T MICHAEL 
 
 . AND 
 
 • • 
 
 INVERESK
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 St Michael and Inveresk
 
 All riq-hts reserved.
 
 St Michael 
 
 and Inveresk 
 
 Edited by 
 
 James Wilkie, B.L., S.S.C. 
 
 Published by 
 
 Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier 
 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
 1894
 
 /3A 
 S310 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 ^ PAGE 
 
 Introduction . . . . . . ii 
 
 By the Rev. James Sharp, Minister of Inveresk. 
 
 The Patron Saint of Inveresk ... 21 
 
 By the Rev. James Cooper, D.D., Aberdeen. 
 
 The Monks of Newbattle and Inveresk . . 33 
 
 By the Rev. J. C. Carrick, B.D., F.S.A. 
 
 The Home-coming of Ford Bereton . . 63 
 
 By S. R. Crockett. 
 
 Dr Carlyle of Inveresk .... 73 
 
 By James Wilkie, B.L. 
 
 An Eskside Idyll ..... 91 
 
 By Annie S. Sw^an. 
 
 Lady Margaret of Eskdale . . . 117 
 
 By R. Menzies Fergusson. 
 
 Lord Hailes ...... 125 
 
 By F. P. Walton, B.A. Oxon., LL.B. 
 
 To a Household Pet ..... 145 
 
 By Isabella Fyvie Mayo (Edward Garrett). 
 
 541043 
 
 LIBRARf
 
 6 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Letter C : An Incident of the Epildrum 
 
 Bazaar ...... i47 
 
 By Brown Paterson. 
 
 Pain and a Childheart .... 167 
 
 By the Rev. T. H. Chapman, B.D. 
 
 M'Nab's Flow ...... 169 
 
 By Sydney Wyatt. 
 
 At Santa Barbara ..... 199 
 
 By Fleming Jose Antonio Bremner.
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Prince Charlie crossing the Roman Bridge at 
 
 Musselburgh .... Frontispiece 
 
 By Allan Stewart. 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Portrait of Rev. James Sharp, Minister of 
 
 InVEKESK ...... 10 
 
 Queen Mary surrendering to the Confederate 
 
 Lords at Carberry . . . ■ . 14 
 
 By Allan Stewart, 
 
 David Macbeth Moir ..... 18 
 
 From an Engraving. {By permission of Messrs 
 
 Blackic Ssr' Son.) 
 
 Monks' Houses at Inveresk .... 34 
 
 Fro?n a Photo by Alex. Mitchell, 
 
 On Solway Sands ... . . 62 
 
 Frovi a Picture by W. D. M'Kay, R.S.A. 
 
 S. R. Crockett ...... 64 
 
 From a Photo by Russell Ss' Sons.
 
 8 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Jupiter Carlyle ..... 74 
 
 From the Autobiography. {By pemiissioti of 
 Messrs William Blackzuood &= Sons. ) 
 
 The Esk in Flood ..... 92 
 
 ESKDALE ....... n8 
 
 By J. Denovan Adam, R.S.A. 
 
 Lord Hailes ...... 126 
 
 After Kay, by Arthur Percy Dixon. {By per- 
 mission of Messrs A, &' C. Black.) 
 
 New Hailes House ..... 136 
 
 By Arthur Percy Dixon. 
 
 The Letter C . . . . . 146 
 
 By Brown Johnston. 
 
 M'Nab's Island at Killin .... 171
 
 PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 THE Editor desires to place on record his 
 thanks to the literary and artistic friends 
 who have so generously shown their interest in the 
 object for which it is published, by contributing 
 to this volume. He wishes also to acknowledge 
 the courtesy of Messrs A. & C. Black, in permitting 
 the sketch of Lord Hailes in Kay's Portraits to 
 be made use of by Mr Arthur Percy Dixon, and 
 to thank Messrs Blackwood & Sons, for allowing 
 the reproduction of the portrait of " Jupiter " 
 Carlyle from the Autobiography ; Messrs Blackie 
 & Son, Limited, for a like permission in regard 
 to the portrait of Delta ; The Spalding Club, for 
 a similar favour in regard to the coloured picture 
 of St Michael from the Registr. Episcop. Aber- 
 donensiSy Vol. H,, which appears in the Edition de 
 luxe ; and Messrs Brown & Co., of Lanark, and 
 Mr Spence of Musselburgh, for permission to use 
 photographs by them. His thanks are also due 
 to his friend, Mr Alexander Mitchell, Solicitor, 
 Musselburgh, for the view of the Monks' Houses 
 in Inveresk, specially taken.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THIS book is, in some respects, unique in 
 character though not in aim. It is unique 
 in so far as it is a combination of talent, which, it 
 is hardly likely, will ever be brought together again. 
 The writers and artists — some of them of world- 
 wide fame — have had free scope in the choice of 
 their subjects, but most of them, having in view the 
 special object of the book, have dealt with scenes 
 and events closely associated with the Parish. The
 
 12 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 book, then, may be described, not as a continuous 
 narrative of events arranged in chronological order, 
 but rather as a series of papers on a variety of 
 subjects, which, although not all connected with 
 the Parish history, are nevertheless brought within 
 its compass for the furtherance of an important 
 parochial object. And while the attainment of 
 this object is the primary reason for its production 
 as a memorial of a local event, it is believed that 
 the historical and biographical details which it 
 relates will have a permanent value to many far 
 beyond the boundaries of the Parish. 
 
 The local event referred to is the complete 
 change of the interior, with handsome additions to 
 the exterior of Inveresk Parish Church. To aid 
 this desirable and worthy object, the contributors to 
 this volume have freely given their services, and 
 the result of their kindly efforts promises to make 
 a tangible addition to the funds required. 
 
 To many who have never set foot in this historic 
 Parish, the Church at Inveresk is a perfectly 
 familiar object on the landscape. From its pro- 
 minent site it is known in this part of the Lothians 
 as the "visible kirk." Unfortunately for the 
 reputation of the architect and the ecclesiastical
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 3 
 
 taste of a by-gone generation, too much of the 
 structure is visible. It is one of the very largest 
 churches in the land, built in the last years of the 
 ministry of Jupiter Carlyle, and is the result of a 
 confusion of ideas about the propriety or fitness of 
 making the House of the Lord beautiful. A few 
 years after it was opened for public worship its 
 bareness was considerably relieved by the erection 
 of a most graceful spire. It is a tradition in the 
 Parish that those who were most closely connected 
 with the building of the new Church being somewhat 
 alarmed at the barn-like shape of their architec- 
 tural efforts, met with the patron of the living — the 
 then Duke of Buccleuch — and one of them, with an 
 eye to the well-known liberality of his Grace, said 
 — " Don't you think, your Grace, that the Church 
 would be the better of a steeple ? " " Yes," replied 
 his Grace, " at each corner." Only one, however, 
 was built, and it stands to-day, pointing the 
 parishioners upwards, and serving as a land-mark 
 to the mariners of the Forth. 
 
 The first thing which impresses the visitor to the 
 hill of Inveresk is that the building is strangely out 
 of keeping with its site. The site is perhaps the 
 finest in Scotland. It overlooks a vast stretch of
 
 14 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 land and sea. To the north the waters of the Firth 
 roll at our feet, carrying on their bosom the ocean 
 steamer, and dotted with the numberless sails of 
 the fishing boats as they bear to land the merchan- 
 dise of the sea. Beyond its waters stand out the 
 Lomonds of Fifeshire, with the Grampians of 
 Perthshire striving to peep over their shoulders ; to 
 the west is seen the lion-shaped seat of Arthur, 
 with the growing capital forcing its way down by 
 its side, while in the distance the Ochils stand like 
 giant steeds in their stalls, and the setting sun 
 captures the peak of Ben Ledi in its golden fire ; to 
 the south the sloping Pentlands and the flat 
 Moorfoots attract the eye, with the palace woods of 
 Dalkeith to complete the picture ; to the east the 
 hill of Carberry — where Queen Mary surrendered to 
 the confederate lords — crowned with the ancient 
 keep of Fa'side, guards the approach of friend 
 and foe. In the midst of the valley flows the 
 winding Esk, past the foot of the hill and on 
 through the old town of Musselburgh, to mingle its 
 waters with the Firth outside. Such a variety of 
 scenery, beheld from such a magnificent standpoint, 
 is as impressive as it is memorable. 
 
 But the site itself has had a remarkable history.
 
 INTRODUCTION 1 5 
 
 The Romans, with that keen eye for commanding 
 positions, which was a great secret of their success 
 in warfare, seized upon this spot on which to estab- 
 lish a colonia or municipium. Here, after bringing 
 the natives into submission, they settled themselves 
 and paved a way to what is now the harbour, to 
 receive supplies from across the sea. Their camp 
 stretched from the shores of the Firth away inland 
 to a place near Dalkeith, still called Campend. 
 Many remains of their visit have been found on 
 the hill and in its neighbourhood. Here, too, at 
 a date far removed, Somerset, the Protector of 
 England, planted his cannon on a mound still 
 preserved, to pour his deadly shot upon the Scots 
 as they crossed the old bridge which spans the 
 Esk, on their way to the disastrous field of Pinkie. 
 When victory crowned his arms — 
 
 " Sated with blood, and glad his prey to leave, 
 Five hours in hot pursuit and carnage spent, 
 In yon green clump, by Inveresk, at eve, 
 Proud Somerset, the victor, pitched his tent." 
 
 Here, too, came Cromwell, and in Inveresk House, 
 hard by, there is a room still called by his name, 
 from his writing his despatches there. And in 
 more recent times there passed under its shadow
 
 1 6 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Prince Charlie and his Highland host to the battle 
 of Prestonpans. 
 
 Around and on this spot there clusters a strange 
 and eventful history of arms and warfare. But its 
 religious history is no less remarkable. It has been 
 consecrated as a place of worship since the days of 
 the Romans. On its brow Apollo and Christ have 
 in turn received adoration. Only two churches 
 have occupied this site since the introduction of 
 Christianity — the first, it is supposed, being built 
 out of the ruins of the Roman praetorium. It was 
 dedicated to St Michael, and stood till the 
 beginning of this century, when it was removed to 
 make way for the present more commodious but 
 much less elegant structure. One cannot help 
 expressing regret that this ancient building has 
 entirely disappeared, because, had it been pre- 
 served, it would have been prized as one of the 
 earliest examples of ecclesiastical architecture in 
 our land. It is strange that Jupiter Carlyle seems 
 to have acquiesced in its demolition without any 
 apparent show of remonstrance. 
 
 Of the literary associations of the Parish some- 
 thing must also be said. It is to be feared that 
 its inhabitants have been more military than
 
 INTRODUCTION I 7 
 
 literary in their tastes and inclinations. From 
 their numbers they have sent forth many who 
 have won distinction in the service of their 
 country, both on land and sea. On many 
 a stone in the churchyard there are recorded 
 deeds of daring and renown on the part of the 
 sons of the Parish. The military spirit was no 
 doubt fostered by the presence of a barracks in 
 the outskirts of Musselburgh, which was removed 
 soon after all danger of invasion had been averted 
 by the decisive battle on the plains of Waterloo. 
 So largely did the military spirit predominate in 
 the burgh, and so much did its prosperity depend 
 on the existence of the barracks, that it is said 
 that when it was removed to another place a 
 wit wrote on the wall of the Town-house these 
 words, " A town to let." 
 
 But the Parish can lay claim to the possession 
 of a fair proportion of literary celebrities as well. 
 Several of these are dealt with in this book. The 
 valuable autobiography of the Rev. Dr Carlyle 
 reveals a fascinating picture of the intellectual 
 life of his time. The humours attending the 
 production of the "Tragedy of Douglas" bring 
 into view some of the outstanding literary men of 
 
 B
 
 1 8 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 that age. The manse was the haunt of litterateurs 
 of all kinds, and as "Jupiter" has the reputation 
 of being the first minister in the Scottish Kirk to 
 play the game of cards without first seeing that 
 the door was securely barred, one can imagine that 
 their learned disquisitions were sometimes broken 
 in upon by the shuffling of the forbidden books. 
 Time must have passed quickly in those days 
 too, if one may judge from a Latin inscription 
 on an old sun-dial in the manse garden, still 
 bearing the name of Jupiter's predecessor, and 
 which, being translated, is this : " Time flies, swifter 
 than the east wind " ( Tempus fugit ocius Euro). 
 The successor of Carlyle, Dr Moodie, was famous 
 in his day as a Hebrew and Oriental scholar, and 
 from extensive notes found in the Session Charter- 
 chest, seems to have delivered lectures on the 
 Hebrew language and literature. The Rev. John 
 G. Beveridge, who succeeded him in the ministry, 
 was a man of highly cultivated literary tastes 
 and habits. He was a frequent contributor in 
 his early days to Chambers Journal^ as well as 
 being the author of the learned and exhaustive 
 statistical account of the Parish. The ministry 
 of these three men in this Parish extended over
 
 By ^ej-inhsion oj Messrs Blackic &^ Son.
 
 INTRODUCTION I9 
 
 the long period of a century and a half. Only- 
 one has suffered translation to another charge 
 since, which called forth the witty remark from 
 an old parishioner, " that he was the only minister 
 that had left the parish on his ain acco'nt." But 
 it is to David Macbeth Moir, the "Delta" of 
 Blackwood, that the Parish most of all rests its 
 claim for literary distinction. The memory of 
 the " beloved physician " will ever be held in 
 honour and respect in the town of his birth, and 
 the author of " Mansie Waugh " and the charm- 
 ing " Domestic Verses " have won for him a per- 
 manent place in the affections of his countrymen. 
 No better estimate of the man and his work 
 could be given than that of his close friend, the 
 late Mr Beveridge : " The name which in modern 
 days has reflected the greatest lustre on this 
 parish is that of David Macbeth Moir, Esq., the 
 distinguished Delta of Blackwood' s Magazine^ who, 
 amidst all the harassing duties of the medical pro- 
 fession, has found time to embody in many chaste 
 and touching strains those high imaginings which 
 visit the mind of genius ; as well as to stray into 
 the paths of richest and broadest humour — witness 
 ' Mansie Waugh's ' irresistible drollness ; whose
 
 20 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 laborious history of the art, which he has himself 
 so successfully studied, forms a most valued acqui- 
 sition to the practitioner ; whose songs, in the 
 recent republication of ' Burns' Lyrics,' with 
 music, take a deserved place beside those of 
 the illustrious national minstrel ; of whose genius 
 the fruits are to be found scattered over every 
 department of periodical literature ; and who with 
 the gifts of genius has none of those defects of 
 character which have too frequently sullied the 
 brightest talents." 
 
 This sketch — all too scanty — must not conclude 
 without an expression of thanks to the authors 
 of the various papers in this book, not only for 
 their kindly sympathy and practical help in the 
 attainment of a worthy object, but also because 
 the value of their contributions will cover the 
 demerits and defects of the Introduction. 
 
 JAMES SHARP. 
 
 Manse of Inveresk, 
 October 1894.
 
 THE PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK
 
 THE 
 
 PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK 
 
 ST MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL 
 By the Rev. James Cooper, D.D,, Aberdeen 
 
 THE ancient dedication of our Parish Church 
 is to St Michael the Archangel, or perhaps 
 rather — for this is the fuller form — to St Michael 
 and All Angels. 
 
 It is a dedication common throughout the length 
 and breadth of Christendom. In Scotland it is 
 easy to enumerate a long list of churches which, 
 since the Reformation as well as before it, have 
 been designated in St Michael's honour. The most 
 sumptuous of our mediaeval parish churches — now 
 happily undergoing a restoration worthy of its 
 architectural splendour and historic interest — bears 
 the Archangel's name, St Michael's of Linlithgow. 
 So does the tiniest, and the latest, example, we
 
 24 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 may say, of " old " Gothic in the country — the 
 curious sepulchral chapel erected in 1705 by Sir 
 Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, " the Michael 
 Kirk " near Elgin. So does one of the noblest of 
 our new Gothic churches, St Michael's, Edinburgh. 
 Other examples which readily occur to one are St 
 Michael's, Dumfries, in whose churchyard is the 
 grave of Robert Burns; St Michael's, Crieff; and 
 St Michael's, Dallas — the solitary pre-Reformation 
 church remaining within the bounds of the Presby- 
 tery of Forres. There is a parish of Kirkmichael 
 in the Presbytery of Lochmaben, another in the 
 Presbytery of Ayr, a third in the Presbytery of 
 Dunkeld, and a fourth in the Presbytery of Aber- 
 nethy. The reason of such widespread favour is 
 not far to seek. Whether we regard the Holy 
 Angels as " worshipping spirits " — the priesthood 
 of the upper sanctuary — 
 
 " Who all night long unwearied sing 
 High praise to the Eternal King " ; 
 
 or whether we rejoice in the help and guardian- 
 ship they are " sent forth to minister unto them 
 who shall be heirs of salvation " — the thought of 
 their worship and their love is in a high degree
 
 THE PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK 25 
 
 inspiring. Nor is it only that we would fain asso- 
 ciate ourselves with them. Their example is com- 
 mended to us by the Highest of all authorities in 
 the prayer He taught us, "Thy will be done on 
 earth, as it is done in heaven." Then, their 
 humility — the highest of them waiting on little 
 children! (St Matt, xviii. 10). While the help 
 they render us — aid unseen against foes unseen — 
 is in a sphere where we are powerless : — 
 
 " How oft do they their silver bowers leave 
 
 To come to succour us that succour want ! 
 How oft do they with golden pinions cleave 
 
 The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, 
 
 Against foul fiends to aid us militant ! 
 They for us fight ; they watch and duly ward. 
 
 And their bright squadrons round about us plant, 
 And all for love, and nothing for reward ! 
 O why should heavenly God to men have such regard ?" 
 
 It is impossible that men who believe this should 
 not delight to acknowledge benefits so great. No 
 wonder that the pioneers of Christianity, few, un- 
 armed, dependent at every step on supernatural 
 assistance, rejoiced as they took possession of the 
 land for Christ, to own by such dedications the 
 angelic help by which they were enabled to make 
 good their ground against the embattled powers of
 
 26 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 darkness ! Precisely the same feeling has been 
 expressed in our own day by the noble Scottish 
 missionaries who are doing for British Central 
 Africa the work which St Aidan and St Cuthbert 
 did for Northumbria and Lothian of old. " The 
 name we propose to give our church," writes one 
 of them, "is St Michael and All Angels, in 
 record of the truth that the angels of God hold 
 up this very structure of which we speak, as they 
 do the structure of the universe, the structure of 
 society ; and that powers more mighty than earth's 
 dominions hold Africa for God." 
 
 St Michael is described in Holy Scripture as, 
 under God, the captain of this celestial hierarchy. 
 He is spoken of to the prophet Daniel as the 
 guardian angel of God's people Israel — "the great 
 prince which standeth up for the children of thy 
 people" (Dan. x. 21); and in the Revelation of 
 St John (xii. 7) he appears as the leader of the 
 Holy Angels in that " war in heaven," where they 
 " fought against the dragon and his angels," so 
 that " the great dragon was cast out, that old 
 serpent called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth 
 the whole world : he was cast out into the earth, 
 and his angels were cast out with him." Where-
 
 THE PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK 2"] 
 
 fore the Greeks call St Michael, *' The Taxiarch " — 
 the " Leader of Armies," and the Latins hail him 
 
 " . . . . the warrior Primate 
 Of celestial hierarchy." 
 
 Beautiful is the very thought of him, and of that 
 " blessed obedience and order" of his spotless host, 
 " without which," said the dying Hooker, " peace 
 could not be in heaven, and would that it were so 
 upon earth." Beautifully, too, has the idea been 
 expressed in Christian art. One recalls the 
 radiant figures of St Michael which we owe to 
 Perugino and to Raphael — perhaps most of all 
 that by Guido Reni in his glowing canvas in 
 the Church of the Capuchins at Rome, where St 
 Michael tramples on the vanquished demon, and 
 with a countenance half-scornful, half-pitiful, chains 
 him to the burning rock ! Of her monuments of 
 religious art, Scotland was swept bare in the 
 turbulent century, from 1560 to 1660 ; yet three 
 figures of St Michael, small indeed but full of 
 interest, have managed to escape. His sculptured 
 image holds his place alike at conspicuous Linlith- 
 gow and at sequestered Dallas ; and there is 
 a simple but very pretty miniature of him in the 
 " Catalogue of Ornaments of the Cathedral of
 
 28 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Aberdeen," 1549 : it is figured in the frontispiece of 
 the Registrum of that diocese (Vol. II.), published 
 by the Spalding Club in 1845. 
 
 But while St Michael and All Angels may fitly 
 be honoured everywhere, there were at Inveresk two 
 circumstances which no doubt guided our fore- 
 fathers in their choice, and rendered it peculiarly 
 appropriate : we refer to the natural character 
 of the site, and to its occupation as a place of 
 idolatrous worship in the pre-Christian period. It 
 is, in the first place, a height : not very lofty, it is 
 true, yet commanding the whole plain between the 
 Pentlands and the Firth. In the second place, from 
 time immemorial, Baal, or Bel, the sun-god, had been 
 worshipped there ; and there, latterly, the Roman 
 conquerors had built a temple to one of their 
 divinities. On both accounts alike, the spot was 
 suggestive to our Christian ancestors of St Michael 
 the Archangel. As a messenger from heaven he 
 was naturally conceived of as alighting on the 
 point of earth that is nearest heaven. (So, in 
 " Paradise Lost," Satan, " transformed " in appear- 
 ance " into an angel of light," descends on Mount 
 Niphates.) A height, as one has said, is " a 
 natural threshold for a Divine arrival." It was
 
 THE PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK 29 
 
 on heights, in the Old Testament — the rocky 
 height of Sinai, the sunnier Mount of Zion — that 
 God Himself descended : it was there that the 
 presence of His attendant angels is recorded. 
 In churches built on hills the early Christians 
 were peculiarly reminded of those great events 
 of old. Their sanctuary might be humble, but 
 it was not poorer in spiritual privilege. God 
 was with them ; and with God His angels. 
 " The chariots of God," they sang, " are twenty 
 thousand, even thousands of angels : the Lord 
 is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place " 
 (Ps. Ixviii. 17). It was with some such thought 
 as this that, all over the Christian world, churches 
 set on rocks and hills were dedicated to St 
 Michael. In Greece there are innumerable ex- 
 amples ; and in Italy also : indeed, it was the 
 dedication in honour of St Michael of the shrine 
 on Monte Gargano in Apulia in 493, or of that 
 in 610 on the rock-like "circus" of Hadrian's 
 mausoleum — hence called the Castle of St Angelo 
 — that gave occasion, Alban Butler tells us, to 
 the institution of the Feast of Michaelmas (Sep- 
 tember 29). We have instances of the same 
 thought, and the same custom thence arising,
 
 30 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 in Mont St Michael in Brittany, St Michael's 
 Mount in Cornwall, and Shelig Michael off the 
 west coast of Ireland. Inveresk is a Scottish 
 instance. 
 
 St Michael, however, as we have seen, is not 
 simply a chief messenger of God. He is, in an 
 especial manner, the angelic champion of the 
 faithful in their strife, in God's Name and 
 power, against Satan and his hosts. " Who is 
 like God.''" he shouts, — for His very name is a 
 war-cry ; and with flame-tipped spear of burning 
 charity he transfixes the writhing serpent. Bear 
 we in mind that, according to Holy Scriptures, 
 idolatry is Satan's "kingdom," and his chief for- 
 tress. When, then, a notable triumph had been 
 won over the idols, when a spot where for genera- 
 tions men had "sacrificed to devils, and not to 
 God" (i Cor. X. 20), had been wrenched from the 
 Evil One, and a church consecrated on it to the 
 Living God, was it not just and fitting that the 
 Blessed Angels and their Captain, who at the 
 Lord's command had helped His servants to 
 their victory, should have some acknowledgment ? 
 A common form of such acknowledgment was to 
 dedicate the church thus founded under their
 
 THE PATRON SAINT OF INVERESK 3 1 
 
 name. We find, accordingly, a large number of 
 the churches of St Michael on sites where formerly- 
 stood temples of the false gods. In Egypt, St 
 Michael's Church at Alexandria was the successor, 
 we are told, of a temple which Cleopatra had 
 reared for Saturn — the Moloch of the Bible. In 
 France, at Puy de Velay, a Church of St Michael 
 has occupied since 965 the place of an ancient 
 temple of Mercury. The old church of Inveresk 
 was a case in Scotland. Here, too, those who 
 reared the first Christian sanctuary on the hill 
 recognised that there were more than the idol- 
 priests fighting against the preachers of the Cross : 
 that there were more than its preachers fighting 
 for it. " Michael and his angels fought against 
 the dragon and his angels, and prevailed . . . and 
 the old Serpent, the deceiver, was cast out." The 
 name is an Eben-ezer — a Stone of Help. Is it 
 fair that, by dropping the ancient name, we should 
 obliterate the ancient record ? It might well, we 
 venture to think, be a part of the present restora- 
 tion to revive the ancient dedication, and speak 
 once more of St Michael's, Inveresk.
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 
 AND INVERESK
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 
 AND INVERESK 
 
 By Rev. J. C. Carrick, B.D., F.S.A., Newbattle. 
 
