Various - Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 688

I propose giving one of my early recollections, which lately turned up in the memory of the past. It refers to an incident which occurred only a few years after the beginning of the present century, when I was a boy at the burgh school of Peebles, a small town on the Tweed. The school in its way had a somewhat superior reputation, and drew to it pupils from a distance of several miles around. Trudging in all weathers, the children of farmers and ploughmen came to be educated along with boys and girls belonging to the town. Whatever they were, all were treated alike, and the intermingling of classes was never found to be in any respect disadvantageous; on the contrary, there sprung up agreeable acquaintanceships between the town and country boys that were mutually useful and agreeable.

Among the crowd of country lads who thronged in daily, there was one I have some cause to remember. His name was Rob Graham. I will try to give a picture of Rob. Imagine a sturdy boy of twelve years of age, well knit together, barelegged and barefooted in summer, with coarse red hair surmounting a brow so large that one would say there were good brains under it. Rob's face was placid like that of an old man, and I think was slightly marked with small-pox, as was then not at all unusual. His dress, of a simple kind, consisted of a pair of dingy corduroy trousers and waistcoat, and a short coat of that coarse fabric known as Galashiels blue, with two broad metal buttons staring out behind; which buttons, from their well-worn appearance, had probably embellished a succession of coats of Rob's father and grandfather; for in those days buttons were buttons, and went through a good deal of service before being dismissed. As the fastenings of the dress could with a rive of the hand be rapidly torn asunder, the wearer could at any moment throw off clothes and shirt and plunge into the river stark naked. As Rob's leather cap, stuck on the top of his shock of red hair, was worth very little, we should deal liberally in estimating his whole equipment at the value of twenty shillings.

What signifies, however, the outside of boys? Who cares a farthing how they are dressed? The bodily physique and interior of the skull are the things really worth caring for. Rob's big square face and prominent brow shewed there was something in him. Poorly dressed as he appeared at school, he took the shine out of boys decked out with frills, shoes, and stockings. There was not a boy who shewed more dexterity at 'duck,' a game of pitching a heavy stone at a mark, or who ran with greater vigour at 'shinty,' on the school green. Rob was also a good fighter, and few boys, as the saying is, 'dared to take him up.' Yet Rob was a good-humoured and merry fellow, who did not want to quarrel with anybody. He even condescended to make himself agreeable to the girls in the school, by hopping on one leg in their game which they called 'the beds,' and in dexterously throwing up small shells to be caught on the back of the hand, and locally known as the 'chucks.' Then, he was so obliging. If he saw a poor woman carrying with difficulty a backful of clothes to be bleached on the banks of the mill-stream, he would offer to help her, and did so without any hope of reward. No wonder that this poor boy made friends, and was respected for his good conduct and gallantry. By birth a peasant. By nature a hero!

There in memory does Rob Graham stand before me. Miserably attired and educated, knowing nothing of the world outside the tranquil valley in which he was born, Rob had the dash and courage of a Crusader. Nor was he indebted to good feeding for his diligence and activity. In the morning before quitting home, his mother doubtless supplied him with a breakfast of oatmeal porridge and milk. That, in a great measure kept him going for the day. To stay his hunger, however, a piece of pease-bannock about the size of your hand, and nearly an inch thick, which his mother had baked on the girdle, was stuffed into his right-hand pocket – the left one being occupied with his 'peerie' and 'bools' 1 1 Peg-top and marbles. – and so he was provided with dinner; for beyond the lump of bannock and a drink of water, which he scooped with his hand from the Tweed, he tasted nothing till he was comforted with a repetition of porridge and milk for supper. So much for Rob's dress and mode of living.

By some unaccountable feeling, I felt interested in Rob. I saw him daily seated in the left-hand corner of the school as you go in, poring over his lesson, or playing some prank when the master's back was turned. On one occasion, I pointed out to him how to work out a question in arithmetic on his slate; and at another time afforded some little advice as to his style of penmanship in writing 'a piece' for the public Examination by ministers, magistrates, and other great people. As for his reading I did not interfere, for it would have been useless. Like other pupils, he read aloud with a coarse facility, lessons from Barrie's Collection, and repeated psalms by heart, with little regard to points or modulation, and so loudly, that if the windows were open, you might have heard him a hundred yards off – no one finding fault, not even old Barrie, in his duffle spencer and brown wig, who had come a long way in his gig to honour the ceremonial, and dine afterwards according to use and wont with the magnates of the burgh.

The trifling intercourse I had with Rob led me to make inquiries about his origin and place of residence. It was a simple story. He was the son of a small farmer, or at least the occupant of a cottage and a few acres, known as Kailzie Park Foot. The place was a kind of offshoot of the park or pleasure-grounds connected with the mansion of Kailzie, and situated on the south bank of the Tweed, at the distance of about three miles eastward from Peebles. Possibly, Rob's father had a charge of the pleasure-grounds, or he looked after the hedges and ditches on the property, or did some other work for the laird, for which he was allowed the cottage, a cow's grass, and certain money perquisites; by all which a decent appearance was kept up. The family was not large.

Rob had a sister, Jenny, two years younger than himself, who got a little schooling, but only in summer, as she was unable to undergo the severity of winter travel to and fro. She was a pretty and interesting girl Jenny, with flaxen ringlets and bright intelligent eyes. Though meagrely dressed in a gingham frock, and barefooted, she had a certain lady-like appearance. And that is what may be occasionally seen among school-girls of a humble class. However poor be their dress, we see in their graceful figure, their gentle manner, their flowing hair, their sparkling intelligent eyes, that they are ladies by nature, and would, if polished up, do credit to any society in the kingdom. Such was Jenny Graham, who, unconscious of her girlish beauty, was an object of general admiration. With good taste, as a bit of decoration, she often had a rose or a spink, or sprig of honeysuckle, stuck in the breast of her dress. The boys at the school called her 'The Flower of Kailzie.'

As children together, Rob and Jenny grew up with brotherly and sisterly affection. In autumn, Rob visited and climbed the gean-trees at Haystoun Burn, to bring home a capful of geans or wild-cherries for Jenny. Sometimes ascending the hills he would spend hours in seeking for and gathering 'craw-croups,' a kind of wild bilberries, from the lofty ridges which overlook the valley of The Glen – all to be a posie or offering to sister Jenny. Requiting these attentions, she accompanied him to the Torwood when he went to scale the tall pine-trees in quest of young rooks. And the two had often rambles along the river-bank from Cardrona to Kingsmeadows, on which occasions it was no unusual thing to see them seated on the green margin of a little peninsula which diagonally juts into the water. It is a pleasant spot, nearly opposite the ruins of Horsbrugh Castle, which picturesquely crown the height on the northern side of the river. Here, on the edge of the peninsula grew quantities of tall rushes, with which Rob cleverly plaited head ornaments and necklaces for Jenny, who, proud of her rustic decorations, scampered home with them in the glee of innocent childhood.