DARSIE LATIMER TO ALAN FAIRFORD
The plot thickens, Alan. I have
your letter, and also one from your father. The
last makes it impossible for me to comply with the
kind request which the former urges. No I
cannot be with you, Alan; and that, for the best of
all reasons I cannot and ought not to counteract
your father’s anxious wishes. I do not take
it unkind of him that he desires my absence.
It is natural that he should wish for his son what
his son so well deserves the advantage of
a wiser and steadier companion than I seem to him.
And yet I am sure I have often laboured hard enough
to acquire that decency of demeanour which can no more
be suspected of breaking bounds, than an owl of catching
a butterfly.
But it was in vain that I have knitted
my brows till I had the headache, in order to acquire
the reputation of a grave, solid, and well-judging
youth. Your father always has discovered, or thought
that he discovered, a hare-brained eccentricity lying
folded among the wrinkles of my forehead, which rendered
me a perilous associate for the future counsellor
and ultimate judge. Well, Corporal Nym’s
philosophy must be my comfort ’Things
must be as they may.’ I cannot come
to your father’s house, where he wishes not
to see me; and as to your coming hither, by
all that is dear to me, I vow that if you are guilty
of such a piece of reckless folly not to
say undutiful cruelty, considering your father’s
thoughts and wishes I will never speak to
you again as long as I live! I am perfectly serious.
And besides, your father, while he in a manner prohibits
me from returning to Edinburgh, gives me the strongest
reasons for continuing a little while longer in this
country, by holding out the hope that I may receive
from your old friend, Mr. Herries of Birrenswork,
some particulars concerning my origin, with which
that ancient recusant seems to be acquainted.
That gentleman mentioned the name
of a family in Westmoreland, with which he supposes
me connected. My inquiries here after such a family
have been ineffectual, for the borderers, on either
side, know little of each other. But I shall
doubtless find some English person of whom to make
inquiries, since the confounded fetterlock clapped
on my movements by old Griffiths, prevents me repairing
to England in person. At least, the prospect
of obtaining some information is greater here than
elsewhere; it will be an apology for my making a longer
stay in this neighbourhood, a line of conduct which
seems to have your father’s sanction, whose
opinion must be sounder than that of your wandering
damoselle.
If the road were paved with dangers
which leads to such a discovery, I cannot for a moment
hesitate to tread it. But in fact there is no
peril in the case. If the Tritons of the
Solway shall proceed to pull down honest Joshua’s
tide-nets, I am neither Quixote enough in disposition,
nor Goliath enough in person, to attempt their protection.
I have no idea of attempting to prop a falling house
by putting my shoulders against it. And indeed,
Joshua gave me a hint that the company which he belongs
to, injured in the way threatened (some of them being
men who thought after the fashion of the world), would
pursue the rioters at law, and recover damages, in
which probably his own ideas of non-resistance will
not prevent his participating. Therefore the whole
affair will take its course as law will, as I only
mean to interfere when it may be necessary to direct
the course of the plaintiffs to thy chambers; and
I request they may find thee intimate with all the
Scottish statutes concerning salmon fisheries, from
the Lex AQUARUM, downward.
As for the Lady of the Mantle, I will
lay a wager that the sun so bedazzled thine eyes on
that memorable morning, that everything thou didst
look upon seemed green; and notwithstanding James Wilkinson’s
experience in the Fusileers, as well as his negative
whistle, I will venture to hold a crown that she is
but a what-shall-call-’um after all.
Let not even the gold persuade you to the contrary.
She may make a shift to cause you to disgorge that,
and (immense spoil!) a session’s fees to boot,
if you look not all the sharper about you. Or
if it should be otherwise, and if indeed there lurk
some mystery under this visitation, credit me, it
is one which thou canst not penetrate, nor can I as
yet even attempt to explain it; since, if I prove
mistaken, and mistaken I may easily be, I would be
fain to creep into Phalaris’s bull, were it
standing before me ready heated, rather than be roasted
with thy raillery. Do not tax me with want of
confidence; for the instant I can throw any light
on the matter thou shalt have it; but while I am only
blundering about in the dark, I do not choose to call
wise folks to see me, perchance, break my nose against
a post. So if you marvel at this,
E’en marvel on till time makes all
things plain.