 THERE are many things to connect the two 
 historical parishes of Inveresk and New- 
 battle. If the interesting old church of St 
 Michael is the "visible church" — a city set on a 
 hill, — that of Newbattle (or, more properly, New- 
 bottle = new residence, Melrose Abbey being the 
 " old bottle," or old residence, from which the 
 Newbattle monks came) deserves the title of the 
 " invisible church," — lying deep down in the Esk 
 valley, surrounded on all sides by great woods, 
 and hemmed in on every side by gentle undulating 
 hills. Such were the sites always chosen for their 
 monasteries by the Cistercian monks. Another 
 connection lies in the river Esk, — the South Esk 
 flowing past the old monastery, whose inmates 
 used to love a Thursday's fishing in view of a
 
 36 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Friday's fast, — and which, after uniting with the 
 North Esk below Dalkeith, expends itself at 
 Musselburgh, bearing itself past Delta Moir's 
 monument, and the quaint old-world town which 
 has three mussels and the word " Honesty " for its 
 crest. "The honest toun " is surely not only proud 
 in its possession of " the visible kirk," but also a 
 little bold in its historic utterance, — 
 
 " Musselburgh was a burgh 
 
 When Edinburgh was nana ; 
 And Musselburgh '11 be a burgh 
 When Edinburgh's gane." 
 
 Another interesting connection between the two 
 places is in the Rom.an remains to be found in 
 both. Across the Esk at Newbattle there is built 
 the " Maiden Bridge," — favourite haunt of artists, 
 undoubtedly built by the Roman soldiers, and the 
 viaduct across which the great road from New- 
 battle Abbey to the east coast passed. At the 
 east side of this bridge stood the great abbey 
 gates looking east. It was crossed more than 
 once by sovereigns on their way to the famous 
 Cistercian house which even yet covers the ashes 
 of a queen of Scotland. Musselburgh, too, has 
 its Roman bridge, deeply interesting to anti-
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 37 
 
 quarians. In fact, the whole district lives with 
 memories of the Roman legionaries. The " Roman 
 Camp" above Newbattle can still be traced, 
 and even in names of neighbouring places, such 
 as " Chesters " (= castra = camp), " Dalhousie 
 Chesters," Chesterhill (the old name of Edge- 
 head = the camp hill), &c., the influence can be 
 seen. A chain of Roman camps seems to have 
 run across this whole district. " Jupiter" Carlyle 
 is undoubtedly right in declaring that St Michael's 
 Church, Inveresk, was built on the site of a 
 Roman camp on the hill, and of the very bricks 
 and stones of the older structure. The prsetorium 
 is still traceable. Roman remains have frequently 
 been discovered on the hill, and the fact that the 
 church was built on the hill, so far away from 
 Musselburgh, is almost certainly due to the exist- 
 ence of the building materials already there. Pro- 
 bably St Baldred, the apostle of East Lothian, 
 brought Christianity to this district in the sixth 
 century, and the early Saxon monastery of 
 Tyningham, dedicated to St Balther, had diocesan 
 authority over all East Lothian. The chain of 
 camps can be traced from Inveresk Hill to the 
 Roman Camp Hill of Newbattle, thence to " The
 
 38 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Chesters " near Tynehead, and thence to Heriot, 
 on one of the hills of which there are still remains 
 of an extensive camp. 
 
 There are some other interesting points of con- 
 nection between Inveresk and Newbattle. When 
 Archbishop Leighton was incumbent of the latter 
 parish, Mr Colt ministered to the former. Com- 
 plaining of his " heavy charge " at Musselburgh, 
 Colt received the pleasant and humorous reply 
 from Leighton — " It is too bad to put such a 
 heavy load upon a Colt," — one of the many grave 
 pleasantries attributed to the saintly divine. 
 
 Three battlefields, all disastrous to Scotland, 
 surround Inveresk hill — Pinkie (1547), at the very 
 foot; Carberry (1567), where Mary surrendered to 
 the lords; and Prestonpans (1745), where Colonel 
 Gardiner fell. It has come down by tradition, 
 that when the last of these was being fought, 
 a number of people belonging to Newbattle ran 
 along the ridge of the Roman Camp Hill till 
 they came within sight of the battle, which they 
 followed with eager interest. 
 
 There are few belonging to the district who 
 have never heard of " Camp Meg," a sort of witch 
 who lived on the Roman Camp Hill at Newbattle
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 39 
 
 early in the century, and, dressed in man's cloth- 
 ing and armed with a scythe or a sickle, rode 
 astride her white mare to all the fairs and races 
 in the neighbourhood, — the terror of the district. 
 She was universally regarded as an uncanny 
 person, and lived in absolute solitude in the 
 loneliness of the Camp Hill. A curious sight 
 it must have been to see her riding her white 
 mare at Musselburgh races, as she sometimes 
 did. 
 
 A much more intimate connection, however, 
 than any of these, existed between Newbattle 
 and Inveresk ; for the abbot and monks of New- 
 battle Abbey had, amongst their many other pos- 
 sessions, two residences in Inveresk, These were 
 to some extent coast-houses for the fathers, just 
 as Pinkie House was originally built for the abbot 
 and monks of Dunfermline, into whose possession 
 Musselburgh was given by royal charter. This 
 practice of a monastery having an extra or de- 
 pendent house is quite common still on the Con- 
 tinent. The great St Bernard monastery in the 
 heart of Alpine snows has a dependent house at 
 Martigny, at the head of the rich and beautiful 
 Rhone valley, to which the sick and aged of the
 
 40 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 St Bernard monks in the upper house are sent 
 for refreshment and change. But the Newbattle 
 monks had these houses not only for pleasure : 
 they carried on, as we shall see later, an extensive 
 trade in the district, working coal in the near 
 neighbourhood of Inveresk, carting coals from 
 Newbattle, where the monks first discovered and 
 worked the mineral, shipping the coals to other 
 places, exporting and importing various products 
 of the soil, and generally carrying on commerce 
 with the outside world. The two houses of which 
 the abbot and monks were proprietors, are known 
 to-day as Inveresk Lodge and Halkerston Lodge, 
 but these names are comparatively recent. Built 
 in the old Scottish style of architecture, with high 
 pitched roofs and crow-step gables, they have all 
 the appearance of great antiquity and monastic 
 origin. Two shepherds' houses beside them are 
 also monastic. 
 
 Inveresk Lodge, the property now of the 
 Wedderburn family, was the residence of General 
 Sir William Hope, Bart, C.B., before he suc- 
 ceeded to the baronetcy of Craighall, his lady 
 being a Wedderburn. It is a commodious house 
 internally, and shows that the early churchmen
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 4 1 
 
 had sound ideas of domestic economy and archi- 
 tecture. Like most ancient buildings, there is a 
 diversity of levels in different parts of the house. 
 It is even at the present day, however, a fine 
 residence, and the arrangements of three or four 
 hundred years ago are found to be suitable even 
 for the present generation. There is a large wine- 
 cellar in the house, and the whole air of the 
 building is monastic and mediaeval. It reminds 
 one very strongly of the monastery of St Maurice 
 on the banks of the Rhone, a few miles above 
 Bex, which both in internal arrangements and 
 general style and size is very like it, — a curious 
 " cross " between a monastery, properly speaking, 
 and a good, serviceable dwelling-house. 
 
 The same is true of Halkerston Lodge, which 
 has one or two dark chambers in it, which, it is 
 believed, were used for the confinement of those 
 guilty of breaches of discipline. A subterranean 
 passage is believed to exist between the two 
 houses. 
 
 In the rent-roll of Musselburgh for 1561 the 
 abbot of Newbattle stands chargeable with 20s., 
 probably the feu payable for these two houses. 
 In the same roll the town of Edinburgh figures
 
 42 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 for £^, and Haddington for 40s. Blaen's atlas, 
 published about 1600 at Amsterdam, shows the 
 road by the Esk which connected Newbattle with 
 Inveresk, and that the policies of Dalkeith Park 
 only extended to where the north and south Esks 
 meet, near the stables. Here, then, were the two 
 residences of the Newbattle monks — only a small 
 portion of vast possessions which stretched down 
 to Gala water and Peebles, and Monkland in 
 Lanarkshire, and even to the pine-clad slopes of 
 Glenartney. 
 
 This part of Midlothian was famous for its 
 wealthy religious houses. The canons regular 
 had Soutra monastery — " the St Bernard's of Mid- 
 lothian " — built not only to offer a life of peaceful 
 meditation to the religious, but as a shelter in 
 snowstorms and rains to the wearied travellers 
 coming from the south across the bleak moors of 
 the Lammermuir and Moorfoot Hills towards Edin- 
 burgh, — a useful hospice then, as, even now, some- 
 thing of the kind might be, as has been proved 
 by many travelling disasters in that very region. 
 Such monastic resting-places were by no means 
 uncommon in our islands. For example, at the 
 barest and most dangerous part of Glenshee there
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 43 
 
 is still standing the " Spittal of Glenshee" — the 
 hospital or hospice where once a monastery stood, 
 and where weary travellers were housed and fed 
 by the monks. The " Spittal of Glentilt " also 
 recalls a monastic hospice which once stood in 
 that treeless, solitary Highland valley. In Ireland, 
 Lord Morris of Spittal has his title from a similar 
 hospice : in London, Spitalfields recalls the same 
 connection. Soutra Monastery, of which only a 
 small aisle stands, though the whole hillside is 
 marked with mounds and ruins, was wealthy, and 
 had Trinity College, Edinburgh, as a dependency. 
 
 Crichton College, beside Crichton Castle, was 
 wealthy. The fine old building still remaining, 
 with its curious carvings of monks laughing, cry- 
 ing, sneering, and winking, is interesting as the 
 last building constructed by the Church before the 
 Reformation; the crash came in 1560, and the 
 church was left half-built. Borthwick is notable, 
 like Crichton, not only for its castle inseparably 
 associated with Queen Mary as its manse is 
 with Dr Robertson, the great Scottish historian, 
 but also for its church, a portion of which re- 
 mains full of interest and historic charm. 
 
 Temple has its beautiful story of the Knights
 
 44 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Templars clinging around its ivy-clustered walls, 
 as the memory of these martial monks lingers in 
 the lovely valley which has its name from men 
 of war who took refuge in this beautiful vale of 
 peace. Mount Lothian, away out on the moors 
 beyond Rosewell and Carrington, has its interest- 
 ing tale. Roslin College (St Matthew's) is world- 
 famous. Restalrig Abbey (originally a vast place), 
 of which only the chancel remains, the Nether- 
 Bow of Edinburgh having been built of the stones 
 of its nave and transepts after the Reformation, 
 was wealthy beyond many, and had Lasswade 
 as a chapel under it. 
 
 Many another rare old abbey dotted this part 
 of Midlothian, and became a centre of civilisa- 
 tion and energy and light. But not only the 
 most wealthy, but the most powerful socially, 
 was the Cistercian Abbey of St Mary, Newbattle ; 
 and some account of its works, chiefly in con- 
 nection with Inveresk and Musselburgh, may 
 interest the reader. 
 
 The monks of Newbattle took a great part in 
 the cultivation of the ground, and of fruits, vege- 
 tables, crops, and trees. Almost all the rich 
 forests in Midlothian had their beginnings thus.
 
 TFIE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 45 
 
 The Cistercians always planted their abbeys in 
 low-lying places near rivers, and the primeval 
 woods were trained and extended till vast forests 
 covered hill and valley. The one great exception 
 to this is, of course, the " Caledonian Forest," which 
 in pre-Christian, and in early Christian ages covered 
 the great heart of Scotland, and of which traces 
 can still be seen at Rannoch, at Cadzow, and else- 
 where. This was the original rugged oak-forest 
 which clothed savage Scotland, and into which 
 the rude Caledonians rushed on the approach 
 of the Roman legions. Now the great forests of 
 Scotland are in many cases made up of imported 
 trees. For example, larch forests cover vast tracts 
 of Perthshire to-day — ten thousand acres in Athole 
 alone; but the first two larches ever introduced 
 into Scotland were brought thither from the Tyrol 
 so recently as 1737, and were nurtured in flower- 
 pots placed in a green-house. These two trees 
 are still growing a little to the west of Dunkeld 
 Cathedral. Birnam Woods, and the other vast 
 forests which clothe Scotland with verdure, are all 
 to be dated within the last six hundred years. 
 The great beech tree in Newbattle — the largest 
 beech tree in Great Britain — is only one of multi-
 
 46 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 tudes planted in the Esk valley by the Cister- 
 cian monks of Newbattle, one of the principles 
 of whose religious life was that every brother 
 should engage in manual labour. " Blessed is he 
 who plants a tree," was their motto. Doubtless 
 many of the fine trees in and around Inveresk and 
 Musselburgh had monastic origin. The rich forests, 
 as well as the richly cultivated fields of Midlothian, 
 have these men for their fathers and first patrons. 
 Doubtless the monks of Dunfermline, who owned 
 Musselburgh, did much in the same direction. 
 The trees around Pinkie House — originally a 
 country seat of the abbots of Dunfermline — pro- 
 bably owe much to their fostering care, as also 
 the trees round the Inveresk hill to the care of 
 the Newbattle abbots, whose residences still re- 
 main under the names of Inveresk Lodge and 
 Halkerston Lodge. 
 
 " Delta Moir," the poetic genius of Musselburgh, 
 sings of the natural beauties of the district in these 
 words : — 
 
 " Down from the old oak forests of Dalkeith, 
 Where majesty surrounds a ducal home, 
 Between fresh pastures gleaming thou dost come, 
 Bush, scaur, and rock and hazelly shaw beneath ;
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE. 47 
 
 Till, greeting thee from slopes of orchard ground 
 
 Towers Inveresk, with its proud villas fair, 
 
 Scotland's Montpelier, for salubrious air 
 
 And beauteous prospect wide and far renowned. 
 
 What else could be, since thou with winding tide 
 
 Below dost ripple pleasantly, thy green 
 
 And osiered banks outspread, where frequent seen 
 
 The browsing heifer shows her dappled side, 
 
 And 'mid the bloom-bright furze are oft descried 
 
 Anglers, that patient o'er thy mirror lean ? " 
 
 It was largely owing to the monks that in late 
 years Scotland became so famous for its trees. 
 If Cadzow has its Caledonian oaks, and Fortingall, 
 at the base of Ben Lawers, its yew tree 3000 years 
 old, — centuries before Roman soldiers ventured the 
 Grampians, or Pontius Pilate (of whom tradition 
 declares that he was born there, the son of a 
 Roman general serving in Britain) was born, — 
 the trees of which the monks were directly or 
 indirectly the fathers can be widely traced all 
 over the country. The oaks and yews at Keir, 
 near Stirling, Queen Mary's sycamore at Scone 
 Palace, still standing, and said to have been planted 
 by her, and hard by an oak planted by James VI. ; 
 — the last two trees of great Birnam Wood, near 
 Dunkeld, one of them an oak, 18 feet in girth, 
 the other, a sycamore 19^ feet in girth ; — the
 
 48 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 great beech hedge of Meikleour in Perthshire, 80 
 feet high, 580 yards long, planted in 1746; — the 
 Newbattle beech, the largest beech in the west of 
 Europe, and the survivor of a magnificent pair 
 which even so late as the middle of the present 
 century adorned the grounds of Newbattle Abbey 
 — can all be traced more or less to monastic 
 influence, culture, and care. Auchmore, a seat of 
 the Marquis of Breadalbane, boasts the Kinnell Vine 
 (Black Hamburg), at the old house of Kinnell, 
 planted in 1832, and now the largest in the world, 
 filling a glass house 170 feet long. It is about 
 fifty years old, and is still in fine bearing condition. 
 It, too, is undoubtedly the child of the monasteries. 
 When Professor Blackie saw this tree he was so 
 afiected that he has written, " I made a vow on 
 the spot, whenever I might be troubled with low 
 and vulgar imaginations, to think upon this vine." 
 He also wrote the following : — 
 
 Lines to the Kinnell Vine, Auchmore. 
 
 " Come hither all who love to feed your eyes 
 
 On goodly sights, and join your joy with mine, 
 Beholding, with wide look of glad surprise. 
 
 The many-branching glory of this vine, 
 Pride of Kinnell ! The eye will have its due, 
 And God provides rich banquet, amply spread.
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 49 
 
 From star-lit cope to huge Bens swathed in blue, 
 
 And this empurpled growth that overhead 
 Vaults us with pendent fruit. Oh, I would take 
 
 This lordly vine, and hang it for a sign 
 Even in my front of estimate, and make 
 Its presence teach me with a voice divine — 
 
 Go hence, and in sure memory keep with thee. 
 To shame all paltry thoughts, this noble tree I " 
 
 Scotland, though once far behind England and 
 other lands in arboriculture, through the labours of 
 the monastic orders, became a great home for trees, 
 and the children of what the monks sowed are 
 to-day the wonders of modern forestry. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever that the rich- 
 ness of the agricultural lands around Inveresk 
 and throughout Midlothian, and along the east 
 coast — a fecundity so proverbial that it is be- 
 lieved to be the richest tract of land in Europe — 
 is owing to the agricultural skill of the mon- 
 astic fathers, who divided their day between the 
 altar and the plough. We reap what they sowed. 
 The monastic village round Newbattle Abbey, 
 which can still be traced, consisted of a long street 
 of cottages for smiths, carpenters, shepherds, &c., 
 and these latter were sent out into all the lands 
 round about to break new ground, and to instruct 
 
 D
 
 50 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 the people in the arts of agriculture, gardening, 
 and forestry. The carts made at Newbattle Mon- 
 astery were in the Middle Ages so famous that 
 they came to be counted in payments, and men- 
 tioned in charters and agreements. These carts 
 would often be seen in Musselburgh in the olden 
 days, and would convey coals from the mines at 
 Newbattle to the ports along the east coast. 
 
 It has been stated that the well-known and 
 deservedly famous " Musselburgh leek " was origin- 
 ated by the monks. To verify this I have ven- 
 tured to submit the question to our ablest and 
 best known Scottish gardener and authority, and 
 am indebted to his great courtesy and genial 
 friendliness for the following reply. Mr Malcolm 
 Dunn, gardener to the Duke of Buccleuch, says : — 
 
 " It is well known that the ecclesiastical bodies were the 
 great patrons of gardening in the Middle Ages, and laid out 
 gardens near their religious houses, in which the monks and 
 their retainers cultivated, with more or less success, many of 
 the plants, fruits, and vegetables in use at the present time. 
 Of course, since that period great improvement has been 
 wrought on the varieties of fruit and vegetables, but still 
 many of the identical varieties of them cultivated in monkish 
 times are still to be seen in the neighbourhood of ancient 
 ecclesiastical edifices. All this, and much more connected 
 with the subject, is found in gardening literature ; but al_
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 5 1 
 
 though I have a fairly good collection of books on garden- 
 ing, I am sorry to say I cannot find anything in them bearing 
 directly on horticulture as practised by the monks at New- 
 battle. I am not aware that there is any record, except oral 
 tradition, of the introduction of the leek to this part of Scot- 
 land by the monks of Newbattle ; but it is quite within the 
 bounds of probability. The leek is a native of Switzerland, 
 and it is known to have been cultivated in Britain in the 
 fifteenth century, but it is likely to have been introduced at 
 a much earlier period, and would no doubt be cultivated by 
 the monks at Newbattle in the heyday of their prosperity. 
 From the Abbey gardens it would readily pass into those 
 of the wealthy of the period, and gradually spread through 
 farmer and cottager, till it reached Musselburgh, in the rich, 
 deep soil and mild climate of which it ultimately developed 
 into that famous modern horticultural product, the Mussel- 
 burgh Leek. So far as the name of that leek is concerned 
 with monkish times, it can only be through a long ancestry, 
 beginning in a primitive form of the modern succulent veget- 
 able. The variety now known as the ' Musselburgh Leek ' 
 is a selection of the older type of ' Scotch Leek,' and received 
 its name by being largely grown around Musselburgh in 
 private and market gardens. It has been known by that 
 name among gardeners for about sixty years, and is recog- 
 nised as the hardiest type of leek now in cultivation. 
 
 " I am sorry I cannot give you any list from a safe source 
 of the fruits and vegetables cultivated by the monks of New- 
 battle ; but perhaps you might find some mention made of 
 them in old records concerning the Abbey. I have never 
 looked through Newbattle grounds to see if there are any of 
 the old fruit trees that may have come down from monkish 
 times, but such trees exist at or near other monastic sites, 
 such as Jedburgh, Dryburgh, Melrose, (.') New Abbey, Falk- 
 land, Lindores, Fife, and several other places ; a notable
 
 52 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 instance of which we saw at Pluscardine Priory, in Moray- 
 shire, last month, where there is a pear-tree from which it is 
 said the monks gathered fruit." 
 
 The mills of Musselburgh were famous, and 
 there can be Httle doubt that they were begun 
 by the monks for the purpose of grinding the 
 corn grown on their lands. The Dunfermline 
 abbots seem to have had disputes frequently with 
 the vicar of Inveresk (who was, of course, under 
 his diocesan bishop) as to the tithes of fish and 
 mills. Chalmers relates the story of one of these 
 disputes, and the diocesan bishop decreed that 
 " the small tithes and the offerings at the altars 
 of Musselburgh, excepting the fish of every sort, 
 and the tithes of the mills belonging to the monks, 
 were to be given to the vicar, for which he was 
 directed to pay yearly lo merks." 
 
 Newbattle Abbey had three or four mills, and 
 these, likewise, were great sources of profit, and, 
 like the mills of Musselburgh, testified to the 
 practical shrewdness and agricultural energy of 
 the monks. Probably, however, the mills of 
 Musselburgh all belonged to the abbot of Dun- 
 fermline, who, by the charter of Malcolm Canmore 
 and Queen Margaret, his queen, was made pro-
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 53 
 
 prietor, — a charter confirmed by David I., who 
 added as an additional gift, " Great Tnveresk," or 
 Musselburgh, "with the mill, the fishing, and the 
 church of Inveresk, its tithes, and the port of 
 Esk-muthe." 
 
 The zeal and energy of the Newbattle monks 
 was not, however, confined to agriculture : they 
 were the first coal-workers of Scotland, and are 
 thus the fathers of Britain's commercial greatness. 
 As is well known, they did not sink shafts into 
 the ground, but wrought the coal from the outside, 
 into the face of the hill. Many of these coal-holes 
 can still be traced in the banks of the Esk at 
 Newbattle, the largest being a long cavern known 
 now as " Lord Ancrum's Cave." Father Hay, in 
 his letters, speaks of the curious fact, that the 
 Newbattle monks gave gifts to the poor of " black 
 stones," meaning coal. They worked the coal in 
 this primitive way so successfully, that their trade 
 and interests rapidly extended. They acquired, 
 by royal gift, vast tracts of land in Lanarkshire, 
 the name " Monk-land " being given to their pro- 
 perty. It is interesting to know that the vast 
 Black Country of Scotland was first developed 
 by these men, who in time raised churches
 
 54 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 all over the Monkland district, drawing the 
 
 revenues, and appointing the vicars. Indeed, 
 
 their coal-fields were not confined to Newbattle 
 
 and Monkland, for in the Newbattle chartulary 
 
 there is a grant made of a coal mine near 
 
 Inveresk by Seyer de Quinci, the date of 
 
 which must be between 12 lo and 12 19. The 
 
 following is a translation of this interesting 
 
 document : — 
 
 " To all the sons of the Church of St Mary, Seyr de 
 Quinci, Earl of Wyntoun, greeting : know that I have given 
 and have confirmed by this my charter, to God and the 
 Church of St Mary of Newbottle, and to monks serving 
 God in that place, for an unconditional and perpetual gift, 
 and for the increase of the church, which Robert my father 
 bestowed on the same, — to wit, in the territory of Tranent, 
 the full half of the marsh extending from west to east as far 
 as the river Whitrig, that is to say, that portion which lies 
 nearer to their cultivated land. Further, the Coal Hench 
 and quarry {carhonariuin et qjiarrariufn) between the afore- 
 said river Whitrig, and the bounds of Pinkie and Inveresk, 
 and in the ebb and flow of the sea. Therefore I will and 
 direct that no one of my men may have any share either 
 in the pasture or in the Coal Hench, or in the Quarry, which 
 are situated within the bounds of Preston Grange, without 
 the consent or goodwill of the same monks. Before these 
 witnesses, W., Bishop of St Andrews, Ingram of BaUia, 
 Simon de Quinci, Alexander of Seton, and others. And 
 note the seal which this charter has, different from others." 
 William was Bishop of St Andrews in 1202 ; Simon de
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 55 
 
 Quinci set out for Palestine in 1218, and died there in 1819 ; 
 hence the date of this charter is approximately fixed from 
 1202 to 1218. — Newbattle Chartulary, p. 53. 
 
 In 1 53 1 there was a contract between the abbots 
 of Dunfermline and Newbattle, by which the latter 
 became bound to "drive the coill of Preston Grange 
 to the bounds of Pinkin (Pinkie) and Inveresk." 
 
 The Newbattle coal, as well as the coal wrought 
 by the Newbattle monks at the coast, was shipped 
 away to various parts from Eskmuthe, though 
 generally from Port Seton, Morrison's Haven, and 
 other small ports east of Musselburgh. 
 
 The coal trade of the Newbattle monks must 
 have been a very vigorous one, for they actually 
 went to the expense of constructing a great road 
 from Newbattle Abbey across country to the 
 coast, which can still be traced in what is known 
 as the " Salter's Road." By this highway the 
 Newbattle coal was taken in carts made by the 
 monks themselves, to the sea, and there shipped. 
 Probably the Newbattle coal was shipped at 
 Musselburgh, while the coals acquired at the 
 pits belonging to the Abbot of Newbattle, be- 
 tween Pinkie and Tranent, were shipped at the 
 smaller ports to the east.
 
