Eldmuir: an Art-Story of Scottish Home-Life, Scenery and Incident. By J. Thompson, Junior. Illustrated with engravings after paintings of J. Thompson [Senior] . With an introductory notice by Ll. Jewitt

Front matter

■ ■ ■ ■ WH. BA.LLINGALL. EL DM UIR . Frontispu '_. ■ ELDMUIE: \X %xt-3tax% 01 SCOTTISH HOME-LIFE, SCENERY, AND INCIDENT. By JACOB THOMPSON, Junior. ILLUSTRATED WITH ENGRAVINGS AFTER PAINTINGS OF JACOB THOMPSON. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTICE BY LLEWELLYNN JEWITT, F.S.A., &c., &c, &c. _on_on : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET. 1879. [_H rights reserved."] " 0 thou sculptor, painter, poet ! Take this lesson to thy heart : That is best which lieth nearest ; Shape from that thy work of Art." H. W. Longfellow. Jacob Thompson. Wm. Ballingall THE HERMITAGE.

Introduction

. The story of " Eldmuir," to which it is my privilege to prefix these few lines of Introduction, is its Author's first literary venture, and as such is put forth by him with a becoming and characteristic diffidence. Son of one of the most gifted and successful of our English painters — Jacob Thompson, whose "Ferry Boat," " Highland Bride's Departure," " Rush Bearing," " Vintage," "Annunciation," "Agony in the Garden," " Galatea," " Proserpine," and other pictures, are among the highest achievements of the British School of Painting — the Author's aim has been to so connect together such of these grand conceptions as more especially illustrate Scottish life and scenery, that they shall form a series of pictorial episodes in a narrative of the actual home-life of the people among whom he has moved, and the story of whose lives he has studied.

Thus he has endeavoured to carry the mind of the reader through all the various incidents so charmingly depicted on canvas, and to make him feel as though, while he was breathing the pure mountain air, he was literally drinking in the full, rich mellowness of atmospheric Introduction. IV effects, revelling in the glow of colour, and entering heartily into all the minutiæ of accessories of heath and lake, mountain and holm. This self-imposed task he has lovingly performed, and has succeeded in presenting in the following pages such a well-thought-out and purely homely narrative of peasant-life in the Highlands, as was best suited to his purpose. The grand conceptions of the painter, and the narrative by which the son has so pleasantly bound them together, have had their birth and common origin in the same family, and in the same "home," and will thus remain indissolubly united.

The " home " to which I have alluded is "The Hermitage" at Hackthorpe, in Westmoreland, where, for close upon forty years, Jacob Thompson has resided, and from which quiet retreat have emanated those superb creations of art that have been the admiration of all to whom they are known. In this quiet, unpretentious, and secluded spot, — "far removed from noise and smoke," and the bustle of town life, and surrounded by some of nature's grandest and wildest scenes of mountain, lake, and moor — fit home for an artist whose mind is properly attuned to a full appreciation of the loveliness and beauty of the scenes so lavishly spread out before him — the artist has resided, and given to the world the results of his incessant labours. With every sense keenly alive to the wondrous gradations of light and colour and shade, and the momentary atmos pheric changes that come over the landscape to illumine, darken, or render transparent its various features, and then, as they pass away for ever, to be succeeded by other changes equally ethereal, but only to be fully appre- Introduction.

V ciated by one whose calling is literally to store the mind with the poetry of art, and to embody and give it perma nence on canvas, he has made this pleasant retreat a true " home of art," and within its walls has re-created on his easel the most glorious of these effects as accom paniments to groupings his genius has called into existence. In this " home," too, " Eldmuir " has been written, and thus literature and art have been happily wedded within its walls. As a tale of every-day Scottish life, simply told in language eminently in keeping with the homely character of the people who are portrayed, and with their manners, customs, habits, modes of hfe, and sentiments, the story has merits far beyond what could be attained by a higher, more flowery, or more ambitious style of writing. The story, as I have shown, has a twofold mission to fulfil.

