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WHEN I was a boy in Scotland
I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing
fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately around my
native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of
wildness, though most of the land lay in smooth cultivation. With
red-blooded playmates, wild as myself, I loved to wander in the fields to
hear the birds sing, and along the seashore to gaze and wonder at the shells
and seaweeds, eels and crabs in the pools among the rocks when the tide was
low; and best of all to watch the waves in awful storms thundering on the
black headlands and craggy ruins of the old Dunbar Castle when the sea and
the sky, the waves and the clouds, were mingled together as one. We never
thought of playing truant, but after I was five or six years old I ran away
to the seashore or the fields almost every Saturday, and every day in the
school vacations except Sundays, though solemnly warned that I must play at
home in the garden and back yard, lest I should learn to think bad thoughts
and say bad words. All in vain. In spite of the sure sore punishments that
followed like shadows, the natural inherited wildness in our blood ran true
on its glorious course as invincible and unstoppable as stars.
My earliest recollections of
the country were gained on short walks with my grandfather when I was
perhaps not over three years old. On one of these walks grandfather took me
to Lord Lauderdale's gardens, where I saw figs growing against a sunny wall
and tasted some of them, and got as many apples to eat as I wished. On
another memorable walk in a hayfield, when we sat down to rest on one of the
haycocks I heard a sharp, prickly, stinging cry, and, jumping up eagerly,
called grandfather's attention to it. He said he heard only the wind, but I
insisted on digging into the hay and turning it over until we discovered the
source of the strange exciting sound — a mother field mouse with half a
dozen naked young hanging to her teats. This to me was a wonderful
discovery. No hunter could have been more excited on discovering a bear and
her cubs in a wilderness den.
I was sent to school before I
had completed my third year. The first schoolday was doubtless full of
wonders, but I am not able to recall any of them. I remember the servant
washing my face and getting soap in my eyes, and mother hanging a little
green bag with my first book in it around my neck so I would not lose it,
and its blowing back in the sea-wind like a flag. But before I was sent to
school my grandfather, as I was told, had taught me my letters from shop
signs across the street. I can remember distinctly how proud I was when I
had spelled my way through the little first book into the second, which
seemed large and important, and so on to the third. Going from one book to
another formed a grand triumphal advancement, the memories of which still
stand out in clear relief.
The third book contained
interesting stories as well as plain reading and spelling lessons. To me the
best story of all was "Llewellyn's Dog," the first animal that comes to mind
after the needle-voiced field mouse. It so deeply interested and touched me
and some of my classmates that we read it over and over with aching hearts,
both in and out of school, and shed bitter tears over the brave faithful
dog, Gelert, slain by his own master, who imagined that he had devoured his
son because he came to him all bloody when the boy was lost, though he had
saved the child's life by killing a big wolf. We have to look far back to
learn how great may be the capacity of a child's heart for sorrow and
sympathy with animals as well as with human friends and neighbors. This
auld-lang-syne story stands out in the throng of old schoolday memories as
clearly as if I had myself been one of that Welsh hunting-party — heard the
bugles blowing, seen Gelert slain, joined in the search for the lost child,
discovered it at last happy and smiling among the grass and bushes beside
the dead, mangled wolf, and wept with Llewellyn over the sad fate of his
noble, faithful dog friend.
Another favorite in this book
was Southey's poem "The Inchcape Bell," a story of a priest and a pirate. A
good priest in order to warn seamen in dark stormy weather hung a big bell
on the dangerous Inchcape Rock. The greater the storm and higher the waves,
the louder rang the warning bell, until it was cut off and sunk by wicked
Ralph the Rover. One fine day, as the story goes, when the bell was ringing
gently, the pirate put out to the rock, saying, "I'll sink that bell and
plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok." So he cut the rope, and down went the bell
"with a gurgling sound; the bubbles rose and burst around," etc. Then "Ralph
the Rover sailed away; he scoured the seas for many a day; and now, grown
rich with plundered store, he steers his course for Scotland's shore." Then
came a terrible storm with cloud darkness and night darkness and high
roaring waves. "Now where we are," cried the pirate, "I cannot tell, but I
wish I could hear the Inchcape bell." And the story goes on to tell how the
wretched rover "tore his hair," and "curst himself in his despair," when
"with a shivering shock" the stout ship struck on the Inchcape Rock, and
went down with Ralph and his plunder beside the good priest's bell. The
story appealed to our love of kind deeds and of wildness and fair play.
