Praetorium actually happened to an antiquary of great learning and
acuteness, Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, one of the Barons of the Scottish
Court of Exchequer, and a parliamentary commissioner for arrangement of
the Union between England and Scotland. As many of his writings show,
Sir John was much attached to the study of Scottish antiquities. He had
a small property in Dumfriesshire, near the Roman station on the
hill called Burrenswark. Here he received the distinguished English
antiquarian Roger Gale, and of course conducted him to see this
remarkable spot, where the lords of the world have left such decisive
marks of their martial labours.
An aged shepherd whom they had used as a guide, or who had approached
them from curiosity, listened with mouth agape to the dissertations on
foss and vellum, ports dextra, sinistra, and decumana, which Sir John
Clerk delivered ex cathedra, and his learned visitor listened with the
deference to the dignity of a connoisseur on his own ground. But when
the cicerone proceeded to point out a small hillock near the centre
of the enclosure as the Praetorium, Corydon’s patience could hold no
longer, and, like Edie Ochiltree, he forgot all reverence, and broke in
with nearly the same words--“Praetorium here, Praetorium there, I
made the bourock mysell with a flaughter-spade.” The effect of this
undeniable evidence on the two lettered sages may be left to the
reader’s imagination.
The late excellent and venerable John Clerk of Eldin, the celebrated
author of Naval Tactics, used to tell this story with glee, and being a
younger son of Sir John’s was perhaps present on the occasion.
Note D, p. #.--Mr. Rutherfurd’s Dream
The legend of Mrs. Grizel Oldbuck was partly taken from an extraordinary
story which happened about seventy years since, in the South of
Scotland, so peculiar in its circumstances that it merits being
mentioned in this place. Mr. Rutherfurd of Bowland, a gentleman
of landed property in the vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very
considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for
which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay
impropriators of the tithes). Mr. Rutherfurd was strongly impressed with
the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law
of Scotland, purchased these lands from the titular, and therefore that
the present prosecution was groundless. But, after an industrious search
among his father’s papers, an investigation of the public records, and
a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for
his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The
period was now near at hand when he conceived the loss of his lawsuit to
be inevitable, and he had formed his determination to ride to Edinburgh
next day, and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise.
He went to bed with this resolution and, with all the circumstances
of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following
purpose:--His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he
thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men
are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. Rutherfurd thought that
he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the
payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him,
because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was
unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief, “You are right,
my son,” replied the paternal shade; “I did acquire right to these
teinds, for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating
to the transaction are in the hands of Mr.--, a writer (or attorney), who
is now retired from professional business, and resides at Inveresk,
near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for
a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted
business on my account. It is very possible,” pursued the vision, “that
Mr.--may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you
may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay
his account, there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece
of gold, and that we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.”
Mr. Rutherfurd awakened in the morning with all the words of the vision
imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to ride across the
country to Inveresk, instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he
came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream, a very
old man; without saying anything of the vision, he inquired whether he
remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father.
The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his
recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold, the whole
returned upon his memory; he made an immediate search for the papers,
and recovered them,--so that Mr. Rutherfurd carried to Edinburgh the
documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of
losing.
The author has often heard this story told by persons who had the best
access to know the facts, who were not likely themselves to be deceived,
and were certainly incapable of deception. He cannot therefore refuse to
give it credit, however extraordinary the circumstances may appear. The
circumstantial character of the information given in the dream, takes it
out of the general class of impressions of the kind which are occasioned
by the fortuitous coincidence of actual events with our sleeping
thoughts. On the other hand, few will suppose that the laws of nature
were suspended, and a special communication from the dead to the living
permitted, for the purpose of saving Mr. Rutherfurd a certain number
of hundred pounds. The author’s theory is, that the dream was only the
recapitulation of information which Mr. Rutherfurd had really received
from his father while in life, but which at first he merely recalled as
a general impression that the claim was settled. It is not uncommon for
persons to recover, during sleep, the thread of ideas which they have
lost during their waking hours.
It may be added, that this remarkable circumstance was attended with bad
consequences to Mr. Rutherfurd; whose health and spirits were afterwards
impaired by the attention which he thought himself obliged to pay to the
visions of the night.
Note E, p. #.--Nick-sticks.
A sort of tally generally used by bakers of the olden time in settling
with their customers. Each family had its own nick-stick, and for each
loaf as delivered a notch was made on the stick. Accounts in Exchequer,
kept by the same kind of check, may have occasioned the Antiquary’s
partiality. In Prior’s time the English bakers had the same sort of
reckoning.
Have you not seen a baker’s maid,
Between two equal panniers sway’d?
Her tallies useless lie and idle,
If placed exactly in the middle.
Note F, p. #.--Witchcraft.
