1864
Hawick Archaeological Society
June Meeting
The monthly meeting was held in the Lecture-room of the
museum on Tuesday, the 7th curt, at 8 0’clock P.M. - Mr. J.A.H.
Murray, secretary, in the chair.
There was a large attendance of members and visitors.
Among the objects of interest on the table were:-
Antique stirrup, which belonged to Archibald
“Bell-the-Cat,” Earl of Angus, from the collection of the late Earl of
Buchan, presented by Peter Pennycook, Esq. ; portion of a spar and
perforated Celt-like stone, found in taking down Hendersons Pend, High
Street, one of the last of the old battle-houses of Hawick; silver merk of
James VI of Scotland, presented by Mr. R. Michie; half-crown of Charles I,
presented by Jas. Murray, Wester Essenside.
After describing the donations, and referring to the arched
house or battle-house of Mr. Walter Henderson, till lately one of the few
remaining specimens of the old fortified dwellings once common in the burgh
but now demolished, from which some of the objects had been obtained, the
Secretary read a paper upon the Flora of the district, giving an account of
the Leguminous or Pea tribe, found in Teviotdale, illustrated by preserved
specimens, from the Herbarium. This paper was listened to with much
attention.
He then called upon Mr. Robert Murray, who read a highly
interesting paper, entitled “A Sketch of the Life and Writings of James
Ruickbie.” This paper contained a very complete biographical sketch of the
“old son of song,” tracing out his somewhat devious and chequered career,
from his birth and childhood in the upper valley of the Tweed to his death
in Hawick, with an account of his various publications, and specimens of his
poetical works culled from these published volumes, as well as preserved by
oral recitation, the whole being interspersed with pithy anecdotes
illustrative of the man and his times; and like the author’s former paper
upon “James Hogg, the author of Teribus” was a valuable contribution to the
biography of our local bards. At its close a vote of thanks was unanimously
accorded to Mr. Murray.
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND
WRITINGS OF JAMES RUICKBIE
Mr. Murray began his paper by saying that four of his aged
friends who had assisted him with this sketch of Ruickbie had, during it
progress, been removed by death. The last of these departed ones, James
Scott, was laid in his grave on the Friday before the reading of this paper.
As the writer stood at the foot of that grave, whilst clay was added to
clay, the following words, which Thomson of the Seasons wrote on the death
of Aikman, came into his mind –
“As these we love decay as
we die in part,
String after string is severed from the heart,
Till loosened life, at last, but breathing clay,
Without one pang is glad to flee away,
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow,
Whose eyes have wept o’er every friend laid low,
Dragged lingering on from partial death to death,
Till dying, all he can resign is breath.”
Scott, whose age extended over threescore and ten, had always
been an intelligent observer of the local events of his day, as well as of
the many changes in manners and customs, and the characteristics of Hawick
celebrities. His anecdotes and reminiscences had enriched most of the papers
which he (Mr. M.) had read lately, and provided material for others which he
might yet read to this society.
The most eminent of our local poets are James Hogg, James
Ruickbie, Elliot Atchison, and William Scott. A sketch of Hogg has already
been presented to the society. I now purpose reading to you a sketch of the
life and writings of James Ruickbie. He was born in Innerleithen about the
year 1757. The scenes of his infancy are thus tersely described by himself.
“I was brought up wi’ tups
and ewes,
High up amang the heather cowes,
Where winter girns,
And naething seen but heights and howes,
And bent and birns.”
His parents belonged to the peasantry, and were unable to
afford him any of the advantages of education beyond a few meager rudiments
of elementary knowledge. Of his youthful instruction, he says
“I never drank o’ logics
can,
Nor fry’d in erudition’s pan,
To syllogize construe and scan,
N’er reached my noodle”
But he possessed an inherent love of learning, and like
others similar in taste and in rank, read not only all the scanty books in
his household library, but also all that he could borrow from obliging
neighbours. For his general scholarship he soon became a parish celebrity,
and was spoken of to visitors at St Ronan’s well as “the miller lad that can
write a letter.” Many of the visitors being unable to write their friends at
home, his services as a letter writer were often required, and were never
refused.
