SCOTLAND, GLASGOW LIFE, AND THE CALEDONIAN LINE.
On the last day of December, in the year 1872, between seven and eight
o'clock in the evening, I arrived at Glasgow by the Caledonian train from
Carlisle, and was met at Buchanan Street Station by my good friend Tom.
After supper we repaired to the streets to see the crowds that congregate
on _Hogmanhay_, to make acquaintance with the mysteries of
"first-footin'," and to join in ushering in the "guid new year." It was
a stirring time, for Scotchmen encounter their _Hogmanhay_ with ardent
_spirits_. They are as keen in their pleasures as in their work. Compare
for instance their country dances with ours. As Keats, in his letters
from Scotland says, "it is about the same as leisurely stirring a cup o'
tea and beating up a batter pudding." The public houses and bars were
driving a lively trade, but "Forbes Mackenzie" was in force, and come
eleven o'clock, though it were a hundred _Hogmanhays_, they all had to
close. We met some new-made friends of Tom's and joined in their
conviviality. I was the dark complexioned man of the party, and as a
"first-footer" in great request. We did not go home till morning, and
reached there a little hilarious ourselves, but it was our first
_Hogmanhay_ and may be forgiven.
Dear reader, did you ever lie in a _concealed bed_? It is a Scottish
device cunningly contrived to murder sleep. At least so Tom and I found
it. It was my fate to sleep, to lie I should say, in one for several
weeks. Its purpose is to economise space, and like Goldsmith's chest of
drawers, it is "contrived a double debt to pay," a sleeping room by
night, a sitting room by day.
Whilst Glasgow is a city of _flats_ its people are resourceful and
energetic. Keen and canny, they drive a close bargain but, scrupulous
and conscientious, fulfil it faithfully. Proud of their city and its
progress, its industries and manufactures, its civic importance, they are
a little disdainful perhaps, perhaps a little jealous, of their beautiful
elder sister, Edinburgh. Glasgow is the Belfast of Scotland!
Self-contained houses are the exception and are limited to the well-to-
do. The flat, in most cases, means a restricted number of apartments,
insufficient bedroom accommodation, and the _concealed bed_ is Glasgow's
way of solving the difficulty.
Tom and I did not take kindly to our hole in the wall, and soon found
other lodgings where space was not so circumscribed, and where we could
sleep in an open bed in an open room.
Our new quarters were a great success; a ground-floor flat with a fine
front door; a large well-furnished sitting room with two windows looking
out on to the street, and an equally large double-bedded room at the back
of the sitting room. Our landlady, a kind, motherly, canny Scotchwoman,
looked after us well and favoured us with many a bit of good advice: "You
must be guid laddies, and tak care o' the bawbees; you maun na eat
butchers' meat twice the week; tak plenty o' parritch and dinna be
extravagant." Economy with the good old soul was a cardinal virtue,
waste a deadly sin. I fear she was often shocked at our easy Saxon ways,
though Tom and I thought ourselves models of thrift.
Once, it was on a Sunday, Tom and I, with a party of friends, had had a
very long walk, a regular pedestrian excursion, thirty miles, there or
thereabouts, to use a Scotticism, and poor Tom was quite knocked up and
confined to bed for several days. Our good old landlady was greatly
shocked; a strict Sabbatarian, she knew it was a punishment for "breakin'
the Sabbath; why had na ye gane to the kirk like guid laddies?" We
modestly reminded her that we always did go, excepting of course on this
particular Sunday. "Then whit business had ye to stay awa on ony
Sabbath?" We had nothing to say in answer to this. The dear old
creature was really shocked at our backsliding; but she nursed Tom very
tenderly all the same.
When the sultry heat of summer came we found Glasgow very trying, and
though sorry to leave our good landlady, moved into the country, to
Cambuslang, a village some four miles from the city, which was then
becoming a favourite residential resort.
At Cambuslang I made the acquaintance and became the friend of _Cynicus_,
the humorous artist whose satirical sketches have, for many years, been
well-known and well sold in England, in Scotland and in Ireland too. He
was then a youth of about twenty. Longing to see the world and without
the necessary means, he emulated Goldsmith, made a prolonged tour in
France and Italy supporting himself not by his flute nor by disputations,
but by his brush and palette. For a few weeks at a time he worked in
towns or cities, sold what he painted, and then, with purse replenished,
wandered on. He and I were living "doon the watter," at Dunoon, on the
Clyde, one summer month. A Fancy Dress Bazaar was on at the time. The
first evening we went to it, and he, unobserved, made furtive sketches of
the most prominent people and the prettiest girls. We both sat up all
that night, he working at and finishing the sketches. Next morning by
the first boat and first train, we took them to Glasgow, had six hundred
lithographic copies struck off; back post-haste to Dunoon; in the evening
to the Bazaar, and sold the copies at threepence each. It was an immense
success; we could have disposed of twice the number; every pretty girl's
admirer wanted a copy of her picture, and the portraits of the presiding
"meenister" and of the good-looking unmarried curate were eagerly
purchased by fond mammas and adoring daughters. We had our fun, and
cleared besides a profit of nearly four pounds sterling. This financial
_coup_ would not have come off so well but for the warm-hearted
co-operation of our railway printers, McCorquodale and Coy. They, good
people, entered into our exploit with a will, did their part well, and
made little if any profit, generously leaving that to _Cynicus_ and
myself.
