of four panes, showing to the passing traveller two biscuits on edge,
and as many dark green bottles filled with comfits; while within, if
you had chosen to enter, you would have found at one end of the room
in which the decent woman lived, a large cupboard and a small table
forming her mercantile establishment for the sale of all kinds of
small wares. Were you to lounge a little in this humble retreat of
commerce, you might see children coming in every now and then asking
for such things as an ounce of soap, a quarter of an ounce of tea,
a halfpenny-worth of whipcord, or, perhaps (what would astonish you
most of all), change of a penny—viz. two halfpence. Luckie Smytrie
was a woman who had experienced great trials in early life, had had
husbands killed by accidents, sons enlisted for soldiers and slain in
battle, and daughters that died in the morn and liquid dew of youth,
innumerable. Her shop was therefore patronised by all the villagers, to
the prejudice, in some articles, of the more ambitious establishment
of the retired packman; but yet the old woman, like all shopkeepers
who have little rivalry, was as much offended at losing any partial or
occasional custom in favour of that individual, as if she had had a far
stronger and more prescriptive right to the business of the place. For
instance, you might see a boy come in with a small cotton handkerchief
in his hand, and say that his mother had sent him for a halfpenny-worth
of thread, matching with that piece of attire, which she wished to
hem. To which Mrs Smytrie would respond, in a cool voice, but intended
to convey the most cutting sarcasm, “Gang back, hinny, and tell your
mother that it would be far better to get her thread where she got her
napkin.” Or, perhaps, it was an order for bread on a Sunday evening,
from some one who had had an unexpected crowd of visitors at tea. The
request was then put in the following terms:—“Mrs Smytrie [on other
occasions it was plain Tibbie], my mother has her compliments t’ye, and
she wad be muckle obleeged for twa tippeny bricks (loaves), as there’s
some folk come upon her to their four-hours that she didna expeck.” To
the which Mrs Smytrie would answer, in the same cruelly tranquil voice,
“Tell your mother, my woman, that she had better get her bread on the
Sabbath night where she gets’t on the Saturday’t e’en,” well knowing
all the while that the shop referred to was not open, and that there
was no other besides her own in the whole village, or within ten miles
round. Perhaps a child would come in for a halfpenny-worth of paper,
namely, writing-paper; but Mrs Smytrie, mistaking the word, would set
about the elaborate ceremony of weighing out what she supposed the
required quantity of pepper. The boy would look on, not knowing what
to think of it, till at last he was roused from his reverie by having
a neat little conical parcel, with a twist at the point, presented
to him instead of the roll of paper which he had expected. He would
then murmur out, with a ludicrous mixture of stupidity and terror, “It
was paper I was wanting;” at which the old widow would break out with
the anticipated torrent of invective, “Hech! dyted thing, could ye no
speak plainer? What for did ye let me be makin’ up the pepper for ye,
and no tell me it was paper? Niff-naffin!” There was hardly any other
house in the village in the least distinguished from its fellows.
The most of them were occupied by a race of decent weavers—for this,
indeed, was the staple employment of Daldaff. Through almost every
lattice you heard the constant sound of the shuttle and lay, mixed
with the voices of the honest operatives, as they sung at their work.
In a preceding age, the village contained only three or four of this
class of men, who employed themselves in weaving the homely woollen
cloth and sheeting which were then used by the country people, being
formed out of materials supplied immediately by themselves. But these
kinds of manufacture had, in a great measure, given way in favour of
the lighter _fabrics_ of Glasgow. Cottons were now supplied from that
immense mart, to be woven into showy webs; and as the trade offered
far superior remuneration to what had ever been known in the village,
not only the old serge-weavers had changed the one employment for the
other, but a vast flock of their sons and connexions, and many of the
country people around, had rushed into it, so that the primitive little
village of Daldaff became neither more nor less than a kind of colony
or dependency of the great western capital.
