The Genius of Scotland Part 13

Or have a thought that ought intrude Save birds and humming bees?"

How delightful, as we wander amid these h.o.a.ry ruins and leafy bowers, so still and beautiful under the rich light of a summer noon, to think that the old stormy times of feudal warfare have pa.s.sed away forever, and that peace, with balmy wing, is brooding over this and other Christian lands.

But in this everyday life, the wants of nature must be met. Let us hie then to the village inn, just beyond the chapel. With our keen appet.i.tes, a snug dinner there will relish better than the most splendid banquet of the St. Clairs.

CHAPTER XII.

Ramble through the Fields--Parish Schools--Recollections of Dominie Meuross--The South Esk--Borthwick and Crichtoun Castles--Newbattle Abbey--Dalkeith--Residence of the Duke of Buccleugh--"Scotland's Skaith," by Hector Macneil--His Character and Writings--Extracts from the "History of Will and Jean."

Recrossing the North Esk, we ramble through the country in a north-easterly direction, pa.s.sing through highly cultivated farms, with large comfortable homesteads. The fields everywhere are filled with laborers, hoeing, ploughing, and weeding, most of them cheerful as larks, and making the woods ring with 'whistle and song.' That plain but substantial edifice, under the shadow of the great oak tree hard by the old church, is a parish school-house, in which perhaps are gathered some fifty or sixty boys and girls, from all ranks of society, plying their mental tasks, under the supervision of an intelligent schoolmaster.

Every morning in that school-house the Word of G.o.d is reverently read, and earnest prayer offered, exerting upon all minds a healthful moral influence, and producing impressions of a religious kind, which may last forever. Any boy may be fitted for college, or for commercial pursuits, in such a school, and the expense to the parent will be next to nothing.

What then must be the amount of good accomplished by the combined influence of all the parish schools in Scotland, equally endowed, and supplied with adequate teachers? Popular education has made great advances in Scotland within a few years. The greatest zeal for learning exists among the people, and they require no compulsive acts, as in Germany, to induce them to send their children to school. Not to be able to read and write is regarded, in Scotland, as a great disgrace; and hence the poorest people are equally ready with the rich to avail themselves of the benefits of instruction. Good teachers are uniformly secured, because they receive an ample compensation, and none but well-educated and truly moral men would be accepted. In this respect their situation is greatly superior to that of parish schoolmasters in Germany or in the United States. On this subject, Kohl, the German traveller, mentions an amusing conversation which he had with the parish schoolmaster at Muthil. Having stated to the latter that the situation of Scottish teachers was far superior to that of teachers in his country, he inquired what was the average pay of schoolmasters there.

"It varies a good deal," was the reply of Kohl. "Some have a hundred, some a hundred and fifty, but many no more than fifty dollars."

"How many pounds go to a dollar?" asked he.

"Seven dollars go to a pound."

"What!" he exclaimed, springing up from his chair, "do you mean to tell me that they pay a schoolmaster with _seven pounds_ a year?"

"Even so," was the reply, "seven pounds; but how much then do they get with you?"

"I know no one who has less than from forty to fifty pounds in all Scotland; but the average is seventy or eighty pounds; and many go as high as a hundred and fifty pounds."

"What!" cried Kohl, springing up in his turn, "a hundred and fifty pounds! that makes one thousand and fifty dollars. A _baron_ would be satisfied in Germany with such a revenue as that; and do you mean to say that there are schoolmasters who grumble at it?"

"Yes," said he; "but recollect how dear things are with us. Sugar costs eighteenpence a pound; coffee two shillings; chocolate is still dearer, and tea not much cheaper. And then how dear are good beef, and pork, and plums, and puddings, and everything else!"

"I could not deny this," adds Kohl; "but I thought that our poor schoolmasters were content if they had but bread."

In former times the parish schoolmasters did not receive so much as they now do; but then they were clerks of the parish, frequently _precentors_ in the church, and received a mult.i.tude of little perquisites. Their support has been made quite ample, having an average salary of a hundred pounds, with a free house.

But the sight of that school-house brings back the days of "lang syne."