In the meantime, kind Alan, let me proceed in my diurnal.
On the third or fourth day after my
arrival at Mount Sharon, Time, that bald sexton to
whom I have just referred you, did certainly limp more
heavily along with me than he had done at first.
The quaint morality of Joshua, and Huguenot simplicity
of his sister, began to lose much of their raciness
with their novelty, and my mode of life, by dint of
being very quiet, began to feel abominably dull.
It was, as thou say’st, as if the Quakers had
put the sun in their pockets all around
was soft and mild, and even pleasant; but there was,
in the whole routine, a uniformity, a want of interest,
a helpless and hopeless languor, which rendered life
insipid. No doubt, my worthy host and hostess
felt none of this void, this want of excitation, which
was becoming oppressive to their guest. They
had their little round of occupations, charities, and
pleasures; Rachel had her poultry-yard and conservatory,
and Joshua his garden. Besides this, they enjoyed,
doubtless, their devotional meditations; and, on the
whole, time glided softly and imperceptibly on with
them, though to me, who long for stream and cataract,
it seemed absolutely to stand still. I meditated
returning to Shepherd’s Bush, and began to think,
with some hankering, after little Benjie and the rod.
The imp has ventured hither, and hovers about to catch
a peep of me now and then; I suppose the little sharper
is angling for a few more sixpences. But this
would have been, in Joshua’s eyes, a return of
the washed sow to wallowing in the mire, and I resolved,
while I remained his guest, to spare him so violent
a shock to his prejudices. The next point was,
to shorten the time of my proposed stay; but, alas!
that I felt to be equally impossible. I had named
a week; and however rashly my promise had been pledged,
it must be held sacred, even according to the letter,
from which the Friends permit no deviation.
All these considerations wrought me
up to a kind of impatience yesterday evening; so that
I snatched up my hat, and prepared for a sally beyond
the cultivated farm and ornamented grounds of Mount
Sharon, just as if I were desirous to escape from
the realms of art, into those of free and unconstrained
nature.
I was scarcely more delighted when
I first entered this peaceful demesne, than I now
was such is the instability and inconsistency
of human nature! when I escaped from it
to the open downs, which had formerly seemed so waste
and dreary, The air I breathed felt purer and more
bracing. The clouds, riding high upon a summer
breeze, drove, in gay succession, over my head, now
obscuring the sun, now letting its rays stream in
transient flashes upon various parts of the landscape,
and especially upon the broad mirror of the distant
Firth of Solway.
I advanced on the scene with the light
step of a liberated captive; and, like John Bunyan’s
Pilgrim, could have found in my heart to sing as I
went on my way. It seemed as if my gaiety had
accumulated while suppressed, and that I was, in my
present joyous mood, entitled to expend the savings
of the previous week. But just as I was about
to uplift a merry stave, I heard, to my joyful surprise,
the voices of three or more choristers, singing, with
considerable success, the lively old catch,
For all our men were very very merry,
And all our men were drinking:
There were two men of mine,
Three men of thine,
And three that belonged to old Sir Thom
o’ Lyne;
As they went to the ferry, they were very
very merry,
And all our men were drinking.’
[The original of this catch is to
be found in Cowley’s witty comedy of the
guardian, the first edition. It does not
exist in the second and revised edition, called the
cutter of Coleman street.
Captain blade. Ha,
ha, boys, another catch.
And all our men are
very very merry,
and all our men were
drinking.
Cutter. One man of mine.
DOGREL. Two men of mine.
Blade. Three men of
mine.
Cutter. And one man
of mine.
OMNES. As we went by
the way we were drunk, drunk,
damnably
drunk, and all our
men were very very merry,
&c.
