Robert Ferguson

“ And any man who would hesitate to take her, isn't fit to black her boots. Friend Ferguson, I have a contempt for a man who is more particular than his Creator." Robert Ferguson wondered what she was driving at, but he would not bother her by a question. ”

“ She did not pause for her superintendent's gasp of protest. "Yes; first time I saw her, I thought there was a nigger in the woodpile. She won't marry you, friend Ferguson, because she has something on her conscience. Tell her I say not to be a fool. The best man going is none too good for her!"
Robert Ferguson's heart gave a violent plunge in his breast, but before his angry denial could reach her brain, her thought had wandered. "No! no! no! I won't go to bed. Bed is where people die." She got up from her chair, to walk about and show how well she was ”

“ On one occasion, he and two companions "spoke to" and were robbing two gentlemen on the road to Edgeware, but were interrupted by the appearance of three other well-mounted travellers, who gave [Pg 360] chase. Ferguson escaped, but his two companions were caught, brought to trial, and executed. It was this exploit that first procured him the name of "Galloping Dick," although his name was Robert. Complimented by admiring friends on his escape, he declared he would gallop a horse with any man in the kingdom. ”

“ Ferguson lived for some time at Neidpath Castle, from whence he removed to Hallyards, in Manor parish. He was a most devoted and enthusiastic snuff-taker. An amusing anecdote is preserved of the good old man’s simplicity of character and love of snuff. One day, on his son’s arrival from Edinburgh, he begged a pinch from young Adam’s box, which, on receiving, he declared to be exceedingly good, and, of course, he inquired where that delightful mixture was to be procured. ”

“ MacDonald looking Ferguson broad in the face said, 'If Captain Ferguson is to be my judge, then God have mercy upon my soul.' Ferguson asked for what reason she spoke such words. 'Why, Sir,' said she, 'the world belies you if you be not a very cruel, hard-hearted man; and indeed I do not like to come through your hands.' Ferguson had nothing else to say for himself but the common saying, viz., That people should not believe all that the world says. ”

“ They both concurred in affirming the Ferguson behaved very roughly and barbarously to them. When they were in health they and the other prisoners were brought upon the quarter-deck betwixt 9 and 10 in the morning, and were allowed to walk among two dozen or so of sheep with sentries placed on each side of them. So long as Ferguson was cruizing upon the Highland coast he took care to have great plenty of fresh victuals of all sorts, the sweet fruits of plundering and pillaging. The prisoners got only half-mans allowance in every respect. ”

“ Robertson, and Miss, for his sister; they not chusing to discover themselves upon the road, lest the mob might insult [145] them and use them ill. They arrived in Edinburgh upon Sunday's evening, August 2nd, 1747.
Though Ferguson could not fail to know Captain MacLeod to be a gentleman both from his manner and the cloaths he had upon him (for he was very genteelly dress'd in scarlet [fol. 252.] cloath and fine tartan) , yet he was never pleased to vouchsafe him one single look but in the way of surliness and ill-nature. ”

“ Even the hardy nostrils of Londoners quailed before the marshalled stenches of Edinburgh, and travelling Scotsmen gauged the smells of foreign cities like Lisbon by their nasal memories of home. That children should die like flies was inevitable; the marvel is that any survived. Deficiency diseases were as rife as filth diseases. ”

“ Through these men the Scotland which was no longer, politically, a nation became more enduring than anything which depends on rulers and boundaries—a nation of the mind and heart, a home of lost causes, of impossible loyalties, of high romance and simple faith. ”

“ Another time he helped, as revenue officer, in a series of raids on Dumfries haberdashers who had been selling smuggled French gloves. A few days later, as private citizen, he supplied Maria Riddell with similar gloves from a still unraided dealer’s stock. The problems and conditions of law enforcement are among the few immutables in human history.
After two years’ experience Burns reaffirmed that the Excise was after all the business for him. He added, ‘I find no difficulty in being an honest man in it; the work of itself, is easy ”

“ Even Bugg, if he had seen his name under this metaphorical microscope, might have felt himself absolved from changing it into Howard, for Bugg is at least as ancient, and etymologically quite as respectable. It is a name of which great and honourable men of old were not ashamed; there was, for instance, a Buga, minister to Edward of Wessex, who signs his name to many a charter. And there was also an Anglo-Saxon queen, Hrothwaru, who was also called Bucge, which I have elsewhere given reasons for supposing to have been her original name. ”

“ That spiritual descendants of Holy Willie should deplore his best and strongest work and shake their heads over passions of which their impotent pulses were incapable, that enemies eager for revenge and underlings eager for drink should lie about their relations with him—these things were to be expected. ”

“ Graham promised to do what he could, but pointed out that it was clean against regulations to start a new man at full pay without a probationary period. Nevertheless he undertook to investigate Smith’s conduct and by midsummer had found cause for removing him, had given Burns the place, and had circumvented the rule against starting a new man at full duty and on full pay. For one who had always boasted his independence and had spoken scornfully of the political quest for favours, Burns had done a neat and successful job of wire-pulling. ”

“ She sank before long to the status of a hard-working, child-bearing domestic fixture, losing her good looks—at first sight of her in 1790 John Syme concluded that Burns’s lyrics in her praise were poetic licence—but keeping her equable temper and her devotion to her husband. Of all the women who had loved Burns more or less, and whom he, more or less, had loved, she alone had to live with him. ”

“ An honest man has nothing to fear.—If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley—be it so; at least there is an end of pain, care, woes and wants: if that part of us called Mind, does survive the apparent destruction of the man—away with old-wife prejudices and tales!... ”

“ Burness; a man who had little art in making money, and still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature—rational or irrational. ”