This revolution was at first productive of a great increase of comfort
in the village, without materially altering the primeval virtues of its
inhabitants. Old men began to lay by blue bonnets in favour of hats. A
few old hereditary black coats, which had been worn from youth to age,
were at last rescued from the twilight of a Sabbath fame, and consigned
ungrudgingly to a general use throughout the week. Young men began to
abandon hodden gray for Galashiels blue; young women got straw bonnets
to cover locks heretofore exposed in cockernonnies, and there were two
if not three green gauze veils in the village. In respect of domestic
economy, almost every housewife had the pot on three times a-week, so
that third day’s kail was beginning to be a thing almost unknown. Tea
was also intruding its outlandish face into scenes where bread and milk
was erst the only luxury. Some of the husbands held long out against
it, but at length they almost all sneaked into a liking for it, and no
more thought of wanting it at the end of their day’s work, than they
thought of wanting their halesome porridge at the beginning. It was
sometimes lamented by the excellent old minister, that family worship
was a usage not favoured by this change of circumstances; but still,
both at nine in the morning, and about the same hour in the evening,
you might have heard, in passing some of the houses, either the rude
and tremulous psalmody raised by the father of the household, or the
low and earnest prayer which he was pouring forth, with his knees and
those of all his family resting upon his clay floor. Then all the good
old sports were kept up. The boys, instead of being confined, like
those of larger manufacturing towns, in unhealthy cotton mills, were
permitted at all hours, except those during which they were engaged at
school, to play at the golf and shinty, or at bows and arrows, upon
the common haugh by the burn side, or else to roam farther a-field in
search of birds’ nests, or to harry the crows in the woods. On the same
haugh, in the summer evenings, after work was done, the young men would
be seen “putting the stane,” or playing at “the pennystanes” (quoits),
or perhaps amusing themselves with the more energetic game of football,
while their cowled fathers would walk forth to sympathise in and judge
of their feats, and enjoy a hearty unmeasured laugh at every unharming
“mischanter” which might befall them. Thither also would repair the
trig shortgowned lass, just newly “redd up,” as she would style it,
her curls shining in their recent release from paper, over a face to
which a good washing had lent a richer glow, and her _tout-ensemble_
in every respect greatly improved—as female figures, somehow or other,
always are—by being seen in the declining light of the golden eve.
There, while the young of the different sexes interchanged their joke
and their gibe, and the old raised the still heartier laugh at every
feat in the game, and children shouted and dogs barked from the mere
contagion of joy, while, moreover, the sun sent his last rich rays
through the trees above the village, whence the
“——Sweet mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note,
Made music that sweetened the calm;”
there a stranger might have supposed that happiness had found her last
abode on earth, ere for ever winging her flight to her native skies.
Many villages in Scotland enjoy a humble local fame for some particular
custom or sport, which is understood to reign there in supremacy over
all others. If Daldaff was celebrated for any form of fun more than
another, it was for curling—a sport peculiar to Scotland, and which may
be best described to southern readers, by the simple statement, that
it employs large smooth stones upon the ice, much after the manner of
bowls upon a bowling-green. The game can only be practised after a very
hard frost, as it requires the strongest ice to bear the numbers who
usually assemble either to play or look on. Curling is a game relished
so keenly in Scotland, that, like other common appetites, it levels
all distinctions of station and rank. In a rural and thinly-peopled
district like that around Daldaff, the laird might be seen mingling
with not only his farmers, but his cottagers, interchanging the
broad jest at his own failures, and giving applause wherever it was
due. The minister might also be seen driving his stone with as much
anxiety of eye as any one, and occasionally, perhaps, envying the
good fortune of an unlettered peasant, whom, on another occasion, he
would have to chide for his backwardness in the Single Catechism.
Daldaff was fortunately situated for this game, as, less than a mile
below the village, the mountain stream spread out into a little lake
sufficient to have afforded room for half a dozen “rinks.” There one
Saturday afternoon the people of Daldaff had a _bonspiel_, or grand
contest, with the inhabitants of the adjacent parish of Sarkinholm,
who had long disputed with them the palm of superiority. A bonspiel
is not appointed to take place every day; neither is Saturday like
any other day of the week. Hence, although an unfortunate thaw was
just commencing, the disputants resolved to have out their game,
trusting that the ice would at least last long enough to do their
turn. Notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the ice, the bonspiel
passed off with great eclat. Nearly all Daldaff and Sarkinholm were
collected to witness the sport; and the _certaminis gaudia_, or joys
of the combat, were felt perhaps as keenly in the hearts of the women
and children of these respective places, as in those of the curlers
themselves. Before the game was done, the men were standing inch deep
in water, and the stones, as they came up to the rink, sent the spray
high into the air before them, like shavings from a joiner’s plane. The
short day of January was also drawing very near to a close, and a deep
dark cloud had settled down upon the mountains to the west, betokening
a thorough change in the weather. At length victory declared itself in
favour of Daldaff, and the parties “quat their roaring play,” to betake
themselves to their respective homes. All in a short time had left the
place, except a small band of boys and girls, who continued to enjoy a
pair of slides on a somewhat higher and drier part of the ice.
