HIHH 1 %'x RAB AND HIS r 1 , I Clfl - ! ftVJ FRIENDS W u t '.' :'■ ■•. TJ*^j T ITtnva e t rw s\-n Schoc THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA THE WALSER LIBRARY PRESENTED AS A MEMORIAL BY THE CHILDREN OF ZEB VANCE WALSER CLASS OF 1884 TRUSTEE OF THE UNIVERSITY 1895- 1932 d>y Stfew'*-- 6P * a 0,11/0. ^w ww«|Uvn- r^ C. • UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00022094083 £AB AND HIS FRIENDS frontispiece. RAB AND HIS FRIENDS * Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/rabhisfriendsbrownphil CONTENTS. MOM UAB AND HIS FRIENDS . . f MARJORIE FLEMING - • 4} THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAJI . • lOO, HER LAST HALF-CROWN . • . . I3I OUR DOGS I39 QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN • . • l8g 696714 Rab and his Friends. Four-and-thirty years ag-o, Bob Ains- rie and I 'were coming up Infirmary Street from the Edinburgh High School our heads together, and our arms inter- twisted, as only lovers and boys know how, or why. When we got to the top of the street, and turned north, we espied a crowd at the Tron Church. " A dog-fight ! " shouted Bob, and was off ; and so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before we got up ! And is not this boy-nature? and human nature too ? and don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it ? Dogs like fighting ; old Isaac 7 8 *Rat> anD bis tfrienos. says they "delight" in it, and for the best of all reasons ; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great car- dinal virtues of dog or man — courage, endurance, and skill — in intense ac- tion. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoy- ing, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy, be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough : it is a natural, and a not wicked interest, that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in action. Does any curious and finely igno- rant woman wish to know how Bob's eye at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain ? He did not, he could not see the dogs fighting ; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid induction. •Kab ano bis tfrtenos. 9 The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassion- ate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many " brutes"; it is a crowd, annular, compact, and mobile ; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downwards and inwards, to one common focus. Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over : a small, thoroughbred, white bull-terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog, unaccustomed to war, but not to be trifled with. They are hard at it ; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a great courage. Science and breeding, how- ever, soon had their own ; the Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called io TRab anD bis ffrtenfcs. him, working his way up, took his fina) grip of poor Yarrow's throat, — and he lay gasping and done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big young shep- herd from Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would " drink up Esil, or eat a croco- dile," for that part, if he had a chance : it was no use kicking the little dog ; that would only make him hold the closer. Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls, of the best possible ways of ending it. " Water ! " but there was none near, and many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriars Wynd. "Bite the tail ! " and a large, vague, benevolent middle-aged man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of Farrow's tail into his ample mouth, and bit it with all his might. This was more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspiring TRab ano bis ffrienos. n shepherd, who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend, — who went down like a shot. Still the Chicken holds ; death not far off. "Snuff! a pinch of snuff!" observed a calm, highly-dressed young buck, with an eye-glass in his eye. "Snuff, indeed!" growled the angry crowd, affronted and glaring. ' ' Snuff ! a pinch of snuff ! " again observes the buck, but with more urgency ; whereon were produced several open boxes, and from a mull which may have been at Culloden, he took a pinch, knelt down, and presented it to the nose of the Chicken. The laws of physiology and of snuff take their course; the Chicken sneezes, and Yarrow is free ! The young pastoral giant stalks off with Yarrow in his arms, — comforting him. 12 TRab anD bfs ffrienOs. But the Bull Terrier's blood is up, and his soul unsatisfied ; he grips the first dog- he meets, and discovering she is not a dog, in Homeric phrase, he makes a brief sort of amende, and is off. The boys, with Bob and me at their head, are after him : down Niddry Street he goes, bent on mischief ; up the Cowgate like an arrow, — Bob and I, and our small men, panting behind. There under the single arch of the South Bridge, is a huge mastiff, saun- tering down the middle of the cause- way, as if with his hands in his pockets : he is old, gray, brindled, as big as a little Highland bull, and has the Shakespearian dewlaps shaking as he goes. The Chicken makes straight at him, and fastens on his throat. To our as- tonishment, the great creature does nothing but stand still, hold himself up, and roar, — yes, roar ; a long, sen- IRab anD bis ffrtends. 13 ous, remonstrative roar. How is this ? Bob and I are up to them. He is muz- zled! The bailies had proclaimed a general muzzling-, and his master study- ing strength and economy mainly, had encompassed his huge jaws in a home-made apparatus, constructed out of the leather of some ancient breechin. His mouth was open as far it could ; his lips curled up in rage, — a sort of terrible grin ; his teeth gleaming, ready, from out the darkness ; the strap across his mouth tense as a bow- string ; his whole frame stiff with in- dignation and surprise ; his roar ask- ing us all round, "Did you ever sep the like of this ? " He looked a statue* of anger and astonishment, done in Aberdeen granite. We soon had a crowd : the Chicken held on. "A knife i " cried Bob ; and a cobbler gave him his knife : you know the kind of knife, worn away i4 TRab anD bis aFrienos. obliquely to a point and always keen. I put its edge to the tense leather ; it ran before it ; and then ! — one sudden jerk of that enormous head a sort of dirty mist about his mouth, no noise, ■ — and the bright and fierce little fellow is dropped, limp and dead. A solemn pause : this was more than any of us had bargained for. I turned the little fellow over, and saw he was quite dead ; the mastiff had taken him by the small of the back like a rat, and broken it. He looked down at his victim appeased, ashamed, and amazed ; snuffed him all over, stared at him, and taking a sudden thought, turned round and trotted off. Bob took the dead dog up, and said, "John, we'll bury him after tea." "Yes," said I, and was off after the mastiff. He made up the Cowgate at a rapid swing ; he had forgotten some engage- IRab anD bis ifrienDs. 15 ment He turned up the Candlemaker Row, and stopped at the Harrow Inn. There was a carrier s cart ready to start, and a keen, thin, impatient, black-a-vised little man, his hand at his gray horse's head, looking about angrily for something. " Rab, ye thief!" said he, aiming a kick at my great friend, who drew cringing up, and avoiding the heavy shoe with more agility than dignity, and watching his master's eye, slunk dismayed under the cart, — his ears down, and as much as he had of tail down too. What a man this must be, — thought I, — to whom my tremendous hero turns tail ! The carrier saw the muz- zle hanging, cut and useless, from his neck, and I eagerly told him the story, which Bob and I always thought, and still think, Homer, or King David, or Sir Walter alone, were worthy to re* 16 IRaD anD bis tfrten&s. hearse. The severe little man was mitigated, and condescended to say, *' Rab, my man, puir Rabbie," — where- upon the stump of a tail rose up, the ears were cocked, the eyes filled, and were comforted ; the two friends were reconciled. "Hupp!" and a stroke of the whip were given to Jess ; and off went the three. Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea) in the back-green of his house in Mel- ville Street, No. 17, with considerable gravity and silence ; and being at the time in the Iliad, and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector, of course. Six years have passed, — a long time for a boy and a dog ; Bob Ainslie is off to the wars : I am a medical TRab an& bis fftienfcs. 17 student, and clerk at Minto House Hospital. Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday ; and we had much pleasant intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail, and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I occasionally saw ; he used to call me " Maister John," but was laconic as any Spartan. One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital, when I saw the large gate open, and in walked Rab, with that great and easy saunter of his. He looked as if taking general possession of the place ; like the Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and peace. After him came Jess, now white from age, 18 IRab anD bis 3fnenD6. with her cart ; and in it a woman, care- fully wrapped up, — the carrier leading the horse anxiously, and looking back. When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and grotesque "boo,"' and said, "Maistei John, this is the mistress ; she's got trouble in her breest, — some kind o'an income we're thinkin'." By this time I saw the woman's face ; she was sitting on a sack filled with straw, her husband's plaid refund her, and his big-coat, with its large white metal buttons, over her feet. I never saw a more unforgetable face, — pale, serious, lonely, * delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine. She looked sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon ; her silvery, smooth hair setting off her * It is not easy giving this look by one word ; it was expressive of her being so much of het life alone. IRab an& bis 3fricnD6. 19 dark-gray eyes, — eyes such as one sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of the overcoming of it : her eyebrows black and del- icate, and her mouth firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are. As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. ' ' Ailie, " said James, ''this is Maister John, the young doctor ; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing ; and prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in ail his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate, he could not have done it more daintily, more tenderly, more like a gentleman, than did James the Howgate carrier, when he lifted down Ailie his wife. The contrast of his 2 2o *Kat> anD bis ffrienfcs. small, swarthy, weather-beaten, keen, worldly face to hers — pale, subdued, and beautiful — was something wonder- ful. Rab looked on concerned and puzzled, but ready for anything that /light turn up, — were it to strangle the nurse, the porter, or even me. Ailie and he seemed great friends. "As I was sayin', she's got a kind o' trouble in her breest, doctor ; wull ye tak' a look at it ? " We walked into the consulting-room, all four ; Rab grim and comic, willing to be happy and confidential if cause could be shown, willing also to be the reverse, on the same terms. Ailie sat down, undid her open gown and her lawn handkerchief round her neck, and with- out a word showed me her right breast. I looked at and examined it carefully, — she and James watching me, and Rab eying all three. What could I say? there it was, that had once beep "ftab and bte 3FrienD3. 21 so soft, so shapely, so white, so gra- cious and bountiful, so "full of all blessed conditions," — hard as a stone, a centre of horrid pain, making- that pale face, with its gray, lucid, reason- able eyes, and its sweet, resolved mouth, express the full measure of suffering overcome. Why was that gentle, modest, sweet woman, clean and lovable, condemned by God to bear such a burden ? I got her away to bed. " May Rab and me bide?" said James. "You may ; and Rab, if he will behave him- self." " I 'se warrant he 's do that, doctor n ; and in slank the faithful beast. I wish you could have seen him. There are no such dogs now. He belonged to a lost tribe. As I have said, he was brindled and gray like P.ubislaw granite ; his hair short, hard, and close, like a lion's ; his body thick set, like a little bull, — a sort of com ?2 *&ab and bis afrienos. pressed Hercules of a dog. He must have been ninety pounds' weight, at the least ; he had a large blunt head ; his muzzle black as night, his mouth blacker than any night, a tooth or two —being all he had — gleaming out of his jaws of darkness. His head was scarred with the records of old wounds, a sort of series of fields of battle all over it ; one eye out, one ear cropped as close as was Archbishop Leighton's father s ; the remaining eye had the power of two ; and above it, and in constant communication with it, was a tattered rag of an ear, which was for- ever unfurling itself, like an old flag ; and then that bud of a tail, about one inch long, if it could in any sense be said to be long, being as broad as long, — the mobility, the instantaneousness of that bud were very funny and surprising, and its expressive twink- lings and winkings, the intercommuni* IRab anfc bis 3FuenDs, 23 cations between the eye, the ear, and it, were of the oddest and swiftest. Rab had the dignity and simplicity of great size ; and having fought his way all along the road to absolute supremacy, he was as mighty in his own line as Julius Caesar or the Duke of Wellington, and had the gravity * of all great fighters. You must have often observed the likeness of certain men to certain animals, and of certain dogs to men. Now, I never looked at Rab without Thinking of the great Baptist preacher, Andrew Fuller, f The same large, * A Highland game-keeper, when asked why a certain terrier, of singular pluck, was so much more solemn than the other dogs, said, " O, sir, life 's full o' sairiousness to him, — he just never can get enuff o' fechtin'." t Fuller was, in early life, when a farmer lad at Soham, famous as a boxer; not quarrelsome, but not without "the stern delight " a man of strength and courage feels in their exercise. Dr. 24 IRab an& bis 3fnenfcs, heavy, menacing, combative, sombre, honest countenance, the same deep inevitable eye, the same look, — as of thunder asleep, but ready, — neither a dog nor a man to be trifled with. Next day, my master, the surgeon, examined Ailie. There was no doubt it must kill her, and soon. It could be removed — it might never return — it would give her speedy relief — she should have it done. She courtesied, Charles Stewart, of Dunearn, whose rare gifts and graces as a physician, a divine, a scholar, and a gentleman live only in the memory of those few who knew and survive him, liked to tell how Mr. Fuller used to say. that when he was in the pulpit, and saw a bicirdly man come along the passage, he would instinctively draw himself up, measure his imaginary antagonist, and forecast how he would deal with him, his hands meanwhile condensing into fists, and tending to " square." He must have been a hard hitter if he boxed as he preached, — what ** The Fancy-'' would call " an ugly customer." 