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THE LIFE

MANSIE WAUCH

TAILOR IN DALKEITH

by De Mac.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS BY
GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

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TO

JOHN GALT, Esq,

AUTHOR OF ‘ANNALS OF THE PARISH,’ ‘THE PROVOST,’
‘AYRSHIRE LEGATEES,’ ETC.

THE FOLLOWING SKETCHES,

PRINCIPALLY OF HUMBLE SCOTTISH CHARACTER,
ARE DEDICATED

BY HIS SINCERE FRIEND AND ADMIRER,

THE EDITOR.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

MANSIE AND HIS WIFE WITH LANTERN, . frontispiece.
NANSE SHOWING THE DEAD CAT ON THE CHAIR, . 47
THE BURSTING OF THE PORTER-BOTTLE, . , » 54
THE AWKWARD SQUAD, . ‘ ; ‘ : - 79

LIEUTENANT TODRICK AND THE LEATHER BREECHES, I21
THE SPAEWIFE IN THE KITCHEN, . 3 ‘ » 143
CURSECOWL AND THE APPRENTICES, . 3 c » %174

MANSIE WITH THE GUN, . ei . 3 ‘ - 201
CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARIES, . 7
CHAP. I, OUR OLD GRANFATHER, .
II. MY OWN FATHER, . a
III. COMING INTO THE WORLD, i
1V. CALF-LOVE, bats ij i
Vv. CURSECOWL, ‘ ;
VI. PUSHING MY FORTUNE, .
VII. THE FOREWARNING, .
VIII. LETTING LODGINGS,
IX, BENJIE’S CHRISTENING, .
X. THE RESURRECTION MEN,
XI, TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL,
sONG, .
SONG OF THE SOUTH,
SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS,
ELEGIAC STANZAS, . .
DIRGE, - . .
XII. VOLUNTEERING, . é
XIII, THE CHINCOUGH PILGRIMAGE, .
XIV. MY LORD’S RACES, . ‘
XV. THE RETURN, .
XVI. THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE,
XVII MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY, ;
XVIII. THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE,

106
115
x

CHAP. XIX.
xx.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.

CONTENTS.

THE AWFUL NIGHT,

ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE,
ANENT MUNGO GLEN,

THE JUNE JAUNT, .

CATCHING A TARTAR,

JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS,
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE, .

BENJIE ON THE CARPET,

‘*PUGGIE, PUGGIE,””

SERIOUS MUSINGS,

CONCLUSION,

124
135
146
157
171
180
193
205
215
221
226
PRELIMINARIES.

Havine, within myself, made observation of late years
that all notable characters, whatsoever line of life they
may have pursued, and to whatever business they might
belong, have made a trade of committing to paper all
the surprising occurrences and remarkable events that
chanced to happen to them in the course of Providence,
during their journey through life—that such as come
after them might take warning and be benefited—I
have found it incumbent on me, following a right
example, to do the same thing; and have set down, in
black and white, a good few uncos, that I should reckon
will not soon be forgotten, provided they make as deep
an impression on the world as they have done on me.
To this decision I have been urged by the elbowing on
of not a few judicious friends; among whom I would
particularly remark James Batter, who has been most
earnest in his request, and than whom a truer judge on
anything connected with book-lear, or a better neigh-
bour, does not breathe the breath of life: both of which
positions will, I doubt not, appear as clear as daylight
to the reader in the course of the work: to say nothing
A
2 PRELIMINARIES.

of the approval the scheme met with from the pious
Maister Wiggie, who has now gone to his account, and
divers other advisers, that wished either the general
good of the world, or studied their own particular profit.

Had the course of my pilgrimage lain just on the
beaten track, I would not—at least I think so—have
been o’ercome by ony perswasions to do what I have
done; but as will be seen, in the twinkling of half an
eye, by the judicious reader, I am a man that has wit-
nessed much, and come through a great deal, both in
regard to the times wherein I have lived, and the out-
o’-the-way adventures in which it has been my fortune
to be engaged. Indeed, though I say it myself, who
might as well be silent, I that have never stirred, in a
manner so to speak, from home, have witnessed more of
the world we live in, and the doings of men, than many
who have sailed the salt seas from the East Indies to
the West; or, in the course of nature, visited Greenland,
Jamaica, or Van Diemen’s Land. The cream of the
matter, and to which we would solicit the attention of
old and young, rich and poor, is just this, that, unless
unco doure indeed to learn, the inexperienced may gleam
from my pages sundry grand lessons concerning what
they have a chance to expect in the course of an active
life; and the unsteady may take a hint concerning what
it is possible for one of a clear head and a stout heart
to go through with.

Notwithstanding, however, these plain and evident
conclusions, even after writing the whole out, I thought
I felt a kind of a qualm of conscience about submitting
an account of my actions and transactions to the world
PRELIMINARIES. 3

during my lifetime; and I had almost determined, for
decency’s sake, not to let the papers be printed till after
I had been gathered to my fathers; but I took into
consideration the duty that one man owes to another,
and that my keeping back, and withholding these curious
documents, would be in a great measure hindering the
improvement of society, so far as I was myself person-
ally concerned. Now this is a business which James
Batter agrees with me in thinking is carried on, furthered,
and brought about, by every one furnishing his share
.of experience to the general stock. Let-a-be this plain
truth, another point of argument for my bringing out
my bit book at the present time is, that I am here to
the fore bodily, with the use of my seven senses, to
give day and date to all such as venture to put on the
misbelieving front of Sadducees, with regard to any
of the accidents, mischances, marvellous escapes, and
extraordinary businesses therein related; and to show
them, as plain as the bool of a pint stoup, that each and
everything set down by me within its boards is just as
true as that a blind man needs not spectacles, or that
my name is Mansie Wauch.

Perhaps, as a person willing and anxious to give
every man his due, it is necessary for me explicitly to
mention that, in the course of this book, I am indebted
to my friend James Batter for his able help in assisting
me to spell the kittle words, and in ruminaging out
scraps of poem-books for headpieces to my different
chapters.
LIFE

OF

MANSIE WAUCH.

CHAPTER I.
OUR OLD GRANFATHER.

‘<The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he;
But he has tint the blithe blink he had
In my ain countree.”—ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

Some of the rich houses and great folk pretend to have
histories of the auncientness of their families, which they
can count back on their fingers almost to the days of Noah’s
ark, and King Fergus the First; but whatever may spunk
out after on this point, I am free to confess, with a safe con-
science, in the meantime, that it is not in my power to come
up within sight of them; having never seen or heard tell of
anybody in our connection, further back than auld gran-
faither, that I mind of when a Jaddie; and who it behoves
to have belonged by birthright to some parish or other ; but
where-away, gude kens. James Batter mostly blinded both
his eyes, looking all last winter for one of our name in the
Book of Martyrs, to make us proud of; but his search, I am
free to confess, worse than failed—as the only man of the
name he could find out was.a Sergeant Jacob Wauch, that
6 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

lost his lug and his left arm, fighting like a Russian Turk
against the godly, at the bloody battle of the Pentland Hills.

Auld granfaither died when I was a growing callant, some
seven or eight years old; yet I mind him full well; it being
a curious thing how early such matters take hold of one’s
memory. He was a straught, tall, old man, with a shining
bell-pow, and reverend white locks hanging down about his
haffets; a Roman nose, and two cheeks blooming through
the winter of his long age like roses, when, poor body, he was
sand-blind with infirmity. In his latter days he was hardly
able to crawl about alone; but used to sit resting himself on
the truff seat before our door, leaning forward his head on
his staff, and finding a kind of pleasure in feeling the beams
of God’s own sun beaking on him. A blackbird, that he
had tamed, hung above his head in a whand-cage of my
father’s making; and he had taken a pride in learning it
to whistle two three turns of his own favourite sang, “ Ower
the water to Charlie.”

I recollect, as well as yesterday, that, on the Sundays, he
wore a braid bannet with a red worsted cherry on the top
of it; and had a single-breasted coat, square in the tails, of
light Gilmerton blue, with plaited white buttons, bigger
than crown-pieces. His waistcoat was low in the neck, and
had flap pouches, wherein he kept his mull for rappee, and
his tobacco-box. To look at him, with his rig-and-fur Shet-
land hose pulled up over his knees, and his big glancing
buckles in his shoon, sitting at our door-cheek, clean and
tidy as he was kept, was just as if one of the ancient patri-
archs had been left on earth, to let succeeding survivors
witness a picture of hoary and venerable eld. Poor body,
many a bit Gibraltar-rock and gingerbread did he give to
me, as he would pat me on the head, and prophesy I would
be a great man yet; and sing me bits of old songs about the
bloody times of the Rebellion, and Prince Charlie. There
was nothing that I liked so well as to hear him set a-going
with his auld-warld stories and lilts; though my mother
used sometimes to say, “ Wheesht, granfaither, ye ken it’s no
canny to let out a word of thae things; let byganes be by-
ganes, and forgotten.” He never liked to give trouble, so
a rebuke of this kind would put a tether to his tongue for a
wee ; but, when we were left by ourselves, I used aye to ege
OUR OLD GRANFATHER. 7

him on to tell me what he had come through in his far-away
travels beyond the broad seas; and of the famous battles he
had seen and shed his precious blood in ;—for his pinkie
was hacked off by a dragoon of Cornel Gardiner’s, down by
at Prestonpans, and he had catched a bullet with his ankle
over in the north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he
liked to crack about these times, though they had brought
him muckle and no little mischief, having obliged him to
skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills and
heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and
hungry. Not dauring to be seen in his own country, where
his head would have been chacked off like a sybo, he took
leg-bail in a ship over the sea, among the Dutch folk ;
where he followed out his lawful trade of a cooper, making
girrs for the herring barrels and so on; and sending, when
he could find time and opportunity, such savings from his
wages as he could afford, for the maintenance of his wife
and small family of three helpless weans, that he had been
obligated to leave, dowie and destitute, at their native home
of pleasant Dalkeith.

At long and last, when the breeze had blown over, and
the feverish pulse of the country began to grow calm and
cool, auld granfaither took a longing to see his native land;
and though not free of jeopardy from king’s cutters on the
sea, and from spies on shore, he risked his neck over in a
sloop from Rotterdam to Aberlady, that came across with
a valuable cargo of smuggled gin. When granfaither had
been obliged to take the wings of flight for the preservation
of his life and liberty, my father was a wean at grannie’s
breast : so, by her fending—for she was a canny industrious
body, and kept a bit shop, in the which she sold oatmeal
and red herrings, needles and prins, potatoes and tape, and
cabbage, and what not—he had grown a strapping laddie of
eleven or twelve, helping his two sisters, one of whom per-
ished of the measles in the dear year, to go errands, chap
sand, carry water, and keep the housie clean. I have heard
him say, when auld granfaither came to their door at the
dead of night, tirling, like a thief of darkness, at the window-
brod to get in, that he was so altered in his voice and lingo
that no living soul kenned him, not even the wife of his
bosom; so he had to put grannie in mind of things that had
8 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

happened between them, before she would allow my father
to lift the sneck or draw the bar. Many and many a year,
for gide kens how long after, I have heard tell, that his
speech was so Dutchified as to be scarcely kenspeckle to a
Scotch European; but Nature is powerful, and, in the
course of time, he came in the upshot to gather his words
together like a Christian.

Of my auntie Bell, that, as I have just said, died of the
measles in the dear year, at the age of fourteen, I have no
story to tell but one, and that a short one, though not with-
out a sprinkling of interest.

Among her other ways of doing, grannie kept a cow, and
sold the milk round about to the neighbours in a pitcher,
whiles carried by my father, and whiles by my aunties, at
the ransom of a halfpenny the mutchkin. Well, ye observe,
that the cow ran yeild, and it was as plain as pease that she
was with calf:— Geordie Drouth, the horse-doctor, could
have made solemn affidavy on that head. So they waited
on, and better waited on for the prowie’s calfing, keeping it
upon draff and oat-strae in the byre; till one morning every-
thing seemed in a fair way, and my auntie Bell was set out
to keep watch and ward.

Some of her companions, howsoever, chancing to come by,
took her out to the back of the house to have a game at the
pallall; and, in the interim, Donald Bogie, the tinkler from
Yetholm, came and left his little jackass in the byre, while
he was selling about his crockery of cups and saucers, and
brown plates, on the old one, through the town, in two
creels.

In the middle of auntie Bell’s game, she heard an unco
noise in the byre; and, knowing that she had neglected her
charge, she ran round the gable, and opened the door in a
great hurry ; when, seeing the beastie, she pulled it to again,
and fleeing, half out of breath, into the kitchen, cried—
“Come away, come away, mother, as fast as ye can. Eh,
lyst, the cow’s cauffed,—and it’s a cuddie !”
MY OWN FATHER. 9

CHAPTER II.

MY OWN FATHER,

** The weaver he gaed up the stair,
Dancing and singing;
A bunch o’ bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.” —Old Song.

My own father,—that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch with
regard to myself, but young Mansie with reference to my gran-
father,—after having run the errands, and done his best to
grannie during his early years, was, at the age of thirteen, as
I have heard him tell, bound a prentice to the weaver trade,
which from that day and date, for better for worse, he pro-
secuted to the hour of his death :—I should rather have said
to within a fortnight of it, for he lay for that time in the
mortal fever that cut through the thread of his existence.
Alas ! as Job says, “ How time flies like a weaver’s shuttle !”

