Old Mortality, Complete Page 4
CHAPTER I.
Preliminary.
Why seeks he with unwearied toil Through death's dim walks to urge his way, Reclaim his long-asserted spoil, And lead oblivion into day? Langhorne.
"Most readers," says the Manuscript of Mr Pattieson, "must have witnessedwith delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of avillage-school on a fine summer evening. The buoyant spirit of childhood,repressed with so much difficulty during the tedious hours of discipline,may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout, and song, and frolic,as the little urchins join in groups on their play-ground, and arrangetheir matches of sport for the evening. But there is one individual whopartakes of the relief afforded by the moment of dismission, whosefeelings are not so obvious to the eye of the spectator, or so apt toreceive his sympathy. I mean the teacher himself, who, stunned with thehum, and suffocated with the closeness of his school-room, has spent thewhole day (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, excitingindifference to action, striving to enlighten stupidity, and labouring tosoften obstinacy; and whose very powers of intellect have been confoundedby hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, andonly varied by the various blunders of the reciters. Even the flowers ofclassic genius, with which his solitary fancy is most gratified, havebeen rendered degraded, in his imagination, by their connexion withtears, with errors, and with punishment; so that the Eclogues of Virgiland Odes of Horace are each inseparably allied in association with thesullen figure and monotonous recitation of some blubbering school-boy. Ifto these mental distresses are added a delicate frame of body, and a mindambitious of some higher distinction than that of being the tyrant ofchildhood, the reader may have some slight conception of the relief whicha solitary walk, in the cool of a fine summer evening, affords to thehead which has ached, and the nerves which have been shattered, for somany hours, in plying the irksome task of public instruction.
"To me these evening strolls have been the happiest hours of an unhappylife; and if any gentle reader shall hereafter find pleasure in perusingthese lucubrations, I am not unwilling he should know, that the plan ofthem has been usually traced in those moments, when relief from toil andclamour, combined with the quiet scenery around me, has disposed my mindto the task of composition.
"My chief haunt, in these hours of golden leisure, is the banks of thesmall stream, which, winding through a 'lone vale of green bracken,'passes in front of the village school-house of Gandercleugh. For thefirst quarter of a mile, perhaps, I may be disturbed from my meditations,in order to return the scrape, or doffed bonnet, of such stragglers amongmy pupils as fish for trouts or minnows in the little brook, or seekrushes and wild-flowers by its margin. But, beyond the space I havementioned, the juvenile anglers do not, after sunset, voluntarily extendtheir excursions. The cause is, that farther up the narrow valley, and ina recess which seems scooped out of the side of the steep heathy bank,there is a deserted burial-ground, which the little cowards are fearfulof approaching in the twilight. To me, however, the place has aninexpressible charm. It has been long the favourite termination of mywalks, and, if my kind patron forgets not his promise, will (and probablyat no very distant day) be my final resting-place after my mortalpilgrimage. [Note: Note, by Mr Jedediah Cleishbotham.--That I kept myplight in this melancholy matter with my deceased and lamented friend,appeareth from a handsome headstone, erected at my proper charges in thisspot, bearing the name and calling of Peter Pattieson, with the date ofhis nativity and sepulture; together also with a testimony of his merits,attested by myself, as his superior and patron.--J. C.]
"It is a spot which possesses all the solemnity of feeling attached to aburial-ground, without exciting those of a more unpleasing description.Having been very little used for many years, the few hillocks which riseabove the level plain are covered with the same short velvet turf. Themonuments, of which there are not above seven or eight, are half sunk inthe ground, and overgrown with moss. No newly-erected tomb disturbs thesober serenity of our reflections by reminding us of recent calamity, andno rank-springing grass forces upon our imagination the recollection,that it owes its dark luxuriance to the foul and festering remnants ofmortality which ferment beneath. The daisy which sprinkles the sod, andthe harebell which hangs over it, derive their pure nourishment from thedew of heaven, and their growth impresses us with no degrading ordisgusting recollections. Death has indeed been here, and its traces arebefore us; but they are softened and deprived of their horror by ourdistance from the period when they have been first impressed. Those whosleep beneath are only connected with us by the reflection, that theyhave once been what we now are, and that, as their relics are nowidentified with their mother earth, ours shall, at some future period,undergo the same transformation.
