Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume XIII Part 7

"THE SIMPERING IDIOT"

with an everlasting smile on her countenance. "Poor mamma was so ill!--he--he--he! we really thought she would have died--he! But then Dr Blister was so attentive and funny. Oh la!--oh la! how he did laugh, and made such a deal of fun, that poor mamma absolutely sat up in bed, and he!--he!--he!--laughed, absolutely laughed outright. But, really, Mrs Wotton, really that is such a beautiful little pony which you have got feeding on the green, and it looked so comical at me in pa.s.sing--he!

he!--and your little boy, Bobby, rides it so gracefully--ha! ha!--and he fell so prettily. But be not alarmed, Mrs Wotton, the boy is only a little, just a very little hurt about the head--he! he!--only about the head, ma'am. I a.s.sure you don't be alarmed. Pray--pray, don't!--he!--he! I think I see little Bobby tumbling heels up, head down. A pretty boy, indeed, your little Bobby. But, bless me, Mrs Wotton, don't ring the bell--he!--he! I saw Bobby carefully carried into the gardener's cottage at the gate, with the whip still in his hand, and--but he did not bleed severely----Oh la!--oh la! I hope I have not alarmed you, ma'am. Good-morning--good-morning."

There goes that insensible piece of everlasting giggle. She has no more heart than that poker, and no more mercy than an enraged cobbler, making use of it to chastise a drunken spouse. There she goes from house to house, from morn to night, with all the external marks of contentment and high delight, and yet with an inward feeling of envy and ill-will, which is a perfect h.e.l.l. But here comes, with a copy of the "Laus Stult.i.tiae" by Erasmus, in one pocket, and a play of aeschylus in the Other.

"THE PEDANTIC IDIOT"

Oxford bred--pure Oxford, ma'am. You cannot possibly utter a sentiment which he does not roll you off in pure Iambics, nor mention a fact which does not suggest another, at least eighteen centuries old.

"The day is very fine, ma'am, very fine indeed. 'And thus, from day to day'--you remember the quotation in Shakspere--it is prettily said, but not delicately. I do not like the words 'rot, and rot;' yet, if one take into account the age, ma'am, the age of Shakspere--I don't mean the years which he lived, but the age of the world in which he lived--if you take into consideration the age, such words as rot were not deemed ungenteel. 'Like a bare bodkin,' and 'groan and sweat'--all these phrases have got somehow into bad repute now; but they were once seen in the most polite company. Have you read the 'Laus Stult.i.tiae' of Erasmus, sir; or, as it is more frequently expressed in Greek terms, the Encomium Moriae? It is quite unique, sir; so full of genuine fun, expressed in beautiful Latin, with sc.r.a.ps of Greek intermixed. What think you of the 'Prometheus' of Euripides?--is it not sublime and terrific?--such a thunder of language and meaning intermingled! These old fellows--these ancients--were the boys. What are our moderns to them? What is Southey to Virgil, or Scott to Homer, Tom Moore to Anacreon, or the lyrics of Burns to those of Horace? Oh, _fons Blandusiae_! how soft, how sweet, how beautifully _simplex munditiis_!

And then his _'quem verum aut heroa,' 'Coelo tonantem credimus Jovem'_. But I am, perhaps, trespa.s.sing on your patience; if so, I ask your pardon, and bid you good-morning."

There he goes--a creature of nut-sh.e.l.ls, one who deals with the husk but never with the kernel--a bag of chaff, with scarcely a per-centage of honest grain--a sounding bra.s.s and a tinkling cymbal--a thing of shreds and patches--a Joseph's coat of many colours. I was heartily tired of the cla.s.sical pedant; but there are pedants, ma'am, in all situations and professions. There are even pedantic chimney-sweeps--men in sooty garb, who brandish the brush and display the dirt-bag with an air of importance, and whose loud and penetrating "sweep" has a peculiar force with it. There is, for example, your next neighbour, Mrs Manage, who makes more cheeses from less milk than any one of her neighbours; whose b.u.t.ter has a higher flavour than any in the market; and who kills you, from morn to night, with plans of savings, and profits, and improvements. She even rides her hobby whilst asleep; for she often starts, and mutters the name of a favourite milcher. And there is Mr Clark. Ah, my dear, good-natured, companionable, ever-to-be-remembered Mr Clark! You were indeed the prince of fishers. You had travelled over a great part of Scotland, like my friend Stodart, fishing; and, really and in truth, you had done and seen wonders. I am sorry, very sorry, indeed, to place you amongst the "pedants;" but truth, my dear sir--my dear shade, compels me to do so. Set you once upon fishing, and there was no end of it--from Dan to Beersheba, on you went. Here you killed a salmon of fourteen pounds weight, after playing him up pool and down stream for at least six hours; there, you hooked another, which broke your line, and curvetted away to the tune of

"I care for n.o.body, no not I, If n.o.body cares for me."