He was a tall, thin, lowering man, blackaviced, and some-
thing in the physog like myself, though scarcely so weel-
faured; with a kind of blueness about his chin, as if his
beard grew of that colour—which I scarcely think it would
do—but might arise either from the dust of the blue cloth,
constantly flying about the shop, taking a rest there, or from
his having a custom of giving it a rub now and then with
his finger and thumb, both of which were dyed of that colour,
as well as his apron, from rubbing against, and handling the
webs of checkit claith in the loom.

Ill would it become me, I trust a dutiful son, to say that
my father was anything but a decent, industrious, hard-
working man, doing everything for the good of his family,
and winning the respect of all that knew the value of his
worth. As to his decency, few—very few indeed—laid be-
neath the mools of Dalkeith kirkyard, made their beds
there, leaving a better name behind them; and as to in-
dustry, it is but little to say that he toiled the very flesh
off his bones, driving the shuttle from Monday morning till
Saturday night, from the rising up of the sun, even to the
going down thereof ; and whiles, when opportunity led him,
10 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

or occasion required, digging and delving away at the bit kail-
yard, till moon and stars were in the lift, and the dews of
heaven that fell on his head were like the oil that flowed
from: Aaron’s beard, even to the skirts of his garment. But

what will ye say there? Some are born with a silver spoon
in their mouths, and others with a parritch-stick. Of the
latter was my father; for, with all his fechting, he never
was able much more than to keep our heads above the ocean
of debt. Whatever was denied him, a kind Providence, how-
soever, enabled him to do that; and so he departed this life
contented, leaving to my mother and me, the two survivors,
the prideful remembrance of being, respectively, she the
widow, and me the son, of an honest man. Some left with
twenty thousand cannot boast as much; so every one has
their comforts.

Having never entered much into public life, further than
attending the kirk twice every Sabbath—and thrice when
there was evening service—the days of my father glided over
like the waters of a deep river that make little noise in their
course ; so I do not know whether to lament or to rejoice at
having almost nothing to record of him. Had Buonaparte
as little ill to account for, it would be well this day for him :
—but, losh me! I had almost skipped over his wedding.

In the five-and-twentieth year of his age, he had fallen in
love with my mother, Marion Laverock, at the christening
of a neighbour’s bairn, where they both happened to for-
gather ; little, I daresay, jealousing, at the time their eyes
first met, that fate had destined them for a pair, and to be
the honoured parents of me, their only bairn. Seeing my
father’s heart was catched as in the net of the fowler, she:
took every lawful means, such as adding another knot to her
cockernony, putting up her hair in screw curls, and so on, to
follow up her advantage; the result of all which was, that,
after three months’ courtship, she wrote a letter out to her
friends at Loanhead, telling them of what was more than
likely to happen, and giving a kind invitation to such of
them as might think it worth their whiles to come in and
be spectators of the ceremony.—And a prime day-I am told
they had of it, having, by advice of more than one, consented
to make it a penny wedding; and hiring Deacon Laurie’s
maltbarn at five shillings, for the express purpose.
MY OWN FATHER. 11

Many yet living, among whom James Batter, who was the
best-man, and Duncan Imrie, the heelcutter in the Flesh-
Market Close, are still above board to bear solemn testimony
to the grandness of the occasion, and the uncountable num-
erousness of the company, with such a display of mutton-
broth, swimming thick with raisins,—and roasted jiggets of
lamb,—to say nothing of mashed turnips and champed pota-
toes,—as had not been seen in the wide parish of Dalkeith
in the memory of man. It was not only my father’s bridal
day, but it brought many a lad and lass together by way of
partners at foursome reels and Hieland jigs, whose courtship
did not end in smoke, couple above couple dating the day of
their happiness from that famous forgathering. There were
no Jess than three fiddlers, two of them blind with the small-
pox, and one naturally; and a piper with his drone and
chanter, playing as many pibrochs as would have deaved a
mill-happer, — all skirling, scraping, and bumming away
throughither, the whole afternoon and night, and keep-
ing half the countryside dancing, capering, and cutting, in
strathspey step and quick time, as if they were without a
weary, or had not a bone in their bodies. In the days of
darkness, the whole concern would have been imputed to
magic and glamour; and douce folk, finding how they were
transgressing over their usual bounds, would have looked
about them for the wooden pin that auld Michael Scott the
warlock drave in behind the door, leaving the family to
dance themselves to death at their leisure.

Had the business ended in dancing, so far well, for a sound
sleep would have brought a blithe wakening, and all be tight
and right again ; but, alas and alackaday ! the violent heat
and fume of foment they were all thrown into, caused the
emptying of so many ale-tankers, and the swallowing of so
muckle toddy, by way of cooling and refreshing the company,
that they all got as fou as the Baltic; and many ploys, that
shall be nameless, were the result of a sober ceremony, where-
by two douce and decent people, Mansie Wauch, my honoured
father, and Marion Laverock, my respected mother, were
linked thegither, for better for worse, in the lawful bonds
of honest wedlock.

It seems as if Providence, reserving everything famous and
remarkable for me, allowed little or nothing of consequence
12 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

to happen to my father, who had few cruiks in his lot; at
least I never learned, either from him or any other body, of
any adventures likely seriously to interest the world at large.
I have heard tell, indeed, that he once got a terrible fright
by taking the bounty, during the American war, from an
Eirish corporal, of the name of Dochart O’Flaucherty, at
Dalkeith Fair, when he was at his prenticeship: he, not
being accustomed to malt - liquor, having got fouish and
frisky—which was not his natural disposition—over a half
a bottle of porter. From this it will easily be seen, in the
first place, that it would be with a fight that his master
would get him off, by obliging the corporal to take back the
trepan money ; in the second place, how long a date back
it is since the Eirish began to be the death of us; and, in
conclusion, that my honoured faither got such a fleg, as to
spain him effectually, for the space of ten years, from every
drinkable stronger than good spring well-water. Let the un-
wary take caution; and may this be a wholesome lesson to
all whom it may concern.

In this family history it becomes me, as an honest man, to
make passing mention of my father’s sister, auntie Mysie,
that married a carpenter and undertaker in the town of
Jedburgh ; and who, in the course of nature and industry,
came to be in a prosperous and thriving way; indeed, so
much so, as to be raised from the rank of a private head of a
family; and at last elected, by a majority of two votes over
a famous cow-doctor, a member of the town council itself.

There is a good story, howsoever, connected with this
business, with which I shall make myself free to wind up
this somewhat fusty and fushionless chapter.

Well, ye see, some great lord,—I forget his name, but no
matter,—that had made a most tremendous sum of money,
either by foul or fair means, among the blacks in the East
Indies, had returned, before he died, to lay his bones at
home, as yellow as a Limerick glove, and as rich as Dives
in the New Testament. THe kept flunkies with plush small-
clothes and sky-blue coats with scarlet-velvet cuffs and col-
lars,—lived like a princie, and settled, as I said before, in the
neighbourhood of Jedburgh.

The body, though as brown as a toad’s back, was as pride-
ful and full of power as old King Nebuchadneisher; and
MY OWN FATHER. 13

how to exhibit all his purple and fine linen, he aye thought
and better thought, till at last the happy determination
came over his mind like a flash of lightning, to invite the
bailies, deacons, and town council, all in a body, to come
and dine with lim.

Save us! what a brushing of coats, such a switching of
stoury trowsers, and bleaching of white cotton stockings, as
took place before the catastrophe of the feast, never before
happened since Jeddart was a burgh. Some of them that
were forward and geyan bold in the spirit, crowed aloud for
joy, at being able to boast that they had received an invita-
tion letter to dine with a great lord ; while others as proud
as peacocks of the honour, yet not very sure as to their being
up to the trade of behaving themselves at the tables of the
great, were mostly dung stupid with not knowing what to
think. A council meeting or two was held in the gloamings,
to take such a serious business into consideration ; some ex-
pressing their fears and inward down-sinking, while others
cheered them up with a fillip of pleasant consolation.
Scarcely a word of the matter for which they were sum-
moned together by the town-officer—and which was about
the mending of the old bell-rope—was discussed by any of
them. So after a sowd of toddy was swallowed, with the
hopes of making them brave men, and good soldiers of the
magistracy, they all plucked up a proud spirit, and do or
die, determined to march in a body up to the gate, and for-
ward to the table of his lordship.

My uncle, who had been one of the ringleaders of the
chicken-hearted, crap away up among the rest, with his new
blue coat on, shining fresh from the ironing of the goose,
but keeping well among the thick, to be as little kenspeckle
as possible ; for all the folk of the town were at their doors
and windows to witness the great occasion of the town
council going away up like gentlemen of rank to take their
dinner with his lordship. That it was a terrible trial to all
cannot be for a moment denied; yet some of them behaved
themselves decently ; and, if we confess that others trembled
in the knees, as if they were marching to a field of battle,
it was all in the course of human nature.

Yet ye would wonder how they came on by degrees ; and,
to cut a long tale short, at length found themselves in a
14 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

great big room, like a palace in a fairy tale, full of grand
pictures with gold frames, and looking-glasses like the side
of a house, where they could see down to their very shoes.
For a while they were like men in a dream, perfectly dazzled
and dumfoundered ; and it was five minutes before they
could either see a seat, or think of sitting down. With the
reflection of the looking-glasses, one of the bailies was so
possessed within himself, that he tried to chair himself where
chair was none, and landed, not very softly, on the carpet ;
while another of the deacons, a fat and dumpy man, as he
was trying to make a bow, and throw out his leg behind
him, stramped on a favourite Newfoundland dog’s tail, that,
wakening out of its slumbers with a yell that made the roof
ring, played drive against my uncle, who was standing abaft,
and wheeled him like a butterfly, side foremost, against a
table with a heap of flowers on it, where, in trying to kep
himself, he drove his head, like a battering-ram, through a
looking-glass, and bleached back on his hands and feet on
the carpet.

Seeing what had happened, they were all frightened; but
his lordship, after laughing heartily, was politer, and knew
better about manners than all that; so, bidding the fiunkies
hurry away with the fragments of the china jugs and jars,
they found themselves, sweating with terror and vexation,
ranged along silk settees, cracking about the weather and
other wonderfuls.

Such a dinner! the fume of it went round about their
hearts like myrrh and frankincense. The landlord took the
head of the table, the bailies the right and left of him; the
deacons and councillors were ranged along the sides, like
files of soldiers ; and the chaplain at the foot said grace. It
is entirely out of the power of man to set down on paper all
that they got to eat and drink; and such was the effect of
French cookery, that they did not know fish from flesh.
Howsoever, for all that, they laid their lugs in everything
that lay before them, and what they could not eat with forks
they supped with spoons ; so it was all to one purpose.

When the dishes were removing, each had a large blue
glass bowl full of water, and a clean calendered damask
towel, put down by a smart flunkie before him; and many
of them that had not helped themselves well to the wine,
MY OWN FATHER. 15

while they were eating their steaks and French frigassees,
were now vexed to death on that score, imagining that
nothing remained for them but to dight their nebs and
flee up.

Ignorant folk should not judge rashly, and the worthy
town council were here in error; for their surmises, however
feasible, did the landlord wrong. In a minute they had fresh
wine decanters ranged down before them, filled with liquors
of all variety of colours, red, green, and blue; and the table
was covered with dishes full of jargonelles and pippins,
raisins and almonds, shell-walnuts and plumdamases, with
nut-crackers, and everything else they could think of eat-
ing; so that, after drinking “The King, and long life to
him,” and “The constitution of the country at home and
abroad,” and “Success to trade,” and “A good harvest,” and
“May ne’er waur be among us,” and “Botheration to the
French,” and “Corny toes and short shoes to the foes of old
Scotland,” and so on, their tongues began at length not to
be so tacked ; and the weight of their own dignity, that had
taken flight before his lordship, came back and rested on
their shoulders.

In the course of the evening, his lordship whispered to
one of the flunkies to bring in some things—they could not
hear what—as the company might like them. The wise
ones thought within themselves that the best aye comes hind-
most; so in brushed a powdered valet, with three dishes on
his arm of twisted black things, just like sticks of Gibraltar-
rock, but different inthe colour.

Bailie Bowie helped himself to a jargonelle, and Deacon
Purves to a wheen raisins; and my uncle, to show that he
was not frighted, and knew what he was about, helped him-
self to one of the long black things, which, without much
ceremony, he shoved into his mouth and began to. Two or
three more, seeing that my uncle was up to trap, followed
his example, and chewed away like nine-year-olds.

Instead of the curious-looking black thing being sweet
as honey—for so they expected—they soon found they had
catched a Tartar; for it had a confounded bitter tobacco-
taste. Manners, however, forbade them laying it down
again, more especially as his lordship, like a man dumfoun-
dered, was aye keeping his eye on them, So away they
16 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

chewed, and better ghewed, and whammelled them round
in their mouths, first in one cheek, and then in the other,
taking now and then a mouthful of drink to wash the trash
down, then chewing away again, and syne another whammel
from one cheek to the other, and syne another mouthful,
while the whole time their eyes were staring in their heads
like mad, and the faces they made may be imagined, but
cannot be described. His lordship gave his eyes a rub, and
thought he was dreaming ; but no—there they were bodily,
chewing, and whammelling, and making faces; so no wonder
that, in keeping in his laugh, he sprung a button from his
waistcoat, and was like to drop down from his chair, through
the floor, in an ecstasy of astonishment, seeing they were all
growing sea-sick, and pale as stucco images.

