CHAPTER XIII.
CONCLUSION.
“Life’s a weary journey alane,
Blithe’s the road when we wend wi’ ither;
Mutual gi’ein’ is mutual gain,
Ae gude turn deserves anither.”
Jas. Ballantine.
AS my readers are more familiar with Mrs. Tait by her old name of Bell, it will be as well to hold to it in what little we have to add to these “bits;” for although she filled her new station as effectively as she did the old one, it is rather to wind up old matters than to enter upon new ones that she will now come before us.
“A FOUTH O’ AULD NICKNACKETS.”
Before the actual flitting from Knowe Park took place, Bell spent two or three busy days packing those things that required specially careful handling; for she was a walking inventory of all that the house contained, and knew the history of every article in it. An interesting volume of choice “bits” could easily be made up from her remarks and stories about many of the odds-and-ends that cast up, for she not only told the incidents with which they were associated, but often gave a sketch of the life-history of those they reminded her of, whilst all the time she kept cleverly packing on.
Mary Barrie, who was Bell’s chief assistant in the packing, picked up in these few days more about her family history, and especially its connection with some of the folks about Blinkbonny, than she had learned during all her former lifetime. Her mother’s marriage dress brought out a long story; even her father’s bachelor umbrella had its share of Bell’s comments.
“Bachelor umbrella?” said Mary, as she put it up; “it’s double the size of papa’s new one—it’s quite a family tent, and such a weight! The handle is like a friar’s shaven crown, with a large bird’s bill sticking out from it. And how thick the blue-black cotton is; and bone tips to the strong whalebone ribs; and what an elaborately embossed, sharp, tapering end it has! It’s three times the weight of the umbrellas now-a-days.”
“The mair’s the pity,” said Bell; “that’s the kind for stan’in’ a’ weathers. I often wonder that Mr. Barrie doesna use’t yet.”
“Fancy papa like this!” said Mary, as she took the massive article under her arm and stalked about the room.
“Fancy, or no’ fancy,” said Bell, “I see naething wrang wi’t. It’s just very purpose-like; it’ll fend the weet [defend from rain] an’ face the blast better than the thin-shankit apologies o’ things that’s gaun noo, wi’ their stockin’-wire ribs an’ muslin cleedin’. I mind o’ haein’t ance when Dr. Guthrie met me in a shower. He was glad to get into the beild o’t, an’ he said, in his jokin’ way, ‘My good woman, that wad dae for the roof o’ a preachin’ tent.’ But ye’ll no’ mind o’ the tent preachin’s, there’s nae sic thing noo, but I’ve seen them langsyne in Dumbarton,—one minister serving the tables in the kirk, an’ anither preachin’ to the folk in the kirkyard round it. The tent was just like a sentry-box on stilts. I’ve kent the preachin’s gang on frae about ten in the mornin’ till nine at nicht.”
“THERE’S NAE SORROW THERE, JEAN.”
In one of the rooms Mrs. Barrie looked towards a little drawer, and slightly nodded to Bell; she nodded feelingly in return, but no words passed between them. Mrs. Barrie laid a small box on a chair and left the room; Bell opened the drawer and solemnly took out a little beaver bonnet, a very small fur tippet, a string of blue beads, a child’s basket rattle, and a red-and-white wooden luggie, with a handle formed by one of its long staves,—when shaken, some mysteriously concealed peas in the bottom of it rattled. It had been Nellie’s porridge dish, and still contained a pair of little slippers, a small copy of Watts’ hymns in scarlet binding, and some bits of broken china with gold on them—Nellie’s pennies.
These and other memorials of “Bell’s bairn” were daintily taken out by Bell; but she was not quite well-bred to Mary when doing this, as she studiously turned her back on her, and kept her from getting near the drawer. After its contents had been beautifully packed in the little box, she closed, wrapped, and roped it, saying, “I’ll carry you mysel’. She’ll never need to flit—she’s hame A’ways.”
Dan came very early on the flitting morning to help to load David’s carts, which were to take the furniture to Edinburgh; and between the intervals of helping on with what was carried out, he had a crack with the horses, for he was in charge outside. Dan was fond of all kinds of animals; horses were second in his scale, now that he had given up game fowls.
