My father's earliest recollection, (unless he was
right in believing that he remembered indistinctly his mother's death
which occurred a year earlier) was of the news of the victory of
Waterloo in 1815. When the news came which, in that day would be some
time after the event, his brothers lighted a huge bonfire, and
rejoicingly talked of "Bonaparte" being taken. His understanding was
that some place or thing valuable or precious had come into some one's
possession, and with all his heart he rejoiced with the rejoicers around
the fire, with ignorance as profound as that of infantile beholders,
possibly on the same spot of the beltane fires of pre-Christian days.
On a farm in the latitude of Cromar during the short
winter day, it would seem that little labour would be required outside
the care of cattle, which in grandfather's day, did not include the
extraordinary increase of work entailed by the subsequent introduction
of turnip, a cattle ration. At any rate, unless the reclamation of
hitherto uncultivated lands was being prosecuted, a good deal of spare
time would he left free for possible self-improvement or social
intercourse and enjoyment. It must not be forgotten, however, that the
threshing process for relieving the grain from the straw ration required
a great deal of time daily as the sole sustenance of cattle and horses
alike, had to be effected laboriously by the flail. That work. I
understand, was usually accomplished before daylight, which however, did
not appear in Winter until eight o'clock while darkness at the shortest
day descended through a protracted gloaming, making artificial light
necessary between four and five o'clock in the afternoon. Conditions as
they were must have left free In the toiler a long evening in any event
spent according to inclination. For the most part it is likely that this
liberty was exercised generally m the locality in social enjoyment
rather than in self improvement. At any rate most of the old people with
whom I was wont to meet, deplored the dullness and lifelessness of
the rising generation as compared with their own. From what my
father used to tell. I suppose that his brothers were as gay perhaps as
the rest, but withal inclined to be studious. He understood from
education derived solely from the parish school, all of them had been
fitted for entrance to the university. In that he may possibly have been
mistaken, though then and even in my own time it was not uncommon for
pupils to pass from the parish school to the university direct.
For what progress they may have been able to achieve,
I cannot help thinking that they were indebted largely to the influence
of their mother. They could not have had access to many books, for there
was then no public library and the purchase of costly books was beyond
their means. Possibly through association with the minister's sons at
school and at home they may have had some hell) from the library of the
manse, which was only a few rods distant. One of them at all events had
begun the study of latin, in which he had as his companion one of the
minister's sons whose attendance was not interrupted by the exigencies
of farming operations. On one occasion urgency on the farm had detained
one of my uncles from school for some days, while his companion had been
going on without interruption. At the close of one of those days of
manual toil, the minister's son, observing him watering his horses,
called to him across the field, "I'm past Doceo." To this came back the
swift response "I don't care though you have passed Roceo." Thus fleets
across the century, freighted with nothing more than the shadow of the
momentary annoyance of a little boy, a passing word to fall like
thistle-down on some listening ear, and to find expression here, while
words freighted with importance and may-hap the seeds of destiny are
dead and buried beyond the hope of resurrection. The word tells, however
of a fellowship, perhaps a rivalry, between the two youths which may
have afforded access to sources of information and culture denied to
others of the time less favourably situated. However that may be, the
fact that one of my uncles had taken out in penny numbers, the works of
Josephus and also of Cook's Geography, the latter of which he afterwards
got bound in two large volumes, gives proof that he was of an enquiring
mind and in search of information not easily available to the ordinary
peasant of the time. That copy of Cook's geography was for the young
folks of our family, at least up to the time of our removal to Canada,
an interesting feature of my father's library. Lack of baggage space
induced my father to part with it at his out-going sale, much to my
disappointment. It is interesting to note that, after the lapse of
fifty-eight years, through the interest and intervention of my nephew,
and the kindness and generosity of the heirs of the late Mr. William
Roy, who in Scotland was a warm friend of both the Stewart and
Farquharson families, that geography is now in the possession of the
writer, who hereby records his appreciation of the kindness of the
donors.
