Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

"Oh! but to breathe the breath

Of the cowslip and primrose sweetWith the sky above my head,

And the grass beneath my feet;

For only one short hour

To feel as I used to feel.

8

With one and all,' and hand in hand, And who shall bid us nay?

"And when we come to London Wall.

A pleasant sight to view,

Come forth! come forth, ye cowards all, Here's men as good as you!

61

[blocks in formation]

16

24

* In 1688. Sir Jonathan Trelawny, a native of Cornwall, was, with six other bishops, thrown into the Tower of London for resisting James the Second's Declaration of Indulgence. He was soon released. It was long supposed that this ballad, which was first printed anony mously, dated from that time. The refrain is ancient, but the ballad was written by Hawker in 1825. The Tamar and Severn (lines 13 and 14) are rivers of southwestern England. Michael (line 11) is the archangel to whom was given the task of overthrowing Satan and consigning him to hell.

[blocks in formation]

THE SILENT TOWER OF BOTTREAUT
Tintadgel bells ring o'er the tide,
The boy leans on his vessel side;

He hears that sound, and dreams of home
Soothe the wild orphan of the foam.

Come to thy God in time!"'
Thus saith their pealing chime:
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last."

But why are Bottreau's echoes still?
Her tower stands proudly on the hill;

Yet the strange chough that home hath found,
The lamb lies sleeping on the ground.
"Come to thy God in time!"'
Should be her answering chime:
"Come to thy God at last!"
Should echo on the blast.

The ship rode down with courses free,
The daughter of a distant sea:
Her sheet was loose, her anchor stored,
The merry Bottreau bells on board.

"Come to thy God in time!"'
Rung out Tintadgel chime;
Youth, manhood, old age past,
"Come to thy God at last!"

The pilot heard his native bells
Hang on the breeze in fitful swells;
"Thank God," with reverent brow he cried,
"We make the shore with evening's tide.''
"Come to thy God in time!''

It was his marriage chime:
Youth, manhood, old age past,
His bell must ring at last.

Thank God, thou whining knave, on land,
But thank, at sea, the steersman's hand,''
The captain's voice above the gale:

66

Thank the good ship and ready sail." "Come to thy God in time!''

Sad grew the boding chime:

"Come to thy God at last!"'

Boomed heavy on the blast.

S

16

24

32

40

Uprose that sea! as if it heard The mighty Master's signal-word: What thrills the captain's whitening lip? "The rugged heights that line the sea-shore in the neighborhood of Tintadgel Castle and Church on the coast of Cornwall] are crested with towers. Among these, that of Bottreau, or, as it is now written, Boscastle, is without bells. The silence of this wild and lonely churchyard on festive or solemn occasions is not a little striking. On enquiry I was told that the bells were once shipped for this church, but that when the vessel was within sight of the tower the blasphemy of her tain was punished in the manner related the Poem. The bells, they told me. still le in the bay. and announce by strange sounds the approach of a storm."-R. S. Hawker.

cap

[blocks in formation]

"Most readers," says the Manuscript of Mr. Pattieson, "must have witnessed with delight the joyous burst which attends the dismissing of a village-school on a fine summer evening. The buoyant spirit of childhood, repressed with so much difficulty during the tedious hours of discipline, may then be seen to explode, as it were, in shout, and song, and frolic, as the little urchins join in groups on their playground, and arrange their matches of sport for the evening. But there is one individual who partakes of the relief afforded by the moment of dismission, whose feelings are not so obvious to the eye of the spectator, or so apt to receive his sympathy. I mean the teacher himself, who. stunned with the hum, and suffocated with the closeness of his school-room, has spent the whole day (himself against a host) in controlling petulance, exciting indifference to action, striv ing to enlighten stupidity, and labouring to soften obstinacy; and whose very powers of Old Mortality is a story of the rising of the Scotch Covenanters about 1677-9 against the English church and throne. Scott had once met, in the churchyard of Dunnottar, one Robert Paterson, familiarly known as "Old Mortality," and he chooses to make him responsible for the substance of the tale. It is one of the "Tales of My Landlord"; and the Landlord of Wallace Inn, Mr. Cleishbottom the schoolmaster, and the manuscript of his assistant, the frail Mr. Pattieson, are all a part of the fictitious background.

