|
DURING part of John's stay at
Auchleven, Charles Black lived at Kcithhall near Kinnethmont, where he had
come to be gardener to Sir Andrew Leith Hay, in 1848, the year before John
returned to Gadie side. Being only a few miles apart, the two friends
renewed and extended former happy intimacies. They often botanised together,
as of yore, generally bringing plants to each other, and comparing their
finds at mutual visits. John frequently remained all night with his friend,
and Charles once or twice stayed with John, after a long day's hunt. The two
slept together in "the philosopher," where Charles made the silence
reverberate with unwonted jokes and laughter on the situation; and he still
recalls the sound of the animals below them, crunching their food and
stamping with their restless feet.
Charles had begun at Raeden
to make a collection of geological specimens; but these John looked at with
little attention, for he was then too absorbed in the flowers, and Aberdeen
is barren in fossils, which Charles afterwards obtained in the greatest
abundance and beauty on the shores of the Solway. Geology was a subject John
by-and-by felt considerable interest in, and would have pursued its study,
especially after Charles had begun it. But when he had more leisure to do
so, he had no longer any opportunity of practical guidance in a science
that, more than most, requires initiation into it on the field, under the
practical tuition of another. So it remained with the weaver a barren
subject. He did in time gather a collection of minerals, "Geology stones" as
he called them, almost the only available specimens in the Vale of Alford.
The last ramble the two
friends had together was long recalled by both as a happy memory. Charles
remained only a year at Leithhall, leaving it in November, 1849, for
Hamilton Palace gardens on the Clyde, where a brother of his was chief
gardener. Before setting out for the south, the companions determined to
have a long, quiet pilgrimage together as of old. As Charles's leisure was
limited, they settled on a beautiful Sunday in the beginning of October, for
what proved to be, though happily then unknown to them, their last joint
excursion in the dear old style. They met that morning near Auchleven, and
walked over the hill together, past Keig and across the bridge of Don,
admiring the fine glimpse of the old Kirk of Keig from its high parapets, by
Bankhead where an unsurpassed view of Benachic and the pass of the Don and
Castle Forbes is got, on to the Free Church of Keig. There John sat once
more in his old seat, hearing his former minister, Mr. Smith. After service,
they went to see an old friend, one of the Netherton circle, Charles Lawson,
at Barnley, where they dined. Then they walked by the old paths to Prospect
Hill and Whitehouse, and enjoyed their splendid outlook over memorable
scenes, but they did not enter the mansion, round which clustered so many
memories of merriment and study.
It was now getting so late
that they were obliged to retrace their steps. After recrossing the bridge
of Don, they ascended the hill above it, and looked back upon the
wide-spreading Vale below them, under the mild sunset light. They then took
a short cut homewards under John's. guidance, who knew every foot of the
way. They passed the ancient fort of the Barmiken of Keig, [See this
described in Miss Maclagan's "Hill Forts, Stone Circles, etc., of Ancient
Scotland;" as also those on Benachie, Dunnideer, Tap o' Noth, and other
places (with very good plans and sketches), mentioned in this history.]
catching a parting glimpse of the hollow of Tullynessle and Muckletown,
where John had lived, and descended the hill to the north straight for
Leithhall. By the time they reached the Gadie, it was quite dark, and they
had to cross it on a plank, crawling after each other in the gloom on hands
and knees. Then they parted, Charles to go to his home at Kinnethmont, and
John to walk down the Gadie side to Auchleven. It was a delightful day, full
of the beauty of the present, the poetry of the past, and the hopes of the
future.
They little thought it was
their last journey together, but so it turned out to be. During the next
thirty years in which they both wandered down the vale of life, they saw
each other only twice. Charles has never been in the Howe of Alford since.
They continued to correspond to the last, though, from their imperfect use
of the pen, that. was seldomer than their hearts prompted ; but they never
ceased to cherish towards each other that beautiful love which had blessed
and united them so closely in the years gone by.
