An hour’s brisk walking, or thereabouts, placed me in front of Duntarkin, which had also, I found, undergone considerable alterations, though it had not been altogether demolished like the principal mansion. An inn-yard extended before the door of the decent little jointure-house, even amidst the remnants of the holly hedges which had screened the lady’s garden. Then a broad, raw-looking, new-made road intruded itself up the little glen, instead of the old horseway, so seldom used that it was almost entirely covered with grass. It is a great enormity, of which gentlemen trustees on the highways are sometimes guilty, in adopting the breadth necessary for an avenue to the metropolis, where all that is required is an access to some sequestered and unpopulous district. I do not say anything of the expense—that the trustees and their constituents may settle as they please. But the destruction of silvan beauty is great when the breadth of the road is more than proportioned to the vale through which it runs, and lowers, of course, the consequence of any objects of wood or water, or broken and varied ground, which might otherwise attract notice and give pleasure. A bubbling runnel by the side of one of those modern Appian or Flaminian highways is but like a kennel; the little hill is diminished to a hillock—the romantic hillock to a molehill, almost too small for sight.
Such an enormity, however, had destroyed the quiet loneliness of Duntarkin, and intruded its breadth of dust and gravel, and its associations of pochays and mail-coaches, upon one of the most sequestered spots in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale. The house was old and dilapidated, and looked sorry for itself, as if sensible of a derogation; but the sign was strong and new, and brightly painted, displaying a heraldic shield (three shuttles in a field diapre), a web partly unfolded for crest, and two stout giants for supporters, each one holding a weaver’s beam proper. To have displayed this monstrous emblem on the front of the house might have hazarded bringing down the wall, but for certain would have blocked up one or two windows. It was therefore established independent of the mansion, being displayed in an iron framework, and suspended upon two posts, with as much wood and iron about it as would have builded a brig; and there it hung, creaking, groaning, and screaming in every blast of wind, and frightening for five miles’ distance, for aught I know, the nests of thrushes and linnets, the ancient denizens of the little glen.
When I entered the place I was received by Christie Steele herself, who seemed uncertain whether to drop me in the kitchen, or usher me into a separate apartment, as I called for tea, with something rather more substantial than bread and butter, and spoke of supping and sleeping, Christie at last inducted me into the room where she herself had been sitting, probably the only one which had a fire, though the month was October. This answered my plan; and as she was about to remove her spinning-wheel, I begged she would have the goodness to remain and make my tea, adding that I liked the sound of the wheel, and desired not to disturb her housewife thrift in the least.
“I dinna ken, sir,” she replied, in a dry, REVECHE tone, which carried me back twenty years, “I am nane of thae heartsome landleddies that can tell country cracks, and make themsel’s agreeable, and I was ganging to put on a fire for you in the Red Room; but if it is your will to stay here, he that pays the lawing maun choose the lodging.”
I endeavoured to engage her in conversation; but though she answered, with a kind of stiff civility, I could get her into no freedom of discourse, and she began to look at her wheel and at the door more than once, as if she meditated a retreat. I was obliged, therefore, to proceed to some special questions; that might have interest for a person whose ideas were probably of a very bounded description.
I looked round the apartment, being the same in which I had last seen my poor mother. The author of the family history, formerly mentioned, had taken great credit to himself for the improvements he had made in this same jointure-house of Duntarkin, and how, upon his marriage, when his mother took possession of the same as her jointure-house, “to his great charges and expenses he caused box the walls of the great parlour” (in which I was now sitting), “empanel the same, and plaster the roof, finishing the apartment with ane concave chimney, and decorating the same with pictures, and a barometer and thermometer.” And in particular, which his good mother used to say she prized above all the rest, he had caused his own portraiture be limned over the mantlepiece by a skilful hand. And, in good faith, there he remained still, having much the visage which I was disposed to ascribe to him on the evidence of his handwriting,—grim and austere, yet not without a cast of shrewdness and determination; in armour, though he never wore it, I fancy; one hand on an open book, and one resting on the hilt of his sword, though I dare say his head never ached with reading, nor his limbs with fencing.
“That picture is painted on the wood, madam,” said I.
“Ay, sir, or it’s like it would not have been left there; they look a’ they could.”
“Mr. Treddles’s creditors, you mean?” said I.
“Na,” replied she dryly, “the creditors of another family, that sweepit cleaner than this poor man’s, because I fancy there was less to gather.”
