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Elspeth Buchan had always,
as has been explained, held out to her followers the promise that they
would be carried to heaven without tasting death. They consequently lived
in a continual state of pleasant anticipation, expecting the last trump to
sound at any moment. The Rev. Hugh White was determined not to risk being
shut out of the heavenly kingdom for the lack of a wedding garment; so he
always walked about, dressed in full canonicals, and wearing a brand-new
pair of gloves, scanning the heavens for a sign of the archangel who was
to sound the fated note.
Time after time did Mrs.
Buchan lead her flock to the top of some hill in the neighbourhood of New
Cample, where solemn ceremonies were performed while the congregation
anxiously awaited the descent to the angel host whose duty it was to catch
the elect up into heaven. On one of these journeys heavenward they passed
Logan House, near Kilmarnock, the owner of which became alarmed at seeing
the approach of such a concourse of odd-looking people, and sent out
hurriedly to inquire who they might be and if their intentions were
peaceful. The Buchanites replied that they did not wish to disturb
anybody, and were merely going to Heaven. On receipt of this reassuring
message the Laird of Logan expressed his intense relief, declaring that he
was only too delighted to think that his house should stand on the road to
that blessed country.
Frequent disappointments
did little to diminish the hopes of the Buchanites, and the “Friend Mother
in the Lord” always found some fresh excuse for Heaven’s apparent
unwillingness to receive her expectant flock. One night, when the
congregation was praying together at Buchan Ha’, a sudden gleam of light
seemed to illumine the big room in which they were assembled. “He comes!
He comes!” cried Elspeth, in an ecstasy of religious fervour, “He comes to
reign!” The excitement among the elect was intense. They all began to sing
different hymns at the same time in various keys, and, working themselves
up into a state of mind bordering on hysteria, awaited with such patience
as they could muster the long-promised advent of their heavenly Master.
One member of the congregation, a little man name Hunter, who had been
Fiscal at Irvine and had forsaken his profession to follow Mrs. Buchan,
was so afraid of being lost sight of and left behind when the great moment
came, that he climbed on to a table, opened his long coat and flapped it
about, like the children in Peter Pan, as though rehearsing his
flight. Another elderly enthusiast, who happened to be in bed on the first
floor at the time of the alarm, was in such a hurry to arrive at the scene
of all this excitement that he fell the whole way downstairs on his back,
reaching the basement in record time.
To the expectant throng
every moment seemed an age. They longed to soar away to realms of bliss,
and were most impatient of delay. Meanwhile the light which had stirred
them to such a pitch of enthusiasm grew more and more vivid, until it
finally resolved itself into a lantern which some local farmer was
carrying along the road on his way to work. Mr. Hunter shamefacedly got
down from the table, and buttoned up his coat. The old man who had fallen
downstairs went up to bed again muttering darkly to himself. Even Luckie
Buchan herself was a trifle depressed. Indeed, it must certainly have
required the most firm and resolute faith to stand many such poignant
disappointments.
On another occasion, in
accordance with Elspeth’s inspired commands, the Buchanites formed a
procession and climbed to the top of Templand Hill, in the vicinity of
Buchan Ha’, where they were confident that the hour of translation would
at last arrive. Platforms were erected on the hillside, upon which the
chosen people were to stand and await the crucial moment. Mother Buchan’s
platform was exalted above all the others, so as to give her the advantage
of a slight start towards the heavenly regions. All the men were arrayed
in their Sunday best; all the women had cut their hair short, with the
exception of a tuft on the top of the head, by which the angels might the
more easily draw them up to heaven.
At length the momentous
hour arrived. The elect took up their positions on the platforms,
expecting at any moment to be wafted to the land of light. Suddenly there
came a great gust of wind, but, alas! instead of wafting them upwards, it
merely capsized the platform upon which Mrs. Buchan was standing,
precipitating her ignominiously on to the ground below among her
followers. [The Gallovidian Encyclopedia (1824).]
