CHAPTER XIV.—MY LORD’S RACES.
Aff they a’ went galloping, galloping;
Legs and arms a’ walloping, walloping;
De’il take the hindmost, quo’ Duncan M‘Calapin,
The Laird of Tillyben, joe.Old Song.
He went a little further,
And turn’d his head aside,
And just by Goodman Whitfield’s gate,
Oh there the mare he spied,
He ask’d her how she did,
She stared him in the face,
Then down she laid her head again—
She was in wretched case.Old Poulter’s Mare.
It happened curiously that, of all the days of the year, this should have been the one on which the Carters’-play was held; and, by good luck, we were just in time to see that grand sight. The whole regiment of carters were paraded up at my Lord’s door, for so they call their box-master; and a beautiful thing it was, I can assure ye. What a sight of ribands was on the horses! Many a crame must have been emptied ere such a number of manes and long tails could have been busked out. The beasts themselves, poor things, I dare say, wondered much at their bravery, and no less I am sure did the riders. They looked for all the world like living haberdashery shops. Great bunches of wallflower, thyme, spearmint, batchelor buttons, gardeners’ gartens, peony roses, gillyflower, and southernwood, were stuck in their button-holes; and broad belts of stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung across their shoulders. As to their hats, the man would have had a clear ee that could have kent what was their shape or colour. They were all rowed round with ribands, and puffed about the rim with long green or white feathers; and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of long strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers. Save us! to see men so proud of finery; if they had
been peacocks one would have thought less; but in decent sober men, the heads of small families, and with no great wages, the thing was crazy-like. Was it not?
At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a regiment of dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife at their head, as if they had been marching to the field of battle. By-the-bye, it was two of our own volunteer lads that were playing that day before them, Rory Skirl the snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer; so this, ye see, verified the old proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world’s end, ye’ll aye meet with kent faces; Tammie and me coming out to the yill-house door to see them pass by.
Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy looking chield, with a broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red worsted cherry sticking in the crown of it. He was carrying a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a well-cleaned pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they keeping the keys, in case like he should take any thing out. And syne came the auld my lord—him that was my lord last year, ye observe; and syne came the colours, as bright and bonny as mostly any thing ye ever saw. On one of them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing wheat; over the top of which were gilded letters, the which I was able to read when I put on my specs, being, if I mind well, “Speed the Plough.” On the other one, which was a mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of two carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a whip in his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like. Then came they all passing by two and two, looking as if each one of them had been the Duke of Buccleuch himself, every one rigged out in his best; the young callants, such like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and thinking themselves, I daresay, no small drink, and the day a great one when they were first allowed to be art and part in such a grand procession.
But losh me! I had mostly forgot the piper, that played in the middle, as proud as Hezekiah, that we read of in Second Kings, strutting about from side to side with his bare legs and big buckles, and bit Macgregor tartan jacket—his cheeks blown up with wind like a smith’s bellows—the feathers dirling with
conceit in his bonnet—and the drone, below his oxter, squeeling and skirling like an evil spirit tied up in a green bag. Keep us all! what gleys he gied about him to observe that the folk were looking at him! He put me in mind of the song that old Barny used to sing about the streets—
Ilka ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud’s a Turk is;
There’s the Grants o’ Tullochgorum,
Wi’ their pipers gaun before ’em;
Proud the mithers are that bore ’em.
Feedle, faddle, fa, fum.
But who do ye think should come up to us at this blessed moment, with a staff in his hand, being old now, and not able to ride in the procession, as he had many a time and often done before, but honest Saunders Tram, that had been a staunch customer of mine since the day on which I opened shop, and to whom I had made countless pairs of corduroy spatterdashes; so we shook hands jocosely together, like old acquaintances, and the body hodged and leuch as if he had found a fiddle, he was so glad to see me.