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Scenes from an Artist's Life
Chapter 6
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a' their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills pelplex them,
They make enow themsel's to ves them."
Burns,
THE JEANNIE-HOUSE -- THE TOWN DRUMMER - ' OH ! MY BACK ! - AULD RALSTON'S WISE HORSE - GREENOCK JOCK - RALSTON XEEPING ORDER - SOLILOQUY ON THE DEATH OF HIS FIRST WIFE-HIS SON JOCK'S DEATH - AT A QUOIT MATCH - A NIGHT ADVENTURE - A SABBATH MORNING RACE - ITS PUNISHMENT - MY LAST INTERVIEW WITH AULD BALSTON.
DUNDONALD could boast of a spinning factory, or Jeannie-
house, as it used to be named. Boys, women, and girls were
employed in the various departments of teasing, tearing,
carding, and spinning.
The governor over the working department was a very decent
man, in the prime of life. He was also town drummer, a situation
which came into being with the factory and terminated with its
demise. At half-past five in the mornings the well-known warning
was loathsome to the young ear; and the man who beat the drum
was looked on by the youths as a disturber of the peace. There
was no music in the warning to get up to work. The well-known
sounds had at one time been deemed a work of genius by the
earnest drummer, who insisted that the language of his touch was
the most appropriate for reaching the ear of the sleepy youth.
Cockles-cum-deg, repeated and varied, was the language of the
drum; and it was quite enough to cry the same as a term of
reproach to James, whose temper was brittle. Charlie Lockhart,
the village poet, was, when a boy, under the care of the drummer,
and had the knack of rousing him to give out strange speeches
full of harsh figure, and sometimes also solid payment. The ease with
which James could be set on his high horse gave him many a ride for little gain.
None had any positive ill-will to the man, yet none loved him.
He had a distance in his manner, a kind of isolated dignity, which
at no time seemed to be the right sort of metal. Everything he
said or did seemed spurious. He walked and talked at the outer
circle of friendship. Duty and law were what he insisted on; and
when the youths, during meal hours, were earnest at their games
up to the last moment of their time, his discordant voice would
be heard ordering the girls upstairs to their work, and the boys
came in for coarse figures. None loved him, and none feared him.
One day as he was passing with a bag of stuff on his back from
the high flat, some boys laughed, and as he was descending the
stair he missed his footing and fell, wedged into the corner of the
stair. There he lay; a nail had entered his back, the pain of which
caused him to complain, and he natually shouted, " oh, my back !
Will nane o' you help me out o' this plight ?" Old and young
looked down the stair and laughed: neither sympathy nor
assistance was offered, and there he lay till he fainted. He had
called on Sarah Hoy; but even she did not make her appearance.
James, or rather Auld Ralston, as he was termed, had been a
sturdy hand in the smuggling trade, and sometimes I have heard
him give specimens of his bravery in facing the gaugers. He had
taught his horse to rear and plunge at the name of a gauger, and
do the finishing touches in pugilistic style. The horse, whose
name was Farmer, when informed, " There's a gauger-comb him
down," rose on his hind legs and came down with his fore feet as
if he wad mak' minced collops of him; and when a retreat was
sounded, all that Ralston had to say was, "Now, Farmer, you and I
for the road-strike out," and with that notice neither whip nor
spur was needed.
ln external appearance Ralston was the model of Greenock
Jock, a stolid, stiff character who, fifty years back, used to
traverse the country selling bane-kames, ballads, knives, and
several other smallwares which he carried in his pouches, showing
an unwieldy bulk, and as a luckspenny to every
pennyworth he sold he sung a sang. The irritable disposition of
both were in harmony with their external shape.