He left his native vale and hired himself to the tenant of
Nisbet Mill. He was not long at his new residence until he was encircled by
a vast number of admiring worshippers who were willing enough to pay court
to his genius; his aptness with the fiddle, his quaint and witty verses, and
his sparkling conversation were always enticing, but perhaps never more so
than at Nisbet Mill.
After some time spent at Nisbet Mill, he left for the upper
vale of the Teviot, and entered service as miller, to Mr. Borthwick at New
Mill, five miles above Hawick. He felt proud of being a miller, and tuned
his muse accordingly, in the following cheerful mood –
“We win our bread wi’ achin
banes,
We lift and lay the ponderous stanes,
Gar a’ the graith gang to at ance,
Wi’ rapid speed;
And brawly we can ca’ our pins,
In time o’ need.”
He was very indignant at those who spoke suspiciously of a
miller’s honesty, and when asked by a lawyer if he ever knew of a miller
getting to heaven, he replied that “he had ance heard of ane, and somebody
wanted him expelled, but they searched through the whole of heaven for a
lawyer to write out the indictment, and could not find one.”
He never was what is generally known as a buirdly miller, and
felt it his duty to bid farewell to cog and pinion, pin and bore, and became
a toll-keeper. His address “To Brother Tollmen” beams with glee and pithy
observations. He occupied Haremoss Toll twelve months, and commemorated his
residence there by an address to the “Hawick Carriers.” He next became the
keeper of Colterscleuch Toll-bar, and continued so somewhere about a dozen
years. His dwelling place still remains, although not as the toll-house. It
is a lonely cottage, far up in the vale of Teviot; the river flows behind it
with a gurgling sound, in front there is a vast range of lofty mountains,
and one of the highways between England and Scotland passed through its
gate. Such grand and wild scenery, combined with the facility his situation
presented of observing the various phases of mankind that travelled along
the highway, formed ample material for his muse: as he himself says –
“There’s not a flower in a’
the glen
But dictates to the poet’s pen;
The sloping dale and reedy fen
Inform our page
And even the thoughtless son of men
Our cares engage.”
Most of
his poetry seems to have been written at Colterscleuch.
How often Ruickbie published I am unable to ascertain. I have
seen only 3 vols. Of his works, but in the first of these, “The Wayside
Cottager” he thanks the public for the reception given to his former
publications. That volume consists of prose and verse, and was printed for
the author by Mr. Armstrong, Hawick, in the year 1807, and sold at four
shillings. Although his poetry lacks much of the polish which belongs to
more accomplished bards, it is truly musical, and has, amidst its coarseness
the glitterings out of some pure and genuine bits of fine poetic feeling;
and it is entirely free from all that whinging, cringing, sickly adulation
of persons of high estate, which too often pervades the musings of lowly
poets. Professor Wilson so much admired some of it that he adopted two lines
into a work of his own. In the preface to “The Wayside Cottager” the author
says “he considers the preface as the porch of a building or a grace before
a meal; little notice is taken of either the one or the other (especially by
the curious and the hungry), in the expectation of meeting better
entertainment afterwards.” He also says, “Mr. Critic, who knows but the
reading of such nonsense may keep the debauchee from a criminal midnight
assignation, or keep Cupid’s volunteers a couple of hours out of the
furnace, or, perhaps, drive the crafty barrister past the fatal hour in
which he intended to study a clause which would have ruined the whole suit;
and is not this to serve one’s country?”
In the opening chapter of the same volume he thus faithfully
portrays himself: “Here sit I, with about half a ream of paper before me,
quills scattered on every side of me around the table, an old-fashioned
inkhorn full to the brim, parallel to my right hand; my house is situated so
near the public highway, that a rat can hardly pass without disturbing me in
my studies. Figure to yourself, gentle reader, a diminutive, thin visaged,
sallow-complexioned fellow sinner, sitting in the above dilemma clothed in a
ragged greatcoat, a snuffy breasted doublet and a sea-green cap, and a cheek
bone, sir, if fitted for any mechanical operation would be best adapted to
whet razors on!” When he took this portrait of himself he was 50 years of
age and was a centre of attraction at Colterscleuch toll-bar. The herd
laddies here found delight in his anecdotes, tales, and folklore, and the
savans thought it no robbery of time to converse with him hour after hour.
