's ford, trout fishing--at least from the right bank--is free. and though it goes without saying that pool and stream are "sore fished," yet it is not possible by fair angling to spoil tweed. many a fisher may depart, empty and downcast, but if he persevere, some day he shall have his reward. to him who patiently teaches himself to know the river and the whims of its inhabitants, to him who studies weather and time of day--or, may be, of night--there must at length come success, for many are the trout, and large. the writer has known a yellow trout of lbs. ozs. to be killed with fly hard by the golf course. the weight is of course exceptional, but many a beauty of lbs. and over is there to be taken by him who is possessed of skill and patience; and to me is known no more enticing spectacle than one of these long swift pools of a summer evening, in the gloaming, when the water is alive with the dimples of rising trout. and what a river it is, however you take it! what a series of noble views is there for him who can withdraw his attention from the water. [illustration: ] let him climb, in the peaceful evening light, to the top of the red and precipitous braeheads behind the long single street of st. boswells green, pleasantest of villages, and there gaze his fill at the beautiful abbey far beneath his feet, sleeping amongst the trees across the river. or let him go farther still, up by the leafy path that overhangs the rushing water, till he come to the little suspension-bridge. and let him stop there, midway across, and face towards the western sky and the three peaks of eildon that stand out beyond the trees clear-cut against the warm after-glow. at his feet, mirroring the glory of the dying day, a broad shining sweep of quiet water broken only by the feeding trout; on his left hand, high in air the young moon floating like lightest feather; above the fretful murmur of some far-off stream, a bird piping to his mate. and over all, a stillness that holds and strangely moves the very soul. i think that if there be one with him attuned to his mood, an hour may pass and the gloaming have deepened almost to dusk, and neither of them shall have spoken a word, or noticed that the time has sped. and still they will linger, unwilling to break the spell. at leaderfoot the river is crossed by two stone bridges, one, the lofty naked viaduct of the berwickshire railway; the other, older and more pleasing, carries the picturesque road that, breaking out from the leafy woods of drygrange and leaving on its left hand the hallowed site of old melrose, leads past st. boswell's green and the kennels of the buccleuch hunt, over by lilliard's edge to jedburgh. between, and immediately above, the bridges at leaderfoot are some glorious salmon casts, where nigh on a century ago scrope was wont to throw a fly. strange that during twenty years, in all that magnificent water fished by him, from kelso to caddonfoot, he never once landed a salmon of thirty pounds, and but few as heavy as twenty. there may have been more fish in his day,--one cannot judge; they got more, but then they took them not only with fly, but by "sunning" and by "burning" the water, and by many another means that now is justly considered to be poaching. but they seldom caught a salmon approaching in weight those which are now commonly taken in tweed every season. thirty pounds is a weight by no means noticeable now-a-days, and scarcely a year passes that fish of forty pounds and over are not taken by some fortunate angler; even above melrose cauld, an obstruction that checks the ascent of many big fish, they have been got, far up the river, as heavy as thirty-eight pounds. floors water, at kelso, i believe holds the record as regards size; in a fish of fifty-seven and a half pounds was captured. and as to numbers, though it is of course possible to labour for a week or more in tweed--as elsewhere--even with the water apparently in good order, and with plenty of fish up, fresh from the sea, and meet with no manner of success, on the other hand there is on makerstoun water the pleasing record of twelve, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen salmon killed by one rod on four consecutive days; fifty seven fish in all, and { }seventy-three for the week. [illustration: ] and in a similar period in november, , upper and lower floors water produced between them one hundred and forty-three fish, the average weight for lower floors being nineteen pounds. { }a little above leaderfoot, on the opposite bank, is newstead with its roman camp,--though the visitor will be disappointed with what he may now see; there are no walls, no remains of buildings, such as exist at bremenium, or down on the roman wall in northumberland. [illustration: ] behind newstead, high on the nearest peak of eildon, are well-defined remains of a romo-british station. where they got a sufficient supply of water at that elevation is puzzling: it is a large camp, and could not possibly be held by a numerically weak body of men. from the head of that "brae" by newstead that overhangs the river, you will look on a scene typical of tweed. far through the broad and smiling valley the river winds towards you, like a ribbon shot with silver; a mile away, across green fields, lies the venerable abbey, dreaming in the sunshine--"thy ruins mouldering o'er the dead." and, up stream, the distant belching chimneys of galashiels cause one fervently { }to thank heaven that beside the old monastic pile there are no tweed mills to foul the air, and to pollute the lovely stream more even than is now the case. [illustration: ] mercifully, as regards trade, it is still at melrose as it was when the "solemn steps of old departed years" paced through the land with youthful vigour. the little town is yet guiltless of modern iniquities--except as regards the railway and the inevitable hydropathic, both of which are no doubt necessary evils (or blessings?) of these latter days. and except, also, that the modern villa is overmuch in evidence. a hundred years ago, when there was little of a town but the open market place hedging round the old cross of melrose, it must have been a better, or at least a more picturesque place. on to the abbey itself now the town's houses jostle, treading on its skirts, pertly encroaching. therefore it lacks the charm and solitude of dryburgh. yet is its own charm irresistible, its beauty matchless,--"was never { }scene so sad and fair." [illustration: ] to the halting pen, it is the indescribable. in the deathless lines of the wizard himself, its beauty lives to all time. but a thousand years of purgatory might not suffice to wipe from their record of sin the guilt { }incurred by hertford, and evers, and laiton, in and when they wantonly profaned and laid waste this dream in stone and lime, wrought by "some fairy's hand." nor in later days were our own people free from offence in this respect. the number of old houses in the immediate neighbourhood is probably very small into which have not been built stones from the ruined abbey. even across the river they are found; in the walls of a mouldering old farm house there, pulled down but a few years ago, were discovered many delicate bits of scroll work and of finely chiselled stone. a mile to the west of melrose lies the village of darnick. here is a fine old tower dating from the sixteenth century, the property still of the family that originally built it. fain would sir walter scott have bought this picturesque old building after he moved to abbotsford, and many another has looked on it with longing eyes, but no offer has succeeded in divorcing it from the stock of the original owner, though the surrounding lands have melted away. somewhere about a heiton built the earliest tower. that, naturally, could not stand against the all-destroying hand of hertford in , but the heiton's descendant repaired, or rebuilt, it in , and ever since it has remained in the possession of the family, still, i believe, is occasionally inhabited by them. it is now probably the finest existing specimen of the old bastel-house. from its watch-tower may be had a glimpse of tweed at bridgend, where father philip, sacristan of st. mary's, took his involuntary bath. this is the bridgend mentioned in sir walter's notes to _the monastery_. the ancient and very peculiar bridge over tweed which gave to the hamlet its name is described in the text of the novel. there is now no trace of such a bridge, but in the early part of the eighteenth century the pillars yet stood. they are described in gordon's _itnerarium septentrionale_ ( ), and in milne's account of the parish of melrose published in , there is a full description. those pillars yet stood, he says. "it has been a timber bridge; in the { }middle pillar there has been a chain for a drawbridge, with a little house for the convenience of those that kept the bridge and received the custom. [illustration: ] on this same pillar are the arms of { }the pringles of galashiels." in sir walter's day, only the foundations of the piers existed. he tells how, "when drifting down the tweed at night, for the purpose of killing salmon by torch light," he used to see them. a heiton of darnick fell at flodden. his successor played no inconspicuous part in the bitter fight by his own tower side, on skirmish field, scene of that memorable encounter in between angus and huccleuch, when the stake was the person of the young king, james v. turn-again, too, is in the immediate neighbourhood, on the lands of abbotsford, where the scotts turned fiercely on their pursuers, and ker of cessford was slain. it is curious to note that beneath what is now a lawn at darnick tower many skeletons were dug up some years ago, and beside them were swords. doubtless the skeletons were those of men slain in this fight; but why were their swords buried with them? over the hill, at holydene, an ancient seat of the kers of cessford, there was also unearthed years ago within the walls of the old castle, a gigantic skeleton, by its side a very handsome sword. were their weapons, in the sixteenth century, laid convenient to the grasp of the dead warriors, as in pagan times they were wont to be? bowden moor and halidon are but over the hill from darnick. it was from this direction, by the descent from halidon (or halyden, modern holydene), that buccleueh came down on angus, after cessford and fernihirst and home had ridden off. but the homes and the kers returned, and spoiled the play for the outnumbered scotts. "now bowden moor the march-man won, and sternly shook his plumed head, as glanced his eye o'er halidon; for on his soul the slaughter red of that unhallowed morn arose, when first the scott and carr were foes; when royal james beheld the fray, prize to the victor of the day; { } when home and douglas, in the van, bore down buccleuch's retiring clan, till gallant cessford's heart-blood dear reek'd on dark elliot's border spear." [ ] less than a couple of miles to the west from darnick, we come to that which ruskin pronounced to be "perhaps the most incongruous pile that gentlemanly modernism ever designed." i fear that even the most devoted borderer must admit that abbotsford _is_ an incongruous pile. nevertheless it is hallowed ground, and one may not judge it by common standards. it reminds only of the gallantest struggle against hopeless odds that ever was made by mortal man; it speaks only of him whom everyone loved, and loves. "the glory-dies not, and the grief is past." but what a marvellous change has been wrought over all { }that countryside since "the shirra" bought abbotsford, a hundred and two years ago. undrained, unenclosed, treeless and bare, covered for the most part only with its rough native heath--that was the character of the country. and the house; "small and poor, with a common _kail-yard_ on one flank, and a staring barn on the other; while in front appeared a filthy pond covered with ducks and duckweed, from which the whole tenement had derived the unharmonious designation of clarty hole." it does not sound enticing; and already offers had been made to him of a property near selkirk, where, among fields overhanging the river, was a site unsurpassed for natural beauty of prospect, whence ettrick could be viewed winding past "sweet bowhill," far into the setting sun. it was erskine, i think, who urged him to buy this property--land which then belonged to the writer's grandfather and greatgrandfather. but it was too far from tweed, scott said; "tweed was everything to him--a beautiful river, flowing broad and bright over a bed of milk-white pebbles," (pebbles, alas! that, there at least, are no longer milk-white, but rather grey with sewage fungus and the refuse of mills). in spite of all its manifest drawbacks, "clarty hole," appealed to scott. it was near the beautiful old abbey, and the lands had been abbey-lands. an ancient roman road led through the property from eildon hills to that ford over tweed which adjorned the farm, (and with this ford for sponsor, he changed the name from "clarty hole" to "abbot's ford.") over the river, on the rising ground full in his view was the famous catrail; and through his own land ran the rhymer's glen, where true thomas foregathered with the queen of faëry. bit by bit, scott added to his land, bit by bit to his cottage, regarding which his first intention was "to have only two spare bedrooms, with dressing-rooms, each of which will on a pinch have a couch-bed." and his tree-planting had begun at once. when the property was first acquired from the reverend dr. douglas of galashiels, there was on it but one solitary strip of { }firs, so long and so narrow that scott likened it to a black hair-comb. [illustration: ] it ran," says lockhart, "from the precincts of the homestead to near turn-again, and has bequeathed the name of _the doctor's reiding-kame_ to the mass of nobler trees amidst which its dark, straight line can now hardly be traced." i do not think that "the doctor's redding-kame" now survives { }as a name, even if the original trees be still to the fore. in any rase they would attract no attention, for what sir thomas dick lauder says was then "as tame and uninteresting a stretch of ground as could well be met with in any part of the world," is now rich in woods, and everywhere restful and pleasing to the eye--though it may be conceded that galashiels has stretched a villa-bedecked arm farther up tweed's left bank than might have been quite acceptable to sir walter. at boldside, of whose "ruined and abandoned churchyard" he writes in his introduction to the _monastery_, there is now a railway station, and suburban villas, large and small, dot the landscape ever the more plentifully as one approaches that important manufacturing town which a century back was but a tiny village peopled by a few industrious weavers. no longer, i fear, can it be said that boldside's "scattered and detached groves," combining with "the deep, broad current of the tweed, wheeling in moonlight round the foot of the steep bank.... fill up the idea which one would form in imagination for a scene that obcron and queen mab might love to revel in." the fairy folk have fled from scenes tainted by an atmosphere of railway and modern villa. even the water-bull has ceased to shake the hills with his roar around sir walter's "small but deep lake" at cauldshiels. yet as late as the time of our grandsires people told gravely how, one warm summer's day, a lady and her groom, riding by the sullen shore of this "lochan," ventured a little way from the edge in order to water their thirsty horses, and were immediately engulfed in the kelpie's insatiable maw. if such a tragedy ever did happen, no doubt the explanation is simple enough. without any warning the hard upper crust would give way beneath the horses' feet, and, struggling vainly, they would sink in the fathomless, spewing, inky slime below. once trapped in that, no power on earth could ever bring them out { }again, dead or alive. a like fate nearly befell the writer when fishing alone one day in a gloomy, forsaken, kelpie-haunted border hill loch. dense fog came down, wreathing over the quiet water, hiding the dripping heather and the benty hill. a bird of the bittern kind boomed dismally at intervals, and a snipe bleated. it was a cheerless prospect; and the temperature had fallen with the coming of the fog. but through the mist could be heard the sound of trout rising in the little loch, and one bigger than his fellows persisted in rising far out. the sound was too tempting. the fisher waded out, and still out; and ever the big trout rose, luring him on. another step, and another; it was no longer stony under foot, and the bottom began to quake, still the footing was hard enough, and nothing happened; and again the big fish rose just out of casting distance. one more step would do it; and what danger could possibly be added in so small a distance? so one more step was taken, and--without a second's warning the crust broke. only one thing saved the fisher; instinctively, as he sank through the fetid slime, he threw himself on his back, striking vigorously with his arms. but it took many an agonised, almost despairing, stroke ere his legs _sucked_ out of that death trap. nor, as long as there was water shoreward deep enough to swim in, did he again attempt to wade. his rod had not been abandoned--which was matter for gratulation; but, soaked to the skin, chilled to the very marrow, and reeking with the stench of putrid swamp, it was no thing of joy that day to make his devious way home over an unfamiliar hill that was wrapped in impenetrable folds of dense mist. there is an origin, likely enough, for the water-bull. a great volume of marsh-gas, bursting from the bottom of a swampy loch, might be seen some still, foggy day, or in the uncertain evening light, suddenly to boil up on the surface far out. the wallowing upheaval caused by the belching gas would readily suggest the part-seen back or side of some formless monster, whose gambols were agitating the water and { }causing billows to surge upon the weed-fringed shore; and a bittern's hollow boom quivering on the still night air, would easily be construed by the credulous and ignorant as the bellow of this fearsome monster that they thought they had seen wheeling and plunging. if he was anything more substantial than gas, what a beast he would have been to troll for! one should not forget that it was by the shore of cauldshiels loch that scott wrote the exquisitely sad lines that yet so vividly paint the scene: "the sun upon the weirdlaw hill, in eterick's vale is sinking sweet; the westland wind is hushed and still, the lake lies sleeping at my feet. yet not the landscape to mine eye bears those bright hues that once it bore; though evening with her richest dye, flames o'er the hill of ettrick's shore. with listless look along the plain, i see tweed's silver current glide, and coldly mark the holy fane of melrose rise in ruined pride. the quiet lake, the balmy air, the hill, the stream, the tower, the tree, are they still such as once they were, or is the dreary change in me? it is only a little above "the holy fane of melrose" that there enters tweed on the northern side an interesting little burn, the ellwand, or allen. up the glen--the fairy dene, or nameless dene--formed by this stream, lies glendearg, the tower described in the opening scenes of the _monastery_. there are, in fact, three towers in the glen, hillslap (now called glendearg), colmslie, and langshaw. over the door of the first is the date , and the letters n. c. and e. l., the initials of nicolas cairncross and his wife. colmslie belonged to the family of borthwick; their crest, a goat's head, is still on the { }ruin,--or was some years ago. but who in old days owned langshaw is not known to me. for mutual protection, border towers were very commonly built thus, in groups of three--as is instanced, indeed, at the neighbouring village of darnick, where formerly, besides the present existing bastel-house, there stood two others. "in each village or town," says sir walter, "were several small towers, having battlements projecting over the side-walls, and usually an advanced angle or two with shot-holes for flanking the door way, which was always defended by a strong door of oak, studded with nails, and often by an exterior grated door of iron. these small peel houses were ordinarily inhabited by the principal feuars and their families; but, upon the alarm of approaching danger, the whole inhabitants thronged from their own miserable cottages, which were situated around, to garrison these points of defence. it was then no easy matter for a hostile party to penetrate into the village, for the men were habituated to the use of bows and fire arms, and the towers being generally so placed that the discharge from one crossed that of another, it was impossible to assault any of them individually." the nameless dene is famed for the "fairy" cups and saucers that are still to be found in the streamlet's bed after a flood, little bits of some sort of soft limestone which the washing of the water has formed into shapes so fantastic and delicate that one hardly needs the imagination of childhood to believe they are the work of fingers more than mortal. up this valley ran the ancient girthgate, a bridle-way over the hills used of old by the infrequent traveller, and always by the monks of melrose when duty took them to visit the hospital which malcolm iv founded in. on soltre, or soutra, hill. as late as the middle of last century the grassy track was plainly to be seen winding through the heather; perhaps in parts it is not even yet obliterated. nature does not readily wipe out those old paths and drove roads that the passing of man and beast traced across the hills many centuries back. { } chapter ix galashiels and the gala, lindfan |and now we come to a once beautiful stream, of which, in the present condition of its lower stretches, it is not easy to speak with due moderation. "deil take the ditty trading loon wad gar the water ca' his wheel, and drift his dyes and poisons down by fair tweed side at ashiesteel." it is not the tweed at ashiesteel, however, that in this instance is injured, but the gala at galashiels, and tweed below that town. "it would," says the official report issued in by h.m. stationery office, "be impossible to find a river more grossly polluted than the gala as it passes through galashiels,"--a verdict with which no wayfarer along the banks of that dishonoured stream will be inclined to disagree. the grey-blue liquid that sluggishly oozes down the river's bed among stones thick-coated with sewage fungus, is an outrage on nature most saddening to look upon. he does wisely who stands to windward of the abomination. it is true that of late years much has been done, much money spent, in the praiseworthy effort to bring purity into this home of the impure; but to the lay eye improvement is yet barely perceptible. "fools and bairns," however, they tell us, "should never see half-done work." the filter-beds of the extensive sewage works { }are said to be not yet in working order, and so one may not despair of even yet living long enough to see gala as gala should be. [illustration: ] in the meantime, and till the entire sewage scheme is in full working order, there are--if one may judge from reports in the daily press,--a few minor improvements not quite out of reach of the inhabitants. on th july, , an evening paper published the account of "another" dead pig which at that date was lying in the river "immediately in front of the main entrance to the technical college." the carcase, we are told, was "much decomposed, and attracted huge swarms of flies." this paper, in commenting on the corpse of an earlier defunct pig, which a few days before had reposed in the same tomb, remarks that "it has been the custom up to now for all kinds of objectional matter to be deposited on the river banks or thrown into the bed of the river to await the first flood to carry it down to the tweed." "the river," the journal continues, { }"is at present at its lowest summer ebb, and during the heat wave the smells arising from decomposing matter have been overpowering." in an arctic climate, there may perhaps be some excuse for the proverb: "the clarder the cosier," but it seems scarcely applicable to gala; and there might, one would imagine, be other and more modern methods of dealing with decomposed pigs than that of floating them into outraged tweed. the condition of "fishes that tipple in the deep" and quaff cerulean dyes in every stream, is not likely to be improved by a diet of sewage fungus and decayed pig, any more than is the health of human dwellers by the banks likely to benefit by the proximity of decomposing animal matter. the history of galashiels is mainly industrial, mainly the history of the'"tweed" trade. there were mills of a sort in the town as early as , but even a hundred and fifty years later the trade cannot have greatly harmed the river; only cwt. of wool were then used in all the mills of galashiels, and there was no such thing as the manufacture of modern "tweeds." all the wool then used was made into blankets, and "galashiels greys," (whatever fearful fowl _they_ may have been). the term "tweeds" came later, one is given to understand, and arose through the mistake of an english correspondent of one of the galashiels manufacturers. this gentleman misread a letter, in which the scottish writer spoke of his "tweels." the englishman, having read the letter somewhat carelessly, and knowing that galashiels was somewhere near the river tweed, hastily concluded that the goods under discussion were termed "tweeds," and gave his order accordingly. the name was universally adopted in the trade, and now--as the professional cricketer said about "yorkers,"--"i don't see what else you _could_ call them." galashiels has a tradition to which it clings, that it was once a royal hunting seat. mr. robert chambers says that the lodge or tower used by the scottish monarchs when they came here a-hunting was pulled down only so recently as about the { }year . it was called the peel, a strong square tower with small windows, "finer in appearance than any other house in the whole barony, that of gala alone excepted." from it a narrow lane called the king's shank led to the town. i cannot say it the name survives in galashiels. but there is another tradition in which perhaps galashiels takes greater pride, the tradition connected with the plum tree in the town's arms. (though what the little foxes are doing at the foot of the tree, and what they have to do with the legend, none can say. perhaps they are english foxes; and they got the plums--sour enough, as it turned out.) the incident commemorated is said to be this: during one of the invasions of edward iii, a party of his soldiers had taken up their quarters in galashiels. the country no doubt had been pretty well harried and laid waste--edward's men had plenty of practice--and they may have been careless, with the carelessness begotten of overconfidence. anyhow, they straggled through the? woods, looking for wild plums, the story goes--though one would imagine that the only plums they would be likely to find there would be sloes, not a fruit that one would expect to tempt them far afield. but perhaps, as some say, they were robbing an orchard--if there were orchards in scotland in the fourteenth century. in any case, a party of scots, either a passing armed band, or, as galashiels would fain believe, the inhabitants of the town themselves, swearing that they would give the southern swine sourer plums than any that had yet set their teeth on edge, fell on the english, drove them in headlong rout to the banks of tweed opposite to where abbotsford now stands--the englishmen's dyke, they call the spot--and slew them to a man. "soor plums in galashiels" has for centuries been a favourite air in the town, though the words of the song have perished. gala as a stream has been badly misused by man--at and below the town poisoned by sewage and mill refuse, above the town overfished, and poached, almost to the extinction of its { }trout. matters now, however, are, i believe, vastly improved as regards sport; the galashiels angling association works with & will to make things what they should be in a stream once so famed, and one hears that its efforts are meeting with the success they deserve. but it can never come back to what it must have been "lang syne," say in sir thomas dick lauder's day. [illustration: ] that gentleman records that he and a friend fished one day from bankhouse down to galashiels, and turning there, fished gala up to its junction with the ermit burn, then followed the latter to its source on soutra hill, and found at the end of the day that they had filled three creels; their total catch was over thirty-six dozen trout. a good many were caught in the burn with worm, of course, and most of the trout taken were probably very small, but it shows what possibilities these small border streams might hold if they were well treated. nobody, however, one may hope--no reasonable mortal out of his teens, that is--now wants to catch over four hundred trout in a single day under any circumstances. even to the very juvenile schoolboy there can be but the very minimum of sport in jerking fingerings on to the bank. if a fixed limit of size could be imposed; if the close season were continued for another fortnight or three weeks in spring; and, above all, if the sale of trout could be prohibited by law until at least the beginning of april, our border fishing would be improved beyond recognition. great takes are made now, with worm, early in the season, when the waters are discoloured and the trout lean and ravenous; and long before they are in anything like condition either to give sport or to be decently fit for food, vast quantities of fish from the border streams are sent off to the english markets. if those markets were kept closed a few weeks longer, many a trout would have a chance to reach maturity that is now sacrificed in extreme youth to put a few "bawbees" into a poacher's pocket. the great takes at the season's opening are not made by fair fishing. the writer was informed, three or four years ago, by the solitary porter of a very small tweed-side railway station--himself a keen and skilful fisher--that on nd march of that year two men had consigned to manchester from that one little station _one hundred and ten pounds weight_ of trout. how were _they_ caught? certainly not by fair means. they are not _fishers_ who take trout after this fashion. these are the men who, to suit their immediate wants and their own convenience, would deplete every stream in the border and put a speedy end to all sport. as things are at present there is practically nothing to prevent them from taking what they please from any water. however, to return to gala. here, as everywhere in the border, vast are the changes that the past sixty or seventy years have wrought on the face of nature. even at a time so comparatively recent as that when the present north british line of railway from edinburgh to carlisle was being constructed down the valley, sir thomas dick lauder remarks on the revolution that in his own experience a few years had made. "we know of no district," says he, "which has been so com{ }pletely metamorphosed since the days of our youth as that of gala water." in his boyhood, the whole wore a pastoral character. crops were rare, and fences hardly to be met with. [illustration: ] not a tree was to be seen, except in the neighbourhood of one or two old places, and especially at and around torwoodlee and gala house, near the mouth of the river. everything within sight was green, simple, and bare. then he contrasts { }this with the appearance of the valley at date of his writing, when "the whole country is fenced, cultivated, and hedged round. thriving and extensive plantations appear everywhere." [illustration: ] could he see it, he would find the change even more marked now, with the "thriving plantations" grown and extended, countless trains thundering up and down the line day and night, and above all with his little village of "two thousand two hundred and nine inhabitants" grown into a great and busy town. in ancient days, this valley through which gala flows was called wedale,--the dale of woe, the valley of weeping, for here says professor skene, was fought one of king arthur's great battles against the pagans. at what is now the village of stow--the stow (old english, "place,") of wedale--the bishops of st. andrews had a palace; and here, by the lady well at torsonce, stood in arthurian days a church famed for its possession of fragments of the true cross, bestowed, it was { }said, by king arthur himself. [illustration: ] here, too, were preserved in great veneration, long years after arthur had passed away "to be king among the dead," portions of that miraculous image of the blessed virgin which, the old historian nennius tells us, the king bore into the stress of battle that day among the hills of wedale. and here, till about , lay a very large stone on whose face was the well marked impression of a foot, said by tradition to have been the imprint of the foot of the virgin. to be converted into road-metal has doubtless been its fate. there are still, i believe, in stow, the remains of a very old church, not, however, those of the original church of wedale. leaving galashiels by road past boldside, with a glimpse of the eildons and abbotsford to the left, three miles from the town and immediately above the junction of tweed with its tributary the ettrick we cross the former river. hard by, to the right, in a wood on top of rink hill, are the remains of a very fine british camp. { }here for the time we again quit the banks of tweed, and proceed up ettrick. a mile from the junction of the rivers, we pass near the old churchyard of lindean, where once stood the ancient church in which, the night after his assassination in , lay the bloody corpse of sir william douglas, the knight of liddesdale, slain by his kinsman. in connection with this churchyard, there used to exist a belief that greatly troubled the minds of country folk in the surrounding district. away back in those evil times when the plague raged through scotland, very many of its victims were buried in a common grave in lindean churchyard. but the church was demolished after the reformation, and the churchyard gradually fell out of use as a place of burial. there came a time when the people had no farther need for it; why, thought some practical person, should it not be ploughed up and cultivated? there was but one thing that saved it from this fate;--not reverence for the ashes of the rude forefathers of the hamlet that lay here at rest, but the sure and certain belief in the minds of their descendants that in the event of the soil being disturbed, there must inevitably be a fresh outbreak of the dreaded plague. it is curious and interesting to read of the blind horror with which our ancestors in their day regarded this scourge; but their horror is not hard to understand. sanitation did not exist in those times, medicine as a science was impotent to curb the ravages of the dreaded pestilence. the people were helpless; to save themselves there remained only flight. and in what remote spot might flight avail them in a plague-swept land! in that outbreak during the seventeenth century, temporary houses, or shelters, were erected in many parts of the border, and into them were hurried persons smitten by the pestilence--and often, no doubt, persons suffering from some very minor ailment which their panic-stricken neighbours diagnosed as plague. it is not to be supposed that once there, they would get much, if any, attention; they would simply take their { }chance--a slender one--of recovery. and if they died, so great was the dread in the minds of the living that, in many instances, to save unnecessary risk, the authorities merely pulled down the building over the dead bodies, and heaped earth on top. at a period even so late as in the writer's boyhood, there were many spots--perhaps in very remote districts there may yet be a few--where the plague was said to be buried, and where to disturb the soil was believed to be a matter of extreme danger; the pestilence, like some malevolent fiend long held down, would inevitably break loose, and again grim death would hurl his darts broadcast at old and young, rich and poor. in his _scenes of infancy_ leyden alludes to the belief: ' "mark, in yon vale, a solitary stone, shunned by the swain, with loathsome weeds o'ergruwn! the yellow stonecrop shoots from every pore, with scaly sapless lichens crusted o'er: beneath the base, where starving hemlocks creep, the yellow pestilence is buried deep. here oft, at sunny noon, the peasants pause, while many a tale their mute attention draws; * and, as the younger swains, with active feet, pace the loose weeds, and the flat tombstone mete, what curse shall seize the guilty wretch, they tell, who drags the monster from his midnight cell." all manner of precautions were adopted to hinder the spreading of the pestilence. orders were even issued forbidding the assembling together of more than three or four persons at any one place, but the privy council records of the time show that this regulation was obeyed only when it suited the people to observe it. there were limits to the dread in which the pestilence was held, and even fear of the consequences did not always reconcile the borderers to such an interference with their liberty. it is on record that, in , when, in the execution of his duty as convener of the justices of his county, sir john murray of philiphaugh went to selkirk, he { }found that a marriage was about to take place, and that most part of the community had been invited to be present. sir john at once forbade the assemblage, and, later, he sent for the father of the bride, a man named james murray, and informed him that on no account would more than four or five guests be permitted. but james was not to be thus coerced. "na, na!" he cried, "if ye be feared, come not there. but the folk are comin'." so sir john called on the bailies to commit the offender at once to prison. the bailies, however, were probably included in the number of the wedding guests, and were looking forward to the "ploy" with as great pleasurable anticipation as was even the most irresponsible of those invited. they paid no heed to sir john's demand; "there was no obedience given thereto," say the records. and next day, when the postponed wedding took place, "there was about four or five score persons who met and drank together all that day till night." whether sir john remained to take any part in the festivities we are not told, but of this at least we may be very sure: his interference did not tend to lessen the amount of liquor consumed on the occasion. chapter x selkirk |two{ } miles up the river from lindean you come to selkirk. but this is not the route by which that town should be approached; by the galashiels road, one is in the heart of selkirk almost before one is aware of any streets. to see properly the old royal burgh clinging to the steep side of its hill, and to realise the beauty of its situation, it is necessary to come from galashiels up tweed by the road diverging at rink. thence cross yair bridge, go by that beautiful highway through the shaggy woods of sunderland hall, past ettriek-bank and the nettley burn, down by linglie, across ettrick by the old bridge, and so up into the market place of selkirk by the green, (which is not anything in the nature of a lawn, but, on the contrary, a rather steep road). this is a route longer, but to those not pressed for time, one infinitely more pleasant and beautiful than the direct way between the two towns. by it you see the exquisite bit of tweed valley that lies between the junction and yair bridge, and, pausing as you cross that bridge, you have on either hand a prospect infinitely fair of heathery hill, green, leafy wood, and glorious river, the latter, above you on the right, hurrying down from yair cauld, a glittering sheet of eddying water, sweeping in magnificent curve past its elms at the foot of a mighty tree-clad brae; then passing beneath your feet, chafing and hoarsely roaring, it plunges through between imprisoning rocks, till once more comparative peace is gained in reaches dear to the heart of salmon fishers. then you leave the bridge at yair, and climbing an easy gradient, pass along by a pleasant, shady road through rich woods, over the hill to ettriekbank, where tradition says queen mary crossed the ettrick on her way to jedburgh in . [illustration: ] in itself, ettriekbank possesses no feature of interest, but it recalls to mind the fact that here, in , two harmless-looking hawkers with a cart were wont to call at intervals, ostensibly to sell fish. had their real errand been known, it is little fish they would have sold, and short would have been their shrift at the hands of the roused and horrified country-folk. they were burke and hare, the notorious body-snatchers, and the real purpose of the cart in which they brought fish was to carry back to edinburgh the bodies they might procure in the country. burke and blare! still, after the lapse of close on a century their memory is held in execration in the border, still is their name a kind of vague horror even to those to whom it may convey little else, and who are almost wholly ignorant of what hideous crimes were committed by the pair. it was, of course, not only _dead_ bodies that they took. these they ravished from new made graves; but they took also living men, drugged or filled with drink, and murdered them for the sake of the price their corpses would bring as subjects for dissection by some of the doctors of that day. hare turned king's evidence. after the trial and execution of his accomplice, he was smuggled away to the united states. there his identity was discovered, and an infuriated mob threw him into a limekiln, where he was badly burned and his eye sight destroyed. after a time, when the rage and horror aroused by his misdeeds might to some extent be supposed likely to have died away, he returned to england, and as late as he was alive and in london. a blind, white haired, frouzy, ragged old man, led by a dog, used daily to slouch up oxford street, turn at the circus towards portland place, post himself near where the langham hotel stands, and beg there from charitable passers-by. how many of them would have given, had they known that this old man was hare, a ruffian stained with the blood of perhaps half a score of victims? how many of them, shrinking aside, would have stepped into the foulest gutter rather than be contaminated by even brushing against the hem of his filthy old garments? few then knew who he was; but there are men yet alive who may possibly remember having seen him. an eminent london surgeon, who died, comparatively speaking, but the other day, very well remembered, and occasionally spoke of, the grizzly old ruffian who stood, with tapping stick, holding a bowl for alms. the late mr. serjeant ballantine, too, in his _reminiscences_ describes the appearance of the man. immediately after passing ettriekbank, the road, coming { }suddenly out from a clump of trees, breaks into view of a wide and pleasant valley, with a goodly prospect of wood and heathery hill stretched far to the west and south. down this valley sweeps the gravelly bed of ettrick; on its farther bank, on the flat haugh, stand a long line of mills and the station of a branch line of railway. above, rising abruptly, tier upon tier in cheerful succession, trees and houses that blend into the smiling face of selkirk. and perhaps it is by reason of the width of the setting in which they are placed, or because down the mighty funnel of the valley comes rushing the west wind that sweeps all smoke away, but somehow it seems that the mills on the haugh below the town give no air of squalor or of dirt to the landscape. would that one could say the same with regard to the effect of their dyes and refuse on the condition of the river. by a steep red "scaur" below linglie there once was a pool clearer than amber, across which in summer weather small boys, breathless but greatly daring, essayed to swim. farther down, at the back of lindean flour mill, was another, where in the long twilights of june, ". . trout beneath the blossom'd tree, plashed in the golden stream," and whence many a pounder and half-pounder was drawn by eager young fishers. where is that seductive amber-clear water now? alas! in these days it is of a sickly blue tint, smelling evilly; and the stones in its bed, that once were a clear, warm grey, with yellow boulders interspersed that flashed in the stream of a sunny day like burnished copper,--they are slime-covered and loathsome, things to be shunned. surely more can be done to check this pollution of our beautiful streams. so far as can be ascertained, there is but one of the mills of selkirk that strives (and i believe it strives successfully,) so to deal with its refuse that the water it uses may be returned to ettrick in a condition that does not defile that stream. { }nevertheless, it has to be admitted that during the autumn floods salmon do run the gauntlet of ettrick's lower reaches, and in countless numbers congregate below selkirk cauld (or weir), where the difficulty of ascent acts as a partial check on their continued migration. on a day in the month of november, if there should happen to be a considerable flood in the river, this cauld is a sight worth going a long way to look at. a wide rushing sea of tawny, foaming water--a hundred yards from bank to bank--races over the sloping face of the cauld, and, where it plunges into the deep pool at foot, rears itself in a mighty wave, with crest that tosses in the wintry breeze "like the mane of a chestnut steed." from daylight till dark you may watch the fish,--big and little, from the thirty-pound leviathan to the little one or two-pound sea trout--in their eagerness to reach the spawning-beds of the upper waters, hurl themselves high in air over this great barrier-wave, then, gallantly struggling, continue for a while their course up the rushing torrent, till gradually they lose way and come tumbling back, head over tail, into the pool from which half a minute before they had emerged. it is like standing by one of the jumps in an endless kind of tinny grand national steeple-chase; so many fish are in the air at once at any given moment that one becomes giddy with watching them. probably a good many do in time accomplish the ascent, or perhaps get up by the salmon-ladders in mid-stream, but the great majority are swept back, over and over again. those that make their attempt near the side, in the shallow water out of the main force of the current, are frequently taken in landing-nets (by water-bailiffs stationed there for the purpose), and are carried up and set at liberty in the smooth water above the cauld. it must be confessed that a considerable number are also taken in this way, or with the help of a "cleek," by poachers. the bailiffs cannot be everywhere; and a salmon is a temptation before which (in the border) almost the most virtuous of his sex might conceivably succumb. the average { }borderer, indeed, i believe would cheerfully risk his life sometimes, rather than forego his chance of "a fish."--"the only crime prevalent [in selkirk] is that of poaching," says the rev. mr. campbell, minister of the parish for fifty years, writing in . there was one, greatly sinning in this respect, of whom nevertheless, because of his gallant end, i cannot think without a feeling almost of affection. he--with a fish where no fish should have been--was hopelessly outmanoeuvred by the bailiffs, escape cut off on every side, and only the river, red, swollen, and cold as ice, open to him. "here's daith or glory for jockie!" he cried, and plunged into a torrent from which he came no more alive. a little higher up than the cauld is the piper's pool, where, until he was hit by a chance bullet that brought him rolling like a shot rabbit down the brae into the water, a piper stood piping that september morning of , when montrose and leslie were striving for the victory. on the bank above, those inhabitants of selkirk who cared to run some risk--which was probably the whole community--took up their position and watched the fight as from a grand stand. there is no better vantage point imaginable. leslie, i suppose, crossing opposite the gap called will's nick, (not far from lindean), came up the left bank of ettrick and, hidden by the fog, skirted along the edge of the hills till he was within striking distance of the royal camp, when he took them, no doubt, both in flank and in rear. but how did a man of montrose's experience allow himself to be thus fooled? montrose passed the night in selkirk, and he received no information whatever of any hostile movement. it was too late when he and what mounted men he could hastily collect came thundering and foaming through the shallow stream next morning, and went spurring over the flat haugh against the enemy. someone besides traquair must have played him false. it is inconceivable that he had no pickets out, or employed none of his cavalry on outpost duty. if they were { }out, in spite of the fog they could not fail to have got in touch with some part of leslie's force. no large body of troops could have come undetected by a route so obvious, if those on the look-out for them were doing their duty. selkirk on this occasion saw war, as it were from the dress circle. the town was burned to the ground by the english after flodden, and at various other odd times, but i do not think that it ever saw much actual street fighting such as was the experience of jedburgh again and again. selkirk was out of the main current of invasion, and it was only odd "spates" that came her way, such as when, in , edward i passed through the town on his march back to england; and again when in edward ii, following an unexpected route to the north, took her on his way. still, selkirk had always been familiar with at least the pomp and circumstance of war. the town was old when earl david founded its abbey in ; probably it had always been a headquarters of the scottish kings and their retinue, when hunting in the forest. certainly william the lion, alexander ii, and alexander iii all passed a good deal of time in his castle, which of old stood on an eminence in what are now the grounds of haining, near the "head" of the town. probably the court came here chiefly for the purpose of hunting; the forest of ettrick was famed for its deer, as its men--unlike the majority of their countrymen--were famed for their archery. at falkirk, in , the english themselves bore witness to the warlike prowess of the men of selkirk, as well as to their stature and fine appearance. at bannockburn the sons of the forest distinguished themselves. and again at flodden. regarding the part borne by her sons in the last-named great struggle, there are many trad-'fons to which the inhabitants of selkirk cling tenaciously. some, i fear, will not bear too close investigation, traditions are mis-chancey things to handle; it does not always do to enquire too closely if one would retain one's faith. a large body of the men of { }selkirk and the forest went to flodden, and they fought as they always did fight. that much, at least, is certain. but who shall say how many returned from that fatal field? the burgh records are silent. there is a mournful gap of two months in the history of the town; not an entry of any sort for eight weeks in the autumn of . and, says mr. craig-brown in his history of selkirkshire, "quite as mournful and significant are the frequent services of heirs recorded after the battle." selkirk suffered severely at flodden. there, as elsewhere, her sons did their duty; and they fell gloriously. one could wish that that might suffice: it is an ungrateful task to rake among the dead cinders of time-honoured traditions. but it is the detestable habit of the day to leave none of our ancient beliefs unassailed: the more beloved the tradition, the more likely is some one to remain unsatisfied till he has upset it. yet it must be admitted that few of our cherished legends emerge triumphant when assailed by the scoffer. that, for instance, of fletcher and the english standard captured at flodden, which has been revered in selkirk by so many generations of souters, i fear, when it is investigated, must crumble into dust. certainly the tradition regarding the origin of the town's arms is impossible of maintenance. the figures are so obviously those of the virgin and child; the halo and the glory round their heads forbid any other interpretation. but it is easy to imagine that after the reformation no scottish town would care to acknowledge any connection, however remote, with the detested church of rome. hence probably the legend of the dead woman and her still living baby who were found at the lady-wood edge by the selkirk survivors of flodden. such a body, of course, may quite possibly have been discovered, and the tradition would be used later to account for the figures that appear in the town's arms. just in the same way is a gargoyle in melrose abbey, beside the reputed grave of michael scott, now pointed out to { }american and english tourists as an authentic representation in stone of that mighty wizard. as to the "souters of selkirk," there can be no proof either way; but i prefer to believe that the song is old, almost as old as flodden. perhaps i have misread mr. craig brown, and am wrong in believing that he regards it as commemorating a famous football match played in between souters and men under the leadership of lord home. if that were so, it could not have been sung at dalkeith in , when the selkirkshire yeomanry were present at a banquet there after the false alarm. we read that lord home called for the song on that occasion, but that none of the yeomanry cared to sing it before a man on whose ancestor it reflects, whereupon, amid rapturous applause, lord home sang it himself. if it refers to a football match, it must be to one of very ancient date, but one that surely could not fall to have left some mark on the minds of the souters. mr. plummer, of sunderland hall, sheriff depute of the county prior to sir walter scott, writing in says that though he had lived all his life within two miles of selkirk and had known the song from his boyhood, there was not in his day, and he believed there never had been, any tradition connecting the song with anything of the nature of a football match. the verses may not have been written, probably were not written, immediately after the battle, but i am confident that it refers to flodden--in spite of the fact that there was then no _earl_ of home. no doubt the song has had variants from time, to time; probably there was no allusion to an "earl" in the original verses. popular calumny shortly after flodden taxed lord home with having been the cause of james's defeat and death; he was unable, as we know, to come to his sovereign's aid. this popular belief, coupled with the fact that selkirks representatives suffered more cruelly than did lord home's men---and therefore, of course local prejudice would infer, did their duty { }better--would be quite sufficient to give rise to the sentiment: "down wi' the merse to the deil." in his letter of , referred to above, mr. plummer says: "at election dinners, etc., when the selkirk folks begin to get _fou'_ they always call for music, and for that tune in particular. at such times i never heard a souter hint at the football, but many times speak of the battle of flodden." so far as it goes, there is nothing in the evidence to suggest a football origin for "the souters of selkirk." it has always seemed to me, (who, being a native, am on that account possibly no impartial witness,) that the people of selkirk have ever possessed in greater degree than their neighbours the true spirit of the sportsman. of the inhabitants of yarrow and selkirk, a seventeenth-century writer recorded that "they are ingenuous, and hate fraud and deceit; theft or robbery are not heard among them, and very rarely a ly to be heard in any of their mouths, except among them of the baser sort." there has always been in them, i think, little of that "win, tie, or wrangle" disposition which is usually to be found among small communities; and they were never of the sort who "heave half a brick at the head" of the outland wayfarer. in their dealings with the french officers, prisoners of war on parole, who were quartered in the old town from to , the selkirk people displayed an admirable generosity and a gratifying amount of good feeling,--though in that respect none of our border towns can be said to have been lacking. one of these french prisoners afterwards, when an old man, published most interesting reminiscences of his stay, and he writes of his involuntary hosts with appreciation, and almost with affection. in , when the accumulation of prisoners of warm england had become very great, it was decided to distribute a large part of them throughout scotland. to selkirk, as its share, came a hundred and ninety men. how it may be now, i cannot say, but in the writer's boyhood the memory of these prisoners still lived, and old people told { }innumerable tales of the strange habits of "thae frainch." "they made tea oot o' dried whun (furze) blossoms, an' they skinned the very paddas (frogs)," said one old man. the writer of the reminiscences referred to above makes no allusion to "paddas," but he does mention that "a lake in the neighbour hood supplied abundance of very delicate pike." this lake may have been the haining loch, a picturesque sheet of water over which, however, there is, or used to be, at times a nasty vegetable scum. "one of the most beautiful and peaceful lakes that ever was seen," is sir thomas dick lauder's description of it as it was in his day. i think, however, that the french writer probably refers to the pot loch, a small and once very deep lochan, or pond, nestling in a hollow at the foot of the pleasant heathery hills on which is now the selkirk golf course. it is a much more likely spot than the haining for the prisoners to frequent. the former is on the town's property, the latter on an estate in private hands. and in the former there are, or at least there certainly used to be, many pike of no great size. it was here, too, that tradition told us the prisoners went to catch frogs? that frenchmen in their own land lived chiefly on a diet of frogs was the firm belief of a majority of the town's inhabitants, ("french frogs" of course was a term of contemptuous reproach,) and that the prisoners went to the pot loch for any other purpose than to obtain supplies of what seemed to the townsfolk to be a very loathsome dainty, would never occur to them. the fact that the edible frog did not exist there, would make no difference in their belief. that was no difficulty; frogs were frogs all the world over; and frogs of course included toads. the french ate them all. the writer of the reminiscences, m. doisy de villargennes, tells us that some of the prisoners were "passionately fond of fishing, and excelled in it,"--national prejudice of course forbids that we should accept the latter part of the statement as correct!--and that they used to fish in ettrick and { }tweed. part of the former, close to the town, would be within their "bounds," but the tweed is far outside the mile radius which was their limit of liberty. [illustration: ] on every road, one mile from the town, was placed a post bearing the words "limit of the prisoners of war"; down the road which leads towards bridgelands there is still a memorial of these unfortunates,--a thorn bush, called the prisoner's bush, which marked their limit in that direction. any prisoner found outside the boundary was liable to be fined one guinea--a process, one would imagine, something akin in certain cases to getting blood from a stone--and the fine was supposed to go to the person who informed on the delinquent. to the credit of selkirk it must be recorded that no one ever claimed this reward; even when a prisoner uprooted a notice post and carried it a mile farther along the road, it was, we are told, only "to the amusement of the inhabitants," who, m. doisy adds, "never on any occasion took advantage of a regulation ir virtue of which whoever might see us outside the fixed limits was entitled to one guinea, payable by the delinquent." he himself, he says, "frequently went fishing several miles down the tweed," and { }was never fined, never in any way molested. in fact, great and small in selkirk, from the sheriff depute of the county down to the town's bellman, and the "drucken" ne'er-do-weel who is to be found in every small town, and whom one would scarcely expect to be proof against a bribe that would provide him with the wherewithal for a royal spree, all combined to wink at these infringements of the regulations. sir walter himself, indeed, who was then living at abbotsford, used frequently to have some of the prisoners to dine and spend the evening there. it is interesting to read the account of these visits, and to note how sir walter impressed his foreign visitors. says the writer of the reminiscences: "there was one person just at this time whom i did not then appreciate as i afterwards did--sir walter scott, then plain mr. scott. probably no one knew, unless his publishers, or ever suspected him of being 'the great unknown,' the author of 'waverley.' as for us we only saw in mr. scott, the sheriff of selkirkshire, a lawyer of some repute in edinburgh. as sheriff be frequently came to selkirk, he having his home at abbotsford, little more than three miles distant from selkirk. "mr. scott became acquainted with one of our comrades, named tarnier, a young man of brilliant talent, excellent education, and of remarkably exuberant spirits. shortly after, without the knowledge of the government agent, or rather, with his tacit approval, tarnier was invited to abbotsford, and he gave us on his return a vivid description of his reception there. later, probably at our countryman's suggestion, he was requested by mr. scott to bring with him three of his friends each time he was invited to dinner at abbotsford. thus i was present on two or three occasions, invited, not by the host himself, but by my comrade tarnier. "it would be, as far as i can remember, about the month of february, , and our mode of procedure was as follows:--in the twilight, those who were invited repaired to the boundary the milestone already mentioned--there a carriage { }awaited us, which took us at a good pace to abbotsford, where we were most graciously received by our host. we only saw mrs. scott during the few moments before the announcement of dinner, at which she was not present. mrs. scott was, as we supposed, french, or of french extraction; in fact, she spoke french perfectly: mr. scott had married her at carlisle. our host appeared to us in quite a different aspect to that under which we had known him passing in the streets of selkirk. there he gave us the impression of being a cheery good-natured man, whose face was rather ordinary, and whose carriage somewhat common, and halting in his gait, this probably due to his lameness. at abbotsford, on the contrary, we found him a gentleman full of cordiality and gaiety, receiving his guests in a fashion as amicable as it was delicate. the rooms were spacious and well lighted; the table, without being sumptuous, was on the whole _recherché_. one need not expect me to describe very exactly the surroundings of abbotsford, as on the occasions i was privileged to be there, we arrived in the twilight, and we returned when it was quite dark by the same means of locomotion. thus, with the exception of the dining room, and a short glimpse of the salon, all that i know about abbotsford has been derived from publications which everyone has read. neither should it be expected that i can give details of repasts to which i was invited sixty-five years ago. but the general theme of our conversation has remained immutably fixed in my memory. the principal subject of our discussion did not ordinarily turn on politics, but on minute details concerning the french army. all that particularly referred to napoleon, and above all, traits and anecdotes, appeared to interest our host in the highest degree, who always found the means, we observed, to bring round the conversation to this subject if it happened to have diverged in any way. as can be imagined, we took good care to repeat nothing unfavourable regarding the character of our beloved emperor. we little suspected that our host was gathering material for a { }work published ten years later under the title of 'a life of napoleon bonaparte.'" that sir walter's estimate of the emperor greatly displeased m. doisy, goes almost without saying. it will be remembered, also, that the french general, gourgaud, was so bitterly incensed by some statements in this book that a challenge to sir walter was fully expected; and assuredly it would have been accepted if given. selkirk in the time of the french prisoners was a small place of two thousand inhabitants or less, the houses nearly all picturesquely thatched, very few roofed with slate as at present. it must have been matter of no small difficulty in such a community suitably to house a sudden influx of strangers. indeed there _was_ very great difficulty, until it was discovered that the frenchmen were to pay for their accommodation, and then the difficulty vanished. but it would be hard at the present day to find in selkirk lodgings of any sort at the rate ( s. d. a week) which then satisfied owners of houses. the following is the french prisoner's description of selkirk: "the town is encircled by beautiful hills on all sides: in the centre it had a large square adorned with a fountain; a very fine bridge crossed the ettrick. an ordinary-looking building belonging to the national church and a much larger one owned by the presbyterians, or rather the sect known by the name of anti-burghers, who had for their pastor an excellent and venerable man named lawson, were the only two buildings in selkirk worthy of notice." the hills are still beautiful; perhaps, owing to extensive tree planting, more beautiful now than then; still within a step of selkirk is the purple heather, and the heartsease and blue-bell a-swing in the summer breeze; still on every side the view lies wide and glorious. and even in the winter, when snow first "grimes" the hills, or when the northern blast has wrapped them in its winding sheet, one can gaze, and repeat with heartfelt and perfect sincerity: "by yarrow's stream still let me stray, though none should guide my feeble way; still feel the breeze down ettrick break, although it chill my wither'd cheek." [illustration: ] "in { }the centre it had a large square adorned with a fountain." the "square" of selkirk is, in effect, a triangle, (in which now stands sir walter scott's monument,) but as to the "fountain," i should have doubts; it was probably what used to be called the "pant well," whence was drawn water (supplied from the { }haining loch) of a body and bouquet indescribable. "hoots!" scornfully cried, in later days, an old woman, apropos of a new and irreproachable supply which had been got for the town from another source, "hoots! it has naether taste nor smell!" alas! that one should record the fact,--in old days the drainage of the upper town (what there was of drainage in those times, that is to say), fell into the haining loch not a hundred yards from the spot where the town's supply was drawn off! and yet people lived in selkirk to unusually great ages. our ancestors were hardy persons; but perhaps it was only the very fit who then survived. it must have been a dull, uneventful, depressing life, that of the prisoners in selkirk, more especially in those months between october and march, when darkness comes early and the days are chill and grey. what news they got was chiefly of fresh disasters to their country's arms in spain, and the rejoicing of the townsfolk over wellington's victories was of necessity exceedingly bitter to the frenchmen. it was execrable taste on the part of the inhabitants of selkirk thus to show their joy, says the writer of the reminiscences--"indelicate," he calls it. but the chances are that they were chiefly mannerless schoolboys who thus misbehaved. i fear he looked for more than poor fallen human nature is prepared to give, if he expected the townspeople entirely to suppress their pleasure. many a heart in selkirk was then following with dire anxiety the movements of our army in the peninsula, dreading the news that any hour might bring of mishap or death to son, brother, or friend; every soul the place took the profoundest interest in the welfare of those men who had gone from their little community "to fecht the french" and, however desirable it might be that the feelings of prisoners should not be lacerated, it seems too much to expect that the townsfolk should go apart in secret places in order to express, without offence, the joy they must feel when those they loved were covering themselves with glory. { }provided that no one was ill-mannered enough to jeer at or to taunt the prisoners, i hardly think they had a right to complain, more especially as they themselves had already sinned in respect of rejoicing openly over victory. on a certain occasion they heard of a great french success in russia. two prisoners concealed themselves and were locked up in the church one sunday after evening service; about midnight these men admitted their comrades, and together they roused sleeping selkirk by a terrific joy-peal of bells. honours were easy between the two nations, i think. both acted under strong feeling; those were strenuous days, and feeling naturally ran high. in the writer's possession are letters sent from spain to selkirk at this period by his grand-uncle, an ensign in the scots brigade, now the th regiment. one, which gives a vivid picture of the storming and capture of ciudad rodrigo on th january, , could not have failed to arouse intense enthusiasm in the town. in so small and friendly a community, no doubt everybody was in possession of the chief details of this letter, (and of any other that might chance to come from a soldier at the front,) within a few hours of its receipt, and that a townsman's regiment should be the first to enter the besieged town would be legitimate ground for extreme pride. the following is an extract from the letter: "about in the afternoon orders came that we were to make the attack at in the evening, the light division at one breach and ours at another. picks and axes were given to the front rank of the grenadiers, and to the first company of our regt., and also ropes to swing us down into the ditch, which we were to clear of any obstructions that were supposed would be laid in our way. accordingly we moved off about dusk, and got under cover of a convent, to a short distance from the ditch; there we remained till the hour of attack; it being come, and everything ready, we rushed forward as fast as our legs could carry us, cheering all the way. on reaching { }the ditch, we found it only about six feet high, so we leaped down as quick as possible and made to the breach with all possible speed, and met with no obstacles. after getting to it, we found ourselves to be the first there; on the front rank getting to the top of it, the enemy saluted us with a volley of grape shot and shells (the latter they had laid across the top in rows) the explosion of which was so dreadful that i thought we should have been all blown up in the air together.... some of the men that had got up to the top came tumbling down, dead as herrings. it stunned us for a moment, but we gave another cheer and rushed on, scrambled to the top and drove the fellows from the guns opposite the breach. our regt. was about five minutes in the town (and it is only men strong) before any other regt. came to its support; at last the th came, and the others followed. the french dogs kept peppering at us with musketry and hand-grenades at such a rate that i well thought we would all have been slain together. at last we drove them from the ramparts into the town, and then they threw down their arms and surrendered. i went down from the ramparts into the town, but such a scene of confusion i never beheld: there were our troops plundering the houses as fast as they were able, one fellow to be seen with two or three loaves stuck on his bayonet, another with as much pork, and in another place a parcel of fellows knocking out the end of a wine cask with their firelocks and drinking away with the greatest fury; some ravishing the women, others breaking open doors, and into all such a noise, altogether inconceivable. this continued four or five hours, and our brigade was shortly after moved out of the town, at which i was very glad.... we had two captains killed, but immediately on their falling a sentry was placed over them, to guard them from being strip't, and had them afterwards brought to the camp and decently buried.... the enemy that night blew up the mines, which killed a great many, both of their { }own men and ours. it was a shocking spectacle, the sight of the dead bodies lying at the place where it happened, all bruised and burnt quite black, some wanting both legs, others blown all to pieces, legs and arms mixed together in confusion; it was there where genl. m'kinnon was killed. you were always wishing to hear of our regt. doing something great; now i think it has done a great deal, but i fear much it will not receive the praise due to it, as it was not intended that it should be the first that should enter the breach, it was only meant that it should clear the way for the other brigade; but somehow or other we got to it before them, and of course did not wait their coming." except on this occasion of the bell-ringing, and one other, when the french officers with some difficulty had induced certain of the townsfolk to drink to the health of the emperor, and to shout "_vive l'empereur_" friendly relations were unbroken. but the latter unpleasantness at one time had threatened to ripen into a very ugly affair. bloodshed was narrowly averted. friendship, however, was restored, and the prisoners continued to make the best of their situation. they obtained a billiard table from edinburgh; they started a café, they opened a theatre, with an excellent orchestra of twenty-five performers "superior to all those to which the echoes of our scottish residence had ever till then resounded." this theatre was established in a barn which then belonged to the writer's grandfather. frescoes on the walls, which had been painted by the prisoners, were still fairly fresh in colour though hopelessly obscure as to design, when the writer saw them in his early boyhood. in connection with the time when peace was proclaimed and the prisoners were being sent back to france, it is pleasant to have to record an incident greatly to the credit of selkirk. the pockets of the frenchmen were naturally, in their situation, not very well filled; indeed, amongst the hundred and ninety they could raise no more than £ , a sum not nearly { }sufficient to provide transport to the sea port of berwick for the entire party. they resolved, therefore, to march on foot, using what money they had to hire carriages for the few among them who were in bad health. after an excited night (spent by most of the ex-prisoners in the market-place, where they shouted and sang till daylight, like a pack of schoolboys), just as they were preparing to set out on their long tramp to berwick, "an altogether unexpected and pleasant sight met our view," writes m. doisy. "vehicles of all kinds came pouring in by the streets converging on the centre of the town, carriages, gigs, tilburys, carts, and a few saddle-horses, all of which had been sent by the inhabitants of the surrounding parts to convey us free of expense as far as kelso, about half-way to berwick. this delicate attention had been so well calculated, and so neatly accomplished, that we could not do otherwise than avail ourselves of it with many thanks. we therefore separated from our selkirk friends without carrying away on the one part or the other any particle of grudge that might previously have existed between us." similar good feeling, however, appears to have been very general between the french prisoners and the people of the many border towns where the former were quartered--though it was almost too much to expect that no unpleasantnesses should ever occur, when we remember how great a bogie the emperor napoleon then was to the majority of british people, and how to hate the french was looked on as almost a virtue. "bless us, and save us, _and keep the french from us_," was a common form of invocation, then and later. persons more ignorant or prejudiced than their neighbours were sure, sooner or later, to overstep the mark, and bring disgrace on their nation by boorish or brutal conduct to the defenceless prisoners. thus, at jedburgh for instance, not only did schoolboys sometimes jeer at and stone the frenchmen, but one bitter old man, who no doubt thought that in hating the french he was only carrying out a manifest duty, actually { }pointed his gun at, and threatened to shoot, a prisoner whom he found outside the mile limit. a very regrettable incident occurred, too, in the same town during rejoicings over a great british victory. an effigy of the emperor, mounted on a donkey, was paraded by torchlight through the streets and was then publicly burned, in full view of the deeply-pained french officers. whatever the faults of the emperor, he was at least adored by his army, and such instances of brutal ill manners were bound to lead to bad blood and to reprisals. amongst themselves, the prisoners do not seem to have been quarrelsome, nor were duels common--for which fact, of course, the lack of suitable weapons may probably have been responsible. there was, however, a duel at lauder between two of the prisoners quartered in that town, and one cannot help thinking that it must have suggested to stevenson the duel in "st. ives," between prisoners in edinburgh castle. in stevenson's novel, they fought with the separated blades of scissors, securely lashed to sticks. at lauder, they used the blades of razors secured in similar fashion. but, whereas in "st. ives" the result was the death of one combatant, in the real duel at lauder no greater harm came of it than slashed faces. it might be bloody enough, a duel with razor-blades, but it could not be very dangerous, except to the tips of noses. it might perhaps be unseemly to quit the subject of selkirk without making at least some mention of a custom which has prevailed there for something like four centuries. the great day of the whole year in selkirk is that of the common riding, the riding of the marches of the town's property. the custom as yet gives no sign of waning in popularity; indeed, as the years pass, it seems to rise steadily in favour, and where one rode fifty years ago there must now be a good half dozen who follow the cavalcade. it is a cheerful ride and a beautiful, in the sweet air of a sunny june morning. selkirk needs no awakening that day by the shrill fifes that are so early afoot in the streets; even the old and the scant of breath { }rise from their beds betimes, and make a push to see the muster of riders in the market place. then it is through the shallows of the gushing river, and away over the breezy hills, for horsemen all filled with enthusiasm if not in all cases very secure of seat. it is a pleasant ride,--away over the hill by "tibbie tamson," the lonely grave of a poor eighteenth century suicide, a selkirk woman, the victim of religious despair. of unpardoned sinners the chief, as she imagined, in a pious frenzy she took her own life; therefore must her body be denied christian burial and the poor privilege of lying beside her friends in "the auld kirk yaird." bundled into a pauper's coffin, she was carted out of selkirk under a hail of stones and of execrations from her righteous neighbours, and here, on the quiet hill, her body found rest. then the route runs across the heather--where whaups wail eerily and the grouse dash out with sudden whir that sets some horses capering--and away to the cairn of the three brethren, overlooking tweed and fairnilee; then down by the nettley burn and across ettrick where queen mary is said to have forded it, and so home by the shawburn. to see the colours "cast" in the market place. and then to breakfast with an appetite that in ordinary circumstances comes only "when all the world is young." it is two hundred years and more since it was ordained that the marches be ridden on the first tuesday of june in each year--formerly, august had been the month--and that the deacons of all the crafts in selkirk were not only to attend themselves, with their horses, but that they were to see that every man of their trade who had a horse should also ride, "all in their best equipage and furniture." why the change was made from august to june, i do not know,--unless it was to permit of the introduction of those immense and very famous gooseberry-tarts which are so conspicuous a feature in common riding rejoicings. the day's arrangements then and earlier, were much as they are now, no doubt. but there are { }no kers now to slay the provost, as in the sixteenth century days of provost muthag. the only danger in these times is that some of the horsemen--unseasoned vessels--may be induced to swallow one or more of the glasses of raw whisky which are passed round with liberal hand as the cavalcade sets out from selkirk. whether this is a practice ordained of old with the laudable object of counteracting any possible risk of chill from the nipping air of the early morning, or whether it is done in order to inspire courage in the possible john gilpins of the assemblage, i know not. yet of those who partake, the major part seem to thrive well enough on it; they are none the worse in the afternoon, when the great body of the townsfolk stream out southward over the hill to the gala rig. here horse races are run, over a course most gloriously situated, where a matchless view lies widespread to the cheviots and down to far liddesdale, and away up among the dim blue hills of ettrick and yarrow. there were races held here at least as early as , and i suppose races of a sort have probably taken place annually on the same ground ever since. chapter xi the ettrick, carterhaugh, oakwood, tushielaw, thirlestane, ettrick kirk |and{ } now we shall go--as they say in selkirk--"up the watters," a phrase which, to us of "the forest," used of old to convey the idea of going on a vast journey. "did ye see the eclipse, on monday?" asked a selkirk man of his crony. "man, _no!_ i was up the watters that day." which reply-conveyed, perhaps not so much the feeling that an eclipse was a frivolous affair pertaining to geographically remote selkirk alone, as that the answerer had been too deeply engaged up the waters with other business to have leisure to attend to such petty trifles as solar phenomena. business "up the watters," one used to understand, was not seldom protracted far into the night, and at times there were lunar phenomena observable, such as double moons, and stars whose place in the heavens was not definitely fixed. leaving selkirk by the ettrick road, in about a couple of miles we come abreast of the spot where yarrow drowns herself in ettrick. and here below bowhill, on the sunny, wooded peninsula formed by the two rivers, lies carterhaugh, scene of that famous fairy tale "the young tamlane." tamlane when a boy of nine was carried off by the fairies. "there came a wind out of the north, a sharp wind and a snell; and a deep sleep came over me, and frae my horse i fell." { }the queen of the fairies "keppit" (caught) him as he fell, and bore him off to dwell in fairyland. there he remained, neither increasing in years nor in stature, but taking at will his human shape, and returning to earth for a time when it pleased him. [illustration: ] carterhaugh was his special haunt, and here, if they did not altogether shun that neighbourhood, young women too often had cause to repent having met him. "o i forbid ye, maidens a', that wear gowd on your hair, to come or gae by carterhaugh, for young tamlane is there." "fair janet," however, was one who would take no warning: "i'll cum and gang to carterhaugh, and ask nae leave o' him," { }said she. and she went. but "she hadna pu'd a red red rose, a rose but barely three; till up and starts a wee wee man, at lady janet's knee." "he's ta'en her by the milk-white hand, amang the leaves sae green,"--and janet rued her visit. later, tamlane tells her how he may be rescued from fairyland, and the ballad relates janet's successful venture: "the night it is good hallowe'en, when fairy folk will ride; and they that wad their true love win at miles cross they maun bide. "gloomy, gloomy, was the night, and eiry was the way, as fair janet in her green mantle, to miles cross she did gae. "the heavens were black, the night was dark, and dreary was the place; but janet stood, with eager wish her lover to embrace. "betwixt the hours of twelve and one, a north wind tore the bent; and straight she heard strange elritch sounds, upon that wind which went. "about the dead hour o' the night, she heard the bridles ring; and janet was as glad o' that as ony earthly thing. "their oaten pipes blew wondrous shrill, the hemlock small blew clear; and louder notes from hemlock large, and bog-reed, struck the ear. "fair janet stood, with mind unmoved, the dreary heath upon; and louder, louder wax'd the sound, as they came riding on. "will o' the wisp before them went, sent forth a twinkling light; and soon she saw the fairy bands all riding in her sight. "and first gaed by the black, black steed. and then gaed by the brown; but fast she grip't the milk-white steed, and pu'd the rider down. "she pu'd him frae the milk white steed, and loot the bridle fa'; and up there raise an erlish cry-- 'he's won among us a'!' "they shaped him in fair janet's arms, an esk, but and an adder; she held him fast in every shape-- to be her bairn's father. "th ey shaped him in her arms at last a mother-naked man: she wrapt him in her green mantle, and sae her true love wan!" a mile or two up the river from carterhaugh, on ettrick's right bank, stands the interesting and well-preserved old tower of oakwood, the property of the scotts of harden, in whose possession it has been since . locally, the belief is implicitly held that this tower was, in the thirteenth century, the residence of the great michael scott, the wizard, out of whose tomb in melrose abbey william of deloraine took "from the cold hand the mighty book, with iron clasp'd, and with iron hound: he thought as he took it the dead man frowned." there _was_ a michael scott who once owned oakwood, but that was long after the wizard's day. in spite of all tradition--for whose birth sir walter is probably responsible--it is not { }likely that the veritable michael (thomas the rhymer's contemporary, and a fifeshire man) ever was near oakwood. [illustration: ] certainly he never lived in the tower that stands now on the steep bank hard by the river. that is no thirteenth century building. i fear, therefore, that the story of michael and the witch of fauldshope, and of how, bursting one day from her cottage in the guise of a hare, he was coursed by his own dogs on fauldshope hill, can no more be connected with selkirkshire than can the legend of his embassy to paris, to which city he journeyed in a single night, mounted on a great coal-black { }steed, who indeed was none other than the foul fiend himself. there is, however, a witchie knowe on fauldshope; perhaps the michael who really did live at oakwood, sometime about the beginning of the seventeenth century, may have had dealings with the woman, which in some way gave rise to the legend. this "witch," by the way, was an ancestress of hogg, the ettrick shepherd. oakwood tower is not very old, and it never was very strong--as the strength of peel towers is reckoned; its walls are little more than four feet in thickness, which is almost flimsy compared with those of its near neighbour, newark. above the dungeons, oakwood is three stories in height, and its external measurements are thirty-eight by twenty-three and a half feet. into one wall is built a stone on which are the initals r.s. l.m, initials of robert scott and his wife, probably a murray. between them is the harden crescent; and below, the date, and , which is no doubt the true year of the present tower's erection. tradition tells of a haunted chamber in oakwood; the "jingler's room," it was called, but what the story was, the writer has not been able to learn. the tower now is used chiefly as a farm building, and if there are any hauntings they probably take the unpleasant form of rats. following up the ettrick, presently we come to the village of ettrickbridgend, near to which are the picturesque kukhope linns and kirkhope tower, a well preserved border peel. in this tower in old days at times dwelt auld wat of harden, or one of his family. tradition tells that it was wat who first spanned ettrick with a bridge. it was a penance, self-inflicted, because of a mishap that occurred at the ford here to a young boy, heir of the nevilles, whom wat had carried off from his home in northumberland. wat's bridge stood a little way above the site of that which now crosses ettrick at ettrickbridgend, and i am told--though i have not seen it--that a stone from the old bridge, with the harden coat of arms carved on it, may now be seen built into the present structure. { } [illustration: ] a little higher up, there falls into ettrirk the dodhead burn, at the head of which is "the fair dodhead," the reputed residence of jamie telfer, hero of the famous ballad. [illustration: ] these border hills have produced from time to time many a long-distance runner of immense local celebrity,--such for instance, as the far-famed will of phaup--but few of them, i imagine, could have "lived" with jamie telfer in that burst of his across the trackless heather and the boggy moors from the dodhead, over by the headwaters of ale, across borthwick, across teviot, on to slitrig at "stobs ha'," and from there back again to teviot at coultercleuch. it must be a good sixteen miles at the least, across a country over which no runner could travel at a pace so fast as that with which the ballad credits jamie. but if anyone did this run, i fear it was no jamie telfer. at least in the fair dodhead up ettrick there was at the supposed date of the ballad, and for generations before, no telfer, but a scott. the dodhead of the ballad must be some other place of the same name, possibly that near penchrise, by skelfhill. following up ettrick, past hyndhope and singlie, we come to deloraine, an ancient possession of the scotts, for ever { }famed through its association with william of deloraine and the "lay of the last minstrel": "a stark moss-trooping scott was he, as e'er couch'd border lance by knee." there are various theories as to the derivation of the name "deloraine." [illustration: ] one, in accord with the local pronunciation of the word--"delorran," with the accent on the second syllable--gives its origin as from the gaelic, "dal grain," the place or land of orain, who, i understand, was a celtic saint. there is also the explanation given by the rev. dr. russell of yarrow, in the statistical account of the parish of . "in , james iv endowed his queen, the lady margaret of england, with the forest of ettrick and tower of newark, which had formerly been the dowry of mary of guelders. hence, probably, our two farms of deloraine (de la reine) received their name, or afterwards perhaps from mary of _lorraine_." one would prefer to adopt dr. russell's interpretation of the name, but probably the place was called "delorran" long before the day of any of the historical characters mentioned. higher still up ettrick is tushielaw, with its fragment of{ } a ruined tower, the home in old days of that formidable freebooter adam scott, "the king of the border," or "king of thieves." local tradition tells that he was hanged by james v to the branch of an ash tree that grew within his own castle walls--retributive justice on a man who had himself, in like manner, sent to their doom so many poor wretches from the branches of that same tree. the ash no longer stands, but in _chambers' gazetteer_ for there is this note concerning it: "it is curious to observe that along its principal branches there are yet visible a number of nicks, or hollows, over which the ropes had been drawn wherewith he performed his numerous executions." like too many local traditions, however, the story of his execution will not bear examination. adam scott was arrested and hanged in edinburgh, a full month before the king set out on his memorable expedition to pacify the border. james certainly laid a heavy hand on the freebooters; and he appears also to have very materially altered the face of things in other ways in these border hills. the timber which clothed them began from this time to disappear--birch and oak it appears to have been for the most part, interspersed with ash, mountain-ash, thorn, and hazel, to judge by the numbers of stumps and pieces of decayed trees still found in mossy ground. they mostly suggest timber of no great size, but now and again the remains of a fine tree are come upon, even in exposed and high-lying situations. the remains of a very large oak, for instance, were discovered some years ago during draining operations among the wild hills right at the head of jed. probably james destroyed a great deal of timber in his efforts to convert the country into a sheep-run. according to pitscottie, the king soon had "ten thousand sheep going in the forest, under the keeping of andrew bell, who made the king as good an account of them as if they had gone in the bounds of fife." { }james v no doubt was a good husbandman,--it was his boast that in these wilds he "made the rush bush keep the cow,"--but he was a better husbandman than he was a sportsman, at least as we now understand the word. [illustration: ] we should now probably call him a pot-hunter. it was early in june when he started on his expedition; young calves are then with the hinds, and the harts are yet low in condition, and "in the velvet" as to their horns. yet pitscottie says: "i heard say he slew in these bounds eighteen score of harts." however, if his expedition had to be made then, { }his army--and it was an army--must necessarily be fed; and no doubt if he wanted to run sheep there, the stock of deer had to be cleared out. [illustration: ] but what a place for game of all kinds this forest must then have been. one may learn from the place-names which still linger among the hills what manner of beasts formerly inhabited this part of the border: ox-cleuch, deer-law, hart-leap, hynd-hope, fawn-burn, wolf-cleuch, brock-hill, swine-brae, boar-cleuch, cat-slack. the hart's-leap is said to have got its name owing to an incident that occurred during king james's expedition in ; a deer, in sight of the king, is said to have cleared at one bound a distance so remarkable that james directed his followers to leave a memorial of the leap. two grey whinstones here, twenty-eight feet apart, are said to be those which were then set up. ox-cleuch was probably so named from some ancient adventure with a urus, or wild bull, or possibly because it was a favourite haunt of those formidable beasts. their skulls are still occasionally dug up during the process of draining swampy lands among our border hills. there is a very fine specimen { }now at synton (between selkirk and hawick), home of one of the oldest branches of the scott family. [illustration: ] if one may judge from that skull, the horns must have been something like twice the size of the ox of the present day. he was the ancestor, i suppose, of the fierce wild cattle of chillingham. { }half a mile, or a little more, above the inn at tushielaw--a comfortable hostelry, and a good fishing centre--the rankle burn flows into ettrick. [illustration: ] up this burn's right bank, through the lonely vale and over the hills runs a road leading to hawick, and on your right, as you head in that direction, a few miles up is buccleuch, one of the earliest possessions in the border of the great scott clan. near the road, in a deep ravine or cleuch, is pointed out the spot where, they say, the buck was slain from which' originated the title of the present ducal house. farther on, just upon the water-shed between ettrick and teviot, is bellenden, which became the scotts' mustering place and whose name was the clan's slogan. as mr. thomson's sketches show, it is a wild country enough; in winter its bleakness at times is surely past the power of words to tell. it must be a hardy race that can live and thrive here. a land of swamp, and sullen, dark, moss-hag, this must have been in days of old. still among the hills, bogs and lochs innumerable are scattered: of the latter, clearburn, ringside, crooked loch, windylaw, hellmuir, alemuir, and various { }others, all within a few miles, but not many, i think, such as need tempt the wandering fisher. a couple of miles up ettrick, above tushielaw, is thirlestane, the seat of lord napier of ettrick, surrounded by its woods. it is a mansion built something less than a hundred years ago, but close to it are the remains of the old thirlestane castle. i do not know if hertford's long arm was responsible in for its ruin. it is probable enough. the stronghold belonged then to sir john scott, a prominent man in those days, and the only scottish baron at fala-muir who did not refuse to follow james v into england, for which reason the king charged "our lion herauld and his deputies for the time be and, to give and to graunt to the said john scott, ane border of ffleure de lises about his coatte of armes, sik as is on our royal banner, and alsua ane bundell of launces above his helmet, with thir words, _readdy, ay readdy_, that he and all his after-cummers may bruik the samine as a pledge and taiken of our guid will and kyndnes for his true worthines." lord napier is this john scott's descendant. across the river from thirlestane are the ruins of another castle--gamescleuch, built by simon scott, named long spear, a son of john of thirlestane. tradition says that gamescleuch was never occupied, but was allowed to fall into decay because its owner, simon of the spear, was poisoned by his step-mother the night before he should have been married and have taken up his abode there. we are getting far into the wild hills now, near to the head of ettrick, by ettrick pen, wind fell, and capel fell, all hills considerably over two thousand feet in height. but before crossing over to yarrow and st. mary's, there remain to be noticed ettrick kirk, and james hogg's birthplace, ettrick hall. ettrick kirk, of course, is inalienably associated with the rev. thomas boston, "boston of ettrick," minister of the parish for a quarter of a century, a man who left a deep mark on the religious life of scotland. he died here in , and { }his monument stands in the little graveyard by the kirk, not lar from the head-stone to the memory of the ettrick shepherd, and near to the spot where, as the stone tells us, "lyeth william laidlaw, the far-famed will of phaup, who for feats of frolic, agility, and strength, had no equal in his day." liaidlaw was hogg's grandfather. [illustration: ] how many persons now-a-days are familiar with, or indeed, perhaps, ever heard of, boston's "fourfold state," or his "crook in the lot"? perhaps in ettrick there may yet be, in cottages, an odd copy or two, belonging to, and possibly yet read by, very old people. but boston, who as a theologian had once so marked an influence, is now little more than a name, even to the descendants of his flock in ettrick, and his books, which { }formerly were to be found in almost every peasant's house in scotland, are unknown to later generations. nor, perhaps, is that great matter for wonder. it must be confessed that these writings, which, up to even quite a recent date, had so great a hold on the scottish peasant, and which, indeed, with the bible formed almost his only reading, do not appeal to present day readers. the plums in the pudding to modern eyes seem few and far between. but there _are_ plums to be found, and many a forcible expression. in "the crook in the lot," for instance, where his theme is profligacy, the expression is a happy one whereby he warns the vicious man against the possibility of a "leap out of delilah's lap into abraham's bosom." like most of his class and creed in those days, boston was stern and unbending in his calvinism, and when he came to ettrick in , he was faced by a state of affairs that bred for a time great friction between minister and congregation. the flock had been for a while without a shepherd, and laxity had crept into their church-going. boston had to complain of the "indecent carriage of the people at the kirk, going out and in, and up and down the kirkyard the time of divine service." but he speedily drilled them into a line of conduct more seemly; and whereas when he dispensed the sacrament for the first time in there had been present only fifty-seven communicants, in when he dispensed it for the last time, there were no fewer than seven hundred and seventy-seven. crowds of people from other parishes came vast distances over the pathless mountains in order to be present. where did they all find food and accommodation, one wonders. the farmers, then as now the most hospitable and kindly of human beings, fed and housed numbers, as a matter of course, but they could not accommodate all, and there was then no inn at tushielaw, none indeed nearer than selkirk. great must have been the fervour of those many scores of men and women who resolutely tramped so far over { }the wild hills to be present at "the sacrament." there were no roads in those days, or practically none. [illustration: ] even at late as , the statistical account of the parish says: "the roads are almost impassable. the only road that looks like a turnpike is to selkirk, but even it in many places is so deep as greatly to obstruct travelling. the distance is about sixteen miles, and it requires four hours to ride it. the snow also at times is a great inconvenience; often for many months we can have no intercourse with our neighbours.... another great disadvantage is the want of bridges. for many hours the traveller is obstructed on his journey when the waters are swelled." such was the condition of the hill country sixty-years after boston's death. in his day it must have been even worse; probably the only road that resembled a road in was a mere track earlier in the century. close by ettrick kirk is ettrick hall, where hogg was born. though in name suggestive of a lordly mansion, it was in reality but a mean, and rather damp, little cottage, or "butt and ben," of which there are now no remains. i understand that the walls fell down about the year . there is { }now a monument to "the shepherd" where the cottage stood; and there is of course the commemorative statue over by st. mary's, hard by "tibbie shiels." hogg was, as the late professor ferrier said: "after hums (_proximus sed longo intervallo_) the greatest poet that has ever sprung from the bosom of the common people." [illustration: ] but to how many of those who visit his birth place, or look on his monument over in yarrow, are his works now familiar? how many of us, indeed, have any but the merest nodding acquaintance even with "kilmeny"? and of his prose waitings, who of the general public, except here and there a one, knows now even the "brownie of bodesbeck," a covenanting story that used to thrill every scottish boy? chapter xii yarrow |in{ } whatever part you take the vale of ettrick, there is about it, and about its scenery and its associations, a charm, different perhaps from that of the more widely famed yarrow, yet almost equally powerful. there is in the summer season a solemnity and a peace brooding over these "round-backed, kindly hills," that act like a charm on the body and mind that are weary. each vale has its distinctive peculiarities, yet each blends imperceptibly into the other. from the head of ettrick by ettrick kirk over to yarrow is but little more than a step across the hills, either by the bridle track by scabcleuch and penistone knowe over to the riskinhope burn and the head of the loch of the lowes, for those afoot; or by the road up tushielaw burn, for those on whom time, or years, press unduly, and who prefer to drive. it is not a very good road, but it serves, though the descent to st. mary's is something of the abruptest,--one in ten, i think. if the bridle track has been followed, as one comes down towards riskinhope, there, on the opposite side of the valley, is chapelhope, for ever associated with hogg's "brownie of bodesbeck." and at riskinhope itself, renwick, last of the scottish covenanting martyrs, preached no long time before his execution at the grassmarket in edinburgh in february, . "when he prayed that day, few of his hearers' cheeks were dry," says the ettrick shepherd. [illustration: ] it was here "where renwick told of one great sacrifice, for he himself had borne in full his cross, and hearts sublimed were round him in the wild, and faces, god-ward turned in fervent prayer, for deeply smitten, suffering flock of christ; and clear uprose the plaintive moorland psalm, heard high above the plover's wailing cry, from simple hearts in whom the spirit strong of hills was consecrate by heavenly grace, and firmly nerv'd to meet, whene'er it came, in his own time, the call to martyrdom." "the plover's wailing cry."--it is curious to note how even to this day the peewit, or plover, is hated in the border hills, because its incessant complaining wail when disturbed so often betrayed to the dragoons the presence of lurking covenanters, or the whereabouts of some conventicle of the persecuted people. the shepherd or the peasant of to-day will stamp on the eggs of the peewit wherever he comes on them, muttering to himself curses on the bird as it wheels and plunges overhead, wailing dolefully. but of yarrow, how is one to write? the task is hopeless, whether it be to speak of its beauty, of its legend, its poetry, or of its associations. from scott and wordsworth downwards, what poet has not sung its praises? however halting may be his pen, what writer in prose has not tried in words to picture its scenes? it is left to one now only to repeat what has been said by better men; at the best, one may but paraphrase the words of another. there is nothing new to be said of yarrow, no fresh beauty to be pointed out. its charm affects each one differently; each must see and feel for himself. but whether the season be sweetest summer-tide, or that when winter's blast comes black and roaring down the glens, fiercely driving before it sheets of water snatched from the tortured bosom of lone saint mary's,--there, still, abides the indescribable charm of yarrow. yet on the whole, i think almost that i should prefer my visit to be in the winter time, if a few fine days might be assured, or days at least without storm. in the summer season now, and especially since the advent of the motor car, from morning till night so constant a stream of visitors and { }tourists passes through the vale, and along the lake side, that even yarrow's deathless charm is broken, her peace disturbed; one's soul can take no rest there now, far from the clamour of the outer world. [illustration: ] no longer may one quote alexander anderson's beautiful lines: "what boon to lie, as now i lie, and see in silver at my feet saint mary's lake, as if the sky had fallen 'tween those hills so sweet. "and this old churchyard on the hill, that keeps the green graves of the dead, so calm and sweet, so lone and still, and but the blue sky overhead." and yet, even in summer, if one can betake oneself to the old churchyard of st. mary of the lowes, at an hour when the chattering, picnic-ing tourist is far from the scene, one may still lie there and dream, unvexed by care; and, if fate be kind, one may yet spend long restful days among the hills, beside some crooning burn that ". . . half-hid, sings its song in hidden circlings'neath a grassy fringe"; still rejoice in the unspoilt moorlands and the breezy heights: "there thrown aside all reason-grounded doubts, all narrow aims, and self-regarding thoughts, out of himself amid the infinitude, where earth, and sky, and god are all in all." [illustration: ] and in these hills, what fitter place can there be for dreams than st. mary's chapel, overlooking the silent lake, with yarrow gliding from its bosom? here you will find a sabbath peace, as placid as when "... on sweet sabbath morns long gone, folks wended to st. mary's forest kirk, where mass was said and matins, softly sung, were borne in fitful swell across the loch; and full of simple vision, there they saw in kirk and quire, the brier and red rose, that fondly meet and twin'd o'er lover's graves, who fled o' night through moor up black cleuch heights pass'd through the horror of the mortal fight, where margaret kiss'd a father's ruddy wounds." { }the ballad of the douglas tragedy is known to everyone; it need not be quoted. [illustration: ] this is the kirk where the lovers lie buried, almost within distant sight of the ancient tower from which they had fled, and whose ruins are still to be seen near blackhouse, on the douglas burn. the douglas stones, which, tradition tells us, mark the spot where lady margaret's seven brothers fell under the sword of her lover, are out high on the moor: but there are eleven, not seven, stones, though only three are left standing. it was at blackhouse, one may remember, that sir walter first made the acquaintance of willie laidlaw, whose father was tenant of the farm. james hogg was shepherd here from to , but he had left before sir walter's visit, though the two met very shortly after. it was whilst hogg was in service here that there came the tremendous snow storm of , of which he gave so vivid a description in blackwood's magazine of july, . there are now no remains of the chapel of st. mary; "o lone st. mary of the waves, in ruin lies thine ancient aisle." { }it was destroyed about the year , and was never rebuilt. a cranstoun, flying from the scotts, sought sanctuary in the holy building, and the scotts, heedless of the terrors of excommunication, burnt it down. "they burned the chapel for very rage," says the lay, because cranstoun escaped them. the churchyard is little used now, but a few privileged families do still, i understand, bury their dead in that quiet spot. it is an enviable place in which to lie at rest, where the lark sings high in air, and the free wind comes soughing over the hill. near to the burial ground is the mound called binram's coise, the grave, they say, of a wizard priest, whose bones might not find rest in hallowed ground. "strange stories linger'd in those lonely glens,-- of that weird eve when wizard binram old, was laid in drear unrest, beyond hallow'd ground; how, at bell-tolling by no mortal hand, and voices saying words which no man knew, there rose such shrieks from low depths of the lake, and such wild echoes from the darken'd hill, that holy men fled from the scant fill'd grave, and left bare buried that unholy priest." across the loch from the quiet grave-yard on the hill, lies "bowerhope's lonely top," and bowerhope farm, so loved of its tenant of many years ago. in his "reminiscences of yarrow," the late rev. dr. russell mentions that "bowerhope farmhouse was so low in the roof that my father at the exhortations had to stand between two of the rafters, so that the kitchen full of people and full of smoke was not the most pleasant place to speak in. yet old sandy cunningham, the tenant, used to say: 'ministers may talk o' heevin' as they like; commend me to bowerhope; i cud tak a tack [lease] o't to a' eternity.'" on our right, on the same side of the loch with us as we stand facing bowerhope, is henderland, where, on a spot called the chapel knowe, is a grave-slab, and on it, sculptured, a sword and what appear to be armorial bearings, with the inscription: { }"here lyis perys of cokburne and hys wyfe marjory." this, we used to be told, was the grave of a famous freebooter, whom king james v, (dropping in, as it were, one day while the unsuspecting reiver sat at dinner,) took, and hanged over the gate of his own castle, the tower whose weather-battered fragments are still to be seen here. [illustration: ] his wife, it was said, fled to the adjacent dow glen, a rocky chasm through which rushes the henderland burn, and there, says sir walter scott, cowering on what is still called the lady's seat, she strove "to drown amid the roar of a foaming cataract, the tumultuous noise which announced the close of his existence." but cokburne of henderland, like adam scott of tushiealaw, was executed in edinburgh, before king james set out on his expedition. moreover, that cokburn of henderland's christian name was { }william. this, therefore, cannot be the grave of james' victim in . but whatever the real story of "perys cokburne and hys wyfe, marjory," their fate has given rise to a ballad fuller of pathos than all the countless pathetic ballads of yarrow, "my love he built me a bonny bower, and clad it a' wi' lilye flower, a brawer bower ye ne'er did see, than my true love he built for me. "there came a man, by middle day, he spied his sport and went away; and brought the king that very night, who brake my bower, and slew my knight. "he slew my knight, to me sae dear; he slew my knight, and puin'd his gear; my servants all for life did flee, and left me in extremitie. "i sewed his sheet, making my mane; i watch'd the corpse, myself alane; i watch'd his body, night and day; no living creature came that way. "i took his body on my back, and whiles i gaed, and whiles i sat; i digged a grave, and laid him in, and happ'd him with the sod sae green. "but think na ye my heart was sair, when i laid the moul' on his yellow hair; o think na ye my heart was wae, when i turn'd about, away to gae? "nae living man i'll love again, since that my lovely knight is slain, wi' ae lock of his yellow hair i'll chain my heart for evermair." just by henderland is coppercleuch, (called cappercleuch in my boyhood,) and below it, megget, flowing into the loch--a troutful stream, at least in earlier days. pike used to bask in { }the shallows here of a hot summer's day; perhaps even yet they do so. but i think these fish are more numerous now in the loch of the lowes than in st. mary's. [illustration: ] up megget's left bank runs a hill road leading over into tweedsmuir. it has been negotiated by motors, but it is far from being a desirable road for that form of traffic, or indeed for any except foot traffic. the surface is rough and hilly, and where it plunges down past talla linns it is exceedingly steep, and n places very soft. higher up the loch than coppercleuch is the rodono hotel, and beyond, on the isthmus at the very head of st. mary's, "tibbie's," that famous little hostelry, haunt lang syne of christopher north and hogg; "tibbie's," with its queer little antiquated box-beds, that i believe even yet exist. but it is not the "tibbie shiels" of north's day, or even of much later { }days; it has not the same simplicity; it has grown, and is no longer the simple little cottage into which tibbie and her husband entered just ninety years ago this year of . [illustration: ] robert chambers described it in as "a small, neat house, kept by a decent shepherd's widow... it is scarcely possible to conceive anything more truly delightful than a week's ruralizing in this comfortable little mansion, with the means of so much amusement at the very door, and so many interesting objects of sight and sentiment lying closely around." perhaps in some ways it is as delightful now as ever; but motors and bicycles have changed its air, and its aspect. they seem as inconsistent with the air of "tibbie's" as would be a railway train, or penny steamers on the loch. necessarily, there is now about the place a more commercial air; it is no longer the mere cottage, with its simple fare of oatmeal porridge,--cooked as nowhere now it is cooked; milk, rich and frothy; of ham and eggs, the mere whiff of which would bring you in ravenous from loch or hill; of fresh caught trout fried in oatmeal and still sizzling as they were brought in. there are trout now as of { }old, no doubt, and hens yet lay eggs, and pigs are turned to bacon; but you eat now with a sense of having a train to catch, or a motor hurriedly to jump into; your eye seems to be ever on the clock, and the old air of leisure and of peace is gone. tibbie shiel herself departed in time. she who, when all the world was young, listened many a time to that shepherd who had "found in youth a harp among the hills, dropt by the elfin people," i think could ill have brooked this twentieth century rush and hurry; she was spared the trial of finding the pure air of st. mary's poisoned by the stench of petrol fumes. a native of ettrick, born in , tibbie lived at her home in yarrow till the summer of , and she lies in the same kirk-yaird that "haps" all that is mortal of james hogg. and here by the loch, almost at her door, with plaid around him, the shepherd sits in effigy, as christopher north predicted to him in , with "honest face looking across st. mary's loch and up towards the grey mare's tail, while by moonlight all your own fairies will weave a dance round its pedestal." they were weird things, those box beds, that have been mentioned as still existing in tibbie shiel's cottage, weird, and responsible for much ill-health, more especially one would suppose, for consumption. they were built into the wall of a room, and they had wooden doors that could be drawn close at night, entirely cutting them off from the room, and jealously excluding every breath of fresh air. some had a very small sliding trap, or eyelet hole, in one of the doors, opening at the side just above the pillow, but the custom was, as i understand, to shut even that. the box-bed was of old almost universal in peasants' cottages in the border. no doubt it gave a certain amount of privacy to the occupant or occupants, but what countless forms of disease it must have fostered! the present writer can remember the case of a young man of twenty-five or so, who, to the puzzled wonder of his friends, { }died of a galloping consumption. "i canna think hoo he could hae gotten't," said his sister to the daughter of her mistress. "he was aye _that_ carefu' o' himsel'. od! he wad hap himself up that warm, an' he aye drew the doors o' his bed close, an' shuttit the verra keek-hole. na! i canna think hoo he could hae catched it." [illustration: ] to add to the sanitary joys of those homes of disease germs, it was, too, the almost universal custom to use the space below the bed as a kind of store house. the writer can remember as a boy to have seen in one of the most decent and respectable of such cottages, bags of potatoes stowed under the sleeping place occupied by a husband and wife! { }quitting now the loch, and following the road that leads down yarrow to selkirk, on our left, half a mile or so from the road and overhanging the burn, stands the massive little tower of dryhope. this was the birthplace, about the year , of the beautiful mary scott, the flower of yarrow, bride of scott of harden. i suppose that harden must have succeeded his father-in-law in the possession of dryhope, for in , james vi issued orders to demolish the tower of dryhope, "pertaining to walter scott of harden who was art and part of the late treasonable act perpetuate against his highness' own person at falkland." james' instructions, however, cannot have been carried out very effectually, if at all, for dryhope, though roofless, is in rather better preservation than are the majority of border peels. and now, on the far side of yarrow, we pass altrive, the farm which, from till his death in , hogg leased from the duke of buccleuch, at a merely nominal rent. here, as allan cunningham said, he had "the best trout in yarrow, the finest lambs on its braes, the finest grouse on its hills, and as good as a _sma' still_ besides." indeed he must almost have needed a "sma' still," in order effectually to entertain the crowds of people who came here unasked, to visit him, once he had established his reputation as a hon. the tax on him must have been even heavier in proportion than it was on sir walter at abbotsford. farther down, by the intersection of the cross road that leads over to traquair and tweed, there is the gordon arms, snuggest of fishing quarters, where in the endless twilights of june and july you may lie long awake, yet half steeped in sleep, listening contentedly to the wavering trill of whaups floating eerily over the hill in the still night air; or in the lightest dreamland you forecast the basket of tomorrow. it was here, at the gordon arms, that scott and hogg parted for the last time in the autumn of , when the waters were already rising high that were so soon to close over sir walter's head. slowly they { }walked together a mile down the road, scott leaning heavily on hogg's shoulder, and "i cannot tell what it was," wrote the latter afterwards, "but there was something in his manner that distressed me. [illustration: ] he often changed the subject very abruptly, and never laughed. he expressed the deepest concern for my welfare and success in life more than i had ever heard him do before, and all mixed with sorrow for my worldly misfortunes. there is little doubt that his own were then preying on his vitals." in truth sir walter then might well "never laugh." he had already had a slight paralytic stroke, and he could not but realise that the end of his titanic labours was approaching. a few miles down stream from the gordon arms, we come to yarrow kirk, and yarrow manse, smiling in a valley that to me in some strange way always speaks of sunshine and of peace. perhaps it is due to thoughts of those who laboured here so long, and who gave to everyone "that best portion of a good man's life-- his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love." { }i think i am not mistaken in saying that in this parish of yarrow there have been during a hundred and twenty-two years only three ministers. [illustration: ] from to there were the russells, father and son,--the reverend dr. robert russell and the reverend dr. james russell, whose names were household words far beyond the bounds of yarrow, and at whose manse old and young, rich and poor, were equally made welcome. and after them came the reverend dr. borland, who died in , and whose "raids and reivers" is a border classic. it is a remarkable record, and a wonderful testimony to the pure air of yarrow. during his long life dr. robert russell never spent a single day in bed, nor until three days before his death was he ever prescribed for by a doctor. yarrow kirk was built in , and the first minister of the { }parish after the revolution was the reverend john rutherford, maternal great-grandfather of sir walter scott. dr. james russell gives a quaint account of the church as it was in , in the time of his father. "the interments," he says, "which had taken place in the course of nearly two hundred years, and the wish for proximity to church walls, had had the effect of raising the ground of the graveyard around the church considerably above its level. in front, the earth outside was two feet, and at the corner of the aisle fully four feet higher. in consequence, the lower walls were covered with a green damp, and the rain water flowed into the passages. in winter the water froze, and my father used to say that he often got a slide to the pulpit." this matter, however, was remedied in , when many improvements were made in and around the church. one improvement which dr. russell mentions had to do with the shepherds' dogs, which then invariably accompanied their masters to church--a practice which i think died out but recently. "there were no doors on the seats," says dr. russell, "and nothing but a narrow deal in each as a footboard, and no separation below between them. the planking on the passages was very deficient, and a great deal of the earthen floor was thus exposed, and it can easily be imagined that when the shepherds from ettrick, as well as from yarrow, came to church, each shepherd as regularly accompanied by his dog as encased in his plaid--no matter what the weather or the season--what frequent rows there were. on the slightest growl they all pricked up their ears. if a couple of them fell out and showed fight, it was the signal for a general _mêlée_. the rest that were prowling about, or half asleep at their masters' feet, rushed from their lairs, found a way through below the pews, and among the feet of the occupants, and raised literally such a _dust_ as fairly enveloped them. then the strife waxed fierce and furious, the noise became deafening, the voice of the minister was literally drowned, and he was fain to pause, whether in preaching or in { }prayer. two or three shepherds had to leave their places and use their _nibbies_ unmercifully before the rout was quelled, and the service of the sanctuary resumed." such a scene as the above was quite an ordinary occurrence in a country church in scotland, early in the nineteenth century--and in remote districts even later than that; minister and congregation were accustomed to it, and took it as a matter of course. the shepherd's dogs could not be left behind to their own devices; and it was a matter of necessity that their master should go to church. there was no more to be said, not even when the dogs (as they often did) with long-drawn howls joined in the singing of the psalms. and when the benediction was pronounced, (which "to cheat the dowgs," was always done with the congregation seated,) then, at the first movement after it, a perfect storm of barking broke out as the dogs poured out of the building ahead of the people. just below yarrow church are the ruins--i think not much more than the foundations--of deuchar tower, a scott stronghold, perhaps, like so many others, or maybe a holding of some descendent of the outlaw murray. and hard by deuchar mill is the picturesque old bridge with its broken arch stretched, like the stump of a maimed arm, towards the farther shore of yarrow. it is a bridge that dates from about the year . the burgh records of peebles for that year show that the magistrates then ordained "that all in the town who have horses shall send the same for a. day, to carry lime for the said brig, under a penalty of forty shillings." that bridge stood till , when the south arch was wrecked by a great flood. to restore the arch was a task at that time beyond the means of the district, and for some years those who lived on the south side of yarrow and who wished to attend yarrow church, could do so only at the cost of wading the water, a feat in flood time impossible, and in the winter season a trial to be endured with difficulty even by the most hardy. the dead, in many instances, could not be buried beside their friends in the { }old churchyard; children born in parts of the parish south of yarrow could be baptised only at uncertain times and after indefinite delay; and marriages frequently had to be postponed. [illustration: ] finally, of the money required for repair of the bridge, owing to various circumstances only the half could be raised, and the arch put in after a delay of several years was of such peculiar construction, and so steep and causeway-like on the south side that it was not without difficulty that even an empty cart could cross. "besides," says dr. russell, "there was little earth on the stones that formed the arch to steady and protect it." nevertheless, it held together for the best part of a century, and then, suddenly, it collapsed one winter's afternoon, just after the roadman's cart had crossed. a new bridge had been erected just opposite the church, and no farther attempt was { }made to repair the old one. there it stands, a pathetic and picturesque memorial of old days. [illustration: ] it seems always to me that these old broken bridges--there are two in yarrow--strike a note fittingly attuned to the dirge murmured by the water as it wanders through the vale, strikingly in keeping with its mournful traditions and with the inexplicable sadness that for ever broods here. this is the very heart of the dowie dens of yarrow. here is the scene of the so-called "duel" between john scott of tushielaw and his brother-in-law, walter scott, third son of robert scott of thirlestane. "late at e'en, drinking the wine, and ere they paid the lawing they set a combat them between, to fecht it in the dawing." assassination, however, rather than duel, seems to have been the word applicable to the combat. "as he gaed up the tinnies bank, i wot he gaed wi' sorrow, till, down in a den he spied nine armed men, on the dowie houms of yarrow. "'oh, come ye here to part your land. the bonnie forest thorough? or come ye here to wield your brand on the dowie houms of yarrow?' 'i come not here to part my land, and neither to beg nor borrow; i come to wield my noble brand on the bonnie banks of yarrow.' 'if i see all, ye're nine to ane, and that's an unequal marrow; yet will i fight while lasts my brand, on the bonnie banks of yarrow.' four has he hurt, and five has slain, on the bludie braes of yarrow; till that stubborn knight came him behind and ran his body thorough. 'yestreen i dreamed a doleful dream; i fear there will be sorrow! i dreamed i pu'd the heather green, wi my true love on yarrow. 'o gentle wind that bloweth south, from where my love repaireth, convey a kiss frae his dear mouth, and tell me how he faireth!' * but in the glen strove armed men; they've wrought me dule and sorrow; they've slain--the comeliest knight they've slain-- he bleeding lies on yarrow.' as she sped down yon high, high hill, she gaed wi' dule and sorrow, and in the glen spied ten slain men on the dowie banks of yarrow. she kissed his cheek, she kaimed his hair, she searched his wounds all thorough; she kissed them till her lips grew red, on the dowie houms of yarrow." { }here too, a little above deucbar bridge, and beyond the church, it, the famous "inscribed stone" of yarrow, on the merits of which, as on the question of its age, i am not qualified to express an opinion. the place where, it stands was waste moorland about the beginning of last century, and the stone was uncovered when the first attempts were being made to reclaim it. in his "reminiscences of yarrow," dr. james russell says on this subject: "on more than twenty different spots of this moor were large cairns, in many of which fine yellow dust, and in one of which an old spear-head, was found. two unhewn massive stones still stand, about a hundred yards distant from each other, which doubtless are the monuments of the dead. the real tradition simply bears that here a deadly feud was settled by dint of arms: the upright stones mark the place where the two lords or leaders fell, and the bodies of followers were thrown into a marshy pool called the dead lake, in the adjoining haugh. it is probable that this is the locality of "the dowie dens of yarrow." about three hundred yards westward, when the cultivation of this moor began, the plough struck upon a large flat stone of unhewn greywacke bearing a latin inscription. bones and ashes lay beneath it, and on every side the surface presented verdant patches of grass." the inscription is difficult to decipher, and readings differ; all, however, seem to agree as to the termination: "_hic jacent in tumulo duo filli liberalis_;" and it is supposed to date from about the fifth century. still following the stream downwards we come to hangingshaw, in ancient days home of the murrays. in hangingshaw tower--long demolished--dwelt the outlaw murray, who owned "nae king in christentie." "fair philiphaugh is mine by right, and lewinshope still mine shall be; newark, foulshiells, and tinnies baith, my bow and arrow purchased me. "and i have native steads to me, the newark lee and hanginshaw." { }of the bold outlaw's stock there remains now in the border not one representative, and the last of their lands has passed from them. at foulshiels, a couple of miles farther down, by the roadside stand the walls of the modest dwelling in which was born mungo park, the famous african explorer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a man of whom another traveller of our own day, himself among the greatest, has said: "for actual hardship undergone, for dangers faced, and difficulties overcome, together with an exhibition of the virtues which make a man great in the rude battle of life, mungo park stands without a rival." his dauntless spirit stands out conspicuous in the last words he ever sent home: "though the europeans who were with me were dead, and though i myself were half dead, i would still persevere, and if i could not succeed in the object of my journey, i would at last die on the niger." that, i think, is the same fearless spirit that has so recently touched to the core the inmost heart of the nation, the spirit displayed in the last message home of another dauntless explorer and his comrades, who have perished also for duty's sake. but park was less heard of then--more than a century back; news filtered slowly in those days; he did not at the moment become a national hero. and if a man is seldom a prophet in his own country, it is surely from members of his own family that he is apt last of all to receive the honour which is his due. when mungo came home in from his first african expedition, his elder brother, then tenant of foulshiels, ("a man," says lockhart, "remarkable for strength both of mind and body,") chanced to be in selkirk when the explorer arrived there. that night, as the worthy farmer lay asleep in bed, he was awakened by his mother, who told him to get up; there was "a man chappin' (knocking) at the door." "oh, ay!" drowsily muttered the disturbed sleeper, weary from a long day passed at the market, turning himself over in { }bed, "i daursay that'll be oor munga. i saw him gettin' aff the coach in selkirk the day." [illustration: ] it was this archibald park who was riding one day with sir walter scott--"the shirra"--. when, in a desolate part of the country, they came unexpectedly on a desperate gang of gipsies, one of whom was "wanted" for murder. park did not hesitate an instant, but seized the man and dragged him away from under the very noses of his lawless, threatening comrades. opposite to foulshiels, on the farther bank of yarrow, stands "newark's stately tower," the most famous, and i think, from its situation, the most beautiful of all the border strongholds. situation and surroundings are perfect; i know of no scene more captivating, whether you view it from foulshiels, or stand by the castle itself, or, climbing high up on its ramparts, gaze around where wood and hill and stream blend in a beauty that is matchless. and from far below comes the voice of yarrow, chafing among its rocks and boulders, moaning perhaps as it moaned that cruel day after the battle of philiphaugh, when, on slain man's lea, hard by the castle, lesly's prisoners were butchered in cold blood. newark is the best preserved of all the famous border { }towers. and this we owe to the house of buccleuch. writing of the ancient towers of ettrick and yarrow, the reverend dr. james russell says: "some of them were burned down when clans were in conflict with each other; but what was allowable in the period of border warfare was without excuse in our times of peace. even the grim grey ruins were interesting features of the landscape, and worthy of being spared. but, worse than 'time's destroying sway,' the ruthless hand of vandalism has swept the greater part of them away, as standing in the way of some fancied improvement, or to employ the material for building some modern dyke or dwelling. even newark castle, the stateliest of them all, was thus desecrated through the bad taste of the factor of the day, so recently as the beginning of this [the nineteenth] century, and the best of the stones from the walls and enclosing fence pulled down for the building of a farmhouse immediately in front on the slain man's lea. the present noble proprietor [the fifth duke of buccleuch, who died in ], was so displeased and disgusted with the proceedings, that when he came into power he swept the modern houses away, and restored stones that in an evil hour had been abstracted, and put the ancient pile into a state of perfect preservation." built sometime before --it is referred to as the "new werke" in a charter of that date to archibald, earl of douglas,--newark castle was a royal hunting seat; the royal arms are carved on a stone high up on its western wall. but in its time it has seen war as well as sport; in lord grey captured it for edward vi, and in it was garrisoned for a while by cromwell's men after dunbar. it is of peace, however, rather than of war that one thinks when wandering here; and one recalls how anne, duchess of monmouth and buccleuch, quilting the throng of men and the hideous later turmoil of her life, retired here with her children after the execution of her unhappy husband in . to what more beautiful and restful scene could she have carried the burden of her sorrows? { }it is she to whom, in newark, the "last minstrel" recites his lay. [illustration: ] "the duchess mark'd his weary pace, his timid mien, and reverend face, and bade her page the menials tell, that they should tend the old man well: for she had known adversity, though born in such a high degree; in pride of power, in beauty's bloom, had wept o'er monmouth's bloody tomb!" turning away now from sight of newark, and from foulshiels, the road sweeps winding down the yarrow, high over wooded banks, and "... sweet in harewood sing the birds, the sound of summer in their chords;" past harewood, its braes shimmering in the summer sun, yarrow far below, plunging through deep black pools that seem fathomless, and boiling angrily where hindering rocks essay to check its course. this, i think, is the most beautiful part of all yarrow, as beautiful as the stream's higher reaches, but { }wilder, with higher,--almost precipitous--banks, rich draped in woods. away far over to the right across the river, among the trees lies bowhill; and down past the "general's brig" we leave philiphaugh house on the left, and the cairn that commemorates the battle, pass near the junction pool of yarrow and ettrick; then quitting yarrow, we rejoin the 'tweed road opposite selkirk, and once more come to yair bridge. "sweet smells the birk, green grows, green grows the grass, yellow on yarrow's braes the gowan, fair hangs the apple frae the rock, sweet the wave of yarrow flowan." "flows yarrow sweet? as sweet, as sweet flows tweed, as green its grass, its gowan yellow, as sweet smells on its braes the birk, the apple frae the rock as mellow." chapter xiii upper tweed, yair, fairnilee, ashiesteel, eubank, innerleithen, traquair |sweet{ } in truth flows tweed here, as all will own who leisurely wend their way--it is too beautiful to justify hurried progress--under leafy boughs where the sun slants down in fairy pattern on a road divorced by but a narrow edge of greenest grass from the clear, hurrying river. here, at your very hand, you may see countless i! ripples of the rising trout, that feed beneath the elms of yair." there over against you on the far bank of tweed is yair itself; and on the hither side, nestling above a lofty bank among its grand old trees, the beautiful ruin of fairnilee, with its hospitable modern mansion hard by. it was in this line old seventeenth-century scottish mansion that alison rutherfurd wrote her exquisite version of the "flowers of the forest." in the old ruined house the little room in which she wrote is still intact, and now is carefully preserved from farther possibility of decay. but why, one wonders vainly, why was a place so fair ever abandoned, and allowed so long to crumble away as if it had been a thing accursed? "gin ye wad meet wi' me again, gang to the bonny banks o' fairnilee;" said the queen of faery to true thomas. and were she here now in the border land, to no more enchanting spot could she tryst in the sunny slope above the river, the giant limbs of { }mighty trees green with the leafy crown of june, or flushed with the blood red and orange of autumn; [illustration: ] the ceaseless song of water gushing over the cauld and dashing among the boulders below; the wide expanse that carries the eye through the waving boughs over the gleaming belt of water, and away far up the hill purpling with the bloom of heather,--or late in the season, "grymed" with the new fallen snow,--up and over to the broad summit of the three brethren cairn. in very truth it is itself a fairyland, and, standing here, to the mind comes, { } [illustration: ] { }irresistibly, thought of the hidden gold of fairnilee that in boyhood one sought for so diligently. [ ] then, higher up the river a mile or thereby, at the foot of neidpath hill, the long deep, swift hurrying stream in which, when autumn floods have done their work, there is not a yard where a lordly salmon may not be hooked. and higher still, there is caddonfoot, and clovenfords, in whose little inn sir walter used to stay before he lived at ashiesteel; and the nest, snug quarters of a famous edinburgh fishing club, among whose members in old days was included the name of many an eminent scot. then opposite the nest, across the river, ashiesteel, which, almost more eloquently than even abbotsford itself, speaks of sir walter. here were spent the seven happiest years of his life; here he wrote the "lay of the last minstrel," "marnuon," and "the lady of the lake"; here came into his service those most faithful of followers, mathieson (his coachman) and tom purdie, the latter, before the good fortune that brought him to the notice of "the shirra," a most accomplished poacher of { }salmon. who has not read, and smiled over, the tales that scrope tells of him in his "days and nights of salmon fishing in tweed?" purdie's eccentricities were many, his tongue free and outspoken to an extent that one would suppose might at times have ruffled the temper even of a man so tolerant and sweet-tempered as scott. yet the attachment that sprang up between the three, sir walter, mathieson, and purdie, was of the deepest and most abiding, ending only with their lives. all men--all living things, one might say--loved scott; these two adored him, and their master's affection for them, and his trust in them, were profound. mathieson outlived the others; purdie was the first to go. the end was very sudden, and the blow affected sir walter as if the death had been that of a near and dear relative. a niece of mungo park used to tell afterwards of sir walter's visit to the widow, as related by mrs. purdie herself. there came a tap at the door, she said, and he came silently in, sitting down without a word in the chair that mrs. purdie handed to him. and, "he juist grat, an' better grat, the tears rinnin' doon his cheeks." at last the poor woman said brokenly; "ye mauna tak' on that way, sir walter. ye mauna tak' on. ye'll maybes get some other body juist as guid as tam." "_no_, my dear old friend," he said, at length mastering his emotion. "no. there can never be but one tom purdie." in truth no one could, and no one ever did, replace him. a very few years, and mathieson drove his master for the last time, that memorable drive in september, , when the horses of their own accord stopped at his favourite view above bemersyde; that september when the whole world mourned for him who was gone, who yet lives for ever, not alone in border hearts, but in the affection of all humanity. in sir walter's day, no bridge spanned the river at ashiesteel, and the ford was not always a safe one; sir walter and his horse on at least one occasion, when the water was heavy, had to swim when crossing. but "the shirra" was always the most reckless of riders, and would plunge in where none dared follow. "the deil's in ye, shirra," said mungo park's brother to him--not on one occasion only--"the deil's in ye. ye'll never halt till they bring ye hame with your feet foremost." it was at this ashiesteel ford that leyden, when sir walter's guest, came to grief. he and "the shirra," and mr. laidlaw of peel were riding one day. leyden was talking, as one having authority, of the paces and good manners of arab horses, and telling tales of the marvellous skill with which their owners managed them. "here," said he, gathering up his reins, "is one of their feats"----; but just at that moment the pony on which he rode (_not_ a docile arab steed) took it into its head to bolt down the steep bank into tweed, and leyden disappeared over its head into the stream. "ay, ay, dr. leyden, is _that_ the way the arabs ride?" said laidlaw { }gravely, when the rider reappeared, dripping like a river-god. [illustration: ] up the glenkinnon burn from ashiesteel, at williamhope ridge, is the spot where scott said his last farewell to mungo park. at the open drain which then separated moor from road, park's horse stumbled badly. "a bad omen, mungo, i'm afraid," said sir walter. "freits (omens) follow them that fear them," cried park, gaily, setting off at a brisk canter. [illustration: ] "i stood and looked after him; but he never looked back," scott used to tell, afterwards. and they met no more. ere very many months had passed, park lay dead, somewhere by that great african river with whose name his own will be for ever linked. but williamhope has older memories than this; "william's cross" was the name given to a great stone on the hill here, which marked the spot where the knight of liddes-dale fell, slain by his kinsman's sword one august day in . { }quilting the neighbourhood of ashiesteel, the road, in close company now with the railway from galashiels to peebles, still winds up the beautiful banks of tweed, past thornilee and holylee, past boulder-strewn reaches and pleasant streams where big trout lie,--"a chancier bit ye canna hae," i think stoddart says,--on past where, high on the farther side, overhanging the river, stand the crumbling ruins of elibank castle. this was a stronghold built--or possibly only enlarged--in by sir gideon murray, father of muckle mouthed meg, heroine of the story which tells how young scott of harden, caught reiving the murrays' cattle, was given his choice between matrimony and the rope and "dule-tree." harden, it is said, at first chose the latter, but at the last moment, as a mate scarcely to be preferred to death, took the lady. there was probably a good deal of bravado and "bluff" about harden's wavering--if indeed the story is a true one. but in any case it was a wedding in which the proverb: "happy the wooing that's not long adoing," was well exemplified. all went well with bride and with reluctant bridegroom; they "lived happy ever after," as in the most orthodox fairy tale. and of their descendants, one was our own sir walter. and now we come to walkerbum and innerleithen, manufacturing townships. the latter, with its famed medicinal well, has been identified, or identifies itself, with st. ronan's of the waverley novels. it is prettily situated on the leithen, by wide spreading haughs, and the surroundings, like all in tweedale, cannot fail to attract. but what may be said of innerleithen, on top of that terrible report issued in by h. m. stationery office? it will take some living down, if all that was then said by the tweed pollution commission is without exaggeration, and if--as one is informed--nothing has yet been done to sweep away, or at least greatly to improve, the conditions revealed. here is what the report says of the river leithen, a stream in former days called by sir thomas dick lauder "a fine trouting river." "occasionally, in time of { } [illustration: ] { }heavy rainfall, severe floods occur on the leithen; when these occur, a large amount of water flows down the bed of the stream, which is usually dry, carrying with it all the rubbish and filth to the tweed. [illustration: ] the mills are supplied with water from the mill-lade, and one of them obtains water from the tweed when necessary. the people of the town are entirely engaged in the woollen industry; wool scouring, weaving, and dyeing are all carried on here. the town is sewered. all the sewage is collected in an outfall sewer, which discharges into the mill-lade below the lowermost mill, and about three hundred yards from the tweed; there is no attempt at purification of { }the sewage. the liquid refuse from the mills is discharged into the lade. the water of the lade where it discharges to the tweed is very foul with sewage and dye water... below the point at which the lade discharges to the tweed the water of this river is greatly fouled, the bottom of the river is covered with sewage deposit and the stones coated with sewage fungus. the river here contains also a large amount of refuse of all kinds, such as pots and pans, old linoleum, old iron-work, and such like. although there is a daily collection of rubbish in the town, a great deal of large sized rubbish is thrown into the bed of the lei then, and the tip to which all refuse is taken, together with offal from the slaughter houses, is situate just where the lei then falls into the tweed. in times of flood the water of the leithen excavates this refuse tip, and carries the refuse into the tweed. some of the mill-owners here have tanks for settling the spent liquids after dyeing, and in this way some of the solid refuse is retained, but the coloured liquid is allowed to enter the river. one is thankful for small mercies; "_some_ of the solid refuse is retained." but the "offal from the slaughter houses," and the "tip" to which all refuse is taken! and the sewage which there is "no attempt to purify"! what grizzly nightmare could be more grizzly than this? however, we get soon now above the range of pollution by mill or town. peebles only remains; thereafter we have really a river as it used in its entirety to be, and, above peebles, as it may still be called, "the silver tweed." before reaching peebles, however, there is, over against innerleithen, on the angle between quair burn and tweed, traquair house to notice; and, nearer to peebles, on its green knoll the old riven tower of horsburgh, ancient seat of an ancient family. of old, traquair was a royal residence. in the twelfth century. william the lion hunted from its tower; and other of the scottish monarchs visited it in later days, the last, i suppose, being mary and darnley in august, . the original tower, { }or some part of it, i believe stands now in the north-east corner of the building, but the house has, of course, been greatly added to at different periods, mostly, however, during the reign of charles i. [illustration: ] it is a very fine specimen of the old scottish château, with walls of immense thickness. probably it is the oldest inhabited mansion house in scotland; a place full of interest. and not least interesting, the picturesque old gates at the end of the avenue, that have remained so long unopened. the tale used to run that they had been closed after the ' , by an earl loyal to the stuart cause, who swore that they should never be opened till the rightful king came back to his own again. as a matter of fact, however, the misfortunes of prince charlie and his family had nothing to do with it. the gates were not closed till , when the seventh earl of traquair, after the death of his countess, declared that they should remain shut till they opened to admit one worthy to take the dead lady's place. that, at least, is the story. the earl who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth century belonged to the church of rome. "a quiet, inoffensive { }man," he is said to have been. [illustration: ] but that in no way protected him from the unwelcome attentions of those zealous presbyterians who at that time "thought it someway belonged to us' to go to all the popish houses and destroy their monuments of idolatry, with their priests' robes, and put in prison the { }priests themselves." [illustration: ] so a pious mob set out from edinburgh one grim december day in , and trudged through the snow to traquair house. earl and priest, having got word of their coming, had fled before the arrival of this gentle band of reformers, and though they ransacked all traquair for "romish wares," they did not find all they expected. much had been hidden away. the vestments of the priest this, that, and the other popish emblem could not be found. however, they did get a good deal--an altar, a large brazen crucifix, and several small crucifixes, "a large brodd opening with two leaves, covered within with cloth ot gold of arras work, having a veil covering the middle part, wherin were sewed several superstitious pictures," a eucharist cup of silver, boxes of relics, "wherin were lying, amongst silk-cotton, several { }pieces of bone, tied with a red thread, having written on them the saint they belonged to," "a harden bag, near full of beads," "mary and the babe in a case most curiously wrought in a kind of pearl," a hundred and thirty books--silver-clasped many of them. no doubt the books, popish or otherwise, excited to frenzy those pious but illiterate persons, almost as effectually as "the pot of holy oil," and the "twelve dozen of wax candles" that they seized. not content with all this, however, a detachment of the mob invaded the house of a neighbouring clergyman "who had the name of a presbyterian minister." the orders given by their ringleaders were that this house should be narrowly searched, but that they themselves were to "behave discreetly," advice the latter part of which one might give with equal propriety and effect to the proverbial bull in a china shop. the reverend thomas louis and his wife apparently did not treat the inquisitors with the kindness and consideration to which they thought themselves entitled; they "mocked them," it is complained; and indeed the minister and his wife carried their resentment so far as to offer them "neither food nor drink, though"--it is naively added--"they had much need of it." undaunted, however, by this shabby conduct on the part of the reverend gentleman, the mob hunted about till they came on two locked trunks, which they demanded should at once be opened. this modest request not being complied with, they "broke up" the trunks--to "behave discreetly," is no doubt when desired, capable of liberal interpretation--and therein "they found a golden cradle, with mary and the babe in her bosom; in the other trunk, the priest's robes." so they made a pile of the articles found here and in traquair house, carried them a distance of seven miles to peebles, and had them "all solemnly burned at the cross." such were the enlightened methods of our seventeenth century progenitors. but, one sometimes wonders, is the toleration of the mob now-a-days { }greatly in advance of what was in ? however, they did not also "solemnly burn" traquair house, though it _was_ a "nest o'paipery." [illustration: ] but the last countess of traquair has gone through the old gates; and her son, the eighth earl, was the last of his line. he died, unmarried, in ; and the last of her race, the venerable lady louisa stuart, died in , in her hundredth year. yet still, a pathetic link with days long dead, the old house stands brooding over the past; and still there sounds the music of the waters, and the sough of the wind in the trees of "the bush aboon traquair." and perhaps he who has "... heard the cushies croon thro' the gowden afternoon, and the quair burn singing down to the vale o' tweed," may come away steeped in sadness, yet it is a sadness without sting, not wholly unpleasing. chapter xiv peebles, neidpath, manor, lyne, drummelzier, dawyck |writing{ } of peebles in the year or , sir thomas dick lauder speaks of "the singular air of decayed royalty that hangs over it, and which so strangely blends with its perfect simplicity and rurality." [illustration: ] more than any other of the scottish border towns, peebles has a right to talk of "royalty." a royal poet has sung of her beltane feast the evidence is at least as much for, as against, acceptance of the time-honoured { }belief that king james i was author of "peblis to the play." professor veitch strongly favours that conclusion. and unbroken tradition points to the king as the author. from earliest times the town was a favourite residence of the scottish monarchs, and to this day its place-names, such as king's meadows, king's house, king's orchards, for example, suggest royal traditions. the burgh records of peebles, go back very far--to october , in the reign of james ii. it is a town of much interest and of much beauty, beautiful especially as regards its situation and surroundings, and there are still in it many remains that speak eloquently of the past. there is the old five-arched stone bridge, dating from about , altered, of course, and widened since that date, but still the same old bridge. until the erection of the bridge at berwick early in the seventeenth century, i suppose that this was the only one spinning tweed in all its course. then there is the ancient cross of peebles, which, after various vicissitudes and excursions, at length stands once more on the spot where it was originally placed. it is said by the writer of the statistical account of the parish to have been "erected by one of the frasers of neidpath castle, before the time of robert the bruce, and bears the arms of the frasers." there are still to be seen within the burgh the ruins of the cross church, and of the church of st. andrew. the former got its name from the fact that in may, , "a magnificent and venerable cross was found at peblis," which was supposed to have been buried close on a thousand years before that date. shortly after the unearthing of this cross, there was found near the same spot a stone urn, containing ashes and human bones, and on a stone the words carved: "the place of st. nicholas the bishop." on account of the miracles which were reputed to have been wrought where the cross was discovered, alexander iii caused a church to be erected on the spot, "in honour of god, and of the holy rood." this cross church in some unexplained way escaped practically unscathed during { }the english invasion of - , and from till it served as the parish church--deprived, no doubt, of many an interesting relic of the past. at the last-named date, our zealous forefathers, _more majorum_, pulled it down--all but a fragment--in order, out of the material so obtained, to build a new parish church. (they had in those times a perfect genius for wrecking the beautiful and interesting, and for erecting the ugly and the dull.) the other old church, that of st. andrew, was founded about the year . it, however, unlike its neighbour, suffered badly at the hands of the english in , after which it gradually fell into ruin, and met the fate that was wont to wait on most of our venerable scottish buildings. the tower alone remained, impervious to wind and weather, defiant of man's destroying hand. thirty years ago, it was restored by the late dr. william chambers,--"more honour to him had he been less successful in concealing the old work," says sir herbert maxwell, in his "story of the tweed." it was in the church of st. andrew, tradition says, that cromwell's troopers stabled their horses in when siege was being laid to neidpath castle. peebles at one time was a walled town, and i believe that some fragments of fortification remain. but the names: "northgate," "eastgate," "portbrae," still recall former days. there was a castle also, a royal residence; but though it yet stood in the end of the seventeenth century, or even a little later, there is now not a vestige of it to be found. again, no doubt, the ruthless hand of our not very remote ancestors! an interesting and very ancient custom continues to be observed in the town. annually, on the second day of may, there is chosen from among the youthful beauties of peebles one who is styled the "beltane queen"; and beltane sports and festivities are held. chambers says: "the festivities of beltane originated in the ceremonial observances of the original british people, who lighted fires on the tops of hills and other { }places in honour of their deity baal; hence beltane or beltien, signifying the fire of baal. the superstitious usage disappeared... but certain festive customs on the occasion were confirmed and amplified, and the rural sports of beltane at peebles, including archery and horse-racing... drew crowds not only from the immediate neighbourhood, but from edinburgh and other places at a distance." "peblis to the play" is a description of the festival as it was held in the day of the author; "a picture of rustic life and festivities, of the humorous and grotesque incidents of a mediaeval feast day in an old provincial town, the centre of a rural district," says professor veitch. "at beltane, when ilk bodie bownis to peblis to the play, to heir the singin and the soundis, the solace, suth to say; be firth and forest furth they found, they graythit them full gay; god wot, that wald they do, that stound, for it was their feist day, they said, of peblis to the play." space does not permit me to quote more than the opening verse. makes ready to go. enclosed wood, or place. issue, or go forth. dressed. time: german stunde. before moving on up the valley, one may recall the fact that at the old cross keys inn at peebles sir walter found, in its then landlady, the original of his "meg dods" of "st. ronan's well." guests arriving now-a-days at this inn--which is as often called "the cleikum" as the cross keys--still drive into the yard under the "old-fashioned archway" of the novel; still there is shown "sir walter's room," overlooking the yard; and still, it may perhaps be noted, there is to be found at the head of affairs one who, while leaving out meg's "detestable { }bad humour" and asperity of tongue, in all essentials is worthy to rank as her successor. "her kitchen was her pride and glory; she looked to the dressing of every dish herself, and there were some with which she suffered no one to interfere.... meg's table-linen, bed-linen, and so forth, were always home-made, of the best quality, and in the best order; and a weary day was that to the chambermaid in which her lynx eye discovered any neglect of the strict cleanliness which she constantly enforced." the most fervent patriotism cannot, i fear, blind one to the sad fact that a majority of scottish country inns do not strive very successfully to vie with meg in those qualities which made her so shining an ornament of her sex. too often one is left to the greasy attentions of a waiter of foreign tongue, whose mercies it might be desired were more tender than the scrag-end of the cold beef to which, in a parlour of the lethal-chamber variety, he somewhat tardily introduces tired wayfarers. and the beef itself might in many cases taste none the less of beef, if it were served on table-linen not quite so elaborately decorated with outlines of mustard pots and worcester sauce bottles, left by the day-beforeyesterday's commercial traveller. this cleikum, or cross keys inn, is a building of more than respectable age; it dates from the year , when it was the town house of the williamsons of cardrona, a tower a few miles down tweed, nearly opposite to horsburgh. probably both the cross keys and its neighbour the tontine hotel--. meg's "tomteen," the "hottle" of which she spoke so wrathfully--were in sir walter's mind when he wrote the novel. and now we may set out once again up tweed--not forgetting, however, that peebles with its mills also contributes no small share to the pollution of that much-injured river. a mile or so out of the town, there is the old castle of neidpath, in very remote days a stronghold of the frasers of fruid and oliver castle, in tweedsmuir. a hay of yester, ancestor of { }lord tweeddale, succeeded the frasers in , by marriage with the daughter of sir simon fraser; [illustration: ] and after the hays, by purchase came the queensberry family, of whom, the fourth duke, "old q.," wordsworth's "degenerate douglas," { }"unworthy lord," did his best to wreck the estate in . what he could spoil and disfigure, he did spoil and disfigure. and here at neidpath he swept off the face of nature every stick of timber, old and young, that could be felled or destroyed, leaving, as far as lay in his power, the landscape bare almost as it was when primeval chaos ended. replanting could not be set about as long as "old q." lived, and a hundred years scarce repaired the damage he did. it is curious to note how one who in all respects during his life was so very far removed from grace, at the end wished to lie (where i believe his body does lie), under the communion table of st. james's church, piccadilly--in his estimation perhaps a sort of side-gate or private entrance to heaven. the path is steep and the way thorny to most of us. and how fares "old q."? i hardly think that the inhabitants of peebles, had they been roman catholics at the time of his death, would have paid for masses for the soul of the dead "old q.," as they did lang syne for the soul of the dead king james the first. neidpath castle is said by old dr. pennecuick to have been in reality the stronghold which was anciently called the castle of peebles. but there are allusions to the "castel of peebles" in the earl of tweeddale's rental book for , and neidpath was neidpath centuries before that date. on this subject, professor veitch, writing about , says: "the castle of peebles was standing and inhabited in the early part of last century. it was afterwards pulled down, and the materials converted, according to the morality and taste of the time, into one of the least architecturally attractive palish edifices in christendom." as to neidpath's age, there is no sure record, but as it was a seat of that sir simon fraser who defeated the english three times in one day at roslin muir in , its antiquity must be very great. and what a place of immense strength it must originally have been, before the days of artillery. its walls are ten feet thick, put together with that { }ancient form of cement which, when dry, became hard as the stones it bound together; and it stands on a high rock overhanging an elbow of tweed where the water is deep, and was therefore on the river face unassailable. [illustration: ] but the day of artillery came too soon for neidpath. it fell before the guns of cromwell in . after a most gallant resistance under the young lord yester,--father, i suppose, of the lord yester who wrote the fine old ballad "tweedside." like every other part of the yale of tweed, here also it is beautiful. looking back towards peebles from above neidpath the view is very fine, though perhaps an eyesore may be found in the unwholesome speckled appearance given to the castle by the way in which the "facing" of its walls has been done. little more than a mile from here, tweed is joined by manor water, a stream now probably best known as that beside which stands the cottage of "bowed davie," the original of scott's "black dwarf" of mucklestane muir. sir walter was staying at hallyards, on manor water, in , with his friend adam ferguson, and it was on that occasion that he first saw { }david ritchie, a poor mis-shapen dwarf, embittered by the derision which his extraordinary personal appearance everywhere brought on him, and who had retired to this unfrequented valley, where he built himself a cottage of dimensions in keeping with his own stature. [illustration: ] the cottage still stands, "where from his bole the awsome form peer'd grim on passer-bye," but at least the exterior has been modernised, and an addition has been made; his garden wall, with its ponderous stones, is much as bowed davie left it. the "black dwarf" was not written till a good many years after ritchie's death. his grave is in manor kirkyard, not, as he himself originally meant it to be, in a secluded spot of his own choice, surrounded by the rowan-trees that it comforted him to think could be relied on to keep witches, and evil spirits generally, at a respectable distance. poor davie! there were worse things than witches to be taken { }into account. it is said--dr. john brown mentions it--that his body proved a temptation too great to be resisted by resurrectionists. they dug him up, and carried the poor "thrawn" frame to where it could be sold. perhaps in death he still excites that derision or pity which in life so angered him; his bones may now lie in some city anatomical museum. within the vestry of manor parish kirk, there is, accord ing to the ordnance gazetteer of scotland edited by mr. f. h. groome, "a table made of oak that had been used for church building not later than the thirteenth century; and a bell in the belfry bears the latin inscription: 'in honore sanct. gordiani mcccclxxviii.'" and far up the vale, near kirkhope, is the site of this st. gordian's kirk, "marked by a granite runic cross, with the old font stone at its base." manor valley in days of old must have been a "mischancey" spot for any stranger whose intentions were, so to speak, not "strictly honourable." there were, in and about it, not fewer than nine or ten peel towers, two at least of which--barns and castlehill--belonged to the burnets, than whom none bore higher reputation as reivers and men of action. in no borderer was more renowned for his exploits and for his conduct of midnight forays, than william burnet, the "hoolet of barns." his tower, barns, is rather nearer tweed than manor, but it is included in the strongholds of manor valley. it is still in excellent preservation, but the roof is modern, and the upper part of the tower has been greatly altered from what it was originally. the accommodation in such towers must have been something of the most cramped; in this instance the outside dimensions of the tower (three stories) are only twenty-eight by twenty feet. on the lintel of the door is the date , but there appears to be some uncertainty as to whether the figures were not added at a later time. castlehill, now a ruin, "hollow-eyed, owl-haunted," was somewhat larger and stronger than barns. higher up the valley is posso, now mere fragments of walls. it was of old a { }seat of the bairds, who were succeeded in the sixteenth century by the naesmiths. [illustration: ] at posso craigs was the eyry whence henry ashton in the "bride of lammermuir" got his hawks. and here under the craigs is the ship stone. the whole valley teems with objects of antiquarian interest--the tumulus called the giants' grave, up glenrath burn; the "cup-marked fallen monolith," that was once an old woman whom the devil turned into stone; the old thiefs road, trodden of old by many a mob of "lifted" cattle; numerous hill forts. and from the bosom of the wild hills springs manor; a tiny rivulet from dollar law--(is "dollar" a corruption of "dolour," the hill of sorrow?)--from notman law another; infantile rills from shielhope head, black law, blackhouse heights, grim round-shouldered hills that rise all of them to a greater altitude than two thousand feet. and everywhere is the music of running water. "in its far glen, manor outspreads its arms to all the hills, and gathers to itself the burnies breaking from high mossy springs, and white streaks that fall through cleavings of the crags from lonely lochans where the curlews cry." { }cademuir, by the way, the hill on manor's right at its junction with tweed, is the supposed scene of arthur's seventh battle against the pagans. _cad_ is welsh for battle,--gaelic, _cata_, hence _cad-more_, the "great battle." professor veitch hesitates between this site and that of the neighbouring pre-historic hill fort, the lour, near dawyck, but thinks the former the more probable. just below the height of the lour, till the beginning of the nineteenth century there stood, he says, an almost perfect _cromlech_, consisting of "two or more upright stones, and one flat stone laid across as a roof, all of remarkable size." this _cromlech_ was known in the district as arthur's oven. it is humiliating to have to confess that it, the neighbouring old peel tower of easter dawyck, the tower of posso, and the ancient kirk of st. gordian, were all made into road metal, or used as material for building walls or farm buildings, by sir walter scott's father, of all people in the world. one may wonder what were sir walter's thoughts when he came to know. a little way up from manor valley, and joining tweed from the northern side, is lyne water. it is not possible to pursue all tweed's tributaries to their source, however full of interest each may be, for their name is legion. but lyne cannot be passed without note being taken of its little--very little--early seventeenth century parish church. and adjoining it are remains of a great roman camp--randall's wa's, i: has been called locally from times long past. perhaps it was here--at least it was on lyne water--that sir james douglas captured randolph before the time came when the latter finally cast in his lot with the bruce. farther up, on an eminence at the junction of lyne and tartli waters, stands the massive ivy-clad ruin of drochil castle. built by the regent morton in the sixteenth century, drochil was never completed, and never occupied. just before the building approached completion, morton, judged guilty of complicity in the murder of darnley, was executed, beheaded by "the maiden"--a sort of scottish { }guillotine--on nd june, ; and the home of a regent of scotland, "designed more for a palace than a castle of defence," is now a rum, of use only as a shelter for cattle! [illustration: ] happrew, on lyne, is the scene of the defeat "wrought by the lords william de lalymer, john de segrave, and robert de clifford, upon simone fraser and william le walleys at hopperowe," in . and on the elevated heathy flat below which tweed and lyne meet, there is what is called the sheriff's muir, of old a mustering place for scottish forces during the wars with england. and now, as we run up tweed's left bank, we have on the one side stobo, with its ancient church--of which mention has been made earlier in this volume--and its fine woods; on the other bank, dawyck, and the castles of tinnies and drummelzier. from the thirteenth well on into the seventeenth century, dawyck was the home of a distinguished tweedside family, the veitches, once the le vaches, of gascony, of whom one, william le vache, signed the ragman roll at the castle of peebles in . at the same time that { }the veitches held dawyck, drummelzier was the headquarters of another powerful border family, the tweedys; and for the delicate questions involved in the origin of this family's name, readers may consult sir walter's introduction to "the betrothed." of necessity, as things went in those days, these two families quarrelled, and from the quarrel emerged a feud long and bloody, in which, ere it ended, half the countryside was involved. wherever a veitch and a tweedy met, they fought, and fought to kill. on the haughs of the river one summer's day, young veitch and young tweedy, each, perhaps, looking for trouble, came together face to face. the grey of next morning saw of the latter but "a face upturned to the breaking dawn, dead by the tweed, but honour sav'd." he lay beside the quiet water, and over him, it is said, like a snowy pall drooped the clustering may-blossom. "his mother sought him on the haugh, she found him near the white flower'd thorn; the grass red wet; the heedless birds pip'd sweet strains to the early morn." in , the head of the veitches, "the deil o' dawyck," an immensely powerful man, had for his ally william burnet, "the hoolet o' barns," a man equally powerful. these two daunted the tweedy of that day; the feud for a space lay-dormant. but, most unhappily for the veitches, it chanced that "the deil's" son rode into peebles alone one morning. and that was the end of young veitch. for nine tweedys, in two parties, trapped him near neidpath, came on him in front and from the rear as he rode towards home; and it was no fight, but bloody murder that reddened the grass that day. four days later, two veitches met john tweedy, tutor of drummelzier, in the high street of edinburgh, and young veitch's bloody death was avenged; "a tooth for a tooth," no matter how many were concerned in its drawing. and so it { }went on _ad nauseam_, a veitch killing a tweedy, a tweedy a veitch. the feud was alive even as late as ; and for anything that i know to the contrary, it endured as long as the two families were there to neighbour each other on tweedside. of drummelzier castle only an angle of the tower and a portion of the main building now stand. it was here that there dwelt that arrogant bully, sir james tweedy, who of old was wont to exact homage from every passing traveller; and the traveller who omitted to, so to speak, "lower his tops'ls" as he passed the castle, had cause to rue the day the fates took him that way. it was a pretty enough game from tweedy's point of view. but, as the saying is, one day he "bit off more than he could chew." a stranger, attended by a very small retinue, passed up the valley without taking the smallest notice of the castle or its formidable owner. foaming with rage, spluttering dire threats, tweedy and his men went thundering in pursuit; truly, the back of that stranger should smart to some tune. but, just as you may see the birses and tail of a vicious, snarling cur drop when he finds he has inadvertently rushed out against a bigger dog than himself, so here, tweedy's mood changed with astonishing celerity when he jumped from his horse beside the man he had been cursing and bawling at to stop, and found that the fugitive he was vowing to flog was his king, james v. tinnies castle was also a holding of the tweedys, possibly before the building of drummelzier. this castle is believed to date from the thirteenth century, or perhaps earlier, and it seems to have been a place of considerable size and of great strength. "in no part of scotland was there any feudal keep so like a robber's castle on the rhine, as that of tinnis," says chambers. the building was destroyed under royal warrant in , at the time when the king issued orders to raze dry hope and harden. the position of tinnies is immensely strong. perched on a lofty eminence, three of whose sides are almost perpendicular and the fourth a long steep slope, the { }castle in its day must have been almost unassailable. any approach to the walls could only be made in force by a narrow winding pathway, within shot of, and fully exposed to, the castle bowmen, and the building itself, as may even yet be noted, was of a solidity truly formidable. immense portions of the walls and flanking towers, yet bound by the old imperishable cement, still lie where they were bodily hurled by the exploding gunpowder when james vi's orders were carried out. of dawyck and its magnificent woods one must not forget to take note. here in were planted the first larches introduced into scotland, anticipating it is said, by a few years those planted at dunkeld. and while on the subject of natural history, one may perhaps quote that most notable fact regarding dawyck which dr. pennecuick, writing in the early eighteenth century, vouches for in his "shire of tweeddale." "here," says he, "in an old orch-yard did the herons in my time build their nests upon some old pear-trees, whereupon in the harvest time are to be seen much fruit growing, and trouts and iles crauling down the body of these trees. these fish the herons take out of the river of tweed to their nests, and as they go in at the mouth, so they are seen squirt out again at the draught. and this is the remarkable riddle they so much talk of, to have flesh, fish, and fruit at the same time upon one tree." there is still a heronry at dawyck, but not, i think, in an "orch-yard." in the neighbourhood of drummelzier there is a spot that takes us back in thought to those dim, far off days when the world was in its infancy. near to where powsayl burn, the "burn of the willows," joins tweed, you may see the grave of merlin the seer, the wizard merlin. fleeing from the field of arderydd (arthuret, near carlisle), after the terrible defeat of the pagans by the christians in , merlin found refuge among the hills of upper tweed, and there lived for many years, half-crazed, a homeless wanderer. finally, the fear { }raised by his supposed possession of supernatural powers, and the dread of his enchantments, caused a mob of ignorant country-folk to club and stone him to death, and he was buried where he fell, by the powsayl burn. in a poem still extant, merlin tells how he wandered long in the wild wood of caledon. "sweet apple tree, growing by the river! whereof the keeper shall not thrive on its fruit; before i lost my wits i used to be around its stem with a fair sportive maid, matchless in slender shape. ten years and forty, the sport of the lawless ones, have i been wandering in gloom among sprites, after wealth in abundance and entertaining minstrels. after suffering from disease and despair in the forest of caledon." the place of the "apple tree" was tal ard--talla of to-day; and somewhere between drummelzier and talla, merlin and st. kentigern foregathered for a time. high up on the mighty shoulder of broad law, too, there is a spring that gushes out from the hillside clear and cool, that may be the fountain--_fons in summo vertice montis_--beside which geoffrey of monmouth in tells that merlin was wont to rest. and the "fair sportive maid"--that is nimiane, tennyson's "vivien." a romance of the fifteenth century tells how "thei sojourned together longe time, till it fell on a day that thei went thourgh the foreste hande in hande devysing and disportynge, and this was in the foreste of brochelonde, and fonde a bussh that was feire and high of white hawthorne, full of floures, and ther thei sat in the shadowe; and merlin leide hys heed in the damesels lappe, and she began to taste softly till he fill on slepe; and when she felt that he was on slepe she aroos softly, and made a cerne (circle) with hys wymple all aboute the bussh and all aboute merlin, and began hir enchantementes soche as merlin hadde hir taught, and made the cerne ix tymes, and ix tymes her enchantementes; and after that she wente and satte down by hym and leide hys heed { }in hir lappe, and hilde hym ther till he dide awake; and then he looked aboute hym, and hym semed he was in the feirest tour of the worlde, and the most stronge, and fonde hym leide in the feirest place that ever he lay beforn.... ne never after com merlin out of that fortresse that she hadde hym in sette; but she wente in and oute whan she wolde." not far from the churchyard of drummelzier to this day they point out the grave where merlin lies beneath a thorn tree. and to everyone is known thomas the rhymer's prediction: "when tweed and powsayl meet at merlin's grave scotland and england shall one monarch have," and how the prophecy was fulfilled that same day on which james of scotland was crowned king of england. for tweed then so overflowed its banks that burn and river joined beside the spot where merlin lies, which, as dr. pennecuick says, "was never before observed to fall out, nor since that time." over against drummelzier, biggar water falls into tweed, and a curious circumstance about this stream is this, that "on the occasion of a large flood... the clyde actually pours a portion of its water mto one of the tributaries of tweed." the whole volume of clyde at biggar, says sir archibald geikie, could without any difficulty be made to flow into tweed by way of the biggar water. the latter at one point is separated from clyde by but one and a half miles of almost level ground. all this region of biggar water is rich in remains of old towers and camps; but of the most important, that of boghall castle at biggai, seat of the great fleming family, lords fleming in , there is now practically nothing left standing; the customary fate, the fate that so long dogged most scottish historical buildings overtook in about sixty or seventy years ago. it was a place of strength in , when cromwell's men held it; a sketch done in by john clerk of eldin, shows that it was then entire, or almost entire, and it stood, a fine ruin, as lately as , when sir walter and lockhart were at biggar. { }with what devilish energy since then must the wreckers have laboured to destroy! of biggar moss, blind harry tells the wondrous tale of how wallace, with a diminutive scottish force, smote here in a large english army led by edward i; eleven thousand englishmen were slain, says the veracious poet. and if corroboration of blind harry be needed, why is there not standing here, as witness to this very day, the cadger's brig, over which, as local tradition vouches, wallace, disguised as a hawker, crossed on his way to spy out the weak points in edward's camp! as with most border places, there is no lack of interest about biggar, but considerations of space forbid any attempt to treat of its history. yet it must not be omitted that here was born a man greatly loved in scotland, dr. john brown, best known to the outside world, perhaps, as the author of "rab and his friends." chapter xv broughton, tweedsmuir, talla, gameshope, tweed's well |returning{ } to the neighbourhood of tweed, on the bank of a little burn tributary to biggar water stands the village of broughton, reminiscent of mr. "evidence" murray, the prince's secretary, who saved his own life after the ' by turning king's evidence. broughton house, his old home, was burned to the ground about , (a couple of years prior to murray's death on the continent,) and the estate was afterwards sold to the famous lord braxfield, the original of stevenson's "weir of hermiston." higher up tweed, on the farther bank, is stanhope, in the eighteenth century the property of murray of broughton's nephew, sir david murray, who lost his all in the ' ; and not many miles farther up the river is polmood, where the dishonoured uncle lay hid, and was taken, in june , losing thereafter more than the life he saved--honour and the respect of his fellow men. "neither lip of me nor of mine comes after mr. murray of broughton's!" cried sir walter scott's father as he threw out of window the cup from which the apostate had but then drunk tea. and:--"do you know this witness?" was asked of sir john douglas of kelhead, a prisoner after the ' , before the privy council at st. james's, when murray was giving evidence. "not i," said douglas, "i once knew a person who bore the designation of murray of broughton,--but that was a gentleman and a man of honour, and one that could hold up his head!" { }of old, polmood--the name, i believe, means the "wolf's burn," or stream--was a hunting seat of scottish kings; in times more modern it was chiefly remarkable for an interminable law plea which dragged its weary length along for forty years and more, probably in the end with ruin to both parties to the suit. before coming to polmood, however, we pass mossfennan, sung of in two ballads, one of the seventeenth century, the other (of which but a fragment remains) of much more ancient date. on the roadside a little further up is a sign-post that points dejectedly towards a dilapidated-looking tree which stands solitary on the haugh below. here, says the legend on the post, was the site of linkumdoddie, whereof burns wrote a song. but to find any point of interest in the scene, or in the identity of linkumdoddie or of the lady celebrated, t requires, i think, that the gazer should be possessed of a most perfervid admiration of the poet. and now we begin to open up the wilder part of tweed's valley, where not so many years ago you might go a long way, and for miles see no human being but a passing shepherd. it is different now, in these days when motor-cars, leaving behind them a trail of dust as ugly as the smudge of a steamer's smoke low down on the horizon, rush along what used to be the finest of old grass-grown coach-roads, smooth as a billiard-table and free from any loose metal--swept bare now to the very roots of the stones by the constant air-suction of passing cars. but even now, in the winter-time, when the rush of the tourist troubles no more, if one trusts oneself in these wilds, there is a reward to be gleaned in the fresh, inexpressibly _clean_ air, and in the sense of absolute freedom that one gains. you have-left civilisation and its cares behind; here is peace. and in the great hills lying there so solemn and still, black as blackest ink where the heather stands out against the wintry grey sky, or deep-slashed on their sides with heavy drifts of snow from the latest storm, there is rest to the wearied soul and the tired { }mind. and if the day be windless, what sweeter sound can anywhere be heard than the tinkling melody of innumerable burns blending with the deeper note of tweed? nowhere in the world, as it seems to me, is there any scene where nature lays on man a hand so gentle as here in tweedsmuir. it is all one, the season; no matter if the air is still, or the west wind bellows down the valley, life is better worth living for the being here. and the glory of it, when snow lies deep over the wide expanse, and the sun shines frostily, and tweed, black by contrast with the stainless snow, goes roaring his hoarse song seaward! all burns up this part of the valley used to teem with nice, fat, lusty yellow trout--stanhope burn, polmood, hearthstane, talla and gameshope, menzion, fruid, kingledores (with its memories of st. cuthbert), and the rest. doubtless the trout are there still, but most of the burns are now in the hands of shooting tenants, and the fishing, probably, is not open to all as of old. talla and gameshope (of which more anon) are now the property of the edinburgh water trust commissioners, and a permit from them is necessary if one would fish in these two streams or in talla reservoir. before reaching talla, almost equidistant between the polmood and hearthstane burns, but on the opposite side of tweed, we come to what used to be the cheery, clean little crook inn, standing in its clump of trees. but its history of two hundred years and more as an inn is ended; modern legislation has seen to that. and there is now on this highroad between peebles and moffat--a distance of something like thirty miles--not a single house where man and beast may find accommodation and reasonable refreshment. it is not the so-called "idle rich" who are thus handicapped; fifteen or sixteen miles are of small account to the man who owns a motor-car. it is they who cannot afford the luxury of a car, but who yet desire to be alone here with nature, or to fish in tweed and in such burns as may yet be fished, it is they who find themselves thus left out in the cold. * * since this was written, the crook has reopened its doors as an inn. but they are not any longer content with the homely word "inn"; the place asserts itself now in large letters as the crook "hotel." of old, when the mail-coaches running between dumfries and edinburgh came jingling cheerily along this smooth tweed-side road, it was at the crook inn that they changed horses. but i doubt it was not then a spot so inviting as it certainly became in the 'seventies of last century. sir thomas dick lauder speaks of it as it was in as "one of the coldest-looking, cheerless places of reception for travellers that we had ever chanced to behold.... it stood isolated and staring in the midst of the great glen of the tweed, closed in by high green sloping hills on all sides.... no one could look at it without thinking of winter, snow-storms, and associations filled with pity for those whose hard fate it might be to be storm-stayed there." but sir thomas dick lauder's visit in was paid in the month of november, when snow hung heavy in the air, threatening the traveller with wearisome and indefinite delay. and the hind wheels of his chaise collapsed like the walls of jericho as the postillion, having changed horses here, started with too sudden a dash from the door of the inn; and sir thomas was bumped most grievously along the road for some hundreds of yards ere the post-boy (who perhaps had made use at the crook of some far-seeing device to keep out the cold) discovered that anything was amiss. not unnaturally the nerves of the occupants of the chaise were a trifle rallied; no doubt the place then looked less cheerful than it might otherwise have appeared. forty years later, he writes that it had, "comparatively speaking, an inviting air of comfort about it.... the road, as you go along, now wears altogether an inhabited look, and little portions of plantations here and there give an air of shelter and civilisation to it." it was a cheerless place enough, no doubt, in the covenanting { }days of the seventeenth century, when the dour hill-men were flying from claverhouse's dragoons, lurking in the black, oozing "peat-hags," hiding by the foaming burns, sheltering on the wild moors, amongst the heather and the wet moss. it was the landlady of this same crook inn who found for one fugitive a novel hiding hole; she built him safely into her stack of peats. there has been many a less comfortable and less secure hitting place than that; and where could one drier be found? it was at the crook that william black makes his travellers in the "strange adventures of a phaeton" spend a night, and the fare to which in the evening he sets his party down was certainly of the frugalest. but when this present writer knew the inn in the 'seventies, it was far from being only on "whisky and ham and eggs" that he was obliged to subsist. it was then an ideal angler's haunt; and no more gentle lullaby can be imagined than the low murmur of tweed, and the quiet _hus-s-s sh_ of many waters breathing down the valley on the still night air. a mile or more beyond the crook, there is the bield, also once an inn "from berwick to the bield," is the tweedside equivalent of the scriptural "from dan even to beer-sheba." it was here at the bield that the covenanters thought once to trap claverhouse; but that "proud assyrian" rode not easily into snares. on the hill above is the site of oliver castle, home of the fraser family, once so powerful in this part of the border--the site, i think, but nothing more. and now, to reach that part of tweedsmuir which more than any other casts over one a spell, it is necessary to branch off here to the left and follow the road shown in mr. thomson's charming sketch. straight ahead of you, as you stand by the little tweedsmuir post-office, you look up the beautiful valley of the talla, where the steep hills lie at first open and green and smiling on either hand, but gradually changing their character, close in, gloomy and scarred, and { }frowning, as the distant talla linn is neared. [illustration: ] but before you leave the little hamlet of tweedsmuir--it can scarcely be called a village--by the old single-arched bridge that is thrown here across tweed, where he roars and chafes among his rocks { }ere plunging down into the deep, black pool below, you will see on your left a spire peering out over the tree-tops. [illustration: ] that is the church of tweedsmuir, on its strange, tumulus-like mound by the river's brink. and here you will find:n the green grass, under the clustering trees, the graves of some who fell for "the covenant," one headstone, at least, relettered by "old { }mortality" himself. this is the grave of one john hunter; but doubless there are others, less noticeable, who rest with him in this quiet spot, far from the world's clash and turmoil, where no sound harsher than the sabbath bell that calls to prayer or the sighing of the wind in the trees, can ever break the silence. here is hunter's epitaph: [illustration: ] "when zion's king was robbed of his right his witnesses in scotland put to flight when popish prelats and indul- gancie combin'd 'gainst christ to ruine presbytrie all who would not unto their idols bow they socht them out and whom they found they slew for owning of christ's cause i then did die my blood for vengeance on his en'mies did cry." and on a stone in another part of the churchyard--perhaps the grave of a grandfather and grandchild--are the quaint words: "death pities not the aged head, nor manhood fresh and green, but blends the locks of eighty-five with ringlets of sixteen." the old session records of this church are full of references to the trembled times of the covenant. here are one or two entries, which i quote from the rev. w. s. crockett's "scott country."' mr. crockett is minister of the parish.--"no session kept by reason of the elders being all at conventicles." "no public sermon, soldiers being sent to apprehend the minister, but he, receiving notification of their design, went away and retired." "no meeting this day for fear of the{ } enemy." here lyes john hunter martyr who was cruely murdered at corehead by col. james douglas and his party for his adherance to the word of god and scotland's covenanted work of reformation erected in the year . "the collection this day to be given to a man for acting as watch during the time of sermon." and so on.-- [illustration: ] sometimes it strikes one as strange, that passion for listening to a sermon which is inherent in one's countrymen. it is but a sombre pleasure, as a rule. talla, up to a recent period, flowed through a deep valley, whose bottom for some distance was of a treacherous and swampy nature; its trout, therefore, (in marked contrast to those of the tributary gameshope,) were dark-coloured and "ill-faured." i do not know that they are anything else now, but there is not much of talla left. a mile above the church you come to a great barrier thrown across the valley, and beyond that for three miles stretches a reservoir which supplies distant edinburgh with water. picturesque enough in its way is this reservoir, especially when all trace of man and his work is left behind, and nothing meets the eye but the brown, foam-flecked water, and the hills plunging headlong deep into its bosom. even more picturesque is the scene when storms gather on the far heights, and come raging down the wild glen of gameshope, swathing in mist and scourging rain-squall the { }deep-scarred brows of those eerie hills by talla linn-foot. what a spot it must be on a wild december day, when blind ing snow drives down the gullies before the icy blast! this reservoir has been stocked with loch leven trout. but the fishing is not, and never will be, good. there is insufficient food; the water is too deep, and except at the extreme head of the loch there are no shallows where insect life might hatch out. the trout are long and lank, and seldom fight well. nor are they even very eager to rise to the fly. yet, it is true, some large fish have been taken. but they have a suspiciously cannibal look, and i think an insurance company would be apt to charge a very high premium on the chances of long life of troutlings now put in. i do not know where young hay of talla lived. if his peel tower was here, no doubt the site is now sixty or seventy feet under water, but i cannot remember any traces of a building, or site of a building, in pre-reservoir days. men born and brought up lang syne on the gloomy slopes of talla, might well be such as he, fierce and cruel, ready for treason and murder, or any crime of violence. "wild your cradle glen, young hay of talla, stern the wind's wild roar round the old peel tower, young hay of talla. "winter night raving, young hay of talla, snowy drift smooring, loud the linn roaring, young hay of talla. "winterhope's wild hags, young hay of talla, gameshope dark foaming, there ever roaming, young hay of talla. night round kirk o' field, young hay of talla, light faint in the room, darnley sleeps in gloom, young hay of talla. "shadow by bedside, young hay of talla, noise in the dull dark, does sleeper now hark, young hay of talla? "ah! the young form moves, young hay of talla, hold him grim,--hold grim, till quivers not a limb, young i lay of talla. "now the dread deed's done, young hay of talla, throw the corpse o'er the wall, give it dead dog's fall, young hay of talla." hay was one of two executed on rd january for the murder of darnley. if you would gain a good idea of this part of tweedsmuir, climb by the steep, crumbling sheep-path that scales the linn-side, till you reach the spot where mr. thomson has made his sketch of the reservoir. there, lying on the heather by the sounding waters, or beneath the rowan trees where blaeberries cluster thick among the rocks, you may picture to yourself a meeting that took place by this very spot two hundred and thirty-one years ago. on commanding heights, solitary men keeping jealous watch lest claver'se's hated dragoons should have smelled out the place of meeting; below, where the linn's roar muffles the volume of other sounds, a company of blue-bonneted, stern-faced men, singing with intense fervour some militant old scottish psalm, followed by long and earnest { }extempore prayer, and renewed psalms; and presently then falling into dispute as vehement as before had been their prayer and praise. [illustration: ] this was that celebrated meeting of covenanters in , of which sir walter scott, writing in { }"the heart of midlothian," says: "here [at talla] the leaders among the scattered adherents, to the covenant, men who, in their banishment from human society, and in the recollection of the severities to which they had been exposed, had become at once sullen in their tempers, and fantastic in their religious opinions, met with arms in their hands, and by the side of the torrent discussed, with a turbulence which the noise of the stream could not drown, points of controversy as empty and unsubstantial as its foam." dour men they were, and intolerant, our old covenanting forebears, ready at any moment to "prove their doctrine orthodox by apostolic blows and knocks." yet who can withhold from them his respect, or, in many points, deny them his admiration? if, as sydney smith has said, "it is good for any man to be alone with nature and himself"; if "it is well to be in places where man is little and god is great"; then assuredly it is well to be alone, or with a friend "who knows when silence is more sociable than talk," up in the great solitude by gameshope burn. nowhere in scotland can one find a glen wilder or more impressive, nowhere chance on a scene which more readily helps the harassed mind to slip from under the burden of worldly cares. for half a mile or more from its mouth hut a commonplace, open, boulder-strewn mountain burn, above that point the broken, craggy hills fall swiftly to the lip of a brawling torrent, which drops foaming by linn after linn deep into the seething black cauldrons below, lingers there a minute, then hurries swiftly onward by cliff and fern-clad mossy bank. above each pool cling rowan trees, rock rooted, a blaze of scarlet and orange if the month be september, but beautiful always at whatever season you may visit them. everywhere the air is filled with the deep murmur and crash of falling waters; yet, clamber to that lonely old track which leads to the solitary cottage of a shepherd, and around you is a silence { }almost oppressive, emphasised rather than broken by the ill-omened croak of a raven, or by the thin anxious bleat of a ewe calling to its lamb from far up the mountain side. [illustration: ] a mile past the shepherd's substantially built little house--it had need be strong of frame to stand intact up here against the winter storms--on your left is donald's cleuch, reminiscent of the reverend donald cargill, a hero of the covenant, minister of the barony church in glasgow in , who was { }afterwards deprived of his benefice for denouncing the restoration. the legend is, i presume, that cargill hid somewhere in the wild moorland hereabout, up the donald's cleuch burn perhaps, or a long mile further on, by gameshope loch. a man might have lain long, in the summer time, amongst these rugged hills, safe hidden from any number of prying dragoons; but heaven help him if he lay out there in the winter season. all is wild, broken country, peat-hags, mosses, and deep cleuchs, over which one goes best a-foot--and, of necessity, best with youth on one's side if the journey be of any great length. from the height at the head of donald's cleuch burn, one looks down on that gloomy tarn, loch skene, lying but a few short miles on the yarrow side of the watershed. mr. skene of rubislaw tells--it is in lockhart's life--how when sir walter scott and he visited this loch, a thick fog came down over the hills, completely bewildering them, and "as we were groping through the maze of bogs, the ground gave way, and down went horse and horsemen pell-mell into a slough of peaty mud and black water, out of which, entangled as we were with our plaids and floundering nags, it was no easy matter to get extricated." savage and desolate are perhaps the words that best describe loch skene; yet, in fine summer weather, how beautiful it may be! how beautiful, indeed, all this wild waste of hills where those dour old covenanters were wont to lurk, never quite free from dread of the dragoons quartered but a few miles away over the hills at moffat. tales of the covenanting times, such, for instance, as "the brownie of bodesbeck," used to possess an intense fascination for scottish boys; every covenanter was then an immaculate hero, and, i suppose, few boys took any but the worst view of claverhouse, or refused credence to any of the countless legends of him. and of his diabolical black charger, of which we firmly believed the story that it could course a hare along the side of a precipice. a point in some of those tales that used to interest and puzzle at { }least one boy, was the mysterious fashion in which a fugitive would at times disappear from ken when hard pressed on the open moor, and when apparently cut off from all chance of escape. a possible explanation presented itself to me one day, a summer or two back, when making my way across the bleak upland that lies between gameshope loch and gameshope burn. as i walked over the broken peaty surface of the plateau, but not yet arrived where the land begins to drop abruptly into the gameshope glen, a covey of grouse got up almost at my feet. the day was windless and very still, and as i stood watching the flight of the birds, the faint melodious tinkle of underground water somewhere very near to me fell on my ear. glancing around, i saw on the flat ground in front of me within a yard of my feet, what appeared to be a hole, almost entirely concealed by heather. it was from this direction that the sound of the drip, drip of falling water seemed to come. kneeling down, i pulled the heather aside, and found a hole two or three feet in diameter, and beneath it a roomy kind of chamber hollowed out of the peaty soil. it was a place perhaps five feet deep, big enough at a pinch to conceal half a dozen men; a place from which--unless there was a way out from below--a man might never find exit, if inadvertently he fell in and in his fall chanced to break a limb. in that wild region the prospect of his ever being discovered by searchers would be very small. unseen of man, he might lie in that peaty grave till his bones bleached, rest in that lonely spot till the last dread trump called him forth to judgment. the day after i had chanced on this strange cavern, i returned with a friend to whom i wanted to show it, and though we knew that we must be often within a few yards of the spot, search as we might we never again found that hole. was it in some _cache_ such as this--perhaps in this very spot--that covenanters sometimes lay hid? here two or three might have lain for days or weeks at a time, sheltered from wind or rain and secure from hostile eyes; it would be warm enough, { }and the drip of water into it is so slight as to be hardly worth naming. doubtless if one took careful landmarks it would be easy to find again, once knowledge of its whereabouts was gained. and so the lurking covenanters would have had small difficulty; but without such landmarks, to find it except by chance seems hopeless. none of the shepherds knew of the hole, save one old man who said he had heard there was some such place. but one might go a hundred times across that moor, passing close to the hidden mouth, and unless the faint tinkle of water betrayed it, or by remote chance one blundered in, its existence would never even be suspected. it is a place worthy to be the abode of the brown man of the muirs; and the district is wild and lonesome enough to breed the most eerie of superstitions. harking back now to the tweed,--a little way above the bridge at tweedsmuir on the right bank there is a huge standing stone, called the giant's stone, of which various legends are told. two other stones lie close at hand, but these appear to be mere ordinary boulders. according to the statistical account of the parish of , this giant's stone is the sole survivor of a druidical circle; all its fellows were broken up for various purposes, and carted away; and we may be sure it was from no feeling of compunction that even the one was spared. residents tell us that it was from behind this stone that a wily little archer in days of old sent an arrow into the heart of a giant on the far side of tweed. the range is considerable; it must have been a glorious fluke. but i rather think the place that is credited with this event, and with the veritable grave of the slain giant, is higher up tweed, opposite the hawkshaw burn. somewhere up this burn stood hawkshaw castle or tower, home of that porteous who gained unenviable notoriety for his feat of capturing at i alia moss, with the aid of some of the moss-trooping fraternity, one of cromwell's outposts, sixteen horse in all, and in cold blood afterwards executing the unfortunate troopers. a contemporary { }historian relates that: "the greatest releiff at this tyme was by some gentillmen callit moss-trouperis, quha, haiffing quyetlie convenit in threttis and fourties, did cut off numberis of the englishes, and seased on thair pockettis and horssis." the "pockettis and horssis" were all in the ordinary way of business; it is another affair when it comes to cutting the throats of defenceless captives. a few miles further on, the road we follow passes badlieu, a place famed as the home, away back in the eleventh century, of bonnie bertha, who captured the roving heart of one of our early scottish kings as he hunted here one day in the forest. unhappily for bertha, there was already a scottish queen, and when news of the king's infatuation came to that lady's ears, she--queens have been known to entertain such prejudices--disapproved so strongly of the new _menage_, that one afternoon when the king (who had been absent on some warlike expedition) arrived at bertha's bower, he found the nest harried, and bertha and her month-old babe lying dead. and ever after, they say, to the end the king cared no more to hunt, nor took pride in war, but wandered disconsolate, mourning for this scottish fair rosamond. but how the rightful queen fared thereafter, tradition does not say. and now we come to tweed shaws, and tweed's well, the latter by popular repute held to be the source of tweed. but there is a tributary burn which runs a longer course than this, rising in the hills much nearer to the head-waters of annan. as is well known, "annan, tweed, and clyde rise a' cot o' au hill-side," a statement which is sufficiently near the truth to pass muster. near tweed's well of old stood tweed's cross, "so called," says pennecuick, "from a cross which stood, and was erected there in time of popery, as was ordinary in all the eminent places of public roads in the kingdom before our reformation." it is needless to say that no trace of any cross now remains. { }up here, on this lofty, shelterless plateau, we find one of the few spots now left in scotland where the old snow-posts still stand by the wayside, mute guides to the traveller when snow lies deep and the road is blotted from existence as effectually as is the track of a ship when she has passed across the ocean. heaven's pity on those whom duty or necessity took across that wild moorland during a heavy snow storm in the old coaching days! many a man perished up here, wandered from the track, bewildered; stopped to rest and to take his bearings, then slid gently into a sleep from which there was no wakening. in , the mail-coach from dumfries to edinburgh left moffat late one winter's afternoon. snow was falling as for years it had not been known to fall, and as the day passed the drifts grew deeper and ever more deep. but the guard, macgeorge, an old soldier, a man of few words, could not be induced to listen to those who spoke of danger and counselled caution. he had been "quarrelled" once before for being behind rime with the mail, said he; so long as he had power to go forward, never should "they" have occasion to quarrel him again. a matter of three or four miles up that heart-breaking, endless hill out of moffat the coach toiled slowly, many times stopping to breathe the horses; and then it stuck fast. they took the horses out, loaded them with the mails, and guard and driver in company with a solitary passenger started again for tweedshaws, leading the tired animals. then the horses stuck, unable to face the deep drifts and the blinding storm. macgeorge announced his intention of carrying the mailbags; they _must_ be got through. the driver remonstrated. "better gang back to moffat," he said. "gang ye, or bide ye, _i gang on!_" cried macgeorge. so the horses were turned loose to shift for themselves, and the two men started on their hopeless undertaking, the passenger, on their advice, turning to make his way back to moffat. that was the last ever seen alive of the two who went forward. next { }day, the mail-bags were found beyond the summit of the hill,--the most shelterless spot of the entire road,--hanging to a snow-post, fastened there by numbed hands that too apparently had been bleeding. but of guard and coachman no trace till three days later, when searchers found them, dead, on mac-george's face "a kind o' a pleasure," said the man who discovered the body in the deep snow. some such fate as that ever trod here on the heels of foot passengers who wandered from the track during a snow-storm. in his "strange adventures of a phæton," william black writes of these hills as "a wilderness of heather and wet moss," even in the summer time; and he speaks of the "utter loneliness," the "profound and melancholy stillness." there is no denying that it is lonely, and often profoundly still. and no doubt to many there is monotony in the low, rolling, treeless, benty hills that here are the chief feature in the scenery. but i do not think it is melancholy. the sense of absolute freedom and of boundless space is too great to admit of melancholy creeping in. the feeling, to me at least, is more akin to that one experiences when standing on the deck of a full-rigged ship running down her easting in "the roaring forties," with the wind drumming hard out of the sou'west. from the haze, angry grey seas come raging on the weather quarter, snarling as they curl over and leap to fling themselves aboard, then, baffled, spew up in seething turmoil from beneath the racing keel, and hurry off to leeward. there you have a plethora of monotony; each hurrying sea is exactly the mate of his fellow that went before him, twin of that which follows after. day succeeds day without other variety than what may come from the carrying of less or more sail; hour after hour, day after day, the same gigantic albatrosses, with far-stretched motionless wings soar and wheel leisurely over and around the ship, never hasting, never stopping,--unhasting and relentless as death himself. monotony absolute and supreme, but a sense of freedom and of boundless space, and no touch of { }melancholy. so it is here among these rolling hills where the infant tweed is born. there is no melancholy in the situation, or at worst it can be but of brief duration. who could feel melancholy when, at last on the extreme summit and beginning the long descent towards moffat, he sees spread out on either hand that glorious crescent of hills, rich in the purple bloom of heather; annan deep beneath his feet wandering far through her quiet valley, and dim in the distance, the english hills asleep in the golden haze of afternoon. for my part, i would fain linger, perched up here, late into the summer gloaming, watching the panorama change with the changing light when the sun has long set and the glow is dying m the west; "for here the peace of heaven hath fallen, and here the earth and sky are mute in sympathy." and this ground is classic ground. it was at errickstane, not far below, where, more than six hundred years ago, the young sir james douglas found bruce riding on his way to scone, to be crowned king of scotland. and to the left of the road shortly after leaving its highest point on the hill, there yawns that tremendous hollow, the devil's beef tub, or, as it is sometimes called, the marquis of annandale's beef stand. it was here in the ' that a highland prisoner, suddenly wrapping himself tight in his plaid, threw himself over the edge ana rolled like a hedgehog to the bottom, escaping, sore bruised indeed, but untouched by the bullets that were sent thudding and whining after him by the outwitted prisoners' guard. he is a desperate man who would attempt a like feat, even minus the chance of a bullet. it is a wild place and a terrible. the reason of its being called the marquis's beef stand is given by summertrees in "redgauntlet." it was, said he, "because the annandale loons used to put their stolen cattle in there." and summer-tree's description of it is so truthful and vivid that it behoves one to quote it in full: "it looks as if four hills were laying { }their heads together to shut out daylight from the dark hollow space between them. [illustration: ] a d----d deep, black, blackguard-looking abyss of a hole it is, and goes straight down from the road-side, as perpendicular as it can do, to be a heathery brae. at the bottom there is a small bit of a brook, that you would think { }could hardly find its way out from the hills that are so closely jammed round it." and so, finally, having overshot the limits of tweed and her tributaries, we cast back to the hills on the immediate border-line of the two kingdoms, and pass into the country of dandie dinmont. chapter xvi liddesdale, hermitage, castleton |coming{ } into liddesdale by the route followed by prince charlie, over the hills by note o' the gate, one finds, a few miles past that curiously-named spot and no great distance from the road, the scene of a momentous battle of ancient times. it is claimed that it was here on dawstane rig the mighty struggle took place in the year between edelfrid, king of the northumbrians, and aidan, king of the scots, the result of which, says bede, writing a century and a quarter later, was that "from that time no king of the scots durst come into britain to make war on the angles to this day." as written by bede, the name of the place where the battle was fought is uaegsastan,--a "famous place," he calls it. dalston, near carlisle, also claims the honour of being the true site of this great defeat of the scots; but dawstane rig seems the more probable spot, for, judging from the number of camps in the immediate vicinity, it must assuredly in old days have answered the description of a "famous place." there are numerous signs, also, that a great fight did at some remote period take place here; traces of escarpments are numerous on the hill side, arrowheads and other suggestive implements have frequently been picked up, and over all the hill are low cairns or mounds of stones, probably burial places of the slain. so far as i am aware, no excavations have ever been made here, the dead--{ }if these stones do indeed cover the dead--sleep undisturbed where they fell. but if the work were judiciously done, it would be interesting and instructive to make a systematic search over the reputed battle ground. not far distant from this ancient field of battle, but a little closer to the base of peel fell, runs a roman road, the old wheel causeway, and into, or almost into, this road comes the catrail, here finally disappearing. i have never heard any suggestion made of a reason why this picts' work dyke should stop abruptly in, or at least on the very verge of, a roman high-way. it is difficult to accept the theory that the catrail was a road, because, in places where it crosses streams, no attempt is made to diverge towards a ford, or even to an easy entrance to the river bed; it plunges in where the bank is often most inconveniently precipitous, and emerges again where it is equally steep. yet if it was not a road, why should it run into and end in a recognised road that must have been in existence when the catrail was formed? up the wheel causeway, a little distance beyond the spot where the catrail disappears, and between the wormscleuch and peel burns, there stood at one time an ancient ecclesiastical building, the wheel chapel, of whose walls faint traces still remain. it was in this building that edward i of england passed the night of th may , during his bolder progress; in the record of his expedition the chapel is spoken of as the "wyel." when the statistical account of was written, probably a considerable part of the ruin yet stood, for the writer of that account speaks of it as being of "excellent workmanship," and "pretty large." and he remarks on the great number of grave-stones in the churchyard, from which he con eludes that the surrounding population must at one rime have been very considerable. over all this district, indeed, that seems to have been the case. chapels were numerous among these hills; in this part of liddesdale there were no fewer than five, and the wheel chapel itself is not more than six miles or { }so, as the crow flies, from southdean, where it is certain that about the date of the battle of otterburne the population was much more dense than it is at the present day. what changes little more than one hundred years have wrought in this countryside. six years before the statistical account of was penned, there were neither roads nor bridges in liddesdale; "through these deep and broken bogs and mosses we must _crawl_, to the great fatigue of ourselves but the much greater injury of our horses," pathetically says the reverend writer of the account. every article of merchandise had to be carried on horseback. sir walter scott himself--in august --was the first who ever drove a wheeled vehicle among the liddesdale hills, and we know from "guy mannering," and from lockhart's "life," pretty well what a wild country it then was. there was not an inn or a public house in the whole valley, says lockhart; "the travellers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the homestead." inns, to be sure, even now are not to be found, and are not needed, by every roadside, but at least there are excellent main roads down both liddel and hermitage, and a main line of railway runs through the valley; the moors are well drained, and the necessity no longer exists to "crawl" through broken bogs and mosses. yet still the hills in appearance are as they were in scott's day, still they retain features which render them distinct from any other of the border hills; they are "greener and more abrupt.... sinking their sides at once upon the river." "they had no pretensions to magnificence of height, or to romantic shapes, nor did their smooth swelling slopes exhibit either rocks or woods. yet the view was wild, solitary, and pleasingly rural. no enclosures, no roads, almost no tillage,--it seemed a land which a patriarch would have chosen to feed his flocks and herds. the remains of here and there a dismantled and ruined tower showed that it had once harboured beings of a very different description { }from its present inhabitants,--those freebooters, namely, to whose exploits the wars between england and scotland bear witness." the description might almost have been written today. the wild, hard riding, hard living freebooter of johnie armstrong's day is gone, leaving but a name and a tradition, or at most the mouldering walls of some old peel tower. but dandie dinmont himself, i think may still be found here in the flesh, as true a friend, as generous, as brave and steadfast as ever was his prototype,--but no longer as hard drinking. the days of "run" brandy from the solway firth are over, and the scene mentioned by lockhart is now impossible, where scott's host, a liddesdale farmer, on a slight noise being heard outside, the evening of the traveller's arrival, _banged_ up from his knees during family prayers, shouting "by----, here's the keg at last!" on hearing the previous day of scott's proposed visit, he had sent off two men to some smuggler's haunt to obtain a supply of liquor, that his reputation for hospitality might not be shamed. and here it was, to the great prejudice of that evening's family worship! i do not suppose that the present day "dandie" leisters fish any longer,--though one would not take on oneself rashly to swear that such a thing is even now entirely impossible, but certainly within recent years fox hunts have taken place amongst these hills much after the fashion described in "guy mannering." in such a country, indeed, what other means can there he of dealing with the hill foxes? there is another road into liddesdale from the north, that which comes from hawick up the slitrig, past stohs camp, then through the gap in the hills by shankend and over the watershed by limekilnedge, where whitterhope burn--tributary of hermitage water--takes its rise. as you drop down to heights less elevated, you pass on your left the nine stane rig, a druidical circle, but locally more famed as the spot where the cruel and detestable sorcerer, lord soulis, came to his grisly end. "oh, _boil_ him, if you like, but let me be plagued no more," cried (according to tradition) a scottish { }monarch, wearied by the importunities of those who endlessly brought before him their grievances against the wicked lord. so--as leyden wrote-- "on a circle of stones they placed the pot, on a circle of stones but barely nine; they heated it red and fiery hot, till the burnished brass did glimmer and shine. "they rolled him up in a sheet of lead-- a sheet of lead for a funeral pall; they plunged him in the cauldron red, and melted him, lead, and bones, and all. "at the skelf-hill, the cauldron still the men of liddesdale can show; . and on the spot, where they boiled the pot, the spreat and the deer-hair ne'er shall grow." ("spreat" is a species of rush, and "deer-hair" a coarse kind of grass.) not the least painful part of the operation one would think must have been the getting so large a body into so small a cauldron. some necromancy stronger than his own must have been employed to get him into a pot of the dimensions of that long preserved at skelf-hill and shown to the curious as the identical cauldron. of the stones that still remain of the original nine, two used to be pointed out as those between which the muckle pot was suspended on an iron bar, gipsy-kettle fashion. in reality, i believe this last of the de soulis family died in dumbarton castle, a prisoner accused of conspiracy and treason. a little way up hermitage water from the junction of whitterhope burn, stands the massive and most striking ruin of hermitage castle. externally, the walls of this formidable stronghold are said to be mostly of the fifteenth century, but in part, of course, the building is very much older. the first castle built here is said to have been erected by nicholas de soulis in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and on a map of about the year hermitage is shown as one of the { }great frontier fortresses. there were, however, earlier proprietors of these lands than the de soulis's, who may, presumably, have lived here in some stronghold of their own, to which their successors may have added. about the year , walter de bolbeck granted "to god and saint mary and brother william of mercheley" the hermitage in his "waste" called mercheley, beside hermitage water--then called the merching burn. but from a much earlier date than this, possibly as early as the sixth century, the place had been famed as the retreat of a succession of holy men, and probably something in the nature of a chapel existed even then. the chapel whose remains still stand, close by the bank of the tumbling stream, a few hundred yards higher up than the castle, is, i understand, of thirteenth century origin. it measures a little over fifty-one feet in length and twenty-four in width, and the ruins are of much interest, if it were only for the thought of those who in their day must have heard mass within its walls, and perhaps there confessed their sins. and surely, if sinners ever required absolution, some of those who must have knelt here had need to ask it. on the shoulders of de soulis and both well alone--among those who from time to lime held the castle of hermitage perhaps the chief of sinners,--there rested a load of iniquity too heavy to be borne by ordinary mortal; and of the others, some perhaps did not lag far behind in cruelty and wickedness. if the tale be all true regarding the last days of sir alexander ramsay in , the knight of liddesdale had a good deal to answer for during his tenancy of the castle. the interior of the building is in so much more ruinous a state than the outside, that it is not possible to follow with any degree of accuracy incidents that took place within its walls. it is said that before death ended his pangs, sir alexander ramsay eked out a miserable existence for seventeen days on grains of corn that dribbled down from a granary overhead into the dungeon where he lay. but the small dungeon where he is { }said to have been confined has a vaulted roof, and the room above was manifestly a guard room; so that--unless there was some other dungeon--probably this story too, so far at least as the grains of corn are concerned, must go the way of other picturesque old tales. [illustration: ] some interesting relics were found among the rubbish on the floor when the dungeon was opened early in the nineteenth century, but i do not know that there was anything that could in any way be connected with sir alexander's fate. many an unhappy wretch no doubt had occupied the place since his day. but what there was i believe was given to sir walter scott, who also, as readers may see in lockhart's "life," got from dr. elliot of cleuchhead "the large old border war horn, which ye may still see hanging in the armoury at abbotsford.... one of the doctor's servants had used it many a day as a grease-horn for his scythe, { }before they discovered its history. when cleaned out, it was never a hair the worse--the original chain, hoop, and mouthpiece of steel, were all entire, just as you now see them. sir walter carried it home all the way from liddesdale to jedburgh, slung about his neck like johnny gilpin's bottle, while i [shortreed] was intrusted with an ancient bridle-bit which we had likewise picked up." the horn i think had been found in a marshy bit of land near the castle. since about , hermitage has been the property of the scotts of buccleuch, into whose hands it came through their connection with francis stewart, earl of bothwell. a sketch done in shows that at that date one wall of the castle was rent from top to bottom by an enormous fissure, seemingly almost beyond redemption. but about , careful repairs were undertaken by order of the then duke of buccleuch, and, externally, the building now seems to be in excellent condition. many a warrior, no doubt, lies buried in the graveyard of hermitage chapel, but i do not think any tombstones of very-great age have ever been found. outside, however, between the wall of the burial ground and the river, there is an interest ing mound, the reputed grave of the famous cout o' keilder. keilder is a district of northumberland adjoining peel fell, and in the day of the wizard soulis, that iniquitous lord's most noted adversary was the chief of keilder, locally called, from his great size and strength and activity, "the cout." in his last desperate fight with soulis and his followers on the banks of hermitage water, the cout was hewing a bloody path through the press of men, towards his chief enemy, when weight of numbers forced him, like a wounded stag, to take to the water. here, at bay in the rushing stream, guarding himself from the foes who swarmed on either bank, the cout stumbled and fell, and, hampered by his armour, he could not regain his feet; for each time that the drowning man got his head above water, soulis and his band thrust him back with their long spears. finally, as he became more exhausted, they held him down. and so the cout perished. here on the grassy bank, hard by what is still called "the cout o' keilder's pool," is his grave. [illustration: ] but one is disappointed to learn that when an examination of it was made some years ago, no gigantic bones were unearthed, nor indeed any bones at all. there is in some of the hills near hermitage a peculiarity which cannot fail to strike observers; and that is, the deep gashes--you cannot call them glens--that have been cut here and there by the small burns. scored wide and deep into the smooth sides of the hills, they are yet not so wide as to force themselves on the eye. it would be possible to drive into them, and there effectually to conceal for a time, large mobs of cattle, and i do not doubt that in old days these fissures were often so used when a hostile english force was moving up the valley. as one goes down hermitage water towards its junction with the liddel, the country, one finds, is plentifully sprinkled { }with the ruins of peel towers,--abandoned rookeries of the elliot clan, i suppose, for the armstrong holdings were a little lower down. but in old days, when the de soulis's held all liddesdale, there were other strong castles besides hermitage. near dinlabyre there stood the castle of clintwood, and not far from the meeting of the two streams, on the high bank of liddel, stood one of their strongholds--liddel castle. it was from this castle that the old village of castleton look its name: the village was at first merely a settlement of de soulis's followers. the old statistical account of the parish gives an extract from the session records of castleton church which is of interest. it is as follows: " january . the english army commanded by colonels bright and pride, and under the conduct of general cromwell, on their return to england, did lie at the kirk of castleton several nights, in which time they brak down and burnt the communion table and the seats of the kirk; and at their removing carried away the minister's books, to the value of one thousand merks and above, and also the books of session, with which they lighted their tobacco pipes, the baptism, marriage, and examination rolls from october to september , all which were lost and destroyed." castleton as a village does not now exist, and the old church has disappeared, though the churchyard is still used. the other village, the present newcastleton, is of course entirely a township of yesterday---to be precise, it dates only from . but it is interesting from the fact that the present railway station occupies the site where once stood the tower of park, the peel of that "little jock elliot" who so nearly put an end to the life of bothwell. what a difference it might have made if he had but stabbed in a more vital spot, or a little deeper. not far from castleton was the home of the notorious willie of westburnflat, last of the old reivers, and--it almost goes { }without saying--an armstrong; the last of those of whom it was written: "of liddisdail the common thiefis, sa peartlie stellis now and reifis, that nane may keip horse, nolt, nor scheip, nor yett dar sleip for their mischeifis." but willie lived in degenerate days; the times were out of joint, and reiving as a profession had gone out of fashion. people now resented having their eye "lifted," and meanly invoked the new-fangled aid of the law in redressing such grievances. nevertheless, willie did his best to maintain old customs, and consequently he was feared and hated far beyond the bounds of liddesdale. modern prejudice however at length became too strong for him. it so fell out that a dozen or so of cows, raided one night from teviotdale, were traced to westburnflat. in the dead of night, when willie was peacefully asleep, tired perhaps, and soothed by the consciousness of a deed well done, the men of teviotdale arrived, and, bursting in, before willie could gather his scattered wits or realise what was happening he was overpowered by numbers, and they had bound him fast, hand and foot. his trial, along with that of nine friends and neighbours, was held at selkirk, and though the lost cattle had not been found in his possession, and the evidence of this particular theft was in no way conclusive, on the question of general character alone the jury thought it safer to find all the prisoners guilty. sentence of death was pronounced. thereupon willie arose in wrath, seized the heavy oak chair on which he had been seated, broke it in pieces by main strength, kept a strong leg for himself, and passing the remainder to his condemned comrades, called to them to stand by him and they would fight their way out of selkirk. there is little doubt, too, that he would have succeeded had he been properly backed up. but his friends--{ }poor "fushiunless," spiritless creatures, degenerate armstrongs surely, if they were armstrongs--seized his hands and cried to him to "_let them die like christians_." [illustration: ] perhaps it was a kind of equivalent to turning king's evidence; they may have hoped to curry favour and to be treated leniently because of their services in helping to secure the chief villain. but they might better have died fighting; pusillanimity availed them nothing. they were all duly hanged. a few miles down the liddel from westburnfiat is the site { }of mangerton castle, home of the chief of the armstrong clan, johnie of gilnockie's brother. [illustration: ] nothing now is left of the building, but sir walter mentions that an old carved stone from its walls is built into a neighbouring mill. near to mangerton, in a field between newcastleton and ettletown churchyard, is the interesting milnholm cross, said to have been erected somewhere about six hundred years ago to mark the spot where a dead chief of the armstrongs lay, prior to being buried at ettletown. the tradition as given in the statistical account of , is as follows: "one of the governors of hermitage castle, some say lord soulis, others lord douglas, having entertained a passion for a young woman in the lower part of the parish, went to her house, and was met by her father, who, wishing to conceal his daughter, was instantly killed by the governor. he was soon pursued by the people, and, in extreme danger, took refuge with armstrong of mangerton, who had influence enough to prevail on the { }people to desist from the pursuit, and by this means saved his life. seemingly with a view to make a return for this favour, but secretly jealous of the power and influence of armstrong, he invited him to hermitage, where he was basely murdered. he himself, in his turn, was killed by jock of the side, of famous memory, and brother to armstrong. the cross was erected in memory of the transaction." here, too, i fear tradition is untrustworthy. jock of the syde--"a greater thief did never ride"--lived long after the day of the de soulis's or of douglas; he was, indeed, contemporary with the equally notorious "johne of the parke,"--little jock elliot. this milnholm cross is a little over eight feet in height. the carving is worn, and not very distinct, but on a shield there is the heraldic device of the armstrongs, a bent arm; some lettering, i.h.s.; below, the initials m.a., and what appears to be a.a.; and on the shaft is cut a two-handed sword, about four feet in length. in his "history of liddesdale," ( ). bruce armstrong says the shield was added "recently." chapter xvii kershopefoot, carlisle castle, solway moss |a little{ } further down the river we come to the kershope burn, here the boundary between scotland and england. it was here, at "the dayholme of kershoup"--which i take to be the flat land on the scottish side of liddel, opposite to the mouth of the burn--that the wardens' meeting was held in , which became afterwards so famous owing to the illegal capture by the english of kinmont willie. all the world knows the tale, and all the world knows how gallantly buccleuch rescued the prisoner from carlisle castle. but until one goes to carlisle, and takes note for oneself of the difficulties with which buccleuch had to contend, and the apparently hopeless nature of his undertaking, it is not possible to appreciate the full measure of the rescuer's gallantry. kinmont, i suppose, on the day of his capture was riding quietly homeward down the scottish side of the river, suspecting no evil, for the day was a day of truce. "upon paine of death, presentlie to be executed, all persones whatsoever that come to these meitings sould be saife fra any proceiding or present occasioun, from the tyme of meiting of the wardens, or their deputies, till the next day at the sun rysing." the english did not play the game; from their own side of liddel they had probably kept kinmont in sight, meaning to seize him if opportunity offered. and they made the opportunity. for the most part, the banks of { }liddel here are steep and broken, and the river is devoid of any ford; but a mile or two down from kershopefoot the land on the scottish side slopes gently from the water, and it is easily fordable. [illustration: ] here probably began the chase which ended in willie's capture. a very fine sword was found near this. the night of kinmont's release, the th of april, , was very dark, with rain falling, and a slight mist rising over the river flats at carlisle. and the eden was swollen. it is not possible to form any very definite idea of the initial difficulty buccleuch must have met with at this point, because the bed of the river is now entirely different from what it was then. in former days, i believe, a long, low island lay in mid-stream, the water flowing swiftly through two channels. even now there is shallow water part way across, but the stream runs strong and { }it would be ill to ford, especially on a dark night. buccleuch, i take it, must have swum his horses across the eden nearly opposite, but a trifle above, the mouth of the litde river caldew, the water being at the tyme, through raines that had fallen, weill thick; he comes to the sacray, a plaine place under the toune and castell, and halts upon the syde of a little water or burn that they call "caday." [illustration: ] the "sacray" is of course what now goes by the name of the sauceries. buccleuch's scaling ladders proved too short to enable him to get within the castle walls by their means; but there is a small postern gate in the wall (nearly abreast of the present public abattoirs), and this was forced, or at least one or two men squeezed in here, possibly by removing a stone below the gate, and opened the postern to their comrades. this postern has recently been reopened. after buccleuch's exploit it had been securely built upon both sides, outside and in; and later, { }a cook's galley and other domestic offices were erected on the inner side, against the wall, effectually hiding the old gate. [illustration: ] these buildings and the stonework blocking the postern have now been pulled down, and the identical little oaken gate through which buccleuch and his men entered, once more has seen the light of day, and, i understand, is now being put in a state of thorough repair. having made his entry, buccleuch placed one part of his force between the castle and the town, so that he might not be assailed in rear, and, leaving a few men to guard the postern and secure their retreat, the rest pushed towards kinmont willie's place of confinement in the keep, all making as great a noise as possible, "to terrifie both castell and toune by ane imaginatioun of a greater force." hitherto they had encountered only the castle sentinels, who were easily scattered and brushed aside; "the rest that was within doors heiring the noyse of the trumpet within, and that the castell was entered, and the noyse of others without, both the lord { }scroope himself and his deputy salkeld being thair with the garrisone and hys awin retinew, did keep thamselffis close." [illustration: ] it was one thing, however, for the rescuers to have forced their way inside the castle walls, but it should have been quite another, to accomplish the feat of getting the prisoner out of the dungeon. through a female spy they knew in what part of the castle he lay; but his place of confinement,--inside the keep,--was quite a hundred yards from the postern gate, and { }surely a few resolute men might have held so strong a post for a time without much difficulty. lord scrope, however, did not emerge from his retreat; and to the others as well, discretion seemed the better part of valour. [illustration: ] meantime, buccleuch's trumpets were blaring out the arrogant old elliot slogan; "_o wha daur meddle wi' me?_"; and his men, falling to with energy, forced the gate of the keep, burst in the massive door of the outer dungeon, tore away that of the dark and noisome inner prison, a rough, vaulted stone chamber to which no ray of light ever penetrated even on the brightest clay, and there they found kinmont, chained to the wall. no time now to strike off his fetters; they could but free him from the long iron bar that ran along one side of the wall, and "then red rowan has hente him up, the starkest man in teviotdale-- 'abide, abide now, red rowan, till of my lord scroope i take farewell.' "'farewell, farew ell, my gude lord scroope! my gude lord scroope, farewell!' he cried-- 'i'll pay ye for my lodging maill, when first we meet on the border side.' "then shoulder high, with shout and cry, we bore him down the ladder lang; at every stride red rowan made, i wot the kinmont's aims played clang! "we scarce had won the staneshaw-bank, when a' the carlisle bells were rung, and a thousand men on horse and foot, cam' wi' the keen lord scroope along." but still they held aloof, hesitating to attack the retreating little scottish band, and buccleuch and his men, with willie in their midst, plunged in and safely recrossed the swollen river. "he turned him on the other side, and at lord scroope his glove flung he-- 'if ye likena my visit in merry england, in fair scotland come visit me!'" but lord scrope on this night scarcely merited the term, "keen"; he went no farther towards scotland than the water's edge. "'he is either himself a devil frae hell, or else his mother a witch maun be; i wadna have ridden that wan water for a' the gowd in christentie,'" cried he, according to the ballad. was he, one cannot help wondering, ashamed of the english breach of border law entailed in the matter of kinmont's capture, and was he in a measure wilfully playing into buccleuch's hands? if that were the case, he took on himself a heavy risk. elizabeth was not exactly the kind of sovereign who would be likely to be tender hearted and to make allowances for slackness in such an affair, nor one with whom her servants might safely take liberties. { }as safely might the gambolling lamb play pranks with the drowsing wolf. [illustration: ] not far from longtown, at a place called dick's tree, on the farther side of esk, there still stands the "smiddy" (or smith's shop) where kinmont's irons were struck off. in one of sir walter scott's m.s. letters of it is told that: "tradition preserves the account of the smith's daughter, then a child, how there was a _sair clatter_ at the door about daybreak, and loud crying for the smith; but her father not being on the alert, buccleueh himself thrust his lance thro' the window, which effectually bestirred him. on looking out, the woman continued, she saw, in the grey of the morning, more gentlemen than she had ever before seen in one place, all on horseback, in armour, and dripping wet--and that kinmont willie, who sat woman fashion behind one of them, was the biggest carle she ever saw--and there was much merriment in { }the company." except for this event, dick's tree is quite uninteresting, and quite unpicturesque; it is merely a cottage like a thousand others to be seen in the border, possessing no special feature, or even any indication of antiquity. [illustration: ] and no one works the "smiddy" now, except at odd times; modern requirements have, i understand, taken the business away to longtown. what was the end of kinmont willie no one knows, but he { }certainly lived to pay, to some small extent, for his "lodging maill;" he was engaged in a raid on lord scrope's tenants in the year , and doubtless he did not forget the debt incurred at carlisle. later than this i think there is no record of him, but it would not be surprising to learn that at the last lord scrope was able to give a receipt in full. many an armstrong in old days danced at the end of a rope at "hairribie." not improbably, kinmont was one of them. there is a grave in an old churchyard not far from the tower of sark, which is pointed out as his. but the date on the tombstone makes it impossible that the veritable willie of kinmont lies underneath. the name of "william armstrong called kynmount" is in lord maxwell's muster roll of , together with those of his seven sons. willie, therefore--if at that date he had seven sons fit to fight--could have been no youth. now the william armstrong to whose memory the sark tombstone is erected died in , which, if he had been the famous kinmont, would give him an age of considerably over a hundred years. but in any case, it is an interesting old stone. many years ago steps were taken to preserve it from further decay, and the lettering and other points were retouched. round the edges of the stone is cut: "_heir lyes. ane. worthie. person. callit. william. armstrong. of. sark. who. died. te io. day. of. june. . . aetatis. svae. _." on the body of the stone: "man as grass to grave he flies. grass decays and man he dies. grass revives and man doth rise. yet few they be who get the prise." below are the armstrong bent arm holding a sword, a skull and crossed bones, an hour glass and other emblems, and below all, "memento mora." this william armstrong, therefore, who died in , aged , was not born when kinmont willie was rescued by buccleuch from carlisle castle. here, on the lower part of sark, we are in a country world { }famed for its old fashioned run-away marriages, more famed even than was coldstream. [illustration: ] down the river is sark bridge, with its toll-bar, and adjacent to it, gretna green. at the tollhouse alone in the early part of last century, within six years thirteen hundred couples were married--a profitable business for the "priest," (usually the village blacksmith,) for his fee ranged from half a guinea to a hundred pounds, according to the circumstances of each fond couple. but what was charged in a case such as that of lord erskine, lord high chancellor of england, who, when he was nearly seventy years of age, eloped with a blushing spinster and was married at gretna--in the inn, i think--history does not tell. there is a something, part comic, part pathetic, in the thought of the tired old gentle{ }man gallantly propping himself in a corner of his post chaise, flying through the darkness of night on love's wings, a fond bride by his side. [illustration: ] and when grey dawn at length stole through the breath-dimmed glass of the closed windows, revealing the "elderly morning dew" on his withered cheeks and stubbly chin, with callous disregard emphasizing the wrinkles, the bags below the puffy eyes--bloodshot from want of sleep--and the wig awry, did the young lady begin to repent her bargain, one may wonder. stretched between sark and longtown is the debateable land and solway moss; the latter "just a muckle black moss," they will tell you here, yet surely not without its own beauty under certain combinations of sun and cloud. "solway moss" is a name of evil repute to us of scotland, for here on th { }november took place the most miserable of all border battles--if indeed "battle" is a term in any degree applicable to the affair. [illustration: ] the encounter, such as it was, took place not so much in solway moss, however, as over towards arthuret. the scots--a strong raiding army, but disorganised, and in a state of incipient mutiny against their newly-appointed leader, oliver sinclair, (ridpath says: "a general murmur and breach of all order immediately ensued" when his appointment was made known,)--at dawn of the th were already burning northward through the debateable land. wharton with his compact little english force watched them from arthuret howes and skilfully drew them into a hopeless trap between the esk and an impassable swamp, where there was no room to deploy. here the english--at most not a sixth part so numerous as the scots--charging down on the scottish right flank threw them into hopeless confusion, and from that minute all was over. { }panic seized the scots: men cast aside whatever might hamper their flight, and, plunging into the water, scrambled for what safety they might find among the grahams and the english borderers of liddesdale--which, as it turned out, meant little better than scrambling from the frying pan into the fire. [illustration: ] many were driven into the swamp and perished there miserably, many were drowned in the river, and twelve hundred men--including a large percentage of nobles--were captured. out of a force variously estimated at from two to three thousand strong--sir william musgrave, who was with the cavalry, puts it at the higher figure--the english lost but seven men killed. it was a { }sorry business, a dreadful day for scotland; and it ended the life of james v as effectually as if he had been slain on the field of battle. [illustration: ] i do not know if arthuret church was injured on this occasion; it is recorded in that it had then been ruinous for about sixty years. perhaps the armstrongs may have been responsible; they made a big raid hereaway in . the present building dates, i believe, from . there was another calamity connected with solway moss, later than the battle and local in effect, yet sufficiently terrible to cast over the district a black shadow of tragedy, the memory of which time has lightened but even yet has not entirely wiped out. november was a month of evil note for its storms and ceaseless wet. day followed day sodden with driving rain, and the country lay smothered under a ragged grey blanket of mist. firm ground became a quagmire that quaked under foot, pools widened into lakes, and the rivers { }rose in dreadful spate that yet failed to carry off the superfluous water. [illustration: ] liddel roared through the rocky gorge of fenton linn with a fury such as had never been known; esk left her bed and wandered at will. many people living in the low lying flats surrounding the moss, alarmed for the safety of their cattle, were abroad in the dark of the morning of th november, intent on getting the beasts to higher ground, { }when a long-drawn muffled rumble, as of distant thunder, startled them. [illustration: ] the moss had burst, spewing out from its maw a putrid mass that spread relentlessly, engulfing house after house, in many cases catching the inhabitants in their beds. for weeks the horrible eruption spread, and ere its advance was stayed thirty families were homeless, their houses, furniture, and live-stock buried twenty feet deep under a black slime that stank like the pit of tophet. harking back to carlisle, (which we left in company of kinmont willie,) one would fain linger in that pleasant town, to dream awhile over its alluring past. but carlisle is a subject too big to introduce at the close of a volume; there is a more than sufficient material in the story of the castle (with its wealth of warlike and other memories), and of the cathedral, alone to make a fair-sized book. there is too much to tell; for, besides the story of the captivity here of queen mary of { }scotland, and that of the capture of carlisle by prince charlie, there are a hundred and one other things, if once a beginning were made and space to tell them were available. (what used to be called queen mary's tower, to save cost of repairs was pulled down by government between and , together with the hall in which edward i held parliaments, and much else of surpassing interest. vandalism in those days was a vice which affected not alone the private individual.) moreover, there would be the question of where to stop, for if the history of carlisle be touched upon, at once we are mixed up with that of half a score of places in the immediate neighbourhood, all of which are full of profoundest interest. there would be, for example, naworth, not far from the quaint little town of brampton, naworth with its massive walls, and memories of the dacres, and of belted will howard--a name better known to border fame, at least to the borderer of to day, than even that of his predecessors. then there would necessarily be the fascinating subject of the roman wall, of bird-oswald camp, of lanercost, and of gilsland, with its memories of sir walter. one must needs make an end somewhere, and it is hopeless to treat of such subjects in small space. but bewcastle, perhaps, because of its connection with a subject mentioned earlier in this volume, must not be omitted. chapter xviii bewcastle, liddel moat, netherby, kirk andrews, gilnockie, langholm |a pilgrimage{ } to bewcastle cannot be recommended to persons animated by curiosity alone; or even by a passion for the beauties of nature. [illustration: ] from childhood the writer had a desire to behold bewcastle, because it was the captain of bewcastle who, in the ballad of _jamie telfer_, in _the border minstrelsy_, made such an unlucky raid on the cows of a farmer in ettrickdale. the very word bewcastle seemed to re-echo { }the trumpets of the wardens' raids and the battles long ago. [illustration: ] but when you actually find yourself, after a long walk or drive up a succession of long green ascents, in the broad bleak cup of the hills; when you see the grassy heights, with traces of ancient earthworks that surround the blind grey oblong of the ruined castle; the little old church, all modern within, and the { }tiny hamlet that nestles by the shrunken and prosaic burn; then, unless you be an antiquary and a historian, you feel as if you had come very far to see very little. [illustration: ] but if a secular antiquary and a ballad lover, you fill the landscape with galloping reivers, you restore the royal flag of england to the tower, and your mind is full of the rough riding life of mus-graves and grahams, scotts, elliots and armstrongs. if, on the other hand, your tastes are ecclesiastical, and you are an amateur of runic writing, you can pass hours with the tall headless runic cross beside the church, a work of art dating from the middle of the seventh century of our era, according to the prevalent opinion. bewcastle is at least ten miles from the nearest railway at penton; twelve from brampton; not easily approached by a fell path from gilsland; and is most easily if least romantically reached by motor car from carlisle, a drive of nearly twenty { }miles. the elliots and scotts of the reiving days, got at bewcastle by riding down liddel water, crossing it at the kershope burn ford, and then robbing all and sundry through some four miles. the castle they could not take in a casual expedition. the oldest monument in the place, except the earthworks said to be roman, is the cross, which much resembles the more famous cross of ruthwell, near dumfries, with the runes from the song of the rood. more fortunate than the ruthwell relic of early anglican christianity, that of bewcastle was never broken up by the bigots of the covenant as "a monument of idolatry." the head, however, was removed by belted will of naworth, and sent to camden the historian, in the reign of james vi and i. the west face is the most interesting. the top panel contains a figure of st. john the baptist; our lord is represented in the central panel, inscribed in runes, _gessus kristins_. the figure is noble and broad in treatment; done in the latest gloaming of classical art. beneath is seated a layman, in garb of peace, with his falcon. the runic inscription on the central panel is black, painted black, it seems, by a recent rector, the rev. mr. maughan, who laboured long at deciphering the characters. professor stephens read them: this victory-column thin set up hwaetred woth gar olfwolthu after alcfrith once king and son of oswi pray for the high sin of his soul. runes are difficult. mr. stephens once read a greek epitaph in elegiac verse, for a syrian boy, at brough, as a runic lament, in old english, for a martyred christian lady. i have little confidence in hwaetred, olfwolthu, and wothgar: who were they; the artists employed in making the cross? _eac oswiung_, "and son of oswin," "the king," is said to be plain enough, and to indicate alchfrith, son of oswin, who after a stormy youth accepted, as against the celtic clerics, the positions of st. wilfred. [illustration: ] the decorative work, knot work, vine scrolls, birds and little animals among the grapes, is of byzantine and { }northern italian origin: like the decoration of the ruthwell cross. bewcastle must, it seems, have been a more important and populous place when this monument was erected, than even when the royal castle was a centre of resistance to the riddesdale clans in queen elizabeth's day. returning from bewcastle by penton, we strike the riddel near penton linn, not distant from the vanished peel of that judas, hector armstrong of harelaw, who betrayed the earl of northumberland into the hands of the regent murray in . a little way below, near the junction of riddel and esk, on a commanding height that overhangs railway and river, is riddel moat. locally this moat is called "the roman camp," but to the average amateur there is certainly nothing roman about it. no doubt the romans may have had an outpost here; the position is too strong not to have been held by them, especially as they had a station barely a couple of miles away, at netherby. but the prominent remains of fortifications now to be seen here manifestly date from long after roman days. it is, i believe, the site of the earliest riddel castle, erected by ranulph de soulis before either the riddel castle at castleton, or hermitage, was built. this riddel castle was razed to the ground, wiped out of existence, by the scottish army under david bruce, which invaded england in and was so totally routed at neville's cross a few weeks later. on his march southward, says redpath, bruce "took the fortress of riddel and put the garrison to the sword,... spreading terror and desolation all round him in his progress through cumberland." liddel moat is well worthy of a visit, but it is somewhat out of the beaten track and can only be reached by walking a little distance, preferably from the station at biddings junction. the position, defended on the landward side by an immensely deep moat, and on the other dropping almost sheer into the river--or rather, now, on to the intervening railway line--is a magnificent one, and the view obtained from the { }highest point is very fine,--at one's feet, just beyond the two rivers, "cannobie lea"; "there was mounting 'mong graemes of the netherby clan, forsters, fenwicks, and musgraves, they rode and they ran, there was racing and chasing on cannobie lea, but the lost bride of netherby ne'er did they see." a short way farther down the esk is netherby, headquarters of that clan whose peel towers once dotted this part of cumberland and all the debateable land, and who in the early seventeenth century were so hardly used by james vi and i. they were no better, i suppose, than the others of that day, but they were no worse, and the story of their banishment is not very pleasant reading. lord scrope believed that the grahams were "privy" to buccleuch's rescue of kinmont willie, and certainly the grahams did not love lord scrope, who, i suppose, was not likely to present the clan in a very favourable light to queen elizabeth. their reputation, in any case, became increasingly black, and james i, when he came to the throne, issued a proclamation against them. in fact, the dog was given an exceedingly bad name--not of course wholly without cause--and hung; or, rather, many of their houses were harried, their women and children turned out to fend for themselves in the wet and cold, and their men shipped off to banishment in ireland and in holland. certainly, in driblets they made their way back to their own country again, after a time--those who survived, that is,--but their nests had been harried, their broods scattered down the wind, and, as a clan, their old status was never regained. as has already been told, netherby was the site of a roman station, and it is rich in evidences of the old legions--coins, altars, and what not. the original peel at netherby--which still forms part of the present mansion--i take to have been such another as the graham tower of kirk andrews, its near neighbour, which stands--still inhabited--just across the esk, perched on a rising ground overhanging the river. { }from a sporting point of view at least, the esk here is a beautiful stream, famous for its salmon, which are plentiful and often of great size. [illustration: ] in his notes to "redgauntlet," sir walter scott mentions that "shortly after the close of the american war, sir james graham of netherby constructed a dam-dike, or cauld, across the esk, at a place where it flowed through his estate, though it has its origin, and the principal part of its course, in scotland. the new barrier at netherby was considered as an encroachment calculated to prevent the salmon from ascending into scotland; and the right of erecting it being an international question of law betwixt the sister kingdoms, there was no court in either competent to its decision. in this dilemma, the scots people assembled in numbers by signal of rocket-lights, and, rudely armed with fowling-pieces, fish spears and such rustic weapons, marched to the banks of the river for { }the purpose of pulling down the dam dike objected to. sir james graham armed many of his own people to protect his property, and had some military from carlisle for the same purpose. a renewal of the border wars had nearly taken place in the eighteenth century, when prudence and moderation on both sides saved much tumult, and perhaps some bloodshed. the english proprietor consented that a breach should be made in his dam-dike sufficient for the passage of the fish, and thus removed the scottish grievance. i believe the river has since that time taken the matter into its own disposal, and entirely swept away the dam-dike in question." i do not think there is now any trace of the obstruction which so roused the good people of langholm and their supporters the question, of course, was not a new one. as early as the middle of the fifteenth century, cumberland folks and scots were at loggerheads over a "fish-garth" constructed by the former, which the scots maintained prevented salmon from ascending to the upper waters. the dispute raged for something like a hundred years. leaving kirk andrews, we get at once onto the old london and edinburgh coach road close to scot's dike, and in the course of two or three miles reach the village of canonbie, where at a little distance from the bridge over esk stands the comfortable old coaching inn, the cross keys, now favoured of anglers. thence all the way to langholm the road runs by the river-bank through very delightful scenery, said, in old days, indeed, to be the most beautiful of all between london and edinburgh. in the twelfth century a priory stood at canonbie, and as late as there was still a resident prior, but the building itself i think was wrecked by the english in , after the battle of solway moss. a few of its stones are still to the fore, but i fear the ruin was used as a quarry during the building of canonbie bridge. that also is a fate that waited on another famous building not far from canonbie--gilnockie castle, the residence of the { }notorious johnny armstrong. hollows tower, a few hundred yards above the village of hollows, is often confounded with gilnockie, probably for the reason that no stone of the latter has been left standing on another, and that hollows tower is a conspicuous object in the foreground here. [illustration: ] perhaps, too, sir walter scott was partly responsible for the belief prevalent in many quarters that the hollows is gilnockie. in "minstrelsy of the scottish border," he says: "his [johny armstrong's] { }place of residence (now a roofless tower) was at the hollows, a few miles from langholm, where its rains still serve to adorn a scene which, in natural beauty, has few equals in scotland." [illustration: ] i am not certain, but i do not think that sir walter ever visited gilnockie. if he had done so, it could scarcely have escaped his knowledge that another castle once stood less than half a { }mile from hollows tower, and that towards the end of the eighteenth century the stones from that castle were utilised in the building of gilnockie bridge. that they were so used is well authenticated; and i should think it is probable that the ruin was found to be a convenient quarry also when houses in the neighbouring village of hollows were being built. hollows lower is a very good example of the old border keep, but it is small, much too small to have given anything like sufficient accommodation for johny armstrong's "tail," which must necessarily have been of considerable strength. the dining hall, for instance, measures roughly only a little over twenty-two feet by thirteen, and the total outside length of the tower is less than thirty-five feet. i should imagine it to be certain that johny never lived here; indeed. i should be inclined to doubt if this particular hollows tower was even built during johny armstrong's life-time. neither is the position a very strong one,--though on that point it is perhaps not easy to judge, because, in old days no doubt (as in the case of hermitage castle,) impassable swamps probably helped to protect it from assault on one or more sides. the place where gilnockie stood is without any doubt a little lower down the esk than hollows tower, at a point where the river makes a serpentine bend and contracts into a narrow, rocky gorge, impossible to ford. here, at the carlisle end of gilnockie bridge, on the high tongue of rocky land that projects into the stream, are faint but unmistakeable outlines of a large building, with outworks. the position is magnificent--impregnable, in fact, to any force of olden days unprovided with artillery. on three sides the rocky banks drop nearly sheer to the water, and across the root of the tongue are indications of a protecting fosse. it is impossible to imagine a site more perfect for a freebooter's stronghold. to have neglected it, in favour of such a position as that occupied by the hollows tower, would have been on the reiver's part to throw away the most obvious of the gifts of providence. { }local tradition has it that johny had a drawbridge by which, at will, he could cross the river. [illustration: ] certainly there is a projecting nose of rock just at the narrowest part of the stream, immediately above the present stone bridge, but one would be inclined to doubt if the engineering skill of scotland in the { }sixteenth century was equal to the task of constructing a serviceable drawbridge capable of spanning a width so great. there, is a curious stone that projects _inwards_ from high up in hollows tower, the original purpose of which forms to the amateur lover of ancient buildings a quite insolvable puzzle. the stone measures, roughly, from the wall to its tip about three feet in length, and its diameter is perhaps ten or twelve inches. towards the end farthest from the wall it has a well-marked groove on the upper part and sides, as if heavy weights had frequently been suspended from it by ropes or chains. its position is on the light of a narrow door that opens two or three feet above the floor-level of the room into which the stone projects, and the stone itself must have been close to the ceiling of the chamber. what was its use? an intelligent but youthful guide, when the writer was at hollows, suggested with ghoulish delight that it was "a hangin'-stane." but that, surely, would have been wilful waste on the part of the armstrongs, so long as trees were available. nor is it likely that they got rid of prisoners in this way with a regularity sufficient to account for the well worn groove in the stone. it does, however, recall sir thomas dick lauder's feelings, when "at the top of the south-western angle of the tower [of neidpath], a large mass of the masonry had fallen, and laid open a chamber roofed with a gothic arch of stone, from the centre of which swung, vibrating with every heavy gust of wind, an enormous iron ring. to what strange and wild horrors did this not awaken the fancy?" from a little beyond hollows tower, all the way to langholm you catch through the trees glimpses of hurrying, foamfleckcd streams that speak most eloquently of "sea-trout, rushing at the fly." it has never been the writer's fortune to cast a line in this water, but if looks go for anything the sport must be excellent. it is impossible to imagine scenery more pleasing than the woody banks that overhang the river as langholm is { }approached; and the position of the town itself, nestling amongst beautiful hills, is singularly inviting. langholm occupies the site of a famous old battle, that of arkenholm, where in the power of the douglas's was finally broken. [illustration: ] in and about the town there is much to interest those whose tastes lean towards archaeology; the whole countryside, indeed, is sprinkled with towers and the remains of towers. in the burgh itself for example, there is what appears to be the remains of an old peel, now forming part of the wing of a hotel; just above the upper bridge are the ruins--the sorely battered ruins--of langholm castle, once an armstrong stronghold; and most beautifully situated on wauchope water, just outside the town, is wauchope castle, long ago the seat of the lindsays. little now is left of the building, practically nothing, indeed, but two small portions of the outer wall on the rocks { }immediately overhanging the picturesque water of wauchope. the position must in the days of its pride have been immensely strong, and the scene now is very beautiful. in close proximity to the castle is an old graveyard, with remains--at least the foundations--of a pre-reformation church and a few interesting old stones, two, at least, apparently very ancient, if one may judge from the style of sword cut on them. not far from this are traces of the old roman road, and near at hand a stone bridge, also believed to be roman, once crossed the stream. but it is said--with what truth i know not--to have been destroyed long ago by a minister, whose care of his flock was such that, to prevent the lads of langholm strolling that way of an evening, disturbing the peace of mind and pious meditations of his female domestics, he demolished it. as in the case of selkirk, and of hawick, the great festival of the year at langholm is on the occasion of the fair and common riding. in the proclamation of the fair, after a statement of the penalties to be imposed on disturbers of the festival, the curious words occur: "they shall sit down on their bare knees and pray seven times for the king, and thrice for the muckle laird o' ralton." the laird of ralton was an illegitimate son of charles ii, but what he had to do with eskdale, or what is the origin of the words, i have been quite unable to learn. to go, even superficially, into the history of langholm and of the interesting and beautiful country surrounding it, would occupy much space, and neither time nor space is available. here, amongst the hills and the many waters, we must leave the border. it is a country whose mountains are seldom grand or awe-inspiring, as in some parts of the scottish highlands they may be; its streams do not flow with the rich majesty of thames, nor with the mighty volume of tay; and there are, doubtless, rivers possessed of wilder scenery. but to the true borderer, however long absent he be, into what part { }soever of the world he may have been driven by the fates, there are no hills like the border hills--they are indeed to him "the delectable mountains"; there are no waters so loved, none that sing to him so sweetly as tweed and all the streams of his own land. "if i did not see the heather at least once a year, i think i should die," said scott. to a greater or less extent it is so with all of us. one of her most loving sons (he who should have guided the course of this volume, and who, had he lived, would have made of it something worthy of the border), once said, on his return from a visit to famed killarney: "the beauty of the irish lakes is rather that of the professional beauty. when one comes back to the border, there one finds the same beauty one used to see in the face of one's mother, or of one's old nurse." and: "i am never so happy as when i cross the tweed at berwick from the south," he writes in an introduction to mr. charles murray's "plamewith." it was not only his own, but, i think, every borderer's sentiments that he voiced when he wrote: "brief are man's days at best; perchance i waste my own, who have not seen the castled palaces of france shine on the loire in summer green. "and clear and fleet eurotas still, you tell me, laves his reedy shore, and flows beneath his fabled hill where dian drave the chase of yore. "and 'like a horse unbroken' yet the yellow" stream with rush and foam, 'neath tower, and bridge, and parapet, girdles his ancient mistress, rome! "i may not see them, but i doubt if seen i'd find them half so fair as ripples of the rising trout that feed beneath the elms of yair. "unseen, eurotas, southward steal, unknown, alpheus, westward glide, you never heard the ringing reel, the music of the water side! "though gods have walked your woods among, though nymphs have fled your banks along; you speak not that familiar tongue tweed murmurs like my cradle song. "my cradle song,--nor other hymn i'd choose, nor gentler requiem dear than tweed's, that through death's twilight dim, mourned in the latest minstrel's ear!" his love of the border hills, "the great, round-backed, kindly, solemn hills of tweed, yarrow, and ettrick," his devotion to the streams beside whose banks the summers of his boyhood were spent, never lessened with the passing years. in prose and in verse continually it broke out. tweed's song is the same that she has ever sung; but now-- "he who so loved her lies asleep, he hears no more her melody." index a abbey st. bathans, abbot of inchcolm, abbotsford, , , , , , agricola, aidan, bishop, ale, , , , , alemuir, , alexander ii., , , iii., , , , allanbank, allanton, allan water, , allen water, allevard, altrive, ancrum, , , , moor, , anderson, alexander, angus, earl of, , , annan, "antiquary, the" , argyll, arkenholm, armstrong, johnny, , armstrong of harelaw, hector, armstrongs, , , , , arran, earl of, , artburet, , arthur's oven, arundel, earl of, ashiesteel, , ashkiik, auld babby metlan, auld maitland, auld ringan oliver, auld wat of harden, ayala, b badlieu, bairds, baillie, lady grisell, bale-fires, ballad of otterburne, ballantyne, james, balliol, edward, barmoor, barnhill's bed, barns, battle stone, bawtie's grave, beaton, cardinal, , beauté, sieur de la, bedrule, bellenden, felted will howard, , bemersyde, berwick, , , , , , berwickshire naturalists' club, bewcastle, , cross, bield, the, biggar, moss, water, billie, billy castle, binram's corse, bird-oswald, bishop flambard, boghall castle, bogle burn, bohun, humphrey de, boldside, , , , , bonny bertha, borland, rev. dr., borthwick water, , castle, boston of ettrick, bothan, bothwell (hepburn), earl of, , , , (stewart), earl of, , brig, bowden moor, "bowed davie," bowerhope, bowhill, , , bow mont, valley, box-beds, blackadder, , , blackcastle rings, black dwarf, black hill of earlstoun, blackhouse heights, tower, black law, , black, william, , blair, rev. thos., blanerne, blind harry, bloody laws, braidley burn, brampton, branksome, , , , hall, branxton, braxfield, lord, breamish, bremenium, , , , brewster, sir david, "bride of lammermuir," bridgelands, bridgend, broadlaw, , broadmeadows, broomhouse, brougham, lord, broughton, brown, dr. john, brownies, "brownie of bodesbeck," , bruce, david, , robert the, , , , , buccleuch, , , duke of, , , , , hunt, lairds of, , , , , , , buchan, earl of, buchanan, george, , , bunkle, , burghley, buried treasure, , burke and hare, "burke, sir walter!" burns, robert, , byrecleuch ridge, c caddonfoot, , cademuir, caerlanrig, caledon, camps, camptown, cannobie lea, canonbie, capel fell, "capon tree," cappercleucb, cardrona, carey, cargill, rev. donald, , carham, burn, carlin's tooth, , carlisle, , , , , , , castle, , carmichael, sir john, carter bar, , carterfell, , , , carterhaugh, castlebill, castleton, catcleuch reservoir, shin, , catrail, , , , cauldcleuch head, , cauldshiels loch, cavers, , caves, , cecil, sir w., , cessford, cockburn law, thomas, of henderland, , cockburns, coldstream, guards, collingwood bruce, dr., collingwood, sir cuthbert, colting woods, colmslie, commonsiae hill, cope, sir john, , , corbridge, coultercleuch, cout o' keilder, covenanters, , , , , , , cowdenknowes, ciudad rodrigo, chambers, dr. robert , dr. william, channelkirk, chapel knowe, charles i., chesters (berwickshire), (roxburghshire), cheviot, cheviots, , , , , chillingham, chimside, , chronicle of lanercost, churchill, clandestine weddings, , clarty hole, claverhouse, , , clear burn loch, cleikum inn, clerk of eldin, john, clints dod, clintwood, clovenfords, clyde, crab, craigmillar, , crailing, , cranshaws, crawford, cromwell, , , , , , s , , crook-backed richard, crook inn., crooked loch, cumberland, curie, mr., d dacre, , , , dalkeith, , , dandie dinmont, , d'arcy, sir anthony, darnick, tower, darnley, , , , , d'aussi, david i., , , , , david, earl, dawstane rig, dawyck, , woods, debateable land, de beaugué, m., de bolbec, walter, "degenerate douglas," de grey, sir thomas, deil o' dawyck, de la mothe rouge, deloraine, william of, , denham tracts, denholm, , de soulis, , , x d'espec, walter, d'essé, sieur, , deuchar bridge, devil's beef tub, dick lauder, sir thomas, , , , , , , , , , , , dick's tree, differences with prisoners, dinlabyre, dodhead, , dog knowe, dogs in church, dollar law, , donald's cleuch, "doo tairts and herrin' pies," douglas, archibald, douglas burn, , douglas, earl, , , of kelhead, sir john, rev. dr., sir george, sir george, sir james, , , , , , tragedy, douglas's wounded, douglases, , dowie dens of yarrow, , drochil castle, drumclogj drum lan rig, drummelzier, , dryburgh abbey, , drygrange, , dry hope tower, dunbar, , , , , castle, , earl of, dumbarton castle, dunion, , dunkeld, duns, , , law, scotus, durham, bishop of, , cathedral, dussac, dye water, e earlsihe moor, earlstoun, , eden (carlisle), water, , , , edie ochiltree, edgar, burn, edgerston, , edinburgh, , , , , , , , , edington, edinshall, , ednam, edrington castle, edrom, , edward i., , , , , , , ii., , , , , iii., , , , vi., . eildon hills, , , , , , , eildon tree, eital castle, elba, elcho, lord, elibank, eliott of stobs, sir gilbert, elizabeth, queen, , elliot of cleuchhead, dr., jean, elliots, ellison, mr., ellwand, elsdon church, emperor alexander severus, ernckstane, errol, erskine, lord, esk, , ettrick, , , , , , , , bank, ettrickbridgend, ettrick hall, , kirk, pen, shepherd, , , , evelaw tower, evers, lord (sir ralph), , , , eye water, f "fair maiden lilliard," fairies, belief in, , fairnilee, , fairy dene, falaise, treaty of, falkirk, battle of, falla moss, false alarm, fast castle, father ellis, fat ups castle, faungrist burn, fenwick, sir roger, fenwicke, colonel, ferguson, adam, fernihirst, , , , mill, flemings, fluimen, , , flodden edge, , fogo, ford castle, forest of ettrick, jedworth, , forster, sir john, foulshiels, , floors castle, flower of yarrow, flowers of the forest, , franck, richard, fraser, sir simon, , frasers of fruid and oliver, french invasion, prisoners in selkirk, froissart, , , fruid, g gala, , , gala rig, galashiels, , , , , "galashiels herons," galashiels town's arms, gamelshiel, gameshope burn, , glen, , loch, , gamescleuch, garter, countess of salisbury's, gemmels, andrew, giant's stone, gibb's cross, gilnockie, , bridge, gjlsland, girthgate, godscroft, goldielands, gordon arms, glendearg, glengaber, glenkinnon burn, glenrath burn, graham, sir james. grahams, , greatmoor hill, greenlaw, gretna green, , grey friars, grey mare's tail, guizot, m., "guy mannering," h hahhie ker's cave, haggiehaugh, haig of bemersyde, haining, , , halidon hill, , hall, hobbie, henry, , halliburton, wm,, hailyards, hangingshaw, , happrew, harden, harecleuch hill, hare head, harelaw, harewood, hartlaw, hartshorn pyke, hassendean, hawick, , , , "minister's alan," mote, hawkshead burn, castle, hay of yester, of talla, hearthstane burn, hellmuir loch, hemingburgh, henderland, henderson, willie, henry i., iii., viii., , , , , , , , , , hepburn of bowton, of hailes, hermitage castle, , , , water, , , heron, lady, heronry at dawyck, herries, herrit's dyke, hertford, , , , , , , , , , , hexham, hielandman's grave, hill burton, hiltslap, hindside, hirsel, the, hodgson, richard, hogg, james, , , , , , , hollows lower, holydene, , , holylee, home castle, , , , home, sir david, family of, , , grisell, lord, , , , , , , of haliburton, of polwarth, patrick, homildon hill, hoolet of barns, hornsbole, horsburgh, hotspur's pennon, howpasley, howard, edmund, edward, hundalee, hunsdon, lord, , hunter, john, hunthill, , , "huntlie bank," huntly, earl of, , hutton hall, hyndhope, i illicit stills, innerleithen, j james i., , ii., , , iii., iv., , , v., , , , , , vi. and i., , , , , , "jamie telfer, , , , jed, , , , , , jedburgh, , , , , , , , , abbey, , , , castle, , prison, jedforest hunt, "jethart's here!", , john, king, john's cleuch, k kale water, , , , kelso, , , , , , , , , , abbey, , ker, dand, of cessford, , , of pernihirst, , , of graden, of samuelton, george, sir andrew, sir john, sir thomas, kershope burn, kerss, rob., killiecrankie, "kilmeny" king arthur, , "king of the woods," kingledores burn, kingside, kinmont willie, , , kirk andrews, kirk o' field, kirkhope lînn, tower, kirk sessions, knight of liddesdale, , , knox, john, , l lacy, richard de, lads of wamphray, lady of branksome, "lady of the lake," ladykirk, laidlaw, will, , of peel, laiton, , lammermuirs, , , , , lanercost, langholm, , castle, langshaw, langton tower, lanton village, tower, larriston, , lauder, french prisoners at, bridge, lauderdale, earl of, , , lawson, rev. dr., "lay of the last minstrel, , , leader water, , leaderfoot, le croc. m., leet water, legerwood, , lei then, lennox, leslie, bishop of ross, general, , , , norman, lessudden, , lethem, lethington, mr. secretary, leyden, john, , , , liddel castle, moat, valley, water, , , , , , liddesdale, , , , , , , lilliardsedge, , lirnekilnedge, lincumdoddie, lindean, , lindisfarne, bishop of, lindsay, sir james, linglie, , lintalee, , , lin thill house, linton, tower, lion of liddesdale, littledean, "little jock elliot," , loch of the lowes, , skene, lockhart, j. g., , , , , longtown, , lord maxwell's muster roll, lost pay chest, lothian, lord, , marquess of, lumsden, margaret, lyne water, m maccus whele, mackay, "mad" jack hall, maid of norway, maitland of lethington, makerstoun, , malcolm ii., , iv., the maiden, mangerton castle, manor kirkyard, valley, water, manslaughter law, marchmont, earl of, , house, alarmion, , , , marquis of annandale's beef stand, mary of gueldres, , guise, mary queen of scots, , , , , , , , , , mathieson, maxwell, sir herbert, , , , , , , sir john, meg dods, megget, melrose, , , , , abbey, , , melville of halhill, sir james, menzion, merlin, merse, , , , mertoun, bridge, midlem bridge, miles, sir george heron, milnholm cross, minchmuir, , minto, crags, , moffat, , , "monastery, the" , , monk, general, monks' ford, monk law, monmouth, duke of, anne, duchess of, mons meg, , montague, sir william, montgomery, earl of, montrose, marquis of, , , , moray, earl of, countess of, morebattle, morton, earl of, regent, mossburnfoot, mossfennan, muckle mouthed meg, murray of broughton, sir david, sir gideon, of philiphaugh, sir john, musgrave, sir william, muthag, provost, mutiny stones, n naesmiths, napier and ettrick, lord, , napoleon, , naworth, neidpath hill, castle, , netherby, nett ley burn, neville's cross, newark tower, , newcastle, , , , , , newcastleton, newstead, , , , newton don, nine cairn edge, niue stane rig, norfolk, norham, , north, christopher, note o' the gate, , notman law, o oakwood tower, ogle, sir james, sir robert, , old jedward, mailros, melrose, , , "old mortality," "old q," oliver, auld ringan, oliver castle, ormistoun, , otterburne, , , village, hall, ottercops, outlaw murray, , oxnam water, , , p park, archibald, mungo. , pearlin, jean, "peblis to the play," peebles, , , , , , peel burn, , fell, , , penchrise, , , pennecuîck, dr., , pennistone knowe, penshiel, penton, linn, , percy, earl, , henry, ralph, percy's cross, philiphaugh, , piets' work dyke, pinkie, piper's pool, pitcairn's criminal priais, pitscottie, , , , plague, the, plummer of sunderland hall, poachers, , , pollution of rivers, , , , , , , polmood, burn, polwarth, lord, porteous of hawkshaw, possessed woman in duns, posso, , craigs, pot loch, powsayl burn, "pride and poverty !", priesthaugh burn, prince charlie, , , , , , prisoners' bush, theatre, proclamation of st. james's fair, purdie, tom, q queen mary's house, illness, queen's mire, "queens wake" queensberry, duke of, r raecleuch, raid of the reidswire, ramsay, sir alexander, rev. mr., randall's wa's, randolph, rankleburo, , raven burn, craig, redbraes, redesdale, , r de valley, , , , "redgauntlet", , regiment, th, renwick, richard, king, ii., richmond, sir thos., riddell, rink, , , riskinhope, rivalry between kelso and jedburgh, rob o' the trows, robert ii., rhymer's glen, , roman road, rory dhu mohr, rothely crags, rowchester, roxburgh, , , castle, , , newtown, roxburghe, duke of, ruberslaw, , , rule water, , , ruskin, john, , russell, sir francis, russell of yarrow, rev. drs., , rutherford, alison, rev. john, "rutherfurd bauld," rutherfurd, captain, rutherfurds, ruthven, lord, s st. ahb's head, st. andrews, bishops of, st. boswells, , green, st. cuthbert, , , st. gordian's kirk, , st. james's fair, st. kentigern, st. mary of the lowes, , st. mary's chapel, st. mary's loch, st. ronan's, "st. ronan's well," salisbury, earl of, salmon, fishing, sandyknowe, sark bridge, tower, satcheils, "savoury mr. peden," scabcleuch, scots brigade, scots dyke, scott, adam of tushielaw, , sir john, lady john, mary, "the flower of yarrow," scott, michael, , sir walter, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . , , , , scott, sir walter and the border minstrelsy, scott of gorrenberry, of tushielaw, scotts of buccleuch, , , , , , , , of harden, , scrope, , lord, , , , selkirk, , , , , , , , cauld, common riding, "selkirk craws," selkirk flodden traditions, prison, selkirkshire yeomanry, shaftoes, shielhope head, shrewsbury, lord, sidney, sir philip, sinclair, oliver, singlie, skelfhill, , , , , skene of rubislaw, skirmish field, skraysburgh, , slain man's lea, slitrjg, , , , , smailcleuchfoot, smailholme tower, , snow storm of , solway moss, , , somerset, , , "soor plums in galashiels," soulis, lord, "souters of selkirk," , southdean, , , , , , soutra hill, , spirit of borderers, spottisw'oode, springwood park, , spy at southdean, stanhope, burn, stanley, stephen, king, stewart of stewartfield, colonel, stobo, , stobs camp, stoddart, , stow, stuart, lady louisa, sir robert, sunderland hall, , sunlaws, "superstitions, teviotdale, surrey, earl of, , , , , , sussex, earl of, , , , , "sweet leader haughs," "sweet milk" robin, swinnie moor, synton, , t tall, a, , , linn, , reservoir, tarth water, telfer, james, "teribus and teriodden," teviot, , , , , , , , , , , , teviotdale, , , , , , "the eve of st. john, the great unknown, "the young tantieme three brethren, , "three days' blood," thiefs road. thirlestane (patrick), castle (lauderdale), thomas of ercildoune, thomas the rhymer, , , , thomson, james, , , thornilee, tibbie shiels, , tamson, till, , timpendean, tinnies, , tinnis (yarrow), torsonce, torwoodlee, , , turn again, , turnbulls of rule water, , tushielaw, , , traquair, , countess of, earl of, , , trout-fishing, , "true thomas," , , tweed, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , tweeddale, lord, tweed shaws, tweed's cross, well, tweedsmuir, , , , church, kirk session records, post office, "tweed" trade, tweedys, twin law cairns, twizell bridge, v veitch, professor, , , veitchs of dawyck, w wade, marshall, waich water, walkerburn, wallace, sir william, , wamphray, wark castle, , , , , water-bull, wauchope, castle, wedale, wedderlie, "weir of hermiston, weirdlaw hill, well of the holy water cleuch, wheeling head, whele causeway, , , chapel, whitadder, white, mr. robert, whithaugh mill, whitterhope burn, will's nick, will of phaup, , william the lion, , , , , le walleys, williamhope ridge, willie of westburnflat, windburgh hill, , wind pell, windy law, winter, jamie, witch of fauldshope, "witch of fife," woifstruther, wooler, , , wordsworth, , wortnscleuch burn, y yair, , , bridge, , cauld, yarrow, , , , , , , , , dowie dens of, , kirk, , manse, yetholm, , young hay of talla, the cruise of the land-yacht "wanderer" thirteen hundred miles in my caravan by gordon stables published by hodder and stoughton, paternoster row, london. this edition dated . the cruise of the land-yacht "wanderer", by gordon stables. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ the cruise of the land-yacht "wanderer", by gordon stables. preface. i need, i believe, do little more herein, than state that the following pages were written on the road, on the _coupe_ of my caravan, and from day to day. first impressions, it must be admitted, are not always infallible, but they are ever fresh. i have written from my heart, as i saw and thought; and i shall consider myself most fortunate and happy if i succeed in making the reader think in a measure as i thought, and feel as i felt. it is but right to state that many of the chapters have appeared in _the leisure hour_. some of the illustrations are from photographs kindly lent me by messrs. valentine and sons, of dundee; others from rough sketches of my own; while the frontispiece, "waiting till the kettle boils," is by mr eales, of twyford. gordon stables. the "wanderer" caravan, touring in yorkshire, _august_ . chapter one. introductory--written before starting. no man who cannot live in his house on wheels, cook, eat, and sleep in, on, or under it, can say that he is cut out for a gipsy life. but to do this you require to have your temporary home well arranged--a perfect _multum in parvo_, a _domus in minima_. the chief faults of the old-fashioned caravan are want of space--two ordinary-sized adults can hardly move in it without trampling on each other's toes--general stuffiness, heat from sky or stove, or probably both combined, and a most disagreeable motion when on the road. this latter is caused by want of good springs, and errors in the general build. "the man who is master of a caravan," says a writer, "enjoys that perfect freedom which is denied to the tourist, whose movements are governed by the time-table. he can go where he likes, stop when he lists, go to bed at the hour which suits him best, or get up or lie daydreaming, knowing there is not a train to catch nor a waiter's convenience to consult. if the neighbourhood does not suit the van-dweller, all he has to do is to hitch in the horses and move to more eligible quarters. the door of his hotel is always open. there is no bill to pay nor anybody to `remember;' and, if the accommodation has been limited, the lodger cannot complain of the charges. in a caravan one has all the privacy of a private residence, with the convenience of being able to wheel it about with a facility denied to the western settler, who shifts his `shanty' from the `lot' which he has leased to the more distant one which he has bought. in the van may, for all the passer-by can discover, be a library and drawing-room combined, or it may be bedroom and dining-room in one, though, as the pioneers in this mode of touring sleep under canvas, we may presume that they find the accommodation indoors a little stuffy." now, this sounds very well, but at the present sitting i have my doubts if a gipsy's--even a gentle-man-gipsy's--life be altogether as independent and sunshiny as the sentences represent them to be. about going where he likes, for instance? are there not certain laws of the road that forbid the tarrying by the way of caravan folks, for a longer period than that necessary to water and feed a horse or look at his feet? by night, again, he may spy a delightfully retired common, with nothing thereon, perhaps, except a flock of gabbling geese and a superannuated cart-horse, and be tempted to draw up and on it, but may not some duty-bound police man stroll quietly up, and order him to put-to and "move on?" again, if the neighbourhood does not suit, then the caravan-master may certainly go elsewhere, _if_ the horses be not too tired or dead lame. to be sure, there is inside a caravan all the privacy to be desired; but immediately outside, especially if drawn up on a village common, it may be noisy enough. as regards going to bed and getting up when he pleases, the owner of a caravan is his own master, unless he chooses to carry the ideas and customs of a too-civilised life into the heart of the green country with him, and keep plenty of company. methinks a gentleman gipsy ought to have a little of the hermit about him. if he does not love nature and quiet and retirement, he is unsuited for a caravan life, unless, indeed, he would like to make every day a gala day, and the whole tour a round of pleasurable excitement--in other words, a _farce_. it is, however, my impression at the present moment that the kind of life i trust to lead for many months to come, might be followed by hundreds who are fond of a quiet and somewhat romantic existence, and especially by those whose health requires bracing up, having sunk below par from overwork, overworry, or over much pleasure-seeking, in the reckless way it is the fashion to seek it. only as yet i can say nothing from actual experience. i have to _go_ on, the reader has to _read_ on, ere the riddle be solved to our mutual satisfaction. chapter two. the caravan itself--first trials--getting horsed. "a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" travelling through the romantic little village of great marlow one summer's day in a pony-trap, i came suddenly on a row of caravans drawn up on the roadside. some flying swings were started just as i approached, and the unwonted sight, with the wild whooping and noise, startled my horse. he shied, and made a rather thoughtless but very determined attempt to enter a draper's shop. this resulted in damage enough to the trap to necessitate my staying an hour or two for repairs. i would have a look at the caravans, at all events. there was one very pretty little one, and, seeing me admire it, the owner, who stood by, kindly asked if i cared to look inside. i thanked him, and followed him up the steps. it proved to be a good thing of the class, but inside the space was limited, owing to the extraordinary breadth of the bed and size of the stove. i asked the address of the builder, however, and wrote to him for an estimate. this was sent, but the penmanship and diction in which it was couched sent no thrill of pleasure through me. here is a sentence: "wich i can build you a wagon as ill cary you anyweres with orse for eity pounds, i 'as built a power o' pretty wagons for gipsies, an' can refer you to lots on 'em for reference." well, to be sure, there is no necessity for a builder of caravans being a classical scholar, but there was a sad absence of romance about this letter; the very word "wagon" was not in itself poetic. why could not the man have said "caravan"? i determined to consult a dear old friend of mine who knows everything, c.a. wheeler, to wit (the clever author of "sportascrapiana.") why, he said in reply, did not i go straight to the bristol waggon company? they would do the thing well, at all events, and build my caravan from my own drawings. this was good advice. so i got a few sheets of foolscap and made a few rough sketches, and thought and planned for a night or two, and thus the wanderer came into existence--on paper. now that the caravan is built and fitted she is so generally admired by friends and visitors, that i may be forgiven for believing that a short description of her may prove not uninteresting to the general reader. let us walk round her first and foremost and view the exterior. a glance will show you (see illustration) that the saloon caravan "wanderer" is by no means of small dimensions. from stem to stern, without shafts or pole, she measures nearly twenty feet, her height from the ground being about eleven feet, and her breadth inside six feet fully. for so long a carriage you will naturally say the wheels seem low. this is true; the hind wheels are little over four feet, but they are _under_ the carriage. had they been tall they must have protruded beyond her considerably, and this would have given the wanderer a breadth of beam which would have been awkward on the road, and rendered it impossible to get her through many gateways. i might have had a semicircle or hollow in the sides of the caravan, in which high wheels could have moved without entailing a broader beam, but this would have curtailed the floor space in the after-cabin, on which my valet has to sleep athwartships, and this arrangement was therefore out of the question. but she must be very heavy? not for her size and strength. although solid mahogany all round outside and lined with softer wood, she scaled at bristol but hundredweight, and loaded-up she will be under two tons. the loading-up includes master, valet, coachman, and a large newfoundland dog, not one of whom need be inside except "coachee" on a stiff hill. obeying my instructions, then, the builders made her as light as was consistent with strength. the wood too is of the best and best seasoned that could be had. a firm that builds pullman cars, not only for england but for america, has always a good supply of old wood on hand. but if the wanderer does not look light she certainly looks elegant. polished mahogany with black and gold mouldings and shutters-- jalousies--leaves little to be longed for as regards outside show, neither does it give a gay appearance. the wheels and underworks are dark chocolate, picked out with vermilion. the only "ornament" about her is the device on the side, and this is simply a sketch of the badge of my uniform cap--crown, anchor, and laurel leaves,--with a scroll of ribbon of the robertson tartan, my mother's plaid. this looks quite as pretty and costs less than armorial bearings. in the illustration the fore part of the caravan is visible. there is a splashboard, an unusual luxury in carriages of this kind. the _coupe_ is very roomy; the newfoundland lies here when he likes, and a chair can be placed on it, or if rugs and a cushion are put down it forms a delightful lounge on a fine day, and this need in no way interfere with the comfort of either the driver or the great dog. the driver's seat is also the corn-bin, and holds two bushels. from the broad panel at the other side of the door a board lets down at pleasure, and this forms still another seat for an extra passenger besides myself. it may also be noticed that the front part of the roof protrudes, forming ample protection against sun and rain. this canopy is about three feet deep. the brake, which is handy to the driver, is a very powerful one, and similar to those used on tram-cars. there is also an iron skid to lock one wheel if required on going down hill, and a roller besides for safety in stopping when going up hill. there is a door behind right in the centre, similar in appearance to the front door, with morsels of stained glass let in at the upper corners. both doors have light shutters that are put up at night. under the rear door the broad steps are shipped, and at each side is a little mahogany flap table to let down. these the valet finds very handy when washing up. beneath each of these flaps and under the carriage is a drawer to contain tools, dusters, blacking-brushes, and many a little article, without which comfort on the road could hardly be secured. under the caravan are fastened by chain and padlock a light long ladder, a framework used in holding out our after-awning or tent, a spade, and the buckets. but there is also space enough here in which to hang a hammock. under the caravan shafts are carried, which may, however, never be much required. in order to give some notion of the internal economy of the wanderer i append a linear plan of her floor. i may mention first that there is quite as much room inside for even a tall man to stand as there is in a pullman car. entering from behind you may pass through _a_, the pantry or kitchen, into _b_, the saloon. folding doors with nice curtains divide the caravan at pleasure into two compartments. _c_ is the sofa, upholstered in strong blue railway repp. it is a sofa only by day. at night it forms the owner's bed. there are lockers under, which contain the bedclothes, etc, when not in use, as well as my wardrobe. _d_ is the table, over which is a dainty little bookcase, with at each side a beautiful lamp on brackets. _e_ is the cupboard, or rather the cheffoniere, both elegant and ornamental, with large looking-glass over and behind it. it will be noticed that it juts out and on to the _coupe_, and thus not only takes up no room in the saloon, but gives me an additional recess on top for glove-boxes, hanging baskets for handkerchiefs, and nicknacks. the chiffoniere and the doors are polished mahogany and glass, the bulkheads maple with darker mouldings, the roof like that of a first-class railway carriage, the skylight being broad and roomy, with stained glass and ample means of ventilation. the other articles of furniture not already mentioned are simple in the extreme, simple but sufficient, and consist of a piano-stool and tiny camp-chair, music-rack, footstool, dressing-case, a few artful cushions, pretty mirrors on the walls, with gilt brackets for coloured candles, a corner bracket with a clock, a guitar, a small harmonium, a violin, a navy sword, and a good revolver. there are gilded cornices over each window, with neat summer curtains, and also over the chiffoniere recess. the floor is covered with linoleum, and a persian rug does duty for a carpet. the after-cabin contains a rack for dishes, with a cupboard above, a beautiful little carbon-silicated filter,--the best of filters made--a marble washstand, a triangular water-can that hangs above, complete with lid and tap, and which may be taken down to be filled at a well, a rack for hats and gloves, etc, neat pockets for tea and other towels, a box-- my valet's, which is also a seat--and a little flap table, at which he can take his meals and read or write. also the rippingille cooking-range. this after-cabin is well-ventilated; the folding doors are shot at night, and the valet makes his bed athwartships, as i have already said. the bed is simply two long soft doormats, with above these a cork mattress. the latter, with the bedding, are rolled up into an american cloth cover, the former go into a willesden canvas bag, and are placed under the caravan by day. no top-coat or anything unsightly hangs anywhere; economy of space has been studied, and this goes hand-in-hand with comfort of fittings to make the gipsy's life on the road as pleasant as ever a gipsy's life can be. a glance at the illustrations of our saloon and pantry will give a still better idea of the inside of the wanderer than my somewhat meagre description can afford. these are from photographs taken by mr eales, of twyford. [the frontispiece to this book is also by mr eales.] the rippingille cooking-range is a great comfort. on cool days it can be used in the pantry, on hot days--or, at pleasure, on any day--it can be placed under our after-tent, and the _chef's_ work got through expeditiously with cleanliness and nicety. our caravan _menu_ will at no time be a very elaborate one. i have long been of opinion, as a medical man and hygienist, that plain living and health are almost synonymous terms, and that intemperance in eating is to blame for the origin of quite as many diseases as intemperance in drinking. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ on getting horsed. a correct knowledge of horseflesh is not one of those things that come intuitively to anybody, though i have sometimes been given to think it did. it is a kind of science, however, that almost every one, gentle or simple, pretends to be at home in. take the opinion of even a draper's assistant about some horse you happen to meet on the road, and lo! he begins to look knowing at once, and will strain a nerve, or even two, in order to give you the impression that _he_ is up to a thing or two. but let a young man of this kind only see the inside of a stable a few times, then, although he can hardly tell the heel from the knee in the _genus equus_, how glibly does he not begin to talk, till he almost takes your breath away, about capped hocks, side-bones, splints, shoulders, knees, fetlocks, and feet, and as he walks around a horse, feeling him here or smoothing him there, he verily seems to the manner born. ladies are seldom very far behind men in their knowledge of hippology. what young girl fresh from school can be found who cannot drive? "oh, give me the reins, i'm sure i can do it." these are her words as often as not. you do not like to refuse, badly as a broken-kneed horse would look. you sit by her side ready for any emergency. _she_ is self-possessed and cool enough. she may not know her own side of the road, but what does that matter? if a man be driving the trap that is meeting her, is it not his duty to give place to her? to be sure it is. and as for the reins, she simply holds them; she evidently regards them as a kind of leathern telephone, to convey the wishes of the driver to the animal in the shafts. but a man or woman either may be very clever at many things, and still know nothing about horses. it is their want of candour that should be condemned. did not two of the greatest philosophers the world ever saw attempt to put their own nag in the shafts once? ah! but the collar puzzled them. they struggled to get it on for half an hour, their perseverance being rewarded at last by the appearance on the scene of the ostler himself. i should have liked to have seen that man's face as he quietly observed, suiting action to his words,-- "it is _usual_, gentlemen, to turn the collar upside down when slippin' it hover the 'orse's 'ead." but what must the horse himself have thought of those philosophers? now i do not mind confessing that riding is not one of my strong points. when on horseback there ever prevails in my mind an uncertainty as regards my immediate future. and i have been told that i do not sit elegantly, that i do not appear to be part and parcel of the horse i bestride. my want of confidence may in some measure be attributed to the fact that, when a boy of tender age, i saw a gentleman thrown from his horse and killed on the spot. it was a terrible sight, and at the time it struck me that this must be a very common method of landing from one's steed. it seems to me the _umbra_ of that sad event has never quite left my soul. it is due to myself, however, to add that there are many worse whips than i in single harness. driving in double harness is harder work, and too engrossing, while "tandem" is just one step beyond my present capabilities. the only time ever i attempted this sort of thing i miserably failed. my animals went well enough for a time, till all at once it occurred to my leader to turn right round and have a look at me. my team was thus "heads and tails," and as nothing i could think of was equal to the occasion, i gave it up. notwithstanding all this, as far as stable duties are concerned, i can reef, steer, and box the compass, so to speak. i know all a horse needs when well, and might probably treat a sick horse as correctly as some country vets. no, i cannot shoe a horse, but i know when it is well done. it is probably the want of technicality about my language when talking to real professed knights of the stable, which causes them to imagine "i don't know nuffin about an 'orse." this is precisely what one rough old farmer, with whom i was urging a deal, told me. "been at sea all your life, hain't you?" he added. "figuratively speaking," i replied, "i may have been at sea all my life, but not in reality. is not," i continued, parodying shylock's speech--"is not a horse an animal? hath not a horse feet, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with good oats, oftentimes hurt by the whip? subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a christian is?" the man scratched his head, looked puzzled, and we did not deal. but, dear reader, were i to tell one-tenth part of the woes i endured before i got horsed and while still tossed on the ocean of uncertainty and buffeted by the adverse winds of friendly advice, your kindly heart would bleed for me. i believe my great mistake lay in listening to every body. one-half of the inhabitants of our village had horses to sell, the other half knew where to find them. "you'll want two, you know," one would say. i believed that i would need two. "one large cart-horse will be ample," said another. i believed him implicitly. "i'd have a pole and two nags," said one. "i'd have two nags and two pair of shafts," said another. "i'd have two nags," said another; "one in the shafts and the other to trace." and so on _ad nauseam_ till my brains were all in a whirl, and at night i dreamt i was a teetotum, and people were playing with me. perhaps they were. a friend to whom i appealed one day in my anguish cut the gordian knot. "you've got a nut on you?" he remarked (he meant my head). "well," he said, "make use of that." i took his advice. chapter three. first experiences of gipsy life--the trial trip--a thunderstorm on maidenhead thicket. "now rings the woodland loud and long, the distance takes a lovelier hue, and drown'd in yonder living blue the lark becomes a sightless song. "now dance the lights on lawn and lea, the flocks are whiter down the vale, and milkier every milky sail, on winding stream or distant sea." tennyson. it was to be our first outing--our trial trip, "by the measured mile," as navy sailors call it. not so much a trial, however, for the caravan itself, as for a certain horse that was to be attached thereto; and, considering the weight of our house upon wheels, i thought it at least doubtful if any one horse would be sufficient to do the work. the horse in this instance was--a mare. a splendid powerful dark bay draught mare, with small head, strong, shapely, arching neck, good shoulders, and long enough in body not to look cloddy. her tail, about two yards long, had been specially plaited and got up for the occasion. matilda, as she was named, had never done anything except ploughing before, unless it were an occasional visit to the railway station with a load of wheat or hay. but she appeared quiet, and took the situation in at a glance, including the caravan and its master. we put-to, and after as much manoeuvring as would have sufficed to bring a p. and o. steamer away from a southampton pier, we cleared the gate and got fairly under way. in the matter of provisions the wanderer was amply furnished. we had edibles for the day, and enough for a week, my wife having been steward and caterer for the occasion. my companion _voyageurs_ were the two eldest members of my family--inez (aetat ), lovat (aetat ), their summer dresses and young beauty making them look quite gay. besides these, i had hurricane bob, my champion newfoundland, who looked as though he could not quite understand any part of the business. very slowly at first walked that mare, and very solemnly too--at a plough-pace, in fact,--and the farmer's man walked soberly on at her neck. a rousing touch or two of the light gig whip mended matters considerably, and there was far less of the "dead march in _saul_" about the progress after this. matilda warmed to her work; she neighed merrily, and even got into a kind of swinging trot, which, properly speaking, was neither trot nor tramp, only it took us over the ground at four knots an hour, and in pity i made the farmer's man--who, by the way, had his sunday clothes all on--get up and sit down. the morning was very bright and sunny, the road hard and good, but dusty. this latter was certainly a derivative from our pleasure, but then gipsies do not have it all their own way in this world any more than other people. the wind was with us, and was somewhat uncertain, both in force and direction, veering a little every now and then, and soon coming round again. but a select assortment of juvenile whirlwinds had been let loose from their cave, and these did not add to our delight. matilda had plenty of pluck, only she must have thought it an exceedingly long furrow, and at the end of two miles suddenly made up her mind to go about of her own accord. this determination on matilda's part resulted in a deviation from the straight line, which nearly landed our fore wheels in the ditch; it also resulted in admonitory flagellation for matilda. before we had gone three miles the perspiration was streaming down the mare's legs and meandering over her hoofs, so we pulled up to let her breathe. the day was young, it was all before us, and it is or ought to be in the very nature of every gipsy--amateur or professional--to take no note of time, to possess all the apathy of a dutchman, all the drowsy independence of a garden tortoise. the children begged for a cake, and inez wanted to know what made the horse laugh so. she might well put this question, for matilda neighed nearly all the way. "why, pa," said inie, "the horse laughs at everything; he laughs at the trees, he laughs at the flowers, and at the ponds. he laughs at every horse he meets; he laughed at the cows cropping the furze, and at the geese on the common, and now he is laughing at that old horse with its forefeet tied together. what are the old horse's forefeet tied together for, pa?" "to keep him from running away, darling." "and what does this horse keep on laughing for?" "why, he is so proud, you know, of being harnessed to so beautiful a caravan, that he can't help laughing. he wants to draw the attention of every creature he sees to it. he will be sure to dream about it to-night, and if he wakes up any time before morning he will laugh again." "oh!" said inie, and went on eating her currant-cake thoughtfully. in about a quarter of an hour we had started again. lovat, who had been aft having a view at the back door window, came running forward and said excitedly,-- "oh! pa, there is a gentleman with a carriage and pair behind us, making signs and shouting and waving his whip." i pulled to the side at once, and the party in the waggonette passed, the gentleman who handled the ribbons scowling and looking forked lightning at us. no wonder, the idea of being stopped on the road by itinerant gipsies! well, in driving a large caravan, as you cannot look behind nor see behind, it is as well to keep pretty near your own side of the road. this was a lesson i determined to lay to heart. but if seeing behind me was impossible, hearing was quite as much so, unless it had been the firing of a six-pounder. this was owing to the rattling of things inside the van, for, it being but our trial trip, things had not settled shipshape. it is but fair to the builders of the wanderer to say that an easier-going craft or trap never left bristol. the springs are as strong and easy as ever springs were made. there is no disagreeable motion, but there is--no, i mean there was on that first day--a disagreeable rattling noise. nothing inside was silent; nothing would hold its tongue. no wonder our mare matilda laughed. the things inside the sideboard jingled and rang, edged towards each other, hobnobbed by touching sides, then edged off again. the crystal flower-boat on the top made an uneasy noise, the crimson-tinted glass lampshades made music of their own _in tremolo_, and the guitar fell out of its corner on top of my cremona and cracked a string. so much for the saloon; but in the pantry the concert was at its loudest and its worse--plates and dishes, cups and saucers, tumblers and glasses, all had a word to say, and a song to sing; while as for the tin contents of the rippingille cooking-range--the kettle and frying-pan, and all the other odds and ends--they constituted a complete band of their own, and a very independent one it was. arab tom-toms would hardly have been heard alongside that range. with bits of paper and chips of wood i did what i could to stop the din, and bit my lip and declared war _a outrance_ against so unbearable a row. the war is ended, and i am victor. nothing rattles much now; nothing jangles; nothing sings or speaks or squeaks. my auxiliaries in restoring peace have been--wedge-lets of wood, pads of indiarubber, and nests of cottonwool and tow; and the best of it is that there is nothing unsightly about any of my arrangements after all. but to resume our journey. as there came a lull in the wind, and consequently some surcease in the rolling storm of dust, we stopped for about an hour at the entrance to maidenhead thicket. the children had cakes, and they had books, and i had proofs to correct--nice easy work on a day's outing! meanwhile great banks of clouds (_cumulus_) came up from the north-east and obscured the sun and most of the sky, only leaving ever-changing rifts of blue here and there, and the wind went down. maidenhead thicket is a long stretch of wild upland--a well-treed moor, one might call it, and yet a breezy, healthful tableland. the road goes straight through it, with only the greensward, level with the road at each side, then two noble rows of splendid trees, mostly elm and lime, with here and there a maple or oak. but abroad, on the thicket itself, grow clumps of trees of every description, and great masses of yellow blossoming furze and golden-tasselled broom. to our left the thicket ended afar off in woods, with the round braeland called bowsy hill in the distance; to the right, also in woods, but finally in a great sweep of cultivated country, dotted over with many a smiling farm and private mansion. maidenhead thicket in the old coaching days used to be rather dreaded by the four-in-hands that rolled through it. before entering it men were wont to grasp their bludgeons and look well to their priming, while ladies shrank timorously into corners (as a rule they did). the place is celebrated now chiefly for being a meeting-place for "'arry's 'ounds." how have i not pitied the poor panting stag! it would be far more merciful, and give more real "sport," to import and turn down in the thicket some wild shetland sheep. some few weeks ago the stag of the day ran for safety into our wee village of twyford; after it came the hounds in full cry, and next came pricking along a troop of gallant knights and ladies fair. gallant, did i say? well, the stag took refuge in a coal-cellar, from which he was finally dragged, and i am thankful to believe that, when they saw it bleeding and breathless, those "gallant" carpet-knights were slightly ashamed of themselves. however, there is no accounting for taste. sometimes even until this day maidenhead thicket is not safe. not safe to cyclists, for example, on a warm moonlit summer's night, when tramps lie snoozing under the furze-bushes. but on this, the day of our trial trip, i never saw the thicket look more lovely; the avenue was a cloudland of tenderest greens, and the music of birds was everywhere around us. you could not have pointed to bush or branch and said, "no bird sings there." it was the "sweet time o' the year." where the thicket ends the road begins to descend, and after devious and divers windings, you find yourself in the suburbs of maidenhead, two long rows of charming villas, with gardens in front that could not look prettier. the pink and white may, the clumps of lilac, the leafy hedgerows, the verandahs bedraped with mauve wistaria, the blazes of wallflower growing as high as the privet, and the beds of tulips of every hue, and beds of blood-red daisies in the midst of green lawns--it was all a sight, i can assure you! it made matilda laugh again, and the children crow and clap their tiny hands with glee. we passed through the town itself, which is nice enough, and near the bridge drew to the side and stopped, i walking on and over the bridge to find a place to stand for a few hours, for matilda was tired and steaming, and we all looked forward to dinner. the river looks nowhere more lovely and picturesque than it does at maidenhead in summer. those who cross it by train know this, but you have to stand on the old bridge itself and look at it before you can realise all its beauty. the thames here is so broad and peaceful, it seems loth to leave so sweet a place. then the pretty house-boats and yachts, with awnings spread, and smart boats laden with pleasure-seekers, and the broad green lawns on the banks, with their tents and arbours and bright-coloured flower vases, give this reach of the thames quite a character of its own. how trim these lawns are to be sure! almost too much so for my ideas of romance; and then the chairs need not be stuck all in a row, nor need the vases be so very gaudy. i found a place to suit me at last, and the wanderer was drawn up on an inn causeway. matilda was led away to the stable, the after-steps were let down, and the children said, "isn't it dinner-time, pa?" pa thought it was. the cloth was spread on this soft carpet, and round it we all squatted--hurricane bob in the immediate rear--and had our first real gipsy feed, washed down with ginger-ale procured from the adjoining inn. i wondered if the wanderer really was an object of curiosity to the groups who gathered and walked and talked around us? younger ladies, i know, were delighted, and not slow to say so. but i do not think that any one took us for hawkers or cheap-jack people. "if i had that caravan, now, and a thousand a year," we heard one man observe, "i'd kick about everywhere all over the country, and i wouldn't call the king my cousin." soon after we had returned from a walk and a look at the shops a couple of caravans with real gipsies crossed the bridge. "stop, bill, stop!" cried one of the tawny women, who had a bundle of mats for a chest protector. "stop the 'orses, can't yer? i wouldn't miss a sight o' this for a pension o' 'taters." the horses were stopped. sorry-looking nags they were, with coffin heads, bony rumps, and sadly swollen legs. "well i never!" "sure there was never sich a wan as that afore on the road!" "why, look at her, sally! look at her, jim! up and down, and roun' and roun', and back and fore. why, bill! i say, that wan's as complete as a marriage certificate or a summons for assault." we people inside felt the compliment. but we did not show. "hi, missus!" cried one; "are ye in, missus? surely a wan like that wouldn't be athout a missus. will ye buy a basket, missus? show your cap and your bonny face, missus. would ye no obleege us with just one blink at ye?" they went away at last, and soon after we got matilda in and followed. with her head towards home, and hard, level road, matilda trotted now, and laughed louder than ever. but soon the road began to rise; we had to climb the long, steep maidenhead hill. and just then the storm of rain and hail broke right in our teeth. at the middle of the hill it was at its worst, but the mare strode boldly on, and finally we were on fairly level road and drew up under some lime-trees. the distance from twyford to maidenhead is nine miles, so we took it as easy going: as we had done coming. we had meant to have tea in the thicket, but i found at the last moment i had forgotten the water. there was nothing for it but to "bide a wee." we stopped for half-an-hour in the thicket, nevertheless, to admire the scenery. another storm was coming up, but as yet the sun shone brightly on the woods beyond the upland, and the effect was very beautiful. the tree masses were of every colour--green elms and limes, yellowed-leaved oaks, dark waving scottish pines, and black and elfin-looking yews, with here and there a copper beech. but the storm came on apace. the last ray of sunlight struck athwart a lime, making its branches look startlingly green against the dark purple of the thundercloud. then a darting, almost blinding flash, and by-and-bye the peal of thunder. the storm came nearer and nearer, so that soon the thunder-claps followed the flashes almost instantly. not until the rain and hail came on did the blackbirds cease to flute or the swallows to skim high overhead. how does this accord with the poet thomson's description of the behaviour of animals during a summer thunderstorm, or rather the boding silence that precedes it?-- "prone to the lowest vale the aerial tribes descend. the tempest-loving raven scarce dares wing the dubious dusk. in rueful gaze the cattle stand," etc. our birds and beasts in berkshire are not nearly so frightened at thunder as those in thomson's time must have been, but then there were no railway trains in thomson's time! the poet speaks of unusual darkness brooding in the sky before the thunder raises his tremendous voice. this is so; i have known it so dark, or dusk rather, that the birds flew to roost and bats came out. but it is not always that "a calm" or "boding silence reigns." sometimes the wind sweeps here and there in uncertain gusts before the storm, the leaf-laden branches bending hither and thither before them. we came to a part of the road at last where the gable end of a pretty porter's lodge peeped over the trees, and here pulled up. the thunder was very loud, and lightning incessant, only it did not rain then. nothing deterred, lovat, kettle in hand, lowered himself from the _coupe_ and disappeared to beg for water. as there was no other house near at hand it was natural for the good woman of the lodge, seeing a little boy with a fisherman's red cap on, standing at her porch begging for water, to ask,--"wherever do you come from?" lovat pointed upwards in the direction of the caravan, which was hidden from view by the trees, and said,-- "from up there." "do ye mean to tell me," she said, "that you dropped out of the clouds in a thunderstorm with a tin-kettle in your hand?" but he got the water, the good lady had her joke, and we had tea. the storm grew worse after this. inez grew frightened, and asked me to play. "do play the fiddle, pa!" she beseeched. so, while the "lightning gleamed across the rift," and the thunder crashed overhead, "pa" fiddled, even as nero fiddled when rome was burning. chapter four. twyford and the regions around it. "i heard a thousand blended notes while in a grove i sat reclined in that sweet moor, when pleasant thoughts bring sad thoughts to the mind. "one moment now may give us more than fifty years of reason; our minds shall drink at every pore the spirit of the season." wordsworth. not to say a word about twyford--the village that has given me birth and bield for ten long years--would be more than unkind, it would be positively ungrateful. i must hasten to explain, however, that the twyford referred to is the twyford--twyford, berks. about a dozen other twyfords find their names recorded in the postal guide, from each and all of which we hold ourselves proudly aloof. has twyford the great then, it may reasonably enough be asked, anything in particular to boast of? well, methinks to belong to so charming a county as that of berks is in itself something to be proud of. have we not-- "our forests and our green retreats, at once the monarch's and the muse's seats, our hills and dales, and woods and lawns and spires, and glittering towns and silver streams?" yes, and go where you will anywhere round twyford, every mile is sacred to the blood of warriors spilt in the brave days of old. not far from here pope the poet lived and sang. the author of "sandford and merton" was thrown from his horse and killed at our neighbouring village of wargrave, the very name of which is suggestive of stirring times. well, up yonder on the hillhead lived the good old quaker penn, the founder of pennsylvania. yet, strange to say, no americans are ever known to visit the spot. there is at ruscombe (penn's parish) a pretty and rustic-looking church, and not far off is the cosy vicarage of redbrick, almost hidden in foliage. on a knoll behind it, and in the copse at one side, is quite a forest of waving pines and larches and oaks. hidden in the centre of this forest is a rude kind of clearing; in reality it has been a quarry or gravel-pit, but it is now charmingly embanked with greensward, with here and there great patches of gorse and bramble. this place all the livelong summer i made my everyday retreat, my woodland study. but it is not of myself i would speak. at one side of this clearing stands a great oak-tree. it rises from a flat grassy eminence, and affords an excellent shelter from showers or sun. at the foot of this tree sometimes, on moonlight midnights, a tall and aged figure, in a broad-brimmed hat, may be seen seated in meditation. it, or _he_, ever vanishes before any one is bold enough to approach. can this be the ghost of penn? mind, i, myself, have never seen _it_ or _him_, and the apparition may be all fancy, or moonshine and flickering shadow, but i give the story as i got it. twyford the great is not a large place, its population is barely a thousand; there is a new town and an old. the new town is like all mushroom villages within a hundred miles of the city--a mere tasteless conglomeration of bricks and mortar, with only two pretty houses in it. but old twyford is quaint and pretty from end to end--from the lofty poplars that bound my orchard out ruscombe way, to the drowsy and romantic old mill on the loddon. this last is worth a visit; only, if you lean over the bridge and look at this old mill for any length of time, you are bound to fall asleep, and i am bound to tell you so. twyford in summer, as well as the neighbourhood all round, may be seen at their best. the inhabitants of twyford are at their best any day. i have strong reasons for believing the village must have been founded by some philosophical old dutchman, or rip van winkle himself. and the peace of penn seems to rest for ever around it. the amusements in my wee village are few, rural, and primitive. amateur cricket in summer, amateur concerts in winter, sum up the enjoyments of "twyford at home." but the most delightful time of all in our twyford is the season from march to june. concerts are over, cricket has not commenced, and therefore dulness and apathy might now be reasonably supposed to prevail among us. perhaps; but the lover of nature is now quite as happy as the birds and the early flowers and budding trees. so many lightning-tipped pens have written about spring and its enjoyments, that i shall not here attempt to sing its praises. i may be excused for saying, however, that while the inhabitants of towns and cities like, as a rule, to have their spring all ready-made when they pay a visit to rural districts, the orchards all in full bloom, the may all out, and the nightingales turned down, we simple-minded "country bodies" delight in watching and witnessing the gradual transformation from leafless tree to glittering leaf; from bare brown fields, o'erswept by stormy winds, to daisy-covered leas, cowslip meads, and primrose banks. to me--and, no doubt, to many--there is far more of beauty in a half-blown floweret of the field, say the mountain-daisy, burns's "wee modest crimson-tipped flower," than there is in a garden favourite full outspread--take the staring midday tulip as a familiar example. down here in bird-haunted berkshire spring begins in february even, whatever it may do in yorkshire. now noisy rooks begin to build; the mavis or thrush, perched high on some swaying tree, sings loud and sweet of joys in store; on sunny days i've known an invalid-looking hedgehog or dormouse wriggle out from his hibernal grave, look hungrily around, sun himself, shiver, and wriggle back again. but the sly snake and the sage old toad stick close to bank until the days are longer. even thus early an occasional butterfly may be seen afloat, looking in vain for flowers. he cannot be happy; like the poet, he is born before his time. but soon after big humble bees appear about gardens and woodland paths, flying drowsily and heavily. they are prospecting; they get into all kinds of holes, and i may say all kinds of scrapes, often tumbling helplessly on their backs, and getting very angry when you go to their assistance with a straw. did it ever strike the reader that those same great velvety bees are republicans in their way of thinking? it is true. one humble bee is just as good as another. and very polite they are to each other too, and never unsheath their stings to fight without good occasion. just one example: last summer, in my woodland study, i noticed one large bee enter a crimson foxglove bell. presently round came another--not of the same clan, for he wore a white-striped tartan, the first being a gordon, and wearing the yellow band. the newcomer was just about to enter the bell where bee number was. bee number simply lifted his forearm and waved the intruder back. "i really beg pardon," said bee number . "i didn't know there was any one inside." and away he flew. in february, down with us, the hazel-trees are tasselled over with catkins. every one notices those, but few observe the tiny flower that grows on the twig near those drooping catkins. only a tuft of green with a crimson tip, but inexpressibly beautiful. at the same time you will find the wild willow-bushes all covered with little flossy white cocoons. there will be also a blaze of furze blossom here and there in the copse, but hardly a bud yet upon the hedgerows, while the great forest trees are still soundly wrapped in their winter sleep. but high up on yonder swaying bough the thrush keeps on singing. spring and joy are coming soon. "it is the cuckoo that tells us spring is coming," some one may say. the man who first promulgated that notion ought to have been tried by court-martial. the cuckoo never comes till leaves are out and flowers in bloom. nor the noisy wryneck nor melodious nightingale. these are merely actors and musicians, and they never put in an appearance till the carpet has been spread on the stage, and the scenery is perfect. a cherry orchard is lovely indeed when its trees are snowed over with the blossoms that cluster around the twigs like swarms of bees, their dazzling whiteness relieved by just the faintest tinge of green. an apple orchard is also beautiful in the sunshine of a spring morning when the bloom is expanded. i grant that, but to me it is far more to be admired when the flowers are just opening and the carmine tint is on them. probably the pink or white may looks best when in full unfolded bloom; but have you ever noticed either of these just before they open, when the flowerets look like little balls of red or white wax prettily set in their background of green leafage? the white variety at this stage presents an appearance not unlike that of lily-of-the-valley bloom, and is just as pretty. the ordinary laurel too is quite a sight when its flowers are half unfolded. the portuguese laurel blooms later on; the tree then looks pretty at a distance, but its perfume prevents one from courting a too close acquaintance with it. but there is the common holly that gives us our christmas decorations. has my city reader noticed it in bloom in may? it is interesting if not beautiful. all round the ends of the twiglets, clustering beneath last year's leaves, is first seen an excrescence, not unlike that on the beak of a carrier pigeon. this opens at last into a white-green bunch of blossom, and often the crimson winter berries still cling to the same twiglet. this looks curious at least--may wedded to bleak december, christmas to midsummer. the oak and the ash are among the last trees to hear the voice of spring and awaken from their winter's sleep. grand, sturdy trees both, but how exceedingly modest in their florescence! so too is the plane or maple-tree. the first young leaves of the latter are of different shades of brown and bronze, while those of the stunted oaks that grow in hedgerows are tinted with carmine, making these hedges gay in may and june even before the honeysuckle or wild roses come out. the oak-trees when first coming into leaf are of a golden-green colour, and quite a feature of the woodlands. the tall swaying poplars are yellow in leaf at first, but soon change to darkest green. but in this sweet time of the year every tree is a poem, and the birds that hide among their foliage do but set those poems to music. it is interesting to note the different kinds of showers that fall from the trees. here in twyford i live in a miniature wilderness, partly garden, partly orchard, partly forest. very early in the year the yew-tree yonder sheds its little round blossoms, as thick as hail; soon after come showers of leaf scales or chaff from the splendid lime-trees; and all kinds of showers from the chestnuts. anon there is a perfect snowstorm of apple-blossom, which continues for more than a week; and early in june, when the wind blows from the east, we are treated to a continued fall of the large flat seeds of the elms. they flutter downwards gently enough, but they litter the ground, cover the lawns and flower-beds, and lie inches deep on the top of the verandah. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ a drive from twyford to henley-on-thames is very enjoyable on a summer's day; a journey thither in a great caravan like the wanderer is still more so. the first two miles of the road might be termed uninteresting, because flat and monotonous, but it is uninteresting only to those who have no eye for the beauty of the wild flowers that line the banks, no ear for the melody of birds. wargrave, just two miles on the road, lies among its trees pretty close to the river's bank. i should not like to call it a health resort all the year round, owing to the killing fogs that bury it at times, but in the season it is a pleasant spot at which to spend a week. wyatt's is the inn, a well-known river house indeed--old-fashioned, clean, and comfortable. there is a sign on a pole outside which is worth taking a look at. mr leslie and mr hodson (the well-known artists) were sojourning here once upon a time, taking their ease at their inn. perhaps it was raining, and the time felt long. anyhow, between them they painted that sign, and there it hangs--saint george on one side engaged in deadly combat with a monster dragon; on the other side the dragon lying dead, and saint george dismounted, and engaged refreshing himself with a tankard of foaming ale. from wargrave to henley the scenery is sweetly pretty, and the river never leaves your side, though at times it hides behind and beneath the spreading trees. as every one has heard or read about or been at henley regatta, so every one knows something of henley itself. it is a charming little town, and the wooded hills about, with, even on their summits, the white mansions peeping through the trees, the river--broad and sweeping--the fine old bridge, and the church, combine to form not one picture only, but a picture in whichever direction you choose to look. from the top of the church steeple the views on all sides are delightful. i recommend this plan of seeing scenery to my american friends at present visiting england, and to every one else; never miss a chance of visiting the churches and getting up into the steeple. by this means i have oftentimes found refreshment both for mind and body. if it were not that i wish to wander and roam through my native land, and actually _feel_ from home, i could write a book on berkshire alone. even in the immediate neighbourhood of twyford there are hundreds of beautiful spots, which those in search of health and quiet pleasure would do well to visit. marlow is a delightful village; all round maidenhead, up and down the river, it is even more so. one might say of the country hereabouts, especially in summer and autumn,-- "a pleasing land of drowsy head it is, of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye of gay castles... and soft delights that witchingly instil a wanton sweetness thro' the breast." chapter five. a first week's outing. "from the moist meadow to the withered hill, led by the breeze, the vivid verdure runs and swells and deepens to the cherished eye; the hawthorn whitens; and the juicy groves put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, till the whole leafy forest stands displayed in full luxuriance to the sighing gales, where the deer rustle through the twining brake, and the birds sing concealed." thornton's "seasons." early in may i left my village to enjoy a taste of gipsy life in earnest--a week on the road. matilda is a splendid mare, and a very handsome one. strong and all though she be, there was in my mind a doubt as to whether she could drag the wanderer on day after day at even the rate of ten miles in the twenty-four hours. it had been raining the night before, and as the road from our yard leads somewhat up hill, it was no wonder that the immense caravan stuck fast before it got out of the gate. this was a bad beginning to a gipsy cruise, and, as a small concourse of neighbours had assembled to witness the start, was somewhat annoying. but a coal-carter's horse came to the rescue, and the start was finally effected. matilda took us through twyford at a round trot, and would fain have broken into a gallop, but was restrained. but the long hill that leads up from the loddon bridge took the extra spirit out of her, and she soon settled down to steady work. there is a pretty peep of reading to be caught from the top of the railway bridge. no traveller should miss seeing it. rested at reading, our smart appearance exciting plenty of curiosity. it was inside that the crowd wanted to peep--it is inside all crowds want to peep, and they are never shy at doing so. the town of reading is too well-known to need description; its abbey ruins are, however, the best part of it, to my way of thinking. the day was as fine as day could be, the sky overcast with grey clouds that moderated the sun's heat. our chosen route lay past calcot park, with its splendid trees, its fine old solid-looking, redbrick mansion, and park of deer. this field of deer, i remember, broke loose one winter. it scattered in all directions; some of the poor creatures made for the town, and several were spiked on railings. the people had "sport," as they called it, for a week. it was almost gloomy under the trees that here overhang the road. matilda was taken out to graze, the after-tent put up, and dinner cooked beneath the caravan. cooked! ay, and eaten too with a relish one seldom finds with an indoor meal! on now through calcot village, a small and straggling little place, but the cottages are neat and pretty, and the gardens were all ablaze with spring-flowers, and some of the gables and verandahs covered with flowering clematis. the country soon got more open, the fields of every shade of green--a gladsome, smiling country, thoroughly english. this day was thoroughly enjoyable, and the mare matilda did her work well. unhorsed and encamped for the night in the comfortable yard of the crown inn. when one sleeps in his caravan in an inn yard he does not need to be called in the morning; far sooner than is desirable in most instances, cocks begin to noisily assert their independence, dogs bark or rattle their chains, cows moan in their stalls, and horses clatter uneasily by way of expressing their readiness for breakfast. by-and-bye ostlers come upon the scene, then one may as well get up as lie a-bed. though all hands turned out at seven o'clock am, it was fully eleven before we got under way, for more than one individual was curious to inspect us, and learn all the outs and ins of this newest way of seeing the country. the forenoon was sunny and bright, and the roads good, with a coldish headwind blowing. both road and country are level after leaving theale, with plenty of wood and well-treed braelands on each side. this for several miles. jack's booth, or the three kings, is a long, low house-of-call that stands by the wayside at cross roads: an unpleasant sort of a place to look at. by the way, who was jack, i wonder, and what three kings are referred to? the name is suggestive of card-playing. but it may be historical. the fields are very green and fresh, and the larks sing very joyfully, looking no bigger than midges against the little fleecy cloudlets. i wonder if it be more difficult for a bird to sing on the wing than on a perch. the motion, i think, gives a delightful tremolo to the voice. my cook, steward, valet, and general factotum is a lad from my own village, cleanly, active, and very willing, though not gifted with too good a memory, and apt to put things in the wrong place--my boots in the oven, for instance! he sleeps on a cork mattress, in the after-compartment of the wanderer, and _does not snore_. a valet who snored would be an unbearable calamity in a caravan. hurricane bob, my splendid newfoundland, sleeps in the saloon on a morsel of red blanket. he _does_ snore sometimes, but if told of it immediately places his chin over his fore-paw, and in this position sleeps soundly without any nasal noise. on our way to woolhampton--our dining stage--we had many a peep at english rural life that no one ever sees from the windows of a railway carriage. groups of labourers, male and female, cease work among the mangolds, and, leaning on their hoes, gaze wonderingly at the wanderer. even those lazy workaday horses seem to take stock of us, switching their long tails as they do so, in quite a businesslike way. yonder are great stacks of old hay, and yonder a terribly-red brick farm building, peeping up through a cloudland of wood. we took matilda out by the roadside at woolhampton. this village is very picturesque; it lies in a hollow, and is surrounded by miniature mountains and greenwood. the foliage here is even more beautiful than that around twyford. we put up the after-tent, lit the stove, and prepared at once to cook dinner--an irish stew, made of a rabbit, rent in pieces, and some bacon, with sliced potatoes--a kind of cock-a-leekie. we flavoured it with vinegar, sauce, salt, and pepper. it _was_ an irish stew--perhaps it was a good deal irish, but it did not eat so very badly, nor did we dwell long over it. the fresh air and exercise give one a marvellous appetite, and we were hungry all day long. but every one we met seemed to be hungry too. a hunk of bread and bacon or bread and cheese appears to be the standing dish. tramps sitting by the wayside, navvies and roadmen, hawkers with barrows--all were carving and eating their hunks. a glorious afternoon. with cushions and rugs, our broad _coupe_ makes a most comfortable lounge, which i take advantage of. here one can read, can muse, can dream, in a delightfully lethargic frame of mind. who _would_ be a dweller in dusty cities, i wonder, who can enjoy life like this? foley--my valet--went on ahead on the ranelagh club (our caravan tricycle) to spy out the land at thatcham and look for quarters for the night. there were certain objections to the inn he chose, however; so, having settled the wanderer on the broad village green, i went to another inn. a blackish-skinned, burly, broad-shouldered fellow answered my summons. gruff he was in the extreme. "i want stabling for the night for one horse, and also a bed for my driver." this from me. "humph! i'll go and see," was the reply. "very well; i'll wait." the fellow returned soon. "where be goin' to sleep yourse'f?" this he asked in a tone of lazy insolence. i told him mildly i had my travelling saloon caravan. i thought that by calling the wanderer a _saloon_ i would impress him with the fact that i was a gentleman gipsy. here is the answer in full. "humph! then your driver can sleep there too. we won't 'ave no wan [van] 'osses 'ere; and wot's more, we won't 'ave no wan folks!" my highland blood got up; for a moment i measured that man with my eye, but finally i burst into a merry laugh, as i remembered that, after all, matilda was only a "wan" horse, and we were only "wan" folks. in half an hour more both matilda and my driver were comfortably housed, and i was having tea in the caravan. thatcham is one of the quietest and quaintest old towns in berkshire. some of the houses are really studies in primeval architecture. i could not help fancying myself back in the middle ages. even that gruff landlord looked as if he had stepped out of an old picture, and were indeed one of the beef-eating, bacon-chewing retainers of some ancient baronial hall. it was somewhat noisy this afternoon on the village green. the young folks naturally took us for a show, and wondered what we did, and when we were going to do it. meanwhile they amused themselves as best they could. about fifty girls played at ball and "give-and-take" on one side of the green, and about fifty boys played on the other. the game the boys played was original, and remarkable for its simplicity. thus, two lads challenged each other to play, one to be deer, the other to be hound. then round and round and up and down the green they sped, till finally the breathless hound caught the breathless deer. then "a ring" of the other lads was formed, and deer and hound had first to wrestle and then to fight. and _vae victis_! the conquered lad had no sooner declared himself beaten than he was seized and thrown on his back, a rope was fastened to his legs, and he was drawn twice round the ground by the juvenile shouting mob, and then the fun began afresh. a game like this is not good for boys' jackets, and tailors must thrive in thatcham. next day was showery, and so was the day after, but we continued our rambles all the same, and enjoyed it very much indeed. but now on moist roads, and especially on hills, it became painfully evident that matilda--who, by the way, was only on trial--was not fit for the work of dragging the wanderer along in all countries and in all weathers. she was willing, but it grieved me to see her sweat and pant. our return journey was made along the same route. sometimes, in making tea or coffee, we used a spirit-of-wine stove. it boiled our water soon, and there was less heat. intending caravanists would do well to remember this. tea, again, we found more quickly made than coffee, and cocoatina than either. as we rolled back again towards woolhampton the weather was very fine and sunny. it was a treat to see the cloud shadows chasing each other over the fields of wind-tossed wheat, or the meadows golden with buttercups, and starred with the ox-eyed daisies. the oldest of old houses can be seen and admired in outlying villages of berkshire, and some of the bold norman-looking men who inhabit these take the mind back to merrie england in the middle ages. some of these men look as though they could not only eat the rustiest of bacon, but actually swallow the rind. on our way back to theale we drew up under some pine-trees to dine. the wind, which had been blowing high, increased to half a gale. this gave me the new experience--that the van rocked. very much so too, but it was not unpleasant. after dinner i fell asleep on the sofa, and dreamt i was rounding the cape of good hope in a strong breeze. there is a road that leads away up to beenham hill from woolhampton from which, i think, one of the loveliest views in berks can be had. a long winding avenue leads to it--an avenue. "o'erhung with wild woods thickening green," and "braes" clad in brackens, among which wild flowers were growing--the sweet-scented hyacinth, the white or pink crane's-bill, the little pimpernel, and the azure speedwell. the hill is wooded--and such woods!--and all the wide country seen therefrom is wooded. surely spring tints rival even those of autumn itself! this charming spot is the home _par excellence_ of the merle and thrush, the saucy robin, the bold pert chaffie, and murmuring cushat. anchored at crown inn at theale once more. a pleasant walk through the meadows in the cool evening. clover and vetches coming into bloom, or already red and white. a field of blossoming beans. lark singing its vesper hymn. i was told when a boy it was a hymn, and i believe it still. after a sunset visit to the steeple of theale church we turned in for the night. bob has quite taken up his commission as caravan guard. by day he sleeps on the broad _coupe_, with his crimson blanket over his shoulders to keep away the cold may winds; and when we call a halt woe be to the tramp who ventures too near, or who looks at all suspicions! on leaving the crown inn yard, matilda made an ugly "jib," which almost resulted in a serious accident to the whole expedition. matilda has a mind of her own. i do _not_ like a horse that thinks, and i shall not have much more of matilda. to be capsized in a dogcart by a jibbing horse would be bad enough, but with our great conveyance it would mean something akin to shipwreck. the last experience i wish to record in this chapter is this; in caravan travelling there is naturally more fatigue than there would be in spending the same time in a railway carriage. when, therefore, you arrive in the evening at one village, you have this feeling--that you must be hundreds of miles from another. [one soon gets used to caravan travelling, however, and finds it far less fatiguing than any other mode of progression.] "is it possible," i could not help asking myself, "that thatcham is only ten or twelve miles from theale, and that by train i could reach it in fifteen minutes? it feels to me as if it were far away in the wilds of scotland." people must have felt precisely thus in the days before railways were invented, and when horses were the only progressive power. chapter six. our last spring ramble. "the softly warbled song comes from the pleasant woods, and coloured wings glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along the forest openings. "and the bright sunset fills the silver woods with light, the green slope throws its shadow in the hollows of the hill, and wide the upland glows." longfellow. it is now well into the middle of june. like the lapwing in autumn, i have been making short flights here, there, and everywhere within a day's march previous to the start on my "journey due north." whatever it might be to others, with longer and wiser heads, to me the greatest difficulty has been in getting horses to suit. i have tried many. i have had jibbers, bolters, kickers; and one or two _so_ slow, but _so_ sore, that an eighty-one-ton gun fired alongside them would not increase their pace by a yard to the mile. to get horsed may _seem_ an easy matter to many. it might _be_ easy for some, only it ought to be borne in mind that i am leaving home on a long journey--one, at all events, that will run to weeks and mayhap months; a journey not altogether unattended with danger--and that; my horses are my motor power. if they fail me i have nothing and no one to fall back upon. hence my anxiety is hardly to be wondered at. but here let me say that caravanning for health and pleasure had better not be undertaken with a single carriage, however well horsed. there ought to be two caravans at least. then, in the event of coming to an ugly hill, there is an easy way of overcoming it--by bending all your horse-power on to one carriage at a time, and so trotting them over the difficulty. to go all alone as i am about to do is really to go at considerable risk; and at this moment i cannot tell you whether i am suitably horsed or not. but in the stable yonder stand quietly in their stalls pea-blossom and corn-flower, of whom more anon. pea-blossom is a strong and good-looking dark bay mare of some fifteen hands and over; corn-flower is a pretty light bay horse. they match well; they pull together; and in their buff leather harness they really look a handsome pair. they are good in the feet, too, and good "doers," to use stable phraseology. corn-flower is the best "doer," however. the rascal eats all day, and would deprive himself of sleep to eat. nothing comes wrong to corn-flower. even when harnessed he will have a pull at anything within reach of his neck. if a clovery lea be beneath his feet, so much the better; if not, a "rive" at a blackthorn hedge, a bush of laurels, a bracken bank, or even a thistle, will please him. i'm not sure, indeed, that he would not eat an old shoe if nothing else came handy. but pea-blossom is more dainty. it is for her we fear on the march. she was bought from a man who not only _is_ a dealer, but is not ashamed to sign himself dealer; whereas corn-flower was bought right off farm work. well, time will tell. yes, spring is waning, though hardly yet has summer really come, so backward and cold has the season been. we have had our last day's pleasant outing _en famille_. mamma went, and even baby ida, who is old enough to ask questions and make queer remarks. a clear sky and the brightest of sunshine, though not distressingly hot. we crossed country for wokingham. the trees very beautiful, though the leaves are already turning more crisp; in spring time, city reader mine, as the wind goes whispering through the trees, it seems as if every leaf were of softest silk; in summer the sound is a soughing or rustling one; but in winter the breeze moans and shrieks among the bare branches, and "blows with boisterous sweep." we unlimbered in the market square at wokingham. the english are a novelty-loving people. this was well shown to-day, for streets and pavements were speedily lined to look at us, and even windows raised, while modesty herself must needs peep from behind the curtains. in the afternoon a regiment of artillery came into the town, and popular attention was henceforth drawn to them, though our visitors were not few. on our way home we passed the lodges of haines hill, the residence of the well-known t. garth, esq, a country squire of the true english type--a man who, although over sixty, almost lives in the saddle, and in the season follows his own hounds five days a week. the narrowness of the avenues and plenitude of the drooping limes forbade a visit to the manor, of which, however, as we went slowly along the road we caught many a glimpse red-glimmering through the green. great banks of pink and crimson rhododendrons gave relief to the eye. looking to the right the country was visible for miles, richly-treed as the whole of berkshire is, and with many a farmhouse peeping up through clouds of foliage. the cottages by the roadside at this time of the year are always worth looking at. they vie with each other in the tidiness of their gardens, their porches, and verandahs. they cultivate roses, all kinds and colours; standards and half-standards and climbers, crimson, white, yellow, pink, and purple. stocks and wallflowers are also very favourite flowers. even those cottages that cannot boast of a morsel of garden have the insides of every window all ablaze with flowering geraniums. the memorable features of this pleasant day's gipsying were flowers, foliage, and the exceeding brightness of the sunshine. at malta and in africa i have seen stronger lights and deeper shadows, but never in england before. the sky was cerulean, italian, call it what you like, but it was very blue. the sunshine gave beauty and gladness to everything and every creature around us. birds, butterflies, and shimmering four-winged metallic-tinted dragon-flies flew, floated, and revelled in it. it lay in patches on the trees, it lent a lighter crimson to the fields of clover, a brighter yellow to the golden buttercups; it changed the ox-eye daisies to glittering stars, and gave beauty-tints innumerable to seedling grasses and bronzy flowering docks. under the trees it was almost dark by contrast. so marked, indeed, was this contrast that when a beautiful young girl, in a dress of white and pink, came suddenly out of the shadow and stood in the sunshine, it appeared to us as if she had sprung from the earth itself, for till now she had been invisible. before we reached home a blue evening haze had fallen on all the wooded landscape, making distant trees mere shapes, but hardly marring the beauty of the wild flowers that grew on each side of our path and carpeted the woodlands and copses. this was our last spring outing, and a happy one too. from this date i am to be a solitary gipsy. solitary, and yet not altogether so. my coachman is, i believe, a quiet and faithful fellow, and eke my valet too. then have i not the companionship of hurricane bob, one of the grandest of a grand race of jetty-black newfoundlands, whose coats have never been marred by a single curly hair? nay, more, have i not also my west australian cockatoo to talk to me, to sing with me, and dance when i play? come, i am not so badly off. hurrah! then, for the road and a gipsy's life in earnest. chapter seven. a start for the far north--from reading to warwick. "o spires of oxford! domes and towers, gardens and groves; i slight my own beloved cam to range where silver isis leads my wandering feet." wordsworth. "a curious gothic building, many gabled, by flowering creepers hidden and entangled." there is to my way of thinking a delicious uncertainty in starting on a long caravan tour, without being aware in the least what you are going to do or see, or even what route you are going to take. as regards a route, though, i did throw up a pebble with a black tick on it before the horses pulled out at the gate, and twice running the spot pointed to the north-west. so we steered for reading, and on without stopping as far as the roebuck hotel at tilehurst. nine years ago this hotel was a very small one indeed, but all gables, thickest thatch, and climbing roses and honeysuckle. the thatch has given place to red tiles, and an addendum of modern dimensions has been built. the old must ever give place to the new. but what lovely peeps there are from this hotel, from the balcony and from the bedrooms. it is a river house now in every sense of the word, though not old as a hotel of the kind, and all day long, and far into the night, the bar and passages and the coffee-rooms are crowded in summer with men in snowy flannels, and with some in sailor garb and with artificial sailor swagger. the road leads onwards through a cool elm avenue towards pangbourne. the copses here are in earlier spring carpeted with wild hyacinths. on the hilltop the scenery opens out again, the tree-clad valley of the thames, fields of green grain, with poppies here and there, or wild mustard, and fields crimson with blossoming trefoil. surely milk and butter must be good when cows are fed on flowers. "lay till the day" in the great inn yard of the george. rather too close to the railway embankment, for the trains went roaring past all night long. this did not make sleeping impossible, for a gipsy, even an amateur one, can sleep anywhere; but the earth shook and the lamps rattled every time a train rolled by. some villas are built right beneath the embankment, which is far higher than their roofs. _facilis descensus averni_. what a strange and terrible accident it would be were one of those trains to leave the line and run through a roof! an old lady of the nervous persuasion, who lives here, told me that she oftentimes trembled in her bed when she thought of this dread possibility. pangbourne is a well-known haunt for those who love boating and fishing. it is quiet, and so well shaded as to be cool on the warmest summer day. but pangbourne is not a hackneyed place, and never, i believe, will be so. left about nine o'clock on june th. it had been raining just enough to lay the dust and give a brighter colouring to the foliage. ivy leaves, when young, are, as my country readers know, of a very bright green. there are on a well-kept lawn by the riverside, and just outside pangbourne, a coach-house and a boathouse. both are well-built and prettily shaped. they are thatched, and the walls are completely covered in close-cropped ivy, giving them the look of houses built of green leaves. two miles from pangbourne a nice view of the thames valley is obtained, round wooded hills on the right bank, with farms here and there, and fields now covered with waving wheat, some of them flooded over with the rich red of the blossoming sainfoin. we reach the village of lower basildon. spring seems to linger long in this sweet vale. here is a lofty spruce, each twiglet pointed with a light green bud; here a crimson flowered chestnut; yonder a row of pink mays and several laburnums, whose drooping blooms show no symptoms yet of fading or falling. at the grotto we pass through a splendid avenue of beeches. just at the top of a steep hilltop we meet a girl and a boy on the same tricycle. how happy they look! we warn them of the steepness of the descent. they smilingly thank us, put on their brake, and go floating away and finally disappear among the beeches. every one has rushed through goring and streatley by train, and some may have thought the villages pretty. so they are indeed, but you must go by road to find this out. look at them from grotto hill, for instance, just after you emerge from the lane. here is a pretty bit of road. on the left is a high bank covered with young beech-trees, a hedge on the right, then a green field sweeping down the hill to the river's edge. the thames is here bordered with willow-trees and flowering elders. that hedgerow is low and very wild. it may be blackthorn at heart, but it is quite encanopied by a wealth of trailing weeds and flowers, and by roses and honeysuckle all in bloom, while the roadsides are laid out by nature's hand in beds of yellow trefoil and blue speedwell. the pink marsh-mallow, too, is growing in every grassy nook by the hedge-foot. i wonder how far on my journey north will hedgerows accompany me. i shall feel sorry when they give place to unsightly wooden fences or walls of rugged stone. high up yonder is a green grassy tableland or moor, through which goes the ancient ridge-way or cattle-road to wales. unused now, of course, but the scene of many a strange story in bygone times. a little very old man gets out from under a tree and stands as straight as he can to gaze at us. surely the oldest inhabitant of these regions. his dress is peculiar--a cow-gown worn beneath and protruding like a kilt from under a long blue coat, and a tall black hat. he bobs his wrinkled face, grins, and talks to himself as we pass. a queer old man indeed. we stopped on moulsford hill to water horses. a fine open country, and breezy to-day. rather too breezy, in fact, for hardly had we started again before the wind got in under the great awning which covers the roof from stem to stern. it ripped the cloth from the hooks that held it, but i caught it in time, else it would have blown over the horses' heads, and might have given rise to a very serious accident. it was market-day at wallingford, and busy and bustling it was in the little town. the place is close to the thames. it boasts of a bridge with nineteen arches, a very ancient history, and the remains of an old castle, which, it is said, was at one time considered impregnable. it was besieged by king stephen, and defied him. it held out against cromwell too, i am told, and was one of the last places to surrender. the remains of its ancient walls are visible enough in the shape of mounds, turf-clad, and green as a grave. did wallingford not hold out against the danes also? i believe it did. i have already had so much of oliver cromwell and the danes dinned into my ear, that i am heartily tired of both. if i can credit current traditions, the danes must have been very badly handled indeed, and must have bitterly repented ever setting a foot on english shores. the country after leaving wallingford is exceedingly picturesque; one is inclined to deem every peep of scenery prettier than that which preceded it, and to pity from the heart people who travel by train. shillingford, in our route, is a little village which, as far as i could see, consists mostly of public-houses. near here are the whittingham clumps, which do not look of much account, merely two round green hills with a tuft of trees on the top of each. yet they can be seen for many miles--almost, indeed, from every part of berkshire. dorchester, some miles farther on, is quiet and pretty, and evidently an old village--its cottages look old, its inns look old, and eke the church itself. just the spot for an artist to while away a month in summer, while an author might do worse than lay the scene of a tale in a place like this. we stopped in front of the mansion house of burcot, and made coffee under the chestnuts. the house lies off the road, but there is no fence around the park; we could rest in the shade therefore. here are some splendid pine-trees (scotch) and elms. what a noble tree an elm is, if its branches are spared by the billhook of pruner or axe of woodman! the most of our english trees are spoiled in appearance by injudicious interference. we reached abingdon in the evening, having done twenty miles and spent a delightful day. but the horses were tired of their long drag. there is to be a great fair here to-morrow. it is only natural, therefore, that the people should take us for real gipsies. we have stabled our steeds, and the wanderer lies snug in the back yard of a wealthy corn merchant, and within the precincts of the old gaol. the place was built at an expenditure of , pounds, but abingdon being no longer the county town, it has been sold and turned into a granary. the town is all _en gala_, and the young folks, at all events, are enjoying the sights and sounds. visited to-night by a group of gipsies of the true type. they came, they said, to admire our "turnout." they had never seen so grand a caravan on the road, and so on and so forth. abingdon is a cosy little town, a neighbourly, kindly sort of a place that any one fond of country life must enjoy living in. abingdon should be visited by tourists in summer far more than it is. we started early, and had some difficulty in getting through the town, so narrow are the streets and so crowded were they to-day. on the road we met droves of horses and traps or conveyances of every sort and size taking country folks to the fair. the weather was wondrous cold for june, but endurable nevertheless, albeit clouds hid the sun and showers were not unfrequent. we reached a hilltop about noon, and all at once a landscape burst upon our view which is hardly surpassed for quiet beauty in all england. people who journey by rail miss this enchanting scene. just beneath us, and in the centre of the plain, lay oxford. we dined by the roadside, gipsy-fashion, for there was no meadow we could draw our caravan into. started about two pm, and rattled through oxford, only stopping here and there to do our shopping. there is no better verb than "rattled" to convey the notion of our progress. oxford is vilely paved for either carriage or cycle. with the bumping and shaking we received, the saloon of the wanderer soon looked like that of a yacht in a rough sea-way. poor polly, my cockatoo, the pet of the ship, is sadly put about when there is much motion. i gave her a morsel of meat to-day when passing through oxford. to stand on one leg and eat it as usual from her other claw was out of the question, but polly was equal to the occasion. she put the choice morsel under her feet on the perch, and so quietly rent and devoured it. we were all of us glad to get away from oxford, where there is no rest for the soles of the feet of a caravanite. hurricane bob, though he dearly loves to travel, enjoys his morsel of meadow in the evening, his mode of enjoyment being to roll on the greensward, with all four legs waved aloft. when he gets on to a bit of clovery sward by the wayside it really is a treat to see him. "i wouldn't miss this, master," he says to me, "for all the world, and i only wonder you don't come and tumble as i do." _june, nd_ (monday).--a village of grey limestone houses, thatched and tiled, many with charmingly antique roofs, a village built on ground that is level, a village embowered in orchards and trees, and with so many lanes and roads through it that a stranger could not be expected to know when he was in it or when he was out of it. i have said "a village built," but rather it seems like a village that has grown, house by house, each in its own garden or orchard, and each one different in appearance from the others. altogether english, however, is kidlington, and the work-a-day people are thoroughly english too, very rustic, good-natured, and simple. i do not believe they ever brawl and fight here at pothouses on saturday nights, or that the conversation ever advances much beyond "turmuts" and cattle. i do not suppose that kidlington ever looked much better than it does on this bright summer's morning. the breeze that blew all night, making the wanderer rock like a ship at sea, has fallen; there is just sufficient left to sough through the ash-trees and whisper among the elms; cloudlets float lazily in the sky's blue and temper the sunshine. i am writing on the _coupe_, in the meadow where we have lain since saturday afternoon. there is silence all round, except that cocks are crowing and a turkey gobbling; there is a rustic perched on the stile-top yonder, wondering at my cockatoo, and at bob, who wears a scarlet blanket to keep the early morning chill away; another rustic is driving a herd of lazy cows along the lane. that is the scene, and that is about all. but what a quiet and pleasant sabbath we spent yesterday in this meadow and at the village church! it is now eight o'clock, and time to get the horses in. i wonder what the world is doing--the outside world, i mean. i have not seen a newspaper for three days, nor had a letter since leaving home. now hey! for deddington. somewhat pretty is the country for a mile or two out of kidlington, rising ground all the way to sturdy's castle, four miles and a half. this is a solitary inn, of grey limestone, sturdy by name and sturdy by nature, and if it could tell its story it would doubtless be a strange one. but what a wide, wild country it overlooks! it is wide and wild now. what must it have been one hundred years ago? found a carpet-hawker encamped with her caravan behind the castle. she travels all alone with her two children throughout the length and breadth of england. seems very intelligent, and gives a terrible account of the difficulties to be encountered on ahead of us in getting in at night. we'll see. we are at present in the blenheim country, and the dashwood estate lies east--away yonder. i make no _detour_ to visit the palace. every one knows it by heart. a kind-hearted carter man has told me a deal about the scenes around us, which i daresay the jolting over these rutty roads will soon drive out of my head. on we go again. hopcroft's holt is an old-fashioned quiet inn close by intersecting roads that to the right branch off to bicester. stayed here to cook and eat. densely wooded and well hedged country all round, quiet and retired. it must be healthy here in summer. blacksmith has neatly mended my tricycle, which had broken down, so that i am able to make little excursions down by-roads. the village of upper heyford, about two miles from here, is as quaint and ancient-looking as if some town in the orkneys. _june rd_.--it needed all the strength of corn-flower and pea-blossom to get us into deddington, for the hills are long and steep. we are furnished with a roller that drags behind the near after wheel, in case of accident or sudden stopping on a hill, and now for the first time we needed it. new experiences come on this tour of mine every day, though adventures are but few, or have been hitherto. at oxford and places _en route_ from there we were reported to be the earl of e--. at deddington the wind changed, and we were taken for salvationists on a pilgrimage. salvationists are not liked in deddington, and our arrival in the market-place, an ugly piece of rocky ground in the centre of the town (population about three thousand), was the occasion of a considerable deal of excitement. we had the horses out nevertheless, and prepared to spend the night there. we pulled blinds down, and i was about to batten down, as sailors say--in other words, get on the shutters--for the boys had taken to stoning each other, when the arrival of kindly dr t--and an invitation to come to his grounds gave us relief and surcease from riot. as the mob chose to follow and hoot, my highland blood got up, and i got out with hurricane bob, the newfoundland. the street was narrow, and further advance of those unmannerly louts was deemed by them indiscreet. the change from the lout-lined street to the pleasant grounds of dr t--'s old house at deddington was like getting into harbour from off a stormy sea, and i shall never forget the kind hospitality of the kindly doctor and his family. to be taken for an earl in the morning and a captain of the salvation army in the evening is surely enough for one day. this morning i visited the fine old church, and, as usual, got up into the steeple. if ever you go to deddington, pray, reader, do the same. the town stands on a hill, and the steeple-top is one hundred feet higher; you can see for many miles. the country round is fertile, rolling hill and dale and valley, and densely treed. there are villages to the right, villages to the left, and mansions peeping from the woods wherever you turn your eye. the steeple-head is covered with lead, and it is the custom of visitors to place a foot on the lead and cut a mark round it. inside this they write their initials and the date. here are footmarks of every size. you can even tell the age and guess the sex. among them are those of children, but looking at some of the dates those babes must have grown men and women long ago, grown old and died. there is food for thought in even this. we pass the village of adderbury on our way to banbury. from an artistic as well as antiquarian point of view it is well worth a visit. see it from the oxford side, where the stream winds slowly through the valley. the village lies up yonder on the ridge among grand old trees, its church as beautiful as a dream. looking in the opposite direction to-day a thoroughly english view meets my gaze. on one bank of the valley is a broad flat meadow, where cattle are wading more than ankle-deep in buttercups and grass; on the other merry haymakers are busy; away beyond are sunny braelands with a horizon of elms. delayed for a time after leaving adderbury by the collapse of a traction engine on the road. we are now cooking dinner outside banbury, the horses grazing quietly by the roadside. _june th_.--we went quickly through banbury, pretty though the place be. we stayed not even to have a cake. truth is, we were haunted by our greatest foe, the traction engine fiend, which twice yesterday nearly brought us to grief and my narrative to a close. the country 'twixt banbury and the little village of warmington, which lies in a hollow--and that hollow is a forest of fine trees--is beautiful. the soil in many of the fields a rich rusty red. there is what may well be called a terrible hill to descend before you reach the road that leads to warmington. once here, we found ourselves on a spacious green, with ample room for a hundred caravans. the village is primitive in the extreme--primitive and pretty. are we back in the middle ages, i wonder? here is no hotel, no railway, no telegraph, no peep at a daily paper, and hardly stabling for a horse. "i can only get stabling for one horse," i said to a dry, hard-faced woman who was staring at me. i thought she might suggest something. "humph!" she replied; "and i ain't got stabling e'en for _one_ horse. and wot's more, i ain't got a 'orse to stable!" i felt small, and thought myself well off. the people here talk strangely. their _patois_ is different from berkshire, even as the style of their houses is, and the colour of the fields. wishing yesterday to get a photograph of the old church at adderbury, i entered an inn. the round-faced landlord was very polite, but when i asked for a photographer,-- "a wot, sir?" he said. "a photographer," i replied, humbly. "i can't tell wot ye means, sir. can you tell wot the gemman means, 'arry?" "'arry" was very fat and round, wore a cow-gown, and confronted a quart pot of ale. i repeated the word to him thrice, but 'arry shook his head. "i can't catch it," he said, "no 'ow." when i explained that i meant a man who took pictures with a black box,-- "oh, now i knows," said the landlord; "you means a pott-o-graffer." but the children here that came down from their fastnesses in the village above are angels compared to the deddington roughs. i was so struck with the difference that i asked four or five to come right away into the pantry and look at the saloon. it rained hard all the afternoon and night, the dark clouds lying low on the hills--real hills--that surrounded us, and quite obscuring our view. 'twixt bath and breakfast this morning, i strolled down a tree-shaded lane; every field here is surrounded by hedges--not trimmed and disfigured--and trees, the latter growing also in the fields, and under them cows take shelter from sun or shower. how quiet and still it was, only the breeze in the elms, the cuckoo's notes, and the murmur of the unseen cushat! we are near the scene of the battle of edgehill. for aught i know i may be sitting near a hero's grave, or on it. the village can hardly, have altered since that grim fight; the houses look hundreds of years old. yonder quaint stone manor, they tell me, has seen eight centuries go by. i don't wonder at the people here looking quiet and sleepy; i did not wonder at the polite postmistress turning to her daughter, who was selling a boy "a happorth of peppercorns," and saying, "whatever is the day of the month, amelia? i've forgot." warmington may some day become a health resort. at present there is no accommodation; but one artist, one author, or one honeymooning pair might enjoy a month here well enough. started at nine for warwick--fourteen miles. for some miles the highway is a broad--very broad--belt of greensward, with tall hedges at every side. through this belt the actual road meanders; the sward on each side is now bathed in wild flowers, conspicuous among which are patches of the yellow bird's-foot trefoil. hills on the right, with wooded horizons; now and then a windmill or rustic church, or farm or manor. a grey haze over all. we come to a place where the sward is adorned with spotted lilac orchids. conspicuous among other wild flowers are now tall pink silenes, very pretty, while the hedges themselves are ablaze with wild roses. midday halt at cross roads, on a large patch of clovery grass. here the fosse, or old roman road, bisects our path. it goes straight as crow could fly across england. there is a pretty farm here, and the landlady from her gate kindly invited hurricane bob and me in, and regaled us on the creamiest of milk. we shall sleep at warwick to-night. chapter eight. leamington and warwick--a lovely drive--a bit of black country-- ashby-de-la-zouch. "... evening yields the world to-night... ... a faint erroneous ray, glanced from th' imperfect surfaces of things, flings half an image on the straining eye; while wavering woods, and villages and streams, and rocks and mountain-tops, that long retained th' ascending gleam, are all one swimming scene, uncertain if beheld." strange that for twelve long miles, 'twixt warmington and the second milestone from warwick, we never met a soul, unless rooks and rabbits have souls. we were in the woods in the wilds, among ferns and flowers. when houses hove in sight at last, signs of civilisation began to appear. we met a man, then a swarm of boarding-school girls botanising, and we knew a city would soon be in sight. at leamington, the livery stables to which we had been recommended proved too small as to yard accommodation, so we drove back and put up at the regent hotel. but there is too much civilisation for us here. great towns were never meant for great caravans and gipsy-folk. we feel like a ship in harbour. rain, rain, rain! we all got wet to the skin, but are none the worse. the old ostler at the regent is a bit of a character, had been on the road driving four-in-hands for many a year. he was kindly-loquacious, yes, and kindly-musical as well, for he treated me to several performances on the coach-horn, which certainly did him great credit. he was full of information and anecdotes of the good old times, "when four-in-hands _were_ four-in-hands, sir, and gentlemen _were_ gentlemen." he told us also about the road through kenilworth to coventry. it was the prettiest drive, he said, in all england. beautiful and all though leamington be, we were not sorry to leave it and make once more for the cool green country. the horses were fresh this morning, even as the morning itself was fresh and clear. we passed through bush-clad banks, where furze and yellow-tasselled broom were growing, and trees in abundance. before we knew where we were we had trotted into kenilworth. we stabled here and dined, and waited long enough to have a peep at the castle. this grand old pile is historical; no need, therefore, for me to say a word about it. after rounding the corner in our exit from kenilworth, and standing straight away for coventry, the view from the glen at the bridge, with the castle on the left, a village and church on the rising ground, and villas and splendid trees on the right, made a good beginning to the "finest drive in all england." there is many a pretty peep 'twixt kenilworth and coventry. the road is broad and good, and so tree-lined as often to merit the name of avenue. especially is this the case at the third milestone, from near which the straight road can be seen for fully a mile and a half, shaded by the grandest of trees. this is a view not easily forgotten. with all the beauty of this drive, however, it is too civilised to be romantic. the hedges are trimmed, and we actually noticed a man paring the grass on the edge of the footpath. _june th_.--we are up very early this morning, for in coventry the road-fiend rides rampant and in all his glory. they have steam-trams, which not only go puffing through the town, but for five miles out through the coal district itself. we must avoid them, get the start of them. so we are up and away long before seven. we arrived here last night, and through the kindness of the editor of the _tricyclist_ got permission to draw in for the night into the large cricket and sports ground. the gates were closed at nine, and we had the keys. i was lord, therefore, of all i surveyed. on the cinder-path last night a weary-looking but strong old man of over sixty was walking. he is doing or trying to do , miles in a shorter time than the pedestrian weston. it is said that if he succeeds the brewers will pay him , pounds, and give him a free public-house, because he trains on beer instead of on tea, as did weston! the road leading northward from coventry is terribly rough and rutty, and cut up with the trams from the mines, but being lined with trees, among which are many copper-beeches, it is not devoid of interest. it is cold, bitterly cold and raw, with a strong north wind blowing, and we are obliged to wear top-coats on the _coupe_. fancy top-coats at midsummer! the country becomes unpleasant-looking even before the trams end. at redworth, where i drew up for a short time to make purchases, swarms of rough, dark, and grimy men surrounded us, but all were polite and most civil. on the hilltop we again draw up in front of an inn. the panting horses want water, and we ourselves have till now had no breakfast. "good beds for travellers round the corner." this was a ticket in a window. i go round the corner. here is a little show of some kind and a caravan. but the show business cannot be much of a success in this black country, for these caravanites look poverty-stricken. from a rude picture on a ragged screen i learn that this caravan is devoted to a horse-taming or rarey show. the _dramatis personae_ consist of a long, lean, unwholesome-looking lad with straggling yellow hair, a still longer and still leaner lad without any visible hair, and a short man with grey moustache. but this latter comes to the gate bearing in his arms a boy-child of ten years, worn to a skeleton, sickly, and probably dying. the boy shivers, the short man speaks soothingly to him, and bears him back into a dingy tent. i do not relish my breakfast after this sad sight. we are not sorry when we are away from the immediate vicinity of the mines, and unlimbered by the roadside near the old red gate inn. we have been following the ancient roman road for many miles, and a good one it is, and very obliging it was of the romans to make us such a road. the inn is altogether so quiet and cosy that i determine to stable here for the night, and pass the day writing or strolling about. so we cross the road and draw the wanderer up beneath a lordly oak. in crossing we pass from warwick into leicestershire. pea-blossom is coughing occasionally. it is not a pleasant sound to have to listen to. she may be better to-morrow, for it will be saturday, and a long and toilsome day is before us. it is evening now; a walk of a mile has brought me to a hilltop, if hill it can be called. the view from here is by no means spirit-stirring, but quiet and calming to the mind. what a delightful difference between lying here and in that awful bustling inn yard at leamington! it is a country of irregular green fields, hedge-bounded, and plentifully sprinkled with oak and ash-trees and tall silver-green aspens; a country of rolling hills and flats, but no fens, with here and there a pretty old-fashioned farm peeping through the foliage. there is not a cloud in the sky, the sun is sinking in a yellow haze, the robin and the linnet are singing beside me among the hawthorns, and down in the copse yonder a blackbird is fluting. a pheasant is calling to its mate among the ferns; it is time apparently for pheasants to retire. time for weasels too, for across the road runs a mother-weasel with a string of young ones all in a row. the procession had been feeding in that sweetly-scented beanfield, and is now bound for bed, and i myself take the hint and go slowly back to the wanderer. but hurricane bob has found a mole, and brings that along. it is not dead, so i let it go. how glad it must feel! at nine o'clock the sun had set, but left in the north-west a harbinger of a fine morning. what delicious tints! what delicate suffusion of yellows, greens, and blues! just as the sun was sinking red towards the horizon uprose the moon in the east, round and full, and in appearance precisely like the setting sun. the trees on the horizon were mere black shapes, the birds had ceased to sing, and bats were flitting about. at eleven o'clock, it was a bright clear night with wavy dancing phosphorescent-like gleams of light in the north--the aurora! _june th_.--started at eight o'clock _en route_ by cross roads for ashby-de-la-zouch. shortly afterwards passed a needle-shaped monument to george fox, founder of the society of friends. it is a very humble one, and stands in a wooded corner almost surrounded by hawthorn. went through the village of fenny drayton. why called "fenny," i wonder? it is a little hamlet, very old, and with a pretty and very old church, but i had no time to get up to the steeple. road narrow but good. a glorious morning, with a blue sky and delicious breeze. greensward at each side of the road, with ragged hedges and stunted oaks and ashes; roses in the hedgerows, golden celandine on the sward, and tall crimson silenes everywhere. by-and-bye the country opens, and we come upon a splendid view; and here is a sight--a hedgerow of roses nearly a mile long! here are as many of these wildly beautiful flowers as would drape saint paul's cathedral, dome and all. we pass sibson, with its very quaint old inn and little ivy-covered church surmounted by a stone cross; and twycross, a most healthy and pretty rural village. there we unlimbered to dine, and in the afternoon went on towards our destination. past gopsal park, with its quaint old lodge-gates and grand trees, on through dark waving woods of beech, of oak, and ash, on through lanes with hedgerows at each side, so tall that they almost meet at the top. we cross the railway now to avoid a steep bridge. meesham is far away on the hill before us, and looks very romantic and pretty from the bridge. its ancient church rears its steeple skyward, high over the houses that cluster round it, giving the place the appearance of a cathedral city in miniature. the romance vanishes, though, as soon as we enter the town. one long, steep street leads through it, its houses are of brick and most uninteresting, and the public-houses are so plentifully scattered about that thirst must be a common complaint here. ashby-de-la-zouch lies above us and before us at last, and strangely picturesque it looks. bows of queer-shaped trees are on each side of us; up yonder, in front, is a graveyard on a braeland; farther to the right a tall church spire, and flanking all, and peeping through the greenery of trees, is the ruined castle. market-day in ashby, and we are mobbed whenever we stop to do some shopping. the church here is well worthy of a visit; so too is the castle, but tourists ought to refresh their minds before spending a few days here by once more reading "ivanhoe." it was hard, uphill work from ashby; drag, drag, drag; horses tired, pea-blossom limping, and all weary. at the hilltop we came into quite a highland country, and thence we could catch glimpses of lovely scenery and far-off blue hills. the effects of the sunlight on the green oak woods and the yellow ashes were very charming. lount at last; a humble inn, quiet, kindly people, and a little meadow. chapter nine. a quiet sunday at lount--a visit to a pottery--beeston hall--a broiling day. "how still the morning of this hallowed day! hushed is the voice of rural labour, the ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song." june th. the country is indeed a highlands in miniature. i might describe the scenery in this way: take a sheet of paper and thereon draw irregular lines, across and across, up and down, in any conceivable direction. these lines, then, shall represent blackthorn hedges bounding fields of flowering grass and hay. place trees in your picture anywhere, and, here and there, a wood of dwarfed oak, and dot the field-nooks with picturesque-looking cattle-huts. in the centre let there be a cluster of irregularly-built brick-tiled houses and the domes of a pottery works. this, then, is lount and its surroundings, where we are now bivouacked. but to complete the sketch there must be footpaths meandering through the meadows, with gaps in the hedges for rustic stiles. nor must the cattle be forgotten. and all the country visible from this point is broken up into round hills, and each field is a collection of smaller hills, shaped like waves of a storm-tossed ocean. how still and quiet it is! and above the green of fields and woods is a blue, blue sunny sky. larks are singing up yonder, their songs mingling sweetly with the chiming of the church bells that comes floating over the hills, rising and falling as the breeze does, now high and clear, now soft and far-away like. i had the caravan half-filled this morning with bright-eyed, wondering children. a parent brought me a red cotton handkerchief. "t'missus," he explained, "was makin' oop a pie, and i thought upon thee loike." it was kindly, and i couldn't refuse the gift, though gooseberry pies form no part of the wanderer's _menu_. ten o'clock pm.--the full moon has just risen over the dark oak woods; a strangely white dense fog has filled all the hollows--a fog you can almost stretch out your hands and touch. the knolls in the fields all appear over it, looking like little islands in the midst of an inland sea. the corncrake is sounding his rattle in the hayfields--a veritable voice of the night is he--and not another sound is to be heard. passed a garden a few minutes ago while walking out. such a sight! glowworms in thousands; far more lovely than fireflies in an indian jungle. to bed. _june th_.--we got under way by : , after a brief visit to the coleorton pottery. this place has an ugly enough appearance outside, but is very interesting internally. the proprietor kindly showed my coachman and me over the works. we saw the great heaps of blue clay that had been dug from the hillside and left exposed for weeks to the weather, the tanks in which it is mixed with water, the machinery for washing and sifting it, the clay being finally boiled to the consistency of putty. an old man took dabs of this putty and cast them on a revolving table, smiling as he did so as he watched our wondering looks, for lo! cups and saucers and teapots seemed to grow up under his fingers, and a whole tea-set was produced more quickly than one could have brewed a cup of tea. a somewhat misty morning, but roads good though hilly, and scenery romantic. but at castle donington, a long brick town, the scene changes. away go hill and dale, away goes all romance, and we pass through a flat country, with nothing in it to enlist sympathy save the trees and rose-clad hedges. but soon again comes another change, and we cross the broad and silvery trent, stopping, however, on the bridge to admire the view. we arrive at long eaton, and encamp by the roadside to cook dinner. rows of ugly brick houses, a lazy canal with banks black with coal dust; the people here look as inactive as does their canal. took the wrong turning and went miles out of our way. we were stormed on our exit from long eaton by hordes of board school children. they clustered round us like locusts, they swarmed like bees, and hung to the caravan in scores. no good my threatening them with the whip. i suppose they knew i did not mean much mischief, and one score was only frightened off to make room for another. at beeston, near nottingham, i got talking to a tricyclist; a visit to a caravan followed, and then an introduction to a wealthy lace merchant. the latter would not hear of my going two miles farther to an inn. i must come into his grounds. so here in a cosy corner of the lawn of beeston hall lies the wanderer, overshadowed by giant elms and glorious purple beeches, and the lace manufacturer and his wife are simply hospitality personified. such is the glorious uncertainty of a gentleman gipsy's life--one night bivouacked by a lonely roadside in a black country, another in a paradise like this. _july nd_.--a broiling hot day--almost too hot to write or think. at present we are encamped on the road, two miles from worksop to the south. tired though the horses were, we pushed on and on for miles, seeking shade but finding none; and now we have given up, and stand in the glaring sunshine. roads are of whitest limestone, and, though there is little wind, every wheel of every vehicle raises a dust and a powder that seem to penetrate our very pores. we are all languid, drowsy, lethargic. polly the parrot alone appears to enjoy the heat and the glare. the haymakers in yonder field are lazy-looking, silent, and solemn--a melting solemnity; the martins on that single telegraph-wire rest and pant open-mouthed, while the cattle in the meadow, with tails erect, go flying from end to end and back again in a vain attempt to escape from the heat and the flies. but the flowers that grow by the wayside and trail over the hedges revel in the sunshine--the purple vetches, the red clover, the yellow wild-pea, and the starry margueritas. roses in sheets are spread over the hawthorn fences, and crimson poppies dot the cornfields. the white clover is alive with bees. this seems a bee country; everybody at present is either drumming bees or whitewashing cottages. got up to-day and had breakfast shortly after six. the kindly landlord of the greyhound, mr scothern, and genial mr tebbet, one of his grace the duke of portland's head clerks, had promised to drive me through the forest grounds of welbeck. as the day is, so was the morning, though the sun's warmth was then pleasant enough. our drive would occupy some two hours and a half, and in that time we would see many a "ferlie," as the scotch say. the bare impossibility of giving the reader anything like a correct account of this most enjoyable ride impresses me while i write, and i feel inclined to throw down my pen. i shall not do so, however, but must leave much unsaid. if any one wishes to see the country around here as i have seen it this morning, and wander in the forest and enjoy nature in her home of homes, he must come to welbeck in summer. never mind distance; come, you will have something to dream pleasantly about for many a day. a visit to the great irrigation canal, by which all the drainage from mansfield is carried along, and utilised by being allowed to flood meadows, might not appear a very romantic way of beginning a summer morning's outing. but it was interesting nevertheless. the meadows which are periodically flooded are wondrously green; three crops of hay are taken from each every season. they are on the slope, the canal running along above. the pure water that drains from these meadows finds its way into a river or trout stream that meanders along beneath them, and is overhung by rocks and woodland. fish in abundance are caught here, and at present are being used to stock ponds and lochs on the duke's estate. we soon crossed this stream by a gothic bridge, and plunged into what i may call a new forest. there are fine trees here in abundance, but it is a storm-tossed woodland, and much of the felled timber is so twisted in grain as to be useless for ordinary purposes. we saw many trees that had been struck by lightning, their branches hurled in all directions. up a steep hill after leaving this forest, and stopping at an old-fashioned inn, we regaled ourselves on ginger-ale. the landlord pointed with some pride to the sign that hung over the door. "the duke himself--the old duke, sir, his grace of the leathern breeches--brought that sign here himself--in his own hands and in his own carriage, and it isn't many real gentlemen that would have done that, sir!" the memory of the old duke is as much reverenced here, it appears to me, as that of peter the great is in russia. the stories and anecdotes of his life you hear in the neighbourhood would fill a volume. people all admit he was eccentric, but his eccentricity filled many a hungry mouth, soothed the sorrows of the aged, and made many and many a home happy. the tunnel towards warsop is about two miles long, lighted by gas at night, and from windows above by day; there are a riding-school and wonderful stables underground, ballroom, etc, etc. i am writing these lines within a quarter of a mile of the open-air stables. the place looks like a small city. just one--only one--anecdote of the old duke's eccentricity. it was told me last night, and proves his grace to have been a man of kindly feeling. a certain architect had finished--on some part of the ground-- a large archway and pillared colonnade, at great expense to the duke, no doubt. it did not please the latter, however, but he would not wound the architect's feelings by telling him so. no, but one evening he got together some two hundred men, and every stone was taken away and the ground levelled before morning. the architect must have stared at the transformation when he came next day, but the matter was never even referred to by the duke, and of course the architect said nothing. the country through which we went after passing the duke's irrigation works was a rolling one, hill and dale, green fields, forest, loch, and stream. there are wild creatures in it in abundance. yonder are two swans sailing peacefully along on a little lake; here, near the edge of the stream, a water-hen with a brood of little black young ones. she hurries them along through the hedge as our trap approaches, but the more hurry the less speed, and more than one poor little mite tumbles on its back, and has to be helped up by the mother. yonder on the grass is a brace of parent partridges; they do not fly away; their heads are together; they are having a loving consultation on ways and means, and the young brood is only a little way off. before us now, and adown the road, runs a great cock pheasant; he finally takes flight and floats away towards the woods. look in the stream, how the glad fish leap, and the bubbles escaping from the mud in that deep dark pool tell where some fat eel is feeding. we pause for a moment to admire the trees, and the music of birds and melancholy croodling of the cushat fall upon our ears, while young rabbits scurry about in all directions, and a cuckoo with attendant linnet flies close over our horse's head. not far from the little inn where we stopped we saw the ruins of king john's palace. but little is left of it now, the stones having been put to other purposes, and it looks as like the ruins of an old barn as those of a palace. we leave the road and pass into the forest proper--the old sherwood forest, sacred to the memory of robin hood and little john and the merry monks of the olden time. we enter birkland. saving those wondrous and ancient oaks that stand here and there, and look so weird and uncanny as almost to strike the beholder with awe, the forest is all new. long straight broad avenues go in all directions through it. the ground on these is as level as a lawn, and just as soft and green. here is the shamble oak. its weirdlike arms are still green, though it is said to be , years old, and may be more. the trunk, round which twelve good strides will hardly take you, is sadly gutted by fire. some boys set it alight in trying to smoke out a hornet's hive. here, in this oak, it is said, robin hood hung his slaughtered deer, and, in more modern times, keepers and poachers used it as a larder. a quaint and pretty log-hut _a la russe_ has recently been erected near the shamble oak. it is not yet furnished, but we found our way inside, the keeper in attendance here giving us great and impressive injunctions to wipe our feet and not step off the canvas. i wonder he did not bid us remove our shoes. from the balcony of this log-hut one could have rabbit-shooting all day long, and pigeon-shooting in the evening. i hope no one ever will though. we went home a different way, mr tebbet opening the double-padlocked gates for us. we passed the parliament tree, as it is called, where they tell us king john used to assemble his councillors. it is an oak still, a skeleton oak hung together by chains. from the brow of a hill which we soon reached, we enjoyed a panorama, the like of which is not elsewhere to be seen in all broad england. from howitt's "rural life in england" i cull the following: "near mansfield there remains a considerable wood, harlowe wood, and a fine scattering of old oaks near berry hill, in the same neighbourhood, but the greater part is now an open waste, stretching in a succession of low hills and long winding valleys, dark with heather. a few solitary and battered oaks standing here and there, the last melancholy remnants of these vast and ancient woods, the beautiful springs, swift and crystalline brooks, and broad sheets of water lying abroad amid the dark heath, and haunted by numbers of wild ducks and the heron, still remain. but at the clipstone extremity of the forest, a remnant of its ancient woodlands remains, unrifled, except of its deer--a specimen of what the whole once was, and a specimen of consummate beauty and interest. birkland and bilhaghe taken together form a tract of land extending from ollerton along the side of thoresby park, the seat of earl manvers, to clipstone park, of about five miles in length, and one or two in width. bilhaghe is a forest of oaks, and is clothed with the most impressive aspect of age that can perhaps be presented to the eye in these kingdoms... a thousand years, ten thousand tempests, lightnings, winds, and wintry violence have all flung their utmost force on these trees, and there they stand, trunk after trunk, scathed, hollow, grey, and gnarled, stretching out their bare sturdy arms on their mingled foliage and ruin--a life in death. all is grey and old. the ground is grey beneath--the trees are grey with clinging lichens--the very heather and fern that spring beneath them have a character of the past. "but bilhaghe is only half of the forest-remains here; in a continuous line with it lies birkland--a tract which bears its character in its name--the land of birches. it is a forest perfectly unique. it is equally ancient with bilhaghe, but it has a less dilapidated air. it is a region of grace and poetry. i have seen many a wood, and many a wood of birches, and some of them amazingly beautiful, too, in one quarter or another of this fair island, but in england nothing that can compare with this... on all sides, standing in their solemn steadfastness, you see huge, gnarled, strangely-coloured and mossed oaks, some riven and laid bare from summit to root with the thunderbolts of past tempests. an immense tree is called the shamble oak, being said to be the one in which robin hood hung his slaughtered deer, but which was more probably used by the keepers for that purpose. by whomsoever it was so used, however, there still remain the hooks within its vast hollow." but it is time to be up and off. we lay last night in mr tebbet's private meadow. had a long walk before i could secure a suitable place. but the place was eminently quiet and exceedingly private, near lawns and gardens and giant elms. the elm that grows near the pretty cemetery, in which haymakers were so busy this morning, is, with the exception of the oak at newstead abbey gates, the finest ever i have seen; and yet an old man died but recently in mansfield workhouse who remembered the time he could bend it to the ground. warsop, which we reached over rough and stony roads and steepish hills, is a greystone village, the houses slated or tiled blue or red, a fine church on the hilltop among lordly trees, a graveyard on the brae beneath with a white pathway meandering up through it to the porch. at the sixth milestone we reached a hilltop, from which we could see into several counties. such a view as this is worth wandering leagues to look at. we watered the horses here, at the last of the duke of portland's lodges. thou down hill again. how lovely the little village of cuckney looks down there, its crimson houses shimmering through the trees! we bought eggs at the inn called the greendale oak. there is a story attached to this oak which my reader has doubtless heard or read. this is the land of oaks, and a smiling land too, a land of wealth and beauty, a great garden-land. chapter ten. doncaster--brentley--askern--dinner on a yorkshire wold. "was nought around save images of rest, sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between, and flowery beds, that slumberous influence kest, from poppies breathed, and beds of pleasant green." it is the morning of the th july, and a bright and beautiful morning it is. the storm clouds that yesterday lowered all around us have cleared away and the sun shines in an italian sky. we are encamped in a delightful little level meadow close to the worthy brewer and farmer to whom it belongs. how did we come here? were we invited? no, reader, we invited ourselves. not quite liking the accommodation recommended to us by a villager, i called on mr e--, and coyly--shall i say "coyly?"--stated my case. though good mr e--has a wife to please, and the gentle, kindly lady is an invalid, he granted me the desired permission, and when we were fairly on the lawn and... a page missing here. a page missing here. stunted than the giants we have left behind us. mulberry-trees have now made their appearance, and splendid acacias, tasselled over with drooping blooms. but the maple or plane-trees are also a sight; they are now in seed, and the hanging bunches of pods are tinted with carmine and brown. large elder-bushes, like enormous white-rose trees, brighten the dark-green of the hedgerows; beds of yellow sweet-pea, beds and patches of the blue speedwell, the purple tapering stachys, solitary spikes of crimson foxglove, roses, and honeysuckle meet the eye wherever i look. in some places the sward is covered as with snow by the lavish-spreading fairy-bedstraw. at the little cosy town of askern, with its capital hotels and civilised-looking lodging-houses, on stopping to shop, we were surprised at being surrounded by hosts of white-haired cripples--well, say lame people, for every one had a staff or a crutch. but i soon found out that askern is a watering-place, a kind of a second-class harrogate, and these people with the locks of snow had come to bathe and drink the waters; they are sulphureous. there is here a little lake, with a promenade and toy stalls. the lake has real water in it, though it looks somewhat green and greasy, and a real boat on it, and real oars to pull it. there are fish in the lake too. this is evident from the fact that a twenty-pound pike was lately landed. on being opened, his stomach was found to contain a roach and two copper coins of the reign of our present blessed majesty the queen. it is evident that this pike was laving up against a rainy day. but askern is really a good resort for the invalid. things are cheap, too, and the place would soon flourish if there were abundance of visitors. we have halted to dine in the centre of a yorkshire wold. the road goes straight through the hedge-bound sward, and can be seen for miles either way. a wold means a wood--a wild wood. i like the word, there is a fine romantic ring about it. this wold has been cleared, or partially so, of trees, and fields of waving grain extend on all sides of us. very delightful is this wold on a sweet summer's day like this, but one can easily imagine how dreary the scene must be in winter, with the road banked high with snowdrifts, and the wind sweeping over the flats and tearing through the leafless oaks. the horses are enjoying the clover. hurricane bob and i are reclining among our rugs on the broad _coupe_. foley is cooking a fowl and a sheep's heart; the latter for bob's dinner. there are rock-looking clouds on the horizon, a thunderstorm is within a measurable distance. how pretty those purple trailing vetches look! how sweet the song of yonder uprising lark! there is an odour of elder-flowers in the air. i hear a hen cackling at a distant farm. probably the hen has laid an egg. hurricane bob is sound asleep. i think i shall read. burns is by my elbow: "oh, nature! a' thy shows and forms to feeling pensive hearts hae charms! whether the summer kindly warms wi' life and light, or winter howls in gusty storms, the lang dark night." how lovely those dog-roses are, though! they are everywhere to-day; roses in clusters, roses in garlands, wreaths and wind-tossed spray, white, crimson, or palest pink roses--roses-- "the dinner is all on the table, sir." "aw--right." "the dinner is _quite ready_, sir." "to be sure, to be sure. thank you, foley." "why, you have been sound asleep, sir." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ we are once more settled for the night and settled for the sabbath, in a delightful clovery meadow near a fine old yorkshire farm, round which blue-rock pigeons are flying in clouds. a herd of fine shorthorn cows have arranged themselves in a row to look at us. a healthful "caller" country lassie is milking one. her name is mary; i heard a ploughboy say "mary" to her. mary is singing low as she milks, and the sleek-sided cow is chewing her cud and meditating. yonder is a field of white peas all in bloom, and yonder a field of pale-green flax. it must be a great satisfaction for those pigeons to see those peas in bloom. "good-night, mary." "good-night, sir." away marches mary, singing, "tra, la, lalla, la lah." what a sweet voice the little maiden has! chapter eleven. a day in the life of a gentleman gipsy. "he journeyed on like errant-knight the while, while sweetly the summer sun did smile on mountain moss and moor." it has occurred to me that a slightly more detailed account of the internal economy of our land-yacht, the wanderer, might not prove devoid of interest to the reader, and i cannot give this in an easier way to myself, nor more completely, than by describing a day in the life of a gentleman gipsy. it is the ninth of july, and early morning. the belfry-clock, which we can see from the meadow in which we have been lying all night, will presently chime out the quarter-past six. foley is busy erecting the after-tent under which i have my bath every morning, as sure as sunrise. in a few minutes, ere ever i have finished my toilet, our coachman will be here for oats and beans for corn-flower and pea-blossom. no fear that john will neglect his horses, he is quite as kind to them as i myself am to bob and polly, and now that pear-blossom's fetlock is slightly strained, it is three times a day most carefully bandaged and rubbed with healing liniment. the bed which is made every night on the sofa is not yet taken up, but as soon as i emerge from the back door and enter the tent my valet enters by the saloon front door, the bedclothes are carried outside, carefully shaken and folded, and finally stowed away under the lockers. the saloon is then brushed and dusted and the cloth laid for breakfast. bob sleeps on the driving apron in the corner of the saloon, polly in her cage occupies another corner. the first thing i do every morning is to hang polly under the balcony, and chain bob on the _coupe_, wrapping him in his red blanket if the weather be chilly. he is there now; ominous warning growls are followed by fierce barking, for some one is nearing the caravan whose looks bob does not like, or whose movements he deems suspicious. at every bark of the brave dog the van shakes and the lamp-glasses rattle. i have finished shaving--water boiled by spirits-of-wine. "the bath all ready? thank you, foley." do not imagine that i carry an immense tin-ware bath in the wanderer. no, a gipsy's bath is a very simple arrangement, but it is very delightful. this is the _modus operandi_. i have a great sponge and a bucket of cold water, newly drawn from the nearest well. this morning the water is actually ice-cold, but i am hungry before i have finished sponging, so benefit must result from so bracing an ablution. foley has laid the cloth. the kettle is boiling, the eggs and rashers are ready to put in the frying-pan, the rippingille oil-stove is in a little tent made of mats under the caravan. there is nothing in the shape of cooking this stove will not perform. now bob must have his early run, and while i am walking with him i call a bunch of the seedling grasses polly loves so well, for i believe with norman mcleod, d.d. "i think nothing of that man's religion," said that truly great and good man, "whose cat and dog are not the better for it." we have not a caravan cat, but polly is an excellent substitute. i return and once more fasten bob on the _coupe_, but he now insists on having the front door open that he may watch me at breakfast, and get the tit-bits. how bright, and clean, and pleasant the saloon looks! there are garden flowers in the crystal boat, and a splendid bouquet of wild flowers and ferns that i culled in the woods yesterday morning stands in the bracket beneath one of the windows; crimson foxgloves there are, rare and beautiful ox-eye daisies, and a score of others of every colour and shade. the sun is streaming in through the panes and shimmering on the red lamp-glasses; the table is laid to perfection, the tea is fragrant, the eggs and bacon done to a turn, and the bread as white as snow. the milk, too, is newly from that very cow who was playing the trombone so noisily last night in the meadow near me, and the butter all that could be desired. and yet some of these dainties are wondrous cheap up here in yorks; for that butter we paid but eleven pence a pound, fourteen new-laid eggs we secured for a shilling, the bacon cost but sixpence, while three halfpence buys me a jugful of the richest of milk. who would not be a gipsy? but breakfast is soon discussed and everything cleared away, the spoons and dishes are washed beneath the tent, the hind tables having been let down to facilitate matters. in half an hour or less the pantry is as bright and tidy as eye could wish to see. the tent itself is taken down and stowed away, the ladder is shipped and secured, buckets and mats, and nosebags and chains, fastened beneath the caravan, then the steps are put up, and the after-door closed and locked. the horses are now put-to; i myself have one last walk round the wanderer to see that everything is in its place and no drawer left unlocked, then away we rattle right gaily o! to-day the gate that leads to the meadow is narrow, it does not give us two inches to spare at each side. i have to walk backwards in front of the horses to guide the coachman in his exit. but john has a keen eye, and in a few moments we are in the road. nothing has been forgotten, and the landlord of the stalled ox gives us kindly good morning and wishes us _bon voyage_. more than one friendly hand is waved, too, and some hats are lifted, for the good people, having soon settled in their minds that we were neither in the cheap-jack line nor salvation soldiers, have promoted me to the dignity of baronet. this is nothing new. some scions of nobility are actually caravanning around somewhere, and i am often supposed to be one of them. i travel _incog_, and do not care whom i am taken for, whether cheap-jack, noble earl, or political agent. i now let down the front seat, and hurricane bob withdraws to the quiet seclusion of the pantry, where he rests on cushions to fend him from the jolting. pea-blossom invariably nudges corn-flower with her nose before starting. this is to make him straighten out and take the first pull at the caravan. he never refuses, and once it is in motion they both settle soberly down to their work. foley is on ahead with the tricycle--some hundred yards. this is a judicious and handy arrangement. we hardly know how we should have done without our smart and beautiful ranelagh club machine. the day will be a warm one. it is now eight o'clock, the road is level and firm, and we hope to reach darlington--sixteen miles--to-night. the country is flat again, but the landscape is bounded by far-off blue hills. the roses still accompany us in the hedgerows. there is even a greater wealth of them to-day than usual, while the sward at each side of our path still looks like a garden laid out in beds and patches of brightest colours. there is nothing of very special interest to view in this long town of northallerton, not in the streets at all events. last night, though, we were visited by hundreds of well-dressed people; many of these were really beautiful girls, though here the beauty is of a different type from that you find far south. more of the saxon probably, and a sprinkling of the auburn-haired dane. for weeks i have cared but little how the world wagged. with an apathy and listlessness born of bracing air and sunshine, i have troubled myself not at all about foreign wars or the fall of governments, but to-day i have invested in a _yorkshire post_. i arrange my rags on the _coupe_, and lying down, dreamily scan my paper as the horses go trotting along. i have plenty of work to do if i choose, bundles of proofs to correct from my publishers, but--i'll do it by-and-bye. by-and-bye is a gipsy's motto. there is no news in this day's paper. what care i that oko jumbo has departed, or that there has been a royal visit to leeds? bah! i fold the thing up and pitch it to a cow-boy. had it fallen in that cow-boy's mouth it would hardly have filled it. the road is silent and almost deserted, so we see but few people saving those who run to their garden gates, or peep from behind the geraniums in windows. but it is most pleasant lolling here on such a glorious morning, and the veriest trifles that i notice in passing awaken a kind of drowsy interest in my mind. in proof of this let me mention a few. a country boy playing with a collie puppy. puppy nearly gets run over. agony and anxiety of country boy. red-tiled brick cottages peeping up through orchards. red-tiled cottages everywhere, by hedgerows, by brook-sides, in meadows, on morsels of moorland. a sweep in full costume, brush and all, standing glaring from under a broad scotch bonnet. a yellow-haired wee lassie standing in a doorway eating a slice of bread; she has not finished her toilet, for she wears but one stocking, the other shapely leg is bare. great banks of elder-trees covered with snowy blossoms. a quiet and pretty farm-steading near the road, its garden ablaze with crimson valerian. milch cows in the adjacent meadow, ankle-deep in yellow celandine and daisies. a flock of lambs in a field lying down under the shade of a great sycamore, the sycamore itself a sight worth seeing. and now we are on the top of lovesome hill. what a charming name, by the way! spread out before and beneath us is a large and fertile plain, fields and woodlands, as far as ever the eye can reach, all slumbering in the sweet summer sunshine. in the distance a train is speeding along, we can trace it by its trailing smoke. i had almost forgotten we lived in the days of railway trains. there is a redbrick village on the hilltop straight ahead of us. that must be smeaton. smeaton? yes, now i remember, and the lovely fertile plain yonder, that now looks so green and smiling, hides in its bosom the dust of an army. history tells us that ten thousand scotchmen were there slain. i can fancy the terrible tulzie, i can people that plain even now in imagination with men in battle array; i see the banners wave, and hear the border slogan cry: "and now at weapon-point they close, scarce can they hear or see their foes; they close in clouds of smoke and dust, with sword's-sway and lance's thrust; and such a yell was there, of sudden and portentous birth, as if man fought upon the earth, and fiends in upper air. oh! life and death were in the shout, and triumph and despair." [the battle of the standard, fought in , in which the scottish army was routed, and the flower of the land left dead on the field.] but here we are in smeaton itself--grass or a garden at every cottage. this village would make a capital health resort. we stop to water the horses, and though it is hardly ten o'clock i feel hungry already. clear of the village, and on and on. a nice old lady in spectacles tending cows and knitting, singing low to herself as she does so. an awful-looking old man, in awful-looking goggles, breaking stones by the roadside. i address the awful-looking old man. "awful-looking old man," i say, "did ever you hear of the battle of the standard?" "naa." "did you never hear or read that a battle was fought near this spot?" the awful-looking old man scratched his head. "coome ta think on't noo, there was summut o' th' kind, but it's soome years agone. there war more 'n a hoondred cocks. a regular main as ye might call it." i pass on and leave the old man muttering to himself. pinewoods on our right mingling with the lighter green of the feathery larches. a thundercloud hanging over a town in the plains far away. a duck-pond completely surrounded by trailing roses. ducks in the pond all head down, tails and yellow feet up. road suddenly becomes a lovers' lane, charmingly pretty, and robins are singing in the copses. we are just five miles from darlington. we stable our horses at a roadside inn and foley cooks the dinner. how very handy sheets of paper come in! look at that snow-white tablecloth--that is paper; so is the temporary crumb-cloth, and eke my table-napkin; but in fifty other ways in a caravan paper is useful. the dinner to-day is cold roast beef and floury new potatoes; add to this a delightful salad, and we have a _menu_ a millionaire might not despise. i write up my log while dinner is cooking, and after that meal has been discussed comes the hour for reading and siesta. now the horses are once more put-to, and we start again for darlington. we pass through the charming village of croft; it lies on the banks of the tees, and is a spa of some kind, and well worthy of being a better-frequented resort for the health or pleasure seeker. the treescapes, the wood and water peeps, are fine just before you reach darlington. this town itself is one of the prettiest in england. fully as big but infinitely more beautiful even than reading. wherever we stop we are surrounded by people, so we make haste to shake the dust of civilisation from our carriage-wheels, and are happy when we once more breathe country air, and see neither perambulators nor boarding-school girls. at the top of a hill some two miles out of town we come upon a cosy wee hotel--the harrogate hill hotel. "a've little convenience," says the landlord, in his broad durham brogue, "but a'll clear anoother stall, and a'll turn t'ould pony oot o' his. a'll mak' room." and the wanderer is steered up a narrow lane and safely landed in a tiny meadow, o'ergrown with rank green grass and docks and sheltered with fine elms and ashes. and here we lie to-night. supper will soon be ready. i shall have a ride on my tricycle; there is always something to see; then beds will be made, shutters put up. i will read and write, while foley in his cabin will write up his road-log, and by eleven every one on board will be wrapped, we hope, in dreamless slumber. this then is a true and faithful account of one day in the life of a gentleman gipsy. quiet and uneventful, but very pleasant, almost idyllic. do you care for the picture, reader? chapter twelve. at durham--the british miner at home--gosforth--among northumbrian banks--across the tweed. "march! march! ettrick and teviotdale, why, my lads, dinna ye march forward in order? march! march! eskdale and liddesdale, all the blue bonnets are over the border. many a banner spread flutters above your head; many a crest that is famous in story; mount and make ready then, sons of the mountain glen: fight for your queen, and the old scottish glory!" july th. a six-miles' drive, through some of the most charming scenery in england, brought us into durham. the city looks very imposing from the hilltop; its noble old castle, and grand yet solemn looking cathedral. eight hundred years of age! what a terrible story they could tell could those grey old piles but speak! it would be a very sad one to listen to. perhaps they do talk to each other at the midnight hour, when the city is hushed and still. it would take one a week, or even a fortnight, to see all the sights about durham; he would hardly in that time, methinks, be tired of the walks around the town and by the banks of the winding weir. it is a rolling country, a hilly land around here. the people, by the way, call those hills banks. we had a hard day. john's gloves were torn with the reins, for driving was no joke. i fear, however, the horses hardly enjoyed the scenery. the streets in durham are badly paved and dangerously steep. we did not dare to bring the wanderer through, therefore, but made a sylvan _detour_ and got on the north road again beyond. if we reckoned upon encamping last night in a cosy meadow once more we were mistaken, we were glad to get standing room close to the road and behind a little public-house. miners going home from their work in the evening passed us in scores. i cannot say they look picturesque, but they are blithe and active, and would make capital soldiers. their legs were bare from their knees downwards, their hats were skull-caps, and all visible flesh was as black almost as a nigger's. many of these miners, washed and dressed, returned to this public-house, drank and gambled till eleven, then went outside and fought cruelly. the long rows of grey-slab houses one passes on leaving durham by road do not look inviting. for miles we passed through a mining district, a kind of black country--a country, however, that would be pleasant enough, with its rolling hills, its fine trees and wild hedgerows, were it not for the dirt and squalor and poverty one sees signs of everywhere on the road. every one and everything looks grey and grimy, and many of the children, but especially the women, have a woebegone, grief-stricken look that tells its own tale. i greatly fear that intemperance is rampant enough in some of these villages, and the weaker members of the family have to suffer for it. here is an old wrinkled yellow woman sitting on a doorstep. she is smoking a short black clay, perhaps her only comfort in life. a rough-looking man, with a beard of one week's growth, appears behind and rudely stirs her with his foot. she totters up and nearly falls as he brushes past unheeding. yonder are two tiny girls, also sitting on a doorstep--one about seven, the other little more than a baby. an inebriated man--can it be the father?--comes along the street and stops in front of them. he wants to get in. "git oot o' t'way!" he shouts to the oldest. his leg is half lifted as if to kick. "and thou too,"--this to the baby. one can easily imagine what sort of a home those poor children have. it cannot be a very happy one. more pleasant to notice now a window brilliant with flowers, and a clean and tidy woman rubbing the panes. on and on through beautiful scenery, with peeps at many a noble mansion in the distance. only the landscape is disfigured by unsightly mine machinery, and the trees are all a-blur with the smoky haze that lies around them. the country around the village of birtley is also very pretty. a mile beyond from the hilltop the view is grand, and well worth all this tiring day's drag to look upon. everywhere on the roadside are groups of miners out of work, lying on the grass asleep or talking. the dust is trying to the nerves to-day; such a black dust it is, too. we stop at birtley. i trust i shall never stop there again. "no, there is no stabling here;" thus spoke a slattern whom i addressed. "water t' hosses. dost think i'd give thee water? go and look for t' well." some drunken miners crowded round. "for two pins," one said, "i'd kick the horses. smartly i would." he thought better of it, however. we pushed on in hopes of getting stabling and perhaps a little civility. we pushed on right through gateshead and newcastle, and three miles farther to the pleasant village of gosforth, before we found either. gosforth is a village of villas, and here we have found all the comfort a gipsy's heart could desire. we are encamped on a breezy common in sight of the cheviot hills, and here we will lie till tuesday morning for the sake of our horses if not ourselves. i shall never forget the kindly welcome i received here from the spanish consul. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _july th_.--down tumbled the mercury yesterday morning, and down came the rain in torrents, the rattling, rushing noise it made on the roof of the wanderer being every now and then drowned in the pealing of the thunder. but this morning the air is delightfully cool, the sky is bright, the atmosphere clear, and a gentle breeze is blowing. left gosforth early. the country at first was somewhat flat, sparsely treed, well cultivated and clean. the first village we passed through is called, i think, three mile bridge. it is quite a mining place, far from wholesome, but the children looked healthy, a fact which is due, doubtless, to the bracing, pure air they breathe. all are bare-legged and shoeless, from the lad or lass of fifteen down to the month-old kicking baby. came to a splendid park and lodge-gates, the latter surmounted by two bulls couchant; i do not care to know to whom the domain belongs. i find it is best not to be told who lives in the beautiful mansions i am passing every day in my journey due north. i can people them all in imagination. a name might banish every morsel of romance from the finest castle that peeps through the greenery of trees in some glen, or stands boldly out in the sunshine of some steep hill or braeland. by eleven o'clock we had done ten miles and entered morpeth. now, o ye health-seekers or intending honeymoon enjoyers! why not go for a month to morpeth? it lies on the banks of the winding wansbeck, it is but four miles from the ocean; it is quaint, quiet, curious, hills everywhere, wood and water everywhere; it has the remains of a grand old castle on the hill top, and a gaol that looks like one. accommodation? did you say. what a sublunary thought, but morpeth has capital lodging-houses and good inns, so there! we caught our first glimpse of the sea to-day away on our right. we had hoped to stay at felton, a romantic little village on the river. partly in a deep dell it lies, partly on a hill; rocks and wooded knolls with shady walks by the streamlet-side make it well suited for a summer resort, but it is hardly known. not to londoners, certainly. stabling we could have here, but so hilly is the place that a flat meadow was looked for in vain. after spending a whole hour searching for accommodation i returned to the glen where i had left the wanderer, and our poor tired horses had to go on again. hills, hills, hills, that seemed as if they never would end; hills that take the heart, and life, and spirit out of the horses and make my heart bleed for them. the beauty of the scenery cannot comfort me now, nor the glory of the wild flowers, nor the blue sea itself. we but lag along, hoping, praying, that a hostelry of some sort may soon heave in sight. i am riding on in front, having often to dismount and push my cycle before me. all at once on a hilltop, with a beautiful green valley stretching away and away towards the sea, i come upon the cosiest wee northumbrian inn ever i wish to see. i signal back the joyful tidings to the weary wanderer. yee, there is stabling, and hay, and straw, and everything that can be desired. "hurrah! come on, bob, i feel as happy now as a gipsy king." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _july th_.--the drag began this morning in earnest. we were among the banks of northumbria. [bank--a stiff hill.] with a light carriage they are bad enough, but with a two-ton waggon, small in wheel and long 'twixt draughts, the labour, not to say danger, reaches a maximum. the country here is what a cockney would term a mountainous one, and in some parts of it even a scotchman would feel inclined to agree with him. at one time we would be down at the bottom of some gloomy defile, where the road crossed over a gothic bridge, and a wimpling stream went laughing over its rocky bed till lost to sight among overhanging trees. down in that defile we would eye with anxious hearts the terrible climb before us. "can we do it?" that is the question. "we must try." that is the answer. the roller is fastened carefully behind a back wheel, and "hip!" away we go, the horses tearing, tottering, scraping, almost falling. and now we are up, and pause to look thankfully, fearfully back while the horses stand panting, the sweat running in streamlets over their hoofs. the short banks are more easily rushed. it is a long steep hill that puts us in danger. there is hardly probably a worse hill or a more dangerous hollow than that just past the castle gate of alnwick. it needed a stout heart to try the descent. easy indeed that descent would have been had a horse fallen, for neither the brake, which i now had sole charge of, nor the skid, could have prevented the great van from launching downwards. but the ascent was still more fraught with danger. it was like climbing a roof top. could the horses do it this time? impossible. they stagger half way up, they stagger and claw the awful hill, and _stop_. no, not stop, for see, the caravan has taken charge and is moving backwards, dragging the horses down. the roller and a huge stone beneath the wheels prevented an ugly accident and the complete wreck of the wanderer. twelve sturdy northumbrians went on behind and helped us up. the road ascends higher and higher after we pass alnwick, until at last we find ourselves on the brow of a lofty hill. there is an eminence to the right covered with young firs; near it is a square tower of great strength, but only a ruin. the traveller who does not see the country from this knoll misses one of the grandest sights in england. from the lone cheviot mountains on the left to the sea itself on the far-off right round and round it is all beautiful. i had stayed long enough in alnwick to see the town and "sights;" the latter is a hateful word, but i have no better ready. i was greatly impressed by the massive grandeur of the noble old castle, the ancient home of the percys. the figures of armed men on the ramparts, some holding immense stones above the head, as if about to hurl them on an assailant, others in mail jackets with hatchet and pike, are very telling. i could not help thinking as i passed through the gloomy gateways and barbican of the many prisoners whose feet had brushed these very stones in "the brave days of old." chapter thirteen. the crew of the "wanderer," all told. "his hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, showed he was nane o' scotland's dogs." burns. while perusing these memoirs of my gipsy life, i should be more than delighted if my readers could to some extent think as i thought, and feel as i felt. in an early chapter i gave a sketch of the wanderer herself; let me now give a brief account of its occupants by day. why i say by day is this: my coachman does not sleep in the caravan, but takes his ease at his inn wherever the horses are stabled. doubtless, however, when we are far away in the wilder regions of the scottish highlands, if it ever be our good fortune to get there safely, john g, my honest jehu, will have sometimes to wrap himself in his horse rugs and sleep upon the _coupe_. and we have so many awnings and so much spare canvas that it will be easy enough to make him a covering to defend him from the falling dew. having mentioned john g, then, it is perhaps but right that i should give him the preference even to hurricane bob, and say a word about him first. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ my jehu john. when i advertised for a coachman in the _reading mercury_ i had no lack of replies. among these was one from a certain major b, recommending john. he gave him an excellent character for quietness, steadiness, and sobriety, adding that when i had done with him he would be happy to take him back into his employment. this was virtually offering me john on loan, and having a soft side for the queen's service, i at once sent for john g. when john returned that forenoon to mapledurham he was engaged. if john could speak latin, he might have said,-- "veni, vidi, vici." but, with all his other good qualities, john cannot talk latin. i was naturally most concerned to know whether my coachman was temperate or not, and i asked him. "i likes my drop o' beer," was john's reply, "but i know when i've enough." john and myself are about ages, ie, we were both born in her majesty's reign. john, like myself, is a married man with young bairnies, of whom he is both proud and fond. john and i have something else in common. we are both country folks, and therefore both love nature. i do not think there is a shrub or tree anywhere about that is not an old friend, or a bird or wild creature in meadow or moorland or wood that we do not know the name and habits of. if we see anything odd about a tree or come to one that seems somewhat strange to us, we stop horses at once, and do not go on again until we have read the arboreal riddle. john is very quiet and polite, and thoroughly knows his place. finally, he is fond of his horses, most careful to groom them well and to see to their feet and pasterns, and if ever the saddle hurts in the least on any particular spot, he is not content until he has eased the pressure. next on the list of our crew all told comes-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ alfred foley. foley has reached the mature age of twenty, and i have known him for eight years. to put it in broad but expressive scotch, foley is just "a neebour laddie." he has done many odd jobs for me at home as my librarian, clerk, and gardener, and having expressed a wish to follow my fortunes in this long gipsy tour of mine, i have taken him. both john and he have regularly signed articles, shipshape and sailor fashion, for the whole cruise; and i mean to be a good captain to both of them. as foley at home is in fairly good circumstances of life, and has a kind and religious mother, it is needless to say much about his character. i could trust him with untold gold--if i had it. but here is a greater proof of my trust in his integrity--i can trust him with hurricane bob, and hurricane bob is more to me than much fine gold. on board the wanderer, foley fills the position of my first lieutenant and secretary; with this he combines the duties of valet and cook, i myself sometimes assisting in the latter capacity. he is also my outrider--on a tricycle--and often my agent in advance. on the whole he is a good lad. i do not believe he ever flirts with the maids at the bars of the village inns when we buy our modest drop of beer or secure our ginger-ale. and i am certain he reads the book, and says his prayers every night of his life. so much for the crew of the wanderer. now for the live stock, my companions. i have already said a word about my horses, corn-flower and pear-blossom. we know more about their individual characters now. nothing then in the world would annoy or put corn-flower out of temper. come hills or come valleys, on rough road and on smooth, walking or at the trot, he goes on with his head in the air, straight fore and aft, heeding nothing, simply doing his duty. there is far more of the grace and poetry of motion about pea-blossom. she bobs and tosses her head, and flicks her tail, looking altogether as proud as a hen with one chicken. if touched with the whip, she immediately nibbles round at corn-flower's head, as much as to say, "come on, can't you, you lazy stick? there am i getting touched up with the whip all owing to you. you're not doing your share of the work, and you know it." but corn-flower never makes the slightest reply. pea-blossom is a thorough type of the sex to which she belongs. she is jealous of corn-flower, pretends not to like him. she would often kick him if she could, but if he is taken out of the stable, and she left, she will almost neigh the house down. if in a field with corn-flower, she is constantly imagining that he is getting all the best patches of grass and clover, and keeps nagging at him and chasing him from place to place. but the contented corn-flower does not retaliate. for corn-flower's motto is "never mind." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ polly--the cockatoo. i want my friends--the readers--to know and appreciate my little feathered friend, so far as anyone can to whom she does not grant a private interview. i want them to know her, and yet i feel how difficult it is to describe her--or rather _him_, though i shall continue to say _her_--without writing in a goody-goody or old-maidish style. "never mind," as corn-flower says, i'll do my best. _polly's birth and parentage_.--the bird came about five years ago from the wilds of west australia, though she has been in my possession but little more than a year. she belongs to the great natural family psattacidae, and to the soft-billed species of non-crested cockatoos. as regards the softness of her bill, however, it is more imaginary than real, for though she cannot crack a cocoa-nut, she could slit one's nose or lay a finger open to the bone. i daresay polly was born in some old log of wood in the bosh, and suffered, as all parrots do coming to this country, from vile food, close confinement, and want of water. _polly's personal appearance_.--having no crest--except when excited-- she looks to the ordinary eye a parrot and nothing else. pure white is she all over except for a garland of crimson across her breast, a blue patch round her wondrous eyes, and the red of the gorcock over the beak. this latter is a curious apparatus; so long and bent is it that the dealers usually call this species of cockatoo "nosey," which is more expressive than polite. _polly's tricks and manners_.--these are altogether very remarkable and quite out of the common run. no cockatoo that ever i saw would beat a well-trained red-tail grey parrot at talking, but in motion-making and in tricks the latter is nowhere with nosey. i place no value on polly's ordinary tricks, for any cockatoo will shake hands when told, will kiss one or ask to be kissed or scratched, or even dance. this last, however, if with a musical accompaniment, is a very graceful action. polly also, like other cockatoos, stands on her head, swings by head or feet, etc, etc. but it is her extreme love for music that makes this bird of mine so winning. when she first came to me she was fierce, vindictive, and sulky. it was the guitar that brought her round. and now when i play either guitar or violin she listens most attentively or beats time with her bill on the bars of the cage. this she does when i am playing quadrille or waltz, but the following i think very remarkable: polly cannot stand a scotch strathspey, and often, when i begin to play one, she commences to imitate a dog and cat fighting, which she does to perfection. again, if i play a slow or melancholy air on the violin, polly seems entranced, and sits on her perch with downcast head, with one foot in the air, slowly opening and shutting her fist in time to the music. polly plays the guitar with her beak when i hold it close to her cage, ie, she touches the strings while i do the fingering. i am teaching her to turn a little organ, and soon she will be perfect. heigho! who knows that when, after a lapse of years, my pen and my gigantic intellect fail me, polly may not be the prop of my declining years--polly and the fiddle? another of polly's strange motions is moving her neck as if using a whip. this she always does when she sees boys, so i daresay she knows what boys need. her words and sayings are too numerous to mention. she calls for breakfast, for food, for sugar, for supper, etc. she calls bob and the cat, and imitates both. she calls hens, imitates their being killed, puts them up to auction, and sells them for half-a-crown. she laughs and she sings, _words_ and _music_ both being her own composition. she drinks from cup, or bottle, or spoon, milk, coffee, or tea, but no beer or ginger-ale. her water is merely used to float and steep her seeds or crusts in. when frozen one day last winter, i found her throwing the seeds on top of the ice, and saying, "poor dear polly?" in a most mournful tone of voice. in conclusion, polly is most affectionate and loving to _me_, and-- "if to her lot some human errors fall, look in her face, and you'll forget them all." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ hurricane bob. he is the caravan dog, a noble fellow, straight in coat, and jetty-black, without one curly hair. he is the admired of all beholders. he has gained prizes enough to entitle him to be dubbed champion according to the older rules. his real or bench name is theodore nero the second. in his day his father was known all over the world. as to pedigree, bob's father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather were all champions, and he is himself the father of a champion, mr farquharson's, mp, celebrated gunville. [vide "aileen aroon," by the same author. published by messrs. partridge and co, paternoster row, ec.] in character, bob--nb: we call him robert on the sabbath day and on bank-holidays--is most gentle and amiable. and though, like all pure newfoundlands, he is fond of fighting, he will never touch a small dog. wherever bob is seen he is admired, and neither children nor babies are ever afraid of him, while-- "his locked and lettered braw brass collar shows him the gentleman and scholar." the words of north and the shepherd, in the "noctes ambrosianae," come into my head as i write:-- "a dog barks. _shepherd_. heavens! i could hae thocht that was bronte. "_north_. no bark like his, james, now belongs to the world of sound. "_shepherd_. purple black was he all over, as the raven's wing. strength and sagacity emboldened his bounding beauty, but a fierceness lay deep down within the quiet lustre o' his een that tauld ye, had he been enraged, he could hae torn in pieces a lion. "_north_. not a child of three years old and upwards in the neighbourhood that had not hung by his mane, and played with his paws, and been affectionately worried by him on the flowery greensward." such was bronte. such is hurricane bob, only more so. chapter fourteen. letters home, after being months on the road. "come listen to my humble friends. nor scorn to read their letters, the faithfulness of horse and dog oft-times makes us their debtors. yet selfish man leads folly's van, the thought is food for laughter. he admits all virtues in his `beast,' but--denies him a hereafter." i. _letter from polly pea-blossom to a lady-friend_. now fulfil my promise of writing to you, my dear, which you remember i made long ago, saying i should do so at the earliest opportunity. by the way, poor corn-flower, my pole-mate, spells opportunity with one `p.' it is quite distressing, my dear, to think how much captain corn-flower's education has been neglected in many ways. he is only called `captain' by courtesy you know, having never been in the army. heigho! what a deal of ups and downs one does see in one's life to be sure. why, it is not more than three years since you and i, my dear, resided in the same big stable, and used to trot great fat old lady c-- to church in that stupid big yellow chariot of hers. and now heigho! the old lady has gone to heaven, or wherever else old ladies _do_ go, and you and i are parted. but often and often now, while housed in some sad unsavoury den, i think of you, my dear, and olden times till tears as big as beans roll over my halter. and i think of that old stable, with its tall doors, its lofty windows, its sweet floors and plaited straw, and the breath of new-mown hay that used to pervade it! heigho! again. "i was telling corn-flower only last night of how i once kicked an unruly, unmannerly nephew of my ladyship's out of the stable door, because he tried to pull hairs out of my tail to make a fishing line. poor corn-flower laughed, my dear, and said,-- "`which ye was always unkimmon ready to kick, polly, leastways ever since i has a-known ye.' "he does talk so vulgarly, my dear, that sometimes my blood boils to think that a mare of my blood and birth should be--but there! never mind, corn-flower has some good points after all. he never loses his temper, even when i kick him and bite him. i only wish he would. if he would only kick me in return, oh, then wouldn't i warm him just! i gave him a few promiscuous kicks before i commenced this letter. he only just sighed and said, `ye can't help it, polly--that ye can't. you're honly a mare and i be a feelosopher, i be's.' "on the whole, though, i have not much to complain of at present; my master is very kind and my coachman is very careful, and never loses his temper except when i take the bit in my teeth and have my own way for a mile. "when we start of a morning we never know a bit where we are going to, or what is before us; sometimes it is wet or rainy, and even cold; but bless you, my dear, we are always hungry, that is the best of it, and really i would not change places with any carriage-horse ever i knew. travelling does improve one's mind so, though heigho! i don't think it has done much yet for the gallant captain corn-flower. "the greatest bother is getting a nice stable. sometimes these are cool and comfortable enough, but sometimes so close and stuffy one can hardly breathe. sometimes they smell of hens, and sometimes even of pigs. isn't that dreadful, my dear? i hate pigs, my dear, and one day, about a month ago, one of these hateful creatures struck my near hind leg with such force that he was instantly converted into pork. as regards bedding, however, john--that is our coachman--does look well out for us, though on more than one occasion we could get nothing better than pea-straw. now pea-straw may be good enough for corn-flower, my dear, but not for me; i scorn to lie on it, and stand all night! "i dearly love hay. sometimes this is bad enough, but at other times a nice rackful of sweetly-scented meadow hay soothes me, and almost sends me to sleep; it must be like eating the lotus leaf that i hear master speak about. "perhaps you would not believe this, my dear--some innkeepers hardly ever clean out their stables. the following is a remark i heard only yesterday. it was a yorkshireman who made it-- "`had i known you'd been coming, i'd ha' turned th' fowls out like, and cleaned oop a bit. we generally does clean oop _once a year_.' "sometimes, my dear, the roads are very trying, and what with big hills and thousands of flies it is a wonder on a warm day how i can keep my temper as well as i do. "but there, my dear, this letter is long enough. we must not grumble, must we, my dear? it is the lot of horses to work and toil, and there _may_ be rest for us in some green hereafter, when our necks are stiffened in death, and our shoes taken off never to be nailed on again. "_quien sabe_? as master says. _quien sabe_? "your affectionate old friend and stable-mate,-- "polly pea-blossom." ii. from captain corn-flower to old dobbin, a brewer's horse. "dear old chummie,--which i said last time i rubbed noses with you at the wagon and hosses, as 'ow i'd rite to you, and which i now takes the oportunity, bein' as 'ow i would ha' filled my promise long ago, if i was only arf as clever as polly pea-blossom. "my shoes! old chummie, but polly be amazin' 'cute. she is my stable-mate is polly, likewise my pole-companion as you might say. which her name is polly pea-blossom, all complete. gee up and away you goes! "and which i considers it the completest 'onor out to be chums along o' polly, anyhow whatsoever. gee up and away you goes! "`you're a lady, polly,' i says, says i, `and i ain't a gentleman--no, beggar me if i be's.' "`you sometimes speak the truth,' says polly, she says. "which that was a kind o' -handed compliment, dear dobbin. gee up and away you goes! "which polly is unkimmin clever, and i allers appeals to polly. "which polly often amooses i like, while we be a-munchin' a bit o' meadow hay, arter we've been and gone and 'ad our jackets brushed, and our feet washed, and got bedded-up like; polly allers tells me o' the toime when she were a-pullin' of a big chariat and a-draggin' of a duchess to church, and what a jolly nice stable she lived in, and what fine gold-plated 'arness she used to put on, and lots else i don't recomember, dobbin, and all in such fine english, dobbin, as you and i couldn't speak with our bits out. yes, polly be's unkimmin clever. gee up and away you goes! "but nite, dobbin, i says to myself, says i, i'll tell polly summit o' _my_ younger days, so i hits out as follers: `when i were a-livin' wi' farmer frogue, polly,' says i, which he were a farmer in a small way, and brew'd a drop o' good beer for the publics all round like, there were me and my mate, a boss called dobbin; and bless your old collar, polly, dobbin were a rare good un, and he'd a-draw'd a tree out by the roots dobbin would. gee op and away ye goes! and there were old garge who drov us like, which he had a fine temper, polly, 'ceptin' when he got a drop too much, then it was whip, whip, whip, all day, up hill and down, and my shoulders is marked till this day. but old farmer frogue, he comes to the stable once upon a time, which a very fat un were farmer frogue, wi' no legs to speak of like. well, polly, as i were a sayin', he comes to the stable, and he says to garge, `garge,' says he-- "but would you believe it, dear dobbin? i never got further on with my story like. "`oh! bother you,' cries polly, a-tossin o' her mane that proud like. `do you imagine for a moment that a born lady like me is interested in your dobbins, and your garges, and your fat old farmer frogues? you're a vulgar old horse, corn-flower.' "gee op, says i, and away ye goes! "and polly ups wi' her hind foot and splinters the partition, and master had to pay for that, which polly is amazin' clever at doin' a kick like. "but i likes polly unkimmon, and polly likes i, and though she bites and kicks she do be unhappy when i goes away to be shoed. which i never loses my temper, dobbin, whatsomever. gee up and away ye goes! "which we never funks a hill though, neither on us. when we comes to a pertikler stiff un like i just appeals to polly. "`pull up,' says polly, says she, `every hill has a top to it; pull up, you old hass, pull op!' "sometimes the hay we gets ain't the sweetest o' perfoomery, dobbin, old chummie; then i appeals to polly, cause you see if polly can eat it so kin i. "sometimes we meet the tractive hengine; i never liked it, and what's more i never will. it seems unnatural like, so i appeals to polly. "`what's the krect thing to do, polly?' i says, says i; `shall us kick or shall us bolt?' "`come straight on, ye hold fool,' says polly pea-blossom, says she. "gee up, says i, and away ye goes! "which i must now dror to a klose, dobbin, and which i does hope you'll allers have a good home and good shoes, dobbin, till you're marched to the knacker's. gee up and away ye goes!-- "good-bye, dobbin, polly's gone to sleep, and master is a-playin' the fiddle so soft and low like, in the meadow beyant yonder, which it allers does make me think o' what the parson's old pony once told me, dobbin, o' a land where old hosses were taken to arter they were shot and their shoes taken off, a land o' green meadows, dobbin, and a sweet quiet river a-rollin' by, and long rows o' wavin' pollards like, with nothing to do all day, no 'arness to wear, no bit to hurt or rein to gall. think o' that, dobbin. good-bye, dobbin--there goes the moosic again, so sweet and tremblin' and sobbin'-like. i'm goin' to listen and dream. "yours kindly,-- "poor old corn-flower." iii. from polly the cockatoo to dick the starling. "dear dick,--if you weren't the cleverest starling that ever talked or flew, with a coat all shiny with crimson and blue, i wouldn't waste a tail feather in writing to you. "you must know, dick, that there are two pollys on this wandering expedition, polly the mare, polly pea-blossom, and polly the pretty cockatoo, that's me, though however master could have thought of making me godmother to an old mare, goodness only knows. ha! ha! ha! it makes me laugh to think of it. "they do say that i'm the happiest, and the prettiest, and the merriest bird, that ever yet was born, and i won't be five till next birthday, though what i shall be before i am a hundred is more than i can think. "yes, i'll live to a hundred, cockatoos all do; then my body will drop off the perch, and my soul will go into something else--ha! ha! ha! wouldn't you laugh too, if you had to live for a hundred years? "all that time in a cage, with only a run out once a day, and a row with the cat! yes, all that time, and why not? what's the odds so long as you're happy? ha! ha! ha! "i confess i do dream sometimes of the wild dark forest lands of australia, and i think at times i would like to lead a life of freedom away in the woods yonder, just as the rooks and the pigeons do. dash my bill! dick, but i would make it warm for some of them in the woods--ha! ha! ha! "sometimes when the sparrows--they are cheeky enough for anything--come close to my cage, i give vent to what master calls my war-cry, and they almost drop dead with fright. "`scray!' that's my war-cry, and it is louder than a railway whistle, and shriller than a bagpipe. "`scray! scray! scray--ay--ay!' "that's it again. "master has just pitched a `bradshaw' at my cage. i'll tear that `bradshaw' to bits first chance i have. "master says my war-cry is the worst of me. it is so startling, he says. "that's just where it is--what would be the use of a war-cry if it weren't startling? eh, dick? "now out in the australian jungles, this war-cry is the only defence we poor cockatoos have against the venomous snakes. "the snakes come gliding up the tree. "`scray! scray!!' we scream, and away they squirm. "a hundred years in a cage, or chained by a foot to a perch! a hundred years, dick! it does seem a long time. "but the other day, when master put my cage on the grass, i just opened the fastening, and out i hopped. ha! ha! ha! there were butterflies floating about, and bees on the flowering linden trees, and birds singing, and wild rabbits washing their faces with their forefeet among the green ferns, and every creature seemed as happy as the summer day is long. i _did_ have an hour's good fun in the woods, i can tell you. i caught a bird and killed it; i caught a mouse and crunched it up; and i scared some pigeons nearly to death, for they took me for an owl. then an ugly man in a velvet jacket fired a gun at me, and i flew away back to my cage. "i wouldn't have got much to eat in the woods, and there is always corn in egypt. "but hanging up here in the verandah of the wanderer is fine fun. i see so many strange birds, and so many strange children. i dote on children, and i sing and i dance to them, and sometimes make a grab at their noses. "hullo! dick. why, the door of my cage is open! master has gone out. "i am going out too, dick. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "i've been out, dick. i have had a walk round the saloon. i've torn `bradshaw' all to pieces. i made a grab at hurricane bob's tail, and the brute nearly bit my head off. just as if his tail was of any consequence! i've been playing the guitar, and cut all the strings in two. i've pitched a basket of flowers on the carpet, and i've spilt the ink all over them, and i've danced upon them; and torn master's letters up, and enjoyed myself most thoroughly. ha! ha! ha! master's face will be as long as his fiddle when he comes back. "`scray! scray! scray--ay--ay!' "well, no more at present, dick my darling. i never tried to pull _your_ tail off, did i? i don't think i have done very much harm in this world, and i never say naughty words, so, perhaps, when my hundred years are over, and my body drops off the perch, my soul will go into something very nice indeed. "ha! ha! ha! "scray! scray!! scray!!! "poor polly." iv. from hurricane bob to his kennel-mate eily. "you said in your last, dear eily, that you wanted to know how i enjoyed my gipsy life, and the answer is, `out and out,' or rather, `out and in,' outside the caravan and inside the caravan. if there be a happier dog than myself in all the kingdom of kenneldom, let him come right up and show himself, and the probability is we'll fight about it right away. "well, you see, i don't take many notes by the way, but i notice everything for all that. "first thing in the morning i have my breakfast and a trot out. "it pains me though to see so many poor dogs muzzled. i am sure that carlyle was right, and that most men--especially magistrates--are fools. wouldn't i like to see some of them muzzled just?--the magistrates, i mean. "every dog on the street makes room for me, and if they don't--you know what i mean, eily. "the other day a scotch collie--and you know, eily, you are the only scotch collie i could ever bear--walked up to me on the cliff-top at filey, and put up his back. as he did not lower his tail, i went straight for him, and it would have done you good to see how i shook him. there was a big dandy on me too, and as soon as i had quietened the collie i opened the dandy up. my bites are nearly well, and i am quite prepared for another fight. i won't allow any dog in the world to come spooning round my master. "we travel many and many a long mile, eily, and i am generally tired before the day is done, but at night there is another long walk or a run behind the tricycle. then a tumble on the greensward; sometimes it is covered all over with beautiful flowers, prettier than any carpet you ever lay upon. "everybody is so kind to me, and the ladies fondle me and say such pretty things to me. i wonder they don't fondle master and say pretty things to him. i wish they would. "good-bye, eily. there is a tramp coming skulking round the caravan, and i don't like his looks. "`r-r-r-r-r-bow! wow-w!' "he is gone, eily. good-bye, take care of master's children till we all come back. "yours right faithfully,-- "hurricane bob." v. from the author to his good friend c.a.w. [c.a. wheeler, esq, of swindon, the clever author of "sports-scrapiana," etc, etc.] "the wanderer caravan,-- "touring in notts,-- "_july _, . "my dearly-beloved caw,--for not writing to you before now i must make the excuse the scotch lassie made to her lover--`i've been thinkin' aboot ye, johnnie lad.' and so in my wanderings i often think of thee and thine, poor old sam included; and my mind reverts to your cosy parlour in swindon, nellie in the armchair, sam on the footstool, my hurricane bob on the hearth, and you and i viewing each other's smiling faces through the vapour that ascends from a duality of jorums of real highland tartan toddy. "yes, i've been thinking of you, but i have likewise been busy. there is a deal to be done in a caravan, even if i hadn't my literary connection to keep up, and half-a-dozen serieses to carry on. you must know that a gentleman gipsy's life isn't all beer and skittles. take the doings of one day as an example, my caw. the wanderer has been lying on the greensward all night, we will say, close by a little country village inn. crowds gathered round us last night, lured by curiosity and the dulcet tones of your humble servant's fiddle and valet's flute, but soon, as we loyally played `god save the queen,' the rustics melted away, our shutters were put up, and soon there was no sound to be heard save the occasional hooting of a brown owl, and the sighing of the west wind through a thicket of firs. we slept the sleep of gipsies, or of the just, the valet in the after-cabin, i in the saloon, my faithful newfoundland at my side. if a step but comes near the caravan at night, the deep bass, ominous growl that shakes the ship from stem to stern shows that this grand old dog is ready for business. "but soon as the little hands of the clock point to six, my eyes open mechanically, as it were, bob gets up and stretches himself, and, ere ever the smoke from the village chimneys begins to roll up through the green of the trees, we are all astir. the bath-tent is speedily pitched, and breakfast is being prepared. no need of tonic bitters to give a gipsy an appetite, the fresh, pure air does that, albeit that frizzly ham and those milky, newborn eggs, with white bread and the countriest of country butter, would draw water from the teeth of a hand-saw. breakfast over, my caw, while i write on the _coupe_ and bob rolls exultant on the grass, my valet is carefully washing decks, dusting, and tidying, and the coachman is once more carefully grooming captain corn-flower and polly pea-blossom. "it will be half-past eight before the saloon and after-cabin are thoroughly in order, for the wanderer is quite a pullman car and lady's boudoir, _minus_ the lady. then, my old friend, visitors will begin to drop in, and probably for nearly an hour i am holding a kind of _levee_. it is a species of lionising that i have now got hardened to. everybody admires everything, and i have to answer the same kind of questions day after day. it is nice, however, to find people who know me and have read my writings in every village in the kingdom. hurricane bob, of course, comes in for a big share of admiration. he gets showers of kisses, and many a fair cheek rests lovingly on his bonnie brow. i have to be content with smiles and glances, flowers and fruit, and eggs and new potatoes. the other day a handsome salmon came. it was a broiling hot day. the salmon said he must be eaten fresh. i was equal to the occasion. the lordly fish was cooked, the crew of the wanderer, all told, gathered around him on the grass, and soon he had to change his _tense_--from the present to the past. "the other day pigeons came. my valet plucked them, and the day being windy, and he, knowing no better, did the work standing, and, lor! how the feathers flew. it was a rain of feathers, and a reign of terror, for the ladies passing to the station had to put up their umbrellas. "but the steps are up, the horses are in, good-byes said, hands are waved by the kindly crowd, and away we rattle. my place is ever on the _coupe_, note-book in hand. "`a chiel's among ye,' etc. "my valet is riding on ahead on the tricycle. this year it is the charming `marlborough,' which is such a pleasant one to ride. on and on, now we go, through the beautiful country; something to attract our attention at every hundred yards. heavens! my dear caw, how little those who travel by train know of the delights of the road. we trot along while on level roads, we madly rush the short, steep hills at a glorious gallop, we crawl up the long, bad hills, and carefully--with skid and chain on the near hind wheel--we stagger down the break-neck `pinches.' the brake is a powerful one, and in bad countries is in constant use, so that its brass handle shines like gold, and my arm aches ere night with putting it on and off. "well, there is a midday halt after ten miles, generally on the roadside near water. we have a modest lunch of hard-boiled eggs, milk, beer, cheese, bread, and crushed oats and a bit of clover. then on and on again. by five we have probably settled for the night, when dinner is prepared. we hardly need supper, and what with the rattling along all day, and the hum of the great van--with running and riding, and studying natural history and phenomena, including faces--i am tired, and so are we all, by nine o'clock. "but we generally have music before then. i have a small harmonium, a guitar, and a fiddle, and my valet plays well on the flute. "`then comes still evening on.' "the bats and owls come out, and we retire. "of weather we have all varieties--the hot and the cool, the rain that rattles on the roof, the wind that makes the wanderer rock, and the occasional thunderstorm. one dark night last week--we were in a lonely place--i sat out on the _coupe_ till one o'clock--`the wee short hoor ayont the twal'--watching the vivid blue lightning, that curled like fiery snakes among the trees. by the way, i had nothing on but my night-shirt, and a dread spectre i must have appeared to anyone passing, seen but for a moment in the lightning's flash, then gone. i marvelled next day that i had caught a slight cold. "i love little, quiet meadows, caw. i dote on rural villages, and hate big towns. if the caravan is not lying on the grass there is no comfort. "i lay last night in the cosiest meadow ever i have been in. the very rural hamlet of bunny, notts, is a quarter of a mile away, but all the world is screened away from me with trees and hedges. i have for meadow-mates two intelligent cows, who can't quite make us out. they couldn't make bob out either, till in the zeal of his guardianship he got one of them by the tail. there is in this hamlet of three hundred souls one inn--it is tottering to decay--a pound, a police-station, and a church. the church is ever so old, the weather-cock has long been blown down, and the clock has stopped for ever. the whole village is about as lively and bright as a farthing candle stuck in an empty beer bottle. "but here come the horses. good-bye till we meet. "gordon stables,-- "ye gentleman gipsy." chapter fifteen. the humours of the road--inn signs--what i am taken for--a study of faces--milestones and finger-posts--tramps--the man with the iron mask-- the collie dog--gipsies' dogs--a midnight attack on the wanderer. "i am as free as nature first made man, ere the base laws of servitude began, when wild in woods the noble savage ran." dryden. madly dashing on through the country as cyclists do, on their way to john o' groats or elsewhere, probably at an average rate of seventy miles a day, neither scenery nor anything else can be either enjoyed or appreciated. the cyclist arrives in the evening at his inn, tired, dusty, and disagreeably damp as to underclothing. he has now no other wish except to dine and go to bed. morning sees him in the saddle again, whirring ever onwards to the distant goal. he is doing a record. let him. for him the birds sing not in woodland or copse; for him no wild flowers spring; he pauses not to listen to hum of bee or murmur of brooklet, nor to admire the beauties of heathy hills, purple with the glorious heather, or bosky dells, green with feathery larch or silvery birch; nor does he see the rolling cloudscapes, with their rifts of blue between. on--on--on--his way is ever on. but gipsy-folks, like myself, jogging along at a quiet six-or-seven-miles-an-hour pace, observe and note everything. and it is surprising what trifles amuse us. although i constantly took notes from the _coupe_, or from my cycle saddle, and now and then made rough sketches, i can in these pages only give samples from these notes. a volume could be written on public-house or inn signs, for example. another on strange names. a third on trees. a fourth on water--lakes, brooklets, rivers, cataracts, and mill-streams. a fifth upon faces. and so on, _ad libitum_. as to signs, many are curious enough, but there is a considerable amount of sameness about many. you meet red lions, white harts, kings' arms, dukes' arms, cricketers' arms, and arms of all sorts everywhere, and woolpacks, and eagles, and rising suns, _ad nauseam_. the sign of a five-barred gate hung out is not uncommon in the midland counties, with the following doggerel verse:-- "this gate hangs well, and hinders none; refresh and pay, and travel on." although the wanderer is nearly always taken for what she is--a private carriage on a large scale--still it is amusing sometimes to note what i am mistaken for, to wit:-- . "general" in the salvation army. . surgeon-attendant on a nervous old lady who is supposed to be inside. . a travelling artist. . a photographer. . a menagerie. . a cheap-jack. . a bible carriage. . a madman. . an eccentric baronet. . a political agent. . lord e. . some other "nob." . and last, but not least, king of the gipsies. it must not be supposed that i mind a single bit what people think of me, so long as i have a quiet, comfortable meadow to stand in at night and a good stable for corn-flower and pea-blossom. but how would you like, reader, to be taken for a travelling show, and to make your way through a village followed by a crowd of admiring children, counting their pence, and wondering when you were going to open? polly's cage would occasionally be hanging from the verandah over the coupe, with hurricane bob lying on his rug, and i would hear such remarks as these from the juvenile crowd:-- "oh! look at his long moustache." "oh! look at his hat, mary." "susan, susan, look at the poll parrot." "look! it is holding a biscuit in its hand." "look at the bear." "no, it's a dog." "you're a hass! it's a bear." "lift me up to see, tildie." "lift _me_ up too." here again is my coachman being interviewed by some country bumpkins:--"who be your master, matie?" "a private gentleman." "is he a liberal?" "no." "is he a tory?" "perhaps." "is he a salvationist?" "not much." "what does he do?" "nothing." "what does he keep?" "the sabbath." "got anything to sell?" "no! do you take us for cheap-jacks?" "got anything to _give_ away, then?" it will be observed that even a gentleman gipsy's life has its drawbacks, but not many. one, however, is a deficiency of privacy. for instance, though i have on board both a guitar and fiddle, i can neither play nor sing so much of an evening as i would like to do, because a little mob always gathers round to listen, and i might just as well be on the stage. but in quiet country places i have often, when i saw i was not unappreciated, played and sang just because they seemed to like it. the faces i see on the road are often a study in themselves, and one might really make a kind of classification of those that are constantly recurring. i have only space to give a sample from memory. . this face to me is not a pleasing memory. it is that of the severe-looking female in a low pony carriage. she may or may not be an old maid. very likely she is; and no wonder, for she is flat-faced and painfully plain. beside her sits her companion, and behind her a man in a cheap livery; while she herself handles the ribbons, driving a rough, independent, self-willed pony. these people sternly refuse to look at us. they turn away their eyes from beholding vanity; or they take us for real gipsies--"worse than even actors." i can easily imagine some of the items of the home life of this party: the tidily kept garden; the old gardener, who also cleans the boots and waits at table; the stuffy little parlour, with the windows always down; the fat pomeranian dog; the tabby cat; and the occasional "muffin shines," as yankees call them, where bad tea is served--bad tea and ruined reputations. avast! old lady; the sun shines more brightly when you are out of sight. . the joskin or country lout. he stops to stare. probably he has a pitchfork in his hand. on his face is a wondering, half-amused smile, but his eyes are so wide open that he looks scared. his mouth is open, too, and big enough apparently to hold a mangel-wurzel. go on, garge; we won't harm thee, lad. . cottage folks of all kinds and colours. look at the weary face of that woman with the weary-looking baby on her arm. the husband is smoking a dirty pipe, but he smiles on us as we go whirling past; and his children, a-squat in the gutter, leave their mud pies and sing and shout and scream at us, waving their dusty hats and their little brown arms in the air. . honest john bull himself, sure enough, well-to-do-looking in face and dress. he smiles admiringly at us, and seems really to want us to know that he takes an interest in us and our mode of life. . the ubiquitous boarding-school girl of gentle seventeen. it may not be etiquette, she knows, to stare or look at passers-by, but for this once only she _will_ have a glance. lamps shimmering crimson through the big windows, and nicely draped curtains! how _can_ she help it? we are glad she does not try to; her sweet young face refreshes us as do flowers in june, and we forget all about the severe-looking female, who turned away her eyes from beholding vanity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ milestones and finger-posts. england is the land of finger-posts and disreputable milestones. it is the land of lanes, and that is the reason finger-posts are so much needed. in scotland they keep up a decent set of milestones, but they do not affect finger-posts. if you want to know the road, climb a hill and look; or ask. in the wildest parts of the highlands, about dalwhinnie for instance, you have snow-posts. these look quite out of place in summer, but in winter you must steer straight from one to the other, else, as there is no vestige of a fence, you may tumble over the adjoining precipice. like the faces we meet on the roads, we have also types of milestones and finger-posts. of the former we have-- . the squat milestone, of stone (page ). . the parallelogram milestone, of stone (page ). . the triangular milestone, also of stone, with reading on two sides (page ). . the round-headed, dilapidated milestone, that tells you nothing (page ). . the wedge-shaped milestone, stone with an iron slab let in (page ). . the reticent milestone, which, instead of names, only gives you letters (page ). . the mushroom milestone, of iron. forgive the irish bull. this milestone grows at nottingham (page ). so also does-- . the respectable iron milestone (page ). . the aesthetic milestone, of iron, and found only in the border-land (page ). of finger-posts i shall mention three types:-- . the solid and respectable. . the limp and uncertain. . the aesthetic. but what have we here? a milestone? nay, but a murder-stone. i stop the caravan and get down to look and to read the inscription, the gist of which is as follows: "this stone was erected to mark the spot where eliza shepherd, aetat , was cruelly murdered in ." i gaze around me. it is a lovely day, with large white cumulus clouds rolling lazily over a brilliant blue sky. it is a lonely but a lovely place, a fairy-like ferny hollow, close to the edge of a dark wood. yes, it is a lovely place now in the sunlight, but i cannot help thinking of that terrible night when poor young eliza, returning from the shoemaker's shop, met that tramp who with his knife did the ugly deed. it is satisfactory to learn that he swung for it on the gallows-tree. but here is a notice-board worth looking at. it is a warning to dog-owners. it reads thus:-- "notis trespassers will be prosecuted dowgs will be shote." on a weird-looking tree behind it hangs a dead cur by the tail. here is a highland post-office, simply a little red-painted dog-kennel on the top of a pole, standing all alone in the middle of a bleak moorland. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tramps. we meet these everywhere, but more especially on the great highway between scotland and the south. while cruising on the coast of africa, in open boats, wherever we found cocoa-nut trees growing, there we found inhabitants; and so on the roads of england, wherever you find telegraph poles, you will find tramps. they are of both sexes, and of all sorts and sizes; and, remember, i am not alluding to itinerant gipsies, or even to tinkers, but to the vast army of homeless nomads, who wander from place to place during all the sweet summer weather, and seem to like it. sometimes they sell trinkets, such as paper and pins, combs, or trashy jewellery, sometimes they get a day's work here and there, but mostly they "cadge," and their characters can be summed up in two words--"liars and vagabonds." there are honest men on the march among them, however, tradesmen out of work, and flitting south or north in the hopes of bettering their condition. but these latter seldom beg, and if they do, they talk intelligible english. if a man comes to the back door of your caravan and addresses you thus: "chuck us a dollop o' stale tommy, guv'nor, will yer?" you may put him down as a professional tramp. but if you really are an honest tramp, reader--that is, a ragged pedestrian, a pedestrian _minus_ purple and fine linen--then i readily admit that there is something to be said in favour of your peculiar kind of life after all. to loll about on sunshiny days, to recline upon green mossy banks and dreamily chew the stalks of tender grasses, to saunter on and on and never know nor care what or where you are coming to, to gaze upon and enjoy the beautiful scenery, to listen to song of wild bird and drowsy hum of bee,--all this is pleasant enough, it must be confessed. then you can drink of the running stream, unless, as often happens, fortune throws the price of a pint of cold fourpenny in your way. and you have plenty of fresh air. "too much," do you say? yes, because it makes you hungry; but then, there are plenty of turnip fields. besides, if you call at a cottage, and put on a pitiful face, you will nearly always find some one to "chuck you a dollop o' stale tommy." do you long for society? there is plenty on the road, plenty of people in the same boat. and you are your own master; you are as free as the wind that bloweth where it listeth, unless indeed a policeman attempts to check your liberty. but he may not be able to prefer a charge against you; and if he ever goes so far as to lock you up on suspicion, it is only a temporary change in your _modus vivendi_; you are well-housed and fed for a week or two, then--out and away again. when night comes on, and the evening star glints out of the himmel-blue, you can generally manage to creep into a shed or shieling of some sort; and if not, you have only to fall back upon the cosy hayrick. oh! i believe there are worse lives than yours; and if i were not a gipsy, i am not sure i would not turn a tramp myself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the man with the iron mask. we came across him frequently away up in the north of england, and a mysterious-looking individual he is, nearly always old, say on the shady side of sixty. there he sits now on a little three-legged stool by the wayside. in front of him is a kind of anvil, in his hand a hammer. to his right is a heap of stones mingled with gravel; from this he fills a mounted sieve, and rakes the stones therefrom with his hammer as he wants them. the iron mask is to protect his face and eyes, and a curious spectacle he looks. he has probably been sitting there since morning, but as soon as the shades of evening fall, he will take up his stool and his hammer and wend his way homewards to his little cottage in the glen, and it is to be hoped his "old 'ooman" will have something nice ready for his supper. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the scotch collie dog. where will you find a dog with a more honest and open countenance than collie, or one more energetic and willing, or more devoted to his master's interest? says bobbie burns in his "twa dogs:" "the other was a ploughman's collie. * * * * * he was a gash [wise] and faithfu' tyke, as ever lap a sheugh [ditch] or dyke. his honest sonsy bawan't [white-striped] face, ay gat him friends in ilka place; his breast was white, his towsie back weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black, his gawcie tail, wi' upward curl, hung o'er his hurdils wi' a swirl." you find the collie everywhere all over broad scotland. the only place where i do not like to see him is on chain. yonder he is even now trotting merrily on in front of that farmer's gig, sometimes barking with half-hysterical joy, sometimes jumping up and kissing the old mare's soft brown nose, by way of encouraging her. yonder again, standing on the top of a stone fence herding cows, and suspiciously eyeing every stranger who passes. he is giving us a line of his mind even now. he says we are only gipsy-folk, and no doubt want to steal a cow and take her away in the caravan. there runs a collie assisting a sheep-drover. there trots another at the heels of a flock of cattle. another is out in the field up there watching the people making hay, while still another is lying on his master's coat, while that master is at work. his master is only a ditcher. what does that matter? he is a king to collie. at aberuthven was a retriever-collie who--his master, at whose farm i lay, told me--went every day down the long loaning to fetch the letters when the postman blew his horn. this dog's name is fred, and it was fred's own father who taught him this, and "_in two lessons_" fred's father always went for the letters, and never failed except once to bring them. on this particular occasion, he was seen to disappear behind a bush with a letter in his mouth, and presently to come forth without it. no trace of it was to be found. but a week after another letter was received asking the farmer why he had not acknowledged the bride's cake. so the murder was out, for the dog's honesty had not been proof against a bit of cake, and he had swallowed it, envelope and all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ gipsies' dogs. these are, as a rule, a mongrel lot, but very faithful, and contented with their roving life. they are as follows:-- . the bulldog, used for guard and for fighting, with "a bit o' money on him" sometimes. . the retriever, a useful and determined guard dog and child's companion. . the big mongrel mastiff. the fatter and the uglier he is the better, and the greater the sensation he will create in country villages. . the whippet: a handy dog in many ways; and to him gipsies are indebted for many a good stew of hare or rabbit. . lastly, the terribly fat, immensely big black russian retriever. his tail is always cut off to make him resemble a bear, and give an air of greater _eclat_ to the caravan that owns him. a midnight attack on the "wanderer." we were lying in a lonely meadow, in a rough country away up on the borders of yorkshire, and did not consider ourselves by any means in a very safe place. the wanderer was pretty close to the roadside; and there were no houses about except a questionable-looking inn, that stood on the borders of a gloomy wood. the people here might or might not be villainous. at all events, it was not on their account we were uneasy. but a gang of the worst class of gipsies was to pass that night from a neighbouring fair, and there was a probability that they might attack the carriage. foley before lying down barricaded the back door with the large rippingille stove, and i myself had seen to the chambers of my revolver, all six of them. i had one lookout before lying down. it was a still and sultry summer's night, with clouds all over the stars, so that it was almost dark. in ten minutes more i was sound asleep. it must have been long past midnight when i awoke with a start. hurricane bob was growling low and ominously; i could distinctly hear footsteps, and thought i could distinguish voices confabbing in whispers near the van. it was almost pitch dark now, and from the closeness of the night it was evident a thunderstorm would burst over us. silencing the dog, i quickly got on my clothes, just as the caravan began to shake and quiver, as if some one were breaking open the after-door. my mind was made up at once. i determined to carry the war into the enemy's quarters, so, seizing my sword, i quietly opened the front door, and slid down to the ground off the _coupe_. i got in beneath the caravan and crept aft. there they were, whoever they were; i could just perceive two pairs of legs close to the caravan, and these legs were arrayed in what seemed to me to be white duck trousers. "now," said i to myself, "the shin is a most vulnerable part; i'll have a hack at these extremities with the back of the sword." and so i did. i hit out with all my might. the effect was magical. there was a load roar of pain, and away galloped the midnight marauders, in a wild and startled stampede. and who were they after all? why, only a couple of young steers, who had been chewing a bath towel--one at one end, the other at the other-- that foley had left hanging under the van. such then are some of the humours of an amateur gipsy's life. chapter sixteen. sunny memories of the border-land. "pipe of northumbria, sound; war pipe of alnwicke, wake the wild hills around; percy at paynim war. fenwicke stand foremost; scots in array from far swell wide their war-host. "come clad in your steel jack, your war gear in order, and down hew or drive back the scots o'er the border." old ballad. "i tell you what it is, my boy," said a well-known london editor to me one day, shortly before i started on my long tour in the wanderer,--"i tell you what it is, you'll _never_ do it." he was standing a little way off my caravan as he spoke, so as to be able to take her all in, optically, and his head was cocked a-trifle to one side, consideringly. "never do what?" "never reach scotland." "why?" "why? first, because a two-ton caravan is too much for even two such horses as you have, considering the hills you will have to encounter; and, secondly," he added with a sly smile, "because scotchman never `gang back.'" i seized that little world-wise editor just above the elbow. he looked beseechingly up at me. "let go?" he cried; "your fingers are made of iron fencing; my arm isn't." "can you for one moment imagine," i said, "what the condition of this england of yours would be were all the scotchmen to be suddenly taken out of it; suddenly to disappear from great cities like manchester and liverpool, from posts of highest duty in london itself, from the navy, from the army, from the volunteers? is the bare idea not calculated to induce a more dreadful nightmare than even a lobster salad?" "i think," said the editor, quietly, as i released him, "we might manage to meet the difficulty." but despite the dark forebodings of my neighbours and the insinuations of this editor, here i am in bonnie scotland. "my foot in on my native heath, and my name is--" well, the reader knows what my name is. i have pleasant recollections of my last day or two's drive in northumberland north, just before entering my native land. say from the blue bell hotel at belford. what a stir there was in that pretty little town, to be sure! we were well out of it, because i got the wanderer brought to anchor in an immensely large stackyard. there was the sound of the circus's brass band coming from a field some distance off, the occasional whoop-la! of the merry-go-rounds and patent-swing folks, and the bang-banging of rifles at the itinerant shooting galleries; but that was all there was to disturb us. i couldn't help thinking that i never saw brawnier, wirier men than those young farmers who met earl p--at his political meeting. i remember being somewhat annoyed at having to start in a procession of gipsy vans, but glad when we got up the hill, and when pea-blossom and corn-flower gave them all the slip. then the splendid country we passed through; the blue sea away on our right; away to the left the everlasting hills! the long low shores of the holy isle flanked by its square-towered castle. it is high water while we pass, and lindisfarne is wholly an island. "stay, coachman, stay; let us think; let us dream; let us imagine ourselves back in the days of long, long ago. yonder island, my jehu john, which is now so peacefully slumbering 'neath the midday sun, half shrouded in the blue mist of distance, its lordly castle only a shape, its priory now hidden from our view-- "`the castle with its battled walls, the ancient monastery's halls, yon solemn, huge, and dark-red pile, placed on the margin of the isle.' "--have a history, my gentle jehu, far more worthy of being listened to than any romance that has ever been conceived or penned. "aidan the christian lived and laboured yonder; from his home in that lone, surf-beaten island scintillated, as from a star, the primitive rays of our religion of love." jehu john (speaks): "excuse me, sir, but that is all a kind o' greek to me." "knowest thou not, my gentle john, that more than a thousand years ago that monastery was built there, that-- "`in saxon strength that abbey frowned with massive arches broad and round, that rose alternate row and row on pond'rous columns short and low, built ere the art was known, by pointed aisle and shafted stalk the arcades of an alleyed walk to emulate in stone. on those deep walls the heathen dane had poured his impious rage in vain.' "hast never heard of saint cuthbert?" "no, sir; can't say as ever i has." "john! john! john! but that wondrous, that `mutable and unreasonable saint' dwelt yonder, nor after death did he rest, john, but was seen by many in divers places and at divers times in this kingdom of britain the great! have you never heard the legend that he sailed down the tweed in a huge stone coffin?" "ha! ha! i can't quite swallow that, sir." "that his figure may even until this day be seen, that-- "`on a rock by lindisfarne saint cuthbert sits and toils to frame the sea-born beads that bear his name. such tales had whitby's fishers told, and said they might his shape behold, and hear his anvil sound: a deadened clang--a huge dim form seen but, and heard, when gathering storm and night were closing round.'" "it makes me a kind of eerie, sir, to hear you talk like that." "i can't help it, john; the poetry of the great wizard of the north seems still to hang around these shores. i hear it in the leaves that whisper to the winds, in the wild scream of the sea-birds, and in the surf that comes murmuring across that stretch of sand, or goes hissing round the weed-clad rocks. "but, john, you've heard of grace darling?" "ah! there i do feel at home." "then you know the story. at the longstone lighthouse out yonder she lived. you see the castle of bamburgh, with its square tower, there. we noticed it all day yesterday while coming to belford; first we took it for a lighthouse, then for a church, but finally a bright stream of sunshine fell on it from behind a cloud--on it, and on _it_ alone, and suddenly we knew it. well, in the churchyard there the lassie sleeps." "indeed, sir!" "shall we drop a tear to her memory, my gentle jehu?" "don't think i could screw one out, sir." "then drive on, john." i remember stopping at a queer old-fashioned northumbrian inn for the midday halt. we just drew up at the other side of the road. it was a very lonely place. the inn, with its byres and stables, was perched on the top of a rocky hill, and men and horses had to climb like cats to get up to the doors. by the way, my horses do climb in a wonderful way. whenever any one now says to me, "there is a terrible hill a few miles on," "can a cat get up?" i inquire. "oh, yes, sir; a cat could go up," is the answer. "then," say i, "my horses will do it." at this inn was a very, very old man, and a very, very old woman, and their son brad. brad was waiter, ostler, everything, tall, slow, and canny-looking. brad, like most of the people hereabout, spoke as though he had swallowed a raw potato, and it had stuck in his throat. even the north northumbrian girls talk as if they suffered from chronic tonsillitis, or their tongues were too broad at the base. when the dinner had been discussed, the dishes washed, and i had had a rest, the horses staggered down the hill and were put in. i said to brad, "how much, my friend?" "whhateveh yew plhease, sirr; you'gh a ghentleman," replied brad, trying apparently to swallow his tongue. i gave him two shillings. no sooner had it been put in his trousers pocket than the coin started off on a voyage of discovery down his leg, and soon popped out on to the road. brad evidently had sprung a leak somewhere, and for a time the money kept dropping from him. whenever he moved he "layed" a coin, so to speak, and the last i saw of brad he was leaning lazily against a fence counting his money. i remember that near the borders we climbed a long, long hill, and were so happy when we got to the top of it--the horses panting and foaming, and we all tired and thirsty. the view of the long stretch of blue hills behind as was very beautiful. here on the hilltop was an inn, with its gable and a row of stables facing the road, and here on a bit of grass we drew up, and determined to take the horses out for the midday halt. but we reckoned without our host. the place was called the cat inn. the landlady was in the kitchen, making a huge pie. no, we could have no stabling. their own horses would be home in half an hour. she followed me out. "half an hour's rest," i said, "out of the sun will do my poor nags some good." "i tell ye, ye canna have it," she snapped. "then we can have a bucket or two of water, i suppose?" "never a drop. we've barely enough for ourselves." i offered to pay for it. i talked almost angrily. "never a drop. you're no so ceevil." talking of northumbrian inns, i remember once having a good laugh. a buxom young lassie, as fresh as a mountain-daisy, had served me, during a halt, with some ginger-ale. after drinking and putting the glass down on the table, i was drying my long moustache with my handkerchief, and looking at the lassie thoughtfully--i trust not admiringly. "ah, sir," she said, nodding her head and smiling, "ye need na be wiping your mouth; you're no goin' to get a kiss from _me_." but near tweedmouth, in the fields of oats and wheat, we came upon whole gangs of girls cutting down thistles. each was armed with a kind of reaping-hook at the end of a pole. very picturesque they looked at a distance in their short dresses of green, grey, pink, or blue. but the remarkable thing about them was this. they all wore bonnets with an immense flap behind, and in front a wonderful contrivance called "an ugly"--a sunshade which quite protected even their noses. and this was not all, for they had the whole of the jaws, chin, and cheeks tied up with immense handkerchiefs, just as the jaws of the dead are sometimes bound up. i could not make it out. riding on with my tricycle some distance ahead of the wanderer, i came upon a gang of them--twenty-one in all--having a noontide rest, sitting and reclining on the flowery sward. i could not help stopping to look at them. from the little i could see of their faces some were really pretty. but all these "thistle lassies" had their "uglies" on and their jaws tied up. i stopped and looked, and i could no more help making the following remark than a lark can help singing. "by everything that's mysterious," i said, "why have you got your jaws tied up? you're not dead, and you can't all have the toothache." i shall never forget as long as i live the chorus of laughing, the shrieks of laughter, that greeted this innocent little speech of mine. they _did_ laugh, to be sure, and laughed and laughed, and punched each other with open palms, and laughed again, and some had to lie down and roll and laugh. oh! you just start a northumbrian lassie laughing, and she will keep it up for a time, i can tell you. but at last a young thing of maybe sweet seventeen let the handkerchief down-drop from her face, detached herself from the squad, and came towards me. she put one little hand on the tricycle wheel, and looked into my face with a pair of eyes as blue and liquid as the sea out yonder. "we tie our chins up," she said, "to keep the sun off." "oh-h-h!" i said; "and to save your beauty." she nodded, and i rode on. but in speaking of my adventure with the thistle lassies to a man in berwick--"yes," he said, "and those girls on a sunday come out dressed like ladies in silks and satins." i remember that our first blink o' bonnie scotland was from the hill above tweedmouth. and yonder below us lay berwick, with its tall, tapering spires and vermilion-roofed houses. away to the left, far as eye could reach, sleeping in the sunlight, was the broad and smiling valley of the tweed. the sea to the right was bright blue in some places, and a slaty grey where cloud shadows fell. it was dotted with many a white sail, with here and there a steamboat, with a wreath of dark smoke, fathoms long, trailing behind it. berwick-on-tweed, i have been told more than once, belongs neither to scotland nor to england. it is neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring. it is a county by itself. my royal mistress ought therefore to be called queen of great britain, berwick, and ireland. but i will have it thus: berwick _is_ part and parcel of scotland. tell me not of english laws being in force in the pretty town; i maintain that the silvery tweed is the natural dividing line 'twixt england and the land of mountain and flood. chapter seventeen. scenes in berwick--border marriages--bonnie ayton. "breathes there the man, with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, `this is my own, my native land;' whose heart has ne'er within him burned as home his weary footsteps, turned from wandering on a foreign strand?" these lines naturally rang through my mind as i rode on my cycle over the old bridge of tweed. the caravan was a long way behind, so after getting fairly into berwick i turned and recrossed the bridge, and when i met the wanderer i gave the tricycle up to foley, my worthy valet and secretary, for i knew that he too wanted to be able to say in future that he had ridden into scotland. yes, the above lines kept ringing through my mind, but those in the same stirring poem that follow i could not truthfully recite as yet-- "oh! caledonia, stern and wild, nurse meet for a poetic child; land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood." --because round berwick the scenery is not stern and wild, and though there may be roaring floods, the mountains hold pretty far aloof. through narrow archways, and up the long, steep streets of this border town, toiled the wanderer. we called at the post-office and got letters, and went on again, seeking in vain for a place of rest. we were nearly out of the town, when, on stopping for a few minutes to breathe the horses, i was accosted by a gentleman, and told him my wants. ten minutes afterwards the great caravan lay comfortably in a pork-curer's yard, and the horses were knee-deep in straw in a neighbouring stable. a german it is who owns the place. taking an afternoon walk through his premises, i was quite astonished at the amount of cleanliness everywhere displayed. those pigs are positively lapped in luxury; of all sorts and sizes are they, of all ages, of all colours, and of all breeds, from the long-snouted berkshire to the pug-nosed yorker, huddled together in every attitude of innocence. here are two lying in each other's arms, so to speak, but head and tail. they are two strides long, and sound asleep, only dreaming, and grunting and kicking a little in their dreams. i wonder what pigs do dream about? green fields, perhaps, hazel copses, and falling nuts and acorns. the owner of this property came in, late in the evening, and we had a pleasant chat for half an hour. about pigs? yes, about pigs principally--pigs and politics. probably no town in the three kingdoms has a wilder, more chequered, or more romantic history than the once-circumvallated berwick-on-tweed. how far back that history dates is somewhat of a mystery, more in all likelihood than a thousand years, to the days of kenneth the second of scotland. he it was, so it is written, who first made the tweed the boundary between the two countries. is it not, however, also said that the whole country north of newcastle properly belongs to caledonia? however this may be, berwick was a bone of contention and a shuttlecock for many a century. scores of fearful battles were fought in and around it; many a scene of carnage and massacre has its old bell-tower looked down upon; ay, and many a scene of pomp and pageantry as well. "it is a town," says an old writer, "that has been the delight, nay, but also the ransom of kings--a true helena, for which many bloody battles have been fought; it has been lost and regained many times within the compass of a century of years, held in the hands of one kingdom for a time, then tossed by the other--a ball that never found rest till the advent of the union." very little, i found, remained of its ancient castle, only a crumbling corner or two, only a few morsels of mouldering ruin, which makes one sad to think of. the atmosphere is not over pure, and there is an all-pervading odour of fried fresh herrings, which a starving man might possibly relish. i saw much of berwick, but that much i have no space here to describe. yet i would earnestly advise tourists to make this town their headquarters for a few weeks, and then to make excursions up the tweed and into the romantic land of scott and hogg, the bard of ettrick. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ indeed, the places of interest in this border country that lie on both sides of the tweed are almost too numerous to be mentioned. past the ladies' well you would go on your journey up stream, and there you would probably stop to drink, getting therefrom a cup that in reality cheers, but inebriates not. if an invalid, you might drink of this well for weeks, and perhaps continue your journey feeling in every vein and nerve the glad health-blood flowing free, feeling indeed that you had obtained a new lease of life. onward you would go, pausing soon to look at the beautiful chain bridge, the tree-clad banks, and the merry fisher-boats. etal you would visit, and be pleased with its quiet beauty, its old castle on the banks of the smooth-flowing till, and its cottages and gardens, its peace-loving inhabitants and happy children. you would not miss wooler, if only for the sake of the river and mountain scenery around it. nor chillingham, with its parks of wild cattle, though you would take care to keep clear of the maned bulls. if a scot, while gazing on the battlefield of flodden sad and melancholy thoughts would arise in your mind, and that mournful but charming song "the flowers of the forest" would run through your memory-- "i've seen tweed's silver stream, glittering in the sunny beam, grow drumlie and dark as it rolled on its way. o fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting? o, why thus perplex us poor sons of a day? thy frowns cannot fear me, thy smiles cannot cheer me, for the flowers of the forest are a' wede away." [by the flowers of the forest he means the scottish army at flodden.] the village of norham would calm and delight an invalid, however nervous he might be, and the tree-foliage, the flowery sward, the grand old castle ruin once seen on a summer's day, or even in the quiet summer's gloaming, could never be forgotten. need i mention floors castle, kelso abbey, melrose abbey, or the abbeys of jedburgh and romantic dryburgh? scott says-- "he who would see melrose aright must see it by the pale moonlight." the same may be said about dryburgh too. just a word about saint abb's head, then i'll put my horses to, and the wanderer shall hurry on northwards ho! here were the nunnery and chapel of saint abb, the ruins of the former still to be seen on the top of precipitous cliffs that stand out into the sea. go, visit saint abb's on a stormy day, when the wild waves are dashing on the rocks, and the sea-birds screaming around. a feeling of such awe will steal over you as probably you never felt before. on the th of july, about : pm, the wanderer rolled out of berwick, and at four o'clock we crossed the undisputed line which divides scotland from sister england. there are two old cottages, one at each side of the road. this is lamberton. once there was a toll here, and here clandestine marriages used to be performed by priests, the last of whom died from an accident some time ago. i was told i would see a sign pointing out the house for border marriages, but probably it has been removed. these border marriages were considered a saving in money and in time. the priests were not slow in looking out for custom, and would even suggest marriage to likely couples. one priest is said to have united no less than one thousand five hundred. an old lady came out from the door of one of the cots. i asked her civilly, and i hope pleasantly, if she would marry either my coachman or my valet. she said no, she kept hens, and they were care and trouble enough. i found some ginger-ale in the cheffonier, and had it out, and we all drank-- "here's a health, bonnie scotland, to thee." then i got the guitar, and sang as the horses trotted merrily on, with music in their footsteps, music in every jingle of their harness, and poetry in their proudly tossing manes. the scenery around us was pleasant enough, but strange. of the land we could not see half a mile in any direction, for the scenery was a series of great round knolls, or small hills, cultivated to the top, but treeless and bare. it put me in mind of being in the doldrums in the tropics, every knoll or hill representing an immense smooth wave. the sea, close down on our right beneath the green-topped beetling cliffs, was as blue as ever i had known it to be. we stopped for a few minutes to gaze and admire. there was a stiff breeze blowing, that made the wanderer rock like a ship in a sea-way. there were the scream of gulls, the cawing of rooks, and the whistling of the wind through the ventilators, and the whispering of the waves on the beach beneath the cliffs, but no other sound to break the evening stillness. within two miles of ayton the road sweeps inland, and away from the sea, and a beautiful country bursts all at once upon the view. on this evening the sun's rays slanted downwards from behind great clouds, lighting up the trees and the hills, but causing the firs and spruces that were in shadow to appear almost black. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ayton castle was passed on the right, just before we crossed the bridge and rattled into the sweet wee town of ayton itself. the castle is a modern house of somewhat fantastic appearance, but placed upon the braeland there, among the woods, it looks charming, and the braeland itself is a cloudland of green. ayton is placed in a lovely valley on the river eye, which goes wimpling and winding round it. the town itself is pretty, rural, quaint, and quiet. i do wonder if it is a health resort or not, or whether turtle-doves go there to spend the honeymoon. if they do not they ought to. the landlord of the hotel where i put my horses, like myself, came from the far north; he soon found me a stand for the wanderer, a quiet corner in a farmer's field, where we lay snug enough. towards sunset about ten waggon loads of happy children passed by. they had been at some _fete_ or feast. how they did laugh and crow when they saw the great caravan, and how they did wave their green boughs and cheer! what else could i do but wave my hat in return? which had the effect of making them start to their feet and shout till the very welkin rang, and the woods of bonnie ayton re-echoed the sound. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ reader, a word here parenthetically. i was not over-well when i started from home just one month ago. i got up from "the drudgery of the desk's dull wood" to start on my tour. now i am hard in flesh, and i have the power to enjoy life as one ought to. here is an extract from my diary of to-day written on the road: "how brightly the sun is shining. what a delightful sensation of perfect freedom possesses me! i cannot be too thankful to god for this the most enjoyable of all travels or outings i have ever had during a somewhat chequered career. it would hardly be too much to say that at this moment i feel perfectly happy and content, and that is surely saying a deal in a world like this." chapter eighteen. the journey to dunbar--a rainy day. "i lay upon the headland height and listened to the incessant sobbing of the sea in caverns under me, and watched the waves that tossed and fled and glistened, until the rolling meadows of amethyst melted away in mist." longfellow. july th. we make an early start this morning. the horses are in, and we are out of the field before eight o'clock. we have a long journey before us-- three-and-twenty miles to dunbar--and do it we must. it is raining in torrents; every hilltop is wrapped in mist as in a gauze veil. the country is fertile, but trees and hedges are dripping, and if the hills are high, we know it not, seeing only their foundations. about four miles on, the road enters a beautiful wood of oak, through which the path goes winding. there is clovery sward on each side, and the trees almost meet overhead. some six miles from co'burn's path we stop at a small wayside grocery to oil the wheel-caps, which have got hot. i purchase here the most delicious butter ever i tasted for ten pence a pound. the rain has ceased, and the breaking clouds give promise of a fine day. i inquire of a crofter how far it is to inverness. "inverness?" he ejaculates, with eyes as big as florins. "man! it's a far cry to inverness." on again, passing for miles through a pretty country, but nowhere is there an extensive view, for the hills are close around us, and the road is a very winding one. it winds and it "wimples" through among green knolls and bosky glens; it dips into deep, deep dells, and rises over tree-clad steeps. this may read romantic enough, but, truth to tell, we like neither the dips nor the rises. but look at this charming wood close on our right, a great bank of sturdy old oaks and birches, and among them wild roses are blooming--for even here in scotland the roses have not yet deserted us. those birken trees, how they perfume the summer air around us! from among the brackens that grow beneath, so rank and green, rich crimson foxglove bells are peeping, and a thousand other flowers make this wild bank a thing of beauty. surely by moonlight the fairies haunt it and hold their revels here. we pass by many a quiet and rural hamlet, the cottages in which are of the most primitive style of architecture, but everywhere gay with gardens, flowers, and climbing plants. it does one good to behold them. porches are greatly in vogue, very rustic ones, made of fir-trees with the bark left on, but none the less lovely on that account. here is the porch of a house in which surely superstition still lingers, for the porch, and even the windows, are surrounded with honeysuckle and rowan. [rowan, or rantle tree,--the mountain ash.] "rantle tree and wood-bin to haud the witches on come in." [to keep the witches out.] the mists have cleared away. we soon come to a high hill overtopped by a wood. there are clearings here and there in this wood, and these are draped with purple heath, and just beneath that crimson patch yonder is a dark cave-like hole. that is the mouth of a loathsome railway tunnel. there may be a people-laden train in it now. from my heart i pity them. _they_ are in the dark, we in the sunshine, with the cool breeze blowing in our faces, and as free as the birds. _we_ are on the hill; _they_ are in the hole. as we near co'burn's path the scenery gets more and more romantic. a peep at that wondrous tree-clad hill to the right is worth a king's ransom. and the best of it is that to-day we have all the road to ourselves. i stopped by a brook a few minutes ago to cull some splendid wild flowers. a great water-rat (_bank-vole_) eyed me curiously for a few moments, then disappeared with a splash in the water as if he had been a miniature water-kelpie. high up among the woods i could hear the plaintive croodling of the cushie-doo, or wild pigeon, and dear me, on a thorn-bush, the pitiful "chick-chick-chick-chick-chee-e-e" of the yellow-hammer. but save these sweet sounds all was silent, and the road and country seemed deserted. where are our tourists? where our health and pleasure-seekers? "doing" scotland somewhere on beaten tracks, following each other as do the wild geese. we climb a hill; we descend into a deep and wooded ravine, dark even at midday, cross a most romantic bridge, and the horses claw the road as they stagger up again. a fine old ruined castle among the pinewoods. it has a story, which here i may not tell. if ever, reader, you come this way, visit pease dene and the bridge. what a minglement is here of the beautiful in art and the awesome in nature! are you fond of history? well, here in this very spot, where the wanderer rests for a little time, did cromwell, with his terrible battle-cry, "the lord of hosts," defeat the scottish covenanters. it was a fearful tulzie; i shudder when i look round and think of it. "drive on, john, drive on." all round co'burn's path is a wild land of romance. but here is the hamlet itself. the inn--there is but one--stands boldly by the roadside; the little village itself hides upon a wooded braeland away behind. "is it a large village?" i inquired. "_no_," was the canny scotch reply, "not so _vera_ large. it is just a middlin' bit o' a village." so i found it when i rode round, a _very_ middling bit of a village indeed. the shore is about half a mile from the road. it is bounded by tall steep cliffs, and many of these are pierced by caves. the marks of chisels are visible on their walls, and in troublous times they were doubtless the hiding-places of unfortunate families, but more recently they were used by smugglers, concerning which the hills about here, could they but speak, would tell many a strange story. dined and baited at co'burn's path, and started on again. and now the rain began to come down in earnest--scotch rain, not scotch mist, rain in continuous streams that fell on the road with a force that caused it to rebound again, and break into a mist which lay all along the ground a good foot deep. nothing could touch us in our well-built caravan, however; we could afford to look at the rain with a complacency somewhat embittered with pity for the horses. the country through which we are now passing is beautiful, or would be on a fine day. it is a rolling land, and well-treed, but everything is a blur at present, and half hidden by the terrible rain. when we reached dunbar at last, we found the romantic and pretty town all astir. the yeomanry had been holding their annual races, and great was the excitement among both sexes, despite the downpour. it was an hour or two before i could find a place to stand in. i succeeded at last in getting on to the top of the west cliff, but myself and valet had to work hard for twenty minutes before we got in here. we chartered a soldier, who helped us manfully to enlarge a gap, by taking down a stone wall and levelling the footpath. at dunbar, on this cliff-top, from which there was a splendid view of the ever-changing sea, i lay for several days, making excursions hither and thither, and enjoying the sea-bathing. [for further notes about pleasant excursions, fishing streams, etc, see my "rota vitae; or, cyclist's guide to health and rational enjoyment." price shilling. published by messrs. iliffe and co, fleet street, london.] the ancient town of dunbar is too well-known to need description by me, although every one is entitled to talk about a place as he finds it. dunbar, then, let me say parenthetically, is a town of plain substantial stone, with many charming villas around it. it has at least one very wide and spacious street, and it has the ruins of an ancient castle--no one seems to know how ancient; it has been the scene of many a bloody battle, and has a deal otherwise to boast about in a historical way. i found the people exceedingly kind and hospitable, and frank and free as well. english people ought to know that dunbar is an excellent place for bathing, that it is an extremely healthy town, and could be made the headquarters for tourists wishing to visit the thousand and one places of interest and romance around it. but it was the rock scenery that threw a glamour over me. it is indescribably wild and beautiful here. these rocks are always fantastic, but like the sea that lisps around their feet in fine weather, or dashes in curling wreaths of snow-white foam high over their summits, when a nor'-east storm is blowing, they are, or seem to be, ever-changing in appearance, never quite the same. only, one rock on the horizon is ever the same, the bass. when the tide is back pools are left among the rocks; here bare-legged children dabble and play and catch the strange little fishes that have been left behind. to see those children, by the way, hanging like bees--in bunches--on the dizzy cliff-tops and close to the edge, makes one's heart at times almost stand still with fear for their safety. there is food here for the naturalist, enjoyment for the healthy, and health itself for the invalid. i shall be happy indeed if what i write about the place shall induce tourists to visit this fine town. on the morning of the rd of july we left dunbar, after a visit from the provost and some members of the town council. sturdy chiels, not one under six feet high, and broad and hard in proportion. an army of such men might have hurled cromwell and all his hordes over the cliffs to feed the skate--that is, _if_ there were giants in those days. we got out and away from the grand old town just as the park of artillery opened fire from their great guns on their red-flagged targets far out to sea. fife-shire militia these soldiers are, under command of colonel the hon.--halket. mostly miners, sturdy, strong fellows, and, like the gallant officer commanding them, soldierly in bearing. i fear, however, that the good folks of dunbar hardly appreciate the firing of big guns quite so close to their windows, especially when a salvo is attempted. this latter means shivered glass, frightened ladies, startled invalids, and maddened dogs and cats. the dogs i am told get into cupboards, and the cats bolt up the chimneys. the first day of the firing an officer was sent to tell me that the wanderer was not lying in quite a safe position, as shells sometimes burst shortly after leaving the gun's mouth. i took my chance, however, and all went well. alas for poor hurricane bob, however! i have never seen a dog before in such an abject state of shivering terror. the shock to his system ended in sickness of a painful and distressing character, and it was one o'clock in the morning before he recovered. one o'clock, and what a night of gloom it was! the sky over hills and over the ocean was completely obscured, with only here and there a lurid brown rift, showing where the feeble rays of moon and stars were trying to struggle through. the wind was moaning among the black and beetling crags; far down beneath was the white froth of the breaking waves, while ever and anon from seaward came the bright sharp flash of the summer lightning. so vivid was it that at first i took it for a gun, and listened for the report. it was a dreary night, a night to make one shiver as if under the shadow of some coming evil. chapter nineteen. a day at pressmannan--the fight for a polonie sausage--in the haughs of haddington--mrs carlile's grave--genuine hospitality. "here springs the oak, the beauty of the grove, whose stately trunk fierce storms can scarcely move; here grows the cedar, here the swelling vine does round the elm its purple clusters twine; here painted flowers the smiling gardens bless, both with their fragrant scent and gaudy dress; here the white lily in full beauty grows; here the blue violet and the blushing rose." blackmore. had a gale of wind come on to blow during our stay at dunbar, our position on the green cliff-top would undoubtedly have been a somewhat perilous one, for the wind takes a powerful hold of the wanderer. perhaps it was this fact which caused my illustrious valet and factotum to write some verses parodying the nursery rhyme of "hush-a-bye baby, upon the tree top." i only remember the first of these:-- "poor weary wanderer on the cliff-top, if the wind blows the carriage will rock, if gale should come on over she'll fall down over the cliff, doctor and all." perhaps one of the most pleasant outings i had when at dunbar was my visit to the beautiful loch of pressmannan. i give here a short sketch of it to show that a gentleman gipsy's life is not only confined to the places to which he can travel in his caravan. the wanderer is quite a pullman car, and cannot be turned on narrow roads, while its great height causes overhanging trees to form very serious obstacles indeed. but i have my tricycle. i can go anywhere on her. well, but if i want to take a companion with me on some short tour where the wanderer cannot go, it is always easy to borrow a dogcart, pop pea-blossom into the shafts, and scud away like the wind. this is what i did when i made up my mind to spend-- a day at pressmannan. i would have preferred going alone on my cycle with a book and my fishing-rod, but hurricane bob unfortunately--unlike the infant jumbo-- is no cyclist, and a twenty-miles' run on a warm summer's day would have been too much for the noble fellow. nor could he be left, in the caravan to be frightened out of his poor wits with thundering cannon and bursting shells. hence pea-blossom and a light elegant phaeton, with bob at my feet on his rugs. we left about ten am, just before the guns began to roar. the day was warm and somewhat hazy, a kind of heat-mist. soon after rattling out of dunbar we passed through a rural village. we bore away to the right, and now the scenery opened up and became very interesting indeed. away beneath us on our right--we were journeying north-west--was a broad sandy bay, on which the waves were breaking lazily in long rolling lines of foam. far off and ahead of us the lofty and solid-looking berwick law could be seen, rising high over the wooded hills on the horizon with a beautiful forest land all between. down now through an avenue of lofty beeches and maples that makes this part of the road a sylvan tunnel. we pass the lodge-gates of pitcox, and in there is a park of lordly deer. on our left now are immensely large rolling fields of potatoes. these supply the southern markets, and the _pomme de terre_ is even shipped, i believe, from this country to america. there is not a weed to be seen anywhere among the rows, all are clean and tidy and well earthed up. no poetry about a potato field? is that the remark you make, dear reader? you should see these even furrows of darkest green, going high up and low down among the hills; and is there any flower, i ask, much prettier than that of the potato? but there we come to the cosy many-gabled farmhouse itself. how different it is from anything one sees in yorks or berkshire, for instance! a modern house of no mean pretensions, built high up on a knoll, built of solid stone, with bay windows, with gardens, lawns, and terraces, and nicely-wooded winding avenues. about a mile farther on, and near to the rural hamlet of stenton, we stop to gaze at and make conjectures about a strange-looking monument about ten feet high, that stands within a rude enclosure, where dank green nettles grow. what is it, i wonder? i peep inside the door, but can make nothing of it. is it the tomb of a saint? a battlefield memorial? the old village well? or the top of the steeple blown down in a gale of wind? we strike off the main road here and drive away up a narrow lane with a charming hedgerow at each side, in which the crimson sweetbriar-roses mingle prettily with the dark-green of privet, and the lighter green of the holly. at the top of the hill the tourist may well pause, as we did, to look at the view beneath. it is a fertile country, only you cannot help admiring the woods that adorn that wide valley--woods in patches of every size and shape, woods in rows around the cornfields, woods in squares and ovals, woods upon hills and knolls, and single trees everywhere. on again, and ere long we catch sight of a great braeland of trees--a perfect mountain of foliage--worth the journey to come and see. that hill rises up from the other side of the loch. we now open a gate, and find ourselves in a very large green square, with farm buildings at one side and a great stone well in the centre. far beneath, and peeping through the trees, is the beautiful mansion-like model farmhouse. it is surrounded by gardens, in which flowers of every colour expand their petals to the sunshine. no one is at home about the farmyard. the servants are all away haymaking, so we quietly unlimber, stable, and feed pea-blossom. hurricane bob, my jehu, and myself then pass down the hill through a wood of noble trees, and at once find ourselves on the margin of a splendid sheet of water that winds for miles and miles among the woodlands and hills. i seat myself in an easy-chair near the boathouse, a chair that surely some good fairy or the genii of this beautiful wildery has placed here for me. then i become lapt in elysium. ten minutes ago i could not have believed that such scenery existed so near me. what a lonesome delightful place to spend a long summer's day in! what a place for a picnic or for a lover's walk! oh! to fancy it with a broad moon shining down from the sky and reflected in the water! the road goes through among the trees, not far from the water's edge, winding as the lake winds. the water to-day is like a sheet of glass, only every now and then and every here and there a leaping fish makes rings in it; swallows are skimming about everywhere, and seagulls go wheeling round or settle and float on the surface. we see many a covey of wild ducks too, but no creature--not even the hares and rabbits among the brackens--appear afraid of us. nowhere are the trees of great height, but there is hardly one you can give a name to which you will not find here by the banks of this lovely lonesome lake, to say nothing of the gorgeous and glowing undergrowth of wild shrubs and wild flowers. weary at last, because hungry, we returned to the green square where we had left our carriage, and, first giving pea-blossom water, proceeded to have our own luncheon. we had enough for the three of us, with plenty to spare for the feathered army of fowls that surrounded us. they were daring; they were greedy; they were insolent; and stole the food from our very fingers. ambition in this world, however, sometimes over-reaches itself. one half-bred chick at last stole a whole polonie, which was to have formed part of bob's dinner. bob knew it, and looked woefully after the thieving chick; the brave little bird was hurrying off to find a quiet place in which to make its dinner. it had reckoned rather rashly, though. a cochin hen met the chick. "what daring audacity!" cried the hen. "set _you_ up with a whole polonie, indeed!" a dig on the back sent the chick screaming away without the sausage, and the big hen secured it. "i'll go quietly away and eat it," she said to herself, "behind the water-butt." but the other fowls spied her. "why, she's got a whole polonie!" cried one. "the impudence of the brazen thing!" cried another. "a whole polonie! a whole polonie!" was now the chorus, and the chase became general. round and round the great stone wall flew the cochin, but she was finally caught and thrashed and deprived of that polonie. but which hen was to have it? oh! every hen, and all the four cocks wanted it. a more amusing scene i never witnessed at a farmyard. it was like an exciting game of football on the old rugby system, and at one time, while the game was still going on, i counted three pairs of hens and one pair of dorking cocks engaged in deadly combat, and all about that polonie. but sly old bob watched his chance. _he_ was not going to lose his dinner if he could help it. he went round and lay flat down behind the well, and waited. presently the battle raged in that direction, when suddenly, with one glorious spring, bob flung himself into the midst of the conflict. the fowls scattered and fluttered and fled, and flew in all directions, and next minute the great newfoundland, wagging his saucy tail and laughing with his eyes, was enjoying his polonie as he lay at my feet. returning homewards, instead of passing the pitcox lodge-gate, we boldly enter it; i cannot help feeling that i am guilty of trespass. however, we immediately find ourselves in a great rolling park, with delightful sylvan scenery on every side, with a river--the winding papana-- meandering through the midst of the glen far down beneath and to the right. after a drive of about a mile we descend by a winding road into this glen, and cross the river by a fine bridge. then going on and on, we enter the archway, and presently are in front of the mansion house of biel itself. it is a grand old place, a house of solid masonry, a house of square and octangular towers, long and low and strong. it is the seat of a branch of the hamilton ilk. miss hamilton was not then at home. "no, the lady is not at home at present, sir," a baker who was driving a cart informed me, "but it would have been all one, sir. every one is welcome to look at the place and grounds, and she would have been glad to see you." we really had stopped at the back of the house, which is built facing the glen, but i soon found my way to the front. i cannot describe the beauty of those terraced gardens, that one after another led down to the green glen beneath, where the river was winding as if loth to leave so sweet a place. they were ablaze with flowers, the grass in the dingle below was very green, the waters sparkled in the sunlight, and beyond the river the braeland was a rolling cloudland of green trees. we drove out by an avenue--two miles long--bordered by young firs and cypresses. altogether, the estate is a kind of earthly paradise. and think of it being constantly open to tourist or visitor! "what a kind lady that miss hamilton must be, sir!" said my coachman. "yes, john," i replied. "this is somewhat different from our treatment at newstead abbey." i referred to the fact that on my arrival at the gates of the park around that historical mansion where the great byron lived, i could find no admission. in vain i pleaded with the lodge-keeper for liberty only to walk up the avenue and see the outside of the house. no, she was immovable, and finally shut the gates with an awful clang in my face. i have since learned that many americans have been treated in the same way. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the heat of july the rd was very great and oppressive, and a haze almost hid the beautiful scenery 'twixt dunbar and haddington from our view. arrived at the latter quaint old town, however, we were soon at home, for, through the kindness of the editor of the _courier_, the wanderer found a resting-place in the beautiful haugh close by the riverside, and under the very shadow of the romantic old cathedral and church adjoining. the cathedral was rendered a ruin by the soldiery of cromwell, and very charming it looks as i saw it to-night under the rays of the moon. the people of haddington are genuinely and genially hospitable, and had i stayed here a month i believe i would still have been a welcome guest. it is said that the coach-builders here are the best in scotland. at all events i must do them the credit of saying they repaired a bent axle of my caravan, and enabled me on the afternoon of the th to proceed on my way in comfort and safety. not, however, before i had made a pilgrimage to the grave of poor mrs carlyle. the graveyard all around the church and cathedral is spacious and well-kept, but her grave is inside the ruin. it was very silent among these tall red gloomy columns; the very river itself glides silently by, and nothing is to be heard except the cooing of the pigeons high over head. the floor is the green sward, and here are many graves. it was beside mrs carlyle's, however, that i sat down, and the reader may imagine what my thoughts were better than i can describe them. an old flat stone or slab covers the grave, into which has been let a piece of marble bearing the following inscription beneath other names: "here likewise now rests jane welsh carlyle, spouse of thomas carlyle, chelsea, london. she was born at haddington, th july, , the only child of the above john welsh, and of grace welsh, caplegill, dumfriesshire, his wife. in her bright existence she had more sorrows than are common, but also a soft invincibility and clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart which are rare. for years she was the true and ever-loving helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unwearily forwarded him as none else could, in all of worthy, that he did or attempted. she died at london on the st april, , suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life, as if gone out." i believe the above to be a pretty correct version of this strange inscription, though the last line seems to read hard. there is a quaint old three-arched bridge spanning the river near the cathedral, and in it, if the tourist looks up on the side next the ruin, he will notice a large hook. on this hook culprits used to be hanged. they got no six-foot drop in those days, but were simply run up as sailors run up the jib-sail, the slack of the rope was belayed to something, and they were left to kick until still and quiet in death. a visit to a celebrated pigeonry was a pleasant change from the churchyard damp and the gloom of that ruined cathedral. mr coalston is a famous breeder of pigeons of many different breeds. the houses are very large, and are built to lean against a tall brick wall. the proprietor seemed pleased to show me his lovely favourites, and put them up in great flocks in their aviaries or flights. so successful has this gentleman been in his breeding that the walls are entirely covered with prize cards. he loves his pigeons; and here in the garden near them he has built himself an arbour and smoking-room, from the windows of which he has them all in view. we started about two pm. i would willingly have gone sooner, but the wanderer was surrounded on the square by a crowd of the most pleasant and kindly people i ever met in my life. of course many of these wanted to come in, so for nearly an hour i held a kind of _levee_. nor did my visitors come empty-handed; they brought bouquets of flowers and baskets of strawberries and gooseberries, to say nothing of vegetables and eggs. even my gentle jehu john was not forgotten, and when at length we rolled away on our road to musselburgh, john had a bouquet in his bosom as large as the crown of his hat. god bless old haddington, and all the kindly people in it! chapter twenty. edinburgh--the fisher folks o' musselboro'--through linlithgow to falkirk--gipsy-folks. "edina! scotia's darling seat! all hail thy palaces and towers, where once beneath a monarch's feet sat legislation's sov'reign powers. from marking wildly-scattered flowers, as on the banks of ayr i strayed, and singing, lone, the lingering hours i shelter in thy honour'd shade." burns. so sang our immortal burns. and here lies the wanderer snugly at anchor within the grounds of that great seminary, the high school of edinburgh. this by the courtesy of the mathematical teacher and kindness of the old janitor, mr rollo. she is safe for the midday halt, and i can go shopping and visiting with an easy mind. sight-seeing? no. because i have learnt edinburgh, "my own romantic town," by heart long ago. besides, it is raining to-day, an uncomfortable drizzle, a soaking insinuating scotch mist. but the cathedral of saint giles i must visit, and am conducted there by w. chambers, esq, of _chambers's journal_. i think he takes a pride in showing me the restorations his father effected before death called him away. and i marvel not at it. the day before yesterday, being then lying in musselburgh, in the tan-yard of that most genial of gentlemen, mr millar, i took my servants to the capital of scotland by way of giving them a treat. they were delighted beyond measure, and i did not neglect them in the matter of food and fluid. remember, though, that they are english, and therefore not much used to climbing heights. i took them first, by way of preparation, to the top of scott's monument. what a sight, by the way, were the princes street gardens as seen from here! a long walk in the broiling sunshine followed, and then we "did" (what a hateful verb!) the castle. "the pond'rous wall and massy bar, grim-rising o'er the rugged rock, have oft withstood assailing war, and oft repelled th' invader's shock." another long walk followed, and thus early i fancied i could detect symptoms of fag and lag in my gentle jehu. but i took them down to ancient holyrood, and we saw everything there, from the picture gallery to rizzio's blood-stain on the floor. another long walk. i showed them old edinburgh, some of the scenes in which shocked their nerves considerably. then on and up the calton hill, signs of fag and lag now painfully apparent. and when i proposed a run up to the top of nelson's monument, my jehu fairly struck, and laughingly reminded me that there could be even too much of a good thing. so we went and dined instead. i was subjected to a piece of red-tapeism at the post-office here which i cannot refrain from chronicling as a warning to future wanderers. i had hitherto been travelling incog. letters from home had been sent in registered packets, addressed to "the saloon caravan wanderer," to be left at the post-offices till i called for them; but those sent to edinburgh were promptly sent back to twyford, because, according to these clever officials, the name was fictitious. it was really no more so than the name of a yacht is, the wanderer being my land-yacht. when a clerk showed me a letter from some bigwig anent the matter, i indignantly dashed my pen through the word "fictitious." you should have seen that clerk's face then. i believe his hair stood on end, and his eyes stuck out on stalks. "man!" he cried, "you've done a bonnie thing noo. i'll say no more to you. you must go round and speak to that gentleman." as _that_ gentleman was at one end of the counter and _this_ gentleman at the other, _this_ gentleman refused to budge, albeit he _had_ done "a bonnie thing." for, i reasoned, _this_ gentleman represents the british public, _that_ gentleman is but a servant of the said british public. so it ended. but was it not hard to be refused my letters--not to be able to learn for another week whether my aged father was alive, whether my little inie's cough was better, or kenneth had cut that other tooth? if further proof were needed that midlothian is a smart country, it was forthcoming at corstorphine, a pretty village some miles from edina. i had unlimbered on the side of the road, not in any one's way. soon after there was a rat-tat-tat-tat at my back door--no modest single knock, mind you. a policeman--tall, wiry, solemn, determined. "ye maun moove on. ye canna be allooed to obstruct the thoro'fare." i told the fellow, as civilly as i could, to go about his business, that my horses should feed and my own dinner be cooked and eaten ere i "mooved on." he departed, saying, "ye maun stand the consekences." i did stand the "consekences," and dined very comfortably indeed, then jogged leisurely on. this was the first and last time ever a policeman put an uninvited foot on my steps, and i do but mention it to show intending caravanists that a gipsy's life has its drawbacks in the county of midlothian. it is about six miles from musselburgh to edinburgh, through portobello, and one might say with truth that the whole road is little else than one long street. we had stayed over the sunday in that spacious old tan-yard. we were not only very comfortable, but quiet in the extreme. close to the beach where we lay, great waves tumbled in from the eastern ocean on sands which i dare not call golden. we were in the very centre of the fisher population, and a strange, strange race of beings they are. of course i cultivated their acquaintance, and by doing so in a kindly, friendly way, learned much of their "tricks and their manners" that was highly interesting. the street adjoining my tan-yard was quaint in the extreme. clean? not very outside, but indoors the houses are tidy and wholesome. they are not tall houses, and all are of much the same appearance outdoors or in. but washing and all scullery work is done in the street. looking up fishergate, you perceive two long rows of tubs, buckets, and baskets, with boxes, and creels, and cats and dogs _galore_. being naturally fond of fish, cats here must have a high old time of it. the older dames are--now for a few adjectives to qualify these ladies; they are short, squat, square, apparently as broad as they are long; they are droll, fresh, fat, and funny, and have right good hearts of their own. the most marvellous thing is their great partiality for skirts. as a rule i believe they wear most of their wardrobes on their bodies; but ten to fifteen skirts in summer and twenty in winter are not uncommonly worn. the children on week days look healthy and happy; a dead puppy or a cod's head makes a delightful doll to nurse in the gutter, and any amount of fun can be got out of "partans' taes and tangles." [crabs' toes and seaweed canes.] but these children are always clean and tidy on the sabbath day. at the village of kirkliston, some miles from corstorphine, with its intelligent policemen, i stopped for the night in a little meadow. it was a pleasant surprise to find in the clergyman here a man from my own university. kirkliston was all _en gala_ next day; flags and bands, and games and shows, and the greatest of doings. but after an early morning ride to those wonderful works where the forth is being bridged, we went on our way, after receiving gifts of fruit and peas from the kindly people about. by the way, kirkliston boasts of one of the biggest distilleries in scotland. but it quite knocks all the romance out of highland whisky to be told it is made from american maize instead of from malt. ugh! splendid road through a delightful country all the way to linlithgow. pretty peeps everywhere, and blue and beautiful the far-off pentlands looked. at linlithgow even my coachman and valet were made to feel that they really were in scotland now, among a race of people whose very religion causes them to be kindly to the stranger. through polmont and on through a charming country to falkirk, celebrated for its great cattle tryst. _july th_.--at linlithgow i visited every place of note--its palace and its palace prison, and its quaint and ancient church. those gloomy prison vaults made my frame shiver, and filled my mind with awe. "who enters here leaves hope behind" might well have been written on the lintels of those gruesome cells. there are the remains of a curious old well in the palace courtyard. a facsimile of it, when at its best, is built in a square in the town. standing near it to-day was a white-haired, most kindly visaged clergyman [the rev dr duncan ogilvie], with whom i entered into conversation. i found he came originally from my own shire of banff, and that he was now minister of a church in falkirk. he gave me much information, and it is greatly owing to his kindness that i am now, as i write, so comfortably situated at falkirk. a pleasant old stone-built town it is, with homely, hearty, hospitable people. many a toil-worn denizen of cities might do worse than make it his home in the summer months. there is plenty to see in a quiet way, health in every breeze that blows, and a mine of historical wealth to be had for merely the digging. the town is celebrated for its great cattle fair, or tryst. away from falkirk, after holding a _levee_ as usual, during which a great many pleasant and pretty people stepped into the wanderer. the country altogether from edinburgh to glasgow is so delightful that i wonder so few tourists pass along the road. as soon as we leave the last long straggling village near falkirk, with its lovely villas surrounded by gardens and trees, and get into the open country, the scenery becomes very pretty and interesting, but on this bright hot day there is a hazy mist lying like a veil all over the landscape, which may or may not be smoke from the great foundries; but despite this, the hills and vales and fertile tree-clad plains are very beautiful to behold. stone fences (dykes) by the wayside now divide the honour of accompanying us on our journey with tall hedges snowed over with flowering brambles, or mingled with the pink and crimson of trailing roses. [a dyke in scotland means a stone or turf fence.] what beauty, it might be asked, could a lover of nature descry in an old stone fence? well, look at these dykes we are passing. the mortar between the stones is very old, and in every interstice cling in bunches the bee-haunted bluebells. the top is covered with green turf, and here grow patches of the yellow-flowering fairy-bedstraw and purple "nodding thistles," while every here and there is quite a sheet of the hardy mauve-petalled rest-harrow. four miles from falkirk we enter the picturesque and widely scattered village of bonny bridge. this little hamlet, which is, or ought to be, a health resort, goes sweeping down a lovely glen, and across the bridge it goes straggling up the hill; the views--go where you like--being enchanting. then the villas are scattered about everywhere, in the fields and in the woods. no gimcrack work about these villas, they are built of solid ornamentally-chiselled stone, built to weather the storms of centuries. by-and-bye we rattle up into the village of dennyloanhead. very long it is, very old and quaint, and situated on a hill overlooking a wide and fertile valley. the houses are low and squat, very different from anything one ever sees in england. through the valley yonder the canal goes wimpling about, and in and out, on its lazy way to glasgow, and cool, sweet, and clear the water looks. the farther end of the valley itself is spanned by a lofty eight-arched bridge, over which the trains go noisily rolling. there is probably not a more romantic valley than this in all the diversified and beautiful route from edinburgh to glasgow. tourists should take this hint, and health-seekers too. passing through this valley over the canal, under the arches and over a stream, the road winds up a steep hill, and before very long we reach the hamlet of cumbernauld. an unpretentious little place it is, on a rocky hilltop and close to a charming glen, but all round here the country is richly historical. we stable the horses at the comfortable spurr hotel and bivouac by the roadside. a little tent is made under the hedge, and here the rippingille cooking-range is placed and cooking proceeded with. merry laughing children flock round, and kindly-eyed matrons knitting, and hurricane bob lies down to watch lest any one shall open the oven door and run away with the frizzling duck. meanwhile the sun shines brightly from a blue, blue sky, the woods and hedges and wild flowers do one good to behold, and, stretched on the green sward with a pleasant book and white sun umbrella, i read and doze and dream till foley says,-- "dinner's all on the table, sir." no want of variety in our wanderings to-day. change of scenery at every turn, and change of faces also. on our way from cumbernauld we meet dozens and scores of caravans of all descriptions, for in two days' time there is to be a great fair at falkirk, and these good people are on their way thither. "thank goodness," i say to my coachman, "they are not coming in our direction." "you're right, sir," says john. for, reader, however pleasant it may be to wave a friendly hand to, or exchange a kindly word or smile with, these "honest" gipsies, it is not so nice to form part in a romany rye procession. here they come, and there they go, all sorts and shapes and sizes, from the little barrel-shaped canvas-covered scotch affair, to the square yellow-painted lordly english van. caravans filled with real darkies, basket caravans, shooting-gallery caravans, music caravans, merry-go-round caravans, short caravans, long caravans, tall caravans, some decorated with paint and gold, some as dingy as smoke itself, and some mere carts covered with greasy sacking filled with bairns; a chaotic minglement of naked arms and legs, and dirty grimy faces; but all happy, all smiling, and all perspiring. some of these caravans have doors in the sides, some doors at front and back; but invariably there are either merry saucy children or half-dressed females leaning out and enjoying the fresh air, and--i hope--the scenery. the heat to-day is very great. we are all limp and weary except polly, the parrot, who is in her glory, dancing, singing, and shrieking like a maniac. but matters mend towards evening, and when we pause to rest the horses, i dismount and am penning these lines by the side of a hedge. a rippling stream goes murmuring past at no great distance. i could laze and dream here for hours, but prudence urges me on, for we are now, virtually speaking, in an unknown country; our road-book ended at edinburgh, so we know not what is before us. "on the whole, john," i say, as i reseat myself among the rugs, "how do you like to be a gipsy?" "i'm as happy, sir," replies my gentle jehu, "as a black man in a barrel of treacle." chapter twenty one. glasgow and grief--a pleasant meadow--thunderstorm at chryston--strange effects--that terrible twelfth of august--en route for perth and the grampians. "o rain! you will but take your flight, though you should come again to-morrow, and bring with you both pain and sorrow; though stomach should ache and knees should swell, i'll nothing speak of you but well; but only now, for this one day, do go, dear rain! do go away." coleridge. in scotland there are far fewer cosy wee inns with stabling attached to them than there are in england; there is therefore greater difficulty in finding a comfortable place in which to bivouac of a night. in towns there are, of course, hotels in abundance; but if we elected to make use of these, then farewell peace and quiet, and farewell all the romance and charm of a gipsy life. it was disheartening on arriving at the village of muirhead to find only a little lassie in charge of the one inn of the place, and to be told there was no stabling to be had. and this village was our last hope 'twixt here and glasgow. but luckily--there always has been a sweet little cherub sitting up aloft somewhere who turned the tide in times of trouble--luckily a cyclist arrived at the hostelry door. he was naturally polite to me, a brother cyclist. "let us ride over to chryston," he said; "i believe i can get you a place there." a spin on the tricycle always freshens me up after a long day's drive, and, though i was sorry to leave the poor horses a whole hour on the road, i mounted, and off we tooled. arrived at the farm where i now lie, we found that mr b--was not at home, he had gone miles away with the cart. but nothing is impossible to the cyclist, and in twenty minutes we had overtaken him, and obtained leave to stable at the farm and draw into his field. a quiet and delightful meadow it is, quite at the back of the little village of chryston, and on the brow of a hill overlooking a great range of valley with mountains beyond. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the sky to-night is glorious to behold. in the east a full round moon is struggling through a sea of cumulus clouds. over yonder the glare of a great furnace lights up a quarter of the sky, the flashing gleams on the clouds reminding one of tropical wild-fire. but the sky is all clear overhead, and in the northern horizon over the mountains is the aurora borealis. strange that after so hot a day we should see those northern lights. but here comes hurricane bob. bob says, as plainly as you please, "come, master, and give me my dinner." whether it be on account of the intense heat, or that hurricane bob is, like a good mohammedan, keeping the feast of the ramadan, i know not, but one thing is certain--he eats nothing 'twixt sunrise and sunset. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ glasgow: glasgow and grief. i now feel the full force of the cruelty that kept my letters back. my cousins, dr mclennan and his wife, came by train to chryston this saturday forenoon, and together we all rode (seven miles) into glasgow in the wanderer. we were very, very happy, but on our arrival at my cousins' house--which i might well call home-- behold! the copy of a telegram containing news i ought to have had a week before! my father was dying! then i said he must now be gone. how dreadful the thought, and i not to know. he waiting and watching for me, and i never to come! next morning i hurried off to aberdeen. the train goes no farther on sunday, but i was in time to catch the mail gig that starts from near the very door of my father's house, and returns in the evening. the mail man knew me well, but during all that weary sixteen-mile drive i never had courage to ask him how the old man my father was. i dreaded the reply. arrived at my destination, i sprang from the car and rushed to the house, to find my dear father--better. and some days afterwards--thank god for all his mercies--i bade him good-bye as he sat by the fire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ no quieter meadow was ever i in than that at chryston, so i determined to spend a whole week here and write up the arrears of my literary work, which had drifted sadly to leeward. except the clergyman of the place, and a few of the neighbouring gentry, hardly any one ever came near the wanderer. if an author could not work in a place like this, inspired by lovely scenery and sunny weather, inhaling health at every breath, i should pity and despise him. i never tired of the view from the wanderer's windows, that wondrous valley, with its fertile farms and its smiling villas, and the great campsie range of hills beyond. sometimes those hills were covered with a blue haze, which made them seem very far away; but on other days, days of warmth and sunshine, they stood out clear and close to us; we could see the green on their sides and the brown heath above it, and to the left the top of distant ben ledi was often visible. thunderstorm at chryston. it had been a sultry, cloudy day, but the banks of cumulus looked very unsettled, rolling and tossing about for no apparent reason, for the wind was almost _nil_. early in the afternoon we, from our elevated position, could see the storm brewing--gathering and thickening and darkening all over glasgow, and to both the north and south-west of us, where the sky presented a marvellous sight. the thunder had been muttering for hours before, but towards four pm the black clouds gathered thick and fast, and trooped speedily along over the campsie hills. when right opposite to us, all of a sudden the squall came down. the trees bent before its fury, the caravan rocked wildly, and we had barely time to place a pole under the lee-side before the tempest burst upon us in all its fury. everything around us now was all a smother of mist. it reminded me of a white squall in the indian ocean. the rain came down in torrents, mingled with hail. it rattled loudly on the roof and hard and harsh against the panes, but not so loud as the pealing thunder. the lightning was bright, vivid, incessant. the mirrors, the crystal lamps, the coloured glasses seemed to scatter the flashes in all directions; the whole inside of the wanderer was like a transformation scene at a pantomime. it was beautiful but dangerous. i opened the door to look out, and noticed the row of ash-trees near by, sturdy though they were, bending like fishing-rods before the strength of the blast, while the field was covered with twiglets and small branches. but the squall soon blew over, and the clouds rolled by, the thunder ceased or went growling away beyond the hills, and presently the sun shone out and began to dry the fields. by the twelfth day of august--sacred to the scottish sportsman--i had made up my literary leeway and got well to windward of editors and printers. i was once more happy. that terrible twelfth of august. we were to start on the twelfth of august for the north, _en route_ for the distant capital of the scottish highlands--inverness. what is more, we were going to make a day of it, for my brave little highland cousin bella (mrs mclennan) and her not less spirited friend mrs c were to go a-gipsying and journey with me from chryston to stirling. it was all nicely arranged days beforehand. we promised ourselves sunshine and music and general joy, with much conversation about the dear old days of long ago. and we were to have a dinner _al fresco_ on the green sward after the manner of your true romany rye. alas for our hopes of happiness! the rain began at early morn. and such rain! i never wish to see the like again. the sky reminded me of some of dore's pictures of the flood. during one vivid blink of sunshine the downpour of rain looked like glass rods, so thick and strong was it. in less than two hours the beautiful meadow that erst was so hard and firm was a veritable slough of despond. this was misfortune number . misfortune number lay in the fact that the busman did not meet the train the ladies were coming by, so for two long scotch miles they had to paddle on as best they could through pelting rain and blackest mud. nor had the ladies come empty-handed, for between them they carried a large parrot-cage, a parcel, and a pie. [polly had been spending a week in glasgow, and was now returning.] it was a pie of huge dimensions, of varied contents, and of curious workmanship--nay, but curious workwomanship--for had not my cousin designed it, and built it, and furnished it with her own fair fingers? it was a genuine, palpable, edible proof of feminine forethought. not, however, all the rain that ever fell, or all the wind that ever blew, could damp the courage of my cousin. against all odds they came up smiling, the highland lass and her english friend--the thistle and the rose. but the rain got worse: it came down in bucketfuls, in torrents, in whole water. it was a spate. then came misfortune number , for the wheels of the wanderer began to sink deep in the miry meadow. we must draw on to the road forthwith, so corn-flower and pea-blossom were got out and put-to. but woe is me! they could not start or move her. they plunged and pawed, and pawed and plunged in vain--the wanderer refused to budge. "i've a horse," said mr r--, quietly, "that i think could move a church, sir." "happy thought!" i said; "let us put him on as a tracer." the horse was brought out. i have seldom seen a bigger. he loomed in the rain like a mountain, and _appeared to be_ about nineteen hands high, more or less. the traces were attached to buckles in our long breeching. then we attempted to start. it might now have been all right had the trio pulled together, but this was no part of pea-blossom's or corn-flower's intention. they seemed to address that tall horse thus: "now, old hoss, we've had a good try and failed, see what you can do." so instead of pulling they hung back. i am bound to say, however, that the tall horse did his very best. first he gave one wild pull, then a second, then a third and a wilder one, and at that moment everything gave way, and the horse coolly walked off with the trace chains. it was very provoking, all hopes of enjoyment fled. hardly could the strawberries and cream that mrs r brought console us. here we were stuck in a meadow on the glorious twelfth, of all days, in a slough of despair, in a deluge of rain, and with our harness smashed. no use lamenting, however. i sent my servant off to glasgow to get repairs done at once, and obtain hydraulic assistance for the semi-wrecked wanderer. about noon there came round a kindly farmer jackson. "men can do it," he said, after eyeing us for a bit. "there's nothing like men." i had sent the ladies into the farmhouse for warmth, and was in the saloon by myself, when suddenly the caravan gave herself a shake and began to move forward. in some surprise i opened the door and looked out. why, surely all the manhood of chryston was around us, clustering round the wheels, lining the sides, pushing behind and pulling the pole. with a hip! ho! and away we go! "hurrah, lads, hurrah!" "bravo, boys, bravo!" in less time than it takes me to tell it, the great caravan was hoisted through that meadow and run high and dry into the farmer's courtyard. to offer these men money would have been to insult them--they were scotch. nor can a kindness like this be measured by coin. i offered them liquid refreshment, however, but out of all who helped me i do not think that half-a-dozen partook. all honour to the manly feelings of the good folks of chryston. but our day's enjoyment was marred and we were left lamenting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ _august th_. we are off. we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur. and happy we feel, on this bright, bracing morning, to be once more on the road again with our backs to old england, our faces to the north. click, click--click, click! why, there positively does seem music in the very horses' feet. they seem happy as well as ourselves. happy and fresh for, says my gentle jehu, "they are pulling, sir, fit to drag the very arms out of ye." "never mind, john," i reply, "the highland hills are ahead of us, and the heather hills, my jehu. knowest thou this song, john?" "`o! glorious is the sea, wi' its heaving tide, and bonnie are the plains in their simmer pride; but the sea wi' its tide, and the plains wi' their rills, are no half so dear as my ain heather hills. i may heedless look on the silvery sea, i may tentless muse on the flowery lee, but my heart wi' a nameless rapture thrills when i gaze on the cliffs o' my ain heather hills. then hurrah, hurrah, for the heather hills, where the bonnie thistle waves to the sweet bluebells, and the wild mountain floods heave their crests to the clouds, then foam down the steeps o' my ain heather hills.'" no wonder the rattling chorus brought half-dressed innocent cottage children to their doors to wave naked arms and shout as we passed, or that their mothers smiled to us, and fathers doffed their bonnets, and wished us "good speed." but summer has gone from nature if not from our hearts. all in a week the change has come, and many-tinted autumn was ushered in with wild and stormy winds, with rain and floods and rattling thunder. not as a lamb has autumn entered, but as a lion roaring; as a king or a hero in a pantomime, with blue and red fire and grand effects of all kinds. there is a strong breeze blowing, but it is an invigorating one, and now, at eight o'clock on this morning, the sun is shining brightly enough, whatever it may do later on. what a grand day for the moors! it will quite make up for the loss of yesterday, when doubtless there were more drams than dead grouse about. in glasgow, days ago, i noticed that the poulterers' windows were decorated with blooming heather in anticipation of the twelfth. i saw yesterday afternoon some "lads in kilts"--saxons, by the shape of their legs. but i do not hold with professor blackie, that if you see a gentleman in highland garb "he must either be an englishman or a fool." for i know that our merriest of professors, best of greek scholars, and most enthusiastic of scotchmen, would himself wear the kilt if there was the slightest possibility of keeping his stockings up! chapter twenty two. on the high road to the highlands. "... here the bleak mount, the bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep; grey clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields; and river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrowed, now winding bright and full, with naked banks; and seats and lawns, the abbey and the wood; and cots and hamlets, and faint city spire." coleridge. at cumbernauld, the people were pleased to see us once more, and quite a large crowd surrounded the wanderer. on leaving the village we were boarded by a young clergyman and his wife, such pleasant enthusiastic sort of people that it does one good to look at and converse with. passed strings of caravans at dennyloanhead, and exchanged smiles and good-morrows with them. then on to the stirling road, through an altogether charming country. through windsor newton, and the romantic village of saint ninian's, near which is bannockburn. then away and away to stirling, and through it, intending to bivouac for the night at bridge of allan, but, scot that i am, i could not pass that monument on abbey craig, to scotland's great deliverer; so here i lie on the grounds of a railway company, under the very shadow of this lovely wooded craig, and on the site of a memorable battle. how beautiful the evening is! the sun, as the song says, "has gone down o'er the lofty ben lomond," but it has left no "red clouds to preside o'er the scene." a purple haze is over all yonder range of lofty mountains, great banks of cloud are rising behind them. up in the blue, a pale scimitar of a moon is shining, and peace, peace, peace, is over all the wild scene. by-the-bye, at saint ninian's to-day, we stabled at the "scots wha hae," and my horses had to walk through the house, in at the hall door and out at the back. [travellers will do well to ask prices here before accepting accommodation.] but nothing now would surprise or startle those animals. i often wonder what they think of it all. we were early on the road this morning of august th, feeling, and probably looking, as fresh as daisies. too early to meet anything or anyone except farmers' carts, with horses only half awake, and men nodding among the straw. bridge of allan is a sweet wee town, by the banks of the river, embosomed in trees, quite a model modern watering-place. we travel on through splendid avenues of trees, that meet overhead, making the road a leafy tunnel, but the morning sun is shimmering through the green canopy, and his beams falling upon our path make it a study in black and white. the road is a rolling one, reminding us forcibly of northumbrian banks and durham braes. the trains here seem strangely erratic, we meet them at every corner. they come popping out from and go popping into the most unlikely places, out from a wood, out of the face of a rock, or up out of the earth in a bare green meadow, disappearing almost instantly with an eldritch shriek into some other hole or glen or wood. through the city of dunblane, with its ruined cathedral, by narrow roads across country fifteen miles, till we reach blackford, and as there are to be games here to-morrow, we get run into a fine open meadow behind edmund's hotel, and bivouac for the night. both my coachman and my valet were englishmen, and it would be something new for them, at all events. the meadow into which i drove was very quiet and retired. the games were to be held in an adjoining rolling field, and from the roof of the wanderer a very good view could be had of all the goings-on. on looking at my notes, written on the evening before the highland gathering, i find that it was my doggie friend hurricane bob who first suggested my stopping for the games. "did ever you see such a glorious meadow in your life?" he seemed to say, as he threw himself on his broad back and began tumbling on the sward. "did you ever see greener grass," he continued, "or more lovely white clover? you _must_ stay here, master." "well, i think i will stay, bob," i replied. "what say you, pea-blossom?" i continued, addressing my saucy bay mare. "stay?" replied pea-blossom, tossing her head. "certainly stay. you stopped a whole week at chryston, and i thought i was going to be a lady for life." "and what say you, corn-flower?" i continued, addressing my horse, who, by the way, is not quite so refined in his ideas as pea-blossom. "which i'd stop anyw'eres," said corn-flower, taking an immense mouthful of clover, "where there be such feeding as this." well, when both one's horses, besides his newfoundland dog and his servants, want to stay at a place for the night, compliance in the master becomes a kind of a virtue. the evening before the games. "now rose sweet evening, solemn hour; the sun, declined, hung golden o'er this nether firmament, whose broad cerulean mirror, calmly bright, gave back his beamy image to the sky with splendour undiminished." mallet. the village is all a-quiver to-night with the excitement of expectancy, and many an anxious eye is turned skywards. "if the breeze holds from this direction," says the landlord of the hotel, "it will be fine for certain." poor fellow! little could he dream while he spoke of the dreadful accident that would befall him but a few hours after he thus talked so hopefully. at sunset to-night a balloon-like cloud settles down on the peak of distant ben voirloch, and as this soon becomes tinged with red, the lofty hill has all the appearance of a burning mountain. but all the northwestern sky is now such a sight to see that only the genius of a burns could describe it in words, while no brush of painter could do justice to it, now that the immortal turner is no longer on earth. there are leaden-grey clouds banked along near the horizon; behind these and afar off are cloud-streaks of gold, which--now that the sun is down--change slowly to crimson, then to grey and to bronze. an hour after sunset these cloud-streaks are of a strange pale yellow colour, only one shade deeper than the sky-tint itself. even while i am still gazing on it this last turns to a pale sea-green of indescribable beauty, and high up yonder rides a half-moon. deeper and deeper grows the yellow of the cloud-streaks till they assume a fiery orange colour; above this is the green of the empty sky, while higher still, betwixt this and the blue vault of heaven, in which the moon is sailing, is a misty blush of crimson. but now all the distant mountain-tops get enveloped in clouds of leaden-grey, the night-air becomes chill; i close my notes and retire to my caravan, and soon i hope to be sleeping as soundly as my honest dog yonder. travelling about, as i constantly do, in all sorts of queer places and among all kinds of scenes, both in towns and in the country, it may not seem surprising that i am often the right man in the right place when an accident occurs. i am certain i have saved many lives by being on the spot when a medical man was wanted _instantly_. i _did_ retire to my caravan; but, instead of going to bed, all inviting though it looked, i began to read, and after an hour spent thus the beauty of the night lured me out again. "happy thought!" i said to myself; "it must be nearly eleven o'clock; i shall go and see what sort of people are emptied out of the inns." but at the very moment i stood near the door of the hotel already mentioned, the innkeeper had been hurled from the topmost banisters of the stairs by a drunken farmer who had fallen from above on him. the shrieks of women folks brought me to the spot. "oh! he is killed, he is killed!" they were screaming. and there he lay on his back on the cold stones with which his head had come into fearful contact. on his back he was, still as death, to all appearance dead. with half-open eyes and dilated pupils, and pulseless. his injuries to the skull were terrible. two medical men besides myself despaired of his life. but above him, a few steps up the stairs, and lying across them half asleep and unhurt, lay the doer of the deed. oh! what a sermon against the insinuating horribleness of intoxicating drink did the whole scene present! the morning of the games. it is going to be a beautiful day, that is evident. white fleecy clouds are constantly driving over the sun on the wings of a south-east wind. bands of music have been coming from every direction all the morning. they bring volunteers, and they bring their clansmen and the heroes who will soon take part in the coming struggle. now highland gatherings and games, such as i am describing, are very ancient institutions indeed in scotland i have no reference book near me from which to discover how old they are. but in "the ' " last century, as most of my readers are probably aware, a great gathering of the clans took place among the highland hills, presumably to celebrate games, but in reality to draw the claymore of revolt and to fight for royal charlie. they will know also how sadly this rebellion ended on the blood-red field of culloden moor. during the summer and autumn seasons nearly every country district in the north has its great highland gathering; but the two chief ones are braemar and inverness. the latter is called the northern meeting, and has a park retained all the year round for it. at braemar, the queen and royal family hardly ever fail to put in an appearance. the clans, arrayed in all the pomp and panoply of their war-dress, in "the garb of old gaul," each wearing its own tartan, each headed by its own chieftain, come from almost every part of the north-eastern highlands to braemar with banners floating and bagpipes playing, a spirit-stirring sight to see. the ground on which the games take place is entirely encircled by a rope fence, and near are the white tents of the officers in charge, the various refreshment-rooms, and the grand stand itself. the whole scene is enlivening in the extreme; the dense crowd of well-dressed people around the ropes, the stand filled tier on tier with royalty, youth, and beauty, the white canvas, the gaily-fluttering flags, the mixture of tartans, the picturesque dresses, the green grass, the cloud-like trees, and last, but not least, the wild and rugged mountains themselves--the effect of the whole is charming, and would need the pen of a walter scott to do justice to it. but to return to the games about to begin before me. crowds are already beginning to assemble and surround the ropes, and independent of the grand stand, there are on this ground several round green hills, which give lounging-room to hundreds, who thus, reclining at their ease, can view the sports going on beneath them. i am lying at full length on the top of my caravan, a most delightful position, from which i can see everything. far down the field a brass band is discoursing a fantasia on old scottish airs. but the effect is somewhat marred, for this reason--on the grass behind the grand stand, with truly scottish independence of feeling, half-a-dozen pipers are strutting about in full highland dress, and with gay ribbons fluttering from their chanters, while their independence is more especially displayed in the fact that every piper is playing the tune that pleases himself best, so that upon the whole it must be confessed that at present the music is of a somewhat mixed character. from the top of my caravan i call to my gentle jehu john, _alias_ my coachman, who comes from the shire of bonnie berks. "john," i shout, "isn't that heavenly music? don't you like it, john? doesn't it stir your blood?" now john would not offend my national feelings for all the world; so he replies,-- "it stirs the blood right enough, sir, but i can't say as 'ow i likes it quite, sir. dessay it's an acquired taste, like olives is. puts me in mind of a swarm o' bees that's got settled on a telegraph pole." but the games are now beginning. brawny scots, tall, wiry highlanders, are already trying the weights of the great caber, the stones, and the hammers. so i get down off my caravan, and, making my way to the field, seat myself on a green knoll from which i can see and enjoy everything. _throwing the heavy hammer_.--this is nearly always the first game. the competitors, stripped to the waist, toe the line one after the other, and try their strength and skill, the judges after each throw being ready with the tape. though an ordinary heavy hammer will suit any one for amateur practice, the real thing is a large ball fastened to the end of a long handle of hard, tough wood. it is balanced aloft and swung about several times before it quits the hands of hercules, and comet-like flies through the air with all the velocity and force that can be communicated to it. donald dinnie, though he wants but two years of being fifty, is still the champion athlete and wrestler of the world. there is a good story told of donald when exhibiting his prowess for the first time in america. the crowd it seems gave him a too limited ring. they did not know donald then. "gang back a wee bit!" cried donald. the ring was widened. "gang back a wee yet?" he roared. the crowd spread out. but when a third time donald cried "gang back!" they laughed in derision. then donald's scotch blood got up. he swung the great hammer--it left his hands, and flew right over the heads of the onlookers, alighting in the field beyond. no one in san francisco would compete with donald, so he got the records of other athletes, and at a public exhibition beat them all. throwing the light hammer is another game of the same kind. _putting the stone_.--the stone, as an irishman would say, is a heavy round iron ball. you plant the left foot firmly in advance of the right, then balancing the great stone or ball on the palm of the right hand on a level with the head for a few moments, you send it flying from you as far as possible. there is not only great strength required, but a good deal of "can," or skill, which practice alone can give. _tossing the caber_.--the caber is a small tree, perhaps a larch with the branches all off. you plant your foot against the thin end of it, while a man raises it right up--heavy end uppermost--and supports it in the air until you have bent down and raised it on your palms. the immense weight of it makes you stagger about to keep your balance, and you must toss it so that when the heavy end touches the ground, it shall fall right over and lie in a line towards you. this game requires great skill and strength, and it is seldom indeed that more than one man succeeds in tossing the caber fair and square. there are heavy and light hammers, there are heavy and light putting-stones, but there is but one caber [at principal games], and at this game the mighty donald dinnie has no rival. the jumping and vaulting approach more to the english style of games, and need not be here described; and the same may be said about the racing, with probably one exception--the sack race. the competitors have to don the sacks, which are then tied firmly round the neck, then at the given signal away they go, hopping, jumping, or running with little short steps. it is very amusing, owing to the many tumbles the runners get, and the nimble way they sometimes recover the equilibrium, though very often no sooner are they up than they are down again. there usually follows this a mad kind of steeplechase three times round the course, which is everywhere impeded with obstructions, the favourite ones being soda-barrels with both ends knocked out. through these the competitors have to crawl, if they be not long-legged and agile enough to vault right over them. the dancing and the bagpipe-playing attract great attention, and with these the games usually conclude. at our sports to-day both are first-class. the dancing commences with a sailor's hornpipe in character, and right merrily several of the competitors foot it on the floor of wood that has been laid down on the grass for the purpose. next comes the highland fling, danced in highland dress, to the wild "skirl" of the great highland bagpipe. then the reel of tulloch to the same kind of music. here there are of course four highlanders engaged at one time. i hope, for the sake of dear auld scotland, none of my readers will judge the music of the highland bagpipes from the performances of the wretched specimens of ragged humanity sometimes seen in our streets. but on a lovely day like this, amidst scenery so sublime, it is really a pleasure to lie on the grass and listen to the stirring war march, the hearty strathspey or reel, the winning pibroch, or the sad wail of a lament for the dead. few who travel by train past the village or town of auchterarder have the faintest notion what the place is like. "it is set on a hill," that is all a train traveller can say, and it looks romantic enough. but the country all round here, as seen by road, is more than romantic, it is wildly beautiful. here are some notes i took in my caravan just before coming to this town. my reason for giving them now will presently be seen. "just before coming to auchterarder we cross over a hill, from which the view is singularly strange and lovely. down beneath us is a wide strath or glen, rising on the other side with gentle slope far upwards to the horizon, with a bluff, bare, craggy mountain in the distance. but it is the arrangement and shape of the innumerable dark spruce and pinewoods that strike the beholder as more than curious. they look like regiments and armies in battle array--massed in _corps d'armee_ down in the hollow, and arranged in battalions higher up; while along the ridge of yonder high hill they look like soldiers on march; on a rock they appear like a battery in position, and here, there, and everywhere between, e'en long lines of skirmishers, taking advantage of every shelter." it was not until monday morning that i found out from the kindly aberuthven farmer, in whose yard i had bivouacked over the sunday, that i had really been describing in my notes a plan of the great battle of waterloo. the woods have positively been planted to represent the armies in action. had not this farmer, whom we met at the village, invited us to his place, our bivouac over the sunday would have been on the roadside, for at aberuthven there was no accommodation for either horses or caravan. but the hospitality and kindnesses i meet with everywhere are universal. the morning of the th of august was grey and cloudy, but far from cold. bidding kindly farmer m--and his family good-bye, we went trotting off, and in a short time had crossed the beautiful earn, and then began one of the longest and stiffest ascents we had ever experienced. a stiff pull for miles with perspiring horses; but once up on the braeland above this wild and wonderful valley the view was indescribably fine. the vale is bounded by hills on every side, with the lofty ben voirloch far in the rear. the earn, broad, clear, and deep, goes winding through the level and fertile bottom of the valley, through fields where red and white cattle are grazing, through fields of dark-green turnips, and fields yellow with ripening barley. and yonder, as i live, is a railway train, but so far away, and so far beneath us, that it looks like a mere mechanical toy. high up here summer still lingers. we are among hedgerows once more and wild roses; the banks beneath this are a sight. we have thistles of every shade of crimson, and the sward is covered with beds of bluebells and great patches of golden bird's-foot trefoil; and look yonder is an old friend, the purple-blue geranium once more. from the fifth milestone, the view that suddenly bursts upon our sight could hardly be surpassed for beauty in all broad scotland. a mighty plain lies stretched out beneath us, bounded afar off by a chain of mountains, that are black in the foreground and light blue in the distance, while great cloud-banks throw their shadows over all. but soon we are in a deep dark forest. and here i find the first blooming heath and heather, and with it we make the wanderer look quite gay. how sweetly sound is the sleep of the amateur gipsy! at bankfoot, where we have been lying all night, is a cricket-ground. i was half awakened this morning (august th) at : by the linen manufactory hooter--and i hate a hooter. the sound made me think i was in wales. i simply said to myself, "oh! i am in south wales somewhere. i wonder what i am doing in south wales. i daresay it is all right." then i sank to sleep again, and did not wake till nearly seven. the village should be a health resort. started by eight. a lovely morning, a mackerel sky, with patches of blue. heather hills all around, some covered with dark waving pine forests. but what shall i say about the scenery 'twixt bankfoot and dunkeld? it is everywhere so grandly beautiful that to attempt to describe it is like an insult to its majesty and romance. now suppose the reader were set down in the midst of one of the finest landscape gardens, in the sweetest month of summer, and asked to describe in a few words what he saw around him, would he not find it difficult even to make a commencement? that is precisely how i am now situated. but to run through this part of the country without a word would be mean and cowardly in an author. here are the grandest hills close aboard of us that we have yet seen-- among them birnam; the most splendid woods and trees, forest and streams, lakes and torrents, houses and mansions, ferns and flowers and heather wild. look where i will it is all a labyrinth, all one maze of wildest beauty, while the sweet sunshine and the gentle breeze sighing thro' the overhanging boughs, combined with the historical reminiscences inseparable from the scenery, make my bewilderment pleasant and complete. yes! i confess to being of a poetic turn of mind, so make allowance, _mon ami_, but--go and see dunkeld and its surroundings for yourself-- "here poesy might woke her heaven-taught lyre, and look through nature with creative fire the meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides; the woods, wild scattered, clothe their ample sides. th' outstretching lake, embosomed 'mong the hills, the eye with wonder and amazement fills. the tay meandering sweet in infant pride, the palace rising by its verdant side, the lawns wood-fringed in nature's native taste, the hillocks dropt in nature's careless haste; the arches striding o'er the newborn stream, the village glittering in the noontide beam." the above passage, from the poet barns, refers to the village and scenery of kumon, but it equally well describes the surroundings of dunkeld. pitlochrie is our anchorage to-night. the little town, when i first approached it, seemed, though picturesque and lovely in the extreme, almost too civilised for my gipsy ideas of comfort; the people had too much of the summer-lodging caste about them; there were loudly dressed females and male mashers, so i felt inclined to fly through it and away as i had done through perth. but the offer of a quiet level meadow at the other end of this village of villas, surrounded by hills pine-clad to their summits, and hills covered with heather, the maiden-blush of the heather just appearing on it, tempted me, and here i lie. met many delightful people, and still more delightful, happy children. the wandering tourist would do well to make his headquarters here for at least a week. there is so much to be seen all around. it is indeed the centre of the land of romance and beauty. started next day through the pass of killiecrankie. who has not heard of the wild wooded grandeur of this wonderful pass, or of the battle where the might of claverhouse was hurled to the ground, and the hero himself slain? it was a sad climb for our horses, but the pass is fearfully, awesomely grand. one cannot but shudder as he stands on the brink of the wooded chasm, over which the mounted troopers were hurled by the fierce-fighting highlanders. just after leaving the pass, on the right is a meadow, in the centre of which is a stone, supposed by most tourists to mark the spot where the great claverhouse fell. it is not so, but a preaching stone, where outdoor service was held in days of yore. behold up yonder, high above it on the hillside, the granite gables of "ard house" peeping out above the trees. near here was claverhouse slain, shot while his horse was stooping to drink some water. made our midday halt in front of bridge of tilt hotel. were visited by many good people. brakes laden with tourists pass and repass here all day long, for the scenery around here is far famed; splendid forests and wild rugged mountains, lochs and waterfalls--everything highland. a wretched kilted piper strutted round the wanderer after dinner, playing pibrochs. i like the bagpipes and i love the highland garb, but when the former is wheezy and shrieking, when the latter is muddy and ragged, and the musician himself pimply-faced and asthmatical, it takes away all the romance. i saw this miserable piper afterwards dancing and shrieking. he was doing this because an ostler belaboured his bare legs with a gig whip. i was glad to hear the real highland bagpipes soon after. the wild music came floating on the autumn air from somewhere in the pine forest, and i could not help thinking of mcgregor simpson's grand old song, the march of the cameron men-- "i hear the pibroch sounding, sounding, deep o'er the mountains and glen, while light springing footsteps are trampling the heath - 'tis the march of the cameron men." the day is fiercely hot, but a breeze is blowing and the roads are good. on leaving blair athol the way continues good for a time; we catch a glimpse of the duke's whitewashed castle on the right, among the trees and wood. but we soon leave trees behind us, though on the left we still have the river. it is swirling musically round its bed of boulders now; in winter i can fancy how it will foam, and rage, and rush along with an impetuosity that no power could resist! we are now leaving civilisation behind us--villas, trees, cultivated fields, and even houses--worth the name--will for a time be conspicuous only by their absence. some miles on, the road begins to get bad and rough and hilly, rougher by far than the roads in the wolds of york or among the banks of northumberland. it gets worse and worse, so rough now that it looks as if a drag-harrow had been taken over it. we are soon among the grampians, but the horses are wet and tired. even pea-blossom, hardy though she be, is dripping as if she had swum across a river, while poor corn-flower is a mass of foam, and panting like a steam engine. we were told we ought to go _past_ the highland hamlet of struan. we find now, on enquiring at a wayside sheiling, that struan is out of our way, and that it consists of but one small inn and a hut or two, where accommodation could hardly be found for man or beast. so we go on over the mountains. about a mile above struan, we stop to let the horses breathe, and to gaze around us on the wild and desolate scene. nothing visible but mountains and moorland, heath, heather, and rocks, the only trees being stunted silver birches. close beside the narrow road, so close indeed that a swerve to one side, of a foot or two, would hurl the wanderer over the rock, is the roaring river garry. its bed is a chaos of boulders, with only here and there a deep brown pool, where great bubbles float and patches of frothy foam, and where now and then a great fish leaps up. the stream is a madly rushing torrent, leaping and bounding from crag to crag, and from precipice to precipice, with a noise like distant thunder. we see an occasional small covey of whirring grouse. we see one wriggling snake, and a lizard on a heather stem, and we hear at a distance the melancholy scream of the mountain whaup or curlew,--a prolonged series of shrill whistling sounds, ending in a broken shriek-- but there are no other signs of life visible or audible. yes, though, for here comes a carriage, and we have to go closer still-- most dangerously close--to the cliff edge, to give it room to pass. the horses are still panting, and presently up comes a glasgow merchant and his little boy in highland dress. he tells us he is a glasgow merchant. anybody would tell anyone anything in this desolate place; it is a pleasure to hear even your own voice, and you are glad of any excuse to talk. he says,-- "we are hurrying off to catch the train at blair athol." but he does not _appear_ to be in much of a hurry, for he stays and talks, and i invite him and his child up into the saloon, where we exchange highland experiences for quite a long time. then he says,-- "well, i must positively be off, because, you know, i am hurrying to catch a train." i laugh. so does the glasgow merchant. then we shake hands and part. chapter twenty three. snow-posts--a moonlight ramble--dalwhinnie--a danger escaped--an ugly ascent--inverness at last. "the rugged mountain's scanty cloak was dwarfish shrubs of birch and oak, and patches bright of bracken green, and heather red that waved so high, it held the copse in rivalry; but where the lake slept deep and still, dank osiers fringed the swamp and hill." scott. "now wound the path its dizzy ledge around a precipice's edge." idem. farther and farther on we walk or trot, and wilder and still more wild grows the scenery around us. not a tree of any kind is now visible, nor hedge nor fence bounds the narrow road; we are still close to the garry. beyond it are heath-clad banks, rising up into a braeland, a hill, or mountain, while the river is far down at the bottom of a cutting, which its own waters have worn in their rush of ages. the road gets narrower now. it cannot be more than nine feet at its widest. but the hills and the mountains are very beautiful; those nearest us are crimsoned over with blooming heather; afar off they are half hidden in the purple mist of distance. all my old favourite flowers have disappeared. i cannot see even a scottish bluebell, nor a red, nodding foxglove, only on mossy banks the pink and odorous wild thyme-blooms grow among the rocks, tiny lichens paint the boulders, and wherever the water, from some rill which has trickled down the mountain side, stops, and spreads out and forms a patch of green bog land, there grow the wild sweet-scented myrtle, and many sweetly pretty ferns. [the sweet gall, or candleberry myrtle.] in some places the hills are so covered with huge boulders as to suggest the idea that titans of old must have fought their battles here,--those rocks their weapons of warfare. we must now be far over a thousand feet above the sea-level, and for the first time we catch sight of snow-posts, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs. the english tourist would in all probability imagine that these were dilapidated telegraph poles. they serve a far different purpose, for were it not for them in winter, when the ground is covered with snow, and the hollows, and even the ravines, are filled up,--were it not for these guiding posts, the traveller, whether on foot or horseback, might get off the path, and never be heard of or seen any more, until the summer's sun melted the snow and revealed his corpse. toiling on and on through these mountain fastnesses, we cannot help wondering somewhat anxiously where we can rest to-night. dalwhinnie, that sweetest spot in this highland wilderness, is still seventeen miles away. we cannot reach there to-night. a fall moon will rise and shine shortly after sunset--this is true, but to attempt so long a journey with tired horses, with so great a weight behind them, and in so rugged a country, would be to court an accident, if not destruction. there is, about four miles ahead of us, a shooting lodge at dalnacardoch. yes, but they who live there may not consider hospitality and religion to be nearly akin. we'll try. "pull up, corn-flower." "pull up, pea-blossom." pea-blossom is tired herself. if you but shake the whip over her she angrily nibbles at corn-flower's nose. "he," she says as plain as horse can speak, "is in the fault. i am pulling all i can, but _he_ is not doing half the work." dalnacardoch at long last. dalnacardoch! why, the name is big enough for a good-sized town, or a village at the very least, but here is but a single house. in the good old coaching days it had been a coaching inn. i go to the door and knock. the butler appears. "who lives here?" "a mr whitely, sir, from yorkshire has the shooting." "ha," i think, "from yorkshire? then am i sure of a welcome." nor was i mistaken. on a green flat grass plot, near to this highland shooting-box lies the wanderer; the horses are in a comfortable stable, knee-deep in straw, with corn and hay to eat in abundance, and i am happy and duly thankful. it is now past nine o'clock; i have dined, and hurricane bob and i go out for a stroll in the sweet moonlight, which is flooding mountain, moor, and dell. the day has been fiercely hot, but the night is still and starry, and before morning there will be ice on every pool. how black and bare the hills are, and how lonesome and wild! but what must they be in winter, when the storm winds sweep over them, and when neither fur nor feather can find food and shelter anywhere near them? "bob, my boy, we will go to bed." the stillness of the night is sublime, unbroken save by the distant murmur of the garry, a sound so soothing that i verily believe it would have lulled even maecenas himself to sleep. on august th, as fresh as larks, cold though it had been all night, we started on our route for dalwhinnie. what an appetite the highland air gives one! i felt somewhat ashamed of myself this morning, as rasher after rasher of bacon, and egg after egg, disappeared as if by legerdemain; and after all, the probability is that a biscuit and cheese at eleven o'clock may be deemed a necessity of existence. it is a bright sunny morning, but the road is rough and stony; on some parts the _debris_ has been washed from the mountain sides, and left to lie across the road, in others some faint attempts at repairs have been undertaken. the plan is primitive in the extreme. a hole is dug in the hillside, and the earth and shingle spaded on to the road. plenty of sheep are grazing on the boulder-covered mountains, plenty of snakes and lizards basking in the morning sunshine. some of the snakes are very large and singularly beautiful, and glitter in the sunlight as if they had been dipped in glycerine. this is a land of purple heath, but not of shaggy wood. it would be impossible for any one to hang himself here, unless he requisitioned one of the snow-posts. it is the land of the curlew, the grouse, and the blackcock,--the land mayhap of the eagle, though as yet we have not seen the bird of jove. the road now gets narrower and still more narrow, while we ride close to the cliffs, with--far below us--the turbulent garry. were we to meet a carriage now, passing it would be impossible, and there is no room to draw off. never before perhaps did a two-ton caravan attempt to cross the grampians. there are heath-clad braelands rising around us at all sides. some of the banks near dalnaspiddal are a sight to behold. the heather that clothes them is of all shades, from pink to the deepest, richest red. so too are the heaths. these last rest in great sheets, folded over the edge of cliffs, clinging to rocks, or lying in splendid patches on the bare yellow earth. here, too, are ferns of many kinds, the dark-green of dwarf-broom, and the crimson of foxglove bells. when we stop for a few minutes, in order that i may gather wild flowers, the silence is very striking, only the distant treble of the bleating lamb far up the mountain side, and the answering cry of the dam. here we drive now, close under the shadow of a mountain cliff about two thousand feet high; and from the top cascades of white water are flowing. my coachman marvels. where on earth, he asks, do these streams come from? he knows not that still higher hills lie behind these. owing to our great height above the sea-level, the horses pant much in climbing. but the wind has got up, and blows keen and cold among these bleak mountains. shortly after leaving dalnaspiddal, the road begins to ascend a mountain side, amidst a scene of such wild and desolate grandeur, as no pen or pencil could do justice to. it was a fearful climb, with bob running behind, for even his weight, pounds, lightens the carriage appreciably; with the roller down behind an after wheel, and my valet and i pushing behind with all our might, the horses at long last managed to clamber to the highest point. i threw myself on a bank, pumped and almost dead. so were the horses, especially poor corn-flower, who shook and trembled like an aspen leaf. on looking back it seemed marvellous how we had surmounted the steep ascent. to have failed would have meant ruin. the huge caravan would have effectually blocked the road, and only gangs of men--where in this dreary, houseless wilderness would they have come from?--could have taken us out of the difficulty. dalwhinnie hotel is indeed an oasis in the wilderness. it is a hospice, and in railway snow-blocks has more than once saved valuable lives. both master and mistress are kindness personified. here, near the hotel, is a broad but shallow river; there is a clump of trees near it too. fact! i do not mean to say that an athlete could not vault over most of them, but they are trees nevertheless. the house lies in what might be called a wide moorland, , feet above the sea-level, with mountains on all sides, many of them covered with snow all the year round. i started next day for kingussie, six hundred feet below the level of dalwhinnie, where we encamped for the night behind the chief hotel. my dear cousin, mrs mcdonald, of dalwhinnie, had come with me as far as this town, accompanied by some of her sweet wee children, and what a happy party we were, to be sure! we sang songs and told fairy tales, and made love--i and the children--all the way. honest john, my cousin's husband, came in the dogcart, and showed me all the beauties of this charming village, which is situated among some of the finest and wildest scenery in the scottish highlands. beauties of nature, i mean, but we met some pretty people too. among the latter is old mrs cameron, who keeps a highland dram-shop at the other end of the village, and talked to john as she would to a child. she is far over seventy, but _so_ pleasant, and _so_ stout, and _so_ nice. i promised to stop at her door next day as i drove past, and though we started before the hills had thrown off their nightcaps, our old lady was up and about. she entered and admired the caravan, then went straight away and brought out her bottle. oh! dear reader, she would take no denial. the lady loved to talk, and did not mind chaff. i tried to make it a match between herself and my young valet. but-- "'deed, indeed, no, sir," she replied, "it is your coachman i'm for, and when he comes back i'll be all ready to marry him." so we drove away laughing. though frosty dews fell last night, the morning is delightful. so also is the scenery on all sides. hills there are in abundance to climb and descend, but we surmount every difficulty, and reach the romantic village of carrbridge long before dusk. here we are to spend the sunday, and the caravan is trotted on to a high bit of tableland, which is in reality a stackyard, but overlooks the whole village. narrow escape of "wanderer." this happened to-day, and our adventure very nearly led to a dark ending of our expedition. on our road to carrbridge, and just at the top of a hill, with a ravine close to our near wheel, the horse in a dogcart, which we met, refused to pass, shied, and backed right against our pole end. for a moment or two we seemed all locked together. the danger was extreme; our horses plunged, and tried to haul us over, and for a few brief seconds it seemed that the wanderer, the dogcart, plunging horses, and all, would be hurled off the road and over the brae. had this happened, our destruction would have been swift and certain; so steep and deep was it that the wanderer must have turned over several times before reaching the bottom. _monday, august th_.--i am this morning _en route_ for inverness, five-and-twenty miles, which we may, or may not, accomplish. we have now to cross the very loftiest spurs of the grampian range. we are now feet above the level of the sea. we have to rise to , , and then descend to inverness. were it all one rise, and all one descent, it would simplify matters considerably, but it is hill and dale, and just at the moment when you are congratulating yourself on being as high as you have to go, behold, the road takes a dip into a glen, and all the climbing has to be repeated on the other side. my last sunday among the mountains! yes! and a quiet and peaceful one it was; and right pleasant are the memories i bear away with me from carrbridge; of the sweet little village itself, and the pleasant _natural_ people whom i met; of the old romantic bridge; of the hills, clad in dark waving pine-trees; of the great deer forests; of moorlands clad in purple heather; of the far-off range of lofty mountains--among them, cairngorm--their sides covered with snow, a veritable sierra nevada; of the still night and the glorious moonlight, and of the murmuring river that sang me to sleep, with a lullaby sweeter even than the sound of waves breaking on a pebbly beach. we are off at : am, and the climb begins. after a mile of hard toil, we find ourselves in the centre of a heather-clad moor. before and around us hills o'er hills successive rise, and mountain over mountain. their heads are buried in the clouds. this gives to the scene a kind of gloomy grandeur. a deep ravine, a stream in the midst, roaring over its pebbly bed. a dark forest beyond. six miles more to climb ere we reach our highest altitude. three miles of scenery bleaker and wilder than any we have yet come to. a dark and gloomy peat moss, with the roots of ancient forest trees appearing here and there. it gets colder and colder, and i am fain to wrap myself in my highland plaid. we meet some horses and carts; the horses start or shy, and remembering our adventure of yesterday we feel nervous till they pass. on and on, and up and up. we are among the clouds, and the air is cold and damp. we now near the gloomy mountains and deep ravines of slochmuichk. we stop and have a peep ahead. must the wanderer, indeed, climb that terrible hill? down beneath that narrow mountain path the ravine is feet deep at the least. there is a sharp corner to turn, too, up yonder, and what is beyond? this page missing. this page missing. chapter twenty four. wild flowers--a hedgerow in july--hedgerows in general--in woodland and copse--in fields and in moorlands. "ye wildlings of nature, i doat upon you, for ye waft me to summers of old, when the earth teemed around me with fairy delight. and when daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight, like treasures of silver and gold." campbell. "fair, my own darling, are the flowers in spring... rathe primrose, violet, and eglantine, anemone and golden celandine. not less delicious all the birds that sing carols of joy upon the amorous wing, earine, in these sweet hours of thine." mortimer collinz (to his wife). from the day we started from the tree-clad plains of bird-haunted berks till that on which, after crossing the wild grampian range, we rolled into the capital of the scottish highlands, the wanderer was gay interiorly with wild and garden flowers. did we purchase these flowers? never once, for, strange as it may seem, i do not think that i ever left a town or village or humblest hamlet without having a bouquet or two presented to me. nor were the persons who brought those flowers always such as one would feel inclined to associate with the poetry that floated around their floral gifts. a rosebud or a lily, in the fair fingers of a beautiful girl, is idyllic; it is in keeping with nature. but what say you to a bunch of sweet-scented carnations, pinks, and lilac pea-blooms trailing over the toil-tinted fingers of some rustic dame of forty? would you not accept the latter almost as readily as the former? yes, you would, especially if she said,-- "have a few flowers, sir? i know you are fond of them." especially if you knew that a great kindly lump of a heart was beating under a probably not over-fashionable corset, and a real living soul peeping out through a pair of merry laughing eyes. but rough-looking men, ay, even miners, also brought me flowers. and children never failed me. their wee bits of bouquets were oft-times sadly untidy, but their wee bits of hearts were warm, so i never refused them. some bairnies were too shy to come right round to the back door of the wanderer with their floral offerings; they would watch a chance when they imagined i was not looking, lay them on the _coupe_, and run. which of the wild flowers, i now wonder, did i love the best? i can hardly say. perhaps the wild roses that trailed for ever over the hedgerows. but have they not their rivals in the climbing honeysuckle and in the bright-eyed creeping convolvulus? yes, and in a hundred other sweet gems. not a flower can i think of, indeed, that does not recall to my mind some pleasant scene. "even now what affections the violet awakes; what loved little islands, twice seen in their lakes, can the wild water-lily restore; what landscapes i read in the primrose's looks, and what pictures of pebbles and minnowy brooks, in the vetches that tangle the shore." if any proof were needed that i had derived the most intense pleasure from the constant companionship of the wild flowers in my caravan rambles, it is surely to be found in the fact that i am writing this chapter, on a bitter winter's morning in the month of march, sitting in my garden wigwam. when i essayed to commence work to-day i found my writing fluid was frozen, and i could not coax even a dip from the bottle until i had set it over the stove. and yet it is a morning in march. last year at this time the sun was warm, the air was balmy, the crocuses, primroses, snowdrops, and even the tulips were in bloom, and the brown earth was soft and dry. now it is as hard as adamant. but there is beauty even in this wintry scene. if i take a walk into the garden i find that the hoarfrost brightens everything, and that the tiniest object, even a blade of grass or a withered leaf, is worthy of being admired. that tall row of spectre-like poplar trees--whether it be winter or summer--is a study in itself. but last night those trees were pointing at the stars with dark skeleton fingers. those fingers are pointing now at the blue, blue sky, but they seem changed to whitest coral. those elm trees along the side of yonder field are clothed with a winter foliage of hoarfrost. seems as though in a single night they had come again into full leaf, and those leaves had been changed by enchantment into snow. as the sunlight streams athwart them they are beautiful beyond compare. my wild-birds are here in the garden and on the lawns in dozens, huddled in under the dwarf spruces, firs, and laurels, and even cock-robin looks all of a heap. hey presto! i have but to shut my eyes and think back, and the scene is changed. i see before me-- a hedgerow in july. where am i? away up north on a yorkshire wold. the horses are out and grazing on the clovery sward by the roadside. how silent it is! as i lie here on my rugs on the _coupe_, i can hear a mole rustling through the grass at the hedge-foot. but the hedgerow itself, and all about it, how refreshing to look upon! surely no billhook or axe of woodsman has ever come near it since first it began to grow. its very irregularity gives it additional charm. the hedge itself is really of blackthorn, but its white or pink-ticked blossoms have faded and given place to haws. here and there, as far as you can see, up through it grow wild dwarf oak bushes, their foliage crimson or carmine tipped, dwarf plane-trees, with broad sienna leaves, that glitter in the sunshine as if they had been varnished; and elder-trees with big white stars of blossom, and rougher leaves of darkest green. young elms, too, are yonder, and infant ash trees with stems as black as ink and strangely tinted leaves. [plane-trees, so-called, but in reality the sycamore: the acer pseudo-platanus of naturalists.] "the sycamore, capricious in attire, now green, now tawny, and ere autumn yet has changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright." here and there wild roses, pale pink or deepest crimson, blush out; here and there are patches of honeysuckle, and here and there waves of the white flowery bryony roll foaming over the green. in some places the light and tender-leaved woody nightshade, whose berries in bunches of crimson and green are so pretty in autumn, impart a spring-like appearance to this hedgerow. nor does the beauty of my hedgerow end here for all along beneath grow rare and lovely grasses, interspersed with star-eyed silenes and gorgeous spikes of the purple stachys, while the adjoining sward is carpeted over with beds of brilliant clover, red and white, with golden bird's-foot trefoil, and patches of pale blue speedwells. bees are very busy all over this glory of colour, humming as they fly from flower to flower, but becoming abruptly silent as soon as their feet touch the silken blossoms. and birds there are too, though now they have for the most part ceased to sing, except the robin and a yellow-hammer, and these birds will continue lilting long after even the autumn tints are on the trees. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ hedgerows in general. these were almost ever with us--one long-drawn delight. for five hundred miles, indeed, they accompanied the wanderer on her journey. when, at any time, they left us for a space, and stone fences or wooden palings took their place, we were never happy until they again appeared. from memory i jot down the names of a few of the plants and flowers that mingled with them, or trailed over or through them, constituting their chief charm and beauty. first on the list, naturally enough, come the rose gems, including the sweetbriar or eglantine, with its deep pink flowers and sweetly-scented leaves; the field-rose, the _rosa arvensis_, with pale pink blossoms, and the charming _rosa canina_, or dog-rose, with petals of a darker red. as i have already said, these roses grew everywhere among the hedges, in garlands, in wreaths, and in canopies, and always looked their best where the blackthorns had not been disfigured by touch of billhook or pruning shears. in the earlier spring the hedges had a beauty of their own, being snowed over with clustering blossoms. the bryony and the honeysuckle i have already mentioned. the green and crimson berries on the former, when the summer begins to wane, are rivalled only by those of the charming woody nightshade. regarding the honeysuckle, a naturalist in a london magazine wrote the other day as follows:-- "in the ordinary way, the branches grow out from the parent stem and twine round the first support they meet _front right to left_;"--the italics are mine--"but should they fail to find that support, two branches will mutually support each other, one twining from left to right, the other from right to left." now the fact is that the honeysuckle twines from left to right, and if two or three branches are together, as we often find them, it is the weaker who twine round the stronger,--still from left to right. the wild convolvulus, with its great white bell-like blossoms, that so often stars the hedgerows with a singular beauty, twines always to meet the sun. the _vicia cracca_, or purple climbing vetch, is an object of rare loveliness in july and august. it is a species of clustering-blossomed tare or sweet-pea, with neat, wee green leaves, and flowers of a bluish purple. it is not content with creeping up through the hedge, but it must go crawling along over the top to woo the sunshine. later on in summer and early autumn blooms the well-known bramble--the black-fruited _rubus_. no poet, as far as i am aware, has yet celebrated the purple trailing vetch in song, but the bramble has not been forgotten. hear elliott's exquisite lines:-- "though woodbines flaunt and roses glow o'er all the fragrant bowers, thou needst not be ashamed to show thy satin-threaded flowers. for dull the eye, the heart is dull, that cannot feel how fair, amid all beauty, beautiful, thy tender blossoms are. * * * * *. "while silent showers are falling slow, and 'mid the general hush, a sweet air lifts the little bough, low whispering through the bush. the primrose to the grave has gone; the hawthorn flower is dead; the violet by the moss'd grey stone hath laid her weary head; but thou, wild bramble, back dost bring, in all their beauteous power, the fresh green days of life's fair spring, and boyhood's blossoming hour." nestling down by the hedgerow foot, among tall reeds and grey or brown seedling grasses, is many and many a charming wild flower, such as the stachys, the crimson ragged-robbin, with flowers like coral, and the snow-white silene. woodland and copse. far away in bonnie scotland, where the woods are mostly composed of dark, waving, brown-stemmed pine-trees, feathery larches-- crimson-tasselled in early spring--or gloomy spruces, there is often an absence of any undergrowth, unless it be heather. but english copses are often one wild tanglement of trailing flowering shrubs, with banks of bracken or ferns. i have often stopped to admire the marvellous beauty of these copse-lands; their wealth of silent loveliness has more than once brought the tears to my eyes. so now i refrain from describing them, because any attempt to do so would end in failure. but, reader, have you seen an english woodland carpeted with deep-blue hyacinths, with snowy anemones, or with the sweet wee white pink-streaked sorrel, with its bashful leaves of bending green? have you seen the golden-tasselled broom waving in the soft spring wind? or, later on in the season, the tall and stately foxgloves blooming red amidst the greenery of a fern bank? if not, a treat, both rich and rare, may still be yours. is it not said that the wild anemone or wind-flower grew from the tears shed by venus over the grave of adonis? "but gentle flowers are born, and bloom around, from every drop that falls upon the ground: where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose, and where a tear has dropped a wind-flower blows." i think it must be the wood-anemone that is referred to as the snowdrop in that bonnie old scottish song, _my nannie's awa'_:-- "the snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn, and violets blaw in the dews o' the morn, they pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, they mind me on nannie--and nannie's awa'." fields and moorland. turning to these, what oceans of beauty i saw everywhere around me during all the months of my travel! in may, many of the uplands were covered with the yellow-blooming furze or whins. the black forest, for instance, 'twixt guildford and frimley, was a sight worth travelling long miles to look upon; while nothing could excel the fragrance of the perfume shed everywhere around. the furze lies low to the ground where it has plenty of sunlight, but straggles upwards to seek the light when it grows in the woodlands. sweet-scented thistles of every shade--i had almost added "and every shape"--grew plentifully in corners of fields we passed, mostly prickly, but some harmless; lilac, pale pink, dark crimson, and purple; field thistles, milk thistles, melancholy thistles, and nodding thistles. this latter species i found growing in glorious profusion on the links of musselburgh, and i quite adorned my caravan with them. wherever thistles grow in fields, the tansy is not far off; a showy, yellow, too-hardy flower, without, in my opinion, a vestige of romance about it. perhaps the sheep think differently, for long after scottish fields and "baulks" are picked bare, they can always find a pluck of sweet green grass by taking their tongues round a tansy stem. the yellow meadow vetchling is a beautiful, bright-yellow, pea-like flower, that dearly loves a snug corner under a hedge or bush of furze. the pink-blossomed geranium-like mallow we all know. it is none the less lovely, however, because common; and here is a hint worth knowing-- it looks well in a vase, and will bloom for weeks in water. but a far more lovely flower, that i first foregathered with, i think, in yorkshire, is the wild blue geranium, or meadow crane's-bill. words alone could not describe its beauty, it must be seen. it mostly grows by the wayside. need i even name the corn-marigold, or the blush of the corn-poppies among green growing wheat, or the exquisitely lovely sainfoin, that sheds its crimson beauty over many a southern field; or the blue and charming corn-flower, that delights to bloom amid the ripening grain? oh! dear farmer, call it not a weed, hint not at its being a hurt-sickle--rather admire and love it. nay, but the farmer will not, he has no romance about him, and will quote me lines like these:-- "bluebottle, thee my numbers fain would raise, and thy complexion challenge all my praise, thy countenance like summer skies is fair; but ah! how different thy vile manners are. a treacherous guest, destruction thou dost bring to th' inhospitable field where thou dost spring, thou blunt'st the very reaper's sickle, and so in life and death becom'st the farmer's foe." but cowslips, and buttercups-- "the winking mary-buds begin to ope their golden eyes." shakespeare. --and the chaste and pretty ox-eye daisy, even a farmer will not object to my adoring, for the very names of these bring to his mind sleek-sided cattle wading in spring time knee-deep in fields of green sweet grass. and what shall i say of gowan or mountain-daisy? oh! what should i say, but repeat the lines of our own immortal bard:-- "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, thou's met me in an evil hour, for i maun crush among the stoure thy slender stem: to save thee now is past my power, thou bonnie gem?" the spotted orchis is a sweet-scented highland moorland gem, but right glad i was to find it meeting me on the banks of northumberland. far over the borders grew the pretty scottish bluebell, and on rough patches of ground the trailing lilac rest-harrow. singly, a sprig of bluebells may not look to much advantage, but growing in great beds and patches, and hanging in heaps to old rained walls, or turf-capped dykes, they are very effective indeed. i had meant to speak in this chapter of many other flowers that grow by the wayside--of the dove's foot cranebill, of the purple loose-strife, of the sky-blue chicory and the pink-eyed pimpernel, of the golden bird's-foot trefoil, of purple bugles, of yellow celandine, and of clover red and white. i had even meant to throw in a bird or two--the lark, for instance, that seems to fan the clouds with its quivering wing, the fluting blackbird of woodland and copse, the shrill-voiced mocking mavis, that makes the echoes ring from tree to tree; the cushat, that croodles so mournfully in the thickets of spruce; the wild-screaming curlew, and mayhap the great eagle itself. but i fear that i have already wearied the reader, and so must refrain. stay though, one word about our highland heather--one word and i have done. i have found both this and heath growing in england, but never in the same savage luxuriance as on the wilds of the grampian range. here you can wander in it waist-deep, if you are not afraid of snakes, and this _erica cineria_ you will find of every shade, from white--rare--to pink and darkest crimson:-- "those wastes of heath that stretch for leagues to lure the bee, where the wild bird, on pinions strong, wheels round, and pours his piping song, and timid creatures wander free." i trust i may be forgiven for making all these poetical quotations, but as i commenced with one from the poet campbell, so must i end with one from the selfsame bard. it is of the purple heath and heather he is thinking when he writes:-- "i love you for lulling me back into dreams of the blue highland mountains, and echoing streams, and of birchen glades breathing their balm. while the deer is seen glancing in sunshine remote, and the deep-mellow gush of the wood-pigeon's note, makes music that sweetens the calm." chapter twenty five. a chapter about children--children in bouquets--children by the "sad sea-wave"--sweet maudie brewer--wee dickie ellis--the miner's sprite. "on these laughing rosy faces there are no deep lines of sin; none of passion's dreary traces, that betray the wounds within." tupper. as much even as the wild flowers themselves were the children a feature in the seemingly interminable panorama, that flitted past me in my long tour in the wanderer. the wild flowers were everywhere; by wayside, on hillside, by streamlet, in copse, hiding in fairy nooks among the brackens in the woodlands, carpeting mossy banks in the pine forests, floating on the lakes, nodding to the running brooklets, creeping over ruined walls and fences, and starring the hedgerows,--wild flowers, wild flowers everywhere. wild flowers everywhere, and children everywhere. _country children_: minding cows or sheep or pigs; trotting blondin-like along the parapets of high bridges; riding or swinging on gateways; stringing daisies on flowery meads; paddling in stream or in burn; fishing by lonely tarns; swinging in the tree-tops; or boring head first through hedges of blackthorn and furze. _village children_: sitting in dozens on door-steps; a-squat on the footpath, nursing babies as big as themselves; at play on the walks or in the street midst; toddling solemnly off to school, with well-washed faces, and book-laden; or rushing merrily home again, with faces all begrimed with mud and tears. _seaside children_: out in boats, rocked in the cradle of the deep; bathing in dozens, swimming, sprawling, splashing, whooping; squatting among the seaweed; dabbling in pools, or clinging to the cliffs with all the tenacity of crabs. children everywhere, all along. curly-pated children, bare-legged children, well-dressed children, and children in rags, but all shouting, screaming, laughing, smiling, or singing, and all as happy, seemingly, as the summer's day was long. "harmless, happy little treasures, full of truth, and trust, and mirth; richest wealth and purest pleasures in this mean and guilty earth. "but yours is the sunny dimple, radiant with untutored smiles; yours the heart, sincere and simple, innocent of selfish wiles. "yours the natural curling tresses, prattling tongues and shyness coy; tottering steps and kind caresses, pure with health, and warm with joy." look at that little innocent yonder in that cottage doorway. there is a well-kept garden in front of the house, but not a flower in it more sweet than she. round-faced, curly-tressed, dimpled chin and cheeks and knee. it is early morning, she has rushed to the door in her little night-dress; one stocking is on, the other she waves wildly aloft as she cheers the wanderer. here at a village door is a group--a bouquet you may say--worth looking it. three such pretty children, seated in a doorway, on the steps. they are dressed in blue, with white socks and fairy-like caps, and the oldest is holding a bald-headed crowing baby in her lap. here is another tableau: three pretty little well-dressed maidens, hand-in-hand, dancing and whirling in indian circle round a hole which has been dug in the green sward; a fourth seated close by the hole, flicking the dust up in clouds with a green bough, and giving each a full share of it. never mind the lace-edged dresses, heed not the snow-white pinafores, round and round and round they go, and how they laugh and shout, and enjoy it! and here is a bouquet from musselburgh, though perhaps it has a somewhat fishy flavour. a group of chubby children on the beach, among the somewhat black sand; one has a large crab-shell with a string to it-- this is his cart, and it is laden with cockle-shells and star-fish; another boy has a dead eel on a string; a baby is lying on its face digging holes in the sand with a razor shell, and a little girl is nursing a cod's head for a doll, and has dressed it up with seaweed. they have bare heads and feet, and smudgy faces, but dear me! they do look happy! five little kilted boys, squatting on the grass; between them is a round kettle pot half-filled with porridge, and each holds in his hand a "cogie" of milk. but they start to their feet as the wanderer rolls past, wave aloft their horn spoons, and shout till we are out of sight. here is a little cherub of some seven summers old. he very likely belongs to that pretty cottage whose redbrick gable peeps out through a cloudland of trees yonder. he has a barrow, and it is nearly full, for the boy has been scavenging on the road, gathering material to make the mushrooms grow in his father's garden. right in the centre of this he has dug a nest, and in this nest is seated his baby brother. he is telling him a story, and the baby brother is crowing and kicking, and looking all over so delighted and joyful in his questionable nest, that one almost envies him. that youngster _may_ emigrate some day, and he _may_ become president of america yet. when i think of that i cannot help feeling a kind of respect for him. the most smudgy-faced children i noticed on my tour were, i think, some of those in the outlying villages of the north riding of yorks. of course, they always came trooping out to view the caravan, from cottage doors, from garden gates, from schools, and from playgrounds, the foremost calling aloud to those behind to come quick, to run, for a show was coming. if we happened to stop, they would gather around us and stare with saucer eyes and open mouths astonished, expectant. if we drove on quickly, they speedily set up an impromptu "hip, hip, hoor--ay--ay!" and waved their arms or ragged caps in the air. talk about the great unwashed! these were the little unwashed, and a far larger section of the public than their bigger brethren. do not blame the poor things because their faces are not over cleanly. it may not even be the fault of their parents. early of a morning we often met children going toddling off to school, with books and slates, and, mind you, with faces that positively glistened and reflected the sunbeams, the result of recent ablutions, and a plentiful use of soap. we met school children again coming from school of an evening, but sadly different in facial aspect, for lo! and alas! grief soon begins of a morning with a child, and tears begin to flow, so cheeks get wet, and are wiped, and dust begrimes them, and long ere evening the average boy's face is woefully be-smudged. i found a little scotch boy once standing with his face against a hayrick weeping bitterly. i daresay he had been chastised for some fault and had come here to indulge in the luxury of a good cry. but would he own it? no, he was too scotch for that. "what are ye greetin' [weeping] about, my wee laddie?" i said, pulling him round. "i'm no greetin'," he replied through his tears. "it looks unco' like it," i ventured to remark. "i tell you, si-si-sir," he sobbed, "i'm _no_ gaga--greetin'. i'm only just letting-- "`the tears doon fa', for jock o' hadedean.'" i gave him a penny on the spot, and that changed his tune. children by the "sad sea-wave." there is nothing sad about the sea from a child's point of view. on many a long voyage i have known children be the light and the life of a ship fore and aft. coming from the cape once i remember we had just one child passenger, a fair-haired, blue-eyed, curly-polled little rascal whom the sailors had baptised tommy tadpole. he was a saloon passenger, but was quite as often forward among the men on deck or down below. not more than seven years of age, i often wondered he did not have his neck broken, for even in half a gale of wind he would be rushing about like a mad thing, or up and down the steep iron ladder that led to the engine room. he had a mother on board, and a nurse as well, but he was too slippery for either, and for the matter of that everyone on board was tommy's nurse or playmate. catch-me-who-catch-can was the boy's favourite game, and at this he would keep three sailors busy for half-an-hour, and still manage to elude their grasp. how he doubled and bolted and dived, to be sure, round the binnacle, round the capstan, over the winch, under the spare anchor, down one ladder and up another--it was marvellous! one day i remember he was fairly caught; he got up into the main-rigging, and actually through the lubber hole into the main-top. ah! but tommy couldn't get back, and there he sat for some time, for all the world like that sweet little cherub who sits up aloft to look after the life of poor jack, till a sturdy seaman ran up, and tommy rode down on his shoulder. and the waves were never high enough, nor the wind stormy enough, to frighten tommy tadpole. but country children on a visit to the seashore find fun and joy and something to laugh at in every breaker or tumbling wave. a storm was raging at brighton the day after my arrival there in the wanderer. great seas were thundering in upon the shingly beach and leaping madly over pier and wall. "look, look!" cried my little daughter inez delightedly, "how the waves are smoking!" "surely," she added, "great whales must be in the water to make it wobble so." but it was great fun to her to watch them "wobbling," all the same. she crowed with joy at the scene. "oh! they do make me laugh so," she cried, clapping her tiny hands, "they are such fun!" yes, and for weeks afterwards, whenever she thought of that storm-tossed ocean she would laugh. but really you can find everlasting amusement at the seaside in summer or in autumn--supposing you are a child, i mean. shingle is not very nice to dig among, perhaps, with a wooden spade, but then you find such quantities of pretty stones and shells among it, and morsels of coloured glass worn round by the action of the waves. you cannot build a very satisfactory house or fortification with the smaller kinds of shingle, but you can throw spadefuls of it in all directions--over your companions or over your nurse, and if a shower of it does fall on that old gentleman's long hat, what matters it whether he be angry or not? it was fun to hear it rattle, and you would do it again and again if you only dared. if you are permitted to take off shoes and stockings and tuck up your dress, what a glorious treat to wade on the soft sand, and feel the merry wee waves playing soft and warm about your legs! if you cannot have shoes and stockings off, then you can chase each receding wave, and let the advancing ones chase you. this will make you laugh, and if one should overtake you and go swilling round your ankles, why, what matters it? to listen to the water jerking in your boots at every step is in itself good fun. there is endless amusement to be got out of seaweed, too, and if you have a big dog the fun will be fast and furious. perhaps he is a large newfoundland, like our hurricane bob. by the seaside bob is always on the best of terms with himself and every other living creature. you can bury him in the sand all but the nose; you can clothe him from head to tail with broad bands of wet seaweed, he enjoys it all, takes everything in good part. he will go splashing and dashing into the sea after a stick or a stone, and if you were to fall plump into the sea yourself he would jump after you, carry you out, and lay you on the beach in the most businesslike fashion imaginable; then shake himself, the water that flies from his great jacket of jet making rainbows all round him in the sunshine. no; there is no sadness about the sea-wave in the happy, merry days of childhood. littlehampton is altogether a children's watering-place. there they were by the dozen and score, sailing yachts in little pools, flying kites and building castles, playing at horses, riding on donkeys, gathering shells and seaweed, dancing, singing, laughing, screaming, racing, chasing, paddling and puddling, and all as happy as happy could be. i was always pleased enough to have interesting children come and see me; whether they brought little bouquets of flowers with them--which they often did--or not, they always brought sunshine. let me give just one or two specimens of my juvenile visitors. i _could_ give a hundred. sweet maudie brewer. i could not help qualifying her name with a pretty adjective from the first moment i saw her. not that maudie is a very beautiful child, but so winning and engaging, and exceedingly old-fashioned. i made her acquaintance at the inn where my horses were stabled. she is an orphan--virtually, at all events--but the landlord of the hotel is exceedingly good to her, and very proud also of his wee six-year-old maudie. it is as a conversationalist that maudie shines. she has no shyness, but talks like an old, old world-wise mite of a woman. "now," she said, after we had talked on a variety of topics, "come into the parlour and i shall play and sing to you?" as she took me by the hand i had to go, but had i known the little treat i was to have i should have gone more willingly. for not only can maudie sing well, but she plays airs and waltzes in a way that quite surprised me; and i found myself standing by the piano turning over the leaves for this child of six summers as seriously as if she had been seventeen. that was maudie brewer. wee dickie ellis. dickie is another old-fashioned child, a handsome, healthful country boy, who lives in yorkshire. very chatty and very free was dickie, but by no means impertinent. age about seven. but his age does not cost dickie a thought, for when i asked him how old he was, he said it was either six or sixteen, but he wasn't sure which. he admired the caravan, and admired hurricane bob, but it was my talking cockatoo that specially took his fancy. he had not been gone half-an-hour till i found him on the steps again. "i've just coome," he said, "to have another look at t'ould poll parrot." polly took to him, danced to him and sang to him, and finally make a great grab at his nose. dickie was back in an hour. "coome again," he explained, "to have a look at t'ould poll parrot." i thought i was rid of him now for the day; but after sunset, lo! dickie appeared once more. "i'm gangin' to bed noo," he said, "and i want to say `good-night' to t'ould poll parrot." and next morning, before i started, up came dickie sure enough. "just coome," he sadly remarked, "to have t'last look at t'ould poll parrot." the miner's sprite. the wanderer was lying in a quiet meadow in a mining district. it was a lovely summer's evening; tall trees and a church tower not far off stood out dark against a crimson sky, for the sun had but just gone down. i was seated reading on the back steps, and all alone. "peas, sir," said a voice close to me; "peas, sir." "i don't buy peas," i replied, looking up in some surprise, for i'd heard no footstep. "peas, sir," persisted the child--"i mean, if oo peas, sir, i've come to see your talavan." what a sprite she looked! what a gnome! her little face and hands and bare legs and feet were black with coal dust, only her lips were pink. when she smiled she showed two rows of little pearly teeth, and her eyes were very large and lustrous. i took all this in at a glance, and could not help noticing the smallness of her feet and hands and ears. "take my hand and help me up the stails. be twick." i did as i was told, and everything inside was duly criticised and admired. she sat on a footstool, and told me a deal about herself. she spent all the day in the mine, she said, playing and singing, and everybody loved her, and was so "dood" to her. she lived with her pa and ma in a cottage she pointed to. "but," she added, "my pa isn't my real faddel (father), and ma isn't my real muddel (mother)." here was a mystery. "and where is your real father and mother?" "oh!" she replied, "i never had a real faddel and muddel." as she was going away she said,-- "you may tiss me, and tome and see me." i could not see my way to kiss so black a face, but i promised to go and see her at her "faddel's" cottage. i did so in an hour, but only to find the mystery that hung around my little gnome deepened. my little gnome was a gnome no more, but a fairy, washed and clean and neatly dressed, and with a wealth of sunny hair floating over her shoulders. the miner himself was clean, too, and the cottage was the pink of tidiness and order. there were even flowers in vases, and a canary in a gilded cage hanging in the window. though i stayed and talked for quite a long time, i did not succeed in solving the mystery. "she ain't ours, sir, little looie ain't," said the sturdy miner. "come to us in a queer way, but lo! sir, how we does love her, to be sure!" chapter twenty six. from inverness to london--southward away--the "wanderer's" little mistress--a quiet sabbath--a dreary evening at aldbourne. "while he hath a child to love him no man can be poor indeed; while he trusts a friend above him none can sorrow, fear, or need." tupper. i would willingly draw a veil over the incidents that occurred, and the accidents that happened, to the wanderer from the time she left inverness by train, till the day i find myself once more out on the breezy common of streatham, with the horses' heads bearing southward away! but i am telling a plain unvarnished tale, not merely for the amusement of those who may do me the honour to read it, but for the guidance of those who may at some future date take it into their heads to enjoy a gipsy outing. when i arrived in glasgow the summer had so far gone, that it became a question with me whether i should finish my northern tour there and journey back to the south of england by a different route, or push on and cross the grampians at all hazards, take the whole expedition, men, horses, and caravan, back by train to london, and tour thence down through the southern counties. the new forest had always a charm for me, as all forests have, and i longed to take the wanderer through it. so i chose the latter plan, and for sake of the experience i gained-- dark as it was--i do not now regret it. i ought to say that the officials of all ranks belonging to the railway (north-eastern route) were exceedingly kind and considerate, and did all for my comfort and the safety of the wanderer that could be done. i shall never forget the pains mr marsters, of glasgow, took about the matter, nor that of mr mclean and others in inverness. the wheels were taken off the wanderer as well as the wheel carriages, and she was then shipped on to a trolly and duly secured. the _one_ great mistake made was not having springs under her. men and horses went on before, and the caravan followed by goods. in due time i myself arrived in town, and by the aid of a coachmaker and a gang of hands the great caravan was unloaded, and carefully bolted once more on her fore and aft carriages. her beautiful polished mahogany sides and gilding were black with grime and smoke, but a wash all over put them to rights. i then unlocked the back door to see how matters stood there. something lay behind the door, but by dint of steady pushing it opened at last. then the scene presented to my view beggars description. a more complete wreck of the interior of a saloon it is impossible to conceive. the doors of every cupboard and locker had been forced open with the awful shaking, and their contents lay on the deck mixed up in one chaotic heap--china, delft, and broken glass, my papers, manuscripts, and letters, my choicest photographs and best bound books, butter, bread, the cruets, eggs, and portions of my wardrobe, while the whole was freely besprinkled with paraffin, and derisively, as it were, bestrewn with blooming heather and hothouse flowers! among the litter lay my little ammunition magazine and scattered matches--safety matches i need not say, else the probability is there would have been a bonfire on the line, and no more wanderer to-day. it seemed to me to be the work of fiends. it was enough to make an angel weep. the very rods on which ran the crimson silken hangings of the skylight windows were wrenched out and added to the pile. it struck me at first, and the same thought occurred to the goods manager, that burglars had been at work and sacked the wanderer. but no, for nothing was missing. moral to all whom it concerns: never put your caravan on a railway track. it took me days of hard work to restore the _status quo ante_. and all the while it was raining, and the streets covered with mud. the noise, and din, and dirt around me, were maddening. how i hated london then! its streets, its shops, its rattling cabs, its umbrellaed crowds, the very language of its people. and how i wished myself back again on the wolds of yorkshire, among the northumbrian hills or the grampian range--anywhere--anywhere out of the world of london, and feel the fresh, pure breezes of heaven blowing in my face, see birds, and trees, and flowers, and listen to the delightful sounds of rural life, instead of to cockney-murdered english. caravans like the wanderer have no business to be in cities. they ought to give cities a wide, wide berth, and it will be my aim to do so in future. the journey through london was accomplished in safety, though we found ourselves more than once in a block. when we had crossed over chelsea bridge, however, my spirits, which till now had been far below freezing point, began to rise, and once upon the common, with dwarf furze blooming here and there, and crimson morsels of ling (_erica communis_), a balmy soft wind blowing, and the sun shining in a sky of blue, i forgot my troubles, and found myself singing once more, a free and independent gipsy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ but now to hark back a little. who should meet me in london, all unexpectedly as it were, but "mamma"? i mean my children's mother, and with her came my little daughter inez! long flaxen hair hath she, and big grey wondering eyes, but she is wise in her day and generation. and inez had determined in her own mind that she would accompany me on my tour through england--south, and be the little mistress of the land-yacht wanderer. so mamma left us at park lane, and went away home to her other wee "toddlers." she took with her polly, the cockatoo. it was a fair exchange: i had inez and she had polly; besides, one parrot is quite enough in a caravan, though for the matter of that inie can do the talking of two. a few silent tears were dropped after the parting--tears which she tried to hide from me. but london sights and wonders are to a child pre-eminently calculated to banish grief and care, especially when supplemented by an unlimited allowance of ripe plums and chocolate creams. inez dried her eyes and smiled, and never cried again. but if her cares were ended mine were only commencing, and would not terminate for weeks to come. henceforward a child's silvery treble was to ring through my "hallan," [scottish, cottage or place of abode] and little footsteps would patter on my stairs. i was to bear the onus of a great responsibility. i was to be both "ma" and "pa" to her, nurse and lady's maid all in one. might not, i asked myself, any one or more of a thousand accidents befall her? might she not, for instance, catch her death of cold, get lost in a crowd, get run over in some street, fall ill of pear and plum fever, or off the steps of the caravan? i must keep my eye on her by night and by day. i made special arrangements for her comfort at night. the valet's after-cabin was requisitioned for extra space, and he relegated to sleep on shore, so that we and bob had all the wanderer to ourselves. i am writing these lines at brighton, after having been a week on the road, and i must record that inie and i get on well together. she is delighted with her gipsy tour, and with all the wonders she daily sees, and the ever-varying panorama that flits dreamlike before her, as we trot along on our journey. she nestles among rags on the broad _coupe_, or sits on my knee beside the driver, talking, laughing, or singing all day long. we never want apples and pears in the caravan--though they are _given_ to us, not bought--and it is inie's pleasure sometimes to stop the wanderer when she sees a crowd of schoolchildren, pitch these apples out, and laugh and crow to witness the grand scramble. but some sights and scenes that present themselves to us on the road are so beautiful, or so funny, or so queer withal, that merely to laugh or crow would not sufficiently relieve the child's feelings. on such occasions, and they are neither few nor far between, she must needs clap her tiny hands and kick with delight, and "hoo-oo-ray-ay!" till i fear people must take her for a little mad thing, or a romany rye run wild. such are the joys of gipsy life from a child's point of view. she eats well, too, on the road; and that makes me happy, for i must not let her get thin, you know. probably she _does_ get a good deal of her own way. "you mustn't spoil her," ma said before she left. i'll try not to forget that next time inie wants another pineapple, or more than four ices at a sitting. my great difficulty, however, is with her hair of a morning. she can do a good deal for herself in the way of dressing, but her hair--that the wind toys so with and drives distracted--sometimes is brushed out and left to float, but is more often plaited, and that is my work. well, when a boy, i was a wondrous artist in rushes. always at home in woodland, on moor, or on marsh--i could have made you anything out of them, a hat or a rattle, a basket or creel, or even a fool's cap, had you chosen to wear one. and my adroitness in rush-work now stands me in good stead in plaiting my wee witch's hair. hurricane bob is extremely fond of his little mistress. i'm sure he feels that he, too, has--when on guard--an extra responsibility, and if he hears a footstep near the caravan at night, he shakes the wanderer fore and aft with his fierce barking, and would shake the owner of the footstep too if he only had the chance. our first bivouac after leaving london was in a kindly farmer's stackyard, near croydon. his name is m--, and the unostentatious hospitality of himself, his wife, and daughter i am never likely to forget. i will give but one example of it. "you can stay here as long as you please," he said, in reply to a query of mine. "i'll be glad to have you. for the bit of hay and straw your horses have you may pay if you please, and as little as you please, but for stable room--no." he would not insult _my_ pride by preventing me from remunerating him for the fodder, nor must i touch _his_ pride by offering to pay for stable room. it was nearly seven o'clock, but a lovely evening, when i reached the gate of this farmer's fine old house. almost the first words he said to me as he came out to meet me on the lawn were these: "ha! and so the wanderer has come at last! i'm as pleased as anything to see you." he had been reading my adventures in the _leisure hour_. we remained at anchor all next day, and inez and i went to the crystal palace, and probably no two children ever enjoyed themselves more. next day was saturday, and we started from the farm about eleven, but owing to a mishap it was two pm before we got clear of the town of croydon itself. the mishap occurred through my own absent-mindedness. i left the wanderer in one of the numerous new streets in the outskirts, not far off the brighton road, and walked with inez about a mile up into the town to do some shopping. on returning, a heavy shower, a pelting shower in fact, came on, and so engrossed was i in protecting my little charge with the umbrella, that when i at last looked up, lo! we were lost! the best or the worst of it was that i did not know east from west, had never been in croydon before, and had neglected to take the name of the street in which i had left the wanderer. it was a sad fix, and it took me two good hours to find my house upon wheels. on through red hill, and right away for horley; but though the horses were tired and it rained incessantly, it could not damp our spirits. at the chequers inn we found a pleasant landlord and landlady, and a delightfully quiet meadow in which we spent the sabbath. the chequers inn is very old-fashioned indeed, and seems to have been built and added to through many generations, the ancient parts never being taken down. sunday was a delightful day, so still, so quiet, so beautiful. to live, to exist on such a day as this amid such scenery is to be happy. _september th_.--we are on the road by nine. it is but five-and-twenty miles to brighton. if we can do seven-and-twenty among highland hills, we can surely do the same in tame domestic england. but the roads are soft and sorely trying, and at hand cross we are completely storm-stayed by the terrible downpours of rain. i do not think the oldest inhabitant could have been far wrong when he averred it was the heaviest he ever could remember. during a kind of break in the deluge we started, and in the evening reached the cross roads at aldbourne, and here we got snugly at anchor after an eighteen-mile journey. my little maiden went to sleep on the sofa hours before we got in, and there she was sound and fast. i could not even wake her for supper, though on my little table were viands that might make the teeth of a monk of the olden times water with joyful anticipation. so i supped alone with bob. i spent a gloomy eerisome evening. it was _so_ gloomy! and out of doors when i dared to look the darkness was profound. the incessant rattling of the raindrops on the roof was a sound not calculated to raise one's spirits. i began to take a dreary view of life in general, indeed i began to feel superstitions. i-- "papa, dear." ha! inez was awake, and smiling all over. well, we would have a little pleasant prattle together, and then to bed. the rattling of the raindrops would help to woo us to sleep, and if the wind blew the wanderer would rock. we would dream we were at sea, and sleep all the sounder for it. "good-night, dearie." "good-night, darling papie." chapter twenty seven. storm-stayed at brighton--along the coast and to lyndhurst--the new forest--homewards through hants. "dim coasts and cloud-like hills and shoreless ocean, it seemed like omnipresence! god methought had built himself a temple; the whole world seem'd imaged in its vast circumference." coleridge. "rides and rambles, sports and farming, home the heart for ever warming; books and friends and ease; life must after all be charming, full of joys like these." tupper. i love brighton, and if there were any probability of my ever "settling down," as it is called, anywhere in this world before the final settling down, i would just as soon it should be in brighton as in any place i know. it is now the th of september, and the wanderer has been storm-stayed here for days by equinoctial gales. she occupies a good situation, however, in a spacious walled enclosure, and although she has been rocking about like a gun-brig in biscay bay, she has not blown over. as, owing to the high winds and stormy waves, digging on the sands, gathering shells, and other outdoor amusements have been denied us, we have tried to make up for it by visiting the theatre and spending long hours in the aquarium. the aquarium is a dear delightful place. we have been much interested in the performances of the infant jumbo, the dwarf elephant, and no wonder. he kneels, and stands, and walks, plays a mouth organ, makes his way across a row of ninepins, and across a bar, balancing himself with a pole like a veritable blondin. he plays a street-organ and beats a drum at the same time; and last, and most wonderful of all, he rides a huge tricycle, which he works with his legs, steering himself with his trunk. this infant is not much bigger than a donkey, but has the sense and judgment of ten thousand donkeys. i should dearly like to go on a cycling tour with him to john o' groat's. i believe we would astonish the natives. how the wind has been blowing to be sure, and how wild and spiteful the waves have been; how they have leapt and dashed and foamed, wrecking everything within reach, and tearing up even the asphalt on the promenade! sunday was a pleasant day, though wind and sea were still high, and on monday we made an early start. it is a muggy, rainy morning, with a strong head wind. the sea is grey and misty and all flecked with foam, and the country through which we drive is possessed of little interest. before starting, however, we must needs pay a farewell visit to the shore, and enjoy five minutes' digging in the sand. then we said,-- "good-bye, old sea; we will be sure to come back again when summer days are fine. good-bye! ta, ta!" shoreham is a quaint and curious, but very far from cleanly little town. we heard here, by chance, that the storm waves had quite destroyed a portion of the lower road to worthing, and so we had to choose the upper and longer route, which we reached in time for dinner with the kindly landlord of the steyne hotel. if children are a blessing, verily mr c--is blessed indeed; he hath his quiver full, and no man deserves it more. worthing, i may as well mention parenthetically, is one of the most delightful watering-places on the south coast, and i verily believe that the sun shines here when it does not shine anywhere else in england. two dear children (winnie and ernie c--) came with us for three miles, bringing a basket to hold the blackberries they should gather on their way back. winnie was enchanted with this short experience of gipsy life, and wanted to know when i would return and take her to brighton. ernie did not say much; he was quietly happy. it broke up a fine afternoon, and now and then the sun shone out, making the drive to littlehampton, through the beautiful tree scenery, quite a delightful one. reached littlehampton-on-sea by five o'clock, and, seeing no other place handy, i undid the gate of the cricket-field and drove right in. i then obtained the address of the manager or secretary, and sent my valet to obtain leave. i have found this plan answer my purposes more than once. it is the quickest and the best. it was suggested to me long, long ago on reading that page of "midshipman easy" where that young gentleman proposes throwing the prisoners overboard and trying them by court-martial afterwards. so when mr blank came "to see about it" he found the _fait accompli_, looked somewhat funny, but forgave me. littlehampton-on-sea is a quiet and pleasant watering-place, bracing, too, and good for nervous people. i am surprised it is not more popular. it has the safest sea-bathing beach in the world, and is quite a heaven on earth for young children. we had a run and a romp on the splendid sands here last night, and i do not know which of the two was the maddest or the merriest, hurricane bob or his wee mistress. we are down here again this morning for half-an-hour's digging and a good run before starting. now last night the waves were rippling close up to the bathing-machines, and bob had a delicious dip. when we left the wanderer this morning he was daft with delight; he expected to bathe and splash again. but the tide is out, and the sea a mile away; only the soft, wet, rippled sands are here, and i have never in my life seen a dog look so puzzled or nonplussed as bob does at this moment. he is walking about on the sand looking for the sea. "what _can_ have happened?" he seems to be thinking. "the sea _was_ here last night, right enough. or can i have been dreaming? where on earth _has_ it gone to?" in the same grounds where the wanderer lay last night, but far away at the other end of the field, is another caravan--a very pretty and clean-looking one. i was told that it had been here a long time, that the man lived in it with his young wife, supporting her and himself by playing the dulcimer on the street. a quiet and highly respectable gipsy indeed. delayed by visitors till eleven, when we made a start westward once again. 'tis a glorious morning. the sky is brightly blue, flecked with white wee clouds, a haze on the horizon, with rock-and-tower clouds rising like snowbanks above it. the road to arundel is a winding one, but there are plenty of finger-posts in various stages of dilapidation. a well-treed country, too, and highly cultivated. every three or four minutes we pass a farm-steading or a cottage near the road, the gardens of the latter being all ablaze with bright geraniums, hydrangeas, dahlias, and sunflowers, and all kinds of berried, creeping, and climbing plants. how different, though, the hedgerows look now from what they did when i started on my rambles in early summer, for now sombre browns, blues, and yellows have taken the place of spring's tender greens, and red berries hang in clusters where erst was the hawthorn's bloom. the blossom has left the bramble-bushes, except here and there the pink of a solitary flower, but berries black and crimson cluster on them; only here and there among the ferns and brackens, now changing to brown, is the flush of nodding thistle, or some solitary orange flowers, and even as the wind sweeps through the trees a shower of leaves of every hue falls around us. a steep hill leads us down to the valley in which arundel is situated, and the peep from this braeland is very pretty and romantic. the town sweeps up the opposite hill among delightful woodlands, the duke of norfolk's castle, with its flagstaff over the ruined keep, being quite a feature of the landscape. we turn to the left in the town, glad we have not to climb that terrible hill; and, after getting clear of the town, bear away through a fine beech wood. the trees are already assuming their autumnal garb of dusky brown and yellow, and sombre shades of every hue, only the general sadness is relieved by the appearance here and there of a still verdant wide-spreading ash. on and on. up hill and down dell. hardly a field is to be seen, such a wildery of woodlands is there on every side. the brackens here are very tall, and, with the exception of a few dwarf oak, elm, or elder-bushes, constitute the only undergrowth. we are out in the open again, on a breezy upland; on each side the road is bounded by a great bank of gorse. when in bloom in may, how lovely it must look! we can see fields now, pale yellow or ploughed, suggestive of coming winter. and farm-steadings too, and far to the left a well-wooded fertile country, stretching for miles and miles. near to bell's hut inn we stop to water, and put the nosebags on. there is a brush-cart at the door, and waggons laden with wood, and the tap-room is crowded with rough but honest-looking country folks, enjoying their midday repast of bread and beer. the day is _so_ fine, the sun is _so_ bright, and the sward _so_ green, that we all squat, gipsy-fashion, on the grass, to discuss a modest lunch. fowls crowd round us and we feed them. but one steals foley's cheese from off his plate, and hen steals it from hen, till the big dorking cock gets it, and eats it too. corn-flower scatters his oats about, and a feathered multitude surround him to pick them up. pea-blossom brings her nosebag down with a vicious thud every now and then, and causes much confusion among the fowls. bob is continually snapping at the wasps. bread-and-cheese and ginger-ale are not bad fare on a lovely day like this, when one has an appetite. gipsies always have appetites. a drunken drover starts off from the inn door without paying for his dinner. the landlady's daughter gives chase. i offer to lend her bob. she says she is good enough for two men like that. and so she proves. we are very happy. one's spirits while on the road to a great extent rise and fall with the barometer. chichester seems a delightful old place. but we drove rapidly through it, only stopping to admire the cross and the cathedral. the former put me in mind of that in castle-gate of aberdeen. between littlehampton and the small town of botley, which the reader may notice on the map of hampshire, we made one night's halt, and started early next morning. the view from the road which leads round the bay at porchester is, even with the tide back, picturesque. yonder is the romantic old castle of porchester on the right middle distance, with its battlements and ivied towers; and far away on the horizon is portsmouth, with its masts, and chimneys, and great gasworks, all asleep in the haze of this somewhat sombre and gloomy day. porchester--the town itself--could supply many a sketch for the artist fond of quaintness in buildings, in roofs, picturesque children, and old-fashioned public-houses. who, i wonder, drinks all the "fine old beer," the "sparkling ales," and the "london stout," in this town of porchester? every third house seems an inn. through fareham, where we stopped to admire a beautiful outdoor aviary, and where a major of marines and his wife possessed themselves of my little maiden, and gave her cake and flowers enough to set up and beautify the wanderer for a week at least. botley is one of the quietest, quaintest, and most unsophisticated wee villages ever the wanderer rolled into. it is rural in the extreme, but like those of all rural villages, its inhabitants, if unsophisticated, are as kind-hearted as any i have ever met. botley can boast of nearly half-a-score of public-houses, but it has only one hotel, the dolphin, and one butcher's shop. that milkman who let us into his field was right glad to see the caravan, which he had read a good deal about, and seemed proud to have us there, and just as pleased was the honest landlord of the dolphin to have our horses. in the good old-fashioned way he invited my little daughter and me into the cosy parlour behind the bar, where we spent a few musical hours most enjoyably. it seems though that botley has not always borne the reputation of being a quiet place. for example, long ago, though the recollection of the affair is still green in the memory of the oldest inhabitants, there used to be held at botley what were called "beef-fairs." for months beforehand "twopences" were saved, to raise a fund for fair-day. when this latter came round, the agreement among these innocents was that having once taken the cup of beer in his hand every man must drain it to the bottom, to prove he was a man. in his bacchanalian song "willie brew'd a peck o' maut," burns says:-- "the first that rises to gang awa' a cuckold cowardly loon is he. the first that in the neuk does fa' we'll mak' him king amang the three." but at the beef-fair of botley matters were reversed, and the first that "in the neuk did fa'" was fined two shillings, and failing payment he was condemned to be hanged. on a certain fair-day a certain "innocent" fell in the nook but refused to pay. honour was honour among these fair folks, so first they stood the culprit on his head, and endeavoured to shake the money out of him. disappointed and unsuccessful, they really did hang him, not by the neck but by the waist, to a beam. unfortunately for the poor fellow, the band came past, and away rushed his _confreres_ to listen. it did not matter much to the condemned joskin that he was trundled about the town for two hours after they had returned, and finally deposited under the settle of an inn. for he was _dead_! one other example of the congeniality of the botley folks of long ago. my attention was attracted to a large iron-lettered slab that hangs on the wall of the coffee-room of the dolphin. the following is the inscription thereon:-- this stone is erected to perpetuate a most cruel murder committed on the body of thos. webb a poor inhabitant of swanmore on the th of feb. by john diggins a private soldier in the talbot fencibles whose remains are gibbeted on the adjoining common. and there doubtless john diggins' body swung, and there his bones bleached and rattled till they fell asunder. but the strange part of the story now has to be told; they had hanged the wrong man! it is an ugly story altogether. thus: two men (fencibles) were drinking at a public-house, and going homewards late made a vow to murder the first man they met. cruelly did they keep this vow, for an old man they encountered was at once put to the bayonet. before going away from the body, however, the soldier who had done the deed managed to exchange bayonets with diggins. the blood-stained instrument was therefore found in _his_ scabbard, and he was tried and hanged. the real murderer confessed his crime twenty-one years afterwards, when on his deathbed. so much for the botley of long ago. the iron slab, by the way, was found in the cellar of the dolphin, and the flag of the talbot fencibles, strange to say, was found in the roof. we took southampton as our midday halt, driving all round the south park before we entered--such a charming park--and stopped to dine among the guns away down beside the pier. then on for a few miles, bivouacking for the night in an inn yard, in order that we might return to southampton and see the play. next day we reached lyndhurst, and came safely to anchor in a meadow behind the old crown hotel, and this field we made our headquarters for several days. it had always been my ambition to see something of the new forest, and here i was in the centre of it. i had so often read about this wondrous forest; i had thought about it, dreamt about it, and more than once it had found its way into the tales i wrote. and now i found the real to exceed the imaginary. one great beauty about the new forest is that it is open. there is nothing here of the sombre gloom of the scottish pine wood. there are great green glades in it, and wide wild patches of heatherland. even at the places where the trees are thickest the giant oaks thrust their arms out on every side as if to keep the other trees off. "stand back," they seem to say. "we will not be crowded. we must not keep away the sunshine from the grass and the brackens beneath us, for all that has life loves the light. stand back." what charmed me most in this forest? i can hardly tell. perhaps its gnarled and ancient oaks, that carried my thoughts back to the almost forgotten past; perhaps its treescapes in general, now with the tints of autumn burnishing their foliage; perhaps its glades, carpeted with soft green moss and grass, and surrounded with brackens branched and lofty, under which surely fairies still do dwell. they say that the modern man is but a savage reformed by artificial means, and if left to himself would relapse to his pristine state. well, if ever i should relapse thus, i'd live in the new forest. referring to the forest, galpin says--"within equal limits, perhaps, few parts of england afford a greater variety of beautiful landscapes than this new forest. its woody scenes, its extended lawns, and vast sweeps of wild country, unlimited by artificial boundaries, together with its river views and distant coasts, are all in a great degree magnificent. [there have been many portions of the forest enclosed since these lines were written, but their gates are never closed against the stranger or sight-seer.] still, it must be remembered that its chief characteristic, and what it rests on for distinction, is not sublimity but sylvan beauty." and this last line of galpin's naturally enough leads my thoughts away northward to the wild highlands of scotland, where sublimity _is_ in advance of sylvan beauty, and brings the words of wilson to my mind:-- "what lonely magnificence stretches around, each sight how sublime, how awful each sound, all hushed and serene as a region of dreams, the mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams." i have mentioned the wide-spreading oak-trees. is it not possible that the mountain firs of our scottish highlands would spread also had they room? i mean if they were not planted so thickly, and had not to expend their growth in towering skywards in search of sunlight, their stems all brown and bare beneath, till looking into a pine wood is like looking into some vast cave, its dark roof supported by pillars. not very far from carrbridge, in the grampians, is one of the strangest and weirdest bits of pine forest it is possible to imagine. here the trees have plenty of room to spread; they evidently owe their existence to birds that have brought the seeds from afar. be that as it may, they are not very tall, but gnarled and branched in the most fantastic fashion, while in the open spaces between them grow heather and brackens of such height and magnificence that among them an army could hide. if fairies still dwell anywhere in this land of ours, surely it is in this weirdlike ferny forest of alpine pine-trees. i very greatly enjoyed my long drive through sherwood forest, on the duke of portland's estate. there, i think, many of the oaks are even more aged than those in the new forest here, though, perhaps, i am mistaken. spenser's lines would better therefore describe the former-- "great oaks, dry and dead, still clad with relics of their trophies old, lifting to heaven their aged hoary heads, whose feet on earth have got but feeble hold, and half disbowelled stand above the ground, with wreathed roots and naked arms, and trunks all rotten and unsound." in one of our rambles through the new forest--driven we were in a dogcart over the green sward, through the ferns and through the furze, over glades and natural lawns, into tree caves, and round and about the gigantic monarchs of the woods--we were taken by our guide to see the king and queen oaks, a morsel of the bark of each of which now lies in the caravan. i would not like even to guess how old these oaks were-- probably a thousand years and more. yet had you and i, reader, a chance of living as long as these majestic trees may still exist, it would not be profitable for an assurance company to grant us an annuity. but before seeing the king and queen i pointed out to our guide one particular oak. "what a splendid old oak!" i remarked. "old," was the reply--"why, sir, that's only a hinfant hoak. he ain't mebbe more'n three or four 'undred year old." and this was an infant! i was silent for a spell after that. i was thinking. 