A lot of terrifying
experiences connected with these first schooldays grew out of crimes
committed by the keeper of a low lodging-house in Edinburgh, who allowed
poor homeless wretches to sleep on benches or the floor for a penny or so a
night, and, when kind Death came to their relief, sold the bodies for
dissection to Dr. Hare of the medical school. None of us children ever heard
anything like the original story. The servant girls told us that "Dandy
Doctors," clad in long black cloaks and supplied with a store of
sticking-plaster of wondrous adhesiveness, prowled at night about the
country lanes and even the town streets, watching for children to choke and
sell. The Dandy Doctor's business method, as the servants explained it, was
with lightning quickness to clap a sticking-plaster on the face of a
scholar, covering mouth and nose, preventing breathing or crying for help,
then pop us under his long black cloak and carry us to Edinburgh to be sold
and sliced into small pieces for folk to learn how we were made. We always
mentioned the name "Dandy Doctor" in a fearful whisper, and never dared
venture out of doors after dark. In the short winter days it got dark before
school closed, and in cloudy weather we sometimes had difficulty in finding
our way home unless a servant with a lantern was sent for us; but during the
Dandy Doctor period the school was closed earlier, for if detained until the
usual hour the teacher could not get us to leave the schoolroom. We would
rather stay all night supperless than dare the mysterious doctors supposed
to be lying in wait for us. We had to go up a hill called the Davel Brae
that lay between the schoolhouse and the main street. One evening just
before dark, as we were running up the hill, one of the boys shouted, "A
Dandy Doctor! A Dandy Doctor!" and we all fled pellmell back into the
schoolhouse to the astonishment of Mungo Siddons, the teacher. I can
remember to this day the amused look on the good dominie's face as he stared
and tried to guess what had got into us, until one of the older boys
breathlessly explained that there was an awful big Dandy Doctor on the Brae
and we couldna gang hame. Others corroborated the dreadful news. "Yes! We
saw him, plain as onything, with his lang black cloak to hide us in, and
some of us thought we saw a sticken-plaister ready in his hand." We were in
such a state of fear and trembling that the teacher saw he wasn't going to
get rid of us without going himself as leader. He went only a short
distance, however, and turned us over to the care of the two biggest
scholars, who led us to the top of the Brae and then left us to scurry home
and dash into the door like pursued squirrels diving into their holes.
Just before school skaled
(closed), we all arose and sang the fine hymn "Lord, dismiss us with Thy
blessing." In the spring when the swallows were coming back from their
winter homes we sang:-
"Welcome, welcome, little
stranger,
Welcome from a foreign shore:
Safe escaped from many a danger ..."
and while singing we all
swayed in rhythm with the music. "The Cuckoo," that always told his name in
the spring of the year, was another favorite song, and when there was
nothing in particular to call to mind any special bird or animal, the songs
we sang were widely varied, such as:-
"The whale, the whale is the
beast for me,
Plunging along through the deep, deep sea."
But the best of all was
"Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing," though at that time the most
significant part I fear was the first three words.
With my school lessons father
made me learn hymns and Bible verses. For learning "Rock of Ages" he gave me
a penny, and I thus became suddenly rich. Scotch boys are seldom spoiled
with money. We thought more of a penny those economical days than the
poorest American schoolboy thinks of a dollar. To decide what to do with
that first penny was an extravagantly serious affair. I ran in great
excitement up and down the street, examining the tempting goodies in the
shop windows before venturing on so important an investment. My playmates
also became excited when the wonderful news got abroad that Johnnie Muir had
a penny, hoping to obtain a taste of the orange, apple, or candy it was
likely to bring forth.
At this time infants were
baptized and vaccinated a few days after birth. I remember very well a fight
with the doctor when my brother David was vaccinated. This happened, I
think, before I was sent to school. I couldn't imagine what the doctor, a
tall, severe-looking man in black, was doing to my brother, but as mother,
who was holding him in her arms, offered no objection, I looked on quietly
while he scratched the arm until I saw blood. Then, unable to trust even my
mother, I managed to spring up high enough to grab and bite the doctor's
arm, yelling that I wasna gan to let him hurt my bonnie brither, while to my
utter astonishment mother and the doctor only laughed at me. So far from
complete at times is sympathy between parents and children, and so much like
wild beasts are baby boys, little fighting, biting, climbing pagans.
Father was proud of his
garden and seemed always to be trying to make it as much like Eden as
possible, and in a corner of it he gave each of us a little bit of ground
for our very own, in which we planted what we best liked, wondering how the
hard dry seeds could change into soft leaves and flowers and find their way
out to the light; and, to see how they were coming on, we used to dig up the
larger ones, such as peas and beans, every day. My aunt had a corner
assigned to her in our garden, which she filled with lilies, and we all
looked with the utmost respect and admiration at that precious lily-bed and
wondered whether when we grew up we should ever be rich enough to own one
anything like so grand. We imagined that each lily was worth an enormous sum
of money and never dared to touch a single leaf or petal of them. We really
stood in awe of them. Far, far was I then from the wild lily gardens of
California that I was destined to see in their glory.
When I was a little boy at
Mungo Siddons's school a flower-show was held in Dunbar, and I saw a number
of the exhibitors carrying large handfuls of dahlias, the first I had ever
seen. I thought them marvelous in size and beauty and, as in the case of my
aunt's lilies, wondered if I should ever be rich enough to own some of them.
Although I never dared to
touch my aunt's sacred lilies, I have good cause to remember stealing some
common flowers from an apothecary, Peter Lawson, who also answered the
purpose of a regular physician to most of the poor people of the town and
adjacent country. He had a pony which was considered very wild and
dangerous, and when he was called out of town he mounted this wonderful
beast, which, after standing long in the stable, was frisky and boisterous,
and often to our delight reared and jumped and danced about from side to
side of the street before he could be persuaded to go ahead. We boys gazed
in awful admiration and wondered how the druggist could be so brave and able
as to get on and stay on that wild beast's back. This famous Peter loved
flowers and had a fine garden surrounded by an iron fence, through the bars
of which, when I thought no one saw me, I oftentimes snatched a flower and
took to my heels. One day Peter discovered me in this mischief, dashed out
into the street and caught me. I screamed that I wouldna steal any more if
he would let me go. He didn't say anything but just dragged me along to the
stable where he kept the wild pony, pushed me in right back of its heels,
and shut the door. I was screaming, of course, but as soon as I was
imprisoned the fear of being kicked quenched all noise. I hardly dared
breathe. My only hope was in motionless silence. Imagine the agony I
endured! I did not steal any more of his flowers. He was a good hard judge
of boy nature.