Under that lowly roof he had a memorable interview with Thomas Campbell the
poet. Campbell at that time was secretary to Lord Minto, and often rode out
on a pony to enjoy the scenery of the Borderland. In one of these excursions
he first met Ruickbie; great was his astonishment and satisfaction when he
discovered that the lonely tollman had read the “Pleasures of Hope,” which
had then been but a very short time published. Many years afterwards
Campbell repeated his visit to our Bard.
After Ruickbie left Colterscleuch, he occupied successively
Langholm Town-foot Toll-bar and the West-end Toll-bar of Hawick, and
afterwards kept a public house in various parts of the town, until he became
landlord of the Harrow Inn. His motto on the signboard of the Harrow Inn was
“Sow in Hope,” which was one day read by a passer as “Sow in Hope:”
no wonder that that reader enquired of a neighbour what hopes might be
entertained by the tenant of a pig-sty? The Harrow Inn soon attained
notoriety as a literary howf; the literati of the town often met there to
enjoy a crack with Ruickbie. The Ettrick Shepherd was a regular visitor, and
on his recommendation Allan Cunningham, the poet, spent a night with
Ruickbie in passing through Hawick. About the time that Ruickbie came to
Hawick he issued another volume from the press of Mr. Armstrong, a much
larger work than his previous one. It is entitled “Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish dialect, by James Ruickbie,” and bears the date of 1815. The
vigorous and sterling independence of spirit which characterized Reubie the
miller and toll-man, are boldly impressed on the pages of this volume. His
theme comprises the scenery of his sojournings, and his observations on the
social state and political events of the times in which he lived, with
several religious pieces. He thus refers to the scarcity of food in the year
1800 – a year known as the dear year – a year never mentioned by those who
remember it but with a melancholy shake of the head. It was a time when
there was a scarcity of provisions – when the voice of lamentation was
heard, and meal riots prevailed.
“Our fathers never saw-
Nor we, their hapless sons, till now – a time
So big with woe. How many of the sons
Of industry (the support of the land),
By all their labour, scarce can earn as much,
As keep themselves and families from starving.”
Another eventful epoch in the country’s history, the
threatened French invasion, is also adverted to, and seems to have
stimulated his muse to patriotic strains, as the following extract will show
–
“Arm , Scotia arm! the
daring foe,
With haughty menace from afar
Presumes to strike the invasive blow,
And make our land a scene of war.
Let ev’ry vet’ran , ev’ry tar,
Their ancient valour call to mind –
The bleeding wound, the glorious scar,
Which former conflicts left behind.
Can sons of Scotia see
unmoved,
The Gallic squadrons cut the waves;
The matron kind, the maiden lov’d,
Tame victims fall to lawless slaves;
‘No, no’ replies each Scotsman brave;
‘For, if they reach Britannia’s coast,
They only come to find their grave,
Their boasted fame and glory lost.’
Bound by each tie to nature
dear,
Defensive glory is our choice –
The pious, soft, maternal tear,
The lisping infant’s prattling valor
While British thunder makes a noise
For king, our liberties and laws;
In death or vict’ry we’ll rejoice,
Embark’d in such a glorious cause”
The name of James Ruickbie, Colterscleuch, is in a list of
volunteers of that period preserved in our museum. The following verses
refer to the same period of war and rumours of war:-
When Scotland was threaten’d
with foreign alarms,
And war call’d our youth to the practice of arms,
I backward did look on our gallant forebears,
Who shielded our country in foregoing years;
I wept when I look’d at thir sma’ shanks o’ mine,
Compared wi’ the heroes that flourished lang syne.
O Wallace! that Scotchman is
not worth his room
Who weeps not when’er he remembers thy doom;
With undaunted valour thou gloriously stood,
And gave for thy country thy dearest heart’s blood;
My heart yet beats high when I think of the line,
Of heroes commanded by Wallace lang syne.
