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courage; that he should thus have died at his employment; and 

doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear; and doubtless love 

also; for it seems there was a marriage in his view had he 

succeeded。  But he died; and his paper died after him; and of all 

this grace; and tact; and courage; it must seem to our blind eyes 

as if there had come literally nothing。



These three students sat; as I was saying; in the corridor; under 

the mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean; the former 

secretary。  We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial and 

thought it a poor thing to come into the world at all and have no 

more behind one than Macbean。  And yet of these three; two are gone 

and have left less; and this book; perhaps; when it is old and 

foxy; and some one picks it up in a corner of a book…shop; and 

glances through it; smiling at the old; graceless turns of speech; 

and perhaps for the love of ALMA MATER (which may be still extant 

and flourishing) buys it; not without haggling; for some pence … 

this book may alone preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier and 

Robert Glasgow Brown。



Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they 

were all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to 

them; and made me a sharer in their design; I too became drunken 

with pride and hope。  We were to found a University magazine。  A 

pair of little; active brothers … Livingstone by name; great 

skippers on the foot; great rubbers of the hands; who kept a book…

shop over against the University building … had been debauched to 

play the part of publishers。  We four were to be conjunct editors 

and; what was the main point of the concern; to print our own 

works; while; by every rule of arithmetic … that flatterer of 

credulity … the adventure must succeed and bring great profit。  

Well; well: it was a bright vision。  I went home that morning 

walking upon air。  To have been chosen by these three distinguished 

students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first 

draught of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my 

fellow…men; and as I steered round the railings at the Tron; I 

could not withhold my lips from smiling publicly。  Yet; in the 

bottom of my heart; I knew that magazine would be a grim fiasco; I 

knew it would not be worth reading; I knew; even if it were; that 

nobody would read it; and I kept wondering how I should be able; 

upon my compact income of twelve pounds per annum; payable monthly; 

to meet my share in the expense。  It was a comfortable thought to 

me that I had a father。



The magazine appeared; in a yellow cover; which was the best part 

of it; for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in 

undisturbed obscurity; and died without a gasp。  The first number 

was edited by all four of us with prodigious bustle; the second 

fell principally into the hands of Ferrier and me; the third I 

edited alone; and it has long been a solemn question who it was 

that edited the fourth。  It would perhaps be still more difficult 

to say who read it。  Poor yellow sheet; that looked so hopefully 

Livingtones' window!  Poor; harmless paper; that might have gone to 

print a SHAKESPEARE on; and was instead so clumsily defaced with 

nonsense; And; shall I say; Poor Editors?  I cannot pity myself; to 

whom it was all pure gain。  It was no news to me; but only the 

wholesome confirmation of my judgment; when the magazine struggled 

into half…birth; and instantly sickened and subsided into night。  I 

had sent a copy to the lady with whom my heart was at that time 

somewhat engaged; and who did all that in her lay to break it; and 

she; with some tact; passed over the gift and my cherished 

contributions in silence。  I will not say that I was pleased at 

this; but I will tell her now; if by any chance she takes up the 

work of her former servant; that I thought the better of her taste。  

I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had the necessary 

interview with my father; which passed off not amiss; paid over my 

share of the expense to the two little; active brothers; who rubbed 

their hands as much; but methought skipped rather less than 

formerly; having perhaps; these two also; embarked upon the 

enterprise with some graceful illusions; and then; reviewing the 

whole episode; I told myself that the time was not yet ripe; nor 

the man ready; and to work I went again with my penny version…

books; having fallen back in one day from the printed author to the 

manuscript student。





III





From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own 

papers。  The poor little piece is all tail…foremost。  I have done 

my best to straighten its array; I have pruned it fearlessly; and 

it remains invertebrate and wordy。  No self…respecting magazine 

would print the thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume; 

not for any worth of its own; but for the sake of the man whom it 

purports dimly to represent and some of whose sayings it preserves; 

so that in this volume of Memories and Portraits; Robert Young; the 

Swanston gardener; may stand alongside of John Todd; the Swanston 

shepherd。  Not that John and Robert drew very close together in 

their lives; for John was rough; he smelt of the windy brae; and 

Robert was gentle; and smacked of the garden in the hollow。  

Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; 

he had grit and dash; and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases 

men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he was a way…farer 

besides; and took my gipsy fancy。  But however that may be; and 

however Robert's profile may be blurred in the boyish sketch that 

follows; he was a man of a most quaint and beautiful nature; whom; 

if it were possible to recast a piece of work so old; I should like 

well to draw again with a maturer touch。  And as I think of him and 

of John; I wonder in what other country two such men would be found 

dwelling together; in a hamlet of some twenty cottages; in the 

woody fold of a green hill。









CHAPTER V。 AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER





I THINK I might almost have said the last: somewhere; indeed; in 

the uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the southwestern 

hills there may yet linger a decrepid representative of this bygone 

good fellowship; but as far as actual experience goes; I have only 

met one man in my life who might fitly be quoted in the same breath 

with Andrew Fairservice; … though without his vices。  He was a man 

whose very presence could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to 

the baldest and most modern flower…plots。  There was a dignity 

about his tall stooping form; and an earnestness in his wrinkled 

face that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don Quixote who had come 

through the training of the Covenant; and been nourished in his 

youth on WALKER'S LIVES and THE HIND LET LOOSE。



Now; as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch 

preserved of his old…fashioned virtues; I hope the reader will take 

this as an excuse for the present paper; and judge as kindly as he 

can the infirmities of my description。  To me; who find it so 

difficult to tell the little that I know; he stands essentially as 

a GENIUS LOCI。  It is impossible to separate his spare form and old 

straw hat from the garden in the lap of the hill; with its rocks 

overgrown with clematis; its shadowy walks; and the splendid 

breadth of champaign that one saw from the north…west corner。  The 

garden and gardener seem part and parcel of each other。  When I 

take him from his right surroundings and try to make him appear for 

me on paper; he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best that I can 

say may convey some notion to those that never saw him; but to me 

it will be ever impotent。



The first time that I saw him; I fancy Robert was pretty old 

already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking 

horse。  

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