1Rab an£> bis tfrfenos. 25 looked at James, and said, "When ? " "To-morrow,'' said the kind surgeon, — a man of few words. She and James and Rab and I retired. I noticed that he and she spoke little, but seemed to anticipate everything in each other. The following day, at noon, the students came in, hurrying up the great stair. At the first landing- place, on a small, well-known black- board, was a bit of paper fastened by wafers, and many remains of old wafers beside it. On the paper were the words, — "An operation to-day. J. B. Clerk:' Up ran the youths, eager to secure good places : in they crowded, full of interest and talk. " What's the case ? " "Which side is it?" Don't think them heartless ; they are neither better nor worse than you or I ; they get over their professional horrors, and into their proper work,— 26 IRab anD bis aFrienDs. and in them pity, as an emotion, end' ing in itself or at best in tears and a long-drawn breath, lessens, while pity as a motive is quickened, and gains power and purpose. It is well foi poor human nature that it is so. The operating theatre is crowded ; much talk and fun, and all the cor- diality and stir of youth. The surgeon with his staff of assistants is there. In comes Ailie : one look at her quiets and abates the eager students. That beautiful old woman is too much for them ; they sit down, and are dumb, and gaze at her. These rough boys feel the power of her presence. Sho walks in quickly, but without haste ; dressed in her mutch, her neckerchief, her white dimity short-gown, her black bombazine petticoat, showing her white worsted stockings and her carpet-shoes. Behind her was James with Rab. James sat down in the dis- •ftab anD bis afrienfcs. 2 ; tance, and took that huge and noble head between his knees. Rab looked perplexed and dangerous ; forever cocking his ear and dropping it as fast Ailie stepped up on a seat, and laid herself on the table, as her friend the surgeon told her ; arranged herself, gave a rapid look at James, shut her eyes, rested herself on me, and took my hand. The operation was at once begun ; it was necessarily slow ; and chloroform — one of God's best gifts tc his suffering children — was then un- known. The surgeon did his work. The pale face showed its pain, but was still and silent. Rab's soul was working within him ; he saw that something strange was going on, — blood flowing from his mistress, and she suffering ; his ragged ear was up, and importunate ; he growled, and gave now and then a sharp, impatient yelp ; he would have liked to have 28 IRab anfc bis ffriertDs. done something to that man. But James had him firm, and gave him a glower from time to time, and an intimation of a possible kick ; — all the better for James, it kept his eye and his mind off Ailie. It is over : she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the table, looks for James ; then turning to the surgeon and the students, she courtesies, — and in a low, clear voice, begs their pardon if she has behaved ill. The students — all of us — wept like children ; the surgeon happed her up carefully, — and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes, crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully under the table say- ing, " Maister John, I'm for nane o* yer strynge nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on TCab and bis tfrienDa. 29 my stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did ; and handy and clever, and swift and tender as any woman, was that horny-handed, snell, peremp- tory little man. Everything she got he gave her : he seldom slept ; and often I saw his small, shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her. As be- fore, they spoke little. Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he could be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was de- molishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally to the Candlemaker Row ; but he was sombre and mild ; declined doing battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry indig- nities ; and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back, and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and went straight to that door. 30 TRab ano bis SFtfenDs. Jess, the mare, had been sent, with her weather-worn cart, to Howgate, and had doubtless her own dim and placid meditations and confusions, on the absence of her master and Rab, and her unnatural freedom from the road and her cart. For some days Ailie did well. The wound healed ' ' by the first intention " ; for, as James said, " Oor Ailie's skin is ower clean to beil." The students came in quiet and anxious, and sur- rounded her bed. She said she liked to see their young, honest faces. The surgeon dressed her, and spoke to her in his own short, kind way, pitying her through his eyes, Rab and James outside the circle, — Rab being now reconciled, and even cordial, and hav- ing made up his mind that as yet nobody required worrying, but, as you may suppose, semper paratus. So far well : but, four days after the •Rab anD bis ffrfenDs. 31 operation, my patient had a sudden and long shivering, a " groosin'," as she called it. I saw her soon after ; her eyes were too bright, her cheek col- ored ; she was restless, and ashamed of being so ; the balance was lost ; mischief had begun. On looking at the wound, a blush of red told the secret : her pulse was rapid, her breath- ing anxious and quick, she was n't herself, as she said, and was vexed at her restlessness. We tried what we could. James did everything, was everywhere ; never in the way, never out of it ; Rab subsided under the table into a dark place, and was motionless, all but his eye, which followed every one. Ailie got worse ; began to wander in her mind, gently ; was more demon- strative in her ways to James, rapid in her questions, and sharp at times. He was vexed, and said, "She was never that way afore ; no, never."- 32 IRab anD bis 3frienDs» For a time she knew her head was wrong, and was always asking our pardon, — the dear, gentle old woman : then delirium set in strong, without pause. Her brain gave way, and then came that terrible spectacle, — 'The intellectual power, through words and things, Went sounding on its dim and perilous way " ; she sang bits of old songs and Psalms, stopping suddenly, mingling the Psalms of David and the diviner words of his Son and Lord with homely odds and ends and scraps of ballads. Nothing more touching, or in a sense more strangely beautiful, did I ever witness. Her tremulous, rapid, affec- tionate, eager Scotch voice, — the swift, aimless, bewildered mind, the baffled utterance, the bright and perilous eye ; some wild words, some household cares, something for James, the names IRab anD bis jfrienDs. 33 of the dead, Rab called rapidly and in a " fremyt " voice, and he starting up sur- prised, and slinking off as if he were to blame somehow, or had been dream- ing he heard ; many eager questions and beseechings which James and I could make nothing of, and on which she seemed to set her all, and then sink back ununderstood It was very sad, but better than many things that are not called sad James hovered about, put out and miserable, but active and exact as ever ; read to her, when there was a lull, short bits from the Psalms, prose and metre, chanting the latter in his own rude and serious way, showing great knowledge of the fit words, bearing up like a man, and doating over her as his "ain Ailie." "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie wee daw tie ! n The end was drawing on : the golden bowl was breaking ; the silver cord was 34 IRab anD bta 2rrienDs. fast being loosed, — that animula blan* dula, vagula, hospes, comesque, was about to flee. The body and the soul — companions for sixty years — were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking alone through the valley of that shadow into which one day we must all enter — and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff were comforting her. One night she had fallen quiet, and, as we hoped, asleep ; her eyes were shut. We put down the gas, and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in bed, and taking a bedgown which was lying on it rolled up, she held it eagerly to her breast, — to the right side. We could see her eyes bright with a sur- prising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child ; opening out her nightgown impa- tiently, and holding it close, and brood- IRab anfc bis ffrtenfcs. 5. ing over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and strange to see her wasted dying look, keen and yet vague, — her immense love. "Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her in- finite fondness. "Wae'sme, doctor; I declare she 's thinkin' it 's that bairn." " What bairn ? " " The only bairn we ever had ; our wee Mysie, and she's in me Kingdom, forty years and mair." It was plainly true : the pain in the breast, telling its urgent story to a be- wildered, ruined brain, was misread and mistaken ; it suggested to her the uneasiness of abreast full of milk, and then the child ; and so again once more they were together, and she had her ain wee Mysie in her bosom. 36 IRab anD bis jfriends. This was the close. She sank rar> idly : the delirium left her ; but, as she whispered, she was ''clean silly" ; it was the lightening before the final darkness. After having for some time lain still, her eyes shut, she said, "James!" He came close to her, and lifting up her calm, clear, beauti- ful eyes, she gare him a long look, turned to me kindly but shortly, looked for Rab but could not see him, then turned to her husband again, as if she would never leave off looking, shut her eyes, and composed herself. She lay for some time breathing quick, and passed away so gently, that when we thought she was gone, James, in his old-fashioned way, held the mirror to her face. After a long pause, one small spot of dimness was breathed out ; it vanished away, and never returned, leaving the blank clear dark- ness of the mirror without a stain. •fcab anO bte ffrienoe. 37 *' What is our life ? it is even a vapor, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Rab all this time had been full awake and motionless ; he came forward beside us ; Ailie's hand, which James had held, was hanging down ; it was soaked with his tears ; Rab licked it all over carefully, looked at her, and returned to his place under the table. James and I sat, I don't know how long, but for some time, — saying noth- ing : he started up abruptly, and with some noise went to the table, and putting his right fore and middle fingers each into a shoe, pulled them out, and put them on, breaking one of the leather latchets, and muttering in anger, "I never did the like o' that afore ! " I believe he never did; nor aftef cither. " Rab ! " he said roughly, ar*f pointing with his thumb to the bottom $& 1Ra& anD bis jfrtenos. of the bed. Rab leapt up, and settled himself; his head and eye to the dead face. "Maister John, yell wait for me," said the carrier ; and disappeared in the darkness, thundering downstairs in his heavy shoes. I ran to a front window ; there he was, already round the house, and out at the gate, fleeing like a shadow. I was afraid about him, and yet not afraid ; so I sat down beside Rab, and being wearied, fell asleep. I awoke from a sudden noise outside. It was November, and there had been a heavy fall of snow. Rab was in statu quo ; he heard the noise too, and plainly knew it, but never moved. I looked out ; and there, at the gate, in the dim morning — for the sun was not up — was Jess and the cart, — a cloud of steam rising from the old mare. I did not see James ; he was already at the door, and came up the stairs, and met *Rab anfc bt0 Jfrtcnfcs. 39 me. It was less than three hours since he left, and he must have posted out — who knows how? — to Howgate, full nine miles off, yoked Jess, and driven her astonished into town. He had an armful of blankets, and was streaming with perspiration. He nodded to me, spread out on the floor two pairs of clean old blankets having at their corners, "A. G., 1794," in large letters in red worsted. These were the initials of Alison Graeme, and James may have looked in at her from without, — himself unseen but not unthought of, — w 7 hen he was " wat, wat, and weary," and after having walked many a mile over the hills, may have seen her sitting, while "a' the lave were sleepin'"' ; and by the firelight working her name on the blankets, for her ain James's bed. He motioned Rab down, and taking his wife in his arms, laid her in the 40 *Kab and bis yrten&s. blankets, and happed her carefully and firmly up, leaving- the face uncovered ; and then lifting her, he nodded again sharply to me, and with a resolved but utterly miserable face strode along the passage, and downstairs, followed by Rab. I followed with a light ; but he did n't need it. I went out, holding- stupidly the candle in my hand in the calm frosty air ; we were soon at the gate. I could have helped him, but I saw he was not to be meddled with, and he was strong:, and did not need it. He laid her down as tenderly, as safely, as he had lifted her out ten days before, — as tenderly as when he had her first in his arms when she was only "A. G.," — sorted her, leaving that beautiful sealed face open to the heavens ; and then taking Jess by the head, he moved away. He did not notice me, neither did Rab, who pre- sided behind the cart. I stood till they "Kab anfc bis ffrienfcs, 4 x passed through the long shadow of the College, and turned up Nicolson Street I heard the solitary cart sound through the streets, and die away and come again ; and I returned, thinking of that company going up Libberton Brae, then along Roslin Muir, the morning light touching the Pentlands and mak- ing them like on-looking ghosts ; then down the hill through Auchindinny woods, past "haunted Woodhouse- lee " ; and as daybreak came sweeping up the bleak Lammermuirs, and fell on his own door, the company would stop, and James would take the key, and lift Ailie up again, laying her on her own bed, and, having put Jess up, would return with Rab and shut the doo^. James buried his wife, with his neigh- bors mourning, Rab inspecting the sol- emnity from a distance. It was snow, and that black ragged hole would look 42 "RaD ano bis tfcienos, strange in the midst of the swelling spot- less cushion of white. James looked after everything ; then rather suddenly- fell ill, and took to bed ; was insen- sible when the doctor came, and soon died. A sort of low fever was prevail - ingin the village, and his want of sleep, his exhaustion, and his misery made him apt to take it. The grave was not difficult to reopen. A fresh fall of snow had again made all things white and smooth ; Rab once more looked on, and slunk home to the stable. And what of Rab ? I asked for him next week at the new carrier who got the good-will of James's business, and was now master of Jess and her cart. "How's Rab?" He put me off, and said rather rudely, " What's your busi- ness wi' the dowg? " I was not to be so put off. "Where's Rab?" He, getting confused and red, and inter* TCab and bte ffrtenda. 