Frightened out of his wits at last that he would be the
death of the whole council, and that more of them would
poison themselves, he took up one of the segars—every one
knows segars now, for they are fashionable among the very
sweeps—which he lighted at the candle, and commenced
puffing like a tobacco-pipe.

My uncle and the rest, if they were ill before, were worse
now ; so when they got to the open air, instead of growing
better, they grew sicker and sicker, till they were waggling
from side to side like ships in a storm; and, not knowing
whether their heels or heads were uppermost, went spinning
round about like pieries.

“A little spark may make muckle wark.” It is perfectly
wonderful what great events spring out of trifles, or what
seem to common eyes but trifles. I do not allude to the
nine days’ deadly sickness, that was the legacy of every one
that ate his segar, but to the awful truth, that, at the next
election of councillors, my poor uncle Jamie was completely
blackballed—a general spite having been taken to him in
the town-hall, on account of having led the magistracy
wrong, by doing what he ought to have let alone, thereby
making himself and the rest a topic of amusement to the
world at large, for many and many a month.

Others, to be sure, it becomes me to make mention, have
another version of the story, and impute the cause of his
having been turned out to the implacable wrath of old
Bailie Bogie, whose best black coat, square in the tails, that
COMING INTO THE WORLD. 17

he had worn only on the Sundays for nine years, was totally
spoiled, on their way home in the dark from his lordship’s,
by a tremendous blash, that my unfortunate uncle happened,
in the course of nature, to let flee in the frenzy of a deadly
upthrowing.

CHAPTER III.
COMING INTO THE WORLD.

“«______ At first the babe
Was sickly; and a smile was seen to pass
Across the midwife’s cheek, when, holding up
The feeble wretch, she to the father said,
‘A fine man-child!’ What else could they expect?
The father being, as I said before,
A weaver.”—Hoaa’s Poetic Mirror.

T have no distinct recollection of the thing myself, yet there
is every reason to believe that I was born on the 15th of
October 1765, in that little house standing by itself, not
many yards from the eastmost side of the Flesh-Market
Gate, Dalkeith. My eyes opened on the light about two
oclock in a dark and rainy morning. Long was it spoken
about that something great and mysterious would happen
on that dreary night; as the cat, after washing her face,
went mewing about, with her tail sweeing behind her like a
ramrod; and a corbie, from the Duke’s woods, tumbled down
Jamie Elder’s lum, when he had set the little still agoing
—giving them a terrible fright, as they all took it first for
the devil, and then for an exciseman—and fell with a great
cloud of soot, and a loud skraigh, into the empty kail-pot.

The first thing that I have any clear memory of, was my
being carried out on my auntie’s shoulder, with a leather
cap tied under my chin, to see the Fair Race. Oh! but it
was a grand sight! Ihave read since then the story of
Aladdin’s Wonderful Lamp, but this beat it all to sticks.
There was a long row of tables covered with carpets of
bonny patterns, heaped from one end to the other with
shoes of every kind and size, some with polished soles, and
some glittering with sparribles and cuddy-heels; and little

B
18 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

red worsted boots for bairns, with blue and white edgings,
hanging like strings of flowers up the posts at each end ;—
and then what a collection of luggies! the whole meal in
the market-sacks on a Thursday did not seem able to fill
them ;—and horn-spoons, green and black freckled, with
shanks clear as amber,—and timber caups,—and ivory egg-
cups of every pattern. Have a care of us! all the eggs in
Smeaton dairy might have found resting-places for their
doups ina row. As for the gingerbread, I shall not attempt
a description. Sixpenny and shilling cakes, in paper, tied
with skinie; and roundabouts, and snaps, brown and white
quality, and parliaments, on stands covered with calendered
linen, clean from the fold. To pass it was just impossible ;
it set my teeth a-watering, and I skirled like mad, until I
had a gilded lady thrust into my little nieve; the which,
after admiring for a minute, I applied my teeth to, and of
the head I made no bones; so that in less than no time she
had vanished, petticoats and all, no trace of her being to the
fore, save and except long treacly daubs, extending east and
west from ear to ear, and north and south from cape neb of
the nose to the extremity of beardy-land.

But what, of all things, attracted my attention on that
memorable day, was the show of cows, sheep, and horses,
mooing, baaing, and neighering; and the race—that was
best! Od, what a sight !—we were jammed in the crowd
of old wives, with their toys and shining ribands; and
carter lads, with their blue bonnets; and young wenches,
carrying home their fairings in napkins, as muckle as would
hold their teeth going for a month ;—there scarcely could be
much for love, when there was so much for the stomach ;—
and men, with wooden legs, and brass virls at the end of
them, playing on the fiddle,—and a bear that roared, and
danced on its hind-feet, with a muzzled mouth,—and Punch
and Polly,—and puppie-shows, and more than I can tell,—
when up came the horses to the starting-post. I shall never
forget the bonny dresses of the riders. One had a napkin tied
round his head, with the flaps. fleeing at his neck; and his
coat-tails were curled up into a big hump behind ; it was so
tight buttoned ye would not think he could have breathed.
His corduroy trowsers (suchlike as I have often since made
to growing callants) were tied round his ankles with a
CALF-LOVE. 19

string; and he had a rusty spur on one shoe, which I saw
aman take off to lend him. Save us! how he pulled the
beast’s head by the bridle, and flapped up and down on the
saddle when he tried a canter! The second one had on a
black velvet hunting-cap, and his coat stripped. I wonder
he was not feared of cold, his shirt being like a riddle, and
his nether nankeens but thin for such weather; but he was
a brave lad; and sorry were the folks for him, when he
fell off in taking over sharp a turn, by which old Pullen, the
bell-ringer, who was holding the post, was made to coup the
creels, and got a bloody nose.—And but the last was a weary-
ful one! He was all life, and as gleg as an eel. Up and
down he went; and up and down philandered the beast on
its hind-legs and its fore-legs, funking like mad ; yet though
he was not above thirteen, or fourteen at most, he did not
cry out for help more than five or six times, but grippit
at the mane with one hand, and at the back of the saddle
with the other, till daft Robie, the hostler at the stables,
claught hold of the beast by the head, and off they set.
The young birkie had neither hat nor shoon, but he did not
spare the stick ; round and round they flew like mad. Ye
would have thought their eyes would have loupen out; and
loudly all the crowd were hurraing, when young hatless
came up foremost, standing in the stirrups, the long stick
between his teeth, and his white hair fleeing behind him in
the wind like streamers on a frosty night.

CHAPTER IV.
CALF-LOVE.
‘* Bonny lassie, will ye go, will ye go, will ye go,

Bonny lassie, will ye go to the Birks of Aberfeldy ?”—Burns.

“ For a tailor is a man, a man, a man,
And a tailor is a man.”—Popular Heroic Song.

The long and the short is, that I was sent to school, where
T learned to read and spell, making great progress in the
Single and Mother’s Carritch, No, what is more, few could
20 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

fickle me in the Bible, being mostly able to spell it all over,
save the second of Ezra and the seventh of Nehemiah, which
the Dominie himself could never read through twice in the
same way, or without variations.

My father, to whom I was born, like Isaac to Abraham, in
his old age, was an elder in the Relief Kirk, respected by all
for his canny and douce behaviour, and, as I have observed
before, a weaver to his trade. The cot and the kailyard
were his own, and had been auld granfaither’s; but still he
had to ply the shuttle from Monday to Saturday, to keep all
right and tight. The thrums were a perquisite of my own,
which I niffered with the gundy-wife for Gibraltar-rock, cut-
throat, gib, or bull’s-eyes.

Having come into the world before my time, and being of
a pale face and delicate make, Nature never could have in-
tended me for the naval or military line, or for any robust-
ious trade or profession whatsoever. No, no, I never liked
fighting in my life; peace was aye in my thoughts. When
there was any riot in the streets, I fled, and scougged myself
at the chimley-lug as quickly as I dowed; and, rather than
double a nieve to a schoolfellow, I pocketed many shabby
epithets, got my paiks, and took the coucher’s blow from
laddies that could hardly reach up to my waistband.

Just after I was put to my prenticeship, having made free
choice of the tailoring trade, I had a terrible stound of calf-
love. Never shall I forget it. I was growing up, long and
lank as a willow-wand. Brawns to my legs there were none,
as my trowsers of other years too visibly effected to show.
The long yellow hair hung down, like a flax-wig, the length
of my lantern jaws, which looked, notwithstanding my yap-
ness and stiff appetite, as if eating and they had broken up
acquaintanceship. My blue jacket seemed in the slgeves to
have picked a quarrel with the wrists, and had retreated to
a tait below the elbows. The haunch-buttons, on the con-
trary, appeared to have taken a strong liking to the shoulders,
a little below which they showed their tarnished brightness.
At the middle of the back the tails terminated, leaving the
well-worn rear of my corduroys, like a full moon seen
through a dark haze. Oh, but I must have been a bonny
lad!

My first flame was the minister's lassic, Jess, a buxom and
CALF-LOVE. 21

forward quean, two or three years older than myself. I used
to sit looking at her in the kirk, and felt a droll confusion
when our eyes met. It dirled through my heart like a dart,
and I looked down at my psalm-book sheepish and blushing.
Fain would I have spoken to her, but it would not do; my
courage aye failed me at the pinch, though she whiles gave
mea smile when she passed me. She used to go to the well
every night with her two stoups, to draw water after the
manner of the Israelites at gloaming ; so I thought of watch-
ing to give her the two apples which I carried in my pocket
for more than a week for that purpose. How she started
when I stappit them into her hand, and brushed by without
speaking! I stood at the bottom of the close listening, and
heard her laughing till she was like to split. My heart flap-
flappit in my breast like a pair of fanners. It was a moment
of heavenly hope; but I saw Jamie Coom, the blacksmith,
who I aye jealoused was my rival, coming down to the well.
I saw her give him one of the apples; and hearing him say,
with a loud guffaw, “Where is the tailor?” I took to my
heels, and never stopped till I found myself on the little
stool by the fireside, and the hamely sound of my mother’s
wheel bum-bumming in my lug, like a gentle lullaby.

Every noise I heard flustered me, but I calmed in time,
though I went to my bed without my supper. When I was
driving out the gaislings to the grass on the next morn, who
was it my ill fate to meet but the blacksmith. “Ou, Mansie,”
said Jamie Coom, “are ye gaun to take me for your best-man ?
I hear you are to be cried in the kirk on Sunday ?”

“Me!” answered I, shaking and staring.

“Yes!” said he; “Jess the minister’s maid told me last
night that you had been giving up your name at the manse.
Ay, it’s ower true—for she showed me the apples ye gied her
in a present. This is a bonny story, Mansie, my man, and
you only at your prenticeship yet.”

Terror and despair had struck me dumb. I stood as still
and as stiff as a web of buckrum. My tongue was tied, and I
could not contradict him. Jamie folded his arms, and went
away whistling, turning every now and then his sooty face
over his shoulder, and mostly sticking his tune, as he could
not keep his mouth screwed for laughing. What would I
not have given to have laughed too!
22 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

There was no time to be lost: this was the Saturday. The
next rising sun would shine on the Sabbath. Ah, what a
case I was in! I could mostly have drowned myself, had
I not been frighted. What could Ido? My love had van-
ished like lightning ; but oh, I was in a terrible gliff! In-
stead of gundy, I sold my thrums to Mrs Walnut for a penny,
with which I bought at the counter a sheet of paper and a
pen; so that in the afternoon I wrote out a letter to the
minister, telling him what I had been given to hear, and
begging him, for the sake of mercy, not to believe Jess’s
word, as I was not able to keep a wife, and as she was a

leeing gipsy.

CHAPTER V.

CURSECOWL.

“ From his red poll a redder cowl hung down ;-
His jacket, if through grease we guess, was brown;
A vigorous scamp, some forty summers old;
Rough Shetland stockings up his thighs were roll’d;
While at his side horn-handled steels and knives
Gleamed from his pouch, and thirsted for sheeps’ lives.”
—O'DoHERTY’s Miscellanea Classica.

But, losh me! I have come on too far already, before
mentioning a wonderful thing that happened to me when
I was only seven years old. Few things in my eventful life
have made a deeper impression on me than what I am going
to relate.

