Principal Cairns | Page 5

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 £30 a year, and they never all his life reached £40.
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