Man hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends:
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends.
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
SOUTHEY.
Some folks having been bred up from their cradle to the writing of books,
of course naturally do the thing regularly and scientifically; but that's
not to be expected from the like of me, that have followed no other way
of life than the shaping and sewing line. It behoves me, therefore, to
beg pardon for not being able to carry my history aye regularly straight
forward, and for being forced whiles to zig-zag and vandyke. For
instance, I clean forgot to give, in its proper place, a history of one
of my travels, with Benjie in my bosom, in search of a cure for the
chincough.
My son Benjie was, at this dividual time, between four and five years
old, when--poor wee chieldie!--he took the chincough, and in more
respects than one was not in a good way; so the doctor recommended his
mother and me, for the change of air, first to carry him down a coal-pit,
and syne to the limekilns at Cousland.
The coal-pit I could not think of at all; to say nothing of the danger of
swinging down into the bowels of the earth in a creel, the thing aye put
me in mind of the awful place, where the wicked, after death and
judgment, howl, and hiss, and gnash their teeth; and where, unless Heaven
be more merciful than we are just--we may all be soon enough. So I could
not think of that, till other human means failed; and I determined, in
the first place, to hire Tammie Dobbie's cart, and try a smell of the
fresh air about the limekilns.
It was a fine July forenoon, and the cart, filled with clean straw, was
at the door by eleven o'clock; so our wife handed us out a pair of
blankets to hap round me, and syne little Benjie into my arms, with his
big-coatie on, and his leather cappie tied below his chin, and a bit red
worsted comforterie round his neck; for, though the sun was warm and
pleasant withal, we dreaded cold, as the doctor bade us. Oh, he was a
fine old man, Doctor Hartshorn!
We had not well got out of the town, when Tammie Dobbie louped up on the
fore-tram. He was a crouse, cantie auld cock, having seen much and not
little in his day; so he began a pleasant confab, pointing out all the
gentlemen's houses round the country, and the names of the farms on the
hill sides. To one like me, whose occupations tie him to the town-foot,
it really is a sweet and grateful thing to be let loose, as it were, for
a wee among the scenes of peace and quietness, where nature is in a way
wild and wanton--where the clouds above our heads seem to sail along more
grandly over the bosom of the sky, and the wee birds to cheep and churm,
from the hedges among the fields, with greater pleasure, feeling that
they are God's free creatures.
I cannot tell how many thoughts came over my mind, one after another,
like the waves of the sea down on Musselburgh beach; but especially the
days when I was a wee callant with a daidly at Dominie Duncan's school,
were fresh in my mind as if the time had been but yesterday; though much,
much was I changed since then, being at that time a little, careless,
ragged laddie, and now the head of a family, earning bread to my wife and
wean by the sweat of my brow. I thought on the blythe summer days when I
dandered about the braes and bushes seeking birds'-nests with Alick
Bowsie and Samuel Search; and of the time when we stood upon one
another's backs, to speil up to the ripe cherries that hung over the
garden walls of Woodburn. Awful changes had taken place since then. I
had seen Sammy die of the black jaundice--an awful spectacle! and poor
Alick Bowsie married to a drucken randie, that wore the breeks, and did
not allow the misfortunate creature the life of a dog.
When I was meditating thus, after the manner of the patriarch Isaac,
there was a pleasant sadness at my heart, though it was like to loup to
my mouth; but I could not get leave to enjoy it long for the tongue of
Tammie Dobbie. He bade me look over into a field, about the middle of
which were some wooden railings round the black gaping mouth of a coal-
pit. "Div ye see that dark bit owre yonder amang the green clover, wi'
the sticks about it?" asked Tammie.
"Yes," said I; "and what for?"
"Weel, do you ken," quo' Tammie, "that has been a weary place to mair
than ane. Twa-three year ago, some o' the collyer bodies were choked to
death down below wi' a blast of foul air; and a pour o' orphan weans they
left behint them on the cauldrife parish. But ye'll mind Hornem, the
sherry-officer wi' the thrawn shouther?"
"Ou, bravely; I believe he came to some untimeous end hereaway about?"
"Just in that spat," answered Tammie. "He was a drucken, blustering
chield, as ye mind; fearing neither man nor de'il, and living a wild,
wicked, regardless life; but, puir man, that couldna aye last. He had
been bousing about the countryside somehow--maybe harrying out of house
and hald some puir bodies that hadna the wherewith to pay their rents;
so, in riding hame fou--it was pitmirk, and the rain pouring down in
bucketfu's--he became dumfoundered wi' the darkness and the dramming
thegither; and, losing his way, wandered about the fields, hauling his
mare after him by the bridle. In the morning the beast was found
nibbling away at the grass owre by yonder, wi' the saddle upon its back,
and a broken bridle hinging down about its fore-legs, by the which the
folks round were putten upon the scent; for, on making search down yon
pit, he was fund at the bottom, wi' his brains smashed about him, and his
legs and arms broken to chitters!"
"Save us!" said I, "it makes a' my flesh grue."
"Weel it may," answered Tammie, "or the story's lost in the telling; for
the collyers that fand him shook as if they had been seized wi' the ague.
The dumb animal, ye observe, had far mair sense than him; for, when his
fitting gaed way, instead of following it had plunged back; and the bit
o' the bridle, that had broken, was still in his grup, when they spied
him wi' their lanterns."
"It was an awful like way to leave the world," said I.
"'Deed it was, and nae less," answered Tammie, "to gang to his lang
account in the middle of his mad thochtlessness, without a moment's
warning. But see, yonder's Cousland lying right forrit to the east
hand."
At this very nick of time Benjie was seized with a severe kink; so Tammie
stopped his cart, and I held his head over the side of it till the cough
went by. I thought his inside would have jumped out; but he fell sound
asleep in two or three minutes; and we jogged on till we came to the yill-
house door, where, after louping out, we got a pickle pease-strae to
Tammie's horse.