“First and foremost,” he used to say, “dougs, then horses, then goats,” and so on. In his professional capacity as a rude veterinary surgeon, he knew the Blackbrae teams well, and as the first cart was to be taken in by David himself, and Bell would travel by it (although urged to take the railway, which had lately come within four miles of Blinkbonny, and to which the drosky was to take the family), old “Rosie” was to lead the van. With the exception of a spot on her forehead and one “white stocking on her far leg,” Rosie was a coal-black, thick-set, quick-stepping, trusty mare, a great favourite of Dan’s; and she seemed to know it, for while he had a good deal to say, she had abundance of leisure to listen and seemed to enjoy the chat.
“A BETTER NEVER LIFTIT LEG.”
“Well, Rosie, my dawtie [darling],” said he, at the same time patting her nose and kindly pulling her ears, “ye wad need tae be in gude fettle [trim] the day. Ye’ve a far road afore ye; but there’s nane fitter for’t. Ye’ll no’ reist [stubbornly stick] on the lang dreich [tiresome] Cadger’s Brae, nor on the Ramsune [ram’s horn] Hill; for altho’ it’s no’ sae lang as the Cadger’s Brae, it’s a nasty strauchty-squinty [zig-zag] bit, wi’ terrible snell snabs [steep parts] that tak’s the wind mair frae a beast than a lang steady pu’. I ken ye o’ the auld, Rosie; ye’ll scart [scratch] yer way up, diggin’ yer shoon intae the road till the fire’s fleein’ frae them, an’ bendin’ yer forelegs wi’ a’ yer pith, and strauchtin’ them back again wi’ a nick like the spring o’ a gardener’s knife. You for a steady day’s wark, Rosie; you’re no’ ane o’ the breengein’, flingin’ [rashly running, kicking] kind, Rosie; ye just snoove [move steadily] awa’, like linseed out o’ a pock—on an’ on—steady, steady”—and much to the same effect.
As the journey was a long one, Rosie’s cart started at a very early hour. When all was ready, Bell, as she had to mount on the top of some mattresses which had been put there for her comfortable journey, handed Nellie’s box to Dan to hold, saying:
“Eh, Dan, that’s wee Nellie’s things in that box. I’ll carry’t on my lap a’ the way. D’ye ken, Dan, that your dream has hardly ever been out o’ my head since I packit them? I aye think I see her in her braw mansion, lookin’ doon on the confushun an’ upturn o’ the flittin’. Nae flittin’, or confushun, or bother for her noo. Na—We maun a’ try to get up beside her, Dan, gin the time comes.”
“It’s worth tryin’,” said Dan; “’deed is’t,” as Rosie, led by David, with Bell as a deck cargo, scarcely visible in the dark morning, started for Edinburgh. The old mare’s long swinging step served to keep David warm, but it actually set Bell asleep. Luckily she was well wrapped up, so that she took no skaith.
As Rosie’s cart went out, Sandie Ramage, David’s head ploughman, appeared with the next cart, drawn by “Charlie Gray,” another of David’s plough-horses. Dan had a good deal to say to “Charlie” also, but Bell’s remark about Nellie’s mansion had changed the current of his thoughts, and he spoke more to Charlie about this matter than about the Edinburgh journey.
“We’ll need to try’t, as your mistress said, Charlie,” said Dan, after exchanging civilities with the horse, “an’ wi’ the like o’ her I get on no’ that ill; but it disna set the like o’ me, for ye ken, Charlie, I’ve been a wild, throughither kind o’ a man, to mak’ ony show off or palaver about thae things; an’ forbye, what mak’s folk sae keen to speir into a’ the oots an’ ins o’ that kind o’ thing at the like o’ me? It’s ma business. It’s ill kennin’ some folk, an’ there’s nae satisfyin’ ithers, an’ d’ye no’ think, Charlie, that maybe the best o’ folk has enough adae wi’ themsel’s? Mr. Walker says that, onyway, an’ he’s a man I can speak till. We’ve haen mony a crack, an’ I’ve aye been the better o’t; he’s that hamely an’ kindlike, an’ firm tae. He tak’s pains tae mak’ the thing plain, an’ he doesna miss ye if ye’re in faut; he grups ye gey sharp, an’ gars [makes] ye a’ shiver if ye’ve been misbehavin’.”
Finding Charlie a patient listener, Dan went on as leisure admitted; but it would be tedious to record all he said. One bit was spoken rather louder than the rest, and reported to me as follows:—
“HE PRAYETH BEST WHO LOVETH BEST.”