The rivulet connected with this little lake was one of those which,
rising in a large basin of hilly country, are liable to be swelled
occasionally in a very short space of time, so that, though at one
hour they may scarcely show a rill among the channel-stones, they
are the next raging like a large and impetuous river. On the present
occasion, being fed by the cloud just spoken of, it came down in one
of its most awful forms, and in one instant broke up the ice upon the
peaceful lake with a noise like thunder. The children who had been
sliding, though they scarcely had a moment of warning, escaped from
the ice—all except one, Susan Hamilton, the daughter of the leading
manufacturer in the village. She had been the last to approach a gulf
which had been leaped by all the rest, and, her heart failing her at
the moment, she was immediately carried off from the land upon a large
board of ice. What had lately been the solid surface of the lake was
now gathered in a large glacier of peaky fragments at the bottom, while
all around the water was extending far beyond its usual limits. Susan
Hamilton was soon drifted down to this mass of ice, where, from the
top of a lofty pinnacle, she cried loudly for help, which, however,
was every moment becoming more difficult to be rendered. The most of
her companions had fled in childish terror to the village; but as the
danger was instant, there seemed little chance of rescue from that
quarter. Fortunately a young man who had accompanied some friends to
Sarkinholm happened to be returning to Daldaff, and, hearing cries of
distress, rushed up to the spot. Though the twilight was now deepening,
he perceived the situation of the child, and being perfectly acquainted
with the ground, he immediately resolved upon a plan of rescue. A
large board of ice happened to be lying in a creek near the place
where he stood. Upon this he fearlessly embarked, and, guiding it by
means of his curling-brush, he soon reached the iceberg to which Susan
Hamilton was clinging. Having prevailed upon her to leap down into his
arms, he placed her carefully on board his icy raft, and then steered
back towards the shore, where by this time a few of the villagers,
including the child’s father, were collected. He was so fortunate as
to return in safety, and had the satisfaction—which Bishop Burnet
considered to be the greatest on earth—of rendering a man truly happy.
The joy of the father was speechless; but the other villagers raised
a shout of admiration in honour of his heroic conduct. Nor was the
general feeling abated, when, immediately after he had regained the
shore, the vast glacier, loosed from its confinement at the bottom of
the lake, was precipitated down the channel of the stream, where it
tumbled and dashed along with the resistless force of rocks thrown down
a hill-side, and the noise of a hurricane in a forest. It was seen that
if he had hesitated but for a minute to adventure upon his perilous
task, the child must have perished, almost before her father’s eyes.
James Hamilton, who had this evening experienced the opposites of
extreme agony and extreme happiness, was only a mere long-headed
specimen of the weavers of Daldaff. Having saved a little money, and
acquired a reputation for prudence and honesty, he had been able, when
the Glasgow work was first introduced into the village, to get himself
appointed by a manufacturing house in that city as agent for supplying
employment to his brethren; and as he not only enjoyed a commission
upon the labours of his neighbours, but also kept a number of looms
going upon his own account, he might be considered the most prosperous
man in the village. He had been married for many years, but was blessed
with only one child, the fair young girl who was rescued from death
in the manner above described. He was one of those individuals, who,
though entitled to praise for their correct dealings and sagacious
conduct in life, are yet apt to excite dislike by their contenting
themselves too exclusively with those properties, and not showing
enough of the amenity and friendliness of disposition, by which alone
society at large is rendered agreeable. You could always make sure that
James Hamilton would do you no wrong, but you were also impressed
with the certainty that neither would he do you any good; and if it be
possible that there can be an excess of circumspection and prudence, he
erred in that excess. Rarely giving way to feeling himself, he could
hardly believe that it existed in others, or, if he did acknowledge
its existence, he despised it as only the symptom of an unworldly
character. Even on seeing a single and beloved child rescued from
destruction, though he could not repress the first gush of grateful and
joyful emotion, he almost immediately after relapsed into his usual
coldness, and seemed to chide himself for having been betrayed into
that excitement.
