Liddell till now, except in Doric lays,
Tuned to her murmurs by her love-sick swains,
Unknown in song--though not a purer stream
Rolls towards the western main.
Art of Preserving Health.
The present store-farmers of the south of Scotland are a much more
refined race than their fathers, and the manners I am now to
describe have either altogether disappeared, or are greatly
modified. Without losing the rural simplicity of manners, they now
cultivate arts unknown to the former generation, not only in the
progressive improvement of their possessions, but in all the
comforts of life. Their houses are more commodious, their habits
of life regulated so as better to keep pace with those of the
civilised world, and the best of luxuries, the luxury of knowledge,
has gained much ground among their hills during the last thirty
years. Deep drinking, formerly their greatest failing, is now fast
losing ground; and, while the frankness of their extensive
hospitality continues the same, it is, generally speaking, refined
in its character, and restrained in its excesses.
"Deil's in the wife," said Dandie Dinmont, shaking off his spouse's
embrace, but gently and with a look of great affection;--"deil's in
ye, Ailie--d'ye no see the stranger gentleman?"
Ailie turned to make her apology--"Troth, I was sae weel pleased to
see the gudeman, that--But, gude gracious! what's the matter wi'
ye baith?"--for they were now in her little parlour, and the candle
showed the streaks of blood which Dinmont's wounded head had
plentifully imparted to the clothes of his companion as well as to
his own. "Ye've been fighting again, Dandie, wi' some o' the
Bewcastle horse-coupers! Wow, man, a married man, a bonny family
like yours, should ken better what a father's life's worth in the
warld."--The tears stood in the good woman's eyes as she spoke.
"Whisht! whisht! gudewife," said her husband, with a smack that had
much more affection than ceremony in it; "never mind--never
mind--there's a gentleman that will tell you, that just when I had
ga'en up to Lourie Lowther's, and had bidden the drinking of twa
cheerers, and gotten just in again upon the moss, and was whigging
cannily [*Cautiously] awa hame, twa land-loupers jumpit out of a
peat-bog on me as I was thinking, and got me down, and knevelled
[*Beat] me sair aneuch, or I could gar my whip walk about their
lugs--and troth, gudewife, if this honest gentleman hadna come
up, I would have gotten mair licks than I like, and lost mair
siller than I could weel spare; so ye maun be thankful to him for
it, under God." With that he drew from his side-pocket a large
greasy leather pocket-book, and bade the gudewife lock it up in her
kist. [*Chest]
"God bless the gentleman, and e'en God bless him wi' a' my
heart--but what can we do for him, but to gie him the meat and
quarters we wadna refuse to the poorest body on earth--unless
(her eye directed to the pocket-book, but with a feeling of natural
propriety which made the inference the most delicate possible),
unless there was ony other way--" Brown saw, and estimated at its
due rate, the mixture of simplicity and grateful generosity which
took the downright way of expressing itself, yet qualified with so
much delicacy; he was aware his own appearance, plain at best, and
now torn and spattered with blood, made him an object of pity at
least, and perhaps of charity. He hastened to say his name was
Brown, a captain in the--regiment of cavalry, travelling for
pleasure, and on foot, both from motives of independence and
economy and he begged his kind landlady would look at her husband's
wounds, the state of which he had refused to permit him to
examine. Mrs. Dinmont was used to her husband's broken beads more
than to the presence of a captain of dragoons. She therefore
glanced at a tablecloth not quite clean, and conned over her
proposed supper a minute or two, before, patting her husband on the
shoulder, she bade him sit down for "a hard-headed loon, that was
aye bringing himself and other folk into collie-shangies."
[*Quarrels]
When Dandie Dinmont, after executing two or three caprioles, and
cutting the Highland fling, by way of ridicule of his wife's
anxiety, at last deigned to sit down, and commit his round, black,
shaggy bullet of a head to her inspection, Brown thought he had
seen the regimental surgeon look grave upon a more trifling case.
The gudewife, however, showed some knowledge of chirurgery--she cut
away with her scissors the gory locks, whose stiffened and
coagulated clusters interfered with her operations, and clapped on
the wound some lint besmeared with a vulnerary salve, esteemed
sovereign by the whole dale (which afforded upon Fair nights
considerable experience of such cases)--she then fixed her plaster
with a bandage, and, spite of her patient's resistance, pulled over
all a nightcap, to keep everything in its right place. Some
contusions on the brow and shoulders she fomented with brandy,
which the patient did not permit till the medicine had paid a heavy
toll to his mouth. Mrs. Dinmont then simply, but kindly, offered
her assistance to Brown.