 56 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 The carts returning from Musselburgh did not 
 come home empty. These old fathers were far 
 too wise to permit unremunerative labour. Con- 
 sequently they were often filled with mussels and 
 oysters, of both of which they seem to have been 
 very fond. Over and over again round Newbattle 
 Abbey great pits filled with oyster shells have 
 been come upon, and the writer has a consider- 
 able number of these in his possession. They 
 could only have come from Musselburgh. The 
 commercial instinct was thus early manifested 
 which in our own day results in cheap foreign 
 fruit, — vessels going out from our British ports 
 with coal to Spain, and returning with copper, 
 which, being heavy and less bulky than the black 
 diamonds, leaves a great space in the hold of 
 the ship, which is filled up with melons, &c., 
 thus making these fruits very cheap. Oysters 
 were the return cargo of the Newbattle carts, 
 besides fish of all kinds for the monks' use, and nets 
 for their gardens. It is remarkable how often in 
 the inland monasteries and churches of Midlothian, 
 the oyster, sea-kail, and star-fish appear as orna- 
 ments. In Roslin Church there is quite a study 
 in sea-produce on the pillars and arches.
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 57 
 
 Another import, too, came through Musselburgh 
 to Newbattle, namely, wine from the Continent, 
 brought by ships from the French ports. The 
 Cistercian order began at Citeaux (hence the 
 name), in the Burgundy district of France, and 
 the wines made by the order became famous. 
 
 In the midst of the celebrated vineyards of 
 Romanic, Richebourg, La Tache, &c. — the wines 
 of which were brought into fashion by Louis XIV., 
 for whom they were exclusively prescribed by the 
 royal physician Fagon as a means of restoring his 
 strength — and about seven miles from the chief 
 city of this wine-country and vineyard-garden, — 
 Nuits, a town to-day of some 3000 inhabitants 
 — stand the ruins of the celebrated abbey of 
 Citeaux, which gave the name to one of the 
 most powerful of all the monastic order — the 
 " Citercians," or " Cistercians." The abbey was 
 founded by Robert de Molesme in 1090, and 
 within its walls the great St Bernard assumed 
 the cowl in 1113. This abbey became the 
 mother-house of the Cistercian order all over 
 the world ; it gave four Popes to the Roman See, 
 and was the mother of no fewer than 3600 houses 
 of the order. To-day only a few ruins of the
 
 58 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 ancient abbey exist, but the vineyards and olive- 
 yards which the monks planted are still famous. 
 The prince of Burgundy wines — "Clos de Vougeot" 
 — is still made from the monastic vineries. The 
 monks never sold it, but made gifts of what they 
 could not use to their friends. The average annual 
 produce of this vineyard is 200 hogsheads, and 
 some 450 vintagers are employed at vintage time. 
 This is the land, too, of " Beaune " wine, the chief 
 wine of the Burgundy district; and the most cele- 
 brated wines and vineyards of the world are to be 
 found within a few miles of the old abbey walls. 
 The lands around the ancient Abbey of Citeaux 
 are probably the richest in the world. About a 
 mile south-west of Dijon begins a chain of hills 
 known as the " Cote d'Or " — a wall of hills shelter- 
 ing innumerable vineyards. In richness of flavour, 
 in all the more delicate qualities of the juice of the 
 grape, the vines of this department of France rank 
 highest of all ; so much so, that the old Dukes of 
 Burgundy were designated Princes des bons vins. 
 The choicest red wines of the Cote d'Or are the 
 " Clos Vougeot," " Nuits," " Beaune," " Volnay," 
 "Pomard," " Chambertin," " Richebourg," "Ro- 
 mance," and " St George." Their beautiful colour
 
 THE MONKS OF NEWBATTLE 59 
 
 and exquisite flavour and aroma make them valu- 
 able beyond all others, and one need hardly wonder 
 that the kings of France coveted this rich Bur- 
 gundian territory. The development of this in- 
 dustry, the cultivation of this magnificent soil, and 
 the perfecting of the vine, were all the work of the 
 Cistercian monks who made Citeaux their earliest 
 home. They began there the industrial work 
 which became a characteristic of their order in 
 every succeeding age, and all over the world. 
 
 The French wines — claret and Burgundy es- 
 pecially — were largely shipped to Scotland, and 
 the Newbattle monks brought these in carts from 
 Musselburgh overland to their monastery, some 
 six miles inland. Doubtless these French wares 
 were highly prized, and served to connect the 
 Cistercian fathers of Newbattle in a very genial 
 way with the fathers of the parent-house at Citeaux. 
 The rich red Burgundy, carried by cart and ship 
 over land and sea, would remind the Newbattle 
 fathers, in days of snowstorm and sleet, when the 
 river would overflow its banks and flood the ancient 
 crypt, still standing, of the brighter skies, the genial 
 vineyards, and warmer airs of sunny France, where 
 their brethren laboured and prayed.
 
 60 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 In Nevvbattle Abbey there is still preserved a 
 very fine bas-relief representing wine-making — a 
 wine-vat, net, ladle, cluster of grapes, and the im- 
 plements of wine-making — the sculpture as clear 
 and distinct as the day on which it was 
 carved. Even in later days, the French wines 
 thus introduced by the monks, continued to be 
 the wines of Scotland, John Knox himself being 
 partial to good French claret. 
 
 Doubtless, too, the old monks of Newbattle 
 often fished their way down the Esk to Mussel- 
 burgh and the sea. The connection altogether 
 between old Newbottle, " all to the tae side," 
 and " the honest toun " of Musselburgh is deeply 
 interesting, and invested with a large amount of 
 historic charm.
 
 ON SOLWAY SANDS 
 
 FROM A PAINTING BY 
 
 W. D. M'KAY, R.S.A.
 
 ft 
 
 t
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF FORD BERETON
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF FORD 
 BERETON 
 
 \_Written in 1883] 
 
 By S. R. Crockett, 
 Author oj " The Raiders,'" " The Stickit Ministery" &'c, 
 
 "And it shall come to pass that I will put thee in a 
 clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while 
 I pass by." 
 
 CRISPLY up the frozen road, 
 Roaming here and there abroad, 
 Ford Bereton's small feet clatter'd ; 
 Startling rabbits out of hedges, 
 Waterfowl from fenny sedges. 
 Hares along the pasture's edges, 
 Scapegrace dog and master strode. 
 
 Weightier footed than his master, 
 In the twilight Royal patter'd 
 O'er the stiff grass grey with frost, 
 Swinging slow or bounding faster 
 
 Like a stalwart canine ghost. 
 
 6s
 
 66 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 See they cross the fertile fallows, 
 Now the ice-bound lake-side shallows ; 
 Soon they enter on the poor lands 
 Of the burnt and matted heather, 
 Waste morass, and trackless moorlands, 
 Ranging heedlessly together. 
 
 What reck they of black horizon, 
 Or of inky gloom that lies on 
 All the bleak blue mountain ranges, 
 As the face of nature changes, 
 And the land-marks dimmer grow 
 With the coming of the snow. 
 
 First the broad far-sailing flakes 
 Fall in silence, slow and heavy : 
 Then a mirthful dancing bevy 
 Scuds across the sullen lakelets. 
 Soon a moaning wind awaking 
 All the heavy cloud-folds shaking, 
 Drives the steady stinging flakelets. 
 Making Ford's cheeks redder grow 
 In the turmoil of the snow. 
 
 How the pair rejoiced and revelled, 
 
 Leapt and barked and laughed and shouted,
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF FORD BER^TON 6/ 
 
 Charged abreast and fell back routed, 
 Clenched and fought and rolled dishevelled 
 In the snow-drifts to and fro ! 
 
 " Find the way now, good dog Royal ! " 
 Struggling upward, quoth the boy, all 
 Sober'd with the ghastly starkness 
 Of the single spectral birches 
 In the swiftly growing darkness ; 
 ** Seek it, seek it out, good Royal ! " 
 And the great dog, strong and loyal. 
 Through the snow-wreaths round and round 
 All about the moorland searches, 
 With his nose against the ground, 
 Sought and sought and never found. 
 
 In the silence yet more dreary 
 Boy Bereton's limbs grew weary. 
 Courage waned with Royal gone ; 
 Wearier grew they till he rested, 
 Chill and heartless, on a stone 
 In a covert grim and eery 
 
 Deep among the sheltering rocks. 
 
 From the pocket on his side 
 Slow he drew the precious box,
 
 68 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Where his mice had lived together 
 
 In their case of finest wool. 
 Scarce a week ago one died, 
 Frost-nipp'd by the icy weather, 
 And was borne in fianeral 
 From the threshold of the school 
 To its grave beneath the wall, 
 With the pomp of mourners all. 
 
 As he opens, beaded eyes 
 O'er the edge a moment rise. 
 One small hand the mouse doth hold, 
 With the other, blue and cold. 
 On its smooth head he caressed it ; 
 For a space forgetful smiled 
 At the outer darkness wild. 
 Smiled to see it crouch and nestle 
 In its cosy bed of wool ; 
 In his bosom heard it rustle, 
 As he stamped his frozen feet on 
 Narrow ledge not yet invaded 
 By the fast encroaching snows. — 
 
 Instantly the gladness faded 
 
 As the drifting snow came sweeping,
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF FORD BERETON 69 
 
 Heavy wreaths in silence heaping 
 Sheltered nook and stony seat on. 
 " Well, at least," quoth Boy Bereton, 
 " Mousie's warm, though I am cold." 
 
 " Now I wonder," with a flicker 
 Of the old Ford in his eyes, 
 As he watched the snow come thicker, 
 " Are the angels warm and rosy 
 When the snow-storms fill the skies. 
 As in summer when the sun 
 Makes their cloud-beds warm and cosy ? 
 And I wonder if they're sleeping 
 Through this bitter winter weather ; 
 Or aloft their watches keeping. 
 As the shepherds said of them, 
 Hosts and hosts of them together, 
 Singing o'er the lowly stable, 
 In that little Bethlehem ! " 
 
 And the pitying angels slowly 
 Sang their Christ songs, pure and holy, 
 As they saw his limbs grow rigid 
 And his features blue and frigid ;
 
 yO ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 And God hearkened more his wonderings 
 Than the Starry Chariot's thunderings — 
 Shoutings of the Sons of God. — 
 
 " Wonder who will come and take us 
 From the snow, so white and deep ? 
 If it's very hard to die, 
 Or like going fast asleep, 
 Only just a little sounder ? 
 Maybe Christ Himself will wake me, 
 Maybe let His Mary-Mother 
 Comfort mine, and throw around her 
 Arms that nursed Him when a boy. 
 
 "And however bad am I, 
 He would let me be His Lamb, 
 Rather than with Lazarus lie 
 On the breast of Abraham ! 
 
 " Maybe God sends him the grown ones, 
 While the little lambs, the lone ones, 
 Go to the Lord Jesus' bosom. 
 And I wonder if my mousie 
 Will be sleeping in his housie 
 
 When they find me in the snow? "
 
 THE HOME-COMING OF FORD BERETON 7 1 
 
 Here grew Ford a little drowsy, 
 Looked one way and then another, 
 Only saw the snow keep falling, 
 All his tiny covert walling 
 
 From the world of warmth and home. — 
 
 Feebly now the slow words come, 
 " Good-night, mousie ; good-night, mother ; 
 Take me, Christ, to Thee to keep — 
 I'll be warmer when I waken. 
 Coming, mother — I am coming," 
 But 'twas Death, with fingers numbing. 
 Through the darkness that was coming 
 In the sheeted silence deep. — 
 
 Distant murmurs, rising, falling, 
 Barking dogs and shepherds calling ; 
 Great red Royal far before 
 Finds the body of his master. 
 And like one who fears disaster, 
 To the hearers calling " Faster," 
 Sends a great deep-throated roar ; 
 And the shepherds round and round 
 Shake the welkin, echoing " FOUND ! "
 
 72 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 And at home when they undress'd him 
 Lo, one frozen hand firm closing 
 Round the cage deep in his breast — 
 Inside, mousie warmly dozing! 
 
 This the tender little mother, 
 Bending over to caress him, 
 Joying in each soft drawn breath, 
 Heard in silence still as death, 
 Trying hard, her sobs to smother, 
 With her face against the wall — 
 " Mother, mother, please don't wake me, 
 Dear Lord Christ has come to take me— 
 Me and mousie, cage and all ! "
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 
 
 By The Editor. 
 
 THE 14th day of December 1756 was a me- 
 morable one in the story of the Scottish 
 Capital and in the annals of the Kirk. It was 
 the Augustan Age of our clerical history. Seldom 
 has society numbered so many brilliant scholars 
 in its ranks. And now, on that most famous of 
 first nights, notwithstanding more than the Evan- 
 gelicals shared Whitefield's view that the site of 
 a playhouse was ground appropriated to Satan, 
 the culture and fashion, the wit and learning of 
 Edinburgh issued from the high houses and narrow 
 closes of the High Street and its purlieus into the 
 wintry darkness, and was borne in sedan chairs by 
 sturdy Highlanders to the theatre in the Canon- 
 gate. " All the literati," we are told, " and most 
 of the judges were there, who, except one or two, 
 had not been in use to attend." Stranger sight
 
 76 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 than any, among the audience might be discovered 
 a goodly proportion of the clergy, most of them 
 endeavouring, with a modesty not unknown in 
 later days, to conceal themselves in corners and 
 under the shadow of friendly pillars. One, the 
 most striking figure in that crowded assembly, 
 had no such scruples. He sat in the centre of 
 a little group of fashionables, the cynosure 
 of every eye. The commanding presence, the 
 handsome face, its aquiline nose denoting one 
 born to rule, the flowing locks curling down over 
 the neck, would have attracted attention any- 
 where. And when, presently, a half-intoxicated 
 rowdy presumed to offer some insult to a lady 
 who sat near the distinguished-looking divine, 
 that portly embodiment of the Church militant 
 made short work of the disturber. An incident 
 that was to add to the sum of his iniquities. 
 
 Need it be explained that, on the night in 
 question, the famous tragedy of Douglas, from 
 the pen of the Reverend John Home, Minister 
 of Athelstaneford, was being played " for the first 
 time on any stage," or that the Jove-like presence 
 in the auditorium was that of the dramatist's 
 friend, Dr Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk.^
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK "J^J 
 
 The tragedy, now long relegated to the dusty 
 limbo of undisturbed book-shelves and passing 
 dull to our modern taste, excited a furore of en- 
 thusiasm. "Whaur's your WuUie Shakespeare 
 noo?" was a scarcely exaggerated expression of 
 the exultant verdict pronounced by a patriotic 
 people. The run of the play was, for the place 
 and time, unprecedented, and when the upper and 
 middle classes had become satiated, Carlyle came 
 to its aid with a pamphlet which excited the 
 curiosity of the lower orders, and sent them to 
 pack the theatre for a few nights more. 
 
 But a day of reckoning was at hand. If we 
 can imagine the effect that would be produced 
 to the north of the Caledonian Canal by the 
 announcement that the present leader of the 
 Free Church had written a comic opera, that 
 rehearsals had been held at a tavern near the 
 theatre, in which the leading roles, female as well 
 as male, had been filled by well-known divines, 
 and that one or more prominent clergymen had 
 taken part in a drunken brawl during the per- 
 formance, we may form a faint idea of the shock 
 and indignation the exaggerated reports occasioned 
 in certain quarters. It was freely alleged that, at
 
 y^ ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 the rehearsals, Carlyle had played Old Nerval ; 
 
 Principal Robertson, the celebrated leader of 
 
 the Moderates and the ablest churchman of 
 
 his time, Lord Randolph ; David Hume, the 
 
 sceptic philosopher, Glenalvon ; and Dr Blair, 
 
 whose sermons are still read in remote districts by 
 
 a pious peasantry, Anna ; while Lady Randolph 
 
 had been enacted by Home himself There is no 
 
 doubt — we have Carlyle's authority for it — that 
 
 a number of those mentioned attended rehearsals 
 
 by the actors. David Hume, Dr Ferguson, and 
 
 Lord Elibank were certainly there, and it is quite 
 
 possible the play may have been read over, each 
 
 taking a part. When feeling in those days ran 
 
 high, instead of venting itself in letters to the 
 
 newspapers, it found expression in anonymous 
 
 doggerel, and soon the streets re-echoed with the 
 
 fame of the minister of Inveresk. 
 
 " Hid close in a green-room some clergymen lay, 
 Good actors themselves, too — their whole life a play ; 
 C — lyle, with a cudgel and genius rare, 
 With aspect as stern as a Hessian hussar. 
 Derry down, &c." 
 
 He it was, naturally, who stood in the forefront 
 of the battle — for Home had relieved Ids Presby- 
 tery of further trouble by resigning his charge,
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 79 
 
 preaching such a farewell sermon as, we are told, 
 brought tears to the eyes of many ; yet not quite 
 bidding the Church good-bye, as for many years 
 his familiar form was to be seen in every General 
 Assembly, as representing Campvere. Carlyle it 
 was who had copied and re -copied the play, its 
 author's handwriting being atrocious. In his 
 manse of Inveresk much of it had been written ; 
 he had accompanied Home on his rather ludicrous 
 excursion into England to lay Douglas before 
 Garrick. It is probable that, more than to Lord 
 Milton, Sir Gilbert Elliot, or Mr Oswald of 
 Dunnikier, to him was due the production in 
 Edinburgh. He, too, had written that ironical 
 argument, " to prove that the Tragedy of Douglas 
 ought to be publicly burnt by the Hands of the 
 Hangman," the sarcasm of which must have 
 aggravated his opponents. 
 
 A less self-reliant man would have been inclined 
 to bend to the storm. Soon came the announce- 
 ment that the unfortunate minister of Liberton 
 had been suspended for three weeks, despite his 
 pathetic plea that he had gone to the theatre only 
 once, " and had tried to conceal himself in a 
 corner." But, like Knox, Carlyle never feared
 
 8o ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 the face of mortal man. His was too strong a 
 personality to be treated after the fashion of 
 the lamb-like incumbent aforesaid, and after pass- 
 ing from Presbytery to Synod, and from Synod 
 to Assembly, the case ended in what was virtu- 
 ally a triumph for him. The libel was found 
 partly proven by the Presbytery, but disapproved 
 by both the higher Courts. These were of opinion 
 that a " brotherly admonition " would have sufficed. 
 He, however, agreed to frequent the theatre no 
 more, and the matter terminated amicably, leaving 
 his position and influence, both inside the Church 
 and out of it, as great, if not greater, than before. 
 
 What manner of man, then, was this who, 
 bequeathing to the world nothing more than a 
 sermon or two, a few pamphlets, a stray article, 
 and a fragmentary autobiography, yet produced 
 so profound an impression on his time, that 
 " scarcely a Primate of the proud Church of 
 England could overtop in social position and 
 influence the Presbyterian minister of Inveresk " ? 
 We are left to form our opinion of him without 
 a plethora of advisers. The few character sketches 
 that exist were drawn for the most part before 
 the publication of the Autobiography. But for-
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 51 
 
 tunately we have at first hand, from one of the 
 greatest of Scotsmen, and certainly the greatest 
 delineator of Scottish character that ever lived, a 
 rough but vivid sketch. Sir Walter, who, when a 
 lame, shy boy, had the rare fortune to watch in 
 an Edinburgh drawing-room the glowing eye of 
 Robert Burns, had met also the " Preserver of the 
 Church from fanaticism." " The grandest demi- 
 god I ever saw was Dr Carlyle, minister of 
 Musselburgh, commonly called Jupiter Carlyle, 
 from having sat more than once for the king of 
 gods and men to Gavin Hamilton ; and a shrewd, 
 clever old carle was he, no doubt, but no more 
 a poet than his precentor." Scott was probably 
 wrong about the sittings, but there is no reason 
 to doubt that, so far as his estimate of character 
 went, his usual insight served him. Burton, 
 indeed, would fain have it that Sir Walter was 
 partly indebted to Carlyle for a couplet in " The 
 Lady of the Lake," and that it was base ingratitude 
 to range his poetic capacity with that of his 
 precentor — a prosaic individual, concerning whom 
 tradition is silent. But the only service Jupiter is 
 known to have rendered to the muse was the 
 discovery of an imperfect copy of Collins' lost ode 
 
 F
 
 82 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 on the " Superstitions of the Highlands," the 
 lacuncB in which he and Henry Mackenzie filled 
 up between them. A small bundle of manuscript 
 verses in various handwritings was found among 
 his papers ; but whether any were his or not is 
 left unsettled. It is, however, unnecessary to carry 
 the discussion further. Carlyle's claim to be re- 
 membered does not depend on whether or not he 
 was a poet. The poetic temperament, as it is popu- 
 larly estimated, he certainly had not, though he 
 was able to appreciate poetry, and lived to recog- 
 nise and to welcome the dawn of the new poetic era. 
 Scott and Wordsworth had begun their career ere 
 Jupiter passed from the stage, and he was quick 
 to recognise the genius that underlay even the 
 most unpromising of Wordsworth's efforts. " Shrewd 
 and clever," with a gift of sarcasm, he was equally 
 fitted to shine in the councils of the Moderate 
 party and in the General Assembly ; while at 
 Court we know that " the elegance of his manners 
 and the dignity of his appearance are said to have 
 excited both surprise and admiration." His 
 mission was to dignify the position and raise 
 the social status of a parish minister ; to aid in 
 the introduction into the pulpits of the Kirk of
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 83 
 
 Scotland of a new elegance and a new eloquence, 
 to bring the National Church into closer touch 
 with the learning and the society of the age. He 
 knew the position occupied by the dignitaries of 
 the Church of England ; he had ample opportuni- 
 ties of contrasting the standing and the culture of 
 the clergy on either side of the Border, and he 
 deprecated the tone too often taken by the Scottish 
 clergy. 
 
 " I must confess that I do not love to hear 
 this Church called a poor Church, or the poorest 
 Church in Christendom. I doubt very much that, 
 if it were minutely inquired into, this is really 
 the fact. But, independent of that, I dislike the 
 language of whining and complaint. We are rich 
 in the best goods a church can have, the learning, 
 the manners, and the character of its members. 
 There are few branches of literature in which 
 the ministers of this Church have not excelled. 
 There are few subjects of fine writing in which 
 they do not stand foremost in the rank of authors, 
 which is a prouder boast than all the, pomp of the 
 hierarchy." A manly and a characteristic utter- 
 ance. 
 
 It is, however, to the Autobiography we must
 
 84 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 turn if we would appreciate the world in which 
 the grand old Moderate played his part. It deals 
 only with the first forty-eight years of his long 
 life. When he had got so far, the pen, much to 
 our loss, dropped from his nerveless fingers, and 
 a few days later he was laid under the shadow 
 of his own church of Inveresk, beside the wife 
 and children who had preceded him. 
 
 In those pages we are transported to an age 
 that seems very far off now. The glamour of 
 days gone by is over it. You meet there the sort 
 of men and women Sir Walter and his disciple 
 Stevenson have made familiar. Bonnie Prince 
 Charlie holds revel once more in the long gallery 
 of Holyrood : once more the London taverns 
 ring with shouts over the butchery of Culloden. 
 King George sits playing cards Avith Princess 
 Amelia ; and Carlyle, staunch Hanoverian as he 
 is, can be heard to sigh over the dulness of the 
 Court, though he hardly ventures to contrast it 
 with the departed glories of the Stewarts. We 
 are no sooner told of the birth and early years 
 of the writer in the Manse of Prestonpans, than 
 we are introduced to society such as in these 
 prosaic days is not to be met outside the world
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 85 
 
 of fiction. There is the patron who believed 
 that St John had written the Apocalypse at 
 Morrison's Haven ; the famous gambler, Colonel 
 Charteris, who had the reputation of a wizard ; 
 my Lady Grange, daughter of that Chiesly of 
 Dairy, who shot President Lockhart in the dark 
 at the head of a close in the Lawnmarket, for 
 finding against him in an arbitration ; Lord 
 Grange himself, who, being wearied of his virago 
 of a wife, had her kidnapped from his house in 
 Edinburgh, and carried to distant St Kilda, whence 
 she was removed to Harris to elude discovery, 
 and where she died in 1745, before the agitation 
 became sufficiently pronounced. There, too, is 
 Colonel Gardiner, whose supposed marvellous con- 
 version, and the vision that occasioned it, was 
 the theme of awe-struck tradition for many a 
 year. You see with Carlyle's eyes the scene in 
 the Tolbooth Church when Robertson escaped, 
 in the circumstances made familiar in "The 
 Heart of Midlothian." With him and his fellow- 
 pupils you watch from the window in the Grass- 
 market, considerately engaged by his tutor, the 
 execution of Wilson, and the events that led to 
 the Porteous Mob ; one lad, displaced by the party,
 
 86 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 falling a victim to the murderous volley fired 
 by order of Captain Porteous. You read how, 
 on the night the obnoxious commander of the 
 City Guard was hanged by the infuriated people, 
 Carlyle, at Prestonpans, dreamt he saw the whole 
 scene, and was so impressed that he rose early, to 
 find that several horsemen, winged with the news, 
 had shouted as they rode wildly east, that the 
 Tolbooth had been stormed, and Porteous hanged 
 on a dyer's tree at two o'clock that morning. 
 
