August 24.
St. Bartholomew.
For St. Bartholomew, see vol. i. col. 1131.
Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
This horrible slaughter is noticed in the same volume at the same place. For particulars of the probable amount of the persons massacred, and the different accounts of historians, the reader is referred to a most able article in the “Edinburgh Review, June, 1826,” on the extraordinary misrepresentations of the event and its perpetrators in Mr. Lingard’s “History of England.”
A Resident in the Fleet.
On the twenty-fourth of August, 1736, a remarkably fat boar was taken up in coming out of Fleet Ditch into the Thames: it proved to be a butcher’s, near Smithfield-bars, who had missed him five months, all which time, it seems, he had been in the common sewer, and was improved in price from ten shillings to two guineas.[301]
The first Pigs in Scotland.
Within the last century (probably about 1720) a person in the parish of Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, called the “Gudeman o’ the Brow,” received a young swine as a present from some distant part; which seems to have been the first ever seen in that part of the country. This pig having strayed across the Lochar into the adjoining parish of Carlavroc, a woman who was herding cattle on the marsh, by the sea side, was very much alarmed at the sight of a living creature, that she had never seen or heard of before, approaching her straight from the shore as if it had come out of the sea, and ran home to the village of Blackshaw screaming. As she ran, the pig ran snorking and grunting after her, seeming glad that it had met with a companion. She arrived at the village so exhausted and terrified, that before she could get her story told she fainted away. By the time she came to herself, a crowd of people had collected to see what was the matter, when she told them, that “There was a diel came out of the sea with two horns in his head and chased her, roaring and gaping all the way at her heels, and she was sure it was not far off.” A man called Wills Tom, an old schoolmaster, said if he could see it he would “cunger the diel,” and got a bible and an old sword. The pig immediately started behind his back with a loud grumph, which put him into such a fright, that his hair stood upright in his head, and he was obliged to be carried from the field half dead.
The whole crowd ran some one way and some another; some reached the house-tops, and others shut themselves in barns and byres. At last one on the house-top called out it was “the Gudeman o’ the Brow’s grumphy,” he having seen it before. Thus the affray was settled, and the people reconciled, although some still entertained frightful thoughts about it, and durst not go over the door to a neighbour’s house after dark without one to set or cry them. One of the crowd who had some compassion on the creature, called out, “give it a tork of straw to eat, it will be hungry.”
Next day the pig was conveyed over the Lochar, and on its way home, near the dusk of evening, it came grunting up to two men who were pulling thistles on the farm of Cockpool. Alarmed at the sight, they mounted two old horses they had tethered beside them, intending to make their way home, but the pig getting between them and the houses, caused them to scamper out of the way and land in Lochar moss, where one of their horses was drowned, and the other with difficulty relieved. The night being dark, they durst not part one from the other to call for assistance, lest the monster should find them out and attack them singly; nor durst they speak above their breath for fear of being devoured. At day-break next morning they took a different course, by Cumlongon castle, and made their way home, where they found their families much alarmed on account of their absence. They said that they had seen a creature about the size of a dog, with two horns on its head, and cloven feet, roaring out like a lion, and if they had not galloped away, it would have torn them to pieces. One of their wives said, “Hout man, it has been the Gudeman of the Brow’s grumphy; it frightened them a’ at the Blackshaw yesterday, and poor Meggie Anderson maist lost her wits, and is ay out o ae fit into anither sin-syne.”
The pig happened to lay all night among the corn where the men were pulling thistles, and about day-break set forward on its journey for the Brow. One Gabriel Gunion, mounted on a long-tailed grey colt, with a load of white fish in a pair of creels swung over the beast, encountered the pig, which went nigh among the horse’s feet and gave a snork. The colt, being as much frightened as Gabriel, wheeled about and scampered off sneering, with his tail on his “riggin,” at full gallop. Gabriel cut the slings and dropt the creels, the colt soon dismounted his rider, and going like the wind, with his tail up, never stopped till he came to Barnkirk point, where he took the Solway Frith and landed at Bownes, on the Cumberland side. Gabriel, by the time he got up, saw the pig within sight, took to his heels, as the colt was quite gone, and reached Cumlongon wood in time to hide himself, where he staid all that day and night, and next morning got home almost exhausted. He told a dreadful story! The fright caused him to imagine the pig as big as a calf, having long horns, eyes like trenchers, and a back like a hedgehog. He lost his fish; the colt was got back, but never did more good; and Gabriel fell into a consumption, and died about a year afterwards.
About the same time a vessel came to Glencaple quay, a little below Dumfries, that had some swine on board; one of them having got out of the vessel in the night, was seen on the farm of Newmains next morning. The alarm was spread, and a number of people collected. The animal got many different names, and at last it was concluded to be a “brock” (a badger). Some got pitchforks, some clubs, and others old swords, and a hot pursuit ensued; the chase lasted a considerable time, owing to the pursuers losing heart when near their prey and retreating. One Robs Geordy having rather a little more courage than the rest, ran “neck or nothing,” forcibly upon the animal, and run it through with a pitchfork, for which he got the name of “stout hearted Geordy” all his life after. A man, nearly a hundred years of age, who was alive in 1814, in the neighbourhood where this happened, declared that he remembered the Gudeman of the Brow’s pig, and the circumstances related, and he said it was the first swine ever seen in that country.[302]