about his neck, wished him a good journey, we saw him mounted on the
front of limping Jamie's cart; and, as he drove away, I must confess my
heart was grit. I could not help running up the stair, and pulling up
the fore-window to get a long look after him. Away, and away they wore;
in a short time, the cart took a turn and disappeared; and, when I drew
down the window, and sauntered, with my arms crossed, back to the
workshop, something seemed amissing, and the snug wee place, with its
shapings, and runds, and paper-measurings, and its bit fire, seemed in my
eyes to look douff and gousty.
Whether in the jougging of the cart, or what else I cannot say, but it's
an unco story; for on the road, it turned out that poor Mungo was seized
with a terrible pain in his side; and, growing worse and worse, was
obliged to be left at Lauder, in the care of a decent widow woman that
had a blind eye, and a room to let furnished.
It was not for two-three days that we learnt these awful tidings, which
greatly distressed us all; and I gave the driver of the Lauder coach
threepence to himself, to bring us word every morning, as he passed the
door, how the laddie was going on.
I learned shortly, that his father and mother had arrived, which was one
comfort; but that matters with poor Mungo were striding on from bad to
worse, being pronounced, by a skeely doctor, to be in a galloping
consumption--and not able to be removed home, a thing that the laddie
freaked and pined for night and day. At length, hearing for certain that
he had not long to live, I thought myself bound to be at the expense of
taking a ride out on the top of the coach, though I was aware of the
danger of the machine's whiles couping, if it were for no more than to
bid him fare-ye-weel--and I did so.
It was a cold cloudy day in February, and everything on the road looked
dowie and cheerless; the very cows and sheep, that crowded cowering
beneath the trees in the parks, seemed to be grieving for some disaster,
and hanging down their heads like mourners at a burial. The rain whiles
obliged me to put up my umbrella, and there was nobody on the top beside
me, save a deaf woman, that aye said "ay" to every question I speered,
and with whom I found it out of the power of man to carry on any rational
conversation; so I was obliged to sit glowering from side to side at the
bleak bare fields--and the plashing grass--and the gloomy dull woods--and
the gentlemen's houses, of which I knew not the names--and the fearful
rough hills, that put me in mind of the wilderness, and of the
abomination of desolation mentioned in scripture, I believe in Ezekiel.
The errand I was going on, to be sure, helped to make me more sorrowful;
and I could not think on human life without agreeing with Solomon, that
"all was vanity and vexation of spirit."
At long and last, when we came to our journey's end, and I louped off the
top of the coach, Maister Glen came out to the door, and bad me haste me
if I wished to see Mungo breathing. Save us! to think that a poor young
thing was to be taken away from life and the cheerful sun, thus suddenly,
and be laid in the cold damp mools, among the moudiewarts and the green
banes, "where there is no work or device." But what will ye say there?
it was the will of Him, who knows best what is for his creatures, and to
whom we should--and must submit. I was just in time to see the last row
of his glazing een, that then stood still for ever, as he lay, with his
face as pale as clay, on the pillow, his mother holding his hand, and
sob-sobbing with her face leant on the bed, as if her hope was departed,
and her heart would break. I went round about, and took hold of the
other one for a moment; but it was clammy, and growing cold with the
coldness of grim death. I could hear my heart beating; but Mungo's heart
stood still, like a watch that has run itself down. Maister Glen sat in
the easy chair, with his hand before his eyes, saying nothing, and
shedding not a tear; for he was a strong, little, blackaviced man, with a
feeling heart, but with nerves of steel. The rain rattled on the window,
and the smoke gave a swarl as the wind rummelled in the lum. The hour
spoke to the soul, and the silence was worth twenty sermons.
They who would wish to know the real value of what we are all over-apt to
prize in this world, should have been there too, and learnt a lesson not
soon to be forgotten. I put my hand in my coat-pocket for my napkin to
give my eyes a wipe, but found it was away, and feared much I had dropped
it on the road; though in this I was happily mistaken, having, before I
went to my bed, found that on my journey I had tied it over my neckcloth,
to keep away sore throats.
