fore-tram. He was a crouse, cantie auld cock, having seen much and not
little in his day; so he began a pleasant confab, pointing out all the
gentlemen's houses round the country, and the names of the farms on the
hill sides. To one like me, whose occupations tie him to the town-foot,
it really is a sweet and grateful thing to be let loose, as it were, for
a wee among the scenes of peace and quietness, where nature is in a way
wild and wanton--where the clouds above our heads seem to sail along more
grandly over the bosom of the sky, and the wee birds to cheep and churm,
from the hedges among the fields, with greater pleasure, feeling that
they are God's free creatures.
I cannot tell how many thoughts came over my mind, one after another,
like the waves of the sea down on Musselburgh beach; but especially the
days when I was a wee callant with a daidly at Dominie Duncan's school,
were fresh in my mind as if the time had been but yesterday; though much,
much was I changed since then, being at that time a little, careless,
ragged laddie, and now the head of a family, earning bread to my wife and
wean by the sweat of my brow. I thought on the blythe summer days when I
dandered about the braes and bushes seeking birds'-nests with Alick
Bowsie and Samuel Search; and of the time when we stood upon one
another's backs to speil up to the ripe cherries that hung over the
garden walls of Woodburn. Awful changes had taken place since then. I
had seen Sammy die of the black jaundice--an awful spectacle! and poor
Alick Bowsie married to a drucken randie, that wore the breeks, and did
not allow the misfortunate creature the life of a dog.
When I was meditating thus, after the manner of the patriarch Isaac,
there was a pleasant sadness at my heart, though it was like to loup to
my mouth; but I could not get leave to enjoy it long for the tongue of
Tammie Dobbie. He bade me look over into a field, about the middle of
which were some wooden railings round the black gaping mouth of a
coal-pit. "Div ye see that dark bit owre yonder amang the green clover,
wi' the sticks about it?" asked Tammie.
"Yes," said I; "and what for?"
"Weel, do you ken," quo' Tammie, "that has been a weary place to mair
than ane. Twa-three year ago, some o' the collyer bodies were choked to
death down below wi' a blast of foul air; and a pour o' orphan weans they
left behint them on the cauldrife parish. But ye'll mind Hornem, the
sherry-officer wi' the thrawn shouther?"
"Ou, bravely; I believe he came to some untimeous end hereaway about?"
"Just in that spat," answered Tammie. "He was a drucken, blustering
chield, as ye mind; fearing neither man nor de'il, and living a wild,
wicked, regardless life; but, puir man, that couldna aye last. He had
been bousing about the countryside somehow--maybe harrying out of house
and hald some puir bodies that hadna the wherewith to pay their rents;
so, in riding hame fou--it was pitmirk, and the rain pouring down in
bucketfu's--he became dumfoundered wi' the darkness and the dramming
thegither; and, losing his way, wandered about the fields, hauling his
mare after him by the bridle. In the morning the beast was found
nibbling away at the grass owre by yonder, wi' the saddle upon its back,
and a broken bridle hinging down about its fore-legs, by the which the
folks round were putten upon the scent; for, on making search down yon
pit, he was fund at the bottom, wi' his brains smashed about him, and his
legs and arms broken to chitters!"
"Save us!" said I, "it makes a' my flesh grue."
"Weel it may," answered Tammie, "or the story's lost in the telling; for
the collyers that fand him shook as if they had been seized wi' the ague.
The dumb animal, ye observe, had far mair sense than him; for, when his
fitting gaed way, instead of following it had plunged back; and the bit
o' the bridle, that had broken, was still in his grup, when they spied
him wi' their lanterns."
"It was an awful like way to leave the world," said I.
"'Deed it was, and nae less," answered Tammie, "to gang to his lang
account in the middle of his mad thochtlessness, without a moment's
warning. But see, yonder's Cousland lying right forrit to the east
hand."
