Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume I Part 10

CHAPTER II.

"Say, ye red gowns that aften here, Hae toasted cakes to Katie's beer, Gin e'er thir days hae had their peer, Sae blythe, sae daft!

Ye'll ne'er again in life's career, Sit half sae saft."

_Elegy on John Hogg._

We returned to town; and, after threading a few of the narrower lanes, entered by a low door into a long dark room, dimly lighted by a fire. A tall thin woman was employed in skinning a bundle of dried fish at a table in a corner.

"Where's the guidman, Kate?" said my companion, changing the sweet pure English in which he had hitherto spoken for his mother tongue.

"John's ben in the spence," replied the woman. "Little Andrew, the wratch, has been makin' a totum wi' his faither's ae razor, an' the puir man's trying to shave himsel yonder, an' girnan like a sheep's head on the tangs."

"Oh, the wratch! the ill-deedie wratch!" said John, stalking into the room in a towering pa.s.sion, his face covered with suds and scratches--"I might as weel shave mysel wi' a mussel shillet. Rob Ferguson, man, is that you!"

"Wearie warld, John," said the poet, "for a' oor philosophy."

"Philosophy!--it's but a snare, Rob--just vanity an' vexation o'

speerit, as Solomon says. An' isna it clear heterodox besides? Ye study an' study till your brains gang about like a whirligig; an' then, like bairns in a boat that see the land sailin', ye think it's the solid yearth that's turnin' roun'. An' this ye ca' philosophy; as if David hadna tauld us that the warld sits coshly on the waters, an' canna be moved."

"Hoot, John," rejoined my companion, "it's no me, but Jamie Brown, that differs wi' you on these matters. I'm a Hoggonian, ye ken. The auld Jews were, doubtless, gran' Christians, an' wherefore no guid philosophers too? But it was cruel o' you to unkennel me this mornin' afore six, an'

I up sae lang at my studies the nicht afore."

"Ah, Rob, Rob!" said John--"studying in _Tam Dun's_ kirk. Ye'll be a minister, like a' the lave."

"Mendin' fast, John," rejoined the poet. "I was in your kirk on Sabbath last, hearing worthy Mr. Corkindale; whatever else he may hae to fear, he's in nae danger o' '_thinking his ain thoughts_,' honest man."

"In oor kirk!" said John; "ye're dune, then, wi' precentin' in yer ain--an' troth nae wonder. What could hae possessed ye to gie up the puir chield's name i' the prayer, an' him sittin' at yer lug?"

I was unacquainted with the circ.u.mstance to which he alluded, and requested an explanation. "Oh, ye see," said John, "Rob, amang a' the ither gifts that he misguides, has the gift o' a sweet voice; an'

naething else would ser' some o' oor Professors than to hae him for their precentor. They micht as weel hae thocht o' an organ--it wad be just as devout; but the soun's everything now, laddie, ye ken, an' the heart naething. Weel, Rob, as ye may think, was less than pleased wi'

the job, an' tauld them he could whistle better than sing; but it wasna that they wanted, and sae it behoved him to tak his seat in the box. An'

lest the folk should no be pleased wi' ae key to ae tune, he gied them, for the first twa or three days, a hale bunch to each; an' there was never sic singing in St. Andrew's afore. Weel, but for a' that it behoved him still to precent, though he has got rid o' it at last--for what did he do twa Sabbaths agone, but put up drucken Tarn Moffat's name in the prayer--the very chield that was sittin' at his elbow, though the minister couldna see him. An' when the puir stibbler was prayin' for the reprobate as weel's he could, ae half o' the kirk was needcessitated to come oot, that they micht keep decent, an' the ither half to swallow their pocket napkins. But what think ye"----

"Hoot, John, now, leave oot the moral," said the poet. "Here's a' the lads."

Half a dozen young students entered as he spoke; and, after a hearty greeting, and when he had introduced me to them one by one, as a choice fellow of immense reading, the door was barred, and we sat down to half a dozen of home brewed, and a huge platter of dried fish. There was much mirth and no little humour. Ferguson sat at the head of the table, and old John Hogg at the foot. I thought of Eastcheap, and the revels of Prince Henry; but our Falstaff was an old Scotch Seceder, and our Prince a gifted young fellow, who owed all his influence over his fellows to the force of his genius alone.

"Prithee, Hal," I said, "let us drink to Sir John."

"Why, yes," said the poet, "with all my heart. Not quite so fine a fellow, though, 'bating his Scotch honesty. Half Sir John's genius would have served for an epic poet--half his courage for a hero."

"His courage!" exclaimed one of the lads.

"Yes, Willie, his courage, man. Do you think a coward could have run away with half the coolness? With a t.i.the of the courage necessary for such a retreat, a man would have stood and fought till he died. Sir John must have been a fine fellow in his youth."

"In mony a droll way may a man fa' on the drap drink," remarked John; "an' meikle ill, dootless, does it do in takin' aff the edge o' the speerit--the mair if the edge be a fine razor edge, an' no the edge o' a whittle. I mind about fifty years ago, when I was a slip o' a callant,"----

"Losh, John!" exclaimed one of the lads, "hae ye been fechtin wi' the cats? sic a sc.r.a.pit face!"

