Chapter VII: Part 7

It now only remained that he should take leave of his mistress. She was in the garden when he arrived, and no sooner did she obtain a glimpse of his person, than she ran gaily and swiftly towards him, with a face beaming with joy, exclaiming that she had such good news to tell him as he had not ever heard before. This turned out, upon inquiry, to be the permission of her father that their nuptials should take place that day month. The intelligence fell upon Bruce’s heart like a stab, and it was some moments ere he could collect himself to make an appropriate answer. Lady Clementina observed his discomposure, and, with a half-alarmed feeling, asked its cause. He explained it as occasioned by regret for his necessary absence in Scotland, to which he was called by some very urgent business, so as to render it necessary that the commencement of their mutual happiness should be put off for some time longer. “Thus,” he said, “to be obstructed by an affair of my own, after all the objections of others had been removed with so much difficulty, is particularly galling.” The disappointment of the young lady was more deeply felt than it was strongly expressed. She was reassured, however, by a fervent and solemn promise from her lover, that, as soon as possible, he would return to make her his own. After taking leave of her parents, he clasped her in one last fond embrace, during which every moment seemed an age of enjoyment, as if all the felicity of which he was about to be defrauded had been concentrated and squandered in that brief space. At one moment, he felt the warm pressure of a being beloved above all earthly objects, and from whom he had expected a whole life of happiness; at another, he had turned away towards the emptiness of desolation, and the cold breath of the grave.

One hour did he give to reflection upon all he left behind—an hour such as those which sometimes turn men’s hair gray—the next, and all after it, he devoted to the enterprise upon which he was entering. Crawford, whom he requested to become his second, readily agreed to accompany him for that purpose; and they immediately set out for the Netherlands, leaving a challenge for Sackville in the hands of a friend, along with directions as to the proposed place of meeting.

The remainder of this lamentable tale may be best told in the words of Sir George Sackville. That unhappy young man, some months after the fatal tragedy, wrote an account of it to a friend, for the purpose of clearing himself from certain aspersions which had been cast upon him. The language is somewhat quaint, but it gives a more forcible idea than could otherwise be conveyed of the frenzied feelings of Bruce, under the wrongs which he had suffered from his antagonist, as well as of the actual circumstances of the combat.