Such are the words, which are somewhat
altered and amplified in the text. The play was
acted in presence of Charles ii, then Prince of
Wales, in 1641. The catch in the text has been
happily set to music.]
As the chorus ended, there followed
a loud and hearty laugh by way of cheers. Attracted
by sounds which were so congenial to my present feelings,
I made towards the spot from which they came, cautiously,
however, for the downs, as had been repeatedly hinted
to me, had no good name; and the attraction of the
music, without rivalling that of the sirens in melody,
might have been followed by similarly inconvenient
consequences to an incautious amateur.
I crept on, therefore, trusting that
the sinuosities of the ground, broken as it was into
knells and sand-pits, would permit me to obtain a
sight of the musicians before I should be observed
by them. As I advanced, the old ditty was again
raised. The voices seemed those of a man and
two boys; they were rough, but kept good time, and
were managed with too much skill to belong to the
ordinary country people.
Jack looked at the sun, and cried, Fire,
fire, fire;
Tom stabled his keffel in Birkendale mire;
Jem started a calf, and halloo’d
for a stag;
Will mounted a gate-post instead of his
nag:
For all our men were very very merry,
And all our men were drinking;
There were two
men of mine,
Three men of thine,
And three that belonged to old Sir Thom
o’ Lyne;
As they went to the ferry, they were very
very merry,
For all our men were drinking.
The voices, as they mixed in their
several parts, and ran through them, untwisting and
again entwining all the links of the merry old catch,
seemed to have a little touch of the bacchanalian spirit
which they celebrated, and showed plainly that the
musicians were engaged in the same joyous revel as
the MENYIE of old Sir Thom o’ Lyne. At length
I came within sight of them, three in number, where
they sat cosily niched into what you might call a
bunker, a little sand-pit, dry and snug, and
surrounded by its banks, and a screen of whins in full
bloom.
The only one of the trio whom I recognized
as a personal acquaintance was the notorious little
Benjie, who, having just finished his stave, was cramming
a huge luncheon of pie-crust into his mouth with one
hand, while in the other he held a foaming tankard,
his eyes dancing with all the glee of a forbidden
revel; and his features, which have at all times a
mischievous archness of expression, confessing the
full sweetness of stolen waters, and bread eaten in
secret.
There was no mistaking the profession
of the male and female, who were partners with Benjie
in these merry doings. The man’s long loose-bodied
greatcoat (wrap-rascal as the vulgar term it), the
fiddle-case, with its straps, which lay beside him,
and a small knapsack which might contain his few necessaries;
a clear grey eye; features which, in contending with
many a storm, had not lost a wild and, careless expression
of glee, animated at present, when he was exercising
for his own pleasure the arts which he usually practised
for bread, all announced one of those peripatetic
followers of Orpheus whom the vulgar call a strolling
fiddler. Gazing more attentively, I easily discovered
that though the poor musician’s eyes were open,
their sense was shut, and that the ecstasy with which
he turned them up to heaven only derived its apparent
expression from his own internal emotions, but received
no assistance from the visible objects around.
Beside him sat his female companion, in a man’s
hat, a blue coat, which seemed also to have been an
article of male apparel, and a red petticoat.
She was cleaner, in person and in clothes, than such
itinerants generally are; and, having been in her day
a strapping Bona Roba, she did not even yet
neglect some attention to her appearance; wore a large
amber necklace, and silver ear-rings, and had her
laid fastened across her breast with a brooch of the
same metal.
The man also looked clean, notwithstanding
the meanness of his attire, and had a decent silk
handkerchief well knotted about his throat, under
which peeped a clean owerlay. His beard, also,
instead of displaying a grizzly stubble, unmowed for
several days, flowed in thick and comely abundance
over the breast, to the length of six inches, and mingled
with his hair, which was but beginning to exhibit
a touch of age. To sum up his appearance, the
loose garment which I have described was secured around
him by a large old-fashioned belt, with brass studs,
in which hung a dirk, with a knife and fork, its usual
accompaniments. Altogether, there was something
more wild and adventurous-looking about the man than
I could have expected to see in an ordinary modern
crowder; and the bow which he now and then drew across
the violin, to direct his little choir, was decidedly
that of no ordinary performer.
