“HAWKIE”—A GLASGOW STREET CHARACTER
The streets and lanes, highways and byeways, of our large cities form
platforms on which many a quaint and curious character appears and cuts
capers to draw forth the surplus coppers of the impressionable portion
of the lieges. Here it is a fiddler—there it is a ballad singer—here a
clog-dancer—there a spouter—now a mute, hungry-looking soul, whose rags
appeal to the crowd with a thousand tongues—anon one who rends the air
with a manufactured tale of woe. But amongst all the tatterdemalion
class of public entertainers, street beggars, etc.—and their name is
legion—there has not perhaps appeared within the memory of living men
one who was better known whilst he lived, and whose memory is likely to
remain longer green, than the animated bundle of rags and bones known
amongst men by the self-created pseudonym which stands at the head of
this paper. Verily, who has not heard of Hawkie; and where in broad
Scotland have not his jibes and jests, his flashes of wit and humour,
not been told and retold? Every book of Scottish humorous anecdotes of
any account, from _The Laird o’ Logan_ downwards, contains specimens
of his smart _repartee_, biting sarcasm, and reckless wit, as its
choicest bits; and a brief biographical sketch, interspersed with the
most telling of the _tellable_ witticisms of this king of Scottish
beggars, will be read with interest, if not with profit. His real name
was William Cameron, and he was born at a place called Plean, in the
parish of St. Ninians, in Stirlingshire, where his maternal forbears had
been residenters for generations unknown. His mother’s name was Paterson.
His father, Donald Cameron, was a native of Braemar, and claimed distant
relationship to the Camerons of Lochiel. At the time of our subject’s
birth, he (the father) was engaged as a mashman at a distillery in the
neighbourhood of Plean. His parents were very poor, and during the
harvest season his mother went forth to the shearing, leaving William in
charge of a girl about six years of age. Whilst thus imperfectly nursed
and attended he caught damage to his right leg, so serious that it left
him a cripple for life. At the age of four he was sent to school. His
teacher, he said, was an old, decrepit man, who had tried to be a nailer,
but at that employment he could not earn his bread. He then attempted to
teach a few children, for which undertaking he was quite unfit. Writing
and arithmetic were to him secrets dark as death, and as for English, he
was short-sighted, and a word of more than two or three syllables was
either passed over, or it got a term of his own making. At this school
he continued four years, but was not four months advanced in learning,
although, he said, he was as far advanced as his teacher. He next
went to a school at a place called Milton, about a mile distant, where
he racked his memory learning psalms, chapters of the Bible, and the
catechisms, till he could begin at the Song of Solomon, and by heart go
on to the end of Malachi. At the age of twelve he was bound apprentice to
a tailor in Stirling, and in the course of his Autobiography, which, at
the request of the late David Robertson, of _Whistle Binkie_ fame, Hawkie
wrote whilst he was a winter inmate of the Glasgow Hospital, between
the years 1840-1850, he gives the following graphic account of this
engagement:—
“The first glisk that I got o’ this slubberdegullion o’ a maister gied
me the heartscad at him. Quo’ I to mysel’, bin’ me as ye like, I’ll no
rowt lang in your tether, I’se warrant ye. We’re no likely, for a’ that
I can see, to rot twa door-cheeks thegither, and if a’ reports were
to be believed, better at padding the inside o’ the pouch-lids than
handlin’ the goose. The first job that he gied me was to mak’ a holder
(needle-cushion) to mysel’, and to it I set. I threaded the best blunt,
and waxed the twist till it was like to stick in the passage. I stour’d
awa’, throwing my needle-arm weel out, so that my next neighbour was
obliged to hirsel’ awa’ frae me to keep out o’ harm’s way. I stitch’d
it, back-stitch’d it, cross-stitch’d it, and then fell’d and plaed it
wi’ black, blue, and red, grey, green, and yellow, till the ae colour
fairly kill’d the ither. My answer to every advice was, I kent what I
was doin’, did I never see my mither makin’ a hussey? By the time I had
gi’en my holder the last stitch, my maister hinted that it wasna likely
that I wad e’er mak’ saut to my kail sowthering claith thegither, and
that though the shears were run through every stitch o’ the indenture
it wadna break his heart. Thinks I to mysel’, there’s a pair o’ us, as
the coo said to the cuddie, and my crutch can do the job as weel as your
clippers, so I laid the whip to my stilt, and took the road hame.”