43 7ieddling with his hair, said, "'Deed, sir. Rab's deid. " " Dead ! what did he iie of? " " Weel, sir," said he, getting tedder, ''he didna exactly dee ; he was killed. I had to brain him wi* a rack- pin ; there wasnae doin' wi' him. He lay ; r» the treviss wi' the mear, and wadna come oot. I tempit him wi' kail and meat, but he wad tak naething, and keepit me frae feedin' the beast, and he was aye gur gurrin', and grup gruppin' me by the legs. I was laith to make awa wi' the auld dowg, his like wasna atween this andThornhill, — but, 'deed, sir, I could do naething else." I believed him. Fit end for Rab, quick and complete. His teeth and his friends gone, why should he keep the peace, aad be civil? MARJORIE FLEMING. Marjorie Fleming. One November afternoon in 1 8 io — the year in which Waverley was resumed and laid aside again, to be finished off, its last two volumes in three weeks, and made immortal in 1814, and when its author, by the death of Lord Melville, narrowly escaped getting- a civil ap* pointment in India — three men, evi dently lawyers, might have been seea escaping like school-boys from the Par- liament House, and speeding arm-in- arm down Bank Street and the Mound, in the teeth of a surly blast of sleet. The three friends sought the bield of the low wall old Edinburgh boys re- member well, and sometimes miss 47 48 dfcarjoric ffiemina. now, as they struggle with the stout west-wind. The three were curiously unlike each other. One, "a. little man of feeble make, who would be unhappy if his pony got beyond a foot pace," slight, with "small, elegant features, hectic cheek, and soft hazel eyes, the index of the quick, sensitive spirit within, as if he had the warm heart of a woman, her genuine enthusiasm, and some of her weaknesses." Another, as unlike a woman as a man can be ; homely, almost common, in look and figure ; his hat and his coat, and indeed his entire covering, worn to the quick, but all of the best material ; what redeemed him from vulgarity and meanness were his eyes, deep set, heavily thatched, keen, hungry, shrewd, with a slumber-' ing glow far in, as if they could be dangerous ; a man to care nothing for at first glance, but somehow to give a d&atprie jflemine.. 49 second and not-forgetting look at. The third was the biggest of the three, and though lame, nimble, and all rough and alive with power, had you met him any- where else, you would say he was a Liddlesdale store-farmer, come of gen- tle blood ; "a stout, blunt carle," as he says of himself, with the swing and stride and the eye of a man of the hills, — a large, sunny, out-of-door air all about him. On his broad and some- what stooping shoulders was set that head which, with Shakespeare's and Bonaparte's, is the best known in all the world. He was in high spirits, keeping his companions and himself in roars of laughter, and every now and then seiz- ing them, and stopping, that they might take their fill of the fun ; there they sto and was buried in a fine moonlight night in th* little garden behind the house in Castle Street. d&arjorfe flcming, 53 He sat down in his large green morocco elbow-chair, drew himself close to his table, and glowered and gloomed at his writing apparatus, "a very handsome old box, richly carved, lined with crimson velvet, and con- taining ink-bottles, taper-stand, etc., in silver, the whole in such order, that it might have come from the silver- smith's window half an hour before." He took out his paper, then starting up angrily, said, " ' Go spin, you jade, go spin.' No, d it, it won't do, — ' My spinnin' wheel is auld and stiff The rock o't wunna stand, sir, To keep the temper-pin in tiff Employs ower aft my hand, sir.' My wife tells me she remembers the whole family in tears about the grave as her father himself smoothed the turf above Camp, with the sad- dest face she had ever seen. He had been engaged to dine abroad that day, but apologized, on account of the death of ' a dear old friend.' " — Lockhart's Life of Scott. 54 dfcarjorte tfiemmg. I am off the fang.* I can make noth- *ng of Waverley to-day ; I'll awa' to Marjorie. Come wi' me, Maida, you Ihief. " The great creature rose slowly, and the pair were off, Scott taking a wiaud (a plaid) with him. "White as a frosted plum-cake, by jingo ! " said he, when he got to the street. Maida gambolled and whisked among the snow, and his master strode across to Young Street, and through it to i North Charlotte Street, to the house of hiis dear friend, Mrs. William Keith, of Corstorphine Hill, niece of Mrs. Keith, of Ravelston, of whom he said at her death, eight years after, "Much tra- dition, and that of the best, has died with this excellent old lady, one of the few persons whose spirits and cleanliness and freshness of mind and * Applied to a pump when it is dry, *nd its value has lost its " fang " ; from the German fangen to hold. flfcarjorte jflemtng. 55 l2 dfcarjonc Fleming. choly story. A young turkie of 2 01 3 months old, would you believe it, the father broke its leg, and he killed another ! I think he ought to be trans- ported or hanged. " "Queen Street is a very gay one, and so is Princes Street, for all the lads and lasses, besides bucks and beggars, parade there. " "I should like to see a play very much, for I never saw one in all my life, and don't believe I ever shall ; but I hope I can be content without going to one. I can be quite happy without my desire being granted.'' " Some days ago Isabella had a ter- rible fit of the toothake, and she walked with a long night-shift at dead of night like a ghost, and I thought she was one. She prayed for nature's sweet restorer — balmy sleep — but did not get it — a ghostly figure indeed she was, enough to make a saint tremble. /fcarjor.e Fleming. 83 It made me quiver and shake from top to toe. Superstition is a very mean thing, and should be despised and shunned." Here is her weakness and her strength again: "In the love-novels all the heroines are very desperate. Isabella will not allow me to speak about lovers and heroins, and 't is too refined for my taste. " ' ' Miss Egward's (Edgeworth's) tails are very good, particularly some that are very much adapted for youth (!) as Laz Lau- rance and Tarelton, False Keys, etc. etc." "Tom Jones and Grey's Elegey in a country churchyard are both excellent, and much spoke of by both sex, par- ticularly by the men." Are our Mar- jories nowadays better or worse be- cause they cannot read Tom Jones unharmed ? More better than worse ; but who among them can repeat Gray's 6 S4 ifcarjorie jfiemitid. Lines on a Distant Prospect of Eton College as could our Maidie ? Here is some more of her prattle : " I went into Isabella's bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus " (the Venus de Medicis) "or the statute? in an Ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a comfortable nap. All was now hushed up again, but again my anger burst forth at her biding me get up." She begins thus loftily, — " Death the righteous love to see. But from it doth the wicked flee," Then suddenly breaks off (as if with laughter), — * I am sure they fly as fast as their legs can carry them I " ** There is x filing I love to see, That is our monkey catch a flee." d&arjonc iteming. 35 • I love in Isa's bed to lie, Oh, such a joy and luxury ! The bottom of the bed 1 sleep, And with great care within I creep ; Oft I embrace her feet of lillys, But she has goton all the pillys. Her neck I never can embrace, But I do hug her feet in place. How childish and yet how strong and free is her use of words ! • • I lay 4it the foot of the bed because Isabella said I disturbed her by continial fight- ing and kicking, but I was very dull, and continially at work reading- the Arabian Nights, which I could not have done if I had slept at the top. I am reading the Mysteries of Udolpho. I am much interested in the fate of poor, poor Emily. '" Here is one of her swains : — ■ Very soft and white his cheeks, His hair is red, and grey his breeks 5 His tooth is like the daisy fair, His only fault is in his hair." 86 /Ubarjone fieminQ. This is a higher flight : — "Dedicated to Mrs. H. Crawford by th* Author, M. F. " Three turkeys fair their last have breathed, And now this world forever leaved; Their father, and their mother too, They sigh and weep as well as you ; Indeed, the rats their bones have crunched, Into eternity theire laanched. A direful death indeed they had, As wad put any parent mad; But she was more than usual calm, She did not give a single dam." This last word is saved from all sin by its tender age, not to speak of the want of the n. We fear. " she " is the abandoned mother, in spite of her previous sighs and tears. "Isabella says when we pray we should pray fervently, and not rattel over a prayer — for that w r e are kneeling at the footstool of our Lord and Crea- flfcarjouie jflemma. 87 tor, who saves us from eternal damna- tion, and from unquestionable fire and brimston." She has a long poem on Mary Queer of Scots : — " Queen Mary was much loved by all, Both by the great and by the small, But hark 1 her soul to heaven doth rise t And I suppose she has gained a prize— For I do think she would not go Into the awful place below ; There is a thing that I must tell, Elizabeth went to fire and hell ; He who would teach her to be civil, It must be her great friend the divill" She hits off Darnley well : — * A noble's son, a handsome lad, By some queer way or other, had Got quite the better of her heart, "With him she always talked apart ; Silly he was, but very fair, A greater buck was not found there.** *' By some queer way or other " ; it SS Abarjorie Fleming. not this the general case and the mys tery, young- ladies and gentlemen ? Goethe's doctrine of "elective affini ties " discovered by our Pet Maidie., Sonnet to a Monkey. • O lively, O most charming pug Thy graceful air, and heavenly mug; ; The beauties of his mind do shine, And every bit is shaped and fine. Your teeth are whiter than the snow, Your a great buck, your a great beau ; Your eyes are of so nice a shape, More like a Christian's than an ape ; Your cheek is like the rose's blume, Your hair is like the raven's plume ; His nose's cast is of the Roman, He is a very pretty woman. I could not get a rhyme for Roman, So was obliged to call him woman." This last joke is good. She repeats It when writing of James the Seconri being killed at Roxburgh : Aarjoric Fleming, 89 ** He was killed by a cannon splinter, Quite in the middle of the winter ; Perhaps it was not at that time, But I can get no other rhyme !" Here is one of her last letters, dated Kirkcaldy, 12th October, 181 1. You can see how her nature is deepening and enriching : " My Dear Mother, — You will think that I entirely forget you, but I assure you that you are greatly mistaken. I think of you always and often sigh to think of the distance between us two loving crea- tures of nature. We have regular hours for all our occupations first at 7 o'clock we go to the dancing and come home at 8 we then read our Bible and get our repeating and then play till ten then we get our music till 11 when we get our writing and ac- counts we sew from 12 till 1 after which I get my gramer and then work till five. At 7 we come and knit go d&arjotfe Jflemfng. till 8 when we dont go to the dancing-. This is an exact description. I must take a hasty farewell to her whom I love, reverence and doat on and who I hope thinks the same of " Marjory Fleming. "P. S. — An old pack of cards (!) would be very exeptible." This other is a month earlier : " My Dear little Mama, — I was truly happy to hear that you were all well. We are surrounded with measles at present on every side, for the Herons got it, and Isabella Heron was near Death's Door, and one night her father lifted her out of bed, and she fell down as they thought lifeless. Mr. Heron said, 'That lassie's deed noo' — 'I'm no deed yet/ She then threw up a big worm nine inches and a half long. I have begun dancing, but am not very d&arjorte Fleming. 91 fond of it, for the boys strikes and mocks me. — I have been another night at the dancing ; I like it better. I will write to you as often as I can ; but I am afraid not every week. I long for you with the longings of a child to em- brace you — to fold you in my arms. 1 respect you with all the respect due to a mother. You dont k?iow how I love you. So I shall remain, your loving child— M. Fleming." What rich involution of love in the words marked ! Here are some lines to her beloved Isabella, in July, 18 n : — " There is a thing that I do want, With you these beauteous walks to haunt* We would be happy if you would Try to come over if you could. Then I would all quite happy be Now and for all eternity, My mother is so very sweet, And checks my appetite to eat ; 92 flfcarjouc fleminQ. My father shows us what to d> ; But O I'm sure that I want yo&. I have no more of poetry; O Isa do remember me, And try to love your Marjory.' In a letter from " Isa " to " Miss Muff Maidie Marjory Fleming, favored by Rare Rear-Admiral Fleming," she says: "I long much to see you, and talk over all our old stories to- gether, and to hear you read and repeat. I am pining for my old friend Cesario, and poor Lear, and wicked Richard. How is the dear Multiplica- tion table going on ? are you still as much attached to 9 times 9 as you used to be ? " But this dainty, bright thing is about to flee, — to come "quick to con- fusion." The measles she writes of seized her, and she died on the 19th /I&arjoc;^ jfiemmg. 93 of December, iSri. The day before her death, Sunday, she sat up in bed, worn and thin, her eye gleaming as with the light of a coming world, and with a tremulous, old voice repeated the following lines by Burns, — heavy with the shadow of death, and lit with the fantasy of the judgment-seat, — the publicans prayer in paraphrase : — •* Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene ? Have I so found it full of pleasing charms ? Some drops of joy, with draughts of ill be- tween, Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms. Is it departing pangs my soul alarms ? Or death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode ? For guilt, for guilt my terrors are in arms ; I tremble to approach an angry God, And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod. ** Fain would I say, forgive my foul offence. Fain promise never more to disobey; But should my Author health again dispense 94 jflDarjorle Fleming. Again I might forsake fair virtue's way, Again in folly's path might go astray, Again exalt the brute and sink the man. Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray, Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan, Who sin so oft have mourned, yet to tempta« tion ran ? •* O thou great Governor of all below, If I might dare a lifted eye to thee, Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow, And still the tumult of the raging sea ; With that controlling power assist even me Those headstrong furious passions to confine, For all unfit I feel my powers to be To rule their torrent in the allowed line ; O aid me with thy help, Omnipotence Divine." It is more affecting than we care to say to read her mother's and Isabella Keith's letters written immediately after her death. Old and withered, tattered and pale, they are now : but when you read them, how quick, how throbbing with life and love ! how rich in that language of affection which d&arione Fleming. 95 only women, and Shakespeare, and Luther can use. — that power of detain- ing the soul over the beloved object and its loss. " K. Philip to Constance. You are as fond of grief as of your chili Const. Grief fills the room up of my absent chilft Lies in his bed, walks up and down w-.tt me ; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats hia words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with hia form. Then I have reason to be fond of grief.** What variations cannot love play on this one string ! In her first letter to Miss Keith, Mrs* Fleming says of her dead Maidie : "Never did I behold so beautiful an object. It resembled the finest wax- work. There was in the countenance an expression of sweetness and $6 Aarjorie Fleming. serenity which seemed to indicate that the pure spirit had anticipated the joys of heaven ere it quitted the mortal frame. To tell you what your Maidie said of you would fill volumes ; for you was the constant theme of her dis- course, the subject of her thoughts, and ruler of her actions. The last time she mentioned you was a few hours before all sense save that of suf- fering was suspended, when she said to Dr. Johnstone, 4 If you let me out at the New Year, I will be quite con- tented.' I asked what made her so anxious to get out then. ' I want to purchase a New Year's gift for Isa Keith with the sixpence you gave me for being patient in the measles ; and I would like to choose it myself I do not remember her speaking after- wards, except to complain of her head, till just before she expired, when she articulated, ' O mother I mother ! "* Do we make too much of this little child, who has been in her grave in Ab- botshall Kirkyard these fifty and more years? We may of her cleverness, — not of her affectionateness, her nature. What a picture the animosa infans gives us of herself, her vivacity, her passion- ateness, her precocious love-making, her passion for nature, for swine, for all living things, her reading, her turn for expression, her satire, her frankness, her little sins and rages, her great re- pentances ! We don't wonder W r alter Scott carried her off in the neuk of his plaid, and played himself with her for hours. The year before she died, when in Edinburgh, she was at a Twelfth Night supper at Scott's in Castle Street. The company had all come, — all but Mar- jorie. Scott's familiars, whom we all know, were there, — all were come but Maijcrie ; and all were dell because 98 flfcarjorie Fleming. Scott was dull. "Where's that bairn? what can have come over her? I'll go myself and see." And he was getting up, and would have gone, when the bell rang, and in came Duncan Roy and his henchman Tou- gald, with the sedan-chair, which was brought right into the lobby, and its top raised. And there, in its darkness and dingy old cloth, sat Maidie in white, her eyes gleaming, and Scott bending over her in ecstasy, — "hung over her enamored." "Sit ye there, my dautie, till they all see you " ; and forthwith he brought them all. You can fancy the scene. And he lifted her up and marched to his seat v, r ith her on his stout shoulder, and set her down beside him ; and then began the night, and such a night ! Those who knew Scott best said that night was never equalled ; Maidie and he were the stars ; and she gave them Con- /Sibarjortc Fleming. 99 stance's speeches and Helvellyn, the ballad then much in vogue, and all her repertoire, — Scott showing her off, and being ofttimes rebuked by her for his intentional blunders. We are indebted for the following — and our readers will be not unwilling to share our obligations — to her sister ; "Her birth was 15th January, 1803; her death, 19th December, 181 1. I take this from her Bibles.* I believe she was a child of robust health, of much vigor of body, and beautifully formed arms, and until her last illness, never was an hour in bed. She was niece to Mrs. Keith, residing in No. 1 North Charlotte Street, who was not Mrs. Murray Keith, although very inti- * " Her Bible is before me ; a pair, as then called ; the faded marks are just as she placed them. There is one at David's lament over "Jonathan." 7 ioo /fcarjorie Fleming. mately acquainted with that old lady. My aunt was a daughter of Mr. James Rae, surgeon, and married the younger son of old Keith of Ravelstone. Cors- torphine Hill belonged to my aunt's husband ; and his eldest son, Sir Alex- ander Keith, succeeded his uncle to both Ravelstone and Dunnottar. The Keiths were not connected by relation- ship with the Howisons of Braehead ; but my grandfather and grandmother (who was), a daughter of Cant of Thurston and Giles-Grange, were on the most intimate footing with our Mrs. Keith's grandfather and grandmother; and so 'it has been for three generations, and the friendship consummated by my cousin William Keith marrying Isabella Craufurd. "As to my aunt and Scott, they were on a very intimate footing. He. asked my aunt to be godmother tc his eldest daughter, Sophia Charlotte. Z&arjorfe Fleming. 101 I had a copy of Miss Edgeworth's 'Rosamond, and Harry and Lucy' for long, which was ' a gift to Marjorie from Walter Scott,' probably the first edition of that attractive series, for it wanted ' Frank,' which is always now published as part of the series, under the title of Early Lessons. I regret to say these little volumes have disap- peared. " "Sir Walter was no relation of Mar- jorie's, but of the Keiths, through the Swintons ; and, like Marjorie, he stayed much at Ravelstone in his early days, with his grand-aunt Mrs. Keith ; and it was while seeing him there as a boy, that another aunt of mine composed, when he was about fourteen, the lines prognosticating his future fame that Lockhart ascribes in his Life to Mrs. Cockburn, authoress of 'The Flowers cf the Forest ' : — 102 /l&arjorie jfiemmg. 'Go on, dear youth, the glorious path pursue Which bounteous Nature kindly smooths fof you; Go bid the seeds her hands have sown arise, By timely culture, to their native skies ; Go, and employ the poet's heavenly art, Not merely to delight, but mend the heart.'' Mrs. Keir was my aunt's name, another of Dr. Rae's daughters." We cannot better end than in words from this same pen : "I have to ask you to for- give my anxiety in gathering up the fragments of Marjories last days, but I have an almost sacred feeling to all that pertains to her. You are quite correct in stating that measles were the cause of her death. My mother was struck by the patient quietness manifested by Marjorie during this illness, unlike her ardent, impulsive nature ; but love and poetic feeling were unquenched. When Dr. John- stone rewarded her submissiveness dfcarjorie Fleming. 103 vrith a sixpence, the request speedily followed that she might get out ere New Year's day came. When asked why she was so desirous of getting out, she immediately rejoined, 'O, I am so anxious to buy something with my six- pence for my dear Isa Keith. ' Again, when lying very still, her mother asked her if there was anything she wished : ' O yes ! if you would just leave the room door open a wee bit, and play "The Land o' the Leal," and I will lie and think, and enjoy myself (this is just as stated to me by her mother and mine). Well, the happy day came, alike to parents and child, when Marjorie was allowed to come forth from the nursery to the parlor. It was Sabbath evening, and after tea. My father, who idolized this child, and never afterwards in my hearing men- tioned her name, took her in his arms ; and while walking her up and down 104 jtfbarjorie $lcmii\Q. the room, she said, ' Father, I will re« peat something to you ; what would you like ? ' He said, ' Just choose yourself, Maidie. ' She hesitated for a moment between the paraphrase, ' Few are thy days, and full of woe,' and the lines of Burns already quoted, but decided on the latter, a remarkable choice for a child. The repeating these lines seemed to stir up the depths of feeling in her soul. She asked to be allowed to write a poem ; there was a doubt whether it would be right to allow her, in case of hurting her eyes. She pleaded earnestly, ' Just this once ' ; the point was yielded, her slate was given her, and with great rapidity she wrote an address of fourteen lines, * to her loved cousin on the author's recovery/ her last work on earth : — * Oh ! Isa, pain did visit me, I was at the last extremity ; tf&arjotie Fleming. 105 How often did I think of you, I wished your graceful form to view, To clasp you in my weak embrace, Indeed I thought I'd run my race : Good care, I'm sure, was of me taksn. But still indeed I was much shaken, At last I daily strength did gain, And oh ! at last, away went pain ; At length the doctor thought I might Stay in the parlor all the night ; I now continue so to do, Farewell to Nancy and to you.' She went to bed apparently well, awoke :n the middle of the night with the old cry of woe to a mother's heart, ' My head, my head ! ' Three days of the dire malady, ' water in the head/ fol- lowed, and the end came." ** Soft, silken primrose, fading tunelessly." It is needless, it is impossible, to add anything- to this : the fervor, the sweetness, the flush of poetic ecstasy, 106 d&arjorte 3f lemma. the lovely and glowing eye, the perfect nature of that bright and warm in- telligence, that darling child, — Lady Nairne's words, and the old tune, steal- ing up from the depths of the human heart, deep calling unto deep, gentle and strong like the waves of the great sea hushing themselves to sleep in the dark ; — the words of Burns touching the kindred chord, her last numbers "wildly sweet " traced, with thin and eager ringers, already touched by the last enemy and friend, — moriens caniJ, — and that love which is so soon to be her everlasting light, is her song's burden to the end. " She set as sets the morning star, which goe* Not down behind the darkened west, nor hi*' a Obscured among the tempests of the sky, But melts away into the ught of heaven. H THE MYSTERY OF BLACK AND TAN The Mystery of BJack and Tan. We, — the Sine Qud Abn,the Duchess, the Sputchard, the Dutchard, the Rica- picticapic, Oz and Oz, the Maid.of Lorn, and myself, — left Crieff some fifteen years ago, on a bright September morning, soon after daybreak, in a gig. It was a morning, still and keen : the sun sending his level shafts across Strathearn, and through the thin mist over its river hollows, to the fierce Aberuchil Hills, and searching out the dark blue shadows in the coiries of Benvorlich. But who and how n&a*iy 109 no /flusters of ^lacft ano San. are " we? " To make you as easy as we all were, let me tell you we were four ; and are not these dumb friends of ours persons rathers than things ? is not their soul ampler, as Plato would say, than their body, and contains rather than is contained ? Is not what lives and wills in them, and is affec- tionate, as spiritual, as immaterial, as truly removed from mere flesh, blood, and bones, as that soul which is the proper self of their master ? And when we look each other in the face, as I now look in Dick's, who is lying- in his " corny" by the fireside, and he in mine, is it not as much the dog within looking from out his eyes — the win- dows of his soul — as it is the man from his? The Sine Qua Ami, who will not be pleased at being spoken of, is such an one as that vain-glorious and chiv- alrous Ulric von Hiitten — the Refor- ifisteiE of JBlacfc ano Gan. n w mation's man of wit, and of the world, ana of the sword, who slew Monkery with the wild laughter of his Epistolcs Obscurorum Virorum — had in his mind when he wrote thus to his friend Fredericus Piscator (Mr. Fred. Fisher), on the 19th May, 15 19, "Da mihi uxo- rem, Friderice, et ut scias qualem, venus- lam, adolescentula?n, probe educatam, hilar em, verecundam, patieniem." "Qua- lem," he lets Frederic understand in the sentence preceding-, is one " qud cum ludam, qudjocos conferam, amoeni- ores et leviusculas fabulas misceam, ubi sollicitudinis aciem obtundam, curarum cestus viitigem." And if you would know more of the Sine Qud Non, and in English, for the world is dead to Latin now, you will find her name and nature in Shakspeare's words, when King Henry the Eighth says, " go thy ways. " The Duchess, alias all the other H2 dusters or JBiacft anD sran. names till you come to the Maid of Lorn, is a rough, gnarled, incompar- able little bit of a terrier, three parts Dandie-Dinmont, and one part — chiefly in tail and hair — cocker : her father being Lord Rutherfurd's famous "Dandie," and her mother the daughter of a Skye, and 2 light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the size and weight of a rabbit ; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as faithful as had Meg MerriHes, with a nose as black as Topsy's ; and is herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp of darkness and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs set her long slim body about two inches and a half from the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or hairy oobit — her two eyes, dark and full, and her shining nose, being all of her that seems anything but hair. Her tail was a sort of stump, in size and in look very much like a spare tf£>£sten> of :JBlack ano Gam 113 foreleg-, stuck in anywhere to be near. Her color v/as black above and a rich brown below, with two dots of tan above the eyes, which dots are among the deepest of the mysteries of Black and Tan. This strange little being I had known for some years, but had only possessed about a month. She and her pup (a young lady called Smoot, which means smolt, a young salmon), were given me by the widow of an honest and drunken — as much of the one as of the other — Edinburgh street-porter, a na- tive of Badenoch, as a legacy from hint and a fee from her for my attendance on the poor man's death-bed. But my first sight of the Duchess was years before in Broughton Street, when I saw her sitting bolt upright, begging, U, ploring, with those little rough four leggies, and those yearning, beautiful eyes, all the world, or any one, to help U4 /Sisters? ct 3SIacfc anD £an. her master, who was lying " mortal " in the kennel. I raised him, and with the help of a ragged Samaritan, who was only less drunk than he, I got Macpherson — he held from Glen Truim — home ; the excited doggie trotting off, and looking back eagerly to show us the way. I never again passed the Porters' Stand without speaking to her. After Malcolm's burial I took pos- session of her ; she escaped to the wretched house, but as her mistress was off to Kingussie, and the door shut, she gave a pitiful howl or two, and was forthwith back at my door, with an impatient, querulous bark. And so this is our second of the four ; and is she not deserving of as many names as any other Duchess, from her of Medina-Sidonia downwards? A fierier little soul never dwelt in a queerer or stancher body ; see her huddled up, and you would think her fl&S6tcr\? ot 36lack anO Can. 115 a bundle of hair, or bit of old mossy wood, or a slice of heathery turf, with some red soil underneath : but speak to her, or give her a cat to deal with, be it bigger than herself, and what an incarnation of affection, energy, and fury — what a fell unquenchable little ruffian. The Maid of Lorn was a chestnut mare, a broken-down racer, thorough- bred as Beeswing, but less fortunate in her life, and I fear not so happy occa- sions mortis : unlike the Duchess her body was greater and finer than her soul ; still she was a ladylike creature, sleek, slim, nervous, meek, willing, and fleet. She had been thrown down by some brutal half-drunk Forfarshire laird, when he put her wildly and with her wind gone, at the last hurdle on the North Inch at the Perth races. She was done for and bought for ten pounds by 6tcr£ cf :«6lacfc an£ Can. 119 •.