“——We met at Tergosa, in Zealand, it being the place allotted for rendezvous; he being accompanied with one Mr Crawford, a Scotch gentleman, for his second, a surgeon, and a man. There having rendered himself, I addressed my second, Sir John Heidon, to let him understand that now all following should be done by consent, as concerning the terms whereon we should fight, as also the place. To our seconds we gave power for their appointments, who agreed we should go to Antwerp, from thence to Bergen-op-Zoom, where in the midway but a village divides the states’ territories from the archduke’s. And there was the destined stage, to the end that, having ended, he that could might presently exempt himself from the justice of the country, by retiring into the dominion not offended. It was farther concluded, that, in case any should fall or slip, that then the combat should cease, and he whose ill-fortune had subjected him, was to acknowledge his life to have been in the other’s hands. But in case one party’s sword should break, because that could only chance by hazard, it was agreed that the other should take no advantage, but either then be made friends, or else upon even terms go to it again. Thus these conclusions being each of them related to his party, was by us both approved, and assented to. Accordingly, we embarked for Antwerp. And by reason, as I conceive, he could not handsomely, without danger of discovery, had not paired the sword I sent him to Paris; bringing one of the same length, but twice as broad; my second excepted against it, and advised me to match my own, and send him the choice, which I obeyed; it being, you know, the privilege of the challenged to elect his weapon. At the delivery of the swords, which was performed by Sir John Heidon, it pleased the Lord Bruce to choose my own, and then, past expectation, he told him that a little of my blood would not serve his turn; and, therefore, he was now resolved to have me alone, because he knew (for I will use his own words) ‘that so worthy a gentleman, and my friend, could not endure to stand by and see him do that which he must, to satisfy himself and his honour.’ Therefore, Sir John Heidon replied, that such intentions were bloody and butcherly, far unfitting so noble a personage, who should desire to bleed for reputation, not for life; withal adding, he thought himself injured, being come thus far, now to be prohibited from executing those honourable offices he came for. The lord, for answer, only reiterated his former resolutions; whereupon Sir John, leaving him the sword he had elected, delivered me the other, with his determinations. The which, not for matter but manner, so moved me, as though to my remembrance I had not for a long while eaten more liberally than at dinner, and therefore unfit for such an action (seeing the surgeons hold a wound upon the full stomach more dangerous than otherwise), I requested my second to certify him I would presently decide the difference, and therefore he should presently meet me on horseback, only waited on by our surgeons, they being unarmed. Together we rode, but one before the other some twelve score paces, for about two English miles; and then passion having so weak an enemy to assail as my discretion, easily became the victor, and, using his power, made me obedient to his commands. I being verily mad with anger that the Lord Bruce should thirst after my life with a kind of assuredness, seeing I had come so far and needlessly to give him leave to regain his lost reputation, I bade him alight, which with willingness he quickly granted, and there in a meadow, ancle deep in water at the least, bidding farewell to our doublets, in our shirts began to charge each other; having afore commanded our surgeons to withdraw themselves a pretty distance from us, conjuring them, besides, as they respected our favours, or their own safeties, not to stir, but suffer us to execute our pleasure; we being fully resolved (God forgive us!) to dispatch each other by what means we could. I made a thrust at my enemy, but was short, and, in drawing back my arm, I received a great wound thereon, which I interpreted as a reward for my short shooting; but in my revenge, I pressed into him, though I then missed him also, and received a wound in my right pap, which passed level through my body, and almost to my back. And there we wrestled for the two greatest and dearest prizes we could ever expect trial for—honour and life. In which struggling, my hand, having but an ordinary glove upon it, lost one of her servants, though the meanest. But at last breathless, yet keeping our hold, there passed on both sides propositions of quitting each other’s swords. But when amity was dead, confidence could not live, and who should quit first was the question, which on neither part either would perform; and restriving again afresh, with a kick and a wrench I freed my long captive weapon, which incontinently levying at his throat, being master still of his, I demanded if he would ask his life, or yield his sword, both which, though in that imminent danger, he bravely denied to do. Myself being wounded, and feeling loss of blood, having three conduits running on me, which began to make me faint, and he courageously persisting not to accede to either of my propositions, through remembrance of his former bloody desire, and feeling of my present estate, I struck at his heart, but, with his avoiding, missed my aim, yet passed through the body, and drawing out my sword, repassed it again through another place, when he cried, ‘Oh! I am slain!’ seconding his speech with all the force he had to cast me. But being too weak, after I had defended his assault, I easily became master of him, laying him on his back—when being upon him, I redemanded if he would request his life; but it seemed he prized it not at so dear a rate to be beholden for it, bravely replying, ‘He scorned it.’ Which answer of his was so noble and worthy, as I protest I could not find in my heart to offer him any more violence, only keeping him down until at length his surgeon afar off cried, ‘He would immediately die, if his wounds were not stopped.’ Whereupon I asked if he desired his surgeon should come, which he accepted of; and so, being drawn away, I never offered to take his sword, accounting it inhuman to rob a dead man, for so I held him to be. This thus ended, I retired to my surgeon, in whose arms, after I had remained a while, for want of blood, I lost my sight, and withal, as I then thought, my life also. But strong water and his diligence quickly recovered me; when I escaped a great danger; for my lord’s surgeon, when nobody dreamt of it, came full at me with his lord’s sword; and had not mine with my sword interposed himself, I had been slain by those base hands; although my Lord Bruce, weltering in his blood, and past all expectation of life, conformable to all his former carriage, which was undoubtedly noble, cried out, ‘Rascal, hold thy hand!’ So may I prosper, as I have dealt sincerely with you in this relation.

“Louvain, September 8, 1613.”

Such is the melancholy story of Edward Lord Bruce, a young nobleman, who, but for a false point of honour, arising from the incorrect judging of the world, might have lived to make many fellow-creatures happy, and adorn the annals of his country. The sacred griefs of those to whom he was most peculiarly endeared, it would be vain to paint. A mistress who wore mourning, and lived single for his sake all the rest of her life—a mother, who survived him only to mourn his irreparable loss—upon such holy sorrow it is not for me to intrude. It may be only mentioned, that the latter individual, recollecting the last parting words of her son, caused his heart to be embalmed, and brought to her in a silver case (the body being buried in the cathedral of Bergen-op-Zoom), and carried it with her to Culross, where she spent the remainder of her life in gloomy solitude, with that object always before her upon her table. After her death, it was deposited in the family vault already described, where it has ever since remained, the best monument of its own fatal history.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lord Buckhurst.