Further misfortune was in
store for the faithful. Before starting out upon this expedition the high
priestess had advised her flock to lay aside all their jewellery and
ornaments. The majority had consequently thrown their watches and rings on
to the dust-heap. On their melancholy return to Buchan Ha’ they were
surprised to find that some thoughtful person had visited the ash-pit,
collected their discarded trinkets, and removed them beyond reach. They
were too loyal to suspect Elspeth Buchan, but perhaps if they had summoned
up courage to ask her such a tactless question, she could have told them
what had become of their jewellery.
Mrs. Buchan was, indeed, a
woman of infinite resource, and at once set about, as usual, looking for
an excuse to account for the Templand Hill fiasco. She finally decided
that the reason the elect had not been carried up to heaven was that they
were not light enough. In order to remove this obstacle she ordained a
fast of forty days’ duration. For six weeks, accordingly, the inmates of
Buchan Ha’ were condemned to subsist on eight gallons of molasses and a
little oatmeal. During the whole of that time no cooking was done in the
house, and the unfortunate fanatics were kept alive by spiritual food
alone. Mrs. Buchan would occasionally allow them a drink of treacle and
water (which sounds an unsatisfactory beverage for a starving person);
otherwise they lived exclusively on hope and fresh air. The long hours
were passed in prayer and hymn-singing, varied by an occasional discourse
from Mother Buchan. None of those who underwent this prolonged abstinence
seems to have suffered any ill-effects, except one wretched old woman who
was both blind and deaf, and consequently could neither see what was going
on, nor obtain any comfort from the hymns and sermons with which the
tedious days were freely punctuated. The fast was not altogether a
success, however, and several of the Buchanites had their eyes enlightened
through their appetites, and returned to Irvine, thinner but wiser for
their recent experiences. [History of the Relief Church, p.344.]
At New Cample Elspeth and
her followers were not allowed to remain in peace for very long. The local
authorities soon grew alarmed at the penury of these enthusiasts, and
required them to find some sureties that they would not become a burden on
the parish. This they were unable to do, and so were forced to move off
once more, and, after the usual period of wandering, settled at last at a
place called Auchengibbert, a wild desolate spot in Kirkcudbright, where
they might safely hope to be left alone.
By this time the funds of
the society were running very low. Mrs. Buchan could not induce Heaven to
drop any more five-pound notes into her lap, and, though she continued to
have fresh followers until 1796, many of those who had joined her from
England, Methodists for the most part, were by this time reduced to
beggary, and deserted her.
In this same year she fell
ill, and was wise enough to realise that, inspire of all her hopes of
immortality, her end was rapidly approaching. She thereupon summoned the
faithful disciples to her bedside, and assured them that, although she
might appear to die, they were not to be alarmed, for that in a short time
she would return and lead them to the new Jerusalem. She reiterated her
claims to being the Woman of Revelations who was driven into the
wilderness, and declared that she had been wandering about the world ever
since the days of our Saviour, and had only sojourned in Scotland for a
short time. “I go where my words will not be rejected,” she said. With
that she died, and her body was laid in a coffin and deposited in an
outhouse close by. [The following mock epitaph on Mrs. Buchan was
written by David Sillar, the friend of Burns, who evidently did not
believe in her divine powers:-
“Stop, stranger, here
lies one interred,
Who was on earth by some revered
And superstitiously adored,
As the great Saviour and Lord:
Till death, stern, cruel, unrelenting,
In murder steeled, far past relenting,
Sent off at once, it mak’s na’ whither,
He Godhead and her soul thegither.”]
One very devoted and
zealous Buchanite was so determined that her death should be as dramatic
as her life and that her followers should not be disappointed, that he
secreted her body during the night in a stack of straw. When the others
came to the barn next morning, this enthusiast showed them the empty
coffin, and pointed triumphantly to a neat hole which had been cut in the
roof of the barn, through which, as he explained, Mother Buchan had
ascended to heaven. Her corpse was, however, discovered and replaced in
the coffin, but the Buchanites for a long time declined to bury it, until
forced to do so by the neighbours who complained of the nuisance and
obtained an order for its burial from the local Justices of the Peace.
It took a long time for the
Buchanites to understand that their high priestess was really dead. Mr.