At this very nick of time Benjie was seized with a severe kink; so Tammie
stopped his cart, and I held his head over the side of it till the cough
went by. I thought his inside would have jumped out; but he fell sound
asleep in two or three minutes; and we jogged on till we came to the
yill-house door, where, after louping out, we got a pickle pease-strae to
Tammie's horse.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN--MANSIE AND TAMMIE AT MY LORD'S RACES
It happened curiously that, of all the days of the year, this should have
been the one on which the Carters'-play was held; and, by good luck, we
were just in time to see that grand sight. The whole regiment of carters
were paraded up at my Lord's door, for so they call their box-master; and
a beautiful thing it was, I can assure ye. What a sight of ribands was
on the horses! Many a crame must have been emptied ere such a number of
manes and long tails could have been busked out. The beasts themselves,
poor things, I dare say, wondered much at their bravery, and no less I am
sure did the riders. They looked for all the world like living
haberdashery shops. Great bunches of wallflower, thyme, spearmint,
batchelor buttons, gardeners' gartens, peony roses, gillyflower, and
southernwood, were stuck in their button holes; and broad belts of
stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung across their
shoulders. As to their hats, the man would have had a clear e'e that
could have kent what was their shape or colour. They were all rowed
round with ribands, and puffed about the rim with long green or white
feathers; and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of long
strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers. Save us! to see
men so proud of finery; if they had been peacocks one would have thought
less; but in decent sober men, the heads of small families, and with no
great wages, the thing was crazy-like. Was it not?
At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of
dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had
been marching to the field of battle. By-the-bye, it was two of our own
volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the
snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer; so this, ye see, verified the old
proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world's end, ye'll aye meet
with kent faces; Tammie and me coming out to the yill-house door to see
them pass by.
Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a
broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the
crown of it. He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a
well-cleaned pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my
lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the
keys, in case like he should take any thing out. And syne came the auld
my lord--him that was my lord last year, ye observe; and syne came the
colours, as bright and bonny as mostly any thing ye ever saw. On one of
them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing wheat; over the
top of which were gilded letters, the which I was able to read when I put
on my specs, being, if I mind well, "Speed the Plough." On the other
one, which was a mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of
two carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a whip in
his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like. Then came they all
passing by two and two, looking as if each one of them had been the Duke
of Buccleuch himself, every one rigged out in his best; the young
callants, such like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and
thinking themselves, I daresay, no small drink, and the day a great one
when they were first allowed to be art and part in such a grand
procession.
But losh me! I had mostly forgot the piper, that played in the middle,
as proud as Hezekiah, that we read of in Second Kings, strutting about
from side to side with his bare legs and big buckles, and bit Macgregor
tartan jacket--his cheeks blown up with wind like a smith's bellows--the
feathers dirling with conceit in his bonnet--and the drone, below his
oxter, squeeling and skirling like an evil spirit tied up in a green bag.
Keep us all! what gleys he gied about him to observe that the folk were
looking at him! He put me in mind of the song that old Barny used to
sing about the streets--
Ilka ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud's a Turk is;
There's the Grants o' Tullochgorum,
Wi' their pipers gaun before 'em;
Proud the mithers are that bore 'em.
Feedle, faddle, fa, fum.
But who do ye think should come up to us at this blessed moment, with a
staff in his hand, being old now, and not able to ride in the procession,
as he had many a time and often done before, but honest Saunders Tram,
that had been a staunch customer of mine since the day on which I opened
shop, and to whom I had made countless pairs of corduroy spatterdashes;
so we shook hands jocosely together, like old acquaintances, and the body
hodged and leuch as if he had found a fiddle, he was so glad to see me.
Benjie having fallen asleep, Luckie Barm of the Change, a douce woman,
put him to his bed, and promised to take care of him till we came back;
Saunders Tram insisting on us to go forward along with him to see the
race. I had no great scruple to do this, as I thought Benjie would
likely sleep for an hour, being wearied with the joggling of the cart,
and having supped a mutchkin bowlful of Luckie Barm's broo and bread.
By the time we had tramped on to the braehead, two or three had booked
for the race, and were busy pulling away the flowers that hung over about
their horses' lugs, to say little of the tapes and twine; and which made
them look, poor brutes, as if they were not very sure what was the matter
with them. Meanwhile, there was a terrible uproar between my lord and a
man from Edinburgh Grassmarket, leading a limping horse, covered with a
dirty sheet, with two holes for the beast's een looking out at.