These are the linking together of some few of the creations of the painter by means of a pleasant and appropriate narrative ; and the giving to the world, with their all-important aid, a word-picture — drawn with pre-Raphaelite nicety and minuteness — of simple home life, with its attendant changes, vicissitudes, and trials. The engravings which form so important a feature in the volume have all been drawn on the wood by the painter himself, and engraved under his personal supervision, by an accomplished artist. They are, therefore, literally the work of Mr. Thompson's own hand, and as such, possess a vastly increased amount of interest. LLEWELLYNN JEWITT. Winstar Hall, Derbyshire. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Eldmuir . . . . ■ . . . . . Frontispiece The Hebmttage iii The Mountain Kambleb ....... 12 Fiest Lesson in Dancing 14 The Fiest Lamb 32 Sttnnt Hours of Childhood 55 The Height cf Ambition ....... 83 Downfall of Peide ........ 85 Going to Chuech ......... 1C9 The Feeet Boat 180 "The Couese of Teue Love nevee did eun smooth" . 195 The Highland Bride's Depaetuee ..... 244 Thet hate seen Better Days ...... 255 The Hope Beyond ELDMUIE.

Chapter I

" All are scattered now and fled, Some are married, some are dead ; And when I ask, with throbs of pain, ' Ah ! when shall they all meet again ! ' As in the days long since gone by, The ancient timepiece makes reply, — ' For ever — Never ! Never — For ever ! ' ' H. W. Longfellow. Half a century or more ago, the time at which our story opens, how different were the habits of the people, their modes of conveyance, their means of holding intercourse with each other, and their general surroundings, from what they now are ! Nay, not only so, but how different was then the face of the country itself from what we see it now in our own day ! Localities that in the beginning of the present century were almost impenetrable passes, trackless wastes, or dangerous morasses — where man never trod, cultivation was as yet unknown, and civiliza tion held no sway — have been converted into hives of busy industry, covered by innumerable lines of railway, and thrown open to the admiring gaze of a world of tourists, whose very existence, as a class, has been created by these modern facilities for travelling.

In those days of the past generation, the lovely mountain B Eldmuir. 2 solitudes, the romantic glens, and the secluded lakes of the Western Highlands of Scotland formed a region almost unknown to dwellers in the south, and the wild ness and grandeur of many of what are now the most favoured of all resorts, rested in all their virgin purity, untouched and unsoiled by man and his ever-encroaching works. Visited occasionally by enthusiasts in Art, who wandered there in search ofthe wildly picturesque as sub jects for the pencil, and to study in the school of stern nature herself, her choicest phases of beauty, and her most changing effects of light and shade and colour ; or by here and there one of the " upper ten thousand," who came either as a guest, or tenant of shooting grounds, of the Highland chieftain to search for game, they were unknown to the world at large, and their beauties remained almost unexplored by any but the sparse jjtopulation ofthe native and hardy Scotch.

In those days, along the main roads, the cheerful notes of the mail guard's horn resounded through the avenues of stately trees by which they were bounded, while the coaches themselves passed on their way, j>ur suing their tedious journey through pleasant woodland scenes, amid sunny corn-fields, over heath-clad moors, or round the bases of bleak mountains, and drew up at quaint old village inns with latticed casements, and grotesque sign-boards swinging above the doors. Those days are long since past and gone! They have no place in the memory of the generation now risino around us ; and there seems to be, as it were, a great gulf between that time and the present. On the further side of that gulf, ere the mail coaches had ceased to run, or the iron horse, with rapidly-transforming power, had started on its eventful career, the actors in this " ower-true Eldvutir. 3 tale " lived out their little lives, and have long since rested from their labours.

Long ago, by the side of a bay on the west coast of Scotland, stood the hamlet of Eldmuir. It was tenanted only by a few poor fishermen, and one or two farmers who held a few acres of land, reared some cattle and sheep, and thus contrived to eke out a precarious existence. Few were their wants, fewer their temptations, and they were happy enough ; their lives, indeed, presented but little of what a more cultured race would call enjoyment, but it was all the life they knew or cared for. They laughed, they sang, they danced as merrily as their betters. Nature supplied them with a goodly share of sunshine and wild flowers, and decked their quiet glens with a beauty never found in crowded cities. Their cows supplied them with the richest milk ; their bees gathered for them the sweetest honey ; and although the cottage walls were rudely built, and their roofs thatched in the most primitive fashion, cosy firesides glowed within, and a kind heaven shed over them her choicest blessingof contentment.