Hunter, whom I have already mentioned as being one of her original
followers, but who had been induced to leave her and go home to his family
in Irvine, met an acquaintance just returned from Dumfries in 1796, and
asked him what news there was from that country. “None that I remember,”
said the other, “except that your old friend Luckie Buchan, is dead.” “Oh
no, John, that’s impossible,” protested Hunter, “that cannot be, and never
will be in this world.” “Well,” replied John, “if she is not dead, all I
can say is that her friends in Galloway have played her a shabby trick,
for they buried her last Tuesday!”
After Luckie Buchan’s death
the sect she had founded gradually faded away, until in 1839 there were
only two Buchanites left in Galloway. Hugh White sailed for America, where
he had once taught in a theological college, and nothing more was heard of
him. He had been a loyal and devoted adherent to the cause of this strange
woman who had cast so potent a spell over him, but on the subject of her
curious religion he seems to have been consistently vague. During
Elspeth’s lifetime an Edinburgh teacher had tried hard to engage White in
lengthy correspondence on the matter. He had begged the minister
repeatedly to give him some definite information as to the exact tenets
which distinguished the Buchanites from other professors of Christianity.
But White could only reply evasively, in long letters full of Scriptural
quotations and platitudes, which only irritated his correspondent and left
him no wiser than before. Eventually the teacher declared that he proposed
to publish the whole of their correspondence, a threat which elicited from
Mrs. Buchan herself an extravagant letter which gives some idea of her
views and of the style in which she was wont to express them to the world.
“Sir,” she wrote, “you have
troubled us with your letters, and indeed I was jealous of your Satanick
and self righteous design. You said in your first letter, that you heard,
that we believed in a millennium, and you thought, that this doctrine had
no small countenance from the Scriptures; but let me inform you, that
neither you, nor none for you, can know, what God means by prophecy, nor
precept, law nor gospel, unless they be taught of God; for the wisdom of
the world, is folly with God, and it is as sure, that the wisdom of God is
folly with the world, and methinks, that all the letters that ever I have
seen, yours was the most serious, for mixing Christ and Belial together.
Indeed we read but little of it, nor could I have read it, or heard it
read, for there was nothing in it, but such as is the views of all worldly
and carnal minds have of God at this day. I know the world will love your
views, because they are their own, and the world will love its own; and if
we were of the world, it would love us, but, because we are not of the
world but God has chosen us out of the world, therefore doth the world
hate us, but it appears to me, that you are a man who has a desire to show
your abilities to the world; and as unbelief always calls God a liar, you
will get many to join you standard; and I own that truth has oftener than
once fallen in the streets of this world; and those that departed from
iniquity made themselves a prey; but glory be to God, that the time is
fast approaching, that he that will come, shall, come, and blessed are
they, and for ever blessed shall they be, that wait for him; and none will
wait for him but such as live in his love, by his promise, on his bounty,
to his praise walks in the spirit, and makes no provision for the flesh,
to fulfil the lusts thereof; and as you wanted a proof (like the Jews of
old of Jesus, whether he was the Christ or not) I answer, you had better
come and see what we are, before you begin to publish your controversy.
Living words had always more weight than dead letters…..Sir, I hope you
will publish this with the rest, for I am not afraid of men.” [Eight
Letters between the People Called Buchanites and a Teacher near
Edinburgh.]
Of all the acts of the
Buchanites which furnished their enemies with a good cause for hostile
criticism, the most foolish perhaps was the publication of a ridiculous
book entitled “The Divine Dictionary; or a Treatise indicted by Holy
Inspiration, concerning the Faith and Practice of this People (by this
world) called Buchanites, who are actually waiting for the second coming
of our Lord, and who believe that they, alive, will be changed and
translated ‘into the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall be
ever with the Lord’ (Thess. iv. 17). ‘And there appeared a great wonder in
heaven, a woman’ (Rev. xii. I).” To this was added the following
attestation: “The truths contained in this publication the writer received
from the Spirit of God in that woman, predicted Rev. xii. I. Though they
are not written in the same simplicity as delivered – by a babe in the
love of God, Hugh White. Revised and approven of by Elspat Simpson.”
