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PRINCIPAL CAIRNS

BY JOHN CAIRNS


FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES




The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, and
the printing is from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh.




PREFACE


In preparing the following pages I have been chiefly indebted for the
materials of the earlier chapters to some MS. notes by my late uncle,
Mr. William Cairns. These were originally written for Professor MacEwen
when he was preparing his admirable _Life and Letters of John Cairns,
D.D. LL.D._ They are very full and very interesting, and I have made
free use of them.

To Dr. MacEwen's book I cannot sufficiently express my obligations. He
has put so much relating to Principal Cairns into an absolutely final
form, that he seems to have left no alternative to those who come after
him between passing over in silence what he has so well said and
reproducing it almost in his words. It is probable, therefore, that
students of the _Life and Letters_--and there are many who, like Mr.
Andrew Lang with Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, "make it their breviary
"--will detect some echoes of its sentences in this little book. Still,
I have tried to look at the subject from my own point of view, and to
work it out in my own way; while, if I have borrowed anything directly,
I trust that I have made due acknowledgment in the proper place.

Among those whom I have to thank for kind assistance, I desire specially
to mention my father, the Rev. David Cairns, the last surviving member
of the household at Dunglass, who has taken a constant interest in the
progress of the book, and has supplied me with many reminiscences and
suggestions. To my brother the Rev. D.S. Cairns, Ayton, I am indebted
for most valuable help in regard to many points, especially that dealt
with at the close of Chapter VI.; and I also owe much to the suggestions
of my friends the Rev. P. Wilson and the Rev. R. Glaister. For help in
revising the proofs I have to thank the Rev. J.M. Connor and my brother
the Rev. W.T. Cairns.

J.C.

DUMFRIES, _20th March_ 1903.




CONTENTS


PREFACE

CHAPTER I: ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER II: DUNGLASS

CHAPTER III: COLLEGE DAYS

CHAPTER IV: THE STUDENT OF THEOLOGY

CHAPTER V: GOLDEN SQUARE

CHAPTER VI: THE CENTRAL PROBLEM

CHAPTER VII: THE APOSTLE OF UNION

CHAPTER VIII: WALLACE GREEN

CHAPTER IX: THE PROFESSOR

CHAPTER X: THE PRINCIPAL

CHAPTER XI: THE END OF THE DAY




PRINCIPAL CAIRNS

* * * * *

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD


John Cairns was born at Ayton Hill, in the parish of Ayton, in the east
of Berwickshire, on the 23rd of August 1818.

The farm of Ayton Hill no longer exists. Nothing is left of it but
the trees which once overshadowed its buildings, and the rank growth
of nettles which marks the site of a vanished habitation of man. Its
position was a striking one, perched as it was just on the edge of the
high ground which separates the valley of the little river Eye from
that of the Tweed. It commanded an extensive view, taking in almost the
whole course of the Eye, from its cradle away to the left among the
Lammermoors to where it falls into the sea at Eyemouth a few miles to
the right. Down in the valley, directly opposite, were the woods and
mansion of Ayton Castle. A little to the left, the village of Ayton lay
extended along the farther bank of the stream, while behind both castle
and village the ground rose in gentle undulations to the uplands of
Coldingham Moor.

South-eastwards, a few miles along the coast, lay Berwick-on-Tweed, the
scene of John Cairns's future labours as a minister; while away in the
opposite direction, in the heart of the Lammermoors, near the headwaters
of the Whitadder and the Dye, was the home of his immediate ancestors.
These were tenants of large sheep-farms; but, through adverse
circumstances, his grandfather, Thomas Cairns, unable to take a farm of
his own, had to earn his living as a shepherd. He died in 1799, worn out
before he had passed his prime, and his widow was left to bring up her
young fatherless family of three girls and two boys as best she could.
After several migrations, which gradually brought them down from the
hills to the seaboard, they settled for some years at Ayton Hill. The
farm was at the time under some kind of trust, and there was no resident
farmer. The widowed mother was engaged to look after the pigs and the
poultry; the daughters also found employment; and James, the elder son,
became the shepherd. He was of an adventurous and somewhat restless
disposition, and, at the time of the threatened invasion by Napoleon,
joined a local Volunteer corps. Then the war fever laid hold of him,
and he enlisted in the regular army, serving in the Rifle Brigade all
through the Peninsular War, from Vimiera to Toulouse, and earning a
medal with twelve clasps. He afterwards returned, bringing with him
a Portuguese wife, and settled as shepherd on the home-farm of Ayton
Castle.

