Chapter 6

Even at this time of Assemblies, when the atmosphere is almost exclusively clerical and ecclesiastical, the two great church armies represented here certainly conceal from the casual observer all rivalries and jealousies, if indeed they cherish any. As for the two dissenting bodies, the Church of the Disruption and the Church of the Secession have been keeping company, so to speak, for some years, with a distant eye to an eventual union. In the light of all this pleasant toleration, it seems difficult to realize that earlier Edinburgh, where, we learned from old parochial records of 1605, Margaret Sinclair was cited by the Session of the Kirk for being at the Burne for water on the Sabbath; that Janet Merling was ordered to make public repentance for concealing a bairn unbaptized in her house for the space of twenty weeks and calling said bairn Janet; that Pat Richardson had to crave mercy for being found in his boat in time of afternoon service; and that Janet Walker, accused of having visitors in her house in sermon-time, had to confess her offense and on her knees crave mercy of God _and_ the Kirk Session (which no doubt was much worse) under penalty of a hundred pounds Scots. Possibly there are people yet who would prefer to pay a hundred pounds rather than hear a sermon, but they are few.

It was in the early seventeen hundred and thirties when Allan Ramsay, "in fear and trembling of legal and clerical censure," lent out the plays of Congreve and Farquhar from his famous High Street library. In 1756 it was that the Presbytery of Edinburgh suspended all clergymen who had witnessed the representation of "Douglas," that virtuous tragedy written, to the dismay of all Scotland, by a minister of the Kirk. That the world, even the theological world, moves with tolerable rapidity when once set in motion, is evinced by the fact that on Mrs. Siddons' second engagement in Edinburgh, in the summer of 1785, vast crowds gathered about the doors of the theatre, not at night alone, but in the day, to secure places. It became necessary to admit them first at three in the afternoon, and then at noon, and eventually "the General Assembly of the Church then in session was compelled to arrange its meetings with reference to the appearance of the great actress." How one would have enjoyed hearing that Scotsman say, after one of her most splendid flights of tragic passion, "That's no bad!" We have read of her dismay at this ludicrous parsimony of praise, but her self-respect must have been restored when the Edinburgh ladies fainted by dozens during her impersonation of Isabella in "The Fatal Marriage."

Since Scottish hospitality is well-nigh inexhaustible, it is not strange that from the moment Edinburgh streets began to be crowded with ministers, our drawing-room table began to bear shoals of engraved invitations of every conceivable sort, all equally unfamiliar to our American eyes.

"The Purse-Bearer is commanded by the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale to invite Miss Hamilton to a Garden Party at the Palace of Holyrood House, on the 27th of May. _Weather permitting_."

"The General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland admits Miss Hamilton to any gallery on any day."

"The Marchioness of Heatherdale is At Home on the 26th of May from a quarter past nine in the evening. Palace of Holyrood House."

"The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland is At Home in the Library of the New College on Saturday, the 22d May, from eight to ten in the evening."

"The Moderator asks the pleasure of Miss Hamilton's presence at a Breakfast to be given on the morning of the 25th of May at Dunedin Hotel."

We determined to go to all these functions impartially, tracking thus the Presbyterian lion to his very lair, and observing his home as well as his company manners. In everything that related to the distinctively religious side of the proceedings we sought advice from Mrs. M'Collop, while we went to Lady Baird for definite information on secular matters. We also found an unexpected ally in the person of our own ex-Moderator's niece, Miss Jean Dalziel (Deeyell). She has been educated in Paris, but she must always have been a delightfully breezy person, quite too irrepressible to be affected by Scottish _haar_ or theology. "Go to the Assemblies, by all means," she said, "and be sure and get places for the heresy case. These are no longer what they once were,--we are getting lamentably weak and gelatinous in our beliefs,--but there is an unusually nice one this year; the heretic is very young and handsome, and quite wicked, as ministers go. Don't fail to be presented at the Marchioness's court at Holyrood, for it is a capital preparation for the ordeal of Her Majesty and Buckingham Palace. 'Nothing fit to wear'? You have never seen the people who go, or you wouldn't say that! I even advise you to attend one of the breakfasts; it can't do you any serious or permanent injury so long as you eat something before you go. Oh no, it doesn't matter,--whichever one you choose, you will cheerfully omit the other; for I avow as a Scottish spinster, and the niece of an ex-Moderator, that to a stranger and a foreigner the breakfasts are worse than Arctic explorations. If you do not chance to be at the table of honor"--

"The gifted Miss Hamilton is always at the table of honor; unless she is placed there she refuses to eat, and then the universe rocks to its centre," interpolated Francesca impertinently.