Again, you filled your basket ere twelve o'clock, and gave up fishing merely because you could carry no more. And then, such adventures! One day you lost yourself in the mist--found a tethered horse--wandered for hours, and then encountered the same tethered horse again. At another time, you came upon a cottage in the muirland with a lame crow; and, after much wandering, came again upon the same object. You once changed your flies _three_ times, and at last pulled _him_ out by a knot upon the line, at which he took _greedily_. Was it not you who filled your basket with trouts of a pound weight each, and then, in leaning over a bank to land another, your basket-pin gave way, and they all tumbled dead into the gullet? Did not you jump _in_ after them; and were you not carried down into the b.u.mbling pool; and had it not been that you got a hold of a _heather cow_, would not you have been absolutely drowned?

After all this testimony, which you know--I mean _knew_ (alas! my dear friend, that I should say _knew_!)--to be true, can I avoid placing you amongst the _fishing pedants_? Yet, as the angel did in Sterne (an angel who has had a deal of work to do in his time), do I now drop a tear upon what I have written, and all _but_ blot it out for ever. Honest Mr Clark! you were indeed the king of fishers; but, then, all your fish weighed fisher's weight--you added at least seventy-five per cent. to the avoirdupois!

But golfers! Golfers, of all pedants who infest earth or purgatory, are the most intolerable. During dinner, you hear the distant grumble of thunder; there is a word or two dropped, of this hole and that hole--of this stroke and that stroke--of this tee and that tee; but so soon as the gla.s.s has circulated a little, you are all mish-mash, helter-skelter, at it again. Done--done! is the word on the match; shillings, pounds, and guineas fly about like midges in harvest sunshine. Some one tries to introduce general conversation, by observing that the coronation went well off; but it is all to no purpose. Their voice is not heard in the general uproar. The very table seems to take an interest in the hubbub, and responds to the clenched fist with a peculiar hollow sound. If this be not pedantry, I know nothing of the subject. The Old Commodore, a second Uncle Toby, was a pedant; and so was Willie Herdman, who had fought as a common soldier at the siege of Gibraltar; and Jumping Jenny was a pedant, who had not an idea beyond a reel and a fling; and Willie Crosbie was a pedant, who could talk of nothing but ewes and gimmers; and Geordie Johnston was a pedant, who valued himself on his small ankles, and nice lambs'-wool stockings; and Archy Tait was a pedant, who kept up a nightly intercourse with the devil and all manner of bogles. But time and paper (which is more precious than time, never to speak of the printing) would fail me, were I to reveal to you the thousandth part of the cases in which pedantic idiocy appears. Turn we now, therefore, to another species of the same genus, to the "SARCASTICAL JESTER," who, though he has not yet obtained a name amongst the notables, is, undeniably, the greatest and most offensive Idiot of the whole batch.

We must approach him slily, for he is an exceedingly cunning fellow; and, when you least think of it, he will be showing you off to some third party, whom, in his turn, he will again be showing off to you.

Dean Swift's housemaid was one of this cla.s.s, who pinned a dish-clout to the tail of Dr Sheridan, and pointed him out as an object of ridicule to all the servants. Nay, Satan himself was a master of works on the occasion, when he said "eat, and be wise," well knowing that his advice was folly, and obedience to it death. The practical jester is not a man of many words, but he looks two ways for Sabbath. He will tread upon your corny toe, and then ask your pardon, looking all the while slily to his companion, who is in the secret. He will call you _Kettle of Barclay_, instead of _Barclay of Kettle_--aware, as he is, that you value yourself upon your t.i.tle. He will, above all this, practise upon you his great leading joke of _Johnnie Hastie's shears_. You are sitting beside him upon the top of a coach, and thinking of nothing but the crops, the fields, and the cottages. All at once, you spring to your feet with a shout, and are precipitated over the driver's seat upon the backs of the horses. All that he did, or was doing, was to give you a clip of Johnnie Hastie's shears. Good reader (for all readers of those Tales are good, like the Tales themselves), dost thou know anything about Johnnie Hastie or his shears? I shall tell thee.

