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Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN ". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent 6tre filmds A des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est film6 6 partir de I'angle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en has, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 4 6 6 WO] [ 'i- WORKS OF JOHN GALT I AWALS OF THE PARISH. Fi,«, Edition published in One Vni, l2mo, 1821. Volume, THE t; AYRSHIRE LEGATEES Onginally appeared in 7.,™^; "lOneVolume, 12mo, 1821. H First nne, ES. iied ««^ /iimlrl hvW I //i.'ti.t.-n r 'Uff ir, ,>i pv '• n W ilUckwDod k Rons. Kduxb-argb, Ir Loji...>n b of Jc O] "HE . WIM.I [s of John Gait. Edited hy I). Storrar Mel drum ANNALS OF THE PARISH AND 'HE AYRSHIRE LEGATEES WITH INTRODUCTION By S. R. CROCKETT WITH A VORTHMT AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN WALLACE VOLUME 1 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXOV l^lHtttd hy IlALLANTVNn. HANSON &■ CO. Af the Ballantjue press CONTENTS PAGE DUCTION . . • . • • ziii IR . * • * • • • • • xlvii CHAPTER I.- ■Year 1760 jlacing of Mr Bahvhiddcr- -The resistance of the ari.shioneri- — Mrs Malcolm, the widow- -M r Bal- bidder's marriage . . • • . 7 CHAPTER II.— Year 17(51 rent increase of smuggling — Mr Balwhiddor disperses Itea-drinking party of gossips — He records the virtues Nanse Eanks, the schoolmistress — The servant of mll'tiiry man, who had been pris(»ner in France, n\nis into the parish, and opens a dancing-school . 15 CHAPTER III.— Ykar 1762 jiroduced by the smallpox — Charles Malcolm is -.ni otf a cabin-boy, on a voyage to Virginia — Mizy I)aowell dies on Hallowe'en — Tea begins to bo ad- mitted at the manse, but the minister continues to '-ert his authority against smuggling CHAPTE iWv. -Year 1763 Ics Malcolm's return from sea— Kate Malcolm is liken to live with l-ady Macadam — Death of the Irst Mrs Balwhiddor 23 30 VI CONTENTS CHAPTER v.— Year 1764 Ho gets a headstone for Mrs BalwhifUlor, and writes an opitiiph for it — Ho is atllictod with melancholy, and thinks of writing a hook — Nichol Snipe's device when reproved in church . Pil CHAPTER VI.— Year 1765 EstahUshinent of a whisky distillery — He is again married to Miss Lizy Kihbock— Her industry in the dairy — Her example diffuses a spirit of industry through the parish CHAPTER VII.— Year 17G6 The burning of the Dreadland — A new bell, and also a 8tee{)le — Nanso Birrol found drowned in a well — The parish troubled with wild Irishmen .... CHAPTER VIII.— Year 1767 Lord Eaglesham moots with an accident, which is the means of getting the parish a now road — 1 preach for the benofit of Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress, reduced to poverty CHAPTER IX.— Year 1768 Lord Ragleshain uses liis interest in favoiu* of Charles Malcolm — Tlu tinding of a now schoolmi.strcs.s — Miss Sabrina Hooky gets tho i)laco — Change of fashions in the parish CHAPTER X.— Year 1769 A tone! found in tho heart of a stono — Robert Malcolm, who liiid l)oon at sea, returns from a nortiiern voyage — Kate Malcolm's clandestine correspondence with Lady Macadam's sou ....... CONTENTS Vll CHAPTER XL— Year 1770 is year a happy and tranquil one — Lord Eaglesham cstiibli-shos a fair in the village — The show of Punch appears for the first tin:o in the parish . . . PAOB 80 CHAPTER XIL-Year 1771 [e nature of Lady Macadam's atnusenionts — She inter- cepts letters from her son to Kate Malcolm , . 83 CHAPTER XIIL— Year 1772 [o detection of Mr Hecklotext's guilt — lie threatens to prosecute the elders for defamation — The Muscovy duck gets an operation performed on it . . 00 CHAPTER XIV.— Year 1773 |o now school-house — Lord Eiiglosham comes down to the Ciistle — I refuse t(» go and dine there on Sunday, but go on Monday, and moot with an English Dean 9G CHAPTER XV.— Year 1774 lo nuu'der of .loan trlaikit — The young IjJiinl Mivcadani ciiiiios down and niarrius Kate Malcolm — 'i'ho coro- nuMiy performed Ity mo, and 1 am commissioned to break the matter to Ljidy Macadam — Her behaviour 102 CHAPTER XVL— Year 1776 ^jiijiin Macadam provides a houso and an annuity for nld Mrs Malcohn — Miss Hotty Wudrifo brings from Kdinburgli a new-fashioned silk mantlo, but refuses to give the pattern to old Lady Macadam — llor revenge ......... 108 Vlll CONTENTS CHAPTER XVIL— Year 1776 PAOll A recruiting party comos to Irville — Thomas Wilson and some others enlist — Charles Malcolm's return . . 114| CHAPTER XVIII.— Yeae 1777 Old Widow Mirkland — Bloody accounts of the war — He gets a newspaiier — Groat flood . . . . .1211 CHAPTER XIX.— Yeak 1778 Revival of the smuggling trade — Bettie and Janet Pawkie, and Robin Bicker, an exciseman, come to the parish — Their doings — Robin is succeeded by Mungo Argylo — Lord Eaglesham assists William Malcolm . . 1291 CHAPTER XX.— Year 1779 He goes to Edinburgh to attend the General Assombly- Froachos before the Commissioner 137 CHAPTER XXI.— Year 1780 Lord George Gordon — Report of an illumination 145 CHAPTER XXIL— Year 1781 Argylo, the exciseman, grows u gentleman — Ijord Eagles- ham's concubine — His death — The pariph children afflicted with the measles ..•••. 14^1 CHAPTER XXlll.— Year 1782 News of the victory over the French fleet— lie has to in- form Mrs Malcolm of the death of hor H«>n Charles in the engagomont ir>'t| CHAPTER XXIV.—Ykar 1783 Janet Gaffaw's death and burial . . 158 CONTENTS IX CHAPTER XXV.— Year 1784 n and H ycur of sunshine and pleasantness . H4L CHAPTER XXVI.— Year 1785 [r Caj'onno comes to the parisli — A passionate character -His outrageous behaviour at the Session-house PAGE 161 104 CHAPTER XXVII.— Year 1786 3j>airs required for the manse — Ry the sagacious man- agement of Mr Kibbock, the heritors are made to give a now manse altogotl^ur — Thoy begin, however, to look upon mo with a grudge, which provokes me to claim an augmentivtion, which I obtain . . 170 CHAPTER XXVriL— Year 1787 (luly Macadam's house is changed into an inn — The making of iolly becomes common in the parish — Meg (raffaw is present at a payment of victual — Her be- haviour 176 CHAPTER XXIX.— Year 178H (■(ilton-mill is built — Tho new spirit which it introduces among tho people 181 CHAPTER XXX.— Year 1785) ^Villiam Malcolm comes to tho parish and preaches — Tho opinions upon his sormou . . , . . .186 CHAPTER XXXI.-Yrar 1790 L\ l)i)<)k.'rgct \\\ e risk : best ipressioi many ?, a CO I works st of ' compl r suitali! convinci [ perusi aize,*" HI drama* upon nothii perp keep Hair in nted all pearaiK a; !S INTRODUCTION xvii hich bear on their title-pages the scroll, " By he Author of « The Annals of the Parish/ "" ohn Gait was not exactly a name to conjure ith in his own days — nor, indeed, is it yet. ut nevertheless, we must do our best to hange all that. There was never a more ravelled, hither-and- ither life than that of John Gait. Yet here are no books in our national literature hich convey so melodious and continuous an pression of peace. The flavour of Galfs est books is exactly that of a bien and com- rtable burgher house, in one of the well- onditioned smaller county towns of Scotland — house which has been inhabited by genera- ions of well-to-do burghesses, whose happy istory is, as sayeth the inscription in a Gallo- way kirk-yaird, complete in the record that they keeped shop in Wigtown — and thafs all ! " An aroma of fair white linen, woven on )oms that are long since worm-eaten into indling >vood, washed by careful housewives, leached for generations on green knowes by indly snuirrs of warm rain, pressed and folded vou I. b .A- xviii INTRODUCTION with lavender laid in the drawei-s and between! the folds — that is the gracious impression wei carry away from the " Annals of the Parish ^ and "The Provost;' the two books of Galfjj which I love the most. But there is a warning, and I will set it in) the forefront. There are many things whicw we have been accustomed to find in grcati fiction, and even in the more clever imitations of great fictioa, to which Gait was completely a stranger. Galt^s best books do not contain even the rudiments of a plot. One day pre gresses after another, much like a douce house holder's lifie in the quiet town of IrvineJ punctuati?d only by the yet greater peace o| the recui/ent Sabbath-day. There is no plo| in the lives of such men, no intrigue save thai continual one of couthy self-interest, whicll Gait treats with a kindliness and an under] standing that are unparalleled. Above all there is no adventure. Thinj happen, indeed, but no blood is spilt td speak of. Yet one does not resent this monc tone — as, for instance, one is apt to do in somd XIX letweenj lion we| Parish' ' GaltVj 3t it inl s which n greai litations [npletehj contaii ky pre ;e hous( IrvineJ eace o no plol ,ve thai , whicl under] Thinj ppilt t( mon lin somi INTRODUCTION riodem Transatlantic novels, where something is always on the point of happening, but never lomes off. A recent work of this class held lut one excitement between its boards, and ;hat was when a Venetian sentry fired across the 'iazza of St. Mark's — and did not hit any one. But this complaint does not lie against John rait, for in his books something is happening 1 the time. True, it is no more than you get tito the habit of running to the window to see, you live long, for instance, in Irvine — a red irt with one creaking wheel, which complains it goes of the lack of grease at some farm in the hill — a fight between a terrier tyke and rough herd's collie — or a small difference itween the senior burgh officer and Robin the (wn's crier. These are interesting, and even [citing — in Irvine. But they must be con- idered from the proper standpoint, which is that an intimate and well-informed house-dweller the main street of the town, in the days (fore railways, when the newsletter came twice week by the coach, and was read aloud for the jublic benefit from the steps of the Blue Bell. ■w^w XX INTRODUCTION "The grammar school was skailing at the time, and the boys, seeing the stramash, gathered round the officer; and, yelling and shouting, encouraged Robin more and more into rebellion, till at last they worked up his corruption to such a pitch, that he took the drum from about his neck, and made it fly like a bomb-shell at the officer's head.*" Who does not call this sufficiently exciting ? Who complains that the incidents do not follow one another quickly enough? How incisive and stirring is the incidence of the characteristic words — " skailing,^ " stramash,'' " corruption ! "" These are just the words which the provost would have spoken, had an occurrence so unseemly befallen in the good town of Irvine. But this admirable passage brings us to another objection to the wide p()})ularity of John Gait, at least in his own day. The! matter is not so serious now as it once wtis, thanks to multiplied editions of Sir Walter, and to other more recent developments. Galtl spares no pains to introduce every old and INTRODUCTION xxi recondite Scots word he knows. He has no mercy on the ignorant Southron. His books are, indeed, the Larger Catechism of the Scottish language, in so far that they are by no means written for those of weaker under- standing. Not only do his characters speak in dialect in every line of his conversations, but as often as not he writes his ordinary narrative in the same admirable Scots, without a thought of self-consciousness or fine-gentlcmaTiship. Thus his every page is a delight to the initiate ; but I cannot deny that these very pages which delight so many of us, may prove somewhat more than trying to the profane. These, so far as I know, are the only reason- able indictments which can be brought against Gait. A possible addition might be made on the score of his confessed long-windedness, especially in his later books. But after all, we read Gait as we go to a but-and-ben in the happily unimproved Isle of Arran, prepared to put up with many things for the sake of the andt large leisureliness, the rustic air, and the en- EC '^ i\ N XXll INTRODUCTION , compassing quiet of heathery mountains and sheltered sea. To me, as I have said, by far the best of John Galfs books is "The Annals of the Parish.^ The " Provost,"" which comes second, may be more homogeneous, and written, as he himself would say, with more " birr and smeddum."" But the character of the writer, though made to emerge with conspicuous skill, is not altogether so sympathetic or delightful as that of the Reverend Micah Balwhidder, for (ifty years minister of the parish of Dalmailing. The third and fourth decades of a man''s life make the thinker ; but the first two make the writer. It is from the experiences o^ these early years that a man makes his backgrounds, and places and develops his characterisations. He may flavour his books with learning and ex- perience more lately gatheied ; but at bottom the world of which he writes, is the world of reality or of fantasy, in which he lived till be was twenty. New on this principle, the ancient, seemly, douce, moderately God-fearing burgh of INTRODUCTION xxiii Irvine iS the foster-mother of most that is ex- j eel lent in the writing of John Gait. Of course, at times he crosses the breed, and as is the wont of all romancers, he works in the memories of Greenock and other later homes. But the basis and bed-rock are Ayrshire and Irvine. And he is never very successful when he goes farther afield, save when as an alternative lie takes some simple people from his n.ative district, and permits them to encounter in a larger and less kindly world the slings and arrows of fortune, which had proved so especially outrageous in his own career. The town of Irvine is described by the parish minister of Galt\s time as then " dry and well- aired, with one broad street running through it from the south-east. On the south of the river, but connected with the town l)v a stone bridge, there is a row of housci? on each side of the road, leading to the harbour. These are mostly of one story with finished garrets, and occupied chiefly by seafaring people. To the north-west of the town there is a commonty of three hundred acres, of a sandy wm 111; xxiv INTRODUCTION soil and partly covered with whin and short! broom."" Now, almost as clearly as if we could see him, I we may take our oaths that on this common ty were often to be observed the rough head and twinkling legs of John Gait. Hither assuredly his love for flowers would lead him, and here his mother would feel him to be safe among the| whins and the short broom. For though Gait was quiet, and in youth I instant upon his books, he was storing energy and knowledge to sustain the strenuous unrest] which filled his later life. Everything he after- wards wrote bore token of a constant observa- 1 tion, which, however cultivated, must primarily have been native to the man. Indeed, Gait is always hap{)iest when he gives free play to his surpassing naturalness. He can hardly tell an adventure with any pith or reality. On the other hand, he can scarcely make a mistake | with a character. Of course it is a common- place that all novelists become their good and bad characters for the occasion. As the poet sings — short J him, nonty 1 and iredly here ig the ^'outh nergy mrest after- jerva- larily alt is to his ill an 1 the stake mon- . and INTRODUCTION xxv I am the batsman and the bat, I am the bowler and the ball. The fielders, the pavilion cat. The pitch, the stumps, and all. )r words to that effect. But Gait does all this and does it more bundantly. Who can doubt that all through lis active, unresting, post-to-pillar life, he had Ireams and visions of the kind of existence he light have led as minister in some country )arish, or, mayhap, as a decent burgher of some mall Ayrshire town, troubled with no greater koiTy than that increase of adipose which in lue time would naturally have marked him )ut for the office of magistrate. In Canada ,nd amid multifarious cares and troubles, Gait ould set himself down and take over the luties, the pleasures, the limitations, the stand- )oint of such a man in that quiet old-world ociety of the south and west of Scotland. He las indeed given us the best account of it that ve can ever hope to get. And he has done it vith an ease which apparently is wholly without ffort. He was charmed to write ; and so we, i jll'll xxvi INTRODUCTION if we are at all to the manner bom or endowe with a natural capacity for the " Gentle Life,] of drowsy villages and farms, are also and equally charmed to read. But it is the most ungracious though the mos natural of comparisons to set Gait beside Scottl It is as unjust to do so as it is to say that Gall derived wholly from him and was stimulated tJ write by Scotf^s success. The truth is, Delta shows in the excellent biography of Galj prefixed to the "Annals,"" in Messrs. Blackl wood''s Standard Novels, that the "Annals and probably some part of the "Legatees] were written before " Waverley."" Neverthelt it is certain that Scott created a taste and madij a market, so that Gait and others entered in td partake of the fruits of labours which were noj wholly their own. But this has solely referenc to publication, and in no way detracts from thJ originality of that great book, "The Annalj of the Parish." Galfs methods were exceedingly simple and natural. When he succeeds best, he alwayil starts out, as it were, without any apparent ill INTRODUCTION xxvii tention of telling a story at all. A worthy octor of divinity, the parish minister of the wn of Irvine, falls heir to a legacy from dia. Accordingly he and all his family ust go to London in order to make the ecessary legal an'angements. They write Qa]Betters home to their own special friends in the ed tft^^^s^ which they have left. There are few cidents, no adventures. Nothing happens, xcept the marriage of the minister's daughter a young officer in the army. In this marriage, 'or the ordinary romancer, there would have n the opportunity for wars and stratagems, lot and counter-plot — for the relief of comic usiness, as it might be between a country aid, imported for the purpose, and the arriageable young male domestics of the letropolis. Even an elopement and pursuit ight have been aiTanged. But no, these hings seem never to have occurred to Gait ; or f they did, his good angel was cei*tainly at niK^ns ear, whispering to him to beware. For hen he does essay this mechanism of tale- uilding in others of his books, he becomes XXVlll i 4 '^ INTRODUCTION at once, if not cheap, at least dull and convincing. But, as it is, the interest never for a momen flags, save, as it may be, in some of the windj political prelections of the somewhat priggi^ Mr. Andrew Pringle. But the author meao to produce this effect, as we can see in the plaij spoken "observes'' with which Mr. Andrew| letters were received by the shrewd, level-heade burgesses and goodwives of the town of Irvind For instance, the Clyde skipper, who had fallej asleep during the reading of the young advc cate's " infinite deal of nothing," exclaimed upoJ waking, " I thought myself in a fog, and could not tell whether the land ahead was Pladda ol the I^y's Isle." Some of the compani thought the observation not inapplicable what they had been hearing, while the mosj sharp-witted, and keenly orthodox Mrs.Glibbar was even more outspoken in her censure, foil she roundly declared the Mr. Andrew Pringlei letter was " nothing but a peasemeal of clishmaj clavers ; there was no sense in it ; it was justi like the writer, a canary idiot, a touch here aiidl INTRODUCTION xxix touch there, without anything in the shape of ordiality or satisfaction.'* Galfs wonderful skill in characterisation ihows itself in every Scottish character he ouches. Not only does he bring out all the haracteristics of the various writers of the etters — in itself not a small success, for letters most kittle things to handle in romance — ut with equal vividness he presents to us the ircle which received them, so that we add to our llery of acquaintances Dominie Micklewham, he favourite correspondent of the Doctor, Mr. raig, the orthodox elder — inexorably severe, ill he finds that he cannot afford to throw tones at others — Mrs. Glibbans, his fit and ultimate partner, and above all, the " helper "" Mr. Snodgrass, eager for a parish, though not quite sure that a rural one will quite suit him — willing, however, to take Irvine on his way to a better, even when coupled with the necessity for espousals with Miss Isabella Todd. Gait is a tired man's author, and to such as love him there is no better tonic and restorative. It is better than well to read him on a winter's w XXX INTRODUCTION night by the fireside, tasting every paragrapi too happy and too much at ease to be critic It is then that the delightfulness of the Doctoi| when he has to explain to the difficult Irvir audience that when he went to the theatre the city of Babylon it was to hear an oratorio tickles as with a feather those silent humour which lie far below laughter. We turn i\ delightsome pages, stretching luxuriously like cat on the hearthrug, while the rain dashes ani| the windows rattle. We do not want incident At such time Shakespeare is too high for us,| even Scott too mighty and many-sided. It isl John Galfs hour, and for the fiftieth time ol| asking we are eagerly interested to know every- thing that has been going on in the parish ofl Dalmailing. And the Reverend Micah Bal| whidJer is, we find, as ready as ever to tell us. I suppose that it is partly early associationj which keeps me faithful to the "Annals,"" in I preference to all Gait's other works. For I resAl that book many yeai's before I had ever heard the name of the author. How such a book came in the " loff of a decent Cameronian INTRODUCTION xxxi [ouse, it in perhaps better not asking. I fancy lat some grown-up uncle must in time past have cretly conveyed it into the house, unostenta- liously deposited between waistcoat and shirt. At any rate there it was, and it w^as with (eliciously wicked qualms that upon a day of juiet smurring rain, a boy of ten took it out, llso under his jacket, into the cartshed ; and [here with one ear bent for the footsteps of a lorei/^ foe, he made his first excursion to the parish of Dalmailing. To this day that boy smell the warm damp of the misty summer lin, and hear the complaining of the hens rhich shared his shelter, and who having no 'Annals'^ to read, did nothing but stare toopily and querulously at the drizzle. Yet, even as Eve very likely found her apple 10 great thing after all, I found no spice of popular commandment-breaking in the placid sminiscences of Micah Balwhidder. It was but the mystery of the forbidden which fascinated. ^or the minister does not settle First and Final ^ause, as can now be done with accuracy and lespatch over the teacups of the afteriioon xxxii INTRODUCTION curate. His views are in no way dangero But the book was a twvUl (with a strong acce on the second syllable), and therefore in o house forbidden. Yet if any man in all t leaseholds of imagination would seem to designed to please a good Cameronian, surd that man was the minister of Dalmailing. I almost despair of giving an idea of ti delicacy and dignity of Gait's characterisatioi in this book. There is no doubt that Mi Balwhidder is the author's masterpiece. Y there is no laborious working out of traits o] heaping up of descriptions. Every part of thi minister's character is allowed to emerge witl an inevitableness and simplicity which beyond all art. It is not, indeed, till the thin or fourth time of reading that one r understands the strength and power of thi man, or how perfectly we seem to know h hero, I'or we learn to love the good ministe better as we become better acquainted with hii whimsicalities, and can put our finger readiH on the more cross-gained patches — which, eveij more than his virtues, endear him to us. XXXIU INTRODUCTION We love him as he is " sauntering along the ledge of Eglesham Wood, looking at the industrious bee going from flower to flower, and the idle butterfly that layeth up no store, but perisheth ere it is winter."" We thrill [with interest (that is, if we are of the elect and Iworthy to tie the latchet of John Galfs shoe) Iwhen he feels " a spirit from on high descending lupon him, when he is transported out of [himself, and seized with the notion of writing a 3ook." How delighful are his meditations as to what le book is to be ! It may be, he thinks, an )rthodox poem, like " Paradise Lost,'"" by John lilton. How excellent is the "like*"! The 3ook, in fact, as it appears to his mind, is to be " Paradise Lost,'"* but with additions and improvements; for Milton was not free of Jrownism, or at least of the suspicion of that heresy. Mr. Balwhidder will, he tells us, treat lore at large of Original Sin, and the great lystery of Redemption. At other times, he jPancies that a " connect treatise *" on the efficacy )f Free Grace would be '* more taking.'