 The years he spent at the Universities of 
 Edinburgh and Glasgow laid the foundation of 
 his future eminence. He speedily found his way 
 into the best society, and had the good fortune 
 to number among his college friends some who 
 were later to be leaders of thought. There, too, 
 he became proficient in dancing, which, with card 
 playing and golf, appear to have formed his chief 
 amusements. After passing in review the respec- 
 tive merits of the Army, Law, and Medicine as 
 professions, he was persuaded, chiefly by the in- 
 fluence of his grandfather, who, like his father, 
 was a minister, to enter the Church. Then, 
 suddenly, the quiet of existence was broken 
 by the news that came from Moidart. Ere the
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 87 
 
 country realised what had happened, the Highland 
 army had burst like an angry torrent from the 
 hills, and hopes were high that "the king had 
 come to his ain again." Carlyle gives a vivid 
 picture of the time when one-third of the men 
 and two-thirds of the women lost their hearts 
 to Bonnie Prince Charlie : when the Hanoverian 
 volunteers made their ludicrous march to the 
 Grassmarket, with their courage in their boots, 
 to discover the better part of valour. From the 
 steeple of Prestonpans Church he watched the 
 movements of the hostile forces, though it was 
 his father, and not he, who witnessed in the grey 
 of the morning the wild and victorious charge 
 of the clans, and saw Sir John Cope's flight 
 into an immortality of inextinguishable laughter. 
 Twice, after that, he was present at Holyrood 
 when the Prince came out from the palace of 
 his ancestors to review his army. He notes 
 his dark red hair and black eyes, his regular 
 features already overcast by the shadow of 
 prophetic melancholy. 
 
 We need not follow Carlyle to Holland, nor 
 further tell of his varied adventures — are they not 
 written for all time in the Autobiography ? Nor
 
 88 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 how, refusing the living of Cockburnspath, he was 
 presented to the Church with which his name is 
 indissolubly associated. Settled there, a brilliant 
 intellectual procession passes through his pages, — 
 David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Dr 
 Robertson, Dr Blair, Tobias Smollet. Who was 
 there of note he did not intimately know, or read 
 like an open scroll ? What nights must those 
 have been in the old manse at Inveresk — nodes 
 avibrosiancB of an earlier age ! With Lord Bute, 
 the Duke of Argyll, and other magnates and 
 statesmen, he was on more or less familiar terms, 
 and was chosen by the Church when it required a 
 friend at Court. How he got the clergy exempted 
 from the notorious house and window tax is well- 
 known, and if the matter of augmentation of 
 stipend proved a failure, it may be said that none 
 but he could have succeeded. He had his reverses, 
 like all men, as when, after being elected to the 
 clerkship of the General Assembly by 145 votes to 
 142, the progress of a scrutiny led to his aban- 
 doning the contest : but with the consolation that, 
 had he cared to renew the struggle, victory would 
 almost certainly have been his. The one sin 
 of omission, or commission, which we find it
 
 DR CARLYLE OF INVERESK 89 
 
 difficult to pardon, was his participation, active 
 or passive, in the act of vandalism that ruthlessly 
 removed old St Michael's Church. Surely Sir 
 Walter was justified in his opinion. Had Jupiter 
 been more a poet than his precentor, the age-worn 
 shrine, hallowed by the memories of so many 
 centuries, where, in the days when the ancient 
 faith was still the faith of Scotland, the monks 
 chanted and the incense rose in clouds before 
 the High Altar, while the people bent in adoring 
 awe, would yet have crowned the hill, though the 
 growing population necessitated a supplementary 
 place of worship in the town itself. Perhaps, 
 struggling, as his biographer says, with growing 
 years and infirmities, he was more readily swayed 
 by the opinion of others. However that may be, 
 he was never to minister in the new building. He 
 had hoped to gratify his people by opening it on 
 the first Sunday of August 1805 — "wereit only with 
 a brief prayer." But it was decreed otherwise, and 
 on the 25th of that month, the most remarkable 
 man in Scotland of his century, take him all in all, 
 ended his career. Of him it may, in conclusion, 
 be said, that he is famous not so much for what 
 he did as for what he was. His influence on the
 
 90 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Church was felt long after he had passed away, 
 and his share in the establishment of that settled 
 order, which brought peace and prosperity to 
 the Kirk for half a century, would alone entitle 
 him to the gratitude of Scotsmen. Times have 
 changed, and in the Church new forces, of which 
 Dr Carlyle little dreamt, are making themselves 
 felt. On the position he would have taken 
 towards them it is useless to speculate. Enough 
 that he served his Church and his country well 
 in his day and generation, and that his influence 
 was, on the whole, on the side of the angels.
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL 
 
 By Annie S. Swan (Mrs Burnett Smith) 
 
 I. 
 
 AFTER a Lammas spate the river was in 
 high flood. It was nine o'clock at night, 
 and the harvest moon was up, its weird white 
 light falling full on the brown torrent, as it rushed 
 on, wild, resistless, raging, bearing everything 
 before it to the sea. 
 
 Behind a low straggling hedge that topped the 
 bank of the river, where it sloped unusually high, 
 two figures stood together in the bright moon- 
 light which shone upon them clear and visible, 
 revealing every feature. 
 
 They were young, and they were lovers, and 
 they stood there to say good-bye. It was a 
 lonely spot, not a dwelling in sight, though the 
 gleaming lights of the little town were visible in 
 the distance, and not very far away the old kirk, 
 land-mark for miles around, stood out in sharp 
 
 93
 
 94 -'^T MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 outline against the vivid clearness of the sky. 
 The air, being cleared by the storm, was fresh, 
 and sweet, and fine, laden with the smell of new 
 grass, and wholesome potatoes, and growing corn, 
 — yellowing, though late, for the sickle. There 
 was a farm-house at the other side of the hay- 
 field where they stood, but it was hidden by 
 sheltering trees, and they were safe from observa- 
 tion as if they had been in a desert island. Not 
 that it mattered, or that they cared ; they were 
 properly engaged, with the full consent and ap- 
 proval of their immediate relatives and everybody 
 who knew them. So far there had been nothing 
 at all exciting or novel about their romance, 
 though it was naturally the most engrossing of 
 all romances to themselves. Nor was there any- 
 thing specially striking about their appearance. 
 They possessed none of these extraordinary at- 
 tractions common to the heroes and heroines of 
 romance. Yet they were a goodly pair: he well- 
 formed, strong, manly, and judging from outward 
 appearance, self-reliant ; she bonnie and fresh and 
 wholesome, strong of mind and of body, fitted 
 to be a happy, cheerful wife, and the glad mother 
 of children. Both she hoped to be some day,
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL 95 
 
 but not yet — her lover was going across the seas 
 to seek the fortune he would share with her, and 
 she remained behind to take up the woman's 
 portion, which, being interpreted, is " watch and 
 pray." 
 
 They stood very close together, and her head 
 was against his shoulder — her face looked very 
 grave, and her eyes were troubled, 
 
 " Archie," she said presently, " I have a presenti- 
 ment, a horrid one, I have had it all day. Don't 
 let's stand looking at that water. It makes me 
 shiver. It's so relentless, look how it carries every- 
 thing before it. I don't think it is a good omen 
 to see the river like that the night you are going 
 away." 
 
 " Oh Elsie, nonsense, to me it seems rather 
 a good omen, it's the tide of my fortune ; look, 
 nothing will stand before it. I'll come back a 
 rich man in no time, and then, where will all 
 your fears be ? " 
 
 " Come back true and good as you go away, 
 Archie," she said, with a little quiver in her voice. 
 " It's not riches I want. I wish you were not 
 going away." 
 
 " But America isn't the end of the world. Why,
 
 96 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 look how many come and go every year as easily 
 as you and I run up from Musselburgh to Edin- 
 burgh. I never thought you were so silly, Elsie, 
 upon my word, I didn't." 
 
 Through his cheerful banter there was a note of 
 deep tenderness born of his great love for her. 
 She was dearer to him than anything on earth. 
 The love had grown between them since the days 
 when they ran together to the village school, and 
 picked the daisies and the wild roses on the 
 river's bank. Fortune had hitherto been some- 
 what against Archie Leslie, though he was well- 
 doing, clever, and industrious. He was the only 
 son of his mother, a widow, who idolised him, and 
 had done her best to spoil him. He had been 
 taught no trade or profession, and his salary as a 
 clerk, now his mother and her annuity were gone, 
 was insufficient to keep him, and made the pros- 
 pect of his marriage with Elsie very remote indeed. 
 So he had decided to follow the great tide of 
 emigration then flowing from our shores, and enter- 
 tained, as so many have done, glowing visions of 
 the fame and fortune awaiting him over sea in the 
 far lands, so enchanting in the distance, so prosaic 
 and disappointing in reality. And now their part-
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL 97 
 
 ing had come, and the heart of Elsie Harden was 
 heavy within her, rather with a prevision of trouble 
 ahead than the pain of parting, though that was 
 hard enough to bear. 
 
 " You'll be true to me, Elsie, and write often," 
 he said for the hundredth time. " Mind I'll 
 have nothing but your letters to cheer me, and 
 the hope of coming back," 
 
 " I won't forget, Archie," she" answered quietly, 
 and looked up to the sky studded with the stars 
 of promise, as if seeking there some hope greater 
 than she had for the uncertain future. " It will 
 be easier for me to be true than for you," she 
 said presently. " You see, I am here with every- 
 thing to remind me of you, while you are going 
 among everything that is new, that can tempt you 
 to forget me and old Eskside ; but you won't, will 
 you, Archie ? " 
 
 Archie's protestations were vehement and sin- 
 cere, and he could not refrain from a reproach be- 
 cause she seemed so little to trust him. She could 
 not tell him that her quick woman's intuition 
 had detected in him of late a certain weakness of 
 character — an instability, born of his very goodness 
 of heart and easy disposition, which occasioned 
 
 G
 
 98 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 her, now he was going away where his strength 
 was bound to be hardly proved, the greatest anxiety 
 and concern. A woman is slow to admit such a 
 flaw in the man she loves, nor will she permit 
 others to suggest its existence. But in her secret 
 heart she grieves over it, and, if she be a good 
 woman, prays that its weakening influence may 
 be counteracted by some incentive to noble effort. 
 It was this vague fear that gave the bitter edge to 
 that sad parting ; and when he left her at last, 
 by her own request, to cross the field alone to 
 the house, her tears fell fast. Her home was 
 an old farmhouse, grey and picturesque, where 
 the Hardens had lived, father and son, in 
 straight descent for generations. It was unpre- 
 tentious, but truly a home, without and within ; 
 the very ivy, which touched her face as she stood 
 a moment leaning against it, as if seeking strength 
 from its patient clinging, seemed to her like a 
 friend. As she stood the town clock rang ten, 
 and just then the door was opened by the gentle 
 house mother, upon whose faithful heart her 
 daughter's sorrow lay. She was one whom you 
 would expect to see in such a house — a quiet, 
 unpretentious, motherly woman, with a touch of
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL 99 
 
 ladyhood mingling with the homeliness born of 
 her daily toil. 
 
 " Are ye there, bairn ? " she asked softly, and 
 her voice had that soothing quality peculiar to the 
 motherly woman, married or single, all the world 
 over. 
 
 " Yes, mother." 
 
 " Is Archie away, lassie ,-' " 
 
 "Yes, mother." 
 
 " Come in, an' up the stair ; father understands ; 
 he will not speir ye to the readin'. It's your first trial, 
 Elsie. God grant ye may know none mair bitter." 
 
 She gave her a little clap on the shoulder as 
 they stood together under the low porch, and 
 smiled a bit tearfully down into her face. More 
 demonstrative people might have said more, but 
 that little touch, that downward look, its very 
 repression suggesting strong undercurrents, made 
 Elsie know, what indeed she had never doubted, 
 that her mother sympathised with her to the full. 
 She stole quietly upstairs, and by-and-bye, sitting 
 by the open window, from which she could see 
 the Lammas flood rushing downward to the sea, 
 she heard the full tones of her father's voice as 
 he prayed, and she knew that, though he might
 
 lOO ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 not name her by name, he would be praying for 
 her in his heart, and the thought comforted her 
 not a little. Yet were these but the beginnings 
 of sorrow for Elsie Harden. 
 
 II. 
 
 There was consternation at kirk and market, and 
 but one theme in every mouth one Sabbath day, 
 six months after Archie Leslie had gone away. 
 For Robert Harden, tenant in Ingleside, an elder 
 in the kirk, a man whom all respected and many 
 loved, had been found drowned in the river, his 
 body in a deep pool under the hedges that skirted 
 his own wheat field. How he came by his end 
 no man could tell, though many hinted at the 
 cause. Especially was it talked of, with much 
 head shaking and dubious whispering, when it 
 transpired that he had left his affairs in a frightful 
 confusion, and that when everything was " redd 
 up," if such were possible, to convert such chaos 
 into order, there would be absolutely nothing left 
 for wife or child. In fact, though everything were 
 sold up, everybody would not get their own. It 
 was a fine morsel for the gossip-mongers, and 
 served as a tit-bit for afternoon teas for weeks.
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL lOI 
 
 Of course everybody was sympathetic to the two 
 lone women, so awfully stricken, and who rather 
 held themselves aloof, and would talk of their 
 desolation to none save the good minister, who 
 was their friend in need, and whose heart many 
 private and personal sorrows had made very large 
 and tender and sympathetic. Behold them sitting 
 by their sad hearth in the cheerless February 
 gloaming, discussing ways and means, and vainly 
 endeavouring to find a way out of their troubles. 
 
 The shock had set its seal on both, making 
 the elder woman, who had suffered the sudden 
 rending of the sweet tie of a lifetime, wan and 
 grey and old, with a kind of meek questioning 
 in her eyes, which seemed to say for the first 
 time that she doubted the goodness of God. 
 From Elsie all trace of girlishness had fled, and 
 she was now a woman, with the responsibility of 
 her frail mother on her shoulders, and a heart 
 which said that no more suffering must touch her ; 
 and yet so full and bitter had been the cup, that 
 a few more drops could scarcely hurt. 
 
 " I've got my mind quite made up, mother, and 
 Mr Kennedy quite approves ; you will trust me, 
 won't you ? "
 
 102 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Her mother looked at her half in wonder, and 
 the wistfulness of a passing flickering smile was on 
 her face. " I have only you, bairn ; ye are every- 
 thing to me ; what for would I no trust you ? " 
 
 "Well, because I don't know much," she said' 
 with a gasping little sob, as she knelt beside the 
 slender black-robed figure ; " but I'll work, mother 
 dear, to make our little home, and God will help me 
 to succeed." 
 
 " Ay, for sure, if He has not forgotten the house 
 of Harden, Elsie : may I be forgiven the unworthy 
 thocht." The pathos of her words, and the manner 
 of her speech were such as break the heart. A 
 lifetime's unquestioning faith in the wise ruling of 
 a merciful God was shaken to the very founda- 
 tions. The waters, like Esk's Lammas flood, had 
 passed over that stricken soul, and she had as yet 
 found no dry land. 
 
 " Oh no, He has not ; we will understand better 
 by-and-bye," said the brave girl, trying to give the 
 comfort she sorely needed herself. " And now^ 
 mother, listen to my plan. Where do you think I 
 have been all the afternoon .-' " 
 Mrs Harden shook her head. 
 " I've been out taking a house and making all
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL IO3 
 
 my arrangements, and everything is settled, if only 
 you will say I have done right." 
 
 " Well, bairn, and what is it ye have done ? " 
 
 " I've taken John Ingram's cottage at the water- 
 side, and he says he needs no voucher for the rent. 
 It has four rooms in it, mother ; and the biggest 
 one I'll have for my schoolroom, and I've got the 
 promise of seven bairns already — Mrs Ingram's 
 two little girls, and the Lochside bairns, and two 
 from the High Street ; and you'll keep house, 
 won't you, motherie, and ' mak meat ' for the school- 
 marm, — and then, you know, it's only for a bit, till 
 Archie comes home or sends for us to go to him." 
 
 A brighter look came upon the widow's face, and 
 she laid her hand fondly on the girl's fair head, 
 and her lips moved once more in prayer, which 
 had a note of thanksgiving in it. Much had been 
 taken, but something precious remained. She 
 began to question interestedly about the new 
 project, and was amazed at the care and decision 
 and forethought exhibited by the child who had 
 not hitherto known the meaning of care. 
 
 "Elsie," she said suddenly, a new thought 
 striking her, "Surely it is a long time since ye 
 heard from Archie."
 
 I04 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " It seems a long time, mother, but when he 
 last wrote he was very unsettled, and talking of 
 moving further west. He will write when he gets 
 to his destination, and, of course, he doesn't know 
 yet of our sore trouble," 
 
 " It's not to be expected that he should, though 
 there be many busy pens in Musselburgh that 
 would gladly send him the news, especially were it 
 ill news," said Mrs Harden, with a touch of bitter 
 sarcasm, entirely new to her who had aye been so 
 charitable and long-suffering. But experience is 
 a hard teacher, bringing out both bad and good 
 alike in human character. The news from the 
 land across the sea, which buoyant youth clothes 
 with such glorious hope, had not been very satis- 
 factory hitherto. From the first, indeed, there 
 had been something most disappointing in Archie's 
 letters ; a vague undercurrent which puzzled Elsie, 
 and made her anxious too. They were affec- 
 tionate, but he told very little about himself, and 
 that little was not in the frank, open way of 
 yore. It even seemed sometimes to Elsie that he 
 was reproaching himself, and he had written down 
 more than once that he was not worthy of her, 
 and that she ought to marry a better fellow. But,
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL IO5 
 
 woman-like, she wrote to him out of the fulness of 
 her loving, trusting heart, and hoped bravely on. 
 The sea of trouble that surrounded Ingleside had 
 occupied most of her thoughts for some weeks, 
 and it was her mother's words which awakened in 
 her anew her vague anxieties, and her longing to 
 know how it was with Archie Leslie. It did not 
 occur to her that he might have proved untrue ; 
 the shadow of his silence always present with her 
 was the thought that he was not getting on, and 
 did not care to write when he had nothing hopeful 
 or promising to report. Another fortnight beheld 
 the exodus of the Hardens from the old homestead, 
 and the little unpretentious schoolroom by the 
 waterside was duly opened and patronised by the 
 seven bairns, whose number by-and-bye increased to 
 twelve. Old friends and neighbours were kind to 
 the two desolate women ; the bygone lavish hospi- 
 tality of Ingleside was not all at once forgotten, 
 and, on the whole, mother and daughter were com- 
 fortable and modestly prosperous in their little 
 home, and as happy as circumstances would per- 
 mit. One cloud, however, grew heavier instead of 
 lighter as the grey years rolled on. One more was 
 added to the list of women who wait for the ship
 
 I06 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 that ne'er comes home, and whose fidelity to a 
 faithless memory robs the eye of its lustre, the 
 cheek of its bloom, the heart of its happy spring. 
 
 III. 
 
 Again the river rolled on in full Lammas flood- 
 tide to the sea. It had been a fine dry summer, 
 and all the corn in these early lands was ingathered 
 before the spate came, so that all were spared the 
 melancholy sight, not uncommon, of stooks danc- 
 ing in the brown torrent, and low-lying fields of 
 uncut grain submerged. By an evening train from 
 Edinburgh came a bronzed stranger whom none 
 recognised, though he sat in the carriage beside 
 some with whom he had been at school. He 
 looked like a stranger, but he resolved to ask no 
 questions as he stepped from the station, and 
 turned to walk up the river side away from the 
 town. 
 
 He seemed curiously moved as he walked, his 
 eye roaming from the swollen Esk to the familiar 
 land-marks on either side, all unchanged, as the day 
 he had left it ; the only change was in him. So, 
 after twelve years' absence, Archibald Leslie re-
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL IO7 
 
 turned to his native town. Anticipating no change 
 in the one spot of which he had dreamed so long^ 
 he walked with quick eager step up the little 
 private road which led to the Hardens' farm, and 
 when he knocked at the familiar door, he pre- 
 pared himself to be confronted by a kind face — 
 but none came. A smart house-maid, accompani- 
 ment of the new age of farming, answered his 
 summons, and appeared surprised when he spoke 
 the name of Harden. 
 
 " Hardens have been out of the place for twelve 
 years and more," she answered. "They're all 
 dead but Miss Harden that keeps the school in 
 Mr Ingram's house by the water-side." 
 
 She gave him all the information he required 
 in one breath, and he thanked her and went away 
 with a step somewhat unsteady, for the shock was 
 great. Strange, that never in all the years of his 
 exile had he thought of possible changes in Ingle- 
 side. He had left them a hale and hearty pair, 
 who had before them every prospect of a green 
 old age. 
 
 He had somewhat recovered his calmness of 
 mind when he reached John Ingram's cottage at 
 the water-side : he needed no guiding. Many a
 
 I08 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 time had he fished the deep pools before that 
 very door. Daylight had gone, and the harvest 
 moon was coming up big and red in the solemn 
 sky, as he swung the little green gate, and trod 
 the gravelled path to the door. Someone was 
 playing the piano within, and he heard voices. 
 Elsie was not alone. He was very white as he 
 put up his hand to the brass knocker, and though 
 his hand trembled he gave no uncertain summons ; 
 it was answered immediately by Elsie herself. 
 The light was uncertain on his face, but it shone 
 full on hers, betraying the woful change. She 
 was thirty-four, but grief and toil and the heart 
 sickness of hope deferred had done their relent- 
 less work, and she stood before him middle-aged, 
 faded, worn, with nothing to remind him of the 
 old Elsie, but the deep sweet eyes which had 
 once looked into his, faithfully mirroring every 
 loving, trustful thought of a happy heart. 
 
 " Elsie," he said huskily, " God forgive me, Elsie, 
 is it you ? " 
 
 She swayed a little, and the slight colour re- 
 maining forsook her face. 
 
 " I — I have a pupil — go in there," she said 
 steadily. " I will send her away."
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL IO9 
 
 She opened the door of the little parlour, 
 motioned him in, and shut it ; then she went 
 back to the schoolroom and dismissed the child, 
 whose lesson was only begun. When she re- 
 turned to him she was quite calm and self- 
 possessed, presenting the greater contrast to him. 
 He found it hard to control his agitation, his 
 bitter regret. 
 She spoke first. 
 
 " You have come back, to find lots of changes. 
 You could hardly expect to find everything the 
 same after so many years." 
 
 She unconsciously emphasised the last words, 
 and he felt their sting. And as he looked at her, 
 feeling the old sweet love which had hallowed his 
 early manhood welling up in his heart, he cursed 
 himself for his cruel folly which made the gulf of 
 years so hard to bridge. 
 
 " Are you glad to see me, Elsie ? " he asked, and 
 the question made her redden. 
 
 " I am not affected one way or other," she re- 
 plied, quite coldly. " And you have no right to 
 ask what I think or feel. Why have you come at 
 all ?" She stood by the table, very straight and 
 proud, and never flinched under his keen look.
 
 no ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " I deserve all you say, but won't you let me try 
 and explain, Elsie ? " he said hoarsely. " Don't 
 judge me till you hear my story." 
 
 " I judged you long ago. You have passed out 
 of my life. Why should you vex yourself and 
 me with what is past? Leave me to my quiet 
 home, as you have left me so long." 
 
 " After I have told my tale. I will gloss over 
 nothing, only lay it before you," he said. " Grant 
 me that, at least, out of pity, for old times' sake." 
 
 The allusion angered her, but she suffered it to 
 pass. 
 
 " If you will tell it, you will," she said, a trifle 
 wearily ; " but remember, my interest in it is but 
 small, and I have work lying to my hands ; the 
 work that gets me my daily bread." 
 
 Every word went home; he bit his lip, but 
 having come to lay bare his soul before this 
 woman, he would do it, he said to himself, though 
 it would cost him dear. For this pale, proud, dis- 
 tant woman was a very different person to deal 
 with from the gentle-hearted girl who would find 
 it easy to forgive because she loved. 
 
 " Well, Elsie, when I got to that new country I 
 found it very different from what I expected. The
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL III 
 
 struggle for existence is even fiercer there than 
 here, and I soon spent the little I had seeking for 
 the work I never got, till I was reduced to tramp- 
 ing the country like a common tramp, and so I 
 begged and worked my way by turns to the Far 
 West, till I landed at San Francisco. What little 
 self-respect I possessed I soon lost there. If there 
 is a place on earth that can be compared to hell 
 for wickedness it is San Francisco, and I did not 
 escape. I wish to hide nothing from you, Elsie. 
 It is part of my punishment that I should have to 
 tell you this, though it is easier to bear than to see 
 you looking at me as you look now. I sank down, 
 driven by my desperate straits, to the very depths, 
 from which I was rescued by a woman, whose 
 story I have thought I would like to tell you some 
 day, but it will not be now. Your face would need 
 to wear a different look, for though that woman 
 was not fit, according to the ordinary laws which 
 govern us, to breathe the same air with you, she 
 had a heart — God rest her soul — fit enough for 
 heaven. She took me by the hand, and I — I — 
 there was no other course open to me — I married 
 her. She helped me to a respectable position, and 
 I, cheered and encouraged by her faith in me,
 
 112 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 gathered the lost shreds of my manhood about 
 me, and began to look my fellows in the face. 
 For the first time since I left Scotland I tasted the 
 blessed luxury of honest work, honestly paid, and 
 from that day, laying my whole soul to it, I pros- 
 pered. From porter in a warehouse I rose to 
 the office stool, and so to the head ; the thing is 
 mine, Elsie, and I am a rich man." 
 
