Matthew Paxton. Edited by the author of 'John Drayton,' etc

Introduction

. In this age, when exhausted wonder is fain to turn back upon the primitive mystery, the problem nearest and most important, of Hfe itself, with aU its enigmas and paradoxes, the most modest writer scarcely needs to apologize for the homeliness of his subject, so long as it deals with the real and the true. We seek the excitement of adventure with those who have experienced it, and not with the story-teller ; and it has become the

INTRODUCTION.

. office of the latter to lead us, not wild and far-away excursions into the unknown, but rather on observant journeys into those scenes of human existence which, though we may not know them in our own ex perience, vve can recognize as true. He who brings his lantern into an unrevealed corner, and shows us human faces brighten ing into the Hght, and human fife proceeding day by day — far out of our ken, yet recom mending itself by an unquestionable brother hood to our heart — does for us, after a homely and simple fashion, vvhat was done in a more magnificent sort, by the dis coverers of unknown countries Hi the old times — adds to the population of the visible world, and to the circle of our private friend ships, and makes place and locafity tangible to us — no longer a mere name upon a map, but a populated country, known and

INTRODUCTION.

. V certain, and fiUed with beings Hke our selves. The author of the foUowing history has drawn upon his experience more than upon his imagination ; with no pretension to romantic incident or striking situations, his wish has been to disclose a very primitive phase, of Hfe and manners, known to himself by actual experiment. In the wUds of Northumberland, a historic country, crowded with picturesque reminiscences, the homekeeping descendants of those rude Border fighters, immortal in song and baUad, lag a century behind the stirring world about them. It is not that improvement never enters this remote territory, where you may find the refinements of agricultural science side by side with the ancient simplicities of use and wont — nor is it that enterprise or activity are wanting. Like their neighbours VI

INTRODUCTION.

. over the Tweed, the rustic families of Northumberland send forth many an ad venturer who conquers fortune, and are weU represented in the front of battle ; but, nevertheless, contrive to retain in their own persons, and at home, all that prejudiced and exclusive partiality for their own indi vidual town or parish — aH that tenacity of attachment to modes and customs out of date, the usages of their fathers, w7hich gives a primitive and unadvancing aspect to a manly and inteUigent race. Their position, too, which communicates to their dialect a strong savour of the Scot, intensified with the burr sacred to themselves, and which impresses upon their forms of refi gious worship the character peculiar to their neighbour nation, adds to the individuality of the wide rural districts of Northumber land. Presbyterian in creed, and deriving

INTRODUCTION.

. VII much of his religious instruction from Scot land, your Northumbrian is no Scotchman. The country, indeed, remains still a wide and noble debateable land — a piece of independent territory, hostUe to the nationality on one side, and dissenting from the nation afity on the other — neither England nor Scotland, but Northumberland — a great, sturdy, healthy, broad - shouldered giant, ringing out his R's like a round of mus ketry, defying innovation, scorning con formity, and content at aU times to be himself, however unfike himself may be to aU the rest of the world. Add to this that the country is fuU of primitive, ancient viUages, and little market towns, but for the rest is an agricultural country, neither spinning cotton, nor manu facturing iron, but tilling its fields on the low country, and keeping sheep upon its

INTRODUCTION.

. VIII hUls — that the people are leisurely rural people for the most part, who have full time for aU the gossip of the country side, and that homely plenty abounds in farm steading and cottage, where the necessaries of Hfe are rude and simple, and where luxury is unknown — and it is easy to perceive how far away from the modern Hfe of cities, from the bustle and clangour of to-day, and the haste with which we tread upon each other's heels, is the existence of those hUls and dales, over which, Hke the clouds and the sunshine, there pass only the broad and aU-pervading vicissitudes of Hfe. The writer of "Mathew Paxton," in choosing for the hero of his story a clergy man — one of the " ministers," of these primitive seclusions — has taken what one might almost call the authorized spectator of this mode of life — a man neither entirely

INTRODUCTION.

. IX removed from them, nor yet one of them selves, but standing on a slight eminence, just high enough to observe from, near enough to sympathise ; and has here offered to the kindness of his readers, a plain and true picture of the Hfe, in these regions, of a simple-hearted pastor. It is not a life in which excitement is very possible, but it is a real Hfe, known to the experience of its author, and as such commended to the kindly judgment of those who care for the acquaintance, in actual life, of such men as the subject of this tale. LONDON, 1854.

