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THE Gadie, [Pronounced Gaadie,
with a long, broad a, as in far.] or Gaudie, is one of the classical streams
of Scottish poetry, heard and sung of by many who have never seen the region
through which it flows, and who may have little idea that it belongs to the
north. The beauties that poesy has woven round it breathe more of the sunny
south, with its "bud and blossom," "licht o' gowd and leaves o' green," "its
bloomy heaths and yellow whins," amidst "its bosky lines," than cold
Aberdeenshire. But the refrain sufficiently reiterates where it runs—"at the
back o' Benachie," the hill that appears so much in our story.
The north side of the Vale of
Alford is bounded by an elevated ridge stretching from the Coreen Hills on
the west to Benachie on the east, where it abruptly terminates in its
striking peak. Along the north side of this ridge, runs a quiet, pastoral
hollow with gentle slopes, generally well cultivated, which are watered by
this famous stream. It is itself only a small burn, which rises in the
parish of Clatt, to the north of the Corcens, and flows eastward along the
northern base of Benachie, into the Ury, which joins the Don at Inverurie.
In the middle of its course,
just under the rounded top of Hermit's Seat, the north-west shoulder of
Benachie, lies the small village of Auchleven, or the Smooth Field, a title
which sufficiently indicates the feeling of rural seclusion that pervades
the scene. It stands on the road between the Vale of Alford and the country
town of Insch, where there is now a station on the railway, never dreamt of
in John Duncan's time. Auchleven is a clean, tidy little village, with its
shops and its public school, and a carding-mill driven by the Gadie, which
here does practical work, theme though it be of poetical honours. It is
overshadowed on the south by the huge bulk of Benachie, though its
picturesque peak is out of sight at this point, and it is within view, on
the other side, of the curious ruin of Dunnideer on its conical hill, a
conspicuous object seen from far. The district has long been inhabited, and
has numerous standing stones, circles, and cairns, that carry us back to
prehistoric times.
To this quiet country village
came John Duncan, about 1823, and here he remained for several years,
returning to it again before he finally settled down at Droughsburn near
Alford. Like Charles Black and all those who have roamed by its banks and
braes, he had a great affection for this green hollow, and the stream that
waters it. He could utter his feelings with literal truth, in the words of
one of the songs composed in its honour:-
"I've roamed by Tweed, I've
roamed by Tay,
By border Nith and Highland Spey,
But dearer far to me than they
Are the braes o' Benachie."
In Auchleven, John seems to
have been happier, better understood, and more appreciated, than at most
places in which he sojourned, and his old companions there retain a pleasant
and grateful remembrance of the man, and speak of him with high respect.
He worked in the carding-mill
at the south end of the village, where the Gadie crosses the road to Alford.
He lodged with a weaver on the other side of the road, called Sandy Smith,
in a tumble-down, thatched cottage, now entirely removed. He slept above a
thatched stable at the mill, in a loft reached by a ladder directly from the
highway. This apartment was merely the triangle formed by the sloping roof,
seven feet in length, with sufficient height to stand up in at the centre.
It was lighted only by an opening, three feet by two and a half, in the
small door that gave entrance to it. This hole for light was without glass,
being closed by means of a sliding piece of wood; so that when it was shut,
the place was in darkness, and when it was open, the wind had free entrance,
even in the wildest winter day. John's bed was at one side of the space,
under the sloping thatch, his chest containing his clothes and books being
at the other, with a narrow passage between.
From his studious habits,
which soon became the talk of the village, this close, miserable hovel
obtained the name of "the philosopher's hall," or "philosopher's den," or
more curtly "THE PHILOSOPHER," which it retained for many years after he had
left it. Here John slept during the ten or more years in which he lived at
Auchleven. contented and solitary; here he kept his books and instruments,
and wrote his letters and papers on the lid of his chest; here he used to
sit for hours, reading and thinking and studying ; and to this chilly hole,
without a fire, and always in the dark in winter—for a candle would have
been dangerous—he retired nightly to rest. To make it more tolerable in
cold, frosty times, he used to carry a bottle filled with hot water,
supplied by a kindly neighbour. While lying there, he could distinctly hear
the breathing and stamping of the horses, and the lowing of the cows, in the
double stable and byre below, the fumes of which ascended through the
crevices between the deals of the thin partition that separated him from
these his fellow-creatures. Talk of Diogenes' tub! That was airiness,
health, and comfort, compared to Duncan's "philosopher's hall."