It was a sad heart to us all to see the lifeless creature in his white
nightcap and eyes closed, lying with his yellow hair spread on the
pillow; and we went out, that the women-folk might cover up the
looking-glass and the face of the clock, ere they proceeded to dress the
body in its last clothes--clothes that would never need changing; but,
when we were half down the stair, and I felt glad with the thoughts of
getting to the fresh air, we were obliged to turn up again for a little,
to let the man past that was bringing in the dead deal.
But why weave a long story out of the materials of sorrow? or endeavour
to paint feelings that have no outward sign, lying shut up within the
sanctuary of the heart? The grief of a father and a mother can only be
conceived by them who, as fathers and mothers, have suffered the loss of
their bairns,--a treasure more precious to nature than silver or gold,
home to the land-sick sailor, or daylight to the blind man sitting
beaking in the heat of the morning sun.
The coffin having been ordered to be got ready with all haste, two men
brought it on their shoulders betimes on the following morning; and it
was a sight that made my blood run cold to see the dead corpse of poor
Mungo, my own prentice, hoisted up from the bed, and laid in his
black-handled, narrow housie. All had taken their last looks, the lid
was screwed down by means of screw-drivers, and I read the plate, which
said, "Mungo Glen, aged 15." Alas! early was he cut off from among the
living--a flower snapped in its spring blossom--and an awful warning to
us all, sinful and heedless mortals, of the uncertainty of this state of
being.
In the course of the forenoon, Maister Glen's cart was brought to the
door, drawn by two black horses with long tails and hairy feet, a tram
one and a leader. Though the job shook my nerves, I could not refuse to
give them a hand down the stair with the coffin, which had a fief-like
smell of death and saw-dust; and we got it fairly landed in the cart,
among clean straw. I saw the clodhapper of a ploughman aye dighting his
een with the sleeve of his big-coat.
The mother, Mistress Glen, a little fattish woman, and as fine a homely
body as ye ever met with, but sorely distracted at this time by sorrow,
sat at the head, with her bonnet drawn over her face, and her shawl
thrown across her shoulders, being a blue and red spot on a white ground.
It was a dismal-like-looking thing to see her sitting there, with the
dead body of her son at her feet; and, at the side of it, his kist with
his claes, on the top of which was tied--not being room for it in the
inside like (for he had twelve shirts, and three pair of trowsers, and a
Sunday and every day's coat, with stockings and other things)--his old
white beaver hat, turned up behind, which he used to wear when he was
with me. His Sunday's hat I did not see; but most likely it was in among
his claes, to keep it from the rain, and preserved, no doubt, for the use
of some of his little brothers, please God, when they grew up a wee
bigger.
Seeing Maister Glen, who had cut his chin in shaving, in a worn-out
disjasket state, mounted on his sheltie, I shook hands with them both;
and, in my thoughtlessness, wished them "a good journey,"--knowing well
what a sorrowful home-going it would be to them, and what their bairns
would think when they saw what was lying in the cart beside their mother.
On this the big ploughman, that wore a broad blue bonnet and corduroys
cutikins, with a grey big-coat slit up behind in the manner I commonly
made for laddies, gave his long whip a crack, and drove off to the
eastward.
It would be needless in me to waste precious time in relating how I
returned to my own country, especially as I may be thankful that nothing
particular happened, excepting the coach-wheels riding over an old dog
that was lying sleeping on the middle of the road, and, poor brute,
nearly got one of his fore-paws chacked off. The day was sharp and
frosty and all the passengers took a loup off at a yill-house, with a
Highlandman on the sign of it, to get a dram, to gar them bear up against
the cold; yet knowing what had but so lately happened, and having the
fears of Maister Wiggie before my eyes, I had made a solemn vow within
myself, not to taste liquor for six months at least; nor would I here
break my word, tho' much made a fool of by an Englisher, and a fou
Eirisher, who sang all the road; contenting myself, in the best way I
could, with a tumbler of strong beer and two butter-bakes.