A study of this book throws
no light upon the Buchanite religion, since it is merely a jargon of
magniloquent, and in many cases blasphemous nonsense, with few lucid
gleams of reason.
The sect professed to
believe in the community of goods and in frugal living, but Mrs. Buchan
did not herself practise abstinence or mortification of the flesh. “as to
self-denial,” she wrote in one of her letters, “it would not do with me to
be self-denied, but even to be denied self-denial, for God is my all, and
my only portion, and shall be for ever and ever” – a statement which, in
common with most of hers, adroitly evades the point at issue. She did not
approve of matrimony, though many of her followers, including her own
daughters, married while they were living at Buchan Ha’, and others seized
upon her odd ideas on the subject as an excuse for licence. “Another
capital mistake,” wrote Hugh White, “is that all men and women, whatever
station, sphere, condition, business of life, they occupy, they conclude
that God has placed them there, and consequently that they behoved to be
active in their various departments, and ought not to recede from it. Such
conclusions of God are blasphemous. Shall the unhappy matrimonial
connection, who, through worldly interest, or some such abominable
reasons, enter into their legal bonds, conclude that God bound them
together? The day is coming when they shall know that God’s will had no
hand in any such thing.” It is curious, by the way, how often the question
of so-called “free-love” is involved in any fanatical new religion.
One of Mrs. Buchan’s
adherents has stated that she always addressed any of her family or
society as “my child,” strangers as “dear,” and when speaking of divine
things, invariably made use of the expression “O! O! O!” so one may be
pardoned for suggesting that she was perhaps a trifle mad.
She is said to have been a
tall, good-looking woman, and a most eloquent speaker, who always got the
better of those who attempted to argue with her on religious matters. She
suffered a great deal of persecution and many rebuffs, which she bore with
exemplary courage and cheerfulness. Once, when she was maintaining to a
minister that she was the Spirit of God, the reverend gentleman gave her a
violent blow on her back and said “I am sure there are both flesh and
blood there, which is proof enough that you are no spirit.” Another time,
she attempted unsuccessfully to convert a gardener who was hoeing turnips
in his master’s field. “James Macleosh,” said she, “quit Mr. Copland’s
garden and come and work in that of the Lord.” “Thank ye,” replied the
dour old man, “But the Lord was na’ owre kind to the last gardener he
had.” {Cunningham’s Life of Burns.]
We have no exact
counterpart to Luckie Buchan in this country today, but if a second
“Friend Mother in the Lord” were suddenly to arise in our midst, she could
make sure of attracting a large audience to her meetings for at least a
month. The modern thirst for novelty must be slaked at all hazards. We
flock to hear the sensational preacher who denounces the sins of a society
of which he knows little or nothing except what he has presumably heard at
the confessional. We hasten to consult clairvoyants, astronomers, and
soothsayers, who are kind enough to sell us information which we already
possess on the subject of our habits and character. A revival mission, run
upon purely commercial lines, can be certain of financial success if its
methods are sufficiently hysterical to appeal to our desire for original
entertainment. But though some modern prophetess of the Buchan type might
easily induce her congregation to live upon a diet of nuts and vermicelli,
one cannot help suspecting that, if she were to be so unwise as to suggest
a forty days’ fast, her followers would very quickly begin to entertain
doubts as to the orthodoxy of her teaching. The prophet Buchan was only
mortal after all, like the prophets Dowie, Harris, or Eddy. The one
immortal thing is the credulity of the human race.
A contemporary of Mother
Buchan, who was also a very remarkable character, at this time notorious
in the south of Scotland, was Isobel Pagan. Like the high priestess of New
Cample, Isobel was a woman of little or no education. Unlike her
contemporary, however, she led a life of frank immorality and
intemperance, and, if she had any influence at all upon her associates, it
was by no means a beneficial one.
