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FOR a short time John lived
in the distant village of Aberchirder—known locally by the sweeter name of
Foggieloan, or the Mossy Glade—away in the middle of Banff, on its elevated
plateau overlooking the Deveron, not far from the church of Marnock, soon to
become famous in Disruption times. Returning from Banffshire, he took up his
residence for some years, between 1826 and 1832, at a place bearing the
pastoral name of Longfolds. It lies on the plain immediately to the east of
the Benachie hills, opposite the point where the Don bursts through them, a
few miles north of Monymusk. It is in the middle of a beautiful,
well-wooded, well-cultivated district, full of fine scenery, backed by the
ever-charming mountains, which are headed by the fort-crowned Mithertap, as
the crest of Benachie is piquantly styled, with its lower shoulder bearing
the sonorous title of Craig-na-thunder.
It was a fine region to
settle down in, the centre of much that is picturesque and interesting, and
John was the very man to take full advantage of it. Here he made his first
acquaintance with Benachie. He ascended to the cyclopean hill-fort on its
top, and gazed on the country round, which was to become his home for life
and the final resting-place of his bones. Close at hand, flowed the clear
stream of the Don, skirted with noble trees and adorned with many a
beautiful domain. A few miles distant, nestling amid parks of the baronial
House of Monymusk famous for its reliquary, was the village of the name,
with its ancient priory, its quaint, square old tower, its druidical circles
and famous sculptured stone. About a mile farther south, hid amidst its
extensive woods, stood old Cluny Castle, where his friend Charles Black was
then, unknown to him, an apprentice gardener, from 1832 to 1834, from his
nineteenth to his twenty-first year; the present imposing palace not being
erected till 1836. Farther east, rose the old Flemish, turreted Castle
Fraser, one of the finest specimens of the kind in Scotland. All these
places, and many more that beautify the country, were speedily examined by
Duncan, and the whole region, hill and hollow, fully explored.
One day, in returning home
after one of his excursions in search of Culpepper's herbs, when daylight
was on the wane, he thought he would lessen the distance by taking a short
cut through a wood. It was strictly protected by the game-keeping laird,
but, at that late hour, it might surely be risked ; and he entered the
forbidden domain. He had not gone far when he spied the proprietor coming
towards him at a curve in the path, without himself being seen. At once
wheeling right about, he began to retrace his steps as if going in the
opposite direction. He was immediately hailed, peremptorily called upon to
stop, and roughly questioned as to his being there. John pleaded to be
excused and to be allowed to proceed, on account of the lateness of the hour
and the distance he had to go; but in vain. With several forcible
expletives, he was told to return the way he came. This, with seeming
reluctance, he at last did; and then tripped along with a merry heart in the
very direction he wanted! In after years, when in high glee, he used to tell
the story of how he had been too much for "the sanshauch [Aberdeenshire for
"proudly disdainful," said by Jamieson to be from a Gaelic word of the same
sound, meaning morose.] crabbit bodie o' a lairdie."
On a similar occasion, in the
same neighbourhood, he was treated with more kindliness by the proprietor of
Monymusk, also a great game-preserver, but, moreover, a lover of flowers.
John was seeking for plants in a young wood, through which ran an old
footpath, recently shut up. He thought himself secure from discovery in such
a quiet corner, and felt, no doubt, that science ought to cover a multitude,
if not of sins, at least of trespasses. But what was his surprise, when
raising himself after groping for some herbs, to observe the very man he
wished least to meet there, approaching on horseback, and too close for him
to escape!" What do you want here, sir?" at once greeted his ears. John
replied that, seeing there was a road that way, he thought he might follow
it. The proprietor told him that it was now shut up, as he might have known
from having to climb the fence. John replied that he would be obliged if he
would show him the way to such and such a place, naming the one he wished to
reach. This the proprietor agreed to do, won over by his mild manner, and,
while conducting him, entered into conversation with him regarding the
plants he was carrying. When he learnt the purpose of his trespass, the
gentleman gave him full liberty to traverse any part of his forest without
fear of challenge.