Chapter I

I was born among the HUls of Cheviot, within the bounds of Northumberland. My father was a shepherd, he watched over and attended a great flock of sheep on the hUls, belonging to his master ; and had a few ewes and lambs of his own, which constituted aU his wealth. My mother was a notable woman among the hUl-people — born among these wUd upland solitudes, VOL. I. B she had passed aU her days as a shepherd's daughter, and a shepherd's wife. Her mother, the granddaughter of an ejected minister, who had taken shelter, and finaUy settled down in that wild region, possessed, vvhat few of the women among the hUls could boast of — a good education ; and her daughter when she married my father brought to his sheUHig a little library — a famous one in the annals of the hill country ; and sufficient previous instruction, to enable her to understand the FlaveUs, and Reynolds, the Howes, and Owens of which it con sisted.

Our house was far from any town or viUage ; and the only tidings of the outer world which reached us, were from the travel ling pedler, or beggar, or perchance the smuggler, who came rarely to the house. My mother's books had been theH only resort, throughout the long nights of many winters, and they had been weU read and carefully thought over. My parents, and indeed aU the people of the country-side, were Presbyterians. The meeting-house they attended was fully ten mUes distant, situated in a wUd and lonely place, far removed from the noise and bustle of the world, where there had been Presbyterian worship, through aU the persecuting times of Charles, and James. Founded originaUy by my Noncon formist great-grandfather, it had remained a congregation of English, and Scottish Presbyterians up to the time I was born, a witness for the truth when Enghsh Presbytery became universally Arian and Socinian.

The purity of the meeting had, however, greatly faUen when my father first joined it, and was made an elder. Its minister was one of those who are caUed Moderates in Scotland ; he was tinged with the latitudinarianism and indifference of the last b century, and approached, in the earlier years of his ministry, more nearly to the dull negatives of Modern Unitarianism, than even the Scottish Moderates generaUy did. My father was, on the contrary, a man thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the Gospel ; and the cold dead morality which was ordinarily preached in the meeting — the rapidly sinking Evangelism of the people — and the worldU ness of the minister, who bred hunting horses, and favoured the decay of vital religion among his people, as much by his week-day engrossing care for the world's wealth, as by his Sabbath's dry prelections, aroused my father's pure and vigorous spirit, to a determined opposition.

His mind, daUy on the hUl-side — for he took his books in the neuk of his plaid to the hUl with him — and nightly at our cottage fireside, strengthened by converse with the mighty spirits of past ages — enriched with the massive theology of Perkins and Hall, revolted from, and became antagonistic to, the dead, cold, profitless discourses which he was condemned to hear at the meeting at Birdhope Craig; and he became a marked man, looked up to, it is true, by some few of the sounder shepherds among the hUls, but regarded generally by the mass of the congregation as righteous overmuch. The minister even preached once or twice on that text, and the people said it was at my father. However he, honest man, went on in the even tenor of his way — going, it may be, oftener to Jedburgh to hear one of the earlier foUowers of Erskine, and even sometimes giving his house to any of them, that crossed the border, as a preaching place — than before ; and always maintaining in his own family the household worship — the " Books," in the phrase of the country — .when, except one or two old shepherds, the whole countryside, ministers not excluded, had forgotten that they ought to have a famUy, as well as a weekly social altar.

I was the only son of my mother, and was born with a great deformity, which has made me through Use physicaUy a weak and helpless man. I need not say how fondly my mother loved me. Her lame boy was tbe very apple of her eye, and perhaps her affectionate heart only went forth the more fully to -me, because of my helplessness ; perhaps it is because I have suffered myself, that has led me to bestow more of notice on the weakly or deformed chUdren I have seen, during my pilgrimage ; but I have always observed that the weak of the family flock, has almost always been the best beloved ; — and because of the jeers and taunts to which I was subjected as I grew up — for I never grew strong, nor could join in the boisterous sports and pastimes of the half-savage lads of my own age among the hiUs. I did grow up, however, into a taU ungainly lad ; and as my ankles were too weak to permit me to walk to the far off school, my father bought me a little shaggy hill-pony, on which I rode there each day, to learn as much as the schoolmaster could teach me.

