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Scenes from an Artist's Life
Chapter 12
"I long to hear the story of your life, which must take the ear strangely."
-SHAKESPEARE
SUSPECTED OF POACHING-I TAKE LEAVE OF DUNDONALD AND SETTLE
KILMARNOCK-MY AMBITION TO BE A PAINTER-MY FIRST ESSAY IN ART-MY
EFFORTS AT PORTRAIT PAINTING-MY LOVE OF ART INCREASES-I PERSEVERE.
SOME eleven days before the date of my apprenticeship was legally up, I had a free ticket-of-leave
from my master, being in possession of a character of the sort which is easier retained than a good
one. The boundary-line of property seemed not to be understood, or, if so, not properly respected.
The gamekeepers of Lady Mary Montgomerie seemed to think that change of air or change of place
for me would be healthier for the game under their charge. I had been often chased by them, and
made some narrow escapes, but was ultimately met in company of another acquaintance named
Tom Wilson, taking our walk on the Cleavance Hills with as much ease and confidence as if the
title-deeds of the estate had been drawn out in our name. Will Kirk and Sergeant Campbell were our
interrogators as to what business we had on the ground. It was Sunday, and we were taking the air
and wishing to see some of the beauties of nature, and particularly the Dead Man's Gill, a place on
the top of the hills where you walk in on flat ground, take a turn to the left, and, strange to say, you
see nothing but a few whin bushes around you, and the heavens overhead. Having thus stated our
mission, it would not pass as an orthodox reason for being on the ground; and having been
suspected gentlemen, our names and purpose were taken down with pencil, and instead of being
admirers of nature, we were booked as looking after game. On the 17th of March, 1819, two
beagles, from Irvine paid a visit to the village of Dundonald, to serve libel summonses on Tam Wilson
and me ! In those outrageous and barbarously-concocted accusations we were guilty of every kind of
murder committed on the innocent family of game, the property of the foresaid-and so forth. It was
evident that the defenders of the faith meant to treacherously trepan us in the same fashion as we
had often done their hares. We were both summoned as panels, and each a witness against the
other. Had we spoken the truth we would have been unkind to each other. The case of trespass
brought up the rear. Tam had received his summons in his hand, and, as the law phrase is, he was
personally cited. I had anticipated some design against my peace, for I had a peep of the beagles
going to a public-house in the village, and, as I thought, a sham errand was made to our garret by
one of the daughters whose name was Elizabeth. She talked to one of Rowat's birds, and, among
other things, she was ignorant of my Christian name. " Oh, Hunter," said she in a blythe manner, "
isn't it curious that for a' sae lang as you have been here I have never yet heard your first name." I
looked in the face of the young traitress, and inquired if there were ony folk frae Irvine in their house.
She said yes. The filling of the summons flashed on me, and a proper name was an essential
element. I told Rowat my suspicions, and he bade me run ! It was a rapid discharge. I ran across
the road to Tam Wilson's, to tell him if he was sent for not to go. I was too late, he had gone up by
the head of the yard, and when I came out of his door he was coming out of John Findlay's
flourishing his libel summons at full breadth. We started for Kilmarnock, and talked by the way as
to the result of our position. He resolved to attend court, trespass was all that could be brought
against him; and I was outlawed for non-appearance, or, in other words, the gamekeepers were
pleased that I had removed my person from the vicinity of their game preserves.
What was most unfortunate for me in my new position, although I had been five years at a trade, I
was miserably deficient as a workman. I have never met with one more so. I had passed most of
my time mending old shoes, and those of the coarsest quality. As for new work, when compared with
what was required in town, I was really shapeless. My true start began to dawn on me in rather misty
form. I never could see far into futurity, but rather seemed fated to look against the outside of what
was next me. This new shape must be met in front. I had resolved on going to Kilmarnock to work
when my time was out. This plan must now be carried into effect. I called on Jamie Sellars, one who
had served his time in Dundonald, and had now been a journeyman shoemaker in Kilmarnock for
what I then thought the long space of eight years. Jamie said that trade was dull, and that it would be
impossible to get work, as married men were working at the roads. I said that I could not help that,
but I was determined to have work.
I got the names of all the master shoemakers in the town, and beginning at the one end went
straight through, getting the same answer from all of them to the firm-put question, " Do you need a
man to-day ?" or " Do you want a man the day ?" No, no. Next day I made my appearance a little
earlier, and popped the question with fully as much pith as I had done the day before, which only
brought a sharper " No !" I canvassed the town with no better success, returning to my mother's
each night. On the third day I was even earlier on the ground, and more decided in my enquiries as
to the want of a man. Some laughed at me; others seemed to think that I was ill-bred, no to tak an
answer, that there was no use seeking work, as it was not to be had. On the fourth day I was on
the canvass as usual, and had reached the shop of Mr John Borland, in Portland Street. I had
always fancied him more of a gentleman than any I had called on; his answer was always civil. He
was singing a psalm tune for his own gratification when I entered. I stood and listened till he had
finished, then popped the question, " Do you need a man the day ?" " How often have you been
here now, sir ?" " Four times." "And when will you be break again ?" " The morn, if I dinna get wark
the day !" " Would you work if you had it, sir ?" " Yes, sir," was the quick response. " I think, sir,
that you deserve a trial." Joyful sound ! He next asked if I knew any place where I would get
seatroom;
I mentioned his brother's garret, where Jamie Sellars wrought. Lodging was next looked after, which
was easily got, and near the place, with an earnest old couple, in whose house were already other
three strangers My bedfellow was said by the old woman to be a sedate, auldish man, uncommonly
religious, and I was warned to be very sober and quiet before him, as he didna like noise, but just
daunered out and in like an auld cat. I thought that it was a queer compound of character my new
bedfellow possessed, and, as necessity makes strange bedfellows, no objections were offered.
In the same lodging, a young painter, an apprentice with James Robertson, in Clerk's Lane, also
resided. He was a genuine admirer of his profession, saw in it beauties of unbounded greatness.
His own and his master's talents were viewed from the sunniest stand-point. Everything was on the
way to excellence. William Pattison Reid was the lad's name. His morning and evening speeches
soon made an impression on my mind that shoemaking, however well followed out, could never
shine with the same lustre as William varnished the life of a painter.
I had made a new stool in Thomson's wright shop in Dundonald before starting, which my young
brother carried on his head from the home of my mother to the garret in Kilmarnock. Many were the
dauds and thumps given to passengers on the streets of Kimarnock that day before Davie got to the
garret. At every window the curiosities struck him so forcibly that in turning he was sure to strike
some other body with the stool. " Man, Jock, look at this," was shouted in spite of all
remonstrance. Davie thumped his way through the town. I had a small box, which I have yet. It was
made out of the wood of a wild cherry tree which grew in the old garden at Dankeith. This box was
made by Robert Wilson, in Symington, sixty-six years ago, for the late Colonel Kelso, then a young
man. When he went to India, he bequeathed it to my father, who left it behind him, and in that box
were ten farrels of oatmeal cake, butter, sugar, coffee, and tea. My mother's blessing was
unsparingly given with the gift. I felt new life in the prospect of being as it were fairly planted as a
citizen of Kilmarnock. There was a pride in the simple fact that is not yet obliterated. The name of
auld Kilmarnock warms my heart wherever it comes up, and among strangers I instinctively hail
from Kilmarnock.
The first job I got was two pair of men's shop shoes. I put them together in such original style as
really took my employer by surprise. He looked at them from every point of view, and, like the ghost
of Hamlet's father, " with a countenance more in sorrow than in anger." He shook his head often,
then looked at me and the shoes time about. I guessed that something was wrong, yet he was
speechless. After a while he asked if I would make a pair of kechs for him. I asked what sort of a
job that was. I had never heard the term before. He said that it was a pair of shoes for his own girl I
said, " O yes ;" proud to oblige him. I made a better hand of the small ones. Jamie Sellars and
Jamie Borland now began to take an interest in my well-being. I was always willing, and never lazy.
