The Book-Hunter
the sources of streams running in different directions. You may see
this in the Pentlands, where the burns on one side run into the
Water of Leith, and those on the other into the Esk."
The end of this letter has unfortunately been lost.
The fragment above quoted serves to illustrate Dr Burton's strong
interest in military history. His accounts of battles and battle-fields
are allowed to be the most striking parts of his Histories. His interest
in such subjects arose partly from the faint infantile recollections
already described. He purchased and studied works on fortification and
military strategy.
"ATHENAEUM CLUB, PALL MALL, S.W.,
_25th April 1877_.
"MY DEAR LOVE,[17]--I got this morning your letter of Tuesday; very
pleasant and refreshing, and more than once read over. But the
exile can't hear too much from home, especially when the conditions
are critical,[18] and I must not yet count that all critical
conditions are at an end; so pray don't let a day pass without
something being posted to me, though it should be but a card with
the briefest inscription.
[Footnote 17: This letter is addressed to the writer.]
[Footnote 18: His youngest daughter had had a mild attack of
scarlet fever, from which she was completely recovered before he
left home.]
"I dined yesterday with the Vindicator,[19] when Horne, who you
know is now Dean of Faculty, was in all his glory. On Monday I
dined with Everest, dined also with Ellice and Colonel Mure, the
member for Renfrewshire--rather too much gaiety, but I have no
other engagement. I don't yet see when I shall get away, but will
let you know whenever I myself know.
[Footnote 19: Mr Hosack, author of an ingenious and exhaustive
work, 'Mary Queen of Scots and her Accusers,' in which he
vindicates the character of Queen Mary. Notwithstanding their
difference of opinion on that fruitful subject of dispute, the two
authors were fast friends.]
"I sent Will an engineering work yesterday, which I hope will
profit and please him.--Love to all from your affectionate J.H.
BURTON."
Constitutionally irritable, energetic, and utterly persistent, Dr Burton
did not know what dulness or depression of spirits was. With grief he
was indeed acquainted, and while such a feeling lasted it engrossed him;
but his spirits were naturally elastic, and both by nature and on
principle he discouraged in himself and others any dwelling on the sad
or pathetic aspects of life. He has said that the nearest approach he
had ever felt to low spirits was when he had finished some great work,
and had not yet begun another.
Such blanks in his life were short, and ever shorter and fewer. He found
necessary excitement in his work, and, when he joined his family, needed
no particular encouragement or inducement to lead him to talk either
about what he was doing or something else. As he advanced in years his
family learned more and more to leave the choice of subjects of
conversation entirely to him. Any subject not chosen by himself was apt
to prove irritating. Sometimes even his own did. Often his irritations
were amusing. If his wife, or some one else, chose to affect a ludicrous
degree of ignorance on some of his special subjects, they might probably
elicit a volley of information which would not have been vouchsafed to
them in answer to a serious question. Old reminiscences sometimes led on
to those laughable sayings in which Dr Burton's talk was rich. For
instance,--He had once rented an old inn at Pettycur as summer
quarters, and a favourite amusement, both at the time and afterwards,
was to imagine and describe the visitors who might have called on him
there in ignorance of the changed destination of the house. He would
imagine and mimic the tones of a drouthy Highland drover demanding
refreshment,--which, by the way, he would have been sure to get had he
so applied to Dr Burton; of an entirely drunk Lowlander, persisting in
representing himself as a _bona fide_ traveller; of a highly
Conservative old nobleman, posting up to town with his carriage-and-four
in spite of railways: this story ended with, "A wicked and perverse
generation shall come seeking a _Sign_, and no sign shall be given
them."
He delighted in a sort of practical bull, or confusion of ideas, such
as--"One may never have a _widow_ all his _life_."
A favourite story was of a too hospitable elder in a country parish,
who invited his minister to sup and spend the night in his house without
his wife's consent. The wife sees a male figure in the darkish entrance
of the house, and in her anger deals him a violent blow on the head with
the family Bible, ejaculating, "That's for asking him to stay a' nicht."
The husband, from an inner room, exclaims, "Eh, woman, ye have felled
the minister!" On which the virago says _to her victim_, "My dear, I
thocht it was yersel'!"
Ministers and clergy of all denominations are often the text of jokes.
Another story referred to an Episcopal clergyman, who was frequently too
late in reaching his church, and whose curate on such occasions began to
read the morning service instead of him, and had reached in one of the
lessons the well-known verse, St John xiv. 6, "I am the way, and the
truth, and the life," when his ecclesiastical superior, panting with
exertion, reaches the reading-desk, pushes his curate from his place,
and intones, "_I_ am the way, and the truth, and the life," adding a
strictly private aside to his curate, "_You_ the way, and the truth, and
the life, indeed!"
Another minister arriving at church drenched with rain, and claiming
sympathy from his wife, is told by her to "Gang up into the pu'pit;
ye'll be dry eneuch there."
