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There are now—so far at
least as my experience goes—fewer specimens of homely, odd, and
eccentric characters to be met with in Scotland than in former years. In
solitary nooks of the country, away from the boom of cities, and the
rush of railways, many doubtless still exist, and contribute largely to
the amusement of their rural acquaintances; but it cannot be denied that
the race of originals is fast disappearing, and threatens ultimately to
become altogether extinct. Into the cause or causes of this I do not
intend to enter; it is sufficient to chronicle the melancholy fact.
There may be a beauty in similarity, but there is a higher beauty in
diversity. Men and women are now so very much alike, that the study of
mankind is not such a difficult task after all. The greater facilities
for intercourse which the present generation enjoys have tended to rub
off the angularities of individual character, and to create a fusion, or
confusion, of all classes in the community. Such being the case, it is
pleasant at times to revert from the present to the past, and to recall
the peculiar aspect, the odd sayings, and eccentric doings of persons
with whom we were familiar in former years.
Among a number of others,
Nanny Welsh stands prominent in my recollection. She was
maid-of-all-work in the old home-manse of Keppel, where I first saw the
light of day, and for many years afterwards. A rare specimen Nanny was
of the departed or departing race of familiar domestics. She had herded
the cows of neighbouring farmers, almost from her childhood, until she
entered upon domestic service, and life before she became minister’s
maid, an honour which she highly esteemed and long enjoyed. She was
big-boned and masculine in the build of her body. Her face was long and
hard, almost grim, and well freckled, and deeply browned by frequent
exposure to the sun and air. A white "mutch," with a high horse-shoe
shaped crown, surmounted her head at morning, noon, and night. With her
gown tucked up behind in the old familiar fashion of domestics, and a
youngster strapped on her back with a shawl, and peering with his little
pow over her shoulders, she went to work, as if the fate of empires, not
to speak of the honour of the old manse, depended upon her exertions.
She used to boast that
she could ‘pit mair’ through her hands in an hour than ‘ony ither woman
i’ the parish’. She was, in truth, a capital worker; and while her hands
went her tongue wagged. Nanny could never endure either to be idle or
silent. When engaged in scrubbing pots and pans her back was not
forgotten, but received all the benefit of her sayings and soliloquies.
In the discharge of her domestic duties she liked to carry everything
her own way, and generally managed to take it, whatever orders might be
given to the contrary.
This good woman had the
welfare of the family at heart, and a great favourite she was amongst us
youngsters, although she had a very summary mode of disposing of us
sometimes when we attempted to tease her or became unruly. I remember
well an advice she gave us, on more than one occasion, when we were
invited out to juvenile tea-parties in the neighbourhood. "Noo, bairns,”
she would say, after our faces were scrubbed, and our hair was smoothed,
"see an’ eat weel when ye’re at it, an' no come hame garavishin’ an’
eatin’.” We not unfrequently paid the penalty next day of adhering too
strictly to the letter of this advice; but when children see heaps of
buns, cookies, and shortbread piled up on the table, who can blame them
if they take no thought of the morrow? Nanny used to relate with great
glee a saying of one of us manse bairns. It was the custom at the
communion season in those days (and it may be the custom in some places
still) for the wealthier members of country congregations to send the
minister some substantial present for the bodily benefit of his
officiating friends. One of us, standing at the garden gate, had seen an
expected arrival approaching, and running with breathless haste to the
kitchen, had exclaimed —"Nanny, Nanny! here’s a salmon comin’—this is
the rule sacrament!" Nanny, honest woman, never forgot the sentiment,
and often repeated it to the discomfiture of its juvenile author.
In the fulness of time, and when our domestic seemed doomed to a life of
single blessedness, a wooer at last appeared in the person of Peter
Pearson, the pensioner. Peter had lost his wife; and six months after
her decease, he came to the conclusion that it is not good—that it is
utterly uncomfortable in fact—for man to be alone. And so he looked
favourably upon Nanny Welsh, admired her proportions, estimated her
energy at its true value, and finally managed to make his way into the
manse kitchen of an evening. It must have cost him a considerable effort
to effect this at first, as he regarded the minister with great awe.
