I gladly turn to a lighter page. The grimy ways of Leith do not suggest Fairy land, but two quaint legends of other days are associated therewith. In front of the old battery, where are now the new docks, there stood a half-submerged rock which was removed in the course of harbour operations. This was the abode of a demon named Shellycoat, from the make of his garments, which you gather were of the most approved Persian attire. He was a malevolent spirit of great power, a terror to the urchins of old Leith, and perhaps even to their elders, but like “the dreaded name of Demogorgon” his reputation was the worst of him. If he wrought any definite evil, time has obliterated the memory. When his rock was blasted, poor Shellycoat was routed out, and fled to return no more.
The other legend is of the fairy boy of Leith who o’ Thursday nights beat the drum to the fairies in the Calton Hill. Admission thereto was obtained by a pair of great gates, which opened to them, though they were invisible to others. The fairies, said the boy, “are entertained with many sorts of music besides my drum; they have besides plenty of variety of meats and wine, and many times we are carried into France or Holland in a night and return again, and whilst we are there we enjoy all the pleasures the country doth afford.” The fairy boy must at least be credited with a very vivid imagination. His questioner trysted him for next Thursday night: the youth duly turned up, apparently got what money he could, but towards midnight unaccountably disappeared and was seen no more. When people were so eager to discover the supernatural, one cannot wonder that they succeeded. In 1702, Mr. David Williamson was preaching in his own church in Edinburgh when a “rottan” (rat) appeared and sat down on his Bible. This made him stop, and after a little pause he told the congregation that this was a message of God to him. He broke off his sermon and took a formal farewell of his people and went home and continued sick. This was the time of the Union of the Kingdoms, and two years later, that is, in 1707, a mighty shoal of whales invaded the Firth of Forth, “roaring, plunging, and threshing upon one another to the great terror of all who heard the same.” Thirty-five of them foundered on the sands of Kirkcaldy, where they made a yet “more dreadful roaring and tossing, when they found themselves aground so much that the earth trembled. What the unusual appearance of so great a number of them at this juncture may portend, shall not be our business to inquire.” The chronicler is convinced that there must be some deep connection between such portentous events as the Union of the Crowns and the appearance of the whales, though with true scientific caution he does not think it proper to further riddle out the matter!
A BEDESMAN, OR BLUEGOWN
From a Sketch by Monro S. Orr
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE STREETS
I collect here a few anecdotes of life on the streets, and among the people of old Edinburgh. The ancient Scots lived very sparely, yet sumptuary laws were passed, not to enable them to fare better, but to keep them down to a low standard. The English were judged mere gluttons; “pock puddings” the frugal Caledonian deemed them. It was thought the Southern gentlemen whom James I. and his Queen brought into Scotland introduced a sumptuous mode of living. In 1533, the Bishop of St. Andrews raged in the pulpit against the wasteful luxury of later years. A law was presently passed, fixing how each order should live, and prohibiting the use of pies and other baked meats to all below the rank of baron. In fashionable circles there were four meals a day, breakfast, dinner, supper, and livery, which last was a kind of collation taken in the bedchamber, before retiring to rest. A century ago it was usual to furnish the bedroom with liquor, which, perhaps, was a reminiscence of this old-world meal. The time for breakfast was seven, then came dinner at ten, supper at four, and livery between eight and nine. This detail is only of the well-off minority. Legislators need not have alarmed themselves, grinding poverty was the predominant note of old Scots life. Pestilence swept the land from time to time—one cause was imperfect sanitation; a stronger was sheer lack of food.
Here is James Melville’s account of plague-torn Edinburgh in November 1585:—“On the morn we made haste and coming to Losterrick (Restalrig) disjoined, and about eleven hours came riding in at the Water-gate up through the Canongate, and rode in at the Nether Bow through the great street of Edinburgh, in all whilk way we saw not three persons, sae that I miskenned Edinburgh, and almost forgot that I had ever seen sic a town.”
One effect of poverty was innumerable beggars. Naturally they thronged Edinburgh, where they made themselves a well-nigh intolerable nuisance. The Privy Council formulated edicts against “the strang and idle vagabonds” who lay all day on the causeway of the Canongate, and bullied the passers-by into giving them alms. Perhaps it was to regulate an abuse which could not be entirely checked, that the King’s bedesmen, or Bluegowns, as they were called, from their dress, were established or re-formed as licensed beggars. These assembled yearly on the King’s birthday to receive an annual dole of bread and ale and blue gown, and to hear service in St. Giles’. More welcome than all was the gift of a penny for every year of the King’s reign, which was given in a leather purse. The place was the north side of the Tolbooth, hence called “The Puir Folks’ Purses,” or more briefly, “The Purses.” The scene was afterwards transferred to the Canongate Church, and then it was done away with altogether. The analogous Maundy money is still distributed annually at Westminster Abbey. The classic example of this picturesque figure of old Scots life is Edie Ochiltree in The Antiquary, but in Scott’s time Bluegowns still adorned Edinburgh streets; hence the following anecdote. Scott, as he went to and fro from college, was in the habit of giving alms to one of those gentlemen. It turned out that he kept a son Willy, as a divinity student at college, and he made bold to ask Scott to share a humble meal with them in their cottage at St. Leonards, at the base of Arthur’s Seat. “Please God I may live to see my bairn wag his head in a pulpit yet.” At the time appointed Scott partook of the meal with father and son, the latter at first not unnaturally a little shamefaced. The fare was simple, but of the very best; there was a “gigot” of mutton, potatoes, and whisky. “Dinna speak to your father about it,” said Mrs. Scott to Walter; “if it had been a shoulder he might have thought less, but he will say that gigot was a sin.” The old Edinburgh beggars were no doubt a droll lot, though particulars of their pranks are sadly lacking. When Sir Richard Steele, known to his familiars as Dickie Steele, was in Edinburgh in 1718, he collected the oldest and oddest of them to some obscure “howf” in Lady Stair’s Close; he feasted them to their heart’s content and avowed “he found enough native drollery to compose a comedy.” Well, he didn’t, but the same century was to give us a greater than Steele and—The Jolly Beggars!