“An older family, perhaps, and probably more remembered and regretted than later possessors?”
Christie here settled herself in her seat, and pulled her wheel towards her. I had given her something interesting for her thoughts to dwell upon, and her wheel was a mechanical accompaniment on such occasions, the revolutions of which assisted her in the explanation of her ideas.
“Mair regretted—mair missed? I liked ane of the auld family very weel, but I winna say that for them a’. How should they be mair missed than the Treddleses? The cotton mill was such a thing for the country! The mair bairns a cottar body had the better; they would make their awn keep frae the time they were five years auld, and a widow wi’ three or four bairns was a wealthy woman in the time of the Treddleses.”
“But the health of these poor children, my good friend—their education and religious instruction—”
“For health,” said Christie, looking gloomily at me, “ye maun ken little of the warld, sir, if ye dinna ken that the health of the poor man’s body, as well as his youth and his strength, are all at the command of the rich man’s purse. There never was a trade so unhealthy yet but men would fight to get wark at it for twa pennies a day aboon the common wage. But the bairns were reasonably weel cared for in the way of air and exercise, and a very responsible youth heard them their Carritch, and gied them lessons in Reediemadeasy [“Reading made Easy,” usually so pronounced in Scotland.] Now, what did they ever get before? Maybe on a winter day they wad be called out to beat the wood for cocks or siclike; and then the starving weans would maybe get a bite of broken bread, and maybe no, just as the butler was in humour—that was a’ they got.”
“They were not, then, a very kind family to the poor, these old possessors?” said I, somewhat bitterly; for I had expected to hear my ancestors’ praises recorded, though I certainly despaired of being regaled with my own.
“They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye something. They were just decent bien bodies; ony poor creature that had face to beg got an awmous, and welcome—they that were shamefaced gaed by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit an honest walk before God and man, the Croftangrys, and, as I said before, if they did little good, they did as little ill. They lifted their rents, and spent them; called in their kain and ate them; gaed to the kirk of a Sunday; bowed civilly if folk took aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as black as sin at them that keepit them on.”
“These are their arms that you have on the sign?”
“What! on the painted board that is skirling and groaning at the door? Na, these are Mr. Treddles’s arms though they look as like legs as arms. Ill pleased I was at the fule thing, that cost as muckle as would hae repaired the house from the wa’ stane to the rigging-tree. But if I am to bide here, I’ll hae a decent board wi’ a punch bowl on it.”
“Is there a doubt of your staying here, Mrs. Steele?”
“Dinna Mistress me,” said the cross old woman, whose fingers were now plying their thrift in a manner which indicated nervous irritation; “there was nae luck in the land since Luckie turned Mistress, and Mistress my Leddy. And as for staying here, if it concerns you to ken, I may stay if I can pay a hundred pund sterling for the lease, and I may flit if I canna, and so gude e’en to you, Christie,”—and round went the wheel with much activity.
“And you like the trade of keeping a public-house?”
“I can scarce say that,” she replied. “But worthy Mr. Prendergast is clear of its lawfulness; and I hae gotten used to it, and made a decent living, though I never make out a fause reckoning, or give ony ane the means to disorder reason in my house.”
“Indeed!” said I; “in that case, there is no wonder you have not made up the hundred pounds to purchase the lease.”
“How do you ken,” said she sharply, “that I might not have had a hundred punds of my ain fee? If I have it not, I am sure it is my ain faut. And I wunna ca’ it faut neither, for it gaed to her wha was weel entitled to a’ my service.” Again she pulled stoutly at the flax, and the wheel went smartly round.
“This old gentleman,” said I, fixing my eye on the painted panel, “seems to have had HIS arms painted as well as Mr. Treddles—that is, if that painting in the corner be a scutcheon.”
“Ay, ay—cushion, just sae. They maun a’ hae their cushions—there’s sma’ gentry without that—and so the arms, as they ca’ them, of the house of Glentanner may be seen on an auld stane in the west end of the house. But to do them justice; they didna propale sae muckle about them as poor Mr. Treddles did—it’s like they were better used to them.”
“Very likely. Are there any of the old family in life, goodwife?”
“No,” she replied; then added; after a moment’s hesitation, “Not that I know of”—and the wheel, which had intermitted, began again to revolve.
“Gone abroad, perhaps?” I suggested.
