Kitabı oku: «The Cruise of the Land-Yacht «Wanderer»: or, Thirteen Hundred Miles in my Caravan», sayfa 11
Chapter Twenty.
Edinburgh – The Fisher Folks o’ Musselboro’ – Through Linlithgow to Falkirk – Gipsy-Folks
“Edina! Scotia’s darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and towers,
Where once beneath a monarch’s feet
Sat legislation’s sov’reign powers.
From marking wildly-scattered flowers,
As on the banks of Ayr I strayed,
And singing, lone, the lingering hours
I shelter in thy honour’d shade.”
Burns.
So sang our immortal Burns. And here lies the Wanderer snugly at anchor within the grounds of that great seminary, the High School of Edinburgh. This by the courtesy of the mathematical teacher and kindness of the old janitor, Mr Rollo. She is safe for the midday halt, and I can go shopping and visiting with an easy mind. Sight-seeing? No. Because I have learnt Edinburgh, “my own romantic town,” by heart long ago. Besides, it is raining to-day, an uncomfortable drizzle, a soaking insinuating Scotch mist. But the cathedral of Saint Giles I must visit, and am conducted there by W. Chambers, Esq, of Chambers’s Journal. I think he takes a pride in showing me the restorations his father effected before death called him away. And I marvel not at it.
The day before yesterday, being then lying in Musselburgh, in the tan-yard of that most genial of gentlemen, Mr Millar, I took my servants to the capital of Scotland by way of giving them a treat. They were delighted beyond measure, and I did not neglect them in the matter of food and fluid. Remember, though, that they are English, and therefore not much used to climbing heights. I took them first, by way of preparation, to the top of Scott’s monument. What a sight, by the way, were the Princes Street gardens as seen from here! A long walk in the broiling sunshine followed, and then we “did” (what a hateful verb!) the castle.
“The pond’rous wall and massy bar,
Grim-rising o’er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repelled th’ invader’s shock.”
Another long walk followed, and thus early I fancied I could detect symptoms of fag and lag in my gentle Jehu.
But I took them down to ancient Holyrood, and we saw everything there, from the picture gallery to Rizzio’s blood-stain on the floor.
Another long walk. I showed them old Edinburgh, some of the scenes in which shocked their nerves considerably. Then on and up the Calton Hill, signs of fag and lag now painfully apparent. And when I proposed a run up to the top of Nelson’s monument, my Jehu fairly struck, and laughingly reminded me that there could be even too much of a good thing. So we went and dined instead.
I was subjected to a piece of red-tapeism at the post-office here which I cannot refrain from chronicling as a warning to future Wanderers.
I had hitherto been travelling incog. Letters from home had been sent in registered packets, addressed to “The Saloon Caravan Wanderer,” to be left at the post-offices till I called for them; but those sent to Edinburgh were promptly sent back to Twyford, because, according to these clever officials, the name was fictitious. It was really no more so than the name of a yacht is, the Wanderer being my land-yacht.
When a clerk showed me a letter from some bigwig anent the matter, I indignantly dashed my pen through the word “fictitious.” You should have seen that clerk’s face then. I believe his hair stood on end, and his eyes stuck out on stalks.
“Man!” he cried, “you’ve done a bonnie thing noo. I’ll say no more to you. You must go round and speak to that gentleman.”
As that gentleman was at one end of the counter and this gentleman at the other, this gentleman refused to budge, albeit he had done “a bonnie thing.” For, I reasoned, this gentleman represents the British public, that gentleman is but a servant of the said British public.
So it ended. But was it not hard to be refused my letters – not to be able to learn for another week whether my aged father was alive, whether my little Inie’s cough was better, or Kenneth had cut that other tooth?
If further proof were needed that Midlothian is a smart country, it was forthcoming at Corstorphine, a pretty village some miles from Edina. I had unlimbered on the side of the road, not in any one’s way. Soon after there was a rat-tat-tat-tat at my back door – no modest single knock, mind you.
A policeman – tall, wiry, solemn, determined.
“Ye maun moove on. Ye canna be allooed to obstruct the thoro’fare.”
I told the fellow, as civilly as I could, to go about his business, that my horses should feed and my own dinner be cooked and eaten ere I “mooved on.”
