"At these happy meetings I treasured up a goodly store of old Border ballads, as well as modern songs; for in those years of unencumbered and careless existence, I could, on hearing a song, or even a ballad, sung twice, have fixed it on my mind word for word. My father, with his family, leaving Langshawburn, went to Capplefoot, on the Water of Milk, and there for one year occupied a farm belonging to Thomas Beattie, Esq. of Muckledale, and who, when my father was in Ewes, had been his friend. My employment here was, along with a younger brother, to tend the cows. In the winter season we entered the Corrie school, but had only attended a short while when we both took fever, and our attendance was not resumed. At Langshawburn, my father for several winters hired a person into his house, who taught his family and that of a neighbouring shepherd. In consequence of our distance from any place of regular education, I had also been boarded at several schools—at Devington in Eskdale, Roberton on Borthwick Water, and Newmill on the Teviot, at each of which, however, I only remained a short time, making, I suppose, such progress as do other boys who love the football better than the spelling-book.
"At the Whitsunday term my father relinquished his farm, and returned to his former employment in the Forest of Ettrick, under Mr Scott of Deloraine, to whom he had been a shepherd in his younger days. With this family, indeed, and that of Mr Borthwick, then of Sorbie, and late of Hopesrigg, all his years since he could wear the plaid were passed, with the exception of the one just mentioned. It was at Deloraine that I commenced the shepherd's life in good earnest. Through the friendly partiality of our employer, I was made principal shepherd at an age considerably younger than it is usual for most others to be intrusted with so extensive a hirsel[1] as was committed to my care. I had by this time, however, served what might be regarded as a regular apprenticeship to the employment, which almost all sons of shepherds do, whether they adhere to herding sheep in after-life or not. Seasons and emergencies not seldom occur when the aid which the little boy can lend often proves not much less availing than that of the grown-up man. Education in this line consequently commences early. A knowledge of the habits, together with the proper treatment of sheep, and therefore of pastoral affairs in general, 'grows with the growth' of the individual, and becomes, as it were, a portion of his nature. I had thus assisted my father more or less all along; and when a little older, though still a mere boy, I went for a year to a friend at Glencotha, in Holmswater, as assistant shepherd or lamb-herd. Another year in the same capacity I was with a shepherd in Wester Buccleuch. It was at Glencotha that I first made a sustained attempt to compose in rhyme. When in Wester Buccleuch my life was much more lonely, and became more tinged with thoughts and feelings of a romantic cast. Owing to the nature of the stock kept on the farm, it was my destiny day after day to be out among the mountains during the whole summer season from early morn till the fall of even. But the long summer days, whether clear or cloudy, never seemed long to me—I never wearied among the wilds. My flocks being hirsled, as it is expressed, required vigilance: but, if this was judiciously maintained, the task was for the most part an easy and pleasant one. I know not if it be worth while to mention that the hills and glens on which my charge pastured at this period formed a portion of what in ancient times was termed the Forest of Rankleburn. The names of places in the district, though there were no other more intelligible traditions, might serve to shew that it is a range of country to which both kings and nobles had resorted. If from morning to night I was away far from the homes of living men, I was not so in regard to those of the dead. Where a lesser stream from the wild uplands comes down and meets the Rankleburn, a church or chapel once stood, surrounded, like most other consecrated places of the kind, by a burial-ground. There tradition says that five dukes, some say kings, lie buried under a marble stone. I had heard that Sir Walter, then Mr Scott, had, a number of years previously, made a pilgrimage to this place, for the purpose of discovering the sepulchres of the great and nearly forgotten dead, but without success. This, however, tended, in my estimation, to confirm the truth of the tradition; and having enough of time and opportunity, I made many a toilsome effort of a similar nature, with the same result. With hills around, wild and rarely trodden, and the ceaseless yet ever-varying tinkling of its streams, together with the mysterious echoes which the least stir seemed to awaken, the place was not only lonely, but also creative of strange apprehensions, even in the hours of open day. It is strange that the heart will fear the dead, which, perhaps, never feared the living. Though I could muster and maintain courage to dig perseveringly among the dust of the long-departed when the sun shone in the sky, yet when the shadow of night was coming, or had come down upon the earth, the scene was sacredly secure from all inroad on my part: and to make the matter sufficiently intelligible, I may further mention that, some years afterwards, when I took a fancy one evening to travel eight miles to meet some friends in a shepherd's lone muirland dwelling, I made the way somewhat longer for the sake of evading the impressive loneliness of this locality. I had no belief that I should meet accusing spirits of the dead; but I disliked to be troubled in waging war with those eery feelings which are the offspring of superstitious associations.