I was in Peter's hands some
time before this, when I was about two and a half years old. The servant
girl bathed us small folk before putting us to bed. The smarting soapy
scrubbings of the Saturday nights in preparation for the Sabbath were
particularly severe, and we all dreaded them. My sister Sarah, the next
older than me, wanted the long-legged stool I was sitting on awaiting my
turn, so she just tipped me off. My chin struck on the edge of the bath-tub,
and, as I was talking at the time, my tongue happened to be in the way of my
teeth when they were closed by the blow, and a deep gash was cut on the side
of it, which bled profusely. Mother came running at the noise I made,
wrapped me up, put me in the servant girl's arms and told her to run with me
through the garden and out by a back way to Peter Lawson to have something
done to stop the bleeding. He simply pushed a wad of cotton into my mouth
after soaking it in some brown astringent stuff, and told me to be sure to
keep my mouth shut and all would soon be well. Mother put me to bed, calmed
my fears, and told me to he still and sleep like a gude bairn. But just as I
was dropping off to sleep I swallowed the bulky wad of medicated cotton and
with it, as I imagined, my tongue also. My screams over so great a loss
brought mother, and when she anxiously took me in her arms and inquired what
was the matter, I told her that I had swallowed my tongue. She only laughed
at me, much to my astonishment, when I expected that she would bewail the
awful loss her boy had sustained. My sisters, who were older than I,
oftentimes said when I happened to be talking too much, "It's a pity you
hadn't swallowed at least half of that long tongue of yours when you were
little."
It appears natural for
children to be fond of water, although the Scotch method of making every
duty dismal contrived to make necessary bathing for health terrible to us. I
well remember among the awful experiences of childhood being taken by the
servant to the seashore when I was between two and three years old, stripped
at the side of a deep pool in the rocks, plunged into it among crawling
crawfish and slippery wriggling snake-like eels, and drawn up gasping and
shrieking only to be plunged down again and again. As the time approached
for this terrible bathing, I used to hide in the darkest corners of the
house, and oftentimes a long search was required to find me. But after we
were a few years older, we enjoyed bathing with other boys as we wandered
along the shore, careful, however, not to get into a pool that had an
invisible boy-devouring monster at the bottom of it. Such pools, miniature
maelstroms, were called "sookin-in-goats" and were well known to most of us.
Nevertheless we never ventured into any pool on strange parts of the coast
before we had thrust a stick into it. If the stick were not pulled out of
our hands, we boldly entered and enjoyed plashing and ducking long ere we
had learned to swim.
One of our best playgrounds
was the famous old Dunbar Castle, to which King Edward fled after his defeat
at Bannockburn. It was built more than a thousand years ago, and though we
knew little of its history, we had heard many mysterious stories of the
battles fought about its walls, and firmly believed that every bone we found
in the ruins belonged to an ancient warrior. We tried to see who could climb
highest on the crumbling peaks and crags, and took chances that no cautious
mountaineer would try. That I did not fall and finish my rock-scrambling in
those adventurous boyhood days seems now a reasonable wonder.
Among our best games were
running, jumping, wrestling, and scrambling. I was so proud of my skill as a
climber that when I first heard of hell from a servant girl who loved to
tell its horrors and warn us that if we did anything wrong we would be cast
into it, I always insisted that I could climb out of it. I imagined it was
only a sooty pit with stone walls like those of the castle, and I felt sure
there must be chinks and cracks in the masonry for fingers and toes. Anyhow
the terrors of the horrible place seldom lasted long beyond the telling; for
natural faith casts out fear.
Most of the Scotch children
believe in ghosts, and some under peculiar conditions continue to believe in
them all through life. Grave ghosts are deemed particularly dangerous, and
many of the most credulous will go far out of their way to avoid passing
through or near a graveyard in the dark. After being instructed by the
servants in the nature, looks, and habits of the various black and white
ghosts, boowuzzies, and witches we often speculated as to whether they could
run fast, and tried to believe that we had a good chance to get away from
most of them. To improve our speed and wind, we often took long runs into
the country. Tam o'Shanter's mare outran a lot of witches, — at least until
she reached a place of safety beyond the keystone of the bridge, — and we
thought perhaps we also might be able to outrun them.
