The Story of My Boyhood and Youth | Page 5

screaming, of course, but as soon as I was
imprisoned the fear of being kicked quenched all noise. I hardly dared
breathe. My only hope was in motionless silence. Imagine the agony I
endured! I did not steal any more of his flowers. He was a good hard
judge of boy nature.
I was in Peter's hands some time before this, when I was about two and
a half years old. The servant girl bathed us small folk before putting us
to bed. The smarting soapy scrubbings of the Saturday nights in
preparation for the Sabbath were particularly severe, and we all dreaded
them. My sister Sarah, the next older than me, wanted the long-legged
stool I was sitting on awaiting my turn, so she just tipped me off. My
chin struck on the edge of the bath-tub, and, as I was talking at the time,
my tongue happened to be in the way of my teeth when they were
closed by the blow, and a deep gash was cut on the side of it, which
bled profusely. Mother came running at the noise I made, wrapped me
up, put me in the servant girl's arms and told her to run with me through
the garden and out by a back way to Peter Lawson to have something
done to stop the bleeding. He simply pushed a wad of cotton into my
mouth after soaking it in some brown astringent stuff, and told me to be
sure to keep my mouth shut and all would soon be well. Mother put me
to bed, calmed my fears, and told me to lie still and sleep like a gude
bairn. But just as I was dropping off to sleep I swallowed the bulky

wad of medicated cotton and with it, as I imagined, my tongue also. My
screams over so great a loss brought mother, darkest corners of the
house, and oftentimes a long search was required to find me. But after
we were a few years older, we enjoyed bathing with other boys as we
wandered along the shore, careful, however, not to get into a pool that
had an invisible boy-devouring monster at the bottom of it. Such pools,
miniature maelstroms, were called "sookin-in-goats" and were well
known to most of us. Nevertheless we never ventured into any pool on
strange parts of the coast before we had thrust a stick into it. If the stick
were not pulled out of our hands, we boldly entered and enjoyed
plashing and ducking long ere we had learned to swim.
One of our best playgrounds was the famous old Dunbar Castle, to
which King Edward fled after his defeat at Bannockburn. It was built
more than a thousand years ago, and though we knew little of its
history, we had heard many mysterious stories of the battles fought
about its walls, and firmly believed that every bone we found in the
ruins belonged to an ancient warrior. We tried to see who could climb
highest on the crumbling peaks and crags, and took chances that no
cautious mountaineer would try. That I did not fall and finish my
rock-scrambling in those adventurous boyhood days seems now a
reasonable wonder.
Among our best games were running, jumping, wrestling, and
scrambling. I was so proud of my skill as a climber that when I first
heard of hell from a servant girl who loved to tell its horrors and warn
us that if we did anything wrong we would be cast into it, I always
insisted that I could climb out of it. I imagined it was only a sooty pit
with stone walls like those of the castle, and I felt sure there must be
chinks and cracks in the masonry for fingers and toes. Anyhow the
terrors of the horrible place seldom lasted long beyond the telling; for
natural faith casts out fear.
Most of the Scotch children believe in ghosts, and some under peculiar
conditions continue to believe in them all through life. Grave ghosts are
deemed particularly dangerous, and many of the most credulous will go
far out of their way to avoid passing through or near a graveyard in the

dark. After being instructed by the servants in the nature, looks, and
habits of the various black and white ghosts, boowuzzies, and witches
we often speculated as to whether they could run fast, and tried to
believe that we had a good chance to get away from most of them. To
improve our speed and wind, we often took long runs into the country.
Tam o' Shanter's mare outran a lot of witches,--at least until she
reached a place of safety beyond the keystone of the bridge,--and we
thought perhaps we also might be able to outrun them.
Our house formerly