He departed, saying, “Ye maun stand the consekences.”
I did stand the “consekences,” and dined very comfortably indeed, then jogged leisurely on. This was the first and last time ever a policeman put an uninvited foot on my steps, and I do but mention it to show intending caravanists that a gipsy’s life has its drawbacks in the county of Midlothian.
It is about six miles from Musselburgh to Edinburgh, through Portobello, and one might say with truth that the whole road is little else than one long street. We had stayed over the Sunday in that spacious old tan-yard. We were not only very comfortable, but quiet in the extreme. Close to the beach where we lay, great waves tumbled in from the eastern ocean on sands which I dare not call golden. We were in the very centre of the fisher population, and a strange, strange race of beings they are. Of course I cultivated their acquaintance, and by doing so in a kindly, friendly way, learned much of their “tricks and their manners” that was highly interesting.
The street adjoining my tan-yard was quaint in the extreme. Clean? Not very outside, but indoors the houses are tidy and wholesome. They are not tall houses, and all are of much the same appearance outdoors or in. But washing and all scullery work is done in the street. Looking up Fishergate, you perceive two long rows of tubs, buckets, and baskets, with boxes, and creels, and cats and dogs galore. Being naturally fond of fish, cats here must have a high old time of it.
The older dames are – now for a few adjectives to qualify these ladies; they are short, squat, square, apparently as broad as they are long; they are droll, fresh, fat, and funny, and have right good hearts of their own. The most marvellous thing is their great partiality for skirts. As a rule I believe they wear most of their wardrobes on their bodies; but ten to fifteen skirts in summer and twenty in winter are not uncommonly worn.
The children on week days look healthy and happy; a dead puppy or a cod’s head makes a delightful doll to nurse in the gutter, and any amount of fun can be got out of “partans’ taes and tangles.” (Crabs’ toes and seaweed canes.)
But these children are always clean and tidy on the Sabbath day.
At the village of Kirkliston, some miles from Corstorphine, with its intelligent policemen, I stopped for the night in a little meadow. It was a pleasant surprise to find in the clergyman here a man from my own University.
Kirkliston was all en gala next day; flags and bands, and games and shows, and the greatest of doings. But after an early morning ride to those wonderful works where the Forth is being bridged, we went on our way, after receiving gifts of fruit and peas from the kindly people about.
By the way, Kirkliston boasts of one of the biggest distilleries in Scotland.
But it quite knocks all the romance out of Highland whisky to be told it is made from American maize instead of from malt. Ugh!
Splendid road through a delightful country all the way to Linlithgow. Pretty peeps everywhere, and blue and beautiful the far-off Pentlands looked.
At Linlithgow even my coachman and valet were made to feel that they really were in Scotland now, among a race of people whose very religion causes them to be kindly to the stranger.
Through Polmont and on through a charming country to Falkirk, celebrated for its great cattle tryst.
July 29th. – At Linlithgow I visited every place of note – its palace and its palace prison, and its quaint and ancient church. Those gloomy prison vaults made my frame shiver, and filled my mind with awe. “Who enters here leaves hope behind” might well have been written on the lintels of those gruesome cells.
There are the remains of a curious old well in the palace courtyard. A facsimile of it, when at its best, is built in a square in the town. Standing near it to-day was a white-haired, most kindly visaged clergyman (The Rev. Dr Duncan Ogilvie), with whom I entered into conversation. I found he came originally from my own shire of Banff, and that he was now minister of a church in Falkirk.
He gave me much information, and it is greatly owing to his kindness that I am now, as I write, so comfortably situated at Falkirk.
A pleasant old stone-built town it is, with homely, hearty, hospitable people. Many a toil-worn denizen of cities might do worse than make it his home in the summer months. There is plenty to see in a quiet way, health in every breeze that blows, and a mine of historical wealth to be had for merely the digging. The town is celebrated for its great cattle fair, or tryst.
Away from Falkirk, after holding a levée as usual, during which a great many pleasant and pretty people stepped into the Wanderer.
The country altogether from Edinburgh to Glasgow is so delightful that I wonder so few tourists pass along the road.
