Then sing of stage-coaches,
And fear no reproaches
For riding in one;
But daily be jogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
The coachman drives on. FARQUHAR.
Disguised in a grey surtout which had seen service, a white castor on
my head, and a stout Indian cane in my hand, the next week saw me on the
top of a mail-coach driving to the westward.
I like mail-coaches, and I hate them. I like them for my convenience;
but I detest them for setting the whole world a-gadding, instead of
sitting quietly still minding their own business, and preserving the
stamp of originality of character which nature or education may have
impressed on them. Off they go, jingling against each other in the
rattling vehicle till they have no more variety of stamp in them than so
many smooth shillings--the same even in their Welsh wigs and greatcoats,
each without more individuality than belongs to a partner of the
company, as the waiter calls them, of the North Coach.
Worthy Mr. Piper, best of contractors who ever furnished four frampal
jades for public use, I bless you when I set out on a journey myself;
the neat coaches under your contract render the intercourse, from
Johnnie Groat’s House to Ladykirk and Cornhill Bridge, safe, pleasant,
and cheap. But, Mr. Piper, you who are a shrewd arithmetician, did it
never occur to you to calculate how many fools’ heads, which might have
produced an idea or two in the year, if suffered to remain in quiet,
get effectually addled by jolting to and fro in these flying chariots
of yours; how many decent countrymen become conceited bumpkins after a
cattle-show dinner in the capital, which they could not have attended
save for your means; how many decent country parsons return critics and
spouters, by way of importing the newest taste from Edinburgh? And how
will your conscience answer one day for carrying so many bonny lasses to
barter modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan Vanity Fair?
Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce human intellect. I do
not believe your habitual customers have their ideas more enlarged
than one of your coach-horses. They KNOWS the road, like the English
postilion, and they know nothing besides. They date, like the carriers
at Gadshill, from the death of Robin Ostler; [See Act II. Scene 1 of the
First Part of Shakespeare’s Henry IV.] the succession of guards forms
a dynasty in their eyes; coachmen are their ministers of state; and an
upset is to them a greater incident than a change of administration.
Their only point of interest on the road is to save the time, and see
whether the coach keeps the hour. This is surely a miserable degradation
of human intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and disinterestedly
contrive that once or twice a quarter your most dexterous whip shall
overturn a coachful of these superfluous travellers, IN TERROREM
to those who, as Horace says, “delight in the dust raised by your
chariots.”
Your current and customary mail-coach passenger, too, gets abominably
selfish, schemes successfully for the best seat, the freshest egg, the
right cut of the sirloin. The mode of travelling is death to all the
courtesies and kindnesses of life, and goes a great way to demoralize
the character, and cause it to retrograde to barbarism. You allow us
excellent dinners, but only twenty minutes to eat them. And what is the
consequence? Bashful beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood
on the other; respectable, yet somewhat feeble, old age is placed on our
front; and all require those acts of politeness which ought to put every
degree upon a level at the convivial board. But have we time--we the
strong and active of the party--to perform the duties of the table to
the more retired and bashful, to whom these little attentions are due?
The lady should be pressed to her chicken, the old man helped to his
favourite and tender slice, the child to his tart. But not a fraction of
a minute have we to bestow on any other person than ourselves; and the
PRUT-PRUT--TUT-TUT of the guard’s discordant note summons us to the
coach, the weaker party having gone without their dinner, and the
able-bodied and active threatened with indigestion, from having
swallowed victuals like a Lei’stershire clown bolting bacon.
On the memorable occasion I am speaking of I lost my breakfast, sheerly
from obeying the commands of a respectable-looking old lady, who once
required me to ring the bell, and another time to help the tea-kettle.
I have some reason to think she was literally an OLD-STAGER, who laughed
in her sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn in my secret soul
revenge upon her sex, and all such errant damsels of whatever age and
degree whom I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this without the
least ill-will to my friend the contractor, who, I think, has approached
as near as any one is like to do towards accomplishing the modest wish
cf the Amatus and Amata of the Peri Bathous,--
“Ye gods, annihilate but time and space,
And make two lovers happy.”
I intend to give Mr. P. his full revenge when I come to discuss the more
recent enormity of steamboats; meanwhile, I shall only say of both these
modes of conveyance, that--
“There is no living with them or without them.”