intellect have been confounded by hearing the same dull lesson repeated a hundred times by rote, and only varied by the various blunders of the reciters. Even the flowers of classic genius, with which his solitary fancy is most gratified, have been rendered degraded, in his imagination, by their connexion with tears, with errors, and with punishment; so that the Eclogues of Virgil and Odes of Horace are each inseparably allied in association with the sullen figure and monotonous recitation of some blubbering school-boy. If to these mental distresses are added a delicate frame of body, and a mind ambitious of some higher distinction than that of being the tyrant of childhood, the reader may have some slight conception of the relief which a solitary walk, in the cool of a fine summer evening, affords to the head which has ached, and the nerves which have been shattered, for so many hours, in plying the irksome task of public instruction.

[blocks in formation]

many years, the few hillocks which rise above the level plain are covered with the same short velvet turf. The monuments, of which there are not above seven or eight, are half sunk in the ground, and overgrown with moss. No newly-erected tomb disturbs the sober serenity of our reflections by reminding us of recent calamity, and no rank-springing grass forces upon our imagination the recollection, that it owes its dark luxuriance to the foul and festering remnants of mortality which ferment beneath. The daisy which sprinkles the sod, and the harebell which hangs over it, derive their pure nourishment from the dew of heaven, and their growth impresses us with no degrading or disgusting recollections. Death has indeed been here, and its traces are before us; but they are softened and deprived of their horror by our distance from the period when they have been first impressed. Those who sleep beneath are only connected with us by the reflection, that they have once been what we now are, and that, as their relics are now identified with their mother earth, ours shall, at some future period, undergo the same transformation.

"Yet, although the moss has been collected on the most modern of these humble tombs during four generations of mankind, the memory of some of those who sleep beneath them is still held in reverent remembrance. It is true, that, upon the largest, and, to an antiquary, the most interesting monument of the group, which bears the effigies of a doughty knight in his hood of mail, with his shield hanging on his breast, the armorial bearings are defaced by time, and a few worn-out letters may be read, at the pleasure of the decipherer, Dus. Johan - - de Hamel,-or Johan de Lamel · · And it is also true, that of another tomb, richly sculptured with an

[ocr errors]

"My chief haunt, in these hours of golden leisure, is the banks of the small stream, which, winding through a 'lone vale of green bracken, passes in front of the village school-house of Gandercleugh. For the first quarter of a mile, perhaps, I may be disturbed from my meditations, in order to return the scrape, or doffed bonnet, of such stragglers among my pupils as fish for trouts or minnows in the little brook, or seek rushes and wild-flowers by its margin. | ornamental cross, mitre, and pastoral staff, traBut, beyond the space I have mentioned, the juvenile anglers do not, after sunset, voluntarily extend their excursions. The cause is, that farther up the narrow valley, and in a recess which seems scooped out of the side of the steep heathy bank, there is a deserted burial-ground, which the little cowards are fear ful of approaching in the twilight. To me, however, the place has an inexpressible charm. It has been long the favourite termination of my walks, and, if my kind patron forgets not his promise, will (and probably at no very distant day) be my final resting-place after my mortal pilgrimage.

dition can only aver, that a certain nameless bishop lies interred there. But upon other two stones which lie beside, may still be read in rude prose, and ruder rhyme, the history of those who sleep beneath them. They belong, we are assured by the epitaph, to the class of persecuted Presbyterians who afforded a melancholy subject for history in the times of Charles II. and his successor. In returning from the battle of Pentland Hills, a party of the insurgents had been attacked in this glen by a small detachment of the King's troops, and three or four either killed in the skirmish, or shot after being made prisoners, as rebels "It is a spot which possesses all the solem-taken with arms in their hands. The peasantry nity of feeling attached to a burial-ground, continued to attach to the tombs of those vicwithout exciting those of a more unpleasing tims of prelacy an honour which they do not description. Having been very little used for render to more splendid mausoleums; and, when

they point them out to their sons, and narrate | seated upon the monument of the slaughtered the fate of the sufferers, usually conclude, by presbyterians, and busily employed in deepening, exhorting them to be ready, should times call with his chisel, the letters of the inscription, for it, to resist to the death in the cause of civil and religious liberty, like their brave forefathers.