John worked long hours,
weaving at the mill. As the house in which he boarded for his meals was
small, comfortless, and swarming with children, he used to spend his
evenings in a quieter, more comfortable cottage next door, where lived a
kindly woman, called Janet Brown, now gone, who filled his pirns and did his
washing; and he retired at bedtime to his lonely crib.
During his first residence at
Auchleven, his chief study was Astronomy, and it was here that he received
the appropriate and telling title of "Johnnie Meen." It was along a dike at
the back of the cottage in which he boarded, that he used to set up dials
and strings, at the top of a high ground which commanded a good view of the
heavens all round, and in sight of Hermit's Seat on Benachie. An ash-tree
still stands just opposite "the philosopher," into which he used to climb at
nights, out of sight of passers-by. Seated in its upper branches, he would
watch the wheeling constellations for hours, happily there more unmolested
among the country villagers than among the ploughmen and practical jokers in
other places he lived at. To his confidential friends, he used to point out
and name the chief stars and constellations, generally giving them their
common as well as their Arabic designations, such as Charles's wain, the
Lady's elwand, and the like. He would also explain the dials he had made,
and the manner of setting them and telling the hours and the points of the
compass with them; being, as an old friend of his said, "a great dial man."
This was Willie Mortimer, the
village shoemaker, who still survives, an intelligent, genial man, in a
green old age, with many memories and highest respect for his departed
friend. William saw John's "horologe" and was often with him when he
adjusted the folding "nogman" (or "the cock o' the dial," as William called
it), and told the hour by its means. He was one of the few that were
privileged to ascend into "the philosopher," where he was shown the secret
chest, with the books and other treasures it contained—a proof of honour and
confidence bestowed on few. He was impressed, as all that knew him there
were, with John's high character, retiring studiousness, inoffensive,
blameless life, and great memory; and William Mortimer had the honour of
introducing him to Charles Black.
John's appearance and habits,
even at that age, under forty years, were sufficiently striking, and certain
to draw popular comment. He wore a blue dress-coat and vest of his own
manufacture and country make, with very high neck and clear brass buttons,
corduroy trousers, and white-spotted napkin round his throat; a tall satin
hat, well set on the back of his head; a big blue umbrella, which was an
old-fashioned "Sairey Gamp," under his arm; a staff in his hand, and great
boots with iron toes, full of big tackets, on his feet; while his trousers
were generally rolled up half-way to his knees, to keep them clean, " for
fear o' bladdin' them." His tout ensemble and stooping gait gave him the
general look of a quaint country Paul Pry—prying, however, not into other
people's affairs, like that well-known worthy, but into matters his compeers
knew nothing of, and cared less for. From thinking of other things within,
or conning over some of the technicalities of the studies he pursued, he
generally had an absorbed look, which at times became an almost vacant
stare; so that by many, if not by most, he was considered "odd." Some said
that he "looked like a fule," and others did accuse- him, in their charity,
of being "silly."
He was extremely cleanly in
his disposition, dress, and habits, brushing his clothes with fastidious
care, and never putting down his hat, even in the finest room he entered,
without wiping off any dust that might lie there, with his handkerchief. His
tastes were singularly abstemious, and his food of the simplest—his bed,
board, washing and dress, not costing him, then, more than four shillings a
week. Yet no one accused him of being mean, and he was reckoned "liberal
within his ability;" and it should be remembered that his wife and family,
even after his daughters were married, were a constant drain upon his
slender resources. Could simplicity and thrift go farther than this?
About this period, he stayed
for some years two miles north of Auchleven, at the village of Insch. Here
he also studied astronomy, "wasting his time," as the people thought and
said, with such trifles, instead of devoting himself, like the sensible
folks round him, wholly to his labour. His daughter Mary was then a servant
with Mr. Brown, farmer at Drumrossie, close by the village. There John used
frequently to visit her, and became in this way intimate with the farmer and
his wife, who were very kind to him, and whose daughter, still living in
Insch, recalls many interesting memories of the peculiar weaver, both in his
astronomical and botanical days. At Drumrossie, he had better opportunities
of observing the stars than in Insch, and there he used to use the cart-shed
as an observatory; for protection from the cold in frosty nights, when the
stars are clearest, is necessary even for the most ardent. He was often
found there at that work, "when he su'd hae been sleepin'." The general name
by which he was known in Insch, was "the star mannie," and the farm servants
used to amuse themselves by getting him to point out Jupiter and Saturn and
their companions, and then make fun of the peculiar names, if not the
peculiar man.
