Part 6 (1/2)

One of my greatest enjoyments when a child was in going out with the servants to the Calton, and wait while the ”claes” bleached in the sun on the gra.s.sy slopes of the hill. The air was bright and fresh and pure. The la.s.ses regarded these occasions as a sort of holiday.

One or two of the children usually accompanied them. They sat together, and the servants told us their auld-warld stories; common enough in those days, but which have now, in a measure, been forgotten.

”Steam” and ”progress” have made the world much less youthful and joyous than it was then.

The women brought their work and their needles with them, and when they had told their stories, the children ran about the hill making bunches of wild flowers--including harebells and wild thyme. They ran after the b.u.t.terflies and the b.u.mbees, and made acquaintance in a small way with the beauties of nature. Then the servants opened their baskets of provisions, and we had a delightful picnic. Though I am now writing about seventy years after the date of these events, I can almost believe that I am enjoying the delightful perfume of the wild thyme and the fragrant plants and flowers, wafted around me by the warm breezes of the Calton hillside.

In the days I refer to, there was always a most cheerful and intimate intercourse kept up between the children and the servants. They were members of the same family, and were treated as such. The servants were for the most part country-bred--daughters of farm servants or small farmers. They were fairly educated at their parish schools; they could read and write, and had an abundant store of old recollections. Many a pleasant crack we had with them as to their native places, their families, and all that was connected with them.

They became lastingly attached to their masters and mistresses, as well as to the children. All this led to true attachment; and when they left; us, for the most part to be married we continued to keep up a correspondence with them, which lasted for many years.

While enjoying these delightful holidays, before my school-days began, my practical education was in progress, especially in the way of acquaintance with the habits of nature in a vast variety of its phases, always so attractive to the minds of healthy children. It happened that close to the Calton Hill, in the valley at its northern side, there were many workshops where interesting trades were carried on; there were coppersmiths, tinsmiths, bra.s.s-founders, goldbeaters, and blacksmiths. Their shops were all arranged in a busy group at the foot of the hill, in a place called Greenside. The workshops were open to the inspection of pa.s.sers-by. Little boys looked in and saw the men at work amidst the blaze of fires and the beatings of hammers.

Amongst others, I was an ardent admirer. I may almost say that this row of busy workshops was my first school of practical education.

I observed the mechanical manipulation of the men, their dexterous use of the hammer, the chisel, and the file; and I imbibed many lessons which afterwards proved of use to me. Then I had tools at home in my father's workshop. I tried to follow their methods; I became greatly interested in the use of tools and their appliances; I could make things for myself. In short, I became so skilled that the people about the house called me ”a little Jack-of-all-trades.”

While sitting on the gra.s.sy slopes of the Calton Hill I would often hear the chimes sounding from the grand old tower of St.Giles.

The cathedral lay on the other side of the valley which divides the Old Town from the New. The sounds came over the murmur of the traffic in the streets below.

The chime-bells were played every day from twelve till one--the old-fas.h.i.+oned dinner-hour of the citizens. The practice had been in existence for more than a hundred and fifty years. The pleasing effect of the merry airs, which came wafted tome by the warm summer breezes, made me long to see them as well as hear them.

[Image] Mural crown of St Giles', Edinburgh

My father was always anxious to give pleasure to his children.

Accordingly, he took me one day, as a special treat, to the top of the grand old tower, to see the chimes played. As we pa.s.sed up the tower, a strong vaulted room was pointed out to me, where the witches used to be imprisoned. I was told that the poor old women were often taken down from this dark vault to be burnt alive! Such terrible tales enveloped the tower with a horrible fascination to my young mind.

What a fearful contrast to the merry sound of the chimes issuing from its roof on a bright summer day.

On my way up to the top flat, where the chimes were played, I had to pa.s.s through the vault in which the great pendulum was slowly swinging in its ghostly-like tick-tack, tick-tack; while the great ancient clock was keeping time with its sudden and startling movement. The whole scene was almost as uncanny as the witches' cell underneath. There was also a wild rumbling thumping sound overhead. I soon discovered the cause of this, when I entered the flat where the musician was at work.

He was seen in violent action, beating or hammering on the keys of a gigantic pianoforte-like apparatus. The instruments he used were two great leather-faced mallets, one of which he held in each hand.

Each key was connected by iron rods with the chime-bells above.

The frantic and mad-like movements of the musician, as he energetically rushed from one key to another, often widely apart gave me the idea that the man was daft--especially as the noise of the mallets was such that I heard no music emitted from the chimes so far overhead.

It was only when I had climbed up the stair of the tower to where the bells were rung that I understood the performance, and comprehended the beating of the chimes which gave me so much pleasure when I heard them at a distance.