One of John's reminiscences
here gives a vivid glimpse of the social life of the time. At that period,
soap, it seems, was little used by the common people, from its being too
expensive! John used to tell that, in many houses in which he lived, he got
no soap to wash himself with; but instead of that, if he wished it, he could
have the outside husks of corn when ground, known as "seeds," from which the
nutritive gruel called "sowens" and a thin paste required in weaving were
made. When rubbed in the hands with water, they raised a kind of saponaceous
lather. This substitute he was generally unable to use, on account of the
pain caused to the skin by the sharp-pointed scales, and he was fain to do
without it. Several of his friends bear the same testimony, in the
experiences of their youth, to the general want of what now seems a
necessary of life. When John was calling one day on a farmer who lived above
Monymusk, before he entered the house, he actually heard the rasping noise
of the man shaving himself within! He had no soap on his face, and was
shearing the stiff bristles of an old beard with a blunt razor, on the bare
unmoistened surface! "Dear me!" exclaimed John, in real surprise; "wid ye no
be better to use some sape to shave wi'?" The farmer, turning round, as the
water trickled from his eyes with the sheer pain of the operation, replied,
in unfeigned astonishment at such extravagance, "Na, na; sape's daar!"
which, in the broad Aberdeen vernacular, signifies "no, no; soap's dear."
Another part of the same
neighbourhood where he worked at the loom for some years, was on the north
shoulder of Cairn William, which guards on the south the passage of the Don
through these hills. Here he stayed at two places. One of them was the
elevated farm of Cornabo, [Pronounced Cornabo, with accent on the last
syllable.] seven hundred feet above the sea, commanding a glorious view
across the well-wooded glen of the Don to Benachie, which reared its grand
bulk right opposite. The other was at the mouth of the Slack Burn, which
runs near it, at Milldourie, in the deep hollow below, where this stream
joins the Don. Close by Milldourie, along the clear flowing Don, which is
there enclosed in a narrow Highland glen, and between it and Monymusk, lies
the beautiful spot known as Paradise. It was laid out in 1719, more than a
hundred and sixty years ago, as a beautiful garden in the French style, with
fruit and flowering trees, interspersed with forest timber, which were
disposed according to a well-arranged plan, and it must then have formed a
fair and fruitful scene. It is now only the skeleton of what it was, the
forest trees alone remaining. The larch, spruce, and oak are unusually
splendid, and are said to be unequalled in the north of Scotland. One
circular group close by the river, enclosing seats for rest to pilgrim
visitors, looks like a Temple of the Winds, with its encircling gigantic
colonnade, amidst glorious umbrageous arbours, sheltered and secluded from
the outer world by the towering mountains.
This was a favourite haunt of
Duncan's, who used to describe it in after years as a wonderful spot, far
more beautiful in his time than it is now. The wood on the hills round about
was also more extensive than now; the present proprietor's grandfather
having planted, it is said, fifty million trees in fifty years—a wise sower
who has enriched his children by the superabundant harvest. Not far from
Paradise, on the way to Monymusk, are the picturesque ruins of Pitfichie
Castle, often passed by the brave little weaver in the dark, as he returned
from herb-seeking rambles, despite its howlet cries and haunted chambers.
Many a time, under the tall trees, did he watch the stars, brighter from the
deepened blue of the sky as seen through the dense foliage, while he moved
homewards to Milldourie ; these bright celestial letters being, as we shall
see, as familiar to him as those of books, for he was now an ardent
star-gazer. It was as sweet a secluded spot to live in as could well be
found or imagined, dear to a solitary thinker like him; and it has long been
cherished by the tourist and the pleasure-seeker as a retreat of unusual
silvan and mountain beauty. It shelters, as such a spot is certain to do,
not a few of our rarer plants; but at that period, John sought for plants
merely for their secret virtues, though he returned to its botanical
treasures a few years later, when his vision had been purged to clearer
sight after meeting with Charles Black, at the other side of Cairn William.
One of his employers here,
who had a weaving shop in connection with the farm, not unusual then, was a
miserly old farmer, notorious in the district for his excessive greed. To
save a bawbee, he was ready not only to scrimp his men, but to pinch himself
to a degree incredible even in the annals of parsimony. He used to serve his
ploughmen with the sourest of buttermilk, and when it was so far gone as to
be refused by them with no muttered curses, his like-spirited housekeeper
would come to her master, saying, "We'll better gae that buttermilk to the
weyvers, for our men winna sup it." "Just sac," replied the churl; "and if
they winna tak' it, I'll sup it mysal'!" continued "the nasty greedy glide,"
[The gled, an old Anglo-Saxon word for the kite.] an opinion with which John
would righteously and indignantly conclude the tale.