William was again sent to school, his anxious parents still thinking that
his habits would settle down, and that he might be fitted for acting as
a dominie in some country district. There was, however, no “settlement”
in his nature, and he broke away from the dominie as abruptly as he
had previously done from the tailor. Wandering to Glasgow he joined a
journeyman tailor’s house-of-call, then in the Pipe Close, High Street,
and soon found employment. At this time, walking in Glasgow Green in
company with a brother tradesman one Sabbath morning, they came across a
field preacher holding forth to a large audience, “while the lining of
his hat spoke more for the feelings of his hearers than himself.”
“I could beat him myself,” said Cameron.
The remark was carried to the workshop by his companion, and next day—
“You think you could beat the preacher,” said one of the tailors,
addressing our subject.
“And so I could,” retorted Cameron, not expecting the thing would be
continued further.
On Saturday night, however, he fell in with some tailors, and the
“preaching” was again the subject of remark. Cameron still maintained
that he could beat him, and it was agreed that he should be put to
the test on the following day. About forty or fifty of the principal
journeymen in the city accordingly assembled next day in the
house-of-call, when the unfledged orator was dressed in a borrowed
suit of “blacks,” in order to try his mettle in the preaching art. At
about twelve o’clock they set out, and Westmuir, on the road leading to
Airdrie, was selected as the scene of action.
“My father and mother,” writes Hawkie, “were Burghers, and possessing the
works of Ralph Erskine of Dunfermline, whose sermons my mother took great
pleasure in reading and hearing read. I had often to read them aloud
to her, which, although to her a pleasure, was to me a punishment; and
having a good memory, which was much improved at school, I preached one
of Ralph Erskine’s sermons. I had got a number of lessons in elocution,
for which I had a peculiar liking, and my voice at that time not being
broken, I made a favourable impression on the people. We had an elder
chosen to go round with the hat, but the money came in so quick that
there was no need for that.” Such was Hawkie’s first public appearance as
an orator.
For the following Sabbath another sermon was planned, but in the interim
the budding preacher vacated the city. He is next found keeping a school
at Bloack, in Ayrshire, behaving exemplary, and carefully studying the
nature of his scholars. Soon again he is in Glasgow, working at the
tailor trade, and anon keeping a school at a coal work at Plean Muir, in
the vicinity of his birthplace. Next move, the tawse are thrown once more
aside. He attaches himself to a band of strolling players, and “stars” it
through part of the county of Fife. The stage turns out an unprofitable
speculation, and the scene again changes. He is now a toy manufacturer.
This proves too laborious an occupation, and he next becomes a
china-mender. No cement will, however, bind the unsettled changeling. At
the end of nine months he abandons the china trade, starts for Newcastle,
and embarks in field-preaching among the collier population, who were
nearly all Methodists. This he found to be a lucrative job.
“I got so dexterous at that craft,” he writes, “that I might have had a
church, and was approved to be admitted into the brotherhood, but was
afraid that the _holes of my robe would not hold a button, and a small
breeze of wind would expose the inside work_.”
He abandons preaching, quits Newcastle, sets out for Carlisle, and
remains there until his money is done. He then starts for Scotland,
coming through Annandale, and asks charity for the first time in his
life in the village of Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. In his brief career
he has already acted many and varied parts, and each one has left him
a little lower down than it found him. At the age of thirty he lets
slip the spirit of independence that had hitherto struggled against his
natural inclination towards utter depravity, and becomes a common beggar.
Attempts to rescue him had been put forth time and again, but all to no
purpose; his nature was predisposed gutterwards, and down he went.
“Oh, man,” he was once heard to say, when remonstrated with about his
dissolute life, “if I hadna the heart o’ a hyena, my mither’s tears would
hae saftened it lang afore now. My conscience yet gies me sair stangs
when I think aboot her, and I hae just to huzzh’t asleep wi’ whisky.”
Begging from door to door, and occasionally selling chap books in the
streets, he wandered over the most of Scotland, as well as over a large
part of England, and had many strange experiences, which, in course of
time, were faithfully recorded in his “Autobiography” already referred
to. These records, I may state in passing, edited by John Strathesk, the
well-known author of _Bits from Blinkbonny_, were recently published
by David Robertson & Co., of Glasgow. The book is a revelation of
beggar-life well calculated to do good, as its perusal will convince
any unbiased mind that ninety-nine per cent. of your door-to-door
beggars are arrant rogues and vagabonds. Read alongside of Hawkie’s
Autobiography, Burns’s “Jolly Beggars” is found to be no fancy picture.