She now looked up, and faced me. “No, sir. There were three sons of the last laird of Glentanner, as he was then called. John and William were hopeful young gentlemen, but they died early—one of a decline brought on by the mizzles, the other lost his life in a fever. It would hae been lucky for mony ane that Chrystal had gane the same gate.”
“Oh, he must have been the young spendthrift that sold the property? Well, but you should you have such an ill-will against him; remember necessity has no law. And then, goodwife, he was not more culpable than Mr. Treddles, whom you are so sorry for.”
“I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother’s sake. But Mr. Treddles was in trade, and though he had no preceese right to do so, yet there was some warrant for a man being expensive that imagined he was making a mint of money. But this unhappy lad devoured his patrimony, when he kenned that he was living like a ratten in a Dunlap cheese, and diminishing his means at a’ hands. I canna bide to think on’t.” With this she broke out into a snatch of a ballad, but little of mirth was there either in the tone or the expression:—
“Come, dame,” said I, “it is a long lane that has no turning. I will not keep from you that I have heard something of this poor fellow, Chrystal Croftangry. He has sown his wild oats, as they say, and has settled into a steady, respectable man.”
“And wha tell’d ye that tidings?” said she, looking sharply at me.
“Not, perhaps, the best judge in the world of his character, for it was himself, dame.”
“And if he tell’d you truth, it was a virtue he did not aye use to practise,” said Christie.
“The devil!” said I, considerably nettled; “all the world held him to be a man of honour.”
“Ay, ay! he would hae shot onybody wi’ his pistols and his guns that had evened him to be a liar. But if he promised to pay an honest tradesman the next term-day, did he keep his word then? And if he promised a puir, silly lass to make gude her shame, did he speak truth then? And what is that but being a liar, and a black-hearted, deceitful liar to boot?”
My indignation was rising, but I strove to suppress it; indeed, I should only have afforded my tormentor a triumph by an angry reply. I partly suspected she began to recognize me, yet she testified so little emotion that I could not think my suspicion well founded. I went on, therefore, to say, in a tone as indifferent as I could command, “Well, goodwife, I see you will believe no good of this Chrystal of yours, till he comes back and buys a good farm on the estate, and makes you his housekeeper.”
The old woman dropped her thread, folded her hands, as she looked up to heaven with a face of apprehension. “The Lord,” she exclaimed, “forbid! The Lord in His mercy forbid! O sir! if you really know this unlucky man, persuade him to settle where folk ken the good that you say he has come to, and dinna ken the evil of his former days. He used to be proud enough—O dinna let him come here, even for his own sake. He used once to have some pride.”
Here she once more drew the wheel close to her, and began to pull at the flax with both hands. “Dinna let him come here, to be looked down upon by ony that may be left of his auld reiving companions, and to see the decent folk that he looked over his nose at look over their noses at him, baith at kirk and market. Dinna let him come to his ain country, to be made a tale about when ony neighbour points him out to another, and tells what he is, and what he was, and how he wrecked a dainty estate, and brought harlots to the door-cheek of his father’s house, till he made it nae residence for his mother; and how it had been foretauld by a servant of his ain house that he was a ne’er-do-weel and a child of perdition, and how her words were made good, and—”
“Stop there, goodwife, if you please,” said I; “you have said as much as I can well remember, and more than it may be safe to repeat. I can use a great deal of freedom with the gentleman we speak of; but I think, were any other person to carry him half of your message, I would scarce ensure his personal safety. And now, as I see the night is settled to be a fine one, I will walk on to —, where I must meet a coach to-morrow as it passes to Edinburgh.”
So saying, I paid my moderate reckoning, and took my leave, without being able to discover whether the prejudiced and hard-hearted old woman did, or did not, suspect the identity of her guest with the Chrystal Croftangry against whom she harboured so much dislike.
The night was fine and frosty, though, when I pretended to see what its character was, it might have rained like the deluge. I only made the excuse to escape from old Christie Steele. The horses which run races in the Corso at Rome without any riders, in order to stimulate their exertion, carry each his own spurs namely, small balls of steel, with sharp, projecting spikes, which are attached to loose straps of leather, and, flying about in the violence of the agitation, keep the horse to his speed by pricking him as they strike against his flanks. The old woman’s reproaches had the same effect on me, and urged me to a rapid pace, as if it had been possible to escape from my own recollections. In the best days of my life, when I won one or two hard walking matches, I doubt if I ever walked so fast as I did betwixt the Treddles Arms and the borough town for which I was bound. Though the night was cold, I was warm enough by the time I got to my inn; and it required a refreshing draught of porter, with half an hour’s repose, ere I could determine to give no further thought to Christie and her opinions than those of any other vulgar, prejudiced old woman. I resolved at last to treat the thing EN BAGATELLE, and calling for writing materials, I folded up a cheque for L100, with these lines on the envelope:—
And I was so much pleased with this new mode of viewing the subject, that I regretted the lateness of the hour prevented my finding a person to carry the letter express to its destination.