As soon as we leave the last long straggling village near Falkirk, with its lovely villas surrounded by gardens and trees, and get into the open country, the scenery becomes very pretty and interesting, but on this bright hot day there is a hazy mist lying like a veil all over the landscape, which may or may not be smoke from the great foundries; but despite this, the hills and vales and fertile tree-clad plains are very beautiful to behold.
Stone fences (dykes) by the wayside now divide the honour of accompanying us on our journey with tall hedges snowed over with flowering brambles, or mingled with the pink and crimson of trailing roses. (A dyke in Scotland means a stone or turf fence.)
What beauty, it might be asked, could a lover of nature descry in an old stone fence? Well, look at these dykes we are passing. The mortar between the stones is very old, and in every interstice cling in bunches the bee-haunted bluebells. The top is covered with green turf, and here grow patches of the yellow-flowering fairy-bedstraw and purple “nodding thistles,” while every here and there is quite a sheet of the hardy mauve-petalled rest-harrow.
Four miles from Falkirk we enter the picturesque and widely scattered village of Bonny Bridge. This little hamlet, which is, or ought to be, a health resort, goes sweeping down a lovely glen, and across the bridge it goes straggling up the hill; the views – go where you like – being enchanting. Then the villas are scattered about everywhere, in the fields and in the woods. No gimcrack work about these villas, they are built of solid ornamentally-chiselled stone, built to weather the storms of centuries.
By-and-bye we rattle up into the village of Dennyloanhead. Very long it is, very old and quaint, and situated on a hill overlooking a wide and fertile valley. The houses are low and squat, very different from anything one ever sees in England.
Through the valley yonder the canal goes wimpling about, and in and out, on its lazy way to Glasgow, and cool, sweet, and clear the water looks. The farther end of the valley itself is spanned by a lofty eight-arched bridge, over which the trains go noisily rolling. There is probably not a more romantic valley than this in all the diversified and beautiful route from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Tourists should take this hint, and health-seekers too.
Passing through this valley over the canal, under the arches and over a stream, the road winds up a steep hill, and before very long we reach the hamlet of Cumbernauld.
An unpretentious little place it is, on a rocky hilltop and close to a charming glen, but all round here the country is richly historical.
We stable the horses at the comfortable Spurr Hotel and bivouac by the roadside. A little tent is made under the hedge, and here the Rippingille cooking-range is placed and cooking proceeded with.
Merry laughing children flock round, and kindly-eyed matrons knitting, and Hurricane Bob lies down to watch lest any one shall open the oven door and run away with the frizzling duck. Meanwhile the sun shines brightly from a blue, blue sky, the woods and hedges and wild flowers do one good to behold, and, stretched on the green sward with a pleasant book and white sun umbrella, I read and doze and dream till Foley says, —
“Dinner’s all on the table, sir.”
No want of variety in our wanderings to-day. Change of scenery at every turn, and change of faces also.
On our way from Cumbernauld we meet dozens and scores of caravans of all descriptions, for in two days’ time there is to be a great fair at Falkirk, and these good people are on their way thither.
“Thank goodness,” I say to my coachman, “they are not coming in our direction.”
“You’re right, sir,” says John.
For, reader, however pleasant it may be to wave a friendly hand to, or exchange a kindly word or smile with, these “honest” gipsies, it is not so nice to form part in a Romany Rye procession.
Here they come, and there they go, all sorts and shapes and sizes, from the little barrel-shaped canvas-covered Scotch affair, to the square yellow-painted lordly English van. Caravans filled with real darkies, basket caravans, shooting-gallery caravans, music caravans, merry-go-round caravans, short caravans, long caravans, tall caravans, some decorated with paint and gold, some as dingy as smoke itself, and some mere carts covered with greasy sacking filled with bairns; a chaotic minglement of naked arms and legs, and dirty grimy faces; but all happy, all smiling, and all perspiring.
Some of these caravans have doors in the sides, some doors at front and back; but invariably there are either merry saucy children or half-dressed females leaning out and enjoying the fresh air, and – I hope – the scenery.
The heat to-day is very great. We are all limp and weary except Polly, the parrot, who is in her glory, dancing, singing, and shrieking like a maniac.