"Yet, although the moss has been collected on the most modern of thesehumble tombs during four generations of mankind, the memory of some ofthose who sleep beneath them is still held in reverent remembrance. It istrue, that, upon the largest, and, to an antiquary, the most interestingmonument of the group, which bears the effigies of a doughty knight inhis hood of mail, with his shield hanging on his breast, the armorialbearings are defaced by time, and a few worn-out letters may be read atthe pleasure of the decipherer, Dns. Johan--de Hamel,--or Johan--deLamel--And it is also true, that of another tomb, richly sculptured withan ornamental cross, mitre, and pastoral staff, tradition can only aver,that a certain nameless bishop lies interred there. But upon other twostones which lie beside, may still be read in rude prose, and ruderrhyme, the history of those who sleep beneath them. They belong, we areassured by the epitaph, to the class of persecuted Presbyterians whoafforded a melancholy subject for history in the times of Charles II. andhis successor. [Note: James, Seventh King of Scotland of that name, andSecond according to the numeration of the Kings of England.--J. C.] Inreturning from the battle of Pentland Hills, a party of the insurgentshad been attacked in this glen by a small detachment of the King'stroops, and three or four either killed in the skirmish, or shot afterbeing made prisoners, as rebels taken with arms in their hands. Thepeasantry continued to attach to the tombs of those victims of prelacy anhonour which they do not render to more splendid mausoleums; and, whenthey point them out to their sons, and narrate the fate of the sufferers,usually conclude, by exhorting them to be ready, should times call forit, to resist to the death in the cause of civil and religious liberty,like their brave forefathers.
"Although I am far from venerating the peculiar tenets asserted by thosewho call themselves the followers of those men, and whose intolerance andnarrow-minded bigotry are at least as conspicuous as their devotionalzeal, yet it is without depreciating the memory of those sufferers, manyof whom united the independent sentiments of a Hampden with the sufferingzeal of a Hooper or Latimer. On the other hand, it would be unjust toforget, that many even of those who had been most active in crushing whatthey conceived the rebellious and seditious spirit of those unhappywanderers, displayed themselves, when called upon to suffer for theirpolitical and religious opinions, the same daring and devoted zeal,tinctured, in their case, with chivalrous loyalty, as in the former withrepublican enthusiasm. It has often been remarked of the Scottishcharacter, that the stubbornness with which it is moulded shows most toadvantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore oftheir hills, which scorns to be biassed in its mode of growth even by theinfluence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equalboldness in every direction, shows no weather-side to the storm, and maybe broken, but can never be bended. It must be understood that I speak ofmy countrymen as they fall under my own observation. When in foreigncountries, I have been informed that they are more docile. But it is timeto return from this digression.
"One summer evening, as in a stroll, such as I have described, Iapproached this deserted mansion of the dead, I was somewhat surprised tohear sounds distinct from those which usually soothe
its solitude, thegentle chiding, namely, of the brook, and the sighing of the wind in theboughs of three gigantic ash-trees, which mark the cemetery. The clink ofa hammer was, on this occasion, distinctly heard; and I entertained somealarm that a march-dike, long meditated by the two proprietors whoseestates were divided by my favourite brook, was about to be drawn up theglen, in order to substitute its rectilinear deformity for the gracefulwinding of the natural boundary. [Note: I deem it fitting that the readershould be apprised that this limitary boundary between the conterminousheritable property of his honour the Laird of Gandercleugh, and hishonour the Laird of Gusedub, was to have been in fashion an agger, orrather murus of uncemented granite, called by the vulgar a drystane dyke,surmounted, or coped, _cespite viridi_, i.e. with a sodturf. Truly theirhonours fell into discord concerning two roods of marshy ground, near thecove called the Bedral's Beild; and the controversy, having some yearsbygone been removed from before the judges of the land, (with whom itabode long,) even unto the Great City of London and the Assembly of theNobles therein, is, as I may say, adhuc in pendente.--J. C.] As Iapproached, I was agreeably undeceived. An old man was seated upon themonument of the slaughtered presbyterians, and busily employed indeepening, with his chisel, the letters of the inscription, which,announcing, in scriptural language, the promised blessings of futurity tobe the lot of the slain, anathematized the murderers with correspondingviolence. A blue bonnet of unusual dimensions covered the grey hairs ofthe pious workman. His dress was a large old-fashioned coat of the coarsecloth called hoddingrey, usually worn by the elder peasants, withwaistcoat and breeches of the same; and the whole suit, though still indecent repair, had obviously seen a train of long service. Strong cloutedshoes, studded with hobnails, and gramoches or leggins, made of thickblack cloth, completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves apony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well asits projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It washarnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks, a hairtether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle andsaddle. A canvass pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for thepurpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else hemight have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the oldman before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style ofhis equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerantwhom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts ofScotland by the title of Old Mortality.