It was clear that I could never obtain my living as a shepherd — I was unfitted for the long walks over the hills after the flocks ; and as I was the only child of my parents, and they were people with the fear and love of God ever before their eyes, and present to their minds, it was determined that I should be educated for the Church. For a long time the super stitious feehngs of my mother resisted these promptings of her spirit. She said it was not the torn, nor the maimed, nor the bhnd, nor the lame that was to be offered, but the perfect. My father, however, finaUy settled it all by reminding her that I was theH only son — their aU — that they had nothing more perfect to devote to God's service, and that the Lord required not that which people had not to give, but only what they had ; and she consented.

For many long years I rode daUy to the school, and was honoured by the jeering titles of my schoolfeUows, whose rough plea santries I could not engage in, such as " the young priest," " the lame priest," " the cripple minister." Indeed, my appearance, as I used to ride to school, was sufficiently ludicrous. Imagine a tall, shambling lad, with deformed ankles and feet, seated on a little shaggy7 pony, his feet almost touching the ground, day by day passing through the Httle hamlets of that quiet region, which were on the road to school, and you have before you a picture of myself and my daUy peregrinations. Often I was the centre of a band of bolder and more energetic spirits than myself, who during the summer out at service among the neighbouring farmers, were at school aU the winter ; but their good-humoured raUlery I bore without flinching.

Indeed, though I say it myself, I was always so gentle, and answered to my various nick names so readUy, that I entirely disarmed the mischief of my schoolfeUows of its point, and very often some of the stronger lads, when scornful allusions were made to my lameness, would take my part and inflict summary vengeance on the offenders. I very soon became a good scholar ; and being always a great reader, I read every thing I could lay my hands upon, acts of parliament or anything — so as I got informa tion, it was aU the same to me. It is true that my mother's books were those that I chiefly read, and the effect upon me of these often re-read volumes was to deepen the religious feeling, which had been cherished in me by my parents from my earliest years, and to induce me more sedulously to prepare myself for my future studies, so that I homologated the decision of my father and my mother, and desired of myseh0 to be trained for the ministry of the Word.

When I was nearly seventeen I was sent to the University of Glasgow. I had been fortunate enough to obtain a bursary, from a charity founded more than a hundred years before, by a lady in YorkshHe, and so was sent to Glasgow CoUege, to go through the course of literary study required before Presbyterian students can enter the Divinity Hall. In the Enghsh Universities this course is caUed, as I have heard, the Undergraduate ; but with us, in my time, it was always spoken of as the Literary. It was a severe trial to my parents, especiaUy to my mother, to part with me, and think of me living among strangers so far away ; but my good fortune in getting the bursary reconciled her to it. It was a very solemn night, the one before I left our lonely house, to go to battle with the world by myself.

My mother had invited the schoolmaster and two or three of the older scholars, to meet me for the last time, and so long as they were present we were cheerful and happy. I was full of the new scenes and faces I was so soon to see, and the new studies in which I was to engage ; and the other lads, who pitied my bodily weakness, and wondered at me for my mental powers — for I w7as always a good learner, and was now as good a scholar as the master, as he said himself, and accounted the wonder of the district — sympathized fully with us, and envied my good fortune. When all the strangers had departed, and we were left alone, my father drew in his chair to the fire beside me — for I had been seated in the place of honour at the chimney-corner — and began to counsel me as to my future conduct when away.

" Mathew," he said, " it's a great provi dence, this that's happened tUl ye. Ye're mo ther and me might have pinched, and spared as muckle sUler as wad hae carried ye through, but it wad hae been a saH fecht for us to do so. And now, my man, ye see that ye're provided for, for four years, and by the blessing of God, we'U try to save as muckle as keep ye at the Academy too. Now, aU depends on your ainsel, and I pray you mind never to forget this providence — for it's clear to me that it's from the good hand of God Himseh0 that it comes — and be aye thankful. You have been the child of mony prayers, Mathew, my man, dinna ever forget the kindness of the Almighty to ye. Ye're gaun away to a strange, big toun, where there wiU be mony temptations. Oh, man ! ake heed to yoursel, and dinna disgrace — though I say it — your godly upbringing.

Mind, you're no strong, and the Almighty has nae meant you for hard out-door labour, while He has gi'en you the power of labour ing with your head. Ye've aye been an obedient caUant, and I trust that you'U continue to mind your duty to God, and be eident at your studies ; and your mother and me, ye ken, will aye be praying that a' the purchased and promised blessings of the covenant be given unto you, Ye'U no forget, Mathew, my man." " No, faither," I said, my eyes full of tears, and my voice shaking ; "no faither, I'U mind my duty, aye to God and to ?> you. " There's nae fear of that, I'm sure," said my mother. " Mathie was aye a gude laddie. But, oh ! take care of yoursel ; ye're gaun far away, and I'U no be near you. Take care of yoursel, my ain laddie, and dinna forgot to leive cannily, and dinna study ower hard, or read ower muckle, and hurt yoursel."