It was the custom, in those times, for the different schools
to have cock-fighting on Fastern’s E’en; and the victor, as
he was called, treated the other scholars to a football.
Many a dust have I seen rise out of that business—broken
shins and broken heads, sore bones and sound duckings—
but this was none of these. 3

Our next neighbour was a flesher; and right before the
window was a large stone, on which old wives with their
weans would sometimes take a rest; so what does I, when
I saw the whole hobble-shaw coming fleeing down the street,
CURSECOWL. 23

with the kick-ba at their noses, but up I speels upon the
stone (I was a wee chap with a daidley, a ruffled shirt,
and leather cap edged with rabbit fur) that I might see all
the fun. This one fell, and that one fell, and a third was
knocked over, and a fourth got a bloody nose: and so on;
and there was such a noise and din, as would have deaved
the workmen of Babel — when, lo! and behold! the ball
played bounce mostly at my feet, and the whole mob after
it. I thought I should have been dung to pieces; so I
pressed myself back with all my might, and through went
my elbow into Cursecowl’s kitchen. It did not stick long
there. Before you could say Jack Robison, out flew the
flesher in his killing-clothes ; his face was as red as fire, and
he had his pouch full of bloody knives buckled to his side.
I skreighed out in his face when I looked at him, but he did
not stop a moment for that. With a girn that was like to
tive his mouth, he twisted his nieve in the back of my hair,
and off with me hanging by the cuff of the neck, like a
kittling. My eyes were like to loup out of my head, but
Thad no breath to cry. I heard him thraw the key, for I
could not look down, the skin of my face was pulled so
tight ; and in he flang me like a pair of old boots into his
booth, where I landed on my knees upon a raw bloody calf’s
skin. I thought I would have gone out of my wits, when I
heard the door locked upon me, and looked round me in such
an unearthly place. It had only one sparred window, and
there was a garden behind, but how was I to get out? I
danced round and round about, stamping my heels on the
floor, and rubbing my begritten face with my coat sleeve.
To make matters worse, it was wearing to the darkening.
The floor was all covered with lappered blood, and sheep
and calf skins. The calves and the sheep themselves, with
their cuttit throats, and glazed een, and ghastly girning
faces, were hanging about on pins, heels uppermost. Losh
me! I thought on Bluebeard and his wives in the bloody
chamber ! ;

And all the time it was growing darker and darker, and
more dreary; and all was as quiet as death itself. It looked,
by all the world, like a grave, and me buried alive within
it; till the rottens came out of their holes to lick the blood,
and whisked about like wee evil spirits. I thought on my
24 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

father and my mother, and how I should never see them
more; for I was sure that Cursecowl would come in the
dark, tie my hands and feet thegither; and lay me across
the killing-stool. I grew more and more frightened ; and it
grew more and more dark. I thought all the sheep-heads
were looking at one another, and then girn-girning at me.
At last I grew desperate; and my hair was as stiff as wire,
though it was as wet as if I had been douking in the Esk.
I began to bite through the wooden spars with my teeth, and
rugged at them with my nails, till they were like to come
off—but no, it would not do. At length, when I had greeted
myself mostly blind, and cried till I was as hoarse as a cor-
bie, I saw auld Janet Hoge taking in her bit washing from
the bushes, and I reeled and screamed till she heard me—
It was like being transported into heaven ; for, in less than
no time, my mother, with her apron at her eyes, was at the
door; and Cursecowl, with a candle in the front of his hat,
had scarcely thrawn the key, when out I flew; and she lifted
up her foot (I daresay it was the first and last time in her life,
for she was a douce woman), and gave him such a kick and
a push, that he played bleach over, head foremost, without
being able to recover himself; and, as we ran down the close,
we heard him cursing and swearing in the dark, like a devil
incarnate.

CHAPTER VI.

PUSHING MY FORTUNE.

“Oh, love, love, lassie,
Love is like a dizziness ;
It winna let a puir body
Gang about their business.”
—JaMES Hoaa.

The days of the years of my prenticeship having glided
cannily over on the working-board of my respected maister,
James Hosey, where I sat sewing cross-legged like a busy
bee, in the true spirit of industrious contentment, I found
PUSHING MY FORTUNE. 25

myself, at the end of the seven year, so well instructed in
the tailoring trade, to which I had paid a near-sighted atten-
tion, that, without more ado, I girt myself round about
with a proud determination of at once cutting my mother’s
apron string, and venturing to go without a hold. Thinks I
to myself, “faint heart never won fair lady;” so, taking my
stick in my hand, I set out towards Edinburgh, as brave as
a Highlander, in search of a journeyman’s place. When I
think how many have been out of bread, month after month,
making vain application at the house of call, I may set it
down to an especial Providence that I found a place, on the
very first day, to my heart’s content, in by at the Grass-
market, where I stayed for the space of six calendar months.

Had it not been from a real sense of the duty I owed to
my future employers, whomsoever they might be, in making
myself a first-rate hand in the cutting, shaping, and sewing
line, I would not have found courage in my breast to have
helped me out through such a long and dreary time. The
change from our own town, where every face was friendly, and
where I could ken every man I saw, by the cut of his coat,
at half a mile’s distance, to the bum and bustle of the High
Street, the tremendous cannons of the Castle, packed full of
soldiers ready for war, and the filthy, ill-smelling abomina-
tions of the Cowgate, where I put up, was almost more than
could be tholed by man of woman born. My lodging was
up six pair of stairs, in a room of Widow Randie’s, which I
rented for half-a-crown a week, coals included; and many
a time, after putting out my candle, before stepping into my
bed, I used to look out at the window, where I could see
thousands and thousands of lamps, spreading for miles
adown streets and through squares, where I did not know a
living soul; and dreeing the awful and insignificant sense
of being a lonely stranger in a foreign land. Then would
the memory of past days return to me; yet I had the same
trust in Heaven as I had before, seeing that they were the
dividual stars above my head which I used to glour up at in
wonder at Dalkeith—pleasant Dalkeith ! ay, how different,
with its bonny river Esk, its gardens full of gooseberry
bushes and pear-trees, its grass parks spotted with sheep,
and its grand green woods, from the bullying blackguards,
the comfortless reek, and the nasty gutters of the Netherbow.
26 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

To those, nevertheless, that take the world as they find
it, there are pleasures in all situations; nor was mine, bad
though I allow it to be, entirely destitute of them ; for our
work-room being at the top of the stairs, and the light of
heaven coming down through skylights, three in number,
we could, by putting out our heads, have a vizzy of the
grand ancient building of George Heriot’s Hospital, with the
crowds of young laddies playing through the grass parks,
with their bit brown coaties, and shining leather caps, like
a wheen puddocks; and all the sweet country out by Bar-
rowmuirhead, and thereaway; together with the Corstor-
phine Hills—and the Braid Hills—and the Pentland Hills
—and all the rest of the hills, covered here and there with
tufts of blooming whins, as yellow as the beaten gold—
spotted round about their bottoms with green trees, and
growing corn, but with tops as bare as a gaberlunzie’s coat
—kepping the rowling clouds on their awful shoulders on
cold and misty days; and freckled over with the flowers of
the purple heather, on which the shy moorfowl take a delight
to fatten and fill their craps, through the cosy months of
the blythe summer time.

Let nobody take it amiss, yet I must bear witness to the
truth, though the devil should have me. My heart was sea-
sick of Edinburgh folk and town manners, for the which I
had no stomach. I could form no friendly acquaintanceship
with a living soul; so I abode by myself, like St John in
the Isle of Patmos, on spare allowance, making a sheep-head
serve me for three days’ kitchen. I longed like a sailor that
has been far at sea, and wasted and weatherbeaten, to see
once more my native home ; and, bundling up, flee from the
noisy stramash to the loun dykeside of domestic privacy.
Everything around me seemed to smell of sin and pollu-
tion, like the garments of the Egyptians with the ten
plagues ; and often, after I took off my clothes to lie down
in my bed, when the watchmen that guarded us through the
night in blue dreadnoughts with red necks, and battons, and
horn-bouets, from thieves, murderers, and pickpockets, were
bawling, “ Half-past ten o’clock,” did I commune with my
own heart, and think within myself that I would rather be
a sober, poor, honest man in the country, able to clear my
day and way by the help of Providence, than the Provost
PUSHING MY FORTUNE. 27

himself, my lord though he be, or even the Mayor of
London, with his velvet gown trailing for yards in the
glaur behind him—do what he likes to keep it up; or
riding about the streets—as Joey Smith the Yorkshire
jockey, to whom I made a hunting-cap, told me—in a coach
made of clear crystal, and wheels of the beaten gold.

It was an awful business; dog on it, I aye wonder yet
how I got through with it. There was no rest for soul or
body by night or day, with police-officers crying, “One
o'clock, an’ a frosty morning,” knocking Eirishmen’s teeth
down their throats with their battons, hauling limmers by
the lug and horn into the lock-up-house, or over by to
Bridewell, where they were set to beat hemp for a small
wage, and got their heads shaved; with carters bawling,
“Ye yo, yellow sand, yellow sand,” with mouths as wide
as a barn-door, and voices that made the drums of your
ears dirl, and ring again like mad; with fishwives from
Newhaven, Cockenzie, and Fisherrow, skirling, “Roug-a-
rug, warstling herring,” as if every one was trying to drown
out her neighbour, till the very landladies, at the top of the
seventeen storey houses, could hear, if they liked to be fashed,
and might come down at their leisure to buy them at three
for a penny; men from Barnton, and thereaway on the
Queensferry Road, halloing, “Sour douk, sour douk ;” tink-
lers skirmishing the edges of brown plates they were trying
to make the old wives buy—and what not. To me it wasa
real hell wpon earth.

Never let us repine, howsomever, but consider that all is
ordered for the best. The sons of the patriarch Jacob found
out their brother Joseph in a foreign land, and where they
least expected it ; so it was here—even here, where my heart
was sickening unto death, from my daily and nightly
thoughts being as bitter as gall—that I fell in with the
greatest blessing of my life, Nanse Cromie !

In the flat below our workshop lived Mrs Whitteraick, the
wife of Mr Whitteraick, a dealer in hens and hams in the
poultry market, that had been fallen in with, when her
gudeman was riding out on his bit sheltie in the Lauder
direction, bargaining with the farmers for their ducks,
chickens, gaislings, geese, turkey-pouts, howtowdies, guinea-
hens, and other barn-door fowls; and, among his other calls,
28 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

having happened to make a transaction with her father,
anent some Anchovy-ducks, he, by a warm invitation, was
kindly pressed to remain for the night.

The upshot of the business was, that, on mounting his
pony to make the best of his way home, next morning after
breakfast, Maister Whitteraick found he was shot through
the heart with a stound of love; and that, unless a suitable
remedy could be got, there was no hope for him on this side
of time, let alone blowing out his brains, or standing before
the minister. Right it was in him to run the risk of decid-
ing on the last; and so well did he play his game, that, in
two months from that date, after sending sundry presents on
his part to the family, of smeaked hams and salt tongues—
acknowledged on theirs, by return of carrier, in the shape of
sucking pigs, jargonelle pears, skim-milk cheeses, and such-
like—matters were soldered ; and Miss Jeanie Learig, made
into Mrs Whitteraick by the blessing of Dr Blether, rode
away into Edinburgh in a post-chaise, with a brown and a
black horse, one blind, and the other lame, seated cheek-by-
jowl with her loving spouse, who, doubtless, was busked out
in his best, with a Manchester superfine blue coat, and
double gilt buttons, a waterproof hat, silk stockings, with
open-steek gushats, and bright yellow shamoy gloves.

A stranger among strangers, and not knowing how she
might thole the company and conversation of town-life, Mrs
Whitteraick, that was to be, hired a bit wench of a lassie
from the neighbourhood, that was to follow her, come the
term. And who think ye should this lassie be, but Nanse
Cromie — afterwards, in the course of a kind Providence,
the honoured wife of my bosom, and the mother of bonny
Benjie.

In going up and down the stairs—it being a common
entry, ye observe—me maybe going down with my everyday
hat on to my dinner, and she coming up, carrying a stoup of
water, or half-a-pound of pouthered butter on a plate, with
a piece paper thrown over it—we frequently met half-way,
and had to stand still to let one another pass. Nothing
came out of these forgatherings, howsomever, for a month
or two, she being as shy and modest as she was bonny, with
her clean demity short gown, and snow - white morning
mutch, to say nothing of her cherry mouth, and her glanc-
PUSHING MY FORTUNE. 29

ing eyes; and me unco douffie in making up to strangers.
We could not help, nevertheless, to take aye a stolen look
of each other in passing ; and I was a gone man, bewitched
out of my seven senses, falling from my clothes, losing my
stomach, and over the lugs in love, three weeks and some
odd days before ever a single syllable passed between us.

Gude kens how long this Quaker - meeting - like silence
would have continued, had we not chanced to foregather
one gloaming ; and I, having gotten a dram from one of our
customers with a hump- back, at the Crosscausey, whose
fashionable new coat I had been out fitting on, found my-
self as brave as a Bengal tiger, and said to her, “This is
a fine day, I say, my dear Nancy.”

The ice being once broken, everything went on as
smoothly as ye like; so, in the long run, we went like
lightning from two-handed cracks on the stair-head, to
stown walks, after work-hours, out by the West Port, and
thereaway.

If ever a man loved, and loved like mad, it was me,
Mansie Wauch—and I take no shame in the confession; but,
knowing it all in the course of nature, declare it openly
and courageously in the face of the wide world. Let them
laugh who like; honest folk, 1 pity them; such know not
the pleasures of virtuous affection. It is not in corrupted,
sinful hearts that the fire of true love can ever burn clear.
Alas, and ohon orie! they lose the sweetest, completest,
dearest, truest pleasure that this world has in store for its
children. They know not the bliss to meet, that makes the
embrace of separation bitter. They never dreamed the
dreams that make wakening to the morning light unpleas-
ant. They never felt the raptures that can dirl like darts
through a man’s soul from a woman’s eye. They never
tasted the honey that dwells on a woman’s lip, sweeter than
yellow marygolds to the bee; or fretted under the fever of
bliss that glows through the frame in pressing the hand of a
suddenly met and fluttering sweetheart. But tuts-tuts—
hech-how ! my day has long since passed ; and this is stuff
to drop from the lips of an auld fool. Nevertheless, forgive
me, friends: I cannot help all-powerful nature.