'twixt three and four hundred years of age! my mind was carried away back to the days of henry the eighth. he would be on the throne about that time, if i remember my school history aright, marrying and giving in marriage, cutting off heads right and left, and making himself generally jolly; and cardinal wolsey was up and about, and poor buckingham was murdered under guise of an execution; and on the whole they were very busy and very bloody times, when this "hinfant hoak" first popped out of its acorn. lyndhurst may well be called the capital of this romantic forest. it is quite a charming little town, chiefly built on the slope of a hill, with many beautiful villas and houses surrounding it. it is well removed from the din and roar of the railway, and from shouts of station porters. it is a quiet place. no, i must qualify that statement; it would be quiet except for those everlasting bells. they clang-clang-clang every quarter of an hour all day long and all night, and all the year round. poe speaks about:-- "the people, ah! the people, they that live up in the steeple, they are ghouls!" are the good folks of lyndhurst ghouls? anyhow, the whole of the inhabitants of the sweet little town may be said to live up in the steeple. their nerves and ears are encased in felt perhaps, but may heaven help any nervous invalid who happens to make the neighbourhood of that church steeple his or her habitat. the bells, however, did not bother me much, for a gipsy can always sleep. if he can stand the bells the visitor will be happy at lyndhurst. there are capital shops, several excellent inns, lots of well-furnished apartments, and a most comfortable family hotel, the crown, and everywhere you will meet civility,--at all events i did; and what is more i mean to go back to lyndhurst, and do a deal more of the forest. the visitor should go to mr short's, and secure bits of forest scenery and his guide-book--author mr phillips. this gentleman is most enthusiastic in his descriptions of the forest and everything in and about it. i cannot refrain from making one or two extracts. phillips gives a nice description of the beautiful church of lyndhurst--the church with the bells, and is loud in his praises of sir f. leighton's splendid wall painting, which all who visit the forest must go and gaze on and study for themselves. phillips is quoting eustace jones in his "picture parables" when he says:-- "all the shade is so graduated from either end to the glory in the centre, that the picture will not let you rest till you have gazed on him, the bridegroom--the king in his beauty. there is no light in the centre of the palace where the bridegroom is; yet it is dazzling bright and shining, because he is the light thereof for ever and ever. all the light comes from him, glowing out from his garments in some strange way, that makes it seem to come and go, as when you look full in the sun's face at midday, and see him burn--till he leaves his image in your eyes, glowing now large, and now small, yet dazzling alway. the face i cannot describe. there is joy in it for those who have kept their lamps still burning; there is sadness in it for those from whom it turns away-- ineffable pity. but is hope quite past, even for these? his glance is averted from them, but does the hand that holds out the lily sceptre only mean to taunt their stainfulness by the sight of purity which may never more be theirs? is he mocking at their calamity? surely, if so, the iron sceptre would be less cruel than the white lily. it cannot be, for there is nothing like it in his face. "it may be a reflection awakened of his pity: it may be for relief from the brightness, that makes one turn from him to look at those sorrowful faces on his left hand. it is all his palace. it is as light here as on his right hand. but there is this difference--the same sun shines winter on the foolish virgins and summer on the wise. it is so cold. it would not be, but that the wings of the angel who sorrowfully warns them back, shut out his light, leaving them only a strange garish brightness, wherein the waning moonlight, straggling through a troubled sky, chills and deadens the glory that yet would fall if it might. not one of these looks at him. they cannot. their eyes, used to the darkness, cannot bear his light. one, who has ventured nearest and looked, has covered her face with her mantle and bowed herself that she may not see his radiance even through the angel's wing. the farthest off, who has strained her eyeballs to see the bridegroom, must needs cover her dazzled eyes and turn away, for she cannot bear the sight. one lies, like lazarus, at the gate, if perchance some crumbs from the banquet may be thrown to her;--but she has looked at him for a moment, and cowers down, awestricken with the glory, _lest_ she see him and her heart be scorched like her eyes. two have not yet dared to raise their eyes to look. they have come very near, but the angel, with eyes so full and compassionate (tears must be in them), prays them not. a broken vine trails across their way, to remind them of the true vine, whose broken branches they are. but the branch still holds by a tiny splinter to the vine, and even to these, now turned away with empty lamps, lightless, into the cold night where the moon is fast being obscured by stormy clouds, the angel at the outer porch still displays a scroll: `ora!'--`pray.' this cannot be to mock their agony! pray yet, if perchance the door may still open to their knocking, though their lamps were lighted late. the bridegroom has risen up; but the door is not yet shut. the eleventh hour is nearly gone, but he is long-suffering still. will they return with but a glimmer of light before it is for ever too late? who can tell? it is dark without, and late, and there is no hope in their faces, and the angels have hushed their golden music, that it may not jar upon the sadness of those who leave his gate in tears. "but on his right they all look at him--every eye. they must, lest they see the sorrow of their sisters; and his very brightness interposes a blinding screen of glory to hide the sadness and the awful chill that is outside and beyond. and looking on him, their faces are lightened, and beam radiant. they have brought their little lamps to him, burning. oh! how tiny the flames look, and how brown is their light against his glory, for they are all shone down and dazzled out before him, like earthly lights before the sun--candles fading blear-eyed before the noon. one of the figures, eager, with the smallest lamp of them all, has pressed by all the rest, and caught the bridegroom's hand, that she who was last might be first; whilst another, in the very background, is content to bear aloft her largest lamp, with three wicks bravely burning, calmly confident and trustful; for they who are first shall be last. one, half-averted, nurses and tends the flame of her lamp still-- it has had but a little oil in it, and that scarce eked out till now. close to the bridegroom, an angel holds out a child's hand, with a little feeble light, so that even if it does not last on, it shall only go out in his very presence. but the little one is safe, for of such is his kingdom, and in heaven her angel has always beheld the father's face. these are all in the sunshine of his favour, and glow with the light that streams from him. yet the angel at the porch _still_ says even to these, `vigila!'--`watch ye!' and _still_ pours oil into the fading lamp at the gate." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ barley, holmsley, and sway are within easy reach of lyndhurst, even to the pedestrian lady. queen's bower wood-- "beautiful, beautiful queen of the forest, how art thou hidden so wondrously deep!" --is one of the most charming of forest woods, its handsome aged oak picturesquely overhanging the clear and bubbling stream, so soon to mix its waters with the all-absorbing sea. the stream here, as in so many other parts of the forest, is covered in summer time with white water-lilies. we visited lymington in the wanderer, and although the rain poured down in torrents all day, from under the broad canopy of the _coupe_ we viewed the scenery safely and were delighted therewith. of course the wanderer visited minstead and stony cross. what a magnificent view is to be got of the forest from the breezy furze-clad common near the inn at bramble hill! hurricane bob led the way with a rush down the grassy slope to rufus's stone, and inie and myself came scampering on after, all three of us as full of life as mavises in may time. the scenery about this sacred spot is pretty enough, but we did not greatly admire the stone itself. nor did hurricane bob, though he paid his respects to it after his own canine fashion. it somewhat detracts from the romance of the place that close adjoining you can have three shies at a cocoa-nut for a penny. i spent a shilling unsuccessfully; inie knocked one down at the first shot, and bob, not to be behindhand, watched his chance and stole one, for which may goodness forgive him. i wish i could spare space to say something about the birds and beasts and creeping things of the forest, and about its wild flowers, but this chapter the reader will doubtless think too long already. i must mention forest flies and snakes, however. of the latter we saw none _in_ the wilds, but the well-known snake-catcher of the new forest, who supplies the zoological gardens, paid us a visit at the caravan, and brought with him some splendid specimens. many of these were very tame, and drank milk from a saucer held to them by my wee girl. the adders he catches with a very long pair of surgical forceps presented to him by dr blaker, of lyndhurst, whose kindness and hospitality, by-the-bye, to us, will ever dwell in my memory. we heard great accounts of the forest flies. they say--though i cannot verify it by my own experience--that long before the transatlantic steamers reach new york, the mosquitoes, satiated with yankee gore, smell the blood of an englishman, and come miles to sea to meet him. and so we were told that the forest flies would hardly care to bite a forest horse, but at once attacked a strange one and sent him wild. hearing us talk so much about this wondrous forest fly, it was not unnatural that it should haunt wee inie's dreams and assume therein gigantic proportions. one day, when ranging through a thicket--this was before ever we had become acquainted with the fly--we came upon a capital specimen of the tawny owl, winking and blinking on a bough. inez saw it first. "oh, papa," she cried aghast, "_there's a forest fly_!" this put me in mind of the anecdote of the woman who was going out to india with her husband, a soldier in the gallant nd. "you must take care of the mosquitoes," said another soldier's wife, who had been out. "what's a mosquito, 'oman?" "oh!" was the reply, "a creature with a long snout hangin' doon in front, that it sucks your blood wi'." on landing in india almost the first animal she saw was an elephant. "may the lord preserve us!" cried the soldier's wife, "is that a mosquito?" but we had to leave the dear old forest at last, and turn our horses' heads to the north once more. "it is," says phillips, "in such sequestered spots as these, removed from the everlasting whirl and turmoil of this high-pressure age, that we may obtain some glimpses of a life strangely contrasting in its peaceful retirement with our own; and one cannot envy the feelings of him who may spend but a few hours here without many happy and pleasant reflections." "the past is but a gorgeous dream, and time glides by us like a stream while musing on thy story; and sorrow prompts a deep alas! that like a pageant thus should pass to wreck all human glory." we met many pleasant people at lyndhurst and round it, and made many pleasant tours, lymington being our limit. then we bade farewell to the friends we had made, and turned our horses' heads homewards through hants. when i left my little village it was the sweet spring time, and as the wanderer stood in the orchard, apple-blossoms fell all about and over her like showers of driven snow. when she stood there again it was the brown withered leaves that rustled around her, and the wind had a wintry sough in it. but i had health and strength in every limb, and in my heart sunny memories--that will never leave it--of the pleasantest voyage ever i have made in my life. chapter twenty eight. caravanning for health. "life is not to live, but to be well." this chapter, and indeed the whole of this appendix, may be considered nothing more or less than an apology for my favourite way of spending my summer outing. now there are no doubt thousands who would gladly follow my example, and become for a portion of the year lady or gentlemen gipsies, did not circumstances over which they have no control raise insuperable barriers between them and a realisation of their wishes. for these i can only express my sorrow. on the other hand, i know there are many people who have both leisure and means at command, people who are perhaps bored with all ordinary ways of travelling for pleasure; people, mayhap, who suffer from debility of nerves, from indigestion, and from that disease of modern times we call _ennui_, which so often precedes a thorough break-up and a speedy march to the grave. it is for the benefit of these i write my appendix; it is to them i most cordially dedicate it. there may be some who, having read thus far, may say to themselves:-- "i feel tired and bored with the worry of the ordinary everyday method of travelling, rushing along in stuffy railway carriages, residing in crowded hotels, dwelling in hackneyed seaside towns, following in the wake of other travellers to scotland or the continent, over-eating and over-drinking; i feel tired of ball, concert, theatre, and at homes, tired of scandal, tired of the tinselled show and the businesslike insincerity of society, and i really think i am not half well. and if _ennui_, as doctors say, does lead the way to the grave, i do begin to think i'm going there fast enough. i wonder if i am truly getting ill, or old, or something; and if a complete change would do me good?" i would make answer thus:--you may be getting ill, or you may be getting old, or both at once, for remember age is _not_ to be reckoned by years, and nothing ages one sooner than boredom and _ennui_. but if there be any doubts in your mind as regards the state of your health, and seeing that _ennui_ does not weaken any one organ more than another, but that its evil effects are manifested in a deterioration of every organ and portion of the body and tissues at once, let us consider for a moment what health really is. it was emerson, i think, who said, "give me health and a day, and i will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." there is a deal of truth underlying that sentence. to put it in my own homely way: if a young man, or a middle-aged one either, while spending a day in the country, with the fresh breezes of heaven blowing on his brow, with the larks a-quiver with song in the bright sunshine, and all nature rejoicing,--i tell you that if such an individual, not being a cripple, can pass a five-barred gate without an inclination to vault over it, he cannot be in good health. will that scale suit you to measure _your_ health against? nay, but to be more serious, let me quote the words of that prince of medical writers, the late lamented sir thomas watson, bart:-- "health is represented in the natural or standard condition of the living body. it is not easy to express that condition in a few words, nor is it necessary. my wish is to be intelligible rather than scholastic, and i should puzzle myself as well as you, were i to attempt to lay down a strict and scientific definition of what is meant by the term `health.' it is sufficient for our purpose to say that it implies freedom from pain and sickness; freedom also from all those changes in the natural fabric of the body, that endanger life or impede the easy and effectual exercise of the vital functions. it is plain that health does not signify any fixed and immutable condition of the body. the standard of health varies in different persons, according to age, sex, and original constitution; and in the same person even, from week to week or from day to day, within certain limits it may shift and librate. neither does health necessarily imply the integrity of all the bodily organs. it is not incompatible with great and permanent alterations, nor even with the loss of parts that are not vital--as of an arm, a leg, or an eye. if we can form and fix in our minds a clear conception of the state of _health_, we shall have little difficulty in comprehending what is meant by _disease_, which consists in some deviation from that state--some uneasy or unnatural sensation of which the patient is aware; some embarrassment of function, perceptible by himself or by others; or _some unsafe though hidden condition of which he may be unconscious_; some mode, in short, of being, or of action, or of feeling different from those which are proper to health." can medicine restore the health of those who are threatened with a break-up, whose nerves are shaken, whose strength has been failing for some time past, when it seems to the sufferer--to quote the beautiful words of the preacher--the days have already come when you find no pleasure in them; when you feel as if the light of the sun and the moon and the stars are darkened, that the silver cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher broken at the fountain? no, no, no! a thousand times no. medicine, tonic or otherwise, never, alone, did, or could, cure the deadly ailment called _ennui_. you want newness of life, you want perfect obedience for a time to the rules of hygiene, and exercise above all. now i do not for a moment mean to say that caravanning is the very best form of exercise one can have. take your own sort, the kind that best pleases you. but, for all that, experience leads me to maintain that no life separates a man more from his former self, or gives him a better chance of regeneration of the most complete kind, than that of the gentleman gipsy. take my own case as an example. i am what is called a spare man, though weighing eleven stone odd to a height of five feet nine. i am spare, but when well as wiry and hard as an arab. i had an unusually stiff winter's work last season. on my , -mile caravan tour i had assuredly laid up a store of health that stood me in good stead till nearly april, and i did more literary work than usual. but i began to get weary at last, and lost flesh. i slaved on manfully, that i might get away on my second grand tour, from which i have just returned, after covering ground to the extent of a thousand and odd miles. well, i started, and as i took a more hilly route, the journey was more fatiguing for us all. we all weighed before starting; six weeks afterwards we weighed again; my coachman had increased one and a half pounds, my valet three pounds, while i, who underwent the greatest fatigue of the three, had put on five pounds. nor was this all; my heart felt lighter than it had done for years, and i was singing all day long. though not a young man, i am certainly not an old one, but before starting, while still toiling at the drudgery of the desk's dull wood, i was ninety-five years of age--_in feeling_; before i had been six weeks on the road i did not feel forty, or anything like it. the first fortnight of life in a great caravan like the wanderer is just a little upsetting; even my coachman felt this. the constant hum of the waggon-wheels, and the jolting--for with the best of springs a two-ton waggon will jolt--shakes the system. it is like living in a mill; but after this you harden up to it, and would not change your _modus vivendi_ for life in a royal palace. now i would not dream of insulting the understanding of my readers by presuming that they do not know what the simple rules of hygiene which tend to long life, perfect health, and calm happiness, are. there is hardly a sixteen-year-old schoolboy nowadays who has not got these at his finger-ends; but, unfortunately, if we do not act up to them with a regularity that at length becomes a habit, we are apt to let them slip from our mind; and it is so easy to fall off into a poor condition of health, but not so very easy to pull one's self together again. let me simply enumerate, by way of reminding you, some of the ordinary rules for the maintenance of health. we will then see how far it is possible to carry these out in such a radical change of life as that of an amateur gipsy, living, eating, and sleeping in his caravan, and sometimes, to some extent, roughing it. the following remarks from one of my books on cycling are very much to the point in the subject i am now discussing, and the very fact of my writing so will prove, i think, that i am willing you should hear both sides of the question, for i know there are people in this world who prefer the life of the bluebottle-fly--fast and merry--to what they deem a slow even if healthful existence. ["health upon wheels." messrs. iliffe and co, fleet street, london.] good habits, i say, may be formed as well as bad ones; not so easily, i grant you, but, being formed, or for a time enforced, they, too, become a kind of second nature. some remarks of the author of "elia" keep running through my head as i write, and for the life of me i cannot help penning them, although they in a certain sense militate against my doctrine of reform. "what?" says the gentle author, "have i gained by health? intolerable dulness. what by early hours and moderate meals? a total blank." i question, however, if charles lamb, after so many years spent in the london of his day, had a very great deal of liver left.--if he had, probably it was a very knotty one (_cirrhosis_) and piebald rather than healthy chocolate brown. now i should be sorry indeed if i left my readers to infer that, after a reckless life up to the age say of forty, forty-five, or fifty, a decided reformation of habits will so far rejuvenate a man that he shall become quite as healthy and strong as he might have been had he spent his days in a more rational manner; one cannot have his cake and eat it too, _but_ better late than never; he can by care save the morsel of cake he has left, instead of throwing it to the dogs and going hot foot after it. every severe illness, no matter how well we get over it, detracts from our length of days: how much more then must twenty or more years of a fast life do so? with our "horse's constitution" we may come through it all with life, but it will leave its mark, if not externally, internally. i am perfectly willing that the reader should have both the _cons_ and the _pros_ of the argument, and will even sit in judgment on the statements i have just made, and will myself call upon witnesses that may seem to disprove them. the first to take the box is your careless, sceptical, happy-go-lucky man, your live-for-to-day-and-bother-to-morrow individual, who states that he really enjoys life, and that he can point to innumerable acquaintances, who go the pace far faster than he does, but who, nevertheless, enjoy perfect health, and are likely to live "till a fly fells them." the next witness has not much to say, but he tells a little story--a temperance tale he calls it. two very aged men were one time subpoenaed on some case, and appeared in the box before a judge who was well-known as a staunch upholder of the principles of total abstinence. this judge, seeing two such aged beings before him, thought it a capital opportunity of teaching a lesson to those around him. "how old are you?" he said, addressing the first witness. "eighty, and a little over," was the reply. "you have led a very temperate life, haven't you?" said the judge. "i've never tasted spirits, to my knowledge, all my life, sir." the judge looked around him, with a pleased smile on his countenance. then he addressed the other ancient witness, who looked even haler than his companion. "how old are you, my man?" "ninety odd, your worship." "ahem?" said the judge. "you have doubtless led a strictly abstemious life, haven't you?" "strictly abstemious!" replied the old reprobate; "indeed, sir, i haven't been strictly sober for the last seventy years." _diet_.--errors in diet produce dyspepsia, and dyspepsia may be the forerunner of almost any fatal illness. it not only induces disease itself, but the body of the sufferer from this complaint, being at the best but poorly nourished, no matter how fat and fresh he may appear, is more liable to be attacked by any ailment which may be in the air. dyspepsia really leaves the front door open, so that trouble may walk in. the chief errors in diet which are apt to bring on chronic indigestion are: . over-rich or over-nutritious diet. . over-eating, from which more die than from over-drinking. . eating too quickly, as one is apt to do when alone, the solvent saliva having thus no time to get properly mingled with the food. . the evil habit of taking "nips" before meals, by which means the blood is heated, the salivary glands rendered partially inert, the mucous membrane of the mouth rendered incapable for a time of absorption, and the gastric juices thrown out and wasted before their proper time, that is meal-time. . drinking too much fluid with the meals, and thereby diluting the gastric juices and delaying digestion. . want of daily or tri-weekly change of diet. . irregularity in times of eating. _drink_.--i do not intend discussing the question of temperance. . but if stimulants are taken at all, it should _never_ be on an empty stomach. . they ought not to be taken at all, if they can be done without. . what are called "nightcaps" may induce sleep, but it is by narcotic action, and the sleep is neither sound nor refreshing. the best nightcap is a warm bath and a bottle of soda water, with ten to fifteen grains of pure bicarbonate of soda in it. coffee is a refreshing beverage. cocoa is both refreshing and nourishing, but too much of it leads to biliousness. oatmeal. water drunk from off a handful or two of this is excellent on the road. cream of tartar drink. this should be more popular than it is in summer. a pint of boiling water is poured over a dram and a half of cream of tartar, in which is the juice of a lemon and some of the rind; when cold, especially if iced, it is truly excellent in summer weather. it cools the system, prevents constipation, and assuages thirst. ginger-ale or ginger beer is good, but should be taken in moderation. tonic drinks often contain deleterious accumulative medicines, and should all be avoided. cold tea, if weak, flavoured with lemon-juice, and drunk without sugar, is probably the best drink of the road. but let it be good pure indian tea. _baths_.--the morning cold sponge bath, especially with a handful or two of sea-salt in it, is bracing, stimulating, and tonic. no one who has once tried it for a week would ever give it up. the turkish bath may be taken once a week, or once a fortnight. it gets rid of a deal of the impurities of the blood, and lightens both brain and heart. whenever one feels dull and mopish, he should indulge in the luxury of a turkish bath. _fresh air_.--the more of this one has the better, whether by day or by night. many chronic ailments will yield entirely to a course of ozone-laden fresh air, such as one gets at the seaside, or on the mountain's brow. have a proper and scientific plan of ventilating your bedrooms. ventilators should be both in doors and windows, else one cannot expect perfect health and mental activity. without air one dies speedily; in bad air he languishes and dies more slowly; in the ordinary air of rooms one exists, but he cannot be said to live; but in pure air one can be as happy and light-hearted as a lark. _exercise_.--this must be pleasurable, or at all events it must be interesting--mind and body must go hand in hand--if exercise is to do any good. it must not be over-fatiguing, and intervals of rest must not be forgotten. exercise should never be taken in cumbersome clothing. "work," i say in one of my books, "is not exercise." this may seem strange, but it is true. i tell my patients, "i do not care how much you run about all day at your business, you _must_ take the exercise i prescribe quite independently of your work." there are perhaps no more hard-working men in the world than the scottish ploughmen--wearily plodding all day long behind their horses, in wet weather or dry; no sooner, however, has the sun "gane west the loch," and the day's work is done, than, after supper and a good wash, those hardy lads assemble in the glen, and not only for one, but often three good hours, keep up the health-giving games for which their nation is so justly celebrated. _cooking_.--good cooking is essential to health. i do not care how plainly i live, but pray exercise the attribute of mercy. let my steak or chop be tender and toothsome; my fish or vegetables not overdone, and oh! pray boil me my potatoes well, for without old _pomme de terre_ life to me would be one dreary void. now let us see how far the rules of health may be carried out in a caravan like the wanderer. first comes _early rising_. you get up almost with the lark--you are bound to, for there is a deal to be done in a caravan; what with getting breakfast, having the carriage tidied and dusted, the beds stowed away on the roof, dishes washed, stove cleaned, carpets shaken, and pantry swept and washed, eight o'clock comes before you know where you are. and by the time your flowers are rearranged in the vases, and everything so sweet and tidy that you do not mind royalty itself having a look inside, it will be pretty near nine o'clock, and the horses will be round, the pole shipped, the buckets slung, and all ready for a start. but then you will think early rising the reverse of a hardship, for did you not turn in at ten o'clock? and have you not slept the sweet sleep of the just--or a gentleman gipsy? the first thing you did when you got up was to have a bath under the tent which your servant prepared for you. oh that delicious cool sponge bath of a lovely summer's morning! if you do not join the birds in their song even before you have quite finished rubbing down, it is because you have no music in your soul. but i mentioned a turkish bath as a health accessory. can that be had in a wanderer caravan? indeed it can. i have a portable one, and it does not exceed three inches in height, and when put away takes hardly as much space up as a pair of boots does. the greatest cleanliness is maintainable in a caravan where regularity exists,--cleanliness of person, and cleanliness of the house itself. as to regularity, this is one of the things one learns to perfection on a gipsy tour extending over months. there can be no comfort without it. everything in its place must be your motto, and this is a habit which once learned is of the greatest service to one in more civilised life. for the want of regularity causes much worry, and worry is one of the primary causes of illness. _fresh air_.--you are in it all day. now down in the valley among the woods, or breathing the balmy odours of the pine forests; now high up on the mountain top, and anon by the bracing sea-beach. and at night your ventilators are all open, without a chance of catching cold, so no wonder your sleep is as sweet and dreamless as that of a healthy child. as to the weather, you are hardly ever exposed. the caravan does not leak, and if you are on the _coupe_ you are protected by the verandah (_vide_ frontispiece). _exercise_.--this you get in abundance, and that too of the most wholesome and exhilarating kind. _food in the caravan_.--perhaps you have been living too freely before, and having too many courses; all this will be altered when you take to the road. plainly you must live, and you will soon come to prefer a plain substantial diet. the first result of your new mode of life--and this you will not be twenty-four hours out before you feel--will be hunger. it does not matter that you had a substantial breakfast at eight o'clock, you will find your way to the cupboard at eleven, and probably for the first time in your life you will find out what a delicious titbit a morsel of bread-and-cheese is. yes, and i would even forgive you if you washed it down with one tiny glass of mild ale, albeit beer is not the best thing on the road. at the midday halt you will have luncheon. you can drink your tea cold on the road or warm it in the spirit stove; and when settled for the night in some quiet and peaceful meadow, your servant will speedily cook the dinner, which has been put all ready in the rippingille stove during the midday halt. while this is being cooked, in the privacy of the saloon you can play the fiddle or discourse sweet music from the harmonium, or if tired lie on the sofa and read. i have said that you must live plainly in a caravan. but the word plainly is a term. you may not have french dishes nor twenty courses, but i append extracts from bills of fare of caravan cookery, to show that diet is not necessarily a mere off-put in the wanderer. i must, however, premise that i myself did not always bother with so good a _menu_. to begin with, here are my cook's general instructions:-- always see that the stove is clean and in order. wipe the tanks thoroughly dry, if any oil is perceptible upon them; trim the wicks, light them, turn down low, place in the proper grooves, and carefully follow instructions given with the stove. when set fairly in, regulate the light by observing the height through the sight holes. brush out the oven, and then all is ready for a good day's work. all this will occupy very little time, one-tenth of that generally spent in lighting coal fires and trying to escape the dust and dirt the old-fashioned open range entailed. next rinse out the kettle, fill with fresh water from the tap, place over one of the burners. wash your hands, and then get all ready for breakfast. cut rashers of bacon and slices of bread sufficient for the family requirements. bring out the eggs, butter, pepper, salt; then the tea-caddy, coffee, etc, with their respective pots; plates, dishes, toast-rack, fish slice, teacup or small basin, and lay on the table near the stove, so that no time may be lost running about when the cooking begins. these instructions apply to _all meals_. first get the apparatus and material ready, and then begin to cook. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ breakfasts. i. toast, poached eggs, tea, coffee, or chocolate. ii. toast, fried eggs and bacon, or mashed eggs, tea, etc. iii. oatmeal porridge with butter and creamy milk, followed by a boiled new-laid egg and a rasher, with tea. n.b.--the butter is always the sweetest, and the milk the _creme de la creme_. iv. herrings, devilled melt and roe, toast, tea, etc, eggs bouilles. v. mock sausages, boiled eggs, and usual fixings. vi. finnan haddocks, poached eggs, and usual fixings. and so on _ad libitum_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eleven o'clock snacks. i. bread or biscuit and cheese with a modicum of beer. ii. bloater-paste or anchovy-paste, or buttered toast with cold tea. iii. tongue and ham (potted), turkey and tongue, and fixings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ luncheons. the cold joints of yesterday, with hot potatoes, piquant sauces, and chutney; washed down with a cup of delicious chocolate or new milk. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dinners. i. fried cutlets of fish; roast fowls; brown sauce, potatoes, greens, and bread; rice or golden pudding. ii. spatch cock; minced meat, baked potatoes, green peas; custard. iii. roast mutton, mashed turnips, potatoes; and fruit pudding. iv. rabbit stewed, game in season, vegetables; and sago pudding. v. beefsteak and onions, boiled potatoes, cauliflower; pudding. vi. salmon _a la reine_; cold meat and salad; la belle pudding. and so on _ad libitum_, with wine or beer to suit the taste. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ suppers. i. if required, a snack of anything handy. ii. tomatoes forces (tinned tomatoes if fresh cannot be had), cocoa, toast. iii. macaroni cheese and toast. iv. eggs _a la soyer_, toast; or a poached egg on toast. salad, especially of lettuce, with a modicum of good beer or stout. a cleverer cook than i could devise a hundred simple dishes for caravan cookery, but i do not think my _menu_ is altogether prison fare. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ailments likely to be benefited by caravan life. i can, of course, only mention a few of these, and it must be distinctly understood that i am not trying to enforce the merits of a new cure. i am but giving my own impressions from my own experience, and if anyone likes to profit by these he may, and welcome. i. ennui. ii. dyspepsia. iii. debility and enfeeblement of health from overwork, or from worry or grief. iv. insomnia. v. chronic bronchitis and consumption in its earliest stages. vi. bilious habit of system. vii. acidity of secretions of stomach, etc. viii. all kinds of stomachic ailments. ix. giddiness or vertigo. x. hysteria. xi. headaches and wearying backaches. xii. constipated state of system. xiii. tendency to _embonpoint_. xiv. neuralgia of certain kinds. xv. liver complaints of a chronic kind. xvi. threatened kidney mischief. xvii. hay fever. xviii. failure of brain power. xix. anaemia or poverty of blood. xx. nervousness. some of the great factors in the cure of such complaints as the above by life in a caravan for a series of months would be, that perfect rest and freedom from all care which is so calming to shattered nerves, weary brains, and aching hearts. the constant and pleasurable change of scene and change of faces, the regularity of the mode of life, and the delightfully refreshing sleep, born of the fresh air and exercise, which is nearly always obtainable at night. in concluding this chapter, let me just add that of all modes of enjoying life in summer and autumn i consider--speaking after a somewhat lengthy experience--caravan travelling the healthiest and the best. chapter twenty nine. the cycle as tender to the caravan. "when the spring stirs my blood with the instincts of travel, i can get enough gravel on the old marlborough road." thoreau. i begin to think, reader, that the plan of putting headlines or verses to chapters, although a very ancient, time-honoured custom, is not such a very excellent one after all. the verses are written subsequently, of course, after you have finished the chapter, and the difficulty is to get them to fit; you may have some glimmering notion that, once upon a time, some poet or other did say something that would be _apropos_, but who was it? you get off your easy-chair and yawn and stretch yourself, then lazily make your way to the bookshelf and commence the search among your favourite poets. it is for all the world like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and when you do find it, it isn't half so bright as you thought it would be, only down you jot it in a semi-reckless kind of a way, feeling all the while as if you were a humbug, or committing some sort of a deadly sin. if this good poet thoreau had said,-- "when the spring stirs my blood with the instincts of travel, i can get enough _exercise_ on my marlborough tricycle." --although not metre, it would have been to the point. but the poet did not, so there we are. nevertheless, the marlborough is the cycle i have bestridden during my tour this summer, and a sweet wee thing it is. in my caravan tour of it was the ranelagh club i had as tender to the wanderer, also a good one. but really, without a cycle, one would sometimes feel lost in caravan travelling. the wanderer is so large that she cannot turn on narrow roads, so that on approaching a village, where i wish to stay all night, i find it judicious to stop her about a quarter of a mile out and tool on, mounted on the marlborough, to find out convenient quarters. then a signal brings the wanderer on. another advantage of having a tender is this. in narrow lanes your valet rides on ahead, and if there really be no room for a trap to pass us, he warns any carriage that may chance to be coming our way. take, for example, that ugly climb we had when passing through slochmuichk, in the grampians (see illustration). my valet was on ahead, round the corner and on the outlook for coming vehicles, and so had anyone hove in sight a probable accident would have been avoided. again, when passing through a town where board schools with their busy bees of boys are numerous, my valet, on the marlborough tender, comes riding up behind, and accordingly the bees do not have a chance of sticking on to the carriage. tramps will, at times, get up and try the drawers behind, but whenever i see a suspicious gang of these worthless loafers, a signal brings the tender flying back, and thus robbery is prevented. i had the utmost satisfaction once this year in punishing some country louts. butler, my valet, was innocently riding on about a hundred yards ahead, and no sooner had he passed than the three blackguards commenced stone-throwing. they had no idea then the cycle belonged to the caravan. they had soon after though. i slid quietly off the _coupe_, whip in hand, and for several seconds i enjoyed the most health-giving exercise. straight across the face and round the ears i hit as hard as i knew how to. one escaped scot-free, but two tumbled in the ditch and howled aloud for mercy, which i generously granted--after i got tired. the beauty of the attack was in its suddenness, and those roughs will remember it to their dying day. but the main pleasure in possessing a cycle lies in the opportunities you have of seeing lovely bits of scenery, and quaint queer old villages, and quaint queer old people, quite out of the beaten track of your grand tour. and it _is_ a pleasure to have a long quiet ride through woods and flowery lanes, of a summer's evening, after having been in the caravan all day long. just let me pick one extract from a book i wrote last year, describing cycling in connection with my grand tour. ["_rota vitae_, the cyclist's guide to health and rational enjoyment." published by messrs. iliffe and sturney, fleet street, london.] the little work is really a bombshell, as ancient divines used to call their tracts, aimed at the senseless making of records by cyclists who go flying from one end of the kingdom to the other, and come back as wise as they went, and infinitely more tired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ haddington and round it. everywhere you go around haddington, you will be charmed with the character and beauty of the scenery, and its great variety. inland, are there not grand old hills and wild woodlands, lonely straths and glens, and splendid sheets of water? is there not, too, the finest tree scenery that exists anywhere in scotland? yes! and the very wild flowers and hedgerows themselves would repay one for all the toil incurred in rattling over somewhat stony roads, and climbing lofty braelands. then, towards the east, you come in sight of the sea itself--the ever-beautiful, ever-changing sea. go farther east still, go to the coast itself, and you will find yourself among such rock scenery as can hardly be beaten, expect by that in skye or the orkneys. when tired of wandering on the shore, and, if a naturalist, studying and admiring the thousand-and-one strange objects around you, why, you may go and hobnob with some of the fisher folks--male or female, take your choice--they will amuse, ay, and mayhap instruct you, while some of the oldest of them will tell you tales of the old smuggling days, and life in the caves, that will heat anything you ever read in books. if you should stay at cockburnspath all night you will not forget to visit the seashore and the caves. those caves have a history, too; they were connected with the troublesome times of "auld lang syne," and later still, they came in remarkably handy for bold smugglers, who, before the days of smart revenue cutters, made use of them as temporary storehouses when running a cargo on shore. how lovely the sea looks on a summer's day from the hills around here! how enchanting the woods! how wild! how quiet! you will be inclined to live and linger among scenery such as this, book in hand, perhaps, on a bank of wild thyme and bluebells, and if you do notice some blue-coated bicyclist, with red perspiring face and dusty _tout ensemble_, speeding past on his way to john-o'-groat's, how you will pity him! farther west is the romantic dunglass dene, which you will visit without fail. says scott: "the cliffs here rear their haughty head high o'er the river's darksome bed; here trees to every crevice clung, and o'er the dell their branches hung: and there, all splintered and uneven, the shivered rocks ascend to heaven; oft, too, the ivy swathed their breast, and wreathed their garland round their crest; or from the spires bade loosely flare its tendrils in the summer air." the most romantic parts of scotland which may be visited by the caravannist, with his tricycle as tender, are:-- i. the counties of barns, hogg, and scott (comprising all the space betwixt a line drawn from edinburgh to glasgow and the tweed). ii. the grampian wilds. iii. the perthshire highlands. iv. the valley of the dee. v. the valley of the don. vi. the sea coast from edinburgh to fraserburgh, and west as far as inverness itself. coming south now to england, i must permit the tourist himself to choose his own headquarters. i shall merely mention the most healthy and interesting districts. i. the lake country. ii. the yorkshire district (most bracing and interesting). iii. the peak district of derbyshire. iv. the midland district. v. the east coasts. vi. north wales (centre, probably bala). vii. south wales. viii. south devon. ix. south cornwall. x. jersey (saint heliers). i should also mention both orkney and shetland, these islands are healthy and bracing. in both the last-named districts riding will be found practical, but boating excursions will rival the tricycle. fishing and shooting, and walking among the moorlands and hills, combine to render a holiday in either the orkneys or shetland islands a most enjoyable one. both at kirkwall and lerwick fairly good hotels are to be found, and respectable lodgings, while living is as cheap as anyone could desire. nb--an ordinary-sized caravan can be taken by sea, but take my advice, never put it on board a train. chapter thirty. hints to would-be caravannists. "we live to learn ilka day, the warld wide's the best o' skools, experience too, so auld folks say, is just the jade for teachin' fools." nemo. i. first catch your hare. that is, get your caravan. "oh!" i think i hear some one say, "i shall hire one." take _punch's_ advice to people about to marry--"don't." and the same advice holds good as regards secondhand caravans. mind, i do not say that you may not be able to meet with a good and clean one, but, woe is me, there is a chance of guests, in old caravans of the gipsy class, that you would not care to be shipmates with. besides, the woodwork may be bad, or "going," and there may be flaws in the springs, the wheels. the roof may leak, and a hundred and fifty other disagreeables be found out after you fairly start on the road. i would as soon buy an old feather-bed in the east end of london as an old caravan. get your car then from a really good maker, one who could not afford to put a bad article out of hand. i have neither object nor desire to advertise the bristol waggon company, but it is due to them to say that having paid a fair price, i got from them a splendid article. but of course there may be other makers as good or better. i do not know. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ii. style of build. you may copy the wanderer if so minded. i do not think that i myself, after two years on the road, could improve on her, except that the shutters are difficult to draw on and off, and ought to run upon castors. however, few caravannists might care to have so long and large a chariot as mine; one about twelve feet long would serve every purpose, and be easily moved with one good horse. it would also be more easily drawn into meadows at night. a caravan, both exteriorly and interiorly, is capable of an infinite amount of ornamentation. but i do not think a gentleman gipsy's carriage ought to, in any way, resemble that of a travelling showman, although it certainly should not be like a salvationist's "barrow." the entrance door may be at the side, or behind, as in the wanderer. the windows should be large and neat, and prettily curtained or upholstered. a caravannist is constantly being gazed at, and people will assuredly judge of your interior fittings by the taste and appearance displayed outside. the wanderer, with my books and furniture (all light) on board, weighs well-nigh two tons. even for a pair of good-hearted horses, such as i possess, this is rather much, so that i should advise that a single horse caravan be not much over fifteen hundredweight. the wanderer is double-walled, being built of well-seasoned beautiful mahogany, and lined with maple, having an interspace of about one inch and a half. but double walls are really not necessary, and only add to the expense. the body of the carriage might be made of willesden waterproof paper, fastened to a framework of light strong wood. this remarkable paper keeps its shape in all weathers, and can be charmingly painted and gilded. for a very light summer caravan the upper works might be painted willesden canvas. such a carriage, however, would hardly withstand the cold of winter. the roof of the wanderer is painted white. i am often asked, is it not very hot in summer? but the answer is "no, because with the doors open there is always a delightful breeze." then, wood being a conductor, and there being so much ventilation, as soon as the sun goes down the caravan becomes as cool as can be desired. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ upholstering and furnishing. a deal of taste can be shown in this. everything must be of smallest possible dimensions. a few favourite books should be taken, while magazines, etc, can be bought in towns and villages as you pass through. i have a fairy edition of the poets, my little ebony bookcase is a fairy one, and a good many other articles as well are of fairy dimensions also. mirrors are tolerably heavy, but let in here and there in the panels, etc, they have a very nice effect, and make the caravan seem double the size. flower vases of different shapes and sizes may be almost everywhere. flowers we can always get, and if the same kind hospitality be extended to every gentleman or lady gipsy that was lavished on me, his or her caravan will always be florally gay. the _coupe_ is easily convertible into a delightful lounge. i have a bag close at hand on the splashboard, where i keep the road-book or guide, the map of the county through which i am passing, and my pens, ink, pencils, and note-books. there is also on the _coupe_ a brass-gilt little rack for holding my book or newspaper, as well as a minimum thermometer. if a shower faces the caravan and is blown in under the verandah, or if the dust is troublesome, it is easy to retire into the saloon for a short time, and shut the glass door. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sketching from the coupe. if you are at all handy with the pencil and... this page missing. this page missing. --my vases, or blind or curtain one inch awry. be gentle and firm with your valet, and he will soon come to see things as you do, and act in accordance with all your wishes. the cooking-stove should be black-leaded, the tin things should shine like burnished silver, and every kitchen utensil be as bright and clean as a new sovereign. what though your table be small, the viands plain? they are well put on, your delft is polished, and that flower in the vase, and those coloured glasses, look well on a spotless cloth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the cooking-range. does it smell at all? i have often been asked that question. the reply is "no, not at all," and in october i light the range of an evening to warm the caravan. when breakfast is wanted in a hurry, to ensure an early start, the cooking is done the night before, and the tea made and poured off the leaves into a large bottle, so that five minutes' time in the morning is sufficient to warm everything. the oil for the range is hung underneath in a can. underneath also are slung two buckets, a dog's food-can, and a dust-proof basket in which vegetables are carried, to be cleaned and made ready for cooking at the midday halt, and so prepared without delay when the bivouac is chosen. everything done the evening before. everything that can be done the evening before should be done--boot cleaning, knife polishing, filling cistern and filter, and preparing the range for immediate lighting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the provision book. this should be presented to you every morning at breakfast by your valet, who is to call your attention to the articles wanted, whether bread, butter, meat, vegetables, or groceries. then the shopping is done in the forenoon as you pass through village or town, although many things are better and more cheaply procured at cottages. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ an early start desirable. make an early start and all will go well. on the other hand, if you laze and dawdle in the morning the day will be spoiled, luncheon will be hurried, and dinner too late. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ asking the road. this is the duty of your valet, who is on ahead with the tricycle. but do not trust altogether to him, but when any doubt exists ask yourself, and be sure that your informant really knows his right hand from his left. remember that if a man stands facing you his _right_ is your _left_. draymen, butchers, and waggoners, are the best men to enquire the state of the roads of, as regards hills, condition, etc. i make a point of mingling in a kindly way of an evening with the villagers at the inns where my horses are stabled. i get much amusement sometimes by so doing. i meet many queer characters, hear many a strange story, and last but not least get well-ventilated opinions as to the best and nearest roads. a caravannist must not be above talking to all kinds and conditions of men. if he has pride he must keep it in a bucket under the caravan. never if possible get-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ belated. if you do, you are liable to accidents of all kinds. i have been run into more than once at night by recklessly-driving tipsy folks. certainly it only slightly shook my great caravan, but capsized the dogcart. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ while on the road. while on the road, your coachman will for the horses' sakes keep on the best parts. make room, however, wherever possible for faster vehicles that want to pass you. but whenever the drivers of them are insolent i laugh and let them wait; they dare not "ram" me. ramming would not affect the wanderer in the slightest, but would be rough on the rammer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ stabling. stable your horses every night. never think of turning them out. the horses are your moving power, and you cannot take too much care of them. see then that they are carefully groomed and fed, and stand pastern-deep in dry straw. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ civility. this is a cheap article. be civil to everyone, and you will have civility in return. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ the price of stabling. make it a rule, as i do, to know exactly what you have to pay for your horses' accommodation. you will thus have no words in the morning, you will part in friendship with the landlord, who will be glad to see you when you return, while the ostler's good word can be bought cheaply enough. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ water. drink nothing but what has passed through the filter. i use one from the silicated carbon company, and find it excellent. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dangers of the road. these are nominal, and need hardly be mentioned. i carry a revolver which i seldom load; i have shutters that i seldom put up; and i often sleep with an open door. but i have a faithful dog. my most painful experience on the road this year i sent an account of to the _pall mall_ under the title of "a terrible telegram." "a few claret corks and an empty `turkey and tongue' tin--nothing else will be left to mark the spot where the wanderer lay." my friend townesend gazed on the grass as he spoke, and there was a look of sadness in his face, which, actor though he be, i feel sure was not assumed. he had come to see the last of me and my caravan--the last for a time, at all events--to bid me good-bye and see me start. parting is sweet sorrow, and i had spent a most enjoyable week at that delightful, quiet, wee watering-place, filey, yorkshire. i had lazed and written, i had lounged and read; my very soul felt steeped in a dreamy glamour as pleasant as moonshine on the sea; i had enjoyed the _dolee far niente_, book in hand, among the wild thyme on the sunny cliffs of guisthorpe; for me, blades of dulse--the esculent and delicious _rhodamenia palmata_--culled wet from the waves that lapped and lisped among the brigg's dark boulders, had been veritable lotus leaves, and, reclining by the mouth of a cave, i could readily believe in fairies and sea nymphs--ay, and mermaids as well. no letters to write, no bills to pay, no waiters to tip--for is not the wanderer my hotel upon wheels?--and no lodging-house cat,--surely one would think a gentleman gipsy's life leaves little to be desired. and truly speaking, apart from that "terrible hill" which, day after day, seems ever on ahead of us, but which we always manage to surmount, caravanning in summer has but few drawbacks. so perfectly free and easy, so out-and-out happy is one's existence when so engaged, that he actually cares as little for the great current events of the day, or for the rise and fall of governments, as the whistling ploughboy does about the storms that rage in mid-atlantic. why then should that wretched little fraud, that so-called boon to the public, the sixpenny telegram, burst like a thunderstorm around my head, and tear my peace and joy to rags? listen, reader, and i already feel sore of your indulgence and sympathy. we left filey on monday forenoon, and after five days of toiling over the hills and wolds, found ourselves at askern. askern is a little spa and health resort, its waters are chemically similar to those of harrogate, and useful in the same class of cases. the halt and maim and rheumatic come here, and those who seek for quiet and rest after months of drudgery at the desk's dull wood. many more would come were the place but better known. on friday night here the rain came down in torrents, but saturday morning was fine, so i allowed both my servants to take an after-dinner trip to doncaster. i would take an after-dinner nap. i was on particularly good terms with myself; i had had letters from home, i had done a good day's work, and presently meant to resume my writing. "a telegram, sir!" a telegram? i took it and tore it open. a telegram always gives me momentary increase of heart-action, but this laconic message caused such pericardial sinking as i hope i shall never feel again. "come home immediately, and wire the time you leave," so ran the terrible telegram. but, greatest mystery of all, it came from mark-lane, and the sender was not my wife but "hyde." i had never been to mark-lane, and who is hyde? but what dreadful calamity had happened to my home? my wife and bairnies live in berks; but she must have gone to town, i thought, and been killed in the street, having but time to breathe my name and address ere closing her eyes for ever. were she alive she herself would have wired, and not hyde. there must be a mortuary at mark-lane, and hyde must be the dead-house doctor. i dashed my manuscript all aside, then rushed to the post-office and wired to hyde for fullest particulars. there would be a train at four which would take me to london by : . before i received the telegram my tongue was as red and clear as that of my newfoundland dog's, in a moment it had become white and furred; there was a burning sensation in my throat, and my heart felt as big as a bullock's, and all these are symptoms of sudden shock and grief. but it was a time for action. in an hour the train would leave; 'twould seem a long, long hour to me. i packed my handbag with trembling hands, drew the shutters over all the windows of the wanderer, determining to lock all up and board my valet at the hotel. hurricane bob, my dog, must have thought me mad, for i gave him the joint that had been meant for our sunday's dinner; it would not keep till my return. then i went and sat down in the post-office, and with thumping heart awaited hyde's reply. how long the time seemed! how slowly the minute hand of the clock moved! my feelings must have been akin to those of a felon waiting the return of the jury and a verdict. the reply came at last, but only to deepen the mystery and my misery. no hyde of mark-lane could be found. i wired again, wired and waited for nearly another awful hour. meanwhile my train had gone. the reader can judge of the state of my feelings, when at length the clicking needles informed the clerk that the first telegram was meant for another "gordon stables," of another askarn, spelt with an "_a_" instead of an "_e_." i did not know i had a double till now, because my name is so unusual. if i rejoiced in the name of john, and my patronymic were smith, the marvel would be small, but the gordon stableses of that ilk are not dropped into this world out of a watering-can, so i do wonder who my double is, and sincerely hope that telegram has not brought him grief, but ten thousand a year. i have no more to add. i trust if the reader does go on the road he will find a gipsy's life as happy and pleasant as i have done. good-bye. [illustration: cover] [frontispiece: the gateway, abbotsford] [illustration: title page] beautiful britain abbotsford london adam & charles black soho square w contents chapter i. from cartleyhole to abbotsford ii. the creation of abbotsford iii. scott at abbotsford iv. the wizard's farewell to abbotsford v. the later abbotsford list of illustrations . the gateway, abbotsford . . . . . . _frontispiece_ . the eildon hills and river tweed . the cross, melrose . sir walter scott's desk and 'elbow chair' in the study, abbotsford . jedburgh abbey . sir walter's sundial, abbotsford . darnick tower . the dining-room, abbotsford . the garden, abbotsford . the entrance-hall, abbotsford . dryburgh abbey . abbotsford from the river tweed chapter i from cartleyhole to abbotsford thousands of persons from all parts of the world visit abbotsford annually. there is no diminution in the pilgrimage to this chief shrine of the border country, nor is there likely to be. scott's name, and that of abbotsford, are secure enough in the affections of men everywhere. it is scarcely necessary to recall that scott on both sides of his house was connected with the border country--the 'bold bad border' of a day happily long dead. he would have been a reiver himself, more than likely, and one of its nameless bards to boot, had he lived before the border felt the subdued spirit of modern times. a descendant of wat of harden, linked to the best blood of the border, and with every phase of his life redolent of the border feeling, history has had no difficulty in claiming sir walter scott as the most representative border man the world has seen. he was not born in the border country, but practically all his life was spent there. he came to the border a sickly, delicate child, between his third and fourth year, and for threescore years and one he seldom left it for any lengthened interval. edinburgh was the arena of much of his professional career. but he was happiest, even amid the most crushing sorrows of his life, when within earshot of the tweed. there was not a blither or sunnier boyhood than scott's at rosebank, where even then he was 'making' himself, and dreaming of the days that were to be. at ashestiel, the birthplace of the most popular poetry of the century before byron blazed upon the literary horizon, his life was singularly untrammelled. ashestiel, from being off the beaten track perhaps, seems to have lost favour somewhat with the scott student. at any rate, it is not the shrine it should be, although in several respects it is more interesting to lovers of scott than even abbotsford itself. as for abbotsford, may we not say that it is at once the proudest, and the most stimulating, and the saddest memorial ever associated with a man of letters? all these places, comprising the three periods of scott's life--rosebank, ashestiel, abbotsford--lie as close to the tweed as can be--none of them more than a few hundred paces from it at the outside. and when the great borderer's task was accomplished, where more fitly could he have rested than with the river of his love and of his dreams singing ceaseless requiem around his last low bed? it will be interesting to have a glimpse of tweedside just as scott appeared upon the scene. since his day the valley in many of its aspects has not been without change. even the remote uplands, long untouched by outside influences, have not escaped the modern spirit. the river must needs remain _in statu quo_, but the contrast between sir walter's tweedside and ours is considerable. a century of commerce and agriculture has wrought marvels on the once bare and featureless and uncultivated banks of the tweed. and none would have rejoiced at its present picturesque and prosperous condition more than scott himself. of the valley as it was a hundred years since, some early travellers give their impressions. there is the following from a londoner's point of view, for instance--a somewhat sombre picture, true enough, however, of _the upper reaches_ at the time: 'about four in the afternoon we were obliged to proceed on our journey to moffat, a market town, where we were informed we should meet with good lodging, which made us ride on the more briskly, but notwithstanding all our speed, we had such terrible stony ways and tedious miles, that when we thought we had been near the place, we met a scotchman, who told us we were not got half way; this put us almost into the spleen, for we could see nothing about us but barren mountains on the right and the river tweed on the left, which, running thro' the stones and rocks with a terrible noise, seemed to us like the croaking of a raven, or the tone of a screitch owle to a dying man, so we were forced to ride on by guesse, knowing not a step of the way.' at scott's day the tweed valley, in what are now its most luxuriant reaches, exhibited a markedly naked and treeless character. from abbotsford to norham castle the scenery was of the openest. here and there 'ancestral oaks' still clumped themselves about the great houses, with perhaps some further attempt at decorating the landscape. but that was rare enough. landlords had not learned the art, not to speak of the wisdom, of tree-planting. it is only within the past hundred years that planting has become frequent, and the modern beauty of tweedside emerged into being. it is said that scott was one of the first to popularize the planting spirit. his operations at abbotsford certainly induced the neighbouring proprietors to follow suit. scott of gala, and the lairds of ravenswood, drygrange, cowdenknowes, gladswood, bemersyde, mertoun, eildon hall, and floors, all took their lead, more or less, from abbotsford. arboriculture was scott's most passionate hobby. at least two long articles were penned by him on the subject, and he practised the art with extraordinary diligence and foresight. of botany he knew little, but of trees everything. as we shall see, not the least important part of abbotsford's creation was planning and perfecting that wondrous wealth of woodland--a very network about the place, on whose full growth his eyes, alas! were not destined to feast. 'somebody,' he said, 'will look at them, however, though i question that they will have the same pleasure in gazing on the full-grown oaks that i have had in nursing the saplings.' another impression of tweedside comes to us from the pages of lockhart. we are dealing now with _the site of abbotsford_ as it was about the year . scott was tenant of ashestiel. here he had spent eight of the pleasantest years of his life. but his lease was out, and the laird himself--scott's cousin, general russell--was returning from india. in casting about for a new abode, scott seems at first to have thought of broadmeadows, on the yarrow, then in the market, a compact little domain which would have suited him well. lockhart's one regret was that scott did not purchase broadmeadows. here, surrounded by large landed proprietors, instead of a few bonnet-lairds, he would certainly have escaped the abbotsford 'yerd-hunger,' and changed, possibly, the whole of his career. but the broadmeadows scott might have been very different from _our sir walter_. of newark, also, close by, the scene of the 'lay,' he had some fancy, and would fain have fitted it up as a residence. the ancestral home of harden itself was proposed to him, and indeed offered, and he would have removed thither but for its inconvenience for shrieval duties. after all, however, there was uppermost in scott's mind the wish to have a house and land of his own--to be 'laird of the cairn and the scaur,' as in the case of broadmeadows, or 'a tweedside laird' at best, and later on, perhaps, to 'play the grand old feudal lord again.' lockhart assures us that scott was really aiming at higher game. his ambition was to found a new border family, and to become head of a new branch of the scotts, already so dominant. he realized his ambition before he died. [illustration: the eildon hills and river tweed. here scott loved to linger. "i can stand on the eildon hill," he said, "and point out forty-three places in war and verse."] about to quit ashestiel, therefore, his attention was directed to a small farm-holding not far distant, on the south bank of the tweed, some two miles from galashiels, and about three from melrose. scott knew the spot well. it had 'long been one of peculiar interest for him,' from the fact of the near neighbourhood of a border battlefield, first pointed out to him by his father. by name newarthaugh, it was also known as cartleyhole, or cartlawhole, and cartlihole, according to the melrose session records, in which parish it was situated. the place was tenanted for a time by taits and dicksons. then it seems to have passed into the family of walter turnbull, school-master of melrose, who disposed of it, in the year , to dr. robert douglas, the enterprising and philanthropic minister of galashiels. why dr. douglas purchased this property nobody has been able to understand. it lay outside his parish, and was never regarded as a desirable or dignified possession. a shrewd man of business, however, he may, like scott, have judged it capable of results, speculating accordingly. he had never lived at cartleyhole. the place was laid out in parks, and the house, of which, curiously, scott speaks in a recently recovered letter as 'new and substantial,' was in occupation. the surroundings were certainly in a deplorably neglected condition. the sole attempt at embellishment had been limited to a strip of firs so long and so narrow that scott likened it to a black hair-comb. 'the farm,' according to lockhart, 'consisted of a rich meadow or haugh along the banks of the river, and about a hundred acres of undulated ground behind, all in a neglected state, undrained, wretchedly enclosed, much of it covered with nothing better than the native heath. the farmhouse itself was small and poor, with a common kailyard on one flank and a staring barn on the other; while in front appeared a filthy pond covered with ducks and duckweed, from which the whole tenement had derived the unharmonious designation of clarty hole.' melrose abbey, the most graceful and picturesque ruin in scotland, already so celebrated in his verse, was visible from many points in the neighbourhood. dryburgh was not far distant. yonder eildon's triple height, sacred to so much of the supernatural in border lore, reared his grey crown to the skies. there, the tweed, 'a beautiful river even here,' flowed in front, broad and bright over a bed of milk-white pebbles. selkirk, his sheriff's headquarters, was within easy reach. he was interested in the catrail, or picts' work ditch, on the opposite hillside, so often alluded to in his letters to ellis; and on his own ground were fields, and mounds, and standing-stones, whose placenames recalled the struggle of . a roman road running down from the eildons to a ford on the tweed, long used by the abbots, the erstwhile lords of the locality, furnished a new designation for the acres of hungry haugh-land--'as poor and bare as sir john falstaff's regiment'--upon which was destined to be reared the most venerated, and probably the most visited shrine in the kingdom. on may , , we find scott writing to james ballantyne: 'i have resolved to purchase a piece of ground sufficient for a cottage and a few fields. there are two pieces, either of which would suit me, but both would make a very desirable property indeed, and could be had for between £ , and £ , --or either separate for about half the sum. i have serious thoughts of one or both, and must have recourse to my pen to make the matter easy.' by the end of june one of the pieces passed into his hands for the sum mentioned--£ , , half of which, according to scott's bad and sanguine habit, he borrowed from his brother john, raising the remainder on the security of 'rokeby,' as yet unwritten. the letter to dr. douglas acknowledging his receipt for the last instalment of the purchase-money has been preserved: 'i received the discharged bill safe, which puts an end to our relation of debtor and creditor: 'now the gowd's thine, and the land's mine. i am glad you have been satisfied with my manner of transacting business, and have equal reason at least to thank you for your kindly accommodation as to time and manner of payment. in short, i hope our temporary connection forms a happy contradiction to the proverb, "i lent my money to my friend; i lost my money and my friend."' a figure of note in his day, dr. douglas was born at the manse of kenmore, in , and in his twenty-third year was presented to the parish of galashiels, where he laboured till his death in . he has been styled the father of galashiels. galashiels, when abbotsford came into being, was a mere thatched hamlet. then it could boast of not more than a dozen slated houses. to-day there is a population of over , . chapter ii the creation of abbotsford the first purchase of land was close on a hundred and ten acres, half of which were to be planted, and the remainder kept in pasture and tillage. an ornamental cottage with a pillared porch--a print of which is still preserved--after the style of an english vicarage, was agreed upon, and it was here that scott passed the first years of his abbotsford life. he had many correspondents during this period. daniel terry, an architect turned actor, was probably his chief adviser as to abbotsford and its furnishings, no end of letters passing between them. morritt of rokeby was much in his confidence, and joanna baillie, 'our immortal joanna,' whose 'family legend,' had been produced at edinburgh the previous year under scott's auspices. the plans for his house were at first of the simplest. he thus describes them to miss baillie: 'my dreams about my cottage go on. my present intention is to have only two spare bedrooms, with dressing-rooms, each of which on a pinch will have a couch-bed; but i cannot relinquish my border principle of accommodating all the cousins and _duniwastles_, who will rather sleep on chairs, and on the floor, and in the hayloft, than be absent when folks are gathered together.' [illustration: abbotsford from the river tweed] to morritt we find him writing: 'i have fixed only two points respecting my intended cottage--one is that it shall be in my garden, or rather kailyard; the other, that the little drawing-room shall open into a little conservatory, in which conservatory there shall be a fountain. these are articles of taste which i have long since determined upon; but i hope before a stone of my paradise is begun we shall meet and collogue upon it'; but soon after, as an excuse for beginning 'rokeby,' his fourth verse romance, he says: 'i want to build my cottage a little better than my limited finances will permit out of my ordinary income.' later on he tells lord byron that 'he is labouring to contradict an old proverb, and make a silk purse out of a sow's ear--namely, to convert a bare haugh and brae into a comfortable farm'; and to sarah smith, a london tragic actress, he writes: 'everybody, after abusing me for buying the ugliest place on tweedside, begins now to come over to my side. i think it will be pretty six or seven years hence, whoever may come to see and enjoy, for the sweep of the river is a very fine one of almost a mile in length, and the ground is very unequal, and therefore well adapted for showing off trees.' scott, as was said, took a profound interest in tree-planting. had he not been able to add by purchase the neighbouring hills to his original lands, it was said that he would have requested permission of the owners to plant the grounds, for the mere pleasure of the occupation, and to beautify the landscape. 'i saunter about,' he said to lady abercorn, 'from nine in the morning till five at night with a plaid about my shoulders and an immense bloodhound at my heels, and stick in sprigs which are to become trees when i shall have no eyes to look at them!' he had a painter's as well as a poet's eye for scenery: 'you can have no idea of the exquisite delight of a planter,' he said; 'he is like a painter laying on his colours--at every moment he sees his effects coming out. there is no art or occupation comparable to this; it is full of past, present, and future enjoyment. i look back to the time when there was not a tree here, only bare heath; i look round and see thousands of trees growing up, all of which--i may say almost each of which--have received my personal attention. i remember five years ago looking forward, with the most delighted expectation, to this very hour, and as each year has passed the expectation has gone on increasing. i do the same now; i anticipate what this plantation and that one will presently be, if only taken care of, and there is not a spot of which i do not watch the progress. unlike building, or even painting, or indeed any other kind of pursuit, this has no end, and is never interrupted, but goes on from day to day and from year to year with a perpetually augmenting interest. farming i hate; what have i to do with fattening and killing beasts, or raising corn only to cut it down, and to wrangle with farmers about prices, and to be constantly at the mercy of the seasons? there can be no such disappointments or annoyances in planting trees.' [illustration: the cross, melrose. believed to be the oldest "mercat cross" on the border.] scott left ashestiel at whitsunday, --a rather comical 'flitting,' according to his own account of it. 'the neighbours,' he writes to lady alvanley, 'have been much delighted with the procession of my furniture, in which old swords, bows, targets, and lances made a very conspicuous show. a family of turkeys was accommodated within the helmet of some _preux_ chevalier of ancient border fame; and the very cows, for aught i know, were bearing banners and muskets. i assure your ladyship that this caravan, attended by a dozen of ragged, rosy peasant children, carrying fishing-rods and spears, and leading ponies, greyhounds, and spaniels, would, as it crossed the tweed, have furnished no bad subject for the pencil, and really reminded me of one of the gypsy groups of callot upon their march.' the year was one of his busiest. five days every week until the middle of july he did court duty at edinburgh. saturday evening saw him at abbotsford. on monday he superintended the licking into shape of his new domicile, and at night he was coaching it to the city. during the court recess he pegged away at 'rokeby' and other work under circumstances that must have been trying enough. 'as for the house and the poem,' he writes to morritt, 'there are twelve masons hammering at the one and one poor noddle at the other.' he did not then know the luxury of a private 'den' as at castle street. a window corner, curtained off in the one habitable room which served for dining-room, drawing-room, and school-room, constituted his earliest abbotsford study. there, amid the hammer's incessant fall, and the hum of many voices, and constant interruptions, he plodded on, and got through a fair amount. the letters to terry commence in september, , and show that some little progress had been made: 'we have got up a good garden-wall, complete stables in the haugh, and the old farm-yard enclosed with a wall, with some little picturesque additions in front. the new plantations have thriven amazingly well, the acorns are coming up fast, and tom purdie is the happiest and most consequential person in the world.' to joanna baillie he sends this characteristic note, in the beginning of : 'no sooner had i corrected the last sheet of 'rokeby' than i escaped to this patmos as blithe as bird on tree, and have been ever since most decidedly idle--that is to say with busy idleness. i have been banking, and securing, and dyking against the river, and planting willows, and aspens, and weeping birches. i have now laid the foundations of a famous background of copse, with pendent trees in front; and i have only to beg a few years to see how my colours will come out of the canvas. alas! who can promise that? but somebody will take my place--and enjoy them, whether i do or no'; and in march he adds: 'what i shall finally make of this villa work i don't know, but in the meantime it is very entertaining'; and again: 'this little place comes on as fast as can be reasonably hoped.' to lady louisa stuart he writes: 'we are realizing the nursery tale of the man and his wife who lived in a vinegar bottle, for our only sitting-room is just feet square, and my eve alleges that i am too big for our paradise.' in october, , terry is told that 'these are no times for building,' but in the following spring, pressing the morritts to visit him, he says: 'i am arranging this cottage a little more conveniently, to put off the plague and expense of building another year, and i assure you i expect to spare you and mrs. morritt a chamber in the wall, with a dressing-room and everything handsome about you. you will not stipulate, of course, for many square feet.' in a letter to terry, dated november , --the year of 'waverley'--further progress is reported: 'i wish you saw abbotsford, which begins this season to look the whimsical, gay, odd cabin that we had chalked out. i have been obliged to relinquish stark's (the edinburgh architect, who died before the building was well begun) plan, which was greatly too expensive. so i have made the old farm-house my _corps de logis_ with some outlying places for kitchen, laundry, and two spare bedrooms, which run along the east wall of the farm-court, not without some picturesque effect. a perforated cross, the spoils of the old kirk of galashiels, decorates an advanced door, and looks very well.' not much was done during the next two years, but in november, , a new set of improvements was under consideration. abbotsford was rapidly losing its cottage character. the 'romance' period was begun. a notable addition--connecting the farm-house with the line of buildings on the right--was then agreed upon, on which scott communicates with terry: 'bullock[ ] will show you the plan, which i think is very ingenious, and blore has drawn me a very handsome elevation, both to the road and to the river. this addition will give me a handsome boudoir opening into the little drawing-room, and on the other side to a handsome dining-parlour of feet by , with three windows to the north and one to the south, the last to be gothic and filled with stained glass. besides these commodities there is a small conservatory, and a study for myself, which we design to fit up with ornaments from melrose abbey.' in the same letter he says: 'i expect to get some decorations from the old tolbooth of edinburgh, particularly the copestones of the doorway, and a niche or two. better get a niche _from_ the tolbooth than a niche _in_ it to which such building operations are apt to bring the projectors.' [ ] george bullock and edward blore, london architects and furnishers. atkinson was the artist who arranged the interior of abbotsford. by july, , the foundation of the existing house, which extends from the hall westwards to the original courtyard, had been laid, and scott found a new source of constant occupation in watching the proceedings of his masons. in consequence of a blunder or two during his absence, 'i perceive the necessity,' he said, 'of remaining at the helm.' to joanna baillie he writes in september: 'i get on with my labours here; my house is about to be roofed in, and a comical concern it is.' there is some correspondence in october between scott and terry relative to the tower, a leading feature of the building. scott mentions that (sir) david wilkie, who had just been his guest, 'admires the whole as a composition, and that is high authority.' 'i agree with you that the tower will look rather rich for the rest of the building, yet you may be assured that, with diagonal chimneys and notched gables, it will have a very fine effect, and is in scotch architecture by no means incompatible.' in the beginning of , he again writes to terry: 'i am now anxious to complete abbotsford. i have reason to be proud of the finishing of my castle, for even of the tower, for which i trembled, not a stone has been shaken by the late terrific gale which blew a roof clean off in the neighbourhood.' lockhart, who saw abbotsford for the first time in , confesses that the building presented a somewhat 'fantastic appearance,' the new and old by no means harmonizing. he was there again in , and in february, , he married scott's daughter. in the same year scott writes to his wife from london, whither he had gone to receive his baronetcy: 'i have got a delightful plan for the addition at abbotsford which, i think, will make it quite complete, and furnish me with a handsome library, and you with a drawing-room and better bedroom. it will cost me a little hard work to meet the expense, but i have been a good while idle.' the plans for these new buildings, including the wall and gateway of the courtyard and the graceful stone screen which divides it from the garden, were made by blore, although the screen--with its carvings taken from details of stone-work at melrose abbey--was originally devised by sir walter himself. during the winter of the new operations were commenced. by the spring of they were in full swing. 'it is worth while to come,' he writes to lord montagu, 'were it but to see what a romance of a house i am making'; and to terry later on: 'the new castle is now roofing, and looks superb--in fact, a little too good for the estate; but we must work the harder to make the land suitable.' that same summer the place was besieged by visitors from the south, who, after witnessing the king's reception at edinburgh, hastened out to see abbotsford. in october, , he writes to his son walter: 'my new house is quite finished as to masonry, and we are now getting on the roof just in time to face the bad weather.' in november, , and january, , there are long letters to terry: 'the house is completely roofed. i never saw anything handsomer than the grouping of towers, chimneys, etc., when seen at a proper distance.' with terry all sorts of subjects were discussed--bells, and a projected gas installation, along with a constant enumeration of curios and relics, on which he is urged to spare no expense. 'about july,' scott writes at the beginning of , 'abbotsford will, i think, be finished, when i shall, like the old duke of queensberry who built drumlanrig, fold up the accounts in a sealed parcel, with a label bidding "the deil pike out the een" of any of my successors that shall open it.' by christmas, it was completed, and with the new year's festivities a large and gay party celebrated the 'house-warming,' of which basil hall's sprightly 'journal,' incorporated in the 'life,' supplies a singularly agreeable account. but there is no room to quote. it was a doubly joyous occasion, marking not only the realization of scott's long-cherished scheme as to his 'castle,' but the engagement of his eldest son, with whom, as he must have felt at the time, were the fortunes of the future abbotsford. of the year entered so auspiciously, none dreamt what the end was to be. [illustration: sir walter scott's desk and "elbow chair," in the study, abbotsford. at the desk most of the novels were written. certainly no other article of furniture has been so intimately associated with scott.] in the creation of abbotsford not only was the cottage of transformed to the castle of , but the estate itself was continually enlarging. possession of land was a crowning passion with scott. he was always driving bargains, as he declared--on the wrong side of his purse, however--with the needy, greedy cock-lairds of the locality. 'it rounds off the property so handsomely,' he says in one of his letters. once, on his friend ferguson remarking that he had paid what appeared to be one of his usual fabulous prices for a particular stretch, scott answered quite good-humouredly, 'well, well, it is only to me the scribbling of another volume more of nonsense.' the first purchase was, as we have seen, the hundred odd acres of clarty hole. in he made his second purchase, which consisted of the hilly tract stretching from the roman road near turn-again towards cauldshiels loch, then a desolate and naked mountain mere. to have this at one end of his property as a contrast to the tweed at the other 'was a prospect for which hardly any sacrifice would have appeared too much.' it cost him about £ , . in , kaeside--laidlaw's home--on the heights between abbotsford and melrose, passed into his hands for another £ , , and more than doubled the domain. the house has changed considerably since laidlaw's halcyon days. by the estate had grown to about , acres. in and he paid £ , for the two toftfields, altering the name of the new and unfinished mansion to huntlyburn, from a supposed but absolutely erroneous association with the 'huntlee bankis'[ ] of the thomas the rhymer romance. in , burnfoot, afterwards chiefswood, and harleyburn fell to his hands for £ , , and there were many minor purchases of which lockhart takes no notice. scott was very anxious to acquire the estate of faldonside,[ ] adjoining abbotsford to the west, and actually offered £ , for it, but without success. he was similarly unsuccessful with darnick tower, which lay into his lands on the east, and which he was extremely desirous of including in abbotsford. scott's suggestion rather spurred the owner, john heiton, to restore the ancient peel-house as a retreat for his own declining days, and it is still in excellent preservation--one of the best-preserved peels on the border--and a veritable museum, crammed from floor to ceiling with curios, relics, and mementos both of the past and present. [ ] the 'huntlee bankis' lie between melrose and newtown, on the eastern slope of the eildons, on the left side of the highway as it bends round to the west, going towards, and within about two miles of, melrose. the spot is indicated by the famous eildon tree stone. [ ] the place belonged in to andrew ker, one of the murderers of rizzio. in ker married the widow of john knox, the reformer. nicol milne was proprietor in scott's day. [illustration: jedburgh abbey. this grand ruin is of red sandstone, and except that it is roofless is in excellent preservation.] but even 'yerd-hunger' must be satisfied, and in scott's case there was nothing for it save to steel the flesh against further desire. in november, , there is the following entry in his diary: 'abbotsford is all i can make it, so i resolve on no more building and no purchases of land till times are quite safe.' but times were never safe again. abbotsford was all but within sound of the 'muffled drum.' very soon--december , --scott was to write these words: 'sad hearts at darnick and in the cottages of abbotsford. i have half resolved never to see the place again. how could i tread my hall with such a diminished crest! how live a poor, indebted man where i was once the wealthy, the honoured!' and again on january , : 'i have walked my last on the domains i have planted, sat the last time in the halls i have built'--reflections happily unrealized, though, as a matter of fact, scott was then the laird of abbotsford in name only, and nothing more. the building and furnishing of abbotsford are estimated to have cost over £ , . the contract for the edifice was in the capable hands of the smiths of darnick, with whom scott was on the most cordial terms. john smith (the sculptor of the wallace statue at bemersyde) was a singularly able craftsman, and his staff of workmen, with adam paterson for foreman, were known all over the border. for the interior decorations--painting, papering, etc., and even for some of the carvings and casts--scott generally gave employment to local labour. much of the costlier furniture was shipped from london, but the great bulk of the work was carried through by tradesmen in the district, selected by scott himself, and in whom he placed implicit confidence. the estate, all told, must have cost at least £ , . it extended to , acres, and the annual rental in scott's day was only about £ . such was the creation of scott's abbotsford, a real 'romance in stone and lime,' to use the frenchman's hackneyed phrase. never had sir walter deeper delight than when its walls were rising skywards, and the dream of his youth taking steady shape by the silvery side of the tweed. 'i have seen much, but nothing like my ain house,' he cried--a broken, dying man returned to abbotsford, only to be borne forth again. nor has history been slow to add its amen. chapter iii scott at abbotsford of the abbotsford life in the seven or eight brilliant seasons preceding the disaster of lockhart's exquisite word-pictures are far the finest things in the biography. scott's dream was now fairly realized. he was not only a lord of acres, but a kind of mediæval chieftain as well. his cottage was transformed to a superb mansion, like some creation of the 'arabian nights,' and the whole estate, acquired at a cost far exceeding its real value, had grown to one of the trimmest and snuggest on tweedside. a comparative failure at the bar, scott succeeded well otherwise in his professional career. his income from the court clerkship and sheriffdom totalled £ , , and from other sources he had an additional £ a year. as the most prosperous book-producer of the period, he was netting an annual profit of no less than £ , . his family was grown up, and his home life, notwithstanding some harsh things said about lady scott, was of the happiest. unliterary, and frenchified to a degree, charlotte carpenter was not the ideal helpmeet, perhaps, for a man of scott's calibre and temperament. but that they lived comfortably together, that she made him an excellent wife, and that scott was much attached to her, must be taken for granted, else lockhart and the others are equivocating. there is at least one glimpse into scott's heart which cannot savour of hypocrisy--the occasion of her death. some of the most touching passages in the diary belong to that event. as lover, husband, father, there is no question of the acuteness with which he felt her loss who had been his 'thirty years' companion.' within less than six months the two biggest blows of his life fell upon scott. ruined, then widowed, his cup of grief was drained to the utmost. but before the fatal ' scott's life was an eminently ideal one. abbotsford was all he could make it. he had reached the loftiest rung of the ladder. long had he been the celebrity of the hour, not in britain only, but throughout europe itself. probably no british author of his time was more widely known, and none, it is certain, was surrounded with so many of the material comforts. it was truly a summer fulness for scott at abbotsford ere the autumn winds or the biting breath of winter had begun to chill his cheek. [illustration: sir walter's sundial, abbotsford. the dial stone in the flower garden, inscribed with the motto "for the night cometh," is an object of suggestive interest.] a glance at the abbotsford life will bring us nearer scott as a man--and as the most lovable of men. treading, as one does to-day, in his very footsteps, we shall want to know how he lived there, and in what manner the pleasant days were spent. scott's habits at abbotsford, as at ashestiel, were delightfully simple. in the country he was a rustic of the rustics. formality vanished to a considerable extent when he changed his townhouse for the bracing atmosphere of the tweed. but always methodical in his literary operations, he never allowed the freer life of abbotsford to interfere with whatever tasks he had on hand. he did not sit late into the night. as a rule, the abbotsford day ended for scott by ten o'clock. he rose at five, lit his own fire in the season, shaving and dressing with precision. attired generally in his green shooting-jacket, he was at his desk by six, and hard at work till nine. about half-past nine, when the family met for breakfast, he would enter the room 'rubbing his hands for glee,' for by that time he had done enough, as he said, 'to break the neck of the day's work.' after breakfast, he allowed his guests to fill in the next couple of hours or so for themselves--fishing, shooting, driving, or riding, with a retinue of keepers and grooms at command. meantime he was busy with his correspondence, or a chapter for ballantyne to be dispatched by the 'blucher,' the edinburgh and melrose coach, by which he himself frequently travelled to and from abbotsford. at noon he was 'his own man,' and among his visitors, or felling trees with the workmen on the estate, laying wagers, and competing with the best of them. when the weather was wet and stormy he kept to his study for several hours during the day, that he might have a reserve fund to draw from on good days. to his visitors he appeared more the man of leisure than the indefatigable author conferring pleasure on thousands. only a careful husbanding of the moments could have enabled him to give the greater part of afternoon and evening to his guests. 'i know,' said cadell, the publisher, once to him, 'that you contrive to get a few hours in your own room, and that may do for the mere pen-work, but when is it that you think?' 'oh,' said scott, 'i lie simmering over things for an hour or so before i get up, and there's the time i am dressing to overhaul my half-sleeping, half-waking _projet de chapitre_, and when i get the paper before me it commonly runs off pretty easily. besides, i often take a dose in the plantations, and while tom marks out a dyke or a drain as i have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain riggs in some other world.' his maxim was never to be doing nothing, and in making the most of the opportunities, he served both himself and his friends. lockhart's reminiscences of the abbotsford life, so delightfully vivid, convey better than anything else something of the ideal charm of scott and his circle. but to lockhart all may go on their own account, since lack of space forbids more than a mere quotation. [illustration: darnick tower. one of the best preserved peels on the border. open to the public and well worth a visit.] the abbotsford hunt, one of the enjoyable annual outings--a coursing match on an extensive scale--affords material for lockhart's best vein, especially the hunt dinner, which for many of the neighbouring yeomen and farmers was _the_ event of the year. 'the company were seldom under thirty in number, and sometimes they exceeded forty. the feast was such as suited the occasion--a baron of beef, roasted, at the foot of the table, a salted round at the head, while tureens of hare-soup, hotchpotch, and cockieleekie extended down the centre, and such light articles as geese, turkeys, an entire sucking-pig, a singed sheep's head, and the unfailing haggis were set forth by way of side-dishes. black-cock and moor-fowl, snipe, black and white puddings, and pyramids of pancakes, formed the second course. ale was the favourite beverage during dinner, but there was plenty of port and sherry for those whose stomachs they suited. the quaighs of glenlivet were filled brimful, and tossed off as if they held water. the wine decanters made a few rounds of the table, but the hints for hot punch and toddy soon became clamorous. two or three bowls were introduced and placed under the supervision of experienced manufacturers--one of these being usually the ettrick shepherd--and then the business of the evening commenced in good earnest. the faces shone and glowed like those at camacho's wedding; the chairman told his richest stories of old rural life, lowland or highland; ferguson and humbler heroes fought their peninsular battles o'er again; the stalwart dandie dinmonts lugged out their last winter's snow-storm, the parish scandal, perhaps, or the dexterous bargain of the northumberland tryst. every man was knocked down for the song that he sung best, or took most pleasure in singing. shortreed gave "dick o' the cow," or "now liddesdale has ridden a raid"; his son thomas shone without a rival in the "douglas tragedy" and the "twa corbies"; a weather-beaten, stiff-bearded veteran, "captain" ormiston, had the primitive pastoral of "cowdenknowes" in sweet perfection. hogg produced the "women folk," or "the kye comes hame," and, in spite of many grinding notes, contrived to make everybody delighted, whether with the fun or the pathos of his ballad. the melrose doctor sang in spirited style some of moore's masterpieces. a couple of retired sailors joined in "bold admiral duncan," and the gallant croupier crowned the last bowl with "ale, good ale, thou art my darling." and so it proceeded until some worthy, who had fifteen or twenty miles to ride, began to insinuate that his wife and bairns would be getting sorely anxious about the fords, and the dumpies and hoddins were at last heard neighing at the gate, and it was voted that the hour had come for _doch an dorrach_, the stirrup-cup, a bumper all round of the unmitigated mountain dew. how they all contrived to get home in safety heaven only knows, but i never heard of any serious accident except upon one occasion, when james hogg made a bet at starting that he would leap over his wall-eyed pony as she stood, and broke his nose in this experiment of o'ervaulting ambition. one comely good-wife, far off among the hills, amused sir walter by telling him the next time he passed her homestead after one of these jolly doings, what her husband's first words were when he alighted at his own door--"ailie, my woman, i'm ready for my bed; and oh, lass, i wish i could sleep for a towmont, for there's only ae thing in this warld worth living for, and that's the abbotsford hunt."' nor was the good old custom of the kirn omitted at abbotsford. every autumn, before proceeding to edinburgh, scott gave a 'harvest home,' to which all the tenantry and their friends--as many as the barn could hold--were invited. sir walter and his family were present during the first part of the evening, to dispense the good things and say a few words of farewell. old and young danced from sunset to sunrise, to the skirling of john o' skye's pipes, or the strains of some 'wandering willie's' fiddle, the laird having his private joke for every old wife or 'gausie carle,' his arch compliment for the ear of every bonnie lass, and his hand and his blessing for the head of every little eppie daidle from abbotstown or broomielees. hogmanay, and the immemorial customs of the new year, as celebrated in scotland--now fast dying out--obtained full respect at abbotsford. scott said it was uncanny, and would certainly have felt it very uncomfortable not to welcome the new year in the midst of his family and a few cronies in the orthodox fashion. but nothing gave him such delight as the visit which he received as laird from all the children on his estate on the last morning of the year, when, as he was fond of quoting: 'the cottage bairns sing blythe and gay at the ha' door for hogmanay.' the words and form of the drama exist in various versions in every part of the border country, almost every parish possessing its own rendering. the _dramatis personæ_, three or four in number, sometimes even five, arrayed in fantastic fashion, proceeded from house to house, generally contenting themselves with the kitchen for an arena, where the performance was carried through in presence of the entire household. 'galations' (not 'goloshin') is the title of the play. some account of it will be found in chambers' 'popular rhymes of scotland,' and in maidment's scarce pamphlet on the subject ( ). from what has been said, it is not difficult to imagine the ideal relationship existing between scott and his dependents at abbotsford. they were surely the happiest retainers and domestics in the world. how considerate he was in the matter of dwellings, for instance! he realized that he owed them a distinct duty in diffusing as much comfort and security into their lives as possible. they were not mere goods and chattels, but beings of flesh and blood, with human sympathies like himself. and he treated them as such. amid the severities of winter, some of his edinburgh notes to laidlaw are perfect little gems of their kind: 'this dreadful weather will probably stop mercer (the weekly carrier). it makes me shiver in the midst of superfluous comforts to think of the distress of others. i wish you to distribute £ amongst our poorer neighbours so as may best aid them. i mean not only the actually indigent, but those who are, in our phrase, _ill off_. i am sure dr. scott (of darnlee) will assist you with his advice in this labour of love. i think part of the wood-money, too, should be given among the abbotstown folks if the storm keeps them off work, as is like.' and again: 'if you can devise any means by which hands can be beneficially employed at abbotsford, i could turn £ or £ extra into service. if it made the poor and industrious people a little easier, i should have more pleasure in it than any money i ever spent in my life.' 'i think of my rooks amongst this snowstorm, also of the birds, and not a little of the poor. for benefit of the former, i hope peggy throws out the crumbs, and a cornsheaf or two for the game, if placed where poachers could not come at them. for the poor people i wish you to distribute £ or so among the neighbouring poor who may be in distress, and see that our own folks are tolerably well off.' 'do not let the poor bodies want for a £ , or even a £ , more or less'-- 'we'll get a blessing wi' the lave, and never miss 't.' socially, the bond between scott and his servants was a characteristic object-lesson. 'he speaks to us,' said one, 'as if we were blood relations.' like swift, he maintained that an affectionate and faithful servant should always be considered in the character of a humble friend. even the household domestics 'stayed on' year after year. some of them grew grey in his service. one or two died. he had always several pensioners beside him. abbotsford was like a little happy world of its own--the most emphatic exception to the cynic's rule. scott was 'a hero and a gentleman' to those who knew him most intimately in the common and disillusionizing routine of domestic life. in reading lockhart, one feels that, aristocrat as scott was, familiar with the nobility and literary lions of the time, he was most at home, and happiest, perhaps, in the fellowship of commoner men, such as laidlaw, and purdie, and john usher, and james hogg, who were knit to him as soul to soul. of some of these he declared that they had become almost an integral part of his existence. we know how life was inexpressibly changed for scott minus tom purdie, and to dispense with laidlaw, when that had become absolutely necessary, was as the iron entering his soul. the most perfect pen-portraits in lockhart are those of purdie (the cristal nixon of 'redgauntlet'), that faithful factotum and friend for whom he mourned as a brother; and 'dear willie' laidlaw, betwixt whom and scott the most charming of all master and servant correspondence passed; and 'auld pepe'--peter mathieson, his coachman, a wondrously devoted soul, content to set himself in the plough-stilts, and do the most menial duties, rather than quit abbotsford at its darkest. john swanston, too, purdie's successor, and dalgleish, the butler, occupy exalted niches in the temple of humble and honest worth and sweet sacrificing service for a dear master's sake who was much more than master to them all. purdie's grave, close to melrose abbey, with a modest stone erected by sir walter scott, is probably the most visited of the 'graves of the common people' almost anywhere. it is eighty-three years since, apparently in the fullest enjoyment of health and vigour, he bowed his head one evening on the table, and dropped asleep--for ever. laidlaw lies at contin amid the highland solitudes. but few from tweedside have beheld the green turf beneath which his loyal heart has been long resting, or read the simple inscription on the white marble that marks a spot so sacred to all lovers of abbotsford and sir walter. 'here lie the remains of william laidlaw, born at blackhouse in yarrow, november, . died at contin, may , .' no account of the abbotsford life can fail to take notice of the extraordinary number of visitors, who, even at that early date, flocked to the shrine of sir walter. the year , as has been said, must be regarded as the high-water mark in the splendours of abbotsford. from the dawn of 'waverley,' but particularly the period immediately preceding the crash, abbotsford was the most sought-after house in the kingdom. it was seldom without its quota of guests. 'like a cried fair,' scott described it on one occasion. 'a hotel widout de pay,' was lady scott's more matter-of-fact comparison. what a profoundly interesting and curious record a register of visitors to abbotsford would have been! [illustration: the dining-room, abbotsford. "his own great parlour" is not open to the public. it was the first room of any pretension that scott built at abbotsford.] scott's first really distinguished visitor from the other side of the atlantic was washington irving. he was there in august, , whilst the building operations were in progress. following irving, came lady byron for one day only. though scott met byron in london, and they frequently corresponded, lord byron was never at abbotsford. in that same year sir david wilkie visited scott to paint his picture, the 'abbotsford family.' sir humphry davy was another visitor. one of the most welcome of all was miss edgeworth, who stayed for a fortnight in . tom moore came in , and in mrs. hemans, visiting the hamiltons at chiefswood, was daily at abbotsford. susan ferrier, author of 'marriage' and 'inheritance,' visited scott twice. wordsworth, greatest name of all, was the last. he arrived on september , , and two days later scott, a broken invalid, left for the continent. to the list of scott's intimate friends, based on the biography, thomas faed's picture, 'scott and his literary friends,'[ ] offers a good index. the piece is purely imaginary, for the persons represented were never all at abbotsford at the same time, two of them, indeed--crabbe and campbell--never having seen it. scott is represented as reading the manuscript of a new novel; on his right, henry mackenzie, his oldest literary friend, occupies the place of honour. hogg, the intentest figure in the group, sits at scott's feet to the left. kit north's leonine head and shoulders lean across the back of a chair. next come crabbe and lockhart--at the centre of the table--together with wordsworth and francis (afterwards lord) jeffrey. sir adam ferguson, a bosom cronie, cross-legged, his military boots recalling peninsular days and the reading of the 'lady of the lake' to his comrades in the lines of torres vedras, immediately faces scott. behind him, moore and campbell sit opposite each other. at the end of the table are the printers constable and ballantyne, and at their back, standing, the painters allan and wilkie. thomas thomson, deputy clerk register, is on the extreme left, and sir humphry davy is examining a sword-hilt. a second and smaller copy of faed's picture (in the woodlands park collection, bradford) substitutes lord byron and washington irving for constable and ballantyne. allan, davy, and thomson are also omitted. the artist might well have introduced scott's lady literary friends, joanna baillie and maria edgeworth, and it is a pity that laidlaw has been left out. [ ] in the possession of captain dennistoun of golfhill. the picture has been frequently on exhibition, and frequently engraved. whilst, however, abbotsford was a kind of ever open door to an unparalleled variety of guests, there was another and a much larger company constantly invading its precincts--the great army of the uninvited. such interruptions were a constant source of worry to scott. some came furnished with letters of introduction from friends for whose sake scott received them cordially, and treated them kindly. others had no introduction at all, but, pencil and note-book in hand, took the most impertinent liberties with the place and its occupants. on returning to abbotsford upon one occasion, lockhart recalls how scott and he found mrs. scott and her daughters doing penance under the merciless curiosity of a couple of tourists, who had been with her for some hours. it turned out after all that there were no letters of introduction to be produced, as she had supposed, and scott, signifying that his hour for dinner approached, added that, as he gathered they meant to walk to melrose, he could not trespass further on their time. the two lion-hunters seemed quite unprepared for this abrupt escape. but there was about scott, in perfection, when he chose to exert it, the power of civil repulsion. he bowed the overwhelmed originals to the door, and on re-entering the parlour, found mrs. scott complaining very indignantly that they had gone so far as to pull out their note-book and beg an exact account, not only of his age, but of her own. scott, already half relenting, laughed heartily at this misery, afterwards saying, 'hang the yahoos, charlotte, but we should have bid them stay dinner.' 'devil a bit,' quoth captain ferguson, who had come over from huntlyburn, 'they were quite in a mistake, i could see. the one asked madame whether she deigned to call her new house tully veolan or tillietudlem, and the other, when maida happened to lay his head against the window, exclaimed, "_pro-di-gi-ous!_"' 'well, well, skipper,' was the reply, 'for a' that, the loons would hae been nane the waur o' their kail.' [illustration: the garden, abbotsford. the courtyard was (in mr. hope scott's time) planted as a flower garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental grass-plots, and beds all ablaze with summer bowers.] much has been written of scott and his dogs--not the least important part of the establishment. all true poets, from homer downwards, have loved dogs. scott was seldom without a 'tail' at his heels. his special favourites, camp and maida (the bevis of 'woodstock'), are as well-known as himself. both were frequently painted by raeburn and others. when camp died at castle street, scott excused himself from a dinner-party on account of 'the death of a dear old friend'--a fine compliment to the canine tribe--a finer index to the heart of the man. scott looked upon his dogs as companions, 'not as the brute, but the mute creation.' he loved them for their marvellously human traits, and we know how they reciprocated his affection. he was always caring for them. 'be very careful of the dogs,' was his last request to laidlaw on the eve of setting out for italy. and when, close on a year afterwards, he returned so deadly stricken, it was his dogs fondling about him which for the most part resuscitated the sense of 'home, sweet home.' chapter iv the wizard's farewell to abbotsford on march , , at castle street, in the midst of a merry dinner-party, scott was seized with a sudden illness--the first since his childhood. the illness lasted a week, and was more serious than had been anticipated. it was, indeed, the first of a series of such paroxysms, which for years visited him periodically, and from which he never absolutely recovered. lockhart parted on one occasion with 'dark prognostications' that it was for the last time. scott, too, despaired of himself. calling his children about his bed, he said: 'for myself, my dears, i am unconscious of ever having done any man an injury, or omitted any fair opportunity of doing any man a benefit. i well know that no human life can appear otherwise than weak and filthy in the eyes of god; but i rely on the merits and intercession of our redeemer.' 'god bless you!' he again said to each of them, laying his hand on their heads. 'live so that you may all hope to meet each other in a better place hereafter.' presently he fell into a profound slumber, and on awaking, the crisis was seen to be over. a gradual re-establishment of health followed. of the 'bride of lammermoor,' and 'ivanhoe,' written under the most adverse circumstances, whilst he still suffered acutely, one is surprised to find both romances in the very front rank of his creations. he was under opiates, more or less, when the 'bride' was on the stocks, dictating nearly the whole of it to laidlaw and john ballantyne. it is a most curious fact psychologically, for of its characters, scenes, humour, and all that connected him with the authorship of the story, he recollected nothing. a more extraordinary incident literature has not known.[ ] but work which cut him short in the end was the saving of his life in this instance. the mind was a constant conquest over the weaker physical framework. 'it is my conviction,' he declared to gillies, 'that by a little more hearty application you might forget, and lose altogether, the irritable sensations of an invalid, and i don't, in this instance, preach what i have not endeavoured to practise. be assured that if pain could have prevented my application to literary labour, not a page of "ivanhoe" would have been written; for, from beginning to end of that production, which has been a good deal praised, i was never free from suffering. it might have borne a motto somewhat analogous to the inscription which frederick the great's predecessor used to affix to his attempts at portrait-painting when he had the gout: "fredericus i., _in tormentis pinxit_." now, if i had given way to mere feelings and ceased to work, it is a question whether the disorder might not have taken deeper root, and become incurable. the best way is, if possible, to triumph over disease by setting it at defiance, somewhat on the same principle as one avoids being stung by boldly grasping a nettle.' [ ] dickens had a somewhat similar experience, though not, of course, to the like extent. [illustration: the entrance hall, abbotsford. a spacious apartment, feet by feet, panelled to the height of feet with dark oak from dunfermline abbey.] by he was enjoying tolerably good health, with no cramp recurrences for a time. but in , when busy with 'peveril,' an arresting hand laid itself upon scott in the shape of a slight stroke of apoplexy. as a matter of fact, and as lockhart suspected, this was only one of several such shocks which he had been carefully concealing. '"peveril" will, i fear, smell of the apoplexy,' he afterwards admitted. hence, no doubt, 'peveril's' dulness. he rallied, notwithstanding, and up to christmas, , his health was excellent. but from --the year of his crowning sorrows--the record of scott's life reads like a long martyrdom. rheumatism, hallucinations, strange memory lapses, began to steal from scott all the little joy that was left. on february , , the blow fell which, like damocles' sword, had been hanging over him for years. it fell with unmistakable meaning. it was his first real paralytic seizure--long dreaded, long expected. on his return from the parliament house, in his usual health, he found an old friend waiting to consult him about a memoir of her father which he had promised to revise for the press. whilst examining the ms. the stroke came, a slight contortion passing over his features. in a minute or two he rose, staggered to the drawing-room, where were miss anne scott and miss lockhart, but fell to the floor speechless and insensible. a surgeon quickly at hand cupped him, after the old-fashioned treatment for such complaints. by night, speech had returned, and in a day or two he had resumed his court duties. but he was never the same again. people in general did not remark any difference. doctors and patient, however, knew well enough that it was the beginning of the end. both his parents had succumbed to paralysis, and 'considering the terrible violence and agitation and exertion,' says lockhart, 'to which he had been subjected during the four preceding years, the only wonder is that this blow was deferred so long; there can be none that it was soon followed by others.' still he plodded on. even with half a brain he should not 'lag superfluous on the stage.' and heedless of innumerable warnings, he was at his desk day after day, writing and dictating by turns. he now resigned his clerkship, on an £ a year allowance, surrendered his edinburgh house, and settled permanently at abbotsford, lonely and desolate, an old man before his time, but indomitable to the core. there he commenced 'count robert of paris,' the penultimate of his published tales. but the mighty machinery of his mind moved not as of yore. like samson, his strength had departed. he was now as other men. by november he suffered from a second stroke, and wrote in his diary for january: 'very indifferent, with more awkward feelings than i can well bear up against. my voice sunk, and my head strangely confused.' but a worse shock was coming. cadell pronounced the 'count' a complete failure. yet he struggled to recast it. to crown all, he went to the 'hustings'--a hardened anti-reform billite. at jedburgh, as lockhart tells, the crowd saluted him with blasphemous shouts of 'burke sir walter!'[ ]--the unkindest cut of all, which haunted him to the end. by july he had begun 'castle dangerous,' and in the middle of the month, accompanied by lockhart, he started for lanarkshire to refresh his memory for the setting of his new story. they ascended the tweed by yair, ashestiel, elibank, innerleithen, peebles, biggar, places all dear to his heart and celebrated in his writings. crowds turned out to welcome him. everywhere he was received with acclamation and the deepest respect. at douglas the travellers inspected the old castle, the ruin of st. bride's, with the monuments and tombs of the 'most heroic and powerful family in scottish annals.' at milton-lockhart, the seat of lockhart's brother, scott met his old friend borthwickbrae. both were paralytics. each saw his own case mirrored in the other. they had a joyous--too joyous a meeting, with startling results to the older invalid. on returning to cleghorn, another shock laid him low, and he was despaired of. when the news reached scott, he was bent on getting home at once. 'no, william,' he said to his host, urging him to remain, 'this is a sad warning; i must home to work while it is called to-day, for the night cometh when no man can work. i put that text many years ago on my dial-stone, but it often preached in vain.' [ ] the burke and hare murders were recent. returned, he finished 'count robert' and 'castle dangerous.' both novels were really the fruit of a paralytic brain. the 'magnum opus,'[ ] too, proposed by cadell (a huge success), engaged much of his attention. but sir walter's work was done. at length, doctors' treatment doing him little good, from his constant determination to be at his desk, it was decided, not without difficulty, that scott should spend the winter of in italy, where his son charles was attached to the british legation at naples. on september all was in readiness. a round of touching adieus, one or two gatherings of old friends, the final instructions to laidlaw, and scott quitted abbotsford practically for ever. he returned, to be sure, but more a dead man than a living one. of his journey to london (meeting many friends) there is no need to write, nor of the italian tour--malta, naples, rome, florence, venice--for which, no matter the brilliance of their associations, he exhibited but a mere passive interest. his heart was in the homeland. [ ] a reissue of the poetry, with biographical prefaces, and a uniform reprint of the novels, each introduced by an account of the hints on which it had been founded, and illustrated throughout by historical and antiquarian annotations. by june , london was again reached, and in the st. james's hotel, jermyn street (now demolished), he lay for three weeks in a state of supreme stupor. allan cunningham tells of the extraordinary interest and sympathy which scott's illness evoked. walking home late one night, he found a number of working men standing at the corner of jermyn street, one of whom asked him, as if there had been only one deathbed in london: 'do you know, sir, if this is the street where he is lying?' 'abbotsford!' was his cry in the more lucid intervals that came to him. on july he was carried on board the _james watt_ steamer, accompanied by lockhart, cadell, a medical man--dr. thomas watson--and his two daughters. the forth was reached on the th, and the next two days--the last in his 'own romantic town'--were passed, as all the voyage had been, in a condition of absolute unconsciousness. on the th, at a very early hour of the morning, scott was lifted into his carriage for the final journey homewards. during the first part of the drive he remained torpid, until the veil lifted somewhat at gala water. strange that, after oblivion so profound and prolonged, he should open his eyes and regain a measure of consciousness just here, amid landscapes the most familiar to him in the world. some good angel must have touched him then. a mere coincidence! perhaps! but there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. 'gala water, surely--buckholm--torwoodlee,' he murmured. when he saw the eildons-- 'three crests against the saffron sky, beyond the purple plain, the kind remembered melody of tweed once more again'-- he became greatly excited, and in crossing melrose bridge, his 'nearest rialto,' as he called it, he could hardly be kept in the carriage. abbotsford, a mile ahead, was soon reached. laidlaw--a big lump in his throat, we may be sure--was waiting at the door, and assisted to carry his dying master and friend to the dining-room, where his bed had been prepared. he sat bewildered for a moment or two, then, resting his eyes on laidlaw, as if trying to recollect, said immediately, 'ha, willie laidlaw! o man, how often have i thought of _you_!' by this time his dogs were around his chair, fawning on him, and licking his hands. then, indeed, he knew where he was. between sobs and tears he tried to speak to them, and to stroke them as of yore. but the body, no less than the brain, was exhausted, and gentle sleep closed his eyelids, like a tired child, once more in his own abbotsford. he lingered for some weeks, alternating between cloud and sunshine--mostly cloud. one day the longing for his desk seized him, and he was wheeled studywards, but the palsied fingers refused their office, and he sank back, assured at last that the sceptre had departed. lockhart and laidlaw were now his constant attendants. both read to him from the new testament. 'there is but one book,' scott said, and it 'comforted' him to listen to its soothing and hope-inspiring utterances. then the cloud became denser. at last delirium and delusion prostrated him, and he grew daily feebler. now he thought himself administering justice as the selkirkshire 'shirra'; anon he was giving tom purdie orders anent trees. sometimes, his fancy was in jedburgh, and the words, 'burke sir walter,' escaped him in a dolorous tone. then he would repeat snatches from isaiah, or the book of job, or some grand rugged verse torn off from the scottish psalms, or a strain sublimer still from the romish litany: 'dies irae, dies ilia, solvet saeclum in favilla.' 'as i was dressing on the morning of september ,' says lockhart, 'nicolson came into my room and told me that his master had awoke in a state of composure and consciousness, and wished to see me immediately. i found him entirely himself, though in the last extreme of feebleness. his eye was clear and calm--every trace of the wild fire of delirium extinguished. "lockhart," he said, "i may have but a minute to speak to you. my dear, be a good man--be virtuous--be religious--be a good man. nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." he paused, and i said: "shall i send for sophia and anne?" "no," said he, "don't disturb them. poor souls! i know they were up all night. god bless you all." with this he sunk into a very tranquil sleep, and, indeed, he scarcely afterwards gave any sign of consciousness, except for an instant on the arrival of his sons. about half-past one p.m., on september , sir walter scott breathed his last, in the presence of all his children. it was a beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.' [illustration: dryburgh abbey. which, if it cannot boast the architectural glories of melrose, far surpasses it for queenly situation.] he died a month after completing his sixty-first year. on december , , almost seven years earlier, we find him taking a survey of his own health in relation to the ages reached by his parents and other members of the family, and then setting down in his diary the result of his calculations, 'square the odds, and good-night, sir walter, about sixty. i care not, if i leave my name unstained and my family property settled. _sat est vixisse_.' his prophecy was fulfilled. he lived just a year--but a year of gradual death--beyond his anticipations. his wish, too, was fulfilled; for he died practically free of debt. the sale of his works, the insurance of his life, and a sum advanced by cadell, completely cleared his engagements. the copyrights purchased by cadell were afterwards sold to messrs. adam and charles black, who therefore hold the exact text of the works. on september --a wednesday--sir walter was buried. services at abbotsford, after the simple fashion of the scottish kirk, were conducted by the revs. principal baird, of edinburgh university, dr. dickson, of st. cuthbert's, and the minister of melrose. the courtyard and all the precincts of abbotsford were crowded with uncovered spectators as the procession (over a mile in length) was arranged. and as it advanced through darnick and melrose, and the villages on the route, the whole population appeared at their doors in like manner, almost all in black. from darnick tower a broad crape banner waved in the wind, and the abbey bell at melrose rang a muffled peel. thence there is a somewhat steep ascent to gladswood and bemersyde. on the crest of the road overlooking the 'beautiful bend' the hearse came to a curious halt, at the very spot where scott was accustomed to rein up his horses. it was no 'accident,' as lockhart imagines. for one of the horses was sir walter's own, and must have borne him many a time hither. peter mathieson, laidlaw, and others of scott's servants carried the plain black coffin to the grave within st. mary's aisle, at dryburgh, where it was lowered by his two sons, his son-in-law, and six of his cousins. and thus the remains of sir walter scott--our scottish shakespeare--were laid by the side of his wife in the sepulchre of his fathers. chapter v the later abbotsford sir walter's abbotsford, as we saw, was completed in . for the next thirty years there was practically no alteration on the place. at scott's death the second sir walter came into possession. he does not appear to have lived at abbotsford after , and indeed for many years previous his time had been spent almost entirely with his regiment, the th hussars, of which, at his father's death, he was major. he died childless, as his brother did also, and abbotsford passed to walter scott lockhart, son of scott's elder daughter, who had married j. g. lockhart. on his death, in , his only sister charlotte, married to james robert hope, q.c., came into possession, and she and her husband assumed the name of scott. abbotsford had been sadly neglected since scott's death in , and everything needed restoration. but mr. hope scott did wonders. between the years and he built a new west wing to the house, consisting of a chapel, hall, drawing-room, boudoir, and a suite of bedrooms. the old kitchen was turned into a linen-room, and a long range of new kitchen offices facing the tweed was erected, which materially raised the elevation of scott's edifice, and improved the appearance of the whole pile as seen from the river. an ingenious tourist access was also arranged, with other internal alterations. outside, the grounds and gardens were completely overhauled, the overgrown plantations thinned, and the old favourite walks cleaned and kept as scott himself would have wished. in the lifetime of the great magician the ground on which he fixed his abode was nearly on a level with the highway running along the south front, and wayfarers could survey the whole domain by looking over the hedge. a high embankment was now thrown up on the road-front of abbotsford, the road itself shifted several yards back, the avenue lengthened, a lodge built, and the new mound covered with a choice variety of timber, which has now grown into one of the most pleasing features of the abbotsford approach. the courtyard was at the same time planted as a flower-garden, with clipped yews at the corners of the ornamental grass-plots, and beds all ablaze with summer flowers. the terraces, on the north, so rich and velvety, date from this period. most visitors to abbotsford have the impression that sir walter was responsible for every part of the present edifice, whereas it is at least a third larger from that of scott's day. on the death of mr. hope scott (his wife having pre-deceased him), their only living child, the sole surviving descendant of sir walter, mary monica hope scott, came into possession. in she married the hon. joseph constable-maxwell, third son of the eleventh baron herries of terregles. thus direct descendants of the maker of abbotsford still reign there in the person of his great-granddaughter and her children. there are two methods of reaching abbotsford--by rail to galashiels, thence to abbotsford ferry station on the selkirk line, alighting at which and crossing the tweed, a delightful tree-shaded walk of about a mile brings us to the house. but the more popular method is to make the journey from melrose, three miles distant. the way lies between delicious green fields and bits of woodland--a pleasant country road, exposed somewhat, despite smiling hedgerows on either side. the road teems with reminiscences of the romancist. out from the grey town, with its orchards and picturesque gardens, the waverley hydropathic is passed on the right. in the grounds a handsome seated statue of scott may be noticed. further on, to the left, tree-ensconced, lie chiefswood and huntlyburn on the abbotsford estate. then comes darnick, with its fine peel, now open to the public, and well worth a visit. at the fork of the roads (that to the right leading by melrose bridge to gattonside and galashiels) we turn leftwards, and are soon at the visitors' entrance (a modest wicket-gate) to the great scottish mecca. but nothing is to be seen yet. mr. hope scott's plantations and 'ingenious tourist arrangement' screen the pile with wonderful completeness. and it is only when within a few paces of the building, at a turn in the lane leading from the highway, that all at once one emerges upon it. the public waiting-room is in the basement, whence parties of ten or twelve are conducted through the house. in point of picturesqueness, abbotsford is, of course, best seen from the tweed--the north bank--or the hillside. but we are then looking, let us remember, at the _back_ of the edifice. nearly all the photographs present this view for the sake of the river. at first not unfrequently there is a sense of disappointment, especially if one's ideas have been founded on turner's somewhat fanciful sketches. as this is not a guide-book, we shall not give here a minute catalogue of the treasures to be seen at abbotsford, referring the reader instead to mrs. maxwell-scott's excellent catalogue of the 'armour and antiquities.' but we are sure that none who visit the place will come away unsatisfied, or will fail to be moved by the personal relics of the great wizard, such as his chair, his clothes and writing-desk, which bring before us the man himself, for whose memory abbotsford is but a shrine. [illustration: plan of abbotsford and grounds] billing and sons, ltd., printers, guildford the journal of a tour to the hebrides with samuel johnson, ll.d. by james boswell dedication to edmond malone, esq. my dear sir, in every narrative, whether historical or biographical, authenticity is of the utmost consequence. of this i have ever been so firmly persuaded, that i inscribed a former work to that person who was the best judge of its truth. i need not tell you i mean general paoli; who, after his great, though unsuccessful, efforts to preserve the liberties of his country, has found an honourable asylum in britain, where he has now lived many years the object of royal regard and private respect; and whom i cannot name without expressing my very grateful sense of the uniform kindness which he has been pleased to shew me. the friends of doctor johnson can best judge, from internal evidence, whether the numerous conversations which form the most valuable part of the ensuing pages, are correctly related. to them, therefore i wish to appeal, for the accuracy of the portrait here exhibited to the world. as one of those who were intimately acquainted with him, you have a tide to this address. you have obligingly taken the trouble to peruse the original manuscript of this tour, and can vouch for the strict fidelity of the present publication. your literary alliance with our much lamented friend, in consequence of having undertaken to render one of his labours more complete, by your edition of shakespeare, a work which i am confident will not disappoint the expectations of the publick, gives you another claim. but i have a still more powerful inducement to prefix your name to this volume, as it gives me an opportunity of letting the world know that i enjoy the honour and happiness of your friendship; and of thus publickly testifying the sincere regard with which i am. my dear sir, your very faithful and obedient servant, james boswell. london, september . "he was of an admirable pregnancy of wit, and that pregnancy much improved by continual study from his childhood; by which he had gotten such a promptness in expressing his mind, that his extemporal speeches were little inferior to his premeditated writings. many, no doubt, had read as much and perhaps more than he; but scarce ever any concocted his reading into judgement as he did."--baker's chronicle dr johnson had for many years given me hopes that we should go together, and visit the hebrides. martin's account of those islands had impressed us with a notion that we might there contemplate a system of life almost totally different from what we had been accustomed to see; and, to find simplicity and wildness, and all the circumstances of remote time or place, so near to our native great island, was an object within the reach of reasonable curiosity. dr johnson has said in his journey, 'that he scarcely remembered how the wish to visit the hebrides was excited'; but he told me, in summer, , that his father put martin's account into his hands when he was very young, and that he was much pleased with it. we reckoned there would be some inconveniencies and hardships, and perhaps a little danger; but these we were persuaded were magnified in the imagination of every body. when i was at ferney, in , i mentioned our design to voltaire. he looked at me, as if i had talked of going to the north pole, and said, 'you do not insist on my accompanying you?' 'no, sir.' 'then i am very willing you should go.' i was not afraid that our curious expedition would be prevented by such apprehensions; but i doubted that it would not be possible to prevail on dr johnson to relinquish, for some time, the felicity of a london life, which, to a man who can enjoy it with full intellectual relish, is apt to make existence in any narrower sphere seem insipid or irksome. i doubted that he would not be willing to come down from his elevated state of philosophical dignity; from a superiority of wisdom among the wise, and of learning among the learned; and from flashing his wit upon minds bright enough to reflect it. he had disappointed my expectations so long, that i began to despair; but in spring, , he talked of coming to scotland that year with so much firmness, that i hoped he was at last in earnest. i knew that, if he were once launched from the metropolis, he would go forward very well; and i got our common friends there to assist in setting him afloat. to mrs thrale in particular, whose enchantment over him seldom failed, i was much obliged. it was, 'i'll give thee a wind.' 'thou art kind.' to attract him, we had invitations from the chiefs macdonald and macleod; and, for additional aid, i wrote to lord elibank, dr william robertson, and dr beattie. to dr robertson, so far as my letter concerned the present subject, i wrote as follows: our friend, mr samuel johnson, is in great health and spirits; and, i do think, has a serious resolution to visit scotland this year. the more attraction, however, the better; and therefore, though i know he will be happy to meet you there, it will forward the scheme, if, in your answer to this, you express yourself concerning it with that power of which you are so happily possessed, and which may be so directed as to operate strongly upon him. his answer to that part of my letter was quite as i could have wished. it was written with the address and persuasion of the historian of america. when i saw you last, you gave us some hopes that you might prevail with mr johnson to make that excursion to scotland, with the expectation of which we have long flattered ourselves. if he could order matters so, as to pass some time in edinburgh, about the close of the summer session, and then visit some of the highland scenes, i am confident he would be pleased with the grand features of nature in many parts of this country: he will meet with many persons here who respect him, and some whom i am persuaded he will think not unworthy of his esteem. i wish he would make the experiment. he sometimes cracks his jokes upon us; but he will find that we can distinguish between the stabs of malevolence, and 'the rebukes of the righteous, which are like excellent oil [footnote: our friend edmund burke, who by this time had received some pretty severe strokes from dr johnson, on account of the unhappy difference in their politicks, upon my repeating this passage to him, exclaimed, 'oil of vitriol!'], and break not the head'. offer my best compliments to him, and assure him that i shall be happy to have the satisfaction of seeing him under my roof. to dr beattie i wrote, the chief intention of this letter is to inform you, that i now seriously believe mr samuel johnson will visit scotland this year: but i wish that every power of attraction may be employed to secure our having so valuable an acquisition, and therefore i hope you will without delay write to me what i know you think, that i may read it to the mighty sage, with proper emphasis, before i leave london, which i must soon. he talks of you with the same warmth that he did last year. we are to see as much of scotland as we can, in the months of august and september. we shall not be long of being at marischal college [footnote: this, i find, is a scotticism. i should have said, 'it will not be long before we shall be at marischal college.']. he is particularly desirous of seeing some of the western islands. dr beattie did better: ipse venit. he was, however, so polite as to wave his privilege of nil mihi rescribus, and wrote from edinburgh, as follows: your very kind and agreeable favour of the th of april overtook me here yesterday, after having gone to aberdeen, which place i left about a week ago. i am to set out this day for london, and hope to have the honour of paying my respects to mr johnson and you, about a week or ten days hence. i shall then do what i can, to enforce the topick you mentioned; but at present i cannot enter upon it, as i am in a very great hurry; for i intend to begin my journey within an hour or two. he was as good as his word, and threw some pleasing motives into the northern scale. but, indeed, mr johnson loved all that he heard from one whom he tells us, in his lives of the poets, gray found 'a poet, a philosopher, and a good man'. my lord elibank did not answer my letter to his lordship for some time. the reason will appear, when we come to the isle of sky. i shall then insert my letter, with letters from his lordship, both to myself and mr johnson. i beg it may be understood, that i insert my own letters, as i relate my own sayings, rather as keys to what is valuable belonging to others, than for their own sake. luckily mr justice (now sir robert) chambers, who was about to sail for the east indies, was going to take leave of his relations at newcastle, and he conducted dr johnson to that town. mr scott, of university college, oxford, (now dr scott, of the commons) accompanied him from thence to edinburgh. with such propitious convoys did he proceed to my native city. but, lest metaphor should make it be supposed he actually went by sea, i choose to mention that he travelled in post-chaises, of which the rapid motion was one of his most favourite amusements. dr samuel johnson's character, religious, moral, political, and literary, nay his figure and manner, are, i believe, more generally known than those of almost any man; yet it may not be superfluous here to attempt a sketch of him. let my readers then remember that he was a sincere and zealous christian, of high church of england and monarchical principles, which he would not tamely suffer to be questioned; steady and inflexible in maintaining the obligations of piety and virtue, both from a regard to the order of society, and from a veneration for the great source of all order; correct, nay stern in his taste; hard to please, and easily offended, impetuous and irritable in his temper, but of a most humane and benevolent heart; having a mind stored with a vast and various collection of learning and knowledge, which he communicated with peculiar perspicuity and force, in rich and choice expression. he united a most logical head with a most fertile imagination, which gave him an extraordinary advantage in arguing; for he could reason close or wide, as he saw best for the moment. he could, when he chose it, be the greatest sophist that ever wielded a weapon in the schools of declamation; but he indulged this only in conversation; for he owned he sometimes talked for victory; he was too conscientious to make errour permanent and pernicious, by deliberately writing it. he was conscious of his superiority. he loved praise when it was brought to him; but was too proud to seek for it. he was somewhat susceptible of flattery. his mind was so full of imagery, that he might have been perpetually a poet. it has been often remarked, that in his poetical pieces, which it is to be regretted are so few, because so excellent, his style is easier than in his prose. there is deception in this: it is not easier, but better suited to the dignity of verse; as one may dance with grace, whose motions, in ordinary walking--in the common step--are awkward. he had a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: yet, though grave and awful in his deportment, when he thought it necessary or proper, he frequently indulged himself in pleasantry and sportive sallies. he was prone to superstition, but not to credulity. though his imagination might incline him to a belief of the marvellous, and the mysterious, his vigorous reason examined the evidence with jealousy. he had a loud voice, and a slow deliberate utterance, which no doubt gave some additional weight to the sterling metal of his conversation. lord pembroke said once to me at wilton, with a happy pleasantry, and some truth, that 'dr johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way': but i admit the truth of this only on some occasions. the messiah, played upon the canterbury organ, is more sublime than when played upon an inferior instrument: but very slight musick will seem grand, when conveyed to the ear through that majestick medium. while therefore doctor johnson's sayings are read, let his manner be taken along with them. let it however be observed, that the sayings themselves are generally great; that, though he might be an ordinary composer at times, he was for the most part a handel. his person was large, robust, i may say approaching to the gigantick, and grown unwieldy from corpulency. his countenance was naturally of the craft of an ancient statue, but somewhat disfigured by the scars of that evil, which, it was formerly imagined, the royal touch could cure. he was now in his sixty-fourth year, and was become a little dull of hearing. his sight had always been somewhat weak; yet, so much does mind govern, and even supply the deficiency of organs, that his perceptions were uncommonly quick and accurate. his head, and sometimes also his body, shook with a kind of motion like the effect of a palsy: he appeared to be frequently disturbed by cramps, or convulsive contractions, [footnote: such they appeared to me: but since the first edition, sir joshua reynolds has observed to me, 'that dr johnson's extraordinary gestures were only habits, in which he indulged himself at certain times. when in company, where he was not free, or when engaged earnestly in conversation, he never gave way to such habits, which proves that they were not involuntary', i still however think, that these gestures were involuntary; for surely had not that been the case, he would have restrained them in the publick streets.] of the nature of that distemper called st vitus's dance. he wore a full suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted-hair buttons of the same colour, a large bushy greyish wig, a plain shirt, black worsted stockings, and silver buckles. upon this tour, when journeying, he wore boots, and a very wide brown cloth great coat, with pockets which might have almost held the two volumes of his folio dictionary; and he carried in his hand a large english oak stick. let me not be censured for mentioning such minute particulars. every thing relative to so great a man is worth observing. i remember dr adam smith, in his rhetorical lectures at glasgow, told us he was glad to know that milton wore latchets in his shoes, instead of buckles. when i mention the oak stick, it is but letting hercules have his club; and, by-and-by, my readers will find this stick will bud, and produce a good joke. this imperfect sketch of 'the combination and the form' of that wonderful man, whom i venerated and loved while in this world, and after whom i gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased almighty god to call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of my readers the capital object of the following journal, in the course of which i trust they will attain to a considerable degree of acquaintance with him. his prejudice against scotland was announced almost as soon as he began to appear in the world of letters. in his london, a poem, are the following nervous lines: for who would leave, unbrib'd, hibernia's land or change the rocks of scotland for the strand there none are swept by sudden fate away; but all, whom hunger spares, with age decay. the truth is, like the ancient greeks and romans, he allowed himself to look upon all nations but his own as barbarians: not only hibernia, and scotland, but spain, italy, and france, are attacked in the same poem. if he was particularly prejudiced against the scots, it was because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in england rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but seen in them that nationality which i believe no liberal-minded scotsman will deny. he was indeed, if i may be allowed the phrase, at bottom much of a john bull; much of a blunt 'true born englishman'. there was a stratum of common clay under the rock of marble. he was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a great deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and a gloss to every other quality. i am, i flatter myself, completely a citizen of the world. in my travels through holland, germany, switzerland, italy, corsica, france, i never felt myself from home; and i sincerely love 'every kindred and tongue and people and nation'. i subscribe to what my late truly learned and philosophical friend mr crosbie said, that the english are better animals than the scots; they are nearer the sun; their blood is richer, and more mellow: but when i humour any of them in an outrageous contempt of scotland, i fairly own i treat them as children. and thus i have, at some moments, found myself obliged to treat even dr johnson. to scotland however he ventured; and he returned from it in great humour, with his prejudices much lessened, and with very grateful feelings of the hospitality with which he was treated; as is evident from that admirable work, his journey to the western islands of scotland, which, to my utter astonishment, has been misapprehended, even to rancour, by many of my countrymen. to have the company of chambers and scott, he delayed his journey so long, that the court of session, which rises on the eleventh of august, was broke up before he got to edinburgh. on saturday the fourteenth of august, , late in the evening, i received a note from him, that he was arrived at boyd's inn, at the head of the canongate. i went to him directly. he embraced me cordially; and i exulted in the thought, that i now had him actually in caledonia. mr scott's amiable manners, and attachment to our socrates, at once united me to him. he told me that, before i came in, the doctor had unluckily had a bad specimen of scottish cleanliness. he then drank no fermented liquor. he asked to have his lemonade made sweeter; upon which the waiter, with his greasy fingers, lifted a lump of sugar, and put it into it. the doctor, in indignation, threw it out of the window. scott said, he was afraid he would have knocked the waiter down. mr johnson told me, that such another trick was played him at the house of a lady in paris. he was to do me the honour to lodge under my roof. i regretted sincerely that i had not also a room for mr scott. mr johnson and i walked arm-in-arm up the high street, to my house in james's court: it was a dusky night: i could not prevent his being assailed by the evening effluvia of edinburgh. i heard a late baronet, of some distinction in the political world in the beginning of the present reign, observe, that 'walking the streets of edinburgh at night was pretty perilous, and a good deal odoriferous'. the peril is much abated, by the care which the magistrates have taken to enforce the city laws against throwing foul water from the windows; but, from the structure of the houses in the old town, which consist of many stories, in each of which a different family lives, and there being no covered sewers, the odour still continues. a zealous scotsman would have wished mr johnson to be without one of his five senses upon this occasion. as we marched slowly along, he grumbled in my ear, 'i smell you in the dark!' but he acknowledged that the breadth of the street, and the loftiness of the buildings on each side, made a noble appearance. my wife had tea ready for him, which it is well known he delighted to drink at all hours, particularly when sitting up late, and of which his able defence against mr jonas hanway should have obtained him a magnificent reward from the east india company. he shewed much complacency upon finding that the mistress of the house was so attentive to his singular habit; and as no man could be more polite when he chose to be so, his address to her was most courteous and engaging; and his conversation soon charmed her into a forgetfulness of his external appearance. i did not begin to keep a regular full journal till some days after we had set out from edinburgh; but i have luckily preserved a good many fragments of his memorabilia from his very first evening in scotland. we had, a little before this, had a trial for murder, in which the judges had allowed the lapse of twenty years since its commission as a plea in bar, in conformity with the doctrine of prescription in the civil law, which scotland and several other countries in europe have adopted. he at first disapproved of this; but then he thought there was something in it, if there had been for twenty years a neglect to prosecute a crime which was known. he would not allow that a murder, by not being discovered for twenty years, should escape punishment. we talked of the ancient trial by duel. he did not think it so absurd as is generally supposed; 'for,' said he, 'it was only allowed when the question was in equilibria, as when one affirmed and another denied; and they had a notion that providence would interfere in favour of him who was in the right. but as it was found that in a duel, he who was in the right had not a better chance than he who was in the wrong, therefore society instituted the present mode of trial, and gave the advantage to him who is in the right.' we sat till near two in the morning, having chatted a good while after my wife left us. she had insisted, that to shew all respect to the sage, she would give up her own bed-chamber to him, and take a worse. this i cannot but gratefully mention, as one of a thousand obligations which i owe her, since the great obligation of her being pleased to accept of me as her husband. sunday, th august mr scott came to breakfast, at which i introduced to dr johnson, and him, my friend sir william forbes, now of pitsligo; a man of whom too much good cannot be said; who, with distinguished abilities and application in his profession of a banker, is at once a good companion, and a good christian; which i think is saying enough. yet it is but justice to record, that once, when he was in a dangerous illness, he was watched with the anxious apprehension of a general calamity; day and night his house was beset with affectionate inquiries; and, upon his recovery, te deum was the universal chorus from the hearts of his countrymen. mr johnson was pleased with my daughter veronica,[footnote: "the saint's name of veronica was introduced into our family through my great grandmother veronica, countess of kincardine, a dutch lady of the noble house of sommelsdyck, of which there is a full account in bayle's dictionary. the family had once a princely right in surinam. the governour of that settlement was appointed by the states general, the town of amsterdam, and sommelsdyck. the states general have acquired sommelsdyck's right; but the family has still great dignity and opulence, and by intermarriages is connected with many other noble families. when i was at the hague, i was received with all the affection of kindred. the present sommelsdyck has an important charge in the republick, and is as worthy a man as lives. he has honoured me with his correspondence for these twenty years. my great grandfather, the husband of countess veronica, was alexander, earl of kincardine, that eminent royalist whose character is given by burnet in his history of his own times. from him the blood of bruce flows in my veins. of such ancestry who would not be proud? and, as nihil est, nisi hoc sciat alter, is peculiarly true of genealogy, who would not be glad to seize a fair opportunity to let it be known "] then a child of about four months old. she had the appearance of listening to him. his motions seemed to her to be intended for her amusement; and when he stopped, she fluttered, and made a little infantine noise, and a kind of signal for him to begin again. she would be held close to him; which was a proof, from simple nature, that his figure was not horrid. her fondness for him endeared her still more to me, and i declared she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune. we talked of the practice of the law. william forbes said, he thought an honest lawyer should never undertake a cause which he was satisfied was not a just one. 'sir,' said mr johnson, 'a lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. the justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? it is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. a lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence--what shall be the result of legal argument. as it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own cause, lawyers are a class of the community, who, by study and experience, have acquired the art and power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the points of issue what the law has settled. a lawyer is to do for his client all that his client might fairly do for himself, if he could. if, by a superiority of attention, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method of communication, he has the advantage of his adversary, it is an advantage to which he is entitled. there must always be some advantage, on one side or other; and it is better that advantage should be had by talents, than by chance. if lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.' this was sound practical doctrine, and rationally repressed a too refined scrupulosity of conscience. emigration was at this time a common topick of discourse. dr johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness: 'for,' said he, 'it spreads mankind which weakens the defence of a nation, and lessens the comfort of living. men, thinly scattered, make a shift, but a bad shift, without many things. a smith is ten miles off: they'll do without a nail or a staple. a taylor is far from them: they'll botch their own clothes. it is being concentrated which produces high convenience.' sir william forbes, mr scott, and i, accompanied mr johnson to the chapel, founded by lord chief baron smith, for the service of the church of england. the reverend mr carre, the senior clergyman, preached from these words, 'because the lord reigneth, let the earth be glad.' i was sorry to think mr johnson did not attend to the sermon, mr carre's low voice not being strong enough to reach his hearing. a selection of mr carre's sermons has, since his death, been published by sir william forbes, and the world has acknowledged their uncommon merit. i am well assured lord mansfield has pronounced them to be excellent. here i obtained a promise from lord chief baron orde, that he would dine at my house next day. i presented mr johnson to his lordship, who politely said to him, 'i have not the honour of knowing you; but i hope for it, and to see you at my house. i am to wait on you tomorrow.' this respectable english judge will be long remembered in scotland, where he built an elegant house, and lived in it magnificently. his own ample fortune, with the addition of his salary, enabled him to be splendidly hospitable. it may be fortunate for an individual amongst ourselves to be lord chief baron; and a most worthy man now has the office; but, in my opinion, it is better for scotland in general, that some of our publick employments should be filled by gentlemen of distinction from the south side of the tweed, as we have the benefit of promotion in england. such an interchange would make a beneficial mixture of manners, and render our union more complete. lord chief baron orde was on good terms with us all, in a narrow country filled with jarring interests and keen parties; and, though i well knew his opinion to be the same with my own, he kept himself aloof at a very critical period indeed, when the douglas cause shook the sacred security of birthright in scotland to its foundation; a cause, which had it happened before the union, when there was no appeal to a british house of lords, would have left the great fortress of honours and of property in ruins. when we got home, dr johnson desired to see my books. he took down ogden's sermons on prayer, on which i set a very high value, having been much edified by them, and he retired with them to his room. he did not stay long, but soon joined us in the drawing room. i presented to him mr robert arbuthnot, a relation of the celebrated dr arbuthnot, and a man of literature and taste. to him we were obliged for a previous recommendation, which secured us a very agreeable reception at st andrews, and which dr johnson, in his journey, ascribes to 'some invisible friend'. of dr beattie, mr johnson said, 'sir, he has written like a man conscious of the truth, and feeling his own strength. treating your adversary with respect, is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled. the greatest part of men cannot judge of reasoning, and are impressed by character; so that, if you allow your adversary a respectable character, they will think, that though you differ from him, you may be in the wrong. sir, treating your adversary with respect, is striking soft in a battle. and as to hume--a man who has so much conceit as to tell all mankind that they have been bubbled for ages, and he is the wise man who sees better than they--a man who has so little scrupulosity as to venture to oppose those principles which have been thought necessary to human happiness--is he to be surprised if another man comes and laughs at him? if he is the great man he thinks himself, all this cannot hurt him: it is like throwing peas against a rock.' he added 'something much too rough', both as to mr hume's head and heart, which i suppress. violence is, in my opinion, not suitable to the christian cause. besides, i always lived on good terms with mr hume, though i have frankly told him, i was not clear that it was right in me to keep company with him, 'but', said i, 'how much better are you than your books!' he was cheerful, obliging, and instructive; he was charitable to the poor; and many an agreeable hour have i passed with him: i have preserved some entertaining and interesting memoirs of him, particularly when he knew himself to be dying, which i may some time or other communicate to the world. i shall not, however, extol him so very highly as dr adam smith does, who says, in a letter to mr strahan the printer (not a confidential letter to his friend, but a letter which is published [footnote: this letter, though shattered by the sharp shot of dr horne of oxford's wit, in the character of 'one of the people called christians', is still prefixed to mr home's excellent history of england, like a poor invalid on the piquet guard, or like a list of quack medicines sold by the same bookseller, by whom a work of whatever nature is published; for it has no connection with his history, let it have what it may with what are called his philosophical works. a worthy friend of mine in london was lately consulted by a lady of quality, of most distinguished merit, what was the best history of england for her son to read. my friend recommended hume's. but, upon recollecting that its usher was a superlative panegyrick on one, who endeavoured to sap the credit of our holy religion, he revoked his recommendation. i am really sorry for this ostentatious alliance; because i admire the theory of moral sentiments, and value the greatest part of an inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. why should such a writer be so forgetful of human comfort, as to give any countenance to that dreary infidelity which would make us poor indeed!'] with all formality): 'upon the whole, i have always considered him, both in his life time and since his death, as approaching as nearly to the idea of a perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the nature of human frailty will permit.' let dr smith consider: was not mr hume blest with good health, good spirits, good friends, a competent and increasing fortune? and had he not also a perpetual feast of fame? but, as a learned friend has observed to me, 'what trials did he undergo, to prove the perfection of his virtue? did he ever experience any great instance of adversity?' when i read this sentence, delivered by my old professor of moral philosophy, i could not help exclaiming with the psalmist, 'surely i have now more understanding than my teachers!' while we were talking, there came a note to me from dr william robertson. dear sir, i have been expecting every day to hear from you, of dr johnson's arrival. pray, what do you know about his motions? i long to take him by the hand. i write this from the college, where i have only this scrap of paper. ever yours, w.r. sunday. it pleased me to find dr robertson thus eager to meet dr johnson. i was glad i could answer, that he was come: and i begged dr robertson might be with us as soon as he could. sir william forbes, mr scott, mr arbuthnot, and another gentleman dined with us. 'come, dr johnson,' said i, 'it is commonly thought that our veal in scotland is not good. but here is some which i believe you will like.' there was no catching him: johnson. 'why, sir, what is commonly thought, i should take to be true. your veal may be good; but that will only be an exception to the general opinion; not a proof against it.' dr robertson, according to the custom of edinburgh at that time, dined in the interval between the forenoon and afternoon service, which was then later than now; so we had not the pleasure of his company till dinner was over, when he came and drank wine with us. and then began some animated dialogue, of which here follows a pretty full note. we talked of mr burke. dr johnson said, he had great variety of knowledge, store of imagery, copiousness of language. robertson. 'he has wit too.' johnson. 'no, sir; he never succeeds there. 'tis low; 'tis conceit. i used to say. burke never once made a good joke. [footnote: this was one of the points upon which dr johnson was strangely heterodox. for, surely, mr burke, with his other remarkable qualities, is also distinguished for his wit, and for wit of all kinds too; not merely that power of language which pope chooses to denominate wit. true wit is nature to advantage drest; what oft was thought, but ne'er so well exprest. but surprising allusions, brilliant sallies of vivacity, and pleasant conceits. his speeches in parliament are strewed with them. take, for instance, the variety which he has given in his wide range, yet exact detail, when exhibiting his reform bill. and his conversation abounds in wit. let me put down a specimen. i told him, i had seen, at a blue stocking assembly, a number of ladies sitting round a worthy and tall friend of ours, listening to his literature. 'ay,' said he, 'like maids round a may-pole.' i told him, i had found a perfect definition of human nature, as distinguished from the animal. an ancient philosopher said, man was a 'two-legged animal without feathers', upon which his rival sage had a cock plucked bare, and set him down in the school before all the disciples, as a 'philosophick man'. dr franklin said, man was 'a tool-making animal', which is very well; for no animal but man makes a thing, by means of which he can make another thing. but this applies to very few of the species. my definition of man is, 'a cooking animal'. the beasts have memory, judgment and all the faculties and passions of our mind, in a certain degree; but no beast is a cook. the trick of the monkey using the cat's paw to roast a chestnut is only a piece of shrewd malice in that turpissima bestia, which humbles us so sadly by its similarity to us. man alone can dress a good dish; and every man whatever is more or less a cook, in seasoning what he himself eats. 'your definition is good,' said mr burke, 'and i now see the full force of the common proverb. "there is reason in roasting of eggs".' when mr wilkes, in his days of tumultuous opposition, was borne upon the shoulders of the mob. mr burke (as mr wilkes told me himself, with classical admiration,) applied to him what horace says of pindar, ... numerisque fertur lege solutis. sir joshua reynolds, who agrees with me entirely as to mr burke's fertility of wit said, that this was 'dignifying a pun'. he also observed, that he has often heard burke say, in the course of an evening, ten good things, each of which would have served a noted wit (whom he named) to live upon for a twelvemonth. i find, since the former edition, that some persons have objected to the instances which i have given of mr burke's wit, as not doing justice to my very ingenious friend; the specimens produced having, it is alleged, more of conceit than real wit and being merely sportive sallies of the moment, not justifying the encomium which they think with me, he undoubtedly merits. i was well aware, how hazardous it was to exhibit particular instances of wit, which is of so airy and spiritual a nature as often to elude the hand that attempts to grasp it. the excellence and efficacy of a bon mot depend frequently so much on the occasion on which it is spoken, on the particular manner of the speaker, on the person of whom it is applied, the previous introduction, and a thousand minute particulars which cannot be easily enumerated, that it is always dangerous to detach a witty saying from the group to which it belongs, and to see it before the eye of the spectator, divested of those concomitant circumstances, which gave it animation, mellowness, and relief. i ventured, however, at all hazards to put down the first instances that occurred to me, as proofs of mr burke's lively and brilliant fancy; but am very sensible that his numerous friends could have suggested many of a superior quality. indeed, the being in company with him, for a single day, is sufficient to shew that what i have asserted is well founded; and it was only necessary to have appealed to all who know him intimately, for a complete refutation of the heterodox opinion entertained by dr johnson on this subject. he allowed mr burke, as the reader will find hereafter, to be a man of consummate and unrivalled abilities in every light except that now under consideration; and the variety of his allusions, and splendour of his imagery, have made such an impression on all the rest of the world, that superficial observers are apt to overlook his other merits, and to suppose that wit is his chief and most prominent excellence; when in fact it is only one of the many talents that he possesses, which are so various and extraordinary, that it is very difficult to ascertain precisely the rank and value of each.] what i most envy burke for, is, his being constantly the same. he is never what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off.' boswell. 'yet he can listen.' johnson. 'no; i cannot say he is good at that. so desirous is he to talk, that, if one is speaking at this end of the table, he'll speak to somebody at the other end. burke, sir, is such a man, that if you met him for the first time in the street where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner, that, when you parted, you would say, this is an extraordinary man. now, you may be long enough with me, without finding any thing extraordinary.' he said, he believed burke was intended for the law; but either had not money enough to follow it, or had not diligence enough. he said, he could not understand how a man could apply to one thing, and not to another. robertson said, one man had more judgment, another more imagination. johnson. 'no, sir; it is only, one man has more mind than another. he may direct it differently; he may, by accident, see the success of one kind of study, and take a desire to excel in it. i am persuaded that, had sir isaac newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine epick poem. i could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.' boswell. 'yet, sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.' johnson. 'because, sir, i had not money to study law. sir, the man who has vigour, may walk to the east, just as well as to the west, if he happens to turn his head that way.' boswell. 'but, sir, 'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. a hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' johnson. 'nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. if you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that manner. one mind is a vice, and holds fast; there's a good memory. another is a file; and he is a disputant, a controversialist. another is a razor; and he is sarcastical.' we talked of whitefield. he said, he was at the same college with him, and knew him 'before he began to be better than other people' (smiling); that he believed he sincerely meant well, but had a mixture of politicks and ostentation: whereas wesley thought of religion only. [footnote: that cannot be said now, after the flagrant part which mr john wesley took against our american brethren, when, in his own name, he threw amongst his enthusiastic flock, the very individual combustibles of dr johnson's taxation no tyranny: and after the intolerant spirit which he manifested against our fellow christians of the roman catholick communion, for which that able champion, father o'leary, has given him so hearty a drubbing. but i should think myself very unworthy, if i did not at the same time acknowledge mr john wesley's merit, as a veteran 'soldier of jesus christ', who has, i do believe, 'turned many from darkness into light, and from the power of satan to the living god'.] robertson said, whitefield had strong natural eloquence, which, if cultivated, would have done great things. johnson. 'why, sir, i take it, he was at the height of what his abilities could do, and was sensible of it. he had the ordinary advantages of education; but he chose to pursue that oratory which is for the mob.' boswell. 'he had great effect on the passions.' johnson. 'why, sir, i don't think so. he could not represent a succession of pathetick images. he vociferated, and made an impression. there, again, was a mind like a hammer.' dr johnson now said, a certain eminent political friend of ours was wrong, in his maxim of sticking to a certain set of men on all occasions. 'i can see that a man may do right to stick to a party,' said he;' that is to say, he is a whig, or he is a tory, and he thinks one of those parties upon the whole the best, and that to make it prevail, it must be generally supported, though, in particulars, it may be wrong. he takes its faggot of principles, in which there are fewer rotten sticks than in the other, though some rotten sticks to be sure; and they cannot well be separated. but, to bind one's self to one man, or one set of men (who may be right to-day and wrong to-morrow), without any general preference of system, i must disapprove.' [footnote: if due attention were paid to this observation, there would be more virtue, even in politicks. what dr johnson justly condemned, has, i am sorry to say, greatly increased in the present reign. at the distance of four years from this conversation, st february , my lord archbishop of york, in his 'sermon before the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts', thus indignantly describes the then state of parties: 'parties once had a principle belonging to them, absurd perhaps, and indefensible, but still carrying a notion of duty, by which honest minds might easily be caught. 'but they are now combinations of individuals, who, instead of being the sons and servants of the community, make a league for advancing their private interests. it is their business to hold high the notion of political honour. i believe and trust, it is not injurious to say, that such a bond is no better than that by which the lowest and wickedest combinations are held together; and that it denotes the last stage of political depravity.' to find a thought, which just shewed itself to us from the mind of johnson, thus appearing again at such a distance of time, and without any communication between them, enlarged to full growth in the mind of markham, is a curious object of philosophical contemplation. that two such great and luminous minds should have been so dark in one corner--that they should have held it to be 'wicked rebellion in the british subjects established in america, to resist the abject condition of holding all their property at the mercy of british subjects remaining at home, while their allegiance to our common lord the king was to be preserved inviolate'--is a striking proof to me, either that 'he who fitteth in heaven', scorns the loftiness of human pride, or that the evil spirit, whose personal existence i strongly believe, and even in this age am confirmed in that belief by a fell, nay, by a hurd, has more power than some choose to allow.] he told us of cooke, who translated hesiod, and lived twenty years on a translation of plautus, for which he was always taking subscriptions; and that he presented foote to a club, in the following singular manner: 'this is the nephew of the gentleman who was lately hung in chains for murdering his brother.' in the evening i introduced to mr johnson [footnote: it may be observed, that i sometimes call my great friend, mr johnson, sometimes dr johnson, though he had at this time a doctor's degree from trinity college, dublin. the university of oxford afterwards conferred it upon him by a diploma, in very honourable terms. it was some time before i could bring myself to call him doctor; but as he has been long known by that title, i shall give it to him in the rest of this journal.] two good friends of mine, mr william nairne, advocate, and mr hamilton of sundrum, my neighbour in the country, both of whom supped with us. i have preserved nothing of what passed, except that dr johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions--a contempt of tragick acting. he said, 'the action of all players in tragedy is bad. it should be a man's study to repress those signs of emotion and passion, as they are called.' he was of a directly contrary opinion to that of fielding, in his tom jones; who makes partridge say, of garrick, 'why, i could act as well as he myself. i am sure, if i had seen a ghost, i should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did.' for, when i asked him, 'would not you, sir, start as mr garrick does, if you saw a ghost?' he answered, 'i hope not. if i did, i should frighten the ghost.' monday, th august dr william robertson came to breakfast. we talked of ogden on prayer. dr johnson said, 'the same arguments which are used against god's hearing prayer, will serve against his rewarding good, and punishing evil. he has resolved, he has declared, in the former case as in the latter.' he had last night looked into lord hailes's remarks on the history of scotland. dr robertson and i said, it was a pity lord hailes did not write greater things. his lordship had not then published his annals of scotland. johnson. 'i remember i was once on a visit at the house of a lady for whom i had a high respect. there was a good deal of company in the room. when they were gone, i said to this lady, "what foolish talking have we had!" "yes," said she, "but while they talked, you said nothing." i was struck with reproof. how much better is the man who does nothing. besides, i love anecdotes. i fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made. if a man is to wait till he weaves anecdotes into a system, we may be long in getting them, and get but a few, in comparison of what we might get.' dr robertson said, the notions of eupham macallan. a fanatick woman, of whom lord hailes gives a sketch, were still prevalent among some of the presbyterians; and therefore it was right in lord hailes, a man of known piety, to undeceive them. we walked out, that dr johnson might see some of the things which we have to shew at edinburgh. we went to the parliament house, where the parliament of scotland sat, and where the ordinary lords of session hold their courts; and to the new session house adjoining to it, where our court of fifteen (the fourteen ordinaries, with the lord president at their head) sit as a court of review. we went to the advocates' library, of which dr johnson took a cursory view, and then to what is called the laigh (or under) parliament house, where the records of scotland, which has an universal security by register, are deposited, till the great register office be finished. i was pleased to behold dr samuel johnson rolling about in this old magazine of antiquities. there was, by this time, a pretty numerous circle of us attending upon him. somebody talked of happy moments for composition; and how a man can write at one time, and not at another. 'nay,' said dr johnson, 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly [footnote: this word is commonly used to signify sullenly, gloomily: and in that sense alone it appears in dr johnson's dictionary. i suppose he meant by it 'with an obstinate resolution, similar to that of a sullen man'.] to it.' i here began to indulge old scottish sentiments, and to express a warm regret, that, by our union with england, we were no more--our independent kingdom was lost. johnson. 'sir, never talk of your independency, who could let your queen remain twenty years in captivity, and then be put to death, without even a pretence of justice, without your ever attempting to rescue her; and such a queen too! as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.' worthy mr james kerr, keeper of the records. 'half our nation was bribed by english money.' johnson. 'sir, that is no defence: that makes you worse.' good mr brown, keeper of the advocates library. 'we had better say nothing about it.' boswell. 'you would have been glad, however, to have had us last war, sir, to fight your battles!' johnson. 'we should have had you for the same price, though there had been no union, as we might have had swiss, or other troops. no, no, i shall agree to a separation. you have only to go home.' just as he had said this, i to divert the subject, shewed him the signed assurances of the three successive kings of the hanover family, to maintain the presbyterian establishment in scotland. 'we'll give you that,' said he, 'into the bargain.' we next went to the great church of st giles, which has lost its original magnificence in the inside, by being divided into four places of presbyterian worship. 'come,' said dr johnson jocularly to principal robertson, [footnote: i have hitherto called him dr william robertson, to distinguish him from dr james robertson, who is soon to make his appearance. but 'principal', from his being the head of our college, is his usual designation, and is shorter; so i shall use it hereafter.] 'let me see what was once a church!' we entered that division which was formerly called the new church, and of late the high church, so well known by the eloquence of dr hugh blair. it is now very elegantly fitted up; but it was then shamefully dirty. dr johnson said nothing at the time; but when we came to the great door of the royal infirmary, where, upon a board, was this inscription, clean your feet! he turned about slyly, and said, 'there is no occasion for putting this at the doors of your churches!' we then conducted him down the post-house stairs, parliament close, and made him look up from the cow-gate to the highest building in edinburgh (from which he had just descended), being thirteen floors or stories from the ground upon the back elevation; the front wall being built upon the edge of the hill, and the back wall rising from the bottom of the hill several stories before it comes to a level with the front wall. we proceeded to the college, with the principal at our head. dr adam fergusson, whose essay on the history of civil society gives him a respectable place in the ranks of literature, was with us. as the college buildings are indeed very mean, the principal said to dr johnson, that he must give them the same epithet that a jesuit did when shewing a poor college abroad: hae miseriae nostrae. dr johnson was, however, much pleased with the library, and with the conversation of dr james robertson, professor of oriental languages, the librarian. we talked of kennicot's edition of the hebrew bible, and hoped it would be quite faithful. johnson. 'sir, i know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit, as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.' i pointed out to him where there formerly stood an old wall enclosing part of the college, which i remember bulged out in a threatening manner, and of which there was a common tradition similar to that concerning bacon's study at oxford, that it would fall upon some very learned man. it had some time before this been taken down, that the street might be widened, and a more convenient wall built. dr johnson, glad of an opportunity to have a pleasant hit at scottish learning, said, 'they have been afraid it never would fall'. we shewed him the royal infirmary, for which, and for every other exertion of generous publick spirit in his power, that noble-minded citizen of edinburgh, george drummond, will be ever held in honourable remembrance. and we were too proud not to carry him to the abbey of holyrood house, that beautiful piece of architecture, but, alas! that deserted mansion of royalty, which hamilton of bangour, in one of his elegant poems, calls a virtuous palace, where no monarch dwells. i was much entertained while principal robertson fluently harangued to dr johnson, upon the spot, concerning scenes of his celebrated history of scotland. we surveyed that part of the palace appropriated to the duke of hamilton, as keeper, in which our beautiful queen mary lived, and in which david rizzio was murdered; and also the state rooms. dr johnson was a great reciter of all sorts of things serious or comical. i over-heard him repeating here, in a kind of muttering tone, a line of the old ballad, 'johnny armstrong's last good-night': 'and ran him through the fair body!' [footnote: the stanza from which he took this line is: but then rose up all edinburgh, they rose up by thousands three; a cowardly scot came john behind, and ran him through the fair body!] we returned to my house, where there met him, at dinner, the duchess of douglas, sir adolphus oughton, lord chief baron, sir william forbes, principal robertson, mr cullen, advocate. before dinner, he told us of a curious conversation between the famous george faulkner and him. george said that england had drained ireland of fifty thousand pounds in specie, annually, for fifty years. 'how so, sir!' said dr johnson, 'you must have a very great trade?' 'no trade.' 'very rich mines?' 'no mines.' 'from whence, then, does all this money come?' 'come! why out of the blood and bowels of the poor people of ireland!' he seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against swift; for i once took a liberty to ask him, if swift had personally offended him, and he told me, he had not. he said to-day, 'swift is clear, but he is shallow. in coarse humour, he is inferior to arbuthnot; in delicate humour, he is inferior to addison: so he is inferior to his contemporaries; without putting him against the whole world. i doubt if the tale of a tub was his: it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works which are indisputably his. if it was his, i shall only say, he was impar sibi.' we gave him as good a dinner as we could. our scotch muir-fowl, or growse, were then abundant, and quite in season; and, so far as wisdom and wit can be aided by administering agreeable sensations to the palate, my wife took care that our great guest should not be deficient. sir adolphus oughton, then our deputy commander in chief, who was not only an excellent officer, but one of the most universal scholars i ever knew, had learned the erse language, and expressed his belief in the authenticity of ossian's poetry. dr johnson took the opposite side of that perplexed question; and i was afraid the dispute would have run high between them. but sir adolphus, who had a very sweet temper, changed the discourse, grew playful, laughed at lord monboddo's notion of men having tails, and called him a judge, a posteriori, which amused dr johnson; and thus hostilities were prevented. at supper we had dr cullen, his son the advocate, dr adam fergusson, and mr crosbie, advocate. witchcraft was introduced. mr crosbie said, he thought it the greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits counteracting the deity, and raising storms, for instance, to destroy his creatures. johnson. 'why, sir, if moral evil be consistent with the government of the deity, why may not physical evil be also consistent with it? it is not more strange that there should be evil spirits, than evil embodied spirits. and as to storms, we know there are such things; and it is no worse that evil spirits raise them, than that they rise.' crosbie. 'but it is not credible, that witches should have effected what they are said in stories to have done.' johnson. 'sir, i am not defending their credibility. i am only saying, that your arguments are not good, and will not overturn the belief of witchcraft.' (dr fergusson said to me, aside, 'he is right.') 'and then, sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized, agreeing in the belief of the agency of preternatural powers. you must take evidence: you must consider, that wise and great men have condemned witches to die.' crosbie. 'but an act of parliament put an end to witchcraft.' johnson. 'no, sir; witchcraft had ceased; and therefore an act of parliament was passed to prevent persecution for what was not witchcraft. why it ceased, we cannot tell, as we cannot tell the reason of many other things.' dr cullen, to keep up the gratification of mysterious disquisition, with the grave address for which he is remarkable in his companionable as in his professional hours, talked, in a very entertaining manner, of people walking and conversing in their sleep. i am very sorry i have no note of this. we talked of the ouran-outang, and of lord monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to speak. dr johnson treated this with ridicule. mr crosbie said, that lord monboddo believed the existence of every thing possible; in short, that all which is in posse might be found in esse. johnson. 'but, sir, it is as possible that the ouran-outang does not speak, as that he speaks. however, i shall not contest the point. i should have thought it not possible to find a monboddo; yet he exists.' i again mentioned the stage. johnson. 'the appearance of a player, with whom i have drunk tea, counteracts the imagination that he is the character he represents. nay, you know, nobody imagines that he is the character he represents. they say, "see garrick! how he looks to-night! see how he'll clutch the dagger!" that is the buzz of the theatre.' tuesday, th august sir william forbes came to breakfast, and brought with him dr blacklock, whom he introduced to dr johnson, who received him with a most humane complacency. 'dear blacklock, i am glad to see you!' blacklock seemed to be much surprised, when dr johnson said, 'it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his dictionary. his mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other. besides; composing a dictionary requires books and a desk: you can make a poem walking in the fields, or lying in bed.' dr blacklock spoke of scepticism in morals and religion, with apparant uneasiness, as if he wished for more certainty. dr johnson, who had thought it all over, and whose vigorous understanding was fortified by much experience, thus encouraged the blind bard to apply to higher speculations what we willingly submit to in common life: in short, he gave him more familiarly the able and fair reasoning of butler's analogy: 'why, sir, the greatest concern we have in this world, the choice of our profession, must be determined without demonstrative reasoning. human life is not yet so well known, as that we can have it. and take the case of a man who is ill. i call two physicians: they differ in opinion. i am not to lie down, and die between them: i must do something.' the conversation then turned on atheism; on that horrible book, systeme de la nature; and on the supposition of an eternal necessity, without design, without a governing mind. johnson. 'if it were so, why has it ceased? why don't we see men thus produced around us now? why, at least, does it not keep pace, in some measure, with the progress of time? if it stops because there is now no need of it, then it is plain there is, and ever has been, an all-powerful intelligence. but stay!' said he, with one of his satyrick laughs. 'hal ha! ha! i shall suppose scotchmen made necessarily, and englishmen by choice.' at dinner this day, we had sir alexander dick, whose amiable character, and ingenious and cultivated mind, are so generally known (he was then on the verge of seventy, and is now ( ) eighty-one, with his faculties entire, his heart warm, and his temper gay); sir david dalrymple; lord hailes; mr maclaurin, advocate; dr gregory, who now worthily fills his father's medical chair; and my uncle, dr boswell. this was one of dr johnson's best days. he was quite in his element. all was literature and taste, without any interruption. lord hailes, who is one of the best philologists in great britain, who has written papers in the world, and a variety of other works in prose and in verse, both latin and english, pleased him highly. he told him, he had discovered the life of cheynel, in the student, to be his. johnson. 'no one else knows it.' dr johnson had, before this, dictated to me a law-paper, upon a question purely in the law of scotland, concerning 'vicious intromission', that is to say, intermeddling with the effects of a deceased person, without a regular title; which formerly was understood to subject the intermeddler to payment of all the defunct's debts. the principle has of late been relaxed. dr johnson's argument was, for a renewal of its strictness. the paper was printed, with additions by me, and given into the court of session. lord hailes knew dr johnson's part not to be mine, and pointed out exactly where it began, and where it ended. dr johnson said, 'it is much, now, that his lordship can distinguish so.' in dr johnson's vanity of human wishes, there is the following passage: the teeming mother, anxious for her race, begs, for each birth, the fortune of a face: yet vane could tell, what ills from beauty spring; and sedley curs'd the charms which pleas'd a king. lord hailes told him, he was mistaken in the instances he had given of unfortunate fair ones; for neither vane nor sedley had a title to that description. his lordship has since been so obliging as to send me a note of this, for the communication of which i am sure my readers will thank me. the lines in the tenth satire of juvenal, according to my alteration, should have run thus: yet shore [footnote: mistress of edward iv.] could tell--; and valiere [footnote: mistress of louis xiv.] curs'd--. the first was a penitent by compulsion, the second by sentiment; though the truth is, mademoiselle de la valiere threw herself (but still from sentiment) in the king's way. 'our friend chose vane, who was far from being well-looked; and sedley, who was so ugly, that charles ii said, his brother had her by way of penance.' mr maclaurin's learning and talents enabled him to do his part very well in dr johnson's company. he produced two epitaphs upon his father, the celebrated mathematician. one was in english, of which dr johnson did not change one word. in the other, which was in latin, he made several alterations. in place of the very words of virgil, ubi luctus et pavor et plurima mortis imago, he wrote ubi luctus regnant et pavor. he introduced the word prorsus into the line mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium and after hujus enim scripta evolve, he added, mentemque tantarum rerum capacem corpori caduco superstitem crede; which is quite applicable to dr johnson himself. [footnote: mr maclaurin's epitaph, as engraved on a marble tombstone, in the gray-friars church-yard, edinburgh: infra situs est colin maclaurin mathes. olim in acad. edin. prof. electus ipso newtono suadente. h. l. p. f. non ut nomini paterno consulat, nam tali auxilio nil eget; sed ut in hoc infelici campo, ubi luctus regnant et pavor, mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium: hujus enim scripta evolve, mentemque tantarum rerum capacem corpori caduco superstitem crede.] mr murray, advocate, who married a niece of lord mansfield's and is now one of the judges of scotland, by the title of lord henderland, sat with us a part of the evening; but did not venture to say any thing, that i remember, though he is certainly possessed of talents which would have enabled him to have shewn himself to advantage, if too great anxiety had not prevented him. at supper we had dr alexander webster, who, though not learned, had such a knowledge of mankind, such a fund of information and entertainment, so clear a head and such accommodating manners, that dr johnson found him a very agreeable companion. when dr johnson and i were left by ourselves, i read to him my notes of the opinions of our judges upon the questions of literary property. he did not like them; and said, 'they make me think of your judges not with that respect which i should wish to do'. to the argument of one of them, that there can be no property in blasphemy or nonsense, he answered, 'then your rotten sheep are mine! by that rule, when a man's house falls into decay, he must lose it.' i mentioned an argument of mine, that literary performances are not taxed. as churchill says, no statesman yet has thought it worth his pains to tax our labours, or excite our brains; and therefore they are not property. 'yet,' said he, 'we hang a man for stealing a horse, and horses are not taxed.' mr pitt has since put an end to that argument. wednesday, th august on this day we set out from edinburgh. we should gladly have had mr scott to go with us; but he was obliged to return to england. i have given a sketch of dr johnson: my readers may wish to know a little of his fellow traveller. think then, of a gentleman of ancient blood, the pride of which was his predominant passion. he was then in his thirty-third year, and had been about four years happily married. his inclination was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable judge, had pressed him into the profession of the law. he had travelled a good deal, and seen many varieties of human life. he had thought more than any body supposed, and had a pretty good stock of general learning and knowledge. he had all dr johnson's principles, with some degree of relaxation. he had rather too little, than too much prudence, and, his imagination being lively, he often said things of which the effect was very different from the intention. he resembled sometimes the best good man, with the worst natur'd muse. he cannot deny himself the vanity of finishing with the encomium of dr johnson, whose friendly partiality to the companion of his tour represents him as one, 'whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation, and civility of manners, are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less hospitable than we have passed.' dr johnson thought it unnecessary to put himself to the additional expense of bringing with him francis barber, his faithful black servant; so we were attended only by my man, joseph ritter, a bohemian; a fine stately fellow above six feet high, who had been over a great part of europe, and spoke many languages. he was the best servant i ever saw. let not my readers disdain his introduction! for dr johnson gave him this character: 'sir, he is a civil man, and a wise man.' from an erroneous apprehension of violence, dr johnson had provided a pair of pistols, some gun-powder, and a quantity of bullets: but upon being assured we should run no risk of meeting any robbers, he left his arms and ammunition in an open drawer, of which he gave my wife the charge. he also left in that drawer one volume of a pretty full and curious diary of his life, of which i have a few fragments; but the book has been destroyed. i wish female curiosity had been strong enough to have had it all transcribed, which might easily have been done; and i should think the theft, being pro bono publico, might have been forgiven. but i may be wrong. my wife told me she never once looked into it. she did not seem quite easy when we left her: but away we went! mr nairne, advocate, was to go with us as far as st andrews. it gives me pleasure that, by mentioning his name, i connect his title to the just and handsome compliment paid him by dr johnson, in his book: 'a gentleman who could stay with us only long enough to make us know how much we lost by his leaving us.' when we came to leith, i talked with perhaps too boasting an air, how pretty the frith of forth looked; as indeed, after the prospect from constantinople, of which i have been told, and that from naples, which i have seen, i believe the view of that frith and its environs, from the castle hill of edinburgh, is the finest prospect in europe. 'ay,' said dr johnson, 'that is the state of the world. water is the same every where. una est injusti caerula forma maris. [footnote: non illic urbes, non tu mirabere silvas: una est injusti caerula forma maris. ovid. amor. ii. xi. nor groves nor towns the ruthless ocean shows; unvaried still its azure surface flows.] i told him the port here was the mouth of the river or water of leith. 'not lethe,' said mr nairne. 'why, sir,' said dr johnson, 'when a scotchman sets out from this port for england, he forgets his native country.' nairne. 'i hope, sir, you will forget england here.' johnson. 'then 'twill be still more lethe.' he observed of the pier or quay, 'you have no occasion for so large a one: your trade does not require it: but you are like a shopkeeper who takes a shop, not only for what he has to put into it, but that it may be believed he has a great deal to put into it'. it is very true, that there is now, comparatively, little trade upon the eastern coast of scotland. the riches of glasgow shew how much there is in the west; and perhaps we shall find trade travel westward on a great scale, as well as a small. we talked of a man's drowning himself. johnson. 'i should never think it time to make away with myself.' i put the case of eustace budgell, who was accused of forging a will, and sunk himself in the thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on. 'suppose, sir,' said i, 'that a man is absolutely sure, that, if he lives a few days longer, he shall be detected in a fraud, the consequence of which will be utter disgrace and expulsion from society.' johnson. 'then, sir, let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. don't let him go to the devil where he is known!' he then said, 'i see a number of people bare-footed here: i suppose you all went so before the union. boswell, your ancestors went so, when they had as much land as your family has now. yet auchinleck is the field of stones: there would be bad going bare-footed here. the lairds, however, did it.' i bought some speldings, fish (generally whitings) salted and dried in a particular manner, being dipped in the sea and dried in the sun, and eaten by the scots by way of a relish. he had never seen them, though they are sold in london. i insisted on scottifying [footnote: my friend, general campbell, governour of madras, tells me, that they make speldings in the east indies, particularly at bombay, where they call them bambaloes.] his palate; but he was very reluctant. with difficulty i prevailed with him to let a bit of one of them lie in his mouth. he did not like it. in crossing the frith, dr johnson determined that we should land upon inch keith. on approaching it, we first observed a high rocky shore. we coasted about, and put into a little bay on the north-west. we clambered up a very steep ascent, on which was very good grass, but rather a profusion of thistles. there were sixteen head of black cattle grazing upon the island. lord hailes observed to me, that brantome calls it l'isle des chevaux, and that it was probably 'a safer stable' than many others in his time. the fort, with an inscription on it, maria re , is strongly built. dr johnson examined it with much attention. he stalked like a giant among the luxuriant thistles and nettles. there are three wells in the island; but we could not find one in the fort. there must probably have been one, though now filled up, as a garrison could not subsist without it. but i have dwelt too long on this little spot. dr johnson afterwards bade me try to write a description of our discovering inch keith, in the usual style of travellers, describing fully every particular; stating the grounds on which we concluded that it must have once been inhabited, and introducing many sage reflections; and we should see how a thing might be covered in words, so as to induce people to come and survey it. all that was told might be true, and yet in reality there might be nothing to see. he said, 'i'd have this island. i'd build a house, make a good landing-place, have a garden, and vines, and all sorts of trees. a rich man, of a hospitable turn, here, would have many visitors from edinburgh.' when we had got into our boat again, he called to me, 'come, now, pay a classical compliment to the island on quitting it.' i happened luckily, in allusion to the beautiful queen mary, whose name is upon the fort, to think of what virgil makes aeneas say, on having left the country of his charming dido: invitus, regina, tuo de littare cessi. [footnote: unhappy queen! unwilling i forsook your friendly state. dryden] 'very well hit off!' said he. we dined at kinghorn, and then got into a post-chaise. mr nairne and his servant, and joseph, rode by us. we stopped at cupar, and drank tea. we talked of parliament; and i said, i supposed very few of the members knew much of what was going on, as indeed very few gentlemen know much of their own private affairs. johnson. 'why, sir, if a man is not of a sluggish mind, he may be his own steward. if he will look into his affairs, he will soon learn. so it is as to publick affairs. there must always be a certain number of men of business in parliament.' boswell. 'but consider, sir; what is the house of commons? is not a great part of it chosen by peers? do you think, sir, they ought to have such an influence?' johnson. 'yes, sir. influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.' boswell. 'but is there not reason to fear that the common people may be oppressed?' johnson. 'no, sir. our great fear is from want of power in government. such a storm of vulgar force has broke in.' boswell. 'it has only roared.' johnson. 'sir, it has roared, till the judges in westminster hall have been afraid to pronounce sentence in opposition to the popular cry. you are frightened by what is no longer dangerous, like presbyterians by popery.' he then repeated a passage, i think, in butler's remains, which ends, 'and would cry, fire! fire! in noah's flood'. [footnote: the passage quoted by dr johnson is in the character of the assembly-man. butler's remains, p. , edit. . 'he preaches, indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at popery, when the land is almost lost in presbytery; and would cry fire! fire! in noah's flood.' there is no reason to believe that this piece was not written by butler, but by sir john birkenhead; for wood, in his athenae oxonienses. vol. ii. p. . enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives the following account of it: the assembly-man (or the character of an assembly-man) written , lond. - , in three sheets in qu. the copy of it was taken from the author by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs; so excised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it that it was no character of an assembly, but of themselves. at length, after it had slept several years, the author published it, to avoid false copies. it is also reprinted in a book entit. wit and loyalty revived, in a collection of some smart satyrs in verse and prose on the late times. lond. , qu. said to be written by abr. cowley, sir john birkenhead, and hudibras, alias sam. butler.' for this information i am indebted to mr reed, of staple inn.] we had a dreary drive, in a dusky night, to st andrews, where we arrived late. we found a good supper at glass's inn, and dr johnson revived agreeably. he said, 'the collection called the muses' welcome to king james (first of england, and sixth of scotland), on his return to his native kingdom, shewed that there was then abundance of learning in scotland; and that the conceits in that collection, with which people find fault, were mere mode'. he added, 'we could not now entertain a sovereign so; that buchanan had spread the spirit of learning amongst us, but we had lost it during the civil wars'. he did not allow the latin poetry of pitcairne so much merit as has been usually attributed to it; though he owned that one of his pieces, which he mentioned, but which i am sorry is not specified in my notes, was 'very well'. it is not improbable that it was the poem which prior has so elegantly translated. after supper, we made a procession to saint leonard's college, the landlord walking before us with a candle, and the waiter with a lantern. that college had some time before been dissolved; and dr watson, a professor here (the historian of phillip ii), had purchased the ground, and what buildings remained. when we entered his court, it seemed quite academical; and we found in his house very comfortable and genteel accommodation. [footnote: my journal, from this day inclusive, was read by dr johnson.] thursday, th august we rose much refreshed. i had with me a map of scotland, a bible, which was given me by lord mountstuart when we were together in italy, and ogden's sermons on prayer. mr nairne introduced us to dr watson, whom we found a well-informed man, of very amiable manners. dr johnson, after they were acquainted, said, 'i take great delight in him.' his daughter, a very pleasing young lady, made breakfast. dr watson observed, that glasgow university had fewer home-students, since trade increased, as learning was rather incompatible with it. johnson. 'why, sir, as trade is now carried on by subordinate hands, men in trade have as much leisure as others; and now learning itself is a trade. a man goes to a bookseller, and gets what he can. we have done with patronage. in the infancy of learning, we find some great man praised for it. this diffused it among others. when it becomes general, an author leaves the great, and applies to the multitude.' boswell. 'it is a shame that authors are not now better patronized.' johnson. 'no, sir. if learning cannot support a man, if he must sit with his hands across till somebody feeds him, it is as to him a bad thing, and it is better as it is. with patronage, what flattery! what falsehood! while a man is in equilibria, he throws truth among the multitude, and lets them take it as they please: in patronage, he must say what pleases his patron, and it is an equal chance whether that be truth or falsehood.' watson. 'but is not the case now, that, instead of flattering one person, we flatter the age?' johnson. 'no, sir. the world always lets a man tell what he thinks, his own way. i wonder however, that so many people have written, who might have let it alone. that people should endeavour to excel in conversation, i do not wonder; because in conversation praise is instantly reverberated.' we talked of change of manners. dr johnson observed, that our drinking less than our ancestors was owing to the change from ale to wine. 'i remember,' said he, 'when all the decent people in lichfield got drunk every night, and were not the worse thought of. ale was cheap, so you pressed strongly. when a man must bring a bottle of wine, he is not in such haste. smoking has gone out. to be sure, it is a shocking thing, blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us. yet i cannot account, why a thing which requires so little exertion, and yet preserves the mind from total vacuity, should have gone out. every man has something by which he calms himself: beating with his feet, or so. [footnote: dr johnson used to practice this himself very much.] i remember when people in england changed a shirt only once a week: a pandour, when he gets a shirt, greases it to make it last. formerly, good tradesmen had no fire but in the kitchen; never in the parlour, except on sunday. my father, who was a magistrate of lichfield, lived thus. they never began to have a fire in the parlour, but on leaving off business, or some great revolution of their life.' dr watson said, the hall was as a kitchen, in old squires' houses. johnson. 'no, sir. the hall was for great occasions, and never was used for domestick reflection.' we talked of the union, and what money it had brought into scotland. dr watson observed, that a little money formerly went as far as a great deal now. johnson. 'in speculation, it seems that a smaller quantity of money, equal in value to a larger quantity, if equally divided, should produce the same effect. but it is not so in reality. many more conveniences and elegancies are enjoyed where money is plentiful, than where it is scarce. perhaps a great familiarity with it, which arises from plenty, makes us more easily part with it.' after what dr johnson had said of st andrews, which he had long wished to see, as our oldest university, and the seat of our primate in the days of episcopacy, i can say little. since the publication of dr johnson's book, i find that he has been censured for not seeing here the ancient chapel of st rule, a curious piece of sacred architecture. but this was neither his fault nor mine. we were both of us abundantly desirous of surveying such sort of antiquities: but neither of us knew of this. i am afraid the censure must fall on those who did not tell us of it. in every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers, such as we find in all the towns of italy, and in some of the towns in england. i was told that there is a manuscript account of st andrews, by martin, secretary to archbishop sharp; and that one douglas has published a small account of it. i inquired at a bookseller's, but could not get it. dr johnson's veneration for the hierarchy is well known. there is no wonder then, that he was affected with a strong indignation, while he beheld the ruins of religious magnificence. i happened to ask where john knox was buried. dr johnson burst out, 'i hope in the high-way. i have been looking at his reformations.' it was a very fine day. dr johnson seemed quite wrapt up in the contemplation of the scenes which were now presented to him. he kept his hat off while he was upon any part of the ground where the cathedral had stood. he said well, that 'knox had set on a mob, without knowing where it would end; and that differing from a man in doctrine was no reason why you should pull his house about his ears'. as we walked in the cloisters, there was a solemn echo, while he talked loudly of a proper retirement from the world. mr nairne said, he had an inclination to retire. i called dr johnson's attention to this, that i might hear his opinion if it was right. johnson. 'yes, when he has done his duty to society. in general, as every man is obliged not only to "love god, but his neighbour as himself", he must bear his part in active life; yet there are exceptions. those who are exceedingly scrupulous (which i do not approve, for i am no friend to scruples), and find their scrupulosity invincible, so that they are quite in the dark, and know not what they shall do, or those who can not resist temptations, and find they make themselves worse by being in the world, without making it better, may retire. i never read of a hermit, but in imagination i kiss his feet; never of a monastery, but i could fall on my knees, and kiss the pavement. but i think putting young people there, who know nothing of life, nothing of retirement, is dangerous and wicked. it is a saying as old as hesiod, [words in greek] [footnote: let youth in deeds, in counsel man engage; prayer is the proper duty of old age. ] that is a very noble line: not that young men should not pray, or old men not give counsel, but that every season of life has its proper duties. i have thought of retiring, and have talked of it to a friend; but i find my vocation is rather to active life.' i said, some young monks might be allowed, to shew that it is not age alone that can retire to pious solitude; but he thought this would only shew that they could not resist temptation. he wanted to mount the steeples, but it could not be done. there are no good inscriptions here. bad roman characters he naturally mistook for half gothick, half roman. one of the steeples, which he was told was in danger, he wished not to be taken down; 'for,' said he, 'it may fall on some of the posterity of john knox; and no great matter!' dinner was mentioned. johnson. 'ay, ay; amidst all these sorrowful scenes, i have no objection to dinner.' we went and looked at the castle, where cardinal beaton was murdered, and then visited principal murison at his college, where is a good library-room; but the principal was abundantly vain of it, for he seriously said to dr johnson, 'you have not such a one in england'. the professors entertained us with a very good dinner. present: murison, shaw, cooke, hill, haddo, watson, flint, brown. i observed, that i wondered to see him eat so well, after viewing so many sorrowful scenes of ruined religious magnificence. 'why,' said he, 'i am not sorry, after seeing these gentlemen; for they are not sorry.' murison said, all sorrow was bad, as it was murmuring against the dispensations of providence. johnson. 'sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. as you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. it is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which wear out the past. you need not murmur, though you are sorry.' murison. 'but st paul says, "i have learnt, in whatever state i am, therewith to be content." 'johnson. 'sir, that relates to riches and poverty; for we see st paul, when he had a thorn in the flesh, prayed earnestly to have it removed; and then he could not be content.' murison, thus refuted, tried to be smart, and drank to dr johnson, 'long may you lecture!' dr johnson afterwards, speaking of his not drinking wine, said, 'the doctor spoke of lecturing' (looking to him). 'i give all these lectures on water.' he defended requiring subscription in those admitted to universities, thus: 'as all who come into the country must obey the king, so all who come into an university must be of the church.' and here i must do dr johnson the justice to contradict a very absurd and ill-natured story, as to what passed at st andrews. it has been circulated, that, after grace was said in english, in the usual manner, he with the greatest marks of contempt, as if he had held it to be no grace in an university, would not sit down till he had said grace aloud in latin. this would have been an insult indeed to the gentlemen who were entertaining us. but the truth was precisely thus. in the course of conversation at dinner, dr johnson, in very good humour, said, 'i should have expected to have heard a latin grace, among so many learned men: we had always a latin grace at oxford. i believe i can repeat it.' which he did, as giving the learned men in one place a specimen of what was done by the learned men in another place. we went and saw the church, in which is archbishop sharp's monument. i was struck with the same kind of feelings with which the churches of italy impressed me. i was much pleased, to see dr johnson actually in st andrews, of which we had talked so long. professor haddo was with us this afternoon, along with dr watson. we looked at st salvador's college. the rooms for students seemed very commodious, and dr johnson said, the chapel was the neatest place of worship he had seen. the key of the library could not be found; for it seems professor hill, who was out of town, had taken it with him. dr johnson told a joke he had heard of a monastery abroad, where the key of the library could never be found. it was somewhat dispiriting, to see this ancient archiepiscopal city now sadly deserted. we saw in one of its streets a remarkable proof of liberal toleration; a nonjuring clergyman, strutting about in his canonicals, with a jolly countenance and a round belly, like a well-fed monk. we observed two occupations united in the same person, who had hung out two sign-posts. upon one was, james hood, white iron smith (i.e. tin-plate worker). upon another, the art of fencing taught, by james hood. upon this last were painted some trees, and two men fencing, one of whom had hit the other in the eye, to shew his great dexterity; so that the art was well taught. johnson. 'were i studying here, i should go and take a lesson. i remember hope, in his book on this art, says, "the scotch are very good fencers".' we returned to the inn, where we had been entertained at dinner, and drank tea in company with some of the professors, of whose civilities i beg leave to add my humble and very grateful acknowledgement to the honourable testimony of dr johnson, in his journey. we talked of composition, which was a favourite topick of dr watson's, who first distinguished himself by lectures on rhetorick. johnson. 'i advised chambers, and would advise every young man beginning to compose, to do it as fast as he can, to get a habit of having his mind to start promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy.' watson. 'i own i am for much attention to accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad habits of doing it in a slovenly manner.' johnson. 'why, sir, you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity of doing inaccurately. a man knows when his composition is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. but, if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with difficulty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a small matter than ought to be.' watson. 'dr hugh blair has taken a week to compose a sermon.' johnson. 'then, sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which i am insisting one should acquire.' watson. 'blair was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for composition.' johnson. 'nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. if i say i took a week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, i have taken but one day. i myself have composed about forty sermons. i have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. i wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the life of savage at a sitting; but then i sat up all night. i have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the french.' boswell. 'we have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast.' johnson. 'yes, sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will consume in dressing; taking up a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and taking it up again. every one should get the habit of doing it quickly. i would say to a young divine, "here is your text; let me see how soon you can make a sermon." then i'd say, "let me see how much better you can make it." thus i should see both his powers and his judgement.' we all went to dr watson's to supper. miss sharp, great grandchild of archbishop sharp, was there; as was mr craig, the ingenious architect of the new town of edinburgh, and nephew of thomson, to whom dr johnson has since done so much justice, in his lives of the poets. we talked of memory, and its various modes. johnson. 'memory will play strange tricks. one sometimes loses a single word. i once lost fugaces in the ode posthume, posthume. i mentioned to him, that a worthy gentleman of my acquaintance actually forgot his own name. johnson. 'sir. that was a morbid oblivion.' friday, oth august dr shaw, the professor of divinity, breakfasted with us. i took out my ogden on prayer, and read some of it to the company. dr johnson praised him. 'abernethy,' said he, 'allows only of a physical effect of prayer upon the mind, which may be produced many ways, as well as by prayer; for instance, by meditation. ogden goes farther. in truth, we have the consent of all nations for the efficacy of prayer, whether offered up by individuals, or by assemblies; and revelation has told us, it will be effectual.' i said, 'leechman seemed to incline to abernethy's doctrine.' dr watson observed, that leechman meant to shew, that, even admitting no effect to be produced by prayer, respecting the deity, it was useful to our own minds. he had given only a part of his system: dr johnson thought he should have given the whole. dr johnson enforced the strict observance of sunday. 'it should be different,' he observed, 'from another day. people may walk, but not throw stones at birds. there may be relaxation, but there should be no levity.' we went and saw colonel nairne's garden and grotto. here was a fine old plane tree. unluckily the colonel said, there was but this and another large tree in the county. this assertion was an excellent cue for dr johnson, who laughed enormously, calling to me to hear it. he had expatiated to me on the nakedness of that part of scotland which he had seen. his journey has been violently abused, for what he has said upon this subject. but let it be considered, that, when dr johnson talks of trees, he means trees of good size, such as he was accustomed to see in england; and of these there are certainly very few upon the eastern coast of scotland. besides, he said, that he meant to give only a map of the road; and let any traveller observe how many trees, which deserve the name, he can see from the road from berwick to aberdeen. had dr johnson said, 'there are no trees' upon this line, he would have said what is colloquially true; because, by no trees, in common speech, we mean few. when he is particular in counting, he may be attacked. i know not how colonel nairne came to say there were but two large trees in the county of fife. i did not perceive that he smiled. there are certainly not a great many; but i could have shewn him more than two at balmuto, from whence my ancestors came, and which now belongs to a branch of my family. the grotto was ingeniously constructed. in the front of it were petrified stocks of fir, plane, and some other tree. dr johnson said, 'scotland has no right to boast of this grotto: it is owing to personal merit. i never denied personal merit to many of you.' professor shaw said to me, as we walked, 'this is a wonderful man: he is master of every subject he handles.' dr watson allowed him a very strong understanding, but wondered at his total inattention to established manners, as he came from london. i have not preserved, in my journal, any of the conversation which passed between dr johnson and professor shaw; but i recollect dr johnson said to me afterwards, 'i took much to shaw.' we left st andrews about noon, and some miles from it observing, at leuchars, a church with an old tower, we stopped to look at it. the manse, as the parsonage-house is called in scotland, was close by. i waited on the minister, mentioned our names, and begged he would tell us what he knew about it. he was a very civil old man; but could only inform us, that it was supposed to have stood eight hundred years. he told us, there was a colony of danes in his parish; that they had landed at a remote period of time, and still remained a distinct people. dr johnson shrewdly inquired whether they had brought women with them. we were not satisfied as to this colony. we saw, this day, dundee and aberbrothick, the last of which dr johnson has celebrated in his journey. upon the road we talked of the roman catholick faith. he mentioned (i think) tillotson's argument against transubstantiation; 'that we are as sure we see bread and wine only, as that we read in the bible the text on which that false doctrine is founded. we have only the evidence of our senses for both. if,' he added, 'god had never spoken figuratively, we might hold that he speaks literally, when he says, "this is my body".' boswell. 'but what do you say, sir, to the ancient and continued tradition of the church upon this point?' johnson. 'tradition, sir, has no place, where the scriptures are plain; and tradition cannot persuade a man into a belief of transubstantiation. able men, indeed, have said they believed it.' this is an awful subject. i did not then press dr johnson upon it; nor shall i now enter upon a disquisition concerning the import of those words uttered by our saviour,[footnote: "then jesus said unto them, verily, verily. i say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you." see st john's gospel, chap. vi. , and following verses.] which had such an effect upon many disciples, that they 'went back, and walked no more with him'. the catechism and solemn office for communion, in the church of england, maintain a mysterious belief in more than a mere commemoration of the death of christ, by partaking of the elements of bread and wine. dr johnson put me in mind, that, at st andrews, i had defended my profession very well, when the question had again been started, whether a lawyer might honestly engage with the first side that offers him a fee. 'sir,' said i, 'it was with your arguments against sir william forbes: but it was much that i could wield the arms of goliah.' he said, our judges had not gone deep in the question concerning literary property. i mentioned lord monboddo's opinion, that if a man could get a work by heart, he might print it, as by such an act the mind is exercised. johnson. 'no, sir; a man's repeating it no more makes it his property, than a man may sell a cow which he drives home.' i said, printing an abridgement of a work was allowed, which was only cutting the horns and tail off the cow. johnson. 'no, sir; 'tis making the cow have a calf.' about eleven at night we arrived at montrose. we found but a sorry inn, where i myself saw another waiter put a lump of sugar with his fingers into dr johnson's lemonade, for which he called him 'rascal!' it put me in great glee that our landlord was an englishman. i rallied the doctor upon this, and he grew quiet. both sir john hawkins's and dr burney's history of musick had then been advertised. i asked if this was not unlucky: would not they hurt one another? johnson. 'no, sir. they will do good to one another. some will buy the one, some the other, and compare them; and so a talk is made about a thing, and the books are sold.' he was angry at me for proposing to carry lemons with us to sky, that he might be sure to have his lemonade. 'sir,' said he, 'i do not wish to be thought that feeble man who cannot do without any thing. sir, it is very bad manners to carry provisions to any man's house, as if he could not entertain you. to an inferior, it is oppressive; to a superior, it is insolent.' having taken the liberty, this evening, to remark to dr johnson, that he very often sat quite silent for a long time, even when in company with only a single friend, which i myself had sometimes sadly experienced, he smiled and said, 'it is true, sir. tom tyers' (for so he familiarly called our ingenious friend, who, since his death, has paid a biographical tribute to his memory) 'tom tyers described me the best. he once said to me, "sir, you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to" [footnote: this description of dr johnson, appears to have been borrowed from tom jones, book xi. chap, ii. "the other, who like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered.' &c. saturday, st august neither the rev. mr nisbet, the established minister, nor the rev. mr spooner, the episcopal minister, were in town. before breakfast, we went and saw the town-hall, where is a good dancing-room, and other rooms for tea-drinking. the appearance of the town from it is very well; but many of the houses are built with their ends to the street, which looks awkward. when we came down from it, i met mr gleg, a merchant here. he went with us to see the english chapel. it is situated on a pretty dry spot, and there is a fine walk to it. it is really an elegant building, both within and without. the organ is adorned with green and gold. dr johnson gave a shilling extraordinary to the clerk, saying, 'he belongs to an honest church.' i put him in mind, that episcopals were but dissenters here; they were only tolerated. 'sir,' said he, 'we are here, as christians in turkey.' he afterwards went into an apothecary's shop, and ordered some medicine for himself, and wrote the prescription in technical characters. the boy took him for a physician. i doubted much which road to take, whether to go by the coast, or by lawrence kirk and monboddo. i knew lord monboddo and dr johnson did not love each other: yet i was unwilling not to visit his lordship; and was also curious to see them together. [footnote: there were several points of similarity between them: learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects which people in general do not investigate. foote paid lord monboddo the compliment of saying, that he was 'an elzevir edition of johnson'. it has been shrewdly observed that foote must have meant a diminutive, or pocket edition.] i mentioned my doubts to dr johnson, who said, he would go two miles out of his way to see lord monboddo. i therefore sent joseph forward, with the following note. montrose, august. my dear lord, thus far i am come with mr samuel johnson. we must be at aberdeen to-night. i know you do not admire him so much as i do; but i cannot be in this country without making you a bow at your old place, as i do not know if i may again have an opportunity of seeing monboddo. besides, mr johnson says, he would go two miles out of his way to see lord monboddo. i have sent forward my servant, that we may know if your lordship be at home. i am ever, my dear lord, most sincerely yours, james boswell. as we travelled onwards from montrose, we had the grampion hills in our view, and some good land around us, but void of trees and hedges. dr johnson has said ludicrously, in his journey, that the hedges were of stone; for, instead of the verdant thorn to refresh the eye, we found the bare wall or dike intersecting the prospect. he observed, that it was wonderful to see a country so divested, so denuded of trees. we stopped at lawrence kirk, where our great grammarian, ruddiman, was once schoolmaster. we respectfully remembered that excellent man and eminent scholar, by whose labours a knowledge of the latin language will be preserved in scotland, if it shall be preserved at all. lord gardenston, one of our judges, collected money to raise a monument to him at this place, which i hope will be well executed. i know my father gave five guineas towards it. lord gardenston is the proprietor of lawrence kirk, and has encouraged the building of a manufacturing village, of which he is exceedingly fond, and has written a pamphlet upon it, as if he had founded thebes, in which, however there are many useful precepts strongly expressed. the village seemed to be irregularly built, some of the houses being of clay, some of brick, and some of brick and stone. dr johnson observed, they thatched well here. i was a little acquainted with mr forbes, the minister of the parish. i sent to inform him that a gentleman desired to see him. he returned for answer, 'that he would not come to a stranger'. i then gave my name, and he came. i remonstrated to him for not coming to a stranger; and, by presenting him to dr johnson, proved to him what a stranger might sometimes be. his bible inculcates 'be not forgetful to entertain strangers', and mentions the same motive. he defended himself by saying, he had once come to a stranger who sent for him; and he found him 'a little worth person!' dr johnson insisted on stopping at the inn, as i told him that lord gardenston had furnished it with a collection of books, that travellers might have entertainment for the mind, as well as the body. he praised the design, but wished there had been more books, and those better chosen. about a mile from monboddo, where you turn off the road, joseph was waiting to tell us my lord expected us to dinner. we drove over a wild moor. it rained, and the scene was somewhat dreary. dr johnson repeated, with solemn emphasis, macbeth's speech on meeting the witches. as we travelled on, he told me, 'sir, you got into our club by doing what a man can do. [footnote: this, i find, is considered as obscure. i suppose dr johnson meant, that i assiduously and earnestly recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass for an election into parliament.] several of the members wished to keep you out. burke told me, he doubted if you were fit for it: but, now you are in, none of them are sorry. burke says, that you have so much good humour naturally, it is scarce a virtue.' boswell. 'they were afraid of you, sir, as it was you who proposed me.' johnson. 'sir, they knew, that if they refused you, they'd probably never have got in another. i'd have kept them all out. beauclerk was very earnest for you.' boswell. 'beauclerk has a keenness of mind which is very uncommon.' johnson. 'yes, sir; and every thing comes from him so easily. it appears to me that i labour, when i say a good thing.' boswell. 'you are loud, sir; but it is not an effort of mind.' monboddo is a wretched place, wild and naked, with a poor old house; though, if i recollect right, there are two turrets which mark an old baron's residence. lord monboddo received us at his gate most courteously; pointed to the douglas arms upon his house, and told us that his great-grandmother was of that family, 'in such houses,' said he, 'our ancestors lived, who were better men than we.' 'no, no, my lord,' said dr johnson. 'we are as strong as they, and a great deal wiser.' this was an assault upon one of lord monboddo's capital dogmas, and i was afraid there would have been a violent altercation in the very close, before we got into the house. but his lordship is distinguished not only for 'ancient metaphysicks', but for ancient politesse, la vieille cour, and he made no reply. his lordship was drest in a rustick suit, and wore a little round hat; he told us, we now saw him as farmer burnett, and we should have his family dinner, a farmer's dinner. he said, 'i should not have forgiven mr boswell, had he not brought you here, dr johnson.' he produced a very long stalk of corn, as a specimen of his crop, and said, 'you see here the loetas segetes.' he added, that virgil seemed to be as enthusiastick a farmer as he, and was certainly a practical one. johnson. 'it does not always follow, my lord, that a man who has written a good poem on an art, has practised it. philip miller told me, that in philips's "cyder", a poem, all the precepts were just, and indeed better than in books written for the purpose of instructing; yet philips had never made cyder.' i started the subject of emigration. johnson. 'to a man of mere animal life, you can urge no argument against going to america, but that it will be some time before he will get the earth to produce. but a man of any intellectual enjoyment will not easily go and immerse himself and his posterity for ages in barbarism.' he and my lord spoke highly of homer. johnson. 'he had all the learning of his age. the shield of achilles shews a nation in war, a nation in peace; harvest sport, nay stealing.' [footnote: my note of this is much too short. brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio. yet as i have resolved that the very journal which dr johnson read, shall be presented to the publick, i will not expand the text in any considerable degree, though i may occasionally supply a word to complete the sense, as i fill up the blanks of abbreviation in the writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine journal. one of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect passage above has probably been as follows: 'in his book we have an accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and the modes of ancient theft are described.'] monboddo. 'ay, and what we' (looking to me)?'would call a parliament-house scene; a cause pleaded.' johnson. 'that is part of the life of a nation in peace. and there are in homer such characters of heroes, and combinations of qualities of heroes, that the united powers of mankind ever since have not produced any but what are to be found there.' monboddo. 'yet no character is described.' johnson. 'no; they all develope themselves. agamemnon is always a gentleman-like character; he has always <greek>. that the ancients held so, is plain from this; that euripides, in his hecuba, makes him the person to interpose.' [footnote: dr johnson modestly said, he had not read homer so much as he wished he had done. but this conversation shews how well he was acquainted with the moeonian bard; and he has shewn it still more in his criticism upon pope's homer, in his life of that poet. my excellent friend, mr langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between dr johnson and mr burke, on the comparative merits of homer and virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides. dr johnson maintained the superiority of homer.] monboddo. 'the history of manners is the most valuable. i never set a high value on any other history.' johnson. 'nor i; and therefore i esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use.' boswell. 'but in the course of general history, we find manners. in wars, we see the dispositions of people, their degrees of humanity, and other particulars.' johnson. 'yes; but then you must take all the facts to get this; and it is but a little you get.' monboddo. 'and it is that little which makes history valuable.' bravo! thought i; they agree like two brothers. monboddo. 'i am sorry, dr johnson, you were not longer at edinburgh, to receive the homage of our men of learning.' johnson. 'my lord, i received great respect and great kindness.' boswell. 'he goes back to edinburgh after our tour.' we talked of the decrease of learning in scotland, and the muses' welcome. johnson. 'learning is much decreased in england, in my remembrance.' monboddo. 'you, sir, have lived to see its decrease in england, i its extinction in scotland.' however, i brought him to confess that the high school of edinburgh did well. johnson. 'learning has decreased in england, because learning will not do so much for a man as formerly. there are other ways of getting preferment. few bishops are now made for their learning. to be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age; but always of eminence. warburton is an exception; though his learning alone did not raise him. he was first an antagonist to pope, and helped theobald to publish his shakspeare; but, seeing pope the rising man, when crousaz attacked his essay on man, for some faults which it has, and some which it has not, warburton defended it in the review of that time. this brought him acquainted with pope, and he gained his friendship. pope introduced him to allen, allen married him to his niece: so, by allen's interest and his own, he was made a bishop. but then his learning was the sine qua non: he knew how to make the most of it; but i do not find by any dishonest means.' monboddo. 'he is a great man.' johnson. 'yes; he has great knowledge, great power of mind. hardly any man brings greater variety of learning to bear upon his point.' monboddo. 'he is one of the greatest lights of your church.' johnson. 'why, we are not so sure of his being very friendly to us. he blazes, if you will, but that is not always the steadiest light. lowth is another bishop who has risen by his learning.' dr johnson examined young arthur, lord monboddo's son, in latin. he answered very well; upon which he said, with complacency, 'get you gone! when king james comes back, [footnote: i find, some doubt has been entertained concerning dr johnson's meaning here. it is to be supposed that he meant, 'when a king shall again be entertained in scotland'.] you shall be in the "muses' welcome"!' my lord and dr johnson disputed a little, whether the savage or the london shopkeeper had the best existence; his lordship, as usual, preferring the savage. my lord was extremely hospitable, and i saw both dr johnson and him liking each other better every hour. dr johnson having retired for a short time, his lordship spoke of his conversation as i could have wished. dr johnson had said, 'i have done greater feats with my knife than this;' though he had eaten a very hearty dinner. my lord, who affects or believes he follows an abstemious system, seemed struck with dr johnson's manner of living. i had a particular satisfaction in being under the roof of monboddo, my lord being my father's old friend, and having been always very good to me. we were cordial together. he asked dr johnson and me to stay all night. when i said we must be at aberdeen, he replied, 'well, i am like the romans: i shall say to you, "happy to come--happy to depart!"' he thanked dr johnson for his visit. johnson. 'i little thought, when i had the honour to meet your lordship in london, that i should see you at monboddo.' after dinner, as the ladies were going away, dr johnson would stand up. he insisted that politeness was of great consequence in society. 'it is,' said he, 'fictitious benevolence. it supplies the place of it amongst those who see each other only in publick, or but little. depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other. i have always applied to good breeding, what addison in his cato says of honour: honour's a sacred tie; the law of kings; the noble mind's distinguishing perfection, that aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her. and imitates her actions where she is not. when he took up his large oak stick, he said, 'my lord, that's homerick;' thus pleasantly alluding to his lordship's favourite writer. gory, my lord's black servant, was sent as our guide, to conduct us to the high road. the circumstance of each of them having a black servant was another point of similarity between johnson and monboddo. i observed how curious it was to see an african in the north of scotland, with little or no difference of manners from those of the natives. dr johnson laughed to see gory and joseph riding together most cordially. 'those two fellows,' said he, 'one from africa, the other from bohemia, seem quite at home.' he was much pleased with lord monboddo to-day. he said, he would have pardoned him for a few paradoxes, when he found he had so much that was good: but that, from his appearance in london, he thought him all paradox; which would not do. he observed, that his lordship had talked no paradoxes to-day. 'and as to the savage and the london shopkeeper," said he, 'i don't know but i might have taken the side of the savage equally, had any body else taken the side of the shopkeeper.' he had said to my lord, in opposition to the value of the savage's courage, that it was owing to his limited power of thinking, and repeated pope's verses, in which 'macedonia's madman' is introduced, and the conclusion is, yet ne'er looks forward farther than his nose. i objected to the last phrase, as being low. johnson. 'sir, it is intended to be low: it is satire. the expression is debased, to debase the character.' when gory was about to part from us, dr johnson called to him, 'mr gory, give me leave to ask you a question! are you baptized?' gory told him he was, and confirmed by the bishop of durham. he then gave him a shilling. we had tedious driving this afternoon, and were somewhat drowsy. last night i was afraid dr johnson was beginning to faint in his resolution; for he said, 'if we must ride much, we shall not go; and there's an end on't.' to-day, when he talked of sky with spirit, i said, 'why, sir, you seemed to me to despond yesterday. you are a delicate londoner; you are a maccaroni; you can't ride.' johnson. 'sir, i shall ride better than you. i was only afraid i should not find a horse able to carry me.' i hoped then there would be no fear of getting through our wild tour. we came to aberdeen at half an hour past eleven. the new inn, we were told, was full. this was comfortless. the waiter, however, asked if one of our names was boswell, and brought me a letter left at the inn: it was from mr thrale, enclosing one to dr johnson. finding who i was, we were told they would contrive to lodge us by putting us for a night into a room with two beds. the waiter said to me in the broad strong aberdeenshire dialect, 'i thought i knew you, by your likeness to your father.' my father puts up at the new inn, when on his circuit. little was said to-night. i was to sleep in a little press-bed in dr johnson's room. i had it wheeled out into the dining-room, and there i lay very well. sunday, d august i sent a message to professor thomas gordon, who came and breakfasted with us. he had secured seats for us at the english chapel. we found a respectable congregation, and an admirable organ, well played by mr tait. we walked down to the shore. dr johnson laughed to hear that cromwell's soldiers taught the aberdeen people to make shoes and stockings, and to plant cabbages. he asked, if weaving the plaids was ever a domestick art in the highlands, like spinning or knitting. they could not inform him here. but he conjectured probably, that where people lived so remote from each other, it was likely to be a domestick art; as we see it was among the ancients, from penelope. i was sensible to-day, to an extraordinary degree, of dr johnson's excellent english pronunciation. i cannot account for its striking me more now than any other day: but it was as if new to me; and i listened to every sentence which he spoke, as to a musical composition. professor gordon gave him an account of the plan of education in his college. dr johnson said, it was similar to that at oxford. waller the poet's great grandson was studying here. dr johnson wondered that a man should send his son so far off, when there were so many good schools in england. he said, 'at a great school there is all the splendour and illumination of many minds; the radiance of all is concentrated in each, or at least reflected upon each. but we must own that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great school as at a private one. for at a great school there are always boys enough to do well easily, who are sufficient to keep up the credit of the school; and after whipping being tried to no purpose, the dull or idle boys are left at the end of a class, having the appearance of going through the course, but learning nothing at all. such boys may do good at a private school, where constant attention is paid to them, and they are watched. so that the question of publick or private education is not properly a general one; but whether one or the other is best for my son.' we were told the present mr waller was a plain country gentleman; and his son would be such another. i observed, a family could not expect a poet but in a hundred generations. 'nay,' said dr johnson, 'not one family in a hundred can expect a poet in a hundred generations.' he then repeated dryden's celebrated lines, three poets in three distant ages born, &c. and a part of a latin translation of it done at oxford: he did not then say by whom.[footnote: london, d may, . dr johnson acknowledged that he was himself the authour of the translation above alluded to, and dictated it to me as follows: quos laudet vales graius romanus et anglus tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis. sublime ingenium graius; romanus habebat carmen grande sonans; anglus utrumque tulit. nil majus natura capit: clarare priores quae potuere duos tertius unus habet.] he received a card, from sir alexander gordon, who had been his acquaintance twenty years ago in london, and who, 'if forgiven for not answering a line from him', would come in the afternoon. dr johnson rejoiced to hear of him, and begged he would come and dine with us. i was much pleased to see the kindness with which dr johnson received his old friend sir alexander; a gentleman of good family, lismore, but who had not the estate. the king's college here made him professor of medicine, which affords him a decent subsistence. he told us that the value of the stockings exported from aberdeen was, in peace, a hundred thousand pounds; and amounted, in time of war, to one hundred and seventy thousand pounds. dr johnson asked, what made the difference? here we had a proof of the comparative sagacity of the two professors. sir alexander answered, 'because there is more occasion for them in war.' professor thomas gordon answered, 'because the germans, who are our great rivals in the manufacture of stockings, are otherwise employed in time of war.' johnson. 'sir, you have given a very good solution.' at dinner, dr johnson ate several plate-fulls of scotch broth, with barley and peas in it, and seemed very fond of the dish. i said, 'you never ate it before.' johnson. 'no, sir; but i don't care how soon i eat it again.' my cousin, miss dallas, formerly of inverness, was married to mr riddoch, one of the ministers of the english chapel here. he was ill, and confined to his room; but she sent us a kind invitation to tea, which we all accepted. she was the same lively, sensible, cheerful woman, as ever. dr johnson here threw out some jokes against scotland. he said, 'you go first to aberdeen; then to enbru (the scottish pronunciation of edinburgh); then to newcastle, to be polished by the colliers; then to york; then to london.' and he laid hold of a little girl, stuart dallas, niece to mrs riddoch, and, representing himself as a giant, said, he would take her with him! telling her, in a hollow voice, that he lived in a cave, and had a bed in the rock, and she should have a bed cut opposite to it! he thus treated the point, as to prescription of murder in scotland. 'a jury in england would make allowance for deficiencies of evidence, on account of lapse of time: but a general rule that a crime should not be punished, or tried for the purpose of punishment, after twenty years, is bad. it is cant to talk of the king's advocate delaying a prosecution from malice. how unlikely is it the king's advocate should have malice against persons who commit murder, or should even know them at all. if the son of the murdered man should kill the murderer who got off merely by prescription, i would help him to make his escape; though, were i upon his jury, i would not acquit him. i would not advise him to commit such an act. on the contrary, i would bid him submit to the determination of society, because a man is bound to submit to the inconveniences of it, as he enjoys the good: but the young man, though politically wrong, would not be morally wrong. he would have to say, "here i am amongst barbarians, who not only refuse to do justice, but encourage the greatest of all crimes. i am therefore in a state of nature: for, so far as there is now law, it is a state of nature: and consequently, upon the eternal and immutable law of justice, which requires that he who sheds man's blood should have his blood shed, i will stab the murderer of my father."' we went to our inn, and sat quietly. dr johnson borrowed, at mr riddoch's, a volume of massilon's discourses on the psalms: but i found he read little in it. ogden too he sometimes took up, and glanced at; but threw it down again. i then entered upon religious conversation. never did i see him in a better frame: calm, gentle, wise, holy. i said, 'would not the same objection hold against the trinity as against transubstantiation?' 'yes,' said he, 'if you take three and one in the same sense. if you do, to be sure you cannot believe it: but the three persons in the godhead are three in one sense, and one in another. we cannot tell how; and that is the mystery!' i spoke of the satisfaction of christ. he said his notion was, that it did not atone for the sins of the world; but, by satisfying divine justice, by shewing that no less than the son of god suffered for sin, it shewed to men and innumerable created beings, the heinousness of it, and therefore rendered it unnecessary for divine vengeance to be exercised against sinners, as it otherwise must have been; that in this way it might operate even in favour of those who had never heard of it: as to those who did hear of it, the effect it should produce would be repentance and piety, by impressing upon the mind a just notion of sin: that original sin was the propensity to evil, which no doubt was occasioned by the fall. he presented this solemn subject in a new light to me, [footnote: my worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, dr kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus explained the mediation of our saviour. what dr johnson now delivered, was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of the propitiatory sacrifice, as i shall shew at large in my future work, the life of samuel johnson, ll.d.] and rendered much more rational and clear the doctrine of what our saviour has done for us, as it removed the notion of imputed righteousness in co-operating; whereas by this view, christ has done all already that he had to do, or is ever to do, for mankind, by making his great satisfaction; the consequences of which will affect each individual according to the particular conduct of each. i would illustrate this by saying, that christ's satisfaction resembles a sun placed to shew light to men, so that it depends upon themselves whether they will walk the right way or not, which they could not have done without that sun, 'the sun of righteousness'. there is, however, more in it than merely giving light--'a light to lighten the gentiles': for we are told, there is 'healing under his wings'. dr johnson said to me, 'richard baxter commends a treatise by grotius, de satisfactione christi. i have never read it: but i intend to read it; and you may read it.' i remarked, upon the principle now laid down, we might explain the difficult and seemingly hard text, 'they that believe shall be saved; and they that believe not shall be damned.' they that believe shall have such an impression made upon their minds, as will make them act so that they may be accepted by god. we talked of one of our friends taking ill, for a length of time, a hasty expression of dr johnson's to him, on his attempting to prosecute a subject that had a reference to religion, beyond the bounds within which the doctor thought such topicks should be confined in a mixed company. johnson. 'what is to become of society, if a friendship of twenty years is to be broken off for such a cause?' as bacon says, who then to frail mortality shall trust, but limns the water, or but writes in dust. i said, he should write expressly in support of christianity; for that, although a reverence for it shines through his works in several places, that is not enough. 'you know,' said i, 'what grotius has done, and what addison has done. you should do also.' he replied, 'i hope i shall.' monday, d august principal campbell, sir alexander gordon, professor gordon, and professor ross, visited us in the morning, as did dr gerard, who had come six miles from the country on purpose. we went and saw the marischal college, [footnote: dr beattie was so kindly entertained in england, that he had not yet returned home.] and at one o'clock we waited on the magistrates in the town hall, as they had invited us in order to present dr johnson with the freedom of the town, which provost jopp did with a very good grace. dr johnson was much pleased with this mark of attention, and received it very politely. there was a pretty numerous company assembled. it was striking to hear all of them drinking?'dr johnson! dr johnson!' in the town-hall of aberdeen, and then to see him with his burgess-ticket, or diploma, [footnote: dr johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words: aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis augusti, anno domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, jacobi jopp, armigeri, praepositi, adami duff, gulielmi young, georgii marr, et gulielmi forbes, balivorum, gulielmi rainie decani guildae, et joannis nicoll thesaurarii dicti burgi. quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, samuel johnson, ll. d. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae praefati burgi de aberdeen. in deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti magistratus eum amplectuntur. extractum per me, alex. carnegie.] in his hat, which he wore as he walked along the street, according to the usual custom. it gave me great satisfaction to observe the regard, and indeed fondness too, which every body here had for my father. while sir alexander gordon conducted dr johnson to old aberdeen, professor gordon and i called on mr riddoch, whom i found to be a grave worthy clergyman. he observed, that, whatever might be said of dr johnson while he was alive, he would, after he was dead, be looked upon by the world with regard and astonishment, on account of his dictionary. professor gordon and i walked over to the old college, which dr johnson had seen by this time. i stepped into the chapel, and looked at the tomb of the founder, archbishop elphinston, of whom i shall have occasion to write in my history of james iv of scotland, the patron of my family. we dined at sir alexander gordon's. the provost, professor ross, professor dunbar, professor thomas gordon, were there. after dinner came in dr gerard, professor leslie, professor macleod. we had little or no conversation in the morning; now we were but barren. the professors seemed afraid to speak. dr gerard told us that an eminent printer was very intimate with warburton. johnson. 'why, sir, he has printed some of his works, and perhaps bought the property of some of them. the intimacy is such as one of the professors here may have with one of the carpenters who is repairing the college.' 'but,' said gerard, 'i saw a letter from him to this printer, in which he says, that the one half of the clergy of the church of scotland are fanaticks, and the other half infidels.' johnson. 'warburton has accustomed himself to write letters just as he speaks, without thinking any more of what he throws out. when i read warburton first, and observed his force, and his contempt of mankind, i thought he had driven the world before him; but i soon found that was not the case; for warburton, by extending his abuse, rendered it ineffectual.' he told me, when we were by ourselves, that he thought it very wrong in the printer, to shew warburton's letter, as it was raising a body of enemies against him. he thought it foolish in warburton to write so to the printer; and added, 'sir, the worst way of being intimate, is by scribbling.' he called warburton's doctrine of grace a poor performance, and so he said was wesley's answer. 'warburton,' he observed, 'had laid himself very open. in particular, he was weak enough to say, that, in some disorders of the imagination, people had spoken with tongues, had spoken languages which they never knew before; a thing as absurd as to say, that, in some disorders of the imagination, people had been known to fly.' i talked of the difference of genius, to try if i could engage gerard in a disquisition with dr johnson; but i did not succeed. i mentioned, as a curious fact, that locke had written verses. johnson. 'i know of none, sir, but a kind of exercise prefixed to dr sydenham's works, in which he has some conceits about the dropsy, in which water and burning are united; and how dr sydenham removed fire by drawing off water, contrary to the usual practice, which is to extinguish fire by bringing water upon it. i am not sure that there is a word of all this; but it is such kind of talk.' [footnote: all this, as dr johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it in mr locke's complimentary performance. my readers will, i have no doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them: and, at any rate, it may entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a bachelor in physick. auctori, in tractatum ejus de febribus. febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus orbem flevit, non tantis par medicina malis. et post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae, ardet adhuc febris; nec velit arte regi. praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne, ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis. dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque, flammarum et tenebras, et sine luce faces; quas tractat patitur flammas, et febre calescens, corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis. qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes, sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi. sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros; dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos. sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes, unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus. fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes; cum perit artificis non minus usta domus. se tandem sydenham febrisque scholaeque furori] we spoke of fingal. dr johnson said calmly, 'if the poems were really translated, they were certainly first written down. let mr macpherson deposite the manuscript in one of the colleges at aberdeen, where there are people who can judge; and, if the professors certify the authenticity, then there will be an end of the controversy. if he does not take this obvious and easy method, he gives the best reason to doubt; considering too, how much is against it a priori.' we sauntered after dinner in sir alexander's garden, and saw his little grotto, which is hung with pieces of poetry written in a fair hand. it was [footnote: opponens, morbi quaerit, et artis opem. non temere incusat tectae putedinis ignes; nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit, non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; salutis quae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu, quis ipsis major febribus ardor inest. innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas, et justo rapidos temperat igne focos. quid febrim exstinguat; varius quid postulat usus, solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet. hactenus ipsa suum timuit natura calorem, dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit: dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes, praelusit busto, fit calor iste rogus. jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas, quem natura negat, dat medicina modum. nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus, dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus; sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum credimus, iratam vel genuisse stygem. extorsit lachesi cultros, pestique venenum abstulit, et tantos non sinit esse metus. quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere pestem credat, et antiquas ponere posse minas post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto, victa jacet, parvo vulnere, dira lues. aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae, quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit. delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant, has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas tu meliora paras victrix medicina; tuusque, pestis qua superat cuncta, triumphus eris. vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus te simul et mundum qui manet, ignis erit. j. lock, a. m. ex. aede christi, oxon.] agreeable to observe the contentment and kindness of this quiet, benevolent man. professor macleod was brother to macleod of talisker, and brother-in-law to the laird of col. he gave me a letter to young col. i was weary of this day, and began to think wishfully of being again in motion. i was uneasy to think myself too fastidious, whilst i fancied dr johnson quite satisfied. but he owned to me that he was fatigued and teased by sir alexander's doing too much to entertain him. i said, it was all kindness. johnson. 'true, sir: but sensation is sensation.' boswell. 'it is so: we feel pain equally from the surgeon's probe, as from the sword of the foe.' we visited two booksellers' shops, and could not find arthur johnston's poems. we went and sat near an hour at mr riddoch's. he could not tell distinctly how much education at the college here costs, which disgusted dr johnson. i had pledged myself that we should go to the inn, and not stay supper. they pressed us, but he was resolute. i saw mr riddoch did not please him. he said to me, afterwards, 'sir, he has no vigour in his talk.' but my friend should have considered that he himself was not in good humour; so that it was not easy to talk to his satisfaction. we sat contentedly at our inn. he then became merry, and observed how little we had either heard or said at aberdeen: that the aberdonians had not started a single mawkin (the scottish word for hare) for us to pursue. tuesday, th august we set out about eight in the morning, and breakfasted at ellon. the landlady said to me, 'is not this the great doctor that is going about through the country?' i said, 'yes.' 'ay,' said she, 'we heard of him, i made an errand into the room on purpose to see him. there's something great in his appearance: it is a pleasure to have such a man in one's house; a man who does so much good. if i had thought of it, i would have shewn him a child of mine, who has had a lump on his throat for some time.' 'but,' said i, 'he is not a doctor of physick.' 'is he an oculist?' said the landlord. 'no,' said i, 'he is only a very learned man.' landlord. 'they say he is the greatest man in england, except lord mansfield.' dr johnson was highly entertained with this, and i do think he was pleased too. he said, 'i like the exception: to have called me the greatest man in england, would have been an unmeaning compliment: but the exception marked that the praise was in earnest; and, in scotland, the exception must be lord mansfield, or--sir john pringle.' he told me a good story of dr goldsmith. graham, who wrote telemachus, a masque, was sitting one night with him and dr johnson, and was half drunk. he rattled away to dr johnson: 'you are a clever fellow, to be sure; but you cannot write an essay like addison, or verses like the rape of the lock.' at last he said, [footnote: i am sure i have related this story exactly as dr johnson told it to me: but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'at last, sir, graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, said doctor &c. 'what effect.' dr johnson used to add, 'this had on goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.'] 'doctor, i should be happy to see you at eaton.' 'i shall be glad to wait on you,' answered goldsmith. 'no,' said graham, ''tis not you i mean, dr minor; 'tis dr major, there.' goldsmith was excessively hurt by this. he afterwards spoke of it himself. 'graham,' said he, 'is a fellow to make one commit suicide.' we had received a polite invitation to slains castle. we arrived there just at three o'clock, as the bell for dinner was ringing. though, from its being just on the north-east ocean, no trees will grow here, lord errol has done all that can be done. he has cultivated his fields so as to bear rich crops of every kind, and he has made an excellent kitchen-garden, with a hot-house. i had never seen any of the family: but there had been a card of invitation written by the honourable charles boyd, the earl's brother. we were conducted into the house, and at the dining-room door were met by that gentleman, whom both of us at first took to be lord errol; but he soon corrected our mistake. my lord was gone to dine in the neighbourhood, at an entertainment given by mr irvine of drum. lady errol received us politely, and was very attentive to us during the time of dinner. there was nobody at table but her ladyship, mr boyd, and some of the children, their governour and governess. mr boyd put dr johnson in mind of having dined with him at cumming the quaker's, along with mr hall and miss williams: this was a bond of connection between them. for me, mr boyd's acquaintance with my father was enough. after dinner, lady errol favoured us with a sight of her young family, whom she made stand up in a row. there were six daughters and two sons. it was a very pleasing sight. dr johnson proposed our setting out. mr boyd said, he hoped we would stay all night; his brother would be at home in the evening, and would be very sorry if he missed us. mr boyd was called out of the room. i was very desirous to stay in so comfortable a house, and i wished to see lord errol. dr johnson, however, was right in resolving to go, if we were not asked again, as it is best to err on the safe side in such cases, and to be sure that one is quite welcome. to my great joy, when mr boyd returned, he told dr johnson that it was lady errol who had called him out, and said that she would never let dr johnson into the house again, if he went away that night; and that she had ordered the coach, to carry us to view a great curiosity on the coast, after which we should see the house. we cheerfully agreed. mr boyd was engaged, in - , on the same side with many unfortunate mistaken noblemen and gentlemen. he escaped, and lay concealed for a year in the island of arran, the ancient territory of the boyds. he then went to france, and was about twenty years on the continent. he married a french lady, and now lived very comfortably at aberdeen, and was much at slains castle. he entertained us with great civility. he had a pompousness or formal plenitude in his conversation which i did not dislike. dr johnson said, there was too much elaboration in his talk. it gave me pleasure to see him, a steady branch of the family, setting forth all its advantages with much zeal. he told us that lady errol was one of the most pious and sensible women in the island; had a good head, and as good a heart. he said, she did not use force or fear in educating her children. johnson. 'sir, she is wrong; i would rather have the rod to be the general terror to all, to make them learn, than tell a child, if you do thus or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. the rod produces an effect which terminates itself. a child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation, and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other.' during mr boyd's stay in arran, he had found a chest of medical books, left by a surgeon there, and had read them till he acquired some skill in physick, in consequence of which he is often consulted by the poor. there were several here waiting for him as patients. we walked round the house till stopped by a cut made by the influx of the sea. the house is built quite upon the shore; the windows look upon the main ocean, and the king of denmark is lord errol's nearest neighbour on the north-east. we got immediately into the coach, and drove to dunbui, a rock near the shore, quite covered with sea-fowls; then to a circular bason of large extent, surrounded with tremendous rocks. on the quarter next the sea, there is a high arch in the rock, which the force of the tempest has driven out. this place is called buchan's buller, or the buller of buchan, and the country people call it the pot. mr boyd said it was so called from the french bouloir. it may be more simply traced from boiler in our own language. we walked round this monstrous cauldron. in some places, the rock is very narrow; and on each side there is a sea deep enough for a man of war to ride in; so that it is somewhat horrid to move along. however, there is earth and grass upon the rock, and a kind of road marked out by the print of feet; so that one makes it out pretty safely: yet it alarmed me to see dr johnson striding irregularly along. he insisted on taking a boat, and sailing into the pot. we did so. he was stout, and wonderfully alert. the buchan-men all shewing their teeth, and speaking with that strange sharp accent which distinguishes them, was to me a matter of curiosity. he was not sensible of the difference of pronunciation in the south and north of scotland, which i wondered at. as the entry into the buller is so narrow that oars cannot be used as you go in, the method taken is to row very hard when you come near it, and give the boat such a rapidity of motion that it glides in. dr johnson observed what an effect this scene would have had, were we entering into an unknown place. there are caves of considerable depth; i think, one on each side. the boatmen had never entered either of them far enough to know the size. mr boyd told us that it is customary for the company at peterhead well, to make parties, and come and dine in one of the caves here. he told us, that, as slains is at a considerable distance from aberdeen, lord errol, who has a very large family, resolved to have a surgeon of his own. with this view he educated one of his tenant's sons, who is now settled in a very neat house and farm just by, which we saw from the road. by the salary which the earl allows him, and the practice which he has had, he is in very easy circumstances. he had kept an exact account of all that had been laid out on his education, and he came to his lordship one day, and told him that he had arrived at a much higher situation than ever he expected; that he was now able to repay what his lordship had advanced, and begged he would accept of it. the earl was pleased with the generous gratitude and genteel offer of the man; but refused it. mr boyd also told us, cumming the quaker first began to distinguish himself, by writing against dr leechman on prayer, to prove it unnecessary, as god knows best what should be, and will order it without our asking--the old hackneyed objection. when we returned to the house we found coffee and tea in the drawing-room. lady errol was not there, being, as i supposed, engaged with her young family. there is a bow-window fronting the sea. dr johnson repeated the ode, jam satis terris, while mr boyd was with his patients. he spoke well in favour of entails, to preserve lines of men whom mankind are accustomed to reverence. his opinion was that so much land should be entailed as that families should never fall into contempt, and as much left free as to give them all the advantages of property in case of any emergency. 'if,' said he, 'the nobility are suffered to sink into indigence, they of course become corrupt; they are ready to do whatever the king chooses; therefore it is fit they should be kept from becoming poor, unless it is fixed that when they fall below a certain standard of wealth they shall lose their peerages. we know the house of peers have made noble stands, when the house of commons durst not. the two last years of parliament they dare not contradict the populace.' this room is ornamented with a number of fine prints, and with a whole length picture of lord errol, by sir joshua reynolds. this led dr johnson and me to talk of our amiable and elegant friend, whose panegyrick he concluded by saying, 'sir joshua reynolds, sir, is the most invulnerable man i know; the man with whom if you should quarrel, you would find the most difficulty how to abuse.' dr johnson observed, the situation here was the noblest he had ever seen, better than mount edgecumbe, reckoned the first in england; because, at mount edgecumbe, the sea is bounded by land on the other side, and, though there is there the grandeur of a fleet, there is also the impression of there being a dock-yard, the circumstances of which are not agreeable. at slains is an excellent old house. the noble owner has built of brick, along the square in the inside, a gallery, both on the first and second story, the house being no higher; so that he has always a dry walk, and the rooms, to which formerly there was no approach but through each other, have now all separate entries from the gallery, which is hung with hogarth's works, and other prints. we went and sat a while in the library. there is a valuable numerous collection. it was chiefly made by mr falconer, husband to the late countess of errol in her own right. this earl has added a good many modern books. about nine the earl came home. captain gordon of park was with him. his lordship put dr johnson in mind of their having dined together in london, along with mr beauclerk. i was exceedingly pleased with lord errol. his dignified person and agreeable countenance, with the most unaffected affability, gave me high satisfaction. from perhaps a weakness, or, as i rather hope, more fancy and warmth of feeling than is quite reasonable, my mind is ever impressed with admiration for persons of high birth, and i could, with the most perfect honesty, expatiate on lord errol's good qualities; but he stands in no need of my praise. his agreeable manners and softness of address prevented that constraint which the idea of his being lord high constable of scotland might otherwise have occasioned. he talked very easily and sensibly with his learned guest. i observed that dr johnson, though he shewed that respect to his lordship, which, from principle, he always does to high rank, yet, when they came to argument, maintained that manliness which becomes the force and vigour of his understanding. to shew external deference to our superiors, is proper: to seem to yield to them in opinion, is meanness. [footnote: lord chesterfield, in his letters to his son, complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks. probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his own. if a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. the same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit. a certain king entered the lists of genius with voltaire. the consequence was, that, though the king had great and brilliant talents, voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that court. in the reign of james i of england. crichton, lord sanquhar, a peer of scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. the fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. exasperated at this. lord sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. not being a peer of england, he was tried by the name of robert crichton, esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years standing. see the state trials; and the history of england by hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank.] the earl said grace, both before and after supper, with much decency. he told us a story of a man who was executed at perth, some years ago, for murdering a woman who was with child by him, and a former child he had by her. his hand was cut off: he was then pulled up; but the rope broke, and he was forced to lie an hour on the ground, till another rope was brought from perth, the execution being in a wood at some distance, at the place where the murders were committed. 'there,' said my lord, 'i see the hand of providence.' i was really happy here. i saw in this nobleman the best dispositions and best principles; and i saw him, in my mind's eye, to be the representative of the ancient boyds of kilmarnock. i was afraid he might have urged drinking, as, i believe, he used formerly to do, but he drank port and water out of a large glass himself, and let us do as we pleased. he went with us to our rooms at night; said, he took the visit very kindly; and told me, my father and he were very old acquaintances; that i now knew the way to slains, and he hoped to see me there again. i had a most elegant room; but there was a fire in it which blazed; and the sea, to which my windows looked, roared; and the pillows were made of the feathers of some sea-fowl, which had to me a disgreeable smell: so that, by all these causes, i was kept awake a good while. i saw, in imagination, lord errol's father, lord kilmarnock (who was beheaded on tower hill in ), and i was somewhat dreary. but the thought did not last long, and i fell asleep. wednesday, th august we got up between seven and eight, and found mr boyd in the dining-room, with tea and coffee before him, to give us breakfast. we were in an admirable humour. lady errol had given each of us a copy of an ode by beattie, on the birth of her son, lord hay. mr boyd asked dr johnson, how he liked it. dr johnson, who did not admire it, got off very well, by taking it out, and reading the second and third stanzes of it with much melody. this, without his saying a word, pleased mr boyd. he observed, however, to dr johnson, that the expression as to the family of errol, a thousand years have seen it shine compared with what went before, was an anticlimax, and that it would have been better ages have seen, etc. dr johnson said, 'so great a number as a thousand is better. dolus latet in universalibus. ages might be only two ages.' he talked of the advantage of keeping up the connections of relationship, which produce much kindness. 'every man,' said he, 'who comes into the world, has need of friends. if he has to get them for himself, half his life is spent, before his merit is known. relations are a man's ready friends who support him. when a man is in real distress, he flies into the arms of his relations. an old lawyer, who had much experience in making wills, told me, that after people had deliberated long, and thought of many for their executors, they settled at last by fixing on their relations. this shews the universality of the principle.' i regretted the decay of respect for men of family, and that a nabob now would carry an election from them. johnson. 'why, sir, the nabob will carry it by means of his wealth, in a country where money is highly valued, as it must be where nothing can be had without money; but, if it comes to personal preference, the man of family will always carry it. there is generally a scoundrelism about a low man.' mr boyd said, that was a good ism. i said, i believed mankind were happier in the ancient feudal state of subordination, than they are in the modern state of independency. johnson. to be sure, the chief was: but we must think of the number of individuals. that they were less happy, seems plain; for that state from which all escape as soon as they can, and to which none return after they have left it, must be less happy; and this is the case with the state of dependance on a chief or great man.' i mentioned the happiness of the french in their subordination, by the reciprocal benevolence and attachment between the great and those in lower rank. mr boyd gave us an instance of their gentlemanly spirit. an old chevalier de malthe, of ancient noblesse, but in low circumstances, was in a coffee-house at paris, where was julien, the great manufacturer at the gobelins, of the fine tapestry, so much distinguished both for the figures and the colours. the chevalier's carriage was very old. says julien, with a plebeian insolence, 'i think, sir, you had better have your carriage new painted.' the chevalier looked at him with indignant contempt, and answered, 'well, sir. you may take it home and dye it!' all the coffee-house rejoiced at julien's confusion. we set out about nine. dr johnson was curious to see one of those structures which northern antiquarians call a druid's temple. i had a recollection of one at strichen; which i had seen fifteen years ago: so we went four miles out of our road, after passing old deer, and went thither. mr fraser, the proprietor, was at home, and shewed it to us. but i had augmented it in my mind; for all that remains is two stones set up on end, with a long one laid upon them, as was usual and one stone at a little distance from them. that stone was the capital one of the circle which surrounded what now remains. mr fraser was very hospitable. [footnote: he is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late lord strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice i was much obliged. lord strichen was a man not only honest, but highly generous: for after his succession to the family estate, he paid a large sum of debts contracted by his predecessor, which he was not under any obligation to pay. let me here, for the credit of ayrshire, my own county, record a noble instance of liberal honesty in william hutchison, drover, in lanehead, kyle, who formerly obtained a full discharge from his creditors upon a composition of his debts: but upon being restored to good circumstances, invited his creditors last winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paid them their full sums, principal and interest. they presented him with a piece of plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinary instance of true worth; which should make some people in scotland blush, while, though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection of great alliance conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lost by them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulge themselves and their families in most unsuitable expence.] there was a fair at strichen; and he had several of his neighbours from it at dinner. one of them, dr fraser, who had been in the army, remembered to have seen dr johnson at a lecture on experimental philosophy, at lichfield. the doctor recollected being at the lecture; and he was surprised to find here somebody who knew him. mr fraser sent a servant to conduct us by a short passage into the high-road. i observed to dr johnson, that i had a most disagreeable notion of the life of country gentlemen; that i left mr fraser just now, as one leaves a prisoner in a jail. dr johnson said, that i was right in thinking them unhappy; for that they had not enough to keep their minds in motion. i started a thought this afternoon which amused us a great part of the way. 'if,' said i, 'our club should come and set up in st andrews, as a college, to teach all that each of us can, in the several departments of learning and taste, we should rebuild the city: we should draw a wonderful concourse of students.' dr johnson entered fully into the spirit of this project. we immediately fell to distributing the offices. i was to teach civil and scotch law; burke, politicks and eloquence; garrick, the art of publick speaking; langton was to be our grecian, colman our latin professor; nugent to teach physick; lord charlemont, modern history; beauclerk, natural philosophy; vesey, irish antiquities, or celtick learning;[footnote: since the first edition, it has been suggested by one of the clubs, who knew mr vesey better than dr johnson and i, that we did not assign him a proper place; for he was quite unskilled in irish antiquities and celtick learning, but might with propriety have been made professor of architecture, which he understood well, and has left a very good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant house built on a plan of his own formation, at lucan, a few miles from dublin.] jones, oriental learning; goldsmith, poetry and ancient history; chamier, commercial politicks; reynolds, painting, and the arts which have beauty for their object; chambers, the law of england. dr johnson at first said. 'i'll trust theology to nobody but myself.' but, upon due consideration, that percy is a clergyman, it was agreed that percy should teach practical divinity and british antiquities; dr johnson himself, logick, metaphysicks and scholastick divinity. in this manner did we amuse ourselves, each suggesting, and each varying or adding, till the whole was adjusted. dr johnson said, we only wanted a mathematician since dyer died, who was a very good one; but as to every thing else, we should have a very capital university, [footnote: our club, originally at the turk's head, gerrard street, then at prince's, sackville street, now at baxter's dover street, which at mr garrick's funeral acquired a name for the first time, and was called the literary club, was instituted in , and now consists of thirty-five members. it has, since , been greatly augmented; and though dr johnson with justice observed, that, by losing goldsmith, garrick, nugent, chamier, beauclerk, we had lost what would make an eminent club, yet when i mention, as an accession, mr fox, dr george fordyce, sir charles bunbury, lord offory, mr gibbon, dr adam smith, mr r. b. sheridan, the bishops of kilaloe and st asaph, dean marlay, mr steevens, mr dunning, sir joseph banks, dr scott of the commons, earl spencer, mr windham of norfolk, lord elliot, mr malone, dr joseph warton, the rev. thomas warton, lord lucan, mr burke junior, lord palmerston, dr burney, sir william hamilton, and dr warren, it will be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of high reputation.] we got at night to banff. i sent joseph on to duff house: but earl fife was not at home, which i regretted much, as we should have had a very elegant reception from his lordship. we found here but an indifferent inn. [footnote: here, unluckily the windows had no pullies; and dr johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his journey. i regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. i should have changed very little; but i should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. i hope i should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer scotland to truth', for i really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said.] dr johnson wrote a long letter to mrs thrale. i wondered to see him write so much so easily. he verified his own doctrine that 'a man may always write when he will set himself doggedly to it'. thursday, th august we got a fresh chaise here, a very good one, and very good horses. we breakfasted at cullen. they set down dried haddocks broiled, along with our tea. i ate one; but dr johnson was disgusted by the sight of them, so they were removed. cullen has a comfortable appearance, though but a very small town, and the houses mostly poor buildings. i called on mr robertson, who has the charge of lord findlater's affairs, and was formerly lord monboddo's clerk, was three times in france with him, and translated condamine's account of the savage girl, to which his lordship wrote a preface, containing several remarks of his own. robertson said, he did not believe so much as his lordship did; that it was plain to him, the girl confounded what she imagined with what she remembered: that, besides, she perceived condamine and lord monboddo forming theories, and she adapted her story to them. dr johnson said, 'it is a pity to see lord monboddo publish such notions as he has done; a man of sense, and of so much elegant learning. there would be little in a fool doing it; we should only laugh; but when a wise man does it, we are sorry. other people have strange notions; but they conceal them. if they have tails, they hide them; but monboddo is as jealous of his tail as a squirrel.' i shall here put down some more remarks of dr johnson's on lord monboddo, which were not made exactly at this time, but come in well from connection. he said, he did not approve of a judge's calling himself farmer burnett, [footnote: it is the custom in scotland for the judges of the court of session to have the title of lords, from their estates: thus mr burnett is lord monboddo, as mr home was lord kames. there is something a little aukward in this; for they are denominated in deeds by their names, with the addition of one of the senators of the college of justice'; and subscribe their christian and surname, as james burnett, henry home, even in judicial acts.] and going about with a little round hat. he laughed heartily at his lordship's saying he was an enthusiastical farmer; 'for,' said he, 'what can he do in farming by his enthusiasm?' here, however, i think dr johnson mistaken. he who wishes to be successful, or happy, ought to be enthusiastical, that is to say, very keen in all the occupations or diversions of life. an ordinary gentleman-farmer will be satisfied with looking at his fields once or twice a day: an enthusiastical farmer will be constantly employed on them; will have his mind earnestly engaged; will talk perpetually of them. but dr johnson has much of the nil admirari in smaller concerns. that survey of life which gave birth to his vanity of human wishes early sobered his mind. besides, so great a mind as his cannot be moved by inferior objects: an elephant does not run and skip like lesser animals. mr robertson sent a servant with us, to shew us through lord findlater's wood, by which our way was shortened, and we saw some part of his domain, which is indeed admirably laid out. dr johnson did not choose to walk through it. he always said, that he was not come to scotland to see fine places, of which there were enough in england; but wild objects--mountains, waterfalls, peculiar manners; in short, things which he had not seen before. i have a notion that he at no time has had much taste for rural beauties. i have myself very little. dr johnson said, there was nothing more contemptible than a country gentleman living beyond his income, and every year growing poorer and poorer. he spoke strongly of the influence which a man has by being rich. 'a man,' said he, 'who keeps his money, has in reality more use from it, than he can have by spending it.' i observed that this looked very like a paradox; but he explained it thus: 'if it were certain that a man would keep his money locked up for ever, to be sure he would have no influence; but, as so many want money, and he has the power of giving it, and they know not but by gaining his favour they may obtain it, the rich man will always have the greatest influence. he again who lavishes his money, is laughed at as foolish, and in a great degree with justice, considering how much is spent from vanity. even those who partake of a man's hospitality, have but a transient kindness for him. if he has not the command of money, people know he cannot help them, if he would; whereas the rich man always can, if he will, and for the chance of that, will have much weight.' boswell. 'but philosophers and satirists have all treated a miser as contemptible.' johnson. 'he is so philosophically; but not in the practice of life.' boswell. 'let me see now--i do not know the instances of misers in england, so as to examine into their influence.' johnson. 'we have had few misers in england.' boswell. 'there was lowther." johnson. 'why, sir, lowther, by keeping his money, had the command of the county, which the family has now lost, by spending it. [footnote: i do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of lowther; a family before the conquest: but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. a due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence, characterizes its present representative.] i take it, he lent a great deal; and that is the way to have influence, and yet preserve one's wealth. a man may lend his money upon very good security, and yet have his debtor much under his power.' boswell. 'no doubt, sir. he can always distress him for the money; as no man borrows, who is able to pay on demand quite conveniently.' we dined at elgin, and saw the noble ruins of the cathedral. though it rained much, dr johnson examined them with a most patient attention. he could not here feel any abhorrence at the scottish reformers, for he had been told by lord hailes, that it was destroyed before the reformation, by the lord of badenoch, [footnote: note, by lord hailes: 'the cathedral of elgin was burnt by the lord of badenoch, because the bishop of moray had pronounced an award not to his liking. the indemnification that the see obtained, was that the lord of badenoch stood for three days bare footed at the great gate of the cathedral. the story is in the chartulary of elgin.'] who had a quarrel with the bishop. the bishop's house, and those of the other clergy, which are still pretty entire, do not seem to have been proportioned to the magnificence of the cathedral, which has been of great extent, and had very fine carved work. the ground within the walls of the cathedral is employed as a burying-place. the family of gordon have their vault here; but it has nothing grand. we passed gordon castle [footnote: i am not sure whether the duke was at home. but, not having the honour of being much known to his grace, i could not have presumed to enter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. we were at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we came to see. perhaps, if this noble family had still preserved that sequestered magnificence which they maintained when catholicks, corresponding with the grand duke of tuscany, we might have been induced to have procured proper letters of introduction, and devoted some time to the contemplation of venerable superstitious state.] this forenoon, which has a princely appearance. fochabers, the neighbouring village, is a poor place, many of the houses being ruinous; but it is remarkable, they have in general orchards well stored with apple-trees. elgin has what in england are called piazzas, that run in many places on each side of the street. it must have been a much better place formerly. probably it had piazzas all along the town, as i have seen at bologna. i approved much of such structures in a town, on account of their conveniency in wet weather. dr johnson disapproved of them, 'because,' said he, 'it makes the under story of a house very dark, which greatly over-balances the conveniency, when it is considered how small a part of the year it rains; how few are usually in the street at such times; that many who are might as well be at home; and the little that people suffer, supposing them to be as much wet as they commonly are in walking a street'. we fared but ill at our inn here; and dr johnson said, this was the first time he had seen a dinner in scotland that he could not eat. in the afternoon, we drove over the very heath where macbeth met the witches, according to tradition. dr johnson again solemnly repeated '"how far is't called to fores? what are these, so wither'd, and so wild in their attire that look not like the inhabitants o' the earth. and yet are on't "' he repeated a good deal more of macbeth. his recitation was grand and affecting, and, as sir joshua reynolds has observed to me, had no more tone than it should have: it was the better for it. he then parodied the 'all-hail' of the witches to macbeth, addressing himself to me. i had purchased some land called dalblair; and, as in scotland it is customary to distinguish landed men by the name of their estates, i had thus two titles, dalblair and young auchinleck. so my friend, in imitation of all hail macbeth! hail to thee, thane of cawdor! condescended to amuse himself with uttering all hail dalblair! hail to thee, laird of auchinleck! we got to fores at night, and found an admirable inn, in which dr johnson was pleased to meet with a landlord who styled himself 'wine-cooper, from london'. friday, th august it was dark when we came to fores last night; so we did not see what is called king duncan's monument. i shall now mark some gleanings of dr johnson's conversation. i spoke of leonidas, and said there were some good passages in it. johnson. 'why, you must seek for them.' he said, paul whitehead's manners was a poor performance. speaking of derrick, he told me he had a kindness for him, and had often said, that if his letters had been written by one of a more established name, they would have been thought very pretty letters. this morning i introduced the subject of the origin of evil. johnson. 'moral evil is occasioned by free will, which implies choice between good and evil. with all the evil that there is, there is no man but would rather be a free agent, than a mere machine without the evil; and what is best for each individual, must be best for the whole. if a man would rather be the machine, i cannot argue with him. he is a different being from me.' boswell. 'a man, as a machine, may have agreeable sensations; for instance, he may have pleasure in musick.' johnson, 'no, sir, he can not have pleasure in musick; at least no power of producing musick; for he who can produce musick may let it alone: he who can play upon a fiddle may break it: such a man is not a machine.' this reasoning satisfied me. it is certain, there cannot be a free agent, unless there is the power of being evil as well as good. we must take the inherent possibilities of things into consideration, in our reasonings or conjectures concerning the works of god. we came to nairn to breakfast. though a county town and royal burgh, it is a miserable place. over the room where we sat, a girl was spinning wool with a great wheel, and singing, an erse song: 'i'll warrant you,' said dr johnson, 'one of the songs of ossian.' he then repeated these lines: '"verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound. all at her work the village maiden sings; nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around revolves the sad vicissitude of things."' i thought i had heard these lines before. johnson. 'i fancy not, sir; for they are in a detached poem, the name of which i do not remember, written by one giffard, a parson.' i expected mr kenneth m'aulay, the minister of calder, who published the history of st kilda, a book which dr johnson liked, would have met us here, as i had written to him from aberdeen. but i received a letter from him, telling me that he could not leave home, as he was to administer the sacrament the following sunday, and earnestly requesting to see us at his manse. 'we'll go,' said dr johnson; which we accordingly did. mrs m'aulay received us, and told us her husband was in the church distributing tokens. [footnote: in scotland, there is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. the minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the name of the parish, as tokens, which they must produce before receiving it. this is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may be abused. i remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance.] we arrived between twelve and one o'clock, and it was near three before he came to us. dr johnson thanked him for his book, and said 'it was a very pretty piece of topography'. m'aulay did not seem much to mind the compliment. from his conversation, dr johnson was persuaded that he had not written the book which goes under his name. i myself always suspected so; and i have been told it was written by the learned dr john m'pherson of sky, from the materials collected by m'aulay. dr johnson said privately to me, 'there is a combination in it of which m'aulay is not capable.' however, he was exceedingly hospitable; and, as he obligingly promised us a route for our tour through the western isles, we agreed to stay with him all night. after dinner, we walked to the old castle of calder (pronounced cawder), the thane of cawdor's seat. i was sorry that my friend, this 'prosperous gentleman', was not there. the old tower must be of great antiquity. there is a draw-bridge,--what has been a moat--and an ancient court. there is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the walls have been built round it. the thickness of the walls, the small slaunting windows, and a great iron door at the entrance on the second story as you ascend the stairs, all indicate the rude times in which this castle was erected. there were here some large venerable trees. i was afraid of a quarrel between dr johnson and mr m'aulay, who talked slightingly of the lower english clergy. the doctor gave him a frowning look, and said, 'this is a day of novelties: i have seen old trees in scotland, and i have heard the english clergy treated with disrespect.' i dreaded that a whole evening at caldermanse would be heavy; however, mr grant, an intelligent and well-bred minister in the neighbourhood, was there, and assisted us by his conversation. dr johnson, talking of hereditary occupations in the highlands, said, 'there is no harm in such a custom as this; but it is wrong to enforce it, and oblige a man to be a taylor or a smith, because his father has been one.' this custom, however, is not peculiar to our highlands; it is well known that in india a similar practice prevails. mr m'aulay began a rhapsody against creeds and confessions. dr johnson shewed, that 'what he called "imposition", was only a voluntary declaration of agreement in certain articles of faith, which a church has a right to require, just as any other society can insist on certain rules being observed by its members. nobody is compelled to be of the church, as nobody is compelled to enter into a society.' this was a very clear and just view of the subject: but, m'aulay could not be driven out of his track. dr johnson said, 'sir, you are a bigot to laxness.' mr m'aulay and i laid the map of scotland before us; and he pointed out a rout for us from inverness, by fort augustus, to glenelg, sky, mull, icolmkill, lorn, and inveraray, which i wrote down. as my father was to begin the northern circuit about the th of september, it was necessary for us to make our tour with great expedition, so as to get to auchinleck before he set out, or to protract it, so as not to be there till his return, which would be about the th of october. by m'aulay's calculation, we were not to land in lorn till the th of september. i thought that the interruptions by bad days, or by occasional excursions, might make it ten days later; and i thought too, that we might perhaps go to benbecula, and visit clanranald, which would take a week of itself. dr johnson went up with mr grant to the library, which consisted of a tolerable collection; but the doctor thought it rather a lady's library, with some latin books in it by chance, than the library of a clergyman. it had only two of the latin fathers, and one of the greek fathers in latin. i doubted whether dr johnson would be present at a presbyterian prayer. i told mr m'aulay so, and said that the doctor might sit in the library while we were at family worship. mr m'aulay said, he would omit it, rather than give dr johnson offence: but i would by no means agree that an excess of politeness, even to so great a man, should prevent what i esteem as one of the best pious regulations. i know nothing more beneficial, more comfortable, more agreeable, than that the little societies of each family should regularly assemble, and unite in praise and prayer to our heavenly father, from whom we daily receive so much good, and may hope for more in a higher state of existence. i mentioned to dr johnson the over-delicate scrupulosity of our host. he said, he had no objection to hear the prayer. this was a pleasing surprise to me; for he refused to go and hear principal robertson preach. 'i will hear him,' said he, 'if he will get up into a tree and preach; but i will not give a sanction, by my presence, to a presbyterian assembly.' mr grant having prayed, dr johnson said, his prayer was a very good one; but objected to his not having introduced the lord's prayer. he told us, that an italian of some note in london said once to him, 'we have in our service a prayer called the pater noster, which is a very fine composition. i wonder who is the author of it.' a singular instance of ignorance in a man of some literature and general inquiry! saturday, th august dr johnson had brought a sallust with him in his pocket from edinburgh. he gave it last night to mr m'aulay's son, a smart young lad about eleven years old. dr johnson had given an account of the education at oxford, in all its gradations. the advantage of being servitor to a youth of little fortune struck mrs m'aulay much. i observed it aloud. dr johnson very handsomely and kindly said, that, if they would send their boy to him, when he was ready for the university, he would get him made a servitor, and perhaps would do more for him. he could not promise to do more; but would undertake for the servitorship. [footnote: dr johnson did not neglect what he had undertaken. by his interest with the rev. dr adams, master of pembroke college, oxford, where he was educated for some time, he obtained a servitorship for young m'aulay. but it seems he had other views; and i believe went abroad.] i should have mentioned that mr white, a welchman, who has been many years factor (i.e. steward) on the estate of calder, drank tea with us last night, and upon getting a note from mr m'aulay, asked us to his house. we had not time to accept of his invitation. he gave us a letter of introduction to mr ferne, master of stores at fort george. he shewed it to me. it recommended 'two celebrated gentlemen; no less than dr johnson, author of his dictionary, and mr boswell, known at edinburgh by the name of paoli'. he said, he hoped i had no objection to what he had written; if i had, he would alter it. i thought it was a pity to check his effusions, and acquiesced; taking care, however, to seal the letter, that it might not appear that i had read it. a conversation took place, about saying grace at breakfast (as we do in scotland) as well as at dinner and supper; in which dr johnson said, 'it is enough if we have stated seasons of prayer; no matter when. a man may as well pray when he mounts his horse, or a woman when she milks her cow, (which mr grant told us is done in the highlands), as at meals; and custom is to be followed.' [footnote: he could not bear to have it thought that, in any instance whatever, the scots are more pious than the english. i think grace as proper at breakfast as at any other meal. it is the pleasantest meal we have. dr johnson has allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in scotland.] we proceeded to fort george. when we came into the square, i sent a soldier with the letter to mr ferne. he came to us immediately, and along with him came major brewse of the engineers, pronounced bruce. he said he believed it was originally the same norman name with bruce. that he had dined at a house in london, where were three bruces, one of the irish line, one of the scottish line, and himself of the english line. he said he was shewn it in the herald's office spelt fourteen different ways. i told him the different spellings of my name. dr johnson observed, that there had been great disputes about the spelling of shakspear's name; at last it was thought it would be settled by looking at the original copy of his will; but, upon examining it, he was found to have written it himself no less than three different ways. mr ferne and major brewse first carried us to wait on sir eyre coote, whose regiment, the th, was lying here, and who then commanded the fort. he asked us to dine with him, which we agreed to do. before dinner we examined the fort. the major explained the fortification to us, and mr ferne gave us an account of the stores. dr johnson talked of the proportions of charcoal and salt-petre in making gunpowder, of granulating it, and of giving it a gloss. he made a very good figure upon these topicks. he said to me afterwards, that he had talked ostentatiously. we reposed ourselves a little in mr ferne's house. he had every thing in neat order as in england; and a tolerable collection of books. i looked into pennant's tour in scotland. he says little of this fort; but that 'the barracks, &c. form several streets'. this is aggrandizing. mr ferne observed, if he had said they form a square, with a row of buildings before it, he would have given a juster description. dr johnson remarked, 'how seldom descriptions correspond with realities; and the reason is, that people do not write them till some time after, and then their imagination has added circumstances'. we talked of sir adolphus oughton. the major said, he knew a great deal for a military man. johnson. 'sir, you will find few men, of any profession, who know more. sir adolphus is a very extraordinary man; a man of boundless curiosity and unwearied diligence.' i know not how the major contrived to introduce the contest between warburton and lowth. johnson. 'warburton kept his temper all along, while lowth was in a passion. lowth published some of warburton's letters. warburton drew him on to write some very abusive letters, and then asked his leave to publish them; which he knew lowth could not refuse, after what he had done. so that warburton contrived that he should publish, apparently with lowth's consent, what could not but shew lowth in a disadvantageous light.' [footnote: here dr johnson gave us part of a conversation held between a great personage and him, in the library at the queen's palace, to the course of which this contest was considered. i have been at great pains to get that conversation as perfectly preserved as possible. it may perhaps at some future time be given to the publick.] at three the drum beat for dinner. i, for a little while, fancied myself a military man, and it pleased me. we went to sir eyre coote's, at the governour's house, and found him a most gentleman-like man. his lady is a very agreeable woman, with an uncommonly mild and sweet tone of voice. there was a pretty large company: mr ferne, major brewse, and several officers. sir eyre had come from the east indies by land, through the desarts of arabia. he told us, the arabs could live five days without victuals, and subsist for three weeks on nothing else but the blood of their camels, who could lose so much of it as would suffice for that time, without being exhausted. he highly praised the virtue of the arabs; their fidelity, if they undertook to conduct any person; and said, they would sacrifice their lives rather than let him be robbed. dr johnson, who is always for maintaining the superiority of civilized over uncivilized men, said, 'why, sir, i can see no superiour virtue in this. a serjeant and twelve men, who are my guard, will die, rather than that i shall be robbed.' colonel pennington, of the th regiment, took up the argument with a good deal of spirit and ingenuity. pennington. 'but the soldiers are compelled to this, by fear of punishment.' johnson. 'well, sir, the arabs are compelled by the fear of infamy.' pennington. 'the soldiers have the same fear of infamy, and the fear of punishment besides; so have less virtue; because they act less voluntarily.' lady coote observed very well, that it ought to be known if there was not, among the arabs, some punishment for not being faithful on such occasions. we talked of the stage. i observed, that we had not now such a company of actors as in the last age; wilks, booth, &c. &c. johnson. 'you think so, because there is one who excels all the rest so much: you compare them with garrick, and see the deficiency. garrick's great distinction is his universality. he can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy fine-bred gentleman.' pennington. 'he should give over playing young parts.' johnson. 'he does not take them now; but he does not leave off those which he has been used to play, because he does them better than any one else can do them. if you had generations of actors, if they swarmed like bees, the young ones might drive off the old. mrs gibber, i think, got more reputation than she deserved, as she had a great sameness; though her expression was undoubtedly very fine. mrs clive was the best player i ever saw. mrs pritchard was a very good one; but she had something affected in her manner: i imagine she had some player of the former age in her eye, which occasioned it.' colonel pennington said, garrick sometimes failed in emphasis; as for instance, in hamlet, i will speak daggers to her; but use none, instead of i will speak daggers to her; but use none. we had a dinner of two complete courses, variety of wines, and the regimental band of musick playing in the square, before the window, after it. i enjoyed this day much. we were quite easy and cheerful, dr johnson said, 'i shall always remember this fort with gratitude.' i could not help being struck with some admiration, at finding upon this barren sandy point, such buildings, such a dinner, such company: it was like enchantment. dr johnson, on the other hand, said to me more rationally, that it did not strike him as any thing extraordinary; because he knew, here was a large sum of money expended in building a fort; here was a regiment. if there had been less than what we found, it would have surprized him. he looked coolly and deliberately through all the gradations: my warm imagination jumped from the barren sands to the splendid dinner and brilliant company, to borrow the expression of an absurd poet, without ands or ifs, i leapt from off the sands upon the cliffs. the whole scene gave me a strong impression of the power and excellence of human art. we left the fort between six and seven o'clock: sir eyre coote, colonel pennington, and several more, accompanied us down stairs, and saw us into our chaise. there could not be greater attention paid to any visitors. sir eyre spoke of the hardships which dr johnson had before him. boswell. 'considering what he has said of us, we must make him feel something rough in scotland.' sir eyre said to him, 'you must change your name, sir.' boswell. 'ay, to dr m'gregor.' we got safely to inverness, and put up at mackenzie's inn. mr keith, the collector of excise here, my old acquaintance at ayr, who had seen us at the fort, visited us in the evening, and engaged us to dine with him next day, promising to breakfast with us, and take us to the english chapel; so that we were at once commodiously arranged. not finding a letter here that i expected, i felt a momentary impatience to be at home. transient clouds darkened my imagination, and in those clouds i saw events from which i shrunk; but a sentence or two of the rambler's conversation gave me firmness, and i considered that i was upon an expedition for which i had wished for years, and the recollection of which would be a treasure to me for life. sunday, th august mr keith breakfasted with us. dr johnson expatiated rather too strongly upon the benefits derived to scotland from the union, and the bad state of our people before it. i am entertained with his copious exaggeration upon that subject; but i am uneasy when people are by, who do not know him as well as i do, and may be apt to think him narrow-minded. [footnote: it is remarkable that dr johnson read this gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me.] i therefore diverted the subject. the english chapel, to which we went this morning, was but mean. the altar was a bare fir table, with a coarse stool for kneeling on, covered with a piece of thick sail-cloth doubled, by way of cushion. the congregation was small. mr tait, the clergyman, read prayers very well, though with much of the scotch accent. he preached on 'love your enemies'. it was remarkable that, when talking of the connections amongst men, he said, that some connected themselves with men of distinguished talents, and since they could not equal them, tried to deck themselves with their merit, by being their companions. the sentence was to this purpose. it had an odd coincidence with what might be said of my connecting myself with dr johnson. after church, we walked down to the quay. we then went to macbeth's castle. i had a romantick satisfaction in seeing dr johnson actually in it. it perfectly corresponds with shakspeare's description, which sir joshua reynolds has so happily illustrated, in one of his notes on our immortal poet: this castle hath a pleasant seat: the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle sense, &c. just as we came out of it, a raven perched on one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. then i repeated '... the raven himself is hoarse. that croaks the fatal enterance of duncan under my battlements.' we dined at mr keith's. mrs keith was rather too attentive to dr johnson, asking him many questions about his drinking only water. he repressed that observation, by saying to me, 'you may remember that lady errol took no notice of this.' dr johnson has the happy art (for which i have heard my father praise the old earl of aberdeen) of instructing himself, by making every man he meets tell him something of what he knows best. he led keith to talk to him of the excise in scotland, and, in the course of conversation, mentioned that his friend mr thrale, the great brewer, paid twenty thousand pounds a year to the revenue; and that he had four casks, each of which holds sixteen hundred barrels--above a thousand hogsheads. after this there was little conversation that deserves to be remembered. i shall therefore here again glean what i have omitted on former days. dr gerard, at aberdeen, told us, that when he was in wales, he was shewn a valley inhabited by danes, who still retain their own language, and are quite a distinct people. dr johnson thought it could not be true, or all the kingdom must have heard of it. he said to me, as we travelled, 'these people, sir, that gerard talks of, may have somewhat of a peregrinity in their dialect, which relation has augmented to a different language'. i asked him if peregrinity was an english word: he laughed, and said, 'no.' i told him this was the second time that i had heard him coin a word. when foote broke his leg, i observed that it would make him fitter for taking off george faulkner as peter paragragh, poor george having a wooden leg. dr johnson at that time said, 'george will rejoice at the depeditation of foote'; and when i challenged that word, laughed, and owned he had made it, and added that he had not made above three or four in his dictionary. [footnote: when upon the subject of this peregrinity, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of his dictionary, and concerning his throwing off lord chesterfield's patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated. these particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me--as also his celebrated letter to lord chesterfield, which he dictated to me--i reserve for his life.] having conducted dr johnson to our inn, i begged permission to leave him for a little, that i might run about and pay some short visits to several good people of inverness. he said to me, 'you have all the old-fashioned principles, good and bad.' i acknowledge i have. that of attention to relations in the remotest degree, or to worthy persons, in every state whom i have once known, i inherit from my father. it gave me much satisfaction to hear every body at inverness speak of him with uncommon regard. mr keith and mr grant, whom we had seen at mr m'aulay's, supped with us at the inn. we had roasted kid, which dr johnson had never tasted before. he relished it much. monday, th august this day we were to begin our equitation, as i said; for _i_ would needs make a word too. it is remarkable, that my noble, and to me most constant friend, the earl of pembroke (who, if there is too much ease on my part, will please to pardon what his benevolent, gay, social intercourse, and lively correspondence, have insensibly produced) has since hit upon the very same word. the title of the first edition of his lordship's very useful book was, in simple terms, a method of breaking horses and teaching soldiers to ride. the title of the second edition is, military equitation. we might have taken a chaise to fort augustus, but, had we not hired horses at inverness, we should not have found them afterwards: so we resolved to begin here to ride. we had three horses, for dr johnson, myself, and joseph, and one which carried our portmanteaus, and two highlanders who walked along with us, john hay and lauchland vass, whom dr johnson has remembered with credit in his journey, though he has omitted their names. dr johnson rode very well. about three miles beyond inverness, we saw, just by the road, a very complete specimen of what is called a druid's temple. there was a double circle, one of very large, the other of smaller stones. dr johnson justly observed, that, 'to go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough'. it was a delightful day. lochness, and the road upon the side of it, shaded with birch trees, and the hills above it, pleased us much. the scene was as sequestered and agreeably wild as could be desired, and for a time engrossed all our attention. to see dr johnson in any new situation is always an interesting object to me; and, as i saw him now for the first time on horseback, jaunting about at his ease in quest of pleasure and novelty, the very different occupations of his former laborious life, his admirable productions, his london, his rambler, &c. &c. immediately presented themselves to my mind, and the contrast made a strong impression on my imagination. when we had advanced a good way by the side of lochness, i perceived a little hut, with an old looking woman at the door of it. i thought here might be a scene that would amuse dr johnson: so i mentioned it to him. 'let's go in,' said he. we dismounted, and we and our guides entered the hut. it was a wretched little hovel of earth only, i think, and for a window had only a small hole, which was stopped with a piece of turf, that was taken out occasionally to let in light. in the middle of the room or space which we entered, was a fire of peat, the smoke going out at a hole in the roof. she had a pot upon it, with goat's flesh, boiling. there was at one end under the same roof, but divided by a kind of partition made of wattles, a pen or fold in which we saw a good many kids. dr johnson was curious to know where she slept. i asked one of the guides, who questioned her in erse. she answered with a tone of emotion, saying (as he told us) she was afraid we wanted to go to bed to her. this coquetry, or whatever it may be called, of so wretched a being, was truly ludicrous. dr johnson and i afterwards were merry upon it. i said, it was he who alarmed the poor woman's virtue. 'no, sir,' said he, 'she'll say, '"there came a wicked young fellow, a wild dog, who i believe would have ravished me, had there not been with him a grave old gentleman, who repressed him: but when he gets out of the sight of his tutor, i'll warrant you he'll spare no woman he meets, young or old."' 'no, sir,' i replied, 'she'll say, "there was a terrible ruffian who would have forced me, had it not been for a civil decent young man who, i take it, was an angel sent from heaven to protect me."' dr johnson would not hurt her delicacy, by insisting on 'seeing her bedchamber', like archer in the beaux' stratagem. but my curiosity was more ardent; i lighted a piece of paper, and went into the place where the bed was. there was a little partition of wicker, rather more neatly done than that for the fold, and close by the wall was a kind of bedstead of wood with heath upon it by way of bed; at the foot of which i saw some sort of blankets or covering rolled up in a heap. the woman's name was fraser; so was her husband's. he was a man of eighty. mr fraser of balnain allows him to live in this hut, and keep sixty goats, for taking care of his woods, where he then was. they had five children, the eldest only thirteen. two were gone to inverness to buy meal; the rest were looking after the goats. this contented family had four stacks of barley, twenty-four sheaves in each. they had a few fowls. we were informed that they lived all the spring without meal, upon milk and curds and whey alone. what they get for their goats, kids, and fowls, maintains them during the rest of the year. she asked us to sit down and take a dram. i saw one chair. she said she was as happy as any woman in scotland. she could hardly speak any english except a few detached words. dr johnson was pleased at seeing, for the first time, such a state of human life. she asked for snuff. it is her luxury, and she uses a great deal. we had none; but gave her six pence a piece. she then brought out her whisky bottle. i tasted it; as did joseph and our guides: so i gave her sixpence more. she sent us away with many prayers in erse. we dined at a publick house called the general's hut, from general wade, who was lodged there when he commanded in the north. near it is the meanest parish kirk i ever saw. it is a shame it should be on a high road. after dinner, we passed through a good deal of mountainous country. i had known mr trapaud, the deputy governour of fort augustus, twelve years ago, at a circuit at inverness, where my father was judge. i sent forward one of our guides, and joseph, with a card to him, that he might know dr johnson and i were coming up, leaving it to him to invite us or not. it was dark when we arrived. the inn was wretched. government ought to build one, or give the resident governour an additional salary; as in the present state of things, he must necessarily be put to a great expence in entertaining travellers. joseph announced to us, when we alighted, that the governour waited for us at the gate of the fort. we walked to it. he met us, and with much civility conducted us to his house. it was comfortable to find ourselves in a well built little square, and a neatly furnished house, in good company, and with a good supper before us; in short, with all the conveniencies of civilized life in the midst of rude mountains. mrs trapaud, and the governour's daughter, and her husband. captain newmarsh, were all most obliging and polite. the governour had excellent animal spirits, the conversation of a soldier, and somewhat of a frenchman, to which his extraction entitles him. he is brother to general cyrus trapaud. we passed a very agreeable evening. tuesday, st august the governour has a very good garden. we looked at it, and at the rest of the fort, which is but small, and may be commanded from a variety of hills around. we also looked at the galley or sloop belonging to the fort, which sails upon the loch, and brings what is wanted for the garrison. captains urie and darippe, of the th regiment of foot, breakfasted with us. they had served in america, and entertained dr johnson much with an account of the indians. he said, he could make a very pretty book out of them, were he to stay there. governour trapaud was much struck with dr johnson. 'i like to hear him,' said he; 'it is so majestick. i should be glad to hear him speak in your court.' he pressed us to stay dinner; but i considered that we had a rude road before us, which we could more easily encounter in the morning, and that it was hard to say when we might get up, were we to sit down to good entertainment, in good company: i therefore begged the governour would excuse us. here too, i had another very pleasing proof how much my father is regarded. the governour expressed the highest respect for him, and bade me tell him, that, if he would come that way on the northern circuit, he would do him all the honours of the garrison. between twelve and one we set out, and travelled eleven miles, through a wild country, till we came to a house in glenmorison, called anoch, kept by a m'queen. [footnote: a m'queen is a highland mode of expression. an englishman would say one m'queen. but where there are clans or tribes of men, distinguished by patronymick surnames, the individuals of each are considered as if they were of different species, at least as much as nations are distinguished; so that a m'queen, a m'donald, a m'lean, is said, as we say a frenchman, an italian, a spaniard.] our landlord was a sensible fellow: he had learnt his grammar, and dr johnson justly observed, that 'a man is the better for that as long as he lives.' there were some books here: a treatise against drunkenness, translated from the french; a volume of the spectator; a volume of prideaux's connection, and cyrus's travels. m'queen said he had more volumes; and his pride seemed to be much piqued that we were surprised at his having books. near to this place we had passed a party of soldiers, under a serjeant's command, at work upon the road. we gave them two shillings to drink. they came to our inn, and made merry in the barn. we went and paid them a visit, dr johnson saying, 'come, let's go and give 'em another shilling a-piece.' we did so; and he was saluted 'my lord' by all of them. he is really generous, loves influence, and has the way of gaining it. he said, 'i am quite feudal, sir.' here i agree with him. i said, i regretted i was not the head of a clan; however, though not possessed of such an hereditary advantage, i would always endeavour to make my tenants follow me. i could not be a patriarchal chief, but i would be a feudal chief. the poor soldiers got too much liquor. some of them fought, and left blood upon the spot, and cursed whisky next morning. the house here was built of thick turfs, and thatched with thinner turfs and heath. it had three rooms in length, and a little room which projected. where we sat, the side-walls were wainscotted, as dr johnson said, with wicker, very neatly plaited. our landlord had made the whole with his own hands. after dinner, m'queen sat by us a while, and talked with us. he said, all the laird of glenmorison's people would bleed for him, if they were well used; but that seventy men had gone out of the glen to america. that he himself intended to go next year; for that the rent of his farm, which twenty years ago was only five pounds, was now raised to twenty pounds. that he could pay ten pounds, and live; but no more. dr johnson said, he wished m'queen laird of glenmorison, and the laird to go to america. m'queen very generously answered, he should be sorry for it; for the laird could not shift for himself in america as he could do. i talked of the officers whom we had left to day; how much service they had seen, and how little they got for it, even of fame. johnson. 'sir, a soldier gets as little as any man can get.' boswell. 'goldsmith has acquired more fame than all the officers last war, who were not generals.' johnson. 'why, sir, you will find ten thousand fit to do what they did, before you find one who does what goldsmith has done. you must consider, that a thing is valued according to its rarity. a pebble that paves the street is in itself more useful than the diamond upon a lady's finger.' i wish our friend goldsmith had heard this. i yesterday expressed my wonder that john hay, one of our guides, who had been pressed aboard a man of war, did not choose to continue in it longer than nine months, after which time he got off. johnson. 'why, sir, no man will be a sailor, who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for, being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.' we had tea in the afternoon, and our landlord's daughter, a modest civil girl, very neatly drest, made it for us. she told us, she had been a year at inverness, and learnt reading and writing, sewing, knotting, working lace, and pastry. dr johnson made her a present of a book which he had bought at inverness. [footnote: this book has given rise to much inquiry, which has ended in ludicrous surprise. several ladies, wishing to learn the kind of reading which the great and good dr johnson esteemed most fit for a young woman, desired to know what book he had selected for this highland nymph. they never adverted,' said he, 'that i had no choice in the matter. i have said that i presented her with a book which i happened to have about me.' and what was this book? my readers, prepare your features for merriment. it was cocker's arithmetick! wherever this was mentioned, there was a loud laugh, at which dr johnson, when present used sometimes to be a little angry. one day, when we were dining at general oglethorpe's, where we had many a valuable day, i ventured to interrogate him, 'but, sir, is it not somewhat singular that you should happen to have cocker's arithmetick about you on your journey? what made you buy such a book at inverness?' he gave me a very sufficient answer. 