But matters mend towards evening, and when we pause to rest the horses, I dismount and am penning these lines by the side of a hedge. A rippling stream goes murmuring past at no great distance. I could laze and dream here for hours, but prudence urges me on, for we are now, virtually speaking, in an unknown country; our road-book ended at Edinburgh, so we know not what is before us.
“On the whole, John,” I say, as I reseat myself among the rugs, “how do you like to be a gipsy?”
“I’m as happy, sir,” replies my gentle Jehu, “as a black man in a barrel of treacle.”
Chapter Twenty One.
Glasgow and Grief – A Pleasant Meadow – Thunderstorm at Chryston – Strange Effects – That Terrible Twelfth of August – En Route for Perth and the Grampians
“O rain! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow;
Though stomach should ache and knees should swell,
I’ll nothing speak of you but well;
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear rain! do go away.”
Coleridge.
In Scotland there are far fewer cosy wee inns with stabling attached to them than there are in England; there is therefore greater difficulty in finding a comfortable place in which to bivouac of a night. In towns there are, of course, hotels in abundance; but if we elected to make use of these, then farewell peace and quiet, and farewell all the romance and charm of a gipsy life.
It was disheartening on arriving at the village of Muirhead to find only a little lassie in charge of the one inn of the place, and to be told there was no stabling to be bad. And this village was our last hope ’twixt here and Glasgow. But luckily – there always has been a sweet little cherub sitting up aloft somewhere who turned the tide in times of trouble – luckily a cyclist arrived at the hostelry door. He was naturally polite to me, a brother cyclist.
“Let us ride over to Chryston,” he said; “I believe I can get you a place there.”
A spin on the tricycle always freshens me up after a long day’s drive, and, though I was sorry to leave the poor horses a whole hour on the road, I mounted, and off we tooled. Arrived at the farm where I now lie, we found that Mr B – was not at home, he had gone miles away with the cart. But nothing is impossible to the cyclist, and in twenty minutes we had overtaken him, and obtained leave to stable at the farm and draw into his field.
A quiet and delightful meadow it is, quite at the back of the little village of Chryston, and on the brow of a hill overlooking a great range of valley with mountains beyond.
The sky to-night is glorious to behold. In the east a full round moon is struggling through a sea of cumulus clouds. Over yonder the glare of a great furnace lights up a quarter of the sky, the flashing gleams on the clouds reminding one of tropical wild-fire. But the sky is all clear overhead, and in the northern horizon over the mountains is the Aurora Borealis. Strange that after so hot a day we should see those northern lights.
But here comes Hurricane Bob.
Bob says, as plainly as you please, “Come, master, and give me my dinner.”
Whether it be on account of the intense heat, or that Hurricane Bob is, like a good Mohammedan, keeping the feast of the Ramadan, I know not, but one thing is certain – he eats nothing ’twixt sunrise and sunset.
Glasgow: Glasgow and grief. I now feel the full force of the cruelty that kept my letters back. My cousins, Dr McLennan and his wife, came by train to Chryston this Saturday forenoon, and together we all rode (seven miles) into Glasgow in the Wanderer. We were very, very happy, but on our arrival at my cousins’ house – which I might well call home – behold! the copy of a telegram containing news I ought to have had a week before!
My father was dying!
Then I said he must now be gone. How dreadful the thought, and I not to know. He waiting and watching for me, and I never to come!
Next morning I hurried off to Aberdeen. The train goes no farther on Sunday, but I was in time to catch the mail gig that starts from near the very door of my father’s house, and returns in the evening.
The mail man knew me well, but during all that weary sixteen-mile drive I never had courage to ask him how the old man my father was. I dreaded the reply.
Arrived at my destination, I sprang from the car and rushed to the house, to find my dear father – better. And some days afterwards – thank God for all His mercies – I bade him good-bye as he sat by the fire.
No quieter meadow was ever I in than that at Chryston, so I determined to spend a whole week here and write up the arrears of my literary work, which had drifted sadly to leeward. Except the clergyman of the place, and a few of the neighbouring gentry, hardly any one ever came near the Wanderer.
If an author could not work in a place like this, inspired by lovely scenery and sunny weather, inhaling health at every breath, I should pity and despise him.
