David Imrie: David Millar.

In former chapters references have been made and quatoations taken from the poems of one James Stewart, shoemaker, who lived and plied his craft in the Water Wynd, a narrow lane leading from Cathedral Street to the River Tay.

James Stewart is one of those minor poets numerous in Scotland, of whom little is heard, despite their merit, when their day is past. His name is barely remembered even in the "wee bit tounie o’ Dunkel’," where he lived for many years, and to the description of which with its scenery and people he gave his best work. Yet many of his sketches and poems are worthy of remembrance, if only for the faithful portrayal of character and beautiful surroundings. While several reveal the disadvantages under which he laboured, others show the spark divine. His name is included in the volume, "Modern Scottish Poets," by D. H. Edwards (1880), and a short account of him is given in "Perthshire in Byegone Days." There is also a posthumous collection published in 1857, fourteen years after his death, entitled "Sketches of Scottish Character and other Poems." This volume is prefaced by a memoir of the poet, from which many of the ensuing particulars are gleaned.

James Stewart was born in Paul Street, Perth, in 1801. His father, a careful, industrious man, was foreman in a Perth brewery, but probably hailed from Strath Tay, for the poet’s childhood was principally spent with his grandmother in that district, which was thenceforth endeared to him by happy, childish memories. There he tells how the quiet, meditative laddie of the Perth streets became the "boundin’ wee Jamie that ran daffin’ wi’ collie and wadna come in." These early recollections were embodied in a poem published in "The Saturday Journal," entitled "Grannie and her Oes," the verses giving a beautiful picture of the fond grandmother renewing her youth as she watches and joins in the gambols of her "oes."

"Round Grannie the wee oes are forming a ring,

What a group! ‘Tis like Winter encircled by Spring."

In Strath Tay, too, he saw the Highland shearers pass to reap the rich harvests of the south. This inspired a stirring ballad, "Allan Mac Allan Dhu." At that period men and women walked southwards for days when the cry arose, "The hairst’s i’ the sooth and fees to be won." Allan was but one of the many Highland shearers who donned "his blue bonnet to rin’ wi’ the Tummel an’ march Wi’ the Tay."

In his poem on Birnam Hill, Strathtay again has his warmest words. He beholds it from the peak of Birnam, and breaks out—

"Beloved Strathtay, though mountains intervene

Their craggy ramparts ‘twixt me and thy braes;

Yet I behold thee beautiful and green

In memory’s eye as seen in my young days.

I see the summer gloaming’s purple haze,

The pine trees circling round my cottage home,

The blue smoke rising from the moss-fed blaze,

The torrent rushing wrathfully in foam,

The braes whereon I ran, dreamless of woes to come."

For three years only did he attend school, but in that short time he acquired a fair knowledge of the three R’s, and if, as he says, his grammar lessons were few, he must have supplied the want by diligent study. An omnivorous reader, he was familiar with the style and composition of the best writers.

At the age of 12 he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. In later life he loathed this work, alluding to it as his "confounded occupation of shoemaking." Born with keen preceptions, a lover of Nature in all her moods, and gifted with the power and facility of descriptive writing, it was natural

that he grew to detest an occupation which kept him chained within doors. Yet, like the great majority, if he did not work, starvation would be his portion, so with his eyes inwardly seeing the purple heather abloom, his ears filled with the cry of the curlew and the roaring of the flood or the sough o’ the wind amongst the firs, with his fingers yearning to transmit the thoughts thus inspired to paper, Stewart cobbled manfully at his shoes. Snatching an odd interval, he would hastily scribble a few lines either on paper or on the slate which he kept for such moments in his working stool. These effusions were often left untouched or lost, sometimes given to any who asked for them.

He was twenty-five when he removed to Crieff, where he first became known to the public through a careless sketch. Really of little merit, it caught the public fancy because of the subject.

In the Sma’ Glen there had been a smuggling fray in which a detachment of Scots Greys were worsted by the smugglers

Donal’ he a’ his men drew up,

An’ Donal’ he did them command,

But a’ the arms puir Donal’ had

Was a guid stick in ilka hand.

Sae when their sticks tae proonach went

Wi’ stanes they made a bold attack"

Public sympathy in these days was of course with the smugglers, and when they read how the gallant horsemen, Waterloo heroes, cowered beneath the stones they shrieked with laughter.

His love of satire, good-humoured as it was, led him, however, into a scrape with a Highland innkeeper, resulting in his removal to Dunkeld, where he practically spent the remainder of his life. He obtained plenty of work, for Dunkeld still possessed a trade in leather, the tan pits there occupying a yard near the present U.F. Church. As he said himself, commenting on the failing industries in Dunkeld, "Shoon’s the staple wark, its weavin’s dune." Dunkeld had his best work, for he loved its hills and glens, its streams and floods, its memories of the past, and sought to enshrine them in a poem, "The Eden of the North," as he beautifully and lovingly terms our wee town—

"Embosorn’d in a mountain dell

Like pearl within its native shell,

As meek as modesty itsel’,

Retired and shy,

The wee bit tounie o’ Dunkel’

Looks to the sky."

"Do I o’errate its worth

To ca’t ‘The Eden o’ the North’ I"

Its Cathedral, its waterfalls, Craig-y-barns, Craigvinean, Birnam, all find a place. The poem on Birnam Hill has been specially admired and shows the poet’s patriotism and pride of country. Looking towards the mountains he says—

"Here I, a scion o’ the plaided race

Of Scotland’s brave and gen’rous mountaineers,

‘Clasp all these mountains in my mind’s embrace

With fervid love."

In lighter vein he sings— "It’s Nature in a philabeg

0’ heather at the Rumblin’ Brig,

Wi’ Highland Braan kicks up this rig,

Preserve us, folks!

Danein’ a Hoolachan and Jig

Amang the Rocks I"

In 1841, a new vista opened before the shoemaker poet. A weekly paper, "The Perth and Dundee Saturday Journal," began its career and he became a valued contributor. There he published a series of sketches, the material for which he found chiefly in Dunkeld. One sketch, justly admired and still remembered, is "Our Little Jock," a true picture of a wild rattling boy ever in mischief, the despair and pride of a mother’s heart. The boy in question grew up to he a respected citizen, John Jack, cabinet-maker, Cathedral Street. The antics of little Jock amused the poet, so he wrote of him—

"He’s hallacat an’ wild, he’s gane ower his mither’s thoomb,

He’s like a sunny summer day o’ercome by winter’s gloom,

Lachin’ like to split his sides, or greetin’ like to choke,

Sae fu’ o’ fun an’ devilry, is our little Jock.

He winna bide within doors, nor gang to kirk or skule;

He wore a suit o’ claes to rags frae Lammas day to Yule;

He ran through winter’s frost an’ snaw, withoot a shoe or sock,

A hardy, stumpy dumpy loon is our little Jock.

His pooches, like a broker’s shop, are crammed wi’ orra things—

Buttons, bools an’ bits o’ cawk, wi’ peeries, taps an’ strings,

A broken file, a roosty knife, an’ sic-like laddie troke,

Wi’ dawds o’ crimpy, aiten cake, the life o’ little Jock.

In a few more stanzas he tells of the lad’s likes and dislikes, his martial prowess, "The Queen has ne’er a general like oor little Jock," and completes a picture of a boy who is to be found in each succeeding generation.

Another sketch of his, "The Mistress of a Dame School," is given in the chapter on education.

Meanwhile Stewart was pursuing his daily toil, and in a letter there is an amusing account of his sufferings in cold weather. "I have been striking my harp," he writes, "and I wish to goodness the wires would get red-hot with ecstatic fire to warm my fingers."

Yet the clouds were clearing for him, ambition was soaring high. The "Edinburgh Review," cautious and ever canny, heartily praised his lines "To a Fly Surviving Winter." After apostrophising the "weak, timid insect" which had overcome the ruthless fury o’ grim winter," the poet inquires

"What were thy thochts when a’ thy kith and kin

Fell fast around thee as a shower o’ rain,

Or forest foliage when November’s wind

Sings through the boughs his wild bravara strain?"

The "Verses to the Moon," and a fragment, "Morning," also excited the attention of the Press. They are original and the ideas far from hackneyed:

"Oh bonnily, bonnily shines the Moon

On her first and youthfu’ nicht;

She seems to the e’e like a rent i’ the veil

That shades the land o’ licht."

And:

"One little cloud, befringed with gold,

A lonely pilgrim, wandering lorn,

High on the boundless azure wold,

Foretells the dawn of summer morn."

His prose style was also good, and there was every indication of future fame and success, when he contracted a cold during a visit to Perth. After a short illness he died in the County and City Infirmary in March, 1843, and was interred in Greyfiriars Burying Ground.

His poems were afterwards published by public subscription. The volume is now very rare.

He was retiring in disposition, but full of quiet humour and possessed of such a haughty yet modest independence that it was with difficulty he was induced to accept payment for his first contributions. Carefully neat always in his appearance, one who remembered him informed the writer that he was notably fastidious on Sundays, shedding all appearance of week-day labour, his attire then being blue coat with brass buttons, breeches and broad blue bonnet.

David Imrie

David Imrie, another lover of the hills and beauties of Dunkeld, also a brother craftsman, was the subject of an eulogistic review by James Stewart, and is an example of the latter’s descriptive prose.

Imrie had published, in 1842, "Scenes Among the Mountains" (Morison, Watergate, Perth, and D. Macdonald, Dunkeld), a little volume which is now scarcely to be found.