I got great praise from Mr Borland for the progress I had made. I was willing to do any given thing.
One day when I came into the shop, the master was singing. He looked at me and said, " Man, I'm
in a great hurry to get a pair of backstrap boots made; do you think you could make them for me ?"
" Oh," said I, "if ye like to risk them, I'll try them. " This is the highest class of bootmaking. Mr
Borland looked at me, and took a hearty laugh. " Man," quo he, " you are a kind-hearted soul; it's a
pity but you could. However, I'll give you a pair of children's boots; you'll maybe manage them
better."
The kindly feeling of that man lives, although he is dead more than forty-four years ago.
The second day after I was in town, W. P. Reid took me at the breakfast hour to see a work of art
his master had on the easel. It was the Royal Arms to be hung up in the Town Hall. I fancied that
this was William's work. The way he talked of its execution rather charmed me There was a fine
freedom of brush-handling visible. I made an intense study of the forms and feelings. I felt as if I
could do that, and said so to William. He wisely said that, simple as it might look, it required more
genius than to make a shoe. That rather staggered me. I doubted the assertion, and bade him
inquire if his master would take another apprentice. I felt a strong inclination to paint lions and
unicorns. However, I got for answer after a few days that, as this was the throng season, they had
not time to bother with apprentices; it was at Martinmas they were taken on, and had some training
through the winter, ready to be of use in the busy season.
The graceful sweeps of the brush in the painting of the lion haunted me. I felt as inspired with a new
light. I had no desire to copy the lion, but to do something after my own heart. The first Saturday
afternoon I bought a box of watercolours at the shop of Hugh Crawford and Son, for which I paid
fivepence, and to the bargain I received a camel-hair pencil. Thus equipped, I started for home,
passing through by Caprington: there was then a kirk or market road straight through the fields to
Fortacres. Passing Caprington Loch I made the first artistic halt, took my position on the margin of
the lake with my face toward Kilbirnie Hills. Their azure purity was mirrored in the still water.
Towards the front of the picture a stunted hedge and part of a dilapidated paling ran into the lake,
out of which sprang up a bold old saugh tree. Its graceful form was massively mirrored in the
crystalline liquid. There I stood, as much inspired as ever artist was. The simplicity and power of
nature were kindly felt, even as if I could have expressed it in art. I began as fervently as I could do
yet, a daring hope was present. My colours were coarse. When diluted with a spittle and rubbed on
the paper, how opaque and dirty did my distance seem compared with the ethereal hues of the real
world. My lake was not liquid, the large saugh stood high up, and dipped harshly down.
Inspiration flagged not. I had faith in labour; but the cold of a March afternoon had benumbed my
hands, and the work of art fell at my foot. In its descent it twirled several times round, and when I
lifted it I really for a time did not know which end of the scene should be uppermost. I felt saddened
at my own stupidity, and reasoned thus,-"If I cannot tell, how can I expect that others will ?"
I moved homeward, with the art treasure in the inside of my hat. After coming to a quiet nook at the
foot of Sir John's Brae, I went in to the brink of Sir John's Well, and thought of immortalising its
pure, unpretending, solitary beauty. However, I thought that I had done enough from nature for one
day; hence I resolved to try a small profile on a card. I drew an outline, which I soon filled up with
colour; and using red copiously on the nose, it had a striking resemblanee to Jock Steen, an
acquaintance who sang well and indulged in a dram. I brought forth the landscape, and, putting my
two efforts side by side, there in a sequestered neuk I sat in judgment on my own powers, and
thought I should now by comparison select my walk in art. The lake wanted life, but Jock Steen
was to the life; and portraiture was then and there selected as the way to wealth, or greatness. I felt
as faithful in my decision as in a case of death and life, and stuck to it through good and bad report;
yet I sketched landscapes with much pleasure as a pastime. Scenes around Kilmarnock from that
time till now charm the eye and sense beyond any other portion of earth that it has been my lot to
look on. This choice of subject has not arisen from commereial motives, as the admirers of my
landscape genius have been few in number.