He was a tailor in the Parish of Crail, famous for fish and herrings--a real cankered body, but with about an equal quant.i.ty of humour or malevolent wit. Whenever he found a proper opportunity, he used to bend his fore and middle fingers, and then, protruding the middle joint, and opening or separating the one from the other, he used to apply this instrument to the fleshy and most sensitive part of any person who might happen to sit near him, and, by compressing suddenly the joints and fingers, gave the impression of severe clipping. This he denominated a clip of Johnnie Hastie's shears; and hence arose the by-word. An incident or two of this sort it may not be improper to mention.

It is well known that hiccuping is an unpleasant but a pertinacious complaint, and that it proceeds from many causes as well as from a too liberal indulgence in wine. A person who happened to be at the time afflicted with this convulsive movement was suddenly struck on the back, by a practical jester, by way of surprising him out of the distemper.

The stroke, however, happened to introduce a small piece of nut kernel, which he was eating, into his windpipe, and it was not without much suffering that it was at last extracted. Another came up to a man of peculiar habits and feelings, observing that he was looking very ill; and then, meeting him again next day, and a third, and a fourth, made the same observation. The poor nervous creature took it sadly to heart, went to bed, and never rose again. He died from the fear of death. At the siege of Toulon--when b.a.l.l.s flew about in abundance--after the battle was over, and our ships were forced, by the infant Hercules, Bonaparte, to retreat, an officer went up to his companion, who was standing with his back towards him in the dark, and slapped him suddenly on the back betwixt the shoulders. The person suddenly struck jumped up on the deck, and shouting, "Shot at last, by G.o.d!" he died on the spot.

Jeanie Gibson and William Laidlaw were lovers, not in any particular sentimental manner, but just in the old-fashioned way. They liked each other's company, sat very close to each other in the dark, and occasionally indulged in an innocent kiss! But Jeanie was what is called "bonny," and had more lovers than Willie Laidlaw; one of whom, Bob Paton, a sly, unfeeling rogue, of the practical-jesting kind, was over head-and-ears in love with bonny Jeanie. He took it into his head that he would play a trick upon Jeanie, and make her avow at once her preference for Willie Laidlaw, whom she only in secret favoured. For this purpose, he dressed up a figure in what (in the dark) might appear to be the clothes of Willie Laidlaw, and placed it in a field through which he knew Laidlaw was to pa.s.s. He armed himself with a gun, duly charged with powder and shot. Firm prepared, he advanced into the field or park, well knowing that Jeanie Gibson was not only within _sight_, but within _hearing_ of him, being seated under the cover of a stone d.y.k.e hard by.

"Where are you going, William?" said the practical jester. "I know where you are going; you are going to meet wi' Jeanie Gibson; but I'll blaw your brains out first." Thus saying, he fired off his musket, and the figure immediately fell.

A wild scream was all that was heard, and Jeanie was found lifeless: no, much worse--deprived of reason for life! She never recovered; but when her lover was brought into her presence, always said--

"I know--I know it is not my Willie. I saw--I saw him fa'! It isna him; it canna be him. He's awa--awa--awa!" And then she uniformly fainted.

Nor did the practical jester escape. Willie actually shot him, and was hanged on Lockerby Muir for the deed.

_Finis coronat opus_--to conclude, I shall e'en take off myself under the character of

"THE SCRIBBLING IDIOT."