*' But VOL. I. kxxiv INTRODUCTION even with such inspiring subjects, fresh audi original as sin itself, how we sympathise withl him when he confesses to us that, owing to tliel " gilravaging of his servant lasses,"'"' and the new! thoughts that came crowding into his mindj the whole summer passed away without a single! line being written. It is one of the gi'eatest merits of the boolil that Gait never condescends to cheap caricaturel of his greater creations. The whole passag which tells of the minister's great design oil writing a book is written directly, simply, sym- pathetically and without the least exaggeration] Yet how easily could a humorous and amusing list have been made of the possible subjects upop which the Reverend Micah could have exercise himself. I am intimately accjuainted with sonij authors who, I am certain, could not havi resisted such an opportunity. Yet undeniablvi how much better is the plain inevitable fact. An example of this exquisite fidelity, ij which the art is so concealed that we caj hardly believe in its existence, is to be found ij the epita[)h u}}on the original Mi*s. Balwhidden i , %:^W |l 'I: 'I "'li|l' INTRODUCTION xxxv rhich her distracted husband first proposed to rite in Latin — a plan which he abandoned for the excellent and undeniable reason that Latin pis naturally a crabbed language and very lifficult to write properly.'" The inscription, [he composition of which beguiled the lonesome H'inter nights, is too long for quotation, but lay be consulted at length in the " Annals.^ it begins : A lovely Christian, spouse, and friend, Pleasant in life and at her end — A pale consumption dealt the blow That laid her here with dust below. Sore was the cough that shook her frame, Ihat cough her patience did proclaim — And as she drew her latest breath, She said, the Lord is sweet in death. Now, to one who knows the South of Scot- ind, and is familiar with the rhyming tomb- tones to be found in almost all its kirkyairds, is hard to believe that these lines are not wholly taken from genuine " throughs,'' and |ot only, as the author himself confesses, the it four lines. ij'i' I' " (1: xxxvi INTRODUCTION Ijjg jg jjj^^ Now, there is no doubt that, as a man of theBcream. It i world and of experience in many lands, Galtldiet in the w quite understood that there was a humorouslone likes it side to the minister's simplicity. Yet it is toBunderstand t his credit, and, to me, no mean proof of hisBfavourite mu genius, that he never lets this appear. TheBdrab-skirted, writer never appears to be laughing at hisBgarrulous, ea own creations. I We have Still another excellent quality which '^nderliaBglorifies the ] Galt\s bocks is their mellow view ol Utl. TheJviUages of i are written by a man kindly to the core. DouceBthe credit foi pawky, sound-hearted humour lies on the surBfulness of tii face of every page. No satyr ever looks at usBthe first tht grinning goatish in the midst of a paragraphMpor the Wiz such as continually suqirises us in the sensitiviBfiiic^j to the 1 prose of Sterne. The inhuman laughter of thijof character, great Dean is never heard. Nay, even thiB^ whole bool hearty roystering of countryside mirth %fx\ gne small mostly banished from Galfs soberly charLiii^t jr «5 to tott page's. ■of i j^ pages Yet how delightsome is tliat which is prescutB But even i I do not mistake Gait for either a great writeBcomes to us or a great man. He was of " those humbleflsabbath day poets whose songs gushed from their hfaii] f\kr" the rouj s to ■ hi! Thi his rlid rhej 3uce, sur t us, rapli dtivi fth thi 1 HI fseiit Tite nble •art. INTRODUCTION xxxvii He is like the best oatmeal porridge — with cream. It is, to some, no doubt, the finest diet in the world. But, all the same, not every one likes it; and those who do not, cannot understand the taste of those who do. Galfs favourite muse is the muse of About-the-Doors, drab-skirted, yet jocose, kindly, tea-drinking, garrulous, early to bed and early to rise. We have now much of tlie writing which glorifies the little quietnesses of the towns and villages of Scotland. Gait deserves much of the credit for that full -eared crop, which in the fulness of time has come after him. He was the first that ever burst into that silent sea. B'or the Wizard was too great, too completely filled to the brim with incident aiid the creation of characiier. He could not be " taigled "" with a whole book about the uneventful happenings 1^1 one small village. Princes had to rebel, and Jr js to totter, in order that the epic capacity of Lu pages might be filled. But even after Scott, the homeliness of Gait comes to us with a restfulness like a Scottish Sabbath day in the olden times, when the very I •! xxxviii INTRODUCTION barn-yard was not so clamorous as uponl ordinary unhallowed days. It is because of the abundance of thij characteristic that I have asked the publisher to include in this edition the " Last of thel Lairds,"" which is one of his latest works, and! not, perhaps, in all respects quite one of hisi best. Yet, even Gait has never surpassed thcl descriptions of the approaches to the mansioDi house of Auldbiggings. I may be permitted, all the more that my quotings hitherto have! been of the briefest, to extract a few lines andl erect them here in the introduction — a load- stone of attraction to some and a danger signal to others. Many persons of respectable life audi demeanour, persons even of sound opinions on! other subjects, do not, indeed, care for the kindl of thing. Luckily, there ai*e othei-s who doj which is so much happiness the more assured! to them in their lives, for Gait wrote maiivl books better than the " Last of the Lairds.**^ " The mansion house of Auldbiggings was al multiform aggregate of corners, and gables, andl cliinnieys. Appended to it, but of somewhttti INTRODUCTION xxxix lower and ruder structure, was a desultory mass )f shapeless buildings — the stable, sty, barn, id byre, with all the appurtenances thereunto ^longing, such as peat-stack, dunghill, and coal-heap, with a bivouacry of invalided uten- sils, such as bottomless boyns, headless barrels, id brushes maimed of their handles ; to say lothing of the body of the cat, which the mdealt-with packman's cur worried on Satur- lay se'nnight. At the far end was the court- louse, in which, when the day was wet, the 30ultry were accustomed to murmur their sullen and envious Whiggery against the same [weather, which was making their friends the Iducks as garrulous with enjoyment at the Iniidden hole as Tories in the pools of corrup- Ition. " The garden was suitable to the offices and [mansion. It was surrounded, but not enclosed, by an undressed hedge, which in more than fifty places offered tempting admission to the cows. The luxuriant grass walks were never mowed but just before hay time, and every stock of kail and cabbage stood in its gar- j> 'ii '.1 xl INTRODUCTION mentry of curled blades, like a new-made I Glasgow bailie'*s wife on the first Sunday after Michaelmas, dressed for the kirk in the mony- plies of her flounces. Clumps of apple-ringie, I daisies and Dutch-admirals, marigolds and nonesopretties, jonquils and gillyflowers, with here and there a peony, a bunch of gardener's garters, a sunflower or an orange lily, mingled their elegant perfumes and delicate flourishes along the borders. Where the walks met stood a gnomenless dial, opposite to which, in a honeysuckle bower, a white-painted scat invited the laird's visitoi's of a sentimental turn to read Hervey's * Meditations in a Flower Garden." And there, in the still moonlight nights, in the nightingale singing season of southern climes, you might overhear one of the | servant lasses kcckling with her swcetheai't.'''' There ! That is Gait at his best, when he I is writing simply and graciously about familiar I things. I declare that, even if I were not a Scot, I should love him as much as Goldsmith. And being one, I love him more. Again when Gait writes in Scots, he writes the INTRODUCTION xli nonage and not the dialect belonging to an^r articular locality. He is in the main stream. e belongs to the great tradition. Practically, e writes the Scots of Robert Burns. His ocabulaiy is not so extensive, his adjectives tly so trenchant. He is by no means so free in his discoorse *" as the poet. But they re essentially shoots of the same stem. They nied, as it were, at one parenfs knee. alt's variety of his Scottish tongue is full of ne old grandmotherly words, marrowy with ith and sap. Scott, like Stevenson, wrote his eriiacular a little from the heights. He had ned it, as it were, for love and adventurous- ess, as men in these days learn llomany. But alt writes his Scots like one who has been iiadled in it, who lis{x?d it in the doorways and ied it to other loons across the street. He ved among men and women who habitually )okc it. In some ways the Doric of Scott lay be finer, more literary, a "clear metro- olitan utterance ^' indeed. But, though I vcrence Sir Walter above all the sons of men, ct I do say that the Scots, even of Caleb m 111 |i44tiii m 1 xlii INTRODUCTION Balderston and Andrew Fairservice has hardl^ the rich tang of the mother-earth which find in the " Annals ^ and the best books 01 John Gait. But that may be because I aa West-land bom, and of the Whigs, Whiggish. I What special words of introduction the! present volume requires may be very briefljl said. The "Annals of the Parish'' is in thJ main a book of the development of character] a chronicle of episodes. Not only is tha shrewd, simple, clever, orthodox and uprighj old Christian gentleman, with one eye on th(| stipend and one on the kingdom of heaven most delicately and sufficiently drawn ; but hisl three wives are so accurately individualised that we seem to know them almost as well al the husband of their various bosoms. WJ sympathise with the first somewhat shadow)] Mi-s. Balwhidder 'with her imperfect domestiJ abilities, but her excellent performance of parislj duties. We mourn when in providence she wa removed by a " dwining,"" in fatal combination with the loss of twelve pounds of lint, intendc as her bereaved husband afFectingly puts thij INTRODUCTION xliii latter, for "sarking for ourselves, for sheets id for napery." A personality even more distinctive, though 3erhaps less good to live with, is the second [rs. Balwhidder, whom her dutiful partner lelights to think of as a great manager, the bee lat gathered the honey ; but who did it withal nth a birr and jangle which made the honest lan greatly regret the piping times of peace le enjoyed with the first Mrs. Balwhidder. )ften in his calm and considerate manner would the minister point out to his second spouse the OTor of her ways, but alas ! it did her little Tood, for the sufficient reason "that she was BO engrained with the management of cows md grumphies in her father's house, that she could not desist — "at the which," says the vorthy man, " I was greatly grieved."'' The third Mrs. Balwhidder does not enter so luch into the chronicle. But that argues well- jciiig, for, as in the case of a nation, that mar- riage also is most blessed that has no history. Indeed, the second Mrs. Balwhidder had so [well provided the things necessary for this life, ,ll xliv INTRODUCTION that all the happy couple had to do was to ente into her providing, and in the evening of lifJ enjoy the happiness of each other"'s society. Galfs Lady Macadam is also one of the fin? studies in the book, full of brightness distinction, with a fine flavour of good-breeding self-will, and hatred of all Whiggery. ThJ chapter which describes the amusements of w\ Lady Macadam, is bright with all Galfs qualities. It has that humour which is beyonil wit, the shrewd insight, the kindly point o\ view, the quipsome, couthy homeliness phrase, which endear John Gait to us. I indeed understand some people not liking Johii Gait; but, all the same, I am most mortalljj sorry for them. Cei'tainly no such picture of the life oil Scotland during the closing years of lastl century has even been written. So that the! place of John Gait in Scottish literature, though not a supreme one, is at least a perfecthl well assured one. He may be forgotten, but m will be remembered again. His books mavl creep up the shelves till they stand a-tiptoe onl INTRODUCTION xlv lie highest and dustiest ledge among the f' dear and the dumpy twelves."" But assuredly time will come when they will be taken down mn. For he does what no other can do well. He shows us with vivid directness id reality what like were the quiet lives of folk, burghers and ministers and country Bairds, a hundred years ago. He makes us fall lin love with their simple (but not short) annals, and causes our over-selfish hearts to beat in [unison with the pleasures and heartbreaks of len and women who for a century and more iiave lain asleep in the quiet places of the land. S. R. CHQCKETT. ,'ii;i i m MEMOIR ^m 'OHN GA In May 2, 1 ! West India the hands an easy m bat is the ] Ihom, we ar parked. Ga strong for( \ho has writt the biogra ^d endorses very singj rength of ch fd a keen i lese are Ga tecover also Ipression, boi VOL. I. MEMOIR OHN GALT was bom at Irvine, in Ayrshire, May 2, 1779- His father was the master of West Indiaman : one of the best as he was one the handsomest men, eminent for his probity, an easy nature, and with only passable ability. lat is the portrait of him left by his son, upon [horn, we are to suppose, his influence was not karked. Gait's mother, on the other hand, was strong force evidently. Dr Moir, '* Delta," [ho has written the most intimate and agreeable the biographies of the author, knew her well, 1(1 endorses her son's description of her as very singular person, possessing a masculine rength of character, with great natural humour, k(l a keen relish of the ridiculous in others." Iiese are Gait's own qualities ; and his works Bcover also the habit of queer metaphorical [prcssion, bordering on the fantastical, and the VUL. I. d I ill' 1 MEMOIR command of incomparable Scottish phraseologjj which he records as having been hers. When Gait was ten, the family left Irvine ari went to reside at Greenock. It is usual, indee to speak of him as a Greenock man : " a brc gawsy Greenock man," says Carlyle, and, aga *'lias the air of a sedate Greenock burgher] and in her Recollections Mrs Katherine Thomsi speaks of him as being a noted conversationald the sweetness of whose tones was marred bv Greenock accent. At Irvine and at Greeno he received impressions which never slackenJ their hold upon his mind. It was at Irvine, during his early years, that the sect of Buchanites was established upon the expositia of a Mrs Buchan in the vain ear of the Rel^ minister, Mr White. Gait confesses that never had the slightest knowledge of the dtj trine of the heretics ; but the manner of \\\\ worship, which raised the corruption (as Min Balwhidder would say) of the populace to mobbing of Mr White's house, and the dismia of the " iKlious schismatic " from their town, i thralled the child. When Mrs Buchan and 1 followers were marched forth, singing psalms, iij on their way, as they said, to the New Jenisak MEMOIR li the boy must accompany them, until his mother, in a state of distraction, pursued and brought him back by the lug and the horn. In de- scribing the Covenanters in Rhigan Gilhaize, he says, " The scene and more than once the en- Ithusiasm of the psalm-singing have risen on my remembrance ; " and the incident and its recollec- tion are mentioned by him to illustrate his gift of memory — "a singular local memory," he calls it — which grew with his years and distinguished him among his friends. In the Autobiography several examples of it are recorded, of which the most remarkable is that the " Windy Yule " [chapter in the Provost, as justly remembered for [the vividness of its descriptions as for its finely [touched sentiment, is based upon an 'iipression [of a storm at sea received by him forty years [previously, and, it would seem, when he was not [more than eight years of age. The Autohiographi/ discovers a child not very Btroiig — not ill, but with " a sort of * all-overish- iiess ' hanging about him " — and cut off thereby from the hearty exercises of other boys. He Imd early a taste for flowers and their cultivation. Vhen not engaged witli them he was lounging In his bed, which gave him "a kind of literary ».