The folk of old Edinburgh were used to scenes of bloodshed—I tell elsewhere the story of “Cleanse the Causey,” as the historic street fight between the Douglases and the Hamiltons was called. It was almost a matter of necessity that men should go armed. Wild dissipation was a common incident, passions were high, and people did not hold either their own lives or those of others at any great rate. Here is a story from 1650, when the English were in occupation of Edinburgh, and so for the time the predominant party. An English officer had a squabble with some natives; he mounted his horse and said to them disdainfully, “With my own hands I killed that Scot which ought this horse and this case of pistols and who dare say that in this I wronged him?” He paid bitterly for his rashness. “I dare say it,” said one of his audience, “and thus shall avenge it.” He stabbed him with a sword right through the body so that he fell dead. The Scot threw himself into the vacant saddle, dashed over the stones to the nearest Port, and was lost for ever to pursuit.
The measures against those acts of violence were ludicrously ineffectual. In the houses the firearms were chained down lest they should be used in accidental affrays; but the streets were not policed at all, and gentlemen did much as they liked. It is told of Hugh Somerville of Drum, who died in 1640, that he went one day to St. Giles’ with Lady Ross, his sister-in-law. A gentleman happened by chance, it would seem, to push against him, there was a scuffle and Somerville had his dagger out on the instant, and would have stuck it into the intruder had not Lady Ross seized and held him; the while she begged the stranger to go away. A duel was like to ensue, but in cold blood the affair no doubt seemed ridiculous, and was made up. Quarrels about equally small matters often led to duels. In January 1708, two friends, young Baird of Saughtonhall and Robert Oswald, were drinking in a tavern at Leith, when they had a dispute; they accommodated it, and drove to Edinburgh together, they leave the coach at the Netherbow, when Baird revives the quarrel, and in a few minutes, or perhaps seconds, kills his friend with his sword. A reaction followed, and the assassin expressed his deep regret, which did not bring the dead man to life again; the other fled, but finally escaped without punishment as the act was not premeditated. One of the last incidents of this class was a duel between Captain Macrae of Marionville and Sir George Ramsay of Bamff in 1790. It arose out of a quarrel caused by the misconduct of a servant. Macrae shot his opponent dead, and then fled to France, and he never thought it safe to return to Scotland. Duelling was considered proper for gentlemen, but only for gentlemen, and not to be permitted to all and sundry. Towards the end of the sixteenth century a barber challenged a chimney sweep, and they had a very pretty “set to” with swords at which neither was hurt. The King presently ordered the barber to summary execution because he presumed to take the revenge of a gentleman. The upper classes did not set a good example to their inferiors. One need not discuss whether the Porteous mob was really a riot of the common people. The Heart of Midlothian, if nothing else, has made it a very famous affair. The Edinburgh mob, which was very fierce and determined according to Scott, had one or two remarkable maxims. At an Irish fair the proper course is to bring down your shillelagh on any very prominent head. Here the rule was to throw a stone at every face that looked out of a window. Daniel Defoe was in Edinburgh in 1705, on a special mission from Government, to do all he could to bring about the Union. From his window in the High Street he was gazing upon the angry populace and only just dodged a large stone. He afterwards discovered not merely the rule but the reason thereof, that there might be no recognition of faces. As the old cock crows the young cock learns, even the children were fighters. I have already told how the boys of the High School killed Bailie Macmorran in a barring out business. There is a legend of the famous Earl of Haddington, “Tam of the Coogate,” that when a fight was on between the lads of the High School and the students of the College, he took strenuously the side of the former. Nay, he drove the students out of the West Port, locked the gate in their faces, that they might cool themselves by a night in the fields, and placidly retired to his studies. The fighting tradition lasted through the centuries. Scott tells us of the incessant bickers between the High School and street callants, which, however lawless, had yet their own laws. During one of those fights a youth known from his dress as Green-breeks, a leader of the town, was stuck with a knife, and somewhat seriously wounded. He was tended in the Infirmary and in due time recovered, but nothing would prevail upon him to give any hint whereby his assailant might be discovered. The High Schoolboys took means to reward him, but the fights were continued with unabated vigour.