“I’m willin’ to hear o’ thae things in the like o’ the kirk, or when there’s a wheen [number] thegither speakin’ about them; but I tak’ very ill wi’ the like o’ Miss Park speirin’ [inquiring] if I’ve fand this, or am sure o’ that; an’ after gaun ower about a dizzen o’ lang-nebbit dictionar’ words, she tell’d me if I couldna say I had them an’ ither evidences, as she ca’d them, I was deid an’ something.—An’ what business had she to say that nae gude man could keep a big ugly doug—meanin’ my Burke? He’s a hantle better-lookin’ than her, wi’ her wizened leathery chafts [jaws]. I’ve never letten him fecht, or gaen to see either cock-fechts or doug-fechts, since I saw the pictures. Burke an’ me’s ower auld friends to pairt noo; in fac’, Charlie, I learn mair frae him than the like o’ Miss Park. I whiles dae up her bit garden, an’ she speaks that saucy an’ disdainfu’-like at me, as if I was some nasty mongrel. She minds me o’ the doctors at Greenock lang syne, that used to boord the ships if there was onybody no’ weel in them. They were the sharp blades. They never even offert to gang near the puir sailors to cure them, or help them onyway; it was just, ‘Bad case; off to hospital—off too—off,’ an’ sic like. Nae doubt she means to dae me gude, but yon’s no’ the way! It’s like as Burke used to be amang the sheep whiles when I was gi’ein’ him a walk lang syne; it was a kind o’ vexin’ sicht, for Burke wasna exactly like a collie amang them.”
After all the carts were laden, Dan waited to convoy the last one for a few miles on the road. Mrs. Barrie called him in, and said:
“Now, Dan, I’m not going to pay you in money for this morning’s work.”
“Pay me!” said Dan; “pay me in money! Ye ken better than to vex me that sair. I couldna even look Burke in the face if I took a farden [farthing]. He wad be that affrontit at me that he wadna gi’e me house-room.”
“I never thought of offering you money, Dan,” replied Mrs. Barrie. “I am quite pleased to accept your help as a friend of the family; but to keep you from forgetting us altogether”—
“That’s what I’ll never dae,” said Dan very firmly.
Mrs. Barrie bowed neatly, and proceeded in a homelier tone than before: “To keep you in mind of us all, I ask you to take this picture, and hang it in your house; it’s your old friend, ‘The Angel’s Whisper.’”
“THERE’S A DEEP LORE IN HEARTS OF LOVE.”
The picture-frame was leaning against the dining-room wall, and only its rough brown paper back was visible until Mrs. Barrie had named it. She then lifted it up and turned its face towards Dan. The poor man started, applied first the cuff of his coat, then his rough woollen cap, to his eyes; and, as he afterwards told Bell, “I fand out where my heart was, sure eneuch; it flappert about like a fresh-run sea-troot wi’ a hook in its mooth. I was that gliffed [taken by surprise] that I couldna even say Thank ye.” Mrs. Barrie had great difficulty in getting him to take the picture.
“Take that,—that frae you! that’s the brawest thing in yer hoose. That’s no’ like ma house at a’. It’s far ower splendid—it’s just awfu’ bonnie; that’s a pictur’ an’ no mistake,” said Dan; and he kept gazing at it until his solitary eye watered.
Mrs. Barrie would take no denial. She advised Dan to take it home at once; and, shaking him by the hand, she said: “Good-bye, Dan; many thanks for all your kindness. Be sure if ever you are in Edinburgh to come and see us.”
Dan’s eye followed her as she left the room with a funny smile on it; and he said to himself:
“Me come to see ye—me! That wad be a farce. I think the offishers [police] wad keep a gey sharp look-out for some nichts after they saw me at siccan a house.” Here he was interrupted by hearing Sandie Ramage saying, “I’ll tak’ a bit draw, an’ then start.”
Dan quickly crossed the field with his precious burden, taking great care to keep the top of the picture uppermost, and not to shake it. Sandie Ramage said he heard him say, “If I’m no’ carefu’, I micht wauken the bonnie bairn.” After he got it safely home, and put, still top uppermost, inside of his box bed, he put the only two chairs he had in the house before it, locked the door, and convoyed Charlie Gray until he had mastered the “Ramsune Hill,” assisted by Dan from the back of the cart at the zig-zag turns. He would have gone farther, but he was wearying to have a good look at the picture. On his way home he met the drosky containing Mrs. Barrie and the children. Gordie, who was beside the driver, cried to those inside, “Here’s Dan coming!” As they passed, all waved him a kind good-bye, and poor Dan stood, cap in hand, looking at the receding vehicle until Gordie turned round and waved his cap. Dan did the same, and said laughingly, “Ye’re an awfu’ ane. He’s a stuffy laddie that,—he’ll no’ let grass grow at his heels. But they’re a’ gude thegither, an’ they hae been gude to me. Ma blessings may be no’ muckle worth, but they hae’t frae my heart,—God bless them a’.”