•here the poor thoroughbred is tuck- ing in her corn. We start after two hours of dreaming in the half sun- light, and rumble ever and anon over an earthquake, as the common folk call these same hollow, resounding rifts in the rock beneath, and arriving at the old inn at Lochearnhead. have a tousie tea. In the evening, when the day was darkening into night, Duchie and I, — the S. Q. N. remaining to read and rest, — walked up Glen Ogle. It was then in its primeval state, the new road non-existent, and the old one staggering up and down and across that most original and Cyclopean valley, deep, threatening, savage, and yet beautiful— ■ Where rocks were rudely heaped, and rent As by a spirit turbulent ; Where sights were rough, and sounds wer« wild, And everything unreconciled : " i2o rt&ssterg ot Black anD San. with flocks of mighty boulders, stray.* ing all over it. Some far up, and frightful to look at, 'others huddled down in the river, immane pecus, and one huge unloosened fellow, as big as a manse, up aloft watching them, like old Proteus with his calves, as if they had fled from the sea by stress of weather, and had been led by their ancient herd altos visere monies — a wilder, more ''unreconciled" place I know not ; and now that the darkness was being poured into it, those big fellows looked bigger, and hardly " canny." Just as we were turning to come home — Duchie unwillingly, as she had much multifarious, and as usual fruit- less hunting to do — she and I were startled by seeing a dog in the side of the hill, where the soil had been broken. She barked and I stared ; she trotted consequentially up and jfl&E0terg of JBlach ano Can. 121 snuffed more canino, and I went tiearer : it never moved, and on coming quite close I saw as it were the image of a terrier, a something that made me think of an idea wwrealized ; the rough, fBhort, scrubby heather and dead grass, made a color and a coat just like those of a good Highland terrier — a sort of pepper and salt this one was — and below, the broken soil, in which there was some iron and clay, with old gnarled roots, for all the world like its odd, bandy, and sturdy legs. Duchie seemed not so easily unbeguiled as I was, and kept staring, and snuffing, and growling, but did not touch it,— seemed afraid. I left and looked again, and certainly it was very odd the growing resemblance to one of the indigenous, hairy, low-legged dogs, one sees all about the Highlands, terriers, or earthy ones. We came home, and told the S. Q. N. l>2 dfcgstirrg of JSUcft ano 5l4n. our joke. I dreamt of that vision- ary terrier, that son of the soil, all night ; and in the very early morn- ing, leaving the S. Q. N. asleep, I walked up with the Duchess to the same spot. What a morning ! it was before sunrise, at least before he had got above Benvorlich. The loch was lying in a faint mist, beautiful exceed- ingly, as if half veiled and asleep, the cataract of Edinample roaring less loudly than in the night, and the old castle of the Lords of Lochow, in the shadow of the hills, among its trees, might be seen H Sole sitting by the shore of old romance." There was still gloom in Glen Ogle, though the beams of the morning were shooting up into the broad fields of the sky. I was looking back and down, when I heard the Duchess bark sharply, and then give a cry of fear, and on floaters of ."©lack snd Z&n. 123 fanning round, there was she with as much as she had of tail between her legs, where I never saw it before, and her small Grace, without noticing- me or my cries, making down to the inn and her mistress, a hairy hurricane. I walked on to see what it was, and there in the same spot as last night, in the bank, was a real dog — no mis- take ; it was not, as the day before, a mere surface or spectrum, or ghost ot a dog ; it was plainly round and sub- stantial ; it was much developed since eight p. m. As I looked, it moved slightly, and as it were by a sort of shiver, as if an electric shock (and why not?) was being administered by a law of nature ; it had then no tail, or rather had an odd amorphous look in that region ; its eye, for it had one — it was seen in profile — looked to my profane vision Hke (why not actually?) a huge blaeberry (vaccim'um MyrtiUus, it is well i24 At>0ten> ot ;©lacfe an& Can. to be scientific) black and full ; and I thought, — but dare not be sure, and had no time or courage to be minute, — that where the nose should be, there was a small shining black snail, prob- ably the Umax niger of M. de Ferussac, curled up, and if you look at any dog's nose you will be struck with the typi- cal resemblance, in the corrugations and moistness and jetty blackness of the one to the other, and of the other to the one. He was a strongly-built, wiry, bandy, and short-legged dog. As I was staring upon him, a beam — Oh, first creative beam ! — sent from the sun — 44 Like as an arrow from a bow, Shot by an archer strong " — as he looked over Benvorlich's shoulde: v and piercing a cloudlet of mist wnich clung close to him, and filling it with whitest radiance, struck upon thp* *"« /Bgsterg of :ftHac& ano Gan. 125 or berry and lit up that nose or snail: in an instant he sneezed (the nisus {sneeztis? ) formativus of the ancients) ; that eye quivered and was quickened, and with a shudder — such as a horse executes with that curious muscle of the skin, of which we have a mere fragment in our neck, the Platysma Myoides, and which doubtless has been lessened as we lost our distance from the horse-type — which dislodged some dirt and stones and dead heather, and doubtless endless beetles, and, it may be, made some near weasel open his other eye, up went his tail, and ; out he came, lively, entire, consummate, warm, wagging his tail, I was going to say like a Christian, I mean like an ordi- nary dog. Then flashed upon me the solution of the Mystery of Black and Tan in all its varieties : the body, its up- per part gray or black or yellow accord- ing to the upper soil and herbs, heather. j 26 dfcu*tctu at J&lacfc anfc Han. bent, moss, etc. : the belly and {cet led or tan or light fawn, according to the nature of the deep soil, be it ochrey. ferruginous, light clay, or comminuted mica slate. And wonderfullest of all, the Dots of Tan above the eyes — and who has not noticed and wondered as to the philosophy of them ? — I saw mode by the two fore feet, wet and clayey, being put briskly up to his eyes as he sneezed that genetic, vivifying* sneeze, and leaving their mark, forever. He took to me quite pleasantly, by virtue of " natural selection,"' and has accompanied me thus far in our ' ' strug- gle for life," and he, and the S. Q. N., and the Duchess, and the Maid, re- turned that day to Crieff, and were friends all our days. I was a little timid when he was crossing a burn lest he should Avash away his feet, but he merely colored the water, and every day less and less, till in a fort- /listers ot JBUcfc anO Caii. 127 night I could wash him without fear of his becoming a solution, or fluid extract of dog, and thus resolving the mystery back into itself. The mare's days were short. She won the Consolation Stakes at Stirling, and was found dead next morning in Cibb's stables. The Duchess died in a good old age, as may be seen in the history of ''Our Dogs." The S. Q, N., and the parthenogenesic earth-born, t'i ■ Cespes Vivus — whom we some- is called Joshua, because he was the Son of None (Nun), and even M '. jhisedec has been whispered, but only that, and Fitz Memnon, as being as it were a son of the Sun, sometimes the Autochthon avrox&ovos ; (indeed, if the relation of the coup de soleil and the blaeberry had not been plainly causal and effectual, I might have called him Filius Gunni, for at the very moment of that shudder, by i2b l&V8texy ot JSlacK ano Can, which he leapt out of non-life into life, the Marquis's gamekeeper fired his rifle up the hill, and brought down a stray young stag,) these two are happily with me still, and at this mo- ment she is out on the grass in a low easy-chair, reading Emilie Carlen's Brilliant Marriage, and Dick is lying at her feet, watching, with cocked ears, some noise in the ripe wheat, possibly a chicken, for, poor fellow, he has a weakness for worrying hens, and such small deer, when there is a dearth of greater. If any, as is not unreasonable, doubt me and my story, they may come and see Dick. 1 assure them he is well worth seeing. fl£& LAST HALF-CROW^ Her Last Half-Crown. Hugh Miller, the geologist, jour- nalist, and man of genius, was sitting in his newspaper office late one dreary winter night The clerks had all left and he was preparing to go, when a quick rap came to the door. He said "Come in," and, looking towards the entrance, saw a little ragged child all wet with sleet. "Are ye Hugh Miller?" "Yes." " Mary Duff wants ye." " What does she want r " " She's deein." Some misty recollection of the name made him at once set out, and with his well-known plaid and stick, he was soon striding after the 9 J 3* 132 f>er Xast f)alt*Crown. child, who trotted through the now deserted High Street, into the Canon- gate. By the time he got to the Old Playhouse Close, Hugh had revived his memory of Mary Duff: a lively girl who had been bred up beside him in Cromarty. The last time he had seen her was at a brother mason's marriage, where Mary was ' ' best maid," and he " best man." He seemed still to see her bright young careless face, her tidy short gown, and her dark eyes, and to hear her banter- ing, merry tongue. Down the close went the ragged little woman, and up an outside stair, Hugh keeping near her with difficulty ; in the passage she held out her hand and touched him ; taking it in his great palm, he felt that she wanted a thumb. Finding her way like a cat through the darkness, she opened a door, and saying "That's her 1 " vanished By t>ev Xast f)alf*Crown. 133 the light of a dying fire he saw lying in the corner of the large empty room something like a woman's clothes, and on drawing nearer became aware of a thin pale face and two dark eyes looking keenly but helplessly up at him. The eyes were plainly Mary Duffs, though he could recognize no other feature. She wept silently, gazing steadily at him. " Are you Mary Duff?" "It's a' that's o' me, Hugh." She then tried to speak to him, something plainly of great urgency, but she couldn't, and seeing that she was very ill, and was making herself worse, he put half-a-crown into her feverish hand, and said he would call again in the morning. He could get no information about her from the neighbors ; they were surly or asleep. When he returned next morning, the little girl met him at the stair-head, 134 *^r Zast DalteCrown. and said, "She's deid." He went in, and found that it was true ; there she lay, the fire out, her face placid, and the likeness to her maiden self restored. Hugh thought he would have known her now, even with those bright black eyes closed as they were, in ceternum. Seeking out a neighbor, he said he would like to bury Mary Duff, and arranged for the funeral with an under- taker in the close. Little seemed to be known of the poor outcast, except that she was a "licht," or, as Solomon would have said, a " strange woman." « ' Did she drink ? " " Whiles. " On the day of the funeral one or two residents in the close accompanied him to the Canongate Churchyard. He observed a decent looking little old woman watching them, and fol- lowing at a distance, though the day was wet and bitter. After the grave was rilled, and he had taken off his t>er Xast •fcalf*Grown. 135 hat, as the men finished their business by putting on and slapping the sod, he saw this old woman remaining. She came up and, courtesying, said, 1 ' Ye wad ken that lass, sir ? " ' * Yes ; I knew her when she was young." The woman then burst into tears, and told Hugh that she " keepit a bit shop at the Closemooth, and Mary dealt wi' me, and aye paid reglar, and I was feared she was dead, for she had been a month awin' mehalf-a-crown ; " and then with a look and voice of awe, she told him how on the night he was sent for, and immediately after he had left, she had been awakened by some one in her room ; and by her bright fire — for she was a bein, weil-to-do body — she had seen the wasted dying creature, who came forward and said, "Wasn't it half-a-crown ? " "Yes." "There it is," and putting it under the bolster, vanished ! 