Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 06

by Unknown

MY FATHER’S FIRESIDE.

After the lapse of about thirty years, I lately paid a visit to what had once been my father’s fireside. It was in the month of October that I visited the manse of Kirkhall. My father had been minister of that parish; and I received a kindly welcome from his worthy successor—one of the warmest-hearted and most learned men in the Church of Scotland, whom I have long known and esteemed as a brother. I found myself again seated beside the hearth in the little parlour which was once gladdened with a mother’s smile—which was once cheered with the childish sports of brothers and sisters—which was hallowed by the prayers and presiding virtues of an affectionate father. They are all departed to the land of spirits!

Yet, on looking round me, every object seemed to assure me that they were still near—for almost everything else was unchanged. On looking through the window from the elbow-chair in which I sat, the old and magnificent lime tree, which, in the days of my youth, spread its branches and foliage in wide luxuriance over the court, and gave assurance of shade and shelter, was still unscathed. Its sweet-scented flowers were indeed faded—for the breath of approaching winter had touched its verdure; but its variegated green and yellow leaves were the same as when I had seen them, and attempted, with boyish hands, to imitate, nearly half a century ago. A little farther off, the “decent church” peered from among the majestic ash, elm, and chestnut trees, with which it was surrounded—the growth of centuries—casting a deep and solemn shadow over the place of graves. The humble offices, and the corn-yard in which I had rejoiced to mingle in rural occupations and frolic, were near; and nothing was wanted to realize the scenes of my youth, save the presence of the venerable patriarch and my mother, and their little ones grouping around their knees, or at the frugal board.

But the illusion was short-lived. A holly tree, in the adjoining parterre, caught my eye. When I knew it of old, it was a little bush, in which the goldfinch and the linnet nestled, and were protected under my juvenile guardianship; but, now it had grown up to a stately tree. I saw, in the mirror over the mantelpiece, the image of my own visage, in which there were lines that time and the world’s cares imprint on the smoothest brow and the most blooming cheek. The yellow locks of my forehead were fled, and the few remaining hairs were beginning to be silvered with grey. My son, too, rising almost to manhood, stood up before me, unconscious of the recollections and visions which flitted through my mind. These things dispelled my reverie; and my wandering thoughts were recalled to the realities of the passing hour.

It was on a Saturday evening that I thus revisited Kirkhall; and my melancholy meditations were soon partially dissipated by the cheerful, but moderate hospitalities of my host; which were truly such as to make me feel that I was, as it were, among mine own kindred, and at my father’s fireside.

What a flood of emotions and remembrances spring forth at the mental utterance of these words! On retiring from the parlour, I was ushered into what was, of old, denominated, in the quaint colloquial language of Scotland, “The Prophet’s Cham’er”—that is, the apartment for study, which was to be found thus distinguished in all the old manses of our clergy. It was now a bedroom, the library being established in another apartment; and I laid my head upon the pillow in a chamber which was consecrated, in my memory, by the recollection that within its walls good men had often thought of “the ways of God to man,” and prepared their spirits, in the depths of silence and seclusion, for proclaiming in the sanctuary the glad tidings of salvation.

It was a tempestuous night; and, though the blast was completely excluded from the manse by the dense masses of trees with which it was surrounded, the wind howled and moaned through their branches and on their summits, and, like the thunder, gave forth a solemn music to the soul. I did not sleep, but listened to the sounds of the tempest with that pleasure which philosophy cannot explain. Ere long, the current of thought reverted to my own former relations, to the dwelling in which I reposed; and busy memory, in the watches of the night, supplied, with all the freshness of a recent event, the circumstances which chequered the life and marked the character of my father. Though, perhaps, in the estimation of many, these were commonplace, yet, to me, they were still full of interest; and, as they seem to afford a true and undistorted picture of a Scottish clergyman’s real character and fortunes, I have written them down to fill a spare corner in the Tales of the Borders.

William Douglas was the eldest son of a farmer in one of the northern counties of Scotland. The family had been tenants of the farm of Mains for five successive generations; and, so far as tradition and the humble annals of the parish could be relied on, had borne an unspotted name, and acquired that hereditary character for worth, which, in their humble station, maybe regarded as constituting the moral nobility of human nature. Just and devout in their lives—sincere, unpretending, and unaffected in their manners—they were never spoken of but with respect and goodwill by their neighbours; and were often, in the domestic and rural affairs of the vicinity, the counsellors and umpires, in whose good sense, and integrity, and kindness of heart, their humble friends trusted with confidence. Such characters and families are to be found in almost every rural district of this country; for, “though grace gangs no’ by generation, yet there is sic a thing as a hawk o’ a guid nest.” I believe in the homely proverb, though some metaphysicians may dispute it, but whether debatable or not in the abstract, William Douglas had the good fortune, as he deemed it, to grow up in the bosom of a family in which the characteristic of worth was cherished and transmitted as an heirloom.

The eldest son of the guidman of Mains showed an early fondness for his school exercises, and acquired, under the tuition of Roaring Jock, the dominie of the parish, a tolerable proficiency in the rudiments of literature. The guidman, being an elder of the kirk, was often at the minister’s manse, and the bairns from Mains were occasionally invited to tea on the Saturdays and play-days; and Paplay, the minister, (was so denominated, from the name of a small estate of which he was the laird), showed great favour to the “auldest callant,” and often conversed with him about the subject of his reading. In these circumstances, and considering the religious character of the Mains family, it was almost a matter of course that Willie should be destined by his parents, and prompted by his own predilections, to “the ministry.” And, by the advice of Paplay and Roaring Jock, Willie was sent to the Marischal College at Aberdeen, where he gained a bursary at the competition, and prosecuted his studies with assiduity, until, at length, in the fulness of time, he became a licentiate of the church.

The only thing I remember to have heard connected with this period of my father’s life, was his anecdotes of Paplay’s eccentricities, which were numerous—some of them personal, and some of them the peculiarities of the old school of clergy in Scotland. He was a pious and orthodox man; but withal had a tincture of the Covenanter about him, blended with the aristocratic and chivalrous feeling of a country gentleman of old family. In the troubled times, about the years 1745-6, he was a staunch Whig; and so very decided in his politics, that, when “Prince Charlie’s men” had the ascendancy in Scotland, he was either in arms or in hiding; and when he ventured to preach, he wore his sword in the pulpit, and a blue coat, girt with a belt, in which a pair of pistols were hung—more like a man of war than a preacher of peace! Even after the defeat at Culloden, the Jacobitism of the north was so strong, and Paplay was so obnoxious, by reason of his vehement preaching against popery, and prelacy, and the Pretender, that he continued long after to wear his sword (in the pulpit and elsewhere), which was rather a formidable concern to the nonjurors about him, in the hand of a brave and athletic champion of true Whiggery. He assigned three reasons for wearing his sword after it seemed to some of his friends to be unnecessary:—“First, because I am a gentleman; secondly, because I can use it; and, thirdly, because, if you doubt, you may try.” Among some of his oddities, he had a great admiration of a well-spring, a white calf, and a bonny lass; and he never passed any of them in his way without doing them homage. Though travelling on horseback, he would dismount to bathe his feet in a limpid stream, as it gushed from the earth, or to caress a white calf, or to salute a female—all which fantasies were united with the most primitive innocence. And he never ate a meal, even in his own house, or when he was a refugee in a hay stack or kiln barn, without exacting from his wife and friends the most urgent pressing.