"While a lamb-herd at Buccleuch, I read when I could get a book which was not already threadbare. I had a few chisels, and files, and other tools, with which I took pleasure in constructing, of wood or bone, pieces of mechanism; and I kept a diary in which I wrote many minute and trivial matters, as well, no doubt as I then thought, many a sage observation. In this, likewise, I wrote rude rhymes on local occurrences. But I have anticipated a little. On returning home from Glencotha, and two years before I went to Buccleuch, a younger brother and I had still another round at herding cattle, which pastured in a park near by my father's cottage. Our part was to protect a meadow which formed a portion of it; and the task being easy to protect that for which the cattle did not much care, nor yet could skaithe greatly though they should trespass upon it, we were far too idle not to enter upon and prosecute many a wayward and unprofitable ploy. Our predilections for taming wild birds—the wilder by nature the better—seemed boundless; and our family of hawks, and owls, and ravens was too large not to cost us much toil, anxiety, and even sorrow. We fished in the Ettrick and the lesser streams. These last suited our way of it best, since we generally fished with staves and plough-spades—thus far, at least, honourably giving the objects of our pursuit a fair chance of escape. When the hay had been won, we went to Ettrick school, at which we continued throughout the winter, travelling to and from it daily, though it lay at the distance of five miles. This we, in good weather, accomplished conveniently enough; but it proved occasionally a serious and toilsome task through wind and rain, or keen frost and deep snow, when winter days and the mountain blasts came on.
"My father after being three years in Stanhopefoot, on the banks of the Ettrick, went to Deloraineshiels, an out-bye herding, under the same employer. In the winter season either I or some other of the family assisted him; but so often as the weather was fine, we went to a school instituted by a farmer in the neighbourhood for behoof of his own family. When by and by I went to herd the hirsel which my father formerly tended, like most other regular shepherds I delighted in and was proud of the employment. A considerable portion of another hirsel lying contiguous, and which my elder brother herded, was for the summer season of the year added to mine, so that this already large was made larger; but exempted as I was from attending to aught else but my flock, I had pleasant days, for I loved the wilds among which it had become alike my destiny and duty to walk at will, and 'view the sheep thrive bonnie.' The hills of Ettrick are generally wild and green, and those of them on which I daily wandered, musing much and writing often, were as high, green, and wild, as any of them all.... It may be the partiality arising from early habit which induces me to think that a man gets the most comprehensive and distinct view of any subject which may occupy thought when he is walking, provided fatigue has not overtaken him. Mental confidence awake amid the stir seems increased by the exercise of bodily power, and becomes free and fearless as the step rejoicing in the ample scope afforded by the broad green earth and circumambient sky. On the same grounds, I have sometimes marvelled if it might not be the majesty of motion, as one may say, reigning around the seaman's soul, that made his heart so frank in communication, and in action his arm so vigorously energetic. At all events, there was in these days always enough around one to keep interest more or less ardent awake—
"'Prompting the heart to pour the impassion'd strain
Afar 'mid solitude's eternal reign,
In numbers fearless all as unconfined,
And wild as wailings of the desert wind.'