[2] The Earl of Dorset, a poetical ornament of the court of Charles the Second.

CULTIVATIONS.

All men are not agriculturists, horticulturists, or arboriculturists; but yet almost all men are _cultivators_. By this it is meant that men in general cultivate, or coax, or unduly appreciate and fondle, some particular feature of their persons, or else, perhaps, some integument connected with their persons, to such a degree as to be rather conspicuous, while to every thing else they only give the ordinary degree of attention. There are many features of human nature which remain to be detected and described; and this is one—_Cultivations_. So far as I am aware, no one ever thought of pointing it out to mankind: the subject of cultivation has hitherto remained totally _uncultivated_. So it shall be no longer.

Hair, as the only part of the person which actually grows like a vegetable, is naturally a large subject of cultivation. The Cavaliers long ago cultivated love-locks, which they kept hanging down in graceful fashion from their temples. These locks, or curls, are now changed for tufts or bunches of hair, which the young men cultivate at the same place, and are ever shaking up and tedding, exactly as if it were a crop of hay instead of hair. Mark a modern beau as he walks along the street, and you will observe at one glance that the principal part of the man—the heart—the sensorium—the cynosure—the point from which all the rest evolves—the root of the man, in short, is the tuft under the right rim of his hat. All the rest of him is a mere pendulum, vibrating from this axis. As he walks along, he hardly feels that any other part of him is in existence, besides that. But he feels his tuft most intensely. Thought, feeling, every thing, lies concentrated in that: head, body, and limbs, are all alike mere members devolved from it. If you were to cut off the side-bunch of a modern beau in his sleep, he would, for the time, be utterly ruined. It would be like the polypus, deprived of every thing but a single leg; and he would require several months of dormant existence—that is, retirement from the streets—to let the better part of him grow out again from the worse, which had remained behind. Let not the demure Puritan, however, think that the joke lies all against the gay Cavalier or beau. There may be as much of the sin of cultivation in the stroked and glossy hair of the Roundhead or _plain man_, as in the love-locks and bunches of their antipodes in sentiment. I have seen some men, who affected to be very unaffected, cultivate a peak on the top and centre of their brows as sedulously, and with as much inward gratulation on account of it, as ever I saw a dandy cultivate a tuft, or train a side-curl. It must be understood that there are cultivations of a negative character, as well as of a positive, and he who is guiltless of cultivation in his heart is alone guiltless. Next to curls stand whiskers. What a field of cultivation have we there! The whisker is a bounty of nature, which man does not like to refuse taking advantage of. The thing presses upon him—it is _there_; and to put it altogether aside, except upon the demand of temporary fashion, is scarcely to be thought of. Some men, however, are more able to resist the demon of whiskers than others. There are some men so prone to the temptations of this fiend, that they enlarge and enlarge their field of cultivation, by small and imperceptible degrees, till at length the whole chin falls a prey, excepting, perhaps, a small bit about the mouth, just enough to preserve the cultivator within the pale of the Christian church. Sometimes the Whisker Fiend makes an insidious advance or sally up towards the corners of the mouth; and there—in those small creeks or promontories—does the sin of cultivation invariably flourish more proud and rampant than any where else. The whisker of the cheek is a broad, honest, candid, downright cultivation, but that down about the corners of the mouth is a sly and most impish one—a little pet sin, apt to beset its cultivator in a far less resistible fashion than any other; and it may indeed be said, that he who has given himself fairly up to this crime is almost beyond redemption.

There are some men who cultivate white hands, with long fair nails. For nothing else do they care very particularly—all is well, if only their hands be neat. There is even a ridiculous notion that elegant hands are the most unequivocal test of what is called good birth. I can say, for my own part, that the finest hands I ever saw belonged to a woman who kept a butcher’s shop in Musselburgh. So much for the nonsense about fine hands. Then there is a set of people who cultivate a ring on a particular finger—evidently regretting, from their manner of managing it, that the South Sea fashion of wearing such ornaments in the nose has not ever come into this country. Some men cultivate neat ebony canes with golden heads, which, they tell you, cost a guinea. Some cultivate a lisp. A few, who fall under the denomination of stout gentlemen, rejoice in a respectable swell of the haunch, with three wrinkles of the coat lying upon it in majestic repose. Some cultivate a neckcloth—some a shirt-breast—some a jewelled pin, with a lesser pin at a little distance, which serves to it as a kind of anchor. There has also of late been a great fashion of cultivating chains about the waistcoat. Some only show about two inches of a gold or silver one between the buttons and the pocket; others, less modest, have themselves almost laced round and round with this kind of tracery. There is also to be detected, occasionally, a small patch of cultivation in the shape of a curious watch-key or seal, which depends from part of the chain, and is evidently a great pet. A not uncommon subject of cultivation is a gold watch.