*
* * * *
But why do I mention our
ancestors brave,
Their race it is run, they are gone to their grave,
If Scotland can boast of such merit and worth,
The sons of such fathers will surely stand forth,
And never their freedom for slavery resign,
But fight with that valour which they had lang syne.
Some of his poems, such as the following delineate the
manners and customs of other days, which poets have been in the habit of
regarding as nearer the golden age, though will we daresay agree with their
opinion.
Lang syne whan decent gude
grey claith,
Did hap the laird and tenant baith,
When cotters liv’d on cogs o’ brose;
An’ wi’ Stow struntin’ tied their hose;
A calf-skin doublet grac’d their breast,
Just rough as it cam’ aff the beast.
To keep them hale trae cramp an’ cleeks,
They sheath’d their thighs in gun-mou’d breeks.
Whan farmers had nae place to feed,
But at their kitchen table head,
An’ threw ilk servant down a scone,
Whase thump gart a’ the table groan.
Nae knives nor forks war then in vogue,
Nor ilka ane a diff’rent cog;
But a great bowie on the table,
An’ ilka ane supped what he was able.
As for the meat, if it was caul,
The gudeman rave it spaul frae spaul;
If it was hot, the langkail gully
Play’d smash amang’t to end the tulzie.
Ilk ane his portion on his bannock
Gat handed by, baith Jock an’ Sannock,
An’ whan their bellies a’ were pang,
The grace was said, to wark they sprang.
Ruickbie’s poems also abound with many a glimpse into the
domestic life of his day; and well might he delineate the joys and sorrows,
the quaint and common fireside events – few had a better opportunity than he
of becoming acquainted with its vicissitudes. He was twice married, and
therefore knew also the sorrows of widowhood. One of his family, the late
Mrs. Govenlock of Mosspaul Inn, was well known to those who may have had
occasion to travel across the mountainous track between Hawick and Carlisle.
Ruickbie, in his “Thoughts on the Different Stages of Man’s Life,” has some
pungent and happy bits. His appreciation of the more natural freedom of the
marriage relation among the humbler classes is thus pithily set forth:-
“Thrice happy she who gets
her will
To marry Tam, or Dick, or Bill,
Nae opposition frets her,
While high-bred dame – bereft o’ hope-
Is doomed to stand a public roup –
The highest bidder gets her.”
Many of his poems are imbued with real practical
Christianity. He was a member of Mr. Henderson’s congregation; and while
miller at New-mill, in Teviot, started and kept up a Sabbath-School, along
with another working-man named William Michellhill, resident in the
neighbourhood. I recently met with one of the pupils attending the school,
who still speaks with deep reverence and love of the religious instruction
he received at the feet of Ruickbie. Although attached to his own church and
denomination, bigotry found in him a determined opponent. He thus asks,-
“Can sic men sing in heaven
thegither
Wha darena pray wi’ ane anither?
O, how alc conduct gars us swither
Frae side to side,
Till charity we fairly smother,
And yield to pride.”
In an address to his friend Mr. Govenlock, Mosspaul, he
refers to the comfortable house of the latter, and says –
“Only let me just remind
you,
Never let it steal your love –
Cast its grandeur a’ behind ye,
Think it was but built for lodgers
To refresh, and tak’ the road;
You and I are just like sodgers
Billeted in our own abode.”
In the year 1826, when he was verging on his threescore years
and ten, some of his literary friends induced him to publish another
collection of his poems. It is a very small brochure, and, besides a few of
his own composition, it contained ten pieces by his friend Mr. Wm. Scott,
and one by Mr. Wm. Deans of Denholm. This small volume, like its
predecessors, was from the press of Mr. Armstrong; the price was sixpence.
One of the poems in this, his last, publication, is on laying the
foundation-stone of the Subscription Rooms, now occupied by his grandson,
John Govenlock. It contains also a very fair specimen of his ballad powers
in a metrical story, entitled “The Fairy Stane,” the scene of which is about
a quarter mile from Innerleithen, situated at the confluence of the Tweed
and the Leithen, opposite Traquair, where (to quote from our author) “the
stone called the Fairy Stone is yet to be seen, at a place called the
Chapman Hope, situated at the foot of an opening between two hills, called
the Curlaw Swire; it derives its name from one of those hills called the
Curlaw rock, and famous in the olden times as the place where the revels of
those beings called fairies were annually held.”
