GEORDIE WILLISON,
AND THE HEIRESS OF CASTLE GOWER.
Antiquaries know very well that one of the oldest of the Nova Scotia knights, belonging to Scotland, was Sir Marmaduke Maitland of Castle Gower, situated in one of the southern counties of the kingdom; but they may not know so well that Sir Marmaduke held his property under a strict entail to heirs male, whom failing, to heirs female, under the condition of bearing the arms and name of the Castle Gower family; or that he was married to Catherine Maxwell, a near relative of the family of Herries, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright—a person of no very great beauty, but sprightly, and of good manners. This woman had been brought up in France, and was deeply tinged with French feelings. She had French cooks and French milliners about her in abundance; and a French lackey was considered by her as indispensable as meat and drink. Then she was represented as being a proud, imperious woman, with a bad temper; which was rendered worse by her continued fretting, in consequence of not having any children to her husband; whereby the property would go away to a son of her husband’s brother. Sir Marmaduke and his lady had a town-house in Edinburgh, in which they lived for the greater part of the year, situated so as to look to the North Back of the Canongate, and with an entry to it from that street, but the principal gate was from the north side. A garden was attached to the house; and the stables and coach-houses were situated at the foot of the garden. All these premises are now removed; but Sir Marmaduke Maitland’s house—or, as it was styled, the Duke’s house—at the period of this story, was a very showy house, and very well known to the inhabitants of Edinburgh.
Now, at the foot of Leith Wynd, there lived, about the same time, a poor widow woman, called Widow Willison, who had a son and a daughter. She was the widow of a William Willison, who earned a livelihood by the humble means of serving the inhabitants of Edinburgh with water, which he conveyed to their doors by the means of an ass; and was, in consequence, called Water Willie—a good, simple, honest creature; much liked by his customers, from whom he never wanted a good diet; and had no fault, but that of disliking the element in which he dealt. He liked he said very well to drive water to the great folks, and he wished them “meikle guid o’t; but, for his ain pairt, he preferred whisky, which, he thocht, was o’ a warmer and mair congenial nature, and better suited to the inside o’ a rational animal, like man.”
Strange enough, it was to William Willison’s dislike to water that people attributed his death. It would have been more logical—but scandal is a bad logician—to have debited that event to the water; for, though it will not conceal that Willie was drunk when he died, it was as notorious that it was not because he was drunk that he died—but that he died because his water-cart went over him when he was drunk. However that may be, and there is no use in wasting much reasoning on the point, William left, at his death, a widow and two children, with nothing to support them.
Widow Willison was a good, religious woman, of the old school, believing in the transcendent influence of mere faith, as carrying along with it all the minor points of justification by works, election, and others, in the same way that a river takes with it the drops of rain that fall from the heavens, and carries all down to the ocean. She was an excellent example of the influence of a pure religion—kind and generous in her sentiments; and, though left with two children, and no food to satisfy their hunger, patient and hopeful—placing implicit trust and confidence in the Author of all good, and viewing murmuring as a sin against His providence.
Let us introduce, now, George Willison, her son, an extraordinary individual, apparently destined to be more notorious than his father, in so much as his character was composed of that mixture of simplicity, bordering on silliness, and shrewd sagacity in the ordinary affairs of life, which is often observed in people of Scotland. Though common, the character is nearly inexplicable to the analyst; for the individual seems conscious of the weaker part of his character, but he appears to love it, and often makes it subservient to the stronger elements of his mind, by using it at once as a cloak and a foil to them. George, like the other individuals of his peculiar species, followed no trade. Sometimes he acted as a cadie, a letter-carrier, a messenger, a porter, a water-carrier—in any capacity, in short, in which he could, with no continuous labour, earn a little money. To work at any given thing for longer time than a day, was a task which he generally condemned, as being wearisome and monotonous, and more suited to the inferior animals than to man. His clothes, like his avocations, were many-coloured, and suited the silly half of his character, without altogether depriving him of the rights of a citizen, or making him the property and sport of school-boys. Like his employments, his earnings were chancy and various, ranging between a shilling to five shillings a-week, including gratuities, which his conceit prompted him to call “helps,” with a view to avoid the imputation of living upon alms—a name, in the Scotch language “awmous,” which did not sound agreeably in the ears of Geordie Willison.
The very reverse of George was his sister—a black-eyed beauty, of great intelligence, who earned a little money, to support the family, by means of her needle. She was a great comfort to her mother, seldom going out, and felt much annoyed by the strange character of her brother, whom she often endeavoured to improve, with a view to his following some trade. He was twenty years of age, and if he did not “tak’ himself up” now, she said, “he would be a vagrant a’ his days.” Geordie, on the other hand, quietly heard his sister, but he never saw—at least, he pretended not to see, which was the same thing—the force of her argument. The weak half of his constitution was always presented to any attack of logic; and the adroitness with which he met his opponent by this soft buckler—which, like a feather-bed presented to a canon bullet, swallowed the force and the noise at the same time—was worthy of Aristotle, or Thomas Scotus, or any other logical warrior. Take an example:—
“Whar hae ye been the day, Geordie?” said his mother to him one day.