A story in a different spirit, said to have been reported to him by Lord
Cockburn, is ascribed to a Scotch shepherd. A set of gentlemen were
imprecating the prevailing east wind, and asked the shepherd if he could
in any way defend that prevalent evil of his country. "Ay, sirs," said
he; "it weets the sod, it slocks the yows [_i.e._, quenches the thirst
of the ewes], and it's God's wull."
Many Aberdeenshire stories are valueless without Dr Burton's Aberdeen
accent, which he could intensify at pleasure.
A reminiscence of college days at Aberdeen was of one of the professors
there trying to discipline his unruly class, who came tumbling in while
the professor was opening proceedings by reciting the Lord's Prayer in
Latin, according to custom, and wound up his "In secula seculorum,
amen," with "Quis loupavit ower the factions [Aberdeen for forms or
benches], ille solvit doon a saxpence."
Two neat little _mots_ relate, the one to the familiar subject of London
eggs, the other, to the name of his youngest son. London grocers--as all
Londoners know--label their eggs _Fresh Eggs_, and _New-laid Eggs_, only
the respective prices of the different sorts or hard-bought experience
pointing to the signification of the two appellations. Dr Burton on
hearing this, said, "Oh, of course the _New-laid Eggs_ become _Fresh_ in
time."
The writer wished to bestow the name of David on her youngest son, in
addition to that of Cosmo, in memory of her husband's young brother
David, whom she had heard described as an interesting child at the time
of his early death. Dr Burton opposed this wish, not desiring to
diminish the compliment to the child's grandfather and name-father,
Cosmo Innes. The child was ultimately christened Cosmo Innes--thus, as
his father said, remaining _entirely Cosmetic_.
Two legal stories were told respectively of Lord ----and Lord
Corehouse:--
Lord ---- is pronouncing sentence on an assassin who had stabbed a
soldier: "You did not only maliciously, wickedly, and feloniously stab
or cut his person, thereby depriving him of his life, but did also sever
the band of his military breeches, which are her Majesty's."
Lord Corehouse is listening to the pleading of an advocate who describes
some performance which, as he says, "could be done as easily as your
Lordship could leap out of your breeches." Lord Corehouse interrupts:
"Mr ----, the saltatory feat which you are pleased to ascribe to me is
not one which I have ever attempted, and I do not feel sure that if I
did I could perform it with any of that ease which you suppose."
Enough, perhaps, of such reminiscences, which, written, may fail
altogether of their effect when spoken.
The writer recollects vaguely an immense number, of which confused
images present themselves. Crocodiles with their hands in their
breeches-pockets. Persons throwing off their coats and waistcoats like
Newfoundland dogs. A master and man sleeping; master on the boards
a-top, and the man in the bed; master remarking in the morning he would
have preferred the lower station, but for the concetty o' the thing.
Coming down early one morning in great spirits at the prospect of a
long day's outing with his son, he said to the boy--
"I am not an early riser,
As you may surmise, sir;
But when I'm on a ploy, sir,
I feel just like a boy, sir."
No chance rhyme or pun, bad, good, or indifferent, was let slip, however
much taking it up might interrupt the subject under discussion.
The following childish little poem seems worth preservation now. It was
presented to his daughter Matilda on the death of her little dog. She
happening to visit a relative, who was physician in a lunatic asylum,
and showing the little poem, it was printed in the 'Asylum Magazine,'
from which it was copied into the 'Animal World:'
LAMENT FOR FOXEY.
Poor little Foxey,
With your coaxy
Little way,
You're gone for aye.
I'll no longer hark
To your garrulous bark,
See the fleeching grimace
Of your comical face,
Nor be touched by your yelping
When you get a skelping.
You had no orthodoxy
Poor Foxey,
Nor a commanding spirit,
Nor any great merit.
The reason for sorrow, then, what is it?
Just that you're missed,
And that's all
That shall befall
The rest of us,
Even the best of us.
An empty chair
Somewhere,
To be filled by another
Some day or other.
Sick cur or hero in his prime,
It's a matter of time.
The world is growing, growing,
The blank is going, going,
And will be gone anon.
CHAPTER VI.
LITERARY LIFE (_continued_).
_Illness--Resignation of office--Sale of Craighouse--Morton--Domestic
life--'Queen Anne'--Letters about ballad-lore--Singular incident
connected with it--Letters from abroad._
In the end of the year 1877 Dr Burton had the first severe illness of
his life. On the 18th day of December of that year, Mrs Cunningham,
widow of Lord Cunningham, died at Morton House, which had been the
summer home of her twenty years of widowhood, and at which illness had
detained her during the winter of 1877. The editor of the 'Scotsman'
applied to Dr Burton for an obituary notice of Mrs Cunningham--an old
friend of his, and still older of his wife. He was then too ill to be
applied to on any subject, or to be told of his old friend's death.
For several days at that time he was alarmingly ill from bronchitis,
accompanied by unusually high fever. This passed off but slowly. The
bodily health and strength appeared to be fully restored at the end of a
few weeks, but there was an undefinable change. Shortly after this
illness, though not in consequence of it, Dr Burton resigned his office
of Prison Manager. He retired on an allowance of two-thirds of his
former salary, remaining chairman of the Board of Prisons and
Statistics, of which he was an honorary member.