This poem," writes Stewart, "is a work of no ordinary poetical ability, although its author happened to be born in `poverty’s low, barren vale' and bred a humble mechanic. Without the means of a scholastic education and early fettered to a laborious employment, he has imbibed a high relish for the sublime and beautiful in Nature. He has felt the texture of the thunder-cloud and wrapped himself in the mist of the mountain. . . . He has clambered the beetling rock o’erhung with tangled briar, grey lichen, heath and ivy—he has mused in the sylvan dell amidst its fairy mounds, fantastic clumps of trees, green bracken and yellow broom, peopled with the squirrel, the cushat, blackbird, thrush and linnet. He makes the imagination of his reader people the heather ‘braes with the moorcock and the plover, he feels the breeze of the north, he sees the purple heather and the burn that comes down the hazely path."

Whilst Stewart, in this kindly effusion, may have exaggerated the poetic merits of Imrie ‘s work, still there is some literary merit, and it is extremely valuable as depicting Dunkeld early in the nineteenth century. The copious notes attached to "Scenes Among the Mountains" prove that the author had not a scholastic education in youth, he had overcome that deficiency by reading and research. He mentions the source of most of his notes, thus enhancing their value : - "Dr. MacCulloch ‘s Description of Dunkeld," "Browne ‘s History of the Highlands," "Chambers’ Information for the People," "Holinshed ‘s Scottish Chronicle," "Statistical Account of Scotland," and so on.

His volume is simply a glowing description of Dunkeld and its surroundings, with historical notes.

The poem is divided into three cantos, the first beginning with an address to the "Tay ‘s proud flowing stream," apostrophising Dunkeld in this fashion:

"Yet thou, Dunkeld, thou seem’st my spirit’s home,

My resting place, my soul’s bright polar star,"

and goes on to describe the view from the Bridge, "Mountain, moor and stream," in the midst of which "the ivy-clad Cathedral, grey with years, yet smiles in hoary pride."

Its ancient glories, its bishops with their riches and warfare with the clansmen, "th’ immortal Douglas of bold Angus line," are all described, the canto concluding with a wail of regret over the destruction of the ancient edifice.

The second canto is devoted to a description of the Craig Wood and its views. Since this canto was penned the Craig Wood must have changed. A dense growth of oak coppice blocks the way and obscures the path and hides any view. "Dunkeld lies spread in beauty at my feet," he says, but peaceful as the scene appeared, it reminded the poet of days of carnage, so with a vivid description of the Battle of Dunkeld the canto closes.

Canto 3 describes walks and points of interest on Craig-y-barns:

"See yonder Craig-y-barns summits rise

In countless numbers, like a wavy sea."

The favourite entrance then to the hill, he says, was

"By Tor-y-buckle’s winding path,

Where lofty spruce-pines form a thicket green,

Whose outspread branches there in beauty bath

Formed a fair shelter and a shady screen."

Imrie would search in vain for the lofty "spruce-pines" or "the winding path." These monarchs of the forest have gone—so has the path. Tor-y-buckle is a corruption of the name ‘ Tor-mhuic-geal," meaning "Hill of the White Buck (or pig)" the sounds they make being similar,

Still on the winding, devious path ascends,

While crag on crag rise ever on the view."

until,

"High up the mountain side,

‘Midst rocks and dells, hid from the vulgar ken,

Where roes and fawns from man securely hide,

Their homes the hollows of each tiny glen

Beside the rills that feed yon grassy fen."

The canto concludes with a legendary explanation of the Lover’s Leap and the Rocking Stone, winding up with an effort to prove that the great battle between Romans and Britons was fought near the King’s Seat.

David Millar

This is another writer who gives a fine description of Dunkeld and its hills, about the same period. He published in Perth (1850) a poem, "The Tay," in five cantos with informative notes. Those relating to Dunkeld are in the second and third cantos. Quotations from "The Tay" have been largely used in various Guides, though seldom adequately acknowledged. The lines on Niel Gow are very familiar:

"Old Niel Gow!

There stands his cottage still; ‘tis rude, yet there

The Highland Orpheus piped and laughed at care."

Other familiar quotations are:

"And there’s the Brand! See how it steals away,

Jewelled with sunbeams to salute the Tay."

"Still could I linger here, Dunkeld,

Thou old, thou beautiful, thou ever young!

A thousand memories in thee live."

"Thy little Highland city, too,

Dunkeld the old, the ever new,

A bird’s nest in a fairy bower,

Close mantled round with leaf and flower."

"Deeds that were old a thousand years ago."

Millar, too, vaunts the ancient glories of Dunkeld and boasts of Bishop Douglas:

"Mitred Douglas, the first in British verse to laud thus Virgil’s fame."

Stewart, Imrie and Millar—alike publishing in the middle of last century—form a trio whose writings are valuable to any admirer of Dunkeld and its surroundings. If varying in style and expression they vie with each other in possessive pride and admiration of its scenic beauty.

Dunkeld an Ancient City
Elizabeth Stewart
Dunkeld, 1926

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