To his mother, like many another clever son, _Cynicus_ owed his talent.
She was a woman of great intellectual endowment, with highly cultivated
literary tastes. Her memory was remarkable and her conversational powers
very great. She read much and thought deeply. In a modest way her
parlour, which attracted many young people of literary and artistic
leanings, recalled the _Salons_ of France of a century ago. She
entertained charmingly with tea and cakes and delightful talk. Of
strong, firm, decided character, she might, perhaps, have been thought a
little deficient in womanly gentleness had not genuine kindness of heart,
motherly feeling, and a happy humour lent a softness to her features and
imparted to them a particular charm. She exercised an authority over her
household which inspired respect and contrasted strikingly with the easy-
going parental ways of to-day. There were other sons and there were
daughters also, all more or less gifted, but _Cynicus_ was the genius of
the family--its bright particular star.
The various lodgings of my bachelor days was never quite of the
conventional sort. The Cambuslang quarters certainly were not. The
house was large and old-fashioned. Originally it had been two smallish
houses: the two front doors still remained side by side, but only one was
used. The rooms on the ground floor were small, the original building
composed of one storey only, but another had been added of quite spacious
dimensions. We had two excellent, large well-furnished rooms upstairs.
The landlady was an interesting character and so was her husband. She
was Irish, he Scotch; she about seventy years of age, he under fifty; she
ruddy, healthy, hearty, good-looking; he, pale, nervous, shy, retiring.
But on the last Thursday of each month he was quite another man. On that
day he went to Glasgow to collect the rents of some small houses he
owned; and generally came home rather "fou" and hilarious, when the old
lady would take him in hand, and put him to bed.
They had an only child, a son, a grown up man, an uncouth ill-looking
ungainly fellow, who did no work, smoked and loafed about, but was the
idol of his mother. He resembled neither parent in the least, and,
except that such vagaries of nature are not unknown, it might have been
supposed that some cuckoo had visited the parental nest.
A gaunt, hard-featured domestic completed this interesting family, and
she was uncommon too. By no means young, what Balzac calls "a woman of
canonical age," she resembled Pere Grandet's tall Nanon. Like Nanon, she
had been the devoted servant of the family for nearly a quarter of a
century, and like her, had no interest outside that of her master and
mistress. She was always working, rarely went out, spoke little, but
ministered to the wants of Tom and myself, and waited on us with
unremitting attention.
Despite all drawbacks, however, they were fine lodgings. The old lady
was a wonderful cook and had all the liberality of her race.
New Year's Day, the great Scotch holiday, Tom and I spent in Edinburgh,
and returned much impressed with its stately beauty.
The next morning I entered upon my work at St. Rollox, where the stores
department of the Caledonian Railway is situated. The head of the
department was styled Stores Superintendent. I thought him the most
impressive looking man I had ever seen. He overpowered me; in his
presence I never felt at ease. He was a big man, and looked bigger than
he was; good-looking too; ruddy, portly, well-dressed and formal. An
embodiment of commercial energy and dignity. In his face gravity,
keenness, and good health were blended. Soon after I joined his staff he
left the Caledonian to become General Manager of Young's Paraffin Oil
Company, and subsequently its Managing Director. Success, I believe,
always attended him. No position could lose any of its importance in his
hands. When he left St. Rollox a great blank was felt; he filled so
large a space. He has lately gone to his rest full of years and honors.
I fear he never liked me, nor had any great opinion of my abilities. This
was not to be wondered at, for I am sure I did not display any excessive
zeal for the work on which I was then employed, and which I found
monotonous and uninteresting.
He confided to his chief clerk, who was my friend, that one day he had
seen me, in business hours, in the city, smoking a cigarette and looking
at the girls, and was sure I would never do much good. He had very
strict business notions. I confessed to the cigarette, but not to the
graver charge. It was a wholesome tonic, however, and pulled me up. I
wanted to get on in life; ambition was stirring within me; and I formed
some good resolutions which, as time went on, I kept more or less
faithfully.
