HAWKIE!
CHAPTER I - EARLY YEARS.
I WAS born at a place called Plean, in the parish of Ninians, in the shire of Stirling,
where my mother's forbears were residenters for generations unknown, although I can
only trace them to the days of Charles the Second. The name of my mother was
Paterson, her mother's name was Square. She was the daughter of Ellshander, or
Alexander Square, the companion of John Balfour of Burley in his Covenanting
campaigns; My father's name was Dugald Cameron, he came from a place called
Braemar; his mother's name was Stewart. The earliest account I can give of my
grandmother's connections is only that she had a brother hanged about the borders of
Lochaber, for the supposed murder of a man of the name of Campbell, who was
King's factor in that district for the estates confiscated at the rebellion of 1715-45.
If we can believe a Highland account, my grandfather, whose name was Donald
Cameron, was no far distant connection of the unfortunate Lochiel. Be that as it may,
he held a commission under Lochiel in the Cameron ranks in the rebellion for Prince
Charlie, and conducted the forlorn hope at the taking of the city of Edinburgh; he
fought in the unfortunate cause of Charles at Prestonpans, Falkirk, and Culloden,
where he fell in a charge against Baillie's regiment, in which charge the Camerons
suffered sore.
I never saw any of his connections except a sister and a brother, whom my father did
not make very welcome.
My father was engaged as mashman at a distillery called Sauchieferry; he was very poor, and my mother, during harvest, went to the shearing with neighbouring farmers, leaving me in the charge of a girl not six years of age. At such an age she could not be expected to take care of herself; to her I have no grudge, but during that harvest, my right leg caught damage, and left me a cripple for life. It would have been better if my mother had kept her house, as, during that harvest, she lost more than she gained. My father removed back to Sauchie, and took a house in the village of Charterhall, where I was brought up, and where my father and mother terminated their earthly career.
Being lame, I was a heavy charge on my mother during my infant years. At the age of four I was put to school; the teacher was an old decrepit man, who had tried to be a nailer, but at that employment he could not earn his bread. He then attempted to teach
a few children, but for this undertaking he was quite unfit; writing and arithmetic were to him secrets as dark as death, and as for English, he was short-sighted, and a word of more than two or three syllables was either passed over, or it got a term of his
own making. At this school I continued four years, and was not four months advanced in learning, although I was as far advanced as my teacher.
I was taken from that school and sent to another place called Milton, about a mile distant, this was another do-no-better teacher, only he could write, which was his masterpiece; his knowledge in arithmetic, although he pretended more, did not exceed the three common rules, and his English was much the same as my former teacher's.At this school I lost another five years, and all my advance in learning was writing and arithmetic, consisting of the three common rules; and he racked our memories learning psalms, chapters of the Bible, and catechisms, till a few of us could begin at the Song of Solomon, and, by heart, go on to the end of Malachi; we also knew by
heart the Shorter, Mother's, Brown's, Proofs, and Synod's catechisms, till our little judgments were so mixed up, that, in a few years, I could not answer a question in any of them. All this time was lost, the scholar robbed of his learning, and the parents of their money, through the teacher being ashamed to say "he could go no further."
By this time my father had purchased a steading for a house and yard, and built a house on it, which was lucky for him, as, only a few years after; while hauling a tree in the neighbourhood, it fell on his body, injuring him so much that his recovery was a miracle, and leaving him unable to earn his bread. When I was twelve years of age, I was bound apprentice to a tailor in Stirling. As that trade did not suit my disposition, I entered upon it with reluctance, and continued about five months when, by a pretended dulness of judgment, I made my master as tired of me as I was of him, although I knew more of the trade than he Suspected.
At last I made off; but durst not go home, and started by the way of Gargunnock. After lying two nights on the roadside, and suffering cold and hunger; a woman, with whom a tailor from Kippen was working, took me home with her. I told her a lot of lies, "that my father was a tailor, and was dead;" she felt deeply for me and insisted on the tailor; whose name was Miller, taking me as his man, which he did. I continued with him six or seven months before I was found out, receiving 4d. a-day, Miller charging 1s. for himself and 8d. for me. Miller was a "whip-the-oat" (a tailor working from house to house), and thought nothing of going four miles in a morning to work
at a customer's house, and returning home at night.
This did not suit me over well, but during the summer I put up with it. At last a crisis arrived; some men employed by a locksmith named Macgregor, and myself, were in the habit of having some fun with an old smith, whose name I forget. He went by the
name of Andrew Brochen; on him we were wont to play tricks. Andrew had a daughter, a decent-looking lass. One of the blacksmiths, named Bisland, got Brochen's daughter into the smiddy, and after working a deal of mischief, pulled down the bellows, and a game-cock of Brochen's happened to be killed. When Brochen returned I was standing outside the door, which I had locked for fun; when
he opened the door and found his daughter inside with a man, his cock killed, and the bellows broken, he declared there was more damage done, and employed a writer in Kippen, named Grahame, to take legal proceedings against Bisland.
I was afraid I would be taken to Stirling jail, discovered, and taken back to finish my apprenticeship, for by this time I was as good a tailor as Miller. I therefore left Kippen and went to Torphichen in Linlithgowshire, where I worked with a tailor. Hearing that my indenture was lifted, I went home, and found that my father and mother had started a shop in Charterhall, where they might have made a lot of money had it not been for their family, for, although I was counted the wildest of them, there was one who, under the cloak of religion, was heavier on them than any of us. I was again sent to school, my mother not knowing that all the time I had been absent I was working as a tailor.
I was now at the parish school of St Ninian's, where I began Latin; I attended this school through the day, and at night went to one Robert M'Callum for arithmetic, who was a great arithmetician in his way. His system was one hundred years back, and was
not mercantile, being all of a puzzling nature, I also went through a system of bookkeeping,mensuration, and trigonometry, and considered myself far enough advanced.
