SUSAN HAMILTON,
A TALE OF VILLAGE LIFE.
The village of Daldaff lay in a nook of the hills, in one of the most rural districts of Scotland. Far from any of the great thoroughfares, or any of the large manufacturing towns, it continued, down even to the beginning of the present century, to be one of the most entire specimens in existence of all that a Scotch village used to be. Its situation was a deep hollow, upon the banks of a mountain stream, and it looked from some points of view as if a parcel of children’s toy-houses had been shaken promiscuously in a bowl, and suddenly fixed in the way they happened to arrange themselves at the bottom. It was all a confused mixture of gray old walls and brown thatch, with green gardens, and arbours, and mountain-ash trees. When you looked down from any of the surrounding heights, you wondered how communication was carried on amongst neighbours, or how strangers found an entrance into the village; for you saw no trace of streets, paths, or ways. It was only when you descended into the place, that you saw here and there a narrow road threading its way among the houses, somewhat after the manner of the puzzle called the walls of Troy. Most of the little dwellings had a long stripe of garden, running from behind them up the hill; other houses had their sides or backs placed close against the bank, so that you might have walked off the ground upon their roofs without perceiving it—while the gardens spread downwards before them, like aprons. These gardens bore large beds of refulgent cabbages, with gooseberry bushes between; and always in some sunny and sheltered place there were a few bee-hives, the tops of which were kept warm either with a crown of straw or a mantle of turf. At morning hour you would have seen the honest weavers, who peopled most of the houses, busying themselves in delving and dibbling in these little patches of ground. During the long day, perhaps nothing of life was to be seen about them, except the circumspect and decent hen walking up the avenue with her chirping brood, or the cock flapping his wings from the top of the wall, and crowing a defiance to some distant foe of his own kind: or the bees, as they one by one made themselves visible out of the universal sunniness, in the immediate shadow of the hive. At night, however, the weaver would be seen walking forth with his pipe in his mouth, his Kilmarnock cowl brushed back from his forehead, and his clothes loose at the knees, to observe the growth of the berries, or pull a bunch of lily-oak for his children, who came prattling behind him; or to hold converse through the evening stillness with a neighbour perhaps four gardens off, respecting the last proceedings of “that dreedfu’ fallow, Bonyparty.” When standing in the centre of the village, you might have almost been persuaded that there was no other place in the world. The rim of the horizon was within two hundred yards of the eye all round, and nothing besides was to be seen but the contracted sky. On the top of the bank, in one direction, stood the church, with its little docked steeple, and its body-guard of old trees. In another direction there was a peep of the turrets of an old half-ruined mansion-house, which had not been occupied for many years, except by the spirit of a murdered man, which was understood to occupy a particular room, and always went by the horribly descriptive name of Spotty. Beyond the edge of the surrounding banks, the country swept downwards in extensive flats, generally sterile, but here and there showing fine spots of pastoral green. Over these downs, groups of children would sometimes be seen rambling hand in hand, in those adventurous journeys of half a mile from home, which children are so fond of taking; sometimes talking to each other of the novelties of the created world, which were every now and then striking their eyes and their imaginations; at other times pondering in silent and infantine abstraction on the beauty of the gowans which grew by their sides, and in the bosoms of which, as they gazed into them, they saw, reflected as in a mirror, their own fairness and innocence. There, also, while the wind even of summer carried its chill, the little neat-herd boy would be seen sitting on the leeward side of the green knoll, with his sister by his side, and a plaid drawn all around them, their arms laced round each other’s necks, and their cheeks laid close together, as both read from the same tattered story book, or partook of the same pease-bread and milk, which served as their afternoon meal. Within the village all was primeval simplicity. The houses already mentioned were arranged without the least regard to each other’s convenience—some back to back, some shoulder to shoulder, but as generally front to back, and shoulder to front. The white manse sat half way up the bank, overlooking the whole, like an idol presiding over a crowded group of worshippers. On what might be considered the principal thoroughfare in the village, stood the inn, a house distinguished from all the rest, by its being two stories in height, not to speak of the still more remarkable distinction of a hanging sign, on which was painted something dark and grim, meant for a black bull, besides the frequent apparition of a carrier’s cart resting with its beams high and rampant into the air. Another house, rather better than the rest, was occupied by “a merchant,” a man originally a haberdashery pedlar, but who, having here at last set up his ellwand of rest, dealt not only in women’s attire, but in a thousand things else besides, as if he had been
“Not one, but all shopkeepers’ epitome.”
