“What’s property, dear Swift? I see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter.”
“Croftangry--Croftandrew--Croftanridge--Croftandgrey for sa mony wise
hath the name been spellit--is weel known to be ane house of grit
antiquity; and it is said that King Milcolumb, or Malcolm, being the
first of our Scottish princes quha removit across the Firth of Forth,
did reside and occupy ane palace at Edinburgh, and had there ane
valziant man, who did him man-service by keeping the croft, or
corn-land, which was tilled for the convenience of the King’s household,
and was thence callit Croft-an-ri, that is to say, the King his croft;
quhilk place, though now coverit with biggings, is to this day called
Croftangry, and lyeth near to the royal palace. And whereas that some
of those who bear this auld and honourable name may take scorn that it
ariseth from the tilling of the ground, quhilk men account a slavish
occupation, yet we ought to honour the pleugh and spade, seeing we all
derive our being from our father Adam, whose lot it became to cultivate
the earth, in respect of his fall and transgression.
“Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt as in profane history, of
the honour in quhilk husbandrie was held of old, and how prophets have
been taken from the pleugh, and great captains raised up to defend their
ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus, and the like, who fought not the
common enemy with the less valiancy that their alms had been exercised
in halding the stilts of the pleugh, and their bellicose skill in
driving of yauds and owsen.
“Likewise there are sindry honorable families, quhilk are now of
our native Scottish nobility, and have clombe higher up the brae of
preferment than what this house of Croftangry hath done, quhilk shame
not to carry in their warlike shield and insignia of dignity the tools
and implements the quhilk their first forefathers exercised in labouring
the croft-rig, or, as the poet Virgilius calleth it eloquently, in
subduing the soil, and no doubt this ancient house of Croftangry, while
it continued to be called of that Ilk, produced many worshipful and
famous patriots, of quhom I now praetermit the names; it being my
purpose, if God shall spare me life for sic ane pious officium, or
duty, to resume the first part of my narrative touching the house of
Croftangry, when I can set down at length the evidents and historical
witness anent the facts which I shall allege, seeing that words, when
they are unsupported by proofs, are like seed sown on the naked rocks,
or like an house biggit on the flitting and faithless sands.”
Here I stopped to draw breath; for the style of my grandsire, the
inditer of this goodly matter, was rather lengthy, as our American
friends say. Indeed, I reserve the rest of the piece until I can obtain
admission to the Bannatine Club, [This Club, of which the Author of
Waverley has the honour to be President, was instituted in February
1823, for the purpose of printing and publishing works illustrative of
the history, literature, and antiquities of Scotland. It continues to
prosper, and has already rescued from oblivion many curious materials
of Scottish history.] when I propose to throw off an edition, limited
according to the rules of that erudite Society, with a facsimile of
the manuscript, emblazonry of the family arms surrounded by their
quartering, and a handsome disclamation of family pride, with HAEC NOS
NOVIMUS ESSE NIHIL, or VIX EA NOSTRA VOCO.
In the meantime, to speak truth, I cannot but suspect that, though my
worthy ancestor puffed vigorously to swell up the dignity of his family,
we had never, in fact, risen above the rank of middling proprietors. The
estate of Glentanner came to us by the intermarriage of my ancestor with
Tib Sommeril, termed by the southrons Sommerville, a daughter of that
noble house, but, I fear, on what my great-grandsire calls “the wrong
side of the blanket.” [The ancient Norman family of the Sommervilles
came into this island with William the Conqueror, and established one
branch in Gloucestershire, another in Scotland. After the lapse of seven
hundred years, the remaining possessions of these two branches were
united in the person of the late Lord Sommerville, on the death of his
English kinsman, the well-known author of “The Chase.”] Her husband,
Gilbert, was killed fighting, as the INQUISITIO POST MORTEM has it, “SUB
VEXILLO REGIS, APUD PRAELIUM JUXTA BRANXTON, LIE FLODDDEN-FIELD.”
We had our share in other national misfortunes--were forfeited, like
Sir John Colville of the Dale, for following our betters to the field
of Langside; and in the contentious times of the last Stewarts we were
severely fined for harbouring and resetting intercommuned ministers, and
narrowly escaped giving a martyr to the Calendar of the Covenant, in the
person of the father of our family historian. He “took the sheaf from
the mare,” however, as the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept of the
terms of pardon offered by Government, and sign the bond in evidence he
would give no further ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his
father’s backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts himself with
ascribing his want of resolution to his unwillingness to wreck the
ancient name and family, and to permit his lands and lineage to fall
under a doom of forfeiture.
