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The last Sunday and Monday of
August, 1787, were two eventful and happy days in the existence-all too
brief, alas!—of Robert Burns. On the Sunday morning the poet, in company
with his friend and fellow-traveller, William Nicol, had visited the old
churchyard of Falkirk, and there had knelt in patriotic devotion at the tomb
of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of Sir William Wallace.
Continuing his journey, Burns called at Auchenbowie House, where he dined
with the laird, Mr Monro, and his daughter. Then he drove to the field of
Bannockburn, and, as he wrote to his friend, Robert Muir, said a fervent
prayer for Old Caledonia over the bole of a blue whin-stone where Robert de
Bruce fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn. An hour later he
was standing on the battlements of Stirling Castle viewing the glorious
prospect of the windings of the Forth through the rich Carse of Stirling, in
the purple light of the setting sun. For that night and the following one
the newly-erected inn below the Mealmarket, and near the New Port, the inner
defence of our ancient burgh. It may be noted that the fact that it was on
Sunday evening that Bums visited the Castle disposes of the story told by Mr
John Dick of Craigengelt to the effect that his uncle, Provost Dick, saw the
poet in Broad Street as he came down from the Castle one day on which, for
some reason or other, the schoolboys (of whom the Provost was one) had got a
holiday, and the town bells were rung. If the incident occurred on the
occasion of Burns’s last visit to Stirling, it must have been the church
belle that young Dick heard ringing, but the mention of Ramsay of Octertyre
in connection with the story points to tiie occasion being the Bard’s second
visit to the town in the October following. After a day so full of interest,
it may be surmised that Burns did not sleep very soundly. His visit to the
historic battlefield had fired his imagination. He fancied to himself, as he
writes in his Commonplace Book, that he saw his gallant heroic countrymen
coming over the hill and down upon the plunderers of their country, the
murderers of their fathers, noble revenge and just hate glowing in every
vein, striving more and more eagerly as they approached the oppressive,
insulting, bloodthirsty foe. He saw them meet in glorious triumphant
congratulation on the victorious field, exulting in their heroic royal
leader, and rescued liberty and independence. In after yean these glowing
visions, which had never been forgotten, produced at the proper moment the
stirring war ode, Scots Wha Hae? the best, as Carlyle says, that was ever
written by any pen. Alternating with these patriotic emotions, there surged
in the poet’s mast a feeling of intense indignation that Stirling Castle,
for the possession of which Bruce had risked so much and fought so well,
should be so shamefully neglected by Bruce's successors on the Scottish
throne, and, no doubt, before tired nature's sweet restorer visited his
pillow, he had composed the vehement lines which next morning, before his
companion came downstairs to breakfast, he scratched with a diamond on a
pane of glass in the window of the public room looking into the yard of the
inn. In the political turmoil of the time, these lines were apt to tell
against their author, and in a cooler moment Burns took an opportunity of
destroying the telltale glass, but that he did not retract his opinions is
proved by the fact that he wrote several copies of the verses and made no
attempt to conceal their authorship. There can be little doubt, however,
that they hindered his promotion in the Excise. Before his appointment as an
exciseman, Burns tells us that he was questioned like a child about his
personal matters, and blamed and schooled for his inscription on the
Stirling window.
The Monday thus begun was spent hy the poet with some Ayrshire friends who
were living at Harvilstoun. The dear winding Devon had many attractions for
Burns, who seems also to have been fascinated by the charms of a lovely
girl, to the influence of which he was always very susceptible. The day, he
says, was one of the most pleasant he ever had in his life, and he returned
to Stirling in the evening in high good humour. It may have been on that
night he paid a brief visit to the local Lodge of Freemasons, Ancient 30,
and signed the Attendance Register which is said to have disappeared, but
not before the bold signature of our national Bard bad been wantonly cut
out. The crowded day finished fittingly with a symposium in Wingate’s Inn,
excelling, as one may easily suppose, in wit and wisdom, in poesy and song,
any of the Nocteg Ambrogiana of which a later poet was the bright particular
star. Henley, in his odious manner, would have us believe that this, the
first Burns supper in Stirling, was not only as stupid as the average
festive gatherings on the 25th January, but was simply a jollification or
“drunken spree,” and that it was this that inspired the “Lines on a Window
in Stirling.” But, as we have seen, the lines were composed before the
supper, and that this meeting was no debauch is proved, not only by the
company who were present, but by the fact that at an earlv hour on the
following day, Burns wrote a beautiful letter in the inn to his friend,
Gavin Hamilton, a letter which it is safe to say no person who had been
guilty of excess the night before could have been in a condition to indite.