I considered that the money, and probably more, was actually due by me on my mother’s account to Christie, who had lent it in a moment of great necessity, and that the returning it in a light or ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so touchy and punctilious a person from accepting a debt which was most justly her due, and which it became me particularly to see satisfied. Sacrificing, then, my triad with little regret (for it looked better by candlelight, and through the medium of a pot of porter, than it did by daylight, and with bohea for a menstruum), I determined to employ Mr. Fairscribe’s mediation in buying up the lease of the little inn, and conferring it upon Christie in the way which should make it most acceptable to her feelings. It is only necessary to add that my plan succeeded, and that Widow Steele even yet keeps the Treddles Arms. Do not say, therefore, that I have been disingenuous with you, reader; since, if I have not told all the ill of myself I might have done, I have indicated to you a person able and willing to supply the blank, by relating all my delinquencies as well as my misfortunes.
In the meantime I totally abandoned the idea of redeeming any part of my paternal property, and resolved to take Christie Steele’s advice, as young Norval does Glenalvon’s, “although it sounded harshly.”
By a revolution of humour which I am unable to account for, I changed my mind entirely on my plans of life, in consequence of the disappointment, the history of which fills the last chapter. I began to discover that the country would not at all suit me; for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no inclination whatever to farming, the ordinary vocation of country gentlemen. Besides that, I had no talent for assisting either candidate in case of an expected election, and saw no amusement in the duties of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply, or even in the magisterial functions of the bench. I had begun to take some taste for reading; and a domiciliation in the country must remove me from the use of books, excepting the small subscription library, in which the very book which you want is uniformly sure to be engaged.
I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish metropolis my regular resting-place, reserving to myself to take occasionally those excursions which, spite of all I have said against mail-coaches, Mr. Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life and of our leisure, he secures by dispatch against loss of time, and by the best of coaches, cattle, and steadiest of drivers, against hazard of limb, and wafts us, as well as our letters, from Edinburgh to Cape Wrath in the penning of a paragraph.
When my mind was quite made up to make Auld Reekie my headquarters, reserving the privilege of EXPLORING in all directions, I began to explore in good earnest for the purpose of discovering a suitable habitation. “And whare trew ye I gaed?” as Sir Pertinax says. Not to George’s Square—nor to Charlotte Square—nor to the old New Town—nor to the new New Town—nor to the Calton Hill. I went to the Canongate, and to the very portion of the Canongate in which I had formerly been immured, like the errant knight, prisoner in some enchanted castle, where spells have made the ambient air impervious to the unhappy captive, although the organs of sight encountered no obstacle to his free passage.
Why I should have thought of pitching my tent here I cannot tell. Perhaps it was to enjoy the pleasures of freedom where I had so long endured the bitterness of restraint, on the principle of the officer who, after he had retired from the army, ordered his servant to continue to call him at the hour or parade, simply that he might have the pleasure of saying, “D—n the parade!” and turning to the other side to enjoy his slumbers. Or perhaps I expected to find in the vicinity some little old-fashioned house, having somewhat of the RUS IN URBE which I was ambitious of enjoying. Enough: I went, as aforesaid, to the Canongate.
I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly spoken, and, my mind being at ease, my bodily organs were more delicate. I was more sensible than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in MEASURE FOR MEASURE,—it did in some sort—pah an ounce of civet, good apothecary! Turning from thence, my steps naturally directed themselves to my own humble apartment, where my little Highland landlady, as dapper and as tight as ever, (for old women wear a hundred times better than the hard-wrought seniors of the masculine sex), stood at the door, TEEDLING to herself a Highland song as she shook a table napkin over the fore-stair, and then proceeded to fold it up neatly for future service.
“How do you, Janet?”
“Thank ye, good sir,” answered my old friend, without looking at me; “but ye might as weel say Mrs. MacEvoy, for she is na a’body’s Shanet—umph.”