'why, sir, if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. when you have read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.'] the room had some deals laid across the joists, as a kind of ceiling. there were two beds in the room, and a woman's gown was hung on a rope to make a curtain of separation between them. joseph had sheets, which my wife had sent with us, laid on them. we had much hesitation, whether to undress, or lie down with our clothes on. i said at last. 'i'll plunge in! there will be less harbour for vermin about me, when i am stripped!' dr johnson said, he was like one hesitating whether to go into the cold bath. at last he resolved too. i observed, he might serve a campaign. johnson. 'i could do all that can be done by patience: whether i should have strength enough, i know not.' he was in excellent humour. to see the rambler as i saw him tonight, was really an amusement. i yesterday told him, i was thinking of writing a poetical letter to him. on his return from scotland, in the stile of swift's humorous epistle in the character of mary gulliver to her husband, captain lemuel gulliver, on his return to england from the country of the houyhnhums: at early morn i to the market haste, studious in ev'ry thing to please thy taste. a curious fowl and sparagrass i chose; (for i remember you were fond of those:) three shillings cost the first, the last sev'n groats; sullen you turn from both, and call for oats. he laughed, and asked in whose name i would write it. i said, in mrs thrale's. he was angry. 'sir, if you have any sense of decency or delicacy, you won't do that!' boswell. 'then let it be in cole's, the landlord of the mitre tavern; where we have so often sat together.' johnson. 'ay, that may do.' after we had offered up our private devotions, and had chatted a little from our beds, dr johnson said, 'god bless us both, for jesus christ's sake! good night!' i pronounced 'amen.' he fell asleep immediately. i was not so fortunate for a long time. i fancied myself bit by innumerable vermin under the clothes; and that a spider was travelling from the wainscot towards my mouth. at last i fell into insensibility. wednesday, st september i awaked very early. i began to imagine that the landlord, being about to emigrate, might murder us to get our money, and lay it upon the soldiers in the barn. such groundless fears will arise in the mind, before it has resumed its vigour after sleep! dr johnson had had the same kind of ideas; for he told me afterwards, that he considered so many soldiers, having seen us, would be witnesses, should any harm be done, and that circumstance, i suppose, 'he considered as a security. when i got up, i found him sound asleep in his miserable stye, as i may call it, with a coloured handkerchief tied round his head. with difficulty could i awaken him. it reminded me of henry the fourth's fine soliloquy on sleep; for there was here as 'uneasy a pallet' as the poet's imagination could possibly conceive. a red coat of the th regiment, whether officer, or only serjeant, i could not be sure, came to the house, in his way to the mountains to shoot deer, which it seems the laird of glenmorison does not hinder any body to do. few, indeed, can do them harm. we had him to breakfast with us. we got away about eight. m'queen walked some miles to give us a convoy. he had, in , joined the highland army at fort augustus, and continued in it till after the battle of culloden. as he narrated the particulars of that ill-advised, but brave attempt, i could not refrain from tears. there is a certain association of ideas in my mind upon that subject, by which i am strongly affected. the very highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe; will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sober rationality has nothing to do. we passed through glensheal, with prodigious mountains on each side. we saw where the battle was fought in the year ; dr johnson owned he was now in a scene of as wild nature as he could see; but he corrected me sometimes in my inaccurate observations. 'there,' said i, 'is a mountain like a cone.' johnson. 'no, sir. it would be called so in a book; and when a man comes to look at it, he sees it is not so. it is indeed pointed at the top; but one side of it is larger than the other.' another mountain i called immense. johnson. 'no; it is no more than a considerable protuberance.' we came to a rich green valley, comparatively speaking, and stopped a while to let our horses rest and eat grass. [footnote: dr johnson, in his journey, thus beautifully describes his situation here: 'i sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. i had, indeed, no trees to whisper over my head; but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. the day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. before me, and on either side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. whether i spent the hour well, i know not: for here i first conceived the thought of this narration.' the critical reviewers, with a spirit and expression worthy of the subject, say, 'we congratulate the publick on the event with which this quotation concludes, and are fully persuaded that the hour in which the entertaining traveller conceived this narrative will be considered, by every reader of taste, as a fortunate event in the annals of literature. were it suitable to the talk in which we are at present engaged, to indulge ourselves in a poetical flight, we would invoke the winds of the caledonian mountains to blow for ever, with their softest breezes, on the bank where our author reclined, and request of flora, that it might be perpetually adorned with the gayest and most fragrant productions of the year.'] we soon afterwards came to auchnasheal, a kind of rural village, a number of cottages being built together, as we saw all along in the highlands. we passed many miles this day without seeing a house, but only little summer-huts, called shielings. evan campbell, servant to mr murchison, factor to the laird of macleod in glenelg, ran along with us to-day. he was a very obliging fellow. at auchnasheal, we sat down on a green turf-seat at the end of a house; they brought us out two wooden dishes of milk, which we tasted. one of them was frothed like a syllabub. i saw a woman preparing it with such a stick as is used for chocolate, and in the same manner. we had a considerable circle about us, men, women and children, all m'craas, lord seaforth's people. not one of them could speak english. i observed to dr johnson, it was much the same as being with a tribe of indians. johnson. 'yes, sir; but not so terrifying.' i gave all who chose it, snuff and tobacco. governour trapaud had made us buy a quantity at fort augustus, and put them up in small parcels. i also gave each person a bit of wheat bread, which they had never tasted before. i then gave a penny apiece to each child. i told dr johnson of this; upon which he called to joseph and our guides, for change for a shilling, and declared that he would distribute among the children. upon this being announced in erse, there was a great stir; not only did some children come running down from neighbouring huts, but i observed one black-haired man, who had been with us all along, had gone off, and returned, bringing a very young child. my fellow traveller then ordered the children to be drawn up in a row; and he dealt about his copper, and made them and their parents all happy. the poor m'craas, whatever may be their present state, were of considerable estimation in the year , when there was a line in a song. and aw the brave m'craas are coming. [footnote: the m'craas, or macraes, were since that time brought into the king's army, by the late lord seaforth. when they lay in edinburgh castle in , and were ordered to embark for jersey, they with a number of other men in the regiment, for different reasons, but especially an apprehension that they were to be sold to the east-india company, though enlisted not to be sent out of great-britain without their own consent, made a determined mutiny and encamped upon the lofty mountain, arthur's seat, where they remained three days and three nights; bidding defiance to all the force in scotland. at last they came down, and embarked peaceably, having obtained formal articles of capitulation, signed by sir adolphus oughton, commander in chief, general skene, deputy commander, the duke of buccleugh, and the earl of dunmore, which quieted them. since the secession of the commons of rome to the mons sacer, a more spirited exertion has not been made. i gave great attention to it from first to last, and have drawn up a particular account of it. those brave fellows have since served their country effectually at jersey, and also in the east indies, to which, alter being better informed, they voluntarily agreed to go.] there was great diversity in the faces of the circle around us: some were as black and wild in their appearance as any american savages whatever. one woman was as comely almost as the figure of sappho, as we see it painted. we asked the old woman, the mistress of the house where we had the milk, (which by the bye, dr johnson told me, for i did not observe it myself, was built not of turf, but of stone,) what we should pay. she said, what we pleased. one of our guides asked her, in erse, if a shilling was enough. she said, 'yes.' but some of the men bade her ask more. this vexed me; because it shewed a desire to impose upon strangers, as they knew that even a shilling was high payment. the woman, however, honestly persisted in her price; so i gave her half a crown. thus we had one good scene of life uncommon to us. the people were very much pleased, gave us many blessings, and said they had not had such a day since the old laird of macleod's time. dr johnson was much refreshed by this repast. he was pleased when i told him he would make a good chief. he said, 'were i a chief, i would dress my servants better than myself, and knock a fellow down if he looked saucy to a macdonald in rags: but i would not treat men as brutes. i would let them know why all of my clan were to have attention paid to them. i would tell my upper servants why, and make them tell the others.' we rode on well, till we came to the high mountain called the rattakin, by which time both dr johnson and the horses were a good deal fatigued. it is a terrible steep climb, notwithstanding the road is formed slanting along it; however, we made it out. on the top of it we met captain m'leod of balmenoch (a dutch officer who had come from sky) riding with his sword slung across him. he asked, 'is this mr boswell?' which was a proof that we were expected. going down the hill on the other side was no easy task. as dr johnson was a great weight, the two guides agreed that he should ride the horses alternately. hay's were the two best, and the doctor would not ride but upon one or other of them, a black or a brown. but, as hay complained much after ascending the rattakin, the doctor was prevailed with to mount one of vass's greys. as he rode upon it down hill, it did not go well; and he grumbled. i walked on a little before, but was excessively entertained with the method taken to keep him in good humour. hay led the horse's head, talking to dr johnson as much as he could; and (having heard him, in the forenoon, express a pastoral pleasure on seeing the goats browzing) just when the doctor was uttering his displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very highland accent, 'see such pretty goats!' then he whistled, whu! and made them jump. little did he conceive what doctor johnson was. here now was a common ignorant highland clown imagining that he could divert, as one does a child, dr samuel johnson! the ludicrousness, absurdity, and extraordinary contrast between what the fellow fancied, and the reality, was truly comick. it grew dusky; and we had a very tedious ride for what was called five miles; but i am sure would measure ten. we had no conversation. i was riding forward to the inn at glenelg, on the shore opposite to sky, that i might take proper measures, before dr johnson, who was now advancing in dreary silence, hay leading his horse, should arrive. vass also walked by the side of his horse, and joseph followed behind: as therefore he was thus attended, and seemed to be in deep meditation, i thought there could be no harm in leaving him for a little while. he called me back with a tremendous shout, and was really in a passion with me for leaving him. i told him my intentions, but he was not satisfied, and said, 'do you know, i should as soon have thought of picking a pocket, as doing so.' boswell. 'i am diverted with you, sir.' johnson. 'sir, i could never be diverted with incivility. doing such a thing, makes one lose confidence in him who has done it, as one cannot tell what he may do next.' his extraordinary warmth confounded me so much, that i justified myself but lamely to him; yet my intentions were not improper. i wished to get on, to see how we were to be lodged, and how we were to get a boat; all which i thought i could best settle myself, without his having any trouble. to apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. i knew i had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his uncommon desire to be always in the right, would make him weigh, if he knew of the particulars: it was right therefore for me to weigh them, and let him have them only in effect. i however continued to ride by him, finding he wished i should do so. as we passed the barracks at bernea, i looked at them wishfully, as soldiers have always every thing in the best order: but there was only a serjeant and a few men there. we came on to the inn at glenelg. there was no provender for our horses: so they were sent to grass, with a man to watch them. a maid shewed us up stairs into a room damp and dirty, with bare walls, a variety of bad smells, a coarse black greasy fir table, and forms of the same kind; and out of a wretched bed started a fellow from his sleep, like edgar in king lear, 'poor tom's a-cold'. [footnote: it is amusing to observe the different images which this being presented to dr johnson and me. the doctor, in his journey, compares him to a cyclops.] this inn was furnished with not a single article that we could either eat or drink; but mr murchison, factor to the laird of macleod in glenelg, sent us a bottle of rum and some sugar, with a polite message, to acquaint us, that he was very sorry that he did not hear of us till we had passed his house, otherwise he should have insisted on our sleeping there that night; and that, if he were not obliged to set out for inverness early next morning, he would have waited upon us. such extraordinary attention from this gentleman, to entire strangers, deserves the most honourable commemoration. our bad accommodation here made me uneasy, and almost fretful. dr johnson was calm. i said, he was so from vanity. johnson. 'no, sir, it is from philosophy.' it pleased me to see that the rambler could practise so well his own lessons. i resumed the subject of my leaving him on the road, and endeavoured to defend it better. he was still violent upon that head, and said, 'sir, had you gone on, i was thinking that i should have returned with you to edinburgh, and then have parted from you, and never spoken to you more.' i sent for fresh hay, with which we made beds for ourselves, each in a room, equally miserable. like wolfe, we had a 'choice of difficulties'. dr johnson made things easier by comparison. at m'queen's, last night, he observed, that few were so well lodged in a ship. to-night he said, we were better than if we had been upon the hill. he lay down buttoned up in his great coat. i had my sheets spread on the hay, and my clothes and great coat laid over me, by way of blankets. thursday, d september i had slept ill. dr johnson's anger had affected me much. i considered that, without any bad intention, i might suddenly forfeit his friendship; and was impatient to see him this morning. i told him how uneasy he had made me, by what he had said, and reminded him of his own remark at aberdeen, upon old friendships being hastily broken off. he owned, he had spoken to me in passion; that he would not have done what he threatened; and that, if he had, he should have been ten times worse than i; that forming intimacies, would indeed be 'limning the water', were they liable to such sudden dissolution; and he added, 'let's think no more on't.' boswell. 'well then, sir, i shall be easy. remember, i am to have fair warning in case of any quarrel. you are never to spring a mine upon me. it was absurd in me to believe you.' johnson. 'you deserved about as much, as to believe me from night to morning.' after breakfast, we got into a boat for sky. it rained much when we set off, but cleared up as we advanced. one of the boatmen, who spoke english, said, that a mile at land was two miles at sea. i then observed, that from glenelg to armidale in sky, which was our present course, and is called twelve, was only six miles: but this he could not understand. 'well,' said dr johnson, 'never talk to me of the native good sense of the highlanders. here is a fellow who calls one mile two, and yet cannot comprehend that twelve such imaginary miles make in truth but six.' we reached the shore of armidale before one o'clock. sir alexander m'donald came down to receive us. he and his lady (formerly miss bosville of yorkshire) were then in a house built by a tenant at this place, which is in the district of slate, the family mansion here having been burned in sir donald macdonald's time. the most ancient seat of the chief of the macdonalds in the isle of sky was at duntulm, where there are the remains of a stately castle. the principal residence of the family is now at mugstot, at which there is a considerable building. sir alexander and lady macdonald had come to armidale in their way to edinburgh, where it was necessary for them to be soon after this time. armidale is situated on a pretty bay of the narrow sea, which flows between the main land of scotland and the isle of sky. in front there is a grand prospect of the rude mountains of moidart and knoidart. behind are hills gently rising and covered with a finer verdure than i expected to see in this climate, and the scene is enlivened by a number of little clear brooks. sir alexander macdonald having been an eton scholar, and being a gentleman of talents, dr johnson had been very well pleased with him in london. but my fellow traveller and i were now full of the old highland spirit, and were dissatisfied at hearing of racked rents and emigration; and finding a chief not surrounded by his clan. dr johnson said, 'sir, the highland chiefs should not be allowed to go farther south than aberdeen. a strong-minded man, like sir james macdonald, may be improved by an english education; but in general, they will be tamed into insignificance.' we found here mr janes of aberdeenshire, a naturalist. janes said he had been at dr johnson's in london, with ferguson the astronomer. johnson. 'it is strange that, in such distant places, i should meet with any one who knows me. i should have thought i might hide myself in sky.' friday, d september this day proving wet, we should have passed our time very uncomfortably, had we not found in the house two chests of books, which we eagerly ransacked. after dinner, when i alone was left at table with the few highland gentlemen who were of the company, having talked with very high respect of sir james macdonald, they were all so much affected as to shed tears. one of them was mr donald macdonald, who had been lieutenant of grenadiers in the highland regiment, raised by colonel montgomery, now earl of eglintoune, in the war before last; one of those regiments which the late lord chatham prided himself in having brought from 'the mountains of the north': by doing which he contributed to extinguish in the highlands the remains of disaffection to the present royal family. from this gentleman's conversation, i first learnt how very popular his colonel was among the highlanders; of which i had such continued proofs, during the whole course of my tour, that on my return i could not help telling the noble earl himself, that i did not before know how great a man he was. we were advised by some persons here to visit rasay, in our way to dunvegan, the seat of the laird of macleod. being informed that the rev. mr donald m'queen was the most intelligent man in sky, and having been favoured with a letter of introduction to him, by the learned sir james foulis, i sent it to him by an express, and requested he would meet us at rasay; and at the same time enclosed a letter to the laird of macleod, informing him that we intended in a few days to have the honour of waiting on him at dunvegan. dr johnson this day endeavoured to obtain some knowledge of the state of the country; but complained that he could get no distinct information about any thing, from those with whom he conversed. saturday, th september my endeavours to rouse the english-bred chieftain, in whose house we were, to the feudal and patriarchal feelings, proving ineffectual, dr johnson this morning tried to bring him to our way of thinking. johnson. 'were i in your place, sir, in seven years i would make this an independant island. i would roast oxen whole, and hang out a flag as a signal to the macdonalds to come and get beef and whisky.' sir alexander was still starting difficulties. johnson. 'nay, sir; if you are born to object, i have done with you. sir, i would have a magazine of arms.' sir alexander. 'they would rust.' johnson. 'let there be men to keep them clean. your ancestors did not use to let their arms rust.' we attempted in vain to communicate to him a portion of our enthusiasm. he bore with so polite a good-nature our warm, and what some might call gothick, expostulations, on this subject, that i should not forgive myself, were i to record all that dr johnson's ardour led him to say. this day was little better than a blank. sunday, th september i walked to the parish church of slate, which is a very poor one. there are no church bells in the island. i was told there were once some; what has become of them, i could not learn. the minister not being at home, there was no service. i went into the church and saw the monument of sir james macdonald, which was elegantly executed at rome, and has the following inscription, written by his friend, george lord lyttelton: to the memory of sir james macdonald, bart. who in the flower of youth, had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge in mathematics, philosophy, languages, and in every other branch of useful and polite learning. as few have acquired in a long life wholly devoted to study: yet to this erudition he joined what can rarely be found with it. great talents for business, great propriety of behaviour, great politeness of manners! his eloquence was sweet, correct, and flowing; his memory vast and exact; his judgement strong and acute; all which endowments, united with the most amiable temper and every private virtue, procured him, not only in his own country, but also from foreign nations, the highest marks of esteem. in the year of our lord , the th of his life, after a long and extremely painful illness, which he supported with admirable patience and fortitude, he died at rome, where, notwithstanding the difference of religion. such extraordinary honours were paid to his memory, as had never graced that of any other british subject, since the death of sir philip sydney. the fame he left behind him is the best consolation to his afflicted family, and to his countrymen in this isle. for whose benefit he had planned many useful improvements, which his fruitful genius suggested. and his active spirit promoted. under the sober direction of a clear and enlightened understanding. reader, bewail our loss, and that of all britain. in testimony of her love, and as the best return she can make to her departed son. for the constant tenderness and affection which, even to his last moments, he shewed for her. his much afflicted mother. the lady margaret macdonald, daughter to the earl of eglintoune, erected this monument, a.d. . [footnote: this extraordinary young man, whom i had the pleasure of knowing intimately, having been deeply regretted by his country, the most minute particulars concerning him must be interesting to many. i shall therefore insert his two last letters to his mother. lady margaret macdonald, which her ladyship has been pleased to communicate to me. rome, july th, . my dear mother, yesterday's post brought me your answer to the first letter in which i acquainted you of my illness. your tenderness and concern upon that account are the same i have always experienced, and to which i have often owed my life. indeed it never was in so great danger as it has been lately; and though it would have been a very great comfort to me to have had you near me, yet perhaps i ought to rejoice, on your account, that you had not the pain of such a spectacle. i have been now a week in rome, and wish i could continue to give you the same good accounts of my recovery as i did in my last: but i must own that for three days past. i have been in a very weak and miserable state, which however seems to give no uneasiness to my physician. my stomach has been greatly out of order, without any visible cause; and the palpitation does not decrease. i am told that my stomach will soon recover its tone, and that the palpitation must cease in time. so i am willing to believe; and with this hope support the little remains of spirits which i can be supposed to have, on the forty-seventh day of such an illness. do not imagine i have relapsed--i only recover slower than i expected. if my letter is shorter than usual, the cause of it is a dose of physick, which has weakened me so much to-day, that i am not able to write a long letter. i will make up for it next post, and remain always your most sincerely affectionate son, j. macdonald. he grew gradually worse; and on the night before his death he wrote as follows from frescati: my dear mother, though i did not mean to deceive you in my last letter from rome, yet certainly you would have very little reason to conclude of the very great and constant danger i have gone through ever since that time. my life, which is still almost entirely desperate, did not at that time appear to me so, otherwise i should have represented, in its true colours, a fact which acquires very little horror by that means, and comes with redoubled force by deception. there is no circumstance of danger and pain of which i have not had the experience, for a continued series of above a fortnight; during which time i have settled my affairs, after my death, with as much distinctness as the hurry and the nature of the thing could admit of. in case of the worst, the abbe grant will be my executor in this part of the world, and mr mackenzie in scotland, where my object has been to make you and my younger brother as independent of the eldest as possible.] dr johnson said, the inscription should have been in latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent, should be. this being a beautiful day, my spirits were cheered by the mere effect of climate. i had felt a return of spleen during my stay at armidale, and had it not been that i had dr johnson to contemplate, i should have sunk into dejection; but his firmness supported me. i looked at him, as a man whose head is turning giddy at sea looks at a rock, or any fixed object. i wondered at his tranquillity. he said, 'sir, when a man retires into an island, he is to turn his thoughts intirely to another world. he has done with this.' boswell. 'it appears to me, sir, to be very difficult to unite a due attention to this world, and that which is to come; for, if we engage eagerly in the affairs of life, we are apt to be totally forgetful of a future state; and, on the other hand, a steady contemplation of the awful concerns of eternity renders all objects here so insignificant, as to make us indifferent and negligent about them.' johnson. 'sir, dr cheyne has laid down a rule to himself on this subject, which should be imprinted on every mind: "to neglect nothing to secure my eternal peace, more than if i had been certified i should die within the day: nor to mind any thing that my secular obligations and duties demanded of me, less than if i had been ensured to live fifty years more." i must here observe, that though dr johnson appeared now to be philosophically calm, yet his genius did not shine forth as in companies, where i have listened to him with admiration. the vigour of his mind was, however, sufficiently manifested, by his discovering no symptoms of feeble relaxation in the dull, 'weary, flat and unprofitable' state in which we now were placed. i am inclined to think that it was on this day he composed the following ode upon the isle of sky, which a few days afterwards he shewed me at raysay: oda ponti profundis clausa recessibus, strepens procellis, rupibus obsita, quam grata defesso virentem skia sinum nebulosa pandis. his cura, credo, sedibus exulat; his blanda certe pax habitat locis: non ira, non moeror quietis insidias meditatur horis. at non cavata rupe latescere, menti nec aegrae montibus aviis prodest vagari, nec frementes e scopulo numerare fluctus humana virtus non sibi sufficit, datur nee aequum cuique animum sibi parare posse, ut stoicorum secta crepet nimis alta fallax. exaestuantis pectoris impetum. rex summe, solus tu regis arbiter, mentisque, te tollente, surgunt, te recidunt moderante fluctus. [footnote: various readings. line . in the manuscript. dr johnson, instead of rupibus obsita, had written imbribus uvida. and uvida nubibus, but struck them both out. lines & . instead of these two lines, he had written, but afterwards struck out, the following: parare posse, utcunque jactet grandiloquus nimis alta zeno.] after supper, dr johnson told us, that isaac hawkins browne drank freely for thirty years, and that he wrote his poem, de animi immortalitate, in some of the last of these years. i listened to this with the eagerness of one, who, conscious of being himself fond of wine, is glad to hear that a man of so much genius and good thinking as browne had the same propensity. monday, th september we set out, accompanied by mr donald m'leod (late of canna) as our guide. we rode for some time along the district of slate, near the shore. the houses in general are made of turf, covered with grass. the country seemed well peopled. we came into the district of strath, and passed along a wild moorish tract of land till we arrived at the shore. there we found good verdure, and some curious whin-rocks, or collections of stones like the ruins of the foundations of old buildings. we saw also three cairns of considerable size. about a mile beyond broadfoot, is corrichatachin, a farm of sir alexander macdonald's, possessed by mr m'kinnon, [footnote: that my readers may have my narrative in the style of the country through which i am travelling, it is proper to inform them, that the chief of a clan is denominated by his surname alone, as m'leod, m'kinnon. m'intosh. to prefix mr to it would be a degradation from the m'leod, &c. my old friend, the laird of m'farlane, the great antiquary, took it highly amiss, when general wade called him mr m'farlane. dr johnson said, he could not bring himself to use this mode of address: it seemed to him to be too familiar, as it is the way in which, in all other places, intimates or inferiors are addressed. when the chiefs have titles, they are denominated by them, as sir james grant. sir allan m'lean. the other highland gentlemen, of landed property, are denominated by their estates, as rasay, boisdale; and the wives of all of them have the title of ladies. the tacksmen, or principal tenants, are named by their farms, as kingsburgh, corrichatachin; and their wives are called the mistress of kingsburgh, the mistress of corrichatachin. having given this explanation, i am at liberty to use that mode of speech which generally prevails in the highlands and the hebrides.] who received us with a hearty welcome, as did his wife, who was what we call in scotland a lady-like woman. mr pennant, in the course of his tour to the hebrides, passed two nights at this gentleman's house. on its being mentioned, that a present had here been made to him of a curious specimen of highland antiquity, dr johnson said, 'sir, it was more than he deserved: the dog is a whig.' we here enjoyed the comfort of a table plentifully furnished, the satisfaction of which was heightened by a numerous and cheerful company; and we for the first time had a specimen of the joyous social manners of the inhabitants of the highlands. they talked in their own ancient language, with fluent vivacity, and sung many erse songs with such spirit, that, though dr johnson was treated with the greatest respect and attention, there were moments in which he seemed to be forgotten. for myself, though but a lowlander, having picked up a few words of the language, i presumed to mingle in their mirth, and joined in the choruses with as much glee as any of the company. dr johnson being fatigued with his journey, retired early to his chamber, where he composed the following ode, addressed to mrs thrale: oda permeo terras, ubi nuda rupes saxeas miscet nebulis ruinas, torva ubi rident steriles coloni rura labores. pervagor gentes, hominum ferorum vita ubi nullo decorata cultu squallet informis, tugurique fumis foeda latescit. inter erroris salebrosa longi, inter ignotae strepitus loquelae, quot modis mecum, quid agat, requiro, thralia dulcis seu viri curas pia nupta mulcet, seu fovet mater sobolem benigna. sive cum libris novitate pascet sedula mentem; sit memor nostri, fideique merces, stet fides constans, meritoque blandum thraliae discant resonare nomen littora skiae. scriptum in skia, sept. , . tuesday, th september dr johnson was much pleased with his entertainment here. there were many good books in the house: hector boethius in latin; cave's lives of the fathers; baker's chronicle; jeremy collier's church history; dr johnson's small dictionary; craufurd's officers of state, and several more: a mezzotinto of mrs brooks the actress (by some strange chance in sky); and also a print of macdonald of clanranald, with a latin inscription about the cruelties after the battle of culloden, which will never be forgotten. it was a very wet stormy day; we were therefore obliged to remain here, it being impossible to cross the sea to rasay. i employed a part of the forenoon in writing this journal. the rest of it was somewhat dreary, from the gloominess of the weather, and the uncertain state which we were in, as we could not tell but it might clear up every hour. nothing is more painful to the mind than a state of suspence, especially when it depends upon the weather, concerning which there can be so little calculation. as dr johnson said of our weariness on the monday at aberdeen, 'sensation is sensation.' corrichatachin, which was last night a hospitable house, was, in my mind, changed to-day into a prison. after dinner i read some of dr macpherson's dissertations on the ancient caledonians. i was disgusted by the unsatisfactory conjectures as to antiquity, before the days of record. i was happy when tea came. such, i take it, is the state of those who live in the country. meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating. i was hurt to find even such a temporary feebleness, and that i was so far from being that robust wise man who is sufficient for his own happiness. i felt a kind of lethargy of indolence. i did not exert myself to get dr johnson to talk, that i might not have the labour of writing down his conversation. he inquired here, if there were any remains of the second sight. mr m'pherson, minister of slate, said, he was resolved not to believe it, because it was founded on no principle. johnson. 'there are many things then, which we are sure are true, that you will not believe. what principle is there, why a loadstone attracts iron? why an egg produces a chicken by heat? why a tree grows upwards, when the natural tendency of all things is downwards? sir, it depends upon the degree of evidence that you have.' young mr m'kinnon mentioned one m'kenzie, who is still alive, who had often fainted in his presence, and when he recovered, mentioned visions which had been presented to him. he told mr m'kinnon, that at such a place he should meet a funeral, and that such and such people would be the bearers, naming four; and three weeks afterwards he saw what m'kenzie had predicted. the naming the very spot in a country where a funeral comes a long way, and the very people as bearers, when there are so many out of whom a choice may be made, seems extraordinary. we should have sent for m'kenzie, had we not been informed that he could speak no english. besides, the facts were not related with sufficient accuracy. mrs m'kinnon, who is a daughter of old kingsburgh, told us that her father was one day riding in sky, and some women, who were at work in a field on the side of the road, said to him, they had heard two taiscks (that is, two voices of persons about to die), and what was remarkable, one of them was an english taisck, which they never heard before. when he returned, he at that very place met two funerals, and one of them was that of a woman who had come from the main land, and could speak only english. this, she remarked, made a great impression upon her father. how all the people here were lodged, i know not. it was partly done by separating man and wife, and putting a number of men in one room, and of women in another. wednesday, th september when i waked, the rain was much heavier than yesterday; but the wind had abated. by breakfast, the day was better, and in a little while it was calm and clear. i felt my spirits much elated. the propriety of the expression, 'the sunshine of the breast', now struck me with peculiar force; for the brilliant rays penetrated into my very soul. we were all in better humour than before. mrs m'kinnon, with unaffected hospitality and politeness, expressed her happiness in having such company in her house, and appeared to understand and relish dr johnson's conversation, as indeed all the company seemed to do. when i knew she was old kingsburgh's daughter, i did not wonder at the good appearance which she made. she talked as if her husband and family would emigrate, rather than be oppressed by their landlord; and said, 'how agreeable would it be, if these gentlemen should come in upon us when we are in america'. somebody observed that sir alexander macdonald was always frightened at sea. johnson. 'he is frightened at sea; and his tenants are frightened when he comes to land.' we resolved to set out directly after breakfast. we had about two miles to ride to the sea-side, and there we expected to get one of the boats belonging to the fleet of bounty herring-busses then on the coast, or at least a good country fishing-boat. but while we were preparing to set out, there arrived a man with the following card from the reverend mr donald m'queen: mr m'queen's compliments to mr boswell, and begs leave to acquaint him that, fearing the want of a proper boat, as much as the rain of yesterday, might have caused a stop, he is now at skianwden with macgillichallum's [footnote: the highland expression for laird of rasay.] carriage, to convey him and dr johnson to rasay, where they will meet with a most hearty welcome, and where macleod, being on a visit, now attends their motions.--wednesday afternoon. this card was most agreeable; it was a prologue to that hospitable and truly polite reception which we found at rasay. in a little while arrived mr donald m'queen himself; a decent minister, an elderly man with his own black hair, courteous, and rather slow of speech, but candid, sensible and well informed, nay learned. along with him came, as our pilot, a gentleman whom i had a great desire to see, mr malcolm macleod, one of the rasay family, celebrated in the year - . he was now sixty-two years of age, hale, and well proportioned, with a manly countenance, tanned by the weather, yet having a ruddiness in his cheeks, over a great part of which his rough beard extended. his eye was quick and lively, yet his look was not fierce, but he appeared at once firm and good-humoured. he wore a pair of brogues, tartan hose which came up only near to his knees, and left them bare, a purple camblet kilt, a black waistcoat, a short green cloth coat bound with gold cord, a yellowish bushy wig, a large blue bonnet with a gold thread button. i never saw a figure that gave a more perfect representation of a highland gentleman. i wished much to have a picture of him just as he was. i found him frank and polite, in the true sense of the word. the good family at corrichatachin said, they hoped to see us on our return. we rode down to the shore; but malcolm walked with graceful agility. we got into rasay's carriage, which was a good strong open boat made in norway. the wind had now risen pretty high, and was against us; but we had four stout rowers, particularly a macleod, a robust, black-haired fellow, half naked, and bear-headed, something between a wild indian and an english tar. dr johnson sat high on the stern, like a magnificent triton. malcolm sung an erse song, the chorus of which was 'hatyin foam foam eri', with words of his own. the tune resembled 'owr the muir amang the heather', the boatmen and mr m'queen chorused, and all went well. at length malcolm himself took an oar, and rowed vigorously. we sailed along the coast of scalpa, a rugged island, about four miles in length. dr johnson proposed that he and i should buy it, and found a good school, and an episcopal church (malcolm said, he would come to it), and have a printing-press, where he would print all the erse that could be found. here i was strongly struck with our long projected scheme of visiting the hebrides being realized. i called to him, 'we are contending with seas;' which i think were the words of one of his letters to me. 'not much,' said he; and though the wind made the sea lash considerably upon us, he was not discomposed. after we were out of the shelter of scalpa, and in the sound between it and rasay, which extended about a league, the wind made the sea very rough. i did not like it. johnson. 'this now is the atlantick. if i should tell at a tea table in london, that i have crossed the atlantick in an open boat, how they'd shudder, and what a fool they'd think me to expose myself to such danger.' he then repeated horace's ode, otium divos rogat in patenti prensus aegaeo... in the confusion and hurry of this boisterous sail, dr johnson's spurs, of which joseph had charge, were carried over-board into the sea, and lost. this was the first misfortune that had befallen us. dr johnson was a little angry at first, observing that 'there was something wild in letting a pair of spurs be carried into the sea out of a boat'; but then he remarked, that, as janes the naturalist had said upon losing his pocket book, it was rather an inconvenience than a loss. he told us, he now recollected that he dreamt the night before, that he put his staff into a river, and chanced to let it go, and it was carried down the stream and lost. 'so now you see,' said he, 'that i have lost my spurs; and this story is better than many of those which we have concerning second sight and dreams.' mr m'queen said he did not believe in second sight; that he never met with any well attested instances; and if he should, he should impute them to chance; because all who pretend to that quality often fail in their predictions, though they take a great scope, and sometimes interpret literally, sometimes figuratively, so as to suit the events. he told us, that, since he came to be minister of the parish where he now is, the belief of witchcraft, or charms, was very common, insomuch that he had many prosecutions before his session (the parochial ecclesiastical court) against women, for having by these means carried off the milk from people's cows. he disregarded them; and there is not now the least vestige of that superstition. he preached against it; and in order to give a strong proof to the people that there was nothing in it, he said from the pulpit, that every woman in the parish was welcome to take the milk from his cows, provided she did not touch them. dr johnson asked him as to fingal. he said he could repeat some passages in the original, that he heard his grandfather had a copy of it; but that he could not affirm that ossian composed all that poem as it is now published. this came pretty much to what dr johnson had maintained; though he goes farther, and contends that it is no better than such an epick poem as he could make from the song of robin hood; that is to say, that, except a few passages, there is nothing truly ancient but the names and some vague traditions. mr m'queen alledged that homer was made up of detached fragments. dr johnson denied this; observing, that it had been one work originally, and that you could not put a book of the iliad out of its place; and he believed the same might be said of the odyssey. the approach to rasay was very pleasing. we saw before us a beautiful bay, well defended by a rocky coast; a good family mansion; a fine verdure about it, with a considerable number of trees; and beyond it hills and mountains in gradation of wildness. our boatmen sung with great spirit. dr johnson observed, that naval musick was very ancient. as we came near the shore, the singing of our rowers was succeeded by that of reapers, who were busy at work, and who seemed to shout as much as to sing, while they worked with a bounding activity. just as we landed, i observed a cross, or rather the ruins of one, upon a rock, which had to me a pleasing vestige of religion. i perceived a large company coming out from the house. we met them as we walked up. there were rasay himself; his brother dr macleod; his nephew the laird of m'kinnon; the laird of macleod; colonel macleod of talisker, an officer in the dutch service, a very genteel man, and a faithful branch of the family; mr macleod of muiravenside, best known by the name of sandie macleod, who was long in exile on account of the part which he took in ; and several other persons. we were welcomed upon the green, and conducted into the house, where we were introduced to lady rasay, who was surrounded by a numerous family, consisting of three sons and ten daughters. the laird of rasay is a sensible, polite, and most hospitable gentleman. i was told that his island of rasay, and that of rona (from which the eldest son of the family has his title), and a considerable extent of land which he has in sky, do not altogether yield him a very large revenue: and yet he lives in great splendour; and so far is he from distressing his people, that, in the present rage for emigration, not a man has left his estate. it was past six o'clock when we arrived. some excellent brandy was served round immediately, according to the custom of the highlands, where a dram is generally taken every day. they call it a scatch. on a side-board was placed for us, who had come off the sea, a substantial dinner, and a variety of wines. then we had coffee and tea. i observed in the room several elegantly bound books and other marks of improved life. soon afterwards a fiddler appeared, and a little ball began. rasay himself danced with as much spirit as any man, and malcolm bounded like a roe. sandie macleod, who has at times an excessive flow of spirits, and had it now, was, in his days of absconding, known by the name of m'cruslick, which it seems was the designation of a kind of wild man in the highlands, something between proteus and don quixotte; and so he was called here. he made much jovial noise. dr johnson was so delighted with this scene, that he said, 'i know not how we shall get away.' it entertained me to observe him sitting by, while we danced, sometimes in deep meditation, sometimes smiling complacently, sometimes looking upon hooke's roman history, and sometimes talking a little amidst the noise of the ball, to mr donald m'queen, who anxiously gathered knowledge from him. he was pleased with m'queen and said to me, 'this is a critical man, sir. there must be great vigour of mind to make him cultivate learning so much in the isle of sky, where he might do without it. it is wonderful how many of the new publications he has. there must be a snatch of every opportunity.' mr m'queen told me that his brother (who is the fourth generation of the family following each other as ministers of the parish of snizort) and he joined together, and bought from time to time such books as had reputation. soon after we came in, a black cock and grey hen, which had been shot, were shewn, with their feathers on, to dr johnson, who had never seen that species of bird before. we had a company of thirty at supper; and all was good humour and gaiety, without intemperance. thursday, th september at breakfast this morning, among a profusion of other things, there were oat-cakes, made of what is called graddaned meal, that is, meal made of grain separated from the husks, and toasted by fire, instead of being threshed and kiln dried. this seems to be bad management, as so much fodder is consumed by it. mr m'queen however defended it, by saying, that it is doing the thing much quicker, as one operation effects what is otherwise done by two. his chief reason however was, that the servants of sky are, according to him, a faithless pack, and steal what they can; so that much is saved by the corn passing but once through their hands, as at each time they pilfer some. it appears to me, that the graddaning is a strong proof of the laziness of the highlanders, who will rather make fire act for them, at the expence of fodder, than labour themselves. there was also, what i cannot help disliking at breakfast, cheese: it is the custom over all the highlands to have it; and it often smells very strong, and poisons to a certain degree the elegance of an indian repast. the day was showery; however, rasay and i took a walk, and had some cordial conversation. i conceived a more than ordinary regard for this worthy gentleman. his family has possessed this island above four hundred years. it is the remains of the estate of macleod of lewis, whom he represents. when we returned, dr johnson walked with us to see the old chapel. he was in fine spirits. he said, 'this is truely the patriarchal life: this is what we came to find.' after dinner, m'cruslick, malcolm, and i, went out with guns, to try if we could find any black-cock; but we had no sport, owing to a heavy rain. i saw here what is called a danish fort. our evening was passed as last night was. one of our company, i was told, had hurt himself by too much study, particularly of infidel metaphysicians, of which he gave a proof, on second sight being mentioned. he immediately retailed some of the fallacious arguments of voltaire and hume against miracles in general. infidelity in a highland gentleman appeared to me peculiarly offensive. i was sorry for him, as he had otherwise a good character. i told dr johnson that he had studied himself into infidelity. johnson. 'then he must study himself out of it again. that is the way. drinking largely will sober him again.' friday, th september having resolved to explore the island of rasay, which could be done only on foot, i last night obtained my fellow-traveller's permission to leave him for a day, he being unable to take so hardy a walk. old mr malcolm m'cleod, who had obligingly promised to accompany me, was at my bedside between five and six. i sprang up immediately, and he and i, attended by two other gentlemen, traversed the country during the whole of this day. though we had passed over not less than four-and-twenty miles of very rugged ground, and had a highland dance on the top of dun can, the highest mountain in the island, we returned in the evening not at all fatigued, and piqued ourselves at not being outdone at the nightly ball by our less active friends, who had remained at home. my survey of rasay did not furnish much which can interest my readers; i shall therefore put into as short a compass as i can, the observations upon it, which i find registered in my journal. it is about fifteen english miles long, and four broad. on the south side is the laird's family seat, situated on a pleasing low spot. the old tower of three stories, mentioned by martin, was taken down soon after , and a modern house supplies its place. there are very good grass-fields and corn-lands about it, well dressed. i observed, however, hardly any inclosures, except a good garden plentifully stocked with vegetables, and strawberries, raspberries, currants, &c. on one of the rocks just where we landed, which are not high, there is rudely carved a square, with a crucifix in the middle. here, it is said, the lairds of rasay, in old times, used to offer up their devotions. i could not approach the spot, without a grateful recollection of the event commemorated by this symbol. a little from the shore, westward, is a kind of subterraneous house. there has been a natural fissure, or separation of the rock, running towards the sea, which has been roofed over with long stones, and above them turf has been laid. in that place the inhabitants used to keep their oars. there are a number of trees near the house, which grow well; some of them of a pretty good size. they are mostly plane and ash. a little to the west of the house is an old ruinous chapel, unroofed, which never has been very curious. we here saw some human bones of an uncommon size. there was a heel-bone, in particular, which dr macleod said was such, that if the foot was in proportion, it must have been twenty-seven inches long. dr johnson would not look at the bones. he started back from them with a striking appearance of horrour. mr m'queen told us, it was formerly much the custom, in these isles, to have human bones lying above ground, especially in the windows of churches. on the south of the chapel is the family burying place. above the door, on the east end of it, is a small bust or image of the virgin mary, carved upon a stone which makes part of the wall. there is no church upon the island. it is annexed to one of the parishes of sky; and the minister comes and preaches either in rasay's house, or some other house, on certain sundays. i could not but value the family seat more, for having even the ruins of a chapel close to it. there was something comfortable in the thought of being so near a piece of consecrated ground. dr johnson said, 'i look with reverence upon every place that has been set apart for religion'; and he kept off his hat while he was within the walls of the chapel. the eight crosses, which martin mentions as pyramids for deceased ladies, stood in a semicircular line, which contained within it the chapel. they marked out the boundaries of the sacred territory within which an asylum was to be had. one of them, which we observed upon our landing, made the first point of the semicircle. there are few of them now remaining. a good way farther north, there is a row of buildings about four feet high: they run from the shore on the east along the top of a pretty high eminence, and so down to the shore on the west, in much the same direction with the crosses. rasay took them to be the marks for the asylum; but malcolm thought them to be false sentinels, a common deception, of which instances occur in martin, to make invaders imagine an island better guarded. mr donald m'queen, justly in my opinion, supposed the crosses which form the inner circle to be the church's land-marks. the south end of the island is much covered with large stones or rocky strata. the laird has enclosed and planted part of it with firs, and he shewed me a considerable space marked out for additional plantations. dun can is a mountain three computed miles from the laird's house. the ascent to it is by consecutive risings, if that expression may be used when vallies intervene, so that there is but a short rise at once; but it is certainly very high above the sea. the palm of altitude is disputed for by the people of rasay and those of sky; the former contending for dun can, the latter for the mountains in sky, over against it. we went up the east side of dun can pretty easily. it is mostly rocks all around, the points of which hem the summit of it. sailors, to whom it is a good object as they pass along, call it rasay's cap. before we reached this mountain, we passed by two lakes. of the first, malcolm told me a strange fabulous tradition. he said, there was a wild beast in it, a sea-horse, which came and devoured a man's daughter; upon which the man lighted a great fire, and had a sow roasted at it, the smell of which attracted the monster. in the fire was put a spit. the man lay concealed behind a low wall of loose stones, and he had an avenue formed for the monster, with two rows of large flat stones, which extended from the fire over the summit of the hill, till it reached the side of the loch. the monster came, and the man with the red-hot spit destroyed it. malcolm shewed me the little hiding-place, and the rows of stones. he did not laugh when he told this story. i recollect having seen in the scots magazine, several years ago, a poem upon a similar tale, perhaps the same, translated from the erse, or irish, called albin and the daughter of mey. there is a large tract of land, possessed as a common, in rasay. they have no regulations as to the number of cattle. every man puts upon it as many as he chooses. from dun can northward, till you reach the other end of the island, there is much good natural pasture unincumbered by stones. we passed over a spot, which is appropriated for the exercising ground. in , a hundred fighting men were reviewed here, as malcolm told me, who was one of the officers that led them to the field. they returned home all but about fourteen. what a princely thing is it to be able to furnish such a band! rasay has the true spirit of a chief. he is, without exaggeration, a father to his people. there is plenty of lime-stone in the island, a great quarry of free-stone, and some natural woods, but none of any age, as they cut the trees for common country uses. the lakes, of which there are many, are well stocked with trout. malcolm catched one of four-and-twenty pounds weight in the loch next to dun can, which, by the way, is certainly a danish name, as most names of places in these islands are. the old castle, in which the family of rasay formerly resided, is situated upon a rock very near the sea: the rock is not one mass of stone, but a concretion of pebbles and earth, so firm that it does not appear to have mouldered. in this remnant of antiquity i found nothing worthy of being noticed, except a certain accommodation rarely to be found at the modern houses of scotland, and which dr johnson and i fought for in vain at the laird of rasay's new-built mansion, where nothing else was wanting. i took the liberty to tell the laird it was a shame there should be such a deficiency in civilized times. he acknowledged the justice of the remark. but perhaps some generations may pass before the want is supplied. dr johnson observed to me, how quietly people will endure an evil, which they might at any time very easily remedy; and mentioned as an instance, that the present family of rasay had possessed the island for more than four-hundred years, and never made a commodious landing place, though a few men with pickaxes might have cut an ascent of stairs out of any part of the rock in a week's time. the north end of rasay is as rocky as the south end. from it i saw the little isle of fladda, belonging to rasay, all fine green ground; and rona, which is of so rocky a soil that it appears to be a pavement. i was told however that it has a great deal of grass, in the interstices. the laird has it all in his own hands. at this end of the island of rasay is a cave in a striking situation. it is in a recess of a great cleft, a good way up from the sea. before it the ocean roars, being dashed against monstrous broken rocks; grand and aweful propugnacula. on the right hand of it is a longitudinal cave, very low at the entrance, but higher as you advance. the sea having scooped it out, it seems strange and unaccountable that the interior part, where the water must have operated with less force, should be loftier than that which is more immediately exposed to its violence. the roof of it is all covered with a kind of petrifications formed by drops, which perpetually distil from it. the first cave has been a place of much safety. i find a great difficulty in describing visible objects. i must own too that the old castle and cave, like many other things, of which one hears much, did not answer my expectations. people are every where apt to magnify the curiosities of their country. this island has abundance of black cattle, sheep, and goats; a good many horses, which are used for ploughing, carrying out dung, and other works of husbandry. i believe the people never ride. there are indeed no roads through the island, unless a few detached beaten tracks deserve that name. most of the houses are upon the shore; so that all the people have little boats, and catch fish. there is great plenty of potatoes here. there are black-cock in extraordinary abundance, moor-fowl, plover and wild pigeons, which seemed to me to be the same as we have in pigeon-houses, in their state of nature. rasay has no pigeon-house. there are no hares nor rabbits in the island, nor was there ever known to be a fox, till last year, when one was landed on it by some malicious person, without whose aid he could not have got thither, as that animal is known to be a very bad swimmer. he has done much mischief. there is a great deal of fish caught in the sea round rasay; it is a place where one may live in plenty, and even in luxury. there are no deer; but rasay told us he would get some. they reckon it rains nine months in the year in this island, owing to its being directly opposite to the western coast of sky, where the watery clouds are broken by high mountains. the hills here, and indeed all the healthy grounds in general, abound with the sweet-smelling plant which the highlanders call gaul, and (i think) with dwarf juniper in many places. there is enough of turf, which is their fuel, and it is thought there is a mine of coal. such are the observations which i made upon the island of rasay, upon comparing it with the description given by martin, whose book we had with us. there has been an ancient league between the families of macdonald and rasay. whenever the head of either family dies, his sword is given to the head of the other. the present rasay has the late sir james macdonald's sword. old rasay joined the highland army in , but prudently guarded against a forfeiture, by previously conveying his estate to the present gentleman, his eldest son. on that occasion, sir alexander, father of the late sir james macdonald, was very friendly to his neighbour. 'don't be afraid, rasay,' said he; 'i'll use all my interest to keep you safe; and if your estate should be taken, i'll buy it for the family.' and he would have done it. let me now gather some gold dust--some more fragments of dr johnson's conversation, without regard to order of time. he said, he thought very highly of bentley; that no man now went so far in the kinds of learning that he cultivated; that the many attacks on him were owing to envy, and to a desire of being known, by being in competition with such a man; that it was safe to attack him, because he never answered his opponents, but let them die away. it was attacking a man who would not beat them, because his beating them would make them live the longer. and he was right not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong; so it was better to leave things to their general appearance, than own himself to have erred in particulars. he said, mallet was the prettiest drest puppet about town, and always kept good company. that, from his way of talking, he saw, and always said, that he had not written any part of the life of the duke of marlborough, though perhaps he intended to do it at some time, in which case he was not culpable in taking the pension. that he imagined the duchess furnished the materials for her apology, which hooke wrote, and hooke furnished the words and the order, and all that in which the art of writing consists. that the duchess had not superior parts, but was a bold frontless woman, who knew how to make the most of her opportunities in life. that hooke got a large sum of money for writing her apology. that he wondered hooke should have been weak enough to insert so profligate a maxim, as that to tell another's secret to one's friend, is no breach of confidence; though perhaps hooke, who was a virtuous man, as his history shews, and did not wish her well, though he wrote her apology, might see its ill tendency, and yet insert it at her desire. he was acting only ministerially. i apprehend, however, that hooke was bound to give his best advice. i speak as a lawyer. though i have had clients whose causes i could not, as a private man, approve; yet, if i undertook them, i would not do any thing that might be prejudicial to them, even at their desire, without warning them of their danger. saturday, th september it was a storm of wind and rain; so we could not set out. i wrote some of this journal, and talked awhile with dr johnson in his room, and passed the day, i cannot well say how, but very pleasantly. i was here amused to find mr cumberland's comedy of the fashionable lover, in which he has very well drawn a highland character, colin m'cleod, of the same name with the family under whose roof we now were. dr johnson was much pleased with the laird of macleod, who is indeed a most promising youth, and with a noble spirit struggles with difficulties, and endeavours to preserve his people. he has been left with an incumbrance of forty thousand pounds debt, and annuities to the amount of thirteen hundred pounds a year. dr johnson said, 'if he gets the better of all this, he'll be a hero; and i hope he will. i have not met with a young man who had more desire to learn, or who has learnt more. i have seen nobody that i wish more to do a kindness to than macleod.' such was the honourable elogium, on this young chieftain, pronounced by an accurate observer, whose praise was never lightly bestowed. there is neither justice of peace, nor constable in rasay. sky has mr m'cleod of ulinish, who is the sheriff substitute, and no other justice of peace. the want of the execution of justice is much felt among the islanders. macleod very sensibly observed, that taking away the heritable jurisdictions had not been of such service in the islands, as was imagined. they had not authority enough in lieu of them. what could formerly have been settled at once, must now either take much time and trouble, or be neglected. dr johnson said, 'a country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose. now destroying the authority of the chiefs set the people loose. it did not pretend to bring any positive good, but only to cure some evil; and i am not well enough acquainted with the country to know what degree of evil the heritable jurisdictions occasioned.' i maintained hardly any; because the chiefs generally acted right, for their own sakes. dr johnson was now wishing to move. there was not enough of intellectual entertainment for him, after he had satisfyed his curiosity, which he did, by asking questions, till he had exhausted the island; and where there was so numerous a company, mostly young people, there was such a flow of familiar talk, so much noise, and so much singing and dancing, that little opportunity was left for his energetick conversation. he seemed sensible of this; for when i told him how happy they were at having him there, he said, 'yet we have not been able to entertain them much.' i was fretted, from irritability of nerves, by m'cruslick's too obstreperous mirth. i complained of it to my friend, observing we should be better if he was gone. 'no, sir,' said he. 'he puts something into our society, and takes nothing out of it.' dr johnson, however, had several opportunities of instructing the company; but i am sorry to say, that i did not pay sufficient attention to what passed, as his discourse now turned chiefly on mechanicks, agriculture and such subjects, rather than on science and wit. last night lady rasay shewed him the operation of wawking cloth, that is, thickening it in the same manner as is done by a mill. here it is performed by women, who kneel upon the ground, and rub it with both their hands, singing an erse song all the time. he was asking questions while they were performing this operation, and, amidst their loud and wild howl, his voice was heard even in the room above. they dance here every night. the queen of our ball was the eldest miss macleod, of rasay, an elegant well-bred woman, and celebrated for her beauty over all those regions, by the name of miss flora rasay. [footnote: she had been some time at edinburgh, to which she again went, and was married to my worthy neighbour, colonel mure campbell, now earl of loudoun; but she died soon afterwards, leaving one daughter.] there seemed to be no jealousy, no discontent among them; and the gaiety of the scene was such, that i for a moment doubted whether unhappiness had any place in rasay. but my delusion was soon dispelled, by recollecting the following lines of my fellow-traveller: yet hope not life from grief or danger free, nor think the doom of man revers'd for thee! sunday, th september it was a beautiful day, and although we did not approve of travelling on sunday, we resolved to set out, as we were in an island from whence one must take occasion as it serves. macleod and talisker sailed in a boat of rasay's for sconser, to take the shortest way to dunvegan. m'cruslick went with them to sconser, from whence he was to go to slate, and so to the main land. we were resolved to pay a visit at kingsburgh, and see the celebrated miss flora macdonald, who is married to the present mr macdonald of kingsburgh; so took that road, though not so near. all the family, but lady rasay, walked down to the shore to see us depart. rasay himself went with us in a large boat, with eight oars, built in his island; as did mr malcolm m'cleod, mr donald m'queen, dr macleod, and some others. we had a most pleasant sail between rasay and sky; and passed by a cave, where martin says fowls were caught by lighting fire in the mouth of it. malcolm remembers this. but it is not now practised, as few fowls come into it. we spoke of death. dr johnson on this subject observed, that the boastings of some men, as to dying easily, were idle talk, proceeding from partial views. i mentioned hawthornden's cypress grove, where it is said that the world is a mere show; and that it is unreasonable for a man to wish to continue in the show-room, after he has seen it. let him go cheerfully out, and give place to other spectators. johnson. 'yes, sir, if he is sure he is to be well, after he goes out of it. but if he is to grow blind after he goes out of the show-room, and never to see any thing again; or if he does not know whither he is to go next, a man will not go cheerfully out of a show-room. no wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to go into a state of punishment. nay, no wise man will be contented to die, if he thinks he is to fall into annihilation: for however unhappy any man's existence may be, he yet would rather have it, than not exist at all. no; there is no rational principle by which a man can die contented, but a trust in the mercy of god, through the merits of jesus christ.' this short sermon, delivered with an earnest tone, in a boat upon the sea, which was perfectly calm, on a day appropriated to religious worship, while every one listened with an air of satisfaction, had a most pleasing effect upon my mind. pursuing the same train of serious reflection, he added, that it seemed certain that happiness could not be found in this life, because so many had tried to find it, in such a variety of ways, and had not found it. we reached the harbour of portree, in sky, which is a large and good one. there was lying in it a vessel to carry off the emigrants, called the nestor. it made a short settlement of the differences between a chief and his clan: ... nestor componere lites inter peleiden festinat & inter atriden. we approached her, and she hoisted her colours. dr johnson and mr m'queen remained in the boat: rasay and i, and the rest went on board of her. she was a very pretty vessel, and, as we were told, the largest in clyde. mr harrison, the captain shewed her to us. the cabin was commodious, and even elegant. there was a little library, finely bound. portree has its name from king james the fifth having landed there in his tour through the western isles, ree in erse being king, as re is in italian; so it is port-royal. there was here a tolerable inn. on our landing, i had the pleasure of finding a letter from home; and there were also letters to dr johnson and me, from lord elibank, which had been sent after us from edinburgh. his lordship's letter to me was as follows: dear boswell, i flew to edinburgh the moment i heard of mr johnson's arrival; but so defective was my intelligence, that i came too late. it is but justice to believe, that i could never forgive myself, nor deserve to be forgiven by others, if i was to foil in any mark of respect to that very great genius.--i hold him in the highest veneration: for that very reason i was resolved to take no share in the merit, perhaps guilt, of inticing him to honour this country with a visit.--i could not persuade myself there was any thing in scotland worthy to have a summer of samuel johnson bestowed on it; but since he has done us that compliment, for heaven's sake inform me of your motions. i will attend them most religiously; and though i should regret to let mr johnson go a mile out of his way on my account, old as i am, i shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company. have the charity to send a council-post [footnote: a term in scotland for a special messenger, such as was formerly sent with dispatches by the lords of the council.] with intelligence; the post does not suit us in the country. at any rate write to me. i will attend you in the north, when i shall know where to find you. i am, my dear boswell, your sincerely obedient humble servant, elibank. august st, . the letter to dr johnson was in these words: dear sir, i was to have kissed your hands at edinburgh, the moment i heard of you; but you were gone. i hope my friend boswell will inform me of your motions. it will be cruel to deprive me an instant of the honour of attending you. as i value you more than any king in christendom, i will perform that duty with infinitely greater alacrity than any courtier. i can contribute but little to your entertainment; but, my sincere esteem for you gives me some tide to the opportunity of expressing it. i dare say you are by this time sensible that things are pretty much the same, as when buchanan complained of being born solo et seculo inerudito. let me hear of you, and be persuaded that none of your admirers is more sincerely devoted to you, than, dear sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant, elibank. dr johnson, on the following tuesday, answered for both of us, thus: my lord, on the rugged shore of skie, i had the honour of your lordship's letter, and can with great truth declare, that no place is so gloomy but that it would be cheered by such a testimony of regard, from a mind so well qualified to estimate characters, and to deal out approbation in its due proportions. if i have more than my share, it is your lordship's fault; for i have always reverenced your judgment too much, to exalt myself in your presence by any false pretensions. mr boswell and i are at present at the disposal of the winds, and therefore cannot fix the time at which we shall have the honour of seeing your lordship. but we should either of us think ourselves injured by the supposition that we would miss your lordship's conversation, when we could enjoy it; for i have often declared that i never met you without going away a wiser man. i am, my lord, your lordship's most obedient and most humble servant, sam. johnson. at portree, mr donald m'queen went to church and officiated in erse, and then came to dinner. dr johnson and i resolved that we should treat the company, so i played the landlord, or master of the feast, having previously ordered joseph to pay the bill. sir james macdonald intended to have built a village here, which would have done great good. a village is like a heart to a country. it produces a perpetual circulation, and gives the people an opportunity to make profit of many little articles, which would otherwise be in a good measure lost. we had here a dinner, et praeterea nihil. dr johnson did not talk. when we were about to depart, we found that rasay had been before-hand with us, and that all was paid: i would fain have contested this matter with him, but seeing him resolved, i declined it. we parted with cordial embraces from him and worthy malcolm. in the evening dr johnson and i remounted our horses, accompanied by mr m'queen and dr macleod. it rained very hard. we rode what they call six miles, upon rasay's lands in sky, to dr macleod's house. on the road dr johnson appeared to be somewhat out of spirits. when i talked of our meeting lord elibank, he said, 'i cannot be with him much. i long to be again in civilized life; but can stay but for a short while' (he meant at edinburgh). he said, 'let us go to dunvegan to-morrow.' 'yes,' said i, 'if it is not a deluge.' 'at any rate,' he replied. this shewed a kind of fretful impatience; nor was it to be wondered at, considering our disagreeable ride. i feared he would give up mull and icolmkill, for he said something of his apprehensions of being detained by bad weather in going to mull and iona. however i hoped well. we had a dish of tea at dr macleod's, who had a pretty good house, where was his brother, a half-pay officer. his lady was a polite, agreeable woman. dr johnson said, he was glad to see that he was so well married, for he had an esteem for physicians. the doctor accompanied us to kingsburgh, which is called a mile farther; but the computation of sky has no connection whatever with real distance. i was highly pleased to see dr johnson safely arrived at kingsburgh, and received by the hospitable mr macdonald, who, with a most respectful attention, supported him into the house. kingsburgh was completely the figure of a gallant highlander, exhibiting 'the graceful mien and manly looks', which our popular scotch song has justly attributed to that character. he had his tartan plaid thrown about him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribband like a cockade, a brown short coat of a kind of duffil, a tartan waistoat with gold buttons and gold button-holes, a bluish philibeg, and tartan hose. he had jet black hair tied behind, and was a large stately man, with a steady sensible countenance. there was a comfortable parlour with a good fire, and a dram went round. by and by supper was served, at which there appeared the lady of the house, the celebrated miss flora macdonald. she is a little woman, of a genteel appearance, and uncommonly mild and well bred. to see dr samuel johnson, the great champion of the english tories, salute miss flora macdonald in the isle of sky, was a striking sight; for though somewhat congenial in their notions, it was very improbable they should meet here. miss flora macdonald (for so i shall call her) told me, she heard upon the main land, as she was returning home about a fortnight before, that mr boswell was coming to sky, and one mr johnson, a young english buck, with him. he was highly entertained with this fancy. giving an account of the afternoon which we passed at anock, he said, 'i, being a buck, had miss in to make tea.' he was rather quiescent tonight, and went early to bed. i was in a cordial humour, and promoted a cheerful glass. the punch was excellent. honest mr m'queen observed that i was in high glee, 'my governour being gone to bed'. yet in reality my heart was grieved, when i recollected that kingsburgh was embarrassed in his affairs, and intended to go to america. however, nothing but what was good was present, and i pleased myself in thinking that so spirited a man should be well every where. i slept in the same room with dr johnson. each had a neat bed, with tartan curtains, in an upper chamber. monday, th september the room where we lay was a celebrated one. dr johnson's bed was the very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate king james the second [footnote: i do not call him the prince of wales, or the prince, because i am quite satisfied that the right which the house of stuart had to the throne is extinguished. i do not call him the pretender, because it appears to me as an insult to one who is still alive, and, i suppose, thinks very differently. it may be a parliamentary expression; but it is not a gentlemanly expression. i know, and i exult in having it in my power to tell, that the only person in the world who is intitled to be offended at this delicacy, thinks and feels as i do; and has liberality of mind and generosity of sentiment enough to approve of my tenderness for what even has been blood royal. that he is a prince by courtesy, cannot be denied; because his mother was the daughter of sobiesky, king of poland. i shall, therefore, on that account alone, distinguish him by the name of prince charles edward.] lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in - , while he was eluding the pursuit of the emissaries of government, which had offered thirty thousand pounds as a reward for apprehending him. to see dr samuel johnson lying in that bed, in the isle of sky, in the house of miss flora macdonald, struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through the mind. he smiled and said, 'i have had no ambitious thoughts in it.' [footnote: this perhaps, was said in allusion to some lines ascribed to pope, on his lying, at john duke of argyle's, at adderbury, in the same bed in which wilmot, earl of rochester, had slept. with no poetick ardour fir'd, i press the bed where wilmot lay. that here he liv'd; or here expir'd. begets no numbers, grave or gay.] the room was decorated with a great variety of maps and prints. among others, was hogarth's print of wilkes grinning, with the cap of liberty on a pole by him. that too was a curious circumstance in the scene this morning; such a contrast was wilkes to the above group. it reminded me of sir william chambers's account of oriental gardening, in which we are told all odd, strange, ugly, and even terrible objects, are introduced, for the sake of variety; a wild extravagance of taste which is so well ridiculed in the celebrated epistle to him. the following lines of that poem immediately occurred to me; here too, o king of vengeance! in thy fane, tremendous wilkes shall rattle his gold chain. upon the table in our room i found in the morning a slip of paper, on which dr johnson had written with his pencil these words: quantum cedat virtutibus aurum. [footnote: with virtue weigh'd, what worthless trash is gold!] what he meant by writing them i could not tell. [footnote: since the first edition of this book, an ingenious friend has observed to me, that dr johnson had probably been thinking on the reward which was offered by government for the apprehension of the grandson of king james ii and that he meant by these words to express his admiration of the highlanders, whose fidelity and attachment had resisted the golden temptation that had been held out to them.] he had caught cold a day or two ago, and the rain yesterday having made it worse, he was become very deaf. at breakfast he said, he would have given a good deal rather than not have lain in that bed. i owned he was the lucky man; and observed, that without doubt it had been contrived between mrs macdonald and him. she seemed to acquiesce; adding, 'you know young bucks are always favourites of the ladies.' he spoke of prince charles being here, and asked mrs macdonald, 'who was with him? we were told, madam, in england, there was one miss flora macdonald with him.' she said, 'they were very right'; and perceiving dr johnson's curiosity, though he had delicacy enough not to question her, very obligingly entertained him with a recital of the particulars which she herself knew of that escape, which does so much honour to the humanity, fidelity, and generosity, of the highlanders. dr johnson listened to her with placid attention, and said, 'all this should be written down.' from what she told us, and from what i was told by others personally concerned, and from a paper of information which rasay was so good as to send me, at my desire, i have compiled the following abstract, which, as it contains some curious anecdotes, will, i imagine not be uninteresting to my readers, and even, perhaps, be of some use to future historians. prince charles edward, after the battle of culloden, was conveyed to what is called the long island, where he lay for some time concealed. but intelligence having been obtained where he was, and a number of troops having come in quest of him, it became absolutely necessary for him to quit that country without delay. miss flora macdonald, then a young lady, animated by what she thought the sacred principle of loyalty, offered, with the magnanimity of a heroine, to accompany him in an open boat to sky, though the coast they were to quit was guarded by ships. he dressed himself in women's clothes, and passed as her supposed maid, by the name of betty bourke, an irish girl. they got off undiscovered, though several shots were fired to bring them to, and landed at mugstot, the seat of sir alexander macdonald. sir alexander was then at fort augustus, with the duke of cumberland; but his lady was at home. prince charles took his post upon a hill near the house. flora macdonald waited on lady margaret, and acquainted her of the enterprise in which she was engaged. her ladyship, whose active benevolence was ever seconded by superior talents, shewed a perfect presence of mind, and readiness of invention, and at once settled that prince charles should be conducted to old rasay, who was himself concealed with some select friends. the plan was instantly communicated to kingsburgh, who was dispatched to the hill to inform the wanderer, and carry him refreshments. when kingsburgh approached, he started up, and advanced, holding a large knotted stick, and in appearance ready to knock him down, till he said, 'i am macdonald of kingsburgh, come to serve your highness.' the wanderer answered, 'it is well,' and was satisfied with the plan. flora macdonald dined with lady margaret, at whose table there sat an officer of the army, stationed here with a party of soldiers, to watch for prince charles in case of his flying to the isle of sky. she afterwards often laughed in good humour with this gentleman, on her having so well deceived him. after dinner, flora macdonald on horseback, and her supposed maid, and kingsburgh, with a servant carrying some linen, all on foot, proceeded towards that gentleman's house. upon the road was a small rivulet which they were obliged to cross. the wanderer, forgetting his assumed sex, that his clothes might not be wet, held them up a great deal too high. kingsburgh mentioned this to him, observing, it might make a discovery. he said he would be more careful for the future. he was as good as his word; for the next brook they crossed, he did not hold up his clothes at all, but let them float upon the water. he was very awkward in his female dress. his size was so large, and his strides so great, that some women whom they met reported that they had seen a very big woman, who looked like a man in woman's clothes, and that perhaps it was (as they expressed themselves) the prince, after whom so much search was making. at kingsburgh he met with a most cordial reception; seemed gay at supper, and after it indulged himself in a cheerful glass with his worthy host. as he had not had his clothes off for a long time, the comfort of a good bed was highly relished by him, and he slept soundly till next day at one o'clock. the mistress of corrichatachin told me, that in the forenoon she went into her father's room, who was also in bed, and suggested to him her apprehensions that a party of the military might come up, and that his guest had better not remain here too long. her father said, 'let the poor man repose himself after his fatigues; and as for me, i care not, though they take off this old grey head ten or eleven years sooner than i should die in the course of nature.' he then wrapped himself in the bed-clothes, and again fell fast asleep. on the afternoon of that day, the wanderer, still in the same dress, set out for portree, with flora macdonald and a man servant. his shoes being very bad, kingsburgh provided him with a new pair, and taking up the old ones, said, 'i will faithfully keep them till you are safely settled at st james's. i will then introduce myself by shaking them at you, to put you in mind of your night's entertainment and protection under my roof.' he smiled, and said, 'be as good as your word!' kingsburgh kept the shoes as long as he lived. after his death, a zealous jacobite gentleman gave twenty guineas for them. old mrs macdonald, after her guest had left the house, took the sheets in which he had lain, folded them carefully, and charged her daughter that they should be kept unwashed, and that, when she died, her body should be wrapped in them as a winding sheet. her will was religiously observed. upon the road to portree, prince charles changed his dress, and put on man's clothes again; a tartan short coat and a waistcoat, with philibeg and short hose, a plaid, and a wig and bonnet. mr donald m'donald, called donald roy, had been sent express to the present rasay, then the young laird, who was at that time at his sister's house, about three miles from portree, attending his brother, dr macleod, who was recovering of a wound he had received at the battle of culloden. mr m'donald communicated to young rasay the plan of conveying the wanderer to where old rasay was; but was told that old rasay had fled to knoidart, a part of glengary's estate. there was then a dilemma what should be done. donald roy proposed that he should conduct the wanderer to the main land; but young rasay thought it too dangerous at that time, and said it would be better to conceal him in the island of rasay, till old rasay could be informed where he was, and give his advice what was best. but the difficulty was, how to get him to rasay. they could not trust a portree crew, and all the rasay boats had been destroyed, or carried off by the military except two belonging to malcolm m'leod, which he had concealed somewhere. dr macleod being informed of this difficulty, said he would risk his life once more for prince charles; and it having occurred, that there was a little boat upon a fresh water lake in the neighbourhood, young rasay and dr macleod, with the help of some women, brought it to the sea, by extraordinary exertion, across a highland mile of land, one half of which was bog, and the other a steep precipice. these gallant brothers, with the assistance of one little boy, rowed the small boat to rasay, where they were to endeavour to find captain m'leod, as malcolm was then called, and get one of his good boats, with which they might return to portree, and receive the wanderer; or, in case of not finding him, they were to make the small boat serve, though the danger was considerable. fortunately, on their first landing, they found their cousin malcolm, who, with the utmost alacrity, got ready one of his boats, with two strong men. john m'kenzie, and donald m'friar. malcolm, being the oldest man, and most cautious, said, that as young rasay had not hitherto appeared in the unfortunate business, he ought not to run any risk; but that dr macleod and himself, who were already publickly engaged, should go on this expedition. young rasay answered, with an oath, that he would go, at the risk of his life and fortune. 'in god's name then,' said malcolm, 'let us proceed.' the two boatmen, however, now stopped short, till they should be informed of their destination; and m'kenzie declared he would not move an oar till he knew where they were going. upon which they were both sworn to secrecy; and the business being imparted to them, they were eager to put off to sea without loss of time. the boat soon landed about half a mile from the inn at portree. all this was negotiated before the wanderer got forward to portree. malcolm m'leod, and m'friar, were dispatched to look for him. in a short time he appeared, and went into the publick house. here donald roy, whom he had seen at mugstot, received him, and informed him of what had been concerted. he wanted silver for a guinea, but the landlord had only thirteen shillings. he was going to accept of this for his guinea; but donald roy very judiciously observed, that it would discover him to be some great man; so he desisted. he slipped out of the house, leaving his fair protectress, whom he never again saw; and malcolm macleod was presented to him by donald roy, as a captain in his army. young rasay and dr macleod had waited, in impatient anxiety, in the boat. when he came, their names were announced to him. he would not permit the usual ceremonies of respect, but saluted them as his equals. donald roy staid in sky, to be in readiness to get intelligence, and give an alarm in case the troops should discover the retreat to rasay; and prince charles was then conveyed in a boat to that island in the night. he slept a little upon the passage, and they landed about day-break. there was some difficulty in accommodating him with a lodging, as almost all the houses in the island had been burnt by soldiery. they repaired to a little hut, which some shepherds had lately built, and having prepared it as well as they could, and made a bed of heath for the stranger, they kindled a fire, and partook of some provisions which had been sent with him from kingsburgh. it was observed, that he would not taste wheat-bread, or brandy, while oat-bread and whisky lasted; 'for these,' said he, 'are my own country's bread and drink'. this was very engaging to the highlanders. young rasay being the only person of the company that durst appear with safety, he went in quest of something fresh for them to eat; but though he was amidst his own cows, sheep, and goats, he could not venture to take any of them for fear of a discovery, but was obliged to supply himself by stealth. he therefore caught a kid, and brought it to the hut in his plaid, and it was killed and drest, and furnished them a meal which they relished much. the distressed wanderer, whose health was now a good deal impaired by hunger, fatigue, and watching, slept a long time, but seemed to be frequently disturbed. malcolm told me he would start from broken slumbers, and speak to himself in different languages, french, italian, and english. i must however acknowledge, that it is highly probable that my worthy friend malcolm did not know precisely the difference between french and italian. one of his expressions in english was, 'o god! poor scotland!' while they were in the hut, m'kenzie and m'friar, the two boatmen, were placed as sentinels upon different eminences; and one day an incident happened, which must not be omitted. there was a man wandering about the island, selling tobacco. nobody knew him, and he was suspected to be a spy. m'kenzie came running to the hut, and told that this suspected person was approaching. upon which the three gentlemen, young rasay, dr macleod, and malcom, held a council of war upon him, and were unanimously of opinion that he should instantly be put to death. prince charles, at once assuming a grave and even severe countenance, said, 'god forbid that we should take away a man's life, who may be innocent, while we can preserve our own.' the gentlemen however persisted in their resolution, while he as strenuously continued to take the merciful side. john m'kenzie, who sat watching at the door of the hut, and overheard the debate, said in erse, 'well, well; he must be shot. you are the king, but we are the parliament, and will do what we choose.' prince charles, seeing the gentlemen smile, asked what the man had said, and being told it in english, he observed that he was a clever fellow, and, notwithstanding the perilous situation in which he was, laughed loud and heartily. luckily the unknown person did not perceive that there were people in the hut, at least did not come to it, but walked on past it, unknowing of his risk. it was afterwards found out that he was one of the highland army, who was himself in danger. had he come to them, they were resolved to dispatch him; for, as malcolm said to me, 'we could not keep him with us, and we durst not let him go. in such a situation, i would have shot my brother, if i had not been sure of him.' john m'kenzie was at rasay's house, when we were there.[footnote: this old scottish member of parliament, i am informed, is still living ( ).] about eighteen years before, he hurt one of his legs when dancing, and being obliged to have it cut off, he now was going about with a wooden leg. the story of his being a member of parliament is not yet forgotten. i took him out a little way from the house, gave him a shilling to drink rasay's health, and led him into a detail of the particulars which i have just related. with less foundation, some writers have traced the idea of a parliament, and of the british constitution, in rude and early times. i was curious to know if he had really heard, or understood, any thing of that subject, which, had he been a greater man, would probably have been eagerly maintained. 'why, john,' said i, 'did you think the king should be controuled by a parliament?' he answered, 'i thought, sir, there were many voices against one.' the conversation then turning on the times, the wanderer said, that to be sure, the life he had led of late was a very hard one; but he would rather live in the way he now did, for ten years, than fall into the hands of his enemies. the gentlemen asked him, what he thought his enemies would do with him, should he have the misfortune to fall into their hands. he said, he did not believe they would dare to take his life publickly, but he dreaded being privately destroyed by poison or assassination. he was very particular in his inquiries about the wound which dr macleod had received at the battle of culloden, from a ball which entered at one shoulder, and went cross to the other. the doctor happened still to have on the coat which he wore on that occasion. he mentioned, that he himself had his horse shot under him at culloden; that the ball hit the horse about two inches from his knee, and made him so unruly that he was obliged to change him for another. he threw out some reflections on the conduct of the disastrous affair at culloden, saying, however, that perhaps it was rash in him to do so. i am now convinced that his suspicions were groundless; for i have had a good deal of conversation upon the subject with my very worthy and ingenious friend, mr andrew lumisden, who was under secretary to prince charles, and afterwards principal secretary to his father at rome, who, he assured me, was perfectly satisfied both of the abilities and honour of the generals who commanded the highland army on that occasion. mr lumisden has written an account of the three battles in - , at once accurate and classical. talking of the different highland corps, the gentlemen who were present wished to have his opinion which were the best soldiers. he said, he did not like comparisons among those corps: they were all best. he told his conductors, he did not think it advisable to remain long in any one place; and that he expected a french ship to come for him to lochbroom, among the mackenzies. it then was proposed to carry him in one of malcolm's boats to lochbroom, though the distance was fifteen leagues coastwise. but he thought this would be too dangerous, and desired that at any rate, they might first endeavour to obtain intelligence. upon which young rasay wrote to his friend, mr m'kenzie of applecross, but received an answer, that there was no appearance of any french ship. it was therefore resolved that they should return to sky, which they did, and landed in strath, where they reposed in a cow-house belonging to mr niccolson of scorbreck. the sea was very rough, and the boat took in a good deal of water. the wanderer asked if there was danger, as he was not used to such a vessel. upon being told there was not, he sung an erse song with much vivacity. he had by this time acquired a good deal of the erse language. young rasay was now dispatched to where donald roy was, that they might get all the intelligence they could; and the wanderer, with much earnestness, charged dr macleod to have a boat ready, at a certain place about seven miles off, as he said he intended it should carry him upon a matter of great consequence; and gave the doctor a case, containing a silver spoon, knife, and fork, saying, 'keep you that till i see you', which the doctor understood to be two days from that time. but all these orders were only blinds; for he had another plan in his head, but wisely thought it safest to trust his secrets to no more persons than was absolutely necessary. having then desired malcolm to walk with him a little way from the house, he soon opened his mind, saying, 'i deliver myself to you. conduct me to the laird of m'kinnon's country.' malcolm objected that it was very dangerous, as so many parties of soldiers were in motion. he answered. 'there is nothing now to be done without danger.' he then said, that malcolm must be the master, and he the servant; so he took the bag, in which his linen was put up, and carried it on his shoulder; and observing that his waistcoat, which was of scarlet tartan, with a gold twist button, was finer than malcolm's, which was of a plain ordinary tartan, he put on malcolm's waistcoat, and gave him his; remarking at the same time, that it did not look well that the servant should be better dressed than the master. malcolm, though an excellent walker, found himself excelled by prince charles, who told him, he should not much mind the parties that were looking for him, were he once but a musquet shot from them; but that he was somewhat afraid of the highlanders who were against him. he was well used to walking in italy, in pursuit of game; and he was even now so keen a sportsman, that, having observed some partridges, he was going to take a shot; but malcolm cautioned him against it, observing that the firing might be heard by the tenders who were hovering upon the coast. as they proceeded through the mountains, taking many a circuit to avoid any houses, malcolm, to try his resolution, asked him what they should do, should they fall in with a party of soldiers: he answered. 'fight to be sure!' having asked malcolm if he should be known in his present dress, and malcolm having replied he would, he said, 'then i'll blacken my face with powder.' 'that,' said malcolm, 'would discover you at once.' 'then,' said he, 'i must be put in the greatest dishabille possible.' so he pulled off his wig, tied a handkerchief round his head, and put his night-cap over it, tore the ruffles from his shirt, took the buckles out of his shoes, and made malcolm fasten them with strings; but still malcolm thought he would be known. 'i have so odd a face,' said he, 'that no man ever saw me but he would know me again.' he seemed unwilling to give credit to the horrid narrative of men being massacred in cold blood, after victory had declared for the army commanded by the duke of cumberland. he could not allow himself to think that a general could be so barbarous. when they came within two miles of m'kinnon's house, malcolm asked if he chose to see the laird. 'no,' said he, 'by no means. i know m'kinnon to be as good and as honest a man as any in the world, but he is not fit for my purpose at present. you must conduct me to some other house; but let it be a gentleman's house.' malcolm then determined that they should go to the house of his brother-in-law, mr john m'kinnon, and from thence be conveyed to the main land of scotland, and claim the assistance of macdonald of scothouse. the wanderer at first objected to this, because scothouse was cousin to a person of whom he had suspicions. but he acquiesced in malcolm's opinion. when they were near mr john m'kinnon's house, they met a man of the name of ross, who had been a private soldier in the highland army. he fixed his eyes steadily on the wanderer in his disguise, and having at once recognized him, he clapped his hands, and exclaimed, 'alas! is this the case?' finding that there was now a discovery, malcolm asked, 'what's to be done?' 'swear him to secrecy,' answered prince charles. upon which malcolm drew his dirk, and on the naked blade, made him take a solemn oath, that he would say nothing of his having seen the wanderer, till his escape should be made publick. malcolm's sister, whose house they reached pretty early in the morning, asked him who the person was that was along with him. he said it was one lewis caw, from crieff, who being a fugitive like himself, for the same reason, he had engaged him as his servant, but that he had fallen sick. 'poor man!' said she, 'i pity him. at the same time my heart warms to a man of his appearance.' her husband was gone a little way from home; but was expected every minute to return. she set down to her brother a plentiful highland breakfast. prince charles acted the servant very well, sitting at a respectful distance, with his bonnet off. malcolm then said to him, 'mr caw, you have as much need of this as i have; there is enough for us both: you had better draw nearer and share with me.' upon which he rose, made a profound bow, sat down at table with his supposed master, and eat very heartily. after this there came in an old woman, who, after the mode of ancient hospitality, brought warm water, and washed malcolm's feet. he desired her to wash the feet of the poor man who attended him. she at first seemed averse to this, from pride, as thinking him beneath her, and in the periphrastick language of the highlanders and the irish, said warmly, 'though i wash your father's son's feet, why should i wash his father's son's feet?' she was however persuaded to do it. they then went to bed, and slept for some time; and when malcolm awaked, he was told that mr john m'kinnon, his brother-in-law, was in sight. he sprang out to talk to him before he shoulld see prince charles. after saluting him, malcolm, pointing to the sea, said, 'what, john, if the prince should be prisoner on board one of those tenders?' 'god forbid!' replied john. 'what if we had him here?' said malcolm. 'i wish we had,' answered john; 'we should take care of him.' 'well, john,' said malcolm, 'he is in your house.' john, in a transport of joy, wanted to run directly in, and pay his obeisance; but malcolm stopped him, saying, 'now is your time to behave well, and do nothing that can discover him.' john composed himself, and having sent away all his servants upon different errands, he was introduced into the presence of his guest, and was then desired to go and get ready a boat lying near his house, which, though but a small leaky one, they resolved to take, rather than go to the laird of m'kinnon. john m'kinnon, however, thought otherwise; and upon his return told them, that his chief and lady m'kinnon were coming in the laird's boat. prince charles said to his trusty malcolm. 'i am sorry for this, but must make the best of it.' m'kinnon then walked up from the shore, and did homage to the wanderer. his lady waited in a cave, to which they all repaired, and were entertained with cold meat and wine. mr malcolm m'leod being now superseded by the laird of m'kinnon, desired leave to return, which was granted him, and prince charles wrote a short note, which he subscribed 'james thompson', informing his friends that he had got away from sky, and thanking them for their kindness; and he desired this might be speedily conveyed to young rasay and dr macleod, that they might not wait longer in expectation of seeing him again. he bade a cordial adieu to malcolm, and insisted on his accepting of a silver stock-buckle, and ten guineas from his purse, though, as malcolm told me, it did not appear to contain above forty. malcolm at first begged to be excused, saying, that he had a few guineas at his service; but prince charles answered, 'you will have need of money. i shall get enough when i come upon the main land.' the laird of m'kinnon then conveyed him to the opposite coast of knoidart. old rasay, to whom intelligence had been sent, was crossing at the same time to sky; but as they did not know of each other, and each had apprehensions, the two boats kept aloof. these are the particulars which i have collected concerning the extraordinary concealment and escapes of prince charles, in the hebrides. he was often in imminent danger. the troops traced him from the long island, across sky, to portree, but there lost him. here i stop, having received no farther authentic information of his fatigues and perils before he escaped to france. kings and subjects may both take a lesson of moderation from the melancholy fate of the house of stuart; that kings may not suffer degradation and exile, and subjects may not be harrassed by the evils of a disputed succession. let me close the scene on that unfortunate house with the elegant and pathetick reflections of voltaire, in his histoire generale. 'que les hommes prives,' says that brilliant writer, speaking of prince charles, 'qui se croyent malheureux, jettent les yeux sur ce prince et ses ancetres.' in another place he thus sums up the sad story of the family in general: ii n'y a aucun exemple dans l'histoire d'une maison si longtems infortunee. le premier des rois d'ecosse, qui eut le nom de jacques, apres avoir ete dix-huit ans prisonnier en angleterre, mourut assassine, avec sa femme, par la main de ses sujets. jacques ii, son fils, fut tue a vingt-neuf ans en combattant centre les anglois. jacques iii, mis en prison par son peuple, fut tue ensuite par les revoltes, dans une battaille. jacques iv perit dans un combat qu'il perdit. marie stuart, sa petite fille, chassee, de son trone, fugitive en angleterre, ayant langui dix-huit ans en prison, se vit condamnee a mort par des juges anglais, et eut la tete tranchee. charles i, petit fils de marie, roi d'ecosse et d'angleterre, vendu par les ecossois, et juge a mort par les anglais, mourut sur un echauffaut dans la place publique. jacques, son fils, septieme du nom, et deuxieme en angleterre, fut chasse de ses trois royaumes; et pour comble de malheur on contesta a son fils sa naissance; le fils ne tenta de remonter sur le trone de ces peres, que pour faire perir ses amis par des bourreaux; et nous avons vu le prince charles edouard, reunuissant en vain les vertus de ses peres, et le courage du roy jean sobieski, son ayeul maternel, executer les exploits et essuyer les malheurs les plus incroyables. si quelque chose justifie ceux qui croyent une fatalite a laquelle rien ne peut se soustraire, c'est cette suite continuelle de malheurs qui a persecute la maison de stuart, pendant plus de trois-cent annees. the gallant malcolm was apprehended in about ten days after they separated, put aboard a ship and carried prisoner to london. he said, the prisoners in general were very ill treated in their passage; but there were soldiers on board who lived well, and sometimes invited him to share with them: that he had the good fortune not to be thrown into jail, but was confined in the house of a messenger, of the name of dick. to his astonishment, only one witness could be found against him, though he had been so openly engaged; and therefore, for want of sufficient evidence, he was set at liberty. he added, that he thought himself in such danger, that he would gladly have compounded for banishment. yet, he said, he should never be so ready for death as he then was. there is philosophical truth in this. a man will meet death much more firmly at one time than another. the enthusiasm even of a mistaken principle warms the mind, and sets it above the fear of death; which in our cooler moments, if we really think of it, cannot but be terrible, or at least very awful. miss flora macdonald being then also in london, under the protection of lady primrose, that lady provided a post-chaise to convey her to scotland, and desired she might choose any friend she pleased to accompany her. she chose malcolm. 'so,' said he, with a triumphant air, 'i went to london to be hanged, and returned in a post-chaise with miss flora macdonald.' mr macleod of muiravenside, whom we saw at rasay, assured us that prince charles was in london in , and that there was then a plan in agitation for restoring his family. dr johnson could scarcely credit this story, and said, there could be no probable plan at that time. such an attempt could not have succeeded, unless the king of prussia had stopped the army in germany; for both the army and the fleet would, even without orders, have fought for the king, to whom they had engaged themselves. having related so many particulars concerning the grandson of the unfortunate king james the second; having given due praise to fidelity and generous attachment, which, however erroneous the judgement may be, are honourable for the heart; i must do the highlanders the justice to attest, that i found every where amongst them a high opinion of the virtues of the king now upon the throne, and an honest disposition to be faithful subjects to his majesty, whose family had possessed the sovereignty of this country so long, that a change, even for the abdicated family, would now hurt the best feelings of all his subjects. the abstract point of right would involve us in a discussion of remote and perplexed questions; and after all, we should have no clear principle of decision. that establishment, which, from political necessity, took place in , by a breach in the succession of our kings, and which, whatever benefits may have accrued from it, certainly gave a shock to our monarchy, the able and constitutional blackstone, wisely rests on the solid footing of authority: 'our ancestors having most indisputably a competent jurisdiction to decide this great and important question, and having, in fact decided it, it is now become our duty, at this distance of time, to acquiesce in their determination.' [footnote: commentaries on the laws of england, book i. chap. .] mr paley, the present archdeacon of carlisle, in his principles of moral and political philosophy, having, with much clearness of argument, shewn the duty of submission to civil government to be founded neither on an indefeasible jus divinum, nor on compact, but on expediancy, lays down this rational position: irregularity in the first foundation of a state, or subsequent violence, fraud, or injustice, in getting possession of the supreme power, are not sufficient reasons for resistance, after the government is once peaceably settled. no subject of the british empire conceives himself engaged to vindicate the justice of the norman claim or conquest, or apprehends that his duty in any manner depends upon that controversy. so likewise, if the house of lancaster, or even the posterity of cromwell, had been at this day seated upon the throne of england, we should have been as little concerned to enquire how the founder of the family came there. [footnote: book vi. chap. . since i have quoted mr archdeacon paley upon one subject, i cannot but transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the christian revelation. after shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the indirect attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian', the archdeacon thus expresses himself: 'seriousness is not constraint of thought; nor levity, freedom. every mind which wishes the advancement of truth and knowledge, in the most important of all human researches, must abhor this licentiousness, as violating no less the laws of reasoning than the rights of decency. there is but one description of men to whose principles it ought to be tolerable. i mean that class of reasoners who can see little in christianity even supposing it to be true. to such adversaries we address this reflection. had jesus christ delivered no other declaration than the following, "the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, --they that have done well unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation," he had pronounced a message of inestimable importance, and well worthy of that splendid apparatus of prophecy and miracles with which his mission was introduced and attested--a message in which the wisest of mankind would rejoice to find an answer to their doubts, and rest to their inquiries. it is idle to say that a future state had been discovered already. it had been discovered as the copernican system was; it was one guess amongst many. he alone discovers who proves; and no man can prove this point but the teacher who testifies by miracles that his doctrine comes from god' (book v. chap. ). if infidelity be disingenuously dispersed in every shape that is likely to allure, surprise, or beguile the imagination--in a fable, a tale, a novel, a poem, in books of travels, of philosophy, of natural history, as mr paley has well observed--i hope it is fair in me thus to meet such poison with an unexpected antidote, which i cannot doubt will be found powerful.] in conformity with this doctrine, i myself, though fully persuaded that the house of stuart had originally no right to the crown of scotland; for that baliol, and not bruce, was the lawful heir; should yet have thought it very culpable to have rebelled, on that account, against charles the first, or even a prince of that house much nearer the time, in order to assert the claim of the posterity of baliol. however convinced i am of the justice of that principle, which holds allegiance and protection to be reciprocal, i do however acknowledge, that i am not satisfied with the cold sentiment which would confine the exertions of the subject within the strict line of duty. i would have every breast animated with the fervour of loyalty; with that generous attachment which delights in doing somewhat more than is required, and makes 'service perfect freedom'. and, therefore, as our most gracious sovereign, on his accession to the throne, gloried in being born a briton; so, in my more private sphere, ego me nunc denique natum gratulor. i am happy that a disputed succession no longer distracts our minds; and that a monarchy, established by law, is now so sanctioned by time, that we can fully indulge those feelings of loyalty which i am ambitious to excite. they are feelings which have ever actuated the inhabitants of the highlands and the hebrides. the plant of loyalty is there in full vigour, and the brunswick graft now flourishes like a native shoot. to that spirited race of people i may with propriety apply the elegant lines of a modern poet, on the 'facile temper of the beauteous sex': like birds new-caught, who flutter for a time. and struggle with captivity in vain; but by-and-by they rest, they smooth their plumes. and to new masters sing their former notes. [footnote: agis, a tragedy, by john home.] surely such notes are much better than the querulous growlings of suspicious whigs and discontented republicans. kingsburgh conducted us in his boat, across one of the lochs, as they call them, or arms of the sea, which flow in upon all the coasts of sky, to a mile beyond a place called grishinish. our horses had been sent round by land to meet us. by this sail we saved eight miles of bad riding. dr johnson said, 'when we take into the computation what we have saved, and what we have gained, by this agreeable sail, it is a great deal.' he observed, 'it is very disagreeable riding in sky. the way is so narrow, one only at a time can travel, so it is quite unsocial; and you cannot indulge in meditation by yourself, because you must be always attending to the steps which your horse takes.' this was a just and clear description of its inconveniencies. the topick of emigration being again introduced, dr johnson said, that 'a rapacious chief would make a wilderness of his estate'. mr donald m'queen told us, that the oppression, which then made so much noise, was owing to landlords listening to bad advice in the letting of their lands; that interested and designed people flattered them with golden dreams of much higher rents than could reasonably be paid; and that some of the gentlemen tacksmen, or upper tenants, were themselves in part the occasion of the mischief, by over-rating the farms of others. that many of the tacksmen, rather than comply with exorbitant demands, had gone off to america, and impoverished the country, by draining it of its wealth; and that their places were filled by a number of poor people, who had lived under them, properly speaking, as servants, paid by a certain proportion of the produce of the lands, though called sub-tenants. i observed, that if the men of substance were once banished from a highland estate, it might probably be greatly reduced in its value; for one bad year might ruin a set of poor tenants, and men of any property would not settle in such a country, unless from the temptation of getting land extremely cheap; for an inhabitant of any good county in britain, had better go to america than to the highlands or the hebrides. here, therefore was a consideration that ought to induce a chief to act a more liberal part, from a mere motive of interest, independent of the lofty and honourable principle of keeping a clan together, to be in readiness to serve his king. i added, that i could not help thinking a little arbitrary power in the sovereign, to control the bad policy and greediness of the chiefs, might sometimes be of service. in france a chief would not be permitted to force a number of the king's subjects out of the country. dr johnson concurred with me, observing, that 'were an oppressive chieftain a subject of the french king, he would probably be admonished by a letter'. during our sail, dr johnson asked about the use of the dirk, with which he imagined the highlanders cut their meat. he was told, they had a knife and fork besides, to eat with. he asked, how did the women do? and was answered, some of them had a knife and fork too; but in general the men, when they had cut their meat, handed their knives and forks to the women, and they themselves eat with their fingers. the old tutor of macdonald always eat fish with his fingers, alledging that a knife and fork gave it a bad taste. i took the liberty to observe to dr johnson, that he did so. 'yes,' said he; 'but it is because i am short-sighted, and afraid of bones, for which reason i am not fond of eating many kinds of fish, because i must use my fingers.' dr m'pherson's dissertations on scottish antiquities, which he had looked at when at corrichatachin, being mentioned, he remarked, that 'you might read half an hour, and ask yourself what you had been reading: there were so many words to so little matter, that there was no getting through the book'. as soon as we reached the shore, we took leave of kingsburgh, and mounted our horses. we passed through a wild moor, in many places so soft that we were obliged to walk, which was very fatiguing to dr johnson. once he had advanced on horseback to a very bad step. there was a steep declivity on his left, to which he was so near, that there was not room for him to dismount in the usual way. he tried to alight on the other side, as if he had been a 'young buck' indeed, but in the attempt he fell at his length upon the ground; from which, however, he got up immediately without being hurt. during this dreary ride, we were sometimes relieved by a view of branches of the sea, that universal medium of connection amongst mankind. a guide, who had been sent with us from kingsburgh, explored the way (much in the same manner as, i suppose, is pursued in the wilds of america) by observing certain marks known only to the inhabitants. we arrived at dunvegan late in the afternoon. the great size of the castle, which is partly old and partly new, and is built upon a rock close to the sea, while the land around it presents nothing but wild, moorish, hilly, and craggy appearances, gave a rude magnificence to the scene. having dismounted, we ascended a flight of steps, which was made by the late macleod, for the accomodation of persons coming to him by land, there formerly being, for security, no other access to the castle but from the sea; so that visitors who came by the land were under the necessity of getting into a boat, and sailed round to the only place where it could be approached. we were introduced into a stately dining-room, and received by lady macleod, mother of the laird, who, with his friend talisker, having been detained on the road, did not arrive till some time after us. we found the lady of the house a very polite and sensible woman, who had lived for some time in london, and had there been in dr johnson's company. after we had dined, we repaired to the drawing-room, where some of the young ladies of the family, with their mother, were at tea. this room had formerly been the bed-chamber of sir roderick macleod, one of the old lairds; and he chose it, because, behind it, there was a considerable cascade, the sound of which disposed him to sleep. above his bed was this inscription: sir rorie m'leod of dunvegan, knight. god send good rest! rorie is the contraction of roderick. he was called rorie more, that is, great rorie, not from his size, but from his spirit. our entertainment here was in so elegant a style, and reminded my fellow-traveller so much of england, that he became quite joyous. he laughed, and said, 'boswell, we came in at the wrong end of this island.' 'sir,' said i, 'it was best to keep this for the last.' he answered, 'i would have it both first and last.' tuesday, th september dr johnson said in the morning, 'is not this a fine lady?' there was not a word now of his 'impatience to be in civilized life'; though indeed i should beg pardon--he found it here. we had slept well, and lain long. after breakfast we surveyed the castle, and the garden. mr bethune, the parish minister, magnus m'leod, of claggan, brother to talisker, and m'leod, of bay, two substantial gentlemen of the clan, dined with us. we had admirable venison, generous wine; in a word, all that a good table has. this was really the hall of a chief. lady m'leod had been much obliged to my father, who had settled by arbitration, a variety of perplexed claims between her and her relation, the laird of brodie, which she now repaid by particular attention to me. m'leod started the subject of making women do penance in the church for fornication. johnson. 'it is right, sir. infamy is attached to the crime, by universal opinion, as soon as it is known. i would not be the man who would discover it, if i alone knew it, for a woman may reform; nor would i commend a parson who divulges a woman's first offence; but being once divulged, it ought to be infamous. consider, of what importance to society the chastity of women is. upon that all the property in the world depends. we hang a thief for stealing a sheep; but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep, and farm and all, from the right owner. i have much more reverence for a common prostitute than for a woman who conceals her guilt. the prostitute is known. she cannot deceive: she cannot bring a strumpet into the arms of an honest man, without his knowledge.' boswell. 'there is, however, a great difference between the licentiousness of a single woman, and that of a married woman.' johnson. 'yes, sir; there is a great difference between stealing a shilling, and stealing a thousand pounds; between simply taking a man's purse, and murdering him first, and then taking it. but when one begins to be vicious, it is easy to go on. where single women are licentious, you rarely find faithful married women.' boswell. 'and yet we are told that in some nations in india, the distinction is strictly observed.' johnson. 'nay, don't give us india. that puts me in mind of montesquieu, who is really a fellow of genius too in many respects; whenever he wants to support a strange opinion, he quotes you the practice of japan or of some other distant country, of which he knows nothing. to support polygamy, he tells you of the island of formosa, where there are ten women born for one man. he had but to suppose another island, where there are ten men born for one woman, and so make a marriage between them.' [footnote: what my friend treated as so wild a supposition, has actually happened in the western islands of scotland, if we may believe martin, who tells it of the islands of col and tyr-yi, and says that it is proved by the parish registers.] at supper, lady macleod mentioned dr cadogan's book on the gout. johnson. 'it is a good book in general, but a foolish one in particulars. it is good in general, as recommending temperance and exercise, and cheerfulness. in that respect it is only dr cheyne's book told in a new way; and there should come out such a book every thirty years, dressed in the mode of the times. it is foolish, in maintaining that the gout is not hereditary, and that one fit of it, when gone, is like a fever when gone.' lady macleod objected that the author does not practice what he teaches. [footnote: this was a general reflection against dr cadogan, when his very popular book was first published. it was said, that whatever precepts he might give to others, he himself indulged freely in the bottle. but i have since had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him, and, if his own testimony may be believed (and i have never heard it impeached), his course of life, has been conformable to his doctrine.] johnson. 'i cannot help that, madam. that does not make his book the worse. people are influenced more by what a man says, if his practice is suitable to it, because they are blockheads. the more intellectual people are, the readier will they attend to what a man tells them. if it is just, they will follow it, be his practice what it will. no man practises so well as he writes. i have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet i tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good. only consider! you read a book; you are convinced by it; you do not know the authour. suppose you afterwards know him, and find that he does not practice what he teaches; are you to give up your former conviction at this rate you would be kept in a state of equilibrium, when reading every book, till you knew how the authour practised.' 'but,' said lady m'leod, 'you would think better of dr cadogan, if he acted according to his principles.' johnson. 'why, madam, to be sure, a man who acts in the face of light, is worse than a man who does not know so much; yet i think no man should be the worse thought of for publishing good principles. there is something noble in publishing truth, though it condemns one's self.' i expressed some surprize at cadogan's recommending good humour, as if it were quite in our power to attain it. johnson. 'why, sir, a man grows better humoured as he grows older. he improves by experience. when young, he thinks himself of great consequence, and every thing of importance. as he advances in life, he learns to think himself of no consequence, and little things of little importance; and so he becomes more patient, and better pleased. all good humour and complaisance are acquired. naturally a child seizes directly what it sees, and thinks of pleasing itself only. by degrees, it is taught to please others, and to prefer others; and that this will ultimately produce the greatest happiness. if a man is not convinced of that, he never will practice it. common language speaks the truth as to this: we say, a person is well bred. as it is said, that all material motion is primarily in a right line, and is never per circuitum, never in another form, unless by some particular cause; so it may be said intellectual motion is.' lady m'leod asked, if no man was naturally good. johnson. 'no, madam, no more than a wolf.' boswell. 'nor no woman, sir?' johnson. 'no, sir.' lady m'leod started at this, saying, in a low voice, 'this is worse than swift.' m'leod of ulinish had come in the afternoon. we were a jovial company at supper. the laird, surrounded by so many of his clan, was to me a pleasing sight. they listened with wonder and pleasure, while dr johnson harangued. i am vexed that i cannot take down his full train of eloquence. wednesday, th september the gentlemen of the clan went away early in the morning to the harbour of lochbradale, to take leave of some of their friends who were going to america. it was a very wet day. we looked at rorie more's horn, which is a large cow's horn, with the mouth of it ornamented with silver curiously carved. it holds rather more than a bottle and a half. every laird of m'leod, it is said, must, as a proof of his manhood, drink it off full of claret, without laying it down. from rorie more many of the branches of the family are descended; in particular, the talisker branch; so that his name is much talked of. we also saw his bow, which hardly any man now can bend, and his glaymore, which was wielded with both hands, and is of a prodigious size. we saw here some old pieces of iron armour, immensely heavy. the broadsword now used, though called the glaymore (i.e. the great sword), is much smaller than that used in rorie more's time. there is hardly a target now to be found in the highlands. after the disarming act, they made them serve as covers to their butter-milk barrels; a kind of change, like beating spears into pruning-hooks. sir george mackenzie's works (the folio edition) happened to lie in a window in the dining room. i asked dr johnson to look at the characteres advocatorum. he allowed him power of mind, and that he understood very well what he tells; but said, that there was too much declamation, and that the latin was not correct. he found fault with approprinquabant, in the character of gilmour. i tried him with the opposition between gloria and palma, in the comparison between gilmour and nisbet, which lord hailes, in his catalogue of the lords of session, thinks difficult to be understood. the words are, penes ittum gloria, penes hunc palma. in a short account of the kirk of scotland, which i published some years ago, i applied these words to the two contending parties, and explained them thus: 'the popular party has most eloquence; dr robertson's party most influence.' i was very desirous to hear dr johnson's explication. johnson. 'i see no difficulty. gilmour was admired for his parts; nisbet carried his cause by the skill in law. palma is victory.' i observed, that the character of nicholson, in this book resembled that of burke: for it is said, in one place, in omnes lusos & jocos se saepe resolvebat; [footnote: he often indulged himself in every species of pleasantry and wit.] and, in another, sed accipitris more e conspectu aliquando astantium sublimi se protrahens volatu, in praedam miro impetu descendebat. [footnote: but like the hawk, having soared with a lofty flight to a height which the eye could not reach, he was want to swoop upon his quarry with wonderful rapidity.] johnson. 'no, sir; i never heard burke make a good joke in my life.' boswell. 'but, sir, you will allow he is a hawk.' dr johnson, thinking that i meant this of his joking, said, 'no, sir, he is not the hawk there. he is the beetle in the mire.' i still adhered to my metaphor. 'but he soars as the hawk.' johnson. 'yes, sir; but he catches nothing.' m'leod asked, what is the particular excellence of burke's eloquence? johnson. 'copiousness and fertility of allusion; a power of diversifying his matter, by placing it in various relations. burke has great information, and great command of language; though, in my opinion, it has not in every respect the highest elegance.' boswell. 'do you think, sir, that burke has read cicero much?' johnson. 'i don't believe it, sir. burke has great knowledge, great fluency of words, and great promptness of ideas, so that he can speak with great illustration on any subject that comes before him. he is neither like cicero, nor like demosthenes, nor like any one else, but speaks as well as he can.' in the th page of the first volume of sir george mackenzie, dr johnson pointed out a paragraph beginning with 'aristotle', and told me there was an error in the text, which he bade me try to discover. i was lucky enough to hit it at once. as the passage is printed, it is said that the devil answers even in engines. i corrected it to--ever in aenigmas. 'sir,' said he, 'you are a good critick. this would have been a great thing to do in the text of an ancient authour.' thursday, th september last night much care was taken of dr johnson, who was still distressed by his cold. he had hitherto most strangely slept without a night-cap. miss m'leod made him a large flannel one, and he was prevailed with to drink a little brandy when he was going to bed. he has great virtue, in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor, because, as he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. lady m'leod would hardly believe him, and said, 'i am sure, sir, you would not carry it too far.' johnson. 'nay, madam, it carried me. i took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. it was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and having broken off the habit, i have never returned to it.' in the argument on tuesday night, about natural goodness, dr johnson denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by servants, a notion was conceived, that of two children, equally well educated, one was naturally much worse than another. he owned, this morning, that one might have a greater aptitude to learn than another, and that we inherit dispositions from our parents. 'i inherited,' said he, 'a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.' lady m'leod wondered he should tell this. 'madam,' said i, 'he knows that with that madness he is superior to other men.' i have often been astonished with what exactness and perspicuity he will explain the process of any art. he this morning explained to us all the operation of coining, and, at night, all the operation of brewing, so very clearly, that mr m'queen said, when he heard the first, he thought he had been bred in the mint; when he heard the second, that he had been bred a brewer. i was elated by the thought of having been able to entice such a man to this remote part of the world. a ludicrous, yet just image presented itself to my mind, which i expressed to the company. i compared myself to a dog who has got hold of a large piece of meat, and runs away with it to a corner, where he may devour it in peace, without any fear of others taking it from him. 'in london, reynolds, beauclerk, and all of them, are contending who shall enjoy dr johnson's conversation. we are feasting upon it, undisturbed, at dunvegan.' it was still a storm of wind and rain. dr johnson however walked out with m'leod, and saw rorie more's cascade in full perfection. colonel m'leod, instead of being all life and gaiety, as i have seen him, was at present grave, and somewhat depressed by his anxious concern about m'leod's affairs, and by finding some gentlemen of the clan by no means disposed to act a generous or affectionate part to their chief in his distress, but bargaining with him as with a stranger. however, he was agreeable and polite, and dr johnson said, he was a very pleasing man. my fellow-traveller and i talked of going to sweden; and, while we were settling our plan, i expressed a pleasure in the prospect of seeing the king. johnson. 'i doubt, sir, if he would speak to us.' colonel m'leod said, 'i am sure mr boswell would speak to him.' but, seeing me a little disconcerted by his remark, he politely added, 'and with great propriety'. here let me offer a short defence of that propensity in my disposition, to which this gentleman alluded. it has procured me much happiness. i hope it does not deserve so hard a name as either forwardness or impudence. if i know myself, it is nothing more than an eagerness to share the society of men distinguished either by their rank or their talents, and a diligence to attain what i desire. if a man is praised for seeking knowledge, though mountains and seas are in his way, may he not be pardoned, whose ardour, in the pursuit of the same object, leads him to encounter difficulties as great, though of a different kind? after the ladies were gone from table, we talked of the highlanders not having sheets; and this led us to consider the advantage of wearing linen. johnson. 'all animal substances are less cleanly than vegetables. wool, of which flannel is made, is an animal substance; flannel therefore is not so cleanly as linen. i remember i used to think tar dirty; but when i knew it to be only a preparation of the juice of the pine, i thought so no longer. it is not disagreeable to have the gum that oozes from a plumb-tree upon your fingers, because it is vegetable, but if you have any candle-grease, any tallow upon your fingers, you are uneasy till you rub it off. i have often thought, that, if i kept a seraglio, the ladies should all wear linen gowns, or cotton--i mean stuffs made of vegetable substances. i would have no silk; you cannot tell when it is clean: it will be very nasty before it is perceived to be so. linen detects its own dirtiness.' to hear the grave dr samuel johnson, 'that majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom', while sitting solemn in an arm-chair in the isle of sky, talk, ex cathedra, of his keeping a seraglio, and acknowledge that the supposition had often been in his thoughts, struck me so forcibly with ludicrous contrast, that i could not but laugh immoderately. he was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to be the object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen sarcastick wit, and such a variety of degrading images, of every one of which i was the object, that, though i can bear such attacks as well as most men, i yet found myself so much the sport of all the company, that i would gladly expunge from my mind every trace of this severe retort. talking of our friend langton's house in lincolnshire, he said, 'the old house of the family was burnt. a temporary building was erected in its room; and to this day they have been always adding as the family increased. it is like a shirt made for a man when he was a child, and enlarged always as he grows older.' we talked to-night of luther's allowing the landgrave of hesse two wives, and that it was with the consent of the wife to whom he was first married. johnson. 'there was no harm in this, so far as she was only concerned, because volenti non fit injuria. but it was an offence against the general order of society, and against the law of the gospel, by which one man and one woman are to be united. no man can have two wives, but by preventing somebody else from having one.' friday, th september after dinner yesterday, we had a conversation upon cunning. m'leod said that he was not afraid of cunning people; but would let them play their tricks about him like monkeys. 'but,' said i, 'they scratch'; and mr m'queen added, 'they'll invent new tricks, as soon as you find out what they do.' johnson. 'cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. it requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.' this led us to consider whether it did not require great abilities to be very wicked. johnson. 'it requires great abilities to have the power of being very wicked; but not to be very wicked. a man who has the power, which great abilities procure him, may use it well or ill; and it requires more abilities to use it well, than to use it ill. wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to every thing. it is much easier to steal a hundred pounds, than to get it by labour, or any other way. consider only what act of wickedness requires great abilities to commit it, when once the person who is to do it has the power; for there is the distinction. it requires great abilities to conquer an army, but none to massacre it after it is conquered.' the weather this day was rather better than any that we had since we came to dunvegan. mr m'queen had often mentioned a curious piece of antiquity near this which he called a temple of the goddess anaitis. having often talked of going to see it, he and i set out after breakfast, attended by his servant, a fellow quite like a savage. i must observe here, that in sky there seems to be much idleness; for men and boys follow you, as colts follow passengers upon a road. the usual figure of a sky boy, is a lown with bare legs and feet, a dirty kilt, ragged coat and waistcoat, a bare head, and a stick in his hand, which, i suppose, is partly to help the lazy rogue to walk, partly to serve as a kind of a defensive weapon. we walked what is called two miles, but is probably four, from the castle, till we came to the sacred place. the country around is a black dreary moor on all sides, except to the sea-coast, towards which there is a view through a valley, and the farm of bay shews some good land. the place itself is green ground, being well drained, by means of a deep glen on each side, in both of which there runs a rivulet with a good quantity of water, forming several cascades, which make a considerable appearance and sound. the first thing we came to was an earthen mound, or dyke, extending from the one precipice to the other. a little farther on, was a strong stone-wall, not high, but very thick, extending in the same manner. on the outside of it were the ruins of two houses, one on each side of the entry or gate to it. the wall is built all along of uncemented stones, but of so large a size as to make a very firm and durable rampart. it has been built all about the consecrated ground, except where the precipice is deep enough to form an enclosure of itself. the sacred spot contains more than two acres. there are within it the ruins of many houses, none of them large, a cairn, and many graves marked by clusters of stones. mr m'queen insisted that the ruin of a small building, standing east and west, was actually the temple of the goddess anaitis, where her statue was kept, and from whence processions were made to wash it in one of the brooks. there is, it must be owned, a hollow road visible for a good way from the entrance; but mr m'queen, with the keen eye of an antiquary, traced it much farther than i could perceive it. there is not above a foot and a half in height of the walls now remaining; and the whole extent of the building was never, i imagine, greater than an ordinary highland house. mr m'queen has collected a great deal of learning on the subject of the temple of anaitis; and i had endeavoured, in my journal, to state such particulars as might give some idea of it, and of the surrounding scenery; but from the great difficulty of describing visible objects, i found my account so unsatisfactory, that my readers would probably have exclaimed and write about it, goddess, and about it; and therefore i have omitted it. when we got home, and were again at table with dr johnson, we first talked of portraits. he agreed in thinking them valuable in families. i wished to know which he preferred, fine portraits, or those of which the merit was resemblance. johnson. 'sir, their chief excellence is being like.' boswell. 'are you of that opinion as to the portraits of ancestors, whom one has never seen?' johnson. 'it then becomes of more consequence that they should be like; and i would have them in the dress of the times, which makes a piece of history. one should like to see how rorie more looked. truth, sir, is of the greatest value in these things.' mr m'queen observed, that if you think it of no consequence whether portraits are like, if they are but well painted, you may be indifferent whether a piece of history is true or not, if well told. dr johnson said at breakfast to day, 'that it was but of late that historians bestowed pains and attention in consulting records, to attain to accuracy. bacon, in writing his history of henry vii, does not seem to have consulted any, but to have just taken what he found in other histories, and blended it with what he learnt by tradition.' he agreed with me that there should be a chronicle kept in every considerable family, to preserve the characters and transactions of successive generations. after dinner i started the subject of the temple of anaitis. mr m'queen had laid stress on the name given to the place by the country people, ainnit; and added, 'i knew not what to make of this piece of antiquity, till i met with the anaitidis delubrum in lydia, mentioned by pausanias and the elder pliny.' dr johnson, with his usual acuteness, examined mr m'queen as to the meaning of the word ainnit, in erse; and it proved to be a water-place, or a place near water, 'which,' said mr m'queen, 'agrees with all the descriptions of the temples of that goddess, which were situated near rivers, that there might be water to wash the statue'. johnson. 'nay, sir, the argument from the name is gone. the name is exhausted by what we see. we have no occasion to go to a distance for what we can pick up under our feet. had it been an accidental name, the similarity between it and anaitis might have had something in it; but it turns out to be a mere physiological name.' macleod said, mr m'queen's knowledge of etymology had destroyed his conjecture. johnson. 'you have one possibility for you, and all possibilities against you. it is possible it may be the temple of anaitis. but it is also possible that it may be a fortification; or it may be a place of christian worship, as the first christians often chose remote and wild places, to make an impression on the mind; or, if it was a heathen temple, it may have been built near a river, for the purpose of lustration; and there is such a multitude of divinities, to whom it may have been dedicated, that the chance of its being a temple of anaitis is hardly any thing. it is like throwing a grain of sand upon the sea-shore today, and thinking you may find it tomorrow. no, sir, this temple, like many an ill-built edifice, tumbles down before it is roofed in.' in his triumph over the reverend antiquarian, he indulged himself in a conceit; for, some vestige of the altar of the goddess being much insisted on in support of the hypothesis, he said, 'mr m'queen is fighting pro aris et focis.' it was wonderful how well time passed in a remote castle, and in dreary weather. after supper, we talked of pennant. it was objected that he was superficial. dr johnson defended him warmly. he said, 'pennant has greater variety of inquiry than almost any man, and has told us more than perhaps one in ten thousand could have done, in the time that he took. he has not said what he was to tell; so you cannot find fault with him, for what he has not told. if a man comes to look for fishes, you cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls.' 'but,' said colonel m'leod, 'he mentions the unreasonable rise of rents in the highlands, and says, "the gentlemen are for emptying the bag, without filling it"; for that is the phrase he uses. why does he not tell how to fill it?' johnson. 'sir, there is no end of negative criticism. he tells what he observes, and as much as he chooses. if he tells what is not true, you may find fault with him; but, though he tells that the land is not well cultivated, he is not obliged to tell how it may be well cultivated. if i tell that many of the highlanders go bare-footed, i am not obliged to tell how they may get shoes. pennant tells a fact. he need go no farther, except he pleases. he exhausts nothing; and no subject whatever has yet been exhausted. but pennant has surely told a great deal. here is a man six feet high, and you are angry because he is not seven.' notwithstanding this eloquent oratio pro pennantio, which they who have read this gentleman's tours, and recollect the savage and the shopkeeper at monboddo will probably impute to the spirit of contradiction. i still think that he had better have given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number of imperfect accounts. saturday, th september before breakfast, dr johnson came up to my room, to forbid me to mention that this was his birthday; but i told him i had done it already; at which he was displeased; i suppose from wishing to have nothing particular done on his account. lady m'leod and i got into a warm dispute. she wanted to build a house upon a farm which she has taken, about five miles from the castle, and to make gardens and other ornaments there; all of which i approved of; but insisted that the seat of the family should always be upon the rock of dunvegan. johnson. 'ay, in time we'll build all round this rock. you may make a very good house at the farm; but it must not be such as to tempt the laird of m'leod to go thither to reside. most of the great families of england have a secondary residence, which is called a jointure-house: let the new house be of that kind.' the lady insisted that the rock was very inconvenient; that there was no place near it where a good garden could be made; that it must always be the rude place; that it was a herculean labour to make a dinner here. i was vexed to find the alloy of modern refinement in a lady who had so much old family spirit. 'madam,' said i, 'if once you quit this rock, there is no knowing where you may settle. you move five miles first, then to st andrews, as the late laird did; then to edinburgh; and so on till you end at hampstead, or in france. no, no; keep to the rock: it is the very jewel of the estate. it looks as if it had been let down from heaven by the four corners, to be the residence of a chief. have all the comforts and conveniencies of life upon it, but never leave rorie more's cascade.' 'but,' said she, 'is it not enough if we keep it? must we never have more convenience than rorie more had? he had his beef brought to dinner in one basket, and his bread in another. why not as well be rorie more all over, as live upon his rock? and should not we tire, in looking perpetually on this rock? it is very well for you, who have a fine place, and every thing easy, to talk thus, and think of chaining honest folks to a rock. you would not live upon it yourself.' 'yes, madam,' said i, 'i would live upon it, were i laird of m'leod, and should be unhappy if i were not upon it.' johnson (with a strong voice, and most determined manner). 'madam, rather than quit the old rock, boswell would live in the pit; he would make his bed in the dungeon.' i felt a degree of elation, at finding my resolute feudal enthusiasm thus confirmed by such a sanction. the lady was puzzled a little. she still returned to her pretty farm--rich ground, fine garden. 'madam,' said dr johnson, 'were they in asia, i would not leave the rock.' my opinion on this subject is still the same. an ancient family residence ought to be a primary object; and though the situation of dunvegan be such that little can be done here in gardening, or pleasure-ground, yet, in addition to the veneration acquired by the lapse of time, it has many circumstances of natural grandeur, suited to the seat of a highland chief: it has the sea, islands, rocks, hills, a noble cascade; and when the family is again in opulence, something may be done by art. mr donald m'queen went away today, in order to preach at bracadale next day. we were so comfortably situated at dunvegan, that dr johnson could hardly be moved from it. i proposed to him that we should leave it on monday. 'no, sir,' said he, 'i will not go before wednesday. i will have some more of this good.' however, as the weather was at this season so bad, and so very uncertain, and we had a great deal to do yet, mr m'queen and i prevailed with him to agree to set out on monday, if the day should be good. mr m'queen though it was inconvenient for him to be absent from his harvest, engaged to wait on monday at ulinish for us. when he was going away, dr johnson said, 'i shall ever retain a great regard for you'; then asked him if he had the rambler. mr m'queen said, 'no; but my brother has it' johnson. 'have you the idler?' m'queen. 'no, sir.' johnson. 'then i will order one for you at edinburgh, which you will keep in remembrance of me.' mr m'queen was much pleased with this. he expressed to me, in the strongest terms, his admiration of dr johnson's wonderful knowledge, and every other quality for which he is distinguished. i asked mr m'queen, if he was satisfied with being a minister in sky. he said he was; but he owned that his forefathers having been so long there, and his having been born there, made a chief ingredient in forming his contentment. i should have mentioned, that on our left hand, between portree and dr macleod's house, mr m'queen told me there had been a college of the knights templars; that tradition said so; and that there was a ruin remaining of their church, which had been burnt: but i confess dr johnson has weakened my belief in remote tradition. in the dispute about anaitis, mr m'queen said, asia minor was peopled by scythians, and, as they were the ancestors of the celts, the same religion might be in asia minor and sky. johnson. 'alas! sir, what can a nation that has not letters tell of its original? i have always difficulty to be patient when i hear authors gravely quoted, as giving accounts of savage nations, which accounts they had from the savages themselves. what can the m'craas tell about themselves a thousand years ago? there is no tracing the connection of ancient nations, but by language; and therefore i am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations. if you find the same language in distant countries, you may be sure that the inhabitants of each have been the same people; that is to say, if you find the languages a good deal the same; for a word here and there being the same, will not do. thus butler, in his hudibras, remembering that penguin, in the straits of magellan, signifies a bird with a white head, and that the same word has, in wales, the signification of a white-headed wench (pen head, and guin white), by way of ridicule, concludes that the people of those straits are welch.' a young gentleman of the name of m'lean, nephew to the laird of the isle of muck, came this morning; and, just as we sat down to dinner, came the laird of the isle of muck himself, his lady, sister to talisker, two other ladies their relations, and a daughter of the late m'leod of hamer, who wrote a treatise on the second sight, under the designation of theophilus insulanus. it was somewhat droll to hear this laird called by his title. muck would have sounded ill; so he was called isle of muck, which went off with great readiness. the name, as now written, is unseemly, but is not so bad in the original erse, which is mouach, signifying the sows' island. buchanan calls it insula porcorum. it is so called from its form. some call it isle of monk. the laird insists that this is the proper name. it was formerly church-land belonging to icolmkill, and a hermit lived in it. it is two miles long, and about three quarters of a mile broad. the laird said, he had seven score of souls upon it. last year he had eighty persons inoculated, mostly children, but some of them eighteen years of age. he agreed with the surgeon to come and do it, at half a crown a head. it is very fertile in corn, of which they export some; and its coasts abound in fish. a taylor comes there six times in a year. they get a good blacksmith from the isle of egg. sunday, th september it was rather worse weather than any that we had yet. at breakfast dr johnson said, 'some cunning men choose fools for their wives, thinking to manage them, but they always fail. there is a spaniel fool and a mule fool. the spaniel fool may be made to do by beating. the mule fool will neither do by words or blows; and the spaniel fool often turns mule at last: and suppose a fool to be made do pretty well, you must have the continual trouble of making her do. depend upon it, no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' whether afterwards he meant merely to say a polite thing, or to give his opinion, i could not be sure; but he added, 'men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. if they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.' in justice to the sex, i think it but candid to acknowledge, that, in a subsequent conversation, he told me that he was serious in what he had said. he came to my room this morning before breakfast, to read my journal, which he has done all along. he often before said, 'i take great delight in reading it.' today he said, 'you improve: it grows better and better.' i observed, there was a danger of my getting a habit of writing in a slovenly manner. 'sir,' said he, 'it is not written in a slovenly manner. it might be printed, were the subject fit for printing.' [footnote: as i have faithfully recorded so many minute particulars, i hope i shall be pardoned for inserting so flattering an encomium on what is now offered to the publick.] while mr beaton preached to us in the dining-room, dr johnson sat in his own room, where i saw lying before him a volume of lord bacon's works, the decay of christian piety, monboddo's origin of language, and sterne's sermons. he asked me today, how it happened that we were so little together: i told him, my journal took up much time. yet, on reflection, it appeared strange to me, that although i will run from one end of london to another, to pass an hour with him, i should omit to seize any spare time to be in his company, when i am settled in the same house with him. but my journal is really a task of much time and labour, and he forbids me to contract it. i omitted to mention, in its place, that dr johnson told mr m'queen that he had found the belief of the second sight universal in sky, except among the clergy, who seemed determined against it. i took the liberty to observe to mr m'queen, that the clergy were actuated by a kind of vanity. 'the world,' say they,'takes us to be credulous men in a remote corner. we'll shew them that we are more enlightened than they think.' the worthy man said, that his disbelief of it was from his not finding sufficient evidence; but i could perceive that he was prejudiced against it. after dinner to-day, we talked of the extraordinary fact of lady grange's being sent to st kilda, and confined there for several years, without any means of relief. [footnote: the true story of this lady, which happened in this century, is as frightfully romantick as if it had been the fiction of a gloomy fancy. she was the wife of one of the lords of session in scotland, a man of the very first blood of his country. for some mysterious reasons, which have never been discovered, she was seized and carried off in the dark, she knew not by whom, and by nightly journies was conveyed to the highland shores, from whence she was transported by sea to the remote rock of st kilda, where she remained, amongst its few wild inhabitants, a forlorn prisoner, but had a constant supply of provisions, and a woman to wait on her. no inquiry was made after her, till she at last found means to convey a letter to a confidential friend, by the daughter of a catechist who concealed it in a clue of yarn. information being thus obtained at edinburgh, a ship was sent to bring her off; but intelligence of this being received, she was conveyed to m'leod's island of herries, where she died. in carstares's state papers, we find an authentick narrative of connor, a catholick priest, who turned protestant, being seized by some of lord seaforth's people, and detained prisoner in the island of herries several years: he was fed with bread and water, and lodged in a house where he was exposed to the rains and cold. sir james ogilvy writes (june , ) that the lord chancellor, the lord advocate, and himself, were to meet next day, to take effectual methods to have this redressed. connor was then still detained (p. ). this shews what private oppression might in the last century be practised in the hebrides. in the same collection, the earl of argyle gives a picturesque account of an embassy from 'the great m'neil of barra', as that insular chief used to be denominated. 'i received a letter yesterday from m'neil of barra, who lives very far off, sent by a gentleman in all formality, offering his service, which had made you laugh to see his entry. his style of his letter runs as if he were of another kingdom' (p. ).] dr johnson said, if m'leod would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island. we had, in the course of our tour, heard of st kilda poetry. dr johnson observed, 'it must be very poor, because they have very few images.' boswell. 'there may be a poetical genius shewn in combining these, and in making poetry of them.' johnson. 'sir, a man cannot make fire but in proportion as he has fuel. he cannot coin guineas but in proportion as he has gold.' at tea he talked of his intending to go to italy in . m'leod said, he would like paris better. johnson. 'no, sir; there are none of the french literati now alive, to visit whom i would cross a sea. i can find in buffon's book all that he can say.'[footnote: i doubt the justice of my fellow-traveller's remark concerning the french literati, many of whom, i am told, have considerable merit in conversation, as well as in their writings. that of monsieur de buffon, in particular, i am well assured is highly instructive and entertaining.] after supper he said, 'i am sorry that prize-fighting is gone out; every art should be preserved, and the art of defence is surely important. it is absurd that our soldiers should have swords, and not be taught the use of them. prize-fighting made people accustomed not to be alarmed at seeing their own blood, or feeling a little pain from a wound. i think the heavy glaymore was an ill-contrived weapon. a man could only strike once with it. it employed both his hands, and he must of course be soon fatigued with wielding it; so that if his antagonist could only keep playing a while, he was sure of him. i would fight with a dirk against rorie more's sword. i could ward off a blow with a dirk, and then run in upon my enemy. when within that heavy sword, i have him; he is quite helpless, and i could stab him at my leisure, like a calf. it is thought by sensible military men, that the english do not enough avail themselves of their superior strength of body against the french; for that must always have a great advantage in pushing with bayonets. i have heard an officer say, that if women could be made to stand, they would do as well as men in a mere interchange of bullets from a distance: but, if a body of men should come close up to them, then to be sure they must be overcome; now (said he), in the same manner the weaker-bodied french must be overcome by our strong soldiers.' the subject of duelling was introduced. johnson. 'there is no case in england where one or other of the combatants must die: if you have overcome your adversary by disarming him, that is sufficient, though you should not kill him; your honour, or the honour of your family, is restored, as much as it can be by a duel. it is cowardly to force your antagonist to renew the combat, when you know that you have the advantage of him by superior skill. you might just as well go and cut his throat while he is asleep in his bed. when a duel begins, it is supposed there may be an equality; because it is not always skill that prevails. it depends much on presence of mind; nay on accidents. the wind may be in a man's face. he may fall. many such things may decide the superiority. a man is sufficiently punished, by being called out, and subjected to the risk that is in a duel.' but on my suggesting that the injured person is equally subjected to risk, he fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling. monday, th september when i awaked, the storm was higher still. it abated about nine, and the sun shone; but it rained again very soon, and it was not a day for travelling. at breakfast, dr johnson told us, 'there was once a pretty good tavern in catharine street in the strand, where very good company met in an evening, and each man called for his own half pint of wine, or gill, if he pleased: they were frugal men, and nobody paid but for what he himself drank. the house furnished no supper; but a woman attended with mutton-pies, which any body might purchase. i was introduced to this company by cumming the quaker, and used to go there sometimes when i drank wine. in the last age, when my mother lived in london, there were two sets of people, those who gave the wall, and those who took it; the peaceable and the quarrelsome. when i returned to lichfield, after having been in london, my mother asked me, whether i was one of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. now, it is fixed that every man keeps to the right; or, if one is taking the wall, another yields it, and it is never a dispute.' he was very severe on a lady, whose name was mentioned. he said, he would have sent her to st kilda. that she was as bad as negative badness could be, and stood in the way of what was good: that insipid beauty would not go a great way; and that such a woman might be cut out of a cabbage, if there was a skilful artificer. m'leod was too late in coming to breakfast. dr johnson said, laziness was worse than the toothache. boswell. 'i cannot agree with you, sir; a bason of cold water, or a horse whip, will cure laziness.' johnson. 'no, sir; it will only put off the fit; it will not cure the disease. i have been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it.' boswell. 'but if a man does in a shorter time what might be the labour of a life, there is nothing to be said against him.' johnson (perceiving at once that i alluded to him and his dictionary). 'suppose that flattery to be true, the consequence would be, that the world would have no right to censure a man; but that will not justify him to himself.' after breakfast, he said to me, 'a highland chief should now endeavour to do every thing to raise his rents, by means of the industry of his people. formerly, it was right for him to have his house full of idle fellows; they were his defenders, his servants, his dependants, his friends. now they may be better employed. the system of things is now so much altered, that the family cannot have influence but by riches, because it has no longer the power of ancient feudal times. an individual of a family may have it; but it cannot now belong to a family, unless you could have a perpetuity of men with the same views. m'leod has four times the land that the duke of bedford has. i think, with his spirit, he may in time make himself the greatest man in the king's dominions; for land may always be improved to a certain degree. i would never have any man sell land, to throw money into the funds, as is often done, or to try any other species of trade. depend upon it, this rage of trade will destroy itself. you and i shall not see it; but the time will come when there will be an end of it. trade is like gaming. if a whole company are gamesters, play must cease; for there is nothing to be won. when all nations are traders, there is nothing to be gained by trade, and it will stop first where it is brought to the greatest perfection. then the proprietors of land only will be the great men.' i observed, it was hard that m'leod should find ingratitude in so many of his people. johnson. 'sir, gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.' i doubt of this. nature seems to have implanted gratitude in all living creatures. the lion, mentioned by aulus gellius, had it. [footnote: aul. gellius, lib. v. c. xiv.] it appears to me that culture, which brings luxury and selfishness with it, has a tendency rather to weaken than promote this affection. dr johnson said this morning, when talking of our setting out, that he was in the state in which lord bacon represents kings. he desired the end, but did not like the means. he wished much to get home, but was unwilling to travel in sky. 'you are like kings too in this, sir,' said i, 'that you must act under the direction of others.' tuesday, st september the uncertainty of our present situation having prevented me from receiving any letters from home for some time, i could not help being uneasy. dr johnson had an advantage over me, in this respect, he having no wife or child to occasion anxious apprehensions in his mind. it was a good morning; so we resolved to set out. but, before quitting this castle, where we have been so well entertained, let me give a short description of it. along the edge of the rock, there are the remains of a wall, which is now covered with ivy. a square court is formed by buildings of different ages, particularly some towers, said to be of great antiquity; and at one place there is a row of false cannon of stone. there is a very large unfinished pile, four stories high, which we were told was here when leod, the first of this family, came from the isle of man, married the heiress of the m'crails, the ancient possessors of dunvegan, and afterwards acquired by conquest as much land as he had got by marriage. he surpassed the house of austria; for he was felix both bella genere et nubere. john breck m'leod, the grandfather of the late laird, began to repair the castle, or rather to complete it: but he did not live to finish his undertaking. not doubting, however, that he should do it, he, like those who have had their epitaphs written before they died, ordered the following inscription, composed by the minister of the parish, to be cut upon a broad stone above one of the lower windows, where it still remains to celebrate what was not done, and to serve as a memento of the uncertainty of life, and the presumption of man: joannes macleod beganoduni dominus gentis suae philarchus, durinesiae haraiae vaternesiae, &c: baro d. florae macdonald matrimoniali vinculo conjugatus turrem hanc beganodunensem proavorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum diu penitus labefectatam anno aerae vulgaris mdclxxxvi instauravit. quern stabilire juvat proavorum tecta vetusta, omne scelus fugiat, justitiamque colat. vertit in aerias turres magalia virtus, inque casas humiles tecta superba nefas. m'leod and talisker accompanied us. we passed by the parish church of durinish. the church-yard is not enclosed, but a pretty murmuring brook runs along one side of it. in it is a pyramid erected to the memory of thomas lord lovat, by his son lord simon, who suffered on towerhill. it is of free-stone, and, i suppose, about thirty feet high. there is an inscription on a piece of white marble inserted in it, which i suspect to have been the composition of lord lovat himself, being much in his pompous style: this pyramid was erected by simon lord fraser of lovat, in honour of lord thomas his father, a peer of scotland, and chief of the great and ancient clan of the frasers. being attacked for his birthright by the family of atholl, then in power and favour with king william, yet, by the valour and fidelity of his clan, and the assistance of the campbells, the old friends and allies of his family, he defended his birthright with such greatness and fermety of soul, and such valour and activity, that he was an honour to his name, and a good pattern to all brave chiefs of clans. he died in the month of may, , in the d year of his age, in dunvegan, the house of the laird of mac leod, whose sister he had married: by whom he had the above simon lord fraser, and several other children. and, for the great love he bore to the family of mac leod, he desired to be buried near his wife's relations, in the place where two of her uncles lay. and his son lord simon, to shew to posterity his great affection for his mother's kindred, the brave mac leods, chooses rather to leave his father's bones with them, than carry them to his own burial-place, near lovat. i have preserved this inscription, though of no great value, thinking it characteristical of a man who has made some noise in the world. dr johnson said, it was poor stuff, such as lord lovat's butler might have written. i observed, in this church-yard, a parcel of people assembled at a funeral, before the grave was dug. the coffin, with the corpse in it, was placed on the ground, while the people alternately assisted in making a grave. one man, at a little distance, was busy cutting a long turf for it, with the crooked spade which is used in sky; a very aukward instrument. the iron part of it is like a plough-coulter. it has a rude tree for a handle, in which a wooden pin is placed for the foot to press upon. a traveller might, without further inquiry, have set this down as the mode of burying in sky. i was told, however, that the usual way is to have a grave previously dug. i observed to-day, that the common way of carrying home their grain here is in loads on horse-back. they have also a few sleds, or cars, as we call them in ayrshire, clumsily made, and rarely used. we got to ulinish about six o'clock, and found a very good farm-house, of two stories. mr m'leod of ulinish, the sheriff-substitute of the island, was a plain honest gentleman, a good deal like an english justice of peace; not much given to talk, but sufficiently sagacious, and somewhat droll. his daughter, though she was never out of sky, was a very well-bred woman. our reverend friend, mr donald m'queen, kept his appointment, and met us here. talking of phipps's voyage to the north pole, dr johnson observed, that it 'was conjectured that our former navigators have kept too near land, and so have found the sea frozen far north, because the land hinders the free motion of the tide; but, in the wide ocean, where the waves tumble at their full convenience, it is imagined that the frost does not take effect'. wednesday, d september in the morning i walked out, and saw a ship, the margaret of clyde, pass by with a number of emigrants on board. it was a melancholy sight. after breakfast, we went to see what was called a subterraneous house, about a mile off. it was upon the side of a rising-ground. it was discovered by a fox's having taken up his abode in it, and in chasing him, they dug into it. it was very narrow and low, and seemed about forty feet in length. near it, we found the foundations of several small huts, built of stone. mr m'queen, who is always for making every thing as ancient as possible, boasted that it was the dwelling of some of the first inhabitants of the island, and observed, what a curiosity it was to find here a specimen of the houses of the aborigines, which he believed could be found no where else; and it was plain that they lived without fire. dr johnson remarked, that they who made this were not in the rudest state; for that it was more difficult to make it than to build a house; therefore certainly those who made it were in possession of houses, and had this only as a hiding-place. it appeared to me, that the vestiges of houses, just by it, confirmed dr johnson's opinion. from an old tower, near this place, is an extensive view of loch braccadil, and, at a distance, of the isles of barra and south uist; and on the landside, the cuillin, a prodigious range of mountains, capped with rocky pinnacles in a strange variety of shapes. they resemble the mountains near corte in corsica, of which there is a very good print. they make part of a great range for deer, which, though entirely devoid of trees, is in these countries called a forest. in the afternoon, ulinish carried us in his boat to an island possessed by him, where we saw an immense cave, much more deserving the title of antrum immane than that of the sybil described by virgil, which i likewise have visited. it is one hundred and eighty feet long, about thirty feet broad, and at least thirty feet high. this cave, we were told, had a remarkable echo; but we found none. they said it was owing to the great rains having made it damp. such are the excuses by which the exaggeration of highland narratives is palliated. there is a plentiful garden at ulinish (a great rarity in sky), and several trees; and near the house is a hill, which has an erse name, signifying 'the hill of strife', where, mr m'queen informed us, justice was of old administered. it is like the mons placiti of scone, or those hills which are called laws, such as kelly law, north berwick law, and several others. it is singular that this spot should happen now to be the sheriff's residence. we had a very cheerful evening, and dr johnson talked a good deal on the subject of literature. speaking of the noble family of boyle, he said, that all the lord orrerys, till the present, had been writers. the first wrote several plays; the second was bentley's antagonist; the third wrote the life of swift, and several other things; his son hamilton wrote some papers in the adventurer and world. he told us, he was well acquainted with swift's lord orrery. he said, he was a feeble-minded man; that, on the publication of dr delany's remarks on his book, he was so much alarmed that he was afraid to read them. dr johnson comforted him, by telling him they were both in the right; that delany had seen most of the good side of swift, lord orrery most of the bad. m'leod asked, if it was not wrong in orrery to expose the defects of a man with whom he lived in intimacy. johnson. 'why no, sir, after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' he added, 'if lord orrery had been rich, he would have been a very liberal patron. his conversation was like his writings, neat and elegant, but without strength. he grasped at more than his abilities could reach; tried to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker than he was. there was a quarrel between him and his father, in which his father was to blame; because it arose from the son's not allowing his wife to keep company with his father's mistress. the old lord shewed his resentment in his will--leaving his library from his son, and assigning, as his reason, that he could not make use of it.' i mentioned the affectation of orrery, in ending all his letters on the life of swift in studied varieties of phrase, and never in the common mode of 'i am', &c. an observation which i remember to have been made several years ago by old mr sheridan. this species of affectation in writing, as a foreign lady of distinguished talents once remarked to me, is almost peculiar to the english. i took up a volume of dryden, containing the conquest of granada, and several other plays, of which all the dedications had such studied conclusions. dr johnson said, such conclusions were more elegant, and, in addressing persons of high rank (as when dryden dedicated to the duke of york), they were likewise more respectful. i agreed that there it was much better: it was making his escape from the royal presence with a genteel sudden timidity, in place of having the resolution to stand still, and make a formal bow. lord orrery's unkind treatment of his son in his will, led us to talk of the dispositions a man should have when dying. i said, i did not see why a man should act differently with respect to those of whom he thought ill when in health, merely because he was dying. johnson. 'i should not scruple to speak against a party, when dying; but should not do it against an individual. it is told of sixtus quintus, that on his death-bed, in the intervals of his last pangs, he signed death-warrants.' mr m'queen said, he should not do so; he would have more tenderness of heart. johnson. 'i believe i should not either; but mr m'queen and i are cowards. it would not be from tenderness of heart; for the heart is as tender when a man is in health as when he is sick, though his resolution may be stronger. sixtus quintus was a sovereign as well as a priest; and, if the criminals deserved death, he was doing his duty to the last. you would not think a judge died ill, who should be carried off by an apoplectick fit while pronouncing sentence of death. consider a class of men whose business it is to distribute death: soldiers, who die scattering bullets. nobody thinks they die ill on that account.' talking of biography, he said, he did not think that the life of any literary man in england had been well written. beside the common incidents of life, it should tell us his studies, his mode of living, the means by which he attained to excellence, and his opinion of his own works. he told us, he had sent derrick to dryden's relations, to gather materials for his life; and he believed derrick had got all that he himself should have got; but it was nothing. he added, he had a kindness for derrick, and was sorry he was dead. his notion as to the poems published by mr m'pherson, as the works of ossian, was not shaken here. mr m'queen always evaded the point of authenticity, saying only that mr m'pherson's pieces fell far short of those he knew in erse, which were said to be ossian's. johnson. 'i hope they do. i am not disputing that you may have poetry of great merit; but that m'pherson's is not a translation from ancient poetry. you do not believe it. i say before you, you do not believe it, though you are very willing that the world should believe it.' mr m'queen made no answer to this. dr johnson proceeded, 'i look upon m'pherson's fingal to be as gross an imposition as ever the world was troubled with. had it been really an ancient work, a true specimen how men thought at that time, it would have been a curiosity of the first rate. as a modern production, it is nothing.' he said, he could never get the meaning of an erse song explained to him. they told him, the chorus was generally unmeaning. 'i take it,' said he, 'erse songs are like a song which i remember: it was composed in queen elizabeth's time, on the earl of essex; and the burthen was "radaratoo, radarate, radara tadara tandore."' 'but surely,' said mr m'queen, 'there were words to it, which had meaning.' johnson. 'why, yes, sir, i recollect a stanza, and you shall have it: "o! then bespoke the prentices all, living in london, both proper and tall, for essex's sake they would fight all. radaratoo, radarate, radara, tadara, tandore."' [footnote: this droll quotation, i have since found, was from a song in honour of the earl of essex, called 'queen elizabeth's champion', which is preserved in a collection of old ballads, in three volumes, published in london in different years, between and . the full verse is as follows: oh! then bespoke the prentices all, living in london, both proper and tall, in a kind letter sent straight to the queen, for essex's sake they would fight all. raderer too, tandaro te, raderer, tenderer, tan do re.] when mr m'queen began again to expatiate on the beauty of ossian's poetry, dr johnson entered into no further controversy, but, with a pleasant smile, only cried, 'ay, ay; radaratoo, radarate.' thursday, d september i took fingal down to the parlour in the morning, and tried a test proposed by mr roderick m'leod, son to ulinish. mr m'queen had said he had some of the poem in the original. i desired him to mention any passage in the printed book, of which he could repeat the original. he pointed out one in page of the quarto edition, and read the erse, while mr roderick m'leod and i looked on the english; and mr m'leod said, that it was pretty like what mr m'queen had recited. but when mr m'queen read a description of cuchullin's sword in erse, together with a translation of it in english verse, by sir james foulis, mr m'leod said, that was much more like than mr m'pherson's translation of the former passage. mr m'queen then repeated in erse a description of one of the horses in cuchillin's car. mr m'leod said, mr m'pherson's english was nothing like it. when dr johnson came down, i told him that i had now obtained some evidence concerning fingal; for that mr m'queen had repeated a passage in the original erse, which mr m'pherson's translation was pretty like; and reminded him that he himself had once said, he did not require mr m'pherson's ossian to be more like the original than pope's homer. johnson. 'well, sir, this is just what i always maintained. he has found names, and stories, and phrases, nay passages in old songs, and with them has blended his own compositions, and so made what he gives to the world as the translation of an ancient poem.' if this was the case, i observed, it was wrong to publish it as a poem in six books. johnson. 'yes, sir; and to ascribe it to a time too when the highlanders knew nothing of books, and nothing of six; or perhaps were got the length of counting six. we have been told, by condamine, of a nation that could count no more than four. this should be told to monboddo; it would help him. there is as much charity in helping a man down-hill, as in helping him up-hill.' boswell. 'i don't think there is as much charity.' johnson. 'yes, sir, if his tendency be downwards. till he is at the bottom, he flounders; get him once there, and he is quiet. swift tells, that stella had a trick, which she learned from addison, of encouraging a man in absurdity, instead of endeavouring to extricate him.' mr m'queen's answers to the inquiries concerning ossian were so unsatisfactory, that i could not help observing, that, were he examined in a court of justice, he would find himself under a necessity of being more explicit. johnson. 'sir, he has told blair a little too much, which is published; and he sticks to it. he is so much at the head of things here, that he has never been accustomed to be closely examined; and so he goes on quite smoothly.' boswell. 'he has never had any body to work him.' johnson. 'no, sir; and a man is seldom disposed to work himself; though he ought to work himself, to be sure.' mr m'queen made no reply. [footnote: i think it but justice to say, that i believe dr johnson meant to ascribe mr m'queen's conduct to inaccuracy and enthusiasm, and did not mean any severe imputation against him.] having talked of the strictness with which witnesses are examined in courts of justice, dr johnson told us, that garrick, though accustomed to face multitudes, when produced as a witness in westminster hall, was so disconcerted by a new mode of publick appearance, that he could not understand what was asked. it was a cause where an actor claimed a free benefit; that is to say, a benefit without paying the expence of the house; but the meaning of the term was disputed. garrick was asked, 'sir, have you a free benefit?' 'yes.' 'upon what terms have you it?' 'upon...the terms...of ...a free benefit.' he was dismissed as one from whom no information could be obtained. dr johnson is often too hard on our friend mr garrick. when i asked him, why he did not mention him in the preface to his shakspeare, he said, 'garrick has been liberally paid for any thing he has done for shakspeare. if i should praise him, i should much more praise the nation who paid him. he has not made shakspeare better known; [footnote: it has been triumphantly asked, 'had not the plays of shakspeare lain dormant for many years before the appearance of mr garrick? did he not exhibit the most excellent of them frequently for thirty years together, and render them extremely popular by his own inimitable performance?' he undoubtedly did. but dr johnson's assertion has been misunderstood. knowing as well as the objectors what has been just stated, he must necessarily have meant, that 'mr garrick did not as a critick make shakspeare better known; he did not illustrate any one passage in any of his plays by acuteness of disquisition, sagacity of conjecture:' and what had been done with any degree of excellence in that way was the proper and immediate subject of his preface. i may add in support of this explanation the following anecdote, related to me by one of the ablest commentators on shakspeare, who knew much of dr johnson: 'now i have quitted the theatre,' cries garrick, 'i will sit down and read shakspeare.' ''tis time you should,' exclaimed johnson, 'for i much doubt if you ever examined one of his plays from the first scene to the last.'] he cannot illustrate shakspeare: so i have reasons enough against mentioning him, were reasons necessary. there should be reasons for it.' i spoke of mrs montague's very high praises of garrick. johnson. 'sir, it is fit she should say so much, and i should say nothing. reynolds is fond of her book, and i wonder at it; for neither i, nor beauclerk, nor mrs thrale, could get through it.' [footnote: no man has less inclination to controversy than i have, particularly with a lady. but as i have claimed, and am conscious of being entitled to, credit, for the strictest fidelity, my respect for the publick obliges me to take notice of an insinuation which tends to impeach it. mrs piozzi (late mrs thrale), to her anecdotes of dr johnson, added the following postscript: naples, feb. , . since the foregoing went to the press, having seen a passage from mr boswell's tour to the hebrides, in which it is said, that i could not get through mrs montague's essay on shakspeare, i do not delay a moment to declare, that, on the contrary, i have always commended it myself, and heard it commended by every one else; and few things would give me more concern than to be thought incapable of tasting, or unwilling to testify my opinion of its excellence. it is remarkable that this postscript is so expressed, as not to point out the person who said that mrs thrale could not get through mrs montague's book; and therefore i think it necessary to remind mrs piozzi, that the assertion concerning her was dr johnson's, and not mine. the second observation that i shall make on this postscript is, that it does not deny the fact asserted, though i must acknowledge from the praise it bestows on mrs montague's book, it may have been designed to convey that meaning. what mrs thrale's opinion is or was, or what she may or may not have said to dr johnson concerning mrs montague's book, it is not necessary for me to inquire. it is only incumbent on me to ascertain what dr johnson said to me. i shall therefore confine myself to a very short state of the fact. the unfavourable opinion of mrs montague's book, which dr johnson is here reported to have given, is known to have been that which is uniformly expressed, as many of his friends well remember. so much for the authenticity of the paragraph, as far as it relates to his own sentiments. the words containing the assertion, to which mrs piozzi objects, are printed from my manuscript journal, and were taken down at the time. the journal was read by dr johnson, who pointed out some inaccuracies, which i corrected, but did not mention any inaccuracy in the paragraph in question: and what is still more material, and very flattering to me, a considerable part of my journal, containing this paragraph, was read several years ago by mrs thrale herself, who had it for some time in her possession, and returned it to me, without intimating that dr johnson had mistaken her sentiments. when the first edition of my journal was passing through the press, it occurred to me, that a peculiar delicacy was necessary to be observed in reporting the opinion of one literary lady concerning the performance of another; and i had such scruples on that head, that in the proof sheet i struck out the name of mrs thrale from the above paragraph, and two or three hundred copies of my book were actually printed and published without it; of these sir joshua reynolds's copy happened to be one. but while the sheet was working off, a friend, for whose opinion i have great respect, suggested that i had no right to deprive mrs thrale of the high honour which dr johnson had done her, by stating her opinion along with that of mr beauclerk, as coinciding with, and, as it were, sanctioning his own. the observation appeared to me so weighty and conclusive, that i hastened to the printing house, and, as a piece of justice, restored mrs thrale to that place from which a too scrupulous delicacy had excluded her. on this simple state of facts i shall make no observation whatever.] last night dr johnson gave us an account of the whole process of tanning, and of the nature of milk, and the various operations upon it, as making whey, &c. his variety of information is surprizing; and it gives one much satisfaction to find such a man bestowing his attention on the useful arts of life. ulinish was much struck with his knowledge; and said, 'he is a great orator, sir; it is musick to hear this man speak.' a strange thought struck me, to try if he knew any thing of an art, or whatever it should be called, which is no doubt very useful in life, but which lies far out of the way of a philosopher and poet; i mean the trade of a butcher. i enticed him into the subject, by connecting it with the various researches into the manners and customs of uncivilized nations, that have been made by our late navigators into the south seas. i began with observing, that mr (now sir joseph) banks tells us, that the art of slaughtering animals was not known in otaheite, for, instead of bleeding to death their dogs (a common food with them), they strangle them. this he told me himself; and i supposed that their hogs were killed in the same way. dr johnson said, 'this must be owing to their not having knives, though they have sharp stones with which they can cut a carcase in pieces tolerably.' by degrees, he shewed that he knew something even of butchery. 'different animals,' said he, 'are killed differently. an ox is knocked down, and a calf stunned; but a sheep has its throat cut, without any thing being done to stupify it. the butchers have no view to the ease of the animals, but only to make them quiet, for their own safety and convenience. a sheep can give them little trouble. hales is of opinion, that every animal should be blooded, without having any blow given to it, because it bleeds better.' boswell. 'that would be cruel.' johnson. 'no, sir; there is not much pain, if the jugular vein be properly cut.' pursuing the subject, he said, the kennels of southwark ran with blood two or three days in the week; that he was afraid there were slaughter-houses in more streets in london than one supposes (speaking with a kind of horrour of butchering), and yet, he added, 'any of us would kill a cow, rather than not have beef.' i said we could not. 'yes,' said he, 'any one may. the business of a butcher is a trade indeed, that is to say, there is an apprenticeship served to it; but it may be learnt in a month.' i mentioned a club in london, at the boar's head in eastcheap, the very tavern where falstaff and his joyous companions met; the members of which all assume shakspeare's characters. one is falstaff, another prince henry, another bardolph, and so on. johnson. 'don't be of it, sir. now that you have a name, you must be careful to avoid many things, not bad in themselves, but which will lessen your character. [footnote: i do not see why i might not have been of this club without lessening my character. but dr johnson's caution against supposing one's self concealed in london, may be very useful to prevent some people from doing many things, not only foolish, but criminal.] this every man who has a name must observe. a man who is not publickly known may live in london as he pleases, without any notice being taken of him; but it is wonderful how a person of any consequence is watched. there was a member of parliament, who wanted to prepare himself to speak on a question that was to come in the house; and he and i were to talk it over together. he did not wish it should be known that he talked with me; so he would not let me come to his house, but came to mine. some time after he had made his speech in the house, mrs cholmondeley, a very airy lady, told me, "well, you could make nothing of him!" naming the gentleman, which was a proof that he was watched. i had once some business to do for government, and i went to lord north's. precaution was taken that it should not be known. it was dark before i went; yet a few days after i was told, "well, you have been with lord north." that the door of the prime minister should be watched, is not strange; but that a member of parliament should be watched, or that my door should be watched, is wonderful.' we set out this morning on our way to talisker, in ulinish's boat, having taken leave of him and his family. mr donald m'queen still favoured us with his company, for which we were much obliged to him. as we sailed along dr johnson got into one of his fits of railing at the scots. he owned that they had been a very learned nation for a hundred years, from about to about ; but that they afforded the only instance of a people among whom the arts of civil life did not advance in proportion with learning; that they had hardly any trade, any money, or any elegance, before the union; that it was strange that, with all the advantages possessed by other nations, they had not any of those conveniences and embellishments which are the fruit of industry, till they came in contact with a civilized people. 'we have taught you,' said he, 'and we'll do the same in time to all barbarous nations, to the cherokees, and at last to the ouran- outangs'; laughing with as much glee as if monboddo had been present. boswell. 'we had wine before the union.' johnson. 'no, sir; you had some weak stuff, the refuse of france, which would not make you drunk.' boswell. 'i assure you, sir, there was a great deal of drunkenness.' johnson. 'no, sir; there were people who died of dropsies, which they contracted in trying to get drunk.' i must here gleen some of his conversation at ulinish, which i have omitted. he repeated his remark, that a man in a ship was worse than a man in a jail. 'the man in a jail,' said he, 'has more room, better food, and commonly better company, and is in safety.' 'ay; but,' said mr m'queen, 'the man in the ship has the pleasing hope of getting to shore.' johnson. 'sir, i am not talking of a man's getting to shore; but a man while he is in a ship: and then, i say, he is worse than a man while he is in a jail. a man in a jail may have the "pleasing hope" of getting out. a man confined for only a limited time, actually has it.' m'leod mentioned his schemes for carrying on fisheries with spirit, and that he would wish to understand the construction of boats. i suggested that he might go to a dock-yard and work, as peter the great did. johnson. 'nay, sir, he need not work. peter the great had not the sense to see that the mere mechanical work may be done by any body, and that there is the same art in constructing a vessel, whether the boards are well or ill wrought. sir christopher wren might as well have served his time to a bricklayer, and first, indeed, to a brick-maker.' there is a beautiful little island in the loch of dunvegan, called isa. m'leod said, he would give it to dr johnson, on condition of his residing on it three months in the year; nay one month. dr johnson was highly amused with the fancy. i have seen him please himself with little things, even with mere ideas like the present. he talked a great deal of this island--how he would build a house there, how he would fortify it, how he would have cannon, how he would plant, how he would sally out and take the isle of muck; and then he laughed with uncommon glee, and could hardly leave off. i have seen him do so at a small matter that struck him, and was a sport to no one else. mr langton told me, that one night he did so while the company were all grave about him: only garrick, in his significant smart manner, darting his eyes around, exclaimed, 'very jocose, to be sure!' m'leod encouraged the fancy of dr johnson's becoming owner of an island; told him, that it was the practice in this country to name every man by his lands; and begged leave to drink to him in that mode: 'island isa, your health!' ulinish, talisker, mr m'queen, and i, all joined in our different manners, while dr johnson bowed to each, with much good humour. we had good weather, and a fine sail this day. the shore was varied with hills, and rocks, and corn-fields, and bushes, which are here dignified with the name of natural wood. we landed near the house of ferneley, a farm possessed by another gentleman of the name of m'leod, who, expecting our arrival, was waiting on the shore, with a horse for dr johnson. the rest of us walked. at dinner, i expressed to m'leod the joy which i had in seeing him on such cordial terms with his clan. 'government,' said he, 'has deprived us of our ancient power; but it cannot deprive us of our domestick satisfactions. i would rather drink punch in one of their houses' (meaning the houses of his people) 'than be enabled by their hardships, to have claret in my own.' this should be the sentiment of every chieftain. all that he can get by raising his rents, is more luxury in his own house. is it not better to share the profits of his estate, to a certain degree, with his kinsmen, and thus have both social intercourse and patriarchal influence? we had a very good ride, for about three miles, to talisker, where colonel m'leod introduced us to his lady. we found here mr donald m'lean, the young laird of col (nephew to talisker), to whom i delivered the letter with which i had been favoured by his uncle, professor m'leod, at aberdeen. he was a little lively young man. we found he had been a good deal in england, studying farming, and was resolved to improve the value of his father's lands, without oppressing his tenants, or losing the ancient highland fashions. talisker is a better place than one commonly finds in sky. it is situated in a rich bottom. before it is a wide expanse of sea, on each hand of which are immense rocks; and, at some distance in the sea, there are three columnal rocks rising to sharp points. the billows break with prodigious force and noise on the coast of talisker. there are here a good many well-grown trees. talisker is an extensive farm. the possessor of it has, for several generations, been the next heir to m'leod, as there has been but one son always in that family. the court before the house is most injudiciously paved with the round blueish-grey pebbles which are found upon the sea-shore; so that you walk as if upon cannon-balls driven into the ground. after supper, i talked of the assiduity of the scottish clergy, in visiting and privately instructing their parishioners, and observed how much in this they excelled the english clergy. dr johnson would not let this pass. he tried to turn it off, by saying, 'there are different ways of instructing. our clergy pray and preach.' m'leod and i pressed the subject, upon which he grew warm, and broke forth: 'i do not believe your people are better instructed. if they are, it is the blind leading the blind; for your clergy are not instructed themselves.' thinking he had gone a little too far, he checked himself, and added, 'when i talk of the ignorance of your clergy, i talk of them as a body: i do not mean that there are not individuals who are learned' (looking at mr m'queen). 'i suppose there are such among the clergy in muscovy. the clergy of england have produced the most valuable books in support of religion, both in theory and practice. what have your clergy done, since you sunk into presbyterianism? can you name one book of any value, on a religious subject, written by them?' we were silent. 'i'll help you. forbes wrote very well; but i believe he wrote before episcopacy was quite extinguished.' and then pausing a little, he said, 'yes, you have wishart against repentance.' [footnote: this was a dexterous mode of description, for the purpose of his argument; for what he alluded to was, a sermon published by the learned dr william wishart, formerly principal of the college at edinburgh, to warn men against confiding in a death-bed repentance, of the inefficacy of which he entertained notions very different from those of dr johnson.] boswell. 'but, sir, we are not contending for the superior learning of our clergy, but for their superior assiduity.' he bore us down again, with thundering against their ignorance, and said to me, 'i see you have not been well taught; for you have not charity.' he had been in some measure forced into this warmth, by the exulting air which i assumed; for, when he began, he said, 'since you will drive the nail!' he again thought of good mr m'queen, and, taking him by the hand, said, 'sir, i did not mean any disrespect to you.' here i must observe, that he conquered by deserting his ground, and not meeting the argument as i had put it. the assiduity of the scottish clergy is certainly greater than that of the english. his taking up the topick of their not having so much learning, was, though ingenious, yet a fallacy in logick. it was as if there should be a dispute whether a man's hair is well dressed, and dr johnson should say, 'sir, his hair cannot be well dressed; for he has a dirty shirt. no man who has not clean linen has his hair well dressed.' when some days afterwards he read this passage, he said, 'no, sir; i did not say that a man's hair could not be well dressed because he has not clean linen, but because he is bald.' he used one argument against the scottish clergy being learned, which i doubt was not good. 'as we believe a man dead till we know that he is alive; so we believe men ignorant till we know that they are learned.' now our maxim in law is, to presume a man alive, till we know he is dead. however, indeed, it may be answered, that we must first know he has lived; and that we have never known the learning of the scottish clergy. mr m'queen, though he was of opinion that dr johnson had deserted the point really in dispute, was much pleased with what he said, and owned to me, he thought it very just; and mrs m'leod was so much captivated by his eloquence, that she told me 'i was a good advocate for a bad cause.' friday, th september this was a good day. dr johnson told us, at breakfast, that he rode harder at a fox chase than any body. 'the english,' said he, 'are the only nation who ride hard a-hunting. a frenchman goes out upon a managed horse, and capers in the field, and no more thinks of leaping a hedge than of mounting a breach. lord powerscourt laid a wager, in france, that he would ride a great many miles in a certain short time. the french academicians set to work, and calculated that, from the resistance of the air, it was impossible. his lordship however performed it.' our money being nearly exhausted, we sent a bill for thirty pounds, drawn on sir william forbes and co. to lochbraccadale, but our messenger found it very difficult to procure cash for it; at length, however, he got us value from the master of a vessel which was to carry away some emigrants. there is a great scarcity of specie in sky. mr m'queen said he had the utmost difficulty to pay his servants' wages, or to pay for any little thing which he has to buy. the rents are paid in bills, which the drovers give. the people consume a vast deal of snuff and tobacco, for which they must pay ready money; and pedlers, who come about selling goods, as there is not a shop in the island, carry away the cash. if there were encouragement given to fisheries and manufacturers, there might be a circulation of money introduced. i got one-and-twenty shillings in silver at portree, which was thought a wonderful store. talisker, mr m'queen, and i, walked out, and looked at no less than fifteen different waterfalls near the house, in the space of about a quarter of a mile. we also saw cuchullin's well, said to have been the favourite spring of that ancient hero. i drank of it. the water is admirable. on the shore are many stones full of crystallizations in the heart. though our obliging friend, mr m'lean, was but the young laird, he had the title of col constantly given him. after dinner he and i walked to the top of prieshwell, a very high rocky hill, from whence there is a view of barra, the long island, bernera, the loch of dunvegan, part of rum, part of rasay, and a vast deal of the isle of sky. col, though he had come into sky with an intention to be at dunvegan, and pass a considerable time in the island, most politely resolved first to conduct us to mull, and then to return to sky. this was a very fortunate circumstance; for he planned an expedition for us of more variety than merely going to mull. he proposed we should flee the islands of egg, muck, col, and tyr-yi. in all these islands he could shew us every thing worth seeing; and in mull he said he should be as if at home, his father having lands there, and he a farm. dr johnson did not talk much to-day, but seemed intent in listening to the schemes of future excursion, planned by col. dr birch, however, being mentioned, he said, he had more anecdotes than any man. i said, percy had a great many; that he flowed with them like one of the brooks here. johnson. 'if percy is like one of the brooks here. birch was like the river thames. birch excelled percy in that, as much as percy excels goldsmith.' i mentioned lord hailes as a man of anecdote. he was not pleased with him, for publishing only such memorials and letters as were unfavourable for the stuart family. 'if,' said he, 'a man fairly warns you, "i am to give all the ill; do you find the good", he may: but if the object which he professes be to give a view of a reign, let him tell all the truth. i would tell truth of the two georges, or of that scoundrel, king william. granger's biographical history is full of curious anecdote, but might have been better done. the dog is a whig. i do not like much to see a whig in any dress; but i hate to see a whig in a parson's gown.' saturday, th september it was resolved that we should set out, in order to return to slate, to be in readiness to take boat whenever there should be a fair wind. dr johnson remained in his chamber writing a letter, and it was long before we could get him into motion. he did not come to breakfast, but had it sent to him. when he had finished his letter, it was twelve o'clock, and we should have set out at ten. when i went up to him, he said to me, 'do you remember a song which begins, "every island is a prison strongly guarded by the sea; kings and princes, for that reason, prisoners are, as well as we."' i suppose he had been thinking of our confined situation. he would fain have gone in a boat from hence, instead of riding back to slate. a scheme for it was proposed. he said, 'we'll not be driven tamely from it': but it proved impracticable. we took leave of m'leod and talisker, from whom we parted with regret. talisker, having been bred to physick, had a tincture of scholarship in his conversation, which pleased dr johnson, and he had some very good books; and being a colonel in the dutch service, he and his lady, in consequence of having lived abroad, had introduced the ease and politeness of the continent into this rude region. young col was now our leader. mr m'queen was to accompany us half a day more. we stopped at a little hut, where we saw an old woman grinding with the quern, the ancient highland instrument, which it is said was used by the romans, but which, being very slow in its operation, is almost entirely gone into disuse. the walls of the cottages in sky, instead of being one compacted mass of stones, are often formed by two exterior surfaces of stone, filled up with earth in the middle, which makes them very warm. the roof is generally bad. they are thatched, sometimes with straw, sometimes with heath, sometimes with fern. the thatch is secured by ropes of straw, or of heath; and, to fix the ropes, there is a stone tied to the end of each. these stones hang round the bottom of the roof, and make it look like a lady's hair in papers; but i should think that, when there is wind, they would come down, and knock people on the head. we dined at the inn at sconser, where i had the pleasure to find a letter from my wife. here we parted from our learned companion, mr donald m'queen. dr johnson took leave of him very affectionately, saying, 'dear sir, do not forget me!' we settled, that he should write an account of the isle of sky, which dr johnson promised to revise. he said, mr m'queen should tell all that he could; distinguishing what he himself knew, what was traditional, and what conjectural. we sent our horses round a point of land, that we might shun some very bad road; and resolved to go forward by sea. it was seven o'clock when we got into our boat. we had many showers, and it soon grew pretty dark. dr johnson sat silent and patient. once he said, as he looked on the black coast of sky--black, as being composed of rocks seen in the dusk--'this is very solemn.' our boatmen were rude singers, and seemed so like wild indians, that a very little imagination was necessary to give one an impression of being upon an american river. we landed at strolimus, from whence we got a guide to walk before us, for two miles, to corrichatachin. not being able to procure a horse for our baggage, i took one portmanteau before me, and joseph another. we had but a single star to light us on our way. it was about eleven when we arrived. we were most hospitably received by the master and mistress, who were just going to bed, but, with unaffected ready kindness, made a good fire, and at twelve o'clock at night had supper on the table. james macdonald, of knockow, kingsburgh's brother, whom we had seen at kingsburgh, was there. he shewed me a bond granted by the late sir james macdonald, to old kingsburgh, the preamble of which does so much honour to the feelings of that much-lamented gentleman, that i thought it worth transcribing. it was as follows:-- i, sir james macdonald, of macdonald, baronet, now, after arriving at my perfect age, from the friendship i bear to alexander macdonald of kingsburgh, and in return for the long and faithful services done and performed by him to my deceased father, and to myself during my minority, when he was one of my tutors and curators; being resolved, now that the said alexander macdonald is advanced in years, to contribute my endeavours for making his old age placid and comfortable, therefore he grants him an annuity of fifty pounds sterling. dr johnson went to bed soon. when one bowl of punch was finished, i rose, and was near the door, in my way up stairs to bed; but corrichatachin said, it was the first time col had been in his house, and he should have his bowl; and would not i join in drinking it? the heartiness of my honest landlord, and the desire of doing social honour to our very obliging conductor, induced me to sit down again. col's bowl was finished; and by that time we were well warmed. a third bowl was soon made, and that too was finished. we were cordial, and merry to a high degree; but of what passed i have no recollection, with any accuracy. i remember calling corrichatachin by the familiar appellation of corri, which his friends do. a fourth bowl was made, by which time col, and young m'kinnon, corrichatachin's son, slipped away to bed. i continued a little with corri and knockow; but at last i left them. it was near five in the morning when i got to bed. sunday, th september i awaked at noon, with a severe head-ach. i was much vexed that i should have been guilty of such a riot, and afraid of a reproof from dr johnson. i thought it very inconsistent with that conduct which i ought to maintain, while the companion of the rambler. about one he came into my room, and accosted me, 'what, drunk yet?' his tone of voice was not that of severe upbraiding; so i was relieved a little. 'sir,' said i, 'they kept me up.' he answered, 'no, you kept them up, you drunken dog.' this he said with good-humoured english pleasantry. soon afterwards, corrichatachin, col, and other friends assembled round my bed. corri had a brandy-bottle and glass with him, and insisted i should take a dram. 'ay,' said dr johnson, 'fill him drunk again. do it in the morning, that we may laugh at him all day. it is a poor thing for a fellow to get drunk at night, and sculk to bed, and let his friends have no sport.' finding him thus jocular, i became quite easy; and when i offered to get up, he very good-naturedly said, 'you need be in no such hurry now.' [footnote: my ingenuously relating this occasional instance of intemperance has i find been made the subject both of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. with the banterers i shall not trouble myself, but i wonder that those who pretend to the appellation of serious criticks should not have had sagacity enough to perceive that here, as in every other part of the present work, my principal object was to delineate dr johnson's manners and character. in justice to him i would not omit an anecdote, which, though in some degree to my own disadvantage, exhibits in so strong a light the indulgence and good humour with which he could treat those excesses in his friends, of which he highly disapproved. in some other instances, the criticks have been equally wrong as to the true motive of my recording particulars, the objections to which i saw as clearly as they. but it would be an endless talk for an authour to point out upon every occasion the precise object he has in view. contenting himself with the approbation of readers of discernment and taste, he ought not to complain that some are found who cannot or will not understand him.] i took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which i found an effectual cure for my head-ach. when i rose, i went into dr johnson's room, and taking up mrs m'kinnon's prayer-book, i opened it at the twentieth sunday after trinity, in the epistle for which i read, 'and be not drunk with wine, wherein there is excess.' some would have taken this as a divine interposition. mrs m'kinnon told us at dinner, that old kingsburgh, her father, was examined at mugstot, by general campbell, as to the particulars of the dress of the person who had come to his house in woman's clothes, along with miss flora m'donald; as the general had received intelligence of that disguise. the particulars were taken down in writing, that it might be seen how far they agreed with the dress of the 'irish girl' who went with miss flora from the long island. kingsburgh, she said, had but one song, which he always sung when he was merry over a glass. she dictated the words to me, which are foolish enough: green sleeves and pudding pies, tell me where my mistress lies, and i'll be with her before the rise, fiddle and aw' together. may our affairs abroad succeed, and may our king come home with speed, and all pretenders shake for dread, and let his health go round. to all our injured friends in need, this side and beyond the tweed! let all pretenders shake for dread, and let his health go round. green sleeves, &c. while the examination was going on, the present talisker, who was there as one of m'leod's militia, could not resist the pleasantry of asking kingsburgh, in allusion to his only song, 'had she green sleeves?' kingsburgh gave him no answer. lady margaret m'donald was very angry at talisker for joking on such a serious occasion, as kingsburgh was really in danger of his life. mrs m'kinnon added that lady margaret was quite adored in sky. that when she travelled through the island, the people ran in crowds before her, and took the stones off the road, lest her horse should stumble and she be hurt. her husband, sir alexander, is also remembered with great regard. we were told that every week a hogshead of claret was drunk at his table. this was another day of wind and rain; but good cheer and good society helped to beguile the time. i felt myself comfortable enough in the afternoon. i then thought that my last night's riot was no more than such a social excess as may happen without much moral blame; and recollected that some physicians maintained, that a fever produced by it was, upon the whole, good for health: so different are our reflections on the same subject, at different periods; and such the excuses with which we palliate what we know to be wrong. monday, th september mr donald m'leod, our original guide, who had parted from us at dunvegan, joined us again to-day. the weather was still so bad that we could not travel. i found a closet here, with a good many books, beside those that were lying about. dr johnson told me, he found a library in his room at talisker; and observed, that it was one of the remarkable things of sky, that there were so many books in it. though we had here great abundance of provisions, it is remarkable that corrichatachin has literally no garden: not even a turnip, a carrot or a cabbage. after dinner, we talked of the crooked spade used in sky, already described, and they maintained that it was better than the usual garden-spade, and that there was an art in tossing it, by which those who were accustomed to it could work very easily with it. 'nay,' said dr johnson, 'it may be useful in land where there are many stones to raise; but it certainly is not a good instrument for digging good land. a man may toss it, to be sure; but he will toss a light spade much better: its weight makes it an incumbrance. a man may dig any land with it; but he has no occasion for such a weight in digging good land. you may take a field-piece to shoot sparrows; but all the sparrows you can bring home will not be worth the charge.' he was quite social and easy amongst them; and, though he drank no fermented liquor, toasted highland beauties with great readiness. his conviviality engaged them so much, that they seemed eager to shew their attention to him, and vied with each other in crying out, with a strong celtick pronunciation, 'toctor shonson, toctor shonson, your health!' this evening one of our married ladies, a lively pretty little woman, good-humouredly sat down upon dr johnson's knee, and, being encouraged by some of the company, put her hands round his neck, and kissed him. 'do it again,' said he, 'and let us see who will tire first.' he kept her on his knee some time, while he and she drank tea. he was now like a buck indeed. all the company were much entertained to find him so easy and pleasant. to me it was highly comick, to see the grave philosopher--the rambler--toying with a highland beauty! but what could he do? he must have been surly, and weak too, had he not behaved as he did. he would have been laughed at, and not more respected, though less loved. he read to-night, to himself, as he sat in company, a great deal of my journal, and said to me, 'the more i read of this, i think the more highly of you.' the gentlemen sat a long time at their punch, after he and i had retired to our chambers. the manner in which they were attended struck me as singular: the bell being broken, a smart lad lay on a table in the corner of the room, ready to spring up and bring the kettle, whenever it was wanted. they continued drinking, and singing erse songs, till near five in the morning, when they all came into my room, where some of them had beds. unluckily for me, they found a bottle of punch in a corner, which they drank; and corrichatachin went for another, which they also drank. they made many apologies for disturbing me. i told them, that, having been kept awake by their mirth, i had once thoughts of getting up, and joining them again. honest corrichatachin said, 'to have had you done so, i would have given a cow.' tuesday, th september the weather was worse than yesterday. i felt as if imprisoned. dr johnson said, it was irksome to be detained thus: yet he seemed to have less uneasiness, or more patience, than i had. what made our situation worse here was, that we had no rooms that we could command; for the good people had no notion that a man could have any occasion but for a mere sleeping-place; so, during the day, the bed-chambers were common to all the house. servants eat in dr johnson's; and mine was a kind of general rendezvous of all under the roof, children and dogs not excepted. as the gentlemen occupied the parlour, the ladies had no place to sit in, during the day, but dr johnson's room. i had always some quiet time for writing in it, before he was up; and, by degrees, i accustomed the ladies to let me sit in it after breakfast, at my journal, without minding me. dr johnson was this morning for going to see as many islands as we could; not recollecting the uncertainty of the season, which might detain us in one place for many weeks. he said to me, 'i have more the spirit of adventure than you.' for my part, i was anxious to get to mull, from whence we might almost any day reach the main land. dr johnson mentioned, that the few ancient irish gentlemen yet remaining have the highest pride of family; that mr sandford, a friend of his, whose mother was irish, told him, that o'hara (who was true irish, both by father and mother) and he, and mr ponsonby, son to the earl of besborough, the greatest man of the three, but of an english family, went to see one of those ancient irish, and that he distinguished them thus: 'o'hara, you are welcome! mr sandford, your mother's son, is welcome! mr ponsonby, you may sit down.' he talked both of threshing and thatching. he said, it was very difficult to determine how to agree with a thresher. 'if you pay him by the day's wages, he will thresh no more than he pleases; though, to be sure, the negligence of a thresher is more easily detected than that of most labourers, because he must always make a sound while he works. if you pay him by the piece, by the quantity of grain which he produces, he will thresh only while the grain comes freely, and, though he leaves a good deal in the ear, it is not worth while to thresh the straw over again; nor can you fix him to do it sufficiently, because it is so difficult to prove how much less a man threshes than he ought to do. here then is a dilemma: but, for my part, i would engage him by the day; i would rather trust his idleness than his fraud.' he said, a roof thatched with lincolnshire reeds would last seventy years, as he was informed when in that county; and that he told this in london to a great thatcher, who said, he believed it might be true. such are the pains that dr johnson takes to get the best information on every subject. he proceeded: 'it is difficult for a farmer in england to find day- labourers, because the lowest manufacturers can always get more than a day-labourer. it is of no consequence how high the wages of manufacturers are; but it would be of very bad consequence to raise the wages of those who procure the immediate necessaries of life, for that would raise the price of provisions. here then is a problem for politicians. it is not reasonable that the most useful body of men should be the worst paid; yet it does not appear how it can be ordered otherwise. it were to be wished, that a mode for its being otherwise were found out. in the mean time, it is better to give temporary assistance by charitable contributions to poor labourers, at times when provisions are high, than to raise their wages; because, if wages are once raised, they will never get down again.' happily the weather cleared up between one and two o'clock, and we got ready to depart; but our kind host and hostess would not let us go without taking a 'snatch', as they called it; which was in truth a very good dinner. while the punch went round, dr johnson kept a close whispering conference with mrs m'kinnon, which, however, was loud enough to let us hear that the subject of it was the particulars of prince charles's escape. the company were entertained and pleased to observe it. upon that subject, there was something congenial between the soul of dr samuel johnson, and that of an isle of sky farmer's wife. it is curious to see people, how far soever removed from each other in the general system of their lives, come close together on a particular point which is common to each. we were merry with corrichatachin, on dr johnson's whispering with his wife. she, perceiving this, humorously cried, 'i am in love with him. what is it to live and not to love?' upon her saying something, which i did not hear, or cannot recollect, he seized her hand eagerly, and kissed it. as we were going, the scottish phrase of 'honest man!' which is an expression of kindness and regard, was again and again applied by the company to dr johnson. i was also treated with much civility; and i must take some merit from my assiduous attention to him, and from my contriving that he shall be easy wherever he goes, that he shall not be asked twice to eat or drink any thing (which always disgusts him), that he shall be provided with water at his meals, and many such little things, which, if not attended to would fret him. i also may be allowed to claim some merit in leading the conversation: i do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in examining a witness--starting topics, and making him pursue them. he appears to me like a great mill, into which a subject is thrown to be ground. it requires, indeed, fertile minds to furnish materials for this mill. i regret whenever i see it unemployed; but sometimes i feel myself quite barren, and having nothing to throw in. i know not if this mill be a good figure; though pope makes his mind a mill for turning verses. we set out about four. young corrichatachin went with us. we had a fine evening, and arrived in good time at ostig, the residence of mr martin m'pherson, minister of slate. it is a pretty good house, built by his father, upon a farm near the church. we were received here with much kindness by mr and mrs m'pherson, and his sister, miss m'pherson, who pleased dr johnson much, by singing erse songs, and playing on the guittar. he afterwards sent her a present of his rasselas. in his bed-chamber was a press stored with books, greek, latin, french, and english, most of which had belonged to the father of our host, the learned dr m'pherson; who, though his dissertations have been mentioned in a former page as unsatisfactory, was a man of distinguished talents. dr johnson looked at a latin paraphrase of the song of moses, written by him, and published in the scots magazine for , and said, 'it does him honour; he has a great deal of latin, and good latin.' dr m'pherson published also in the same magazine, june , an original latin ode, which he wrote from the isle of barra, where he was minister for some years. it is very poetical, and exhibits a striking proof how much all things depend upon comparison: for barra, it seems, appeared to him so much worse than sky, his natale solum, that he languished for its 'blessed mountains', and thought himself buried alive amongst barbarians where he was. my readers will probably not be displeased to have a specimen of this ode: hei mihi! quantos patior dolores, dum procul specto juga ter beata; dum ferae barrae steriles arenas solus oberro. ingemo, indignor, crucior, quod inter barbaros thulen lateam colentes; torpeo languens, morior sepultus, carcere coeco. after wishing for wings to fly over to his dear country, which was in his view, from what he calls 'thule', as being the most western isle of scotland, except st kilda; after describing the pleasures of society, and the miseries of solitude, he at last, with becoming propriety, has recourse to the only sure relief of thinking men--sursum corda, the hope of a better world--and disposes his mind to resignation: interim fiat, tua, rex, voluntas: erigor sursum quoties subit spes certa migrandi solymam supernam, numinis aulam. he concludes in a noble strain of orthodox piety: vita tum demum vocitanda vita est. tum licet gratos socios habere, seraphim et sanctos triadem verendam concelebrantes. wednesday, th september after a very good sleep, i rose more refreshed than i had been for some nights. we were now at but a little distance from the shore, and saw the sea from our windows, which made our voyage seem nearer. mr m'pherson's manners and address pleased us much. he appeared to be a man of such intelligence and taste as to be sensible of the extraordinary powers of his illustrious guest. he said to me, 'dr johnson is an honour to mankind; and, if the expression may be used, is an honour to religion.' col, who had gone yesterday to pay a visit at camuscross, joined us this morning at breakfast. some other gentlemen also came to enjoy the entertainment of dr johnson's conversation. the day was windy and rainy, so that we had just seized a happy interval for our journey last night. we had good entertainment here, better accommodation than at corrichatachin, and time enough to ourselves. the hours slipped along imperceptibly. we talked of shenstone. dr johnson said, he was a good layer-out of land, but would not allow him to approach excellence as a poet. he said, he believed he had tried to read all his love pastorals, but did not get through them. i repeated the stanza, '"she gazed as i slowly withdrew; my path i could hardly discern; so sweetly she bade me adieu, i thought that she bade me return."' he said, 'that seems to be pretty.' i observed that shenstone, from his short maxims in prose, appeared to have some power of thinking; but dr johnson would not allow him that merit. he agreed, however, with shenstone, that it was wrong in the brother of one of his correspondents to burn his letters; 'for,' said he, 'shenstone was a man whose correspondence was an honour.' he was this afternoon full of critical severity, and dealt about his censures on all sides. he said, hammond's love elegies were poor things. he spoke contemptuously of our lively and elegant, though too licentious, lyrick bard, hanbury williams, and said, 'he had no fame, but from boys who drank with him'. while he was in this mood, i was unfortunate enough, simply perhaps, but, i could not help thinking, undeservedly, to come within 'the whiff and wind of his fell sword'. i asked him, if he had ever been accustomed to wear a night-cap. he said 'no.' i asked, if it was best not to wear one. johnson. 'sir, i had this custom by chance, and perhaps no man shall ever know whether it is best to sleep with or without a night-cap.' soon afterwards he was laughing at some deficiency in the highlands, and said, 'one might as well go without shoes and stockings.' thinking to have a little hit at his own deficiency, i ventured to add, 'or without a night-cap, sir'. but i had better have been silent; for he retorted directly, 'i do not see the connection there' (laughing). 'nobody before was ever foolish enough to ask whether it was best to wear a night-cap or not. this comes of being a little wrong-headed.' he carried the company along with him: and yet the truth is, that if he had always worn a night-cap, as is the common practice, and found the highlanders did not wear one, he would have wondered at their barbarity; so that my hit was fair enough. thursday, th september there was as great a storm of wind and rain as i have almost ever seen, which necessarily confined us to the house; but we were fully compensated by dr johnson's conversation. he said, he did not grudge burke's being the first man in the house of commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the house of commons, merely by having the knowledge of a few forms, and being furnished with a little occasional information. [footnote: he did not mention the name of any particular person; but those who are conversant with the political world will probably recollect more persons than one to whom this observation may be applied.] he told us, the first time he saw dr young was at the house of mr richardson, the author of clarissa. he was sent for, that the doctor might read to him his conjectures on original composition, which he did, and dr johnson made his remarks; and he was surprised to find young receive as novelties, what he thought very common maxims. he said, he believed young was not a great scholar, nor had studied regularly the art of writing; that there were very fine things in his night thoughts, though you could not find twenty lines together without some extravagance. he repeated two passages from his love of fame--the characters of brunetta and stella, which he praised highly. he said young pressed him much to come to wellwyn. he always intended it, but never went. he was sorry when young died. the cause of quarrel between young and his son, he told us, was, that his son insisted young should turn away a clergyman's widow, who lived with him, and who, having acquired great influence over the father, was saucy to the son. dr johnson said, she could not conceal her resentment at him, for saying to young, that 'an old man should not resign himself to the management of any body.' i asked him, if there was any improper connection between them. 'no, sir, no more than between two statues. he was past fourscore, and she a very coarse woman. she read to him, and, i suppose, made his coffee, and frothed his chocolate, and did such things as an old man wishes to have done for him.' dr dodridge being mentioned, he observed that 'he was author of one of the finest epigrams in the english language. it is in orton's life of him. the subject is his family-motto, dum vivimus, vivamus; which, in its primary signification, is, to be sure, not very suitable to a christian divine; but he paraphrased it thus: "live, while you live, the epicure would say, and seize the pleasures of the present day. live, while you live, the sacred preacher cries, and give to god each moment as it flies. lord, in my views let both united be; i live in pleasure, when i live to thee."' i asked if it was not strange that government should permit so many infidel writings to pass without censure. johnson. 'sir, it is mighty foolish. it is for want of knowing their own power. the present family on the throne came to the crown against the will of nine tenths of the people. whether those nine tenths were right or wrong, it is not our business now to inquire. but such being the situation of the royal family, they were glad to encourage all who would be their friends. now you know every bad man is a whig; every man who has loose notions. the church was all against this family. they were, as i say, glad to encourage any friends; and therefore, since their accession, there is no instance of any man being kept back on account of his bad principles; and hence this inundation of impiety.' i observed that mr hume, some of whose writings were very unfavourable to religion, was, however, a tory. johnson. 'sir, hume is a tory by chance, as being a scotchman; but not upon a principle of duty; for he has no principle. if he is any thing, he is a hobbist.' there was something not quite serene in his humour to night, after supper; for he spoke of hastening away to london, without stopping much at edinburgh. i reminded him, that he had general oughton and many others to see. johnson. 'nay, i shall neither go in jest, nor stay in jest. i shall do what is fit.' boswell. 'ay, sir, but all i desire is, that you will let me tell you when it is fit.' johnson. 'sir, i shall not consult you.' boswell. 'if you are to run away from us, as soon as you get loose, we will keep you confined in an island.' he was, however, on the whole, very good company. mr donald m'leod expressed very well the gradual impression made by dr johnson on those who are so fortunate as to obtain his acquaintance. 'when you see him first, you are struck with awful reverence; then you admire him; and then you love him cordially.' i read this evening some part of voltaire's history of the war in , and of lord kames against hereditary indefeasible right. this is a very slight circumstance, with which i should not trouble my reader, but for the sake of observing, that every man should keep minutes of whatever he reads. every circumstance of his studies should be recorded; what books he has consulted; how much of them he has read; at what times; how often the same authors; and what opinions he formed of them, at different periods of his life. such an account would much illustrate the history of his mind. friday, st october i shewed to dr johnson verses in a magazine, on his dictionary, composed of uncommon words taken from it: little of anthropopathy has he, &c." he read a few of them, and said, 'i am not answerable for all the words in my dictionary.' i told him, that garrick kept a book of all who had either praised or abused him. on the subject of his own reputation, he said, 'now that i see it has been so current a topick, i wish i had done so too; but it could not well be done now, as so many things are scattered in newspapers.' he said he was angry at a boy of oxford, who wrote in his defence against kenrick; because it was doing him hurt to answer kenrick. he was told afterwards, the boy was to come to him to ask a favour. he first thought to treat him rudely, on account of his meddling in that business; but then he considered, he had meant to do him all the service in his power, and he took another resolution; he told him he would do what he could for him, and did so, and the boy was satisfied. he said, he did not know how his pamphlet was done, as he had read very little of it. the boy made a good figure at oxford, but died. he remarked, that attacks on authors did them much service. 'a man who tells me my play is very bad, is less my enemy than he who lets it die in silence. a man, whose business it is to be talked of, is much helped at being attacked.' garrick, i observed, had been often so helped. johnson. 'yes, sir; though garrick had more opportunities than almost any man, to keep the publick in mind of him, by exhibiting himself to such numbers, he would not have had so much reputation, had he not been so much attacked. every attack produces a defence; and so attention is engaged. there is no sport in mere praise, when people are all of a mind.' boswell. 'then hume is not the worse for seattle's attack?' johnson. 'he is, because beattie has confuted him. i do not say, but that there may be some attacks which will hurt an author. though hume suffered from beattie, he was the better for other attacks.' (he certainly could not include in that number those of dr adams, and mr tytler.) boswell. 'goldsmith is the better for attacks.' johnson. 'yes, sir; but he does not think so yet. when goldsmith and i published, each of us something, at the same time, we were given to understand that we might review each other. goldsmith was for accepting the offer. i said, no; set reviewers at defiance. it was said to old bentley, upon the attacks against him, "why, they'll write you down." "no, sir," he replied; "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."' he observed to me afterwards, that the advantages authours derived from attacks, were chiefly in subjects of taste, where you cannot confute, as so much may be said on either side. he told me he did not know who was the authour of the adventures of a guinea, but that the bookseller had sent the first volume to him in manuscript, to have his opinion if it should be printed; and he thought it should. the weather being now somewhat better, mr james m'donald, factor to sir alexander m'donald in slate, insisted that all the company at ostig should go to the house at armidale, which sir alexander had left having gone with his lady to edinburgh, and be his guests, till we had an opportunity of sailing to mull. we accordingly got there to dinner; and passed our day very cheerfully, being no less than fourteen in number. saturday, d october dr johnson said, that 'a chief and his lady should make their house like a court. they should have a certain number of the gentlemen's daughters to receive their education in the family, to learn pastry and such things from the housekeeper, and manners from my lady. that was the way in the great families in wales; at lady salisbury's, mrs thrale's grandmother, and at lady philips's. i distinguish the families by the ladies, as i speak of what was properly their province. there were always six young ladies at sir john philips's: when one was married, her place was filled up. there was a large school-room, where they learnt needlework and other things.' i observed, that, at some courts in germany, there were academies for the pages, who are the sons of gentlemen, and receive their education without any expence to their parents. dr johnson said, that manners were best learnt at those courts. 'you are admitted with great facility to the prince's company, and yet must treat him with much respect. at a great court, you are at such a distance that you get no good.' i said, 'very true: a man sees the court of versailles, as if he saw it on a theatre.' he said, 'the best book that ever was written upon good breeding, il corteggiano, by castiglione, grew up at the little court of urbino, and you should read it.' i am glad always to have his opinion of books. at mr m'pherson's, he commended whitby's commentary, and said, he had heard him called rather lax; but he did not perceive it. he had looked at a novel, called the man of the world, at rasay, but thought there was nothing in it. he said to-day, while reading my journal, 'this will be a great treasure to us some years hence.' talking of a very penurious gentleman of our acquaintance, he observed, that he exceeded l'avare in the play. i concurred with him, and remarked that he would do well, if introduced in one of foote's farces; that the best way to get it done, would be to bring foote to be entertained at his house for a week, and then it would be facit indignatio. johnson. 'sir, i wish he had him. i, who have eaten his bread, will not give him to him, but i should be glad he came honestly by him.' he said, he was angry at thrale, for sitting at general oglethorpe's without speaking. he censured a man for degrading himself to a non-entity. i observed, that goldsmith was on the other extreme; for he spoke at all ventures. johnson. 'yes, sir; goldsmith, rather than not speak, will talk of what he knows himself to be ignorant, which can only end in exposing him.' 'i wonder,' said i, 'if he feels that he exposes himself. if he was with two taylors...' 'or with two founders,' said dr johnson, interrupting me, 'he would fall a talking on the method of making cannon, though both of them would soon see that he did not know what metal a cannon is made of.' we were very social and merry in his room this forenoon. in the evening the company danced as usual. we performed, with much activity, a dance which, i suppose, the emigration from sky has occasioned. they call it 'america'. each of the couples, after the common involutions and evolutions, successively whirls round in a circle, till all are in motion; and the dance seems intended to shew how emigration catches, till a whole neighbourhood is set afloat. mrs m'kinnon told me, that last year when a ship sailed from portree for america, the people on shore were almost distracted when they saw their relations go off; they lay down on the ground, tumbled, and tore the grass with their teeth. this year there was not a tear shed. the people on shore seemed to think that they would soon follow. this indifference is a mortal sign for the country. we danced to night to the musick of the bagpipe, which made us beat the ground with prodigious force. i thought it better to endeavour to conciliate the kindness of the people of sky, by joining heartily in their amusements, than to play the abstract scholar. i looked on this tour to the hebrides as a copartnership between dr johnson and me. each was to do all he could to promote its success; and i have some reason to flatter myself, that my gayer exertions were of service to us. dr johnson's immense fund of knowledge and wit was a wonderful source of admiration and delight to them; but they had it only at times; and they required to have the intervals agreeably filled up, and even little elucidations of his learned text. i was also fortunate enough frequently to draw him forth to talk, when he would otherwise have been silent. the fountain was at times locked up, till i opened the spring. it was curious to hear the hebridians, when any dispute happened while he was out of the room, saying, 'stay till dr johnson comes: say that to him!' yesterday dr johnson said, 'i cannot but laugh, to think of myself roving among the hebrides at sixty. i wonder where i shall rove at fourscore!' this evening he disputed the truth of what is said, as to the people of st kilda catching cold whenever strangers come. 'how can there,' said he, 'be a physical effect without a physical cause?' he added, laughing, 'the arrival of a ship full of strangers would kill them; for, if one stranger gives them one cold, two strangers must give them two colds; and so in proportion.' i wondered to hear him ridicule this, as he had praised m'aulay for putting it in his book: saying, that it was manly in him to tell a fact, however strange, if he himself believed it. he said, the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing; that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to st kilda, and report the fact, then he would begin to look about him. they said, it was annually proved by m'leod's steward, on whose arrival all the inhabitants caught cold. he jocularly remarked, 'the steward always comes to demand something from them; and so they fall a coughing. i suppose the people in sky all take a cold, when--' (naming a certain person) 'comes.' they said, he came only in summer. johnson. 'that is out of tenderness to you. bad weather and he, at the same time, would be too much.' sunday, d october joseph reported that the wind was still against us. dr johnson said, 'a wind, or not a wind? that is the question'; for he can amuse himself at times with a little play of words, or rather sentences. i remember when he turned his cup at aberbrothick, where we drank tea, he muttered, claudite jam rivos, pueri. i must again and again apologize to fastidious readers, for recording such minute particulars. they prove the scrupulous fidelity of my journal. dr johnson said it was a very exact picture of a portion of his life. while we were chatting in the indolent stile of men who were to stay here all this day at least, we were suddenly roused at being told that the wind was fair, that a little fleet of herring-busses was passing by for mull, and that mr simpson's vessel was about to sail. hugh m'donald, the skipper, came to us, and was impatient that we should get ready, which we soon did. dr johnson, with composure and solemnity, repeated the observation of epictetus, that, 'as man has the voyage of death before him, whatever may be his employment, he should be ready at the master's call; and an old man should never be far from the shore, lest he should not be able to get himself ready'. he rode, and i and the other gentlemen walked, about an english mile to the shore, where the vessel lay. dr johnson said, he should never forget sky, and returned thanks for all civilities. we were carried to the vessel in a small boat which she had, and we set sail very briskly about one o'clock. i was much pleased with the motion for many hours. dr johnson grew sick, and retired under cover, as it rained a good deal. i kept above, that i might have fresh air, and finding myself not affected by the motion of the vessel, i exulted in being a stout seaman, while dr johnson was quite in a state of annihilation. but i was soon humbled; for after imagining that i could go with ease to america or the east indies, i became very sick, but kept above board, though it rained hard. as we had been detained so long in sky by bad weather, we gave up the scheme that col had planned for us of visiting several islands, and contented ourselves with the prospect of seeing mull, and icolmkill and inchkenneth, which lie near to it. mr simpson was sanguine in his hopes for a-while, the wind being fair for us. he said, he would land us at icolmkill that night. but when the wind failed, it was resolved we should make for the sound of mull, and land in the harbour of tobermorie. we kept near the five herring vessels for some time; but afterwards four of them got before us, and one little wherry fell behind us. when we got in full view of the point of ardnamurchan, the wind changed, and was directly against our getting into the sound. we were then obliged to tack, and get forward in that tedious manner. as we advanced, the storm grew greater, and the sea very rough. col then began to talk of making for egg, or canna, or his own island. our skipper said, he would get us into the sound. having struggled for this a good while in vain, he said, he would push forward till we were near the land of mull, where we might cast anchor, and lie till the morning; for although, before this, there had been a good moon, and i had pretty distinctly seen not only the land of mull, but up the sound, and the country of morven as at one end of it, the night was now grown very dark. our crew consisted of one m'donald, our skipper, and two sailors, one of whom had but one eye; mr simpson himself, col, and hugh m'donald his servant, all helped. simpson said, he would willingly go for col, if young col or his servant would undertake to pilot us to a harbour; but, as the island is low land, it was dangerous to run upon it in the dark. col and his servant appeared a little dubious. the scheme of running for canna seemed then to be embraced; but canna was ten leagues off, all out of our way; and they were afraid to attempt the harbour of egg. all these different plans were sucessively in agitation. the old skipper still tried to make for the land of mull, but then it was considered that there was no place there where we could anchor in safety. much time was lost in striving against the storm. at last it became so rough, and threatened to be so much worse, that col and his servant took more courage, and said they would undertake to hit one of the harbours in col. 'then let us run for it in god's name,' said the skipper; and instantly we turned towards it. the little wherry which had fallen behind us, had hard work. the master begged that, if we made for col, we should put out a light to him. accordingly one of the sailors waved a glowing peat for some time. the various difficulties that were started, gave me a good deal of apprehension, from which i was relieved, when i found we were to run for a harbour before the wind. but my relief was but of short duration; for i soon heard that our sails were very bad, and were in danger of being torn in pieces, in which case we should be driven upon the rocky shore of col. it was very dark, and there was a heavy and incessant rain. the sparks of the burning peat flew so much about, that i dreaded the vessel might take fire. then, as col was a sportman, and had powder on board, i figured that we might be blown up. simpson and he appeared a little frightened, which made me more so; and the perpetual talking, or rather shouting, which was carried on in erse, alarmed me still more. a man is always suspicious of what is saying in an unknown tongue; and, if fear be his passion at the time, he grows more afraid. our vessel often lay so much on one side, that i trembled lest she should be overset, and indeed they told me afterwards, that they had run her sometimes to within an inch of the water, so anxious were they to make what haste they could before the night should be worse. i now saw what i never saw before, a prodigious sea, with immense billows coming upon a vessel, so as that it seemed hardly possible to escape. there was something grandly horrible in the sight. i am glad i have seen it once. amidst all these terrifying circumstances, i endeavoured to compose my mind. it was not easy to do it; for all the stories that i had heard of the dangerous sailing among the hebrides, which is proverbial, came full upon my recollection. when i thought of those who were dearest to me, and would suffer severely, should i be lost, i upbraided myself, as not having a sufficient cause for putting myself in such danger. piety afforded me comfort; yet i was disturbed by the objections that have been made against a particular providence, and by the arguments of those who maintain that it is in vain to hope that the petitions of an individual, or even of congregations, can have any influence with the deity; objections which have been often made, and which dr hawkesworth has lately revived, in his preface to the voyages to the south seas; but dr ogden's excellent doctrine on the efficacy of intercession prevailed. it was half an hour after eleven before we set ourselves in the course for col. as i saw them all busy doing something, i asked col, with much earnestness, what i could do. he, with a happy readiness, put into my hand a rope, which was fixed to the top of one of the masts, and told me to hold it till he bade me pull. if i had considered the matter, i might have seen that this could not be of the least service; but his object was to keep me out of the way of those who were busy working the vessel, and at the same time to divert my fear, by employing me, and making me think that i was of use. thus did i stand firm to my post, while the wind and rain beat upon me, always expecting a call to pull my rope. the man with one eye steered; old m'donald, and col and his servant, lay upon the fore-castle, looking sharp out for the harbour. it was necessary to carry much 'cloth', as they termed it, that is to say, much sail, in order to keep the vessel off the shore of col. this made violent plunging in a rough sea. at last they spied the harbour of lochiern, and col cried, 'thank god, we are safe!' we ran up till we were opposite to it, and soon afterwards we got into it, and cast anchor. dr johnson had all this time been quiet and unconcerned. he had lain down on one of the beds, and having got free from sickness, was satisfied. the truth is, he knew nothing of the danger we were in: but, fearless and unconcerned, might have said, in the words which he has chosen for the motto to his rambler. quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes. [footnote: for as the tempest drives, i shape my way. francis.] once, during the doubtful consultations, he asked whither we were going; and upon being told that it was not certain whether to mull or col, he cried, 'col for my money!' i now went down, with col and mr simpson, to visit him. he was lying in philosophick tranquillity with a greyhound of col's at his back, keeping him warm. col is quite the juvenis qui gaudet canibus. he had, when we left talisker, two greyhounds, two terriers, a pointer, and a large newfoundland water-dog. he lost one of his terriers by the road, but had still five dogs with him. i was very ill, and very desirous to get to shore. when i was told that we could not land that night, as the storm had now increased, i looked so miserably, as col afterwards informed me, that what shakspeare has made the frenchman say of the english soldiers, when scantily dieted, 'piteous they will look, like drowned mice!' might, i believe, have been well applied to me. there was in the harbour, before us, a campbelltown vessel, the betty, kenneth morison master, taking in kelp, and bound for ireland. we sent our boat to beg beds for two gentlemen, and that the master would send his boat, which was larger than ours. he accordingly did so, and col and i were accommodated in his vessel till the morning. monday, th october about eight o'clock we went in the boat to mr simpson's vessel, and took in dr johnson. he was quite well, though he had tasted nothing but a dish of tea since saturday night. on our expressing some surprise at this, he said, that, 'when he lodged in the temple, and had no regular system of life, he had fasted for two days at a time, during which he had gone about visiting, though not at the hours of dinner or supper; that he had drunk tea, but eaten no bread; that this was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life'. there was a little miserable publick-house close upon the shore, to which we should have gone, had we landed last night: but this morning col resolved to take us directly to the house of captain lauchlan m'lean, a descendant of his family, who had acquired a fortune in the east indies, and taken a farm in col. we had about an english mile to go to it. col and joseph, and some others, ran to some little horses, called here 'shelties', that were running wild on a heath, and catched one of them. we had a saddle with us, which was clapped upon it, and a straw-halter was put on its head. dr johnson was then mounted, and joseph very slowly and gravely led the horse. i said to dr johnson, 'i wish, sir, the club saw you in this attitude.' [footnote: this curious exhibition may perhaps remind some of my readers of the ludicrous lines, made, during sir robert walpole's administration, on mr george (afterwards lord) littelton, though the figures of the two personages must be allowed to be very different: but who is this astride the pony; so long, so lean, so lank, so bony dat be de great orator, littletony.] it was a very heavy rain, and i was wet to the skin. captain m'lean had but a poor temporary house, or rather hut; however, it was a very good haven to us. there was a blazing peat-fire, and mrs m'lean, daughter of the minister of the parish, got us tea. i felt still the motion of the sea. dr johnson said, it was not in imagination, but a continuation of motion on the fluids, like that of the sea itself after the storm is over. there were some books on the board which served as a chimney-piece. dr johnson took up burnet's history of his own times. he said, 'the first part of it is one of the most entertaining books in the english language; it is quite dramatick: while he went about every where, saw every where, and heard every where. by the first part, i mean so far as it appears that burnet himself was actually engaged in what he has told; and this may be easily distinguished.' captain m'lean censured burnet, for his high praise of lauderdale in a dedication, when he shews him in his history to have been so bad a man. johnson. 'i do not myself think that a man should say in a dedication what he could not say in a history. however, allowance should be made; for there is a great difference. the known style of a dedication is flattery: it professes to flatter. there is the same difference between what a man says in a dedication, and what he says in a history, as between a lawyer's pleading a cause, and reporting it.' the day passed away pleasantly enough. the wind became fair for mull in the evening, and mr simpson resolved to sail next morning: but having been thrown into the island of col, we were unwilling to leave it unexamined, especially as we considered that the campbell-town vessel would sail for mull in a day or two, and therefore we determined to stay. tuesday, th october i rose, and wrote my journal till about nine; and then went to dr johnson, who sat up in bed and talked and laughed. i said, it was curious to look back ten years, to the time when we first thought of visiting the hebrides. how distant and improbable the scheme then appeared! yet here we were actually among them. 'sir,' said he, 'people may come to do any thing almost, by talking of it. i really believe, i could talk myself into building a house upon island isa, though i should probably never come back again to see it. i could easily persuade reynolds to do it; and there would be no great sin in persuading him to do it. sir, he would reason thus: "what will it cost me to be there once in two or three summers? why, perhaps, five hundred pounds; and what is that, in comparison of having a fine retreat, to which a man can go, or to which he can send a friend " he would never find out that he may have this within twenty miles of london. then i would tell him, that he may marry one of the miss m'leods, a lady of great family. sir, it is surprising how people will go to a distance for what they may have at home. i knew a lady who came up from lincolnshire to knightsbridge with one of her daughters and gave five guineas a week for a lodging and a warm bath; that is, mere warm water. that, you know, could not be had in lincolnshire! she said, it was made either too hot or too cold there.' after breakfast, dr johnson and i, and joseph, mounted horses, and col and the captain walked with us about a short mile across the island. we paid a visit to the reverend mr hector m'lean. his parish consists of the islands of col and tyr-yi. he was about seventy-seven years of age, a decent ecclesiastick, dressed in a full suit of black clothes, and a black wig. he appeared like a dutch pastor, or one of the assembly of divines at westminster. dr johnson observed to me afterwards, 'that he was a fine old man, and was as well-dressed, and had as much dignity in his appearance as the dean of a cathedral'. we were told, that he had a valuable library, though but poor accomodation for it, being obliged to keep his books in large chests. it was curious to see him and dr johnson together. neither of them heard very distinctly; so each of them talked in his own way, and at the same time. mr m'lean said, he had a confutation of bayle, by leibnitz. johnson. 'a confutation of bayle, sir! what part of bayle do you mean? the greatest part of his writings is not confutable: it is historical and critical.' mr m'lean said, 'the irreligious part'; and proceeded to talk of leibnitz's controversy with clarke, calling leibnitz a great man. johnson. 'why, sir, leibnitz persisted in affirming that newton called space sensorium numinis, notwithstanding he was corrected, and desired to observe that newton's words were quasisensorium numinis. no, sir, leibnitz was as paltry a fellow as i know. out of respect to queen caroline, who patronized him, clarke treated him too well.' during the time that dr johnson was thus going on, the old minister was standing with his back to the fire, cresting up erect, pulling down the front of his periwig, and talking what a great man leibnitz was. to give an idea of the scene, would require a page with two columns; but it ought rather to be represented by two good players. the old gentleman said, clarke was very wicked, for going so much into the arian system. 'i will not say he was wicked,' said dr johnson; 'he might be mistaken.' m'lean. 'he was wicked, to shut his eyes against the scriptures; and worthy men in england have since confuted him to all intents and purposes.' johnson. 'i know not who has confuted him to all intents and purposes.' here again there was a double talking, each continuing to maintain his own argument, without hearing exactly what the other said. i regretted that dr johnson did not practice the art of accommodating himself to different sorts of people. had he been softer with this venerable old man, we might have had more conversation; but his forcible spirit; and impetuosity of manner, may be said to spare neither sex nor age. i have seen even mrs thrale stunned; but i have often maintained, that it is better he should retain his own manner. pliability of address i conceive to be inconsistent with that majestick power of mind which he possesses, and which produces such noble effects. a lofty oak will not bend like a supple willow. he told me afterwards, he liked firmness in an old man, and was pleased to see mr m'lean so orthodox. 'at his age, it is too late for a man to be asking himself questions as to his belief.' we rode to the northern part of the island, where we saw the ruins of a church or chapel. we then proceeded to a place called grissipol, or the rough pool. at grissipol we found a good farm house, belonging to the laird of col, and possessed by mr m'sweyn. on the beach here there is a singular variety of curious stones. i picked up one very like a small cucumber. by the by, dr johnson told me, that gay's line in the beggar's opera, 'as men should serve a cucumber,' &c. has no waggish meaning, with reference to men flinging away cucumbers as too cooling, which some have thought; for it has been a common saying of physicians in england, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing. mr m'sweyn's predecessors had been in sky from a very remote period, upon the estate belonging to m'leod; probably before m'leod had it. the name is certainly norwegian, from sueno, king of norway. the present mr m'sweyn left sky upon the late m'leod's raising his rents. he then got this farm from col. he appeared to be near fourscore; but looked as fresh, and was as strong as a man of fifty. his son hugh looked older; and, as dr johnson observed, had more the manners of an old man than he. i had often heard of such instances, but never saw one before. mrs m'sweyn was a decent old gentlewoman. she was dressed in tartan, and could speak nothing but erse. she said, she taught sir james m'donald erse, and would teach me soon. i could now sing a verse of the song hatyin foam'eri, made in honour of allan, the famous captain of clanranald, who fell at sherrif-muir; whose servant, who lay on the field watching his master's dead body, being asked next day who that was, answered, 'he was a man yesterday.' we were entertained here with a primitive heartiness. whisky was served round in a shell, according to the ancient highland custom. dr johnson would not partake of it; but, being desirous to do honour to the modes 'of other times', drank some water out of the shell. in the forenoon dr johnson said, 'it would require great resignation to live in one of these islands.' boswell. 'i don't know, sir; i have felt myself at times in a state of almost mere physical existence, satisfied to eat, drink, and sleep, and walk about, and enjoy my own thoughts; and i can figure a continuation of this.' johnson. 'ay, sir; but if you were shut up here, your own thoughts would torment you: you would think of edinburgh or london, and that you could not be there.' we set out after dinner for breacacha, the family seat of the laird of col, accompanied by the young laird, who had now got a horse, and by the younger mr m'sweyn, whose wife had gone thither before us, to prepare every thing for our reception, the laird and his family being absent at aberdeen. it is called breacacha, or the spotted field, because in summer it is enamelled with clover and daisies, as young col told me. we passed by a place where there is a very large stone, i may call it a rock--'a vast weight for ajax'. the tradition is, that a giant threw such another stone at his mistress, up to the top of a hill, at a small distance; and that she in return, threw this mass down to him. it was all in sport. malo me petit lasciva puella. as we advanced, we came to a large extent of plain ground. i had not seen such a place for a long time. col and i took a gallop upon it by way of race. it was very refreshing to me, after having been so long taking short steps in hilly countries. it was like stretching a man's legs after being cramped in a short bed. we also passed close by a large extent of sand-hills, near two miles square. dr johnson said, 'he never had the image before. it was horrible, if barrenness and danger could be so.' i heard him, after we were in the house of breacacha, repeating to himself, as he walked about the room, '"and smother'd in the dusty whirlwind, dies."' probably he had been thinking of the whole of the simile in cato, of which that is the concluding line; the sandy desart had struck him so strongly. the sand has of late been blown over a good deal of meadow; and the people of the island say, that their fathers remembered much of the space which is now covered with sand, to have been under tillage. col's house is situated on a bay called breacacha bay. we found here a neat new-built gentleman's house, better than any we had been in since we were at lord errol's. dr johnson relished it much at first, but soon remarked to me, that 'there was nothing becoming a chief about it: it was a mere tradesman's box.' he seemed quite at home, and no longer found any difficulty in using the highland address; for as soon as we arrived, he said, with a spirited familiarity, 'now, col, if you could get us a dish of tea,' dr johnson and i had each an excellent bed-chamber. we had a dispute which of us had the best curtains. his were rather the best, being of linen; but i insisted that my bed had the best posts, which was undeniable. 'well,' said he, 'if you have the best posts, we will have you tied to them and whipped.' i mention this slight circumstance, only to shew how ready he is, even in mere trifles, to get the better of his antagonist, by placing him in a ludicrous view. i have known him sometimes use the same art, when hard pressed in serious disputation. goldsmith, i remember, to retaliate for many a severe defeat which he has suffered from him, applied to him a lively saying in one of cibber's comedies, which puts this part of his character in a strong light. 'there is no arguing with johnson; for, if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the but-end of it.' wednesday, th october after a sufficiency of sleep, we assembled at breakfast. we were just as if in barracks. every body was master. we went and viewed the old castle of col, which is not far from the present house, near the shore, and founded on a rock. it has never been a large feudal residence, and has nothing about it that requires a particular description. like other old inconvenient buildings of the same age, it exemplified gray's picturesque lines, huge windows that exclude the light. and passages that lead to nothing. it may however be worth mentioning, that on the second story we saw a vault, which was, and still is, the family prison. there was a woman put into it by the laird, for theft, within these ten years; and any offender would be confined there yet; for, from the necessity of the thing, as the island is remote from any power established by law, the laird must exercise his jurisdiction to a certain degree. we were shewn, in a corner of this vault, a hole, into which col said greater criminals used to be put. it was now filled up with rubbish of different kinds. he said, it was of a great depth. 'ay,' said dr johnson, smiling, 'all such places, that are filled up, were of a great depth.' he is very quick in shewing that he does not give credit to careless or exaggerated accounts of things. after seeing the castle, we looked at a small hut near it. it is called teigh franchich, i.e. the frenchman's house. col could not tell us the history of it. a poor man with a wife and children now lived in it. we went into it, and dr johnson gave them some charity. there was but one bed for all the family, and the hut was very smoky. when he came out, he said to me, 'et hoc secundum sententiam philosophorum est esse beatus.' boswell. 'the philosophers, when they placed happiness in a cottage, supposed cleanliness and no smoke.' johnson. 'sir, they did not think about either.' we walked a little in the laird's garden, in which endeavours have been used to rear some trees; but, as soon as they got above the surrounding wall, they died. dr johnson recommended sowing the seeds of hardy trees, instead of planting. col and i rode out this morning, and viewed a part of the island. in the course of our ride, we saw a turnip-field, which he had hoed with his own hands. he first introduced this kind of husbandry into the western islands. we also looked at an appearance of lead, which seemed very promising. it has been long known; for i found letters to the late laird, from sir john areskine and sir alexander murray, respecting it. after dinner came mr m'lean, of corneck, brother to isle of muck, who is a cadet of the family of col. he possesses the two ends of col, which belong to the duke of argyll. corneck had lately taken a lease of them at a very advanced rent, rather than let the campbells get a footing in the island, one of whom had offered nearly as much as he. dr johnson well observed, that, 'landlords err much when they calculate merely what their land may yield. the rent must be in a proportionate ratio of what the land may yield, and of the power of the tenant to make it yield. a tenant cannot make by his land, but according to the corn and cattle which he has. suppose you should give him twice as much land as he has, it does him no good, unless he gets also more stock. it is clear then, that the highland landlords, who let their substantial tenants leave them, are infatuated; for the poor small tenants cannot give them good rents, from the very nature of things. they have not the means of raising more from their farms.' corneck, dr johnson said, was the most distinct man that he had met with in these isles; he did not shut his eyes, or put his fingers in his ears, which he seemed to think was a good deal the mode with most of the people whom we have seen of late. thursday, th october captain m'lean joined us this morning at breakfast. there came on a dreadful storm of wind and rain, which continued all day, and rather increased at night. the wind was directly against our getting to mull. we were in a strange state of abstraction from the world: we could neither hear from our friends, nor write to them. col had brought daille on the fathers, lucas on happiness, and more's dialogues, from the reverend mr m'lean's, and burnet's history of his own times, from captain m'lean's; and he had of his own some books of farming, and gregory's geometry. dr johnson read a good deal of burnet, and of gregory, and i observed he made some geometrical notes in the end of his pocket-book. i read a little of young's six weeks tour through the southern counties; and ovid's epistles, which i had bought at inverness, and which helped to solace many a weary hour. we were to have gone with dr johnson this morning to see the mine; but were prevented by the storm. while it was raging, he said, 'we may be glad we are not damnati ad metalla.' friday, th october dr johnson appeared to day very weary of our present confined situation. he said, 'i want to be on the main land, and go on with existence. this is a waste of life.' i shall here insert, without regard to chronology, some of his conversation at different times. 'there was a man some time ago, who was well received for two years, among the gentlemen of northamptonshire, by calling himself my brother. at last he grew so impudent as by his influence to get tenants turned out of their farms. allen the printer, who is of that county, came to me, asking, with much appearance of doubtfulness, if i had a brother; and upon being assured i had none alive, he told me of the imposition, and immediately wrote to the country, and the fellow was dismissed. it pleased me to hear that so much was got by using my name. it is not every name that can carry double; do both for a man's self and his brother'(laughing). 'i should be glad to see the fellow. however, i could have done nothing against him. a man can have no redress for his name being used, or ridiculous stories being told of him in the news-papers, except he can shew that he has suffered damage. some years ago a foolish piece was published, said to be written "by s. johnson". some of my friends wanted me to be very angry about this. i said, it would be in vain; for the answer would be, s. johnson may be simon johnson, or simeon johnson, or solomon johnson; and even if the full name, samuel johnson, had been used, it might be said; "it is not you; it is a much cleverer fellow." 'beauclerk and i, and langton, and lady sydney beauclerk, mother to our friend, were one day driving in a coach by cuper's gardens, which were then unoccupied. i, in sport, proposed that beauclerk and langton, and myself should take them; and we amused ourselves with scheming how we should all do our parts. lady sydney grew angry, and said, "an old man should not put such things in young people's heads". she had no notion of a joke, sir; had come late into life, and had a mighty unpliable understanding. 'carte's life of the duke of ormond is considered as a book of authority; but it is ill-written. the matter is diffused in too many words; there is no animation, no compression, no vigour. two good volumes in duodecimo might be made out of the two in folio.' talking of our confinement here, i observed, that our discontent and impatience could not be considered as very unreasonable; for that we were just in the state of which seneca complains so grievously, while in exile in corsica. 'yes,' said dr johnson, 'and he was not farther from home than we are.' the truth is, he was much nearer. there was a good deal of rain to-day, and the wind was still contrary. corneck attended me, while i amused myself in examining a collection of papers belonging to the family of col. the first laird was a younger son of the chieftain m'lean, and got the middle part of col for his patrimony. dr johnson having given a very particular account of the connection between this family and a branch of the family of camerons, called m'lonich, i shall only insert the following document (which i found in col's cabinet), as a proof of its continuance, even to a late period: to the laird of col. dear sir, the long-standing tract of firm affectionate friendship 'twixt your worthy predecessors and ours affords us such assurance, as that we may have full relyance on your favour and undoubted friendship, in recommending the bearer, ewen cameron, our cousin, son to the deceast dugall m'connill of innermaillie, sometime in glenpean, to your favour and conduct, who is a man of undoubted honesty and discretion, only that he has the misfortune of being alledged to have been accessory to the killing of one of m'martin's family about fourteen years ago, upon which alledgeance the m'martins are now so sanguine on revenging, that they are fully resolved for the deprivation of his life; to the preventing of which you are relyed on by us, as the only fit instrument and a most capable person. therefore your favour and protection is expected and intreated, during his good behaviour; and failing of which behaviour, you'll please to use him as a most insignificant person deserves. sir, he had, upon the alledgeance foresaid, been transported, at lochiel's desire, to france, to gratify the m'martins, and upon his return home, about five years ago, married: but now he is so much theatened by the m'martins, that he is not secure enough to stay where he is, being ardmurchan, which occasions this trouble to you. wishing prosperity and happiness to attend still yourself, worthy lady, and good family, we are, in the most affectionate manner, dear sir, your most obliged, affectionate, and most humble servants, dugall cameron, of strone. dugall cameron, of ban. dugall cameron, of inveriskvouilline. dugall cameron, of invinvalie. strone, th march, . ewen cameron was protected, and his son has now a farm from the laird of col, in mull. the family of col was very loyal in the time of the great montrose, from whom i found two letters in his own hand-writing. the first is as follows. for my very loving friend the laird of coall. sir, i must heartily thank you for all your willingness and good affection to his majesty's service, and particularly the sending alongs of your son, to who i will heave ane particular respect, hopeing also that you will still continue ane goode instrument for the advanceing ther of the king's service, for which, and all your former loyal carriages, be confident you shall find the effects of his mas favour, as they can be witnessed you by your very faithful friende, montrose. strethearne, jan. the other is, for the laird of col. sir, having occasion to write to your fields, i cannot be forgetful of your willingness and good affection to his majesty's service. i acknowledge to you, and thank you heartily for it assuring, that in what lies in my power, you shall find the good. mean while, i shall expect that you will continue your loyal endeavours, in wishing those slack people that are about you, to appear more obedient than they do, and loyal in their prince's service; whereby i assure you, you shall find me ever your faithful friend, montrose. petty, april, . [footnote: it is observeable that men of the first rank spelt very ill in the last century. in the first of these letters i have preserved the original spelling.] i found some uncouth lines on the death of the present laird's father, intituled 'nature's elegy upon the death of donald maclean of col'. they are not worth insertion. i shall only give what is called his epitaph, which dr johnson said, 'was not so very bad'. nature's minion. virtue's wonder, art's corrective here lyes under. i asked, what 'art's corrective' meant. 'why, sir,' said he, 'that the laird was so exquisite, that he set art right, when she was wrong.' i found several letters to the late col, from my father's old companion at paris, sir hector m'lean, one of which was written at the time of settling the colony in georgia. it dissuades col from letting people go there, and assures him there will soon be an opportunity of employing them better at home. hence it appears that emigration from the highlands, though not in such numbers at a time as of late, has always been practised. dr johnson observed, that, 'the lairds, instead of improving their country, diminished their people'. there are several districts of sandy desart in col. there are forty-eight lochs of fresh water; but many of them are very small--meer pools. about one half of them, however, have trout and eel. there is a great number of horses in the island, mostly of a small size. being over-stocked, they sell some in tir-yi, and on the main land. their black cattle, which are chiefly rough-haired, are reckoned remarkably good. the climate being very mild in winter, they never put their beasts in any house. the lakes are never frozen so as to bear a man; and snow never lies above a few hours. they have a good many sheep, which they eat mostly themselves, and sell but a few. they have goats in several places. there are no foxes; no serpents, toads, or frogs, nor any venomous creature. they have otters and mice here; but had no rats till lately that an american vessel brought them. there is a rabbit-warren on the north-east of the island, belonging to the duke of argyle. young col intends to get some hares, of which there are none at present. there are no black-cock, muir-fowl, nor partridges; but there are snipe, wild-duck, wild-geese, and swans, in winter; wild-pidgeons, plover, and great number of starlings; of which i shot some, and found them pretty good eating. woodcocks come hither, though there is not a tree upon the island. there are no rivers in col; but only some brooks, in which there is a great variety of fish. in the whole isle there are but three hills, and none of them considerable, for a highland country. the people are very industrious. every man can tan. they get oak, and birch-bark, and lime, from the main land. some have pits; but they commonly use tubs. i saw brogues very well tanned; and every man can make them. they all make candles of the tallow of their beasts, both moulded and dipped; and they all make oil of the livers of fish. the little fish called cuddies produce a great deal. they sell some oil out of the island, and they use it much for light in their houses, in little iron lamps, most of which they have from england; but of late their own blacksmith makes them. he is a good workman; but he has no employment in shoeing horses, for they all go unshod here, except some of a better kind belonging to young col, which were now in mull. there are two carpenters in col; but most of the inhabitants can do something as boat-carpenters. they can all dye. heath is used for yellow; and for red, a moss which grows on stones. they make broad-cloth, and tartan, and linen, of their own wool and flax, sufficient for their own use; as also stockings. their bonnets come from the main land. hard-ware and several small articles are brought annually from greenock, and sold in the only shop in the island, which is kept near the house, or rather hut, used for publick worship, there being no church in the island. the inhabitants of col have increased considerably within these thirty years, as appears from the parish registers. there are but three considerable tacksmen on col's part of the island: the rest is let to small tenants, some of whom pay so low a rent as four, three, or even two guineas. the highest is seven pounds, paid by a farmer, whose son goes yearly on foot to aberdeen for education, and in summer returns, and acts as a school-master in col. dr johnson said, 'there is something noble in a young man's walking two hundred miles and back again, every year, for the sake of learning.' this day a number of people came to col, with complaints of each others' trespasses. corneck, to prevent their being troublesome, told them, that the lawyer from edinburgh was here, and if they did not agree, he would take them to task. they were alarmed at this; said, they had never been used to go to law, and hoped col would settle matters himself. in the evening corneck left us. saturday, th october as, in our present confinement, any thing that had even the name of curious was an object of attention, i proposed that col should show me the great stone, mentioned in a former page, as having been thrown by a giant to the top of a mountain. dr johnson, who did not like to be left alone, said he would accompany us as far as riding was practicable. we ascended a part of the hill on horseback, and col and i scrambled up the rest. a servant held our horses, and dr johnson placed himself on the ground, with his back against a large fragment of rock. the wind being high, he let down the cocks of his hat, and tied it with his handkerchief under his chin. while we were employed in examining the stone, which did not repay our trouble in getting to it, he amused himself with reading gataker on lots and on the christian watch, a very learned book, of the last age, which had been found in the garret of col's house, and which he said was a treasure here. when we descried him from above, he had a most eremitical appearance; and on our return told us, he had been so much engaged by gataker, that he had never missed us. his avidity for variety of books, while we were in col, was frequently expressed; and he often complained that so few were within his reach. upon which i observed to him, that it was strange he should complain of want of books, when he could at any time make such good ones. we next proceeded to the lead mine. in our way we came to a strand of some extent, where we were glad to take a gallop, in which my learned friend joined with great alacrity. dr johnson, mounted on a large bay mare without shoes, and followed by a foal, which had some difficulty in keeping up with him, was a singular spectacle. after examining the mine, we returned through a very uncouth district, full of sand hills; down which, though apparent precipices, our horses carried us with safety, the sand always gently sliding away from their feet. vestiges of houses were pointed out to us, which col, and two others who had joined us, asserted had been overwhelmed with sand blown over them. but, on going close to one of them, dr johnson shewed the absurdity of the notion, by remarking, that 'it was evidently only a house abandoned, the stones of which had been taken away for other purposes; for the large stones, which form the lower part of the walls, were still standing higher than the sand. if they were not blown over, it was clear nothing higher than they could be blown over.' this was quite convincing to me; but it made not the least impression on col and the others, who were not to be argued out of a highland tradition. we did not sit down to dinner till between six and seven. we lived plentifully here, and had a true welcome. in such a season, good firing was of no small importance. the peats were excellent, and burned cheerfully. those at dunvegan, which were damp, dr johnson called 'a sullen fuel'. here a scottish phrase was singularly applied to him. one of the company having remarked that he had gone out on a stormy evening, and brought in a supply of peats from the stack, old mr m'sweyn said, 'that was main honest!' blenheim being occasionally mentioned, he told me he had never seen it: he had not gone formerly; and he would not go now, just as a common spectator, for his money: he would not put it in the power of some man about the duke of marlborough to say, 'johnson was here; i knew him, but i took no notice of him.' he said, he should be very glad to see it, if properly invited, which in all probability would never be the case, as it was not worth his while to seek for it. i observed, that he might be easily introduced there by a common friend of ours, nearly related to the duke. he answered, with an uncommon attention to delicacy of feeling, 'i doubt whether our friend be on such a footing with the duke as to carry any body there; and i would not give him the uneasiness of seeing that i knew he was not, or even of being himself reminded of it.' sunday, th october there was this day the most terrible storm of wind and rain that i ever remember. it made such an awful impression on us all, as to produce, for some time, a kind of dismal quietness in the house. the day was passed without much conversation: only, upon my observing that there must be something bad in a man's mind, who does not like to give leases to his tenants, but wishes to keep them in a perpetual wretched dependence on his will, dr johnson said, 'you are right: it is a man's duty to extend comfort and security among as many people as he can. he should not wish to have his tenants mere ephemerae--mere beings of an hour.' boswell. 'but, sir, if they have leases, is there not some danger that they may grow insolent? i remember you yourself once told me, an english tenant was so independent, that,--if provoked, he would throw his rent at his landlord.' johnson. 'depend upon it, sir, it is the landlord's own fault, if it is thrown at him. a man may always keep his tenants in dependence enough, though they have leases. he must be a good tenant indeed, who will not fall behind in his rent, if his landlord will let him; and if he does fall behind, his landlord has him at his mercy. indeed, the poor man is always much at the mercy of the rich; no matter whether landlord or tenant. if the tenant lets his landlord have a little rent before-hand, or has lent him money, then the landlord is in his power. there cannot be a greater man than a tenant who has lent money to his landlord; for he has under subjection the very man to whom he should be subjected.' monday, th october we had some days ago engaged the campbell-town vessel to carry us to mull, from the harbour where she lay. the morning was fine, and the wind fair and moderate; so we hoped at length to get away. mrs m'sweyn, who officiated as our landlady here, had never been on the main land. on hearing this, dr johnson said to me, before her, 'that is rather being behind-hand with life. i would at least go and see glenelg.' boswell. 'you yourself, sir, have never seen, till now, any thing but your native island.' johnson. 'but, sir, by seeing london, i have seen as much of life as the world can shew.' boswell. 'you have not seen pekin.' johnson. 'what is pekin? ten thousand londoners would drive all the people of pekin: they would drive them like deer.' we set out about eleven for the harbour; but, before we reached it, so violent a storm came on, that we were obliged again to take shelter in the house of captain m'lean, where we dined, and passed the night. tuesday, th october after breakfast, we made a second attempt to get to the harbour; but another storm soon convinced us that it would be in vain. captain m'lean's house being in some confusion, on account of mrs m'lean being expected to lie-in, we resolved to go to mr m'sweyn's, where we arrived very wet, fatigued, and hungry. in this situation, we were somewhat disconcerted by being told that we should have no dinner till late in the evening; but should have tea in the mean time. dr johnson opposed this arrangement; but they persisted, and he took the tea very readily. he said to me afterwards, 'you must consider, sir, a dinner here is a matter of great consequence. it is a thing to be first planned, and then executed. i suppose the mutton was brought some miles off, from some place where they knew there was a sheep killed.' talking of the good people with whom we were, he said, 'life has not got at all forward by a generation in m'sweyn's family; for the son is exactly formed upon the father. what the father says, the son says; and what the father looks, the son looks.' there being little conversation to-night, i must endeavour to recollect what i may have omitted on former occasions. when i boasted, at rasay, of my independency of spirit, and that i could not be bribed, he said, 'yes, you may be bribed by flattery.' at the reverend mr m'lean's, dr johnson asked him, if the people of col had any superstitions. he said, 'no.' the cutting peats at the increase of the moon was mentioned as one; but he would not allow it, saying, it was not a superstition, but a whim. dr johnson would not admit the distinction. there were many superstitions, he maintained, not connected with religion; and this was one of them. on monday we had a dispute at the captain's, whether sand-hills could be fixed down by art. dr johnson said, 'how the devil can you do it?' but instantly corrected himself, 'how can you do it?' i never before heard him use a phrase of that nature. he has particularities which it is impossible to explain. he never wears a night-cap, as i have already mentioned; but he puts a handkerchief on his head in the night. the day that we left talisker, he bade us ride on. he then turned the head of his horse back towards talisker, stopped for some time; then wheeled round to the same direction with ours, and then came briskly after us. he sets open a window in the coldest day or night, and stands before it. it may do with his constitution; but most people, amongst whom i am one, would say, with the frogs in the fable, 'this may be sport to you; but it is death to us.' it is in vain to try to find a meaning in every one of his particularities, which, i suppose, are mere habits, contracted by chance; of which every man has some that are more or less remarkable. his speaking to himself, or rather repeating, is a common habit with studious men accustomed to deep thinking; and, in consequence of their being thus rapt, they will even laugh by themselves, if the subject which they are musing on is a merry one. dr johnson is often uttering pious ejaculations, when he appears to be talking to himself; for sometimes his voice grows stronger, and parts of the lord's prayer are heard. i have sat beside him with more than ordinary reverence on such occasions. [footnote: it is remarkable, that dr johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying any thing on the subject which i hoped he would have done.] in our tour, i observed that he was disgusted whenever he met with coarse manners. he said to me, 'i know not how it is, but i cannot bear low life: and i find others, who have as good a right as i to be fastidious, bear it better, by having mixed more with different sorts of men. you would think that i have mixed pretty well too.' he read this day a good deal of my journal, written in a small book with which he had supplied me, and was pleased, for he said, 'i wish thy books were twice as big.' he helped me to fill up blanks which i had left in first writing it, when i was not quite sure of what he had said, and he corrected any mistakes that i had made. 'they call me a scholar,' said he, 'and yet how very little literature is there in my conversation.' boswell. 'that, sir, must be according to your company. you would not give literature to those who cannot taste it. stay till we meet lord elibank.' we had at last a good dinner, or rather supper, and were very well satisfied with our entertainment. wednesday, th october col called me up, with intelligence that it was a good day for a passage to mull; and just as we rose, a sailor from the vessel arrived for us. we got all ready with dispatch. dr johnson was displeased at my bustling, and walking quickly up and down. he said, 'it does not hasten us a bit. it is getting on horseback in a ship. all boys do it; and you are longer a boy than others.' he himself has no alertness, or whatever it may be called; so he may dislike it, as oderunt hilarem tristes. before we reached the harbour, the wind grew high again. however, the small boat was waiting, and took us on board. we remained for some time in uncertainty what to do: at last it was determined, that, as a good part of the day was over, and it was dangerous to be at sea at night, in such a vessel, and such weather, we should not sail till the morning tide, when the wind would probably be more gentle. we resolved not to go ashore again, but lie here in readiness. dr johnson and i had each a bed in the cabbin. col sat at the fire in the forecastle, with the captain, and joseph, and the rest. i eat some dry oatmeal, of which i found a barrel in the cabbin. i had not done this since i was a boy. dr johnson owned that he too was fond of it when a boy; a circumstance which i was highly pleased to hear from him, as it gave me an opportunity of observing that, notwithstanding his joke on the article of oats, he was himself a proof that this kind of food was not peculiar to the people of scotland. thursday, th october when dr johnson awaked this morning, he called, 'lanky!' having, i suppose, been thinking of langton; but corrected himself instantly, and cried, 'bozzy!' he has a way of contracting the names of his friends. goldsmith feels himself so important now, as to be displeased at it. i remember one day, when tom davies was telling that dr johnson said, 'we are all in labour for a name to goldy's play,' goldsmith cried, 'i have often desired him not to call me goldy.' between six and seven we hauled our anchor, and set sail with a fair breeze; and, after a pleasant voyage, we got safely and agreeably into the harbour of tobermorie, before the wind rose, which it always has done, for some days, about noon. tobermorie is an excellent harbour. an island lies before it, and it is surrounded by a hilly theatre. the island is too low, otherwise this would be quite a secure port; but, the island not being a sufficient protection, some storms blow very hard here. not long ago, fifteen vessels were blown from their moorings. there are sometimes sixty or seventy sail here: to-day there were twelve or fourteen vessels. to see such a fleet was the next thing to seeing a town. the vessels were from different places; clyde, campbelltown, newcastle, etc. one was returning to lancaster from hamburgh. after having been shut up so long in col, the sight of such an assemblage of moving habitations, containing such a variety of people, engaged in different pursuits, gave me much gaiety of spirit. when we had landed, dr johnson said, 'boswell is now all alive. he is like antaeus; he gets new vigour whenever he touches the ground.' i went to the top of a hill fronting the harbour, from whence i had a good view of it. we had here a tolerable inn. dr johnson had owned to me this morning, that he was out of humour. indeed, he shewed it a good deal in the ship; for when i was expressing my joy on the prospect of our landing in mull, he said, he had no joy, when he recollected that it would be five days before he should get to the main land. i was afraid he would now take a sudden resolution to give up seeing icolmkill. a dish of tea, and some good bread and butter, did him service, and his bad humour went off. i told him, that i was diverted to hear all the people whom we had visited in our tour, say, 'honest man! he's pleased with every thing; he's always content!' 'little do they know,' said i. he laughed, and said, 'you rogue!' we sent to hire horses to carry us across the island of mull to the shore opposite to inchkenneth, the residence of sir allan m'lean, uncle to young col, and chief of the m'leans, to whose house we intended to go the next day. our friend col went to visit his aunt, the wife of dr alexander m'lean, a physician, who lives about a mile from tobermorie. dr johnson and i sat by ourselves at the inn, and talked a good deal. i told him, that i had found, in leandro alberti's description of italy, much of what addison has given us in his remarks. he said, "the collection of passages from the classicks has been made by another italian: it is, however, impossible to detect a man as a plagiary in such a case, because all who set about making such a collection must find the same passages; but, if you find the same applications in another book, then addison's learning in his remarks tumbles down. it is a tedious book; and, if it were not attached to addison's previous reputation, one would not think much of it. had he written nothing else, his name would not have lived. addison does not seem to have gone deep in italian literature: he shews nothing of it in his subsequent writings. he shews a great deal of french learning. there is, perhaps, more knowledge circulated in the french language than in any other. there is more original knowledge in english.' 'but the french,' said i, 'have the art of accommodating literature.' johnson. 'yes, sir; we have no such book as moreri's dictionary.'" boswell. "their ana are good.' johnson. 'a few of them are good; but we have one book of that kind better than any of them; selden's table-talk. as to original literature, the french have a couple of tragick poets who go round the world, racine and corneille, and one comick poet, moliere.'--boswell. 'they have fenelon.' johnson. 'why, sir, telemachus is pretty well.' boswell. 'and voltaire, sir.' johnson. 'he has not stood his trial yet and what makes voltaire chiefly circulate is collection; such as his universal history.' boswell. 'what do you say to the bishop of meaux?' johnson. 'sir, nobody reads him.' [footnote: i take leave to enter my strongest protest against this judgement bossuet i hold to be one of the first luminaries of religion and literature. if there are who do not read him, it is full time they should begin.] he would not allow massillon and bourdaloue to go round the world. in general, however, he gave the french much praise for their industry. he asked me whether he had mentioned, in any of the papers of the rambler, the description in virgil of the entrance into hell, with an application to the press; 'for,' said he, 'i do not much remember them'. i told him, 'no.' upon which he repeated it: vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus orci, luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae; pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus, et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas, terribiles visu formae; lethumque, laborque. [footnote: just in the gate, and in the jaws of hell, revengeful cares, and sullen sorrows dwell; and pale diseases, and repining age; want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage; here toils and death, and death's half-brother, sleep, forms terrible to view, their sentry keep. dryden.] 'now,' said he, 'almost all these apply exactly to an authour; all these are the concomitants of a printing-house.' i proposed to him to dictate an essay on it, and offered to write it. he said, he would not do it then, but perhaps would write one at some future period. the sunday evening that we sat by ourselves at aberdeen, i asked him several particulars of his early years, which he readily told me; and i wrote them down before him. this day i proceeded in my inquiries, also writing them in his presence. i have them on detached sheets. i shall collect authentick materials for the life of samuel johnson, ll. d.; and, if i survive him, i shall be one who will most faithfully do honour to his memory. i have now a vast treasure of his conversation, at different times, since the year , when i first obtained his acquaintance; and, by assiduous inquiry, i can make up for not knowing him sooner. [footnote: it is no small satisfaction to me to reflect, that dr johnson read this, and, after being apprised of my intention, communicated to me, at subsequent periods, many particulars of his life, which probably could not otherwise have been preserved.] a newcastle ship-master, who happened to be in the house, intruded himself upon us. he was much in liquor, and talked nonsense about his being a man for 'wilkes and liberty', and against the ministry. dr johnson was angry, that 'a fellow should come into our company, who was fit for no company'. he left us soon. col returned from his aunt, and told us, she insisted that we should come to her house that night. he introduced to us mr campbell, the duke of argyle's factor in tyr-yi. he was a genteel, agreeable man. he was going to inveraray, and promised to put letters into the post-office for us. i now found that dr johnson's desire to get on the main land, arose from his anxiety to have an opportunity of conveying letters to his friends. after dinner, we proceeded to dr m'lean's, which was about a mile from our inn. he was not at home, but we were received by his lady and daughter, who entertained us so well, that dr johnson seemed quite happy. when we had supped, he asked me to give him some paper to write letters. i begged he would write short ones, and not expatiate, as we ought to set off early. he was irritated by this, and said, 'what must be done, must be done: the thing is past a joke.' 'nay, sir,' said i, 'write as much as you please; but do not blame me, if we are kept six days before we get to the main land. you were very impatient in the morning: but no sooner do you find yourself in good quarters, than you forget that you are to move.' i got him paper enough, and we parted in good humour. let me now recollect whatever particulars i have omitted. in the morning i said to him, before we landed at tobermorie, 'we shall see dr m'lean, who has written the history of the m'leans.' johnson. 'i have no great patience to stay to hear the history of the m'leans. i would rather hear the history of the thrales.' when on mull, i said, 'well, sir, this is the fourth of the hebrides that we have been upon.' johnson. 'nay, we cannot boast of the number we have seen. we thought we should see many more. we thought of sailing about easily from island to island; and so we should, had we come at a better season; but we, being wise men, thought it would be summer all the year where we were. however, sir, we have seen enough to give us a pretty good notion of the system in insular life.' let me not forget, that he sometimes amused himself with very slight reading; from which, however, his conversation shewed that he contrived to extract some benefit. at captain m'lean's he read a good deal in the charmer, a collection of songs. friday, th october we this morning found that we could not proceed, there being a violent storm of wind and rain, and the rivers being impassable. when i expressed my discontent at our confinement, dr johnson said, 'now that i have had an opportunity of writing to the main land, i am in no such haste.' i was amused with his being so easily satisfied; for the truth was, that the gentleman who was to convey our letters, as i was now informed, was not to set out for inveraray for some time; so that it was probable we should be there as soon as he: however, i did not undeceive my friend, but suffered him to enjoy his fancy. dr johnson asked, in the evening, to see dr m'lean's books. he took down willis de anima brutorum, and pored over it a good deal. miss m'lean produced some erse poems by john m'lean, who was a famous bard in mull, and had died only a few years ago. he could neither read nor write. she read and translated two of them; one, a kind of elegy on sir john m'lean's being obliged to fly his country in ; another, a dialogue between two roman catholick young ladies, sisters, whether it was better to be a nun or to marry. i could not perceive much poetical imagery in the translation. yet all of our company who understood erse, seemed charmed with the original. there may, perhaps, be some choice of expression, and some excellence of arrangement, that cannot be shewn in translation. after we had exhausted the erse poems, of which dr johnson said nothing, miss m'lean gave us several tunes on a spinnet, which, though made so long ago, as in , was still very well toned. she sung along with it. dr johnson seemed pleased with the musick, though he owns he neither likes it, nor has hardly any perception of it. at mr m'pherson's, in slate, he told us, that 'he knew a drum from a trumpet, and a bagpipe from a guitar, which was about the extent of his knowledge of musick'. to-night he said, that, 'if he had learnt musick, he should have been afraid he would have done nothing else but play. it was a method of employing the mind, without the labour of thinking at all, and with some applause from a man's self.' we had the musick of the bagpipe every day, at armidale, dunvegan, and col. dr johnson appeared fond of it, and used often to stand for some time with his ear close to the great drone. the penurious gentleman of our acquaintance, formerly alluded to, afforded us a topick of conversation to-night. dr johnson said, i ought to write down a collection of the instances of his narrowness, as they almost exceeded belief. col told us, that o'kane, the famous irish harper, was once at that gentleman's house. he could not find in his heart to give him any money, but gave him a key for a harp, which was finely ornamented with gold and silver, and with a precious stone, and was worth eighty or a hundred guineas. he did not know the value of it; and when he came to know it, he would fain have had it back; but o'kane took care that he should not. johnson. 'they exaggerate the value; every body is so desirous that he should be fleeced. i am very willing it should be worth eighty or a hundred guineas; but i do not believe it.' boswell. 'i do not think o'kane was obliged to give it back.' johnson. 'no, sir. if a man with his eyes open, and without any means used to deceive him, gives me a thing, i am not to let him have it again when he grows wiser. i like to see how avarice defeats itself; how, when avoiding to part with money, the miser gives something more valuable.' col said, the gentleman's relations were angry at his giving away the harp-key, for it had been long in the family. johnson. 'sir, he values a new guinea more than an old friend.' col also told us, that the same person having come up with a serjeant and twenty men, working on the high road, he entered into discourse with the serjeant, and then gave him sixpence for the men to drink. the serjeant asked, 'who is this fellow?' upon being informed, he said, 'if i had known who he was, i should have thrown it in his face.' johnson. 'there is much want of sense in all this. he had no business to speak with the serjeant. he might have been in haste, and trotted on. he had not learnt to be a miser: i believe we must take him apprentice.' boswell. 'he would grudge giving half a guinea to be taught' johnson. 'nay, sir, you must teach him gratis. you must give him an opportunity to practice your precepts.' let me now go back, and glean johnsoniana. the saturday before we sailed from slate, i sat awhile in the afternoon with dr johnson in his room, in a quiet serious frame. i observed, that hardly any man was accurately prepared for dying; but almost every one left something undone, something in confusion; that my father, indeed, told me he knew one man (carlisle of limekilns), after whose death all his papers were found in exact order; and nothing was omitted in his will. johnson. 'sir, i had an uncle who died so; but such attention requires great leisure, and great firmness of mind. if one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still. i am no friend to making religion appear too hard. many good people have done harm, by giving severe notions of it. in the same way, as to learning: i never frighten young people with difficulties; on the contrary, i tell them that they may very easily get as much as will do very well. i do not indeed tell them that they will be bentleys.' the night we rode to col's house, i said, 'lord elibank is probably wondering what is become of us.' johnson. 'no, no; he is not thinking of us.' boswell. 'but recollect the warmth with which he wrote. are we not to believe a man, when he says he has a great desire to see another? don't you believe that i was very impatient for your coming to scotland?' johnson. 'yes, sir; i believe you were; and i was impatient to come to you. a young man feels so, but seldom an old man.' i however convinced him that lord elibank, who has much of the spirit of a young man, might feel so. he asked me if our jaunt had answered expectation. i said it had much exceeded it. i expected much difficulty with him, and had not found it 'and,' he added, 'wherever we have come, we have been received like princes in their progress.' he said, he would not wish not to be disgusted in the highlands; for that would be to lose the power of distinguishing, and a man might then lie down in the middle of them. he wished only to conceal his disgust. at captain m'lean's, i mentioned pope's friend, spence. johnson. 'he was a weak conceited man.' [footnote: mr langton thinks this must have been the hasty expression of a splenetick moment as he has heard dr johnson speak of mr spence's judgement in criticism with so high a degree of respect, as to shew that this was not his settled opinion of him. let me add that in the preface to the preceptor, he recommends spence's essay on pope's odyssey, and that his admirable lives of the english poets are much enriched by spence's anecdotes of pope. boswell. 'a good scholar, sir?' johnson. 'why, no, sir.' boswell. 'he was a pretty scholar.' johnson. 'you have about reached him.'] last night at the inn, when the factor in tyr-yi spoke of his having heard that a roof was put on some part of the buildings at icolmkill, i unluckily said, 'it will be fortunate if we find a cathedral with a roof on it.' i said this from a foolish anxiety to engage dr johnson's curiosity more. he took me short at once. 'what, sir? how can you talk so? if we shall find a cathedral roofed! as if we were going to a terra incognita; when every thing that is at icolmkill is so well known. you are like some new england men who came to the mouth of the thames. "come," said they, "let us go up and see what sort of inhabitants there are here." they talked, sir, as if they had been to go up the susquehannah, or any other american river.' saturday, th october this day there was a new moon, and the weather changed for the better. dr johnson said of miss m'lean, 'she is the most accomplished lady that i have found in the highlands. she knows french, musick, and drawing, sews neatly, makes shell-work, and can milk cows; in short, she can do every thing. she talks sensibly, and is the first person whom i have found, that can translate erse poetry literally.' we set out, mounted on little mull horses. mull corresponded exactly with the idea which i had always had of it; a hilly country, diversified with heath and grass, and many rivulets. dr johnson was not in very good humour. he said, it was a dreary country, much worse than sky. i differed from him, 'o, sir,' said he, 'a most dolorous country!' we had a very hard journey to-day. i had no bridle for my sheltie, but only a halter; and joseph rode without a saddle. at one place, a loch having swelled over the road, we were obliged to plunge through pretty deep water. dr johnson observed, how helpless a man would be, were he travelling here alone, and should meet with any accident; and said, 'he longed to get to a country of saddles and bridles'. he was more out of humour to-day, than he has been in the course of our tour, being fretted to find that his little horse could scarcely support his weight; and having suffered a loss, which, though small in itself, was of some consequence to him, while travelling the rugged steeps of mull, where he was at times obliged to walk. the loss that i allude to was that of the large oak-stick, which, as i formerly mentioned, he had brought with him from london. it was of great use to him in our wild peregrination; for, ever since his last illness in , he has had a weakness in his knees, and has not been able to walk easily. it had too the properties of a measure; for one nail was driven into it at the length of a foot; another at that of a yard. in return for the services it had done him, he said, this morning he would make a present of it to some museum; but he little thought he was so soon to lose it. as he preferred riding with a switch, it was intrusted to a fellow to be delivered to our baggage-man, who followed us at some distance; but we never saw it more. i could not persuade him out of a suspicion that it had been stolen. 'no, no, my friend,' said he, 'it is not to be expected that any man in mull, who has got it, will part with it. consider, sir, the value of such a piece of timber here!' as we travelled this forenoon, we met dr m'lean, who expressed much regret at his having been so unfortunate as to be absent while we were at his house. we were in hopes to get to sir allan maclean's at inchkenneth, to-night; but the eight miles, of which our road was said to consist, were so very long, that we did not reach the opposite coast of mull till seven at night, though we had set out about eleven in the forenoon; and when we did arrive there, we found the wind strong against us. col determined that we should pass the night at m'quarrie's, in the island of ulva, which lies between mull and inchkenneth; and a servant was sent forward to the ferry, to secure the boat for us: but the boat was gone to the ulva side, and the wind was so high that the people could not hear him call; and the night so dark that they could not see a signal. we should have been in a very bad situation, had there not fortunately been lying in the little sound of ulva an irish vessel, the bonnetta, of londonderry, captain m'lure, master. he himself was at m'quarrie's; but his men obligingly came with their long-boat, and ferried us over. m'quarrie's house was mean; but we were agreeably surprised with the appearance of the master, whom we found to be intelligent, polite, and much a man of the world. though his clan is not numerous, he is a very ancient chief, and has a burial place at icolmkill. he told us, his family had possessed ulva for nine hundred years; but i was distressed to hear that it was soon to be sold for the payment of his debts. captain m'lure, whom we found here, was of scotch extraction, and properly a m'leod, being descended of some of the m'leods who went with sir normand of bernera to the battle of worcester, and after the defeat of the royalists, fled to ireland, and, to conceal themselves, took a different name. he told me, there was a great number of them about londonderry; some of good property. i said, they should now resume their real name. the laird of m'leod should go over, and assemble them, and make them all drink the large horn full, and from that time they should be m'leods. the captain informed us, he had named his ship the bonnetta, out of gratitude to providence; for once, when he was sailing to america with a good number of passengers, the ship in which he then sailed was becalmed for five weeks, and during all that time, numbers of the fish bonnetta swam close to her, and were caught for food; he resolved therefore, that the ship he should next get, should be called the bonnetta. m'quarrie told us a strong instance of the second sight. he had gone to edinburgh, and taken a man-servant along with him. an old woman, who was in the house, said one day, 'm'quarrie will be at home to- morrow, and will bring two gentlemen with him'; and she said, she saw his servant return in red and green. he did come home next day. he had two gentlemen with him; and his servant had a new red and green livery, which m'quarrie had bought for him at edinburgh, upon a sudden thought, not having the least intention when he left home to put his servant in livery, so that the old woman could not have heard any previous mention of it. this, he assured us, was a true story. m'quarrie insisted that the mercheta mulierum, mentioned in our old charters, did really mean the privilege which a lord of a manor, or a baron, had, to have the first night of all his vassals' wives. dr johnson said, the belief of such a custom having existed was also held in england, where there is a tenure called borough-english, by which the eldest child does not inherit, from a doubt of his being the son of the tenant. [footnote: sir william blackstone says in his commentaries, that 'he cannot find that ever this custom prevailed in england'; and therefore he is of opinion that it could not have given rise to borough-english.] m'quarrie told us, that still, on the marriage of each of his tenants, a sheep is due to him; for which the composition is fixed at five shillings. i suppose, ulva is the only place where this custom remains. talking of the sale of an estate of an ancient family, which was said to have been purchased much under its value by the confidential lawyer of that family, and it being mentioned that the sale would probably be set aside by a suit in equity, dr johnson said, 'i am very willing that this sale should be set aside, but i doubt much whether the suit will be successful; for the argument for avoiding the sale is founded on vague and indeterminate principles, as that the price was too low, and that there was a great degree of confidence placed by the seller in the person who became the purchaser. now, how low should a price be? or what degree of confidence should there be to make a bargain be set aside? a bargain, which is a wager of skill between man and man. if, indeed, any fraud can be proved, that will do.' when dr johnson and i were by ourselves at night, i observed of our host, 'aspectum generosum habet.' 'et generosum animum,' he added. for fear of being overheard in the small highland houses, i often talked to him in such latin as i could speak, and with as much of the english accent as i could assume, so as not to be understood, in case our conversation should be too loud for the space. we had each an elegant bed in the same room; and here it was that a circumstance occurred, as to which he has been strangely misunderstood. from his description of his chamber, it has erroneously been supposed, that his bed being too short for him, his feet, during the night, were in the mire; whereas he has only said, that when he undressed, he felt his feet in the mire: that is, the clay-floor of the room, on which he stood before he went into bed, was wet, in consequence of the windows being broken, which let in the rain. sunday, th october being informed that there was nothing worthy of observation in ulva, we took boat, and proceeded to inchkenneth, where we were introduced by our friend col to sir allan m'lean, the chief of his clan, and to two young ladies, his daughters. inchkenneth is a pretty little island, a mile long, and about half a mile broad, all good land. as we walked up from the shore, dr johnson's heart was cheered by the sight of a road marked with cart-wheels, as on the main land; a thing which we had not seen for a long time. it gave us a pleasure similar to that which a traveller feels, when, whilst wandering on what he fears is a desert island, he perceives the print of human feet. military men acquire excellent habits of having all conveniencies about them. sir allan m'lean, who had been long in the army, and had now a lease of the island, had formed a commodious habitation, though it consisted but of a few small buildings, only one story high. he had, in his little apartments, more things than i could enumerate in a page or two. among other agreeable circumstances, it was not the least, to find here a parcel of the caledonian mercury, published since we left edinburgh; which i read with that pleasure which every man feels who has been for some time secluded from the animated scenes of the busy world. dr johnson found books here. he bade me buy bishop gastrell's christian institutes, which was lying in the room. he said, 'i do not like to read any thing on a sunday, but what is theological; not that i would scrupulously refuse to look at any thing which a friend should shew me in a newspaper; but in general, i would read only what is theological. i read just now some of drummond's travels, before i perceived what books were here. i then took up derham's physico-theology. every particular concerning this island having been so well described by dr johnson, it would be superfluous in me to present the publick with the observations that i made upon it, in my journal. i was quite easy with sir allan almost instantaneously. he knew the great intimacy that had been between my father and his predecessor, sir hector, and was himself of a very frank disposition. after dinner, sir allan said he had got dr campbell about a hundred subscribers to his britannia elucidata (a work since published under the title of a political survey of great britain), of whom he believed twenty were dead, the publication having been so long delayed. johnson. 'sir, i imagine the delay of publication is owing to this; that, after publication, there will be no more subscribers, and few will send the additional guinea to get their books: in which they will be wrong; for there will be a great deal of instruction in the work. i think highly of campbell. in the first place, he has very good parts. in the second place, he has very extensive reading; not, perhaps, what is properly called learning, but history, politicks, and, in short, that popular knowledge which makes a man very useful. in the third place, he has learned much by what is called the vox viva. he talks with a great many people.' speaking of this gentleman, at rasay, he told us, that he one day called on him, and they talked of tull's husbandry. dr campbell said something. dr johnson began to dispute it. 'come,' said dr campbell, 'we do not want to get the better of one another: we want to encrease each other's ideas.' dr johnson took it in good part, and the conversation then went on coolly and instructively. his candour in relating this anecdote does him much credit, and his conduct on that occasion proves how easily he could be persuaded to talk from a better motive than 'for victory'. dr johnson here shewed so much of the spirit of a highlander, that he won sir allan's heart: indeed, he has shewn it during the whole of our tour. one night, in col, he strutted about the room with a broad-sword and target, and made a formidable appearance; and, another night, i took the liberty to put a large blue bonnet on his head. his age, his size, and his bushy grey wig, with this covering on it, presented the image of a venerable senachi: and, however unfavourable to the lowland scots, he seemed much pleased to assume the appearance of an ancient caledonian. we only regretted that he could not be prevailed with to partake of the social glass. one of his arguments against drinking, appears to me not convincing. he urged, that, 'in proportion as drinking makes a man different from what he is before he has drunk, it is bad; because it has so far affected his reason'. but may it not be answered, that a man may be altered by it for the better; that his spirits may be exhilarated, without his reason being affected? on the general subject of drinking, however, i do not mean positively to take the other side. i am dubius, non improbus. in the evening, sir allan informed us that it was the custom of his house to have prayers every sunday; and miss m'lean read the evening service, in which we all joined. i then read ogden's second and ninth sermons on prayer, which, with their other distinguished excellence, have the merit of being short. dr johnson said, that it was the most agreeable sunday he had ever passed; and it made such an impression on his mind, that he afterwards wrote the following latin verses upon inchkenneth: insula sancti kennethi parva quidem regio, sed relligione priorum nota, caledonias panditur inter aquas; voce ubi cennethus populos domuisse feroces dicitur, et vanos dedocuisse deos. huc ego delatus placido per coerula cursu scire locum volui quid daret itte novi. illic leniades humili regnabat in aula, leniades magnis nobilitatus avis: una duas habuit casa cum genitore puellas, quas amor undarum fingeret esse deas: non tamen inculti gelidis latuere sub antris, accola danubii qualia saevus habet; mollia non deerant vacuae solatia vitae, sive libros poscant otia, sive lyram. luxerat illa dies, legis gens docta supernae spes hominum ac curas cum procul esse jubet, ponti inter strepitus sacri non munera cultus cessarunt; pietas hic quoque cura fuit: quid quod sacrifici versavit femina libros, legitimas faciunt pectora pura preces. quo vagor ulterius? quod ubique requiritur hic est; hic secura quies, hic et honestus amor. monday, th october we agreed to pass this day with sir allan, and he engaged to have every thing in order for our voyage to-morrow. being now soon to be separated from our amiable friend young col, his merits were all remembered. at ulva he had appeared in a new character, having given us a good prescription for a cold. on my mentioning him with warmth, dr johnson said, 'col does every thing for us: we will erect a statue to col.' 'yes,' said i, 'and we will have him with his various attributes and characters, like mercury, or any other of the heathen gods. we will have him as a pilot; we will have him as a fisherman, as a hunter, as a husbandman, as a physician.' i this morning took a spade, and dug a little grave in the floor of a ruined chapel, near sir allan m'lean's house, in which i buried some human bones i found there. dr johnson praised me for what i had done, though he owned, he could not have done it. he shewed in the chapel at rasay his horrour at dead men's bones. he shewed it again at col's house. in the charter-room there was a remarkable large shin-bone; which was said to have been a bone of john garve, one of the lairds. dr johnson would not look at it; but started away. at breakfast, i asked, 'what is the reason that we are angry at a trader's having opulence?' johnson. 'why, sir, the reason is (though i don't undertake to prove that there is a reason), we see no qualities in trade that should entitle a man to superiority. we are not angry at a soldier's getting riches, because we see that he possesses qualities which we have not. if a man returns from a battle, having lost one hand, and with the other full of gold, we feel that he deserves the gold; but we cannot think that a fellow, by sitting all day at a desk, is entitled to get above us.' boswell. 'but, sir, may we not suppose a merchant to be a man of an enlarged mind, such as addison in the spectator describes sir andrew freeport to have been?' johnson. 'why, sir, we may suppose any fictitious character. we may suppose a philosophical day-labourer, who is happy in reflecting that, by his labour, he contributes to the fertility of the earth, and to the support of his fellow-creatures; but we find no such philosophical day-labourer. a merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind; but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.' i mentioned that i heard dr solander say he was a swedish laplander. johnson. 'sir, i don't believe he is a laplander. the laplanders are not much above four feet high. he is as tall as you; and he has not the copper colour of a laplander.' boswell. 'but what motive could he have to make himself a laplander?' johnson. 'why, sir, he must either mean the word laplander in a very extensive sense, or may mean a voluntary degradation of himself. "for all my being the great man that you see me now, i was originally a barbarian"; as if burke should say, "i came over a wild irishman," which he might say in his present state of exaltation.' having expressed a desire to have an island like inchkenneth, dr johnson set himself to think what would be necessary for a man in such a situation. 'sir, i should build me a fortification, if i came to live here; for, if you have it not, what should hinder a parcel of ruffians to land in the night, and carry off every thing you have in the house, which, in a remote country, would be more valuable than cows and sheep? add to all this the danger of having your throat cut.' boswell. 'i would have a large dog.' johnson. 'so you may, sir; but a large dog is of no use but to alarm. he, however, i apprehend, thinks too lightly of the power of that animal. i have heard him say, that he is afraid of no dog. 'he would take him up by the hinder legs, which would render him quite helpless, and then knock his head against a stone, and beat out his brains.' topham beauclerk told me, that at his house in the country, two large ferocious dogs were fighting. dr johnson looked steadily at them for a little while; and then, as one would separate two little boys, who are foolishly hurting each other, he ran up to them, and cuffed their heads till he drove them asunder. but few men have his intrepidity, herculean strength, or presence of mind. most thieves or robbers would be afraid to encounter a mastiff. i observed, that, when young col talked of the lands belonging to his family, he always said, 'my lands'. for this he had a plausible pretence; for he told me, there has been a custom in this family, that the laird resigns the estate to the eldest son when he comes of age, reserving to himself only a certain life-rent. he said, it was a voluntary custom; but i think i found an instance in the charter-room, that there was such an obligation in a contract of marriage. if the custom was voluntary, it was only curious; but if founded on obligation, it might be dangerous; for i have been told, that in otaheite, whenever a child is born (a son, i think), the father loses his right to the estate and honours, and that this unnatural, or rather absurd custom, occasions the murder of many children. young col told us he could run down a greyhound; 'for,' said he, 'the dog runs himself out of breath, by going too quick, and then i get up with him.' i accounted for his advantage over the dog, by remarking that col had the faculty of reason, and knew how to moderate his pace, which the dog had not sense enough to do. dr johnson said, 'he is a noble animal. he is as complete an islander as the mind can figure. he is a farmer, a sailor, a hunter, a fisher: he will run you down a dog: if any man has a tail it is col. he is hospitable; and he has an intrepidity of talk, whether he understands the subject or not. i regret that he is not more intellectual.' dr johnson observed, that there was nothing of which he would not undertake to persuade a frenchman in a foreign country. i'll carry a frenchman to st paul's church-yard, and i'll tell him, "by our law you may walk half round the church; but, if you walk round the whole, you will be punished capitally", and he will believe me at once. now, no englishman would readily swallow such a thing: he would go and inquire of somebody else.' the frenchman's credulity, i observed, must be owing to his being accustomed to implicit submission; whereas every englishman reasons upon the laws of his country, and instructs his representatives, who compose the legislature. this day was passed in looking at a small island adjoining inchkenneth, which afforded nothing worthy of observation; and in such social and gay entertainments as our little society could furnish. tuesday, th october after breakfast we took leave of the young ladies, and of our excellent companion col, to whom we had been so much obliged. he had now put us under the care of his chief; and was to hasten back to sky. we parted from him with very strong feelings of kindness and gratitude; and we hoped to have had some future opportunity of proving to him the sincerity of what we felt; but in the following year he was unfortunately lost in the sound between ulva and mull; and this imperfect memorial, joined to the high honour of being tenderly and respectfully mentioned by dr johnson, is the only return which the uncertainty of human events has permitted us to make to this deserving young man. sir allan, who obligingly undertook to accompany us to icolmkill had a strong good boat, with four stout rowers. we coasted along mull till we reached gribon, where is what is called mackinnon's cave, compared with which that at ulinish is inconsiderable. it is in a rock of a great height, close to the sea. upon the left of its entrance there is a cascade, almost perpendicular from the top to the bottom of the rock. there is a tradition that it was conducted thither artificially, to supply the inhabitants of the cave with water. dr johnson gave no credit to this tradition. as, on the one hand, his faith in the christian religion is firmly founded upon good grounds; so, on the other, he is incredulous when there is no sufficient reason for belief; being in this respect just the reverse of modern infidels, who, however nice and scrupulous in weighing the evidences of religion, are yet often so ready to believe the most absurd and improbable tales of another nature, that lord hailes well observed, a good essay might be written sur la credulite des incredules. the height of this cave i cannot tell with any tolerable exactness: but it seemed to be very lofty, and to be a pretty regular arch. we penetrated, by candlelight, a great way; by our measurement, no less than four hundred and eighty-five feet. tradition says, that a piper and twelve men once advanced into this cave, nobody can tell how far; and never returned. at the distance to which we proceeded the air was quite pure; for the candle burned freely, without the least appearance of the flame growing globular; but as we had only one, we thought it dangerous to venture farther, lest, should it have been extinguished, we should have had no means of ascertaining whether we could remain without danger. dr johnson said, this was the greatest natural curiosity he had ever seen. we saw the island of staffa, at no very great distance, but could not land upon it, the surge was so high on its rocky coast. sir allan, anxious for the honour of mull, was still talking of its woods, and pointing them out to dr johnson, as appearing at a distance on the skirts of that island, as we sailed along. johnson. 