The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. | Page 6

world. To have been born and brought up there, and in one's childhood to have had such a taste of the "golden age," I have always esteemed the sweetest privilege of life. No one can become utterly sour, no one can lose faith and hope in humanity, who was nurtured on the milk and honey of Fleurs, under "good Duke James." Poetry and enthusiasm must spring eternal in his breast. This is no illusion from the fancies of boyhood. Ask the old peasant of Tweedside--a mature, hardy man then--and he will tell, with a glow on his cheek, and a tear, due to remembrance, in his eye, "Ah! the Fleurs was a braw place under auld Duke Jemmy!" Nature, industry, peace, mirth, love, a kindred soul between duke and people, seemed to breathe in every gale there, and sing in the matins and vespers of every bird. There the _lyric joyousness_, characteristic of the Scottish people when allowed freely to develop, expanded itself to the utmost of its power and fervour. Fleurs was like the "Ida Vale" of Spenser:--
"In Ida vale, (who knows not Ida vale?)?When harmless Troy yet felt not Grecian spite,?An hundred shepherds wonn'd; and in the dale,?While their fair flocks the three-leaved pastures bite, The shepherd boys, with hundred sportings light,?Gave wings unto the time's too speedy haste."
In our old, picturesque Saxon form of speech, the husband was the "_bread-winner_." Duke James was emphatically the "_bread-giver_." To furnish employment, to diffuse comfort and happiness amongst the employed, was the all-absorbing object of his life. Anything that would have ministered to his own luxury and glorification was but little heeded. There might be pleasure-grounds more ornamental than his, walks more trim, conservatories more gaudily replenished with exotics, chambers more resplendent with costly furniture and pictures by the great masters, equipage more gay and dashing--in all that belonged to the _personnel_, he was plain and moderate; but where was there ever such planting of forests, or cutting of timber, or building of this and the other structure--all kinds of heavy works, employing hundreds of hands? On many of the high labour-festivals which signalised the calendar at Fleurs, upwards of _three hundred people_, all earning their livelihood under his patriarchal sway, would dine together in the court, and dance together on the velvet lawn in front of his castle. At six o'clock on a mild summer evening, what a spectacle, to see Fleurs gate thrown wide open, and troop after troop of labourers _debouche_!--not worn-out, fagged, and sullen, but marching with alacrity and cheerfulness--the younger lilting a merry song, the older and more careful carrying home fagots of wood, gathered at their resting hours, to supply the fire for their cheap evening meal. And all had some story to tell of the _Duke_!--some little trait of kindness, or some of those drolleries in which he would occasionally indulge, but ever without loss of dignity. He used to walk for hours together beside my grandfather whilst holding the plough--a wise and holy man, an Abraham amongst the people--and converse with him as brother with brother, especially on the incidents of his own life, and on matters of religion. On his coming forward, my grandfather would take off his hat; but the duke would stop him, and say, "Keep on your hat, James. It 's all very well to teach the young fellows manners, but there 's no ceremony between you and me; we are equals--two plain old men." His servants, of whatever degree, dined together in the common hall; but some of the more aspiring "ambitioned" (as the Yankees say) a separate table. One of them, who was supposed to be rather a favourite, was deputed to break the project to the duke, and obtain his consent at some propitious moment. Thinking he had him one day in a most accommodating temper, he cautiously hinted the scheme, and gradually waxed bolder, and disclosed all particulars, as the duke seemed to listen with tacit approval. "Well, well," answered the duke, carelessly, "all my servants are alike to me. You may dine at one table, or at twenty, if you can so arrange it. But whatever the number"--here his voice rose ominously, and his eye flashed with anger--"you, sirrah, shall dine at the lowest!" The great question of the "tables" was crushed. Sometimes--after the fashion of Haroun al Raschid, though not in disguise--he would steal down quietly and unperceived, through the out-of-the-way holes and corners of the immense castle, to see with his own eyes what the inhabitants of the remoter regions were about. Some dry joke, or some act of benevolence, according to circumstances, was sure to be the result. As he was one day poking through the passages, he suddenly encountered an enormously big, fat servant-woman, engaged in cleaning a stair.