AN OLD QUILT AND ITS STORY.
Among all the beautiful needlework exhibited in the "Woman's Industry Department" of the recent Edinburgh Exhibition, many must have observed a bed-quilt worked in a quaint conventional pattern, on a white linen ground, which bore a label to the effect that it was "designed and commenced by a Countess of Aberdeen towards the middle of the last century, and recently completed by a crofter woman in Aberdeenshire."
Could the quilt tell its own tale, its history, no doubt, would be most pathetic and interesting; but we will try, with the knowledge we have, to lightly sketch that history.
The Countess who commenced it was Anne, daughter of Alexander, second Duke of Gordon. The third wife of William, Earl of Aberdeen, she was still a young woman when, by his death in 1745, she was left a widow. Quitting Haddo, the home of her married life, she went with her young family to reside in the fine old historic castle of Fyvie, a few miles distant, which, with her dower, had been bought by the Earl as her jointure house. The Countess seems to have been gifted with artistic tastes, as she left in Haddo many evidences of her skill and industry—several sets of beautifully-worked curtains, with long-forgotten curious stitches, producing varied and admirable effects. But the bright, pretty industry of the Countess was checked. Sickness, to be followed by death, entered her home.
We may fancy that by her husband's sick-bed the first beginning of this quilt was made—how, in the intervals of watching the invalid, a few sprays and scrolls were delicately traced. But the summons had gone forth, and, as death approached, the work, which had been in part the occupation of happier days, and a resource in affliction, was thrown aside.
When the widowed Countess had settled in a new home, and again faced the ordinary duties of life, we need not wonder that she thought no more of the discarded work left at Haddo House, but set herself to design afresh and embroider the curtains which have ever since (until recently) adorned a bed-room in Fyvie Castle.
Into these no doubt was woven many a thought for the Jacobite cause, and many an anxiety for dear ones, as her own family, the ducal house of Gordon, had been keen supporters of the Stuarts, and it is said that the Countess came out on the road-side, near Fyvie Castle, with her children, to see the Duke of Cumberland's troops pass on their way to Culloden to put down the Scotch rebellion, and boldly avowed to him her sympathy with his foe.
But what of the work the Countess left at Haddo House? As to it, our history is silent for more than a hundred years. It has lain folded by the fingers of the busy worker that have long been still. Sorrow and joy have come by turns to the house—birth and death. Children have prattled, and statesmen have discussed the affairs of nations. Those who have made history have come and gone; philanthropy and romance have alike been woven into the family story; but the piece of discarded broderie has been unheeded.
At length the present Countess of Aberdeen, whose name will ever be associated with earnest desire and effort for the good of others, and whose taste and love of the beautiful led to her interest in such work, unfolding the long-forgotten quilt, conceived the idea of having it completed, if possible. To whom, however, could the beautiful work be entrusted to be finished, by deft fingers and graceful appreciation?
INTERIOR OF A CROFTER'S COTTAGE.
We now turn to another scene. About five-and-twenty years ago, on the top of a bare hill in Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, stood a cottage, tenanted by a crofter named Sandieson, with his wife and family. Though at a comparatively high elevation, the land around was all cultivated, but, arid and stony as the soil was, it seemed as if cultivation were one long struggle against Nature, rather than aided by it. Life was hard; still, contentment sweetened the peasant's lot, and they got on pretty well till sickness during three successive winters told hardly on his means. Father, mother, and children all worked; still the wolf was at the door. Bed clothing was scant, and money to buy still scantier. A mother's love and care quickened thought.
The woman, as she tells her story, bethought herself what she could do for bedding for a covering against cold. Scraps she had, bits of old clothes and stockings, and tacked them together, fold upon fold, to attain a certain thickness; then, buying a pennyworth of log-wood, and with it dyeing what had once been a tartan shawl, but which had long lost all its colour, she spread it over her scraps for a cover. But, alas! the holes were but too apparent.
Necessity again quickened invention. She selected some of the better pieces of the old garments, cut them into the shape of leaves and birds, and laid them on the holes, adding one or two more for uniformity, and then, with a darning needle and "fingering" wool, she veined the leaves and made effective marking on the birds.
Such was her first attempt at fancy work. An admiring neighbour asked her to do a similar quilt for her, offering some scraps of new material. Another commission followed, this time with the offer of green wool for leaves. But one cold, hard green did not please the worker, now growing daily more experienced and critical, so a visit was made to the little country town a few miles distant, in search of greater variety in greens and browns, the appreciation of Nature's varied tints becoming daily stronger and clearer.
About this time, a lady to whom the woman had taken some work, on sight gave her a quantity of old floss silks. The possession of these was a new power to her, and from that time she rapidly acquired a skill in shading leaves and flowers with a beauty which it is impossible to describe.
A farmer from a little distance, having heard of her work, went to see her. After looking at what, to him, seemed so marvellous, he turned to her, and said, "Well, well, it's wonderful! But you will have to do no more rough work to keep your hands fit for this; and how will that do with the croft?"
"Indeed, sir," was her reply, "it would never do. But I assure you this is not my only work, for I have just finished building a hundred and thirty-four yards of a stone dyke with my own hands. My husband had work elsewhere, which he could not afford to miss. The cattle were straying where they should not, so I have just built it myself, the children helping me by handing up the smaller stones."
After gaining some experience, Mrs. Sandieson gave up the earlier style of work with which she had begun, and devoted herself almost entirely to embroidery in silks. She has trained a daughter, who lives with her, to work as well as herself, and no description can do justice to the beauty of their finer work. Their designs are, with very few exceptions, their own, and many of their pieces are singularly beautiful. They have even copied the plate representing a peacock on a branch of a tree, from Gould's "Asiatic Birds," and no one but those who have seen it, could believe in the wondrous working of the bird, and in the feathers of the neck, with the faint change of tint where it catches the light as the bird turns its head. It is marvellous!
But copying flowers from nature is what they chiefly do, and their careful observation and fidelity in representation are very characteristic in their work. Trails of thunbergia, scarlet tropæolum, apple blossom, cherry, and bramble; willow, with its catkins, a little titmouse on the branch; snowberry, with a robin perched on it; the red and white lapageria, eucalyptus, pepper tree, and others are some of their subjects. And this is what the crofter's wife, who commenced with the old dyed shawl for a foundation, has, totally unaided, taught herself and her daughter to accomplish; and this is the crofter's wife who, one hundred and forty years afterwards, was employed by Lady Aberdeen to finish the quilt which the Countess of 1745 had commenced. Is there not a little pathos in the history of a piece of work begun and completed in such different circumstances?
The work of these peasant-artists, mother and daughter, is now very well known among ladies in Aberdeenshire, and has lately been brought under the notice of Her Majesty, who condescended to purchase largely of it; but the writer believes the quilt shown by Lady Aberdeen, in Edinburgh, to be the only specimen that has been exhibited publicly.—Ladies' Treasury.