I never tired of the view from the Wanderer’s windows, that wondrous valley, with its fertile farms and its smiling villas, and the great Campsie range of hills beyond. Sometimes those hills were covered with a blue haze, which made them seem very far away; but on other days, days of warmth and sunshine, they stood out clear and close to us; we could see the green on their sides and the brown heath above it, and to the left the top of distant Ben Ledi was often visible.
Thunderstorm at Chryston.
It had been a sultry, cloudy day, but the banks of cumulus looked very unsettled, rolling and tossing about for no apparent reason, for the wind was almost nil.
Early in the afternoon we, from our elevated position, could see the storm brewing – gathering and thickening and darkening all over Glasgow, and to both the north and south-west of as, where the sky presented a marvellous sight.
The thunder had been muttering for hours before, but towards four pm the black clouds gathered thick and fast, and trooped speedily along over the Campsie Hills. When right opposite to us, all of a sudden the squall came down. The trees bent before its fury, the caravan rocked wildly, and we had barely time to place a pole under the lee-side before the tempest burst upon us in all its fury.
Everything around us now was all a smother of mist. It reminded me of a white squall in the Indian Ocean. The rain came down in torrents, mingled with hail. It rattled loudly on the roof and hard and harsh against the panes, but not so loud as the pealing thunder.
The lightning was bright, vivid, incessant. The mirrors, the crystal lamps, the coloured glasses seemed to scatter the flashes in all directions; the whole inside of the Wanderer was like a transformation scene at a pantomime.
It was beautiful but dangerous.
I opened the door to look out, and noticed the row of ash-trees near by, sturdy though they were, bending like fishing-rods before the strength of the blast, while the field was covered with twiglets and small branches.
But the squall soon blew over, and the clouds rolled by, the thunder ceased or went growling away beyond the hills, and presently the sun shone out and began to dry the fields.
By the twelfth day of August – sacred to the Scottish sportsman – I had made up my literary leeway and got well to windward of editors and printers. I was once more happy.
That Terrible Twelfth of August.
We were to start on the twelfth of August for the north, en route for the distant capital of the Scottish Highlands – Inverness.
What is more, we were going to make a day of it, for my brave little Highland cousin Bella (Mrs McLennan) and her not less spirited friend Mrs C were to go a-gipsying and journey with me from Chryston to Stirling.
It was all nicely arranged days beforehand. We promised ourselves sunshine and music and general joy, with much conversation about the dear old days of long ago. And we were to have a dinner al fresco on the green sward after the manner of your true Romany Rye.
Alas for our hopes of happiness! The rain began at early morn. And such rain! I never wish to see the like again. The sky reminded me of some of Doré’s pictures of the Flood.
During one vivid blink of sunshine the downpour of rain looked like glass rods, so thick and strong was it.
In less than two hours the beautiful meadow that erst was so hard and firm was a veritable Slough of Despond. This was misfortune Number 1. Misfortune Number 2 lay in the fact that the ’busman did not meet the train the ladies were coming by, so for two long Scotch miles they had to paddle on as best they could through pelting rain and blackest mud.
Nor had the ladies come empty-handed, for between them they carried a large parrot-cage, a parcel, and a pie. (Polly had been spending a week in Glasgow, and was now returning.)
It was a pie of huge dimensions, of varied contents, and of curious workmanship – nay, but curious workwomanship – for had not my cousin designed it, and built it, and furnished it with her own fair fingers? It was a genuine, palpable, edible proof of feminine forethought.
Not, however, all the rain that ever fell, or all the wind that ever blew, could damp the courage of my cousin. Against all odds they came up smiling, the Highland lass and her English friend – the thistle and the rose.
But the rain got worse: it came down in bucketfuls, in torrents, in whole water. It was a spate.
Then came misfortune Number 3, for the wheels of the Wanderer began to sink deep in the miry meadow. We must draw on to the road forthwith, so Corn-flower and Pea-blossom were got out and put-to.
But woe is me! they could not start or move her. They plunged and pawed, and pawed and plunged in vain – the Wanderer refused to budge.
“I’ve a horse,” said Mr R – , quietly, “that I think could move a church, sir.”
“Happy thought!” I said; “let us put him on as a tracer.”
The horse was brought out. I have seldom seen a bigger. He loomed in the rain like a mountain, and appeared to be about nineteen hands high, more or less.