“You must be MY Janet, though, for all that. Have you forgot me? Do you not remember Chrystal Croftangry?”
The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin into the open door, skipped down the stair like a fairy, three steps at once, seized me by the hands—both hands—jumped up, and actually kissed me. I was a little ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere inclining to sixty could resist the advances of a fair contemporary? So we allowed the full degree of kindness to the meeting—HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE—and then Janet entered instantly upon business. “An ye’ll gae in, man, and see your auld lodgings, nae doubt and Shanet will pay ye the fifteen shillings of change that ye ran away without, and without bidding Shanet good day. But never mind” (nodding good-humouredly), “Shanet saw you were carried for the time.”
By this time we were in my old quarters, and Janet, with her bottle of cordial in one hand and the glass in the other, had forced on me a dram of usquebaugh, distilled with saffron and other herbs, after some old-fashioned Highland receipt. Then was unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper, the reserved sum of fifteen shillings, which Janet had treasured for twenty years and upwards.
“Here they are,” she said, in honest triumph, “just the same I was holding out to ye when ye ran as if ye had been fey. Shanet has had siller, and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since that. And the gauger has come, and the factor has come, and the butcher and baker—Cot bless us just like to tear poor auld Shanet to pieces; but she took good care of Mr. Croftangry’s fifteen shillings.”
“But what if I had never come back, Janet?”
“Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she would hae gien it to the poor of the chapel, to pray for Mr. Croftangry,” said Janet, crossing herself, for she was a Catholic, “You maybe do not think it would do you cood, but the blessing of the poor can never do no harm.”
I agreed heartily in Janet’s conclusion; and as to have desired her to consider the hoard as her own property would have been an indelicate return to her for the uprightness of her conduct, I requested her to dispose of it as she had proposed to do in the event of my death—that is, if she knew any poor people of merit to whom it might be useful.
“Ower mony of them,” raising the corner of her checked apron to her eyes—“e’en ower mony of them, Mr. Croftangry. Och, ay. ‘There is the puir Highland creatures frae Glenshee, that cam down for the harvest, and are lying wi’ the fever—five shillings to them; and half a crown to Bessie MacEvoy, whose coodman, puir creature, died of the frost, being a shairman, for a’ the whisky he could drink to keep it out o’ his stamoch; and—”
But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her proposed charities, and assuming a very sage look, and primming up her little chattering mouth, she went on in a different tone—“But och, Mr. Croftangry, bethink ye whether ye will not need a’ this siller yoursel’, and maybe look back and think lang for ha’en kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin to forthink a wark o’ charity, and also is unlucky, and moreover is not the thought of a shentleman’s son like yoursel’, dear. And I say this, that ye may think a bit, for your mother’s son kens that ye are no so careful as you should be of the gear, and I hae tauld ye of it before, jewel.”
I assured her I could easily spare the money, without risk of future repentance; and she went on to infer that in such a case “Mr. Croftangry had grown a rich man in foreign parts, and was free of his troubles with messengers and sheriff-officers, and siclike scum of the earth, and Shanet MacEvoy’s mother’s daughter be a blithe woman to hear it. But if Mr. Croftangry was in trouble, there was his room, and his ped, and Shanet to wait on him, and tak payment when it was quite convenient.”
I explained to Janet my situation, in which she expressed unqualified delight. I then proceeded to inquire into her own circumstances, and though she spoke cheerfully and contentedly, I could see they were precarious. I had paid more than was due; other lodgers fell into an opposite error, and forgot to pay Janet at all. Then, Janet being ignorant of all indirect modes of screwing money out of her lodgers, others in the same line of life, who were sharper than the poor, simple Highland woman, were enabled to let their apartments cheaper in appearance, though the inmates usually found them twice as dear in the long run.
As I had already destined my old landlady to be my house-keeper and governante, knowing her honesty, good-nature, and, although a Scotchwoman, her cleanliness and excellent temper (saving the short and hasty expressions of anger which Highlanders call a FUFF), I now proposed the plan to her in such a way as was likely to make it most acceptable. Very acceptable as the proposal was, as I could plainly see, Janet, however, took a day to consider upon it; and her reflections against our next meeting had suggested only one objection, which was singular enough.
