CHAPTER VI

Democratic Spirit in Scotland. – One Scot as good as another. – Amiable Beggars. – Familiarity of Servants. – Shout all together! – A Scotchman who does not admire his Wife. – Donald's Pride. – The Queen and her Scotch People. – Little Presents keep alive Friendship.

The Scotch are an essentially democratic people. I take the word in its social, not its political, sense; although it might be asserted without hesitation, that if ever there was a nation formed for living under a republic, it is the Scotch – serious, calm, wise, law-abiding, and ever ready to respect the opinions of others. Yet the Scotch are perhaps the most devoted subjects of the English crown.

The English and Scotch are republicans, with democratic institutions, living under a monarchy.

When I say that the Scotch are a democratic people, I mean that in Scotland, still more than in England, one man is as good as another.

The Scot does not admit the existence of demigods. In his eyes, the robes of the priest or judge cover a man, not an oracle.

Always ready for a bit of argument, he criticises an order, a sermon, a verdict even.

Religious as he is, yet he will weigh every utterance of his pastor before accepting it. He respects the law; but if his bailie inflicts on him a fine that he thinks unjust, he does not scruple to tell him a piece of his mind; and if ever you wish to be told your daily duty at home, you have but to engage a Scotch servant.

Donald knows how to accept social inferiority; he may perhaps envy his betters, but he does not hate them. He never abdicates his manhood's dignity: an obsequious Scotchman is unknown.

In Scotland, even a beggar has none of those abject manners that denote his class elsewhere. His look seems to say: —

"Come, my fine fellow, listen to me a minute: you have money and I have none; you might give me a penny."

I remember one in Edinburgh, who stopped me politely, yet without touching his cap, and said:

"You look as if you had had a good dinner, sir; won't you give me something to buy a meal with?"

I took him to a cook-shop and bought him a pork pie.

"If you don't mind," said he, "I'll have veal."

Why certainly! everyone to his taste, to be sure.

I acquiesced with alacrity. He was near shaking hands with me.

Donald is plain spoken with everyone. In Scotland, as in France, there are still to be found old servants whose familiarity would horrify an Englishman, but whom the bonhomie of Scotch masters tolerates without a murmur, in consideration of the fidelity and devotion of these honest servants.

Like every man who is conscious of his strength, the Scot is good-humoured; he rarely loses his temper.

The familiarity of the servant and good-humour of the master, in Scotland, are delightfully illustrated in the two following anecdotes, which were told me in Scotland.

Donald is serving at table. Several guests claim his attention at once: one wants bread, another wine, another vegetables. Donald does not know which way to turn. Presently, losing patience, he apostrophises the company thus:

"That's it; cry a'together – that's the way to be served!"

A laird, in the county of Aberdeen, had a well-stocked fowl yard, but could never get any new-laid eggs for breakfast.

He wanted to penetrate the mystery. So he lay in ambush, and discovered that his gardener's wife went to the hen-roost every morning, filled her basket with the eggs, and made straight for the market to sell them.

The first time he met his gardener, he said to him:

"James, I like you very weel, for I think you serve me faithfully; but, between oursels, I canna say that I hae muckle admiration for your wife."

"I'm no surprised at that, laird," replied James, "for I dinna muckle admire her mysel!"

What could the poor laird say? This fresh union of sympathies united them only more closely.

"Proud as a Highlander" is a common saying. His gait tells you what he is. He walks with head thrown back, and shoulders squared; his step is firm and springy. It is a man who says to himself twenty times a day:

"I am a Scotchman."

Such an exalted opinion has he of his race that when Queen Victoria gave Princess Louise to the Marquis of Lorne in marriage, the general feeling in the Highlands was, as everybody knows, "The Queen maun be a prood leddy the day!"

The English were astonished at the Queen's consenting to give her daughter to one of her subjects. They looked upon it as a mésalliance. The Scotch were not far from doing the same – a Campbell marry a simple Brunswick!

It is in the Highlands that this national pride is preserved intact. Mountainous countries always keep their characteristics longer than others.

Everyone knows that the Queen of England passes a great part of the year in her Castle of Balmoral, in the heart of the Highlands, among her worthy Scotch people, whom she appears to prefer to all her other subjects. She visits the humblest cottages, and sends delicacies to the sick and aged.

The good folk do not accept the bounty of their Queen without making her a return for it in kind. Yes – in kind. The women knit her a pair of stockings or a shawl, and the Queen delights them by accepting their presents.