The traces were attached to buckles in our long breeching. Then we attempted to start.
It might now have been all right had the trio pulled together, but this was no part of Pea-blossom’s or Corn-flower’s intention.
They seemed to address that tall horse thus: “Now, old hoss, we’ve had a good try and failed, see what you can do.”
So instead of pulling they hung back.
I am bound to say, however, that the tall horse did his very best. First he gave one wild pull, then a second, then a third and a wilder one, and at that moment everything gave way, and the horse coolly walked off with the trace chains.
It was very provoking, all hopes of enjoyment fled. Hardly could the strawberries and cream that Mrs R brought console us. Here we were stuck in a meadow on the glorious twelfth, of all days, in a slough of despair, in a deluge of rain, and with our harness smashed.
No use lamenting, however. I sent my servant off to Glasgow to get repairs done at once, and obtain hydraulic assistance for the semi-wrecked Wanderer.
About noon there came round a kindly farmer Jackson.
“Men can do it,” he said, after eyeing us for a bit. “There’s nothing like men.”
I had sent the ladies into the farmhouse for warmth, and was in the saloon by myself, when suddenly the caravan gave herself a shake and began to move forward.
In some surprise I opened the door and looked out. Why, surely all the manhood of Chryston was around us, clustering round the wheels, lining the sides, pushing behind and pulling the pole. With a hip! ho! and away we go!
“Hurrah, lads, hurrah!”
“Bravo, boys, bravo!”
In less time than it takes me to tell it, the great caravan was hoisted through that meadow and run high and dry into the farmer’s courtyard.
To offer these men money would have been to insult them – they were Scotch. Nor can a kindness like this be measured by coin. I offered them liquid refreshment, however, but out of all who helped me I do not think that half-a-dozen partook.
All honour to the manly feelings of the good folks of Chryston.
But our day’s enjoyment was marred and we were left lamenting.
August 13th. We are off.
We are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur. And happy we feel, on this bright, bracing morning, to be once more on the road again with our backs to old England, our faces to the north.
Click, click – click, click! Why, there positively does seem music in the very horses’ feet. They seem happy as well as ourselves. Happy and fresh for, says my gentle Jehu, “They are pulling, sir, fit to drag the very arms out of ye.”
“Never mind, John,” I reply, “the Highland hills are ahead of us, and the heather hills, my Jehu. Knowest thou this song, John?”
“‘O! glorious is the sea, wi’ its heaving tide,
And bonnie are the plains in their simmer pride;
But the sea wi’ its tide, and the plains wi’ their rills,
Are no half so dear as my ain heather hills.
I may heedless look on the silvery sea,
I may tentless muse on the flowery lee,
But my heart wi’ a nameless rapture thrills
When I gaze on the cliffs o’ my ain heather hills.
Then hurrah, hurrah, for the heather hills,
Where the bonnie thistle waves to the sweet bluebells,
And the wild mountain floods heave their crests to the clouds,
Then foam down the steeps o’ my ain heather hills.’”
No wonder the rattling chorus brought half-dressed innocent cottage children to their doors to wave naked arms and shout as we passed, or that their mothers smiled to us, and fathers doffed their bonnets, and wished us “good speed.”
But summer has gone from nature if not from our hearts. All in a week the change has come, and many-tinted autumn was ushered in with wild and stormy winds, with rain and floods and rattling thunder.
Not as a lamb has autumn entered, but as a lion roaring; as a king or a hero in a pantomime, with blue and red fire and grand effects of all kinds.
There is a strong breeze blowing, but it is an invigorating one, and now, at eight o’clock on this morning, the sun is shining brightly enough, whatever it may do later on.
What a grand day for the moors! It will quite make up for the loss of yesterday, when doubtless there were more drams than dead grouse about.
In Glasgow, days ago, I noticed that the poulterers’ windows were decorated with blooming heather in anticipation of the twelfth.
I saw yesterday afternoon some “lads in kilts” – Saxons, by the shape of their legs. But I do not hold with Professor Blackie, that if you see a gentleman in Highland garb “he must either be an Englishman or a fool.”
For I know that our merriest of professors, best of Greek scholars, and most enthusiastic of Scotchmen, would himself wear the kilt if there was the slightest possibility of keeping his stockings up!