 " And your wife," said Elsie, and her voice had 
 lost its hard, contemptuous tone, — " Where is she .''" 
 
 " She is dead — three years ago. I never loved 
 her, but she was my constant friend. She saved 
 me, and I did my utmost to make her happy. 
 She died happy, and bade me with her last breath 
 return to Scotland and to you. I told her about 
 you after we began the new life together, the life 
 which made us a self-respecting man and woman ; 
 and though she was a poor ignorant being who 
 had stepped aside from the right way, she had 
 the gropings after goodness and purity which 
 are perfected in the noblest womanhood. She was 
 a creature of circumstance, and had she had a 
 chance, would have been one of those who bless 
 all who come in contact with her. She blessed 
 me ; and I reverence her memory."
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL II3 
 
 He ceased speaking, and Elsie Harden, her eyes 
 wet, turned her face away. For in a moment the 
 bitterness was gone, and she thanked God that all 
 human nature was not false, as she had dreamed. 
 
 " I have come back, Elsie, and God only knows 
 what it is to find you like this. You know all. If 
 you can bridge those bitter years with your 
 heavenly forgiveness, for God's sake do it, and let 
 me have a chance to atone. I can't give you back 
 the truth I have robbed you of; but something 
 remains. I am not wholly bad, Elsie ; if you can 
 ask those among whom my lot is cast, they will 
 tell you I try to live honestly and to do such good 
 as I can to those struggling around me. Let me 
 take you from this drudgery." 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " It is not drudgery ; it is the work I love, 
 not withheld from me by the people I have known 
 all my days. I believe in you, and I forgive you, 
 but I have nothing left to give you in return for 
 what you offer me. I am old before my time, a 
 trust betrayed has stolen my youth from me. I 
 could not make you happy, because I have still 
 a sore bitter feeling in my heart against you. 
 If only you had written. You misjudged me 
 
 H
 
 114 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 yourself, and laid me open to the bitter reproach 
 a woman finds it so hard to forgive, the reproach 
 of being slighted and deserted. I make no pre- 
 tension to being a saint, and that bitterness 
 would likely remain." 
 
 " It might not ; don't send me away, Elsie, 
 give me the benefit of the chance." 
 
 She shook her head, and though he pleaded 
 long, she sent him away. Nobody ever knew 
 of that brief visit Archie Leslie paid to his native 
 town ; but about six months after there was a nine 
 days' wonder in Musselburgh over the sudden and 
 unaccountable disappearance of Miss Harden. 
 She went away at Easter holiday time, and it 
 was found afterwards that it was no sudden 
 freak that called her away, for everything was 
 settled even to the disposal of her little school. 
 She had outwitted the gossips, and great was the 
 amazement at many breakfast tables one May 
 morning when this announcement appeared in 
 the marriage list of the Scotsvtan : — " At New 
 York, by special license, Archibald Leslie, of 
 Winyard, Leslie & Co., Fanfare Wharf, San 
 Francisco, to Elsie, only child of the late Robert 
 Harden, farmer in Ingleside, Midlothian."
 
 AN ESKSIDE IDYLL II5 
 
 One enterprising person from Midlothian 
 having occasion to visit the far west on business, 
 went out of his way to call upon the pair, and 
 brought back word that the Leslies were great 
 folks in San Francisco, and that Elsie Harden 
 had done well for herself And he said, too, that 
 he would hardly have recognised her, she looked 
 so bonnie and so young. And when a woman 
 looks like that you may be sure she has solved 
 the problem — Is life worth living? and that she 
 has found the secret of happiness under her own 
 roof-tree. And nobody, even the most censorious, 
 grudged her her good fortune ; which showed that 
 she deserved it.
 
 LADY MARGARET OF ESKDALE
 
 LADY MARGARET OF ESKDALE 
 
 By R. Menzies Fergusson, M.A., 
 
 Author of " Rai7ibles in the Far North" " My College 
 Days" ^'c. 
 
 IT was a lovely old-fashioned country house before 
 which I stood one warm day in July, The quaint 
 arrangement of the building, with its rich mass of 
 creepers, ivy, and roses, attracted my attention, 
 while the coolness suggested by the shadows of the 
 fine forest trees was pleasantly inviting after a walk 
 in the hot sun. There was a feeling of rest and 
 calm about the old place, with its wide lawn and 
 fantastic flower-plots. As I leant over a field gate 
 meditating upon these things, and wondering who 
 lived there, I noticed a labourer, well up in years, 
 coming towards the spot where I stood. " Awfu* 
 warm," he said, to which I gave a willing assent. 
 
 " Ye'U be thinkin' that's a grand hoose, nae 
 doot .? "
 
 I20 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " Yes," I answered ; " could you tell me any- 
 thing about it or its owners ? " 
 
 " Tell ye onything aboot it ! Losh, man, I ken 
 hapes aboot that hoose, an' a lot o' queer auld 
 stories ; an' I kent Lady Margaret weel." 
 
 " Who was Lady Margaret ? " 
 
 •' Gin ye'U no ken her, ye maun be a stranger 
 here. But I've juist time to tell ye a bit o' the 
 story." 
 
 The labourer sat down upon an old log by the 
 roadside and told his tale, which I give in my 
 own way, without his peculiarities of speech and 
 dialect. The man's face was a study during its 
 recital. The rugged features were flexible, strong, 
 and full of character. What a splendid model, I 
 thought, for a painter ! But to proceed to the 
 story of Lady Margaret. 
 
 Long ago, when my story-teller was a boy, the 
 house of Beechwood was left to two young ladies, 
 sisters, Margaret and Julia. Their father and 
 mother had both died as the girls were entering 
 the early stage of womanhood, and the young 
 ladies were left alone to enjoy the ancient family 
 residence and an income suitable to their position. 
 Miss Julia, however, did not long survive her
 
 LADY MARGARET OF ESKDALE 12 1 
 
 parents, and Margaret was left the sole representa- 
 tive of the old family, whose connection with the 
 parish of Eskdale had been one of centuries. She 
 was a sweet - tempered, handsome woman, and 
 carried her well-shaped figure with such grace that 
 the country folk soon learned to style her Lady 
 Margaret. Her visits among the poor were greatly 
 appreciated, and many a humble household blessed 
 her for the good deeds she did. 
 
 At this time a new minister came to the manse 
 — the Rev. John Falconer — full of zeal, and anxious 
 to be of service to his parishioners. In Lady 
 Margaret he found a willing helper in doing those 
 little unostentatious acts of kindness which the 
 poor value, and which they gladly welcome. The 
 gossips of Eskdale began to think of them to- 
 gether, and to make up in their own minds a 
 pretty romance. They expected that ere long 
 Lady Margaret would occupy the manse as the 
 minister's wife ; and when that event seemed as 
 far off as ever, they wondered, and felt themselves 
 badly used. They could not understand how the 
 minister should be so kindly attentive to the 
 young lady of Beechwood and nothing to come 
 of it. The years rolled on, and Lady Margaret
 
 122 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 went about as usual, a ministering angel, loved 
 by all, and often imposed on by those improvident 
 villagers who took advantage of her bounty. Nor 
 was she without suitors. More than one county 
 gentleman called at Beechwood and offered her a 
 home ; but she answered all in the same way — 
 she did not intend to marry. The manse, too, 
 remained without a mistress, and this also was 
 a source of mystery to the country people. Why 
 could not Mr Falconer get a wife ? They were 
 not so difficult to find. Many a hint was given 
 to the good man, but he would on such occasions 
 simply shake his head and smile. Folks said 
 there must be some reason for it ; and there was. 
 
 Forty years passed, and Lady Margaret was an 
 old woman with beautiful silver hair. The minister 
 was grey too, a little eccentric in many of his 
 ways, but always the idol of his flock. People 
 got used to his bachelor state, and ceased to 
 wonder why no wife came to take the place of 
 Betty, the minister's housekeeper. One thing, 
 however, puzzled the local gossips. Every day 
 the minister called upon Lady Margaret. This 
 was one of his eccentricities, the people thought. 
 
 At last the news spread that good Lady
 
 LADY MARGARET OF ESKDALE 1 23 
 
 Margaret was ill. In one of her visits of mercy 
 she had contracted fever. She grew worse. 
 Everybody was concerned about her. The minis- 
 ter was most attentive, and when the end came 
 he was there to close the eyes of the sweetest 
 woman he had ever known. A crowd of sincere 
 mourners stood round the open grave in the quiet 
 churchyard, and many were the tears shed as the 
 earth closed upon the mortal remains of the good 
 Lady Margaret. Two weeks afterwards Mr Fal- 
 coner died somewhat suddenly, and was buried in 
 the grave beside her, lamented by all who knew 
 and loved him so well. 
 
 Then the puzzle of those two saintly lives 
 became plain. Soon after Mr Falconer became 
 minister of Eskdale, and learned the worth and 
 beauty of the character of Lady Margaret, he had 
 asked her to be his wife. In a moment of un- 
 thinking heedlessness she refused his offered hand ; 
 and no sooner had he gone than she repented of 
 her harshness. But it was too late. The minister 
 went away grieved, and that night buried the 
 memory of his repulse deep down within his 
 heart. He never asked her again, although he 
 loved her still, and came almost to worship her.
 
 124 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 The passing years deepened their mutual affection, 
 and made it more spiritual than before. Thus 
 they each did their duty, waiting for a union not 
 made on earth. As Lady Margaret lay dying, 
 her last request was that their graves should be 
 together. That wish was carried out ; and now 
 the memory of those two Christ-like souls is sweet 
 in the hearts of the old folks of Eskdale.
 
 LORD HAILES
 
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 LORD HAILES 
 
 By F. P. Walton, LL.B., 
 Lecturer on Civil Law in the University of Glasgow 
 
 A LITTLE more than a hundred years ago 
 the congregation of Inveresk listened to 
 an eloquent funeral sermon by "Jupiter" Carlyle 
 upon Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes. It was 
 not necessary for the divine to indulge in exag- 
 geration even in a degree quite pardonable at 
 such a time. Dr Carlyle, who knew Lord Hailes 
 very well, could say with complete truth that he 
 was a man worthy to be remembered with affec- 
 tion and respect by his neighbours at Inveresk, 
 as well as by the larger circle in which he had 
 become known as a judge and as an author. 
 He belonged, indeed, to the class — very small in 
 any country and in any age — of patient and 
 laborious scholars. The quiet and secluded lives 
 of such men cause them to be regarded in their
 
 128 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 own day as persons of minor importance. But 
 Hailes is more certain to occupy a permanent 
 place in the records of his country than most of 
 the noisy politicians and successful lawyers of his 
 time, and in Inveresk his memory should always 
 be kept green. 
 
 Unlike most men of letters, Hailes had not to 
 battle with poverty. He succeeded early in life 
 to a considerable fortune, and the Dalrymples 
 had influence enough to procure his advance- 
 ment even if his own merits had been less con- 
 spicuous. His career was like a prosperous 
 voyage over a summer sea. His father, Sir 
 James Dalrymple of Hailes, auditor of the ex- 
 chequer, was a grandson of the great Viscount 
 Stair. His mother, Lady Christian Hamilton, 
 was a daughter of Thomas, sixth Earl of 
 Haddington. Of their sixteen children, David, 
 or, as he may conveniently be called by antici- 
 pation, Hailes, was the eldest. He was born 
 28th October 1726. The Dalrymples were strong 
 Whigs and Hanoverians, and young David was 
 sent to Eton. 
 
 Prefixed to the third edition of Hailes' Inquiry 
 is a brief anonymous memoir of the author, in
 
 LORD HAILES I 29 
 
 which we read that Hailes was highly esteemed 
 at Eton school, " not only for his proficiency in 
 classical learning, but on account of his good 
 disposition and exemplary behaviour." 
 
 Eton left a very strong mark upon Hailes, and 
 in many ways influenced his studies and tastes 
 during his whole life. He acquired there an 
 accurate and scholarly knowledge of Greek and 
 Latin, and a genuine love of classical literature. 
 
 Few men nowadays find expression for their 
 sorrows in the felicities of Latin verse-making, 
 and nothing can be more characteristic of Hailes 
 than that he should have celebrated in elegant 
 iambics his first great private grief This was 
 the death of his wife, Anne Brown, after giving 
 birth to twins, who also died. 
 
 Vidi gemellos, et superbivi parens, 
 
 Fausti decus puerperi ; 
 At mox sub uno flebilis vidi parens 
 
 Condi gemellos cespite. 
 Te dulcis uxor ! Ut mihi sol occidit, 
 
 Radiante dejectus polo 
 Obscura vitae nunc ego per avia 
 
 Heu, solus, ac dubius feror. 
 
 The verses are not like a school copy, for there 
 is a touch of real pathos and tenderness in them. 
 
 I
 
 130 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 But if Hailes had not been to Eton, it would 
 hardly have occurred to him to write Latin verses 
 at all when staggering under such a blow. 
 
 Another way in which Eton influenced Hailes 
 was that he made the acquaintance among his 
 school companions of some future bishops and 
 other prominent churchmen in England. In his 
 later life he kept up a correspondence with many 
 of the leaders of the English Church, and was 
 greatly esteemed by them as a stalwart and 
 learned defender of the faith against the attacks 
 of such doughty assailants as Gibbon and David 
 Hume. 
 
 After leaving Eton he went to Utrecht to study 
 the Roman law. The universities of the Low 
 Countries had at that time a great reputation, 
 and it was a very usual thing for a young man 
 who was coming to the Scottish Bar to spend 
 some years attending the prelections of the 
 famous Dutch civilians. 
 
 During the last century, when the Court rose 
 at one o'clock, and a great deal of the business 
 was done by written pleadings, even the advocates 
 who were most successful had leisure tc dally in 
 the pleasant fields of literature. We find in the
 
 LORD HAILES I3I 
 
 memoirs of that period many indications that the 
 Parh'ament House led the taste of Edinburgh 
 society in all matters of literary criticism. And 
 it is easy to understand that the high position 
 which the Bar then enjoyed must have been not 
 a little due to the fact that the advocates had 
 seen more of the world than most of their fellow- 
 citizens. A young man like Hailes Avho spent 
 some years at a great foreign university, frequented 
 by ardent students from all the countries of 
 Europe, may the relied upon to learn much 
 that is not in his note -books. Unfortunately 
 the keenness of competition leaves no time 
 now for anything but the practical. The 
 stage of preparation at which the young men 
 of Hailes' day went to Utrecht, Leyden, Halle, 
 or Groningen is spent now in a lawyer's office 
 or in haunting the Parliament House. The 
 modern method is more business-like, but one 
 cannot but regret the inevitable divorce between 
 law and literature. Hailes and his fellows 
 brought back from their Wanderjahre, minds full 
 of interest for learning and speculation. When 
 they attained the calm dignity of the Bench, they 
 spent their leisure — and they had much — in the
 
 132 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 pursuits of letters. Karnes, Monboddo, and 
 Hailes, who all sat on the Bench together, were 
 men of genuine learning, and among the most 
 distinguished and voluminous writers of their day. 
 Monboddo had studied civil law for three years 
 at Groningen before becoming an advocate. He 
 was a stout champion of Greek, which was then 
 much neglected in Scotland, and his speculations 
 on the descent of man, and kindred topics, are far 
 in advance of his day. Alexander Boswell, Lord 
 Auchinleck, the father of Johnson's biographer, 
 took a degree at Leyden, and was a sound and 
 diligent scholar and not afraid to engage in a 
 learned argument even with such a redoubtable an- 
 tagonist as Dr Johnson. In Boswell's " Tour in the 
 Hebrides," the son describes how he took the great 
 doctor to his father's country-house at Auchinleck, 
 full of pride and glory at being able to show the 
 seat of his ancestors, but not a little anxious as to 
 how Dr Johnson, that Tory of Tories and most 
 combative of Episcopalians, would get on with his 
 father, the judge, who was a stout Whig, and a 
 zealous Presbyterian. To the credit of Scotch 
 hospitality, Auchinleck kept clear of ticklish topics 
 as well as he could, but narrowly escaped a rupture
 
 LORD HAILES 1 33 
 
 with his guest in consequence of his praise of 
 Cromwell, that "he garr'd kings ken they had a 
 lith in their neck," a tone which seemed flat 
 blasphemy to Johnson. Hailes came back from 
 Utrecht, and was admitted as an advocate on the 
 23rd February 1748, a very troublous time in 
 Scotland. The death of his father, two years later, 
 placed him in command of an ample fortune. He 
 never became, and perhaps did not desire to 
 become, a busy counsel, but he gradually gained a 
 reputation among his brethren for the possession 
 of sound learning, sobriety of judgment, and 
 unwearied diligence. The qualities of the student 
 had in those days a better field at the Bar than 
 they have now. Some of the best drawers of the 
 written pleadings which were then in fashion 
 lacked the nimbleness, readiness, and combative- 
 ness indispensable for success in debate. With 
 time given them to think, they were well enough 
 able to ransack the authorities and to state in 
 writing the arguments for their client. Probably 
 Hailes would have remained all his life in this 
 class, but for the influence of his family and 
 position. No family except one — that of Dundas 
 of Arniston — can show such a record of distin-
 
 134 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 guished men at the Bar and on the Bench as the 
 Dalrymples. Hailes' great-grandfather was the 
 famous Viscount Stair, who brought to the law the 
 mind of a philosopher, and was a judge in Scotland 
 under Cromwell, a judge under Charles the Second 
 in 1661, an exile in Holland in 1682, and in 1689 
 brought back by William III. and made Lord 
 President. Stair's fifth and youngest son, Sir 
 David Dalrymple, Hailes' grandfather, was for 
 nineteen years Lord Advocate. 
 
 His eldest brother, Sir John, afterwards Earl of 
 Stair, born in 1648, succeeded Sir George Mac- 
 kenzie, " bluidy Mackenzie," as Lord Advocate in 
 1687, was Lord Justice Clerk in 1688, became 
 Lord Advocate again in 1690, — probably the only 
 instance in Scotland of. a judge returning to the 
 Bar, — and was obliged to resign that office in 1695, 
 on account of the great unpopularity which his 
 hand in the Massacre of Glencoe had brought 
 upon him. 
 
 Yet another of Viscount Stair's sons, Sir Hew 
 Dalrymple of North Berwick, was Dean of Faculty 
 in 1695, and was placed in his father's chair as 
 Lord President in 1698. His son was Hew 
 Dalrymple, Lord Drummore, and his grandson
 
 LORD HAILES 135 
 
 was David Dalrymple, Lord Westhall, both judges 
 of the Court of Session. 
 
 Hailes' own father, as we have seen, was not 
 a judge, but held a legal appointment, that of 
 Auditor of Exchequer. With a pedigree like this 
 it is not surprising that, when he had been eighteen 
 years at the Bar, i.e., in 1766, David Dalrymple was 
 raised to the Bench. He took the title of Lord 
 Hailes, by which he is best known. 
 
 He was an excellent judge, patient, learned, 
 courteous, and dignified. The solemnity with 
 which he administered the oath to witnesses 
 seems greatly to have struck the imagination of 
 his contemporaries, for it is mentioned in various 
 places. His chief judicial failing was a somewhat 
 pedantic strictness in matters of form. The con- 
 temporary rhyme, called the " Court of Session 
 Garland," which was first brought out by James 
 Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, but was pro- 
 bably the work of several hands, takes off this 
 little weakness of Hailes. 
 
 " ' This cause,' cries Hailes, ' to judge I can't pretend, 
 For justice, I perceive, wants an e at the end.'" 
 
 It is said that this is founded on fact, and that 
 Hailes did object seriously to a summons in which
 
 136 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 "justice" was thus misspelt. As a judge, Hailes 
 continued to lead a life of study and retirement. 
 He preferred New Hailes to Edinburgh, though 
 his residence in the country prevented his taking 
 much part in the society of the capital. Edin- 
 burgh was then more of a literary centre than it 
 can fairly claim to be now, but the dominant tone 
 was not one which was agreeable to Hailes. The 
 fashionable world affected a profound scepticism 
 as the most convenient cloak of a very genuine 
 indifference to religion. The popular work of the 
 day was Gibbon's great history. In the words of 
 Hailes' anonymous biographer, " the book was on 
 every toilette and table almost as soon as pub- 
 lished, and the historian was crowned by the taste 
 and fashion of the day." In the age of " Dodo " and 
 " The Heavenly Twins," Gibbon's " Decline and 
 Fall " hardly strikes one as the kind of work which 
 would form the topic of drawing-room literary 
 criticism, and one may safely assume that the fair 
 ladies and fine gentlemen who criticised it were 
 not so familiar with its contents as we are with these 
 great works of our time. But Gibbon's popularity 
 was, in part at least, due to his malicious hits and 
 covert sneers at Christianity, in themselves suffi-
 
 -^A)^.,^
 
 LORD IIAILES I 3/ 
 
 cient to win him the admiration of a society in 
 which David Hume was, perhaps, the greatest 
 figure. 
 
 Another feature of Edinburgh life which dis- 
 pleased Hailes was the hard drinking which pre- 
 vailed. In this the lawyers were more conspicuous 
 than any other class. Judges, advocates, agents, 
 clerks, vied with each other in the amount of claret 
 which they could consume without interfering with 
 their legal duties. The consultations were com- 
 monly held in the taverns near the Courts, and 
 were protracted until the most unbusinesslike 
 hours. Some of the most successful of Hailes' 
 contemporaries, e.g., Robert Macqueen, who be- 
 came Lord Justice-Clerk Braxfield, delighted in 
 the rough familiarity of these resorts, and owed 
 their success in no small degree to their reputation 
 as boon companions. 
 
 Hailes was not a man of this kind. The whole 
 atmosphere of such places stifled him. The vul- 
 garity, indecency, and drunkenness, or at least 
 hard drinking, which in no way shocked Macqueen, 
 were utterly repugnant to Hailes. So he retired 
 to his New Hailes, and spent his life between the 
 Court and his library. The number of works
 
 138 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 which he produced is astonishing. Forty-three are 
 enumerated by Sheriff Mackay in his article on 
 Hailes in the " Dictionary of National Biography." 
 But of course most of them were of minor im- 
 portance, — translations, short essays, memoirs, 
 and the like. Hailes' favourite studies were the 
 history of the early Christian Church and the his- 
 tory of Scotland, and his works nearly all centre 
 round one or other of these branches of learning. 
 The one which gained him the greatest fame in his 
 lifetime was a reply to Gibbon. It bears the cum- 
 brous title, " An Inquiry into the Secondary Causes 
 which Mr Gibbon has assigned for the Rapid 
 Growth of Christianity." 
 
 The passages in Gibbon's great work in which 
 he discusses the rise and progress of Christianity, 
 had very naturally given great offence to those 
 who were not imbued with the sceptical spirit. 
 One of the strongest arguments for the truth of 
 Christianity rested then, as it must always rest, on 
 the wonderful rapidity with which the Christian 
 faith took possession of the civilised world. With 
 an affectation of reverence. Gibbon admits that 
 this must be ascribed first to " the convincing 
 evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling
 
 LORD HAILES I 39 
 
 providence of its great Author." Having made 
 this concession, the historian says, " It may be 
 permitted to inquire what were the secondary 
 causes which brought about the rapid spread 
 of Christianity." He then proceeds with much 
 ingenuity to suggest natural causes, quite apart 
 from the inherent truth or reasonableness of 
 Christianity, which might account for its success. 
 Lord Hailes' answer in the Inquiry is a work 
 of very elaborate and painstaking study, and ex- 
 poses Gibbon's unfairness with considerable success. 
 It won Hailes much honour both in Scotland and 
 in England, and made him regarded as one of the 
 bulwarks of Christianity against the attacks of the 
 sceptics. Hailes' anonymous biographer says with 
 much grimness — " Some probably wish that the 
 excellent author had treated his subject with more 
 ardour, that he had interested his readers by re- 
 presenting its consequence as well as its truth ; 
 that he had dwelt on the dangers and guilt of Mr 
 Gibbon's hypocrisy and misrepresentations, and 
 had warned the world against his pernicious and 
 criminal arts. But Lord Hailes uniformly pre- 
 serves the coolness and dignity of the judge in all 
 his works, and those who infer from his dispas-
 
 140 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 sionate style that the argument is not of ineffable 
 moment, will find themselves ere long most wo fully 
 and eternally mistaken" 
 
 Gibbon made no reply to Hailes, and it is hardly 
 doubtful that it would not have been possible for 
 him to defend himself with success against the 
 charge of having treated the Christians unfairly. 
 In his Memoirs, which were published after his 
 death, he refers to some of his critics, and men- 
 tions the Inquiry in these terms — " The profes- 
 sion and rank of Sir David Dalrymple has given a 
 more decent colour to his style. But he scrutinised 
 each separate passage of the two chapters with the 
 dry minuteness of a special pleader, and as he was 
 always solicitous to make, he may sometimes have 
 succeeded in finding, a flaw." Although the In- 
 quiry was in its day a work of great reputation, 
 and still deserves the attention of the learned, 
 it cannot be said that it continues to enjoy any 
 great popularity. It is not to be found " on every 
 toilette and table." But as Gibbon's " Decline and 
 Fall " is no longer among the books of the day, 
 the fashionable world does not need to be pro- 
 tected against the peril of being misled by it. As 
 for the genuine student of history, he may not read
 
 LORD HAILES I4I 
 
 Hailes' Inquiry, but in his reading of Gibbon he 
 will not fail to notice the crafty and malicious side 
 attacks made by the great historian, and will make 
 allowance for this in his estimate of one or two of 
 the least satisfactory chapters in Gibbon. 
 