Isobel Pagan was born in
the parish of New Cumnock, in Ayrshire, about 1741, and spent most of her
life in the neighbourhood of Muirkirk. From early youth she made a
practice of writing doggerel rhymes upon a variety of subjects, mostly
connected with sport. These verses she set to the popular airs of the day,
and would sing with so much spirit and humour that people came from far
and wide to hear her. Indeed, she contrived to subsist almost entirely on
the donations of those who formed her audience on such occasions. Once, at
the urgent request of a gentleman who had staked a large sum upon her
success, she entered a singing competition in Ayr, where, much to the
annoyance of the manager and the delight of her backer, she defeated the
leading vocalist of a theatrical touring company which happened to be
performing in the town.
Probably the best known of
her poems is that one which Robert Burns admired so much and upon which he
founded a song of his own, beginning, “Hark the mavis’ evening sang”:-
CA’ THE YOWES TO THE KNOWES
Ca’ the yowes to the knows,
Ca’ them where the heather grows,
Ca’ them where the burnie rows,
My bonnie dearie.
As I gaed doun the
waterside,
There I met my shepherd lad,
He row’d me sweetly in his plaid,
An’ he ca’d me his dearie.
“Will ye gang doun the
water side,
And see the waves sae sweetly glide
Beneath the hazels spreading wide?
The moon it shines fu’ clearly.
“Ye shall get gowns and
ribbons neat,
Cauf-leather shoon to thy white feet,
And in my arms ye’se lie and sleep,
And ye shall be my dearie.”
“If ye’ll but stand to what
ye’ve said,
I’se gang wi’ you, my shepherd lad,
And ye may row me in you plaid,
And I shall be your dearie.”
“While water wimples to the
sea,
While day blinks in the lift sae hie,
Till clay-cauld death shall blin’ my e’e,
Ye shall be my dearie.”
In childhood Isobel Pagan
had been deserted by her parents, of whom nothing is known, and drifted
into the household of an old woman whom she calls “a good religious wife
who lived a quiet, sober life.” But the religious wife seems to have
failed to inculcate any rudiments of religion or the wifely virtues into
her ward, nor does Isobel appear to have made the slightest attempt to
emulate the example of quiet and temperance set by her respectable old
guardian. Her career was marked from the outset by persistent insobriety,
and she possessed a capacity for alcoholic consumption which was the envy
of all the topers for miles around.
She was, as I have said, a
woman of no education, and could not even write her own name. She learned
to read the Bible, however, and in later life could repeat the greater
part of the Scriptures by heart. But a frequent perusal of Holy Writ does
not seem to have suggested to her the advisability of following any of the
excellent precepts therein laid down, and she early acquired irregular
habits from which she never made the slightest attempt to free herself.
Isobel, as a girl, was
singularly ill-favoured, being so lame that she could not walk without the
aid of crutches. A severe squint and a huge tumour in her side, from which
she also suffered, did not tend to improve her appearance. But she was so
witty, so vivacious and high-spirited, that her acquaintances soon learnt
to forget her physical deformities, and she acquired a peculiar popularity
in the district of Muirkirk. One brave man, Campbell by name, even went so
far as to make her an offer of marriage, but his courage forsook him on
the wedding morning and he failed to put in an appearance at the church.
This was all the more unfortunate for Isobel, as there were several urgent
reasons, not unconnected with the courting of the faithless Campbell, why
she should possess a husband. But she was destined to remain a spinster –
in name at least – to the end of her days.
For thirty years Isobel
Pagan lived in a wretched little hovel by the banks of Garpel Water, on
the property of Lord Dundonald. Her house was nothing but an improvised
shelter erected beneath a low arch, which had originally been built as a
brick-store in connection with some local tar-works, and was scarcely fit
for human habitation. But she seems to have been perfectly satisfied with
so squalid a residence.
When I sit in my cottage,
I may be well content,
The Lady she is kind to me,
The Laird will pay my rent,”
Is the drift of one of her songs, and so long as she
was kindly treated and paid no rent, she was quite resigned to such a
life.
In this hovel of hers
Isobel Pagan entertained all the worst characters of the country-side, and
though she had no licence permitting her to sell spirits, the array of
empty bottles which adorned her ashpit, as well as the number of
intoxicated revellers who left her door at dawn to tack their way home by
a circuitous route, spoke eloquently of her fine disregard of the
licensing laws.