Whatever was the educational standing of his
brothers, my father's equipment in that regard was exceedingly meagre,
although he was a great reader and could pen a letter as swiftly and
intelligently as any of his family, subject, however, to a grammar and
orthography peculiar to himself. His mother's death when he was a child
of four years could not have failed to be to him, educationally as well
as otherwise, a most serious loss. To that cause rather than to any
natural ineptitude, knowing him as I did, would I attribute what his
sister Jane had regarded as his slow progress at school compared with
his brothers. Whatever may have been his father's estimate of his
youngest son's ability, it was plain that under the circumstances of the
rest of the family, no provision could be made for him on the farm. With
the prices of cattle and farm produce then current, and the lack of the
modern appliances for the reduction of manual labour—all the harvesting,
for instance being done with the sickle--it can be understood how
difficult was the problem of maintaining a large family and paying a
rental of eighty pounds sterling a year, apart from doctors bills and
other expenses incident to sickness and death. I do not suppose that
much was used on the table, other than what was produced on the farm,
but what way purchased mast have been exceedingly dear if an account of
the period for a bushel of common salt purchased in Aberdeen by a
brother of grand father's may be taken as a fair criterion. That bushel
of salt had been purchased on credit and so a little interest had been
added, but the total debit at the tie of payment was over two pounds
sterling. That account I have seen and examined personally. From it, I
am convinced that there had been no reduction in the price of that
commodity, at least since the middle of the eighteenth century, when the
Jacobites complained:—
`We daurna brew a peck o`maut
`But Geordie be maun fin`a faut
``And for our kail we scarce get sant
`For want o` Royal Charlie.``
By the time that my father was eight, two of his
brothers had died and his father had married again. My aunt Elizabeth,
by the time that she was ten, had gone to Aberdeen as a dress-maker.
That seemed to give opportunity for sending my father to the city to
board with her and learn a trade. Reflecting on these
early times. Father would sometimes say that he felt that his
step-mother did not get from the voting folks as fair a chance as she
might have had. Perhaps all things considered, it was desirable that the
voting chap should be allowed to go.
It has been noted that the young men slept in the
barn. No doubt its floor was of clay, and from what I have heard of the
habits of the time, I make no doubt whatever that but scant care had
been taken to prevent sputum and other filth from soaking into the
floor. In a dark unsunned barn, would in my opinion be found the most
favourable conditions possible for the production of tubercular and
other disease-producing germs. In the face of that tide of death the
best medical skill would be impotent. Worse than vain were all the
efforts of the best available skill of the day, by means of copious
bleeding, to eliminate all the disease-producing elements in the system.
Into this swelter of incipient death the youthful Charles had already
been plunged and if he was to escape the fate of the others, his removal
could not be too speedily effected. Whether his removal to the city was
economically politic or not, it is now abundantly clear that it was
physically, his salvation.
His brothers, otherwise kind, would go out in the
evenings on their hare-huntings and frolics and not return until late,
so the little fellow had to find his bed in the dark barn all alone,
save for the companionship of his faithful doggie "Fox" which cuddled
into the humble bed along with his master.
AN APPRENTICE IN ABERDEEN
So, at the age of ten he was sent off to be
apprenticed to a tailor, while boarding with his sister. I have no doubt
that the sister acted the sister's part and did her best to make him
feel at home, but nevertheless, home-sickness in its severest form took
possession of the boy. The home for which he Ionged would seem to us to
possess but few attractions, but there were the familiar faces, there
also his four-footed friend Fox, with whom he had in happier days romped
and played by day, and whose companionship and protection had lightened
the dreary darkness of the barn and dispelled from their common bed the
terrors of the night. So serious did the attack at last become, that one
early morning he took the road, and actually footed it home a distance
of not less than thirty-eight miles. I have heard him say that when on
the evening of the same day he came in sight of his home, the distance
seemed formidable, if not beyond his strength.
Soon his sister had to leave him, for on her too the
fell destroyer had fixed his dart, and she went hone to die, passing
away in 1824. From that time onward, while in Aberdeen he seems to have
boarded with a cousin of his own, Mary Burns.
During his stay in Aberdeen, he was on one occasion
brought into contact with the fatuous though rather eccentric Dr.Kidd,
then one of the city's most famous preachers. On a Sunday afternoon,
while on his way to "the Links" for the purpose of enjoying himself with
the crowds there wont to assemble, he was met by the Doctor who accosted
him with a question as to where he was going. On receiving; a truthful
reply, the Doctor said "You should be in church, sir," and using his
umbrella, which I understand he always carried, as a persuader, he
marched him along the street and finally landed him in the Doctor's own
church. From the way my father was wont to tell this story, I feel sure
that neither at the time nor afterwards did he find fault with the
Doctor's well-meant and proper interference with his liberty. Certain it
is that the Doctor was most popular with the boys of his day. It is said
that, as he passed along the street they would wait respectfully for his
approach, in order to receive his benediction, which he would take time
to bestow with great cheerfulness and solemnity by placing his hand
lovingly on the suppliant's head. Sometimes the little rogues, not alone
perhaps from pure appreciation of the personal contact, would dodge down
a side-street, and again confronting their friend, await a second
bestowment, only, however, to receive when discovered, a stern rebuke.
