It was a fine July forenoon, and the cart, filled with clean straw, was at the door by eleven o’clock; so our wife handed us out a pair of blankets to hap round me, and syne little Benjie into my arms, with his big-coatie on, and his leather cappie tied below his chin, and a bit red worsted comforterie round his neck; for, though the sun was warm and pleasant withal, we dreaded cold, as the doctor bade us. Oh, he was a fine old man, Doctor Hartshorn!
We had not well got out of the town, when Tammie Dobbie louped up on the fore-tram. He was a crouse, cantie auld cock, having seen much and not little in his day; so he began a pleasant confab, pointing out all the gentlemen’s houses round the country, and the names of the farms on the hill sides. To one like me, whose occupations tie him to the town-foot, it really is a sweet and grateful thing to be let loose, as it were, for a wee among the scenes of peace and quietness, where nature is in a way wild and wanton—where the clouds above our heads seem to sail along more grandly over the bosom of the sky, and the wee birds to cheep and churm, from the hedges among the fields, with greater pleasure, feeling that they are God’s free creatures.
I cannot tell how many thoughts came over my
mind, one after another, like the waves of the sea down on Musselburgh beach; but especially the days when I was a wee callant with a daidly at Dominie Duncan’s school, were fresh in my mind as if the time had been but yesterday; though much, much was I changed since then, being at that time a little, careless, ragged laddie, and now the head of a family, earning bread to my wife and wean by the sweat of my brow. I thought on the blythe summer days when I dandered about the braes and bushes seeking birds’-nests with Alick Bowsie and Samuel Search; and of the time when we stood upon one another’s backs to speil up to the ripe cherries that hung over the garden walls of Woodburn. Awful changes had taken place since then. I had seen Sammy die of the black jaundice—an awful spectacle! and poor Alick Bowsie married to a drucken randie, that wore the breeks, and did not allow the misfortunate creature the life of a dog.
When I was meditating thus, after the manner of the patriarch Isaac, there was a pleasant sadness at my heart, though it was like to loup to my mouth; but I could not get leave to enjoy it long for the tongue of Tammie Dobbie. He bade me look over into a field, about the middle of which were some wooden railings round the black gaping mouth of a coal-pit. “Div ye see that dark bit owre yonder amang the green clover, wi’ the sticks about it?” asked Tammie.
“Yes,” said I; “and what for?”
“Weel, do you ken,” quo’ Tammie, “that has been a weary place to mair than ane. Twa-three year ago, some o’ the collyer bodies were choked to death down below wi’ a blast of foul air; and a pour o’ orphan weans they left behint them on the cauldrife parish. But ye’ll mind Hornem, the sherry-officer wi’ the thrawn shouther?”
“Ou, bravely; I believe he came to some untimeous end hereaway about?”
“Just in that spat,” answered Tammie. “He was a drucken, blustering chield, as ye mind; fearing neither man nor de’il, and living a wild, wicked, regardless life; but, puir man, that couldna aye last. He had been bousing about the countryside somehow—maybe harrying out of house and hald some puir bodies that hadna the wherewith to pay their rents; so, in riding hame fou—it was pitmirk, and the rain pouring down in bucketfu’s—he became dumfoundered wi’ the darkness and the dramming thegither; and, losing his way, wandered about the fields, hauling his mare after him by the bridle. In the morning the beast was found nibbling away at the grass owre by yonder, wi’ the saddle upon its back, and a broken bridle hinging down about its fore-legs, by the which the folks round were putten upon the scent; for, on making search down yon pit, he was fund at the bottom, wi’ his brains smashed about him, and his legs and arms broken to chitters!”