Aff they a' went galloping, galloping;
Legs and arms a' walloping, walloping;
De'il take the hindmost, quo' Duncan M'Calapin,
The Laird of Tillyben, joe.
_Old Song_.
He went a little further,
And turn'd his head aside,
And just by Goodman Whitfield's gate,
Oh there the mare he spied,
He ask'd her how she did,
She stared him in the face,
Then down she laid her head again--
She was in wretched case.
_Old Poulter's Mare_.
It happened curiously that, of all the days of the year, this should have
been the one on which the Carters'-play was held; and, by good luck, we
were just in time to see that grand sight. The whole regiment of carters
were paraded up at my Lord's door, for so they call their box-master; and
a beautiful thing it was, I can assure ye. What a sight of ribands was
on the horses! Many a crame must have been emptied ere such a number of
manes and long tails could have been busked out. The beasts themselves,
poor things, I dare say, wondered much at their bravery, and no less I am
sure did the riders. They looked for all the world like living
haberdashery shops. Great bunches of wallflower, thyme, spearmint,
batchelor buttons, gardeners' gartens, peony roses, gillyflower, and
southernwood, were stuck in their button-holes; and broad belts of
stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung across their
shoulders. As to their hats, the man would have had a clear ee that
could have kent what was their shape or colour. They were all rowed
round with ribands, and puffed about the rim with long green or white
feathers; and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of long
strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers. Save us! to see
men so proud of finery; if they had been peacocks one would have thought
less; but in decent sober men, the heads of small families, and with no
great wages, the thing was crazy-like. Was it not?
At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of
dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had
been marching to the field of battle. By-the-bye, it was two of our own
volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the
snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer; so this, ye see, verified the old
proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world's end, ye'll aye meet
with kent faces; Tammie and me coming out to the yill-house door to see
them pass by.
Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a
broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the
crown of it. He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a
well-cleaned pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my
lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the
keys, in case like he should take any thing out. And syne came the auld
my lord--him that was my lord last year, ye observe; and syne came the
colours, as bright and bonny as mostly any thing ye ever saw. On one of
them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing wheat; over the
top of which were gilded letters, the which I was able to read when I put
on my specs, being, if I mind well, "Speed the Plough." On the other
one, which was a mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of
two carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a whip in
his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like. Then came they all
passing by two and two, looking as if each one of them had been the Duke
of Buccleuch himself, every one rigged out in his best; the young
callants, such like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and
thinking themselves, I daresay, no small drink, and the day a great one
when they were first allowed to be art and part in such a grand
procession.
But losh me! I had mostly forgot the piper, that played in the middle,
as proud as Hezekiah, that we read of in Second Kings, strutting about
from side to side with his bare legs and big buckles, and bit Macgregor
tartan jacket--his cheeks blown up with wind like a smith's bellows--the
feathers dirling with conceit in his bonnet--and the drone, below his
oxter, squeeling and skirling like an evil spirit tied up in a green bag.
Keep us all! what gleys he gied about him to observe that the folk were
looking at him! He put me in mind of the song that old Barny used to
sing about the streets--
Ilka ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud's a Turk is;
There's the Grants o' Tullochgorum,
Wi' their pipers gaun before 'em;
Proud the mithers are that bore 'em.
Feedle, faddle, fa, fum.
But who do ye think should come up to us at this blessed moment, with a
staff in his hand, being old now, and not able to ride in the procession,
as he had many a time and often done before, but honest Saunders Tram,
that had been a staunch customer of mine since the day on which I opened
shop, and to whom I had made countless pairs of corduroy spatterdashes;
so we shook hands jocosely together, like old acquaintances, and the body
hodged and leuch as if he had found a fiddle, he was so glad to see me.
Benjie having fallen asleep, Luckie Barm of the Change, a douce woman,
put him to his bed, and promised to take care of him till we came back;
Saunders Tram insisting on us to go forward along with him to see the
race. I had no great scruple to do this, as I thought Benjie would
likely sleep for an hour, being wearied with the joogling of the cart,
and having supped a mutchkin bowlful of Luckie Barm's broo and bread.
