The Kirk Above Dee Water. A Word of Introduction.

x. The Kirk above Dee Water.

A WORD OF INTRODUCTION.

ABOVE Dee Water is a Kirk; and about that again there is a dearer kirkyaird [churchyard]. It is a lonesome spot, at least for those who love not to look down upon broad water meadows in which the Lammas floods spread wide, or who cannot be content with the sough of the leaves for company about the old Manse.

For the sake of my native parish and of the Kirk of Macmillan, I am asked to say a word to introduce the book about it, which my friend the present minister has written.

Mr Reid has given his attention, mainly, to telling the truth in the pages that follow. I have been most successful when I have “lee’d at lairge” [“lied at large (i.e., without restraint)”]. But I cannot resist Mr Reid’s appeal to be a sponsor on this occasion; for, truth to tell, many of my “lees” were grounded in this parish. Many characters, which I have set forth to strut their hour upon the printed page, once walked in the flesh the sandy roads and took short-cuts across the green fields of Balmaghie. Chief of these, there was “Mary Haffie”

A Word of Introduction. xi.

and her sisters—lately gone from us like many other old standard landmarks. Who that remembers the Crossmichael road as it goes over the Knowes [knolls] by Sandfield, or the Glenlochar “straight mile” where it turns off by the thirteen lums [chimneys] of the “Lang Raw” [“Long Row”, i.e., of houses] (it is thirteen, is it not?), can drive along these long vistas on Monday nights, without expecting to come upon Mary’s erratic cart, with Mary herself tug-tugging at Billy’s [i.e., her beast of burden] obstinate head, hauling him behind her by main [sheer] force up the brae [hill]? Do we not still hear, midway up the Balmaghie woods, the clip of her emphatic tongue, “O Billy, ye awsome person! Ye are no worth a preen—ye feckless, greedy, menseless seefer, ye! Haud up there frae that bank! Did onybody ever see the like o’ ye?”* Or can we not recall seeing Mary pattering in and out of the Castle-Douglas shops upon the day of the Monday market? With what invincible accuracy did she not rap out her commands over the counter, always concluding with, “And I’ll be back for the parcels at three o’clock, sae see an’ hae them ready to lift, and dinna keep me an’ Billy waitin’.” †

Then again in the little shop on the long white-washed Laurieston street, do we not remember how Jean and Jennie (I think in later years Jean alone) sat at the receipt of custom? It was no light thing to go in there for a quarter of tea. It was an enterprise over which an hour

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* [“O Billy, you awful creature! You are not worth a pin—you feckless, greedy, senseless rascal, you! Keep away from that bank! Did anybody ever see the like of you?” ED.]

† [“And I’ll be back for the parcels at three o’clock, so see that you have them ready to lift, and don’t keep me and Billy waiting.” ED.]

xii. The Kirk above Dee Water.

might be very profitably spent—and not wasted either. Such high discourse as there was upon the “fundamentals” and the “deeveesions” [“divisions” with emphasis upon the syllables] of Mr Symington’s or Mr Kay’s last sermon at the Cameronian Kirk of Castle-Douglas! Or it might be a word of canny advice to the young and innocent—“Laddie, dinna ye be ower keen to be takkin’ up wi’ the lasses—they are but feckless, fleein’ heverals, the young yins noo-a-days. Noo, in my young days——”*

Whereupon would follow a full and specific account of the immense superiority of “my young days,” and specially a very unfavourable comparison of the modesty and humility of the “lasses langsyne” [“girls of long ago”] with the forwardness and pertness of “thae daft young hizzies” [“those foolish young hussies”].

Then but-and-ben [i.e., the two rooms of a small Scots cottage—“but”, the outer room (or kitchen); “ben”, the inner room (parlor, or bedroom)] with the Haffies [family], one might find David M‘Quhae, a very fine type of Galloway man, a mighty fisher of fish, a trustworthy squire of dames, full of courtesy and kindliness, a perfect God-send to a wandering or truant boy. None like David could busk [tie] a fly, or give advice as to soft bait. He carried about with him besides much of the savour of an older time, when the relations of life were simpler and all men walked closer to one another. David was a strong Tory of the old sort all his life, yet he went about breathing a simple equality akin to the original democracy of

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* [“Laddie, don’t you be over eager to take up with the girls—they are only feckless, flighty chatterboxes, the young ones nowadays. Now, in my young days—” ED.]

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Eden. As a rival used severely to say of him—“He was nae mair feared to speak to the laird or the minister than to ony ither man!”* And from that little house on the brae what examples of consistent living and good kirk-going went forth! From the one end went the three old maids, six long miles to Castle-Douglas, each with her Bible and her neatly folded Sabbath handkerchief. They went to hear “the word of God properly preached” in the Kirk of the Hill Folk, which had never fyled [defiled] its hands with “an Erastian Establishment!”

From the other end went forth David, and it might be one or two dear to him, equally strong in their own faith, and equally walking in the good way. In amity Auld Kirk and Cameronian dwelt together but-and-ben all the week. But on the Sabbath coined money could not have made them sit down and worship in each other’s sanctuaries. All Scottish history was in the fact. Wet or dry, hail or shine, plashing Lammas flood or wreathed snow, David M‘Quhae went his good four miles over the wild moor to his beloved Kirk of Balmaghie—concerning which this present book is written by one whose knowledge of its history is infinitely greater than mine. My friend, Mr Reid, will have much to tell of faithful ministers, of worthy

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* [“He was no more afraid to speak to the laird or the minister than to any other man!” ED.]

xiv. The Kirk above Dee Water.

elders, and of silent, attentive flocks. But I am sure he will have none loyaller, more conscientious, to write about than David M‘Quhae of Laurieston.

Dear dust lies in that kirkyaird, and as the years pass by, for many of us, more and more of it gathers under the kirk on the hill. The tides of the world, its compulsions, its needs, and its must be’s, lead me up the loaning but seldom. Indeed I am not often there, save when the beat of the passing bell calls another to the long and quiet rest.

But when the years are over, many or few, and our Galloway requiem, “Sae he’s won awa’” [“So he’s gone away”], is said of me, that is the bell I should like rung. And there in the high corner I should like to lie, if so the fates allot it, among the dear and simple folk I knew and loved in youth. Let them lay me not far from the martyrs, where one can hear the birds crying in the minister’s lilac-bushes, and Dee kissing the river grasses, as he lingers a little wistfully about the bonny green kirk-knowe [knoll] of Balmaghie.

S. R. CROCKETT.