Well do I remember the old parish school--a long thatched building, at the "Kirk of Shotts," where I received my preparation for college, under the free and easy, but most efficient, administration of 'Dominie Meuross,' famed through all the country for his great cla.s.sical attainments, his facetious disposition, his kind-heartedness, and his love of the pure 'Glenlivet.' Those were not the days of temperance societies, and the Dominie had so much to do with christenings and weddings, parish difficulties, "roups" and law-suits, that he was greatly tempted by the bottle. But he was a worthy man, and an enthusiastic teacher, especially of the cla.s.sics. Teaching A, B, C, was rather a dull business to the Dominie; but oh, how _merrily_ he would construe the Odes of Horace, what jokes he would crack over our lessons, and what effulgent light he would cast upon the cla.s.sic page! Yet Dominie Meuross was a dignified man--no one more so. The boys, indeed, enjoyed considerable lat.i.tude, especially at that end of the school opposite the one in which the Dominie sat, and many facetious tricks were played upon the duller boys, the "sumphs," as we used to call them.

But the Dominie had only to pull down his gla.s.ses from his forehead, where they were usually perched, and direct a keen glance to "the other end," instantly to bring us all to perfect order. Dear old man! he has long ago "gone to the yird," but his memory is green as the gra.s.s which waves upon his grave.

The school and the church, the light of learning, and the light of religion, form the glory of Scotland. These have twined around her rustic brow a wreath of fadeless glory. These have given her stability and worth, beauty and renown.

But we have reached Dalhousie Castle, with its charming and romantic grounds, situated on a branch of the South Esk, a stream similar to the North Esk, and running in the same direction. These streams, after pa.s.sing through scenery the most picturesque and beautiful, and watering a hundred spots consecrated by song and story, as if by a mutual attraction, unite a little above Dalkeith, and fall near the old town of Musselburgh into the Firth of Forth. Behind us, at the distance of a few miles, are the celebrated ruins of Borthwick and Crichtoun castles, the one on a branch of the South Esk, the other somewhat to the right, in the vale of Tyne. It was into Borthwick Castle that Queen Mary retired after the death of Darnley, and her unhappy marriage with Bothwell, and from which she was obliged, a few days afterwards, to flee to Dunbar in the guise of a page. Crichtoun Castle is beautifully described by Sir Walter Scott, in Marmion, and as we cannot visit this interesting ruin, take his description of it as the best subst.i.tute.

"That castle rises on a steep Of the green vale of Tyne; And far beneath, where slow they creep From pool to eddy, dark and deep, Where alders moist, and willows weep, You hear her streams repine.

The towers in different ages rose; Their various architecture shows The builders' various hands; A mighty ma.s.s, that could oppose, When deadliest hatred fired its foes, The vengeful Douglas' bands.

"Crichtoun! though now thy miry court But pens the lazy steer and sheep, Thy turrets rude and tottered Keep, Have been the minstrel's loved resort.

Oft have I traced within thy fort, Of mouldering shields the mystic sense, Scutcheons of honor or pretence, Quartered in old armorial sort, Remains of rude magnificence.

Nor wholly yet hath time defaced Thy lordly gallery fair; Nor yet the stony cord unbraced, Whose twisted knots with roses laced, Adorn thy ruined stair.

Still rises unimpaired below, The court-yard's graceful portico: Above its cornice, row and row, Of fair hewn facets richly show, Their pointed diamond form, Though there but houseless cattle go, To shield them from the storm.

And shuddering still may we explore, Where oft whilom were captives pent, The darkness of thy Ma.s.sy More;[84]

Or from thy gra.s.s-grown battlement.

May trace, in undulating line, The sluggish mazes of the Tyne."

[Footnote 84: The prison vault.]

Proceeding along the stream, we pa.s.s c.o.c.kpen, reminding us of the Laird of c.o.c.kpen and his amusing courtship, when

"Dumb-founder'd was he, But nae word did he gae; He mounted his mare, And he rade cannilie.

But aften he thought, As he gaed through the glen, She's a fule to refuse The Laird o' c.o.c.kpen."