■.! n \ m iii MEMOIR predilection," receiving from his ballads andj story-books vivid impressions that never left him, or having others still more vivid made upon him by the tales and legends of the old women, models for many such in his novels, whose society he sought in the close behind his grand- mother's house. After the removal to Greenock, his improved health, and the increased advantages! of the town (in libraries, for example), gave his literary and other predilections greater scope. Behind these there always had been plenty ofl force. At six he was rhyming couplets upon the death of two larks, and when little older, kneeling down, in an access of enthusiasm over! Pope's Iliad, to pray that one day he might l)ej endowed with powers to do something siniilar.l He carried the same energy into other pursuits.! These were out of the beaten school tracks, along which his ill health and his tempera ment prevented him making very great ])rogress,l For a time it was musical composition and prac-l tice upon the flute that held him. Despite! the gusto which he brought to the exercise,! Gait never became expert upon the flute ; yetl in one overture he " used to be rather above) par, and there was a beautiful movement o| MEMOIR M Jomelli in which he thought himself divine." He is complaisantly modest in the same way ubout his compositions, which included his " Lochnagar/' popular to the point of the street- organ when published afterwards to Lord Byron's words. To these exercises were added others exhibiting a mechanical bias : the construction of a pianoforte in a box, an edephusion (what- ever that may be), and an Eolian harp, which was allowed to perform in the staircase window when his mother happened to be absent. His zeal in these various enterprises was shared by two friends, evidently of superior intellectual j constitution. William Spence was his guide to [skill upon the flute, being not only a delicious performer, Gait says, but "a considerable com- I poser, making beautiful sonatas which had as [much character as the compositions of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia." This and much jmore is said by Gait, always kindly and en- Ithusiastic, in the biography of his friend which prefaces Spence's "Essay on Logarithmic Tran- scendents," edited by Sir John Herschell. The same enthusiastic note is struck about his other land closer friend. Park, — " far more accomplished llliaii any other person I have ever known, h liv MEMOIR and I do not except Lord Byron when I say so." Park, besides excelling as a linguist, had a fine taste in literature ; and it is possible that, but for infirm health, he would have produced something of note. As it was, his rhyming gifts were superior to those of Gait, whose endeavours j he seems to have excited by his practice and chastened by his criticism. With these two, Gait spent his Greenock years in a fury of in- tellectual excitement. Sometimes short visits! to Glasgow were made "to see London stars." Sometimes walking tours farther afield were "undertaken earnestly for the acquisition of knowledge:" one "a sort of gipsy an expedition! to Loch Lomond ; " another, of two weeks' duration, beginning with twenty-five miles to I Glasgow before breakfast ; another still, through Scott's Border Country, on as far as Durham, | where the sight of Mrs Siddons as Lady Mac- beth came as reward. Under Park's guidance! the studies in languages were pushed forward. The Committee of the Public Library had to be brought to its senses, too, for seeking to purge it of tainted authors, — "an unheard-of pro-| ceeding in a Protestant land," by which Gait's wrath "was iuHamed prodigiously." Again, — I'cri MEMOIR Iv Ithe wrath so prodigiously inflamed did not re- Iflect democratic principles, — when the second iRevolutionary War broke out, Gait "set about jraising a corps of two companies of sharp- Ishooters, or riflemen, the first of the kind raised lin the Volunteer force of the kingdom," whose Iservices were accepted by the Government, ap- Iparently after negotiations not unlike those of [the " propugnacious spirits " in the Provost. All this time there was a monthly society, which read papers, Spence conducting into profound depths; and there were flights. Park leading, into the columns of the Greaiock Advertiser and the Ediulnirgh Magazine. Such were the leisurely pursuits of Gait's youth, before he went to Lon- don and was launched upon the sea of enter- prises where he bore himself so bravely even in I shipwreck. Gait left Greenock when he was about twenty- |five; and the thirty-five years of his life that remained were an adverse fight with Fortune. I In them, according to his own bibliography, he ipublishet; sixty volumes, twelve plays in the Nefv Urilish Theatre, three pamphlets, and tales and [essays, of which there is no account, in various periiKlicals, publications, and annuals. That is an '\' n m U I ! Ivi MEMOIR extraordinary amount of work to be placed tol the credit of any literary life ; and yet his wiJ not a literary life at all. It was during a short! period of it only that literature was his pro-l fission. His record in commercial and other en- terprises was as remarkable for a man of afFairsj as his literary output was for a man of letters.! Scarce one of his works but contains some ofl his own experiences ; and combined they could I not produce a history so full of experience a^j his. Novels, plays, and travels came from his voluminous — his far too voluminous — pen in the intervals left him by undertakings as large in conception as they. And in Gait's own eyes, undoubtedly, these enterprises were of far morel value than his writings. It was his fate in his lifetime to fail in those endeavours upon which he set most store, to win applause where he least sought it ; and posterity has used him even as did his contemporaries. It has forgotten his schemes, and out of the long list of his literary works has remembered some half-a-dosen only which his own judgment had put near the foot. His plays, and the historical novels in vrhich (so 'tig said) he attempted to rival Sir Walter Scott, the works which displayed, as he thought, the MEMOIR Ivii I giant imagination that was his chief boast, are Imade of no account, and those only, compara- Itively few in number, which embody his obser- Ivations of the Scotland in which he was bom land bred, seem destined to live. He laughed lincredibly, it is told, when some one's remark v&s repeated to him, " that he, like Antajus, v&s never strong save when he touched mother- earth ; " but the remark was true. His mother- earth was Ayrshire, to which, when he left it low, save for one or two flying visits, he returned jnly to die. Before following his fortunes further, ve will do well to seek for more detail in this Ayrshire period of his life that has just been Sketched. And not only because it was spent imong the Ayrshire folk and the Ayrshire ways, by his picture of which we remember him. In |t, too, he discovered a character consistent with pe failures and successes of his later years. Greenock had been his home from ten to Iwenty-five. " I do not say it was the happiest periotl of my life," he writes, "although it is ecollected as the longest. Something of con- Itraint environed me. I do not recollect any Circumstances which should endear the remem- brance of Greenock to me." Nevertheless, the ■.;• Iviii MEMOIR remembrance was endeared. Undoubtedly the! spring-time of life spent there was not without sunshine, he says himself We are not surprised to find the " strongest local attachment " ac- companying the " singular local memory ; " it iil in the nature of things that it should, even although there is no attachment to one's fellow- men, and that was not the case with Gait. Hel was affectionately attached to his kinsfolk, and! loyal, with a ridiculous loyalty even, to hisi friends. " Much of my good nature towards! mankind is assuredly c wing to my associates all Greenock," Gait was able to write. " I havej met, no doubt, with many more accomplished, but never with better men ; nor do I recollectl that the slightest shade was ever cast upon ami one of them. They had, however, what to niel has ever appeared a ludicrous infirmity ; namely] a conceit of themselves, above all others of thd human race whom I have ever seen. A thousanl instances of this weakness come upon my re collections as I live over again in this narrativij my youthful days; but let me not be though to calumniate their hearts." We need not thought to calumniate Gait in any respect whe we say that some such innocent good conceil a MEMOIR lix himself seems to have come to him in his Esidence there. And something of infinitely jore importance came to him there : something bat he under-estimated in comparison with his speriences abroad of it, just inasmuch and to le same extent as he over-estimated his ima- linative over his observing powers. Gait's is extreme example of the not uncommon case a man failing to recognise wherein his bength lay, of his being jealous, even, of its Bcognition by others. Here is how he prefaces lis account, in the Literary Life, of "those reductions which have obtained the greatest bra of attention, and in which, it is supposed, ly great strength lieth ' " : "It is imagined that have drawn entirely on my recollection, both br the incidents and characters of my most aluable pictures ; and it has been alleged that have very little recourse to that kind of jivention, composition, which constitutes the Itality of art ; " and then he proceeds to make ttle of his intimate nearness to the things he bse to depict, lest it should take away from [that kind of invention which constitutes the Itality of art." It is not necessary to show that was wrong; that although he never slept Ix MEMOIR but one night in a manse, and that was the the habitation of a clergyman anything butj Mr Balwhidder, and although he "was brouj up in a respectable station which rendered very unlikely to have after I was ten yeai old seen much of the life which it is supposi I have most delighted to paint/' the Annoi and the Provost were really written in Ayrshin and the characters in them etched upon mind by the strong acid of his observatio rather than recalled to it in later years by tlii action of a " strong local memory." With this marvellous sensitiveness to accural! and lasting impressions, however, there went energy of mind as marvellous. We have h* proof of it in the account of the pursuits his youth in Greenock ; and we have kept unti now one passage from the Autobiography whid exhibits it most vividly. " I was a sort of i fisher," he writes, " but never distinguishe The scene of my reveries was a considerablj stream in the moors behind the mountaii above the town. ... It has since been brougiij round the shoulder of the hill, and being damme up, it now by a canal gives to the town a valiil able water-power. Among my fishing dreams th MEMOIR Ixi »ry improvement, in a different manner, was le of the earliest. I brought forth to myself notable plan, — no other than to tunnel the jountain by the drain and lead it into The Ihaws water, — for exactly the same purpose as le canal has been since executed. ... In the ^irth, opposite to Greenock, there is a large ul-bank often dry at low water. When it ^as proposed to enlarge the harbour it occurred me that this bank might be converted into ind, and I have still a very cheap and feasible ^lan for gradually doing it, but unfortunately le bank belonged to the Crown, and was too icred to be improved. ... In contriving chemes such as these my youth was spent, but ley were all of too grand a calibre to obtain ly attention, and I doubt if there yet be any le among my contemporaries capable of appre- iating their importance." Schemes of a calibre too grand for his con- emporaries to appreciate, — these are what his lind ever ran upon. The expression itself lints to a weakness (for so we must consider in Gait the novelist at least) : a nature at ice versatile and ambitious, and observant and efleetive, and more stubborn than any. Ixii MEMOIR i I (A With this key to his character we will be able I read his life ; and it seems to unlock the secret ( his literary work. For in the Annals and the Vn vast there is more than observation, — somethin as he claims himself, that comes from a cert distance in the limning. From his intimate nearl ness to the things depicted, he might, with equji wealth of detail, have pictured a stationary burj and a stationary parish. But this did not conj tent the man of affairs, the traveller, the associatj of men and women in all degrees of life, tin "philosophic fellow," as Byron called him, wb rejoiced in schemes of a grand calibre, who instinct was for the heroic, whose very conver tions smacked of the melodramatic. And so wi have, not one j)icture of parochial and burgha life, but a series of pictures, setting forth changa and transmutations with an intellectual subtlcn not less remarkable than the fineness of their oi servation. At the same time, these qualities the man, which gave historical value to his worlj account for the lack of distinction which mass of his writing, like his fishing, displayt It was one of his favourite maxims, Gillies saji| that, bookmaking being at I)est a kind of lotteii chance, he could, by merely keeping the pen MEMOIR biii hand, begin and end a work in less time than a fhstidious author would consume in laying his plans and debating how the thing was to be done. He was not essentially an artist. The matter and not the manner of his writings was his chief concern, and possibly he had little concern for his writings at all when there were schemes in hand. Above all, he was not tortured by the sense of form. Yet if we ac- count thus for the oblivion into which most of his writings have sunk, we bring into clearer relief the native genius that produced those which survive. The manner of his leaving Greenock shows :at once the resolution that banked his char- acter and his restlessness under the feeling of "something of constraint." He had passed from the Custom House, where Park also was, into I the office of a private firm. In the counting- liouse, late one evening, there arrived a most i abusive letter from a Olasgow merchant — one of a purse-proud crop sown in the first Revolu- tionary War. On receipt of it Gait's blood I boiled, and he determined to have an apology. In the morning, therefore, he set out for [Glasgow. Finding there that his man IkmJ ■a Ixiv MEMOIR gone to Edinburgh, he followed him, sought I him out in a hotel, bolted the door upon them, and gave him ten minutes to write an apology, which was done. With this in his pocket he posted back to Glasgow, and on to Irvine, — "in the course of my journey many things came to mind, and instead of going home to Greenock I diverged to Irvine," is his account of the matter, — from where he „ 1 j.„ U,'„ 4... ^1 Ui_ 1 U:.l aiiiiuuiiccu. tu iiin uMiciitn «.iiu iii» ciiiuiuyci iiibi intention to quit Greenock. He was fixed ml his resolution to go to London; and in a month or two, apparently in no very happy frame of mind, he had arrived there with a whole] mai^ of introductory letters. The delivery of these brought him no good I save a curious view of human nature. The realisation that he must depend upon his own exertions, — and they never were slack, — althoujjli disheartening for a time, strung him up to sterner endeavour, and after looking about for| a little he entered into a copartnery with an- other youth from the same part of the country I as himself. This partner, it turned out, was in- solvent, and had floating about many renewed! bills, which had been represented to Gait Ills I MEMOIR Ixv paid off. The discovery was one difficult for he young firm to stand up against. Gait, owever, set himself to overcome the conse- uent embarrassments. He retained his partner the business, and in time even took him ck to their former intimacy. In three years, hen seemingly the house had weathered the torm, it foundered in the difficulties of a corre- pondent. Gait now entered upon a mercan- i!e undertaking with his brother Tom. He as induced to do so against his will : " the xcitement I had undergone would not be sub- ued, and I was determined to quit commercial usiness as soon as I could see my brother stablished ; " and when, in a short time, Tom eiit off to Honduras, Gait entered himself at incoln's Inn, and, to pass the time before being lUed to the Bar, and to restore his health, ade a tour abroad. This London jM'riod — the second epoch, ac- )rding to Gait's division of his life in the uhibiogmphtf — lastec from June 1804 to 18()(). orried and driven as he had been in it, alt had found time for some literary work ;wedHti(l study. He had brought up to town with t asB"" the manuscript of his Battle of Largs ^ VOL. I. « Li :i ■ .; kvi MEMOIR a poem begotten of his antiquarian researches.! This was prepared for press, in the interval)! of delivering the introductory letters, and froml sheer want of something else to do. Thougt! published anonymously, the secret of the authorl ship leaked out, and on that account, and others, it was suppressed immediately after iJ publication was announced. Soon he was strug- gling, as he had to struggle all his days^ J wring success from undertakings which helJ none ; and most men would have found sufficient. But in the energy of his mind Galj was a very rare man. There is something almo laughable in his account of the studies in hii leisure at this time : " I made myself mast very early of the Lex Mercatoria. ... I composei a treatise on the practice of underwriting, as sarij tioned by the existing laws and the decisions tribunals. ... I composed also a history, tu tb time of Edward III. inclusive, of the ancieii| commerce of England, a work of research ; wrote likewise a history of bills of exchange. I derived a competent knowledge of familiei their descents and connections, and rare reconditj things of heraldry ; " and, from stumbling on th inquiries of Filanghieri, the Neapolitan, he *' be|] MEMOIR Ixvii frame a new doctrine " of crimes and punish- lents. All this study, he tells us, was proof ^f the ambition with which he was filled — id yet, apparently, the idea that knowledge id research must be clothed upon by some- ling called style, if they are to live, never awned upon him. When his business enter- prises were over, too, he set to work upon a |)ng-cherished scheme for a Life of Wolsey. fhis was not published until later; but previ- iisly to his tour abroad he worked on it hard. Gait was out of England for three years. k course of his journeyings, described at reat length in his Voyages and Travels and in lis Letters from the Levant, and unsystematically fetched in the Autobiography, has been care- ^lly and pleasantly indicated by his biographer, |r Moir. — "On the day of his arrival at Gibraltar, our jveller met with Lord Byron, who was then on Mt tour with Sir John Cam Hobhouse which IS been inmiortalised in the first and second itos of Childc Harold. An acquaintance was [bsequently formed, and the three sailed in |e same packet to Sardinia and Malta. . , . ". . . Having resided for a season in Sicily, j - 1 ' ''ffl^W Ixviii MEMOIR Mr Gait repaired to Malta; and, after touchin at the islands of Zante and Patras, paid a vis to Corinth. Proceeding thence to Tripoliza where he had an interview with the famous Al Pasha, he bent his course towards Athens, the Waywode of which place he had receivd a particular introduction from the Vizier Villi He took up his residence in the Propaganda Fii of Rome Monastery, and Lord Byron chancin to be also at that time in the same city, thei acquaintance was renewed. While there Gait's health was very variable, at times obli^ him to shut himself entirely up within the wall of his domicile ; nor could this solitude othen^ii than have hung heavy on his hands, had he endeavoured to while away ennui by poetia pastimes. One of his effusions he entitled Incofimeto, being descriptions of scenes in voyage to Palestine, written in the Spenserid stan/a, and another, The Atheniad, a mock ep in heroic verse, relating to the Elgin marblej in which the heathen deities are made to aven the cause of Minerva. The manuscripts of were, it seems, shown to the noble poet ; and tlj circumstance is here mentioned for the sake pointing out the curious coincidence — if nothii MEMOIR Ixix nore — that both Gait and Byron should have sen, at the same time and in the same place, ccupied with similar subjects, and both in the ime kinds of verse. Here, however, the parallel ids. The latter was a great poet, which the [)riner was not : Gait's mastery lay in a different |ne. The // Inconmeto was lost in manuscript ; it The Atheniad, which contains many vigorous les, has been preserved. "After leaving Athens, Mr Gait visited Hydra, ea, and Scios, and thence proceeded by Rphesus Smyrna. In reference to some commercial Dheme connected with the firm of Messrs truthers, Kennedy, & Co., he obtained posses- 311 of a large building on the island of Myconi, [hich had been originally erected by Count ^rloff, the Consul-General of Russia in the reign Catharine the Second, when that ambitious leen had an eye to the dominion of the Grecian [rchipelago. This circumstance, along with the kerning want of any feasible purpose for wan- ering about, gave rise to the idea that our ^letudinririan was a political agent, bent on the Irtherance of some secret mission. The alle- ition was no doubt idle enough, but, when le consider the country and the times, migiit Ixx MEMOIR have brought down on a suspected head mantl dangerous consequences. " Returning a^^ain to Athens, he found that 1ie| former apartments in the Propaganda Monasten had been taken possession of by Lord ByronJ but he was accommodated with others in tij same building. Two personages who afterwan attracted great notoriety in the world, althoud in very different spheres, were also there at thJ particular time, and, along with the Manjuis Sligo, were unceasing in their kind attention to our traveller, who continued a great invalid,- the one was the Lady Hester Stanhope, tlw domiciled among the Moslem ; and the otliei| M. Bruce, who assisted in the escape of Valette. On leaving the city of the AcropoliJ Mr Gait visited Marathon, Thebes, and Chersona — sounds which stir the heart like the sound a trumpet ; ascended Parnassus ; and, at Delpli drank at the Castalian spring ; wound throiij; the pass of Thermoj)ylte ; looked upon the pla of Pharsalia ; and rode, by moonlight, across ttij vale of Tempe. " Having crossed the Gulf of Salonica, ^11 Gait proceeded to Constantinople, where, aftej remaining some time, he penetrated into Nic MEMOIR Ixxi [media; thence traversing the northern limb of Asia Minor, he at length reached Kirpe, on the I shores of the Black Sea. It would appear that his lobject in taking this little-frequented track was to ascertain the possibility of conveying British goods, with any chance of successful speculation, into particular parts of the Continent, in spite jof the interdict pronounced by the Berlin and Milan decrees ; and the journey created some feeling of disappointment as to the practicability lof the scheme, so far as that particular quarter was concerned ; but this was counterbalanced by [the advantages which it developed with reference [to others. It was therefore arranged that a loonsiderable cargo, amounting to a hundred [bales of goods, should be sent to Widdin, whose [arrival our traveller was to precede, and to see lit deposited there until it could be transmitted [to Hungary, by way of Orsova. This journey [was attended with many difficulties and dangers, [as it was through a region little known, across 'mountains high and deserts idle,' during the (winter season, and, moreover, at a time when jthe Russians and Turks were at war. His en- thusiasm was, however, not to be daunted. Leaving Adrianople, he visited Philippi, where I J 'i'' 1 ] f. t 1 M Ixxii MEMOIR erst the stalwart ghost of CaBsar darkened tlie| tent of Brutus ; and hastened on to Sophia, then the headquarters of Vilhi Pasha, who kindly I gave him an escort of horsemen across Mount | Haemus. " Having remained at Widdin as long as his I commercial ties made it necessary or useful, he travelled along ' the banks of the dark-rollin|t| Danube,* on his retrograde route to Constin- tinople, where having arrived, he proceeded! homewards by sea. At this time he chanced to remain for ' eral days at Missolonghi, since rendered famous and familiar to British ears as the death-place of Byron. While there, it chanced that the works of Goldoni fell into his I hands ; and the weather being so wet that hej could not stir abroad, he translated, as an amuse- ment, the La Gelosia di Lindoro, and anotherl comedy, which, under the name of Lane, Honow\ and Interest, was also published afterwards in thej New British Theatre. . . . " At Messina, to which Mr Gait next voyaged,! the crew were put under quarantine for eighteen days. No situation more lugubrious can be ima- gined. The room assigned to him looked solelyj into a courtyard, the area of which was usedl MEMOIR Ixxiii a burying-ground. He craved a book, and that brought to him was the Life and Works \of Aljieri, which he now saw for the first time, md the impression which they made upon him, read under such circumstances, appears to have lever been afterwards obliterated. He betook limself to translating select portions, to make limself more familiar with the style and habits )f thought of that singular writer ; and he was ^truck with the feeling that some of his finest aatural touches of passion were marred in their