'sir, i saw at tobermorie. what they called a wood, which i unluckily took for heath. if you shew me what i shall take for furze, it will be something.' in the afternoon we went ashore on the coast of mull, and partook of a cold repast, which we carried with us. we hoped to have procured some rum or brandy for our boatmen and servants, from a publick-house near where we landed; but unfortunately a funeral a few days before had exhausted all their store. mr campbell however, one of the duke of argyle's tacksmen, who lived in the neighbourhood, on receiving a message from sir allan, sent us a liberal supply. we continued to coast along mull, and passed by nuns' island, which, it is said, belonged to the nuns of icolmkill, and from which, we were told, the stone for the buildings there was taken. as we sailed along by moonlight, in a sea somewhat rough, and often between black and gloomy rocks, dr johnson said, 'if this be not roving among the hebrides, nothing is.' the repetition of words which he had so often previously used, made a strong impression on my imagination; and, by a natural course of thinking, led me to consider how our present adventures would appear to me at a future period. i have often experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow. acti labores sunt jucundi. this may be owing to comparing them with present listless ease. even harsh scenes acquire a softness by length of time: [footnote: i have lately observed that this thought has been elegantly expressed by cowley: things which offend when present and affright. in memory, well painted, move delight.] and some are like very loud sounds, which do not please, or at least do not please so much, till you are removed to a certain distance. they may be compared to strong coarse pictures, which will not bear to be viewed near. even pleasing scenes improve by time, and seem more exquisite in recollection, than when they were present; if they have not faded to dimness in the memory. perhaps, there is so much evil in every human enjoyment, when present--so much dross mixed with it--that it requires to be refined by time; and yet i do not see why time should not melt away the good and the evil in equal proportions; why the shade should decay, and the light remain in preservation. after a tedious sail, which, by our following various turnings of the coast of mull, was extended to about forty miles, it gave us no small pleasure to perceive a light in the village of icolmkill, in which almost all the inhabitants of the island live, close to where the ancient building stood. as we approached the shore, the tower of the cathedral, just discernable in the air, was a picturesque object. when we had landed upon the sacred place, which, as long as i can remember, i had thought on with veneration, dr johnson and i cordially embraced. we had long talked of visiting icolmkill; and, from the lateness of the season, were at times very doubtful whether we should be able to effect our purpose. to have seen it, even alone, would have given me great satisfaction; but the venerable scene was rendered much more pleasing by the company of my great and pious friend, who was no less affected by it than i was; and who has described the impressions it should make on the mind, with such strength of thought, and energy of language, that i shall quote his words, as conveying my own sensations much more forcibly than i am capable of doing: we are now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. to abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. that man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of iona! [footnote: had our tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. the present respectable president of the royal society was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration.] upon hearing that sir allan m'lean was arrived, the inhabitants, who still consider themselves as the people of m'lean, to whom the island formerly belonged, though the duke of argyle has at present possession of it, ran eagerly to him. we were accommodated this night in a large barn, the island affording no lodging that we should have liked so well. some good hay was strewed at one end of it, to form a bed for us, upon which we lay with our clothes on; and we were furnished with blankets from the village. each of us had a portmanteau for a pillow. when i awaked in the morning, and looked round me, i could not help smiling at the idea of the chief of the m'leans, the great english moralist, and myself, lying thus extended in such a situation. wednesday, th october early in the morning we surveyed the remains of antiquity at this place, accompanied by an illiterate fellow, as cicerone, who called himself a descendant of a cousin of saint columba, the founder of the religious establishment here. as i knew that many persons had already examined them, and as i saw dr johnson inspecting and measuring several of the ruins of which he has since given so full an account, my mind was quiescent; and i resolved; to stroll among them at my ease, to take no trouble to investigate minutely, and only receive the general impression of solemn antiquity, and the particular ideas of such objects as should of themselves strike my attention. we walked from the monastery of nuns to the great church or cathedral, as they call it, along an old broken causeway. they told us, that this had been a street; and that there were good houses built on each side. dr johnson doubted if it was any thing more than a paved road for the nuns. the convent of monks, the great church, oran's chapel, and four other chapels, are still to be discerned. but i must own that icolmkill did not answer my expectations; for they were high, from what i had read of it, and still more from what i had heard and thought of it, from my earliest years. dr johnson said, it came up to his expectations, because he had taken his impression from an account of it subjoined to sacheverel's history of the isle of man, where it is said, there is not much to be seen here. we were both disappointed, when we were shewn what are called the monuments of the kings of scotland, ireland, and denmark, and of a king of france. there are only some grave-stones flat on the earth, and we could see no inscriptions. how far short was this of marble monuments, like those in westminster abbey, which i had imagined here! the grave-stones of sir allan m'lean's family, and of that of m'quarrie, had as good an appearance as the royal grave-stones; if they were royal, we doubted. my easiness to give credit to what i heard in the course of our tour was too great. dr johnson's peculiar accuracy of investigation detected much traditional fiction, and many gross mistakes. it is not to be wondered at, that he was provoked by people carelessly telling him, with the utmost readiness and confidence, what he found, on questioning them a little more, was erroneous. of this there were innumerable instances. i left him and sir allan to breakfast in our barn, and stole back again to the cathedral, to indulge in solitude and devout meditation. while contemplating the venerable ruins, i reflected with much satisfaction, that the solemn scenes of piety never lose their sanctity and influence, though the cares and follies of life may prevent us from visiting them, or may even make us fancy that their effects are only 'as yesterday, when it is past', and never again to be perceived. i hoped, that, ever after having been in this holy place, i should maintain an exemplary conduct. one has a strange propensity to fix upon some point of time from whence a better course of life may begin. being desirous to visit the opposite shore of the island, where saint columba is said to have landed, i procured a horse from one m'ginnis, who ran along as my guide. the m'ginnises are said to be a branch of the clan of m'lean. sir allan had been told that this man had refused to send him some rum, at which the knight was in great indignation. 'you rascal!' said he. 'don't you know that i can hang you, if i please?' not averting to the chieftain's power over his clan, i imagined that sir allan had known of some capital crime that the fellow had committed, which he could discover, and so get him condemned; and said, 'how so?' 'why,' said sir allan, 'are they not all my people?' sensible in my inadvertency, and most willing to contribute what i could towards the continuation of feudal authority, 'very true,' said i. sir allan went on: 'refuse to send rum to me, you rascal! don't you know that, if i order you to go and cut a man's throat, you are to do it?' 'yes, an't please your honour! and my own too, and hang myself too.' the poor fellow denied that he had refused to send the rum. his making these professions was not merely a pretence in presence of his chief; for after he and i were out of sir allan's hearing, he told me, 'had he sent his dog for the rum, i would have given it: i would cut my bones for him.' it was very remarkable to find such an attachment to a chief, though he had then no connection with the island, and had not been there for fourteen years. sir allan, by way of upbraiding the fellow, said, 'i believe you are a campbell.' the place which i went to see is about two miles from the village. they call it portawherry, from the wherry in which columba came; though, when they shew the length of his vessel, as marked on the beach by two heaps of stones, they say, 'here is the length of the currach,' using the erse word. icolmkill is a fertile island. the inhabitants export some cattle and grain; and i was told, they import nothing but iron and salt. they are industrious, and make their own woollen and linen cloth; and they brew a good deal of beer, which we did not find in any of the other islands. we set sail again about mid-day, and in the evening landed on mull, near the house of the reverend mr neal m'leod, who having been informed of our coming, by a message from sir allan, came out to meet us. we were this night very agreeably entertained at his house. dr johnson observed to me, that he was the cleanest-headed man that he had met in the western islands. he seemed to be well acquainted with dr johnson's writings, and courteously said, 'i have been often obliged to you, though i never had the pleasure of seeing you before.' he told us, he had lived for some time in st kilda, under the tuition of the minister or catechist there, and had there first read horace and virgil. the scenes which they describe must have been a strong contrast to the dreary waste around him. thursday, st october this morning the subject of politicks was introduced. johnson. 'pulteney was as paltry a fellow as could be. he was a whig, who pretended to be honest; and you know it is ridiculous for a whig to pretend to be honest. he cannot hold it out.' he called mr pitt a meteor; sir robert walpole a fixed star. he said, 'it is wonderful to think that all the force of government was required to prevent wilkes from being chosen the chief magistrate of london, though the liverymen knew he would rob their shops, knew he would debauch their daughters.' [footnote: i think it incumbent on me to make some observation on this strong satirical sally on my classical companion, mr wilkes. reporting it lately from memory, in his presence, i expressed it thus: 'they knew he would rob their shops, if he durst; they knew he would debauch their daughters, if he could, which, according to the french phrase, may be said rencherir on dr johnson; but on looking into my journal, i found it as above, and would by no means make any addition. mr wilkes received both readings with a good humour that i cannot enough admire. indeed both he and i (as, with respect to myself, the reader has more than once had occasion to observe in the course of this journal) are too fond of a bon mot, not to relish it, though we should be ourselves the object of it. let me add, in justice to the gentleman here mentioned, that at a subsequent period, he was elected chief magistrate of london, and discharged the duties of that high office with great honour to himself, and advantage to the city. some years before dr johnson died, i was fortunate enough to bring him and mr wilkes together; the consequence of which was, that they were ever afterwards on easy and not unfriendly terms. the particulars i shall have great pleasure in relating at large in my life of dr johnson.] boswell. 'the history of england is so strange, that, if it were not so well vouched as it is, it would hardly be credible.' johnson. 'sir, if it were told as shortly, and with as little preparation for introducing the different events, as the history of the jewish kings, it would be equally liable to objections of improbability.' mr m'leod was much pleased with the justice and novelty of the thought. dr johnson illustrated what he had said, as follows: 'take, as an instance, charles the first's concessions to his parliament, which were greater and greater, in proportion as the parliament grew more insolent, and less deserving of trust. had these concessions been related nakedly, without any detail of the circumstances which generally led to them, they would not have been believed.' sir allan m'lean bragged, that scotland had the advantage of england, by its having more water. johnson, 'sir, we would not have your water, to take the vile bogs which produced it. you have too much! a man who is drowned has more water than either of us'; and then he laughed. (but this was surely robust sophistry: for the people of taste in england, who have seen scotland, own that its variety of rivers and lakes makes it naturally more beautiful than england, in that respect.) pursuing his victory over sir allan, he proceeded: 'your country consists of two things, stone and water. there is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. it is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out.' he took leave of mr m'leod, saying, 'sir, i thank you for your entertainment, and your conversation.' mr campbell, who had been so polite yesterday, came this morning on purpose to breakfast with us, and very obligingly furnished us with horses to proceed on our journey to mr m'lean's of lochbuy, where we were to pass the night. we dined at the house of dr alexander m'lean, another physician in mull, who was so much struck with the uncommon conversation of dr johnson, that he observed to me, 'this man is just a hogshead of sense.' dr johnson said of the turkish spy, which lay in the room, that it told nothing but what every body might have known at that time; and that what was good in it, did not pay you for the trouble of reading to find it. after a very tedious ride, through what appeared to me the most gloomy and desolate country i had ever beheld, we arrived, between seven and eight o'clock, at moy, the seat of the laird of lochbuy. buy, in erse, signifies yellow, and i at first imagined that the loch or branch of the sea here, was thus denominated, in the same manner as the red sea; but i afterwards learned that it derived its name from a hill above it, which being of a yellowish hue, has the epithet of buy. we had heard much of lochbuy's being a great roaring braggadocio, a kind of sir john falstaff, both in size and manners; but we found that they had swelled him up to a fictitious size, and clothed him with imaginary qualities. col's idea of him was equally extravagant, though very different: he told us, he was quite a don quixote; and said, he would give a great deal to see him and dr johnson together. the truth is, that lochbuy proved to be only a bluff, comely, noisy old gentleman, proud of his hereditary consequence, and a very hearty and hospitable landlord. lady lochbuy was sister to sir allan m'lean, but much older. he said to me, 'they are quite antediluvians.' being told that dr johnson did not hear well, lochbuy bawled out to him, 'are you of the johnstons of glencro, or of ardnamurchan?' dr johnson gave him a significant look, but made no answer; and i told lochbuy that he was not johnston, but johnson, and that he was an englishman. lochbuy some years ago tried to prove himself a weak man, liable to imposition, or, as we term it in scotland, a facile man, in order to set aside a lease which he had granted; but failed in the attempt. on my mentioning this circumstance to dr johnson, he seemed much surprized that such a suit was admitted by the scottish law, and observed, that 'in england no man is allowed to stultify himself.' [footnote: this maxim, however, has been controverted. see blackstone's commentaries, vol. ii, p. ; and the authorities there quoted.] sir allan, lochbuy, and i, had the conversation chiefly to ourselves to-night: dr johnson, being extremely weary, went to bed soon after supper. friday, d october before dr johnson came to breakfast, lady lochbuy said, 'he was a dungeon of wit'; a very common phrase in scotland to express a profoundness of intellect, though he afterwards told me, that he never had heard it. she proposed that he should have some cold sheep's head for breakfast. sir allan seemed displeased at his sister's vulgarity, and wondered how such a thought should come into her head. from a mischievous love of sport, i took the lady's part; and very gravely said, 'i think it is but fair to give him an offer of it. if he does not choose it, he may let it alone.' 'i think so,' said the lady, looking at her brother with an air of victory. sir allan, finding the matter desperate, strutted about the room, and took snuff. when dr johnson came in, she called to him, 'do you choose any cold sheep's-head, sir?' 'no, madam,' said he, with a tone of surprise and anger. 'it is here, sir,' said she, supposing he had refused it to save the trouble of bringing it in. they thus went on at cross purposes, till he confirmed his refusal in a manner not to be misunderstood; while i sat quietly by, and enjoyed my success. after breakfast, we surveyed the old castle, in the pit or dungeon of which lochbuy had some years before taken upon him to imprison several persons; and though he had been fined a considerable sum by the court of justiciary, he was so little affected by it, that while we were examining the dungeon, he said to me, with a smile, 'your father knows something of this' (alluding to my father's having sat as one of the judges on his trial). sir allan whispered me, that the laird could not be persuaded, that he had lost his heritable jurisdiction. we then set out for the ferry, by which we were to cross to the main land of argyleshire. lochbuy and sir allan accompanied us. we were told much of a war-saddle, on which this reputed don quixote used to be mounted; but we did not see it, for the young laird had applied it to a less noble purpose, having taken it to falkirk fair with a drove of black cattle. we bade adieu to lochbuy, and to our very kind conductor. sir allan m'lean, on the shore of mull, and then got into the ferry-boat, the bottom of which was strewed with branches of trees or bushes, upon which we sat. we had a good day and a fine passage, and in the evening landed at oban, where we found a tolerable inn. after having been so long confined at different times in islands, from which it was always uncertain when we could get away, it was comfortable to be now on the main land, and to know that, if in health, we might get to any place in scotland or england in a certain number of days. here we discovered from the conjectures which were formed, that the people on the main land were intirely ignorant of our motions; for in a glasgow news-paper we found a paragraph, which, as it contains a just and well-turned compliment to my illustrious friend, i shall insert: we are well assured that dr johnson is confined by tempestuous weather to the isle of sky; it being unsafe to venture, in a small boat upon such a stormy surge as is very common there at this time of the year. such a philosopher, detained on an almost barren island, resembles a whale left upon the strand. the latter will be welcome to every body, on account of his oil, his bone, etc. and the other will charm his companions, and the rude inhabitants, with his superior knowledge and wisdom, calm resignation, and unbounded benevolence. saturday, d october after a good night's rest, we breakfasted at our leisure. we talked of goldsmith's traveller, of which dr johnson spoke highly; and, while i was helping him on with his great coat, he repeated from it the character of the british nation, which he did with such energy, that the tear started into his eye: '"stern o'er each bosom reason holds her state. with daring aims irregularly great, pride in their port, defiance in their eye, i see the lords of humankind pass by, intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, by forms unfashion'd; fresh from nature's hand; fierce in their native hardiness of soul, true to imagin'd right, above control, while ev'n the peasant boasts these rights to scan, and learns to venerate himself as man."' we could get but one bridle here, which, according to the maxim detur digniori, was appropriated to dr johnson's sheltie. i and joseph rode with halters. we crossed in a ferry-boat a pretty wide lake, and on the farther side of it, close by the shore, found a hut for our inn. we were much wet. i changed my clothes in part, and was at pains to get myself well dried. dr johnson resolutely kept on all his clothes, wet as they were, letting them steam before the smoky turf fire. i thought him in the wrong; but his firmness was, perhaps, a species of heroism. i remember but little of our conversation. i mentioned shenstone's saying of pope, that he had the art of condensing sense more than any body. dr johnson said, 'it is not true, sir. there is more sense in a line of cowley than in a page' (or a sentence of ten lines--i am not quite certain of the very phrase) 'of pope.' he maintained that archibald, duke of argyle, was a narrow man. i wondered at this; and observed, that his building so great a house at inveraray was not like a narrow man. 'sir,' said he, 'when a narrow man has resolved to build a house, he builds it like another man. but archibald, duke of argyle, was narrow in his ordinary expences, in his quotidian expences.' the distinction is very just. it is in the ordinary expences of life that a man's liberality or narrowness is to be discovered. i never heard the word quotidian in this sense, and i imagined it to be a word of dr johnson's own fabrication; but i have since found it in young's night thoughts (night fifth): death's a destroyer of quotidian prey. and in my friend's dictionary, supported by the authorities of charles i and dr donne. it rained very hard as we journied on after dinner. the roar of torrents from the mountains, as we passed along in the dusk, and the other circumstances attending our ride this evening, have been mentioned with so much animation by dr johnson, that i shall not attempt to say any thing on the subject. we got at night to inveraray, where we found an excellent inn. even here, dr johnson would not change his wet clothes. the prospect of good accommodation cheered us much. we supped well; and after supper, dr johnson, whom i had not seen taste any fermented liquor during all our travels, called for a gill of whisky. 'come,' said he, 'let me know what it is that makes a scotchman happy!' he drank it all but a drop, which i begged leave to pour into my glass, that i might say we had drunk whisky together. i proposed mrs thrale should be our toast. he would not have her drunk in whisky, but rather 'some insular lady', so we drank one of the ladies whom we had lately left. he owned tonight, that he got as good a room and bed as at an english inn. i had here the pleasure of finding a letter from home, which relieved me from the anxiety i had suffered, in consequence of not having received any account of my family for many weeks. i also found a letter from mr garrick, which was a regale as agreeable as a pineapple would be in a desert. he had favoured me with his correspondence for many years; and when dr johnson and i were at inverness, i had written to him as follows: inverness, my dear sir, sunday, august, here i am, and mr samuel johnson actually with me. we were a night at fores, in coming to which, in the dusk of the evening, we passed over a bleak and blasted heath where macbeth met the witches. your old preceptor repeated, with much solemnity, the speech how far is't called to fores? what are these so wither'd and so wild in their attire, etc. this day we visited the ruins of macbeth's castle at inverness. i have had great romantick satisfaction in seeing johnson upon the classical scenes of shakspeare in scotland; which i really looked upon as almost as improbable as that 'birnam wood should come to dunsinane'. indeed, as i have always been accustomed to view him as a permanent london object, it would not be much more wonderful to me to see st paul's church moving along where we now are. as yet we have travelled in postchaises; but to-morrow we are to mount on horseback, and ascend into the mountains by fort augustus, and so on to the ferry, where we are to cross to sky. we shall see that island fully, and then visit some more of the hebrides; after which we are to land in argyleshire, proceed by glasgow to auchinleck, repose there a competent time, and then return to edinburgh, from whence the rambler will depart for old england again, as soon as he finds it convenient. hitherto we have had a very prosperous expedition. i flatter myself servetur ad imum, qualis ab incepto processerit. he is in excellent spirits, and i have a rich journal of his conversation. look back, davy, [footnote: i took the liberty of giving this familiar appellation to my celebrated friend, to bring in a more lively manner to his remembrance the period when he was dr johnson's pupil.] to litchfield; run up through the time that has elapsed since you first knew mr johnson, and enjoy with me his present extraordinary tour. i could not resist the impulse of writing to you from this place. the situation of the old castle corresponds exactly to shakspeare's description. while we were there to-day, it happened oddly, that a raven perched upon one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. then i in my turn repeated, 'the raven himself is hoarse. that croaks the fatal entrance of duncan, under my battlements.' i wish you had been with us. think what enthusiastick happiness i shall have to see mr samuel johnson walking among the romantick rocks and woods of my ancestors at auchinleck! write to me at edinburgh. you owe me his verses on great george and tuneful cibber, and the bad verses which led him to make his fine ones on philips the musician. keep your promise, and let me have them. i offer my very best compliments to mrs garrick, and ever am your warm admirer and friend, james boswell. to david garrick, esq; london. his answer was as follows. hampton, september , , dear sir, you stole away from london, and left us all in the lurch; for we expected you one night at the club, and knew nothing of your departure. had i payed you what i owed you, for the book you bought for me, i should only have grieved for the loss of your company, and slept with a quiet conscience; but, wounded as it is, it must remain so till i see you again, though i am sure our good friend mr johnson will discharge the debt for me, if you will let him. your account of your journey to fores, the raven, old castle, &c. &c. made me half mad. are you not rather too late in the year for fine weather, which is the life and soul of seeing places? i hope your pleasure will continue qualis ab incepto, &c. your friend---[footnote: i have suppressed my mend's name from an apprehension of wounding his sensibility; but i would not withhold from my readers a passage which shews mr gamck's mode of writing as the manager of a theatre, and contains a pleasing trait of his domestick life. his judgment of dramatick pieces, so far as concerns their exhibition on the stage, must be allowed to have considerable weight. but from the effect which a perusal of the tragedy here condemned had upon myself, and from the opinions of some eminent criticks. i venture to pronounce that it has much poetical merit; and its author has distinguished himself by several performances which shew that the epithet poetaster was, in the present instance, much misapplied.] threatens me much. i only wish that he would put his threats in execution, and, if he prints his play, i will forgive him. i remember he complained to you, that his bookseller called for the money for some copies of his--, which i subscribed for, and that i desired him to call again. the truth is, that my wife was not at home, and that for weeks together i have not ten shillings in my pocket. however, had it been otherwise, it was not so great a crime to draw his poetical vengeance upon me. i despise all that he can do, and am glad that i can so easily get rid of him and his ingratitude. i am hardened both to abuse and ingratitude. you, i am sure, will no more recommend your poetasters to my civility and good offices. shall i recommend to you a play of eschylus (the prometheus), published and translated by poor old morel], who is a good scholar, and an acquaintance of mine. it will be but half a guinea, and your name shall be put in the list i am making for him. you will be in very good company. now for the epitaphs! (these, together with the verses on george the second, and colley gibber, as his poet laureat, of which imperfect copies are gone about, will appear in my life of dr johnson.) i have no more paper, or i should have said more to you. my love and respects to mr johnson. yours ever, d. garrick. i can't write. i have the gout in my hand. to james boswell, esq., edinburgh. sunday, th october we passed the forenoon calmly and placidly. i prevailed on dr johnson to read aloud ogden's sixth sermon on prayer, which he did with a distinct expression, and pleasing solemnity. he praised my favourite preacher, his elegant language, and remarkable acuteness; and said, he fought infidels with their own weapons. as a specimen of ogden's manner, i insert the following passage from the sermon which dr johnson now read. the preacher, after arguing against that vain philosophy which maintains, in conformity with the hard principle of eternal necessity, or unchangeable predetermination, that the only effect of prayer for others, although we are exhorted to pray for them, is to produce good dispositions in ourselves towards them; thus expresses himself: a plain man may be apt to ask, but if this then, though enjoined in the holy scriptures, is to be my real aim and intention, when i am taught to pray for other persons, why is it that i do not plainly so express it? why is not the form of the petition brought nearer to the meaning? give them, say i to our heavenly father, what is good. but this, i am to understand, will be as it will be, and is not for me to alter. what is it then that i am doing? i am desiring to become charitable myself; and why may i not plainly say so? is there shame in it, or impiety? the wish is laudable: why should i form designs to hide it? or is it, perhaps, better to be brought about by indirect means, and in this artful manner? alas! who is it that i would impose on? from whom can it be, in this commerce, that i desire to hide any thing? when, as my saviour commands me, i have 'entered into my closet, and shut my door', there are but two parties privy to my devotions, god and my own heart; which of the two am i deceiving? he wished to have more books, and, upon inquiring if there were any in the house, was told that a waiter had some, which were brought to him; but i recollect none of them, except hervey's meditations. he thought slightingly of this admired book. he treated it with ridicule, and would not allow even the scene of the dying husband and father to be pathetick. i am not an impartial judge; for hervey's meditations engaged my affections in my early years. he read a passage concerning the moon, ludicrously, and shewed how easily he could, in the same style, make reflections on that planet, the very reverse of hervey's, representing her as treacherous to mankind. he did this with much humour; but i have not preserved the particulars. he then indulged a playful fancy, in making a meditation on a pudding, of which i hastily wrote down, in his presence, the following note; which, though imperfect, may serve to give my readers some idea of it. meditation on a pudding let us seriously reflect of what a pudding is composed. it is composed of flour that once waved in the golden grain, and drank the dews of the morning; of milk pressed from the swelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milk-maid, whose beauty and innocence might have recommended a worse draught; who, while she stroked the udder, indulged no ambitious thoughts of wandering in palaces, formed no plans for the destruction of her fellow-creatures: milk, which is drawn from the cow, that useful animal, that eats the grass of the field, and supplies us with that which made the greatest part of the food of mankind in the age which the poets have agreed to call golden. it is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical burnet has compared to creation. an egg contains water within its beautiful smooth surface; and an unformed mass, by the incubation of the parent, becomes a regular animal, furnished with bones and sinews, and covered with feathers. let us consider; can there be more wanting to complete the meditation on a pudding? if more is wanting, more may be found. it contains salt, which keeps the sea from putrefaction: salt, which is made the image of intellectual excellence, contributes to the formation of a pudding. in a magazine i found a saying of dr johnson's, something to this purpose; that the happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning. i read it to him. he said, 'i may, perhaps, have said this; for nobody, at times, talks more laxly than i do.' i ventured to suggest to him, that this was dangerous from one of his authority. i spoke of living in the country, and upon what footing one should be with neighbours. i observed that some people were afraid of being on too easy a footing with them, from an apprehension that their time would not be their own. he made the obvious remark, that it depended much on what kind of neighbours one has, whether it was desirable to be on an easy footing with them, or not. i mentioned a certain baronet, who told me, he never was happy in the country, till he was not on speaking terms with his neighbours, which he contrived in different ways to bring about. 'lord ---', said he, 'stuck along; but at last the fellow pounded my pigs, and then i got rid of him.' johnson. 'nay, sir, my lord got rid of sir john, and shewed how little he valued him, by putting his pigs in the pound.' i told dr johnson i was in some difficulty how to act at inveraray. i had reason to think that the duchess of argyle disliked me, on account of my zeal in the douglas cause; but the duke of argyle had always been pleased to treat me with great civility. they were now at the castle, which is a very short walk from our inn; and the question was, whether i should go and pay my respects there. dr johnson, to whom i had stated the case, was clear that i ought; but, in his usual way, he was very shy of discovering a desire to be invited there himself. though from a conviction of the benefit of subordination to society, he has always shewn great respect to persons of high rank, when he happened to be in their company, yet his pride of character has ever made him guard against any appearance of courting the great. besides, he was impatient to go to glasgow, where he expected letters. at the same time he was, i believe, secretly not unwilling to have attention paid him by so great a chieftain, and so exalted a nobleman. he insisted that i should not go to the castle this day before dinner, as it would look like seeking an invitation. 'but,' said i, 'if the duke invites us to dine with him to-morrow, shall we accept?' 'yes, sir,' i think he said, 'to be sure.' but, he added, 'he won't ask us!' i mentioned, that i was afraid my company might be disagreeable to the duchess. he treated this objection with a manly disdain: 'that, sir, he must settle with his wife.' we dined well. i went to the castle just about the time when i supposed the ladies would be retired from dinner. i sent in my name; and, being shewn in, found the amiable duke sitting at the head of his table with several gentlemen. i was most politely received, and gave his grace some particulars of the curious journey which i had been making with dr johnson. when we rose from table, the duke said to me, 'i hope you and dr johnson will dine with us to-morrow.' i thanked his grace; but told him, my friend was in a great hurry to get back to london. the duke, with a kind complacency, said, 'he will stay one day; and i will take care he shall see this place to advantage.' i said, i should be sure to let him know his grace's invitation. as i was going away, the duke said, 'mr boswell, won't you have some tea?' i thought it best to get over the meeting with the duchess this night; so respectfully agreed. i was conducted to the drawing-room by the duke, who announced my name; but the duchess, who was sitting with her daughter, lady betty hamilton, and some other ladies, took not the least notice of me. i should have been mortified at being thus coldly received by a lady of whom i, with the rest of the world, have always entertained a very high admiration, had i not been consoled by the obliging attention of the duke. when i returned to the inn, i informed dr johnson of the duke of argyle's invitation, with which he was much pleased, and readily accepted of it. we talked of a violent contest which was then carrying on, with a view to the next general election for ayrshire; where one of the candidates, in order to undermine the old and established interest, had artfully held himself out as a champion for the independency of the county against aristocratick influence, and had persuaded several gentlemen into a resolution to oppose every candidate who was supported by peers. 'foolish fellows!' said dr johnson. 'didn't they see that they are as much dependent upon the peers one way as the other. the peers have but to oppose a candidate, to ensure him success. it is said, the only way to make a pig go forward, is to pull him back by the tail. these people must be treated like pigs.' monday, th october my acquaintance, the reverend mr john m'aulay, one of the ministers of inveraray, and brother to our good friend at calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied us to the castle, where i presented dr johnson to the duke of argyle. we were shewn through the house; and i never shall forget the impression made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat morning dresses. after seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inviting appearance, pleased me so much, that i thought, for the moment, i could have been a knight-errant for them. [footnote: on reflection, at the distance of several years, i wonder that my venerable fellow-traveller should have read this passage without censuring my levity.] we then got into a low one-horse chair, ordered for us by the duke, in which we drove about the place. dr johnson was much struck by the grandeur and elegance of this princely seat. he thought, however, the castle too low, and wished it had been a story higher. he said, 'what i admire here, is the total defiance of expence.' i had a particular pride in shewing him a great number of fine old trees, to compensate for the nakedness which had made such an impression on him on the eastern coast of scotland. when we came in, before dinner, we found the duke and some gentlemen in the hall. dr johnson took much notice of the large collection of arms, which are excellently disposed there. i told what he had said to sir alexander mcdonald, of his ancestors not suffering their arms to rust. 'well,' said the doctor, 'but let us be glad we live in times when arms may rust. we can sit to-day at his grace's table, without any risk of being attacked, and perhaps sitting down again wounded or maimed.' the duke placed dr johnson next himself at table. i was in fine spirits; and though sensible that i had the misfortune of not being in favour with the duchess, i was not in the least disconcerted, and offered her grace some of the dish that was before me. it must be owned that i was in the right to be quite unconcerned, if i could. i was the duke of argyle's guest; and i had no reason to suppose that he adopted the prejudices and resentments of the duchess of hamilton. i knew it was the rule of modern high life not to drink to any body; but, that i might have the satisfaction for once to look the duchess in the face, with a glass in my hand, i with a respectful air addressed her, 'my lady duchess, i have the honour to drink your grace's good health.' i repeated the words audibly, and with a steady countenance. this was, perhaps, rather too much; but some allowance must be made for human feelings. the duchess was very attentive to dr johnson. i know not how a middle state came to be mentioned. her grace wished to hear him on that point. 'madam,' said he, 'your own relation, mr archibald campbell, can tell you better about it than i can. he was a bishop of the nonjuring communion, and wrote a book upon the subject.' [footnote: as this book is now become very scarce, i shall subjoin the title, which is curious: 'the doctrines of a middle state between death and the resurrection: of prayers for the dead: and the necessity of purification: plainly proved from the holy scriptures, and the writings of the fathers of the primitive church: and acknowledged by several learned fathers and great divines of the church of england and others since the reformation. to which is added, an appendix concerning the descent of the soul of christ into hell, while his body lay in the grave. together with the judgment of the reverend dr hickes concerning this book, so far as relates to a middle state, particular judgment, and prayers for the dead as it appeared in the first edition. and a manuscript of the right reverend bishop overall upon the subject of a middle state, and never before printed. also, a preservative against several of the errors of the roman church, in six small treatises. by the honourable archibald campbell.' folio, .] he engaged to get it for her grace. he afterwards gave a full history of mr archibald campbell, which i am sorry i do not recollect particularly. he said, mr campbell had been bred a violent whig, but afterwards 'kept better company, and became a tory'. he said this with a smile, in pleasant allusion, as i thought, to the opposition between his own political principles and those of the duke's clan. he added that mr campbell, after the revolution, was thrown in gaol on account of his tenets; but, on application by letter to the old lord townshend, was released: that he always spoke of his lordship with great gratitude, saying, 'though a whig, he had humanity'. dr johnson and i passed some time together, in june , at pembroke college, oxford, with the reverend dr adams, the master, and i having expressed a regret that my note relative to mr archibald campbell was imperfect, he was then so good as to write with his own hand, on the blank page of my journal, opposite to that which contains what i have now mentioned, the following paragraph; which, however, is not quite so full as the narrative he gave at inveraray: the honourable archibald campbell was, i believe, the nephew of the marquis of argyle. he began life by engaging in monmouth's rebellion, and, to escape the law, lived some time in surinam. when he returned, he became zealous for episcopacy and monarchy; and at the revolution adhered not only to the nonjurors, but to those who refused to communicate with the church of england, or to be present at any worship where the usurper was mentioned as king. he was, i believe, more than once apprehended in the reign of king william, and once at the accession of george. he was the familiar friend of hicks and nelson; a man of letters, but injudicious; and very curious and inquisitive, but credulous. he lived in , or , about years old. the subject of luxury having been introduced, dr johnson defended it. 'we have now,' said he, 'a splendid dinner before us. which of all these dishes is unwholsome?' the duke asserted, that he had observed the grandees of spain diminished in their size by luxury. dr johnson politely refrained from opposing directly an observation which the duke himself had made; but said, 'man must be very different from other animals, if he is diminished by good living; for the size of all other animals is increased by it.' i made some remark that seemed to imply a belief in second sight. the duchess said, 'i fancy you will be a methodist.' this was the only sentence her grace deigned to utter to me; and i take it for granted, she thought it a good hit on my credulity in the douglas cause. a gentleman in company, after dinner, was desired by the duke to go to another room, for a specimen of curious marble, which his grace wished to shew us. he brought a wrong piece, upon which the duke sent him back again. he could not refuse; but, to avoid any appearance of servility, he whistled as he walked out of the room, to show his independency. on my mentioning this afterwards to dr johnson, he said, it was a nice trait of character. dr johnson talked a great deal, and was so entertaining, that lady betty hamilton, after dinner, went and placed her chair close to his, leaned upon the back of it, and listened eagerly. it would have made a fine picture to have drawn the sage and her at this time in their several attitudes. he did not know, all the while, how much he was honoured. i told him afterwards. i never saw him so gentle and complaisant as this day. we went to tea. the duke and i walked up and down the drawing-room, conversing. the duchess still continued to shew the same marked coldness for me; for which, though i suffered from it, i made every allowance, considering the very warm part that i had taken for douglas, cause in which she thought her son deeply interested. had not her grace discovered some displeasure towards me, i should have suspected her of insensibility or dissimulation. her grace made dr johnson come and sit by her, and asked him why he made his journey so late in the year. 'why, madam,' said he, 'you know mr boswell must attend the court of session, and it does not rise till the twelfth of august.' she said, with some sharpness, 'i know nothing of mr boswell.' poor lady lucy douglas, to whom i mentioned this, observed, 'she knew too much of mr boswell.' i shall make no remark on her grace's speech. i indeed felt it as rather too severe; but when i recollected that my punishment was inflicted by so dignified a beauty, i had that kind of consolation which a man would feel who is strangled by a silken cord. dr johnson was all attention to her grace. he used afterwards a droll expression, upon her enjoying the three titles of hamilton, brandon, and argyle. borrowing an image from the turkish empire, he called her a 'duchess with three tails'. he was much pleased with our visit at the castle of inveraray. the duke of argyle was exceedingly polite to him, and, upon his complaining of the shelties which he had hitherto ridden being too small for him, his grace told him he should be provided with a good horse to carry him next day. mr john m'aulay passed the evening with us at our inn. when dr johnson spoke of people whose principles were good, but whose practice was faulty, mr m'aulay said, he had no notion of people being in earnest in their good professions, whose practice was not suitable to them. the doctor grew warm, and said, 'sir, you are so grossly ignorant of human nature, as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?' dr johnson was unquestionably in the right; and whoever examines himself candidly, will be satisfied of it, though the inconsistency between principles and practice is greater in some men than in others. i recollect very little of this night's conversation. i am sorry that indolence came upon me towards the conclusion of our journey, so that i did not write down what passed with the same assiduity as during the greatest part of it. tuesday, th october mr m'aulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his last night's correction. being a man of good sense, he had a just admiration of dr johnson. either yesterday morning, or this, i communicated to dr johnson, from mr m'aulay's information, the news that dr beattie had got a pension of two hundred pounds a year. he sat up in his bed, clapped his hands, and cried, 'o brave we!' a peculiar exclamation of his when he rejoices. [footnote: having mentioned, more than once, that my journal was perused by dr johnson, i think it proper to inform my readers that this is the last paragraph which he read.] as we sat over our tea, mr home's tragedy of douglas was mentioned. i put dr johnson in mind, that once, in a coffee-house at oxford, he called to old mr sheridan, 'how came you, sir, to give home a gold medal for writing that foolish play?' and defied mr sheridan to shew ten good lines in it. he did not insist they should be together, but that there were not ten good lines in the whole play. he now persisted in this. i endeavoured to defend that pathetick and beautiful tragedy, and repeated the following passage: '"... sincerity, thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave thy onward path, although the earth should gape, and from the gulph of hell destruction cry. to take dissimulation's winding way."' johnson. 'that will not do, sir. nothing is good but what is consistent with truth or probability, which this is not. juvenal, indeed, gives us a noble picture of inflexible virtue: esto bonus miles, tutor bonus, arbiter idem integer: ambiguae si quando citabere testis, incertaeque rei, phalaris licet imperet, ut sis falsus, et admoto dictet perjuria tauro, summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas. [footnote: an honest guardian, arbitrator just. be thou; thy station deem a sacred trust. with thy good sword maintain thy country's cause; in every action venerate its laws: the lie suborn'd if falsely urg'd to swear, though torture wait thee, torture firmly bear; to forfeit honour, think the highest shame, and life too dearly bought by loss of fame; nor, to preserve it, with thy virtue give that for which only man should wish to live. for this and the other translations to which no signature is affixed, i am indebted to the friend whose observations are mentioned in notes.] he repeated the lines with great force and dignity; then added, 'and, after this, comes johnny hoe, with his earth gaping, and his destruction crying--pooh!' [footnote: i am sorry that i was unlucky in my quotation. but notwithstanding the acuteness of dr johnson's criticism, and the power of his ridicule, the tragedy of douglas still continues to be generally and deservedly admired.] while we were lamenting the number of ruined religious buildings which we had lately seen, i spoke with peculiar feeling to the miserable neglect of the chapel belonging to the palace of holyrood house, in which are deposited the remains of many of the kings of scotland, and of many of our nobility. i said, it was a disgrace to the country that it was not repaired: and particularly complained that my friend douglas, the representative of a great house, and proprietor of a vast estate, should suffer the sacred spot where his mother lies interred, to be unroofed, and exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. dr johnson, who, i know not how, had formed an opinion on the hamilton side, in the douglas cause, slily answered, 'sir, sir, don't be too severe upon the gentleman; don't accuse him of want of filial piety! lady jane douglas was not his mother.' he roused my zeal so much that i took the liberty to tell him he knew nothing of the cause; which i do most seriously believe was the case. we were now 'in a country of bridles and saddles', and set out fully equipped. the duke of argyle was obliging enough to mount dr johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. my friend was highly pleased, and joseph said, 'he now looks like a bishop.' we dined at the inn at tarbat, and at night came to rosedow, the beautiful seat of sir james colquhoun, on the banks of lochlomond, where i, and any friends whom i have introduced, have ever been received with kind and elegant hospitality. wednesday, th october when i went into dr johnson's room this morning, i observed to him how wonderfully courteous he had been at inveraray, and said, 'you were quite a fine gentleman, when with the duchess.' he answered, in good humour, 'sir, i look upon myself as a very polite man': and he was right, in a proper manly sense of the word. as an immediate proof of it, let me observe, that he would not send back the duke of argyle's horse without a letter of thanks, which i copied. to his grace the duke of argyle. my lord, that kindness which disposed your grace to supply me with the horse, which i have now returned, will make you pleased to hear that he has carried me well. by my diligence in the little commission with which i was honoured by the duchess, i will endeavour to shew how highly i value the favours which i have received, and how much i desire to be thought, my lord, your grace's most obedient, and most humble servant, sam. johnson rosedow, oct. , . the duke was so attentive to his respectable guest, that on the same day, he wrote him an answer, which was received at auchinleck: to dr johnson, auchinleck, ayrshire. sir, i am glad to hear your journey from this place was not unpleasant, in regard to your horse. i wish i could have supplied you with good weather, which i am afraid you felt the want of. the duchess of argyle desires her compliments to you, and is much obliged to you for remembering her commission. i am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, argyle. inveraray, oct. , . i am happy to insert every memorial of the honour done to my great friend. indeed, i was at all times desirous to preserve the letters which he received from eminent persons, of which, as of all other papers, he was very negligent; and i once proposed to him, that they should be committed to my care, as his gustos rotulorum. i wish he had complied with my request, as by that means many valuable writings might have been preserved, that are now lost. [footnote: as a remarkable instance of his negligence, i remember some years ago to have found lying loose in his study, and without the cover, which contained the address, a letter to him from lord thurlow, to whom he had made an application as chancellor, in behalf of a poor literary friend. it was expressed in such terms of respect for dr johnson, that, in my zeal for his reputation, i remonstrated warmly with him on his strange inattention, and obtained his permission to take a copy of it; by which probably it has been preserved, as the original i have reason to suppose is lost.] after breakfast, dr johnson and i were furnished with a boat, and sailed about upon lochlomond, and landed on some of the islands which are interspersed. he was much pleased with the scene, which is so well known by the accounts of various travellers, that it is unnecessary for me to attempt any description of it. i recollect none of his conversation, except that, when talking of dress, he said, 'sir, were i to have any thing fine, it should be very fine. were i to wear a ring, it should not be a bauble, but a stone of great value. were i to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it should be very rich. i had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which i wore the first night of my tragedy.' lady helen colquhoun being a very pious woman, the conversation, after dinner, took a religious turn. her ladyship defended the presbyterian mode of publick worship; upon which dr johnson delivered those excellent arguments for a form of prayer which he has introduced into his journey. i am myself fully convinced that a form of prayer for publick worship is in general most decent and edifying. solennia verba have a kind of prescriptive sanctity, and make a deeper impression on the mind than extemporaneous effusions, in which, as we know not what they are to be, we cannot readily acquiesce. yet i would allow also of a certain portion of extempore address, as occasion may require. this is the practice of the french protestant churches. and although the office of forming supplications to the throne of heaven is, in my mind, too great a trust to be indiscriminately committed to the discretion of every minister, i do not mean to deny that sincere devotion may be experienced when joining in prayer with those who use no liturgy. we were favoured with sir james colquhoun's coach to convey us in the evening to cameron, the seat of commissary smollet. our satisfaction of finding ourselves again in a comfortable carriage was very great. we had a pleasing conviction of the commodiousness of civilization, and heartily laughed at the ravings of those absurd visionaries who have attempted to persuade us of the superior advantages of a state of nature. mr smollet was a man of considerable learning, with abundance of animal spirits; so that he was a very good companion for dr johnson, who said to me, 'we have had more solid talk here than at any place where we have been.' i remember dr johnson gave us this evening an able and eloquent discourse on the origin of evil, and on the consistency of moral evil with the power and goodness of god. he shewed us how it arose from our free agency, an extinction of which would be a still greater evil than any we experience. i know not that he said any thing absolutely new, but he said a great deal wonderfully well; and perceiving us to be delighted and satisfied, he concluded his harangue with an air of benevolent triumph over an objection which has distressed many worthy minds: this then is the answer to the question, [words in greek]?' mrs smollet whispered me, that it was the best sermon she had ever heard. much do i upbraid myself for having neglected to preserve it. thursday, th october mr smollet pleased dr johnson, by producing a collection of news-papers in the time of the usurpation, from which it appeared that all sorts of crimes were very frequent during that horrible anarchy. by the side of the high road to glasgow, at some distance from his house, he had erected a pillar to the memory of his ingenious kinsman, dr smollet; and he consulted dr johnson as to an inscription for it. lord kames, who, though he had a great store of knowledge, with much ingenuity, and uncommon activity of mind, was no profound scholar, had it seems recommended an english inscription. dr johnson treated this with great contempt, saying 'an english inscription would be a disgrace to dr smollet'; and, in answer to what lord kames had urged, as to the advantage of its being in english, because it would be generally understood, i observed, that all to whom dr smollet's merit could be an object of respect and imitation, would understand it as well in latin; and that surely it was not meant for the highland drovers, or other such people, who pass and repass that way. we were then shewn a latin inscription, proposed for this monument. dr johnson sat down with an ardent and liberal earnestness to revise it, and greatly improved it by several additions and variations. i unfortunately did not take a copy of it, as it originally stood; but i have happily preserved every fragment of what dr johnson wrote: quisquis ades, viator, vel mente felix, vel studiis cultus, immorare paululum memoriae tobiae smollet m.d. viri iis virtutibus quas in homine et cive et laudes, et imiteris, ..... postquam mira... se......... .... tali tantoque viro, suo patrueli, ...... hanc columnam, amoris eheul inane monumentum, in ipsis leviniae ripis, quas primis infans vagitibus personuit, versiculisque jam fere moriturus illustravit, ponendam curavit ......... [footnote: the epitaph which has been inscribed on the pillar erected on the banks of the leven, in honour of dr smollet, is as follows. the part which was written by dr johnson, it appears, has been altered: whether for the better, the reader will judge. the alterations are distinguished by italicks [all caps]. siste viator! si lepores ingeniique venam benignam, si morum callidissimum pictorem, unquam es miratus, immorare paululum memoriae tobiae smollet, m.d. viri virtutibus hisce quas in homine et cive et laudes et imiteris. haud mediocriter ornati: qui in literis variis versatus. postquam felicitate sibi propria sese posteris commendaverat, morte acerba raptus anno oetatis eheul quam procul a patria! prope liburni portum in italia, jacet sepultus. tali tantoque viro, patrueli suo, cui in decursu lampada se pottus tradidisse decuit, hanc columnam, amoris, eheul inane monumentum in ipsis leviniae ripis, quas versiculis sub exitu vitae illustratas primis infans vagitibus personuit, ponendam curavit jacobus smollet de bonhill abi et reminscere. hoc quidem honore, non modo defuncti memoriae, verum ettam exemplo, prospectum esse; aliis enim, si modo digni sint, idem erit virtutis praemium!] we had this morning a singular proof of dr johnson's quick and retentive memory. hay's translation of martial was lying in a window. i said, i thought it was pretty well done, and shewed him a particular epigram, i think, of ten, but am certain of eight, lines. he read it, and tossed away the book, saying 'no, it is not pretty well.' as i persisted in my opinion, he said, 'why, sir, the original is thus' (and he repeated it); 'and this man's translation is thus,' and then he repeated that also, exactly, though he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and that too, without any intention of getting it by heart. here a post-chaise, which i had ordered from glasgow, came for us, and we drove on in high spirits. we stopped at dunbarton, and though the approach to the castle there is very steep, dr johnson ascended it with alacrity, and surveyed all that was to be seen. during the whole of our tour he shewed uncommon spirit, could not bear to be treated like an old or infirm man, and was very unwilling to accept of any assistance, insomuch that, at our landing at icolmkill, when sir allan mclean and i submitted to be carried on men's shoulders from the boat to the shore, as it could not be brought quite close to land, he sprang into the sea, and waded vigorously out. on our arrival at the saracen's head inn, at glasgow, i was made happy by good accounts from home; and dr johnson, who had not received a single letter since we left aberdeen, found here a great many, the perusal of which entertained him much. he enjoyed in imagination the comforts which we could now command, and seemed to be in high glee. i remember, he put a leg up on each side of the grate, and said, with a mock solemnity, by way of soliloquy, but loud enough for me to hear it, 'here am i, an english man, sitting by a coal fire.' friday, th october the professors of the university being informed of our arrival, dr stevenson, dr reid, and mr anderson, breakfasted with us. mr anderson accompanied us while dr johnson viewed this beautiful city. he had told me, that one day in london, when dr adam smith was boasting of it, he turned to him and said, 'pray, sir, have you ever seen brentford?' this was surely a strong instance of his impatience, and spirit of contradiction. i put him in mind of it to-day, while he expressed his admiration of the elegant buildings, and whispered him, 'don't you feel some remorse?' we were received in the college by a number of the professors, who shewed all due respect to dr johnson; and then we paid a visit to the principal, dr leechman, at his own house, where dr johnson had the satisfaction of being told that his name had been gratefully celebrated in one of the parochial congregations in the highlands, as the person to whose influence it was chiefly owing, that the new testament was allowed to be translated into the erse language. it seems some political members of the society in scotland for propagating christian knowledge, had opposed this pious undertaking, as tending to preserve the distinction between the highlanders and lowlanders. dr johnson wrote a long letter upon the subject to a friend, which being shewn to them, made them ashamed, and afraid of being publickly exposed; so they were forced to a compliance. it is now in my possession, and is, perhaps, one of the best productions of his masterly pen. professors reid and anderson, and the two messieurs foulis, the elzevirs of glasgow, dined and drank tea with us at our inn, after which the professors went away; and i, having a letter to write, left my fellow-traveller with messieurs foulis. though good and ingenious men, they had that unsettled speculative mode of conversation which is offensive to a man regularly taught at an english school and university. i found that, instead of listening to the dictates of the sage, they had teazed him with questions and doubtful disputations. he came in a flutter to me, and desired i might come back again, for he could not bear these men. 'o ho! sir,' said i, 'you are flying to me for refuge!' he never, in any situation, was at a loss for a ready repartee. he answered, with quick vivacity, 'it is of two evils chooseing the least.' i was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and joined the company. we supped at professor andersen's. the general impression upon my memory is, that we had not much conversation at glasgow where the professors, like their brethren at aberdeen, did not venture to expose themselves much to the battery of cannon which they knew might play upon them. dr johnson, who was fully conscious of his own superior powers, afterwards praised principal robertson for his caution in this respect. he said to me, 'robertson, sir, was in the right. robertson is a man of eminence, and the head of a college at edinburgh. he had a character to maintain, and did well not to risk its being lessened.' saturday, th october we set out towards ayrshire. i sent joseph on to loudoun, with a message, that, if the earl was at home, dr johnson and i would have the honour to dine with him. joseph met us on the road, and reported that the earl 'jumped for joy', and said, 'i shall be very happy to see them.' we were received with a most pleasing courtesy by his lordship, and by the countess his mother, who, in her ninety-fifth year, had all her faculties quite unimpaired. this was a very cheering sight to dr johnson, who had an extraordinary desire for long life. her ladyship was sensible and well-informed, and had seen a great deal of the world. her lord had held several high offices, and she was sister to the great earl of stair. i cannot here refrain from paying a just tribute to the character of john earl of loudoun, who did more service to the county of ayr in general, as well as to individuals in it, than any man we have ever had. it is painful to think that he met with much ingratitude from persons both in high and low rank: but such was his temper, such his knowledge of 'base mankind,' [footnote: the unwilling gratitude of base mankind. pope.] that, as if he had expected no other return, his mind was never soured, and he retained his good-humour and benevolence to the last. the tenderness of his heart was proved in - , when he had an important command in the highlands, and behaved with a generous humanity to the unfortunate. i cannot figure a more honest politician; for, though his interest in our county was great, and generally successful, he not only did not deceive by fallacious promises, but was anxious that people should not deceive themselves by too sanguine expectations. his kind and dutiful attention to his mother was unremitted. at his house was true hospitality; a plain but a plentiful table; and every guest, being left at perfect freedom, felt himself quite easy and happy. while i live, i shall honour the memory of this amiable man. at night, we advanced a few miles farther, to the house of mr campbell of treesbank, who was married to one of my wife's sisters, and were entertained very agreeably by a worthy couple. sunday, st october we reposed here in tranquillity. dr johnson was pleased to find a numerous and excellent collection of books, which had mostly belonged to the reverend mr john campbell, brother of our host. i was desirous to have procured for my fellow traveller, to-day, the company of sir john cuninghame, of caprington, whose castle was but two miles from us. he was a very distinguished scholar, long abroad, and during part of the time lived much with the learned cuninghame, the opponent of bentley as a critick upon horace. he wrote latin with great elegance, and, what is very remarkable, read homer and ariosto through every year. i wrote to him to request he would come to us; but unfortunately he was prevented by indisposition. monday, st november though dr johnson was lazy, and averse to move, i insisted that he should go with me, and pay a visit to the countess of eglintoune, mother of the late and present earl. i assured him, he would find himself amply recompensed for the trouble; and he yielded to my solicitations, though with some unwillingness. we were well mounted, and had not many miles to ride. he talked of the attention that is necessary in order to distribute our charity judiciously. 'if thoughtlessly done, we may neglect the most deserving objects; and, as every man has but a certain proportion to give, if it is lavished upon those who first present themselves, there may be nothing left for such as have a better claim. a man should first relieve those who are nearly connected with him, by whatever tie; and then, if he has any thing to spare, may extend his bounty to a wider circle.' as we passed very near the castle of dundonald, which was one of the many residencies of the kings of scotland, and in which robert the second lived and died, dr johnson wished to survey it particularly. it stands on a beautiful rising ground, which is seen at a great distance on several quarters, and from whence there is an extensive prospect of the rich district of cuninghame, the western sea, the isle of arran, and a part of the northern coast of ireland. it has long been unroofed; and, though of considerable size, we could not, by any power of imagination, figure it as having been a suitable habitation for majesty. dr johnson, to irritate my old scottish enthusiasm, was very jocular on the homely accommodation of 'king bob', and roared and laughed till the ruins echoed. lady eglintoune, though she was now in her eighty-fifth year, and had lived in the retirement of the country for almost half a century, was still a very agreeable woman. she was of the noble house of kennedy, and had all the elevation which the consciousness of such birth inspires. her figure was majestick, her manners high-bred, her reading extensive, and her conversation elegant. she had been the admiration of the gay circles of life, and the patroness of poets. dr johnson was delighted with his reception here. her principles in church and state were congenial with his. she knew all his merit, and had heard much of him from her son, earl alexander, who loved to cultivate the acquaintance of men of talents, in every department. all who knew his lordship, will allow that his understanding and accomplishments were of no ordinary rate. from the gay habits which he had early acquired, he spent too much of his time with men, and in pursuits far beneath such a mind as his. he afterwards became sensible of it, and turned his thoughts to objects of importance; but was cut off in the prime of his life. i cannot speak, but with emotions of the most affectionate regret, of one, in whose company many of my early days were passed, and to whose kindness i was much indebted. often must i have occasion to upbraid myself, that soon after our return to the main land, i allowed indolence to prevail over me so much, as to shrink from the labour of continuing my journal with the same minuteness as before; sheltering myself in the thought, that we had done with the hebrides; and not considering, that dr johnson's memorabilia were likely to be more valuable when we were restored to a more polished society. much has thus been irrecoverably lost. in the course of our conversation this day, it came out, that lady eglintoune was married the year before dr johnson was born; upon which she graciously said to him, that she might have been his mother; and that she now adopted him; and when we were going away, she embraced him, saying, 'my dear son, farewell!' my friend was much pleased with this day's entertainment, and owned that i had done well to force him out. tuesday, d november we were now in a country not only 'of saddles and bridles', but of post-chaises; and having ordered one from kilmarnock, we got to auchinleck before dinner. my father was not quite a year and a half older than dr johnson; but his conscientious discharge of his laborious duty as a judge in scotland, where the law proceedings are almost all in writing, a severe complaint which ended in his death, and the loss of my mother, a woman of almost unexampled piety and goodness, had before this time in some degree affected his spirits, and rendered him less disposed to exert his faculties: for he had originally a very strong mind, and cheerful temper. he assured me, he never had felt one moment of what is called low spirits, or uneasiness, without a real cause. he had a great many good stories, which he told uncommonly well, and he was remarkable for 'humour, incolumi gravitate', as lord monboddo used to characterize it. his age, his office, and his character, had long given him an acknowledged claim to great attention, in whatever company he was; and he could ill brook any diminution of it. he was as sanguine a whig and presbyterian, as dr johnson was a tory and church of england man: and as he had not much leisure to be informed of dr johnson's great merits by reading his works, he had a partial and unfavourable notion of him, founded on his supposed political tenets; which were so discordant to his own, that, instead of speaking of him with respect to which he was entitled, he used to call him 'a jacobite fellow'. knowing all this, i should not have ventured to bring them together, had not my father, out of kindness to me, desired me to invite dr johnson his house. i was very anxious that all should be well; and begged of my friend to avoid three topicks, as to which they differed very widely; whiggism, presbyterianism, and--sir john pringle. he said courteously, 'i shall certainly not talk on subjects which i am told are disagreeable to a gentleman under whose roof i am; especially, i shall not do so to your father.' our first day went off very smoothly. it rained, and we could not get out; but my father shewed dr johnson his library, which, in curious editions of the greek and roman classicks, is, i suppose, not excelled by any private collection in great britain. my father had studied at leyden, and been very intimate with the gronovii, and other learned men there. he was a sound scholar, and, in particular, had collated manuscripts and different editions of anacreon, and others of the greek lyrick poets, with great care; so that my friend and he had much matter for conversation, without touching on the fatal topicks of difference. dr johnson found here baxter's anacreon, which he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there was no such book. baxter was the keen antagonist of barnes. his life is in the biographia britannica. my father has written many notes on this book, and dr johnson and i talked of having it reprinted. wednesday, d november it rained all day, and gave dr johnson an impression of that incommodiousness of climate in the west, of which he has taken notice in his journey; but, being well accommodated, and furnished with variety of books, he was not dissatisfied. some gentlemen of the neighbourhood came to visit my father; but there was little conversation. one of them asked dr johnson how he liked the highlands. the question seemed to irritate him, for he answered, 'how, sir, can you ask me what obliges me to speak unfavourably of a country where i have been hospitably entertained? who can like the highlands? --i like the inhabitants very well.' the gentleman asked no more questions. let me now make up for the present neglect, by again gleaning from the past. at lord monboddo's, after the conversation upon the decrease of learning in england, his lordship mentioned hermes by mr harris of salisbury, as the work of a living authour, for whom he had a great respect. dr johnson said nothing at the time; but when we were in our post-chaise, told me, he thought harris 'a coxcomb'. this he said of him, not as a man, but as an authour; and i give his opinions of men and books, faithfully, whether they agree with my own, or not. i do admit, that there always appeared to me something of affectation in mr harris's manner of writing; something of a habit of clothing plain thoughts in analytick and categorical formality. but all his writings are imbued with learning; and all breathe that philanthropy and amiable disposition, which distinguished him as a man. [footnote: this gentleman, though devoted to the study of grammar and dialecticks, was not so absorbed in it as to be without a sense of pleasantry, or to be offended at his favourite topicks being treated lightly. i one day met him in the street, as i was hastening to the house of lords, and told him, i was sorry i could not stop, being rather too late to attend an appeal of the duke of hamilton against douglas. 'i thought,' said he, 'their contest had been over long ago.' i answered, 'the contest concerning douglas's filiation was over long ago; but the contest now is, who shall have the estate.' then, assuming the air of 'an antient sage philosopher', i proceeded thus: 'were i to predicate concerning him, i should say, the contest formerly was, what is he? the contest now is, what has he?' 'right,' replied mr harris, smiling, 'you have done with quality, and have got into quantity.'] at another time, during our tour, he drew the character of a rapacious highland chief with the strength of theophrastus or la bruyere; concluding with these words: 'sir, he has no more the soul of a chief, than an attorney who has twenty houses in a street, and considers how much he can make by them.' he this day, when we were by ourselves, observed, how common it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality of thinking. he was pleased to say, 'you and i do not talk from books.' thursday, th november i was glad to have at length a very fine day, on which i could shew dr johnson the place of my family, which he has honoured with so much attention in his journey. he is, however, mistaken in thinking that the celtick name, auchinleck, has no relation to the natural appearance of it. i believe every celtick name of a place will be found very descriptive. auchinleck does not signify a 'stony field', as he has said, but a 'field of flag stones'; and this place has a number of rocks, which abound in strata of that kind. the 'sullen dignity of the old castle', as he has forcibly expressed it, delighted him exceedingly. on one side of the rock on which its ruins stand, runs the river lugar, which is here of considerable breadth, and is bordered by other high rocks, shaded with wood. on the other side runs a brook, skirted in the same manner, but on a smaller scale. i cannot figure a more romantick scene. i felt myself elated here, and expatiated to my illustrious mentor on the antiquity and honourable alliances of my family, and on the merits of its founder, thomas boswell, who was highly favoured by his sovereign, james iv of scotland, and fell with him at the battle of flodden field; and in the glow of what, i am sensible, will, in a commercial age, be considered as genealogical enthusiasm, did not omit to mention what i was sure my friend would not think lightly of, my relation to the royal personage, whose liberality, on his accession to the throne, had given him comfort and independence. i have, in a former page, acknowledged my pride of ancient blood, in which i was encouraged by dr johnson: my readers therefore will not be surprised at my having indulged it on this occasion. not far from the old castle is a spot of consecrated earth, on which may be traced the foundations of an ancient chapel, dedicated to st vincent, and where in old times 'was the place of graves' for the family. it grieves me to think that the remains of sanctity here, which were considerable, were dragged away, and employed in building a part of the house of auchinleck, of the middle age; which was the family residence, till my father erected that 'elegant modern mansion', of which dr johnson speaks so handsomely. perhaps this chapel may one day be restored. dr johnson was pleased, when i shewed him some venerable old trees, under the shade of which my ancestors had walked. he exhorted me to plant assiduously, as my father had done to a great extent. as i wandered with my reverend friend in the groves of auchinleck, i told him, that, if i survived him, it was my intention to erect a monument to him here, among scenes which, in my mind, were all classical; for in my youth i had appropriated to them many of the descriptions of the roman poets. he could not bear to have death presented to him in any shape; for his constitutional melancholy made the king of terrours more frightful. he turned off the subject, saying, 'sir, i hope to see your grand-children!' this forenoon he observed some cattle without horns, of which he has taken notice in his journey, and seems undecided whether they be of a particular race. his doubts appear to have had no foundation; for my respectable neighbour, mr fairlie, who, with all his attention to agriculture, finds time both for the classicks and his friends, assures me they are a distinct species, and that, when any of their calves have horns, a mixture of breed can be traced. in confirmation of his opinion, he pointed out to me the following passage in tacitus, ne armentis quidem suus honor, aut gloria frontis (de mor. germ. section ) which he wondered had escaped dr johnson. on the front of the house of auchinleck is this inscription: ... quod petis, hic est; est ulubris, animus si te non deficit aequus. it is characteristick of the founder; but the animus aequus is, alas! not inheritable, nor the subject of devise. he always talked to me as if it were in a man's own power to attain it; but dr johnson told me that he owned to him, when they were alone, his persuasion that it was in a great measure constitutional, or the effect of causes which do not depend on ourselves, and that horace boasts too much, when he says, aequum mi animum ipse parabo. friday, th november the reverend mr dun, our parish minister, who had dined with us yesterday, with some other company, insisted that dr johnson and i should dine with him to-day. this gave me an opportunity to shew my friend the road to the church, made by my father at a great expence, for above three miles, on his own estate, through a range of well enclosed farms, with a row of trees on each side of it. he called it the via sacra, and was very fond of it. dr johnson, though he held notions far distant from those of the presbyterian clergy, yet could associate on good terms with them. he indeed occasionally attacked them. one of them discovered a narrowness of information concerning the dignitaries of the church of england, among whom may be found men of the greatest learning, virtue, and piety, and of a truly apostolic character. he talked before dr johnson, of fat bishops and drowsy deans; and, in short, seemed to believe the illiberal and profane scoffings of professed satyrists, or vulgar railers. dr johnson was so highly offended, that he said to him, 'sir, you know no more of our church than a hottentot.' i was sorry that he brought this upon himself. saturday, th november i cannot be certain, whether it was on this day, or a former, that dr johnson and my father came in collision. if i recollect right, the contest began while my father was shewing him his collection of medals; and oliver cromwell's coin unfortunately introduced charles the first, and toryism. they became exceedingly warm, and violent, and i was very much distressed by being present at such an altercation between the two men, both of whom i reverenced; yet i durst not interfere. it would certainly be very unbecoming in me to exhibit my honoured father, and my respected friend, as intellectual gladiators, for the entertainment of the publick; and therefore i suppress what would, i dare say, make an interesting scene in this dramatick sketch this account of the transit of johnson over the caledonian hemisphere. yet i think i may, without impropriety, mention one circumstance, as an instance of my father's address. dr johnson challenged him, as he did us all at talisker, to point out any theological works of merit written by presbyterian ministers in scotland. my father, whose studies did not lie much in that way, owned to me afterwards, that he was somewhat at a loss how to answer, but that luckily he recollected having read in catalogues the title of durham on the galatians; upon which he boldly said, 'pray, sir, have you read mr durham's excellent commentary on the galatians?' 'no, sir,' said dr johnson. by this lucky thought my father kept him at bay, and for some time enjoyed his triumph; but his antagonist soon made a retort, which i forbear to mention. in the course of their altercation, whiggism and presbyterianism, toryism and episcopacy, were terribly buffeted. my worthy hereditary friend, sir john pringle, never having been mentioned, happily escaped without a bruise. my father's opinion of dr johnson may be conjectured from the name he afterwards gave him, which was ursa major. but it is not true, as has been reported, that it was in consequence of my saying that he was a constellation of genius and literature. it was a sly abrupt expression to one of his brethren on the bench of the court of session, in which dr johnson was then standing; but it was not said in his hearing. sunday, th november my father and i went to publick worship in our parish-church, in which i regretted that dr johnson would not join us; for, though we have there no form of prayer, nor magnificent solemnity, yet, as god is worshipped in spirit and in truth, and the same doctrines preached as in the church of england, my friend would certainly have shewn more liberality, had he attended. i doubt not, however, but he employed his time in private to very good purpose. his uniform and fervent piety was manifested on many occasions during our tour, which i have not mentioned. his reason for not joining in presbyterian worship has been recorded in a former page. monday, th november notwithstanding the altercation that had passed, my father who had the dignified courtesy of an old baron, was very civil to dr johnson, and politely attended him to the post-chaise, which was to convey us to edinburgh. thus they parted. they are now in another, and a higher, state of existence: and as they were both worthy christian men, i trust they have met in happiness. but i must observe, in justice to my friend's political principles, and my own, that they have met in a place where there is no room for whiggism. we came at night to a good inn at hamilton. i recollect no more. tuesday, th november i wished to have shewn dr johnson the duke of hamilton's house, commonly called the palace of hamilton, which is close by the town. it is an object which, having been pointed out to me as a splendid edifice, from my earliest years, in travelling between auchinleck and edinburgh, has still great grandeur in my imagination. my friend consented to stop, and view the outside of it, but could not be persuaded to go into it. we arrived this night at edinburgh, after an absence of eighty-three days. for five weeks together, of the tempestuous season, there had been no account received of us. i cannot express how happy i was on finding myself again at home. wednesday, th november old mr drummond, the bookseller, came to breakfast. dr johnson and he had not met for ten years. there was respect on his side, and kindness on dr johnson's. soon afterwards lord elibank came in, and was much pleased at seeing dr johnson in scotland. his lordship said, 'hardly any thing seemed to him more improbable'. dr johnson had a very high opinion of him. speaking of him to me, he characterized him thus: 'lord elibank has read a great deal. it is true, i can find in books all that he has read; but he has a great deal of what is in books, proved by the test of real life.' indeed, there have been few men whose conversation discovered more knowledge enlivened by fancy. he published several small pieces of distinguished merit; and has left some in manuscript, in particular an account of the expedition against carthagena, in which he served as an officer in the army. his writings deserve to be collected. he was the early patron of dr robertson, the historian, and mr home, the tragick poet; who, when they we were ministers of country parishes, lived near his seat. he told me, 'i saw these lads had talents, and they were much with me.' i hope they will pay a grateful tribute to his memory. the morning was chiefly taken up by dr johnson's giving him an account of our tour. the subject of difference in political principles was introduced. johnson. 'it is much increased by opposition. there was a violent whig, with whom i used to contend with great eagerness. after his death i felt my toryism much abated.' i suppose he meant mr walmsley of lichfield, whose character he has drawn so well in his life of edmund smith. mr nairne came in, and he and i accompanied dr johnson to edinburgh castle, which he owned was 'a great place'. but i must mention, as a striking instance of that spirit of contradiction to which he had a strong propensity, when lord elibank was some days after talking of it with the natural elation of a scotchman, or of any man who is proud of a stately fortress in his own country, dr johnson affected to despise it, observing that, 'it would make a good prison in england'. lest it should be supposed that i have suppressed one of his sallies against my country, it may not be improper here to correct a mistaken account that has been circulated, as to his conversation this day. it has been said, that being desired to attend to the noble prospect from the castle hill, he replied, 'sir, the noblest prospect that a scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to london.' this lively sarcasm was thrown out at a tavern in london, in my presence, many years before. we had with us to day at dinner, at my house, the lady dowager colvill, and lady anne erskine, sisters of the earl of kelly; the honourable archibald erskine, who has now succeeded to that title; lord elibank; the reverend dr blair; mr tytler, the acute vindicator of mary queen of scots, and some other friends. fingal being talked of, dr johnson, who used to boast that he had, from the first, resisted both ossian and the giants of patagonia, averred his positive disbelief of its authenticity. lord elibank said, 'i am sure it is not mcpherson's. mr johnson, i keep company a great deal with you; it is known i do. i may borrow from you better things than i can say myself, and give them as my own; but, if i should, every body will know whose they are.' the doctor was not softened by this compliment. he denied merit to fingal, supposing it to be the production of a man who has had the advantages that the present age affords; and said, 'nothing is more easy than to write enough in that style if once you begin'. [footnote: i desire not to be understood as agreeing entirely with the opinions of dr johnson, which i relate without any remark. the many imitations, however, of fingal, that have been published, confirm this observation in a considerable degree.] one gentleman in company expressing his opinion 'that fingal was certainly genuine, for that he had heard a great part of it repeated in the original', dr johnson indignantly asked him, whether he understood the original; to which an answer being given in the negative, 'why then,' said dr johnson, 'we see to what this testimony comes: thus it is.' i mentioned this as a remarkable proof how liable the mind of man is to credulity, when not guarded by such strict examination as that which dr johnson habitually practised. the talents and integrity of the gentleman who made the remark, are unquestionable; yet, had not dr johnson made him advert to the consideration, that he who does not understand a language, cannot know that something which is recited to him is in that language, he might have believed, and reported to this hour, that he had 'heard a great part of fingal repeated in the original'. for the satisfaction of those on the north of the tweed, who may think dr johnson's account of caledonian credulity and inaccuracy too strong, it is but fair to add, that he admitted the same kind of ready belief might be found in his own country. 'he would undertake,' he said, 'to write an epick poem on the story of robin hood, and half england, to whom the names and places he should mention in it are familiar, would believe and declare they had heard it from their earliest years.' one of his objections to the authenticity of fingal, during the conversation at ulinish, is omitted in my journal, but i perfectly recollect it. 'why is not the original deposited in some publick library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its existence? suppose there were a question in a court of justice, whether a man be dead or alive. you aver he is alive, and you bring fifty witnesses to swear it: i answer, "why do you not produce the man "' this is an argument founded on one of the first principles of the law of evidence, which gilbert would have held to be irrefragable. i do not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion upon this question, as to which i believe more than some, and less than others. the subject appears to have now become very uninteresting to the publick. that fingal is not from beginning to end a translation from the gallick, but that some passages have been supplied by the editor to connect the whole, i have heard admitted by very warm advocates for its authenticity. if this be the case, why are not these distinctly ascertained? antiquaries, and admirers of the work, may complain, that they are in a situation similar to that of the unhappy gentleman whose wife informed him, on her death-bed, that one of their reputed children was not his; and, when he eagerly begged her to declare which of them it was, she answered, 'that you shall never know', and expired, leaving him in irremediable doubt as to them all. i beg leave to say something upon second sight, of which i have related two instances, as they impressed my mind at the time. i own, i returned from the hebrides with a considerable degree of faith in the many stories of that kind which i heard with a too easy acquiescence, without any clear examination of the evidence: but, since that time, my belief in those stories has been much weakened, by reflecting on the careless inaccuracy of narrative in common matters, from which we may certainly conclude that these may be the same in what is more extraordinary. it is but just, however, to add, that the belief in second sight is not peculiar to the highlands and isles. some years after our tour, a cause was tried in the court of session where the principal fact to be ascertained was, whether a ship-master, who used to frequent the western highlands and isles, was drowned in one particular year, or in the year after. a great number of witnesses from the parts were examined on each side, and swore directly contrary to each other upon this simple question. one of them, a very respectable chieftain, who told me a story of second sight, which i have not mentioned, but which i too implicitly believed, had in this case, previous to this publick examination, not only said, but attested under his hand, that he had seen the ship-master in the year subsequent to that in which the court was finally satisfied he was drowned. when interrogated with the strictness of judicial inquiry, and under the awe of an oath, he recollected himself better, and retracted what he had formerly asserted, apologizing for his inaccuracy, by telling the judge 'a man will say what he will not swear.' by many he was much censured and it was maintained that every gentleman would be as attentive to truth without the sanction of an oath, as with it. dr johnson, though he himself was distinguished at all times by a scrupulous adherence to truth, controverted this proposition; and, as a proof that this was not, though it ought to be, the case, urged the very different decisions of elections under mr greville's act, from those formerly made. 'gentlemen will not pronounce upon oath, what they would have said, and voted in the house without the sanction.' however difficult it may be for men who believe in preternatural communications, in modern times, to falsify those who are of a different opinion, they may easily refute the doctrine of their opponents, who impute a belief in second sight to superstition. to entertain a visionary notion that one sees a distant or future event, may be called superstition; but the correspondence of the fact or event with such an impression on the fancy, though certainly very wonderful, if proved, has no more connection with superstition, than magnetism or electricity. after dinner, various topicks were discussed; but i recollect only one particular. dr johnson compared the different talents of garrick and foote, as companions, and gave garrick greatly the preference for elegance, though he allowed foote extraordinary powers of entertainment. he said, 'garrick is restrained by some principle; but foote has the advantage of an unlimited range. garrick has some delicacy of feeling; it is possible to put him out; you may get the better of him; but foote is the most incompressible fellow that i ever knew: when you have driven him into a corner, and think you are sure of him, he runs through between your legs, or jumps over your head, and makes his escape.' dr erskine and mr robert walker, two very respectable ministers of edinburgh, supped with us, as did the reverend dr webster. the conversation turned on the moravian missions, and on the methodists. dr johnson observed in general, that missionaries were too sanguine in their accounts of their success among savages, and that much of what they tell is not to be believed. he owned that the methodists had done good; had spread religious impressions among the vulgar part of mankind: but, he said, they had great bitterness against other christians, and that he never could get a methodist to explain in what he excelled others; that it always ended in the indispensible necessity of hearing one of their preachers. thursday, th november principal robertson came to us as we sat at breakfast; he advanced to dr johnson, repeating a line of virgil, which i forget. i suppose, either post varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum, [footnote: through various hazards and events we move.] or ... multum ille et terris jactatus, et alto. [footnote: long labours both by sea and land he bore. dryden.] every body had accosted us with some studied compliment on our return. dr johnson said, 'i am really ashamed of the congratulations which we receive. we are addressed as if we had made a voyage to nova zembla, and suffered five persecutions in japan.' and he afterwards remarked, that, 'to see a man come up with a formal air, and a latin line, when we had no fatigue and no danger, was provoking.' i told him, he was not sensible of the danger, having lain under cover in the boat during the storm: he was like the chicken, that hides its head under its wing, and then thinks itself safe. lord elibank came to us, as did sir william forbes. the rash attempt in being mentioned, i observed, that it would make a fine piece of history. dr johnson said it would. lord elibank doubted whether any man of this age could give it impartially. johnson. 'a man, by talking with those of different sides, who were actors in it, and putting down all that he hears, may in time collect the materials of a good narrative. you are to consider, all history was at first oral. i suppose voltaire was fifty years in collecting his louis xiv which he did in the way that i am proposing.' robertson. 'he did so. he lived much with all the great people who were concerned in that reign, and heard them talk of every thing: and then either took mr boswell's way, of writing down what he heard, or, which is as good, preserved it in his memory; for he has a wonderful memory.' with the leave, however, of this elegant historian, no man's memory can preserve facts or sayings with such fidelity as may be done by writing them down when they are recent. dr robertson said, 'it was now full time to make such a collection as dr johnson suggested; for many of the people who were then in arms, were dropping off; and both whigs and jacobites were now come to talk with moderation.' lord elibank said to him, 'mr robertson, the first thing that gave me a high opinion of you, was your saying in the select society, [footnote: a society for debate in edinburgh, consisting of the most eminent men.] while parties ran high, soon after the year , that you did not think worse of a man's moral character for his having been in rebellion. this was venturing to utter a liberal sentiment, while both sides had a detestation of each other.' dr johnson observed, that being in rebellion from a notion of another's right, was not connected with depravity; and that we had this proof of it, that all mankind applauded the pardoning of rebels; which they would not do in the case of robbers and murderers. he said, with a smile, that 'he wondered that the phrase of unnatural rebellion should be so much used, for that all rebellion was natural to man'. as i kept no journal of any thing that passed after this morning, i shall, from memory, group together this and the other days, till that on which dr johnson departed for london. they were in all nine days; on which he dined at lady colvill's, lord hailes's, sir adolphus oughton's, sir alexander dick's, principal robertson's, mr mclaurin's, and thrice at lord elibank's seat in the country, where we also passed two nights. he supped at the honourable alexander gordon's, now one of our judges, by the title of lord rockville; at mr nairne's, now also one of our judges, by the title of lord dunsinan; at dr blair's, and mr tytler's; and at my house thrice, one evening with a numerous company, chiefly gentlemen of the law; another with mr menzies of culdares, and lord monboddo, who disengaged himself on purpose to meet him; and the evening on which we returned from lord elibank's, he supped with my wife and me by ourselves. he breakfasted at dr webster's, at old mr drummond's, and at dr blacklock's; and spent one forenoon at my uncle dr boswell's, who shewed him his curious museum; and, as he was an elegant scholar, and a physician bred in the school of boerhaave, dr johnson was pleased with his company. on the mornings when he breakfasted at my house, he had, from ten o'clock till one or two, a constant levee of various persons, of very different characters and descriptions. i could not attend him, being obliged to be in the court of session; but my wife was so good as to devote the greater part of the morning to the endless task of pouring out tea for my friend and his visitors. such was the disposition of his time at edinburgh. he said one evening to me, in a fit of langour, 'sir, we have been harrassed by invitations.' i acquiesced. 'ay, sir,' he replied; 'but how much worse would it have been, if we had been neglected?' from what has been recorded in this journal, it may well be supposed that a variety of admirable conversation has been lost, by my neglect to preserve it. i shall endeavour to recollect some of it, as well as i can. at lady colvill's, to whom i am proud to introduce any stranger of eminence, that he may see what dignity and grace is to be found in scotland, an officer observed, that he had heard lord mansfield was not a great english lawyer. johnson. 'why, sir, supposing lord mansfield not to have the splendid talents which he possesses, he must be a great english lawyer, from having been so long at the bar, and having passed through so many of the great offices of the law. sir, you may as well maintain that a carrier, who has driven a packhorse between edinburgh and berwick for thirty years, does not know the road, as that lord mansfield does not know the law of england.' at mr nairne's, he drew the character of richardson, the author of clarissa, with a strong yet delicate pencil. i lament much that i have not preserved it: i only remember that he expressed a high opinion of his talents and virtues; but observed, that 'his perpetual study was to ward off petty inconveniencies, and procure petty pleasures; that his love of continual superiority was such, that he took care to be always surrounded by women, who listened to him implicitly, and did not venture to controvert his opinions; and that his desire of distinction was so great, that he used to give large vails to the speaker onslow's servants, that they might treat him with respect'. on the same evening, he would not allow that the private life of a judge, in england, was required to be so strictly decorous as i supposed. 'why then, sir,' said i, 'according to your account, an english judge may just live like a gentleman.' johnson. 'yes, sir--if he can.' at mr tytler's, i happened to tell that one evening, a great many years ago, when dr hugh blair and i were sitting together in the pit of drury-lane play-house, in a wild freak of youthful extravagance, i entertained the audience prodigiously, by imitating the lowing of a cow. a little while after i had told this story, i differed from dr johnson, i suppose too confidently, upon some point, which i now forget. he did not spare me. 'nay, sir,' said he, 'if you cannot talk better as a man, i'd have you bellow like a cow.' [footnote: as i have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes concerning other persons, i shall not withhold any part of this story, however ludicrous.--i was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the universal cry of the galleries was, 'encore the cow! encore the cow!' in the pride of my heart, i attempted imitations of some other animals, but with very inferior effect. my reverend friend, anxious for my fame, with an air of the utmost gravity and earnestness, addressed me thus: 'my dear sir, i would confine myself to the cow!'] at dr webster's, he said, that he believed hardly any man died without affectation. this remark appears to me to be well founded, and will account for many of the celebrated death-bed sayings which are recorded. on one of the evenings at my house, when he told that lord lovat boasted to an english nobleman, that though he had not his wealth, he had two thousand men whom he could at any time call into the field, the honourable alexander gordon observed, that those two thousand men brought him to the block. 'true, sir,' said dr johnson: 'but you may just as well argue, concerning a man who has fallen over a precipice to which he has walked too near, "his two legs brought him to that"--is he not the better for having two legs?' at dr blair's i left him, in order to attend a consultation, during which he and his amiable host were by themselves. i returned to supper, at which were principal robertson, mr nairne, and some other gentlemen. dr robertson and dr blair, i remember, talked well upon subordination and government; and, as my friend and i were walking home, he said to me, 'sir, these two doctors are good men, and wise men.' i begged of dr blair to recollect what he could of the long conversation that passed between dr johnson and him alone, this evening, and he obligingly wrote to me as follows: march , . dear sir, ... as so many years have intervened, since i chanced to have that conversation with dr johnson in my house, to which you refer, i have forgotten most of what then passed, but remember that i was both instructed and entertained by it. among other subjects, the discourse happening to turn on modern latin poets, the dr expressed a very favourable opinion of buchanan, and instantly repeated, from beginning to end, an ode of his, intituled calendae maiae (the eleventh in his miscellaneorum liber), beginning with these words, salvete sacris deliciis sacrae, with which i had formerly been unacquainted; but upon perusing it, the praise which he bestowed upon it, as one of the happiest of buchanan's poetical compositions, appeared to me very just. he also repeated to me a latin ode he had composed in one of the western islands, from which he had lately returned. we had much discourse concerning his excursion to those islands, with which he expressed himself as having been highly pleased; talked in a favourable manner of the hospitality of the inhabitants; and particularly spoke much of his happiness in having you for his companion; and said, that the longer he knew you, he loved and esteemed you the more. this conversation passed in the interval between tea and supper, when we were by ourselves. you, and the rest of the company who were with us at supper, have often taken notice that he was uncommonly bland and gay that evening, and gave much pleasure to all who were present. this is all that i can recollect distinctly of that long conversation. yours sincerely, hugh blair. at lord hailes's, we spent a most agreeable day; but again i must lament that i was so indolent as to let almost all that passed evaporate into oblivion. dr johnson observed there, that 'it is wonderful how ignorant many officers of the army are, considering how much leisure they have for study, and the acquisition of knowledge.' i hope he was mistaken; for he maintained that many of them were ignorant of things belonging immediately to their own profession; 'for instance, many cannot tell how far a musket will carry a bullet;' in proof of which, i suppose, he mentioned some particular person, for lord hailes, from whom i solicited what he could recollect of that day, writes to me as follows: as to dr johnson's observation about the ignorance of officers, in the length that a musket will carry, my brother, colonel dalrymple, was present, and he thought that the doctor was either mistaken, by putting the question wrong, or that he had conversed on the subject with some person out of service. was it upon that occasion that he expressed no curiosity to see the room at dumfermline, where charles i was born? 'i know that he was born,' said he; 'no matter where.' did he envy us the birth-place of the king?] near the end of his journey, dr johnson has given liberal praise to mr braidwood's academy for the deaf and dumb. when he visited it, a circumstance occurred which was truly characteristical of our great lexicographer. 'pray,' said he, 'can they pronounce any long words?' mr braidwood informed him they could. upon which dr johnson wrote one of his sequipedalia verba, which was pronounced by the scholars, and he was satisfied. my readers may perhaps wish to know what the word was; but i cannot gratify their curiosity. mr braidwood told me, it remained long in his school, but had been lost before i made my inquiry. [footnote: one of the best criticks of our age 'does not wish to prevent the admirers of the incorrect and nerveless style which generally prevailed for a century before dr johnson's energetick writings were known, from enjoying the laugh that this story may produce, in which he is very ready to join them'. he, however, requests me to observe, that 'my friend very properly chose a long word on this occasion, not, it is believed, from any predilection for polysyllables (though he certainly had a due respect for them), but in order to put mr braidwood's skill to the strictest test, and to try the efficacy of his instruction by the most difficult exertion of the organs of his pupils'.] dr johnson one day visited the court of session. he thought the mode of pleading there too vehement, and too much addressed to the passions of the judges. 'this,' said he, 'is not the areopagus.' at old mr drummond's, sir john dalrymple quaintly said, the two noblest animals in the world were, a scotch highlander and an english sailor. 'why, sir,' said dr johnson, 'i shall say nothing as to the scotch highlander; but as to the english sailor, i cannot agree with you.' sir john said, he was generous in giving away his money. johnson. 'sir, he throws away his money, without thought, and without merit. i do not call a tree generous, that sheds its fruit at every breeze.' sir john having affected to complain of the attacks made upon his memoirs, dr johnson said, 'nay, sir, do not complain. it is advantageous to an authour, that his book should be attacked as well as praised. fame is a shuttlecock. if it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.' often have i reflected on this since; and, instead of being angry at many of those who have written against me, have smiled to think that they were unintentionally subservient to my fame, by using a battledoor to make me virum volitare per ora. at sir alexander dick's, from that absence of mind to which every man is at times subject, i told, in a blundering manner, lady eglingtoune's complimentary adoption of dr johnson as her son; for i unfortunately stated that her ladyship adopted him as her son, in consequence of her having been married the year after he was born. dr johnson instantly corrected me. 'sir, don't you perceive that you are defaming the countess? for, supposing me to be her son, and that she was not married till the year after my birth, i must have been her natural son.' a young lady of quality, who was present, very handsomely said, 'might not the son have justified the faults?' my friend was much flattered by this compliment, which he never forgot. when in more than ordinary spirits, and talking of his journey in scotland, he has called to me, 'boswell, what was it that the young lady of quality said of me at sir alexander dick's?' nobody will doubt that i was happy in repeating it. my illustrious friend, being now desirous to be again in the great theatre of life and animated exertion, took a place in the coach, which was to set out for london on monday the d of november. sir john dalrymple pressed him to come on the saturday before, to his house at cranston, which being twelve miles from edinburgh, upon the middle road to newcastle (dr johnson had come to edinburgh by berwick, and along the naked coast), it would make his journey easier, as the coach would take him up at a more reasonable hour than that at which it sets out. sir john, i perceived, was ambitious of having such a guest; but, as i was well assured, that at this very time he had joined with some of his prejudiced countrymen in railing at dr johnson, and had said, he wondered how any gentleman of scotland could keep company with him, i thought he did not deserve the honour: yet, as it might be a convenience to dr johnson, i contrived that he should accept the invitation, and engaged to conduct him. i resolved that, on our way to sir john's, we should make a little circuit by roslin castle, and hawthornden, and wished to set out soon after breakfast; but young mr tytler came to shew dr johnson some essays which he had written; and my great friend, who was exceedingly obliging when thus consulted, was detained so long that it was, i believe, one o'clock before we got into our post-chaise. i found that we should be too late for dinner at sir john dalrymple's, to which we were engaged: but i would by no means lose the pleasure of seeing my friend at hawthornden, of seeing sam johnson at the very spot where ben johnson visited the learned and poetical drummond. we surveyed roslin castle, the romantick scene around it, and the beautiful gothick chapel, and dined and drank tea at the inn; after which we proceeded to hawthornden, and viewed the caves; and i all the while had rare ben in my mind, and was pleased to think that this place was now visited by another celebrated wit of england. by this time 'the waning night was growing old', and we were yet several miles from sir john dalrymple's. dr johnson did not seem much troubled at our having treated the baronet with so little attention to politeness; but when i talked of the grievous disappointment it must have been to him that we did not come to the feast that he had prepared for us (for he told us he had killed a seven-year-old sheep on purpose), my friend got into a merry mood, and jocularly said, 'i dare say, sir, he has been very sadly distressed. nay, we do not know but the consequence may have been fatal. let me try to describe his situation in his own historical style. i have as good a right to make him think and talk, as he has to tell us how people thought and talked a hundred years ago, of which he has no evidence. all history, so far as it is not supported by contemporary evidence, is romance ... stay now... let us consider!' he then (heartily laughing all the while) proceeded in his imitation, i am sure to the following effect, though now, at the distance of almost twelve years, i cannot pretend to recollect all the precise words: 'dinner being ready, he wondered that his guests were not yet come. his wonder was soon succeeded by impatience. he walked about the room in anxious agitation; sometimes he looked at his watch, sometimes he looked out at the window with an eager gaze of expectation, and revolved in his mind the various accidents of human life. his family beheld him with mute concern. "surely," said he, with a sigh, "they will not fail me." the mind of man can bear a certain pressure; but there is a point when it can bear no more. a rope was in his view, and he died a roman death.' [footnote: 'essex was at that time confined to the same chamber of the tower from which his father lord capel had been led to death, and in which his wife's grandfather had inflicted a voluntary death upon himself. when he saw his friend carried to what he reckoned certain fate, their common enemies enjoying the spectacle, and reflected that it was he who had forced lord howard upon the confidence of russel, he retired, and, by a roman death, put an end to his misery.' dalrymple's memoirs of great britain and ireland. vol. i p. .] it was very late before we reached the seat of sir john dalrymple, who, certainly with some reason was not in very good humour. our conversation was not brilliant. we supped, and went to bed in ancient rooms, which would have better suited the climate of italy in summer, than that of scotland in the month of november. i recollect no conversation of the next day, worth preserving, except one saying of dr johnson, which will be a valuable text for many decent old dowagers, and other good company, in various circles to descant upon. he said, 'i am sorry i have not learnt to play at cards. it is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society.' he certainly could not mean deep play. my friend and i thought we should be more comfortable at the inn at blackflelds, two miles farther on. we therefore went thither in the evening, and he was very entertaining; but i have preserved nothing but the pleasing remembrance, and his verses on george the second and cibber, and his epitaph on parnell, which he was then so good as to dictate to me. we breakfasted together next morning, and then the coach came, and took him up. he had, as one of his companions in it, as far as newcastle, the worthy and ingenious dr hope, botanical professor at edinburgh. both dr johnson and he used to speak of their good fortune in thus accidentally meeting; for they had much instructive conversation, which is always a most valuable enjoyment, and, when found where it is not expected, is peculiarly relished. i have now completed my account of our tour to the hebrides. i have brought dr johnson down to scotland, and seen him into the coach which in a few hours carried him back into england. he said to me often, that the time he spent in this tour was the pleasantest part of his life, and asked me if i would lose the recollection of it for five hundred pounds. i answered i would not; and he applauded my setting such a value on an accession of new images in my mind. had it not been for me, i am persuaded dr johnson never would have undertaken such a journey; and i must be allowed to assume some merit from having been the cause that our language has been enriched with such a book as that which he published on his return; a book which i never read but with the utmost admiration, as i had such opportunities of knowing from what very meagre materials it was composed. the end scotland*** transcribed from the edition with the corrections noted in the errata by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk a journey to the western islands of scotland inch keith i had desired to visit the hebrides, or western islands of scotland, so long, that i scarcely remember how the wish was originally excited; and was in the autumn of the year induced to undertake the journey, by finding in mr. boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel, in countries less hospitable than we have passed. on the eighteenth of august we left edinburgh, a city too well known to admit description, and directed our course northward, along the eastern coast of scotland, accompanied the first day by another gentleman, who could stay with us only long enough to shew us how much we lost at separation. as we crossed the frith of forth, our curiosity was attracted by inch keith, a small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their notice. here, by climbing with some difficulty over shattered crags, we made the first experiment of unfrequented coasts. inch keith is nothing more than a rock covered with a thin layer of earth, not wholly bare of grass, and very fertile of thistles. a small herd of cows grazes annually upon it in the summer. it seems never to have afforded to man or beast a permanent habitation. we found only the ruins of a small fort, not so injured by time but that it might be easily restored to its former state. it seems never to have been intended as a place of strength, nor was built to endure a siege, but merely to afford cover to a few soldiers, who perhaps had the charge of a battery, or were stationed to give signals of approaching danger. there is therefore no provision of water within the walls, though the spring is so near, that it might have been easily enclosed. one of the stones had this inscription: 'maria reg. .' it has probably been neglected from the time that the whole island had the same king. we left this little island with our thoughts employed awhile on the different appearance that it would have made, if it had been placed at the same distance from london, with the same facility of approach; with what emulation of price a few rocky acres would have been purchased, and with what expensive industry they would have been cultivated and adorned. when we landed, we found our chaise ready, and passed through kinghorn, kirkaldy, and cowpar, places not unlike the small or straggling market- towns in those parts of england where commerce and manufactures have not yet produced opulence. though we were yet in the most populous part of scotland, and at so small a distance from the capital, we met few passengers. the roads are neither rough nor dirty; and it affords a southern stranger a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of toll-gates. where the bottom is rocky, as it seems commonly to be in scotland, a smooth way is made indeed with great labour, but it never wants repairs; and in those parts where adventitious materials are necessary, the ground once consolidated is rarely broken; for the inland commerce is not great, nor are heavy commodities often transported otherwise than by water. the carriages in common use are small carts, drawn each by one little horse; and a man seems to derive some degree of dignity and importance from the reputation of possessing a two-horse cart. st. andrews at an hour somewhat late we came to st. andrews, a city once archiepiscopal; where that university still subsists in which philosophy was formerly taught by buchanan, whose name has as fair a claim to immortality as can be conferred by modern latinity, and perhaps a fairer than the instability of vernacular languages admits. we found, that by the interposition of some invisible friend, lodgings had been provided for us at the house of one of the professors, whose easy civility quickly made us forget that we were strangers; and in the whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode of kindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality. in the morning we rose to perambulate a city, which only history shews to have once flourished, and surveyed the ruins of ancient magnificence, of which even the ruins cannot long be visible, unless some care be taken to preserve them; and where is the pleasure of preserving such mournful memorials? they have been till very lately so much neglected, that every man carried away the stones who fancied that he wanted them. the cathedral, of which the foundations may be still traced, and a small part of the wall is standing, appears to have been a spacious and majestick building, not unsuitable to the primacy of the kingdom. of the architecture, the poor remains can hardly exhibit, even to an artist, a sufficient specimen. it was demolished, as is well known, in the tumult and violence of knox's reformation. not far from the cathedral, on the margin of the water, stands a fragment of the castle, in which the archbishop anciently resided. it was never very large, and was built with more attention to security than pleasure. cardinal beatoun is said to have had workmen employed in improving its fortifications at the time when he was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner of which knox has given what he himself calls a merry narrative. the change of religion in scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who, conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with england, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to that laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint. the city of st. andrews, when it had lost its archiepiscopal pre-eminence, gradually decayed: one of its streets is now lost; and in those that remain, there is silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation. the university, within a few years, consisted of three colleges, but is now reduced to two; the college of st. leonard being lately dissolved by the sale of its buildings and the appropriation of its revenues to the professors of the two others. the chapel of the alienated college is yet standing, a fabrick not inelegant of external structure; but i was always, by some civil excuse, hindred from entering it. a decent attempt, as i was since told, has been made to convert it into a kind of green-house, by planting its area with shrubs. this new method of gardening is unsuccessful; the plants do not hitherto prosper. to what use it will next be put i have no pleasure in conjecturing. it is something that its present state is at least not ostentatiously displayed. where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue. the dissolution of st. leonard's college was doubtless necessary; but of that necessity there is reason to complain. it is surely not without just reproach, that a nation, of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth encreasing, denies any participation of its prosperity to its literary societies; and while its merchants or its nobles are raising palaces, suffers its universities to moulder into dust. of the two colleges yet standing, one is by the institution of its founder appropriated to divinity. it is said to be capable of containing fifty students; but more than one must occupy a chamber. the library, which is of late erection, is not very spacious, but elegant and luminous. the doctor, by whom it was shewn, hoped to irritate or subdue my english vanity by telling me, that we had no such repository of books in england. saint andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted to study and education, being situated in a populous, yet a cheap country, and exposing the minds and manners of young men neither to the levity and dissoluteness of a capital city, nor to the gross luxury of a town of commerce, places naturally unpropitious to learning; in one the desire of knowledge easily gives way to the love of pleasure, and in the other, is in danger of yielding to the love of money. the students however are represented as at this time not exceeding a hundred. perhaps it may be some obstruction to their increase that there is no episcopal chapel in the place. i saw no reason for imputing their paucity to the present professors; nor can the expence of an academical education be very reasonably objected. a student of the highest class may keep his annual session, or as the english call it, his term, which lasts seven months, for about fifteen pounds, and one of lower rank for less than ten; in which board, lodging, and instruction are all included. the chief magistrate resident in the university, answering to our vice- chancellor, and to the _rector magnificus_ on the continent, had commonly the title of lord rector; but being addressed only as mr. rector in an inauguratory speech by the present chancellor, he has fallen from his former dignity of style. lordship was very liberally annexed by our ancestors to any station or character of dignity: they said, the lord general, and lord ambassador; so we still say, my lord, to the judge upon the circuit, and yet retain in our liturgy the lords of the council. in walking among the ruins of religious buildings, we came to two vaults over which had formerly stood the house of the sub-prior. one of the vaults was inhabited by an old woman, who claimed the right of abode there, as the widow of a man whose ancestors had possessed the same gloomy mansion for no less than four generations. the right, however it began, was considered as established by legal prescription, and the old woman lives undisturbed. she thinks however that she has a claim to something more than sufferance; for as her husband's name was bruce, she is allied to royalty, and told mr. boswell that when there were persons of quality in the place, she was distinguished by some notice; that indeed she is now neglected, but she spins a thread, has the company of her cat, and is troublesome to nobody. having now seen whatever this ancient city offered to our curiosity, we left it with good wishes, having reason to be highly pleased with the attention that was paid us. but whoever surveys the world must see many things that give him pain. the kindness of the professors did not contribute to abate the uneasy remembrance of an university declining, a college alienated, and a church profaned and hastening to the ground. st. andrews indeed has formerly suffered more atrocious ravages and more extensive destruction, but recent evils affect with greater force. we were reconciled to the sight of archiepiscopal ruins. the distance of a calamity from the present time seems to preclude the mind from contact or sympathy. events long past are barely known; they are not considered. we read with as little emotion the violence of knox and his followers, as the irruptions of alaric and the goths. had the university been destroyed two centuries ago, we should not have regretted it; but to see it pining in decay and struggling for life, fills the mind with mournful images and ineffectual wishes. aberbrothick as we knew sorrow and wishes to be vain, it was now our business to mind our way. the roads of scotland afford little diversion to the traveller, who seldom sees himself either encountered or overtaken, and who has nothing to contemplate but grounds that have no visible boundaries, or are separated by walls of loose stone. from the bank of the tweed to st. andrews i had never seen a single tree, which i did not believe to have grown up far within the present century. now and then about a gentleman's house stands a small plantation, which in scotch is called a policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young. the variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown. there is no tree for either shelter or timber. the oak and the thorn is equally a stranger, and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in the road between kirkaldy and cowpar, i passed for a few yards between two hedges. a tree might be a show in scotland as a horse in venice. at st. andrews mr. boswell found only one, and recommended it to my notice; i told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if i thought so. this, said he, is nothing to another a few miles off. i was still less delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer. nay, said a gentleman that stood by, i know but of this and that tree in the county. the lowlands of scotland had once undoubtedly an equal portion of woods with other countries. forests are every where gradually diminished, as architecture and cultivation prevail by the increase of people and the introduction of arts. but i believe few regions have been denuded like this, where many centuries must have passed in waste without the least thought of future supply. davies observes in his account of ireland, that no irishman had ever planted an orchard. for that negligence some excuse might be drawn from an unsettled state of life, and the instability of property; but in scotland possession has long been secure, and inheritance regular, yet it may be doubted whether before the union any man between edinburgh and england had ever set a tree. of this improvidence no other account can be given than that it probably began in times of tumult, and continued because it had begun. established custom is not easily broken, till some great event shakes the whole system of things, and life seems to recommence upon new principles. that before the union the scots had little trade and little money, is no valid apology; for plantation is the least expensive of all methods of improvement. to drop a seed into the ground can cost nothing, and the trouble is not great of protecting the young plant, till it is out of danger; though it must be allowed to have some difficulty in places like these, where they have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges. our way was over the firth of tay, where, though the water was not wide, we paid four shillings for ferrying the chaise. in scotland the necessaries of life are easily procured, but superfluities and elegancies are of the same price at least as in england, and therefore may be considered as much dearer. we stopped a while at dundee, where i remember nothing remarkable, and mounting our chaise again, came about the close of the day to aberbrothick. the monastery of aberbrothick is of great renown in the history of scotland. its ruins afford ample testimony of its ancient magnificence: its extent might, i suppose, easily be found by following the walls among the grass and weeds, and its height is known by some parts yet standing. the arch of one of the gates is entire, and of another only so far dilapidated as to diversify the appearance. a square apartment of great loftiness is yet standing; its use i could not conjecture, as its elevation was very disproportionate to its area. two corner towers, particularly attracted our attention. mr. boswell, whose inquisitiveness is seconded by great activity, scrambled in at a high window, but found the stairs within broken, and could not reach the top. of the other tower we were told that the inhabitants sometimes climbed it, but we did not immediately discern the entrance, and as the night was gathering upon us, thought proper to desist. men skilled in architecture might do what we did not attempt: they might probably form an exact ground-plot of this venerable edifice. they may from some parts yet standing conjecture its general form, and perhaps by comparing it with other buildings of the same kind and the same age, attain an idea very near to truth. i should scarcely have regretted my journey, had it afforded nothing more than the sight of aberbrothick. montrose leaving these fragments of magnificence, we travelled on to montrose, which we surveyed in the morning, and found it well built, airy, and clean. the townhouse is a handsome fabrick with a portico. we then went to view the english chapel, and found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of scotland, with commodious galleries, and what was yet less expected, with an organ. at our inn we did not find a reception such as we thought proportionate to the commercial opulence of the place; but mr. boswell desired me to observe that the innkeeper was an englishman, and i then defended him as well as i could. when i had proceeded thus far, i had opportunities of observing what i had never heard, that there are many beggars in scotland. in edinburgh the proportion is, i think, not less than in london, and in the smaller places it is far greater than in english towns of the same extent. it must, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous. they solicit silently, or very modestly, and therefore though their behaviour may strike with more force the heart of a stranger, they are certainly in danger of missing the attention of their countrymen. novelty has always some power, an unaccustomed mode of begging excites an unaccustomed degree of pity. but the force of novelty is by its own nature soon at an end; the efficacy of outcry and perseverance is permanent and certain. the road from montrose exhibited a continuation of the same appearances. the country is still naked, the hedges are of stone, and the fields so generally plowed that it is hard to imagine where grass is found for the horses that till them. the harvest, which was almost ripe, appeared very plentiful. early in the afternoon mr. boswell observed that we were at no great distance from the house of lord monboddo. the magnetism of his conversation easily drew us out of our way, and the entertainment which we received would have been a sufficient recompense for a much greater deviation. the roads beyond edinburgh, as they are less frequented, must be expected to grow gradually rougher; but they were hitherto by no means incommodious. we travelled on with the gentle pace of a scotch driver, who having no rivals in expedition, neither gives himself nor his horses unnecessary trouble. we did not affect the impatience we did not feel, but were satisfied with the company of each other as well riding in the chaise, as sitting at an inn. the night and the day are equally solitary and equally safe; for where there are so few travellers, why should there be robbers. aberdeen we came somewhat late to aberdeen, and found the inn so full, that we had some difficulty in obtaining admission, till mr. boswell made himself known: his name overpowered all objection, and we found a very good house and civil treatment. i received the next day a very kind letter from sir alexander gordon, whom i had formerly known in london, and after a cessation of all intercourse for near twenty years met here professor of physic in the king's college. such unexpected renewals of acquaintance may be numbered among the most pleasing incidents of life. the knowledge of one professor soon procured me the notice of the rest, and i did not want any token of regard, being conducted wherever there was any thing which i desired to see, and entertained at once with the novelty of the place, and the kindness of communication. to write of the cities of our own island with the solemnity of geographical description, as if we had been cast upon a newly discovered coast, has the appearance of very frivolous ostentation; yet as scotland is little known to the greater part of those who may read these observations, it is not superfluous to relate, that under the name of aberdeen are comprised two towns standing about a mile distant from each other, but governed, i think, by the same magistrates. old aberdeen is the ancient episcopal city, in which are still to be seen the remains of the cathedral. it has the appearance of a town in decay, having been situated in times when commerce was yet unstudied, with very little attention to the commodities of the harbour. new aberdeen has all the bustle of prosperous trade, and all the shew of increasing opulence. it is built by the water-side. the houses are large and lofty, and the streets spacious and clean. they build almost wholly with the granite used in the new pavement of the streets of london, which is well known not to want hardness, yet they shape it easily. it is beautiful and must be very lasting. what particular parts of commerce are chiefly exercised by the merchants of aberdeen, i have not inquired. the manufacture which forces itself upon a stranger's eye is that of knit-stockings, on which the women of the lower class are visibly employed. in each of these towns there is a college, or in stricter language, an university; for in both there are professors of the same parts of learning, and the colleges hold their sessions and confer degrees separately, with total independence of one on the other. in old aberdeen stands the king's college, of which the first president was hector boece, or boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the revivers of elegant learning. when he studied at paris, he was acquainted with erasmus, who afterwards gave him a public testimony of his esteem, by inscribing to him a catalogue of his works. the stile of boethius, though, perhaps, not always rigorously pure, is formed with great diligence upon ancient models, and wholly uninfected with monastic barbarity. his history is written with elegance and vigour, but his fabulousness and credulity are justly blamed. his fabulousness, if he was the author of the fictions, is a fault for which no apology can be made; but his credulity may be excused in an age, when all men were credulous. learning was then rising on the world; but ages so long accustomed to darkness, were too much dazzled with its light to see any thing distinctly. the first race of scholars, in the fifteenth century, and some time after, were, for the most part, learning to speak, rather than to think, and were therefore more studious of elegance than of truth. the contemporaries of boethius thought it sufficient to know what the ancients had delivered. the examination of tenets and of facts was reserved for another generation. * * * * * boethius, as president of the university, enjoyed a revenue of forty scottish marks, about two pounds four shillings and sixpence of sterling money. in the present age of trade and taxes, it is difficult even for the imagination so to raise the value of money, or so to diminish the demands of life, as to suppose four and forty shillings a year, an honourable stipend; yet it was probably equal, not only to the needs, but to the rank of boethius. the wealth of england was undoubtedly to that of scotland more than five to one, and it is known that henry the eighth, among whose faults avarice was never reckoned, granted to roger ascham, as a reward of his learning, a pension of ten pounds a year. the other, called the marischal college, is in the new town. the hall is large and well lighted. one of its ornaments is the picture of arthur johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the latin poets of scotland the next place to the elegant buchanan. in the library i was shewn some curiosities; a hebrew manuscript of exquisite penmanship, and a latin translation of aristotle's politicks by leonardus aretinus, written in the roman character with nicety and beauty, which, as the art of printing has made them no longer necessary, are not now to be found. this was one of the latest performances of the transcribers, for aretinus died but about twenty years before typography was invented. this version has been printed, and may be found in libraries, but is little read; for the same books have been since translated both by victorius and lambinus, who lived in an age more cultivated, but perhaps owed in part to aretinus that they were able to excel him. much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it. in both these colleges the methods of instruction are nearly the same; the lectures differing only by the accidental difference of diligence, or ability in the professors. the students wear scarlet gowns and the professors black, which is, i believe, the academical dress in all the scottish universities, except that of edinburgh, where the scholars are not distinguished by any particular habit. in the king's college there is kept a public table, but the scholars of the marischal college are boarded in the town. the expence of living is here, according to the information that i could obtain, somewhat more than at st. andrews. the course of education is extended to four years, at the end of which those who take a degree, who are not many, become masters of arts, and whoever is a master may, if he pleases, immediately commence doctor. the title of doctor, however, was for a considerable time bestowed only on physicians. the advocates are examined and approved by their own body; the ministers were not ambitious of titles, or were afraid of being censured for ambition; and the doctorate in every faculty was commonly given or sold into other countries. the ministers are now reconciled to distinction, and as it must always happen that some will excel others, have thought graduation a proper testimony of uncommon abilities or acquisitions. the indiscriminate collation of degrees has justly taken away that respect which they originally claimed as stamps, by which the literary value of men so distinguished was authoritatively denoted. that academical honours, or any others should be conferred with exact proportion to merit, is more than human judgment or human integrity have given reason to expect. perhaps degrees in universities cannot be better adjusted by any general rule than by the length of time passed in the public profession of learning. an english or irish doctorate cannot be obtained by a very young man, and it is reasonable to suppose, what is likewise by experience commonly found true, that he who is by age qualified to be a doctor, has in so much time gained learning sufficient not to disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to desire it. the scotch universities hold but one term or session in the year. that of st. andrews continues eight months, that of aberdeen only five, from the first of november to the first of april. in aberdeen there is an english chapel, in which the congregation was numerous and splendid. the form of public worship used by the church of england is in scotland legally practised in licensed chapels served by clergymen of english or irish ordination, and by tacit connivance quietly permitted in separate congregations supplied with ministers by the successors of the bishops who were deprived at the revolution. we came to aberdeen on saturday august . on monday we were invited into the town-hall, where i had the freedom of the city given me by the lord provost. the honour conferred had all the decorations that politeness could add, and what i am afraid i should not have had to say of any city south of the tweed, i found no petty officer bowing for a fee. the parchment containing the record of admission is, with the seal appending, fastened to a riband and worn for one day by the new citizen in his hat. by a lady who saw us at the chapel, the earl of errol was informed of our arrival, and we had the honour of an invitation to his seat, called slanes castle, as i am told, improperly, from the castle of that name, which once stood at a place not far distant. the road beyond aberdeen grew more stony, and continued equally naked of all vegetable decoration. we travelled over a tract of ground near the sea, which, not long ago, suffered a very uncommon, and unexpected calamity. the sand of the shore was raised by a tempest in such quantities, and carried to such a distance, that an estate was overwhelmed and lost. such and so hopeless was the barrenness superinduced, that the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground. slanes castle, the buller of buchan we came in the afternoon to slanes castle, built upon the margin of the sea, so that the walls of one of the towers seem only a continuation of a perpendicular rock, the foot of which is beaten by the waves. to walk round the house seemed impracticable. from the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates scotland from norway, and when the winds beat with violence must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. i would not for my amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, i may say, without violation of humanity, that i should willingly look out upon them from slanes castle. when we were about to take our leave, our departure was prohibited by the countess till we should have seen two places upon the coast, which she rightly considered as worthy of curiosity, dun buy, and the buller of buchan, to which mr. boyd very kindly conducted us. dun buy, which in erse is said to signify the yellow rock, is a double protuberance of stone, open to the main sea on one side, and parted from the land by a very narrow channel on the other. it has its name and its colour from the dung of innumerable sea-fowls, which in the spring chuse this place as convenient for incubation, and have their eggs and their young taken in great abundance. one of the birds that frequent this rock has, as we were told, its body not larger than a duck's, and yet lays eggs as large as those of a goose. this bird is by the inhabitants named a coot. that which is called coot in england, is here a cooter. upon these rocks there was nothing that could long detain attention, and we soon turned our eyes to the buller, or bouilloir of buchan, which no man can see with indifference, who has either sense of danger or delight in rarity. it is a rock perpendicularly tubulated, united on one side with a high shore, and on the other rising steep to a great height, above the main sea. the top is open, from which may be seen a dark gulf of water which flows into the cavity, through a breach made in the lower part of the inclosing rock. it has the appearance of a vast well bordered with a wall. the edge of the buller is not wide, and to those that walk round, appears very narrow. he that ventures to look downward sees, that if his foot should slip, he must fall from his dreadful elevation upon stones on one side, or into water on the other. we however went round, and were glad when the circuit was completed. when we came down to the sea, we saw some boats, and rowers, and resolved to explore the buller at the bottom. we entered the arch, which the water had made, and found ourselves in a place, which, though we could not think ourselves in danger, we could scarcely survey without some recoil of the mind. the bason in which we floated was nearly circular, perhaps thirty yards in diameter. we were inclosed by a natural wall, rising steep on every side to a height which produced the idea of insurmountable confinement. the interception of all lateral light caused a dismal gloom. round us was a perpendicular rock, above us the distant sky, and below an unknown profundity of water. if i had any malice against a walking spirit, instead of laying him in the red-sea, i would condemn him to reside in the buller of buchan. but terrour without danger is only one of the sports of fancy, a voluntary agitation of the mind that is permitted no longer than it pleases. we were soon at leisure to examine the place with minute inspection, and found many cavities which, as the waterman told us, went backward to a depth which they had never explored. their extent we had not time to try; they are said to serve different purposes. ladies come hither sometimes in the summer with collations, and smugglers make them storehouses for clandestine merchandise. it is hardly to be doubted but the pirates of ancient times often used them as magazines of arms, or repositories of plunder. to the little vessels used by the northern rovers, the buller may have served as a shelter from storms, and perhaps as a retreat from enemies; the entrance might have been stopped, or guarded with little difficulty, and though the vessels that were stationed within would have been battered with stones showered on them from above, yet the crews would have lain safe in the caverns. next morning we continued our journey, pleased with our reception at slanes castle, of which we had now leisure to recount the grandeur and the elegance; for our way afforded us few topics of conversation. the ground was neither uncultivated nor unfruitful; but it was still all arable. of flocks or herds there was no appearance. i had now travelled two hundred miles in scotland, and seen only one tree not younger than myself. bamff we dined this day at the house of mr. frazer of streichton, who shewed us in his grounds some stones yet standing of a druidical circle, and what i began to think more worthy of notice, some forest trees of full growth. at night we came to bamff, where i remember nothing that particularly claimed my attention. the ancient towns of scotland have generally an appearance unusual to englishmen. the houses, whether great or small, are for the most part built of stones. their ends are now and then next the streets, and the entrance into them is very often by a flight of steps, which reaches up to the second story, the floor which is level with the ground being entered only by stairs descending within the house. the art of joining squares of glass with lead is little used in scotland, and in some places is totally forgotten. the frames of their windows are all of wood. they are more frugal of their glass than the english, and will often, in houses not otherwise mean, compose a square of two pieces, not joining like cracked glass, but with one edge laid perhaps half an inch over the other. their windows do not move upon hinges, but are pushed up and drawn down in grooves, yet they are seldom accommodated with weights and pullies. he that would have his window open must hold it with his hand, unless what may be sometimes found among good contrivers, there be a nail which he may stick into a hole, to keep it from falling. what cannot be done without some uncommon trouble or particular expedient, will not often be done at all. the incommodiousness of the scotch windows keeps them very closely shut. the necessity of ventilating human habitations has not yet been found by our northern neighbours; and even in houses well built and elegantly furnished, a stranger may be sometimes forgiven, if he allows himself to wish for fresher air. these diminutive observations seem to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt. but it must be remembered, that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions, or elegant enjoyments; the greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption. the true state of every nation is the state of common life. the manners of a people are not to be found in the schools of learning, or the palaces of greatness, where the national character is obscured or obliterated by travel or instruction, by philosophy or vanity; nor is public happiness to be estimated by the assemblies of the gay, or the banquets of the rich. the great mass of nations is neither rich nor gay: they whose aggregate constitutes the people, are found in the streets, and the villages, in the shops and farms; and from them collectively considered, must the measure of general prosperity be taken. as they approach to delicacy a nation is refined, as their conveniences are multiplied, a nation, at least a commercial nation, must be denominated wealthy. elgin finding nothing to detain us at bamff, we set out in the morning, and having breakfasted at cullen, about noon came to elgin, where in the inn, that we supposed the best, a dinner was set before us, which we could not eat. this was the first time, and except one, the last, that i found any reason to complain of a scotish table; and such disappointments, i suppose, must be expected in every country, where there is no great frequency of travellers. the ruins of the cathedral of elgin afforded us another proof of the waste of reformation. there is enough yet remaining to shew, that it was once magnificent. its whole plot is easily traced. on the north side of the choir, the chapter-house, which is roofed with an arch of stone, remains entire; and on the south side, another mass of building, which we could not enter, is preserved by the care of the family of gordon; but the body of the church is a mass of fragments. a paper was here put into our hands, which deduced from sufficient authorities the history of this venerable ruin. the church of elgin had, in the intestine tumults of the barbarous ages, been laid waste by the irruption of a highland chief, whom the bishop had offended; but it was gradually restored to the state, of which the traces may be now discerned, and was at last not destroyed by the tumultuous violence of knox, but more shamefully suffered to dilapidate by deliberate robbery and frigid indifference. there is still extant, in the books of the council, an order, of which i cannot remember the date, but which was doubtless issued after the reformation, directing that the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of elgin and aberdeen, shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of the army. a scotch army was in those times very cheaply kept; yet the lead of two churches must have born so small a proportion to any military expence, that it is hard not to believe the reason alleged to be merely popular, and the money intended for some private purse. the order however was obeyed; the two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in holland. i hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea. let us not however make too much haste to despise our neighbours. our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. it seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, and we are in danger of doing that deliberately, which the scots did not do but in the unsettled state of an imperfect constitution. those who had once uncovered the cathedrals never wished to cover them again; and being thus made useless, they were, first neglected, and perhaps, as the stone was wanted, afterwards demolished. elgin seems a place of little trade, and thinly inhabited. the episcopal cities of scotland, i believe, generally fell with their churches, though some of them have since recovered by a situation convenient for commerce. thus glasgow, though it has no longer an archbishop, has risen beyond its original state by the opulence of its traders; and aberdeen, though its ancient stock had decayed, flourishes by a new shoot in another place. in the chief street of elgin, the houses jut over the lowest story, like the old buildings of timber in london, but with greater prominence; so that there is sometimes a walk for a considerable length under a cloister, or portico, which is now indeed frequently broken, because the new houses have another form, but seems to have been uniformly continued in the old city. fores. calder. fort george we went forwards the same day to fores, the town to which macbeth was travelling, when he met the weird sisters in his way. this to an englishman is classic ground. our imaginations were heated, and our thoughts recalled to their old amusements. we had now a prelude to the highlands. we began to leave fertility and culture behind us, and saw for a great length of road nothing but heath; yet at fochabars, a seat belonging to the duke of gordon, there is an orchard, which in scotland i had never seen before, with some timber trees, and a plantation of oaks. at fores we found good accommodation, but nothing worthy of particular remark, and next morning entered upon the road, on which macbeth heard the fatal prediction; but we travelled on not interrupted by promises of kingdoms, and came to nairn, a royal burgh, which, if once it flourished, is now in a state of miserable decay; but i know not whether its chief annual magistrate has not still the title of lord provost. at nairn we may fix the verge of the highlands; for here i first saw peat fires, and first heard the erse language. we had no motive to stay longer than to breakfast, and went forward to the house of mr. macaulay, the minister who published an account of st. kilda, and by his direction visited calder castle, from which macbeth drew his second title. it has been formerly a place of strength. the drawbridge is still to be seen, but the moat is now dry. the tower is very ancient: its walls are of great thickness, arched on the top with stone, and surrounded with battlements. the rest of the house is later, though far from modern. we were favoured by a gentleman, who lives in the castle, with a letter to one of the officers at fort george, which being the most regular fortification in the island, well deserves the notice of a traveller, who has never travelled before. we went thither next day, found a very kind reception, were led round the works by a gentleman, who explained the use of every part, and entertained by sir eyre coote, the governour, with such elegance of conversation as left us no attention to the delicacies of his table. of fort george i shall not attempt to give any account. i cannot delineate it scientifically, and a loose and popular description is of use only when the imagination is to be amused. there was every where an appearance of the utmost neatness and regularity. but my suffrage is of little value, because this and fort augustus are the only garrisons that i ever saw. we did not regret the time spent at the fort, though in consequence of our delay we came somewhat late to inverness, the town which may properly be called the capital of the highlands. hither the inhabitants of the inland parts come to be supplied with what they cannot make for themselves: hither the young nymphs of the mountains and valleys are sent for education, and as far as my observation has reached, are not sent in vain. inverness inverness was the last place which had a regular communication by high roads with the southern counties. all the ways beyond it have, i believe, been made by the soldiers in this century. at inverness therefore cromwell, when he subdued scotland, stationed a garrison, as at the boundary of the highlands. the soldiers seem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants, and to have peopled the place with an english race; for the language of this town has been long considered as peculiarly elegant. here is a castle, called the castle of macbeth, the walls of which are yet standing. it was no very capacious edifice, but stands upon a rock so high and steep, that i think it was once not accessible, but by the help of ladders, or a bridge. over against it, on another hill, was a fort built by cromwell, now totally demolished; for no faction of scotland loved the name of cromwell, or had any desire to continue his memory. yet what the romans did to other nations, was in a great degree done by cromwell to the scots; he civilized them by conquest, and introduced by useful violence the arts of peace. i was told at aberdeen that the people learned from cromwell's soldiers to make shoes and to plant kail. how they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess: they cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables, and when they had not kail they probably had nothing. the numbers that go barefoot are still sufficient to shew that shoes may be spared: they are not yet considered as necessaries of life; for tall boys, not otherwise meanly dressed, run without them in the streets; and in the islands the sons of gentlemen pass several of their first years with naked feet. i know not whether it be not peculiar to the scots to have attained the liberal, without the manual arts, to have excelled in ornamental knowledge, and to have wanted not only the elegancies, but the conveniences of common life. literature soon after its revival found its way to scotland, and from the middle of the sixteenth century, almost to the middle of the seventeenth, the politer studies were very diligently pursued. the latin poetry of _deliciae poetarum scotorum_ would have done honour to any nation, at least till the publication of _may's supplement_ the english had very little to oppose. yet men thus ingenious and inquisitive were content to live in total ignorance of the trades by which human wants are supplied, and to supply them by the grossest means. till the union made them acquainted with english manners, the culture of their lands was unskilful, and their domestick life unformed; their tables were coarse as the feasts of eskimeaux, and their houses filthy as the cottages of hottentots. since they have known that their condition was capable of improvement, their progress in useful knowledge has been rapid and uniform. what remains to be done they will quickly do, and then wonder, like me, why that which was so necessary and so easy was so long delayed. but they must be for ever content to owe to the english that elegance and culture, which, if they had been vigilant and active, perhaps the english might have owed to them. here the appearance of life began to alter. i had seen a few women with plaids at aberdeen; but at inverness the highland manners are common. there is i think a kirk, in which only the erse language is used. there is likewise an english chapel, but meanly built, where on sunday we saw a very decent congregation. we were now to bid farewel to the luxury of travelling, and to enter a country upon which perhaps no wheel has ever rolled. we could indeed have used our post-chaise one day longer, along the military road to fort augustus, but we could have hired no horses beyond inverness, and we were not so sparing of ourselves, as to lead them, merely that we might have one day longer the indulgence of a carriage. at inverness therefore we procured three horses for ourselves and a servant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load. we found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but himself. lough ness we took two highlanders to run beside us, partly to shew us the way, and partly to take back from the sea-side the horses, of which they were the owners. one of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion said, that he would tire any horse in inverness. both of them were civil and ready-handed. civility seems part of the national character of highlanders. every chieftain is a monarch, and politeness, the natural product of royal government, is diffused from the laird through the whole clan. but they are not commonly dexterous: their narrowness of life confines them to a few operations, and they are accustomed to endure little wants more than to remove them. we mounted our steeds on the thirtieth of august, and directed our guides to conduct us to fort augustus. it is built at the head of lough ness, of which inverness stands at the outlet. the way between them has been cut by the soldiers, and the greater part of it runs along a rock, levelled with great labour and exactness, near the water-side. most of this day's journey was very pleasant. the day, though bright, was not hot; and the appearance of the country, if i had not seen the peak, would have been wholly new. we went upon a surface so hard and level, that we had little care to hold the bridle, and were therefore at full leisure for contemplation. on the left were high and steep rocks shaded with birch, the hardy native of the north, and covered with fern or heath. on the right the limpid waters of lough ness were beating their bank, and waving their surface by a gentle agitation. beyond them were rocks sometimes covered with verdure, and sometimes towering in horrid nakedness. now and then we espied a little cornfield, which served to impress more strongly the general barrenness. lough ness is about twenty-four miles long, and from one mile to two miles broad. it is remarkable that boethius, in his description of scotland, gives it twelve miles of breadth. when historians or geographers exhibit false accounts of places far distant, they may be forgiven, because they can tell but what they are told; and that their accounts exceed the truth may be justly supposed, because most men exaggerate to others, if not to themselves: but boethius lived at no great distance; if he never saw the lake, he must have been very incurious, and if he had seen it, his veracity yielded to very slight temptations. lough ness, though not twelve miles broad, is a very remarkable diffusion of water without islands. it fills a large hollow between two ridges of high rocks, being supplied partly by the torrents which fall into it on either side, and partly, as is supposed, by springs at the bottom. its water is remarkably clear and pleasant, and is imagined by the natives to be medicinal. we were told, that it is in some places a hundred and forty fathoms deep, a profundity scarcely credible, and which probably those that relate it have never sounded. its fish are salmon, trout, and pike. it was said at fort augustus, that lough ness is open in the hardest winters, though a lake not far from it is covered with ice. in discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. that which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected. accuracy of narration is not very common, and there are few so rigidly philosophical, as not to represent as perpetual, what is only frequent, or as constant, what is really casual. if it be true that lough ness never freezes, it is either sheltered by its high banks from the cold blasts, and exposed only to those winds which have more power to agitate than congeal; or it is kept in perpetual motion by the rush of streams from the rocks that inclose it. its profundity though it should be such as is represented can have little part in this exemption; for though deep wells are not frozen, because their water is secluded from the external air, yet where a wide surface is exposed to the full influence of a freezing atmosphere, i know not why the depth should keep it open. natural philosophy is now one of the favourite studies of the scottish nation, and lough ness well deserves to be diligently examined. the road on which we travelled, and which was itself a source of entertainment, is made along the rock, in the direction of the lough, sometimes by breaking off protuberances, and sometimes by cutting the great mass of stone to a considerable depth. the fragments are piled in a loose wall on either side, with apertures left at very short spaces, to give a passage to the wintry currents. part of it is bordered with low trees, from which our guides gathered nuts, and would have had the appearance of an english lane, except that an english lane is almost always dirty. it has been made with great labour, but has this advantage, that it cannot, without equal labour, be broken up. within our sight there were goats feeding or playing. the mountains have red deer, but they came not within view; and if what is said of their vigilance and subtlety be true, they have some claim to that palm of wisdom, which the eastern philosopher, whom alexander interrogated, gave to those beasts which live furthest from men. near the way, by the water side, we espied a cottage. this was the first highland hut that i had seen; and as our business was with life and manners, we were willing to visit it. to enter a habitation without leave, seems to be not considered here as rudeness or intrusion. the old laws of hospitality still give this licence to a stranger. a hut is constructed with loose stones, ranged for the most part with some tendency to circularity. it must be placed where the wind cannot act upon it with violence, because it has no cement; and where the water will run easily away, because it has no floor but the naked ground. the wall, which is commonly about six feet high, declines from the perpendicular a little inward. such rafters as can be procured are then raised for a roof, and covered with heath, which makes a strong and warm thatch, kept from flying off by ropes of twisted heath, of which the ends, reaching from the center of the thatch to the top of the wall, are held firm by the weight of a large stone. no light is admitted but at the entrance, and through a hole in the thatch, which gives vent to the smoke. this hole is not directly over the fire, lest the rain should extinguish it; and the smoke therefore naturally fills the place before it escapes. such is the general structure of the houses in which one of the nations of this opulent and powerful island has been hitherto content to live. huts however are not more uniform than palaces; and this which we were inspecting was very far from one of the meanest, for it was divided into several apartments; and its inhabitants possessed such property as a pastoral poet might exalt into riches. when we entered, we found an old woman boiling goats-flesh in a kettle. she spoke little english, but we had interpreters at hand; and she was willing enough to display her whole system of economy. she has five children, of which none are yet gone from her. the eldest, a boy of thirteen, and her husband, who is eighty years old, were at work in the wood. her two next sons were gone to inverness to buy meal, by which oatmeal is always meant. meal she considered as expensive food, and told us, that in spring, when the goats gave milk, the children could live without it. she is mistress of sixty goats, and i saw many kids in an enclosure at the end of her house. she had also some poultry. by the lake we saw a potatoe-garden, and a small spot of ground on which stood four shucks, containing each twelve sheaves of barley. she has all this from the labour of their own hands, and for what is necessary to be bought, her kids and her chickens are sent to market. with the true pastoral hospitality, she asked us to sit down and drink whisky. she is religious, and though the kirk is four miles off, probably eight english miles, she goes thither every sunday. we gave her a shilling, and she begged snuff; for snuff is the luxury of a highland cottage. soon afterwards we came to the general's hut, so called because it was the temporary abode of wade, while he superintended the works upon the road. it is now a house of entertainment for passengers, and we found it not ill stocked with provisions. fall of fiers towards evening we crossed, by a bridge, the river which makes the celebrated fall of fiers. the country at the bridge strikes the imagination with all the gloom and grandeur of siberian solitude. the way makes a flexure, and the mountains, covered with trees, rise at once on the left hand and in the front. we desired our guides to shew us the fall, and dismounting, clambered over very rugged crags, till i began to wish that our curiosity might have been gratified with less trouble and danger. we came at last to a place where we could overlook the river, and saw a channel torn, as it seems, through black piles of stone, by which the stream is obstructed and broken, till it comes to a very steep descent, of such dreadful depth, that we were naturally inclined to turn aside our eyes. but we visited the place at an unseasonable time, and found it divested of its dignity and terror. nature never gives every thing at once. a long continuance of dry weather, which made the rest of the way easy and delightful, deprived us of the pleasure expected from the fall of fiers. the river having now no water but what the springs supply, showed us only a swift current, clear and shallow, fretting over the asperities of the rocky bottom, and we were left to exercise our thoughts, by endeavouring to conceive the effect of a thousand streams poured from the mountains into one channel, struggling for expansion in a narrow passage, exasperated by rocks rising in their way, and at last discharging all their violence of waters by a sudden fall through the horrid chasm. the way now grew less easy, descending by an uneven declivity, but without either dirt or danger. we did not arrive at fort augustus till it was late. mr. boswell, who, between his father's merit and his own, is sure of reception wherever he comes, sent a servant before to beg admission and entertainment for that night. mr. trapaud, the governor, treated us with that courtesy which is so closely connected with the military character. he came out to meet us beyond the gates, and apologized that, at so late an hour, the rules of a garrison suffered him to give us entrance only at the postern. fort augustus in the morning we viewed the fort, which is much less than that of st. george, and is said to be commanded by the neighbouring hills. it was not long ago taken by the highlanders. but its situation seems well chosen for pleasure, if not for strength; it stands at the head of the lake, and, by a sloop of sixty tuns, is supplied from inverness with great convenience. we were now to cross the highlands towards the western coast, and to content ourselves with such accommodations, as a way so little frequented could afford. the journey was not formidable, for it was but of two days, very unequally divided, because the only house, where we could be entertained, was not further off than a third of the way. we soon came to a high hill, which we mounted by a military road, cut in traverses, so that as we went upon a higher stage, we saw the baggage following us below in a contrary direction. to make this way, the rock has been hewn to a level with labour that might have broken the perseverance of a roman legion. the country is totally denuded of its wood, but the stumps both of oaks and firs, which are still found, shew that it has been once a forest of large timber. i do not remember that we saw any animals, but we were told that, in the mountains, there are stags, roebucks, goats and rabbits. we did not perceive that this tract was possessed by human beings, except that once we saw a corn field, in which a lady was walking with some gentlemen. their house was certainly at no great distance, but so situated that we could not descry it. passing on through the dreariness of solitude, we found a party of soldiers from the fort, working on the road, under the superintendence of a serjeant. we told them how kindly we had been treated at the garrison, and as we were enjoying the benefit of their labours, begged leave to shew our gratitude by a small present. anoch early in the afternoon we came to anoch, a village in glenmollison of three huts, one of which is distinguished by a chimney. here we were to dine and lodge, and were conducted through the first room, that had the chimney, into another lighted by a small glass window. the landlord attended us with great civility, and told us what he could give us to eat and drink. i found some books on a shelf, among which were a volume or more of prideaux's connection. this i mentioned as something unexpected, and perceived that i did not please him. i praised the propriety of his language, and was answered that i need not wonder, for he had learned it by grammar. by subsequent opportunities of observation, i found that my host's diction had nothing peculiar. those highlanders that can speak english, commonly speak it well, with few of the words, and little of the tone by which a scotchman is distinguished. their language seems to have been learned in the army or the navy, or by some communication with those who could give them good examples of accent and pronunciation. by their lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race. these prejudices are wearing fast away; but so much of them still remains, that when i asked a very learned minister in the islands, which they considered as their most savage clans: 'those,' said he, 'that live next the lowlands.' as we came hither early in the day, we had time sufficient to survey the place. the house was built like other huts of loose stones, but the part in which we dined and slept was lined with turf and wattled with twigs, which kept the earth from falling. near it was a garden of turnips and a field of potatoes. it stands in a glen, or valley, pleasantly watered by a winding river. but this country, however it may delight the gazer or amuse the naturalist, is of no great advantage to its owners. our landlord told us of a gentleman, who possesses lands, eighteen scotch miles in length, and three in breadth; a space containing at least a hundred square english miles. he has raised his rents, to the danger of depopulating his farms, and he fells his timber, and by exerting every art of augmentation, has obtained an yearly revenue of four hundred pounds, which for a hundred square miles is three halfpence an acre. some time after dinner we were surprised by the entrance of a young woman, not inelegant either in mien or dress, who asked us whether we would have tea. we found that she was the daughter of our host, and desired her to make it. her conversation, like her appearance, was gentle and pleasing. we knew that the girls of the highlands are all gentlewomen, and treated her with great respect, which she received as customary and due, and was neither elated by it, nor confused, but repaid my civilities without embarassment, and told me how much i honoured her country by coming to survey it. she had been at inverness to gain the common female qualifications, and had, like her father, the english pronunciation. i presented her with a book, which i happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me. in the evening the soldiers, whom we had passed on the road, came to spend at our inn the little money that we had given them. they had the true military impatience of coin in their pockets, and had marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought. having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented, i was glad of their arrival, because i knew that we had made them friends, and to gain still more of their good will, we went to them, where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift. all that we gave was not much, but it detained them in the barn, either merry or quarrelling, the whole night, and in the morning they went back to their work, with great indignation at the bad qualities of whisky. we had gained so much the favour of our host, that, when we left his house in the morning, he walked by us a great way, and entertained us with conversation both on his own condition, and that of the country. his life seemed to be merely pastoral, except that he differed from some of the ancient nomades in having a settled dwelling. his wealth consists of one hundred sheep, as many goats, twelve milk-cows, and twenty-eight beeves ready for the drover. from him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction, which is now driving the highlanders into the other hemisphere; and when i asked him whether they would stay at home, if they were well treated, he answered with indignation, that no man willingly left his native country. of the farm, which he himself occupied, the rent had, in twenty-five years, been advanced from five to twenty pounds, which he found himself so little able to pay, that he would be glad to try his fortune in some other place. yet he owned the reasonableness of raising the highland rents in a certain degree, and declared himself willing to pay ten pounds for the ground which he had formerly had for five. our host having amused us for a time, resigned us to our guides. the journey of this day was long, not that the distance was great, but that the way was difficult. we were now in the bosom of the highlands, with full leisure to contemplate the appearance and properties of mountainous regions, such as have been, in many countries, the last shelters of national distress, and are every where the scenes of adventures, stratagems, surprises and escapes. mountainous countries are not passed but with difficulty, not merely from the labour of climbing; for to climb is not always necessary: but because that which is not mountain is commonly bog, through which the way must be picked with caution. where there are hills, there is much rain, and the torrents pouring down into the intermediate spaces, seldom find so ready an outlet, as not to stagnate, till they have broken the texture of the ground. of the hills, which our journey offered to the view on either side, we did not take the height, nor did we see any that astonished us with their loftiness. towards the summit of one, there was a white spot, which i should have called a naked rock, but the guides, who had better eyes, and were acquainted with the phenomena of the country, declared it to be snow. it had already lasted to the end of august, and was likely to maintain its contest with the sun, till it should be reinforced by winter. the height of mountains philosophically considered is properly computed from the surface of the next sea; but as it affects the eye or imagination of the passenger, as it makes either a spectacle or an obstruction, it must be reckoned from the place where the rise begins to make a considerable angle with the plain. in extensive continents the land may, by gradual elevation, attain great height, without any other appearance than that of a plane gently inclined, and if a hill placed upon such raised ground be described, as having its altitude equal to the whole space above the sea, the representation will be fallacious. these mountains may be properly enough measured from the inland base; for it is not much above the sea. as we advanced at evening towards the western coast, i did not observe the declivity to be greater than is necessary for the discharge of the inland waters. we passed many rivers and rivulets, which commonly ran with a clear shallow stream over a hard pebbly bottom. these channels, which seem so much wider than the water that they convey would naturally require, are formed by the violence of wintry floods, produced by the accumulation of innumerable streams that fall in rainy weather from the hills, and bursting away with resistless impetuosity, make themselves a passage proportionate to their mass. such capricious and temporary waters cannot be expected to produce many fish. the rapidity of the wintry deluge sweeps them away, and the scantiness of the summer stream would hardly sustain them above the ground. this is the reason why in fording the northern rivers, no fishes are seen, as in england, wandering in the water. of the hills many may be called with homer's ida 'abundant in springs', but few can deserve the epithet which he bestows upon pelion by 'waving their leaves.' they exhibit very little variety; being almost wholly covered with dark heath, and even that seems to be checked in its growth. what is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. an eye accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility. the appearance is that of matter incapable of form or usefulness, dismissed by nature from her care and disinherited of her favours, left in its original elemental state, or quickened only with one sullen power of useless vegetation. it will very readily occur, that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little amusement to the traveller; that it is easy to sit at home and conceive rocks and heath, and waterfalls; and that these journeys are useless labours, which neither impregnate the imagination, nor enlarge the understanding. it is true that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. as we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider basis of analogy. regions mountainous and wild, thinly inhabited, and little cultivated, make a great part of the earth, and he that has never seen them, must live unacquainted with much of the face of nature, and with one of the great scenes of human existence. as the day advanced towards noon, we entered a narrow valley not very flowery, but sufficiently verdant. our guides told us, that the horses could not travel all day without rest or meat, and intreated us to stop here, because no grass would be found in any other place. the request was reasonable and the argument cogent. we therefore willingly dismounted and diverted ourselves as the place gave us opportunity. i sat down on a bank, such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign. i had indeed no trees to whisper over my head, but a clear rivulet streamed at my feet. the day was calm, the air soft, and all was rudeness, silence, and solitude. before me, and on either side, were high hills, which by hindering the eye from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment for itself. whether i spent the hour well i know not; for here i first conceived the thought of this narration. we were in this place at ease and by choice, and had no evils to suffer or to fear; yet the imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens, a flattering notion of self-sufficiency, a placid indulgence of voluntary delusions, a secure expansion of the fancy, or a cool concentration of the mental powers. the phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform. there were no traces of inhabitants, except perhaps a rude pile of clods called a summer hut, in which a herdsman had rested in the favourable seasons. whoever had been in the place where i then sat, unprovided with provisions and ignorant of the country, might, at least before the roads were made, have wandered among the rocks, till he had perished with hardship, before he could have found either food or shelter. yet what are these hillocks to the ridges of taurus, or these spots of wildness to the desarts of america? it was not long before we were invited to mount, and continued our journey along the side of a lough, kept full by many streams, which with more or less rapidity and noise, crossed the road from the hills on the other hand. these currents, in their diminished state, after several dry months, afford, to one who has always lived in level countries, an unusual and delightful spectacle; but in the rainy season, such as every winter may be expected to bring, must precipitate an impetuous and tremendous flood. i suppose the way by which we went, is at that time impassable. glensheals the lough at last ended in a river broad and shallow like the rest, but that it may be passed when it is deeper, there is a bridge over it. beyond it is a valley called glensheals, inhabited by the clan of macrae. here we found a village called auknasheals, consisting of many huts, perhaps twenty, built all of dry-stone, that is, stones piled up without mortar. we had, by the direction of the officers at fort augustus, taken bread for ourselves, and tobacco for those highlanders who might show us any kindness. we were now at a place where we could obtain milk, but we must have wanted bread if we had not brought it. the people of this valley did not appear to know any english, and our guides now became doubly necessary as interpreters. a woman, whose hut was distinguished by greater spaciousness and better architecture, brought out some pails of milk. the villagers gathered about us in considerable numbers, i believe without any evil intention, but with a very savage wildness of aspect and manner. when our meal was over, mr. boswell sliced the bread, and divided it amongst them, as he supposed them never to have tasted a wheaten loaf before. he then gave them little pieces of twisted tobacco, and among the children we distributed a small handful of halfpence, which they received with great eagerness. yet i have been since told, that the people of that valley are not indigent; and when we mentioned them afterwards as needy and pitiable, a highland lady let us know, that we might spare our commiseration; for the dame whose milk we drank had probably more than a dozen milk-cows. she seemed unwilling to take any price, but being pressed to make a demand, at last named a shilling. honesty is not greater where elegance is less. one of the bystanders, as we were told afterwards, advised her to ask for more, but she said a shilling was enough. we gave her half a crown, and i hope got some credit for our behaviour; for the company said, if our interpreters did not flatter us, that they had not seen such a day since the old laird of macleod passed through their country. the macraes, as we heard afterwards in the hebrides, were originally an indigent and subordinate clan, and having no farms nor stock, were in great numbers servants to the maclellans, who, in the war of charles the first, took arms at the call of the heroic montrose, and were, in one of his battles, almost all destroyed. the women that were left at home, being thus deprived of their husbands, like the scythian ladies of old, married their servants, and the macraes became a considerable race. the highlands as we continued our journey, we were at leisure to extend our speculations, and to investigate the reason of those peculiarities by which such rugged regions as these before us are generally distinguished. mountainous countries commonly contain the original, at least the oldest race of inhabitants, for they are not easily conquered, because they must be entered by narrow ways, exposed to every power of mischief from those that occupy the heights; and every new ridge is a new fortress, where the defendants have again the same advantages. if the assailants either force the strait, or storm the summit, they gain only so much ground; their enemies are fled to take possession of the next rock, and the pursuers stand at gaze, knowing neither where the ways of escape wind among the steeps, nor where the bog has firmness to sustain them: besides that, mountaineers have an agility in climbing and descending distinct from strength or courage, and attainable only by use. if the war be not soon concluded, the invaders are dislodged by hunger; for in those anxious and toilsome marches, provisions cannot easily be carried, and are never to be found. the wealth of mountains is cattle, which, while the men stand in the passes, the women drive away. such lands at last cannot repay the expence of conquest, and therefore perhaps have not been so often invaded by the mere ambition of dominion; as by resentment of robberies and insults, or the desire of enjoying in security the more fruitful provinces. as mountains are long before they are conquered, they are likewise long before they are civilized. men are softened by intercourse mutually profitable, and instructed by comparing their own notions with those of others. thus caesar found the maritime parts of britain made less barbarous by their commerce with the gauls. into a barren and rough tract no stranger is brought either by the hope of gain or of pleasure. the inhabitants having neither commodities for sale, nor money for purchase, seldom visit more polished places, or if they do visit them, seldom return. it sometimes happens that by conquest, intermixture, or gradual refinement, the cultivated parts of a country change their language. the mountaineers then become a distinct nation, cut off by dissimilitude of speech from conversation with their neighbours. thus in biscay, the original cantabrian, and in dalecarlia, the old swedish still subsists. thus wales and the highlands speak the tongue of the first inhabitants of britain, while the other parts have received first the saxon, and in some degree afterwards the french, and then formed a third language between them. that the primitive manners are continued where the primitive language is spoken, no nation will desire me to suppose, for the manners of mountaineers are commonly savage, but they are rather produced by their situation than derived from their ancestors. such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry. england, before other causes of enmity were found, was disturbed for some centuries by the contests of the northern and southern counties; so that at oxford, the peace of study could for a long time be preserved only by chusing annually one of the proctors from each side of the trent. a tract intersected by many ridges of mountains, naturally divides its inhabitants into petty nations, which are made by a thousand causes enemies to each other. each will exalt its own chiefs, each will boast the valour of its men, or the beauty of its women, and every claim of superiority irritates competition; injuries will sometimes be done, and be more injuriously defended; retaliation will sometimes be attempted, and the debt exacted with too much interest. in the highlands it was a law, that if a robber was sheltered from justice, any man of the same clan might be taken in his place. this was a kind of irregular justice, which, though necessary in savage times, could hardly fail to end in a feud, and a feud once kindled among an idle people with no variety of pursuits to divert their thoughts, burnt on for ages either sullenly glowing in secret mischief, or openly blazing into public violence. of the effects of this violent judicature, there are not wanting memorials. the cave is now to be seen to which one of the campbells, who had injured the macdonalds, retired with a body of his own clan. the macdonalds required the offender, and being refused, made a fire at the mouth of the cave, by which he and his adherents were suffocated together. mountaineers are warlike, because by their feuds and competitions they consider themselves as surrounded with enemies, and are always prepared to repel incursions, or to make them. like the greeks in their unpolished state, described by thucydides, the highlanders, till lately, went always armed, and carried their weapons to visits, and to church. mountaineers are thievish, because they are poor, and having neither manufactures nor commerce, can grow richer only by robbery. they regularly plunder their neighbours, for their neighbours are commonly their enemies; and having lost that reverence for property, by which the order of civil life is preserved, soon consider all as enemies, whom they do not reckon as friends, and think themselves licensed to invade whatever they are not obliged to protect. by a strict administration of the laws, since the laws have been introduced into the highlands, this disposition to thievery is very much represt. thirty years ago no herd had ever been conducted through the mountains, without paying tribute in the night, to some of the clans; but cattle are now driven, and passengers travel without danger, fear, or molestation. among a warlike people, the quality of highest esteem is personal courage, and with the ostentatious display of courage are closely connected promptitude of offence and quickness of resentment. the highlanders, before they were disarmed, were so addicted to quarrels, that the boys used to follow any publick procession or ceremony, however festive, or however solemn, in expectation of the battle, which was sure to happen before the company dispersed. mountainous regions are sometimes so remote from the seat of government, and so difficult of access, that they are very little under the influence of the sovereign, or within the reach of national justice. law is nothing without power; and the sentence of a distant court could not be easily executed, nor perhaps very safely promulgated, among men ignorantly proud and habitually violent, unconnected with the general system, and accustomed to reverence only their own lords. it has therefore been necessary to erect many particular jurisdictions, and commit the punishment of crimes, and the decision of right to the proprietors of the country who could enforce their own decrees. it immediately appears that such judges will be often ignorant, and often partial; but in the immaturity of political establishments no better expedient could be found. as government advances towards perfection, provincial judicature is perhaps in every empire gradually abolished. those who had thus the dispensation of law, were by consequence themselves lawless. their vassals had no shelter from outrages and oppressions; but were condemned to endure, without resistance, the caprices of wantonness, and the rage of cruelty. in the highlands, some great lords had an hereditary jurisdiction over counties; and some chieftains over their own lands; till the final conquest of the highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing all the local courts, and of extending the general benefits of equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest recesses and obscurest corners. while the chiefs had this resemblance of royalty, they had little inclination to appeal, on any question, to superior judicatures. a claim of lands between two powerful lairds was decided like a contest for dominion between sovereign powers. they drew their forces into the field, and right attended on the strongest. this was, in ruder times, the common practice, which the kings of scotland could seldom control. even so lately as in the last years of king william, a battle was fought at mull roy, on a plain a few miles to the south of inverness, between the clans of mackintosh and macdonald of keppoch. col. macdonald, the head of a small clan, refused to pay the dues demanded from him by mackintosh, as his superior lord. they disdained the interposition of judges and laws, and calling each his followers to maintain the dignity of the clan, fought a formal battle, in which several considerable men fell on the side of mackintosh, without a complete victory to either. this is said to have been the last open war made between the clans by their own authority. the highland lords made treaties, and formed alliances, of which some traces may still be found, and some consequences still remain as lasting evidences of petty regality. the terms of one of these confederacies were, that each should support the other in the right, or in the wrong, except against the king. the inhabitants of mountains form distinct races, and are careful to preserve their genealogies. men in a small district necessarily mingle blood by intermarriages, and combine at last into one family, with a common interest in the honour and disgrace of every individual. then begins that union of affections, and co-operation of endeavours, that constitute a clan. they who consider themselves as ennobled by their family, will think highly of their progenitors, and they who through successive generations live always together in the same place, will preserve local stories and hereditary prejudices. thus every highlander can talk of his ancestors, and recount the outrages which they suffered from the wicked inhabitants of the next valley. such are the effects of habitation among mountains, and such were the qualities of the highlanders, while their rocks secluded them from the rest of mankind, and kept them an unaltered and discriminated race. they are now losing their distinction, and hastening to mingle with the general community. glenelg we left auknasheals and the macraes its the afternoon, and in the evening came to ratiken, a high hill on which a road is cut, but so steep and narrow, that it is very difficult. there is now a design of making another way round the bottom. upon one of the precipices, my horse, weary with the steepness of the rise, staggered a little, and i called in haste to the highlander to hold him. this was the only moment of my journey, in which i thought myself endangered. having surmounted the hill at last, we were told that at glenelg, on the sea-side, we should come to a house of lime and slate and glass. this image of magnificence raised our expectation. at last we came to our inn weary and peevish, and began to inquire for meat and beds. of the provisions the negative catalogue was very copious. here was no meat, no milk, no bread, no eggs, no wine. we did not express much satisfaction. here however we were to stay. whisky we might have, and i believe at last they caught a fowl and killed it. we had some bread, and with that we prepared ourselves to be contented, when we had a very eminent proof of highland hospitality. along some miles of the way, in the evening, a gentleman's servant had kept us company on foot with very little notice on our part. he left us near glenelg, and we thought on him no more till he came to us again, in about two hours, with a present from his master of rum and sugar. the man had mentioned his company, and the gentleman, whose name, i think, is gordon, well knowing the penury of the place, had this attention to two men, whose names perhaps he had not heard, by whom his kindness was not likely to be ever repaid, and who could be recommended to him only by their necessities. we were now to examine our lodging. out of one of the beds, on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a cyclops from the forge. other circumstances of no elegant recital concurred to disgust us. we had been frighted by a lady at edinburgh, with discouraging representations of highland lodgings. sleep, however, was necessary. our highlanders had at last found some hay, with which the inn could not supply them. i directed them to bring a bundle into the room, and slept upon it in my riding coat. mr. boswell being more delicate, laid himself sheets with hay over and under him, and lay in linen like a gentleman. sky. armidel in the morning, september the second, we found ourselves on the edge of the sea. having procured a boat, we dismissed our highlanders, whom i would recommend to the service of any future travellers, and were ferried over to the isle of sky. we landed at armidel, where we were met on the sands by sir alexander macdonald, who was at that time there with his lady, preparing to leave the island and reside at edinburgh. armidel is a neat house, built where the macdonalds had once a seat, which was burnt in the commotions that followed the revolution. the walled orchard, which belonged to the former house, still remains. it is well shaded by tall ash trees, of a species, as mr. janes the fossilist informed me, uncommonly valuable. this plantation is very properly mentioned by dr. campbell, in his new account of the state of britain, and deserves attention; because it proves that the present nakedness of the hebrides is not wholly the fault of nature. as we sat at sir alexander's table, we were entertained, according to the ancient usage of the north, with the melody of the bagpipe. everything in those countries has its history. as the bagpiper was playing, an elderly gentleman informed us, that in some remote time, the macdonalds of glengary having been injured, or offended by the inhabitants of culloden, and resolving to have justice or vengeance, came to culloden on a sunday, where finding their enemies at worship, they shut them up in the church, which they set on fire; and this, said he, is the tune that the piper played while they were burning. narrations like this, however uncertain, deserve the notice of the traveller, because they are the only records of a nation that has no historians, and afford the most genuine representation of the life and character of the ancient highlanders. under the denomination of highlander are comprehended in scotland all that now speak the erse language, or retain the primitive manners, whether they live among the mountains or in the islands; and in that sense i use the name, when there is not some apparent reason for making a distinction. in sky i first observed the use of brogues, a kind of artless shoes, stitched with thongs so loosely, that though they defend the foot from stones, they do not exclude water. brogues were formerly made of raw hides, with the hair inwards, and such are perhaps still used in rude and remote parts; but they are said not to last above two days. where life is somewhat improved, they are now made of leather tanned with oak bark, as in other places, or with the bark of birch, or roots of tormentil, a substance recommended in defect of bark, about forty years ago, to the irish tanners, by one to whom the parliament of that kingdom voted a reward. the leather of sky is not completely penetrated by vegetable matter, and therefore cannot be very durable. my inquiries about brogues, gave me an early specimen of highland information. one day i was told, that to make brogues was a domestick art, which every man practised for himself, and that a pair of brogues was the work of an hour. i supposed that the husband made brogues as the wife made an apron, till next day it was told me, that a brogue-maker was a trade, and that a pair would cost half a crown. it will easily occur that these representations may both be true, and that, in some places, men may buy them, and in others, make them for themselves; but i had both the accounts in the same house within two days. many of my subsequent inquiries upon more interesting topicks ended in the like uncertainty. he that travels in the highlands may easily saturate his soul with intelligence, if he will acquiesce in the first account. the highlander gives to every question an answer so prompt and peremptory, that skepticism itself is dared into silence, and the mind sinks before the bold reporter in unresisting credulity; but, if a second question be ventured, it breaks the enchantment; for it is immediately discovered, that what was told so confidently was told at hazard, and that such fearlessness of assertion was either the sport of negligence, or the refuge of ignorance. if individuals are thus at variance with themselves, it can be no wonder that the accounts of different men are contradictory. the traditions of an ignorant and savage people have been for ages negligently heard, and unskilfully related. distant events must have been mingled together, and the actions of one man given to another. these, however, are deficiencies in story, for which no man is now to be censured. it were enough, if what there is yet opportunity of examining were accurately inspected, and justly represented; but such is the laxity of highland conversation, that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more. in the islands the plaid is rarely worn. the law by which the highlanders have been obliged to change the form of their dress, has, in all the places that we have visited, been universally obeyed. i have seen only one gentleman completely clothed in the ancient habit, and by him it was worn only occasionally and wantonly. the common people do not think themselves under any legal necessity of having coats; for they say that the law against plaids was made by lord hardwicke, and was in force only for his life: but the same poverty that made it then difficult for them to change their clothing, hinders them now from changing it again. the fillibeg, or lower garment, is still very common, and the bonnet almost universal; but their attire is such as produces, in a sufficient degree, the effect intended by the law, of abolishing the dissimilitude of appearance between the highlanders and the other inhabitants of britain; and, if dress be supposed to have much influence, facilitates their coalition with their fellow-subjects. what we have long used we naturally like, and therefore the highlanders were unwilling to lay aside their plaid, which yet to an unprejudiced spectator must appear an incommodious and cumbersome dress; for hanging loose upon the body, it must flutter in a quick motion, or require one of the hands to keep it close. the romans always laid aside the gown when they had anything to do. it was a dress so unsuitable to war, that the same word which signified a gown signified peace. the chief use of a plaid seems to be this, that they could commodiously wrap themselves in it, when they were obliged to sleep without a better cover. in our passage from scotland to sky, we were wet for the first time with a shower. this was the beginning of the highland winter, after which we were told that a succession of three dry days was not to be expected for many months. the winter of the hebrides consists of little more than rain and wind. as they are surrounded by an ocean never frozen, the blasts that come to them over the water are too much softened to have the power of congelation. the salt loughs, or inlets of the sea, which shoot very far into the island, never have any ice upon them, and the pools of fresh water will never bear the walker. the snow that sometimes falls, is soon dissolved by the air, or the rain. this is not the description of a cruel climate, yet the dark months are here a time of great distress; because the summer can do little more than feed itself, and winter comes with its cold and its scarcity upon families very slenderly provided. coriatachan in sky the third or fourth day after our arrival at armidel, brought us an invitation to the isle of raasay, which lies east of sky. it is incredible how soon the account of any event is propagated in these narrow countries by the love of talk, which much leisure produces, and the relief given to the mind in the penury of insular conversation by a new topick. the arrival of strangers at a place so rarely visited, excites rumour, and quickens curiosity. i know not whether we touched at any corner, where fame had not already prepared us a reception. to gain a commodious passage to raasay, it was necessary to pass over a large part of sky. we were furnished therefore with horses and a guide. in the islands there are no roads, nor any marks by which a stranger may find his way. the horseman has always at his side a native of the place, who, by pursuing game, or tending cattle, or being often employed in messages or conduct, has learned where the ridge of the hill has breadth sufficient to allow a horse and his rider a passage, and where the moss or bog is hard enough to bear them. the bogs are avoided as toilsome at least, if not unsafe, and therefore the journey is made generally from precipice to precipice; from which if the eye ventures to look down, it sees below a gloomy cavity, whence the rush of water is sometimes heard. but there seems to be in all this more alarm than danger. the highlander walks carefully before, and the horse, accustomed to the ground, follows him with little deviation. sometimes the hill is too steep for the horseman to keep his seat, and sometimes the moss is too tremulous to bear the double weight of horse and man. the rider then dismounts, and all shift as they can. journies made in this manner are rather tedious than long. a very few miles require several hours. from armidel we came at night to coriatachan, a house very pleasantly situated between two brooks, with one of the highest hills of the island behind it. it is the residence of mr. mackinnon, by whom we were treated with very liberal hospitality, among a more numerous and elegant company than it could have been supposed easy to collect. the hill behind the house we did not climb. the weather was rough, and the height and steepness discouraged us. we were told that there is a cairne upon it. a cairne is a heap of stones thrown upon the grave of one eminent for dignity of birth, or splendour of atchievements. it is said that by digging, an urn is always found under these cairnes: they must therefore have been thus piled by a people whose custom was to burn the dead. to pile stones is, i believe, a northern custom, and to burn the body was the roman practice; nor do i know when it was that these two acts of sepulture were united. the weather was next day too violent for the continuation of our journey; but we had no reason to complain of the interruption. we saw in every place, what we chiefly desired to know, the manners of the people. we had company, and, if we had chosen retirement, we might have had books. i never was in any house of the islands, where i did not find books in more languages than one, if i staid long enough to want them, except one from which the family was removed. literature is not neglected by the higher rank of the hebridians. it need not, i suppose, be mentioned, that in countries so little frequented as the islands, there are no houses where travellers are entertained for money. he that wanders about these wilds, either procures recommendations to those whose habitations lie near his way, or, when night and weariness come upon him, takes the chance of general hospitality. if he finds only a cottage, he can expect little more than shelter; for the cottagers have little more for themselves: but if his good fortune brings him to the residence of a gentleman, he will be glad of a storm to prolong his stay. there is, however, one inn by the sea- side at sconsor, in sky, where the post-office is kept. at the tables where a stranger is received, neither plenty nor delicacy is wanting. a tract of land so thinly inhabited, must have much wild- fowl; and i scarcely remember to have seen a dinner without them. the moorgame is every where to be had. that the sea abounds with fish, needs not be told, for it supplies a great part of europe. the isle of sky has stags and roebucks, but no hares. they sell very numerous droves of oxen yearly to england, and therefore cannot be supposed to want beef at home. sheep and goats are in great numbers, and they have the common domestick fowls. but as here is nothing to be bought, every family must kill its own meat, and roast part of it somewhat sooner than apicius would prescribe. every kind of flesh is undoubtedly excelled by the variety and emulation of english markets; but that which is not best may be yet very far from bad, and he that shall complain of his fare in the hebrides, has improved his delicacy more than his manhood. their fowls are not like those plumped for sale by the poulterers of london, but they are as good as other places commonly afford, except that the geese, by feeding in the sea, have universally a fishy rankness. these geese seem to be of a middle race, between the wild and domestick kinds. they are so tame as to own a home, and so wild as sometimes to fly quite away. their native bread is made of oats, or barley. of oatmeal they spread very thin cakes, coarse and hard, to which unaccustomed palates are not easily reconciled. the barley cakes are thicker and softer; i began to eat them without unwillingness; the blackness of their colour raises some dislike, but the taste is not disagreeable. in most houses there is wheat flower, with which we were sure to be treated, if we staid long enough to have it kneaded and baked. as neither yeast nor leaven are used among them, their bread of every kind is unfermented. they make only cakes, and never mould a loaf. a man of the hebrides, for of the women's diet i can give no account, as soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of whisky; yet they are not a drunken race, at least i never was present at much intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call a skalk. the word whisky signifies water, and is applied by way of eminence to strong water, or distilled liquor. the spirit drunk in the north is drawn from barley. i never tasted it, except once for experiment at the inn in inverary, when i thought it preferable to any english malt brandy. it was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatick taste or smell. what was the process i had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do i wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant. not long after the dram, may be expected the breakfast, a meal in which the scots, whether of the lowlands or mountains, must be confessed to excel us. the tea and coffee are accompanied not only with butter, but with honey, conserves, and marmalades. if an epicure could remove by a wish, in quest of sensual gratifications, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in scotland. in the islands however, they do what i found it not very easy to endure. they pollute the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of cheshire cheese, which mingles its less grateful odours with the fragrance of the tea. where many questions are to be asked, some will be omitted. i forgot to inquire how they were supplied with so much exotic luxury. perhaps the french may bring them wine for wool, and the dutch give them tea and coffee at the fishing season, in exchange for fresh provision. their trade is unconstrained; they pay no customs, for there is no officer to demand them; whatever therefore is made dear only by impost, is obtained here at an easy rate. a dinner in the western islands differs very little from a dinner in england, except that in the place of tarts, there are always set different preparations of milk. this part of their diet will admit some improvement. though they have milk, and eggs, and sugar, few of them know how to compound them in a custard. their gardens afford them no great variety, but they have always some vegetables on the table. potatoes at least are never wanting, which, though they have not known them long, are now one of the principal parts of their food. they are not of the mealy, but the viscous kind. their more elaborate cookery, or made dishes, an englishman at the first taste is not likely to approve, but the culinary compositions of every country are often such as become grateful to other nations only by degrees; though i have read a french author, who, in the elation of his heart, says, that french cookery pleases all foreigners, but foreign cookery never satisfies a frenchman. their suppers are, like their dinners, various and plentiful. the table is always covered with elegant linen. their plates for common use are often of that kind of manufacture which is called cream coloured, or queen's ware. they use silver on all occasions where it is common in england, nor did i ever find the spoon of horn, but in one house. the knives are not often either very bright, or very sharp. they are indeed instruments of which the highlanders have not been long acquainted with the general use. they were not regularly laid on the table, before the prohibition of arms, and the change of dress. thirty years ago the highlander wore his knife as a companion to his dirk or dagger, and when the company sat down to meat, the men who had knives, cut the flesh into small pieces for the women, who with their fingers conveyed it to their mouths. there was perhaps never any change of national manners so quick, so great, and so general, as that which has operated in the highlands, by the last conquest, and the subsequent laws. we came thither too late to see what we expected, a people of peculiar appearance, and a system of antiquated life. the clans retain little now of their original character, their ferocity of temper is softened, their military ardour is extinguished, their dignity of independence is depressed, their contempt of government subdued, and the reverence for their chiefs abated. of what they had before the late conquest of their country, there remain only their language and their poverty. their language is attacked on every side. schools are erected, in which english only is taught, and there were lately some who thought it reasonable to refuse them a version of the holy scriptures, that they might have no monument of their mother- tongue. that their poverty is gradually abated, cannot be mentioned among the unpleasing consequences of subjection. they are now acquainted with money, and the possibility of gain will by degrees make them industrious. such is the effect of the late regulations, that a longer journey than to the highlands must be taken by him whose curiosity pants for savage virtues and barbarous grandeur. raasay at the first intermission of the stormy weather we were informed, that the boat, which was to convey us to raasay, attended us on the coast. we had from this time our intelligence facilitated, and our conversation enlarged, by the company of mr. macqueen, minister of a parish in sky, whose knowledge and politeness give him a title equally to kindness and respect, and who, from this time, never forsook us till we were preparing to leave sky, and the adjacent places. the boat was under the direction of mr. malcolm macleod, a gentleman of raasay. the water was calm, and the rowers were vigorous; so that our passage was quick and pleasant. when we came near the island, we saw the laird's house, a neat modern fabrick, and found mr. macleod, the proprietor of the island, with many gentlemen, expecting us on the beach. we had, as at all other places, some difficulty in landing. the craggs were irregularly broken, and a false step would have been very mischievous. it seemed that the rocks might, with no great labour, have been hewn almost into a regular flight of steps; and as there are no other landing places, i considered this rugged ascent as the consequence of a form of life inured to hardships, and therefore not studious of nice accommodations. but i know not whether, for many ages, it was not considered as a part of military policy, to keep the country not easily accessible. the rocks are natural fortifications, and an enemy climbing with difficulty, was easily destroyed by those who stood high above him. our reception exceeded our expectations. we found nothing but civility, elegance, and plenty. after the usual refreshments, and the usual conversation, the evening came upon us. the carpet was then rolled off the floor; the musician was called, and the whole company was invited to dance, nor did ever fairies trip with greater alacrity. the general air of festivity, which predominated in this place, so far remote from all those regions which the mind has been used to contemplate as the mansions of pleasure, struck the imagination with a delightful surprise, analogous to that which is felt at an unexpected emersion from darkness into light. when it was time to sup, the dance ceased, and six and thirty persons sat down to two tables in the same room. after supper the ladies sung erse songs, to which i listened as an english audience to an italian opera, delighted with the sound of words which i did not understand. i inquired the subjects of the songs, and was told of one, that it was a love song, and of another, that it was a farewell composed by one of the islanders that was going, in this epidemical fury of emigration, to seek his fortune in america. what sentiments would arise, on such an occasion, in the heart of one who had not been taught to lament by precedent, i should gladly have known; but the lady, by whom i sat, thought herself not equal to the work of translating. mr. macleod is the proprietor of the islands of raasay, rona, and fladda, and possesses an extensive district in sky. the estate has not, during four hundred years, gained or lost a single acre. he acknowledges macleod of dunvegan as his chief, though his ancestors have formerly disputed the pre-eminence. one of the old highland alliances has continued for two hundred years, and is still subsisting between macleod of raasay and macdonald of sky, in consequence of which, the survivor always inherits the arms of the deceased; a natural memorial of military friendship. at the death of the late sir james macdonald, his sword was delivered to the present laird of raasay. the family of raasay consists of the laird, the lady, three sons and ten daughters. for the sons there is a tutor in the house, and the lady is said to be very skilful and diligent in the education of her girls. more gentleness of manners, or a more pleasing appearance of domestick society, is not found in the most polished countries. raasay is the only inhabited island in mr. macleod's possession. rona and fladda afford only pasture for cattle, of which one hundred and sixty winter in rona, under the superintendence of a solitary herdsman. the length of raasay is, by computation, fifteen miles, and the breadth two. these countries have never been measured, and the computation by miles is negligent and arbitrary. we observed in travelling, that the nominal and real distance of places had very little relation to each other. raasay probably contains near a hundred square miles. it affords not much ground, notwithstanding its extent, either for tillage, or pasture; for it is rough, rocky, and barren. the cattle often perish by falling from the precipices. it is like the other islands, i think, generally naked of shade, but it is naked by neglect; for the laird has an orchard, and very large forest trees grow about his house. like other hilly countries it has many rivulets. one of the brooks turns a corn- mill, and at least one produces trouts. in the streams or fresh lakes of the islands, i have never heard of any other fish than trouts and eels. the trouts, which i have seen, are not large; the colour of their flesh is tinged as in england. of their eels i can give no account, having never tasted them; for i believe they are not considered as wholesome food. it is not very easy to fix the principles upon which mankind have agreed to eat some animals, and reject others; and as the principle is not evident, it is not uniform. that which is selected as delicate in one country, is by its neighbours abhorred as loathsome. the neapolitans lately refused to eat potatoes in a famine. an englishman is not easily persuaded to dine on snails with an italian, on frogs with a frenchman, or on horseflesh with a tartar. the vulgar inhabitants of sky, i know not whether of the other islands, have not only eels, but pork and bacon in abhorrence, and accordingly i never saw a hog in the hebrides, except one at dunvegan. raasay has wild fowl in abundance, but neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. why it has them not, might be asked, but that of such questions there is no end. why does any nation want what it might have? why are not spices transplanted to america? why does tea continue to be brought from china? life improves but by slow degrees, and much in every place is yet to do. attempts have been made to raise roebucks in raasay, but without effect. the young ones it is extremely difficult to rear, and the old can very seldom be taken alive. hares and rabbits might be more easily obtained. that they have few or none of either in sky, they impute to the ravage of the foxes, and have therefore set, for some years past, a price upon their heads, which, as the number was diminished, has been gradually raised, from three shillings and sixpence to a guinea, a sum so great in this part of the world, that, in a short time, sky may be as free from foxes, as england from wolves. the fund for these rewards is a tax of sixpence in the pound, imposed by the farmers on themselves, and said to be paid with great willingness. the beasts of prey in the islands are foxes, otters, and weasels. the foxes are bigger than those of england; but the otters exceed ours in a far greater proportion. i saw one at armidel, of a size much beyond that which i supposed them ever to attain; and mr. maclean, the heir of col, a man of middle stature, informed me that he once shot an otter, of which the tail reached the ground, when he held up the head to a level with his own. i expected the otter to have a foot particularly formed for the art of swimming; but upon examination, i did not find it differing much from that of a spaniel. as he preys in the sea, he does little visible mischief, and is killed only for his fur. white otters are sometimes seen. in raasay they might have hares and rabbits, for they have no foxes. some depredations, such as were never made before, have caused a suspicion that a fox has been lately landed in the island by spite or wantonness. this imaginary stranger has never yet been seen, and therefore, perhaps, the mischief was done by some other animal. it is not likely that a creature so ungentle, whose head could have been sold in sky for a guinea, should be kept alive only to gratify the malice of sending him to prey upon a neighbour: and the passage from sky is wider than a fox would venture to swim, unless he were chased by dogs into the sea, and perhaps than his strength would enable him to cross. how beasts of prey came into any islands is not easy to guess. in cold countries they take advantage of hard winters, and travel over the ice: but this is a very scanty solution; for they are found where they have no discoverable means of coming. the corn of this island is but little. i saw the harvest of a small field. the women reaped the corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. the strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest song, in which all their voices were united. they accompany in the highlands every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. the ancient proceleusmatick song, by which the rowers of gallies were animated, may be supposed to have been of this kind. there is now an oar-song used by the hebridians. the ground of raasay seems fitter for cattle than for corn, and of black cattle i suppose the number is very great. the laird himself keeps a herd of four hundred, one hundred of which are annually sold. of an extensive domain, which he holds in his own hands, he considers the sale of cattle as repaying him the rent, and supports the plenty of a very liberal table with the remaining product. raasay is supposed to have been very long inhabited. on one side of it they show caves, into which the rude nations of the first ages retreated from the weather. these dreary vaults might have had other uses. there is still a cavity near the house called the oar-cave, in which the seamen, after one of those piratical expeditions, which in rougher times were very frequent, used, as tradition tells, to hide their oars. this hollow was near the sea, that nothing so necessary might be far to be fetched; and it was secret, that enemies, if they landed, could find nothing. yet it is not very evident of what use it was to hide their oars from those, who, if they were masters of the coast, could take away their boats. a proof much stronger of the distance at which the first possessors of this island lived from the present time, is afforded by the stone heads of arrows which are very frequently picked up. the people call them elf- bolts, and believe that the fairies shoot them at the cattle. they nearly resemble those which mr. banks has lately brought from the savage countries in the pacifick ocean, and must have been made by a nation to which the use of metals was unknown. the number of this little community has never been counted by its ruler, nor have i obtained any positive account, consistent with the result of political computation. not many years ago, the late laird led out one hundred men upon a military expedition. the sixth part of a people is supposed capable of bearing arms: raasay had therefore six hundred inhabitants. but because it is not likely, that every man able to serve in the field would follow the summons, or that the chief would leave his lands totally defenceless, or take away all the hands qualified for labour, let it be supposed, that half as many might be permitted to stay at home. the whole number will then be nine hundred, or nine to a square mile; a degree of populousness greater than those tracts of desolation can often show. they are content with their country, and faithful to their chiefs, and yet uninfected with the fever of migration. near the house, at raasay, is a chapel unroofed and ruinous, which has long been used only as a place of burial. about the churches, in the islands, are small squares inclosed with stone, which belong to particular families, as repositories for the dead. at raasay there is one, i think, for the proprietor, and one for some collateral house. it is told by martin, that at the death of the lady of the island, it has been here the custom to erect a cross. this we found not to be true. the stones that stand about the chapel at a small distance, some of which perhaps have crosses cut upon them, are believed to have been not funeral monuments, but the ancient boundaries of the sanctuary or consecrated ground. martin was a man not illiterate: he was an inhabitant of sky, and therefore was within reach of intelligence, and with no great difficulty might have visited the places which he undertakes to describe; yet with all his opportunities, he has often suffered himself to be deceived. he lived in the last century, when the chiefs of the clans had lost little of their original influence. the mountains were yet unpenetrated, no inlet was opened to foreign novelties, and the feudal institution operated upon life with their full force. he might therefore have displayed a series of subordination and a form of government, which, in more luminous and improved regions, have been long forgotten, and have delighted his readers with many uncouth customs that are now disused, and wild opinions that prevail no longer. but he probably had not knowledge of the world sufficient to qualify him for judging what would deserve or gain the attention of mankind. the mode of life which was familiar to himself, he did not suppose unknown to others, nor imagined that he could give pleasure by telling that of which it was, in his little country, impossible to be ignorant. what he has neglected cannot now be performed. in nations, where there is hardly the use of letters, what is once out of sight is lost for ever. they think but little, and of their few thoughts, none are wasted on the past, in which they are neither interested by fear nor hope. their only registers are stated observances and practical representations. for this reason an age of ignorance is an age of ceremony. pageants, and processions, and commemorations, gradually shrink away, as better methods come into use of recording events, and preserving rights. it is not only in raasay that the chapel is unroofed and useless; through the few islands which we visited, we neither saw nor heard of any house of prayer, except in sky, that was not in ruins. the malignant influence of calvinism has blasted ceremony and decency together; and if the remembrance of papal superstition is obliterated, the monuments of papal piety are likewise effaced. it has been, for many years, popular to talk of the lazy devotion of the romish clergy; over the sleepy laziness of men that erected churches, we may indulge our superiority with a new triumph, by comparing it with the fervid activity of those who suffer them to fall. of the destruction of churches, the decay of religion must in time be the consequence; for while the publick acts of the ministry are now performed in houses, a very small number can be present; and as the greater part of the islanders make no use of books, all must necessarily live in total ignorance who want the opportunity of vocal instruction. from these remains of ancient sanctity, which are every where to be found, it has been conjectured, that, for the last two centuries, the inhabitants of the islands have decreased in number. this argument, which supposes that the churches have been suffered to fall, only because they were no longer necessary, would have some force, if the houses of worship still remaining were sufficient for the people. but since they have now no churches at all, these venerable fragments do not prove the people of former times to have been more numerous, but to have been more devout. if the inhabitants were doubled with their present principles, it appears not that any provision for publick worship would be made. where the religion of a country enforces consecrated buildings, the number of those buildings may be supposed to afford some indication, however uncertain, of the populousness of the place; but where by a change of manners a nation is contented to live without them, their decay implies no diminution of inhabitants. some of these dilapidations are said to be found in islands now uninhabited; but i doubt whether we can thence infer that they were ever peopled. the religion of the middle age, is well known to have placed too much hope in lonely austerities. voluntary solitude was the great act of propitiation, by which crimes were effaced, and conscience was appeased; it is therefore not unlikely, that oratories were often built in places where retirement was sure to have no disturbance. raasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. such a seat of hospitality, amidst the winds and waters, fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images. without is the rough ocean and the rocky land, the beating billows and the howling storm: within is plenty and elegance, beauty and gaiety, the song and the dance. in raasay, if i could have found an ulysses, i had fancied a phoeacia. dunvegan at raasay, by good fortune, macleod, so the chief of the clan is called, was paying a visit, and by him we were invited to his seat at dunvegan. raasay has a stout boat, built in norway, in which, with six oars, he conveyed us back to sky. we landed at port re, so called, because james the fifth of scotland, who had curiosity to visit the islands, came into it. the port is made by an inlet of the sea, deep and narrow, where a ship lay waiting to dispeople sky, by carrying the natives away to america. in coasting sky, we passed by the cavern in which it was the custom, as martin relates, to catch birds in the night, by making a fire at the entrance. this practice is disused; for the birds, as is known often to happen, have changed their haunts. here we dined at a publick house, i believe the only inn of the island, and having mounted our horses, travelled in the manner already described, till we came to kingsborough, a place distinguished by that name, because the king lodged here when he landed at port re. we were entertained with the usual hospitality by mr. macdonald and his lady, flora macdonald, a name that will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour. she is a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and elegant presence. in the morning we sent our horses round a promontory to meet us, and spared ourselves part of the day's fatigue, by crossing an arm of the sea. we had at last some difficulty in coming to dunvegan; for our way led over an extensive moor, where every step was to be taken with caution, and we were often obliged to alight, because the ground could not be trusted. in travelling this watery flat, i perceived that it had a visible declivity, and might without much expence or difficulty be drained. but difficulty and expence are relative terms, which have different meanings in different places. to dunvegan we came, very willing to be at rest, and found our fatigue amply recompensed by our reception. lady macleod, who had lived many years in england, was newly come hither with her son and four daughters, who knew all the arts of southern elegance, and all the modes of english economy. here therefore we settled, and did not spoil the present hour with thoughts of departure. dunvegan is a rocky prominence, that juts out into a bay, on the west side of sky. the house, which is the principal seat of macleod, is partly old and partly modern; it is built upon the rock, and looks upon the water. it forms two sides of a small square: on the third side is the skeleton of a castle of unknown antiquity, supposed to have been a norwegian fortress, when the danes were masters of the islands. it is so nearly entire, that it might have easily been made habitable, were there not an ominous tradition in the family, that the owner shall not long outlive the reparation. the grandfather of the present laird, in defiance of prediction, began the work, but desisted in a little time, and applied his money to worse uses. as the inhabitants of the hebrides lived, for many ages, in continual expectation of hostilities, the chief of every clan resided in a fortress. this house was accessible only from the water, till the last possessor opened an entrance by stairs upon the land. they had formerly reason to be afraid, not only of declared wars and authorized invaders, or of roving pirates, which, in the northern seas, must have been very common; but of inroads and insults from rival clans, who, in the plenitude of feudal independence, asked no leave of their sovereign to make war on one another. sky has been ravaged by a feud between the two mighty powers of macdonald and macleod. macdonald having married a macleod upon some discontent dismissed her, perhaps because she had brought him no children. before the reign of james the fifth, a highland laird made a trial of his wife for a certain time, and if she did not please him, he was then at liberty to send her away. this however must always have offended, and macleod resenting the injury, whatever were its circumstances, declared, that the wedding had been solemnized without a bonfire, but that the separation should be better illuminated; and raising a little army, set fire to the territories of macdonald, who returned the visit, and prevailed. another story may show the disorderly state of insular neighbourhood. the inhabitants of the isle of egg, meeting a boat manned by macleods, tied the crew hand and foot, and set them a-drift. macleod landed upon egg, and demanded the offenders; but the inhabitants refusing to surrender them, retreated to a cavern, into which they thought their enemies unlikely to follow them. macleod choked them with smoke, and left them lying dead by families as they stood. here the violence of the weather confined us for some time, not at all to our discontent or inconvenience. we would indeed very willingly have visited the islands, which might be seen from the house scattered in the sea, and i was particularly desirous to have viewed isay; but the storms did not permit us to launch a boat, and we were condemned to listen in idleness to the wind, except when we were better engaged by listening to the ladies. we had here more wind than waves, and suffered the severity of a tempest, without enjoying its magnificence. the sea being broken by the multitude of islands, does not roar with so much noise, nor beat the shore with such foamy violence, as i have remarked on the coast of sussex. though, while i was in the hebrides, the wind was extremely turbulent, i never saw very high billows. the country about dunvegan is rough and barren. there are no trees, except in the orchard, which is a low sheltered spot surrounded with a wall. when this house was intended to sustain a siege, a well was made in the court, by boring the rock downwards, till water was found, which though so near to the sea, i have not heard mentioned as brackish, though it has some hardness, or other qualities, which make it less fit for use; and the family is now better supplied from a stream, which runs by the rock, from two pleasing waterfalls. here we saw some traces of former manners, and heard some standing traditions. in the house is kept an ox's horn, hollowed so as to hold perhaps two quarts, which the heir of macleod was expected to swallow at one draught, as a test of his manhood, before he was permitted to bear arms, or could claim a seat among the men. it is held that the return of the laird to dunvegan, after any considerable absence, produces a plentiful capture of herrings; and that, if any woman crosses the water to the opposite island, the herrings will desert the coast. boetius tells the same of some other place. this tradition is not uniform. some hold that no woman may pass, and others that none may pass but a macleod. among other guests, which the hospitality of dunvegan brought to the table, a visit was paid by the laird and lady of a small island south of sky, of which the proper name is muack, which signifies swine. it is commonly called muck, which the proprietor not liking, has endeavoured, without effect, to change to monk. it is usual to call gentlemen in scotland by the name of their possessions, as raasay, bernera, loch buy, a practice necessary in countries inhabited by clans, where all that live in the same territory have one name, and must be therefore discriminated by some addition. this gentleman, whose name, i think, is maclean, should be regularly called muck; but the appellation, which he thinks too coarse for his island, he would like still less for himself, and he is therefore addressed by the title of, isle of muck. this little island, however it be named, is of considerable value. it is two english miles long, and three quarters of a mile broad, and consequently contains only nine hundred and sixty english acres. it is chiefly arable. half of this little dominion the laird retains in his own hand, and on the other half, live one hundred and sixty persons, who pay their rent by exported corn. what rent they pay, we were not told, and could not decently inquire. the proportion of the people to the land is such, as the most fertile countries do not commonly maintain. the laird having all his people under his immediate view, seems to be very attentive to their happiness. the devastation of the small-pox, when it visits places where it comes seldom, is well known. he has disarmed it of its terrour at muack, by inoculating eighty of his people. the expence was two shillings and sixpence a head. many trades they cannot have among them, but upon occasion, he fetches a smith from the isle of egg, and has a tailor from the main land, six times a year. this island well deserved to be seen, but the laird's absence left us no opportunity. every inhabited island has its appendant and subordinate islets. muck, however small, has yet others smaller about it, one of which has only ground sufficient to afford pasture for three wethers. at dunvegan i had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting that i was ever to depart, till mr. boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness. i had no very forcible defence to make; and we agreed to pursue our journey. macleod accompanied us to ulinish, where we were entertained by the sheriff of the island. ulinish mr. macqueen travelled with us, and directed our attention to all that was worthy of observation. with him we went to see an ancient building, called a dun or borough. it was a circular inclosure, about forty-two feet in diameter, walled round with loose stones, perhaps to the height of nine feet. the walls were very thick, diminishing a little toward the top, and though in these countries, stone is not brought far, must have been raised with much labour. within the great circle were several smaller rounds of wall, which formed distinct apartments. its date, and its use are unknown. some suppose it the original seat of the chiefs of the macleods. mr. macqueen thought it a danish fort. the entrance is covered with flat stones, and is narrow, because it was necessary that the stones which lie over it, should reach from one wall to the other; yet, strait as the passage is, they seem heavier than could have been placed where they now lie, by the naked strength of as many men as might stand about them. they were probably raised by putting long pieces of wood under them, to which the action of a long line of lifters might be applied. savages, in all countries, have patience proportionate to their unskilfulness, and are content to attain their end by very tedious methods. if it was ever roofed, it might once have been a dwelling, but as there is no provision for water, it could not have been a fortress. in sky, as in every other place, there is an ambition of exalting whatever has survived memory, to some important use, and referring it to very remote ages. i am inclined to suspect, that in lawless times, when the inhabitants of every mountain stole the cattle of their neighbour, these inclosures were used to secure the herds and flocks in the night. when they were driven within the wall, they might be easily watched, and defended as long as could be needful; for the robbers durst not wait till the injured clan should find them in the morning. the interior inclosures, if the whole building were once a house, were the chambers of the chief inhabitants. if it was a place of security for cattle, they were probably the shelters of the keepers. from the dun we were conducted to another place of security, a cave carried a great way under ground, which had been discovered by digging after a fox. these caves, of which many have been found, and many probably remain concealed, are formed, i believe, commonly by taking advantage of a hollow, where banks or rocks rise on either side. if no such place can be found, the ground must be cut away. the walls are made by piling stones against the earth, on either side. it is then roofed by larger stones laid across the cavern, which therefore cannot be wide. over the roof, turfs were placed, and grass was suffered to grow; and the mouth was concealed by bushes, or some other cover. these caves were represented to us as the cabins of the first rude inhabitants, of which, however, i am by no means persuaded. this was so low, that no man could stand upright in it. by their construction they are all so narrow, that two can never pass along them together, and being subterraneous, they must be always damp. they are not the work of an age much ruder than the present; for they are formed with as much art as the construction of a common hut requires. i imagine them to have been places only of occasional use, in which the islander, upon a sudden alarm, hid his utensils, or his cloaths, and perhaps sometimes his wife and children. this cave we entered, but could not proceed the whole length, and went away without knowing how far it was carried. for this omission we shall be blamed, as we perhaps have blamed other travellers; but the day was rainy, and the ground was damp. we had with us neither spades nor pickaxes, and if love of ease surmounted our desire of knowledge, the offence has not the invidiousness of singularity. edifices, either standing or ruined, are the chief records of an illiterate nation. in some part of this journey, at no great distance from our way, stood a shattered fortress, of which the learned minister, to whose communication we are much indebted, gave us an account. those, said he, are the walls of a place of refuge, built in the time of james the sixth, by hugh macdonald, who was next heir to the dignity and fortune of his chief. hugh, being so near his wish, was impatient of delay; and had art and influence sufficient to engage several gentlemen in a plot against the laird's life. something must be stipulated on both sides; for they would not dip their hands in blood merely for hugh's advancement. the compact was formerly written, signed by the conspirators, and placed in the hands of one macleod. it happened that macleod had sold some cattle to a drover, who, not having ready money, gave him a bond for payment. the debt was discharged, and the bond re-demanded; which macleod, who could not read, intending to put into his hands, gave him the conspiracy. the drover, when he had read the paper, delivered it privately to macdonald; who, being thus informed of his danger, called his friends together, and provided for his safety. he made a public feast, and inviting hugh macdonald and his confederates, placed each of them at the table between two men of known fidelity. the compact of conspiracy was then shewn, and every man confronted with his own name. macdonald acted with great moderation. he upbraided hugh, both with disloyalty and ingratitude; but told the rest, that he considered them as men deluded and misinformed. hugh was sworn to fidelity, and dismissed with his companions; but he was not generous enough to be reclaimed by lenity; and finding no longer any countenance among the gentlemen, endeavoured to execute the same design by meaner hands. in this practice he was detected, taken to macdonald's castle, and imprisoned in the dungeon. when he was hungry, they let down a plentiful meal of salted meat; and when, after his repast, he called for drink, conveyed to him a covered cup, which, when he lifted the lid, he found empty. from that time they visited him no more, but left him to perish in solitude and darkness. we were then told of a cavern by the sea-side, remarkable for the powerful reverberation of sounds. after dinner we took a boat, to explore this curious cavity. the boatmen, who seemed to be of a rank above that of common drudges, inquired who the strangers were, and being told we came one from scotland, and the other from england, asked if the englishman could recount a long genealogy. what answer was given them, the conversation being in erse, i was not much inclined to examine. they expected no good event of the voyage; for one of them declared that he heard the cry of an english ghost. this omen i was not told till after our return, and therefore cannot claim the dignity of despising it. the sea was smooth. we never left the shore, and came without any disaster to the cavern, which we found rugged and misshapen, about one hundred and eighty feet long, thirty wide in the broadest part, and in the loftiest, as we guessed, about thirty high. it was now dry, but at high water the sea rises in it near six feet. here i saw what i had never seen before, limpets and mussels in their natural state. but, as a new testimony to the veracity of common fame, here was no echo to be heard. we then walked through a natural arch in the rock, which might have pleased us by its novelty, had the stones, which incumbered our feet, given us leisure to consider it. we were shown the gummy seed of the kelp, that fastens itself to a stone, from which it grows into a strong stalk. in our return, we found a little boy upon the point of rock, catching with his angle, a supper for the family. we rowed up to him, and borrowed his rod, with which mr. boswell caught a cuddy. the cuddy is a fish of which i know not the philosophical name. it is not much bigger than a gudgeon, but is of great use in these islands, as it affords the lower people both food, and oil for their lamps. cuddies are so abundant, at sometimes of the year, that they are caught like whitebait in the thames, only by dipping a basket and drawing it back. if it were always practicable to fish, these islands could never be in much danger from famine; but unhappily in the winter, when other provision fails, the seas are commonly too rough for nets, or boats. talisker in sky from ulinish, our next stage was to talisker, the house of colonel macleod, an officer in the dutch service, who, in this time of universal peace, has for several years been permitted to be absent from his regiment. having been bred to physick, he is consequently a scholar, and his lady, by accompanying him in his different places of residence, is become skilful in several languages. talisker is the place beyond all that i have seen, from which the gay and the jovial seem utterly excluded; and where the hermit might expect to grow old in meditation, without possibility of disturbance or interruption. it is situated very near the sea, but upon a coast where no vessel lands but when it is driven by a tempest on the rocks. towards the land are lofty hills streaming with waterfalls. the garden is sheltered by firs or pines, which grow there so prosperously, that some, which the present inhabitant planted, are very high and thick. at this place we very happily met mr. donald maclean, a young gentleman, the eldest son of the laird of col, heir to a very great extent of land, and so desirous of improving his inheritance, that he spent a considerable time among the farmers of hertfordshire, and hampshire, to learn their practice. he worked with his own hands at the principal operations of agriculture, that he might not deceive himself by a false opinion of skill, which, if he should find it deficient at home, he had no means of completing. if the world has agreed to praise the travels and manual labours of the czar of muscovy, let col have his share of the like applause, in the proportion of his dominions to the empire of russia. this young gentleman was sporting in the mountains of sky, and when he was weary with following his game, repaired for lodging to talisker. at night he missed one of his dogs, and when he went to seek him in the morning, found two eagles feeding on his carcass. col, for he must be named by his possessions, hearing that our intention was to visit jona, offered to conduct us to his chief, sir allan maclean, who lived in the isle of inch kenneth, and would readily find us a convenient passage. from this time was formed an acquaintance, which being begun by kindness, was accidentally continued by constraint; we derived much pleasure from it, and i hope have given him no reason to repent it. the weather was now almost one continued storm, and we were to snatch some happy intermission to be conveyed to mull, the third island of the hebrides, lying about a degree south of sky, whence we might easily find our way to inch kenneth, where sir allan maclean resided, and afterward to jona. for this purpose, the most commodious station that we could take was armidel, which sir alexander macdonald had now left to a gentleman, who lived there as his factor or steward. in our way to armidel was coriatachan, where we had already been, and to which therefore we were very willing to return. we staid however so long at talisker, that a great part of our journey was performed in the gloom of the evening. in travelling even thus almost without light thro' naked solitude, when there is a guide whose conduct may be trusted, a mind not naturally too much disposed to fear, may preserve some degree of cheerfulness; but what must be the solicitude of him who should be wandering, among the craggs and hollows, benighted, ignorant, and alone? the fictions of the gothick romances were not so remote from credibility as they are now thought. in the full prevalence of the feudal institution, when violence desolated the world, and every baron lived in a fortress, forests and castles were regularly succeeded by each other, and the adventurer might very suddenly pass from the gloom of woods, or the ruggedness of moors, to seats of plenty, gaiety, and magnificence. whatever is imaged in the wildest tale, if giants, dragons, and enchantment be excepted, would be felt by him, who, wandering in the mountains without a guide, or upon the sea without a pilot, should be carried amidst his terror and uncertainty, to the hospitality and elegance of raasay or dunvegan. to coriatachan at last we came, and found ourselves welcomed as before. here we staid two days, and made such inquiries as curiosity suggested. the house was filled with company, among whom mr. macpherson and his sister distinguished themselves by their politeness and accomplishments. by him we were invited to ostig, a house not far from armidel, where we might easily hear of a boat, when the weather would suffer us to leave the island. ostig in sky at ostig, of which mr. macpherson is minister, we were entertained for some days, then removed to armidel, where we finished our observations on the island of sky. as this island lies in the fifty-seventh degree, the air cannot be supposed to have much warmth. the long continuance of the sun above the horizon, does indeed sometimes produce great heat in northern latitudes; but this can only happen in sheltered places, where the atmosphere is to a certain degree stagnant, and the same mass of air continues to receive for many hours the rays of the sun, and the vapours of the earth. sky lies open on the west and north to a vast extent of ocean, and is cooled in the summer by perpetual ventilation, but by the same blasts is kept warm in winter. their weather is not pleasing. half the year is deluged with rain. from the autumnal to the vernal equinox, a dry day is hardly known, except when the showers are suspended by a tempest. under such skies can be expected no great exuberance of vegetation. their winter overtakes their summer, and their harvest lies upon the ground drenched with rain. the autumn struggles hard to produce some of our early fruits. i gathered gooseberries in september; but they were small, and the husk was thick. their winter is seldom such as puts a full stop to the growth of plants, or reduces the cattle to live wholly on the surplusage of the summer. in the year seventy-one they had a severe season, remembered by the name of the black spring, from which the island has not yet recovered. the snow lay long upon the ground, a calamity hardly known before. part of their cattle died for want, part were unseasonably sold to buy sustenance for the owners; and, what i have not read or heard of before, the kine that survived were so emaciated and dispirited, that they did not require the male at the usual time. many of the roebucks perished. the soil, as in other countries, has its diversities. in some parts there is only a thin layer of earth spread upon a rock, which bears nothing but short brown heath, and perhaps is not generally capable of any better product. there are many bogs or mosses of greater or less extent, where the soil cannot be supposed to want depth, though it is too wet for the plow. but we did not observe in these any aquatick plants. the vallies and the mountains are alike darkened with heath. some grass, however, grows here and there, and some happier spots of earth are capable of tillage. their agriculture is laborious, and perhaps rather feeble than unskilful. their chief manure is seaweed, which, when they lay it to rot upon the field, gives them a better crop than those of the highlands. they heap sea shells upon the dunghill, which in time moulder into a fertilising substance. when they find a vein of earth where they cannot use it, they dig it up, and add it to the mould of a more commodious place. their corn grounds often lie in such intricacies among the craggs, that there is no room for the action of a team and plow. the soil is then turned up by manual labour, with an instrument called a crooked spade, of a form and weight which to me appeared very incommodious, and would perhaps be soon improved in a country where workmen could be easily found and easily paid. it has a narrow blade of iron fixed to a long and heavy piece of wood, which must have, about a foot and a half above the iron, a knee or flexure with the angle downwards. when the farmer encounters a stone which is the great impediment of his operations, he drives the blade under it, and bringing the knee or angle to the ground, has in the long handle a very forcible lever. according to the different mode of tillage, farms are distinguished into long land and short land. long land is that which affords room for a plow, and short land is turned up by the spade. the grain which they commit to the furrows thus tediously formed, is either oats or barley. they do not sow barley without very copious manure, and then they expect from it ten for one, an increase equal to that of better countries; but the culture is so operose that they content themselves commonly with oats; and who can relate without compassion, that after all their diligence they are to expect only a triple increase? it is in vain to hope for plenty, when a third part of the harvest must be reserved for seed. when their grain is arrived at the state which they must consider as ripeness, they do not cut, but pull the barley: to the oats they apply the sickle. wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse with the two points behind pressing on the ground. on this they sometimes drag home their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open panier, or frame of sticks upon the horse's back. of that which is obtained with so much difficulty, nothing surely ought to be wasted; yet their method of clearing their oats from the husk is by parching them in the straw. thus with the genuine improvidence of savages, they destroy that fodder for want of which their cattle may perish. from this practice they have two petty conveniences. they dry the grain so that it is easily reduced to meal, and they escape the theft of the thresher. the taste contracted from the fire by the oats, as by every other scorched substance, use must long ago have made grateful. the oats that are not parched must be dried in a kiln. the barns of sky i never saw. that which macleod of raasay had erected near his house was so contrived, because the harvest is seldom brought home dry, as by perpetual perflation to prevent the mow from heating. of their gardens i can judge only from their tables. i did not observe that the common greens were wanting, and suppose, that by choosing an advantageous exposition, they can raise all the more hardy esculent plants. of vegetable fragrance or beauty they are not yet studious. few vows are made to flora in the hebrides. they gather a little hay, but the grass is mown late; and is so often almost dry and again very wet, before it is housed, that it becomes a collection of withered stalks without taste or fragrance; it must be eaten by cattle that have nothing else, but by most english farmers would be thrown away. in the islands i have not heard that any subterraneous treasures have been discovered, though where there are mountains, there are commonly minerals. one of the rocks in col has a black vein, imagined to consist of the ore of lead; but it was never yet opened or essayed. in sky a black mass was accidentally picked up, and brought into the house of the owner of the land, who found himself strongly inclined to think it a coal, but unhappily it did not burn in the chimney. common ores would be here of no great value; for what requires to be separated by fire, must, if it were found, be carried away in its mineral state, here being no fewel for the smelting-house or forge. perhaps by diligent search in this world of stone, some valuable species of marble might be discovered. but neither philosophical curiosity, nor commercial industry, have yet fixed their abode here, where the importunity of immediate want supplied but for the day, and craving on the morrow, has left little room for excursive knowledge or the pleasing fancies of distant profit. they have lately found a manufacture considerably lucrative. their rocks abound with kelp, a sea-plant, of which the ashes are melted into glass. they burn kelp in great quantities, and then send it away in ships, which come regularly to purchase them. this new source of riches has raised the rents of many maritime farms; but the tenants pay, like all other tenants, the additional rent with great unwillingness; because they consider the profits of the kelp as the mere product of personal labour, to which the landlord contributes nothing. however, as any man may be said to give, what he gives the power of gaining, he has certainly as much right to profit from the price of kelp as of any thing else found or raised upon his ground. this new trade has excited a long and eager litigation between macdonald and macleod, for a ledge of rocks, which, till the value of kelp was known, neither of them desired the reputation of possessing. the cattle of sky are not so small as is commonly believed. since they have sent their beeves in great numbers to southern marts, they have probably taken more care of their breed. at stated times the annual growth of cattle is driven to a fair, by a general drover, and with the money, which he returns to the farmer, the rents are paid. the price regularly expected, is from two to three pounds a head: there was once one sold for five pounds. they go from the islands very lean, and are not offered to the butcher, till they have been long fatted in english pastures. of their black cattle, some are without horns, called by the scots humble cows, as we call a bee an humble bee, that wants a sting. whether this difference be specifick, or accidental, though we inquired with great diligence, we could not be informed. we are not very sure that the bull is ever without horns, though we have been told, that such bulls there are. what is produced by putting a horned and unhorned male and female together, no man has ever tried, that thought the result worthy of observation. their horses are, like their cows, of a moderate size. i had no difficulty to mount myself commodiously by the favour of the gentlemen. i heard of very little cows in barra, and very little horses in rum, where perhaps no care is taken to prevent that diminution of size, which must always happen, where the greater and the less copulate promiscuously, and the young animal is restrained from growth by penury of sustenance. the goat is the general inhabitant of the earth, complying with every difference of climate, and of soil. the goats of the hebrides are like others: nor did i hear any thing of their sheep, to be particularly remarked. in the penury of these malignant regions, nothing is left that can be converted to food. the goats and the sheep are milked like the cows. a single meal of a goat is a quart, and of a sheep a pint. such at least was the account, which i could extract from those of whom i am not sure that they ever had inquired. the milk of goats is much thinner than that of cows, and that of sheep is much thicker. sheeps milk is never eaten before it is boiled: as it is thick, it must be very liberal of curd, and the people of st. kilda form it into small cheeses. the stags of the mountains are less than those of our parks, or forests, perhaps not bigger than our fallow deer. their flesh has no rankness, nor is inferiour in flavour to our common venison. the roebuck i neither saw nor tasted. these are not countries for a regular chase. the deer are not driven with horns and hounds. a sportsman, with his gun in his hand, watches the animal, and when he has wounded him, traces him by the blood. they have a race of brinded greyhounds, larger and stronger than those with which we course hares, and those are the only dogs used by them for the chase. man is by the use of fire-arms made so much an overmatch for other animals, that in all countries, where they are in use, the wild part of the creation sensibly diminishes. there will probably not be long, either stags or roebucks in the islands. all the beasts of chase would have been lost long ago in countries well inhabited, had they not been preserved by laws for the pleasure of the rich. there are in sky neither rats nor mice, but the weasel is so frequent, that he is heard in houses rattling behind chests or beds, as rats in england. they probably owe to his predominance that they have no other vermin; for since the great rat took possession of this part of the world, scarce a ship can touch at any port, but some of his race are left behind. they have within these few years began to infest the isle of col, where being left by some trading vessel, they have increased for want of weasels to oppose them. the inhabitants of sky, and of the other islands, which i have seen, are commonly of the middle stature, with fewer among them very tall or very short, than are seen in england, or perhaps, as their numbers are small, the chances of any deviation from the common measure are necessarily few. the tallest men that i saw are among those of higher rank. in regions of barrenness and scarcity, the human race is hindered in its growth by the same causes as other animals. the ladies have as much beauty here as in other places, but bloom and softness are not to be expected among the lower classes, whose faces are exposed to the rudeness of the climate, and whose features are sometimes contracted by want, and sometimes hardened by the blasts. supreme beauty is seldom found in cottages or work-shops, even where no real hardships are suffered. to expand the human face to its full perfection, it seems necessary that the mind should co-operate by placidness of content, or consciousness of superiority. their strength is proportionate to their size, but they are accustomed to run upon rough ground, and therefore can with great agility skip over the bog, or clamber the mountain. for a campaign in the wastes of america, soldiers better qualified could not have been found. having little work to do, they are not willing, nor perhaps able to endure a long continuance of manual labour, and are therefore considered as habitually idle. having never been supplied with those accommodations, which life extensively diversified with trades affords, they supply their wants by very insufficient shifts, and endure many inconveniences, which a little attention would easily relieve. i have seen a horse carrying home the harvest on a crate. under his tail was a stick for a crupper, held at the two ends by twists of straw. hemp will grow in their islands, and therefore ropes may be had. if they wanted hemp, they might make better cordage of rushes, or perhaps of nettles, than of straw. their method of life neither secures them perpetual health, nor exposes them to any particular diseases. there are physicians in the islands, who, i believe, all practise chirurgery, and all compound their own medicines. it is generally supposed, that life is longer in places where there are few opportunities of luxury; but i found no instance here of extraordinary longevity. a cottager grows old over his oaten cakes, like a citizen at a turtle feast. he is indeed seldom incommoded by corpulence. poverty preserves him from sinking under the burden of himself, but he escapes no other injury of time. instances of long life are often related, which those who hear them are more willing to credit than examine. to be told that any man has attained a hundred years, gives hope and comfort to him who stands trembling on the brink of his own climacterick. length of life is distributed impartially to very different modes of life in very different climates; and the mountains have no greater examples of age and health than the low lands, where i was introduced to two ladies of high quality; one of whom, in her ninety-fourth year, presided at her table with the full exercise of all her powers; and the other has attained her eighty-fourth, without any diminution of her vivacity, and with little reason to accuse time of depredations on her beauty. in the islands, as in most other places, the inhabitants are of different rank, and one does not encroach here upon another. where there is no commerce nor manufacture, he that is born poor can scarcely become rich; and if none are able to buy estates, he that is born to land cannot annihilate his family by selling it. this was once the state of these countries. perhaps there is no example, till within a century and half, of any family whose estate was alienated otherwise than by violence or forfeiture. since money has been brought amongst them, they have found, like others, the art of spending more than they receive; and i saw with grief the chief of a very ancient clan, whose island was condemned by law to be sold for the satisfaction of his creditors. the name of highest dignity is laird, of which there are in the extensive isle of sky only three, macdonald, macleod, and mackinnon. the laird is the original owner of the land, whose natural power must be very great, where no man lives but by agriculture; and where the produce of the land is not conveyed through the labyrinths of traffick, but passes directly from the hand that gathers it to the mouth that eats it. the laird has all those in his power that live upon his farms. kings can, for the most part, only exalt or degrade. the laird at pleasure can feed or starve, can give bread, or withold it. this inherent power was yet strengthened by the kindness of consanguinity, and the reverence of patriarchal authority. the laird was the father of the clan, and his tenants commonly bore his name. and to these principles of original command was added, for many ages, an exclusive right of legal jurisdiction. this multifarious, and extensive obligation operated with force scarcely credible. every duty, moral or political, was absorbed in affection and adherence to the chief. not many years have passed since the clans knew no law but the laird's will. he told them to whom they should be friends or enemies, what king they should obey, and what religion they should profess. when the scots first rose in arms against the succession of the house of hanover, lovat, the chief of the frasers, was in exile for a rape. the frasers were very numerous, and very zealous against the government. a pardon was sent to lovat. he came to the english camp, and the clan immediately deserted to him. next in dignity to the laird is the tacksman; a large taker or lease-holder of land, of which he keeps part, as a domain, in his own hand, and lets part to under tenants. the tacksman is necessarily a man capable of securing to the laird the whole rent, and is commonly a collateral relation. these tacks, or subordinate possessions, were long considered as hereditary, and the occupant was distinguished by the name of the place at which he resided. he held a middle station, by which the highest and the lowest orders were connected. he paid rent and reverence to the laird, and received them from the tenants. this tenure still subsists, with its original operation, but not with the primitive stability. since the islanders, no longer content to live, have learned the desire of growing rich, an ancient dependent is in danger of giving way to a higher bidder, at the expense of domestick dignity and hereditary power. the stranger, whose money buys him preference, considers himself as paying for all that he has, and is indifferent about the laird's honour or safety. the commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego. i have found in the hither parts of scotland, men not defective in judgment or general experience, who consider the tacksman as a useless burden of the ground, as a drone who lives upon the product of an estate, without the right of property, or the merit of labour, and who impoverishes at once the landlord and the tenant. the land, say they, is let to the tacksman at sixpence an acre, and by him to the tenant at ten- pence. let the owner be the immediate landlord to all the tenants; if he sets the ground at eight-pence, he will increase his revenue by a fourth part, and the tenant's burthen will be diminished by a fifth. those who pursue this train of reasoning, seem not sufficiently to inquire whither it will lead them, nor to know that it will equally shew the propriety of suppressing all wholesale trade, of shutting up the shops of every man who sells what he does not make, and of extruding all whose agency and profit intervene between the manufacturer and the consumer. they may, by stretching their understandings a little wider, comprehend, that all those who by undertaking large quantities of manufacture, and affording employment to many labourers, make themselves considered as benefactors to the publick, have only been robbing their workmen with one hand, and their customers with the other. if crowley had sold only what he could make, and all his smiths had wrought their own iron with their own hammers, he would have lived on less, and they would have sold their work for more. the salaries of superintendents and clerks would have been partly saved, and partly shared, and nails been sometimes cheaper by a farthing in a hundred. but then if the smith could not have found an immediate purchaser, he must have deserted his anvil; if there had by accident at any time been more sellers than buyers, the workmen must have reduced their profit to nothing, by underselling one another; and as no great stock could have been in any hand, no sudden demand of large quantities could have been answered and the builder must have stood still till the nailer could supply him. according to these schemes, universal plenty is to begin and end in universal misery. hope and emulation will be utterly extinguished; and as all must obey the call of immediate necessity, nothing that requires extensive views, or provides for distant consequences will ever be performed. to the southern inhabitants of scotland, the state of the mountains and the islands is equally unknown with that of borneo or sumatra: of both they have only heard a little, and guess the rest. they are strangers to the language and the manners, to the advantages and wants of the people, whose life they would model, and whose evils they would remedy. nothing is less difficult than to procure one convenience by the forfeiture of another. a soldier may expedite his march by throwing away his arms. to banish the tacksman is easy, to make a country plentiful by diminishing the people, is an expeditious mode of husbandry; but little abundance, which there is nobody to enjoy, contributes little to human happiness. as the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labour. if the tacksmen be taken away, the hebrides must in their present state be given up to grossness and ignorance; the tenant, for want of instruction, will be unskilful, and for want of admonition will be negligent. the laird in these wide estates, which often consist of islands remote from one another, cannot extend his personal influence to all his tenants; and the steward having no dignity annexed to his character, can have little authority among men taught to pay reverence only to birth, and who regard the tacksman as their hereditary superior; nor can the steward have equal zeal for the prosperity of an estate profitable only to the laird, with the tacksman, who has the laird's income involved in his own. the only gentlemen in the islands are the lairds, the tacksmen, and the ministers, who frequently improve their livings by becoming farmers. if the tacksmen be banished, who will be left to impart knowledge, or impress civility? the laird must always be at a distance from the greater part of his lands; and if he resides at all upon them, must drag his days in solitude, having no longer either a friend or a companion; he will therefore depart to some more comfortable residence, and leave the tenants to the wisdom and mercy of a factor. of tenants there are different orders, as they have greater or less stock. land is sometimes leased to a small fellowship, who live in a cluster of huts, called a tenants town, and are bound jointly and separately for the payment of their rent. these, i believe, employ in the care of their cattle, and the labour of tillage, a kind of tenants yet lower; who having a hut with grass for a certain number of cows and sheep, pay their rent by a stipulated quantity of labour. the condition of domestick servants, or the price of occasional labour, i do not know with certainty. i was told that the maids have sheep, and are allowed to spin for their own clothing; perhaps they have no pecuniary wages, or none but in very wealthy families. the state of life, which has hitherto been purely pastoral, begins now to be a little variegated with commerce; but novelties enter by degrees, and till one mode has fully prevailed over the other, no settled notion can be formed. such is the system of insular subordination, which, having little variety, cannot afford much delight in the view, nor long detain the mind in contemplation. the inhabitants were for a long time perhaps not unhappy; but their content was a muddy mixture of pride and ignorance, an indifference for pleasures which they did not know, a blind veneration for their chiefs, and a strong conviction of their own importance. their pride has been crushed by the heavy hand of a vindictive conqueror, whose seventies have been followed by laws, which, though they cannot be called cruel, have produced much discontent, because they operate upon the surface of life, and make every eye bear witness to subjection. to be compelled to a new dress has always been found painful. their chiefs being now deprived of their jurisdiction, have already lost much of their influence; and as they gradually degenerate from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords, they will divest themselves of the little that remains. that dignity which they derived from an opinion of their military importance, the law, which disarmed them, has abated. an old gentleman, delighting himself with the recollection of better days, related, that forty years ago, a chieftain walked out attended by ten or twelve followers, with their arms rattling. that animating rabble has now ceased. the chief has lost his formidable retinue; and the highlander walks his heath unarmed and defenceless, with the peaceable submission of a french peasant or english cottager. their ignorance grows every day less, but their knowledge is yet of little other use than to shew them their wants. they are now in the period of education, and feel the uneasiness of discipline, without yet perceiving the benefit of instruction. the last law, by which the highlanders are deprived of their arms, has operated with efficacy beyond expectation. of former statutes made with the same design, the execution had been feeble, and the effect inconsiderable. concealment was undoubtedly practised, and perhaps often with connivance. there was tenderness, or partiality, on one side, and obstinacy on the other. but the law, which followed the victory of culloden, found the whole nation dejected and intimidated; informations were given without danger, and without fear, and the arms were collected with such rigour, that every house was despoiled of its defence. to disarm part of the highlands, could give no reasonable occasion of complaint. every government must be allowed the power of taking away the weapon that is lifted against it. but the loyal clans murmured, with some appearance of justice, that after having defended the king, they were forbidden for the future to defend themselves; and that the sword should be forfeited, which had been legally employed. their case is undoubtedly hard, but in political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant. whether by disarming a people thus broken into several tribes, and thus remote from the seat of power, more good than evil has been produced, may deserve inquiry. the supreme power in every community has the right of debarring every individual, and every subordinate society from self-defence, only because the supreme power is able to defend them; and therefore where the governor cannot act, he must trust the subject to act for himself. these islands might be wasted with fire and sword before their sovereign would know their distress. a gang of robbers, such as has been lately found confederating themselves in the highlands, might lay a wide region under contribution. the crew of a petty privateer might land on the largest and most wealthy of the islands, and riot without control in cruelty and waste. it was observed by one of the chiefs of sky, that fifty armed men might, without resistance ravage the country. laws that place the subjects in such a state, contravene the first principles of the compact of authority: they exact obedience, and yield no protection. it affords a generous and manly pleasure to conceive a little nation gathering its fruits and tending its herds with fearless confidence, though it lies open on every side to invasion, where, in contempt of walls and trenches, every man sleeps securely with his sword beside him; where all on the first approach of hostility came together at the call to battle, as at a summons to a festal show; and committing their cattle to the care of those whom age or nature has disabled, engage the enemy with that competition for hazard and for glory, which operate in men that fight under the eye of those, whose dislike or kindness they have always considered as the greatest evil or the greatest good. this was, in the beginning of the present century, the state of the highlands. every man was a soldier, who partook of national confidence, and interested himself in national honour. to lose this spirit, is to lose what no small advantage will compensate. it may likewise deserve to be inquired, whether a great nation ought to be totally commercial? whether amidst the uncertainty of human affairs, too much attention to one mode of happiness may not endanger others? whether the pride of riches must not sometimes have recourse to the protection of courage? and whether, if it be necessary to preserve in some part of the empire the military spirit, it can subsist more commodiously in any place, than in remote and unprofitable provinces, where it can commonly do little harm, and whence it may be called forth at any sudden exigence? it must however be confessed, that a man, who places honour only in successful violence, is a very troublesome and pernicious animal in time of peace; and that the martial character cannot prevail in a whole people, but by the diminution of all other virtues. he that is accustomed to resolve all right into conquest, will have very little tenderness or equity. all the friendship in such a life can be only a confederacy of invasion, or alliance of defence. the strong must flourish by force, and the weak subsist by stratagem. till the highlanders lost their ferocity, with their arms, they suffered from each other all that malignity could dictate, or precipitance could act. every provocation was revenged with blood, and no man that ventured into a numerous company, by whatever occasion brought together, was sure of returning without a wound. if they are now exposed to foreign hostilities, they may talk of the danger, but can seldom feel it. if they are no longer martial, they are no longer quarrelsome. misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. the visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestick animosities allow no cessation. the abolition of the local jurisdictions, which had for so many ages been exercised by the chiefs, has likewise its evil and its good. the feudal constitution naturally diffused itself into long ramifications of subordinate authority. to this general temper of the government was added the peculiar form of the country, broken by mountains into many subdivisions scarcely accessible but to the natives, and guarded by passes, or perplexed with intricacies, through which national justice could not find its way. the power of deciding controversies, and of punishing offences, as some such power there must always be, was intrusted to the lairds of the country, to those whom the people considered as their natural judges. it cannot be supposed that a rugged proprietor of the rocks, unprincipled and unenlightened, was a nice resolver of entangled claims, or very exact in proportioning punishment to offences. but the more he indulged his own will, the more he held his vassals in dependence. prudence and innocence, without the favour of the chief, conferred no security; and crimes involved no danger, when the judge was resolute to acquit. when the chiefs were men of knowledge and virtue, the convenience of a domestick judicature was great. no long journies were necessary, nor artificial delays could be practised; the character, the alliances, and interests of the litigants were known to the court, and all false pretences were easily detected. the sentence, when it was past, could not be evaded; the power of the laird superseded formalities, and justice could not be defeated by interest or stratagem. i doubt not but that since the regular judges have made their circuits through the whole country, right has been every where more wisely, and more equally distributed; the complaint is, that litigation is grown troublesome, and that the magistrates are too few, and therefore often too remote for general convenience. many of the smaller islands have no legal officer within them. i once asked, if a crime should be committed, by what authority the offender could be seized? and was told, that the laird would exert his right; a right which he must now usurp, but which surely necessity must vindicate, and which is therefore yet exercised in lower degrees, by some of the proprietors, when legal processes cannot be obtained. in all greater questions, however, there is now happily an end to all fear or hope from malice or from favour. the roads are secure in those places through which, forty years ago, no traveller could pass without a convoy. all trials of right by the sword are forgotten, and the mean are in as little danger from the powerful as in other places. no scheme of policy has, in any country, yet brought the rich and poor on equal terms into courts of judicature. perhaps experience, improving on experience, may in time effect it. those who have long enjoyed dignity and power, ought not to lose it without some equivalent. there was paid to the chiefs by the publick, in exchange for their privileges, perhaps a sum greater than most of them had ever possessed, which excited a thirst for riches, of which it shewed them the use. when the power of birth and station ceases, no hope remains but from the prevalence of money. power and wealth supply the place of each other. power confers the ability of gratifying our desire without the consent of others. wealth enables us to obtain the consent of others to our gratification. power, simply considered, whatever it confers on one, must take from another. wealth enables its owner to give to others, by taking only from himself. power pleases the violent and proud: wealth delights the placid and the timorous. youth therefore flies at power, and age grovels after riches. the chiefs, divested of their prerogatives, necessarily turned their thoughts to the improvement of their revenues, and expect more rent, as they have less homage. the tenant, who is far from perceiving that his condition is made better in the same proportion, as that of his landlord is made worse, does not immediately see why his industry is to be taxed more heavily than before. he refuses to pay the demand, and is ejected; the ground is then let to a stranger, who perhaps brings a larger stock, but who, taking the land at its full price, treats with the laird upon equal terms, and considers him not as a chief, but as a trafficker in land. thus the estate perhaps is improved, but the clan is broken. it seems to be the general opinion, that the rents have been raised with too much eagerness. some regard must be paid to prejudice. those who have hitherto paid but little, will not suddenly be persuaded to pay much, though they can afford it. as ground is gradually improved, and the value of money decreases, the rent may be raised without any diminution of the farmer's profits: yet it is necessary in these countries, where the ejection of a tenant is a greater evil, than in more populous places, to consider not merely what the land will produce, but with what ability the inhabitant can cultivate it. a certain stock can allow but a certain payment; for if the land be doubled, and the stock remains the same, the tenant becomes no richer. the proprietors of the highlands might perhaps often increase their income, by subdividing the farms, and allotting to every occupier only so many acres as he can profitably employ, but that they want people. there seems now, whatever be the cause, to be through a great part of the highlands a general discontent. that adherence, which was lately professed by every man to the chief of his name, has now little prevalence; and he that cannot live as he desires at home, listens to the tale of fortunate islands, and happy regions, where every man may have land of his own, and eat the product of his labour without a superior. those who have obtained grants of american lands, have, as is well known, invited settlers from all quarters of the globe; and among other places, where oppression might produce a wish for new habitations, their emissaries would not fail to try their persuasions in the isles of scotland, where at the time when the clans were newly disunited from their chiefs, and exasperated by unprecedented exactions, it is no wonder that they prevailed. whether the mischiefs of emigration were immediately perceived, may be justly questioned. they who went first, were probably such as could best be spared; but the accounts sent by the earliest adventurers, whether true or false, inclined many to follow them; and whole neighbourhoods formed parties for removal; so that departure from their native country is no longer exile. he that goes thus accompanied, carries with him all that makes life pleasant. he sits down in a better climate, surrounded by his kindred and his friends: they carry with them their language, their opinions, their popular songs, and hereditary merriment: they change nothing but the place of their abode; and of that change they perceive the benefit. this is the real effect of emigration, if those that go away together settle on the same spot, and preserve their ancient union. but some relate that these adventurous visitants of unknown regions, after a voyage passed in dreams of plenty and felicity, are dispersed at last upon a sylvan wilderness, where their first years must be spent in toil, to clear the ground which is afterwards to be tilled, and that the whole effect of their undertakings is only more fatigue and equal scarcity. both accounts may be suspected. those who are gone will endeavour by every art to draw others after them; for as their numbers are greater, they will provide better for themselves. when nova scotia was first peopled, i remember a letter, published under the character of a new planter, who related how much the climate put him in mind of italy. such intelligence the hebridians probably receive from their transmarine correspondents. but with equal temptations of interest, and perhaps with no greater niceness of veracity, the owners of the islands spread stories of american hardships to keep their people content at home. some method to stop this epidemick desire of wandering, which spreads its contagion from valley to valley, deserves to be sought with great diligence. in more fruitful countries, the removal of one only makes room for the succession of another: but in the hebrides, the loss of an inhabitant leaves a lasting vacuity; for nobody born in any other parts of the world will choose this country for his residence, and an island once depopulated will remain a desert, as long as the present facility of travel gives every one, who is discontented and unsettled, the choice of his abode. let it be inquired, whether the first intention of those who are fluttering on the wing, and collecting a flock that they may take their flight, be to attain good, or to avoid evil. if they are dissatisfied with that part of the globe, which their birth has allotted them, and resolve not to live without the pleasures of happier climates; if they long for bright suns, and calm skies, and flowery fields, and fragrant gardens, i know not by what eloquence they can be persuaded, or by what offers they can be hired to stay. but if they are driven from their native country by positive evils, and disgusted by ill-treatment, real or imaginary, it were fit to remove their grievances, and quiet their resentment; since, if they have been hitherto undutiful subjects, they will not much mend their principles by american conversation. to allure them into the army, it was thought proper to indulge them in the continuance of their national dress. if this concession could have any effect, it might easily be made. that dissimilitude of appearance, which was supposed to keep them distinct from the rest of the nation, might disincline them from coalescing with the pensylvanians, or people of connecticut. if the restitution of their arms will reconcile them to their country, let them have again those weapons, which will not be more mischievous at home than in the colonies. that they may not fly from the increase of rent, i know not whether the general good does not require that the landlords be, for a time, restrained in their demands, and kept quiet by pensions proportionate to their loss. to hinder insurrection, by driving away the people, and to govern peaceably, by having no subjects, is an expedient that argues no great profundity of politicks. to soften the obdurate, to convince the mistaken, to mollify the resentful, are worthy of a statesman; but it affords a legislator little self-applause to consider, that where there was formerly an insurrection, there is now a wilderness. it has been a question often agitated without solution, why those northern regions are now so thinly peopled, which formerly overwhelmed with their armies the roman empire. the question supposes what i believe is not true, that they had once more inhabitants than they could maintain, and overflowed only because they were full. this is to estimate the manners of all countries and ages by our own. migration, while the state of life was unsettled, and there was little communication of intelligence between distant places, was among the wilder nations of europe, capricious and casual. an adventurous projector heard of a fertile coast unoccupied, and led out a colony; a chief of renown for bravery, called the young men together, and led them out to try what fortune would present. when caesar was in gaul, he found the helvetians preparing to go they knew not whither, and put a stop to their motions. they settled again in their own country, where they were so far from wanting room, that they had accumulated three years provision for their march. the religion of the north was military; if they could not find enemies, it was their duty to make them: they travelled in quest of danger, and willingly took the chance of empire or death. if their troops were numerous, the countries from which they were collected are of vast extent, and without much exuberance of people great armies may be raised where every man is a soldier. but their true numbers were never known. those who were conquered by them are their historians, and shame may have excited them to say, that they were overwhelmed with multitudes. to count is a modern practice, the ancient method was to guess; and when numbers are guessed they are always magnified. thus england has for several years been filled with the atchievements of seventy thousand highlanders employed in america. i have heard from an english officer, not much inclined to favour them, that their behaviour deserved a very high degree of military praise; but their number has been much exaggerated. one of the ministers told me, that seventy thousand men could not have been found in all the highlands, and that more than twelve thousand never took the field. those that went to the american war, went to destruction. of the old highland regiment, consisting of twelve hundred, only seventy-six survived to see their country again. the gothick swarms have at least been multiplied with equal liberality. that they bore no great proportion to the inhabitants, in whose countries they settled, is plain from the paucity of northern words now found in the provincial languages. their country was not deserted for want of room, because it was covered with forests of vast extent; and the first effect of plenitude of inhabitants is the destruction of wood. as the europeans spread over america the lands are gradually laid naked. i would not be understood to say, that necessity had never any part in their expeditions. a nation, whose agriculture is scanty or unskilful, may be driven out by famine. a nation of hunters may have exhausted their game. i only affirm that the northern regions were not, when their irruptions subdued the romans, overpeopled with regard to their real extent of territory, and power of fertility. in a country fully inhabited, however afterward laid waste, evident marks will remain of its former populousness. but of scandinavia and germany, nothing is known but that as we trace their state upwards into antiquity, their woods were greater, and their cultivated ground was less. that causes were different from want of room may produce a general disposition to seek another country is apparent from the present conduct of the highlanders, who are in some places ready to threaten a total secession. the numbers which have already gone, though like other numbers they may be magnified, are very great, and such as if they had gone together and agreed upon any certain settlement, might have founded an independent government in the depths of the western continent. nor are they only the lowest and most indigent; many men of considerable wealth have taken with them their train of labourers and dependants; and if they continue the feudal scheme of polity, may establish new clans in the other hemisphere. that the immediate motives of their desertion must be imputed to their landlords, may be reasonably concluded, because some lairds of more prudence and less rapacity have kept their vassals undiminished. from raasa only one man had been seduced, and at col there was no wish to go away. the traveller who comes hither from more opulent countries, to speculate upon the remains of pastoral life, will not much wonder that a common highlander has no strong adherence to his native soil; for of animal enjoyments, or of physical good, he leaves nothing that he may not find again wheresoever he may be thrown. the habitations of men in the hebrides may be distinguished into huts and houses. by a house, i mean a building with one story over another; by a hut, a dwelling with only one floor. the laird, who formerly lived in a castle, now lives in a house; sometimes sufficiently neat, but seldom very spacious or splendid. the tacksmen and the ministers have commonly houses. wherever there is a house, the stranger finds a welcome, and to the other evils of exterminating tacksmen may be added the unavoidable cessation of hospitality, or the devolution of too heavy a burden on the ministers. of the houses little can be said. they are small, and by the necessity of accumulating stores, where there are so few opportunities of purchase, the rooms are very heterogeneously filled. with want of cleanliness it were ingratitude to reproach them. the servants having been bred upon the naked earth, think every floor clean, and the quick succession of guests, perhaps not always over-elegant, does not allow much time for adjusting their apartments. huts are of many gradations; from murky dens, to commodious dwellings. the wall of a common hut is always built without mortar, by a skilful adaptation of loose stones. sometimes perhaps a double wall of stones is raised, and the intermediate space filled with earth. the air is thus completely excluded. some walls are, i think, formed of turfs, held together by a wattle, or texture of twigs. of the meanest huts, the first room is lighted by the entrance, and the second by the smoke hole. the fire is usually made in the middle. but there are huts, or dwellings of only one story, inhabited by gentlemen, which have walls cemented with mortar, glass windows, and boarded floors. of these all have chimneys, and some chimneys have grates. the house and the furniture are not always nicely suited. we were driven once, by missing a passage, to the hut of a gentleman, where, after a very liberal supper, when i was conducted to my chamber, i found an elegant bed of indian cotton, spread with fine sheets. the accommodation was flattering; i undressed myself, and felt my feet in the mire. the bed stood upon the bare earth, which a long course of rain had softened to a puddle. in pastoral countries the condition of the lowest rank of people is sufficiently wretched. among manufacturers, men that have no property may have art and industry, which make them necessary, and therefore valuable. but where flocks and corn are the only wealth, there are always more hands than work, and of that work there is little in which skill and dexterity can be much distinguished. he therefore who is born poor never can be rich. the son merely occupies the place of the father, and life knows nothing of progression or advancement. the petty tenants, and labouring peasants, live in miserable cabins, which afford them little more than shelter from the storms. the boor of norway is said to make all his own utensils. in the hebrides, whatever might be their ingenuity, the want of wood leaves them no materials. they are probably content with such accommodations as stones of different forms and sizes can afford them. their food is not better than their lodging. they seldom taste the flesh of land animals; for here are no markets. what each man eats is from his own stock. the great effect of money is to break property into small parts. in towns, he that has a shilling may have a piece of meat; but where there is no commerce, no man can eat mutton but by killing a sheep. fish in fair weather they need not want; but, i believe, man never lives long on fish, but by constraint; he will rather feed upon roots and berries. the only fewel of the islands is peat. their wood is all consumed, and coal they have not yet found. peat is dug out of the marshes, from the depth of one foot to that of six. that is accounted the best which is nearest the surface. it appears to be a mass of black earth held together by vegetable fibres. i know not whether the earth be bituminous, or whether the fibres be not the only combustible part; which, by heating the interposed earth red hot, make a burning mass. the heat is not very strong nor lasting. the ashes are yellowish, and in a large quantity. when they dig peat, they cut it into square pieces, and pile it up to dry beside the house. in some places it has an offensive smell. it is like wood charked for the smith. the common method of making peat fires, is by heaping it on the hearth; but it burns well in grates, and in the best houses is so used. the common opinion is, that peat grows again where it has been cut; which, as it seems to be chiefly a vegetable substance, is not unlikely to be true, whether known or not to those who relate it. there are water mills in sky and raasa; but where they are too far distant, the house-wives grind their oats with a quern, or hand-mill, which consists of two stones, about a foot and a half in diameter; the lower is a little convex, to which the concavity of the upper must be fitted. in the middle of the upper stone is a round hole, and on one side is a long handle. the grinder sheds the corn gradually into the hole with one hand, and works the handle round with the other. the corn slides down the convexity of the lower stone, and by the motion of the upper is ground in its passage. these stones are found in lochabar. the islands afford few pleasures, except to the hardy sportsman, who can tread the moor and climb the mountain. the distance of one family from another, in a country where travelling has so much difficulty, makes frequent intercourse impracticable. visits last several days, and are commonly paid by water; yet i never saw a boat furnished with benches, or made commodious by any addition to the first fabric. conveniences are not missed where they never were enjoyed. the solace which the bagpipe can give, they have long enjoyed; but among other changes, which the last revolution introduced, the use of the bagpipe begins to be forgotten. some of the chief families still entertain a piper, whose office was anciently hereditary. macrimmon was piper to macleod, and rankin to maclean of col. the tunes of the bagpipe are traditional. there has been in sky, beyond all time of memory, a college of pipers, under the direction of macrimmon, which is not quite extinct. there was another in mull, superintended by rankin, which expired about sixteen years ago. to these colleges, while the pipe retained its honour, the students of musick repaired for education. i have had my dinner exhilarated by the bagpipe, at armidale, at dunvegan, and in col. the general conversation of the islanders has nothing particular. i did not meet with the inquisitiveness of which i have read, and suspect the judgment to have been rashly made. a stranger of curiosity comes into a place where a stranger is seldom seen: he importunes the people with questions, of which they cannot guess the motive, and gazes with surprise on things which they, having had them always before their eyes, do not suspect of any thing wonderful. he appears to them like some being of another world, and then thinks it peculiar that they take their turn to inquire whence he comes, and whither he is going. the islands were long unfurnished with instruction for youth, and none but the sons of gentlemen could have any literature. there are now parochial schools, to which the lord of every manor pays a certain stipend. here the children are taught to read; but by the rule of their institution, they teach only english, so that the natives read a language which they may never use or understand. if a parish, which often happens, contains several islands, the school being but in one, cannot assist the rest. this is the state of col, which, however, is more enlightened than some other places; for the deficiency is supplied by a young gentleman, who, for his own improvement, travels every year on foot over the highlands to the session at aberdeen; and at his return, during the vacation, teaches to read and write in his native island. in sky there are two grammar schools, where boarders are taken to be regularly educated. the price of board is from three pounds, to four pounds ten shillings a year, and that of instruction is half a crown a quarter. but the scholars are birds of passage, who live at school only in the summer; for in winter provisions cannot be made for any considerable number in one place. this periodical dispersion impresses strongly the scarcity of these countries. having heard of no boarding-school for ladies nearer than inverness, i suppose their education is generally domestick. the elder daughters of the higher families are sent into the world, and may contribute by their acquisitions to the improvement of the rest. women must here study to be either pleasing or useful. their deficiencies are seldom supplied by very liberal fortunes. a hundred pounds is a portion beyond the hope of any but the laird's daughter. they do not indeed often give money with their daughters; the question is, how many cows a young lady will bring her husband. a rich maiden has from ten to forty; but two cows are a decent fortune for one who pretends to no distinction. the religion of the islands is that of the kirk of scotland. the gentlemen with whom i conversed are all inclined to the english liturgy; but they are obliged to maintain the established minister, and the country is too poor to afford payment to another, who must live wholly on the contribution of his audience. they therefore all attend the worship of the kirk, as often as a visit from their minister, or the practicability of travelling gives them opportunity; nor have they any reason to complain of insufficient pastors; for i saw not one in the islands, whom i had reason to think either deficient in learning, or irregular in life: but found several with whom i could not converse without wishing, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians. the ancient rigour of puritanism is now very much relaxed, though all are not yet equally enlightened. i sometimes met with prejudices sufficiently malignant, but they were prejudices of ignorance. the ministers in the islands had attained such knowledge as may justly be admired in men, who have no motive to study, but generous curiosity, or, what is still better, desire of usefulness; with such politeness as so narrow a circle of converse could not have supplied, but to minds naturally disposed to elegance. reason and truth will prevail at last. the most learned of the scottish doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer, if the people would endure it. the zeal or rage of congregations has its different degrees. in some parishes the lord's prayer is suffered: in others it is still rejected as a form; and he that should make it part of his supplication would be suspected of heretical pravity. the principle upon which extemporary prayer was originally introduced, is no longer admitted. the minister formerly, in the effusion of his prayer, expected immediate, and perhaps perceptible inspiration, and therefore thought it his duty not to think before what he should say. it is now universally confessed, that men pray as they speak on other occasions, according to the general measure of their abilities and attainments. whatever each may think of a form prescribed by another, he cannot but believe that he can himself compose by study and meditation a better prayer than will rise in his mind at a sudden call; and if he has any hope of supernatural help, why may he not as well receive it when he writes as when he speaks? in the variety of mental powers, some must perform extemporary prayer with much imperfection; and in the eagerness and rashness of contradictory opinions, if publick liturgy be left to the private judgment of every minister, the congregation may often be offended or misled. there is in scotland, as among ourselves, a restless suspicion of popish machinations, and a clamour of numerous converts to the romish religion. the report is, i believe, in both parts of the island equally false. the romish religion is professed only in egg and canna, two small islands, into which the reformation never made its way. if any missionaries are busy in the highlands, their zeal entitles them to respect, even from those who cannot think favourably of their doctrine. the political tenets of the islanders i was not curious to investigate, and they were not eager to obtrude. their conversation is decent and inoffensive. they disdain to drink for their principles, and there is no disaffection at their tables. i never heard a health offered by a highlander that might not have circulated with propriety within the precincts of the king's palace. legal government has yet something of novelty to which they cannot perfectly conform. the ancient spirit, that appealed only to the sword, is yet among them. the tenant of scalpa, an island belonging to macdonald, took no care to bring his rent; when the landlord talked of exacting payment, he declared his resolution to keep his ground, and drive all intruders from the island, and continued to feed his cattle as on his own land, till it became necessary for the sheriff to dislodge him by violence. the various kinds of superstition which prevailed here, as in all other regions of ignorance, are by the diligence of the ministers almost extirpated. of browny, mentioned by martin, nothing has been heard for many years. browny was a sturdy fairy; who, if he was fed, and kindly treated, would, as they said, do a great deal of work. they now pay him no wages, and are content to labour for themselves. in troda, within these three-and-thirty years, milk was put every saturday for greogach, or 'the old man with the long beard.' whether greogach was courted as kind, or dreaded as terrible, whether they meant, by giving him the milk, to obtain good, or avert evil, i was not informed. the minister is now living by whom the practice was abolished. they have still among them a great number of charms for the cure of different diseases; they are all invocations, perhaps transmitted to them from the times of popery, which increasing knowledge will bring into disuse. they have opinions, which cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects. they expect better crops of grain, by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. the moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. in my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the english almanacks, 'to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling.' we should have had little claim to the praise of curiosity, if we had not endeavoured with particular attention to examine the question of the second sight. of an opinion received for centuries by a whole nation, and supposed to be confirmed through its whole descent, by a series of successive facts, it is desirable that the truth should be established, or the fallacy detected. the second sight is an impression made either by the mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which things distant or future are perceived, and seen as if they were present. a man on a journey far from home falls from his horse, another, who is perhaps at work about the house, sees him bleeding on the ground, commonly with a landscape of the place where the accident befalls him. another seer, driving home his cattle, or wandering in idleness, or musing in the sunshine, is suddenly surprised by the appearance of a bridal ceremony, or funeral procession, and counts the mourners or attendants, of whom, if he knows them, he relates the names, if he knows them not, he can describe the dresses. things distant are seen at the instant when they happen. of things future i know not that there is any rule for determining the time between the sight and the event. this receptive faculty, for power it cannot be called, is neither voluntary nor constant. the appearances have no dependence upon choice: they cannot be summoned, detained, or recalled. the impression is sudden, and the effect often painful. by the term second sight, seems to be meant a mode of seeing, superadded to that which nature generally bestows. in the earse it is called taisch; which signifies likewise a spectre, or a vision. i know not, nor is it likely that the highlanders ever examined, whether by taisch, used for second sight, they mean the power of seeing, or the thing seen. i do not find it to be true, as it is reported, that to the second sight nothing is presented but phantoms of evil. good seems to have the same proportions in those visionary scenes, as it obtains in real life: almost all remarkable events have evil for their basis; and are either miseries incurred, or miseries escaped. our sense is so much stronger of what we suffer, than of what we enjoy, that the ideas of pain predominate in almost every mind. what is recollection but a revival of vexations, or history but a record of wars, treasons, and calamities? death, which is considered as the greatest evil, happens to all. the greatest good, be it what it will, is the lot but of a part. that they should often see death is to be expected; because death is an event frequent and important. but they see likewise more pleasing incidents. a gentleman told me, that when he had once gone far from his own island, one of his labouring servants predicted his return, and described the livery of his attendant, which he had never worn at home; and which had been, without any previous design, occasionally given him. our desire of information was keen, and our inquiry frequent. mr. boswell's frankness and gaiety made every body communicative; and we heard many tales of these airy shows, with more or less evidence and distinctness. it is the common talk of the lowland scots, that the notion of the second sight is wearing away with other superstitions; and that its reality is no longer supposed, but by the grossest people. how far its prevalence ever extended, or what ground it has lost, i know not. the islanders of all degrees, whether of rank or understanding, universally admit it, except the ministers, who universally deny it, and are suspected to deny it, in consequence of a system, against conviction. one of them honestly told me, that he came to sky with a resolution not to believe it. strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur. this faculty of seeing things out of sight is local, and commonly useless. it is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit. it is ascribed only to a people very little enlightened; and among them, for the most part, to the mean and the ignorant. to the confidence of these objections it may be replied, that by presuming to determine what is fit, and what is beneficial, they presuppose more knowledge of the universal system than man has attained; and therefore depend upon principles too complicated and extensive for our comprehension; and that there can be no security in the consequence, when the premises are not understood; that the second sight is only wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no more difficulty than dreams, or perhaps than the regular exercise of the cogitative faculty; that a general opinion of communicative impulses, or visionary representations, has prevailed in all ages and all nations; that particular instances have been given, with such evidence, as neither bacon nor bayle has been able to resist; that sudden impressions, which the event has verified, have been felt by more than own or publish them; that the second sight of the hebrides implies only the local frequency of a power, which is nowhere totally unknown; and that where we are unable to decide by antecedent reason, we must be content to yield to the force of testimony. by pretension to second sight, no profit was ever sought or gained. it is an involuntary affection, in which neither hope nor fear are known to have any part. those who profess to feel it, do not boast of it as a privilege, nor are considered by others as advantageously distinguished. they have no temptation to feign; and their hearers have no motive to encourage the imposture. to talk with any of these seers is not easy. there is one living in sky, with whom we would have gladly conversed; but he was very gross and ignorant, and knew no english. the proportion in these countries of the poor to the rich is such, that if we suppose the quality to be accidental, it can very rarely happen to a man of education; and yet on such men it has sometimes fallen. there is now a second sighted gentleman in the highlands, who complains of the terrors to which he is exposed. the foresight of the seers is not always prescience; they are impressed with images, of which the event only shews them the meaning. they tell what they have seen to others, who are at that time not more knowing than themselves, but may become at last very adequate witnesses, by comparing the narrative with its verification. to collect sufficient testimonies for the satisfaction of the publick, or of ourselves, would have required more time than we could bestow. there is, against it, the seeming analogy of things confusedly seen, and little understood, and for it, the indistinct cry of national persuasion, which may be perhaps resolved at last into prejudice and tradition. i never could advance my curiosity to conviction; but came away at last only willing to believe. as there subsists no longer in the islands much of that peculiar and discriminative form of life, of which the idea had delighted our imagination, we were willing to listen to such accounts of past times as would be given us. but we soon found what memorials were to be expected from an illiterate people, whose whole time is a series of distress; where every morning is labouring with expedients for the evening; and where all mental pains or pleasure arose from the dread of winter, the expectation of spring, the caprices of their chiefs, and the motions of the neighbouring clans; where there was neither shame from ignorance, nor pride in knowledge; neither curiosity to inquire, nor vanity to communicate. the chiefs indeed were exempt from urgent penury, and daily difficulties; and in their houses were preserved what accounts remained of past ages. but the chiefs were sometimes ignorant and careless, and sometimes kept busy by turbulence and contention; and one generation of ignorance effaces the whole series of unwritten history. books are faithful repositories, which may be a while neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction: memory, once interrupted, is not to be recalled. written learning is a fixed luminary, which, after the cloud that had hidden it has past away, is again bright in its proper station. tradition is but a meteor, which, if once it falls, cannot be rekindled. it seems to be universally supposed, that much of the local history was preserved by the bards, of whom one is said to have been retained by every great family. after these bards were some of my first inquiries; and i received such answers as, for a while, made me please myself with my increase of knowledge; for i had not then learned how to estimate the narration of a highlander. they said that a great family had a bard and a senachi, who were the poet and historian of the house; and an old gentleman told me that he remembered one of each. here was a dawn of intelligence. of men that had lived within memory, some certain knowledge might be attained. though the office had ceased, its effects might continue; the poems might be found, though there was no poet. another conversation indeed informed me, that the same man was both bard and senachi. this variation discouraged me; but as the practice might be different in different times, or at the same time in different families, there was yet no reason for supposing that i must necessarily sit down in total ignorance. soon after i was told by a gentleman, who is generally acknowledged the greatest master of hebridian antiquities, that there had indeed once been both bards and senachies; and that senachi signified 'the man of talk,' or of conversation; but that neither bard nor senachi had existed for some centuries. i have no reason to suppose it exactly known at what time the custom ceased, nor did it probably cease in all houses at once. but whenever the practice of recitation was disused, the works, whether poetical or historical, perished with the authors; for in those times nothing had been written in the earse language. whether the 'man of talk' was a historian, whose office was to tell truth, or a story-teller, like those which were in the last century, and perhaps are now among the irish, whose trade was only to amuse, it now would be vain to inquire. most of the domestick offices were, i believe, hereditary; and probably the laureat of a clan was always the son of the last laureat. the history of the race could no otherwise be communicated, or retained; but what genius could be expected in a poet by inheritance? the nation was wholly illiterate. neither bards nor senachies could write or read; but if they were ignorant, there was no danger of detection; they were believed by those whose vanity they flattered. the recital of genealogies, which has been considered as very efficacious to the preservation of a true series of ancestry, was anciently made, when the heir of the family came to manly age. this practice has never subsisted within time of memory, nor was much credit due to such rehearsers, who might obtrude fictitious pedigrees, either to please their masters, or to hide the deficiency of their own memories. where the chiefs of the highlands have found the histories of their descent is difficult to tell; for no earse genealogy was ever written. in general this only is evident, that the principal house of a clan must be very ancient, and that those must have lived long in a place, of whom it is not known when they came thither. thus hopeless are all attempts to find any traces of highland learning. nor are their primitive customs and ancient manner of life otherwise than very faintly and uncertainly remembered by the present race. the peculiarities which strike the native of a commercial country, proceeded in a great measure from the want of money. to the servants and dependents that were not domesticks, and if an estimate be made from the capacity of any of their old houses which i have seen, their domesticks could have been but few, were appropriated certain portions of land for their support. macdonald has a piece of ground yet, called the bards or senachies field. when a beef was killed for the house, particular parts were claimed as fees by the several officers, or workmen. what was the right of each i have not learned. the head belonged to the smith, and the udder of a cow to the piper: the weaver had likewise his particular part; and so many pieces followed these prescriptive claims, that the laird's was at last but little. the payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in england, that it is totally forgotten. it was practised very lately in the hebrides, and probably still continues, not only in st. kilda, where money is not yet known, but in others of the smaller and remoter islands. it were perhaps to be desired, that no change in this particular should have been made. when the laird could only eat the produce of his lands, he was under the necessity of residing upon them; and when the tenant could not convert his stock into more portable riches, he could never be tempted away from his farm, from the only place where he could be wealthy. money confounds subordination, by overpowering the distinctions of rank and birth, and weakens authority by supplying power of resistance, or expedients for escape. the feudal system is formed for a nation employed in agriculture, and has never long kept its hold where gold and silver have become common. their arms were anciently the glaymore, or great two-handed sword, and afterwards the two-edged sword and target, or buckler, which was sustained on the left arm. in the midst of the target, which was made of wood, covered with leather, and studded with nails, a slender lance, about two feet long, was sometimes fixed; it was heavy and cumberous, and accordingly has for some time past been gradually laid aside. very few targets were at culloden. the dirk, or broad dagger, i am afraid, was of more use in private quarrels than in battles. the lochaber-ax is only a slight alteration of the old english bill. after all that has been said of the force and terrour of the highland sword, i could not find that the art of defence was any part of common education. the gentlemen were perhaps sometimes skilful gladiators, but the common men had no other powers than those of violence and courage. yet it is well known, that the onset of the highlanders was very formidable. as an army cannot consist of philosophers, a panick is easily excited by any unwonted mode of annoyance. new dangers are naturally magnified; and men accustomed only to exchange bullets at a distance, and rather to hear their enemies than see them, are discouraged and amazed when they find themselves encountered hand to hand, and catch the gleam of steel flashing in their faces. the highland weapons gave opportunity for many exertions of personal courage, and sometimes for single combats in the field; like those which occur so frequently in fabulous wars. at falkirk, a gentleman now living, was, i suppose after the retreat of the king's troops, engaged at a distance from the rest with an irish dragoon. they were both skilful swordsmen, and the contest was not easily decided: the dragoon at last had the advantage, and the highlander called for quarter; but quarter was refused him, and the fight continued till he was reduced to defend himself upon his knee. at that instant one of the macleods came to his rescue; who, as it is said, offered quarter to the dragoon, but he thought himself obliged to reject what he had before refused, and, as battle gives little time to deliberate, was immediately killed. funerals were formerly solemnized by calling multitudes together, and entertaining them at great expence. this emulation of useless cost has been for some time discouraged, and at last in the isle of sky is almost suppressed. of the earse language, as i understand nothing, i cannot say more than i have been told. it is the rude speech of a barbarous people, who had few thoughts to express, and were content, as they conceived grossly, to be grossly understood. after what has been lately talked of highland bards, and highland genius, many will startle when they are told, that the earse never was a written language; that there is not in the world an earse manuscript a hundred years old; and that the sounds of the highlanders were never expressed by letters, till some little books of piety were translated, and a metrical version of the psalms was made by the synod of argyle. whoever therefore now writes in this language, spells according to his own perception of the sound, and his own idea of the power of the letters. the welsh and the irish are cultivated tongues. the welsh, two hundred years ago, insulted their english neighbours for the instability of their orthography; while the earse merely floated in the breath of the people, and could therefore receive little improvement. when a language begins to teem with books, it is tending to refinement; as those who undertake to teach others must have undergone some labour in improving themselves, they set a proportionate value on their own thoughts, and wish to enforce them by efficacious expressions; speech becomes embodied and permanent; different modes and phrases are compared, and the best obtains an establishment. by degrees one age improves upon another. exactness is first obtained, and afterwards elegance. but diction, merely vocal, is always in its childhood. as no man leaves his eloquence behind him, the new generations have all to learn. there may possibly be books without a polished language, but there can be no polished language without books. that the bards could not read more than the rest of their countrymen, it is reasonable to suppose; because, if they had read, they could probably have written; and how high their compositions may reasonably be rated, an inquirer may best judge by considering what stores of imagery, what principles of ratiocination, what comprehension of knowledge, and what delicacy of elocution he has known any man attain who cannot read. the state of the bards was yet more hopeless. he that cannot read, may now converse with those that can; but the bard was a barbarian among barbarians, who, knowing nothing himself, lived with others that knew no more. there has lately been in the islands one of these illiterate poets, who hearing the bible read at church, is said to have turned the sacred history into verse. i heard part of a dialogue, composed by him, translated by a young lady in mull, and thought it had more meaning than i expected from a man totally uneducated; but he had some opportunities of knowledge; he lived among a learned people. after all that has been done for the instruction of the highlanders, the antipathy between their language and literature still continues; and no man that has learned only earse is, at this time, able to read. the earse has many dialects, and the words used in some islands are not always known in others. in literate nations, though the pronunciation, and sometimes the words of common speech may differ, as now in england, compared with the south of scotland, yet there is a written diction, which pervades all dialects, and is understood in every province. but where the whole language is colloquial, he that has only one part, never gets the rest, as he cannot get it but by change of residence. in an unwritten speech, nothing that is not very short is transmitted from one generation to another. few have opportunities of hearing a long composition often enough to learn it, or have inclination to repeat it so often as is necessary to retain