attitude steady as stones. That is beautiful. Ponto straight as a
rod--Piro in a slight curve--and Basta a perfect semicircle. O'Bronte!
down on your marrowbones. But there is no need, Hamish, either for hurry
or haste. On such ground, and on such a day, the birds will lie as if
they were asleep. Hamish, the flask!--not the powder-flask, you
dotterel--but the Glenlivet. 'Tis thus we always love to steady our hand
for the first shot. It gives a fine feeling to the forefinger.
Ha! the heads of the old cock and hen, like snakes, above the
heather--motionless, but with glancing eyes--and preparing for the
spring. Whirr--whirr--whirr--bang--bang--tapsilleery--tapsalteery--thud--
thud--thud! Old cock and old hen both down, Hamish. No mean omen, no
awkward augury, of the day's sport. Now for the orphan family--marked ye
them round
"The swelling instep of the mountain's foot?"
"Faith and she's the teevil's nainsel--that is she--at the shutin'; for
may I tine ma mull, and never pree sneeshin' mair, if she haena richt
and left murdered fowre o' the creturs!"--"Four!--why, we only covered
the old people; but if younkers will cross, 'tis their own fault that
they bite the heather."--"They're a' fowre spewin', sir, except ane--and
her head's aff--and she's jumpin' about waur nor ony o' them, wi' her
bluidy neck. I wuss she mayna tak to her wings again, and owre the
knowe. But ca' in that great toozy outlandish dowg, sir, for he's
devourin' them--see hoo he's flingin' them, first ane and then anither,
outowre his shouther, and keppin' them afore they touch the grun' in his
mouth, like a mountebank wi' a shour o' oranges!"--"Hamish, are they
bagged?"--"Ou ay."--"Then away to windward, ye sons of bitches--Heavens,
how they do their work!"
Up to the time of our grand climacteric we loved a wide range--and
thought nothing of describing and discussing a circle of ten miles
diameter in a day, up to our hips in heather. But for these dozen or
twenty years bypast we have preferred a narrow beat, snugly seated on a
shelty, and pad the hoof on the hill no more. Yonder is the kind of
ground we now love--for why should an old man make a toil of a pleasure?
'Tis one of the many small coves belonging to Glen-Etive, and looks down
from no very great elevation upon the Loch. Its bottom, and sides nearly
half-way up, are green pastures, sheep-nibbled as smooth as a lawn--and
a rill, dropping in diamonds from the cliffs at its upper end, betrays
itself, where the water is invisible, by a line of still livelier
verdure. An old dilapidated sheepfold is the only building, and seems to
make the scene still more solitary. Above the green pastures are the
richest beds and bosoms of heather ever bees murmured on--and above them
nothing but bare cliffs. A stiff breeze is now blowing into this cove
from the sea-loch; and we shall slaughter the orphan family at our
leisure. 'Tis probable they have dropped--single bird after single
bird--or in twos and threes--all along the first line of heather that
met their flight; and if so, we shall pop them like partridges in
turnips. Three points in the game! Each dog, it is manifest, stands to a
different lot of feathers; and we shall slaughter them, without
dismounting, _seriatim_. No, Hamish--we must dismount--give us your
shoulder--that will do. The Crutch--now we are on our pins. Take a
lesson. Whirr! Bang! Bag number one, Hamish. Ay, that is right,
Ponto--back Basta. Ditto, ditto. Now Ponto and Basta both back
Piro--right and left this time--and not one of the brood will be left to
cheep of Christopher. Be ready--attend us with the other double-barrel.
Whirr! Bang--bang--bang--bang! What think you of that, you son of the
mist? There is a shower of feathers! They are all at sixes and sevens
upon the greensward at the edge of the heather. Seven birds at four
shots! The whole family is now disposed of--father, mother, and eleven
children. If such fire still be in the dry wood, what must it have been
in the green? Let us lie down in the sheltered shade of the mossy walls
of the sheepfold--take a drop of Glenlivet--and philosophise.
