Part 1 (2/2)
The Lae, that ”dusky continent of barren heath-hills,”
as Thomas Carlyle calls it, runs down into the sea at St Abb's Head
For the greater part of its length it divides Berwickshi+re from East Lothian; but at its seaward end there is one Berwickshi+re parish lying to the north of it--the parish of cockburnspath The land in this parish slopes down to the Firth of Forth; it is rich and well cultivated, and is divided into large fars, its substantial fares The seaward views are very fine, and include the whole of the rugged line of coast from Fast Castle on the east to Tantallon and North Berwick Law on the west In the middle distance are the tower of Dunbar Church, the Bass Rock, and the Isle of May; and farther off is the coast of Fife, with Largo Law and the Loround The land is mostly bare of trees, but there is a notable exception to this in the profound ravines which come down from the hills to the sea, and whose banks are thickly clothed with fine natural wood
Of these, the Pease Dean has already been mentioned Close beside it is the Tower Dean, so called from an ancient fortalice of the Home fae held in just execration by all cyclists on the Great North Road
But, unquestionably, the finest of all the ravines in these parts is Dunglass Dean, which forms the western boundary of cockburnspath parish, and divides Berwickshi+re froh and Berwick road crosses the dean, at the height of one hundred feet above the bed of the stream, the view in both directions is extremely fine About a hundred and fifty yards lower down is the antic arch forty feet higher than the older structure that carries the road; and through this arch, above the trees which fill the glen, one gets a beautiful glimpse of the sea about half a ht of the wooded dean, are the noble trees and parks of Dunglass grounds The , part of which rises to a height of five storeys, is built only soht or ten feet from the brink of the dean, on its western or East Lothian side About fifty yards farther west are the ivy-covered ruins of a fine Gothic church, whose massive square tower and stone roof are still tolerably coiate rank, and is now the sole relass In fored to the Earls of Home, whose second title, borne to this day by the eldest son of the house, is that of Lord Dunglass But it was bought about the middle of the seventeenth century by the Halls, n it still, and in whose family there has been a baronetcy since 1687 The laird at the ti was Sir Jalass bears that he was ”a philosopher ee” He was President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for ed expert in Natural Science, especially in Geology His second son was the well-known Captain Basil Hall, RN, the author of a once widely-read book of travels
Behind the church, and about a hundred yards to the west of the mansion-house, are the offices--stables, close boxes, coach-house, etc, all of a single storey, and built round a square paved courtyard The coachman's house is on one side of this square, and the shepherd's on the other The latter, which is on the side farthest fro house,” has its back to the courtyard, and looks out across a road to its little bailyard and a fine bank of trees beyond it It is neat and lightsole roo off it notof a father, ht children could be stoay in it, especially at night, is rather a puzzling question But we may suppose that, when all were at home, each of the two box-beds would be made to hold three, that a smaller bed in the closet would account for two er children a sliding shelf would be inserted transversely across the foot of one of the box-beds
Certainly, an arrangement of this kind would fail to be approved by a sanitary inspector in our ti the day, when all the faether, there was
But the life was a country one, and could be, and was, largely spent in the open air, as and beautiful scenery
The incoe household seems to us in these days ales rarely exceeded 30 a year, and they never all his life reached 40
They were mostly paid in kind So many bolls of oats, of barley and of peas, sopotatoes, a cow's grass, the keep of two sheep and as s, and a free house,--these, which were known as the _gains_, were the ave considerable opportunity for eement there were few to surpass the housewife in the shepherd's cottage at Dunglass
The food was plentiful but plain Breakfast consisted of porridge and milk; dinner, in the middle of the day, of Scotch kail and pork, occasionally varied by herrings, fresh or salt according to the season, and with the usual accompaniments of potatoes and pease bannocks At supper there was porridge again, or hts of e pot which was set down on the hearth Tea was only seen once a week--on Sunday afternoons And so the young fa
Before the relass, the two eldest children had been taken froinning at sixpence a day Their education, however, was continued in soer brother James, and the twins, Janet and William, who came next in order, attended the parish school at cockburnspath, a e of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, situated a little off the main road It has a church with an ancient round tower, and a venerablefroe street