Then there was the modest tenement of Luckie Smytrie, with its window of four panes, showing to the passing traveller two biscuits on edge, and as many dark green bottles filled with comfits; while within, if you had chosen to enter, you would have found at one end of the room in which the decent woman lived, a large cupboard and a small table forming her mercantile establishment for the sale of all kinds of small wares. Were you to lounge a little in this humble retreat of commerce, you might see children coming in every now and then asking for such things as an ounce of soap, a quarter of an ounce of tea, a halfpenny-worth of whipcord, or, perhaps (what would astonish you most of all), change of a penny—viz. two halfpence. Luckie Smytrie was a woman who had experienced great trials in early life, had had husbands killed by accidents, sons enlisted for soldiers and slain in battle, and daughters that died in the morn and liquid dew of youth, innumerable. Her shop was therefore patronised by all the villagers, to the prejudice, in some articles, of the more ambitious establishment of the retired packman; but yet the old woman, like all shopkeepers who have little rivalry, was as much offended at losing any partial or occasional custom in favour of that individual, as if she had had a far stronger and more prescriptive right to the business of the place. For instance, you might see a boy come in with a small cotton handkerchief in his hand, and say that his mother had sent him for a halfpenny-worth of thread, matching with that piece of attire, which she wished to hem. To which Mrs Smytrie would respond, in a cool voice, but intended to convey the most cutting sarcasm, “Gang back, hinny, and tell your mother that it would be far better to get her thread where she got her napkin.” Or, perhaps, it was an order for bread on a Sunday evening, from some one who had had an unexpected crowd of visitors at tea. The request was then put in the following terms:—“Mrs Smytrie [on other occasions it was plain Tibbie], my mother has her compliments t’ye, and she wad be muckle obleeged for twa tippeny bricks (loaves), as there’s some folk come upon her to their four-hours that she didna expeck.” To the which Mrs Smytrie would answer, in the same cruelly tranquil voice, “Tell your mother, my woman, that she had better get her bread on the Sabbath night where she gets’t on the Saturday’t e’en,” well knowing all the while that the shop referred to was not open, and that there was no other besides her own in the whole village, or within ten miles round. Perhaps a child would come in for a halfpenny-worth of paper, namely, writing-paper; but Mrs Smytrie, mistaking the word, would set about the elaborate ceremony of weighing out what she supposed the required quantity of pepper. The boy would look on, not knowing what to think of it, till at last he was roused from his reverie by having a neat little conical parcel, with a twist at the point, presented to him instead of the roll of paper which he had expected. He would then murmur out, with a ludicrous mixture of stupidity and terror, “It was paper I was wanting;” at which the old widow would break out with the anticipated torrent of invective, “Hech! dyted thing, could ye no speak plainer? What for did ye let me be makin’ up the pepper for ye, and no tell me it was paper? Niff-naffin!” There was hardly any other house in the village in the least distinguished from its fellows. The most of them were occupied by a race of decent weavers—for this, indeed, was the staple employment of Daldaff. Through almost every lattice you heard the constant sound of the shuttle and lay, mixed with the voices of the honest operatives, as they sung at their work. In a preceding age, the village contained only three or four of this class of men, who employed themselves in weaving the homely woollen cloth and sheeting which were then used by the country people, being formed out of materials supplied immediately by themselves. But these kinds of manufacture had, in a great measure, given way in favour of the lighter fabrics of Glasgow. Cottons were now supplied from that immense mart, to be woven into showy webs; and as the trade offered far superior remuneration to what had ever been known in the village, not only the old serge-weavers had changed the one employment for the other, but a vast flock of their sons and connexions, and many of the country people around, had rushed into it, so that the primitive little village of Daldaff became neither more nor less than a kind of colony or dependency of the great western capital.