it; and what is once forgotten is lost for ever. i believe there cannot be recovered, in the whole earse language, five hundred lines of which there is any evidence to prove them a hundred years old. yet i hear that the father of ossian boasts of two chests more of ancient poetry, which he suppresses, because they are too good for the english. he that goes into the highlands with a mind naturally acquiescent, and a credulity eager for wonders, may come back with an opinion very different from mine; for the inhabitants knowing the ignorance of all strangers in their language and antiquities, perhaps are not very scrupulous adherents to truth; yet i do not say that they deliberately speak studied falsehood, or have a settled purpose to deceive. they have inquired and considered little, and do not always feel their own ignorance. they are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others; and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false. mr. boswell was very diligent in his inquiries; and the result of his investigations was, that the answer to the second question was commonly such as nullified the answer to the first. we were a while told, that they had an old translation of the scriptures; and told it till it would appear obstinacy to inquire again. yet by continued accumulation of questions we found, that the translation meant, if any meaning there were, was nothing else than the irish bible. we heard of manuscripts that were, or that had been in the hands of somebody's father, or grandfather; but at last we had no reason to believe they were other than irish. martin mentions irish, but never any earse manuscripts, to be found in the islands in his time. i suppose my opinion of the poems of ossian is already discovered. i believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. the editor, or author, never could shew the original; nor can it be shewn by any other; to revenge reasonable incredulity, by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence, with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt. it would be easy to shew it if he had it; but whence could it be had? it is too long to be remembered, and the language formerly had nothing written. he has doubtless inserted names that circulate in popular stories, and may have translated some wandering ballads, if any can be found; and the names, and some of the images being recollected, make an inaccurate auditor imagine, by the help of caledonian bigotry, that he has formerly heard the whole. i asked a very learned minister in sky, who had used all arts to make me believe the genuineness of the book, whether at last he believed it himself? but he would not answer. he wished me to be deceived, for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me. yet has this man's testimony been publickly produced, as of one that held fingal to be the work of ossian. it is said, that some men of integrity profess to have heard parts of it, but they all heard them when they were boys; and it was never said that any of them could recite six lines. they remember names, and perhaps some proverbial sentiments; and, having no distinct ideas, coin a resemblance without an original. the persuasion of the scots, however, is far from universal; and in a question so capable of proof, why should doubt be suffered to continue? the editor has been heard to say, that part of the poem was received by him, in the saxon character. he has then found, by some peculiar fortune, an unwritten language, written in a character which the natives probably never beheld. i have yet supposed no imposture but in the publisher, yet i am far from certainty, that some translations have not been lately made, that may now be obtruded as parts of the original work. credulity on one part is a strong temptation to deceit on the other, especially to deceit of which no personal injury is the consequence, and which flatters the author with his own ingenuity. the scots have something to plead for their easy reception of an improbable fiction; they are seduced by their fondness for their supposed ancestors. a scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist, who does not love scotland better than truth: he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it. neither ought the english to be much influenced by scotch authority; for of the past and present state of the whole earse nation, the lowlanders are at least as ignorant as ourselves. to be ignorant is painful; but it is dangerous to quiet our uneasiness by the delusive opiate of hasty persuasion. but this is the age, in which those who could not read, have been supposed to write; in which the giants of antiquated romance have been exhibited as realities. if we know little of the ancient highlanders, let us not fill the vacuity with ossian. if we had not searched the magellanick regions, let us however forbear to people them with patagons. having waited some days at armidel, we were flattered at last with a wind that promised to convey us to mull. we went on board a boat that was taking in kelp, and left the isle of sky behind us. we were doomed to experience, like others, the danger of trusting to the wind, which blew against us, in a short time, with such violence, that we, being no seasoned sailors, were willing to call it a tempest. i was sea-sick and lay down. mr. boswell kept the deck. the master knew not well whither to go; and our difficulties might perhaps have filled a very pathetick page, had not mr. maclean of col, who, with every other qualification which insular life requires, is a very active and skilful mariner, piloted us safe into his own harbour. col in the morning we found ourselves under the isle of col, where we landed; and passed the first day and night with captain maclean, a gentleman who has lived some time in the east indies; but having dethroned no nabob, is not too rich to settle in own country. next day the wind was fair, and we might have had an easy passage to mull; but having, contrarily to our own intention, landed upon a new island, we would not leave it wholly unexamined. we therefore suffered the vessel to depart without us, and trusted the skies for another wind. mr. maclean of col, having a very numerous family, has, for some time past, resided at aberdeen, that he may superintend their education, and leaves the young gentleman, our friend, to govern his dominions, with the full power of a highland chief. by the absence of the laird's family, our entertainment was made more difficult, because the house was in a great degree disfurnished; but young col's kindness and activity supplied all defects, and procured us more than sufficient accommodation. here i first mounted a little highland steed; and if there had been many spectators, should have been somewhat ashamed of my figure in the march. the horses of the islands, as of other barren countries, are very low: they are indeed musculous and strong, beyond what their size gives reason for expecting; but a bulky man upon one of their backs makes a very disproportionate appearance. from the habitation of captain maclean, we went to grissipol, but called by the way on mr. hector maclean, the minister of col, whom we found in a hut, that is, a house of only one floor, but with windows and chimney, and not inelegantly furnished. mr. maclean has the reputation of great learning: he is seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a look of venerable dignity, excelling what i remember in any other man. his conversation was not unsuitable to his appearance. i lost some of his good-will, by treating a heretical writer with more regard than, in his opinion, a heretick could deserve. i honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. a man who has settled his opinions, does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest. mention was made of the earse translation of the new testament, which has been lately published, and of which the learned mr. macqueen of sky spoke with commendation; but mr. maclean said he did not use it, because he could make the text more intelligible to his auditors by an extemporary version. from this i inferred, that the language of the translation was not the language of the isle of col. he has no publick edifice for the exercise of his ministry; and can officiate to no greater number, than a room can contain; and the room of a hut is not very large. this is all the opportunity of worship that is now granted to the inhabitants of the island, some of whom must travel thither perhaps ten miles. two chapels were erected by their ancestors, of which i saw the skeletons, which now stand faithful witnesses of the triumph of the reformation. the want of churches is not the only impediment to piety: there is likewise a want of ministers. a parish often contains more islands than one; and each island can have the minister only in its own turn. at raasa they had, i think, a right to service only every third sunday. all the provision made by the present ecclesiastical constitution, for the inhabitants of about a hundred square miles, is a prayer and sermon in a little room, once in three weeks: and even this parsimonious distribution is at the mercy of the weather; and in those islands where the minister does not reside, it is impossible to tell how many weeks or months may pass without any publick exercise of religion. grissipol in col after a short conversation with mr. maclean, we went on to grissipol, a house and farm tenanted by mr. macsweyn, where i saw more of the ancient life of a highlander, than i had yet found. mrs. macsweyn could speak no english, and had never seen any other places than the islands of sky, mull, and col: but she was hospitable and good-humoured, and spread her table with sufficient liberality. we found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn. the house of grissipol stands by a brook very clear and quick; which is, i suppose, one of the most copious streams in the island. this place was the scene of an action, much celebrated in the traditional history of col, but which probably no two relaters will tell alike. some time, in the obscure ages, macneil of barra married the lady maclean, who had the isle of col for her jointure. whether macneil detained col, when the widow was dead, or whether she lived so long as to make her heirs impatient, is perhaps not now known. the younger son, called john gerves, or john the giant, a man of great strength who was then in ireland, either for safety, or for education, dreamed of recovering his inheritance; and getting some adventurers together, which, in those unsettled times, was not hard to do, invaded col. he was driven away, but was not discouraged, and collecting new followers, in three years came again with fifty men. in his way he stopped at artorinish in morvern, where his uncle was prisoner to macleod, and was then with his enemies in a tent. maclean took with him only one servant, whom he ordered to stay at the outside; and where he should see the tent pressed outwards, to strike with his dirk, it being the intention of maclean, as any man provoked him, to lay hands upon him, and push him back. he entered the tent alone, with his lochabar-axe in his hand, and struck such terror into the whole assembly, that they dismissed his uncle. when he landed at col, he saw the sentinel, who kept watch towards the sea, running off to grissipol, to give macneil, who was there with a hundred and twenty men, an account of the invasion. he told macgill, one of his followers, that if he intercepted that dangerous intelligence, by catching the courier, he would give him certain lands in mull. upon this promise, macgill pursued the messenger, and either killed, or stopped him; and his posterity, till very lately, held the lands in mull. the alarm being thus prevented, he came unexpectedly upon macneil. chiefs were in those days never wholly unprovided for an enemy. a fight ensued, in which one of their followers is said to have given an extraordinary proof of activity, by bounding backwards over the brook of grissipol. macneil being killed, and many of his clan destroyed, maclean took possession of the island, which the macneils attempted to conquer by another invasion, but were defeated and repulsed. maclean, in his turn, invaded the estate of the macneils, took the castle of brecacig, and conquered the isle of barra, which he held for seven years, and then restored it to the heirs. castle of col from grissipol, mr. maclean conducted us to his father's seat; a neat new house, erected near the old castle, i think, by the last proprietor. here we were allowed to take our station, and lived very commodiously, while we waited for moderate weather and a fair wind, which we did not so soon obtain, but we had time to get some information of the present state of col, partly by inquiry, and partly by occasional excursions. col is computed to be thirteen miles in length, and three in breadth. both the ends are the property of the duke of argyle, but the middle belongs to maclean, who is called col, as the only laird. col is not properly rocky; it is rather one continued rock, of a surface much diversified with protuberances, and covered with a thin layer of earth, which is often broken, and discovers the stone. such a soil is not for plants that strike deep roots; and perhaps in the whole island nothing has ever yet grown to the height of a table. the uncultivated parts are clothed with heath, among which industry has interspersed spots of grass and corn; but no attempt has yet been made to raise a tree. young col, who has a very laudable desire of improving his patrimony, purposes some time to plant an orchard; which, if it be sheltered by a wall, may perhaps succeed. he has introduced the culture of turnips, of which he has a field, where the whole work was performed by his own hand. his intention is to provide food for his cattle in the winter. this innovation was considered by mr. macsweyn as the idle project of a young head, heated with english fancies; but he has now found that turnips will really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will really eat them. by such acquisitions as these, the hebrides may in time rise above their annual distress. wherever heath will grow, there is reason to think something better may draw nourishment; and by trying the production of other places, plants will be found suitable to every soil. col has many lochs, some of which have trouts and eels, and others have never yet been stocked; another proof of the negligence of the islanders, who might take fish in the inland waters, when they cannot go to sea. their quadrupeds are horses, cows, sheep, and goats. they have neither deer, hares, nor rabbits. they have no vermin, except rats, which have been lately brought thither by sea, as to other places; and are free from serpents, frogs, and toads. the harvest in col, and in lewis, is ripe sooner than in sky; and the winter in col is never cold, but very tempestuous. i know not that i ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and mr. boswell observed, that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it. noise is not the worst effect of the tempests; for they have thrown the sand from the shore over a considerable part of the land; and it is said still to encroach and destroy more and more pasture; but i am not of opinion, that by any surveys or landmarks, its limits have been ever fixed, or its progression ascertained. if one man has confidence enough to say, that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him in denying it. the reason why it is not spread to a greater extent, seems to be, that the wind and rain come almost together, and that it is made close and heavy by the wet before the storms can put it in motion. so thick is the bed, and so small the particles, that if a traveller should be caught by a sudden gust in dry weather, he would find it very difficult to escape with life. for natural curiosities, i was shown only two great masses of stone, which lie loose upon the ground; one on the top of a hill, and the other at a small distance from the bottom. they certainly were never put into their present places by human strength or skill; and though an earthquake might have broken off the lower stone, and rolled it into the valley, no account can be given of the other, which lies on the hill, unless, which i forgot to examine, there be still near it some higher rock, from which it might be torn. all nations have a tradition, that their earliest ancestors were giants, and these stones are said to have been thrown up and down by a giant and his mistress. there are so many more important things, of which human knowledge can give no account, that it may be forgiven us, if we speculate no longer on two stones in col. this island is very populous. about nine-and-twenty years ago, the fencible men of col were reckoned one hundred and forty, which is the sixth of eight hundred and forty; and probably some contrived to be left out of the list. the minister told us, that a few years ago the inhabitants were eight hundred, between the ages of seven and of seventy. round numbers are seldom exact. but in this case the authority is good, and the errour likely to be little. if to the eight hundred be added what the laws of computation require, they will be increased to at least a thousand; and if the dimensions of the country have been accurately related, every mile maintains more than twenty-five. this proportion of habitation is greater than the appearance of the country seems to admit; for wherever the eye wanders, it sees much waste and little cultivation. i am more inclined to extend the land, of which no measure has ever been taken, than to diminish the people, who have been really numbered. let it be supposed, that a computed mile contains a mile and a half, as was commonly found true in the mensuration of the english roads, and we shall then allot nearly twelve to a mile, which agrees much better with ocular observation. here, as in sky, and other islands, are the laird, the tacksmen, and the under tenants. mr. maclean, the laird, has very extensive possessions, being proprietor, not only of far the greater part of col, but of the extensive island of rum, and a very considerable territory in mull. rum is one of the larger islands, almost square, and therefore of great capacity in proportion to its sides. by the usual method of estimating computed extent, it may contain more than a hundred and twenty square miles. it originally belonged to clanronald, and was purchased by col; who, in some dispute about the bargain, made clanronald prisoner, and kept him nine months in confinement. its owner represents it as mountainous, rugged, and barren. in the hills there are red deer. the horses are very small, but of a breed eminent for beauty. col, not long ago, bought one of them from a tenant; who told him, that as he was of a shape uncommonly elegant, he could not sell him but at a high price; and that whoever had him should pay a guinea and a half. there are said to be in barra a race of horses yet smaller, of which the highest is not above thirty-six inches. the rent of rum is not great. mr. maclean declared, that he should be very rich, if he could set his land at two-pence halfpenny an acre. the inhabitants are fifty-eight families, who continued papists for some time after the laird became a protestant. their adherence to their old religion was strengthened by the countenance of the laird's sister, a zealous romanist, till one sunday, as they were going to mass under the conduct of their patroness, maclean met them on the way, gave one of them a blow on the head with a yellow stick, i suppose a cane, for which the earse had no name, and drove them to the kirk, from which they have never since departed. since the use of this method of conversion, the inhabitants of egg and canna, who continue papists, call the protestantism of rum, the religion of the yellow stick. the only popish islands are egg and canna. egg is the principal island of a parish, in which, though he has no congregation, the protestant minister resides. i have heard of nothing curious in it, but the cave in which a former generation of the islanders were smothered by macleod. if we had travelled with more leisure, it had not been fit to have neglected the popish islands. popery is favourable to ceremony; and among ignorant nations, ceremony is the only preservative of tradition. since protestantism was extended to the savage parts of scotland, it has perhaps been one of the chief labours of the ministers to abolish stated observances, because they continued the remembrance of the former religion. we therefore who came to hear old traditions, and see antiquated manners, should probably have found them amongst the papists. canna, the other popish island, belongs to clanronald. it is said not to comprise more than twelve miles of land, and yet maintains as many inhabitants as rum. we were at col under the protection of the young laird, without any of the distresses, which mr. pennant, in a fit of simple credulity, seems to think almost worthy of an elegy by ossian. wherever we roved, we were pleased to see the reverence with which his subjects regarded him. he did not endeavour to dazzle them by any magnificence of dress: his only distinction was a feather in his bonnet; but as soon as he appeared, they forsook their work and clustered about him: he took them by the hand, and they seemed mutually delighted. he has the proper disposition of a chieftain, and seems desirous to continue the customs of his house. the bagpiper played regularly, when dinner was served, whose person and dress made a good appearance; and he brought no disgrace upon the family of rankin, which has long supplied the lairds of col with hereditary musick. the tacksmen of col seem to live with less dignity and convenience than those of sky; where they had good houses, and tables not only plentiful, but delicate. in col only two houses pay the window tax; for only two have six windows, which, i suppose, are the laird's and mr. macsweyn's. the rents have, till within seven years, been paid in kind, but the tenants finding that cattle and corn varied in their price, desired for the future to give their landlord money; which, not having yet arrived at the philosophy of commerce, they consider as being every year of the same value. we were told of a particular mode of under-tenure. the tacksman admits some of his inferior neighbours to the cultivation of his grounds, on condition that performing all the work, and giving a third part of the seed, they shall keep a certain number of cows, sheep, and goats, and reap a third part of the harvest. thus by less than the tillage of two acres they pay the rent of one. there are tenants below the rank of tacksmen, that have got smaller tenants under them; for in every place, where money is not the general equivalent, there must be some whose labour is immediately paid by daily food. a country that has no money, is by no means convenient for beggars, both because such countries are commonly poor, and because charity requires some trouble and some thought. a penny is easily given upon the first impulse of compassion, or impatience of importunity; but few will deliberately search their cupboards or their granaries to find out something to give. a penny is likewise easily spent, but victuals, if they are unprepared, require houseroom, and fire, and utensils, which the beggar knows not where to find. yet beggars there sometimes are, who wander from island to island. we had, in our passage to mull, the company of a woman and her child, who had exhausted the charity of col. the arrival of a beggar on an island is accounted a sinistrous event. every body considers that he shall have the less for what he gives away. their alms, i believe, is generally oatmeal. near to col is another island called tireye, eminent for its fertility. though it has but half the extent of rum, it is so well peopled, that there have appeared, not long ago, nine hundred and fourteen at a funeral. the plenty of this island enticed beggars to it, who seemed so burdensome to the inhabitants, that a formal compact was drawn up, by which they obliged themselves to grant no more relief to casual wanderers, because they had among them an indigent woman of high birth, whom they considered as entitled to all that they could spare. i have read the stipulation, which was indited with juridical formality, but was never made valid by regular subscription. if the inhabitants of col have nothing to give, it is not that they are oppressed by their landlord: their leases seem to be very profitable. one farmer, who pays only seven pounds a year, has maintained seven daughters and three sons, of whom the eldest is educated at aberdeen for the ministry; and now, at every vacation, opens a school in col. life is here, in some respects, improved beyond the condition of some other islands. in sky what is wanted can only be bought, as the arrival of some wandering pedlar may afford an opportunity; but in col there is a standing shop, and in mull there are two. a shop in the islands, as in other places of little frequentation, is a repository of every thing requisite for common use. mr. boswell's journal was filled, and he bought some paper in col. to a man that ranges the streets of london, where he is tempted to contrive wants, for the pleasure of supplying them, a shop affords no image worthy of attention; but in an island, it turns the balance of existence between good and evil. to live in perpetual want of little things, is a state not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation. i have in sky had some difficulty to find ink for a letter; and if a woman breaks her needle, the work is at a stop. as it is, the islanders are obliged to content themselves with succedaneous means for many common purposes. i have seen the chief man of a very wide district riding with a halter for a bridle, and governing his hobby with a wooden curb. the people of col, however, do not want dexterity to supply some of their necessities. several arts which make trades, and demand apprenticeships in great cities, are here the practices of daily economy. in every house candles are made, both moulded and dipped. their wicks are small shreds of linen cloth. they all know how to extract from the cuddy, oil for their lamps. they all tan skins, and make brogues. as we travelled through sky, we saw many cottages, but they very frequently stood single on the naked ground. in col, where the hills opened a place convenient for habitation, we found a petty village, of which every hut had a little garden adjoining; thus they made an appearance of social commerce and mutual offices, and of some attention to convenience and future supply. there is not in the western islands any collection of buildings that can make pretensions to be called a town, except in the isle of lewis, which i have not seen. if lewis is distinguished by a town, col has also something peculiar. the young laird has attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought on. he has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage. he has carried it about a mile, and will continue it by annual elongation from his house to the harbour. of taxes here is no reason for complaining; they are paid by a very easy composition. the malt-tax for col is twenty shillings. whisky is very plentiful: there are several stills in the island, and more is made than the inhabitants consume. the great business of insular policy is now to keep the people in their own country. as the world has been let in upon them, they have heard of happier climates, and less arbitrary government; and if they are disgusted, have emissaries among them ready to offer them land and houses, as a reward for deserting their chief and clan. many have departed both from the main of scotland, and from the islands; and all that go may be considered as subjects lost to the british crown; for a nation scattered in the boundless regions of america resembles rays diverging from a focus. all the rays remain, but the heat is gone. their power consisted in their concentration: when they are dispersed, they have no effect. it may be thought that they are happier by the change; but they are not happy as a nation, for they are a nation no longer. as they contribute not to the prosperity of any community, they must want that security, that dignity, that happiness, whatever it be, which a prosperous community throws back upon individuals. the inhabitants of col have not yet learned to be weary of their heath and rocks, but attend their agriculture and their dairies, without listening to american seducements. there are some however who think that this emigration has raised terrour disproportionate to its real evil; and that it is only a new mode of doing what was always done. the highlands, they say, never maintained their natural inhabitants; but the people, when they found themselves too numerous, instead of extending cultivation, provided for themselves by a more compendious method, and sought better fortune in other countries. they did not indeed go away in collective bodies, but withdrew invisibly, a few at a time; but the whole number of fugitives was not less, and the difference between other times and this, is only the same as between evaporation and effusion. this is plausible, but i am afraid it is not true. those who went before, if they were not sensibly missed, as the argument supposes, must have gone either in less number, or in a manner less detrimental, than at present; because formerly there was no complaint. those who then left the country were generally the idle dependants on overburdened families, or men who had no property; and therefore carried away only themselves. in the present eagerness of emigration, families, and almost communities, go away together. those who were considered as prosperous and wealthy sell their stock and carry away the money. once none went away but the useless and poor; in some parts there is now reason to fear, that none will stay but those who are too poor to remove themselves, and too useless to be removed at the cost of others. of antiquity there is not more knowledge in col than in other places; but every where something may be gleaned. how ladies were portioned, when there was no money, it would be difficult for an englishman to guess. in , maclean of dronart in mull married his sister fingala to maclean of coll, with a hundred and eighty kine; and stipulated, that if she became a widow, her jointure should be three hundred and sixty. i suppose some proportionate tract of land was appropriated to their pasturage. the disposition to pompous and expensive funerals, which has at one time or other prevailed in most parts of the civilized world, is not yet suppressed in the islands, though some of the ancient solemnities are worn away, and singers are no longer hired to attend the procession. nineteen years ago, at the burial of the laird of col, were killed thirty cows, and about fifty sheep. the number of the cows is positively told, and we must suppose other victuals in like proportion. mr. maclean informed us of an odd game, of which he did not tell the original, but which may perhaps be used in other places, where the reason of it is not yet forgot. at new-year's eve, in the hall or castle of the laird, where, at festal seasons, there may be supposed a very numerous company, one man dresses himself in a cow's hide, upon which other men beat with sticks. he runs with all this noise round the house, which all the company quits in a counterfeited fright: the door is then shut. at new-year's eve there is no great pleasure to be had out of doors in the hebrides. they are sure soon to recover from their terrour enough to solicit for re-admission; which, for the honour of poetry, is not to be obtained but by repeating a verse, with which those that are knowing and provident take care to be furnished. very near the house of maclean stands the castle of col, which was the mansion of the laird, till the house was built. it is built upon a rock, as mr. boswell remarked, that it might not be mined. it is very strong, and having been not long uninhabited, is yet in repair. on the wall was, not long ago, a stone with an inscription, importing, that 'if any man of the clan of maclonich shall appear before this castle, though he come at midnight, with a man's head in his hand, he shall there find safety and protection against all but the king.' this is an old highland treaty made upon a very memorable occasion. maclean, the son of john gerves, who recovered col, and conquered barra, had obtained, it is said, from james the second, a grant of the lands of lochiel, forfeited, i suppose, by some offence against the state. forfeited estates were not in those days quietly resigned; maclean, therefore, went with an armed force to seize his new possessions, and, i know not for what reason, took his wife with him. the camerons rose in defence of their chief, and a battle was fought at the head of loch ness, near the place where fort augustus now stands, in which lochiel obtained the victory, and maclean, with his followers, was defeated and destroyed. the lady fell into the hands of the conquerours, and being found pregnant was placed in the custody of maclonich, one of a tribe or family branched from cameron, with orders, if she brought a boy, to destroy him, if a girl, to spare her. maclonich's wife, who was with child likewise, had a girl about the same time at which lady maclean brought a boy, and maclonich with more generosity to his captive, than fidelity to his trust, contrived that the children should be changed. maclean being thus preserved from death, in time recovered his original patrimony; and in gratitude to his friend, made his castle a place of refuge to any of the clan that should think himself in danger; and, as a proof of reciprocal confidence, maclean took upon himself and his posterity the care of educating the heir of maclonich. this story, like all other traditions of the highlands, is variously related, but though some circumstances are uncertain, the principal fact is true. maclean undoubtedly owed his preservation to maclonich; for the treaty between the two families has been strictly observed: it did not sink into disuse and oblivion, but continued in its full force while the chieftains retained their power. i have read a demand of protection, made not more than thirty-seven years ago, for one of the maclonichs, named ewen cameron, who had been accessory to the death of macmartin, and had been banished by lochiel, his lord, for a certain term; at the expiration of which he returned married from france, but the macmartins, not satisfied with the punishment, when he attempted to settle, still threatened him with vengeance. he therefore asked, and obtained shelter in the isle of col. the power of protection subsists no longer, but what the law permits is yet continued, and maclean of col now educates the heir of maclonich. there still remains in the islands, though it is passing fast away, the custom of fosterage. a laird, a man of wealth and eminence, sends his child, either male or female, to a tacksman, or tenant, to be fostered. it is not always his own tenant, but some distant friend that obtains this honour; for an honour such a trust is very reasonably thought. the terms of fosterage seem to vary in different islands. in mull, the father sends with his child a certain number of cows, to which the same number is added by the fosterer. the father appropriates a proportionable extent of ground, without rent, for their pasturage. if every cow brings a calf, half belongs to the fosterer, and half to the child; but if there be only one calf between two cows, it is the child's, and when the child returns to the parent, it is accompanied by all the cows given, both by the father and by the fosterer, with half of the increase of the stock by propagation. these beasts are considered as a portion, and called macalive cattle, of which the father has the produce, but is supposed not to have the full property, but to owe the same number to the child, as a portion to the daughter, or a stock for the son. children continue with the fosterer perhaps six years, and cannot, where this is the practice, be considered as burdensome. the fosterer, if he gives four cows, receives likewise four, and has, while the child continues with him, grass for eight without rent, with half the calves, and all the milk, for which he pays only four cows when he dismisses his dalt, for that is the name for a foster child. fosterage is, i believe, sometimes performed upon more liberal terms. our friend, the young laird of col, was fostered by macsweyn of grissipol. macsweyn then lived a tenant to sir james macdonald in the isle of sky; and therefore col, whether he sent him cattle or not, could grant him no land. the dalt, however, at his return, brought back a considerable number of macalive cattle, and of the friendship so formed there have been good effects. when macdonald raised his rents, macsweyn was, like other tenants, discontented, and, resigning his farm, removed from sky to col, and was established at grissipol. these observations we made by favour of the contrary wind that drove us to col, an island not often visited; for there is not much to amuse curiosity, or to attract avarice. the ground has been hitherto, i believe, used chiefly for pasturage. in a district, such as the eye can command, there is a general herdsman, who knows all the cattle of the neighbourhood, and whose station is upon a hill, from which he surveys the lower grounds; and if one man's cattle invade another's grass, drives them back to their own borders. but other means of profit begin to be found; kelp is gathered and burnt, and sloops are loaded with the concreted ashes. cultivation is likely to be improved by the skill and encouragement of the present heir, and the inhabitants of those obscure vallies will partake of the general progress of life. the rents of the parts which belong to the duke of argyle, have been raised from fifty-five to one hundred and five pounds, whether from the land or the sea i cannot tell. the bounties of the sea have lately been so great, that a farm in southuist has risen in ten years from a rent of thirty pounds to one hundred and eighty. he who lives in col, and finds himself condemned to solitary meals, and incommunicable reflection, will find the usefulness of that middle order of tacksmen, which some who applaud their own wisdom are wishing to destroy. without intelligence man is not social, he is only gregarious; and little intelligence will there be, where all are constrained to daily labour, and every mind must wait upon the hand. after having listened for some days to the tempest, and wandered about the island till our curiosity was satisfied, we began to think about our departure. to leave col in october was not very easy. we however found a sloop which lay on the coast to carry kelp; and for a price which we thought levied upon our necessities, the master agreed to carry us to mull, whence we might readily pass back to scotland. mull as we were to catch the first favourable breath, we spent the night not very elegantly nor pleasantly in the vessel, and were landed next day at tobor morar, a port in mull, which appears to an unexperienced eye formed for the security of ships; for its mouth is closed by a small island, which admits them through narrow channels into a bason sufficiently capacious. they are indeed safe from the sea, but there is a hollow between the mountains, through which the wind issues from the land with very mischievous violence. there was no danger while we were there, and we found several other vessels at anchor; so that the port had a very commercial appearance. the young laird of col, who had determined not to let us lose his company, while there was any difficulty remaining, came over with us. his influence soon appeared; for he procured us horses, and conducted us to the house of doctor maclean, where we found very kind entertainment, and very pleasing conversation. miss maclean, who was born, and had been bred at glasgow, having removed with her father to mull, added to other qualifications, a great knowledge of the earse language, which she had not learned in her childhood, but gained by study, and was the only interpreter of earse poetry that i could ever find. the isle of mull is perhaps in extent the third of the hebrides. it is not broken by waters, nor shot into promontories, but is a solid and compact mass, of breadth nearly equal to its length. of the dimensions of the larger islands, there is no knowledge approaching to exactness. i am willing to estimate it as containing about three hundred square miles. mull had suffered like sky by the black winter of seventy-one, in which, contrary to all experience, a continued frost detained the snow eight weeks upon the ground. against a calamity never known, no provision had been made, and the people could only pine in helpless misery. one tenant was mentioned, whose cattle perished to the value of three hundred pounds; a loss which probably more than the life of man is necessary to repair. in countries like these, the descriptions of famine become intelligible. where by vigorous and artful cultivation of a soil naturally fertile, there is commonly a superfluous growth both of grain and grass; where the fields are crowded with cattle; and where every hand is able to attract wealth from a distance, by making something that promotes ease, or gratifies vanity, a dear year produces only a comparative want, which is rather seen than felt, and which terminates commonly in no worse effect, than that of condemning the lower orders of the community to sacrifice a little luxury to convenience, or at most a little convenience to necessity. but where the climate is unkind, and the ground penurious, so that the most fruitful years will produce only enough to maintain themselves; where life unimproved, and unadorned, fades into something little more than naked existence, and every one is busy for himself, without any arts by which the pleasure of others may be increased; if to the daily burden of distress any additional weight be added, nothing remains but to despair and die. in mull the disappointment of a harvest, or a murrain among the cattle, cuts off the regular provision; and they who have no manufactures can purchase no part of the superfluities of other countries. the consequence of a bad season is here not scarcity, but emptiness; and they whose plenty, was barely a supply of natural and present need, when that slender stock fails, must perish with hunger. all travel has its advantages. if the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it. mr. boswell's curiosity strongly impelled him to survey iona, or icolmkil, which was to the early ages the great school of theology, and is supposed to have been the place of sepulture for the ancient kings. i, though less eager, did not oppose him. that we might perform this expedition, it was necessary to traverse a great part of mull. we passed a day at dr. maclean's, and could have been well contented to stay longer. but col provided us horses, and we pursued our journey. this was a day of inconvenience, for the country is very rough, and my horse was but little. we travelled many hours through a tract, black and barren, in which, however, there were the reliques of humanity; for we found a ruined chapel in our way. it is natural, in traversing this gloom of desolation, to inquire, whether something may not be done to give nature a more cheerful face, and whether those hills and moors that afford heath cannot with a little care and labour bear something better? the first thought that occurs is to cover them with trees, for that in many of these naked regions trees will grow, is evident, because stumps and roots are yet remaining; and the speculatist hastily proceeds to censure that negligence and laziness that has omitted for so long a time so easy an improvement. to drop seeds into the ground, and attend their growth, requires little labour and no skill. he who remembers that all the woods, by which the wants of man have been supplied from the deluge till now, were self-sown, will not easily be persuaded to think all the art and preparation necessary, which the georgick writers prescribe to planters. trees certainly have covered the earth with very little culture. they wave their tops among the rocks of norway, and might thrive as well in the highlands and hebrides. but there is a frightful interval between the seed and timber. he that calculates the growth of trees, has the unwelcome remembrance of the shortness of life driven hard upon him. he knows that he is doing what will never benefit himself; and when he rejoices to see the stem rise, is disposed to repine that another shall cut it down. plantation is naturally the employment of a mind unburdened with care, and vacant to futurity, saturated with present good, and at leisure to derive gratification from the prospect of posterity. he that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. the poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. it may be soon discovered, why in a place, which hardly supplies the cravings of necessity, there has been little attention to the delights of fancy, and why distant convenience is unregarded, where the thoughts are turned with incessant solicitude upon every possibility of immediate advantage. neither is it quite so easy to raise large woods, as may be conceived. trees intended to produce timber must be sown where they are to grow; and ground sown with trees must be kept useless for a long time, inclosed at an expence from which many will be discouraged by the remoteness of the profit, and watched with that attention, which, in places where it is most needed, will neither be given nor bought. that it cannot be plowed is evident; and if cattle be suffered to graze upon it, they will devour the plants as fast as they rise. even in coarser countries, where herds and flocks are not fed, not only the deer and the wild goats will browse upon them, but the hare and rabbit will nibble them. it is therefore reasonable to believe, what i do not remember any naturalist to have remarked, that there was a time when the world was very thinly inhabited by beasts, as well as men, and that the woods had leisure to rise high before animals had bred numbers sufficient to intercept them. sir james macdonald, in part of the wastes of his territory, set or sowed trees, to the number, as i have been told, of several millions, expecting, doubtless, that they would grow up into future navies and cities; but for want of inclosure, and of that care which is always necessary, and will hardly ever be taken, all his cost and labour have been lost, and the ground is likely to continue an useless heath. having not any experience of a journey in mull, we had no doubt of reaching the sea by day-light, and therefore had not left dr. maclean's very early. we travelled diligently enough, but found the country, for road there was none, very difficult to pass. we were always struggling with some obstruction or other, and our vexation was not balanced by any gratification of the eye or mind. we were now long enough acquainted with hills and heath to have lost the emotion that they once raised, whether pleasing or painful, and had our mind employed only on our own fatigue. we were however sure, under col's protection, of escaping all real evils. there was no house in mull to which he could not introduce us. he had intended to lodge us, for that night, with a gentleman that lived upon the coast, but discovered on the way, that he then lay in bed without hope of life. we resolved not to embarrass a family, in a time of so much sorrow, if any other expedient could he found; and as the island of ulva was over- against us, it was determined that we should pass the strait and have recourse to the laird, who, like the other gentlemen of the islands, was known to col. we expected to find a ferry-boat, but when at last we came to the water, the boat was gone. we were now again at a stop. it was the sixteenth of october, a time when it is not convenient to sleep in the hebrides without a cover, and there was no house within our reach, but that which we had already declined. ulva while we stood deliberating, we were happily espied from an irish ship, that lay at anchor in the strait. the master saw that we wanted a passage, and with great civility sent us his boat, which quickly conveyed us to ulva, where we were very liberally entertained by mr. macquarry. to ulva we came in the dark, and left it before noon the next day. a very exact description therefore will not be expected. we were told, that it is an island of no great extent, rough and barren, inhabited by the macquarrys; a clan not powerful nor numerous, but of antiquity, which most other families are content to reverence. the name is supposed to be a depravation of some other; for the earse language does not afford it any etymology. macquarry is proprietor both of ulva and some adjacent islands, among which is staffa, so lately raised to renown by mr. banks. when the islanders were reproached with their ignorance, or insensibility of the wonders of staffa, they had not much to reply. they had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder, otherwise than by novelty. how would it surprise an unenlightened ploughman, to hear a company of sober men, inquiring by what power the hand tosses a stone, or why the stone, when it is tossed, falls to the ground! of the ancestors of macquarry, who thus lies hid in his unfrequented island, i have found memorials in all places where they could be expected. inquiring after the reliques of former manners, i found that in ulva, and, i think, no where else, is continued the payment of the mercheta mulierum; a fine in old times due to the laird at the marriage of a virgin. the original of this claim, as of our tenure of borough english, is variously delivered. it is pleasant to find ancient customs in old families. this payment, like others, was, for want of money, made anciently in the produce of the land. macquarry was used to demand a sheep, for which he now takes a crown, by that inattention to the uncertain proportion between the value and the denomination of money, which has brought much disorder into europe. a sheep has always the same power of supplying human wants, but a crown will bring at one time more, at another less. ulva was not neglected by the piety of ardent times: it has still to show what was once a church. inch kenneth in the morning we went again into the boat, and were landed on inch kenneth, an island about a mile long, and perhaps half a mile broad, remarkable for pleasantness and fertility. it is verdant and grassy, and fit both for pasture and tillage; but it has no trees. its only inhabitants were sir allan maclean and two young ladies, his daughters, with their servants. romance does not often exhibit a scene that strikes the imagination more than this little desert in these depths of western obscurity, occupied not by a gross herdsman, or amphibious fisherman, but by a gentleman and two ladies, of high birth, polished manners and elegant conversation, who, in a habitation raised not very far above the ground, but furnished with unexpected neatness and convenience, practised all the kindness of hospitality, and refinement of courtesy. sir allan is the chieftain of the great clan of maclean, which is said to claim the second place among the highland families, yielding only to macdonald. though by the misconduct of his ancestors, most of the extensive territory, which would have descended to him, has been alienated, he still retains much of the dignity and authority of his birth. when soldiers were lately wanting for the american war, application was made to sir allan, and he nominated a hundred men for the service, who obeyed the summons, and bore arms under his command. he had then, for some time, resided with the young ladies in inch kenneth, where he lives not only with plenty, but with elegance, having conveyed to his cottage a collection of books, and what else is necessary to make his hours pleasant. when we landed, we were met by sir allan and the ladies, accompanied by miss macquarry, who had passed some time with them, and now returned to ulva with her father. we all walked together to the mansion, where we found one cottage for sir allan, and i think two more for the domesticks and the offices. we entered, and wanted little that palaces afford. our room was neatly floored, and well lighted; and our dinner, which was dressed in one of the other huts, was plentiful and delicate. in the afternoon sir allan reminded us, that the day was sunday, which he never suffered to pass without some religious distinction, and invited us to partake in his acts of domestick worship; which i hope neither mr. boswell nor myself will be suspected of a disposition to refuse. the elder of the ladies read the english service. inch kenneth was once a seminary of ecclesiasticks, subordinate, i suppose, to icolmkill. sir allan had a mind to trace the foundations of the college, but neither i nor mr. boswell, who bends a keener eye on vacancy, were able to perceive them. our attention, however, was sufficiently engaged by a venerable chapel, which stands yet entire, except that the roof is gone. it is about sixty feet in length, and thirty in breadth. on one side of the altar is a bas relief of the blessed virgin, and by it lies a little bell; which, though cracked, and without a clapper, has remained there for ages, guarded only by the venerableness of the place. the ground round the chapel is covered with gravestones of chiefs and ladies; and still continues to be a place of sepulture. inch kenneth is a proper prelude to icolmkill. it was not without some mournful emotion that we contemplated the ruins of religious structures and the monuments of the dead. on the next day we took a more distinct view of the place, and went with the boat to see oysters in the bed, out of which the boatmen forced up as many as were wanted. even inch kenneth has a subordinate island, named sandiland, i suppose in contempt, where we landed, and found a rock, with a surface of perhaps four acres, of which one is naked stone, another spread with sand and shells, some of which i picked up for their glossy beauty, and two covered with a little earth and grass, on which sir allan has a few sheep. i doubt not but when there was a college at inch kenneth, there was a hermitage upon sandiland. having wandered over those extensive plains, we committed ourselves again to the winds and waters; and after a voyage of about ten minutes, in which we met with nothing very observable, were again safe upon dry ground. we told sir allan our desire of visiting icolmkill, and entreated him to give us his protection, and his company. he thought proper to hesitate a little, but the ladies hinted, that as they knew he would not finally refuse, he would do better if he preserved the grace of ready compliance. he took their advice, and promised to carry us on the morrow in his boat. we passed the remaining part of the day in such amusements as were in our power. sir allan related the american campaign, and at evening one of the ladies played on her harpsichord, while col and mr. boswell danced a scottish reel with the other. we could have been easily persuaded to a longer stay upon inch kenneth, but life will not be all passed in delight. the session at edinburgh was approaching, from which mr. boswell could not be absent. in the morning our boat was ready: it was high and strong. sir allan victualled it for the day, and provided able rowers. we now parted from the young laird of col, who had treated us with so much kindness, and concluded his favours by consigning us to sir allan. here we had the last embrace of this amiable man, who, while these pages were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage between ulva and inch kenneth. sir allan, to whom the whole region was well known, told us of a very remarkable cave, to which he would show us the way. we had been disappointed already by one cave, and were not much elevated by the expectation of another. it was yet better to see it, and we stopped at some rocks on the coast of mull. the mouth is fortified by vast fragments of stone, over which we made our way, neither very nimbly, nor very securely. the place, however, well repaid our trouble. the bottom, as far as the flood rushes in, was encumbered with large pebbles, but as we advanced was spread over with smooth sand. the breadth is about forty-five feet: the roof rises in an arch, almost regular, to a height which we could not measure; but i think it about thirty feet. this part of our curiosity was nearly frustrated; for though we went to see a cave, and knew that caves are dark, we forgot to carry tapers, and did not discover our omission till we were wakened by our wants. sir allan then sent one of the boatmen into the country, who soon returned with one little candle. we were thus enabled to go forward, but could not venture far. having passed inward from the sea to a great depth, we found on the right hand a narrow passage, perhaps not more than six feet wide, obstructed by great stones, over which we climbed and came into a second cave, in breadth twenty-five feet. the air in this apartment was very warm, but not oppressive, nor loaded with vapours. our light showed no tokens of a feculent or corrupted atmosphere. here was a square stone, called, as we are told, fingal's table. if we had been provided with torches, we should have proceeded in our search, though we had already gone as far as any former adventurer, except some who are reported never to have returned; and, measuring our way back, we found it more than a hundred and sixty yards, the eleventh part of a mile. our measures were not critically exact, having been made with a walking pole, such as it is convenient to carry in these rocky countries, of which i guessed the length by standing against it. in this there could be no great errour, nor do i much doubt but the highlander, whom we employed, reported the number right. more nicety however is better, and no man should travel unprovided with instruments for taking heights and distances. there is yet another cause of errour not always easily surmounted, though more dangerous to the veracity of itinerary narratives, than imperfect mensuration. an observer deeply impressed by any remarkable spectacle, does not suppose, that the traces will soon vanish from his mind, and having commonly no great convenience for writing, defers the description to a time of more leisure, and better accommodation. he who has not made the experiment, or who is not accustomed to require rigorous accuracy from himself, will scarcely believe how much a few hours take from certainty of knowledge, and distinctness of imagery; how the succession of objects will be broken, how separate parts will be confused, and how many particular features and discriminations will be compressed and conglobated into one gross and general idea. to this dilatory notation must be imputed the false relations of travellers, where there is no imaginable motive to deceive. they trusted to memory, what cannot be trusted safely but to the eye, and told by guess what a few hours before they had known with certainty. thus it was that wheeler and spon described with irreconcilable contrariety things which they surveyed together, and which both undoubtedly designed to show as they saw them. when we had satisfied our curiosity in the cave, so far as our penury of light permitted us, we clambered again to our boat, and proceeded along the coast of mull to a headland, called atun, remarkable for the columnar form of the rocks, which rise in a series of pilasters, with a degree of regularity, which sir allan thinks not less worthy of curiosity than the shore of staffa. not long after we came to another range of black rocks, which had the appearance of broken pilasters, set one behind another to a great depth. this place was chosen by sir allan for our dinner. we were easily accommodated with seats, for the stones were of all heights, and refreshed ourselves and our boatmen, who could have no other rest till we were at icolmkill. the evening was now approaching, and we were yet at a considerable distance from the end of our expedition. we could therefore stop no more to make remarks in the way, but set forward with some degree of eagerness. the day soon failed us, and the moon presented a very solemn and pleasing scene. the sky was clear, so that the eye commanded a wide circle: the sea was neither still nor turbulent: the wind neither silent nor loud. we were never far from one coast or another, on which, if the weather had become violent, we could have found shelter, and therefore contemplated at ease the region through which we glided in the tranquillity of the night, and saw now a rock and now an island grow gradually conspicuous and gradually obscure. i committed the fault which i have just been censuring, in neglecting, as we passed, to note the series of this placid navigation. we were very near an island, called nun's island, perhaps from an ancient convent. here is said to have been dug the stone that was used in the buildings of icolmkill. whether it is now inhabited we could not stay to inquire. at last we came to icolmkill, but found no convenience for landing. our boat could not be forced very near the dry ground, and our highlanders carried us over the water. we were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. to abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish, if it were possible. whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. far from me and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. that man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of iona! we came too late to visit monuments: some care was necessary for ourselves. whatever was in the island, sir allan could command, for the inhabitants were macleans; but having little they could not give us much. he went to the headman of the island, whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds. he was perhaps proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however, he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious require. our lodging was next to be provided. we found a barn well stocked with hay, and made our beds as soft as we could. in the morning we rose and surveyed the place. the churches of the two convents are both standing, though unroofed. they were built of unhewn stone, but solid, and not inelegant. i brought away rude measures of the buildings, such as i cannot much trust myself, inaccurately taken, and obscurely noted. mr. pennant's delineations, which are doubtless exact, have made my unskilful description less necessary. the episcopal church consists of two parts, separated by the belfry, and built at different times. the original church had, like others, the altar at one end, and tower at the other: but as it grew too small, another building of equal dimension was added, and the tower then was necessarily in the middle. that these edifices are of different ages seems evident. the arch of the first church is roman, being part of a circle; that of the additional building is pointed, and therefore gothick, or saracenical; the tower is firm, and wants only to be floored and covered. of the chambers or cells belonging to the monks, there are some walls remaining, but nothing approaching to a complete apartment. the bottom of the church is so incumbered with mud and rubbish, that we could make no discoveries of curious inscriptions, and what there are have been already published. the place is said to be known where the black stones lie concealed, on which the old highland chiefs, when they made contracts and alliances, used to take the oath, which was considered as more sacred than any other obligation, and which could not be violated without the blackest infamy. in those days of violence and rapine, it was of great importance to impress upon savage minds the sanctity of an oath, by some particular and extraordinary circumstances. they would not have recourse to the black stones, upon small or common occasions, and when they had established their faith by this tremendous sanction, inconstancy and treachery were no longer feared. the chapel of the nunnery is now used by the inhabitants as a kind of general cow-house, and the bottom is consequently too miry for examination. some of the stones which covered the later abbesses have inscriptions, which might yet be read, if the chapel were cleansed. the roof of this, as of all the other buildings, is totally destroyed, not only because timber quickly decays when it is neglected, but because in an island utterly destitute of wood, it was wanted for use, and was consequently the first plunder of needy rapacity. the chancel of the nuns' chapel is covered with an arch of stone, to which time has done no injury; and a small apartment communicating with the choir, on the north side, like the chapter-house in cathedrals, roofed with stone in the same manner, is likewise entire. in one of the churches was a marble altar, which the superstition of the inhabitants has destroyed. their opinion was, that a fragment of this stone was a defence against shipwrecks, fire, and miscarriages. in one corner of the church the bason for holy water is yet unbroken. the cemetery of the nunnery was, till very lately, regarded with such reverence, that only women were buried in it. these reliques of veneration always produce some mournful pleasure. i could have forgiven a great injury more easily than the violation of this imaginary sanctity. south of the chapel stand the walls of a large room, which was probably the hall, or refectory of the nunnery. this apartment is capable of repair. of the rest of the convent there are only fragments. besides the two principal churches, there are, i think, five chapels yet standing, and three more remembered. there are also crosses, of which two bear the names of st. john and st. matthew. a large space of ground about these consecrated edifices is covered with gravestones, few of which have any inscription. he that surveys it, attended by an insular antiquary, may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to sooth his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions, his delight is at an end. iona has long enjoyed, without any very credible attestation, the honour of being reputed the cemetery of the scottish kings. it is not unlikely, that, when the opinion of local sanctity was prevalent, the chieftains of the isles, and perhaps some of the norwegian or irish princes were reposited in this venerable enclosure. but by whom the subterraneous vaults are peopled is now utterly unknown. the graves are very numerous, and some of them undoubtedly contain the remains of men, who did not expect to be so soon forgotten. not far from this awful ground, may be traced the garden of the monastery: the fishponds are yet discernible, and the aqueduct, which supplied them, is still in use. there remains a broken building, which is called the bishop's house, i know not by what authority. it was once the residence of some man above the common rank, for it has two stories and a chimney. we were shewn a chimney at the other end, which was only a nich, without perforation, but so much does antiquarian credulity, or patriotick vanity prevail, that it was not much more safe to trust the eye of our instructor than the memory. there is in the island one house more, and only one, that has a chimney: we entered it, and found it neither wanting repair nor inhabitants; but to the farmers, who now possess it, the chimney is of no great value; for their fire was made on the floor, in the middle of the room, and notwithstanding the dignity of their mansion, they rejoiced, like their neighbours, in the comforts of smoke. it is observed, that ecclesiastical colleges are always in the most pleasant and fruitful places. while the world allowed the monks their choice, it is surely no dishonour that they chose well. this island is remarkably fruitful. the village near the churches is said to contain seventy families, which, at five in a family, is more than a hundred inhabitants to a mile. there are perhaps other villages: yet both corn and cattle are annually exported. but the fruitfulness of iona is now its whole prosperity. the inhabitants are remarkably gross, and remarkably neglected: i know not if they are visited by any minister. the island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education, nor temple for worship, only two inhabitants that can speak english, and not one that can write or read. the people are of the clan of maclean; and though sir allan had not been in the place for many years, he was received with all the reverence due to their chieftain. one of them being sharply reprehended by him, for not sending him some rum, declared after his departure, in mr. boswell's presence, that he had no design of disappointing him, 'for,' said he, 'i would cut my bones for him; and if he had sent his dog for it, he should have had it.' when we were to depart, our boat was left by the ebb at a great distance from the water, but no sooner did we wish it afloat, than the islanders gathered round it, and, by the union of many hands, pushed it down the beach; every man who could contribute his help seemed to think himself happy in the opportunity of being, for a moment, useful to his chief. we now left those illustrious ruins, by which mr. boswell was much affected, nor would i willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion. perhaps, in the revolutions of the world, iona may be sometime again the instructress of the western regions. it was no long voyage to mull, where, under sir allan's protection, we landed in the evening, and were entertained for the night by mr. maclean, a minister that lives upon the coast, whose elegance of conversation, and strength of judgment, would make him conspicuous in places of greater celebrity. next day we dined with dr. maclean, another physician, and then travelled on to the house of a very powerful laird, maclean of lochbuy; for in this country every man's name is maclean. where races are thus numerous, and thus combined, none but the chief of a clan is addressed by his name. the laird of dunvegan is called macleod, but other gentlemen of the same family are denominated by the places where they reside, as raasa, or talisker. the distinction of the meaner people is made by their christian names. in consequence of this practice, the late laird of macfarlane, an eminent genealogist, considered himself as disrespectfully treated, if the common addition was applied to him. mr. macfarlane, said he, may with equal propriety be said to many; but i, and i only, am macfarlane. our afternoon journey was through a country of such gloomy desolation, that mr. boswell thought no part of the highlands equally terrifick, yet we came without any difficulty, at evening, to lochbuy, where we found a true highland laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity; who, hearing my name, inquired whether i was of the johnstons of glencroe, or of ardnamurchan. lochbuy has, like the other insular chieftains, quitted the castle that sheltered his ancestors, and lives near it, in a mansion not very spacious or splendid. i have seen no houses in the islands much to be envied for convenience or magnificence, yet they bare testimony to the progress of arts and civility, as they shew that rapine and surprise are no longer dreaded, and are much more commodious than the ancient fortresses. the castles of the hebrides, many of which are standing, and many ruined, were always built upon points of land, on the margin of the sea. for the choice of this situation there must have been some general reason, which the change of manners has left in obscurity. they were of no use in the days of piracy, as defences of the coast; for it was equally accessible in other places. had they been sea-marks or light-houses, they would have been of more use to the invader than the natives, who could want no such directions of their own waters: for a watch-tower, a cottage on a hill would have been better, as it would have commanded a wider view. if they be considered merely as places of retreat, the situation seems not well chosen; for the laird of an island is safest from foreign enemies in the center; on the coast he might be more suddenly surprised than in the inland parts; and the invaders, if their enterprise miscarried, might more easily retreat. some convenience, however, whatever it was, their position on the shore afforded; for uniformity of practice seldom continues long without good reason. a castle in the islands is only a single tower of three or four stories, of which the walls are sometimes eight or nine feet thick, with narrow windows, and close winding stairs of stone. the top rises in a cone, or pyramid of stone, encompassed by battlements. the intermediate floors are sometimes frames of timber, as in common houses, and sometimes arches of stone, or alternately stone and timber; so that there was very little danger from fire. in the center of every floor, from top to bottom, is the chief room, of no great extent, round which there are narrow cavities, or recesses, formed by small vacuities, or by a double wall. i know not whether there be ever more than one fire-place. they had not capacity to contain many people, or much provision; but their enemies could seldom stay to blockade them; for if they failed in the first attack, their next care was to escape. the walls were always too strong to be shaken by such desultory hostilities; the windows were too narrow to be entered, and the battlements too high to be scaled. the only danger was at the gates, over which the wall was built with a square cavity, not unlike a chimney, continued to the top. through this hollow the defendants let fall stones upon those who attempted to break the gate, and poured down water, perhaps scalding water, if the attack was made with fire. the castle of lochbuy was secured by double doors, of which the outer was an iron grate. in every castle is a well and a dungeon. the use of the well is evident. the dungeon is a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or a rope, so that it seems impossible to escape, when the rope or ladder is drawn up. the dungeon was, i suppose, in war, a prison for such captives as were treated with severity, and, in peace, for such delinquents as had committed crimes within the laird's jurisdiction; for the mansions of many lairds were, till the late privation of their privileges, the halls of justice to their own tenants. as these fortifications were the productions of mere necessity, they are built only for safety, with little regard to convenience, and with none to elegance or pleasure. it was sufficient for a laird of the hebrides, if he had a strong house, in which he could hide his wife and children from the next clan. that they are not large nor splendid is no wonder. it is not easy to find how they were raised, such as they are, by men who had no money, in countries where the labourers and artificers could scarcely be fed. the buildings in different parts of the island shew their degrees of wealth and power. i believe that for all the castles which i have seen beyond the tweed, the ruins yet remaining of some one of those which the english built in wales, would supply materials. these castles afford another evidence that the fictions of romantick chivalry had for their basis the real manners of the feudal times, when every lord of a seignory lived in his hold lawless and unaccountable, with all the licentiousness and insolence of uncontested superiority and unprincipled power. the traveller, whoever he might be, coming to the fortified habitation of a chieftain, would, probably, have been interrogated from the battlements, admitted with caution at the gate, introduced to a petty monarch, fierce with habitual hostility, and vigilant with ignorant suspicion; who, according to his general temper, or accidental humour, would have seated a stranger as his guest at the table, or as a spy confined him in the dungeon. lochbuy means the yellow lake, which is the name given to an inlet of the sea, upon which the castle of mr. maclean stands. the reason of the appellation we did not learn. we were now to leave the hebrides, where we had spent some weeks with sufficient amusement, and where we had amplified our thoughts with new scenes of nature, and new modes of life. more time would have given us a more distinct view, but it was necessary that mr. boswell should return before the courts of justice were opened; and it was not proper to live too long upon hospitality, however liberally imparted. of these islands it must be confessed, that they have not many allurements, but to the mere lover of naked nature. the inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little pleasure. the people collectively considered are not few, though their numbers are small in proportion to the space which they occupy. mull is said to contain six thousand, and sky fifteen thousand. of the computation respecting mull, i can give no account; but when i doubted the truth of the numbers attributed to sky, one of the ministers exhibited such facts as conquered my incredulity. of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessaries of life; a principle of judgment which is never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. it is competent enough when the markets of the same country, at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another. provisions, though plentiful, are sold in places of great pecuniary opulence for nominal prices, to which, however scarce, where gold and silver are yet scarcer, they can never be raised. in the western islands there is so little internal commerce, that hardly any thing has a known or settled rate. the price of things brought in, or carried out, is to be considered as that of a foreign market; and even this there is some difficulty in discovering, because their denominations of quantity are different from ours; and when there is ignorance on both sides, no appeal can be made to a common measure. this, however, is not the only impediment. the scots, with a vigilance of jealousy which never goes to sleep, always suspect that an englishman despises them for their poverty, and to convince him that they are not less rich than their neighbours, are sure to tell him a price higher than the true. when lesley, two hundred years ago, related so punctiliously, that a hundred hen eggs, new laid, were sold in the islands for a peny, he supposed that no inference could possibly follow, but that eggs were in great abundance. posterity has since grown wiser; and having learned, that nominal and real value may differ, they now tell no such stories, lest the foreigner should happen to collect, not that eggs are many, but that pence are few. money and wealth have by the use of commercial language been so long confounded, that they are commonly supposed to be the same; and this prejudice has spread so widely in scotland, that i know not whether i found man or woman, whom i interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of deceiving me, by representing every thing as dearer than it is. from lochbuy we rode a very few miles to the side of mull, which faces scotland, where, having taken leave of our kind protector, sir allan, we embarked in a boat, in which the seat provided for our accommodation was a heap of rough brushwood; and on the twenty-second of october reposed at a tolerable inn on the main land. on the next day we began our journey southwards. the weather was tempestuous. for half the day the ground was rough, and our horses were still small. had they required much restraint, we might have been reduced to difficulties; for i think we had amongst us but one bridle. we fed the poor animals liberally, and they performed their journey well. in the latter part of the day, we came to a firm and smooth road, made by the soldiers, on which we travelled with great security, busied with contemplating the scene about us. the night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark, but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills, on one side, and fell into one general channel that ran with great violence on the other. the wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough musick of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before. the streams, which ran cross the way from the hills to the main current, were so frequent, that after a while i began to count them; and, in ten miles, reckoned fifty-five, probably missing some, and having let some pass before they forced themselves upon my notice. at last we came to inverary, where we found an inn, not only commodious, but magnificent. the difficulties of peregrination were now at an end. mr. boswell had the honour of being known to the duke of argyle, by whom we were very kindly entertained at his splendid seat, and supplied with conveniences for surveying his spacious park and rising forests. after two days stay at inverary we proceeded southward over glencroe, a black and dreary region, now made easily passable by a military road, which rises from either end of the glen by an acclivity not dangerously steep, but sufficiently laborious. in the middle, at the top of the hill, is a seat with this inscription, 'rest, and be thankful.' stones were placed to mark the distances, which the inhabitants have taken away, resolved, they said, 'to have no new miles.' in this rainy season the hills streamed with waterfalls, which, crossing the way, formed currents on the other side, that ran in contrary directions as they fell to the north or south of the summit. being, by the favour of the duke, well mounted, i went up and down the hill with great convenience. from glencroe we passed through a pleasant country to the banks of loch lomond, and were received at the house of sir james colquhoun, who is owner of almost all the thirty islands of the loch, which we went in a boat next morning to survey. the heaviness of the rain shortened our voyage, but we landed on one island planted with yew, and stocked with deer, and on another containing perhaps not more than half an acre, remarkable for the ruins of an old castle, on which the osprey builds her annual nest. had loch lomond been in a happier climate, it would have been the boast of wealth and vanity to own one of the little spots which it incloses, and to have employed upon it all the arts of embellishment. but as it is, the islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns; and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness. where the loch discharges itself into a river, called the leven, we passed a night with mr. smollet, a relation of doctor smollet, to whose memory he has raised an obelisk on the bank near the house in which he was born. the civility and respect which we found at every place, it is ungrateful to omit, and tedious to repeat. here we were met by a post- chaise, that conveyed us to glasgow. to describe a city so much frequented as glasgow, is unnecessary. the prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. it is the only episcopal city whose cathedral was left standing in the rage of reformation. it is now divided into many separate places of worship, which, taken all together, compose a great pile, that had been some centuries in building, but was never finished; for the change of religion intercepted its progress, before the cross isle was added, which seems essential to a gothick cathedral. the college has not had a sufficient share of the increasing magnificence of the place. the session was begun; for it commences on the tenth of october and continues to the tenth of june, but the students appeared not numerous, being, i suppose, not yet returned from their several homes. the division of the academical year into one session, and one recess, seems to me better accommodated to the present state of life, than that variegation of time by terms and vacations derived from distant centuries, in which it was probably convenient, and still continued in the english universities. so many solid months as the scotch scheme of education joins together, allow and encourage a plan for each part of the year; but with us, he that has settled himself to study in the college is soon tempted into the country, and he that has adjusted his life in the country, is summoned back to his college. yet when i have allowed to the universities of scotland a more rational distribution of time, i have given them, so far as my inquiries have informed me, all that they can claim. the students, for the most part, go thither boys, and depart before they are men; they carry with them little fundamental knowledge, and therefore the superstructure cannot be lofty. the grammar schools are not generally well supplied; for the character of a school-master being there less honourable than in england, is seldom accepted by men who are capable to adorn it, and where the school has been deficient, the college can effect little. men bred in the universities of scotland cannot be expected to be often decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a mediocrity of knowledge, between learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the purposes of common life, which is, i believe, very widely diffused among them, and which countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious, that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise, so vigorous, that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way to employment, riches, and distinction. from glasgow we directed our course to auchinleck, an estate devolved, through a long series of ancestors, to mr. boswell's father, the present possessor. in our way we found several places remarkable enough in themselves, but already described by those who viewed them at more leisure, or with much more skill; and stopped two days at mr. campbell's, a gentleman married to mr. boswell's sister. auchinleck, which signifies a stony field, seems not now to have any particular claim to its denomination. it is a district generally level, and sufficiently fertile, but like all the western side of scotland, incommoded by very frequent rain. it was, with the rest of the country, generally naked, till the present possessor finding, by the growth of some stately trees near his old castle, that the ground was favourable enough to timber, adorned it very diligently with annual plantations. lord auchinleck, who is one of the judges of scotland, and therefore not wholly at leisure for domestick business or pleasure, has yet found time to make improvements in his patrimony. he has built a house of hewn stone, very stately, and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands with great tenderness to his tenants. i was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle. i clambered with mr. boswell among the ruins, which afford striking images of ancient life. it is, like other castles, built upon a point of rock, and was, i believe, anciently surrounded with a moat. there is another rock near it, to which the drawbridge, when it was let down, is said to have reached. here, in the ages of tumult and rapine, the laird was surprised and killed by the neighbouring chief, who perhaps might have extinguished the family, had he not in a few days been seized and hanged, together with his sons, by douglas, who came with his forces to the relief of auchinleck. at no great distance from the house runs a pleasing brook, by a red rock, out of which has been hewn a very agreeable and commodious summer-house, at less expence, as lord auchinleck told me, than would have been required to build a room of the same dimensions. the rock seems to have no more dampness than any other wall. such opportunities of variety it is judicious not to neglect. we now returned to edinburgh, where i passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which perhaps disclaims a pedant's praise. the conversation of the scots grows every day less unpleasing to the english; their peculiarities wear fast away; their dialect is likely to become in half a century provincial and rustick, even to themselves. the great, the learned, the ambitious, and the vain, all cultivate the english phrase, and the english pronunciation, and in splendid companies scotch is not much heard, except now and then from an old lady. there is one subject of philosophical curiosity to be found in edinburgh, which no other city has to shew; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are taught to speak, to read, to write, and to practice arithmetick, by a gentleman, whose name is braidwood. the number which attends him is, i think, about twelve, which he brings together into a little school, and instructs according to their several degrees of proficiency. i do not mean to mention the instruction of the deaf as new. having been first practised upon the son of a constable of spain, it was afterwards cultivated with much emulation in england, by wallis and holder, and was lately professed by mr. baker, who once flattered me with hopes of seeing his method published. how far any former teachers have succeeded, it is not easy to know; the improvement of mr. braidwood's pupils is wonderful. they not only speak, write, and understand what is written, but if he that speaks looks towards them, and modifies his organs by distinct and full utterance, they know so well what is spoken, that it is an expression scarcely figurative to say, they hear with the eye. that any have attained to the power mentioned by burnet, of feeling sounds, by laying a hand on the speaker's mouth, i know not; but i have seen so much, that i can believe more; a single word, or a short sentence, i think, may possibly be so distinguished. it will readily be supposed by those that consider this subject, that mr. braidwood's scholars spell accurately. orthography is vitiated among such as learn first to speak, and then to write, by imperfect notions of the relation between letters and vocal utterance; but to those students every character is of equal importance; for letters are to them not symbols of names, but of things; when they write they do not represent a sound, but delineate a form. this school i visited, and found some of the scholars waiting for their master, whom they are said to receive at his entrance with smiling countenances and sparkling eyes, delighted with the hope of new ideas. one of the young ladies had her slate before her, on which i wrote a question consisting of three figures, to be multiplied by two figures. she looked upon it, and quivering her fingers in a manner which i thought very pretty, but of which i know not whether it was art or play, multiplied the sum regularly in two lines, observing the decimal place; but did not add the two lines together, probably disdaining so easy an operation. i pointed at the place where the sum total should stand, and she noted it with such expedition as seemed to shew that she had it only to write. it was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities capable of so much help; whatever enlarges hope, will exalt courage; after having seen the deaf taught arithmetick, who would be afraid to cultivate the hebrides? such are the things which this journey has given me an opportunity of seeing, and such are the reflections which that sight has raised. having passed my time almost wholly in cities, i may have been surprised by modes of life and appearances of nature, that are familiar to men of wider survey and more varied conversation. novelty and ignorance must always be reciprocal, and i cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners, are the thoughts of one who has seen but little. [frontispiece: sir walter scott] the country of sir walter scott by charles s. olcott _author of george eliot: scenes and people of her novels_ illustrated from photographs by the author boston and new york houghton mifflin company the riverside press cambridge copyright, , by charles s. olcott all rights reserved published september to my wife the companion of my travels to whose sympathetic cooperation i am indebted for much of the material this book is affectionately dedicated contents introduction i. the 'making' of sir walter ii. the lay of the last minstrel iii. marmion iv. the lady of the lake v. rokeby vi. the bridal of triermain vii. the lord of the isles viii. waverley ix. guy mannering x. the antiquary xi. the black dwarf xii. old mortality xiii. rob roy xiv. the heart of midlothian xv. the bride of lammermoor xvi. a legend of montrose xvii. ivanhoe xviii. the monastery xix. the abbot xx. kenilworth xxi. the pirate xxii. the fortunes of nigel xxiii. peveril of the peak xxiv. quentin durward xxv. st. ronan's well xxvi. redgauntlet xxvii. tales of the crusaders xxviii. woodstock xxix. the fair maid of perth xxx. the chronicles of the canongate and other tales the highland widow the two drovers the surgeon's daughter anne of geierstein count robert of paris castle dangerous xxxxi. a successful life index illustrations portrait of sir walter scott . . . . . . frontispiece photogravure from an engraving by william walker of a painting by sir henry raeburn, r.a., . smailholm kelso abbey the popping stone lasswade cottage map of scotland showing localities of scott's writings st. mary's loch branksome hall melrose abbey ashestiel entrance to norham castle llndisfarne abbey tantallon castle loch achray cambusmore glenfinglas stirling castle brackenbury tower, barnard castle the valley of the tees from barnard castle the valley of st. john showing triermain castle rock turnberry castle, coast of ayrshire grandtully castle doune castle from the teith ullswater waverley's retreat after the defeat of the chevalier caerlaverock castle edinburgh from the castle auchmuthie the black dwarf's cottage craignethan castle (tillietudlem) crichope linn chillingham castle loch lomond from inversnaid st. anthony's chapel crichton castle loch lubnaig map of england showing localities of scott's writings castle of ashby de la zouch the buck-gate entrance to the duke of portland's estate, sherwood forest the avenue of limes, sherwood forest interior of fountains abbey coningsburgh castle cathcart castle leicester's buildings, kenilworth cæsar's tower, kenilworth entrance to warwick castle mervyn's tower, kenilworth lerwick, shetland a crofter's cottage, orkney sumburgh head, shetland scalloway, shetland the standing stones of stennis stromness, orkney map of london showing localities of scott's writings the pack-horse bridge, haddon hall the saxon tower, isle of man the tweed and eildon hills scott's tomb, dryburgh hoddam castle powis castle, wales godstow priory burial-place of 'the fair rosamond' loch tay house of the fair maid of perth abbotsford scott monument, edinburgh {xiii} introduction on the first day of may, , we began our exploration of the 'scott country.' i say we, because i was accompanied by the companion of a much longer journey, of which that year was the twenty-fifth milestone. whether from reasons of sentiment resulting from the near approach of our silver anniversary, or because of more prosaic geographical considerations, we began at the place where walter scott discovered that he would be likely to see more of the beauty of life if he were equipped with two pairs of eyes rather than one. this was at the village of gilsland, in the north of england, where the poet first met the companion who was to share the joys and sorrows of the best years of his life. a pony and dogcart took us clattering up to the top of the hill, where, leaving our conveyance, we started down the glen to the banks of the river irthing. here the camera promptly responded to the call of a beautiful view and the first exposure was made:--a gently flowing stream of shallow water, scarcely covering the rocky bed of the river; a pleasant path along the bank, well shaded from the sun; and a slender little waterfall in the distance;--the same scene which so often met the eyes of walter scott and his future bride as they strolled along the stream in their 'courting' days. this was the beginning of a tour which eventually led into nearly every county of scotland, as far north as the shetland islands, and through a large part of england {xiv} and wales. we went wherever we thought we might find a beautiful or an interesting picture, connected in some way with the life of sir walter, or mentioned by him in some novel or poem. knowing that he had derived his inspiration from an intimate knowledge of the country, we sought to follow his footsteps so far as possible. months of preparation had been devoted to the work before leaving home. every novel and poem had to be read, besides many books of reference, including, of course, lockhart's _life_, for it would not have been safe to trust to the recollections of earlier reading. notes were made of the places to be sought, and two large maps were prepared on which i marked circles with a red pencil around all points which i thought ought to be visited, until my maps began to look as though they were suffering from a severe attack of measles. then the route was laid out by 'centres.' the first was carlisle, then dumfries, melrose, edinburgh, berwick, glasgow, stirling, callander, the trossachs, oban, and so on until the entire country had been covered. from each 'centre' as a convenient point of departure we explored the country in many directions, visiting so far as possible every scene of the novels and poems that could be identified. it was surprising to find so many of these scenes exactly as sir walter had described them. the mountains and valleys, the rivers, lakes, and waterfalls, the wild ruggedness of the seaside cliffs, the quaint little old-fashioned villages, the ruined castles and abbeys, all brought back memories of the romances which he had so charmingly set amidst these scenes. it was like actually living the waverley novels to see them. and in seeing {xv} them, we came to know, on intimate terms, sir walter himself; to feel the genial influence of his presence as if he were a fellow traveller, and to love him as his companions had done a century ago. but our constant purpose was to do more than this. with the help of the camera we sought to catch something of the spirit of the scenery and to bring it home with us, in the hope that those who have never seen the 'scott country' might at least have a few glimpses of it, and that those who have seen all or a part of it, might find in these views a pleasant reminder of what must have been a happy experience. there is no occasion to add at the present time to the volume of literary criticism of such well-known novels and poems as those of scott, nor is it possible to add any material facts to his biography. this book makes no such claim. it does not attempt to retell the romances, except in so far as may be necessary to explain their connexion with the scenery or to introduce the 'original' of some well-known character. if a glimpse of the novelist's genial face is seen now and then, it is because his spirit pervades every nook and corner of bonnie scotland, and it would be impossible for appreciative eyes to view the scenery without seeing something of the man whose genius has added so greatly to its charm. if this book shall add to the pleasure of any of the readers of sir walter scott by bringing them into the atmosphere of his novels and poems, and so a little nearer to the kindly personality of the man, its purpose will have been fulfilled. { } the country of sir walter scott chapter i the 'making' of sir walter 'he was makin' himsel' a' the time, but he didna ken maybe what he was about till years had passed; at first he thought o' little, i dare say, but the queerness and the fun.' in these expressive words, robert shortreed, who guided walter scott on the celebrated 'raids' into the liddesdale country, correctly summarized the youth and early manhood of the future poet and novelist. scott was thirty-four years old when the 'lay of the last minstrel' appeared, and had reached the mature age of forty-three before he published the first of the waverley novels. but from early childhood he was busily engaged, with more or less conscious purpose, in gathering the materials for his future work. it is the purpose of this chapter to show, by a brief survey of these preparatory years, how he acquired that intimate knowledge of human nature that enabled him to record so truthfully and with such real sympathy the thoughts and feelings, the hopes and fears, the manners of life, the dress, the conversation, and the personal peculiarities of people of every degree, from mary, queen of scots, to meg merrilies, the queen of the { } gipsies; from the lordly earl of montrose down to the humblest of the children of the mist. it will also aim to suggest something of the method by which he learned to paint such charming pictures of ancient castles and ruined abbeys, of princes' palaces and fishermen's cottages, of rocky shores and wild paths through the woods, of rivers, lakes, and mountains, and all the other elements that make up the varied and beautiful scenery of scotland and england. in the hilly country south of edinburgh, standing alone on a high rock, is an old feudal tower called smailholm. outlined against the western sky, in the glow of a summer sunset, it seemed to us like a proud and beautiful capital letter 'i,' saying with some emphasis on the personal pronoun, '_i_ am a thing of some importance.' we forgave the egotism, for the old tower really is important, marking the very beginning of walter scott's career, the spot where he received his first poetic impulse. here at the age of three years, he rolled about on the rocks with the sheep and lambs as if he were one of them. he had been brought to sandy knowe, the home of his grandfather, in an effort to save his life, for he had been a sickly child, and six brothers and sisters had died in infancy, so that his parents were naturally more than anxious. the life out of doors soon brought a marked improvement, and except for the lameness, which never left him, the boy became healthy and vigorous. he was attended by an old shepherd, known as the 'cow-bailie,' who had a great fund of border stories, to which the lad listened eagerly. [illustration: smailholm] a devoted aunt, miss janet scott, who lived at the farm, often read to him stories of bible heroes and of the { } great men of scottish history. from a few volumes of miscellaneous poetry which the family chanced to own, she read some scottish ballads which quickly seized upon his childish fancy. he was especially fond of historical tales, and under the shadow of the old tower he used to marshal the armies of scotland and england, fighting their battles with mimic forces of pebbles and shells, and always ending the conflict with the complete rout of the english and the triumph of the scottish arms. one day he was missed during a violent thunderstorm, and the household set out in search of him. he was found lying on his back on the rocks, kicking his heels in the air and clapping his hands with delight as he watched the vivid lightning; and as one flash followed another, each more brilliant than the one before, he would shout, 'bonnie! bonnie!! dae it again! dae it again!' i like to think of this scene as symbolic; as a prophecy of the time, soon to come, when the lad, grown to manhood, would be sending out flash after flash of his genius while the whole world looked on in delight, shouting, 'bonnie! bonnie!! dae it again! dae it again!' how much the old tower of smailholm really had to do with scott's earliest poetic fancy he has himself told in a touching reference in the introduction to the third canto of 'marmion':-- and still i thought that shattered tower the mightiest work of human power, and marvelled as the aged hind with some strange tale bewitched my mind. he made it the setting of one of his earliest poems, 'the eve of st. john,' and probably had it in mind, when { } writing 'the monastery' and 'the abbot,' as the original of avenel castle. smailholm was once surrounded by water, all of which has been drained off except a very small portion on the eastern side. with the addition of the original lake it would make a very good prototype of avenel. at the age of six, scott was taken for a visit to prestonpans, where he made the acquaintance of george constable, the original of monkbarns in 'the antiquary.' this statement should be qualified, however, for scott himself was the real 'antiquary' in many ways. none but a genuine antiquarian could ever have written that keen bit of humorous characterization. this old gentleman, besides giving scott his first knowledge of shakespeare, told him many excellent stories of the 'affair of ' and of the battle of prestonpans. here he also made the acquaintance of an old man who had seen much service in the german wars and who was delighted to find a good listener to his tales of military feats. under the guidance of this old soldier, whose name, dalgetty, subsequently reappears in 'a legend of montrose,' he explored the battle-field, heard the story of colonel gardiner's death, and found the grave of 'balmawhapple,' 'where the grass grew rank and green, distinguishing it from the rest of the field.' this was in , when scott was only six. thirty-seven years later these early impressions found a place in 'waverley.' at about the same period young walter was presented with a shetland pony, an animal not so large as a full-grown newfoundland dog. he soon learned to ride, and often frightened his aunt jenny by dashing recklessly { } over the rocks about the tower. the importance of the event lies in the fact that it was the beginning of scott's fondness for horseback riding, his proficiency in which played an important part in later years, enabling him to gather valuable material that would not otherwise have been accessible. scott's father now thought best to bring him back to edinburgh, where he lived the life of an average schoolboy, with this difference, that his lameness frequently confined him to the house, compelling him to seek his amusement in books instead of romping with his fellows in george's square. at twelve years, and again a little later, he went for a vacation visit to his aunt jenny,--miss janet scott,--who was then living at kelso in a small house, pleasantly situated in a garden of seven or eight acres, 'full of long straight walks, between hedges of yew and hornbeam' and 'thickets of flowery shrubs.' the grammar school of kelso was attached to the old abbey. here he met the two men who, though lifelong friends, were destined to bring to walter scott the saddest experience of his career--james and john ballantyne, the publishers, whose failure clouded the last years of the novelist's life, forcing upon him the payment of a debt of £ , ,--a task which he manfully assumed, and wore out his life in the execution of it. another school fellow here was robert waldie, whose mother showed scott many attentions. it was through his association with 'lady waldie,' who was a member of the society of friends, that scott in subsequent years was enabled to paint the lovely picture of the home life at mount sharon of joshua geddes and his sister, which adds so much to the pleasure of 'redgauntlet.' { } an old vault in kelso abbey was used as the village prison--the kind of a jail which edie ochiltree thought 'wasna so dooms bad a place as it was ca'd.' no doubt the real edie was often confined here. he was an old mendicant, well known in the neighbourhood, by the name of andrew gemmels. scott met him often. many curious stories are related of his eccentricities. he was once presented with a good suit of clothes which he thankfully accepted. the friendly donor chanced to meet him later in the day, dragging the clothes behind him along the road through the dirt and mud. being asked why he treated the gift in that way he replied that he would have 'to trail the duds that way for twa days, to mak them _fit for use_.' [illustration: kelso abbey] a few miles southeast of kelso, in the village of kirk yetholm, scott picked up another of his most famous characters--the picturesque meg merrilies. kirk yetholm was in scott's boyhood, and even later in his life, the headquarters of a large gipsy tribe. such a people could not fail to interest one of his temperament and he soon came to know them on familiar terms. the queen of the gipsies introduced herself by giving him an apple. she was a woman of extraordinary height, dressed in a long red cloak, who naturally inspired the boy with a feeling of awe. her name was madge gordon, a granddaughter of jean gordon, the most famous of the gipsies. jean's history was well known. she was an ardent jacobite, and met her death at carlisle in , in a most inhuman fashion, being drowned by a mob in the river eden. she was a powerful woman and as the men struggled to keep her head under the water, she kept coming to the surface, each time screaming, { } 'charlie yet! charlie yet!' scott as a child often heard her story and cried piteously for old jean gordon. she was the real meg merrilies. during his frequent visits to kelso and subsequent residence at rosebank, near by, scott explored the country in every direction. he rode over the battlefield of flodden, becoming convinced that 'never was an affair more completely bungled.' he explored the heights of branxton hill, and riding through the village of coldstream, passed the old town of lennel, where marmion paused on the eve of the battle. then recrossing the river, he came to twisel bridge, and following the course of the tweed, reached the ruins of norham castle, where marmion was entertained by sir hugh heron. this was an old border fortress which passed from scottish to english hands and back again for several centuries. thus, without conscious effort, scott laid the foundation for 'marmion' early in life, though the poem did not take final shape until nearly twenty years later. when not spending his vacations in the country, scott was attending the college in edinburgh and later preparing himself for the practice of the law. during all these years the gathering of materials for his future writings continued. a favourite companion of the days in edinburgh was john irving. on saturdays, or more frequently during vacations, the two used to borrow three or four books from the circulating library and walk to salisbury crags, climb high up to some sequestered nook and read the books together. after continuing this practice for two years, during which they devoured a prodigious number of volumes, scott { } proposed that they should make up adventures of their favourite knights-errant, and recite them to each other alternately--a pastime in which scott greatly excelled his companion. at this time the former began to collect old ballads, and as irving's mother knew a great many, he used to go to her and learn all she could repeat. salisbury crags and arthur's seat found their way into 'waverley,' and later, with st. leonard's hill, in the same vicinity, became the background for the earlier chapters of the 'heart of midlothian.' the ruins of st. anthony's chapel, on the ascent to arthur's seat, must have been one of these favourite nooks. blackford hill, the third of these resorts, lies south of edinburgh. here scott carried marmion for that superb view of edinburgh, 'mine own romantic town,' so well described in the poem:--. still on the spot lord marmion stayed, for fairer scene he ne'er surveyed. the scene is still a beautiful one, for though the plain that held the scottish camp is now filled with well-built suburban homes, we still may see yon empress of the north sit on her hilly throne, her palace's imperial bowers, her castle, proof to hostile powers, her stately halls and holy towers. so great was scott's love of the picturesque and especially of the old feudal castles that he yearned to become a painter. but it was of no use. his lessons came to naught and he could make no progress. perhaps this was fortunate, for, as lockhart points out, success with the pencil might have interfered with his future greatness { } as a 'painter with the pen.' at fifteen, scott entered upon an apprenticeship to his father as a writer's (lawyer's) clerk, during which period he formed an intimate companionship with a relative of his friend irving, william clerk, a young man of good intellect and many accomplishments. the experiences of these two young law students will be found in 'redgauntlet.' william clerk was the darsie latimer of that story, while scott himself was alan fairford. alan's precise and dignified father, mr. saunders fairford, whose highest hope in life was to see his son attain 'the proudest of all distinctions--the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer,' was a fairly good portrait of scott's own father. the house in which the fairfords lived was in brown square, then considered 'an extremely elegant improvement.' it is still standing, and is now used as a dental college. old 'peter peebles,' whose interminable lawsuit was used for young lawyers to practise on, actually existed and haunted the law courts at this time. scott himself admits that he took his turn as 'counsel' to the grotesque old litigant. the edinburgh of scott's day was still chiefly confined to the old town. high street in those days was considered the most magnificent street in the world. again and again scott refers to it. at one end is the great castle, old enough to remember the time when even the old town did not exist. lower down is st. giles and the parliament house. next to st. giles is the site of the old tolbooth, which, after serving the city as a prison for two hundred and fifty years, was pulled down in . in writer's court in the same locality was the tavern where the lawyers held 'high { } jinks' in 'guy mannering.' greyfriars church, where colonel mannering heard a sermon by scott's old friend, the rev. john erskine, is not far off. down the street, in the part called the canongate, is the house of the earl of murray, the regent of scotland in queen mary's time, who figures prominently in 'the abbot.' street fighting was a common occurrence in edinburgh in those days and there is a good description of such a broil in 'the abbot.' 'my lord seton's lodging,' where roland graeme took refuge after a scrimmage, is in the same street, and a little farther on is the 'white horse close,' where the officers of prince charles made their headquarters in 'waverley.' holyrood palace is at the extreme end of the street, about a mile from the castle. the great ball, which scott describes in 'waverley,' was given here by the young chevalier, charles edward stuart, on the evening of september , . while still in his fifteenth year, scott made his first excursion into the highlands of perthshire through scenery unsurpassed in natural beauty by any other region in all scotland. approaching from the south, he rode over the mountains, through a pass no longer accessible, known as the wicks of baiglie. here 'he beheld, stretching beneath him, the valley of the tay, traversed by its ample and lordly stream; the town of perth, with its two large meadows, or inches, its steeples and its towers: the hills of moncreiff and kinnoul faintly rising into picturesque rocks, partly clothed with woods; the rich margin of the river, studded with elegant mansions; and the distant view of the huge grampian mountains, the northern screen of this exquisite landscape.' these words were written as part of the introduction to the { } 'fair maid of perth' in . the impression they record was made upon the mind of a boy of fifteen, forty-two years earlier. on this visit, no doubt, he saw the original house of simon glover in curfew street, and also the home of hal o' the wynd, not far away. both houses still remain, and the stories connected with them were of course current in scott's time. during all the time that the scenes and the stories connected with this and other excursions were making their impress upon the mind of walter scott, it must be remembered that he was not thinking of any ultimate use of them in literature, but was only ambitious to make a success of his chosen profession of the law. it so happened that one of the earliest duties which fell to his lot as a writer's apprentice was to serve a writ upon a certain obstreperous family in the braes of balquhidder, the country made famous by the exploits of rob roy. fearing that the execution of the summons would be resisted, an escort of a sergeant and six men was procured, and scott, a young man of scarcely sixteen, marched into the highlands, 'riding,' as he said, 'in all the dignity of danger, with a front and rear guard, and loaded arms.' the sergeant was full of good stories, principally about rob roy, and proved to be a very good companion. this expedition was scott's first introduction to the scenery around loch katrine, which later owed most of its fame to his pen. it enabled him, by actual contact with the highland clans, to learn for the first time some of the thrilling tales with which the region abounded and to become familiar with the habits, the speech, the dress, and all the other marked characteristics of a romantic people. the delightful { } scenery of loch vennachar, loch achray, and loch katrine, the rugged slopes of ben venue and ben an, the more distant peaks of ben lomond and ben ledi, the tangled masses of foliage in the 'deep trossachs' wildest nook,'--all appealed at once to the artistic sense within him, to his poetic feeling, and to his love of nature. 'the lady of the lake' was not written until twenty-three years later, but the germ of that poem was planted in his bosom by this first youthful experience and its writing was only a labor of love. on his subsequent excursions to the highlands, scott gathered some valuable material which later appeared in 'waverley.' he found one old gentleman who had been obliged to make a journey to the cave of rob roy, where he dined on 'collops' or steaks, cut from his own cattle. this cavern is on loch lomond in the midst of most beautiful scenery. scott makes it the retreat of donald bean lean in 'waverley,' but does not refer to it in his story of 'rob roy.' from another aged gentleman he heard the history of doune castle, a fine old ruin on the river teith, near stirling, and this he also introduced into 'waverley.' the story of waverley's saving the life of colonel talbot and the death at carlisle of fergus macivor are based upon incidents related to scott at this time. among the many places visited was craighall, in perthshire, from which some of the features of tully veolan were copied. the situation of this country-seat was convenient for the story, and near by was a cave, similar to that in which the baron of bradwardine sought concealment. but there is another house, a little to the west, on the river tay, which is said to correspond { } even more closely with scott's description. this is grandtully castle, the beautiful estate of the stewart family. another house which entered into this composite picture was the residence of the earl of traquair, a place on the scottish border well known to scott and frequently visited by him during the time when he was writing 'waverley.' it has a curious entrance gate, surmounted by some queer-looking bears, which doubtless suggested the bears of bradwardine. these numerous excursions, however fruitful they may have proved in later years, were not by any means the chief business of scott's life at this time. they were only vacation trips, except the first, which seems to have had a business purpose. he was for the most part hard at work in edinburgh in the study of the law and in the duties of a writer's apprentice, which meant copying by hand page after page of legal documents, sometimes accomplishing as much as a hundred and twenty pages in one day. in , at the age of twenty-one, he successfully passed the law examinations and was admitted to the bar, very much to his father's delight. the real alan fairford and darsie latimer 'put on the gown' the same day, a solemn ceremony followed by a jolly dinner to their companions. scott was now a fine, handsome young fellow with a host of friends. the sickliness of childhood had given way to a robust and vigorous manhood. his lameness still remained, but in spite of this he had acquired the frame of a young athlete. he was tall, well formed, big-chested, and powerful. his complexion was fresh and even brilliant; his eyes were bright and twinkling with fun; there was a queer little look about his lips as though { } they were about to break out into some funny remark--an expression that was the delight of all his friends and the despair of portrait painters. perhaps the most striking feature of his face was the high forehead, bespeaking intellectual power and dignity, yet in perfect consonance with his good humour and affectionate kindliness. in every company of young people he was easily the life and soul of the group. they crowded around him to revel in his store of anecdotes and ballads à propos to every occasion, and his jokes usually kept them in a gale of merriment. he was fond of every kind of outdoor amusement, especially of fishing, hunting, and riding. few could excel him in horsemanship, either in skill or endurance. from the days of his first shetland pony he had loved horses, and but for his ability to make long journeys on horseback to remote regions at a time when there were no railways and few coach-roads, he would have been unable to acquire the knowledge of places and people which gave a peculiar charm to all his writings. the day after his admission to the bar, scott 'escaped' to the country, going first to rosebank and then to jedburgh, where he met robert shortreed, a sheriff-substitute of roxburghshire, who consented to become his guide on a visit to the wild and inaccessible district of liddesdale. for seven successive years they made these 'raids' as scott called them, 'exploring every rivulet to its source and every ruined peel from foundation to battlement.' 'there was no inn or public-house of any kind in the whole valley; the travellers passed from the shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and again from the cheerful hospitality of the manse to the { } rough and jolly welcome of the homestead; gathering, wherever they went, songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangible relics of antiquity.' to his friendly familiarity with these unsophisticated people and the intimate knowledge thus acquired of their manner of living, we are indebted for some of the most charming pages of 'guy mannering.' whether the future poet had any plan in his mind for using the material so gathered is doubtful, though much of it went into the 'minstrelsy of the scottish border' and perhaps these raids suggested that undertaking. in the summer vacation of , scott set out for a visit to the english lakes. he was accompanied by his brother john and adam ferguson, an intimate friend through whom he had been introduced to the highest literary circles of edinburgh. their first stop was at the country home of dr. ferguson, the distinguished philosopher and historian, and the father of scott's friend. this was at hallyards, in the vale of manor water, near peebles. the venerable old gentleman, then in his seventy-third year, had become interested in one of the strangest men, physically and mentally, who ever lived,--a poor, ungainly, and hideous dwarf named david ritchie. dr. ferguson conducted his young friend to the rude hut of this horrible being, and scott, strong and fearless as he was, is said to have come away as pale as ashes and shaking in every limb. this singular meeting resulted, nineteen years later, in the story of 'the black dwarf,' where scott skilfully combined some good traits, which ritchie was known to possess, with the grotesque and terrifying external figure. proceeding to the english lakes, scott now saw for the { } first time the wild and rugged beauty of saddleback and skiddaw and the desolate loneliness of helvellyn, contrasting with the calm loveliness of grasmere and windermere and with the sweet homeliness of the dalesmen's cottages, their pastures and peaceful flocks. like all other scenes of beauty, it made its impression upon his mind. he found a home here for colonel mannering; when waverley was hard-pressed after the failure of the insurrection of , he found it convenient to make a home for his hero with a farmer at ullswater; and he marched his gallant baron of triermain into 'the narrow valley of st. john' in search of the mysterious castle, as directed by the sage of lyulph's tower. the tower of lyulph may be seen near the shores of ullswater, and on the side of a hill rising above st. john's beck, a little stream flowing out of lake thirlmere, is a huge rock now called 'triermain castle,' which at a distance, under certain conditions of the atmosphere, bears a fancied resemblance to the phantom castle of the poem. scott frequently showed his profound admiration for the english lake district, and if he did not love it with all the devotion of his friend wordsworth, it was only because his own beloved highlands had a prior claim upon his affections. on a summer day soon after his return from the lake district, in the same year, scott and his friend adam ferguson were riding together along a country road near the pleasant little village of gilsland, in the north of england. the former was then twenty-six years of age. he was a tall man of athletic frame, who rode as though incapable of fatigue. there was a peculiar grace and charm in both face and figure, which almost irresistibly { } caused a passer-by to follow his first glance with a second and longer scrutiny. as they rode along, the two companions chanced to pass a young lady, also on horseback, who immediately attracted their notice. her form was like that of a fairy, light and full of grace. her long silken tresses were jet black, her complexion a clear olive, and her eyes a lovely brown, large, deep-set, and brilliant. young and vivacious, with a natural air of gaiety, she was both pleasant to meet and charming to look upon. at the ball which took place in the evening there was much rivalry among the young men for the honour of dancing with this vision of loveliness, who had blotted out all other thoughts from their morning ride. to the tall young man fell the privilege of taking the fair stranger to supper, and this was the introduction of walter scott to miss charlotte margaret carpenter. the evening of september , immediately following the ball, was one of the happiest scott ever knew. a friend records that he 'was _sair_ beside himself about miss carpenter;--we toasted her twenty times over--and sat together, he raving about her until it was one in the morning.' this was not scott's first love affair, but it was equally genuine. some four years previously he had chanced to meet at the greyfriars church in edinburgh, a very charming young lady of seventeen. as the sunday service closed, an unexpected shower came up. scott had an umbrella and the lady had none--sufficient reason for escorting the fair one to her home. there was also sufficient reason for falling in love with her, for miss williamina stuart was not only beautiful in face and { } figure, but lovely in character. highly educated, accomplished in music and painting, well versed in literature, and with the best family connections, she was still a sweet girl, of charming manners and no affectation. for three years scott cherished the most ardent feelings of love, but in silence. he was then a young man of small worldly prospects. he had written nothing and was unknown outside the circle of friends in the law courts, where he was but a beginner. this, however, would not have been an insurmountable difficulty had the love been mutual. but the young lady had already given her heart unreservedly to an intimate friend of scott's, william forbes, a man of noble character. she gave scott no encouragement, but frequently, wrote him in a friendly way, chiefly concerning literary topics. after many months of patient restraint, scott finally wrote her a frank and unreserved declaration of his feelings, and received in reply a letter which filled him with many forebodings but with 'new admiration of her generosity and candour.' she urged upon him the continuation of their simple friendship as the 'prudent line of conduct.' unfortunately, scott read between the lines, as too hopeful persons sometimes do, sentiments which were not intended. the final disappointment came in the autumn of , and in the following january miss stuart became the bride of walter scott's successful rival. it is pleasant to think that the success of the one and the disappointment of the other led to no bitterness. both were men of noble and generous minds. and in the days of scott's adversity, when he was wearing away his vitality in a desperate but honourable endeavour to pay his debts, sir william forbes, though { } his own bank was one of the heavy losers in the disaster that overwhelmed scott, came forward with offers of assistance, and even went so far as to pay secretly a large and pressing debt, that his friend sir walter might not be entirely crushed. the poet never forgot the tender experiences of these years, and long afterward drew a lovely picture of williamina in 'rokeby':-- wreathed in its dark brown rings, her hair half hid matilda's forehead fair, half hid and half revealed to view her full dark eye of hazel hue. the rose, with faint and feeble streak, so lightly tinged the maiden's cheek, that you had said her hue was pale: but if she faced the summer gale, or spoke, or sung, or quicker moved, or heard the praise of those she loved, the mantling blood in ready play rivalled the blush of rising day. but walter scott was a young man, and in his great big heart there was still room for love. if he thought his heart was broken, he admitted that it was 'handsomely pieced' again. fascinated with the vivacity and attractiveness of miss carpenter, scott remained at gilsland much longer than he had intended. the lovers strolled through many delightful paths--walks which left their impress upon the poet's mind and gave him many backgrounds for his future verses and tales. miss carpenter had rooms at a large hotel, known as shaw's, where the momentous ball was held, and scott was at wardrew house, a private residence with a picturesque walled-in garden on the slope of a hill not far away. we followed them in fancy as they descended { } into the glen which separates these two houses, where they might drink of the mineral spring which gives a local fame to the place. then like the faithful page of the baron of triermain, no doubt they 'crossed green irthing's mead' and wandering along the shady bank of this pleasant stream, reached the favourite glade, paled in by copsewood, cliff and stone, where never harsher sounds invade to break affection's whispering tone than the deep breeze that waves the shade, than the small brooklet's feeble moan. then, turning a bend in the stream, perchance he invited her to come! rest thee on thy wonted seat; mossed is the stone, the turf is green, a place where lovers best may meet who would not that their love be seen. here is the so-called 'popping stone,' where, local tradition asserts, scott asked the all-important question. whether this is true or not makes no difference. the question was asked and the stone is there. whatever virtue there may be in the stone, it is certain that thousands of young couples have found their way thither, and they have literally worn it away until now it is scarcely half its original size. [illustration: the popping stone] a little farther west we came to the beautiful old ruins of lanercost, in which is the tomb of thomas, lord dacre, to whom marmion, with his last dying gasp on the field of flodden, sent a message with his signet ring. near by and entered through a beautiful park is the fine old feudal castle of naworth, the stronghold of the { } dacres and later of the howards, both of whom are mentioned in 'the lay of the last minstrel.' the place which seems to have interested scott the most in these rambles was the old ruined wall of triermain castle. he saw more of it than can be seen to-day, for a great part of it remained standing until . but it was a ruin in the time of queen elizabeth. scott's imagination, however, soon rebuilt and repeopled it, and sir ronald de vaux became immortalized in 'the bridal of triermain,' though forgotten in the pages of history. in almost the latest years of his life, the novelist came back to these scenes of his early manhood for another character whom he took from the same old castle of triermain, the big and burly, but always faithful, sir thomas de multon of 'the talisman.' during the autumn of , scott was a frequent visitor to the city of carlisle, where miss carpenter was living in castle street. a few steps beyond the site of her house is carlisle cathedral, the most striking feature of which is the beautiful east window, said to be the finest in england. the cathedral was founded by henry i in . during the civil war it was occupied by soldiers, who pulled down ninety-six feet of the nave to build fortifications. the portion that remained, thirty-nine feet, was later enclosed and used as the parish church of st. mary. here, standing between two great norman pillars of red sandstone, on the day before christmas, , walter scott and charlotte carpenter were married. they went to live in edinburgh, but during the following summer took up their abode in a charming little cottage with a thatched roof and a delightful garden on { } the banks of the river esk at lasswade. it was then a small house with only one room of fair size, though now very much enlarged. the thatched portion, however, is carefully preserved. mrs. scott's good taste and her husband's enthusiasm soon converted the house and grounds into a veritable bower of delight. unfortunately, the rustic archway of ivy, which scott took so much pleasure in fashioning, has disappeared. but the vale of the esk still remains, to thrill the souls of the romantic. not even in lovely scotland is there a river or glen to surpass it. deep down between precipitous cliffs and rocks, shaded by tall trees and overgrown by a bewildering profusion of creeping plants and overhanging vines, the little river flows merrily along, seeming to sparkle at every bend with some new recollection of the romantic legends or fantastic tales of the barons of old, who once peopled its ancient castles and drank their wine while they listened to the rhythmic stories of the minstrel bards. here six happy summers were spent. friends came down from edinburgh and new friendships were formed with important personages living in the villas and castles of the vicinity. all found that scott had formed a connection with one who had the 'sterling qualities of a good wife,' to quote lockhart's phrase. the brothers of the _mountain_--a group of boon companions who were closely associated and very fond of each other's society--welcomed mrs. scott with the greatest delight. a married life of perfect serenity was inaugurated, which lasted until the death of 'the ever faithful and true companion' in . in a confidential letter to lady abercorn, written in , scott refers to his attempt, in the 'lady of the { } lake,' to make 'a knight of love who never broke a vow,' and mentions his own melancholy experience of early days. he adds: 'mrs. scott's match and mine was one of our own making, and proceeded from the most sincere affection on both sides, which has rather increased than diminished during twelve years' marriage. but it was something short of love in all its forms, which i suspect people only _feel_ once in their lives; folks who have been nearly drowned in bathing rarely venturing a second time out of their depth.' these words should not be misconstrued. whatever the ardency of his first love, the second was no less sincere and true. if the first was the highly poetic type, the young dream of a peculiarly sensitive nature, the second was the kind that enables young couples to meet in peace and serenity all the varied problems of life, to establish their housekeeping in mutual helpfulness, to laugh away their cares, as scott wrote to miss carpenter, or if the load is too heavy, to share it between them, 'until it becomes almost as light as pleasure itself.' it was in this spirit that the young people established their household gods in the cottage at lasswade. to a man of scott's disposition, happy in his new home life, with every incentive to improve his opportunities, his mind steeped from infancy in the rude ballads of the border country and his heart bounding with delight at the beauties of nature, this new environment seemed all that was needed to turn his whole thought to poetry. sweet are the paths, o passing sweet! by esk's fair streams that run o'er airy steep through copsewood deep impervious to the sun. { } there the rapt poet's step may rove, and yield the muse the day; there beauty, led by timid love may shun the telltale ray. no afternoon stroll could be more delightful than one through the valley of the esk as far as roslin. many go to roslin by coach from edinburgh, but they fail to see the glen. guided by a scottish friend, we found that the better way is to go to hawthornden and walk through the gardens and grounds of the ancient castle where the poet drummond lived and wrote to his heart's content of the beauties of the scene. here we saw the caves, cut out of the solid rock beneath the castle, which sheltered robert bruce during the troublous times when fortune seemed to frown. here, too, we stood under the sycamore tree where drummond welcomed ben jonson to his home. descending the path to the river, we crossed by a little wooden bridge, with a gate in the middle, which can be opened only from the hawthornden side. then a walk, which was half scramble, brought us finally to roslin castle, on a rock peeping over the foliage, high above the river. both roslin and hawthornden are mentioned in 'the lay of the last minstrel' in the ballad of the lovely rosabelle:-- o'er roslin all that dreary night a wondrous blaze was seen to gleam; 't was broader than the watch-fire light, and redder than the bright moonbeam. it glared on roslin's castled rock, it ruddied all the copsewood glen; 't was seen from dreyden's groves of oak, and seen from caverned hawthornden. { } [illustration: lasswade cottage] the quiet of lasswade gave scott the opportunity for the compilation of the 'minstrelsy of the scottish border,' and its romantic beauty furnished the inspiration for his first serious attempts to write new ballads in imitation of the old ones. 'it was amidst these delicious solitudes,' says lockhart, 'that he produced the pieces which laid the imperishable foundations of all his fame. it was here that when his warm heart was beating with young and happy love, and his whole mind and spirit were nerved with new motives for exertion--it was here in the ripened glow of manhood he seems to have first felt something of his real strength, and found himself out in those splendid original ballads which were at once to fix his name.' at this period scott was a man of unusually robust health. in spite of the lameness with which he had been afflicted from infancy, his powers of endurance were very great. he could walk thirty miles a day or ride one hundred without resting. he was quartermaster of the edinburgh volunteers and had a great reputation as a skilful horseman. 'he had a remarkably firm seat on horseback,' said mr. skene, 'and in all situations a fearless one: no fatigue ever seemed too much for him, and his zeal and animation served to sustain the enthusiasm of the whole corps.' his companions called him 'earl walter,' and whenever there came, at drills, a moment of rest, all turned intuitively to the quartermaster, whose ever ready fun never failed to lighten the burdens of the day. it was really this remarkable gift of good companionship, coupled with his fondness for horses and unusual powers of endurance, that enabled scott to gather the materials for his poems. { } 'eh me,' said shortreed, his companion and guide in the liddesdale raids, 'sic an endless fund o' humour and drollery as he then had wi' him! never ten yards but we were either laughing or roaring or singing. wherever we stopped, how brawlie he suited himsel' to everybody! he aye did as the lave did; never made himsel' the great man, or took ony airs in the company.' it was literally true, as he said, that he 'had a home in every farmhouse.' to his rare good fellowship and his powers of endurance, scott added one other quality without which his vigorous search for literary material might have been of little use, namely, a most extraordinary memory, which enabled him to retain what he had heard and use it many years afterward. james hogg, the eccentric ettrick shepherd, gives a fine instance of this power. one night scott, with his friends, hogg and skene, was out on a fishing expedition. 'while we three sat down on the brink of a river,' says hogg, 'scott desired me to sing them my ballad of gilman's cleugh. now be it remembered that this ballad had never been printed: i had merely composed it by rote, and, on finishing it three years before, had sung it over once to sir walter. i began it, at his request, but at the eighth or ninth stanza i stuck in it and could not get on with another verse, on which he began it again and recited it every word from beginning to end. it being a very long ballad, consisting of eighty-eight stanzas, i testified my astonishment, knowing that he had never heard it but once, and even then did not appear to be paying particular attention. he said he had been out with a pleasure party as far as the opening of the firth of forth, and, { } to amuse the company, he had recited both that ballad and one of southey's ("the abbot of aberbrothock"), both of which ballads he had only heard once from their respective authors, and he believed he recited them both without misplacing a word.' living in a country where new beauty appears at every turn in the road and romance is echoed from every hillside, happy in his domestic relations, blessed with the faculty of making friends wherever he went, whether among farmers and shepherds or lords and ladies, active in travelling into every nook or corner where material could be found, keen to appreciate a good story or a pleasing ballad, and able to remember all he ever heard or read, walter scott became a poet as easily and naturally as the rippling waters of his beloved tweed find their way to the sea. { } chapter ii the lay of the last minstrel the years at lasswade were marked by one of the most momentous decisions of scott's life. he had reached the parting of the ways; one leading to the practice of the law; the other--and the more alluring one--to literature as a profession. had his father been alive, it is probable that a high sense of duty and loyalty would have determined him to continue in the law, for the old gentleman had set his heart upon that, and scott would have submitted to almost any irksome requirement rather than wound the feelings of his parent. but the worthy barrister's death a year or two after his son's marriage had put an end to any scruples on his account. although scott had not made a failure, his success at the bar was not remarkable. in the year preceding his marriage and the fifth year of his practice, his fee-book showed an income of only one hundred forty-four pounds, ten shillings. he never had any fondness for the law. as he afterwards expressed it: 'my profession and i came to stand nearly upon the footing which honest slender consoled himself on having established with mistress anne page: "there was no great love between us at the beginning and it pleased heaven to decrease it on farther acquaintance."' he began to realize that 'the scottish themis was peculiarly jealous of any flirtation with the muses,' and that a young lawyer could not expect to succeed unless he kept up the appearance of { } being busy even when he had nothing to do. a barrister who spent his time 'running after ballads' was not to be trusted. to succeed in the law meant, therefore, a farewell to literature. it meant other sacrifices, too. his vigorous health at this period enabled him to indulge a natural fondness for country sports, horseback riding, hunting, fishing, and the like. his membership in the edinburgh volunteers gave him a most agreeable companionship with a fine class of men, among whom he was extremely popular and with whom he spent some of the happiest hours of his life. all this would have to be given up if he continued at the bar, and instead he would feel obliged to tie himself down to a severe course of study in some musty old office in edinburgh. two circumstances combined to make feasible the more attractive path. the first was scott's appointment as sheriff of selkirk with an income of three hundred pounds a year, which gave him a certain degree of independence, while the duties were not onerous. the second was the success of the 'minstrelsy of the scottish border.' for several years scott had travelled extensively through many remote nooks and corners in search of material for this compilation, and its publication had brought him into public notice as a man of no small literary skill. his gratification with its success may be judged from a letter to his brother-in-law, charles carpenter, in :-- i have continued to turn a very slender portion of literary talents to some account by a publication of the poetical antiquities of the border, where the old people had preserved many ballads descriptive of the manners of the country during the wars with england. this trifling collection was { } so well received by a discerning public, that, after receiving about £ profit for the first edition, which my vanity cannot omit informing you went off in six months, i have sold the copyright for £ more. this enterprise, paying as much as the entire proceeds of scott's first five years of legal effort, gave assurance of a financial success in literature, which coupled with a certain income as sheriff seemed to make the future fairly secure. reasoning in this way, scott finally reached his decision to abandon the law and devote his life to literature. [illustration: map of scotland] 'the lay of the last minstrel' was the immediate result. scott felt the responsibility of his position. he was now the head of a family, having a wife and three children of whom he might well be proud, and he felt impelled to make a financial as well as literary success of his chosen profession. he had previously tried his hand at original composition. inspired perhaps by his familiarity with the old scottish ballads, he had essayed something of the same character. the first of these productions was 'glenfinlas,' growing out of his early visits to the highlands. glenfinlas is a forest in perthshire, north of the trossachs and east of loch katrine. next came 'the eve of st. john,' in which scott rebuilt and repeopled the old tower of smailholm which had so fascinated his boyish fancy. in 'the gray brother,' an incomplete ballad of this period, the poet sang the praises of the vale of the esk, then the scene of his almost daily walks. the fourth of these early poems was 'cadyow castle,' a ballad on the assassination of the regent murray. cadyow castle is a very dilapidated old ruin in a park of wondrous beauty near hamilton, { } southeast of glasgow. there is a deep glen, through which runs a little river, the avon, and on the banks are many tall and beautiful trees. the park was once a part of the old caledonian forest, a few of the ancient oaks of which still remain standing. it was the habitation of the fierce wild cattle which furnished the liveliest and most dangerous sport whenever a hunt was arranged. something of the spirit and fire of scott's later work is seen in these lines:-- mightiest of all the beasts of chase that roam in woody caledon, crashing the forest in his race, the mountain bull comes thundering on. fierce on the hunter's quivered band he rolls his eyes of swarthy glow, spurns, with black hoof and horn, the sand and tosses high his mane of snow. the man who could write such lines as these must have felt an instinct for poetry which no amount of reasoning could ever set aside. it was, therefore, well that scott did not attempt to resist his natural inclinations. we find him, then, deliberately turning to poetry, and carefully surveying the field to choose his first subject. three influences, widely different in character, combined to solve this problem. the first was his interest in the stories of border warfare aroused by the tales of his childhood and immensely stimulated by his thorough search for ballads to make up the 'border minstrelsy.' the second was his membership in the edinburgh volunteers which gave a military trend to his thoughts. the third was his desire to oblige a lady. the young countess of dalkeith, afterward duchess of buccleuch, { } was an intellectual woman of extreme beauty and lovely character. she was, moreover, the wife of the chief of the clan of scott, and therefore entitled, in the poet's view at least, to the fealty of her kinsmen. having heard the legend of gilpin horner, a goblin dwarf in whom most of the people implicitly believed, the countess, much delighted with the story, enjoined upon scott the task of composing a ballad on the subject. the slightest wish of one so beloved was a command. the poet soon realized that the goblin was likely to prove a veritable imp of mischief, threatening to ruin his ballad, and before the poem was finished, relegated him to the kitchen where he properly belonged. with the goblin story reduced to a mere incident, the poem expanded to a tale of border warfare in which all of scott's military spirit and knowledge of history and legend came to the front. he wrote it, as he declared in a letter to wordsworth, to discharge his mind of the ideas which from infancy had rushed upon it. in a letter to george ellis in , he refers to it as a 'kind of romance of border chivalry in a light-horseman sort of stanza.' in the autumn of that year, while on duty with his troop at musselburgh, during a charge on portobello sands, he received a kick from his horse which confined him to his rooms for three days. this accident gave an unexpected opportunity, and in these three days the actual writing of the poem was started and the whole of the first canto completed except the introductory framework. it is easy to recognize the 'light-horseman' stanza. indeed, the clatter of horses' hoofs is heard distinctly as sir william of deloraine sets forth upon his night ride to melrose:-- { } 'o swiftly can speed my dapple-grey steed which drinks of the teviot clear; ere break of day,' the warrior 'gan say, 'again will i be here: and safer by none may thy errand be done than, noble dame, by me!' * * * * * soon in his saddle sate he fast, and soon the steep descent he passed, soon crossed the sounding barbican, and soon the teviot side he won. * * * * * and soon he spurred his courser keen beneath the tower of hazeldean. the clattering hoofs the watchmen mark: 'stand ho! thou courier of the dark!' 'for branksome, ho!' the knight rejoined, and left the friendly tower behind. the spirited ride to melrose; the opening of the wizard's grave; the delightful picture of the ruined abbey; the meeting of lady margaret and lord cranstoun; the telling encounter of the latter with the knight of deloraine; the manly spirit of the young heir of branksome; the tales of watt tinlinn and the scotts of thirlstane, of harden and of eskdale, the coming of the englishmen, belted will howard and lord dacre, the duel resulting in the death of richard of musgrave, and the triumph of cranstoun's love for the fair margaret, all combine to produce a vivid impression of the stirring events, the conditions of life, and the ideals of the border country in the days of chivalry. the framework of this picture, from which it takes its name, is generally considered the most beautiful part of the poem. the old minstrel is supposed to relate the tale, with the accompaniment of his harp, to the noble { } duchess of buccleuch. the minstrel, with his reverence and enthusiasm for the old ballad poetry, now in its decadence, is of course the poet himself and the duchess is his patron, who first suggested the poem. in no more beautiful and delicate way could the poet have shown his devotion to the lord and lady who had so greatly inspired him. moreover, it gave him the method of showing, as he said, that he had no intention of setting up a new school of poetry, but was only making 'a feeble attempt to imitate the old.' the historical basis of the poem is told in a letter to lady dalkeith:-- dame janet beatoun, lady buccleuch, who flourished in queen mary's time, was a woman of high spirit and great talents. according to the superstition of the times, the vulgar imputed her extraordinary abilities to supernatural knowledge. if lady dalkeith will look into the introduction to the 'border ballads,' pages xv and xxix, she will find some accounts of a deadly feud betwixt the clans of scott and kerr, which, among other outrages, occasioned the death of sir walter scott of buccleuch, the husband of janet beatoun, who was slain by the kerrs in the streets of edinburgh. the lady resented the death of her husband by many exploits against the kerrs and their allies. in particular the laird of cranstoun fell under her displeasure, and she herself headed a party of three hundred horse with the intention of surprising and killing that baron in the chapel of st. mary, beside st. mary's loch at the head of yarrow. the baron escaped, but the lady burned the chapel and slew many of the attendants.... the feud was finally ended by cranstoun marrying the lady's daughter. [illustration: st. mary's loch] about this fragment of history scott wove his stirring tale of the scottish lowlands in the sixteenth century. the last of all the bards was he who sung of border chivalry, { } the aged minstrel is introduced as he passes where newark's stately tower looks out from yarrow's birchen bower. the old ruin was a favourite resort for scott, and many a happy holiday excursion was made to those 'rich groves of lofty stature' which wordsworth celebrated in his 'yarrow visited.' the ancient tower stands on high ground above the yarrow, on a road leading westward from selkirk, over which scott often walked or rode. about two miles away is bowhill, a country-seat of the duke of buccleuch, where the poet was always a welcome guest. he refers to it affectionately in the closing stanza of the 'lay':-- when summer smiled on sweet bowhill. still farther south is oakwood tower, a stronghold of the celebrated wat of harden, one of the poet's ancestors. wide lay his lands round oakwood tower and wide round haunted castle-ower. this was 'auld wat,' who married the 'flower of yarrow,' one of the most beautiful women of the border, who lived at dryhope, near the foot of st. mary's loch. high over borthwick's mountain flood his wood-embosomed mansion stood. the borthwick joins the teviot just above the town of hawick. the house of harden stands high up above a deep and romantic glen where there was ample room to conceal 'the herds of plundered england.' marauding chief! his sole delight the moonlight raid, the morning fight; not even the flower of yarrow's charms in youth might tame his rage for arms. { } auld wat's son, afterwards sir william scott of harden, a remarkably handsome man and an early favourite of king james vi, inherited some of his father's propensities for driving off his neighbour's cattle and other irregularities common to the time. in a raid upon the lands of sir gideon murray of elibank he was captured and carried in chains to the castle. elibank is now a ruin on the banks of the tweed not far from ashestiel, whither scott was fond of walking on sunday mornings. the legend which scott tells, about as it was told to him in his youth, and not, perhaps, in exact accordance with the facts, is as follows:-- when the young marauder was brought to the castle in chains, the lady murray asked her lord what he proposed to do with him. 'why, hang the robber, assuredly,' was the answer. 'what,' answered the lady, 'hang the handsome young knight of harden when i have three ill-favoured daughters unmarried! no, no, sir gideon, we'll force him to marry our meg.' 'meikle-mouthed meg' was the ugliest woman in the country, and young sir william promptly decided that he would rather hang. three days were given him to think the matter over, after which he was led out beneath a convenient oak, with a rope tied around his neck and the other end was passed over a stout limb of the tree. then he began to reconsider and decided that, as between nooses, he preferred the matrimonial one. there may be some advantages in ugly wives after all, and one of them, in this case at least, seemed to be an entire absence of jealousy. it was said, moreover, that 'meg' had 'a curious hand at pickling the beef which sir william stole.' they lived a very happy life. the marriage { } contract was written on the head of a drum and the parchment is still preserved. scott was so fond of the legend that he wanted to make it the subject of a comic ballad. he accordingly began, but never finished 'the reiver's wedding.' the grandson of this couple was walter scott, known as 'beardie,' the great-grandfather of the poet. about a mile above the junction of the teviot with the borthwick stands the castle of branksome. seen from the opposite side of the river standing on a terraced slope, partly hidden by the trees and shrubs, it makes a pretty picture. all, all is peaceful, all is still, and there is nothing to suggest the time when nine and twenty knights of fame-- hung their shields in branksome hall. it seemed to us more modern than it really is, for it was completed in its present form in the year . the barony of branxholme, or branksome, came into the possession of sir william scott of buccleuch in the early part of the fifteenth century and still remains in the family. the towers which formerly occupied the site were attacked by the english again and again, and the castle burned and pillaged. it will be remembered that after a preliminary survey of the castle and its attendant knights, the minstrel tells the story of how lord walter fell, of the widow's desire for vengeance, and of the lady margaret's love for lord cranstoun, her father's foe. then for some purpose which is not clearly defined, the 'ladye' calls to her side the boldest knight of her train, sir william of deloraine, and bids him ride with all { } haste to melrose abbey, there to open the grave of the wizard, michael scott, and to take from it the 'mighty book.' sir michael scott was a man of learning who flourished in the thirteenth century. he wrote several philosophical treatises and devoted much time to the study of alchemy, astrology, chiromancy, and other abstruse subjects, whence he gained the reputation of being a wizard. many weird tales are told of his performances. being sent as an ambassador to france to demand satisfaction for certain grievances, he opened his magic book and caused a fiend in the shape of a huge black horse to fly out. mounting, he flew across the sea and presented himself to the king. his demands were about to be met with a curt refusal when michael begged the king to defer his answer until the black horse had stamped three times. the first stamp set all the bells in paris to ringing; the second tumbled over three towers of the palace; the horse raised his foot for the third stamp, but the king would not risk another and gave to michael what he wanted. it was this same wizard who 'cleft the eildon hills in three,' the triple peaks which so picturesquely dominate the entire landscape in the vicinity of melrose, having been formerly, so it is said, a single summit. it has always been understood that the 'magic book' was buried with the wizard, and that no one dared remove it because of the 'terrible spells' which it contained. [illustration: branksome hall] the knight arrived after a spirited gallop, and shortly after midnight rapped with the hilt of his dagger on the wicket gate. the porter hurried to admit him, and soon he greeted the aged monk of st. mary's aisle. sighing heavily the monk conducted the man of arms through { } the cloisters, which may still be seen looking very much as the poet described them in lines not only poetically beautiful but literally true:-- spreading herbs and flowerets bright glistened with the dew of night; nor herb nor floweret glistened there but was carved in the cloister arches as fair. seven graceful arches, forming stalls or seats once used by the dignitaries of the church, make a continuous line along the eastern wall. above the arches, and joining one to another, are stone carvings of rare delicacy and beauty. of the more than a hundred separate figures in this frieze no two are alike. there are roses, lilacs, thistles, ferns, oak leaves, and scores of other representations of the forms of nature, all exquisitely carved with inimitable accuracy. scott admired these arches so greatly that he copied one of them for the fireplace of the entrance hall at abbotsford. the 'steel-clenched postern door,' through which the monk and the knight now entered the chancel, stands nearly intact. its three arches rest on graceful pilasters surmounted by capitals, with carved foliage so delicate that a straw can be passed behind the stalks of the leaves. we found it interesting upon entering this door to note the accuracy of the poet's descriptions, which the guide quoted with great fluency. the pillars supporting the lofty roof spread out to form the great arches, seeming to be 'bundles of lances which garlands had bound.' we stood beneath this arched roof for a long time to admire the beautiful east window, and the guide quoted:-- { } the moon on the east oriel shone through slender shafts of shapely stone by foliaged tracery combined. it is almost impossible to realize that these long and slender shafts are really carved out of stone and that the work was done many centuries ago. scott accounts for it poetically:-- thou wouldst have thought some fairy's hand twixt poplars straight the osier wand in many a freakish knot had twined, then framed a spell when the work was done, and changed the willow wreaths to stone. beneath the window lies the heart of robert bruce. it had been the desire of the monarch that his heart be interred in the holy sepulchre at jerusalem. after his death the body was buried beneath the high altar of the church at dunfermline, but the heart was taken out and committed to the keeping of james, lord douglas, who undertook to carry it to the holy land. but james was defeated and killed by the saracens, and the heart of his royal master was taken to melrose and buried there. this was as it should be, for the heart of bruce, figuratively speaking, was always in melrose. after the destruction of the abbey in by edward ii on his retreat from scotland, bruce made a grant of £ sterling, a sum equivalent to about £ , in the money of to-day. because of this munificence the abbey was rebuilt in all the beauty and perfection which gothic architecture could suggest, so that even in ruins it is still a structure of graceful magnificence. in , the abbey was again destroyed, but later restored. in , , and finally a century later under the reformation, { } the abbey suffered serious damage from which it never recovered. the grave of michael scott which deloraine was sent to open was pointed out to us, as it is to all visitors, but in reality its exact position is not known. johnny bower, an old guide of whom scott was very fond, discovered the position of the grave by noting the direction of the moonbeams through the oriel window. 'i pointed out the whole to the shirra,' said he, 'and he couldna' gainsay but it was varra clear.' 'scott,' says washington irving, who tells the story, 'used to amuse himself with the simplicity of the old man and his zeal in verifying every passage of the poem, as though it had been authentic history, and always acquiesced in his deductions.' like all other visitors we wanted to see the abbey properly, and that, according to the poet, could only be done by moonlight. if thou wouldst view fair melrose aright, go visit it by the pale moonlight. the moon was full while we were there and seemed to offer a splendid opportunity. but an unexpected obstacle appeared. in scotland, in the summer time, the evenings are very long, the twilight lasting until ten or eleven o'clock, while the moon makes very little impression until a late hour. and the custodian of the abbey goes to bed early! so it was impossible to see the moon shining through the east oriel, but fortunately we could see the outer walls from the windows of our hotel, which adjoins the ruin, and the moon kindly favoured us by making buttress and buttress alternately seem framed of ebon and ivory. { } the next day we were treated to a superb view from the private grounds of a gentleman whose estate adjoins the abbey. from this point the entire southern wall, which remains nearly intact, gives at first glance the impression of a complete and beautiful gothic structure. the distant hills furnish a fine background and the well-kept lawns and graceful birches perform the double duty of shutting out the graveyard and making a charming foreground. but to return to the story. while william of deloraine, with the mystic book pressed close to his breast, was eagerly returning to branksome, the fair lady margaret was early awake and seeking the greenwood at dawn of light to meet her lover, the baron henry. a fairer pair were never seen to meet beneath the hawthorn green. he was stately and young and tall, dreaded in battle and loved in hall; and she, when love, scarce told, scarce hid, lent to her cheek a livelier red, when the half sigh her swelling breast against the silken ribbon pressed, when her blue eyes their secret told, though shaded by her locks of gold-- where would you find the peerless fair with margaret of branksome might compare! lockhart finds in this passage 'the form and features of scott's first love,' and also says that the choice of the hero was dictated by the poet's affection for the living descendants of the baron of cranstoun. one of these, george cranstoun, afterward lord corehouse, was one of scott's earliest friends. his sister, the countess of purgstall, was the confidante of scott at the time of his early disappointment in love. [illustration: melrose abbey] { } the meeting of the lovers was all too brief. the baron's horse pricked up his ears, 'as if a distant noise he hears,' and the goblin dwarf signed to the lovers to part and fly. william of deloraine, returning from his all-night ride, was seen coming down the hill into 'branksome's hawthorn green.' no words were wasted. their very coursers seemed to know that each was other's mortal foe. like the bursting of a thundercloud the two champions met, and in another moment william of deloraine lay on the ground, with cranstoun's lance, broken, in his bosom. the goblin page was directed to attend the wounded knight, and in doing so discovered the 'mighty book' from which he learned some mischievous 'spells.' the son of the ladye of branksome was lured into the woods and fell into the hands of an english yeoman who took him, a captive, to lord dacre. scouts hurrying into the castle brought news of the approach of three thousand englishmen led by 'belted will howard' and 'hot lord dacre.' naworth castle, the home of the dacres and later of the howards, was one of the first places we visited. it is a fine old baronial castle in cumberland county, about twelve miles from carlisle. it was built in the fourteenth century by the dacre family, who derived their name from the exploits of an ancestor who was conspicuous at the siege of acre in the holy land, under king richard the lion-hearted. in the sixteenth century it passed into the possession of lord william howard, a famous 'warden of the marches,' who became known as 'belted will howard.' { } his bilboa blade, by marchmen felt, hung in a broad and studded belt; hence, in rude phrase, the borderers still called noble howard belted will. one of the towers of naworth, which this celebrity occupied, still remains much as he left it, even to the books that formed his library. lanercost priory, the burial-place of the howards and dacres, is an unusually picturesque and interesting ruin in the same vicinity. the beacon fires soon summoned a goodly array of the best blood of scotland to meet the english invaders, among whom were archibald douglas, seventh earl of angus, a descendant of james, lord douglas, who attempted to carry the heart of bruce to the holy land. but the battle was averted, and instead a single combat arranged between richard of musgrave and william of deloraine, the prize of the field to be the young buccleuch, who had fallen into the hands of the english. the lady of branksome was escorted to the field of the tournament by lord howard, while margaret had the stately douglas by her side. the strife was desperate and long, and in the end musgrave was slain. but not by the hand of william of deloraine. lord cranstoun, by the aid of magic learned from the 'mighty book' and assisted by the goblin page, had contrived to array himself in the armour of sir william and so had won the fight. 'and who art thou,' they cried, 'who hast this battle fought and won?' his pluméd helm was soon undone-- 'cranstoun of teviot-side! for this fair prize i've fought and won'-- and to the ladye led her son. { } then and there the feud was ended. the ladye of branksome, declaring that 'pride is quelled and love is free,' gave the hand of margaret to the baron of cranstoun, with all the noble lords assembled to grace the betrothal with their presence. the sixth canto is superfluous if we consider that the story ends with the betrothal. and yet it contains some of the finest passages in the whole poem. it opens with that superb outburst of patriotism, beginning,-- breathes there the man, with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land?-- which shows, better than anything else, the extent to which scott's inspiration was derived from his own scotland. o caledonia, stern and wild, meet nurse for a poetic child! land of brown heath and shaggy wood, land of the mountain and the flood, land of my sires! what mortal hand can e'er untie the filial band that knits me to thy rugged strand! here, too, we find the ballad of the lovely rosabelle, having its scene in the castle of roslin, in the vale of the esk, which scott learned to love during those six bright years spent at lasswade. this alone would almost justify the extra canto, but we have in addition the stately requiem of melrose abbey, bringing the poem to a solemn and beautiful close. then comes the final word of the old minstrel:-- hushed is the harp--the minstrel gone. and did he wander forth alone? alone, in indigence and age, to linger out his pilgrimage? { } no: close beneath proud newark's tower arose the minstrel's lowly bower, a simple hut; but there was seen the little garden hedged with green, the cheerful hearth, and lattice clean. these lines are but the embodiment of one of scott's dreams at the time he wrote them. the small estate of broadmeadows, near the ruins of newark, was about to be offered for sale, and scott, dreaming of the time when he might have a home of his own, rode around it frequently with lord and lady dalkeith, earnestly hoping that some day he might possess it. but the vision faded when the success of the poem gave him larger ambitions, leading ultimately to the purchase of abbotsford. { } chapter iii marmion there was no title of which scott was more fond than that of 'sheriff of ettrick forest.' the 'shirra,' as he was affectionately called, was a welcome guest in every farmhouse and there were few in the region where he had not been entertained. the 'forest' comprises the great tract of hilly country lying between the tweed and ettrick water and extending as far east as selkirk. perhaps because we were familiar with the adirondacks and the blue ridge mountains, where one may travel for hours in the shade of the 'forest primeval,' it was to us a distinct disappointment, and recalled the remark of washington irving, that you could almost see a stout fly walking along the profile of the hills. centuries ago these hills, now completely denuded, were clothed with a dense growth of trees and the entire region was set apart as a royal hunting-ground. it is recorded that in the sixteenth century king james v gave a royal hunting-party, in which the nobles and gentlemen of scotland to the extent of twelve thousand men participated. but love of sport at length gave way to royal cupidity. for the sake of increasing his revenue, the king turned the forest into a huge sheep pasture, and these hungry animals, still retaining possession, have literally destroyed the forest and changed the whole aspect of the land. scott, nevertheless, loved the bare hills, and said, 'if i { } could not see the heather at least once a year, i think i should die.' the duties of the sheriff's office compelled a change from lasswade to a place nearer the town of selkirk, and scott found a small farm well suited to his fancy, near the northern limits of the 'forest,' at ashestiel, on high ground overlooking the tweed. here he spent some of the happiest summers of his life. in a letter to dr. leyden, he gives a pleasant picture of his happy family at this time:-- here we live all the summer like little kings, and only wish that you could take a scamper with me over the hills in the morning, and return to a clean tablecloth, a leg of forest mutton, and a blazing hearth in the afternoon. walter has acquired the surname of gilnockie, being large of limb and bone and dauntless in disposition like that noted chieftain. your little friend sophia is grown a tall girl, and i think promises to be very clever, as she discovers uncommon acuteness of apprehension. we have, moreover, a little roundabout girl with large dark eyes, as brown, as good-humoured, and as lively as the mother that bore her, and of whom she is the most striking picture. over and above all this, there is in _rerum natura_ a certain little charles, so called after the knight of the crocodile; but of this gentleman i can say but little, as he is only five months old, and consequently not at the time of life when i can often enjoy the 'honour of his company.' [illustration: ashestiel] of the house itself and its surroundings lockhart has given a charming description:-- you approached it through an old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges, and broad, green terrace walks. on one side, close under the windows, is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the tweed. the river itself is { } separated from the high bank on which the house stands only by a narrow meadow of the richest verdure. opposite, and all around, are the green hills. the valley there is narrow and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose. they were eight miles from the nearest town and four from the nearest neighbour. the latter circumstance scott did not regret, though he found the former somewhat inconvenient for obtaining needed supplies and naïvely complains to lady abercorn that he had been compelled to go out and shoot a crow to get a quill with which to write her. nearly the whole country roundabout belonged to the duke of buccleuch, who gave the poet full liberty to hunt upon his estates. the tweed in the vicinity of ashestiel and of elibank, a little above, was unsurpassed for fishing. a favourite sport was 'leistering kippers,' or spearing salmon at night by the light of a blazing peat fire. perhaps the most exhilarating pastime of all was the horseback riding, in which the poet was an expert. accompanied by one or more of his most congenial friends, he would make excursions into remote regions, never dismounting in the very worst paths and displaying powers of endurance and fearlessness that made him the wonder and the envy of his companions. scott was now in the full vigour of his manhood. the weakness of earlier years had disappeared, and with the exception of the lameness, which never left him, he was strong and healthy in body as well as mind. he was in the full flush of his first great fame as a man of letters, and the trials of his later life had not yet begun. it was at this period and under these circumstances { } that the poem of 'marmion' was written. the poet's enthusiasm for the locality in which he lived, and for the friends who made that life a joy, found expression in the introductions to the six cantos, each addressed to one of his intimate companions. most readers of 'marmion,' becoming absorbed in the story, have regarded these introductions as unnecessary interruptions. but no one would wish them to be omitted, for they reveal the author who is telling the tale, and we seem to see him in his changing environment, through the successive seasons as the poem advances, beginning with the day at ashestiel, when november's sky is chill and drear november's leaf is red and sear; and closing with the christmas-time, a year later at mertoun house, where the poet passed the happy days in the house where his great grandsire came of old, 'the feast and holy tide to share.' the introductions were originally intended to be published in a separate volume as 'six epistles from ettrick forest.' the first, as of course every one knows, is inscribed to william stewart rose, a poet who is chiefly known for his translation of ariosto's 'orlando furioso.' it opens with a fine description of the beginning of winter at ashestiel, then turns to thoughts of 'my country's wintry state,' and the loss to britain brought by the death of the two rival statesmen, pitt and fox, who had passed away in the same year, , in which the poem was begun. the second canto, inscribed to the rev. john marriott, is reminiscent of scenes and incidents of the ettrick forest. the third canto is the most important of { } all because of its autobiographic character. it is addressed to william erskine, a warm friend of the poet's youth, in whose literary judgment scott reposed the firmest faith. he had been from the beginning a kind of literary monitor, sympathizing fully with scott's feeling for the picturesque side of scottish life, but strongly urging him to follow more closely the masters of poetry in some of the minor graces of arrangement and diction. this the poet declares is impossible, and exclaims:-- though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale! in this introduction the poet's mind reverts to the scenes of his childhood, the old farm at sandy knowe, where he lived with his grandfather, and the ancient tower of smailholm near by. then rise those crags, that mountain tower, which charmed my fancy's wakening hour. * * * * * it was a barren scene and wild, where naked cliffs were rudely piled, but ever and anon between lay velvet tufts of loveliest green; and well the lonely infant knew recesses where the wall-flower grew, and honeysuckle loved to crawl up the low crag and ruined wall. i deemed such nooks the sweetest shade the sun in all its round surveyed. the preparation for the writing of 'marmion' began right here, for the love of martial tales so early implanted in the poet's breast never ceased to grow until it reached its full maturity. while stretched at length upon the floor, again i fought each combat o'er, { } pebbles and shells, in order laid, the mimic ranks of war displayed; and onward still the scottish lion bore, and still the scattered southron fled before. the fourth canto is inscribed to the poet's artist friend, james skene, with whom he made many an excursion on horseback through the border country. it recalls many memories of summer days and winter nights, happily spent with mutual friends. the fifth is addressed to george ellis, a man of wide knowledge of poetry and extensive literary attainments, with whom scott was on terms of almost brotherly intimacy. it was written from edinburgh, more than a year after the beginning of the poem, and is distinguished by a fine outburst of enthusiasm for the poet's native city, 'caledonia's queen.' the sixth canto and the last is dedicated to richard heber, who had rendered able assistance in the preparation of the 'border minstrelsy.' he was a member of parliament for oxford and a man of profound knowledge of the literary monuments of the middle ages. he possessed an extensive library to which he gave the poet free access, and his oral commentaries were scarcely less important. the introduction was written at mertoun house, where scott had gone to spend the christmas season at the home of the head of his clan. heap on more wood!--the wind is chill; but let it whistle as it will, we'll keep our christmas merry still. [illustration: entrance to norham castle] a brief review of the well-known narrative will serve to point out the most important of the many interesting and often beautiful scenes which the poet so graphically { } describes. the story opens, as everybody knows, at norham castle at close of day, when lord marmion, mounted on his red-roan charger, proudly enters,-- armed from head to heel in mail and plate of milan steel, with helm richly embossed with burnished gold and surmounted by a flowing crest, amid which a falcon hovered on her nest, with wings outspread and forward breast. he was followed by two gallant and ambitious squires; then came four men-at-arms 'with halbert, bill, and battle-axe,' bearing their chieftain's lance and pennon; and finally twenty yeomen, each a chosen archer who could bend a six-foot bow, and all with falcons embroidered on their breasts. they were welcomed with blare of trumpets and the martial salute of cannon, making a clangor, such as the old turrets of norham had seldom heard. marmion responded to the noisy welcome of soldiers and minstrels by a lavish distribution of gold and was ushered into the presence of sir hugh the heron, with whom he spent the hours till midnight in sumptuous feasting. norham castle, the ruins of which we reached at the close of day, after a long tour by motor from berwick, was once a magnificent mansion and fortress, standing on high ground overlooking the tweed. for a thousand years it was the scene of alternating peace and turmoil. founded in the seventh century, it passed from english to scottish hands and back again for many years. by the beginning of the thirteenth century it had become one of the strongest of english fortresses. james iv captured it just before the battle of flodden field, but { } after that event the english recovered it. for the past three hundred years it has been crumbling to ruins, and now there is little left except a single wall and a remnant of the sable palisade, that closed the castle barricade before which marmion's bugle-horn was sounded. like so many of scott's characters, marmion, though a fictitious personage, moved among the real people of history and could boast a genuine ancestry. there was a distinguished family of marmion, lords of fontenoy in normandy, one of whom became a follower of william the conqueror and received a grant of the castle and tower of tamworth and the manor of scrivelby, in lincolnshire. the family became extinct in the latter part of the thirteenth century. in the second canto the scene changes to st. cuthbert's holy isle, where constance de beverley is a prisoner. she had broken her vows as a nun and deserted the convent to follow marmion, in the guise of a page, as his paramour-- and forfeited to be his slave all here, and all beyond the grave. the island, so called, is on the english coast of the north sea, about ten miles southeast of berwick. we reached it by crossing the sands in a two-wheeled vehicle, something like an irish jaunting-car, in which springless instrument of torture we were compelled to travel about three miles. at intervals along the route there are little groups of poles standing in the water, with miniature platforms near the top. these are havens of refuge. if { } you get caught by the rising tides you have only to make for one of these, and, after watching your horse drown, wait for five or six hours until, with the turn of the tide, somebody comes along to rescue you. our enterprising jehu assured us that the tide would be running out, and that there was no danger. but when about halfway over we began to notice that the ride was rising, and the water was soon nearly up to the bed of the wagon. we had made the entire journey in the face of a rising tide and reached the island none too soon, for it was nearly high tide. cuthbert, the patron saint of the holy island, flourished in the seventh century. he was a prior of the original melrose abbey--not the one which is now a ruin in the town of that name, but its predecessor which occupied a site farther down the tweed. later he became prior of lindisfarne and afterward bishop. the ruins of the abbey show that it must have been a very extensive establishment of great antiquity. besides the foundation stones, little now remains except part of the walls of the church which are best described in the poet's words:-- in saxon strength that abbey frowned, with massive arches broad and round, that rose alternate, row and row, on ponderous columns, short and low, built ere the art was known by pointed aisle and shafted stalk the arcades of an alleyed walk to emulate in stone. we searched in vain for the dreadful 'vault of penitence,' the awful dungeon below the abbey, its position known only by the abbot, to which both victim and { } executioner were led blindfold. there is no trace of any underground vaults nor of anything resembling the niche where poor constance was immured, to die a slow death from starvation. as a matter of fact, lindisfarne was never a convent at all. but at coldingham abbey, on the coast of scotland not many miles away, there was discovered, in scott's time, a female skeleton which, from the shape of the niche and the position of the figure, seemed to be that of a nun immured very much as constance was supposed to have been. [illustration: lindisfarne abbey] returning to norham castle, and continuing the narrative, we find marmion and his men preparing to depart at an early hour of the morning following their arrival. guided by the supposed holy palmer, they travelled all day, following the mountain paths straight across the lammermuir hills, in a northwesterly direction, until at close of day they came to the village of gifford, four or five miles south of the town of haddington. a night at the village inn, a weird ghost story by the landlord, and a strange, uncanny adventure of marmion resulting from it, complete the experiences of the first twenty-four hours. the next day the travellers meet a messenger from the king, sir david lindsay, by whom they are escorted to crichton castle and entertained in royal magnificence. we found the ruins of this picturesque old castle on the banks of the tyne, a dozen miles southeast from edinburgh. from his boyhood they had exercised a fascinating influence upon the poet. crichtoun! though now thy miry court but pens the lazy steer and sheep, thy turrets rude and tottered keep have been the minstrel's loved resort. { } during his school days, scott took many a vacation tramp to visit the scenes in the neighbourhood of edinburgh which appealed to his fancy, and nothing ever made a stronger appeal than some old ruin to which was attached a bit of history or legend. referring to the time when he was about thirteen years old, he says, in the brief fragment of his 'autobiography':-- to this period i can trace distinctly the awaking of that delightful feeling for the beauties of natural objects which has never since deserted me.... the romantic feelings which i have described as predominating in my mind, naturally rested upon and associated themselves with these grand features of the landscape around me; and the historical incidents, or traditional legends connected with many of them, gave to my admiration a sort of intense impression of reverence, which at times made my heart feel too big for its bosom. from this time the love of natural beauty, more especially when combined with ancient ruins, or remains of our fathers' piety or splendour, became with me an insatiable passion, which, if circumstances had permitted, i would willingly have gratified by travelling over half the globe. it was with something of this same feeling that the poet caused marmion to travel from norham to edinburgh by a circuitous route, in order that he might visit crichton and afterward view edinburgh from the blackford hills. mr. guthrie wright, a friend and relative of scott's friend, erskine, once asked the poet: 'why did ever mortal coming from england to edinburgh go by gifford, crichton castle, borthwick castle, and over the top of blackford hill? not only is it a circuitous detour, but there never was a road that way since the world was created!' 'that is a most irrelevant objection,' said sir walter; 'it was my good pleasure to bring marmion { } by that route, for the purpose of describing the places you have mentioned, and the view from blackford hill--it was his business to find the road and pick his steps the best way he could.' at crichton, marmion heard from sir david lindsay a legend of king james and the palace of linlithgow. of all the palaces so fair built for the royal dwelling in scotland, far beyond compare linlithgow is excelling. this famous palace, now a ruin, lies about midway between edinburgh and glasgow. it is beautifully situated on a small loch, from the opposite shores of which it makes an imposing appearance. the walls are in a good state of preservation and still give some intimations of the early magnificence of the royal residence. three of the stuart kings, james iii, iv, and v, occupied it in succession. mary, queen of scots, was born here in what was once a large and beautiful room. on the opposite side of the building is a room ninety-eight feet long and thirty feet wide, formerly used by the scottish parliaments, and the scene of many a state banquet. at one end is an immense fireplace which still remains in almost perfect condition. in the large court are the remains of a fine fountain, with elaborate carvings, erected by james v in anticipation of his marriage with the princess madeleine of france. the most striking feature of the palace is queen margaret's bower, a lofty turret, where it is said the queen watched all day for her husband's return from flodden field, only to learn of his disastrous defeat and death. as i stood on the parapet opposite the bower, preparing to make its photograph, { } the custodian reminded me that i was standing where many famous people used to promenade. adjoining the palace is the ancient church of st. michael's, where, according to lindsay's story, king james received the ghostly visitor in the semblance of the apostle john, bearing the prophetic warning:-- 'my mother sent me from afar, sir king, to warn thee not to war,-- woe waits on thine array; if war thou wilt, of woman fair, her witching wiles and wanton snare, james stuart, doubly warned, beware: god keep thee as he may!' from crichton the journey to the scottish camp was resumed, and the party now traverses ground even more familiar to the poet:-- early they took dun-edin's road, and i could trace each step they trode; hill, brook, nor dell, nor rock, nor stone, lies on the path to me unknown. over this well-worn road they reached the top of blackford hill, and the view that met their eyes aroused an enthusiasm that even marmion, sullen warrior that he was, could scarcely suppress. the scottish camp, lying on the plain below, is painted in all the colours of the rainbow:-- a thousand streamers flaunted fair; various in shape, device, and hue, green, sanguine, purple, red, and blue. the city, too, is pictured in colours no less vivid and glows 'with gloomy splendour, red.' the ochil mountains, reflecting the morning rays are like a 'purple { } amethyst'; the islands in the firth are like 'emeralds chased in gold'; and a 'dusky grandeur clothed the height, where the huge castle holds its state.' the scene which marmion saw, the poet admits, was far different in his own time; and it has changed, perhaps, even more since sir walter's day, for the plain where king james's army lay is now filled with well-built cottages. but the dominating features of the view, the huge castle on the left, arthur's seat and the salisbury crags on the right, calton hill, and the crown-shaped steeple of st. giles still remain to command our admiration and delight. [illustration: tantallon castle] passing through the scottish camp, marmion and his train soon came to holyrood palace. the tower on the left was built by james iv as a royal palace in - . in the latter year it was the scene of the marriage of the king to princess margaret, the daughter of henry vii of england. the wedding was celebrated with great magnificence. here marmion is received by the king, who, on the night before marching to the south, is making holyrood ring with 'wassail, mirth, and glee.' he is devoting much attention to the wife of sir hugh the heron, who sings for him the song of the young lochinvar. a glance, thrown by 'the witching dame' to marmion, arouses the jealous displeasure of the king, and marmion is hurried off to tantallon castle, under conduct of the owner of that stronghold, douglas, earl of angus, known as archibald bell-the-cat. tantallon is on the north coast of haddingtonshire, near the town of north berwick. the ruins still remain, broad, massive, high, and stretching far. { } they stand on a high, projecting rock, guarded on three sides by the ocean, while on the land side the remnant of the 'double mound and fosse' may still be seen. the castle was a favourite residence of the douglas family, though its fame owes less to history than to the genius of sir walter. it was here that marmion dared to beard the lion in his den the douglas in his hall,-- and in defiance of lord angus gave utterance to one of those dramatic passages which have made the poem linger so long in the memory of all its readers. this is one of the chief characteristics of scott's poetry, that certain lines will insist upon 'running in one's head.' george ellis pointed out the significant fact that 'everybody reads marmion more than once' and that it improves on second reading. perhaps this is why so many people can quote freely from the poem, particularly such passages as the quarrel of marmion and douglas. from tantallon, marmion and his men, with the lady clare, proceed to flodden field, reaching at eve the convent of lennel where 'now is left but one frail arch.' this resting place is on the river tweed just below the town of coldstream and not far from the famous ford at the mouth of the river leet, used by edward i in the invasion of scotland near the close of the thirteenth century and by the contending armies of england and scotland for nearly four hundred years afterward. over this ford marmion rushes impetuously to throw himself into the thick of the battle. then on that dangerous ford and deep where to the tweed leet's eddies creep he ventured desperately: { } and not a moment will he bide till squire or groom before him ride; headmost of all he stems the tide, and stems it gallantly. sir walter wrote this passage, and many more like it, from experience, for it was one of his chief delights to ford a stream. james skene said he believed there was not a single ford in the whole course of the tweed that he and scott had not traversed together. 'he had an amazing fondness for fords, and was not a little adventurous in plunging through, whatever might be the state of the flood, and this even though there happened to be a bridge in view. if it seemed possible to scramble through, he scorned to go ten yards about, and in fact preferred the ford.' there was a ford at ashestiel that was never a good one. at one time, after a severe storm, it became quite perilous. scott was the first to attempt the passage, which he accomplished in safety, thanks to his steady nerve and good horsemanship, for his favourite black horse, captain, was obliged to swim nearly the whole distance across. many of the landmarks of flodden field may still be seen. the twisel bridge over which the english crossed the till; ford castle, the residence of sir william heron, whom scott transfers to norham, changing his name to hugh; etal castle, which with ford, norham, and wark was captured by king james; a remnant of the old cross in the field where marmion died; the well of sybil grey, a spring running into a small stone basin, upon which has been cut an inscription something like that referred to in the poem; and 'marmion's well' at the edge of the village of branxton, which the local { } inhabitants are certain is the real spring where clare filled marmion's helm with the cooling water,--all these are easily visited in a day's drive. on the summit of piper's hill a monument has been erected, marking the spot where king james fell. the king failed to heed the warning given in linlithgow. he insisted upon going to war and wasted too much precious time with the lady heron. as a result he seemed to do everything that a good general would not have done and he failed to do all that a competent leader would have done. the poet gives full vent to his righteous indignation:-- and why stands scotland idly now, dark flodden! on thy airy brow, since england gains the pass the while, and struggles through the deep defile? what checks the fiery soul of james? why sits that champion of the dames inactive on his steed? * * * * * o douglas, for thy leading wand! fierce randolph for thy speed! oh! for one hour of wallace wight, or well-skilled bruce, to rule the fight and cry, 'saint andrew and our right!' another sight had seen that morn, from fate's dark book a leaf been torn, and flodden had been bannockbourne. the king fell, bravely fighting, it is said, within a lance's length of the earl of surrey. the noblest of the scottish army lay dead and dying about the field. never before in scottish history had there been so great a disaster as that of flodden's fatal field where shivered was fair scotland's spear and broken was her shield! { } richard h. hutton thinks that scott's description of war in this account is perhaps the most perfect which the english language contains, and that 'marmion' is scott's finest poem. 'the battle of flodden field,' he says, 'touches his highest point in its expression of stern, patriotic feeling, in its passionate love of daring, and in the force and swiftness of its movement, no less than in the brilliancy of its romantic interests, the charm of its picturesque detail, and the glow of its scenic colouring.' lockhart, whose judgment must always be regarded, also believed 'marmion' to be the greatest of scott's poems, because of its 'superior strength and breadth and boldness both of conception and execution.' it has been severely criticized. that marmion, a knight of many noble qualities, should have been guilty of the contemptible crime of forgery, is a blot which scott himself acknowledged. mr. andrew lang thinks that 'our age could easily dispense with clara and her lover.' george ellis, on the contrary, thought it too short, that 'the masterly character of constance would not have been less bewitching had it been much more minutely painted--and that de wilton might have been dilated with great ease and even to considerable advantage.' lord jeffrey denounced it in characteristic fashion as an 'imitation of obsolete extravagance.' such a thing, he thought, might be excused for once as a 'pretty caprice of genius,' but a second production imposed 'a sort of duty to drive the author from so idle a task.' but jeffrey's crabbed remarks were universally condemned as unjust and the public responded to 'marmion' with enthusiasm. scott had painted a picture full of lofty patriotism and glowing with life and colour. { } he had glorified his native city with a fervour that went straight to the hearts of its people. the bravery of the scottish troops as they rallied around their king and fought to the bitter end seemed to turn the worst disaster in their history into a scene of which every scotchman might well be proud. the great chieftains of scotland had been exalted. the hills and mountains, the rivers and brooks, and all the delightful scenes of the southern border had been painted in charming colours. and so the poet had touched the pride of his countrymen and if there were faults of composition or of diction they saw them not. { } chapter iv the lady of the lake the most popular of all scott's poems, as 'the lady of the lake' has proved to be, is in reality a romantic story set to music and staged in an environment of wondrous natural beauty. it is like an open-air play, but with this advantage, that the audience seems to move continually from one scene of beauty to another, each more entrancing than the one before. you may travel from stirling to loch katrine and from the trossachs to the braes of balquhidder and all the time feel the thrill of the poem, which seems fairly to permeate the atmosphere. it is full of incident, and there is never a dull moment from the beginning of the stag hunt in the solitudes of glenartney to the final scenes of generosity and gratitude, of love and joyous reunion, in the king's palace of stirling castle. the characters are types, each presenting a poetic interest of his own, of a race of men famous in history and in song for deeds of personal prowess, for skill in the use of claymore and battle-axe, for loyalty to friends, for bitter resentment of wrongs, for courage, for endurance, for hospitality, for love of music and poetry, for strength of physique and for picturesque personal appearance and attire. the spell of the wizard of the north came upon us as we entered the enchanted land and his whole company of players appeared as if by magic. in the centre of the group there seemed to be the figure of a young woman, { } pure, beautiful, and good--yet not too good to be human, for she was at least sensitive to the admiring glances of a certain handsome, well-built, and courteous stranger. but ellen douglas was nevertheless true to her accepted lover, faithful to her father, and loyal to her own ideals of truth and right. and ne'er did grecian chisel trace a nymph, a naiad, or a grace of finer form or lovelier face. * * * * * a chieftain's daughter seemed the maid: her satin snood, her silken plaid, her golden brooch, such birth betrayed. and seldom was a snood amid such wild, luxuriant ringlets hid whose glossy black to shame might bring the plumage of the raven's wing: and seldom o'er a breast so fair mantled a plaid with modest care, and never brooch the folds combined above a heart more good and kind. grouped about the maiden were the figures of a lowland king, a highland chieftain, a stalwart father, and a sturdy lover. the first two presented a striking contrast. the king, disguised as a hunter in lincoln green, with a bold visage upon which middle age had not yet quenched the fiery vehemence of youth; with sturdy limbs fitted for any kind of active sport or contest; with stately mien and ready speech, 'in phrase of gentlest courtesy'; jovial, kindly, even gleeful and frolicsome at times, with the will to do and the soul to dare, made a splendid picture as he stood upon the silver strand, face to face with ellen douglas. far different was the sullen visage of roderick dhu, as { } twice through the hall the chieftain strode: the waving of his tartan broad, and darkened brow, where wounded pride with ire and disappointment vied, seemed, by the torch's gloomy light, like the ill demon of the night. yet in spite of the fierce aspect of this terrible chief, one cannot withhold his admiration, and we feel like echoing the shout of enthusiasm of the cheering boatmen as they approach the island, singing,-- loud should clan-alpine then ring from her deepmost glen, roderigh vich alpine dhu, ho! ieroe! when roderick scorns to take advantage of fitz-james, though the latter is in his power, and shares with him his camp-fire, his supper, and his bed, finally conducting him in safety through hundreds of hostile highlanders to the very limits of clan-alpine's territory, there to battle single-handed and on equal terms, we begin to feel what real highland hospitality and chivalry mean and to realize the true nobility of character beneath the rough exterior of this stern soldier. ellen's father, the exiled douglas, was a giant in stature who could wield as lightly as a hazel wand a sword which other men could scarcely lift. the women praised his stately form, though wrecked by many a winter's storm; the youth with awe and wonder saw his strength surpassing nature's law. contrasting with this fine old man was malcolm graeme, ellen's lover:-- of stature fair, and slender frame but firmly knit was malcolm graeme. { } the belted plaid and tartan hose did ne'er more graceful limbs disclose; his flaxen hair, of sunny hue, curled closely round the bonnet blue. his mind was 'lively and ardent, frank and kind,' and he had a scorn of wrong and a zeal for truth that promised to make his name one of the greatest in the mountains. but poor malcolm was to the poet's mind not an artistic success. the latter confessed that he compelled him to swim from ellen's isle to the shore merely to give him something to do, but 'wet or dry,' he said, 'i could do nothing with him.' [illustration: loch achray] behind these five figures we could fancy a white-haired minstrel, harp in hand; a hermit monk, in frock and hood, barefooted, with grizzled hair and matted beard, naked arms and legs seamed with scars, and a wild and savage face that spoke of nothing but despair; three young men in kilt skirts and highland plaids, every movement showing the agile strength of their youthful limbs, passing from one to another a cross of fire,--malise, angus, and norman, the messengers who summoned the clans to battle; and back of all, filling up the picture, highlanders of high and low degree, men, women, and children, all fired with intense loyalty to the clan-alpine. the whole picture seemed to project itself upon a background of mountains and valleys, lakes, rivers and waterfalls, fantastic rocks and weather-beaten crags, grey birches and warrior oaks, ferns and wild flowers, all so wondrous wild, the whole might seem the scenery of a fairy dream. scott was always fond of brilliant hues, but here he fairly revels in colour:-- { } the western waves of ebbing day rolled o'er the glen their level way: each purple peak, each flinty spire, was bathed in floods of living fire. * * * * * all twinkling with the dew-drop sheen, the brier rose fell in streamers green and creeping shrubs of thousand dyes waved in the west wind's summer sighs. * * * * * boon nature scattered, free and wild, each plant or flower, the mountain's child, here eglantine embalmed the air, hawthorn and hazel mingled there: the primrose pale and violet flower found in each clift a narrow bower. the best way to read 'the lady of the lake' is to see the trossachs; the best way to see the trossachs is to read 'the lady of the lake.' there is a peculiar affinity between the poem and the country that makes each indispensable to the other. those who read the poem without some knowledge of the scenery are likely to have an inadequate conception of its real significance, or possibly to feel that the poet has painted in colours too vivid and that his enthusiasm is not perhaps fully justified by the facts. those who see the trossachs without reading the poem are apt to say, as one man did say to me, 'yes, this is beautiful, but after all i have seen just such roads in new hampshire.' he might have added, 'the rocky mountains are much higher and more sublime, and the italian lakes reflect a sky of more brilliant blue and are bordered by foliage infinitely more gorgeous in its colourings,'--all of which is true. but when you come to read the poem with a mental vision of the trossachs { } before you and to see the trossachs with the exquisite descriptions of the poem fully in mind, each acquires a new charm which alone it did not possess. before the poem was written the trossachs were scarcely known and loch katrine was no more than any other highland lake. now these regions are visited yearly by thousands of tourists and to those who know the poem, every turn in the road seems to suggest some favourite stanza. to us the tour was one of unfailing delight and productive of mental visions that will never fade. the brig o' turk is to me not merely an old stone bridge over a placid rivulet; but, rushing over it at full speed, eagerly spurring his fine grey horse to further effort, i see the figure of a gallant hunter clad in a close-fitting suit of green, his eyes intently fixed on the road ahead, where a splendid stag, now nearly exhausted, is straining his last ounce of energy in a final effort to distance the pursuing hounds. to me the low ground on the edge of loch vennachar, known as lanrick mead, appears like a military camp, with great crowds of giant clansmen, in highland kilts and plaids of many colours, their spears and battle-axes glistening in the sun. the aged oak, bending over the water's edge on ellen's isle, is not merely an old dead tree, but it brings the vision of ellen douglas putting forth in her frail shallop to answer (as she supposes) the bugle call of her noble father from the silver strand. this is the secret charm of the trossachs. the tourist who goes through, as many do, with whole-hearted devotion to the time-table and guide-book, and whose mind is fixed upon the absolute necessity of 'making' all the points in his itinerary, does not see these scenes any { } more than do the horses who draw the lumbering coaches. the more leisurely traveller who can follow the course of the poem, viewing each scene as scott has so charmingly described it, finds exhilaration and delight in every step of the way. scott was only fifteen when he began to make those merry expeditions to the highlands in the company of congenial companions which gave him so much material of the right kind as to make a poem inevitable. he learned to know the strange but romantic highland clansmen; he heard many tales and bits of history which his memory stored up for the future, and the rare beauty of the scenery fascinated him as it does every one else. 'this poem,' he said, 'the action of which lay among scenes so beautiful and so deeply imprinted on my recollections, was a labour of love and it was no less so to recall the memories and incidents introduced.' in one of these excursions (in ), he visited the home of the young laird of cambusmore, john buchanan, one of his associates, and subsequently revisited the place many times. cambusmore is a charming estate about two miles southeast of callander. entering by the porter's gate, we drove through a beautiful winding road, lined with rhododendrons. the shrubs, or rather trees (for their extraordinary height and wide-spreading branches entitle them to the more dignified name), were in full bloom, thousands of great, splendid clusters vying with each other to see which could catch and reflect the most sunlight. here we were hospitably received by the present owner, mrs. hamilton, a great-granddaughter of scott's friend, john buchanan. the house has been considerably enlarged, but the older portion, { } thickly covered with ivy, is very much as it was when scott was a guest and sat on the porch, listening to the story of buchanan's ancestors. while he was writing 'the lady of the lake,' scott revisited cambusmore and recited parts of the poem to mrs. hamilton's grandfather. he also demonstrated, by actually performing the feat himself, that it would be possible for a horseman to ride from the foot of loch vennachar to stirling castle in the time allotted to fitz-james. [illustration: cambusmore] from the road in front of this mansion, far away to the north, but faintly visible through the trees, we could see the 'wild heaths of uam var,' where the stag first sought refuge when, driven by the deep baying of the hounds, he left the cool shades of glenartney's hazel woods. from another side we caught a fine glimpse of what the huntsmen saw when rose ben ledi's ridge in air. these hills of scotland have witnessed many a hunt where scores of men dashed wildly after the frightened game. but no stag, ever before or since, has been pursued by so many eager hunters as the creature of scott's fancy. we joined in the hunt, as all tourists are supposed to do, provided they have the time, which many, especially americans, have not, for as one scotchman put it, 'they go through so fast, sir, that you could set a tea-table on their coat-tails, sir.' we saw 'the varied realms of fair menteith,' a lovely little lake with irregular shores and studded with bright green islands. i remember i had to walk a long way over a lonely heath to get my picture of the lake, and that i was closely followed by a large flock of angry plovers { } who feared that i might harm their nests. they flew so close that i had to keep one arm above my head for defence, and all the time they were screaming vociferously. we visited 'far loch ard' and aberfoyle, both associated more closely with rob roy. we found the copsewood grey that waved and wept on loch achray; and climbed up among the pine trees blue on the bold cliffs of ben venue. we passed along 'bocastle's heath' and reached the shores of loch vennachar, more fortunate than the huntsmen of the poem, most of whom gave up from sheer exhaustion before they reached that place. for, when the brig o' turk was won, the headmost horseman rode alone. this picturesque old stone bridge, spanning the little stream that waters the valley of glen finglas, is the entrance to the trossachs, a region, as the name implies, of wild and rugged beauty. alone, but with unbated zeal, that horseman plied the scourge and steel; for jaded now, and spent with toil, embossed with foam, and dark with soil, while every gasp with sobs he drew, the labouring stag strained full in view. thus the race went along the shore of loch achray until they reached the dense woods that lie between this little lake and loch katrine. then just as the hunter,-- already glorying in the prize, measured his antlers with his eyes, { } the wily stag dashed suddenly down a darksome glen and disappeared in the deep trossach's wildest nook. the place thus indicated may be reached by leaving the fine wagon road and walking up the hill on the right by a path that leads along a little rill to a dense thicket, over which hang some rugged cliffs. we spent a pleasant sunday afternoon exploring the dark ravines,-- where twined the path in shadow hid, round many a rocky pyramid, shooting abruptly from the dell its thunder-splintered pinnacle. this is one of the most delightful spots in the trossachs, though never seen by the thousands who whirl through all this enchanted land in a single day, packed five or six in a seat on a jolting coach, breathing the dust of the road and frittering away their golden opportunity in idle chatter. you cannot catch the spirit of this wild and rugged region unless you walk into the unfrequented parts and see the 'native bulwarks of the pass,' where the rocky summits, split and rent, formed turret, dome, or battlement, or seemed fantastically set with cupola or minaret. here fitz-james found himself alone and on foot, for his good grey horse had fallen, exhausted, never to rise again. marvelling at the beauty of the scene, he wandered on, until, seeing no pathway by which to issue from the glen, he climbed a 'far-projecting precipice'; when suddenly there burst upon his sight the grandest view of all, loch katrine,-- { } gleaming with the setting sun one burnished sheet of living gold. as sentinels guarding an enchanted land, two mountains stood like giants: on the south rose ben venue, its sides strewn with rough volcanic rocks and its summit 'a wildering forest feathered o'er': on the north 'ben an heaved high his forehead bare.' the stranger stood enraptured and amazed. then, thinking to call some straggler of his train, he blew a loud blast upon his horn. to his great surprise the sound was answered by a little skiff which glided forth from underneath an aged oak that slanted from the islet's rock. the old oak was the supposed landing place of ellen douglas on what has since been known as 'ellen's isle.' the oak, old in scott's day, is dead now, but singularly enough it died not of old age but by drowning. loch katrine is now the reservoir that supplies the city of glasgow. in preparing it for this service the engineers raised the level of the lake about twenty-five feet, creating many new islands to keep the 'lone islet' company, and completely submerging the 'silver strand' so often mentioned in the poem. but the beauty of the lake has not been marred, and the scenes, though changed, are still as lovely as when they aroused the poetic fervour of sir walter scott. [illustration: glenfinglas] the visitor who takes the trouble, as we did, to row out to ellen's isle, will find nothing to suggest the imagined home of roderick dhu and the temporary shelter of the douglas and his daughter. but he will have an excellent opportunity to indulge his fancy and call back { } to memory the stirring incidents which served to bring together all the leading people of the tale. he may stand on the shore of the island and see the barges, filled with the warriors of roderick dhu, bearing down upon him, their spears, pikes, and axes flashing and their banners, plaids, and plumage dancing in the air. he may hear the sound of the war-pipes and the chorus of the clansmen as they shout their chieftain's praise. then, as the storm of war rises higher and higher, he may fancy brian the hermit with wild incantations calling the clans to battle and uttering a terrible curse upon any who failed to heed the summons. he may see the fiery cross placed in the hands of the young malise, and watch the fleet messenger as he crosses the lake to the silver strand where he lightly bounds ashore. then, if he be a real enthusiast, he may follow the course of the fiery cross. malise carried it through the trossachs, and along the shore of loch achray to the hamlet of duncraggan, just beyond the brig o' turk, and in sight of lanrick mead, the gathering-place of the clans. then young angus, the stripling son of duncan, seized the fatal symbol, and hurried over the mountains, crossing the southern slopes of ben ledi, until, reaching the river leny at the outlet of loch lubnaig, he swam the stream, and after a desperate struggle with the swollen torrent, reached the opposite bank at the chapel of st. bride. no chapel now exists, but a stone wall marks the site where the little church once stood, and within the enclosure is a single grave. as angus arrived, a little wedding party was issuing from the churchyard gate. the dreadful sign of fire and sword was thrust into the hands of norman, the bridegroom, and the command given to 'speed { } forth the signal.' not daring to look a second time upon the tearful face of his lovely bride, norman manfully seized the torch and hurried to the north. he followed the shores of loch lubnaig and the swampy course of the river balvaig, then, turning sharply to the left, entered the braes of balquhidder and passed along the northern shores of loch voil and loch doine, two lovely little highland lakes that lie hidden away in the solitude of the hills. thence, turning to the south, he crossed the intervening mountains until he came to the valley of strathgartney on the northern shore of loch katrine. the scene now changes to the slopes of ben venue, a rugged mountain peak, towering high above the south-eastern end of loch katrine and dominating the entire region of the trossachs. on the side nearest the lake is a confused mass of huge volcanic rocks overhung here and there by scraggly oaks or birches. ancient celtic tradition assigned this wild spot to the urisk or shaggy men whose form was part man, part goat, like the satyrs of greek mythology. in later times the celtic name of coir-nan-uriskin gave way to the more euphonious title of the goblin cave. to this 'wild and strange retreat,' fit only for wolves and wild-cats, douglas brought his daughter for safety. roderick dhu, hovering about the place like a restless ghost, heard the soft voice of ellen, singing her 'hymn to the virgin.' then, goaded by the thought that he should never hear that angel voice again, the chieftain strode sullenly down the mountain-side, and crossing the lake soon rejoined his men at lanrick mead. in the night douglas silently departed, resolved to go to stirling castle and give his life as a ransom for his { } daughter and his friends. in the morning fitz-james found the retreat of ellen and offered to carry her away in safety. but ellen in simple confidence told of her love for malcolm graeme, and warned the knight that his life was in danger from his treacherous guide. fitz-james then gave a signet ring to ellen, telling her to present it to the king, who would redeem it by granting whatever she might ask. the wanderer then went on his way, passing through the trossachs again, where he met the half-crazed maid, blanche of devon. the poet actually saw the original of this strange character in the pass of glencoe. 'this poor woman,' he says, 'had placed herself in the wildest attitude imaginable upon the very top of a huge fragment of rock: she had scarce any covering but a tattered plaid, which left her arms, legs, and neck bare to the weather. her long shaggy black hair was streaming backwards in the wind and exposed a face rather wild and wasted than ugly, and bearing a very peculiar expression of frenzy. she had a handful of eagle feathers in her hand.' following the dramatic death of blanche and the swift justice to her murderer, the treacherous guide murdoch, comes the well-remembered meeting of fitz-james and roderick dhu. clan-alpine's chief extended to his enemy the hospitality of 'a soldier's couch, a soldier's fare,' and conducted him safely through countless hordes of his own men concealed behind every bush and stone until they reached the ford of coilantogle, at the extreme limit of the highland chief's territory. the place is at the outlet of loch vennachar, about two miles west of callander, and is readily seen from the main road to the trossachs. here occurred the terrific { } combat, so vividly painted by the poet, and roderick was left upon the field, severely wounded, a prisoner in the hands of fitz-james's men, who had responded to the bugle call of their leader. the latter, accompanied by two of his knights, rode rapidly along the shores of the forth. they passed 'the bannered towers of doune,' now a ruin, which makes a pretty picture seen in the distance from the bridge over the river. pressing on, they were soon in sight of stirling castle, when fitz-james saw a woodsman 'of stature tall and poor array,' and at once recognized 'the stately form and step' of douglas. cambus kenneth, from which douglas had just come, is a tall square tower on the banks of the forth, west of stirling. it was once a large abbey, founded in the twelfth century and built on the site of the battle-field, where the scots under kenneth macalpine defeated the picts. the tower is all that now remains, but the foundations of some of the walls show the great extent of the structure. amid the ruins is the grave of king james iii, over which is a monument erected by queen victoria. it is supposed to be in exactly the place where king james was buried, under the high altar, but is so far away from the tower as to indicate that the original abbey must have been unusually large. next to edinburgh castle, stirling is the most imposing fortress in scotland. it stands on a rock four hundred and twenty feet above the sea, commanding a fine view in every direction. on the esplanade is a statue of king robert the bruce. the figure is clad in chain armour and the king is sheathing his sword, satisfied with his great victory as he gazes toward the field of { } bannockburn. across the valley on the abbey craig, two miles away, is a tall tower in memory of that other great national hero, the mention of whose name still brings a tingle into the blood of the loyal scotsman, william wallace. the castle is entered by a gateway between two round towers, beneath one of which is the dungeon where roderick dhu may be supposed to have been carried after the fatal duel. here one may fancy the aged minstrel allan-bane, singing to the dying chief the story of the battle of beal' an duine. a poem that can hold the attention of a company of soldiers when actually under fire themselves must be thrilling, indeed; yet this test was successfully applied to the tale as scott told it through the minstrel. sir adam ferguson received the poem on the day when he was posted with his company on a point of ground exposed to the enemy's artillery. the men were ordered to lie prostrate on the ground, while the captain, kneeling at their head, read the description of the battle. the soldiers listened attentively, only interrupting occasionally with a loud huzza, when a shot struck the bank just above their heads. on the left of the castle gate is the royal palace, built by james iii and a favourite residence of james iv and james v. all the windows have heavy iron bars, making the palace look more like a prison than a king's mansion. they were placed there for the protection of the infant james vi, son of mary, queen of scots. he was born in edinburgh castle; but considered unsafe there, he was lowered over the walls in a basket and carried to stirling castle. queen mary had lived here for four years in her childhood and it was here that she was secretly married to darnley. two years later, on a { } visit to the castle to see her son, she was intercepted by bothwell and carried away to dunbar, probably with her own connivance, where a month later the two were married. james vi, afterward james i of england, spent most of his boyhood here, and when he left to assume the english crown, stirling ceased to be a royal residence. among the many strange and much mutilated statues on the exterior of the palace is one representing king james v as the 'gudeman of ballengeich.' it was the custom of this king, as it had been of his father, to disguise himself and mingle with the people, thereby finding relief from the strain of more serious affairs and doubtless learning at first hand what the people thought of him. their opinions must have been favourable, for the king enjoyed the experiences and the intercourse was always friendly and often amusing. once on a hunting expedition, the king became separated from the others of his party and was obliged to spend the night at a cottage in the moorlands. the 'gudeman,' like all true highlanders, was extremely hospitable to the stranger, and ordered the 'gude wife,' to kill for supper the plumpest of the hens. the stranger, departing the next morning, invited the farmer to call on the 'gudeman of ballengeich' when he next visited stirling. the farmer soon accepted the invitation and was much astonished to find himself received by the king, who enjoyed his confusion most heartily and gave him the facetious title, 'king of the moors.' this story and others like it gave the idea to scott which he so skilfully made the basis of 'the lady of the lake.' [illustration: stirling castle] another gateway leads into the upper court, on the right of which is the old parliament house, where { } the last scottish parliament met. at the north end of the court is the chapel royal. a third gateway leads to the douglas garden, at the left of which is the douglas room, where james ii treacherously stabbed the earl of douglas. the latter had visited the castle under a safe-conduct granted by the king himself. the body was dragged into an adjoining room and thrown out of the window. later it was buried just where it fell. scott makes james douglas refer to the incident as he sadly returns to stirling to surrender himself and die for his family. ye towers, within those circuit dread a douglas by his sovereign bled. from the parapet along the walls of this garden, built on a rock three hundred feet high, a splendid landscape may be seen. down below appear the windings of the river forth and the old stirling bridge, known as the 'key to the highlands,' the only bridge across the forth during all the stirring times of scottish history. there too is the 'heading hill' to which douglas also refers:-- and thou, o sad and fatal mound! thou oft hast heard the death-axe sound, as on the noblest of the land fell the stern headsman's bloody hand. from another place on the wall, far down on the plain below, we could see the king's knot, a curiously shaped, octagonal mound of great antiquity, near the base of the precipitous rock upon which the castle stands. this plain, so easily seen from the castle, was the place where many a knightly tournament was held, and it was to this castle park that douglas went to take part in the games, so that { } king james shall mark if age has tamed these sinews stark, whose force so oft in happier days his boyish wonder loved to praise. here was held the archery contest where douglas won the silver dart; here was the wrestling match where he won the golden ring; here his brave dog lufra pulled down the royal stag, and douglas knocked senseless with a single blow the groom who struck his noble hound; and from here douglas was led a captive into the fortress. meanwhile ellen had found her way to the castle determined to see the king and with his signet ring beg the boon of her father's life. she learned to her astonishment that the king and fitz-james were one, and that her suit was granted before it was asked, for the genial monarch announced lord james of douglas as 'a friend and bulwark of our throne.' the monarch drank, that happy hour, the sweetest, holiest draught of power,-- when it can say with godlike voice, arise, sad virtue, and rejoice! then ellen blushingly craved, through her father, the pardon of her lover, and the king in jovial mood commanded malcolm to stand forth, exclaiming,-- 'fetters and warder for the graeme!' his chain of gold the king unstrung, the links o'er malcolm's neck he flung, then gently drew the glittering band, and laid the clasp on ellen's hand. looking out from stirling castle over the delightful scenery of the scottish highlands, made a hundred times more lovely by the romantic poem, whose magic has { } seemed to touch every lake and river, hill and valley, with its influence, we felt a strange reluctance to leave the scene, akin to that of the poet himself as he bids farewell to the harp of the north:-- hark! as my lingering footsteps slow retire, some spirit of the air has waked thy string! 't is now a seraph bold, with touch of fire, 't is now the brush of fairy's frolic wing. receding now, the dying numbers ring fainter and fainter down the rugged dell; and now the mountain breezes scarcely bring a wandering witch-note of the distant spell, and now, 't is silent all!--enchantress, fare thee well! { } chapter v rokeby the town of barnard castle, where we arrived one evening after a long tour through yorkshire, is on the left bank of the river tees and on the southern boundary of the county of durham. in the morning we were told by 'boots,' the one man in an english hotel who knows everything, that the castle, which gives its name to the town, could be reached through the stable-yard back of the house. after travelling far out of our way to view the setting of rokeby, which in the natural beauty of its scenery is unsurpassed by that of any of scott's other poems, except 'the lady of the lake,' the suggestion of such an entrance to the locality of the opening stanzas was a rude shock to our sense of romantic propriety. the reality was worse than the suggestion and we began to think that possibly mr. boots might have misdirected us, supposing we wished to see the barnyard instead of barnard castle. we proceeded on our way, however, soon coming to a small cottage with a pretty little garden,--nearly every english cottage boasts one of these delightful little areas of colour and of fragrance,--and passing through, reached the enclosure where all that is left of the castle, or nearly all, now stands. two impressive ruined towers and a short connecting wall are practically all that remain of a once splendid royal residence. on the left is 'brackenbury's dungeon-tower,' no longer 'dismal,' for the ancient stones are partly clothed with { } the foliage of fruit trees, trained english fashion against the walls, while a bed of bright-blooming flowers on the right, the fresh green leaves of some overhanging branches on the left, and the lawn, plentifully besprinkled with the dainty little english daisies, each catching its own ray of sunshine and giving a sparkle to the whole scene, all spoke eloquently of the change from death to life since the time when these walls cast only deep shadows of darkness and despair. on the right of the enclosure is the old baliol tower, and in the wall connecting it with brackenbury is an oriel window, where the arms of king richard iii may still be faintly traced in the stone. baliol tower is a heavy round structure of great antiquity. it has a remarkable vaulted ceiling composed entirely of keystones arranged in circles. a narrow staircase within the walls leads to the battlements from which we obtained a magnificent view of the valley of the tees. what prospects from his watch-tower high gleam gradual on the warder's eye! far sweeping to the east he sees down his deep woods the course of tees, and tracks his wanderings by the steam of summer vapours from the stream. if barnard castle appeared unromantic, approached from the yard of the inn, exactly the opposite feeling took possession of us when we viewed it from the footbridge, just above the dam. here the river widens until it looks like a placid lake. the castle rises high above the stream, its base concealed by trees of heavy growth, but not tall enough to cover the two great towers and { } the oriel window of king richard. it is no longer a single ruined wall, but the imposing front of a vast structure, well placed for defence, once strong in war but now beautiful in peace. barnard baliol, whose father was one of the followers of william the conqueror, founded the castle in the beginning of the twelfth century. he was the grandfather of john baliol, who contested with robert bruce the claim to the scottish crown. the original castle or fortress covered an extensive area of over six acres, most of which is now given over to sheep-raising or to the cultivation of fruit trees. an extensive domain, comprising much of the surrounding country, was granted to the descendants of barnard baliol in the reign of king rufus. edward i granted it to guy beauchamp, earl of warwick, in whose family it remained for several generations. through the marriage of the daughter of richard neville, earl of warwick, famous as the king-maker, to the duke of gloucester, afterward king richard iii, the estate came into possession of the crown. the castle was a favourite residence of richard, who made many additions to it. in the reign of charles i it was purchased by sir henry vane the elder. when scott makes it the property of oswald wycliffe, he does not go very far astray, for john wycliffe, the great forerunner of the reformation in england, was born on the banks of the river tees and received his education at baliol college, oxford, which was founded by the baliols of barnard castle, who were the neighbours of his family. [illustration: brackenbury tower, barnard castle] barnard castle, however, interesting as it is, was not the magnet that drew the poet to this region for his { } scenery. in , scott began his intimacy with john b. s. morritt, a man of sterling character and high literary attainments, for whom he came to entertain a genuine affection. morritt had inherited the estate of rokeby, situated about four miles southeast of barnard castle. the rokebys, like their neighbours, the baliols, were descended from one of the followers of the conqueror. the old manor house was destroyed by the scotch after the battle of bannockburn ( ), and the rokeby of that day built the castle of mortham, much of which still remains standing on the opposite bank of the greta. the present hall was built in . it stands in the midst of an extensive and beautiful park, which scott, on the occasion of his first visit, thought 'one of the most enviable places' he had ever seen. 'it unites,' said he, 'the richness and luxuriance of english vegetation with the romantic variety of glen, torrent, and copse, which dignifies our northern scenery. the greta and tees, two most beautiful and rapid rivers, join their currents in the demesne. the banks of the tees resemble, from the height of the rocks, the glen of roslin, so much and justly admired.' the letter containing this enthusiastic praise of his friend's estate was written in . two years later, when the purchase of abbotsford seemed to require another poem for its consummation, it was to the one place worthy of comparison with his beloved glen of roslin that the poet instinctively turned for his backgrounds. scott's ambition to be the 'laird' of an estate was gratified in the summer of when he became the owner of an unprepossessing farm of about one hundred acres. the land was in a neglected state, but little of it { } having been under cultivation. the farmhouse was small and poor, and immediately in front of it was a miserable duck pond. the place, from its disreputable appearance, had been known as 'clarty hole.' but scott's prophetic vision could look beyond all this and see something, if not all, of the transformation which was to be wrought in the next twelve years. the farm lay for half a mile along the banks of the beautiful tweed, the river which scott loved. he knew the fertility of the soil and saw the possibility of making the place a beautiful grove. at first he thought only of 'a cottage and a few fields,' but as the passion for buying, planting, and building grew with his apparent prosperity, the farm became a beautifully wooded estate of eighteen hundred acres, the cottage grew into a castle, and 'clarty hole,' its name changed into 'abbotsford' within less than an hour after the new owner took possession, became one of the most famous private possessions in the world. the farm cost £ , one half of which was borrowed from the poet's brother, major john scott, and the other half advanced by the ballantynes on the security of 'rokeby,' though the poem was not yet written. the plans for the purchase out of the way, scott wrote to his friend, morritt, outlining the new poem, having for its scene the domain of rokeby and its subject the civil wars of charles i. morritt was delighted and immediately responded with a letter full of valuable information. the following summer was a busy one. until the middle of july, scott's duties as clerk of the court of sessions kept him at edinburgh five days in the week. saturdays and sundays were spent at abbotsford. he composed poetry while planting trees and wrote down the verses { } amid the noise and confusion incident to building his new cottage. 'as for the house and the poem,' he wrote to morritt, 'there are twelve masons hammering at the one and one poor noddle at the other.' both 'rokeby' and 'the bridal of triermain' were written under these conditions and at the same time, while scott found opportunity also to continue his work on the 'life of swift,' which eventually reached nineteen octavo volumes, and to render other literary services to his publishers, the ballantynes. it was not long before scott found an opportunity to visit rokeby again, where he remained about a week. on the morning after his arrival, he informed morritt that he needed 'a good robber's cave and an old church of the right sort.' morritt promptly undertook to supply both, and to find the former rode with his friend to brignall woods, where the greta flows through a deep glen, on one side of which are some perpendicular rocks, the site of an old quarry. i could not find any robber's caves, but it was easy enough for scott to make one in such a rock formation. i could, however, form a pretty good idea of the wild flight of bertram risingham as he now clomb the rocks projecting high to baffle the pursuer's eye: now sought the stream, whose brawling sound the echo of his footsteps drowned. in all probability, the scene is the same to-day, as it was in scott's time, wild and beautiful. the stream winds around through shady nooks, here rippling over the rocks and then widening out into a placid pool; occasionally passing out from beneath the trees into an open glade, where the well-worn boulders that punctuated its { } course lay gleaming in the sun, and presenting at every turn some new and changing view. o, brignall banks are wild and fair, and greta woods are green. in describing the visit to this place mr. morritt gives an excellent idea of scott's method:-- i observed him noting down even the peculiar little wild flowers and herbs that accidentally grew round and on the side of a bold crag near his intended cave of guy denzil; and could not help saying that as he was not to be upon oath in his work, daisies, violets, and primroses would be as poetical as any of the humble plants he was examining. i laughed, in short, at his scrupulousness; but i understood him when he replied, 'that in nature herself no two scenes were ever exactly alike, and that whoever copied truly what was before his eyes would possess the same variety in his descriptions and exhibit apparently an imagination as boundless as the range of nature in the scenes he recorded; whereas whoever trusted to imagination would soon find his own mind circumscribed, and contracted to a few favourite images, and the repetition of these would sooner or later produce that very monotony and bareness which had always haunted descriptive poetry in the hands of any but the patient worshippers of truth. the 'old church of the right sort' was found on the other side of rokeby park. we reached it from barnard castle by crossing the high abbey bridge, beneath which the tees flows in a narrow, rippling, foaming lane of water, flanked on either side by trees of rich foliage whose bright green branches wave to each other continually across the stream in a sort of friendly salute. the old grey abbey of egliston is pleasantly situated on rising ground near where the tees is joined by the rivulet known as thorsgill. { } yet scald or kemper erred, i ween, who gave that soft and quiet scene, with all its varied light and shade, and every little sunny glade, and the blithe brook that strolls along its pebbled bed with summer song, to the grim god of blood and scar, the grisly king of northern war. the abbey was founded in the twelfth century and dedicated to st. mary and st. john the baptist. it was once a beautiful cruciform building in the early english style, but has been allowed to fall into decay and now only parts of the walls of the choir and nave remain. the reverend pile lay wild and waste, profound, dishonoured, and defaced. through storied lattices no more, in softened light the sunbeams pour, gilding the gothic sculpture rich of shrine and ornament and niche. this was the scene which scott chose for the culminating tragedy of the poem. there are many other places in the neighbourhood to which the poet refers. there is 'raby's battered tower,' a large castle which boasts the honour of twice entertaining charles i. there is the balder, 'a sweet brooklet's silver line,' which flows into the tees a few miles above barnard castle, and farther to the northwest, where the three counties of york, durham, and westmoreland meet, is the place where tees in tumult leaves his source thundering o'er cauldron and high-force. these two cataracts are most impressive when rainstorms have swelled the stream to its full capacity. just { } outside the park of rokeby is a charming spot where the greta meets the tees,-- where, issuing from her darksome bed, she caught the morning's eastern red, and through the softening vale below rolled her bright waves in rosy glow all blushing to her bridal bed, like some shy maid in convent bred, while linnet, lark, and blackbird gay sang forth her nuptial roundelay. half hidden by the trees, the old stone 'dairy bridge' crosses the greta, just where the river emerges from the park. it makes a pretty picture as you look through the single arch into the cool shades of the peaceful domain. passing over this bridge we came to the old tower of mortham. we did not find it deserted as did wilfrid and bertram, for it is now used as a farm and the tower is almost completely surrounded by low buildings of comparatively recent construction. from the garden, however, a fairly good view can be obtained. and last and least, and loveliest still, romantic deepdale's slender rill. who in that dim-wood glen hath strayed, yet longed for roslin's magic glade? the glen which scott would compare with his favourite roslin must be romantic, indeed. the rill of deepdale joins the tees just above barnard castle. the scenery increases in beauty as the stream is ascended, to the solitary spot near the cat castle rocks-- where all is cliff and copse and sky,-- and reaches its climax at the pretty waterfall of cragg force. { } [illustration: the valley of the tees, from barnard castle] the cavaliers and roundheads whom scott introduces into the midst of this beautiful scenery are not, it must be confessed, particularly interesting, nor is the villain bertram, in spite of the fact that the poet was a little proud of him as a sketch full of dash and vigour. there are three people, however, who hold the attention. the first is matilda, who, by the poet's faintly veiled admission, was intended to be the picture of his early love, williamina stuart. in wilfrid, the youth of poetic temperament, who loved in vain, and redmond, his successful but generous rival, there is a suggestion, which one can scarcely escape, of the poet himself and sir william forbes, who married williamina. redmond showed his kindly heart and soldierly strength by fighting desperately over the prostrate figure of his wounded rival, at length carrying him in his arms from the burning castle to a place of safety, after his entire train had deserted their leader. sir william forbes was one of the first to offer aid when financial misfortune overtook sir walter, and when one creditor undertook to make serious trouble, privately paid the entire claim of nearly £ , taking care that scott should not know how it was managed. as a matter of fact, sir walter did not learn the truth until some time after the death of his generous friend. { } chapter vi the bridal of triermain one of scott's chief delights was the little game of _fooling the critics_. no sooner had he arranged for the publication of 'rokeby' than he began to _lay a trap for jeffrey_, whose reviews of the earlier poems had not been altogether agreeable. from this innocent little scheme the poet and his confidant, william erskine, anticipated great amusement. the plan was to publish simultaneously with 'rokeby,' a shorter and lighter romance, in a different metre and to 'take in the knowing ones' by introducing certain peculiarities of composition suggestive of erskine. the poem thus projected, of which fragments had already been published, was 'the bridal of triermain.' the scheme so far succeeded that for a long while the public was completely mystified. a writer in the 'quarterly review,' probably george ellis, thought it 'an imitation of mr. scott's style of composition,' and added, 'if it be inferior in vigour to some of his productions, it equals or surpasses them in elegance and beauty.' jeffrey escaped the trap by the chance of a voyage to america that year, though it may be doubted whether he would have fallen into it. i have already referred to the fact (chapter i) that much of the material for this poem came to scott in the summer of , when, after a visit to the english lakes, he found some weeks of real romance near the village of { } gilsland. to this period the poet's recollection turned for his 'light romance.' in the passage where arthur derides the pretensions of his military rival,-- who comes in foreign trashery of tinkling chain and spur, a walking haberdashery of feathers, lace, and fur,-- lockhart finds an allusion to some incident of the ball at gilsland spa where scott first met his future wife. whether the walk along the irthing river below the 'spa' was really in the poet's mind, when he wrote of the 'woodland brook' beside which arthur and lucy wandered, is of course unknown, but i do not doubt that it may have been, since so much of the poem was suggested by the experiences of that pleasant summer. triermain castle, or what is left of it, is about three miles west of gilsland. only a fragment about the size of an ordinary chimney is now standing, though scott saw more of it, for a considerable portion of the ruin fell in . the barons of gilsland received a grant of land from henry ii sometime in the twelfth century, and robert de vaux, son of the original grantee, was probably the builder of the castle. on his tombstone in lannercost priory, near by, is this inscription:-- sir robert vaux that sometime was the lord of triermain, is dead, his body clad in lead, ligs law under this stane; evin as we, evin as he, on earth a levan man, evin as he, evin so maun we, for all the craft of men. the castle was built of the stones of the old roman wall which passes near the place. from triermain, sir roland de vaux sent his page to ullswater, passing { } through kirkoswald, a village of cumberland on the river eden. he came to penrith, to the south of which is a circular mound supposed to have been used for the exercise of feats of chivalry, which the poet calls 'red penrith's table round.' in the same locality near the river eamont is 'mayburgh's mound,' a collection of stones said to have been erected by the druids. continuing to the southward, he came to the shores of ullswater, where he found the wizard of lyulph's tower. the venerable sage then related the story of king arthur's adventure in the valley of st. john. [illustration: the valley of st. john, showing triermain castle rock] we set out in quest of the mysterious phantom castle and found the drive through the narrow valley a delightful one. nearly everybody who visits the english lakes drives over the hills from ambleside to keswick. after passing dunmailraise and skirting the shores of thirlmere lake beneath the shadows of helvellyn, we turned off the main road near the mouth of st. john's beck, one of the many pretty brooks that are found everywhere in the neighbourhood. a huge pile of rocks, projecting curiously from the side of a green-coated hill, is called, from the poem, triermain castle rock. following the course of the streamlet, upward, we found a view much like that which appeared to king arthur, after the goblet with its liquid fire had disenchanted him. the monarch, breathless and amazed, back on the fatal castle gazed-- nor tower nor donjon could he spy, darkening against the morning sky; but on the spot where once they frowned, the lonely streamlet brawled around a tufted knoll, where dimly shone fragments of rock and rifted stone. { } as we proceeded up the valley, looking back time and again for a last view of the rock, it was easy to fancy that what we saw in the distance might well be a castle and that under certain atmospheric conditions the illusion might be heightened. { } chapter vii the lord of the isles 'the lord of the isles,' was another effort to deceive the critics. a long poem acknowledged by walter scott, following soon after 'waverley' and only a month preceding 'guy mannering,' was calculated to 'throw off' those who were trying to identify the mysterious author of the waverley novels with the well-known poet. it was the result of a vacation journey of about six weeks in a lighthouse yacht, made in the summer of in the company of a party of congenial friends. the chief of the expedition was robert stevenson, a distinguished civil engineer in charge of the lighthouse service on the north coast of scotland, and the grandfather of robert louis stevenson. after circling the shetland and orkney islands they came down into the minch or channel which separates the west coast of scotland from the hebrides, and stopped at dunvegan, on the isle of skye, to see the ancient castle. two days later they stopped to examine loch corriskin, which made a profound impression upon the poet's mind. 'we were surrounded,' he said in his diary of the expedition, 'by hills of the boldest and most precipitous character and on the margin of a lake which seemed to have sustained the constant ravages of torrents from these rude neighbours. the shores consist of huge layers of naked granite, here and there intermixed with bogs and heaps of gravel and sand, marking the course of torrents. vegetation there was { } little or none, and the mountains rose so perpendicularly from the water's edge that borrowdale is a jest to them. we proceeded about one mile and a half up this deep, dark, and solitary lake, which is about two miles long, half a mile broad, and, as we learned, of extreme depth.... it is as exquisite as a savage scene, as loch katrine is as a scene of stern beauty.' in the poem he gives a little more vivid description:-- for rarely human eye has known a scene so stern as that dread lake with its dark ledge of barren stone. seems that primeval earthquake's sway hath rent a strange and shatter'd way through the rude bosom of the hill, and that each naked precipice, sable ravine, and dark abyss, tells of the outrage still. the wildest glen but this can show some touch of nature's genial glow; on high benmore green mosses grow, and heath-bells bud in deep glencroe, and copse on cruchan-ben; but here--above, around, below, on mountain or in glen, nor tree nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, nor aught of vegetative power the weary eye may ken. for all is rocks at random thrown, black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone, as if were here denied the summer's sun, the spring's sweet dew, that clothe with many a varied hue the bleakest mountain-side. no wonder that the exiled monarch, bruce, should say: a scene so rude, so wild as this, yet so sublime in barrenness, { } ne'er did my wandering footsteps press where'er i happed to roam. returning to their vessel after an extraordinary walk, the party left loch scavig and, rounding its southern cape, sailed into the loch of sleapin, where they visited macallister's cave. here they found a wonderful pool, which, 'surrounded by the most fanciful mouldings in a substance resembling white marble, and distinguished by the depth and purity of its waters, might be the bathing grotto of a naiad.' in the morning they sailed toward the south and merrily, merrily goes the bark on a breeze from the northward free, so shoots through the morning sky the lark, or the swan through the summer sea. the shores of mull on the eastward lay, and ulva dark and colonsay, and all the group of islets gay that guard famed staffa round. they were following the same route, or nearly so, which the poet afterward laid down for robert bruce on his return from the island of skye to his native coast of carrick. they stopped at staffa to view the famous basaltic formation,-- where, as to shame the temples decked by skill of earthly architect, nature herself, it seemed, would raise a minster to her maker's praise. 'the stupendous columnar side walls,' says the diary; 'the depth and strength of the ocean with which the cavern is filled--the variety of tints formed by stalactites { } dropping and petrifying between the pillars and resembling a sort of chasing of yellow or cream-coloured marble filling the interstices of the roof--the corresponding variety below, where the ocean rolls over a red, and in some places a violet-coloured rock, the basis of the basaltic pillars--the dreadful noise of those august billows so well corresponding with the grandeur of the scene--are all circumstances unparalleled.' they also stopped to view 'old iona's holy fane,' the ancient burial-place of kings and abbots and other men of eminence. it is said that macbeth was buried here and before him sixty other scottish kings whose names are now unknown. the vivid descriptions of scenes along the route of bruce to scotland, with which 'the lord of the isles' abounds, were gathered on this memorable journey of the poet. it was not so, however, with the arrival of bruce at his ancestral castle of turnberry on the coast of ayr, the information for which was supplied by scott's indefatigable friend, joseph train, whose investigations brought to light the ancient superstition that on each anniversary of the night of bruce's return a meteoric gleam reappeared in the same quarter of the heavens. the light that seemed a twinkling star now blazed portentous, fierce and far, dark red the heaven above it gleamed, dark red the sea beneath it flowed, red-rose the rocks on ocean's brim, in blood-red light her islets swim. the ruins of bruce's castle may still be seen close by the lighthouse at turnberry. so little remains that they are scarcely visible from the land side, and though { } thousands visit the locality for a run over the superb golf links, few realize that here was the birthplace of robert bruce, and that the skirmishes here begun, when the future king returned prematurely from exile, led eventually to the series of successes which terminated in the great victory of bannockburn. the poetic description of this terrific combat lacks nothing of the vigour and dramatic force that characterize the story of flodden field. the scene where the bruce, suddenly attacked by sir henry de bohun, rises in his stirrups and fells the fierce knight with a single blow of his battle-axe; the stratagem of the concealed ditches into which the english rode with fearful losses; the kneeling of the scottish army in prayer before the battle; the charge of the cavalry against the english archers; the sudden appearance of the scottish camp-followers on the brow of the hill, waving their spears and banners, so that they resembled a fresh army of reinforcements; the tragic death of de argentine and the final triumph of the scottish cause are vividly portrayed with all the poet's accustomed power. 'the lord of the isles' was the last of scott's important poems. two other attempts followed, 'the field of waterloo' and 'harold, the dauntless,' but neither was considered successful. [illustration: turnberry castle, coast of ayrshire] 'rokeby,' 'the bridal of triermain,' and 'the lord of the isles,' though well worthy of the genius of the poet, had failed to equal in popularity the three greater poems by which his fame had been established. the brilliant success of byron was, as scott feared, 'taking the wind out of his sails.' moreover, his own interest in poetry had waned under the influence of his greater achievements { } in prose. as the author of the waverley novels he had stepped into a new and vastly more important field, where he now stood alone. so with the passing of walter scott the poet came the rising star of the novelist, and the world was the richer by the transition. { } chapter viii waverley one morning during our stay at melrose, we drove by motor westward along the tweed, passing ashestiel, situated high up on the opposite bank, but catching only a glimpse of it through the trees. here 'waverley' was begun in and laid aside because of the criticism of a close friend. here, too, in , it was resumed and again put aside because of the faint praise of james ballantyne. this time the manuscript was lost and completely forgotten. it came to light in when scott was searching in an old cabinet for some fishing-tackle. he was seized with a desire to finish it, and the work was done so fast that the last two of the original three volumes were written in three weeks. it was published on the th of july, . farther up the stream we could see in the distance on a high elevation the ruins of elibank, where scott's ancestor, young wat of harden, came so near paying the penalty for 'lifting' a few head of his neighbour's cattle. scott always said that the blood of the old cattle-drivers of teviotdale still stirred in his veins, and in this way he accounted for his 'propensity for the dubious characters of borderers, buccaneers, highland robbers, and all others of a robin hood description.' our journey on this particular morning was for the purpose of visiting an old baronial mansion which scott no doubt had very much in his mind during the writing { } of 'waverley.' this was traquair house, situated in the village of that name, about two miles south of innerleithen. it presents some striking resemblances to the description of tully veolan. there is a long and wide avenue, having an upper and a lower gate. 'this avenue was straight and of moderate length, running between a double row of very ancient horse-chestnuts, planted alternately with sycamores, which rose to such huge height, and flourished so luxuriantly, that their boughs completely overarched the broad road beneath.' two narrow drives, one on each side of the broad avenue, converge immediately in front of the inner gate. between these is a broad space 'clothed with grass of a deep and rich verdure.' the outer entrance to the avenue is barred by a pair of iron gates, hung between two massive pillars of stone, on each of which is a curious beast, standing on his hind legs, his fore legs resting on a sort of scroll-work support. the animals face each other like a couple of rival legislators holding a joint debate from behind tall reading-desks. scott says somewhat dubiously that these 'two large weather-beaten mutilated masses of upright stone ... if the tradition of the hamlet could be trusted, had once represented, or at least been designed to represent, two rampant bears, the supporters of the family of bradwardine.' if any of the village people, who stood around as i arranged my camera, their wide-stretched eyes and open mouths betraying their curiosity, had told me that these 'bears' were 'rampant hippopotami,' i should have rewarded them with my usual credulous nod and 'thank you.' there can be little doubt that scott took the idea of the bears of bradwardine from this gate, although he { } multiplied the two and scattered them all over the place. like tully veolan, the house seems to consist of high, narrow, and steep-roofed buildings, with numberless windows, all very small, while the roofs have little turrets, 'resembling pepper-boxes.' it was built 'at a period when castles were no longer necessary and when the scottish architects had not yet acquired the art of designing a domestic residence.' scott no doubt was a frequent visitor here. in one of his letters he refers to the owner in connection with a plan to plant some 'aquatic trees,--willows, alders, poplars, and so forth,'--around a little pond in abbotsford and to have a 'preserve of wild ducks' and other water-fowl. he says, 'i am to get some eggs from lord traquair, of a curious species of half-reclaimed wild ducks, which abound near his solitary old château and nowhere else in scotland that i know of.' this denotes a somewhat intimate acquaintance with the earl of traquair. the house, indeed, was so near ashestiel that scott could hardly fail to visit so interesting a place many times. it is doubtful if there is another inhabited house in scotland more ancient than traquair. the present owner takes care to preserve its appearance of antiquity. no repairs or alterations are made except such as are absolutely necessary, and then the work is done in such a way as to conceal its 'newness.' among the early owners of the estate was james, lord douglas, the friend of bruce, who attempted to carry his chief's heart to the holy land. the founder of the family of traquair was james stuart, and his descendants have held the estate for nearly four centuries. { } the great gate with the grotesque bears has been closed for more than a century. one tradition is that the defeat of the young prince charles at the battle of culloden in was the direct cause of its final closing. the prince visited the earl of that day (charles, the fifth earl of traquair) to persuade him to lend his active support to the jacobite cause. the earl felt compelled to decline, but in escorting his visitor from the park, made a vow that the gate should never be opened again until a stuart was on the throne. the defeat of the prince was a severe disappointment to the traquair family and the vow of the earl has been kept to this day, even though the earldom is now extinct. it is not correct, however, in spite of the striking resemblances, to speak of traquair house as the 'original' of tully veolan. scott himself says in his note in the edition of , 'there is no particular mansion described under the name of tully veolan; but the peculiarities of description occur in various old scottish seats.' among these were the house of sir george warrender upon bruntsfield links; the old house of ravelston, owned by sir alexander keith, the author's friend and kinsman, from which he took some hints for the garden; and the house of dean, near edinburgh. he adds,'the author has, however, been informed that the house of grandtully resembles that of the baron of bradwardine still more than any of the above.' acting upon this hint, when we were making the city of perth our centre, we took a long journey by motor with grandtully castle as the objective point. i doubt if there is a more beautiful drive in all scotland. we followed the left bank of the river tay through a fertile { } valley of surpassing loveliness. in the whole journey of nearly one hundred miles it seemed as though there was never a blot on the landscape. no neglected farms, no rough patches of naked earth, no tumble-down fences, no unsightly railroad excavations nor bare embankments, no swamps filled with fallen timber, no hideous bill-boards, none of the hundreds of unsightly objects which mar the scenery of so many country drives. everything seemed well kept. the big estates were filled with beautiful trees and shrubs, many of them in full bloom, and the humbler places did equally well, though on a smaller scale. i remember passing a hedge of beeches, half a mile long, the trees growing ninety feet high and so close together as to make a wall impenetrable to the sunlight. i was told that this hedge was trimmed once in three years at an expense of fifteen hundred dollars each time. this is only one item in the care of a large estate. we passed the park and palace of scone, where the coronation stone was kept before its removal to westminster abbey, and from which it received its name. farther to the north we stopped a few minutes at campsie linn, which i shall mention later in connection with 'the fair maid of perth.' a little beyond cargill our course turned sharply to the west, although the main road continues to the north until it reaches blairgowrie, some two or three miles beyond which is another 'original' of tully veolan, the house of craighall. unfortunately lack of time did not permit a visit to this place, but i must digress long enough to explain its significance. it was the seat of the rattray family, who were related to william clerk, one of scott's most intimate companions of the early days { } spent among the law courts of edinburgh. during one of the highland excursions the friends stopped at craighall. when 'waverley' came out, twenty-one years later, mr. clerk was so much struck with the resemblance of tully veolan to the old mansion of the rattrays that he immediately said, 'this is scott's.' the reason for the conviction was probably not so much the similarity of the real house to the fictitious one as the recollection of a little incident of the early excursion. clerk, seeing the smoke of a little hamlet before them, when they were tired and heated from their journey, is said to have exclaimed, 'how agreeable if we should here fall in with one of those signposts where a red lion predominates over a punch-bowl!' in spite of the lapse of so many years, clerk recognized his own expression (with which he knew scott had been particularly amused) in that part of the description of tully veolan where 'a huge bear, carved in stone, predominated over a large stone basin.' [illustration: grandtully castle] following the course of the beautiful river, upstream, we came at length, far up in the perthshire hills, to the castle of grandtully. it is a large and stately mansion, situated in one of those beautiful parks with which the region abounds. it has the pepper-box turrets and small windows of tully veolan. it is now, as in scott's time, the home of a family of stewarts, one of whom, sir george, supported the cause of 'the young chevalier' in . the gardener, who, in the absence of the family, did the honours of the place, told me that scott had visited the house many years after 'waverley' appeared and had said then that it was more nearly like what he had described than any other castle, and that { } 'the only mistake he had made was in putting bears on the gateway instead of bees.' there is a fine wrought-iron gate at grandtully with the figures of two bees, forming a part of the coat of arms of the stewart family. an avenue of limes formerly led to this gate, but it is no longer used and only two of the trees remain. scott was always cautious about admitting any connection of his writings with definite 'originals,' but was ever ready to humour those who fancied they saw certain resemblances. it is curious that he does not mention either traquair house or craighall in his note, though both were identified as 'originals' during his lifetime. no doubt, consciously or unconsciously, he wove into his novel partial descriptions of both, as well as of grandtully, while the houses which he particularly mentions also furnished some of the details. the historical value of 'waverley' lies in its picture of the rising of the highland clans in favour of charles edward stuart, called the 'young pretender' by the supporters of the reigning king, but affectionately known among his scottish adherents as 'bonnie prince charlie.' the ambitious young man, the grandson of james ii, left france in the summer of in a small vessel, with only seven friends, and landed on one of the hebridean islands. before the end of august he had raised his standard in the valley of glenfinnan and found himself at the head of an army of fifteen hundred men, chiefly of the clans of macdonald and cameron. he soon made a triumphant march to edinburgh, where he established himself in the palace of holyrood, which the stuart family had already made famous. on tuesday, the th of september, he caused the proclamation { } of his father, 'the old pretender,' as king james viii, to be read by the heralds at the old market cross in parliament square. the people crowded around the 'young chevalier,' eager to kiss his hand or even to touch for a single instant the scottish tartan which he wore. so great was the crowd that he was compelled to call for his horse, for otherwise he could make no progress. it is said that his noble appearance so won the hearts of all who beheld him that before he reached the palace the polish of his boots was dimmed by the kisses of the multitude. that night the old palace reawakened to something of its former brilliancy, on the occasion of a great ball, given by the prince. the old picture gallery, with its array of queer portraits of long-forgotten scottish kings, was a scene of glittering splendour. the long-deserted halls, now brilliant with a thousand lights, were crowded with an assembly of men of education and fortune, accompanied by their ladies in gowns of such elegance as the confusion of the times might permit. mingling with these representations of the jacobean gentry of edinburgh were the handsomely arrayed officers of the clans, the highland gentlemen of importance, with their many coloured plaids and sashes, their broadswords glittering with heavy silver plate and inlaid work, and all the other elegant appurtenances for which the picturesque highland costume offered abundant scope. in the chapter on the ball, scott merely introduced into an historic assemblage two handsome women, flora macivor and rose bradwardine, and two men, fergus macivor and edward waverley. the palace is to-day much the same as it was in the { } time of the prince, though the adjoining abbey is now roofless and very much more of a ruin. a walk through the canongate, from holyrood to the market cross, would give one a very fair idea of the street through which fergus macivor and waverley passed to the lodgings of the former in the house of the buxom widow flockhart, where waverley received his new highland costume from the hands of james of the needle. at the other end of the town, beneath the castle, is st. cuthbert's church, then called the west kirk, where the honest presbyterian clergyman, macvicar, preached every sunday and prayed for the house of hanover in spite of the fact that many of the jacobites were present. in one of those petitions he referred to the fact that 'a young man has recently come among us seeking an earthly crown' and prayed that he might speedily be granted a heavenly one! much of the material for 'waverley' was stored up in the retentive memory of the novelist when he was a mere boy. at six years of age he was taken for a visit to prestonpans. if the old veteran of the german wars, dalgetty, whom he met here and who found a ready listener in the bright-eyed little boy, was able to tell the story of the battle in anything like a graphic manner, it must have made a profound impression upon the mind of a lad who had already learned to fight the battles of scotland with miniature armies of pebbles and shells. on one side was an army of highlanders, the chief men of each clan proudly dressed in their distinctive tartans. they were tall, vigorous, hardy men, all proud of their ancestry, each capable of deeds of individual daring and courage, but all loyal to their chiefs and to their temporary leader, { } prince charles edward stuart. they were not only well dressed but well armed, each man having a broadsword, target, dirk, and fusee, or flintlock gun, and perhaps a steel pistol. these were the gentlemen of the highlands. contrasting strangely with them and forming the larger part of the army was the rear guard, a motley crowd, bearing every appearance of extreme poverty. they were rough, uncouth, half-naked men of savage aspect, armed with whatever weapon could be most easily obtained. some had pole-axes; some carried scythes, securely fastened to the ends of poles; a few had old guns or swords; while many had only dirks and bludgeons. but all had the fighting spirit and a keen desire for plunder. to complete this curious but formidable array, there was an old iron cannon, dragged along by a string of highland ponies. this constituted the entire artillery of the army and it could only be used for firing signals, yet the leaders allowed it to be retained because of the belief on the part of the men in the ranks that it would in some miraculous way contribute to their expected victory. on the english side a complete army of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, well equipped and disciplined, confronted the highland hordes. as they wheeled into line the fixed bayonets of the infantry glistened in the sun like 'successive hedges of steel.' these, with the trains of artillery and troop after troop of well-equipped dragoons, presented a formidable appearance. but they struck no terror into the hearts of the wild 'petticoat-men.' with terrific yells the forces of the rebellious scotchmen rushed into battle. discipline and order gave way before the impact of savage zeal, and panic { } seized the english army. the result was what the child scott always contrived to accomplish in his mimic battles of pebbles,--the complete victory of the scots and the utter rout of their enemy. there is now little to be seen on the battle-field. the old thorn tree, which was once the central landmark, has almost disappeared. the fertile fields, once trampled by hostile armies, have given way to railroad tracks and unsightly collieries. colonel gardiner's house, however, where that hero died after receiving a mortal wound upon the battle-field, still remains standing, and in front, at the end of a fine avenue of trees, is a plain but dignified monument to his memory. the principal incident of the battle, as told in 'waverley,' is based upon a true story, which scott heard from alexander stewart of invernahyle, on one of his early visits to the highlands. when the highlanders in attacked the army of sir john cope at prestonpans, stewart was one of the leaders in charge. noticing an officer of the english army standing alone, sword in hand, too proud to fly with the others, he called on him to surrender. the officer answered by a thrust of his sword which stewart received in his target, breaking the blade. a huge highlander rushed up to the defenceless man with lifted battle-axe, and in another moment would have killed his victim but for the chivalrous interference of stewart, who protected him from injury, took care of his personal property, and finally secured his release on parole. this officer was a scotch gentleman, serving in the king's army, whose name was colonel whitefoord. stewart later paid him a visit at his home in ayrshire. after the battle of culloden had put an end to the hopes of prince charles and his loyal scottish { } friends, when those who had supported the rebellion were in grave danger of death and the confiscation of their property, colonel whitefoord took occasion to repay the debt to mr. stewart. he called in person on the duke of cumberland to plead for his friend's life, or at least for the protection of his family and property. on receiving a positive refusal, he took his commission from his pocket, and laying it on the table before the duke, with great emotion begged leave to retire from the service of a king who did not know how to be merciful to a vanquished enemy. the duke was deeply affected and granted the desired protection. it was none too soon, for the troops were even then beginning to plunder the country in the immediate vicinity of invernahyle's home. that unfortunate gentleman had lain for many days concealed in a cave, his food being brought by one of his daughters, a child so young that she was not suspected by the soldiers. the rescue of colonel talbot by waverley and the subsequent friendly assistance of that officer, upon which so much of the plot of the novel depends, was founded upon this incident, which the old soldier related to walter scott, a boy of fifteen. it will be remembered that scott's first highland visit took place in , so that stewart, who was 'out' in the rebellion of , must have been a very old man when he told the story. the lad, who no doubt listened eagerly, absorbing every detail into his extraordinary memory, did not use the tale until nearly a quarter of a century later. an example of scott's remarkable way of remembering and reproducing the little details of the stories he heard is the use he made of stewart's experience in { } hiding in a cave. the baron of bradwardine is supposed to have concealed himself in similar manner and to have had important assistance from 'davie gellatley,' the baron's 'natural' or fool, who was 'no sae silly as folk tak him for.' colonel stewart, a grandson of stewart of invernahyle, in his book on the highlands, points out that while some gentlemen 'who had been out' in the rebellion were obliged to conceal themselves in the woods near his grandfather's house, they were supplied with food and other necessaries by one of these poor, half-witted creatures, who showed an extraordinary sagacity as well as fidelity in protecting the friends of his patron. 'davie gellatley' was a type common enough, especially in the country districts of scotland, a century ago. these rustic fools were usually treated with kindness, the good people feeling a sense of duty to help those to whom providence had denied their full share of mental power. they frequently possessed a certain sagacity or cunning, combined with sly humour, which enabled them at times to make quick and unexpected answers, causing much amusement and wonder. such a man was daft jock gray, who lived on a farm in ettrick and was well known to all the border people. he was a frequent visitor at ashestiel, where he entertained the family with his wild snatches of songs and ballads and his eccentric performances. jock was once travelling with a man of his own type, jamie renwick. when night came, they lodged in a convenient barn. jock could not sleep and got up and walked about singing his wild and incoherent songs. this so irritated jamie that he shouted, 'come to your bed, ye skirlin' deevil! i canna get a wink o' sleep for ye; i daur say the folk will think us daft! od, if ye { } dinna come and lie down this instant, i'll rise and _bring ye to your senses_ wi' my rung!' 'faith,' says jock, 'if ye do that, it will be mair than ony ither body has ever been able to do.'[ ] the visit of waverley to the cave of donald bean lean was based upon another incident, told to scott on a later excursion to the highlands in , when he stopped for a time at tullibody, the residence of mr. abercrombie, the grandfather of his intimate friend and companion, george abercrombie. the old gentleman related how he had been compelled to make a visit to the wild retreats of rob roy, where he was entertained with great courtesy by that highland chief in a cave very much like that described in waverley. he was treated to a dinner of 'collops' or steaks, cut from his own cattle, which he recognized hanging by the heels in the cavern. he found it necessary to arrange for the payment of blackmail to the cateran, which insured the protection of his herds against not only rob roy himself, but all other freebooters. we found just such a cave on the east shore of loch lomond in the heart of the rob roy country. it is reached by rowing from inversnaid about a mile up the lake, and clambering over some rough rocks to the opening. it is known as rob roy's cave and gave an excellent idea of the place where waverley was entertained by donald bean lean and the good-natured highland girl, his daughter, who thought nothing of walking four miles to 'borrow' enough eggs for his breakfast. from the rocks we enjoyed a superb view of loch lomond, { } strongly suggesting the highland loch of 'waverley,' 'surrounded by heathy and savage mountains, on the crests of which the morning mist was still sleeping.' i was fortunate enough to get a good photograph of these mists as they rose above the summit of ben vorlich on the opposite side of the lake. on this same excursion to the highlands, scott learned from another old gentleman something of the history of doune castle, the ruins of which now stand on the banks of the ardoch, a tributary of the tieth, some ten miles or more north of stirling. we found the most beautiful view from the bridge on the main road, crossing the tieth. the ruins show that the castle was once of great extent. it was built by murdoch, duke of albany, while governor of scotland in the exile of james i. when james returned in , he took vengeance upon the unfaithful guardian of his kingdom and beheaded murdoch on the heading hill of stirling castle. the scottish monarchs, or several of them, utilized the castle as a dower-house for their queen consorts. james ii in bestowed it upon his queen, mary of gueldres; james iii gave it to his consort, margaret of denmark, in ; and james iv presented it to queen margaret in , making it one of his royal residences. in the year it came into the possession of charles edward, the young pretender, who used it as a prison. scott is quite consistent with the facts of history, therefore, when he causes waverley to be detained there on his way to holyrood palace. [illustration: doune castle from the teith] one other incident of this same highland excursion must be mentioned. it was then that scott first visited the home of his friend, buchanan, the laird of cambusmore. { } francis buchanan, the great uncle of the young laird, was carried away from this house to carlisle, where he was hanged on a charge of treason, this estate and another at strathyre being confiscated. the property was later restored to the family, by whom it is still owned. the account of the execution of fergus macivor at carlisle castle was based upon this story, as told to scott on the porch of cambusmore by his friend buchanan. another spot in the highlands of which scott was very fond is the little waterfall of lediard. we found the place because we were looking for it, but the casual tourist would not be likely to see it. it is reached from the road leading along the north shore of loch ard, west of aberfoyle and south of the trossachs. i found it necessary to walk through a lane to a near-by farmhouse and then go up a slight incline by a narrow winding path along a little brook until i came to a thick wood. there the rush of the waters could be plainly heard, and guided by the sound, i was able after some search to find a rock where i could place my camera for a view of the little cascade. it is not remarkable either for the height of the fall or for the volume of water, but its charm comes from the dense foliage through which the sunlight dances and sparkles, from the rough rocks clothed in ferns and moss and wild flowers, except where the fantastic play of the streamlet keeps them bare, and from the deep pool at the bottom filled to the brim with pure, cold water. this exquisite scene was chosen by scott for one of his most romantic pictures--the meeting of waverley and flora macivor, when the graceful and beautiful daughter of the highlands, blending her voice with the music of the waterfall and the accompaniment of the harp, { } sang the celtic verses so full of devotion to her native land and the cause of the prince, calling to the clans:-- for honour, for freedom, for vengeance awake! it is interesting to compare the character of flora macivor and her devotion to the fortunes of the exiled stuarts with that of the famous flora macdonald. in the circumstances of their environment there is no similarity between the two heroines, one of fiction and the other of real life. flora macdonald was born in the island of south uist and brought in infancy to the neighbouring island of skye. except for a brief visit to argyleshire, she never left those islands until after the stirring events which made her famous. she did not meet the prince until she engaged in her efforts to rescue him, after the battle of culloden. in personal characteristics there is a very striking resemblance. flora macdonald, though reared in the solitude of a remote island, acquired an excellent education, to which she added the natural love of poetry and romance peculiar to her people. 'there was nothing unfeminine, either in her form or in her manners, to detract from the charm of her great natural vivacity, or give a tone of hardness to her strong good sense, calm judgment, and power of decision. her voice was sweet and low; the harsher accents of the scottish tongue were not to be detected in her discourse.'[ ] she always manifested a perfect modesty and propriety of behaviour coupled with a noble simplicity of character which led her to regard with surprise the many tributes of praise which her conduct merited. these were the characteristics { } with which scott invested his heroine. flora macdonald's family belonged to the clan of macdonald of clanronald, and one of scott's most valued friends, colonel ronaldson macdonnel of glengarry,[ ] was a descendant of the same clan. he was an eccentric character who tried to play the chieftain and thought, felt, and acted about as he might have done a hundred years earlier, but could not do in his own time without provoking censure and ridicule. he even attempted to have himself recognized as the chief of the whole clan of clanronald, though his own ancestors had been unable to establish the right. scott regarded him as a treasure, 'full of information as to the history of his own clan, and the manners and customs of the highlanders in general.' in his effort to make fergus macivor, vich ian vohr, a typical leader of one of the highland clans, scott no doubt received considerable help from glengarry, whose castle of invergarry was on loch oich, in inverness, in the very heart of the country of the rebellious chiefs and only a few miles distant from culloden, the scene of their final defeat. cosmo comyne bradwardine, esq., the pompous, tiresome, but laughable bore, with his endless quotations in latin, the honourable soldier, the excellent father and the lovable friend, is one of scott's most interesting characters. though an original creation, there was more than one man of his time who might have sat for the portrait of the brave, honourable, kind-hearted gentleman who spoke latin as fluently as his native scotch dialect and who loved his 'livy' so much that { } after escaping from some soldiers who had arrested him, he risked recapture in order to return and secure the beloved volume which he had forgotten in his haste. the absurd old baron is represented as insisting upon his right and duty, under a charter of robert bruce, by which his lands were held, to pull off the boots of the king. two difficulties present themselves:--first that prince charles is not the king, and second that he does not wear boots. but it is decided that charles represents the king, and that a service performed to him is done for the king; also that brogues are a legitimate substitute for boots. so with the good-natured consent of the prince, the ridiculous ceremony takes place with due solemnity. this incident, fantastic as it seems, is only an example of the way in which certain scottish tenures were held. mrs. hughes, of uffington, says that scott told her of a similar tenure under which the howistons of braehead held their lands, namely, by presenting a basin and ewer with water and a towel for the king to wash whenever he came to holyrood. the laird of balmawhapple was a purely fictitious character, but the method of his death at prestonpans was one of the true stories told to scott as a child when he first visited the battle-field. a brave and honourable gentleman, one of the few cavalrymen who followed prince charles, was pursuing some fugitive dragoons. suddenly discovering that they were followed only by one man and his two servants, the soldiers turned and cut down the courageous highlander. [illustration: ullswater (waverley's retreat after the defeat of the chevalier)] as in many of scott's novels, the hero is less attractive than some of the subordinate characters. the author himself characterized edward waverley, somewhat too { } severely, as a 'sneaking piece of imbecility' and added, 'if he had married flora, she would have set him up upon the chimneypiece, as count borowlaski's wife used to do with him.' yet in the third chapter, where the subject is waverley's education, he is really giving a bit of autobiography. he refers to edward's power of imagination and love of literature and mentions the pleasure which his uncle's large library afforded him. 'he had read and stored, in a memory of uncommon tenacity, much curious though ill-arranged and miscellaneous information. in english literature he was master of shakespeare and milton, of our earlier dramatic authors, of many picturesque and interesting passages from our old historical chronicles, and was particularly well acquainted with spenser, drayton, and other poets, who have exercised themselves on romantic fiction.' 'waverley' will always be remembered for its graphic picture of the scottish highlands in the period just before they ceased to have a distinctive individual existence, and for the portrait of the young pretender, who in 'the affair of ' achieved such a remarkable hold upon the affections of the scottish people. scott pictures the young prince in the most brilliant period of his career, and if he does so in colours more attractive than his character deserves, it must be remembered that these were the traits which won the love of his followers and by which alone that affection can be explained. the excesses of later years had not yet marred the fine promise of youth, which, under happier circumstances, might have developed into a higher type of manhood. [ ] from _illustrations of the author of waverley_, by robert chambers. [ ] from a memoir, by mrs. thomson, . [ ] it was to this good friend that scott was indebted for the gift of his famous staghound maida. { } chapter ix guy mannering for the principal scenery of scott's second novel, we found it desirable to change our headquarters to the city of dumfries, a royal burgh of great antiquity, on the banks of the river nith. a mile or more to the north, where the cluden flows into the nith, are the picturesque ruins of lincluden abbey, to which robert burns made many a pilgrimage. his favourite walk was along the opposite bank of the stream, and here, at the close of a summer's day, he would promenade in the twilight, enjoying the calm of the evening while he composed his lyrics. several miles farther north is ellisland, where burns endeavoured to combine the pursuit of farming with the collection of the king's revenue in the excise service, and incidentally 'met the muses' to the extent of producing 'tam o' shanter' and several other well-known poems. south of the city the nith is a tidal river, gradually broadening until it becomes an arm of the solway firth. two fine old ruins guard its outlet, one on either side. on the west is sweetheart abbey, a beautiful ruin in an excellent state of preservation. its name comes from a pretty story. the lady devorgilla, mother of john baliol, who became king of scotland, founded the abbey in and erected a tomb near the high altar. at her husband's death, six years before, she had caused his heart to be embalmed and enclosed in a casket adorned { } with precious stones, which she ever after carried with her wherever she went. she gave orders that at her death her body should be laid in the tomb which she had built and that the precious casket should be laid on her breast. thus the two 'sweethearts' were to rest together. in the opening chapter of the novel, scott refers to some monastic ruins which the young english gentleman, guy mannering, had spent the day in sketching. doubtless sweetheart abbey was in his mind, or possibly lincluden. on the opposite side of the river, or of the bay, for it is difficult to tell where the river ends and the solway begins, is the fine old ruin of caerlaverock castle, the original of 'ellangowan auld place,' the ancestral home of the bertram family and the place around which revolves the whole plot of 'guy mannering.' the day after our arrival at dumfries we set out to examine this ruin, stopping first at glencaple, a small town on the nith just below the place where the river begins to widen into an arm of the sea. it was low tide, and there was a sandy beach of extraordinary width which the receding waters had sculptured in waving lines of strange contour. the sky above was filled with fleecy clouds, and in the distance the summit of criffell reared its height in a majestic background. it was on such a coast that van beest brown, or harry bertram, landed when he returned to scotland after many years, and found himself at the ruins of the house of his ancestors. the locality might be taken for the original of portanferry, if geographical relations were to be considered. caerlaverock castle is one of the most picturesque ruins in scotland. enough of the original walls remain { } to show the unusual extent of the building. it was triangular in form, with two massive round turrets at one angle, forming the entrance, and a single turret at each of the others. the two entrance turrets and one of the others are still intact and well preserved. the turret which once stood at the third angle has completely disappeared. between the front towers is a very tall arched doorway, now reached by a little wooden bridge over the moat. many of these old ruins have mounds showing where the moat used to be, but this is one of the few in which the water still remains. for centuries the lofty turrets have been appropriated by rooks, and the moat is now a safe retreat for geese. the inner court was three stories high, containing a magnificent suite of apartments, all richly sculptured. behind these was a great banqueting-hall, ninety feet long, extending between the two rear towers along the base of the triangle. there was a great dais and ample arrangements for the seating of all guests of high and low degree. judging from an ancient document, the castle was richly furnished. according to this inventory, there were eighty-six beds, five of them so sumptuous that they were valued at £ sterling each. there were forty carpets, and a library worth more than £ . these figures would not, perhaps, seem large to a twentieth-century millionaire, but they indicate a scale of magnificence almost without parallel in the period when this castle flourished. [illustration: caerlaverock castle] caerlaverock was in existence as early as the sixth century, when it was founded by lewarch og. from him it received the name of caer lewarch og, which in gaelic signifies 'the city or fortress of lewarch og.' this { } was subsequently corrupted to caer-laverock. in the beginning of the fourteenth century it was besieged and captured by edward i and recovered by robert bruce, changing hands twice again during the wars for independence that ensued. murdoch, duke of albany, who was arrested for treason on the return of james i from exile, was imprisoned in one of these towers, and the castle was the residence of james v when he heard the news that broke his heart, the defeat of his forces at solway moss and the serious disaffection of his nobles. on the day of our visit the ruin made a charming picture. the sky was partly filled with cumulus clouds of a foamy, filmy whiteness through the open spaces of which the sun was shining brightly. the clear water of the moat reflected the azure tint of the heavens, so that the old ruin, its turrets and walls thickly covered with the deep green of the ivy, was clearly defined against a background of white, bordered above and below with shades of the loveliest blue. the dry, yellow grass of the field in the foreground, the green rushes bordering the moat, some purple flowers at the base of the turrets and hundreds of bright golden wallflowers in the broken interstices of the walls completed a brilliancy of colour which i have seldom seen equalled in any landscape. the surroundings of caerlaverock do not in any way correspond with the environments of ellangowan auld place. i had already learned, however, not to depend too much upon geographical considerations. it requires only a superficial knowledge of scott's method of work to understand that while he was a most careful observer of all that interested him and wrote many accurate descriptions of scenery, he did not hesitate to use his { } material with a free hand. it was perfectly simple for him to transplant an old ruin, which admirably fitted one requirement of the story, to a rocky coast, thirty or forty miles away, where the other necessary features were to be found, or even to combine two different parts of the coast for his purpose. we found it necessary, therefore, to return to dumfries, for there is no bridge below the city, and there, crossing the river, travel again to the south, this time on the west shore, to the town of kirkcudbright, where we stopped long enough to learn to pronounce the name ('kir-koo'bry') and to have our lunch. then, continuing southward, we stopped our motor at balmae, the country-seat of lady selkirk, and walked about a mile to the rocky coast of the solway at torr's point, where we could enjoy a superb view of the irish sea, the english coast far away on the left, and the isle of man, faintly visible in the distance. the coast is high and rocky. it is broken into many coves or bays, which were a convenient resort for pirates and smugglers. it would be easy to imagine ellangowan auld place situated on one of these cliffs, except that some other features have to be taken from another part of the coast. scott's description of the smuggling trade carried on by dirk hatteraick and others of his kind was taken from the local traditions. the coast, to sailors who knew it well, offered many a haven of refuge, but was an extremely dangerous place for a stranger ship. there are many stories current regarding the exploits of paul jones, who was a native of kirkcudbright. after embracing the american cause in the war of the revolution, he cruised in his little ship, the ranger, along the coasts of england and scotland, { } his familiarity with the solway enabling him to make use of its numerous coves to excellent advantage. to complete the investigation of the scenery which scott supposed to be within a mile of ellangowan, i made another long journey the next day, taking the train from dumfries to kirkcudbright and thence driving westward by pony-cart, through gatehouse-of-fleet to ravenshall point on the coast of wigtown bay. here we put up the horse at a farm and walked westward along the shore, my driver acting as guide. chancing to meet a gentleman whose family are large land-holders in the neighbourhood, i was conducted to the gauger's loup,[ ] a cliff on the rocky coast, beneath which were some huge rocks that had dislodged and fallen to the shore. at this point a revenue officer was once attacked by smugglers and thrown over the cliffs, dashing out his brains on the ragged rocks below. this well-known incident gave scott the basis for his account of the death of kennedy. standing on this cliff, my new-found friend pointed out a notch in a distant hill, called the 'nick of the doon,' which he said local tradition assigned as the place where meg merrilies pronounced her malediction upon the laird of ellangowan. not many hundred yards away is the original of dirk hatteraick's cave, so called because it was once used by smugglers and particularly by a dutch skipper named yawkins, who was the prototype of scott's famous character. to reach it by direct line was impossible, so we walked down the road a quarter of a mile, crossed a field, climbed a stone wall, and dropped into a thick { } wood. here the land sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees. the ground was thickly covered with garlic, emitting a strong odour. we finally reached the rocks and began a scramble worthy of a mountain goat, until at last we discovered the cave. the entrance is a narrow opening between two great rocks, barely large enough to admit a man of moderate size. we could look down a steep incline of about thirty feet, full of dirt and slime. it would be very easy to enter, for it would be like pushing a cork into an empty bottle. the difficulty would be to get the cork out. having no desire to experiment, i took the guide's word for it, that the cave is about sixty feet long, from six to twelve feet wide, and high enough for a man to stand erect. it would, therefore, afford plenty of room for the crew of a smuggler's boat and a large cargo of whiskey and other contraband stores. i asked the driver to impersonate dirk hatteraick for a few minutes, and he, good-naturedly, complied, crawling into the opening, which he completely filled, and looking out at me with a pipe in his mouth and a broad grin. i took his picture, but his honest young face and amiable smile made a very poor pose for the desperate old smuggler. it served, however, to show the small size of the opening, which might easily have been concealed by shrubbery or brushwood. scott's information regarding this coast came from joseph train, a resident of newton-stewart, a town in galloway on the river cree, just above its outlet into wigtown bay. he was an excise officer who performed his duties faithfully. he had early in life developed a passion for antiquarian research as well as a taste for poetry. with a friend he had begun the collection { } of material for a history of galloway, when he was surprised and delighted to receive a letter from walter scott, asking for some copies of a poem which he had written. in a subsequent letter scott asked for any local traditions or legends which he did not wish to turn to his own account, adding, 'nothing interests me so much as local anecdotes; and, as the applications for charity usually conclude, the smallest donation will be thankfully received.' train immediately abandoned the idea of attempting any work of original authorship and determined to devote himself to collecting material for the benefit of one who could make far better use of it,--a decision in which his friend acquiesced. 'upon receiving mr. scott's letter,' he said, 'i became still more zealous in the pursuit of ancient lore, and being the first person who had attempted to collect old stories in that quarter with any view to publication, i became so noted, that even beggars, in the hope of reward, came frequently from afar to newton-stewart, to recite old ballads and relate old stories to me.' in later years train often visited abbotsford; a genuine affection sprang up between him and the novelist; he became one of the few who knew the secret of the authorship of 'waverley'; and no other of the author's many friends ever did so much in furnishing him material of the kind he wanted. not only stories and ballads, but more tangible objects of antiquarian interest were picked up by him and forwarded to his patron. one of the most interesting possessions now in the study at abbotsford is the wallace chair, made from the wood of the house in which sir william wallace { } was done to death by felon hand for guarding well his fathers' land. the chair was made under the direction of train and presented by him to sir walter 'as a small token of gratitude.' besides giving scott many descriptions of scenery and much local history, train supplied a collection of anecdotes of the galloway gipsies, and a story about an astrologer which reminded scott of a similar story he had heard in his youth. this tale, as related to the novelist by an old servant of his father's, named john mackinlay, appears in full in the introduction to 'guy mannering.' later mr. train put in writing 'the durham garland,' a ballad which was recited to him by a mrs. young, of castle douglas, who had been in the habit of repeating the verses to her family once a year in order not to forget them. it contains practically the same story. this old tale, reappearing in several different ways, became the basis of the novel.[ ] in january, , scott wrote to his friend, morritt, mentioning a murder case in galloway where the identity of the murderer was discovered by means of a footprint left upon the clay floor of the cottage where the { } death struggle took place. the 'old ram-headed sheriff,' nicknamed 'leatherhead,' suddenly became sagacious. he advertised that all persons in the neighbourhood would be expected to be present at the burial of the victim and to attest their own innocence. this would be certain to include the murderer. when the people were assembled in the kirk he caused all the doors to be locked, and carefully measured the shoes of all present until he found the guilty man. the method by which the astute counsellor pleydell trapped dirk hatteraick was clearly suggested by this incident. it will be seen from the above that the story was put together from fragments of galloway incidents, mostly supplied by train, and from various legal experiences known to the author. scott himself made a visit to dumfries in , when he spent several days visiting sweetheart abbey, caerlaverock castle, and other ancient buildings. mr. guthrie wright, who made the trip with him, wrote: 'i need hardly say how much i enjoyed the journey. every one who had the pleasure of his acquaintance knows the inexhaustible store of anecdote and good humour he possessed. he recited poetry and old legends from morn until night, and in short it is impossible that anything could be more delightful than his society.' when scott made his visit to the english lakes in , he became impressed with the beauty of westmoreland and cumberland and particularly with the grandeur of the chain of mountains of which skiddaw and saddleback are the best known. it was in this pleasant country that he placed the home of colonel mannering. it will be remembered that scott returned { } from that excursion, through cumberland to gilsland. this is the route which he selected for harry bertram on his return to scotland after many years. bertram (or brown, as he was then called) paused to view the remains of an old roman wall, precisely as scott himself had done. there are many such ruins in the vicinity of gilsland, all remnants of the wall which it is believed the roman general agricola built from the tyne to the solway firth about a.d. . one of these suggested to scott the lines which he addressed to a lady friend in the year of his first visit:-- take these flowers, which, purple waving, on the ruined rampart grew, where, the sons of freedom braving, rome's imperial standards flew. warriors from the breach of danger pluck no longer laurels there; they but yield the passing stranger wild-flower wreaths for beauty's hair. a few miles from amboglanna, the most interesting of these remains, in the village of gilsland, is a neat little building, occupied by a store, which is pointed out as 'mump's ha'.' it has been so much rebuilt that it now suggests but little of the disreputable border inn which once marked the site, nor does the present well-kept village suggest much of the scene that was supposed to greet the eyes of bertram on his approach. the alehouse was the resort of border thieves, and its reputation was so bad that a man known to possess a fair supply of money dared not remain overnight. tib mumps, the landlady, who was secretly in league with the freebooters who came to her place, was a real character; or perhaps { } it would be better to say there were two women, either of whom might have served for her prototype. the tavern was kept by margaret carrick, who died in at the age of one hundred years. she was succeeded by her granddaughter, margaret teasdale, who lived to be ninety-eight. both are buried in the churchyard of over-denton, a mile away. scott no doubt heard much about them both at the time of his visit, and also the story of 'fighting charlie of liddesdale' which suggested some of the material for the exploits of dandie dinmont. dandie was one of those 'real characters' who are not 'real' because there were a dozen of him. in scott's so-called raids into liddesdale, where he 'had a home in every farmhouse,' he met many prototypes of dandie. james davidson, one of these worthy farmers, possessed a large family of terriers, all of whom he named mustard and pepper, according as they were yellow or greyish black. for this reason and because of his great passion for fox-hunting, the name of dandie dinmont became fixed upon him. far from resenting it, davidson considered that he had achieved a great honour. robert shortreed, scott's guide through liddesdale, fixed upon willie elliott, of millburnholm, the first of these farmers whom scott visited, as the real dandie. lockhart, however, gives the honour to neither, and believes that scott built up the description of this kind and manly character and of his gentle wife, ailie, from his observation of the early home of william laidlaw, who later became the novelist's amanuensis and one of his most affectionate friends. at 'mump's ha', bertram first met the old witch, { } meg merrilies, who played so important a part in his destiny. scott, as a boy attending school at kelso, had made several visits to kirk yetholm, a village near the english border, then known as the capital of the gipsies. a certain gipsy soldier, having rendered a service to the laird of kirk yetholm in , was allowed to settle on his estate, which thereafter was the headquarters of the tribe. scott remembered being accosted on one of his visits by a 'woman of more than female height, dressed in a long red cloak,' who gave him an apple. this woman was madge gordon, who was the queen of the yetholm tribes. she was a granddaughter of jean gordon, whom she greatly resembled in appearance. an interesting story of the latter, who was the real meg merrilies, is told in the introduction to 'guy mannering.' the royal name of the gipsies was faa, supposed to be a corruption of pharaoh from whom they claimed descent. gabriel faa, the nephew of meg merrilies, was a character whom scott met when on an excursion with james skene. 'he was one of those vermin-destroyers,' says skene, 'who gain a subsistence among the farmers in scotland by relieving them of foxes, polecats, rats, and such-like depredators. the individual in question was a half-witted, stuttering, and most original-looking creature, ingeniously clothed in a sort of tattered attire, to no part of which could any of the usual appellations of man's garb be appropriately given. we came suddenly upon this crazy sportsman in one of the wild glens of roxburghshire, shouting and bellowing on the track of a fox, which his not less ragged pack of mongrels were tracking around the rocky face of a hill. he was { } like a scarecrow run off, with some half-dozen grey-plaided shepherds in pursuit of him, with a reserve of shaggy curs yelping at their heels.' scott was able to write the vivid description of the salmon-spearing incident, in which gabriel lets the torch drop into the water just as one of the fishermen had speared a thirty-pound fish, because the sport was one of his own favourite amusements. one night in january, he, with james skene, hogg the ettrick shepherd, and one or two others, were out on the tweed by the side of elibank. they had a fine, blazing light and the salmon were plentiful. the boat, however, was a crazy old craft, and just as they reached the deepest pool in the river she began to sink. his companions begged him to push for the shore, but scott, in great glee, replied, 'oh, she goes fine,' and began some verses of an old song:-- an gin the boat war bottomless, an seven miles to row,-- when the boat suddenly went to the bottom. nothing worse than a good drenching happened to any of the party and scott enjoyed the experience heartily. while attending lectures in the university of edinburgh, it happened frequently that scott sat by the side of a modest but diligent student, whose extreme poverty was quite obvious. this did not deter him from making a companion of the boy, and they often walked together in the country. toward the end of the session, he was strolling alone one day when he saw his friend talking, in a confidential manner, with an old beggar to whom he had often given small sums of money. observing some confusion on the part of the young man, he made some inquiries, and learned that the beggar was his friend's { } father. it was characteristic of scott's generous heart that he did not allow this fact to break the acquaintance, but with great sympathy he kept the secret. some time later he called by special request of the old man at the latter's humble cottage, where he found his fellow student, pale and emaciated from a recent illness. he learned that the old man had saved enough for his own maintenance, but had voluntarily subjected himself to the humiliation of professional mendicancy for no other purpose than to pay for his son's college expenses. in the course of the conversation the poor father often expressed the hope that his bairn 'might wag his pow in a pulpit yet.' these are the words attributed to the parents of dominie sampson, of whom the poor lad was the earliest suggestion. when the family came to live at abbotsford, a tutor for walter, the eldest son, was required. scott, always eager to help the unfortunate, employed george thomson, 'a gallant son of the church,' who by accident had lost a leg. he was 'tall, vigorous, athletic, a dauntless horseman, and expert at the single-stick.' scott often said of him, 'in the dominie, like myself, accident has spoiled a capital lifeguardsman.' he was a man of many eccentricities and peculiarities of disposition, among them a remarkable absent-mindedness, but kind-hearted, faithful, upright, and an excellent scholar. in these respects he was the prototype of dominie sampson, though the story of the latter's devotion to lucy bertram in the days of her adversity is based upon an incident in the life of another person. counsellor pleydell, whom dominie sampson regarded as 'a very erudite and fa-ce-ti-ous person,' was generally identified, by those who knew edinburgh a century { } ago, with mr. andrew crosbie,[ ] a flourishing member of the scottish bar of that period. eminent lawyers were then in the habit of meeting their clients in taverns, where important business was transacted to the accompaniment of drinking and revelry. this typical old scottish gentleman of real life lived in lady stair's close and later in advocate's close, both resembling the quarters assigned to counsellor pleydell. in those days, the extremely high buildings, crowded closely together in that part of the old town nearest to the parliament house, were occupied by the elite of edinburgh society. they were ten and twelve stories high and reached by narrow winding stairs. access from high street was gained by means of narrow and often steep alleyways or closes. as a rule the more aristocratic and exclusive families lived on the top floors, and as there were no elevators, it might be said, the higher a man's social position, the more he had to work for his living. like his brethren in the profession, mr. crosbie had his favourite tavern, where he could always be found by any of the 'cadies'[ ] in the street. this was dawny douglas's tavern in anchor close, the meeting-place of the 'crochallan fencibles,' a convivial club of which william smellie, a well-known printer and editor of the { } day, was the inspiring genius, and where robert burns, when in edinburgh, joined heartily in the bacchanalian revels which were famous for their duration and intensity. smellie's printing-office in this close was frequented by some of the most eminent literary men of the day. the game of 'high jinks' was played on saturday nights in douglas's tavern very much as described in the novel. clerihugh's, which scott mentions as mr. pleydell's resort, was a somewhat more respectable place in writers' court. it is a curious fact that mr. crosbie had a clerk very much like pleydell's 'driver,' who could write from dictation just as well, asleep or awake, drunk or sober, and whose principal recommendation was that he could always be found at the same tavern, while less 'steady' fellows often had half a dozen. the incident which mr. pleydell relates to colonel mannering, of how certain legal papers were prepared while both lawyer and clerk were intoxicated, was, we are assured by the author, no uncommon occurrence. it will be remembered that mr. pleydell had been dining on saturday night and at a late hour, when he 'had a fair tappit hen[ ] under his belt,' was asked to draw up some papers. driver was sent for and brought in both speechless and motionless. he was unable to see the inkstand, and it was necessary for some one to dip the pen in the ink. nevertheless he was able to write as handsomely as ever and the net result of this attempt to 'worship bacchus and themis' { } at the same time, was a document in which 'not three words required to be altered.' [illustration: edinburgh from the castle] crosbie's clerk, though a dissipated wretch, was well versed in the law. he had been known to destroy a paper in his employer's writing and draw up a better one himself. an old scotchman used to say that 'he would not give ----'s drunken glour at a paper for the serious opinions of the haill bench.' unfortunately, both crosbie and his clerk gave up the 'steady' habit of drinking at a single tavern and in later life began to frequent many places. the result was the complete ruin of both. scott's highly amusing account of the convivial habits of counsellor pleydell and his dissipated clerk is a fairly accurate, if not entirely complimentary picture of the daily life of a certain class of prominent lawyers in edinburgh, in the middle of the eighteenth century. the more pleasing side of pleydell's character was taken from adam rolland, an old friend of scott's, who died at the age of eighty-five, four years after 'guy mannering' was published. he was an accomplished gentleman, an excellent scholar, an eminent lawyer, and a man of the highest probity and christian character. he would have been quite incapable of such a performance as 'high jinks.' as in many of his other novels, scott makes the subordinate characters of 'guy mannering' the most interesting. dominie sampson, dandie dinmont, meg merrilies, dirk hatteraick, and paulus pleydell are original creations of strong, dramatic interest. each had a prototype in real life, but it was the genius of the novelist that brought them into existence in the sense that mr. pickwick and becky sharp are real people, and { } conferred upon them a kind of immortality that will be as sure to delight the generations of the future as they have been successful in appealing to the readers of the past century. as to colonel mannering himself, i need only repeat the exclamation of james hogg when he first read the novel:--'colonel mannering is just walter scott painted by himself!' though doubtless not intended for a portrait, the fine, dignified, soldierly, and scholarly colonel is the picture of a perfect gentleman, intended to embody the high ideals which were a part of scott's own character and for which we like to remember him. [ ] a 'gauger' is an excise officer and 'loup' is scottish for 'leap.' [ ] another story, some of the details of which may have suggested a part of the plot, concerns the experiences of james annesley, a full account of which appeared in _the gentleman's magazine_ of july, , and is reprinted in full in lockhart's _life of scott_, vol. v. lockhart says, 'that sir walter must have read the record of this celebrated trial, as well as smollett's edition of the story in _peregrine pickle_, there can be no doubt.' the trial took place in . it suggested, perhaps, something of the method by which glossin undertook to deprive harry bertram of his rights. another legal case, which came within scott's own knowledge and may have suggested some of the details of the novel, was related by him in a letter to lady abercorn. see _familiar letters of sir walter scott_, vol. , p. . [ ] as crosbie died when scott was only fourteen, the novelist could scarcely have known him personally; on the other hand, he could hardly have failed to hear the stories of such an individual, whose exploits were well known to the frequenters of parliament square. [ ] these cadies (or caddies, a name that has become familiar through the introduction of the scotch game of golf) were a class of men and boys who in the eighteenth century frequented the law courts of edinburgh, eager to be employed upon any errand. they knew the particular haunts of all the lawyers of any consequence, and never dreamed of looking for anybody at his own home, or in any place other than the special tavern which he was known to frequent. [ ] the 'tappit hen' was a pewter mug, with the figure of a hen on the lid. it held three quarts of claret, which was drawn from the tap,--hence the name. { } chapter x the antiquary washington irving's story of a week spent with scott at abbotsford always leaves in my mind an indescribable thrill of pleasure. partly because irving really did have a delightful experience such as falls to the lot of few men and partly because he knew, better than others, how to transfer his own pleasurable emotions to the minds of other people, it is certain that, to my mind at least, there is no single sketch in all the scott literature, not even in lockhart's brilliant work, that throws a stronger light upon the great wizard's character or illuminates a more attractive picture. it was a happy week for the american visitor, and i imagine it contained no happier moment than when the younger author nestled by the side of his warm-hearted friend, under the lee of a sheltering bank during a shower, the plaid of the scotchman closely wrapped around them both, while the enchanting flow of anecdote, reminiscence, and whimsical suggestion went merrily on in spite of the scottish mist. it was in the course of their walk on this particular morning that scott stopped at the cottage of a labourer on his estate to examine some tongs that had been dug up in the roman camp near by. 'as he stood regarding the relic,' says irving, 'turning it round and round, and making comments on it, half grave, half comic, with the cottage group around him, all joining occasionally in the { } colloquy, the inimitable character of monkbarns was again brought to mind and i seemed to see before me that prince of antiquarians and humourists, holding forth to his unlearned and unbelieving neighbours.' there was something peculiarly delightful about scott's antiquarianism. he seemed to feel that those who were without his own knowledge of values were inclined to smile at his enthusiasm, and whenever he talked on his favourite subject there was an undercurrent of sly humour which gave an exquisite flavour to his conversation. the discovery of anything ancient, whether a ruined castle, a broadsword or sporran from the highlands, or a scrap of some old ballad, gave him the greatest pleasure, and nothing afforded his friends more enjoyment than to be able to present him with such relics and curiosities as they knew he would appreciate. a casual walk through the entrance hall and armory of abbotsford, where hundreds of helmets, suits of armour, swords, guns, pistols, and curiosities of infinite variety are displayed, is enough to suggest to any one that sir walter himself was the real jonathan oldbuck of 'the antiquary.' a glance at the library, with its collection of twenty thousand rare old volumes, is enough to prove that scott, like monkbarns, was not only an antiquary but a bibliophile as well. who but a genuine enthusiast could have written that chapter in which the worthy mr. oldbuck exhibits the treasures of his sanctum sanctorum to mr. lovel? 'these little elzevirs are the memoranda and trophies of many a walk by night and morning through the cowgate, the canongate, the bow, st. mary's wynd,--wherever, in fine, there were to be found brokers and trokers, those miscellaneous dealers in things { } rare and curious. how often have i stood haggling on a half penny, lest, by a too ready acquiescence in the dealer's first price, he should be led to suspect the value i set upon the article!--how have i trembled, lest some passing stranger should chop in between me and the prize, and regarded each poor student of divinity that stopped to turn over the books at the stall as a rival amateur, or prowling bookseller in disguise!--and, then, mr. lovel, the sly satisfaction with which one pays the consideration, and pockets the article, affecting a cold indifference, while the hand is trembling with pleasure!' it was during the visit to prestonpans, previously mentioned, that scott, a child of six, first made the acquaintance of george constable, an old friend of his father's, who resided near dundee. he must have learned from this gentleman something which started in him the antiquarian instincts, for, as he himself has remarked, 'children derive impulses of a powerful and important kind in hearing things which they cannot entirely comprehend.' certainly he put enough of mr. constable into the description of jonathan oldbuck to cause various friends to recognize him; and as constable's intimacy with scott's father was well known, this gave colour to the suspicion that scott himself was the unknown author of 'the antiquary.' but even a more faithful delineation of george constable than the book contains would have failed to bring out the real charm of the delightful oldbuck. it is the scott part of his nature that we really enjoy. next to the antiquary himself, old edie ochiltree is the character who is chiefly responsible for the pleasant { } flavour of this book. he is a mendicant whom it is a real pleasure to meet. his amiable nature, his sly good humour, and his genuine friendliness win your affection in the beginning and hold it to the very end. he is a picture drawn from real life, though it is probable that old andrew gemmels, his prototype, did not possess the many endearing qualities with which the novelist invested edie. the 'blue gowns' of the south of scotland were a class of licensed beggars, known as the 'king's bedesmen.' the number of them was supposed to be the same as the years of the king's life, so it was necessary to initiate a new member of the aristocracy of paupers every year. at every royal birthday each bedesman received a new light-blue cloak or gown and a pewter badge, together with a purse containing as many pennies as the years of the king's life. their sole duty was to pray for long life for the king, which, considering that the older the sovereign the larger the purse, they might very cheerfully do. in return, all laws against beggars were suspended in their favour, and the 'blue gowns' went about from house to house, fairly assured of food and lodging and seemingly free from care. the service of the 'blue gown' to the community is best set forth in the words of edie ochiltree, who apparently considered himself a public benefactor:-- and then what wad a' the country about do for want o' auld edie ochiltree, that brings news and country cracks frae ae farm-steading to anither and gingerbread to the lasses, and helps the lads to mend their fiddles and the gudewives to clout their pans, and plaits rush-swords and grenadier caps for the weans and busks the lairds' flees, and has skill o' { } cow-ills and horse-ills, and kens mair auld sangs and tales than a' the barony besides, and gars ilka body laugh whereever he comes? troth, my leddy, i canna lay down my vocation; it would be a public loss. andrew gemmels was well known throughout the border country of scotland for more than half a century as a professional beggar or 'gaberlunzie.' he had been a soldier in his youth and maintained his erect military carriage even in old age. he was very tall and carried a walking-stick almost as high as himself. his features were strongly intellectual, but marked by a certain fierceness and austerity of expression, the result of his long and peculiar contact with all sorts of hard experiences. scott, who had often met him, comments upon his remarkable gracefulness. with his striking attitudes he would have made a fine model for an artist. one of his chief assets was an unusual power of sarcasm, coupled with a keen wit, the fear of which often gained for him favours which might otherwise have been denied. he was full of reminiscences of the wars and of adventures in foreign lands, which he told in a droll fashion, coupled with a shrewd wit, that always made him an entertaining visitor. he wandered about the country at pleasure, demanding entertainment as a right, which was accorded usually without question. his preference as to sleeping quarters was the stable or some outbuilding where cattle were kept. he never burdened anybody, usually appearing at the same place only once or twice a year. he always had money--frequently more than those of whom he begged. when a certain parsimonious gentleman expressed regret that he had no silver in his pocket or he would have given him sixpence, andrew promptly { } replied, 'i can give you change for a note, laird.' in later years he travelled about on his own horse, a very good one, and carried a gold watch. he died at the age of a hundred and six years, leaving enough wealth to enrich a nephew, who became a considerable landholder. his tombstone in roxburgh churchyard, near kelso, contains a quaint carved figure of the mendicant, above which are the words, 'behold the end o' it.' this refers to an incident related by a writer in the 'edinburgh magazine' in , the year after the publication of the novel:-- many curious anecdotes of andrew's sarcastic wit and eccentric manners are current in the borders. i shall for the present content myself with one specimen, illustrative of andrew's resemblance to his celebrated representative. the following is given as commonly related with much good humour by the late mr. dodds, of the war-office, the person to whom it chiefly refers: andrew happened to be present at a fair or market somewhere in teviotdale (st. boswell's if i mistake not) where dodds, at that time a non-commissioned officer in his majesty's service, happened also to be with a military party recruiting. it was some time during the american war, when they were eagerly beating up for fresh men--to teach passive obedience to the obdurate and ill-mannered columbians; and it was then the practice for recruiting sergeants, after parading for a due space with all the warlike pageantry of drums, trumpets, 'glancing blades, and gay cockades,' to declaim in heroic strains the delights of the soldier's life, of glory, patriotism, plunder, the prospect of promotion for the bold and the young, and his majesty's munificent pension for the old and the wounded, etc., etc. dodds, who was a man of much natural talent, and whose abilities afterwards raised him to an honourable rank and independent fortune, had made one of his most brilliant speeches on this occasion. a crowd of ardent and anxious { } rustics were standing round, gaping with admiration at the imposing mien, and kindling at the heroic eloquence, of the manly soldier, whom many of them had known a few years before as a rude tailor boy; and the sergeant himself, already leading in idea a score of new recruits, had just concluded, in a strain of more than usual elevation, his oration in praise of the military profession, when gemmels, who, in tattered guise, was standing close behind him, reared aloft his _meal-pocks_ on the end of his kent or pike-staff, and exclaimed, with a tone and aspect of the most profound derision, 'behold the end o' it!' the contrast was irresistible--the beau-ideal of sergeant dodds, and the ragged reality of andrew gemmels, were sufficiently striking; and the former, with his red-coat followers, beat a retreat in some confusion, amidst the loud and universal laughter of the surrounding multitude. the character of the old 'gaberlunzie,' as revealed in this anecdote, was so faithfully transferred by the novelist to edie ochiltree, that in spite of some embellishments he was immediately recognized. to study the scenery of 'the antiquary,' we went to arbroath, a town on the east coast of scotland, which traces its beginnings back to the twelfth century. this is the original of fairport, and we found all of the scenery of the novel in the immediate neighbourhood. in the midst of a shower which threatened destruction to all photographic attempts, we made our first visit to the ruins of the abbey of st. thomas, the original of st. ruth's. it was a disappointment to find this ruin in the heart of the city, instead of a 'wild, sequestered spot,' where a 'pure and profound lake' discharged itself into a 'huddling and tumultuous brook.' but the wizard always reserved the right to transplant his ruined castles and abbeys to suit his taste, and he was quite justified { } in transferring st. ruth's to more romantic surroundings, particularly as there is a deep ravine known as seaton den, on the coast north of arbroath, which answers every requirement. thanks to the british government, which took charge of the abbey in , there is still left enough of the walls to make a picturesque ruin of considerable extent. for two centuries previously the people of the village freely used the stones for building purposes. it is necessary to go back six centuries to find the church in its full perfection, when it was one of the richest and most sumptuously furnished establishments in scotland. in the year , a parliament was held in the abbey by king robert the bruce, and a letter, regarded as one of the most remarkable documents in early british history, was sent to the pope, appealing for a recognition of scottish independence. the original abbey was founded in the year by william the lion, a scottish monarch whose name is associated with nearly all of the principal buildings which form the scenes of 'the antiquary.' it was dedicated to st. thomas of canterbury, the famous thomas à becket, whom william had met at the court of the english king, henry ii, when a young man. from ancient documents it would seem that the monastery was maintained in a state of great opulence and that it was open to all comers, rich and poor alike. the predominating feature of the ruin, as it stands to-day, is the south wall, containing what the people of arbroath call the 'roond o,' a window twelve feet in diameter, immediately over the altar of st. catharine. beneath this opening is a gallery with seven arches of { } carved stone, suggesting the scene in 'the antiquary' where the impostor, dousterswivel, and sir arthur wardour are digging for treasure in the ruins, while lovel and edie ochiltree watch the performance from just such a place of concealment. we could almost smell the fumes of the 'suffumigation' and hear the violent sneezes of old edie and the terrified ejaculation of dousterswivel, 'alle guten geistern, loben den herrn!' monkbarns, the home of jonathan oldbuck, is closely associated with the history of the abbey. when the fame of that establishment had spread throughout scotland and england, there were many pilgrimages to the shrine of st. thomas à becket. many of these pilgrims arrived sick and exhausted. to provide for them, a rude hospital was ordered built, about two miles away from the abbey, on lands now occupied by a handsome building known as hospitalfield. in scott's day this house was very much less pretentious and might well have corresponded with his description of an 'irregular and old-fashioned building, some part of which had belonged to a grange, or solitary farmhouse, inhabited by the bailiff, or steward of the monastery, when the place was in possession of the monks. it was here that the community stored up the grain which they received as ground-rent from their vassals; ... and hence, as the present proprietor loved to tell, came the name of monkbarns.' readers of 'the antiquary' will remember the altercation between oldbuck and his sister when the latter was requested to make a bed ready for mr. lovel. '"a bed? the lord preserve us!" ejaculated grizel. "why, what's the matter now? are there not beds and rooms enough in the house? was it not an ancient _hospitium_ { } in which, i am warranted to say, beds were nightly made down for a score of pilgrims?"' the property has a beautiful situation and is otherwise so desirable that it passed from the monks into private hands centuries ago. it finally came into the possession of patrick allan-fraser, who made such extensive additions that whatever is left of the original building owned by the monks is completely covered up. this public-spirited gentleman, who died in , left the estate in trust for the benefit and encouragement of young men who desired to study painting, sculpture, wood-carving, architecture, or engraving, and the house is now occupied by teachers and students. it has an art gallery containing some valuable paintings, sculptures, and wood-carvings, and a library of old documents and rare folios that would delight the soul of jonathan oldbuck himself. it was the most natural thing in the world for us, after visiting monkbarns, to seek the residence of his tory friend and fellow antiquarian, sir arthur wardour, although we did not find it within easy walking distance as might have been inferred. ethie castle has been generally fixed upon by local writers as the original of knockwinnock. the present building is one of the country-seats of the earl of northesk. it is a red-stone structure of considerable antiquity and irregular design, which nevertheless made a pleasing picture when seen at a distance of several hundred yards from the front. a tiny brook crossed by a wooden bridge and flanked by huge rhododendrons in full bloom made a charming foreground. beyond was a sloping field of tall grass, which had been mown only enough to make a broad path in { } the midst of which were countless thousands of dainty pink-and-white daisies. on either side were ample groves of well-foliaged trees, making a vista in which the old red mansion appeared to excellent advantage. ethie castle was part of the endowment which william the lion granted to the abbey of aberbrothock. it therefore dates back to the year . in the sixteenth century it was the residence of cardinal beaton, who seems to have bequeathed to it the 'cardinal's chapel,' by which name a room in the house is still known and 'the tramp of the cardinal's leg,' a weird, ghostly sound of footsteps on the old stone stairs, with which the castle is haunted. after the death of the cardinal, a natural daughter laid claim to the estate. thus, as with knockwinnock, the 'bar-sinister' appears on the escutcheon of the family. directly east of ethie castle and not far distant are the cliffs of red head. the coast for some miles north of arbroath is a series of huge cliffs, with many strange caverns and curious rock formations. almost any of them, but red head perhaps better than the others, would serve as the scene of the thrilling incident in 'the antiquary,' in which sir arthur wardour and his daughter are overtaken by the tide and rescued with great difficulty by saunders mucklebackit, ably assisted by lovel and edie ochiltree. two huge rocks rise almost perpendicularly from the shore. it is easily conceivable that any attempt to walk around them, in the face of a swiftly rising tide, would be fraught with dangerous, if not fatal, consequences. the village of auchmithie, the home of the mucklebackits, is situated on one of the cliffs south of red { } head. this is the most realistic of all the scenes of 'the antiquary.' the village, with the exception of a new hotel, is practically as it was when scott was a visitor in . there is but one street, and that has no name; but the houses are numbered, city-fashion. the post-office address of an inhabitant would, therefore, give the number of the house and the name of the town, omitting any mention of a street; thus the old fisherman, who posed for me and to whom i mailed a photograph, lives at number , auchmithie, scotland. this old fellow is a type of the neighbours of saunders mucklebackit. the habits of life of the people, their dress, their occupations, their houses, their furniture, even their names, are the same as they were a hundred years ago. i asked the old man how old his house was. he replied, 'ou, i dinna ken hoo auld. i'se seventy-two mysel' and i was born here and my grandfeyther, too.' several others of whom i asked the same question gave substantially the same answer. [illustration: auchmithie] the post-office was in one of these ancient cottages, with a new front, but otherwise unchanged. its occupant was quite communicative. he said it was the original cargill cottage, and that george cargill, who occupied it a century ago, was the original mucklebackit. 