In his description of Beggars’ Dens of any consequence all over the
land there are found life-like portraits of the various “randie gangrel
bodies,” who, “in Poosie Nansie’s held the splore to drink their orra
duddies.” Andrew Gemmells, the original of Scott’s “Edie Ochiltree,”
averred, in his remoter time, that begging had become scarcely the
profession of a gentleman. As a trade it was forty pounds in the year
worse than when he practised it, and, if he had twenty sons, he would
not be easily induced to breed one of them up in his own line. Even in
Hawkie’s time the profession, however, was not quite played out. The
Canonmills Road in Edinburgh, when he first started, was, he says, worth
on an average five shillings and a few pence daily. The King’s Park was
not worth anything except on Sunday, but the first Sunday he begged in
it, standing hat in hand from three in the afternoon until nine at night,
he lifted over seventeen shillings. Paisley and a number of villages in
the neighbourhood are admitted to be excellent ground for the “cadger.” A
beggar may remain in Paisley, Hawkie avers, and live on the best of the
land. Gangrel bodies will therefore do well to take Hawkie’s experience
along with Lord Beaconsfields hint and “keep” their “eye on Paisley.”
But we must return to what is more particularly our present
subject—Hawkie and his witticisms. Glasgow was the scene of his triumph
as a street orator and wit. Whilst he wandered to and fro in the earth,
he was a nameless, unknown gangrel, drifting towards a “cadger pownie’s
death at some dykeside.” But settling down in the mercantile capital,
the keen struggle for existence which obtains there roused his dormant
energies into full play, and he soon became a “man of mark.” Diogenes
with his tub was not better known in the streets of Athens than was
Hawkie with his crutch for many years in the streets of St. Mungo. He
first made his presence felt there some time subsequent to 1818. About
this time an impostor of the name of Ross had been gulling the gaping
mob with a prediction that the Bridgegate of Glasgow, with its swarm
of motley inhabitants, was doomed to sudden and complete destruction.
Cameron possessed a ready turn for satirical burlesque; so, envying Ross
his following, he set up a claim for prophetic vision also, and made
his Seer “Hawkie, a twa-year-auld quey frae Aberdour, in the County of
Fife, and sister-german to Ross.” She also foretold the destruction of
the Bridgegate, but from a different cause than that given by Ross. “It
is to be destroyed,” said the Aberdour stirk, “by a flood o’ whisky, and
the wives will be ferrying in washing tubs frae ae door to anither, and
mony o’ their lives will be lost, that itherwise micht hae been saved, by
louting ower their tubs to try the flood, whether it was Sky-blue or the
real Ferintosh.” This production was a profitable speculation for some
time, and Cameron continued to cry it so frequently that the name of the
“stirk” took the place of his own.
Hawkie was ever ready to enter into a religious discussion, and
frequently showed great skill in the management of an argument. One day
he fell into a discussion on the doctrine of Baptism with a spirit-dealer
in the city, who maintained that the mere observance of the external
ceremony was all that was required.
“Do you,” says the gangrel, “insist that sprinkling wi’ water constitutes
baptism?”
“Yes, I do,” replied the bar-master.
“Weel, then, gin that be a’ that’s necessary, your whisky casks may
dispute Christianity wi’ ony Protestant Bishop in the hale country.” This
clinched the argument.
Hawkie’s besetting sin was an inveterate love of ardent spirits. “I am
surprised, Hawkie,” said a person remonstrating with him one day on
his dissolute life, “that a person of your knowledge and intellect can
degrade himself by drinking whisky until you are deprived of reason, and
with whom the brute could justly dispute pre-eminence. I would allow you
two glasses per day, if you can’t want it, but not more.”
“Now, that’s fair,” replied the wit; “but will ye lodge’t in a
public-house? Man, ye dinna ken what I hae to do. My forefathers, and
foremithers, too, were a’ sober folk, and I hae had to drink for them
a’. Ye see, they ran in debt to the British Government, and left me to
pay’t; and when I cudna do’t I got an easy settlement wi’ the folks o’
the Exchequer, on condition that I was to pay’t up by instalments, and
wherever I saw a house wi’ reading abune the door-head, ‘British spirits
sold here,’ to pay in my dividend; and there was nae fear o’ it comin’ to
them.”
Hawkie once had a watch, and the only one, moreover, that ever beat in
his fob. “It didna cost me muckle,” he said. “I bocht it at a sale ae
nicht, and the match o’t against time was never in onybody’s pouch, for
it gaed a’ the four-and-twenty hours in the first ane after I row’d it
up.”
“You are well acquainted with the but and ben end of the ‘Land of Cakes,’
Hawkie,” said a gentleman to him.
“Ay, man,” replied the wit; “I micht throw the halter ower the neck o’
my stilt, and it would turn in o’ its ain accord to its quarters for the
nicht, without happin’ or windin’ in ony corner o’t.”