Eldmuir is now a place of the past, and even its site is not marked on any map of the country. Should the curious traveller search throughout the longest hours of a summer day for the scene of this story, he would find remaining of the once pleasant village but a few scat tered stones and ruinous enclosures to tell their tale of past occupation ; while the kirk where once they worshipped and the grave-yard in which the "rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep " in peace are dese crated — the one now roofless, and its very foundations crumbling ; the other overgrown with ferns and grasses and ranker weeds, till its very boundaries are obliterated and its graves made desolate. No stones remain to tell b Eldmuir. 4 the story of their lives; and even the place where the dust of generations is quietly resting, is so hidden by wild flowers and heather as not to be discernible.

Here undisturbed the moor fowl now build their nests, and the deer, conscious of security, come down at sun set to drink from the spring where once comely High land lasses filled their pitchers, and beside whose shady brink the old people were wont to meet, and, in the gloamings, gossip of other days. All are now gone, scattered, after the storm of life, like autumn's leaves dispersed by the passing tempest. Some rest in far away kirkyards ; while others, settled in cities of their own land, or in far-off countries beyond the sea, have become aliens to the land of their birth, and the place where they once lived knows them no more — All are gone ; and the ruined walls scarce cast a shadow over the cold and deserted hearth-stones. Solitude and silence reign all around, save in autumn, when the wealthy owners of the now depopulated and deserted region seek the red deer in his lair, perchance on the very spot where flourished long ago some " puir body's" kail-yard, and the "deserted village," in very mockery of its lonehness and desolation, becomes alive again with sound of voice.

At the time when our story opens — some seventy years ago — Eldmuir was a pleasant, quiet little village, pos sessing its own kirk, manse, and mill. Beautifully situated at the foot of a wild glen, with an opening towards the sea, and watered by a mountain stream, which, in the course of its descent, formed a succession of pools and eddying cascades, it was surely one of Nature's loveliest spots, and most primitive and charming of rendezvous. Dotted about on its banks stood the thatched cottages of the inhabitants, foremost amongst Eldmuir. 5 which was the two-storied, grey-stone manse of the worthy minister, David Spey, which, standing near a bend of the stream higher up in the glen than the last cottage, and midway between it and the mill, commanded a lovely view of the entire village and of the sea beyond.

Behind the house the mountain rose so abruptly as to allow only a narrow strip of land to be used as a kail yard. This, little as it was, however, amply sufficed for the modest requirements of the minister's family, whose " wants were small," and their fare frugal in the extreme. A small pent-house, reared against the wall, afforded shelter to the fowls, which he tended, and to the ducks, who wended their way morning and evening to revel in the pool or natural dam in the burn below the dwelling. In front a plot of ground served the minister for a flower-garden, in the cultivation and tending of which he found that healthful exercise and recreation that became a solace when troubles assailed him, and a relief from the monotony of the studies he yet assiduously pursued. Over the front door were two holly-bushes, whose branches, closely intermingled and entwined, formed a natural porch, under whose shade the minister and his sister Barbara accustomed themselves to sit at eventide ; and here, while surveying their tiny domain, and watching the setting of the sun over the sea, they wished for no better lot till the time should come when they would exchange that mortal home for an imperishable habitation in the realms of bliss.

The serenity that often succeeds a great sorrow seemed to have gathered almost imperceptibly around the thoughts and actions of these two, and, though slowly descending into the vale of years, no evening shade had yet obscured the brightness, the purity, the beauty, and the holiness of their lives. As through the little windows of the Eldmuir. manse came daily the gladdening rays of sunshine, so these fell constantly upon their hearts, and reflected them selves on their whole lives and surroundings in bright gleams of heaven's own peace. The keeping-room, although its floor was strewn with rushes, contained many quaint articles of luxury, or what, in their simplicity, they esteemed so ; and the minister's books — solid-looking theological tomes, clas sical authors, black-letter commentaries, and others — occupied one end of the apartment, where they were carefully put away on open shelves almost as dark as the binding of the volumes they supported.