CHAPTER VII

Scottish Perseverance. – Thomas Carlyle, David Livingstone, and General Gordon. – Literary Exploits of a Scotchman. – Scottish Students. – All the Students study. – A useful Library. – A Family of three. – Coming, sir, coming! – Killed in Action. – Scotchmen at Oxford. – Balliol College.

It is not in business alone that the Scotchman shows that obstinate perseverance which so characterises his nation. Thomas Carlyle would have passed a whole year searching out the exact date of the most insignificant incident. That is why his Frederick the Great is the finest historical monument of the century.

It is this same Scotch perseverance which makes Watts, Livingstones, and Gordons. Never were there brighter illustrations of what can be done by power of mind united to power of endurance.

I have seen them at work, those resolute, indomitable Scots. I have known some whose performances were nothing short of feats of valour.

Here is one that I have fresh in my memory.

A young Scotchman, on leaving Oxford, had been appointed master in one of the great public schools of England. He began with the elementary classes. At that time he intended to devote himself to the study of science.

He told the head master of his intention, and asked his advice.

"If I were you," said the head master, "I would do nothing of the kind. I feel sure you have very special aptitude for Greek, and that if you will but direct your attention to that, you have a brilliant future before you. Let me trace you out a programme?"

This programme was enough to frighten the most enterprising of men. A Scotchman alone could undertake to carry it out.

Our young master accepted the task.

He took an apartment in the Temple, turned his back on his friends, and became an inaccessible hermit.

For three years he lived only for his books, consecrating to them that which, at his age, is generally consecrated to pleasure and comfort.

Nothing could turn him from the end he had in view.

One after another he read all the Greek authors. Nothing that had been written by poet, philosopher, historian, or grammarian, escaped him.

At the end of three years, he reappeared, wasted by the vigils and privations of this life of study; but the last touches had been put to the manuscript of a book, which, when it appeared three months later, was pronounced a masterpiece of scholarship, and made quite a revolution in the Greek world.

To-day this young Scotchman is one of the brightest lights in the higher walks of literature in Great Britain.

The students of the great Universities of Scotland offer, perhaps, the most striking proofs of perseverance to be found.

At Oxford and Cambridge, you find all sorts of students, especially students who do not study.

In Scotland, all students study.

To be able to have the luxury of studying, or rather "residing" (such is the less pretentious name in use), at Oxford or Cambridge, you must be well-to-do.

In Scotland, as in Germany, Greece, Switzerland, and America, the poorest young men may aspire to university honours; but often at the cost of what privations!

Here are a few incidents of students' life in Scotland. They struck me as being very interesting, very touching. I borrow them, for the most part, from a writer who published them in a Scotch Review during my stay in Edinburgh.

He mentions one young man, of fine manners and aristocratic appearance, who dined but three times a week, and then upon a hot two-penny pie. On the other days he lived on dry bread.

Another had an ingenious way of turning his scanty resources to account. Spreading out his books where the hearthrug would naturally have been, he would lie there, learning his task by the light of a fire, made from the roots of decayed trees, which he had dug in a wood near Edinburgh, and carried to his lodgings.

Three Scotchmen, now occupying high positions, shared a room containing one bed; and for a year at least, while attending Aberdeen University, they had no other lodging. The bed was a very narrow one, and quite incapable of holding two persons at once; so two worked while the other slept, and when they went to bed, he rose.

Two other students excited a great deal of curiosity for some time. One carried his books before him just as if they had been a tray, while he glided noiselessly to his place. This mystery was explained when it was learned that he had been a hotel waiter. During the winter he pursued his studies; and when summer returned, it found him, with serviette across his arm, earning the necessary fees for his next winter's course of study.

He never could quite throw off the waiter. If a professor called his name suddenly, he would start up and answer, "Coming, sir – coming!"

The other was more mysterious still. As soon as recitation was over, he would start away from the class-room and make for the environs of the town as fast as he could run. It was at last discovered that he kept a little book shop at some distance from the University, and, being too poor to hire an assistant, had to close his door to customers while he went to recite his lessons.

Professor Blackie tells of one young student, who lived for a whole session on red herrings and a barrel of potatoes, sent him from home. The poor fellow's health so gave way under this meagre diet, that he died before his course of study was finished.

The learned Professor mentions also another very touching case of a young student who fell a victim to his thirst for knowledge. The poor fellow had so weakened his stomach by privation, that he died from eating a good meal given him by a kind friend.

I said just now that little work was done at the University of Oxford. Exception must, however, be made in the case of the famous Balliol College.

But whom do we find there?

This college is full of Scotch students, who succeed in keeping themselves at Oxford, thanks to their frugality and industry. It is not unfrequent to find them giving lessons to the undergraduates of other colleges!

And what lessons the Scotch can give the English!