The younger son, John, as yet little more than a child, was hired out
as herd-boy on the neighbouring farm of Greystonelees, between Ayton
and Berwick. His wages were a pair of shoes in the half-year, with his
food in the farm kitchen and his bed in the stable loft. His schooldays
had begun early. He used afterwards to tell how his mother, when he was
not more than five years old, carried him every day on her back on his
way to school across a little stream that flowed near their cottage.
But this early education was often interrupted, and came very soon
to a close; not, however, before he was well able to read. Writing he
taught himself later; and, later still, he picked up a good working
knowledge of arithmetic at a night-school. He was a quiet, thoughtful
boy, specially fond of reading, but, from lack of books, reading was
almost out of his reach. He had not even a Bible of his own, for Bibles
were then so dear that it was not possible for parents in humble life to
provide those of their children who went out into the world with copies
even of the cheapest sort. In place of a Bible, however, his mother had
given him a copy of the Scottish Metre Version of the Psalms, with a
"Preface" to each Psalm and notes by John Brown of Haddington. This
was all the boy had to feed his soul on, but it was enough, for it
was strong meat; and he valued and carefully kept that old, brown,
leather-bound Psalm-book to the end of his days.

When James left home, the shepherding at Ayton Hill was taken up by
his brother John. Though only a lad in his teens, he was in every
respect, except in physical strength, already a man. He was steady and
thoughtful, handy and capable in farm work, especially in all that
concerned the care of sheep, for which he had a natural and probably
an inherited instinct. He was also held in great regard by the
Rev. David Ure, the earnest and kindly minister of the Burgher
Meeting-house, which stood behind the Castle woods at the lower end of
Ayton village. The family were of that "strict, not strictest species
of Presbyterian Dissenter," and John attended also the Bible-class and
Fellowship Meeting. The family of John Murray, a ploughman or "hind"
from the Duns district, and now settled at Bastleridge, the next farm
to Ayton Hill, also attended Mr. Ure's church. An intimacy sprang up
between the two families. It ripened into affection between John
Cairns and Alison, John Murray's only daughter, and in June 1814 they
were united in marriage. The two eldest daughters of the Cairns family
had already gone to situations, and were soon to have homes of their
own. The grand old mother, who had been for so many years both father
and mother to her children, was beginning to feel the infirmities of
age. When, therefore, the young couple took up housekeeping, she left
the home and the work at Ayton Hill to them, and with her youngest
daughter went over to live in Ayton.

John Cairns and his wife were in many respects very unlike one
another. He was of a grave, quiet, and somewhat anxious temperament,
almost morbidly scrupulous where matters of conscience and
responsibility were concerned. She, on the other hand, was always
hopeful, making light of practical difficulties, and by her untiring
energy largely helping to make these disappear. She had a great
command of vigorous Scotch, and a large stock of homely proverbs,
of which she made frequent and apposite use. Both husband and wife
were excellently well read in their Bibles, and both were united
in the fear of God. Built on this firm foundation, their union of
twenty-seven years was a singularly happy one, and their different
temperaments contributed to the common stock what each of them
separately lacked. Ayton Hill remained their home for six years after
their marriage, and here were born their three eldest children, of
whom the youngest, John, is the subject of the present sketch.

In the spring of 1820 the trust under which Ayton Hill had been worked
for so many years was wound up, and a new tenant took the farm. It
became necessary, therefore, for the shepherd to seek a new situation,
and this brought about the first "flitting" in the family history. The
Berwickshire hinds are somewhat notorious for their migratory habits,
in which some observers have found a survival of the restlessness
which characterised their ancestors in former times, and was alike
the result and the cause of the old Border Forays. Be that as it may,
every Whitsunday term-day sees the country roads thronged with carts
conveying furniture and bedding from one farm to another. In front of
the pile sits the hind's wife with her younger children, while the
hind himself with his older boys and girls walks beside the horse, or
brings up the rear, driving the family cow before him. In some cases
there is a flitting every year, and instances have even been known in
which anxiety to preserve an unbroken tradition of annual removals
has been satisfied by a flitting from one house to another on the
same farm.