Peter had been in the artillery force. He had served in Spain and South
America, and returned home, not disabled, but "dull of hearing," to
enjoy his hard-won pension. He was a quiet and stolid, but kind-hearted
man. He was very uncommunicative as regarded his military service and
exploits. It was impossible to force or coax him to "light his battles
o’er again" by the fireside. Whether it was owing to want of narrative
power, or to some dark remembrance that overshadowed his mind, Peter
invariably maintained discreet silence when soldiers and war became the
topics of conversation. On one occasion he was asked if he had ever been
at Chili, and his answer was, "I’ve been at Gibraltar at ony rate!” This
sounds somewhat like the reply of the smart youth who, when it was
inquired of him, if he had ever been in Paris, quickly responded, "No;
but my brother has been to Crail!”
The wooing of Peter
Pearson, pensioner, and Nanny Welsh, spinster, might have formed a new
era in the history of courtship. No sighs were heard. No side-long,
loving glances passed between them. There was no tremulous pressure of
the hands, or tingling touch of meeting lips. Peter was "senselessly
ceevil," although, I verily believe, if he had attempted to kiss Nanny
she would have brained him on the spot with the beetle, and left the
warrior to die ingloriously on the hearthstone. No, they did not wish to
make "auld fules" of themselves. They wooed in their own way, and
understood each other perfectly well. Peter sat by the hearth, smoking
his twist peacefully, and squirting out the juice as he had done at
camp-fires in former years; and Nanny went about cleaning dishes,
lifting tables, and arranging chairs, and only exchanging occasional
words with her future husband. She was never so talkative when Peter was
present as when he was absent. It was only on rare occasions that she
ventured to sit down on a chair beside him. She seemed always afraid of
being caught doing anything so indecorous in the manse kitchen. I
scarcely think that Peter required to propose. It was a tacit
understanding, and their marriage-day was fixed, apparently, by mutual
uncommunicated arrangement.
On the night before the
bridal some of the neighbouring domestics and other women invaded the
kitchen, and subjected Nanny to the painful pleasure of feet-washing — a
ceremony somewhat different from the annual performance at Vienna. She
kicked furiously at first, calling her tormentors impudent hizzies and
limmers; but she was compelled at last to succumb, and yielded with more
reluctance than grace.
The marriage was
celebrated quietly in the manse next day, and the youngest of the family
sat crowing on Nanny’s knee, while she was being told the sum and
substance of her duties as a wife. No sooner was the ceremony concluded,
than she tucked up her wedding gown, and expressed her desire and
determination to "see a’ things putten richt i’ the kitchen afore she
gaed awa’." Peter had leased a cottage in a little way-side village,
about two miles distant from the manse, and this was the extent of their
marriage jaunt. No doubt the evening would be spent hilariously by their
friends and acquaintances, who would drink the health of the "happy
pair” with overflowing bumpers.
Peter and Nanny lived
very happily together, although "the gray mare was the better horse.”
She continued to be as industrious as ever, and the pensioner managed to
eke out his government pay by what is called, in some parts of the
country, "orra wark." Nanny came regularly every Sabbath to the manse
between sermons, and took pot-luck with the family. We were always glad
to see her, and hear her invariable, “Losh, laddie, is that you? " Many
a time and oft we all visited her cottage in a body, and what glorious
teas she used to give us! Still do I remember, and not without stomachic
regrets, the mountains of bannocks, the hills of cakes, the hillocks of
cookies, the ridges of butter, the red congealed pools of jelly, and the
three tea-spoonfuls of sugar in each cup! It was a never-to-be-forgotten
treat. Compare Nanny’s tea-parties with the fashionable "cookey-shines"
of the present generation! But, soft; that way madness lies! The good
woman had a garden too; and how we youngsters pitched into her carrots,
currants, and gooseberries, or rather, to speak correctly, pitched them
into ourselves. We remembered her own advice about not returning home "garavishin’
and eatin’." She prided herself greatly upon her powers of pig-feeding,
and next to the pleasure of seeing us feasting like locusts was the
delight she experienced in contemplating, with folded arms, her precious
pig devouring its meal of potatoes and greens. "Isn’t it a bonny
beastie?— did you ever see sic a bonny beastie?" she would frequently
exclaim. I never saw so much affection bestowed before or since upon the
lowest of the lower animals. The pig knew her perfectly well, and
responded to her laudatory phrases by complacent grunts. Between Peter
and the pig, I am verily persuaded, she led a happier life than imperial
princes in their palaces. No little artilleryman ever made his
appearance to disturb the harmony of the house by tying crackers to the
cat’s tail.