Hollo! Hamish, who are these strange, suspicious-looking strangers
thitherwards-bound, as hallan-shaker a set as may be seen on an August
day? Ay, ay, we ken the clan. A week's residence to a man of gumption
gives an insight into a neighbourhood. Unerring physiognomists and
phrenologists are we, and what with instinctive, and what with intuitive
knowledge, we keek in a moment through all disguise. He in the centre of
the group is the stickit minister--on his right stands the drunken
dominie--on his left the captain, who in that raised look retains token
of _delirium tremens_--the land-louper behind him is the land-measurer,
who would be well to do in the world were he "monarch of all he
surveyed,"--but has been long out at elbows, and his society not much
courted since he was rude to the auld wife at the time the gudeman was
at the peats. That fine tall youth, the widow's son in Gleno, and his
friend the Sketcher, with his portfolio under his arm, are in
indifferent company, Hamish; but who, pray, may be the phenomenon in
plush, with bow and arrow, and tasseled horn, bonnet jauntily screwed to
the sinister, glass stuck in socket, and precisely in the middle of his
puckered mouth a cigar. You do not say so--a grocer's apprentice from
the Gorbals!
No need of confabulating there, gemmen, on the knowe--come forward and
confront Christopher North. We find we have been too severe in our
strictures. After all, they are not a bad set of fellows, as the world
goes--imprudence must not be too harshly condemned--Shakespeare taught
us to see the soul of good in things evil--these two are excellent lads;
and, as for impertinence, it often proceeds from _mauvais honte_, and
with a glance we shall replace the archer behind his counter.
How goes it, Cappy? Rather stiff in the back, minister, with the mouth
of the fowling-piece peeping out between the tails of your long coat,
and the butt at the back of your head, by way of bolster? You will find
it more comfortable to have her in hand. That bamboo, dominie, is well
known to be an air-gun. Have you your horse-pistol with you to-day,
surveyor? Sagittarius, think you, you could hit, at twoscore, a
haystack flying? Sit down, gentlemen, and let's have a crack.
So ho! so ho! so ho! We see her black eyes beneath a primrose tuft on
the brae. In spring all one bank of blossoms; but 'tis barish now and
sheep-nibbled, though few eyes but our own could have thus detected
there the brown back of Maukin. Dominie, your bamboo. Shoot her sitting?
Fie fie--no, no. Kick her up, Hamish. There she goes. We are out of
practice at single ball--but whizz! she has it between the shoulders.
Head-over-heels she has started another--why, that's funny--give us your
bow and arrow, you green grocer--twang! within an inch of her fud.
Gentlemen, suppose we tip you a song. Join all in the chorus.
THE POWCHER'S SONG.
When I was boon apprentice
In vamous Zoomerzet Shere,
Lauks! I zerved my meester truly
Vor neerly zeven yeer,
_U_ntil I took to _Pow_ching,
Az you zhall quickly heer.
CHO. Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year:
Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year.
Az me and ma coomerades
Were zetting on a snere,
Lauks! the Geamkeepoors caem oop to uz;
Vor them we did na kere,
'Case we could fight or wrestle, lads,
Jump over ony wheere.
CHO. Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year:
Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year.
Az we went oot wan morning
Atwixt your vive and zeex,
We cautcht a here alive, ma lads,
We found un in a deetch;
We popt un in a bag, ma lads,
We yoiten off vor town,
We took un to a neeghboor's hoose,
And we zold un vor a crown.
We zold un vor a crown, ma lads,
But a wont tell ye wheere.
CHO. Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year:
Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year.
Then here's success to Powching,
Vor A doos think it feere,
And here's look to ere a gentleman
Az wants to buy a heere,
And here's to ere a geamkeepoor,
Az woona zell it deere.
CHO. Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year:
Ou! 'twas ma delyght in a shiny night,
In the zeazon of the year.