"Although I am far from venerating the peculiar tenets asserted by those who call themselves the followers of those men, and whose intolerance and narrow-minded bigotry are at least as conspicuous as their devotional zeal, yet it is without depreciating the memory of those sufferers, many of whom united the independent sentiments of a Hampden1 with the suffering zeal of a Hooper or Latimer.2 On the other hand, it would be unjust to forget, that many even of those who had been most active in crushing what they conceived the rebellious and seditious spirit of those unhappy wanderers, displayed themselves, when called upon to suffer for their political and religious opinions, the same daring and devoted zeal, tinctured, in their case, with chivalrous loyalty, as in the former with republican enthusiasm. It has often been remarked of the Scottish character, that the stubbornness with which it is moulded shows most to advantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth, even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather-side to the storm, and may be broken, but can never be bended. It must be understood that I speak of my countrymen as they fall under my own observation. When in foreign countries, I have been informed that they are more docile. But it is time to return from this digression.

"One summer evening, as in a stroll, such as I have described, I approached this deserted mansion of the dead, I was somewhat surprised to hear sounds distinct from those which usually soothe its solitude, the gentle chiding, namely, of the brook, and the sighing of the wind in the boughs of three gigantic ash-trees, which mark the cemetery. The clink of a hammer was, on this occasion, distinctly heard; and I entertained some alarm that a march-dike, long meditated by the two proprietors whose estates were divided by my favourite brook, was about to be drawn up the glen, in order to substitute its rectilinear deformity for the graceful winding of the natural boundary. As I approached, I was agreeably undeceived. An old man was

1 John Hampden, who 2 John Hooper and refused to pay Latitaxes levied by Charles I.

Bishop were both

mer

burned for heresy in 1555.

which, announcing, in scriptural language, the promised blessings of futurity to be the lot of the slain, anathematised the murderers with corresponding violence. A blue bonnet of unusual dimensions covered the grey hairs of the pious workman. His dress was a large oldfashioned coat of the coarse cloth called hoddingrey, usually worn by the elder peasants, with waistcoat and breeches of the same; and the whole suit, though still in decent repair, had obviously seen a train of long service. Strong clouted shoes, studded with hobnails, and gramoches or leggins, made of thick black cloth, completed his equipment. Beside him, fed among the graves a pony, the companion of his journey, whose extreme whiteness, as well as its projecting bones and hollow eyes, indicated its antiquity. It was harnessed in the most simple manner, with a pair of branks,3 a hair tether, or halter, and a sunk, or cushion of straw, instead of bridle and saddle. A canvas pouch hung around the neck of the animal, for the purpose, probably, of containing the rider's tools, and any thing else he might have occasion to carry with him. Although I had never seen the old man before, yet from the singularity of his employment, and the style of his equipage, I had no difficulty in recognising a religious itinerant whom I had often heard talked of, and who was known in various parts of Scotland by the title of Old Mortality.

[ocr errors]

'Where this man was born, or what was his real name, I have never been able to learn; nor are the motives which made him desert his home. and adopt the erratic mode of life which he pursued, known to me except very generally. According to the belief of most people, he was a native of either the county of Dumfries or Galloway, and lineally descended from some of those champions of the Covenant, whose deeds and sufferings were his favourite theme. He is said to have held, at one period of his life, a small moorland farm; but, whether from pecuniary losses, or domestic misfortune, he had long renounced that and every other gainful calling. In the language of Scripture, he left his house, his home, and his kindred, and wandered about until the day of his death, a period of nearly thirty years.