“My honour,” so she now termed me, “would pe for biding in some fine street apout the town. Now Shanet wad ill like to live in a place where polish, and sheriffs, and bailiffs, and sie thieves and trash of the world, could tak puir shentlemen by the throat, just because they wanted a wheen dollars in the sporran. She had lived in the bonny glen of Tomanthoulick. Cot, an ony of the vermint had come there, her father wad hae wared a shot on them, and he could hit a buck within as mony measured yards as e’er a man of his clan, And the place here was so quiet frae them, they durst na put their nose ower the gutter. Shanet owed nobody a bodle, but she couldna pide to see honest folk and pretty shentlemen forced away to prison whether they would or no; and then, if Shanet was to lay her tangs ower ane of the ragamuffins’ heads, it would be, maybe, that the law would gi’ed a hard name.”
One thing I have learned in life—never to speak sense when nonsense will answer the purpose as well. I should have had great difficulty to convince this practical and disinterested admirer and vindicator of liberty, that arrests seldom or never were to be seen in the streets of Edinburgh; and to satisfy her of their justice and necessity would have been as difficult as to convert her to the Protestant faith. I therefore assured her my intention, if I could get a suitable habitation, was to remain in the quarter where she at present dwelt. Janet gave three skips on the floor, and uttered as many short, shrill yells of joy. Yet doubt almost instantly returned, and she insisted on knowing what possible reason I could have for making my residence where few lived, save those whose misfortunes drove them thither. It occurred to me to answer her by recounting the legend of the rise of my family, and of our deriving our name from a particular place near Holyrood Palace. This, which would have appeared to most people a very absurd reason for choosing a residence, was entirely satisfactory to Janet MacEvoy.
“Och, nae doubt! if it was the land of her fathers, there was nae mair to be said. Put it was queer that her family estate should just lie at the town tail, and covered with houses, where the King’s cows—Cot bless them, hide and horn—used to craze upon. It was strange changes.” She mused a little, and then added: “Put it is something better wi’ Croftangry when the changes is frae the field to the habited place, and not from the place of habitation to the desert; for Shanet, her nainsell, kent a glen where there were men as weel as there may be in Croftangry, and if there werena altogether sae mony of them, they were as good men in their tartan as the others in their broadcloth. And there were houses, too; and if they were not biggit with stane and lime, and lofted like the houses at Croftangry, yet they served the purpose of them that lived there, and mony a braw bonnet, and mony a silk snood and comely white curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel on the Lord’s day, and little bairns toddling after. And now—Och, Och, Ohellany, Ohonari! the glen is desolate, and the braw snoods and bonnets are gane, and the Saxon’s house stands dull and lonely, like the single bare-breasted rock that the falcon builds on—the falcon that drives the heath-bird frae the glen.”
Janet, like many Highlanders, was full of imagination, and, when melancholy themes came upon her, expressed herself almost poetically, owing to the genius of the Celtic language in which she thought, and in which, doubtless, she would have spoken, had I understood Gaelic. In two minutes the shade of gloom and regret had passed from her good-humoured features, and she was again the little, busy, prating, important old woman, undisputed owner of one flat of a small tenement in the Abbey Yard, and about to be promoted to be housekeeper to an elderly bachelor gentleman, Chrystal Croftangry, Esq.
It was not long before Janet’s local researches found out exactly the sort of place I wanted, and there we settled. Janet was afraid I would not be satisfied, because it is not exactly part of Croftangry; but I stopped her doubts by assuring her it had been part and pendicle thereof in my forefather’ time, which passed very well.
I do not intend to possess any one with an exact knowledge of my lodging; though, as Bobadil says, “I care not who knows it, since the cabin is convenient.” But I may state in general, that it is a house “within itself,” or, according to a newer phraseology in advertisements, SELF-CONTAINED, has a garden of near half an acre, and a patch of ground with trees in front. It boasts five rooms and servants’ apartments—looks in front upon the palace, and from behind towards the hill and crags of the King’s Park. Fortunately, the place had a name, which, with a little improvement, served to countenance the legend which I had imposed on Janet, and would not, perhaps have been sorry if I had been able to impose on myself. It was called Littlecroft; we have dubbed it Little Croftangry, and the men of letters belonging to the Post Office have sanctioned the change, and deliver letters so addressed. Thus I am to all intents and purposes Chrystal Croftangry of that Ilk.