He is always meditating something great, but never carries it into execution. One day he commences a heroic poem, which terminates the next in a rebus or sonnet. One day he becomes a dramatist, and pens a scene of a play on the escape of James the Fifth from the palace of Falkland; the next he writes an article for the "Tales of the Borders." Now he undertakes a history of the eight-and-twenty years' persecution--gets out numerous books from the library--actually writes a preface and a conclusion in fine style, which ends in a few lines in the poet's corner of a country newspaper. He sketches a poem, to be ent.i.tled, "Grat.i.tude"--in which dogs, elephants, lions, and even horses, as well as men and women, are to figure; but he never gets on further than four very indifferent lines. He is sixty years old; and at sixteen could write as well and cleverly as he does now. He never takes time to correct _vetere stylum_, he is always in such a confounded hurry lest his idea should escape him ere he has given it a black coat and a white waistcoat. n.o.body can equal him in rapidity of composition; but, then, his composition is like the man's horse, with two faults--"it is very ill to catch, and not worth a penny when caught." He does everything for everybody; writes all manner of reviews of books which he has never read, and quotes authorities which he has never consulted. He gets daily into sc.r.a.pes by making use of people's names about whom he knows nothing, and who abhor, or pretend to abhor, notoriety. One day he is all devotion and sentiment, the next all fun and frolic. He spends his life in an endless whirl of fancies, meditations, resolves, attempts, and finds himself every hour less respected; and, indeed, less respectable than he once was. The worst of it is, "he knows that he is an idiot;" but the knowledge does him no manner of good. He takes a tumbler or two; and then he is, in his own estimation, the very acme of genius! He knows that, had he possessed perseverance, he might have done much; and this knowledge, instead of stimulating, paralyses all manner of effect. His life is a dream; and when he dies, he will be instantly forgotten. He will set like an equatorial sun, and there will be no twilight over his memory.

But "_latet dolus in generalibus_"--I set out in life with excellent prospects--had gained the patronage of a n.o.bleman who had at least twenty kirks in his gift. In these days the Veto had not shown its appalling phiz. I had the absolute promise of a kirk, which was sure to be vacant in a year or two. But nothing would serve me but I would write some satirical verses on a scolding wife, whom I knew only by report. I sent the following lines to some magazine of the day.

TUNE--"_Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch_

"Tam's wife o' Puddentuscal[1]-- Tam's wife o' Puddentuscal, Wat ye how she rated me, And ca'ed me baith a loon and rascal!

"Her words gaed through me like a sword-- She said she'd gnash our heads together.

Had I sic wife, upon my word, I'd twist her chanter in a tether.

Tam's wife, &c.

"I did but pree her dinner cheer, And hadna drunk twa jugs o' toddy, When _in_ she bang'd like ony bear-- Oh, she is an awsome body!

Tam's wife, &c.

"I took my bonnet and the road, And to my waefu fate resign'd me; When, what think ye, the raging jade Daddit _to_ the door behind me?

Tam's wife o' Puddentuscal-- Tam's wife o' Puddentuscal, Wat ye how she rated me, And ca'ed me baith a loon and rascal.

[Footnote 1: Name of a farm.]

Now this song happened to take in the neighbourhood, and was reckoned severe and clever. The murder came out in a few weeks. I received the following letter from Lord C----:--

"SIR,--I hear you have been lampooning, in a periodical work, a person in whom Lady C---- takes a deep interest. I consider myself relieved from any obligations which your past services may have imposed upon me.--I remain, &c."

My lord was as good as his word, and that I am now

"Within my noisy mansion skill'd to rule,"

instead of appearing sleek, fat, and comfortable at the General a.s.sembly now sitting, is owing to my scribbling propensities.

But there is yet one other idiot, with whose character I might close "this strange, eventful history"--an idiot decidedly the most prominent of all--an idiot who, in modern times in particular, has proved his claims on my notice to an unusual extent--an idiot, too, without whose idiocy mine were literally a dead letter: Reader! gentle reader!--"_Quid rides--nomine mutato de_ TE"--that is, if you are _displeased_; if not, you are an angel!

THE FLOSHEND INN.

About the middle of the last century, and previous to it, the truly national trade of carrying the pack was, as doubtless many of our readers know, both much more general and respectable than it now is.

It did not then, by any means, occupy the low place in the scale of traffic to which modern pride, and perhaps modern improvement, have reduced it. At the period to which we allude, those engaged in this trade were for the most part men of good substance and of unimpeachable character, trustworthy, and, in their humble sphere, highly respectable--circ.u.mstances which, doubtless, imparted to their calling the consideration which it then enjoyed. The reason lies on the surface: the trade was then both a more extensive and a more important one than it is now, and required a much greater capital; for there being then none of those rapid and commodious conveyances for transporting merchandise from place to place which are now everywhere to be met with, the greater part of this business was then done by the packmen, who combined the two characters of merchants and carriers; and in this double capacity supplied many of the shops of Edinburgh and Glasgow, and other large towns, with English manufactures. Those, therefore, who would conceive of the packman of old, an indifferently-clad and equivocal-looking fellow, with a wooden box on his back, containing his whole stock, would form a very erroneous idea of the peripatetic merchant. Their conception would not, in truth, represent the man at all. The packman of yore kept two or three horses, and these he loaded with his merchandise, to the value often of several thousand pounds; and thus he perambulated the country, pa.s.sing between Scotland and England, conveying the goods of the one to the other; and thus maintaining the commercial intercourse of the two kingdoms.