But, for all this outward care, the poor thing seemed very like as if
wind was more plenty in the land than corn, being thin and
starved-looking, and as lame as Vulcan in the off hind-leg. So ye see
the managers of the box insisted on its not running; and the man said "it
had a right to run as well as any other horse"; and my lord said "it had
no such thing, as it was not in the box"; and the man said "he would take
out a protest"; and my lord said "he didna gie a bawbee for a protest;
and that he would not allow him to run on any account whatsoever"; but
the man was throng all the time they were argle-bargling taking the cover
off the beast's back, that was ready saddled, and as accoutred for
running as our regiment of volunteers was for fighting on field-days. So
he swore like a trooper, that, notwithstanding all their debarring, he
would run in spite of their teeth--both my lord's teeth, ye observe, and
that of the two key-keepers;--maybe, too, of the man that carried the
saddle, for he aye lent in a word at my lord's back, egging him on to
stand out for the laws to the last drop of his blood.
To cut a long tale short, the drum ruffed, and off set four of them, a
black one, and a white one, and a brown one, and the man's one, neck and
neck, as neat as you like. The race course was along the high road; and,
dog on it, they made a noise like thunder, throwing out their big heavy
feet behind them, and whisking their tails from side to side as if they
would have dung out one another's een; till, not being used to gallop,
they at last began to funk and fling; syne first one stopping, and then
another, wheeling round and round about like peiries, in spite of the
riders whipping them, and pulling them by the heads. The man's mare,
however, from the Grassmarket, with the limping leg, carried on, followed
by the white one, an old tough brute, that had belonged in its youth to a
trumpeter of the Scots Greys; and, to tell the truth, it showed mettle
still, though far past its best; so back they came, neck and neck, all
the folk crying, and holloing, and clapping their hands--some "Weel dune
the lame ane--five shillings on the lame ane";--and others, "Weel run
Bonaparte--at him, auld Bonaparte--two to one that Whitey beats him all
to sticks,"--when, dismal to relate, the limping-legged ane couped the
creels, and old white Bonaparte came in with his tail cocked amid loud
cheering, and no small clapping of hands.
We all ran down the road to the place where the limping horse was lying,
for it was never like to rise up again any more than the bit rider, that
was thrown over its head like an arrow out of a bow; but on helping him
to his feet, save and except the fright, two wide screeds across his
trowser-knees, and a scratch along the brig of his nose, nothing visible
was to be perceived. It was different, however, with the limping horse.
Misfortunate brute! one of its fore-legs had folded below it, and snapped
through at the fetlock joint. There was it lying with a sad sorrowful
look, as if it longed for death to come quick and end its miseries; the
blood, all the while, gush-gushing out at the gaping wound. To all it
was as plain as the A, B, C, that the bones would never knit; and that,
considering the case it was in, it would be an act of Christian charity
to put the beast out of pain. The maister gloomed, stroked his chin, and
looked down, knowing, weel-a-wat, that he had lost his bread-winner, then
gave his head a nod, nod--thrusting both his hands down to the bottom
lining of the pockets of his long square-tailed jockey coat. He was a
wauf, hallanshaker-looking chield, with an old broad-snouted japanned
beaver hat pulled over his brow--one that seemed by his phisog to hold
the good word of the world as nothing--and that had, in the course of
circumstances, been reduced to a kind of wild desperation, either by
chance-misfortunes, cares and trials, or, what is more likely, by his own
sinful, regardless way of life.
"It canna be helpit," he said, giving his head a bit shake; "it canna be
helpit, friends. Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane in yere day, lass,--mony a
penny and pound have I made out of ye. Which o' ye can lend me a hand,
lads? Rin away for a gun some o' ye."
Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice--a thing that
Thomas was good at, being a Cameronian elder, and accustomed to giving a
word. "Wad ye no think it better," said Thomas, "to stick her with a
long gully-knife, or a sharp shoemaker's parer? It wad be an easier way,
I'm thinking."
Dog on it! I could scarcely keep from shuddering when I heard them
speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort of a manner.