 The most important of Hailes' works is, without 
 doubt, his "Annals of Scotland." This is a history 
 of Scotland from the accession of Malcolm Can- 
 more in 1057, to the death of David II. in 1 370, 
 but it differs in very important respects from the 
 style of an ordinary history. Hailes put down 
 under each year the chief events, and gave at the 
 foot of the page references to the primary auth- 
 ority for the statement, generally quoting the 
 passage from the chronicler or other early writer. 
 The story is told in the baldest way, quite unlike 
 the rhetorical style of Robertson or Gibbon. Dr 
 Johnson called their works " painted histories," 
 comparing them in this respect unfavourably with 
 Hailes' dry and lawyer-like narrative. I am not in 
 the least able to express an opinion on the accu- 
 racy of Hailes' Annals, but the best judges seem 
 to be unanimous in ascribing to them this quality. 
 They have been constantly referred to by all sub- 
 sequent writers on that period, and if Hailes had
 
 142 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 written nothing else he would still be entitled to 
 the gratitude and esteem of his fellow-country- 
 men. 
 
 In such peaceful and useful labours the life of 
 Hailes passed away. He was twice married, each 
 time to the daughter of a fellow-judge. His first 
 wife was Anne Brown, daughter of Lord Coalston, 
 on whose death he wrote the epitaph given above. 
 She left one daughter, who succeeded to the estate, 
 but died unmarried. Hailes' second wife, who sur- 
 vived him, was Helen Fergusson, daughter of Sir 
 James Fergusson, Bart, of Kilkerran. His title on 
 the Bench was Lord Kilkerran. By his second 
 marriage, also, Hailes had one daughter. She 
 married her cousin, James Fergusson. Their 
 grandsons are Sir Charles Dalrymple, the present 
 lord of New Hailes, and his brother, Sir James 
 Fergusson. Hailes became more and more of a 
 recluse as he grew older. He took no exercise, 
 unless one may call by that name his daily drive 
 from New Hailes to the Parliament House during 
 session time. " Predisposed by corpulence and by 
 the form of his body, which was short-necked," 
 says his biographer, he was seized with apoplexy 
 when about to step out of his carriage at New
 
 LORD HAILES 143 
 
 Hailes, and died a few days later, on the 29th of 
 November 1792, in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 
 There is an excellent portrait of him in Kay's 
 Portraits, which shows us a stout, good-tempered, 
 placid, and sagacious-looking face, with something 
 in its solidity which reminds us of an Elizabethan 
 worthy.
 
 IN MEMORY 
 OF A HOUSEHOLD PET 
 
 By Isabella Fyvie Mayo 
 
 A LITTLE life which used to watch and wait 
 With dumb caress, passed from the mid- 
 night room — 
 Amid a sound of sobbing in the gloom — 
 On through the awful and mysterious gate 
 That bounds our earthly ways. Where is it now, 
 So kind and patient? In His tender hand 
 Who takes the fallen bird. We understand 
 No more. Nor need we vex our souls with " how.^" 
 And *' why ? " and " when ? " This little simple 
 
 thing 
 Gave love and won it. Can a saint or king 
 Do more .'' It comforted a lonely heart, 
 
 And with her love wrapped round its little ghost. 
 Surely it steals among the heavenly host. 
 And claims its right to learn an angel's part ! 
 
 K «
 
 THE LETTER C 
 
 AN INCIDENT OF THE EPILDRUM BAZAAR 
 
 By Brown Paterson, 
 
 Author of •• The Minister's Ward," '\The Front Door Key," 
 
 " Mrs Macintosh, &=c., &^c. 
 
 IT all came out of the Epildrum bazaar, though 
 certainly the promoters of that enterprise never 
 anticipated that the events I am about to record 
 would be among the results of their efforts. The 
 bazaar was started for the benefit of the Epildrum 
 Cottage Hospital, and no idea of settling Edith 
 Bennet and Walter Nivison in life was in the 
 minds of anybody; but, as every one knows, 
 *' Great things out of small things spring," and 
 whether we consider the bazaar or Walter's wed- 
 ding the greater thing on that occasion, the fact 
 remains that the one was certainly the chief obtain- 
 ing cause of the other. People in Epildrum were 
 divided as to which was the more important event 
 of the year ; and, where Epildrum was undecided.
 
 148 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 it is not for the present humble historian to offer 
 any opinion. 
 
 Now matrimony, it may be observed, is not a 
 particularly uncommon thing. From the earliest 
 times it has been the practice of man to marry, 
 and the most serious exhortations of their elders 
 never deterred a single couple from being linked 
 together for life if they had any inclination that 
 way. Therefore, at first sight, the union of these 
 two young people in Epildrum may not appear 
 anything very much out of the ordinary. Yet there 
 were one or two odd circumstances about it never- 
 theless. To begin with, Walter Nivison of the 
 Bank was a young man with a justly high opinion 
 of himself. He was distinctly an individual of the 
 Higher Culture, who not only took out the " Fors 
 Clavigera " in numbers when it appeared, but read 
 it. He also made a pilgrimage yearly to London to 
 see Burne Jones' latest pictures, and was personally 
 
 acquainted with M s, the great art critic. He 
 
 had strong views about the proper thing in furni- 
 ture, and the drawing-room at the Bank was, as 
 one enthusiastic young lady declared, " a perfect 
 dream." Old china, sage green curtains, and Ori- 
 ental gimcracks of the most correct description, all
 
 THE LETTER C 149 
 
 proclaimed their owner to be a man of taste ; the 
 chairs were of the oddest shapes, and, instead of 
 the rosewood damask covered couch that was the 
 emblem of respectability in all the other houses in 
 Epildrum, Walter Nivison had a great cushion 
 spread right over the entire length of one end of his 
 sitting room, and called it his " dewan." More than 
 that, it was whispered in Epildrum that Walter's 
 bedroom ewers were all furnished with two handles, 
 like the vases used by the ancients. Nannie 
 Dundas, his old housekeeper, said so at anyrate, 
 but the inhabitants of Epildrum hardly credited 
 the report. That any sane man should wash out 
 of " twa-hanl't joogs " was really too much for 
 them to believe. However, everybody agreed that 
 Mr Nivison had extraordinarily good taste, and it 
 was quite recognised in the village that such a rare 
 young man could hardly be expected to be smitten 
 by the charms of any ordinary Epildrum damsel. 
 Not but what there were some bonnie girls in the 
 little town. Maggie Tulloch, the doctor's eldest 
 daughter, had as rosy cheeks and dark eyes as any 
 man need wish to look at ; but then rosy cheeks 
 did not fit in with Mr Nivison's ideal of female 
 loveliness. And Janet Anderson, at the Nether-
 
 150 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 howe Farm, though considered very handsome by 
 some, was as ignorant of the higher culture as a 
 Hottentot, albeit she had the sharpest tongue in 
 all the country side. The same might have been 
 said of all the other various young ladies with 
 whom Walter's name had been coupled by the 
 Epildrum gossips at different times, and, in fact, it 
 began to be assumed that the manager of the 
 Bank was likely enough to remain a bachelor to 
 the end of his days. He rather thought so himself 
 often, and did not know that he was altogether 
 sorry. A wife might be a good thing in some 
 ways, but where would he find the woman who 
 would reverence his Persian jars, and look graceful 
 reclining on his " dewan " .-* 
 
 Certainly he never expected to discover her in 
 Edith Bennet, a girl whom he had known all 
 his life, and whom he privately denominated " the 
 thread paper," from her lanky appearance. Edith 
 was not exactly a native of Epildrum, but she 
 had lived there ever since she was a tiny child 
 with her grandparents, the old minister and his 
 wife. Few people considered this young girl 
 good-looking: her mouth was a trifle large, and 
 her brow was too high for beauty, and it was only
 
 THE LETTER C I5I 
 
 one or two keener observers than the rest who 
 noticed the intelligence that lay in her clear 
 brown eyes, or the sweetness of her ready smile. 
 Walter Nivison was not one of those shrewd folk. 
 He enjoyed her society, it is true, and a good deal 
 of his leisure time was spent in the Manse parlour, 
 instructing the worthy inmates thereof in the true 
 ideas of high art. As the evening went on, both 
 the good minister and his spouse were apt to nod 
 rather inappropriately in the midst of the discourse, 
 but Edith's attention rarely flagged. Consequently, 
 Walter had a good-natured liking for her, and he 
 lent her some of his books now and then, as a 
 mark of his favour, but as for making her his 
 wife, such an idea never entered his head for a 
 moment. Thus the time passed till Walter was 
 two and thirty, and Edith Bennet was twenty-four, 
 and the year of the Epildrum bazaar came round. 
 Walter threw himself with great spirit into the 
 bazaar. It was just the very opportunity he had 
 long wished for to teach the benighted natives 
 of the village what " taste " meant. He became 
 honorary secretary to the Committee, and under- 
 took the entire arrangement of the whole affair. 
 There was to be a "Street in Old Verona,"
 
 152 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 and the honorary secretary ransacked his Shakes- 
 peare for hints on costume ; all old-fashioned 
 notions in pink and white calico were strictly 
 tabooed. Mr Nivison himself drew out the designs 
 for the decoration of the stalls, and went a journey 
 to London to select the materials from Liberty's. 
 Never was such a bazaar heard of as this was 
 to be. Every article sent in was severely inspected 
 by the head of affairs, and whatever offended was 
 ruthlessly consigned to what he termed the 
 " Monstrosity Stall." In vain the horrified old 
 ladies of Epildrum scolded as they learned that 
 their much-prized antimacassars and patchwork 
 pin-cushions were thus treated with contumely. 
 Walter would have none of their crude crochet 
 productions presented in the front rank, and his 
 air of knowledge and authority was such that he 
 bore down all opposition. Even the younger 
 generation were fain to bow to his decrees, and 
 stood his lordly criticism of their art needle- 
 work with a humility that was truly gratifying. 
 It was a glorious time for the young bank- 
 manager, and the other men in the town, who 
 sneered at the Higher Culture among themselves 
 occasionally, as rude, unelevated minds will,
 
 THE LETTER C I53 
 
 found themselves for once completely snuffed 
 out. 
 
 Now, Walter had conceived a thoroughly poetical 
 idea for the opening ceremony. Seven young ladies 
 in Grecian costume, a la Alma Tadema's pictures, 
 wreathed in flowers, and standing in a background 
 of marble pillars and terra cotta and gold drap- 
 eries, were to sing an ode composed by himself to 
 Esculapius, and each maiden having sung one 
 verse in turn as a solo, was to display high above 
 her head a large letter, together making up the 
 word " Welcome," while the concluding strains 
 were given out by all the seven in chorus. This, 
 Walter firmly believed, would create an effect 
 hitherto undreamt of at a bazaar, and he spent 
 hours, when he should have been working at his 
 business, over his poetry. When the ode was com- 
 pleted, the next thing was to get the maidens, and 
 though far more than seven were found in Epil- 
 drum who were willing to take part, few were con- 
 sidered by the author competent for the function 
 they were to perform. Great are the difficulties of 
 those who strive after the Ideal, and Walter was 
 almost in despair. However, by dint of persever- 
 ance, he finally got six girls of graduated heights
 
 154 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 and fairly good-looking to represent respectively 
 W, E, L, and O, M, E, but nowhere could he hit 
 upon any damsel worthy to stand in the middle 
 and bear aloft the letter C. For you must under- 
 stand Walter's conception was that the seven 
 maidens should form, as it were, an arch, of which 
 the centre should be at once the tallest and the 
 fairest of all. And where in Epildrum was there 
 such a girl, at once beautiful, graceful, and with a 
 voice ? Tall girls there were in plenty, but Walter 
 shuddered at their false notes and rustic gestures. 
 At the very last moment the whole arrangement 
 seemed likely to come to nothing for want of the 
 fit and proper person to represent the letter C. 
 As Walter mourned to Edith, it was enough to 
 drive any cultured man into his grave to see the 
 lack of grace in the women of the present day. 
 Edith sympathised very much with his difficulties, 
 and it was wonderful how thoroughly she entered 
 into the position, and how often her quiet hints 
 were of service to him in all the smaller matters 
 of detail. Still she could not solve the problem of 
 the letter C. 
 
 " I want," said Walter, " a girl of about 
 the same height as yourself, who can carry
 
 THE LETTER C 1 55 
 
 the emblem with ease, and not as if she were 
 deformed." 
 
 "Wouldn't Janet Anderson do?" suggested 
 Edith. 
 
 " Janet Anderson ! She would like it, I daresay, 
 but it would simply make the whole thing a fiasco 
 the moment she opened her mouth." 
 
 " How would / look .'' " inquired Edith, with a 
 sudden flush of her cheeks. 
 
 Walter frowned. " This is not a joke," he re- 
 plied curtly. " I thought you wanted to help me, 
 Miss Bennet." Evidently he had not the slightest 
 notion that she could be supposed eligible for a 
 moment, and Edith smiled quietly to herself when 
 he was gone. 
 
 However, Janet Anderson it was who was finally 
 chosen, though every time the Ode was rehearsed 
 the stage manager was the more put out. Miss 
 Anderson was worse than uncultured. She scoffed 
 at high art, and even dared to inform the author 
 of the Ode that she considered it rubbish, laugh- 
 ing all the while so merrily that Walter's glum 
 face grew glummer at the sound. 
 
 " Man," exclaimed this plain - spoken damsel, 
 ** ye dinna mean to say ye think such stuff as this
 
 156 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 poetry ? Hoots, Mr Nivison, Nature never meant 
 yoii for a poet, though I always will say ye've 
 spoilt a rale gude draper. Keep to ye're china 
 an' silks, but leave the poetry to better men, Mr 
 Walter." 
 
 Walter muttered something, and shot a look at 
 her that should have withered her up, but Janet 
 only shrugged her shoulders, " He's jist eaten up 
 wi' pride and self-conceit," she remarked after- 
 wards to the doctor's daughter, who had been 
 selected to stand for the letter W. " But / know 
 what will cure him." 
 
 " What ? " asked Maggie, but Janet only tossed 
 her auburn curls. 
 
 " Wait, and you'll see," she replied oracularly. 
 
 The time wore on, and the opening day of the 
 bazaar dawned. Walter had hardly been in bed 
 all night, he had been so busy finishing up the 
 arrangements. Seven balloons were ready to go 
 off, and seven guns were loaded to be fired as soon 
 as the Royal Duke, who was to honour the town 
 by opening the bazaar, declared that ceremony 
 performed, and all the seven maidens were primed 
 with the Ode, which was to be discharged simul- 
 taneously, as it were, with the guns. Walter's
 
 THE LETTER C 157 
 
 heart thrilled as he prepared to go down town to 
 the marquee. 
 
 Everything looked lovely ; the stalls were artistic 
 beyond this writer's power to describe, and all the 
 ladies who were to serve were dressed exactly as 
 Walter himself had prescribed. The men and 
 women in Old Verona walked about the street of 
 their ancient town as to the manner born ; every 
 face was wreathed in smiles, and congratulations 
 poured in from all sides on the proud designer of 
 the show. For one brief moment Walter tasted 
 such joy as Columbus felt when he first descried 
 the island of San Salvador. He, too, was a great 
 discoverer, and had revealed to the ignorant in- 
 habitants of Epildrum the existence of the new 
 world of culture. The delight was, however, short. 
 At the upper end of the tent were a group of 
 excited girls gathered round Janet Anderson, and 
 Walter, after one quick glance, guessed some hitch 
 had occurred. Consternation was visible in the 
 faces of every one of the seven maidens as he 
 approached. 
 
 " Oh, Mr Nivison, the Ode's burnt ! " cried 
 Maggie Tulloch, almost in tears. " And there's not 
 one of us can say our verses without the paper."
 
 158 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " Burnt ! " gasped Walter, glaring at Janet, 
 whom he instinctively felt was the cause of this 
 unexpected catastrophe. *' Not all the copies." 
 
 " Every one," replied Janet, coolly. " It's my 
 fault, Mr Nivison. I threw them in the kitchen 
 fire just before startin', thinkin' they were a lot 
 of waste paper. I had rolled them in a bit of 
 newspaper, ye see, last night, and in my hurry I 
 jist made the mistake." 
 
 Walter's face paled. He heard the cheers of 
 the crowd outside, and knew the procession con- 
 voying the Duke from the railway station was 
 already on its way to the marquee. To say he 
 was enraged is a mild description of his sensations ; 
 but he was a gentleman, though an extremely 
 conceited one, so he held in his anger, and merely 
 asked, in a voice preternaturally calm and precise, 
 " Perhaps, then. Miss Anderson, since this — this 
 accident has happened, you will be kind enough 
 to suggest what is to be done next ? There is no 
 time now to write even a single new copy. Could 
 you not sing them from memory ? " he asked, 
 appealing to the others. " I could prompt you, 
 you know." 
 
 But with a strange unanimity of stupidity, every
 
 THE LETTER C I 59 
 
 one of the maidens in Greek costume declared 
 they were quite unequal to such an effort. " I 
 never could remember anything off the book all 
 my days," sobbed Maggie TuUoch, from the 
 depths of her pocket-handkerchief " I would 
 die sooner," said another young lady energetically, 
 and as all the other five expressed similar senti- 
 ments, it was evident no help could be expected 
 from them — in that way at least. 
 
 "I wonder you didn't each look better after 
 your own copies, then," Walter observed sharply. 
 " It was madness to put them all in the hands 
 
 of " He had nearly said "of a fool," but he 
 
 checked himself in time, and concluded, " of one 
 person." 
 
 "Janet made us," cried the girls in indignant 
 chorus. " She promised to take care of them all, 
 and bring them for us to-day." 
 
 "Awell, Mr Nivison," briskly interposed Miss 
 Janet, who took the matter very lightly, considering 
 she was the guilty party, " It's little use cryin' owre 
 spilt milk. The verses are gone, and that's an end 
 o' them, but things are maybe no so bad as ye 
 think. We hae a real poet in Epildrum " (it might 
 be fancy, but Walter imagined Miss Janet put a
 
 l60 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 very slight emphasis on the adjective), " though I 
 daresay ye didna know it, and she has written 
 some bonnie verses, just in your own idea like. If 
 she would let us sing them instead of yours, I'll 
 warrant the fine folk will be just as well pleased. 
 I have them here," she added, pulling a sheet of 
 manuscript out of her pocket. 
 
 " I did not know YOU were a poet," observed 
 Walter stiffly. 
 
 " Me a poet ! I hope I'm no that daft," replied 
 the incorrigible Miss Janet. "But I know the 
 right stuff when I see it, and this " 
 
 But what Janet was going to say was never 
 said, for at this instant, Edith Bennet, who had 
 been standing a little behind the group, sprang 
 forward and tried to snatch the paper out of her 
 hand. 
 
 " Give me that, Janet," she exclaimed, blushing 
 scarlet, " I never said you could show it to any 
 one." 
 
 " Softly, softly, my woman," replied Miss Janet, 
 holding her back. "We'll settle that after. It's 
 your verses or none that are goin' to be sung this 
 day. Here are all the grandees comin'," she con- 
 tinued, pointing to the door, where indeed the
 
 THE LETTER C l6l 
 
 provost with a lady on his arm was just entering, 
 " quick, girls, into your places." And without 
 giving either Walter or Edith time for another 
 word, Janet whisked the Grecian maidens into 
 position, pushed the paper into Maggie Tulloch's 
 hand, and took her own place in the centre, with 
 the letter C held near enough her face to hide the 
 look of triumph she could no longer repress. The 
 magnates came up on the platform, and the open- 
 ing ceremony proceeded. The Duke paid many 
 compliments in his speech to the artistic powers 
 of the gentleman who had superintended the 
 arrangements of the fete, but for once Walter 
 Nivison's ears were deaf to his own praises, they 
 were tingling too much already. The seven guns 
 went off, and Maggie Tulloch's clear voice struck 
 up the first verse of Edith Bennet's ode. To the 
 ordinary public, perhaps, one ode was much the 
 same as the other, but Walter in an instant recog- 
 nised that Janet Anderson was right. This was 
 poetry indeed, compared with which his own 
 stilted, limping lines were as night to day. He 
 covered his face with his hands, and reddened to 
 the roots of his hair, as he remembered how 
 arrogantly he had lectured the girl who wrote 
 
 L
 
 1 62 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 these verses, and how conceitedly he had crowed 
 to her over his own rudimentary efforts. What 
 an ass he had been ! How he had scoffed at the 
 idea of her even taking part in this day's doings ; 
 she who was so much better fitted than himself 
 in some ways. What could she think of 
 him ? 
 
 The ode was sung, and was loudly applauded, 
 the Grecian maidens laid their letters, which were 
 rather a burden to hold, aside, and mingled with 
 the other sellers and buyers at the stalls ; but 
 Walter still sat in his corner brooding over his 
 own folly. Suddenly a light hand was laid on his 
 shoulder. He looked up, and saw Edith Bennet, 
 with her face full of sympathy, standing by his 
 side. 
 
 " I am so sorry, Mr Walter," she said timidly. 
 " It must have been a great disappointment to you 
 that your beautiful verses were destroyed. I don't 
 know how Janet could have been so careless." 
 
 "They were no great loss," answered Walter, 
 honestly. " Your own were a thousand times 
 better, Edith." 
 
 "Oh no, Mr Nivison," protested Edith, "you 
 must never say that. I only thought your idea
 
 THE LETTER C 1 63 
 
 was such a good one, I would like to try and 
 write something about it myself, and Janet Ander- 
 son found out I had done it one day last week 
 when she was at the manse. How she got hold 
 of the paper to-day, I can't imagine." She flushed 
 once more as she spoke, and Walter, looking at 
 her with eyes suddenly enlightened, wondered 
 why it was he had never seen before how beauti- 
 ful Edith Bennet's face became when she 
 blushed. 
 
 " Edith," he said, taking her hand, " I 
 have been an ass and a prig, but if you will 
 forgive me now, I'll try and not be so ever 
 again. You will teach me better things, I 
 know." 
 
 " How could I ever teach fou anything ? " asked 
 Edith, with a light laugh, but the tears were in her 
 eyes as she spoke. Strange as it may appear, 
 Edith was truly fond of this foolish young man, 
 and though she was not ignorant of his short- 
 comings, she was much more tender-hearted than 
 Miss Anderson. Consequently, when they had 
 escaped from the marquee, now a scene hateful 
 to Walter, she soon succeeded in soothing his 
 wounded feelings, and even prevailed upon him
 
 164 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 to revisit the fete at the conclusion of their walk 
 that afternoon. 
 
 As for Miss Janet, she speedily discovered the 
 absence of the two poets from the scene, and 
 smiled to herself. In a pause of business she 
 gathered the other Grecian maidens around her, 
 and thus addressed them : " Ye all did first-rate, 
 my bairns, and Maggie here is a born play-actor. 
 Her sobs were grand ; but ye all did well, and 
 it'll no be your fault if there's no a weddin' at 
 the manse. We've opened the eyes o' yon young 
 man, and taken him down a peg or so at the 
 same time ; the whilk," concluded Miss Janet 
 quaintly, " will no do Mr Walter Nivison ony 
 great ill." 
 
 A little later in the day Mr Nivison approached 
 Miss Janet, and made one or two purchases in a 
 diffident manner quite new to him. 
 
 " I am obliged to you, Miss Anderson," he re- 
 marked, his face growing rather red as he spoke, 
 " for your lesson to-day. I am not ungrateful, I 
 assure you." 
 
 " Awell," she returned, " it's no everybody wad 
 say as much ; but ye'll mind that I was the letter 
 * C,' and ' C ' stands for Candour, and maybe," she
 
 THE LETTER C 1 65 
 
 added, with a mischievous glance to where Edith 
 was standing, not far ofif, " * C ' sometimes stands 
 for Consolation as well." 
 
 " He'll no forget the letter C in a hurry," she 
 observed to Maggie Tulloch, as Walter rejoined 
 Edith ; " but if I'm no greatly mistaken, it has 
 given him a wife."
 
 PAIN AND A CHILDHEART 
 
 By the Rev. T. H. Chapman, B.D., Aldershot 
 
 " As a little child." 
 
 A CHILD was born, and God gave gifts of joy 
 and song. As years went on, the world's 
 beauty was disclosed. Sweet were the play and 
 love of the children ; sweet were the gentle breezes, 
 the rustling leaves of the forest ; sweet the sheen 
 and ripple of waters ; sweet even the storm's fury, 
 the rush and the din of wind and wave. Glad, 
 indeed, was life. 
 
 Men of furrowed brow did speak of pain ; but 
 their words the child understood not, and still it 
 sang. 
 
 But men were woe-begone, and women sobbed 
 with heartbreak. They said in their misery, " Be 
 thou sad with us, thou little child, and cease 
 thy song." 
 
 But the child said, " Nay, I shall sing, and 
 
 my song shall soothe your pain." 
 
 167
 
 1 68 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 Yet they did insist ; and he in very piteousness 
 shrank back, and cried, " Your grief has touched my 
 being. Ah ! let me be ; I can no other. Joy is 
 in my heart, and I must sing." 
 