“It’s a wonder, Hawkie, that ye can live,” said another. “A man o’ your
intellect, trampin’ up and down among a’ the riff-raff that beg the
country.”
“Oh, but man, is that a’ ye ken,” replied the indomitable one; “I hae a
profession to support—I’m a collector o’ poor’s rates.”
“You must have a surplus of funds,” continued the gentleman; “for I think
you are a talented and industrious collector.”
“Weel, man,” returned Hawkie, “I admit baith; but for a’ that I ne’er got
what paid the collector decently.”
“I have myself something to do with collecting accounts, Hawkie, but if
your rates are as difficult to call in as my accounts are, you must have
battle enough in your profession?”
“Oh, man, you’re no up to your business. Ye’re but a green hand. I could
learn you to get your accounts! I ca’ in accounts regularly whaur there’s
naething awin’ to me.”
“Hae, Hawkie,” said one of his almoners, “there’s a penny to you, and gae
awa’, man, and get your beard ta’en aff; ye micht draw lint through’t for
a heckle, I’m perfectly ashamed to see you gaun about like a Jew.”
“Oh!” replied Hawkie, “but you forget, freend, that it disna suit a
beggar to be bare-faced.”
“I shall endeavour to provoke Hawkie into retort,” said a gentleman who
was well known to the wit, to a friend. And passing the beggar, with head
turned away to avoid recognition, he remarked, in a voice sufficiently
audible, “He’s a perfect blackguard and impostor, that Hawkie. He should
be sent to Bridewell!”
“Hech, man,” retorted Hawkie, “you’re the only neebour-like person I hae
seen the day.”
“What will you charge to teach me the profession of begging, Hawkie?”
inquired one.
“Man, ye couldna come to a better hand for your education,” replied
Hawkie; “and I’ll just tak’ ye on the terms the poor weavers used to tak’
their apprentices; I’ll gie you the half o’ your winning.”
“That’s a shocking-like hat you have got on your head, Hawkie,” said one.
“You never had anything like a decent one, but that is certainly the
worst I ever saw you have.”
“I got it in Paddy’s Market,” said the wit, “and it’s made on the sliding
scale,” said he, taking it off, and lifting off the upper portion.
“Man!—I kent the sliding scale afore Peel.”
“Did you ever hear an ass, bray, Hawkie?” queried a young whiskered puppy.
“Never till the noo,” was the instant reply.
The street orator entered a shop one day where there happened to be a
gentleman from Perth standing at the counter.
“Were you ever in Perth, Willie?” said he.
“Yes, I hae been there,” said Hawkie; “and I hae gude reason to mind
Perth. I gaed in at a street ill-lichted, and I thocht, nae fear o’ the
police here; so I commenced my story. But I hadna weel begun when a
voice frae a window cries out, ‘Get you gone, sir, or the police will
find quarters for ye.’ I ne’er loot on that I heard the threat, but
cried awa’ till I got to the end o’ the street, and then took the road
to my lodgings. I hadna been there mony minutes when in comes ane o’ the
police, and lugs me aff to jail, whaur they keepit me till Monday—this
was Friday—and just let me out then wi’ as much daylicht as would let me
see across the brig. That’s a’ that I ken about the Fair City.” Standing
for a few minutes, he held out his left hand, and, gathering the fingers
of his right to a point, he dipped them into the hollow of his left,
saying, “Weel, sir, what are ye gaun to gie to redeem the character o’
your town?”
Hawkie entered the shop of one of his almoners one day whilst a process
of painting was going on. “Take care of your clothes!” shouted an
attendant at the counter.
“Tak’ ye care o’ your paint,” retorted the ragged wit. “It’s mair likely
to be damaged by me than I am by it.”
The orator was addressing an audience in the street one day when he was
interrupted by a passer-by—“I see you are preaching, as usual, Hawkie.”
“Yes, I am,” said he, holding out his open hand, “and there’s the plate
for the collection.”
A little carpenter, with a shaving tied round as a hat-band, observing
Hawkie standing at a corner, accosted the orator with, “Man, Hawkie, do
you see, I’m gaun in mournings for you?”
“Is’t no,” replied Hawkie, appealing to the crowd, “a puir account o’
Presbyterian Glasgow, when a brat like that is permitted to gang about in
mournings for a man before he’s dead?”
Our _orateur du pavè_, by reason of his calling and behaviour together,
got into frequent conflict with the police.
“Take the road, sir, and not obstruct the street,” was the imperative
demand of a batonman to him one day.
“I hae nae richt till’t,” replied the wit; “I pay nae road money.”
