The Villagers of my early days—the agricultural servants, or occasional labourers, the tradesmen, the small farmers—were, generally speaking, a very industrious and thoroughly independent race of people. Hard workers they had to be, else they would starve; yet they were keen debaters on all affairs both in Church and State, and sometimes in the “smiddy” or the “kiln,” sometimes in a happy knot on the “village green,” or on the road to the “kirk” or the “market,” the questions that were tearing the mighty world beyond were fought over again by secluded peasants with amazing passion and bright intelligence.
From the Bank Hill, close above our village, and accessible in a walk of fifteen minutes, a view opens to the eye which, despite several easily understood prejudices of mine that may discount any opinion that I offer, still appears to me well worth seeing amongst all the beauties of Scotland. At your feet lay a thriving village, every cottage sitting in its own plot of garden, and sending up its blue cloud of “peat reek,” which never somehow seemed to pollute the blessed air; and after all has been said or sung, a beautifully situated village of healthy and happy homes for God’s children is surely the finest feature in every landscape! There nestled the Manse amongst its ancient trees, sometimes wisely, sometimes foolishly tenanted, but still the “man’s house,” the man of God’s house, when such can be found for it. There, close by, the Parish School, where rich and poor met together on equal terms, as God’s children; and we learned that brains and character make the only aristocracy worth mentioning. Yonder, amid its graves, that date back on crumbling stone five hundred years, stands the Village Church; and there, on its little natural hill, at the end of the village, rises the old tower of Torthorwald, frowning over all the far-sweeping valley of the Nith, and telling of days of blood and Border foray. It was one of the many castles of the Kirkpatricks, and its enormous and imperishable walls seem worthy of him who wrote the legend of his family in the blood of the Red Comyn, stabbed in the Greyfriars Church of Dumfries, when he smote an extra blow to that of Bruce, and cried, “I mak’ siccar.” Beyond, betwixt you and the Nith, crawls the slow-creeping Lochar towards the Solway, through miles and miles of moss and heather,—the nearest realization that I ever beheld of a “stagnant stream.” Looking from the Bank Hill on a summer day, Dumfries with its spires shone so conspicuous that you could have believed it not more than two miles away; the splendid sweeping vale through which Nith rolls to Solway, lay all before the naked eye, beautiful with village spires, mansion houses, and white shining farms; the Galloway hills, gloomy and far-tumbling, bounded the forward view, while to the left rose Criffel, cloud-capped and majestic; then the white sands of Solway, with tides swifter than horsemen; and finally the eye rested joyfully upon the hills of Cumberland, and noticed with glee the blue curling smoke from its villages on the southern Solway shores. Four miles behind you lie the ruins of the Castle of the Bruce, within the domains of his own Royal Burgh of Lochmaben; a few miles in front, the still beautiful and amazing remains of Caerlaverock Castle, famous in many a Border story; all around you, scattered throughout the dale of Nith, memories or ruins of other baronial “keeps,” rich in suggestion to the peasant fancy! Traditions lost nothing in bulk, or in graphic force, as they were retold for the thousandth time by village patriarchs around the kindly peat fire, with the younger rustics gaping round. A high spirit of patriotism, and a certain glorious delight in daring enterprises, was part of our common heritage.
There, amid this wholesome and breezy village life, our dear parents found their home for the long period of forty years. There were born to them eight additional children, making in all a family of five sons and six daughters. Theirs was the first of the thatched cottages on the left, past the “miller’s house,” going up the “village gate,” with a small garden in front of it, and a large garden across the road; and it is one of the few still lingering to show to a new generation what the homes of their fathers were. The architect who planned it had no ideas of art, but a fine eye for durability! It consists at present of three, but originally of four, pairs of “oak couples” (Scotticé _kipples_), planted like solid trees in the ground at equal intervals, and gently sloped inwards till they meet or are “coupled” at the ridge, this coupling being managed not by rusty iron, but by great solid pins of oak. A roof of oaken wattles was laid across these, till within eleven or twelve feet of the ground, and from the ground upwards a stone wall was raised, as perpendicular as was found practicable, towards these overhanging wattles, this wall being roughly “pointed” with sand and clay and lime. Now into and upon the roof was woven and intertwisted a covering of thatch, that defied all winds and weathers, and that made the cottage marvellously cozy,—being renewed year by year, and never allowed to remain in disrepair at any season. But the beauty of the construction was and is its durability, or rather the permanence of its oaken ribs! There they stand, after probably not less than four centuries, japanned with “peat reek” till they are literally shining, so hard that no ordinary nail can be driven into them, and perfectly capable for service for four centuries more on the same conditions. The walls are quite modern, having all been rebuilt in my father’s time, except only the few great foundation boulders, piled around the oaken couples; and parts of the roofing also may plead guilty to having found its way thither only in recent days; but the architect’s one idea survives, baffling time and change—the ribs and rafters of oak.