The Vale of Alford widens out
in various parts into lateral valleys, drained by tributary streams that
flow into the Don. One of these is the upland region that forms the parish
of Tullynessle, on the eastern slopes of the Coreen Hills, drained by the
Suic Burn. It is a warm, pleasant hollow, facing the south, its curious name
meaning, it seems, in Gaelic, the knoll that looks southwards. It possesses
a church and school, and some ruins of departed greatness in the old castle
of Terpersie, which overlook it from the west.
On its higher slopes, known
as the Braes of Whitehaugh, there lies a farm called, from its size,
Muckletown, close by the hillock of Wardhead, and a short distance south of
a hill crested with trees, called from its shape Knocksaul, the hill of the
barn. This farm is only some five miles over the ridge from Auchleven. Here
John Duncan lived for some years, weaving for the farmer, Robert Barron.
Robert had a holding, and a weaving shop, in which he worked himself and
employed some journeymen. Besides being weaver and farmer, he had some local
fame as butcher, veterinary surgeon, and sportsman. He was intelligent,
keen, practical, and vigorous, and could show considerable temper when
roused. He was bright and blithe, even after he got his leg broken, and
followed the plough on his wooden stump, whistling and singing as he went.
John boarded with this good
man, and weaved in a shop, now in ruins, behind his house. It had three
looms, lighted by three small windows, looking to the road that ran past the
door. Above the workshop, there was a garret formed by the low triangular
space under the sloping rafters, which was reached by ladder, through a
trap-door in the ceiling at the upper end of the shop, opposite John's loom.
This upper room had no ventilation whatever, except through the thatch, and
no light but what came up "accidently" through the small trap-door. With
what ill-lighted, unventilated places were our forefathers satisfied, really
little in advance of the underground dens and caves of the prehistoric
times! Yet up here often slept, night after night, three men in the three
box or "stockit" beds that were fitted up in the stifling, darksome den, in
some ways worse than John's solitary "philosopher" at Auchleven.
Here at Muckletown, John also
carried on his astronomical studies, and many memories of his eccentricities
still survive amongst the aged people in Tullynessle. One of these, a
daughter of Andrew Wilson, a farmer who lived next door to the weaving-shop,
was then a little girl about ten years old. Her young imagination was taken
with the queer little weaver and his peculiar ways, and her excellent memory
has well preserved the things she then saw and heard with her sharp eyes and
ears.
Nearly opposite the workshop,
on the other side of the road, stood Robert Barron's byre, from which a long
dike stretched right in front of the shop and parallel to it. Along the top
of this dike, John used to place his dials. Each of these consisted of a
piece of slate, with a central stile inserted in the middle, which formed
the famous "nogman," of which his contemporaries made such fun. While here,
he also possessed and used a small telescope, or "looking-glass," as they
naturally and correctly called it, a translation of the poetic "optic glass"
of Miltonic poetry and Galilean renown. This he also adjusted on the dike,
to examine the stars. On clear, frosty nights, John made his observations
along the dike, returning at a run, to save time and to keep up his
temperature, to the weaving-shop just opposite, where he registered his
observations and consulted his books and almanacs. It was in connection with
this dike that the practical jokers of the place used to thrown down his
dials and play other pranks upon the absorbed and short-sighted astronomer.
Andrew Wilson, whose house as next-door neighbour he used to frequent, would
not allow his daughters to make sport in any way of the odd little man, but
tried to inspire them with some of the respect his studies should have
roused in every one.
In Tullynessle, he was also
known as the "star-gazer" and "the nogman." But though he devoted his
leisure to study, he did not neglect his work and is still remembered in the
place as a capital weaver. His medical practices, not making such an
impression on the people as his studying the stars, are not so well
remembered there by survivors.
John was delighted, at all
times when any one would listen to him, to speak of his studies, and to the
willing and intelligent he would pour forth his lore for hours. Especially
did he take pleasure in talking to young people, in the hope of leading them
to higher things. He used to point out the stars and call them all by their
names, to Mr. Wilson's little maidens and to youthful Robbie Barron; but as
Robert now naively remarks, he was too young to be able to say whether he
did so rightly or wrongly!
To escape the annoyance
offered to him at the cottar town, John used to go to a distance, especially
to the top of the neighbouring eminences, to make his observations and have
a wider field of stars. The sides of the isolated Knocksaul, about a mile
north of Muckletown, fourteen hundred feet in height, commanding a splendid
view of the whole celestial hemisphere, were special haunts of his. There he
would remain for hours, often far into the morning, watching the heavens,
like the young astronomer Ferguson, a hundred years before, when he lived
near Keith, some thirty miles to the west.