Several fugitive pieces of his have been preserved by his
friends, one of which was suggested by a visit to Jedburgh Abbey. The
original MS was lately presented to our society. I may here read a few lines
which he wrote to a granddaughter on the occasion of her having presented
him with a paper basket – her own handiwork:-
“A paper basket by your will
You surely can produce,
Which, like all female toys, are still
For ornament – not use!
And when you’re in your art complete,
I doubt not but you can –
If you should chance to think it neat –
Even make a paper man.
This to your mind will give some ease –
If you of him should tire,
You need no more, but when you please,
Just throw him in the fire.”
When the news of the startling death of Mr. Spencer Percival
arrived in Hawick, a cobbler was talking about the awful deed to a butcher,
but the mutton seller knew nothing at all about the statesman. Ruickbie,
hearing of that unpolitical butcher, wrote the following satire –
“A cobbler one day when
walking the street,
Fell in with a butcher dissecting his meat;
The butcher said ‘Cobbler, what news have you got!’
‘Bad news,’ said the cobbler, ‘Percival’s shot.’
The butcher asked ‘Who is this Percival? who;
This man I ne’er saw – the name I don’t know’
The cobbler said ‘Friend , take care of your cunn’ng,
For he was the very head butcher in Lunnan.’”
Many
other occurrences called forth Ruickbie’s muse. Some verses which he wrote
on the occasion of an illicit still being seized in Liddesdale by a gauger
and an officer from Hawick were very popular; but sufficient extracts have
already been read to show that he had a good deal of common sense, and had
the ability to write poetry. He also wrote a few dramatic pieces, two of
which attained a considerable local popularity, viz.: - “The Bottomless Pit,
or the Lawyer Outwitted;” and “The Vulture and Raven, or Dinner Arrested.”
A local versifier, who was a contemporary of his,
commemorated his poetical powers in the following rapturous strains:-
“Milton, Homer, and Virgil,
Were the chief of poets in those days;
Now Jamie Ruickbie comes in
Ding, dang, and wears the lays.”
Not only had Ruickbie been courted all his days as a man of
no mean genius, but he was admired and beloved by his contemporaries alike
for his honesty of purpose, detestation of all cant and hypocrisy, warmth of
heart, and general good-will toward his fellow-men. He assisted the poor and
needy as long as he was able. People who were acquainted with him felt happy
in his smile. When the clouds of old age began to darken his path, some
young men of the town performed “Pattie and Roger” for his special benefit.
The Subscription Rooms were crammed by an enthusiastic audience, and a
goodly sum was realized therefrom in behalf of the venerable a deserving
Bard. As already stated, William Scott, along with some of his friends,
assisted him to publish his last volume entirely out of the respect they
entertained for him. The last poem in the last published collection is a
tribute of respect by Mr. Scott for the old man, and with reading it I shall
conclude this paper.
“Thou old Son of Song! a
long night is descending
In thick gloom around thee - its shade hovers o’er thee
And darkens thy path, but a day never ending
Shall break through the darkness – a long day of glory.
Then forgot shall be all
thou hast suffer’d while here,
Like a tale that is told shalt thou look on the past ;
Smiles shall dimple the cheek now distain’d with a tear,
When Heaven shall receive thy pure spirit at last.
Thy end like a mild summer
sun-set shall be,
Thy gray hairs are to thee a bright halo of glory ;
Thou hast walk’d with thy God, and through faith dost thou see
Thy seat with the saints and thy Saviour before thee.
Farewell then, Old Bard! - I
have learned by thy fate,
That goodness and genius conjoin’d cannot save
From neglect the possessor, but often await
On him scorn and contempt, till shut out by the grave.”
He died at Hawick in the 72d year of his age, and his remains
lie interred in St Mary’s Churchyard, but his resting place is as yet
unmarked by a memorial stone.
**
A 2004 picture of the
Colterscleuch
Toll-bar where James wrote most of his poems |