Adam Cuthbertson, who had done for him almost the greatest service that
one man could do to another, was the son of a poor widow in Sarkinholm,
and now resided with a relation at Daldaff, under whom he was acquiring
the universal craft of the district. Though graced with only a very
limited education, and condemned to almost unceasing toil, Adam was
a youth of some spirit and ingenuity. An old _black buke_ of Scotch
songs lay constantly on the beam at his left hand, and the rush of the
shuttle and the dunt of the lay went in unison with as clear a pipe
as ever lilted up the notes of our national minstrelsy. It was even
whispered that Adam had himself composed a few songs, or there were at
least certain ditties which the lasses of Daldaff might occasionally be
heard singing at their washings on the haugh, and which were privately
attributed to his pen—though, it is to be remarked, his modesty would
never permit him to confess the soft impeachment. Adam also contrived
to obtain some scientific books, which he pored over at night by his
uncle’s fireside, or, in summer, beneath a little bower which he had
constructed in the garden. He was thought to be less steady at his work
than some duller lads, and the case was not mended by a particular
improvement which he had carried into effect upon the machinery of his
loom. Although he practically demonstrated that he could work more with
the same trouble by means of this alteration, the old workmen only
shook their heads at it, and wished he might work as much with it in
the long-run. It happened one day, that, as he was _dressing_ his web
with the brushes, he lost his balance by mere accident, and fell head
foremost through the white expanse before him, producing, of course,
irremediable ruin. “Ay, ay,” remarked some of the old stagers, “I never
thought ony gude would come o’ thae improvements. Wha ever heard o’
ony _ordinar_ workman playing sic a plisky?” Others, less disposed to
observe the strict doctrines of causation, would ask what else could
be expected of “that newfangled way o’ working the hiddles.” The very
minister, honest man, was heard to hazard a quiet witticism on the
subject, not from any ill-will towards his young parishioner, but just
because the joke could hardly be avoided: “I was aye jalousing,” said
the worthy divine one day to his elder, James Hamilton, “that Yedie wad
some day or other fa’ through his wark.” It is to be mentioned with
regret that Hamilton, notwithstanding his obligations to the young
man, was one of those who regarded his frank-spirited character and
forward genius with least favour. This did not appear to be solely the
result of the opposition of their characters. Hamilton, who, in any
circumstances, would have been sure to disapprove of the qualities
manifested by Adam Cuthbertson, appeared almost to have contracted an
additional dislike for him, on account of the very obligation which
ought to have made him his friend. He seemed to dread the claims which
the rescue of his child might establish, and acted as if he thought it
necessary to give as little encouragement to those claims as possible.
There was, however, _one_ individual who did full justice both to the
superior character and the gallant achievement of Cuthbertson. This
was Susan Hamilton, the fair young girl whom he had saved. Susan at
the time of her rescue was too young to regard her deliverer with
any other feeling than that of grateful respect. But as she advanced
towards womanhood, the childish feeling of awe with which she had
always beheld him when they chanced to meet, became gradually exchanged
for a sentiment of a softer and tenderer character, though not less
bashful and abased. Adam’s feelings towards her experienced a similar
change. Ever after the day when he saved her life, he had taken
rather more interest in that fair head and those sweet blue eyes,
than in the features of any other child of the same age whom he saw
tripping to school. But this feeling was merely one of circumstances.
It solely referred to the adventure by which he had been so happy as
to restore her to the arms of her father. Susan, however, in a very
few years, ceased to be a little girl tripping to school. Her figure
became considerably taller, and more attractive. Her blue eyes became
filled with deeper and more thoughtful meanings. Her cheek, when she
approached her deliverer, assumed a richer hue; and her voice, when it
addressed him, surprised him with new tones. Sometimes he would hardly
_permit himself to think_ that she was in the least different from
what she had been. He would still speak to her as a man addressing a
child. But after they had parted, he would feel his soul troubled with
a delight he had never before experienced. He would _feel_, though he
did not think, that she was different. Need any more be said than that
he in time found himself at once loving and beloved? The sun never set
with a richer glow, nor did the flowers ever give out a richer perfume,
than on the evening, when, in the woods of Craigcross, Adam Cuthbertson
and Susan Hamilton first confessed their mutual attachment.