Nanse’s taste being like my own, we amused one another
in abusing great cities, which are all chokeful of the abom-
30 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

inations of the Scarlet Woman ; and it is curious how soon
I learned to be up to trap—I mean in an honest way ; for,
when she said she was wearying the very heart out of her
to be home again to Lauder, which she said was her native,
and the true land of Goshen, I spoke back to her by way of
answer—“ Nancy, my dear, believe me that the real land of
Goshen is out at Dalkeith; and if ye’ll take up house with
me, and enter into a way of doing, I daursay in a while ye'll
come to think so too.”

What will ye say there? Matters were by - and - by
settled full tosh between us; and, though the means of
both parties were small, we were young, and able and
willing to help one another. Nanse, out of her wages, had
hained a trifle; and I had, safe lodged under lock-and-key
in the Bank of Scotland, against the time of my setting up,
the siller which was got by selling the bit house of gran-
faither’s, on the death of my ever-to-be-lamented mother,
who survived her helpmate only six months, leaving me an
orphan lad in a wicked world, obliged to fend, forage, and
look out for myself.

Taking matters into account, therefore, and considering
that it is not good for man to be alone, Nanse and me laid
our heads together towards the taking a bit house in the
fore-street of Dalkeith; and at our leisure kept a look-out
about buying the plenishing—the expense of which, for
different littles and littles, amounted to more than we ex-
pected; yet, to our hearts’ content, we made some most
famous second-hand bargains of sprechery, amongst the old-
furniture warehousemen of the Cowgate. I might put down
here the prices of the room-grate, the bachelor’s oven, the
cheese - toaster, and the warming-pan especially, which,
though it had a wheen holes in it, kept a fine polish; but,
somehow or other, have lost the receipt, and cannot make
true affidavy.

Certain it is, whatever cadgers may say to the contrary,
that the back is aye made for the burden; and, were all to
use the means, and be industrious, many, that wyte bad
harvests, and worse times, would have, like the miller in the
auld sang, “A penny in the purse for dinner and for supper,”
or better to finish the verse, “Gin ye please a guid fat cheese,
and lumps of yellow butter.”
PUSHING MY FORTUNE. 31

For two three days, I must confess, after Maister Wiggie
had gone through the ceremony of tying us together, and
Nanse and me found ourselves in the comfortable situation
of man and wife, I was a wee dowie and desponding, thinking
that we were to have a numerous small family, and where
trade was to come from; but no sooner was my sign nailed
up, with four iron holdfasts, by Johnny Hammer, painted
in black letters on a blue ground, with a picture of a jacket
on one side, and a pair of shears on the other,—and my shop-
door opened to the public, with a wheen ready-made waist-
coats, gallowses, leather-caps, and Kilmarnock cowls, hung
up at the window, than business flowed in upon us in a per-
fect torrent. First one came in for his measure, and then
another. A wife came in for a pair of red worsted boots for
her bairn, but would not take them for they had not blue
fringes. A bareheaded lassie, hoping to be hansel, threw
down twopence, and asked tape at three yards for a half-
penny. The minister sent an old black coat beneath his
maid’s arm, pinned up in a towl, to get docked in the tails
down into a jacket; which I trust I did to his entire satis-
faction, making it fit to a hair. The Duke’s butler himself
patronised me, by sending me a coat which was all hair-
powder and pomate, to get a new neck put to it. And James
Batter, aye a staunch friend of the family, despatched a bare-
foot cripple lassie down the close to me, with a brown paper
parcel tied with skinie, and having a memorandum letter
sewed on the top of it, and wafered with a wafer. It ran as
follows: “Maister Batter has sent down, per the bearer,
with his compliments to Mr Wauch, a cuttikin of corduroy,
deficient in the instep, which please let out, as required.
Maister Wauch will also please be so good as observe,
that three of the buttons have sprung the thorls, which he
will be obliged to him to replace, at his earliest convenience.
Please send me a message what that may be; and have che
account made out, article for article, and duly discharged,
that I may send down the bearer with the change; and to
bring me back the cuttikin and the account, to save time
and trouble. I am, dear sir, your most obedient friend, and
ever most sincerely, James Barrer.”

No wonder than we attracted customers, for our sign was
32 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

the prettiest ye ever saw, though the jacket was not just so
neatly painted, as for some sand-blind creatures not to take
it for a goose. I daresay there were fifty half-naked bairns
glowring their eyes out of their heads at it, from morning
till night ; and after they all were gone to their beds, both
Nanse and me found ourselves so proud of our new situation
in life, that we slipped out in the dark by ourselves, and
had a prime look at it with a lantern.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FOREWARNING.

“Thad a dream which was not all a dream.”—Brron.
“Coming events cast their shadows before.”—CAMPBELL.

On first commencing business, I have freely confessed; I
believe, that I was unco solicitous of custom, though less
from sinful, selfish motives, than from the, I trust, laudable
fear I had about becoming in a jiffy the father of a small
family, every one with a mouth to fill and a back to cleid—
helpless bairns, with nothing to look to or lean on, save and
except the proceeds of my daily handiwork. Nothing, how-
ever, is sure in this world, as Maister Wiggie more than
once took occasion to observe, when lecturing on the house
built by the foolish man on the sea-sands; for months
passed on, and better passed on; and these, added together
by simple addition, amounted to three years; and still
neither word nor wittens of a family, to perpetuate our
name to future generation, appeared to be forthcoming.

Between friends, I make no secret of the matter, that this
was a catastrophe which vexed me not a little, for more
reasons than one. In the first place, youngsters being a
bond of mutual affection between man and wife, sweeter
than honey from the comb, and stronger than the Roman
cement with which the old Picts built their bridges, that
will last till the day of doom. In the second place, bairns
toddling round a bit ingle make a house look like itself,
THE FOREWARNING. 33

especially in the winter time, when hailstanes rattle on the
window, and winds roar like the voices of mighty giants at
the lum-head ; for then the maister of the dwelling finds
himself like an ancient patriarch, and the shepherd of a
flock, tender as young lambs, yet pleasant to his eye, and
dear to his heart. And in the third place (for P’ll speak
the truth and shame the deil), as I could not thole the
gibes and idle tongues of a wheen fools, that, for their
diversion, would be asking me, “ How the wife and bairns
were; and if I had sent my auldest laddie to the school
yet?”

I have swithered within myself for more than half-an-
hour, whether I should relate a circumstance bordering a
little on the supernatural line, that happened to me, as con-
nected with the business of the bairns, of which I have just
been speaking ; and, were it for no other reason but just to
plague the scoffer that sits in his elbow-chair, I have deter-
mined to jot down the whole miraculous paraphernally in
black and white. With folk that will not listen to the
voice of reason, it is needless to be wasterful of words; so
them that like may either prin their faith to my coat-sleeve,
about what I am going to relate, or not—just as they choose.
All that I can say in my defence, and as an affidavy to my
veracity, is, that I have been thirty year an elder of Maister
Wiggie’s kirk—and that is no joke. The matter I make
free to consider is not a laughing concern, nor anything
belonging to the Merry-Andrew line ; and, if folk were but
strong in the faith, there is no saying what may come to
pass for their good. One might as well hold up their
brazen face, and pretend not to believe anything—neither
the Witch of Endor raising up Samuel; nor Cornel Gar-
diner’s vision; nor Johnny Wilkes and the De’il; nor
Peden’s prophecies.

Nanse and me aye made what they call an anniversary of
our wedding-day, which happened to be the fifth of Novem-
ber, the very same as that on which the Gunpowder Plot
chances to be occasionally held—Sundays excepted. Accord-
ing to custom, this being the fourth year, we collected a
good few friends to a tea-drinking; and had our cracks and
a glass or two of toddy. Thomas Burlings, if I mind, was
there, and his wife; and Deacon Paunch, he was a bachelor;

c
34 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

and likewise James Batter; and David Sawdust and his
wife, and their four bairns, good customers; and a wheen
more, that, without telling a lie, I could not venture to par-
ticularise at this moment, though maybe I may mind them
when I am not wanting—but no matter. Well, as I was
saying, after they all went away, and Nanse and me, after
locking the door, slipped to our bed, I had one of the most
miraculous dreams recorded in the history of man; more
especially if we take into consideration where, when, and
to whom it happened.

At first I thought I was sitting by the fireside, where the
cat and the kittling were playing with a mouse they had
catched in the meal-kit, cracking with James Batter on
check-reels for yarn, and the cleverest way of winding pirns,
when, all at once, I thought myself transplanted back to the
auld world—forgetting the tailoring trade; broad and nar-
row cloth ; worsted boots and Kilmarnock cowls; pleasant
Dalkeith ; our late yearly ploy; my kith and kindred ; the
friends of the people; the Duke’s parks; and so on—and
found myself walking beneath beautiful trees, from the
branches of which hung apples, and oranges, and cocky-nuts,
and figs, and raisins, and plumdamases, and corrydanders,
and more than the tongue of man can tell, while all the
birds and beasts seemed as tame as our bantings; in fact,
just as they were in the days of Adam and Eve—Bengal
tigers passing by on this hand, and Russian bears on that,
rowing themselves on the grass, out of fun; while peacocks,
and magpies, and parrots, and cockytoos, and yorlins, and
grey linties, and all birds of sweet voice and fair feather,
sported among the woods, as if they had nothing to do but
sit and sing in the sweet sunshine, having dread neither of
the net of the fowler, the double-barrelled gun of the game-
keeper, nor the laddies’ girn set with moolings of bread. It
was real paradise ; and I found myself fairly lifted off my
feet and transported out of my seven senses.

While sauntering about at my leisure, with my Sunday
hat on, and a pair of clean white cotton stockings, in this
heavenly mood under the green trees, and beside the still
waters, out of which beautiful salmon trouts were sporting
and leaping, methought in a moment I fell down in a trance,
as flat as a flounder, and I heard a voice visibly saying to
THE FOREWARNING. 35

me, “Thou shalt have a son; let him be christened Ben-
jamin!” The joy that this vision brought my spirit thrilled
through my bones, like the sounds of a blind man grinding
“Rule Britannia” out of an organ, and my senses vanished
from me into a kind of slumber, on rousing from which I
thought I found myself walking, all dressed, with powdered
hair, and a long tye behind, just like a grand gentleman,
with a valuable bamboo walking-stick in my hand, among
green yerbs and flowers, like an auncient hermit far away
among the hills, at the back of beyont ;—as if broad cloth
and buckram had never been heard tell of, and serge, twist,
pocket-linings, and shamoy leather were matters with which
mortal man had no concern.

Speak of auld-light or new-light as ye like, for my own
part I am not much taken up with any of your warlock and
wizard tribe; I have no brew of your auld Major Weir, or
Tam o’ Shanter, or Michael Scott, or Thomas the Rhymer’s
kind, knocking in pins behind doors to make decent folk
dance, jig, cut and shuffle themselves to death—splitting the
hills as ye would spelder a haddy, and playing all manner
of evil pranks, and sinful abominations, till their crafty
maister, Auld Nick, puts them to their mettle, by setting
them to twine ropes out of sea-sand, and such like. I like
none of your paternosters, and saying of prayers backwards,
or drawing lines with chalk round ye, before crying—

‘Redcowl, redcowl, come if ye daur ;
Lift the sneck, and draw the bar.”

I never in the whole course of my life was fond of lending
the sanction of my countenance to anything that was not
canny; and, even when I was a wee smout of a callant, with
my jacket and trowsers buttoned all in one, I never would
play, on Halloween night, at anything else but douking for
apples, burning nuts, pulling kail-runts, foul water and
clean, drapping the egg, or trying who was to be your
sweetheart out of the lucky bag.

As I have often thought, and sometimes taken occasion to
observe, it would be well for us all to profit by experience—
“burned bairns should dread the fire,” as the proverb goes.
After the miserable catastrophe of the playhouse, for in-
stance—which I shall afterwards have occasion to com-
36 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

memorate in due time, and in a subsequent chapter of my
eventful life—I would have been worse than mad had I
persisted, night after night, to pay my shilling for a veesy
of vagrants in buckram, and limmers in silk, parading away
at no allowance—as kings and queens, with their tale—
speaking havers that only fools have throats wide enough to
swallow, and giving themselves airs to which they have no
more earthly title than the man in the moon. I say nothing,
besides, of their throwing glamour in honest folks’ een ; but
T'll not deny that I have been told by them who would not
lie, and were living witnesses of the transaction, that, as
true as death, they had seen the tane of these ne’er-do-weels
spit the other, through and through, with a weel-sharpened,
old, Highland, forty-second Andrew Ferrary, in single com-
bat ; whereupon, as might reasonably be expected, he would,
in the twinkling of a farthing rushlight, fall down as dead
as a bag of sand; yet, by their ricktum-ticktum, rise-up-
Jack, sleight-of-hand, hocus-pocus way, would be on his legs,
brushing the stour from his breeches knees, before the green
curtain was half-way down. James Batter himself once told
me that, when he was a laddie, he saw one of these clan-
jamphrey go in behind the scenes with nankeen trowsers, a
blue coat out at the elbows, and fair hair hanging over his
ears, and in less than no time come out a real negro, as black
as Robinson Crusoe’s man Friday, with a jacket on his back
of Macgregor tartan, and as good a pair of buckskin breeches
as jockey ever mounted horse in at a Newmarket race.
Where the silk stockings were wrought, and the Jerusalem
sandals made, that he had on his feet, James Batter used
doucely to observe he would leave every reasonable man to
guess at a venture.