My establishment consists of Janet, an under maid-servant, and a Highland wench for Janet to exercise her Gaelic upon, with a handy lad who can lay the cloth, and take care, besides, of a pony, on which I find my way to Portobello sands, especially when the cavalry have a drill; for, like an old fool as I am, I have not altogether become indifferent to the tramp of horses and the flash of weapons, of which, though no professional soldier, it has been my fate to see something in my youth. For wet mornings I have my book; is it fine weather? I visit, or I wander on the Crags, as the humour dictates. My dinner is indeed solitary, yet not quite so neither; for though Andrew waits, Janet—or, as she is to all the world but her master and certain old Highland gossips, Mrs. MacEvoy—attends, bustles about, and desires to see everything is in first-rate order, and to tell me, Cot pless us, the wonderful news of the palace for the day. When the cloth is removed, and I light my cigar, and begin to husband a pint of port, or a glass of old whisky and water, it is the rule of the house that Janet takes a chair at some distance, and nods or works her stocking, as she may be disposed—ready to speak, if I am in the talking humour, and sitting quiet as a mouse if I am rather inclined to study a book or the newspaper. At six precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to drink it; and then occurs an interval of time which most old bachelors find heavy on their hands. The theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence shines forth; but it is distant, and so are one or two public societies to which I belong. Besides, these evening walks are all incompatible with the elbow-chair feeling, which desires some employment that may divert the mind without fatiguing the body.
Under the influence of these impressions, I have sometimes thought of this literary undertaking. I must have been the Bonassus himself to have mistaken myself for a genius; yet I have leisure and reflections like my neighbours. I am a borderer, also, between two generations, and can point out more, perhaps, than others of those fading traces of antiquity which are daily vanishing; and I know many a modern instance and many an old tradition, and therefore I ask—
No shop is so easily set up as an antiquary’s. Like those of the lowest order of pawnbrokers, a commodity of rusty iron, a bay or two of hobnails, a few odd shoe-buckles, cashiered kail-pots, and fire-irons declared incapable of service, are quite sufficient to set him up. If he add a sheaf or two of penny ballads and broadsides, he is a great man—an extensive trader. And then, like the pawnbrokers aforesaid, if the author understands a little legerdemain, he may, by dint of a little picking and stealing, make the inside of his shop a great deal richer than the out, and be able to show you things which cause those who do not understand the antiquarian trick of clean conveyance to wonder how the devil he came by them.
It may be said that antiquarian articles interest but few customers, and that we may bawl ourselves as rusty as the wares we deal in without any one asking; the price of our merchandise. But I do not rest my hopes upon this department of my labours only. I propose also to have a corresponding shop for Sentiment, and Dialogues, and Disquisition, which may captivate the fancy of those who have no relish, as the established phrase goes, for pure antiquity—a sort of greengrocer’s stall erected in front of my ironmongery wares, garlanding the rusty memorials of ancient times with cresses, cabbages, leeks, and water purpy.
As I have some idea that I am writing too well to be understood, I humble myself to ordinary language, and aver, with becoming modesty, that I do think myself capable of sustaining a publication of a miscellaneous nature, as like to the Spectator or the Guardian, the Mirror or the Lounger, as my poor abilities may be able to accomplish. Not that I have any purpose of imitating Johnson, whose general learning and power of expression I do not deny, but many of whose Ramblers are little better than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious maxims are made to swagger in lofty and mystic language, and get some credit only because they are not easily understood. There are some of the great moralist’s papers which I cannot peruse without thinking on a second-rate masquerade, where the best-known and least-esteemed characters in town march in as heroes, and sultans, and so forth, and, by dint of tawdry dresses, get some consideration until they are found out. It is not, however, prudent to commence with throwing stones, just when I am striking out windows of my own.
I think even the local situation of Little Croftangry may be considered as favourable to my undertaking. A nobler contrast there can hardly exist than that of the huge city, dark with the smoke of ages, and groaning with the various sounds of active industry or idle revel, and the lofty and craggy hill, silent and solitary as the grave—one exhibiting the full tide of existence, pressing and precipitating itself forward with the force of an inundation; the other resembling some time-worn anchorite, whose life passes as silent and unobserved as the slender rill which escapes unheard, and scarce seen, from the fountain of his patron saint. The city resembles the busy temple, where the modern Comus and Mammon hold their court, and thousands sacrifice ease, independence, and virtue itself at their shrine; the misty and lonely mountain seems as a throne to the majestic but terrible Genius of feudal times, when the same divinities dispensed coronets and domains to those who had heads to devise and arms to execute bold enterprises.