You must understand that many of these
observations were the fruits of after remark; for
I had scarce approached so near as to get a distinct
view of the party, when my friend Benjie’s lurching
attendant, which he calls by the appropriate name
of Hemp, began to cock his tail and ears, and, sensible
of my presence, flew, barking like a fury, to the place
where I had meant to lie concealed till I heard another
song. I was obliged, however, to jump on my feet,
and intimidate Hemp, who would otherwise have bit
me, by two sound kicks on the ribs, which sent him
howling back to his master.
Little Benjie seemed somewhat dismayed
at my appearance; but, calculating on my placability,
and remembering, perhaps, that the ill-used Solomon
was no palfrey of mine, he speedily affected great
glee, and almost in one breath assured the itinerants
that I was ’a grand gentleman, and had plenty
of money, and was very kind to poor folk;’ and
informed me that this was ’Willie Steenson Wandering
Willie the best fiddler that ever kittled thairm with
horse-hair.’
The woman rose and curtsied; and Wandering
Willie sanctioned his own praises with a nod, and
the ejaculation, ’All is true that the little
boy says.’
I asked him if he was of this country.
‘This country!’ replied
the blind man ’I am of every country
in broad Scotland, and a wee bit of England to the
boot. But yet I am, in some sense, of this country;
for I was born within hearing of the roar of Solway.
Will I give your honour a touch of the auld bread-winner?’
He preluded as he spoke, in a manner
which really excited my curiosity; and then, taking
the old tune of Galashiels for his theme, he graced
it with a number of wild, complicated, and beautiful
variations; during which it was wonderful to observe
how his sightless face was lighted up under the conscious
pride and heartfelt delight in the exercise of his
own very considerable powers.
‘What think you of that, now, for threescore
and twa?’
I expressed my surprise and pleasure.
‘A rant, man an auld
rant,’ said Willie; ’naething like the
music ye hae in your ballhouses and your playhouses
in Edinbro’; but it’s weel aneugh ânes
in a way at a dykeside. Here’s another it’s
no a Scotch tune, but it passes for ane Oswald
made it himsell, I reckon he has cheated
mony ane, but he canna cheat Wandering Willie.’
He then played your favourite air
of Roslin Castle, with a number of beautiful variations,
some of which I am certain were almost extempore.
‘You have another fiddle there,
my friend,’ said I ’Have you
a comrade?’ But Willie’s ears were deaf,
or his attention was still busied with the tune.
The female replied in his stead, ’O
aye, sir troth we have a partner a
gangrel body like oursells. No but my hinny might
have been better if he had liked; for mony a bein
nook in mony a braw house has been offered to my hinny
Willie, if he wad but just bide still and play to the
gentles.’
‘Whisht, woman! whisht!’
said the blind man, angrily, shaking his locks; ‘dinna
deave the gentleman wi’ your havers. Stay
in a house and play to the gentles! strike
up when my leddy pleases, and lay down the bow when
my lord bids! Na, na, that’s nae
life for Willie. Look out, Maggie peer
out, woman, and see if ye can see Robin coming.
Deil be in him! He has got to the lee-side of
some smuggler’s punch-bowl, and he wunna budge
the night, I doubt.’
‘That is your consort’s
instrument,’ said I ’ Will you
give me leave to try my skill?’ I slipped at
the same time a shilling into the woman’s hand.
‘I dinna ken whether I dare
trust Robin’s fiddle to ye,’ said Willie,
bluntly. His wife gave him a twitch. ‘Hout
awa, Maggie,’ he said in contempt of the hint;
’though the gentleman may hae gien ye siller,
he may have nae bowhand for a’ that, and I’ll
no trust Robin’s fiddle wi’ an ignoramus.