During the time I had a number of breaks at the tailor trade, not for love of it, but whenever my father and I had words I went to it. It is bad for a youth to have a backdoor, and I knew that the tailor trade rendered me independent of my father. I went to
Stirling, to a teacher of arithmetic, named M'Dougal, where I found a thorough change in the system: he threw down a number of figures on my slate, and I was quite unable to work them out; the change in the system was a task quite impracticable for me, I gave him a strange look, and began to talk to myself, saying, "six and four are ten," and so on, when the teacher arrested me. I was convinced of the propriety of his method, but foolishly thought he could have little more than appeared, but the further in the deeper, every new rule brought a new affliction.
I made off to Glasgow, having left my teachers without the knowledge of my parents.I joined a journeyman tailors' house of call, then in the Pipe Close, High Street. It was in the heat of the summer’s trade. I got a call to a tailor at the Cross, whose name was
M'Luckey, I wrought with him some weeks. Another journeyman and I, one Sabbath morning, were taking a walk in Glasgow Green, where we came across a field preacher holding forth to a large audience, while the lining of his hat spoke more for
the feelings of his hearers than himself. The sound of the pence, dashing against each other, to a person of feeling, formed a concert of the most harmonious music, although the preacher was but "a lame brother." We stood for some time and listened, when I happened to say that "I could beat him myself." The next day at our work, merely for pastime, one of the men said, addressing me, "You think you could beat the preacher." I said that "I could," not thinking that it would go any further, but on Saturday night, after our work was over, we fell in with some tailors, when the preaching was brought up. I still said that "I could beat him," when it was agreed that
it should be tried the next day. I had no black clothes; the other journeyman went to the "cork" (master) and asked him for the loan of his black suit, pretending that it wasfor the purpose of attending a funeral.
The next day about 40 of the principal journeymen tailors assembled in the house of call, when I was dressed in the blacks in order to try my "say" in the new profession. I insisted against going to the Green, lest any person from Stirling coming forward might know me. We arranged to go to Westmuir, on the road leading to Airdrie.
At about 12 o'clock we set out, about 40 or 50 strong, and by the time we got to Westmuir we had a good congregation. A precentor was selected, "Donald Bell," a journeyman of Mr Lockhart's, a tailor above the "King's Arms," in the Trongate. My father and mother were Burghers, and possessed the works of Ralph Erskine of Dunfermline, whose sermons my mother took great pleasure in reading and hearing read. I had often to read them aloud to her, which although to her a pleasure, was to me a punishment; and, having a good memory, which was much improved at school, I preached one of Ralph Erskine's sermons. I took for my text St John xiii. 7. "What I
do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." I pleased the congregation well, and no thanks to me, for Erskine has handled the subject well.
I had got a number of lessons in elocution, for which I had a peculiar liking, and, my voice at that time not being broken, I made a favourable impression on the people. We had an elder chosen to go round with the "hat," but the "dust" (money) came in so quick that there was no need for that.
At the conclusion I thanked them for their kindness, letting them know that I was sent by the Haldane Society on an itinerating mission to the West of Scotland, with little more to depend on than the generosity of the Christian public, when a lash of more "blunt" (money) was pitched into the hat.
We then came to Camlachie, where we counted the collection it amounted to 13s. and some odds; that night we spent every "ring."
Next Sabbath there was another sermon planned, but I preferred to go to Stewarton, in Ayrshire, where I wrought till the end of harvest.
I was engaged by * three farmers at a place called Bloack to keep a school all winter; none were to be admitted but the children of the three farmers and their cottars. I was boarded in one of the houses at l0s. a-week; I behaved exemplarily, and, carefully studying the nature of my scholars, they made rapid advance.
I returned to Glasgow, and began the tailor trade again, and remained at it for nearly two years, but doing no good. Always when I was in trouble I went home, and when I left home, they got no further word from me till I turned up again. At one of my retreats about five miles from home, I engaged to keep a school at a coal work, at a place called Planemure. They had stoned a number of teachers out of the place before I went; my chance was dull, but I under-took it, and found it the hardest task I had ever met. There were only three persons in the whole work who knew their letters; however, with a mixture of patience and diligence, I succeeded beyond expectation; in
six months I had a class of 30 reading the Testament, and during that time I never needed to lift a hand. Their former teachers used physical power over their scholars, and it was not likely that the collier, come to the length of manhood, would take one stroke without giving another. However, I worked on other principles, and for English and arithmetic I would put them on a par with any school in Scotland.
After this I began to go fairly to the bad, as, although the mischief was in me, I had never lost conceit of myself till I went with a company of strolling play-actors. After leaving them I went to Edinburgh and fell in with a toy-maker, with whom I agreed to go to England, which I did, and learned that branch of business.
I engaged a hawker, and commenced toy-manufacturing myself; this was a laborious task, and what made it worse was, that my hawker was a very drunken woman, and I could get no account of her sales; I had never before had such an experience, it was
soon enough, however, and I am now particularly well acquainted with such cattle. I held on with her as long as I could, till she would give me neither count nor reckoning. As yet, I was not a practical drunkard, and had no regard for drink, except when in
company; but the scene is now changed, and women have done it.
Dropping the toys, and parting with the "blower," I entered myself apprentice to a china mender, with whom I travelled the country for nine months. This is an excellent travelling trade to a person who can do the work. After I parted with my master, I began business for myself; I required a hawker, and fell in with another woman; she was an excellent hawker, and got plenty of work, but after it was finished, she forgot to take it home, which put me in perpetual danger. At last her conduct compelled me to leave both her and the china trade.