The Cairns family now entered on a period of migration of this kind,
and in the course of eleven years they flitted no less than six times.
Their first removal was from Ayton Hill to Oldcambus Mains, in the
parish of Cockburnspath, where they came into touch with the Dunglass
estate and the Stockbridge Church, with both of which they were in
after-years to have so close a connection. The father had been engaged
by the Dunglass factor to act, in the absence of a regular tenant, as
joint steward and shepherd at Oldcambus, and the family lived in the
otherwise unoccupied farmhouse. The two elder children attended a
school less than a mile distant, and in their absence John, the
youngest, who was now in his fourth year, used to cause no little
anxiety to his careful mother by wandering out by himself dangerously
near to the edge of the high sea-cliffs behind the farmhouse.

At length, in a happy moment, he took it into his head to go to school
himself; and, although he was too young for lessons, the schoolmaster
allowed him to sit beside his brother and sister. When he was tired of
sitting, tradition has it that the little fellow used to amuse himself
by getting up and standing in the corner to which the school culprits
were sent. Here he duly put on the dunce's cap which he had seen them
wear, and which bore the inscription, "For my bad conduct I stand
here."

A tenant having been at length found for Oldcambus Mains, the family,
which had been increased by the birth of three more children, removed
back to the Ayton district, to the farm of Whiterigg, two miles from
the village. The house which they occupied here is still pointed out,
but it has been enlarged and improved since those days. At that time,
like all the farm servants' dwellings in the district, it consisted
of a single room with an earthen floor, an open unlined roof of red
tiles, and rafters running across and resting on the wall at each
side. There was a fireplace at one end and a window, and then a door
at right angles to the fireplace. When the furniture came to be put
in, the two box-beds with their sliding panels were set up facing the
fireplace; they touched the back wall at one end, and left a small
space free opposite to the door at the other. The beds came almost,
if not quite, up to the level of the rafters, and screened off behind
them perhaps a third of the entire space, which was used as a lumber
closet or store. Above the rafters, well furnished with _cleeks_ for
the family stock of hams, there was spread, in lieu of a ceiling, a
large sheet of canvas or coarse unbleached cotton. There was a table
under the window, a _dresser_ with racks for plates, etc., set up
against the opposite wall, and an eight-day clock between the window
and the fireplace. "Fixtures" were in such houses practically
non-existent; the grate, which consisted merely of two or three bars
or _ribs_, the iron _swey_ from which hung the large pot with its
rudimentary feet, and, in some cases, even the window, were the
property of the immigrants, and were carried about by them from
farm to farm in their successive flirtings.

When at Whiterigg, the children attended school at Ayton, and here
young John learned his letters and made considerable progress in
reading. After two years, the death of the Whiterigg farmer made
another change necessary, and the family returned to the Dunglass
estate and settled at Aikieside, a forester's cottage quite near
to their former home at Oldcambus Mains, and within easy reach of
Oldcambus School. Aikieside is in the Pease Dean, a magnificent wooded
glen, crossed a little lower down by a famous bridge which carries
the old post road from Edinburgh to Berwick over the Pease Burn at
a height of nearly one hundred and thirty feet. A still older road
crosses the stream close to its mouth, less than a mile below the
bridge. The descent here is very steep on both sides, but it seems
to have been even steeper in former times than it is now. This point
in the old road is "the strait Pass at Copperspath," where Oliver
Cromwell before the battle of Dunbar found the way to Berwick blocked
by the troops of General Leslie, and of which he said that here
"ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way."

Beautiful as the Pease Dean is, it has this drawback for those
who live in the vicinity--especially if they happen to be anxious
mothers--that it is infested with adders; and as these engaging
reptiles were specially numerous and specially aggressive in the
"dry year" 1826, it is not surprising that when, owing to the cottage
at Aikieside being otherwise required, John Cairns was offered a
house in the village of Cockburnspath, he and his wife gladly availed
themselves of that offer. From Cockburnspath another removal was made
in the following year to Dunglass Mill; and at last, in 1831, the much
travelled family, now increased to eight, found rest in a house within
the Dunglass grounds, after the father had received the appointment of
shepherd on the home-farm, which he held during the rest of his life.