He assured her he had no occasion for anything but the
accommodation of a basin and towel.
"And that's what I should have thought of sooner," she said; "and I
did think o't, but I durst na open the door, for there's a' the
bairns, poor things, sae keen to see their father."
This explained a great drumming and whining at the door of the
little parlour, which had somewhat surprised Brown, though his kind
landlady had only noticed it by fastening the bolt as soon as she
heard it begin. But on her opening the door to seek the basin and
towel (for she never thought of showing the guest to a separate
room), a whole tide of white-headed urchins streamed in, some from
the stable, where they had been seeing Dumple, and giving him a
welcome home with part of their four-hours scones; others from the
kitchen, where they had been listening to auld Elspeth's tales and
ballads; and the youngest half naked, out of bed, all roaring to
see daddy, and to inquire what he had brought home for them from
the various fairs he had visited in his peregrinations. Our knight
of the broken head first kissed and hugged them all round, then
distributed whistles, penny-trumpets, and Gingerbread, and, lastly,
when the tumult of their joy and welcome got beyond bearing,
exclaimed to his guest--"This is a' the gudewife's fault,
Captain--she will gie the bairns a' their ain way."
"Me! Lord help me," said Ailie, who at that instant entered with
the basin and ewer, "how can I help it?--I have naething else to
gie them, poor things!"
Dinmont then exerted himself, and, between coaxing, threats, and
shoving, cleared the room of all the intruders, excepting a boy and
girl, the two eldest of the family, who could, as he observed,
behave themselves "distinctly." For the same reason, but with less
ceremony, all the dogs were kicked out, excepting the venerable
patriarchs, old Pepper and Mustard, whom frequent castigation and
the advance of years had inspired with such a share of passive
hospitality, that, after mutual explanation and remonstrance in the
shape of some growling, they admitted Wasp, who had hitherto judged
it safe to keep beneath his master's chair, to a share of a dried
wedder's skin, which, with the wool uppermost and unshorn, served
all the purposes of a Bristol hearth-rug.
The active bustle of the mistress (so she was called in the
kitchen, and the gudewife in the parlour) had already signed the
fate of a couple of fowls, which, for want of time to dress them
otherwise, soon appeared reeking from the gridiron-or brander, as
Mrs. Dinmont denominated it. A huge piece of cold beef-ham, eggs,
butter, cakes, and barley-meal bannocks in plenty, made up the
entertainment, which was to be diluted with home-brewed ale of
excellent quality, and a case-bottle of brandy. Few soldiers would
find fault with such cheer after a day's hard exercise, and a
skirmish to boot; accordingly Brown did. great honour to the
eatables. While the gudewife partly aided, partly instructed, a
great stout servant girl, with cheeks as red as her top-knot, to
remove the supper matters, and supply sugar and hot water (which,
in the damsel's anxiety to gaze upon an actual live captain, she
was in some danger of forgetting), Brown took an opportunity to ask
his host whether he did not repent of having neglected the gipsy's
hint.
"Wha kens?" answered he;" they're queer deevils;--maybe I might
just have 'scaped ae gang to' meet the other. And yet I'll no say
that neither; for if that randy wife was coming to Charlies-hope,
she should have a pint bottle o' brandy and a pound o' tobacco to
wear her through the winter. They're queer deevils, as my auld
father used to say-they're warst where they're warst guided. After
a', there's baith guid and ill about the gipsies."
This, and some other desultory conversation, served as a "I
shoeing-horn" to draw on another cup of ale and another cheerer, as
Dinmont termed it in his country phrase, of brandy-and-water. Brown
then resolutely declined all further conviviality for that evening,
pleading his own weariness and the effects of time skirmish--being
well aware that it would have availed nothing to have remonstrated
with his host on the danger that excess might have occasioned to
his own raw wound and bloody coxcomb. A very small bedroom, but a
very clean bed, received the traveller, and the sheets made good
the courteous vaunt of the hostess, "that they would be as pleasant
as he could find ony gate, for they were washed wi' the fairy-well
water, and bleached on the bonny white gowans, and bittled [*Beaten
with wooden pestle.] by Nelly and herself, and what could woman,
if she was a queen, do mair for them?"
They indeed rivalled snow in whiteness, and had, besides, a
pleasant fragrance from the manner in which they had been
bleached. Little Wasp, after licking his master's hand to ask
leave, couched himself on the coverlet at his feet; and the
traveller's senses were soon lost in grateful oblivion.