On the south side of the street, just in front of the church, stood the old schoolhouse--a low one storey building, roofed with the red tiles characteristic of the neighbourhood, and built on to the school The schoolor, a man of ripe and accurate scholarshi+p and quite separate individuality The son of a Perthshi+re farmer, he had studied for the ministry at St Andrews University, and had, it was said, fulfilled all the require a licentiate of the Church of Scotland except the sending in of one exercise, This exercise he could never be persuaded to send in, and that not because he had any speculative difficulties as to the truth of the Christian revelation, nor yet because he had any exaggerated s as to his own qualifications for the work of theprofession, and was,attitude which the ministers of the Established Church assumed to the parish schools and school ultimately became a kind of mania with him He was at feud with his own parish minister, and never entered his church except when, arrayed in a blue cloak with a red collar, he attended to read proclareeable when the local Presbytery sent their annual deputation to exaious ht the Bible and Shorter Catechism to his scholars carefully and well
As he disliked the ministers, so he showed little deference to the farmers, ere in some sort the ”quality” of the district, and to such of their offspring as ca up an opposition school in cockburnspath, which survived for a few years; but it never flourished, for the corand teacher,” as indeed he was He had a spare, active figure, wore spectacles, and took snuff There was at all tirimness in him, and he could be merciless when the occasion seereat awe enuine respect for his absolutely just dealing and his masterful independence of character
John Cairns first went to Mr M'Gregor's school when the family removed to cockburnspath froress that two years later, when he was ten years old, the master proposed that he should join a Latin class which was then being fors of heart at home His father, with anxious conscientiousness, debated with hiht for him thus to set one of his sons above the rest He could not afford to have theht Latin, so would it be fair to the others that John should be thus singled out fros, and she was clear that John ed fros a quarter; but when Latin was taken they rose to seven and sixpence Mr M'Gregor had proposed to teach John Latin without extra charge, but both his father and his reed that to accept this kind offer was not to be thought of for aand saving on her part the extra sulis, as consulted in the ly for the proposal, and so John was allowed to begin his classical studies
Within two years Greek had been added to the Latin; and, as the unavoidable bustle and noise which arose in the evening when the whole faether in the one room of the house made study difficult, John stipulated with his , when she rose, an hour before anybody else, to light the fire and prepare the breakfast And so it happened that, if any of the rest of the faet up, they would see John studying his lesson and hear hiht of the one little oil-lamp that the house afforded
Perhaps, too, it hat he saw, in these early etful toil of his htful for her comfort and considerate of her wants both then and in after-years
But his regular schooldays were noing to an end His father, though engaged as the shepherd at Dunglass, had other duties of a very e, and part of his shepherd work had been done for him for some tih to earn a higher wage by other work on the home-farm or in the woods, and so it ca the sheep When his father told Mr M'Gregor that John would have to leave school, the school so pro a scholar, that he said that if John could find tilad to have hio over with hior had become more and more solitary in his habits of late--he was a bachelor, and his aged mother kept house for him--this offer was considered to be a very reratefully accepted on that account
It fortunately happened that the work to which John had now to turn his hand allowed hi on his studies without interfering with its efficiency That as of a twofold character
He had to ”look” the sheep, and he had to ”herd” the at six o'clock in the , accompanied by the faithful collie ”Cheviot,” he inning down near the sea and thence working his way round to a point considerably higher up than the mansion-house His instructions were to count the sheep in each field, so that he ht be able to tell whether they were all there, and also to see whether they were all afoot and feeding In the event of anything being wrong, he was to report it to his father The circuit was one of three or four miles, and the last field to be looked was that in which were gathered the fifty or sixty sheep that were to be brought out to the unfenced lawns round thethe day
These sheep were generally to be found waiting close to the gate, and when it was opened they could quite easily find their oay down to their feeding-ground As they passed slowly on, cropping the grass as they went, John was able to leave thee andbeen despatched, and Cheviot fed, he onceto put a book or two, and perhaps a piece of bannock, into the _neuk_ of it, and set out to find his flock There was usually little difficulty in doing so, for the sheep knew the way and did not readily wander out of it; while, even if they had deviated a little froe of their passage have resulted It was quite different when they came down to the lawns near the house These were surrounded by orna this and the adjacent flower-borders that the services of the herd-boy were required