fffect by the introduction of some recondite and Classical, or, in other words, unnatural, expression. To test the truth of this impression, he set about limself composing a series of dramas, founded on Ihe same principles as those of the Italian author, so far as appertained to simplicity of plot and le number of characters to be introduced, but [kvoiding, as much as possible, the rocks on which lis predecessor appeared, in his judgment, to have lade wreck of many of his finest things." Iri the end of 1811 Gait was back in London, nth his head full of the Levant scheme, and his ^.ands with works for the press. The scheme did kot succeed : that is only what the readers of lalt's life expect to hear ; and the negotiations ! ! Ixxiv MEMOIR before it failed have lost their interest. The I curious thing is that, although, when he camel to write the Autobiography, he had not lost hisl belief in the feasibility of his plans that had I gone wrong, he could touch on his enthusiasm I so playfully. " I built castles in the air of thel most gorgeous description, with a Fame on tliel pediment blazoning with her trumpet," he wrotej of himself and the Levant business. There hadl been a talk of Government taking up the underj taking and placing him at the head of it, andl in consequence. Gait abandoned the study ol law, and with it, for a time, the idea of a literanl life. Then, as the outlook in the Levant faddl away, for him at any rate, he fell in with a prol posal made him by Mr Kirkman Finlay to joiil a branch which his house intended to establisi at Gibraltar. The business — practically it waii the smuggling of goods into Spain, then overral by the French — was not to his British taste, ai he should not have undertaken it had not tliel stress of circumstance begun to tell upon liimj Before setting out he sold off his valuable librarrj collected with the lavishness which he carrie into all his pursuits ; and he paid a farewell visit! to his native place. " The journey," he says MEMOIR Ixxv " was in one respect not pleasant. I found my- self prodigiously changed, and I saw many per- sons altered by time — changed too, I tliought, in character. But the great transmutation of which 1 was sensible was in my own hopes. I remem- bered well how buoyant, even fantastical, they ever had been, how luxuriant and blossomy ; but I saw that a blight had settled on them, and that my career must in future be circum- scribed and veiy sober." Yet even his circum- scribed and sober career in SpJn was to be cat short. The victories of the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula, and his triumphant entry into Madrid, cut the ground from under the Gibraltar house ; and once more Gait was cast upon his own resources. True to himself, he set about mastering the Spanish language ; and he was not persuaded to declare himself beaten by returning to London until the imperative call of his health for surgical aid forced him to the step. The slings and arrows of a singularly out- rageous fortune were driving Gait fast to litera- ture as a profession ; but he made one other I effort to escape by way of mercantile endeavour. On the restoration of Louis the Eighteenth, he Il • M-! I i i m Ixxvi MEMOIR crossed to France, and passed from there to Belgium and Holland, on the outlook for in- ducements to settle in one or other of these countries. He could see none, however, and soon returned to London. From this time, more or less, until he under- took the management of the Canada Company, with which his name, as a man of affairs, is now generally remembered, he followed literature singly. Since his return from the Mediterranean, however, he had indulged as freely as ever his taste for scribbling dov/n his thoughts, feeliiif,'s, and observations, and for publishing the result. In preparing for the press his Voyages ami Traveh, originally a series of letters to I'ark, he was assisted by Dr Tilloch, the editor of the Philosophic Magazine, and proprietor of the Sbr newspaper, whose daughter he married now The Life of Cardinal JVo/sei/ was finished, and ultimately ran into three editions ; and was followed by a volume of six dramas, (" the worst ever seen," Scott said), which he had begun at Messina in the manner of Alfieri's, the reading of which there had impressed him greatly. These and his lA'tlers from the IjCimnt were roughly handled by the critics, who did not MEMOIR Ixxvii spire the looseness of his style, upon which he put little stress, and the rashness of his judg- ments, of which they were unable, he says, to see the value — a reflection of the old complaint concerning his Greenock schemes, "They were all of too grand a calibre to obtain any attention, and I doubt if there be any among my contem- poraries capable of appreciating tL; »r importance." He was incensed especially at the Quarterly's re- views of his works, determining upon a horse- whipping of Croker, which his marriage happily prevented ; and he never forgot or forgave them, having the belief, rightly or wrongly, that the effect of their misrepresentations was to make his position in Canada later, difficult in any case, more difficult still. For a short time, too, lie had edited Yorke's Political Review ; and by-and-by he had conceived and started another venture, the i^ew British Theatre, for which even he himself came to have scarce a good word. Its original title, The Hejeeted Theatre, explains it : it was to give a hearing to re- jected dramas ; and in the first number Gait made an assault u))on tlu' monopoly <»f the Ix)ndon j)atent theatres. " 1 had some experi- ence myself," he writes naively, "respecting m Ixxviii MEMOIR the difficulty of obtaining a candid hearing of a new piece, because, being now more inclined to the quiet cultivation of literature than formerly, I had offered to both theatres the tragedy of The Witness, and it was returned to me with a rejection, although the r^e of the manuscript gave me reason to believe that but the title had been read." The Witness, afterwards pro- duced in Edinburgh with some success as Tk Appeal, and at least ten other dramas by Gait, appeared in the New British Theatre. After the first number, the publication was a ludicrous failure. " It would absolutely not be within the range of belief to describe the sad efforts of I genius which were afterwards sent me," says its founder and editor ; " and seeing that by the nature of its contributions it must be a failure, I cut and run." Majola, his first novel, was the last work of his amateur pen : " Hitherto 1 hid written only to please myself, and had published more to acquire the reputation of a clever fellow than with the hope of making money ; but al- j most immediately on sending forth the second volume, I saw that hereafter I was destined to I eke out my income with my pen, — with the causes the public, according to my opinion, have MEMOIR Ixxix [nothing to do, and it would be exceedingly impertinent to inquire." For the next ten years the two currents of his energy ran almost entirely in the channel of literature. Its volume was extraordinary. The year of Majola saw the first jmrt of the Life and Studies of Benjamin West. The Crusade : a Poem, The Wandering Jew, an [abridgment of Modem Travels in Asia, two volumes of Historical Pictures, and the Earthquake, I followed. And now, in 1821, the Ayrshire Legatees ap- Ipeared in Blackwood's Magazine, and, late in jlife, Gait came into his own. Some ten years jpreviously, in leisure snatched from those Ischemes and ventures we have noted, he had Iwritten The Annals of the Parish. When he lotfered it to the firm which a little later was Ito publish Waverley, he had it returned to him Iwith the assurance that a novel entirely Scottish Iwould not take with the public. As has been jjminted out, it was left to Scott to create a jtHste and to make a market for work even so joriginal as Gait's. Meanwhile, as the publishers [would have none of it, the manuscript of the |-//iwfl/.v was laid aside, and it was forgotten by lits Huthor until the success of the Lcsatces Ixxx MEMOIR recalled it to mind. That success was venl notable. A paternity not lower than that of Waverley was ascribed to it, "Delta" says; anq he tells us, too, that scarce had its publica| tion begun in the Magazine, when its editor, Mri Blackwood, with his noted sagacity and shrewd- ness, saw and appreciated Gait's peculiar powen, assisted him by his advice, convinced him where his strength lay, and prevailed on him to go on working the rich original vein which ht| had opened. " Although the AnnaLs of Ik Parish is much older than the Ayrshire Legatm, Gait himself says, " it is due to Mr Blackwood I to^ ascribe to him the peculiarities of that pro I duction ; for, although unacquainted with tlit AnnaLs of the Parish, his reception of my first! contribution to his Magazine, of the yiyrsliinl I^'gatees, encouraged me to proceed with thtl manner in which it is composed, and thus, ill there be any originality in my Scottish clasl of compositions, he is entitled to be the firJ person who discovered it." The forgotten manu script was hunted up, the chronicle of IJ mailing rewritten in accordance with the advictl of his publisher, and the reputation fouiuledj by the Ayrshire Legatees firmly established bjl MEMOIR Ixxxi the Annals of the Parish. It is not necessary here I to make a critical estimate of these books. Mr j Crockett has done that in his Introduction to this volume, and will perform a similar office for the other novels of the present edition, — Sir Andrew llVi/lii', The Entail, The Provost, and 7'he Last of me Lairds, — works which followed the Annals in [rapid succession, and have survived with it. To this period of Scottish work belong also one jr two more ambitious novels which have not jen so fortunate : Ringan Gilhaize, a story of Ihe Scottish Covenanters, most likely suggested by Old Mortality, and designed to counteract |he injustice done them by Scott therein ; r/«' Spaewife, founded on the life and fortunes \{ James the First of Scotland, which met rith considerable success ; and Rothelan, hastily sncluded by the pressure of the Canadian msiness. For although, as a writer, he had now reached e highest point of his fame, his ambition to Kcel in a more active field was not dead. Just [hen his adventurous days were over, and he B(l settled down to enjoy, and to add to, the [iumphs of his pen, his restless nature broke [iiiiuls once more, and he entered upon the I VOL I. / m m I' i ,) 1 hii Ixxxii MEMOIR Canadian undertaking in which his fortunes were wrecked. Between the publication of the Entail I and of Rothelatiy he had received letters from Canada appointing him agent for such of thej principal inhabitants as had claims to urge for losses sustained during the invasion of the Province by the armies of the United States,] Negotiations went forward for some years, Gait's share in them becoming more and more ira-l portant. He was appointed Secretary of the Canada Company, which sprang out of them, and one of the Commissioners whom the GovemmcEll was sending out for the valuation of the Pro-I vince. Difficulties arose between the Colonial Office and the Commissioners, owing to thn action of the Canada clergy, and he was onel of two arbiters in whose hands the aettlemcntl of them was left; and when that had beeiij reached, it became necessary for him to go oulj to Canada to mnke arrangements for the i.\w\ pany's operations. There is no need to dwell upon the \mm derstandings uiul difficulties which hampered hiq in his work in the Province. He had hints them before he set sail, and he had scarce laiidi when they declared themselves plaiaiy. Enemiej MEMOIR Ixxxiii had poisoned the ear of the Governor and of the local Government, and Gait's actions seemed to give colour to their tales. The old belief in his capacity to lead came out, the old ambition to lead into great possessions. During a lifetime he had been on the outlook for a field for his schemes of a grand calibre. He had found it at length, it seemed, but still not the contem- poraries capable of appreciating their importance. And although we cannot cast all the blame upon the contemporaries, nor even, perhaps, justify throughout Gait's conduct of the schemes, it is impossible not to sympathise with his indig- nation at the suspicions of the one, and his "tingling at every pore" at the censure passed upon the other. The Canada Company had originated in his suggestions. It was established by his endeavours ; organised, in disregard of many obstacles, by his perseverance ; and, though extensive and com- plicated in its scheme, a system was formed by him iipon which it could be conducted with ease. (Uielph had l>een founded — "at the cost of not much more than the publication of a novel." To him it seemed as if " everything he had touched was prosperous : his endeavours to foster 1 1 ) Ixxxiv MEMOIR the objects of his care were flourishing, and, without the blight of one single blossom, gave cheering promises of ample fruit." That was his estimate of his work in Canada, and it was endorsed by the settlers themselves ; yet troubles and misrepresentations were the return he received. He could not hide his chagrin at all this ; yet there was always a high note of manhood in his repinings. " Neither open enmity," he wrote, " nor covert machinations of personal malice, nor the ingenuity of sordid self-interest, can hereafter prevent my humble name from being associated with the legends of undertakings at least as worthy of commemoration as the bloody tradi tions of heroic lands." Nor have they, or the other forces opposed to him less undeserving oil such harsh names. Back in London, "retired from the arena of| business with the suUenness of a vanquished bull," his fortunes shattered, and his health not of the best, he sat down at the desk once more. " I felt my independence augmented," he says, " by looking on poverty, undismayed at her emaciation." It was characteristic of him that] he should estimate the income to be made by his pen at £1000 a year, and that he should! 'iffl MEMOIR Ixxxv write enough to justify the estimate if not to win the sum. In six months he published six volumes : Lawrie Todd, a novel based upon the autobiography of a seed merchant in New York whom he had met in his American travels, and affording a picture of life in the backwoods, touched by the poetry and sublimity that comes from contact with nature ; and Southennan, another novel in three volumes, embodying scenes and fancies of his youth, and depicting the customs and manners of Scotland in the reign of Queen Mary. In the same year appeared the Life of Lord Byron — "that which I regard as the worst paid and the most abused, and yet among the most meritorious, of all my productions." On account of it he was the object of satire and criticism — malicious both, he thought, and added characteristically, "The thing is to me some- what inexplicable ; for who can say that, either in life or literature, I have ever afforded him reason to complain that I wilfully meant him wrong .'' " It was after the appearance of the Byron volume that he went to live at Barnes Cottage, Old Brompton. While there he published the L'wcs of the Plai/crs, an amusing compilation, and i. Ixxxvi MEMOIR • Bogle Corbet, or the Emigrants ; wrote much in the magazines, Fraser's among others ; and was en- gaged on some eight other volumes. In the spring of the following year the condition of his health was greatly worse. The affection of the spine became intolerably painful, and some- thing resembling an attack of paralysis was in- duced. His speech was occasionally indistinct, his handwriting was visibly affected, and for several months he could not walk into his sit- ting-room without much difficulty. This was the beginning of the end. Tht wonderful spring of his nature, indeed, enabled him to go on working and hoping : Ebeti Erskim\ The Stolen Child, The Stories of the Study, tlie Autohiography, and the Literary Life were still to come from his pen, and death found hira busy with the proof-sheets of a volume of his poems. But the paralytic attacks continued, each one leaving him more shattered than before, and this ill condition of health brought his fortunes to a low ebb. "Nothing can be imagined more melancholy," writes Dr Moir, who attended him as a medical adviser and Jis a | friend, and knew and appreciated him as none ( his other biographers have done, " than the situ; ^-1 MEMOIR Ixxxvii tion to which he found himself at this time reduced. It would have been even a consola- tion to think that his corporeal infirmities had in some degree blunted the acuteness of his feelings — but this was by no means the case ; and all his manifold deprivations were spread out, as on a map, before him. One after another, his three sons had left him, and all were now awav from their native land ; his life had been ont' of continued labour and exer- tion ; and, if he had accomplished much for others, little of worldly ^ood had accrued to himself. While yet but at that age which many consider the vigour of life, he was a broken-down and nearly helpless invalid. Of the thousands who had been delighted by his works, how few spared even a thought for their author ; and while spreading the seeds of wealth and happi- ness around a young colony, he had been un- ceremoniously — shall we say ungenerously ? — removed from the sphere of his usefulness. He had been dreaming golden dreams, and awoke to find himself in narrowed circumstances ; and, as if in mockery of his forlorn estate, prospects of aggrandisement were held out to him, when natural impossibilities interjwsed. With all the IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I I'M 1.25 |50 ■'^ ^ lis, 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.4 III 1.6 Va el V V » Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WIST MAIN STRUT WBf«STIIt, N.Y. 14SS0 (716) 172-4503 ^V % ^^ N> '<1^. ^ O ;\ 4^ ^^•^ t^ r^^ c^ ^ I % l> v> J't II! Ixxxviii MEMOIR eagerness to be useful, he was left alone in his solitary chair — whose only travel was from his bedroom to his parlour, — to think of baffled hopes and abandoned projects ; and to feel that his talents, however successfully applied for the advancement of others, had produced but a harvest of chaff for himself The day of his destiny he knew to be over ; yet his sorrow arose not from mere chagrin. If he had looked forward to a more auspicious lermination of his labours, he had also indulged in the fond hope of having accomplished more both in thought and action ; and though darkened even to the verge of despair as were his surrounding views, his natural energy refused to give way, and even transient gleam of returning health brought along with it a renewal of mental exertion." From Brompton he went to Rdinburgli, to superintend the publication of the lAterary Mu- cellanies, which he had received permission to dedicate to William the Fourth. Later, he re- tired to Greenock, where, after three years of suffering, borne with firmness and patience, he died on April 11, 18:^9. "A kinder, or less complaining spirit never sank to rest," says one who knew him well. MEMOIR Ixxxix To this sketch of Gait, the man, let us add some touches by other hands. Dr Moir has drawn him at the time of making his acquaint- jance, a year or two after the publication of I the Annah. " He was then in his forty-fourth year, of Herculean frame, and in the full vigour of health. His height might be about six feet lone or two, and he evinced a tendency to [corpulency. His hair, which was jet black, had Inot yet become grizzled ; his eyes were small |but piercing ; his nose almost straight ; long jpper lip, and finely rounded chin. At an parly period of life Mr Gait had suffered from Biimllpox, but the marks of its ravages were by no means severe, and, instead of impairing, lent a peculiar interest to his manly and strik- 1^ countenance. He was seldom or never een without spectacles ; but we are uncertain ihether the use of these arose from natural Ihort-sightedness or from the severity of his tudies. In conversation Mr Gait's manner was :)mewhat measured and solemn, yet full of iiiimation and characterised by a peculiar be- kignity and sweetness. Except when questioned, V was not particularly communicative, and in jixed company was silent and reserved. His ( !li xc MEMOIR answers, however, always conveyed the results! of a keen and discriminative judgment, and ofl an eye that allowed not the ongoings of the world to pass unobserved or unimproved. Hi* learning was more of a singuliir than of i general kind ; and on many subjects of book knowledge he seemed to have struck into the uyi ways to avoid the highways ; consequently, m results of his reading might be said to havtl been curious rather than useful. It would btl difficult to suppose, from the general tenor d\ his writings, that he should have been particu-l larly fond of metaphysical or abstract discus-j sions, yet such was remarkably the case in (|uiet tete-a-lHe. In such he abjured with littkj ceremony the dogmas of the schools ; and treated his subjects with ingenuity and acunietJ not according to what was generally receive regarding them, but according to what aj)|)ear to him to be their nature and bearings. Fd the sake of eliciting ingenuity in discussion, often took up what was evidently the mo vulnerable side of the argument, and thus act« on the offensive, to draw out the resources his opf)onent in debate. In these gladiatori exercises he uniformly displayed exceeding tit 1^ MEMOIR xd ind address, together with an illustrative inven- iion often quite poetical ; although the arguments, phen calmly considered, might be, perhaps, too khadowy and substanceless to convey intellectual atisfaction. . . . His views, even on practical ibjects, were often sufficiently speculative and mguine, — but all indicating a grasp and com- [jrehension of mind, and all tending towards lilanthropic conclusions." Byron, who knew him iirlier, had already summed him up as a man, rith all his eccentricities, of much good sense id experience of the world, — " a good-natured, lilosophic fellow." It was at a later period, when lie had re- jmed from Canada broken in health and for- tune, that Carlyle met him at Eraser's dinner in ief];ent Street, with Allan Cunningham, James