Burns’s own note of the occasion in his Commonplace Book is very brief.
“At Stirling—Supper—Messrs Doig, the schoolmaster; Bell, and Captain
Forrester of the Castle. Doig, a queerish figure and something of a pedant;
Bell, a joyous fellow who sings a good song; Forrester, a merry swearing
kind of man, with a dash of the 'sodjer.’
To this trio have to be added William Nicol, and Burns himself, so that the
Army, education, and literature were well represented in the little company.
Of Dr Doig it is unnecessary to speak. The learned Sector of the Grammar
School of Stirling, who had disputed, not unsuccessfully, with Lord Kames
about the savage state of man, and was himself an aspirant to poetic fame,
must have keenly enjoyed the full-blooded flow of Burns’s conversation. As
for Forrester, the fact that Burns notes that he was a swearing kind of man,
is proof that the habit of profane swearing, common enough at the time, was
not one of the poet’s faults. But what of Bell, the joyous fellow who sang a
good song? Mr W. Harvey, in his recently-published work entitled "Robert
Burns in Stirlingshire,” says, “Regarding Bell of the company, there is some
doubt. Beyond his name Burns gives no information, but it is likely that he
was Christopher Bell, who was a schoolmaster in Stirling at the time.” But
there is really no doubt of the fact, and there never could be any in the
mind of a person familiar with the Stirling of the period. Out of the four
thousand six hundred souls or thereby who then composed the entire
population of the burgh, there was only one Bell who could answer Burns’s
description. This description, and the company he was in, are two sure marks
of identification, independently of Christopher Bell’s friendship with
Forrester. He was in company with Mr David Doig, schoolmaster, and he could
sing a good song. Both as English teacher and as precentor, Bell was
doubtless well known to Nicol, who was a teacher in the High School of
Edinburgh, and who may be credited with suggesting the choice of guests for
the evening. Like Burns himself, Mr Harvey gives no information about Bell
beyond his name and designation, and while there was no call for Burns to do
more than he did, or even so much, it was, in our opinion, clearly the duty
of the author of a book on Burns in Stirlingshire to take a little trouble
to try and find out something more about the guests at the famous Stirling
supper. The following sketch of one of them is compiled from materials which
have lain beside us for some yean, and were derived from sources open to any
inquirer.
Christopher Bell, before coming to Stirling, was schoolmaster at Campaie. We
have satisfied ourselves that he did not belong to the Bells of Antermony,
but we think it probable he waa a son of the Rev. William Bell, minister of
the parish of Campeie from 1749 to 1783. Dr Scott, in his states that Mr
Bell was married, but does not mention any children of the marriage.
Christopher’s appointment in Stirling is dated 23rd February, 1771, when he
succeeded the deceased Mr John M'lnlay. The educational arrangements in
Stirling prior to Mr Bell's appointment seem to have been these: Mr David
Doig conducted the Grammar School with the assistance of a doctor of Latin,
and he had liberty to teach a class of such English scholars as were far
advanced, if they intended to learn Latin and other languages; Mr Douglas
was teacher of one of the English Schools, carried on in Cowane’s Hospital;
Mr M'lnlay, a former assistant of Mr Douglas’s predecessor, Mr Bums, before
the English School was divided into two in 1763, conducted the other school
in the house in Baker Street now belonging to Mr William Boswell, bootmaker;
and Mr Daniel Manson was writing master and teacher of arithmetic and
book-keeping. Mr Manson was also precentor in the Parish Church and music
master, receiving fees for his teaching of music in the English Schools, but
being bound to attend the Grammar School and teach the scholars there
gratis. The Rector and his Latin doctor were allowed to charge for teaching
English as well as the dead languages, and in addition, Mr Doig had a salary
of £40 per annum and a free house. Mr Burns had perhaps £20 after the
division of the schools, and the fees; Mr M'Inlay, £16 and the fees; and Mr
Manson, £200 Scots (£16 13s 4d) and the fees. When Christopher Bell
succeeded Mr M'Inlay in 1771, he was also appointed to precent in the church
for Mr Manson, and to act as music master, Mr Manson giving up all the
emoluments arising from the teaching of vocal music in the burgh. About
1777, Mr Bell married one of the Littlejohn family, and was admitted a
burgees yua guild brother in right of his wife. In 1786, the school in
Baxter's Wynd, with shop below, was ordered to be sold oy public roup, new
writing and English schools being erected in Cowane’s Yard on part of the
site now occupied by the High School. On the death of Mr Manson in 1791, Mr
Thomae Smith, St Andrews, was appointed his successor, but he was not to
teach music, Mr Bell being again appointed precentor and teacher of church
music. The Council evidently thought this a good opportunity of reuniting
the two English Schools, and they offered Mr Archibald Douglas, if he would
resign, an annuity of £16, and £5 to carry him to the place in which he
meant to reside, but if he stopped in Stirling his annuity was to stop also.
The English School, it was arranged, was to be conducted under the joint
care of Mr Bell and Mr M'Leran. These resolutions, however, did not please
Mr Douglas, and he held on to his office for two years longer, when the
Council allowed him on resignation his salary for life, and provided an
assistant for Mr Bell, both the English Schools being thrown into one. This
arrangement seems to have worked satisfactorily, as we find that both Mr
Bell and his assistant, David Jameson, received an addition of £5 to their
salary in 1797.
One year prior to this event, Robert Burns’s earthly career had closed in
gloom and disappointment, and we may feel sure that not the least sincere
mourner was Christopher Bell, whose fine voice must have found a new and
delightful exercise in the flinging of "Scots Wha Hae’’ and other
masterpieces of his departed friend. In some versions of Burns’s entry in
his Commonplace Book of the Stirling Supper, the word "vacant” is introduced
after “joyous,” and Bell is described as a “joyous, vacant fellow.” This
expression is not in the edition of Burns’s works from which we extracted
the entry some twenty years ago, and we do not know the authority for it.
But we submit that if the word is genuine, it does not mean unintelligent,
much less idiotic. No such person could sing a song in a way to call forth
the poet’s praise, and the word "vacant,” if used at all, could only have
been meant as inexpressive in contrast to Dr Doig’s keen intellectual
features. Bell’s position aa English teacher is also against the presumption
that he was vacant or empty-headed. That he was really acute and a good man
of business, is proved by the fact that he was afterwards appointed Session
Clerk, keeper of the registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials, and one
of the auditors of the Kirk Session’s accounts. It may also be remarked here
that his being an elder of the Church is another circumstance disproving the
supposition that the Stirling Supper was allowed to degenerate into a
debauch.
We now come to an incident in Mr Bell’s career which is most honourable to
his memory. There is nothing to show that he ever sympathised with Burns’s
revolutionary sentiments — sentiments which Burns himself renounced, as his
Address to the Dumfries Volunteers clearly shows, and in the year 1800, when
Napoleon threatened to invade Great Britain, and the country armed to resist
him, Christopher Bell was patriotic enough to enrol himself in the corps of
Loyal Stirling Volunteers, although he must then have been considerably over
fifty years of age. He retired, however, the following year, and did not
rejoin in 1803, when a new embodiment of the corps took place.
Unfortunately, he did not live to see the defeat of Napoleon in 1815. Mr
Bell continued to fill the office of senior English master till failing
health compelled him to resign. A minute of the Town Council, dated 9th
October, 1813, records his resignation, and proceeds to state that the
Council, in respect of his long and faithful service for above 43 years,
allow him to retire on his salary of £50 sterling during his life. It was
not, however, till February of the following year that Mr John Weir was
appointed his successor. The Kirk Session minute of 16th August, 1813, is
the last of the regular series written by Mr Bell from his appointment as
Clerk on 3rd November, 1800, but there is one more minute in his
handwriting, very shaky in comparison with the others, and kept straight by
pencilled lines across the page. It is dated 17th November, 1813, and, no
doubt, marks his return to duty after a serious illness. He died in October
of the following year, having probably reached the threescore and ten.
Stirling has had many worthy teachers, but none more worthy than Christopher
Bell, the joyous fellow who sang a good song, and who, patiently and
faithfully labouring in hie vocation, rejoiced alike in the psalms of David
and the songs of Burns.
25th January, 1900. Ed.
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