Another source of enjoyment in my early days was to accompany my mother to the market. As I have said before, my mother, though generous in her hospitality, was necessarily thrifty and economical in the management of her household. There were no less than fourteen persons in the house to be fed, and this required a good deal of marketing.

At the time I refer to, (about 1816, it was the practice of every lady who took pride in managing economically the home department of her husband's affairs, to go to market in person. The princ.i.p.al markets in Edinburgh were then situated in the valley between the Old and New Towns, in what used to be called the Nor Loch.

Dealers in fish and vegetables had their stalls there: the market for butcher meat was near at hand: each being in their several locations.

It was a very lively and bustling sight to see the marketing going on.

When a lady was observed approaching, likely to be a customer, she was at once surrounded by the ”caddies.” They were a set of st.u.r.dy hard-working women, each with a creel on her back. Their compet.i.tion for the employer sometimes took a rather energetic form. The rival candidates pointed to her with violent exclamations; ”She's my ledie!

she's my ledie!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed one and all. To dispel the disorder, a selection of one of the caddies would be made, and then all was quiet again until another customer appeared.

There was a regular order in which the purchases were deposited in the creel. First, there came the fish, which were carefully deposited in the lowest part, with a clean deal board over them. The fishwives were a most st.u.r.dy and independent cla.s.s, both in manners and language.

When at home, at Newhaven or Fisherrow, they made and mended their husbands' nets, put their fis.h.i.+ng tackle to rights, and when the fis.h.i.+ng boats came in they took the fish to market at Edinburgh.

To see the groups of these hard-working women trudging along with their heavy creels on their backs, clothed in their remarkable costume, with their striped petticoats kilted up and showing their st.u.r.dy legs, was indeed a remarkable sight. They were cheerful and good-natured, but very outspoken. Their skins were clear and ruddy, and many of the young fishwives were handsome and pretty. They were, in fact, the incarnation of robust health. In dealing with them at the Fish Market there was a good deal of higgling. They often asked two or three times more than the fish were worth--at least, according to the then market price. After a stormy night, during which the husbands and sons had toiled to catch the fish, on the usual question being asked, ”Weel, Janet, hoo's haddies the day!” ”Haddies, mem? Ou, haddies is men's lives the day!” which was often true, as haddocks were often caught at the risk of their husbands' lives. After the usual amount of higgling, the haddies were brought down to their proper market price, --sometimes a penny for a good haddock, or, when herrings were rife, a dozen herrings for twopence, crabs for a penny, and lobsters for threepence. For there were no railways then to convey the fish to England, and thus equalise the price for all cla.s.ses of the community.

Let me mention here a controversy between a fishwife and a buyer called Thomson. the buyer offered a price so ridiculously small for a parcel of fish that the seller became quite indignant, and she terminated at once all further higgling. Looking up to him, she said, ”Lord help yer e'e-sight, Maister Tamson!” ”Lord help my e'e-sight, woman! What has that to do with it?” ”Ou,” said she, ”because ye ha'e nae nose to put spectacles on!” As it happened, poor Mr. Thomson had, by some accident or disease, so little of a nose left, if any at all, that the bridge of the nose for holding up the spectacles was almost entirely wanting.

And thus did the fishwife retaliate on her n.i.g.g.ardly customer.

When my mother had got her fish laid at the bottom of the creel, she next went to the ”flesher” for her butcher-meat. There was no higgling here, for the meat was sold at the ordinary market price. Then came the poultry stratum; then the vegetables, or fruits in their season; and, finally, there was ”the floore”--a bunch of flowers; not a costly bouquet, but a, large a.s.sortment of wallflowers, daffodils (with their early spring fragrance), polyanthuses, lilacs, gilly-flowers, and the glorious old-fas.h.i.+oned cabbage rose, as well as the even more gloriously fragrant moss rose. The caddy's creel was then topped up, and the marketing was completed. The lady was followed home; the contents were placed in the larder; and the flowers distributed all over the house.

I have many curious traditional evidences of the great fondness for cats which distinguished the Nasmyth family for several generations.

My father had always one or two of such domestic favourites, who were, in the best sense, his ”familiars.” Their quiet, companionable habits rendered them very acceptable company when engaged in his artistic work. I know of no sound so pleasantly tranquillising as the purring of a cat, or of anything more worthy of admiration in animal habit as the neat, compact, and elegant manner in which the cat adjusts itself at the fireside, or in a snug, cosy place, when it settles down for a long quiet sleep. Every spare moment that a cat has before lying down to rest is occupied in carefully cleaning itself, even under adverse circ.u.mstances. The cat is the true original inventor of a sanitary process, which has lately been patented and paraded before the public as a sanitary novelty; and yet it has been in practice ever since cats were created. Would that men and women were more alive to habitual cleanliness--even the cleanliness of cats. The kindly and gentle animal gives us all a lesson in these respects.