We linger a few minutes by Newbattle Abbey, founded by David I., for a community of Cistercian monks, brought hither from Melrose, but now the residence of the Marquis of Lothian; and soon after reach the old "burgh town" of Dalkeith, most delightfully situated between the two Esks, and reminding us forcibly of "Mansie Waugh," the _pawkie tailor_ of Dalkeith, whose amusing history we read in our boyhood. Dalkeith is a considerable place, and has many elegant residences. In its immediate vicinity is Dalkeith Palace, seat of the Duke of Buccleugh, standing on an overhanging bank of the North Esk. Here too, in earlier times, lived the Grahams, and the Douglases; and into this strong retreat, then called the "Lion's den," retired the celebrated Regent Morton, who was subsequently beheaded. We might enter the house, as this favor is often granted to strangers, but we will not now; though it boasts the possession of some fine old paintings, and some exquisite pieces of furniture. But the grounds around it are infinitely more attractive, adorned, as they are, with magnificent trees and shrubbery, and the serpentine windings of the two Esks, whose waters unite in the park, a little distance below the house. How placidly the stream glides through the verdant meadows, and mirrors the green foliage of the overhanging trees, or the branching horns of some deer, bent to drink its clear waters! How softly and delicately the pencil rays of green and yellow light glimmer through those shady retreats to the right. See the startled deer bounding through the woods! How softly and lovingly sleeps the sunshine on that wide pool at the bottom of the green slope, adorned with flowers and honeysuckles! And see, through that shady vista the open sky in the distance, "so darkly, deeply, beautifully blue." The birds too, mavis, lintie, and bulfinch, are caroling among the trees, as if their little hearts were filled with boundless joy.

The cottage of "Jeanie Gairlace," supposed to be conferred upon her by the d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleugh, is placed by Macneil, the author of "Scotland's Skaith," in this beautiful vicinity. As we have yet to wait some time for the rail cars that are to take us to Edinburgh, let us sit down on this rustic seat, and I will give you some account of Macneil, and his touching poem of "Will and Jean."

Hector Macneil was born in 1746, and died in 1818. He was brought up to mercantile pursuits, but did not succeed in business. He cultivated in secret his pa.s.sion for the muses, and published at intervals several poetical effusions, among which were "The Harp, a Legendary Poem,"--"The Links of the Forth, or a Parting Peep at the Ca.r.s.e of Sterling," and "Scotland's Skaith, or the History of Will and Jean," his most natural and successful production. Though not successful in lyrical effusions, or in song writing, he is the author, we believe, of that exquisite ballad, "Bonny Wee Mary o' Castlecary." He also wrote some prose tales, in which he laments the effects of modern changes and improvements. In the latter years of his life, he resided in comparative comfort, at Edinburgh, enjoying the congenial society of its refined and literary circles.

"Scotland's Skaith (curse) or the History of Will and Jean," is intended to depict the ruinous effects of intemperance, and the possibility of reform, with the happiness thence resulting. A happy couple, in humble life are gradually drawn into the vortex of intemperance, and at last are reduced to the deepest extremities. The husband enlists as a soldier, and the wife is compelled, with her children, to beg her bread.

In the commencement of the poem Willie is represented as pa.s.sing a rustic alehouse, whose attractions prove too much for him. The situation of the alehouse, and the commencement of Willie's career as a drunkard, are admirably described. The rhythm of the poem is peculiarly harmonious and lively.

In a howm[85] whose bonnie burnie, Whimpering rowed its crystal flood, Near the road where travellers turn aye, Neat and bield[86] a cot house stood.

White the wa's, wi' roof new theckit,[87]

Window broads[88] just painted red; Lown[89] 'mang trees and braes it reekit,[90]

Hafflins[91] seen and hafflins hid.

Up the gavel[92] end thick spreading, c.r.a.p the clasping ivy green, Back owre firs the high craigs cleadin,[93]

Raised around a cosey screen.

Down below a flowery meadow; Joined the burnies rambling line, Here it was that Howe the widow That same day set up her sign.

Brattling[94] down the brae, and near its Bottom, Will first marvelling sees 'Porter, ale, and British spirits,'

Painted bright between twa trees.

'G.o.dsake Tam! here's walth for drinking!

Wha can this new-comer be?'

'Hout,' quo Tam, 'there's drouth in thinking-- Let's in Will, and syne[95] we'll see.'

[Footnote 85: Hollow, or glen.]

[Footnote 86: Sheltered.]

[Footnote 87: Thatched.]

[Footnote 88: Boards.]