In these places by Don side,
John was pursuing several studies, of which more anon. Of these there was
one in particular which he was strenuously endeavouring, with his hardening
fingers, to conquer—the mysteries of "pokers, hooks and hangers," for it was
only now that, by help of a copy-book, our student learnt to write. There is
no evidence that he had done this before his thirtieth year, being contented
for ten years with the newly discovered delights of reading. His copy-book
now lies before me, as then written by him in August, 1830, that is in his
thirty-sixth year. It contains a very good setting, by some skilled hand, of
capital and small letters of various sizes, ending with the well-written,
encouraging line, "Take care, and you'll write well." John's care is evident
on every page, and his success, in view of his late beginning, encouraging
and creditable. He also does a double stroke of scholastic business by
writing out his Latin exercises—for he had attacked even the language of
Rome—as a means of caligraphic practice.
What a curious commentary was
all this private, studious toil, under the shade of the groves of this
Paradise by the Don, on the beneficent curse of labour pronounced on our too
feeble, unlettered progenitors in the Paradise on the Hiddekel! How long was
it, it may be wondered, before the curse took the form of framing pothooks
on papyrus by the young Jubals and Jabals of the pre-diluvial days ? To poor
John, the Adamic ban, like the bitter herbs of Culpepper, became a blessing,
and the best antidote to rankling sorrows.
When he left the banks of the
Don, after residing near Monymusk for some years, he travelled farther
north, by the great road that skirts the east side of Benachie, on to the
banks of the Ythan, to a carding-mill at Rothie and a wool mill at Fyvie,
where weaving was carried on. There also he was in a beautiful
neighbourhood, for he seems always to have settled at places remarkable for
natural attractions. There he frequented numerous scenes of loveliness and
grandeur in wood, water, rock and keep: the wild den of Rothie; the ruins of
Formartine Castle, on the precipice overhanging the struggling Ythan ; the
Braes of Gight, the patrimony of Miss Gordon, Byron's mother; the villages
round Fyvie, with the old churchyard where lies "Tiftie's bonnie Annie," of
ballad broken-heartedness ; the site of the Mill o' Tiftie, where she lived
with her cruel kindred; and the big baronial Castle of Fyvie, with its
interesting story, of which John got a copy—altogether a region of great
natural beauty, poetry, and romance.
Here John made the
acquaintance of a worthy man, George Caughrie, then gardener at Rothie
Norman, through whom he increased his acquaintance with plants, and whom he
used to visit in after life. All his days, he made a point of gaining the
friendship of gardeners wherever he went. They worked amongst the plants he
now increasingly loved ; they also furnished him the means of obtaining
herbs not indigenous to Britain, but required in his widening pharmacopoeia,
and of practising his predilection for garden work, in which he used much to
engage, and which became a pleasant alterative to his sedentary life.
He generally settled down for
some time wherever he got weaving. He was reckoned a very good workman, and
his employers often gave him a higher rate of wages than common. As Mr.
Adams, of Rothie Mill, wrote him in 1841: "There are several who do not give
this rate of wages, but I want good work, and I know you can give me that.
Only, what I make for myself is one penny under the above rates." His simple
tastes, quiet industrious habits, general intelligence, and unobtrusive
well-regulated life always made him a favourite; so that he was generally
asked to return, and was written for, if any particular kind of cloth was
wanted.
Moreover, he set himself,
with his usual earnestness and intelligence, to be a thorough master of his
craft, both practically and theoretically. He studied the mechanics of the
loom, and followed the rapid progress made in these through the extension of
machinery. With this aim, he purchased at an early date, "Essays on the Art
of Weaving," in two parts, by a namesake of his own, "inventor of the patent
tambouring machine," published in Glasgow in 1807-8; "The Weaver's
Assistant," by Alexander Peddie, published in 1817; and "Murphy on Weaving,"
a learned treatise with engravings, published in 1831, which he afterwards
got strongly bound for regular use. |