On another occasion he was told to be off and not disturb the street by
collecting mobs.
“Dinna blame me,” was the reply, “but the congregation.”
“Don’t stand there, sir, and collect a crowd,” exclaimed a gentleman in
blue to him one day.
“Man,” responded Hawkie, “there’s a power o’ hearers, but few believers.”
Calling on a shopkeeper somewhat late one evening soliciting a trifle to
help to pay his lodgings, the merchant remarked that he had surely come
little speed during the day when he had not made so much as would defray
that small matter.
“That’s a’ ye ken,” replied Hawkie; “my lodging costs mair than yours
does.”
“How do you make that out?” was asked.
“I’ll tell ye,” said the vagrant. “In the first place, it tak’s
fifteenpence to mak’ me drunk—boards and banes mak’ up the bed and
contents, and unless I were drunk I couldna sleep a wink—the bed that I
hae to lie doon on wad mak’ a dog yowl to look at; and then the landlady
maun be paid, though a week’s lodgings wad buy a’ the boards an’ bowls
that’s in the house. I hae made but little the day. I was up at the
Cowcaddens, whar they hae little to themsel’s, an’ less disposition to
spare; an’, wearied oot, I lay doon on the roadside to rest me. The
laddies as they passed were sayin, ‘Hawkie’s drunk! Hawkie’s drunk!’
An’, man, my very heart was like to brak’, I was sae vex’d to think it
wasna true.”
Some forty years ago, when the Very Rev. Bishop Murdoch was Bishop in
Glasgow, Hawkie, in his rambles often made his way to the Bishop’s
residence in Great Clyde Street, and as the Bishop was well acquainted
with Hawkie and his pawky sayings, he often rewarded him with a plate
of soup or a glass of spirits, whichever he appeared to be most in need
of. On one occasion a clergyman from the Highlands was paying a visit
to the Bishop, and as they both chanced to be standing at the window
conversing, they saw Hawkie slowly making his way in their direction. The
Bishop, turning to the clergyman, told him that that was one of Glasgow’s
characters, famous for his witty sayings, etc., and that he would call
him in, when he would probably hear for himself. Accordingly, Hawkie was
brought in and shown into the room beside the reverend gentlemen. The
Bishop spoke a few words to him, and then, as he saw Hawkie looking at
the pictures on the walls, he asked him if he knew any of them.
“Maybe,” was the answer.
The Bishop, pointing to a likeness of himself which was hanging on the
wall, asked him if he knew it, and if it was a good likeness.
“Ou, ay,” said Hawkie, “it’s no bad.”
He was then shown an engraving of the Pope, and, being told who it was,
he said, “I dinna ken, I never saw him.”
“Well,” said the Bishop, pointing to a picture of the Crucifixion, which
was hanging between the two likenesses, “you surely know that?”
Hawkie gazed intently at it for a minute, and then said, “I aye heard
that Christ was crucified between twa thieves, but I ne’er kent wha they
were afore.”
It is needless to say Hawkie was rewarded with his glass of spirits, and
both the gentlemen enjoyed a good laugh at the witty answer.
On one of the Glasgow half-yearly Fasts (now an unknown institution)
Hawkie took his beat on the Dumbarton Road, between Glasgow and Partick.
As the day happened to be fine, the “collector of poor’s rates” justly
calculated that this district would be well frequented. “I am sent out
here this afternoon,” said the ever fertile “collector” to the objects
of his assessment, “I am sent out here this afternoon by the clergy of
Glasgow to put a tax on a’ you gentry that hae mista’en the country for
the kirk the day.”
He cherished an inveterate hatred of the Irish, and the lash of his
satirical tongue never wagged with more delight than when it was flaying
the back of poor Paddy. “Gae hame to your bogs and ditches!” he would
shout. “Blast ye! the Glasgow folk canna get the honest use o’ their ain
gallows for ye!”
“I’m neither,” said our public lecturer, “a Tory nor a Radical. I like
middle courses—gang ayont that, either up or doon, it disna matter—it’s
a wreck ony way ye like to tak’ it.”
A few gentlemen going home from a supper party, amongst whom was the
amiable John Imlah, the writer of many popular Scottish songs, were
accosted by Hawkie for the beggar’s impost.
“There’s a bawbee,” said Mr. Imlah, “will that do?”
“No,” says the collector, “it winna pay for ye a’.”
“How much, then, are we owing to you?”
“I was looking ower my books last nicht, and I think you are owing me
tippence.”
“How much will you let us off for—present, past, and to come?”