" No fear of that, mother," I replied, " I'U take gude care ; and, mother, you'U hear by the Jeddart carrier every fortnight, and I'U write ye lang letters, and teU ye aU the news, and how I get on, and how I like the Professors. I'U no forget what ye say, faither, ye may reckon on that." " Weel, laddie," said my father, " I'U expect sae. And now let us get the books, and gang to bed, for ye'U hae to be away sune in the morning." The worship of the famUy that night is as clear before me, and its effect as fresh and vivid, as if it had been yesternight. I mind my father, though he generaUy sang the Psalms through in regular order, chose a special one that night, which has ever since, in consequence, been a great favourite with me. It was the twentieth in the metrical version used by the Presbyterians of Northumberland and in Scotland, and begins thus : " Jehovah hear thee in the day, When trouble He doth send, And let the name of Jacob's God Thee, from all ill defend."

The sound of my mother's voice, as she sang that Psalm, is now7, after more than forty years have passed away, still ringing in my ears ; and the petitions in the old man's prayer, for the dear laddie about to leave the house, for a strange and an evil place, I never have, nor can forget. After worship was over and our supper taken, my father put his hand on my head, and repeated the blessing, which the priests were to give to the old warlike Israelites : " The Lord bless thee and keep thee, the Lord lift upon thee the Hght of His countenance, and give thee peace," and then I was hurried away by my mother to bed ; while my father, his rugged face, furrowed with many wrinkles, and brown with the weather, working with the pathos of his blessing, went away to a tree which grew7 at the end of our Httle garden — his place of prayer — to renew his intercessions for me, as I weU knew.

On the next day we aU started in a cart for Jedburgh, whence I was to go with the carrier to Hawick, and then to Glasgow. I pass over the last parting with my mother, for it grieves me — old man as I am — even stUl, to think of her sore trouble, and my father even had tears dropping from his eyes. I got up, however, with my little chest, on to the carrier's cart, and found a good seat on a great sack of wool. The carrier, a decent man, and not given to drink as the generality of these people are, had a sister who lived at the " Bell of the Brae," near the College in Glasgow, and I was to stay with her either altogether, or at least till I got a new lodging. Our journey took us the best part of three days. Peter HHple — that was the carrier's name — only making one turn in the fortnight, and w7as one Sabbath at home and one in Glasgow, and so did not hurry at aU on the road, so we reached Glasgow only late on the Friday after we left Jedburgh.

I was too much tired with my long seat on the cart to care much about what I saw ; but, I mind well how7 strange I thought it, to be going so long through fines of houses. I fancied that the city must be bigger than Nineveh, that we read of in Scripture ; and yet we only came along the GaUowgate and up the High c VOL. I. Street. I slept sound that night in Mar garet HHple's ; she w7as married upon the beadle of the High Church, and keeped lodgers, and was very glad to see me, as she thought I would be a good lodger to her. I was too much fatigued to say any thing that night, from the long ride and the cold I had not been accustomed to, for I had come aU the way from North umberland on the top of a carrier's cart, and that in the first week of November.

Chapter II

The first thing I did the next morning, was to caU on the gentleman who was to pay me a part of the bursary money. If I had felt surprised at the magnitude of the city, in which I was to spend four years of my life — as I entered it the night before, when the tall houses between which we plodded our weary way, and the dim vistas of the streets striking off on either side, alone were visible, how utterly was I astounded now, when I found myself in the midst of the c noisy bustle, and continual crowd of the streets. I had never been in any town before, save Jedburgh, which at fair times even, was a quiet place in comparison of this. I used to look upon Jedburgh, when we went down from our lonely house on the hiU-side, as a magnificent place, and its shops as if they contained aU the riches of the world, but this Glasgow so far transcended it, that I almost lost my breath with bewUderment.