I have said that the village poet, Charlie Lockhart, had
wrought under Ralston in the factory. Charlie was a genius in his
way-had an excellent memory, was a first-class mimic, had
stored up Ralston's speeches, and could speak them again as like
as Ralston himself. Thus were his frailties transmitted to the
third and fourth generation, as if every one had heard them in
the original tongue. When Charlie would be coming past
Ralston's door at night, as he returned from the country when
out teaching music, he said that it revived the true feeling of auld
langsyne to tap gently at Ralston's door and cry, " Oh, my back!
Sarah Hoy! " and come marching away singing Cockles-cum-deg.
Such rehearsals produced a host of imitators, the threatenings
which came from within being the reward for their trouble.
Writing can impart no idea of the peculiar voice with which
Ralston gave to the world his yet remembered laconic and
graphic sentences. There are no residenters in the parish of fifty
years' standing to whom he was a stranger. His failings were
public property, and well did the public enjoy their own.
When at the meal hours the girls would be playing at tig,
Ralston's voice served the place of a bell. " Up stairs to your
work. In one moment up stairs !" The last tig has a charm in it,
and one day when some girls had been insisting on having the
last tig, Ralston looked on like a fury. " oh, you base baggage,
when you go to yon place the devil will certainly tig you; he'll
gi'e you a tig wi' a lump of lowing brimstone. You'll gi'e a great
squeel, and he'll gi'e a great laugh. Up stairs, you baggage. On
with the machine, sir; lay your whip to the horse."
Rab Brown was driving at this time. The spinning apparatus
was one-horse power- bona fide horse; for this was before the
days of steam. Rab, as directed, laid the whip to the horse, and
the gin was set in motion. An unfortunate cat had been taking an
airing on the top of the gin, where tooth and pinion set the
inner work in motion. The cat's tail was unfortunately caught,
taken in by inches, a fixture in spite of her pitiful howls and nervous spitting. She
was a centre of sympathy to every onlooker but Ralston, who
seemed inspired to improve the occasion for the benefit of the
boys. " Look yonner, boys; when ye gang to the bad place, yon's
the way ye'll be sorted for no doin' my bidding The devil will
catch you wi' his finger and thumb, and nibble you up the way
that the machine is chewing up the eat. So look at it, and tak' a
warning. Turn back the machine, sir, and let the brute gang hame;
I'm thinking it wad been better at its ain fireside. Ye see what
folk get wha gang whaur they ha'e nae business."
Ralston, when young, married a sister of his master, in whose
service he had been accounted worthy; although some said that
Mary wasna market-rife. She had some four of a family, and then
fell into lingering trouble. She was bedfast for nine months; and it
was said that the morning and evening inquiry for a period before
her death was the same question-" Are ye awa' yet, Mary?"
A woman was got to keep her near her end; and one night
when Ralston had reached his own door, or what some sentimentalists
wad call the house of mourning, the woman stood
at the door-step, her heart was full, she burst into tears, and
exclaimed, "James, the wife's gone."
Ralston looked at her rather in astonishment, and said, "
Aweel, and what's the use o' you snottering about that? Let's see
some pork and potatoes, for I'm hungry." Being served with the
desired meals he ate with a relish for a time, then taking a rest,
he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his coat and said by way of
soliloquy, " It's a guid thing that she's awa'; she was a perfect
waster, and wad soon hae herried me out o' the door. She ate a
peck o' meal in the week, drank a bottle o' whisky, ate nine
tippenny oranges, forbye God knows what in the shape o'
cordials. I must say that I'm weel quat o' her. But it has been a
tough job though. My first duty will be to see and get her decently
buried." which duty seemed to afford rather pleasurable
sensations.
His son Jock took an overgrowth, springing up to manhood a
lump of delicacy; without any apparent disease, yet feeling
himself unwell, he was unable to do anything for some time.