logg, Lockhart, and other contributors. "Gait oks old," he recorded the impression made the meeting, " is deafish, had the air of a pdate Greenock burgher ; mouth indicating sly iimour and self-satisfaction ; the eyes, old and ^ithout lashes, gave me a sort of wae interest tir Ijiin. He wears spectacles and is hard hearing ; a very large man, and eats and rinks with a certain West-country gusto and J xcii MEMOIR research. Said little, but that little peaceable, clear and giitimithig." "Old-growing, lovablt with pity/' is Carlyle's note about him a little later ; and very soon came the pathetic con- dition at Brompton, of which Mrs Thorcsot writes : — " Day by day might his tall, bent form be seen, aided by servants, entering tk City omnibus, as it stood in that hot, dust, road by Barnes Cottage. On he went, to argut and wrangle and press his claims with liard- headed men, and to return disappointed ami irritable to his large easy-chair, and to the un measured sympathy of the best of women ari wives." Yet there never was a man, she tdl us, for whom illness did so much in the mi of personal improvement. She had known liir. in the prime of manhood and in the vigour health, and he was ungainly, with a commoi place though handsome cast of features, a ha ness of aspect altogether ; and there was nothi of the quiet dignity and gentle deference- others that pleased in his later years. It she who says that a kinder and less complaii ing spirit never sank to rest. Gentleness heart, an unwearied spirit, a dignified bear in the midst of ill fortune — these we can n MEMOIR XClll jito the personality of Gait, making it, even in [the midst of his " ravelled, hither and-thither ife," not altogether out of accord with the 'melodious and continuous impression of peace," fhich, as Mr Crockett says, is conveyed by the limals of the Parish. I \ ANNALS OF THE PARISH AND THE AYRSHIRE LEGATEES t-.i OF llN the sa ame mont] ^he third ( ingdom, I bf Dalmail |his was ki ronderful 1 be new ki] alities, mai ass, and tli f, and that nd flourish blly been |ls Most E: erly styled ts and th ^ssel whicl VOL. I. ANNALS OF THE PARISH INTRODUCTION [N the same year, and on the same day of the ime month, that his Sacred Majesty King George, ^he third of the name, came to his crown and kingdom, I was placed and settled as the minister |)f Dalmailing. When about a week thereafter lis was known in the parish, it was thought a ronderful things and everybody spoke of me and le new king as united in our trusts and tempo- ilities, marvelling how the same should come to iss, and thinking the hand of Providence was in i, and that surely we were pre-ordained to fade id flourish in fellowship together : which has eally been the case ; for in the same season that Most Excellent Majesty (as he was very pro- Erly styled in the proclamations for the general sts and thanksgivings) was set by as a precious ^ssel which had received a crack or a flaw, and VOL. I. A ANNALS OF THE PARISH .1* III could only be serviceable in the way of an orna- ment, I was obliged, by reason of age and the I growing infirmities of my recollection, to consent to the earnest entreaties of the Session,^ and tol accept of Mr Amos to be my helper. I was lonj;! reluctant to do so ; but the great respect that idjI people had for me, and the love that I bore tol wards them, over and above the sign that wjij given to me in the removal of the royal candl^l stick from its place, worked upon my heart andl understanding, and I could not stand out. So, ( the last Sabbath of the year 1810, I preachei my last sermon ; and it was a moving discoursfJ There were few dry eyes in the kirk that div,j for I had been with the aged from the beginnir the young considered me as their natural pastoi and my bidding them all farewell was as whenc old among the heathen an idol was taken avaj by the hands of the enemy. At the close of the worship, and before tin blessing, I addressed them in a fatherly mannerl and, although the kirk was fuller than ever I sjj it before, the fall of a pin might have been heap| and at the conclusion there was a sobbing much sorrow. I said, " My dear friends, I have now finished my wo among you for ever. I have often spoken to yij from this place the words of truth and holiiie and, had it been in poor frail human nature] practise the advice and counselling that I 1 Note A. The Session. INTRODUCTION 5 discoursfJ that dayl )egin'ain ral pastorl IS when( iken aw»J d my >^ ken to y( [1 holiw nature \\At I hi ven in this pulpit to you, there would not need be any cause for sorrow on this occasion — the lose and latter end of my ministry. But, never- eless, I have no reason to complain ; and it will my duty to testify, in that place where I hope e are all one day to meet again, that I found ou ft docile and a tractable flock, — far more than first I could have expected. There are among fou still a few, but with grey heads and feeble rnds now, that can remember the great opposi- n that was made to my placing, and the stout rt they themselves took in the burly, because I as appointed by the patron ; ^ but they have lived see the error of their way, and to know that caching is the smallest portion of the duties of faithful minister. 1 may not, my dear friends, ve applied my talent in the pulpit so effectually perhaps I might have done, considering the s that it pleased God to give me in that way, d the education that 1 had in the Orthodox iversity of Glasgow, as it was in the time of ( youth ; nor can I say that, in the works of ce-making and charity, I have done all that I uld have done. But I have done my best, dying no interest but the good that was to according to the faith in Christ Jesus. 'To my young friends I would, as a parting ird, say : Look to the lives and conversation of r parents. They were plain, honest, and de- t Christians, fearing God and honouring the ) Note A. The Patron. im ANNALS OF THE PARISH King. They believed the Bible was the Word i God ; and, when they practised its precepts, thnl found, by the good that came from them, thatitTj|| truly so. They bore in mind the tribulation aail persecution of their forefathers for righteousnea] sake, and were thankful for the quiet and prote tion of the government in their day and genen tion. Their land was tilled with industry, they ate the bread of carefulness with a contentd spirit ; and, verily, they had the reward of veil doing even in this world, for they beheld on sides the blessing of God upon the nation, and I tree growing and the plough going where banner of the oppressor was planted of old the war-horse trampled in the blood of marty Reflect on this, my young friends, and know i\i the best part of a Christian's duty in this world) much evil is to thole ^ and suffer with resignatia as long as it is possible for human nature to ( I do not counsel passive obedience : that is I doctrine that the Church of Scotland can nevj abide ; but the divine right of resistance, whid in the days of her trouble, she so bravely assertd against popish and prelatic usurpations, was ne\j resorted to till the attempt was made to reiiK the ark of the tabernacle from her. I thereftj counsel you, my young friends, not to lend yoi ears to those thfit trumpet forth their hypotheti politics ; but to believe that the laws of the are administered with a good intent, till in yoj ^ To thole. To endure. ifi imu INTRODUCTION homes and dwellings ye feel the presence of lie oppressor. Then, and not till then, are ye tee to gird your loins for battle ; and woe to him, nd woe to the land where that is come to, if the rord be sheathed till the wrong be redressed ! " As for you, my old companions, many changes five we seen in our day ; but the change that we iirselves are soon to undergo will be the greatest fall. We have seen our bairns grow to manhood ; \e have seen the beauty of youth pass away ; we ive felt our backs become unable for the burthen, ^d our right hand forget its cunning. Our eyes ive become dim and our heads grey, we are now kttering with short and feckless ^ steps towards le grave ; and some that should have been here |is day are bed-rid, lying, as it were, at the gates [death, like Lazarus at the threshold of the rich in's door, full of ails and sores, and having no Ijjoyment but in the hope that is in hereafter. Iiat can I say to you but farewell ! Our work [done, we art weary and worn-out and in need rest : may the rest of the blessed be our portion, il in the sleep that all must sleep, beneath the Id blanket of the kirkyard grass, and on that ly pillow where we must shortly lay our heads, ly we have pleasant dreams, till we are awakened jpartake of the everlasting banquet of the saints ^lory ! •' ^Vhen I had finished, there was for some time Teat solemnity throughout the kirk ; and, before > FeokltM. Feeble. ANNALS OF THE PARISH giving the blessing, I sat down to compose myself, for my heart was big, and my spirit oppressed with sadness. As I left the pulpit, all the elders stood on the] steps to hand me down, and the tear was in evetr eye, and they helped me into the session-house; but I could not speak to them, nor they to roe. Then Mr Dalziel, who was always a composed j and sedate man, said a few words of prayer, and I was comforted therewith, and rose to go homeloj the manse ; but in the churchyard all the congrej gation was assembled, young and old, and theyl made a lane for me to the back-yett ^ that into the manse-garden. Some of them put their hands and touched me as I passed, follcvedl by the elders, and some of them wept. It was al if I was passing av/ay, and to be no more. VerilyJ it was the reward of my ministry', a faithful accounl of which, year by year, I now sit down, evening of my days, to make up, to the end thai I may bear witness to the work of a beneficed Providence, even in the narrow sphere of iii!J narish, and the concerns of that flock of which I was His most graciots pleasure to make metiij unworthy shepherd. ^ Yett. Gate. CHAPTER I Year 1760 The placing of Mr Balwhidder — The resistance of the parishioners — Mrs Malcolm, the widow — Mr Balwhidder s marriage. 1 HE An. Dom. one thousand seven hundred and sixty, was remarkable for three things in the parish of Dalmailing. First and foremost, there pas my placing ; then, the coming of Mrs Mal- Icolm with her five children to settle among us ; and Inext, my marriage upon my own cousin, Miss Betty [Lanshaw : — by which the account of this year natu- jrally divides itself into three heads or portions. First, of the placing. It was a great affair ; for 11 was put in by the patron, and the people knew lothing whatsoever of me, and their hearts were [stirred into strife on the occasion, and they did all Ithat lay within the compass of their power to keep |nie out, insomuch that there was obliged to be a juard of soldiers to protect the presbytery ; ^ and Et was a thing that made my heart grieve when ll heard the drum beating and the fife playing » Note A. The Patron, 8 ANNALS OF THE PARISH as we were going to the kirk. The people were really mad and vicious, and flung dirt upon us as we passed, and reviled us all, and held out the finger of scorn at me ; but I endured it with a resigned spirit, compassionating their wilfulness and blindness. Poor old Mr Kilfuddy of the Braehill got such a clash of glar ^ on the side of his face that his eye was almost extinguished. When we got to the kirk door it was found to be nailed up, so as by no possibility to be opened, The sergeant of the soldiers wanted to break it ; but I was afraid that the heritors would grudge and complain of the expense of a new door, and I supplicated him to let it be as it was. We were, therefore, obligated to go in by a window, and the crowd followed us in the most unreverent manner, making the Lord's house like an inn on a fair day with their grievous yellyhooing. During the time of the psalm and the sermon they behaved them- selves better ; but when the induction came on their clamour was dreadful, and Thomas Thorl, the weaver, a pious zealot in that time, got up and protested, and said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but clinibeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber." And I thought I would have a hard and sore time of it with such an outstrapolous people. Mr Given, that was then the minister of Lugton, was a jocose man, and would have his joke even at a solemnity. When ^ Clcuh of glar. Lump of mud. V I " : YEAR 1760 9 the laying of the hands upon me was adoing, he could not get near enough to put on his, but he stretched out his staff and touched my head, and said, to the great diversion of the rest, " This will do well enough : timber to timber ; " but it was I an unfriendly saying of Mr Given, considering the time and the place, and the temper of my people. After the ceremony, we then got out at the |\*'indow, and it was a heavy day to me ; but we went to the manse, and there we had an excel- lent dinner, which Mrs Watts of the new inns [of Irville prepared at my request and sent her Ichaise-driver to serve (for he was likewise her [waiter, she having then but one chaise, and that ino often called for). But, although my people received me in this inruly manner, I was resolved to cultivate civility imong them, and, therefore, the very next morn- ig I began a round of visitations ; but, oh ! it Has a steep brae that I had to climb, and it leeded a stout heart. For I found the doors in nme places barred against me ; in others, the [)aims, when they saw me coming, ran crying to leir mothers, " Here's the feckless Mess-John ! " iiul then, when I went into the houses, their rrents wouldna ask me to sit down, but with scornful way said, " Honest man, what's your [leasure here?" Nevertheless, I walked about im door to door like a dejected beggar, till I got k' almous ^ deed of a civil reception, — and (who * Almout, Charitable. Tpr— m ^1 ( 1 ■ 1 1 il t - 10 ANNALS OF THE PARISH would have thought it?) from no less a person than the same Thomas Thorl that was so bitter against me in the kirk on the foregoing day. Thomas was standing at the door with his green duffle 1 apron, and his red Kilmarnock nightcap,— I mind him as well as if it was but yesterday,— and he had seen me going from house to house, and in what manner I was rejected ; and his bowels were moved, and he said to me in a kind manner, " Come in, sir, and ease yoursel' : this will never do : the clergy are God's gorbies,^ and for their Master's sake it behoves us to respect them, There was no ane in the whole parish mair against you than mysel' ; but this early visitation is a symptom of grace that I couldna have expedit from a bird out the nest of patronage." I thanked Thomas, and went in with him, and we had some solid conversation together. I told him that it was not so much the pastor's duty to feed the flock as to herd them well ; and that, although there might be some abler with the head than me, there wasna a he ^ within the bounds of Scotland more willing to watch the fold by night and by day. And Thomas said he had not heard a mair sound observe for some time, and that, if I held to that doctrine in the poopit, | it wouldna be lang till I would work a change. "I was mindit," quoth he, "never to set myj ^ Duffle. A coarso woollen oloth with a thick nap. ' Oorbics. Ravens. • A he. no. YEAR 1760 11 foot within the kirk door while you were there ; but, to testify, and no to condemn without a trial, I'll be there next Lord's day, and egg ^ my neigh- bours to be likewise : so ye'll no have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family." I have now to speak of the coming of Mrs Malcolm. She was the widow of a Clyde ship- master that was lost at sea with his vessel. She was a genty ^ body, calm and methodical. From morning to night she sat at her wheel, spinning the finest lint, which suited well with her pale hands. She never changed her widow's weeds, and she was aye as if she had just been ta'en out of a bandbox. The tear was aften in her e'e when the bairns were at the school ; but when they came home her spirit was lighted up with gladness, although, poor woman, she had many a time very little to give them. They were, however, wonderful well-bred things, and took with thankfulness whatever she set before them ; for they knew that their father, the breadwinner, was away, and that she had to work sore for their bit and drap.'* I dare say, the only vexation that ever she had from any of them, on their own account, was when Charlie, the eldest laddie, had won fourpence at pitch-and-toss at the school, which he brought home with a proud heart to his mother. I happened to be daunrin'* by at ^ Egg. Urge. ' Oenty. Neat, elegant. ' Bit and drap. Bito and sup. * Daunrin'. Sauntering. 12 ANNALS OP THE PARISH I the time, and just looked in at the door to say gude-night : it was a sad sight. There was she sitting with the silent tear on her cheek, and Charlie greeting as if he had done a great fault, and the other four looking on with sorrowful faces. Never, I am sure, did Charlie Malcolm gamble after that night. I often wondered what brought Mrs Malcolm to our clachan instead of going to a populous town, where she might have taken up a huxtry- shop (as she was but of a silly ^ constitution), the which would have been better for her than spin- ning from morning to far in the night, as if she was in verity drawing the thread of life. But it was, no doubt, from an honest pride to hide her poverty ; for when her daughter Effie was ill with the measles, — the poor lassie was very ill : nobody thought she could come through, and when she did get the turn, she was for many a day a heavy handful, — our Session ^ being rich, and nobody on it but cripple Tammy Daidles, that was at that time known through all the country side for begging on a horse, I thought it my duty to call upon Mrs Malcolm in a sym- pathising way, and offer her some assistance. But she refused it. " No, sir," said she, " I canna take help from the poor's-box, although it's very true that I am in great need ; for it might hereafter be cast up to my bairns, whom it may please God to restore 1 S^Uy. Frail. ^ Note A. The Session and the Poor. YEAR 1760 13 to better circumstances when I am no to see't ; but I would fain borrow five pounds, and if, sir, you will write to Mr Maitland, that is now the Lord Provost of Glasgow, and tell him that Marion Shaw would be obliged to him for the lend of that soom, I think he will not fail to send it." I wrote the letter that night to Provost Mwit- land, and, by the retour of the post, I got an answer (with twenty pounds for Mrs Malcolm), saying, "That it was with sorrow he heard so small a trifle could be serviceable." When I took the letter and the money, which was in a bank- bill, she said, "This is just like himsel'." She then told me that Mr Maitland had been a gentleman's son of the east country, but driven out of his father's house, when a laddie, by his stepmother ; and that he had served as a servant lad with her father, who was the Laird of Yill- cogie, but ran through his estate, and left her, his only daughter, in little better than beggary with her auntie, the mother of Captain Malcolm, her husband that was. Provost Maitland in his servitude had ta'en a notion of her, and when he recovered his patrimony, and had become a great Glasgow merchant, on hearing how she was left by her father, he offered to marry her ; but she had promised herself to her cousin the captain, whose widow she was. He then married a rich lady, and in time grew (as he was) Lord Provost of the city ; but his letter with the twenty pounds |;^J| w 14 ANNALS OF THE PARISH to me showed that he had not forgotten his first love. It was a short, but a well-written, letter, in a fair hand of write, containing much of the true gentleman ; and Mrs Malcolm said, " Who knows but, out of the regard he once had for their mother, he may do something for my five helpless orphans ? " Thirdly. Upon the subject of taking my cousin, Miss Betty Lanshaw, for my first wife, I have little to say. It was more out of a compassionate habitual affection than the passion of love. We were brought up by our grandmother in the same house, and it was a thing spoken of from the be- ginning that Betty and me were to be married. So, when she heard that the Laird of Breadland had given me the presentation of Dalmailing, she began to prepare for the wedding ; and as soon as the placing was well over, and the manse in order, I gaed to Ayr, where she was, and we were quietly married, and came home in a chaise, bringing with us her little brother Andrew, that died in the East Indies. And he lived and was brought up by us. Now, this is all, I think, that happened in that year worthy of being mentioned, except that at the sacrament, when old Mr Kilfuddy was preach- ing in the tent, it came on such a thunder-plump that there was not a single soul stayed in the kirk- yard to hear him ; for the which he was greatly mortified, and never after came to our preachings.