I have, as it were, the two extremities of the moral world at my threshold. From the front door a few minutes’ walk brings me into the heart of a wealthy and populous city; as many paces from my opposite entrance place me in a solitude as complete as Zimmerman could have desired. Surely, with such aids to my imagination, I may write better than if I were in a lodging in the New Town or a garret in the old. As the Spaniard says, “VIAMOS—CARACCO!”
I have not chosen to publish periodically, my reason for which was twofold. In the first place, I don’t like to be hurried, and have had enough of duns in an early part of my life to make me reluctant to hear of or see one, even in the less awful shape of a printer’s devil. But, secondly, a periodical paper is not easily extended in circulation beyond the quarter in which it is published. This work, if published in fugitive numbers, would scarce, without a high pressure on the part of the bookseller, be raised above the Netherbow, and never could be expected to ascend to the level of Princes Street. Now, I am ambitious that my compositions, though having their origin in this Valley of Holyrood, should not only be extended into those exalted regions I have mentioned, but also that they should cross the Forth, astonish the long town of Kirkcaldy, enchant the skippers and colliers of the East of Fife, venture even into the classic arcades of St. Andrews, and travel as much farther to the north as the breath of applause will carry their sails. As for a southward direction, it is not to be hoped for in my fondest dreams. I am informed that Scottish literature, like Scottish whisky, will be presently laid under a prohibitory duty. But enough of this. If any reader is dull enough not to comprehend the advantages which, in point of circulation, a compact book has over a collection of fugitive numbers, let him try the range of a gun loaded with hail-shot against that of the same piece charged with an equal weight of lead consolidated in a single bullet.
Besides, it was of less consequence that I should have published periodically, since I did not mean to solicit or accept of the contributions of friends, or the criticisms of those who may be less kindly disposed. Notwithstanding the excellent examples which might be quoted, I will establish no begging-box, either under the name of a lion’s head or an ass’s. What is good or ill shall be mine own, or the contribution of friends to whom I may have private access. Many of my voluntary assistants might be cleverer than myself, and then I should have a brilliant article appear among my chiller effusions, like a patch of lace on a Scottish cloak of Galashiels grey. Some might be worse, and then I must reject them, to the injury of the feelings of the writer, or else insert them, to make my own darkness yet more opaque and palpable. “Let every herring,” says our old-fashioned proverb, “hang by his own head.”
One person, however, I may distinguish, as she is now no more, who, living to the utmost term of human life, honoured me with a great share of her friendship—as, indeed, we were blood-relatives in the Scottish sense—Heaven knows how many degrees removed—and friends in the sense of Old England. I mean the late excellent and regretted Mrs. Bethune Baliol. But as I design this admirable picture of the olden time for a principal character in my work, I will only say here that she knew and approved of my present purpose; and though she declined to contribute to it while she lived, from a sense of dignified retirement, which she thought became her age, sex, and condition in life, she left me some materials for carrying on my proposed work which I coveted when I heard her detail them in conversation, and which now, when I have their substance in her own handwriting, I account far more valuable than anything I have myself to offer. I hope the mentioning her name in conjunction with my own will give no offence to any of her numerous friends, as it was her own express pleasure that I should employ the manuscripts which she did me the honour to bequeath me in the manner in which I have now used them. It must be added, however, that in most cases I have disguised names, and in some have added shading and colouring to bring out the narrative.
Much of my materials, besides these, are derived from friends, living or dead. The accuracy of some of these may be doubtful, in which case I shall be happy to receive, from sufficient authority, the correction of the errors which must creep into traditional documents. The object of the whole publication is to throw some light on the manners of Scotland as they were, and to contrast them occasionally with those of the present day. My own opinions are in favour of our own times in many respects, but not in so far as affords means for exercising the imagination or exciting the interest which attaches to other times. I am glad to be a writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most interested in reading or relating what happened from half a century to a century before. We have the best of it. Scenes in which our ancestors thought deeply, acted fiercely, and died desperately, are to us tales to divert the tedium of a winter’s evening, when we are engaged to no party, or beguile a summer’s morning, when it is too scorching to ride or walk.
Yet I do not mean that my essays and narratives should be limited to Scotland. I pledge myself to no particular line of subjects, but, on the contrary, say with Burns—