And So I Can Only Figure To Myself A
Congregation Truly Curious In Such Flights Of Theological Fancy, As
One
Of veteran and accomplished saints, who have fought the good
fight to an end and outlived all worldly passion, and
Are to be
regarded rather as a part of the Church Triumphant than the poor,
imperfect company on earth. And yet I saw some young fellows about
the smoking-room who seemed, in the eyes of one who cannot count
himself strait-laced, in need of some more practical sort of
teaching. They seemed only eager to get drunk, and to do so
speedily. It was not much more than a week after the New Year; and
to hear them return on their past bouts with a gusto unspeakable
was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for the
accuracy of which I can vouch-
'Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?'
'We had that!'
'I wasna able to be oot o' my bed. Man, I was awful bad on
Wednesday.'
'Ay, ye were gey bad.'
And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard the sensual
accents! They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort
of rational pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are
not more boastful; a cock does not plume himself with a more
unmingled satisfaction as he paces forth among his harem; and yet
these were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was hard to
suppose they were very eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as
if some elementary notions of temperance for the men and seemliness
for the women would have gone nearer the mark. And yet, as it
seemed to me typical of much that is evil in Scotland, Maybole is
also typical of much that is best. Some of the factories, which
have taken the place of weaving in the town's economy, were
originally founded and are still possessed by self-made men of the
sterling, stout old breed - fellows who made some little bit of an
invention, borrowed some little pocketful of capital, and then,
step by step, in courage, thrift and industry, fought their way
upwards to an assured position.
Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; but, as a bit of
spelling, this inscription on the Tolbooth bell seems too delicious
to withhold: 'This bell is founded at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a
Frenchman, the 6th November, 1696, Bi appointment of the heritors
of the parish of Maiyboll.' The Castle deserves more notice. It
is a large and shapely tower, plain from the ground upwards, but
with a zone of ornamentation running about the top. In a general
way this adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney-
stacks; but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A
very heavy string-course runs round the upper story, and just above
this, facing up the street, the tower carries a small oriel window,
fluted and corbelled and carved about with stone heads. It is so
ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine. And it was, indeed,
the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the room to which it
gives light lay, for long years, the heroine of the sweet old
ballad of 'Johnnie Faa' - she who, at the call of the gipsies'
songs, 'came tripping down the stair, and all her maids before
her.' Some people say the ballad has no basis in fact, and have
written, I believe, unanswerable papers to the proof. But in the
face of all that, the very look of that high oriel window convinces
the imagination, and we enter into all the sorrows of the
imprisoned dame. We conceive the burthen of the long, lack-lustre
days, when she leaned her sick head against the mullions, and saw
the burghers loafing in Maybole High Street, and the children at
play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or foray. We
conceive the passion of odd moments, when the wind threw up to her
some snatch of song, and her heart grew hot within her, and her
eyes overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be
not true of this or that lady, or this or that old tower, it is
true in the essence of all men and women: for all of us, some time
or other, hear the gipsies singing; over all of us is the glamour
cast. Some resist and sit resolutely by the fire. Most go and are
brought back again, like Lady Cassilis. A few, of the tribe of
Waring, go and are seen no more; only now and again, at springtime,
when the gipsies' song is afloat in the amethyst evening, we can
catch their voices in the glee.
By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible than during the
day. Clouds coursed over the sky in great masses; the full moon
battled the other way, and lit up the snow with gleams of flying
silver; the town came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables,
bestridden by smooth white roofs, and sprangled here and there with
lighted windows. At either end the snow stood high up in the
darkness, on the peak of the Tolbooth and among the chimneys of the
Castle. As the moon flashed a bull's-eye glitter across the town
between the racing clouds, the white roofs leaped into relief over
the gables and the chimney-stacks, and their shadows over the white
roofs. In the town itself the lit face of the clock peered down
the street; an hour was hammered out on Mr. Geli's bell, and from
behind the red curtains of a public-house some one trolled out - a
compatriot of Burns, again! - 'The saut tear blin's my e'e.'
Next morning there was sun and a flapping wind. From the street
corners of Maybole I could catch breezy glimpses of green fields.
The road underfoot was wet and heavy - part ice, part snow, part
water, and any one I met greeted me, by way of salutation, with 'A
fine thowe' (thaw). My way lay among rather bleak bills, and past
bleak ponds and dilapidated castles and monasteries, to the
Highland-looking village of Kirkoswald.
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