Samuel Smiles

“ BOYNDIE KITCHEN-MIDDEN.
“A remarkable fact,” says Edward, in his account of the Boyndie kitchen-midden, “and one not mentioned in any account of a similar place, is, that whilst some of the shells crumble to dust almost with the least touch, others are still so hard that they would require the fingers of a giant to pound them. The enamelling of some of the limpet and mussel shells is still as beautiful as almost to persuade one that the animal had been but newly taken out. On the other hand, some are so far gone and so soft, as to feel like a piece of wet blotsheet. ”

“ None but those who have been under the influence of hill-rains, can have any idea of their tremendous force. It is like the downpour of a cataract. The rain falls in sheets, in waves, almost solid. Nothing but the stiffest weather-proof can keep the water out.
A FURIOUS STORM.
Edward’s first thought was shelter! But where could he find it? Not a house was to be seen; not a wall, not a tree, not a bush. He could not find even a hole in a sandbank. There was nothing that he could see around him but a dreary, bleak, widespread moor. ”

“ What a beautiful bird! What a sparkling gem of nature! Resplendent in plumage and gorgeous in colour—from the bright turquoise blue to the deepest green, and the darker shades of copper and gold. Edward was on a nesting excursion, with some little fellows like himself, along the braes of the Don, and at some distance above the Auld Brig, when he first saw this lustrous bird. ”

“ Many of the birds of prey roamed about by night as well as by day. The harsh scream of the heron, the quack of the wild duck, the piping of the kittyneedy (common sandpiper) , the birbeck of the muirfowl, the wail of the plover, the curlee of the curlew, and the boom of the snipe, were often heard at night, in the regions frequented by these birds. Then again, by the sea-side, he would hear by night the shrill piping of the redshank and ring-dotterel, and the pleck-pleck of the oyster-catcher, as they came down from their breeding-grounds to the shore, to feed or to hold their conclaves. ”

“ In his eagerness to catch it, or perhaps from the excited state in which he was from mounting the cliff, Edward grasped at the bird, missed it, lost his footing on the smooth rock, and fell over the precipice. His gun fell out of his hand and lodged across two rocks jutting out from the beach below. Edward fell upon his gun, and smashed it to pieces; but it broke the force of the blow, and probably saved his life. A fall of at least forty feet on rocks and stones would certainly have killed most men, or at least broken many of their bones. ”

“ We have this red and long-legged gentleman rather sparingly with us, but we have him all the year. There are certain spots coastwise not much frequented, where, for seven or eight months in the year, you will seldom if ever fail to meet with a few; and when disturbed their wild scream accords well with the solitary places which they frequent, especially where there is a low hollow murmuring from the ocean. This is another species, which, lapwing-like, will flap about you when in the way of their nest, and for noise they exceed them completely. ”

“ No, poor devils! they need all their time and all their money to eke out their bare and half-starved existence.”
“I quite agree with you,” replied Edward, “in some of your remarks; but I am sorry to say that the wretchedness you allude to, is in too many cases attributable to themselves, and also to their slatternly and improvident wives. They do not go into the fields to drink in the sweets of nature, but rush unthinkingly into the portals of hell, and drown their sorrows in whisky. In this way they beggar themselves and pauperise their families.” ”

“ She was tall, stout, and remarkably muscular; her hair was of a carroty-red colour, and thickly matted together. Her dress was scanty; she was bare-legged, but wore a pair of old unlaced boots, such as are usually worn by ploughmen. With her axe in one hand and her pole in the other—with her clenched teeth, and fierce aspect—Edward could entertain no other idea of her than that she was mad; and that her intention was to brain him with her axe! He could not rush past her. Her space filled the doorway. He could not overpower her, for she was much more powerful than he was. ”

“ Eastward, you observe the immense fleet of Fraserburgh vessels, about a thousand in number, creeping out to sea. Westward, are the fishing-boats of Macduff, of Banff, Whitehills, Portsoy, Cullen, Sandend, Findochtie, and the Buckies, all making their appearance by degrees. The whole horizon becomes covered with fleets of fishing-boats. Across the Moray Firth, in the far distance, the Caithness mountains are relieved against the evening sky. The hills of Morven and the Maiden’s Pap are distinctly visible. The sun, as it descends, throws a gleam of molten gold across the bosom of the firth. ”

“ Thomas Edward, shoemaker in Banff, who is a zealous admirer of Nature and an excellent preserver of animals. Occasionally he tears himself, as it were, from the employment to which necessity compels him, and slakes his thirst for the contemplation of zoological scenes and objects by a solitary ramble amid the mountains and hills which so greatly abound in the upper portion of the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. ”

“ And yet the Little Auk has a wonderful power of resisting the fury of the waves. “It is a grand sight,” says Edward, “to see one of these diminutive but intrepid creatures manœuvring with the impetuous billows of a stormy sea. Wave follows wave in rapid succession, bearing destruction to everything within reach; but the Little Auk, taught by Nature, avoids the threatened danger, either by mounting above the waves or by going beneath them, reappearing unhurt as they spend their fury on the shore. ”

“ He had always regarded a thunderstorm as one of the grandest sights. He rejoiced in the warring of the elements by day, and also by night when the inhabitants of the earth were wrapped in sleep. As he approached old Boyndie, the storm burst. The clouds were ripped open, and the zigzag lightning threw a sudden flood of light over land and sea. Torrents of rain followed, in the midst of which Edward ran into the churchyard and took shelter under a flat tombstone supported by four low pillars. ”