The Graveyard--006]
"Where this man was born, or what was his real name, I have never beenable to learn; nor are the motives which made him desert his home, andadopt the erratic mode of life which he pursued, known to me except verygenerally. According to the belief of most people, he was a native ofeither the county of Dumfries or Galloway, and lineally descended fromsome of those champions of the Covenant, whose deeds and sufferings werehis favourite theme. He is said to have held, at one period of his life,a small moorland farm; but, whether from pecuniary losses, or domesticmisfortune, he had long renounced that and every other gainful calling.In the language of Scripture, he left his house, his home, and hiskindred, and wandered about until the day of his death, a period ofnearly thirty years.
"During this long pilgrimage, the pious enthusiast regulated his circuitso as annually to visit the graves of the unfortunate Covenanters, whosuffered by the sword, or by the executioner, during the reigns of thetwo last monarchs of the Stewart line. These are most numerous in thewestern districts of Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries; but they are also to befound in other parts of Scotland, wherever the fugitives had fought, orfallen, or suffered by military or civil execution. Their tombs are oftenapart from all human habitation, in the remote moors and wilds to whichthe wanderers had fled for concealment. But wherever they existed, OldMortality was sure to visit them when his annual round brought themwithin his reach. In the most lonely recesses of the mountains, themoor-fowl shooter has been often surprised to find him busied in cleaningthe moss from the grey stones, renewing with his chisel the half-defacedinscriptions, and repairing the emblems of death with which these simplemonuments are usually adorned. Motives of the most sincere, thoughfanciful devotion, induced the old man to dedicate so many years ofexistence to perform this tribute to the memory of the deceased warriorsof the church. He considered himself as fulfilling a sacred duty, whilerenewing to the eyes of posterity the decaying emblems of the zeal andsufferings of their forefathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, thebeacon-light, which was to warn future generations to defend theirreligion even unto blood.
"In all his wanderings, the old pilgrim never seemed to need, or wasknown to accept, pecuniary assistance. It is true, his wants were veryfew; for wherever he went, he found ready quarters in the house of someCameronian of his own sect, or of some other religious person. Thehospitality which was reverentially paid to him he always acknowledged,by repairing the gravestones (if there existed any) belonging to thefamily or ancestors of his host. As the wanderer was usually to be seenbent on this pious task within the precincts of some country churchyard,or reclined on the solitary tombstone among the heath, disturbing theplover and the black-cock with the clink of his chisel and mallet, withhis old white pony grazing by his side, he acquired, from his converseamong the dead, the popular appellation of Old Mortality.
"The character of such a man could have in it little connexion even withinnocent gaiety. Yet, among those of his own religious persuasion, he isreported to have been cheerful. The descendants of persecutors, or thosewhom he supposed guilty of entertaining similar tenets, and the scoffersat religion by whom he was sometimes assailed, he usually termed thegeneration of vipers. Conversing with others, he was grave andsententious, not without a cast of severity. But he is said never to havebeen observed to give way to violent passion, excepting upon oneoccasion, when a mischievous truant-boy defaced with a stone the nose ofa cherub's face, which the old man was engaged in retouching. I am ingeneral a sparer of the rod, notwithstanding the maxim of Solomon, forwhich school-boys have little reason to thank his memory; but on thisoccasion I deemed it proper to show that I did not hate the child.--But Imust return to the circumstances attending my first interview with thisinteresting enthusiast.