BETTER FLEECH A FOOL THAN FECHT HIM.
When he reached his own door he found Mr. Walker there. He had been at the London Exhibition of 1851, and had got from a publisher, an old Blinkbonny man, some copies of the Pilgrim’s Progress, one of which he had brought to Dan, who was so proud of his new picture that he asked Mr. Walker in to see it. Mr. Walker explained to him some of the pictures in the Pilgrim’s Progress, which greatly interested him. A neighbour’s boy occasionally came in and read it to him, greatly to Dan’s delight. Had I room to give his comments, they would astonish even very learned men; but I must take leave of Dan for the present, and am glad to leave him such a quiet neighbourly man, that when an impertinent fellow shortly after this called “Braidnebs” after him, Dan quietly looked at him and said:
“If I was as I’ve seen me, I wad ’a made a fule o’ mysel’ the noo; an’ ye’re trying to mak’ a fule o’ me, but ye’ll find out that ye’re jist makin’ a fule o’ yersel’. The game’s here yet, but it disna show up at a dirty barn-door bantin’ that kens nae better. Man, I’m sorry for ye.”
The flitting got all right to Edinburgh. Bell had not been there before, and was greatly taken with the Castle. “It was bigger and had mair houses on’t than Dumbarton Castle; but there was ae thing, it hadna the bonnie Clyde round it.” When she arrived at the house she set to work at once, William Morrison, the singing deacon formerly mentioned, who had charge of the flitting, having come off with the early train.
“Weel, Willie, is the house a’ ready? Is a’ the lums soopit [chimneys swept]? It’s a bit nice-like house. Has May Ritchie gotten’t a’ clean?”
Here May, Guy’s daughter, appeared to answer for herself.
“A’s as clean as a new preen [pin],” said May.
Bell was now inside, and evidently had not the same high estimate of the cleanness of the house as May had.
“Let’s see,” said she as she sniffed about. “May, it’s hardly just that; it’s rather like the ‘Willie Cossar’ (an old name for a large-sized pin) that Dan used to pick his pipe wi’, an’ hit was very dim,—yellow, green, an’ a’ colours. But I’ll gi’e a bit hand, an’ we’ll sune take out what’s left,—the feck [most] o’t’s out, onyway;” and Bell soon put a new face on the parts that needed attention.
Mrs. Barrie wished her to stay over the Sabbath, and to be present at the introduction of Mr. Barrie to his new charge, but Bell did not relish that idea at all. Although the call had helped on her marriage, it had parted her from her best friends; and she said to David, that “altho’ there was naebody she likit sae weel to hear as Mr. Barrie, she wad Wishart-Kirk nane.”
“MAK’ ILKA THING LOOK BRAW.”
After getting things “a wee snod” in the new house, she fulfilled her early promise to David to put everything right by making a good many very sensible purchases for Blackbrae. Not even an Edinburgh shopkeeper could induce Bell to buy, hardly even to look at, anything she did not think needful;—she had matured her inventory of wants, and held to it. She quickly scented that she was wrong if she went into a “cheap John” shop, as she called it; and, when outside, said to David:
“It’s hard for a greedy e’e to hae a leal heart: we’ll hae nae trash in our house—a’s no’ gold that glitters.” The result of her shopping was: “I dinna ken whether McLaren or Lauther’s the best shop, but there’s this much, they hae gude things; an’ if ye’re willing to pay for them, ye’ll get the very best, an’ hit’s aye the cheapest.”
Bell and David had resolved to furnish one or two of the rooms, so that she could invite her old friends to stay with her. “She thocht they wad like to come, an’ she wad be as glad to see them, specially Gordie, but ’deed ony o’ them a’.” Sandie Ramage got all the shoppings gathered together, and after bidding good-bye to Mrs. Barrie’s household, they “drove the day into the night,” and landed safely at Blackbrae.
There they were “as happy as the day was lang,” Bell doing her part as thoroughly as she had ever done it in Mrs. Barrie’s service, but with even more pawkiness [shrewdness] than ever; and she carried on her experiments with her hens,—indeed, with all the live stock,—until, to them, “her very foot had music in’t” as she went amongst them. And David and she had as cosy a fireside as could be found in broad Scotland, until for miles round, the best recommendation that a servant could have was that she had been a year or two at Blackbrae when she was a lassie.
“SCOTCH REVIEWER.”