About the year 1746, this trade had arrived at so great a height, that the high-road to England by Gretna Green was thronged with those engaged in it, going to and returning from the sister kingdom with their loaded ponies; and a merry and bustling time of it they kept at the Floshend Inn. This hostelry, now extinct, was long a favourite resort of these packmen, or pack-carriers, as they were more generally or more properly called. It was situated on the Scottish side of the Borders, near to Gretna Green, and was kept by a very civil and obliging person, of the luminous name of John Gas--a little, fat, good-humoured, landlord-looking body, with a countenance strongly expressive of his comfortable condition, having a capital business, and being very much at his ease, both in mind and body. His house was a favourite resort of the pack-carriers; and for good reasons. It was the last inn of any note on the Scottish side, and was, of consequence, the first they came to on re-entering their native country from their expeditions into England.

The quarters, besides, were in themselves excellent; the accommodations were good, and the fare abundant, reasonable, and of the first quality--especially the liquor, that great _sine qua non_ of good cheer.

In addition to all this, John Gas himself was the very pink of landlords; humorous, kind, attentive, and obliging; possessing that valuable quality of being able to stand almost any given quant.i.ty of drink, which enabled him to distribute his presence and his company over any number of successive guests. Fresh as a bedewed daisy, and steady as a wave-beaten rock, he was always forthcoming, whatever might have been the amount of previous duty he had performed; and what might remain yet to do he always overtook, and executed with credit to himself, and satisfaction to his customers--no instance having been known of his having been placed _hors de combat_, either by ale-cup or brandy-bottle.

With such claims on public patronage, it was no wonder that his house secured so large a share of the custom of the itinerant merchants of the time; who, so much did they appreciate the comforts of the Floshend Inn, and so much were they alive to the merits of its host, that they would not rest, foul or fair, dark or light, anywhere within ten miles of it.

A dozen of them were thus frequently a.s.sembled together at the same time under the hospitable roof; and, being all known to each other, they formed, on such occasions, a merry corps--spending freely, and sitting down all together at the same table. A more amusing or more entertaining company could, perhaps, nowhere be found; for they were all shrewd, intelligent men--their profession and their wandering lives putting them in possession of a vast store of curious adventure and anecdote, and throwing many sights in their way which escape the local fixtures of the human race. Naturally of a gossiping turn--a propensity made particularly evident when they chanced to meet together in such a way as we have described--they were in the habit of amusing each other with narratives of what they had seen and heard that was strange, and enlivening the evening with merry tale and jest.

It was somewhere about the month of March, in the year 1750, that a knot of these worthies, consisting of seven or eight, was a.s.sembled in the cheerful kitchen of the Floshend Inn--an apartment they preferred for its superior comfort, its blazing fire, and its freedom from all restraint. Some of the guests present on this occasion were on their way to England; others had just returned from it, with packs of Manchester goods, and large bales of Kendal leather. These last, and all other descriptions of merchandise which his pack-carrier customers brought, were stowed in a large room in the inn, which the landlord had very judiciously and very properly appropriated for this purpose; while the horses that bore them were comfortably quartered in the commodious and well-ordered stables. They were seated on either side of the fire, with a small round table between them, on which stood a circle of gla.s.ses; in the centre, a smoking jug, whose contents may be readily guessed; and close by the table was the landlord, doing the honours of the occasion--that is, making the brandy-toddy, and filling the gla.s.ses of his guests. The master of ceremonies was in great glee, being precisely in his element, the situation of all others in which he most delighted--a bowl of good liquor before him, a set of merry good friends around him, and the prospect of a neat, snug reckoning in perspective.

The conversation amongst the guests was general; but it might have been observed that one of the party had got the ear of the landlord, and was telling him, in an under-tone, some curious story; for the latter, with head inclined towards the facetious narrator, was chuckling and smirking at every turn of the humorous tale. At length a sudden roar of laughter at once announced its consummation, and attracted towards himself the general attention of the company.

"What's that, mine host?" was an inquiry put by three or four at once.

"Something guid, I warrant; for that was a hearty ane." The speaker meant Mr Gas's laugh. "What was't?"