136 tber Xast t)atf*Crovvn. Alas for Mary Duff ! her career had been a sad one since the day when she had stood side by side with Hugh at the wadding of their friends. Her father died not long after, and her mother supplanted her in the affections of the man to whom she had given her heart. The shock was overwhelming, and made home intolerable. Mary fled from it blighted and embittered, and after a life of shame and sorrow, crept into the corner of her wretched garret, to die deserted and alone ; giv- ing evidence in her latest act that hon- esty had survived amid the wreck of nearly every other virtue. ' My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." OUR DOGS. Our Dogs. I was bitten severely by a little dog when with my mother at Moffat Wells, being" then three years of age, and I have remained "bitten " ever since in the matter of dogs. I remember that little dog, and can at this moment not only recall my pain and terror — I have no doubt I was to blame — but also her £ace ; and were I allowed to search among the shades in the cynic Elysian fields, I could pick her out still. All my life I have been familiar with these faithful creatures, making friends of them, and speaking to them ; and the only time I ever addressed the public, *39 140 ©Ut S>O06. about a year after being bitten, was at the farm of Kirklaw Hill, near Biggar, when the text, given out from an empty cart in which the ploughmen had placed me, was " Jacob's dog," and my entire sermon was as follows: — "Some say that Jacob had a black dog (the o very long), and some say that Jacob had a white dog, but / (imagine the pre- sumption of four years !) say Jacob had a brown dog, and a brown dog it shall be." I had many intimacies from this time onwards — Bawtie, of the inn ; Keeper, the carrier's bull-terrier ; Tiger a huge tawny mastiff from Edinburgh, which I think must have been an uncle of Rab's ; all the sheep dogs at Callands — Spring, Mavis, Yarrow, Swallow, Cheviot, etc. ; but it was not till I was at college, and my brother at the High School, that we possessed a dog. ^UV £>O0S. i4i TOBY *Vas the most utterly shabby, vulgar, mean-looking cur I ever beheld : in one word, a tyke. He had not one good feature except his teeth and eyes, and his bark, if that can be called a feature. He was not ugly enough to be interesting ; his color black and white, his shape leggy and clumsy ; altogether what Sydney Smith would have called an extraordinarily ordinary dog ; and, as I have said, not even greatly ugly, or, as the Aberdonians have it, bonnie wi ill-fauredness. My brother William found him the center of attraction to a multitude of small blackguards who were drowning him 142 ©ur. Bogs. slowly in Lochend Loch, doing their best to lengthen out the process, and secure the greatest amount of fun with the nearest approach to death. Even then Toby showed his great intellect by pretending to be dead, and thus gain- ing time and an inspiration. William bought him for twopence and as he had it not, the boys accompanied him to Pilrig Street, when I happened to meet him, and giving the twopence to the biggest boy, had the satisfaction of seeing a general engagement of much severity, during which the twopence disappeared ; one penny going off with a very small and swift boy, and the other vanishing hopelessly into the grating of a drain. Toby was for weeks in the house unbeknown to any one but ourselves two and the cook, and from my grand- mother's love of tidiness and hatred of dogs and of dirt, I believe she would ©Ut &0Q5. 143 have expelled "him whom we saved from drowning," had not he, in his straightforward way, walked into my father's bedroom one night when he was bathing his feet, and introduced himself with a wag of his tail, intimat- ing a general willingness to be happy. My father laughed most heartily, and at last Toby, having got his way to his bare feet, and having begun to lick his soles and between his toes with his small rough tongue, my father gave such an unwonted shout of laughter, that we — grandmother, sisters, and all of us — went in. Grandmother might argue with all her energy and skill, but as surely as the pressure of Tom Jones' infantile fist upon Mr. Allworthy's fore- finger undid all the arguments of his sister, so did Toby's tongue and fun prove too many for grandmother's elo- quence. I somehow think Toby must have been up to all this, for I think he 144 ^ ur 2)006. had a peculiar love for my father ever after, and regarded grandmother from that hour with a careful and cool eye. Toby, when full grown, was a strong, coarse dog ; coarse in shape, in coun- tenance, in hair, and in manner. I used to think that, according to the Pythagorean doctrine, he must have been, or been going to be a Gilmerton carter. He was of the bull-terrier vari- ety, coarsened through much mongrel- ism and a dubious and varied ances- try. His teeth were good, and he had a large skull, and a rich bark as of a dog three times his size, and a tail which I never saw equalled — indeed it was a tail per se ; it was of immense girth and not short, equal throughout like a policeman's baton ; the machin- ery for working it was of great power, and acted in a way, as far as I have been able to discover, quite original We called it his ruler. ©ur 2)003. 145 When he wished to get into the house, he first whined gently, then growled, then gave a sharp bark, and then came a resounding, mighty stroke which shook the house ; this, after much study and watching, we found was done by his bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat upon the door, with a sudden and vigorous stroke ; it was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue, and he was perfect in it at once, his first bang authoritative, having been as masterly and telling as his last. With all this inbred vulgar air, he was a dog of great moral excellence — affec- tionate, faithful, honest up to his light, with an odd humor as peculiar and as strong as his tail. My father, in his re- served way, was very fond of him, and there must have been very funny scenes with them for we heard bursts of laugh- ter issuing from his study when they two were by themselves ; there was some- 146 Our Bogs. thing in him that took that grave, beau- tiful, melancholy face. One can fancy him in the midst of his books, and sacred work and thoughts, pausing and look- ing at the secular Toby, who was look- ing out for a smile to begin his rough fun, and about to end by coursing and gurrin round the room, upsetting my father's books, laid out on the floor for consultation, and himself nearly at times, as he stood watching him — and off his guard and shaking with laughter. Toby had always a great desire to ac- company my father up to town ; this my father's good taste and sense of dig- nity, besides his fear of losing his friend (a vain fear !), forbade, and as the de- cision of character of each was great and nearly equal, it was often a drawn game. Toby ultimately, by making it his entire object, triumphed. He usually was nowhere to be seen on my father lea vino- ■ he however saw him, ©ur DO06. 147 and lay in wait at the head of the street, and up Leith Walk he kept him in view from the opposite side like a detective, and then, when he knew it was hope- less to hound him home, he crossed un- blushingly over, and joined company, excessively rejoiced of course. One Sunday he had gone with him to church, and left him at the vestry door. The second psalm was given out, and my father was sitting back in the pulpit, when the door at its back, up" which he came from the vestry, was seen to move, and gently open, then after a long pause, a black shining snout pushed its way steadily into the congregation, and was followed by Toby's entire body. He looked some- what abashed, but snuffing his friend, he advanced as if on thin ice, and not seeing him, put his forelegs on the pulpit, and behold there he was, his own familiar chum. I watched all this, 10 I4& ©**C £>0«^. and anything more beautiful than his look of happiness, of comfort, of entire ease when he beheld his friend, — the smoothing down of the anxious ears, , the swing of gladness of that mighty tail, — I don't expect soon to see. My father quietly opened the door, and Toby was at his feet and invisible to all but himself; had he sent old George Peaston, the "minister's man," to put him out, Toby would probably have shown his teeth, and astonished George. He slunk home as soon as he could, and never repeated that exploit. I never saw in any other dog the sud- den transition from discretion, not to say abject cowardice, to blazing and per- manent valor. From his earliest years he showed a general meanness of blood, inherited from many generations of starved, bekicked, and down-trodden forefathers and mothers, resulting in ®ur 2>O06. 149 a condition of intense abjectness in all matters of personal fear ; anybody, even a beggar, by a gowl and a threat of eye, could send him off howling by anticipation, with that mighty tail between his legs. But it was not al- ways so to be, and I had the privilege of seeing courage, reasonable, absolute, and for life, spring up in Toby at once, as did Athene from the skull of Jove. It happened thus : — Toby was in the way of hiding his culinary bones in the small gar- dens before his own and the neigh- boring doors. Mr. Scrymgeour, two doors off, a bulky, choleric, red-haired, red-faced man — torvo vultu — was, by the law of contrast, a great culti- vator of flowers, and he had often scowled Toby into all but non-exist- ence by a stamp of his foot and a glare of his eye. One day his gate being open, in walks Toby with a huge bone, 250 ©UC &QQQ. and making a hole where Scrymgeout had two minutes before been planting some precious slip, the name of which on paper and on a stick Toby made very light of, substituted his bone, and was engaged covering it, or think- ing he was covering it up with his shovelling nose (a very odd relic of paradise in the dog), when S. spied him through the inner glass door, and was out upon him like the Assyrian, with a terrible gowl. I watched them. In- stantly Toby made straight at him with a roar too, and an eye more torve than Scrymgeour's, who, retreating without reserve, fell prostrate, there is reason to believe, in his own lobby. Toby contented himself with proclaiming his victory at the door, and returning finished his bone-planting at his leis- ure ; the enemy, who had scuttled behind the glass-door, glaring at him. From this moment Toby was an emr Does, 151 altered dog. Pluck at first sight was lord of all ; from that time dated his first tremendous deliverance of tail against the door which we called "come listen to my tail." That very evening he paid a visit to Leo, next door's dog, a big, tyrannical bully and coward, which its master thought a Newfoundland, but whose pedigree we knew better ; this brute contin- ued the same system of chronic ex- termination which was interrupted at Lochend, — having Toby down among his feet, and threatening him with instant death two or three times a day. To him Toby paid a visit that very evening, down into his den, and walked about, as much as to say "Come on, Macduff ! " but Macduff did not come on, and henceforward there was an armed neutrality, and they merely stiffened up and made their backs rigid, pretended each not to see the 152 ©ur 5>0Q6. other, walking solemnly round, as is the manner of dogs. Toby worked his new-found faculty thoroughly, but with discretion. He killed cats, aston- ished beggars, kept his own in his own garden against all comers, and came off victorious in several well-fought battles ; but he was not quarrelsome. or foolhardy. It was very odd how his carriage changed, holding his head up, and how much pleasanter he was at home. To my father, next to William, who was his Humane Society man, he remained stanch. And what of his end ? for the misery of dogs is that they die so soon, or as Sir Walter says, it is well they do ; for if they lived as long as a Christian, and we liked them in proportion, and they then died, he said that was a thing he could not stand. His exit was miserable, and had a strange poetic or tragic relation to his ©ur. Doge. 153 entrance. My father was out of town ; I was away in England. Whether it was that the absence of my father had relaxed his power of moral restraint, or whether through neglect of the serv- ant he had been desperately hungry, or most likely both being true, Toby was discovered with the remains of a cold leg of mutton, on which he had made an ample meal ; * this he was in vain endeavoring to plant as of old, in the hope of its remaining undiscovered till to-morrow's hunger returned, the whole shank bone sticking up unmis- takably. This was seen by our excel- lent and Radamanthine grandmother, who pronounced sentence on the in- stant ; and next day, as William was * Toby was in the state of the shepherd boy whom George Webster met in Glenshee, and asked, " My man, were you ever fou ? " " Ay, aince," speaking slowly, as if remembering— " Ay, aince." " What on ? " " Cauld mutton ! " 154 ©Ut W0Q6. leaving for the High School, did ho in the sour morning, through an east- erly haur, behold him ' ' whom he saved from drowning," and whom, with bet- ter results than in the case of Launce and Crab, he had taught, as if one should say, "thus would I teach a dog, " dangling by his own chain from his own lamp-post, one of his hind feet just touching the pavement, and his body preternaturally elongated. William found him dead and warm, and falling in with the milk-boy at the head of the street, questioned him, and discovered that he was the executioner, and had got twopence, he — Toby's every morning crony, who met him and accompanied him up the street, and licked the outside of his can — had, with an eye to speed and convenience, and a want of taste, not to say princi- ple and affection, horrible still to think of, suspended Toby's animation be- ©ur 2)00*. 155 yond all hope. William instantly fell upon him, upsetting his milk and cream, and gave him a thorough lick- ing, to his own intense relief ; and, be- ing late, he got from Pyper, who was a martinet, the customary palmies, which he bore with something ap- proaching to pleasure. So died Toby ; my father said little, but he missed and mourned his friend. There is reason to believe that by one of those curious intertwistings of existence, the milk-boy was that one of the drowning party who got the penny of the twopence. 1 56 ©ur 2>0fl6. WYLIE. Our next friend was an exquisite shepherd's dog ; fleet, thin-flanked, dainty, and handsome as a small grey- hound, with all the grace of silky waving black and tan hair. We got him thus. Being then young and keen botanists, and full of the knowledge and love of Tweedside, having been on every hill-top from Muckle Mendic to Hundleshope and the Lee Pen, and having fished every water from Tarth to the Leithen, we discovered early in spring that young Stewart, author of an excellent book on natural history, a young man of great promise and early death, had found the Buxbaumia ©uc 5>OG0. 157 aphylla, a beautiful and odd-looking moss, west of Newbie heights, in the very month we were that moment in. We resolved to start next day. We walked to Peebles, and then up Hay- stoun Glen to the cottage of Adam Cairns, the aged shepherd of the New- bie hirsel, of whom we knew, and who knew of us from his daughter, Nancy Cairns, a servant with Uncle Aitken of Call.ands. We found our way up the burn with difficulty, as the evening was getting dark ; and on getting near the cottage heard them at worship. We got in, and made ourselves known, and got a famous tea, and such cream and oat cake ! — old Adam looking on us as ''clean dementit " to come out for "a bit moss," which, however, he knew, and with some pride said he would take us in the morning to the place. As we were going into a box bed for the night, two young men 158 ©ur Boae. Came in, and said they were "gaunto burn the water. " Off we set. It was a clear, dark, starlight, frosty night They had their leisters and tar torches, and it was something worth seeing « — the wild flame, the young fellows striking the fish coming to the light — how splendid they looked with the light on their scales, coming out of the darkness — the stumblings and quench- ings suddenly of the lights, as the torch-bearer fell into a deep pool. We got home past midnight, and slept as we seldom sleep now. In the morn- ing Adam, who had been long up, and had been up the "Hope " with his dog, when he saw we had wakened, told us there was four inches of snow, and we soon saw it was too true. So we had to go home without our cryptogamic prize. It turned out that Adam, who was an Old man and frail, and had made some ©ur 2)00$. 