The Presbytery might have overlooked your fault, Mac, for the case was
not a flagrant one, and you were willing, we understand, to make her an
honest woman. Do you think you could recollect one of your sermons? In
action and in unction you had not your superior in the Synod. Do give us
a screed about Nimrod or Nebuchadnezzar. No desecration in a
sermon--better omitted, we grant, prayer and psalm. Should you be unable
to reproduce an entire discourse, yet by dove-tailing--that is, a bit
from one and a bit from another--surely you can be at no loss for half
an hour's miscellaneous matter--heads and tails. Or suppose we let you
off with a View of the Church Question. You look glum and shake your
head. Can you, Mac, how can you resist that Pulpit?
Behold in that semicircular low-browed cliff, backed by a range of bonny
green braes dipping down from the hills that do themselves come shelving
from the mountains, what appears at first sight to be a cave, but is
merely a blind window, as it were, a few feet deep, arched and faced
like a beautiful work of masonry, though chisel never touched it, nor
man's hand dropped the line along the living stone thus wrought by
nature's self, who often shows us, in her mysterious processes,
resemblances of effects produced by us her children on the same
materials by our more most elaborate art. It is a very pulpit, and that
projecting slab is the sounding-board. That upright stone in front of
it, without the aid of fancy, may well be thought the desk. To us
sitting here, this spot of greensward is the floor; the sky that hangs
low, as if it loved it, the roof of the sanctuary; nor is there any harm
in saying, that we, if we choose to think so, are sitting in a kirk.
Shall we mount the pulpit by that natural flight of steps, and, like a
Sedgwick or a Buckland, with a specimen in one hand, and before our eyes
mountains whose faces the scars of thunder have intrenched, tell you how
the globe, after formation on formation, became fit residence for
new-created man, and habitable no more to flying dragons? Or shall we,
rather, taking the globe as we find it, speculate on the changes wrought
on its surface by us, whom God gave feet to tread the earth, and faces
to behold the heavens, and souls to soar into the heaven of heavens, on
the wings of hope, aspiring through temporal shades to eternal light?
Brethren!--The primary physical wants of the human being are food,
clothing, shelter, and defence. To supply these he has invented all his
arts. Hunger and Thirst cultivate the earth. Fear builds castles and
embattles cities. The animal is clothed by nature against cold and
storm, and shelters himself in his den. Man builds his habitation, and
weaves his clothing. With horns, or teeth, or claws, the strong and
deadly weapons with which nature has furnished them, the animal kinds
wage their war; he forges swords and spears, and constructs implements
of destruction that will send death almost as far as his eye can mark
his foe, and sweep down thousands together. The animal that goes in
quest of his food, that pursues or flies from his enemy, has feet, or
wings, or fins; but man bids the horse, the camel, the elephant, bear
him, and yokes them to his chariot. If the strong animal would cross the
river, he swims. Man spans it with a bridge. But the most powerful of
them all stands on the beach and gazes on the ocean. Man constructs a
ship, and encircles the globe. Other creatures must traverse the element
nature has assigned, with means she has furnished. He chooses his
element, and makes his means. Can the fish traverse the waters? So can
he. Can the bird fly the air? So can he. Can the camel speed over the
desert? He shall bear man as his rider.
"That's beautifu'!" "Tuts, haud your tongue, and tak a chow. There's
some shag." "Is he gaun to be lang, Hamish?" "Wheesht! you micht as weel
be speakin in the kirk."
But to see what he owes to inventive art, we should compare man, not
with inferior creatures, but with himself, looking over the face of
human society, as history or observation shows it. We shall find him
almost sharing the life of brutes, or removed from them by innumerable
differences, and incalculable degrees. In one place we see him
harbouring in caves, naked, living, we might almost say, on prey,
seeking from chance his wretched sustenance, food which he eats just as
he finds it. He lives like a beggar on the alms of nature. Turn to
another land, and you see the face of the earth covered with the works
of his hand--his habitation, widespreading stately cities--his clothing
and the ornaments of his person culled and fashioned from the three
kingdoms of nature. For his food the face of the earth bears him
tribute; and the seasons and changes of heaven concur with his own art
in ministering to his board. This is the difference which man has made
in his own condition by the use of his intellectual powers, awakened and
goaded on by the necessities of his physical constitution.