“ Surely, virtue is something more than the expediency of Paley, or a feeling of disinterestedness of the Scotch school. Expediency is variable, and that feeling, for aught we know, is but an impulse of the hearts of those whom the world call the good-hearted. When we contemplate a good action, we unconditionally pronounce it good; all do this, though all do not follow the dictates of that law which judges of good and bad. We feel too that he who has done good, merits reward. No reasoning, no complicated analysis, is necessary to convince us of the heroism of Regulus or Leonidas. ”

“ As we have seen, courtship among the peasantry was no private matter. Not only did everyone know who was courting whom, but the aid of interested friends was habitually enlisted in arranging trysts. While still in his teens Burns displayed a command of the written word—insufferably turgid though the few surviving specimens of his early love-letters seem to us—which made him the chosen secretary for his less fluent cronies. ”

“ He says that the age is already prepared for a change, and that that change will terminate in a system, probably not very dissimilar to his own. The facility with which foreign, particularly French, theories are received by us, makes it incumbent on some one to present them naked and undisguised to the public, lest the ornaments of style and manner should give currency to opinions, which in themselves can add little to our knowledge or happiness. In the execution of his work we think M. Cousin quite felicitous; he always writes perspicuously and elegantly. ”

“ In most instances, however, the public had no chance of checking up on Thomson’s disregard of Burns’s wishes, and by destroying his own end of the correspondence, after furnishing Dr. Currie with some carefully edited extracts from it, the editor sought to cover up the extent of his nagging criticisms. Inasmuch as his vandalism stopped short of destroying Burns’s letters the ultimate publication of their complete texts exposed the nature of his fault-finding almost as clearly as if he had preserved his own originals. ”

“ There are a few Old German names, mostly of women, in Mam and Mum. And there are also two [Pg 156] Old Frankish women's names, Mamma and Momma (apparently overlooked by Foerstemann) , in the Pol. Irm. It seems difficult to take these names as from anything else than the widely-spread word signifying mother. In an age when names sat much more lightly than they do now, one might fancy such a word superseding a woman's original name. I can even conceive the possibility of such a name, its origin having somewhat passed out of sight, being given in a masculine form to a son. ”

“ She was almost affectionate to Timbs when Lady Longshore repeated his stories. She was quite nice to your manicurist girl. She recognised the charm of the Unconquerable Belgian. But she snubbed Miss Bostock and she snubbed Pudbrook. She admits the hopeless and snubs the hopeful. She is [Pg 52] a mixture of the coward and the bully. I don't like it, and I've no more to do with it. Strike them off, Fergy. I shall feel happier when it's done."
Ferguson took down an alphabetical list, turned up the letter "P," and put a black ink cross where it was required. ”

“ Ferguson had had no previous affairs; she was very literally the one woman; and he managed, at forty, to combine the illusions of the boy of twenty and the man of sixty."
"But if he thought he was so precious to the world, wasn't it more than ever his duty to preserve his existence? He could see other people die in his place, but he couldn't see himself bucking up against a broken heart. Isn't that what the strong man does? Lives out his life when he doesn't at all like the look of it? Say what you like, he was a coward, Havelock—at the last, anyhow." ”

“ In spite of his apparent poverty he died worth about 6,000l. The plea of a recent legacy from a distant relative (Gent. Mag. 1777, p. 108) has little to support it. Dr. Houlston of Liverpool, who knew him intimately, testifies to his amiability, simplicity, and absence of pedantry (Ann. Register, xix. 53) . He adds that he was ‘unhappy in his family connections.’ ‘Somewhere about the year 1770,’ it is elsewhere related, ‘while Ferguson was delivering a lecture on astronomy to a London audience, his wife entered and maliciously overturned several pieces of his apparatus. ”

“ Ferguson, I believe that we also are being punished. Perhaps we more than others. The Mexican peon, the Indian fellah, the peasant of China or Greece, lives very much as his father did before him; he scarcely has reason to know that judgment has fallen upon Earth. But I think that no inhabitant of the Quarter can forget it for so much as an hour."
Ferguson stared at him, then grunted and squashed out his cigar. He stood up. "I'll be getting along home," he said. "Good night." He walked out.
Cudyk and Exarkos sat for a while longer, talking quietly, and then left together. ”

“ Wine, women, and cards were Ferguson's downfall. Success in his new line of life brought reckless conduct, and he grew so impossible that the livery-stable, without in the least suspecting his honesty, dismissed him for general unreliability. He then took to the road for a while as a highwayman, and thus indulged his natural liking for finery. ”

“ Kegs and pistol tumbled down into the fur-room.
"Ho! Ho!" roared Ferguson. "It's an old trapdoor where the ladder used to be. I put a string to the bolt. What do you think of my reasoning, Father? Better than yours, what?"
He had reached the floor and was rushing across to them.
"The candle, Father! The candle!" Desirée shrieked. For keg on keg of powder, many of them open, was still up-piled around the room.
She sprang for it. Black Ferguson sprang also and wrested the flaming taper from her fingers. ”

“ She believed him to be a man of wealth, and sought to obtain a share of it. Ferguson flung away all his money on her. It could not have been a difficult task, one would say, nor have occupied him long. And when all the money was gone, he went back, sadder possibly, but still not wiser, to his livery-stable situation in Piccadilly, as postilion. ”

“ Sherlock.’ Ferguson's skill as a religious controversialist, and his influence with the dissenters, strongly recommended him to the party of Shaftesbury, and he now came forward as the champion, against the government, of the cause of protestantism. His first political pamphlet, entitled ‘A Letter to a Person of Honour concerning the “Black Box,”’ was published anonymously with the date London, 15 May 1680. It had reference to a missing ‘Black Box,’ reported to contain proofs of the king's marriage to Lucy Walters, the mother of the Duke of Monmouth. ”