'when walter scott came to auchmithie,' said he, 'he came by boat. there was n't any way to land except through the breakers and he could n't do that without getting his feet wet. so cargill had to carry him ashore on his back. when he set him down on dry land, scott clapped him on the back and said, '"what a muckle backed fellow you are, geordie, to be sure!" muckle, you see, sir, means "much" or "big," and george had a { } great big broad back, so that's how walter scott got the name, mucklebackit.' he let me take a photograph of the interior of the cottage, where a single room served for bedroom, breakfast-room, kitchen, and numerous other purposes. i suppose the cottage of saunders mucklebackit must have presented much the same appearance to monkbarns when he walked in to attend the funeral of young steenie mucklebackit and won the hearts of all by performing the office of chief mourner, according the family the rare honour of having the laird 'carry the head of the deceased to the grave.' i found a very pleasant family group in front of the next cottage, and after a few moment's conversation asked permission to take their picture. not hearing a dissenting voice, i understood my request would be granted and began to set up my camera in the street. before i had half made ready, the entire group had disappeared. the police department of the town then marched up to me,--one man strong,--and for a moment i felt afraid i had been violating some law. but he was only curious, and told me that the people had a strange aversion to being photographed. i left my camera all focused and ready in the street and sauntered with the constable to the side of the road. in a few minutes a picturesque old fishwife, carrying two large empty pails in each hand, came out of her house, all unconscious of the awful presence of a loaded camera and i quickly stepped out and pressed the bulb. 'that's coffee betz you got then,' laughed the constable. 'she would n't let you take her picture, but she's one of the cargills.' in this way i came as near as possible to getting a photograph of the original luckie mucklebackit { } with whom monkbarns haggled over the price of a bannock-fluke and a cock-padle. for the fishwives of to-day are the same as those of a century ago,--'they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep the siller, too.' the men consider their own work ended when the boat is pulled up on the beach. it is the wife who must market the fish, which she does by carrying them on her back to the nearest town, where she must 'scauld and ban wi' ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi' her' until the fish are sold. 'them that sell the goods guide the purse--them that guide the purse rule the house,' and therefore by common consent in these communities, the wife is the head of the family. back from auchmithie is the mansion house of kinblethmont, surrounded by some fine old woods. it will be remembered that edie ochiltree was passing this place on his return from the earl of glenallan's castle when he was arrested on a charge of assaulting dousterswivel. colonel lindsay, of kinblethmont, and the laird of hospitalfield were the leaders who took the direction of affairs when a french privateer named the 'dreadnought' threatened the town of arbroath in very much the same way as fairport was menaced in 'the antiquary.' the same scenes of excitement so vividly described in the novel were there enacted. scott, however, had passed through a similar experience himself, which enabled him to write the dramatic event with greater ease. for several years, in the early part of the nineteenth century, the people of england and scotland were kept in a state of nervous dread by the expectation of an invasion by the french. beacons were erected all along the coast ready to give instant { } alarm, and militia organizations were everywhere kept in a state of readiness. a false alarm on february , , brought out the volunteers of berwickshire, roxburghshire, and selkirkshire with surprising rapidity. scott had gone with his wife for a visit to gilsland, the scene of their courtship. he was then a member of the edinburgh volunteers. when the alarm came he promptly mounted his horse and rode with all speed to dalkeith, a distance of one hundred miles, within twenty-four hours. the alarm had subsided when he reached his destination, and after a few jolly evenings with his fellow volunteers he returned to the south. it was on this hurried trip that he composed a poem, entitled, 'the bard's incantation.' 'the antiquary' thus closes as it began, with a leaf out of the author's personal experience. i have no doubt that he heartily enjoyed its composition. it must have been an exquisite pleasure to one so appreciative of genuine humour to caricature his own antiquarian foibles; to weave into the pages of romance the many tales he had heard in his youth of a character so interesting as the old 'gaberlunzie'; and to make the people of his fancy walk the streets of the ancient seaport town, visit the old abbey, saunter along the cliffs of the seashore, or roam about over the adjacent country, where he had spent many pleasant hours in the company of well-loved friends. although scott's own opinion at first was that 'the antiquary' lacked the romance of 'waverley' and the adventure of 'guy mannering,' yet in subsequent years he came to regard it as his favourite among all the waverley novels. { } chapter xi the black dwarf late in the afternoon of a beautiful may day, while on one of our drives from melrose, we turned off the main road a few miles west of peebles, and, crossing the tweed, entered the vale of manor water. this secluded valley, peaceful and charming, would make an ideal retreat for any one who wished to escape the noise and confusion of a busy world. the distinguished philosopher and historian, dr. adam ferguson, found it so, when in old age he took up his residence at hallyards, where his young friend, walter scott, paid him a visit in the memorable summer of . it was not a desire to retire from worldly activities, however, or to visit the house of dr. ferguson, that led us into the quiet valley. our purpose was to see the former home of one of the strangest human beings who ever lived; one who found the seclusion of the beautiful vale well adapted to shield him from the unwelcome observation of the curious-minded. david ritchie, or 'bow'd davie o' the wud'use,'[ ] as he was called, was for many years a familiar figure to the few farmers of the valley. he was born about , and lived to be seventy-six years of age. he had been horribly deformed from birth. his shoulders were broad and muscular, and his arms unusually long and powerful, though he could not lift them higher than his breast. but nature seemed { } to have omitted providing him with legs and thighs. the upper part of his body, with proportions seemingly intended for a giant, was set upon short fin-like legs, so small that when he stood erect they were almost invisible. his height was scarcely three feet and a half. his feet were badly adapted for walking and were kept wrapped in masses of rags as though they were the particular feature of which their owner was most ashamed. so completely did he depend upon the strength of his arms and chest that, unable to use his feet in the ordinary way in digging his garden, he contrived a peculiar spade which he could force into the soil with his breast. with his great arms he had been known to tear a tree up by the roots, which had defied the strength of two ordinary men. his head was unusually large, particularly behind the ears. he had a long nose, a wide, ugly mouth, and a protruding chin covered with a grisly black beard. he had eyes of piercing black which in moments of excitement gleamed with wild and awe-inspiring brightness. his voice was shrill, harsh, and discordant, more like that of a screech-owl than a human being, and his laugh was said to be horrible. his mind corresponded in deformity with his body. he was eccentric, irritable, jealous, and strangely superstitious. he was sensitive beyond all reason and could not endure even the glance of his curious fellow men. he read insult and scorn in faces where neither was intended. he thoroughly despised all children and most strangers. his whole nature seemed to have been poisoned with bitterness of spirit because he was not like other men. scott was introduced to this singular { } individual by dr. ferguson, who had taken a great interest in him. nineteen years later, and five years after the death of david ritchie, he made the recluse of manor valley known to the world as 'the black dwarf,' in the first of the 'tales of my landlord.' we found the cottage a little off the road and not far from the river, nestling under the brow of a hill. i should, perhaps, say two cottages, joined together and nearly of the same size. the one on the left is of comparatively recent date and has a weather-stained bust of sir walter over the door. the older cottage is divided by a partition. on the right is a door and window of ordinary size. on the left is a door three and a half feet high and a very small window. there is no means of communication between the two apartments. the left side was occupied by david ritchie and the right by his half-crazed sister, agnes. there was never any affection between these two unfortunates, but on the contrary, and in spite of the loneliness of their lives, there was an almost complete estrangement. [illustration: the black dwarf's cottage] the cottage has a stone over the dwarf's door inscribed 'd. r. .' this commemorates the date when it was built, by the charity of sir james nasmyth, the owner of the land. it replaces a hut built by david himself in very much the same manner as described in the novel. with his own hands the dwarf rolled the heavy stones down from the hill, and with what seemed to be almost superhuman strength, lifted them into position. he enlisted the aid of passers-by, however, to help lift the weightiest ones, which added to the wonderment of the next comers, who could not know how much he had been assisted. scott says he settled on the land { } without asking or receiving permission, but was allowed to remain when discovered by the good-natured laird. william chambers, however, who gave considerable study to the subject, says that the owner not only gave him possession of the ground rent-free, but instructed his servants to render such assistance as might be required. the immediate occasion of building a house in this sequestered neighbourhood was the fact that ritchie's painful sensitiveness about his ungainly appearance made it intolerable for him to remain in edinburgh, whither he had gone to learn the trade of brush-making. whatever instinct guided him to manor water, he could scarcely have found anywhere in scotland a location better adapted to his requirements. here the good part of his nature asserted itself--for there is good in every human being, if only the key can be discovered that unlocks the secret chambers. the poor misshapen dwarf found his in the cultivation of a little garden, shut out from an unsympathetic world by a stone wall of his own construction. within this sacred enclosure a profusion of flowers rankly unfolded their beauties to his eyes and shrank not from his touch. he had contrived to obtain some rare exotics and to learn their scientific names. he planted fruit trees in his garden and surrounded his little house with willows and mountain ashes, until he had converted it into a fairy bower. he found pleasure and profit in the raising of vegetables, and even cultivated certain medicinal herbs which he sold or gave to the neighbours. he also supplied some of the gentlemen of the vicinity with honey and took great delight in the care of his bees. a { } cat, a dog, and a goat completed the roll of his best-loved companions. besides the pleasure he took in the contemplation of his own garden, ritchie was an ardent admirer of the natural beauty of the country which he had chosen for his home. 'the soft sweep of the green hill, the bubbling of a clear fountain or the complexities of a wild thicket, were scenes on which he often gazed for hours and, as he said, with inexpressible delight.' he felt that sense of rest and refreshment from the contemplation of nature which bryant has so finely expressed:-- to him who in the love of nature holds communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language: for his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy, that steals away their sharpness, ere he is aware. to this great comfort, the poor misanthrope added another--the reading of good books. he was fond of the history of wallace, bruce, and other scottish heroes, and he also had a love of poetry. scott speaks of his familiarity with 'paradise lost' and says he has heard 'his most unmusical voice repeat the celebrated description of paradise, which he seemed fully to appreciate.' though not a man of orthodox religious beliefs, he would occasionally speak of the future life with great earnestness and on such occasions would sometimes burst into tears. he had chosen a wild and beautiful spot on a neighbouring hillside for the place of his burial. it was covered with green ferns and enclosed with a circle of his favourite rowan or mountain ash, planted with his { } own hands, partly because of their beauty, but largely on account of their potency in guarding the grave against evil spirits. he haughtily expressed great abhorrence of being interred in the parish churchyard with what he contemptuously called the 'common brush,' but in the last moments his heart became softened towards his fellow men, his antipathies relaxed, and his final wish was that he might be buried with his fathers. the writing of a novel based upon a character so grotesque and repellent was not well suited to a man of scott's wholesome and genial temperament. he soon tired of it, and indeed the only satisfaction he got out of it was in presenting the better side of the black dwarf's nature. he came in time to agree with the criticism of the publisher, william blackwood, to which at first he had strenuously objected, and the novel, originally intended to be in two volumes, was crowded into one and hurried to an end, thereby producing a narrative, as the author facetiously remarked in later years, 'as much disproportioned and distorted as the black dwarf, who is its subject.' [ ] or bowed davie of the woodhouse farm. { } chapter xii old mortality in the grounds of the observatory at maxwelltown, across the river from dumfries, is a small pavilion, enclosing two sculptured figures. one represents an old scotchman, half reclining on a tombstone, a chisel in his left hand and a mallet resting by his side; the other is a pony, apparently waiting for his master to arise. the sculptures were the work of a local artist. they were disposed of by lottery to a young man, who died by accident the next day, and they are here deposited as a curious 'memorial to departed worth.' the figures, thus used as a monument to the man who chanced to own them, were intended to represent a very different person. 'old mortality' and his pony were familiar to the people of dumfriesshire and other parts of scotland for more than forty years. his real name, as is well known, was robert paterson. he was a mason or stone-cutter by trade, who operated a small quarry. in middle life he became so thoroughly imbued with the religious enthusiasm of the cameronians, of which austere sect he was a zealous member, that he felt impelled to desert his wife and five children, in order that he might perform the duty which, he conceived, had devolved upon him. this was to travel about the country and repair the gravestones of the martyred covenanters. he would clear off the moss from the old stones and recut the half-defaced inscriptions, doing this often in { } remote and almost inaccessible recesses of the mountains and moors. scarcely a churchyard in ayr, galloway, or dumfriesshire is without some evidences of his work. in spite of his eccentricity there was a fine sincerity of purpose in the old man's devotion to his self-appointed task. he believed that each grave should serve as a warning to posterity to defend their religious faith, and he purposed to make every one, however obscure, a beacon light, so to speak, to proclaim to all the world the sufferings and devotion of the covenanters, and thus to perpetuate the ideals for which they strove. however mistaken he may have been as to the wisdom of his methods, his calling was apparently as real to himself and as sincere as that of any minister of the gospel. he was found dying on the highway one day in his eighty-sixth year, the little old white pony standing patiently by his side. thus he wore out his life in the service of his religion, as truly devoted to it as any of the martyrs who perished on battle-field or scaffold. his grave is marked by an appropriate stone in the churchyard of caerlaverock, south of dumfries. scott, who once met the old man in the churchyard of dunottar and saw him actually engaged in his usual task, sought an interview, but in spite of a good dinner and some liquid refreshments, which were quite acceptable, was unable to induce him to speak of his experiences. this was when the novelist was a young lawyer and long before he had thought of looking for materials for a novel. 'old mortality,' which many, including lord tennyson, have regarded as the greatest of scott's novels, was { } introduced to the public in a curious way. the real author, as usual, concealed his identity. the ostensible writer is jedediah cleishbotham, a schoolmaster, who in turn denies the actual authorship of the story, but claims to be merely the possessor of some posthumous papers of his late pupil, peter pattieson, who has only transcribed some tales he had heard from the landlord of wallace inn. even the landlord was not original, for he received his information from the lips of 'old mortality.' thus, by a circuitous route, the novelist derives this lengthy but extremely interesting tale from old robert paterson, whom he never saw but once, and then failed to make him talk! after the introduction and the first chapter, in which 'old mortality' is briefly presented, we hear no more of him. in this respect the novel irresistibly reminds me of the celebrated american humourist, who advertised his lecture on 'milk.' when his usual large audience had assembled, he would step to the front of the platform and pour out, from a pitcher conveniently provided for the purpose, a glass of milk, which he would drink with great deliberation before uttering a word. the lecture then followed in which he kept his hearers convulsed with laughter, but there was never a word about milk. three events, all within the space of two months, form the historical basis of 'old mortality.' these are the murder of archbishop sharp on may , , the skirmish at drumclog on june , and the battle of bothwell bridge, june . it was during the era of the persecution, in the reign of charles ii, of the scottish covenanters, who persistently resisted the 'conventicle act' forbidding the gathering of more than five persons for { } religious worship, except in accordance with the established church. james sharp, archbishop of st. andrews, had incurred the hatred of the covenanters by selfishly betraying the scottish kirk. an attempt upon his life was made in by robert mitchell, who was not arrested until six years later. he confessed under sharp's personal promise of pardon, but was sent to bass island, where he remained a prisoner without trial for four years. sharp then denied his promise, though it was proved by the court records, and demanded mitchell's death. his base action met with speedy revenge. while driving with his daughter he was set upon by a party of nine men and put to death with the most atrocious cruelty. the real leader in this murder was john balfour of burley, one of the fiercest and most fanatical of the proscribed sect. though he professed the utmost religious fervour, burley was more noted for the violence and zeal with which he undertook the most desperate enterprises and for his courage and skill with the sword. the murder of sharp aroused the government to new activities and no less stimulated the zeal of the covenanters. burley and a handful of his followers openly defied their enemies. on the anniversary of the restoration, may , they interrupted the holiday, which they considered 'presumptuous and unholy.' they rode into the town of rutherglen, extinguished the bonfires in honour of the day, burned the acts of parliament for the suppression of the conventicles and other obnoxious laws, and concluded their 'solemn testimony' with prayer and psalms. three days later a conventicle was held near loudon { } hill, at which no doubt sermons like those of gabriel kettledrummle and habakkuk mucklewrath were preached with fiery vehemence. the covenanters seemed to depend upon their religious enthusiasm, for they were poorly armed and badly organized. men and women who had no arms marched out to battle, relying upon 'the spirit given forth from the lord.' they did not wait to be attacked, but advanced eastward about two miles from loudon hill to the farm of drumclog, singing psalms all the way. whether by accident or design they made their stand on peculiarly favourable ground behind a marsh too soft to support the weight of cavalry. as it was covered with green herbage and only a few yards in width, the attacking party, led by john grahame of claverhouse, did not know of its existence. 'no quarter' was the word passed along on both sides. claverhouse and his dragoons, despising their foe, dashed down the declivity. the horses' feet were entangled in the marsh and the ranks thrown into confusion. the covenanters, seizing the opportunity for which they had waited, made a spirited attack and completely routed the cavalry, claverhouse himself having a narrow escape. thirty-six dragoons were killed, while the victors lost only three. the successful skirmish aroused tremendous enthusiasm among the covenanters, and had they been able to maintain harmony in their own ranks, might have led to a serious rebellion. it did lead to the battle of bothwell bridge which took place on the d of the same month, june, . the government leader was the duke of monmouth, who was anxious to preserve peace and avoid bloodshed. { } the more moderate of the insurgents sent a message offering terms upon which they would surrender. the duke offered to interpose with the king on their behalf, provided they would first lay down their arms. the cameronians violently opposed the moderate policy and favoured a fierce and even desperate resistance. while they were debating the question, the sound of the enemy's guns broke in upon them. in their disorganized condition, the cause of the covenanters was hopeless and the government gained an easy victory. claverhouse rode at the head of his own troop, who were thus able to avenge the disgraceful defeat at drumclog. it was the portrait of john grahame of claverhouse, hanging in the library of abbotsford, which, according to lockhart, first suggested the idea of the novel. joseph train had called to present the purse of rob roy and 'a fresh heap of traditionary gleanings, which he had gathered among the tale-tellers of his district.' noticing the handsome features revealed by the portrait of a man whom most scotchmen regarded as 'a ruffian desperado, who rode a goblin horse, was proof against shot, and in league with the devil,' train expressed his surprise. after scott had defended his hero's character, train, always alive to the possibilities of a new story, asked whether he might not 'be made, in good hands, the hero of a national romance, as interesting as any about either wallace or prince charlie.' upon receiving the novelist's conditional assent, train resumed: 'and what if the story were to be delivered as if from the mouth of "old mortality?"' train then told what he knew of old paterson, offering to learn more and report later. though scott did not mention it at the time, the { } conversation recalled his earlier meeting with paterson, and led to the immediate writing of the novel. the scenery of 'old mortality' required us to explore the course of the river clyde for almost its entire length. this picturesque stream rises in the high country near moffat. an old rhyme, as repeated to us by a native of moffat, runs thus:-- evan, annan, tweed and clyde all flow out from ae hillside. in its short course of less than seventy-five miles to the firth of clyde at dumbarton, it descends toward the sea by leaps and bounds, forming a series of beautiful cataracts. the highest and most famous of these is corra linn where wordsworth composed a poem, inspired by the sight of wallace's tower. here the river takes a triple plunge over the rocks for a distance of eighty-four feet. not less imposing is stonebyres linn, below the city of lanark, where the fall is seventy-six feet. following the downward course of the stream we came to the ruins of craignethan castle, at the juncture of the nethan with the clyde. 'a crag above the river nethan' is the literal meaning of the name. this is tillietudlem, the castle which scott made the residence of lady bellenden and her granddaughter, edith. a ravine under the old castle of lanark, near by, known as gillytudlem, no doubt suggested the name. [illustration: craignethan castle (tillietudlem)] in the autumn of , while on a visit to lord douglas at bothwell castle, on the clyde, scott made an excursion to craignethan and, as he afterwards said, immediately fell in love with it so much that he wanted to live there. lord douglas offered him the use for life { } of a very good house at one corner of the court. it was built in and we found it still in excellent repair. scott did not at once decline the offer, but circumstances made it impossible to accept. that he made a very careful examination of the ruin, however, is shown by the unusually accurate descriptions. the castle stands on a high rock, reached by a long road through the woods, by the side of a deep glen. i climbed some stairways through a corner of the building which still remains intact, and stood on the ruined battlement from which major bellenden valiantly defended the castle. here i had a fine view over the tree-tops and could see the village of braidwood, two miles away; but the road over which lady bellenden saw the troops approaching was not visible to my eyes. from this point also i had a good view of the court, which i could fancy almost filled with a motley crowd of soldiers, domestic servants, and retainers, including the bluff and stout-hearted sergeant bothwell, who died 'hoping nothing, believing nothing--and fearing nothing'; the intrepid tam halliday; the infamous inglis; the old drunken cavaliering butler, john gudyill; the faithful ploughman, cuddie headrigg, with his sweetheart, jenny dennison; and even poor little half-witted goose gibbie, muffled in a big buff coat, 'girded rather _to_ than _with_ the sword of a full-grown man,' his feeble legs 'plunged into jack-boots' and a steel cap on his head so big as completely to extinguish him. in the centre of the court is the entrance gate, formerly the chapel; on the right a watch-tower and stable, and on the left the very substantial house now occupied by the keeper's family, to which i have referred. { } the keeper next conducted me to the rear of the castle, where he pointed out a well-preserved square tower below which the ground slopes at a sharp angle to the river's edge. the lower part was used as a dungeon, where we may suppose henry morton to have been confined. it was once occupied by a nobleman of real life, who, not so fortunate as the hero of the novel, was led away to execution. above the dungeon was the kitchen and pantry, with windows perhaps twenty feet above the ground. at the corner there was once an old yew, the stump of which may still be seen. readers of 'old mortality' will recall that during the siege of the castle, cuddie headrigg, though an old servant, found himself with the opposing army. with five or six companions he found his way to the rear, where there was less danger, and proceeded to attempt to capture the stronghold by climbing the tree and gaining access through the window of the pantry. all might have gone well had it not been for the fact that jenny dennison had chosen the pantry as the safest place of retreat. when, therefore, cuddie's figure appeared at the window, clad in the steel cap and buff coat which had belonged to sergeant bothwell, jenny not only failed to recognize her lover, but was terribly frightened. with an hysteric scream she rushed to the kitchen, where she had hung on the fire a pot of kail-brose (a kind of vegetable stew), having promised to prepare tam halliday his breakfast. seizing the pot and still screaming, she jumped to the window and poured the whole scalding contents upon the head and shoulders of the unfortunate cuddie, thus 'conferring upon one admirer's outward man the viands which her fair hands { } had so lately been in the act of preparing for the stomach of another.' i had great difficulty in photographing this tower. the declivity was so steep that it was almost impossible either to place the tripod in proper position or to find a footing from which to look into the camera. while in the midst of my preparations the keeper informed me casually that a man had fallen down the slope three weeks before and broken his neck. with this encouragement, i persevered and was finally able to obtain what i believe to be one of the best evidences of the accuracy with which scott often made his investigations and subsequent descriptions. on one of our excursions from melrose, we followed the course of the yarrow, from its junction with the ettrick to its source in st. mary's loch; then continuing to the southwest, we traced the course of moffat water, which forms the outlet of the loch of the lowes, to a point just above the place where the stream meets the evan and the annan; then turning westward and passing through the town of moffat, we followed the course of the tweed northward and eastward from its source to our starting-place. for a large part of this drive, we were in wild, desolate regions, which presented to us, we were well assured, exactly the same aspect as they did to sir walter scott, and to the covenanters a century or more before his time. from st. mary's loch to moffat and from the latter northward for at least fifteen or twenty miles, we were in the very region where the covenanters were wont to find a safe retreat from persecution. scott was fond of riding through these wild mountain { } passes, and often did so with his friend, skene, of rubislaw, who has left an entertaining account of one of these expeditions:-- one of our earliest expeditions was to visit the wild scenery of the mountainous tract above moffat, including the cascade of the grey mare's tail and the dark tarn called loch skene. in our ascent to the lake we got completely bewildered in the thick fog which generally envelops the rugged features of that lovely region; and as we were groping through the maze of bogs, the ground gave way, and down went horse and horsemen pell-mell into a slough of peaty mud and black water, out of which, entangled as we were with our plaids and floundering nags, it was no easy matter to get extricated. indeed, unless we had prudently left our gallant steeds at a farmhouse below and borrowed hill-ponies for the occasion, the result might have been worse than laughable. as it was, we rose like the spirits of the bogs, covered _cap-à-pie_ with slime, to free themselves from which our wily ponies took to rolling about on the heather, and we had nothing for it but following their example. at length, as we approached the gloomy loch, a huge eagle heaved himself from the margin and rose right over us, screaming his scorn of the intruders; and altogether it would be impossible to picture anything more desolately savage than the scene which opened, as if raised by enchantment on purpose to gratify the poet's eye, thick clouds of fog rolling incessantly over the face of the inky waters, but rent asunder, now in one direction and then in another--so as to afford us a glimpse of some projecting rock or naked point of land, or island bearing a few scraggy stumps of pine--and then closing again in universal darkness upon the cheerless waste. much of the scenery of 'old mortality' was drawn from that day's ride. james hogg, who conducted the party on that day, says:-- i conducted them through that wild region by a path, which if not rode by clavers, as reported, never was rode by { } another gentleman.... sir walter, in the very worst paths, never dismounted save at loch skene to take some dinner. we went to moffat that night, where we met with lady scott and sophia and such a day and night of glee i never witnessed. our very perils were to him matters of infinite merriment. the grey mare's tail is a waterfall three or four hundred feet in height, forming the outlet of loch skene. it is a narrow stream and the water comes boiling and bubbling in foamy whiteness over the ruggedest of rocks and through the wildest of ravines. i am inclined to think that scott, in striving to find a retreat for balfour, or burley, poetically in keeping with the stern, fierce, and dangerous character of that terrible individual, combined the awesome features of the grey mare's tail with the wild beauty of another ravine which he had visited. the latter is the deep gulch known as crichope linn, near the village of closeburn, north of dumfries. a narrow stream, flowing through a thick wood, has cut a deep chasm in the solid rock, through which the water has carved many curious channels. one of these is called 'hell's cauldron,' where the water has worn a deep round hole, through which it rushes with terrific force. near by is the soutar's seat, so called from the legend that a 'soutar' or cobbler used to conceal himself there to mend the shoes of the covenanters. i had the pleasure of walking up the stream to the falls through the wet woods, in a rainstorm, without a guide. the loneliness of my situation,--for i did not encounter a soul on the journey,--added to the mist in the atmosphere, gave an impression, which i might { } not otherwise have had, of the absolute security of such a hiding-place. i tried to fancy old burley appearing at some opening in the rocks and myself leaping across the chasm, as did henry morton, to get out of his way. i was not obliged to attempt any such feat. but i felt that a visit to this strange locality had given me a better idea of the closing scenes of the novel than i had ever had before. [illustration: crichope linn] 'old mortality' will always be remembered for its animated picture of the covenanters and the conditions under which they lived. it was an era of perverted sentiment in politics and religion. the times were 'out of joint' more truly than in the days of hamlet. a powerful and tyrannical government was exhibiting cowardly fear of a small minority of determined people, who demanded only the rights that had been previously guaranteed. a policy of intolerant persecution prevailed. the bullies of the government laughed to scorn the more statesmanlike propositions of moderation and fair dealing. under these conditions a helpless and miserable people found their strength in an underlying perception of the truth and justice of their cause. they were exhibiting that quality which, from magna charta to the present time, has come to the front at every crisis in the history of britain and america and is at the root of the power of the anglo-saxon race--the quality of earnest and sincere faith in the right of man to civil liberty and religious freedom. if, in the excess of their enthusiasm, these people became bigoted and intolerant, and if their frenzied reading of the scriptures enabled them to find texts to justify every sort of deed of violence and cruelty, the harsh measures of a corrupt, { } selfish, and incompetent government would at least explain the unhappy conditions. scott's marvellous imagination enabled him to reanimate the people of this excited period. in habakkuk mucklewrath we have the extreme of crazy religious fervor and in balfour of burley the perfect embodiment of that brute force which was so strangely blended with pious ideals. henry morton, the hero of the tale, whose lot is cast with the covenanters, is out of place in the picture, but he sufficiently typifies that class who were opposed to the extreme measures of the cameronians. on the government side, claverhouse, to whom scott endeavours to do justice, general dalzell, the duke of monmouth, and the duke of lauderdale are pictured, fairly enough, in the colours of history. scott's treatment of the covenanters aroused great controversy, some of their admirers taking him to task in severe terms for his alleged lack of fairness. whatever may be said on this point, there is no doubt that he touches the true sublimity of their faith in his account of the torture and death of the reverend ephraim macbriar. the dauntless preacher was brought before the privy council and interrogated by the duke of lauderdale. refusing to reply to an important question, he was dramatically confronted with the ghastly apparition of the public executioner and his horrible implements of torture. 'do you know who that man is?' said lauderdale in a low, stern voice, almost sinking into a whisper. 'he is, i suppose,' replied macbriar, 'the infamous executioner of your bloodthirsty commands upon the persons of god's people. he and you are equally beneath my regard; { } and, i bless god, i no more fear what he can inflict than what you can command. flesh and blood may shrink under the sufferings you can doom me to, and poor frail nature may shed tears, or send forth cries; but i trust my soul is anchored firmly on the rock of ages.' by the duke's command the executioner then advanced and placed before the prisoner an iron case called the scottish boot, so constructed that it would enclose the leg and knee of the victim with a tight fit. an iron wedge and a mallet completed the equipment. this wedge, when placed between the knee and the unyielding iron frame, and struck a sharp blow with the mallet, was calculated to inflict the most excruciating pain. macbriar faced the implement without flinching, while the executioner asked in harsh, discordant tones which leg he should take first. 'since you leave it to me,' said the prisoner, stretching forth his right leg, 'take the best--i willingly bestow it in the cause for which i suffer.' here scott makes use of the actual words of james mitchell, who suffered similar torture for his attempt on the life of archbishop sharp. when macbriar was led to his execution, he thanked the council for his sentence and forgave them, saying:-- and why should i not?--ye send me to a happy exchange--to the company of angels and spirits of the just, for that of frail dust and ashes.--ye send me from darkness into day--from mortality to immortality--and in a word, from earth to heaven! if the thanks therefore, and pardon of a dying man can do you good, take them at my hand, and may your last moments be as happy as mine! { } and thus, 'his countenance radiant with joy and triumph,' he was led to his execution, 'dying with the same enthusiastic firmness which his whole life had evinced.' the book which contains this superb presentation of a thrilling epoch of scottish history is justly termed, by lockhart, the marmion of the waverley novels. { } chapter xiii rob roy an old flintlock gun of extreme length, with silver plate containing the initials r.m.c.; a fine highland broadsword, with the highly prized andrea ferrara mark on the blade; a dirk two feet long, with carved handle and silver-mounted sheath; a _skene dhu_, or black knife, a short thick weapon of the kind used in the highlands for dispatching game or other servile purposes for which it would be a profanation to use the dirk; a well-worn brown leather purse; and a _sporran_, with semicircular clasp and secret lock, which for a century has defied the ingenuity of all who have attempted to open it, are among the treasures of abbotsford. they were all once the property of robert macgregor campbell, or rob roy, the famous 'robin hood of the highlands.' when i was permitted to take the long old-fashioned gun into my own hands and to test its weight by carrying the butt to my shoulder and casting my eye over the long octagonal barrel, i could not help feeling that rob roy was a far less mythical person than his prototype of the forest of sherwood. rob roy was, indeed, a very real person, as the duke of montrose knew to his sorrow, but the stories of his exploits are so strange, and at the same time so fascinating, that it is difficult to determine where biography ends and pure fiction begins. the macgregor clan to which he belonged had been for three hundred years the victims { } of gross injustice. david ii, the son of robert bruce, began the oppression by wrongfully bestowing their lands upon the rival clan of the campbells. the macgregors were forced to a struggle for self-preservation, and manfully fought to maintain their rights, exhibiting extraordinary courage and endurance. but their acts of heroism and self-defence were construed at court as evidences of lawlessness and rebellion. strenuous efforts were made to suppress them, but all such attempts were met with fiery vindictiveness. each act of violence led to one of vengeance. the clan came to be regarded as a fierce and untameable race of outlaws. rendered savage and cruel by a treatment which left no lawful means of obtaining a livelihood, pursued with fire and sword by the leaders of powerful neighbouring clans, whose subjects were forbidden to give them food or shelter, the macgregors were driven to desperation. violent deeds of retaliation occurred which no amount of provocation would justify. murders, outrages, and bloody skirmishes were of frequent occurrence. these conflicts reached a terrible crisis in the battle of glenfruin, fought on the shores of loch lomond with the powerful clan of colquhoun, of whom two hundred or three hundred were slaughtered, many of them being killed without reason after the battle was over. one of the leaders of the macgregors, who was accused, perhaps unjustly, of murdering a party of clerical students who had merely stopped to witness the fight, was dugald ciar mohr, the 'great mouse-coloured man,' so called from the colour of his face and hair. he was a man of ferocious character and enormous strength, and was one of the ancestors of rob roy. { } this event led to various acts of council, proscribing the macgregors as outlaws, prohibiting them from carrying weapons, and forbidding them even to meet together in groups of more than four. the very name of the clan was abolished, and any one who should call himself either gregor or macgregor was made liable to suffer the penalty of death. rob roy was the product of these long years of relentless persecution and retaliation. his family occupied the mountain ranges between loch lomond and loch katrine, where they possessed considerable property. the date of his birth is uncertain, but it was probably or . in the latter year, through the orders of king charles ii, the acts against the macgregors were annulled and their name restored. the king, however, could not annul the effects of three centuries of civil warfare and vengeful retribution, nor prevent rob roy from inheriting some of the traits of his 'mouse-coloured' ancestor. rob is described as a man of medium height, but of extraordinary strength. his powers of endurance were greater than those of any other member of his clan. his arms were said to be seven inches longer than those of the average man. this gave him a great advantage with the broadsword, which he could wield with uncommon skill and effectiveness. his head was covered with a shock of thick, curly red hair, from which fact he derived his name, rob roy, or rob the red. he had keen, flashing, grey eyes and a firm mouth, which betokened a man with whom it would be dangerous to trifle, but these features could be frank, cheerful, and full of kindness when among his friends. he had none of the ferocity or cruelty of that ancestor whose { } great powers he seemed to have inherited. on the contrary, though bold in the execution of his purposes, he avoided unnecessary bloodshed. though driven by fate to the life of an outlaw, he was a man of humane instincts and under happier circumstances might have been a public benefactor. this is the explanation of his extraordinary success in eluding pursuit. his kindliness of disposition and friendly helpfulness had raised up friends in every part of the country. in this respect he was like robin hood. he struck at the rich and powerful when they molested him, but to the poor he was generous and helpful. he was a kind and gentle robber, who carried a sense of humour into his boldest outrages, and contrived to take the property of his rich enemy without molesting the latter's poor tenants, usually managing to make the victim ridiculous in the eyes of his associates. again and again the duke of montrose sent expeditions after him, but invariably some friend of rob's carried the news to him well in advance or sent the duke's people off in a wrong direction, so that they were always either disgracefully defeated or hopelessly bewildered. meanwhile, rob would be pretty sure to appear unexpectedly at some point on the duke's estate and sweep away everything in sight. each new failure brought added wrath to the duke, which the satirical remarks of his companions did not tend to soften. when montrose deprived macgregor of his lands of craigroyston, along the eastern shore of loch lomond, rob had no redress in the courts, but he managed to square accounts pretty well by driving off annually large numbers of the duke's cattle, and collecting rents, { } for which he invariably gave receipts. he made craigroyston unbearable for any one who attempted to live there, until finally a mr. graham of killearn, the duke's factor, took possession. this was exactly what rob roy wanted, for graham was the man who, in macgregor's absence, had burned the house of the latter at balquhidder and brutally thrust his wife out of doors in a cold winter night. rob ever after regarded him with fierce vindictiveness. graham's cattle mysteriously disappeared time after time until craigroyston became unbearable for him also. rob had a queer way of appearing suddenly in places where he was least expected. one day when graham was drinking at a tavern and angrily relating his troubles to a chance acquaintance, he exclaimed, 'gin god or the de'il wad gie me a meeting wi' that thievin' loon, rob roy macgregor, i'd pay aff my score wi' him. but the villain aye keeps oot o' my road.' 'here we are, then,' was the reply, 'whether it's god or the de'il has brocht us thegether. nae time like the noo, sir, for if ye're graham o' killearn, i'm rob roy macgregor.' graham did not stand on the order of his going, but made his exit by leaps and bounds until three long miles were put between him and 'that devil of a macgregor.' on one occasion graham had called the tenants of a certain district to meet at a small house, according to custom, to pay their rent. rob rob, with a single attendant, whom he called 'the bailie,' reached the house after dark, and looking through the window, saw killearn with a bag of money in his hand and heard him say he would cheerfully give it all for rob roy's head. rob instantly gave orders in a loud voice to place two { } men at each window, two at each corner and four at each of the doors, as if he had twenty men. he and his attendant then walked boldly in, each with broadsword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, and a goodly display of dirks and pistols in their belts. he then coolly ordered killearn to put the money on the table and count it, and to draw a proper receipt showing that he, rob roy, had received the money from the duke of montrose on account. then, finding that some of the tenants had not been given receipts for their rent, he caused these to be drawn so that no poor man should suffer, after which he ordered supper for all present, for which he paid. when they had eaten their meal and drunk together for several hours, he called upon 'the bailie' to produce his dirk and take the solemn oath of the factor that he would not move nor direct any one else to move out of the house for at least one hour. pointing to the dirk to signify what the agent might expect if he broke his oath, rob calmly walked away with the bag of money, which he considered rightfully his own, and was soon beyond pursuit. on another occasion macgregor not only took possession of the rents which this same gentleman had collected, but also carried him away to a small island in the west end of loch katrine, where, after entertaining him five or six days, he dismissed his guest (or prisoner), returning all the books and papers, but taking good care to keep the cash. the escape of rob roy from the duke of montrose was based upon an actual occurrence. he was surprised by montrose and taken prisoner in the braes of balquhidder. he was then mounted behind a soldier named { } james stewart and secured by a horse-girth. in crossing a stream, probably the forth at the fords of frew, macgregor induced stewart to give him a chance 'for auld acquaintance' sake.' stewart, moved by compassion or possibly fear, slipped the girth-buckle and rob, dropping off the horse, dived, swam below the surface, and finally escaped. the novelist's acquaintance with the country of rob roy began in his sixteenth year, when with a military escort of a sergeant and six men, he first entered the highlands. he was then a lawyer's clerk, and his object was to obtain possession of a certain small farm in the braes of balquhidder, known as invernenty, to secure some debts due from the owner, stewart of appin. the farm had been a part of the property claimed by rob roy, and in the late years of the cateran's life there had been a great dispute over it with the stewarts. the quarrel was finally adjusted and a family of maclarens took possession as tenants of stewart. after the death of rob roy, his son, robin oig, probably instigated by his mother, declared that if he could get possession of a certain gun of his father's, he would shoot maclaren. he kept his word, using the weapon to which i have referred at the beginning of this chapter. the descendants of maclaren remained on the farm and refused to leave. so long as they were there, the property could not be sold. it chanced that one of scott's earliest legal undertakings was to secure the eviction of these undesirable tenants. when he arrived the house was empty, the maclarens not caring to make any serious opposition. the kirk of balquhidder, where rob roy made his { } settlement with the stewarts, stands at the foot of loch voil, a few miles off the main road from callander to lochearnhead. it is a small ivy-covered chapel, standing beneath the shadow of two large trees. in front is an iron railing, of recent construction, enclosing the graves of rob roy, his wife, helen macgregor, whose real name was mary, and two of his sons. he died a natural death in , at an age which has been variously stated as between seventy and eighty years. the first appearance of rob roy in the novel is when under the name of campbell (his mother's name, which he assumed, probably for prudential reasons), he makes the acquaintance of mr. frank osbaldistone at the black bear of darlington. frank, it will be remembered, is on the way to his uncle's estate in northumberland. there is little by which osbaldistone hall can be identified, but if geographical considerations count for anything, it is not improbable that scott may have had in mind chillingham castle, the seat of the earl of tankerville. this is one of the places to which he refers in a letter written in the summer of , as 'within the compass of a forenoon's ride,' from the farm in the cheviot hills, south-west of wooler, where he was then staying. during that vacation excursion he became very familiar with all the surrounding country, an experience which doubtless had something to do with choosing northumberland as the scene of an important part of the novel. chillingham castle is a fine type of the old baronial residence. it was designed by inigo jones, the famous architect of the seventeenth century, though portions of the building are still preserved which were built as early as the thirteenth century. it stands in a magnificent park of { } fifteen hundred acres, about two thirds of which is set apart for the accommodation of deer and wild cattle. the latter, almost the only descendants of the herds of savage wild cattle which once roamed the caledonian forests, are famous throughout england and scotland. sir walter refers to them in the 'bride of lammermoor' and again in a note to 'castle dangerous.' the present castle is a large square structure enclosing the walls of the older building. entering the inner court, which is paved with stone, we came to what was once the front of the ancient structure, looking something like 'the inside of a convent or of one of the older and less splendid colleges of oxford,' to quote from the description of osbaldistone hall. we were shown a large banqueting-room, now used as a library, which extends across the entire width of the building. its walls were decorated, after the fashion of osbaldistone, with many trophies of the chase, such as the heads of deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals, all shot by the present earl. but in this splendid apartment with its luxurious furnishings, there was little else to suggest the dingy old hall, with its stone floor and massive range of oaken tables, where the bluff old sir hildebrand and 'the happy compound of sot, gamekeeper, bully, horse-jockey, and fool,' which, with the addition of a highly educated villain, constituted his family, daily consumed huge quantities of meat and 'cups, flagons, bottles, yea, barrels of liquor.' [illustration: chillingham castle] frank osbaldistone had nearly reached the entrance to his uncle's house when he met the beautiful diana vernon. miss cranstoun, afterwards the countess of purgstall, one of scott's early friends in the social circles of edinburgh, was thought by many to be the original { } of diana,--a belief which she herself shared, chiefly because she was an expert horsewoman. others have said that scott's first love was the real diana. but miss vernon is totally unlike either margaret of branksome or matilda of rokeby, both of whom were, to some extent, portraits of miss williamina stuart. moreover, in the unexpected meeting of a charming young woman on horseback, her long black hair streaming in the breeze, her animated face glowing with the exercise, and her costume attractively arranged in the most striking fashion, there is a strong suggestion of the circumstances to which i have previously referred,[ ] under which the poet first met the future lady scott. the next day after our visit to chillingham we followed the footsteps of frank osbaldistone to glasgow, where we soon found the cathedral to which frank was conducted by andrew fairservice. it well justifies the old gardener's encomium: 'ah! it's a brave kirk--none o' yere whigmaleeries and curliewurlies and open steek hems about it!--a' solid, weel-jointed mason-wark, that will stand as lang as the warld, keep hands and gunpowther aff it.' a part of the present building was erected in . it has been the scene of some important events in scottish history. at christmas of , edward i of england, on his campaign against scotland, made offerings at the high altar. five years later, robert bruce stood before the same altar and was there absolved for the murder of his rival, the red comyn, at dumfries. the cathedral is supported by sixty-five pillars, some of them eighteen feet in circumference. the effect of { } these huge masses is to throw the crypt into almost total darkness except in the parts near the narrow stained-glass windows. to make my photograph i set up the camera, opened the shutter, and left a workman to keep watch while i went to luncheon. returning in an hour i shut off the exposure and realized later that two hours would have been better. in this dark crypt it was formerly the custom to hold services. while standing in front of one of the huge pillars, listening to the sermon, frank osbaldistone heard the mysterious voice of rob roy, warning him that his life was in danger. turning quickly he could see no one. i could never understand this scene until i saw the crypt. the large size of the pillars and the dense shadows which they cast would make it easy for one to disappear in the darkness as rob roy was supposed to do. on high street, glasgow, we found an old tower, which was a part of the tolbooth, where rob roy had his curious interview with bailie nicol jarvie. the old salt market has changed greatly since the days of the good bailie and his father, the deacon, and it is no longer necessary at night to be escorted along the city streets by a young maidservant with a lantern. rob roy's parting injunction to frank was 'forget not the clachan of aberfoyle.' we therefore made it our business to find that interesting spot, combining it, as did scott, with our investigation of the scenery of 'the lady of the lake.' the portion of the scottish highlands generally included in the so-called rob roy country comprises all that part of central perthshire from loch ard and the river forth on the south to strath fillan and glen dochart on the north, and from loch { } lubnaig on the east to loch lomond on the west. this region, so easily accessible to us by means of carriages and automobiles, was in the time of rob roy not only difficult to approach, but exceedingly dangerous. the only highways of travel were narrow defiles through the mountains, easy enough, perhaps, for the experienced and hardy clansman, who knew every twist and turn of the paths, but as impassable to the unguided lowlander or 'sassenach' as the tablelands of tibet. frank osbaldistone and bailie nicol jarvie, guided by the officious and rascally, but always laughable, andrew fairservice, are supposed to enter the hamlet of aberfoyle by crossing an old stone bridge over the forth. it is the bridge which scott doubtless crossed when he visited the place, and is still standing, but it had not been built in the time of rob roy. that, however, was one of those details which never interested sir walter to any great extent. we approached from the opposite direction, driving over the hills from the trossachs and pausing just above the village to view the splendid valley to the westward, the termination of which was the mountain peak of ben lomond. arriving at aberfoyle, we were fortunately spared the necessity of stopping at an inn such as the novelist describes, where the worthy bailie valiantly defended himself against a too aggressive highlander, by wielding a red-hot poker so vigorously as to burn a hole in his opponent's plaid. but the enterprising landlord of the modern hotel near the bridge capitalizes the incident by exhibiting the _identical poker_, which he has attached to the limb of a tree, thereby recalling scott's story of the keeper of a museum who showed the very { } sword with which balaam was about to kill his ass. a visitor interrupted him with the remark that balaam did not possess a sword; he only wished for one. 'true, sir,' was the ready reply, 'but this is the very sword he wished for.' there are two groups of old cottages in aberfoyle, corresponding closely with those described in the novel. the miserable little bourocks (or heap of rocks) as the bailie termed them, of which about a dozen formed the village called the clachan of aberfoyle, were composed of loose stones, cemented by clay instead of mortar, and thatched by tufts, laid rudely upon rafters formed of native and unhewn birches and oaks from the woods around. the roofs approached the ground so nearly, that andrew fairservice observed, we might have ridden over the village the night before, and never found out we were near it, unless our horses' feet had 'gane through the riggin'.' about half a mile from the bridge, which is the exact distance referred to in the novel, we found the largest of these clachans, which bore a very striking resemblance to the one described by scott, even to the squalor of its surroundings, for it is still inhabited at one end, though the other is in ruins. but by way of compensation, the miserable hovel, with the high bleak hills in the background, made a strikingly picturesque view, not differing greatly from that which met the eyes of rob roy himself, whenever his 'business' brought him to that locality. following the road to the westward, we came to some cliffs on the north shore of loch ard, near the foot of the lake, which are pointed out as the place where bailie nicol jarvie found himself suspended by the coat-tails { } from the projecting branches of a thorn-tree, dangling in mid-air 'not unlike the sign of the golden fleece over the door of a mercer in the trongate of his native city.' the beauty of the lake as it appears from this road, and particularly from the point where ben lomond looms high in the distance, fully justifies the novelist's enthusiasm. the 'huge grey rocks and shaggy banks' are neither so high nor so wild as they are described, nor did we find an elevation from which helen macgregor might have pitched the miserable morris headlong into the lake. indeed, had we been able to look backward through the mists of two centuries and see the famous helen herself, we should doubtless have discovered that she, too, was much less 'wild' than she has been painted. scott represents her as a virago, fiercely inspiring her husband and sons to deeds of bloody vengeance. the real name of rob roy's wife was mary. mr. a. h. miller, in his 'history of rob roy,' thinks she has been sadly misrepresented. 'mary macgregor,' says he, 'was of a gentle and amiable disposition, one who never meddled in the political schemes of her husband, and whose virtues were of the domestic order.' scott's fondness for the little waterfall of lediard, north of loch ard, to which i have already referred in connection with 'waverley,' led him to introduce it again in 'rob roy.' it was the place chosen by rob's wife and followers as 'a scene well calculated to impress strangers with some feelings of awe,' and here helen macgregor presented to frank osbaldistone the ring of diana vernon as the love-token of one from whom he believed himself separated forever. { } the two sections of the rob roy country which the cateran most frequented, were the eastern shores of loch lomond and the valley where loch voil nestles calmly among the hills, known as the braes of balquhidder. after rob was driven away from craigroyston, on the margin of loch lomond, he made his headquarters for many years at fort inversnaid, on the high land, about two miles east of the lake. the story of how rob roy took possession of this place stamps him as a modern ulysses as well as a robin hood. the government authorized the building of the fort on rob's own land, as a means of guarding the district from his depredations. the crafty cateran, learning from some of his numerous spies all about the plans well in advance, took good care to see that none of his clansmen interfered in the least, so that all the material for the fort, including ample supplies, guns, and ammunition, were brought up without molestation. the contractor, happy in the thought that the peaceful state of the country had enabled him to complete his task promptly, dismissed most of his men and prepared to turn the property over to the duke of montrose. one evening, in the midst of a heavy snowstorm, a knocking was heard at the gate. in response to inquiry, a voice said that a poor pedlar had lost his way in the snow. the gate was opened, and rob roy at the head of a strong force, rushed in and took possession. the fort made an excellent vantage-ground from which he harried his enemies for many years. [illustration: loch lomond from inversnaid] just below the fort, the little river which forms the outlet of loch arklet joins the snaid, and finally tumbles over the cliff in a beautiful little cascade, known as { } inversnaid falls. about two miles to the north, well hidden among the rocks, is a cave which rob roy was sometimes compelled to use as a hiding-place. it was visited by walter scott and introduced in the story of 'waverley' as the cave of donald bean lean, but he refrained from mentioning it in 'rob roy.' scott never felt quite satisfied with this novel, although he did remark in a letter to john richardson, 'i really think i may so far do some good by giving striking and, to the best of my information and abilities, correct likenesses of characters long since passed away.' as a presentation of the real character of one of the most picturesque and interesting of all highlanders, as well as a superb word-painting of the conditions under which men lived in the country and the time of rob roy, the novel possesses a genuine value. scott's discontent with it arose from the hard conditions under which it was written. in a letter to daniel terry, dated march , , he says, referring to it, 'i have made some progress in ye ken what, but not to my satisfaction; it smells of the cramp, and i must get it into better order before sending it to you.' after the book was published, he used the same expression in a letter to morritt. lady louisa stuart, one of scott's most valued friends, who wrote to him with perfect freedom, thought the end of the story indicated that the author was 'tired, and wanted to get rid of his personages as fast as he could, knocking them on the head without mercy.' there is certainly some justification in this when we consider that the old baronet and five of his worthless sons are disposed of within three or four pages, while the last and worst of the lot, the traitorous rashleigh, is put { } out of the way two chapters later. on the other hand, the squire and his family were always treated collectively, and as they were in the way it was just as well to get rid of them by wholesale. of course, no good could come from letting the villain live. if this is a defect, or if there are any other faults in the novel, they are all redeemed by the happy picture of bailie nicol jarvie, one of the most original as well as delightful of all the company of actors in the waverley novels,--'a carefu' man, as is weel kend, and industrious as the hale town can testify; and i can win my crowns, and keep my crowns, and count my crowns wi' ony body in the saut-market, or it may be in the gallowgate. and i'm a prudent man, as my father the deacon was before me.' the poor bailie never could (and neither can the reader) forget how he must have looked when he hung head down from the thorn tree in the pass of aberfoyle: 'and abune a', though i am a decent, sponsible man, when i am on my right end, i canna but think i maun hae made a queer figure without my hat and my periwig, hinging by the middle like bawdrons, or a cloak flung over a cloak-pin. bailie graham wad hae an unco hair in my neck and he got that tale by the end.' charles mackay, the famous actor, made the hit of his career in his rendition of bailie nicol jarvie, and the dramatization of the novel enjoyed a remarkable popularity for many years. [ ] chapter , page . { } chapter xiv the heart of midlothian 'dis-is-de-heart-of-midlothian-jeanie-deans-walked-t'- lunnon-t'-save-her-sister-fr'm-hangin!' this sentence, uttered rapidly in a monotone, as though it were all a single word, long-drawn-out, startled us as we were standing in parliament square, edinburgh, looking up at the stately crown which forms the distinguishing mark of the old cathedral of st. giles. our eyes quickly dropped, to meet the wistful, upturned face of a small urchin, very ragged and very dirty. 'what is that you say?' said i, looking down into his expectant eyes. 'dis-is-de-heart-of-midlothian-jeanie-deans-walked-to-lunnon, sir,' was the reply, in the same quick accents, running the words all together. 'why did she do that?' i asked, hoping to draw him out. 'to save her sister from hangin', sir,' was the ready reply. 'but who was jeanie deans and how did she save her sister?' to this double inquiry the boy only shook his head. 'where did you hear that story?' another shake. 'did you ever hear of sir walter scott?' another slow movement of a downcast head indicated that the little lad was hopelessly out of his depth, so i gave him his penny and let him go. he had evidently learned his lesson by heart from some one whom instinct had taught that this reference to one of the most popular novels of edinburgh's most famous citizen would be likely to prove the readiest means of interesting the casual tourist and thereby extracting an { } honest penny. all the other objects of interest,--the fine old cathedral, the parliament house, the market cross, the grave of john knox--were as nothing compared to the figure of a heart, outlined in the pavement, designed to mark the site of the old tolbooth, but more strongly reminding the visitor, not of an ancient prison, but of a great novel, and impressing him with the feeling that, wherever one may go in edinburgh, the spirit of sir walter scott seems to permeate the very atmosphere. the square in which we were standing was for centuries the civic centre of edinburgh. the southwest corner is occupied by the house of parliament, where the scottish parliaments met in a room, a hundred and twenty-two feet long and forty-nine feet wide, with an arched oaken roof. this large hall is now adorned with numerous portraits and statues of eminent judges, and its floor, when the courts are in session, is filled with a throng of advocates, their wigs and gowns suggesting something of the ceremonials of olden times. since the union of england and scotland under the name of great britain, in , and the consequent dissolution of the scottish parliament, the building has been used by the court of session. in the rooms of the first division, on the left of the lobby, sir walter scott, as one of the principal clerks, performed his official duties for twenty-five years. his attendance averaged from four to six hours daily during the sessions of the court, which usually occupied two months in the late spring and early summer, and four in the winter. his letter of resignation, in the last year but one of his life, is one of the valued treasures of the advocates' library. in the first half of the eighteenth century, the period { } of 'the heart of midlothian,' parliament close, as it was then called, did not present the clean, open appearance of to-day. almost the entire space between st. giles on the east and the county hall on the west was occupied by the tolbooth, leaving only a narrow and partly covered passage at the northwest corner of the square. the prison projected into the middle of high street, seeming to form 'the termination of a huge pile of buildings called the luckenbooths,' which had been 'jammed into the midst of the principal street,' and little booths or shops were plastered against the buttresses of the old gothic cathedral. the headquarters of the 'city guard' were in 'a long, low, ugly building, which to a fanciful imagination might have suggested the idea of a long black snail crawling up the middle of the high street and deforming its beautiful esplanade.' in this way, what was intended to be and is now a broad street was at that time so encumbered as to be converted into a series of narrow, crooked lanes, which were kept in anything but tidy condition. south of high street the cowgate was reached by descending the steep incline through various narrow lanes, and the two parallel thoroughfares were connected, a little to the east, by a crooked but famous street, called west bow. at the foot of the latter was a wide, open space known as the grassmarket, where the public executions took place. these were the streets through which the rioters of the porteous mob made their way in the exciting days of september, . the tolbooth, considered two centuries ago to be one of the largest and most sombre buildings in the kingdom, was built by the citizens of edinburgh in , { } originally for a town hall, but later devoted to the use of parliament and the courts of justice. with the completion of the parliament house in , its original usage ceased, and from that time until its demolition in , it was devoted exclusively to the imprisonment of debtors and criminals. no distinction was made between the lowest of the criminal classes and the poor persons whose only offence was the inability to pay some small debt. the latter were shut up for months in cells too loathsome for the most vicious of criminals. there were no areas for exercise nor any ways of affording the captives a breath of fresh air. the narrow windows were half-blocked to the light by massive bars of iron. the exterior was not less horrible, for on its highest pinnacle were displayed the heads of prisoners of state who had been executed, and it was seldom lacking in such tokens. the regent morton, accused of the murder of darnley; the duke of montrose, and later his great enemy, the duke of argyle, were among the most distinguished of these victims; but there were many others. the church of st. giles almost touched elbows, so to speak, with the prison. the central portion was set apart for religious services under the name of the 'old church,' the worshippers of those days having a strong aversion to the use of the name of a saint. they seemed to have no objection to attaching to their sacred edifice the designation of the temporary abode of sinners, for the southwest quarter was called the 'tolbooth church,' from its proximity to the prison. on the morning of the th of april, , according to the account of robert chambers, wilson and robertson were conducted to the tolbooth church, to listen to their last sermon, their { } execution having been planned for the following wednesday. very much as described in the novel, except that the incident took place almost instantly after they had seated themselves in the pew, instead of after the sermon as scott says, wilson seized three of the guards and shouted to robertson to run. the latter tripped up the fourth soldier and quickly escaped, aided by the sympathetic church-goers, who contrived to block up the passages so that pursuit was impossible. three days later, wilson was executed in the grassmarket. the sympathy of all edinburgh was with him, for several reasons. first, his crime was only the robbery of a revenue officer, in reprisal for the seizure of his own goods on a charge of smuggling. in those days (and even now, it may be feared) the crime of cheating the government out of its revenues was not considered an enormous one. if a poor smuggler happened to be caught, there was no reason why he should n't 'get even' with the officers if he had a good chance. at least, so wilson argued, and many sympathized with his view. second, the scots were not yet entirely reconciled to the union, and the exhibition of too much authority at london was likely to be resented. third, wilson had acted the part of a generous friend and courageous man in sacrificing his own chances to secure the escape of robertson. some stones were thrown at the captain of the city guard, john porteous, and that officer, beside himself with rage, snatched a gun from a soldier and, setting the example himself, commanded his party to fire. the result was the loss of six lives and the wounding of eleven persons, many of the victims being innocent spectators { } who were watching the affair from neighbouring windows. for this offence porteous was tried and convicted, his execution being set for the th of september. before the prisoner could be executed, a pardon reached edinburgh, signed by queen caroline, acting as regent. robert chambers says that it came on the d of september, giving the mob five days for preparation instead of a single afternoon, as described by scott. it is a matter of history that the 'mob' acted with remarkable moderation, harming no one except their intended victim. ladies of the upper classes, travelling in their chairs to meet evening engagements, were quietly turned back. the shopkeeper in the west bow, whose place was broken into for a coil of rope, found himself reimbursed with a guinea. the town guard was disarmed and the city gates closed without confusion, showing that cool heads were in the lead. the jail was stormed and, as the door would not yield, it was set on fire. when this finally became effective, the fire was extinguished. all the prisoners were set free except porteous, who was taken to the grassmarket and hanged on a post near the scene of his own crime. the event caused great excitement, not only in edinburgh, but in london. the house of lords proposed a severe punishment, including the imprisonment of the lord provost, but finally compromised with a fine upon the city of £ for the benefit of porteous's widow, thus throwing the punishment upon those who had nothing to do with the affair and could not have prevented it. when the discreditable old tolbooth was finally demolished, scott was presented with the door and its { } frame, which are now built into the outer walls of the mansion at abbotsford and the keys of the prison are among the treasures of his museum. in , he wrote to terry, 'i expect to get some decorations from the old tolbooth of edinburgh, particularly the copestones of the doorway, or lintels, as we call them, and a _niche_ or two--one very handsome, indeed! better a niche _from_ the tolbooth than a niche _in_ it, to which such building operations are apt to bring the projectors!' the first part of the novel is a skilful blending of the history of the porteous mob, with the true story of an unfortunate girl and her noble sister, who lived in another part of scotland. the author represents effie deans as having been incarcerated in the old tolbooth and places her trial in one of the buildings of parliament close. the real effie was imprisoned in the jail at dumfries and her trial occurred in an upper room of a curious old building of that city, known as the mid-steeple, a structure, now over two centuries old, which stands in the middle of the high street and gives a picturesque effect to that thoroughfare. on the south front, above a stairway which ascends across the face of the building, is a sculptured figure of st. michael treading on a serpent, the arms of the burgh, and above this are the royal arms of scotland, also carved in stone. the space in front is given a pleasant bit of colour by the display of flowers and vegetables, here offered for sale. the story of helen walker, the original of jeanie deans, is well remembered in dumfries. a stone or two may still be discovered, by those who care to search for the remnant of her little cottage, near the banks of the river cluden. she lived to be seventy or eighty years { } old, supporting herself by working stocking-feet and raising chickens, besides occasionally teaching a few children to read. in early life she had been left an orphan, charged with the support of a younger sister, named isabella, or 'tibby,' to whom she devoted herself with many evidences of genuine affection. it was a great shock to her, therefore, when she learned that the young girl had been accused of child-murder and that she herself would be called upon as the principal witness against her. under the law, as her counsel explained, if she could testify that her sister had made the slightest preparation or had even confided to her an intimation on the subject, such a declaration would save her sister's life. the temptation to tell a plausible lie, which no one could dispute, was undeniably strong. but helen was a woman of finer mould, and not even the purest sisterly love could induce her to violate her conscience. she swore to the truth and isabella was condemned. as she left the court, the latter was heard to exclaim, 'oh, nelly! ye've been the cause of my death!' the same moral courage which gave resolution to helen walker to stand for the truth, now impelled her to a remarkable exercise of the power of an indomitable will. the difficulties seemed insurmountable. there was no hope except in the royal pardon. there was no one to intercede with the king and london was many miles away. but helen did not waste a moment. a petition was hastily drawn, setting forth the facts in the case, and on the very night of the conviction, the dauntless scotch lassie set out on foot for london, clad in her simple country dress and tartan plaid, without letters of introduction or recommendation, with little money in her { } purse, and scarcely a chance of success except a sublime faith in providence and reliance upon her own stout heart. there was one nobleman in london to whom the heart of any of his scotch countrymen would instinctively turn in such an emergency. this was john, duke of argyle, who had stoutly resisted the efforts to inflict an undeserved punishment on the people of edinburgh for their part in the porteous affair. to him helen walker presented herself, after watching three days at his door, just as he was about to enter his carriage. her unpretentious dress, her honest face, and the pathos of her story won the heart of the generous nobleman, who procured the pardon and forwarded it to dumfries. helen returned on foot as she had come, and had the satisfaction of witnessing the release of her sister. isabella married the man who had wronged her and lived many years, always acknowledging in the most affectionate terms the high nobility of her sister's character. helen died in poverty and was buried in the picturesque churchyard of kirkpatrick irongray, northwest of dumfries, where her grave might have been forgotten but for the generosity of sir walter and the interest of mrs. goldie, who told him the story. this good lady requested the novelist to write an inscription, saying that if he would do so, she would be able to raise the necessary funds for a monument. scott, however, insisted upon supplying both the inscription and the stone. we made it our first care on the afternoon of our arrival in dumfries to drive to the old kirk where, in spite of the inconvenience of an unexpected shower, we { } photographed the memorial and afterwards stood under an umbrella copying the following inscription:-- this stone was erected by the author of waverley to the memory of helen walker who died in the year of god, . this humble individual practised in real life the virtues with which fiction has invested the imaginary character of jeanie deans refusing the slightest departure from veracity even to save the life of a sister, she nevertheless shewed her kindness and fortitude in rescuing her from the severity of the law, at the expense of personal exertions. which the times rendered as difficult as the motive was laudable. respect the grave of poverty when combined with love of truth and dear affection. one day during our stay in edinburgh we hired a conveyance to take us to the suburban scenes of 'the heart of midlothian.' our driver was recommended as 'one { } of the best guides in edinburgh,' and so he proved to be. in spite of orders to drive direct to the king's park, he insisted upon going by way of high street and the canongate, when, every few rods it seemed, he would bring his horse to a walk, then turn in his seat until he faced us and point with his long whip to some window 'where the famous adam smith lived' or 'where dugald stewart had his rooms.' perhaps he was only following the example of sir walter, of whom lockhart said, 'no funeral hearse crept more leisurely than did his landau up the canongate; and not a queer tottering gable but recalled to him some long-buried memory of splendour or bloodshed, which, by a few words, he set before his hearers in the reality of life.' all of this was interesting enough, or would have been, had i not wished to reach my objective point before sundown, but jehu was like the burro i once rode in the garden of the gods in colorado, which beast responded to the spur by two convulsive steps, then settled down to his previous pace, which neither coaxing nor threatening, caressing nor spurring, soft words nor sharp ones, would induce him to change for the space of more than a minute at a time. so with our 'best guide.' i finally concluded to let him have his own way, as i had been obliged to do with his obstinate relative, the burro, and so finally got through the canongate after listening to a rehearsal of the entire catalogue of edinburgh worthies for several centuries. when the king's park was reached, after passing holyrood palace, the guide found himself 'out of bounds' and kindly permitted me to direct the further proceedings. here the city seems to come to a sudden end, and { } looking toward the southwest we saw only a mass of steep cliffs backed by a rugged mountain. this was a favorite resort with sir walter, when a boy. in later years, the radical road, which winds around the edge of the salisbury crags in a broad pathway, was laid out at his suggestion, to give employment to idle men. in writing 'the heart of midlothian,' scott was therefore more at home than with any other of his novels. muschat's cairn and st. anthony's chapel, where jeanie had her midnight interview with the betrayer of her sister, were familiar sights of the author's boyhood. on a dark night they would be lonely enough even now. near the park gate we passed some boulders known as muschat's cairn, but as they were carefully enclosed and surrounded by a well-kept plot of grass, they gave no suggestion of the weird and desecrated ground where evil spirits had power to make themselves visible to human eyes. the original cairn was made by passing travellers, each throwing a stone upon the spot, to express his detestation of the horrible murder committed in by nicol muchet or muschat, who killed his wife under circumstances of great cruelty. in the ordinary course of improvements, the cairn was swept away, but the novel created a new interest in its story, which led to its restoration. [illustration: st. anthony's chapel] st. anthony's chapel, on the rugged hillside overlooking st. margaret's loch, gives more of the impression of scott's tale. the scene on any moonlight night even now would be the same as it was on that night when jeanie met george robertson at the cairn and was followed by ratcliffe and sharpitlaw, guided by madge wildfire. the ruined chapel, where the jailer and the { } lawyer succeeded only in capturing each other instead of the fugitive, is still as lonely and difficult of access as it was then, the only difference being that some of the walls have fallen. we drove as near to the base of the hill as it was possible to go. i then left the carriage and began the ascent, stopping a moment at st. anthony's well, where madge wildfire wanted to meet the ghost of the murdered ailie muschat to wash the blood out of her clothes 'by the beams of the bonny lady moon.' arriving at the chapel after a hard climb, i was studying the composition of a picture when i was accosted by a policeman, who had toiled after me all the way up that steep incline. he informed me that i was welcome to photograph the ruins, but i must n't take any group pictures. as there was nobody in sight but the policeman and myself, and as i did not wish to make a 'group' of him, i wondered why he had taken so much trouble. perhaps he felt the proud satisfaction of the hero, who, in the language of an admiring rustic friend, 'seen his duty and done it noble.' the chapel of st. anthony, of which now only a fragment remains, was once a gothic structure, with a tower forty feet high, in which a light was kept for the guidance of mariners. a hermitage, of which scarcely a trace remains, was partly formed of one of the sheltering crags near by. the lofty site, commanding an extensive prospect of sea and sky was supposed to be favourable for pious meditations. the sight of the palace below was expected to make an impression in the minds of the monks of the 'striking contrast between the court, so frequently assaulted by an unprincipled rabble, and their own tranquil situation in which they { } were gladly preparing for the regions of everlasting repose.' although overlooking a populous city, the residents of the hermitage had all the 'advantages' of life in a wilderness, as secluded and peaceful as a highland desert. on the opposite side of the intervening valley we visited st. leonard's crags at the southwest edge of the king's park. a neat cottage, with a little garden on the slope below, passes as the house of david deans. whether scott had in mind this particular building is immaterial. it is in the exact locality described in the novel, and we thought it pleasant to stand on the side of the hill overlooking the same extensive sheep pasture, and the same crags and mountain beyond, that met the eyes of jeanie deans when she stood at the cottage door anxiously looking along the various tracks which led to their dwelling, 'to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister.' a house known as 'dumbiedykes,' so called because in scott's time it was used as a private school for the deaf and dumb, is not far distant. the novelist borrowed only the name, which he seems to have transferred to an old farm called peffermill, in the vicinity of liberton. 'douce david deans' is an original creation, the result of scott's absorption of the descriptions of character in patrick walker's biographical accounts of the covenanters. in acknowledging his indebtedness to this authority, scott says, 'it is from such tracts as these, written in the sense, feeling, and spirit of the sect, and not from the sophisticated narratives of a later period, that the real character of the persecuted class is { } to be gathered.' 'david' is just a touch of the same kind of which we have seen so much in 'old mortality.' his lecture to his daughters on the evil of dancing is taken from patrick walker's life of cameron:-- dance?--dance, said ye? i daur ye, limmers that ye are, to name sic' a word at my door-cheek! it's a dissolute, profane pastime, practiced by the israelites only at their base and brutal worship of the golden calf at bethel, and by the unhappy lass who danced off the head of john the baptist, upon whilk chapter i will exercise this night for your further instruction, since ye need it sae muckle, nothing doubting that she has cause to rue the day, lang or this time, that e'er she suld hae shook a limb on sic' an errand. better for her to hae been born a cripple, and carried frae door to door, like auld bessie bowie, begging bawbees, than to be a king's daughter, fiddling and flinging the gate she did.... and now, if i hear ye, quean lassies, sae muckle as name dancing, or think there's sic' a thing in this warld as flinging to fiddle's sounds and piper's springs, as sure as my father's spirit is with the just, ye shall be no more either charge or concern of mine! what a treat it would be to hear douce david express an opinion of the elaborate present-day performances of 'salome'! madge wildfire, or murdockson, was drawn from a crazy woman, called feckless fannie, who travelled over scotland and england at the head of a flock of sheep. they were remarkable animals, who recognized their names as bestowed by their mistress, and responded promptly to her commands. she slept in the fields in the midst of her flock, and one very polite old ram, named charlie, always claimed the honour of assisting her to rise. he would push the others out of the way, { } then bend down his head, and when madge had taken a firm grasp upon his large horns, he would raise his head and gently lift his mistress to her feet. this and numerous other stories of feckless fannie were furnished the novelist by his indefatigable friend, joseph train. the great popularity of 'the heart of midlothian' may be judged from a letter of lady louisa stuart, who said, 'i am in a house where everybody is tearing it out of each other's hands and talking of nothing else,' and from lockhart's testimony, that he had never seen such 'all-engrossing enthusiasm' in edinburgh 'on the appearance of any other literary novelty.' andrew lang only voices the feeling of other scotchmen when he declares that it is 'second to none' of the waverley novels and that 'no number of formal histories can convey nearly so full and true a picture of scottish life about - as 'the heart of midlothian.' lockhart, as usual, sets forth the true secret of the author's success and does it in a single paragraph. 'never before,' he says, 'had he seized such really noble features of the national character as were canonized in the person of his homely heroine; no art had ever devised a happier running contrast than that of her and her sister, or interwoven a portraiture of lowly manners and simple virtues, with more graceful delineations of polished life or with bolder shadows of terror, guilt, crime, remorse, madness, and all the agony of passions.' { } chapter xv the bride of lammermoor ralph waldo emerson, who frequently showed his familiarity with the waverley novels, regarded 'the bride of lammermoor' as scott's highest achievement. he declared that it 'almost goes back to Æschylus for a counterpart, as a painting of fate--leaving on every reader the impression of the highest and purest tragedy.' the dramatic close of the story is based upon a calamity which marred the private life of james dalrymple, the first lord stair, a great lawyer, legal writer, and judge, who was the ancestor of a long line of distinguished advocates, judges, and public men. this gentleman was born in ayrshire in . he was carefully educated, and when a young man lectured in the university of glasgow on mathematics, logic, ethics, and politics. at twenty-nine he began the practice of law at edinburgh, winning great fame in his profession, because of extensive legal attainments. his great work on 'the institutions of the law of scotland' is still held in high esteem by scottish lawyers, although the feudal law which it elucidated has become antiquated. it is considered, however, that something of its spirit still survives. he became a judge, was appointed president of the court of session, served as a member of the scottish parliament, and took a prominent part in various political and diplomatic undertakings. unfortunately incurring the enmity of the duke of york, he { } lost his influence at court and was deprived of office. fearing prosecution for treason, he retired to holland, returning, however, a year later in the suite of william of orange. he lived to the age of seventy-six, his latest years saddened by the bitter attacks of his enemies. this is the man whom scott introduces as sir william ashton, though without meaning to impute to lord stair the tricky and mean-spirited qualities of the fictitious character. james dalrymple was married in to margaret ross, the heiress of a large estate in galloway. she was a woman of great ability and strong character, who seems to have exerted a powerful influence in promoting her husband's prosperity and political ambition. she shared his fortunes, whether good or bad, for nearly half a century, always exerting an imperious will, which even he did not dare to contradict, but ever faithful in advancing his interests. following her husband's downfall, when the number of his enemies had greatly increased and his life was in danger, lady stair was accused of attending conventicles and of harbouring 'silenced preachers' in her house. others went farther and accused her of witchcraft, maintaining that the great prosperity of her family was attributable solely to the lady's partnership with his satanic majesty. whatever may have been the slanders directed against her good name, the lady stair of history was clearly the prototype of lady ashton. the lord and lady of real life had a daughter janet, who was betrothed, without the consent of her parents, to lord rutherford. lady stair's will asserted itself in opposition, and without consideration of her daughter's { } feelings, the mother proceeded to annul the engagement, notifying the lover that his fiancée had retracted her unlawful vow. after a stormy interview, in which lord rutherford argued his case with the determined mother in the presence of the younger woman, the latter, who had feebly remained silent and motionless, at last obeyed with sad reluctance her mother's command and gave back to her lover the half of a broken coin, which had been the symbol of their mutual pledge. in a burst of passion lord rutherford left the room and soon after went abroad never to return. the marriage desired by lady stair now took place, the bridegroom being david dunbar, the heir of an estate in wigtownshire, the lady's native county. on the night of the wedding some tragic event took place which resulted in the death of janet two weeks later. either the bride stabbed the husband or the husband stabbed the bride. the family seem to have thrown a veil of secrecy over the whole affair and the exact truth was never positively known. according to one account, when the door of the chamber was opened, the young bridegroom lay upon the floor badly wounded, while the wife was found in a state of frenzy, screaming as the door opened, 'tak' up your bonnie bridegroom.' another story is that the mother, inspired by satan, attempted the murder, the marriage having been contracted against her will, and that the bridegroom went crazy. a third rendition is that the disappointed lover concealed himself in the apartment and committed the crime. scott adopts the most plausible view, namely, that the young lady, forced to marry against her will, simply lost her reason and in a mad delirium assaulted her { } husband. that young gentleman recovered from his wounds. thirteen years later, he was killed by a fall from his horse, a catastrophe which the novelist transfers to the disappointed suitor. the scenery of the drama which led to such a tragic event is placed by the author in the lammermuir hills, a stretch of mountainous country lying along the borders of haddington and berwick, in the southeastern corner of scotland. at the extreme eastern limits of this elevated section, the land drops abruptly into the north sea, forming a line of precipitous cliffs, rising three or four hundred feet above the ocean. to gain some idea of the character of the region, we drove as far as the motor-car could carry us and came to a stop at the end of the road on the northern edge of the village of northfield. a long walk, leading at first through an open field in which cattle were grazing, then along a narrow path by a brook, where numerous sheep were pasturing, thence by a winding road to the summit of a hill, brought me at last to the lighthouse of st. abbs head. vast masses of rocks rise directly out of the ocean to enormous heights and stretch along the coast as far as the eye can see. except for the lighthouse, there was no sign of life save the sea-fowl, which flew wildly in every direction, screaming in one incessant chorus of shrill complaint. a lowering sky added to the weird loneliness of the scene. i was gone so long that my wife, who wisely remained in the car, began to feel certain that i had tumbled over the rocks into the sea, and busied herself for an hour in unpleasant thoughts of how she should manage to get my remains home. but after nearly two hours, the remains came walking back without even the { } excitement of being chased by a wild bull. thus do most of our worries melt away if we give them time enough. somewhere on this rugged shore was the castle of wolf's crag, the last remnant of the property of the master of ravenswood and the scene of caleb balderstone's wonderful expedients to maintain the honour of his house. caleb, by the way, who would make a first-class performer in a farce comedy, and who served a useful purpose in relieving the strain of a sombre narrative, was not without a prototype in real life. his exploit in carrying off the roast goose and the brace of wild ducks from the kitchen of the cooper, to make a dinner for his master's guests, was based upon a story told to scott by a nobleman of his acquaintance. a certain gentleman in reduced circumstances had a servant named john, whose resourcefulness was much like caleb's. a party of four or five friends once sought to surprise this gentleman by unexpectedly presenting themselves for dinner, suspecting there would be no provision in the house for such an entertainment. but promptly as the village clock struck the hour for the noonday meal, john placed on the table 'a stately rump of boiled beef, with a proper accompaniment of greens, amply sufficient to dine the whole party.' he had simply appropriated the 'kail-pot' of a neighbour, leaving the latter and his friends to dine on bread and cheese, which, john said, was 'good enough for them.' caleb's trick of magniloquently referring to scores of imaginary servants and detailing the particulars of fictitious banquets, all to maintain the honour of the house, had a parallel in the antics of a scotch innkeeper of the border country, who, on the arrival of a person of { } importance, would call hostler no. down from hayloft no. to conduct the gentleman's horse to one of the best stalls in stable no. , and do it in such an eloquent style as to convey the impression of accommodations on a scale of magnificent proportions.[ ] wolf's crag, according to the novel, is between st. abbs head and the village of eyemouth. there is no such castle on that part of the coast, but in the opposite direction, only a few miles from st. abbs head, on a high rock overlooking the sea, is fast castle, which answers very well to the description. this much scott himself acknowledged, but in his usual cautious way, asserting that he never saw the castle except from the sea.[ ] an interesting painting of fast castle, presented to sir walter by the artist, the rev. john thomson of duddingston, adorns the drawing-room at abbotsford. viewed from the sea, fast castle is more like the nest of some gigantic roc or condor, than a dwelling for human beings; being so completely allied in colour and rugged appearance with the huge cliffs, amongst which it seems to be jammed, that it is difficult to discover what is rock and what is building. to the land side the only access is by a rocky path of a very few feet wide, bordered on either hand by a tremendous precipice. this leads to the castle, a donjon tower of moderate size, surrounded by flanking walls, as usual, which, rising without interval and abruptly from the verge of the precipice must in ancient times have rendered the place nearly impregnable.[ ] { } fast castle gained some notoriety from the attempt, in , of an infamous character, logan of restalrig, in conspiracy with the earl of gowrie and his brother, to kidnap king james vi, the intent being to imprison him there, and to collect their reward from queen elizabeth. fortunately for james, the plot failed. the original of ravenswood castle is uncertain. constable, who published a volume of 'illustrations to the waverley novels' in , two years after the appearance of 'the bride of lammermoor' included an engraving of crichton castle, with a quotation referring to ravenswood: 'on the gorge of a pass or mountain glen, ascending from the fertile plains of east lothian, there stood in former times an extensive castle, of which only the ruins are now visible.' crichton is at the western extremity of the high country of which the lammermuir hills constitute the greatest portion. scott's fondness for it is well known, as readers of 'marmion' will remember. others have supposed wintoun house, a fine old mansion farther to the north, to have been the original. scott could hardly have had this in mind, however, for he distinctly refers to the place as now in ruins. bearing in mind that scott paid little attention to geographical requirements, it seems probable that he really referred to the ruins of crichton. this is further confirmed by the fact that the picture to which i have referred was painted by alexander nasmyth, who was a friend of scott's and the father-in-law of the author's frequent correspondent, daniel terry. if crichton castle is ravenswood, the crichton kirk may be considered as the place where the wedding of lucy ashton and bucklaw took place. it is a curious-shaped building, with { } square tower and walls, partly covered with ivy, standing in the midst of a well-kept churchyard. the novel opens with the dramatic burial-scene of the father of the young master of ravenswood. the chapel where this took place may be supposed to be coldingham priory, the oldest nunnery in scotland, a quaint little structure, partly in ruins, but partly used for religious worship. in the chapter on 'marmion' i have already referred to this chapel as the place where the body of a nun was found immured in the walls. the village of eyemouth, a quaint old fishing settlement at the mouth of the river eye, will serve as an 'original' of wolf's hope. on the links or sand knolls, north of here, were the quicksands called the 'kelpie's flow.' while in the village i made diligent inquiries, but could get no information except from one man, who thought that the sandy beach of coldingham bay might be the locality which scott meant, but he had never heard of the quicksands, and said if any had ever existed in the vicinity they must have disappeared long since. [illustration: crichton castle] it will be remembered that the kelpie's flow was the culminating scene of the tragedy. the prophecies of thomas the rhymer, so scott would have us believe, were always fulfilled, and one of them was hanging over the head of the master of ravenswood, to the great trepidation of the faithful caleb. the lines were these:-- when the last laird of ravenswood to ravenswood shall ride, and woo a dead maiden to be his bride, he shall stable his steed in the kelpie's flow and his name shall be lost for evermoe. { } after the tragedy in the castle, young ravenswood rode out to meet the bride's brother, colonel ashton, to fight a duel on the sands of wolf's hope. in the agitated state of his mind, he neglected the precaution of keeping on the firm sands near the rocks, and took a shorter and more dangerous course. horse and man disappeared in the deadly quicksands, and thus was the prophecy fulfilled. only a large sable feather was found as a sign of the young man's dreadful fate. old caleb took it up, dried it, and put it in his bosom. thus ended the tale which lockhart considered 'the most pure and powerful of all the tragedies that scott ever penned.' [ ] from robert chambers's _illustrations of the author of waverley_. [ ] in a note to the introduction to the _chronicles of the canongate_, scott says, 'i would particularly intimate the kaim of uric, on the eastern coast of scotland, as having suggested an idea for the tower called wolf's crag, which the public more generally identified with the ancient tower of fast castle.' [ ] from _provincial antiquities of scotland_. { } chapter xvi a legend of montrose dalgetty--dugald dalgetty; ritt-master dugald dalgetty of drumthwacket; learned graduate of the mareschal college, aberdeen; stalwart soldier; cavalier of fortune; lieutenant under that invincible monarch, the bulwark of the protestant faith, the lion of the north, the terror of austria, gustavus adolphus; captain dalgetty; and finally sir dugald dalgetty--stalks with egregious effrontery through the pages of this novel, from start to finish, dragging his good horse gustavus along with him. he is a bore,--undeniably so. yet we can laugh at his eccentricities in spite of their tediousness, especially when reading the novel a second time after the desire to know the outcome of the story has been satisfied. as an original character he stands by the side of bailie nicol jarvie, although he does not arouse the same subtle feeling of delightful satisfaction. the bailie is always welcome, but dalgetty is everlastingly in the way. and yet we could not possibly get along without him. we can forgive his pedantry and overlook his interminable lectures on military strategy in view of the loyalty and courage with which he faces argyle in the dungeon, compels that nobleman to furnish a means of escape and rescues ranald of the mist. nor can we help admiring the very effrontery of the man, when he uses it to such excellent advantage in cajoling the presbyterian chaplain, thereby causing { } that worthy man to furnish the one thing needed to facilitate his safe retreat. the story might well have been called, as it is in the italian and portuguese versions, 'a soldier of fortune,' for dalgetty, rather than montrose, is the real hero. in this connection it is curious to note that, in so far as its chief incidents concern montrose, the tale is not a legend, but history. the two important words of the title are both, therefore, slightly misleading. the journey into the highlands of the marquis of montrose, in disguise and attended by only two gentlemen, is a matter of history. it was in , during the civil war, when the forces of charles i were being menaced by an army of twenty thousand men under the scotch covenanter, general leslie. montrose urged charles to make a counter-demonstration in the north and to draw leslie back to the defence of scotland by uniting the highlanders with a strong force of ten thousand irish catholics. at length, armed with extraordinary powers, as the representative of the king, he was permitted to set out with a small army of about one thousand men. these became dissatisfied, however, and most of them deserted. in despair montrose now resolved upon the bold stroke which proved to be the beginning of his brilliant military record. disguised as a groom and attended only by sir william rollo and colonel sibbald, he made his way to the perthshire highlands, where he was joined by lord kilpont, son of the earl of airth and menteith, with about five hundred men. the irish troops, after being in danger of complete extermination by the marquis of argyle, finally arrived, but mustered only twelve hundred men instead of ten thousand. they were ordered to march { } to blair atholl, where montrose met the highland chiefs and sent out the call to arms. the 'fiery cross,' no doubt very much as described in 'the lady of the lake,' went out from house to house and from clan to clan, and montrose soon had an army of three thousand men. he marched toward perth, and at tippermuir, four miles west of that city, defeated the covenanters on the st day of september, . marching rapidly towards aberdeen, he won another victory at the bridge of dee on the th of the same month. with the swift movements which characterized his generalship, montrose won many a battle. meanwhile the marquis of argyle, whom most of the clans hated for his unscrupulous aggressions, was gathering a strong force on the shores of loch linnhe. in midwinter, with snow upon the ground, montrose crossed the mountains with his army, a feat hitherto regarded as impossible, but quite within the compass of that leader's remarkable genius. he met argyle at inverlochy and defeated him with a loss of fifteen hundred men, his own losses being only one officer and three privates. argyle's forces scattered in every direction and were pursued for many miles. the marquis himself, regarding discretion as the better part of valour, turned over the command of his forces to his cousin and watched the battle from his ship--an act that was severely condemned as cowardice, even by his own friends. in extenuation it can only be said that argyle, while an able politician and statesman, was never a soldier. while scott based his story upon these historical events, he departed from the facts in some of the less important details, to serve the purposes of his romance. { } the most conspicuous of these variations is in the part played by lord kilpont, as the earl of menteith. according to the novel, the earl is a young man who falls in love with annot lyle, a pretty little maiden living in the household of the mcaulays and supposed to be a rescued waif of the hated and greatly feared tribe, known as the 'children of the mist.' annot is also beloved by the half-crazy highlander, allan mcaulay. lord menteith, so long as the girl's antecedents are supposed to be so lowly, can entertain no thought of marriage and so informs allan. when it is discovered, however, that she is really the daughter of sir duncan campbell, and the heiress of ardenvohr, a family as honourable as his own, menteith no longer hesitates, and as annot has long reciprocated his affection, the marriage is easily arranged. allan does not consent so readily, but hastily encounters the earl and fiercely challenges him. convinced that the man is insane, the earl hesitates a moment, when allan suddenly draws his dirk and with terrific force plunges it into the earl's bosom. a steel corslet saves the latter's life, though a severe wound is inflicted, and in a few weeks he is well enough to be married and the ceremony takes place in sir duncan's castle. allan meanwhile appears suddenly before the marquis of argyle at inverary, throws a bloody dirk upon the table, makes a brief explanation, and disappears forever. the novel closes in the conventional way. the earl of menteith, adding his bride's large estate to his own, 'lived long, happy alike in public regard and in domestic affection, and died at a good old age.' the earl, lord kilpont, was not so fortunate. he was { } suddenly stabbed by james stewart of ardvoirlich, a supposed friend with whom he was on terms of the closest intimacy. this event, which was immediately fatal, took place a few days after the battle of tippermuir and not after inverlochy. there was no question of jealous rivalry in love. kilpont had been married about twelve years and left a family of several children. the most probable explanation is that stewart, who had a streak of insanity owing to the frightful circumstances of his birth,[ ] quarrelled with his friend at a time when he was heated with drink and killed him under some sudden mad impulse. he immediately deserted montrose and was subsequently made a major in one of the regiments of argyle, a fact which gave colour to the suspicion that he had sought lord kilpont's assistance in a conspiracy to assassinate montrose, for which argyle would have paid a rich reward, but upon meeting with an indignant refusal, struck his friend with a dirk as the readiest means of avoiding the betrayal of his plans. stewart, like mcaulay, is described as 'uncommonly tall, strong, and active, with such power in the grasp of his hand as could force the blood from beneath the nails of the persons who contended with him in this feat of strength. his temper was moody, fierce, and irascible.' there was good reason for this savage disposition and for his implacable hostility toward the 'children of the mist,' his father and mother having been the victims of one of the most fiendish outrages which ever disgraced the history of the highlanders. the scenery of 'a legend of montrose' brings us back { } to the people and the country which scott described with so much enthusiasm in 'the lady of the lake' and again in 'waverley' and 'rob roy.' to catch something of the spirit of it we drove westward from callander and paused for a short time at the beautiful falls of leny, where the river of that name forms the outlet of loch lubnaig and the head waters of the river teith. here we may suppose lord menteith and 'anderson,' the disguised earl, to be passing on their way to the north when they fell in with the garrulous captain dalgetty. darnlinvarich, where the clans gathered, is wholly fictitious, the real meeting having taken place near blair atholl. one of the incidents which happened there is, however, based upon fact. an englishman, sir miles musgrave, it will be remembered, had made a wager with angus mcaulay which threatened to embarrass that gentleman. when on a visit to the house of the former, angus had seen six solid silver candlesticks put on the table. the englishman rallied angus a little, knowing that the sight was a novelty to the scotchman, and the latter promptly swore that he had more and better candlesticks in his own castle. a wager was immediately offered and accepted that the scotch laird could not produce them, the amount being so large that its payment would have embarrassed either party, but more particularly the scotchman. the englishman appeared with a friend at darnlinvarich, just at the time of the arrival of the earl of menteith and his party, and there was great anxiety over the apparently certain loss of the wager. but allan, the brother of angus, was equal to the emergency. dinner was announced and the company marched in. a large { } oaken table, spread with substantial joints of meat, was set for eight guests, and behind each chair stood a gigantic highlander, in full native costume, holding in his right hand a drawn broadsword, the point turned downward, and in his left a blazing pine torch. then allan stepped forth, and pointing to the torch-bearers, said in a deep and stern voice: 'behold, gentlemen cavaliers, the chandeliers of my brother's house, the ancient fashion of our ancient name; not one of these men knows any law but their chief's command. would you dare to compare to _them_ in value the richest ore that ever was dug out of the mine? how say you, cavaliers?--is your wager won or lost?' 'lost, lost,' said musgrave, gaily; 'my own silver candlesticks are all melted and riding on horseback by this time, and i wish the fellows that enlisted were half as trusty as these.' the meeting of the clans was interrupted by an unwelcome guest, sir duncan campbell, who came with a message from argyle. captain dalgetty was appointed to return with him, under a flag of truce, and together they journeyed to the castle of ardenvohr, the residence of sir duncan. [illustration: loch lubnaig] the ancient celtic fortress here described is the ruined castle of dunstaffnage, reached by a short drive north from oban. its origin is unknown. according to one tradition, it was founded by a pictish monarch, contemporary with julius cæsar. in its present shape the building probably dates from about . it fell into the hands of robert bruce in . the castle is a heavy structure of stone, standing on a solid rock, and protected by the waters of loch linnhe on three sides. it was originally accessible only by a drawbridge. it is { } about one hundred and forty feet long and one hundred feet wide. the walls are ten feet thick and sixty feet high. this ancient castle is the place where the scottish princes were once crowned. they sat on the same stone that was used at the recent coronation of king george v, and of a long line of his predecessors,--the famous stone of scone. this ancient relic was carried from ireland to the island of iona, and thence to dunstaffnage, where it remained many years. kenneth macalpine, in the ninth century, removed it to the palace of scone, near perth, where it remained five centuries. it was finally seized by edward i and carried to london, where it has remained for the last six centuries. a knoll on the south of the castle curiously suggests the drumsnab of the novel, which dalgetty insisted should be fortified according to his own military ideas. the castle of inverary, on the shore of loch fyne, has been replaced by a magnificent modern mansion, the seat of the present duke of argyle. the secret passage to the dungeon, under the old castle, through which the novelist supposes the marquis to have visited his prisoners, was suggested by a similar arrangement in the castle of naworth, to which i have previously referred.[ ] a private stairway leads from the apartment of lord william howard to the dungeon, by which the experiment of argyle might have been and doubtless was practised. a sail of less than four hours, from oban, north through the picturesque channels of loch linnhe, brought us to fort william. from this point we walked about two miles to the battle-field of inverlochy and the { } ruins of the old castle of that name, which we found to be in a sadly neglected state, far different from its neighbour, dunstaffnage. the four walls of the enclosure may still be seen, but everything is in a ruinous condition. an antiquated horse with large protruding hip-bones was grazing in what was once the moat, and before taking a picture i was about to ask a boy to chase him away. but on second thought i let him stay, because he harmonized so perfectly with the surroundings. the courtyard is about one hundred feet square. the walls are nine feet thick and of varying height. like dunstaffnage the castle is so old that its early history is shrouded in mystery. tradition ascribes its origin to the comyns, near the end of the thirteenth century. the view in every direction is charming. across the river lochy, a small stream which joins the caledonian canal to the waters of loch linnhe, may be seen the town of banavie, and in the distance the highlands of inverness-shire. in the opposite direction we could barely see the peaks of ben nevis, peeping through the mists that hung over the mountains. to the north are the heights of lochaber over which the marquis of montrose made his famous march of thirty miles by an unfrequented route, during a heavy fall of snow, and suddenly confronted his enemy in the night, when they supposed him to be far away in another part of the country. i think this novel must have been inspired by scott's admiration of the 'great marquis,' whose brief but brilliant campaign in the highlands appealed to his imagination just as the longer career of rob roy had done. it took him back among the picturesque people whom he loved to describe, and amidst scenery where { } he had roamed with never-failing delight. the one possession in the remarkable antiquarian collection at abbotsford which scott cherished more than any other--more even than rob roy's gun--was the sword of montrose, presented to the marquis by charles i and formerly the property of the monarch's father, king james. sir walter thought a dialogue between this sword and rob roy's gun might be composed with good effect. it seems a pity he did not undertake it. the sword bears on both sides the royal arms of great britain. the blade is handsomely ornamented, the hilt is finished in open scrollwork of silver gilt, and the grip is bound with chains of silver, alternating with bands of gold. scott did not follow the fortunes of his hero beyond the battle of inverlochy, where he left him in triumph. montrose continued his success until, on the th of august, , he reached his climax in the decisive victory of kilsyth. he was now the master of scotland, but, unfortunately, fate deprived him of the fruits of his genius. summoned to england to meet the exigencies which threatened the king, and unable to hold his highlanders for an invasion of the south, he was attacked at philiphaugh by leslie, who easily overcame the small opposing force. montrose escaped to the highlands, but was never again able to organize an army. after spending the next few years abroad, he returned to scotland in , where, after failing again to summon the clans, he was betrayed and carried a prisoner to the tolbooth in edinburgh. on the st of may, when only thirty-eight years old, he was hanged in the grassmarket and bravely met his death. [ ] the story is related at length in the introduction to _a legend of montrose_. [ ] pages and . { } chapter xvii ivanhoe from 'bonnie scotland' to 'merrie england' was not a long step for sir walter, for he had already peeped into yorkshire at barnard castle for his poem, 'rokeby.' the principal scenes of 'ivanhoe' are laid in the opposite end of the same county, between sheffield and doncaster. they extend, however, as far south as ashby de la zouch, and northward to the ancient city of york. as we rode through this populous country, humming with the industry of thousands of busy mills, its crowded cities showing street after street of substantial business houses, its more open spaces dotted with neat cottages surrounded by well-kept gardens, its streams crossed by bridges of stone and steel, its roads in excellent repair, and its entire aspect betokening the peace and prosperity of a great civilization, it was difficult to picture it in fancy as the great forest roamed by robin hood and his merry men; as a land in which king richard and wilfred of ivanhoe performed their feats of chivalry and daring; as the region in which cedric the saxon still resented the intrusion of the normans, and front-de-boeuf maintained a feudal castle concealing horrors too frightful to mention. [illustration: map of england] we succeeded, however, in finding a bit of the original forest, in identifying the ruins of two castles which figure prominently in the story, and several others which doubtless served as types of the prevailing norman style { } of architecture, besides other interesting places more remotely associated with the tale. the town of ashby de la zouch, to which all the people of the story wend their way in the early chapters, is on the western edge of leicestershire, about midway between birmingham and nottingham. the ancient castle derives its name from the fact that it was formerly owned by the zouch family, who seem to have had possession until . scott was slightly in error in stating that at this time ( ) 'the castle and town of ashby belonged to roger de quincey, earl of winchester,' who was then absent in the holy land. it is not inconceivable, however, that prince john might have taken temporary possession, and, after all, that is the main point of the story. the castle was a ruin in scott's day, presenting an appearance very much the same as now. it suggested the scene of prince john's banquet, but the novelist well knew that it was not the original castle which stood on the spot in . of the old castle we found only a single wall. the date of its foundation is uncertain, but it was probably built in the earlier part of the same century. its successor, represented by the ruins now visible, was built in , nearly three hundred years after the period of the novel. the reigning king was edward iv, and one of his prime favourites was william, lord hastings, who was not only loaded with wealth by his sovereign, but given almost unlimited authority to enclose for private use whatever land he wished and to build wherever he pleased. accordingly hastings took possession of three thousand acres of land at ashby and erected a huge castle, despoiling the { } neighbouring castle of belvoir of much lead, with which he covered his towers. the strong fortress and splendid castle thus erected stood intact for less than two centuries. during the civil war it was besieged and captured by the parliamentary army, and in was deliberately made untenable by a committee of the house of commons, who had been appointed to determine what castles and other fortified places were to be retained and which ones were to be destroyed. ashby, unfortunately, was condemned and huge sections of its walls and towers were undermined and pulled down. the ruin consists of two large towers, connected by an underground passage, the great hall, the chapel, and the room of mary queen of scots. the kitchen tower was of great strength, having walls in some places ten feet thick, and the remains of a huge kitchen fireplace may still be seen. the most imposing part of the ruin is the keep. this was a tower eighty feet high, fitted up in great magnificence as the earl's apartment. [illustration: castle of ashby de la zouch] the great tournament was supposed to be held in a field a mile or two from the tower. after the tournament and the banquet in the castle which followed, cedric the saxon and his kinsman, athelstane of coningsburgh, with the lady rowena and their servants and retainers, set out for rotherwood, the house of cedric, presumably in the neighbourhood of, or possibly a fictitious substitute for, the present city of rotherham. their way led through a great forest, some remnants of which may still be seen. in king richard's time the entire country between ashby and rotherham may have been thickly wooded. the famous sherwood forest occupied the western portion of nottinghamshire, extending north { } and south about twenty-five miles, with a width varying from six to eight miles. in this extensive woodland, robin hood, with the jolly friar tuck and the minstrel allan-a-dale, and all the rest of the 'merry men,' hunted the king's deer, robbed the rich and bestowed charity upon the poor, worshipped the virgin and pillaged the ecclesiastical establishments, supported themselves by means of their marvellous archery, played practical jokes and indulged in no end of fun, and lived a free, open, adventurous, brave, and generous life, in spite of their outlawry. robin hood was undoubtedly an historical character, who may have had an existence as early as the time of king richard, but whose deeds have been so much enveloped in fiction and poetry that his real exploits cannot be determined. the legends that have been woven about him are like the tales of king arthur--mythical but probably evolved from some hidden germ of truth. from , when the oldest known mention of him was made in an edition of 'piers the ploughman,' down to the elizabethan era, his popularity is evinced by the great volume of ballad poetry recording his performances. that such a personage should have made a strong appeal to sir walter scott was inevitable, and he seems to have woven the characteristic exploits of robin hood into the tale of 'ivanhoe' with the same zest which he displayed in 'the lady of the lake,' 'waverley,' 'rob roy,' and 'a legend of montrose,' where he so delighted to picture the scottish highlanders in their native country. north of mansfield, in nottinghamshire, a beautiful part of the forest of sherwood may still be seen. for { } many miles we drove through endless glades and avenues, the rugged oaks intertwining their branches over our heads, now and then forming those 'long sweeping vistas' which scott describes so well, 'in the intricacy of which the eye delights to lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to yet wilder scenes of silvan solitude.' here and there we could see herds of deer, coming boldly into view, knowing well that the arrows of robin hood's men are things of the past. all this region is now well cared for. there are splendid palaces with lakes, fountains, and flowers, transforming the old forest into a veritable fairy-land. thoresby house with its beautiful park is the property of earl manvers; clumber, on the border of the carburton lakes, is the stately seat of the duke of newcastle, and welbeck abbey, with gardens covering thirty-two acres, lakes of one hundred and fifty-nine acres, and a deer park of sixteen hundred and forty acres, is the magnificent domain of the duke of portland. all this section, which has been dubbed 'the dukeries,' while preserving something of the appearance of a forest, can only present a striking contrast to the wild tangle of the woods, with their narrow and devious paths, through which the saxon party passed on their way to rotherwood. [illustration: the buck-gate. entrance to the duke of portland's estate, sherwood forest] cedric, it will be remembered, soon overtook isaac of york, the rich jew, and his lovely daughter, rebecca, who had been deserted by their cowardly escort. they were carrying, in a litter, 'a sick friend,' under which designation they concealed the identity of ivanhoe. the whole party was later surprised and captured by some of the norman nobles of prince john's party, { } disguised as outlaws, by whom they were carried to torquilstone, the castle of front-de-boeuf. this imaginary feudal edifice may be supposed to be in the vicinity of harthill, a village nine miles south of rotherham. the dramatic incidents that occurred here are familiar to every one: how de bracy made his futile attempt to woo the lady rowena, trusting to his handsome face and foppish clothes; how the templar tried his blandishments upon rebecca and was defeated by her courage in threatening to leap from the battlements, should he advance a single step; how front-de-boeuf sought to extort a fortune from isaac the jew by the most cruel torture; and how the villainy of all three was interrupted by a bugle blast, announcing an attack upon the castle by a band of outlaws, headed by the gallant robin hood, who was ably supported by the powerful battle-axe of the black knight and the wit of wamba the jester. after the fall of the castle it will be remembered that the victors assembled under a huge oak to divide the spoils, and that isaac of york and the rich prior aymer were compelled to sentence each other to the payment of a heavy ransom--a clever scheme well calculated to furnish not only amusement but substantial profit to the outlaws. there are several large oaks of sherwood forest still in existence, any one of which might have been in the mind of sir walter. we found an excellent type, which was perhaps known to him, near edwinstowe, northeast of mansfield. it is called the 'major oak' and was a monarch of the forest in robin hood's time. it is said to be fourteen hundred years old. its circumference, just { } above the ground, is sixty feet, and there is room inside the hollow trunk for a round dozen of average-sized men. unlike many other ancient oaks, its huge limbs are well preserved and remarkably symmetrical, its foliage forming a huge ellipsoid, seventy-five feet in length. although torquilstone was imaginary, sir walter was not without types of the old norman castles. he refers to middleham as the seat of the brother of prior aymer, and the ruins of this castle may still be seen in the village of that name, in the west riding of yorkshire. the interior or keep is in the distinctive norman style of architecture, but the outer walls belong to a later period. this castle was founded by robert fitz-ralph or ranulph, a nephew of king william rufus, about . its walls are plain and massive, suggesting great strength, but no beauty. in the interior of the keep may be seen the remains of what was once a huge and magnificent banqueting-hall, with high arched windows on the side. for centuries middleham was the residence of powerful barons and at times of royalty. in the fifteenth century it came into the possession of the famous earl of warwick, 'the kingmaker,' and later of his infamous son-in-law, the duke of gloucester, afterward king richard iii. edward, prince of wales, the only legitimate son of richard, was born here. it was to secure the succession of this prince to the throne that richard caused the murder of his two nephews to be perpetrated in the tower of london. [illustration: the avenue of limes, sherwood forest] edward iv was a prisoner here, and made his escape as told by shakespeare in 'king henry vi.'[ ] after the battle of bosworth, henry vii took possession of { } middleham. in the civil wars the forces of cromwell destroyed the castle. from that time until , when it came into possession of the present owner, the ruins have been a stone quarry for the neighbourhood and a large part of the castle has been carried away piecemeal. the enclosure became a dumping-ground for all kinds of trash and a free pig-pen and cow-stable. in , it was cleaned out and is now in charge of a keeper. this famous castle, occupied as it was at times by men of all the ferocious and conscienceless qualities of front-de-boeuf, might well have served as a suggestion for torquilstone. richmond castle, lying a few miles north of middleham, is of even greater antiquity and a far nobler specimen of the norman architecture. it was founded in by alan rufus, to whom william the conqueror granted the land of richmondshire. alan selected a rock on the bank of the river swale and here he constructed a fortress that was well-nigh impregnable. the great 'keep' was built in , and still stands proudly erect, in spite of its nearly eight hundred years' resistance to wind and weather as well as the storms of war, looking as if conscious of its power to stand the assaults of eight centuries more. we went to richmond expecting to see a ruin; we were astonished to find, instead, a fine tower one hundred and eight feet high, fifty-four feet long, and forty-eight feet wide, used as an armoury by a modern regiment of soldiers. its walls are of extraordinary thickness and the masonry looks as fresh and clean as that of many a building of half a century's duration. aside from the remarkable keep, the castle is really a ruin. its walls, which originally enclosed a triangular { } space of five acres, have crumbled away, but enough remains to identify various halls, chapels, dungeons, and underground passages. the castle was seized by richard coeur-de-lion and held by him and his successor king john for several years. for five centuries thereafter it passed from royalty to nobility and back again, time after time, as a reward for services or the spoils of war, until in it was granted by charles ii to the ancestor of the present duke of richmond. torquilstone is described as 'a fortress of no great size, consisting of a donjon, or large and high square tower, surrounded by buildings of inferior height, which were encircled by an inner courtyard.' it had 'towers upon the outward wall so as to flank it at every angle.' it would appear from this that the castle of front-de-boeuf might have been a miniature copy of richmond castle. south of richmond and about three miles from middleham are the ruins of jorvaulx abbey, the seat of the prior aymer, 'a free and jovial priest, who loves the wine-cup and the bugle-horn better than bell and book.' the monks of jorvaulx were famous for their love of feasting and the excellence of their wines. the abbey church was originally an extensive structure, two hundred and seventy feet long, with transepts one hundred and thirteen feet wide. it was roughly treated and nearly demolished during the reformation and neglected in the succeeding years until about a century ago, when the accumulated rubbish was cleared away. it now presents a picturesque appearance because of the ivy, moss, and shrubbery with which nature has softened { } the aspect of its rudely broken walls and the fragments of stone which once were heavy columns supporting a lofty nave. still farther south are the imposing ruins of fountains abbey, which must not be overlooked in any survey of the scenery of 'ivanhoe,' for here was the alleged abode of that delightful character, the jolly clerk of copmanhurst, friar tuck, whose all-night carousal with king richard in the forest 'chapel of st. dunstan' will be ever memorable as one of scott's choicest bits of humour. this celebrated 'churchman' was the type of a class of so-called 'hedge-priests' who flourished in the period preceding the reformation, when every great house maintained a confessor to say masses and grant absolution. the bands of outlaws, with equal superstition, felt the need of the same services, and maintained their own priests accordingly. many of these performed their holy offices in ragged and dirty attire and with improper forms of ritual, for the benefit of thieves and murderers in out-of-the-way ruins and other hiding places, thereby incurring the wrath of the dignitaries of the church. not infrequently, no doubt, their uncanonical performances were no better than those of friar tuck. fountains abbey is, next to melrose, the most beautiful ruin of the kind in great britain--at least so far as i have been able to observe. in beauty of situation, it far surpasses melrose. the latter is in the midst of a town with nothing to make a picturesque setting except its own churchyard and the garden of an adjoining estate. fountains is reached by walking nearly a mile through the beautiful park of studley royal, first by the { } side of a canal, bordered by trees of luxuriant foliage, through which, at intervals, are various 'peeps,' revealing carefully studied scenes, with temples, statuary, rustic bridges, towers, lakes, and woods; then by a path of more natural beauty, beside the little rivulet called the skell, until the extensive ruins are reached. the foundation of fountains abbey has been traced to the year , according to the narrative of a monk which was committed to writing in . in the winter of - , a small company of benedictine monks from st. mary's abbey at york, becoming dissatisfied with the laxity of discipline there, felt impelled to withdraw. they retired to a wild and uncultivated valley, covered with stones and briars, and better suited for wild beasts and reptiles than for humanity, and built a monastery beside the brook skell. from this humble beginning, fountains abbey grew until the establishment became one of the richest in england, comprising sixty-four thousand acres of valuable lands and its buildings, covering an area of twelve acres, were among the most magnificent. in , king henry viii confiscated the entire property, and rendered the monastery unfit for further use. [illustration: interior of fountains abbey] the ruins are more complete than those of any other similar structure, and give an excellent idea of the extent and arrangement of an important monastery. from the chapel of the nine altars to the west doorway, which was the chief entrance, is a distance of three hundred and sixty-nine feet. it is an impressive architectural vista, the eye sweeping over the choir and transepts and down through the narrow nave, where the walls are supported by eleven obtuse pointed arches, springing { } from massive columns, each sixteen feet in circumference and twenty-three feet high. the chapel of the nine altars, considered to have been the most magnificent architectural feature of the structure, is divided into three parts by a series of very high pointed arches, supported by slender octagonal pillars scarcely two feet in diameter. a great east window, sixty feet high and twenty-three feet wide, completed the dignity and beauty of the chapel. from the exterior, the most striking feature is the tower, rising one hundred and sixty-eight feet high, with walls nearly thirty feet square, and projecting buttresses, adding an effect of great solidity. the connection of friar tuck with this fine abbey is derived from the ancient ballad of 'robin hood and the curtal friar.' the outlaws were indulging in an exhibition of their wonderful archery when an unusually fine shot caused robin hood to exclaim:-- i would ride my horse an hundred miles to finde one could match with thee. this brought a laugh from will scarlet, who declared:-- there lives a curtal frier in fountains abby will beat both him and thee. robin hood could not rest until he found the friar, walking by the waterside near the abbey. a conflict followed in which the friar threw robin into the stream. after robin had shot all his arrows at the friar without effect,-- they took their swords and steel bucklers and fought with might and maine; from ten oth' clock that day, till four ith' afternoon. { } then robin blew three blasts of his horn and called half a hundred yeomen. the friar whistled with fist in his mouth and half a hundred ban-dogs answered. the end of the battle proved the stout friar well qualified to join the band of merry men. this curtal frier had kept fountains dale seven long years or more; there was neither knight, lord, nor earl could make him yield before. an arched recess, of stone, well covered with foliage, by the side of the path along the river, marks the traditional site of this famous combat, and is known as 'robin hood's well.' the following lines were written by sir walter while a guest at studley royal, and the manuscript is now in the possession of the marquess of ripon:-- beside this crystal font of old, cooled his flushed brow an outlaw bold, his bow was slackened while he drank, his quiver rested on the bank, giving brief pause of doubt and fear to feudal lords and forest deer. long runs the tale, but village sires still sing his feats by christmas fires; and still old england's free-born blood stirs at the name of robin hood. after the fall of torquilstone and the almost miraculous deliverance of all the prisoners, cedric and his company journeyed to the castle of coningsburgh, the seat of athelstane, to perform the funeral rites of that noble warrior, who had fallen a victim to the templar's battle-axe. athelstane interrupts the proceedings, somewhat { } unnecessarily it would seem, by coming to life again. a visit to this castle takes us back to the valley of the don, where the story began. conisborough, as the village is now called, is situated about midway between rotherham and doncaster. there is nothing fanciful in scott's description here. he introduced the castle because it interested him, and made it the seat of athelstane for convenience. in a letter to his friend morritt in scott inquires, 'do you know anything of a striking ancient castle ... called coningsburgh? ... i once flew past it in a mail-coach when its round tower and flying buttresses had a most romantic effect in the morning dawn.' it was characteristic of scott, not only that every old ruined castle appealed to his imagination, but that his curiosity, once aroused, usually had to be satisfied by a personal inspection. it was so with coningsburgh. he went to the village and spent two nights at the sprotbrough boathouse, a near-by inn, that he might have leisure to examine the ruins of the castle. the result of his study and the further reading of such antiquarian authorities as were available, convinced him that the round tower was an ancient saxon castle. he found satisfaction in comparing it with the rude towers, or burghs, built by the saxons or northmen, of which one of the most striking examples is the castle of mousa[ ] in the shetland islands. these were built of rough stone, without cement. they were roofless, and had small apartments constructed within the circular walls themselves. in this last respect coningsburgh somewhat resembles these ancient burghs, and scott conceived { } that the former was an evolution from the latter, and therefore saxon. he says, 'the outer walls have probably been added by the normans, but the inner keep bears token of very great antiquity.' he also says: 'when coeur-de-lion and his retinue approached this rude yet stately building, it was not, as at present, surrounded by external fortifications. the saxon architect had exhausted his art in rendering the main keep defensible, and there was no other circumvallation than a rude barrier of palisades.' the facts, as indicated by more recent investigation, seem to be that the saxons selected the hill of hard limestone as a suitable place for a stronghold, excavated a ditch around it and erected some outworks. there is no doubt that harold, the last of the anglo-saxon kings, either purchased or inherited the property, and there is mention of a certain 'lord of coningesboro,' who possessed part of the domain as early as the year a.d. william the conqueror, shortly after his accession to the english throne, granted the estate to an adherent, william de warrenne, who was created earl of surrey. a great-granddaughter of this earl married hameline plantagenet, a half-brother of henry ii, and he was one of the soldiers and faithful attendants of richard i. it is this earl who is supposed to have built the tower, or keep, at least a century after his norman predecessors had erected the outer walls of the castle. this, it will be noted, is exactly the reverse of scott's supposition. [illustration: coningsburgh castle] the saxon founders selected a steep hill, or knoll, rising one hundred and seventy-five feet above the river--an ideal site for a fortress in those days. { } earl warren, who came into possession about , found the place already well fortified. his son and grandson were the ones who, it is supposed, constructed the outer walls, with their various buildings for domestic purposes, comprising a hall, kitchen, chapel, etc. these cover a large area, but present no features of extraordinary interest. the inner tower, or keep, however, is one of the most remarkable structures in england. it is a huge cylindrical tower built of grey limestone on a base of solid natural rock. it formerly rose to a height of one hundred and twenty feet, and is now about ninety feet high. it is sixty-six feet in diameter at the base, and is supported by six massive buttresses, each fifteen and one half feet broad and extending outward about nine feet. the walls themselves are nearly fifteen feet in thickness. the only entrance is a door, twenty feet above the ground, originally reached by an outside stair connecting with a small drawbridge. the rooms beneath the main floor were used for the storage of provisions and in the centre was a well, said to have been one hundred and five feet deep. there was then ample provision to resist a siege, lack of food and water being the only danger to be feared, inasmuch as the catapults and other engines of war of that period would be powerless against the massiveness of such a castle. the upper rooms are built within the walls and reached by narrow stairways. the main floor was probably used by the lord of the castle with his family and guests; the rooms above were occupied by the ladies of the household, and on the same floor was a small oratory or chapel, hexagonal in shape and about eight feet wide. the top floor contained the kitchen and the { } sleeping-rooms of the garrison. the six buttresses projected above the level of the parapet, forming turrets, convenient for defence. these have now disappeared. the parapet floor is still accessible, and from it a fine view is obtained of the surrounding country. the castle of york, where prince john is supposed to have feasted the nobles and leaders after the exciting scenes of torquilstone, and where de bracy announced to him that richard was really in england, was the norman fortress built by william the conqueror in , some portions of which are now incorporated in the building known as clifford's tower. a substantial rectangular structure stands between two ancient and ruined turrets, which lean outward, looking as though the stronger building were trying to usurp the hill on which they stand and push his feebler brethren out of the way. this castle was the scene in of a terrible massacre of the jews. two rich jewish bankers, joses and benedict, attended the coronation of richard i. in a general attack upon the jews, benedict was killed, but joses got back to york. the house of benedict in york was plundered and his wife and children murdered. joses rallied the other jews, who took refuge, with their property, in the castle. the governor ordered an assault, and the jews, finding themselves unable to hold the citadel, set fire to the buildings, put to death all their relatives, and killed themselves, over five hundred lives being sacrificed. this incident throws some light upon the state of mind of the wealthy isaac, who was a resident of the city of york. 'ivanhoe' closes with the wedding of wilfred and rowena, 'celebrated in the most august of temples, the { } noble minster of york.' the cathedral as it stands to-day is, indeed, noble. perhaps it cannot properly be called the largest in england; winchester cathedral is longer, and lincoln's towers are higher; but in the length of its choir and nave, the breadth of its transepts, the height of the great pointed arches supporting the roof, and the massive grandeur and dignity of the whole, whether viewed from the exterior or the interior, it is unsurpassed by any other cathedral in england and by few on the continent. it was not in this magnificent temple, however, that the wedding took place, and perhaps if we could see a picture of the old norman church which stood on the site in , we might not think of it as 'a noble minster.' the church of that period was the structure built by the first norman archbishop of york, with the addition of the choir, erected a century later. in the crypt of the present cathedral some bits of the walls of these early buildings are still preserved. they replaced the first stone church, built about , which had superseded the original wooden church, built by eadwine, king of northumbria, then the most powerful monarch in england. the minster was, therefore, more than five centuries old even in the period of 'ivanhoe.' of the characters in the novel, king richard and his brother john were of course historical. cedric and athelstane were types of the saxon nobles who still resented the intrusion of the normans. front-de-boeuf represents a class of norman noblemen who did not hesitate at any deed of villainy to accomplish their selfish purposes. brian de bois-guilbert typifies the chivalry which professed great zeal for the christian { } religion, but used it as a cloak to cover motives of vengeance or other base purposes. prior aymer stands for the wealthy churchman and isaac of york for the jewish banker, upon whom all classes, kings, barons, and churchmen, were obliged to depend for the accomplishment of their various plans. robin hood, friar tuck, and the men in lincoln green were borrowed from the ballad poetry of the middle ages. all of these were introduced to perfect the picture of the conditions of social and political life in the reign of king richard. one character only found a place in the novel for another reason. the story of rebecca reveals an interesting incident in the life of washington irving. when the american author visited sir walter at abbotsford a feeling of mutual respect and admiration quickly sprang up between them and developed into a friendly intimacy. in the course of their conversations, irving told sir walter something of the character of rebecca gratz, a young woman of jewish family, living in the city of philadelphia. one of this lady's brothers was a warm personal friend of irving's, who was always a welcome guest at their home. one of rebecca's dearest friends was matilda hoffman, irving's first and only love. this estimable young woman died at the early age of eighteen, tenderly nursed to the end by her friend rebecca, in whose arms she expired. rebecca gratz is described as a very beautiful girl. 'her eyes were of exquisite shape, large, black, and lustrous; her figure was graceful and her carriage was marked by a quiet dignity,--attractions which were heightened by elegant and winning manners. gentle, benevolent, with instinctive refinement and innate { } purity, she inspired affection among all who met her.'[ ] although a jewess, rebecca gratz found many companions among the christians by whom she was held in high esteem. she was interested in all kinds of benevolent work, founded an orphan asylum and a mission sabbath-school for hebrew children, and contributed to many charities. a christian gentleman of wealth and high social position fell in love with her and his feelings were reciprocated. but rebecca conceived that duty demanded loyalty to her religion, and her lofty conscientiousness and remarkable moral courage enabled her to maintain her resolution. she refused to marry, in spite of the pain to herself and the bitter disappointment to her lover which the self-denial involved. her life was devoted to 'a long chain of golden deeds,' until the end came at the good old age of eighty-eight. such a story could not fail to capture the sympathetic heart of sir walter, and as usual when anything appealed strongly to him, he wove it into a novel at the earliest opportunity, later writing to irving, 'how do you like your rebecca? does the picture i have painted compare well with the pattern given?' 'ivanhoe' marks the high-tide of scott's literary success. the book instantly caught the attention of thousands to whom the scottish romances had not appealed. it sold better than its predecessors, and from the day of its publication has been easily the most popular of the waverley novels. lockhart, who, in common with most scotchmen, could not help { } preferring the tales of his native land and thought 'waverley,' 'guy mannering,' and 'the heart of midlothian' superior as 'works of genius,' nevertheless gave 'ivanhoe' the first place among all scott's writings, whether in prose or verse, as a 'work of art.' its historical value is perhaps greater than that of any of the others, and certainly no other author has ever given a picture, so graphic and yet so comprehensible, of 'merrie england' in the days of chivalry. [ ] part iii, act iv, scene v. [ ] see chapter xxi, 'the pirate,' p. . [ ] from an article by grata van rensselaer, in the _century magazine_, september, . { } chapter xviii the monastery scott had some strange ways of seeking relaxation from the strain of his work. on christmas day, , he wrote constable that he was 'setting out for abbotsford to refresh the machine.' during the year he had written his first great novel, 'waverley'; one of his longer poems, 'the lord of the isles'; nearly the whole of his 'life of swift'; two essays for an encyclopædia; a two-volume family memoir for a friend; and kept up a voluminous personal correspondence,--an amount of industry which is best described by dominie sampson's word, _prodigious_. surely the 'machine' needed 'refreshment,' and it consisted in producing, in six weeks' time, another great novel, 'guy mannering'! in the same way, while dictating 'ivanhoe,' in spite of severe bodily pain which prevented the use of his pen, he sought refreshment by starting another novel, 'the monastery.' 'it was a relief,' he said, 'to interlay the scenery most familiar to me with the strange world for which i had to draw so much on imagination.' 'the monastery' was the first of scott's novels in which the scenery is confined to the immediate vicinity of his own home. it is all within walking distance of abbotsford and much of it had been familiar to the author from childhood. melrose, or kennaquhair, is only about two miles away. this little village is as ancient as the abbey from which it takes its name, and { } that splendid ruin dates from , when the pious scottish king, known as st. david, founded the monastery and granted extensive lands to the cistercian order of monks for its maintenance. the village has followed the fortunes of the abbey--prospering when the monks prospered, and suffering the blight of war whenever the english kings descended upon it. its present prosperity, so far as it has any, is the gift of sir walter scott. hawthorne, who rambled through the country in , noted in his journal that 'scotland--cold, cloudy, barren little bit of earth that it is--owes all the interest that the world feels in it to him.' i cannot endorse this view of scotland, for it left quite the opposite impression upon my mind, but the last part of the remark is certainly true of melrose. it bears about the same relation to scotland that stratford does to england. thousands go there every year to see the work of art, glorious even in ruins, which represents the highest development of the gothic architecture and to marvel at the rich carvings in stone which, after the lapse of nearly six hundred years, still remain as a monument to the patience, skill, and devotion of the monks of st. mary's. but they go because the great wizard of the north has thrown the glamour of his genius over the whole of the border country, of which melrose is the natural centre. and when they arrive, they find the abbey interpreted in the words of 'the lay of the last minstrel,' which the custodians of the ruin, for fourscore years, have never tired of quoting. in the novel, no attempt is made to describe the beauty of the ruin. the poem had already done that to perfection. but the monks spring into life again, the { } venerable ruin is transformed into a church, the monastic buildings resume their former shape, and the palace of their ruler is refurnished in all its original magnificence. a fire of glowing logs gives warmth to the apartments. an oaken stand, with a roasted capon and 'a goodly stoup of bourdeaux of excellent flavour,' suggests the truth of the old rhyme:-- the monks of melrose made fat kail on fridays when they fasted, nor wanted they gude beef and ale so lang's their neighbours' lasted. in a richly carved chair before the fire sits a portly abbot, with round face, rosy cheeks, and good-natured, laughing eyes, the product of a long life of good feeding and indolent ease. by his side stands the sub-prior, a cadaverous, sharp-faced little man, with piercing grey eyes bespeaking a high order of intellect, his emaciated features testifying to rigid fastings and relentless self-abasement. the abuse of the monastic privileges, common enough at the time, is thus contrasted with the conscientious observance of all the rules of the order. in and out of the cloisters, the refectory, and the palace, monks in black gowns and white scapularies are continually passing. the old ruin has been restored by the genius of the novelist to the life and activity of the sixteenth century. the earliest date referred to in the story is , the year of the battle of pinkie, when the scottish forces met with a disaster exceeded only by flodden field. in this battle simon glendinning, a soldier fighting for the 'halidome' of st. mary's, met his death. his son halbert was then nine or ten years old. the story comes { } to a close when he is nineteen, which would be . the hostility of henry viii had caused great anxiety to the abbots of melrose long before this time and the persecution reached a climax in . sir ralph ewers and sir brian latoun systematically ravaged the scottish border, burning hundreds of towns, castles, and churches, slaughtering and imprisoning the people by the thousands and driving off their cattle and horses. in the course of their raids, they reached melrose with a force of five thousand men and vented their spite on the beautiful old abbey. the scots took prompt vengeance. they quickly raised an army, and under the leadership of sir walter scott of buccleuch, met the english and defeated them with heavy losses. both ewers and latoun were among the slain, and the monks of melrose buried them in the abbey with great satisfaction. 'the monastery' does not refer to this event, but its graphic picture of the unsettled state of the country and the consequent anxiety of the monks constitutes its chief value. north of the abbey and across the tweed is a green hillside, at the base of which is a weir or dam. this is the place where the sacristan of st. mary's was pitched out of his saddle into the stream by the 'white lady of avenel,' who dipped him in the water two or three times to make sure that 'every part of him had its share of wetting.' the old bridge, which the sacristan was prevented from crossing by the perversity of old peter, the bridge-tender, was about a mile and a half up the stream. such a bridge once existed, though now there are no traces visible. scott used to see the foundations { } occasionally when drifting down the river at night in pursuit of one of his favourite pastimes, spearing salmon by torchlight. there were three towers in the water. a keeper lived in the middle one and controlled the traffic by raising or lowering the draws at his pleasure. those who refused to pay his price, or whom he did not wish to accommodate, might ford the stream, but at some stages of the water this was a perilous operation. the river allan flows into the tweed near the site of this bridge. it is a little mountain brook that flows, in serpentine course, through the valley of glendearg. a mile or so up the rivulet there is a picturesque and shady glen called fairy dean. after a flood, little pieces of curious stones, in fantastic shapes, are often found, the play of the waters having transformed the fragments of rock into fairy cups and saucers, guns, boats, cradles, or whatever a childish imagination might suggest. this was the abode of the fairies where the little elfin folk held their nightly carnivals, and who knows but queen titania herself might have held her moonlight revels upon this very spot? at any rate, the neighbouring people, for centuries, by common consent, recognized the feudal rights of the fairy race to this little dell, and left them undisturbed. it must have been the abode of the white lady, and no doubt stood in the author's mind for the secluded glen which he calls, in celtic, _corrie nan shian_, meaning 'hollow of the fairies,' where halbert glendinning found the huge rock, the wild holly tree, and the spring beneath its branches. here, doubtless, for no more appropriate spot can be found, halbert summoned the mystic maiden with the words:-- { } thrice to the holly brake-- thrice to the well:-- i bid thee awake, white maid of avenel! noon gleams in the lake-- noon glows on the fell-- wake thee, o wake, white maid of avenel! at the head of the glen there are three ruined peel-houses or border towers, known as hillslap, colmslie, and langshaw. the first of these may fairly stand for the original of glendearg, the home of the glendinnings. this old tower has a sculptured date on the lintel of the entrance which seems to indicate that it was built in --a little too late for the story, to be sure, but trifles like that never worried sir walter. he wanted to place the widow glendinning and her two children in a tower suited to the ancient family connexions of her husband who might have been able to defend his secluded retreat against all comers for many years, had not the necessities of the time required his service in the wars for the defence of his country. hillslap offered an excellent type of such a border fortalice, and its situation at the head of the glen, well protected by the surrounding mountains and isolated by its remoteness from the ordinary lines of travel, made it suitable for the purposes of the tale. referring to the castle of julian avenel, scott, in a footnote, remarks that it is vain to search near melrose for any such castle, but adds that in yetholm loch, a small sheet of water southeast of kelso, there is a small castle on an island, connected with the mainland by a { } causeway, but it is much smaller than avenel. of course we must take the author's word for this, and yet, whether he did it with conscious purpose or not, he succeeded in putting into his description some features which irresistibly suggest a castle only seven miles from melrose, the tower of smailholm, associated with the dearest memories of his childhood. smailholm is one of the most perfect examples of the old feudal keeps to be found in scotland. a very small pool lies on one side of the tower, but it is suggestive of the loch which once surrounded the entire castle, making it a retreat of great security. 'the surprise of the spectator was chiefly excited by finding a piece of water situated in that high and mountainous region, and the landscape around had features which might rather be termed wild, than either romantic or sublime.' it was a surprise to me to find even a small pool of water in such a locality, and i cannot help thinking that at least some recollections of the peculiar situation of smailholm may have been in the author's mind when he wrote this description. scott has himself mentioned a prototype of the vulgar, brutal, and licentious julian avenel in the person of the laird of black ormiston, a friend and confidant of bothwell and one of the agents in the murder of darnley. the concluding scene of the novel represents a sorrowful procession of monks, in long black gowns and cowls, marching solemnly to the market-place of the town, where they formed a circle around 'an ancient cross of curious workmanship, the gift of some former monarch of scotland.' this old mercat cross still stands { } in the centre of the market-place of melrose. it is about twenty feet high and is surmounted by the figure of the unicorn and the arms of scotland. it requires a vivid imagination to identify the unicorn, however, the ravages of time giving it more the aspect of a walrus, rampant. 'the monastery,' following so soon after scott's greatest success, suffers severely by comparison with 'ivanhoe,' and, perhaps for this reason, was considered something of a failure. the cause, generally assigned by the critics, was twofold, or rather, may be attributed to two characters, which did not appeal to the public as scott had expected. one of these was the 'white lady of avenel' and the other, sir piercie shafton. scott had always manifested a fondness for ghosts, goblins, witches, and the supernatural. the goblin-page made a nuisance of himself in 'the lay of the last minstrel' and came near spoiling the poem; marmion had to fight a phantom knight, and so did bertram risingham, but in both cases a rational explanation dispelled the mystery; the baron of triermain visited a phantom castle in the valley of st. john; bruce landed on the shores of carrick, guided by a weird supernatural light; fergus macivor was dismayed by the bodach glas, a cheerful sort of family ghost which always appeared when disaster was impending; the guest of the antiquary was compelled to sleep in a haunted chamber; a mysterious fountain had a fatal influence upon the life of the bride of lammermoor; and so throughout the pages of scott's poems and novels we find these strange incidents and phantom appearances. the real orthodox ghost only peeps in at you occasionally and quickly vanishes. { } although you may be frightened a little, you delight, nevertheless, in the mystery. but there is something too substantial about a female ghost who climbs up behind a man on horseback, guides him into a stream of deep water, and ducks him three times, meanwhile reciting long stanzas of poetry. and when the same ghost appears again and again, as though the whole plot depended upon her personal exertions, the constant exposure to the limelight causes the illusion to melt away. this, i fancy, is the reason the maid of avenel failed to appeal to scott's readers. sir piercie shafton, the euphuist, seems in like manner to have been overdone. a suggestion of the foppery and absurdities of the coxcombs of queen elizabeth's court might have been interesting, but sir piercie remains on the stage too long and becomes a bore. the pedantic baron of bradwardine in 'waverley' is a bore, but we like him. the garrulous dalgetty is tiresome, but we could not do without him. sir piercie, on the contrary, has no redeeming traits. aside from the failure of these two characters to please the public, the novel lacks the interest that attaches to all its predecessors. there is no dandie dinmont, nor meg merrilies, nor dominie sampson; no jonathan oldbuck nor edie ochiltree; no historical personage of interest like rob roy or king richard; no jeanie deans; no flora macivor; no die vernon; no rebecca. on the other hand, it has some fine pictures of the sturdy scotch character, it gives a glimpse of monastic life in the sixteenth century, and has an historical value in its presentation of the conflict of cross-currents of { } thought and feeling, as they affected the people who lived amid the furious contentions of the reformation. father eustace is a fine type of the able, intelligent, and devoted catholic priest, and henry warden of the brave, unflinching, determined apostle of the reformed doctrines. { } chapter xix the abbot scott was quick to realize the mistake in 'the monastery,' and promptly redeemed his popularity by the bold stroke of writing a sequel. the white maiden was banished along with sir piercie, and in their place came a train of new characters, well calculated to win the sympathetic approval of the public. mary queen of scots was the chief of these, and the novelist's skilful portrayal of her character made a success of 'the abbot.' roland graeme, who proved to be one of the best of scott's heroes, and catherine seyton, a young woman of charming vivacity, added not a little to the popularity of the novel. the scenery, at first, remains the same. the story opens at the castle of avenel, of which sir halbert glendinning is now the knight and mary avenel the lady. henry warden is established there as chaplain. the monks are still permitted to linger in the cloisters of st. mary's, and among them is edward glendinning, known as father ambrose, who, later, becomes the abbot. the beautiful abbey is pictured at the beginning of its decay. the niches have been stripped of their sculptured images, on the inside as well as the outside of the building. the tombs of warriors and of princes have been demolished. the church is strewn with confused heaps of broken stone, the remnants of beautifully { } carved statues of saints and angels, with lances and swords torn from above the tombs of famous knights of earlier days, and sacred relics brought by pious pilgrims. the disheartened monks are seen conducting their ceremonials in the midst of all the rubbish, scarcely daring to clear it away. in keeping with this picture of decay and ruin is the vivid presentation of the invasion of the sacred abbey by the irreverent mob of masqueraders in grotesque costumes, led by 'the venerable father howleglas, the learned monk of misrule and the right reverend abbot of unreason.' the tale now leads to edinburgh, where young roland graeme is struck with surprise as he comes, for the first time, into the canongate. 'the extreme height of the houses, and the variety of gothic gables, and battlements, and balconies' are still surprising. graeme gets involved in a street scrimmage, common enough in the edinburgh of those days, and, without knowing it, renders service to lord seyton, one of the most faithful adherents of queen mary. a few minutes later he catches sight of catherine seyton as that pretty damsel is about to 'dive under one of the arched passages which afforded an outlet to the canongate from the houses beneath.' many of these arched passages may still be seen in the canongate. the house of lord seyton into which roland followed the maiden was about opposite queensbury house, near the eastern end of the street. holyrood palace comes into the story as the place where roland was presented to the regent murray, an introduction into which scott is believed to have woven some recollections of his own presentation to the duke { } of wellington. although the palace has stood for many centuries and has been the abode of many kings, its real interest centres about the fortunes of mary queen of scots. visitors are shown the audience chamber in which the queen received john knox, and found that the great reformer, unlike other men, was proof against the loveliness of her countenance, the charm of her manner, and the softness of her speech. knox found, too, that mary was proof against the bitterness of his arraignment and the violence of his denunciation. opening out of the audience chamber is queen mary's bedroom, where a bed, said to be mary's own, is carefully preserved, its dingy and tattered hangings conveying little suggestion of the former richness of the crimson damask, with its fringe and tassels of green. a narrow door leads to a small dressing-closet, and another to the supper-room, where mary sat with david rizzio and other friends on the fatal night of february , . darnley, in a state of intoxication, burst into the room with a party of brutal conspirators, put his arms around mary in seeming endearment, while the others dragged rizzio into the audience chamber and stabbed him to death with their daggers. the introduction of loch leven castle gives a new scene to the novel and one of great beauty and interest. it was partly scott's association with the blair adam club that led to the use of this scene and the historical incident associated with it. a visit of scott and his life-long friends, william clerk and adam ferguson, to the right honourable william adam, in , led to the formation of the blair adam club, at the meetings of which scott was a constant attendant for fifteen years. { } mr. adam, who held the distinguished office of lord chief commissioner of the jury court in scotland, was, says lockhart, 'the only man i ever knew that rivalled sir walter scott in uniform graciousness of bonhomie and gentleness of humour.' in a book privately printed for the benefit of his own family and friends, the judge says:-- the castle of loch leven is seen at every turn from the northern side of blair adam. this castle, renowned and attractive above all others in my neighbourhood, became an object of much increased attention and a theme of constant conversation, after the author of 'waverley' had, by his inimitable power of delineating character, by his creative poetic fancy in representing scenes of varied interest, and by the splendour of his romantic descriptions, infused a more diversified and a deeper tone of feeling into the history of queen mary's captivity and escape. many little allusions to localities on the estate of blair adam and references to the virtues and manners of its occupants, were woven into the story, which, while they escape the attention of the casual reader, did not fail to please the genial owner. the castle stands on an island in loch leven, a pretty sheet of water, about three or four miles long, on the western border of which lies the town of kinross. two sturdy fishermen rowed us out to the island where we found the ruin of a square building. the tower is in good repair, but the remaining walls are quite ruinous. in one corner the room where queen mary was imprisoned was pointed out by the guides. it is very small, but has windows overlooking the lake, and there is room on the island for a pleasant garden. except for { } the loss of her liberty, queen mary might have found the castle a pleasant abode. loch leven castle was the property of sir william douglas, whose wife was the mother of the earl of murray, the illegitimate son of james v. the lady douglas could be supposed to have little sympathy for the legitimate daughter of the king to whom she pretended to have been married. in placing mary in the hands of such a custodian, the lords who opposed her felt reasonably secure. scott gives a wonderfully dramatic picture of the visit of lord lindsay, lord ruthven, and sir robert melville to the castle, and the method by which they extorted mary's signature to deeds abdicating the throne in favour of her infant son and creating the earl of murray regent, and although the scene is purely fictitious, the facts of history are not distorted. roland graeme is represented as unsheathing his sword and discovering a hidden parchment rolled around the blade. it proved to be a secret message from lord seyton, advising mary to yield to the necessity of the situation. the incident is based upon the fact that sir robert melville was sent to accompany the ruffianly lindsay, and his no less harsh associate ruthven, to prevent violence to the queen, and to carry, concealed in the scabbard of his sword, a message from her friends advising submission and carrying the assurance that deeds signed under such compulsion would not be legally binding when she regained her liberty. the escape of the queen is told in substantial accordance with the facts, though with a variation of details which the license of the novelist would easily permit. { } george douglas, a younger brother of the lord of loch leven, was much impressed by the beauty of the queen, and captivated by her pleasant manners and fair promises. he devised a plan of escape, but this was discovered and george was expelled from the castle by his brother. another attempt was more successful. an inmate of the castle, called 'the little douglas,' had also felt a sympathy for the queen. he was a lad of seventeen or eighteen and really played the part which scott assigned to roland graeme. he stole the keys and set the prisoner at liberty in the night. placing her in a boat, he paused long enough to lock the iron gates of the tower from the outside so that pursuit would be impossible, then, throwing the keys into the lake, rowed his passenger ashore. george douglas, lord seyton, and other friends were waiting to receive her and conveyed her in triumph to hamilton. an army of six thousand men was quickly assembled, the plan being to place the queen safely in the fortress of dumbarton, and then give battle to the regent murray. the latter was too quick for the allies, however. he was then at glasgow and marched at once, though with an inferior force, to intercept the advancing army. they met at langside, now a suburb of glasgow, and after a fierce struggle the queen's forces were scattered. mary herself continued her flight, until she reached the abbey of dundrennan, in the county of kirkcudbright, where she spent her last night in scotland. [illustration: cathcart castle] the novelist represents queen mary as viewing the battle from the castle of crookston, and the unfortunate lady dramatically exclaims, 'o, i must forget much ere i can look with steady eyes on these well-known { } scenes! i must forget the days which i spent here as the bride of the lost--the murdered'--here mary fleming interrupts to explain to the abbot that in this castle 'the queen held her first court after she was married to darnley.' mary could not have witnessed the battle of langside from crookston, unless, indeed, she had had, in the language of sam weller, instead of eyes, 'a pair o' patent double million magnifyin' gas microscopes of hextra power,' for langside is at least four miles away and the contour of the country would make such a view impossible. she really watched it from a knoll near the old castle of cathcart, which has since been known as court knowe. scott admitted the error, but did not much regret it, as crookston seemed the place best suited to the dramatic requirements of the tale, because of mary's former association with the castle. here again the facts are against him. crookston was the property of the earl of lennox, darnley's father, but darnley himself never lived there, except possibly as a boy, before he went to france at the age of sixteen. it seems to be certain to those who have investigated the facts that after his return he had no opportunity of going there and that he and queen mary could not have visited the place together, either before or after their marriage. nevertheless, scott was wise to let the incident remain as he wrote it, for 'the abbot' is not a work of history, but a romance. { } chapter xx kenilworth the successful introduction of mary queen of scots as the central figure of 'the abbot' resulted, not only in repairing the reputation which had been somewhat damaged by its predecessor, but in suggesting the theme of a new novel which was to achieve a popularity second only to 'ivanhoe.' the desire to portray, in the form of romance, the great rival of queen mary, was perhaps irresistible, particularly in view of the fact that it meant a new opportunity to reach that english audience which had given to 'ivanhoe' so cordial a reception. constable, the publisher, was of course delighted to have a new english novel and particularly one in which queen elizabeth was to be an important figure. with characteristic presumptuousness he argued that it should be a story of the armada. scott, however, had been enchanted in his youth by a ballad of the scotch poet, mickle, entitled 'cumnor hall,' and particularly by its first stanza:-- the dews of summer night did fall; the moon, sweet regent of the sky, silver'd the walls of cumnor hall, and many an oak that grew thereby. he insisted, therefore, in spite of his adviser, upon taking the theme of the ballad for his subject and would even have called the novel 'cumnor hall.' in deference to constable, however, he accepted the title, 'kenilworth,' { } although john ballantyne growled a little at a name which he thought suggested 'something worthy of a kennel.' here, then, were the determining points of the new novel, namely, a favourite poem concerning the marriage of the earl of leicester to a lady whom he kept concealed at cumnor hall, the desire to sketch, in a romantic way, the character of queen elizabeth, and the opportunity to secure a dramatic climax by confronting the queen with the wife of her favourite courtier, in the splendid castle of the latter at kenilworth. cumnor is one of those lovely little villages in the midlands of england where father time employs his talents as an artist, softening the outlines of the stone walls and fences with graceful mantles of dark green ivy and imparting richer and deeper shades of brown to the old thatched roofs of the cottages. we saw few evidences of activity on the part of the inhabitants, and reached the conclusion that cumnor, in walter scott's time, and even in the days of the earl of leicester, could not have been very different from its present aspect. we did not ruin our reputation as travellers by failing to 'wet a cup at the bonny black bear,' for that 'excellent inn of the old stamp,' if indeed it ever existed, has disappeared as effectually as its famous landlord, giles gosling. its prototype, bearing the sign of the 'bear and ragged staff,' formerly stood opposite the church, but its bar-room became objectionable to the vicar and, by what a local writer calls 'an impious act of vandalism,' the inn was destroyed. cumnor place has likewise disappeared. the site { } where it stood appears to be a comparatively small piece of land, near the street, but well covered with large trees. it was not an extensive park with formal walks and avenues, nor was the house itself so large or high as the structure described in the novel. it was a single-story building or series of buildings, forming an enclosure about seventy feet long and fifty feet wide. it was built about as a country residence for the abbot of abingdon and as a sanitarium for the monks. after two centuries its use by the monastery ceased and cumnor place passed into the hands of the court physician, george owen, who leased it to anthony foster. as the servant of lord robert dudley, foster received into his house the ill-fated amy robsart, whom that gentleman had married in . the marriage was not secret, but was celebrated in the presence of the young king, edward vi, and his court. it had been arranged by dudley's father, john, earl of warwick and duke of northumberland, who seems to have had a fondness for match-making, of the kind which promised a profit. he managed to marry his fourth son, guildford dudley, to lady jane grey, a great-granddaughter of henry vii. in the last two years of the reign of edward vi, northumberland was virtually the ruler of england. he induced the king to execute a will, disinheriting his two sisters, mary and elizabeth, who were the legal heirs to the crown, and naming lady jane grey as his successor. the reign of this unfortunate lady, who never desired the throne, lasted but nine days. the rightful queen, mary, was restored by the people, and northumberland, like his father before him, was beheaded in the tower. his son, guildford, with jane { } grey, his wife, suffered the same penalty a year later, as the result of another revolt, in which the lady, at least, had no share. [illustration: leicester's buildings, kenilworth] robert dudley came near falling a victim to the same fate as his father and grandfather. he took up arms against queen mary, was sent to the tower and condemned to death. but the queen pardoned him and made him master of the ordnance. on the accession of elizabeth he became master of the horse, and thereafter rose rapidly in the royal favour. elizabeth made him a knight of the garter, bestowed upon him the castle of kenilworth, the lordship of denbigh and other rich lands in warwickshire and wales. in the queen made him earl of leicester, and recommended him (perhaps not seriously) as a possible husband of mary queen of scots. the university of oxford made him their chancellor and the king of france conferred upon him the order of st. michael. he reached the culmination of the high honours which elizabeth and others crowded upon him, in the appointment as lieutenant-general of the army mustered to meet the spanish invasion, in the year of the great armada, . this was the outward show, and it was brilliant enough; but the earl was like a worm-eaten apple--fair enough to look upon, but rotten to the core--and his private life was thoroughly contemptible. the marriage to amy robsart in was not a happy one. she was never a countess, for dudley did not become earl of leicester until four years after her death. after the favours of elizabeth began to be showered upon him, dudley had good reason for concealing this marriage, for the queen soon began to show a longing to make him { } her royal husband. in , two years after the accession of elizabeth, the dead body of amy was found at the foot of the stairs at cumnor. all the servants had gone to a neighbouring fair and apparently anthony foster was the only person besides amy at home on that day. it was given out that amy had accidentally fallen downstairs and broken her neck. she was ostentatiously buried in the church of st. mary the virgin in oxford, though lord dudley was not present at the funeral nor did he again visit cumnor. more than twenty years later a pamphlet was published, anonymously, under the title 'leicester's commonwealth,' in which the earl was bitterly attacked as an atheist and a traitor as well as a man of infamous character. he was openly accused of the murder of his wife, and there were not wanting many evidences seeming to corroborate this view. it was alleged that efforts to poison her were made, by direction of the earl. that leicester was not incapable of such an act is indicated by the circumstances of his own death. the tradition is that he gave his wife (the third one) a bottle of medicine to be used for faintness. the lady kept it, unused, and later, not knowing it to be poison, administered a dose to her husband, with a fatal result. this lady was the widow of walter, earl of essex, with whom the earl of leicester was carrying on an intrigue before her husband's death. there was a quarrel and essex died suddenly, under some suspicion of poison. leicester's secret marriage with the widow led to serious accusations against him. according to the author of 'leicester's commonwealth,' when the earl fell in love with lady douglas sheffield (who became his second wife), { } her husband suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. leicester had in his employ an italian physician who was a skilful compounder of poisons. it was said that his cunning and skill enabled him to cause a person to die with the symptoms of any disease he might choose, or to administer a poison so that the victim would expire at whatever hour he might appoint. these weird tales no doubt suggested something of the character of the fraudulent alchemist and astrologer, alasco. the stair at the foot of which amy robsart's body was found was a narrow winding flight, something like a corkscrew. it has been pointed out that amy would have had considerable difficulty in hurling herself headlong around the twists and turns of such a staircase with enough force to break her neck. without definite knowledge of the facts, the most reasonable supposition is that lord dudley, having a motive for the crime and being a man of unscrupulous character, would not hesitate to order it committed. his grandfather had been the agent of henry vii in the infamous extortions which gave that sovereign an enormous fortune; his father had not hesitated to risk the lives of his son and an innocent lady to accomplish his own treasonable purposes, besides directly causing the death of the duke of somerset, and indirectly bringing about the execution of the duke's brother, lord seymour. it is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the scion of this ambitious family, who was himself cherishing no less bold a project than his own marriage with the queen, should willingly give orders to remove the one great obstacle in his path. the great festivities at kenilworth occurred in . amy robsart had been dead fifteen years. the earl of { } leicester was none the less entangled, however, for he was at the time married to lady sheffield, who strongly maintained the validity of the marriage, though it was denied by the earl and concealed from the queen. at the same time, also, the intrigue with the countess of essex was in progress. from this it will be seen that although scott departed from the facts of history in bringing poor amy to kenilworth, he nevertheless gave a true picture of the earl of leicester's embarrassment in the presence of his queen. scott softens the black-hearted villainy of the earl, by making him an unwilling victim of his own ambition, duped into deeds of infamy by the determination of the conscienceless richard varney. he admits that he preferred to make the earl 'rather the dupe of villains than the unprincipled author of their atrocities,' because in the latter capacity, he would have been a character too disgustingly wicked for the purposes of fiction. [illustration: cÆsar's tower, kenilworth] according to scott's account, the unfortunate amy, after falling completely into the toils of varney, was carried back to cumnor place, and lodged in a tower room at the top of the building. a gallery, arranged by a secret contrivance to be used as a drawbridge, which, when dropped, would cut off all access to the chamber, was the only means of entrance or exit. after amy had entered the chamber, varney and foster withdrew the supports of the bridge in such manner that the slightest weight would cause it to fall. varney then reached the consummation of his villainy by imitating the whistle of leicester. amy, deceived by the signal and eager to meet her lord, rushed upon the bridge and fell to the deepest vault of the castle. the method of the real { } amy's death is not definitely known, but it was probably by no such elaborate invention. she was doubtless strangled in her room and her body carried to the foot of the stairs to suggest an accidental death. anthony foster lies buried in cumnor church, which stands on land adjoining the site of cumnor place, near the entrance to the village on the road from oxford. it is one of those stone churches, with square, substantial towers and ivy-clad walls, which add to the charm of the landscape throughout the length and breadth of england, as though she intended thereby to express both the beauty and the solidity of her religion. the foster tomb is an elaborate monument of grey marble, within the altar rail, and is easily the most noteworthy feature of the interior of the church. two engraved brass plates represent the family at prayers, and beneath is a long inscription in latin, indicating that anthony foster was a distinguished gentleman of good birth, skilled in the arts of music and horticulture, a good linguist and renowned for charity, benevolence, and religious fidelity. looking upon this elaborate memorial, one cannot escape the conviction that tony foster was either a greatly maligned saint or the parent of a family of hypocrites. if the intention of those who composed the inscription was to convince the world of his innocence, they could not have been expected to foresee that, for every person who should read and understand the epitaph, ten thousand would be led to a perception of foster's real character through the pen of a scottish novelist, but for whom few of us would ever have known the sad story of the lady of cumnor hall. { } as for the earl of leicester, a more truthful epitaph exists, not indeed carved upon stone, but preserved in the collections of drummond of hawthornden. it reads:-- here lies a valiant warrior, who never drew a sword; here lies a noble courtier, who never kept his word; here lies the erle of leister, who govern'd the estates; whom the earth could never living love, and the just heaven now hates. the escape of amy robsart from cumnor place was achieved through the aid of wayland smith, a blacksmith, pedler, and strolling juggler, who had picked up from a former master some knowledge of medicine which he employed to good advantage. there was a legend current in berkshire of a mysterious smith, who lived among the rocks and replaced lost horseshoes for a fee of sixpence, feeling offended if more were offered. scott used this tale as the basis of his story of wayland smith. the idea of having his smithy in a cave may have been suggested by just such a place in gilmerton, a village on the outskirts of edinburgh, with which scott must have been familiar. i had no difficulty in finding it. it is an artificial cavern, with many ramifications, and as the light can enter only from the door at the head of a stone stairway, its farther corners are extremely dark. near the entrance is a blacksmith's forge. in a small and dark alcove opposite is an oblong stone, evidently intended as a dining-table. a rough shelf or ledge, cut out of the stone partition, served as a bench at meal-times. any of the dark corners could be { } used as sleeping-rooms. the cave was probably used by thieves or smugglers as a convenient hiding-place. amy's journey from cumnor village, four miles west of oxford, to kenilworth, in the centre of warwickshire, was a ride of about fifty miles. perhaps the countess's mental condition would not permit her to enjoy it and doubtless the country then was wild and the roads rough; but the route to-day would be a delightful one, especially that part of it which passes through warwickshire with its 'hedgerows of unmarketable beauty.' as they approached the old town of warwick, travelling by circuitous paths to avoid the crowds then journeying to witness the festivities at kenilworth, amy and her humble guide, the blacksmith, passed through some of the most beautiful country in england. but they were obliged to avoid what to-day forms the grand climax of interest to the tourist, the magnificent castle of warwick. this was the resting-place of queen elizabeth on the day preceding her triumphal progress to kenilworth. in those days it was the seat of ambrose dudley, a brother to the earl of leicester and the third son of the notorious john dudley. there was never a time, say the local antiquaries, back as far as the reign of the celebrated king arthur, when warwick did not have its earls. the most renowned of these was guy, a great warrior supposed to stand nine feet high, among whose exploits were the killing of 'a saracen giant, a wild boar, a dun cow, and a green dragon.' after a life devoted to these pleasant diversions, he retired to guy's cliffe, a retreat near warwick, famed for its natural beauty, where he lived as a hermit until his death. the real building of the { } castle began when the normans took possession, william the conqueror granting the vast estate, including the castle and the town, to henry de newburgh, the first earl of warwick. in the fifteenth century it came into the possession of richard neville, the famous 'king-maker.' since that time many improvements have been made, especially in the spacious grounds, which now make a splendid park, with well-kept lawns and paths, stately trees, formal gardens with yews fantastically trimmed, and a profusion of flowers. [illustration: entrance to warwick castle] the entrance road, cut through solid rock, looks as if carved out of soft moss, so thickly does the ivy cling to the walls. trees of varied foliage overarch the path, and near the entrance the edges are bordered by narrow lines of flowers. at the end of this delightful avenue a sharp turn to the left brought us in front of the great castle. on the right is guy's tower, rising one hundred and twenty-eight feet high and having walls ten feet thick. on the left is cæsar's tower, built by the normans eight hundred years ago and still firm as the rock upon which it stands. the two are joined by an ivy-covered wall in the centre of which is a great gate between two towers. passing through this gateway we entered the spacious court. directly opposite is the mound, or keep, almost completely covered from base to summit with trees and shrubs, over the tops of which the towers and battlements peep out. on the right are two unfinished towers, one of them begun by richard iii, the whole side of the quadrangle forming a massive line of ramparts and embattled walls. on the left is the great mansion, occupied for centuries by the earls of warwick. the square formed by these huge stone buildings { } is beautiful in its simplicity--a wide expanse of lawn, its rich velvet green broken only by the white gravel walks. to see the interior of the castle we were compelled to join a party of tourists, and march in solemn procession through the rooms of state, while our guide, an old soldier with a cockney accent, loquaciously explained that his 'hobject' in telling us about the 'hearls' in this room was to prepare us to appreciate the 'hearls' in the next! this agony over, we departed by the road which leads across the avon, where we were rewarded by a superb view of the castle from the bridge. the next day we were at kenilworth. it requires the exercise of a vivid imagination to walk among the ruins and trace the progress of scott's story, but we found it a delightful study. we entered by the little wicket gate, next to the mansion known as the gatehouse, erected by dudley in as the chief entrance to the castle. walking south, across the outer court, we came to the ancient entrance in the southeast angle known as mortimer's tower. from this point an embankment stretched to the southeast for about one hundred and fifty yards. it was eighteen yards wide and twenty feet high. besides serving its original purpose of a dam, to hold back the waters of a great lake covering one hundred and eleven acres, this bank of earth made an admirable tilt-yard. at the extreme end of the embankment was the gallery tower, containing a spacious room from which the ladies could witness the tournaments. a wall eight feet high and eighty-five feet long is all that remains of this structure. it was built by henry iii in the thirteenth century and reconstructed { } by the earl of leicester in preparation for the great festivities. here amy presented herself under strange circumstances. as the wife of the great earl of leicester, the magnificent castle was her own and all its army of servants, and the vast crowd of sight-seers, could they have recognized their countess, would have bowed in humble reverence and have delighted to execute her slightest wish. but she came unknown and unrespected, not as the honoured countess, but as 'the bale of woman's gear' belonging to a blacksmith, disguised as a juggler. at the gallery tower the two strange companions were halted by a giant porter, and gained admission only by the intercession of the mischievous little imp called flibbertigibbet. they traversed the length of the tilt-yard, and passing through mortimer's tower, came in front of the splendid buildings, all with doors and gates wide open as a sign of unlimited hospitality. on their right stood the stately cæsar's tower, a fine specimen of the military architecture of the normans, built about to , and still the best-preserved portion of the ruins. on their left was the great 'leicester's building,' erected in honour of the occasion for the accommodation of the queen. it reached a height of ninety-three feet and was ninety feet long and fifty feet wide. the walls are thin, however, and although the most recent in date of all the important parts of the castle, this structure has crumbled into ruins to such an extent that it can be preserved only by constant attention. between cæsar's tower and leicester's building, and joining the two, amy and her guide saw a stately edifice, { } then known as king henry viii's lodgings, because it was used by that monarch on the occasion of his visits to the castle. the portion on the left, immediately adjoining leicester's building, was called dudley's lobby. no vestige of these structures, which originally formed the eastern side of a magnificent quadrangle, can now be seen. passing through an open gateway between cæsar's tower and king henry's lodgings, the countess entered the inner court. on the right, and in the rear of cæsar's tower, she could see the great kitchens, then a busy part of the establishment, but now showing little more than the remains of a huge fireplace and a thick wall from which project a broken arch or two. on the left were the white hall, now entirely destroyed, and next to it the presence chamber, which had a fine oriel window looking into the court. directly in front amy could see the 'great hall' in which her princely husband had made lavish preparations to entertain the queen with unprecedented extravagance. it was built in the fourteenth century by john of gaunt, son of edward iii, who took up his residence at the castle on the death of his father, and spent the remainder of his life in adding to its magnificence. the hall was ninety feet long and forty-five feet wide. the floor has disappeared, but the remains of the pillars and arches which once supported it may still be seen. the great hall was lighted by large and very high windows, set in deep recesses, the outlines of which are still well preserved. the remains of two large fireplaces, one on each side, may still be seen. at the southern end was a dais, upon which was the throne of state, with crimson canopy of { } richly embroidered velvet. at the opposite end was a minstrel gallery for the musicians. from the centre of the roof hung a chandelier of brass, shaped like an eagle, its spreading wings supporting six human figures, each of which carried a pair of branches containing huge candles. the tables, chairs, cushions, carpets, and silken tapestries were all of the costliest workmanship. it is stated that the earl of leicester spent £ , upon this lavish entertainment, a sum which, to-day, would be better represented by half a million. [illustration: mervyn's tower, kenilworth] amy and her escort were not at liberty to view this regal magnificence. they proceeded across the court to a tower at the northwestern angle, which was doubtless intended for a prison, judging from the thickness of the walls and the small size of the rooms. it was called, for this reason, the strong tower, though scott's name for it is mervyn's tower. during the elizabethan festivities it was used for the accommodation of guests. here we must leave amy for the present and go back to trace the movements of elizabeth. the queen approached by way of the gallery tower, heralded by the roll of drums, the blare of trumpets, the roar of cannon, and the tumultuous shouts of a vast multitude. two hundred thick waxen torches, each borne by a horseman, cast a glare of light upon the cavalcade. the queen, mounted upon a milk-white horse and clad in gorgeous raiment, blazing with jewels, was accompanied by the earl of leicester, 'glittering like a golden image with jewels and cloth of gold.' he rode a jet-black horse, renowned as one of the most splendid chargers in europe. both horse and rider seemed perfectly formed to grace an occasion so glorious. { } a great procession of the most distinguished noblemen, the ablest statesmen, and the proudest knights of england followed the queen, together with the ladies of the court, famed for splendour and beauty and arrayed in garments only a little less magnificent than those of the queen herself. passing upon the bridge or dam which stretched between the gallery and mortimer's tower, the royal procession paused to witness a gorgeous spectacular performance on the lake. then, entering the base court, they moved through various pageants to the inner court, and came at length to the great hall, where the queen was handed to the throne by the earl of leicester. the pleasance was an irregular-shaped enclosure, visible to the west from mervyn's tower and connecting with a rectangular section on the north known as the garden. the latter had a terrace along the castle wall, ten feet high and twelve feet wide, covered with grass and decorated with obelisks, spheres, and stone bears. at each end was an arbour of trees and fragrant flowers. the garden was intersected by walks or alleys, each of which had, in the middle, a square pilaster, fifteen feet high, surmounted by an orb. in the centre of the garden was a fountain of white marble, its pedestal carved with allegorical subjects and surmounted by two atlantes, back to back, holding a ball, from which streams of water poured into the basin. at the side of the terrace was a large aviary, well filled with birds. this was the scene of the dramatic climax toward which the novel trends, where queen elizabeth finally confronts amy robsart and begins to unravel the whole story of leicester's duplicity. { } aside from their associations with the novel, the ruins of kenilworth seem to exert a strong fascination. it is as though nature were reasserting herself. a thousand years ago the domain was untouched by the hand of man. then came kings and conquerors, who replaced the pristine beauty with artificial structures. stately halls and palaces sprang into existence. their inner walls were hung with the costliest of silks. their floors were covered with the richest carpets from the looms of the orient. chairs, stools, tables, and bedsteads of elaborate workmanship, gorgeously covered with lace and embroidered with cloth of gold; paintings; musical instruments; curiously wrought plate, of silver and mother-of-pearl; everything, indeed, that the handicraft of the times could fashion and the wealth of its owners could buy, was brought to the castle in mute testimonial of man's conception of beauty. but these things passed. kings and queens no longer made the castle their home, nor honoured it with even a brief visit. the people seized the government and, jealous lest royalty should again find shelter there, demolished the costly buildings. for the sake of a few pounds of lead, the roofs were torn away and sold. the artificial dam which backed up the waters of the great lake was cut and the waters flowed once more in their natural channels. nature again assumed control. the formal gardens became a green pasture. the spacious courts which had been worn hard by the iron hoofs of countless steeds became soft again with a covering of deep and velvety grass. the proud war-horses vanished and in their place the gentle sheep appeared. the frightful scars on the face of the ruined buildings were concealed { } beneath a rich cloak of deep-green ivy. wall-flowers sprang out of the broken crevices below the arches. all is peaceful, all is still. nature has brought to the castle her own conception of beauty, and once more reigns supreme. { } chapter xxi the pirate the shetland and orkney islands, seen from an aeroplane at great height on a calm day, would resemble, i fancy, two handfuls of gravel thrown upon a horizontal sheet of window-glass. when i was a boy they meant little to me except a few black specks at the top of the map of great britain. upon examining a larger map, an active lad might fancy that it would be great fun to skip from one island to another, or to play tag, leaping over the numerous indentations in the coast. the shetland group is broken into about one hundred islands, stretching north and south for seventy miles, but the total land surface is only five hundred and fifty-one square miles, or less than half the area of the state of rhode island. the orkney group, lying fifty miles farther south, is even smaller, its fifty-six islands containing only three hundred and seventy-five square miles. upon closer acquaintance, however, the islands do not seem so diminutive. great rugged cliffs tower perpendicularly to enormous heights above the sea-level. huge broken fragments of rock form gigantic towers, or stacks, rising out of the sea to a height of hundreds of feet. one of the most picturesque of these, the old man of hoy, would tower above the dome of st. peter's in rome. our small boy, standing on the edge of one of these cliffs, looking down upon the ocean, boiling and seething through strange caverns and natural arches, { } five hundred feet below, would quickly forget his desire to leap to the nearest island. the wildness of the scene is accentuated by the screaming of thousands of cormorants, guillemots, and gulls, mingling with the roar of the sea and the mournful soughing of the wind. we sailed into the sound of bressay, the harbour of lerwick, at twelve o'clock on a saturday night in june. it was still light enough to see plainly, for in these regions the summer sun has to rise so early in the morning that he does not think it worth while to go to bed. expecting to land at the wharf of some quiet little seaport town, we were astonished at the sight which the twilight revealed. a forest of masts crowded the sound, which is here a mile wide. it was at the height of the herring-fishing, and nearly a thousand vessels had arrived to land their fish and enable their crews to spend sunday on shore, for these fishermen observe the sabbath, piously or otherwise, as a day of rest. all the remainder of that night and all day sunday the stone pavements of lerwick resounded to the clatter of wooden shoes worn by the dutch fishermen. these dutchmen are largely responsible for the importance of lerwick, having discovered many years ago that it would be a convenient centre for the curing and shipping of herring. other nations are also represented, particularly norway, sweden, germany, and france, while the native shetlanders still retain a portion of the trade, though relatively a small one. besides filling the harbour, the vessels were crowded along the quays, five or six deep, so that the crews of late arrivals could reach the shore only by crossing the decks of several other ships. as soon as possible after a boat arrives, its cargo is auctioned off at { } the fishmarket, after which it proceeds to one of the curing stations. nearly all the vessels were 'steam-drifters,' which have superseded the old sailing-boats. these drifters usually carry a crew of ten men. their engines are capable of ten knots an hour, sometimes more. as it often happens that profitable shoals of fish cannot be found without travelling at least a hundred miles, the advantage over the old sailing-ships is apparent. crowds of people flock to lerwick in the season to look for employment in the curing establishments. on the little steamer which conveyed us thither, we noticed, in various out-of-the-way corners of the deck, what seemed to be piles of black and brown rags. they were there when we came on board at aberdeen, and remained nearly all the next day. they turned out to be women, huddling together to keep warm, and covered only by their thick dresses and a few old shawls. they belonged to a class known by the not very pleasing, but thoroughly descriptive, name of gutters, and were making their annual trip to lerwick to spend the season in the great curing establishments. these sturdy women become very expert. each fish is eviscerated with two quick motions of the knife, assisted by the thumb and fingers, the process continuing for long hours, at the rate of about two dozen of herring a minute. [illustration: lerwick, shetland] lerwick, the capital of the shetland islands, is a town of picturesque appearance. when it was built there were no carts in the islands, and no occasion for any, for there were no roads. a long zigzag street runs the length of the town, near the shore, and is the main business thoroughfare. a century ago it would have been impossible to drive an ordinary wagon through its narrow and awkward { } turnings. now the buildings are sufficiently altered to admit the passage of teams, but in many places, when a vehicle passes, the pedestrians must step into the nearest doorways. the town is built on a hillside, so that the cross-streets are steep lanes, alternating with short flights of stairs. they have rough pavements, and usually a rail is placed along the buildings for the safety of the pedestrians in icy weather. the main thoroughfare, varying in width from ten to twenty-five feet, is paved with flagging and its stone buildings, though small and of many different shapes, have a substantial look. strolling through the streets of lerwick, one might estimate the population at about five thousand; looking out over the harbour on sunday morning he would be inclined to change the figure to twenty times that number; but again looking seaward on monday afternoon, when the fishing fleet has disappeared, he would doubtless revert to his original estimate. the men of the islands are nearly all fishermen. they work hard in the season, which lasts from june to september, and spend their money, during the long dark days of winter, in various amusements. some maintain small farms of five or ten acres each, known as crofts, where they raise a few cattle and sheep. only about one sixth of the land is under cultivation, and of this about three fourths is pasture land. the soil and climate of the shetlands is decidedly unfavourable to agriculture. the women look after the cattle, till the soil in their small kail-yards, or gardens, bring in the winter supply of peat, and attend to all the duties of housekeeping. in the intervals of their busy lives, they knit shawls and other garments, out of wool which they card and spin { } themselves. indeed, they knit nearly all the time. it is not uncommon to see them walking along the roads or across the moors, with heavy baskets of peat on their backs, the knitting-needles clicking busily, as if every woman had been born with these implements in her hands. on the morning after our arrival we set out to discover the scenes of 'the pirate.' not knowing what changes had occurred since scott's visit to the islands in , i was not sure whether i should be obliged to catch a shetland pony upon which to travel or make up my mind to walk the twenty-seven miles between lerwick and sumburgh head, over a roadless country of rocks and mountains, morasses, and quagmires. it was a delight, therefore, to learn not only that there was a good road all the way, but that lerwick now boasted the possession of an automobile, the only one on the islands. i lost no time in hiring the car, with a chauffeur who said he 'knew the road,' though he afterwards confessed he had never been over it. when he reached the mountainous regions, where the road dodges in and out around a bewildering succession of short curves, along the edges of cliffs from which we could look down upon rugged rocks or into the lakes and voes a hundred feet below, speeding the machine as though he were on level ground and familiar with every foot of it, he gave us a thrill or two at every turn. [illustration: a crofter's cottage, orkney] we started out in the general direction taken by mordaunt mertoun, when he left the comfortable home of magnus troil and his two pretty daughters, minna and brenda, to return to the forlorn habitation of his father at jarlshof. there was just enough strong wind, with occasional dashes of rain, to suggest the storm which { } mordaunt faced. but he had to find his way around the edges of the numerous inland lakes and voes by a kind of instinct, having no path to follow. we travelled, on the contrary, over a good hard road, one of the improvements of the last half-century. most of the people whom we passed had never seen an automobile. they not only hastily gave us the road, but usually climbed high up on the adjacent banks, sometimes dragging their pony-carts after them. one old man, when he saw us coming, hastily took his horse out of the shafts, and rushed up the side of the hill with the animal, to a safe distance of a hundred yards before he dared look back. the horse gazed upon us in mild-eyed curiosity, but the man's expression of terror suggested that he might have seen old norna of the fitful head herself and her leering, sneering, grinning, and goggling dwarf, nick strumpfer, flying along in a vehicle of the devil's own invention. though not particularly grateful for the implied compliment, we were obliged to accept some such explanation of the fact, which became more and more apparent, that the men and women feared us far more than did their horses. at one point we stopped to watch some women gathering peat. only the wealthy can afford to import coal and there is no wood on the islands, because the fierce winds and rocky soil prevent the growth of trees. the universal fuel for the poor is therefore peat, which seems to have been providentially provided. for a fee of half-a-crown a year, or in some cases a little more, paid to some large landowner, each family may take a winter's supply. every crofter's cottage has its peat-stack near the door. peat is simply decayed moss, the most common variety of which is called _sphagnum_. it is a small plant with { } thin, scaly leaves. in the light it has a hue of vivid green, changing in the lower and darker places to a sickly yellow, and finally in the lowest and dampest places, where it is thoroughly decayed, to a deep black. this decayed portion is the peat, which, when well dried, burns with a smouldering fire, of greater heat than an equal weight of wood, but with far greater volume of smoke. the peat-banks resemble miniature terraces, each about a foot high. the cutting is done with a curious spade, with long narrow blade, called a _twiscar_ or _tuskar_. the top layer, consisting of coarse dry grasses and the roots of heather and other plants, is of no value. the second layer is a thick, moist, spongy substance of a dark brown or black colour, while the third is still more compressed, and, but for the moisture, looks somewhat like coal. each spadeful resembles a big, blackened brick, of unusual length. they are laid in rows to dry and finally carried away to the crofter's cottages, generally in baskets. the women swing their heavy loads upon their backs and trudge long distances. occasionally the peat is loaded upon small sledges drawn by ponies. we saw an old woman, with a very pretty granddaughter, loading their fuel upon one of these sledges, which was drawn by a little 'sheltie' with furry coat of pure white. the old woman kindly allowed me to take her picture, a favour which two other women declined to grant, because they did n't have on their best clothes! burgh-westra, the home of magnus troil and his daughters, is purely fictitious. it was supposed to be twenty miles from sumburgh head, which would make it seven miles south of lerwick. we passed numerous voes, as the long arms of the sea are called, any of which { } would have answered the description of the one upon which the udaller's residence was situated, and we could have found many sheltered places among the rocks, corresponding to that in which mordaunt mertoun secretly met brenda, or to the beach of white sand beneath a precipice, where minna offered to pledge her hand to the pirate, cleveland, by the mysterious 'promise of odin.' ten miles below burgh-westra was stourburgh, where triptolemus yellowley and mistress baby took up their residence. this, too, is fictitious. sumburgh head, on the contrary, is very real. it is a rocky promontory, three hundred feet high, at the southern extremity of the mainland, as the largest of the shetland islands is called. conflicting tides, sweeping around the rugged headland from two oceans, make a dangerous current, called the roost of sumburgh, from the icelandic word, _röst_, signifying a strong tide. it has been a menace to navigation for centuries and the scene of countless shipwrecks. the novelist, quite naturally, therefore, made it the scene of the wreck and rescue of cleveland. such a place would appeal strongly to scott, whose visit to the islands was made on a lighthouse yacht, the business of which was to inspect just such points of danger. he climbed the grassy slope to the top of the head, where he could look down from the loftiest crag upon a wild mass of rocks below, and said it would have been a fine situation in which to compose an ode to the genius of sumburgh head or an elegy upon a cormorant or to have written and spoken madness of any kind. instead of doing this he gave vent to his enthusiasm by sitting down on the grass and sliding a few hundred feet down to the beach! { } whether the performance was voluntary or involuntary, he did not see fit to inform us. a short distance north of sumburgh head, and in full view of it, we found the ruins of jarlshof, the abode of basil mertoun and his son. it was a poorly built house of rough, unhewn stone, and even at its best must have been desolate enough. its age and history are not definitely known. robert stewart, a son of james v, who received the earldom of the orkney and shetland islands from mary queen of scots in , may have been the builder. he is known to have dwelt in the house, as did his son, patrick, who abandoned jarlshof after building the castle of scalloway. when scott visited sumburgh he saw nothing in jarlshof more interesting than a ruined dwelling-house, partly buried by the sand, and once the residence of one of the orkney earls. but directly beneath his feet, though he knew it not, was an object that would have delighted his antiquarian instincts more than anything else in the islands. he gave great attention to the old pictish castles or brocks, especially to a small one on the shores of a lake near lerwick, called by him cleik-him-in (clickimin), and later to the larger tower on the island of mousa. here at jarlshof, though the fact was unknown to the inhabitants at the time of scott's visit, there was once a series of brocks, as old as mousa or clickimin, and far more extensive. [illustration: sumburgh head, shetland] this interesting discovery was made in . mr. john bruce, the principal landowner in the parish of kinrossness, upon whose property the ruin of jarlshof stands, noticing the encroachments of the sea after a storm, began to suspect the existence of masonry beneath { } the old castle. two friends who were visiting him saw what seemed to be jutting ends of walls. they threw off their coats and began to excavate, continuing with enthusiasm until they discovered, to their great surprise, evidences of a far more extensive building than they had suspected. mr. bruce then engaged labourers and continued the work of excavation for five years. the castle of jarlshof was erected on top of an older structure, the existence of which was evidently entirely unknown to the builder. the excavations reveal a circular tower sixty-three feet in diameter, similar in design to the other shetland brochs, but larger at the base. its main wall is pierced with a passage three feet wide, evidently leading to a staircase, and it has, within its thickness several chambers. half of the broch has been swept away by the sea. on the west are portions of three smaller buildings, resembling beehives in form, the largest of which is oval in shape with a length of thirty-four feet and a width of nineteen. outside of this structure was a great wall, varying from ten to twenty feet thick. it has been uncovered for a distance of seventy feet. its shape suggests that it may have been part of a great circular wall surrounding the whole group of buildings, of which the central tower was the strongest and most important. away back in the eighth or ninth century, some pictish ruler may have constructed this immense fortress at the southern end of the islands, to repel attacks by sea, and to afford a refuge to the inhabitants in case of danger. had walter scott known of its existence, he would have fairly revelled in the discovery, and perhaps the plot of 'the pirate' might have been different. { } standing on the sands at jarlshof, we could see, toward the northwest, the towering promontory of the fitful head, rising nine hundred and twenty-eight feet above the sea. this seemed a little puzzling at first, for scott places the residence of norna of the fitful head at the extreme northwestern edge of the mainland. the pictish burgh, or broch, which norna is supposed to have inhabited, is on the island of mousa,[ ] off the eastern coast about ten miles north of sumburgh head. the wizard, for a very good reason, set the old tower on the top of a great headland, ten miles to the south-west, and then moved the combination fifty miles to the north. [illustration: cross-section of the broch of mousa] the dwelling of norna, therefore, which to the casual reader seems so weird, was a very real thing. it represents { } one of the earliest forms of architecture, a rude attempt to construct a dwelling of loose stones, without cement or timber, and with very slight knowledge of the art of building. the norsemen did not come to the shetland islands until late in the eighth century and they found many of these brochs already in existence. the most perfect of them all is the one on the island of mousa. it measures fifty-three feet in diameter at the base and thirty-eight feet at the top. it is forty-two feet high. the interior of what appears, externally, to be a rather large building, is less than twenty feet in diameter owing to the peculiar construction of the walls, which are really double. they are seventeen feet wide at the base. inside the walls is a kind of rude stair, or inclined plane, winding around the building, and a series of very narrow galleries or chambers. these receive air through openings in the inner wall, but, excepting the door, there is no aperture in the outer wall. this is the real building which scott made the residence of norna because of his profound interest in it as a structure of unknown antiquity. but standing in full view, firmly planted on a solid and easily accessible rock, its situation was too commonplace for the requirements of the story. he knew well how to create quite a different impression, by supposing the same kind of house situated in a wild and remote locality, on a ragged piece of rock split off from the main plateau and leaning outward over the sea as though the slightest weight would tumble the whole structure, rock and all, into the ocean. then, to supply the needed air of mystery, he fancied it occupied by a crazy old witch, claiming sovereignty over the winds and the seas; her servant an ugly, big-mouthed, { } tongueless dwarf, with malignant features and a horrible, discordant laugh; her favourite pet an uncouth and uncanny trained seal; her companions the unseen demons of the air; and her occupations the utterance of sibylline prophecies and the incantation of weird spells. clearly, all this would have been impossible on the island of mousa, so the author simply adjusted the geography of the country to the requirements of his romance. [illustration: scalloway, shetland] although lerwick is now the only town of importance in the shetlands, the village of scalloway, directly across the mainland on the eastern coast, once held that distinction. it is picturesquely situated on an arm of the sea. approaching from the east, we paused at the top of the hill to look down upon it. just below was one of those long narrow voes, so common in these islands. the whale-hunt described in 'the pirate' came instantly to mind. it was easy to understand how one of these monsters might come in at high tide and find himself stranded at the ebb. at the mouth of this voe and circling around a small bay of its own lies the quaint little village. at the extremity of a point of land between the voe and the bay, rising higher than any of the surrounding buildings, stands the ruined castle of scalloway. it was built in by patrick stewart, the earl of orkney to whom i have previously referred. he was the 'pate stewart' whose name is still a synonym on the islands for all that is cruel and oppressive. he compelled the people to do his bidding. they were obliged to work in the quarries, drag the stone to the town, build the house as best they could without proper appliances, and perform any kind of menial service he might exact. for this they received a penny a day if the earl felt { } good-natured. otherwise they received nothing. if they displeased him they were thrown into dungeons and not infrequently hanged. a huge iron ring near the top of the castle, which was used for this purpose, still bears witness to pate stewart's cruelty. he is said to have boasted that the ring seldom lacked a tassel. as mentioned in 'the pirate,' the inhabitants only remembered one thing to his credit, and that was a law which accorded well with patrick's own ideas of the rights of people to possess their own property. this was the law, so dear to boyish hearts, of 'finders keepers.' property washed up from wrecks at sea belonged to those who found it. there was a prevalent superstition that to save a drowning person was unlucky, and no doubt this was one of the results of pate stewart's ruling. if a man was not rescued he could claim no rights of property. it was this superstition, so prevalent on the islands, that scott wove into his plot, making the rescue of cleveland and the saving of his chest an extremely unlucky occurrence for mordaunt mertoun. we left lerwick at midnight and stood on deck for an hour enjoying the scenery by twilight. the little steamer was loaded to the gunwales with barrels of fish, piled upon the decks in every nook and corner, so that there was scarcely room to stand, making us feel like two very insignificant bits of merchandise in the midst of such a valuable cargo of good salt herring. in the morning we reached the port of kirkwall, the capital and chief city of the orkneys. instead of a long busy quay, lined with hundreds of steam-drifters as at lerwick, we saw an almost empty harbour and a dock, which, but for the arrival of our { } own vessel, would have been deserted. the permanent population of the two towns is about the same, kirkwall having the advantage of the better agricultural facilities of the orkneys. its streets are narrow like those in lerwick. bridge street, up which the pirates marched so insolently to meet the city magistrates, and down which they swaggered again, dragging the terrified triptolemus yellowley, is one of the narrowest of thoroughfares. it is commonly said that here, 'two wheelbarrows tremble as they meet.' at the end, or 'top' of this street we turned to the right and found ourselves in albert street, one striking feature of which is a solitary tree. it was said, enviously, in lerwick, that the people of kirkwall were so proud of this wonderful vegetation that they took it in every night and set it out again in the morning. kirkwall is far more interesting than lerwick because of its historical associations, most of which centre about the cathedral of st. magnus. the ancient building looks almost modern as you approach the wide plaza opening out from broad street. although older than melrose, dryburgh, holyrood, and dunfermline abbeys, all of which are now in ruins, and in spite of the fact that it is built of the soft red and yellow sandstone, it still stands, complete and proudly erect. when melrose was rebuilt, through the munificence of robert bruce in the fourteenth century, the central portions of st. magnus had been standing for two centuries. in the sixteenth century, when an english king was battering down the fine old gothic churches of scotland, the people of kirkwall not only protected their cathedral, but witnessed the addition of some of its finest features, notably the west doorway. in earlier times it had a spire, which, judging { } from the massive columns upon which it rested, must have been an imposing one. the steeple was burned in , and never replaced, except by a stumpy little tower which completely spoils the effect of an otherwise impressive building. the story of the founding of st. magnus is one of the most interesting of the sagas of the orkneys. hakon and magnus, both grandsons of the great earl thorfinn, were joint rulers of the islands. hakon was ambitious and treacherous; magnus was virtuous, kind-hearted, and well-beloved. by a wicked conspiracy of hakon and his associates, the saintly magnus was murdered in the island of egilsay in , bravely meeting his death as a noble martyr. hakon died soon after, and his son paul inherited the earldom. another claimant appeared in the person of rognvald, a nephew of earl magnus, now called 'saint' magnus, a bold and skilful warrior and a born leader of men. before proceeding against paul, rognvald accepted the advice of his father, who told him not to trust to his own strength, but to make a vow, that if, by the grace of st. magnus, he should succeed in gaining his inheritance, he would build and dedicate to him a minster in kirkwall, more magnificent in size and splendour than any other in the north. with the powerful but mysterious assistance of sweyn asleifson, 'the last of the vikings,' who seized earl paul and carried him away bodily, earl rognvald became the sole ruler of the earldom. he set to work at once to fulfil his vow, and began work upon the cathedral in the year . the massiveness of the building is best realized by looking into the nave from the west doorway. the roof { } is supported by immense round pillars of red sandstone, seven on each side. on the north and south of these pillars are long aisles, the walls of which are covered with ancient tombstones, taken up from the floor and set on end. in the north aisle is a mort-brod, or death-board, inscribed with the name of a departed orcadian, whose picture is shown, sitting on the ground in his grave-clothes, a spade over his shoulder, an hour-glass in his lap, and a joyful grin on his face. on the reverse is the following:-- below doeth lye if ye wold trye come read upon this brod the corps of on robert nicholsone whos souls above with god. he being years of age ended this mortal life and of that he was married to jeane davidson his wife. betwixt them children had, whereof left behind the other with him 's in heaven, who's joy's shall never end in the south aisle are some curious tombstones, most of them having carved representations of the skull and crossbones. the death's heads are all much enlarged on the left side, the orcadian idea being that the soul escapes at death through the left ear. { } the pirate, cleveland, it will be remembered, was kept a prisoner in these aisles, and was walking about disconsolately when minna troil entered. concealed from the guards at the door by the huge pillars, they planned an escape. suddenly norna of the fitful head mysteriously appeared, and warning minna that her plan would lead to certain discovery, sent the young woman away. norna then led cleveland through a secret passage out of the church to a place of safety. in the south aisle there is a low arch which formerly led, so it is said, through a secret underground passage to the bishop's palace across the street. this fact doubtless suggested to the novelist the means by which norna might spirit away the captive pirate. across the street which runs by the south side of the cathedral are the ruins of two large mansions. the bishop's palace, which is not mentioned in 'the pirate,' is chiefly interesting from the fact that hakon hakonson, the last of the great sea-kings of norway, after his splendid fleet had been driven on the rocks by the fury of a great storm and there almost annihilated by the fierce onset of the scottish warriors, sought refuge within its walls, only to die a few days later. this was in . how much older the palace is, nobody knows. the earl's palace, with its grounds, occupies the opposite corner, a narrow street intervening between the two ruins. the enclosure is filled with sycamores and other trees, thus refuting the slander of the envious shetlanders. in fact, when we came to look for them, we found more than one enclosure in kirkwall which could boast of fairly good-sized trees. the castle is, or was, a very substantial building, with fine broad { } stairways and many turrets. seen from the south, across the bowling-green, it might be taken for the ruin of some large church. it was built by the notorious patrick stewart, the same earl who abandoned jarlshof, and compelled the people to build him a larger castle at scalloway. by the same methods, he constructed the palace at kirkwall, forcing the people to quarry the stone and do all his work without pay. an example of his tyranny was related to me by a resident of kirkwall. according to this tale, the earl coveted a piece of land adjoining the palace, with which the owner refused to part. patrick, not accustomed to be thwarted in his plans, was quick to apply the remedy. he secretly caused some casks of brandy to be buried in the desired tract. in due time he began to complain that somebody was stealing his liquor and finally charged his neighbour with the offence. the casks were then triumphantly 'discovered' as proof positive. inasmuch as the earl was his own judge, jury, and court of appeals, the poor innocent landowner was quickly condemned, hanged, and his property confiscated. many a man made over a part of his land to the earl on demand, having no alternative. we noticed many portholes under the windows, showing that the castle was intended to serve as a fortress as well as a mansion. this was the secret of the earl's final downfall. the authorities of edinburgh could go to sleep when the earl of the far-distant islands merely oppressed his own people, but to fortify a castle against the king was an act of treason. when patrick stewart and his son robert prepared to maintain their independence by fortifying not only the castle but the cathedral, scotland woke up. the earl of caithness { } was sent against the rebels. robert, who was in command, withstood the siege for one month, when he was overcome, carried to edinburgh, and hanged. patrick took refuge in the castle of scalloway and for a time baffled his pursuers by hiding in a secret chamber. he could not resist the consolation of tobacco and took a few surreptitious pulls at his pipe, while the searchers were in the house. the smoke, or the smell, betrayed him. he was speedily taken to edinburgh, where he paid the penalty on the gallows of a long career of tyranny, cruelty, extortion, confiscation, robbery, and murder. the most interesting room in the earl's castle is the banqueting-hall, which had a high roof or ceiling and was lighted on the south by three tall but narrow arched windows. on one side is a huge fireplace with two arches, the lower one flat. supporting this curious combination are two pillars, on which are carved the initials p.e.o., meaning patrick, earl of orkney, the letters being still legible. in this room cleveland is supposed to have met jack bunce upon his return to kirkwall. the two pirates, after leaving the castle, walked to wideford hill, two miles from the town, where the fair of st. olla was being held. the annual lammas market or fair at this place is still one of the institutions of kirkwall, although no longer so important as in the time of 'the pirate.' if scott took liberties with the geography of shetland, he was scrupulously exact in his treatment of the orkneys. every movement of the brig of magnus troil, as well as those of the pirate ship, can be traced on the map. the latter, it will be recalled, sailed around to { } stromness, where she dropped anchor. two inland lakes, known as the loch of stennis and the loch of harray, now favourite resorts for anglers, lie northeast of the town. they are separated by a narrow causeway called the bridge of brogar. this is the place where the pirates landed their boat on the night of the final tragedy of the story. we found the locality one of the most interesting in the islands. at the entrance of the bridge stands a huge, rough-hewn stone, eighteen feet high, known as the 'watch-stone' or 'sentinel.' this is the largest of the 'stones of stennis,' a collection of ancient monoliths comparable in great britain only to those of stonehenge. at the farther end of the bridge is the so-called 'circle of the sun,' a ring about one hundred and twenty yards in diameter, surrounded by a trench about six feet deep. the stones composing this circle are from eight to sixteen feet high and of irregular shape. one of them is at least five or six feet wide. there were about forty stones originally, but now only fifteen remain standing. a smaller group, known as the 'circle of the moon,' but composed of larger stones, stands in a field near the eastern end of the bridge. a horizontal stone, laid on top of these vertical ones, makes a rude table or altar. this may have been a place of druidical sacrifices, if the most prevalent belief is to be accepted, or possibly the work of scandinavian hands. it was by this table of stone that minna stood, to meet and bid farewell to her lover, looking like a druidical priestess, or, if the scandinavian theory be accepted, 'she might have seemed a descended vision of freya, the spouse of the thundering deity, before whom some bold sea-king or champion bent with an awe { } which no mere mortal terror could have inflicted upon him.' [illustration: the standing stones of stennis] the stone of odin formerly stood on the east side of this circle. minna had offered to pledge her faith to cleveland by the 'promise of odin' and norna of the fitful head had married her lover by the same rite. this stone differed from the others only in the fact that it had a round hole near the base. lovers who found it inconvenient to be married by a priest, or who wished to plight their troth by some unusually solemn vow, resorted to this stone, and a promise here given was regarded as sacred and never to be broken. the marriage ceremony was peculiar. the couple first visited the circle of the moon, where the woman, in the presence of the man, knelt and prayed to the god woden, or odin, that he would enable her to perform all her obligations and promises. they next went to the circle of the sun, where the man in like manner made his prayers. then they returned to the stone of odin, where, the man standing on one side and the woman on the other, they joined hands through the hole and took upon themselves the solemn vows of matrimony. such a marriage could never be broken. scott visited the stones of stennis in . had he arrived a year later he would not have seen the stone of odin, for some irreverent orcadian broke it up, probably to help build the foundation of his cottage. leaving, with some reluctance, these relics of a civilization more than a thousand years old, we resumed our journey toward stromness. the town lies on the slope of a hill, resembling lerwick in this respect and in the closeness of the houses to the sea. some of the buildings { } stand so near the water that parts of the bay look like a miniature venice. our motor-car frequently occupied the entire width of the street, sidewalks and all, as we twisted our tortuous course for a mile along the main thoroughfare. from the high ground behind the town, we had a fine view of the sea, and across the sound, the great towering island of hoy, the highest and most impressive of all the orkney group. on the western side a long line of precipitous cliffs, rising a thousand feet above the sea, opposes an unbroken front to the full force of the atlantic. at the western end as we saw it from above stromness, the rocks form the profile of a man's face, not so stern as that in the franconia notch of the white mountains, but having rather a more genial look. it is said to resemble sir walter scott, a likeness which, i confess, i could see only when i shut my eyes and thought of chantrey's bust. the island of hoy plays an important part in 'the pirate.' it was the original home of norna when the old witch was a handsome young girl. the dwarfie stone, where she met the demon trolld, and bartered her life's happiness for the power to control the tempests and the waves of the sea, is on the southwest slope of ward hill, the highest peak of which rises to a height of over fifteen hundred feet. it is in a desolate peat-bog, two miles from the nearest human habitation. the stone is about thirty feet long and half as wide. hollowed out of the interior is a chamber, with two beds, one of them a little over five feet long. it is difficult to conceive why any human being should have taken the trouble to cut out the rock for a hermitage or place of refuge, or why any one should seek so desolate an abode. { } tradition therefore affirmed that the rock was fashioned by spirit hands and was the dwelling of the elfin dwarf, trolld. it was to this island that norna conducted mordaunt after he had received a wound at the hands of cleveland. it was at stromness that scott, in , made the acquaintance of bessie millie, an aged dame who made her living by selling favourable winds to mariners at the reasonable price of sixpence each. the touch of insanity, and the strong influence she possessed over the natives of the island, who feared her power, were strongly suggestive of norna. this old sibyl related to scott the story of john gow, whose boyhood was spent in stromness. this daring individual had gone to sea at an early age and returned to the home of his youth, a pirate, commanding a former english galley of two hundred tons which he had captured and renamed the 'revenge.' he boldly came ashore and mingled with the people, giving dancing-parties in the village of stromness. before his real character was known he became engaged to a young woman, and the two plighted their troth at the stone of odin. the houses of his former neighbours were plundered and many acts of insolence and violence committed. at length, through the exertions of a former schoolmate, gow was captured with his entire crew and speedily executed at london. the young woman journeyed to london, too, for the purpose of touching her former lover's dead body. in that way only, according to the superstition of her country, could she obtain a release from her vow and avoid a visit from the pirate's ghost, in case she should ever marry. gow's brief career furnished an excellent model for cleveland, { } though the author endowed his 'pirate' with some very commendable qualities which the prototype probably did not possess. bessie millie, the old hag of stromness, needed, in addition to her own eccentricities, only a few touches of the gipsy nature, to make her a good 'original' for norna. a local preacher in the parish of tingwall, whom scott met on his visit to shetland, is said to have suggested triptolemus yellowley. three or four families, in whose homes the novelist was a welcome visitor, have laid claim to the honour of supplying the 'originals' of minna and brenda troil. these two delightful characters, however, were no doubt intended merely to embody the ideal of perfect sisterly affection, and external resemblances to real people, though such might easily be fancied, were probably far from the author's purpose. [illustration: stromness, orkney] for the rest, the great charm of 'the pirate' lies in the expression of the novelist's enthusiasm for the fresh and fascinating scenery of a wild country, where strange weird tales are wafted on every breeze, where the quaint customs of past ages are still retained, where nature reveals herself in a constant succession of new and ever captivating forms, where the rush of the wind and the roar of the sea impart fresh joys to the senses and fill one's soul with renewed veneration for the power that rules the elements. as we sailed away for aberdeen, it was with very much the same feeling which scott expressed at the close of his diary of the vacation of .[ ] he said he had taken { } as much pleasure in the excursion as in any six weeks of his life. 'the pirate' was not written until seven years later, but it carries as much freshness and enthusiasm as though it had been composed on the return voyage. [ ] cross-section of the broch of mousa. _a, a._ rooms in circular wall, connected by a rude spiral stair. _b, b._ windows opening into inner court. [ ] the diary, containing a full account of the visit of , in a lighthouse yacht, to the shetland and orkney islands, the hebrides, and the northern coasts of scotland and ireland, is printed in full in lockhart's _life of scott_. { } chapter xxii the fortunes of nigel hitherto our exploration of the scott country had revealed a never-ending succession of ruined castles, palaces, and abbeys; of picturesque rivers, lakes, cataracts, and quiet pools; of seashores where thunderous waves dashed against precipitous cliffs; of quaint villages and queer-looking dwelling-houses; of weird caverns and strange monuments suggesting the superstitions and fantasies of bygone ages; of pleasant meadows, wild moors, rounded hilltops, and rugged mountains; of a thousand tangible objects of interest which had in some way suggested to sir walter the theme for a poem or story. but when we reached scott's london, the camera, which had faithfully recorded all the other scenes, refused to perform its function. the tangibleness of the subjects had ceased. my lenses have excellent physical eyes but no historical insight. they insist upon seeing things as they are and will not record them as they once existed. the london of nigel olifaunt has completely disappeared and in its place a new london has arisen. to photograph the city of to-day as the scenes of nigel's adventures, would be like painting the 'purchase of manhattan island from the indians' with a background of fifty-story 'sky-scrapers.' from such a task my faithful camera shrank, and i was obliged to lay it aside, to turn over, for several days, the pages of { } some huge piles of books on old london in the british museum. lockhart, who places 'the fortunes of nigel' in the first class of scott's romances, says that his historical portrait of king james i 'stands forth preëminent and almost alone.' this, indeed, is the whole object of the book,--to picture the london of king james and the personal peculiarities of that monarch. scott was thoroughly saturated--so to speak--with the history and literature of that period, and especially with the dramas of ben jonson and his contemporaries; and this enabled him to picture the manners of the time almost as if they were within his personal recollection. it is an amusing portrait of a pompous, strutting, and absurd monarch who yet possessed enough learning, as well as ready wit, to gain the title of 'the wisest fool in christendom.' through his famous tutor at stirling castle, george buchanan, who freely boxed the royal ears and administered spankings the same as to other boys, the king had early acquired a certain taste for learning. he evinced a fondness for the classics and yearned to become a poet. he wrote in verse a paraphrase of the revelation of st. john and a version of the psalms, besides prose disquisitions on every conceivable subject. his conversation, as described by scott, was a curious compound of latin, greek, english, and the broad scotch dialect. his tastes, as well as character, were suggested by the appearance of a table in the palace, which, says the novelist, 'was loaded with huge folios, amongst which lay light books of jest and ribaldry; and, amongst notes of unmercifully long orations, and essays on kingcraft, were mingled miserable roundels { } and ballads by the royal 'prentice, as he styled himself, in the art of poetry, and schemes for the general pacification of europe, with a list of the names of the king's hounds, and remedies against canine madness.' a man of medium height and somewhat corpulent, james managed to make his figure seem absurdly fat and clumsy, by having his green velvet dress quilted, so as to be dagger-proof, for he was both timid and cowardly. the ungainly protuberance thus artificially acquired was accentuated by a pair of weak legs, which caused him to roll about rather than walk, and to lean on other men's shoulders when standing. 'he was fond of his dignity while he was perpetually degrading it by undue familiarity; capable of much public labour, yet often neglecting it for the meanest amusement; a wit, though a pedant; and a scholar, though fond of the conversation of the ignorant and uneducated.' [illustration: sketch map of london] contrasting strongly with this weak and ludicrous character, scott introduced the sterling qualities of a noble scotchman, george heriot, to whom edinburgh is indebted for one of her most splendid benevolent institutions, heriot's hospital, where for nearly three centuries the poor fatherless boys of the city have been transformed into eminent and useful citizens, honoured and respected in many parts of the world. george heriot, nicknamed by the king 'jingling geordie,' was the son of an edinburgh goldsmith, to whose business he succeeded. at thirty-six years of age he had the good fortune to be appointed goldsmith to queen anne, and shortly after, goldsmith and jeweller to her husband, then james vi of scotland. on his accession to the english throne as james i, in , heriot followed the king { } to london. in those times, and until the eighteenth century, goldsmiths commonly acted as bankers. heriot made full use of his unusual opportunity and laid the foundation of a large fortune. disheartened by the loss of his young and beautiful wife, who died at the age of twenty-one, heriot made a will leaving his entire property, amounting to £ , , for the establishment of the hospital. his picture is thus described in a quotation copied by scott in one of his notes: 'his fair hair, which overshades the thoughtful brow and calm, calculating eye, with the cast of humour on the lower part of the countenance, are all indicative of the genuine scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success and a disposition to enjoy it.' the weakness of james is still further accentuated in the novel by the introduction of his imperious favourite, george villiers, the first duke of buckingham, whom the king called 'steenie,' from his fancied resemblance to the portrait of the martyr, stephen, as painted by the italian artists. 'james endured his domination rather from habit, timidity, and a dread of encountering his stormy passions, than from any heartfelt continuation of regard towards him.' the king's favour, nevertheless, made buckingham the richest nobleman in england (with possibly a single exception) and the virtual ruler of the kingdom. the constant companion of the duke was baby charles, as james insisted upon calling his son, afterward king charles i, for whose ruin and death on the scaffold james was himself, all unconsciously, rapidly paving the way. david ramsay, the whimsical { } and absent-minded watchmaker, who kept shop in fleet street, near temple bar, was a real character, who held the post of 'watchmaker and horologer' to james i. his most famous performance was a search for hidden treasure in the cloister of westminster abbey, by the use of mosaic rods, or divining rods, which, according to the current account, failed solely because of the presence of too many people. the irreverent laughter of these persons caused a fierce wind to spring up so suddenly that 'the demons had to be dismissed' for fear the church would fall in on them. these are the real characters of the story. to identify the scenes a good map of old london, will accomplish more than a personal visit. such a map need only follow the windings of the thames, which for centuries was the great silent highway of london,--a distinction which it did not lose until the beginning of the nineteenth century. over the highway passed the royal barge of elizabeth, as described in 'kenilworth,' and it was by this same method of travelling that george heriot conducted his young friend, nigel, to the presence of the king at whitehall. for the streets of the city were narrow and crowded, and rioting, as the result of debauchery and licentiousness, was not infrequent, so that few cared to ride on horseback, and carriages, except for the high nobility, were entirely unknown. so the thames was the one great artery through which flowed both the business and social life of the city. when king george and queen mary, at the recent coronation, passing through the admiralty arch in trafalgar square, turned into whitehall on their way to westminster abbey, their route lay between great { } rows of government buildings, lined with thousands of cheering subjects. had conditions remained as they were in king james's time, this part of the triumphal procession would have been entirely within the limits of their own royal palace. whitehall palace, originally built in , was for three centuries called york house, or york place, taking its name from the fact that it was the london residence of the archbishop of york. under cardinal wolsey it was rebuilt and refurnished in a style of magnificence excelling anything ever before known in england and equal in splendour to the best in the palaces of the kings. with the fall of wolsey in the mansion became the property of king henry viii, who changed the name to whitehall, and proceeded to enlarge and improve both the palace and the grounds. a plan published in shows that the buildings, with their courtyards and areas, then covered twenty-three acres. it included a cock-pit and a tennis-court, on the site of the present treasury buildings, and the horse-guards parade was then a tilt-yard. these arrangements sufficiently suggest some of the favourite amusements of royalty. henry viii took great delight in cock-fighting and james i amused himself with it regularly twice a week. queen elizabeth found pleasure in tournaments and pageants, and it is recorded that in the sixty-seventh year of her age she 'commanded the bear, the bull, and the ape to be bayted in the tilt-yard.'[ ] king james i found the palace in bad repair and determined to rebuild it on a vast and magnificent scale. { } inigo jones, one of the most famous architects of his time, was employed and made plans for a building, which, if completed, would have covered an area of twenty-four acres. judging from drawings now in the british museum, it seems a pity that this admirable project was never fully executed. only the banqueting-hall was finished, and this still remains as the sole survivor of the palace of whitehall. its chief historical interest lies in the fact that, from one of its windows, charles i stepped out upon the scaffold where he was beheaded. if we were to follow ancient custom and use the thames for our highway, as did two hundred peers and peeresses at the late coronation, we should now row down the river and land at charing cross pier, where we should find the remnant of the sumptuous palace built by 'steenie,' the duke of buckingham. this is the york water gate, formerly the entrance to the duke's mansion from the thames, but now high above the water, overlooking the garden of the victoria embankment. continuing down the river, we should stop at temple pier, and visit the temple gardens, where nigel walked in despair, after his encounter with lord dalgarno in st. james's park, and where, it will be remembered, he fell in with the friendly templar, reginald lowestoffe. the temple property was granted in by james i to the benchers of the inner and middle temple for the education of students and professors of the law. oliver goldsmith lived in middle temple lane, and in the same house, sir william blackstone, the great english jurist, and william makepeace thackeray, also had chambers. { } dr. johnson lived in inner temple lane, as did charles lamb, who was born within the temple. coming out into fleet street, we should stand before the figure of a griffin on a high pedestal, which marks the site of temple bar. in scott's time it was an arch crossing the street, and in the time of king james, merely a barricade of posts and chains. when the coronation procession passed this point, king george v, according to ancient custom, paused to receive permission from the lord mayor to enter the city of london. the civic sword was presented to the king and immediately returned to the lord mayor, after which the procession resumed its march. within temple bar and on the north side of fleet street, between fetter lane and chancery lane, is st. dunstan's church, built in on the site of an older church building. a few yards to the eastward, according to scott, was the shop of david ramsay, the watch-maker, before which the two 'stout-bodied and strong-voiced' apprentices kept up the shouts of 'what d'ye lack? what d' ye lack?'--very much after the fashion of a modern 'barker.' this was the opening scene of the novel, though not suggested in the slightest by the fleet street of to-day. on the opposite side a narrow lane, called bouverie street, leads down toward the river along the eastern boundary of the temple, into 'whitefriars,' or alsatia, where nigel was compelled to take refuge for a time in the house of the old miser, trapbois. the 'friars of the blessed virgin of mount carmel,' otherwise known as the 'white friars,' established their london house in , between fleet street and the thames, on land { } granted by edward i. this carried with it the privileges of sanctuary or immunity from arrest, which were allowed to the inhabitants long after the dissolution of the religious houses. indeed, before the suppression of the monastery, the persons of bad repute, who had flocked to the district in great numbers, were wont to make so much disturbance with their continual clamours and outcries, that the friars complained that they could not conduct divine service. the privilege was confirmed by james i, and in his time, as a consequence, 'alsatia,' as the district came to be called, was one of the worst quarters in london. it was the common habitation of thieves, gamblers, swindlers, murderers, bullies, and drunken, dissipated reprobates of both sexes. its atmosphere, thick with the fogs of the river, fairly reeked with the smell of alehouses of the lowest order, which outnumbered all the other houses. the shouts of rioters, the profane songs and boisterous laughter of the revellers, mingled with the wailing of children and the screaming of women. the men were 'shaggy, uncombed ruffians whose enormous mustaches were turned back over their ears,' and they swaggered through the dirty streets, quarrelling, brawling, fighting, swearing, and 'smoking like moving volcanoes.' they waged a ceaseless warfare against their proud and noisy, but not so disreputable, neighbours of the temple. coming back to our imaginary trip by river (for we really visited these sites either on foot or by taxi-cab), we continue down the river, passing under blackfriars bridge, and stop for a moment at paul's wharf, near where nigel found quarters in the house of john christie, the honest ship-chandler. journeying { } onward, we pass under london bridge, which in james's time was the only means of crossing the river, other than by boat. it was then overloaded with a great weight of huge buildings, many stories high, under which passed a narrow roadway. at the southern entrance was a gate, the top of which was decorated with the heads of traitors. all the buildings were finally cleared away in and . passing under london bridge we soon come to the tower of london, which the unfortunate nigel entered through the traitor's gate. from the time of william the conqueror, by whom its foundations were begun, until the reign of charles ii, the tower of london was used as a palace by the kings of england. it has been said that the 'strong monarchs employed the tower as a prison, the weak ones as a fortress.' it was as a prison that the tower achieved its unenviable fame in history as london's lasting shame; with many a foul and midnight murder fed. in its dark precincts many of the noblest of england's men and women found themselves prisoners, the majority of them perishing upon the block. anne boleyn and katherine howard, wives of henry viii; lady jane grey and her husband guildford dudley; the father[ ] and the grandfather[ ] of dudley; and sir walter raleigh were among the most famous of these victims. nigel was confined in the beauchamp tower, where many distinguished persons were imprisoned. the inscriptions to which scott refers may still be seen, including that { } of lady jane grey, though it is probable that this was written by her husband or by his brother, who is supposed to have carved the device of the bear and ragged staff, 'the emblem of the proud dudleys,' which is an elaborate piece of sculpture on the right of the fireplace. to complete our survey of the scenery of 'the fortunes of nigel,' we have to continue our journey down the thames until we land in greenwich hospital and the royal naval college, which occupy the site of the old royal palace, formerly called placentia or pleasaunce. it was a favourite royal palace as early as , though it passed into the hands of the nobility and came back to the crown in on the death of humphrey, duke of gloucester. it was the birthplace of king henry viii and of mary and elizabeth. the building was enlarged by henry viii, james i, and charles i. charles ii caused it to be pulled down, intending to carry out some ambitious plan, but succeeded in erecting only the building which is now the west wing of the hospital. back of the palace is an extensive park of one hundred and ninety acres. this is where nigel unexpectedly encountered the king, at the very climax of a stag-hunt, frightening him nearly to death; and here he was unceremoniously arrested and hurried off to the tower. the park still has herds of deer, though they are no longer hunted, and a row of fine old chestnuts, originally planted by command of charles ii, who laid out the enclosure. in the centre is a hill, surmounted by the famous royal greenwich observatory, from whose meridian longitude is reckoned and whose clock determines the standard of time for all england. just as 'the heart of midlothian' had produced { } a vivid picture of life in edinburgh during the reign of george ii, so 'the fortunes of nigel' reproduced the life of london in the time of king james. for this brilliant study, not only of the curious monarch, but of the strange manners and customs as well as the lawlessness of the city, which the king's folly did so much to create, the novel has been generally accorded a very high rank among scott's productions. [ ] quoted from sydney's 'state papers,' in _the old royal palace of whitehall_, by edgar sheppard, d.d. [ ] john dudley, duke of northumberland. [ ] edmund dudley, the notorious agent of king henry vii. { } chapter xxiii peveril of the peak 'old peveril' was one of the pet nicknames with which scott was dubbed by some of his young legal friends in parliament house, and he carried the sobriquet for the remainder of his life, taking great delight in it. he did not, however, take much pleasure from the composition of the novel, finding it a tiresome task from which he could only find relief by planning its successor. it marks the beginning of a malady which ultimately proved fatal. scott concealed the symptoms from his family, but confided to a friend that he feared peveril 'will smell of the apoplexy.' it proved a heavy undertaking, covering a period of twenty years of exciting history and three distinct, but widely differing, localities, namely, derbyshire, the isle of man, and london in the time of charles ii. in the high peak country of derbyshire, about fifteen miles west of sheffield, lies the village of castleton, nestling snugly at the foot of a somewhat precipitous hill. away back in the time of william the conqueror, a son of that monarch received a grant of large estates in derbyshire, and selected the very summit of this steep and almost inaccessible rock as the site of his castle. his name was william peveril and the bit of a ruin which still remains, high in the air above the village, is called peveril castle. we reached it after a very hard climb, by a steep path running zigzag across the face of a long { } grassy slope. it was scarcely worth the effort, for the 'castle' is now only a small square tower, of no interest whatever, except from the fact that it gave the name to one of the waverley novels. the domain of this william peveril seems to have extended far to the south of castleton, and included in it was the site of haddon hall, a fine mediæval mansion, picturesquely situated on the river wye, between bakewell and rowsley, and still in wonderfully good repair. the peverils held the property for about a century, when they were deprived of the lands by king henry ii. in , haddon came into the possession of the vernon family, who continued to reside there for nearly four centuries. the last of the name was sir george vernon, who became celebrated as the 'king of the peak.' his large possessions passed into the hands of his youngest daughter, dorothy, whose elopement and marriage with john manners, youngest son of the earl of rutland, threw about the old mansion that atmosphere of poetry and romance which has ever since been associated with it. to me, the most pleasing part of the old hall is the terrace and lawn, back of the house. a flight of broad stairs, with stone balustrades, leads to dorothy vernon's walk, which is shaded by the thick foliage of oaks, limes, sycamores, and other forest trees, for which the park was once famous. grassy mounds mark the boundaries of the lawn, and the castle walls, with their wide windows and luxurious mantle of deep green ivy, add a delightful charm to the picture. this is further enhanced by the romantic associations of the place. traditions say that john manners, who, for some reason, was forbidden the opportunity to { } visit the fair dorothy openly, hovered about these terraces disguised as a forester, seeking brief interviews in secret. on the night of a ball in celebration of her sister's wedding, dorothy slipped into the garden, and passing through the terrace made her way across the wye over a quaint little bridge, built just large enough for a single pack-horse, and now known as the 'pack-horse bridge.' on the other side, john waited with horses, and the two rode away to be married. whatever may have been the objection to the marriage, events soon adjusted the affair and dorothy vernon became the sole owner of the mansion. it has remained ever since in the possession of the manners family, the earls and dukes of rutland. in his description of martindale castle, the seat of sir geoffrey peveril, scott doubtless had in mind, to some extent at least, this more pretentious mansion on the original property of the peverils, rather than the uninteresting tower at castleton. he refers to haddon hall in one of his notes as having suggested a certain arrangement of rooms, and in his account of lady peveril's dinner to the cavaliers and roundheads, in honour of the restoration of king charles ii, he makes use of two large dining-rooms, which haddon hall could readily supply, but which might be difficult to find in any ordinary mansion of the period. [illustration: the pack-horse bridge, haddon hall] lady peveril, it will be remembered, in spite of the 'good fellowship' and 'reconciliation' which the banquet was to celebrate, dared not permit the rival factions to dine together, so she adopted the unique expedient of placing the jovial cavaliers in the hall, while the strict puritans occupied the large parlour. the great hall of { } haddon is about thirty-five feet long and twenty-five feet wide. at one end is an ancient table, many centuries old, and at the other is a minstrel's gallery, with carved panellings and ornamented by stag's heads. a great open fireplace gives a suggestion of good cheer, even to the bare room. back of this is another large dining-room on the oaken walls of which are some fine old carvings. it also has a large open fireplace, above which is the motto _drede god and honor the kyng._ the room was formerly larger than now and may have been in the author's mind as the scene of the puritan part of the banquet. haddon hall, however, although it doubtless furnished some few suggestions, must not be taken as an 'original' of martindale castle. the novelist never felt the necessity of an exact model, but freely used the places with which he was familiar for such suggestions as they might chance to furnish. in his later work he often described localities which he had never visited, frequently doing so with an exactness suggesting the most intimate personal knowledge. this was true of the isle of man, which scott had never seen, but which he describes in 'peveril of the peak' with great accuracy, relying for his information upon waldron's 'description of the isle of man,' published in . after an interval of several years following the events in derbyshire, julian peveril appears as a visitor at castle rushen, in the southern end of the isle of man. tradition says that this ancient castle was founded in the tenth century by guttred, the son of a norwegian { } chief named orry, who took possession and with his sons and successors reigned for many years as kings of the isle of man. later the earls of derby ruled as monarchs of the island and castle rushen was their royal residence. the traditional castle of the norwegians was replaced in the thirteenth century by a strong fortress of limestone. this was partly destroyed by robert bruce in and remained in ruins for three centuries. it was then rebuilt by the earls of derby in its present form. the central keep is a strong tower with walls twenty-two feet thick at the base and about seventy feet high. it is surrounded by an embattled wall twenty-five feet high and nine feet thick. on the tower facing the market square is a clock presented in by queen elizabeth. in , james stanley, celebrated as 'the great earl of derby,' became lord of the island. this nobleman was executed in , charged with the crime of assisting charles ii before the battle of worcester. during his absence in england the castle rushen was heroically defended by his wife, the brave charlotte de la tremouille, countess of derby. william christian, popularly known as william dhône, or 'the fair-haired william,' had been entrusted by the earl with the care of his wife and children. whatever may have been his motive, the receiver-general, by which title christian was known, surrendered the island without resistance, on the appearance of the parliamentary army, and the countess was imprisoned in the castle. after the restoration of charles ii, the countess accused christian of treachery to herself and brought about his execution in . { } these were the main facts which, coming to the novelist's attention through his brother, thomas scott, who for several seasons resided in the isle of man, attracted his fancy and suggested the writing of 'peveril of the peak.' peel castle, to which the action of the story is soon transferred, stands on a rocky islet off the western coast of the island. it was once a vast ecclesiastical establishment and now contains the ruins of two churches, two chapels, two prisons, and two palaces. of these the best preserved and most interesting is the cathedral of st. germain, a cruciform building, some parts of which were built in the thirteenth century. in a crypt below was the ecclesiastical prison where many remarkable captives were confined, the most notable of whom was eleanor cobham, wife of humphrey, duke of gloucester, who was accused of witchcraft and of devising a wicked plot to kill the king and place her husband upon the throne. higher up on the rock are the remains of st. patrick's church, in the walls of which are some good examples of the 'herring-bone' masonry indicating great antiquity. the walls are thought by antiquarians to date back to the fifth century. behind this is the remarkable round tower, about fifty feet high, which mr. hall caine has introduced in 'the christian.' the custodian, when he learned of our interest in sir walter scott, could scarcely restrain his anxiety to show us fenella's tower. this is a bit of the surrounding wall, containing a small square turret. beneath is a narrow stairway, forming a sally-port, through which entrance could be gained to a space between two { } parallel outside walls. in time of siege, soldiers could go out and fire at the enemy from this place of concealment through openings in the walls. if hard-pressed they could retire to the tower and pour scalding water or hot lead upon an attacking body. in scott's tale, julian peveril, seeking to leave the castle by this stair, is intercepted by fenella, who is anxious to prevent his departure. finally eluding her grasp, he hastens down the stair only to be confronted again by the deaf-and-dumb maiden, who has accomplished her purpose by leaping over the parapet. we gazed down from the walls upon a ledge of rocks at least fifteen feet below and concluded that, for a little girl, this was a pretty big leap! [illustration: the saxon tower, isle of man] the keep and guard-house near the entrance was the scene of the manx legend of the moddey dhoo, a large black spaniel with shaggy hair, which haunted peel castle. this dog is referred to in 'the lay of the last minstrel': for he was speechless, ghastly, wan, like him of whom the story ran who spoke the spectre-hound in man. the moddey dhoo was the terror of all the soldiers on the island, who believed he was an evil spirit, only awaiting an opportunity to do them harm. at length, a drunken soldier declared he would find out whether the animal were dog or devil. he departed bravely, with much noise and boasting, but none dared follow. when he returned the fellow was sober and silent. he never spoke again, but three days later died in agony. the remaining scenery of 'peveril of the peak' is london in the time of charles ii. the 'dark and shadowy' city had now attracted nearly all the personages of { } the story. in st. james's park, adjoining the palace of whitehall, fenella danced with wondrous grace and agility before the king. as in 'the fortunes of nigel,' the thames is the great highway of traffic, and julian peveril is carried by coach to the river from old newgate prison, and thence by boat to the tower, which, like nigel, he enters through the traitor's gate. the savoy, a dilapidated old pile, where julian unexpectedly meets fenella, was once a great palace. it was built by simon de montfort, the great earl of leicester, in . in the following century it was almost demolished by a mob, but in king henry vii restored and rebuilt the palace and converted it into a hospital. half a century later, queen mary refounded and reëndowed the institution. in the time of the story the building was probably not so antiquated and ruinous as scott describes it. charles ii, after the restoration, used it as the meeting-place of the savoy conference for the revision of the liturgy. in scott's time it was ruinous enough and since then has entirely disappeared. westminster hall, where the trial of the peverils was held, is now the vestibule of the houses of parliament. it was originally built by william rufus, son of the conqueror, in , but afterward destroyed by fire and rebuilt. in it some of the earliest english parliaments were held and it has been the scene of many coronation festivals. the novel gives a graphic picture of the gay, dissipated, and scandalous court of charles ii, and an excellent portrait of that selfish, indolent, and sensual, but witty and good-natured monarch. his chief favourite, george villiers, the second duke of buckingham, is painted in no more flattering colours. he was a statesman of fickle { } character who could not long be trusted by any one. he was a writer of verses, farces, and comedies, a musician, and a man of great talent and accomplishments; but he was a profligate, absolutely insincere and without principle. 'peveril of the peak' cannot be considered one of scott's best novels. it has never been popular. scott himself tired of it, and even lockhart can find little to say in its praise. lady louisa stuart, who was one of scott's most valued friends, summarized it all, at the end of a good-natured criticism, with the remark: 'however, in all this i recognize the old habit of a friend of mine, growing tired before any of his readers, huddling up a conclusion anyhow, and so kicking the book out of his way; which is a provoking trick, though one must bear it rather than not _have_ his book, with all its faults on its head. the best amends he can make is to give us another as soon as may be.' { } chapter xxiv quentin durward the true 'scott country' is limited strictly to scotland, england, and wales. so long as he remained upon the soil of his own native kingdom, sir walter wrote of what he had seen and for the most part traversed only familiar ground. in scotland, he was equally at home in the lowlands or highlands. he visited england often enough to know well the inspiring mountains of cumberland and westmoreland, the hills and valleys of northumberland, the broad expanse of yorkshire, with its delightful scenery and many historical associations, the moorlands of derby, the charming roads and pleasant villages of nottingham, leicester, warwick, and oxford, and the highways and by-ways of the ever-fascinating london. with the history, the legends and the poetry of his own country he was as familiar as a child would be with the environment of his own home. they were a part of the mental equipment that had been developing steadily from the time he was three years old. when he stepped out of this familiar region, for the first time, there came a remarkable change, and in january, , when he began the composition of 'quentin durward,' we find him floundering about in a sea of gazetteers, atlases, histories, and geographies. on the d of that month he wrote to constable:--'it is a vile place, this village of plessis les tours, that can baffle { } both you and me. it is a place famous in history ... yet i have not found it in any map, provincial or general, which i have consulted.... instead of description holding the place of sense, i must try to make such sense as i can find, hold the place of description.' fortunately he had the assistance of his friend skene, who about this time returned from a tour in france, and placed at the disposal of the author a great variety of sketches of landscapes and ancient buildings, besides a journal full of accurate notes; for the novelist's artist-friend knew from long companionship exactly what would be most appreciated. though a stranger in a strange land, scott was not entirely alone, for he took with him into the unknown country three good scotchmen, namely, quentin durward, whom he made an archer in the scots guard of king louis xi; the picturesque and interesting le balafré, quentin's uncle, already a guardsman; and lord crawford, the aged commander of the guard, a scotch nobleman, whose great ability and experience had won the esteem and confidence even of the suspicious king. this was surely a stroke of genius. the old scotch friends of the novelist could not help following with interest the thrilling adventures of their countrymen in a foreign land, while, on the other hand, the tale raised up a host of new admirers in france and throughout the continent. the frenchmen saw with amazement king louis xi and charles the bold suddenly come to life and, under the skilful direction of the scottish wizard, walk about again amidst some of the most stirring scenes of european history. not in all their literature had the french people seen such striking { } portraiture of these famous men nor such vivid pictures of the ancient manners of their own people. a line, nearly straight, drawn diagonally across the map of france and belgium, representing a distance of perhaps three hundred and fifty miles, will fairly suggest the geography of 'quentin durward.' its southwestern extremity would be tours, about one hundred and forty-five miles from paris. it would pass through péronne, in the north of france directly east of amiens; then dropping slightly to the south, and across the border of belgium would reach its northeastern termination in the city of liège. the town of tours was much favoured in the fifteenth century by the frequent visits of charles vii, louis xi, and charles viii, in consequence of which it then reached its highest state of prosperity. it was long famed for its silk industry, founded by louis xi. two miles west of the town, on a low marshy plain between the rivers loire and cher, and close by a hamlet of a few scattered cottages, is the famous castle of plessis les tours, where the action of the story begins. only a fragment of the original structure now remains, as part of a modern château. the old castle looked more like a prison than a king's palace, and seemed well adapted to be the den of the 'universal spider,' as louis came to be called, from which he could weave his dangerous web in every direction and ensnare the feet of those whom he selected for his prey. it was in this dismal place that louis xi shut himself in the last days of his life, weak from illness and pain and almost insane from distrust. here he died, in , to the great joy of the kingdom. { } every year he had added new walls and ditches to his fortress. the towers were covered with iron as a protection against arrows. eighteen hundred heavy planks bristling with nails were placed outside the ditches to impede the approach of cavalry. four hundred crossbowmen manned the towers and the villainous tristan l'hermite had full authority to seize and hang any innocent stranger whom he might choose to suspect. as i write, i have before me two pictures:--one a contemporary print of the ancient castle, the other a portrait of the king. the former, a group of low, irregular buildings, with slanting roofs and small barred windows, having a chapel attached to one end, contains nothing whatever to suggest a royal palace. the latter shows the face of a sly, cunning, unscrupulous plotter, full of cruelty, baseness, vulgarity, and hypocrisy, yet terribly in earnest and revealing the features that mark an irresistible will. i can almost fancy a resemblance between the two pictures. the mean unpretentiousness of the castle and its lack of symmetry suggest the unprepossessing appearance of the king, whose whole aspect was vulgar, his clothing purposely plain and often untidy and his manners completely devoid of dignity and common courtesy. its numerous defences, including turrets, battlements, ditches, and drawbridges, suggest the constant fear of treachery in which the king lived, never daring to regard his most intimate companions with aught but jealous suspicion. the real strength of the fortress, in spite of its ugliness and apparent insignificance are typical of the tremendous power of this monarch, who pursued his purposes without regard to truth, decency, honour, or human rights, reducing the { } people to a state of abject poverty and misery, yet enlarging the borders of france to nearly their present extent, reorganizing the army, centralizing the government, and laying the foundations of the nation in its modern form. one might almost indulge the whimsical notion that the little chapel to which i have referred, pointing heavenward with an attenuated spire of absurdly slender proportions, symbolizes the king's own feeble efforts to point in the same direction. his piety was manifested by a dozen 'paltry figures of saints stamped in lead' which he wore on the band of his hat. he endeavoured to atone for the most atrocious acts of selfishness and cruelty by gifts of money and outward penance, continuing his wickedness all the while, but apologizing for it in his prayers to the saints. but the crowning act of hypocritical piety, as well as the most absurd, was his attempt to insure his ultimate salvation by the unique expedient of creating the virgin mary a countess and an honorary colonel of his guards. this was the strange, but intensely interesting, character, whom scott, making free use of the 'memoirs of philippe de comines,' one of the king's most intimate councillors, succeeded in portraying so vividly that the tale of which he is the real hero has won universal recognition as a novel of genuine historical value. a few miles southeast of tours is the ruin of a castle still more terrible in its suggestiveness than even plessis, for here louis xi perpetrated deeds of secret cruelty, which he shrank from committing within the walls of his own palace. it is the castle of loches, for many years a royal residence. it is interesting to scotchmen from { } the fact that it was the scene of the royal wedding of king james v to the princess magdalene, in whose honour the palace of linlithgow was remodelled and greatly embellished. the castle is now a pile of ruined buildings, standing on the summit of a lofty rock, where it dominates the landscape. its principal tower is one hundred and twenty feet high, with walls eight feet thick. its date is said to be the twelfth century. a part of it is now the local jail, and the building has been used as a prison for centuries. beneath were dungeons under dungeons, dimly lighted by narrow windows, cut through small recesses in the walls, which are here ten or twelve feet thick. in two of these were the iron cages invented by cardinal john de la balue. he was a cobbler, some say a tailor, whom louis elevated to the highest rank and employed in his secret devices. the cage was built of iron bars and was only eight feet square. the cardinal proved a traitor to his king and the latter's severity kept him in the dungeon cells for eleven years, a part of which time, at least, was spent in one of the cages of his own invention. the governor and gaoler of this dreaded prison was oliver le daim, the king's barber and prime minister. the events culminating in the murder of the bishop of liège were, of course, purely fictitious. scott did not hesitate to 'violate history,' as he afterward expressed it, to meet the requirements of his story. the actual murder of the bishop occurred in , fourteen years after the period of the novel and five years after the death of charles the bold. william de la marck, called the 'wild boar of ardennes,' wishing to place the mitre { } on the head of his own son, entered into a conspiracy with some of the rebellious citizens of liège, against their bishop, louis de bourbon. the latter was enticed to the edge of the town, where he was met by the fierce and bloodthirsty knight, who murdered him with his own hand and caused the body to be exposed naked in st. lambert's place, before the cathedral. scott's version, never intended to be historically accurate, places the scene of the murder in the fictitious castle of schonwaldt, outside the city. the description of the meeting of louis xi and charles the bold at the town of péronne and the king's imprisonment in the castle, while somewhat amplified with fictitious details, is in the essential facts quite in accord with history. péronne is a small town of great antiquity, ninety-four miles northeast of paris, in the department of the somme. its castle still retains four conical-roofed towers in fairly good repair. on the ground floor are many dark and dismal dungeons. in one of these miserable cells charles the simple, in the year , ended his days in agony. he was confined in the tower by the treachery of herbert, count of vermandois, and left there to starve to death. adjoining this room, in what is known as the tour herbert, is the chamber said to have been occupied by louis xi. great was the surprise and alarm among the retainers of louis when that monarch, trusting to an exaggerated notion of his own wit and powers of persuasion, proposed to visit his most formidable adversary, charles of burgundy, at the town of péronne. the latter granted the king's request for a safe-conduct, and louis set forth in october, , accompanied by a small { } detachment of his scots guard and men-at-arms, and two faithless councillors, the constable de st. pol and the cardinal de la balue. the duke met the king outside the town and together they walked in apparent friendliness to the house of the chamberlain, charles apologizing for not taking the king to the castle because it was not in fit condition. some portion of the duke's army arrived the same day and encamped outside the walls. learning this, the king became greatly frightened and demanded quarters in the castle--a request which charles granted with great, but secret, glee. the next day brought forth nothing but ill-feeling and misunderstanding, which was brought to a climax by the news from liège. it was reported that the emissaries of louis had stirred up sedition against the duke, and had killed the bishop of liège, and the lord of humbercourt. charles was a man of tremendous passions and this news threw him into a fury which he made little attempt to control. his royal guest became his prisoner, the gates of the town and the castle were closed, and for a time louis was in danger of his life at the hands of his enraged vassal. louis, meanwhile, remained calm, making full use of his native shrewdness, keenness of penetration, and unusual cunning. by a liberal use of money, with which he had sagaciously provided himself, the duke's servants were corrupted wherever he could hope to secure information or assistance. his craftiness, however, proved unnecessary. charles cooled off after a day or two and realized that he could not well afford to violate his safe-conduct. meanwhile the news from liège turned out more favourably. the bishop had not been slain and the revolt had been less serious than { } supposed. charles, however, compelled the king to swear a new treaty, which louis did by taking from one of his boxes a piece of the 'true cross,' a relic, formerly belonging, so it was said, to charlemagne, which louis regarded with great veneration. the oath upon the cross duly made, louis accompanied his captor on an expedition against the town of liège, the particulars of which were not essentially different from the version of scott. the novel brings out to great advantage the striking contrast between the king and the duke. charles was strong, vigorous, clear-sighted, and in the words of philippe de comines, 'a great and honourable prince, as much esteemed for a time amongst his neighbours as any prince in christendom.' the great fault of his character was that expressed in the sobriquet, charles the rash; and this was the cause of his downfall. that, however, is a tale which scott reserved for a later novel. though received at first with apparent indifference, 'quentin durward' came in time to be regarded as one of the best of the waverley novels, dividing the honours, in the minds of the boys, at least, with 'ivanhoe' and 'the talisman.' { } chapter xxv st. ronan's well if, as i have said in the preceding chapter, the true scott country comprises the united kingdom, except ireland, the inner circle of that country, the _sanctum sanctorum_, so to speak, must be considered as including that part of scotland lying between the firth of forth and the english border; or, more strictly, the counties of edinburgh, peebles, selkirk, and roxburgh. this was scott's home, his workshop, and his playground. from the spring of to the early winter of , a period of nearly twenty-five years, he performed the duties of clerk of the court of session. this required his presence in edinburgh usually from the th of may to the th of july and from the th of november to the th of march, excepting an interval at christmas. this meant from four to six hours' work a day for four or five days each week, extending over about six months of every year. during the sessions of the court his residence was no. , north castle street, a three-story stone dwelling-house, within sight of edinburgh castle. the day after the rising of the court usually found its distinguished clerk ready to 'escape to the country.' for six years his retreat was the little thatched cottage at lasswade, in the vale of the esk. the next eight summers found him at ashestiel, and after that abbotsford was the lodestone that drew him from the city. scott loved the wide sweep of the bare hills, especially { } when tinged with the purple hue of the heather. their pure air was the tonic which had saved his life, when as a child he rolled about on the rocks of smailholm, a companion of the sheep and lambs. their streams gave him an opportunity to lure the salmon from their hiding-places. their rounded summits gave him many a distant view of battle-fields, famed in the border warfare, which filled up centuries of scottish and english history. their pleasant glens and thickets gave him delightful walks in the woods. their hospitable cottages extended him a never failing welcome, and yielded up to him, from the lips of hundreds of old wives, a treasure of scottish ballads, songs, and tales of border chivalry. their castles and mansions threw open their doors at his approach, rivalling the humbler dwellings in the cordiality of their greeting. no wonder scott loved the border country. 'it may be partiality,' said he to washington irving, 'but to my eye, these grey hills and all this wild border country have beauties peculiar to themselves. i like the very nakedness of the land; it has something bold, and stern, and solitary about it. when i have been for some time in the rich scenery about edinburgh, which is like ornamented garden land, i begin to wish myself back again among my own honest grey hills; and if i did not see the heather at least once a year, i think i should die!' it was while riding with lockhart and willie laidlaw, along the brow of the eildon hills, looking down upon melrose, one fine afternoon in july, , that the suggestion came which led eventually to 'st. ronan's well.' 'quentin durward' had recently appeared and scott, commenting upon its reception, remarked that he { } could probably do something better with a german subject. 'na, na, sir,' protested laidlaw, 'take my word for it, you are always best, like helen macgregor, when your foot is on your native heath; and i have often thought that if you were to write a novel, and lay the scene here in the very year you were writing it, you would exceed yourself.' 'hame 's hame,' smilingly assented scott, 'be it ever sae hamely. there's something in what you say, willie.' although laidlaw insisted that his friend should 'stick to melrose in july, ,' scott took a little broader field and made the scene of 'st. ronan's well,' the valley of the tweed. this was the country which he had pictured in 'the lay of the last minstrel,' at the very beginning of his fame. he had come back to it for a bit of the scenery of 'the monastery' and 'the abbot.' these, however, were romances of an earlier period. he was now for the first time to write of his own country in his own time. the tale was to depict society life, not of the wholesome and genuine kind to which scott was personally accustomed, whether in edinburgh or the country, but of the type he had seen at various watering-places and summer resorts which he had visited. [illustration: the tweed and eildon hills] 'st. ronan's well' may be considered a true picture of this society or a caricature, according to one's own sympathies. some of its readers have been able to find among their own 'social set,' lady penelope penfeather, sir bingo and lady sinks, mr. winterblossom, dr. quackleben, and even the 'man of peace,' captain mungo macturk, and have praised or condemned the author's portraits according to their own predilections toward such personages. { } scott saw something of this life at gilsland in the memorable summer of , the year when he met miss carpenter at the dance in shaw's hotel. below the hostelry is a deep and attractive glen, through which flows the river irthing, and just above the bridge spanning the river, is one of those mineral springs, which have the strange power, whatever may be their medicinal virtues, of drawing hundreds of people away from their homes in the summer months. there is another of these springs at innerleithen, on the banks of the tweed, and for this reason--for i can see no other--the people of that town have laid claim to the honour of residing in the original 'st. ronan's.' innerleithen, now a prosperous town of about three thousand inhabitants, is situated amid the hills which border the tweed in the most picturesque part of its course. in scott's time it was only a small village. traquair, on the contrary, a few miles to the south, was of more importance in scott's time than now, when it is a mere hamlet, remarkable for nothing except the fine old feudal mansion to which i have previously referred.[ ] if we are to think of innerleithen, then, as the 'ancient and decayed village of st. ronan's' we must picture it, not as the thriving commercial town of to-day, but more like its neighbour on the south. of course i felt anxious to taste the waters of the real st. ronan's well, and made a journey to innerleithen for the purpose. i gained nothing beyond the experience of exchanging a good shilling for a bad drink. one taste was enough, and when the girl was n't looking i threw the rest away. i found an old two-story house in the { } town which claims to be the original 'cleikum inn'--a claim which is disputed by a public house in peebles, 'the cross keys hotel,' formerly a pretentious seventeenth-century mansion. the latter was kept in scott's time by a maiden lady named marian ritchie, who seems to have possessed some of the characteristics which the novelist exaggerated in his delightfully humorous picture of meg dods. she found fault with the new 'hottle,' and did not hesitate to vent her sarcasm upon those travellers who ventured to stay there in preference to her own respectable inn. scott, according to local history, was occasionally one of her guests. she ruled with a rod of iron, permitting no excesses, and did not hesitate to send a young man 'hame to his mither' if she suspected him to be imbibing too freely. scott gave this model landlady the real name of a hostess whom he had patronized when only seventeen years old. it was on a fishing excursion to a loch near howgate, in the moorfoot hills, when scott and three of his boon companions stopped at a little public-house kept by mrs. margaret dods. it was thirty-five years later when, in writing 'st. ronan's well' the novelist adopted the name of the real landlady for his fictitious character. so far as the rival claimants of the 'cleikum inn' honours are concerned, i do not believe that scott had any particular house in mind, either for the 'inn,' or the 'hottle.' nor can i find any evidence of the existence of an 'original' for shaw's castle, the family seat of the mowbrays, though raeburn house, near st. boswell's green may be taken as a excellent type. the same doubt applies to the village of st. ronan's itself. scott's { } design seems to have been merely to place the scene of his story, broadly speaking, in the valley of the tweed. this picturesque stream rises in the high lands near moffat and flows north through a country still wild and solitary. a score of miles or less from its source, it makes a bend toward the east, above the town of peebles, and from this point, until it discharges its waters into the north sea at berwick, there is scarcely a bend in the river or a village or town on its banks that does not suggest memories of sir walter scott. from the high ground overlooking the river, just at the point where it bends to the east, we had a view, through the trees, of surpassing beauty. below was the ancient castle of neidpath, once a scene of stately splendour, when nobles and monarchs frequented its halls, and richly attired ladies promenaded in the well-kept gardens, laden with the perfume and brilliant with the hues of many flowers; when well-ordered terraces lined the banks of the stream and orchards smiled from the surrounding hillsides. amid such scenes the 'maid of neidpath' sat in the tower,-- to watch her love's returning-- and broke her heart when the lover came and passed with heedless gaze-- as o'er some stranger glancing.[ ] time and nature, working together as landscape artists, have converted the castle into a picturesque ruin, and replaced the artificial gardens and terraces with thick groves of fine old trees, clothing the hillsides { } with a richer and deeper verdure, and leaving only the river as of yore, still brightening the scene with the sparkle of its silvery tide. in the distance we could see the spires and chimneys of peebles. [illustration: scott's tomb, dryburgh] following the river, we passed innerleithen, six miles below peebles, and a short distance beyond we paused for a moment to look toward the ruins of elibank, high up on the hillside. this was scott's favourite objective point for a summer afternoon walk from ashestiel, and the scene of the famous legend of 'muckle-mouthed meg.'[ ] two miles farther on is ashestiel, where scott spent many happy summers. keeping the left bank we soon came to a place where we could see abbotsford on the opposite side of the river--and a charming view it makes. then comes melrose with all its varied associations. driving toward the east, we ascended a hill near the summit of bemerside heights and halted to enjoy 'scott's favourite view.' below was a bend of the river marking the site of old melrose, the establishment which preceded the more pretentious abbey in the village. far away were the summits of the eildon hills. on the day of scott's funeral, the procession climbed this hill on the way to dryburgh abbey, the hearse being drawn by sir walter's own coach-horses. at the spot where we were standing, it is said, the faithful animals halted of their own accord, not knowing that their master could no longer enjoy his favourite view. we soon came to the beautiful ruins of dryburgh abbey, where scott lies buried. it is a place he was fond of visiting, so much so that in a letter to miss carpenter, before they were married, he referred to it { } with enthusiasm, adding, 'when i die, charlotte, you must cause my bones to be laid there.' this brought a lively reply from the young lady: 'what an idea of yours was that to mention where you wished to have your _bones laid_. if you were married, i should think you were tired of me. a very pretty compliment _before marriage_.... take care of yourself if you love me, as i have _no wish_ that you should _visit_ that _beautiful_ and _romantic_ scene, the burying-place.' still farther to the east lies kelso, where scott spent several summers with a relative and attended the village school; while in the valley below lie the principal scenes of 'marmion.' in the hills to the north, between melrose and kelso, is sandy knowe, the farm of the poet's grandfather, where the fresh air of the scottish hills gave a new lease of life to the child of three years. some recollections of these early days found their way into 'st. ronan's well,' published nearly half a century later. a frequent visitor at the fireside of sandy knowe was the parish clergyman, dr. duncan, who perhaps failed to appreciate the presence of a poet in embryo. scott had early committed to memory long passages from ramsay's 'tea-table miscellany' and one or two other favourite volumes, which he would shout at the top of his voice, regardless of the presence of the good minister, who would testily exclaim, 'one may as well speak in the mouth of a cannon as where that child is.' the old gentleman lived to be nearly ninety. 'he was,' says scott, 'a most excellent and benevolent man, a gentleman in every feeling, and altogether different from those of his order who cringe at the tables of the gentry or domineer and riot at those of the yeomanry.' there { } seems to be no doubt that in the personage of mr. josiah cargill, the shy, absent-minded, but learned and conscientious, and always lovable, clergyman of 'st. ronan's well,' scott drew a portrait of the excellent divine whom he had learned to respect in his early days. [ ] see _ante_, p. , chapter viii, 'waverley.' [ ] _the maid of neidpath_, . [ ] see _ante_, chapter , page . { } chapter xxvi redgauntlet i was standing, one afternoon, among some rugged rocks, half covered with sand and seaweed, which lined the shores of the solway firth, when my attention was suddenly attracted by a large black horse ridden by a woman. they were far away from shore and the animal seemed to be lightly cantering over the surface of the water. i suddenly realized the peculiar characteristic of the solway. the tide was going out and what seemed to be the surface of a wide, inland sea was in reality a broad stretch of glistening white sand, still wet enough to catch and reflect the rays of the sun. in spite of the fact that the rider was a woman, i was reminded of the thrilling incident that marks one of the earlier chapters of 'redgauntlet.' darsie latimer had wandered out in the late afternoon over the wet sands of the solway, watching with great interest the exertions of some horsemen, who were intent upon the sport of spearing salmon. the ebb of the tide leaves numberless little pools, formed by the inequality of the surface, and in these the fish dart about, making frantic efforts to escape to deeper water. the horsemen chase the salmon at full gallop, striking at them with their spears,--a form of amusement requiring great skill and perfect horsemanship. the riders had ceased their sport and were returning to the shore, while darsie lingered on the sands. suddenly he heard an abrupt voice, calling out, { } 'soho, brother! you are late for bowness to-night'; and, turning, recognized the most expert of the salmon fishers, a tall man riding a powerful black horse. darsie replied that he was a stranger and about to return to the shore. 'best make haste, then,' said the fisherman. 'he that dreams on the bed of the solway, may wake in the next world. the sky threatens a blast that will bring in the waves three feet abreast.' the young man, not realizing the danger, had to be warned a third time, and finally was pulled up on the horse behind his rescuer, who was compelled to gallop to safety at full speed. at a later time, the tall fisherman, who proved to be hugh redgauntlet, kidnapped young latimer, whom he had recognized as his long-lost nephew, and carried him in a cart across the solway to england. while lying on his back upon some sacks of straw, his arms and legs tightly bound with cloth bandages, darsie again heard the rush of the advancing tide. he 'not only heard the roar of this dreadful torrent, but saw, by the fitful moonlight, the foamy crests of the devouring waves, as they advanced with the speed and fury of a pack of hungry wolves.' one or two of the great waves of the 'howling and roaring sea' had reached the cart, when he was again rescued by redgauntlet in much the same manner as before. the reality of these fearful tides exceeds even scott's vivid description. in a volume published more than eighty years ago[ ] by a local writer, i find this account:-- during spring tides, and particularly when impelled by a strong southwester, the solway rises with prodigious { } rapidity. a loud booming noise indicates its approach, and is distinguishable at the distance of several miles. at caerlaverock and glencaple, where it enters the nith, the scene is singularly grand and imposing; and it is beautiful to see a mighty volume of water advancing, foam-crested, and with a degree of rapidity which, were the race a long one, would outmatch the speed of the swiftest horses. the tide-head, as it is called, is often from four to six feet high, chafed into spray, with a mighty trough of bluer water behind--swelling in some places into little hills, and in others scooped into tiny valleys, which, when sunlit, form a brilliant picture of themselves. from the tide-head proceed two huge jets of water, which run roaring along, searching the banks on either side--the antennæ, as it were, which the ocean puts forth, and by which it feels its way when confined within narrow limits. a large fire-engine discharging a strong stream of water bears a close resemblance to this part of the phenomena of a strong spring tide; but the sea-water is broken while the other is smooth, and runs hissing, or rather gallops, along in a manner to which no language of ours can do justice. between bowness, the northernmost point of cumberland, and whinnyrig, south of annan in dumfriesshire, the solway is only two miles wide. it is now safely crossed by a railroad bridge, but two generations ago the scottish farmers and dealers were in the habit of crossing the sands at low tide to save a long and tedious detour of about thirty miles by way of carlisle. many a belated traveller, missing his way in the darkness or the fog, has been overtaken by the tide and lost. all the scenes of 'redgauntlet,' except those in edinburgh and dumfries, are laid near the shores of the solway. shepherd's bush and brokenburn, imaginary places, of course, may be considered to be somewhere on the scottish side near annan. mount sharon, the { } residence of the kind-hearted joshua geddes, supposed to be in the same vicinity, was really modelled after some pleasant recollections of the author's boyhood at kelso. it was a place of quiet contentment, where one might wander through fields and pastures and woodlands by convenient paths amid scenes of peaceful beauty. even the partridges and the hares had learned the kindly nature of the good quaker and his amiable sister, and did not fear their approach. scott drew the charming picture of the quaker household from his early friendship for the waldie family in kelso. their son robert was one of his school-fellows. he spent many happy hours in their hospitable home, where he was treated with the utmost kindness by robert's mother, universally known in the neighbourhood as lady waldie. a privilege which scott particularly appreciated was the permission to 'rummage at pleasure' through the small but well-selected library which the good lady's deceased husband had left her. on the english side of the solway, the wampool river, where the jumping jenny landed alan fairford, along with a cargo of contraband goods, including gunpowder for the use of the jacobites, may be easily found on the map. the english scenes were laid between here and carlisle, but the story of the visit to this region of charles edward, disguised as father buonaventure, is pure fiction, and of course the localities cannot be identified, except burgh-upon-sands, where there is a monument to edward i, to which hugh redgauntlet refers as the party is passing by. the english residence of hugh redgauntlet to which darsie was conducted by his captor, described as ancient { } and strong, with battlemented roof and walls of great thickness, but otherwise resembling a comfortable farmhouse, is purely fictitious. we visited, however, on the scottish side of the solway, a splendid modern castle, which, judged by an old painting of the place as it was in , would admirably fit the description. this is hoddam castle, five miles southwest of the village of ecclefechan, carlyle's birthplace, where we spent a night in one of the quaintest little inns in scotland, a survival of the time when scottish inns offered few comforts to the traveller, but made up for it in proffered sociability. hoddam castle is beautifully situated in the midst of a grove of fine trees overlooking the river annan. a battlemented tower, surmounted by conical turrets, rises high above the extensive modern structure surrounding it. this is the ancient building, for centuries occupied by the herries family. scott originally intended to call his novel 'herries' instead of 'redgauntlet,' and was with much difficulty persuaded by constable to accept the latter title. the old castle was built in the fifteenth century by john, lord herries, to whom was granted an extensive tract of land, extending over three or four counties. the herries family, to which hugh redgauntlet is supposed to belong, was always powerful. in their later years, like their fictitious descendant, its members were ardent supporters of the stuart family. john maxwell, who took the name of lord herries upon his marriage, was a zealous defender of mary queen of scots. he assisted her escape from loch leven castle, fought for her at langside, escorted her, after the battle, to his { } own house in galloway, and thence to dundrennan abbey, and finally conducted her, in a small vessel, to england. his descendant, william, the ninth lord herries and fifth earl of nithsdale, participated in the jacobite uprising of . he was made a prisoner at preston and sent to the tower, where he was tried and condemned to death. his countess, with rare courage and resourcefulness, first forced her way to an audience with the king in st. james's palace, and pleaded on her knees for her husband's life. finding this ineffectual, she paid a last farewell visit to her husband, taking several lady friends with her. they succeeded in disguising the earl in feminine apparel and thus effected his escape. when darsie latimer was obliged, at his uncle's command, to wear petticoats as a means of concealing his identity, he was only following the example of one of his ancestors. [illustration: hoddam castle] in the castle and barony of hoddam passed from the herries family to john sharpe, and remained in the hands of his heirs until very recent times. one of these was charles kirkpatrick sharpe, scott's intimate friend, who helped collect the 'minstrelsy of the scottish border,' to which he contributed two ballads. scott was a frequent guest at his house, and he often dined with scott's family in edinburgh or at abbotsford. he was a man of distinction in letters and an artist as well. two well-known etchings by him, the 'dish of spurs' and 'muckle-mouthed meg,' besides a caricature of queen elizabeth, adorn the walls of abbotsford. his ancestors, like the herries family, were ardent jacobites. the sharpes claimed relationship to the notorious { } grierson of lag, who was the original of sir robert redgauntlet in 'wandering willie's tale.' sir robert grierson, who was born in and died in , was an infamous scoundrel who took fiendish delight in persecuting the covenanters. in his drunken revels he made them the theme of scurrilous jests. in a vaulted chamber of his castle of lag, now in ruins, he had an iron hook upon which he hanged his prisoners. often he would amuse himself by rolling his victims down a steep hill in barrels filled with knives and iron spikes. he was an object of terror and hatred through all the neighbouring country and for many years after his death was represented in theatrical productions as a hideous monster. scott heard in his youth the wild tales of the terrible grierson, and made them the basis of the story told by wandering willie. if by redgauntlet castle we mean the house of the blind fiddler's hero, we must take for its original the ancient ruin of lag castle, built in the fourteenth century; but if the seat of the herries family is meant, hoddam castle is of course the prototype, even though scott places it on the english side of the solway. a bit of scenery worth recalling in connection with this novel is the marquis of annandale's beefstand, or as it is now called, the devil's beef tub, the place where the laird of summertrees had his wonderful adventure, escaping from his captors by rolling, over and over, like a barrel, down the steep incline that leads to the bottom of the hollow. it is as lonely and desolate a spot as we saw anywhere in scotland. the hills circle about to form a huge bowl, in the rim of which there is apparently no break, so that one wonders how the little brook at the { } bottom manages to find an outlet so as to remain a brook at all, instead of accumulating its waters to form a great natural lake. the old border raiders used the hollow as a convenient place in which to collect stolen cattle. from the road on the rim it seems to be a dark, dismal hole, without sign of life except an occasional ring of earth and stone, built for the protection of the sheep. scott knew personally a jacobite gentleman, who escaped at this place in precisely the same manner as 'pate-in-peril,' while being taken to carlisle a prisoner for participation in the 'affair of .' 'redgauntlet' is autobiographical to a greater extent than any other of scott's novels. it is true that 'waverley' gives a hint of his own early love of reading, while 'the antiquary' reflects his interest in the relics of an older civilization. indeed, bits of personal reminiscence are woven into nearly all his tales. but 'redgauntlet' more directly reveals scott himself and those nearest to him than any or all of the others. the voluminous correspondence of alan fairford and darsie latimer is full of recollections of school days in edinburgh, when as a boy scott climbed the 'kittle nine stanes,' a difficult and dangerous passage over the steep granite rock upon which the castle stands, or helped 'man the cowgate port,' an ancient gateway to the city from which the youngsters in snowballing time annoyed the passers-by and defied the town guard. one of his most intimate companions in the days when he was reading law was william clerk, whom he describes as a man of acute 'intellect and powerful apprehension,' but somewhat trammelled with 'the fetters of indolence.' there is no doubt that scott himself was the original of { } alan fairford nor that william clerk was the model for darsie latimer. the fine portrait of saunders fairford, who was so anxious to have his son 'attain the proudest of all distinctions--the rank and fame of a well-employed lawyer,' was drawn from scott's own father, many years after the death of that worthy gentleman. mr. saunders fairford, ... was a man of business of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. punctual as the clock of st. giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the little hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court-hall ... trimly dressed in a complete suit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woolen, as suited the weather; a bob wig and a small cocked hat; shoes blacked as warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles and a gold stock-buckle. a nosegay in summer, and a sprig of holly in winter, completed his well-known dress and appearance. even peter peebles, the poor old derelict, ruined by a lifetime of perpetual litigation, was a real character, well known in edinburgh, and scott himself, in common with most young lawyers, took his turn in 'practising' on this case. the re-introduction of charles edward, who was so fascinating as a figure in 'waverley,' was not so successful. in the earlier novel, his movements are, in the main, historically accurate. his reappearance, twenty years later, under circumstances purely fictitious, is by comparison almost wholly lacking in interest. there is, however, a certain attractiveness about the enthusiasm of his ardent supporter, hugh redgauntlet, and the { } book is not lacking in minor characters, who are almost as fascinating as any of the novelist's earlier creations. wandering willie is one of these--the blind fiddler who holds communication with the captive darsie, by the rendering of appropriate tunes, the words of which the latter is quick to recall and clever enough to interpret. another is nanty ewart, the skipper of the jumping jenny, who can read his sallust like a scholar, and appeals to one's sympathies in spite of his dissipation. although 'redgauntlet' was at first received somewhat coldly, it is nevertheless true, in the words of lady louisa stuart, that 'the interest is so strong one cannot lay it down.' its lack of value historically is more than offset by the personal interest of its characters and the many episodes of intense dramatic realism. [ ] _picture of dumfries, with historical and descriptive notices_, by john mcdiarmid, . { } chapter xxvii tales of the crusaders the two stories published simultaneously under this title are widely different in character. in 'the betrothed,' the reader gets no glimpse of the holy land, though he is amply compensated by a view of some of the most delightful portions of picturesque wales. in 'the talisman,' on the contrary, not only is the whole of the stage-setting in palestine, but our old friend, richard the lion-hearted, who made such strong appeals to our sympathies in 'ivanhoe,' appears once more on the scene. perhaps this fact accounts for the great popularity of 'the talisman,' which has always gone hand in hand with 'ivanhoe,' in the estimation of the younger readers, at least, and possibly the older ones, especially in england and america, as among the most attractive of scott's novels. 'the betrothed' is no more a tale of the crusades than is 'ivanhoe.' in the former the constable de lacy is supposed to be absent in the holy land a few years and returns in disguise. king richard does the same in 'ivanhoe.' james ballantyne, who was always a candid critic, found so much fault with 'the betrothed' that scott, bitterly disappointed, decided to cancel it altogether. the sheets were hung up in ballantyne's warehouse, while scott started a new tale which should be really a story of the crusades. ballantyne was as much pleased with 'the talisman' as he had been disappointed with { } its predecessor. both author and printer hesitated to destroy the sheets of an entire edition of the earlier production, and it was finally decided that 'the talisman' was such a masterpiece that it might be relied upon to 'take the other under its wing.' the publication of the two volumes as the 'tales of the crusaders' seemed to justify ballantyne's faith, for, says lockhart, 'the brightness of "the talisman" dazzled the eyes of the million as to the defects of the twin story.' whether this opinion would be endorsed by careful readers of to-day is doubtful, for 'the betrothed' has some excellent characters, notably eveline berenger, wilkin flammock, and his daughter rose, hugo de lacy, and his high-minded nephew damian. moreover, scott here adds to his 'country' a bit of the united kingdom, which he had not previously touched, and does it with his usual charm. the novelist's information regarding welsh history and antiquities was derived largely from conversations with his friend, the rev. john williams, archdeacon of cardigan, who had made a special study of the subject. but he had always felt an interest in that region. 'there are,' he writes to joanna bailie in , 'few countries i long so much to see as wales. the first time i set out to see it i was caught by the way and married. god help me! the next time, i went to london and spent all my money there. what will be my third interruption, i do not know, but the circumstances seem ominous.' whether he actually saw the country before writing the novel is doubtful. he did visit it, however, in august of , just after 'the betrothed' was published, and stopped at llangollen, where he paid a visit to the { } famous 'ladies' of that place. these two old ladies, one seventy and the other sixty-five when scott saw them, had 'eloped' together from ireland, when they were young girls, one of them dressed as a footman in buckskin breeches. valuing their liberty above all the allurements of matrimony, they made a secret journey to wales, and for fifty years lived a quiet and comfortable life in the beautiful vale of llangollen. local tradition assigns this lovely valley as the scene of 'the betrothed.' although this may be doubted, it is nevertheless fairly representative of what scott evidently had in mind. the river dee winds among a maze of low, partially wooded, and well-rounded hilltops, here and there finding its way through green meadows, set off by hedges of full-grown trees, and at each turn glistening in the sun like a broad ribbon of silver. i was induced to walk up a long sloping hillside for a distance of about three miles from the village, and was rewarded at the summit by a superb view of northern wales, for many miles in every direction, and at the same time saw the ruins of the ancient castell dinas bran. this, or something very like it, must have been the garde doloureuse of the novel. it certainly had all the natural advantages claimed for that ancient welsh stronghold, for no army would have found it easy to ascend that hill in the face of a determined garrison. the ruin has the indications also of having been well fortified by the art of man, its walls enclosing an area two hundred and ninety feet long by one hundred and forty feet wide. the castle may have been built by the britons before the roman invasion. a well-founded tradition fixes it { } as the seat of eliseg, prince of powys, in the eighth century, and it figures in actual history as early as , when it was the residence of a turbulent welsh baron named madog. at welshpool, directly to the south and near the english border, we visited the magnificent park and castle of the earl of powis. it stands on the site of the ancient castell coch, or red castle, famous as the seat of the great welsh hero, gwenwynwyn, who flourished in the latter part of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. that hero, whom scott calls gwenwyn, it will be remembered, upon seeing for the first time the beautiful damsel of sixteen, eveline berenger, the only child of his greatest rival and the heir of the strong fortress which he coveted, promptly resolved to marry her, thus starting the train of events which are recorded in the novel. [illustration: powis castle, wales] the present powis castle park is a magnificent demesne of nearly a thousand acres. its most important portion is a great deer-park, in the midst of which stands the imposing modern palace. the herds of deer quietly feeding on the lawn were kind enough to pose for me, when i made a picture of the castle, and added greatly to its picturesque aspect. on the south, the sloping ground has been cut into broad and beautiful terraces, surmounted by huge yews, trimmed smoothly in conical form. the stone walls are broken by a series of arches, above which are balustrades and statuary in great variety. clinging vines and garden flowers of every description add colour to the beauty of the arrangement. below the terraces is a gentle slope, planted with fruit trees, and then a level lawn, in the { } midst of which is a stately elm. the whole is a triumph of landscape gardening which would have amazed the famous gwenwynwyn. following the course of the tale our next objective was the city of gloucester, the crowning glory of which is the great cathedral, founded by the saxon earl, osric, in a.d. the massive norman nave was commenced in and the fine choir was completed in the fourteenth century. the great east window, measuring seventy-two feet in height, thirty-eight feet in width, and containing two thousand seven hundred and thirty-six square feet of glass, is the largest in england if not in the world. passing around the cathedral we found a house which figures in the story,--the deanery, as it is now called. it was formerly the prior's lodge of the old benedictine abbey, and is the oldest house in gloucester. within its walls a meeting of parliament is said to have been held by richard ii. of the scenery of 'the talisman' it is difficult to say much beyond what is generally known about the holy land. scott never visited palestine and wrote only in general terms. he did contrive, however, to inject a bit of scottish scenery with which he was familiar, just as he managed to begin the novel with the adventures of a scottish knight, and to find another countryman among the retainers of king richard, in the person of sir thomas de multon, the lord of gilsland, whose 'love and devotion to the king was like the vivid affection of the old english mastiff to his master.' readers of 'the talisman' will recall, in the mansion of the hermit of engaddi, the beautiful miniature gothic chapel, and will quickly note the resemblance to roslin { } chapel, near edinburgh. the famous feudal baron, william st. clair, built the latter in a spirit of penitence. an old manuscript informs us that 'to the end he might not seem altogether unthankfull to god for the benefices received from him, it came in his minde to build a house for god's service of most curious work, the which, that it might be done with greater glory and splendour he caused artificers to be brought from other regions and forraigne kingdoms and caused dayly to be abundance of all kinde of workemen present.' the foundation was laid in . it is called 'florid gothic' for want of a better name. there is no other architecture like it in the world. it is a medley of all architectures, the egyptian, grecian, roman, and saracenic being intermingled with all kinds of decorations and designs, some exquisitely beautiful and others quaint and even grotesque. there are thirteen different varieties of the arch. the owner possessed wealth and wanted novelty. he secured the latter by engaging architects and builders from all parts of europe. the most striking feature of an ulterior crowded with beautiful forms is the 'prentice's pillar, a column with spiral wreaths of exquisitely carved foliage. it is curious to think of such a chapel as this concealed in a mysterious mansion in the desert of engaddi, but it is the only touch of realistic description in the whole book, and scott makes use of it with his usual skill. { } chapter xxviii woodstock between the completion of the 'tales of the crusaders' and the next novel, 'woodstock,' came the distressing change in scott's affairs, that set apart the remaining years of his life as a period of sadness, disappointment, grief, and physical pain. they were years of almost superhuman exertion, when the superb personal character of the man, backed by an unconquerable will, triumphed over an accumulation of afflictions that would have broken the heart of an ordinary person. the victory cost him his life--but it was only after a battle of six hard years, and even then it was the frail body and not the heart of the man that succumbed. in the year , when 'woodstock' was commenced, the old, happy days, when writing a story was a joyous pastime, came to an end forever, and in their stead came a sense of toil and conscious effort. 'it was a pleasant sight,' said lockhart, 'when one happened to take a passing peep into his den, to see the white head erect, and the smile of conscious inspiration on his lips, while the pen, held boldly and at a commanding distance, glanced steadily and gayly along a fast-blackening page of "the talisman." it now often made me sorry to catch a glimpse of him, stooping and poring with his spectacles, amidst piles of authorities, a little notebook ready in his left hand, that had always used to be at liberty for patting maida.' { } lockhart is here referring to the vast toil required in the preparation of a 'life of napoleon,' which scott had undertaken immediately after returning from the tour through ireland and wales, made soon after the completion of 'the talisman.' it was the year when rumours of financial troubles in london began to reach his ears, followed swiftly by the failure of constable and the ballantynes, and later by the sickness and death of lady scott and his own physical suffering. undaunted by misfortune he bravely continued his 'napoleon,' and soon conceived the idea of composing a work of imagination at the same time. the first of three volumes of 'woodstock' was, under these trying circumstances, completed in fifteen days and the entire novel in three months. the news of scott's distress had spread throughout scotland and england and into many parts of europe, and there was naturally a keen interest in the story which he was known to be writing. the announcement that scott was the author of the waverley novels and that the man who had accomplished this marvellous success had met with financial failure came as a shock and a thrill. 'scott ruined!' exclaimed the earl of dudley; 'the author of "waverley" ruined! good god! let every man to whom he has given months of delight give him a sixpence, and he will rise to-morrow morning richer than rothschild!' the result of this state of the public mind was that 'woodstock' was successful beyond the author's fondest dreams. the village of woodstock, where practically the whole of the scene is laid, lies about eight miles north-west of oxford. the market-place still has an ancient { } look, though the houses are in fairly good repair. to readers of the novel the chief place of interest in the village is the old parish church where the reverend nehemiah holdenough was rudely crowded from his pulpit by the canting independent soldier, trusty tomkins, who proceeded to preach one of those weird sermons, common enough at that time, in which the texts of scripture were perverted to apply to current events, with whatever significance the orator might choose. a fine norman doorway on the south side marks the oldest part of the edifice, dating back probably as far as the twelfth century. the north side is modern, having been built to replace the older walls that were torn down. the tower was built in . the real interest of woodstock lies not in the church nor the village, but in the vast park and palace, now called blenheim, the property of the duke of marlborough. as early as the reign of william the conqueror, woodstock was a royal forest, and was so designated in the domesday book. his son, henry i, enclosed it with a wall six miles in circumference (not so large as its present extent) and rebuilt the house. it was here that thomas à becket in began the quarrel with king henry ii, which led to his murder at canterbury. king henry added to the old palace of woodstock the famous tower and maze, where 'the fair rosamond' might be safely concealed from the jealous eyes of queen eleanor. 