'"Deed no," quo' Saunders Tram, at whose side I was standing, "far better
send away for the smith's forehammer, and hit her a smack or twa betwixt
the een; so ye wad settle her in half a second."
"No, no," cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word; "a better plan than
a' that, wad be to make a strong kinch of ropes, and hang her."
Loveyding! such ways of showing how to be merciful!! But the old Jockey
himself interfered. "Haud yere tongues, fules," was his speech;
"yonder's the man coming wi' a gun. We'll shune put an end to her. She
would have won for a hundred pounds, if she hadna broken her leg. Wha'll
wager me that she wadna hae won? But she's the last of my stable, puir
beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost
her. Gi'e me the gun and the penny candle. Is she loaded?" speired he
at the man that carried the piece.
"Troth is she," was the answer, "double charged."
"Then stand back, lads," quoth the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and
ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went
four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed,
though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of
destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in
his face.
When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I
turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats
of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears;
nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the
miserable bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs, give
them a plunge down again on the divots: after which she lay still, and we
all saw, to our satisfaction, that death had come to her relief.
We are not commanded to be the judges of our fellow-creatures, but to
think charitably of all men, hoping every thing for the best; and, though
the horse-couper was a thought suspicious, both in look, speech, dress,
and outward behaviour, still, ever and anon, we were bound by the ten
commandments to consider him only in the light of a fellow-mortal in
distress of mind and poverty of pocket; so we made a superscription for
the poor man; and, though he did not look much like one that deserved our
charity, nevertheless and howsoever, maybe he was a bad halfpenny, and
maybe not; yet one thing was visibly certain, that he was as poor as
Job--misery being written in big-hand letters on his brow. So it behoved
each one to open his purse as he could afford it; and, though I say not
what I put into the hat, proud am I to tell that he collected two or
three shillings to help him home.
This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the money safely
stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket--would ye believe it? ere yet the
beast was scarcely cold, just as we were decamping from the place, and
buttoning up our breeches-pockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had
the curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was after,
in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent on some act of
desperation; when, lo and behold! he out with a gully knife, and began
skinning his old servant, as if he had been only peeling the bark off a
fallen tree!
One cannot sit at their ingle-cheek and expect, without casting their
eyes about them, to grow experienced in the ways of men, or the on-goings
of the world. This spectacle gave me, I can assure you, much and no
little insight; and so dowie was I with the thoughts of what I had
witnessed of the selfishness, the sinfulness, and perversity of man, that
I grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in my life before
of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle; and though Thomas Clod
insisted greatly on my staying to their head-meeting dinner, and taking a
reel with the lassies in the barn; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had
got so much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion would
have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing--yet I was
determined to make the best of my way home; more-be-token, as Benjie
might take skaith from the night air, and our jaunt therefrom might,
instead of contributing to his welfare, do him more harm than good. So,
after getting some cheese and bread, to say nothing of a glass or two of
strong beer and a dram at Luckie Barm's, we waited in her parlour, which
was hung round with most beautiful pictures of Joseph and his Brethren,
besides two stucco parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with
looking at them, as a pastime like, till Benjie wakened; on the which I
made Tammie yoke his beast, and rowing the bit callant in his mother's
shawl, took him into my arms in the cart, and after shaking hands with
all and sundry twice or thrice over, we bade them a "good-night," and
drove away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN--MANSIE ON THE RETURN FROM MY LORD'S RACES
I may confess, without thinking shame, that I was glad when I found our
nebs turned homeward; and, when we got over the turn of the brae at the