"During this long pilgrimage, the pious enthusiast regulated his circuit so as annually to visit the graves of the unfortunate Covenanters, who suffered by the sword, or by the executioner, during the reigns of the two last mon3 curbs, or bridle

was grave and sententious, not without a cast of severity. But he is said never to have been observed to give way to violent passion, excepting upon one occasion, when a mischievous truant-boy defaced with a stone the nose of a cherub's face, which the old man was engaged in retouching. I am in general a sparer of the rod, notwithstanding the maxim of Solomon, for which school-boys have little reason to thank his memory; but on this occasion I deemed it proper to show that I did not hate the child.-But I must return to the circumstances attending my first interview with this interesting enthusiast.

archs of the Stewart line. These are most numerous in the western districts of Ayr, Galloway, and Dumfries; but they are also to be found in other parts of Scotland, wherever the fugitives had fought, or fallen, or suffered by military or civil execution. Their tombs are often apart from all human habitation, in the remote moors and wilds to which the wanderers had fled for concealment. But wherever they existed, Old Mortality was sure to visit them when his annual round brought them within his reach. In the most lonely recesses of the mountains, the moor-fowl shooter has been often surprised to find him busied in cleaning the moss from the grey stones, renewing with his chisel "In accosting Old Mortality, I did not fail the half-defaced inscriptions, and repairing the to pay respect to his years and his principles, emblems of death with which these simple monu- beginning my address by a respectful apology ments are usually adorned. Motives of the most for interrupting his labours. The old man intersincere, though fanciful devotion, induced the mitted the operation of the chisel, took off his old man to dedicate so many years of existence spectacles and wiped them, then, replacing them to perform this tribute to the memory of the on his nose, acknowledged my courtesy by a deceased warriors of the church. He considered suitable return. Encouraged by his affability, himself as fulfilling a sacred duty, while renew-I intruded upon him some questions concerning ing to the eyes of posterity the decaying em- the sufferers on whose monument he was now blems of the zeal and sufferings of their fore-employed. To talk of the exploits of the fathers, and thereby trimming, as it were, the Covenanters was the delight, as to repair their beacon-light, which was to warn future genera- monuments was the business, of his life. He tions to defend their religion even unto blood. was profuse in the communication of all the "In all his wanderings, the old pilgrim never minute information which he had collected conseemed to need, or was known to accept, pecu-cerning them, their wars, and their wanderings. niary assistance. It is true, his wants were One would almost have supposed he must have very few; for wherever he went, he found ready quarters in the house of some Cameronian of his own sect, or of some other religious person. The hospitality which was reverentially paid to him he always acknowledged, by repairing the gravestones (if there existed any) belonging to the family or ancestors of his host. As the wanderer was usually to be seen bent on this pious task within the precincts of some country churchyard, or reclined on the solitary tombstone among the heath, disturbing the plover and the black-cock with the clink of his chisel and mallet, with his old white pony grazing by his side, he acquired from his converse among the dead, the popular appellation of Old Mortality.

"The character of such a man could have in it little connexion even with innocent gaiety. Yet, among those of his own religious persua sion, he is reported to have been cheerful. The descendants of persecutors, or those whom he supposed guilty of entertaining similar tenets, and the scoffers at religion by whom he was sometimes assailed, he usually termed the gen eration of vipers.5 Conversing with others, he

4 An austere sect of Presbyterians. 5 Matthew iii. 7.

been their contemporary, and have actually beheld the passages which he related, so much had he identified his feelings and opinions with theirs, and so much had his narratives the circumstantiality of an eye-witness.

"We,' he said, in a tone of exultation,— 'we are the only true whigs. Carnal men have assumed that triumphant appellation, following him whose kingdom is of this world. Which of them would sit six hours on a wet hill-side to hear a godly sermon? I trow an hour o't wad stawe them. They are ne'er a hair better than them that shamena to take upon themsells the persecuting name of bludethirsty tories. Selfseekers all of them, strivers after wealth, power, and worldly ambition, and forgetters alike of what has been dree'd and done by the mighty men who stood in the gap in the great day of wrath. Nae wonder they dread the accomplishment of what was spoken by the mouth of the worthy Mr. Pedens (that precious servant of the Lord, none of whose words fell to the ground), that the French monzies? sall rise as fast in the 6 disgust

7 suffered

8 Alexander Peden, an eloquent minister who was
supposed to have prophetic gifts.
9 monsieurs (referring to a possible invasion from
France)

« AnteriorContinuar »