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.”