The spot itself, however, has indeed changed with time, and but few links are left it to recall bygone days. The loud tramp of Dundee’s dragoons long since died away in Rottenrow. No longer do the rustling gowns of bishop and dean sweep through the cathedral choir. Even the house from which the ill-fated Lord Darnley, sick to death, was carried to the lonely Kirk o’ Fields three hundred years ago, has disappeared. Cavalier and Covenanter and Virginia merchant have given place to the petty trader and the artizan. The house at the foot of Glassford Street, where Prince Charlie put up in the ’45, has been pulled down; and of the walls which witnessed the rejoicing bonfires of the Whig burgesses after the news of Culloden, few are left but those of the dim cathedral. Even the Saltmarket at hand has been so altered of late years, that if worthy Bailie Nicol Jarvie were to step out again on the causeway he would find no trace at all of the narrow, ill-paved, unlighted lane of his day, with its high, rickety houses, and creaking shop-signs.
Rather must the city pride herself now upon her glories of the present. Far off, upon the great Clyde artery at Govan, where the nets of the salmon-fishers once hung in the sun to dry, the noise of a myriad hammers has just ceased for the holiday, and the iron skeletons of a hundred ships stand silent in the darkness—spectres not of the past but of the future. Overhead, between the high house-roofs, the heaven is very dark, and above the lanterns of the clock the Tron steeple is hidden from sight; but one side of the neighbouring tower—that of the ancient Tolbooth in High Street—reflects the red glare, from a mile away, of the iron furnaces at Hutchesontown—those undying vestal fires of the nineteenth century; and the golden vane upon the spire shines, strangely lit, alone in the dark heaven. Significant indications, these, of the strong modern life that throbs in the veins of the ancient city.
But the great gilt hand of the clock overhead is approaching midnight, and along the streets, from the four points of the compass, comes the sound of innumerable hastening feet. It is the crowd gathering to observe this immemorial ceremony of “bringing in the year.”
Few of the revellers, probably, reflect upon the antiquity of the custom they are observing; if they did, it might, perhaps, lend the proceeding a deeper interest in their eyes. To survive so many vicissitudes of history, the rite must once have possessed a solemn religious meaning. On the bank of the river below, the rough Norse rover has shouted “Wæs hael” to Thor; on the crest of the hill above, the Roman warrior has poured libations to Jove. Bishops of a feudal church within the storied cathedral walls have said the mass of Christ; and the spires of many a Presbyterian kirk now rise round the ancient Cross. But through all changes, through the ebb and flow of Faith and Fear, has come down the relic of an older worship, and in the mistletoe and the New-Year mysteries the Druid lives among us still. These people are gathering now, as for ages their race has gathered, to bid farewell to the old year and welcome to the new, and to pour their mystic sacrifice to Time—not, indeed, as of old, upon the unconscious earth nor within the stone circle of a rude astronomy, but at least under the open sky, and with something of the ancient wish-rites of the runes.
Hundreds in number they come, and over all the open space—at corners where in the daytime knots of loafers are for ever to be seen, as well as on the Trongate pavement, where, all day long, recruiting sergeants, splendid in red and gold, pace magnificently to and fro—in little groups they wait the stroke of twelve. Each man has brought with him a bottle, and in each man’s pocket there is hidden a glass, one that has seen service and lost its stem being the popular variety.
Quickly enough the final seconds of the year run out. The hand of the great clock reaches and touches the hour. At last it strikes, a single bell—one, two, three—a bold sound in the silence; and immediately it is answered by a bewildering clangour from all the city belfries. Before the last stroke has died away, a wild cheer bursts from the throat of the waiting crowd below. There is a great commotion among the little groups; and, as cheer after cheer rings up into the sky, from the belfry overhead the city chimes ring out upon the night their welcome to the New Year.
Meanwhile everyone is drinking the health of everyone else, Celt and Saxon, countryman and citizen; and as no one can pass an acquaintance without hospitality offered and taken, and as, moreover, the dew of Ben Nevis is somewhat potent, the shaking of hands and wishing of good luck soon become fairly exuberant. Presently, however, everyone sets off to first-foot his friends.
The origin of this ceremony it is difficult to suggest, unless it be to represent some priestly visitation, a sacrament assuring to the people throughout the coming year the blessings of food and drink. A door-to-door proceeding, at anyrate, it is—accompanied by much eating of cake and drinking of whisky, and it will last well into the morning hours. Lucky, for this performance, are accounted those dark of skin. If the first-footer be fair the tradition runs that it bodes ill-fortune for the year to the house whose threshold he or she has crossed; and often enough a door is shut in the face of such a friend, simply because of his complexion. Moreover, the visitor must not come empty-handed; and so the bottle and broken wine-glass which each carries serve as a double introduction.
And now all who sat up till the city bells struck twelve, as well in the crowded tenements here as in the far-off suburbs of the rich, have wished each other a good New Year, and are retiring to rest. Among them, doubtless, there are many thoughts of sadness. Many a widow was a wife last year; many a ruined home was prosperous; many a soiled heart still was pure. But the old year, with its sorrow, has passed away in the night, and with the New Year’s dawn a glimmer of hope comes in at the darkest casement.
Printed by M’Farlane & Erskine, Edinburgh.