This revolution was at first productive of a great increase of comfort in the village, without materially altering the primeval virtues of its inhabitants. Old men began to lay by blue bonnets in favour of hats. A few old hereditary black coats, which had been worn from youth to age, were at last rescued from the twilight of a Sabbath fame, and consigned ungrudgingly to a general use throughout the week. Young men began to abandon hodden gray for Galashiels blue; young women got straw bonnets to cover locks heretofore exposed in cockernonnies, and there were two if not three green gauze veils in the village. In respect of domestic economy, almost every housewife had the pot on three times a-week, so that third day’s kail was beginning to be a thing almost unknown. Tea was also intruding its outlandish face into scenes where bread and milk was erst the only luxury. Some of the husbands held long out against it, but at length they almost all sneaked into a liking for it, and no more thought of wanting it at the end of their day’s work, than they thought of wanting their halesome porridge at the beginning. It was sometimes lamented by the excellent old minister, that family worship was a usage not favoured by this change of circumstances; but still, both at nine in the morning, and about the same hour in the evening, you might have heard, in passing some of the houses, either the rude and tremulous psalmody raised by the father of the household, or the low and earnest prayer which he was pouring forth, with his knees and those of all his family resting upon his clay floor. Then all the good old sports were kept up. The boys, instead of being confined, like those of larger manufacturing towns, in unhealthy cotton mills, were permitted at all hours, except those during which they were engaged at school, to play at the golf and shinty, or at bows and arrows, upon the common haugh by the burn side, or else to roam farther a-field in search of birds’ nests, or to harry the crows in the woods. On the same haugh, in the summer evenings, after work was done, the young men would be seen “putting the stane,” or playing at “the pennystanes” (quoits), or perhaps amusing themselves with the more energetic game of football, while their cowled fathers would walk forth to sympathise in and judge of their feats, and enjoy a hearty unmeasured laugh at every unharming “mischanter” which might befall them. Thither also would repair the trig shortgowned lass, just newly “redd up,” as she would style it, her curls shining in their recent release from paper, over a face to which a good washing had lent a richer glow, and her tout-ensemble in every respect greatly improved—as female figures, somehow or other, always are—by being seen in the declining light of the golden eve. There, while the young of the different sexes interchanged their joke and their gibe, and the old raised the still heartier laugh at every feat in the game, and children shouted and dogs barked from the mere contagion of joy, while, moreover, the sun sent his last rich rays through the trees above the village, whence the
“——Sweet mellow crush of the wood-pigeon’s note,
Made music that sweetened the calm;”
there a stranger might have supposed that happiness had found her last abode on earth, ere for ever winging her flight to her native skies.