“Pope Leo X.,” said Hawkie, “in the sixteenth century, commenced the
sale of indulgences, for the purpose of aggrandising his Church, and the
harlot kirk never fairly damned hersel’ till then. I’m no gaun to follow
such an example.”
This ingenious argument, we may be sure, brought forth more than the
stipulated amount.
Our “collector of poor’s rates” frequently took his stand at the north
end of Glasgow Bridge. On the occasion of a special public rejoicing,
a grand floral arch had been thrown over there, bearing in its very
appearance the evidence of a lavish expenditure of the public funds.
“What height do you think that arch will be?” asked some one of Hawkie.
“The heicht o’ hanged nonsense,” was the instant reply.
During the latter years of his life the poor waif had to take winter
shelter in the Town’s Hospital, leaving which, in the spring, Dr.
Auchincloss, surgeon, who was very attentive to him, gave him some money,
remarking, “Weel, Hawkie, I’ll tak’ a bet that the first place ye land in
is a spirit-cellar.”
“I’ll tak’ odds on your side, doctor,” replied Hawkie.
On his first appearance in the street to follow his wonted calling, he
thus addressed his hearers,—“Weel, ye’ll hae been thinkin’ I was dead,
but I needna tell ye that that’s no true, for I’m a living evidence to
the contrary. I have been down in the Town’s Hospital this while taking
care o’ mysel’, for I hae nae notion o’ puttin’ on a fir jackit as lang
as I can help it. But I’m nae better otherwise than when I gaed in, and,
if I may believe my ain een, there’s as little improvement on you.”
The “fir jacket” so much dreaded encircled the poor gangrel in 1851, and
the streets and lanes which once knew him so well, will know him no more
for ever.
The following genuine illustration of Hawkie’s street oratory,
contributed by William Finlay, a Paisley poet, to the pages of _Whistle
Binkie_, will fitly conclude the present paper.
“A-hey! bide a wee, bodies, and dinna hurry awa’ hame, till ye hear what
I hae gotten to tell ye; do you think that I cam’ out at this time o’
nicht to cry to the stane wa’s o’ the Brig-gate for naething, or for
onything else than the public guid?—wearing my constitution down to rags,
like the claes on my carcase, without even seeking a pension frae Her
Majesty; though mony a poor beggar wi’ a star o’er his breast has gotten
ane for far less.”
(_Voice from the crowd_)—“Hawkie, ye should hae been sent to Parliament,
to croak there like some ither Parliamentary puddocks till yer throat
were cleared.”
(_Reply_)—“Tak’ aff yer hat when ye speak to a gentleman—it’s no the
fashion in this country to put hats on cabbage stocks—a haggis would loup
its lane for fricht afore ye—ye’ll be a king where a hornspoon is the
emblem of authority!” (_Resumes_)—“Here ye hae the history of a notorious
beggar, the full and particular account of his birth and parentage—at
least on his mither’s side. This heir to the wallets was born in the byre
o’ a kintra farmer, an’ just in the crib afore the kye, an’ was welcomed
to the world by the nose of honest Hawkie.”
(_From the crowd_)—“Was this a sister o’ yours, Hawkie?”
(_Answer_)—“Whatna kail yard cam’ ye out o’? That’s yer brither aside
ye, is’t? You’re a seemly pair, as the cow said to her cloots.”
(_Continues_)—“It ne’er could be precisely ascertained the hour of this
beggar’s birth, though the parish records hae been riddled to get at the
fact. I maun also tell ye, for I dinna like to impose on my customers,
that there is a great doubt about the day o’ the month, an’ even about
the month itsel’; but that he was born hasna been disputed, though it
might hae been, if we hadna an account o’ his life and death to convince
the gainsayers. He arrived sooner at the years o’ discretion than usual;
an’ if ye dinna ken the period when a beggar’s bairn comes to his estate
duly qualified, I’ll tell you—it’s when he ceases to distinguish between
ither folk’s property and his ain.”
(_From the crowd_)—“What a poor stock ye maun hae; ye hae been yelling
about that beggar, till the story is as bare as your ain elbows.”
(_Retort_)—“Hech, man, but you’re witty—when ye set out on the tramp,
dinna come to me for a certificate, for I really couldna recommend ye; ye
havena brains for a beggar, and our funds are no in a condition to gi’e
ony pensions the now.” (_Continues_)—“Ye hae an account o’ the education
which he received riding across the meal pock; and the lair that he
learnt aff the loofs o’ his mither, which was a’ the school craft he e’er
received; but sic a proficient did he himsel’ grow in loof lair, that,
like a’ weel trained bairns, he tried his hands on the haffits of his
auld mither in turn, and gied her sic thunderin’ lessons, that she gied
up her breath and business in begging at the same time to her hopeful son
and successor.”
