William Nelson A Memoir 19

William Nelson A Memoir 19

His unstinted liberality in all philanthropic and missionary work was

wholly unaffected by denominational or party limits; and hence he was

liable to be preyed upon by genteel foreigners claiming to be in

temporary pecuniary distress, and still more by clerical impostors. When

he had reason to think he was imposed upon, he would search into the

matter with the utmost keenness; though rather, as it seemed, with a

desire to satisfy himself of the truth, than with any purpose of

stinting his liberality in the future.

 

One morning, as the family sat at breakfast, a servant came into the

room, and alarmed Mrs. Nelson by whispering to her that there were two

detectives at the door who wished to see her. Her manner must have

betrayed her apprehensions, for one of them laughed and said, “Don’t be

frightened, Mrs. Nelson; we have only come to ask you to use your

influence with your husband, and try to get Mr. Nelson to give up giving

money to respectable-looking beggars. There is a register kept by a man

in the High Street of all the ‘giving people’ in Edinburgh. That is the

first resort of this class of beggars. By paying half-a-crown, they are

allowed to take a note of the names and addresses, and Mr. Nelson’s

stands at the head of the list!” He undertook to look more sharply

after the smooth-tongued gentry in black, though, it is to be feared,

with only partial success. He manifested a sensitive repugnance to

wealthy people whose riches were of no use to any one but themselves;

but he protested, to the amusement of his friends, that he strongly

disapproved of promiscuous charity. He had his own rules of action. A

maimed or deformed person, the blind, the deaf-mute, or any one

incapacitated in the struggle for life, he conceived could never be

wrongly helped. A poor widow, an old employé, or the widow or orphan of

any of his old work-people, had an irresistible claim on his liberality;

and other pleas were readily forthcoming to justify the deed of charity

to his conscience. But he took pains to search out genuine objects of

commiseration; and many of his charities were unknown even to members of

his own family. One Saturday afternoon, when walking home with Mrs.

Nelson, he asked her to wait while he went in to a humble dwelling. When

interrogated as to the object of his visit, it was ascertained that he

had been giving a poor widow money to pay her rent; and on further

inquiry it turned out that he had been paying it regularly for years.

Nor was this a solitary case, as became known when death closed the

liberal hand that had so often made the widow’s heart leap for joy.

Charity was in him a spontaneous impulse of kindly sympathy which,

while exercised not only unobtrusively but with a sensitive shrinking

from recognition, was carried out on too great a scale to escape

observation. The difficulty of his biographer is to select from the

varied instances at his disposal. “I saw him once,” writes a lady, “as

he was walking along Clerk Street, pause at a confectioner’s window,

where a poor little ragged urchin was standing gazing wistfully at the

cakes inside. One kindly hand was laid on the boy’s shoulder; the other

took a silver piece from his pocket. A few words were spoken, and Mr.

Nelson passed on, while the boy darted into the shop; and I had the

pleasure of seeing him come out a moment later already devouring one of

the cookies of which he had become the delighted possessor.” He was

never known to refer to such acts. They were, indeed, of too frequent

occurrence to seem to him worthy of note. The poor and needy had learned

to regard him as their unfailing resort; and if his charity was abused,

he would say in reply to prudent remonstrants that it was better a few

impostors should succeed, than one genuine claim be rejected.

 

The traders on his benevolence were wont, as already noted, to watch for

him on his way to Parkside; and Mr. Gray notes of such claimants: “Mr.

Nelson would sometimes say to me, ‘The printing trade must be in a

dreadful state,’ for in his walk thither he had been met by

half-a-dozen printers pleading for help. He inquired at times into the

state of the trade, with the view, I suppose, to guide him in his

charities; for it offended his guileless trustfulness in others to find

he had been imposed upon, though it never led to any stint in his

liberality.” Another who had been many years in his service writes: “He

had an almost child-like confidence in some folks; but if his suspicions

were once aroused as to anything wrong, he ferreted out the matter to

the bottom, and in case of any betrayal of trust, he would speak of it

with a keen sense of wrong. But if you responded with any denunciation

of the offender, his manner changed, and he generally found some apology

or some reason for pitying the delinquent. Nor did the fact that a

claimant had wronged him affect his consideration of the case if it

proved to be a necessitous one, especially if he had a wife and

children.” When an action was raised by the contracting engineer who

undertook the repairs of the machinery, against the widow of his

predecessor, to enforce the completion of some work for which her late

husband had been responsible, William Nelson opposed it, declaring that

no good ever came of prosecuting a widow, and he ultimately repaid £130

of law expenses incurred in the suit.