"In accosting Old Mortality, I did not fail to pay respect to his yearsand his principles, beginning my address by a respectful apology forinterrupting his labours. The old man intermitted the operation of thechisel, took off his spectacles and wiped them, then, replacing them onhis nose, acknowledged my courtesy by a suitable return. Encouraged byhis affability, I intruded upon him some questions concerning thesufferers on whose monument he was now employed. To talk of the exploitsof the Covenanters was the delight, as to repair their monuments was thebusiness, of his life. He was profuse in the communication of all theminute information which he had collected concerning them, their wars,and their wanderings. One would almost have supposed he must have beentheir contemporary, and have actually beheld the passages which herelated, so much had he identified his feelings and opinions with theirs,and so much had his narratives the circumstantiality of an eye-witness.
"'We,' he said, in a tone of exultation,--'we are the only true whigs.Carnal men have assumed that triumphant appellation, following him whosekingdom is of this world. Which of them would sit six hours on a wethill-side to hear a godly sermon? I trow an hour o't wad staw them. Theyare ne'er a hair better than them that shamena to take upon themsells thepersecuting name of bludethirsty tories. Self-seekers all of them,strivers after wealth, power, and worldly ambition, and forgetters alikeof what has been dree'd and done by the mighty men who stood in the gapin the great day of wrath. Nae wonder they dread the accomplishment ofwhat was spoken by the mouth of the worthy Mr Peden, (that preciousservant of the Lord, none of whose words fell to the ground,) that theFrench monzies [Note: Probably monsieurs. It would seem that this wasspoken during the apprehensions of invason from France.--Publishers.]sall rise as fast in the glens of Ayr, an
d the kenns of Galloway, as everthe Highlandmen did in 1677. And now they are gripping to the bow and tothe spear, when they suld be mourning for a sinfu' land and a brokencovenant.'
"Soothing the old man by letting his peculiar opinions pass withoutcontradiction, and anxious to prolong conversation with so singular acharacter, I prevailed upon him to accept that hospitality, which MrCleishbotham is always willing to extend to those who need it. In our wayto the schoolmaster's house, we called at the Wallace Inn, where I waspretty certain I should find my patron about that hour of the evening.After a courteous interchange of civilities, Old Mortality was, withdifficulty, prevailed upon to join his host in a single glass of liquor,and that on condition that he should be permitted to name the pledge,which he prefaced with a grace of about five minutes, and then, withbonnet doffed and eyes uplifted, drank to the memory of those heroes ofthe Kirk who had first uplifted her banner upon the mountains. As nopersuasion could prevail on him to extend his conviviality to a secondcup, my patron accompanied him home, and accommodated him in theProphet's Chamber, as it is his pleasure to call the closet which holds aspare bed, and which is frequently a place of retreat for the poortraveller. [Note: He might have added, and for the rich also; since, Ilaud my stars, the great of the earth have also taken harbourage in mypoor domicile. And, during the service of my hand-maiden, Dorothy, whowas buxom and comely of aspect, his Honour the Laird of Smackawa, in hisperegrinations to and from the metropolis, was wont to prefer myProphet's Chamber even to the sanded chamber of dais in the Wallace Inn,and to bestow a mutchkin, as he would jocosely say, to obtain the freedomof the house, but, in reality, to assure himself of my company during theevening.--J. C.]
"The next day I took leave of Old Mortality, who seemed affected by theunusual attention with which I had cultivated his acquaintance andlistened to his conversation. After he had mounted, not withoutdifficulty, the old white pony, he took me by the hand and said, 'Theblessing of our Master be with you, young man! My hours are like the earsof the latter harvest, and your days are yet in the spring; and yet youmay be gathered into the garner of mortality before me, for the sickle ofdeath cuts down the green as oft as the ripe, and there is a colour inyour cheek, that, like the bud of the rose, serveth oft to hide the wormof corruption. Wherefore labour as one who knoweth not when his mastercalleth. And if it be my lot to return to this village after ye are ganehame to your ain place, these auld withered hands will frame a stane ofmemorial, that your name may not perish from among the people.'