Since his wife's death,
notwithstanding his unhappy domestic experiences, and perhaps all the more
strongly because of them, Duncan's thoughts had more than once turned to
matrimony; for he was of a quiet, domestic disposition, and longed for a
home of his own and a dear companion, to cheer him after his enforced long
solitary life. He frequently expressed his opinion of general married life,
when he heard of any one entering that critical condition, in this way: "Gin
they had been as muckle married as I hae been, they widna care sae muckle
for't!" But human nature was too strong even for John's bitter experience
and sedate philosophy, and he more than once essayed to take a wife.
He had the reputation of
being "a great ladies' man," or, as they said in the vernacular, "he liket
the lasses;" as the greatest and best of the race have done. The presence of
the young and fair, who alone touched his fancy, always roused him to a
pleasant state of excitement, and then "he was all glee." But as might be
expected from such a shy mortal, he was painfully bashful in his approaches,
and not seldom ludicrous in his attempts to make himself agreeable to the
other sex. He was often constrained,to solicit the kind mediation of a
friend, whose love of mischief still further increased John's embarrassment.
If rumour and history are to
be fully believed, our gay Lothario of stars and flowers proposed to more
than one fair Dulcinea of his acquaintance. John's opinion of his own
matrimonial qualifications was certainly far from small. There is no doubt
that he would have made any woman whom he loved, and who loved him in
return, very happy. But with all the sterling qualities he possessed, it is
to be feared that it would have required a very superior woman, who looked
far beneath the surface,. to appreciate . these, allied with what the fair
sex seem least able to tolerate in a lover, eccentricity and oddness in
personnel and habit, as was decidedly true in John's case.
But others had succeeded in
more unlikely circumstances, and why not he? It is certain that his hopes
were high, and not easily daunted in love-making any more than in stargazing
and plant-seeking. To a female friend of his who esteemed him highly, he
confided the important secret that he had a lady-love: Thinking at the
moment only of his appearance in a woman's eye, she remarked, with plain
malapropos naivete but in real kindliness, that she was glad to hear that
anybody would take him ! John naturally bridled up with wounded self-esteem
and misplaced confidence, and at once retorted with archness and vigour
that, as for that, he could get as mony lasses that wu'd be glad to hae 'im
as would stretch frac the Brig o' Dee to Benachie!
A love letter of John's, a
gem in its way, lies before me, sent in his fifty-sixth year, to an amiable
and attractive woman then in her thirtieth, who lived in the valley of the
Gadie. The date is the 25th of February, 1850; that is, be it observed, St.
Valentine's day, old style—and a quainter, more scriptural billet-doux has
been rarely received, even at that love-making season. The tender epistle is
written in his fairest hand, and evidently as slowly penned as in his best
copy-book at Paradise, upon pencil lines ruled with due care, on a single
sheet, now yellow with age. It bears a printed ticket stuck at its head,
containing the words "A friend" above a mirror, intended, no doubt, as a
suggestive emblem of the fairness of the face that should gaze into it. The
whole is correctly spelled except one or two words. It runs thus:-
"Rise up, my love, my
beautiful one, and come away. For the winter is past, the spring is come,
and;the summer is at hand, and the flowers appear on the earth, and the time
of the singing of birds is heard in our land. . . . For thy love is better
than gold, yea, much fine gold to be desired are.[The latter part of the
sentence is a quotation from the Scotch metrical psalms (19. v. 10), which
accounts for the incorrect grammar.] . . . For thou hast loved me with
kindness and tenderness... . Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for
I will cheer you with joy and with gladness.
"For who can find a virtuous
wife? for her price is far above rubies.... She will do him good and not
evil, all the days of her life.
"It was by Providence
intended that our pains and pleasures should be blended. [This sentence may
be a rhyming couplet, though not so written by John.]
"We We smile to-day, to-morrow
mourn,
Nor find a rose without a thorn."
There at once spoke the
lover, the theologian and the naturalist, the astronomer, the predestinarian
Calvinist and the poet; though the concluding couplet has in it more rhyming
truth than tact. But even this glowing epistle was not successful.