As I went on down the street, I came to a long, low, antique-looking budding, black with smoke, having some curious carved stone-work over the low wide archway in its centre, through which bands of lads, and young men enveloped in ungainly red gowns were passing. Some of these seemed, as if they had w7orn their gowns for a long time, having little more than a bundle of dHty rags dangling about them, and others looking as if they had put them on for the first time. I spoke to one of the youngest lads, that I saw going in, and asked what place this was, and w7hy he and so many strangely dressed people were going in there? He answered me sharper, and more gruffly than I could have spoken for my life, that I must be precious green, not to know that the budding was the College, the red-gowned men and boys the students, going to hear the Greek Professor's introductory lecture, and then he hurried past me.

I continued gazing with reverence and aw7e on the massive pUe, and wondered if I should have to wear a red gown too, till the throng increased, and then I hobbled — for I must say that I was always a bad walker — down the dirty High Street, which I then, however, thought so fine — looking into all the shop windows on my way. I soon became con fused, and could not teU which way to go ; I had been warned by my mother to be careful, and I was so careful, that I lost myself, and had strayed down into the worst part of the city, jeered at by the blackguard boys, and sworn at by many of the rude passers-by for my awkwardness, for I was constantly coming into colhsion with them. At last, when I did not know what to do, or where to go, and when my heart was faint withthe feeling of utter lonehness, which oppressed me, in a way I never had felt among the wUd hiUs, when — my eyes were swimming with tears, and my heart like to break, because of the desolation I was in, unable to find out either Margaret HHple's house, or that of the gentleman I had set out to caU upon, and I had come to the resolution to beg the first passenger to show me the Trongate — I wanted the Tontine, for Mr. Walkinshaw had his office there — I came upon Peter HHple unloading his cart.

The sight of an oasis to the fainting Arab in the desert, of the life-boat to the shipwrecked saUor, was never more grateful, than the appearance of the Jedburgh carrier was to me. He scolded me very much for ven turing out into the streets alone ; Peter thought I was very soft, indeed I had always been so quiet and simple, and had seen so Httle, that most folk thought the same, said I ought to have gotten somebody to show me my way, " for if I ga'ed daundering about in that feckless gate, and dinna take better heed to mysel', he would be sure to have to send the bellman through the town, to cry me as lost or straved." I listened to him patiently, and then waited tiU his cart was empty, for he said he would show me the place himself. I was glad to get into the cart again, for I was tired with walking, and he took me to the place.

Mr. Walkinshaw looked at me as I entered his office with my letter of introduction in my hand with great intentness. He was a very decent like man, with a look Hke a minister, though he was a merchant, I fancy, only he had no shop, but just two little, dark, musty rooms, in one of which some young men were writing. He did not seem pleased with my look, for he muttered something to himself, and then taking a paper from his desk, which I saw was my applieation for the bursary, he said : " Are you Mathew Paxton from BHdhope Craig, and are you the lad who wrote this application, and to whom I'm to pay twenty pounds ?" " Yes," I said, aU trembling and shaking from inexperience and anxiety. " Let me see you write your name." I did so with a trembling hand. I had heard awful stories of the way, in which towns folks are often imposed on, and was afraid lest I should be set down as an impostor, and I had never before done anything so publicly.

The clerks in the outer office, laughing and joking at my uncouth dress and appearance, and the stray words I heard, " new catched," " fresh from the hiUs," " very green," and such like, did not restore my equanimity, but I did write my name. " Ay," said Mr. Walkinshaw more kindly. " It's the same hand, but for the shakes, as this application, and I'll pay you the money ; but, my lad, you wiU only be laughed at, if you go to College in that dress ; you must get some more civilized-like garments, and a gown, and do honour to the charity that sends you. You are a good scholar, I hear?" "Yes, they say so." I knew I was a good scholar. The master at home had told me I was as good at the Latin, and Greek, and the Mathematics as himself, and he was weU known as the best teacher on border. The gentleman took a Greek Testament out of his desk, and asked me to read a portion ad aperturum libri.

It was the sixth chapter of Romans, the book opened at, I mind well, and I read it as I had done often before ; but the merchant smded at my broad pronunciation — not that I pro nounced the words improperly, but we had learned to take such a mouthful of the vowels, and then the burr of Northumber land, which I did not think of at that time, sounded strangely in his ears. I, aye, prided myself on my reading, and was the best in the school before I left ; and after I had read a few verses in the Greek, and translated, as he directed, he told me that would do. Then Mr. Walkinshaw gave me the Testament to myself, and paid me the money, for which I succeeded in writing a receipt, after half-a dozen failures. I was afterwards asked a good many questions about the Cheviots, and meetings among them, and near our house, and about the lodgings I had taken.