Many villages in Scotland enjoy a humble local fame for some particular custom or sport, which is understood to reign there in supremacy over all others. If Daldaff was celebrated for any form of fun more than another, it was for curling—a sport peculiar to Scotland, and which may be best described to southern readers, by the simple statement, that it employs large smooth stones upon the ice, much after the manner of bowls upon a bowling-green. The game can only be practised after a very hard frost, as it requires the strongest ice to bear the numbers who usually assemble either to play or look on. Curling is a game relished so keenly in Scotland, that, like other common appetites, it levels all distinctions of station and rank. In a rural and thinly-peopled district like that around Daldaff, the laird might be seen mingling with not only his farmers, but his cottagers, interchanging the broad jest at his own failures, and giving applause wherever it was due. The minister might also be seen driving his stone with as much anxiety of eye as any one, and occasionally, perhaps, envying the good fortune of an unlettered peasant, whom, on another occasion, he would have to chide for his backwardness in the Single Catechism. Daldaff was fortunately situated for this game, as, less than a mile below the village, the mountain stream spread out into a little lake sufficient to have afforded room for half a dozen “rinks.” There one Saturday afternoon the people of Daldaff had a bonspiel, or grand contest, with the inhabitants of the adjacent parish of Sarkinholm, who had long disputed with them the palm of superiority. A bonspiel is not appointed to take place every day; neither is Saturday like any other day of the week. Hence, although an unfortunate thaw was just commencing, the disputants resolved to have out their game, trusting that the ice would at least last long enough to do their turn. Notwithstanding the unfavourable state of the ice, the bonspiel passed off with great eclat. Nearly all Daldaff and Sarkinholm were collected to witness the sport; and the certaminis gaudia, or joys of the combat, were felt perhaps as keenly in the hearts of the women and children of these respective places, as in those of the curlers themselves. Before the game was done, the men were standing inch deep in water, and the stones, as they came up to the rink, sent the spray high into the air before them, like shavings from a joiner’s plane. The short day of January was also drawing very near to a close, and a deep dark cloud had settled down upon the mountains to the west, betokening a thorough change in the weather. At length victory declared itself in favour of Daldaff, and the parties “quat their roaring play,” to betake themselves to their respective homes. All in a short time had left the place, except a small band of boys and girls, who continued to enjoy a pair of slides on a somewhat higher and drier part of the ice.
The rivulet connected with this little lake was one of those which, rising in a large basin of hilly country, are liable to be swelled occasionally in a very short space of time, so that, though at one hour they may scarcely show a rill among the channel-stones, they are the next raging like a large and impetuous river. On the present occasion, being fed by the cloud just spoken of, it came down in one of its most awful forms, and in one instant broke up the ice upon the peaceful lake with a noise like thunder. The children who had been sliding, though they scarcely had a moment of warning, escaped from the ice—all except one, Susan Hamilton, the daughter of the leading manufacturer in the village. She had been the last to approach a gulf which had been leaped by all the rest, and, her heart failing her at the moment, she was immediately carried off from the land upon a large board of ice. What had lately been the solid surface of the lake was now gathered in a large glacier of peaky fragments at the bottom, while all around the water was extending far beyond its usual limits. Susan Hamilton was soon drifted down to this mass of ice, where, from the top of a lofty pinnacle, she cried loudly for help, which, however, was every moment becoming more difficult to be rendered. The most of her companions had fled in childish terror to the village; but as the danger was instant, there seemed little chance of rescue from that quarter. Fortunately a young man who had accompanied some friends to Sarkinholm happened to be returning to Daldaff, and, hearing cries of distress, rushed up to the spot. Though the twilight was now deepening, he perceived the situation of the child, and being perfectly acquainted with the ground, he immediately resolved upon a plan of rescue. A large board of ice happened to be lying in a creek near the place where he stood. Upon this he fearlessly embarked, and, guiding it by means of his curling-brush, he soon reached the iceberg to which Susan Hamilton was clinging. Having prevailed upon her to leap down into his arms, he placed her carefully on board his icy raft, and then steered back towards the shore, where by this time a few of the villagers, including the child’s father, were collected. He was so fortunate as to return in safety, and had the satisfaction—which Bishop Burnet considered to be the greatest on earth—of rendering a man truly happy. The joy of the father was speechless; but the other villagers raised a shout of admiration in honour of his heroic conduct. Nor was the general feeling abated, when, immediately after he had regained the shore, the vast glacier, loosed from its confinement at the bottom of the lake, was precipitated down the channel of the stream, where it tumbled and dashed along with the resistless force of rocks thrown down a hill-side, and the noise of a hurricane in a forest. It was seen that if he had hesitated but for a minute to adventure upon his perilous task, the child must have perished, almost before her father’s eyes.