There is a class who cultivate silk umbrellas. It is a prevalent idea among many men that a silk umbrella is an exceedingly _genteel_ thing. They therefore have an article of this kind, which they are always carrying in a neat careful manner, so as to show that it is silk. They seem to feel as if they thought all right when they have their silk umbrella in their hand: it is a kind of patent of respectability. With a silk umbrella they could meet the highest personages in the land, and not be abashed. A silk umbrella is, indeed, a thing of such vast effect, that they would be content to go in humble guise in every other respect, provided they only had this saving clause to protect them. Nay, it is not too much to suppose them entertaining this belief, that five-and-twenty shillings put forth on a good silk umbrella produces as much value in dignity as five pounds spent upon good broad-cloth. How some men do fondle and cultivate silk umbrellas!

There is a species of cultivators who may in some cases be very respectable, and entitled to our forbearance, but are, in others, worthy of a little ridicule. I mean the health-seekers; the men who go out at five in the morning to cultivate an appetite, and regularly chill every sharp-set evening party they attend, by sitting like Melancholy retired, ostentatiously insisting that they “never take supper.” When a health-seeker takes a walk, he keeps his coat wide open, his vest half open—seems, in short, to woo the contact of the air—and evidently regrets very much that he cannot enjoy it in the manner of a bath. As he proceeds, he consumes air, as a steam-boat consumes coal; insomuch that, when he leaves the place, you would actually think the atmosphere has a fatigued and exhausted look, as if the whole oxygen had been absorbed to supply his individual necessities. Wherever this man goes, the wind rises behind him, by reason of the vacuum which he has produced. He puffs, pants, fights, strives, struggles for health. When he returns from his morning walk, he first looks in the glass to congratulate himself on the bloom which he has been cultivating in his cheek, and thereafter sits down to solace the appetite which he finds he has nursed into a kind of fury. At any ordinary time, he could spring from his bed at nine o’clock, and devour four cups of tea, with bread, ham, eggs, and haddocks, beyond reckoning. But he thinks it necessary to walk four hours, for the purpose of enabling himself to take eight cups, and a still more unconscionable proportion of bread, ham, eggs, and haddocks. He may be compared, in some measure, to the fat oxen which are sometimes shown about as wonders, though apparently there is nothing less wonderful, the obvious natural means being taken. These oxen, if left to themselves in a good park, would become very respectable oxen—a little _en-bon-point_, perhaps, but no more. But, being treated otherwise, they are rendered unnecessarily fat and unwieldy; and so it is with the appetite of the health cultivator.

CULTIVATIONS, it will thus be observed, is a subject of vast extent, and of great importance, not only to the _landed_ interest, but to all the other interests of the country. I should be glad to treat it at full length in a separate volume, for which, I doubt not, ample materials might be found. But I must content myself with giving it in the meantime only a kind of topping, as the farmers say; and perhaps I may return to it next harvest.

FITS OF THRIFT.