'rosamond's well,' where tomkins met his well-deserved death at the hands of joceline joliffe, is the only remnant of the old palace in existence. it is a spring, walled in and paved, and guarded by an iron fence. we drank of its waters { } and, following the instructions of the old woman who acts as its keeper, threw what was left in the glasses over our left shoulders 'for luck.' the well was originally within the walls of the palace, so that its occupant could obtain water without the risk of stepping outside. it may, therefore, be considered as marking approximately the site of the old palace. richard the lion-hearted and john were visitors to woodstock. henry iii made some improvements in the house. edward iii and queen philippa were much attached to woodstock and often made it their residence. it was during their reign that the poet chaucer, who was first a page and later a royal 'esquire,' was frequently at woodstock. he married one of the queen's maids of honour, and lived in a house in the village which is still standing. as late as the time of james ii, woodstock continued to be occupied, as a favourite country seat, by the english sovereigns. during the great civil war it was the scene of frequent skirmishes and in the time of the commonwealth was in the possession of cromwell. the fantastic performances by which the commissioners of the long parliament were imposed upon and badly frightened when they visited woodstock, after the execution of charles i, for the purpose of destroying it, are fully explained in scott's introduction. [illustration: golstow priory (burial-place of the 'the fair rosamond')] in , as a reward for his famous triumph in the battle of blenheim, the victorious commander, john churchill, was created first duke of marlborough, and presented with the vast estates of woodstock. queen anne and the parliament bestowed upon him in addition the princely sum of £ , with which to build a { } mansion. blenheim palace is the finest work of the most famous architect of his day, sir john vanbrugh, who designed the building by command of the queen. its front extends, from wing to wing, three hundred and forty-eight feet. the style is italo-corinthian. its spacious halls are filled with splendid tapestries and many valuable paintings. there is a long ballroom, equipped as a library at one end and with a great pipe-organ at the other. the park comprises two thousand six hundred acres, with many fine beeches, oaks, elms, cedars of lebanon, and an avenue of lindens. the river glyme, which flowed through the estate of woodstock, was dammed by the landscape gardener of blenheim and converted into a picturesque lake, over which is an imposing bridge. in a remote corner of the grounds we found the celebrated king's oak, a fine old tree supposed to be at least a thousand years old. two characters of 'woodstock' stepped into the tale, direct from scott's own household, thus giving a charming personal touch to this novel in common with 'redgauntlet' and several of the others. one of these is the fine old hound, bevis. it seems curious, in view of scott's fondness for his dogs, that not one of them should find a place in any of his stories until so late a period of his life. bevis, however, made up for the previous omissions, and he is a splendid picture of sir walter's favourite staghound maida, 'the noblest dog ever seen on the border since johnnie armstrong's time.' so wrote scott to his friend terry, adding, 'he is between the wolf and deer greyhound, about six feet long from the tip of the nose to the tail, and high and strong in proportion.... tell will erskine he will eat off his { } plate without being at the trouble to put a paw on the table or chair.' this noble animal, who for eight years enjoyed the distinction of daily companionship with one of the most appreciative masters who ever lived, came to his end in , the year before 'woodstock' was commenced. his image, sculptured in stone, had stood for a year or more by the door of the main entrance to abbotsford, as a 'leaping-on' stone, which scott found convenient in mounting his horse. maida was buried beneath the stone, and an epitaph in latin was carved around its base, scott's english version of which reads:-- beneath the sculptured form which late you wore sleep soundly, maida, at your master's door. the other character from scott's household was his daughter anne--the alice lee of the novel. the same loving care which alice bestowed upon her aged parent, scott had felt at the hands of his youngest daughter. when financial disaster began to weigh him down, and lady scott's health began to fail, it was anne who tenderly supported her beloved father. in the sad days following the death of lady scott, she accompanied him to london and paris and was by his side when he received his first paralytic stroke. her health was shattered by the long strain of her mother's illness and death, followed by that of her father, and she survived her distinguished parent less than a year. regarding the historical characters in the novel, the critics seem to agree that the portraits of cromwell and charles ii are far from accurate and of course their part in the story is imaginary. when scott's enthusiasm for the stuart family is considered, and his sympathy for { } royalty in general, as well as the habit among scotchmen of his time of regarding the great protector as a hypocrite, it must be admitted that his picture of cromwell, while far from flattering, is on the whole remarkably fair to that stern and powerful leader. although 'woodstock' is not ranked among scott's greatest novels, it is noteworthy that many critics, including lockhart and andrew lang, both of whom usually preferred the scottish romances, saw in it great merit. in one respect it is the most wonderful of all novels--in the self-control which enabled its author calmly to compose a well-constructed story, full of incident and dramatic power, in the face of afflictions which would have borne down a common mind to those depths of despair in which the ordinary duties of life are forgotten. scott here proved to be not only a master of the art of story-telling, but the master of himself. { } chapter xxix the fair maid of perth twoscore years elapsed between the day when walter scott, a lad of fifteen, felt a thrill of rapture as he viewed the valley of the tay from the wicks of baiglie and the time when the same walter, a worn-out man, first used the beautiful scene as the setting of a novel. the 'inimitable landscape,' as he called it, took possession of his mind and retained its influence during the greater part of his life. during the sad years of discouragement, when the 'canongate chronicles' had met with a cold reception, and his critical publishers were expressing their views somewhat too sharply, scott turned once more to his well-loved highlands for the theme of a story, and the picture which had so aroused his 'childish wonder' came back again after more than forty years. naturally our first thought upon arriving at perth was to find the wicks of baiglie and enjoy the same sensation of wonder which sir walter had so graphically described. we accordingly drove out over the hills south of the town, on the edinburgh road, till we came to the inn of baiglie, but all to no purpose. a burly blacksmith, who looked as if he might have been a descendant of henry gow himself, told us that many people sought the view which scott had described, but 'it did not exist.' changes in the road and the growth of foliage had completely destroyed the prospect from the { } wicks of baiglie. we were compensated for our disappointment, however, by several glimpses of the valley from moncreiff hill and by a superb view, which we enjoyed the following day, from the summit of kinnoull hill, east of the city. at the foot of this hill is the modern castle of kinfauns, replacing the seat of sir patrick charteris, to which the burghers of perth made their memorable journey. perthshire is one of the largest counties in scotland and excels all the others in the beauty and variety of its scenery. along its southern border lies a region of moorlands, set with sparkling lochs and rippling streams, in the midst of which are the famous trossachs. on the north are the rugged summits of the grampian mountains. in the centre is loch tay, one of the loveliest of highland lakes, fed by the pure mountain streams that come down through the wild passes of glen lochay and glen dochart. its outlet is the pleasant river tay, passing down the eastern border through a valley of green meadows, waving groves, fertile fields, and princely palaces. in a drive of one hundred miles from perth to taymouth and back again by another route, we saw not so much as half a mile of scenery that might be called commonplace or uninteresting. north of the city is the palace of scone, which became the seat of government in the eighth century, at which time the famous stone of scone was brought from dunstaffnage. most of the scottish kings were crowned here, until edward i, in the fourteenth century, carried the stone to westminster abbey. farther north, in the same valley, is a bit of shakespeare's scenery. we { } passed through the birnam wood of 'macbeth,' though we saw no trees. perhaps this was natural, for according to shakespeare they all went to dunsinane hill many years ago and the bard does n't say that they ever came back. [illustration: loch tay] perth is an ancient city, having received a charter from david i in the early part of the twelfth century. for nearly three hundred years it was the residence of the scottish kings, who occupied during the greater part of that time the monastery of the dominicans or black friars, formerly situated near the west end of the present bridge. this is the church to which simon glover and his daughter were walking when they were accosted by the frivolous young duke of rothsay, heir to the throne of scotland. it was founded in . the city was well provided with other religious houses, notably the carthusian monastery founded in , the grey friars in , and the carmelites or white friars, west of the town, dating from . all of these have disappeared, the result of a famous sermon preached by john knox, in , in the old church of st. john, which aroused the populace to a frenzy of excitement against the church of rome. st. john's church was itself despoiled of everything which the mob thought savoured of popery, its altars, its images, and even its organ being destroyed. the building itself remained unhurt. old st. john's was established as early as the fifth century. the transept and nave of the present building were erected in the thirteenth century and the choir in the fifteenth. at present the structure is divided into three churches, the east, the middle, and the west. the appeal to the direct judgment { } of heaven, to determine the identity of the murderer of oliver proudfute, which is described as taking place within this building, was based upon a widespread belief that the corpse of a murdered person would bleed upon the approach of the guilty person,--the same superstition which hawthorne used in 'the marble faun.' scott gives the black friars' monastery a conspicuous place in his story, as the residence of king robert iii. that well-meaning but weak monarch had three sons: the eldest, david, duke of rothsay, died at falkland palace, under suspicious circumstances; the second, john, died in infancy; while the third, known in history as james i, nominally succeeded to the throne on the death of his father in , but was held a prisoner by the english and did not actually come into his inheritance until . one of his first acts was to throw murdoch, the son and successor of the duke of albany, into prison, and a little later he punished the treachery of that nobleman by execution at stirling castle. james i was a great contrast to his weak-minded father and by the decisiveness of his character, the sagacity of his statesmanship, and the brilliancy of his literary attainments gave scotland a memorable reign. it was due to his untimely death that perth lost her prestige as the seat of the scottish kings. he was suddenly surrounded by a band of three hundred highlanders, who entered his apartment at the dominican priory and stabbed him to death with their daggers. the horror inspired by this assassination caused the abrupt transfer of the court to edinburgh and the king's successor, james ii, was crowned at holyrood abbey instead of at scone. { } the house of the fair maid of perth may still be seen in curfew street, near the site of the old monastery. a comparison of its neat, well-kept appearance with the pictures of the same house as it was before the 'restoration' shows that it has improved with age as wonderfully as shakespeare's birthplace at stratford-on-avon. not far away, in a very narrow and squalid close, is another house celebrated in the story--the veritable residence of hal o' the wynd. the rapid multiplication of the smith family may cause the sceptical to doubt the authenticity of this landmark, but to the citizens of perth it is the original dwelling of the famous henry smith, or henry gow. the great public park and playground, north of the bridge, known as the north inch, was the scene of the famous battle of the clans which took place in . thirty sturdy representatives of the clan chattan fought to the death with an equal number of the clan kay, or as scott calls them, the clan quhele. when the conflict was about to commence, it was discovered that the clan chattan numbered only twenty-nine, whereupon a citizen of perth, having no interest in the struggle, volunteered, for the paltry sum of half a mark, to risk his life in the frightful battle, and thus made up the required number. an ancient chronicler sums up the result in these quaint words:-- at last, the clankayis war al slane except ane, that swam throw the watter of tay. of glenquhattannis, was left xi personis on live; bot thay war sa hurt, that thay micht nocht hold thair swerdis in thair handis. there is a touch of contrition in scott's portrayal of the cowardice of conachar. the novelist's brother, { } daniel, a man of dissipated habits, had been employed in the island of jamaica in some service against a body of insurgent negroes, and had shown a deficiency in courage. he returned to scotland a dishonoured man and scott refused to see him. a stern sense of duty impelled him to refuse even to attend the funeral of the man who had disgraced his family. in later years he bitterly repented this austerity and atoned for it by tenderly caring for the unfortunate brother's child. something of these feelings may have been in his mind when he wrote in his diary on december , : 'the fellow that swam the tay would be a good ludicrous character. but i have a mind to try him in the serious line of tragedy.... suppose a man's nerves, supported by feelings of honour, or say by the spur of jealousy, sustaining him against constitutional timidity to a certain point, then suddenly giving way, i think something tragic might be produced.... well, i'll try my brave coward or cowardly brave man.' campsie linn, where conachar made his final appearance, and with a last despairing shriek 'plunged down the precipice into the raging cataract beneath,' is a pleasant little waterfall in the tay, seen through a small clearing in the woods. it is scarcely a cataract nor are the precipices formidable. the religious house where catharine took refuge has completely disappeared. falkland castle, to which the duke of rothsay was carried, a prisoner, is in fifeshire, about fifteen miles southeast of perth. the rooms in which the prince was quartered were probably in the old tower, which has completely disappeared. excavations made by the marquis of bute in show it to have been an { } extensive building fifty feet in diameter. the present castle, or the greater part of it, was built at a period somewhat later than that of the story. as early as , falkland was known as part of the property of the earls of fife, who were descendants of macduff, the famous thane of fife, who put an end to the reign of macbeth in . on the death of isabel, countess of fife, the last of her race, falkland came into the hands of the duke of albany, the brother of king robert iii. albany was intensely jealous of his nephew, the duke of rothsay, who, after attaining his majority, began to display traits of character more worthy than those ascribed to him in the novel. he was entrusted by the king with affairs of some importance and gave promise of developing into an active and vigorous successor to his father. this was, of course, a menace to the plans of albany, who sought the crown for himself, and he therefore managed to exaggerate the young man's faults to the king and to stir up suspicions against him, until the feeble monarch consented to allow his son to be imprisoned for a time as a cure for his profligacy. the queen, who might have interceded for the prince, was dead, as was also the bishop of st. andrew, who had often been a mediator in the royal quarrels. sir john de ramorny, the young man's tutor, who had suggested to him the assassination of albany and had been indignantly repulsed, revenged himself by false reports to his pupil's uncle, and was commissioned by the latter to arrest his former charge. the duke of rothsay was thereupon waylaid and carried to the castle of falkland. the common report was that he was placed in a dungeon and starved to death. it was said that a poor woman, who heard { } his groans while she was passing through the garden, kept him alive for a time by passing small pieces of barley cake through the bars. another woman fed him with her own milk, which she conveyed through a small reed to the famished prisoner. another story is that the daughter of the governor of the castle was the one who took compassion on the prince, and that her wicked father put her to death as a punishment for showing mercy. the duke of albany and the earl of douglas were charged with the murder, but maintained that the prince had died from natural causes and the parliament unanimously acquitted them. lord bute, who gave much study to the records of the case, was inclined to doubt the commission of an actual murder, but admitted that the cause of the young duke's death must always remain uncertain. [illustration: house of the fair maid of perth] james i and james ii made important additions to falkland, and james v, who found it in a ruinous condition, made many extensive repairs and additions. it was here that the latter king died of a broken heart, at the early age of thirty-two. a few moments before his death, when informed of the birth of his daughter, mary, who became the queen of scots, he exclaimed prophetically, referring to the crown, 'it cam' wi' a lass and it'll gang wi' a lass.' mary herself visited the castle annually for five or six years, before her marriage with darnley and spent many happy days there. her son, james vi, also made it his residence and was living there at the time he was enticed away in the 'gowrie conspiracy.' the last king to visit the palace was charles ii, who came for a stay of several days, after his coronation at scone in . later the troops of cromwell { } occupied the place, and its historical interest ceased soon afterward. 'the fair maid of perth' was finished in the spring of . when the author laid down his pen, it was to mark the real close of the waverley novels. true, others were yet to be written, but they were the work of a broken man, and failed to come up to scott's high standard. it is one of the marvels of literature that a novel so attractive and interesting as 'the fair maid' could be produced under circumstances so distracting and painful. no one places it in the same rank as 'guy mannering' and 'ivanhoe,' yet it was popular at the time of publication and has always been regarded as entirely worthy of the reputation of the 'great wizard.' the indomitable will of the master was still able to hold his matchless imagination to its task, though the days of its power were now numbered. { } chapter xxx the chronicles of the canongate and other tales the remaining tales of the waverley novels require only brief mention. there is but little in them of the 'country of sir walter scott,' and scarcely more of the author himself. they are the final efforts of a man whose extraordinary buoyancy of youthful spirit is at last beginning to sink beneath a burden too great for human endurance. to begin at fifty-five the uninspiring task of 'paying for dead horses' the vast sum of £ , , an amount which few men are able to earn by honest labour in all the days of their lives, required a superb courage which only scott's high sense of honour could have sustained. scarcely had the resolve been made when a second crushing blow fell with a force more stunning than the first. his beloved wife, the companion of thirty years, was taken away at the hour of his greatest need. she who could relieve the tedium of his toil by slipping quietly into the room to see if the fire burned, or to ask some kind question, was no longer present to comfort him. he felt a paralyzing sense of loneliness and old age, which even the devotion of his daughter anne could not relieve. to continue the awful grind of writing for money--for something which he could not enjoy nor save for any cherished purpose, but must surrender at once to others--required an almost superhuman exertion of will power. his health began to fail. headaches and insomnia, added to rheumatism, { } caused him great distress. his early lameness became intensified and made walking so painful that he had to abandon what had been his favourite form of exercise. the once vigorous frame had prematurely worn out under the strain imposed upon it. scott had become an aged man at less than threescore years. yet in these years of disappointment, grief, and physical pain he produced an amount of work of which an ordinary man might well be proud had it represented a lifetime of toil. from , the year of constable's failure, to , this man of iron will produced no less than forty[ ] volumes, besides fifteen important reviews, essays, etc., and in addition supervised the publication of his complete prose writings and the waverley novels, preparing for the latter a series of exhaustive introductions and notes. i have anticipated a little by devoting a separate chapter to 'the fair maid of perth' which appeared as { } the second series of the 'chronicles of the canongate' in . the 'first series' was published in and comprised 'the two drovers,' 'the highland widow,' and 'the surgeon's daughter.' to many the chief interest lies in the introduction. when the work was first projected, scott thought of preserving his incognito by conceiving the tales to be the work of one chrystal croftangry, an elderly gentleman who had taken quarters for a time within the sanctuary, as the immediate vicinity of holyrood was called. here, as in the famous alsatia of london, debtors were safe from arrest. scott at one time feared that the importunities of a certain relentless creditor might force him to take refuge in the sanctuary. on november , , he made this entry in his journal: 'i waked in the night and lay two hours in feverish meditation ... i suppose that i, the chronicler of the canongate, will have to take up my residence in the sanctuary, unless i prefer the more airy residence of the colton jail, or a trip to the isle of man.' fortunately this creditor was silenced by scott's generous friend, sir william forbes, who privately paid the claim out of his own pocket.[ ] there is much in mr. croftangry's lengthy biography to remind one of sir walter himself. he finds pleasure in visiting the portobello sands to see the cavalry drill, suggesting at once the young quartermaster of the edinburgh volunteers, who rode a black charger up and down the sands while he composed some of the most spirited stanzas of 'marmion.' he delights to spend the wet mornings with his book and the pleasant ones in strolling upon the salisbury crags--just as walter, { } the high-school boy and college student loved to do. in mrs. bethune baliol, the genial old lady who assists mr. croftangry in his literary speculations, we have a kindly reference to a dear friend of the author--mrs. murray keith, who died at eighty-two years of age, 'one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness, and freshness of mind and body made old age lovely and desirable.' the volume is still more interesting because it contains scott's first printed acknowledgment of the authorship of the waverley novels and gives an insight into some of the original suggestions of both characters and scenery. it also contains an account of the theatrical fund dinner held in edinburgh in february, , in which scott was publicly referred to as the author of the waverley novels and acknowledged in the presence of three hundred gentlemen the secret which he had hitherto confided to only twenty. 'the highland widow' is a story of that wild but beautiful portion of argyllshire of which loch awe is the chief attraction. dumbarton castle, where the widow's unfortunate son bravely paid with his life for the mistaken teachings and indiscretions of his mother, is a conspicuous object on the right bank of the clyde, a few miles below glasgow. it stands on a high rock, the circumference of which at the base is fully a mile. it is still maintained as one of the defences of scotland, in accordance with the treaty of union. 'the two drovers' is an excellent short story picturing the life of those men who drove their cattle from the { } highlands about doune, to the markets of lincolnshire or elsewhere in england, making the entire journey on foot, sleeping with their droves at night in all kinds of weather and enduring many hardships. 'the surgeon's daughter,' though it opens in one of the midland counties of scotland, is chiefly a story of india, and the scenery is therefore not a part of scott's country, for he never saw it. the good old doctor, gideon grey, was, however, an old friend who lived in selkirk, dr. ebenezer clarkson, one of those hard-working country doctors who often combine, 'under a blunt exterior, professional skill and enthusiasm, intelligence, humanity, courage, and science.' 'anne of geierstein,' though sharply criticized by james ballantyne and regarded by the author himself as a task which he hated, is nevertheless a wonderful work of imagination, in which the old-time genius is clearly manifest. lockhart points out the power, which scott retained in advanced years, of depicting 'the feelings of youth with all their original glow and purity,' and says that nowhere has the author 'painted such feelings more deliciously' than in certain passages of 'anne of geierstein.' he assigns as a reason the fact that scott always retained in memory the events of his own happy life, and besides 'he was always living over again in his children, young at heart whenever he looked on them.' though admittedly erroneous in certain historical details, the volume contains some wonderful descriptions of scenery. scott never visited switzerland, where { } the chief interest of the story lies, but seemed to have an instinctive grasp of its charm, which he accounted for by saying, 'had i not the honour of an intimate personal acquaintance with every pass in the highlands; and if that were not enough, had i not seen pictures and prints _galore_?' the story opens at the village of lucerne, and the lake of the four cantons, beneath the shadow of the awe-inspiring mount pilatus. those who have travelled from this point to bâle, and thence down the rhine to strasburg, should have a fairly good idea of the scenery of the novel--better, perhaps, than the author himself. charles of burgundy, whose character and career had made a strong impression upon scott through the pages of philippe de comines, appears once more, and the novel closes with his defeat at nancy and tragic death in a half-frozen swamp, the victim of the traitorous campo-basso. the story of king rené and the events at aix in provence was an afterthought, woven into the tale at the suggestion of james skene, who supplied the necessary details. 'count robert of paris' is a tale of constantinople, a city which scott had not visited. the difficulties under which it was written may be judged from such expressions in the journal as these: 'my pen stammers egregiously and i write horridly incorrect'; 'the task of pumping my brain becomes inevitably harder'; 'my bodily strength is terribly gone; perhaps my mental also.' the spirit which enabled him to persevere in spite of cadell and ballantyne, who were again criticizing severely, may be seen from these lines: 'but i will fight it out if i can. it would argue too great an attachment { } of consequence to my literary labours to sink under critical clamour. did i know how to begin, _i would begin again this very day, although i knew i should sink at the end._' in spite of the doctor's advice, he kept on with his dictation--for he could no longer use the pen--and finished 'count robert' amidst a frightful sea of troubles. he had suffered three or four strokes of apoplexy or palsy, and had experienced daily tortures from cramp, rheumatism, and increasing lameness. yet in the midst of all this affliction he thought of his creditors and said repeatedly to lockhart, 'i am very anxious to be done, one way or another, with this "count robert," and a little story about the "castle dangerous"'--thus to the last continuing the old trick of starting a new story before its predecessor was finished. he even resumed his youthful practice of going in search of material, and actually undertook an excursion to douglas in lanarkshire, where he examined attentively the old ivy-covered fragment of the original castle, the ruins of the old church, and the crypt of the douglases, filled with leaden coffins. he even talked with the people of the village, after his old-time fashion, and gathered such legends as they could remember. he was now on familiar ground and speedily finished the latest story, bringing 'count robert' to a close about the same time. the two were published in november, , as the fourth series of 'tales of my landlord.' these volumes completed the literary labours of sir walter, except that he continued to work a little at his notes and introductions, but at last he took the advice of his friends and agreed to do no more work of an exacting { } nature. a journey to the continent followed, including a visit to malta, but in the following year he was glad to return to his beloved abbotsford. on the st of september, , lying in the dining-room of the mansion which his industry and courage had saved to his family, and listening to the rippling of his beloved river tweed, the brave and honourable as well as honoured writer, breathed his last. he had fought a good fight and died in the belief that he had won. and so he had. for although the debt was not entirely paid, the subsequent sale of copyrights realized enough to satisfy all claims. scott's sense of honour and superb courage had won a glorious victory. [ ] the volumes were:-- woodstock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . volumes life of napoleon buonaparte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . chronicles of the canongate, first series,--comprising the two drovers, the highland widow, and the surgeon's daughter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tales of a grandfather . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . chronicles of the canongate, second series--the fair maid of perth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . anne of geierstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . a history of scotland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . the doom of devorgoil and auchindrane . . . . . . . . . . . . letters on demonology and witchcraft . . . . . . . . . . . . tales of my landlord, fourth series,--count robert of paris, and castle dangerous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . __ three short stories, which ballantyne objected to including in the canongate chronicles, were printed in the keepsake. these were 'my aunt margaret's mirror,' 'the tapestried chamber,' and the 'death of the laird's jock.' [ ] see chapter v, _rokeby_, page . { } chapter xxxi a successful life in travelling so many miles to view the scenery of scott's work, i think the strongest impression i have received is that of the all-pervading personality of scott himself. it was one of the joys of the experience that so many places, not particularly attractive in themselves, should suddenly become interesting when found to be connected in some way with scott's life or with something he had written; and that scenes of great natural beauty should become invested with a new fascination whenever they were found to suggest some line of poetry or to recall some well-remembered incident. i am sure i should never have given a second thought to the bit of an old wall which is now the scant remnant of triermain castle, had i passed it without knowledge of its identity; but it was worth going far out of the way to see, if only for the sake of realizing how the merest fragment of an old ruin could suggest a poem to scott and how he could rebuild a castle in all its early magnificence and people it with the children of his fancy. i know of no more romantic place in all of beautiful scotland than the vale of the esk, where the river flows between high cliffs, clothed with thick shrubbery and overhanging vines; and one can stand by the side of the stream, looking over the lacelike foliage of the tree-tops, and catch glimpses now and then of some fascinating old ruin, peeping down like a fairy castle, lodged in the { } topmost branches. yet when i recall its charm, i cannot help remembering how it transformed an edinburgh lawyer of small reputation into a poet of world-wide fame. wherever we went, whether driving through the canongate of edinburgh, or looking across the tweed toward the eildon hills, or listening to the shrill screams of the sea-fowl as they dashed about the dizzy heights of st. abb's head, or wandering quietly through the woods that lend a wild and fairy-like enchantment to the trossachs, there was always the feeling that scott had been there before and had so left the impress of his personality that his spirit seemed to remain. it was a pleasant sensation, for there seemed to be in it an indefinable consciousness of the presence of scott's own genial nature, that spirit of good-fellowship which so delighted washington irving when he enjoyed the rare privilege of wandering over the hills and valleys with sir walter, listening to countless anecdotes and ballads, and sharing his boundless hospitality for several days. [illustration: abbotsford] this feeling became more and more intense as we went about in the border country, which must be regarded as scott's real home, and it reached its culmination when we came to abbotsford. here, thanks to the courtesy of mr. james curie, the representative in melrose of the honourable mrs. maxwell-scott, a great-granddaughter of the poet and the present owner of the estate, we were greeted with a kindness worthy of sir walter's own ideas of hospitality. we seemed to meet the original owner face to face--not the poet--not the novelist--but walter scott, the man. the great mansion and the spacious, well-wooded estate which he took so much joy in creating and { } struggled so desperately to save, seemed to typify all the success and all the failure of his career. the garden with the arched screen, copied by his own desire from the cloisters of melrose abbey; the pile of stones in the centre, that once formed the base of the ancient mercat cross of his native city; the stone image of the favourite old stag-hound maida, placed just outside the door, as a constant reminder of the faithful friend of many years; the entrance itself, copied from the palace of linlithgow; the hall, with its fine carved woodwork from the old kirk of dunfermline; the museum with its collection of guns, swords, armour, and curious articles of every description, suggesting the author's antiquarian tastes and the loving interest which scores of friends took in presenting him with the things they knew he would appreciate; the library with its thousands of volumes representing the author's own literary tastes; the study with his own desk and chair; the dining-room with its highly prized ancestral portraits; and the bay-window through which sir walter looked for the last time upon the rippling waters of his beloved tweed--all these seemed to bring his kindly personality nearer to us. i believe it was this all-pervading personality, the spirit of brotherly kindness, of generosity and of love, that made scott's life a success. it is reflected through page after page in the novels and poems, and shines out brilliantly from the beginning to the end of lockhart's great biography. it is the very essence of that wholesome quality which has been so often remarked as one of the most distinguishing characteristics of the waverley novels. there were no signs on scott's property warning { } trespassers to 'keep out.' he felt that such things would be offensive to the feelings of the people and if any of his neighbours could shorten a journey by walking through his grounds, he wanted them to have the advantage. there was one sign on his land, by a broad path through the woods, reading 'the _rod_ to selkirk.' the spelling was tom purdie's, but the implied invitation to take a 'short cut' through the private estate was warmly endorsed by his master. it was a pleasure to him to see children come up with a pocketful of nuts gathered from his trees, rather than run away at sight of him, and he declared that no damage had ever been done in consequence of the free access which all the world had to his place. when he walked over his estate, talking familiarly with maida, who almost invariably accompanied him, he would stop for a friendly word with every tenant. 'sir walter speaks to every man as if they were blood relations,' said one of them. happy the companion who could take such a walk with him. 'oh! scott was a master spirit--as glorious in his conversation as in his writings,' wrote irving. 'he spoke from the fulness of his mind, pouring out an incessant flow of anecdote and story, with dashes of humour, and then never monopolizing, but always ready to listen and appreciate what came from others. i never felt such a consciousness of happiness as when under his roof.' the same kindliness, experienced by tenants and visitors, was extended to the servants of the family, as tom purdie could heartily testify. tom was brought before scott, as sheriff, charged with poaching. he told his story with such pathos,--of a wife and many children { } to feed, of scarcity of work and abundance of grouse,--mingling with it so much sly humour, that the 'shirra's' kind heart was touched. he took tom into his own employment as shepherd, and no master ever had a more faithful servant. when purdie died, twenty-five years later, he was laid to rest in the churchyard of melrose abbey, where his grave is marked by a simple monument, inscribed by his master, 'in sorrow for a humble but sincere friend.' peter mathieson, a brother-in-law of tom, who was employed as coachman about the same time, survived his master. the portraits of both these servants occupy an honoured place on the walls of the armoury at abbotsford. no man was ever on more delightful terms with his family than sir walter. captain basil hall, who spent a christmas fortnight at abbotsford, recorded that 'even the youngest of his nephews and nieces can joke with him, and seem at all times perfectly at ease in his presence--his coming into the room only increases the laugh and never checks it--he either joins in what is going on, or passes.' when writing in his study, if lady scott or the children entered, his train of thought was not disturbed. he merely regarded the interruption as a welcome diversion by which he felt refreshed. sometimes he would lay down his pen and, taking the children on his knee, tell them a story; then kissing them, and telling them to run away till supper-time, he would resume his work with a contented smile. he considered it 'the highest duty and sweetest pleasure' of a parent to be a companion to his children. they in turn reciprocated by sharing with 'papa' all their little joys and sorrows and taking him into their hearts as their { } very best playfellow. no man ever took more pleasure in the education of his children. on sundays he would often go out with the whole family, dogs included, for a long walk, and when the entire party were grouped about him, by the side of some pleasant brook, he would tell stories from the bible, weaving into them all that picturesque charm and richness which have made his written stories so delightful. he taught his children to love the out-of-door life, and especially insisted upon their attaining proficiency in horsemanship, that they might become as fearless as himself. 'without courage,' he said, 'there cannot be truth; and without truth, there can be no other virtue.' what scott taught his children, he impressed upon all, by the force of example, throughout his life. shortly before his death, in a few simple words, he epitomized his creed--without intending to do so--in a tender parting message to his son-in-law. 'lockhart,' he said, 'i may have but a minute to speak to you. my dear, be a good man--be virtuous--be religious--be a good man. nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here.' when lockhart asked if he should send for sophia and anne, he said, 'no, don't disturb them. poor souls! i know they were up all night--god bless you all.' this lifelong desire to 'be good' and to do good, without the slightest affectation, prudery, or sanctimoniousness, was i believe the crowning glory of scott's life and the secret of his success. yet in many ways scott was not successful. judged by that test which is the only one allowed to many men, his life was distinctly a failure. in the ordinary usage of { } the term, a man is accounted successful if he accomplishes his chief aim in life. wealth is the aim of so many that rich men are usually considered successful, and those who die poor are commonly supposed to be failures. scott aimed to write a popular kind of poetry, and in this he succeeded. he then turned to fiction and here he was even more successful. but this kind of success did not represent his supreme desire. he sought to make it the means to an end, and the dream of his life was, after all, wealth. not riches for himself. he was never mean enough for that, and selfishness did not enter into his nature. it was wealth for his family that he desired. he was a man of great pride and the old feudal system was full of attractiveness. he knew every detail of the history of the scott family for centuries. he revered the duke and duchess of buccleuch as the head of his clan. as his writings, year after year, brought him financial returns almost fabulous in size, he began to cherish the desire to found a new branch of the scott clan. the irresistible impulse to add new lands to abbotsford, regardless of cost, and to erect a great mansion, fit for the residence of an earl, all sprang from this one motive. the readiness with which he purchased a captaincy in the army for his eldest son, at a cost of £ , and the cheerfulness with which he settled nearly the whole of abbotsford upon young walter and his affianced bride, promising that if he should be spared ten years he would give them as much more, are striking indications of his intense longing to establish the scotts of abbotsford among the great families of scotland. in this, the greatest ambition of his life, scott was { } completely thwarted. though abbotsford was saved from the wreck of his fortunes by an almost superhuman effort, the estate which passed to his heirs was not so large as he had expected, nor did his sons live long to enjoy it. the eldest, walter, died in , and as he had no son, the baronetcy expired with him. the younger son, charles, had died in . the failure of scott's hopes was the result of a long chain of circumstances. in early life he had undertaken the practice of law, and continued for ten years without rising above the level of mere drudgery, his earnings for the first five years averaging only eighty pounds annually and probably not rising very much higher during the subsequent years. finding it necessary, at length, to give up the law entirely, he arranged to secure an appointment as clerk of the court of session, to succeed an aged incumbent of that office. the agreement was that scott should do the work while his predecessor drew the pay, in consideration of which he was to have the entire emolument after the old gentleman's death. the office was worth eight hundred pounds a year and offered a very fair substitute for the small earnings at the bar. unfortunately the gentleman was so inconsiderate as to prolong his existence for six years after the bargain was made. scott was already in possession of a private income of one thousand pounds, to which the office of sheriff of selkirk added three hundred pounds, and was beginning to receive large rewards for his literary labour, 'the lay of the last minstrel' bringing him £ _s._ for the first and second editions. it might be supposed that such an income would satisfy a young man not yet { } thirty-four. scott, however, was ambitious, and feeling the need of the additional income which did not at once materialize from the clerkship, sought to make up the deficiency by investing nearly all his capital in a commercial venture. he entered into a secret partnership with james ballantyne in the printing business, which proved, with one exception, to be the greatest mistake of his life. the exception, which marked, in lockhart's phrase, 'the blackest day in his calendar,' was in connecting his fortunes with john ballantyne in the publishing business. james ballantyne's greatest fault was a tendency to rely too much upon scott's judgment, and the latter was too much swayed by generous motives to be a prudent business manager. he would favour the publication of an unmarketable book rather than disappoint a friend. moreover, his own great interest in works of an historical or antiquarian nature often led him astray. his judgment of good literature was better than his knowledge of what the public was likely to buy. the firm became loaded with unprofitable enterprises, which they, in turn, unloaded, in part, upon constable, thus contributing one of the causes of the latter's downfall. another weakness of james ballantyne, who was an excellent printer and in many ways an exemplary man, was his distaste for figures and utter indifference to his balance-sheets--a fatal error for a business man. john ballantyne, a younger brother of james, was a light-headed, happy-go-lucky, careless little fellow, who could amuse a company of friends with comic songs and droll mimicry, who loved all kinds of sports, drove a tandem down the canongate, was fond of { } dissipation and gay company, and without the slightest capacity for business or interest in it. like his brother he was intensely fond of scott and loyal to him, but a reckless adventurer and spendthrift. scott nicknamed him 'rigdumfunnidos' and was always amused by him, but could scarcely have had respect for his business qualities. it must always remain a mystery why he entrusted so large an interest in his own fortunes to such a weakling. an alliance, and, what is worse, a secret one, with two such men, who could not in any sense act as a brake upon scott's own impulses nor steady him with the business experience which he sadly lacked, was mistake enough; but scott himself committed a serious error in his own affairs. he fell into the habit of selling his literary productions before they were written, and carried this folly to such an extreme that about the time of the issue of 'the fortunes of nigel,' he had received payment, by notes, from the bookseller, for no less than four works of fiction, which at that time had not even been planned. they subsequently appeared as 'peveril of the peak,' 'quentin durward,' 'st. ronan's well,' and 'redgauntlet.' the proceeds were spent upon the castle at abbotsford before the books were even named. john ballantyne was rapidly spending money which his firm had not earned, and scott, who ought to have remonstrated against such rashness, was committing the same fault on a larger scale. under the circumstances the only wonder is that the disaster was so long averted. when it came, scott found himself involved in the debts of the ballantynes to the extent of £ , . [illustration: scott monument, edinburgh] with superb courage he rose to the emergency. { } assuming the entire burden, and struggling against almost insuperable difficulties, he succeeded in paying £ , , or considerably more than half of the indebtedness. life insurance of £ , and £ in the hands of his trustees reduced the debt to about £ , , which sum was advanced by cadell, the publisher. all the creditors, except the latter, were then paid in full, and in , fifteen years after scott's death, cadell was paid by a transfer of copyrights and the entire obligation was thus finally extinguished. had scott died at the time of the constable failure, leaving his affairs to be settled by the ordinary process of the law, and the ballantyne creditors unpaid, the world would never have known whether the unprecedented success of his literary labours was after all quite sufficient to counterbalance the disastrous failure of his business affairs. the catastrophe, however, brought out all the sterling qualities of his character. how much courage he possessed, what a high sense of honour, what patience, what endurance, even his closest friends had never realized. just as those kindly personal qualities had woven an indescribable charm into the products of his fancy, such as no other series of writings had ever before possessed, so the highest and noblest traits of his character responded to the call of a great emergency, and converted the failures of a lifetime into a final triumph. the end { } index abbot, the, , , - ; . abbotsford, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . abercorn, lady, letter to, . abercrombie, george, . aberfoyle, ; clachan of, , ; ; old bridge, . adam, rt. hon. william, , . albany, duke of, , , . allan-fraser, patrick, . allan, the river, . alsatia (whitefriars), , . amboglanna, . annan, . annan, the river, . anne of geierstein, , . anne, queen, . antiquary, the, - . arbroath, - ; . argyle, john, duke of, , . argyle, marquis of, , , , , . arthur's seat, , . ashby de la zouch, , , . ashestiel, , , , , . auchmithie, , . avon, the river, . baiglie, the wicks of, , . bailie, joanna, letter to, . balfour, john, of burley, , , , . baliol, barnard, founder of barnard castle, . ballantyne, james, , , , , , , . ballantyne, john, , , , , . balmawhapple, . balquhidder, kirk of, , . balue, cardinal john de la, , . bannockburn, , . bard's incantation, the, . barnard castle, - , . beaton, cardinal, . becket, thomas à, . bemerside heights, . ben an, , . ben ledi, , , . ben lomond, , . ben nevis, . ben venue, , , , . betrothed, the, - . birnam wood, . bishop's palace, the, kirkwall, . blackford hill, , , . black ormiston, the laird of, original of julian avenel, . blackwood, william, criticism by, of _the black dwarf_, . blair adam club, the, . black dwarf, the, , - . blenheim, battle of, . blenheim palace, - . bohun, sir henry de, . border minstrelsy, . borthwick, the river, . bothwell bridge, , , . bothwell castle, . bower, johnny, guide at melrose, . bowhill, seat of the duke of buccleuch, . bowness, . bradwardine, bears of, , . bradwardine, cosmo comyne, , . bradwardine, rose, . braes of balquhidder, , , , , , . branksome hall, , . branxton hill, . bridal of triermain, the, , , , , - ; . bride of lammermoor, the, - ; . brignall woods, , . brig o' turk, , , . brogar, bridge of, . brown square, . bruce, john, discoveries of, in kinrossness, shetland, , . bruce, robert, , , , , , , , , , , , , . bryant, william cullen, quoted, . buccleuch, duchess of (countess of dalkeith), , , , . buccleuch, duke of, ; ; ; . buchanan, francis, . buchanan, john, , . burgh-upon-sands, . burns, robert, , . byron, lord, . cadell, robert, , . cadyow castle, ; quotation, . caerlaverock castle, - , , . caerlaverock churchyard, grave of old mortality, . calton hill, . cambus kenneth, . cambusmore, , . campbell, robert macgregor, original of rob roy, exploits of, - ; death of, . campsie linn, , . canongate, the, edinburgh, . cargill, george, original of saunders mucklebackit, . carlisle, , , , , . caroline, queen, . carpenter, miss charlotte margaret. _see_ lady scott. carrick, margaret, original of tib mumps, . castell coch, wales, . castell dinas bran, . castle dangerous, , . castle street, edinburgh, number , scott's residence, . castleton, . cat castle rocks, . cathcart castle, . chambers, robert, quoted, , . chambers, william, quoted, . charles i, , , , , , , . charles ii, , , , , , , , , , . charles of burgundy, , , , , . chaucer, . chillingham castle, - , . christian, william (william dhône), . chronicles of the canongate, the, - . churchill, john, duke of marlborough, . clare, lady, , . claverhouse, john grahame of, , , . cleikum inn, . clerk, william, original of darsie latimer, , , . clickimin (_cleik-him-in_), pictish broch, . clifford tower, . cluden, the river, , . clyde, the river, . coldingham abbey, . coldingham priory, . coldstream, , . colmslie, . comines, philippe de, , , . coningsburgh, castle of, , , , , . constable, archibald, , , , , . constable, george, original of monkbarns, , . constance de beverly, - , . corehouse, lord, . corra linn, . count robert of paris, . cragg force, . craighall, , , , . craignethan castle, original of tillietudlem, - . craigroyston, , . cranstoun (lord corehouse), original of the baron of cranstoun, . cranstoun, miss (the countess of purgstall), . crichope linn, . crichton castle, - , . cromwell, oliver, , , , , . crookston castle, , . crosbie, andrew, original of paulas pleydell, . culloden, battle of, , , . cumberland, , . cumnor church, . cumnor hall, , , , , . cumnor, the village, , . curle, james, . dacre, thomas, lord, , . daim, oliver le, . dalgetty, old soldier, . dairymple, james, lord stair, original of sir william ashton, , . dalzell, general, . darnley, henry, lord, husband of mary queen of scots, , . david i, . david ii, son of robert bruce, . david deans, house of, . davidson, james, original of dandie dinmont, . dee, river in wales, . deepdale, . derby, countess of (charlotte de la tremouille), . derby, earls of, . derbyshire, . devil's beef tub, . dirk hatteraick's cave, , . dods, mrs. margaret, . don, the river, . douglas, george, , . douglas, lady, . douglas, 'the little,' original of roland graeme, . douglas, sir william, . douglas, village of, . doune castle, , , . driver, counsellor pleydell's clerk, . drumclog, battle of, , . dryburgh abbey, , . dryhope, . dudley, edmund, . dudley, guildford, , , . dudley, john, earl of warwick and duke of northumberland, , , , . dudley, robert. _see_ leicester. dugald ciar mohr, ancestor of rob roy, . dumbarton, , . dumbiedykes, . dumfries, , , , , , . maxwelltown observatory, ; the mid steeple, ; church of kirkpatrick irongray, . duncan, rev. dr., . duncraggin, . dundrennan abbey, , . dunfermline, the abbey, , . dunottar, scott's meeting with old mortality, . dunstaffnage, , , , . dwarfie stone, the, . earl's palace, the, kirkwall, . edinburgh, , . the old town, , ; brown square, ; high street, ; parliament square, - ; st. giles, , - ; tolbooth, , - , ; advocates' library, ; grassmarket, , ; king's park, , ; canongate, , ; salisbury crags, , , , , ; queensbury house, ; the castle, ; castle st., ; st. cuthbert's church, ; st. leonard's crags, , ; the cowgate, ; west bow, ; st. anthony's chapel, , , . edward i, , , , , , . edward iii, . edward iv, , . edward vi, . egliston abbey, , . eildon hills, the, , , , . elibank, , , , , . elizabeth, queen, , , , , , , , , . ellen's isle, , . ellis, george, , , ; quoted, , . emerson, ralph waldo, opinion of _the bride of lammermoor_, quoted, . english lakes, the, , , . engaddi, , . erskine, rev. john, . erskine, william, , , . esk, vale of the. _see_ roslin glen. etal castle, . ethie castle, , . ettrick forest, . ettrick, the river, . eve of st. john, the, , . eyemouth, . faa, gabriel (tod gabbie), . fair maid of perth, the, , - ; house of, . fairy dean, . falkland castle, , , . fast castle, . feckless fannie, original of madge wildfire, . ferguson, dr. adam, , , . ferguson, sir adam, , , , . field of waterloo, the, . fitful head, the, . fitz james. _see_ james v. flodden field, , , , , , , . 'flower of yarrow,' the, . forbes, sir william, , , . ford castle, . forth, the river, , . fortunes of nigel, the, - , . fort william, . foster, anthony, , , . fountains abbey, , . friar tuck, , , . gardiner, colonel, , . gauger's loup, the, . gemmels, andrew, original of edie ochiltree, , . george ii, . george v, , , . gilmerton, . gilsland, , , , , , . glasgow-- the cathedral, , ; the tolbooth, ; the salt market, ; the trongate, ; langside, . glencaple, , . glendearg, , . glen finglas, . glenfinlas, . glenfruin, battle of, . glengarry. _see_ macdonnel. gloucester, cathedral of, . goblin cave, the, . goldie, mrs., . gordon, jean, original of meg merrilies, , , . gordon, madge, queen of the gipsies, , . gow, john, original of cleveland, . gowrie conspiracy, , . grahame, john. _see_ claverhouse. graham of killearn, - . grassmarket, edinburgh, , . gratz, rebecca, original of rebecca, . gray brother, the, . gray, daft jock, original of davie gellatley, . grandtully castle, , , , . greenwich palace, called placentia, . greta, the river, , , . grey, lady jane, , , . grey mare's tail, , . grierson of lag, . guy mannering, - ; scenes from, in edinburgh, ; liddesdale, ; england, . guy's cliffe, . gwenwynwyn, welsh hero, , . haddon hall, , , . hall, captain basil, . kailyards, residence of dr. adam ferguson, . hal o' the wynd, house of, . harden, . harden, wat of, . harold the dauntless, . harthill, site of front-de-boeuf's castle, . hastings, william, lord, . hawthornden, . hawthorne, nathaniel, his opinion of scotland, . heart of midlothian, the, , - , . heber, richard, . henry i, . henry ii, , . henry iii, . henry vii, , , . henry viii, , , , , . heriot, george, , . heron, lady, , . heron, sir hugh, , . herries family, the, - . highland widow, the, , . high street, edinburgh, , . hillslap, . hoddam castle, , , . hogg, james, the ettrick shepherd, , , , . holyrood abbey, , . holyrood palace, , , , , , , . hospitalfield, arbroath, . howard, lord william ('belted will'), , , . hoy, island of, . hughes, mrs., of uffington, quoted, . hutton, richard h., quoted, . innerleithen, . inverary castle, , . inverlochy, battle of, , - ; castle, . inversnaid, ; the fort, ; the falls, . iona, , . irthing river, the, , , . irving, john, . irving, washington, visit of, to abbotsford, , ; scott's letter to, ; quoted, , , , , , . ivanhoe, - , . james i of scotland, , , , . james ii of scotland, , , , . james iii, , , . james iv, , , , , , , . james v, , , ; as fitz james, , , , , ; as 'gudeman of ballangeich,' , , , . james vi of scotland (james i of england), , , , , - , - , . james viii, the 'old pretender,' . jarlshof, shetland islands, , , , , . jedburgh, . jeffrey, lord, ; quoted, . jervaulx abbey, . john, king, , , , . jones, paul, . keith, mrs. murray, original of mrs. bethune baliol, . keith, sir alexander, . kelso, , , , , , , . kenilworth, - . kenilworth castle, , , , , , , . mortimer's tower, , , . the gallery tower, , , . cæsar's tower, . leicester's building, . henry viii's lodgings, . the white hall, . the presence chamber, . the great hall, , . mervyn's tower, , . the pleasance, . kenneth macalpine, . kilpont, lord, original of the earl of menteith, - . kilsyth, battle of, . kinblethmont, . kinfauns, castle of, . kinross, . kirkcudbright, , . kirk yetholm, , . kirkwall, capital of the orkney islands, - . knox, john, , . lady of the lake, the, , , , - . lag, castle of, . laidlaw, william, , . lammermuir hills, , . lanark, . lanercost priory, , , . lang, andrew, quoted, , , . langshaw, . langside, battle of, , . lasswade cottage, , , , . lauderdale, duke of, , . lanrick mead, , , . lay of the last minstrel, the, , - , ; quotation from, . lediard falls, , . legend of montrose, a, , - . leicester, earl of (lord robert dudley), , , , , , , , , , , , . _leicester's commonwealth_, anonymous pamphlet, . lennel, , . leny, falls of, . lerwick, capital of the shetland islands, - , , , . leslie, general, , . leyden, dr. john, letter to, . liddesdale, raids into, , , , . liège, , , , . life of napoleon, . lincluden abbey, , . lindisfarne abbey, - . lindsay, sir david, , . linlithgow, . llangollen, wales, , ; the 'ladies' of, . loch achray, , . loch ard, , , , . loch arklet, . loch corriskin, . loch doine, . loch fyne, . loch of harray, . loch katrine, , , , , , , , , , . loch leven castle, , , , . loch linnhe, , , , . loch lomond, , , , - , . loch of the lowes, . loch lubnaig, , , , . loch oich, . loch scavig, . loch skene, , . loch of sleapin, . loch of stennis, . loch tay, . loch vennachar, , . loch voil, , , . loches, castle of, , . lockhart, john gibson, , , ; quoted, , , , , , , , , , , . london, , , , , , . london bridge, . lord of the isles, the, - . louis xi of france, , , , , , , . lyulph's tower, . macallister's cave, . macdonald, flora, original of flora macivor, . macdonnel, colonel ronaldson, of glengarry, . macgregor, clan, - . macgregor, helen, rob roy's wife, . mackay, charles, . macvicar, minister of st. cuthbert's, . maida, scott's favourite dog, , note; - , . major oak, the, in sherwood forest, - . 'making' of sir walter, the, - . malcolm graeme, , , . man, isle of, , . manor water, vale of, , , . marck, william de la, . margaret, lady, of branksome hall, , , , . marmion, , , , - , ; quotations from, , . marquis of annandale's beefstand, . marriott, rev. john, . mary, queen of england, , , , . mary, queen of scots, , , , , , , , , , , , , . mathieson, peter, . mayburgh, . meg merrilies, , , . 'meikle-mouthed meg,' story of, . melrose, , - , , , , , , , , , , , . menteith, lake, . mercat cross, of melrose, . middleham castle, , . miller, a. h., quoted, . millie, bessie, original of norna of the fitful head, , . minstrelsy of the scottish border, , , , . mitchell, robert, , . moddey dhoo, legend of the, . moffat, , , . moffat water, . monastery, the, , - , . monkbarns (hospitalfield), . monmouth, duke of, , , . montrose, duke of, , , , , . montrose, the marquis of, , , , , ; sword of, . morritt, john b. s., , , , , . mortham castle, , . morton, the regent, . mount sharon, . mousa, broch of, , , . mucklebackit, saunders, - . multon, sir thomas de, of gilsland, , . mump's ha', , . murdock, duke of albany, . murray, earl of, , . murray, sir gideon, of elibank, . muschat's cairn, edinburgh, . nasmyth, sir james, . naworth castle, , , , . neidpath castle, . nethan, the river, . neville, richard, earl of warwick, . newark castle, . nith, the river, , , . norham castle, , , . oakwood tower, stronghold of wat of harden, . oban, , . ochil mountains, . odin, stone of, , . old mortality, - ; tennyson's opinion of, . originals of characters-- alasco, an italian physician employed by the earl of leicester, . lucy ashton, janet dalrymple, , . lady ashton, lady stair, , . sir william ashton, james dalrymple, lord stair, , . julian avenel, the laird of black ormiston, . mrs. bethune baliol, mrs. murray keith, . bevis, maida, scott's dog, , note; - , . the black dwarf, david ritchie, . josiah cargill, rev. dr. duncan, . cleveland, john gow, . baron cranstoun, george cranstoun, . effie deans, isabella walker, - . jeanie deans, helen walker, - . dandie dinmont, james davidson, ; willie elliott, ; mr. laidlaw, . meg dods, marian ritchie, . driver, a clerk of andrew crosbie's, - . alan fairford, sir walter scott, , . saunders fairford, walter scott, father of sir walter, , . rachel geddes, 'lady' waldie, , . davie gellatley, daft jock gray, . roland graeme, 'the little douglas,' . dr. gideon gray, dr. ebenezer clarkson, . dirk hatteraick, yawkins, a dutch skipper, . darsie latimer, william clerk, , . alice lee, anne scott, . allan mcaulay, james stewart, , . flora macivor, flora macdonald, . colonel mannering, sir walter scott, . margaret of branksome, williamina stuart, . matilda of rokeby, williamina stuart, . earl of menteith, lord kilpont, . meg merrilies, jean gordon, , , - . saunders mucklebackit, george cargill, . tib mumps, margaret carrick, ; margaret teasdale, . norna of the fitful head, bessie millie, . edie ochiltree, andrew gemmels, . jonathan oldbuck (monkbarns), sir walter scott, , ; george constable, , old mortality, robert paterson, . paulus pleydell, andrew crosbie, - ; adam rolland, . rebecca of york, rebecca gratz, , . sir robert redgauntlet, grierson of lag, . hugh redgauntlet, one of the herries family, . rob roy, robert macgregor campbell, . dominie sampson, george thomson, . diana vernon, miss cranstoun, ; miss williamina stuart, ; lady scott, . edward waverley, sir walter scott, . madge wildfire, feckless fannie, . orkney islands, scott's visit to, in a light-house yacht, . osbaldistone hall (chillingham castle), - . oxford, university of, , . paterson, robert, original of old mortality, - , . peat, description of, - . peebles, , , . peel castle, isle of man, . penrith, . péronne, , , . perth, , , , , - . peveril castle, , . peveril of the peak, - , . philiphaugh, . pinkie, battle of, . pirate, the, - . plessis les tours, , , , , . pleydell, paulus, , - . 'popping stone,' the, . porteous, john, - . porteous mob, story of, . powis castle, wales, . 'prentice's pillar, the, . prestonpans, , , , , . purdie, tom, , . purgstall, countess of, . queen margaret's bower, . quentin durward, - ; , . raby castle, . raeburn house, . ramsay, david, , , . red comyn, the, . redgauntlet, , , - , . red head, cliffs of, . reiver's wedding, the, . rené, king, . richard i, , , , , , , , , . richard ii, . richard iii, , . richmond castle, , . ritchie david, original of the black dwarf, , . robert iii, , . robin hood, , , , , . robin hood's well, . rob roy, , , - . rob roy's cave, , . rob roy's gun, . robsart, amy, , , , , , , , . roderick dhu, , , , , , . rokeby, , - , , . roman wall at amboglanna, . rosamond's well, . rosebank, . rose, william stewart, . roslin chapel, . roslin glen (vale of the esk), , , , , , , . rotherham, . rothsay, duke of, , . rushen, castle, isle of man, , . saddleback, . st. abbs head, , . st. anthony's chapel, edinburgh, , , . st. bride, the chapel of, . st. clair, william, . st. cuthbert's church, . st. cuthbert's holy isle, - . st. giles cathedral, , - . st. john, church of, perth, . st. john, valley of, . st. leonard's crags, edinburgh, , . st. magnus, cathedral of, , , , . st. margaret's loch, edinburgh, . st. mary's loch, , . st. ronan's well, - , . st. thomas's abbey (st. ruth's), , . salisbury crags, the, edinburgh, , , , , . sandy knowe, , , . scalloway, castle of, , , , . scalloway, village in the shetland islands, . scone, palace of, , , , , . scott country, the, limits of, , , . scott, anne, daughter of sir walter, , , . scott, charles, son of sir walter, , . scott, daniel, brother of sir walter, . scott, miss janet, aunt of sir walter, , . scott, john, brother of sir walter, , . scott, lady (wife of sir walter), introduction of, to sir walter, , ; courtship, , ; marriage, ; home at lasswade, , ; reference to dryburgh, , ; sickness and death, , , . scott, michael, the wizard, , . scott, mrs. maxwell-, granddaughter of sir walter, . scott, sophia, daughter of sir walter, , . scott, thomas, brother of sir walter, . scott, sir walter-- liddesdale raids, ; residence at sandy knowe, ; visit to prestonpans, ; his first pony, ; at kelso, ; passes law examinations, ; visit to english lakes, ; to gilsland, ; meets miss carpenter, , ; marriage, ; quartermaster of edinburgh volunteers, ; his memory, ; decides to abandon the practice of law, - ; sheriff of selkirk, ; early poems, ; ashestiel, , ; visit to highlands, , ; purchases abbotsford, ; clerk of court of session, ; aided by sir william forbes, ; later highland excursion, , ; visit from joseph train, ; visit to dumfries, ; to english lakes, ; salmon spearing incident, ; at university of edinburgh, ; visited by irving, - ; experience as member of edinburgh volunteers, - ; visit to hallyards, ; visit to loch skene, - ; visit to the braes of balquhidder, ; clerk of court of session, ; driving through canongate, ; suggests building the radical road, ; guest at studley royal, ; visited by washington irving, ; 'refreshing the machine,' ; presentation to the duke of wellington, ; visit to shetland islands, , , , , ; familiarity with history and literature of england, ; duties as clerk of the court of session, ; residence in edinburgh, ; fondness for country life, ; practices in case of peter peebles, ; visit to wales, ; distressing change in personal affairs, ; announcement of authorship of waverley novels, ; visit to wicks of baiglie, perth, ; feeling toward brother daniel, ; circumstances under which _the fair maid of perth_ was written, ; paying off the debt, ; writings of the last five years, ; importunities of a creditor, ; theatrical fund dinner, ; spirit of perseverance, ; apoplexy and other ailments, ; journey to the continent, ; death, ; personality of, ; kindness, ; generosity, ; conversation, ; relations with family, , ; creed, ; ambition, ; failure of hopes, ; relations with the ballantynes, , ; indiscretion, ; courage and final triumph, . scott, walter, 'beardie,' great-grandfather of sir walter, . scott, walter, father of sir walter, original of saunders fairford, . scott, walter, son of sir walter, , , . scott, sir william, of harden, . scott, sir william, of buccleuch, . seymour, lord, . sharp, james, archbishop, - , . sharpe, charles kirkpatrick, . sherwood forest, , . shetland islands, visit to, in a lighthouse yacht, . shortreed, robert, , , , . skene, james of rubislaw, , , ; quoted, , , , , , . skiddaw, . skye, island of, , . smailholm, , , , , , . smellie, william, . solway firth, , , , , . somerset, the duke of, . staffa, . stennis, stones of, , . stewart, alexander of invernahyle, , , . stewart, james, of ardvoirlich, original of allan mcaulay, , , . stewart, patrick, earl of orkney, , , , . stirling castle, , , - , . stonebyres linn, . strathgartney, . stromness, village in orkney, , , , . stuart, charles edward, , , , , , , , , , , . stuart, lady louisa, , , , . stuart, miss williamina (lady stuart-forbes), scott's first love, , , ; original of margaret of branksome, ; original of matilda, . studley royal, , . sumburgh head, , , , , . surgeon's daughter, the, , . sweetheart abbey, , , . swift, life of, . tales of the crusaders, - . talisman, the, , , , - . tantallon castle, , . tay, the river, , , . teasdale, margaret, original of tib mumps, . tees, the river, , , , . teith, the river, . temple, the, london, , , . terry, daniel, , . teviot, the river, . thames, the, london, , . thomas the rhymer, . thomson, george, original of dominie sampson, . thomson, rev. john, of duddingston, . thoresby house, . thorsgill, the river, , . tillietudlem. _see_ craignethan. tippermuir, battle of, . tolbooth, edinburgh, , - , . tours, , . tower of london, . train, joseph, provides information used in _the lord of the isles_, ; in _guy mannering_, - ; in _old mortality_, ; in _the heart of midlothian_, . traquair, earl of, , . traquair house, , , , , , . triermain castle, , , . triermain castle rock, , . trossachs, the, , , , , , . tully veolan, - . turnberry castle, . tweed, the river, , - , , . twisel bridge, . two drovers, the, , , . ullswater, . vaux, sir roland de, . vernon, dorothy, of haddon hall, . villiers, george, first duke of buckingham, called 'steenie,' , . villiers, george, second duke of buckingham, . waldie family, the, of kelso, , . waldie, 'lady,' original of rachel geddes, . waldie, robert, . wales, , , . walker, helen, original of jeanie deans, - . walker, isabella, original of effie deans, - . walker, patrick, author of _life of cameron_, . wallace, william, . wampool river, the, . wark castle, . warrender, sir george, . warwick castle, , , . warwick, earl of, . warwickshire, . wat of harden, . waverley, , , - , . welbeck abbey, . welshpool, . westmoreland, . whinnyrig, . whitefoord, colonel, , . whitefriars (alsatia), , . whitehall, palace of, , , . wideford hill, kirkwall, . william the conqueror, , , , , , . william the lion, , . williams, rev. john, archdeacon of cardigan, . wolf's crag, . wolf's hope, . woodstock, - . woodstock, village of, ; palace of, - . wordsworth, ; letter to, ; , . wright, guthrie, ; quoted, . wycliffe, oswald, . yarrow, the river, . yawkins, dutch skipper, original of dirk hatteraick, . yetholm loch, . york, castle of, . york minister, . york, city of, , . york water gate, . the riverside press cambridge * massachusetts u.s.a. an american hobo in europe by windy bill a true narrative of the adventures of a poor american at home and in the old country press of the calkins publishing house san francisco, cal. copyright by b. goodkind contents chapter. page. i. billy and me ii. frisco iii. the journey overland iv. new york city v. them bloomin' publishers vi. the ocean voyage vii. the steerage viii. glasgow ix. getting a square meal x. the glasgow green (or common) xi. hunting for a furnished room xii. dancing in the green xiii. taking in a glasgow show xiv. robert burns, the poet xv. sir walter scott chapter i. billy and me. stranger, will you please permit me to give you an introduction to a particular friend of mine, little billy. little billy and i had long been friends and had become so intimate that we were more like brothers than friends. some brothers indeed do not stick to each other as closely as billy and i did for we never quarreled and the worst that ever happened between us was a little growl which we soon got over. billy and i had been on the bum together a long while and had prospected for gold and other things in utah, nevada and california. the adventures we had if i were to relate them would fill several such volumes as this. and many of them were worth relating, too, but i will merely give a general outline of our experiences, for his experiences were mostly mine. while hiking it along the railroad one day between ogden and salt lake city which is a distance of about thirty-seven miles, we ran across a couple of pretty mormon girls about half a mile from town and they made goo-goo eyes at us. billy, who is rather reserved with strangers, was for moving on, but i, who am a friendly and sociable cuss, was in for having a little time with them. "what's the harm, billy?" said i to my chum; "let's see what kind of stuff the girls are made of." "oh, what's the use, windy," responded billy; "we might get into trouble." "trouble be blowed," said i; "they ain't agoing to make any trouble so why should _we_. let's see what their game is anyway." we approached the ladies, tipped our hats, and passed the compliments of the day. they responded pleasantly enough, entered into a conversation with us and soon we all strolled further on from the town and sat down on a viaduct spanning a rushing irrigation ditch. billy was as chipper as anyone when once he got started and held his end down in the conversation first class. the girls were merry and talkative and seemed to like to talk to the fellers. they told us all about the mormons, how they live, act, and what they do, and billy wanted to know how mormons got married. "why don't you get married and find out?" asked one of the girls. "i ain't no mormon," spoke up billy. "you can be if you want to," says the girl, "religion is free." "all right," says billy, "i'll think it over." the girls were giving us a game i thought, but we could stand it if they could. we chinned away there for hours until it began to grow late, when the girls concluded they would have to go. we were sorry to part from such elegant company but it was a case of have to. after they had gone we wondered what their little game was, whether it was merely a case of flirtation or whether they were looking for converts to their religion. billy put the question to me and i told him he could search me; i didn't know. anyway, neither of us wanted to get married just then, so after the girls left us we troubled our heads no more about them. we stopped in ogden, utah, a few days, and then beat our way to virginia city, nevada, where we did some laboring work at the old bonanza mines. neither of us were miners, although we had prospected some without results. we found the miners to be a good-hearted set of fellows and liked to be among them. grub and booze could be had for the asking in virginia city when we were broke, but handouts were more plentiful than work. not many strangers wander to virginia city these days, for the town is off the main line and no bums visit it. it is on the decay order. its streets are in ruins, ditto the sidewalks and houses, and over the whole place there is a musty odor. it is away high up in the air about eight thousand feet above sea level and the wealth that once was brought up from several thousand feet below the surface amounted to billions, not millions of dollars. today the big mill houses still stand in their usual place in good order but little mining is done there. some of the big plants, such as the ophir, savage, norcross and hale, consolidated virginia and best & belcher are still there, but where there were a thousand miners working before there are not ten working today. the place is strictly on the bum, just like me and my little pardner. once there were forty or fifty thousand people in virginia city, but today there are not five thousand, or anyways near that number and the ruins and scenes of desolation make a fellow feel sad. the old international hotel where the nobs used to stop and spent a fortune every day, is now run by a chinaman at a cheap rate. there is plenty of fine scenery around virginia city, however, and plenty of piute indians, but the piutes don't enhance the scenery any. they are a dirty crowd and sit around on decaying lumber piles and hillsides within the town, playing cards and other gambling games. the miners are mostly cornishmen, englishmen from cornwall, england, and as billy is english he took to them very readily. carson was our next stopping place and we found it to be a nice little town. it isn't far from virginia city and is the capital of nevada. it contains a few thousand people, lots of tall poplar trees which stand along the streets, sage-brush and alkali covered hills and plains, a large stone railroad roundhouse, the state capitol building (which is enclosed in a park several acres in extent), a u. s. mint and that's about all. no work to speak of is going on around there and as billy and me could not get anything to do we lived on hand-outs mostly. one evening we saw a hen wandering about rather aimlessly, so to put her out of misery we caught her, wrung her neck and took her out of town where we roasted her over a slow fire. we rubbed her while she was cooking with a little sage to make us think of christmas and devoured her by starlight. bill said she reminded him of home and felt kind of blue for a few moments. but he munched away and soon cheered up. it may be the proper thing here to give a short description of billy. billy was a little fellow, about five foot two, and was a britisher, a native of the city of york, in yorkshire, after which new york is named. he was what you might call a strawberry blonde, for he had light hair and a moustache that was halfway between golden and red. it wasn't one of your straggly kind of moustaches with big hairs sticking out all over it, but small, neat and compact with just the cutest little turned up spit-curls at each end of it you ever saw. maybe billy wasn't proud of that moustache! he was dead stuck on it and was nearly always fussing with it and fondling it. quite often he trimmed it with the aid of a little looking glass which he carried in his kit. whenever the kit was unrolled billy got the glass and admired himself with it. and yet i can't say the little cuss was vain, for whenever he met females he seemed indifferent to their charms and looked another way. his eyes were blue and his hands and feet small. taken all together he wasn't a bad looking chap. billy had some folks in the old country, a mother and two sisters but no father or brothers, and they lived in old york. billy was born and raised in york and at a very early age was apprenticed to a harness-maker. his folks probably thought that the sooner he got out and rustled the better for himself and all concerned. apprentices don't get much in old england, billy told me, and have to serve long years at their trade before they can become a journeyman. billy worked seven or eight years for his clothes and board and an occasional ha-'penny with which he bought a meat pie or lollipops. one day the idea struck him that he wasn't getting rich very fast. he had been working a long time and hadn't a bean to show for it, so he began to grow dissatisfied. he had heard some tales of how easy it is to get rich in america and he thought that it might be a good thing if he went there. his mother and sisters didn't agree with his notions but billy didn't seem to care for that. he just laid low for awhile and said nothing. but the more he thought things over the more dissatisfied he became and the more determined to flit. he slept in the back room of his boss's shop and had to arise early every morning to take down the shutters, sweep out, dust off, and get things in shape generally for business. one day the boss came down and found the shutters still up, the place unswept and no billy. the boss probably wondered where little billy was but he had to take it out in wondering, for billy had flown the coop and was over the hills and far away on his way to london. the boss went to billy's folks and asked them if they knew where billy was, but they told him he could search them. they didn't know anything about billy. the boss probably did some pretty tall cussing just then and made up his mind that something would happen to billy when he turned up, but he never did turn up and never will until he (billy) gets rich. then he'll go back to visit his folks and settle with his master, he told me. billy says the boss don't owe him any money and he don't owe the boss any, so it's a standoff financially between them; but billy owes him a few years of service which he says he is willing to put in if the boss can catch him. billy says he had a hard time of it in london and found it difficult to secure passage to this country. finally, after many heart-breaking experiences he secured a job as steward on an ocean liner by a fluke, merely because another chap who had previously been engaged failed to show up. billy was in luck, he thought. he landed in new york with a little tip-money, for the steamship company would pay him no wages unless he made the round trip according to an agreement previously made in london and with this small sum of money he managed to live until he found work. he secured a job as dishwasher in a restaurant and received five dollars a week and his chuck as wages. out of this big sum he paid room rent and managed to save a little money which he sent home to his mother. compared with what he had been getting in the old country billy considered that he was on the road to fortune and he felt elated. he held down his job for some months but got into a difficulty one day with his boss over something or other and got fired. he took his discharge much to heart and concluded to leave new york. he made his way to philadelphia, about one hundred miles west, and there secured work in a small restaurant as a hashslinger. when he left this place because of a little argument with another waiter, he concluded to go out west where he was told the opportunities were great. i met him in a camp seated at a fire one evening surrounded by a lot of 'bos in wyoming. he didn't look wealthy just then. we scraped up an acquaintance and i took to the young fellow at the first go-off as i saw he was not a professional vag, and we joined forces and have been together ever since. our trip from carson in nevada over the mountains into california was a delightful one. from carson to reno the scenery is no great shakes (although it was over hill and dale), for the hills looked lone and barren. the crops had just been gathered from these hills and dales. the leaves were turning color on the trees and it was the melancholy season of the year when nature looks blue. me and billy weren't melancholy, however, for we were good company to each other and never felt lonely. at reno early one morning we crept into an unsealed boxcar and rode upward to the high sierras. the scenery when day broke was so fine that we were enchanted. no barren mountains were here and no sage-brush covered plains, but well-timbered mountains whereon grew trees and bushes of all kinds. to us it seemed like wakening from autumn to spring. billy and me couldn't understand this. a few miles away were leaves that were turning in their autumn tints whilst here everything was green and fresh like the dawning of life. it astonished us but made us feel good all over. we were both as happy and joyous as if we were millionaires. here was a beautiful sheet of water with a big paper-mill near it; further along was a little railroad station entirely surrounded by hills. nothing but lofty mountains towered all around us, with a canyon running through them, along which we rode. ice-ponds were there with no ice in them just then, for it was the wrong season for ice, but numerous huge ice-houses were there, which showed us what the ponds were for. the iron horse wound around and around these lofty mountains and the keen, pure air made us feel as good as if we had been taking a nip. we sure felt gay and happy as larks. by-and-by we reached a place called truckee which seemed to be quite a town. we hopped off to reconnoiter for we knew the freight train would be there some little time, and noticed that there was only one street in the town, which contained several stores, a butcher-shop or two, several restaurants, two hotels and about a dozen or more saloons. as we walked along the street we noticed a sign over a stairway leading into a cellar which read, "benny's gray mule." we started to go down the steps but found that "benny's gray mule" was shut up tight. too bad! a saloon with such a romantic name as that ought to thrive. we went into another saloon and i ordered two beers and threw a dime upon the counter in payment. "come again," said mr. barkeep, giving me an evil glance. i hesitated. "another dime, pardner, all drinks are ten cents here," says barkeep. "all right," says i, "don't get huffy; i didn't know the price." i laid down another dime and this mr. barkeep swept into his till nonchalantly. the place seemed tough and so did the barkeeper. toward the rear of the large room was a lunch counter where a square meal could be had for two bits ( cents), or coffee and hot cakes for fifteen cents; sandwiches for a dime each; a piece of pie and coffee, ten cents. in convenient places were gambling layouts where a fellow could shoot craps, play roulette or stud-horse poker. it was too early in the day for gambling but a few tough-looking nuts were there sitting around and waiting for a chance to try their luck. we saw all we wanted of this place and sloped. truckee is the last big town in california going eastward, and it is a lumber camp, railroad division and icing station (refrigerator cars are iced there). a pretty rough old place it is. me and billy bought a couple of loaves of bread and some cheese and then made tracks for our box-car. we found it all right and climbed aboard. our train had done a lot of switching at truckee and a good many cars had been added to the train. two big engines now were attached to the train instead of one and soon with a "toot toot" we were off. it was uphill all the way and the locomotives seemed to be having a hard time of it for their coughs were loud and deep and the hissing of steam incessant. to billy and me the work was easy for all we had to do was to listen to the laboring engines and look out at the pretty scenery. the scenery was fine and no mistake, for the higher we went the prettier it got. mountains we saw everywhere with spruce, fir, pine and cedar trees upon them. the views were ever changing but soon we came to a lot of snow-sheds that partly shut off the views. they must have been a hundred miles in length, for it took us an awful long time to get through them. the sheds were huge affairs of timber built over the track to keep off the snow in winter, and i felt like stopping and counting how many pieces of timber were in each shed. it must have taken a forest to build these sheds. along in the afternoon we began to get hungry, so we jumped off at a place called dutch flat, to see what we could scare up in the shape of a handout. the outlook didn't seem promising to us for all we could see of dutch flat was a lot of chinese shacks strung along one side of the railroad track. "billy, i guess we're up against it here," i remarked; "i don't see any signs of a white man's house around. where can we get anything to eat?" "let's try the chinks; we've got to have something to eat, you know; we can't starve," ruefully responded billy. we were both pretty hungry by this time for the bracing mountain air had given us a hearty appetite. i stepped up to the first hut we came to, rapped at the door and when a chink opened it told him we were very hungry and would like something to eat. "no sabee," says the chink, slamming the door. i tried other huts with the same result. it was "no sabee" with all of them. i told billy that my errand was a failure and his jaw dropped. "how much money have you got, billy?" i asked. billy dug down and brought up a lone nickel. i had a dime. i asked billy to give me his nickel and told him that as we couldn't beg any grub maybe we might be able to buy fifteen cents' worth of something. with the fifteen cents i strode forth to try my luck once more. i saw a very old chinaman in front of his hut and asked him if he would sell me fifteen cents worth of grub. "no gotee anything; only law (raw) meat." "what kind of meat?" "pork chop," answered the old man, briefly. "all right, here's fifteen cents; give me some meat." i handed him the money and he went inside and brought out two fair sized chops. "you sabee cookee?" asked the aged celestial. "heap sabee, you bet; me cookee before," remarked i. "all lightee," said the celestial, giving me a little salt and pepper. the country around dutch flat was hilly so billy and me hunted up some secluded spot where we could eat our chops in peace and quietness. we built a rousing fire, for wood around there was plentiful, and put the chops upon long sticks which we hung over the fire. the grass around our camp was pretty dry and the first thing we knew the fire began to spread all over the country. when we stamped it out on one side it made good headway on the other side, and do all we could we couldn't stop it. we got scared, dropped our meat and sloped. it wasn't long before the chinamen saw the fire and then there was a whole lot of loud talk in chinese. the whole village was out in a jiffy with buckets, pails, empty oil cans and any old thing that would hold water and at it they went, trying to put out the fire. not a few of the chinamen procured wet sacks with which they tried to beat out the flames, but it was no go. me and billy returned and grabbed a sack each, wet it and aided all we could in putting out the fire, but it had gained too much headway and defied us all. i concluded that it was going to burn down all the sierra mountains before it got through. there was a laundry in the chinese village for i noticed a lot of white man's underwear and white shirts hanging on lines to dry, and near by was the washerman's horse tethered to a stake. when the horse saw and smelt the flames he became frantic and was a hard horse to hold. his owner ran up and yelled and shouted at him in chinese but the horse either did not or would not understand what was said to him for he tried to kick the stuffing out of his boss and everything else that came near him. he kicked down every wash line that he could, one after another, and did his best to break loose from his halter, but it was no go. he wouldn't let his boss get anyway near him for his heels flew in every direction and it made us laugh to hear the chinamen swear in chinese. after the brute kicked down every line within reach of his heels he finally broke loose and galloped over the hills at a breakneck pace. for all that billy and i know to the contrary he is galloping yet. billy and me concluded that it was about time for us to skip out, too, so we did so. we had done all we could to help put out the fire and lost our grub in the operation, so we felt that we had done our duty. i have often thought of that fire since and wondered what the result was, whether it ended in great damage to the country and the destruction of the chinese village, or whether the horse had ever showed up again. there is no rainfall in california during the summer months, i am told, and in consequence the grass and much of the vegetation dries up and one has to be very careful where to light a fire. we didn't know that, hence the disaster. we climbed into our car again, and were ready to move on whenever the train did. we lit our pipes, indulged in a smoke, and laughed over our recent experience. we must have laughed pretty loud, for a head was suddenly thrust into the car doorway and a stern visage confronted us. it was the brakeman's. "what you fellers doin' there?" asked brakey. "only taking a ride," responded billy. "where to?" asked brakey. "down the line a little way." "what are you riding on?" asked mr. brakeman. "on a freight train," innocently answered billy. i guffawed, for i knew billy had given the wrong answer, but brakey never cracked a smile. "got any money or tickets?" asked he, gravely. "no," answered billy. "get off then and be quick about it," was the stern command. off we hopped and quite crestfallen, too, for our journey for the time being was ended. we wandered back to the railroad station to ascertain when the next train would leave. there would be nothing until early the next morning we learned, so there was nothing for us to do but to unroll our blankets and lay off somewhere near by where we could catch a train as it came by. we were very hungry, but turned in supperless, and chewed tobacco to satisfy the cravings of our stomachs. we soon fell asleep but kept one ear open to catch the sound of any freight train coming our way. wayfarers are wonderfully acute, even in their sleep, as regards noticing the approach of trains. no matter how sound their sleep may be, they will wake up at the proper time to board a train nine times out of ten, unless they are too badly boozed. during the early hours of the morning a long train full of empty cars came our way and we made it easily. it was mighty chilly at that time of the day, but as we had on heavy overcoats, our bodies did not suffer much. our feet, however, did. fellows who beat their way, though, must put up with such little inconveniences without kicking. it belongs to the business. they must bear hunger, cold, thirst, dust, dirt and other trifles of that kind and get used to it. those who travel in pullman and tourist cars pay their money and sleep on feathers, but we slept just as well and nearly as warmly, wrapped in our blankets in a box car. during our wanderings we slept on the ground, in old shacks, barns, sidetracked cars or any old place and got along fairly well. we didn't have washbasins to wash in, but we carried soap, brushes and hand-glasses with us, and could make our toilet at any place where there was running water. water was plentiful in the sierra mountains. we pulled out of dutch flat when the train got ready and flew down the mountain side at great speed. we could go as lively as the train could in our car, however, and the speed was exhilarating, but the morning breeze was mighty keen and cutting. we would have given a great deal for a cup of hot coffee just then, but of course it wasn't to be had. when we neared a place called auburn we saw a grove of trees, the leaves of which were a deep green, and among them hung little balls of golden yellow fruit that looked good to us. "hi, billy," exclaimed i, "look at them yellow balls hanging on the trees, will you? wonder what they are?" billy looked at them fixedly for quite a while and then suddenly made a shrewd guess. "them's oranges, windy, as sure as we're alive." these were the first oranges billy or i had ever seen growing on trees and they surely looked good to us. they reminded us of christmas trees. we would liked to have jumped out to get some oranges for breakfast, but they were so near and yet so far that we desisted. how tantalizing it was to see a tempting breakfast before you and not be able to eat it. but the train didn't stop anywhere for refreshments, so that let us out. when we got down to a place called roseville, which was a junction, we noticed several orange trees standing near the depot with plenty of oranges hanging amid the leaves, and oh, how we did long to make a rush for them. the train crew was on that side of the train, however, and there were plenty of people near the depot so we dared not make the venture. oh, if this train would only stop twenty minutes for refreshments maybe we could get a handout, but it didn't stop, so we had to go hungry till we reached sacramento. we got to sacramento, the capital of california, before noon, and jumped off the train in the railroad yard, keeping an eye on the bulls and fly-cops that buzzed around there. no one got on to us so we walked leisurely along with our blankets slung over our shoulders. the railroad yards were quite extensive and it took us quite a while to traverse them. in them were car shops, foundries and all kinds of buildings and things pertaining to railroads. sacramento is a railroad division, the first out of frisco, i believe, and we noticed a good deal doing in the way of railroad manufacturing, but we were too hungry to care for such things just then. we got to the passenger train shed which was a large housed-over building of glass and iron, and outside of it came upon a broad street which led into the town. alongside of this street i noticed a slough with green scum upon it which didn't look good to me for swimming or any other purpose. on the other side of this pond was a big chinatown and billy and me thought we might as well see what it looked like. we entered it and saw a young workingman come out of a ten-cent restaurant. billy stepped up to him and boned him for the price of a square meal. he listened to billy's hungry tale of woe and coughed up a dime with which we bought two loaves of bread. we then wandered through the streets looking for a retired spot where we could sit down and eat but the streets in that locality were so filthy and the mongolians so plentiful that we concluded to keep a moving. we came to j and then to k street, which were broad business thoroughfares full of stores and then we walked along k street until we saw a shady green park. to it we wandered and found a comfortable rustic seat under the shade of a spreading oak tree. we threw our blankets behind our seat and sat down and blew off steam. we were tired, hot, dusty and hungry. while eating we looked about us. the park wasn't a large one but it was a trim one. the lawns were shaved down close, the winding walks were well-kept, there were flowers to be seen, palm trees, pampas-plume bushes and, oh ye gods! orange trees with oranges on them. "say billy," remarked i with my mouth full of bread, "get on to the orange trees, will you?" "where?" asked billy, with wide-staring eyes. "why, right along the walk up that way," said i, pointing. "sure enough," says billy, "keep an eye on my grub, will you, while i get a hatful," said he excitedly. "keep your eyes peeled for cops," admonished i, as billy rushed off. billy made the riffle all right and came back with four or five nice looking oranges, which were all he could carry. he remarked that they would do for the present. after stowing the bread and getting a drink of muddy water from a fountain near by, we tackled the oranges and found them dry and tasteless and bitter as gall. "call them things oranges!" sneered billy, as he threw his portion away with disgust; why they're bitter as gall. i've bought many a better orange than that in the old country for a penny. "i thought they raised good oranges in california," said i, "but if they're all like these, then i don't want any of them," whereupon i threw mine over my shoulder, too, into the shrubbery behind me. oh, weren't they bitter; boo! "billy, we've been misinformed," said i, "the oranges in california are n. g." "right you are, windy, but as they didn't cost us anything we oughtn't to kick." after eating and resting, we took in the town. we found sacramento to be a sizeable place, containing about fifty thousand people, and the people to us seemed sociable, chatty and friendly. we both liked the place first class, and as we were broke, concluded to try our luck there for awhile. we struck a street cleaning job and held it down for a week. the water used in sacramento comes from the sacramento river, we were told, and as it wasn't at all good, we took to beer, as did many others. we were told about a class of people in sacramento called native sons, who monopolized all the good things in the way of jobs. native sons are native born californians who take a great deal of pride in their state and have an organization which they call the native sons of the golden west. the aim of this organization is to beautify california, plant trees, keep up the old missions, preserve the giant redwood trees, forests, and the like. lots of fellows spoke ill of the native sons, but we didn't, for they weren't hurting us any. the native californians we met in sacramento to us seemed a genial sort of people who are willing to do strangers or anyone a good turn, if they can. lots of them were hustlers and full of business and their city surely is a snorter. there are several large parks in sacramento, fruit and vegetable markets, and any number of swell saloons where a schooner of beer and a free lunch can be had for a nickel. then there is the western hotel, state house and capitol hotels, all of which are big ones, and any number of fine stores and lots of broad, well-shaded residence streets, traction cars, electric lights, etc. the city is right up to date. after we had been there about a week, billy suddenly got a severe attack of the shakes and seemed in a bad way. his lips turned blue, his eyes burned with fever, his teeth rattled like clappers, and his body shook as if he had the jim-jams. i went to a dispensary and had some dope fixed up for him, but it didn't seem to do him any good. i then bought a quart bottle of whiskey, and poured the whole of it down his throat. he took to it as naturally as a kid does to its mother's milk, but every day the poor little cuss got worse. "let's hike out of this place, billy," said i; "the best cure for the shakes is to go where there isn't any, for as long as we stay here you'll be sick." billy, as usual, was willing to do as i said (and i was always willing to do as he said), so we made tracks out of sacramento in pretty short order. we crossed the sacramento river, which is about a half a mile across, on a wooden bridge, and it was all billy could do to walk across it. he was as weak as a kitten and so groggy on his pins that he could hardly stand up. some people who saw him probably thought he was boozed, but he wasn't, any more than i was. i took hold of his arm and led him along, but the little cuss sat down on a string piece of the bridge and told me to let him die in peace. "die nothing, you silly little britisher: you ain't any nearer death than i am," said i. "sit down and rest yourself and then we'll take another little hike. we'll make a train somewhere on the other side of the river, then ho! for 'frisco, where our troubles will soon be ended. brace up, old man, and never say die." i jollied the little cuss along in that way until we got to a little station where we could catch a train and we soon did catch one. we rode on to davis, which was a junction, and close to the station i saw a large vineyard. i pointed it out to billy. "stay where you are, billy, and i'll get you some grapes," said i. grapes were ripe just then. i jumped over the fence and secured a big hatful of fine big, flaming tokay grapes. they were delicious and did billy a world of good. we were now fairly on our way to 'frisco, the mecca of all bums. we never saw a bum yet who hadn't been in 'frisco or who didn't know all about the city. billy and me had heard about it, but hadn't seen it, and though we were on the tramp, didn't consider ourselves bums. we worked when we could find something to do, but when there was nothing to do, of course we couldn't do it. work is something a bum will never do. lots of the bums we met along the road were criminals and some of them pretty desperate ones at that. a few were chaps who were merely traveling to get somewhere and had no money to pay their way. others had money and would not pay. some were honest laboring men flitting from point to point in search of work, and not a few were unfortunates who had held high positions and were down and out through drink or misfortune of some sort. there were all sorts beating their way, and there always will be. the professional vag is a low down fellow who has few redeeming qualities. he is agreeable with his chums and that is about all. neither billy nor i were low, base born fellows, or criminals, and our parents were respectable, so that is why we took to each other. we were fellow mortals in distress, that is all. we did not think it very wrong to take a chicken if we were very hungry, but that was the extent of our evil doing. we bought our own clothes, blankets, etc., and never broke into a house to steal anything. one outfit that we were with at one time in utah, one night stole a suit case that was standing on the platform of a railroad station and they divided up its contents among themselves. it consisted of a coat, vest, pants, collars, ties, handkerchiefs, brush, combs, etc., and had we been caught the whole bunch of us might have been pinched, but the gang made tracks in a hurry and got as far away from the scene of the robbery as they could. some of the characters we met in our travels would have contaminated a saint almost, for their looks, actions and words revealed their disposition. the higher up in crime some of these chaps were, and the abler and more desperate, the more were they admired by some of their fellows. this kind of chaps were generally the captains of the camp, and gave orders that were readily obeyed by the others. one bum was generally commanded by the captain to go and rustle up bread, another was sent for meat, a third for coffee, a fourth for sugar, a fifth for pepper and salt, etc. no matter how things were obtained, if they were obtained no questions were asked. one fellow returned to camp with a quarter of a lamb one night and boastfully told how he had got it. it had hung up outside a butcher shop and he stole it. the captain mumbled his approval in low tones, for he was too mighty to praise loudly or in many words. the ways of hobos are various, and it would take up a great deal of space to describe them in detail. it was along toward sundown when we made a train out of davis. davis, like sacramento, was a pretty hard town to get out of, and the best we could do was to ride the rods. that was easy enough, even for billy, who was rather delicate at that time. the rods under some freight cars are many and well arranged for riding purposes. they are fairly thick bars of iron set close together, stretching from one side of the car to the other, underneath the body of the car, and though not very often soft, when an overcoat is strung across them, with rolled up blankets for a pillow, they are the next best thing to a berth in a pullman car. when one side of our body ached, we just turned over to the other side, and it beat riding on the bumpers or brake-beams all hollow. a berth in a pullman costs about five dollars per night, fare extra, so we were saving lots of money. beating our way on a railroad we considered no crime at all, for to judge from what i can read in the newspapers, the railroads rob the people, so why shouldn't the people rob them? that's a good argument, ain't it? the measly old train must have been a way-freight, for she made long stops at every little excuse of a town she came to. about ten o'clock at night she came to a place called benicia, and there the train was cut in two, so i hopped off to see what the difficulty was. on both sides and ahead of us was water. i rushed back to billy and told him to get off in a hurry. "what's the matter?" asked billy. "there's water all around us, and i guess they're going to carry the cars over on a ferry boat. i suppose our journey for the night will end here." "not much, windy," replied billy; "i want to get to 'frisco tonight and maybe we can pay our way across on the boat." we walked boldly on a boat that we saw the cars being pulled onto by a locomotive, and when we got near a cabin a ship's officer stepped up to us and wanted to know where we were going. "to 'frisco," said i. "to 'frisco?" said he with a grin. "well, you'll have to pay your way across the ferry on this boat." "what's the fare?" asked billy. "seeing that you two are good-looking fellows, i'll only charge you ten cents apiece," said the captain, or officer, jokingly. we both drew a long breath of relief, for we thought the boat was going to 'frisco and that we'd have to pay a big price. i handed the good-natured officer two dimes for us both and we felt happy once more. the boat wasn't long making the trip, only about ten minutes or so, and on the other side we found no difficulty in making our train again, after she was made up. we held her down until she reached oakland, which is opposite 'frisco. there we learned there was one more ferry to cross before we could get into 'frisco, so billy and i decided to remain where we were for the night, for it was late. we prowled around until we found an open freight car, and turned in for a snooze. the next morning was a beautiful one, and we were up and out by daylight. the weather wasn't cold, the sun was bright and cheery, but over 'frisco we could see a sort of fog hanging. it was easy enough to see across the bay of san francisco, for the distance is only about five miles, but the length of the bay we could not determine, for it stretched further than the eye could reach. we noticed an island in the bay not far from oakland, and from oakland a long wharf extended far out into the harbor, maybe a mile or so. we walked along this wharf until we came to a big train-shed and ferry house combined, where we coughed up two more dimes and got upon a large ferry-boat. as it was very early in the morning, very few passengers were on the boat. we walked to the front of the boat and drank in the delicious morning breeze. the ferry-boat was as large and fine a one as i had ever seen. it was a double-decker with large cabins below and aloft, and with runways for vehicles between. the cabins were very spacious and handsomely fitted up. at about half past five the boat started on her way across, and now we were making a straight shoot for 'frisco. talking of 'frisco, by the way, permit me to say a word about the name. the people of san francisco don't like to have their city called 'frisco, but prefer to have it called by its full title. they think the abbreviation is a slur. i can't see it in that light. 'frisco is short and sweet and fills the bill; life is too short to call it san francisco. the ride across the bay was fine and lasted about half an hour. we passed an island which someone told us was goat island, and billy and me wondered whether there were any billies or nannies on it. we didn't get close enough to see any. further on we saw another island which was hilly like goat island. it was called alcatraz. it contained an army post and was fortified. it looked formidable, we thought. not very far away, and straight out, was the golden gate, which had no gates near it that we could see, but just two headlands about a mile or so apart. outside of the golden gate is the pacific ocean. we were now nearing 'frisco, which lay right ahead of us. nothing but steep hills could we see. they were built up compactly with houses. as we got close to the shore we saw plenty of level streets and wharves, and alongside of the wharves, ships. we steered straight for a tall tower on which there was a huge clock, which told us the time--six o'clock. we entered the ferry slip, moored fast and soon set foot in 'frisco. chapter ii. 'frisco. our first glimpse of 'frisco made us like the place. near the ferry slip were eating joints by the bushel, more saloons than you could shake a stick at, sailors' boarding houses, fruit stands containing fruit that made our teeth water; oyster-houses, lodging-houses--in fact there was everything there to make a fellow feel right at home. 'frisco is all right and everyone who has been there will tell you so. what she ain't got ain't worth having. every bum that i ever saw spoke well of the town and gave it a good name. it is a paradise for grafters. you can get as good a meal there for ten cents as you will have to pay double for anywhere else. fruit is fine, plentiful and cheap; vegetables are enormous in size and don't cost anything, hardly; any and every kind of fish is there; meats are wonderful to behold, and not dear; and say, it's an all-around paradise, sure enough. every kind of people can be found there--greasers, greeks, scandinavians, spanish, turks, armenians, hebrews, italians, germans, chinese, japanese, negroes and all sorts. it is a vast international city. bums are there in unlimited quantities, any number of criminals, bunco-men, "chippies" till you can't rest, highbinders by the score up in chinatown, and lots of bad people. the town is noted for being pretty lively. it surely is wide open and you can sit in a little game at any time. californians in particular and westerners generally take to gambling as naturally as a darky does to watermelons and pork chops. the 'frisco gambling houses are never closed. efforts have been made to close them but they were futile. might as well try to sweep back the ocean with a broom. there are lots of good people in 'frisco, but the bad ones are more than numerous. i think 'frisco is about the liveliest, dizziest place on the continent today, of its size. it has more restaurants, saloons, theaters, dance halls, pull-in-and-drag-out places, groceries with saloon attachments to them, than any place i ever struck. money is plentiful, easy to obtain and is spent lavishly. a dollar seems less to a californian than a dime to an easterner. he will let it go quicker and think less of it. if he goes into a restaurant or saloon and buys a drink or meal which does not suit him, he pays the price and makes no kick, but don't go there again. he don't believe in kicking. he was not brought up that way. he will lose his money at the races and try his luck again. "better luck next time," says he, and his friends to him. he will take his girl out and blow in his money for her on the very best of everything. the best theater, the best wine supper are none too good for his girl. what if he does go broke, there's plenty more money to be had. money is no object to a 'friscoite. billy and i weren't in 'frisco long before we got onto these things. californians are sociable and will talk to anyone. billy concluded to live and die there, the place suited him so well. work was plentiful, wages were high, and the working hours few. billy said it beat the old country all hollow. ha'-pennies or tup-pennies didn't go here; the least money used was nickels and dimes. nothing could be purchased for less than a nickel (five cents) for even a newspaper of any kind cost that much. no wonder the newsboys could shoot craps or play the races. even the servant girls gambled in something or other. 'frisco is all right. bet your sweet life! the rest of america ain't in it with her. lots of britishers live there, too; that is why billy liked it so well. everyone who ain't sick or got the belly ache, or some other trouble, likes 'frisco. as regards climate! they have it in 'frisco. about sixty degrees by the thermometer all the year round. no snow, ice, cyclones or mosquitoes; but bed-bugs, fleas, earthquakes and fogs. as for fleas, they are thick in 'frisco and mighty troublesome. when you see a lady or gent pinch his or her leg that means a bite--flea. as 'frisco is built on a sandy peninsula, that may be the reason why fleas are so plentiful, for it is said they like sandy spots. billy and i had a little money which we earned in sacramento, so we concluded that the first thing to do was to get a square meal. we sought out a likely looking restaurant along the water front where a good meal could be had for ten cents and in we went. i ordered a steak and billy ordered mutton chops; billy wanted tea and i wanted coffee. each of us had a bowl of mush first, then potatoes, bread and butter, hot cakes, tea or coffee, and meat. more than we could eat was put before us and i had a horse-like appetite. billy was a little off his feed. the meal was as good as it was cheap. the next thing to be done was to hunt up a lodging place. there were any number of them in the vicinity, and we soon found a joint where the two of us could room together for a dollar and a half per week. the place was over a saloon, and though it wasn't high-toned, it seemed neat enough. the next event on the program was sight-seeing. we left our things under lock and key in our room and leisurely strolled along the water front to see what we could see. while strolling along the street facing the wharves, we were passing a clothing store when a hebrew gentleman stepped out and asked us if we wanted to buy a suit of clothes. we told him no, but he didn't seem to want to take "no" for an answer. "shentlemens, i got some mighty fine clothes inside and i'll sell them very cheap." "ain't got no money, today," said i, as we tried to pass on. "don't be in der hurry," said the hebrew gentleman; "come in and take a look, it won't cost you noddings." i was for moving on, but billy said, "what's the harm? let's go in and see what he's got." in we went, slowly and cautiously, but we knew the old jew couldn't rob us in open daylight. "what size do you wear?" asked he of billy. "damfino," says billy; "i didn't come in to buy any clothes today." "let me measure you," says the israelite, "i got some clothes here that will make your eyes water when you see dem." billy stood up and let his measure be taken. this done, the vender of clothes made an inspection of the clothing-piles, calling out to jakie in a back room to come forth and assist. jakie appeared, and seemed a husky chap of twenty-five or so. jakie had been eating his breakfast. the two storekeepers went through the clothing piles. "aha!" triumphantly exclaimed the old hebrew. "i've got a fine suit here. dey'll make you look like a gentleman. try 'em on," turning to billy. he brought forth the clothes where billy could examine them, but after examination billy shook his head. "you don't like 'em?" exclaimed the old gent; "what's de matter with 'em?" "oh, i don't fancy that kind of cloth," said billy. it looked like gray blotting paper. "what kind do you like?" asked the hebrew, rather aggressively. "oh, i don't know," answered billy. the jew was getting mad, but he brought forth another suit after a short search. "here is something fine; you kin wear 'em for efery day or sunday." billy examined the clothes, but shook his head. "dry 'em on! dry 'em on! you'll see they'll fid you like der paper on der vall!" "what's the use trying 'em on?" said billy, quietly; "i don't like 'em and they wouldn't fit me anyway." "not like 'em!" exclaimed the now thoroughly enraged clothing merchant; "i don't think you want to buy no clothes at all; you couldn't get a finer suit of clothes in san francisco, and look at der price, too; only ten dollars, so hellup me isaac!" "the price is all right, but i don't like the cut of the clothes," said billy. "you don't like der style?" the angry man now got the thought through his noddle that billy wasn't going to buy any clothes, whereupon he grew furious. "what you come in here for, you dirty tramp. get out of here, or i trow you out." here i stepped up and told the miserable duffer what i thought of him. i expected there was going to be a knock down and drag out scene, but as there were two of us, the two israelites thought better of it than to tackle us. the young feller hadn't said a word, but the old man was mad clear through. if he had been younger i would have swiped him one just for luck. we got out of the place all right, the old man and i telling each other pretty loud what we thought of each other. i told billy he ought not to have gone in there at all for he didn't intend to buy any clothes. "he wanted me to go in, didn't he, whether i wanted to or not?" asked billy. "of course, he did. you should have given him a kick in the rump and skipped out. that's what i would have done." "i'm glad it didn't end in a row. we might have got into trouble," concluded billy. we strolled along the wharves to see the shipping. the ferry-house at the foot of market street is a huge granite building (with a lofty clock-tower on top) wherein are to be found the various ticket offices of the southern pacific, santa fe, the north shore, california & north western and other railroads. up stairs in the second story is an extensive horticultural exhibit, where are displayed the products of california; there are the offices of various railroad and other officials, there, too. to take a train on any railroad one must cross the bay on a ferry-boat. each railroad line has its own line of ferry-boats and slips. one line of boats crosses to oakland, alameda and berkeley; another to tiburon; a third to sausalito; a fourth to point richmond, etc. every boat is a fine one and those of the santa fe railroad plying to point richmond are all painted yellow. the traffic at the ferry building is considerable at all hours of the day and night. the next wharf, which is also a covered one like the ferry-house, is the landing-place of the stockton steamboats. there are two lines of these boats plying between 'frisco and stockton, and they are rivals. the distance between stockton and 'frisco by water is about one hundred miles, yet the fare is only fifty cents. there are sleeping berths aboard, if one cares to use them, at fifty cents each, and meals may be had for twenty-five cents. fifty cents in western lingo is called four bits, and twenty-five cents, two bits. a dime is a short bit and fifteen cents a long bit; six bits is seventy-five cents, and a dollar is simply called a dollar. a few of the wharves we noticed were roofed over, but some were not. the folsom street wharf is devoted to the united states army transport service, and a huge transport ship going to manila and other eastern countries can be seen there at any time, almost. no one is allowed on this wharf, except on business. as we hadn't any particular business on this wharf we didn't care to go upon it. there was a watchman at the gate. at a wharf or two from this one all the whaling vessels dock, and 'frisco today is the greatest whaling port in america, we were told. there was one whaling vessel there at the time, but she didn't look good to us. she was short, squat, black and grimy, and smelled loudly of oil. billy and i concluded we wouldn't care to sail in such a ship for a hundred dollars per month. near by was a long uncovered wharf which extended quite a way out into the water. at either side of it were moored big deep-sea going vessels. one was the dumbarton, of glasgow, another the selkirk, a third the necker--all foreigners. the selkirk was british, and billy's heart warmed to her. when he saw an english flag flying on one of the masts tears came to his eyes and he got homesick. he walked up the gang-plank and wanted to go on board, but a sailor on deck told him there was no admittance. billy marched down again much crestfallen. there are lots of evil characters in 'frisco, so that is why the mariners are wary. we slowly sauntered along the wharf, and at a string piece at the end of it we came across other idlers, several of whom were engaged in fishing. we saw several young sharks pulled up and several other kinds of fish that we didn't know the names of. after watching the fishing for a while we moved on and went into some of the side streets. they were full of saloons, some of which were fitted up very handsomely with plate-glass, fine woodwork, marble floors and elaborate bars with free lunch counter. other saloons were mere groggeries in which we could see and hear sailors and longshoremen singing and dancing. steam beer and lager was five cents a glass and whiskey ten cents. sailors' boarding-houses were numerous in these localities, as were hotels, stores of all kinds, ship-outfitting shops, lumber yards, coal offices, foundries, iron works and the like. we now strolled up market street, which is the main thoroughfare of 'frisco. it is a broad street, flanked on either side by wholesale and retail commercial establishments, high-toned saloons and restaurants. many street car lines traverse this street by means of cables, and there are one or two horse-car lines. the street was a lively one, and thronged with people and vehicles. billy and i had heard a great deal about the golden gate park, the cliff house, the seal rocks and the sutro baths, so we concluded to take a little jaunt out that way to see what those places were like. the first things we wanted to see were the seals. we boarded a street-car running out to the cliff house, and found the ride a long and interesting one. the distance was many miles and the fare only five cents. there was much to be seen. long stretches of unfamiliar streets rolled by, residence and business sections, strange looking houses, hills and valleys, and the like. the air was wonderfully balmy and bracing and not a bit cold. the car whirled us along very rapidly and revealed to us a great deal of golden gate park, and further on lofty tree-covered hills, bare sand hills, and a very extensive public building of some sort which was perched on a tree clad hillside, and then it skimmed along parallel with the ocean. we saw no ships on the ocean, but it was a grand sight nevertheless. we rushed by a life-saving station at railroad speed, which we regretted, for we should like to have seen more of it, and after riding about a mile or so more, finally stopped alongside a shed, which was the end of the car line. here we hopped off with the rest of the crowd, and walked along a wooden sidewalk which was laid over the sands. two or three restaurants and saloons were to be seen in the vicinity, and about a half dozen booths. there was a picture gallery or two, and fruit and peanut stands. we bought some candy and peanuts to keep from getting hungry, and then followed the crowd to the beach. we walked along the beach and then up a hill leading to the cliff house. the views along this road were fine. we came to the cliff house and saw it was nothing more nor less than a large hotel built on a cliff. it looked pretty high-toned to us, so me and billy hesitated about going in. "they'll soak us when we get in there, windy," warned billy. "nary time, billy," retorted i. "we'll go in and if they try to hold us up we'll skip." "all right, then; let's try our luck," said billy. in we went, and saw a barroom, which we didn't enter. further on was a glass covered porch, along which were disposed tables and chairs, and which invited us to sit down and have something. we were not hungry or thirsty just then, so we kept a-walking, and through an open window facing the sea we saw some tall rocks in the water, about a quarter of a mile distant, upon which were a whole lot of seals that were barking to beat the band. "there's the seals, billy, large as life, sure enough," remarked i. billy stared. "i'll be blowed if they ain't cheeky beggars," said he, with a face full of astonishment. "it's a wonder they'd come so near to the shore." some of the animals were snoozing on the rocks, others were crawling up the rocky sides of the islet, a few were bellowing, and the whole place seemed covered with them. a wonderful sight it was! we looked until we grew tired, and i wanted to drag billy away, but he didn't seem to want to go. "there's other things to be seen, billy," said i; "we can't stay here all day." billy tore himself away reluctantly and then we wandered over to the sutro heights, which is a tall hill with fine and extensive gardens upon it. from this hill a fine view of the ocean may be obtained. there are fine drives in these gardens bordered with flowers, shady walks, statues, fountains, rustic arbors and seats, cosy niches where one could sit and view the ocean, roads built terrace-like upon the cliffs, and other very pretty features. a lovely spot indeed, it was. it was built by mr. adolph sutro, a millionaire. it was free to all. we walked in the gardens until we grew tired, and then sat down and contemplated the ocean. afterward we strolled toward golden gate park and inspected it. it was close by and we found it a very extensive one. it seemed endless, indeed, to us, for long before we reached an entrance where we could take a car, we were dead tired. we took another route going cityward, for we wanted to see as much of the city as we could. the more we saw of 'frisco, the better we liked it. it must be seen to be appreciated. we reached market street all right, and then we knew where we were. we strolled down toward the ferry-house, near which we knew our lodging-house to be, and after having a good supper, we went to our room to lay off until evening, when there would be more sight-seeing. "what do you think of 'frisco, windy?" asked billy. "suits me to a t, billy. believe i'll camp here for a while." "same here, windy. i never struck a place i like better. i think a fellow can get on here. i'm going to try it, anyway." "i'm with you, billy," said i. "where'll we go this evening?" "i've heard a lot about chiney town. suppose we go there." "good idea! let's take it in." accordingly, about eight o'clock that evening we strolled forth, bent on seeing 'frisco by gaslight. the streets were well lighted, and we found no difficulty in moving about. by making inquiries we readily found our way to the mongolian district. what we saw there filled us with amazement. street after street we saw (and long ones at that) inhabited solely by slanty-eyed asiatics. there were thousands of them, and it seemed to us that we were transplanted into a chinese city. all kinds of chinese establishments were located in this quarter; barber shops, drug stores, furnishing goods stores, butcher shops, cigar manufacturing establishments, restaurants (chop suey), temples, theaters, opium joints in back alleys and basements, street venders who sold fruits, street cobblers, open air fortune tellers, newspapers, bookbinderies, vegetable stores, and not a few high-class curio establishments. any number of chinese children were noisily playing in the streets, chinese women were walking about the streets and all over the quarter was an oriental atmosphere. it made us feel mighty foreign-like. billy wanted to know whether he was in asia or america, and i told him asia. the chinese women and children interested us considerably. the women were habited in loose flowing robes and trousers, and their lips and faces were painted scarlet. their hair was done up in thick folds, with long golden pins stuck through them. they were mighty gaudy, i thought. the kids were noisy but interesting. they played all kinds of games like white children. of course the games they played were chinese, and what kind of games they were, i don't know. the articles of food and wear displayed were very curious. so were the books, photographs, etc. billy and i took in the sights, and felt mighty interested in it all. it was better than a circus to us. at about ten o'clock we meandered homeward. we talked late that night about what we had seen, and it was after midnight before we fell asleep. billy was unaccountably restless that night and kept a-tossing and a-rolling. he kept this up so long that finally i got huffy and asked him what the trouble was. he kept quiet for a while but suddenly he rose up and said he'd be ---- if he didn't think there were bugs in the bed. i felt a bite or two myself, but didn't mind it. "i'm going to get up and see what's in this bed," said billy. he got up, lit a candle, and i hopped out too, so as to give him a chance to examine things. billy threw back the clothes and saw three or four good-sized fleas hopping about and trying to escape to a safe shelter. we both went for them bodily, but they were too swift for us. we did a pile of cussing and swearing just then, but the fleas were probably laughing at us from some safe retreat. we couldn't catch a one of them. we went to bed again and i slept soundly, but billy put in a bad night. i told billy the next morning he oughtn't to mind such trifling things as fleas. "trifles, are they?" snorted he, and showed me his bare white skin, which was all eaten up. "look at that; call them trifles?" "what are you going to do about it, billy?" inquired i. "do?" retorted he, with disgust, "why, grin and bear it, of course; what else can i do; but those bites itch like blazes." billy had to do what all 'frisco people do when they are bitten--grin and bear it, or cuss and scratch. the 'frisco fleas sure are lively, and the best way to catch them is to wet your finger and bear down on them suddenly. they'll wiggle away from a dry finger. the next morning was a fine one, balmy and sunny. we arose, dressed, breakfasted, and then felt happy. "how are we going to put in the day, windy?" asked billy, after we emerged from a restaurant and stood picking our teeth in front of the place. "blest if i know," responded i. "suppose we put it in sight-seeing?" "i'll go you," said billy. "we haven't seen much of 'frisco yet. suppose we take a stroll up market street and see what there is to see up that way." accordingly, up market street we leisurely strolled, taking in the sights by the wayside. market street, as i said before, is the main thoroughfare of 'frisco, and is a broad one. the sidewalks are wide enough for a dozen or more people to walk abreast along them and the driveway in the middle of the street contains two or three sets of street-car tracks, and sufficient room on either side for vehicles. the lower portion of the street, toward the ferry-house, is taken up with wholesale business establishments, and the upper portion toward which we were now walking contains retail shops, high-class saloons, restaurants, newspaper buildings, sky-scrapers, banks, department stores, etc. we came to market and third street, and turned down third street. it, too, was rather a broad thoroughfare, but not nearly so wide as market street. it wasn't high-toned like market street, nor were the buildings on it of a high class, for they were mostly of frame, one and two stories in height. the ground floors of these buildings were used as stores and the upper portions as dwellings. fruit, fish and vegetable stores abounded, and saloons were more than numerous. the size and varieties of the fruit, fish and vegetables in the stores pleased the eye. fine crabs and clams were there, but the california oysters seemed small. we stepped into a saloon called "the whale," where a fine free lunch was set out on a side table. there were huge dishes of cheese on the table, tripe, various kinds of sausage sliced up thin, pickled tongue, radishes, cold slaw, pickles, sliced tomatoes and big trays of bread of various kinds. the layout was generous. having had breakfast but a short time before, all these dainties did not tempt us, but we sat down for awhile and indulged in a smoke, in the meanwhile observing the ways of the patrons of the place. some seedy looking bums were lined up against the bar chinning whilst others were sipping beer and paying their best respects to the lunch counter. they were a dirty lot, and if some of them weren't hobos, i miss my guess. we didn't remain in the place long, but strolled into a similar establishment further on. in one saloon we noticed a sign over the lunch counter which informed the hungry one to-- "please regulate your appetite according to your thirst; this is not a restaurant." notwithstanding the gentle hint conveyed on the sign, the place did a roaring trade, for the liquids as well as the solids were excellent. beginning from market and running parallel with market were mission, howard, folsom, bryant, brannan, bluxome, townsend, channel and other streets. nearly all of them were broad, but a few were narrow, such as stevenson, jessie, minna, natoma, tehama, etc., being hardly more than alleys. this was the poorer residence section, inhabited by the working classes. some of the alleys were tough and contained cheap lodging-houses wherein dwelt many a hard case and criminal. we walked down third street as far as the railroad depot and saw lots of things to interest us. all the goods displayed in the store windows seemed dirt cheap. how they did tempt us, but as we were not overburdened with wealth just then we didn't feel like buying. silk pocket handkerchiefs, dandy hats, elegant trousers, mouth harmonicas, pistols, knives, razors, accordions were there in great variety. why were we born poor? had we been rich we would have blowed ourselves for fair. the display was too tempting. we walked to fourth street, which is the next one to third, and then slowly sauntered up toward market again. the blocks along third and fourth streets were long ones, and from market street down to the railroad depot the distance is a mile or more. but we were not tired, so on we kept. fourth street was about like third street, and afforded many interesting sights. billy and me liked everything we saw. when we finally reached market street again we crossed it and took in another quarter of the city. where we had been was called south of market; so this must be north of market. we didn't like it half as well as we did south of market. here were pretentious shops and restaurants, and a fine class of dwellings, but even here the buildings were all of wood and hardly two were alike. in this quarter is located what is called "the tenderloin," which means gambling joints, fast houses and the like. we, being strangers, could not locate them. it was now nearing noon and as we had become hungry, we concluded to step into a saloon to have a beer and a free lunch, but the free lunch establishments in that neighborhood seemed few and far between. some saloons had signs on them which stated that free clam chowder, beef stew, roasted clams, or a ham sandwich with every drink was to be had today, but those were not the kind of a place we were after. we were looking for some place like "the whale," but couldn't find one. we finally got tired of hunting for such a place, and stepped into a ten-cent restaurant, where we had a bum meal. after dining we strolled back to our lodging-house, where we laid off the rest of the day. "what'll it be tonight; a ten-cent show or chinatown once more?" "a ten-cent show," answered billy; "we did chinatown last night, and can do it again some other night, so let's take in a show." accordingly we went to a fine big theater that evening where the prices ranged from ten to fifty cents, and went up to "nigger heaven" (price ten cents), from whence we saw a pretty fair variety show. the show consisted of singing, dancing, moving pictures, a vaudeville play, negro act, monologue speaker and an acrobatic act. the performance lasted about two hours. the negro act made billy laugh until he nearly grew sick, and we both enjoyed ourselves hugely. one singer, an australian gentleman, sang the "holy city," and he sang it so well that he was recalled many times. the little vaudeville play was good, and so were the moving pictures. it was about ten o'clock when the play let out, and it was after midnight when billy and i turned in. we continued our sightseeing tour about a week and saw about all worth seeing of 'frisco, and then as funds began to run low, we concluded it was about time for us to look for work. i struck a job as helper in a foundry the very next day, but billy was not so fortunate. he did not find a job for several days. of course i went "snucks" with him when he wasn't working, and saw to it that he had a bed to sleep in and something to eat, for he would have done as much for me. billy struck a job a few days afterward and it was one that seemed to please him mightily. it was in a swell hotel run by an englishman and billy was installed as pantryman. his duties were to take good care of and clean the glassware and silverware. the job was an easy one, with the pay fairly good. billy said it was like getting money from home. he worked from seven o'clock in the morning until eight at night, and had three hours off in the afternoon. the waiters took a shine to him, for they, like himself, were english, and brought him all kinds of good things to eat in the pantry, which was his headquarters. they brought him oysters, roast fowl of various kinds, game, ice cream, water ices, plum pudding, the choicest of wines, etc., and were sociable enough to help billy eat and drink these things. no one molested them so long as they did their work, for the cast-off victuals would have gone into the swill-barrel, anyway. billy was in clover and had the best opportunity in the world to grow stout on "the fat of the land." i was glad to know that he was getting along so well for he sure was a true and steady little pard. one night, several weeks after this, when we were in our room chinning, i remarked to billy: "say, billy, you have told me so much about the old country that i've a notion to go there." billy looked at me keenly to see if i was joking, but i wasn't. "i mean it, billy," said i. "i've always had a notion that i'd like to see the old country, and if you can get along here i guess i can get along over there." "you're way off, windy," replied billy, "the old country is different from this, in every way." "in what way." "why, you can't beat your way over there as you can here, and you couldn't earn as much there in a week as you can here in a day. and the ways of people are different, too. stay where you are, windy; that's my advice to you." "you say i can't beat my way in the old country, billy; why not?" asked i. "you'll get pinched the first thing, if you try it. in the first place there are no railroad trains running across to europe, so how are you going to cross the little duck pond; swim across?" "how do others cross it; can't i ride over in a boat?" "of course you can but it will cost you lots of money, and where are you going to get it?" "what's the matter with earning it or getting a job on a steamer; didn't you do it?" "of course i did; but the steamship companies hire their help on the other side of the ocean, not on this side." "go on, billy; you are giving me a fairy tale." "no, i'm not," earnestly responded billy; "it's true as preaching." i doubted just the same. "you say i can't beat my way when i get across to europe; why not?" "because they won't let you. the towns are close together, for the country is small, and if you beat your way on a train you'd be spotted before you traveled ten miles. and another thing, there are no brake-beams on the other side, no blind baggage and no bumpers, so where are you going to ride? and another thing, too; the railway cars over there are totally different from those here. the coaches are different, the engines are different, the freight cars are different; everything is so different," said billy with a reminiscent smile. "go on, billy; you're only talking to hear yourself talk," said i, thinking he was romancing. "you say, billy," continued i, "that the ways of the people are different over there; in what way?" "in every way. i couldn't begin to explain it all to you, if i tried six months." "they talk english over there, don't they? can't i talk english?" "of course you can," laughed billy; "but their language is different from yours and so are their ways. their victuals are different; their dress, their politics--" "cut out the politics, billy; i ain't going over there to run for office. they must be a queer lot on the other side of the pond to judge from what you say." "not a bit queer," warmly responded billy. "they are just different, that is all. we will suppose you are over there, windy. what will you do?" "do the britishers, of course; what else?" "better stay at home and do your own countrymen. you'll find it easier," gravely admonished billy. "you are on your own ground and know the country and the ways of the people. you'd have a hard time of it over there; mind now, i'm giving it to you straight. i don't think you're serious about going." "serious and sober as a judge, billy. i've been thinking about this thing for a long time. let me tell you something else, billy, that i haven't told you before. i intend to keep a diary when i get on the other side and write down everything i see worth noting." "the hell you are," profanely responded billy; "what are you going to do with it after it is written down?" "have it printed in a book," calmly responded i. billy regarded me intently, as a dog does a human being whom he is trying to understand and cannot, and then when the full force of my revelation struck him he dropped on the bed and laughed and laughed until i thought he'd split his sides. "what's tickling you, billy?" asked i, grinning, for his antics made me laugh. "you--you--" here he went off into another fit. "_you_ write a book? say, windy, i've been traveling with you a long while but i never suspected you were touched in the upper story." "no more touched than you are, billy," said i indignantly. billy rose up. "so you're going to write a book, eh?" asked billy, still laughing. "do you know anything about grammar, geography or composition?" "you bet i do, billy; i was pretty fair at composition when i was at school, but i always hated grammar and don't know much about it." "that settles it," said billy. "how could you write a book if you don't know anything about grammar?" "that stumps me, billy, but i guess the printer can help me out." "the printer ain't paid for doing that sort of thing; he won't help you out." "the h---- he won't," responded i, angrily; "that's what he's paid for, isn't it?" "i don't think," said billy. "say, windy, you're clean off. better turn in and sleep over it." "sleep over nothing," quickly retorted i; "am i the first man who ever wrote a book?" "no, you ain't the first, nor the last damn fool who has tried it." "now, see here, billy," said i, getting heated, "let me tell you something. i've read a whole lot of books in my time, and a good many of them weren't worth hell room. i've read detective stories that were written by fellows that didn't know anything about the detective business. look at all the blood-and-thunder novels will you, that are turned out every year by the hundred. not a word in them is true, yet lots of people read them. why? because they like them. see what kids read, will you? all about cowboys, indians, scalping, buffalo hunting, the wild west, etc. after the kids read such books they get loony and want to go on scalping expeditions themselves, so they steal money, run away from home, buy scalping knives, pistols and ammunition, and play hell generally. my book ain't that kind. when i write a book it will contain the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth." "so help you ----," irreverently put in billy. "no foolishness, billy; i'm serious." "oh, you are, are you?" answered billy; "well, let's hear something serious, then." "did you ever read the life of the james boys, billy?" "no, i never did? who were they?" "they were outlaws and robbers, and the book i read about them was the most interesting one i ever read. it was all facts, solid facts, and no nonsense about it. that's what i want to write, solid facts." "about the james boys?" "no, you little ignoramus; about what i see in the old country." "there are many smarter men than you are that have written books about the old country, windy, and some of these writers were english and some were american. are you going to go in opposition to them?" "opposition your grandmother! haven't i got as good a right to write a book as anyone else?" "who says you haven't? after you get the book printed who's going to sell it for you; going around peddling it?" "no, i expect the printer to print what i write, and buy the book from me." "who gets all the money from the sale of the book?" asked billy, with a huge grin on his face. "why, i expect that the printer and me'll go snucks. he gets half for printing it, and i get half for writing it." "oh, that's the game, is it? i think you'll have a sweet time of it finding a printer on that sort of a deal." "don't you think that would be a fair divvy?" "no, the printer is taking all the chances and you're taking none. he puts up the dough and what do you put up?" "my time and ability." "your _ability_!" shouted billy as he went off into a spasm; "well, you've got lots of time, but i never know'd you had any ability." "laugh away, old boy," said i, considerably nettled; "it takes ability to write a book." "of course it does," said billy, meaningly. "maybe you think i ain't got any?" "maybe you have, but you'll have to show me." "well, billy," said i, "we've discussed this matter long enough; suppose we go to bed." nothing more was said on the subject that night. the next morning we went to our separate jobs as usual, and i did a good deal of thinking during the day over some of the information billy had given me about the old country. it made me waver at times about going, but at other times it did not. that night, after we came home from work, billy and me took a stroll as usual through chinatown, and every time we went through it we found something new to see. the streets were always thronged with celestials and sightseers, the stores of the chinese and japanese were all lit up, the queer goods in the windows still riveted our attention and the ways of the orientals proved a source of never-ending interest to us. there were several chinese theaters in the quarter, too, in which the beating of gongs and the "high-toned" singing could plainly be heard by us, but as the admission fees to these theaters to the "melican man" was fifty cents, we didn't go in. some of the plays lasted about six weeks. we were strolling along quietly enjoying ourselves, when suddenly billy banteringly remarked: "by the way, windy, when are you going to take that little flier across the duck-pond?" "don't know, billy; haven't decided yet." "what are you going to do with all the money you make out of that book of yourn?" "never you mind, billy; i'm going to write the book just the same; don't you worry about that." "i suppose you'll get rich some day, and cut me the first thing. fellers who write books make lots of money. i suppose you'll buy a mansion on nob hill, have a coach and four with a coachman in livery on the box and the regulation flunkey behind. maybe you'll drive tandem and handle the ribbons yourself?" "stop roasting me, billy; let up!" but billy continued mercilessly; "of course you'll have a box at the opera, wear a claw hammer coat and a plug hat, put on white kids and take your lady-love to a little supper after the play is over. be lots of champagne flowing about that time, eh?" "let up, you darned little britisher," said i laughing. "greater things than that have come to pass. i'll cut you, the first thing, billy." "i knew it. rich people ain't got any use for their poor friends or relations. "which bank will you put your money in?" "haven't decided yet; ain't going to let that worry me." "maybe you'll fall in love with some girl and get married. when a feller has money he'll do fool things." "the girl i marry will have to be a pretty good looker, and will have to have a little money of her own," responded i. "of course, windy; i'm glad to see you've got some sense. after that old country trip yarn of yours i didn't think you had any." "no yarn about it, billy; i'm going." "where to?" "to the old country." "when?" "oh, you're asking me too many questions. better go to the old country with me, billy." "not i, windy; i've been there and know what it is. i'll never return to it until i'm rich." "hope that'll be soon, billy." "so do i, windy; but it don't look that way now." "can you blame me for trying to make a stake?" asked i. "blame you, no; but you'll never make a stake writing a book." "faint heart never won a fair lady, my boy, and i'm going to try it, if it takes a leg off." "i believe you are serious, windy; i thought you were kiddin'!" "kiddin' nothing; i was serious from the go-off." "well, windy, old pard, i wish you luck but it don't look to me as if you'd make it. too big a contract." "time will tell." we had many another talk on the subject, billy bantering me every time, for he either couldn't or wouldn't believe i was serious. we had been together so long, that he was loath to believe i would desert him. one evening when i came home from work i informed billy that i had made up my mind positively to start out on my trip at the end of the week. you should have seen him when i told him this. at first he argued, then, seeing that did no good, he called me all kinds of a fool, and cursed and fumed. he finally told me to go to hades if i wished, for he had no strings on me. he didn't care a tinker's damn how soon i went, or what became of me. he hoped i'd get drowned, or, if not that, then pinched as soon as i set foot on british soil. the little fellow was badly wrought up. i informed him it was my intention to beat my way to new york and that when i got that far, i would plan the next move. i told him also that i didn't believe in crossing a river until i got to it, and that i would find some means of crossing the ocean. he sarcastically advised me again to swim across, but i took no heed. we parted the next morning and i knew billy felt sore, but he didn't show it. he told me that he should remain in 'frisco, and that i would find him there when i came back, that is, if i ever came back. "oh, i'll come back, my boy; never fear." "and mind what i told you about my folks. if you go to london they live only a short way from there, and if you see them tell them all about me." "i'll do it, old pard, and write you everything," responded i. "good-bye, then, windy, and don't take in any bad money while you're gone," was billy's parting bit of advice. i felt bad, too, but didn't show it. i was leaving the true-heartedest little fellow that ever lived, but the best of friends must part sometimes. chapter iii. the journey overland. the distance from 'frisco to new york overland, is over three thousand miles, and by water it is much more than that, but such little trips are a trifle to me, as they are to every well-conditioned wayfarer. i started out happily enough one fine day at dawn to make the long journey and though i did feel a qualm or two the first few days after leaving billy, the feeling soon wore off. i chose the central route, which is the shortest via sacramento, reno, ogden, omaha, chicago, niagara falls and new york, and i anticipated having lots of fun along the way. i was out for sight-seeing and adventure and believed i would have a good time. i didn't have any money to speak of, for, though i had worked several months i had saved nothing. anyway, it wasn't safe to travel hobo style with money, for if anyone suspects you have any, it may be possible that you'll get knocked on the head or murdered outright for it. such things are a common occurrence. i got as far as sacramento in good shape and when the freight train i was riding on got to newcastle, which is a town in the foothills of the sierra mountains, a long halt was made to attach a number of refrigerator cars to it. these cars were laden with fruit. had i wished i could have crawled into one of them and made the journey east in ten days, or less, for they are laden with perishable goods and travel as fast, almost, as a passenger train, but i didn't care to travel that way, for the reason that i didn't like it. these refrigerator cars have heavy air-tight doors at the sides which are hermetically sealed when the cars are loaded, making the cars as dark as a pocket. when in them one can't see anything and can hardly turn around. there are no conveniences whatever. one must take a sufficiency of supplies with him to last during the trip in the shape of food and water, and one must go unwashed and unkempt during the journey. lots of hobos travel that way, and think nothing of it, but i didn't care to do so. it is almost as bad, if not worse, than being in jail, for one can take little or no exercise, and the only light and ventilation afforded is from the roof, where there is an aperture about two feet wide, over which there is a sliding door. this can be shoved up or down, but it is usually locked when the train is en route. the cars must be kept at an even temperature always, and must not be too hot or too cold. a certain number of tons of ice is put into a compartment at either end of the car, which keeps the temperature even. the side doors, as i said, are hermetically closed and sealed. thus the fruits, meats, vegetables or whatever the car may contain, are kept fresh and sweet. i slipped into one of these loaded cars and had a look around, but one survey was enough for me. i didn't like the prospect at all. ten days of imprisonment was too much. any hobo may ride over the sierra nevada mountains as far as reno without being molested, for it is a rule of the southern pacific railroad company not to incur their ill-will. some hobos have been known to set fire to the snow sheds in revenge for being put off a train in the lonely mountains. fires occur in the snow-sheds every year, but of course it is hard to tell who or what starts a fire. the sheds are of wood and have always had to be rebuilt, for without them the road would be blocked every winter and traffic stopped. there are miles of them and wonderful creations they are. they are roofed over and very strongly built. i held down the freight train until we reached reno, where i was glad to hop off for rest and refreshment. refreshments of all kinds are plentiful in reno. the railroad runs through the main street of the town and the town is a wide open one. across the track along the main street are restaurants, saloons and gambling houses. the gambling is not done secretly for it is licensed and anyone may play who wishes. one may step into, at least, one of these places from the street, for the gambling room is on the ground floor. it is a handsomely appointed apartment. the floors are of marble, the drinking bar is elaborate, the fittings superb. in front, as you enter, is the bar and behind it a back bar with the finest of glassware. the liquors are of excellent quality. opposite the bar, near the wall, are faro and crap tables. at the rear of the long apartment is a horseshoe shaped lunch counter, where the best the market affords can be had at reasonable rates. the bar and restaurant are patronized by gamblers and by outsiders who never gamble. anyone over the age of twenty-one may step inside and play, and no questions are asked. the crap game is interesting. it is played with dice and anyone may throw the dice. the way some fellows throw them would make a horse laugh. some throw them with a running fire of conversation, their eyes blazing with excitement. others, like the coons, keep a saying as they throw the dice, "come seben, come eleben!" "what you doin' dar?" "roll right dis time for me you son of--" etc., etc. it is interesting to watch the players. many refined men visit these places and sometimes take a little flyer. these men are quiet, open-handed fellows, who seem to regard their little indulgence in the play as a joke, whether they win or lose. they seem to have plenty of money and don't care--at least one would judge so from their manner. while observing them i thought it must be a fine thing to have plenty of money, so as not to care whether you win or lose. westerners, as a rule, are free and generous, and seem to be just as ready to spend their money as they are to earn it. bootblacks, waiters, cooks, newsboys and all sorts of men are always ready and willing to take a chance in the games. sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, but win or lose they are always ready to try their luck again. another gaming place i went into was situated on the first floor above the street in a building facing the railroad, and it, too, was palatial. on the ground floor was the saloon and above were the gambling rooms. a pretty tough crowd was in them at the time of my visit and the crowd was so dense it was rather difficult to move about. i was jostled considerably and found it difficult to get near the gaming tables. craps and roulette were the main games here, too. fights and shooting scrapes are common in the gambling places, but the reno officers are alert and fearless, and soon put obstreperous people where the dogs won't bite them. notwithstanding its gambling and recklessness, reno is a good business town, and full of orderly, respectable people. there are many wholesale and retail establishments in the town; ice plants, machine shops, breweries, ore reduction works and lumber yards. besides, it is a great cattle shipping center. many of the streets are broad and well-shaded, and the truckee river, in which are any number of speckled beauties in the shape of mountain trout, flows through the town. surrounding reno are tall mountains which form a part of the sierra nevada range, but they seem bare and lonely. i landed in reno during the afternoon and steered straight for the truckee river, as i needed a bath. i quickly espied a sequestered nook under a wagon-bridge on the outskirts of the town, and from the looks of things in the vicinity could tell that it was a hobo camping place. old tin cans were strewn about, and down the bank near the water was a fireplace made of stones. one lone wandering willie was in camp and he greeted me as effusively as if i were a long-lost brother. a hobo can tell another hobo at a glance. "hello, pardner; how's tricks?" was the greeting of my fellow wayfarer. "fair to middlin'," responded i. "where you bound for?" "just got to reno; and i am going to hold the town down for a while," said i. i was cautious and didn't want this chance acquaintance to know too much about my affairs. "where'd you come from?" inquired i. "me? oh, i've been hittin' the line all the way from bloomington, illinoi', and i'm going to take a flier to the coast." "you are, hey? i just came from there." "the hell you did; how's things out that way?" "fine and dandy; ever been there?" "no," laconically answered the chap and began to question me about the coast. i gave him all the information i could and then told him i was going to take a wash-down. he had just done the same and as he seemed anxious to go to town he soon left me. i stripped and had a glorious bath in the cool, swift-flowing river. the river was neither broad nor very deep but so clear that i could see every stone at the bottom of it. not a fish could i see but doubtless they were plentiful. after the clean-up i leisurely strolled along the railroad track into town and steered for a restaurant, where i had a good supper for twenty-five cents. i then lit my pipe and strolled about taking in the sights. i remained in reno a day or two, and did not find time hanging heavy on my hands. there are extensive cattle corrals about half a mile from the town where i put in a whole afternoon watching the loading of cattle into cars. it was better than seeing a circus. a chute ran from the corral to the car to be loaded and the animals were made to walk the plank in great shape. no harm was done them unless they grew obstreperous, in which case there was a great deal of tail twisting done, punching in the ribs with long poles, yelling and shouting, which soon brought a refractory animal to terms. the railroad depot in reno is a lively spot, too. the s. p. r. r. trains and the virginia & truckee railroad use the same depot, and at train times there is always a sizeable crowd on hand. the virginia & truckee road, which goes from reno to virginia city, a distance of about sixty miles, is said to be the crookedest road in the country. it winds around bare mountain sides to a great height and is continually going upward. it was built in the early bonanza mining days when times were flush and is said to have cost a lot of money. it has paid for itself many times over and was a great help to gold hill, carson and virginia city. although it has been in existence over a quarter of a century and though it winds over almost inaccessible mountain peaks, not a human life up to the writing of this book ( ) has ever been lost on this road. indians may ride on the road free, and as they are aware of the fact, hardly a day passes but they may be seen in the smoking car or on the platform of a car taking a little flier to carson, virginia city, washoe, steamboat springs or any other place along the line they care to go to. there is a state law in nevada which permits any indian to ride free on any railroad. what the object of this law is, i don't know. i noticed that the passenger trains going eastward over the s. p. r. r. leave reno between eight and nine o'clock at night, so i concluded to beat my way out of town on one of them. i noticed that others did it and that it was easy. all a fellow had to do was to let the train get a good move on, then swing underneath to the rods, or jump the blind baggage. "the blind baggage is good enough for you, windy," says i to myself. accordingly, one very fine evening i permitted a passenger train to get a good move on, and then boarded her a little way out, before she began to go too fast. i was onto my job pretty well. i made it all right, but as soon as i swung onto the steps of the blind baggage i found i wasn't the only pebble on the beach for a number of other non-paying passengers were there who must have got on before the train pulled out. there were just seven deadheads on the car, excluding myself, and they were not a bit glad to see me. seven on the platform of a car is a good many, but eight is one too many; so my fellow voyagers assured me by black looks. they were greasers, every one of them, and cow punchers at that, most likely. i was an american. there was no welcome for me. the greasers jabbered among themselves about me, but what they said i could not understand, for i don't understand spanish. finally one of them said to me in fairly good english: "it's too much crowded here; you better jump off." "jump off while the train is going like this; not much! jump off yourself and see how you like it," said i angrily. not only was i angry but apprehensive, for i felt there was going to be trouble. i was not armed and had only a pocket knife with me. even had i been armed what could i have done against seven men in close quarters? nothing was said to me for quite a while after that and the train clattered along at a great rate. the cold, swift-rushing night wind blew keenly against us, making the teeth of some of the greasers chatter. they could stand any amount of heat but a little cold made them feel like hunting their holes. after riding along for an hour or so through the bare, cheerless plains of nevada, the engine whistle blew for the town. the cow-puncher who had addressed me before spoke up and said: "it is more better you get off at the next station." "no, i won't; get off yourself," said i. before i knew what had happened two of the greasers grabbed me around the throat so i couldn't holler, and two others pulled off my coat, which they threw from the train. the fellow who had spoken to me told me that if i didn't jump off the train as soon as she slacked up they'd throw me off. i knew they would do so when opportunity offered, so off i hopped, mad as blazes. as i didn't want to lose my coat i walked back to get it and i had to walk a mile or so to do so. luckily, i found my coat not far from the track and after putting it on, i faced eastward again toward the station. it is no joke to hike through an unfamiliar wilderness at night with no habitation or human being in sight or anyways near. the night was a fine one, clear, cold and star-lit, so i managed to walk along the ties without serious mishap. in the sage brush, as i walked along, i could hear the sudden whirr of birds as they flew off startled, and the suddenness of the noise startled me at first for i didn't know what made the noise. but i quickly caught on. in the distance i could hear the melancholy yelp of a coyote which was quickly answered from all points by other animals of the same species. one or two coyotes can make more noise than a pack of wolves or dogs. they are animals of the wolf species and are death to poultry, sheep, little pigs and small animals generally. i got to the little town safe and sound but it must have been after midnight when i reached it, for there wasn't a soul to be seen in the streets and all was quiet. the town was wadsworth. i walked to the pump-house of the railroad, which was situated along the tracks and where i could hear the pump throbbing, and talked to the engineer, who didn't seem averse to a chat. his vigil was a lonely one, and anything to him was agreeable to vary the monotony. during the course of the conversation i learned that an eastbound freight would be along in a few hours. i made the freight all right by riding the brakes. the train was made up of closed box-cars and there was no other way to ride except on the bumpers. i preferred the brakes. it was pretty cold riding during the early morning hours, but luckily i had my overcoat with me once more, which helped to keep me warm. beating one's way is a picnic sometimes, but not always. during the summer time there is dust and heat to contend with, according to how one rides, and in winter time there are cold winds, snow and frost. i rode the brakes all night and was glad when day broke. i was quite numbed. the scenery was still the same--plains and alkali. at lovelock i had time to get a bite of breakfast and a cup of hot coffee, and then the train was off for humboldt. the distances between towns were great, about a hundred miles or so. finally the train stopped at winnemucca, a town which, for short and sweet, is called "winnemuck" by the knowing ones. at this place i concluded to hop off for a rest. winnemucca is quite a sizeable town, and is the county seat of some county. it contains about two thousand inhabitants, and used to be as wild and woolly a place as any in the west, but it has tamed down some since. saloons are plentiful and all drinks are ten cents straight, with no discount for quantity. a pretty good meal can be had for two bits, but short orders and such things as life preservers, sinkers, or a bit of "mystery" with coffee, are all the same price--two bits. i found no place where i could get anything for less. there was a river or creek at the further end of town wherein i wished to bathe, but the water was so intolerably filthy that i deemed it wise to wait until i found a more suitable place along the route. i noticed a bank in winnemucca and was informed that it had been robbed recently of many thousands of dollars by bandits. soon after the robbery a trellis-work of structural iron was put up from the money-counters clear to the ceiling with mere slots for the receiving and paying out of money, so that the next set of bandits who call there will have to crawl through mighty small holes to make a raise. the next town along the line which amounted to anything was elko and i made it that same day on a freight. i found it a pretty little town with good people in it, who treated me well. i learned there were some wonderful natural hot springs about a mile or so from town, so that afternoon i hiked out to see them. i shall never regret having seen them for they are one of nature's wonders. out in the wilderness, near where they were situated, i came upon an amphitheater of hills, at the base of which was a little lake about yards in diameter. the hills were bare and lonely and near them was no house or habitation. all was wild, lone, still. i climbed down one of these hills to the lake and had a good survey of it. the water was clear and pure as crystal but near the banks were sulphur springs which bubbled up now and then. the water was so hot it was impossible to put a finger in it. i walked around the banks and at one end of the lake there was a hole so deep i couldn't see bottom. this is a crater-hole so deep that bottom has never been found, although it has been sounded to a depth of several thousand feet. the entire place looks like the crater of an extinct volcano. a single glance would lead anyone to suppose so. indian men, women, boys and girls go to the lake during the warm seasons to bathe, and many a daring buck who has swum across the crater was drowned in it and his body has never been recovered. i needed a bath myself so i disrobed and plunged in. the water was neither too hot nor too cold but half way between the two. it was just right. where i swam was not in the crater but near it. the water there was part crater water and part sulphur water from the springs. the bath was delicious. the ride eastward from elko was uneventful. there was nothing to see but bare plains and mountains and a few border towns. the towns were very small, and hardly more than railroad stations. they were composed of a general store or two, several saloons, a blacksmith shop, drug store, bakery, butchershop, barbershop, and that is all. i boarded a freight train at wells and rode the brakes through the lucin cutoff to ogden. the trains used to run around salt lake, but now a trestle has been built through it, which saves many miles. the trestle is forty or fifty miles long, i should judge, and as i clung tightly to my perch on the brakebeam and looked down into the clear blue water through the ties i got kind of dizzy, but met with no disaster. after a long and tedious ride of several hours i reached ogden, the end of the s. p. line. as funds were low i remained in ogden several days and went to work. ogden is in utah and full of mormons. it is a beautiful city, surrounded by lofty mountains, the wasatch range, and contains about , people. it has a mormon tabernacle, tithe-house, broad streets, fine stores, elegant public buildings and is quite a railroad center. i happened to discover a mormon lady who had a wood-pile in her back yard and she was needing a man to chop the wood, so we struck a bargain. i was to receive a dollar and a half per day and my board for my work and was given a room in an outhouse to bunk in. the terms suited me. the board was plentiful and good, and the sleeping quarters comfortable. i never saw a man about the place and wondered whether the lady was married or not. she was old enough to be. i knew she was a mormon because she told me so, and possibly she was the plural wife of some rich old mormon. i didn't like to ask too many questions for i might have got fired for being too nosy. the lady was sociable and kind-hearted and treated me well. the mormons like apples, cider and ladies, and they are an industrious people. the bible says they can have all the wives they want, but the united states law says they can't have 'em, so what are the poor fellows to do? sh! they have 'em on the sly. don't give me away. can you blame a rich old mormon for having a big bunch of wives if he can support them? if i had the price i'd have two, at least, one for week days and one for sundays, but if the mother-in-law is thrown in, i pass. one good healthy mother-in-law of the right sort can make it mighty interesting for a fellow, but a bunch of them; whew! excuse me! during my stay in ogden i didn't see any funny business going on, and wouldn't have suspected there was any, but from what i could learn on the outside, there was something doing. i saw lots of rosy-cheeked mormon girls in the tabernacle one day when i was there, but they behaved just like other girls. the tabernacle is a church and it ain't. it is an immense egg-shaped building arranged very peculiarly, yet it is snug and cosy inside. it can hold thousands of people. it must be seen to be appreciated. i liked ogden very much and would like to linger there longer but i deemed it best to keep a moving. after leaving ogden the scenery became interesting. the country is mountainous going eastward, and we struck a place called weber canyon, which is a narrow pass between high mountains through which the railroad winds. the mountains were pretty well wooded. in one spot i saw a place called the devil's slide, which was made by nature and consists of two long narrow ledges of rocks that begin high up on a mountain side and run down almost to the bottom of the mountain where the car tracks are. these rocks form two continuous lines that run down side by side with a space of several feet between them, and they are rough and raggedy on top. imagine two rails with about four or five feet of space between them running down a mountain side several hundred feet and then you will have some idea of the formation of the slide. how in the devil the devil rode it, gets me. he must have been pretty broad in the beam, and i would like to have seen him when he performed the act. he must have come down a-flying, for the slide is nearly perpendicular. this kind of scenery, though wild, was a relief from the bare and lonely plains of nevada, and i appreciated it. a little variety is the spice of life, they say, and after seeing dullness it is nice to see beauty. i was now on the union pacific railroad and was in an empty cattle car, through the slats of which i could see the scenery on both sides of me. during the daytime it was nice, but at night the weather grew cold and the long watches of the night were dreary. a companion then would have been agreeable. i missed little billy. at a small station in wyoming called rock creek, i was put off the train one afternoon and as i hadn't a dime left, i felt it was incumbent on me to go to work. i saw a bunch of cattle in a corral near the railroad station that had probably been unloaded from a train, and as there were some bull-whackers with them i struck them for a job. "kin you ride?" asked a chap who looked like the boss. "ride anything with hair on," replied i. "ever herd cattle?" asked the boss. "i'm an old hand at the business," answered i. "where'd you do your herding?" "in california." i never herded cattle in my life, but i could ride all right, and as i didn't consider bull-whacking much of a job, i thought i could hold it down easily. the boss hired me then and there at twenty dollars per month and chuck, and while on the range my bedroom was to be a large one--all wyoming. it didn't take the cowboys long to get on to the fact that i was a tenderfoot, but as i was a good rider they said nothing. they were a whole-souled, rollicking, devil-may-care set of fellows, and the best they had was none too good for me. they treated me like a lord. they knew, and the boss soon found out that i didn't know any more about roping a steer than a baby did, but as they were not branding cattle just then, that didn't matter so much. i got on to their way of herding quickly enough, and that was all that was necessary just then. i didn't ask where the outfit was bound for, nor did i care much, for all i was after was to earn a few dollars. there were a good many hundred head of cattle in the bunch and many of the them were steers, but there were also many dried-up cows among them and some yearlings. they had all to be herded carefully so they wouldn't stray away, and to accomplish this we had to keep riding around them all day long. at night after feeding, the cattle rested. on dark nights they generally squatted down contentedly and chewed the cud, but on a moonlit night they would keep on their feet and feed. the very first moonlit night i was put on watch i got into trouble. the cattle arose to feed, and do what i would, i could not keep them together. when riding along on one side of the herd to keep them in, a few ignorant brutes on the other side would wander away and at such times some hard riding had to be done to keep them in. i could do it, but i couldn't ride everywhere at once. i did some pretty fast riding and kept yelling and hallooing at the cattle, but one of the brutes got so far away from me that when he saw me coming he raised his tail and bolted outright. by the time i got him in others were scattered far and wide. i now saw that i was helpless, so i went to camp and aroused the sleeping cowboys. they knew instinctively what the trouble was and got out of their warm blankets cussing to beat the band. they mounted their ponies and off we all rode to gather the scattered herd. it was no picnic. there were four of us, and as the cattle had strayed off in all directions, it is easy to imagine what our task was. one of the boys and myself traveled together in one direction and made for an ornery brute that shook his head when we gently told him to "git in there." off he shot like a rocket with a bellow of defiance, and his tail in the air. "i'll fix the ugly son of--!" yelled my comrade, as he uncoiled his rope from his saddle and got it ready for a throw. his pony was after the steer like a shot, for it knew its business, and got in range in a jiffy. out flew the rope and settled around the steer's neck. quick as a flash the steer flew in the air, turned a complete somersault and landed on the turf with a jar that shook the earth. "you will run away, you ----!" exclaimed the irate cowboy. "i guess you won't do it in a hurry again, gol darn your ugly hide." the animal got up meek as a lamb, trembled in every limb, shook his head in a dazed way, and probably wondered what had struck him. we had no trouble with him after that, and made off after the rest. it was long after midnight before all the cattle were rounded up. the boss was mad clear through. the next day he politely told me that i didn't understand my business; that i didn't know any more about herding cattle than a kid; that i had lied to him about being a cowboy and that i had better skip. he cursed me up and down and kept up his abuse so long that i finally got tired of it and fired back. that made matters worse. we soon were at it, tooth and nail. he struck me with his fist and it was a hard blow. i was taller and longer in the reach than he and kept him off from me. the first blow was the only one he struck me, but it was a good one and dazed me for a moment. "i knowed you was a greaser," yelled he as he danced around me, "and i'm going to put you out of business." "come on, you--," yelled i. he wasn't in the mix-up at all. i was younger, stronger and longer in the reach than he, and one of the blows i put in was a tremendous one, for it knocked him down and he lay still for awhile. when he got up i knocked him down again. i saw he was my meat. "now, pay me off, you--, and i'll get out of here pretty darn quick; if you don't, i'll beat the life out of you," yelled i. the cowboys stood by and said nothing. it wasn't their funeral. the boss paid me off and i got out. at cheyenne, wyoming, i ran across a gassy little red-headed hebrew who put me on to a good, money-making scheme. he had a lot of paste-board signs with him on which were neatly printed such things as: "our trusting department is on the roof; take the elevator"; "every time you take a drink things look different"; "in god we trust; all others must pay cash"; "we lead; others follow"; "razors put in order good as new," etc., etc. the young fellow told me that he was beating his way to the coast and that he sold enough of these signs to pay expenses. he told me also that the signs by the quantity cost him only five cents each, and that he sold them readily for twenty-five cents each. i thought the little chap was lying for i didn't think anyone would pay twenty-five cents for such a sign, but he solemnly assured me on his word of honor that he had no trouble selling them at the price. he further told me that he would sell me a hundred of the signs at cost price, adding that if i bought a hundred of them, he would give me the address of the wholesaler in omaha where i could obtain all the signs i wanted. the little scheme looked good to me but unfortunately i had only two dollars in my possession. this i offered him for forty signs with the name of the wholesaler thrown in. he accepted. i soon found that the little israelite had told me the truth, for the signs sold readily for two bits each, though in some places i had to do a deal of talking to sell a sign, and in other places they laughed at me, when i told them the price was twenty-five cents, and offered me ten cents. as i wasn't sure whether i could purchase any more signs at the price i paid for them, i was loath to sell them for ten cents each. when i reached omaha i found the address of the sign man, and learned that i could buy all the signs i wanted in hundred lots at three cents each. the little cuss had done me after all. i bought a hundred signs and now felt that i had struck a good thing, for i would have to do no more hard work. i sold many of the signs in small towns and cities, and found little difficulty in doing so. no more handouts for yours truly, no more wood-chopping, no more cow-punching. i was a full-fledged merchant and able to hold my own with any of them. it was easier sailing now. the trip from omaha to chicago was interesting, but uneventful. at omaha i crossed the muddy-looking missouri river on a bridge while riding the bumpers of a freight, but was detected and put off on the other side of the river. that night i did rather a daring thing. along toward nine o'clock there came along a passenger train and as i had made up my mind to get on to chicago as fast as i could, i stepped upon the platform of one of the passenger coaches and climbed upon the roof of the car, where i rode along for many a mile. bye-and-bye, however, the wind became so keen, cold and cutting, and the rush of air so strong, that i became numbed and was obliged to climb down for warmth. i walked boldly into the passenger coach and sat down in a vacant seat near the door. i knew the conductor would not be round again for some time, for he had made his round, so for the present i felt safe. when taking up tickets the conductor of a train usually starts at the front end and moves along to the rear. after his work is ended he will rarely sit down in any of the middle coaches, especially if every seat has an occupant, but he and the brakeman usually go to the smoker and sit down there. i was in the coach next to the smoker, and later on, i saw the conductor coming around again for tickets, i leisurely strolled to the rear platform of the car i was in and climbed on top again. i watched the conductor and waited until he had made his rounds, and then i returned to my seat in the coach. in this way i traveled a long distance. i kept up these tactics for hours, but bye-and-bye i noticed a young woman who was traveling with her husband (a young fellow of about twenty-five), watch me suspiciously. she put her husband on to my little racket, and he, most likely, told the conductor, who laid a cute little trap to catch me. after he had been through all the coaches on his next round he went to the smoker, as usual, but when he came to the rear coach i was in he locked the rear door behind him. it was through this door i had been making my exit. he then passed slowly through the train again from the front looking at the hat checks. when i saw him coming and the brakeman following in the rear i tried the usual tactics but found the door locked. i was trapped. the conductor came up to me and seeing no hat-check asked me for my ticket. i pretended to look for it, but couldn't find it. the conductor eyed me coldly and told me to follow him to the baggage car. the brakeman acted as a rear guard. when we stepped into the baggage car the conductor asked me a few questions which to him did not seem satisfactory, whereupon he sternly warned me to get off at the next station. "if i catch you on here again, i'll throw you off," threatened he. i knew he dared not legally throw me off a train while it was in motion, and that he was bluffing, but i got off at the next station just the same. i concluded i had ridden far enough that night, anyway. my journey to chicago was soon completed. i remained in chicago several days selling the signs for a living but found it difficult work. the sign that seemed to sell best in chicago was the one reading: "every time you take a drink, things look different," and it made quite a hit in the saloons, but i could only get ten cents for it. the chicago saloon keepers wanted all the money to come their way. in the smaller towns this sign sold readily for twenty-five cents, and no questions asked. i concluded to shake the dust of chicago off my feet in a hurry, for the grafting was too hard for me. i had got onto it that there were easier places. it was the michigan central that had the honor to yank me out of chicago and a hard old road she was to beat. spotters were everywhere--fly cops and bulls--and they gave me a run for my money. i gave some of them a cock-and-bull story about trying to get to a sick relative in new york city, and showed them the signs i was selling to help pay expenses. some laughed, and told me to "git," but one or two sternly told me they had a mind to run me in. they didn't, though. i got along all right as far as detroit, where i crossed over to windsor, canada, on a boat which ferried the whole train over at once. i was now in a foreign country, but everything there looked pretty much as it did in the united states. the michigan central took me clear through canada to niagara falls, where i concluded to remain a few days, for much as i had heard of the falls, i had never seen them. i found that there is a big city of about , people at the falls called "niagara falls," and it is a beautiful place. on the canadian side there is a little city, too, the name of which i forget. it is not nearly so large as the city on the american side, but it is a quaint and pretty little place. niagara falls city is something like coney island, only it is on an all-the-year-round scale. ordinary electric cars run through the place, electric tourist cars that will take one over the gorge route for a dollar are there, and so are hotels, boarding and rooming houses, plenty of stores, an extensive government reservation called prospect park, a ferris wheel, shoot-the-chutes, candy and ice cream booths, a hot frankfurter booth, picture galleries, beer gardens, etc. the place is lively and pretty, but full of grafters. why wouldn't it be, when suckers by the million flock there every year from all over the world? i got to like the place so well that i remained there nearly a week and learned a whole lot of things. i wasn't a sucker and didn't get catched for i wasn't worth catching. small fry ain't wanted. did i see the falls? did i? well, you can bet your sweet life i did. i saw them early, late and often, and every time i saw them they made my hair rise higher and higher. they are stupendous, tremendous--well, i can't say all i feel. they will awe anyone and fill him chock full of all kinds of thoughts. i'll try to give you an idea of them. niagara river is a stream about half a mile wide and about a hundred miles long. it connects lake erie with lake ontario, and as the waters of these great lakes form the river, the volume of its waters is great. about twenty-five miles from buffalo the niagara river enters rocky canyons, which are formed by goat island, and which divide the river. the rushing, roaring and leaping of the waters on either side of the island is tremendous. these rushing, roaring waters are called the upper rapids. the waters rush along at cannon-ball speed almost until they reach a hill about feet in height. down this they tumble. that constitutes the falls. the river, as i said, is divided by goat island, so that one part of the stream shoots along the american shore and the other part along the canadian. by far the greater part of the river rushes along the canadian side, hence the falls on that side are much greater than on the american. in fact, the american falls ain't a marker to the canadian. i saw the falls from both sides, and when viewed from the canadian side they are indescribably grand. no words of mine can describe them. you can hear the thunder of the rushing, roaring, falling waters a mile off, and the spray that arises from the depths below after the fallen waters have struck the rocks can be seen at a great distance. while the great lakes flow and the niagara river runs, this scene of rushing, roaring, tumbling waters will never cease. after the waters take their tumble they flow on placidly enough until they strike another narrow gorge or canyon, about a mile below the falls, which is called the lower rapids. in them may be seen a wicked whirlpool, the devil's hole, and other uncanny things. niagara is great, but the grafters who are there are greater. they will fool the stranger who goes there so slick that he won't know he has been fooled. the majority of visitors don't care, for they go there to spend their money, anyway. some do care, however, for their means are limited. the grafters, who are not only hackmen, but storekeepers and others, lie awake nights studying how to "do" you. it is their business to make money, but how they make it don't worry them. if you go to the falls, beware of them. people from every nation under the sun flock to the falls every year, as i said, and a million visitors a year is a low estimate, i am sure. there are some people who believe that this great work of nature ought to be preserved intact, but there are others who do not think so. the latter think the falls were created for their benefit, so they can make money. i am not now speaking of the grafters, but the manufacturers who have established factories along the banks of the niagara river and utilize its waters for running their machinery, etc. these people would drain the river dry were they permitted to do so, and were doing so until stopped by the government. i make no comments on this but simply state the facts and let others do the commenting. after i had done the falls pretty thoroughly i concluded to go to buffalo, the beautiful city by the lake (erie). it can be reached in several ways from niagara falls by trolley and by several lines of railroads. it cannot be reached by water, however, for the reason that the upper rapids in the river extend a mile or so from the falls toward buffalo, rendering navigation impracticable. the trolley line running from buffalo to the falls is one of the best patronized roads in the country, and is crowded every day and overcrowded on holidays and sundays. the fare is fifty cents the round trip and the scenery, through which a part of the road passes, is very fine. the road runs pretty close to the niagara river for quite a distance, and along the banks of the river may be seen manufacturing establishments, such as cyanide plants, paper mills, chemical works, etc., nearly all of which empty their refuse into the stream, polluting its waters considerably. all of these establishments can easily be seen near the river as you ride along in the trolley. in the town of niagara falls itself are quite a number of very large manufacturing plants, which use the waters of the river for their purposes. buffalo is one of the handsomest cities in the united states, to my notion. its water front along the business section of the town is pretty punky, for there is a vile-smelling canal in the vicinity, and malodorous streets and alleys, but otherwise the town is away up in g. she's a beaut, and no mistake. delaware avenue is a corker. imagine a thoroughfare about to feet wide, with driveways in the center shaded by fine old trees, and ample sidewalks also shaded by fine trees. along the sidewalks, but set far back, are roomy mansions that are set in ample gardens, and then you will have a faint idea of the beauty of delaware avenue. and there are many other streets in the vicinity of delaware avenue that are just as beautiful. boulevards and fine streets abound in this fair city. the people of buffalo are quite like the westerners in disposition, for they are sociable and free, and not too busy or too proud to talk to you. they are like their city, lovely, and i speak of them as i found them. there are many canadians in the city (for canada is only across the niagara river and can be reached by ferry-boat) and i think they are a very desirable class of citizens. there are all sorts among them, of course, as is the case with americans. my signs went well in buffalo, especially the one reading, "every time you take a drink, etc." it went well in the saloons along the water front and on main street, the leading thoroughfare. lots of people laughed when they read it and said it was a good one. there is nothing like a laugh to put people in good humor. i liked some of the canadians very well and loved to listen to their queer accent. it is nothing like the american, but peculiarly their own. i thought some of the canadian ladies were very nice. i liked buffalo so well that i concluded to remain there until i grew tired of it. after i had been there a day or so i became acquainted with a young girl whose front name was rose. she was of an auburn type and very artless. she had a decided penchant for milk chocolates. she was as pretty as a rose and it was awful hard for me to resist her. she was a poor, but good, honest, hardworking girl. she had been hurt in a street car collision and was just recovering from its effects. she craved chocolates but was too poor to buy them herself. i pitied her. she told me in her frank and artless way that she had thought a great deal of a certain young fellow, but he was in another city at present, working, and that she hadn't seen him for a long time. she didn't know whether she ever would see him again, but she hoped to, for he was a very sweet fellow, she said. "if he thinks anything of me don't you think he'll come back to me?" she asked, turning up her soulful blue eyes at me. "he would be a brute if he didn't, rose," responded i, with considerable warmth. the girl surely loved him. "why don't he write to me?" "maybe he hasn't got the time or ain't much of a writer," said i. "some people don't like to write." "i guess that's true," said she, sadly. though she had a sneaking regard for the young fellow, she didn't object to me buying milk chocolates for her, nor to going to a show with me, nor to taking a ride to crescent beach on a cosy little lake steamer. in fact, rosie was out for a good time, and evidently wasn't particular who furnished the funds. as i fancied the poor girl i was not averse to giving her a good time. we went to delaware park and spent several whole afternoons rowing on the little lake. we fed the ducks, walked in shady groves, and the time flew swiftly by in her company. during the morning i sold signs and in the afternoon i went with rosie. i put in a whole lot of time in buffalo with her, more than i should have done. one day i told her that i would have to go and then there was a kick. she wouldn't have it. she could not and she would not let me go, she said. i argued the case with her, but she wasn't open to argument. she was one of these kind of girls who are apt to forget the absent one when the present charmer is nigh. it was the hardest job in the world for me to leave her, but i finally did so. rosie, farewell; and if forever, then forever, fare thee well. chapter iv. new york city. i have heard it stated that "a great city is a great solitude" and so it is if you are a stranger. new york seemed a big solitude to me, for i didn't know anyone and no one knew me. i landed in the grand central depot in a swell quarter of the city one day, and felt utterly lost, for i didn't know which way to turn. as i was poor, that swell neighborhood was no place for me, but where was i to find a poorer locality? i concluded to walk and find one. i kept a walking and a walking and a walking, but the more i walked the more high-toned did the streets seem. nothing but fine houses and well-paved streets met my view and they made me tired. i did not like to address any of the people walking along these streets for they seemed hurried, cold and distant. says i to myself: "windy, you've struck a cold place. chicago was bad, but this place is worse. if you are going to europe, this will have to be your headquarters for awhile, though." bye-and-bye i struck a street called eighth avenue, which was a long and wide one. it was full of people and stores. the sidewalks were so crowded that locomotion was difficult, and i saw more coons there than i had ever seen in my life before. they were dressed up to kill and considered they owned the town. from their manner one would suppose they had no use for white trash. i had walked so much that i was pretty well tired out, and i also was hungry and thirsty. i concluded i would seek some saloon where i could obtain a rest, a drink and a free lunch, all for a nickel. there are such places everywhere in the cities, plenty of them, and all you have to do is to find them. i walked along and kept my eyes peeled for one. i saw lots of stylishly fitted-up stores along the avenue, and as there was so much style i thought there ought to be lots of money. everyone i met was dressed to kill, and it seemed to me that no one was poor. finally i came to a saloon which was bejeweled and be-cut-glassed outside, and swell inside, having marble floors and fancy fixtures. into this saloon i stepped and strode up to the bar, where i ordered a schooner of beer. i laid down a nickel on the bar and then leisurely strolled over to the lunch counter, which contained a pretty good spread of free lunch. i tackled a fistful of bread and cheese, and then wound up with bologna, pickles, crackers and pickled tripe. i ordered another schooner and hit the free lunch again real hard. no one said anything to me. after a good long rest i hit the "avenue" again to see the sights. there was plenty to be seen for the avenue was jammed with people, trolley cars and trucks. the buildings were of brick, as a rule, and old-fashioned in appearance. on the ground floor were stores and over head dwellings. everyone was a hustling and a bustling and didn't seem to have much time for anything except to sell you something. no one knew me or seemed to care a cuss for me. i felt lonely. the din was so great and the crowd so dense that i couldn't hear myself think. i was swept along with the crowd and kept my eyes and ears open. the stores were very fine, and the signs upon them handsome. though eighth avenue is by no means in a rich section of the city, it seemed to me that there was a whole lot of wealth and style there. i felt quite out of place for i wasn't well dressed. some of the free lunch i had eaten--i believe it was the bologna--had given me a thirst, so i stepped into an ice cream saloon and had a "schooner" of ice cream soda, which quenched my thirst admirably. things were cheap and good in new york, i quickly learned, and if one only had the price, one could live well there. one could have all kinds of fun, too, for there are so many people. the city is like an overgrown bee-hive--it more than swarms with people. i believe that new york city today has over four millions of people, with more a coming every year--thousands of them. i had heard a great deal about the bowery in new york, so i concluded to see it. i knew the song about it, the chorus of which was: the bowery, the bowery, they say such things, and they do such things, on the bowery, the bowery-- oh! i'll never go there any more. and i was wondering what kind of things they said there and what they did. well, they didn't say much when i struck it and there was nothing doing to speak of, except people rushing along minding their own business. it may have been wicked, but it isn't now. it is a business street and that is all. there is an "elevated" over the street, which makes noise enough to raise the dead, and a lot of cheap-looking stores and restaurants. there is any number of "hat-blocking" establishments run by hebrews, and the whole street in fact, seems like a section of jerusalem. jews till you can't rest. there may be some knock-down-and-drag-out places, but these are not confined to the bowery. there are other streets far worse. no, the bowery today is a peaceful, quiet street, and there isn't "anything doing" worth speaking about. new york has some fine streets, such as broadway, fifth avenue, madison square, twenty-third street, fourteenth street, etc. broadway is the main business street and begins at bowling green and runs up to central park and thence beyond. it is several miles long, its lower portion from bowling green to fourteenth street being lined on either side by many sky-scrapers and massive wholesale business establishments, and from fourteenth street up, by retail stores. rents are high on this street and the buildings fine. fifth avenue is not so long as broadway and contains the residences of many millionaires and less rich people. there is lots of style and wealth on that street. the central park is a beautiful spot. it runs from fifty-ninth street to one hundred and tenth street, and from fifth to eighth avenue. it is two and a half miles long by about two miles wide, and isn't big enough sometimes to contain the crowds of people that flock into it. it contains shady walks and trees, lawns, baseball grounds, lakes, casinos, stately malls (avenues), a large zoological collection, a great art gallery, an immense natural history building, extensive drives, secluded nooks for love-making, and lots of other nice things. around its grand entrance at fifth avenue are some of the largest and swellest hotels in new york. as everyone knows, of course, new york is the largest city in the country and the most cosmopolitan. it is the center of art, trade and finance, and its population is composed of all sorts. there are as many irish as in the largest city in ireland, as many germans, almost, as in hamburg, as many jews as in jerusalem, and a big crowd of almost every nationality under the sun. the main part of the city is situated on manhattan island, and it is overcrowded, compelling the overplus to seek the suburbs and other near-by localities. even these are becoming too well populated. jersey city, newark, brooklyn, paterson, kearney, harrison, staten island, coney island, etc., are increasing in population all too rapidly. new york is one of the "step lively" towns, and you are expected to hustle there, whether you want to or not. it is all your life is worth sometimes to cross a street, and a car won't stop long enough to enable you to get on or off. the tenement sections are studies in human life, and malodorous ones at that. the throngs are wonderful to behold. if you have plenty of money new york is an interesting place to live in. you will never feel dull there. you can live in some pretty suburb and go back and forth every morning and evening, as thousands do; or you can live in the city and ride out into the country every day by carriage, train or boat. in the good old summer time, if you live in the city, you can go to manhattan or brighton beach, coney island, north beach, south beach, rockaway, fire island, long branch, the highlands, shrewsbury river and a thousand and one other resorts in the vicinity. there is no lack of amusement or pleasure places. even the very poor can find lots of pleasant places to go, around new york, for the fares are low. for ten cents one can ride from new york to coney island, a distance of over twenty miles; to fort george for five cents, fifteen miles or more; to manhattan beach, south beach, staten island, newark, up the hudson, and lots of other places. in the city itself, and free for all, are the aquarium, art galleries, public squares, parks, roof gardens along the two rivers (the hudson and east rivers), the animals in bronx and central parks, the museums and other things. there is always something to hear and see in new york city at all hours of the day and night. new york surely is quite a sizeable village, and to judge from the way it has been growing, ten years from now it will extend a hundred miles or more up the hudson, to albany, maybe. chapter v. them bloomin' publishers. before i say much more about new york i want to say a word about the book publishers of that city, for i got to know a little something about them. i will relate my experiences among them, which will enable others to judge what they are like. i wanted to find a publisher for this book, and was told that new york is the proper place to do business of that kind. the first publisher i attempted to do business with has a large establishment on vandewater street, which is not far from the brooklyn bridge. i asked an elevator man who stood in the hallway of this building where i could find the boss. "which boss?" asked he, with a huge grin, for he probably deemed me some country jay looking for a job. my appearance was not very respect-inspiring, to say the truth; not for new york, anyway. "the head of this establishment," answered i, placidly. "what do you want to see him about? are you looking for a job?" "no, i'm not; i want to have some printing done." "oh, that's the ticket, is it? the superintendent is the man _you_ want to see. he's on the top-floor. come with me and i'll take you up to him." i stepped into the elevator and up we shot. we never stopped until we struck the top landing, where a door confronted us which opened into a huge apartment that was full of type-stands, presses, paper-cutters and printing machinery of all sorts. at the furthest end of this huge apartment were some offices. upon my entrance into the large apartment a man stepped up to me and wanted to know what i wanted. "i'd like to see the superintendent." "looking for a job, cully?" asked this gentleman. "well, hardly," responded i. "i want to have some printing done." "oh, you do, eh? you'll find the super in the rear office; away in the back," and he waved his hand toward the rear. i walked toward the rear and was met by a small boy, who came out of an office and wanted to know my business. "i want to see the superintendent, sonny," said i. "what do you want to see him about?" asked the kid. "never you mind; i want to see him." "will you please let me have your card?" "my card? what do you want my card for?" "so as to let the boss know who you are." "he don't know me; anyway, i haven't got a card." "will you please write your name and the nature of your business on this tablet? and i'll take it to him," said the boy, handing me a writing tablet and pencil. i didn't understand this method of doing business but i did as requested. the boy took the card in and presently the superintendent appeared. his name was axtell. "what can i do for you?" promptly asked mr. axtell, without any preliminaries. probably he was a busy man. "i have written a book, sir, and i want to have it printed." the gent looked at me contemplatively. what his thoughts were i don't know. "what kind of a book is it you've written? history, travel, poetry, novel or what?" i told him it was a novel. "how many pages will the book contain?" asked the superintendent. "there will be four or five hundred pages, i guess, as near as i can figure it," responded i. "how many copies will you want?" "i'll leave that to you, sir, for you know best. this is my first book, and though i don't think it is going to set the world on fire," said i modestly, "i think a first edition of about ten thousand copies would be the thing. don't you think that would do for a starter?" "it might," said he contemplatively. "excuse me," continued he as he sat down at his desk and began to do some figuring. when he got through he turned to me and said: "ten thousand copies of the book in paper cover will cost you in the neighborhood of $ ." "cost _me_ $ ," almost shrieked i. "i wanted to know what you'll give me for the manuscript and print it yourself." a cold glare froze in the gent's eye. "we only print 'reprint' here; we do not buy manuscripts." i did not understand, and the gent judged so from my demeanor, for he added: "you want to see a publisher. go up to twenty-third street; you'll find lots of them up that way." i did not know the difference between a printer and a publisher at that time, so that is how i came to make the mistake. up twenty-third street way i went. twenty-third street was a pretty swell one, far too swell for rather a seedy-looking chap like me. i came upon the establishment of messrs. graham & sons, which was one of the swellest on the street. it was contained in a six-story marble building, all ornaments and furbelows in front, and it was so swell that it made me feel small. the store must have been at least feet long and nearly as wide as it was long. a small part of this vast space was divided off into offices, but by far the greater portion was devoted to the exposure of books. books were piled around till you couldn't rest--on counters, shelves, in elaborate glass cases, and on the floor, even. all were handsomely bound and good to look at. when i saw the conglomeration my heart sank. "look at all this array, windy," said i to myself; "where are you going to get off at? you want to add another book to this little pile, do you? you are all kinds of a fool." for a few moments i was discouraged, but the feeling did not last long. i am an optimist, a fellow who never gets discouraged. instantly i mustered courage and walked up to a white-haired old gentleman whom i told that i would like to see the proprietor. the old gentleman told me that he was in his office on the top floor of the building. up i went to see him. when i reached the top floor, which was a sort of literary symposium and printing office combined, a small boy came forward and asked me my business. i told him, whereupon he asked me for my card. as i hadn't any, i wrote my name and the nature of my business on a tablet, and the boy took it into an office. a well-groomed and handsome young gentleman came forward and asked me to be seated. it was in an outer, not walled-in office, but even the furniture in it was swell. after exchanging airy compliments and discussing the weather a bit, the gentleman remarked _en passant_, "you have written a book?" that broke the ice. i told him i had and then we proceeded to business. he wanted to know the nature of the book and such other things as were well for him to know. i then asked a few questions myself. "what do you pay authors for their books, mr. graham?" "that depends," replied he. "we usually pay a royalty of $ down and ten per cent on every book sold, after that." i thought that was a pretty fair rattle out of the box. i concluded to leave my writings with mr. graham on those terms and he consented to receive them. i knew he had but to read to accept. i always was optimistic, as i said before. mr. graham requested me to leave my address, so he could communicate with me. he informed me i would hear from him in a few days. i did. in a few days i got a note from him in a high-toned, crested envelope, which stated that "the first reader" of the house had read the book and found good points in it, but that "the second reader" was dubious. to make sure he, mr. graham, had read the book himself and wasn't certain whether there was any money in it. under these circumstances he was constrained to forego the pleasure of publication, etc., etc., etc. these were not his exact words, but their substance. after reading the kind note i concluded to jump off the brooklyn bridge, but thought better of it. messrs. graham & sons were not the only pebbles on the beach, so why not see what i could do elsewhere. that's what i did--tried my luck elsewhere. there were other publishers on twenty-third street and if graham & sons did not know a good thing when they saw it, others might. on the same block, only a few doors distant, was another large firm. to them i went. a small little man with a scotch accent sat in the ante-room and asked me what i was after. he wanted my card, too, but didn't get it. he went in to see mr. phillips, the editor of the publishing house, and this gentleman turned me down in short order. he told me that there are too many books published nowadays, and that books of travel were a drug on the market. the cuss told me everything in the world to discourage me, but he couldn't do it. i just went around to see some of the other publishers, but none of them would "touch" the story at any price and each one had a different reason for refusing. i was unknown, poor and obscure, and that settled it. there was no show there for me. to get along one must be rich or have "a pull." chapter vi. the ocean voyage. i put in the winter in new york working at berry's, one of the swellest catering houses in the city. it is situated on fifth avenue and is a rival of the great delmonico establishments. the nobs of new york, when they want to give a little dinner or supper at home, see berry, who furnishes all the fine grub, cooks, waiters, dishes, plates, etc., or if they want to eat at his place they can do so, for he has private dining-rooms, ball-rooms, etc., where they can have anything they want, providing they have the price to pay for it. he employs a lot of people in his establishment, in the shape of a housekeeper, chambermaids, male chefs and assistants, waiters, omnibuses, porters, head-waiters, superintendents and a window-cleaner. i was the window-cleaner. it was the softest snap i had ever struck. i worked from in the morning until about dusk, and all i had to do was to keep every window in the house as bright and shiny as a new dollar. the building is a large one and the windows are many, but it was no trick at all to keep them clean. i cleaned a few windows every day and put in a whole lot of unnecessary time at it. i got twenty-five dollars a month for the job with board thrown in. the board was extra fine. roast goose and chicken for dinner every day (left over victuals, of course), crab, shrimp and potato salads, oysters in any style, rich puddings, pies and cakes, wines of all vintages--say, sonny, we lived there and no mistake. i had struck a home. i held the job down all winter and saved a little money. i told some of my fellow-workers, both male and female, that i intended to take a little flyer to the old country in the spring, and they laughed at me and guyed me unmercifully. one fine spring day "when fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" as i once saw it stated in a novel, i strolled down bowling green where the steamship offices are located and got pointers for my little trip. i learned that i could go to london direct, to amsterdam, rotterdam and several other dams; to hamburg, southampton, liverpool, havre, glasgow and to so many other places that i grew bewildered. as i stood in front of the cunard line office a young fellow stepped up to me and asked: "say, mister, are you thinking of going to yurrup?" i didn't think it was any of his business, so i said: "what do you want to know for?" "who, me?" replied he, taking time to gather his wits. "i'm connected with a ticket agency around on greenwich street, and if you want a ticket cheap, come with me and i'll get you one." "how cheap?" asked i. "that'll depend on where you want to go to. we sell tickets to all places mighty cheap. where do you want to go?" "don't know yet; haven't decided." "let me sell you a ticket to glasgow on the anchor line. that line will take you to ireland and scotland and is the finest trip in the world." "what's the fare?" inquired i. "only thirty dollars," answered he, "and you will get your money's worth." i didn't think i'd see much of ireland or scotland if i bought a ticket from him, so i told him i'd see him later. i wandered into the anchor line office and asked the ticket agent what the price of a ticket to glasgow would be. "cabin or steerage?" inquired he. "steerage, of course; i'm no vanderbilt." the agent looked at me quizzingly and then remarked: "from twenty-seven dollars upward, according to accommodation." i didn't know what he meant by "accommodation" but i thought twenty-seven dollars was enough for me. "do you want a ticket?" asked the agent, as if he were in a hurry. "i haven't the price with me now," said i. "what did you come here for then," snapped he. "for information," snapped i. he saw that i was getting huffy so he pulled in his horns and said: "we can take you to scotland in pretty good shape for twenty-seven dollars. you will have a good berth and the best of food, and we'll land you in glasgow in less than ten days from the time you leave here. what do you say; shall i give you a ticket?" i cogitated. the prospect looked good to me. "yes," said i impulsively, "give me a ticket!" i gave him my name, as he requested, answered all the questions he put to me, and in a jiffy he had the ticket made out for me. "what's the name of the ship i'm going to sail on?" asked i. "the furnessia," answered he, adding, "she will leave from the foot of west twenty-fourth street on saturday morning at nine o'clock sharp. be on hand at that time, or you'll get left." "don't you worry about me getting left," retorted i; "i'll be there all right." was i happy after i bought the ticket? i can't say that i was, for i wasn't at all positive whether i had better go. i didn't know what the old country would be like, so that visions of all kinds of trouble floated through my noddle, but faint heart never won a fair lady. i might as well be found dead in europe as in any other place. what's the dif? this was thursday and the ship was to sail on saturday. it seemed to me a long time to wait for when i go anywhere i like to go in a hurry. saturday morning came and i arose bright and early. i slept very little that night, for i was thinking, thinking, thinking. after arising and having a cup of coffee i took my time strolling down toward the steamship pier. after i arrived there i was about to enter the long covered shed, when an official strode up to me and asked me where i was going. i carried no baggage of any sort and didn't think i needed any. i am too old a traveler to encumber myself with baggage. all i carried was on my person. i told the official i was bound for europe on the furnessia and showed him my ticket. he looked at it and let me pass. i went on board. when i reached the deck a young man dressed in a white jacket and peaked cap asked me if i were a married man. i didn't think it was any of his business, so i asked him what he wanted to know for. the young fellow frowned and exclaimed: "don't give me no language, young feller; i want to know if yer married or single." i told him i was a single man, whereupon he said: "you go forward to the quarters for single men!" "where's that?" queried i. "for'ard of the main hatch," responded he. i didn't know the difference between a main hatch and a chicken hatch, but i went up to the front part of the vessel where i saw several sailors slinging trunks down a hole by means of a rope. i walked up to them and asked one of them who wasn't too busy to answer a question, where the main hatch was. "it's in the fo'-castle," says jack, with a wink at his mates; "do you want it?" "no," said i. "i don't; where's the quarters for the single men." "oh, that's what you're after, is it? you follows your nose till you gets to the bows, and then you'll see a companionway down which you goes." "all right," says i; "thank you." the directions weren't clear, but i guessed i could find my way. i went forward through rows of boxes, trunks, valises, ropes and other impediments, and finally came to a stairway over which was a hood or sliding cover. this stairway was almost straight up and down, with rough brass plates on each step to prevent one from slipping. at either side of it was a rope in lieu of a balustrade. that stairway did not look good to me. chapter vii. the steerage. as soon as i tried to go down the stairway there was trouble, trouble of the worst kind. i could get down all right, but when i got down a few steps an odor came up that made me pause. the odor was not of stale onions, a rotting steer or anything like that, but an indefinable one. i never smelt anything like it before and it conquered me at once. it caught me right in the throat and though i tried to swallow i couldn't do so to save my life. i began to chew as if i were chewing tobacco, and the lump rose in my throat and wouldn't go up nor down. i hadn't drunk a drop that morning excepting a cup of coffee, so it couldn't have been liquor that upset me. it must have been the smell and nothing else. i stood on a step holding to the side rope to steady myself and hesitated about going down. i grew dizzy and thought i was going to fall but held on like grim death. "come windy," says i to myself, "your bunk is below, and you'll have to go down to it or someone else will get it. this won't do." i went down slowly and the further down i got the stronger the smell became. suddenly i got very sick. i felt like giving up the enterprise right then and there but as my friends would have had the laugh on me if i did so, i concluded to see the thing out. i had to go down the stairway, though, there was no getting around that; i had to select a berth, and to do that i had to go below. i kind of fooled around and hesitated to make the plunge but finally i mustered courage and made the attempt once more. i went down very slowly, holding my hand over my nose and mouth. i got down a few steps and then i stopped again. i just couldn't. i just laid down where i was and fired away like a good fellow. i was more than willing to die. as i lay there a jacky suddenly came down, airy-fairy fashion, as if he were dancing on eggs, and in his hands he carried a long, black tin pan in which was his mate's breakfast, consisting of meat, gravy and potatoes. i caught a whiff of the mess and oh mercy! when jacky got down to the bottom and saw me sitting there and the muss i had made he became very indignant and wanted to know what i meant by mussing up the ship like that. "why don't you go on deck if you want to be sick?" said he. had i been well i would have swiped the heartless cuss one just for luck, but i was too weak to speak, even. i fired away again and seeing this, jacky flew away as if the devil was after him. after a good long time i got down in the steerage and saw the steerage steward who was a scotchman with a broad accent, and he gave me a berth. he noticed that i had been sick and advised me to go upstairs and get all the fresh air i could. i acted on his advice and made my way up the stairway again as quickly as i could, but that wasn't very quick. when i got on deck the fresh air revived me somewhat, but it seemed to me as if my stomach were all gone. there was an "all gone" feeling there, sure enough. the ship was getting ready to start by this time. an officer mounted a raised deck over the forecastle and gave orders to heave the hawsers off. the captain, who stood on the bridge, signalled to the engineer below to let her go, and off we were. slowly we moved out from the pier, to the farewells of the multitudes on shore and on deck. some blubbered, but ne'er a blubber from me. i wasn't caring whether school kept or not. the vessel's prow after she got out of her dock was turned down the hudson toward the battery, and she went well out into the middle of the stream. this afforded us a good view of the river. on one side was the new york shore, and on the other, the jersey. panoramas of houses and docks on either side swept by us as we moved along, and sky-scrapers loomed up prominently. we passed pretty close to the goddess of liberty, and saw plainly governor's island, ellis island, fort hamilton, fort wordsworth, bath beach, staten island and coney island. quickly enough we were abreast of sandy hook, which was the last point of land we would see until we reached europe. straight ahead of us was nothing but sky and water. it was now nearly noon. i had eaten nothing that morning and what i had eaten yesterday was mostly downstairs in the hallway. the fresh sea-breeze had revived me a little and now i felt that i could eat something. none of the passengers had eaten anything since they came on board, and probably they, too, must have been hungry, for when the dinner bell rang there was a mighty stampede. some of them didn't take time to rush downstairs, they just dropped down. the dinner was good. there was plenty of nourishing soup on hand, a liberal allowance of meat, vegetables, bread, butter and coffee. no one need have gone hungry. all the other meals were satisfactory, though an occasional one was punky. of course there were kickers, but those kind of people will be found everywhere. the second day out was sunday, and it was a fine spring day, but on monday morning clouds began to gather and tried to work up a storm. they succeeded all too speedily. the sky became black, the wind roared up aloft, the masts hummed, timbers creaked, the ship rolled from side to side and then rose and fell; the cordage whipped against the masts and everything looked lovely for a first-class storm. i got scared. i hated to die so young, but what's the odds? the waves were high as mountains and to me seemed about as mean looking as anything i ever saw. they were white on top and made straight for us. we could not run away from them. i was on deck waiting to see the storm out, for what was the use going below and being drowned there? if i was to die i would die game and at the front. it didn't seem to me that anything built by human hands could withstand the buffeting of those waves. the force of the sky-scraping billows was awful. they kind of made me wilt when i looked at them. i survived that storm or i wouldn't be writing this. if you catch me on the sea again though, you'll have to be a fast runner. i was told that we would see land again by the following sunday and i was sort of pining to see it. it was a wait of several long days, but i didn't have much else to do than wait. there was nothing to do on board except to eat, sleep and wait. i got pretty badly drenched during the storm. a huge comber made a leap for me and broke right over me, spilling a few tons of water on top of me. it was a soaker, sure enough, and i didn't dry out until several days afterward. i had only one suit of clothes with me and they were on my back so they had no chance to dry. i slept in them to keep them warm. a life on the ocean wave is a gay thing. it is awful nice to be spun around like a cork and then see-sawed up and down with a possibility of touching bottom. the heel over from side to side is also very funny, for there is a good chance of being shot overboard when the ship jams suddenly away over. you hold on wondering whether the ship is going to right herself or not. if she does, you're in luck, and if she don't it's good-bye lisa jane. how many ships do tip over? several thousand of them every year. luckily, the furnessia wasn't one of the unlucky ones this trip. the worst that happened to me was a bad scare and a shower-bath. maybe the water wasn't cold when that wave struck me! ugh! it knocked the wind out of me for a moment and i didn't know where i was at. i dripped like a drowned rat and when my fellow passengers saw me they roared. on tuesday morning of the second week we saw the shores of europe. we had now been out about ten days. i have read that columbus and his crew felt pretty good when they saw land again after their eventful voyage but i'll bet a dollar to a doughnut they didn't feel half as good as i felt when i saw land again. i was more than pining to see it. ten days of sloppiness was a whole lot for me. if there is any fun wandering around with one's clothing sticking to one's back i fail to see it. i was feeling all right and my general health was good, but the lack of sleep and the fetid odors down below helped to daze me. i was in a sort of pipe dream and hardly knew whether i was afoot or on horseback. there was land ahead, though, and i felt like shouting. the land ahead of us was the coast of ireland and it looked good to me. the name of ireland was familiar to me since my boyhood days, and i had seen irishmen on the stage and off it, had heard songs sung about it and had heard it spoken of a million times. here was the real thing right before me. i became mightily interested in it as did almost everyone else. the irish passengers aboard, and there were plenty of them, became frantic with joy. ireland surely is a beautiful country. rocky headlands we saw, capes, bays, towering mountains in the background, green trees and farms. an air of romance seemed to hang over the place and the blue skies of the spring above looked down on it kindly. we steered straight in for the shore and then sailed northward along the coast. we kept off shore only a few miles. when we got to tory island we steamed between it and the mainland, and had a close view of this little islet. it was only a mile or two long with a quaint looking light-house at one end of it and a vegetable garden in bloom near by. those green things growing, how they did entrance me! at the other end of the isle were rocks that towered up higher than the masts of our ship, and they were scarred, seamed and causewayed by the elements. they had taken the strangest shapes imaginable. we steamed through the strait between the island and the mainland swiftly, for though the strait was narrow the channel was deep; then we skirted southward along the east coast of ireland until we came to a broad bay, where we anchored. this bay was shallow close in to the shore, so we anchored far out. on the shore was the town of moville, where the irish passengers were to disembark for points in ireland. a little tender came steaming up and when she was loaded with baggage and passengers, there was hardly room enough to swing a cat in but as the irish passengers were happy, we had no kick coming. the warm-hearted irish bade us farewell with many a thrown kiss and handkerchief flutter. they were off. so we were soon, for scotland. the scenes along the east coast of ireland were no whit inferior to those on the west coast. it did not take us long to reach scotland, where the scenery was enchanting. words are entirely inadequate to give one a proper idea of it. to be appreciated it must be seen and _felt_, for reading about it don't do much good. here, right before us, were the highlands of scotland and many a place famous in song and story. in due course of time we reached the firth of clyde and anchored off greenock. this was the disembarking point for all the passengers. a little steamer shot out from greenock and landed us, bag and baggage, at the princess pier, which reminded me somewhat of a mississippi levee, for it was stone paved and sloping. on the pier cabbies stood about, touching their hats respectfully, but saying never a word. they were seeking "fares," and giving us the tip noiselessly. newsboys were there, too, yelling in strange accents, "morning nip!" "daily bladder," etc., and some of them when they got on to my presence and saw that i was a greenhorn, made loud uncomplimentary remarks about me in language that i couldn't understand. this rather embarrassed me, for i didn't like to be made a show of. them kids ought to have got a kick in the pants for their freshness but the more you fool with some kids the worse they get, so i just walked on minding my business and said nothing. all we third-raters were steered into the custom house where the baggage was to be examined. it didn't take the authorities long to examine mine. a quiet, lynx-eyed official asked me where my baggage was and when i told him i hadn't any, he jerked his head upward and backward, giving me a quiet hint to skip. i waited a few moments and then followed some of the other passengers to the railroad station, which was close by. our destination was glasgow, and greenock was twenty-five miles distant, so we were compelled to make the rest of the journey by rail. when i entered the railroad station i stood stock still for a moment and stared. on one side of the station was a blank wall and on the other a "buffet," waiting-room, ticket office, "luggage" room and telegraph office. what stumped me was the cars and locomotive. the cars were stage-coaches strung on wheels with no bumpers to speak of; no blind baggage, no brake-beams, no nothing. where was a fellow to ride when he was beating his way? one couldn't beat it in any shape, form or manner. to say that i was disappointed won't express my feelings. i was totally discouraged. i felt like going back home again on the return trip of the furnessia but i didn't have the price. i had less than fifteen dollars in my possession and was up against it. i had no idea how big a country scotland was or how the walking would be, so i did some pretty lively thinking. i now remembered what little billy had told me and found out that he had told me the truth. no, there was no way of "beating it" on those kind of cars. i mixed in with the push on the platform and began looking for a comfortable seat in a car. there were only two seats in a car, facing each other, and each seat was capable of holding four persons. thus when there were eight persons in a coach it was full. i made a rush for a seat where i could view the scenery comfortably, and after the coaches were all filled and "all set," the doors were slammed shut, somebody outside blew a tin-horn and with a ratlike squeak from the engine we were off. the engine had seemed like a toy to me but she was speedy and powerful and could go like a streak. away we clattered through tunnels, past fields and meadows, villages and towns. the scenery looked mighty foreign-looking to me and i was uneasy. i sure felt that i wasn't at home. on our right hand side as we sped up to glasgow were the fields and meadows i just spoke of, and on the other side was a bare prairie through which wound the river clyde. along the banks of the clyde were shipyards which are famous the world over. i believe these shipyards are so famous because ships can be built cheaper and better there than anywhere else. to be a clyde-built ship is usually a recommendation. the scenery was interesting and would have been more so had i been happier. i was still half-dazed from the want of sleep during ten nights on board ship, my clothes didn't feel right on me from the soaking they had got and then the disappointment of not being able to "beat it," affected me, too. but it was all in the game, so i had no kick coming. after journeying about an hour we came upon the town of paisley, which has been famous for centuries for the manufacture of "paisley shawls." large spool-cotton factories we could see in the place too, and it seemed to be a city of some size and consequence. in a little while after that we rushed into st. enoch's station, glasgow. this was our jumping-off place. the station was a very large and fine one, almost as much so as the grand central station in new york. to judge from the station, glasgow must be a sizeable place, for it was first-class in every respect and right up to date. chapter viii. glasgow. "all out for glasgow," was the cry, so out we tumbled. i made my way out of the station and soon found myself upon the street, where i stood perplexed and bewildered. it seemed to me i had landed in some other world. everything was so different--the houses, the stores, the streets, the sidewalks, the driveways, the people, the vehicles, the dogs, the horses, the skies, the clouds, everything. how or where will i begin to describe these things? i have a pretty big contract on my hands, one that i am unequal to. i had never seen so many scotch people in a bunch before and had no idea there were so many alive. there were thousands of them, tens of thousands of them. if glasgow hasn't got a million of people then i miss my guess sadly. scotchmen till you can't rest, anywhere and everywhere. even the names on all the stores were scotch. there was macpherson and blair, mactevish, macdonald, brown, alexander, macfeely. shetland ponies came trotting by that were about knee-high to a grasshopper and though so small they dragged after them carriages in which were seated grown persons. why, a grown man could have picked up pony, rig and all, and carried them. i felt like telling the people in those rigs to get out and walk, and not disgrace themselves by making such a little creature in the shape of a horse drag them about. oh, my! oh, my! what queer things a fellow can see. here came a two-wheeled cart clattering along which was hauled by a melancholy-looking little donkey and it was called a "sweet-milk cart." i kept my eyes peeled to see if a "sour-milk" cart would come along, but i didn't see any. they designate their stores in a curious way. a butcher shop is called a "flesher's," a furnishing goods store is called a "haberdashery," a dry goods store a "draper's," etc., etc. say, pardner, pinch me, will you? i wonder whether i am alive. by this time i had stopped gazing standing still, and walked along, for the people were getting on to the fact that i was a greenhorn. my dress and appearance, and the way i stared gave me away. as i walked along unsteadily, still feeling that the ship was under me, i saw things. the houses were of gray stone several stories in height, with tall chimney tiles on top all in a cluster; stores on the ground floor and dwellings overhead. nearly all of them had mansard roofs. they were nearly all alike and their exterior seemed plain and dull to me. but the stores riveted and held my attention. they were rather dingy, but the show windows were fitted up fine. here was a fish store in the window of which were displayed salmon, grilse, lemons, plaice, megrins, haddock, cod, herrings; labels upon the platters designating what they were. in a candy store i saw toffie balls, chocolate bouncers, pomfret cakes, voice pastiles, and frosty nailrods. i laughed and wondered if they had any railroad spikes and rails. frosty nailrods and bouncers, hey! well, i was getting a pretty good show for my money. i looked into a tobacco store and there i saw a vast array of cigars, tobacco and smokers' articles. the brands of tobacco had curious names, such as baillie nicol jarvey, starboard navy, tam o'shanter, aromatic mixture, english birdseye and many others. the tobacco and cigars were dear, tobacco being eight cents an ounce, and funny-looking cigars four cents each. in the clothing store windows i noticed clothes made of excellent cloth in all varieties, that sold for eight and ten dollars the suit. they were fine and made me feel sad, for i hadn't the price to buy one, though i needed a suit badly. shoes, too, were cheap and good. the windows of all the stores were heaped to profusion with goods, and it seemed to me there was more stock in the windows than there was in the stores. the wares were displayed very temptingly with a price tag on everything. the jewelry displayed was more than tasteful, i thought; i wanted a few diamonds awful bad. i wandered along argyle street, which seemed a broad and busy thoroughfare. the sidewalks were jammed and so was the roadway. i sauntered along slowly, taking in the circus, for it was better than a circus to me. it was a continuous performance. lots of people gazed at me, nudged each other and made remarks, but i couldn't catch what they said. probably they took me for some animal that had escaped from a menagerie. i wasn't caring, though, what they thought. i was having as much fun out of them as they were having out of me. i saw so many queer sights that i couldn't describe a tithe of them. many fine people drove by in fine rigs, and some of these wealthy ones were probably out on shopping expeditions. there were grand ladies and gentlemen in multitudes, and i figured it out that wealth and nobility must be pretty prevalent in scotland. many of the ladies were beauties of the blond type and the gentlemen were well-dressed and elegant in appearance. they carried themselves nobly and proudly and seemed stern yet manly. the ladies surely were engaging and i noticed several of them alight from moving street cars gracefully. they didn't wait for the car to stop, but swung off, alighting in the right direction every time. had they been american ladies it is more than likely they would have landed on top of their heads. the glasgow ladies have mastered the trick, all right, and mastered it well, for you can't down them, nohow. as i sauntered along slowly, two young girls came along with plaid shawls thrown over their shoulders and when they got near me one of the girls collapsed and fell on the sidewalk. none of the crowd stopped, whereat i wondered, but i stopped to see what the trouble was. if the girl wasn't as full as a goat you may smother me. she must have been imbibing too much hot scotch. the girl was in her teens, and quite pretty, and so was her companion. i felt sorry that so young and pretty a girl would make a spectacle of herself, so i strode up and asked if i could be of any assistance. the fallen one glared at me and the one standing on her feet trying to help her companion stared at me. my american accent may have been too much for her for she made no reply. i remained standing there, whereupon the sober one got angry and turned on me with the remark: "did yer never see ah lassie fou?" from her indignant tones and manner i saw that she was huffy, so i made tracks in a hurry, for i wasn't looking for trouble. after seeing as much as i wanted to of argyle street, i walked toward the embankment of the clyde river, which i could see not far away, and had a look at the shipping. the ships were as curious to me as everything else i saw in glasgow, for they were distinctly foreign-looking and odd. glasgow seemed a great port, for there were ships of all nations there. the banks along the water front were high and walled up with stone, forming fine promenades. quite a number of very fine bridges spanned the stream and they must have cost a lot of money. they were of stone, iron and wood, and were equal to structures of their kind anywhere. i noticed that the water was of a dark chocolate color, which means--mud. the stream isn't very broad, but it is deep. i was speaking of the vessels! well, they took my time. i had read of low, black-hulled, rakish crafts in pirate stories and these looked like them. wonder if they were pirates? i didn't go aboard any of them to investigate. along the water front street opposite the embankment were hotels, stores, lodging-houses, ship-outfitting establishments, taverns, inns, and all manner of places catering to seafaring men. all of them seemed curiosity shops to me. my little pen isn't able to describe them. what's the use of trying? i came upon a spot called for short and sweet "the broomielaw," which was a section of the water front given up to the landing of "up-country" steamboats, which came down the various lochs, rivers, bays, "the minch," and other waters of northern scotland, and it was more than interesting to observe the little steamers when they came in. they were laden with cattle and people from the highlands and elsewhere, and with produce and merchandise. many of the people were dressed in togs that i never saw outside of a comic opera show and when cattle were unloaded from these long, narrow piratical-looking craft i had more fun watching them than i ever had in my life before. the cattle were mostly black like the ships, and a whole lot of tail-twisting and scotch language had to be used before they would take the hint and go ashore. they didn't like the looks of things and bucked. the sights of the city bewildered them, no doubt, for they were used to quieter scenes. the cowboys had on tam o'shanter caps and wore not describable togs. they punched the cattle, twisted their tails and shouted words that the cattle maybe could understand, but i couldn't. highland scotch was too high for my nut. excursion boats came to the broomielaw and dumped their passengers on the landing from the harris, skye, stormaway, fladda, the dutchman and all the other places so renowned in scottish stories. after dumping one lot of passengers and freight they took another load back to the same places. had i had the price i would have gone up country sure, for there are a whole lot of things to be seen up that way. but by this time it was nearing noon and i was getting hungry, so i concluded that a good, square meal would do me good. the broomielaw and the other places weren't going to run away, and i would have plenty of opportunities of seeing them. chapter ix. getting a square meal. i drifted along salt market street and then came upon a street which, for want of a better name, was called sauchiehall street, in the neighborhood of which i saw a restaurant called the "workingman's restaurant," on the side-wall of which was painted in large letters the following bill of fare: tea, cents. coffee, cents. porridge and milk, cents. sandwiches, and cents. eggs, cents. ham and eggs, cents. broth, cents. pea soup, cents. potato soup, cents. beefsteak pudding, cents. sausage, cents. collops, and cents. dessert puddings, cents. fish suppers, and cents. tripe suppers, and cents. the bill of fare and the prices looked good to me and i concluded that this would be my dining place. in front of the restaurant were two large show windows in one of which was displayed all kinds of bakery goods, such as large flapjacks, big as elephant ears, labeled "scones." they looked like flapjacks to me, but were bigger and thicker, and could be had for two cents each. one of them was enough for a square meal. i wanted something better than that, though, just then. there were big biscuits in the window, too, cakes of various kinds, tarts, etc. in the other window were huge joints of beef and mutton, meat pies, hog-meat in various shapes and styles, and other dainties. my teeth began to water as i eyed the display and a drop trickled down my chin. "lemme see, now; what'll i tackle?" says i to myself. some of the hog meat looked good to me and so did the beef and mutton. i was willing to spend two bits or so for a good square meal. while i stood gazing and deliberating a young girl with a shawl around her shoulders came up to me and addressed me: "hoo air ye?" asked she. i thought she had made a mistake and had taken me for someone she knew, so i asked her if she wasn't mistaken in the person. either she did not understand pure english or else she did not want to, for she kept up the conversation. it didn't take me long to catch on to the fact that she was bent on making a mash. she didn't know me from adam, nor i her. she was light haired and pretty, and had a slight, graceful figure, which was not well hidden by a shawl, which she kept opening and closing in front of her. i concluded that i was in for joy the first thing. to tell the real, honest truth, i wasn't hankering for fun just then, for i was too hungry, but of course it wouldn't do to be discourteous to a stranger, and a pretty one at that. to her inquiry how i was, i told her "tiptop," which she didn't seem to understand. she did catch on to it, though, that i was a stranger. "where'd ye come from, the noo?" "the noo, the noo," thinks i. "what does she mean by that?" i caught on suddenly. "oh, i just landed this morning from new york." "ho, yer a yankee, then?" says she. "no, i'm not," answered i. "i'm a westerner." "ooh eye, ooh eye," repeated she twice, as if she didn't understand. "what air ye going to do in glesgie?" asked she in clear, bell-like accents. she came up pretty close to me and now i could detect from her breath that she had been indulging in scotch bug-juice. this displeased me. i gave her a hint that i had had no dinner and that i was pretty hungry, but it was evident that something stronger than a hint would be needed to cut me loose from her. she began to coax and then suddenly she called me a bully. that got me off. i told her in pretty plain language that she was a trifle fresh and that i hadn't said or done anything to warrant her in calling me names. she didn't understand what i said, but i guess she could tell from my manner that i was angry, so her soft eyes gazed down to the ground sadly. i excused myself, left her and went into the restaurant. the unexpected interview had agitated me somewhat, but i soon got over it. the front part of the restaurant was a sort of store, where edibles were displayed on counters and which could be bought and carried away, or eaten on the premises, as one chose. the rest of the apartment was divided off into cabinets having sliding doors to them. in each cabinet was a rough wooden table with backless, wooden benches, close up to it, and on either side of it. the cabinet wasn't big enough to turn around in, but it served the purpose for which it was built. a young waitress came to the cabinet i had chosen as my retreat and asked me what i would have. when she heard my foreign accent it was all she could do to keep from sniggering. i asked for pea soup for the first course. it was brought to me and it was nice. while eating it, the door slid back quietly, and who do you think entered it? guess! i'll bet you never could guess. why, it was no one else than the young girl who had addressed me outside the restaurant. she had probably watched from the outside and seen in which cabinet i had gone and there she was, large as life. tell _me_ scotch girls aren't cute. for a moment i was so flabbergasted you could have knocked me down with a feather, but i soon recovered my equanimity. the girl asked me if she might sit down beside me. what could i say? of course, i said yes. i kept on eating my soup and cogitated. if this was the custom of the country i didn't like it. where i came from strangers were not in the habit of inviting themselves to dinner. the lassie (that's what girls are called in scotland) chinned away to me, but i didn't understand her, nor did i care to very much just then. after the pea soup had disappeared i asked the lassie if she was hungry and she gave me to understand that she was not. probably she had only come in for a social chat. the waitress soon came in again and sniffed scornfully when she saw my companion there. she probably took me for a naughty man. all this goes to show how a poor, innocent fellow can get into trouble when he isn't looking for it. i next ordered some roast mutton, potatoes and bread and butter. to the waitress's inquiry what i would drink i said "water." the lassie looked at me reproachfully. i divined that _she_ wouldn't have ordered water. while i ate the lassie chinned and seemed to stick to me as faithfully as a dutch uncle to a rich relative. i don't think that she was fully aware of what she was doing or saying. after i had finished the second course, the waitress made her appearance again and wanted to know what further would be wanted. i told her, nothing, whereupon she began to gather up the dishes and her manner proclaimed that the cabinet might be wanted for the next customer. i took the hint and withdrew and the lassie followed me out. outside of the restaurant the lassie gave me a gentle hint that she knew of a snug place where we could have "a little smile" together, but i wasn't drinking just then and told her so. i was leery of her, in fact. how did i know who she was or what her little game was. i didn't know the language of the country, the laws, the customs or anything, so i proposed to proceed carefully. i shook the lassie firmly but politely as soon as i could and went my way. chapter x. glasgow green (or common.) i concluded to go down toward the clyde again but had some difficulty finding my way, for the streets were tortuous and winding, though quaint and old-fashioned. i had seen pictures of such streets on the stage and in plays. after much walking i came upon a thoroughfare called stockwell street which led direct to the quays. i walked to the albert bridge and contemplated its strength and solidity, and then walked in the direction of a park which i saw not far distant. i was informed by someone whom i asked that this was the glasgow common, or green. the park, i should judge, is about two miles long by about half a mile wide, and is almost destitute of trees or plants. it is, in fact, nothing more than a bare public playground fitted up with tennis courts, cricket grounds, apparatus for gymnastic exercises, swings, a music-stand, etc. it surely is an interesting spot. the walks are long and numerous, resting-places are plentiful and near the river is a building used by the humane society--a hospital, most likely. a little way in from the entrance is a fountain that is worth describing. the "glesgie" people seem to have a grudge against it for some reason or other, but it is a nice and elaborate work of art for all that. it is a large structure with a broad basin and many other basins that diminish in diameter as they near the top. the top basin is quite small. around the largest basin are groups of life-sized figures representing the various races of man, such as africans, asiatics, europeans, australians and americans. the figures are exceedingly well done. on the topmost pinnacle of the fountain is a heroic image of lord nelson, the great english admiral. i thought the whole work was a most elaborate and fine one. being tired, i sat down on a bench to rest. there were not very many people in the park just then and i had a good view of everything. clear over on the other side of the park there wasn't a single person to be seen except a couple that sat on a bench making love in strenuous fashion. it was a workingman and a lassie. did you ever watch a calf when it sucks its mother, how it makes a grab for a teat, rest awhile, then make another grab? that is the way that man made love. suddenly he would throw his arm around the girl's waist, press her to him, then let go and take a breathing spell. the lassie sat quiet taking it all in and saying never a word. in a few minutes the man would make another grab, take a fresh hold and then let go again. it was a queer way of making love, i thought. the couple wasn't bashful a bit and evidently didn't care who saw them. i thought to myself that i would have to find some lassie to give me a few lessons in the art of making love in scotch fashion, for i wasn't on to the game at all. after a good long rest i strolled through the city to see some more of it. it was quiet in the park just then and nothing doing. i came upon the old glasgow cathedral which is by far the oldest structure in the city and the most thought of by glasgowites, but i was not much impressed by it. it is a thousand years old or more, is great in extent, is surrounded by ample grounds and is made of stone. it contains flying buttresses and some other gim-crackery but the whole thing is rather plain, black and dull. sir walter scott in one of his novels describes it faithfully, and if any one wants to know more about it i politely request them to look up sir walter scott. i ain't equal to the task of describing architecture in detail and such things. not far from the cathedral is the necropolis, a very ancient burial ground right in the heart of the city, almost. it is as ancient as the cathedral, maybe. it is a pretty spot and i went all through it. it is built around a hillside and is of considerable extent. along the street level are walks bordered by trees, shrubs and flowers, and as you ascend the hillside you will see elaborate tombs, monuments, shady nooks and bosky bowers. on the highest portion of the rather steep and lofty hill a fine view of glasgow may be had, and here lies buried, beneath a fine monument, john knox, the reformer. the scotch think a heap about mr. knox, but as i don't know much about him i can't say much. he must have been a wonderful man and he surely lies buried in a grand spot. as a rule i don't like to wander about in bone-yards, but as this one was so pretty i was impelled to do so. let me say a few words about glasgow in a general way before i continue my story. glasgow is the commercial metropolis of scotland. it contains about , people, and in most respects is a modern city. it is the center of art, finance and trade, and what new york is to the united states, glasgow is to scotland. there is much wealth, style and fashion there, the people are workers and full of business. wholesale and retail establishments abound, ship-building yards are numerous, as are foundries and manufacturing shops of many kinds. chief of all the great industries in glasgow is the ship-building. the business of the port of glasgow is great and the volume of the shipping immense. these few pointers will reveal to you that glasgow is not a jay town by any means. chapter xi. hunting for a furnished room. as i said before, when i landed in glasgow i had only a few dollars in my possession, therefore i deemed it wise to make them go as far as possible, for i didn't know what i was up against or how i would get along. the country was strange and new to me, i didn't know a soul this side the water, i knew nothing of the ways of the country or the people, and hadn't the faintest idea as yet how i was going to get through the country. that i could not beat my way i had already learned, and as i am not very partial to hiking it over long distances, i cogitated. but what was the use of thinking or worrying? didn't i have some money in my inside pocket? of course i had, and it was time enough to worry when i was broke. "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," has always been my motto, and i had been on the turf long enough to know that there is always some way out of a scrape when one gets into it. what was the next event on the program? i had dined and seen considerable of the city and it was "more better" that i go and look up a furnished room. i had to have some place to sleep and the cheapest and most comfortable way, i thought, was to rent a room in a private family. i have slept in lodging houses time without number but they are too public and sometimes too noisy. for a good, honest sleep give me a private dwelling. i knew that i was looking shabby but good clean money looks good to a whole lot of people. i wandered through buchanan and argyle streets, the trongate and gallowgate street, but couldn't find a "to let" sign anywhere. this kind of stumped me. i asked some one if there were no furnished rooms to let in glasgow and he informed me that there were lots of them but that i would have to look in the upper stories of the houses for the signs. i did so but saw very few of them. i tackled the first place where i saw one. it was in a three-story building along the trongate and the structure didn't look good to me. there was a narrow, stone-paved hallway leading through the building and at the rear of it was a cork-screw-like stairway that wound upward. the hallway was as dim and dark as a dungeon and made me feel funny. but i was there for a purpose so there was no use getting scared of bugaboos. up the stairway i went, slowly and cautiously, keeping my eyes peeled for obstructions. i came to the first landing, where there was a single strongly made wooden door. i saw a knocker on the door and rapped at it rather faintly for admittance. an elderly woman came to the door and demanded to know what i wanted. i told her i was looking for a furnished room. from my accent she gathered that i was a foreigner for she asked at once: "yer a furriner, ain't ye?" i can't describe the scotch accent just right for it ain't my language, but i will try to set down what the lady said to me as well as i can. "yes, ma'am," said i; "i arrived from new york today." "yer a yankee, i believe." "no, ma'am," responded i, "i'm a westerner." this evidently puzzled the lady for she murmured "ooh eye! ooh eye!" in the same tone somewhat as the boozy lassie at the workingman's restaurant had done. "what will ye be doin' in glasgie?" asked the lady. i was stumped for a moment. i assured her i was going to look for a job. "what's yer trade?" "oh, i work at anything," i answered. "ah, then yer jack of all trades and maister of none." i assured the lady that was about the size of it and she then asked me how much i wanted to pay for a room. i told her about a dollar a week. as things were cheaper on this side of the water than on the other side, i figured it out that i ought to get things at about half price. evidently the lady didn't think so, for she scanned me scornfully and wanted to know if i took her place for a tramp's lodging house. that was putting it rather plain which caused me to kind of wilt. i assured the landlady i had no such idea. i asked her what she charged for a room and she said two dollars and a half per week. too much for yours truly, i thought, and told her so. we couldn't make a deal so i groped my way down stairs and tried my luck elsewhere. rents probably were high in that part of the city so i crossed the clyde and wandered into the gorbals district. this is a section of the city inhabited by the poorer classes of working people and i had my eye on it while wandering along the broomielaw. i saw warehouses along the waterfront over there and stone-paved streets full of houses. the houses were ancient-looking and grimy but i would probably find what i sought there. the first house i entered in that district had the same kind of a hallway with a spiral stairway at the end of it as the house i had been in on the other side of the river, and when i rapped at the door on the first floor a lady answered the summons. when i told her that i wanted a furnished room she wanted to know how much i was willing to pay. she did not tell me her price but wanted to size up my pile. her little racket wouldn't work. i told her that if she had a room that suited me and if the price was right we could make a deal, otherwise not. whereupon she opened her hall door, let me in and led me to a fair-sized room and asked me how i liked it. it contained a table, sofa and two chairs, but nothing else. i told her i wanted a bed-room, not a sitting-room. "this is a bed-room," said she, opening a closet in the room in which was a bunk. holy jerusalem! what did the lady take me for; a chinaman, to put me in a china closet? nay, nay, pauline! i'm no chinaman. here was another case where the deal fell through. i like plenty of fresh air and light where i sleep when i can get it, and enough room to kick in. here there was none of these things. i kept a-moving. i came to a house opposite a theater where i met two young ladies who occupied a flat and had a spare room. i believe they were actresses. they told me that their vacant room was rented by an actor who was now making a tour of the cities and that they didn't know just when he would be home. in the meanwhile i could occupy his room if i wished and when the actor returned i could share the room with him. i did not feel as if i would like to sleep with an actor, for he might have been a snorer or a high kicker, and i didn't know when he would be back anyway. that sort of an arrangement did not suit me. no deal was made here, either. the next place i went to and where i finally located, was a flat occupied by an old man and his daughter. the father was over seventy years of age and the daughter about thirty. they rented me a neat room for one dollar a week which contained an ample bed, chairs, rocker, a wash-stand, soap, towel, a window, lace curtains and a shade. my patience and perseverance had been rewarded at last. as soon as my landlady left me i stripped and took a wash from head to foot, the first good clean-up i had since i left new york. it was great. i rented the room for a week and concluded to hike out of town when the week was up. during the week that i remained in this house i became quite well acquainted with the old man and his daughter and learned that he was from the north of ireland and that his wife who was dead had been scotch. the daughter, therefore, was half-and-half. she was an amiable, good-tempered young woman, though far from pretty, and the devotion she showed to her father astonished me. he wasn't in the best of health and often was crabbed and cross, but no matter how crusty he was the daughter petted and humored him, and crowed and goo-ed and gaa-ed to him and never got out of patience. she treated him as a mother does her child and never wearied of soothing him. the old man didn't seem to appreciate these attentions for his daughter got no thanks from him and not even a kind word. one day when the daughter had gone out on an errand the father suspected that she was in my room, so he rushed into my room, looked under the bed and into the corners to see if she were there. the old man had not the slightest reason or cause to suspect his daughter and i watched his maneuvers with anger but said nothing. he deserved a good tongue-lashing and i felt like giving it to him but his great age held me back. had he been a younger man i would have told him what i thought of him in short order. chapter xii. dancing in the green. i slept well that night, better than i had slept since i left new york, for there was nothing to disturb me. a good rub down and a good night's rest had done me a world of good. those who have traveled know what my feelings were. after a cheap breakfast in a municipal restaurant, where i had two big, thick slices of bread with excellent butter and a cup of good coffee for two cents, i bummed around the clyde again, taking in the sights. i liked glasgow first rate. the people were as friendly and sociable as they were out west, and their accent and ways were a never-ending source of interest to me. everything that i saw interested me, for it was all so new and strange. no one can have the faintest idea what there is to be seen abroad unless he or she goes there and hears and sees for himself. word-pictures are inadequate to give one a proper idea, for there is something even in a foreign _atmosphere_ that must be felt before it can be appreciated. i bought a morning paper and sat down on a bench along the embankment to read it. it was interesting from start to finish with nothing "yellow" about it. the articles were written in an able, scholarly way, and besides giving the news there were columns devoted to giving useful hints, such as "master and man," "husbands and wives," and such like things, that were well to know. they were in the shape of "answers and queries," somewhat. even the advertisements were interesting to me but "the want" ads were mostly incomprehensible, for there were too many scotch colloquialisms in them. i saw an announcement in the paper stating that there would be dancing in the green that afternoon, and i concluded instantly that i would take it in. it was to be a free show and when there is anything of that sort going on you may count me in, every time. in the meanwhile i just loafed around the banks of the clyde, watching them load and unload vessels, taking in the foreigners' ways of doing things, peering into the shop-windows along the water-front, etc. the time passed quickly enough. i wasn't homesick a bit but felt right at home. there was something about the people and the place that made me feel quite at home. after dinner, at about two o'clock, i strolled into the green. people were slowly sauntering into it in groups, and walking up toward the music stand where the dancing was to be done. the music stand was about half a mile from the park entrance. it was early, so i sat down on a bench and made myself comfortable. little boys came along handing out programs and i secured one of them. here is what it said: _glasgow green._ no. --march; glendaurel highlanders. no. --strathspey; marquis of huntley. no. --reel; the auld wife ayont the fire. no. --march; brian boru. no. --strathspey; sandy king. no. --reel; abercairney highlanders. no. --dance; reel o' tullock. no. --waltz; the pride of scotland. no. --highland fling. no. --march; loch katrine highlanders. no. --strathspey; when you go to the hill. no. --reel; over the isles to america. no. --dance; sword dance. no. --march; d's farewell to edinburgh. no. --strathspey; kessock ferry. no. --reel; mrs. mcleod's. no. --slow march; lord leven. _choir._ no. --glee; hail, smiling morn. no. --part song; rhine raft song. no. --part song; maggie lauder. no. --part song; let the hills resound. no. --scottish medley, introducing favorite airs. no. --we'll hae nane but hielan bonnets here. no. --part song; hail to the chief. no. --part song; the auld man. no. --part song; awake aeolian lyre. no. --part song; night, lovely night. no. --god save the king. the program was a good long one and sure looked good to me. i imagined there would be something doing. at about half past two there was a big crowd congregated about the music stand but as there were few seats near it most of the people had to stand. as i wanted to see all i could i mingled with the throng and patiently waited for the performance to begin. the band hadn't made its appearance yet and there was no one on the band stand. to relieve the tedium some of the young fellows who were in the crowd began to chaff some of the lassies in a flirty way. three pretty girls in a group were the especial target of the laddies. if i could only get off the scotch right i would jot down some of their badinage for it was very amusing, to me, at least, but i couldn't do the theme justice. after what to me seemed an interminable long wait we heard some yelling and snarling away down toward the entrance of the park i took to be dog-fighting. too bad it was so far away, for anything would have been agreeable just then to relieve the monotony, even a dog-fight. i noticed the people near the entrance scattering to either side of the walk and forming a lane through which to give the dogs a show. the yelping and snarling came nearer and finally i perceived that it was a band of men approaching dressed in highland costume and playing the bagpipes. i had heard the bagpipes played many a time and knew what they were but i had never heard a whole lot of them played at once. i now knew that it wasn't a dog-fight that had caused the noise. the bag-pipers came along quickly with long strides, their heads erect, stern of visage with petticoats flying from side to side like those of a canteen-girl when she marches with her regiment. the men were husky fellows, broad-shouldered, lithe and active, but they wore no pants. the whole lot of them were bare-legged and upon their heads was perched a little plaid cap with a feather in it, and over their shoulders was thrown a plaid shawl. stockings came up to their knees, but their legs a little way further up beyond the stockings were entirely bare. although there were lots of the girls present i didn't notice any of them blush at this exposure of the person. maybe they were used to such spectacles. what tune do you think these highlanders were playing as they marched along? nothing more nor less than-- "where, oh where has my little dog gone, where, oh where can he be? with his hair cut short and his tail cut long, where, oh where can he be?" this was a mighty nice little tune and i had heard it before, but i had never heard it played by such instruments. the people liked the tune and seemed to like the highlanders too, for when they went by, the people closed in after them in a solid body, and marched behind them, a pushing, elbowing, struggling mass. when the music stand was reached the band did not go upon it but marched around it playing that same little old tune. i wondered why they didn't change it and play something else but as the crowd didn't kick there was no use of me kicking. they kept a marching and a marching around the stand for quite a little while but the tune never changed. the musicians took a good fresh hold on the air every minute or two, some note rising a little shriller than the others but that is all the variation there was. do you want to know the honest truth? well i wasn't stuck on the tune or the bagpipes either. the noise they made would have made a dog howl. it was nothing but a shrieking, yelling, and squeaking. call that music? from the pleased faces of the people you would have judged it was fine. after what seemed a coon's age the band quit playing and marching, and mounted the platform, upon which they had been preceded by a lot of boys and girls who formed the choir. number one on the program was a march, the glendaurel highlanders. i couldn't see anything in it except more marching to a different tune. the crowd seemed to like it and applauded frantically. there was a whole lot of pushing and shoving by the crowd in my neighborhood and i wasn't comfortable at all. a sturdy dame behind me made herself especially obnoxious by wanting to get right up front and she didn't seem to care how she got there or who she shoved out of the way to accomplish her purpose. she dug her elbow into my side in no gentle fashion, and was bent on getting in front of me, whether i was agreeable or not. well, she didn't make the riffle. i planted my elbow in her rib to see how she liked it. she scuttled away from me then quickly enough. number two on the program was marquis of huntley. i didn't know who the marquis of huntley was but evidently the crowd did for they went wild over the tune and dancing. the dancing was fine, tip-top, but i can't say as much for the tune. the way them highlanders could dance was a caution, for they were graceful and supple as eels. no flies on them. number three was a corker, a reel called "the auld wife ayont the fire." there was something doing this time. the highlanders turned themselves loose and they hopped, skipped, jumped and yelled like a tribe of sioux indians on the war path. how they did carry on and how the crowd whooped it up in sympathy! the whole push was frantic, highlanders and all. my hair riz but i don't know why. if any one tells me that those bare-legged highlanders can't dance i will surely tell them they are mistaken. they were artists and no mistake, every one of them. brian boru was the next event on the program, a march. i was getting tired of marches but the mob wasn't. they applauded the brian boru wildly and saw a whole lot in it that i couldn't see. number five was another strathspey, sandy king. i was wondering who sandy was and if he were a king, but i didn't like to ask questions. no use letting the "hoi-polloi" get on to it that i was a greenhorn. there might have been something doing had they known it, for it takes but a little thing to set a mob a-going. next came a reel, abercairney highlanders. i wondered how many different clans of highlanders there were in scotland. the woods seemed full of them. this was another wild indian affair, worse than the first reel. them chaps were good yellers and jumpers, and i think could hold their own with any wild indian, no matter what tribe he belonged to. their lungs were leathery, their limbs tireless, and their wind excellent. the reel of tullock came next and then a waltz, "the pride of scotland." both were excellent. number nine was a highland fling. that was a great number. it aroused everyone to enthusiasm. i could not help but admire the grace of the dancers. so quick they were, so unerring. their wind was so good that i felt i would have hated to tackle any one of them in a scrap. number thirteen was a sword-dance, danced by one man only. crossed swords were laid on the platform and the highlander danced between them slowly, rapidly, any old way, and never touched. he never looked down while dancing, and how he managed to avoid these swords was a marvel to me. the sword blades were placed close together and the dance was kept up a long time. that chap was an artist of a high class, and could have made a whole lot of money on the stage had he chosen to do so. maybe he was a celebrity in glasgow and scotland. he never touched a sword. his dancing was marvelous. it was evident these highlanders could do something besides squeezing wind out of a bag and playing "where, oh where." yes, they were all right. their performance was a good one and worth anyone's while to see. when i returned to my lodgings that evening i told my landlady that i had attended the dance in the green and she wanted to know how i liked it. i told her truly that it was the best i had ever seen. and it was, by long odds. chapter xiii. taking in a glasgow show. the evening of my second day's stay in glasgow i put in by taking in a show at the theater. it was the gayety theater i intended to go to, where vaudeville plays were given, but as the theater was a long distance from the gorbals district, i had some trouble finding it. the theatrical performances in glasgow begin early, some at half-past five and some at six o'clock, and let out at about nine o'clock, which gives those so inclined a chance to go to bed early. the days were long at that season of the year, so that i arrived in front of the theater while the evening sun was still high in the heavens. the theater building was an immense one of stone and very lofty. in front of it was a long line of people waiting to make a rush for good seats in the gallery, and i joined the throng. there was a good deal of rough horse-play among some of the fellows waiting there and a whole lot of chaffing. a chap behind me gave me a kick in the rump and tipped my hat over my eyes, which he deemed a very good joke. i didn't think it was and told him not to get too gay, whereupon he roared with laughter. he told his neighbors that they had a greenhorn among them, whereupon many in the crowd made life a burden for me for a while. they made all kinds of chaffing remarks, they jeered me, they hooted me and groaned. they were having a whole lot of fun at my expense but i never said another word, for what was the use? i was mad clear through, though. had i only had a gang with me there might have been a different tale to tell. i was alone and friendless. a fellow thinks all kinds of things when a crowd gets after him. the line was growing longer rapidly, and before the doors were opened a couple of hundred people must have been on the street waiting. as soon as the doors were opened there was a grand rush and scramble to secure tickets. i held my own in the push, though i was nearly suffocated and squeezed flat, but managed to secure a ticket after a little while, for which i paid twelve cents--six pence. cheap enough if the show is any good. i rushed up the spiral stairway after the crowd, but before i got half way up i was obliged to stop and blow off steam. the steps were many and winding. i did not notice anyone else stopping for a breather which led me to conclude that the scots are a long-winded race. two or three times did i have to stop before i reached nigger-heaven, my destination. the gallery was so high up and so close to the ceiling that i could have touched the ceiling with my hand when standing up. below, clear to the orchestra seats, or "pit," as it is called, was gallery after gallery. some of these were divided off into queer contrivances called "stalls." to me the stalls seemed like huge dry-goods boxes, with the part facing outward, toward the stage, open, from the middle to the top. the lower part was boarded in. they were queer-looking contrivances, and the people in them looked as if they were caged. the stalls were supposed to be private and exclusive--in a word, private boxes. some little boys in livery were wandering about on the various floors crying out "program" with the accent on the first syllable, and as i wanted one, i hailed a boy who gave me one and charged me a penny for it (two cents). printing must be dear in glasgow, i thought, to charge a fellow two cents for a printed piece of paper. i said nothing but scanned the program. here is what it said: no. --la puits d'amour, balfe; band. no. --mr. john robertson, baritone vocalist. no. --drew and richards in their specialty act, old fashioned times. no. --mr. billy ford, negro comedian. no. --the alaskas--ben and frank--comic horizontal bar experts. no. --mr. edward harris, london comedian. no. --miss josie trimmer, child actress, and the forget-me-nots, vocalists and dancers. no. --selection, yeoman of the guard. no. --sallie adams, american serpentine dancer. no. --the gees, in their musical oddity, invention. no. --collins and dickens, in their refined specialty act. no. --mr. charles russell, comedian and descriptive vocalist. no. --national anthem. quite a lengthy program this and it looked to me as if it might be good, especially the serpentine dancer, who was a countrywoman of mine, and the darkies, who were probably countrymen. after a moderate wait the lights were turned up, the orchestra tuned up and soon the band gave us a selection by balfe called "la puits d'amour." i didn't know what "la puits d'amour" was but it didn't make any difference to me. it was some kind of music. the selection was a long one and the band sawed away at it as if they were never going to stop. it was so long drawn out in fact that my wits went a wool gathering and i nearly fell asleep, for tedious music is apt to make me snooze. when the music stopped i woke up and was ready for business. the first event on the program was mr. john robertson, baritone vocalist. the band played a preliminary flourish when out walked mr. robertson dressed in a spike-tail coat, black vest and biled shirt. hanging in front of his vest was a long, thick watch-chain which must have been a valuable one, for it looked like gold. mr. robertson sang a song and kept a hold on his watch chain. the song was hum-drum and so was mr. robertson's voice. mr. robertson made no great hit and when he left us he took his chain with him. number two was drew and richards in their specialty act, "old fashioned times." a lady and gent came upon the stage dressed in very old-fashioned garb, and sang. just as soon as the lady opened her mouth to sing i knew she was a gentleman and she couldn't sing any more like a lady than i could. i have seen female impersonators on the stage many a time and they carried out the illusion perfectly, but this chap wasn't in it at all. he gave me a pain. i wasn't sorry when this couple made their exit. mr. billy ford, the negro comedian, next came to the front. now there'll be a little something doing, anyway, thought i. mr. billy ford was not a negro at all but a britisher with a cockney accent. maybe i wasn't astonished! holy smoke! he sang out bold as you please just as if he were singing like a darkey and the gallery gods went into ecstacies over him. they laughed, roared, and chirruped. they seemed to think a heap of mr. ford, but i felt like going somewhere to lay off and die. a nigger with a cockney accent! oh my! oh my! will wonders never cease? the comic horizontal bar experts, the alaskas, were very tame turners, and to my view, anything but funny. i had seen better stunts than they performed in free shows on the bowery at coney island. the sixth number on the program was mr. edward harris, london comedian. here at last was someone who could sing and act. mr. harris was from the london music halls and was evidently a favorite, for he was given a great reception. he was greeted with roars of welcome and shouts and calls from the gallery gods that seemed unfamiliar and queer to me. even the people in the pit and stalls applauded loudly. mr. harris turned himself loose and impersonated london characters in a way that brought forth the wildest enthusiasm. some of the gods nearly died laughing at his comicalities and a man away down in the pit laughed out loud in such a way that it made me think of a dream i once had when i saw ghosts playing leap-frog over a graveyard fence and having an elegant time of it. the noise this man made was a high sepulchral shriek, like theirs. it was wild and weird. the comedian was first class and the audience was loath to let him go. they recalled him several times and he responded. number seven was miss josie trimmer, child actress, and the two forget-me-nots, vocalists and dancers. this was another tame affair for the two forget-me-nots were scottish lassies who got off coon songs with a scotch accent and had acquired an improper idea of coon dancing. their act was a caricature and a-- well, never mind. it isn't right to be too critical. they were doing the best they could and were appreciated by the audience, so it may be well for me not to say too much. the next number was a selection by the band, "yeoman of the guard," which was played after a long intermission. i was getting rather weary by this time and had half a mind to go home, but i wanted to see the serpentine dancer, sallie adams, who was a countrywoman of mine. it seemed to me i hadn't seen a countryman or countrywoman for a coon's age, and i felt as if i just couldn't go until i saw sallie. when the time came for miss adams to appear on the stage, all the lights in the theater were turned out and a strong calcium light was thrown upon the stage. sallie hopped into view chipper as you please, never caring a whoop who saw her, countryman or foreigner, and she began to throw diaphanous folds of cheese-cloth all over herself and around herself. different colored lights were thrown upon her draperies as she danced, and the effect was thrilling and made my hair stand up. sallie was all right. she was onto her job in good shape. maybe i didn't applaud? i roared, i stamped and whistled, and my neighbors must have thought i was clean off. the gorgeous spectacle reminded me of the fourth of july at home, when sky-rockets go up with a hiss and a roar, roman candles color the black skies, sissers chase through the air like snakes, bombs explode and fall in stars of all colors. siss! boom! ah! when sallie made her exit i made mine, for i had got my money's worth and was satisfied. chapter xiv. mr. robert burns, the poet. one thing that struck me very forcibly before i had been in glasgow any length of time was the fact that the people thought a great deal of mr. burns, the poet. streets and lanes were named after him, inns and taverns, shoes, hats, caps, clothing, tobacco, bum-looking cigars, bad whiskey, in fact his name was attached to all kinds of articles to make them sell, and in some cases merely as a mark of respect or affection. it was plain to the most casual observer that mr. burns was thought a great deal of. he had been dead a hundred years or more, yet his personality pervaded the place, and his picture was to be seen on signs, posters, in the stores and elsewhere. for mr. burns most scotchmen will die, scotch ladies sigh, scotch babies cry, scotch dogs ki-yi. he was a good-looking chap, and highly gifted, but the poor fellow died before he had reached his thirty-eighth year, which was a national calamity. had he lived there is no telling what he might have accomplished, for during the short span of his life he did wonderful things. he took the old scotch songs that had been written before his day and gave them a twist of his own which improved them vastly, and made them immortal; he portrayed scottish life in a way that no poet has ever imitated or will imitate maybe, and he loved his country deeply and fervently. his father was a rancher, and a poverty-stricken one at that, and the poet was born in a shack on the farm. the house was a little old one of stone, and a rich man of the day would have used it for a chicken house. in this house and in a china closet in the kitchen was born the greatest poet scotland ever produced. when bobbie grew up the old man set him a-plowing, and while at this work the boy composed rhymes which were so good that some of his friends induced him to print them. old man burns didn't see any good in the verses, for he knew more about poultry than he did about poetry, and told his son to cut it out. bobbie couldn't, for it just came natural. before he was twenty-one the boy had written lots of good poetry and it was put in book form and printed at kilmarnock, a town not far from his birthplace. the birthplace of the poet was on the farm near the town of ayr, in ayrshire, and that whole county (or shire) is now called "the burns country," because it was the poet's stamping-ground. the poet knew lots of people throughout the county and his writings have immortalized many a place in it. after his book had been printed he sprang into fame at once and was made much of by man, woman and child. being a good-looking chap, the girls began to run after him, and poor burnsie had the time of his life. he wanted to steer clear of 'em, but he couldn't, for the girls liked and admired him too much. the result was that a few of them got into trouble, and soon some wild-eyed fathers and brothers went gunning for him. the fault was not the poet's wholly, for he couldn't have kept these girls away from him with a cannon. to avoid such troubles in the future he finally married a blond, buxom young lassie called jean armour, by whom he had twins, the first rattle out of the box. not long after that he had two at a throw again. bobbie could do something besides write poetry, evidently. he was a thoroughbred any way you took him, though the people at that time did not know it and did not fully appreciate his great qualities. it was only after he had been dead a long time that the world fully realized his worth. at the present day they estimate him properly and their affection and reverence for him are boundless. some of his countrymen call him simply burns, others call him rabbie, and still others, "puir rabbie," puir meaning poor. the country that he lived in, ayrshire, is visited by a million strangers or more every year, who visit the shack he was born in and the places he made immortal by his writings. the shack has been fixed up and improved somewhat since he lived in it, and is now a sort of museum where are displayed various editions of the books, manuscripts and other things, that once were his. among the things is a walking-cane that a new york lawyer named kennedy somehow got hold of. how kennedy got the cane i don't know, but he returned it to the burns collection in the cottage. mr. kennedy is a rare exception to new york lawyers in general, for they rarely return anything that they once get their hands on. mr. kennedy must have had a whole lot of regard for the great poet. lots of people have never read any of burns' poems. i wonder would they appreciate it if i showed them a few samples? i will not print the long ones, but only the shorter ones, for even they will show, i am sure, the greatness of "puir rabbie." as i said in a previous chapter, when i first set foot in scotland it was at greenock, about miles from glasgow, where a tender took us ashore from the furnessia. greenock is quite a city, for it contains a good many factories and other establishments, but the city has become famous the world over just because of one little circumstance connected with the great poet, namely: a young girl named highland mary lived there who loved, and was beloved by the poet, and they were engaged to be married. sad to relate, the young girl died while she was engaged to the poet, which saddened him considerably. years afterward he married jean armour. the poet wrote some lines to the memory of highland mary which almost any scotchman or scotch lady can recite by heart. here they are: highland mary. ye banks and braes and streams around the castle o' montgomery, green be your woods, and fair your flowers, your waters never drumlie; there summer first unfauld her robes, and there the langest tarry; for there i took the last farewell o' my sweet highland mary. how sweetly bloomed the gay green birk how rich the hawthorn's blossom! as, underneath their fragrant shade i clasped her to my bosom! the golden hours, on angels' wings flew o'er me and my dearie; for dear to me as light and life was my sweet highland mary. wi' mony a vow and locked embrace our parting was fu' tender; and pledging oft to meet again we tore oursels asunder; but, o! fell death's untimely frost, that nipt my flower sae early! now green's the sod and cauld's the clay that wraps my highland mary. o pale, pale now those rosy lips i oft ha'e kissed sae fondly! and closed for aye the sparkling glance, that dwelt on me sae kindly! and mouldering now in silent dust that heart that lo'ed me dearly! but still within my bosom's core shall live my highland mary. was there anything ever written more sad, pathetic and sweet? following is a little poem written in a different vein which may serve as a sort of temperance lesson to some husbands who stay out late at night having a good time. the recreant husband's name in the poem is mr. jo, and mrs. jo sends it in to him good and hard. says mr. jo: o let me in this ae night, this ae, ae, ae night; for pity's sake this ae night, o rise and let me in, jo! thou hear'st the winter wind and weet; nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet. tak' pity on my weary feet, and shield me frae the rain, jo. the bitter blast that 'round me blaws unheeded howls, unheeded fa's; the cauldness o' thine heart's the cause of a' my grief and pain, jo. o let me in this ae, ae night, this ae, ae, ae night; for pity's sake this ae night o rise and let me in, jo. mr. jo's pleadings were in vain, to judge from mrs. jo's answer, which is as follows: o tell na me o' wind and rain! upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain! gae back the gate ye came again-- i winna let you in, jo. i haven't the least idea where jo spent the night, but it surely wasn't with mrs. jo. there are lots of husbands who get full and don't know when to go home. let them paste this poem in their hats. it may do them good. here is an old song revised by puir rabbie, whose magic touch has made it better and more famous than it ever was before. it is entitled: "will ye go to the highlands, leezie lindsay?" will ye go to the hielands, leezie lindsay, will ye go to the hielands wi' me? will ye go to the hielands, leezie lindsay, my pride and my darling to be? to gang to the hielands wi' you, sir, i dinna ken how that may be; for i ken na the land that ye live in, nor ken i the lad i'm gaun wi'. o leezie, lass, ye maun ken little, if sae that ye dinna ken me; my name is lord ronald mcdonald, a chieftain o' high degree. she has kilted her coats o' green satin, she has kilted them up to the knee; and she's off wi' lord ronald mcdonald his bride and his darling to be. a whole lot of human nature about this little poem and a fine swing to it. burns had a touch that no one has ever imitated or ever can imitate. it is a twist, which for want of a better name, i would call "a french twist." imitate it, ye who can! everyone knows "auld lang syne." it is an old song that didn't amount to much until burns got a hold of it and put his twist to it. here it is: auld lang syne. should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to min'? should auld acquaintance be forgot and days o' auld lang syne? for auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, well tak' a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne. we twa ha'e run about the braes and pu'd the gowans fine; but we've wandered many a weary foot sin' auld lang syne; we two ha'e paid'lt i' the burn frae mornin' sun till dine; but seas between us braid ha'e roar'd sin auld lang syne. chorus. and here's a hand, my trusty fren, and gie us a hand o' thine; and we'll take a right good wallie-waught for auld lang syne. chorus. and surely ye'll be your pint stoup, and surely i'll be mine; and we'll take a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne. following is a composition that is famous the world over and is used as a recitation, not only in this country but in every other english-speaking country. it is entitled: "bruce at bannockburn": bruce at bannockburn. scots, wha ha'e wi' wallace bled; scots, whom bruce has often led; welcome to your gory bed, or to glorious victorie! now's the day, and now's the hour; see the front o' battle lower; see approach proud edward's power-- edward! chains and slaverie! wha will be a traitor knave? wha can fill a coward's grave? wha sae base as be a slave? traitor! coward! turn and flee. wha for scotland's king and law freedom's sword will strongly draw, freemen stand or freemen fa', caledonian! on wi' me! by oppression's woes and pains! by your sons in servile chains! we will drain our dearest veins, but they shall--they shall be free! lay the proud usurper low! tyrants fall in every foe! liberty's in every blow! forward! let us do or die. here is a love song to jennie, entitled, "come, let me take thee!" come, let me take thee. come, let me take thee to my breast and pledge we ne'er shall sunder; and i shall spurn as vilest dust the world's wealth and grandeur; and do i hear my jennie own that equal transports move her? i ask for dearest life alone that i may live to love her. thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, i clasp my countless treasure; i'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share than sic a moment's pleasure; and by thy een sae bonnie blue i swear i'm thine forever! and on thy lips i seal my vow, and break it i shall never. one day burns was called upon for a toast during a dinner which was given by the dumfries volunteers, in honor of their anniversary. the poet got up and spoke the following lines extempore: instead of a song, boys, i'll give you a toast-- here is the memory of those on the th that we lost! that we lost, did i say; nay, by heaven, that we found; for their fame it shall last while the world goes around. the next in succession i'll give you--the king! whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing! and here's the grand fabric, our free constitution, as built on the base of the great revolution. and longer with politics not to be crammed, be anarchy cursed and be tyranny damned; and who would to liberty e'er be disloyal, may his son be a hangman and he his first trial. a grace before meat. some ha'e meat and canna eat it, and some wad eat that want it; but we ha'e meat and we can eat, and sae the lord be thankit. to a hen-pecked country squire. as father adam first was fooled, a case that's still too common, here lies a man a woman ruled-- the devil ruled the woman. the poet's father, william burness, lies buried in a graveyard at alloway. the following lines were written by his son to his memory: lines to his father. o ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains, draw near with pious reverence and attend. here lie the loving husband's dear remains, the tender father and the generous friend. the pitying heart that felt for human woe; the dauntless heart that feared no human pride; the friend of man, to vice alone a foe; "for e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side." i believe there are some husbands who grow tired of the married state after they have been in it a while. they came to find out that it isn't all "beer and skittles," as they first imagined it would be. even "puir rabbie" had troubles of his own, as the following will show, for it is written about himself: "oh, that i had n'er been married! i would never had nae care; now i've gotten wife and bairns, and they cry crowdie ev'ry mair; ance crowdie, twice crowdie, three times crowdie in a day; gin ye crowdie ony mair, ye'll crowdie a' my meal away. waefu' want and hunger fley me, glowrin' by the hallan en'; sair i fecht them at the door, but aye i'm eerie the come ben." the poet had lots of cronies and friends, and he was as loyal to some of them as they were to him. he was a good boon companion and liked "a wee drappie" (nip) himself as well as anyone. many an alehouse proudly proclaims that he visited it and preserves the chair or bench that he sat on, the glass he drank out of or the table he sat at, to this day, and any and every thing that is familiar with his presence is sacred and treasured. william muir of tarbolton is the friend to whom the following lines were written: on a friend. an honest man here lies at rest, as e'er god with his image blest; the friend of man, the friend of truth; the friend of age, the guide of youth; few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed; if there's another world, he lives in bliss; if there is none he made the best of this. mr. john dove kept an inn at mauchline called the "whiteford arms," and the poet pays his respects to him in the following fashion: on john dove, innkeeper. here lies johnny pidgeon; what was his religion? whae'er desires to ken, to some other warl' maun follow the carl, for here johnny pidgeon had nane. strong ale was ablution-- small beer persecution-- a dram was momento mori; but a full flowing bowl was the saving his soul, and port was celestial glory. to judge from the following, the poet did not have a great respect for all ruling elders of the church. souter hood was a miserly one. to a celebrated ruling elder. here souter hood in death doth sleep; to hell, if he's gone thither; satan, gie him thy gear to keep, he'll hand it weel thegither. to another hen-pecked husband. o death, hadst thou but spared his life whom we this day lament, we freely wad exchanged the wife an' a' been weel content. the poet was hospitably entertained at a place one day called for short and sweet dahna cardoch. in appreciation he got off the following: when death's dark stream i ferry o'er, a time that surely shall come-- in heaven itself i'll ask no more than just a highland welcome. one sunday while in the northern part of scotland with nicol, a friend of his, he visited the carron works which they had traveled some distance to see. there was a sign on the gate: "no admittance to strangers," which barred the poet and his friend. here is an apostrophe by burns in regard to the matter: no admittance to strangers. we cam' na here to view your warks in hopes to be mair wise, but only, lest we gang to hell, it may be nae surprise; but when we tirled at your door, your porter dought na hear us; sae may, should we to hell's yetts come, your billy satan serve us. lord gregory. o, mirk, mirk is this midnight hour, and loud the tempest roar; a waeful wanderer seeks thy tower-- lord gregory, ope the door. an exile frae her father's ha', and a' for loving thee; at least some pity on me show, if love it may na be. lord gregory, mind'st thou not the grove by bonnie irwine side, where first i owned that virgin love i lang, lang had denied! how often didst thou pledge and vow thou wad for aye be mine; and my fond heart, itself sae true, it ne'er mistrusted thine. hard is thy heart, lord gregory, and flinty is thy breast-- thou dart of heaven that flashed by, o, wilt thou give me rest! ye mustering thunders from above, your willing victim see! but spare and pardon my fause love his wrangs to heaven and me! mary morison. o, mary, at thy window be, it is the wished, the trysted hour! those smiles and glances let me see that makes the miser's treasure poor. how blithely wad i bide the stoure a weary slave frae sun to sun, could i the rich reward secure-- the lovely mary morison. jestreen, when to the trembling string the dance gaed through the lighted ha', to thee my fancy took its wing-- i sat, but neither heard nor saw; though this was fair, and that was braw, and you the toast of a' the town, i sighed and said amang them a' "ye are na mary morison." o mary, canst thou wreck his peace, wha for thy sake wad gladly die; or canst thou break that heart of his whose only faut is loving thee? if love for love thou wilt na gi'e at least be pity to me shown, a thought ungentle canna be the thought o' mary morison. to a laird. when ---- deceased to the devil went down 'twas nothing would serve him but satan's own crown; thy fool's head, quoth satan, that crown shall wear never, grant thou'rt wicked but not quite so clever. open the door to me, o! o, open the door some pity to show, o, open the door to me, o! though thou has been fause, i'll ever prove true, o, open the door to me, o! cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, but caulder thy love for me, o! the frost that freezes the life at my heart is naught to my pains frae thee, o! the wan moon is setting behind the white wave, and time is setting with me, o! false friends, false love, farewell! for mair i'll ne'er trouble them nor thee, o! she has opened the door, she has opened it wide; she sees his pale corse on the plain, o! my true love! she cried, and sank down by his side never to rise again, o! to cardoness. bless the redeemer, cardoness, with grateful lifted eyes; who said that not the soul alone but body, too, must rise. for had he said, "the soul alone from death i shall deliver," alas! alas! o cardoness, then thou hadst slept forever. young jessie. true hearted was he, the said swain o' the yarrow, and fair are the maids on the banks o' the ayr, but by the sweet side of the nith's winding river are lovers as faithful and maidens as fair; to equal young jessie seek scotland all over, to equal young jessie you seek it in vain; grace, beauty and elegance fetter her lover, and maidenly modesty fixes the chain. o, fresh is the rose in the gay dewy morning, and sweet is the lily at evening close; but in the fair presence o' lovely young jessie unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose. love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring, enthroned in her een, he delivers his law; and still to her charms she alone is a stranger, her modest demeanor's the jewel of a'. down the burn, davie. as down the burn they took their way and thro' the flowery dale, his cheek to hers he aft did lay, and love was aye the tale. "o, mary, when shall we return sic pleasure to renew?" quoth mary, "love, i like the burn, and aye shall follow you." a bit of advice. deluded swain, the pleasure the fickle fair can give thee is but a fairy treasure-- thy hopes will soon deceive thee. the billows on the ocean, the breezes idly roaming, the clouds' uncertain motion-- they are bu t types of women. o! art thou not ashamed to doat upon a feature? if man thou wouldst be named, despise the silly creature. go, find an honest fellow-- good claret set before thee-- hold on till thou'rt mellow-- and then to bed in glory. my spouse nancy. husband, husband, cease your strife, no longer idly rave, sir; though i am your wedded wife, yet i am not your slave, sir. "one of two must still obey, nancy, nancy; is it man or woman, say? my spouse nancy!" "if it is still the lordly word, service and obedience; i'll desert my sovereign lord-- and so, good by, allegiance!" "sad will i be, so bereft; nancy, nancy! yet i'll try to make a shift, my spouse nancy!" "my poor heart, then break it must, my last hour i am near it; when you lay me in the dust, think, think how you will bear it." o, can ye sew cushions? o, can ye sew cushions and can ye sew sheets, and can ye sing bal-lu-loo when the bairn greets? and hee and baw birdie, and hee and baw lamb! and hee and baw birdie, my bonnie wee lamb! hee, o, wee! o, what would i do wi' you; black is the life that i lead wi' you! money o' you--little for to gie you! hee, o, wee! o, what would i do wi' you? woman, complain not! let not woman e'er complain of inconstancy in love; let not woman e'er complain fickle man is apt to rove. look abroad through nature's range-- nature's mighty law is change; ladies, would it not be strange, man should then a monster prove? mark the winds and mark the skies, ocean's ebb and ocean's flow; sun and moon but set to rise-- round and round the seasons go. why, then, ask of silly man to oppose great nature's plan? we'll be constant while we can-- you can be no more, you know. jennie. the following was written to jean jeffrey, daughter of a minister, who afterward became mrs. renwick, and emigrated to new york with her husband: when first i saw fair jennie's face i couldna tell what ailed me; my heart went fluttering pit-a-pat-- my een, they almost failed me. she's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae tight all grace does 'round her hover, ae look deprived me o' my heart and i became a lover. had i dundas' whole estate or hopetown's wealth to shine in-- did warlike laurels crown my brow or humbler bays entwining-- i'd lay them a' at jennie's feet, could i but hope to move her and prouder than a belted knight, i'd be my jennie's lover. but sair i fear some happier swain has gained sweet jennie's favor; if so, may every bliss be hers, tho' i maun never have her. but gang she east or gang she west, 'twixt forth and tweed all over, while men have eyes, or ears, or taste she'll always find a lover. the poet one day was taking a ride through the country on horseback and when he got to the town of carlisle became thirsty and stopped at a tavern for a drink. he tethered his horse outside in the village green where it was espied by the poundmaster, who took it to the pound. when burnsie came out he was mad clear through and this is what he wrote: was e'er puir poet sae befitted? the maister drunk--the horse committed, puir harmless beast, tak thee nae care, thou'lt be a horse when he's nae mair (mare). andrew turner was not highly appreciated by the poet, if we may judge from the following: in seventeen hundred and forty-nine satan took stuff to make a swine and cuist it in a corner; but wilely he changed his plan and shaped it something like a man and called it andrew turner. a mothers address to her infant. my blessing upon thy sweet wee lippie, my blessing upon thy bonnie e'e brie! thy smiles are sae like my blithe sodger laddie thou's aye the dearer and dearer to me. national thanksgiving on a naval victory. ye hypocrites! are these your pranks, to murder men and gi'e god thanks? for shame gi'e o'er! proceed no further-- god won't accept your thanks for murther. to folly. the graybeard, old wisdom, may boast of his treasures-- give me with gay folly to live; grant him calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures but folly has raptures to give. to lord galloway. what dost thou in that mansion fair? flit, galloway, and find some narrow, dirty dungeon cave, the picture of thy mind! no stewart art thou, galloway-- the stewarts all were brave; besides, the stewarts were but fools, not one of them a knave. bright ran thy line, o galloway! through many a far-famed sire; so ran the far-famed roman way-- so ended--in a mire! spare me thy vengeance, galloway-- in quiet let me live; i ask no kindness at thy hand, for thou hast none to give. the poet subscribed for a paper which he didn't receive regularly, so he told the editor about it in this fashion: dear peter, dear peter, we poor sons of meter are aften negleckit, ye ken; for instance, your sheet, man, tho' glad i'm to see it, man, i get no ae day in ten. honest poverty. is there for honest poverty, that hangs its head and a' that; the coward slave, we pass him by, we dare be poor for a' that; for a' that and a' that! our toil's obscure and a' that, the rank is but the guinea's stamp the man's the gowd for a' that. what though on hamely fare we dine wear hoddin grey and a' that; give fools their silks and knaves their wine a man's a man for a' that! for a' that and a' that, their tinsel show and a' that; the honest man, though e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that! ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, wha' struts and stares and a' that? though hundreds worship at his word, he's but a coof for a' that; for a' that and a' that; his riband, star and a' that, the man of independent mind he looks and laughs at a' that! a prince can mak' a belted knight, a marquis, duke and a' that; but an honest man's aboon his might-- guid faith he maunna fa' that; for a' that and a' that, their dignities and a' that. the pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, are higher ranks than a' that. then let us pray that come it may, as come it will for a' that, that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth may bear the gree, and a' that! for a' that and a' that it's coming yet for a' that, that man to man, the warld o'er, shall brothers be for a' that. here are a few facts concerning the personal and family history of the poet: his father's name was william burness, and was born november , , at clockenhill, scotland. i suppose that burness was the old-fashioned way of spelling burns, hence the difference in the names of the son and father. the poet's name was robert burns and the father's william burness, or burns. his mother's name was agnes brown and she was born in the carrick district, scotland, march , . robert burns, the great poet, was born january , , and died july , , being therefore not thirty-eight years of age at the time of his death. he was the eldest of seven children who were named consecutively robert, gilbert, agnes, arabella, william, john and isabel. the wife of the poet, as i have previously stated in this volume, was jean armour, and she was born at mauchline in and died at dumfries in . she survived the poet many years and died at the ripe old age of . she was a national character and was made much of, as was everyone else intimately or even remotely connected with the national bard. this is the reward of greatness, and thus any man or woman who achieves honorable greatness, leaves distinction behind them and throws a halo of glory over those with whom they have been connected or associated. the following children were born to the great poet and his wife: twins in . the boy, robert, lived, but the girl died in infancy. twins in . both died in infancy. francis wallace died at the age of . william nicol, born in . elizabeth riddell, born in . died at the age of two years. james glencairne, born in , died in . maxwell, born in , died at the age of two. it will be seen that the poet was the father of quite a number of children, some of whom lived to a ripe old age. whether he was the father of any more children i am sure i don't know. if he was, almost any scot will know it and can tell you more about it than i can. bobbie was a very handsome man and was greatly admired by almost everyone, including the ladies. some of his poems would lead one to believe that, like byron, he was unskilled to cozen, and shared his love among a dozen. but that may be mere poetic license. poets, you know, have an eye for the _beautiful_, whether it be in landscape scenery, flowers, architecture, painting, statuary, the human form or what not. at any rate "puir rabbie" was the daddy of the children whose names i have given, for that is a matter of history. to show that the poet loved a joke himself, no matter on what subject, i here quote a little rhyme of his gotten off on a friend named james smith who lived at mauchline: lament him, mauchline husbands a' he aften did assist ye; for had ye stayed whole weeks awa' your wives they n'er had missed ye. in my short career i have run up against lots of folks who cannot take a joke or see the point of one and these poor people i pity, but do not blame, for they were born that way. i have always been poor but never proud and could take a joke--that is, when i could see the point of it. when i couldn't see the point of it i did not get angry. burnsie was a farmer and lived on ranches the most of his life. he was a hayseed from way back but as soon as he got celebrated high society began to run after him and the poor fellow couldn't keep away from it if he tried. it didn't take him long to learn how to make a bow without upsetting the table, but he was out of his element among the grand folks. did he need polish to make him shine? i trow not. wasn't his genius just as great before he struck society? sure! but just to please folks he hobnobbed with them though he was as much out of his element as a fish when out of water. no doubt he wore a biled shirt and black claw-hammer coat and made his coat tails fly around pretty lively as he skipped around in a dance, but as society wanted him it got him. had he lived long enough he might have been a baron, marquis, duke or count. who can tell? while a plowman he scorned titles, but i wonder whether he would have rejected a patent of nobility had it been tendered him. genius is a complex quality. samuel smiles in his great work, "self help," says that genius is nothing more nor less than a capacity for taking infinite pains, and the world in general seems to have accepted his definition or explanation, but i, windy bill, an untutored savage from the wild west, beg to differ wholly from sam and i will "show you" why, and permit you to judge for yourself. had samuel defined _art_ instead of genius as "an infinite capacity for taking pains" he might have been nearer the truth. let us take the case of burns. while plowing he wrote rhymes, but as he knew little or nothing of the art of versification he set his thoughts in mellifluous language of his own. was it his thoughts or their setting that captivated people? his thoughts, of course, though the jingle made them more harmonious. genius is the thought; art the setting. tell me then that genius is a capacity for taking pains. nary time. it comes forth spontaneous, natural, can't help itself. it is a god-given quality which lots of people possess to a greater or less degree. musicians have it, as have painters, architects, writers, sculptors and people in all walks of life. lots of poets in scotland had genius long before our great friend rabbie was born, and lots since them have had more or less of a share of the "divine afflatus," as some writers call it, but were any of them gifted as highly as puir rabbie? not a one. will another like him arise? search me! there hasn't yet. notwithstanding that rabbie was so highly gifted, he didn't know it. don't you believe me? if you don't you needn't take my word for it, for i have evidence here that will prove it. i quote the preface that he wrote to the first book of his that ever was printed. here it is: "the following trifles are not the production of the poet, who, with all the advantages of learned art and perhaps amid the elegancies and idleness of upper life looks down for a rural theme with an eye to theocritus or virgil. unacquainted with the necessary requisites for commencing poetry by rule, he sings the sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic compeers around him, in his and their native language. though a rhymer from his earlier years it was not till very lately that the applause (perhaps the partiality) of friendship awakened his vanity so as to make him think anything of his worth showing, for none of the poems were composed with a view to the press. to amuse himself with the little creations of his own fancy amid the toil and fatigue of a laborious life, these were his motives for courting the muses. now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it with fear and trembling. so dear is fame to the rhyming tribe that even he, an obscure, nameless bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of being branded as an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on the world; and because he can make shift to jingle a few doggerel scottish rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small consequence, forsooth! if any critic catches at the word genius, the author tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise the publishing, in the manner he has done, would be a maneuver below the worst character his worst enemy will ever give him. but to the genius of an allan ramsay or a robert ferguson he has not the least pretension, nor ever had, even in his highest pulse of vanity. these two justly admired scottish poets he has often had in his eye but rather to kindle in their flame than for servile imitation. "to his subscribers the author returns his most sincere thanks--not the mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every poetic bosom--to be distinguished. he begs his readers, particularly the learned and the polite who may honor him with a perusal, that they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of life; but if, after a fair, candid and impartial criticism he shall stand convicted of dullness and nonsense let him be done by as he would in that case do by others--let him be condemned without mercy, to contempt and oblivion." it is a queer fact that those mortals who possessed the greatest genius were always the most simple and diffident, and dubious about their own powers. they had a feeling in them that they were born to soar but they were hesitating, doubtful and did not know their very simplicity was a part of their greatness. they didn't appreciate their own capacities at first any more than are their capabilities appreciated by less gifted mortals. before burns' time allan ramsay and robert ferguson were looked upon as the greatest poets scotland had ever produced, and so great were they that even burns looked upon them with awe; and yet, unknown to himself, he was far greater than they. his generation may not have known it, but this generation does. was shakespeare appreciated in his generation? he was not. was any truly great man? hardly. the earliest book of burns that ever was put in print consisted of his minor poems which were written while he was in the fields plowing. of course he wasn't plowing always, so some were written while he was outdoors, here, there and everywhere in the vicinity of his country home. they were put into book-form by the advice of his friends and john wilson at kilmarnock, was the man who volunteered to do the printing. the book was a thin one, about half as thick as the ordinary novel of to-day, and it was agreed that only books be struck off as a first edition. mr. john wilson was a long-headed printer and would not agree to print a single volume until at least of the books had been subscribed for beforehand. he figured it out this way: "suppose the book fails, where do i get off at? i set it up in type, do the binding, furnish the paper, pay the devil and the compositors, do the press work, make-up and all, so can i afford to take all the chances of getting any money out of this blooming poetry?" mr. wilson was a canny scot and didn't propose to take any chances. he surely didn't lose anything in this venture, but whether he made anything i am unable to say. now, all of this is a very imperfect sketch of my old pard burnsie, and if you care to know more about him i can refer you to quite a few biographies that have been written about him and are still being written about him by the score to this day. no less a personage than sir walter scott has written a life history of him and so has the poet's own brother, gilbert. here is a list you can choose from: appeared . robert heron (life of burns) . dr. james currie (life and works, vols works and sketch of life) . james stover and john grieg (illustrated) . robert hartley cromek (reliques of burns) . lord francis jeffrey (edinburgh review) . sir walter scott (quarterly review) . dr. david irving (life of burns) . prof. josiah walker (life and poems, vols) . rev. hamilton paul (life and poems) . gilbert burns . hugh ainslie (pilgrimage to the land of burns) . archibald constable (life and works, vols) . alex. peterkin (life and works, vols) . john g. lockhart (life of burns) . thomas carlyle (edinburgh review) . allan cunningham (life and works, vols) . james hogg and william motherwell (memoirs and works, vols.) . prof. john wilson (essay on genius) . w. c. mclehose (correspondence) . samuel tyler (burns as a poet and man) . robert chambers (life and works) . george gilfillan (memoirs and works, vols) . rev. james white (burns and scott) . rev. p. h. waddell (life and works) . william michael (life and works) chapter xv. sir walter scott. although robert burns is the idol of the scotch people nowadays, it must not be supposed that he is the only one worshipped, for there is another man who is greatly revered, honored and loved. this man is sir walter scott. the scotch people affectionately call him sir walter and he did as much for his country as did puir rabbie. both were scotch to the backbone and loved their country as fondly and devotedly as any patriot can, but in their work they were totally dissimilar. sir walter started out as a writer of ballads, and chose for his themes historical subjects, mainly those connected with the ancient and modern history of his country. burns, as i said before, remodeled and improved the old scotch folk songs and in his democratic way described life around him in tuneful periods. had he not been cut off in the flower of his prime he, too, might have been a great novelist for his great genius was capable of anything. he sprang from the masses and his heart was with the masses, but sir walter, who came from the classes had a heart for all, and described the lowly and humble as well as the great. sir walter's delineations of human character stand unrivalled today. he surely was proud of the fact that he was of gentle birth, which well he might have been, for that was no disgrace to him, any more than it is disgraceful to be of lowly birth, although in the old country blood counts for something. to show what sir walter thought of himself i here quote an extract from one of his works which he wrote himself: "my birth was neither distinguished nor sordid. according to the prejudices of my country, it was esteemed gentle, as i am connected, though remotely, with ancient families both by my father's and mother's side. my father's grandfather was walter scott, well known by the name of beardie. he was the second son of walter scott, first lord of raeburn, who was the third son of sir walter scott and the grandson of walter scott, commonly called in tradition auld watt of harden. i am therefore lineally descended from that chieftain, whose name i have made to ring in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the flower of yarrow, no bad genealogy for a border minstrel." well, my poor friend rabbie didn't spring from any border minstrel, but he was a born minstrel himself and could concoct a tune with the best of them. mind you, i am not decrying sir walter, for that would be sacrilege, but burnsie had nothing to brag of in the way of ancestry. would sir walter have been less great had he sprung from common stock or would robbie have been greater had he been blue-blooded? i am an american, an ex-member of coxey's unwashed army, so i don't want to say yes or nay to this question. let others decide. sir walter's earliest success as a writer was won by discarding the conventionalities of art and creating a style of art his own. it takes a genius to do that. his style was simple, plain, and direct and won followers very quickly because it gained favor. this goes to show that if one has anything to say it is not necessary to say it in involved language, but just simply. sir walter's good common sense told him this was the fact and he acted accordingly. to say the honest truth some of sir walter's novels here and there are a little prolix, but there was a reason for it. sir walter was getting paid for space-writing. you don't believe me? i'll prove it. he went broke and to pay his debts--or rather those of the publishing house he unfortunately was connected with--he ground out "copy" as fast as he could, for every word of his was worth money. he begged his financial friends not to treat him like "a milch cow" but like a man, but as he was a money-maker they staid with him until all his money and property were gone and all he could earn until he died was swallowed up, too. his was another case like general ulysses simpson grant. sir walter was the ninth child in a very large family. his father was a methodical and industrious lawyer, and his mother a woman of much culture, refinement and imagination. of delicate health and lame from his second year, sir walter spent much of his childhood in the country with his relatives. at the fireside of neighbors he listened to the old ballads and stories of border warfare, which caused him at a very early age to acquire a taste for reading ancient history and to become imbued with a love for antiquarian research. when seven years of age he entered the high school of edinburgh and attended it until twelve. when thirteen he entered the university of edinburgh and decided on the profession of law. at the age of he was admitted to the bar. he didn't like his profession, however, and spent much of his time in antiquarian research. when about years of age he married charlotte margaret carpenter, the daughter of a french royalist, whose family after the death of the father had removed to england. sir walter and his wife lived first at edinburgh and three years later rented a cottage at lasswade. they remained at lasswade six years and then took up their abode at ashestiel. in , when about years of age, sir walter was made deputy sheriff of selkirkshire to which was attached a salary of $ , per annum, and seven years afterward he was appointed a clerk of session with a salary of $ , . he held down both jobs for years, which proved he was a stayer. as his income was $ for years it can be figured out about how much he earned. but sir walter wasn't a money-saver; he was a spender and a good provider. he kept open house and anyone who called received an old-fashioned scotch welcome, and i know from my sojourn in scotland what that means. it means you're welcome to stay or welcome to go, but while you do stay the best is none too good for you. sir walter's hospitality was of that sort and while holding down both jobs he was doing a little literary work on the side. first came ballads, then poems of romance and later novels. he was getting along first rate financially so he concluded to take up his residence at abbottsford, a palatial mansion. by this time he had already gained fame and much lucre and was run after by the "hoi-polloi," the "would-be could-be's" and the great. the doors of abbottsford opened wide for all. even the poor were given "a hand-out" of some kind. too bad billy and me wasn't alive then. but this was before our time, about a hundred years or so. oh what a place for grafters abbottsford must have been! sir walter was easy. so easy was he, in fact, that the publishing house of ballantyne & co., which roped him in as a side partner, went flewy and left sir walter to foot all the bills. sir walter was an honorable man and prized honor above wealth, so he turned over everything he had, including abbottsford, to the alleged creditors, but there was not enough to satisfy claims. the debt amounted to several hundred thousand dollars. thereupon he continued writing novels and wrote as he never wrote before. he ground out ten novels in six years and had paid up about $ , , when his health began to fail. the pace was too swift for a man sixty years of age, which he was then. the creditors were insatiable and were greedy for the last farthing. business is business, said they. when a little over sixty years of age sir walter had a stroke of paralysis caused by overwork and worry, and was recommended by his physicians to take a sea voyage. he embarked for italy in a frigate which was placed at his disposal by the english government, but sad to relate, the trip benefited him but little. he visited rome, venice and other places, but came home a few months afterward to die. "man's inhumanity to man" killed sir walter before his time. sir walter's manner was that of a gentleman and he was amiable, unaffected and polished. he was simple and kindly and approachable by all. much of his literary work was done at ashestiel, but more at abbottsford. he kept open house everywhere. he arose at five o'clock in the morning and wrote until eight o'clock. he then breakfasted with his family and after putting in an hour or so with them returned to his writings. he worked until noon and then was his own man, to do as he liked. during the afternoon he put in some time with his guests, gave reporters interviews, was snap-shotted by cameras, saw that the dogs got enough to eat, gave orders to the servants that if too many 'bos came around to sick the dogs on them and then he went a horseback or a carriage riding. in the evening there was some social chat, after which sir walter retired early. that was the routine. this master in the art of novel writing was fully six feet in height, well proportioned and well built with the exception of a slight deformity in the ankle, which i have alluded to before. his face was of a scotch cast, heavy and full; the forehead was high and broad, the head lofty, the nose short, the upper lip long, and the expression of his features kindly. i have seen dead loads of pictures, images and statues of sir walter, yet hardly two of them were alike. i consider sir walter a handsome man and to me there seems to be something grand and noble in the cast of his countenance. i _know_ the light of genius was there, and maybe that is why he so impresses me, but with it all his features have a noble cast. he is goodly to look upon, surely. to tell the truth, i don't read much poetry, but some competent critic who has read sir walter's has this to say of it: "the distinctive features of the poetry of scott are ease, rapidity of movement, a spirited flow of narrative that holds our attention, an out-of-door atmosphere and power of natural description, an occasional intrusion of a gentle personal sadness and but little more. the subtle and mystic element so characteristic of the poetry of wordsworth and coleridge is not to be found in that of scott, while in lyrical power he does not approach shelley. we find instead an intense sense of reality in all his natural descriptions; it surrounds them with an indefinable atmosphere, because they are so transparently true. scott's first impulse in the direction of poetry was given to him from the study of the german ballads, especially burger's lenore, of which he made a translation. as his ideas widened, he wished to do for scottish border life what goethe had done for the ancient feudalism of the rhine. he was at first undecided whether to choose prose or verse as the medium; but a legend was sent him by the countess of dalkeith with a request that he would put it in ballad form. having thus the framework for his purpose, he went to work, and "the lay of the last minstrel" was the result. the battle scene in marmion has been called the most homeric passage in modern literature, and his description of the battle of beal au duine from "the lady of the lake" is an exquisite piece of narration from the gleam of the spears in the thicket to the death of roderick dhu at its close. in the deepest sense scott is one with the spirit of his time in his grasp of fact, in that steadily looking at the object which wordsworth had fought for in poetry, which carlyle had advocated in philosophy. he is allied, too, to that broad sympathy for man which lay closest to the heart of the age's literary expression. wordsworth's part is to inspire an interest in the lives of men and women about us; scott's to enlarge the bounds of our sympathy beyond the present, and to people the silent centuries. shelley's inspiration is hope for the future; scott's is reverence for the past." i have read a few of sir walter's novels, and some of them several times, and every time i read them it is with renewed interest. his delineation of human character is so true to nature and so graphic that i feel the living, speaking person before me as i read. if that ain't writing i would like to know what is. whether it be peasant, servant, knight, esquire, king, lord, lady or girl, all are shown up on the screen so plainly that i take it all as a matter of course and say nothing. it is all so plain and simple that there is nothing to say. that is art and the highest form of it. it is next to nature. art and genius are closely allied. it is not everyone who loves the "altogether" or the "realistic," which may be well. were it not so, many poets, painters, sculptors, musicians and other handicraftsmen would be left out in the cold, with none to do him reverence. all tastes happily are catered to, so everyone is happy. as i am neither a critic nor a biographer i shall endeavor to give my readers an idea what sir walter was thought of by others and will quote the language they used. george tichnor, the author, says that scott repeated to him the english translations of two long spanish ballads which he had never seen, but which had been read to him twice. scott's college friend, john irving, in writing of himself and scott, says: "the number of books we thus devoured was very great. i forgot a great part of what i read; but my friend, notwithstanding he read with such rapidity, remained, to my surprise, master of it all, and could even, weeks and months afterwards, repeat a whole page in which anything had particularly struck him at the moment." washington irving remarked: "during the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather than to the grave in his anecdotes and stories; and such, i was told, was his general inclination. he relished a joke or a trait of humor in social intercourse, and laughed with right good will.... his humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from causticity. he had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but he looked upon human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what was good and pleasant, tolerating what was frail and pitying what was evil.... i do not recollect a sneer throughout his conversation, any more than there is throughout his works." lord byron said: "i think that scott is the only very successful genius that could be cited as being as generally beloved as a man as he is admired as an author; and i must add, he deserves it, for he is so thoroughly good-natured, sincere and honest, that he disarms the envy and jealousy his extraordinary genius must excite." leslie stephen remarked: "scott could never see an old tower, or a bank, or a rush of a stream without instantly recalling a boundless collection of appropriate anecdotes. he might be quoted as a case in point by those who would explain all poetical imagination by the power of associating ideas. he is the _poet of association_." lockhart, who married the daughter of sir walter and who was therefore his son-in-law, wrote a biography of his father-in-law wherein he says that: "the love of his country became indeed a passion; no knight ever tilted for his mistress more willingly than he would have bled and died to preserve even the airiest surviving nothing of her antique pretensions for scotland. but the scotland of his affections had the clan _scott_ for her kernel." i believe the son-in-law is inclined to be facetious, but is he _just_ to his immortal father-in-law? i don't believe he is--therefore his criticisms are not worth a whoop. thomas carlyle, the cynical philosopher and mugwump, condescended to give sir walter a sort of recommendation of character, which it renders me extremely happy to quote. here it is. read it carefully and ponder: "the surliest critic must allow that scott was a genuine man, which itself is a great matter. no affectation, fantasticality or distortion dwelt in him; no shadow of cant. nay, withal, was he not a right brave and strong man according to his kind? what a load of toil, what a measure of felicity he quietly bore along with him! with what quiet strength he both worked on this earth and enjoyed in it, invincible to evil fortune and to good!" this cynic, this philosopher, this mugwump says sir walter was a _genuine man_. good for mr. carlyle. everyone was proud to call sir walter "friend," and he was just great enough to be happy to call those who were worthy, his friend. among his great friends were the following: john irving, who was an intimate college friend. i have quoted him in regard to the number of books read by sir walter. robert burns came to edinburgh when sir walter was fifteen years of age, and sir walter's boyish admiration for the national bard was great. in after life, when sir walter became great, he wrote a great deal concerning puir rabbie. and it is worth reading. james ballantyne, sir walter's partner in the publishing business, was a good friend. so was james hogg, the poet peasant, sometimes called "the ettrick shepherd." and so was thomas campbell, the poet, author of "the pleasures of hope." the poet william wordsworth was a lifelong friend. robert southey, the poet, visited sir walter at ashestiel and was admired by him greatly. joanna baillie, the poetess, was a warm friend. so was lord byron. sir humphry davy, the philosopher, visited sir walter and was well liked by him. goethe, the german poet, was a warm admirer and friend of sir walter. so was henry hallam, the historian; crabbe, the poet; maria edgeworth, the novelist; george ticknor, the author; dugald stewart, archibald alison, sydney smith, lord brougham, lord jeffrey, thomas erskine, william clerk, sir william hamilton, etc., etc. last but not least among those who regarded sir walter as a friend and who were so regarded by him was our own countryman, washington irving. our own "washy" was an author, too, and one not to be sneezed at. sir walter regarded him highly and washy dropped in on him, casual like, at abbottsford. washy had written some good things himself, but had found it difficult to win recognition. sir walter stood sponsor for him and told the world it ought to be ashamed of itself not to recognize merit of so high an order. thereupon the world promptly did recognize our washy. did our washy need a sponsor? well, hardly. no american ever lived who was an abler or more polished writer than he. will you please show me a man who can beat our washy. you can't do it. smile at me if you will, but i doubt if even sir walter himself was so much superior to him. have you read irving's astoria, a true and lifelike history of the northwest? or his rip van winkle, or his sketches, the alhambra, etc.? irving's is another case where a great man failed of appreciation at first. well, my countrymen, our washy is dead, but we appreciate him now just the same. the united states never produced a writer more polished and able than he, and it is rather humiliating to think that a great foreigner had to apprise us of his merits. to wind up this chapter on sir walter scott i will give you a list of his writings, arranged in chronological order: ballads. glenfinlas, . eve of st. john, . the grey brothers, . border minstrelsy, - . cadyow castle, . english minstrelsy, . the battle of sempach, . the noble moringer, . the lay of the last minstrel, . marmion, . the lady of the lake, . vision of don roderick, . rokeby, . the bridal of triermain, . the lord of the isles, . prose works. waverley, . guy mannering, . the antiquary, . the black dwarf, . old mortality, . rob roy, . the heart of mid-lothian, . the bride of lammermoor, . the legend of montrose, . ivanhoe, . the monastery, . the abbott, . kenilworth, . the pirate, . the fortunes of nigel, . peveril of the peak, . quentin durward, . st. ronan's well, . red gauntlet, . the betrothed, . the talisman, . woodstock, . the two drovers, . the highland widow, . the surgeon's daughter, . the fair maid of perth, . anne of geierstein, . count robert of paris, . castle dangerous, .