Many acts of considerate kindness are told by the poor and the needy about the mistress at Blackbrae; for Bell’s heart expanded as her power of doing good increased. She had little romantic poetry in her nature, for her favourite book in that way was the admirable collection of nursery songs that first appeared at the end of a book called “Whistle-binkie,” which is unhappily now very scarce. Bell had the “Songs for the Nursery” bound separately, and many a night did she entertain the Barrie bairns with its admirable Doric: “Willie Winkie,” “Cockie-Leerie-La,” “John Frost,” “The A B C,” “Uncle Jamie,” “Cur-rook-i-ty-doo,” etc.; but she always ended with “The Blind Beggar Man,” and to this day she carries out the noble sentiments embodied in the following lines:—
“To the feckless and friendless, my bairns, aye be kind;
Be feet to the lame, and be eyes to the blind;
’Twas to share wi’ the needfu’ our blessings were gi’en,
And the friend o’ the poor never wanted a frien’.
“He who tempers the wind to the lamb that is shorn,
Will bless those who take from life’s pathway a thorn;
And the ‘cup of cold water’ that kindness bestows,
On the heart back in rivers of gladness o’erflows.
“Oh, tent you the lear’ frae your mither ye learn,
For the seed springs in manhood that’s sawn in the bairn;
And mind it will cheer you through life’s little span,
The blessing that fa’s frae the blind beggar man.”
Before putting these “Bits from Blinkbonny” into the hands of the public, I asked Mr. Andrew Taylor, my old friend the precentor already referred to, to look over them; for old Mr. Taylor, and worthy Mr. Morrison the minister, and Miss Park, and many of those who are mentioned in the “Bits,” have passed away.
His criticism was: “Well, I’ve read your ‘Bits,’ an’ they’re no’ bad, considerin’. Ye’ve said rather much about the Free Kirk an’ Bell; for although she’s a nice body, she’s just like oursel’s, an’ no’ the kind to make a book o’. An’ then Dan was a queer subject to mix up wi’ the ithers. It’s a’ true enough so far. I mind o’ the braid-nebs an’ the dream, an’ David himsel’ tell’d me about the sow an’ the Corinthians. The whole affair brings me in mind o’ a fire-screen my daughter won at a bazaar; it’s covered wi’ pictures o’ a’ sorts an’ sizes, wi’ scenes out o’ every country under the sun, an’ at a’ times o’ the year, simmer an’ winter; there’s butterflies bigger than folk, an’ oranges and peaches, and even shells, growin’ on ivy leaves. In fact, it minds me o’ a story in Dean Ramsay’s book about a Scotchman when he was askit by an Englishman if he ca’d a sheep’s head a dish? ‘I dinna ken,’ said Sawnie, ‘but there’s a lot o’ gude confused eatin’ about it, onyway.’”
I told him that I felt it was more of a hash than a joint, a sort of literary haggis, but that it was difficult to give a fair notion of village life without bringing in all sorts of folks and scenes.
“That’s exactly what I’m sayin’,” said Andrew. “There’s the ither kirks, as gude as the Free, that ye’ve said little about; an’ then there’s our tradesmen,—there were some queer fish among them in my young days; an’ there’s the schule, an’ the doctor, an’ plenty mair. Could ye no’ hae said something about the like o’ the generality o’ the auld folk o’ Blinkbonny? If ye tak’ as lang to them as ye’ve ta’en to Bell, ye micht make fifty books.”
I acknowledged the correctness of his remarks, and advised him to try it himself, and he would perhaps find it more difficult than he imagined.
“Me write a book!” said he; “I’ve mair sense. You’ll find that you’re sure to hae trampit on somebody’s tender corns.”
“THE HANGING COMMITTEE.”
“Very likely,” said I, “but if so, it has been quite unintentional on my part. I had no plan before me when I started, nor have I, whilst trying to reproduce bygone times, had any object in view but to present them in a friendly spirit and in a homely garb.”
I hope that my readers will receive in the same spirit these “Bits from Blinkbonny.”
THE END.
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Transcriber’s Note (continued)
The many conversations in Scots, along with archaic spelling and inconsistencies in hyphenation, have been left unchanged except where noted below. Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
Page 6 – “offhand” changed to “off-hand” (the usual off-hand remark)
Page 297 – “goodbye” changed to “good-bye” (after bidding good-bye)
There are a small number of footnotes in the book. Most of these provide a helpful translation into English of words expressed in Scots. For that reason, all footnotes have been reindexed and placed immediately below the paragraph in which they are referenced.