A neighbour said one day to Ralston, " I wunner that you wad
keep a muckle idle fallow like Jock lying up at hame when there
is evidently naething wrang wi' him but laziness." However,
within a week of this gratuitous speech Jock died, and, like his
mother, had a cheerfu' burial. The man wha made the unfeeling
remarks on Jock shamming his trouble was at the burial, and
stood talking with another man in the kirkyard. As soon as Jock
was let down into the grave, his father came to the two as they
talked together, and he who had not insulted the feelings of the
father before now made an effort to sympathise with the
bereaved parent touching the suddenness of Jock's death, and how
unexpected it seemed to him. Ralston, with great satisfaction,
said- " That's a' true; but it's a guid thing that our Jock de'ed at
this turn." "What for, James?" quo' the astonished listener.
''Whatway, or what for? Had he no de'ed the folk wad ha'e still
been sayin' that there was naething wrang wi' him. I think he has
gi'en the most obstinate o' them evidence that there was
something the matter wi' him. It hasna been a' a sham.''
In the summer evenings at Dundonald the young men of the
village used to play at bowls and quoits at the outskirts by the
roadside. One night old Ralston made his appearance to witness a
game of quoits. He stood alone; he spoke to no one; he watched
every quoit as it came up. I stood near to him and made a study
of his face. His expression was intense as he eyed the quoits as
they sailed through the air. He looked cold at a wide shot, as if
feeling disappointed; but when a close one was played he clapped
his hands, exclaiming, "There's a good shot; aha, but there's a
better !" and he looked the picture of delight. You would have
thought that he had a heavy interest in the matter. Charlie
Lockhart came close up to him at this moment of seeming
delight. Charlie looked at the quoit and said with great emphasis,
" That's a tickler ! wha played that shot, James ?" James looked
cold at him and said, What ken I? or what care I? It's a grand
shot, play't wha will. It's a' ane to me wha flings them up; it's the
quoits themsel's that I watch or feel ony pleasure in seeing
Ralston was a study to the onlookers as much as the quoits
were to him. Tam Loudon, the tailor, was going to throw a quoit
and his foot slippet which gave him a jerk, and he put round his
hand, and forgetting who he stood near, said, " oh, my back !"
Ralston edged near to him, and Tam seeing his position stepped
rather rapidly out of the reach of harm. Ralston took a look at
him and said, " It's just as weel, Mr Tailor, that you steppet out o'
my reach. Lad, had I got a grip o' you, I wad hae laid you ower
my thumb nail and cracked your back the way you do with the
vermin, you low, lousy-lookin' abortion of humanity." And with
that speech he left the ground and the meeting as unworthy of his
presence. The crowd laughed, which only deepened his gloom as
he gaed awa' hame to Jenny, his wife.
Toward bedtime that night, Tam Wilson and I visited his door,
which we carefully hasped, then gently chapping, Ralston came,
and, attempting to open it, found it a fixture. We kept chapping
at intervals, while his sonorous voice inside was changing its
key--" Comin', comin' just noo,"- with powerful effort and
irritable hurry. "There's somethlng wrang wi' the door,
Jenny-comin' just noo-I say there's something wrang wi' this
door, it'll no open." "Tut, man, there's naething wrang wi' the
door; it's no five minutes since I was out." " I say there is
something wrang wi' the door, for it'll no open." "Stan' back, you
useless-like body, an' I'll soon open the door." After a few
fruitless efforts on the part of Jenny, she had to confess that
there was something wrang wi' the door. Ralston fell foul o' Jenny
for doubting his skill and ca'in' him a useless body. "If there's
naething wrang wi' the door, why dae ye nae open't; ye're aye sae
clever, naebody can dae onything but yoursel'. After we had
waited a respectable time, "Oh, my back !" was ejaculated by us
from the outside, when Ralston from within made the following
speech-" Ah ha, Mr Lockhart, this is some o' your capers, lad;
wadn't it hae been wiser like that you had been at hame wi' your
family makin' worship, instead o' coming to ony decent man's
door to mak' a fool o' him, you dirty, low ne'er-do-weel
infidel-lookin' vagabond that you are. Wait till I get my hands on
you, my man, and I'm cheated if I dinna gie you a lesson in music."