“And indeed,” said the venerable compiler, “as, praised be God, we
seldom meet in Scotland with these belly-gods and voluptuaries, whilk
are unnatural enough to devour their patrimony bequeathed to them by
their forbears in chambering and wantonness, so that they come, with the
prodigal son, to the husks and the swine-trough; and as I have the less
to dreid the existence of such unnatural Neroes in mine own family to
devour the substance of their own house like brute beasts out of mere
gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn mine descendants
against over-hastily meddling with the mutations in state and in
religion, which have been near-hand to the bringing this poor house of
Croftangry to perdition, as we have shown more than once. And albeit
I would not that my successors sat still altogether when called on by
their duty to Kirk and King, yet I would have them wait till stronger
and walthier men than themselves were up, so that either they may have
the better chance of getting through the day, or, failing of that,
the conquering party having some fatter quarry to live upon, may, like
gorged hawks, spare the smaller game.”
There was something in this conclusion which at first reading piqued
me extremely, and I was so unnatural as to curse the whole concern, as
poor, bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man was saying a great
deal about nothing at all. Nay, my first impression was to thrust it
into the fire, the rather that it reminded me, in no very flattering
manner, of the loss of the family property, to which the compiler of the
history was so much attached, in the very manner which he most severely
reprobated. It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings that his unprescient
gaze on futurity, in which he could not anticipate the folly of one of
his descendants, who should throw away the whole inheritance in a few
years of idle expense and folly, was meant as a personal incivility to
myself, though written fifty or sixty years before I was born.
A little reflection made me ashamed or this feeling of impatience,
and as I looked at the even, concise, yet tremulous hand in which the
manuscript was written, I could not help thinking, according to an
opinion I have heard seriously maintained, that something of a man’s
character may be conjectured from his handwriting. That neat but
crowded and constrained small-hand argued a man of a good conscience,
well-regulated passions, and, to use his own phrase, an upright walk in
life; but it also indicated narrowness of spirit, inveterate prejudice,
and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which, though not natural to
the disposition, had arisen out of a limited education. The passages
from Scripture and the classics, rather profusely than happily
introduced, and written in a half-text character to mark their
importance, illustrated that peculiar sort of pedantry which always
considers the argument as gained if secured by a quotation. Then the
flourished capital letters, which ornamented the commencement of each
paragraph, and the names of his family and of his ancestors whenever
these occurred in the page, do they not express forcibly the pride and
sense of importance with which the author undertook and accomplished
his task? I persuaded myself the whole was so complete a portrait of the
man, that it would not have been a more undutiful act to have defaced
his picture, or even to have disturbed his bones in his coffin, than to
destroy his manuscript. I thought, for a moment, of presenting it to
Mr. Fairscribe; but that confounded passage about the prodigal and
swine-trough--I settled at last it was as well to lock it up in my own
bureau, with the intention to look at it no more.
But I do not know how it was, that the subject began to sit nearer my
heart than I was aware of, and I found myself repeatedly engaged in
reading descriptions of farms which were no longer mine, and boundaries
which marked the property of others. A love of the NATALE SOLUM, if
Swift be right in translating these words, “family estate,” began to
awaken in my bosom--the recollections of my own youth adding little to
it, save what was connected with field-sports. A career of pleasure is
unfavourable for acquiring a taste for natural beauty, and still more so
for forming associations of a sentimental kind, connecting us with the
inanimate objects around us.
I had thought little about my estate while I possessed and was wasting
it, unless as affording the rude materials out of which a certain
inferior race of creatures, called tenants, were bound to produce (in a
greater quantity than they actually did) a certain return called rent,
which was destined to supply my expenses. This was my general view of
the matter. Of particular places, I recollected that Garval Hill was
a famous piece of rough upland pasture for rearing young colts, and
teaching them to throw their feet; that Minion Burn had the finest
yellow trout in the country; that Seggy-cleugh was unequalled for
woodcocks; that Bengibbert Moors afforded excellent moorfowl-shooting;
and that the clear, bubbling fountain called the Harper’s Well was
the best recipe in the world on the morning after a HARD-GO with my
neighbour fox-hunters. Still, these ideas recalled, by degrees, pictures
of which I had since learned to appreciate the merit--scenes of silent
loneliness, where extensive moors, undulating into wild hills, were only
disturbed by the whistle of the plover or the crow of the heathcock;
wild ravines creeping up into mountains, filled with natural wood, and
which, when traced downwards along the path formed by shepherds and
nutters, were found gradually to enlarge and deepen, as each formed a
channel to its own brook, sometimes bordered by steep banks of earth,
often with the more romantic boundary of naked rocks or cliffs crested
with oak, mountain ash, and hazel--all gratifying the eye the more that
the scenery was, from the bare nature of the country around, totally
unexpected.