^ ^ Note A. Communion Services. CHAPTER II Year 176J The great increase of smuggling — Mr Bal- n'hidder disperses a tea-drinking j)arty of gossips — He records the virtues of Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress — The servant of a military man, who had been prisoner in France, comes into the parish, and opens a dancing-school. It was in this year that the great smuggling trade 1 corrupted all the west coast, especially the laigh ^ lands about the Troon and the Loans. The tea was going like the chaff, the brandy like well-water ; and the wastrie of all things was terrible. There was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, by both sea and land. There was a con- tinual drunkenness and debauchery ; and our Session, that was but on the lip of this whirlpool of iniquity, had an awful time o't, I did all that was in the power of nature to keep my people from the contagion ; I preached sixteen times 1 Note B. > Laigh landt. Low-lying, I t 16 ANNALS OF THE PARISH from the text, " Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's ; " I visited and I exhorted ; I warned and I prophesied ; I told them that, although the money came in like sclate ^ stones, it would go like the snow off the dyke. But, for all i could do, the evil got in among us, and we had no less than three contested bastard bairns upon our hands at one time, which was a thing never heard of in a parish of the shire of Ayr since the Reformation. Two of the bairns, after no small sifting and searching, we got fathered at last; but the third, that was by Meg Glaiks, and given to one Rab Rickerton, was utterly refused, thougli the fact was not denied. He was a termagant fellow, and snappit his fingers at the elders. The next day he listed in the Scotch Greys, who were then quartered at Ayr, and we never heard more of him, but thought he had been slain in battle, till one of the parish, about three years since, went up to London to lift a legacy from a cousin I that died among the Hindoos. When he was walking about, seeing the curiosities, and among others Chelsea Hospital, he happened to speak to some of the invalids, who found out from his tongue that he was a Scotchman ; and speaking to the invalids, one of them, a very old man, with a grey head and a leg of timber, inquired what part of Scotland he was come from. When he mentioned my parish, the invalid gave a great j shout, and said he was from the same place him- 1 Sclate. Slate. YEAR 1761 17 self; and who should this old man be but the very identical Rab Rickerton that was art and part in Meg Glaiks' disowned bairn. Then they had a long converse together. He had come through many hardships, but had turned out a crood soldier, and so, in his old days, was an indoor pensioner, and very comfortable ; and he said that he had, to be sure, spent his youth in the devil's service, and his manhood in the king's, but his old age was given to that of his Maker, — which I was blithe and thankful to hear. And he inquired about many a one in the parish, the blooming and the green of his time, but they were all dead and buried ; and he had a contrite and penitent spirit, I and read his Bible every day, delighting most in the Book of Joshua, the Chronicles, and the Kings. Before this year, the drinking of tea was little I known in the parish, saving among a few of the heritors' houses on a Sabbath evening ; but now it became very rife. Yet the commoner sort did not like to let it be known that they were taking to the new luxury, — especially the elderly women, who, for that reason, had their ploys ^ in out- Ihouses and by-places, just as the witches lang [syne had their sinful possets and galravitchings ; 2 j—and they made their tea for common in the [pint-stoup, and drank it out of caps and luggies,' ^ Ploys. Junkets. ^ Galravitchings. Noisy ongoings. ' Caps and luggies. Both words sig^nify wooden bowls. Caps, however, were turned out of the solid, while luggies were built lip of staves, and iioopod, and bad handles. VOL. I. B ill 18 ANNALS OP THE! PARISH for there were but few among them that had cups and saucers. Well do I remember that, one night in harvest, in this very year, as I was taking my twilight dauner aneath the hedge along the back side of Thomas Thorl's yard, meditating on the goodness of Providence, and looking at the sheaves of victual on the field, I heard his wife^ and two three other carlins,^ with their Bohea in the inside of the hedge ; and no doubt but it had a lacing of the conek,- for they were all cracking like pen-guns. But I gave them a sign, by a loud host,3 that Providence sees all, and it skailed the bike ; * for I heard them, like guilty creatures, whispering, and gathering up their truck-pots and trenchers, and cowering away home. It was in this year that Patrick Dilworth, (he had been schoolmaster of the parish from the time, as his wife said, of Anna Regina, and before the Rexes came to the crown), was disabled by a paralytic, and the heritors, grudging the cost of another schoolmaster ^ as long as he lived, would not allow the Session to get his place supplied,- which was a wrong thing, I must say, of them;! for the children of the parishioners were obliged, therefore, to go to the neighbouring towns for their schooling, and the custom was to take a piece of bread and cheese in their pockets for ' Conek. Cognac. * Carlint. Old women. ' Hott. Cough. * Skailed the bike. Broke up the gathering. > Note A. The Session and Education. YEAR 1761 19 (liiL.er, and to return in the evening always vora- cious for more, the long walk helping the natural crave of their young appetites. In this way Mrs Malcolm's two eldest laddies, Charlie and Robert, I were wont to go to Irville, and it was soon seen that they kept themselves aloof from the other jcallans in the clachan, and had a genteeler turn than the grulshy ^ bairns of the cottars. Her bit lassies, Kate and EfFe, were better off; for, some years before, Nanse Banks had taken up a teach- ing in a garret-room of a house, at the comer where John Bayne has biggit the sclate-house ^ for his grocery-shop. Nanse learnt them reading and working stockings, and how to sew the sem- plar, for twal-pennies a week. She was a patient creature, well cut out for her calling, with blear een, a pale face, and a long neck, but meek and contented withal, tholing the dule ^ of this world [with a Christian submission of the spirit ; and her jgarret-room was a cordial of cleanliness, for she [made the scholars set the house in order, time land time about, every morning ; and it was a Icommon remark, for many a day, that the lassies |who had been at Nanse Banks's school were always well spoken of, for both their civility and the trigness* of their houses, when they were afterwards married. In short, I do not know that * druhhy. Coarsely-grown, ' liiytjit the sclatc-houte. Built the house with the slate roof. ' Tholing the duU. Enduring the sorrows. * Trigneta. Orderliness. 20 ANNALS OP THE PARISH in all the long epoch of my ministry any indivi- dual body did more to improve the ways of the parishioners, in their domestic concerns, than did that worthy and innocent creature, Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress ; and she was a great loss when she was removed, as it is to be hoped, to a better world. But anent this I shall have to speak more at large hereafter. It was in this year that my patron, the Laird of Breadland, departed this life, and I preached his funeral sermon ; but he was non-beloved in the parish, for my people never forgave him for putting me upon them, although they began to be more on a familiar footing with myself. This was partly owing to my first wife, Betty Lanshaw, who was an active, throughgoing woman, and wonderfu' useful to many of the cottars' wives at their lying in. When a death happened among them, her helping hand, and anything we had at the manse, were never wanting ; and I went about myself to the bedside of the frail, leaving no stone unturned to win the affections of my people, which, by the blessing of the Lord, in process of time, was brought to a bearing. But a thing happened in this year which de- serves to be recorded, as manifesting what etft'ctl the smuggling was beginning to take in the morals of the country side. One Mr Macskipnish j (of Highland parentage, who had been a valet- de-chambre with a major in the campaigns, and I taken a prisoner with him by the French), having i YEAR 1761 21 come home in a cartel,^ took up a dancing-school at Irville, the which art he had learnt in the genteelest fashion, in the mode of Paris, at the French court. Such a thing as a dancing-school had never, in the memory of man, been known in our country side ; and there was such a sound about the steps and cotillions of Mr Macskipnish that every lad and lass that could spare time and siller went to him, to the great neglect of their work. The very bairns on the loan, instead of their wonted play, gaed linking and louping ^ in the steps of Mr Macskipnish, who was, to be sure, a great curiosity, with long spindle legs^ his breast shot out like a duck's, and his head powdered and frizzled up like a tappit-hen.^ He was, in- deed, the pro' dest peacock that could be seen ; and he had a ring on his finger ; and when he came to drink his tea at the Breadland, he brought no hat on his head, but a droll cockit thing under his arm, which, he said, was after the manner of the courtiers at the petty suppers of one Madam Pompadour, who was at that time the concubine of the French king. I do not recollect any other remarkable thing that happened in this year. The harvest was very abundant, and the meal so cheap that it caused a great defect in my stipend ; so that I was obligated to postpone the purchase of a mahogany > Cartel. A ship omployed in tbo exchange of prisoners. ' Linking and louping. Tripping and leaping. * Tappithen. A ben with ft tuft on her head. 22 ANNALS OF THE PARISH scrutoire for my study, as I had intended. But I had not the heart to complain of this : on the con- trary, I rejoiced thereat ; for what made me want my scrutoire till another year had carried blithe- ness into the hearth of the cottar, and made the widow's heart sing with joy ; and I should liave been an unnatural creature had I not joined in the universal gladness because plenty did abound. CHAPTER III Yfar 1762 Havoc produced hy the smallpox — Charles Mal- colm is seiit off a cabin-hoy, on a voyage to Virginia — Mizy Spaewell dies on Hallowe'en — Tea begins to be admitted at the manse, but the minister continues to exert his authority against smuggling. IHE third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance for several very memorable things. William Byres of the Loanhead had a cow that calved two calves at one calving ; Mrs Byres, the same year, had twins, male and female ; and there was such a crop on his fields as testified that the Lord never sends a mouth into the world without providing meat for it. But what was thought a very daunting sign of something hap- pened on the Sacrament Sabbath, at the conclu- sion of the action sermon,^ when I had made a very suitable discourse. The day was tempestuous, and the wind blew with such a pith and birr that I thought it would have twirled the trees in I Noto A, Communion Services, 24 ANNALS OF THE PARISH the kirkyard out by the roots, and, blowing in this manner, it tirled the thack from the rigging i of the manse stable ; and the same blast that did that took down the lead that was on the kirk- roof, which hurled off, as I was saying, at the conclusion of the action sermon, with a dreadful sound of which the like was never heard, and all the congregation thought that it betokened a mutation to me. However, nothing particular haj)- pened to me ; but the smallpox came in among the weans of the parish, and the smashing that it made of the poor bits o' bairns was indeed woeful. One Sabbath, when the pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas Thorl, who was surely a great judge of good preaching, said "was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day : " a thing I was well pleased to hear, for Thomas, as I have related at length, was the most zealous champion against my getting the parish. From this time, I set hira down in my mind for the next vacancy among I the elders. Worthy man ! it was not permitted him to arrive at that honour. In the fall of that year he took an income ^ in his legs, and couldna i go about, and was laid up for the remainder of j his days, a perfect Lazarus, by the fireside. Butj he was well supjjorted in his affliction. In due * Tirled the thack from the rigging. Stripped the tlmtcli from the roof. 3 Income. Abscess. ill YEAR 1762 25 season, when it pleased Him, who alone can give and take, to pluck him from this life, as the fruit ripened and ready for the gathering, his death, to all that knew him, was a gentle dispensation, for truly he had been in sore trouble. It was in this year that Charlie Malcolm, Mrs Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to be a cabin- boy in the Tobacco trader, a three-masted ship that sailed between Port-Glasgow and Virginia in America. She was commanded by Captain Dickie, —an Irville man ; for at that time the Clyde was supplied with the best sailors from our coast, the coal-trade with Ireland being a better trade for bringing up good mariners than the long voyages in the open sea ; which was the reason, as I often heard said, why the Clyde shipping got so many of their men from our country side. The going to sea of Charlie Malcolm was, on divers accounts, a very remarkable thing to us all ; for he was the first that ever went from our parish, in the memory of man, to be a sailor, and everybody was concerned at it, and some thought it was a great venture of his mother to let him, his father having been lost at sea. But what could the forlorn widow do ? She had five weans, and little to give them ; and, as she herself said, he was aye in the hand of his Maker, go where he might, and the will of God would be done, in spite of all earthly wiles and devices to the contrary. On the Monday morning, when Cliarlie was to go away to meet the Irville carrier on the road i" 26 ANNALS OF THE PARISH we were all up, and I walked by myself from the manse into the clachan ^ to bid him farewell. I met him just coming from his mother's door, as blithe as a bee, in his sailor's dress, with a stick, and a bundle tied in a Barcelona silk handker- chief hanging o'er his shoulder, and his two little brothers were with him, and his sisters, Kate and Effie, looking out from the door, all begreeten;^ but his mother was in the house, praying to the Lord to protect her orphan, as she afterwards told me. All the weans of the clachan were gathered at the kirkyard yett to see him pass, and they gave him three great shouts as he was going by; and everybody was at their doors, and said some- thing encouraging to him. And there was a great laugh when auld Mizy Spaewell came hirpling with her bauchle ^ in her hand, and flung it after him for good-luck. Mizy had a wonderful faith in freats,* and was just an oracle of sagacity at expounding dreams, and bodes of every sort and description, besides being reckoned one of the best howdies ^ in her day ; but by this time she was grown frail and feckless, and she died the same year on Hallowe'en, which made everybody wonder that it should have so fallen out for her to die on Hallowe'en. 1 Clachan. A village lying round a church. ^ All begreeten. With their faces showing the marks of weeping. ' Hirpling with her bauchle. Walking crazily with her old shoo, * Freata. Superstitious practices of all kinds. » Howdiea. Midwives. YEAR 1762 27 Shortly after the departure of Charlie Malcolm, the Lady of Breadland, with her three daughters, removed to Edinburgh, where the young laird, that had been my pupil, was learning to be an advocate. The Breadland-house was set ^ to Major Gilchrist, a nabob from India ; but he was a narrow,^ ailing man, and his maiden-sister. Miss Girzie, was the scrimpetest^ creature that could be : so that, in their hands, all the pretty policy ^ of the Breadlands, that had cost a power of money to the old laird that was my patron, fell into decay and disorder ; and the bonny yew-trees that were cut into the shape of peacocks soon grew out of all shape, and are now doleful monu- ments of the Major's tack and that of Lady Skimmilk, as Miss Girzie Gilchrist, his sister, was nicknamed by every ane that kent her. But it was not so much on account of the neglect of the Breadland that the incoming of Major Gilchrist was to be deplored. The old men that had a light labour in keeping the policy in order were thrown out of bread, and could do little ; and the poor women that hiles got a bit and a drap from the kitchen ol lie family soon felt the change : so that by little and little we were obligated to give help from the Session ; insomuch that, before the end of the year, I was ^ A property is "set to" one when it is let to him on a lease ; and the lease is known as the "tack." * Narrow . . . Scrimpeteat, Both words refer to a close- ness (a " nearness ") in money matters. ^ Policy, Pleasure grounds round the mansion. li.i- «!!'« 28 ANNALS OF THE PARISH necessitated to preach a discourse on almsgiving, specially for the benefit of our own poor, a thing never before known in the parish. But one good thing came from tiie Gilchrists to Mrs Malcolm. Miss Girzie, whom they called Lady Skimmilk, had been in a very penurious way as a seamstress, in the Gorbals of Glasgow, while her brother was making the fortune in India, and she was a clever needle-woman, — none better, as it was said — ; and she, having some things to make, took Kate Malcolm to help her in the coarse work, and Kate, being a nimble and birky^ thing, was so useful to the lady, and to the com- plaining man the major, that they invited her to stay with them at the Breadland for the winter, There, although she was holden to her seam from morning to night, her foot lightened the hand of her mother, who, for the first time since her coming into the parish, found the penny for the day's darg ^ more than was needed for the meal- basin ; and the tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, insomuch that, by the advice of the first Mrs Balwhidder, Mrs Malcolm took in tea to sell, and in this way was enabled to eke something to the small profits of her wheel. Thus the tide that had been so long ebbing to her began to turn ; and here I am bound in truth to say that, although I never could abide the smuggling, both on its own account, and for the 1 Birky. Sharp, purposeful. 2 Day's darg. The day's portion of work. YEAR 1762 S9 evils that grew therefrom to the country side, I lost some of my dislike to the tea after Mrs Malcolm began to traffic in it, and we then had it for our breakfast in the morning at the manse, as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, — which was not always the case with the possets that were in fashion before. There is no meeting now in the summer evenings, as I remember often happened in my younger days, with decent ladies coming home with red faces, tosy and cosh,^ from a posset-masking. So, both for its temperance and on account of Mrs Malcolm's sale, I refrained from the November in this year to preach against tea ; but I never lifted the weight of my displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down by the strong hand of government. There was no other thing of note in this year, saving only that I planted in the garden the big pear-tree, which had the two great branches that we call the Adam and Eve. I got the plant, then a sapling, from Mr Graft, that was Lord Eaglesham's head-gardener ; and he said it was, as indeed all the parish now knows well, a most juicy, sweet pear, such as was not known in Scotland till my lord brought down the father plant from the king's garden in London, in the forty-five, when he went up to testify his loyalty to the House of Hanover. ' Tosy and ooah. Slightly intoxicated, and comfortable in Iheir drink. CHAPTER IV Year 1763 Charles Malcolm's return from sea — Kate Mal- colm is taken to live with Lady Macadam- Death of the first Mrs Balwhidder. J. HE An. Dom. 1763, was, in many a respect, a memorable year, both in public and in private. The king granted peace to the French, and Charlie Malcolm, who went to sea in the Tobacco trader, came home to see his mother. The ship, after being at America, had gone down to Jamaica, an island in the West Indies, (with a cargo of live lumber, as Charlie told me himself), and had come home with more than a hundred and fifty hoggits of sugar, and sixty-three puncheons full of rum; for she was, by a', i accounts, a stately galley, and almost two huiid'cd tons in the burthen, being the largest vessel then sailing from the creditable town of Port-Glasgow. Charlie was not expected, and his coming was a great thing to us all ; so I will mention the whole particulars. — One evening, towards the gloaming, as I was taking my walk of meditation, I saw a brisk sailor YEAR 1763 31 laddie coming towards me. He had a pretty green parrot sitting on a bundle, tied in a Barcelona silk handkerchief, which he carried with a stick over his shoulder, and in this bundle was a wonderful big nut, such as no one in our parish had ever seen. It was called a cocker-nut. This blithe callant was Charlie Malcolm, who had come all the way that day his leeful lane,i on his own legs, from Greenock, where the Tobacco trader was then 'livering her cargo. I told him how his mother and his brothers and his sisters were all in good health, and went to convoy him home ; and, as we were going along, he told me man}' curious things, and gave me six beautiful yellow limes that he had brought in his pouch, all the way across the seas, for me to make a bowl of punch with, and I thought more of them than if they had been golden guineas, — it was so mindful of the laddie ! When we got to the door of his mother's house, she was sitting at the fireside, with her three other bairns at their bread and milk, Kate being then with Lady Skimmilk, at the Breadland, i sewing. It was between the day and dark, when I the shuttle stands still till the lamp is lighted. But such a shout of joy and thankfulness as rose I from that hearth when Charlie went in ! The I very parrot, ye would have thought, was a par- ticipator : for the beast gied a skraik that made my whole head dirl;^ and the neighbours came ^ Hia leeful lane. ' Oied a tkraik . Lonely and alone. . dirl. Qaveasoreech vibrate. im 32 ANNALS OF THE PARISH flying and flocking to see what was the matter, for it was the first parrot ever seen within the bounds of the parish, and some thought it was but a foreign hawk, with a yellow head and green feathers. In the midst of all this, Effie Malcolm had run off to the Breadland for her sister Kate, and the two lassies came flying breathless, with Miss Girzie Gilchrist, the Lady Skimmilk, pursuing them like desperation, or a griffin, down the avenue ; for Kate, in her hurry, had flung down her seam, — a new printed gown, that she was helping to make, — and it had fallen into a boyne ' of milk that was ready for the creaming, by which ensued a double misfortune to Miss Girzie, the gown being net only ruined but licking up the cream. For this, poor Kate was not allowed ever to set her face in the Breadland again. When Charlie Malcolm had stayed about a week with his mother, he returned to his berth in the Tobacco trader, and, shortly after, his brother Robert was likewise sent to serve his time to the sea, with an owner that was master of his own bark, in the coal trade a*: Irvilie. Kate, who was really a surprising lassie for her years, was taken off her mother's hands by the old Lady Macadam, who lived in her jointure house, which is now the Cross Keys Inns. Her ladyship was a woman of high breeding, (her husband having been a great | general, and knighted by the king for his exploits), ' Boyne. A broad, flat dish for milk. m YEAR 176.9 SS but she was lame, and could not move about in her dining-room without help ; so, hearing from the first Mrs Balwhidder how Kate had done such an unatonable deed to Miss Girzie Gilchrist, she sent for Kate, and, finding her sharp and apt, took her to live with her as a companion. This was a vast advantage, for the lady was versed in all manner of accomplishments, and could read and speak French with more ease than any professor at that time in the College of Glasgow ; and she had learnt to sew flowers on satin, either in a nunnery abroad, or in a boarding-school in Eng- land, and took pleasure in teaching Kate all she knew, and how to behave herself like a lady. In tlie summer of this year, old Mr Patrick Dilworth, that had so long been doited ^ with the paralytics, died, and it was a great relief to my people, for the heritors could no longer refuse to ffct a proper schoolmaster.