Her cottage was the scene
of nightly orgies indulged in not only by the local peasantry, but also by
gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Attracted to Isobel’s bacchanalian
concerts by her ready flow of wit, they made up parties to visit the
strange old woman and be entertained by the clever impromptu rhymes and
the indifferent whisky for which she was notorious. In the month of
August, when grouse-shooting had begun and sportsmen flocked from far and
near to the Ayrshire moors, these soirées were plentifully attended by
visitors from England, who had heard of Mother Pagan’s vocal talent and
were anxious to make her acquaintance and enjoy her good stories. Many of
her poems were written for use on such occasions, and contain allusions to
the local lairds and their Sassenach guests who were staying in the north
for the shooting season.
Isobel was not a woman who
could safely be made a butt of, and many who came to laugh at her physical
peculiarities found the tables turned upon themselves. She was in the
habit of satirising those who annoyed or offended her in verse which was
not marked by any delicacy or the desire to spare the feelings of her
victims. If the latter were too thick-skinned to appreciate such verbal
castigation, she had recourse to still more drastic measures. She was
cursed with a violent and uncontrollable temper, and would emphasise the
point of her jokes with the aid of her crutch in a way that imbued the
dullest-witted of her listeners with a temporary sense of humour. In
consequence of her intemperate habits and of the outbursts of violence to
which she was constantly addicted, her popularity was founded upon a basis
of wholesome fear, and friends who were not always able to appreciate her
wit soon learned to stand in awe of her sarcasm. One day she passed the
tent in which a worthy minister was preaching at great length upon some
tedious question of theological dogma. Isobel stopped to listen for a
while, and then put her head in through an opening and nodded genially to
the reverend gentleman. “Weel,” she said, “ye’re still borin’ awa’, I
see,” and moved on, leaving the unfortunate minister utterly incapable of
resuming the thread of his discourse.
In 1803, Mother Pagan
published a book of her songs which, as she was unable to write, she
dictated to a friend. In this volume, however, one of her happiest efforts
in song-making is not included, and for this reason there has always
existed a certain element of doubt as to whether she really was the author
of this particular poem. It has often been imitated by more modern
rhymesters, but as an example of simple peasant minstrelsy must always
evoke admiration, and there is no reason to suppose that the writer of
“Ca’ the Yowes to the Knowes” could not equally well have composed this
charming ballad in praise of the Lowland Shepherd:-
THE CROOK AND PLAID
Ilk lassie has a laddie she
lo’es aboon the rest,
Ilk lassie has a laddie, if she like to confess’t.
That is dear unto her bosom, whatever be his trade;
But my lover’s aye the laddie that wears the crook and plaid.
Ilk morn he climbs the
mountains his fleecy flocks to view,
And hears the lav’rocks chanting, new sprung from ‘mong the dew,
His bonnie wee bit doggie sae frolicsome and glad
Rins aye before the laddie that wears the crook and plaid.
And when that he is weary,
and lies upon the grass,
What if that in his plaidie he hide a bonnie lass?
Nae doot there’s a preference due to every trade,
But commen’ me to the laddie that wears the crook and plaid.
And when in summer weather
he is upon the hill
He reads in books of history that learns him meikle skill,
There’s nae sic joyous leisure to be had at any trade
Save that the laddie follows that wears the crook and plaid.
What though in storms o’
winter, part of his flock should die,
My laddie is aye cheerie and why should not I?
The prospect o’ the summer can weel mak’ us glad,
Contented is the laddie that wears the crook and plaid.
King David was a shepherd
while in the prime o’ youth,
And following the flocks he pondered upon truth,
And when he came to be a king and left his former trade
‘Twas an honour to the laddie that wears the crook and plaid.
Isobel Pagan died in 1821,
and though it would scarcely be true to say that she was universally
mourned and regretted, her funeral was attended by crowds who came from
all parts of the country, less perhaps to do honour to her memory than out
of morbid curiosity to see the last of so extraordinary a woman. |