“ Think yourself—only think for a few moments—of a poor illiterate working man struggling against every sort of privation for so many years, with no other object in view but simply to gain a little knowledge of the works of creation,—think of that, and say if I can be blamed because I occasionally grieve that I had no help, when it would have enabled me to do so much more than I have already done. ”

“ We should like to see this biography in the hands of all our young men. One breathes a healthy, bracing atmosphere in reading this book. It sets before us a fine instance of success in life attained purely in the exercise of genuine qualities. There was no sham about George Stephenson. . . . He was a great and good man, and we can give the ‘Life’ no higher praise than to say that it is worthy of its subject. Mr. Smiles is so anxious to place the character and career of Stephenson justly before his readers, that he quite forgets himself. ”

“ We need not speak of his stern self-reliance and his indomitable perseverance. These were among the prominent features of his character. Of his courage, it is scarcely necessary to speak. When we think of his nightly wanderings, his trackings of birds for days together, his encounters with badgers and polecats, his climbing of rocks, and his rolling down cliffs in search of sea-birds, we cannot but think that he taxed his courage a great deal too much. ”

“ The hare, on the other hand, feeds even during the darkest nights, and in spring and the early part of summer it utters its low cry of bleak-bleak. This cry is very different from that which it utters when snared or half-shot. Its cry for help is then most soul-pitying: it is like the tremulous voice of an infant, even to the quivering of its little innocent lips.
While Edward found that the deer and the hare were among the animals that wandered about a good deal in the dark, he did not find that the Rabbit was a night-roamer, although he occasionally saw [107] it moving about by moonlight. ”

“ The principal thing that he wanted was time—time not only for his investigations, but to earn money for the maintenance of his family. He had now a wife and eleven children to support. He earned nothing by science: he earned everything by his shoemaker’s awl. What could the Podocerus capillatus do for his family? Nothing whatever! His entire labours were gratuitous. Properly speaking, Naturalists should be gentlemen of independent fortune. At all events, they should have some profession to live by; whilst Edward had nothing but his wretchedly-paid trade of shoemaking. ”

“ How did he know that the Equoreal Needle-fish had never been found in the Moray Firth before? And, last of all, How was it that he knew the scientific names of the Fishes, the Zoophytes, and the Crustacea, which he collected? The names were, for the most part, Latin. Yet he had never learnt Latin. He must then have learnt them from books. No! He had no books. He often ardently desired books; but he was too poor to buy them. His earnings were scarcely sufficient to enable [292] him to feed and clothe his children. Under such circumstances a man cannot buy books. ”

“ What beautiful eyes! the pupil dark, and the iris like two rings of the finest burnished gold, set, as it were, in a casket of polished silver. I am glad, nay proud, of being able to give this king of British owls a place in my list, and of being able, perhaps for the first time, to say that at least one pair have been known to breed within the district. A few miles west of Portsoy, and not far from Cullen, stands the bold and towering form of Loggie Head. In connection with this rocky promontory, and about midway up its rugged height, there is a narrow cave or chasm called “Dickie Hare.” ”

“ These birds all exist in the county in about equal numbers. It is rather an interesting and pleasant sight, and one which I have often witnessed, to see small bands of these lively, active little birds, together with the goldcrests and creepers, all in company, foraging about amongst the leafy trees in winter; the tits on the branches, the creepers on the trunk, and, if there is no snow on the ground, the goldcrests generally lower down, near about the roots. All is life, bustle, and animation, each cheering the other with its tiny note. ”

“ It is a singular fate that some of the world’s greatest benefactors should pass from the world with their history comparatively unnoticed . . . and we rightly rejoice when the claims of any of them are vindicated—when, from the hidden company of the Brindleys and Watts, men risen from the ranks to do world-wide service, and incidently to be the architects of their country’s later greatness, we can obtain the authentic history of such a creator as George Stephenson. ”

“ I use these words as an introduction to the following biography of my “man in the street.” Yet Thomas Edward is not an ordinary man. Eighteen years since, I mentioned him in Self-Help, as one of the most extraordinary instances of perseverance in the cause of science that had ever come under my notice.
Nor was he a man of any exalted position in society. He was a shoemaker then; he is a shoemaker still. For nearly thirty years he has fought the battle of scientific poverty. He was one of those men who lived for science, not by science. ”

“ Smiles has profoundly studied, and has happily delineated in his lucid and instructive biographies, that remarkable succession of gifted minds which has, not by lucky guesses, but by incessant labour and by lifelong thought, gradually erected that noble example of dominion of man over the earth—the science of Engineering; and we are proud to know that there are men yet among us who can wield the arms of the invincible knights of old, and who will leave no meaner memory behind them.”—Quarterly Review. ”

“ Very few people came. Those who did come, knew very little about natural history. Their ignorance of the works of nature seemed to Edward surprising. Only a few knew anything, excepting about the commoner sorts of animals. As to the number, and nature, and habits of living creatures, they appeared to know next to nothing. The transformation of insects was a mystery to them. They [159] could not see how it was possible for an ugly caterpillar to become transformed into a beautiful butterfly. Edward felt very much for the ignorance of men of his own class: it was simply deplorable. ”