A good story not being the worse of being twice told, I
repeat it over again, that I would have been worse than
daft, after the precious warning it was my fortune to get,
to have sanctioned such places with my presence, in spite
of the remonstrances of my conscience—and of Maister
Wiggie—and of the Kirk-session. Whenever anything is
carried on out of the course of nature, especially when ac-
companied with dancing and singing, toot-tooing of clario-
nets, and bumming of bass-fiddles, ye may be as sure as you
are born that ye run a chance of being deluded out of your
THE FOREWARNING. 37

right senses—that the sounds are by way of lulling the soul
asleep—and that, to the certainty of a without-a-doubt, you
are in the heat and heart of one of the devil’s rendevooses.

To say no more, I was once myself, for example, at one
of our Dalkeith fairs, present in a hay-loft—I think they
charged threepence at the door, but let me in with a grudge
for twopence, but no matter—to see a punch and puppie-
show business, and other sleight-of-hand work. ‘Well, the
very moment I put my neb within the door, I was visibly
convinced of the smell of burnt roset, with which I under-
stand they make lightning, and knew, as well as maybe,
what they had been trafficking about with their black art ;
but, nevertheless, having a stout heart, I determined to sit
still, and see what they would make of it, knowing well
enough that, as long as I had the Psalm-book in my pocket,
they would be gey and clever to throw any of their blasted
cantrips over me.

What do you think they did? One of them, a wauf,
drucken-looking scoundrel, fired a gold ring over the win-
dow, and mostly set fire to the thatch house opposite—
which was not insured. Yet where think ye did the ring
go to? With my living een I saw it taken out of auld
Willie Turneep’s waistcoat pouch, who was sitting blind
fou, with his mouth open, on one of the back seats; so
by no earthly possibility could it have got there, except
by whizzing round the gable, and in through the steeked
door by the key-hole.

Folk may say what they chuse by way of apology, but I
neither like nor understand such on-going as changing
sterling silver half-crowns into copper penny- pieces, or
mending a man’s coat—as they did mine, after cutting a
blad out of one of the tails—by the black art.

But, hout-tout, one thing and another coming across me,
had almost clean made me forget explaining to the world
the upshot of my extraordinary vision; but better late
than never—and now for it.

Nanse, on finding herself in a certain way, was a thought
dumfoundered ; and instead of laughing, as she did at first,
when I told her my dream, she soon came to regard the
matter as one of sober earnest. The very prospect of what
was to happen threw a gleam of comfort round our bit fire-
38 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

side; and long ere the day had come about which was to
crown our expectations, Nanse was prepared with her bit
stock of baby’s wearing-apparel, and all necessaries apper-
taining thereto—wee little mutches with lace borders, and
side-knots of blue three-ha’penny ribbon —long muslin
frockies, vandyked across the breast, drawn round the waist
with narrow nittings, and tucked five rows about the tail
—Welsh flannel-petticoaties—demity wrappers—a coral gum-
stick, and other uncos, which it does not befit the like of
me to particularise. I trust, on my part, as far as in me
lay, I was not found wanting—having taken care to provide
a famous Dunlop cheese, at fivepence-halfpenny the pound
—I believe I paled fifteen, in Joseph Gowdy’s shop, before
I fixed on it ;—to say nothing of a bottle, or maybe two, of
real peat-reek, Farintosh, small-still Hieland whisky—
Glenlivat, I think, is the name o’t—half a peck of short-
bread, baken by Thomas Burlings, with three pounds of
butter, and two ounces of carvie-seeds in it, let alone orange-
peel, and a pennyworth of ground cinnamon—half a mutch-
kin of best cony brandy, by way of change—and a Mussel-
burgh ankerstoke, to slice down for tea-drinkings and posset
cups.

Every one has reason to be thankful, and me among the
rest; for many a worse provided for and less welcome
down-lying has taken place, time out of mind, throughout
broad Scotland. I say this with a warm heart, as I am
grateful for all my mercies. To hundreds above hundreds
such a catastrophe brings scarcely any joy at all; but it
was far different with me, who had a Benjamin to look
for.

If the reader will be so kind as to look over the next
chapter, he will find whether or not I was disappointed in
my expectations.
LETTING LODGINGS. 39

CHAPTER VIII.

LETTING LODGINGS.

‘« Then first he ate the white puddings,
And syne he ate the black, 0;
Though muckle thought the Gudewife to hersell,
Yet ne’er a word she spak, O.
But up then started our Gudeman,
And an angry man was he, 0.”—Old Song.

It would be curious if I passed over a remarkable incident
which at this time fell out. Being but new beginners in
the world, the wife and I put our heads constantly together
to contrive for our forward advancement, as it is the bounden
duty of all to do. So our housie being rather large (two
rooms and a kitchen, not speaking of a coal-cellar and a
hen-house), and having as yet only the expectation of a
family, we thought we could not do better than get John
Varnish the painter to do off a small ticket, with “A Fur-
nished Room to Let” on it, which we nailed out at the
window ; having collected into it the choicest of our fur-
niture, that it might fit a genteeler lodger and produce a
better rent. And a lodger soon we got.

Dog on it! I think I see him yet. He was a blackaviced
Englishman, with curled whiskers, and a powdered pow,
stout round the waistband, and fond of good eating, let
alone drinking, as we found to our cost. Well, he was our
first lodger. We sought a good price, that we might, on
bargaining, have the merit of coming down a tait; but no,
no—go away wi’ ye; it was dog-cheap to him. The half-
guinea a-week was judged perfectly moderate; but if all his
debts were yet I must not cut before the cloth.

Hang expenses! was the order of the day. Ham and
eggs for breakfast, let alone our currant jelly. Roast-.
mutton cold, and strong ale at twelve, by way of check, to
keep away wind from the stomach. Smoking roast-beef,
with scraped horse-radish, at four precisely; and toasted
cheese, punch, and porter, for supper. It would have been
less, had all the things been within ourselves. Nothing had
we but the cauler new-laid eggs; then there was Deacon

 
40 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUOH.

Heukbane’s butcher’s account; and John Cony’s spirit ac-
count ; and Thomas Burling’s bap account; and deevil kens
how many more accounts, that came all in upon us after-
wards. But the crowning of all was reserved for the end.
It was no farce at the time, and kept our heads down at the
water-edge for many a day. I was just driving the hot
goose along the seams of a Sunday jacket I was finishing
for Thomas Clod the ploughman, when the Englisher came
in at the shop door, whistling “Robin Adair,” and “Scots
wha ha’e wi’ Wallace bled,” and whiles, maybe, churming to
himself like a young blackbird ;—but I have not patience
to go through with it. The long and the short of the matter,
however, was, that after rummaging among my two or three
webs of broadcloth on the shelf, he pitched on a Manchester
blue, five quarters wide, marked CXD.XF, which is to say,
three-and-twenty shillings the yard. I told him it was im-
possible to make a pair of pantaloons to him in two hours;
but he insisted upon having them, alive or dead, as he had
to go down the same afternoon to dine with my Lord Duke,
no less. I convinced him that if.I was to sit up all night,
he could get them by five next morning, if that would do,
as I would also keep my laddie, Tammy Bodkin, out of his
bed; but no—I thought he would have jumped out of his
seven senses. “Just look,” he said, turning up the inside
seam of the leg—“ just see—can any gentleman make a visit
in such things as these ? they are as full of holes-as a coal-
sieve. I wonder the devil why my baggage has not come
forward. Can I get a horse and boy to ride express to Edin-
burgh for a ready-made article ?”

A thought struck me; for I had heard of wonderful ad-
vancement in the world for those who had been so lucky
as help the great at a pinch. “If ye'll no take it amiss,
sir,” said I, making my obedience, “a notion has just struck
me.”

“Well, what is it ?” said he, briskly.

“Well, sir, I have a pair of knee-breeches, of most famous
velveteen, double tweel, which have been only once on my
legs, and that no farther gone than last Sabbath. Im pretty
sure they would fit ye in the meantime; and I would just
take a pleasure in driving the needle all night to get your
own ready.”
LETTING LODGINGS. 4l

“A clever thought,” said the Englisher. “Do you think
they would fit me? Devilish clever thought, indeed.”

“To a hair,” I answered ; and cried to Nanse to bring the
velveteens,

I do not think he was ten minutes, when lo, and behold !
out at the door he went, and away past the shop-window
like a lamplighter. The buttons on the velveteens were
glittering like gold at the knees. Alas! it was like the
flash of the setting sun; I never beheld them more. He
was to have been back in two or three hours, but the laddie,
with the box on his shoulder, was going through the street
crying “ Hot penny-pies” for supper, and neither word nor
wittens of him. I began to be a thought uneasy, and
fidgeted on the board like a hen on a hot girdle. No man
should do anything when he is vexed, but I could not help
giving Tammy Bodkin, who was sewing away at the lining
of the new pantaloons, a terrible whisk in the lug for sing-
ing to himself. I say I was vexed for it afterwards; espe-
cially as the laddie did not mean to give offence; and as I
saw the blae marks of my four fingers along his chaft-blade.

The wife had been bothering me for a new gown on
strength of the payment of our grand bill; and in came
she, at this blessed moment of time, with about twenty
swatches from Simeon Calicoe’s, prinned on a screed of
paper. ‘ .

“Which of these do you think bonniest ?” said Nanse,
in a flattering way; “I ken, Mansie, you have a good
taste.”

“Cut not before the cloth,” answered I, “ eudewife,” with
a wise shake of my head, “It'll be time enough, I daresay,
to make your choice to-morrow.”

Nanse went out as if her nose had been blooding. I could
thole it no longer; so, buttoning my breeches-knees, I threw
my cowl into a corner, clapped my hat on my head, and
away down in full birr to the Duke’s gate.

I speired at the porter, if the gentleman with the velve-
teen breeches and powdered hair, that was dining with the
Duke, had come up the avenue yet ?

“Velveteen breeches and powdered hair!” said auld Paul,
laughing, and taking the pipe out of his cheek, “ whose butler
is’'t that ye’re after ?”
42 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“Well,” said I to him, “TI see it all as plain as a pikestaff.
He is off bodily ; but may the meat and the drink he has
taken off us be like drogs to his inside ; and may the velvet-
eens play crack, and cast the steeks at every step he takes!”
It was no Christian wish ; and Paul laughed till he was like
to burst, at my expense. “Gang your ways hame, Mansie,”
said he to me, clapping me on the shoulder as if I had been
a wean, “and give over setting traps, for ye see you have
catched a Tartar.”

This was too much; first to be cheated by a swindling
loon, and then made game of by a flunkie; and in my
desperation, I determined to do some awful thing.

Nanse followed me in from the door, and asked what
news? I was ower big and ower vexed to hear her; 50,
never letting on, I went to the little looking-glass on the
drawers’ head, and set it down on the table. Then I looked
myself in it for a moment, and made a gruesome face. Syne
I pulled out the little drawer, and got the sharping strap,
the which I fastened to my button. Syne I took my razor
from the box, and gave it five or six turns along first one
side and then the other, with great precision. Syne I tried
the edge of it along the flat of my hand. Syne I loosed my
neckcloth, and laid it over the back of the chair; and syne
I took out the button of my shirt-neck, and folded it back.
Nanse, who was all the time standing behind, looking what
I was after, asked me “if I was going to shave without hot
water?” when I said to her in a fierce and brave manner
(which was very cruel, considering the way she was in),
“Tl let you see that presently.” The razor looked des-
perate sharp; and I never liked the sight of blood; but
oh, I was in a terrible flurry and fermentation. A kind
of cold trembling went through me; and I thought it best
to tell Nanse what I was going to do, that she might be
something prepared for it. “Fare ye well, my dear!” said
I to her, “you will be a widow in five minutes—for here
goes!” Idid not think she could have mustered so much
courage, but she sprang at me like a tiger; and throwing
the razor into the ass-hole, took me round the neck, and
cried like a bairn. First she was seized with a fit of the
hystericks, and then with her pains. It was a serious time
for us both, and no joke; for my heart smote me for my sin
BENJIN’S CHRISTENING. 43

and cruelty. But I did my best to make up for it. I ran
up and down like mad for the howdie, and at last brought
her trotting along with me by the lug. I could not stand
it. I shut myself up in the shop with Tammy Bodkin, like
Daniel in the lions’ den; and every now and then opened
the door to speir what news. Oh, but my heart was like to
break with anxiety! I paced up and down, and to and fro,
with my Kilmarnock on my head, and my hands in my
breeches pockets, like a man out of Bedlam. I thought it
would never be over; but at the second hour of the morn-
ing, I heard a wee squeel, and knew that I was a father ;
and so proud was I, that notwithstanding our loss, Lucky
Bringthereout and me whanged away at the cheese and
bread, and drank so briskly at the whisky and foot-yill,
that when she tried to rise and go away, she could not stir
afoot. So Tammy and I had to oxter her out between us,
and deliver the howdie herself—safe in at her own door.

CHAPTER IX.

BENJIE’'S CHRISTENING.