The various knowledge, the endlessly multiplied observation, the
experience and reasonings of man added to man, of generation following
generation, which were required to bring to a moderate state of
advancement the great primary arts subservient to physical life--the
arts of providing food, habitation, clothing, and defence, _we_ are
utterly unable to conceive. We are _born_ to the knowledge which was
collected by the labours of many ages. How slowly were those arts reared
up which still remain to us! How many which had laboriously been brought
to perfection, have been displaced by superior invention, and fallen
into oblivion! Fenced in as we are by the works of our predecessors, we
see but a small part of the power of man contending with the
difficulties of his lot. But what a wonderful scene would be opened
before our eyes, with what intense interest should we look on, if we
could indeed behold him armed only with his own implanted powers, and
going forth to conquer the creation! If we could see him beginning by
subduing evils, and supplying painful wants--going on to turn those
evils and wants into the means of enjoyment--and at length, in the
wantonness and pride of his power, filling his existence with
luxuries;--if we could see him from his first step, in the untamed
though fruitful wilderness, advancing to subdue the soil, to tame and
multiply the herds--from bending the branches into a bower, to fell the
forest and quarry the rock--seizing into his own hands the element of
fire, directing its action on substances got from the bowels of the
earth--fashioning wood, and stone, and metal, to the will of his
thought--searching the nature of plants to spin their fibres, or with
their virtues to heal his diseases;--if we could see him raise his first
cities, launch his first ship, calling the winds and waters to be his
servants, and to do his work--changing the face of the earth--forming
lakes and rivers--joining seas, or stretching the continent itself into
the dominion of the sea;--if we could do all this in imagination, then
should we understand something of what man's intellect has done for his
physical life, and what the necessities of his physical life have done
in forcing into action all the powers of his intelligence.
But there are still higher considerations arising from the influence of
man's physical necessities on the destiny of the species. It is this
subjugation of natural evil, and this created dominion of art, that
prepares the earth to be the scene of his social existence. His hard
conquest was not the end of his toil. He has conquered the kingdom in
which he was to dwell in his state. The full unfolding of his moral
powers was only possible in those states of society which are thus
brought into being by his conflict with all his physical faculties
against all the stubborn powers of the material universe; for out of the
same conquest Wealth is created. In this progress, and by means thus
brought into action, society is divided into classes. Property itself,
the allotment of the earth, takes place, because it is the bosom of the
earth that yields food. That great foundation of the stability of
communities is thus connected with the same necessity; and in the same
progress, and out of the same causes, arise the first great Laws by
which society is held together in order. Thus that whole wonderful
development of the Moral Nature of man, in all those various forms
which fill up the history of the race, in part arises out of, and is
always intimately blended with, the labours to which he has been aroused
by those first great necessities of his physical nature. But had the
tendency to increase his numbers been out of all proportion to the means
provided by nature, and infinitely multipliable by art, for the
subsistence of human beings, how could this magnificent march have moved
on?
Hence we may understand on what ground the ancient nations revered so
highly, and even deified, the authors of the primary arts of life. They
considered not the supply of the animal wants merely; but they
contemplated that mighty change in the condition of mankind to which
these arts have given origin. It is on this ground that they had raised
the character of human life, that Virgil assigns them their place in the
dwellings of bliss, among devoted patriots and holy priests, among those
whom song or prophecy had inspired, among those benefactors of the race
whose names were to live for ever, giving his own most beautiful
expression to the common sentiment of mankind.
"Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi,
Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat,
Quique pii vates, et Phoebo digna locuti,
_Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes_,
Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo;
_Omnibus his_ nivea cinguntur tempora vitta."