A great deal of stuff to the same purpose with that placed in the mouth
of the German adept, may be found in Reginald Scott’s Discovery
of Witchcraft, Third Edition, folio, London, 1665. The Appendix is
entitled, “An Excellent Discourse of the Nature and Substances of Devils
and Spirits, in two Books; the first by the aforesaid author (Reginald
Scott), the Second now added in this Third Edition as succedaneous to
the former, and conducing to the completing of the whole work.” This
Second Book, though stated as succedaneous to the first, is, in fact,
entirely at variance with it; for the work of Reginald Scott is a
compilation of the absurd and superstitious ideas concerning witches
so generally entertained at the time, and the pretended conclusion is a
serious treatise on the various means of conjuring astral spirits.
[Scott’s Discovery of Witchcraft was first published in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth, London, 1584.]
Note G, p. #.--Gynecocracy.
In the fishing villages on the Firths of Forth and Tay, as well as
elsewhere in Scotland, the government is gynecocracy, as described
in the text. In the course of the late war, and during the alarm of
invasion, a fleet of transports entered the Firth of Forth under the
convoy of some ships of war, which would reply to no signals. A general
alarm was excited, in consequence of which, all the fishers, who were
enrolled as sea-fencibles, got on board the gun-boats which they were to
man as occasion should require, and sailed to oppose the supposed enemy.
The foreigners proved to be Russians, with whom we were then at peace.
The county gentlemen of Mid-Lothian, pleased with the zeal displayed by
the sea-fencibles at a critical moment, passed a vote for presenting the
community of fishers with a silver punch-bowl, to be used on occasions
of festivity. But the fisher-women, on hearing what was intended, put in
their claim to have some separate share in the intended honorary reward.
The men, they said, were their husbands; it was they who would have
been sufferers if their husbands had been killed, and it was by their
permission and injunctions that they embarked on board the gun-boats for
the public service. They therefore claimed to share the reward in some
manner which should distinguish the female patriotism which they had
shown on the occasion. The gentlemen of the county willingly admitted
the claim; and without diminishing the value of their compliment to the
men, they made the females a present of a valuable broach, to fasten the
plaid of the queen of the fisher-women for the time.
It may be further remarked, that these Nereids are punctilious among
themselves, and observe different ranks according to the commodities
they deal in. One experienced dame was heard to characterise a younger
damsel as “a puir silly thing, who had no ambition, and would never,”
she prophesied, “rise above the mussel-line of business.”
Note H, p. #.--Battle of Harlaw.
The great battle of Harlaw, here and formerly referred to, might be said
to determine whether the Gaelic or the Saxon race should be predominant
in Scotland. Donald, Lord of the Isles, who had at that period the power
of an independent sovereign, laid claim to the Earldom of Ross during
the Regency of Robert, Duke of Albany. To enforce his supposed right, he
ravaged the north with a large army of Highlanders and Islesmen. He was
encountered at Harlaw, in the Garioch, by Alexander, Earl of Mar, at the
head of the northern nobility and gentry of Saxon and Norman descent.
The battle was bloody and indecisive; but the invader was obliged to
retire in consequence of the loss he sustained, and afterwards was
compelled to make submission to the Regent, and renounce his pretensions
to Ross; so that all the advantages of the field were gained by the
Saxons. The battle of Harlaw was fought 24th July 1411.
Note I, p. #.--Elspeth’s death.
The concluding circumstance of Elspeth’s death is taken from an incident
said to have happened at the funeral of John, Duke of Roxburghe. All who
were acquainted with that accomplished nobleman must remember that he
was not more remarkable for creating and possessing a most curious and
splendid library, than for his acquaintance with the literary treasures
it contained. In arranging his books, fetching and replacing the volumes
which he wanted, and carrying on all the necessary intercourse which
a man of letters holds with his library, it was the Duke’s custom to
employ, not a secretary or librarian, but a livery servant, called
Archie, whom habit had made so perfectly acquainted with the library,
that he knew every book, as a shepherd does the individuals of his
flock, by what is called head-mark, and could bring his master whatever
volume he wanted, and afford all the mechanical aid the Duke required in
his literary researches. To secure the attendance of Archie, there was a
bell hung in his room, which was used on no occasion except to call him
individually to the Duke’s study.
His Grace died in Saint James’s Square, London, in the year 1804; the
body was to be conveyed to Scotland, to lie in state at his mansion
of Fleurs, and to be removed from thence to the family burial-place at
Bowden.
At this time, Archie, who had been long attacked by a liver-complaint,
was in the very last stage of that disease. Yet he prepared himself to
accompany the body of the master whom he had so long and so faithfully
waited upon. The medical persons assured him he could not survive the
journey. It signified nothing, he said, whether he died in England or
Scotland; he was resolved to assist in rendering the last honours to the
kind master from whom he had been inseparable for so many years, even
if he should expire in the attempt. The poor invalid was permitted to
attend the Duke’s body to Scotland; but when they reached Fleurs he
was totally exhausted, and obliged to keep his bed, in a sort of stupor
which announced speedy dissolution. On the morning of the day fixed for
removing the dead body of the Duke to the place of burial, the private
bell by which he was wont to summon his attendant to his study was rung
violently. This might easily happen in the confusion of such a scene,
although the people of the neighbourhood prefer believing that the bell
sounded of its own accord. Ring, however, it did; and Archie, roused
by the well-known summons, rose up in his bed, and faltered, in broken
accents, “Yes, my Lord Duke--yes--I will wait on your Grace instantly;”
and with these words on his lips he is said to have fallen back and
expired.