- So we took on trial Mr Lorimore, who has, ever since the year after, with so much credit to himself and usefulness to I the parish, been schoolmaster, session-clerk, and i precentor : — a man of great mildness, and extra- ordinary particularity. He was then a very young man, and some objection v/as made, on account of Ills youth, to his being session-clerk, especially las the smuggling immorality still gave us much trouble in the making up of irregular marriages ; [but his discretion was greater than could have ^ Doited. Addle-pated. ' Note A. The Scsiion and Education. VOL. I. C 34 ANNALS OF THE PARISH been hoped for from his years, and, after a twelve- month's probation in the capacity of schoolmaster, he was installed in all the offices that had belonged to his predecessor, old Mr Patrick Dilworth that was. But the most memorable thing that befell among my people this year was the burning of the lint- mill on the Lugton water, which happened, of all the days of the year, on the very self-same day that Miss Girzie Gilchrist, better known as Ladv Skimmilk, hired the chaise, from Mrs Watts of the New Inns of Irville, to go with her brv^her, '^ the major, to consult the faculty in Edinburgh concerning his complaints. For, as the chaise was coming by the mill, William Huckle, the miller that was, came flying out of the mill like a de- mented man, crying. Fire ! — and it was the driver that brought the melancholy tidings to the clachan. And melancholy they were ; for the mill was utterly destroyed, and in it not a little of all that year's crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrsj Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, whiclj we had raised on the glebe with no small jwins, watering it in the drouth, as it was intended forj sarking ^ to ourselves, and sheets and napery. great loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on Mrs Balwhidder's health, which from the spring had been in a dwiiiing way. But for it, I think, she might have wresti through the winter; however, it was ordcn 1 Sarkifig. Shirting. " Dicining. Declining. me ; m 1 so that, in the ] my wall more pe Her brol college I came out for the n was durii of his wis transacti( [another y stone, anc myself th the sar • jit wai ' having , IMrs Bahv 'lust not YEAR 1763 35 otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas-day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on the new-year's day. She was a worthy woman, studying with all her capacity to win the hearts of my people towards me : in the which good work she prospered greatly ; so that, when she died, there was not a single soul in the parish that was not contented with both my walk and conversation. Nothing could be more peaceable than the way we lived together. Her brother Andrew, a fine lad, I had sent to the i college at Glasgow, at my own cost. When he came out to the burial he stayed with me a month, for the manse after her decease was very dull. It was (luring this visit that he gave me an inkling of his wish to go out to India as a cadet ; — but the transactions anent that fall within the scope of [another year, as well as what relates to her head- jstone, and the epitaph in metre, which I indicated [myself thereon : John Truel the mason carving Ithe sar , «s may be seen in the kirkyard, where jit wai ' iittle reparation and setting upright, Ihaving ,i<' t .d the wrong way when the second [Mrs Balwhiuder was laid by her side. But I must not here enter upon an anticipation. IP iiattuii i .J. '■■'■ '1'^) > CHAPTER ,V Year 1764 He gets a headstone for Mrs Balwhidder, am u\ites an epitaph for it — He it afflicted niM melancholy, and thinks of writing a book — Kick\\ Snipe's device when reproved in church. X HIS year well deserved the name of the monu- mental year in our parish ; for the young lainl of the Breadland, that had been my pupil, being learning to be an advocate among the I faculty in Edinburgh, with his lady mother, whol had removed thither with the young ladies herl daughters for the benefit of education, sent out,! to be put up in the kirk, under the loft over thel family vault, an elegant marble headstone, withj an epitapli engraven thereon, in fair Latin, set- ting forth many excellent qualities which the old! laird, my patron that was, the inditer thereof said,! possessed. I say the inditer, because it couldnaj have been the young laird himself, although he got! the credit o't on the stone, for he was nae daub iDJ my aught ^ at the Latin or any other language,| ^ Nne daub in my aught. No adept in my eyes. YEAR 1764 37 However, he might improve himself at Edin- burgh, where a' manner of genteel things were then to be got at an easy rate, and doubtless the voimg laird got a probationer at the College to write the epitaph. But I have often wondered sin' syne how he came to make it in Latin, for assuredly his dead parent, if he could have heen it, could not have read a single word o't, Inotwithstanding it was so vaunty ^ about his Irirtues and other civil and hospitable qualifi- cations. The coming of the laird's monumental stone had a great effect on me, then in a state of deep despondency for the loss of the first Mrs Bal- rhidder ; and I thought I could not do a better kliing, just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, |han to get a well-shapen headstone made for her, -which, as I have hinted at in the record of the st year, was done and set up. But a headstone dthout an epitaph is no better than a body Hthout the breath of life in't ; and so it be- boved me to make a poesy for the monument, the jrhich I conned and pondered upon for many lays. I thought that, as Mrs Balwhidder, worthy (roman as she was, did not understand the Latin Dngue, it would not do to put on what I had to k in that language, as the laird had done ; — nor pdeed would it have been easy, as I found upon lie experimenting, to tell what I had to tell in [atm, which is naturally a crabbed language, and * Vaunty. Boastful. 38 ANNALS OF THE PARISH i!* very difficult to write properly. I, therefore, after mentioning her age and the dates of her birth and departure, composed in sedate poetry the following epitaph, which may yet be seen on the tombstone. — EPITAPH. A lovely Christian, spouse, and friend, Pleasant in life, and at her end. — A pale consumption dealt the blow That laid her here, with dust below. Sore was the cough that shook her frame ; That cough her patience did proclaim — And as slie drew her latest breath, She said, '* The Lord is sweet in death." pious reader I standing by. Learn like this gentle one to die. The grass doth grow and fade away, And time runs out by night and day ; The King of Terrors has command To strike us with his dart in hand. Go where we will, by flood or field, He will pursue and make us yield. But though to him we must resign The vesture of our part divine, There is a jewel in our trust That will not perish in the dust : A pearl of price, a precious gem, Ordained for Jesus' diadem ; Therefore, be holy while you can, And think upon the doom of man ; Repent in time and sin no more, — That, when the strife of life is o'er, On wings of love your soul may rise To dwell with angels in the skies, YEAR 1764 39 Where psalms are sung eternally, And martyrs ne'er again shall die, But, with the saints, still ba^ in bliss. And drink the cup of blessedness. This was greatly thought of at the time, and Mr Lorimore, who had a nerve for poesy himself in his younger years, was of opinion that it was so much to the purpose, and suitable withal, that he made his scholars write it out for their exa- mination copies, at the reading whereof before the heritors, when the examination of the school came round, the tear came into my eye, and every one present sympathised with me in my great affliction for the loss of the first Mrs Balwhidder. Andrew Lanshaw, as I have recorded, liaving come from the Glasgow College to the burial of his sister, my wife that was, stayed with me a month to keep me company ; and staying with me, he was a great cordial. For the weather was wet and sleety, and the nights were stormy, so that I could go little out ; and few of the elders came in, they being at that time old men in a feckless condition, not at all qualified to warsle ^ with the blasts of winter. But when Andrew left me to go back to his classes I was eerie and lone- some ; and but for the getting of the monument ready, (which was a blessed entertainment to me in those dreary nights, with consulting ancnt the shape of it with John Truel, and meditating on the verse for the epitaph), I might have gone 1 Warsle. Wrestle, 40 ANNALS OF THE PARISH altogether demented. However, it pleased Him, who is the surety of the sinner, to help me through the Slough of Despond, and to set my feet on firm land, establishing my way thereon. But the work of the monument, and the epitaph, could not endure for a constancy, and after it was done, I was again in great danger of sinking into the hypochonderies a second time. However, I was enabled to fight with my affliction, and by- and-by, as the spring began to open her green lattice, and to set out her flower-pots to the sunshine, and the time of the singing of birds was come, I became more composed and like my- self. So I often walked in the fields, and held communion with nature, and wondered at the mysteries thereof. On one of these occasions, as I was sauntering along the edge of Eaglesham-wood, looking at the industrious bee going from flower to flower, and at the idle butterfly that layeth up no store but perisheth ere it is winter, I felt as it were a spirit from on high descending upon me, a throb at my heart, and a thrill in my brain ; and I was trans- ported out of myself, and seized with the notion of writing a book. But what it should be about, I could not settle to my satisfaction. Sometimes I thought of an orthodox poem, like Paradise Lost by John Milton, wherein I proposed to treat more at large of Original Sin, and of the great mysterj of Redemption. At others, I fancied that a con- nect treatise on the efficacy of Free Grace would YEAR 1764 41 be more taking. But, although I made divers be- ginnings in both subjects, some new thought ever came into my head, and the whole summer passed away and nothing was done. I therefore post- poned my design of writing a book till the winter, when I would have the benefit of the long nights. Before that, however, I had other things of more inifortance to think about. My servant lasses, having no eye of a mistress over them, wastered everything at such a rate, and made such a gal- ravitching in the house, that, long before the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not know what to do. At lang and length I mustered courage to send for Mr Auld, who was then living, and an elder. He was a douce ^ i and discreet man, fair and well-doing in the world, j and had a better handful of strong common sense than many even of the heritors. So I told him how I was situated, and conferred with him. He advised me, for my own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow, which, he thought, might very properly be after the turn of the year, by which time the first Mrs Balwhidder would be dead more than twelve [months ; and, when I mentioned my design to Iwrite a book, he said, (and he was a man of good Idiscretion), that the doing of the book was a thing [that would keep, but wasterful servants were a rowing evil. So, upon his counselHng, I resolved not to meddle with the book till I was married ' Douce, Quiet-going and sensible. i'*i 42 ANNALS OF THE PARISH m'-u again, but employ the interim, between then and the turn of the year, in looking out for a prudent woman to be my second wife, strictly intending, (as I did perform), not to mint a word ^ about my choice, if I made one, till the whole twelve months and a day, from the date of the first Mrs Balwhidder's interment, had run out. In this the hand of Providence was very visible, and lucky for me it was that I had sent for Mr Auld when I did send. The very week following, a sound began to spread in the parish that one of I my lassies had got herself with bairn, — which was an awful thing to think had happened in the house of her master, and that master a minister of the gospel. Some there were, — for backbiting apper- taineth to all conditions, — that jealoused andj wondered if I had not a finger in the pie ; which when Mr Auld heard, he bestirred himself in such a manful and godly way in my defence as silenced the clash,^ telling that I was utterly in- capable of any such thing, being a man of a guile- 1 less heart, and a spiritual simplicity, that would be ornamental in a child. We then had the latheron ^ summoned before the Session, and was not long of making her confess that the father was Nichol Snipe, Lord Glencaim's gamekeeper, Both she and Nichol were obligated to stand in ^ To mint a word. "To mint " is to endeavour. The sense I hero may be "to venture a word about my choice " — that is,] to the lady ; or, simply, to hint. {Legatees. Chap. IX.) a Clash. Tittle-tattle, » Latheron. Drab. YEAR 1764 48 the kirk ; but Nichol was a graceless reprobate, for he came with two coats^ — one buttoned behind him, and another buttoned before him — , and two wigs of my lord's, lent him by the valet-de-chamer, —the one over his face, and the other in the right way — ; and he stood with his face to the church wall. When I saw him from the poopit, I said to him, "Nichol, you must turn your face towards me ! " At the which he turned round, to be sure ; but there he presented the same show as his back. I was confounded, and did not know what to say, but cried out with a voice of anger, "Nichol, Nichol ! if ye had been a' back, ye wouldna hae been there this day ; " — which had such an effect on the whole congregation that the poor fellow suffered afterwards more derision than if I had rebuked him in the manner prescribed by the Session.^ This affair, with the previous advice of Mr Auld, was, however, a warning to me that no pastor of his parish should be long without a help- mate. Accordingly, as soon as the year was out, I set myself earnestly about the search for one ; but as the particulars fall properly within the scope and chronicle of the next year, I must re- serve them for it. And I do not recollect that anything more particular befell in this, excepting that William Mutchkins, the father of Mr Mutch- kins, the great spirit dealer in Glasgow, set up a change-house in the clachan, which was the first ^ Note A. The Session and Discipline, ■"51 U ■= 44 ANNALS OF THE PARISH i^ in the parish, and, if I could have helped, should have been the last ; for it was opening a howf ^ to all manner of wickedness, and was an immediate get 2 and offspring of the smuggling trade, against which I had so set my countenance. But William Mutchkins himself was a respectable man, and no house could be better ordered than his change. At a stated hour he made family worship, — for he brought up his children in the fear of God and the Christian religion. Although the house was full, he would go in to the customers, and ask them if they would want anything for half- an -hour, for that he was going to make exercise with his family ; and many a wayfaring traveller has joined in the prayer. There is no such thing, I now-a-days, of publicans entertaining traveller m this manner. Howf. Shelter. Get. Progeny. '"f CHAPTER VI Year 1765 Establishment of a whisky distillery — He is again married to Miss Lizy Kibbock — Her industry in the dairy — Her example diffuses a qnrit of industry through the parish. As there was little in the last year that con- cerned the parish, but only myself, so in this the like fortune continued ; and, saving a rise in the price of barley, (occasioned, as was thought, by the establishment of a house for brewing whisky in a neighbouring parish), it could not be said that my people were exposed to the mutations and influences of the stars that ruled in the seasons of Ann. Dom. 1765. In the winter there was a dearth of fuel, such as has not been since; for when the spring loosened the bonds I of the ice, three new coal-heughs were shanked ^ [in the Douray moor, and ever since there has been a great plenty of that necessary article. Truly, it is very wonderful to see how things 1 Coal-heughs were shanked. Coal-pits were sunk. A coal- Uhank is the shaft to the coals. mmm 4,6 ANNALS OF THE PARISH I' ! come round. When the talk was about the shanking of the heughs, and a paper to get folk to take shares in them was carried through the circumjacent parishes, it was thought a gowk's errand ; ^ but no sooner was the coal reached but up sprung such a traffic that it was a godsend to the parish, and the opening of a trade and com- merce that has (to use an old byword) brought gold in gowpins - amang us. From that time my stipend has been on the regular increase, and, therefore, I think that the incoming of the heri- tors must have been in like manner augmented. Soon after this, the time was drawing near for my second marriage. I had placed my affections, with due consideration, on Miss Lizy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr Joseph Kibbock of the Gorbyholm, who was the first that made a speculation in the farming way in Ayrshire, a:id whose cheese were of such an excellent quality that they have, under the name of Delap-cheese, spread far and wide over the civilized world. Miss Lizy and I were married on the 29th day of April (with some inconvenience to both sides) on account of the dread that we had of being married in May ; for it is said, •* Of the marriages in May, The bairns die of a decay." However, married we were, and we hired the I Irville chaise, and with Miss Jenny her sister,] 1 Oowk'$ errand. Fool's errand. ' Qowpins. HandfulH. YEAR 1765 47 and Becky Cairns her niece, who sat on a port- manty at our feet, we went on a pleasure jaunt to Glasgow, where we bought a miracle of useful things for the manse that neither the first Mrs Balwhidder nor me ever thought of: the second Mrs Balwhidder that was had a geni ^ for manage- ment, and it was extraordinary what she could go through. Well may I speak of her with commendations ; for she was the bee that made my honey, although at first things did not go so clear with us. For she found the manse rookit and herrit,^ and there was such a supply of plenishing of all sort wanted that I thought myself ruined and undone by her care and in- dustry. There was such a buying of wool to make blankets, with a booming of the meikle [ wheel to spin the same, and such birring of the ! little wheel for sheets and napery, that the manse was for many a day like an organ kist. Then we had milk cows, and the calves to bring up, and a kiraing of butter, and a making of cheese ; in short, I was almost by myself with the jangle and din, which prevented me from writing a book as I had proposed. And for a time I tliought of the peaceful and kindly nature of the first Mrs Balwhidder with a sigh ; but the outcoming was [soon manifest. The second Mrs Balwhidder sent Iher butter on the market-days to Irville, and her [cheese from time to time to Glasgow — to Mrs * Oeni. Gtenius. ' Rookit avd herrit. Plundered and dospoilod. ii'i; {|H I 48 ANNALS OF THE PARISH I \ Firlot, that kept the huxtry in the Saltmarket— ; and they were both so well made that our (lain was just a coining of money, insomuch that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of my stipend to put untouched into the bank. But 1 must say that, although we were thus making siller like sclate stones, I was not satisfied in my own mind that I had got the manse nerely to be a factory of butter and cheese, and to breed up veal calves for the slaughter. So I spoke to the second Mrs Balwhidder, and pointed out to her what I thought the error of our way ; but slie had been so ingrained with the profitable manage- ment of cows and grumphies ^ in her father's house that she could not desist, — at the which I was greatly grieved. By-and-by, however, I began I to discern that there was something as good in her example as the giving of alms to the poor folk ; for all the wives of the parish were stirred up by it into a wonderful thrift, and nothing was heard of in every house but of quiltings and wabs to weave ; insomuch that, before many years came round, there was not a parish better stocked with blankets and naj)ery than mine was within the bounds of Scotland. It was about the Michaelmas of this year thatj Mrs Malcolm opened her shop. This slie ( chiefly on the advice of Mrs Balwhidder, who saidl it was far better to allow a little profit on tiiel different haberdasheries that might be wanted! * OrumphUg. IMgs. YEAR 1765 49 than to send to the neighbouring towns an end's errand on purpose for them, none of the lasses that were so sent ever thinking of making less than a day's pay on every such occasion. In a word, it is not to be told how the second Mrs Balwhidder, my wife, showed the value of flying time, even to the concerns of this world, and was the mean of giving a life and energy to the house- wifery of the parish that has made many a one beek his shins ^ in comfort that would otherwise have had but a cold coal to blow at. Indeed, Mr Kibbock, her father, was a man beyond the common, and had an insight of things by which he was enabled to draw profit and advantage where others could only see risk and detriment. He planted mounts of fir-trees on the bleak and barren tops of the hills of his farm, — the which [everybody (and I among the rest) considered as a thrashing of the water and raising of bells. » iut as his tack ran his trees grew, and the plantations supplied him with stabs to make stake and rice ^ between his fields, which soon gave them a trig land orderly appearance, such as had never before been seen in the west country ; and his example Ihas, in this matter, been so followed that I have Ihcard travellers, who have been in foreign coun- jtries, say that the shire of Ayr, for its bonny round n ' To beek his ahina. To toast his shinn. ' Stake and rice. " Rico " is a thin bough or twjg ; and I hodgo woH nmde by stretching twigs botween atakea driven oto the ground. VOL I, D 50 ANNALS OF THE PARISH green plantings on the tops of the hills, is above comparison either with Italy or Switzerland, where the hills are, as it were, in a state of nature. Upon the whole, this was a busy year in the parish, and the seeds of many great improvements were laid. The king's road, which then ran through the Vennel, was mended ; but it was not till some years after, as I shall record by-and-by, that the " trust road," as it was called, was made, the which had the effect of turning the town inside out. Before I conclude, it is proper to mention that j the kirk-bell, which had to this time, from timej immemorial, hung on an ash-tree, was one stormy night cast down by the breaking of the brancliJ which was the cause of the heritors agreeing to build the steeple. The clock was a mortification to the parish from the Lady Breadland, when shej died some years after. CHAPTER VII Year 1766 The burning of the Breadland — A new bell, and also a steeple — Nanse Birrel found dronmed in a well — The parish troubled with nnld Irishmen. It was in this Ann. Dom. that the great calamity happened, the which took place on a Sabbath evening in the month of February. Mrs Bal- whidder had just infused (or masket) the tea, and i we were set round the fireside to spend the night in an orderly and religious manner, along with Mr and Mrs Petticrew, who were on a friendly visitation to the manse, the mistress being full (cousin to Mrs Balwhidder. Sitting, as I was I saying, at our tea, one of the servant lasses came I into the room with a sort of a panic laugh, and said, "What are ye all doing there when the Bread- land's in a low ? " ' — '* The Breadland in a low ! " cried I. — "Oh, ay !" cried she: "bleezing at the windows and the rigging, and out at the lum, jlike a killogie."