Johnson and I found no difficulty in walking twelve to twenty miles a day. We sometimes obtained lodgings with peasants, and at others with “gentlemen,” or landlords. The peasants call themselves “servants,” and always speak of the landlord as “master.” This nomenclature is suggestive of the real relationship existing between the two classes. It is none other than that of master and slave. These peasants are still plodding along in the same old grooves whose rough edges wore their fathers out. Many of them, like the dumb ass in the tread-mill, expect only their bread, and verily they are not disappointed. I almost wonder that the very stones in the streets do not rise in mutiny, and clamor for justice until their cry is heard by the dull ears of power.
While walking from Loch Lomond to Loch Katrine, I saw several peasants spading up the ground. They had dug several holes, each large enough to swallow a good-sized house. The dirt was taken out in square blocks, much the size of three bricks put side by side, or about the shape of a Mexican adobe. In appearance, these blocks resembled soft, sticky, black prairie mud. Seeing them spread out to dry, I thought they were to be used as building material. Upon making inquiry, I found that it (the dirt) was preparing for fuel. The peasants call it moss. They dry it and stack it, as we stack fodder or oats. They say it burns well.
The Scotch people, as a whole, have impressed me very favorably. They have a straightforward way of doing business. Almost every face wears on it the stamp of genuine honesty. The better classes of people are social, kind and accommodating in their nature, though somewhat stiff and dignified in their bearing.
Religiously, most Scotchmen are Presbyterians in belief and devout in spirit. They are no people for innovations or change, even though the new be superior to the old. I would as soon undertake to turn the Amazon from its wonted channel as to swerve these Scotch people from their fixed modes of thought and habits of life. As the boy said of his father’s horse that would go no farther, they are “established.”
Just twenty years ago, the main body of our Baptist people of this country formed what is known as the “Baptist Union of Scotland.” They now have eighty-five churches and ten thousand members. Though few in number, they expect, like Gideon’s band of old, to come off conquerors at last. All the Baptist ministers whom I have chanced to meet have received me into their confidence, into their homes and families. They have extended to me every act of kindness and of courtesy that I could ask or wish.
In a month from now, the people of Scotland will have very little night. In the latter part of June they have twilight until eleven o’clock, and the sun rises about two o’clock in the morning. It is now almost ten o’clock at night, and I can see to write without artificial light, and the moon is not shining.
CHAPTER VII.
FROM DUNDEE TO MANCHESTER.