"It is true," continued Miss Dalziel, "you will often sit beside a minister or a minister's wife, who will make you scorn the sordid appetites of flesh, but if you do not, then eat as little as may be, and flee up the Mound to whichever Assembly is the Mecca of your soul!"

"My niece's tongue is an unruly member," said the ex-Moderator, who was present at this diatribe, "and the principal mistake she makes in her judgment of these clerical feasts is that she criticises them as conventional repasts, whereas they are intended to be informal meetings together of people who wish to be better acquainted."

"Hot bacon and eggs would be no bar to friendship," answered Miss Dalziel, with an affectionate _moue_.

"Cold bacon and eggs is better than cold piety," said the ex-Moderator, "and it may be a good discipline for fastidious young ladies who have been spoiled by Parisian breakfasts."

It is to Mrs. M'Collop that we owe our chief insight into technical church matters, although we seldom agree with her "opeenions" after we gain our own experience. She never misses hearing one sermon on a Sabbath, and oftener she listens to two or three. Neither does she confine herself to the ministrations of a single preacher, but roves from one sanctuary to another, seeking the bread of life, often, however, according to her own account, getting a particularly indigestible "stane."

She is thus a complete guide to the Edinburgh pulpit, and when she is making a bed in the morning she dispenses criticism in so large and impartial a manner that it would make the flesh of the "meenistry" creep were it overheard. I used to think Ian Maclaren's sermon-taster a possible exaggeration of an existent type, but I now see that she is truth itself.

"Ye'll be tryin' anither kirk the morn?" suggests Mrs. M'Collop, spreading the clean Sunday sheet over the mattress. "Wha did ye hear the Sawbath that's bye? Dr. A? Ay, I ken him ower weel; he's been there for fifteen years an' mair. Ay, he's a gifted mon--_off an' on_!" with an emphasis showing clearly that, in her estimation, the times when he is "off" outnumber those when he is "on."... "Ye have na heard auld Dr. B yet?" (Here she tucks in the upper sheet tidily at the foot.) "He's a graund strachtforrit mon, is Dr. B, forbye he's growin' maist awfu' dreich in his sermons, though when he's that wearisome a body canna heed him wi' oot takin' peppermints to the kirk, he's nane the less, at seeventy-sax, a better mon than the new asseestant. Div ye ken the new asseestant? He's a wee-bit, finger-fed mannie, ower sma' maist to wear a goon! I canna thole him, wi' his lang-nebbit words, explainin' an' expoundin' the gude Book as if it had jist come oot! The auld doctor's nae kirk-filler, but he gies us fu' meesure, pressed doun an' rinnin' over, nae bit-pickin's like the haverin' asseestant; it's my opeenion he's no soond, wi' his parleyvoos an' his clish-maclavers!... Mr. C?" (Now comes the shaking and straightening and smoothing of the first blanket.) "Ay, he's weel eneuch! I mind ance he prayed for our Free Assembly, an' then he turned roun' an' prayed for the Estaiblished, maist in the same breath,--he's a broad, leeberal mon is Mr. C!... Mr. D? Ay, I ken him fine; he micht be waur, though he's ower fond o' the kittle pairts o' the Old Testament; but he reads his sermon from the paper, an' it's an auld sayin', 'If a meenister canna mind [remember] his ain discoorse, nae mair can the congregation be expectit to mind it.'... Mr. E? He's my ain meenister." (She has a pillow in her mouth now, but though she is shaking it as a terrier would a rat, and drawing on the linen slip at the same time, she is still intelligible between the jerks.) "Susanna says his sermon is like claith made o' soond 'oo [wool] wi' a gude twined thread, an' wairpit an' weftit wi' doctrine. Susanna kens her Bible weel, but she's never gaed forrit." (To "gang forrit" is to take the communion.) "Dr. F? I ca' him the greetin' doctor! He's aye dingin' the dust oot o' the poopit cushions, an' greetin' ower the sins o' the human race, an' eespecially of his ain congregation. He's waur syne his last wife sickened an' slippit awa.' 'Twas a chastenin' he'd put up wi' twice afore, but he grat nane the less. She was a bonnie bit body, was the thurd Mistress F! E'nbro could 'a' better spared the greetin' doctor than her, I'm thinkin'."