Of him the story is told that one day, during church
service, he had been much annoyed by a supposed hearer who had gone
sound asleep. Patience at last becoming exhausted, he pitched his bible
at the head of the offender with the remark, "If you will not hear the
word of God, you shall feel it." If memory serves me rightly, my father
himself was present on one occasion when, pointing to a man fast asleep
in his pew, the preacher called out "Waken that man."Waiting till the
offender was fairly aroused, he ordered him to stand up and then
proceeded to administer a well merited rebuke, remarking that such as he
would come to church pretending to hear the word of God and yet would
deliberately go to sleep while it was being declared and not only so he,
on reaching home, he would say that he had been hearing Dr. Kidd, which
would he a lie.
While in Aberdeen, Father had the good fortune to get
acquainted with a family that took a deep interest in their church and
all it stood for. They were independents, or congregationalists, and
took him with them to Sunday School, something he had never heard of in
Coldstone. Their name, I believe, was Maitland. One of the girls
afterwards married an ironmonger or hardware merchant named Robertson.
To the influence of the Maitlands Father was much indebted, and the
intimacy thus begun, was maintained between our family and that of the
Robertsons, up to the time of our leaving Scotland. Visits at The Parks
from different members of their brilliant family were frequent. Four of
the boys were fatuous students. Charles and John, each after a brilliant
course in Marischall College, Aberdeen, passed with high honour the
Civil Service examination and were assigned to Indian service. George
became a professor in London University, while Alexander, less robust
physically than his brothers, held the position of Librarian of Aberdeen
University.
As an illustration of the moral progress of the world
during the century since intervening, it is interesting to note that
during my father's stay in Aberdeen three men were executed together on
the same scaffold, for theft alone, and one of them for theft without
violence, of a pair of boots. In the estimation of law then, so valuable
was property and so cheap was life.
After completing his apprenticeship, my father came
to the little village of Tarland three miles from home, where for some
years lie plied his trade in the employ of John Skeene, a merchant and
meal-miller there, for whom he had ever after the highest respect. How
long he was there employed I do not know, but I do not think that he had
employment elsewhere after completing his apprenticeship. If I am
correct in that, he had probably left Aberdeen about 1821. He used to
say that he finally relinquished the tailor trade when twenty years of
age. That would be the year 1830. By that time, the ravages of disease
in the family had ended, for in that year Uncle John, the last of the
family to fall a victim to consumption, passed away.
Meantime, matters on the farm had been going from bad
to worse. Unable to longer maintain the unequal struggle, the life-lease
by which the farm had been held was surrendered, and in 1828,
Grandfather, desolated, and with heavy heart, retired to the little
croft of Tillymutton, where Uncle John must therefore have died.
BACK TO HOME AND FARM.
Aunt Margaret had meantime gone to earn a living for
herself, and Grandfather and Auntie Jane were therefore left alone. Then
it was that my father came home to render such aid as with hands soft
and untrained he might be able to render, in the work and management of
the little farm. Tillymutton adjoined the farm of Belgrennie, which by
that time had become the home of my maternal grandfather James Fletcher,
and I believe that the relations as acquaintances and neighbours, then
for the first time established, were all along most cordial and
pleasant. Uncle William the youngest of the Fletcher boys, long years
after, and shortly before his death in Nebraska, told my brother
Alexander that he cherished the most pleasing memories of Grandfather
Farquharson, who he said was a most interesting old man with a fund of
stories he never tired of relating to the younger man, or boy, as the
two herded their united flocks on the hill pasture. This pasture was
common to both farms, each being in terms of their respective ]eases
restricted to a certain number of sheep.