Our house formerly belonged
to a physician, and a servant girl told us that the ghost of the dead doctor
haunted one of the unoccupied rooms in the second story that was kept dark
on account of a heavy window-tax. Our bedroom was adjacent to the ghost
room, which had in it a lot of chemical apparatus, — glass tubing, glass ,
and brass retorts, test-tubes, flasks, etc., — and we thought that those
strange articles were still used by the old dead doctor in compounding
physic., In the long summer days David and I were put to bed several hours
before sunset. Mother tucked us in carefully, drew the curtains of the big
old-fashioned bed, and told us to lie still and sleep like gude bairns; but
we were usually out of bed, playing games of daring called "scootchers,"
about as soon as our loving mother reached the foot of the stairs, for we
couldn't lie still, however hard we might try. Going into the ghost room was
regarded as a very great scootcher. After venturing in a few steps and
rushing back in terror, I used to dare David to go as far without getting
caught.
The roof of our house, as
well as the crags and walls of the old castle, offered fine mountaineering
exercise. Our bedroom was lighted by a dormer window. One night I opened it
in search of good scootchers and hung myself out over the slates, holding on
to the sill, while the wind was making a balloon of my nightgown. I then
dared David to try the adventure, and he did. Then I went out again and hung
by one hand, and David did the same. Then I hung by one finger, being
careful not to slip, and he did that too. Then I stood on the sill and
examined the edge of the left wall of the
window, crept up the slates
along its side by slight finger-holds, got astride of the roof, sat there a
few minutes looking at the scenery over the garden wall while the wind was
howling and threatening to blow me off, then managed to slip down, catch
hold of the sill, and get safely back into the room. But before attempting
this scootcher, recognizing its dangerous character, with commendable
caution I warned David that in case I should happen to slip I would grip the
rain-trough when I was going over the eaves and hang on, and that he must
then run fast downstairs and tell father to get a ladder for me, and tell
him to be quick because I would soon be tired hanging dangling in the wind
by my hands. After my return from this capital scootcher, David, not to be
outdone, crawled up to the top of the window-roof, and got bravely astride
of it; but in trying to return he lost courage and began to greet (to cry),
"I canna get doon. Oh, I canna get doon." I leaned out of the window and
shouted encouragingly, "Dinna greet, Davie, dinna greet, I'll help ye doon.
If you greet, fayther will hear, and gee us baith an awfu' skelping." Then,
standing on the sill and holding on by one hand to the window-casing, I
directed him to slip his feet down within reach, and, after securing a good
hold, I jumped inside and dragged him in by his heels. This finished
scootcher-scrambling for the night and frightened us into bed.
In the short winter days,
when it was dark even at our early bedtime, we usually spent the hours
before going to sleep playing voyages around the world under the
bed-clothing. After mother had carefully covered us, bade us goodnight and
gone downstairs, we set out on our travels. Burrowing like moles, we visited
France, India, America, Australia, New Zealand, and all the places we had
ever heard of; our travels never ending until we fell asleep. When mother
came to take a last look at us, before she went to bed, to see that we were
covered, we were oftentimes covered so well that she had difficulty in
finding us, for we were hidden in all sorts of positions where sleep
happened to overtake us, but in the morning we always found ourselves in
good order, lying straight like gude bairns, as she said.
Some fifty years later, when
I visited Scotland, I got one of my Dunbar schoolmates to introduce me to
the owners of our old home, from whom I obtained permission to go upstairs
to examine our bedroom window and judge what sort of adventure getting on
its roof must have been, and with all my after experience in mountaineering,
I found that what I had done in daring boyhood was now beyond my skill.
Boys are often at once cruel
and merciful, thoughtlessly hard-hearted and tender-hearted, sympathetic,
pitiful, and kind in ever-changing contrasts. Love of neighbors, human or
animal, grows up amid savage traits, coarse and fine. When father made out
to get us securely locked up in the back yard to prevent our shore and field
wanderings, we had to play away the comparatively dull time as best we
could. One of our amusements was hunting cats without seriously hurting
them. These sagacious animals knew, however, that, though not very
dangerous, boys were not to be trusted. One time in particular I remember,
when we began throwing stones at an experienced old Tom, not wishing to hurt
him much, though he was a tempting mark. He soon saw what we were up to,
fled to the stable, and climbed to the top of the hay manger. He was still
within range, however, and we kept the stones flying faster and faster, but
he just blinked and played possum without wincing either at our best shots
or at the noise we made. I happened to strike him pretty hard with a
good-sized pebble, but he still blinked and sat still as if without feeling.
"He must be mortally wounded," I said, "and now we must kill him to put him
out of pain," the savage in us rapidly growing with indulgence. All took
heartily to this sort of cat mercy and began throwing the heaviest stones we
could manage, but that old fellow knew what characters we were, and just as
we imagined him mercifully dead he evidently thought the play was becoming
too serious and that it was time to retreat; for suddenly with a wild whirr
and gurr of energy he launched himself over our heads, rushed across the
yard in a blur of speed, climbed to the roof of another building and over
the garden wall, out of pain and bad company, with all his lives wide awake
and in good working order.
After we had thus learned
that Tom had at least nine lives, we tried to verify the common saying that
no matter how far cats fell they always landed on their feet unhurt. We
caught one in our back yard, not Tom but a smaller one of manageable size,
and somehow got him smuggled up to the top story of the house. I don't know
how in the world we managed to let go of him, for as soon as we opened the
window and held him over the sill he knew his danger and made violent
efforts to scratch and bite his way back into the room; but we determined to
carry the thing through, and at last managed to drop him. I can remember to
this day how the poor creature in danger of his life strained and balanced
as he was falling and managed to alight on his feet. This was a cruel thing
for even wild boys to do, and we never tried the experiment again, for we
sincerely pitied the poor fellow when we saw him creeping slowly away,
stunned and frightened, with a swollen black and blue chin.