"The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, according to his good will and pleasure," I ventured piously, as Mrs. M'Collop beat the bolster and laid it in place.

"Ou ay," responded that good woman, as she spread the counterpane over the pillows in the way I particularly dislike--"ou ay, but whiles I think it's a peety he couldna be guidit!"

XI

We were to make our bow to the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness of Heatherdale in the evening, and we were in a state of republican excitement at 22, Breadalbane Terrace.

Francesca had surprised us by refusing to be presented at this semi-royal Scottish court. "Not I," she said. "The Marchioness represents the Queen; we may discover, when we arrive, that she has raised the standards of admission, and requires us to 'back out' of the throne-room. I don't propose to do that without London training. Besides, I detest crowds, and I never go to my own President's receptions; and I have a headache, anyway, and I don't feel like coping with the Reverend Ronald to-night!" (Lady Baird was to take us under her wing, and her nephew was to escort us, Sir Robert being in Inveraray.)

"Sally, my dear," I said, as Francesca left the room with a bottle of smelling-salts somewhat ostentatiously in evidence, "methinks the damsel doth protest too much. In other words, she devotes a good deal of time and discussion to a gentleman whom she heartily dislikes. As she is under your care, I will direct your attention to the following points:--

"Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of international alliances.

"He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian.

"His father was a famous old school doctor; Francesca is a homoeopathist.

"He is serious; Francesca is gay.

"I think, under all the circumstances, their acquaintance will bear watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists."

"Nonsense!" returned Salemina brusquely. "You think because you are under the spell of the tender passion yourself that other people are in constant danger. Francesca detests him."

"Who told you so?"

"She herself," triumphantly.

"Salemina," I said pityingly, "I have always believed you a spinster from choice; don't lead me to think that you have never had any experience in these matters! The Reverend Ronald has also intimated to me as plainly as he dared that he cannot bear the sight of Francesca. What do I gather from this statement? The general conclusion that if it be true, it is curious that he looks at her incessantly."

"Francesca would never live in Scotland," remarked Salemina feebly.

"Not unless she were asked, of course," I replied.

"He would never ask her."

"Not unless he thought he had a chance of an affirmative answer."

"Her father would never allow it."

"Her father allows what she permits him to allow. You know that perfectly well."

"What shall I do about it, then?"

"Consult me."

"What shall _we_ do about it?"

"Let Nature have her own way."

"I don't believe in Nature."

"Don't be profane, Salemina, and don't be unromantic, which is worse; but if you insist, trust in Providence."

"I would rather trust Francesca's hard heart."

"The hardest hearts melt if sufficient heat be applied. Did I take you to Newhaven and read you 'Christie Johnstone' on the beach for naught? Don't you remember Charles Reade said that the Scotch are icebergs, with volcanoes underneath; thaw the Scotch ice, which is very cold, and you shall get to the Scotch fire, warmer than any sun of Italy or Spain. I think Mr. Macdonald is a volcano."

"I wish he were extinct," said Salemina petulantly, "and I wish you wouldn't make me nervous."

"If you had any faculty of premonition, you wouldn't have waited for me to make you nervous."

"Some people are singularly omniscient."

"Others are singularly deficient"--And at this moment Susanna Crum came in to announce Miss Jean Dalziel, who had come to see sights with us.