"That's Latin for the minister and the dominie." "Wheesht! Heard you
ever the like o' that? Though I dinna understand a word o't, it gars me
a' grue." "Wheesht! wheesht!--we maun pit him intil Paurliment"--"Rather
intil the General Assembly, to tussle wi' the wild men." "He's nae
Moderate, man; and gin I'm no sair mistaen, he's a wild man himsel, and
wull uphaud the Veto." "Wheesht! wheesht! wheesht!"
True, that in savage life men starve. But is that any proof that nature
has cursed the race with a fatal tendency to multiply beyond the means
of subsistence? None whatever. Attend for a little to this point. Of the
real power of the bodily appetites for food, and the sway they may
attain over the moral nature of the mind, we, who are protected by our
place among the arrangements of civil society from greatly suffering
under it, can indeed form no adequate conception. Let us not now speak
of those dreadful enormities which, in the midst of dismal famine, are
recorded to have been perpetrated by civilised men, when the whole moral
soul, with all its strongest affections and instinctive abhorrences, has
sunk prostrate under the force of that animal suffering. But the power
of which we speak, as attained by this animal feeling, subsists
habitually among whole tribes and nations. It is that power which it
acquires over the mind of the savage, who is frequently exposed to
suffer its severity, and who hunts for himself the food with which he is
to appease it. Compare the mind of the human being as you are accustomed
to behold him, knowing the return of this sensation only as a grateful
incitement to take the ready nourishment which is spread for his repast,
with that of his fellow-man bearing through the lonely woods the gnawing
pang that goads him to his prey. Hunger _is_ in his heart; hunger bears
along his unfatiguing feet; hunger lies in the strength of his arm;
hunger watches in his eye; hunger listens in his ear; as he couches down
in his covert, silently waiting the approach of his expected spoil, this
is the sole thought that fills his aching breast--"I shall satisfy my
hunger!" When his deadly aim has brought his victim to the ground, this
is the thought that springs up as he rushes to seize it, "I have got
food for my hungry soul!" What must be the usurpation of animal nature
here over the whole man! It is not merely the simple pain, as if it were
the forlornness of a human creature bearing about his famishing
existence in helplessness and despair--though that, too, is indeed a
true picture of some states of our race; but here is not a suffering and
sinking wretch--he is a strong hunter, and puts forth his strength
fiercely under the urgency of this passion. All his might in the
chase--all pride of speed, and strength, and skill--all thoughts of long
and hard endurance--all images of perils past--all remembrances and all
foresight--are gathered on that one strong and keen desire--are bound
down to the sense of that one bitter animal want. These feelings
recurring day by day in the sole toil of his life, bring upon his soul a
vehemence and power of desire in this object, of which we can have no
conception, till he becomes subjected to hunger as to a mighty animal
passion--a passion such as it rages in those fierce animal kinds which
it drives with such ferocity on their prey. He knows hunger as the wolf
knows it--he goes forth with his burning heart, like the tiger to lap
blood. But turn to man in another condition to which he has been brought
by the very agency of his physical on his intellectual and moral being!
How far removed is he now from that daily contention with such evils as
these! How much does he feel himself assured against them by belonging
to the great confederacy of social life! How much is it veiled from his
eyes by the many artificial circumstances in which the satisfaction of
the want is involved! The work in which he labours the whole day--on
which his eyes are fixed and his hands toil--is something altogether
unconnected with his own wants--connected with distant wants and
purposes of a thousand other men in which he has no participation. And
as far as it is a work of skill, he has to fix his mind on objects and
purposes so totally removed from himself, that they all tend still more
to sever his thoughts from his own necessities; and thus it is that
civilisation raises his moral character, when it protects almost every
human being in a country from that subjection to this passion, to which
even noble tribes are bound down in the wilderness of nature.
"It's an awfu' thing hunger, Hamish, sure aneuch; but I wush he was
dune; for that vice o' his sing-sangin is makin me unco sleepy--and ance
I fa' owre, I'm no easy waukenin. But wha's that snorin?"