old quarry-holes, to see the blue smoke of our own Dalkeith, hanging like
a thin cloud over the tops of the green trees, through which I perceived
the glittering weathercock on the old kirk steeple. Tammie, poor
creature, I observed, was a whit ree with the good cheer; and, as he sat
on the fore-tram, with his whip-hand thrown over the beast's haunches, he
sang, half to himself and half-aloud, a great many old Scotch songs, such
as "the Gaberlunzie," "Aiken Drum," "Tak' yere Auld Cloak about ye," and
"the Deuks dang ower my Daddie"; besides "The Mucking o' Geordie's Byre,"
and "Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes," and so on; but, do what I liked, I
could not keep my spirits up, thinking of the woful end of the poor old
horse, and of the ne'er-do-weel loon its master. Many an excellent
instruction of Mr Wiggie's came to my mind, of how we misguided the good
things that were lent us for our use here, by a gracious Provider, who
would, however, bid us render a final account to him of our conduct and
conversation. I thought of how many were aye complaining and
complaining, myself whiles among the rest, of the hardships, the
miseries, and the misfortunes of their lot; putting all down to the score
of fate, and never once thinking of the plantations of sorrow, reared up
from the seeds of our own sinfulness; or how any thing, save punishment,
could come of the breaking of the ten commandments delivered to the
patriarch Moses. Perhaps, reckoned I with myself, perhaps in this, even
I myself may have in this day's transactions erred. Here am I wandering
about in a cart; exposing myself to the defilement of the world, to the
fear of robbers, and to the night air, in the search of health for a
dwining laddie; as if the hand that dealt that blessing out was not as
powerful at home as it is abroad. Had I remained at my own lap-broad,
the profits of my day's work would have been over and above for the
maintenance of my family, outside and inside; instead of which, I have
been at the expense of a cart-hire and a horse's up-putting, let alone
Tammie's debosh and my own, besides the trifle of threepence to the
round-shouldered old horse-couper with the slouched japan beaver hat.
The story was too true a one; but, alack-a-day, it was now over late to
repent!
As I was thus musing, the bright red sun of summer sank down behind the
top of the Pentland Hills, and all looked bluish, dowie, and dreary, as
if the heart of the world had been seized with a sudden dwalm, and the
face of nature had at once withered from blooming youth into the
hoariness of old age. Now and then the birds gave a bit chitter; and
whiles a cow mooed from the fields; and the dew was falling like the
little tears of the fairies out of the blue lift, where the gloaming-star
soon began to glow and glitter bonnily.
What I had seen and witnessed made my thoughts heavy and my heart sad; I
could not get the better of it. I looked round and round me, as we
jogged along over the height, down on the far distant country, that
spread out as if it had been a great big picture, with hills, and fields,
and woods; and I could still see to the norward the ships lying at their
anchors on the sea, and the shores of Fife far far beyond it. It was a
great and a grand sight; and made me turn from the looking at it into my
own heart, causing me to think more and more of the glory of the Maker's
handiworks, and less and less of the littleness of prideful man. But
Tammie had gotten his drappikie, and the tongue of the body would not lie
still a moment; so he blethered on from one thing to another, as we
jogged along, till I was forced at the last to give up thinking, and
begin a twa-handed crack with him.
"Have you your snuff-box upon ye?" said Tammie. "Gi'e me a pinch."
Having given him the box, I observed to him, that "it was beginning to
grow dark and dowie."
"'Deed is't," said Tammie; "but a body can now scarcely meet on the road
wi' ony think waur than themsell. Mony a witch, de'il, and bogle,
however, did my grannie see and hear tell of, that used to scud and
scamper hereaway langsyne like maukins."
"Witches!" quo' I. "No, no, Tammie, all these things are out of the land
now; and muckle luck to them. But we have other things to fear; what
think ye of highway robbers?"
"Highway robbers!" said Tammie. "Kay, kay; I'll tell ye of something
that I met in wi' mysell. Ae dark winter night, as I was daundering hame
frae Pathhead--it was pitmirk, and about the twall--losh me, I couldna
see my finger afore me!--that a stupid thocht cam into my head that I wad
never wun hame, but be either killed, lost, murdered, or drowned, between
that and the dawing. All o' a sudden I sees a light coming dancing
forrit amang the trees; and my hair began to stand up on end. Then, in
the next moment--save us a'!--I sees anither light, and forrit, forrit
they baith cam, like the een of some great fiery monster, let loose frae
the pit o' darkness by its maister, to seek whom it might devour."
"Stop, Tammie," said I to him, "ye'll wauken Benjie. How far are we from
Dalkeith?"
[Picture: Thomas Burlings]