It was our almost daily practice to walk through the Old Town, and we were now familiar with every street and close in that densely crowded quarter. Our quest for the sites of ancient landmarks never grew monotonous, and we were always reconstructing, in imagination, the Cowgate, the Canongate, the Lawnmarket, and the High Street, until we could see Auld Reekie as it was in bygone centuries. In those days of continual war with England, people crowded their dwellings as near the Castle as possible, so floor was piled upon floor and flat upon flat, families ensconcing themselves above other families, the tendency being ever skyward. Those who dwelt on top had no desire to spend their strength in carrying down the corkscrew stairs matter which would descend by the force of gravity if pitched from the window or door; so the wayfarer, especially after dusk, would be greeted with cries of "Get out o' the gait!" or "Gardy loo!" which was in the French "_Gardez l'eau_," and which would have been understood in any language, I fancy, after a little experience. The streets then were filled with the debris flung from a hundred upper windows, while certain ground-floor tenants, such as butchers and candlemakers, contributed their full share to the fragrant heaps. As for these too seldom used narrow turnpike stairs, imagine the dames of fashion tilting their vast hoops and silken show-petticoats up and down in them!

That swine roamed at will in these Elysian fields is to be presumed, since we have this amusing picture of three High Street belles and beauties in the "Traditions of Edinburgh:"--

"So easy were the manners of the great, fabled to be so stiff and decorous," says the author, "that Lady Maxwell's daughter Jane, who afterward became the Duchess of Gordon, was seen riding a sow up the High Street, while her sister Eglantine (afterwards Lady Wallace of Craigie) thumped lustily behind with a stick."

No wonder, in view of all this, that King James VI., when about to bring home his "darrest spous" Anne of Denmark, wrote to the Provost, "For God's sake see a' things are richt at our hame-coming; a king with a new-married wife doesna come hame ilka day."

Had it not been for these royal home-comings and visits of distinguished foreigners, now and again aided by something still more salutary, an occasional outbreak of the plague, the easy-going authorities would never have issued any "cleansing edicts," and the still easier-going inhabitants would never have obeyed them. It was these dark, tortuous wynds and closes, nevertheless, that made up the Court End of Old Edinbro'; for some one writes in 1530, "Via vaccarum in quâ habitant patricii et senatores urbis" (The nobility and chief senators of the city dwell in the Cowgate). And as for the Canongate, this Saxon _gaet_ or way of the Holyrood canons, it still sheltered in 1753 "two dukes, sixteen earls, two dowager countesses, seven lords, seven lords of session, thirteen baronets, four commanders of the forces in Scotland, and five eminent men,"--fine game indeed for Mally Lee!

"A' doun alang the Canongate Were beaux o' ilk degree; And mony ane turned round to look At bonny Mally Lee. And we're a' gaun east an' west, We're a' gaun agee, We're a' gaun east an' west Courtin' Mally Lee!"

Every corner bristles with memories. Here is the Stamp Office Close, from which the lovely Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, was wont to issue on Assembly nights; she, six feet in height, with a brilliantly fair complexion and a "face of the maist bewitching loveliness." Her seven daughters and stepdaughters were all conspicuously handsome, and it was deemed a goodly sight to watch the long procession of eight gilded sedan-chairs pass from the Stamp Office Close, bearing her and her stately brood to the Assembly Room, amid a crowd that was "hushed with respect and admiration to behold their lofty and graceful figures step from the chairs on the pavement."

Here itself is the site of those old Assemblies presided over at one time by the famous Miss Nicky Murray, a directress of society affairs, who seems to have been a feminine premonition of Count d'Orsay and our own McAllister. Rather dull they must have been, those old Scotch balls, where Goldsmith saw the ladies and gentlemen in two dismal groups divided by the length of the room.

"The Assembly Close received the fair-- Order and elegance presided there-- Each gay Right Honourable had her place, To walk a minuet with becoming grace. No racing to the dance with rival hurry, Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray!"

It was half past nine in the evening when Salemina and I drove to Holyrood, our humble cab-horse jogging faithfully behind Lady Baird's brougham, and it was the new experience of seeing Auld Reekie by lamplight that called up these gay visions of other days,--visions and days so thoroughly our mental property that we could not help resenting the fact that women were hanging washing from the Countess of Eglinton's former windows, and popping their unkempt heads out of the Duchess of Gordon's old doorway.