But fate was adverse to the passion of these amiable beings. James
Hamilton, with all his homely wisdom, had so far given way to a
wretched ambition as to wish his daughter to match in a sphere above
his own rank. Laird Ganderson, of Windigate, had marked out Susan
at church as a very proper person to undertake the management of
his household, an office just become vacant in consequence of the
death of his mother. Being arrived at the full and perfect age of
forty-seven years, the beauty of the young lady was perhaps a smaller
consideration with the laird, than the contiguity of a few fields
lately purchased by her father, to his own somewhat dilapidated
property. He therefore made some overtures to James Hamilton, which
that individual listened to in a manner far from unfavourable. It was
soon made up between them that Susan was to become Mrs Ganderson: all
that remained to be done was to gain the approbation of the young woman
herself towards the scheme. Susan, who, in addition to many better
qualities, possessed a gift of rustic humour, endeavoured to convey
her sentiments to the laird in a delicate way, by one evening frying
him a dish of sliced peats instead of Scotch collops; but the laird
took it all as a good joke, and said he only liked her the better for
her waggery. In fact, being anxious to have her only on the ordinary
principles of a mercantile speculation, he was not to be turned aside
by any nice delicacy, any more than he would have been prevented from
buying a horse at a fair, by the animal showing a reluctance to part
with its former proprietor. On the other hand, Cuthbertson felt in a
manner entirely different. A taunt which he received one night from the
father, respecting the narrowness of his circumstances and prospects,
determined him to quit Daldaff in search of fortune, taking no care but
first to interchange with Susan a vow of eternal fidelity.
For one full year Susan was enabled to parry the addresses of the
laird and the entreaties of her father. The former spent a great part
of every day at James Hamilton’s, where he smoked incessantly, or, if
he ceased at all, it was only to ask for liquor, or to utter a ribald
jest. By this familiarity he only rendered himself the more intolerable
to Susan. But it had a different effect upon the father. The laird
became so thoroughly ingratiated with that individual, that there was
no exertion of friendship which Hamilton would not make in his behalf.
In fact, in order to secure to his daughter the eclat of being lady of
Windigate, he was understood to have compromised all that he was worth
in the world in securities for the behoof of his future son-in-law,
whose fortune was suspected to be in no very flourishing condition.
The unfortunate weaver exemplified a very common failing in the most
sagacious characters, namely, a disposition, after a whole lifetime
of prudence, to give way to some notably ridiculous error, which
is rendered unalarming to them from its being totally different in
character and tendency from any that they have been accustomed to avoid.
At length came evil days. Owing to some turn of affairs in the progress
of the war, cotton-weaving experienced a severe shock, by which many
of the best Glasgow houses were materially damaged, and thousands of
operatives throughout the country were thrown out of work. The very
respectable establishment for which Hamilton had long acted as agent,
lingered for a time in existence, and was able occasionally to send a
small scantling of work, hardly enough to employ a tenth part of the
population of the village. When the carrier was expected to come with
these small supplies, numbers of poor men, attended by their wives and
children, all of whom were alike unemployed, would go out for miles to
meet the eagerly expected vehicle, to learn how much work was brought,
and what prospect there was of more. On the small bag being opened
by Hamilton, and perhaps only three webs being displayed, the grief
of the poor people was beyond all description. The married men would
then, by Hamilton’s directions, draw lots for those precious morsels
of employment. While this process went forward, what eager breathless
hope in the faces of both men and women, tempered, at the same time,
by a religious sense of the misery which each man knew that his own
success would inflict upon some equally deserving neighbour! What
despair was depicted in each honest homely face, as it turned from
the fatal lottery, upon the unhappy family group, which, more eagerly
than himself, had watched the result of his throw! With what joy,
mingled with sad sympathies for the rest, would the successful man
bear home his load, though he knew that the price of his labour would
hardly be sufficient to supply the food necessary to support him, even
though he were to work sixteen hours a-day! At length, towards winter,
even these wretchedly insufficient supplies were stopped. Hamilton’s
employers, after every effort to keep themselves afloat, were obliged
to give way also; and, consequently, the Daldaff agency became at once
a dead letter. People talk of the exemption of the present generation
from disasters by fire and sword, which so frequently befell their
ancestors; but what calamity was ever inflicted upon the poor, even in
the most lawless days of past history, equal to the desolation which is
now so often occasioned in a large district, by a total cessation of
the staple employment? The cots which gave shelter to our ancestors,
were rebuilt in three days, after even the most savage invasion;
the herds, which had been gathered off to some place of security,
were restored to their indestructible pastures. The calamity, if
unaccompanied by severe loss of life, must have been only, in general,
an exciting adventure. But what retreat, what consolation is there for
the hordes of poor artizans, who, by some commercial accident, arising,
perhaps, from the imprudence of a few merchants, or some political or
warlike movement, are deprived of the customary weekly pittance? It may
be relied on, that such disasters exceed in measure of sorrow almost
any kind of historical distress, except those of plague or famine. No
other accident but these last ever introduced such coldness to the poor
man’s hearth, such despair to his heart, or made him regret with so
bitter a pang that he had others to care for besides himself.