 But pain made one more trial. A melody 
 which another's presence gives became a dirge 
 of loss. Darkness swept heavily o'er the world, 
 and blurred, then hid, its wondrous beauty. 
 Passion scathed the soul ; and life, in truth, was 
 bitterness. The childish voice was stilled at last. 
 
 And must one say, then, that misery is so great, 
 and pain so deep, as that joy and sweet song, its 
 first-born, must die. Ah, no ! no, no. Once more 
 the melodies awoke ; echoes came from far off 
 lands, and again the child made quiet reply : — • 
 " Sing I must, O pain. For God, despite you, 
 has given me His gladness. He bids me sing 
 as the birds sing ; even until death. He bids 
 me gladden men's hearts, as His sun gladdens 
 the earth." And so the child sangr on.
 
 M'NAB'S FLOW
 
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 M'NAB'S FLOW 
 
 By Sydney Wyatt, 
 Author of ^^ Down by the Sea" ^t'c, 
 
 ABROAD river in the Scottish Highlands, 
 tumbling for about quarter of a mile amid 
 rocks and boulders. Eddying pools where trout 
 lie hidden ; and whirlpools amid narrow gullies 
 here and there ; but, to the eye looking up stream, 
 nothing but a staircase of foam. 
 
 At the foot of the rapid the river is split in 
 two by a rocky island of considerable size. A 
 bridge, with two large arches, crosses the stream 
 at this point, the centre pier resting on the island. 
 A little gateway in the parapet of the bridge on 
 the side nearest the falls gives access to a rocky 
 staircase by which visitors can descend to the 
 island if they have a mind. As the view of the 
 river is very fine from that point, visitors fre- 
 quently avail themselves of the privilege. Indeed, 
 on a summer's day, that particular promontory
 
 172 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 of moss-grown rock is seldom without its crowd 
 of artists, vying with each other in their efforts 
 to reproduce on canvas the charm of the changing 
 water. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the visitor does not leave 
 the bridge, but looks over it from a point a few 
 feet to the right of the gateway, a new feature 
 of the scene becomes visible ; for, on that side 
 of the island, the channel suddenly contracts itself 
 into a shallow gorge, which gathers the waters to- 
 gether, and forces them uphill, so to speak, only 
 to take a headlong plunge into a pool which lies 
 beneath, dark, silent, and terrible. From time im- 
 memorial that pool has been known to dwellers 
 in those parts as M'Nab's Flow. Why it got 
 that name is a story by itself: this tale is of 
 more modern times. 
 
 The century was about to turn into its sixties — 
 that is to say, the Indian Mutiny was just over — 
 when Hamish M'Kay sauntered into the village 
 of Auchmore, with his clothes tied in a red hand- 
 kerchief, and slung over his shoulder by the crook 
 of an oaken stick. Rail\va}'s had not then in- 
 vaded the solitudes of Glen Falloch ; and, there- 
 fore, in Auchmore, which lay on the left bank of
 
 m'nab's flow 173 
 
 the river exactly opposite M'Nab's island, strange 
 faces were rare. 
 
 For that reason the villagers took no chance 
 visitor on trust. When one arrived, it behoved all 
 the inhabitants of the place to discover as speedily 
 as possible whence and why he had come. If his 
 business proved to be legitimate — that is to say, if 
 it was buying or selling, or something equally 
 within the range of their daily activities — they 
 accepted him as a man and a brother. The 
 mere tourist they looked upon with suspicion. 
 They were as unconscious of the glorious scenery 
 amid which they lived as they were of the air 
 they breathed. Like the air, it formed part of 
 their environment. It gave a colouring, a body, 
 to their character ; but it never struck them as 
 a thing that anyone could want to see. Hence 
 any holiday-maker or other person who came to 
 the village to do nothing, and did it successfully, 
 was looked upon as a man about whom there was 
 something wrong ; and the villagers were divided 
 in their minds as to whether lunacy or crime 
 was at the bottom of his stay. 
 
 In Hamish M'Kay, however, the dwellers in 
 Auchmore found they had more than a curiosity :
 
 174 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 they had a problem. His name was Gaelic enough, 
 and he spoke that tongue with fluency ; but his 
 English had not the Highland accent, and, when 
 he was excited, he swore unholy oaths in an 
 unknown tongue. 
 
 He sought lodgings, and found them in the 
 cottage of old Kirsty Cameron, who waited on him 
 with fear and trembling. He kept himself to 
 himself, however, and the papers which proved 
 him to be a Queen's pensioner ; and the villagers' 
 curiosity remained unsatisfied. Those who noticed 
 him hirpling about with the aid of a stick, crooning 
 weird songs, and talking vehemently to himself, 
 shook their heads sagely, and hinted that he was 
 an idiot. But one day Hamish drew his pension 
 money, and sat down in the village inn with it 
 to drink raw spirits. When at last the landlord 
 put him outside, he rolled heavily homewards 
 singing a ditty which made pious elders and 
 members of the Kirk turn white with horror, and 
 the young men chuckle with unsanctified glee. 
 About half-way up the one street which con- 
 stituted the village, a few of the more boisterous 
 spirits came out to enjoy the sport. One of them 
 ventured to interfere with Hamish, and received
 
 m'nab's flow 175 
 
 for his pains a blow that laid him senseless. 
 Then the ears of every man and woman within 
 hearing distance were made to tingle, for Hamish 
 stood over the prostrate body of his tormentor, 
 and cursed volubly in Hindustani for the space 
 of half-an-hour. Ever after that the villagers 
 made way for Hamish, while mothers by the 
 fireside on dark nights would tell their children 
 in awestruck whispers that he was a victim of 
 demoniac possession. 
 
 The truth was that Hamish had been badly 
 clouted about the head during a hand to hand 
 engagement with a regiment of mutinous sepoys. 
 Indeed, he would have been food for jackals if his 
 Colonel had not hacked his way into the thick of 
 the scrimmage and saved the unlucky private, even 
 at the risk of his own life. After that Hamish was 
 slightly crazed in his wits ; and, though he had 
 still considerable fight in him, and would have 
 done his best to get killed in obedience to his 
 Colonel's orders. Her Majesty's Government thought 
 it wiser to send him home on a retiring allowance, 
 paid at stated intervals. Then he made his way 
 back to his native Highlands, for the mountains 
 drew him. He struck Auchmore by accident
 
 176 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 on his line of march, and settled down in it, 
 because there he knew no man and no man 
 knew him. 
 
 By and by the villagers had another sensation. 
 Hamish left Kirsty Cameron's cottage, and 
 established himself on M'Nab's Island. Kirsty 
 bruited it abroad that he had accused her of 
 trying to poison him ; but Hamish went his own 
 way, and made no remarks on the subject. It 
 was summer time, and dry ; and he built himself 
 a wattled hut of spruce fir and birch twigs to sleep 
 in. After that the villagers saw something in the 
 nature of a cottage rise on the far end of the 
 island. It was but a rude shanty, for it was 
 his own workmanship ; but it was his castle, and 
 the villagers knew better by this time than to 
 molest him. When it was finished he built a wall 
 round it which any military observer would have 
 recognised as a rude attempt at fortification. It 
 was a half-savage life he led ; for he only mixed 
 with his fellows when he wanted to buy victuals, 
 or when pay-day came round and he had a wild 
 orgie at the inn. His hair grew white, and his 
 shoulders took on the stoop of age, and he became 
 more morose and irritable day by day, till all, save
 
 m'nab's flow 177 
 
 the very boldest of the villagers, feared to meet 
 him. Yet in his heart there was one soft spot, 
 and accident touched it. 
 
 He had been to the village for some oatmeal. 
 On his return he caught a glimpse of something 
 scarlet at the foot of one of the sloe-bushes with 
 which the island abounded. He steadied his 
 bleared eyes to look at it, and cautiously crept 
 nearer. What he saw was a little girl lying fast 
 asleep. Her clothing was of the scantiest. A 
 tattered frock, made apparently from what in 
 palmier days had been a red flannel petticoat, was 
 all that the tiny creature had on, but a smile of 
 infinite content played about her face as she lay 
 with closed eyelids beneath the September sun. 
 
 Hamish stood and looked on, with an emotion 
 unfelt hitherto tugging at his heart. As he looked, 
 the child's eyes opened, and her lips parted in a 
 vague terror at the sight of the old man bending 
 over her. 
 
 Neither spoke for a full minute. Then the little 
 thing held up her hands with a pleading gesture, 
 " You no beat me ? " she said. 
 
 Strange thoughts were working in the half-crazed 
 brain; but not a word could the lips utter. At 
 
 M
 
 178 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 last, moved by an impulse he only half understood, 
 Hamish slowly raised his hands to the breast of 
 his coat, and tremblingly unfastened a silver medal 
 hanging there. It was an ornament he always 
 wore, and it contrasted strangely with his faded 
 clothes. It was the one token left of the days 
 when his Colonel had taken a pride in him as the 
 smartest man in the regiment. With a hand that 
 shook, Hamish held out the glittering silver 
 trinket to the child. Her face lit up, and she 
 sprang towards it with a cry of, " Pretty ! oh, so 
 pretty ! " 
 
 It was a treasure the old man would have 
 yielded into no other human keeping ; yet he gave 
 it up to the child without a murmur, and watched 
 her with an awestruck joy as she kissed it, and, 
 with the air of a grave woman, laid it against her 
 ragged frock to see how it became her. 
 
 " Fere does iss place go to .'' " she said at length. 
 " Come and see," said the old man gently; and 
 she took his outstretched finger. 
 
 As Hamish felt the soft pressure of the little 
 hand on his, and looked on the fairy-like creature 
 toddling by his side, a desire rose up in his wild 
 Celtic heart to have just that child to live with
 
 m'nab's flow 179 
 
 him and be his very own. He knew not who she 
 was, nor whence she had come ; but he craftily- 
 led her to his hut by a secluded pathway amid 
 trees and thick undergrowth. 
 
 When they reached the hut, Hamish sat down 
 on a rough trestle, and perched the girl on his 
 knee. She nestled up to him, and said enquir- 
 ingly, " You no my Dadda .? " 
 
 " No," said the old man. " Who is your Dadda ? " 
 
 " My Dadda far, far away," the little thing 
 answered, wistfully. " Naughty man take me, 
 beat me — look ! " and she bared her arm, and 
 pointed to an ugly bruise above the elbow. 
 
 " Then stay with me, and let me be your 
 Dadda," Hamish cried, eagerly. " I'll not beat 
 you." 
 
 "Yes, me stay with you. You's good to little 
 Ellie ; " and the child nestled closer. 
 
 Hamish bent his head, and with quivering lips 
 kissed the little creature that had so strangely come 
 into his life for him to love. 
 
 " Me's hungry," said the child, in the matter-of- 
 fact tone of perfect confidence ; and Hamish be- 
 thought him of a can of new milk that was 
 standing on a shelf.
 
 l8o ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 There was much talk in the village when the 
 child was seen in Hamish's company ; but, as she 
 belonged to none of the villagers, the wonder 
 lasted no longer than the proverbial nine days. 
 One woman, indeed, averred that she had seen the 
 child hanging about the heels of an evil-looking 
 man who had passed through the village, beg- 
 ging ; but, as Hamish volunteered no information, 
 and no one dared to ask it, the village had to be 
 content with surmise. By degrees it ceased to 
 surmise at all, and came simply to accept " Hamish 
 M'Kay's Bairn " as a fact. 
 
 Yet the woman who thought she recognised 
 Ellie was right. The child had been stolen by 
 the man for the sake of her clothes. His wife and 
 he had then tramped about with her for some days, 
 begging, and using the child's pretty face to draw 
 ill-deserved charity from the houses at which they 
 called. Soon, however, they tired of her whining ; 
 and, when they reached Auchmore, the man took 
 the child with him alone, and conveniently lost her 
 in the neighbourhood of the bridge. Little did the 
 heartless wretches know how near they came to 
 adding murder to their theft. 
 
 The gateway at the side of the bridge was
 
 m'nab's flow i8i 
 
 open, and down the rocky steps the child crept 
 in delighted surprise. For the moment, hunger 
 and blows were forgotten. Beneath her lay the 
 green grass and the flowers, and she revelled in 
 freedom. But nearer and nearer the baby feet 
 drew to the water's edge, and nearer and nearer 
 to the awful chasm of M'Nab's Flow. 
 
 Under the archway of the bridge there ran a 
 narrow ledge of rock, barely two feet wide, which 
 formed the sole means of communication between 
 that end of the island to which the gateway gave 
 access, and the lower and larger end upon which 
 Hamish had built his hut. It was a way along 
 which few cared to venture; for under the arch- 
 way the roar of the cataract was deafening, and 
 it needed steady nerves to carry one past it in 
 safety. To the end of that rocky ledge little 
 EUie came in her wanderings ; and for a time 
 she stood there watching the black swirl of the 
 water as it gathered itself together for its awful 
 leap. The roar and rush of the Flow frightened 
 her at first ; but she saw a cluster of ripe rowan 
 berries bobbing in the sunlight at the other end 
 of the passage, and the temptation to gather them 
 overcame her fear, and the little feet set out on
 
 1 82 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 the perilous journey. How she escaped with her 
 life no one knows ; but she reached the other end 
 at last ; and there, on the level grass, she played 
 and gathered flowers, till she sat down, wearied, 
 and fell asleep. 
 
 The inn lost a good customer in Hamish after 
 he found the child. He needed all his money 
 now to see that she did not want. A new room 
 was added to the cottage; and, though Hamish 
 still remained a terror to the villagers, to Ellie 
 no woman could have been more kind. 
 
 Yet a day came which forced him to recognise 
 his dependence on his fellows after all. It was in 
 the winter time, about fifteen months after Ellie 
 had come to brighten and cheer him, and she 
 fell ill. She woke in the morning, fretful and 
 languid, and with her merry laugh all gone. The 
 old man noticed how listless and dull she was ; 
 and all afternoon he sat by the fire nursing her in 
 his arms. But, when night came, and her brow- 
 burned like a live coal, and she wandered in her 
 talk, a great fear smote him, and he went down 
 to the banks of the river and shouted across to 
 the villagers for help. Then he paused a while ; 
 but no answering voice was heard above the roar
 
 m'nab's flow 183 
 
 of the waters, and he was at his wits' end, for 
 he feared to leave the child alone lest some harm 
 should befall her. He waited, straining his ears 
 in the darkness, and at length he heard the blessed 
 sound of a horse's hoofs upon the bridge. He 
 shouted again, and a voice answered. It was the 
 voice of the village doctor — the man of all men 
 who was most needed just then. He was young, 
 with no great skill, and almost as poor as many 
 of his patients ; but he had a warm heart, and 
 no fear : so, when Hamish told him that the child 
 was ill, he tethered his horse in a safe place, then 
 leapt over the wall, and alighted on the grass at 
 the old man's feet. Together the two men turned 
 to the cottage. They found Ellie in a raging 
 fever. 
 
 " I'll go home and get some medicine for her," 
 said the doctor, after he had felt her pulse. 
 
 So Hamish lit an old lantern to light him on 
 his way, for it was a very dark night. It was no 
 trifle to drop from the parapet of the bridge to 
 that side of the island, yet it was possible. Return 
 that way was not possible ; therefore Hamish had 
 to lead the doctor under the archway, and along 
 the rocky ledge where a slip of the foot meant
 
 184 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 instant death, and up by the steps to the gateway 
 on the other side. 
 
 Under the bridge the doctor paused to look 
 down into the inky flood. "What an awful 
 place ! " he said. " How deep will that pool be ? " 
 
 " There's never been bottom found to it yet," 
 replied Hamish. 
 
 " Is that so } A man might be lost there, and 
 no one be a bit the wiser," said the doctor as 
 he moved on. "There's my watch," he added, 
 as they parted in the gateway. " Meet me here 
 with your lantern in ten minutes' time." 
 
 Hamish slipped back to the hut to see whether 
 Ellie was all safe. She was moaning, and ver>' 
 restless. He waited, with the watch in his hand, 
 and the minutes seemed like hours. Then he 
 made all the haste he could back to the bridge. 
 The doctor was better than his word, for he was 
 there, waiting ; and soon the two men were back 
 at EUie's bedside. 
 
 The doctor stayed some time, and saw that the 
 draught he gave eased her somewhat. At last 
 he left ; and the rest of the weary hours Hamish 
 watched alone. Towards midnight the sky cleared, 
 and Hamish marked the creeping time by the pro-
 
 m'nab's flow 185 
 
 cession of the stars, as, through the low window, 
 he saw them sink one by one behind the square, 
 snow-clad shoulder of Ben Lawers. 
 
 Hamish did not go back to bed that night, nor 
 for many nights thereafter. The doctor told him 
 when the crisis might be expected, and promised 
 to see it passed with him ; but the night came, 
 and the doctor was called suddenly to a patient 
 at a distance, and Hamish had to keep the vigil 
 by himself. 
 
 Ellie had been tossing on her bed, and moaning 
 fitfully ; but, with the turn of the night, there 
 seemed to come a change, and a stillness that 
 might be felt. The monotone of the river seemed 
 far away, and in the hut the old man hardly 
 dared to breathe. The candle was guttering 
 in its socket as he shaded it with a trembling 
 hand, and approached the bed. The flush had 
 died out of Ellie's face, and she was very 
 quiet. The candle flared up suddenly, and went 
 out. 
 
 Then it seemed as if the old man's endurance 
 cracked. He sank back helpless into his chair; 
 and the tears rolled unhindered down the furrows 
 of his cheeks. When the doctor called, shortly
 
 1 86 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 after daybreak, he found both the old man and 
 the child fast asleep. 
 
 After that Ellie s strength increased day by day, 
 and soon she was herself again. Hamish and the 
 doctor had been knit together by her illness, 
 however. To the rest of the villagers, Hamish 
 was as morose as ever ; but the doctor he loved, 
 and for the doctor he would have died. As 
 for Ellie, he was more bound up with her than 
 ever. She was as the very apple of his eye to 
 him, his soul's soul. 
 
 There came a time, however, when the death 
 that had threatened was eclipsed by a more urgent 
 fear. 
 
 Late one afternoon in the following autumn, 
 a handsomely appointed carriage and pair drove 
 into Auchmore, and stopped at the village inn. 
 A few minutes later, any person who might have 
 happened to look into the best room there would 
 have seen the occupant of the carriage, Sir Archi- 
 bald Graeme, engaged in a confidential talk with 
 the village constable. 
 
 " From that moment," the eavesdropper would 
 have heard the knight say, " all trace of the 
 child was lost. But, about a week ago, word was
 
 m'nab's flow 187 
 
 brought to me that a tramp, dying at Glasgow, 
 in the Infirmary there, had confessed to the doctor 
 that he had stolen a child from my house some 
 two years since, and had subsequently deserted it 
 near this village. Now, what I want to know is this. 
 Was there a child found here about that time — 
 alive, or dead ? " The speaker stood proudly 
 erect in spite of his years, and his bearing was 
 firm ; but all his force of will could not prevent a 
 slight tremor in his voice as it sank at the last 
 word — " dead." 
 
 The constable made no reply for a time. He 
 was endeavouring to master the situation, and 
 gazed in meditative solemnity at his boots. He 
 was a stolid lowlander : and, when at length some 
 idea of what was required of him had percolated 
 into his understanding, he looked up, and said, 
 " Dae ye want to ken the noo ? " 
 
 " Certainly. At once, if you can tell me. If 
 not, as soon as possible," replied the stranger, 
 with ill-concealed impatience. 
 
 " Weel, I'll dae the best I can. I've no been 
 sae vera lang here mysel' ; but I'll speir, and syne 
 I'll let ye ken," said the constable, as he slowly 
 backed out of the room, feeling very red in the
 
 166 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 face, and upsetting a chair in the process ; and Sir 
 Archibald remained to pace the room in feverish 
 impatience until the man's return. 
 
 Malcolm M'Diarmid, the landlord, was very- 
 much in evidence as the policeman descended the 
 stairs. A carriage and pair did not stop at his 
 door every day, as Auchmore did not lie on the 
 way to anywhere in particular ; and the fact that 
 the first request of the occupant of the carriage 
 should have been for an interview with the village 
 policeman gave a keener edge to his curiosity. 
 And it so happened that John Thompson, the 
 policeman in question, was nowise displeased to 
 see Malcolm about. He had been instructed to 
 make inquiries on a particular subject; and 
 Malcolm was as likely a man to know about 
 it as any. 
 
 " It's a ferry fine tay, Mr Thompson," said the 
 landlord obsequiously. 
 
 " Ay ; it's no sae waur for the time of year," was 
 the cautious reply. 
 
 " Would you step into the parlour, and have 
 a glass of whisky, Mr Thompson .'' Your ferry 
 welcome, whatever." 
 
 " Oh, thank ye ; but I think no. No the day."
 
 m'nab's flow 189 
 
 " Now, I'm sure you'd petter, Mr Thompson. 
 It's a cold morning, moreover." 
 
 " Atweel, then, gin ye will hae't, I'll jist tak' a 
 sup wi' ye to keep the cauld oot" 
 
 So the two men sat down, and for a few minutes 
 they sipped in silence. It was the policeman who 
 broke it. 
 
 " Hoo lang hae ye been landlord here, Ma'- 
 colm .? " 
 
 " She'll have been here for five or six years, 
 whatever." 
 
 There was another pause, during which John 
 scraped the soles of his boots uneasily upon the 
 sanded floor. Then, with his mind slowly work- 
 ing round the problem, he went on, " D'ye mind 
 o' a bairn bein' found aboot this time twa years ? " 
 
 " Is the gentleman seeking a pairn, Mr Thomp- 
 son .'' " said the landlord in an eager whisper, 
 craning his neck across the table in the irrepress- 
 ible itch of his mind for a confidence. 
 
 " Ay. It's his dochter's wean he's seekin'. She 
 was stown the September afore last by a bit 
 gangrel body o' a beggar wife. She and her man 
 trampit aboot wi' the bairn for a bit ; and syne 
 they drappit it doon here aboots, and left it."
 
 190 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " Will it pe Hamish M'Kay's pairn, Mr Thomp- 
 son ? " suggested the innkeeper. 
 
 " It micht," the constable assented, but without 
 enthusiasm. He did not relish the prospect of 
 having to speak to Hamish on a matter so difficult, 
 though he did not want to admit it. 
 
 " Ye'U no be seein' Hamish the day, d'ye think, 
 Ma'colm .'' " he said at last in a tentative way. 
 
 " I don't think she'll see her to-tay, Mr Thomp- 
 son, whatever." The innkeeper liked to know 
 where the chestnuts were, but he was shrewd 
 enough to object to pulling them out of the fire 
 for other people. 
 
 " Ye see, I doot Hamish wudna tell me onything 
 aboot the bairn. No that I'm feared to spier at 
 him, but I'm feared that he wudna tell." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know that, whatever. You're as 
 prave a man as there is in Auchmore, moreover," 
 assented the innkeeper in his oiliest manner. Then 
 there was another pause, during which the con- 
 stable's boots once more scraped the sand for want 
 of more active employment. At length he rose, 
 
 " Weel, I maun be gaun," he said. 
 
 Just then the doctor rode past post haste to 
 attend a case far away among the hills.
 
 m'nab's flow 191 
 
 "Would the toctor not know about Hamish's 
 pairn ? " said the innkeeper, to whom the sight of 
 the well-known figure on horseback had given the 
 idea. 
 
 " I believe ye're richt, Ma'colm. I'll see him 
 when he gets back, and speir," replied the police- 
 man, as he set off for a leisurely saunter down the 
 village street. 
 
 So the day wore on, and Sir Archibald waited 
 with all the patience he could muster for the 
 return of the constable with news. 
 
 Just after sunset Malcolm caught sight of 
 Hamish walking down the village street. Hamish 
 did not patronise him now as he used to do; there- 
 fore Malcolm owed him a grudge. Such an 
 opportunity to pay it off with safety might never 
 occur again : so Malcolm hailed the old man 
 genially from the doorstep. 
 
 " How are you, Mr M'Kay ; and how's the little 
 girl, moreover ? " 
 
 Hamish replied in morose monosyllables that 
 they were both well. 
 
 "Ah, there's a gentleman upstairs would like 
 to see her, Hamish. He's lost one just her age, 
 whatever. She was stolen about two years ago
 
 192 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 at this time. I think the policeman will pe giving 
 you a call to enquire where your pairn came from ; 
 and he'll pring her over to see the gentleman ; 
 and " 
 
 But the sentence was never finished. The mere 
 hint of separation from his child had been enough 
 for Hamish ; and, with a face distorted in an 
 ecstasy of passion, he had sprung at Malcolm to 
 fell him to the ground. 
 
 Malcolm had expected as much, however, and 
 slammed the door in Hamish's face with a mock- 
 ing laugh. 
 
 Hamish stood like one distraught. He never 
 stopped to enquire whether the innkeeper's story 
 was true or not. The quick instinct of love told 
 him that it was. At length he turned, and slowly 
 made his way homewards. In his brain there was 
 one thought, and one only ; but it was burnt there. 
 They were coming to take away his darling, his 
 Ellie ! And his heart was wrung by the awful 
 fear. 
 
 Malcolm chuckled over the old man's wrath 
 for a long time, and waited for the policeman to 
 return ; but the policeman had been unable to 
 see the doctor, and came not. So the devil took
 
 MNABS FLOW 1 93 
 
 advantage of the idleness to hatch mischief in 
 Malcolm's head. 
 
