CRUIKSHANK AT HOME. WEE WATTY; A SURGEON STUDENT'S TALE Tread light and cautious o'er these hollow graves : I tell you, at the dismal midnight hour A churchyard is not safe. Scrap Stanzas. THERE is not a pleasanter walk all round the heartsome city of Glasgow, than that down by the side of the Clyde towards Dumbarton; and you may go either on the green sod, by the edge of the river, passing Kelvinhaugh and the Inch, or, on the level high road towards the old-fashioned town of Renfrew; nor can a man drink a civil tumbler of Islay or Glenlivett, any where after his walk, with greater gusto than in the big room upstairs in the house of David Craighorn, the patriarchal publican of the sweet village of Long Govan. The very lass that comes smirking in with the gill stoup and the glass, with the bottle of small beer, sparkling like soda or champagne, and the bit of oat cake to dry your teeth, is a perfect pleasure to see; and Miss Craighorn herself was really-but she's married now! I had taken my walk that way, in company with a friend, one pleasant Friday afternoon, for I hate your Sunday stragglers; and I would not be seen in David Craighorn's, on the Lord's day, for any money!—and when we had walked through the town of Govan, my friend and I sauntered into the churchyard. It is perfect truth that we did go into the churchyard, for it is quite open to those who pass that way; and it is just as true that we went in, not to write or speak any palavers about it, or to be sentimental or silly, but merely to rest ourselves, and look about: and there is not a prettier churchyard in which a man can set his foot, than the quiet and picturesque burying-ground round the old church in Govan. "I think it odd," said I to my friend, “in looking round this old village, that somehow my recollections of every place to which I was accustomed to wander in my boyish days are associated with some living person, whom I always think I ought to find about the same spot where I used to observe him the first time I explored the village or hamlet. Now I remember, many years ago, that I never could pass through Govan, or cross the ferry to Parlick, or linger about the green by the side of Clyde, watching the fishers. in the salmon season, without seeing the lively face and active figure of a little man, whose image, even at this moment, is connected with every interesting recollection of the neighbourhood. "I cannot name the person whom I have so often seen, both on this and the opposite side of the river; for I never knew him by any other but the characteristic appellation of Wee Watty! by which he was well known to all the men that loved idleness, and all the boys that loved sport; and these formed the majority, all round the villages of Partick and Long Govan. I wonder what has become of him now." "Did you know Wee Watty, too?" said my companion. "Yes," said I; "I remember him as well as I remember the mound, at the back of David Craighorn's house; and I remember things far later than that, which is remarkable. I remember Bauldy Brochan, he who played Baillie Nicol Jarvie, in the big Glasgow theatre, to the great laughter of the spruce critics! who used to talk small literature in the back-shop of Messrs. M'Cricket and M'Crocket, the booksellers. But puir Bauldy was driven to the dogs wi' play acting, an' comic singing! an' keeped a 'change-house, t'other side of Clyde, just beside the ferryhouse. I remember, in my rambles by Clyde side, I used to see Bauldy in the fine summer mornings, sitting on the stone at his door half-dressed, fiddling away to himself, on an old fiddle, as zealously as if he had had the whole musical society listening to his wretched scraping When he observed me watching him, he used to get up from the stone, and dance and cut capers on the green before his door, grinning and laughing, for a momentary amusement to himself and me! for I could have sworn that he had not a sixpence in his pocket!but he's dead now, poor body! and so, I suppose, is Wee Watty." "Wee Watty is dead!" said my companion; "I'll take my oath of that." |