One of his fancies became a
housekeeper in the parish of Tough, at a farm he used to visit. Though John
was warm and persistent, and, as the folks said, "really daft aboot 'er,"
she was cold and practical and cared for none of these things, at least in
John's person. Some of his kindly friends tried, in a left-handed way, to
favour his suit, and would tell her that he was "coming up the close." "Oh,
the muckle sorra set him! He's naething but a hinder to ane's wark ! "
exclaimed the practical housewife; for love-making and kitchen cares did not
in her eyes go well together. John was not easily repelled however, and
would talk to her by the hour, in spite of the attractions of nature around,
while she impatiently bustled about her duties. His friends would often
tease him, in feigned surprise, "Ow, John, are ye aye here yet?" "Ay, but
I'm just gain' awa." After he had left, they would inquire in confidential
tones, "Rae ye made onything o' 'er the day?" "The feint a flee," returned
he, in natural indignation at continued nonsuccess; "she's an obstinate
limmer, that's a'." And there the affair ended. After years of tenderest
attentions, nothing came of it, and Jean remained an old maid, and John a
widower.
One day he was found, by the
daughter of the house, seated on a stone at the end of a cottage, "where the
Gadie rins." She asked him to come in and get a cup of tea, as he had often
done before. "Na," says John, in unusually earnest tones, "it's nae for that
I cam', but to ask ye, gin ye'll be willin' to marry me!" looking up into
her face with a curious bashful eagerness. That was plain and to the point,
though scarcely approached with the delicate strategy dear to the sex in
such affairs; but there was no mistaking his meaning. "Eh, Johnnie man,"
said she, with equal plain and practical directness, "I cu'dna mak' a man's
sark for my life!"—she was so weak in the eyes and short-sighted that she
never could use a needle, and afterwards became quite blind—"I cu'd be nae
man's wife." And she told him to "Gang hame and think no mair o' her i' that
gait." This John did, more downcast than he came. Her mother, who had been
absent during the brief colloquy, asked her daughter on her return, why she
laughed so to herself. She told her the tale, and continued, "and there,
he's awa' doon the back o' the hedge wi' his answer." Even after this, John
still visited her mother's house when he passed it with his flowers. In
spite of this repulse, the daughter's opinion of John continued to be very
high. He was, she said, "as gude a bein' as ever was born, and I hope I'll
meet him in a better warld."
In his confidential moments,
John used to tell a good friend of a love passage he had with a lady,
curious but characteristic in its way. Who the fair dame was cannot now be
known; but that is immaterial. Matters matrimonial had gone so far between
them that an appointment was made to meet on a hill top between the Gadie
and the Don, to come if possible to a final settlement. They both arrived at
the trysting place dressed in their best, on a bonny day in spring.
Wandering through the heather at due distance apart, they talked in a
business-like way about their mutual possessions and their disposal of them.
At last, being somewhat tired with their journey, John proposed to rest
awhile. She sat down on one stone, and he took his place on another some
distance off; and on these cold stones, in what would seem to most an ultra
matter-of-fact style, which John used to give in detail, they continued
their discourse on subjects that might change their destinies for life. But
something displeased the lady, and she would not be reconciled. No
understanding was arrived at, and there on that bleak hill-top, they parted,
after shaking hands, each taking a separate way homewards, John not a little
down-hearted, she never again coming to terms.
His friend naturally asked
John why he did his courting in that formal, distant style? and why, by all
that was sacred and loving, he did not sit down beside his lady-love, on the
same stone at least, if he did nothing else? John's reply was perfect in its
simplicity: "That wu'd hae been takin' an undue advantage o' the wumman!"
And he meant it, so great was his spirit of fairness and proper form, even
in love matters; for the maxim that "All is fair in love and war" would be
viewed as selfishness, if not sin, by such a man. Was not this a bit of the
ancient spirit of chivalrous respect for woman, in humble life? Yet in his
own undemonstrative way, he was truly warm-hearted and devoted, though he
evidently was not skilled in those arts that win a woman's affections. And
so ended all John's new attempts at love-making, though he continued for
years after to cherish hopes of finding a partner for life. It was no doubt
a pity and a loss to him in many ways, poor good soul, that he did not
succeed. |