But that’s no sae muckle amiss,’ he added,
as I began to touch the instrument; ‘I am thinking
ye have some skill o’ the craft.’
To confirm him in this favourable
opinion, I began to execute such a complicated flourish
as I thought must have turned Crowdero into a pillar
of stone with envy and wonder. I scaled the top
of the finger-board, to dive at once to the bottom skipped
with flying fingers, like Timotheus, from shift to
shift struck arpeggios and harmonic tones,
but without exciting any of the astonishment which
I had expected.
Willie indeed listened to me with
considerable attention; but I was no sooner finished,
than he immediately mimicked on his own instrument
the fantastic complication of tones which I had produced,
and made so whimsical a parody of my performance,
that, although somewhat angry, I could not help laughing
heartily, in which I was joined by Benjie, whose reverence
for me held him under no restraint; while the poor
dame, fearful, doubtless, of my taking offence at
this familiarity, seemed divided betwixt her conjugal
reverence for her Willie, and her desire to give him
a hint for his guidance.
At length the old man stopped of his
own accord, and, as if he had sufficiently rebuked
me by his mimicry, he said, ‘But for a’
that, ye will play very weel wi’ a little practice
and some gude teaching. But ye maun learn to
put the heart into it, man to put the heart
into it.’
I played an air in simpler taste,
and received more decided approbation.
‘That’s something like
it man. Öd, ye are a clever birkie!’
The woman touched his coat again.
’The gentleman is a gentleman, Willie ye
maunna speak that gate to him, hinnie.’
‘The deevil I maunna!’
said Willie; ’and what for maunna I? If
he was ten gentles, he canna draw a bow like me, can
he?’
‘Indeed I cannot, my honest
friend,’ said I; ’and if you will go with
me to a house hard by, I would be glad to have a night
with you.’
Here I looked round, and observed
Benjie smothering a laugh, which I was sure had mischief
in it. I seized him suddenly by the ear, and made
him confess that he was laughing at the thoughts of
the reception which a fiddler was likely to get from
the Quakers at Mount Sharon. I chucked him from
me, not sorry that his mirth had reminded me in time
of what I had for the moment forgotten; and invited
the itinerant to go with me to Shepherd’s Bush,
from which I proposed to send word to Mr. Geddes that
I should not return home that evening. But the
minstrel declined this invitation also. He was
engaged for the night, he said, to a dance in the
neighbourhood, and vented a round execration on the
laziness or drunkenness of his comrade, who had not
appeared at the place of rendezvous.
‘I will go with you instead
of him,’ said I, in a sudden whim; ’and
I will give you a crown to introduce me as your comrade.’
’You gang instead of Rob
the Rambler! My certie, freend, ye are no blate!’
answered Wandering Willie, in a tone which announced
death to my frolic.
But Maggie, whom the offer of the
crown had not escaped, began to open on that scent
with a maundering sort of lecture. ’Oh Willie!
hinny Willie, whan will ye learn to be wise?
There’s a crown to be win for naething but saying
ae man’s name instead of anither. And, wae’s
me! I hae just a shilling of this gentleman’s
gieing, and a boddle of my ain; and ye wunna, bend
your will sae muckle as to take up the siller that’s
flung at your feet! Ye will die the death of a
cadger’s powney, in a wreath of drift! and what
can I do better than lie doun and die wi’ you?
for ye winna let me win siller to keep either you or
mysell leevin.’
‘Haud your nonsense tongue,
woman,’ said Willie, but less absolutely than
before. ‘Is he a real gentleman, or ane
of the player-men?’
‘I’se uphaud him a real gentleman,’
said the woman.
‘I’se uphaud ye ken little
of the matter,’ said Willie; ’let us see
haud of your hand, neebor, gin ye like.
I gave him my hand. He said to
himself, ’Aye, aye, here are fingers that have
seen canny service.’ Then running his hand
over my hair, my face, and my dress, he went on with
his soliloquy; ’Aye, aye, muisted hair, braidclaith
o’ the best, and seenteen hundred linen on his
back, at the least o’ it. And how do you
think, my braw birkie, that you are to pass for a
tramping fiddler?’