Testimony to the same effect as to the cheerfulness
and companionableness of his disposition, as well as to the excellence
of his character, was frequently given to myself as I met from time to
time older neighbours who well remembered him. He was not, however, so
amiable as to be incapable of manifesting something of a temper when
occasion seemed to demand it. Aunt Margaret once told me that when she
was a little girl he had undertaken, from his bed to which he had been
temporarily confined by illness, to teach her to spin. The pupil seemed
to the sick man slow to understand his spoken direction, and he told her
she was not like her mother for she could do anything as soon its she
was told how. At last he got impatient with her and said "If I were able
I'd take a stick to you," to which her laughing reply was "Oh, but isn't
it a good job you aren't able!" At Tillymutton he lived a quiet life for
almost eleven years, dying at last in peace, on the fourth day of
February 1839 at the age of seventy-five. His last message for the three
survivors of his once numerous family was that he had little or nothing
to leave them except a good name and an open door to all their
neighbours, but if they would fear God and gang the richt gaet they
would be provided for. So passed the patriarch from the scene of his
many sorrows, to become partaker, as we fondly trust, of the inheritance
into which sin, sorrow and parting never come.
He was not forgotten. Often my father would speak of
him, and I remember his once saying that he wished his father had been
spared to see the comfortable circumstances in which the third
generation at The Parks were entering upon life.
The last time I remember of hearing him mention his
father was near the close of his own life, and this, strangely enough,
was the only time I remember of his saying a word that might be taken to
imply adverse criticism of his father's conduct. He had, apparently been
going over again mentally the experiences of his boy-hood in Aberdeen,
and remarked that he sometimes wondered how his father and his folks
could have been so careless of him. None of them, apparently, had come
to see him, or make any enquiry about him. Perhaps he had forgotten that
Rowland's Penny Postage Bill did not become law until after his father's
death, and that pennies were scarce. And probably he had not taken
sufficient account of the difficulty of a thirty-eight mile journey by
cart in that far-off day, or of the short time left to his brother:
business-free on the rare occasions of a visit to the city for the
disposal of grain or other farm produce.
In those days, and even within my own recollection,
such a journey and return would occupy at least two days. The only
conveyance available was the farce cart, two carts being usually in
charge of one man. When the carts were loaded the driver walked
alongside his double charge, giving chief attention to the leading unit.
When empty or light loaded he took his seat on the front edge of the box
of the forward cart, with his feet resting on the nigh or left shaft
outside the box. No rein was unused, though a trap attached to the nigh
side of the bridle had its other end attached usually to the breeching
within reach of the driver's hand. In case of difficulty the driver
dismounted and controlled the leading horse, the one behind being
content usually to follow the leading cart. Loaded or empty the horse
never went off the walk, the shafts being too rigid, and the whole
outfit otherwise unfitted for rapid motion. In my early boyhood days,
our carts would generally start for Aberdeen at night or very early in
the morning, and stop over-night about eight miles short of their
destination, the rest of the journey being accomplished in the morning,
when the grain, usually contained in bags of not less than five bushels
capacity, had to be delivered in the granary of the purchaser, sometimes
two or even three storeys up, the only hoist being the back of the
vendor or his employee. The delivery of a load or two of five-bushel
sacks of oats at standard weight of 40 lbs. or of barley at 52 lbs. per
bushel, must have been a serious matter to the ordinary man, though to a
man like "Sandy" Jessamine a brother of my Aunt Mary (wife of Uncle
James Fletcher) it would have been but child's play.
On one occasion, so the story goes, while on the way
to Aberdeen with a load of barley contained in such bags, in the lead of
other carts loaded like his own and bound for the same destination,
which it was in the interest of each driver to reach first, he had the
misfortune to drop a bag. Determined that none of his followers should
pass him, he went back, picked up the bag, ran forward with it, and
returned it to its place on the cart, without stopping his horse. The
driver next in line, noticing the exploit, exclaimed "That must be
chaff." "No," replied Sandy, "It's bere and gweed."
At another time Sandy, along with a neighbour had
been commissioned to bring from town a Shetland pony. On the ,\-ay home
they had to pass through a toll-gate, the charges of which they either
lacked the means, or had not the will, to pay. So Sandy picked up the
pony and with it on his back asked the toll keeper what his charge was
"for a man wi' a birn" (burden).
When my uncles went to Aberdeen their morning journey
of about eight miles on the second day would take them fully two hours,
and by the time the horses were stabled and fed and a few household
purchases made, little enough time would be left to look after their
brother, however desirous they may have been to see him. Besides, to
none of them had come the experience of separation from home and its
companionships, and it is not likely that they understood the meaning of
home-sickness or the degree of suffering which it is capable of
entailing upon its victims.