Again — showing the natural
savagery of boys — we delighted in dog-fights, and even in the horrid red
work of slaughter-houses, often running long distances and climbing over
walls and roofs to see a pig killed, as soon as we heard the desperately
earnest squealing. And if the butcher was good-natured, we begged him to let
us get a near view of the mysterious insides and to give us a bladder to
blow up for a foot-ball.
But here is an illustration
of the better side of boy nature. In our back yard there were three elm
trees and in the one nearest the house a pair of robin-redbreasts had their
nest. When the young were almost able to fly, a troop of the celebrated
"Scottish Grays," visited Dunbar, and three or four of the fine horses were
lodged in our stable. When the soldiers were polishing their swords and
helmets, they happened to notice the nest, and just as they were leaving,
one of them climbed the tree and robbed it. With sore sympathy we watched
the young birds as the hard-hearted robber pushed them one by one beneath
his jacket, all but two that jumped out of the nest and tried to fly, but
they were easily caught as they fluttered on the ground, and were hidden
away with the rest. The distress of the bereaved parents, as they hovered
and screamed over the frightened crying children they so long had loved and
sheltered and fed, was pitiful to see; but the shining soldier rode grandly
away on his big gray horse, caring only for the few pennies the young
songbirds would bring and the beer they would buy, while we all, sisters and
brothers, were crying and sobbing. I remember, as if it happened this day,
how my heart fairly ached and choked me. Mother put us to bed and tried to
comfort us, telling us that the little birds would be well fed and grow big,
and soon learn to sing in pretty cages; but again and again we rehearsed the
sad story of the poor bereaved birds and their frightened children, and
could not be comforted. Father came into the room when we were half asleep
and still sobbing, and I heard mother telling him that "a' the bairns'
hearts were broken over the robbing of the nest in the elm."
After attaining the manly,
belligerent age of five or six years, very few of my schooldays passed
without a fist fight, and half a dozen was no uncommon number. When any
classmate of our own age questioned our rank and standing as fighters, we
always made haste to settle the matter at a quiet place on the Davel Brae.
To be a "gude fechter" was our highest ambition, our dearest aim in life in
or out of school. To be a good scholar was a secondary consideration, though
we tried hard to hold high places in our classes and gloried in being Dux.
We fairly reveled in the battle stories of glorious William Wallace and
Robert the Bruce, with which every breath of Scotch air is saturated, and of
course we were all going to be soldiers. On the Davel Brae battleground we
often managed to bring on something like real war, greatly more exciting
than personal combat. Choosing leaders, we divided into two armies. In
winter damp snow furnished plenty of ammunition to make the thing serious,
and in summer sand and grass sods. Cheering and shouting some battle-cry
such as "Bannockburn! Bannockburn! Scotland forever! The Last War in India!"
we were led bravely on. For heavy battery work we stuffed our Scotch blue
bonnets with snow and sand, sometimes mixed with gravel, and fired them at
each other as cannon-balls.
Of course we always looked
eagerly forward to vacation days and thought them slow in coming. Old Mungo
Siddons gave us a lot of gooseberries or currants and wished us a happy
time. Some sort of special closing-exercises - singing, recitations, etc. —
celebrated the great day, but I remember only the berries, freedom from
school work, and opportunities for runaway rambles in the fields and along
the wave-beaten seashore.
An exciting time came when at
the age of seven or eight years I left the auld Davel Brae school for the
grammar school. Of course I had a terrible lot of fighting to do, because a
new scholar had to meet every one of his age who dared to challenge him,
this being the common introduction to a new school. It was very strenuous
for the first month or so, establishing my fighting rank, taking up new
studies, especially Latin and French, getting acquainted with new classmates
and the master and his rules. In the first few Latin and French lessons the
new teacher, Mr. Lyon, blandly smiled at our comical blunders, but
pedagogical weather of the severest kind quickly set in, when for every
mistake, everything short of perfection, the taws was promptly applied. We
had to get three lessons every day in Latin, three in French, and as many in
English, besides spelling, history, arithmetic, and geography. Word lessons
in particular, the wouldst-couldst-shouldst-have-loved kind, were kept up,
with much warlike thrashing, until I had committed the whole of the French,
Latin, and English grammars to memory, and in connection with
reading-lessons we were called on to recite parts of them with the rules
over and over again, as if all the regular and irregular incomprehensible
verb stuff was poetry. In addition to all this, father made me learn so many
Bible verses every day that by the time I was eleven years of age I had
about three fourths of the Old Testament and all of the New by heart and by
sore flesh. I could recite the New Testament from the beginning of Matthew
to the end of Revelation without a single stop. The dangers of cramming and
of making scholars study at home instead of letting their little brains rest
were never heard of in those days. We carried our school-books home in a
strap every night and committed to memory our next day's lessons before we
went to bed, and to do that we had to bend our attention as closely on our
tasks as lawyers on great million-dollar cases. I can't conceive of anything
that would now enable me to concentrate my attention more fully than when I
was a mere stripling boy, and it was all done by whipping, - thrashing in
general. Old-fashioned Scotch teachers spent no time in seeking short roads
to knowledge, or in trying any of the newfangled psychological methods so
much in vogue nowadays. There was nothing said about making the seats easy
or the lessons easy. We were simply driven pointblank against our books like
soldiers against the enemy, and sternly ordered, "Up and at 'em. Commit your
lessons to memory!" If we failed in any part, however slight, we were
whipped; for the grand, simple, all-sufficing Scotch discovery had been made
that there was a close connection between the skin and the memory, and that
irritating the skin excited the memory to any required degree.