Nothing is more common in the middle ranks of life than to find housewives taking what may be called _fits of thrift_. Though sensible women in their way, excellent advisers and charming gossips, and though by no means spenders on a great scale, they have no enduring principle of economy, but are only frugal by fits and starts. They take qualms of thriftiness now and then—sometimes from reading a string of plausible receipts for cookery on a cheap scale, or from being struck with the excellent arrangements in the household of a friend, who tells her that, by managing in such and such a manner, salting all her own beef, and making all her own preserves, she has, one way and another, saved a good deal of money, which is really a thing of some consequence in these bad times, when so little is coming in. This chronic frugality is common to single ladies, under as well as above one-and-twenty, and to married ladies with large families. The fits have different tendencies, although the prevailing symptoms are the same. Occasionally the furor seizes one single young lady in a family of sisters; and I have seen that it comes on most commonly in the spring. In such cases the disease perhaps takes the direction of butter and eggs. Some day about the month of April or May, and when breakfast is on the table, the young lady begins to make observations on the dearth and rancidity of the butter. “I declare for my part,” says she, “we have been poisoned for the last six months with that stuff that we get from the woman who keeps the little shop in the area on the opposite side of the street. You know it was only out of pity to her when her husband was burnt to death at the distillery, that we said that we would take some small things from her; but you see she does not keep wholesome articles; and really, in my opinion, it is high time we were looking about for something we can trust to.” With this sort of discourse the young notable opens the plan of her campaign. She says she is resolved to rise every morning at seven, and go with a basket herself to the market. The mornings, she says, are now greatly lengthened out, and, besides saving a penny a pound on the butter, and getting a better article, she is confident the walk will prove of great benefit to her health. It may always be observed, that the husband, father, or elder brother of the notable, never makes any objections when such schemes of saving are propounded. They know intuitively that the whole is a delusion, which will work itself off in a week or two; that the same disease has visited the family once every year about the same period ever since they can recollect, and that it will now, as formerly, only furnish a little harmless temporary excitement in the house. Armed with a negative approval from these relations, together with a pound note, the young notable starts next Saturday morning between seven and eight o’clock; and after taking half an hour to array herself in an undress, studiously selecting for the occasion a shabbyish shawl, and a pair of shoes that she puts on, only on “bad days,” also a straw bonnet faded both in the material and in the riband, she sallies forth with her basket to the market. With what an air of knowingness she goes from cart to cart, examining, and tasting, and smelling their contents! How she tries to elicit, by cross-questioning the man in the sky-blue coat, or the blowsky girl in the dimity head-gear, sitting amidst their savoury boxes with leather hinges, every particular in the history of the butter; where and when it was made, and why it happens to be up this morning, and so forth. How she wanders amidst the egg women, holding up the eggs between her and the light, asking if they be sure they are not Orkney eggs, and what their probable age may be? What with toiling up and down the market for three quarters of an hour, and beating down the prices in a most exemplary manner, she at last accomplishes her purchases, and brings home her cargo of native produce. When you come down to breakfast, you will be at once reminded of what has been going on, by the air of superiority and triumph assumed by Miss Notable. She thinks that by rising an hour sooner than any body else, and saving, as she thinks, the sum of twopence, she has purchased the character of a thrifty personage, and, consequently, is entitled to look down upon the whole house. There is no end to her account of how she managed to find out the best butter in the cart, and how she higgled the man out of a halfpenny in the pound. When she places a slice of this extraordinary butter before you, she takes care to show you how fresh the colour is, and waits with impatience to hear your expected, and not to be dispensed with, praise of its taste. The butter she has bought is, in fact, her pet for the whole week. She considers it as her butter: and if any visitor slight it, by not paying it the necessary compliments, he is of course not indebted to her for any future invitation to the house.

A fit of thrift of this nature lasts generally three or four weeks, seldom more. I have seen it continue a fortnight in tolerable strength; it then declines, and wears off towards the fourth Saturday. The decline of this household disease is as amusing in its way as its increase. The young lady begins to find, that, so far from improving her health or strength by such morning exercise, she only “makes herself out,” and is unfit to do any thing else the whole day. And then it is, after all, only to save a few halfpence. She also finds that her purchases do not always turn well out, and that she cannot coax her father, or the rest of them, to be perpetual admirers of her butter and eggs. As a get-off, she commences an eulogy on her butter, which, she says, is sold by a man in Rose Street—a person who was once a farmer, but was reduced by misfortunes to open a small shop in the town, and sell dairy produce. This man she says, is _experienced_ in butter, and imports every week as much as will serve a dozen families. She has made interest with him through the servant to be counted one of his regular customers, and he will supply the family at all times exactly at the market price, not a farthing more. This new plan helps greatly as a solace to the conscience in abandoning her morning airings with her basket and dishabille; and so she gradually subsides into the ordinary routine of domestic arrangements.