‘My dress is plain,’ said
I, indeed I had chosen my most ordinary
suit, out of compliment to my Quaker friends, ’and
I can easily pass for a young farmer out upon a frolic.
Come, I will double the crown I promised you.’
‘Damn your crowns!’ said
the disinterested man of music. ’I would
like to have a round wi’ you, that’s certain; but
a farmer, and with a hand that never held pleugh-stilt
or pettle, that will never do. Ye may pass for
a trades-lad from Dumfries, or a student upon the ramble,
or the like o’ that. But hark ye, lad;
if ye expect to be ranting among the queans o’
lasses where ye are gaun, ye will come by the waur,
I can tell ye; for the fishers are wild chaps, and
will bide nae taunts.’
I promised to be civil and cautious;
and, to smooth the good woman, I slipped the promised
piece into her hand. The acute organs of the blind
man detected this little manoeuvre.
‘Are ye at it again wi’
the siller, ye jaud? I’ll be sworn ye wad
rather hear ae twalpenny clink against another, than
have a spring from Rory Dall, [Blind Rorie, a famous
musician according to tradition.] if he was-coming
alive again ânes errand. Gang doun the gate
to Lucky Gregson’s and get the things ye want,
and bide there till ele’en hours in the morn;
and if you see Robin, send him on to me.’
‘Am I no gaun to the ploy, then?’
said Maggie, in a disappointed tone.
‘And what for should ye?’
said her lord and master; ‘to dance a’
night, I’se warrant, and no to be fit to walk
your tae’s-length the morn, and we have ten
Scots miles afore us? Na, na. Stable
the steed, and pit your wife to bed, when there’s
night wark to do.’
‘Aweel, aweel, Willie hinnie,
ye ken best; but oh, take an unco care o’ yoursell,
and mind ye haena the blessing o’ sight.’
‘Your tongue gars me whiles
tire of the blessing of hearing, woman,’ replied
’Willie, in answer to this tender exhortation.
But I now put in for my interest.
’Hollo, good folks, remember that I am to send
the boy to Mount Sharon, and if you go to the Shepherd’s
Bush, honest woman, how the deuce am I to guide the
blind man where he is going? I know little or
nothing of the country.’
‘And ye ken mickle less of my
hinnie, sir,’ replied Maggie, ’that think
he needs ony guiding; he’s the best guide himsell
that ye’ll find between Criffell and Carlisle.
Horse-road and foot-path, parish-road and kirk-road,
high-road and cross-road, he kens ilka foot of ground
in Nithsdale.’
‘Aye, ye might have said in
braid Scotland, gudewife,’ added the fiddler.
’But gang your ways, Maggie, that’s the
first wise word ye hae spoke the day. I wish
it was dark night, and rain, and wind, for the gentleman’s
sake, that I might show him there is whiles when ane
had better want een than have them; for I am as true
a guide by darkness as by daylight.’
Internally as well pleased that my
companion was not put to give me this last proof of
his skill, I wrote a note with a pencil, desiring Samuel
to bring my horses at midnight, when I thought my frolic
would be wellnigh over, to the place to which the
bearer should direct him, and I sent little Benjie
with an apology to the worthy Quakers.
As we parted in different directions,
the good woman said, ’Oh, sir, if ye wad but
ask Willie to tell ye ane of his tales to shorten the
gate! He can speak like ony minister frae the
pu’pit, and he might have been a minister himsell,
but’
‘Haud your tongue, ye fule!’
said Willie, ’But stay, Meg gie
me a kiss, ne maunna part in anger, neither.’ And
thus our society separated.
[It is certain that in many cases
the blind have, by constant exercise of their other
organs, learned to overcome a defect which one would
think incapable of being supplied. Every reader
must remember the celebrated Blind Jack of Knaresborough,
who lived by laying out roads.]