Fighting was carried on still
more vigorously in the high school than in the common school. Whenever any
one was challenged, either the challenge was allowed or it was decided by a
battle on the seashore, where with stubborn enthusiasm we battered each
other as if we had not been sufficiently battered by the teacher. When we
were so fortunate as to finish a fight without getting a black eye, we
usually escaped a thrashing at home and another next morning at school, for
other traces of the fray could be easily washed off at a well on the church
brae, or concealed, or passed as results of playground accidents; but a
black eye could never be explained away from downright fighting. A good
double thrashing was the inevitable penalty, but all without avail; fighting
went on without the slightest abatement, like natural storms; for no
punishment less than death could quench the ancient inherited belligerence
burning in our pagan blood. Nor could we be made to believe it was fair that
father and teacher should thrash us so industriously for our good, while
begrudging us the pleasure of thrashing each other for our good. All these
various thrashings, however, were admirably influential in developing not
only memory but fortitude as well. For if we did not endure our school
punishments and fighting pains without flinching and making faces, we were
mocked on the playground, and public opinion on a Scotch playground was a
powerful agent in controlling behavior; therefore we at length managed to
keep our features in smooth repose while enduring pain that would try
anybody but an American Indian. Far from feeling that we were called on to
endure too much pain, one of our playground games was thrashing each other
with whips about two feet long made from the tough, wiry stems of a species
of polygonum fastened together in a stiff, firm braid. One of us handing two
of these whips to a companion to take his choice, we stood up close together
and thrashed each other on the legs until one succumbed to the intolerable
pain and thus lost the game. Nearly all of our playground games were
strenuous, -- shin-battering shinny, wrestling, prisoners' base, and dogs
and hares, — all augmenting in no slight degree our lessons in fortitude.
Moreover, we regarded our punishments and pains of every sort as training
for war, since we were all going to be soldiers. Besides single combats we
sometimes assembled on Saturdays to meet the scholars of another school, and
very little was required for the growth of strained relations, and war. The
immediate cause might be nothing more than a saucy stare. Perhaps the
scholar stared at would insolently inquire, "What are ye glowerin' at, Bob?"
Bob would reply, "I'll look where I hae a mind and hinder me if ye daur."
"Wee!, Bob," the outraged stared-at scholar would reply, "I'll soon let ye
see whether I daur or no!" and give Bob a blow on the face. This opened the
battle, and every good scholar belonging to either school was drawn into it.
After both sides were sore and weary, a strong-lunged warrior would be heard
above the din of battle shouting, "I'll tell ye what we'll dae wi' ye. If
ye'll let us alane we'll let ye alane!" and the school war ended as most
wars between nations do; and some of them begin in much the same way.
Notwithstanding the great
number of harshly enforced rules, not very good order was kept in school in
my time. There were two schools within a few rods of each other, one for
mathematics, navigation, etc., the other, called the grammar school, that I
attended. The masters lived in a big freestone house within eight or ten
yards of the schools, so that they could easily step out for anything they
wanted or send one of the scholars. The moment our master disappeared,
perhaps for a book or a drink, every scholar left his seat and his lessons,
jumped on top of the benches and desks or crawled beneath them, tugging,
rolling, wrestling, accomplishing in a minute a depth of disorder and din
unbelievable save by a Scottish scholar. We even carried on war, class
against class, in those wild, precious minutes. A watcher gave the alarm
when the master opened his house-door to return, and it was a great feat to
get into our places before he entered, adorned in awful majestic authority,
shouting "Silence!" and striking resounding blows with his cane on a desk or
on some unfortunate scholar's back.
Forty-seven years after
leaving this fighting school, I returned on a visit to Scotland, and a
cousin in Dunbar introduced me to a minister who was acquainted with the
history of the school, and obtained for me an invitation to dine with the
new master. Of course I gladly accepted, for I wanted to see the old place
of fun and pain, and the battleground on the sands. Mr. Lyon, our able
teacher and thrasher, I learned, had held his place as master of the school
for twenty or thirty years after I left it, and had recently died in London,
after preparing many young men for the English Universities. At the
dinner-table, while I was recalling the amusements and fights of my old
schooldays, the minister remarked to the new master, "Now, don't you wish
that you had been teacher in those days, and gained the honor of walloping
John Muir?" This pleasure so merrily suggested showed that the minister also
had been a fighter in his youth. The old freestone school building was still
perfectly sound, but the carved, ink-stained desks were almost whittled
away.
