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Robert Dick was apprenticed
to Mr. Aikman, a baker in Tullibody, when he was thirteen years old. Mr.
Aikman had a large business, and supplied bread to people in the
neighbouring villages as far as the Bridge of Allan.
The life of a baker is by no means interesting. One day is like another. The
baker is up in the morning at three or four. The oven fire is kindled first.
The flour is mixed with yeast and salt and water, laboriously kneaded
together. The sponge is then set in some warm place. The dough begins to
rise. After mingling with more flour, and thorough kneading, the mass is
weighed into lumps of the proper size, which are shaped into loaves and
“bricks,” or into “baps,” penny and halfpenny. This is the batch, which,
after a short time, is placed in the oven until it is properly baked and
ready to be taken out. The bread is then sold or delivered to the customers.
When delivered out of doors, the bread is placed on a flat baker’s basket,
and carried on the head from place to place.
Robert Dick got up first and kindled the fire, so as to heat the oven
preparatory to the batch being put in. His nephew, Mr. Alexander of
Dunfermline, says “he got up at three in the morning, and worked and drudged
until seven and eight, and sometimes nine o’clock at night.”
As he grew older, and was strong enough to carry the basket on his head, he
was sent about to deliver the bread in the neighbouring villages. He was
sent to Menstrie, to Lipney on the Ochils, to Blairlogie at the foot of
Dunmyat, and farther westward to the Bridge of Allan, about six miles from
Tullibody.
The afternoons on which he delivered the bread were a great pleasure to
Dick. He had an opportunity for observing nature, which had charms for him
in all its moods. When he went up the hills to Lipney, he wandered on his
return through Menstrie Glen. He watched the growth of the plants. He knew
them individually, one from the other. He began to detect the differences
between them, though he then knew little about orders, classes, and genera.
When the hazel-nuts were ripe he gathered them and brought loads of them
home for the enjoyment of his master’s bairns. They all had a great love for
the ’prentice Robert.
He must also, in course of time, have obtained some special acquaintance
with botany. At all events, he inquired, many years after, about some
particular plants which he had observed during his residence at Dam’s Burn
and Tullibody. "Send me,” he said to his eldest sister, “a twig with the
blossom and some leaves, from the Tron Tree in Tullibody.” The Tron Tree is
a lime tree standing nearly opposite the house in which Robert was born.
“Send me also,” he said, “a specimen of the wild geranium, which you will
find on the old road close by the foot of the hills between Menstrie and
Alva. I also want a water-plant [describing it] which grows in the river
Devon.” The two former were sent to him, but the water-plant could not be
found.
Robert’s apprenticeship lasted for three years and a half. He got no
wages—only his meals and his bed. He occupied a small room over the
bakehouse. His father had still to clothe him, and his washing was done at
home. On Saturdays he went with his “duds” to Dam’s Burn. But either soap
was scarce, or good-will was wanting. His step-mother would not give him
clean stockings except once a fortnight. His sister Agnes used to accompany
him home to Tullibody in the evening, and at the Aikmans’ door she exchanged
stockings with him, promising to have his own well darned and washed by the
following Sunday.
The day of rest was a day of pleasure to him. He did not care to stay within
doors. He had shoes now, and could wander up the hills to the top of Dunmyat
or Bencleuch, and see the glorious prospect of the country below; the
windings of the Devon, the windings of the Forth, and the country far away,
from the castle of Stirling on the one hand to the castle of Edinburgh on
the other.
Dick continued to be a great reader. He read every book that he could lay
his hands on. Popular books were not so common then as they are now. But he
contrived to borrow some volumes of the old Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, and
this gave him an insight into science. It helped him in his knowledge of
botany. He could now find out for himself the names of the plants; and he
even began to make a collection. It could only have been a small one, for
his time was principally occupied by labour. Yet, with a thirst for
knowledge, and a determination to obtain it, a great deal may be
accomplished in even the humblest station.
In 1826, Mr. Dick was advanced to the office of supervisor of excise, and
removed to Thurso. Robert was then left to himself in Tullibody. He had
still two years more to serve. One day followed another in the usual round
of daily toil. The toil was, however, mingled with pleasure, and he walked
through the country with his bread basket, and watched Nature with
ever-increasing delight.
He made no acquaintances. The Aikmans say “that he was very kind to his
master’s children—that he was constantly bringing them flowers from the
fields, or nuts from the glens, or anything curious or interesting which he
had picked up in the course of his journeys.” He occupied a little of his
time in bird-stuffing. He stuffed a hare, which he called “a tinkler’s
lion.” It need scarcely be said that the children were very fond of their
father’s ’prentice.
At length his time was out. He was only seventeen. But he had to leave
Tullibody, and try to find work as a journeyman. He bundled up his clothes
and set out for Alloa, where he caught the boat for Leith. He never saw
Tullibody again, though he long remembered it. His father and mother were
buried in the churchyard there; and he could not help having a longing
affection for the place. But he could never spare money enough to revisit
the place of his birth.
Long after, when writing to his brother-in-law, he said,—“And ye have been
up to Alloa. Well, I do believe that is a bonnie country, altho’ I fancy it
is not in any sense the poor man’s country. Nothing but men of money there;
though fient a hair did I care for their grandeur while I lived there. The
hills and woods, and freedom to run upon them and through them, was all I
cared about.