CHAPTER II

DUNGLASS


The Lammermoor range, that "dusky continent of barren heath-hills,"
as Thomas Carlyle calls it, runs down into the sea at St. Abb's Head.
For the greater part of its length it divides Berwickshire from East
Lothian; but at its seaward end there is one Berwickshire parish
lying to the north of it--the parish of Cockburnspath. The land in
this parish slopes down to the Firth of Forth; it is rich and well
cultivated, and is divided into large farms, each of which has its
group of red-roofed buildings, its substantial farmhouse, and its long
tail of hinds' cottages. The seaward views are very fine, and include
the whole of the rugged line of coast from Fast Castle on the east to
Tantallon and North Berwick Law on the west. In the middle distance
are the tower of Dunbar Church, the Bass Rock, and the Isle of May;
and farther off is the coast of Fife, with Largo Law and the Lomonds
in the background. The land is mostly bare of trees, but there is a
notable exception to this in the profound ravines which come down from
the hills to the sea, and whose banks are thickly clothed with fine
natural wood.

Of these, the Pease Dean has already been mentioned. Close beside
it is the Tower Dean, so called from an ancient fortalice of the
Home family which once defended it, and which stands beside a bridge
held in just execration by all cyclists on the Great North Road.
But, unquestionably, the finest of all the ravines in these parts
is Dunglass Dean, which forms the western boundary of Cockburnspath
parish, and divides Berwickshire from East Lothian. From the bridge by
which the Edinburgh and Berwick road crosses the dean, at the height
of one hundred feet above the bed of the stream, the view in both
directions is extremely fine. About a hundred and fifty yards lower
down is the modern railway bridge, which spans the ravine in one
gigantic arch forty feet higher than the older structure that carries
the road; and through this arch, above the trees which fill the glen,
one gets a beautiful glimpse of the sea about half a mile away.

Above the road-bridge, and to the right of the wooded dean, are the
noble trees and parks of Dunglass grounds. The mansion-house, a
handsome modern building, part of which rises to a height of five
storeys, is built only some eight or ten feet from the brink of the
dean, on its western or East Lothian side. About fifty yards farther
west are the ivy-covered ruins of a fine Gothic church, whose massive
square tower and stone roof are still tolerably complete. This church
before the Reformation had collegiate rank, and is now the sole
remaining relic of the ancient village of Dunglass. In former times
the Dunglass estate belonged to the Earls of Home, whose second title,
borne to this day by the eldest son of the house, is that of Lord
Dunglass. But it was bought about the middle of the seventeenth
century by the Halls, who own it still, and in whose family there
has been a baronetcy since 1687. The laird at the time with which we
are now dealing was Sir James Hall, whose epitaph in the old church
at Dunglass bears that he was "a philosopher eminent among the
distinguished men of an enquiring age." He was President of the Royal
Society of Edinburgh for many years, and was an acknowledged expert
in Natural Science, especially in Geology. His second son was the
well-known Captain Basil Hall, R.N., the author of a once widely-read
book of travels.

Behind the church, and about a hundred yards to the west of the
mansion-house, are the offices--stables, close boxes, coach-house,
etc., all of a single storey, and built round a square paved
courtyard. The coachman's house is on one side of this square, and the
shepherd's on the other. The latter, which is on the side farthest
from the "big house," has its back to the courtyard, and looks out
across a road to its little bailyard and a fine bank of trees beyond
it. It is neat and lightsome, but very small; consisting only of a
single room thirteen feet by twelve, with a closet opening off it not
more than six feet broad. How a family consisting of a father, mother,
and eight children could be stowed away in it, especially at night, is
rather a puzzling question. But we may suppose that, when all were at
home, each of the two box-beds would be made to hold three, that a
smaller bed in the closet would account for two more, and that for the
accommodation of two of the younger children a sliding shelf would
be inserted transversely across the foot of one of the box-beds.
Certainly, an arrangement of this kind would fail to be approved by a
sanitary inspector in our times; and even during the day, when all the
family were on the floor together, there was manifest overcrowding.
But the life was a country one, and could be, and was, largely spent
in the open air, amid healthful surroundings and beautiful scenery.

