Chapter Eighteen.
The Journey to Dunbar—A Rainy Day.
“I lay upon the headland height and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
In caverns under me,
And watched the waves that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
Melted away in mist.”
Longfellow.
July 18th.
We make an early start this morning. The horses are in, and we are out of the field before eight o’clock. We have a long journey before us—three-and-twenty miles to Dunbar—and do it we must.
It is raining in torrents; every hilltop is wrapped in mist as in a gauze veil. The country is fertile, but trees and hedges are dripping, and if the hills are high, we know it not, seeing only their foundations.
About four miles on, the road enters a beautiful wood of oak, through which the path goes winding. There is clovery sward on each side, and the trees almost meet overhead.
Some six miles from Co’burn’s path we stop at a small wayside grocery to oil the wheel-caps, which have got hot. I purchase here the most delicious butter ever I tasted for ten pence a pound. The rain has ceased, and the breaking clouds give promise of a fine day.
I inquire of a crofter how far it is to Inverness.
“Inverness?” he ejaculates, with eyes as big as florins. “Man! it’s a far cry to Inverness.”
On again, passing for miles through a pretty country, but nowhere is there an extensive view, for the hills are close around us, and the road is a very winding one. It winds and it “wimples” through among green knolls and bosky glens; it dips into deep, deep dells, and rises over tree-clad steeps.
This may read romantic enough, but, truth to tell, we like neither the dips nor the rises.
But look at this charming wood close on our right, a great bank of sturdy old oaks and birches, and among them wild roses are blooming—for even here in Scotland the roses have not yet deserted us. Those birken trees, how they perfume the summer air around us! From among the brackens that grow beneath, so rank and green, rich crimson foxglove bells are peeping, and a thousand other flowers make this wild bank a thing of beauty. Surely by moonlight the fairies haunt it and hold their revels here.
We pass by many a quiet and rural hamlet, the cottages in which are of the most primitive style of architecture, but everywhere gay with gardens, flowers, and climbing plants. It does one good to behold them. Porches are greatly in vogue, very rustic ones, made of fir-trees with the bark left on, but none the less lovely on that account.
Here is the porch of a house in which surely superstition still lingers, for the porch, and even the windows, are surrounded with honeysuckle and rowan. (Rowan, or rantle tree,—the mountain ash.)
“Rantle tree and wood-bin
To haud the witches on come in.”
(To keep the witches out.)
The mists have cleared away.
We soon come to a high hill overtopped by a wood. There are clearings here and there in this wood, and these are draped with purple heath, and just beneath that crimson patch yonder is a dark cave-like hole. That is the mouth of a loathsome railway tunnel. There may be a people-laden train in it now. From my heart I pity them. They are in the dark, we in the sunshine, with the cool breeze blowing in our faces, and as free as the birds. We are on the hill; they are in the hole.
As we near Co’burn’s path the scenery gets more and more romantic. A peep at that wondrous tree-clad hill to the right is worth a king’s ransom. And the best of it is that to-day we have all the road to ourselves.
I stopped by a brook a few minutes ago to cull some splendid wild flowers. A great water-rat (bank-vole) eyed me curiously for a few moments, then disappeared with a splash in the water as if he had been a miniature water-kelpie. High up among the woods I could hear the plaintive croodling of the cushie-doo, or wild pigeon, and Dear me, on a thorn-bush, the pitiful “Chick-chick-chick-chick-chee-e-e” of the yellow-hammer. But save these sweet sounds all was silent, and the road and country seemed deserted. Where are our tourists? where our health and pleasure-seekers? “Doing” Scotland somewhere on beaten tracks, following each other as do the wild geese.
We climb a hill; we descend into a deep and wooded ravine, dark even at midday, cross a most romantic bridge, and the horses claw the road as they stagger up again.
A fine old ruined castle among the pinewoods. It has a story, which here I may not tell.
If ever, reader, you come this way, visit Pease Dene and the bridge. What a minglement is here of the beautiful in art and the awesome in nature!
Are you fond of history? Well, here in this very spot, where the Wanderer rests for a little time, did Cromwell, with his terrible battle-cry, “The Lord of hosts,” defeat the Scottish Covenanters. It was a fearful tulzie; I shudder when I look round and think of it.
“Drive on, John, drive on.”
All round Co’burn’s path is a wild land of romance. But here is the hamlet itself.
The inn—there is but one—stands boldly by the roadside; the little village itself hides upon a wooded braeland away behind.
“Is it a large village?” I inquired.
“No,” was the canny Scotch reply, “not so vera large. It is just a middlin’ bit o’ a village.”
So I found it when I rode round, a very middling bit of a village indeed.