On one side the fireplace stood David's easy chair, while another, with tall, straight back and twisted legs, was placed opposite for Mrs. Barbara, who, when household work was done and she had leisure, sat with her knitting and her cat, to keep her brother company in his studies. Over the low mantel-shelf was suspended an old High land target, and behind it were placed two rusty clay mores, which, could they have spoken, might have told of brave historic and heroic deeds done by hands by whom they had been wielded in " auld Jang syne." Having done good service in the memorable campaign of '45, when they had crossed the border, and lain all night clasped in the cold hands of their fallen owners, who had breathed out the last sigh of the leal and true in Charles's fatal cause on Clifton Moor, they were honoured as priceless treasures by their present owners.

Two or three old pictures, darkened with age, hung upon the walls, and beneath the target were suspended some strings of eggs and hazel-nuts ; while a coujile of samplers, recalling a once happy era in the minister's bygone days, were carefully framed and preserved. Eldmuir. 7 The life of this now infirm and white-haired man had not in its time been altogether devoid of romance ; but it was the romance of poverty, of faithfulness, of love, of purity, and of silent hopefulness. When but a youth, and filled with the aspirations of that hopeful time, he and his " gentle Alice " had loved with that deep affec tion that neither absence nor time can efface. Long and patiently as she had waited for him, her love had never faltered. Her earnest affection had not once changed, and through the many years of " hope deferred " through which they had passed, her devotion seemed to grow stronger and more enduring, until at length she came to consider herself almost a part of her " Davie."

Sharing in all his plans, assisting in his airy castle-building, and whispering comforting words that cheered and sus tained him when almost prostrate beneath the dispiriting effects of defeat, Alice looked onward with him and for him to the brightness that was to come, but which was so long in coming. Thus she encouraged, aided — ay, and even supported — him she loved through years of struggling and striving, which were rendered more poignant as well as protracted by college promotion over his head to less worthy aspirants. Thus they waited until the glow of their first brilliant expectations had paled into those moderate and humble desires which at length were realized in the little manse and slender stipend of the living of Eldmuir. Small as was the income, to them it was all and all, for they felt that the life they had so long lived apart could now be shared with each other, and that the uuion of hearts which had so long existed, could now be rendered close and lasting in the holy bands of wedlock.

Marrying quietly, and leaving, without regret, the busy, restless city, the happy pair had departed, satisfied and contented, Eldmuir. to their secluded home. In their future, the clamour of human traffic was to be exchanged for the humming of bees amid the flowers ; the clang of town noises for the singing of the brook below the garden, and the weariness of " hope deferred," for the softening and soothing influence of the distant murmur of the waterfall by the mill-dam. The peat " reek," as it ascended in a slender blue column from their chimney, did not even dim the brightness of the summer sky ; the very flowers seemed made for them; all nature seemed joyous on their account, and the peaceful villagers greeting them respect fully as they passed, added to their happiness and satisfaction.

Life was indeed almost like a new and better childhood to the now middle-aged couple, who were for the first time entering on a new state of ex istence and on a new phase of usefulness. Perhaps it was this feeling which, when seated in the garden, clasping each other's hand, on the first evening spent in their new home, led them to sing in concert a hopeful hymn, learned together at the old dame's school in their native village, and until now nearly forgotten ; perhaps, too, it was this feeling that caused them, with still clasped hands, to render thanks together to the God of heaven for having, in His own good time, granted their life-long prayer. Thus passed ten happy years, and two flaxen-haired, blue-eyed girls playing merrily in the garden, or building houses of pebbles by the brook side, gladdened the hearts of their parents who lived again the " sunny hours of childhood " in the joyous gambols of their pets.