The married notable is subject to fits of thrift in a greater or less degree about the months of October and November. Some day at dinner, when there happens to be rather a poorish leg of lamb on the table, and not much else, she opens her attack by saying, in a peevishly authoritative manner, that really the family has been long enough on fresh meat; that, for her part, the lamb that they have had so often does not agree with her, and that she would rather prefer a good salt herring. “Mrs Lockhart has just been telling me that the doctor has advised them to eat twice or thrice a-week a piece of salt meat—that is to say, a piece of beef newly powdered, just the fresh taste off it, and hardly having the appearance of the saltpetre at the bone; and I _do_ think that we cannot do better than just follow such a sensible man’s advice, and get two or three pieces next Wednesday for salting—you know it will be a great saving of money.” The drift of all this is, that the husband shall forthwith exhibit on the table a couple of twenty shilling notes; but as he knows that these handy pieces of paper are sometimes not very easily got, he perhaps tries to throw an obstacle or two in the way of the salting project, and, for instance, mentions that his wife has no convenience for curing beef. “You observe,” says he, “it requires a tub, or something of that sort, and, besides, there is a great knack in curing the meat thoroughly; and if you do not take care, you will spoil the whole.” As a matter of course, these or similar observations cannot hold good in the face of a wife under a fit of thrift. All you can say is borne down, and the money is at length consigned with a groan to the steel purse of the good lady, who, next day—for she is in the fidgets till her purpose is executed—sets out in her muff and shawl (the first time for the season) on an expedition, first to lay in her beef, and then to buy a sufficient and commodious _salting can_. Well, the _can_, that darling object of a notable’s ambition, _is_ purchased. The beef _is_ salted; and the goodman and his family are shortly put on salt meat, whether they like such fare or otherwise. The thrifty lady all this time takes care, on every occasion, to show off her beef as well worthy of being tasted by visitors; and the short and long of it is, that the said beef is eaten up in half the time it is expected to last; fresh meat begins to show itself more frequently at your table, and the fit is put aside till another opportunity occurs of playing it off.

These are very ordinary instances of fits of thrift, but there are hundreds of the same description which I could mention. Sometimes the fit takes the direction of a new gown for going out with on bad days, to save others of a better sort; at another time it is “a house gown,” as “really my best black silk one is absolutely getting wasted with having to go so often into the kitchen.” Occasionally it is the hiring of two maid-servants, “so that the washings need not any longer be given out;” at other times it is the buying of a crumb-cloth, to save the carpet, or the purchasing of loads of old china and crockery at auctions. I have seen all the ladies in the house manifest this frenzy by working their own lace, or painting pictures which had to be hung in dear gilded frames. Again, I have noticed it in great vigour in a family in town resolving to have a garden, so as to grow their own vegetables. It comes on very frequently in a desire to dye old ribands, or feathers, or “dress” shawls; in which case the lady who is affected sets out on a voyage of discovery through all the obscure courts and alleys about the town, seeking for some old woman whom they have heard of as being “the best” at these processes of renovation. It may be remarked, that the fit visits the nation, like an epidemic, towards the end of July. Almost every house in the kingdom is then thrown into an uproar by the ladies, young and old, confederating to manufacture gooseberry jam or currant jelly. Such a requisition is there then in all quarters for “brass pans,” and such a deal of money is spent in this popular confectionary! At the approach and during the continuance of the epidemic, the husbands very wisely make no remonstrance, well knowing that such would be utterly thrown away. “You know, my dear,” would say the thrifty spouse, “we shall require at least two dozen pints this season; for nothing is more useful in a house, in case of colds; and you will remember how much good a spoonful or two did little George last February, when we thought he was going to take the fever; indeed, the doctor said it had been the very saving of his life.” Nothing, of course, can withstand an appeal to such authority; so the money is disbursed for the purchase of the fruit and other materials, although the goodman never can exactly see now some pounds’ worth of jelly should be laid up in store, all for the sake of needing two tea-spoonfuls.

Sometimes the family is so unfortunate as to get an oven, and a particularly economical Miss undertakes to bake what is called family bread. A great saving is expected from this source; but it soon turns out that so much of the article is given away to friends, as a kind of curiosity, or to impress them with a sense of the economy practised in the house, that a great deal more is lost than gained by the novelty. In fact, it always turns out, as in the case of the Vicar of Wakefield and his thrice notable spouse, that these chronic economists are not observed to make their husbands any richer by their contrivances, so much is lost by the expense of the experiment, compared with what is gained by the short duration of the practice.

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.