One night, his next-door
neighbour, Mrs. Wilson, was attending on a sick cow, about two in the
morning, after the rest of the family had long retired to bed. She was
sitting with the animal in the lonely byre, which was dimly lighted by a
rush lamp, an eerie-enough place at that hour, when the door began to creak
on its hinges in the dead silence. Looking apprehensively round, she saw it
stealthily and slowly pushed open, while a weird-looking face, darkly
illumined by the solitary rush light, appeared in the narrow space, giving
her "a terrible fright." In tones of real terror, she sprang up and demanded
who was there. In an instant, she was relieved. It was only John Duncan, who
at once stepped forward to show himself and to apologize for thus alarming
her. He explained that seeing the red light shining through the crannies of
the byre at that late hour, lie thought the place on fire ; otherwise, he
would not have disturbed her. He had been at the top of Knocksaul, watching
the stars. But, as she said, "he was a quiet, harmless man and interfered in
nobody's affairs."
John lived at MZuckletown for
seven or eight years but not continuously, contented, comfortable, and
happy, notwithstanding the pranks played on him by his frolicsome
neighbours, and in spite of a visit from his wandering wife, who turned up
here as she had done everywhere else. When not engaged in his studies, which
he usually prosecuted in the shop or in the open air, he spent the evenings
next door, at the pleasant and appreciative fireside of the Wilsons, or in
the merry kitchen of his employer. Being a public-spirited, humorous man and
a good fiddler, Barron's house was a kind of rendezvous for the
neighbourhood. Notwithstanding his philosophy and douceness, John enjoyed a
merry evening with the best of them, contributing his share to the
entertainment along with the rest, for he was always counted "capital
company" when amongst congenial friends.
One night in 1831, this
secluded community were startled into consternation and tragic fear. The
winter that year had been unusually severe, though less so than afterwards
in 1837, known as the year of the "big storm." Mrs. Wilson, the good woman
whom John had frightened at midnight, left the farm to go over the hill to
Auchleven with some wool, to get it made into worsted at John's old mill
there. The afternoon was fair enough, but a heavy snow-storm came on with
the evening, and as she did not return after the dark had come down, an
alarm was raised. The whole population of the Braes of Whitehaugh, John
amongst the rest, turned out to seek the lost woman, who happily was found,
after long search, in a snow wreath, where she would without doubt have
perished, had she not been rescued in time by her kindly neighbours.
Duncan was counted by most
about Tullynessle, "a queer kind o' creatur'," "a droll body," "an awfu'
queer man," "losing his time, instead of working at his loom," though the
worst never did or could accuse him of being lazy. He was, nevertheless, "
universally respected," as an intelligent, honourable, well-living man, with
"nothing mean" about him, and "generous as far as he was able." Though he
was always poor, his wages being small, he never failed to pay his way, and
borrowed from no one. His unusual aspect is still remembered on the Braes,
especially when he went for oil for his lamp to the shop at Waterside, at
the north end of the bridge of Alford. He would then set out, dressed in his
best, in the style already described at Auchleven, and, as became one who
was going into civilized regions at the merchant's, he of course wore his
tall "lum" hat. He also carried the inevitable umbrella under his arm, his
stick in the right hand, and a great black earthenware bottle held by a
string, in the left. He was certainly a queer figure, as he ascended the
Wardhill to Boggie-Shallock and followed the old church road, by the base of
Millhockie Hill, to Syllavethy, long before the granite quarries were opened
there, on to the bridge over the Don.
To the last, though he never
again lived at Tullynessle, he kept up friendly relations with the district
where he had spent some happy years, frequently visiting it, to see old
acquaintances and gather plants. Muckletown was a special resting-place in
his later days, when Robert Barron had passed away and his house had become
the home of Mrs. Wilson's daughter, and she had become Mrs. Duguid. After
kindly entertainment, he would sit for hours by the cosy ingle, enjoying the
children's play and a "spring" from her husband's fiddle, showing and
describing the plants he had then gathered, bubbling up into glowing humour,
as the solitary man always did amongst congenial hearts, and often remaining
in this pleasant circle till near midnight. He would then, old as he was,
fearlessly face the dark and dubs, and walk home alone, some ten miles, all
the way to Droughsburn. |