 

Under the system which such a spirit naturally developed, the relation

between master and servants assumed a very different aspect from that

of the mere hireling. The workers in his employment cordially

sympathized in his success, and took a pride in contributing to the

prosperity of the firm. A gentleman, whose intimate relations with it

for many years made him familiar with its internal economy, thus writes:

“The claims of his own work-people at Hope Park or Parkside were never

disregarded. He had, as the firm still has, a host of pensioners: aged

employés, and the widows and children of former workmen, who were mainly

dependent on his charity for their daily bread. Groups of them, or of

their representatives, still assemble in the entrance hall at Parkside

on the pay-day, by whom his name is revered. They tell their own tale of

satisfaction and gratitude.” The charity which thus began at home did

not end there. The difficulty, indeed, is to select from the examples

communicated to me. One characteristic instance I owe to a

fellow-traveller, who found himself in company with William Nelson in an

Italian town during a festive season. It was a scene of holiday

rejoicings; but it did not escape Mr. Nelson’s notice that while the

mass of the people were enjoying themselves, there were a number of

uncared-for poor whose misery was made the more apparent by the festive

scenes that surrounded them. This so impressed him that he forthwith

made arrangements with a hosteller for the entertainment of the ragged

lazaroni. Another gentleman who passed some weeks with him at one of the

German spas tells this story:--“At the little English church there was a

clergyman stationed, entirely dependent on the freewill offerings of the

ever-changing congregation. There were no resident members to act as

churchwardens or vestrymen; so, after the service, the poor clergyman

himself went round and collected the offertory. This was too much for

Mr. Nelson. He volunteered his services, which were accepted. To the

clergyman’s agreeable surprise, the collection increased amazingly; and

he only learned where the increase came from by a return to the old

scale after Mr. Nelson’s departure.”

 

It was a curious study to note the guilelessness and child-like

simplicity which William Nelson retained unchanged to the close of his

life, along with rare shrewdness and sagacity as a man of business.

Whenever any transaction assumed a business aspect, however trifling

might be the amount involved, he was prompt, clear-sighted, and acute,

detecting and with quiet firmness resisting any attempt at overreaching

or fraud. On one occasion, when I was his fellow-traveller, a knavish

newsboy to whom he had intrusted a sixpence decamped without returning

the change. This breach of faith provoked a display of indignation so

entirely disproportionate to the value of the loss, as obviously

suggested to our wondering fellow-travellers in the railway carriage

that they witnessed another Shylock bemoaning his lost ducats. They

little knew that the rogue, by the invention of a pitiful tale, might

have transmuted the stolen coppers into gold. This transparent

naturalness of character revealed itself equally in his intercourse with

high and low. Alike at home and abroad he was often brought into

familiar relations with men of rank and distinction, and his engaging

manners and wide culture made him a welcome addition to any company. But

there was no change in his manner towards the nobleman or the skilled

artisan. An old friend notes of him what many will recall:--“Reverence

was part of his nature. However intimate he might be with a friend, he

scarcely ever addressed him, personally or by letter, except by full

name as Mr. or Dr.; and it was the same with his own employés. The Dick

or Tom of his fellows in the workroom was Richard or Thomas, if not

Mr. ----, when spoken to by him.” His circle of friends included men of

the most dissimilar social positions; and his intercourse with some of

his old workmen whose integrity and worth had been proved by long

experience was of the most intimate and confidential nature. No wonder

that he was faithfully served. He practically demonstrated his belief

that,--

 

“The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;

The man’s the gowd for a’ that.”

 

He entertained at his table the publishers, booksellers, and others with

whom he had business relations. Mr. David Douglas thus notes his

recollections of him and of his kindly hospitalities: “He was the one to

whom any of us would have gone in difficulties or doubtful trade

questions, feeling sure that he would not only give sound advice but

kindly sympathy. Many such cases occur to me. He used to gather round

his table annually the various members of the printing and publishing

trades; and I used to admire his true hospitality in making every one,

from the youngest guest to the oldest, as much at home as possible,

gently drawing out their best stories, and exchanging with genial humour

some pleasant talk with all.” In his Saturday visits to the Castle of

Edinburgh in connection with his restorations, referred to in a

subsequent chapter, the most eminent archæologists, artists, and

literary men, along with his choice personal friends, responded to his

welcome invitations. At times the company included such distinguished

additions as Lord Rosebery or Lord Napier and Ettrick, who took a

special interest in the work. But it would never occur to him that any

spirit of social caste could influence such a gathering, and his own

list of friends always included some of his trusted workmen from

Parkside.

 

A lady whose services as an authoress brought her into frequent contact

with Mr. Nelson, after noting his liberality in all business

transactions with herself, adds a little incident of her personal

experience. His love of dogs has already been noted; but it might have

been assumed that however welcome their companionship might be at

Salisbury Green, the intrusion of stranger dogs into his room at

Parkside in business hours could hardly fail to be resented. Her own

experience, however, is thus narrated: “I had taken my dog with me one

morning; a large brown spaniel, Rover by name. He is not a general

favourite among my friends, being rather boisterous in his greetings, to

say nothing of his muddy paws in wet weather. His place therefore was

generally without, and his intrusion into Mr. Nelson’s room was