"According to my ability I studied while wandering among the mountains, and at intervals, adopting my knee for my desk, wrote down the results of my musing. Let not the shepherd ever forget his dog—his constant companion and best friend, and without which all his efforts would little avail! Mine knew well the places where in my rounds I was wont to pause, and especially the majestic seat which I occupied so often on the loftiest peak of Stanhopelaw. It had also an adopted spot of rest the while, and, confident of my habits, would fold itself down upon it ere I came forward; and would linger still, look wistful, and marvel why if at any time I passed on without making my wonted delay. I did not follow these practices only 'when summer days were fine.' The lines of an epistle written subsequently will convey some idea of my habits:—
"'My early years were pass'd far on
The hills of Ettrick wild and lone;
Through summer sheen and winter shade
Tending the flocks that o'er them stray'd.
In bold enthusiastic glee
I sung rude strains of minstrelsy,
Which mingling with died o'er the dale,
Unheeded as the plover's wail.
Oft where the waving rushes shed
A shelter frail around my head,
Weening, though not through hopes of fame,
To fix on these more lasting claim,
I'd there secure in rustic scroll
The wayward fancies of the soul.
Even where yon lofty rocks arise,
Hoar as the clouds on wintry skies,
Wrapp'd in the plaid, and dern'd beneath
The colder cone of drifted wreath,
I noted them afar from ken,
Till ink would freeze within the pen;
So deep the spell which bound the heart
Unto the bard's undying art—
So rapt the charm that still beguiled
The minstrel of the mountains wild.'
"The ancients had a maxim—'Revenge is sweet.' In rural, as well as in other life, there are things said and done which are more or less ungenerous. These, if at any time they came my way, I repelled as best I might. But I did not stop here; whether such matters, when occurring, might concern myself as an individual or not, I took it upon me, as if I had been a 'learned judge,' to write satires upon such persons as I knew or conceived to have spoken or acted in aught contrary to good manners. These squibs were written through the impulse of offended feeling, or the stirrings of that injudicious spirit which sometimes prompts a man to exercise a power merely because he possesses it. They were still, after all, only as things of private experiment, and not intended ever to go forth to the world—though it happened otherwise. I usually carried a lot of these writings in my hat, and by and by, unlike most other young authors, I got a publisher unsought for. This was the wind, which, on a wild day, swept my hat from my head, and tattering its contents asunder from their fold, sent them away over hill and dale like a flock of wild fowl. I recovered some where they had halted in bieldy places; others of them went further, and fell into other hands, and particularly into those of a neighbour, who, a short while previously, had played an unmanly part relating to a sheep and the march which ran between us. He found his unworthy proceeding boldly discussed, in an epistle which, I daresay, no other carrier would ever have conveyed to him but the unblushing mountain blast. He complained to others, whom he found more or less involved in his own predicament, and the thing went disagreeably abroad. My master, through good taste and feeling, was vexed, as I understood, that I should have done anything that gave ground for accusation, though he did not mention the subject to myself; but my father, some days after the mischief had commenced, came to me upon the hill, and not in very good humour, disapproved of my imprudent conduct. As for the consequences of this untoward event, it proved the mean of revealing what I had hitherto concealed—procuring for me a sort of local popularity little to be envied. I made the best improvement of it, as I then thought, that lay in my power—by writing a satire upon myself.
"I continued shepherd at Deloraine two years, and then went in the same capacity to the late Mr Knox of Todrigg; and if at the former place I had been well and happy, here I was still more so. His son William, the poet of 'The Lonely Hearth,' paid me much friendly attention. He commended my verses, and augured my success as one of the song-writers of my native land. In those days, I did not write with the most remote view to publication. My aim did not extend beyond the gratification of hearing my mountain strains sung by lad or lass, as time and place might favour. And when, in the dewy gloaming of a summer eve, returning home from the hill, and 'the kye were in the loan,' I did hear this much, I thought, no doubt, that
"'The swell and fall of these wild tones
Were worth the pomp of a thousand thrones.'