The income available for the support of such a large household seems
to us in these days almost absurdly inadequate. The father's wages
rarely exceeded L30 a year, and they never all his life reached L40.
They were mostly paid in kind. So many bolls of oats, of barley and
of peas, so many carts of coals, so many yards of growing potatoes,
a cow's grass, the keep of two sheep and as many pigs, and a free
house,--these, which were known as the _gains_, were the main items in
the account. This system gave considerable opportunity for management
on the part of a thrifty housewife, and for such management there were
few to surpass the housewife in the shepherd's cottage at Dunglass.

The food was plentiful but plain. Breakfast consisted of porridge
and milk; dinner, in the middle of the day, of Scotch kail and pork,
occasionally varied by herrings, fresh or salt according to the
season, and with the usual accompaniments of potatoes and pease
bannocks. At supper there was porridge again, or mashed potatoes
washed down with draughts of milk, and often eaten with horn spoons
out of the large pot which was set down on the hearth. Tea was only
seen once a week--on Sunday afternoons. And so the young family grew
up healthy and strong in spite of the overcrowding.

Before the removal to Dunglass, the two eldest children had been taken
from school to work in the fields, where they earned wages beginning
at sixpence a day. Their education, however, was continued in some
sort at a night-school. John and his younger brother James, and the
twins, Janet and William, who came next in order, attended the parish
school at Cockburnspath, a mile away. Cockburnspath is a village
of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, situated a little off
the main road. It has a church with an ancient round tower, and a
venerable market-cross rising from a platform of steps in the middle
of the village street.

On the south side of the street, just in front of the church, stood
the old schoolhouse--a low one storey building, roofed with the red
tiles characteristic of the neighbourhood, and built on to the
schoolmaster's two-storey dwelling. The schoolmaster at this time
was John M'Gregor, a man of ripe and accurate scholarship and quite
separate individuality. The son of a Perthshire farmer, he had studied
for the ministry at St. Andrews University, and had, it was said,
fulfilled all the requirements for becoming a licentiate of the Church
of Scotland except the sending in of one exercise, This exercise he
could never be persuaded to send in, and that not because he had any
speculative difficulties as to the truth of the Christian revelation,
nor yet because he had any exaggerated misgivings as to his own
qualifications for the work of the ministry; but because he preferred
the teaching profession, and was, moreover, indignant at what he
conceived to be the overbearing attitude which the ministers of the
Established Church assumed to the parish schools and schoolmasters.
This feeling ultimately became a kind of mania with him. He was at
feud with his own parish minister, and never entered his church
except when, arrayed in a blue cloak with a red collar, he attended
to read proclamations of marriages; and he could make himself very
disagreeable when the local Presbytery sent their annual deputation
to examine his school. Yet he was essentially a religious man; he had
a reverence for what was good, and he taught the Bible and Shorter
Catechism to his scholars carefully and well.

As he disliked the ministers, so he showed little deference to the
farmers, who were in some sort the "quality" of the district, and to
such of their offspring as came under his care. The farmers retaliated
by setting up an opposition school in Cockburnspath, which survived
for a few years; but it never flourished, for the common people
believed in M'Gregor, whom they regarded as "a grand teacher," as
indeed he was. He had a spare, active figure, wore spectacles, and
took snuff. There was at all times an element of grimness in him, and
he could be merciless when the occasion seemed to demand it. "Stark
man he was, and great awe men had of him," but this awe had its roots
in a very genuine respect for his absolutely just dealing and his
masterful independence of character.

John Cairns first went to Mr. M'Gregor's school when the family
removed to Cockburnspath from Aikieside, and he made such progress
that two years later, when he was ten years old, the master proposed
that he should join a Latin class which was then being formed. This
proposal caused great searchings of heart at home. His father, with
anxious conscientiousness, debated with himself as to whether it would
be right for him thus to set one of his sons above the rest. He could
not afford to have them all taught Latin, so would it be fair to the
others that John should be thus singled out from them? The mother, on
the other hand, had no such misgivings, and she was clear that John
must have his Latin. The ordinary school fees ranged from three to
five shillings a quarter; but when Latin was taken they rose to seven
and sixpence. Mr. M'Gregor had proposed to teach John Latin without
extra charge, but both his father and his mother were agreed that to
accept this kind offer was not to be thought of for a moment; and his
mother was sure that by a little contriving and saving on her part
the extra sum could be secured. The minister, Mr. Inglis, who was
consulted in the matter, also pronounced strongly for the proposal,
and so John was allowed to begin his classical studies.

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