The shore is about half a mile from the road. It is bounded by tall steep cliffs, and many of these are pierced by caves. The marks of chisels are visible on their walls, and in troublous times they were doubtless the hiding-places of unfortunate families, but more recently they were used by smugglers, concerning which the hills about here, could they but speak, would tell many a strange story.
Dined and baited at Co’burn’s path, and started on again. And now the rain began to come down in earnest—Scotch rain, not Scotch mist, rain in continuous streams that fell on the road with a force that caused it to rebound again, and break into a mist which lay all along the ground a good foot deep.
Nothing could touch us in our well-built caravan, however; we could afford to look at the rain with a complacency somewhat embittered with pity for the horses.
The country through which we are now passing is beautiful, or would be on a fine day. It is a rolling land, and well-treed, but everything is a blur at present, and half hidden by the terrible rain.
When we reached Dunbar at last, we found the romantic and pretty town all astir. The yeomanry had been holding their annual races, and great was the excitement among both sexes, despite the downpour.
It was an hour or two before I could find a place to stand in. I succeeded at last in getting on to the top of the west cliff, but myself and valet had to work hard for twenty minutes before we got in here. We chartered a soldier, who helped us manfully to enlarge a gap, by taking down a stone wall and levelling the footpath.
At Dunbar, on this cliff-top, from which there was a splendid view of the ever-changing sea, I lay for several days, making excursions hither and thither, and enjoying the sea-bathing.
(For further notes about pleasant excursions, fishing streams, etc, see my “Rota Vitae; or, Cyclist’s Guide to Health and Rational Enjoyment.” Price 1 shilling. Published by Messrs Iliffe and Co, Fleet Street, London.)
The ancient town of Dunbar is too well-known to need description by me, although every one is entitled to talk about a place as he finds it. Dunbar, then, let me say parenthetically, is a town of plain substantial stone, with many charming villas around it. It has at least one very wide and spacious street, and it has the ruins of an ancient castle—no one seems to know how ancient; it has been the scene of many a bloody battle, and has a deal otherwise to boast about in a historical way.
I found the people exceedingly kind and hospitable, and frank and free as well.
English people ought to know that Dunbar is an excellent place for bathing, that it is an extremely healthy town, and could be made the headquarters for tourists wishing to visit the thousand and one places of interest and romance around it.
But it was the rock scenery that threw a glamour over me. It is indescribably wild and beautiful here. These rocks are always fantastic, but like the sea that lisps around their feet in fine weather, or dashes in curling wreaths of snow-white foam high over their summits, when a nor’-east storm is blowing, they are, or seem to be, ever-changing in appearance, never quite the same. Only, one rock on the horizon is ever the same, the Bass.
When the tide is back pools are left among the rocks; here bare-legged children dabble and play and catch the strange little fishes that have been left behind.
To see those children, by the way, hanging like bees—in bunches—on the dizzy cliff-tops and close to the edge, makes one’s heart at times almost stand still with fear for their safety.
There is food here for the naturalist, enjoyment for the healthy, and health itself for the invalid. I shall be happy indeed if what I write about the place shall induce tourists to visit this fine town.
On the morning of the 23rd of July we left Dunbar, after a visit from the Provost and some members of the town council. Sturdy chiels, not one under six feet high, and broad and hard in proportion. An army of such men might have hurled Cromwell and all his hordes over the cliffs to feed the skate—that is, if there were giants in those days.
We got out and away from the grand old town just as the park of artillery opened fire from their great guns on their red-flagged targets far out to sea. Fife-shire Militia these soldiers are, under command of Colonel the Hon. — Halket. Mostly miners, sturdy, strong fellows, and, like the gallant officer commanding them, soldierly in bearing.
I fear, however, that the good folks of Dunbar hardly appreciate the firing of big guns quite so close to their windows, especially when a salvo is attempted. This latter means shivered glass, frightened ladies, startled invalids, and maddened dogs and cats. The dogs I am told get into cupboards, and the cats bolt up the chimneys.
The first day of the firing an officer was sent to tell me that the Wanderer was not lying in quite a safe position, as shells sometimes burst shortly after leaving the gun’s mouth. I took my chance, however, and all went well. Alas for poor Hurricane Bob, however! I have never seen a dog before in such an abject state of shivering terror. The shock to his system ended in sickness of a painful and distressing character, and it was one o’clock in the morning before he recovered.
One o’clock, and what a night of gloom it was! The sky over hills and over the ocean was completely obscured, with only here and there a lurid brown rift, showing where the feeble rays of moon and stars were trying to struggle through.
The wind was moaning among the black and beetling crags; far down beneath was the white froth of the breaking waves, while ever and anon from seaward came the bright sharp flash of the summer lightning. So vivid was it that at first I took it for a gun, and listened for the report.
It was a dreary night, a night to make one shiver as if under the shadow of some coming evil.