"Wheesht," said Ferguson; "we owe the ill.u.s.tration to that, but dinna interrupt the story."

"Fifty years ago, when I was a slip o' a callant," continued John, "unco curious, an' fond o' kennin everything, as callants will be,"----

"Hoot, John," said one of the students, interrupting him, "can ye no cut short, man? Rob promised last Sat.u.r.day to gie us, 'Fie, let us a' to the bridal,' an' ye see the ale an' the nicht's baith wearin' dune."

"The song, Rob, the song!" exclaimed half a dozen voices at once; and John's story was lost in the clamour.

"Nay, now," said the good-natured poet, "that's less than kind; the auld man's stories are aye worth the hearing, an' he can relish the auld-warld fisher-sang wi' the best o' ye. But we maun hae the story yet."

He struck up the old Scotch ditty, "Fie let us a' to the bridal," which he sung with great power and brilliancy; for his voice was a richly modulated one, and there was a fulness of meaning imparted to the words which wonderfully heightened the effect. "How strange it is," he remarked to me when he had finished, "that our English neighbours deny us humour! The songs of no country equal our Scotch ones in that quality. Are you acquainted with 'The Guidwife of Auchtermuchty?'"

"Well," I replied; "but so are not the English. It strikes me that, with the exception of Smollet's novels, all our Scotch humour is locked up in our native tongue. No man can employ in works of humour any language of which he is not a thorough master; and few of our Scotch writers, with all their elegance, have attained the necessary command of that colloquial English which Addison and Swift employed when they were merry."

"A braw redd delivery," said John, addressing me. "Are ye gaun to be a minister tae?"

"Not quite sure yet," I replied.

"Ah," rejoined the old man, "'twas better for the Kirk when the minister just made himsel ready for it, an' then waited till he kent whether it wanted him. There's young Rob Ferguson beside you,"--

"Setting oot for the Kirk," said the young poet, interrupting him, "an'

yet drinkin' ale on Sat.u.r.day at e'en wi' old John Hogg."

"Weel, weel, laddie, it's easier for the best o' us to find fault wi'

ithers than to mend oorsels. Ye have the head, onyhow; but Jamie Brown tells me it's a doctor ye're gaun to be, after a'."

"Nonsense, John Hogg--I wonder how a man o' your standing"----

"Nonsense, I grant you," said one of the students; "but true enough for a' that, Bob. Ye see, John, Bob an' I were at the King's Muirs last Sat.u.r.day, an ca'ed at the _pendicle_, in the pa.s.sing, for a cup o' whey; when the guidwife tellt us there was ane o' the callants, who had broken into the milk-house twa nichts afore, lyin' ill o' a surfeit. 'Dangerous case,' said Bob; 'but let me see him; I have studied to small purpose if I know nothing o' medicine, my good woman.' Weel, the woman was just glad enough to bring him to the bedside; an' no wonder--ye never saw a wiser phiz in your lives--Dr. Dumpie's was naething till't; an', after he had sucked the head o' his stick for ten minutes, an' fand the loon's pulse, an' asked mair questions than the guidwife liked to answer, he prescribed. But, losh! sic a prescription! A day's fasting an' twa ladles o' nettle kail was the gist o't; but then there went mair Latin to the tail o' that, than oor neebor the Doctor ever had to lose."

But I dwell too long on the conversation of this evening. I feel, however, a deep interest in recalling it to memory. The education of Ferguson was of a twofold character--he studied in the schools and among the people; but it was in the latter tract alone that he acquired the materials of all his better poetry; and I feel as if, for at least one brief evening, I was admitted to the privileges of a cla.s.s-fellow, and sat with him on the same form. The company broke up a little after ten; and I did not again hear of John Hogg till I read his elegy, about four years after, among the poems of my friend. It is by no means one of the happiest pieces in the volume, nor, it strikes me, highly characteristic; but I have often perused it with an interest very independent of its merits.

CHAPTER III.

"But he is weak--both man and boy Has been an idler in the land."--WORDSWORTH.

I was attempting to listen, on the evening of the following Sunday, to a dull, listless discourse--one of the discourses so common at this period, in which there was fine writing without genius, and fine religion without Christianity--when a person who had just taken his place beside me, tapped me on the shoulder, and thrust a letter into my hand. It was my newly-acquired friend of the previous evening; and we shook hands heartily under the pew.

"That letter has just been handed me by an acquaintance from your part of the country," he whispered; "I trust it contains nothing unpleasant."

I raised it to the light, and on ascertaining that it was sealed and edged with black, rose and quitted the church, followed by my friend. It intimated, in two brief lines that my patron, the baronet, had been killed by a fall from his horse a few evenings before; and that, dying intestate the allowance which had hitherto enabled me to prosecute my studies necessarily dropped. I crumpled up the paper in my hand.

"You have learned something very unpleasant," said Ferguson. "Pardon me--I have no wish to intrude; but, if at all agreeable, I would fain spend the evening with you."