I am, perhaps, more critical on the--mail-coach on this particular
occasion, that I did not meet all the respect from the worshipful
company in his Majesty’s carriage that I think I was entitled to. I must
say it for myself that I bear, in my own opinion at least, not a vulgar
point about me. My face has seen service, but there is still a good set
of teeth, an aquiline nose, and a quick, grey eye, set a little too deep
under the eyebrow; and a cue of the kind once called military may serve
to show that my civil occupations have been sometimes mixed with those
of war. Nevertheless, two idle young fellows in the vehicle, or rather
on the top of it, were so much amused with the deliberation which I used
in ascending to the same place of eminence, that I thought I should have
been obliged to pull them up a little. And I was in no good-humour at
an unsuppressed laugh following my descent when set down at the angle,
where a cross road, striking off from the main one, led me towards
Glentanner, from which I was still nearly five miles distant.
It was an old-fashioned road, which, preferring ascents to sloughs, was
led in a straight line over height and hollow, through moor and dale.
Every object around me; as I passed them in succession, reminded me of
old days, and at the same time formed the strongest contrast with them
possible. Unattended, on foot, with a small bundle in my hand, deemed
scarce sufficient good company for the two shabby-genteels with whom I
had been lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not seem to be
the same person with the young prodigal, who lived with the noblest and
gayest in the land, and who, thirty years before, would, in the same
country, have, been on the back of a horse that had been victor for a
plate, or smoking aloof in his travelling chaise-and-four. My sentiments
were not less changed than my condition. I could quite well remember
that my ruling sensation in the days of heady youth was a mere
schoolboy’s eagerness to get farthest forward in the race in which I had
engaged; to drink as many bottles as --; to be thought as good a judge
of a horse as --; to have the knowing cut of --‘s jacket. These were thy
gods, O Israel!
Now I was a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved, and sometimes an angry
spectator, but still a spectator only, of the pursuits of mankind.
I felt how little my opinion was valued by those engaged in the busy
turmoil, yet I exercised it with the profusion of an old lawyer retired
from his profession, who thrusts himself into his neighbour’s affairs,
and gives advice where it is not wanted, merely under pretence of loving
the crack of the whip.
I came amid these reflections to the brow of a hill, from which I
expected to see Glentanner, a modest-looking yet comfortable house, its
walls covered with the most productive fruit-trees in that part of the
country, and screened from the most stormy quarters of the horizon by a
deep and ancient wood, which overhung the neighbouring hill. The house
was gone; a great part of the wood was felled; and instead of the
gentlemanlike mansion, shrouded and embosomed among its old hereditary
trees, stood Castle Treddles, a huge lumping four-square pile of
freestone, as bare as my nail, except for a paltry edging of decayed and
lingering exotics, with an impoverished lawn stretched before it, which,
instead of boasting deep green tapestry, enamelled with daisies and with
crowsfoot and cowslips, showed an extent of nakedness, raked, indeed,
and levelled, but where the sown grasses had failed with drought, and
the earth, retaining its natural complexion, seemed nearly as brown and
bare as when it was newly dug up.
The house was a large fabric, which pretended to its name of Castle only
from the front windows being finished in acute Gothic arches (being,
by the way, the very reverse of the castellated style), and each angle
graced with a turret about the size of a pepper-box. In every other
respect it resembled a large town-house, which, like a fat burgess, had
taken a walk to the country on a holiday, and climbed to the top of all
eminence to look around it. The bright red colour of the freestone, the
size of the building, the formality of its shape, and awkwardness of its
position, harmonized as ill with the sweeping Clyde in front, and the
bubbling brook which danced down on the right, as the fat civic form,
with bushy wig, gold-headed cane, maroon-coloured coat, and mottled silk
stockings, would have accorded with the wild and magnificent scenery of
Corehouse Linn.
I went up to the house. It was in that state of desertion which is
perhaps the most unpleasant to look on, for the place was going to decay
without having been inhabited. There were about the mansion, though
deserted, none of the slow mouldering touches of time, which communicate
to buildings, as to the human frame, a sort of reverence, while
depriving them of beauty and of strength. The disconcerted schemes of
the Laird of Castle Treddles had resembled fruit that becomes decayed
without ever having ripened. Some windows broken, others patched, others
blocked up with deals, gave a disconsolate air to all around, and seemed
to say, “There Vanity had purposed to fix her seat, but was anticipated
by Poverty.”
To the inside, after many a vain summons, I was at length admitted by
an old labourer. The house contained every contrivance for luxury and
accommodation. The kitchens were a model; and there were hot closets on
the office staircase, that the dishes might not cool, as our Scottish
phrase goes, between the kitchen and the hall. But instead of the genial
smell of good cheer, these temples of Comus emitted the damp odour of
sepulchral vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked like the
cages of some feudal Bastille. The eating room and drawing-room, with an
interior boudoir, were magnificent apartments, the ceiling was fretted
and adorned with stucco-work, which already was broken in many places,
and looked in others damp and mouldering; the wood panelling was shrunk
and warped, and cracked; the doors, which had not been hung for more
than two years, were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from their
hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment had never been; and
the want of all the usual means to preserve was fast performing the work
of decay.