159 money, was going at Whitsunday to leave, and live with his son in Glas- gow. We had been admiring the beauty and gentleness and perfect shape of Wylie, the finest colley I ever saw, and said, "What are you going to do with Wylie? " "'Deed," says he, "I hardly ken. I canna think o' sellin' her, though she's worth four pound, and shell no like the toun. " I said, "Would you let me have her ? " and Adam, looking at her fondly — she came up instantly to him, and made of him — said, "Ay, I wull, if ye'll be gude to her ; " and it was settled that when Adam left for Glas- gow she should be sent into Albany Street by the carrier. She came, and was at once taken to all our hearts, even grandmother liked her ; and though she was often pen- sive, as if thinking of her master and her work on the hills, she made herself 160 ©ur H)O00» at home, and behaved in all respects like a lady. When out with me, if she saw sheep in the streets or road, she got quite excited, and helped the work, and was curiously useful, the being so making her wonderfully happy. And so her little life went on, never doing wrong, always blithe and kind and beautiful. But some months after she came, there was a mystery about her : every Tuesday evening she disap- peared ; we tried to watch her, but in vain, she was always off by nine p. m. , and was away all night, coming back next day wearied and all over mud, as if she had travelled far. She slept all next day. This went on for some months and we could make nothing of it. Poor dear creature, she looked at us wistfully when she came in, as if she would have told us if she could, and was especially fond, though tired. Well, one day I was walking across ©uc 2)000. 161 the Grassmarket, with Wylie at my heels, when two shepherds started, and looking at her, one said, "That's her ; that's the wonderfu' wee bitch that naebody kens. " I asked him what he meant, and he told me that for months past she had made her appear- ance by the first daylight at the " buchts " or sheep-pens in the cattle market, and worked incessantly, and to excellent purpose, in helping the shepherds to get their sheep and lambs in. The man said with a sort of trans- port, "She's a perfect meeracle, flees about like a speerit, and never gangs wrang; wears but never grups, and beats a' oor dowgs. She's a perfect meeracle, and as soople as a maukin. " Then he related how they all knew her, and said, " There's that wee fell yin ; we'll get them in noo." They tried to coax her to stop and be caught, but no, she was gentle, but off ; and 1 62 ©ur 2)005. for many a day that "wee felly in" was spoken of by these rough fellows. She continued this amateur work till she died, which she did in peace. It is very touching the regard the south-country shepherds have to their dogs. Professor Syme one day, many years ago, when living in Forres Street, was looking out of his window, and he saw a young shepherd striding down North Charlotte Street, as if making for his house ; it was midsummer. The man had his dog with him, and Mr. Syme noticed that he followed the dog, and not it him, though he con- trived to steer for the house. He came, and was ushered into his room ; he wished advice about some ailment, and Mr. Syme saw that he had a bit of twine around the dog's neck, which he let drop out of his hand when he entered the room. He asked him the meaning of this, and he explained that ©ur Dogs. 163 the magistrates had issued a mad-dog proclamation, commanding all dogs to be muzzled or led on pain of death. 1 ' And why do you go about as I saw you did before you came in to me ? " "Oh," said he, looking awkward, "I dinna want Birkie to ken he was tied." Where will you find truer courtesy and finer feeling? He didn't want to hurt Birkie's feelings. Mr. Carruthers of Inverness told me a new story of these wise sheep dogs. A butcher from Inverness had pur- chased some sheep at Dingwall, and giving them in charge to his dog left the road. The dog drove them on, till coming to a toll, the toll-wife stood before the drove demanding her dues. The dog looked at her, and, jumping on her back, crossed his forelegs over her arms. The sheep passed through, and the dog took his place behind them, and went on his way. 11 lo4 Qui £>O0b. RAB. Of Rab I have little to say, indeed have little right to speak of him as one of "our dogs;" but nobody will be sorry to hear anything of that noble fellow. Ailie, the day or two after the operation, when she was well and cheery, spoke about him, and said she would tell me fine stories when I came out, as I promised to do, to see her at Howgate. I asked her how James came to get him. She told me that one day she saw Tames coming down from Leadburn with the cart ; he had been away west, getting egg-s and butter, cheese and hens for Edinburgh. She saw he was in some trouble, ?nd ©ur 2)006. 165 on looking-, there was what she thought a young calf being dragged, or, as she called it, "haurled," at the back of the cart. James was in front, and when he came up, very warm and very angry, she saw that there was a huge young dog tied to the cart, struggling and pulling back with all his might, and as she said " lookin' fearsom'." James, who was out of breath and temper, being past his time, explained to Ailie, that this "muckle brute o' a whalp " had been worrying sheep, and terrifying everybody up at Sir George Montgomery's at Macbie Hill, and that Sir George had ordered him to be hanged, which, however, was sooner said than done, as "the thief " showed his intentions of dying hard. James came up just as Sir George had sent for his gun and as the dog had more than once shown a liking for him, he said he ' ' wad gie him a chance ; " 166 ©ur £>O0S. and so he tied him to his cart. Young Rab, fearing some mischief, had been entering a series of protests all the way, and nearly strangling himself to spite James and Jess, besides giving Jess more than usual to do. "I wish I had let Sir George pit that charge into him, the thrawn brute," said James. But Ailie had seen that in his foreleg there was a splinter of wood, which he had likely got when objecting to be hanged, and that he was miserably lame. So she got James to leave him with her, and go straight into Edin- burgh. She gave him water, and by her woman's wit got his lame paw under a door, so that he couldn't sud- denly get at her, then with a quick firm hand she plucked out the splinter, and put in an ample meal. She went in some time after taking no notice of him, and he came limping up, and laid his great jaws in her lap ; from that ©ur Doge. 167 moment they were "chief" as she said, James finding him mansuete and civil when he returned. She said it was Rab's habit to make his appearance exactly half an hour before his master, trotting in full of im- portance, as if to say, " He's all right, he'll be here." One morning James came without him. He had left Edin- burgh very early, and in coming near Auchindinny, at a lonely part of the road, a man sprang out on him, and demanded his money. James, who was a cool hand, said, "Weel a weel, let me get it," and stepping back he said to Rab, " Speak till him, my man." In an instant Rab was standing over him, threatening strangulation if he stirred, James pushed on, leaving Rab in charge ; he looked back and saw that every attempt to rise was summarily put down. As he was telling Ailie the story, up came Rab with that great i68 Out 5)og3. swing of his. It turned out that the robber was a Howgate lad, the worthless son of a neighbor, and Rab knowing him had let him cheaply off; the only thing, which was seen by a man from a field was, that before let- ting him rise, he quenched {pro tempore) the fire of the eyes of the ruffian, by a familiar Gulliverian application of Hydraulics, which I need not further particularize. James, who did not know the way to tell an untruth, or embellish anything, told me this as what he called ' ' a fact positeevely. " $ur Boa*. 109 WASP Was a dark brindled bull-terrier, as pure in blood as Cruiser or Wild Dr.y- rell. She was brought by my brother from Otley, in the West Riding. She was very handsome, fierce, and gentle, with a small, compact, finely-shaped head, and a pair of wonderful eyes, — ■ as full of fire and of softness as Grisi's ; indeed she had to my eye a curious look of that wonderful genius — at once wild and fond. It was a fine sight to see her on the prowl across Bowden Moor, now cantering with her nose down, now gathered up on the top of a dyke, and with erect ears, looking across the wild like a moss-trooper out 170 ®ur 2)003. on business, keen and fell. She coul.i do everything it became a dog to do, from killing an otter or a polecat, to watching and playing with a baby, and was as docile to her master as she was surly to all else. She was not idarrelsome, but " being in," she would have pleased Polonius as much, as in being " ware of entrance." She was never beaten, and she killed on the spot several of the country bullies who came out upon her when follow- ing her master in his rounds. She generally sent them off howling with one snap, but if this was not enough, she made an end of it. But it was as a mother that she shone ; and to see the gypsy, Hagar- like creature nursing her occasional Ijhmael — playing with him, and fond- ling him all over, teaching his teeth to war, and with her eye and the curl of her lip daring any one but her master ©ur. s>OQd. 1-jl to touch him, was like seeing Grisi watching her darling " Gennaro," who so little knew why and how much she loved him. Once when she had three pups, one of them died. For two days and nights she gave herself up to trying to bring it to life — licking it and turning it over and over, growling over it, and all but worrying it to awake it. She paid no attention to the living two, gave them no milk, flung them away with her teeth, and would have killed them, had they been allowed to remain with her. She was as one possessed, and neither ate, nor drank, nor slept, was heavy and miserable with her milk, and in such a state of excitement that no one could remove the dead pup. Early on the third day she was seen to take the pup in her mouth, and start across the fields towards the Tweed, 172 ©ur Dogs. striding like a race-horse — she plunged in, holding up her burden, and at the middle of the stream dropped it and swam swiftly ashore ; then she stood and watched the little dark lump float- ing away, bobbing up and down with the current, and losing it at last far down, she made her way home, sought out the living two, devoured them with her love, carried them one by one to her lair, and gave herself up wholly to nurse them ; you can fancy her mental and bodily happiness and relief when they were pulling away — and theirs. On one occasion my brother had lent her to a woman who lived in a lonely house, and whose husband was away for a time. She was a capital watch. One day an Italian with his organ came — first begging, then de- manding money — showing that he knew she was alone, and that he meant to help himself, if she didn't. She ©ur. Dogs. 173 threatened to " lowse the dowg ; " but as this was Greek to him, he pushed on. She had just time to set Wasp at him. It was very short work. She had him by the throat, pulled him and his organ down with a heavy crash, the organ giving a ludicrous sort of cry of musical pain. Wasp thinking this was from some creature within, possi- bly a whittret, left the ruffian, and set to work tooth and nail on the box. Its master slunk off, and with mingled fury and thankfulness watched her disembowelling his only means of an honest living. The woman good- naturedly took her off, and signed to the miscreant to make himself and his remains scarce. This he did with a scowl ; and was found in the evening in the village, telling a series of lies to the watchmaker, and bribing him with a shilling to mend his pipes — "his kist o' whussels. " 174 ©Ut 2>O06. JOCK Was insane from his birth ; at first an amabalis insania, but ending- in mis- chief and sudden death. He was an English terrier, fawn-colored ; his mother's name Vamp (Vampire), and his father's Demon. He was more properly daft than mad ; his courage, muscularity, and prodigious animal spirits making him insufferable, and never allowing one sane feature of himself any chance. No sooner was the street door open, than he was throt- tling the first dog passing, bringing upon himself and me endless grief. Cats he tossed up into the air, and crushed their spines as they fell. Old ladies he upset by jumping over their heads ; old gentlemen by running be- tween their legs. At home, he would think nothing of leaping through the tea-things, upsetting the urn, cream, etc., and at dinner the same sort of thing. I believe if I could have found time to thrash him sufficiently, and let him be a year older, we might have kept him ; but having upset an Earl when the streets were muddy, I had to part with him. He was sent to a clergyman in the island of Westray, one of the Orkneys ; and though he had a wretched voyage, and was as sick as any dog, he signalized the first moment of his arrival at the manse, by strangling an ancient monkey, or "puggy," the pet of the minister, — who was a bachelor, — and the wonder of the island. Jock henceforward took to evil courses, extracting the kidneys of the best young rams, driving whole 176 ©ur Bogs. hirsels down steep places into the sea, till at last all the guns ofWestray were pointed at him, as he stood at bay- under a huge rock on the shore, and blew him into space. I always regret his end, and blame myself for sparing the rod. Of DUCHIE I have already spoken ; her oddities were endless. We had and still have a dear friend, — "Cousin Susan" she is called by many who are not her cousins — a perfect lady, and, though hopelessly deaf, as gentle and con- tented as was ever Griselda with the full use of her ears ; quite as great a pet, in a word, of us all as Duchie was of ours. One day we found her mourning the death of a cat, a great ©Ill' BO03. 