(_Voice from the crowd_)—“Ye should hae keepit a school amang beggars,
and micht hae taen your stilt for the taws.”
(_Retort_)—“Oh, man, I would like ither materials to work wi’ than the
like of you! it’s ill to bring out what’s no in; a leech would as soon
tak’ blood out o’ my stilt as bring ony mair out o’ you than the spoon
put in.” (_Resumes_)—“Ye hae an account of his progress in life after he
began business on his ain account, and what a skilful tradesman he turn’d
out—he could ‘lay on the cadge’[3] better than ony walleteer that e’er
coost a pock o’er his shouther.
[3] Skilful address in begging—_Dict. of Buckish Slang_.
“Ye hae an account o’ his last illness and death—for beggars dee as
weel as ither folk, though seldom through a surfeit; ye hae also a copy
o’ his last Will and Testament, bequeathing his fortune to be drunk at
his dredgy—the best action he ever did in his life, and which mak’s his
memory a standing toast at a’ beggars’ carousals—when they hae onything
to drink it wi’; and really, you’ll allow me to remark, if we had twa or
three mae public-spirited beggars in our day that would do the like, the
trade might yet be preserved in the country—for it has been threatening
to leave us in baith Scotland and England, in consequence of the opening
up of the trade wi’ Ireland, and the prices hae been broken ever since;
we hae a’ this to contend wi’ to preserve the pocks frae perishing, for
the sake o’ our children.”
(_Voice from the crowd_)—“Och, Willie, is it your own self that I’m
hearing this morning? and how did ye get home last night, after drinking
till the daylight wakened ye? troth, ye did not know your own crutch
from a cow’s tail.”
(_Retort_)—“Oh, man, Paddy, it’s naething new to me to be drunk, but it’s
a great rarity to you—no for want o’ will, but the bawbees. What way
cam’ ye here, Paddy? for ye hae naething to pay for your passage; and
your claes are no worth the thread and buttons that haud them thegither;
gin I had a crown for every road that your trotters could get into your
trowsers by, it would be a fortune to me. ‘Take me over,’ said you, to
your ould croak-in-the-bog; ‘I wish I had my body across agin, out of
this starvation could country, for there’s nothing but earth and stones
for a poor man to feed on; and in my own country I’ll have the potato
for the lifting.’ Hech, man—but the police keeps ye in order—and ye
thought when ye cam’ o’er to live by lifting? man! aff wi’ ye to your
bogs—there’s nae place like hame for ye, as the Deil said when he found
himsel’ in the Court o’ Session.
“Ye hae an account o’ this beggar’s burial, and his dredgy.”
(_Boy’s voice from the crowd_)—“Was ye there, Hawkie? surely, if the
stilt could haud ye up!”
“Och, sirs, are ye out already—you’re afore your time—you should hae
staid a wee langer in the nest till ye had gotten the feathers on ye, and
then ye would hae been a goose worth the looking at.”
(_Continues_)—“Sic a dredgy as this beggar had wad mak’ our Lords o’
Session lick their lips to hear tell o’—thae gentry come down among us
like as mony pouther-monkeys—with their heads dipped in flower-pocks,
to gie them the appearance o’ what neither the school nor experience in
the world could teach them—gin hangie would gie them a dip through his
trap-door, and ding the dust aff their wigs, there’s no a beggar frae
John o’ Groats to the Mull o’ Galloway that wadna gie his stilts to help
to mak’ a bonfire on the occasion.
“Ye hae the order o’ the procession at the burial—it’s the rank in the
profession that entitles to tak’ precedence at a beggar’s burial—ye never
hear tell o’ blood relations claiming their right to be nearest the
beggar’s banes. We’ll be thinking the warld is on its last legs, and like
to throw aff its wallets too, when sic an event occurs.”
(_Interrupted_)—“Your stilt would, nae doubt, be stumpin’ at the head o’
them a’.”
(_Reply_)—“Stan’ aside, lads, I’m just wantin’ to see if he has cloots
on his trotters, for horns are sae common, nowadays, amang the gentry o’
the blood, whar we should look for an example, that they hae ceased to
distinguish the class that nature intended them for.” (_Goes on_)—“First
in order was Tinklers, the beggars’ cavalry, wha being in constant
consultation with the gentry of the lang lugs, hae some pretensions to
wisdom; next Swindlers, wha mak’ the best bargains they can wi’ their
customers, without pretendin’ to hae ony authority for doin’t—no like our
black coats, wha can only get authority on ae side, to gang to a scene
of mair extensive usefulness, whar the preaching pays better—our brethren
of the pock a’ follow this example; they never stay lang whar there’s
naething either to get or to tak’—but I’m forgetting mysel’; at their
heels were Pickpockets, wha just tak’ the hangman’s helter wi’ them, and
gang the length o’ their tether—for hangie aye keeps the hank in his ain
hand.