By the time we had tramped on to the braehead, two or three had booked
for the race, and were busy pulling away the flowers that hung over about
their horses' lugs, to say little of the tapes and twine; and which made
them look, poor brutes, as if they were not very sure what was the matter
with them. Meanwhile, there was a terrible uproar between my lord and a
man from Edinburgh Grassmarket, leading a limping horse, covered with a
dirty sheet, with two holes for the beast's een looking out at.
But, for all this outward care, the poor thing seemed very like as if
wind was more plenty in the land than corn, being thin and
starved-looking, and as lame as Vulcan in the off hind-leg. So ye see
the managers of the box insisted on its not running; and the man said "it
had a right to run as well as any other horse;" and my lord said "it had
no such thing, as it was not in the box;" and the man said "he would take
out a protest;" and my lord said "he didna gie a bawbee for a protest;
and that he would not allow him to run on any account whatsoever;" but
the man was throng all the time they were argle-bargling taking the cover
off the beast's back, that was ready saddled, and as accoutred for
running as our regiment of volunteers was for fighting on field-days. So
he swore like a trooper, that, notwithstanding all their debarring, he
would run in spite of their teeth--both my lord's teeth, ye observe, and
that of the two key-keepers;--maybe, too, of the man that carried the
saddle, for he aye lent in a word at my lord's back, egging him on to
stand out for the laws to the last drop of his blood.
To cut a long tale short, the drum ruffed, and off set four of them, a
black one, and a white one, and a brown one, and the man's one, neck and
neck, as neat as you like. The race course was along the high-road; and,
dog on it, they made a noise like thunder, throwing out their big heavy
feet behind them, and whisking their tails from side to side as if they
would have dung out one another's een; till, not being used to gallop,
they at last began to funk and fling; syne first one stopping, and then
another, wheeling round and round about like peiries, in spite of the
riders whipping them, and pulling them by the heads. The man's mare,
however, from the Grassmarket, with the limping leg, carried on, followed
by the white one, an old tough brute, that had belonged in its youth to a
trumpeter of the Scots Greys; and, to tell the truth, it showed mettle
still, though far past its best; so back they came, neck and neck, all
the folk crying, and holloing, and clapping their hands--some "Weel dune
the lame ane--five shillings on the lame ane;"--and others, "Weel run
Bonaparte--at him, auld Bonaparte--two to one that Whitey beats him all
to sticks,"--when, dismal to relate, the limping-legged ane couped the
creels, and old white Bonaparte came in with his tail cocked amid loud
cheering, and no small clapping of hands.
We all ran down the road to the place where the limping horse was lying,
for it was never like to rise up again any more than the bit rider, that
was thrown over its head like an arrow out of a bow; but on helping him
to his feet, save and except the fright, two wide screeds across his
trowser-knees, and a scratch along the brig of his nose, nothing visible
was to be perceived. It was different, however, with the limping horse.
Misfortunate brute! one of its fore-legs had folded below it, and snapped
through at the fetlock joint. There was it lying with a sad sorrowful
look, as if it longed for death to come quick and end its miseries; the
blood, all the while, gush-gushing out at the gaping wound. To all it
was as plain as the A, B, C, that the bones would never knit; and that,
considering the case it was in, it would be an act of Christian charity
to put the beast out of pain. The maister gloomed, stroked his chin, and
looked down, knowing, weel-a-wat, that he had lost his bread-winner, then
gave his head a nod, nod--thrusting both his hands down to the bottom
lining of the pockets of his long square-tailed jockey coat. He was a
wauf, hallanshaker-looking chield, with an old broad-snouted japanned
beaver hat pulled over his brow--one that seemed by his phisog to hold
the good word of the world as nothing--and that had, in the course of
circumstances, been reduced to a kind of wild desperation, either by
chance-misfortunes, cares and trials, or, what is more likely, by his own
sinful, regardless way of life.
"It canna be helpit," he said, giving his head a bit shake; "it canna be
helpit, friends. Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane in yere day, lass,--mony a
penny and pound have I made out of ye. Which o' ye can lend me a hand,
lads? Rin away for a gun some o' ye."
Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice--a thing that
Thomas was good at, being a Cameraman elder, and accustomed to giving a
word. "Wad ye no think it better," said Thomas, "to stick her with a
long gully-knife, or a sharp shoemaker's parer? It wad be an easier way,
I'm thinking."
Dog on it! I could scarcely keep from shuddering when I heard them
speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort of a manner.
"'Deed no," quo' Saunders Tram, at whose side I was standing, "far
better send away for the smith's forehammer, and hit her a smack or twa
betwixt the e'en; so ye wad settle her in half a second."
"No, no;" cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word, "a better plan than
a' that, wad be to make a strong kinch of ropes, and hang her."
Lovey ding! such ways of showing how to be merciful!! But the old Jockey
himself interfered. "Haud yere tongues, fules," was his speech;
"yonder's the man coming wi' a gun. We'll shune put an end to her. She
would have won for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg.--Wha'll
wager me that she wadna hae won? But she's the last of my stable, puir
beast; and I havena ae plack to rub against anither, now that I have lost
her. Gi'e me the gun and the penny candle. Is she loaded?" speired he
at the man that carried the piece.
"Troth is she," was the answer, "double charged."
"Then stand back, lads," quod the old round-shouthered horse-couper, and
ramming down the candle he lifted up the piece, cocking it as he went
four or five yards in front of the poor bleeding brute, that seemed,
though she could not rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of
destruction; casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully in
his face.
When I saw him taking his aim, and preparing to draw the trigger, I
turned round my back, not being able to stand it, and brizzed the flats
of my hands with all my pith against the opening of my ears;
nevertheless, I heard a faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the
miserable bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs, give
them a plunge down again on the divots: after which she lay still, and we
all saw, to our satisfaction, that death had come to her relief.
We are not commanded to be the judges of our fellow-creatures, but to
think charitably of all men, hoping every thing for the best; and, though
the horse-couper was a thought suspicious, both in look, speech, dress,
and outward behaviour, still, ever and anon, we were bound by the ten
commandments to consider him only in the light of a fellow-mortal in
distress of mind and poverty of pocket; so we made a superscription for
the poor man; and, though he did not look much like one that deserved our
charity, nevertheless and howsoever, maybe he was a bad halfpenny, and
maybe not; yet one thing was visibly certain, that he was as poor as
Job--misery being written in big-hand letters on his brow. So it behoved
each one to open his purse as he could afford it; and, though I say not
what I put into the hat, proud am I to tell that he collected two or
three shillings to help him home.
This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the money safely
stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket--would ye believe it? ere yet the
beast was scarcely cold, just as we were decamping from the place, and
buttoning up our breeches-pockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had
the curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was after,
in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent on some act of
desperation; when, lo and behold! he out with a gully knife, and began
skinning his old servant, as if he had been only peeling the bark off a
fallen tree!
One cannot sit at their ingle-cheek and expect, without casting their
eyes about them, to grow experienced in the ways of men, or the on-goings
of the world. This spectacle gave me, I can assure you, much and no
little insight; and so dowie was I with the thoughts of what I had
witnessed of the selfishness, the sinfulness, and perversity of man, that
I grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in my life before
of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle; and though Thomas Clod
insisted greatly on my staying to their head-meeting dinner, and taking a
reel with the lassies in the barn; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had
got so much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion would
have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing--yet I was
determined to make the best of my way home; more-be-token, as Benjie
might take skaith from the night air, and our jaunt therefrom might,
instead of contributing to his welfare, do him more harm than good. So,
after getting some cheese and bread, to say nothing of a glass or two of
strong beer and a dram at Luckie Barm's, we waited in her parlour, which
was hung round with most beautiful pictures of Joseph and his Brethren,
besides two stucco parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with
looking at them, as a pastime like, till Benjie wakened; on the which I
made Tammie yoke his beast, and rowing the bit callant in his mother's
shawl, took him into my arms in the cart, and, after shaking hands with
all and sundry twice or thrice over, we bade them a "good-night," and
drove away.