The story was a common one, and told in a few words. Mr. Treddles,
senior, who bought the estate, was a cautious, money-making person. His
son, still embarked in commercial speculations, desired at the same time
to enjoy his opulence and to increase it. He incurred great expenses,
amongst which this edifice was to benumbered. To support these he
speculated boldly, and unfortunately; and thus the whole history is
told, which may serve for more places than Glentanner.
Strange and various feelings ran through my bosom as I loitered in these
deserted apartments, scarce hearing what my guide said to me about the
size and destination of each room. The first sentiment, I am ashamed to
say, was one of gratified spite. My patrician pride was pleased that the
mechanic, who had not thought the house of the Croftangrys sufficiently
good for him, had now experienced a fall in his turn. My next thought
was as mean, though not so malicious. “I have had the better of this
fellow,” thought I. “If I lost the estate, I at least spent the price;
and Mr. Treddles has lost his among paltry commercial engagements.”
“Wretch!” said the secret voice within, “darest thou exult in thy shame?
Recollect how thy youth and fortune was wasted in those years, and
triumph not in the enjoyment of an existence which levelled thee with
the beasts that perish. Bethink thee how this poor man’s vanity gave
at least bread to the labourer, peasant, and citizen; and his profuse
expenditure, like water spilt on the ground, refreshed the lowly herbs
and plants where it fell. But thou! Whom hast thou enriched during
thy career of extravagance, save those brokers of the devil--vintners,
panders, gamblers, and horse-jockeys?” The anguish produced by this
self-reproof was so strong that I put my hand suddenly to my forehead,
and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim to my attendant, in apology
for the action, and a slight groan with which it was accompanied.
I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into a more philosophical
current, and muttered half aloud, as a charm to lull any more painful
thoughts to rest,--
“NUNC AGER UMBRENI SUB NOMINE, NUPER OFELLI
DICTUS ERIT NULLI PROPRIUS; SED CEDIT IN USUM
NUNC MIHI, NUNC ALII. QUOCIRCA VIVITE FORTES,
FORTIAQUE ADVERSIS OPPONITE PECTORA REBUS.”
[Horace Sat.II Lib.2. The meaning will be best conveyed to the English
reader in Pope’s imitation:--
“What’s property, dear Swift? You see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer’s share;
Or in a jointure vanish from the heir.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
“Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham’s delight,
Slides to a scrivener and city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix’d, and our own masters still.”]
In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in my mind, I recited the
last line aloud, which, joined to my previous agitation, I afterwards
found became the cause of a report that a mad schoolmaster had come from
Edinburgh, with the idea in his head of buying Castle Treddles.
As I saw my companion was desirous of getting rid of me, I asked where
I was to find the person in whose hands were left the map of the estate,
and other particulars connected with the sale. The agent who had this in
possession, I was told, lived at the town of --, which I was informed,
and indeed knew well, was distant five miles and a bittock, which may
pass in a country where they are less lavish of their land for two or
three more. Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking so far,
I inquired if a horse or any sort of carriage was to be had, and was
answered in the negative.
“But,” said my cicerone, “you may halt a blink till next morning at the
Treddles Arms, a very decent house, scarce a mile off.”
“A new house, I suppose?” replied I.
“No, it’s a new public, but it’s an auld house; it was aye the Leddy’s
jointure-house in the Croftangry folk’s time. But Mr. Treddles has
fitted it up for the convenience of the country, poor man, he was a
public-spirited man when he had the means.”
“Duntarkin a public-house!” I exclaimed.
“Ay!” said the fellow, surprised at my naming the place by its former
title; “ye’ll hae been in this country before, I’m thinking?”
“Long since,” I replied. “And there is good accommodation at the
what-d’ye-call-’em arms, and a civil landlord?” This I said by way of
saying something, for the man stared very hard at me.
“Very decent accommodation. Ye’ll no be for fashing wi’ wine, I’m
thinking; and there’s walth o’ porter, ale, and a drap gude whisky”
(in an undertone)--“Fairntosh--if you call get on the lee-side of the
gudewife--for there is nae gudeman. They ca’ her Christie Steele.”
I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele! Christie Steele was
my mother’s body-servant, her very right hand, and, between ourselves,
something like a viceroy over her. I recollected her perfectly; and
though she had in former times been no favourite of mine, her name now
sounded in my ear like that of a friend, and was the first word I had
heard somewhat in unison with the associations around me. I sallied from
Castle Treddles, determined to make the best of my way to Duntarkin,
and my cicerone hung by me for a little way, giving loose to his love
of talking--an opportunity which, situated as he was, the seneschal of a
deserted castle, was not likely to occur frequently.