“Next, Chain-drappers—the jewellers in the camp, wha are ready to
sell cheap, or half the profits wi’ everybody they meet, and wha are
like mony o’ our public instructors—aye get mair than they gie—then
Prick-the-loops, wha are sae familiar wi’ the hangman’s loop that they’ve
turned the idea into business, and set up wi’ their garter—which they
can easily spare, as they hae seldom ony stockings to tie on wi’t; by
this simple expedient they mak’ large profits on sma’ capital. Next,
Chartered-beggars, or Blue-gowns—wha get a licence frae the authorities
to cheat and lie over the whole country.
“Next, the hale clanjamfrey o’ Vagrants—for they’re a’ but beggars’
bairns the best o’ them—Randies, Thieves, Big-beggars, and Wee-beggars,
Bane-gatherers and Rowley-powleys. Criers o’ Hanging-speeches—wha,
generally, should hae been the subject o’ their ain story—some wi’
weans, but a’ wi’ wallets, broken backs, half arms, and nae arms; some
only wi’ half an e’e—ithers, wi’ mair een than nature gied them—and that
is an e’e after everything that they can mak’ their ain; snub-noses,
cock-noses, and half-noses; Roman-noses, lang-noses—some o’ them
like a chuckie-stane, ithers like a jarganell pear; hawk-noses, and
goose-noses; and mind ye I dinna find fault wi’ the last kind, for nature
does naething in vain, and put it there to suit the head; but whatever
the size and description o’ the neb, they could a’ tak’ their pick, for
the hale concern, man and mither’s son, had mouths, and whar teeth were
wanting, the defect was mair than made up by desperate willin’ gums.
“Some were lame, though their limbs were like ither folks. There are mae
stilts made than lame folk, for I maun tell you some gang a-begging and
forget their stilts, and hae to gang back for them afore they can come
ony speed; ithers hae nae legs to be lame wi’; a few, like mysel’, had
only ae guid ane, like the goose in a frosty morning, but made up the
loss by the beggars’ locomotive—a stilt—which a poor goose canna handle
wi’ advantage.
“The rear o’ this pock procession was closed by bands o’ sweeps, wha are
ready for a’ handlings, whar there’s onything to do for the teeth; an’
they hae the advantage o’ us, for they’re aye in Court-dress, and, like
honest Collie, dinna need to change their claes.
“In the hame-coming there was a scramble, wha should be soonest at the
feast, and a quarrel, an’ you’ll maybe be surprised that there was but ae
quarrel, but I maun tell you that they were a’ engaged in’t, an’ maist
o’ them kentna what they were gettin’ their croons cloored for, but
just to be neighbour-like. The cracking o’ stilts, the yelly-hooings o’
wives and weans, and the clatter o’ tinklers’ wives, wad hae ca’m’d the
sea in the Bay of Biscay—do ye ken the distance at which a beggar fights
his duel?—it’s just stilt length, or nearer, if his enemy is no sae weel
armed as himsel’.
“Ye hae a return o’ the killed and wounded—four Blind Fiddlers wi’
their noses broken—four Tinklers’ wives wi’ their tongues split, and if
they had keepit them within their teeth, as a’ wives’ tongues should
be, they would have been safe—there’s nae souder or salve that can
cure an ill tongue—five Croons crackit on the outside—sixteen torn
Lugs—four-and-twenty Noses laid down—four Left Hands with the thumb
bitten aff—ten Mouths made mill doors o’—four dozen Stilts wanting the
shouther-piece—twenty made down for the use of the family—in ither words,
broken in twa! an’ they are usefu’, for we have a’ sizes o’ beggars.
After a’ this, the grand dredgy; but I havena time to tell you about it
the night; but ye see what handlings beggars would hae if the public
would be liberal.
“Buy this book; if ye hae nae bawbees I’ll len’ ye, for I’m no carin’
about siller. I hae perish’d the pack already, an’ I am gaun to tak’ my
Stilt, the morn’s morning, and let the Creditors tak’ what they can get.”
Closing the extraordinary scene, the poet adds, as a sort of epilogue—
“This is the end of all,
High and low, great and small;
This finishes the poor vain show,
And the King, with all his pride,
In his lifetime deified—
With the beggar is at last laid low.”