Nanny’s first visit to
Edinburgh formed a rare episode in her life. This happened a good many
years after her marriage. The ride on the top of the coach through the
kingdom of Fife, she described as "fearsome;" and the horses dashing up
hill and down, excited her liveliest compassion. When asked how she felt
after her sail between Kirkcaldy and Leith (the day was pleasant and the
water smooth), her reply was —"Wonnerfu’— wonnerfu’ weel, after sic a
voyage!” The streets of the city, the high houses, the multitudinous
shops, and the crowds of people, excited her rustic astonishment beyond
all bounds. "ls’t a market the day?” she would interject —"whaur’s a’
the folk gaun?" Her own appearance on the pavement attracted the notice
of passers-by; and no wonder. Figure a big-boned, ungainly woman, with
long, freckled face and open mouth, and dressed in defiance of the
fashion of the time, striding up the Bridges, and "glowering” into
everybody’s face, as if she expected to see her "aunty`s second cousin”—
figure such a person, and you will form a respectable picture of Nanny
Welsh, alias Mrs Pearson, as she appeared many years ago on the streets
of Modern Athens. She could never go out alone from the house where she
was staying without losing herself Once she went to the shop next door,
and it took her an hour to find the way back again. On another occasion,
when she had taken a longer trip than usual, she went completely off her
reckoning, forgot the name of the street, mistook the part of the town,
and asked every person she met, gentle or simple, swells or sweeps, "Gin
they kent whaur Mrs So-and-so stopit!" I never learned correctly how she
got out of that scrape. All she could say was that "a ceevil man brocht
her to the bottom o’ the stair." She was perfectly dumfoundered when she
saw and heard that the people of Edinburgh had to buy the "bits o’
sticks" with which they kindled their fires in the morning. She
protested that she could bring "a barrowfu’ o’ rosity roots frae the
wuds that would keep her chimley gaun for a fortnicht." Going to the
market to buy vegetables she looked upon as perfectly preposterous. "Flingin’
awa’ ” she would say, "gude white saxpences an’ shillin’s for neeps,
carrots, ingans, an’ kail — it beats a’!"
The open-mouthed wonder
of Nanny reached its height when one night, after long and urgent
solicitation, she was persuaded to go under good protection to the
Theatre Royal. Mackay was then in the zenith of his fame, and attracted
crowded houses, more especially by his unique representation of Bailie
Nicol Jarvie. Nanny was taken to the pit. The blaze of light, the
galleries rising one above another, the gaily-dressed ladies, the sea of
faces surging from floor to roof, the whistling, hooting, and laughing —
all these mingled together produced a bewildering effect upon the poor
woman, and her bewilderment increased as the curtain rose and the play
proceeded. She was speechless for about an hour -- she did nothing but
gape and gaze. A human being suddenly transported into some brilliant
and magical hall, or into another world, could scarcely have betrayed
more abject astonishment. At last her wonder found vent, and she
exclaimed in the hearing, and much to the amusement, of those who
surrounded her —"Tak me awa — tak me awa — this is no a place for me —
I’m just Peter Pearson’s ain wife!" She would not be persuaded to remain
even when the Bailie kept the house dissolved in loosened laughter. The
idea seemed to be strong in her mind that the people were all laughing
at her. She was the best actress, although the most unconscious one, in
the whole house. What la capital pair the Bailie and Nanny would have
made! She would have beat Miss Nicol. Her first appearance on the stage
would have been a perfect triumph — it would have secured the fame and
fortune of Mrs Pearson. Nanny never liked to be asked her opinion of the
Edinburgh theatre. She only shook her head, and appeared to regard it as
something akin to Pandemonium.
Nanny’s stories about the
sayings and doings of the Edinburgh people served her for fireside talk
many a winter evening after she returned home to Peter Pearson. Peter,
who had seen more of the world, used to take a quiet chuckle to himself
when she finished her description of some "ferlie" that had excited her
astonishment or admiration. The gilded wonders above shop doors — the
Highlanders taking pinches of snuff-the wool-packs — the great
glittering spectacles — the rams’ heads and horns — these had excited
her rustic curiosity almost as much as they attract the interest of a
child. Poor honest Nanny! She has now slept for years where the "rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and Peter, after life’s fitful fever,
sleeps well by her side. — Pax Vobiscum! |