One fine Sabbath morning in the month of June I was on my
way home to my mothers between five and six o'clock. When
passing Ralston's door I wondered if I should call. Two reasons
deterred me at first view. It was light; I would be seen. It was
early; and I thought it was too bad to disturb a man on the
morning of the Day of Rest. My instinct, however, took the
upper hand, and I stood at his window chapping gently, and at
intervals sending out the provoking remembrance of past
trouble-"Oh, my back ! Sarah Hoy, will ye no tak' that bag aff
me?" or ever I kent I heard the door creak on its rusty hinges,
and there came forth Auld Ralston, dressed in a clean white sark
and a red nightcap on his head. I was rather ta'en short, but I took
the road at leisure. I heard his first sentence follow: -" ye
needna fash to rin, sir, for I'll ha'e you by the lug this morning if I
should follow you to your mither's fireside.
We had a fair start. I took the lead, and kept it. His
threatenings were savage, and fierce and furious did he struggle to
put them in execution. By excitement and talking he lost wind,
and coming to a part of the road where the metal was newly laid
on, he complimented me with a few stones. Falling short of his
aim, he threatened to break my legs and do much bodily damage.
My hand was better in to the knack of stone-throwing than his,
so I began to exchange civilities which made him cut capers like a
dancing-master to save his legs. Incensed by my insolence, he
made a second and more determined start than the first. He was
like a fury set on my destruction. Having full confidence in
superior speed I kept easy out of his reach, careful to keep a
sharp look-out. This heat was continued in gallant style, till, out
of breath, my old hero came to a stand-still. Promising payment
at a future time, he proposed going home.
I turned to meet him, and in boxing attitude, called him an old
coward. This was too much for his nerves. "Flesh and blood," he
said, "would not stand that." He looked the type of a fiend more
than ever. " Will you spar at me, you infernal vagabond!
There will nothing save you this time." So we
started heat the third, which continued with unabated ardour till
we reached the foot of the brae below Gillside, where he came to
a stand still; and holding up his shut fist, like one swearing by the
sun and moon, he began to retrace his steps, more than half a
mile from home.
I sat down on the road and looked at him. Hope of getting me
some other day seemed present with him, for he turned several
times, and holding up his right fist shook it at me, emblematical
of biding his time. I sat and ruminated on the decent auld man
gaun hame his lane. The white shirt and red cap, with the bare
legs and feet, gave a Picturesque appearance to him, as he moved
along between the green hedges. All nature looked gay. The birds
were singing, and Ralston only seemed out of place. His day of
rest had been disturbed by a bad boy, whose reward was promised
at some convenient season.
One night through the week I was playing at marbles on the
street. I was on my knees, and knuckle-down was the word; my
neck was grasped and my nose put to the ground and rubbed
among the dirt with this remark, " Lad, I'll knuckle down ye ;"
his knee was applied to my stern with a force which seemed
suited to remove the inside furniture of my chest, and at every
thud, the kindly question running in my ears, " What's wrang wi'
your back, sir ?" It was with some difficulty I managed to
stammer out "Naething," as the mellow and as I thought Satanic
sound of his voice enquired after my health. I never felt more
sure than that he had a death grip and my life was in his hands.
Louder and firmer he enquired as to what was wrong wi' my back,
and I again managed to say " Naething." " I thought that I heard
you complaining aboot it at my window on the Lord's morning ?
Now mind you, sir, should it ever turn sair again, I'll sort it to
you." He shook me by the neck till I thought my head was to fall
off. The rest of the boys took sore backs, so he let go his hold of
me to administer medicine to them. The thought of tempting the
old man farther was abandoned for a time. I held my back, and
could have, with a great deal of truth, made a new complaint. I
took a silent good night with him, when I heard his wholesome advice follow,
" Neist time ye want fun, mak it wi' your equals."