177 playfellow of the Sputchard's, and her small Grace was with us when we were condoling - with her and we saw that she looked very wistfully at Duchie. I wrote on the slate, "Would you like her?" and she through her tears said, "You know that would never do." But it did do. We left Duchie that very night, and though she paid us frequent visits, she was Cousin Susan's for life. I fear indul- gence dulled her moral sense. She was an immense happiness to her mis- tress, whose silent and lonely days she made glad with her oddity and mirth, And yet the small creature, old, tooth- less, and blind, domineered over her gentle friend — threatening her some- times if she presumed to remove the small Fury from the inside of her ow w bed, into which it pleased her to creep. Indeed, I believe it is too true, though it was inferred only, that her mistress 178 ©ur Dogs, and friend spent a great part of a win- ter night in trying to coax her dear little ruffian out of the centre of the bed One day the cook asked what she would have for dinner : " I would like a mutton chop, but then, you know, Duchie likes minced veal bet- ter ! " The faithful and happy little creature died at a great age, of natural decay. But time would fail me, and I fear patience would fail you, my reader, were I to tell you of Crab, of John Pyh, of Puck, and of the rest. Crab, the Mugger's dog, grave, with deep- set, melancholy eyes, as of a nobleman (say the Master of Ravenswood) in disguise, large visaged, shaggy, indom- itable, come of the pure Piper Allan's breed. This Piper Allan, you must know, lived some two hundred years ago in Cocquet Water, piping like ©uc Bogs, 179 Homer, from place to place, and famous not less for his dog- than for his music, his news and his songs. The Earl of Northumberland, of his day offered the piper a small farm for his dog, but after deliberating for a day Allan said, "Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum ; what wud a piper do wi' a ferum ? " From this dog de- scended Davidson of Hyndlee's breed, the original Dandie-Dinmont, and Crab could count his kin up to him. He had a great look of the Right Honor- able Edward Ellice, and had much of his energy and wecht ; had there been a dog House of Commons, Crab would have spoken as seldom, and been as great a power in the house, as the formidable and faithful time-out-of- mind member for Coventry. John Pym was a smaller dog than Crab, of more fashionable blood, being a son of Mr. Somner's famous Shbm, 12 180 ©ur 2)005. whose father and brother are said te have been found dead in a drain into which the hounds had run a fox. It had three entrances : the father was put in at one hole, the son at another, and speedily the fox bolted out at the third, but no appearance of the little terriers, and on digging, they were found dead, locked in each other's jaws ; they had met, and it being dark and there being no time for explana- tions, they had throttled each other. John was made of the same sort of stuff, and was as combative and vic- torious as his great namesake, and not unlike him in some of his not so cred- itable qualities. He must, I think, have been related to a certain dog to whom "life was full o' sairiousness, " but in John's case the same cause pro- duced an opposite effect. John was gay and light-hearted, even when there was not "enufTof ferhtin/ 5 which. ©ur 2)og6. i8p however, seldom happened, there be- ing a market every week in Melrose, and John appearing most punctually* at the cross to challenge all comers, and being short-legged he inveigled every dog into an engagement by first attacking him, and then falling down on his back, in which posture he latterly fought and won all his battles. What can I say of Puck* — the thor- * In The Dog, by Stonehenge, an excellent book, there is a wood-cut of Puck, and " Dr. Wm. Brown's celebrated dog John Pym " is mentioned. Their pedigrees are given — here is Puck's, which shows his "strain " is of the pure azure blood. — " Got by John Pym, out of Tib; bred by Purves of Leaderfoot ; sire, Old Dandie, the famous dog of old John Stoddart of Selkirk —dam, Whin." How Homeric all this sounds I I cannot help quoting what follows — " Some- times a Dandie pup of a good strain may appear not to be game at an early age ; but he should not be parted with on this account, because many of them do not show their courage till nearly two years old, and then nothing can beat 182 ©ur 2>ogs. oughbred — the simple-hearted — the purloinerof eggs warm from the hen — theflutterer of all manner of Volscians — the bandy-legged, dear, old, dilapi- dated buffer? I got him from my brother, and only parted with him be cause William's stock was gone. He had to the end of life a simplicity which was quite touching. One sum- mer day — a dog-day — when all dogs found straying were hauled away to the police-office, and killed off in twen- ties with strychnine, I met Puck trot- ting along Princes Street with a police- man, a rope round his neck, he looking up in the fatal, official, but kindly coun- tenance in the most artless and cheer- ful manner, wagging his tail and trot- ting along. In ten minutes he would them ; this apparent softness arising, as I sus* pect from kindness of heart'''' — a suspicion, my dear " Stonehenge," which is true, and shows your own " kindness of heart,'* as well as sense. I Our &0Q6. 1S3 iiave been in the next world ; for I am one of those who believe dogs have a next world, and why not ? Puck ended his days as the best dog in Roxburgh- shire. Placide quiescas / 184 ©UC ®QQd. DICK Still lives, and long may he live ! A: he was never born, possibly he maj never die ; be it so, he will miss us when we are gone. I could say much •of him, but agree with the lively and admirable Dr. Jortin, when, in his dedi- cation of his Remarks on Ecclesiasiical History to the then (1752) Archbishop of Canterbury, he excuses himself for not following the modern custom of praising his Patron, by reminding his Grace " that it was a custom amongst the ancients, not to sacrifice to heroes till after sunset." I defer my sacrifice till Dick's sun is set. I think every family should have a dog ; it is like having a perpetual baby : ©ur £>O0S. 185 It is the plaything and crony of the whole house. It keeps them all young. All unite upon Dick. And then he tells no tales, betrays no secrets, never sulks, asks no troublesome questions, never gets into debt, never coming down late for breakfast, or coming in through his Chubb too early to bed — is always ready for a bit of fun, lies in wait for it, and you may, if choleric, to your relief, kick him instead of some one else, who would not take it so meekly, and, moreover, would certainly not, as he does, ask your pardon for being kicked. Never put a collar on your dog — it only gets him stolen ; give him only one meal a day, and let that, as Dame Dorothy, Sir Thomas Browne's wife, would say, be ' ' rayther under. " Wash him once a week, and always wash the soap out ; and let him be carefully combed and brushed twice a week. 186 ©ur 2)oqs. By the by, I was wrong in saying that it was Burns who said Man is the God of the Dog — he got it from Bacon's Essay on Atheism, QUEEN MARY'S CHILD-GARDEN. Queen Mary's Child=Qar- den. If any one wants a pleasure that is sure to please, one over which he needn't growl the sardonic beatitude of the great Dean, let him, when the Mercury is at "Fair," take the nine a.m. train to the North and a return- ticket for Callander, and when he ar- rives at Stirling, let him ask the most obliging and knowing of station- masters to telegraph to "the Dread- nought " for a carriage to be in waiting. When passing Dunblane Cathedral, let him resolve to write to the Scotsman, advising the removal of a couple of shabby trees which obstruct the view 189 190 i&ueen jfllbarB's CbtlD=GarDcn. of that beautiful triple end window which Mr. Ruskin and everybody else admires, and by the time he has written this letter in his mind, and turned the sentences to it, he will find himself at Callander and the carriage all ready. Giving the order for the Port of Mon- teith, he will rattle through this hard- featured, and to our eye comfortless village, lying ugly amid so much grandeur and beauty, and let him stop on the crown of the bridge, and fill his eyes with the perfection of the view up the Pass of Leny — the Tei.th lying diffuse and asleep, as if its heart were in the Highlands and it were loth to go, the noble Ben Ledi imaged in its broad stream. Then let him make his way across a bit of pleasant moorland — flushed with maiden-hair and white with cotton grass, and fragrant with the Orchis conopsia, well deserving its epithet odoratissima. Queen dfoarg's CbUD=(3arDen. 191 He will see from the turn of the hill- side the Blair of Drummond waving with corn and shadowed with rich woods, where eighty years ago there was a black peat-moss ; and far off, on the horizon, Damyat and the Touch Fells ; and at his side the little loch of Ruskie, in which he may see five High- land cattle, three tawny brown and two brindled, standing in the still water — themselves as still, all except their switching tails and winking ears — the perfect images of quiet enjoy- ment. By this time he will have come in sight of the Lake of Monteith, set in its woods, with its magical shadows and soft gleams. There is a loveli- ness, a gentleness and peace about it more like "lone St. Mary's Lake," or Derwent Water, than of any of its sister lochs. It is lovely rather than beautiful, and is a sort of gentle pre- lude, in the minor key, to the coming 192 ^ueen /IfcarE's CbilD*GacDen. glories and intenser charms of Loch Ard and the true Highlands beyond. You are now at the Port, and have passed the secluded and cheerful manse, and the parish kirk with its graves, close to the lake, and the proud aisle of the Grahams of Gartmore washed by its waves. Across the road is the modest little inn, a Fisher's Tryst. On the unruffled water lie several islets, plump with rich foliage, brooding like great birds of calm. You somehow think of them as on, not in the lake, or like clouds lying in a nether sky — ** like ships waiting for the wind." You get a coble, and zyauld old Celt, its master, and are rowed across to Inchmahome, the Isle of Rest Here you find on landing huge Spanish chestnuts, one lying dead, others stand- ing stark and peeled, like gigantic ant- lers, and others flourishing in their viridis senectus, and in a thicket of wood Queen /foar^'s Cbil£>s=(3aroen. 193 you see the remains of a monastery of great beauty, the design and workmanship exquisite. You wander through the ruins, overgrown with ferns and Spanish filberts, and old fruit-trees, and at the corner of the old monkish garden you come upon one of the strangest and most touch- ing sights you ever saw — an oval space of about 18 feet by 12, with the remains of a double row of boxwood all round, the plants of box being about fourteen feet high, and eight or nine inches in diameter, healthy, but plainly of great age. What is this ? it is called in the guide- books Queen Mary's Bower ; but be- sides its being plainly not in the least a bower, what could the little Queen, then five years old, and "fancy free," do with a bower ? It is plainly, as was, we believe, first suggested by our keen- sighted and diagnostic Professor oi i94 i&ueen /foars's CbilD=(3art>en. Clinical Surgery,* the Child-Queen's Garden, with her little walk, and its rows of boxwood, left to themselves for three hundred years. Yes, without doubt, "here is that first garden of her simpleness." Fancy the little, lovely royal child, with her four Marys, her playfellows, her child maids of honor, with their little hands and feet, and their innocent and happy eyes, patter- ing about that garden all that time ago, laughing, and running, and gardening as only children do and can. As is well known, Mary was placed by her mother in this Isle of Rest before sailing from the Clyde for France. There is some- * The same seeing eye and understanding mind, when they were eighteen years of age, discovered and published the Solvent of Caoutchouc, for which a patent was taken out afterwards by the famous Mackintosh. If the young discoverer had secured the patent, he might have made a fortune as large as his present reputation — I don't suppose he much regrets t&at he didn't. Queen dfcarB's CbUD*(3arDen* 195 thing ''that tirls the heartstrings a' to the life " in standing and looking on this unmistakable living relic of that strange and pathetic old time. Were we Mr. Tennyson, we would write an Idyll of that child Queen, in that garden of hers, eating her bread and honey — getting her teaching from the holy men, the monks of old, and running off in wild mirth to her garden and her flowers, all unconscious of the black, lowering thunder-cloud on Ben t.omond's shoulder. * Oh, blessed vision ! happy child I Thou art so exquisitely wild ; I think of thee with many fears Of what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thf guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality. And Grief, uneasy lover I never rest But when she sat within the touch of thee. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow ? M 196 (Slueen flbarg's GbilD=<5aroen. You have ample time to linger there amid " The gleams, the shadows, and the peace profound," and get your mind informed with quiet- ness and beauty, and fed with thoughts of other years, and of her whose story, like Helen of Troy's, will continue to move the hearts of men as long as the gray hills stand round about that gentle lake, and are mirrored at evening in its depths. You may do and enjoy all this, and be in Princes Street by nine p.m. ; and we wish we were as sure of many things as of your saying, ' Yes, this is a pleasure that has pleased, and will please again ; this was some- thing expected which did not #*i»ap- point Queen /IRarg'6 CbUD=<3arDen. 197 There is another garden of Queen Mary's, which may still be seen, and which has been left to itself like that in the Isle of Rest. It is in the grounds at Chatsworth, and is moated, walled round, and raised about fifteen feet above the park. Here the Queen, when a prisoner under the charge of "Old Bess of Hardwake," was al- lowed to walk without any guard. How differem the two ! ana how different she who took her pleasure in them ! Lines written on the steps of a small moated garden at Chatsworth, called " QUEEN MARY'S BOWER, * Ths moated bower is wild and drear And sad the dark yew's shade \ The flowers which bloom in silence here In silence also fade kq8 Ciueen d&ats's CbilD*(3arDen. ** The woodbine and the light wild rose Float o'er the broken wall ; And here the mournful nightshade blows. To note the garden's fall. * Where once a princess wept her woes, The bird of night complains ; And sighing trees the tale disclose They learnt from Mary's strains. ■ A. EL' TME EN JX PUBLICATIONS OF Henry Altemus Company Altemus' Illustrated Vademecum Series The most popular works of standard authors carefully printed on fine paper, with illuminated titles and frontispieces. Full cloth, ornamented, boxed. 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Publications of Henry Altemus Company Altemus* Illustrated Young People's Library A new series of choice literature for chil- dren, selected from the best and most popu- lar works. Profusely illustrated. Fine English cloth, handsome new orig- inal designs. Price, 50 cents. . 1 The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. 70 illustrations. . 2 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 42 illustrations. . 3 Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. 50 illustrations. . 4 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 46 illustra- tions. . 5 A Child's Story of the Bible. 72. illustra- tions. . 6 A Child's Life of Christ. 49 illustrations. . 7 tEsop's Fables. 62 illustrations. . 8 Swiss Family Robinson. 50 illustrations. . 9 Christopher Columbus and 'the Dis- covery of America. 70 illustrations. . 10 Exploration and Adventure in Africa. 80 illustrations. . 11 Gulliver's Travels. 50 illustrations. . 12 Mother Goose's Rhymes. 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