Memorials of John Geddes

great satisfaction, he discovered in reading Sir Walter's life
that the Poet himself was of the same opinion, ranking
Marmion highest.*
By-and-by the Waverley Novels came forth, and
flashed radiance into the Glen of Glass, by which time
young Duguid the schoolmaster and my father had become
inseparables, devouring, during good part of the forenights,
the series as they appeared in succession. Congenial
spirits were these twain, cultivating literature in a sense on
less than oatmeal, with " sowens " for their supper, and,
though the Schoolhouse and Bodylair were " a lang Scots
mile " asunder, they had frequent foregatherings, like birds
o' ae feather, aye flocking together. - }- The young, bright-
eyed, black-powed, sprightly scholar was always a centre of
fun and humour : full of quaint stories, he made the " fore-
night " speed merrily, and young Geddes was sure to be his
* Poets are not always safe judges of their own productions, and there is
some evidence that Sir Walter sometimes wavered in his likings among his
own poems.
+ On one occasion they were devouring one of the " Waverleys," and their
enjoyment was interrupted by the entry of the schoolmaster's old and gaunt
housekeeper, wanting, or rather screeching, to know how much "treacle" she
should put into the " sowens " for their supper. " Hoot, woman," said young
Duguid, loth to be disturbed in his reading aloud, "gang awa' an' mak' them
the verra colour o' Peg Williamson's face." Peg Williamson was a brown
mulatto who kept a shop in the Haugh of Glass, and was the only creature of
colour in the place.
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