‘« We'll hap and row, hap and row,
We'll hap and row the feetie o’t
It is a wee bit weary thing,
I dinnie bide the greetie o’t.”
—Provost CREECH.

« An honest man, close button’d to the chin,
Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within.” —CowPER.

“This great globe and all that it inherits shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.” SHAKESPEARE.

At the christening of our only bairn, Benjie, two or three
remarkable circumstances occurred, which it behoves me to
relate.

Tt was on a cold November afternoon; and really when
the bit room was all redd up, the fire bleezing away, and the
candles lighted, everything looked full tosh and comfortable.
44 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Tt was a real pleasure, after looking out into the drift. that
was fleeing like mad from the east, to turn one’s neb inwards,
- and think that we had a civilised home to comfort us in the
dreary season. So, one after another, the bit party we had
invited to the ceremony came papping in; and the crack
began to get loud and hearty; for, to speak the truth, we
were blessed with canny friends, and a good neighbourhood.
Notwithstanding, it was very curious, that I had no mind
of asking down James Batter, the weaver, honest man,
though he was one of our own elders; and in papped James,
just when the company had haffins met, with his stocking-
sleeves on his arms, his nightcap on his head, and his blue-
stained apron hanging down before him, to light his pipe at
our fire.

James, when he saw his mistake, was fain to make his
retreat; but we would not hear tell of it till he came in
and took a dram out of the bottle, as we told him the not
doing so would spoil the wean’s beauty, which is an old
freak (the smallpox, however, afterwards did that); so with
much persuasion he took a chair for a gliff, and began with
some of his drolls—for he is a clever humoursome man as
ye ever met with. But he had not got far on with his
jests, when lo! a rap came to the door, and Mysie whipped
away the bottle under her apron, saying “ Wheesht, wheesht,
for the sake of gudeness, there’s the minister !”

The room had only one door, and James mistook it, run-
ning his head, for lack of knowledge, into the open closet,
just as the minister lifted the outer-door sneck. We were
all now sitting on nettles, for we were frighted that James
would be seized with a cough, for he was a wee asthmatic ;
or that some, knowing there was a thief in the pantry,
might hurt good manners by breaking out into a giggle.
However, all for a considerable time was quiet, and the
ceremony was performed ; little Nancy, our niece, handing
the bairn upon my arm to receive its name. So we thought,
as.the minister seldom made a long stay on similar occasions,
that all would pass of well enough. But wait a wee.

There was but one of our company that had not cast up,
to wit, Deacon Paunch, the flesher, a most worthy man, but
tremendously big, and grown to the very heels; as was
once seen on a wager, that his ankle was greater than my
BENJIE’S CHRISTENING. 45

brans. It was really a pain to all feeling Christians to
see the worthy man waigling about, being, when weighed
in his own scales, two-and-twenty stone ten ounces, Dutch
weight. Honest man, he had had a sore fecht with the
wind and the sleet, and he came in with a shawl roppined
round his neck, peching like a broken-winded horse; so
fain was he to find a rest for his weary carcass in our stuffed
chintz pattern elbow-chair by the fire cheek.

From the soughing of wind at the window, and the rat-
tling in the lum, it was clear to all’manner of comprehension
that the night was a dismal one; so the minister, seeing so
many of his own douce folk about him, thought he might do
worse than volunteer to sit still and try our toddy; indeed, we
would have pressed him before this to do so, but what was to
come of James Batter, who was shut up in the closet, like the
spies in the house of Rahab the harlot, in the city of Jericho?

James began to find it was a bad business; and having
been driving the shuttle about from before daylight, he was
fain to cruik his hough, and felt round about him quietly in
the dark for a chair to sit down upon, since better might not
be. But wae’s me! the cat was soon out of the pock.

Me and the minister were just argle-bargling some few
words on the doctrine of the camel and the eye of the
needle, when, in the midst of our discourse, as all was
wheesht and attentive, an awful thud was heard in the closet,
which gave the minister, who thought the house had fallen
down, such a start, that his very wig louped for a full three-
eighths off his crown. I say we were needcessitated to let
the cat out of the pock for two reasons : firstly, because we
did not know what had happened ; and, secondly, to quiet
the minister’s fears, decent man, for he was a wee nervous.
So we made a hearty laugh of it, as well as we could, and
opened the door to bid James Batter come out, as we con-
fessed all. Easier said than done, howsoever. When we
pulled open the door, and took forward one of the candles,
there was James doubled up, sticking twofold like a rotten
in a sneck-trap, in an old chair, the bottom of which had
gone down before him, and which, for some craze about it,
had been put out of the way by Nanse, that no accident
might happen. Save us! if the deacon had sat down upon
it, pity on our brick-floor.
46 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Well, after some ado, we got James, who was more frighted
than hurt, hauled out of his hidy-hole; and after lifting off
his cowl, and sleeking down his front hair, he took a seat
beside us, apologeezing for not being in his Sunday’s garb,
the which the minister, who was a free and easy man,
declared there was no occasion for, and begged him to make
himself comfortable.

Well, passing over that business, Mr Wiggie and me
entered into our humours, for the drappikie was beginning
to tell on my noddle, and made me somewhat venturesome
—not to say that I was not a little proud to have the
minister in my bit housie; so says I to him in a cosh way,
“Ye may believe me or no, Mr Wiggie, but mair than me
think ye out of sight the best preacher in the parish—nane
of them, Mr Wiggie, can hold the candle to ye, man.”

“Wheesht, wheesht,” said the body, in rather a cold way
that I did not expect, knowing him to be as proud as a
peacock—“I daresay I am just like my neighbours.”

This was not quite so kind—so says I to him, “Maybe
sae, for many a one thinks ye could not hold a candle to Mr
Blowster, the Cameronian, that whiles preaches at Lugton.”

This was a stramp on his corny toe. “Na, na,” answered
Mr Wiggie, rather nettled; “let us drop that subject. I
preach like my neighbours. Some of them may be worse,
and others better ; just as some of your own trade may make
clothes worse, and some better, than yourself.”

My corruption was raised. “I deny that,” said I, in a
brisk manner, which I was sorry for after—“I deny that,
Mr Wiggie,” says I to him; “Tl make a pair of breeches
with the face of clay.”

But this was only a passing breeze, during the which,
howsoever, I happened to swallow my thimble, which acci-
dentally slipped off my middle finger, causing both me and
the company general alarm, as there were great fears that it
might mortify in the stomach; but it did not; and neither
word nor wittens of it have been seen or heard tell of from
that to this day. So, in two or three minutes, we had some
few good songs, and a round of Scotch proverbs, when the
clock chapped eleven. We were all getting, I must confess,
a thought noisy; Johnny Soutter having broken a dram-
glass, and Willie Fegs couped a bottle on the bit table-cloth;
 

Sa ehewing phat ona bak aa ee Char:
THE RESURRECTION MEN. 47

all noisy, I say, except Deacon Paunch, douce man, who had
fallen into a pleasant slumber; so when the minister rose
to take his hat, they all rose except the Deacon, whom we
shook by the arms for some time, but in vain, to waken him.
His round oily face, good creature, was just as if it had been
cut out of a big turnip, it was so fat, fozy, and soft; but at
last, after some aco, we succeeded, and he looked about him
with a wild stare, opening his two red eyes, like Pandore
oysters, asking what had happened ; and we got him hoized
up on his legs, tying the blue shawl round his bull-neck
again,

Our company had not got well out of the door, and I was
priding myself in my heart about being landlord to such a
goodly turn-out, when Nanse took me by the arm, and said,
“Come and see such an unearthly sight.” This startled me,
and I hesitated ; but at long and last I went in with her, a
thought alarmed at what had happened, and—my gracious ! !
there, on the easy-chair, was our bonny tortoise-shell cat,
Tommy, with the red morocco collar about its neck, bruised
ag flat as a flounder, and as dead asa mawk!!!

The Deacon had sat down upon it without thinking; and
the poor animal, that our neighbours’ bairns used to play
with, and be so fond of, was crushed out of life without a
cheep. The thing, doubtless, was not intended, but it gave
Nanse and me a very sore heart.

CHAPTER X.

THE RESURRECTION MEN.

“ How then was the Devil drest !
He was in his Sunday’s best;
His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,
With a hole behind where his tail came thro’.
Over the hill, and over the dale,
And he went over the plain:
And backward and forward he switch’d his tail,
As a gentleman switches his cane.” —CoLERIDGE,

About this time there arose a great sough and surmise
that some loons were playing false with the kirkyard, howk-
48 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

ing up the bodies from their damp graves, and harling them
away to the College. Words cannot describe the fear, and
the dool, and the misery it caused. All flocked to the kirk-
yett; and the friends of the newly-buried stood by the
mools, which were yet dark, and the brown newly- cast
divots, that had not yet taken root, looking, with mournful
faces, to descry any tokens of sinking in.

‘Til never forget it. I was standing by when three young
lads took shools, and, lifting up the truff, proceeded to houk
down to the coffin, wherein they had laid the grey hairs of
their mother. They looked wild and bewildered like, and
the glance of their een was like that of folk out of a mad-
house ; and none dared in the world to have spoken to them.
They did not even speak to one another ; but wrought on with
a great hurry, till the spades struck on the coffin-lid—which
was broken. The dead-clothes were there huddled together
in a nook, but the dead was gone. I took hold of Willie
Walker’s arm, and looked down. There was a cold sweat
all over me;—losh me! but I was terribly frighted and
eerie. Three more graves were opened, and all just alike,
save and except that of a wee unchristened wean, which was
off bodily, coffin and all.

There was a burst of righteous indignation throughout
the parish ; nor without reason. Tell me that doctors and
graduates must have the dead; but tell it not to Mansie
Wauch, that our hearts must be trampled in the mire of
scorn, and our best feelings laughed at, in order that a
bruise may be properly plaistered up, or a sore head cured.
Verily, the remedy is worse than the disease.

But what remead? It was to watch in the session-house,
with loaded guns, night about, three at a time. I never
liked to go into the kirkyard after darkening, let-a-be to
sit there through a long winter night, windy and rainy it
may be, with none but the dead around us. Save us! it
was an unco thought, and garred all my flesh creep; but
the cause was good—my corruption was raised—and I was
determined not to be dauntened.

T counted and counted, but the dread day at length came
and I was summoned. ll the livelong afternoon, when
ca’ing the needle upon the board, I tried to whistle Jenny
Nettles, Neil Gow, and other funny tunes, and whiles crooned
THE RESURRECTION MEN. 49

to myself between hands; but my consternation was visible,
and all would not do.

It was in November ; and the cold glimmering sun sank
behind the Pentlands. The trees had been shorn of their
frail leaves, and the misty night was closing fast in upon
the dull and short day; but the candles glittered at the
shop windows, and leery-light-the-lamps was brushing about
with his ladder in his oxter, and bleezing flamboy sparking
out behind him. I felt a kind of qualm of faintness and
down - sinking about my heart and stomach, to the dis-
pelling of which I took a thimbleful of spirits, and, tying
my red comforter about my neck, I marched briskly to the
session-house. A neighbour (Andrew Goldie, the pensioner)
lent me his piece, and loaded it to me. He took tent that
it was only half-cock, and I wrapped a napkin round the
dog-head, for it was raining. Not being well acquaint with
guns, I kept the muzzle aye away from me; as it is every
man’s duty not to throw his precious life into jeopardy.

A furm was set before the session-house fire, which bleezed
brightly, nor had I any thought that such an unearthly place
could have been made to look half so comfortable either by
coal or candle; so my spirits rose up as if a weight had been
taken off them, and I wondered, in my bravery, that a man
like me could be afraid of anything. Nobody was there but
a touzy, ragged, halflins callant of thirteen (for I speired his
age), with a desperate dirty face, and long carroty hair, tear-
ing a speldrin with his teeth, which looked long and sharp
enough, and throwing the skin and lugs into the fire.

We sat for mostly an hour together, cracking the best way
we could in such a place; nor was anybody more likely to
cast up. The night was now pitmirk; the wind soughed
amid the head-stones and railings of the gentry (for we must
all die), and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and
crawed in a fearsome manner. All at once we heard a lone-
some sound ; and my heart began to play pit-pat—my skin
grew all rough, like a pouked chicken—and I felt as if I did
not know what was the matter with me. It was only a false
alarm, however, being the warning of the clock; and, in a
minute or two thereafter, the bell struck ten. Oh, but it
was a lonesome and dreary sound! Every chap went
through my breast like the dunt of a fore-hammer.

D
50 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Then up and spak the red-headed laddie :—* It’s no fair ;
anither should hae come by this time. I wad rin awa hame,
only I am frighted to gang out my lane. Do ye think the
doup of that candle wad carry ? my cap ?”

“Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now.
Leave me alane? Lord safe us! and the yett lockit, and the
bethrel sleeping with the key in his breek pouches! We
canna win out now though we would,” answered I, trying to
look brave, though half frightened out of my seven senses :—
“Sit down, sit down; I’ve baith whisky and porter wi’ me.
Hae, man, there’s a cawker to keep your heart warm; and
set down that bottle,” quoth I, wiping the sawdust affin’t with
my hand, “to get a toast ; I’se warrant it for Deacon Jaffrey’s
best brown stout.”