It is an old proverb, and a true one, that there is no rest to the
wicked; so when I got home, I found business crying out for me loudly,
having been twice wanted to take the measure for suits of clothes. Of
course, knowing that my two customers would be wearying, I immediately
cut my stick to their houses, and promised without fail to have my work
done against the next Sabbath. Whether from my hurry, or my grief for
poor Mungo, or maybe from both, I found on the Saturday night, when the
clothes were sent home on the arm of Tammie Bodkin, whom I was obliged to
hire by way of foresman, that some awful mistake had occurred--the dress
of the one having been made for the back of the other, the one being long
and tall, the other thick and short; so that Maister Peter Pole's cuffs
did not reach above half-way down his arms, and the tails ended at the
small of his back, rendering him a perfect fright; while Maister Watty
Firkin's new coat hung on him like a dreadnought, the sleeves coming over
the nebs of his fingers, and the hainch buttons hanging down between his
heels, making him resemble a mouse below a firlot. With some persuasion,
however, there being but small difference in the value of the cloths, the
one being a west of England bottle-green, and the other a Manchester
blue, I caused them to niffer, and hushed up the business, which, had
they been obstreperous, would have made half the parish of Dalkeith stand
on end.
After poor Mungo had been beneath the mools, I daresay a good month,
Benjie, as he was one forenoon diverting himself dozing his top in the
room where they sleeped, happened to drive it in below the bed, where,
scrambling in on his hands and feet, he found a half sheet of paper
written over in Mungo's hand-writing, the which he brought to me; and, on
looking over it, I found it jingled in metre like the Psalms of David.
Having no skeel in these matters, I sent up the close for James Batter,
who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-quarter subscription book-club,
had read a power of all sorts of things, sacred and profane. James, as
he was humming it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a
thump on his thigh, "Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good, capital!" and
so on, which astonished me much, kenning who had written it--a callant
that had sleeped with our Benjie, and could not have shaped a pair of
leggins though we had offered him the crown of the three kingdoms.
Seeing what it was thought of by one who knew what was what, and could
distinguish the difference between a B and a bull's foot, I judged it
necessary for me to take a copy of it; which, for the benefit of them
that like poems, I do not scruple to tag to the tail of this chapter.
Oh, wad that my time were ower but,
Wi' this wintry sleet and snaw,
That I might see our house again
I' the bonny birken shaw!--
For this is no my ain life,
And I peak and pine away
Wi' the thochts o' hame, and the young flow'rs
I' the glad green month o' May.
I used to wauk in the morning
Wi' the loud sang o' the lark,
And the whistling o' the ploughmen lads
As they gaed to their wark;
I used to weir in the young lambs
Frae the tod and the roaring stream;
But the warld is changed, and a' thing now
To me seems like a dream.
There are busy crowds around me
On ilka lang dull street;
Yet, though sae mony surround me
I kenna ane I meet.
And I think on kind, kent faces,
And o' blythe and cheery days,
When I wander'd out, wi' our ain folk,
Out-owre the simmer braes.
Wae's me, for my heart is breaking!
I think on my brithers sma',
And on my sister greeting,
When I came fra hame awa
And oh! how my mither sobbi,
As she shook me by the hand;
When I left the door o' our auld house,
To come to this stranger land;
There's nae place like our ain hame;
Oh, I wish that I was there!--
There's nae hame like our ain hame
To be met wi' ony where!--
And oh! that I were back again
To our farm and fields so green;
And heard the tongues o' my ain folk,
And was what I hae been!
That's poor Mungo's poem; which I and James Batter, and the rest, think
excellent, and not far short of Robert Burns himself, had he been spared.
Some may judge otherwise, out of bad taste or ill nature; but I would
just thank them to write a better at their leisure.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO--THE JUNE JAUNT WITH PETER FARREL
After Tammie Bodkin had been working with me on the board for more than
four years in the capacity of foresman, superintending the workshop
department, together with the conduct and conversation of Joe Breeky,
Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl, my three bounden apprentices, I thought I
might lippen him awee to try his hand in the shaping line, especially
with the clothes of such of our customers as I knew were not very nice,
provided they got enough of cutting from the Manchester manufacture, and
room to shake themselves in. The upshot, however, proved to a moral
certainty, that such a length of tether is not chancey for youth, and
that a master cannot be too much on the head of his own business.