I had recollections, too, of fair and fertile holms, or level plains,
extending between the wooded banks and the bold stream of the Clyde,
which, coloured like pure amber, or rather having the hue of the
pebbles called Cairngorm, rushes over sheets of rock and beds of gravel,
inspiring a species of awe from the few and faithless fords which it
presents, and the frequency of fatal accidents, now diminished by the
number of bridges. These alluvial holms were frequently bordered by
triple and quadruple rows of large trees, which gracefully marked their
boundary, and dipped their long arms into the foaming stream of the
river. Other places I remembered, which had been described by the
old huntsman as the lodge of tremendous wild-cats, or the spot where
tradition stated the mighty stag to have been brought to bay, or where
heroes, whose might was now as much forgotten, were said to have been
slain by surprise, or in battle.
It is not to be supposed that these finished landscapes became visible
before the eyes of my imagination, as the scenery of the stage is
disclosed by the rising of the curtain. I have said that I had looked
upon the country around me, during the hurried and dissipated period
of my life, with the eyes, indeed, of my body, but without those of my
understanding. It was piece by piece, as a child picks out its lesson,
that I began to recollect the beauties of nature which had once
surrounded me in the home of my forefathers. A natural taste for them
must have lurked at the bottom of my heart, which awakened when I was
in foreign countries, and becoming by degrees a favourite passion,
gradually turned its eyes inwards, and ransacked the neglected stores
which my memory had involuntarily recorded, and, when excited, exerted
herself to collect and to complete.
I began now to regret more bitterly than ever the having fooled away
my family property, the care and improvement of which I saw might have
afforded an agreeable employment for my leisure, which only went to
brood on past misfortunes, and increase useless repining. “Had but
a single farm been reserved, however small,” said I one day to Mr.
Fairscribe, “I should have had a place I could call my home, and
something that I could call business.”
“It might have been managed,” answered Fairscribe; “and for my part, I
inclined to keep the mansion house, mains, and some of the old family
acres together; but both Mr. -- and you were of opinion that the money
would be more useful.”
“True, true, my good friend,” said I; “I was a fool then, and did not
think I could incline to be Glentanner with L200 or L300 a year, instead
of Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then a haughty, pettish,
ignorant, dissipated, broken-down Scottish laird; and thinking my
imaginary consequence altogether ruined, I cared not how soon, or how
absolutely, I was rid of everything that recalled it to my own memory,
or that of others.”
“And now it is like you have changed your mind?” said Fairscribe. “Well,
fortune is apt to circumduce the term upon us; but I think she may allow
you to revise your condescendence.”
“How do you mean, my good friend?”
“Nay,” said Fairscribe, “there is ill luck in averring till one is sure
of his facts. I will look back on a file of newspapers, and to-morrow
you shall hear from me. Come, help yourself--I have seen you fill your
glass higher.”
“And shall see it again,” said I, pouring out what remained of our
bottle of claret; “the wine is capital, and so shall our toast be--‘To
your fireside, my good friend.’ And now we shall go beg a Scots song
without foreign graces from my little siren, Miss Katie.”
The next day, accordingly, I received a parcel from Mr. Fairscribe with
a newspaper enclosed, among the advertisements of which one was marked
with a cross as requiring my attention. I read, to my surprise:--
“DESIRABLE ESTATE FOR SALE.
“By order of the Lords of Council and Session, will be exposed to sale
in the New Sessions House of Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 25th November,
18--, all and whole the lands and barony of Glentanner, now called
Castle Treddles, lying in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale, and shire of
Lanark, with the teinds, parsonage and vicarage, fishings in the Clyde,
woods, mosses, moors, and pasturages,” etc., etc.
The advertisement went on to set forth the advantages of the soil,
situation, natural beauties, and capabilities of improvement, not
forgetting its being a freehold estate, with the particular polypus
capacity of being sliced up into two, three, or, with a little
assistance, four freehold qualifications, and a hint that the county
was likely to be eagerly contested between two great families. The upset
price at which “the said lands and barony and others” were to be exposed
was thirty years’ purchase of the proven rental, which was about a
fourth more than the property had fetched at the last sale. This, which
was mentioned, I suppose, to show the improvable character of the land,
would have given another some pain. But let me speak truth of myself in
good as in evil--it pained not me. I was only angry that Fairscribe,
who knew something generally of the extent of my funds, should have
tantalized me by sending me information that my family property was in
the market, since he must have known that the price was far out of my
reach.
But a letter dropped from the parcel on the floor, which attracted my
eye, and explained the riddle. A client of Mr. Fairscribe’s, a moneyed
man, thought of buying Glentanner, merely as an investment of money--it
was even unlikely he would ever see it; and so the price of the whole
being some thousand pounds beyond what cash he had on hand, this
accommodating Dives would gladly take a partner in the sale for any
detached farm, and would make no objection to its including the most
desirable part of the estate in point of beauty, provided the price was
made adequate. Mr. Fairscribe would take care I was not imposed on in
the matter, and said in his card he believed, if I really wished to make
such a purchase, I had better go out and look at the premises, advising
me, at the same time, to keep a strict incognito--an advice somewhat
superfluous, since I am naturally of a retired and reserved disposition.