The highest part of our
playground back of the school commanded a view of the sea, and we loved to
watch the passing ships and, judging by their rigging, make guesses as to
the ports they had sailed from, those to which they were bound, what they
were loaded with, their tonnage, etc. In stormy weather they were all
smothered in clouds and spray, and showers of salt scud torn from the tops
of the waves came flying over the playground wall. In those tremendous
storms many a brave ship foundered or was tossed and smashed on the rocky
shore. When a wreck occurred within a mile or two of the town, we often
managed by running fast to reach it and pick up some of the spoils. In
particular I remember visiting the battered fragments of an unfortunate brig
or schooner that had been loaded with apples, and finding fine unpitiful
sport in rushing into the spent waves and picking up the red-cheeked fruit
from the frothy, seething foam.
All our school-books were
extravagantly illustrated with drawings of every kind of sailing-vessel, and
every boy owned some sort of craft whittled from a block of wood and trimmed
with infinite pains, — sloops, schooners, brigs, and full-rigged ships, with
their sails and string ropes properly adjusted and named for us by some old
sailor. These precious toy craft with lead keels we learned to sail on a
pond near the town. With the sails set at the proper angle to the wind, they
made fast straight voyages across the pond to boys on the other side, who
readjusted the sails and started them back on the return voyages. Oftentimes
fleets of half a dozen or more were started together in exciting races.
Our most exciting sport,
however, was playing with gunpowder. We made guns out of gas-pipe, mounted
them on sticks of any shape, clubbed our pennies together for powder,
gleaned pieces of lead here and there and cut them into slugs, and, while
one aimed, another applied a match to the touch-hole. With these awful
weapons we wandered along the beach and fired at the gulls and solan-geese
as they passed us. Fortunately we never hurt any of them that we knew of. We
also dug holes in the ground, put in a handful or two of powder, tamped it
well around a fuse made of a wheat-stalk, and, reaching cautiously forward,
touched a match to the straw. This we called making earthquakes. Oftentimes
we went home with singed hair and faces well peppered with powder-grains
that could not be washed out. Then, of course, came a correspondingly severe
punishment from both father and teacher.
Another favorite sport was
climbing trees and scaling garden-walls. Boys eight or ten years of age
could get over almost any wall by standing on each other's shoulders, thus
making living ladders. To make walls secure against marauders, many of them
were finished on top with broken bottles imbedded in lime, leaving the
cutting edges sticking up; but with bunches of grass and weeds we could sit
or stand in comfort on top of the jaggedest of them.
Like squirrels that begin to
eat nuts before they are ripe, we began to eat apples about as soon as they
were formed, causing, of course, desperate gastric disturbances to be cured
by castor oil. Serious were the risks we ran in climbing and squeezing
through hedges, and, of course, among the country folk we were far from
welcome. Farmers passing us on the roads often shouted by way of greeting:
"Oh, you vagabonds! Back to the toon wi' ye. Gang back where ye belang.
You're up to mischief, Ise warrant. I can see it. The gamekeeper'll catch
ye, and maist like ye'll a' be hanged some day."
Breakfast in those auld-lang-syne
days was simple oatmeal porridge, usually with a little milk or treacle,
served in wooden dishes called "luggies," formed of staves hooped together
like miniature tubs about four or five inches in diameter. One of the
staves, the lug or ear, a few inches longer than the others, served as a
handle, while the number of luggies ranged in a row on a dresser indicated
the size of the family. We never dreamed of anything to come after the
porridge, or of asking for more. Our portions were consumed in about a
couple of minutes; then off to school. At noon we came racing home
ravenously hungry. The midday meal, called dinner, was usually vegetable
broth, a small piece of boiled mutton, and barley-meal scone. None of us
liked the barley scone bread, therefore we got all we wanted of it, and in
desperation had to eat it, for we were always hungry, about as hungry after
as before meals. The evening meal was called "tea" and was served on our
return from school. It consisted, as far as we children were concerned, of
half a slice of white bread without butter, barley scone, and warm water
with a little milk and sugar in it, a beverage called "content," which
warmed but neither cheered nor inebriated. Immediately after tea we ran
across the street with our books to Grandfather Gilrye, who took pleasure in
seeing us and hearing us recite our next day's lessons. Then back home to
supper, usually a boiled potato and piece of barley scone. Then family
worship, and to bed.
Our amusements on Saturday
afternoons and vacations depended mostly on getting away from home into the
country, especially in the spring when the birds were calling loudest.
Father sternly forbade David and me from playing truant in the fields with
plundering wanderers like ourselves, fearing we might go on from bad to
worse, get hurt in climbing over walls, caught by gamekeepers, or lost by
falling over a cliff into the sea. "Play as much as you like in the back
yard and garden," he said, "and mind what you'll get when you forget and
disobey." Thus he warned us with an awfully stern countenance, looking very
hard-hearted; while naturally his heart was far from hard, though he
devoutly believed in eternal punishment for bad boys both here and
hereafter. Nevertheless, like devout martyrs of wildness, we stole away to
the seashore or the green, sunny fields with almost religious regularity,
taking advantage of opportunities when father was very busy, to join our
companions, oftenest to hear the birds sing and hunt their nests, glorying
in the number we had discovered and called our own. A sample of our nest
chatter was something like this: Willie Chisholm would proudly exclaim — "I
ken [know] seventeen nests, and you, Johnnie, ken only fifteen."
"But I wouldna gie my fifteen
for your seventeen, for five of mine are larks and mavises. You ken only
three o' the best singers."