"I thanked Old Mortality for his kind intentions in my behalf, and heaveda sigh, not, I think, of regret so much as of resignation, to think ofthe chance that I might soon require his good offices. But though, in allhuman probability, he did not err in supposing that my span of life maybe abridged in youth, he had over-estimated the period of his ownpilgrimage on earth. It is now some years since he has been missed in allhis usual haunts, while moss, lichen, and deer-hair, are fast coveringthose stones, to cleanse which had been the business of his life. Aboutthe beginning of this century he closed his mortal toils, being found onthe highway near Lockerby, in Dumfries-shire, exhausted and justexpiring. The old white pony, the companion of all his wanderings, wasstanding by the side of his dying master. There was found about hisperson a sum of money sufficient for his decent interment, which servesto show that his death was in no ways hastened by violence or by want.The common people still regard his memory with great respect; and manyare of opinion, that the stones which he repaired will not again requirethe assistance of the chisel. They even assert, that on the tombs wherethe manner of the martyrs' murder is recorded, their names have remainedindelibly legible since the death of Old Mortality, while those of thepersecutors, sculptured on the same monuments, have been entirelydefaced. It is hardly necessary to say that this is a fond imagination,and that, since the time of the pious pilgrim, the monuments which werethe objects of his care are hastening, like all earthly memorials, intoruin or decay.
"My readers will of course understand, that in embodying into onecompressed narrative many of the anecdotes which I had the advantage ofderiving from Old Mortality, I have been far from adopting either hisstyle, his opinions, or even his facts, so far as they appear to havebeen distorted by party prejudice. I have endeavoured to correct orverify them from the most authentic sources of tradition, afforded by therepresentatives of either party.
"On the part of the Presbyterians, I have consulted such moorland farmersfrom the western districts, as, by the kindness of their landlords, orotherwise, have been able, during the late general change of property, toretain possession of the grazings on which their grandsires fed theirflocks and herds. I must own, that of late days, I have found this alimited source of information. I have, therefore, called in thesupplementary aid of those modest itinerants, whom the scrupulouscivility of our ancestors denominated travelling merchants, but whom, oflate, accommodating ourselves in this as in more material particulars, tothe feelings and sentiments of our more wealthy neighbours, we havelearned to call packmen or pedlars. To country weavers travelling inhopes to get rid of their winter web, but more especially to tailors,who, from their sedentary profession, and the necessity, in our country,of exercising it by temporary residence in the families by whom they areemployed, may be considered as possessing a complete register of ruraltraditions, I have been indebted for many illustrations of the narrativesof Old Mortality, much in the taste and spirit of the original.
"I had more difficulty in finding materials for correcting the tone ofpartiality which evidently pervaded those stores of traditional learning,in order that I might be enabled to present an unbiassed picture of themanners of that unhappy period, and, at the same time, to do justice tothe merits of both parties. But I have been enabled to qualify thenarratives of Old Mortality and his Cameronian friends, by the reports ofmore than one descendant of ancient and honourable families, who,themselves decayed into the humble vale of life, yet look proudly back onthe period when their ancestors fought and fell in behalf of the exiledhouse of Stewart. I may even boast right reverend authority on the samescore; for more than one nonjuring bishop, whose authority and incomewere upon as apostolical a scale as the greatest abominator of Episcopacycould well desire, have deigned, while partaking of the humble cheer ofthe Wallace Inn, to furnish me with information corrective of the factswhich I learned from others. There are also here and there a laird ortwo, who, though they shrug their shoulders, profess no great shame intheir fathers having served in the persecuting squadrons of Earlshall andClaverhouse. From the gamekeepers of these gentlemen, an office the mostapt of any other to become hereditary in such families, I have alsocontrived to collect much valuable information.
"Upon the whole, I can hardly fear, that, at this time, in describing theoperation which their opposite principles produced upon the good and badmen of both parties, I can be suspected of meaning insult or injustice toeither. If recollection of former injuries, extra-loyalty, and contemptand hatred of their adversaries, produced rigour and tyranny in the oneparty, it will hardly be denied, on the other hand, that, if the zeal forGod's house did not eat up the conventiclers, it devoured at least, toimitate the phrase of Dryden, no small portion of their loyalty, sobersense, and good breeding. We may safely hope, that the souls of the braveand sincere on either side have long looked down with surprise and pityupon the ill-appreciated motives which caused their mutual hatred andhostility, while in this valley of darkness, blood, and tears. Peace totheir memory! Let us think of them as the heroine of our only Scottishtragedy entreats her lord to think of her departed sire:--
'O rake not up the ashes of our fathers! Implacable resentment was their crime, And grievous has the expiation been.'"