Their little hands had learned to work the samplers now hanging above the chimney-piece ; and they had sought and strung together the eggs and hazel-nuts still sus pended there. Theirs was indeed a childhood full of Eldmuir. 9 promise, but, alas ! never to be fulfilled. One disastrous summer saw them both laid beneath the hawthorn-tree, from which they had often gathered the white blossoms on Sabbath mornings, and just one year afterwards she who had borne so much and so patiently, followed these pledges of her long love into the silent land. For a considerable time after this threefold blow David seemed almost overwhelmed by the succession of calamities that had befallen him and his happy home, and his health visibly suffered. At length, happily, his widowed and childless elder sister, Barbara, came to reside with him, and her sisterly love and solicitude, in the course of time, gradually healed the wound he had so keenly felt, while his affections, so rudely severed in this life, learned to centre themselves peacefully on the hope of a happy reunion in the life to come.

At the time of his introduction to the reader the minister was about sixty years of age ; but sorrow and studious habits, with a peculiar stoop in his gait, gave him a much older appearance. His broad and massy features were unmistakably Scottish, and were rendered more impressive by the long white hair which streamed over his shoulders. To a superficial observer David Spey's countenance bore an impress of severity ; but a truer student of physiognomy could not fail to read, in the kindly light of those quiet eyes, the secret of " peace and good-will to all " that lit them from within. As a man and as a minister he was much beloved by all whom he knew, or over whom he exercised spiritual supervision, and his sermons were pronounced by the elders to be " sound in doctrine and varra strengthening;" and though the younger members of the congregation, longing to be out on the sunny brae-side, where they could flaunt their Sunday kirtles to greater advantage, Eldmuir. 10 did whisper to each other that they were a " deal ower lang," no one, either old or young, was ever known to speak in earnest a disparaging word against their revered " Minister Davie," for by this title he had become univer sally known.

Such, then, was David Spey, the man whose moral, pure, genial, and loving influence exercised such a controlling and guiding power for good over the fortunes and characters of many with whom the reader will become acquainted in the course of this sirnple narrative — an influence that proved a lasting blessing to them in after-days, through the many trials and vicissitudes to which they were subjected in the pilgrimage of their lives.

Chapter II

" Three years she grew in sun and shower. Then Nature said, ' A lovelier flower On earth was never sown • This child I to myself will take ; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own.' " Woedswoeth. The nearest cottage to the manse was occupied by a widow named Elspeth McGregor, but who was generally known to her neighbours simply as " Auld Elspeth," and whose husband, a small farmer, had died some years before, leaving her with an only daughter, Jean, who was universally acknowledged to be the belle of the country side. Elspeth McGregor was one of those wise women, now seldom met with, to whom was tacitly accorded, not only the respect due to age and exjperience, but the reverence felt for skill in preparations of medicines from herbs, and an almost awe for one so well versed as she in super stitions, and signs, omens, and charms.

Elspeth possessed the rare faculty of relating with the vigour given by her own belief, and with genuine humour and emphasis, stories bordering on the marvellous. Fairies, witches, warlocks, dwarfs, and hobgoblins were to her as much real and natural personages as were the neighbours among whom she dwelt. She held a firm belief in certain days and certain actions being unlucky, and a violation Eldmuir. 12 of these by any of her friends or neighbours, gave her much disquiet. In dreams and omens she had implicit faith, and was wont to relate one that had occurred to herself, with an earnestness which assured all who heard her, that she was thoroughly convinced of its truth. One churning day, as she used to relate, she had carefully put away all her butter, with sprigs of rowan or mountain-ash round the platter (which, it is notorious, the fairies can not bear), but altogether and very thoughtlessly forgot to leave out a small pat for "Nip," a wandering sprite, who was fond of dairy produce, and was supposed to visit the house on these occasions.

That night she dreamed that an ugly, misshapen creature was flying away with the horse-shoe nailed as a protection from evil spirits on the cow-house door. Next morning " as sure as death," she found that the horse-shoe was gone, and to add to ill-luck, her best cow sickened and died that same day ! Mistress Barbara, who had lately come to the manse and was not imbued with superstitious and old-world stories, vigorously combatted these beliefs in evil spirits, and in this case tried to prove to Elspeth that the cow had died through eating from the yew-tree whose branches drooped over the kirk -yard wall, which it had been seen to do by some of the neighbours ; but Elspeth stubbornly con tended that it was the "ticements" of the elf that had lured her cow there, and induced it to eat the poisonous foliage.

