



Produced by David Clarke, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net










  Wilson's

  Tales of the Borders

  AND OF SCOTLAND.


  HISTORICAL, TRADITIONARY, & IMAGINATIVE.

  WITH A GLOSSARY.

  REVISED BY
  ALEXANDER LEIGHTON,
  ONE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS.


  VOL. XI.


  LONDON:
  WALTER SCOTT, 14 PATERNOSTER SQUARE,
  AND NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
  1884.




                               CONTENTS.


                                                                Page

  THE DOMINIE'S CLASS            (_John Mackay Wilson_)            1

  THE CONTRAST OF WIVES          (_Alexander Leighton_)           33

  THE PROFESSOR'S TALES          (_Professor Thomas Gillespie_)
      THE SOCIAL MAN                                              65

  THE TWO COMRADES               (_Alexander Campbell_)           90

  THE SURTOUT                    (_Alexander Campbell_)          106

  THE SURGEON'S TALES
      THE SUICIDE                (_Alexander Leighton_)          121

  THE GHOST OF HOWDYCRAIGS       (_Alexander Bethune_)           153

  THE GHOST OF GAIRYBURN         (_Alexander Bethune_)           185

  THE SMUGGLER                   (_John Mackay Wilson_)          217

  THE SCHOOLFELLOWS              (_Oliver Richardson_)           250

  THE RED HALL; OR,
      BERWICK IN 1296            (_John Mackay Wilson_)          281




WILSON'S

TALES OF THE BORDERS,

AND OF SCOTLAND.

THE DOMINIE'S CLASS.[A]

    "Their ends as various as the roads they take
    In journeying through life."


There is no class of men to whom the memory turns with more
complacency, or more frequently, than to those who "taught the young
idea how to shoot." There may be a few tyrants of the birch, who never
inspired a feeling save fear or hatred; yet their number is but few,
and I would say that the schoolmaster _is abroad_ in more senses than
that in which it is popularly applied. He is abroad in the memory and
in the affections of his pupils; and his remembrance is cherished
wheresoever they may be. For my own part, I never met with a teacher
whom I did not love when a boy, and reverence when a man; from him
before whom I used to stand and endeavour to read my task in his eyes,
as he held the book before his face, and the page was reflected in his
spectacles--and from his spectacles I spelled my _qu_--to him who, as
an elder friend, bestowed on me my last lesson. When a man has been
absent from the place of his nativity for years, and when he returns
and grasps the hands of his surviving kindred, one of his first
questions to them (after family questions are settled) is--"Is Mr ----,
my old schoolmaster, yet alive?" And if the answer be in the
affirmative, one of the first on whom he calls is the dominie of his
boyhood; and he enters the well-remembered school--and his first
glance is to the seat he last occupied--as an urchin opens the door
and admits him, as he gently taps at it, and cries to the master (who
is engaged with a class), when the stranger enters--

"Sir, here's one wants you."

Then steps forward the man of letters, looking anxiously--gazing as
though he had a right to gaze in the stranger's face; and, throwing
out his head, and particularly his chin, while he utters the
hesitating interrogative--"Sir?" And the stranger replies--"You don't
know me, I suppose? I am such-an-one, who was at your school at such a
time." The instiller of knowledge starts--

"What!" cries he, shifting his spectacles, "you Johnnie (Thomas, or
Peter, as the case may be) So-and-so?--it's not possible! O man, I'm
glad to see ye! Ye'll mak me an auld man, whether I will or no. And
how hae ye been, and where hae ye been?"--And, as he speaks, he flings
his tawse over to the corner where his desk stands. The young stranger
still cordially shakes his hand, a few kindly words pass between them,
and the teacher, turning to his scholars, says--"You may put by your
books and slates, and go for the day;" when an instantaneous movement
takes place through the school; there is a closing of books, a
clanking of slates, a pocketing of pencils, a clutching for hats,
caps, and bonnets, a springing over seats, and a falling off seats, a
rushing to the door, and a shouting when at the door a "_hurra for
play!_"--and the stranger seems to have made a hundred happy, while
the teacher and he retire, to

    "Drink a cup o' kindness,
    For auld langsyne."

But to proceed with our story of stories. There was a Dr Montgomery, a
native of Annan, who, after he had been for more than twenty years a
physician in India, where he had become rich, visited his early home,
which was also the grave of his fathers. There were but few of his
relatives in life when he returned (for death makes sad havoc in
families in twenty years); but, after he had seen them, he inquired if
his old teacher, Mr Grierson, yet lived; and being answered in the
affirmative, the doctor proceeded to the residence of his first
instructor. He found him occupying the same apartments in which he
resided thirty years before, and which were situated on the south side
of the main street, near the bridge.

When the first congratulations--the shaking of hands and the