“What though, like commoners of air,
We wander out we know not where,
But either house or hall?
Yet Nature’s charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,
Are free alike to all."
I daresay I might pick up a plant or a stone with very different feelings
from those I felt in the days of old. But let them go! There is no use in
repining.”
Again, when writing to a fellow botanist, who doubted whether Digitalis
ymrpurea was a native of Caithness, he said, “I have seen more of the plant
in Caithness than I ever saw about Stirling, Alloa, or on the Ochil
hills,—more than I ever saw in the woods of Tullibody.”
Robert Dick found a journeyman's situation at Leith, where he remained for
six months. His life there was composed of the usual round of getting up
early in the morning, kneading, baking, and going about the streets with his
basket on his head, delivering bread to the customers. It was a lonely life;
and the more lonely, as he was far away from Nature and the hills that he
loved.
From Leith he went to Glasgow, and afterwards to Greenock. He was a
journeyman baker for about three years. His wages were small; his labour was
heavy; and he did not find that he was making much progress. He continued to
correspond with his father, and told him of his position. The father said,
“Come to Thurso, and set up a baker’s shop here.” There were then only three
bakers’ shops in the whole county of Caithness,— one at Thurso, one at
Castleton, and another at Wick.
In that remote district “baker’s bread” had scarcely come into fashion. The
people there lived chiefly on oatmeal and bere,—oatmeal porridge and cakes,
and barley bannocks, with plenty of milk. Upon this fare men and women grew
up strong and healthy. Many of them only got a baker’s loaf for “the
Sabbath.”
Robert Dick took his father’s advice. He went almost to the world’s end to
set up his trade. He arrived at Thurso in the summer of 1830, when he was
about twenty years old. A shop was taken in Wilson’s Lane, nearly opposite
his father’s house. An oven had to be added to the premises before the
business could be begun; and in the meantime Robert surveyed the shore along
Thurso Bay.
Thurso is within sight of Orkney, the Ultima Thule of the Romans. It is the
northernmost town in Great Britain. John o’ Groat’s—the Land’s End of
Scotland —is farther to the east. It consists of only a few green mounds,
indicating where John o’ Groat’s House once stood.
Thurso is situated at the southern end of Thurso Bay, at the mouth of the
Thurso river,—the most productive salmon river in Scotland. The fish, after
feeding and cleaning themselves in the Pentland Firth, make for the fresh
water. The first river they come to is the Thurso, up which they swim in
droves.
Thurso Bay, whether in fair or foul weather, is a grand sight. On the
eastern side, the upright cliffs of Dunnet Head run far to the northward,
forming the most northerly point of the Scottish mainland. On the west, a
high crest of land juts out into the sea, forming at its extremity the hold
precipitous rocks of Holborn Head. Looking out of the hay you see the Orkney
Islands in the distance, the Old Man of Hoy standing up at its western
promontory, At sunset the light glints along the island, showing the hold
prominences and depressions in the red sandstone cliffs. Out into the ocean
the distant sails of passing ships are seen against the sky, white as a
gull’s wing.
The long swelling waves of the Atlantic come rolling in upon the beach. The
noise of their breaking in stormy weather is like thunder. From Thurso they
are seen dashing over the Holborn Head, though some two hundred feet high;
and the cliffs beyond Dunnet Bay are hid in spray.
Robert Dick was delighted with the sea in all its aspects. The sea opens
many a mind. The sea is the most wonderful thing a child can see; and it
long continues to fill the thoughtful mind with astonishment. The sea-shore
on the western coast is full of strange sights. There is nothing but sea
between Thurso and the coasts of Labrador.
The wash of the ocean comes by the Gulf Stream round the western coasts of
Scotland, and along the northern coasts of Norway. Hence the bits of
driftwood, the tropical sea-weed, and the tropical nuts, thrown upon the
shore at Thurso.
In the same way, bits of mahogany are sometimes carried by the ocean current
from Honduras or the Bay of Mexico, and thrown upon the shore on the
northern most coasts of Norway. One evening, while walking along the beach
near Thurso, Robert Dick took up a singular-looking nut, which he examined.
He remarked to the friend who accompanied him, “That has been brought by the
ocean current and the prevailing winds all the way from one of the West
Indian Islands. How strange that we should find it here!”
Robert Dick always admired the magnificent sea pictures of Thurso Bay—its
waves that gently rocked or wildly raged. He enjoyed the salt-laden breath
of the sea wind; and even the cries of the sea birds. Here is his
description of the sea-mew: “Ha ga tirwa!’ How strange and uncouth ! How
very unnatural the cry seemed. It was only the cry of a sea bird. It was
within sight of the ocean. There had been a storm. It was over, but the
waves in long rolling breakers dashed themselves in a rage on the sandy
shore, and then were quiet. But quiet only for a moment. ‘Ha ga tirwa!’
Restless and unwearied, another and another long wave followed and burst
into spray. And thus it has ever been ‘since evening was, and morning was.’
It was then evening, the stars began to twinkle; and after a little the full
moon rose. But still ‘Ha ga tirwa!’”
But before proceeding with Robert Dick’s history, it is necessary that we
should give a short account of the county of Caithness, over the whole of
which he afterwards wandered in search of the botany, as well as of the
geological formation of the district. |