At St. Rollox one's daily lunch was a matter of some difficulty. It was
a district of factories, and the only restaurants were the Great Western
Cooking Depots, where one could get a steak and bread and cheese for
fivepence, but the rooms and tables and accessories were, to say the
least, unappetising. Hunger had to be satisfied, however, and I had to
swallow my pride and my five-pennyworth. I varied this occasionally by
bringing with me my own sandwiches and eating them seated on a tombstone
in Sighthill cemetery, which was less than a quarter of a mile distant
from the stores department.
My work, as I have said, was monotonous enough: writing letters from
dictation, an occupation which gave but little exercise to one's
faculties. I obtained some variation by occasionally taking a turn
through the various stores and getting into touch with the practical men
in charge. They were always very civil and ready to talk of their
business, and so I learned something of the nature, quality, uses and
cost of many things necessary to the working of a railway, which I
afterwards found very useful. Occasionally also I visited the
laboratory, in which an analytical chemist was regularly engaged.
The event which, in my short service of two years with the Caledonian,
seemed to me of the greatest moment, was that, after six months or so, I
became a taxpayer! This was an event indeed. In the offices at Derby it
was only, as a rule, middle-aged or old men who attained this proud
distinction; and here was I, not yet twenty-two, with my salary raised to
100 pounds a year, paying income tax at the rate of _threepence_ in the
pound on forty pounds, for an abatement of sixty pounds was allowed.
Until I got used to the novelty I was as proud as Lucifer.
The office in which I now worked had no Apollos, no literary geniuses, no
Long Jacks, no boy benedicts, such as adorned our desks at Derby, but it
rejoiced in one _rara avis_, who came a few months after and left a few
months before me. He was a middle-aged, aristocratic, kind,
good-hearted, unbusinesslike man, and was brother to a baronet. He
professed a knowledge of medicine and brought a bottle, a bolus or a
plaster, whichever he deemed best, whenever any of us complained of cold
or cough, of headache or backache or any ailment whatever. When he left
we all received from him a parting gift. Mine was a handsome, expensive,
red-felt chest protector. I wore it constantly for a year or two and,
for aught I know, it may be that by its protecting influence against the
rigour of Glasgow winters, the bituminous atmosphere of St. Rollox and
the smoke-charged fogs of the city, I am alive and well to-day. Who can
tell? It is certain that I then had a bad cough nearly always; and this
I am sure was what decided the form of his parting gift to me.
It was about this time that I attended my first public dinner and made my
first speech in public. Several days before the event I was told that,
being in the Volunteer Force, I had been placed on the toast list to
reply for the Army, Navy and Volunteers. It was a railway dinner, for
the purpose of celebrating the departure to England, on promotion, of the
chief clerk in the Midland Railway Company's Scottish Agency Office. The
dinner was largely attended. The idea of having to speak filled me with
trepidation. But to my great surprise I acquitted myself with credit.
Once on my legs I found that nervousness left me, words came freely and I
even enjoyed the novel experience. To suddenly discover oneself
proficient where failure had been feared increases self esteem and adds
to the sum of happiness. At this dinner I also made my first
acquaintance with that "Great chieftain o' the puddin' race," the
_Haggis_, which deserves the pre-eminence it enjoys.
One night, towards the end of December, in 1874, when skating by
moonlight, not far from Cambuslang, I chanced to meet a young friend, a
clerk in the Glasgow and South-Western Railway, who, like myself, was
enjoying the pleasures of the ice. Tom was not with me, for he, poor
fellow! was not well enough to be out o' nights in winter. My young
friend gave me, with great eagerness, a rare piece of news. Mr.
Johnstone, the Glasgow and South-Western general manager, was retiring
and Mr. Wainwright was to succeed him! Well, that did not excite me, and
I wondered at his earnestness; but more was to follow. Mr. Wainwright,
as general manager, required a principal clerk and there was, it seemed,
no one in the place quite suitable. He must be good at correspondence,
and expert at shorthand. I was, my young friend said, the very man; I
must apply. Mr. Wainwright was English, so was I; I came from the
Midland, and the Midland and the Glasgow and South-Western were hand and
glove. How lucky we had met; he had not thought of me till this very
moment. It was fate. Would I write tonight? By this time I was as
eager as himself. No more skating for me that night. I hurried home,
Tom and I composed a careful and judicious letter. I posted it in Her
Majesty's pillar box hard by; went to bed, but was too excited to sleep.
An answer soon came, and an interview with Mr. Wainwright followed. I
received the appointment, at a salary of 120 pounds a year to begin with;
and in the early days of the new year, two years after my first
appearance in Scotland, entered upon my duties, not at Saint Enoch
Station, where the headquarters of the Glasgow and South-Western now are,
but at Bridge Street Station on the south side of the river, where the
office staff of the company was then accommodated.