^ Upon the which, we all went ' In a low. In a blazo. ' Bleaing, die. Blazing at tho windows and the roof^ and cut at the chimney, like a kiln stoko-hote. I: l,> I' I ' I' i ? ! I h 52 ANNALS OF THE PARISH to the door, and there, to be sure, we did see that the Breadland was burning, the flames crack- ling high out o'er the trees, and the sparks flying like a comet's tail in the firmament. Seeing this sight, I said to Mr Petticrew that, in the strength of the Lord, I would go and see what could be done, — for it was as plain as the sun in the heavens that the ancient place of the Breadlands would be destroyed — ; whereupon he accorded to go with me, and we walked at a lively course to the spot, and the people from all quarters were pouring in, and it was an awsome scene. But the burning of the house and the droves of the multitude were nothing to what we saw when we got forenent ^ the place. There was the rafters crackling, the flames raging, the servants running (some with bedding, some with looking-glasses, and others with chamber utensils, j as little likely to be fuel to the fire, but all testi- fications to the confusion and alarm). Then there! was a shout, " Whar's Miss Girzie ? Whar's tliej Major ? " The Major, poor man, soon cast up,l lying upon a feather-bed, ill with his complaints,! in the garden ; but Lady Skimmilk was nowhere! to be found. At last, a figure was seen in the! upper flat, pursued by the flames ; and that wa^ Miss Girzie. Oh ! it was a terrible sight to look at her in that jeopardy at the window, with heil gold watch in the one hand and the silver tvn\m in the other, skreighing'^ like desperation for 1 Forenent. Near to, * Sknighing. Screaming, • I \ YEAR 1766 53 w that, and see I as the J of the upon he ed at a from all awsome and the to what . There ging, the )nie with utensils, all testi- en there Ihar's the cast up, |mplaints, nowhere n in th that wa! t to hw' with he' er teajwl ;ion for Reaming. ladder and help. But, before a ladder or help could be found, the floor sunk down, and the roof fell in, and poor Miss Girzie, with her idols, perished in the burning. It was a dreadful busi- ness ! I think, to this hour, how I saw her at the window, how the fire came in behind her, and claught^ her like a fiery Belzebub, and bore her into perdition before our eyes. The next morning the atomy 2 of the body was found among the rubbish, with a piece of metal in what had been jeach of its hands, — no doubt the gold watch and [the silver teapot. Such was the end of Miss Girzie, [ind of the Breadland, which the young laird, my pupil that was, by growing a resident at Edin- [burgh, never rebuilt. It was burnt to the very lund : nothing was spared but what the servants the first flaught^ gathered up in a huny and m with. No one could tell how the Major, who ras then (as it was thought by the faculty) past Ihe power of nature to recover, got out of the louse, and was laid on the feather-bed in the irden. However, he never got the better of lat night, and before Whitsunday he too was lead, and buried beside his sister's bones at the Hith side of the kirkyard dyke, where his lusin's son, that was his heir, erected the hand- ime monument, with the three urns and weeping leruhims, bearing witness to the great valour of le Major among the Hindoos, as well as to other I' Chught. Snatched. ^ Atomy. Remains. I' Flauyht. Confusion ; or, perhaps, in the first handful. .'KI nil ;*i! 54 ANNALS OF THE PARISH commendable virtues, for which, as the epitaph says, he was universally esteemed and beloved by all who knew him in his public and private capacity. But although the burning of the Breadland- House was justly called the great calamity, (on account of what happened to Miss Girzie with her gold watch and silver teapot), yet, as Providence never fails to bring good out of evil, it turned out a catastrophe that proved advantageous to the parish ; for the laird, instead of thinking to build it up, was advised to let the policy out as a farm, and the tack was taken by Mr Coulter, than whom there had been no such man in the agricultur- ing line among us before, not even excepting Mr Kibbock of the Gorbyholm, my father-in-law that was. Of the stabling, Mr Coulter made a comfort- able dwelling-house; and having rugget out^ the evergreens and other unprofitable plants, (saving! the twa ancient yew-trees which the near-begaiinj Major and his sister had left to go to ruin aboutl the mansion-house), he turned all to productionl and it was wonderful what an increase he made thel land bring forth. He was from far beyond Edin-^ burgh, and had got his insight among the Lothian farmers, so that he knew what crop should follov another ; and nothing could surpass the regularit)| of his rigs and furrows. Well do I remember tha admiration that I had when, in a fine sunny momj ing of the first spring after he took the Breadlandj ^ Rugget out. Pulled up. YEAR 1766 55 I saw his braird 1 on what had been the cows' grass, as even and pretty as if it had been worked and stripped in the loom with a shuttle. Truly, when I look back at the example he set, and when I think on the method and dexterity of his man- agement, I must say that his coming to the parish was a great godsend, and tended to do far more for the benefit of my people than if the young laird had rebuilded the Breadland-House in a fashionable style, as was at one time spoken of. But the year of the great calamity was memor- able for another thing. In the December fore- going, the wind blew, as I have recorded in the chronicle of the last year, and broke down the bough of the tree whereon the kirk-bell had hung from the time, as was supposed, of the persecu- tion, before the bringing over of King William. Mr Kibbock, my father-in-law then that was, being a man of a discerning spirit, when he heard of the unfortunate fall of the bell, advised me to get the heritors to big 2 a steeple ; which, when I thought of the expense, I was afraid to do. He, however, having a great skill in the heart of man, gave me no rest on the subject, but told me tliat if I allowed the time to go by till the heritors were used to come to the kirk without a bell, I would get no steeple at all. I often wondered what made Mr Kibbock so fond of a steeple, which is a thing that I never could see a good J Braird. First sprouting of the grain. - To big. To build. i i 66 ANNALS OF THE PARISH II reason for, saving that it is an ecclesiastical adjunct, like the gown and bands. However, he set me on to get a steeple proposed, and, after no little argol-bargling with the heritors, it was agreed to. This was chiefly owing to the instrumentality of Lady Moneyplack, who, in that winter, being much subjected to the rheumatics, one cold and raw Sunday morning (there being no bell to announce the time) came half-an-hour too soon to the kirk, which made her bestir herself to get an interest awakened among the heritors in behalf of a steeple. But, when the steeple was built, a new conten- tion arose. It was thought that the bell, which had been used in the ash-tree, would not do in a stone and lime fabric ; so, after great agitation among the heritors, it was resolved to sell the old bell to a foundery in Glasgow, and buy a new bell suitable to the steeple, which was a very comely fabric. The buying of the new bell led to other considerations ; and the old Lady Breadland, being at the time in a decaying condition, and making her will, left a mortification to the parish, as I have intimated, to get a clock ; so that, by the time the steeple was finished, and the bell put up, the Lady Breadland 's legacy came to be im- plemented, according to the ordination of the testatrix.^ Of the casualties that happened in this year, I should not forget to put down, as a thing for 1 Note A. Th^ Heritors. YEAR 1766 57 ^1 conten- l, which ; do in a igitation I the old Qew bell comely ;o other id, being making sh, as I by the bell put be im- of the "liis year, Ihing for remembrance, that an aged woman, — one Nanse Birrel, a distillator of herbs and well skilled in the healing of sores, who had a great repute among the quarriers and colliers, — having gone to the physic well in the sandy hills to draw water, was found, with her feet uppermost in the well, by some of the bairns of Mr Lorimore's school ; and there was a great debate whether \anse had fallen in by accident head foremost, or, in a temptation, thrown herself in that posi- tion, with her feet sticking up to the evil one, — for Nanse was a curious discontented, blear-eyed woman, and it was only with great ado that I [could get the people keepit from calling her a I witchwife. I should likewise place on record that the first lass that had ever been seen in this part of the leountry came in the course of this year, with la gang of tinklers that made horn-spoons and Imended bellows. Where they came from never Iwas well made out ; but, being a blackaviced ^ crew, they were generally thought to be Egyp- [tians. They tarried about a week among us, living tents, with their little ones squattling among ihe htter ; and one of the older men of them set pd tempered to me two razors thpt were as good • nothing, which he made better than when they p^ere new. Shortly after, (but I am not quite sure whether was in the end of this year, or the beginning 1 Blackaviced. Swarthy. £ 58 ANNALS OF THE PARISH of the next, although I have a notion tliat it was in this), there came over from Ireland a troop of wild Irish, — seeking for work, as they said; but they made free quarters. They herrit the roosts of the clachan, and cutted the throat of a sow of ours, — the carcass of which they no doubt intended to steal ; but something came over them, and it was found lying at the back side of the manse, — to the great vexation of Mrs Balwhidder; for she had set her mind on a decking of pigs,^ and only waited for the China boar that had been brought down from London by Lord Eaglesham to mend the breed of pork — a profitable commodity — that her father, Mr Kibbock, cultivated for the Glasgow market. The destruction of our sow, under such circum- stances, therefore, was held to be a great crime and cruelty, and it had the effect to raise upj such a spirit in the clachan that the Irish werej obligated to decamp. They set out for Glasgow, where one of them was afterwards hanged for fact ; but the truth concerning how he did it, either I never heard, or it has passed from my I mind like many other things I should have care- fully treasured. 1 A decking of pigs. A brood of pigs. ; i CHAPTER VIII Year 1767 Lord Eaglesham meets with an accident, which is the means of getting the parish a new road — / preach for the benefit of Nanse Banks, the schoolmistress, reduced to poverty. All things in our parish were now beginning to shoot up into a great prosperity. The spirit of farming began to get the upper hand of the spirit of smuggling, and the coal-heughs that had been opened in the Douray now brought a pour uf money among us. In the manse, the thrift and frugality of the second Mrs Balwhidder throve ex- ceedingly, so that we couid save the whole stipend for the bank. The king's highway, as I have related in the foregoing, ran through the Vennel, which was a narrow and a crooked street, with many big stones here and there, and every now and then, both in the spring and in the fall, a gathering of middens 1 for the fields ; insomuch that the coal-carts from j the Douray moor were often reested ^ in the 1 Reested. Arrested. 60 ANNALS OP THE PARISH middle of the causey, and on more than one occasion some of them laired ^ altogether in the middens, and others of them broke dov/n. Great complaint was made by the carters anent these difficulties, and there was, for many a day, a talk and sound of an alteration and amendment ; but nothing was fulfilled in the matter till the month of March in this year, when the Lord Eaglesham was coming from London to see the new lands that he had bought in our parish. His lordship was a man of a genteel spirit, and very fond of his horses, which were the most beautiful crea- tures of their kind that had been seen in all the country side. Coming, as I was noting, to see his new lands, he was obliged to pass through the clachan one day, when all the middens were gathered out, reeking and sappy, in the middle of the causey. Just as his lordship was driving in with his prancing steeds, like a Jehu, at the one end of the Vennel, a long string of loaded coal- carts came in at the other, and there was hardly room for my lord to pass them. What was to be done ? His lordship could not turn back, and the coal-carts were in no less perplexity. Everybody was out of doors to see and t^* help, wlien, in trying to get his lordship's carriage over the top of a midden, the horses gave a sudden loup, and couped '^ the coach, and threw my lord, head fore- roost, into the very scent-bottle of the whole com- modity, which made him go perfect mad ; and he ^ Laired, Enmired. " Couped, Overturned. ;:i ladtai in spirit, 78 ANNALS OF THE PARISH i >ii and had a most weighty prayer upon the occasion, which was long after remembered, many thinking, when the American war broke out, that I had been gifted with a glimmering of prophecy on that day. It was during this visit to his lady mother that young Laird Macadam settled the correspondence with Kate Malcolm, which, in the process of time, caused us all so much trouble ; for it was a clan- destine concern. But the time is not yet ripe for me to speak of it more at large. I should, how- ever, mention, before concluding this annal, that Mrs Malcolm herself was this winter brought to death's door by a terrible host that came on her in the kirk, by taking a kittling ^ in her throat. It was a terrification to hear her sometimes ; hut she got the better of it in the spring, and was more herself thereafter than she had been for years before. Her daughter Effie (or Euphemia, as she was called by Miss Sabrina, the school- mistress) was growing up to be a gleg and clever quean : ^ she was, indeed, such a spirit in her way, that the folks called her Spunkie ; while her son William, wlio was the youngest of the five, was making a wonderful proficiency with Mr Loriinore, He was, indeed, a douce, well-doing laddie, of a composed nature ; insomuch that the master said he was surely chosen for the ministry. In short, the more I think on what befell this family, and » KUtlinff. 2 A (jhg . Ticklitiff. . quean. An acuto lUNS. YEAR 1769 79 of the great meekness and Christian worth of the parent, I verily believe there never could have been, in any parish, such a manifestation of the tnith that they who put their trust in the Lord are sure of having a friend that will never forsake them. s of time, as a clan- it ripe for uld, how- nnal, that rought to me on her ler throat. imes ; but , and was been for .uphemia, e school- land clever 11 her way, lie her son five, was Lorimore, iddie, of a II aster said In short, [amily, and \ ly. J liiHn. CHAPTER XI Year 1770 This year a happy and tranquil one—lMrd Eaglesham establishes a fair in the village — The show of Punch appears for thejirst time in Ih parish, 1 HIS blessed Ann. Doni. was one of the Sabbaths of my ministry. When I look back upon it, all is quiet and good order : the darkest cloud of the smuggling had passed over, at least from nij j people, and the rumours of rebellion in America i were but like the distant sound of the bars of Ayr. We sat, as it were, in a Iwwn and pleasant place, beholding our prosperity like the ap, - tree adorned with ht r garlands of flourisilu's, inj the first fair mornings of the spring, when the birtls are returning thanks to their Maker lor the coming again of the seed-time, and the busy bee goeth forth frou! her cell to gather hoiu) from the flowers of the field, and the broom ofl the hill, and the blue-bells and gowans whiihj Nature, with a gracious and a gentle hand, seutttrsj in tile vulley, hh hIic waiketh forth in her heaiitv YEAR 1770 81 to testify to the goodness of the Father of all mercies. Both at the spring and at the harvest sacra- raments,^ the weather was as that which is in Paradise ; there was a glad composure in all hearts, and the minds of men were softened to- wards each other. The number of communicants was greater than had been known for many years, and the tables were tilled by the pious IVom many a neighbouring parish. Those of my hearers who had opposed my placing declared openly, for a testimony of satisfaction and holy thankfulness, that the tent, so surrounded as it was on both occasions, was a sight they never had expected to see. I was, to be sure, assisted by some of the best divines then in the land ; but I had not been a sluggard myself in the vineyard. Often, when I have thought on this yCvar, so fruitful in pleasant intimacies, has the thought come into my mind that, as the Lord Messes the earth from time to time with a harvest of more than the usual increase, so, in like manner. He is sometimes for a season pleased to pour into the breasts of mankind a larger portion of good-will and charity, disposing them to love one another, to be kindly to all creatures, and filled wit!) the delight of thankfulness to Himself, which is the jfreateFt of blessings. It was in this year that the Earl of Eaglesham ordered the fair to be established in the village. * Note A. Communion Services. VOL. I. I 82 ANNALS OF THE PARISH iim^i' It was a day of wonderful festivity to all the bairns, and lads and lassies, for miles round, I think, indeed, that there never has been since such a fair as the first ; for although we have more mountebanks and merry-andrews now, and richer cargoes of groceries and packman's stands, yet there has been a falling-off in the light-hearted daffing,^ while the hobleshowsi in the change- houses have been awfully augmented. It was on this occasion that Punch's opera was first seen in our country side, and, surely, never was there such a funny curiosity ; for although Mr Punch him- self was but a timber idol, he was as droll as a true living thing, and napped with his heml so comical ; but oh ! he was a sorrowful contuma- cious captain, and it was just a sport to see how he rampaged, and triumphed, and sang. For months after, the laddie weans did nothing hut squeak and sing like Punch. In short, a blithe spirit was among us throughout this year, and the briefness of the chronicle bears witness to the innocency of the time. * Daffing , . . hohleshowa. Frolics . . . iiprOvirs. all the ind. 1 :n since ire have ow, and 5 stands, -hearted change- t was on t seen in lere such nch him- Jroll as ii i he!ul so contuma- see how ng. For thing hut :, a blithe |r, and tht ;ss to the CHAPTER XII Year 1771 The nature of Lady Macadam's amusements — She intercepts letters from her son to Kate Malcolm. IT was in this year that my troubles with Lady Macadam's affair began. She was a woman (as I have by hint here and there intimated) of a pre- latic disposition, seeking all things her own way, and not overly scrupulous about the means, which I take to be the true humour of prelacy. She was come of a high episcopal race in the east country, where sound doctrine had been long but little heard, and she considered the comely humility of a presbyter as the wickedness of hypocrisy ; so that, saving in the way of neigh- bourly visitation, there was no sincere communion between us. Nevertheless, with all her vagaries, she ha