 He went upstairs to Sir Archibald's room, and 
 knocked. The door was flung open hastily, for 
 Sir Archibald thought it was the constable with 
 news. He turned away with an exclamation 
 of disappointment when he saw that it was only 
 the innkeeper. Malcolm told an insinuating tale, 
 however, and soon gained Sir Archibald's con- 
 fidence. Yet the story of the old man on the 
 island, and the finding of the child, and the time 
 of her finding, were all told with becoming caution, 
 that Malcolm might bring no blame upon himself 
 if the scent should prove to be a false one. That 
 very caution, however, only made Sir Archibald 
 the more eager ; and he ordered Malcolm to take 
 him at once to where Hamish lived. 
 
 That was rather more than the innkeeper had 
 bargained for, however. He did not mind stand- 
 ing at a safe distance to see Hamish baited ; but 
 he had no stomach for coming to close quarters 
 himself with the old solitary. 
 
 " He would kill me, your lordship, I know he 
 would, if I were to lay a hand on his pairn, 
 whatever." 
 
 N
 
 194 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 " Is the old man so fond of the child, then ? " 
 asked Sir Archibald. 
 
 " Ferry fond of her. He'll never let you take 
 her from him. Wait till morning, your honour, 
 and get the constable to go. There'll pe a fight, 
 I'm sure, moreover." 
 
 "Ay, he'll fight for her, will he?" cried the 
 knight, with a proud gleam in his eyes. " The 
 old man will be no loser by that. Come, take 
 me to see him at once." And no picture that 
 Malcolm could draw of the danger of attempting 
 to visit Hamish at any time, and especially at 
 night, could move him from his purpose. 
 
 " But the Flow, your honour's worship ! Think 
 of the Flow ! " cried Malcolm at last, in despair. 
 " It's sure death to any man who tries to pass py 
 it at night, and such a dark night as this is, 
 whatever ! " 
 
 That exhausted Sir Archibald's patience. Seiz- 
 ing Malcolm by the collar, he shook the trembling 
 creature, and finally chucked him out at the door 
 with a shout of, " Get me a lantern, you infernal 
 coward, to show me the way to this Flow you're 
 so afraid of; and, damme, I'll find the old man 
 myself." And Malcolm, limp as a wet rag, obeyed.
 
 m'nab's flow 195 
 
 Hamish, sick with the fear that was upon him, 
 had hurried back to his hut, and to EUie. The 
 child was sitting there, in the darkness, waiting for 
 his return, when he broke in at the door with a 
 cry Hke the wail of a hunted beast. 
 
 " What is it, Dadda ? " said the child. 
 
 For answer, she was caught to his breast, and 
 kissed, and hung over with tearful eyes, till she 
 grew frightened, and began to cry. 
 
 That sobered the old man. "We must leave 
 here, my girl," he said, soothing her tenderly. 
 " They're going to take my EUie from me, where 
 I'll never see her more. You'd rather stay with 
 your old Dadda, wouldn't you, dearie .-• " 
 
 The child crept into his arms again, and kissed 
 him. 
 
 Then it seemed as if the dread emergency had 
 brought back all the old man's youth. With 
 nimble fingers he gathered a few things into a 
 bundle, and strapped it to his back. Then he 
 wrapped Ellie carefully in a warm plaid, and took 
 her in his arms; and a wild light came into his 
 eyes, like the light that shines in men's eyes in 
 the rush and stress of battle. His limp vanished, 
 and his bent shoulders seemed to stand erect as
 
 196 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 he issued from the hut, and cautiously, noiselessly, 
 made his way towards the bridge. 
 
 The night was pitch dark ; but Hamish could 
 have threaded his way among the trees blind- 
 fold. When within a few yards of the bridge, how- 
 ever, he saw a light upon it, and stopped. Then 
 he heard the creaking of the gateway, and a voice, 
 which he recognised as Malcolm's, saying, " Keep 
 the footpath to the right, your honour, and pe 
 ferry careful when you get under the pridge. 
 Once on the other side, and you can't miss your 
 way. I'd do anything to oplige your lordship, 
 but I daren't come with you, whatever, for the 
 old man would kill me if he saw me. He's tried 
 to do it to-tay already." And then the light 
 disappeared. 
 
 Hamish heard, and felt that the moment was 
 come that was to rob him of the child for ever ; 
 and he turned at bay. Whispering to EUie not 
 to move, and to make no noise, he laid her gently 
 on the grass, and crept with the footsteps of a 
 cat to the archway of the bridge. By the side 
 of it he crouched, holding his breath. The man 
 who was coming to rob him of his treasure was 
 coming alone. Hamish could hear the footsteps
 
 m'nab's flow ig'j 
 
 at the other side of the bridge drawing nearer 
 and nearer to the archway, and nearer and nearer 
 to that terrible ledge that hung above M'Nab's 
 Flow ; and Hamish knew that it needed just one 
 touch from him to cause the man to stumble 
 headlong, and that man would be seen no more 
 until the Day of Judgment. 
 
 The light shone on the foaming torrent now, 
 and Hamish could hear, above the roar of the 
 waterfall, to which his ears had long been accus- 
 tomed, the echo of the stranger's tread under the 
 archway. With nerves strung to their utmost 
 pitch, Hamish flattened himself against the cold 
 stone, and stretched out his hand ready to give 
 the fatal push. 
 
 He was waiting there — waiting — waiting — when 
 suddenly from under the bridge there came a 
 shout. Hamish, in his eagerness, had leant too 
 far forward, and had been seen. 
 
 " Who goes there ? " was what the voice said. 
 The words rang full and clear ; and Hamish 
 caught his breath, and sank trembling on the 
 grass. For the cry was a sentry's challenge, and 
 in a moment it had carried him back over lonsf 
 years to a time of drills and hard fighting ; and
 
 198 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 especially to one great day when he was fighting 
 hand to hand by his leader's side, and in the press 
 of battle he was clouted on the head, and fell, and 
 would have been killed had not the officer, at the 
 risk of his own life, dragged him out and saved 
 him. 
 
 " Who goes there ? " 
 
 " A friend," he answered, with quivering lips. 
 
 " Then pass, friend." 
 
 And, with his arm at the salute, Hamish went 
 under the archway to meet his old Colonel.
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 
 
 By Fleming Jose Antonio Bremner 
 
 IT was very still among the grey rocks and the 
 short browned grass of the rising ground upon 
 which the Old Mission, with its red-tiled roofs, 
 so responsive to the glorious sunlight of a mid- 
 summer noon in Southern California, stood looking 
 down the valley upon the dreamy town, seeming 
 like a tender mother watching the sleep of a 
 beloved child. Far beyond the flat roofs and 
 the glimpses of white walls shining between the 
 dark green of the Australian gum, and the lighter 
 green of the pines, lay stretched the great Pacific, 
 whose waters, like the blue-grey wings of a dove, 
 seemed to hover and clasp an enchanted land. 
 The occasional flash of a white gull's wing as 
 he turned and dived high above the glimmering 
 waters, a single white sail seemingly motionless 
 against the hazy outlines of the Santa Cruz 
 Island, unbroken stillness in the hot sunlight.
 
 200 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 broken only now and then by the soothing croon 
 of the doves on the red tiles of the Mission, or 
 the mumble of a bee ambling by like a monk of 
 old, telling o'er his beads as he journeyed on God's 
 •work in God's own country. The Fathers had had 
 their mid-day repast, and dreamily dozed in their 
 little rooms up under these cool red tiles, starting 
 only once in a while to murmur an Ave Maria, 
 and to cross themselves when one's thoughts might 
 linger for a moment on the remembrance of the 
 light in some Senorita's eye, seen at the last fiesta, 
 or the thought that, being yet heavy with sleep, he 
 had lightly answered Brother Alfonso as they went 
 together to Matins. It may not be that in the 
 world such thoughts and deeds are sought for and 
 repressed so earnestly, but there are very few there 
 who do not often-times pause and long for that 
 guileless life of these Fathers, who know not 
 riches nor the miseries thereof 
 
 In the Old Mission garden, long ago carved out 
 from the wilderness by the willing efforts of Indian 
 converts, the eschscholtzias stood along the paths 
 worn by the sandals of the studious monks, and 
 answered back to the sun with their flame-coloured 
 blossoms. In the open, the garden lay baked in
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 20I 
 
 the heat, but along the walls, against which the 
 deft and loving hands of the Fathers had trained 
 the green climbing plants and trees, and at the 
 higher end, where an arbour had been formed, and 
 where all the summer long the red and yellow 
 roses clambered and swung, there was shade 
 and coolness. Beyond the wall against which 
 the arbour leaned was a narrow footpath, which 
 leaving the valley about half a mile from the 
 Mission, skirted the walls of the garden and joined 
 the plain again on the sea-ward side, in many 
 places having room only for a sure footed horse 
 between the wall and a deep canon, down which 
 in the winter time the rains hurled a furious flood. 
 Above the clustering roses, as if spell-bound 
 by their odour and colour, the humming birds 
 hung motionless : the bees boomed amid the 
 fohage, and a little lizard was sunning himself 
 upon a rock at the entrance, unfearing, and as if 
 unconscious of the girl who was seated in the cool 
 and fragrant shadow. That she was a Spaniard 
 no one could doubt, from the colour in her cheeks 
 and the heavy eye-lashes of her closed eyes. That 
 her thoughts were happy, and yet not unmixedly 
 so, one could well believe from the sight of a
 
 202 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 tiny tear which hovered on her eye-lash, and 
 from the smile which ever and again changed 
 her mouth like a rose-bud fluttering towards full 
 life in the sunlight after the rain. An open Mass- 
 book lay on her lap, but the minutes passed, and 
 the rose which lay upon it like a book-mark 
 remained unmoved. She was in deep meditation. 
 
 Suddenly there came a change, A great bee, 
 which had become entangled in the luscious blos- 
 soms, freed himself, and with a sonorous boom 
 winged his way across the arbour, to the bright 
 sunlight without. The girl opened her dark, large 
 eyes, and her hands instinctively clasped the book 
 on her lap. The little lizard darted to another 
 stone a few paces away, and again sat watchful, 
 glittering, and motionless. A steady, regularly 
 repeated sound, at first faint like the throbbing 
 of a heart, broke insistently upon the mid-noon 
 silence. Louder and nearer it came — the un- 
 swerving lope of a Spanish horse ascending the 
 path on the edge of the canon. Without a 
 pause at the turn where the Mission wall seemed 
 almost a continuation of the caiion itself, un- 
 conscious apparently of the stones which his 
 horse's hoofs hurled into the dry river-bed far
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 203 
 
 below him, the rider continued, until instantly 
 the hoof beats ceased. His trained Spanish horse, 
 at the touch of his master's knees, had stopped in 
 a moment at the back of the arbour, and without 
 a cabriesto or a thong to control him, he remained 
 immovable on the narrow path, while his rider, 
 standing in his stirrups, reached to the top of 
 the wall. In a moment he had scaled it, and 
 before it seemed as if the echo of the hoofs had 
 died away, he stood in the entrance to the arbour. 
 
 The girl had risen from her seat in surprise 
 at the sound, and in an instant the rider was 
 beside her, his lips pressed to her extended 
 hand. 
 
 " Pepito," was all she said ; but her deep eyes 
 bent upon his bowed head were full of unbroken 
 tenderness, with, too, some slight questioning 
 surprise. Fear there was none, for Ines Espinosa 
 came of a race who could love and suffer, but 
 who could never fear. 
 
 " Ines de mi alma," murmured the young man, 
 raising his head and standing erect, a head and 
 shoulders above his companion — a hardy-built, 
 brown-faced Saxon, clad in a dark riding suit, 
 whose slashed chaparados showed the long yellow
 
 204 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 boots adorned with heavy roweled spurs — "you 
 should indeed wonder at seeing me here now. 
 But I met Juan down in the plaza leading your 
 horse, and he told me you had come in to 
 Vespers." 
 
 " Si, mi Pepito, I came indeed to Vespers, and 
 to pray for you to our beloved Mother. Thus I 
 came early and walked up here to this cool place 
 where I might be alone, while Dona Francisca 
 preferred to stay in the church. Surely will our 
 blessed Mother hear my prayers and give you 
 the joy which She gives to all Her sons. Is it 
 not She who has guided your steps hither ? " 
 
 They both spoke in Spanish, the native language 
 of the girl, the language acquired by preference 
 of the man, who, as many others of his Anglo 
 race settled in Southern California, had ardently 
 adopted the habits and customs of the people. 
 Seldom he spoke in English — indeed there were 
 few he ever met, with whom he could so converse 
 — but even had there been, it would have made 
 little difference. For Ines there was but one 
 language — for Ines, whose warrior forefathers had 
 marched with Cortez to Anahuac, and whose 
 cousins in the old Spain often would wonder, as
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 205 
 
 they walked in the Prado, whether " Prima Ines " 
 at all resembled them, in that Golden Fairy-land 
 pictured in the word " California." 
 
 " Indeed, I believe it so, for I had a singular 
 dream last night, which seems to cling to me yet. 
 Something unseen told me that I should see you 
 to-day, and should never see you again. The first 
 warning is fulfilled ; as to the latter, quien sabe .-* 
 I have to see Juan del Valle before sundown, to 
 arrange about his schooner to go to San Diego 
 to-morrow at dawn. It will be a dangerous 
 journey, but, if God will, we shall be back by 
 Saturday, and we have made many such passages 
 without mishap. But yonder Dona Francisca is 
 coming around the corridor, and I must not be 
 seen by her until next Sunday, when Fray 
 Dominguez will receive me into the Church — for 
 she still believes me a heretic, as I still am, in 
 truth, and would blame you to your father for 
 allowing me to talk to you." 
 
 "Oh no, Pepito, you do not judge her rightly. 
 Dona Francisca is well disposed to you, and she 
 will indeed be glad when next Sunday comes, to 
 learn the joyful news." 
 
 ''Well, I am glad to know that I'm wrong.
 
 20b ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 And after Sunday I am going to call at Rancho 
 de los Olives, to see Don Carlos. Can you guess 
 why ? No ? But Dona Francisca is now under 
 the grape arbour, and I must get to my saddle 
 quickly, or she may discover our secret. To-night 
 at nine o'clock I shall be at the Alameda, on my 
 way to the rancho for some things. Will you see 
 me then for five minutes to wish me Godspeed 
 on my trip ? " 
 
 No further words were spoken, but the young 
 man was on his knee, and the stately form of 
 the young girl was bent over him, and her lips 
 touched his. In another moment, while the " Vaya 
 con Dios " seemed yet in the air, he had thrown 
 himself over the wall, and the hoofs of his horse 
 were scattering the stones down the cafion from 
 the rocky path descending towards the sea. 
 
 Oh, beloved California ! Short are your golden 
 dawns till on the tracks of the '• flying night " 
 springs up the "sudden sun" — short as the season 
 of love, in truth, too often. 
 
 The girl stood still for a few seconds, then 
 passed from the arbour into the scented sunlight 
 without, and slowly walking up the sandy path, 
 joined her duena, who had paused half-way in the
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 20/ 
 
 garden to bind together some of the luxuriant 
 roses as a garland for the altar in the cool 
 little church, whence already could be heard the 
 opening chant of the evening prayer. 
 
 The bees hummed in the madreselva ; the lizard 
 sat fixedly staring on a sunny boulder, and only 
 within the arbour, where the scattered petals of a 
 rose lay on the seat and on the ground, was 
 there any remembrance of a meeting which 
 should never be forgotten. 
 
 11. 
 
 Supper was over and the sun had set. Don 
 Carlos Espinosa sat on the porch with his neigh- 
 bour, Manuel Garcia, who had ridden across the 
 river, ostensibly to talk with him of the Gringoes 
 who had seemed determined to open up the old 
 workings of the San Vicente mine, deserted since 
 the first foreign flag flew in the Bay of Monterey 
 up the coast. But Don Manuel's conversation 
 belied his visit, or had the young pigeons and 
 old wine lessened his suspicions and hatred, and 
 eased his mind ? Let us say, in English, quz'en 
 sabe — that crystallisation of an entire language^
 
 2o8 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 may be of the entire thought of the world — 
 •* Who knows ? " Peutctre ! 
 
 " Ines is a strange girl," said her father, throwing 
 away a burned-out cigarette, and lighting a black 
 Mexican puro. "Yes, Garcia, she is like what 
 her mother was, and yet I often think, had 
 Panchita lived, that Ines would have been 
 different. Of late she has been going to the 
 Mission every day, and she moves about half the 
 time as if she were in her sleep, I tell you it is 
 a bad thing when the women go constantly to 
 Church. I don't run down the Church, Garcia, 
 but once they get attached there they get all 
 sorts of notions in their heads of the beauty of 
 Church life, and they want to be Sisters, and all 
 that sort of thing. There's no more of her morning 
 gallops, no more of her shooting or lazoing, and 
 sport. It suits Francisca finely, for s/ie has an 
 easy time, and is perfectly contented. Caramba ! 
 I wish I saw Ines married. That's the right 
 life for a girl at her age. Why do you laugh, 
 you old solitary .'' If all the men were like you, 
 and kept an old Indian for a housekeeper, where 
 would all the poor girls go ? We'd have to stop 
 raising them, that's all."
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 209 
 
 Garcia showed his white teeth under his black 
 moustache, and slowly exhaled the cigarette smoke. 
 He was a man about forty, and while rumour 
 whispered dark stories of his intrigues, his life 
 seemed to give them the lie. He owned the 
 large rancho about seven miles from Los Olivos, 
 was a bachelor, with no relatives, and an old 
 Indian, ill-favoured and toothless, kept his house 
 and cursed the peons in hideous gutterals. Don 
 Carlos and he were as unlike as Spaniards could 
 be, and yet they were bosom friends — Don Carlos 
 open-hearted, passionate and haughty, usually say- 
 ing what he thought and in unmistakable language; 
 while Garcia had always a cringe and a bow for the 
 Fathers, and a curse or a blow for the children or 
 the unlucky peon who might happen to cross his 
 path. In the valley he was dreaded and shunned 
 as much as Don Carlos was loved and imposed 
 upon. 
 
 He sat there indolently tilting back his chair 
 and blowing out through his nostrils the blue 
 smoke, his eyes fixed on Don Carlos, who was 
 watching the moon rising behind the peach 
 orchard. 
 
 " Bueno ! Maybe she has a lover, that she 
 O
 
 2IO ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 rides so often that way. Some of these Gringoes 
 who are getting so thick around here, with their 
 short riding trousers and close cropped ponies, 
 may have taken her fancy ! Not that one of 
 them would dare approach her, but that old 
 sinner who runs the hotel, and who is helping 
 them in every way, would not be chary to earn 
 a few pesos by intercepting the daughter of Don 
 Carlos and presenting one of them. Then the 
 rest would follow like ants — no .-' " 
 
 " Carajo ! " shouted Don Carlos, bringing down 
 his feet from the rail, and driving his huge spurs 
 into the floor with the force. " If I thought he'd 
 done that, I'd ride him down before his own door. 
 No, no, I'd have known that from Ines herself. 
 But let's throw the dice, Garcia. Abajo los 
 Gringos ! " and without noticing his companion's 
 eager assent, he shouted, " Juan, bring a table 
 and the dice, and mescal, and tell Dona Francisca 
 to ask my daughter to come out and bring her 
 mandolin. Don Manuel likes music, as well as 
 myself, while we are playing." 
 
 Gambling seems inherent in humanity, and the 
 Spaniard is an incorrigible gamester, and yet it is 
 easy to surmise, in wandering through San Fran-
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 2 I I 
 
 CISCO Chinatown, that with civih'sation and at 
 least one hideous disease, gambling may have 
 come to Europe and America with the pioneer 
 Chinamen. 
 
 The dice were brought, and Juan lighted a 
 Ian thorn and hung it over a table on the 
 verandah. Many a time it had been used for 
 the same purpose, and Don Carlos and his guest 
 drew their goat-skin seated chairs up to the table 
 in silence, and began playing. The luck seemed 
 all to Don Carlos in the beginning, and from 
 pesos the bets mounted to double eagles. Juan, 
 with the xharacteristics of his race, hovered 
 around the verandah, closing windows and chasing 
 off the dogs, while with one eye he watched the 
 game, till at last Garcia, throwing himself back in 
 his chair, exclaimed — 
 
 " Is not the Senorita coming to give us some 
 music, and maybe change my luck } " and he 
 would have added more, seeing that the mescal 
 bottle was already all but drained, when Dona 
 Francisca entered from the sala. 
 
 " Ines is very tired this evening, Don Carlos," 
 she said, while she bowed very slightly to Garcia, 
 who studiously smiled at her, " and unless you
 
 212 ST MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 desire her very urgently, she would rather remain 
 in her room." 
 
 " Carajo, vieja," replied Don Carlos, whose five 
 " fours " had just been beaten by the " fives " of 
 Garcia, "it's a pretty time when a Spanish girl will 
 not come down to play for her father, because of 
 a paltry ride of four miles. Tell Ines that I insist 
 on her coming down, and that Garcia is here, and 
 unless she comes down he will have all my cattle 
 and maybe my rancho — ha, ha ! " and he threw 
 a " full house " against Garcia's " three of a 
 kind." 
 
 Dona Francisca disappeared. The mescal 
 bottle was replenished by the watchful Juan. 
 Don Carlos lost rapidly. Throw and throw went 
 against him, till the tally showed a thousand 
 pesos against him. The mescal bottle was again 
 empty, when Ines appeared in the doorway. 
 The moon, already risen, shone full on her face, 
 and she seemed like a ghost, so pale she was. 
 Garcia paused, on seeing her, in the midst of some 
 evil story, and Don Carlos cried — 
 
 " Ines, hijita, this wicked Garcia has won all 
 my money. Come and stand beside me ; see 
 whether we cannot fool him. He's talking a lot
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 213 
 
 about you and these Gringos in the town, and I'll 
 just bet him you against his rancho and the money 
 I've lost to him that " 
 
 " Stop, father, I do love one of them. But he's 
 not a Gringo Americano. He's a Scotchman, and 
 he speaks our language, and he loves our race, 
 and " 
 
 " Enough, girl ! You love a foreigner ! You, 
 my Ines ! Bastante ! Garcia ! What do you 
 say ? You'll take my apuesto, and you'll bet 
 your rancho against my daughter and the money 
 I'm due you ? All right ! Here you are ! Stay 
 here, Ines ! " but she had gone, and Garcia's face 
 was like the face of a devil. 
 
 " Lost, Madre Santisima ! Ines ! " 
 
 "Yes, you've lost, 'aces' are better than 'sixes,' 
 and the girl and the money are mine, but you 
 might be worse. I'll be proud to marry her. 
 She'll be the wife of a Spaniard, and what more 
 can she want ? My mother never loved my father 
 till after he had ridden off with her in front of his 
 saddle for fifty miles through the rocky country 
 between here and San Isidra, torn from the midst 
 of her kinsfolks and friends. You've lost fairly, 
 Espinosa, and now you may know that I have
 
 2 14 ^T MICHAEL AND INVERESK 
 
 loved your daughter for years, and that is the 
 reason of my sohtariness. Ines or none, and now 
 I have Ines." 
 
 "Yes, Garcia, she is yours, for a Spanish girl 
 will never brave the curse of her father. The 
 worst Spaniard is better than the best Gringo, 
 and you are not the worst." And while Garcia 
 rose, and with a Satanic grin moved towards the 
 door, whence Dona Francisca had fled a moment 
 before to her mistress' room, Don Carlos lurched 
 forward and fell fast asleep on the table, with his 
 forehead resting among the dice. 
 
 While the bells of the Mission, four miles off, 
 faintly sounded ten o'clock, a man stood leaning 
 against his horse in the shadow of the Alemeda, 
 whence could be descried the lights of the rancho 
 de los Olivos, The dark figure of a woman was 
 moving towards the hacienda. Dona Francisca 
 had told her tale to the waiting man. Ines, fare- 
 well ! The Gringos, for whoni your father truly 
 sacrificed you, now rule in the rancho where once 
 you were queen, and the Anglo-Saxon race 
 triumphs again over the Latin. Yet the poetry 
 of life is wanting, and all the improvements seem
 
 AT SANTA BARBARA 215 
 
 often to some of these same Ingleses not worth 
 one of those olden days of thriftless, heedless life. 
 
 About nine o'clock next morning, Juan del Valle, 
 ascending the caiion path from the sea, to learn 
 why his comrade had failed to keep his tryst at 
 dawn, found his passage barred by a horse at the 
 corner below the Mission arbour. Looking down 
 into the canon he discovered a fallen body. 
 Glancing up, a hovering vulture shone black 
 against the azure sky. The jutting rock was 
 very perilous at night, the villagers said, and 
 doubtless Don Jose had been hurled from his 
 horse while riding fast, as he always did, so they 
 knew. And yet his seat was so good that even 
 Pedro Sanchez, the toreador, had failed to unhorse 
 him with a data ! 
 
 Perhaps he had crossed the Mission wall to 
 gather some roses round the arbour for some 
 senorita, though which one no one could tell, 
 and stepping off in the darkness, had fallen over 
 the canon ? Quien sabe ? 
 
 And they buried him. And the following week 
 there was a marriage at the Mission. Don Manuel 
 Garcia and his wife went up on the boat to San 
 Francisco for their honeymoon.
 
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