Note J, p. #.--Alarm of invasion.
The story of the false alarm at Fairport, and the consequences, are
taken from a real incident. Those who witnessed the state of Britain,
and of Scotland in particular, from the period that succeeded the war
which commenced in 1803 to the battle of Trafalgar, must recollect
those times with feelings which we can hardly hope to make the rising
generation comprehend. Almost every individual was enrolled either in
a military or civil capacity, for the purpose of contributing to resist
the long-suspended threats of invasion, which were echoed from every
quarter. Beacons were erected along the coast, and all through the
country, to give the signal for every one to repair to the post where
his peculiar duty called him, and men of every description fit to
serve held themselves in readiness on the shortest summons. During this
agitating period, and on the evening of the 2d February 1804, the person
who kept watch on the commanding station of Home Castle, being deceived
by some accidental fire in the county of Northumberland, which he took
for the corresponding signal-light in that county with which his
orders were to communicate, lighted up his own beacon. The signal was
immediately repeated through all the valleys on the English Border. If
the beacon at Saint Abb’s Head had been fired, the alarm would have
run northward, and roused all Scotland. But the watch at this important
point judiciously considered, that if there had been an actual or
threatened descent on our eastern sea-coast, the alarm would have come
along the coast and not from the interior of the country.
Through the Border counties the alarm spread with rapidity, and on no
occasion when that country was the scene of perpetual and unceasing
war, was the summons to arms more readily obeyed. In Berwickshire,
Roxburghshire, and Selkirkshire, the volunteers and militia got under
arms with a degree of rapidity and alacrity which, considering the
distance individuals lived from each other, had something in it very
surprising--they poured to the alarm-posts on the sea-coast in a state so
well armed and so completely appointed, with baggage, provisions, etc.,
as was accounted by the best military judges to render them fit for
instant and effectual service.
There were some particulars in the general alarm which are curious
and interesting. The men of Liddesdale, the most remote point to the
westward which the alarm reached, were so much afraid of being late in
the field, that they put in requisition all the horses they could find,
and when they had thus made a forced march out of their own country,
they turned their borrowed steeds loose to find their way back through
the hills, and they all got back safe to their own stables. Another
remarkable circumstance was, the general cry of the inhabitants of the
smaller towns for arms, that they might go along with their companions.
The Selkirkshire Yeomanry made a remarkable march, for although some
of the individuals lived at twenty and thirty miles’ distance from the
place where they mustered, they were nevertheless embodied and in
order in so short a period, that they were at Dalkeith, which was their
alarm-post, about one o’clock on the day succeeding the first signal,
with men and horses in good order, though the roads were in a bad state,
and many of the troopers must have ridden forty or fifty miles without
drawing bridle. Two members of the corps chanced to be absent from their
homes, and in Edinburgh on private business. The lately married wife of
one of these gentlemen, and the widowed mother of the other, sent the
arms, uniforms, and chargers of the two troopers, that they might join
their companions at Dalkeith. The author was very much struck by the
answer made to him by the last-mentioned lady, when he paid her some
compliment on the readiness which she showed in equipping her son with
the means of meeting danger, when she might have left him a fair excuse
for remaining absent. “Sir,” she replied, with the spirit of a Roman
matron, “none can know better than you that my son is the only prop by
which, since his father’s death, our family is supported. But I would
rather see him dead on that hearth, than hear that he had been a horse’s
length behind his companions in the defence of his king and country.”
The author mentions what was immediately under his own eye, and within
his own knowledge; but the spirit was universal, wherever the alarm
reached, both in Scotland and England.
The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the country on this
occasion, warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthusiastic
love of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale, formed a
distinguished part of his character. The account which was read to him
when on a sick-bed, stated (very truly) that the different corps, on
arriving at their alarm-posts, announced themselves by their music
playing the tunes peculiar to their own districts, many of which have
been gathering-signals for centuries. It was particularly remembered,
that the Liddesdale men, before mentioned, entered Kelso playing the
lively tune--
O wha dare meddle wi’ me,
And wha dare meddle wi’ me!
My name it is little Jock Elliot,
And wha dare meddle wi’ me!
The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient Border spirit,
that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the old song with such
vehemence of action and voice, that his attendants, ignorant of the
cause of excitation, concluded that the fever had taken possession
of his brain; and it was only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John
Malcolm, and the explanation which he was well qualified to give, that
prevented them from resorting to means of medical coercion.
The circumstances of this false alarm and its consequences may be now
held of too little importance even for a note upon a work of fiction;
but, at the period when it happened, it was hailed by the country as a
propitious omen, that the national force, to which much must naturally
have been trusted, had the spirit to look in the face the danger which
they had taken arms to repel; and every one was convinced, that on
whichever side God might bestow the victory, the invaders would meet
with the most determined opposition from the children of the soil.