It was in the pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe six or eight days,
after the birth-day of our good old King George the Third--for I
recollect the withering branches of lily-oak and flowers still sticking
up behind the signs, and over the lamp-posts,--that my respected
acquaintance and customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made
many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes--which he preferred from
their not dirtying so easily with the bakehouse--called in upon me,
requesting me, in a very pressing manner, to take a pleasure ride up with
him the length of Roslin, in his good-brother's bit phieton, to eat a
wheen strawberries, and see how the forthcoming harvest was getting on.
That the offer was friendly admitted not of doubt, but I did not like to
accept for two-three reasons; among which were, in the first place, my
awareness of the danger of riding in such vehicles--having read sundry
times in the newspapers of folk having been tumbled out of them, drunk or
sober, head-foremost, and having got eyes knocked ben, skulls cloured,
and collar-bones broken; and, in the second place, the expense of feeding
the horse, together with our feeding ourselves in meat and drink during
the journey--let alone tolls, strawberries and cream, bawbees to the
waiter, the hostler, and what not. But let me speak the knock-him-down
truth, and shame the de'il,--above all, I was afraid of being seen by my
employers wheeling about, on a work-day, like a gentleman, dressed out in
my best, and leaving my business to mind itself as it best could.
Peter Farrel, however, being a man of determination, stuck to his text
like a horse-leech; so, after a great to-do, and considerable
argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of powerful persuasion, to give him my
hand on the subject. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the
back loan with my stick in my hand--Peter having agreed to be waiting for
me on the roadside, a bit beyond the head of the town, near Gallows-hall
toll. The cat should be let out of the pock by my declaring, that Nanse,
the goodwife, had also a finger in the pie--as, do what ye like, women
will make their points good--she having overcome me in her wheedling way,
by telling me, that it was curious I had no ambition to speel the ladder
of gentility, and hold up my chin in imitation of my betters.
That we had a most beautiful drive I cannot deny; for though I would not
allow Peter to touch the horse with the whip, in case it might run away,
fling, or trot ower fast--and so we made but slow progress--little more
even than walking; yet, as I told him, it gave a man leisure to use his
eyes, and make observation to the right and the left; and so we had a
prime look of Eskbank, and Newbottle Abbey, and Melville Castle, and
Dalhousie, and Polton, and Hawthornden, and Dryden woods--and the powder
mills, the paper mills, the bleachfield--and so on. The day was bright
and beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms: the
flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and, as the sun looked from the
blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from our thoughts all the poor and
paltry cares that embitter life, and all the pitiful considerations which
are but too apt to be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from
their awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow of evening
rest. Peter and myself felt this forcibly; he, as he confessed to me,
having entirely forgot the four pan-soled loaves that were, that morning,
left by his laddie, Peter Crust, in the oven, and burned to sticks; and
for my own part, do what I liked, I could not bring myself to mind what
piece of work I was employed on the evening before, till, far on the
road, I recollected that it was a pair of mouse-brown spatterdashes for
worthy old Mr Mooleypouch the mealmonger.
Oh, it is a pleasant thing, now and then, to get a peep of the country!
To them who live among shops and markets, and stone-walls, and
butcher-stalls, and fishwives--and the smell of ready-made tripe, red
herring, and Cheshire cheeses--the sights, and sounds, and smells of the
country, bring to mind the sinless days of the world before the fall of
man, when all was love, peace, and happiness. Peter Farrel and I were
transported out of our seven senses, as we feasted our eyes on the beauty
of the green fields. The bumbees were bizzing among the gowans and
blue-bells; and a thousand wee birds among the green trees were
churm-churming away, filling earth and air with music, as it were a
universal hymn of gratitude to the Creator for his unbounded goodness to
all his creatures. We saw the trig country lasses bleaching their
snow-white linen on the grass by the waterside, and they too were lilting
their favourite songs, Logan Water, the Flowers of the Forest, and the
Broom of the Cowdenknowes. All the world seemed happy, and I could
scarcely believe--what I kent to be true for all that--that we were still
walking in the realms of sin and misery. The milk-cows were nipping the
clovery parks, and chewing their cuds at their leisure;--the wild
partridges whidding about in pairs, or birring their wings with fright
over the hedges;--and the blue-bonneted ploughmen on the road cracking
their whips in wantonness, and whistling along amid the clean straw in
their carts. And then the rows of snug cottages, with their kailyards
and their goose-berry bushes, with the fruit hanging from the branches
like ear-rings on the neck of a lady of fashion. How happy, thought we
both--both Peter Farrel and me--how happy might they be, who, without
worldly pride or ambition, passed their days in such situations, in the
society of their wives and children. Ah! such were a blissful lot!