The Reverend Ronald is so kind! He enters so fully into our spirit of inquiry, and takes such pleasure in our enthusiasms! He even sprang lightly out of Lady Baird's carriage and called to our "lamiter" to halt while he showed us the site of the Black Turnpike, from whose windows Queen Mary saw the last of her kingdom's capital.

"Here was the Black Turnpike, Miss Hamilton!" he cried; "and from here Mary went to Loch Leven, where you Hamiltons and the Setons came gallantly to her help. Don't you remember the 'far ride to the Solway sands'?"

I looked with interest, though I was in such a state of delicious excitement that I could scarce keep my seat.

"Only a few minutes more, Salemina," I sighed, "and we shall be in the palace courtyard; then a probable half-hour in crowded dressing-rooms, with another half-hour in line, and then, then we shall be making our best republican bow in the Gallery of the Kings! How I wish Mr. Beresford and Francesca were with us! What do you suppose was her real reason for staying away? Some petty disagreement with our young minister, I am sure. Do you think the dampness is taking the curl out of our hair? Do you suppose our gowns will be torn to ribbons before the Marchioness sees them? Do you believe we shall look as well as anybody? Privately, I think we must look better than anybody; but I always think that on my way to a party, never after I arrive."

Mrs. M'Collop had asserted that I was "bonnie eneuch for ony court," and I could not help wishing that "mine ain dear Somebody" might see me in my French frock embroidered with silver thistles, and my "shower bouquet" of Scottish bluebells tied loosely together. Salemina wore pinky-purple velvet; a real heather color it was, though the Lord High Commissioner would probably never note the fact.

When we had presented our cards of invitation at the palace doors, we joined the throng and patiently made our way up the splendid staircases, past powdered lackeys without number, and, divested of our wraps, joined another throng on our way to the throne-room, Salemina and I pressing those cards with our names "legibly written on them" close to our palpitating breasts.

At last the moment came when, Lady Baird having preceded me, I handed my bit of pasteboard to the usher; and hearing "Miss Hamilton" called in stentorian accents, I went forward in my turn, and executed a graceful and elegant but not too profound curtsy, carefully arranged to suit the semi-royal, semi-ecclesiastical occasion. I had not divulged the fact even to Salemina, but I had worn Mrs. M'Collop's carpet quite threadbare in front of the long mirror, and had curtsied to myself so many times in its crystal surface that I had developed a sort of fictitious reverence for my reflected image. I had only begun my well-practiced obeisance when Her Grace the Marchioness, to my mingled surprise and embarrassment, extended a gracious hand and murmured my name in a particularly kind voice. She is fond of Lady Baird, and perhaps chose this method of showing her friendship; or it may be that she noticed my silver thistles and Salemina's heather-colored velvet,--they certainly deserved special recognition; or it may be that I was too beautiful to pass over in silence,--in my state of exaltation I was quite equal to the belief.

The presentation over, we wandered through the spacious apartments, leaning from the open windows to hear the music of the band playing in the courtyard below, looking at the royal portraits, and chatting with groups of friends who appeared and reappeared in the throng. Finally Lady Baird sent for us to join her in a knot of personages more and less distinguished, who had dined at the palace, and who were standing behind the receiving party in a sort of sacred group. This indeed was a ground of vantage, and one could have stood there for hours, watching all sorts and conditions of men and women bowing before the Lord High Commissioner and the Marchioness, who, with her Cleopatra-like beauty and scarlet gown, looked like a gorgeous cardinal-flower.

Salemina and I watched the curtsying narrowly, with the view at first of improving our own obeisances for Buckingham Palace; but truth to say we got no added light, and plainly most of the people had not worn threadbare the carpets in front of their dressing-mirrors.

Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, "Lord Colquhoun," a distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom we often met at dinners; then "Miss Rowena Colquhoun;" and then, in the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door--"Miss Francesca Van Buren Monroe." I involuntarily touched the Reverend Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her tortoiseshell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge.