Part 5

To such a congregation, after the decease of John Curtis, my friend of the umbrella made a proposition to have a chapel erected. And I question much if a proposal to go to mass would have excited a stronger commotion--particularly among those whom the measure meant to protect--the old and infirm. He of the umbrella offered to subscribe largely himself, and promote the subscription among others, hinting that many of the members of the kirk favoured the cause, and would be glad of an opportunity to display it. The motion was well timed too, namely, at the close of one of those four-hours benedictions from a thunder cloud, which had urged its way through the broad bonnets and thick plaids of the most obstinate believers. I cannot enumerate to you all the bitter and brief exclamations of dismay and indignation which this proposal excited. The decided wrath of one old moorland dame I shall long remember, "Foul fall ye," said she, starting up and hurling her heavy clasped black print Bible at the proposer's head, "foul fall ye, ye deserve to be brained with the word ye hae abused;" and had he of the umbrella not caught this religious missile, as the Curtal fryar's dogs caught the outlaw's arrows, namely, as it flew, he might have been numbered with the martyrs. "Shall _we_," said she, "who were hounded like deer to the mountains, there to worship God in fear of evil men, shall _we_, whom he marvellously protected there, doubt his providence, and descend to keep yer coupled timber--yer covered cushions--and yer canopied, fringed, and painted prelatical pulpits--and yer walls of hewn stane--far frae me--fit places are they, not for the word, but for ye ken what;"--and so she sat down. The more sensible part reflecting, however, that the showers of spring were cold--that the winds of autumn were not always gentle--and that winter indulged them with various and dubious blessings, under the resemblance of snows and sleets, and sudden thaws, resolved, that the erection of a house of worship was a justifiable measure; and a house was accordingly built. But the eloquent dame of the moorlands introduced a salvo, by which the sacrament was directed to be administered in the open air, and so it still continues.

The religious festival of the sacrament is commenced after due private preparation by prayers of unwonted length, and the lonely broomy hollow where it is held, exhibits on Sabbath morn to a stranger a grand and solemn spectacle.

The last time I was present at this meeting I was invited to breakfast at the house of a respectable and recently converted member of the "Broken Remnant," a warm-hearted weaver, a man of rare conversation--ready wit, and cutting dry sarcasm. He was also as much celebrated for his poetry as the unrivalled productions of his loom. His birds-eye, his barley-pickle, his lowland plaiden, and fine linen, were the theme of praise among the young maids in danger of being married--and to their praise I add mine. I have proved his hospitality, and proved the labours of his loom. I sat down to an ample breakfast with this Cameronian worthy--his wife lively always, and once handsome--his two sons, inheriting their father's powers even to overflowing, and a solemn browed Cameronian from the borders of the moorlands. This family auxiliary undertook to pronounce a blessing on our good cheer; a serious trial of my patience and appetite. I endured his sermon for many minutes; it was in its nature controversial. He touched on the adventure at Drumclog, and addressed Providence in strong and familiar term anent the disaster at Bothwell Brig. I looked piteous but resigned, and the good housewife poured forth the tea. But then there came headings and hangings, and finings and confinings, and sad travels and sore tortures. The goodwife placed a plate of smoking savoury cake before him, but he was not to be tempted; he threw a passing curse or two on patronage, still he was distant from our day half a century at least. I looked with an imploring eye, and my entertainer closed his; but I could see by the sarcastic curl at the corners of his mouth that he was inwardly enjoying my misery. Once I stretched my hand, for I had half a mind, like the renowned and impatient good man of Drumbreg, on a time of similar trial, to seize my cup with a cry of "Ye have done brawly man," and cut short all explanation by falling to. I endured it to an end however, and an excellent breakfast enabled me to endure the infliction of a "return thanks," eminently curious and controversial. We then sallied forth to the preaching--the pastor had already commenced; it might be half past 9 o'clock. I was struck with the magnitude and repose of the congregation. Besides the sodded seats which held the oldest and most respectable members, the broom then, I think, in full bloom, with all its perfume about it, was bent down for many acres to form rural seats to Cameronian dames, and dames indeed of all persuasions.--There were many dressed in the latest fashion; the old simple mode of dress however prevailed. Though all shewed deep symptoms of devotion, and many of awe, the young women by no means confined their eyes, and many had bright ones, to the contemplation of the preacher. This festival always attracts an immense multitude, and though the Cameronians are the only communicants, all sects and denominations of Presbyterians crowd to the place, and occupy the vacant ground. I saw many of the Cameronians with whom I had a personal acquaintance, and a silent squeeze of the hand, or an acknowledgment, an austere one, of the eye, was all the recognition to be obtained. The list of offences and sects excluded from communication is extensive and curious--they call it "debarring"--Socinians, Arminians, Unitarians, Episcopalians, false teachers, promiscuous dancers, and playhouse frequenters. I cannot inflict the whole of this tremendous catalogue upon you. One prudent and warning exclusion I cannot omit to mention, namely, that of all wives who disobey their husbands.

In the green hedge-row lane, leading to the tent of the preacher, various stalls were established by persons who thought--as godliness was great gain, great gain was godliness. Here refreshments of all kinds, particularly liquid consolation, abounded, and one tent, rivalling in dimensions the tabernacle of the preacher, looked presumptuously down from the very crest of the hill on its more devout neighbour below. Here the owner of a neighbouring public house had established himself, and into this canvass mansion, in a moment of weakness, I was tempted to enter. I had sundry reasons for this piece of backsliding;--first, I had become wearied with the unexampled length and tediousness of the before-mentioned four hour's sermon; secondly, I was desirous to partake of either Ram-Jam, Mid-Row, or Pinkie, three denominations of ale, for which the landlord was become deservedly famous, and in the brewing of which, weak nerves, as well as a good head, had been doubtlessly consulted--and; thirdly and lastly, a dark-eyed damsel from the mountains wished for my private opinion anent the sinfulness of dancing, and to instruct me in a near road over the hills to her father's house, which stood in a remote glen on the stream of Ae. While deeply employed in taking a chart of this desart path, I could not avoid remarking with what particular gravity all were drinking, and many getting drunk. Consolation had been poured forth in no stinted tide, for a huge wall of empty vessels flanked the entrance. The proprietor of this house of call for the thirsty, was a ruddy carroty-headed rustic, who had contrived to draw down his cheeks for the occasion, in a manner unusually solemn. He sat apart busied, or apparently busied, with that chief of all sage books, the Young Man's Best Companion; while his daughter, as active a girl as ever chalked a score to a thirsty man, managed the business. But his mind had wandered into a long and studious calculation of the probable profit in his fermentations, and the Book, which was only put there as a decoy to the godly, was neglected. I contrived to withdraw it unperceived from before him, and for this feat I was rewarded by a grim smile from a broad bonneted son of Cameron, and a snuff from a tuphorn with a silver lid.

On returning to the meeting, the stars were beginning to glimmer, amongst the thin mist of the summer evening, and I could see groupes, already at some distance, of the spectators retiring home. Far differently demeaned themselves the pious remnant. They crowded round their preacher's tent after the repose of a brief intermission, and I left them enjoying a mysterious lecture on Permission, Predestination, Free Grace, The Elect, and Effectual Calling.

I am now, and I say it with sorrow, far removed from the society of those exemplary and pious people; and I heard, I confess, with something of an old Cameronian spirit and regret, that a proposition has been made to remove the meeting house into the neighbouring town of Dumfries. Of my old favourites, few I understand survive, and year after year lessens the number of those devout men who regularly passed my father's window on the Sabbath morn. Mr. Farely has long since been numbered with the blessed--and Jean Robson, a very singular and devout character, has also rested from her labour of instructing the youth of the Cameronians. She taught the writer of this imperfect account to read--the Bible, and the famed Prophecies of Alexander Peden. She tore the leaf from the Bible which said, "James, by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith," and denounced the name of _Sunday_ as Popish, or what was worse, Prelatical, and caused us all to call it the Sabbath. She died 83 years old. She used to flog her scholars, and exclaim,--"Thou art an evil one--a worker of iniquity," while the tawse and tongue kept time and told sharply.

The Cameronians make few converts--few people are fond of inflicting on themselves willingly the penance of controversial prayers and interminable sermons. There is a falling off in the amount of the flock.--My friend, the weaver, became a convert from conviction. Another of the converts joined the cause in the decline of life, not without suspicion of discontent, because his gifts had been overlooked by the minister of the parish kirk, in a recent nomination of elders. He was fond of argument, and seemed not unwilling to admit the potent auxiliaries of sword and gun on behalf of the cause. On one occasion, he grew wroth with the ready wit of a neighbouring peasant, on the great litigated point of patronage--and seizing the readiest weapon of his wrath, a hazel hoop--for he was a cooper--exclaimed, "Reviler--retire--else I'll make your head saft with this rung." On another time, he became exasperated at the irreverent termination of an epigram on a tippling blacksmith, which was attributed to Burns, who then resided within sight--at Elisland.

On the last day, When sober men to judgment rise, Go drunken dog, lie still incog. And dinna stir if ye be wise.

The honest Covenanter, after three days and three nights meditation, brought forth his expostulation with the mighty bard of Caledonia. It commenced thus--

Robert Burns ye were nae wise To gie to Rodds sic an advice.

It has lost all its attraction since the voice of its author is mute, for who can repeat it as he did--the pithy preliminary remarks on the great poet's morals--the short Cameronian cough--the melodious trail of the tongue--and the frequent intrusion of explanatory notes, which the uninspired could not always distinguish from the poem itself, all these things are departed and passed away, and the verses sleep as quietly as the dust of the poet. Two other occasional converts scarcely deserve notice--one of them was saved from thorough conviction by the well-timed exaltation to a neighbouring precentorship, and the other has returned to his seat in the kirk, since the dark-eyed daughter of an adjacent Cameronian gave her hand, and it was a white one, to one of the chosen who was laird of an acre of peat-moss--and I have not heard of any other damsel of the covenant having caused him to relapse.

SHEPHERD'S DOG.

(From the London Sportsman's Cabinet.)

This dog is the most timid, obedient, placid, serene and grateful in the creation. He seems studiously conscious of the purposes for which he was formed, and is never so perceptibly gratified, as when affording the most incessant proofs of his unsullied integrity.--Instinctively prone to industry, he is alive to the slightest sensation of his employer, and would rather double and treble the watch line of circumspection, than be seen indulging in a state of neglectful indolence.--The breed is propagated and preserved with the greatest respect to purity in the northern parts of the kingdom of England, as well as in the highlands of Scotland, where, in the extensive tracts and uncultivated wilds, their services exceed description.

Constitutionally calm, patient, and philosophic, the sheep dog seems totally lost to every appearance of novelty, and insensible to every attraction beyond the protection and indefatigable preservation of the flock committed to his charge.--In the most sequestered and remote spots, dreary wilds and lofty mountains, almost inaccessible to man, this dog becomes an incredible and trusty substitute; for once initiated in the ground-work of his office, he soon acquires a perfect knowledge of the extent of his walk, as well as every individual of his flock: and will as regularly select his own, and disperse intruders, as the most faithful and attentive shepherd in existence. This becomes the more extraordinary to the contemplative mind, when it is recollected what immense flocks are seen to cover the downy hills of Hants and Wilts, as far as the eye can reach, without control; and to know that by a single signal from the shepherd, this faithful, sagacious animal, replete with energy, vigilance, and activity, will make his circle, so as to surround a flock of hundreds, and bring them within any compass that may be required.

The sheep dog is so completely absorbed in what seems to be the sole business and employment of his life, that he does not bestow a look, or indulge a wish, beyond the constant protection of the trust reposed in him, and to execute the commands of his master; which he is always incessantly anxious to receive, and in fact is invariably looking for by every solicitous attention it is possible to conceive.--Inured to all weathers, fatigue and hunger, he is the least voracious of the species, subsists upon little, and may be justly considered truly emblematic of content. Though there is the appearance of a somniferous indolence in the exterior, it is by no means a constitutional mark of habitual inability; on the contrary, the sagacity, fidelity, and comprehensive penetration of this kind of dog, is equal to any other, but that there is a thoughtful or expressive gravity annexed to this particular race, as if they were absolutely conscious of their own utility in business of importance, and the value of the stock so confidently committed to their care.

Amidst the infinity of cases so constantly issuing from the press, in which proofs almost incredible are authentically adduced of the courage, sagacity, fidelity, gratitude, and self-denial of different kinds of dogs, many are to be found appertaining to this particular race; if they are not so numerous as some other sorts, it may be fairly attributed to the little proportional chance they have (from their remote and sequestered employment) of displaying those powers in an equal degree with dogs more engaged in the bustle of human society.

Dr. Anderson (in his translation from Dr. Pallas) introduces the following instance of sagacity in a shepherd's dog, which he considers truly astonishing; and it will create no surprise with those who are in the least acquainted with their perfections.

"The owner himself having been hanged some years ago for sheep stealing, the following fact, among others, respecting the dog, was authenticated by evidence upon his trial. When the man intended to steal any sheep, he did not do it himself, but detached his dog to perform the business. With this view, under pretence of looking at the sheep with an intention to purchase them, he went through the flock with the dog at his feet, to whom he secretly gave a signal, so as to let him know the individuals he wanted, to the number of ten or twenty, out of a flock of some hundreds; he then went away, and at a distance of several miles sent back the dog by himself in the night time, who picked out the individual sheep that had been pointed out to him, separated them from the flock, and drove them before him by himself, till overtaking his master, to whom he relinquished them."

The shepherd's dog rather shuns than seems anxious to obtain the caresses of strangers, of whom he always appears to be shy and suspicious; it being remarkable, that when refreshing upon a journey with the flock, he seldom reposes but close to the feet or body of his master; who well knows if he but deposits his coat or his wallet, and gives the animal the accustomed signal; when the sheep are at pasture, he may absent himself for hours, and at his return find the whole as safe and regular as if it had been under his own inspection. Although it is already observed, these dogs afford no evident external proof of quick conception, or rapid execution (except in all matters relative to the flock, to which their every faculty appertains) yet their sagacity and fidelity is found equal to every other branch of the species, when necessarily brought into useful action.

"In the month of February, 1795, as Mr. Boulstead's son, of Great Salkeld, in Cumberland, was attending the sheep of his father upon Great Salkeld's common, he had the misfortune to fall and break his leg.--He was then at the distance of three miles from home, no chance of any person's coming, in so unfrequented a place, within call, and evening very fast approaching: in this dreadful dilemma, suffering extreme pain from the fracture, and laying upon the damp ground at so dreary a season of the year, his agitated spirit suggested to him the following expedient: Folding one of his gloves in his pocket handkerchief, he fastened it round the neck of the dog, and rather emphatically ordered him "home."--These dogs, trained so admirably to orders and signals during their attendance upon the flock, are well known to be under the most minute subjection, and to execute the commands of their masters with an alacrity scarcely to be conceived.

Perfectly convinced of some inexplicable disquietude from the situation in which his master lay, he set off at a pace, which soon brought him to the house, where he scratched with great violence at the door for immediate admittance. This obtained, the parents were in the utmost alarm and consternation at his appearance, but more particularly when they had examined the handkerchief and its contents. Instantly concluding beyond a doubt, that some accident had befallen their son, they did not delay a moment going in search of him; and the dog, apparently conscious the principal part of his duty was yet to be performed, anxiously led the way and conducted the agitated parents to the spot where their son lay overwhelmed with pain, increased by the awful uncertainty of his situation.--Happily this was effected just at the close of day, when being immediately removed, and the necessary assistance procured, he soon recovered, and was never more pleasingly engaged than when reciting the sagacity and gratitude of his faithful follower, who then became his constant companion."

* * * * *

The instances of intelligence in the shepherd's dog are recorded in all books treating of the manners and habits of the dog tribe. One more may be mentioned from a recent publication. It is given for the purpose of stimulating the American farmer to possess himself of one of the breed as soon as possible.--Speaking of the "Currack of Kildare," the author says, "The commonage is stocked by a prescriptive proportion, attached to the adjacent farms: every sheep owner has a particular raddled mark; the shepherd's dogs are so trained, that if a sheep, with a strange mark, comes on his master's front, the dog will single him out and worry him off."--See Statistical Survey of the County of Kildare, by T. J. Rawson, Dublin, 1807. p. 121.

J. M.

_The new steam ship Robert Fulton._--This ship is intended to ply as a regular packet between New York and New Orleans. She is said to be, in every respect, one of the finest vessels ever built in that city. A communication in the Gazette gives the following description of this beautiful vessel:

"This ship is a splendid piece of naval architecture--the most perfect model I ever beheld, and does great credit to her builder, Mr. Eckford. She is upwards of 750 tons, of a very great length, rigged with lug sails; has three kelsons, (the centre one large enough for a ship of the line,) together with bilge ways, and the whole secured and bolted in a very extraordinary manner, perhaps the most so of any vessel ever built. Her frame timber and plank are of live oak, locust, cedar, and southern pine, copper bolted and coppered.

"She will afford accommodation for more than 200 persons, is fitted up with high and airy state rooms, thoroughly ventilated by means of sky lights the whole length of the cabin, which is very extensive. Her after cabin is neatly arranged for the accommodation of ladies, and separated by means of folding doors, in the modern style. She has also a range of births fore and aft, together with a commodious fore cabin. And what adds to the greatest comfort and security of all, her engine and other machinery are completely insulated and unconnected, as it were, with the other part of the ship. In the centre, lengthwise, is a kind of well-hole, or square trunk, made both fire and water proof; no possible accident, therefore, by the bursting of the boiler, can reach either of the cabins. This trunk or well-hole being enclosed by very thick plank, caulked and leaded, may be inundated with water at pleasure, without any inconvenience to the passengers.

"The furnace is also completely surrounded by the continuation of the boiler, so that no part of the fire can ever come in contact with the wood. There is a space of about 9 or 10 inches filled in with materials, non-conductors of heat, which answer the double purpose of excluding the heat from the cabin, and at the same time deadening the disagreeable noise of the engine. She is also provided with a leather hose, similar to those used by our fire engine companies in this city, which will enable the hot or cold water to be conveyed to any part of the ship, and furnishing at the same time the great conveniency to the passengers of a warm or cold bath, at pleasure. Her engine was constructed by Mr. Allaire, and is supposed to be the most powerful and most exact piece of workmanship ever turned out in this country; and her boiler is said to be the largest ever known to have been made in this or any other country. Take her all in all, she certainly presents a spectacle altogether _unique_."

MISCELLANY.

_Public Lands._--The highly important bill, for changing the mode of disposing of Public Lands, so that hereafter they shall be offered for sale in half quarter sections, the minimum price to be one dollar and twenty-five cents, and all to be paid in cash, has _passed both Houses of Congress_, by great majorities, and now wants only the signature of the President to become a law.--This bill is to take effect from the 1st of June next.