During our ride, Peter Farrel and I had an immense deal of rational
conversation on a variety of matters, Peter having seen great part of the
world in his youth, from having made two voyages to Greenland, during one
of which he was very nearly frozen up--with his uncle, who was the mate
of a whale-vessel. To relate all that Peter told me he had seen and
witnessed in his far-away travels, among the white bears, and the frozen
seas, would take up a great deal of the reader's time, and of my paper;
but as to its being very diverting, there is no doubt of that. However,
when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his
noddle to discover, that "a rowing stane gathers no fog"; and, having got
an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked
to the baking trade tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped
butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our
colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world--had bought his
own bounds, and built new ones--could lay down the blunt for his article,
and take the measure of the markets, by laying up wheat in his granaries
against the day of trouble--to wit--rise of prices.
"Well, Peter," said I to him, "seeing that ye read the newspapers, and
have a notion of things, what think ye, just at the present moment, of
affairs in general?"
Peter cocked up his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he
had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said--
"Is it foreign or domestic affairs that you are after, Maister Wauch? for
the question is a six-quarters wide one."
I was determined not to be beat by man of woman born; so I answered with
almost as much cleverality as himself, "Oh, Mr Farrel, as to our foreign
concerns, I trust I am ower loyal a subject of George the Third to have
any doubt at all about them, as the Buonaparte is yet to be born that
will ever beat our regulars abroad--to say nothing of our volunteers at
home; but what think you of the paper specie--the national debt--borough
reform--the poor-rates--and the Catholic question?"
I do not think Peter jealoused I ever had so much in my noddle; but when
he saw I had put him to his mettle, he did his best to give me
satisfactory answers to my queries, saying, that till gold came in
fashion, it would not be for my own interest, or that of my family, to
refuse bank-notes, for which he would, any day of the year, give me as
many quarter loaves as I could carry, to say nothing of coarse flour for
the prentices' scones, and bran for the pigs--that the national debt
would take care of itself long after both him and I were gathered to our
fathers: and that individual debt was a much more hazardous, pressing,
and personal concern, far more likely to come home to our more immediate
bosoms and businesses--that the best species of reform was every one's
commencing to make amendment in their own lives and conversations--that
poor-rates were likely to be worse before they were better; and that, as
to the Catholic question,--"But, Mansie," said he, "it would give me
great pleasure to hear your candid and judicious opinion of Popery and
the Papists."
I saw, with half an e'e, that Peter was trying to put me to my mettle,
and I devoutly wished that I had had James Batter at my elbow to have
given him play for his money--James being the longest-headed man that
ever drove a shuttle between warp and woof; but most fortunately, just as
I was going to say, that "every honest man, who wished well to the good
of his country, could only have one opinion on that subject,"--we came to
the by-road, that leads away off on the right-hand side down to
Hawthornden, and we observed, from the curious ringle, that one of the
naig's fore-shoon was loose; which consequently put an end to the
discussion of this important question, before Peter and I had time to get
it comfortably settled to the world's satisfaction.
The upshot was, that we were needcessitated to dismount, and lead the
animal by the head forward to Kittlerig, where Macturk Sparrible keeps
his smith's shop; in order that, with his hammer, he might make fast the
loose nails: and that him and his foresman did in a couple of hurries; me
and Peter looking over them with our hands in our big-coat pockets, while
they pelt-pelted away with the beast's foot between their knees, as if we
had been a couple of grand gentlemen incog.; and so we were to him.
After getting ourselves again decently mounted, and giving Sparrible a
consideration for his trouble, Peter took occasion, from the horse
casting its shoe, to make a few apropos moral observations, in the manner
of the Rev. Mr Wiggie, on the uncertainties which it is every man's lot
to encounter in the weariful pilgrimage of human life. "There is many a
slip 'tween the cup and the lip," said Peter.