“Some folk think,” said my companion, “that Mr. Treddles might as weel
have put my wife as Christie Steele into the Treddles Arms; for Christie
had been aye in service, and never in the public line, and so it’s like
she is ganging back in the world, as I hear. Now, my wife had keepit a
victualling office.”
“That would have been an advantage, certainly,” I replied.
“But I am no sure that I wad ha’ looten Eppie take it, if they had put
it in her offer.”
“That’s a different consideration.”
“Ony way, I wadna ha’ liked to have offended Mr. Treddles. He was a wee
toustie when you rubbed him again the hair; but a kind, weel-meaning
man.”
I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and finding myself near the
entrance of a footpath which made a short cut to Duntarkin, I put half a
crown into my guide’s hand, bade him good-evening, and plunged into the
woods.
“Hout, sir--fie, sir--no from the like of you. Stay, sir, ye wunna find
the way that gate.--Odd’s mercy, he maun ken the gate as weel as I do
mysel’. Weel, I wad like to ken wha the chield is.”
Such were the last words of my guide’s drowsy, uninteresting tone of
voice and glad to be rid of him, I strode out stoutly, in despite of
large stones, briers, and BAD STEPS, which abounded in the road I had
chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I could, with verses from
Horace and Prior, and all who have lauded the mixture of literary with
rural life, to call back the visions of last night and this morning,
imagining myself settled in same detached farm of the estate of
Glentanner,--
“Which sloping hills around enclose--
Where many a birch and brown oak grows,”
when I should have a cottage with a small library, a small cellar, a
spare bed for a friend, and live more happy and more honoured than when
I had the whole barony. But the sight of Castle Treddles had disturbed
all my own castles in the air. The realities of the matter, like a stone
plashed into a limpid fountain, had destroyed the reflection of the
objects around, which, till this act of violence, lay slumbering on the
crystal surface, and I tried in vain to re-establish the picture which
had been so rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another way. I
would try to get Christie Steele out of her PUBLIC, since she was not
striving in it, and she who had been my mother’s governante should be
mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her history over to myself.
She was grand-daughter, I believe--at least some relative--of the famous
Covenanter of the name, whom Dean Swift’s friend, Captain Creichton,
shot on his own staircase in the times of the persecutions; [See Note
2.--Steele a Covenanter, shot by Captain Creichton.] and had perhaps
derived from her native stock much both of its good and evil properties.
No one could say of her that she was the life and spirit of the family,
though in my mother’s time she directed all family affairs. Her look was
austere and gloomy, and when she was not displeased with you, you could
only find it out by her silence. If there was cause for complaint, real
or imaginary, Christie was loud enough. She loved my mother with the
devoted attachment of a younger sister; but she was as jealous of
her favour to any one else as if she had been the aged husband of a
coquettish wife, and as severe in her reprehensions as an abbess over
her nuns. The command which she exercised over her was that, I fear, of
a strong and determined over a feeble and more nervous disposition and
though it was used with rigour, yet, to the best of Christie Steele’s
belief, she was urging her mistress to her best and most becoming
course, and would have died rather than have recommended any other. The
attachment of this woman was limited to the family of Croftangry; for
she had few relations, and a dissolute cousin, whom late in life she had
taken as a husband, had long left her a widow.
To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from my early childhood she
was jealous, strange as it may seem, of my interest in my mother’s
affections. She saw my foibles and vices with abhorrence, and without
a grain of allowance; nor did she pardon the weakness of maternal
affection even when, by the death of two brothers, I came to be the only
child of a widowed parent. At the time my disorderly conduct induced my
mother to leave Glentanner, and retreat to her jointure-house, I
always blamed Christie Steele for having influenced her resentment and
prevented her from listening to my vows of amendment, which at times
were real and serious, and might, perhaps, have accelerated that change
of disposition which has since, I trust, taken place. But Christie
regarded me as altogether a doomed and predestinated child of perdition,
who was sure to hold on my course, and drag downwards whosoever might
attempt to afford me support.
Still, though I knew such had been Christie’s prejudices against me
in other days, yet I thought enough of time had since passed away
to destroy all of them. I knew that when, through the disorder of my
affairs, my mother underwent some temporary inconvenience about money
matters, Christie, as a thing of course, stood in the gap, and having
sold a small inheritance which had descended to her, brought the
purchase money to her mistress, with a sense of devotion as deep as that
which inspired the Christians of the first age, when they sold all they
had, and followed the apostles of the church. I therefore thought that
we might, in old Scottish phrase, “let byganes be byganes,” and
begin upon a new account. Yet I resolved, like a skilful general,
to reconnoitre a little before laying down any precise scheme of
proceeding, and in the interim I determined to preserve my incognito.