"Yes, Johnnie, but I ken six
goldies and you ken only one. Maist of yours are only sparrows and linties
and robin-redbreasts."
Then perhaps Bob Richardson
would loudly declare that he "kenned mair nests than onybody, for he kenned
twenty-three, with about fifty eggs in them and mair than fifty young birds
— maybe a hundred. Some of them naething but raw gorblings but lots of them
as big as their mithers and ready to flee. And aboot fifty craw's nests and
three fox dens."
"Oh, yes, Bob, but that's no
fair, for naebody counts craw's nests and fox holes, and then you live in
the country at Belle-haven where ye have the best chance."
"Yes, but I ken a lot of
bumbee's nests, baith the red-legged and the yellow-legged kind."
"Oh, wha cares for bumbee's
nests!"
"Weel, but here's something!
Ma father let me gang to a fox hunt, and man, it was grand to see the hounds
and the lang-legged horses lowpin the dykes and burns and hedges!"
The nests, I fear, with the
beautiful eggs and young birds, were prized quite as highly as the songs of
the glad parents, but no Scotch boy that I know of ever failed to listen
with enthusiasm to the songs of the skylarks. Oftentimes on a broad meadow
near Dunbar we stood for hours enjoying their marvelous singing and soaring.
From the grass where the nest was hidden the male would suddenly rise, as
straight as if shot up, to a height of perhaps thirty or forty feet, and,
sustaining himself with rapid wing-beats, pour down the most delicious
melody, sweet and clear and strong, overflowing all bounds, then suddenly he
would soar higher again and again, ever higher and higher, soaring and
singing until lost to sight even on perfectly clear days, and oftentimes in
cloudy weather "far in the downy cloud," as the poet says.
To test our eyes we often
watched a lark until he seemed a faint speck in the sky and finally passed
beyond the keenest-sighted of us all. "I see him yet!" we would cry, "I see
him yet!" "I see him yet!" "I see him yet!" as he soared. And finally only
one of us would be left to claim that he still saw him. At last he, too,
would have to admit that the singer had soared beyond his sight, and still
the music came pouring down to us in glorious profusion, from a height far
above our vision, requiring marvelous power of wing and marvelous power of
voice, for that rich, delicious, soft, and yet clear music was distinctly
heard long after the bird was out of sight. Then, suddenly ceasing, the
glorious singer would appear, falling like a bolt straight down to his nest,
where his mate was sitting on the eggs.
It was far too common a
practice among us to carry off a young lark just before it could fly, place
it in a cage, and fondly, laboriously feed it. Sometimes we succeeded in
keeping one alive for a year or two, and when awakened by the spring weather
it was pitiful to see the quivering imprisoned soarer of the heavens rapidly
beating its wings and singing as though it were flying and hovering in the
air like its parents. To keep it in health we were taught that we must
supply it with a sod of grass the size of the bottom of the cage, to make
the poor bird feel as though it were at home on its native meadow, — a
meadow perhaps a foot or at most two feet square. Again and again it would
try to hover over that miniature meadow from its miniature sky just
underneath the top of the cage. At last, conscience-stricken, we carried the
beloved prisoner to the meadow west of Dunbar where it was born, and,
blessing its sweet heart, bravely set it free, and our exceeding great
reward was to see it fly and sing in the sky.
In the winter, when there was
but little doing in the fields, we organized running-matches. A dozen or so
of us would start out on races that were simply tests of endurance, running
on and on along a public road over the breezy hills like hounds, without
stopping or getting tired. The only serious trouble we ever felt in these
long races was an occasional stitch in our sides. One of the boys started
the story that sucking raw eggs was a sure cure for the stitches. We had
hens in our back yard, and on the next Saturday we managed to swallow a
couple of eggs apiece, a disgusting job, but we would do almost anything to
mend our speed, and as soon as we could get away after taking the cure we
set out on a ten or twenty mile run to prove its worth. We thought nothing
of running right ahead ten or a dozen miles before turning back; for we knew
nothing about taking time by the sun, and none of us had a watch in those
days. Indeed, we never cared about time until it began to get dark. Then we
thought of home and the thrashing that awaited us. Late or early, the
thrashing was sure, unless father happened to be away. If he was expected to
return soon, mother made haste to get us to bed before his arrival. We
escaped the thrashing next morning, for father never felt like thrashing us
in cold blood on the calm holy Sabbath. But no punishment, however sure and
severe, was of any avail against the attraction of the fields and woods. It
had other uses, developing memory, etc., but in keeping us at home it was of
no use at all. Wildness was ever sounding in our ears, and Nature saw to it
that besides school lessons and church lessons some of her own lessons
should be learned, perhaps with a view to the time when we should be called
to wander in wildness to our heart's content. Oh, the blessed enchantment of
those Saturday runaways in the prime of the spring! How our young wondering
eyes reveled in the sunny, breezy glory of the hills and the sky, every
particle of us thrilling and tingling with the bees and glad birds and glad
streams! Kings may be blessed; we were glorious, we were free, — school
cares and scoldings, heart thrashings and flesh thrashings alike, were
forgotten in the fullness of Nature's glad wildness. These were my first
excursions, -- the beginnings of lifelong wanderings. |