For the term of six weeks I wrought to Mr Borland. After that I got an engagement with David
Borland in Clerk's Lane, who occupies the house which was at one time the Clerk's Chamber for the
town of Kilmarnock. It was next door to the shop of James Robertson, painter, with whom W. P.
Reid was apprentice. The very smell of the paint was felt in the garret where I wrought, and in the
compound effluvia there was an art charm. I had bought a box of water colours from W. P. Reid, and
with them I had done up views of Dundonald, the manse of which I had always looked on as a telling
picture in the village. I had tried portraits, and they still held the sway over the field. An attempt in oil
was now to be set about. A bit of shoe lining was steeped in Robertson's boiled oil pot by way of
preparation, and six tints of colour ground in oil, for which I paid threepenee, or a bawbee each tint.
The canvas was stretehed on the frame of the slate on which I counted at Symington school. Thus
equipped, I sat down before the mirror to make a study Of my own head; and, at a few sittings, the
first oil painting was finished a la Raeburn. I had seen a portrait of Colonel Kelso, by Raeburn. I had
studied it from childhood to manhood, and to this day I have never seen a portrait by ancient or
modern master possess the same simplicity, power, and truth. I took my finished portrait to
Robertson's shop before it was dry, expecting great applause. Gavin Turner, a journeyman painter
with Robertson, was in the shop. He took my head in his hand and named a few improvements. I had
on a blue coat and yellow vest. He thought that the vest should be bound with black ribbon. He took
out a writing pencil and put on the ribbon. He then thought that Gola buttons should be brighter than I
had them. On went the chrome yellow. And the tie of the neckcloth was not distinct enough, so it got
the bughts and ends. I was glad to get my work from him without its being wholly obliterated, and
with his improvements it remains till this day. It was painted in May, 1819, so that it is 48 years past
in May since I first stained canvas. This with me was the true commencement of art, and it has served
a great, and to me a good, purpose ever since.
It was the Radical year when I sought the solace of art. I had been led to view
the word Radical as synonymous with the term thief, and was afraid to be on the street at night, or
even sometimes through the day. This false view of society and its benefactors kept me out of
company either good or bad, and I felt a pleasure in art such as no other pastime could give. Hence
all my time was filled up with something to look at and reflect on, and every art-study is to the artist
what other people's children are to them. There is a something lovable in the naughtiest abortion
produced by the pencil, as it generally is an inquiry after some great hidden, far-out-of-sight,
never-to-be-seen mystery. In this way years passed, and still the pleasure of my pastime
increased. I had faith in the future and in labour. I had no art theories. The hand was up with the
head. I dared everything with the brush. I had no style, knew no fear; but every canvas I stretched I
prepared it well, in ease it should turn out a good picture. When my shopmates had time to sit, I
used to practise on them in the portrait way. Thus amid noise and talk I felt as much at home as
some more sensitive minds do in what is termed their studio. To see a man of genius in any calling
was to me always a great sight. I have never yet lost the first impression of any great man, good
man, or droll man. A comic character, if original, is as welcome as a sedate man. Let a man but be
in earnest, and I have never looked lightly at him. The earnest man is the great teacher; and I soon
felt that in Kilmarnock there was not only a field but a world to be looked at in the sayings and
doings of earnest men; and, being the place where I first began to enquire after new light, 'twas
there I got the first answers, which I think accounts for the unfading veneration with which auld
Kilmarnock and her auld people dwell in my imagination. There is a halo of light playing around her
past associations, and a sadness seizes on my mind when I visit her present people; new streets
and new faces disturb the imagination, and speak a past yet present truth-the place which knows
us now will, in a little while, know us no more for ever. With this truth in view, we will close the first
chapter of The Cobbler's Career in Art.