He left the district and went up to Mauchline.
Jenny turned dull of hearing, and would sometimes bar the fore
door when she went out to the yard. When coming to the door,
and it shut, he would raise loud rippets. It was of no use Jenny
pleading that she did not hear him, for he said, " You have no
business to be deaf when I'm at the door."
I had not seen him for fourteen years after he left Dundonald.
One Sabbath, going to Mauchline in company with a friend who
was, like myself, fond of declaring his wisdom, we were talking
over many things and subjects by the way. It seemed an
impossibility to determine who of us knew least or most. There
was more assertion than proof on both sides. When we arrived at
that part of the road where Burns stood when he saw
" The rising sun ower Galston moor,
Wi glorious licht was glinting,''
and whaur the three hizzies were on their way to the meeting at
the Holy Fair, my knowledge of the place and poetry stood the
highest. We went in and saw the hallowed precincts of Mossgiel,
where Burns laboured on the sterile soil, and wrote and sang his
rich mind as a pastime, left it as a legacy, and passed away.
Discussing the mind of Burns and his times, my friend still in
his vanity wished to be the cock of the walk. His mind was the
model which might have been granted had a greater not been
present. We had naturally been led to talk of mind in varied
forms, and to put the crowner on him, I had prepared to take
stock of any man in sight. By the form of his outside crust, I
could tell the stratas of his mind; yea, 1 was prepared to name
the very language he would use in giving utterance to his
sentiments.
I had, before this declaration, seen my auld frien' Ralston
walking along the road to the kirk in company of Jenny, his auld
wife. I kent him by his gait, and began to describe the nature of
his hypocrisy-that he would speak so lovingly to us as we talked with
him, but no sooner would we leave him than a torrent of abuse would follow us,
using the very words that would be spoken by him.
This, to my friend, seemed the very essence of presumption
Well, we came alongside of auld Ralston. I began with a serious
face-" This is a pleasant morning, sir." " It is that, a pleasant
morning," with great emphasis. " And are you for hearing the
Word ?" "Yes, sir; oh yes." "And who do you expect will address us
to-day ?" " oh, I think that it will be himsel', sir, I heard of no
other." " This has been a beautiful seed time." "As fine a seed time
as ever I have seen." " If we are not grateful for such blessings, it
shows the hardness of our hearts." " oh, you are perfectly right,
sir; we have great reason to be grateful."
Having brought forth the lights of Ralston, I had the second
part to perform. " we will have to bid you good morning, sir, as
you walk rather slow for us." " Good morning, gentlemen, good
morning wi' you both."
After we left him a few steps, my friend looked me in the face
and said-"Your knowledge of humanity is far from the truth
when you put such language into the head of an old man like
that." I looked like one reproved, but, turning my voice over my
left shoulder, gave out in wailing numbers the old sound-" oh,
my back !"
Quick, as of old, the voice of Ralston started my friend. " Oh
you base, low-born, hypocritical, infidel, Sabbath-breaking
blackguards, I have seen the day I could ha'e kicked baith your
backsides." My friend looked back, and was going to expostulate
with the old man, who, when he saw him look back, assailed him
anew. I took my friend by the arm to keep him from going back,
asking him to come out of the sight of Ralston, as it was the sight
of him which had disturbed the old man. Jenny interfered, and
wondered why he would fash his head wi' ony worthless
Sabbath-breaking blackguards. He now fastened on her as being as
bad as them, and wanted to know why he should not fash his head.
They very words I had laid down in the chart of mind came
forth with a primitive force, which rather put the veto on the
wisdom of my travelling companion.
Ralston died in Mauchline, after exhibiting the honest
weakness of a long life. He left a mark among men and boys
unenviable, never rising above small things.
When Dr M'Leod was placed minister in Dundonald, Ralston
was the only man who gave him a welcome. An account of the
placing will be given in the next chapter, with some old customs,
revised by John Macadam.