Jean, the high-spirited, handsome, and somewhat un disciplined daughter of Elspeth, was too wilful to settle at home, and more enjoyed the delight of taking solitary rambles over the fells, than of rendering to her mother any necessary assistance in her domestic occupations. During their and her young life, the minister's children had been her most cherished playmates. Their sudden THE MOUNTAIN RAMBLER. Wm.Bal_i_.___. Eldmuir. 15 death had a subduing and chastening influence upon her which was much deepened on the rapidly succeeding Ios, of their mother — her kind friend — the minister's wife. On her arrival at Eldmuir, Mrs. Barbara found that the girl had for several months become almost a stranger at the manse ; that she was gradually relapsing into her former desultory habits, and, as a consequence, becoming discontented with the seclusion of her native place.

Now, if there was one thing more than another upon which Mistress Barbara prided herself, it was her skill in female education, and she at once discovered in the person of Jean McGregor a noble field for her endeavours. At first the girl was rather afraid of the precise, methodical person who now took the place of gentle and yielding Mrs. Spey, but after a week of occasional inter course her opinion altered, and she became warmly attached to her future instructress, entering quickly and energetically into her views. Jean could already read and write, and was fast becoming a willing and delighted scholar. She had learned those accomplishments from Alister McCrae, an old man who, though originally a cobbler by trade, at that time earned his living by making and mending fishing-nets, and acting the part of Dominie to the boys and girls of the village.

" Auld Alister," as the dominie was called, though not yet fifty years of age, was venerable in appearance, and carried with him an air of superiority which gave dignity to his calling. Teaching both Gaelic and English — the latter he had learned when at a grammar-school in Inverary — he was also credited with understanding Latin, but, beyond occasionally using an odd phrase or two culled from the grammar, he never showed any familiarity with the ancient tongue, and was at all times reluctant to display his knowledge before the minister. Eldmuir. 16 His aim soared no higher than that of enabling his pupils to read the Scriptures, to write a round, formal hand, and to know the first four rules of arithmetic ; but even these rudiments were often denied to the boys, through their being required to labour at so early an age that they could not fully profit by the dominie's instructions.

Alister McCrae, who had more than once visited Edin burgh, and who it was rumoured had on one occasion even shaken hands with the Provost, was a man of great authority amongst the villagers, and was consulted by them upon all important matters occurring in the un eventful routine of their simple lives. Alister, being fond of music, would frequently remove the chanter from his old pipes that hung above the dresser and sit for hours on the brae-side playing his old-time reels and strathspeys, which recalled bygone friendships and days long past. Here groups of villagers returning from the hills with large bundles of heather, and, attracted by the music, would congregate around, while toddling " wee " things, whose mothers he had known as children, capered around and received their first lessons in dancing.

Occasionally receiving a newspaper from his friends in Inverary, Alister would, on its receipt, assemble his neighbours together and read to the circle of deeply interested listeners the stories of Wellington's career in Spain, not failing to intersperse them with " wise-like " comments, which grew more emphatic whenever the doings of the Highland regiments were honourably mentioned. On these momentous occasions " Auld Alister " took his seat on a moss-covered stone of immense size, which villao-e tradition held to have been " put " there by a far back but renowned namesake of his own, one Alister McCrae in a trial of strength with " the deil," and which no one had ever been able to move " svn svne." JiCOll Tll.__»-_. '■«■ BALLI-CALL. FIRST LESSON IN DANCING. Eldmuir. 15 When the shadows of the mountains crept over tho village, and the last gleams of the fast departing sun lin gered on their highest peaks ; when the stars peeped out one by one, and it became too dark to read, Alister, blessed with a retentive memory, would recapitulate the news to those whose occupations had prevented their earlier coming.