The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain be-
gan to fall in perfect spouts; the auld kirk rumbled and
rowed, and made a sad soughing; and the branches of the
bourtree behind the house, where auld Cockburn that cut
his throat was buried, creaked and crazed in a frightful
manner; but as to the roaring of the troubled waters, and
the bumming in the lum-head, they were past all power of
description. To make bad worse, just in the heart of the
brattle, the grating sound of the yett turning on its rusty
hinges was but too plainly heard. What was to be done?
I thought of our both running away; and then of our
locking ourselves in, and firing through the door; but who
was to pull the trigger?

Gudeness watch over us! I tremble yet when I think on
it. We were perfectly between the de’il and the deep sea—
either to stand still and fire our gun, or run and be shot at.
It was really a hang choice. As I stood swithering and
shaking, the laddie flew to the door, and, thrawing round
the key, clapped his back to it. Oh! how I looked at him,
as he stood for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening with his
lug cocked up, or rather like a terrier watching a, rotten.
“They're coming! they’re coming!” he cried out; “cock
the piece, ye sumph ;” while the red hair rose up from his
pow like feathers; “they’re coming, I hear them tramping
on the gravel!” Out he stretched his arms against the wall,
and brizzed his back against the door like mad; as if he had
been Samson pushing over the pillars in the house of Dagon.
THE RESURRECTION MEN. 51

“For the Lord’s sake, prime the gun,” he cried out, “or our
throats will be cut frae lug to lug before we can ery Jack
Robison ! See that there’s priming in the pan.”

I did the best I could; but my whole strength could
hardly lift up the piece, which waggled to and fro like a
cock’s tail on a rainy day; my knees knocked against one
another, and though I was resigned to die—I trust I was
resigned to die—od, but it was a frightful thing to be out
of one’s bed, and to be murdered in an old session-house,
at the dead hour of night, by unearthly resurrection men,
or rather let me call them deevils incarnate, wrapt up in
dreadnoughts, with blacked faces, pistols, big sticks, and
other deadly weapons.

A snuff-snuffing was heard ; and, through below the door,
I saw a pair of glancing black een. ’Od, but my heart nearly
louped off the bit—a snouff, and a gur-gurring, and over all
the plain tramp of a man’s heavy tackets and cuddy-heels
among the gravel. Then came a great slap like thunder on
the wall; and the laddie, quitting his grip, fell down, cry-
ing, “ Fire, fire !—murder! holy murder !”

“Wha’s there?” growled a deep rough voice; “open,—I’m
a freend.”

I tried to speak, but could not; something like a half-
penny roll was sticking in my throat, so I tried to cough it
up, but it would not come. “Gie the pass-word then,” said
the laddie, staring as if his eyes would loup out; “gie the
password !”

First came a loud whistle, and then “ Copmahagen,” an-
swered the voice. Oh! what a relief! The laddie started
up, like one crazy with joy. “Ou! ou!” cried he, thraw-
ing round the key, and rubbing his hands; “by jingo, it’s
the bethrel—it’s the bethrel—its auld Isaac himsell.”

First rushed in the dog, and then Isaac, with his glazed
hat slouched over his brow, and his horn bowet glimmering
by his knee. “Has the French landed, do ye think? Losh
keep us a’,” said he, with a smile on his half-idiot face (for
he was a kind of a sort of a natural, with an infirmity in his
leg), “od sauf us; man, put by your gun. Ye dinna mean
to shoot me, do ye? What are ye about here with the door
lockit? I just keppit four resurrectioners louping ower the

wa’.”
52 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“Gude guide us!” I said, taking a long breath to drive
the blood from my heart, and something relieved by Isaac’s
company— Come now, Isaac, ye’re just gieing us a fright.
Isn’t that true, Isaac ?”

“Yes, I’m joking—and what for no?—but they might
have been, for onything ye wad hae hindered them to the
contrair, I’m thinking. Na, na, ye maunna lock the door:
that’s no fair play.”

When the door was put ajee, and the furm set fornent the
fire, I gave Isaac a dram to keep his heart up on such a cold
stormy night. ’Od, but he was a droll fellow, Isaac. He
sung and leuch as if he had been boozing in Luckie Tam-
son’s, with some of his drucken cronies. Feint a hair cared
he about auld kirks, or kirkyards, or vouts, or through-
stanes, or dead folk in their winding-sheets, with the wet
grass growing over them; and at last I began to brighten
up a wee myself; so when he had gone over a good few
funny stories, I said to him, quoth I, “Mony folk, I dare-
say, mak’ mair noise about their sitting up in a kirkyard
than it’s a’ worth. There’s naething here to harm us?”

“T beg to differ wi’ ye there,” answered Isaac, taking out
his horn mull from his coat pouch, and tapping on the lid
in a queer style—“TI could gie anither version of that story.
Did ye no ken of three young doctors—Eirish students—
alang with some resurrectioners, as waff and wild as them-
sells, firing shottie for shottie with the guard at Kirkma-
breck, and lodging three slugs in ane of their backs, forbye
firing a ramrod through anither ane’s hat ?” 7

This was a wee alarming—“No,” quoth I; “no, Isaac,
man; I never heard of it.”

“But, let alane resurrectioners, do ye no think there is
sic a thing as ghaists? Guide ye, man, my grannie could
hae telled as muckle about them as would have filled a
minister’s sermons from June to January.”

“Kay—kay—that’s all buff,” I said. “Are there nae
cutty-stool businesses—are there nae marriages going on
just now, Isaac?” for I was keen to change the subject.

“Ye may kay—kay, as ye like, though; I can just tell
ye this:—Ye'll mind auld Armstrong with the leather
breeks, and the brown three-story wie—him that was the
gravedigger? Weel, he saw a ghaist wi’ his leeving een—
THE RESURRECTION MEN. 53

ay, and what’s better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a
cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in, whan he
cam’ to the yett yonder, thinking to meet his man—paidling
Jock—but Jock had sleepit in, and wasna there. Weel, to
the wast corner ower yonder he gaed, and throwing his coat
ower a headstane, and his hat on the tap ot, he dug away
with his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin han-
dles, and the green banes and sic like, till he stoppit a wee
to take breath. What! are ye whistling to yoursell ?”
quoth Isaac to me, “and no hearing what’s God’s truth ?”

“Ou ay,” said I; “but ye didna tell me if onybody was
cried last Sunday ?”—I would have given every farthing I
had made by the needle, to have been at that blessed time
in my bed with my wife and wean. Ay, how I was gru-
ing! I mostly chacked off my tongue in chittering. But
all would not do.

“Weel, speaking of ghaists—when he was resting on his
spade he looked up to the steeple, to see what o’clock it was,
wondering what way Jock hadna come, when lo and be-
hold! in the lang diced window of the kirk yonder, he saw
a lady a’ in white, with her hands clasped thegither, looking
out to the kirkyard at him.

“He couldna believe his een, so he rubbit them with his
sark sleeve, but she was still there bodily; and, keeping
ae ee on her, and anither on his road to the yett, he drew his
coat and hat to him below his arm, and aff like mad, throw-

ing the shool half a mile ahint him. Jock fand that; for he
was coming singing in at the yett, when his maister ran clean
ower the tap o’ him, and capsized him like a toom barrel ;
never stopping till he was in at his ain house, and the door
baith bolted and barred at his tail.

“Did ye ever hear the like of that, Mansie? Weel, man,
Tl explain the hail history of it to ye. Yesee—Od! how
sound that callant’s sleeping,” continued Isaac; “ he’s snoring
like a nine-year-auld !”

I was glad he had stopped, for I was like to sink through
the ground with fear; but no, it would not do.

“Dinna ye ken—sauf us! what a fearsome night this is!
The trees will be all broken. What a noise in the lum! 1
daresay there’s some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come
rumble doun’t. It’s no the first time, Ill swear. Hae yea
54 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?” he bawled up the
chimney. “Ye’ll hae heard,” said he, “lang ago, that a wee
murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice ?—was
buried below that corner—the hearthstane there, where the
laddie’s lying on ?”"

T had now lost my breath, so that I could not stop. him.

“Ye never heard tell o’t, didna ye? Weel, I’se tell’t ye—
Sauf us, what swurls of smoke coming doun the chimley—I
could swear something no a s stopping up the lum-head
~~Gang out and see!”

At that moment a clap like thunder was heard—the
candle was driven over—the sleeping laddie roared “ Help !”
and “Murder!” dnd “Thieves!” and as the furm on
which we were sitting played flee backwards, cripple Isaac
bellowed out, “I’m dead !—I’m killed—shot through ‘the
head !—Oh ! oh ! oh!”

Surely I had fainted away; for when I came to myself
I found my red comforter loosed, my face all wet— Isaac
rubbing down his waistcoat with his sleeve — the laddie
swigging ale out of a bicker—and the brisk brown stout,
which, by casting its cork, had caused all the alarm, whizz—
whizz—whizzing in the chimley lug.

CHAPTER XI.

TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL.

“In the sweet shire of Cardigan,

Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,

An old man dwells, a little man;
I’ve heard he once was tall.

A long blue livery-coat has he,
That's fair behind and fair before;

Yet, meet him where you will, you see
At once that he is poor. ”_-WorDsworTH.

It was a clear starry night, in the blasty month of Jan-
uary; I mind it well. The snow had fallen during the after-
noon ; or, as Benjie came in crying, that “the auld wives 0’
the norlan sky were plucking their geese ;” and it continued
 

OT J) i pf (p , Cf? Hr
hee Mut Wir Of, Shoe JVorker Wiotlle
qo 4
Z
TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL. 55

dim and dowie till towards the gloaming, when, as the road-
side labourers were dandering home from their work, some
with pickaxes and others with shools, and just as our cocks
and hens were going into their beds, poor things, the lift
leared up to a sharp freeze, and the well-ordered stars came
forth glowing over the blue sky. Between six and seven the
moon rose; and I could not get my two prentices in from
the door, where they were bickering one another with snow-
balls, or maybe carhailling the folk on the street in their
idle wantonness; so I was obliged for that night to disap-
point Edie Macfarlane of the pair of black spatterdashes he
was so anxious to get finished, for dancing in next day, at
Souple Jack the carpenter’s grand penny-wedding.

Seeing that little more good was to be expected till morn-
ing, I came to the resolution of shutting-in half an hour
earlier than usual; so, as I was carrying out the shop-
shutters, with my hat over my cowl, for it was desperately
sharp, I mostly in my hurry knocked down an old man,
that was coming up to ask me “if I was Maister Wauch the
tailor and furnisher.”

Having told him that I was myself, instead of a better ;
and having asked him to step in, that I might have a
glimpse of his face at the candle, I saw that he was a
stranger, dressed in a droll auld-farrant green livery-coat,
faced with white. His waistcoat was cut in the Parly-voo
fashion, with long lappels, and a double row of buttons
down the breast ; and round his neck he had a black-corded
stock, such like, but not so broad, as I afterwards wore in
the volunteers, when drilling under Big Sam. He had a
well-worn scraper on his head, peaked before and behind,
with a bit crape knotted round it, which he politely took
off, making a low bow; and requesting me to bargain with
him for a few articles of grand second-hand apparel, which
once belonged to his master that was deceased, and which
was now carried by himself, in a bundle under his left
oxter.

Happening never to make a trade of dealing in this line,
and not very sure like as to how the old man might have
come by the bundle in these riotous and knock-him-down
times, I swithered a moment, giving my chin a rub before
answering ; and then advised him to take a step in at his
56 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

leisure to St Mary’s Wynd, where he would meet in with
merchants in scores. Butno; he seemed determined to strike
a bargain with me; and I heard from the man’s sponsible
and feasible manner of speech—for he was an old weather-
beaten-looking body of a creature, with gleg een, a cock
nose, white locks, and a tye behind—that the clothes must
have been left him, as a kind of friendly keepsake, by his
master, now beneath the mools. Thinking by this, that
if I got them at a wanworth I might boldly venture, I con-
descended to his loosing down the bundle, which was in a
blue silk napkin with yellow flowers. As he was doing
this, he told me that he was on his way home from the north
to his own country, which lay among the green Welsh hills,
far away; and that he could not carry much luggage with
him, as he was obliged to travel with his baggage tied up
in a bundle, on the end of his walking-staff, over his right
shoulder.

Pity me! what a grand coat it was! I thought at first it
must have been worn on the King’s own back, honest man ;
for it was made of green velvet, and embroidered all round
about—back seams, side seams, flaps, lappels, button-holes,
nape and cuffs, with gold lace and spangles, in a manner to
have dazzled the understanding of any Jew with a beard
shorter than his arm. So, no wonder that it imposed on the
like of me; and I was mostly ashamed to make him an
offer for it of a crown-piece and a dram. The waistcoat,
which was of white satin, single-breasted, and done up with
silver tinsel in a most. beautiful manner, I also bought from
him for a couple of shillings, and four hanks of black
thread. Though I would on no account or consideration
give him a bode for the Hessian boots, which having cuddy-
heels and long silk tossels, were by far and away over grand
for the like of a tailor such as me, and fit for the Sunday’s
wear of some fashionable Don of the first water. However,
not to part uncivilly, and be as good as my word, I brought
ben Nanse’s bottle, and gave him a cawker at the shop
counter ; and, after taking a thimbleful to myself, to drink
a good journey to him, I bade him take care of his feet, as
the causeway was frozen, and saw the auld flunkie safely
over the strand with a candle.

Ye may easily conceive that Nanse got a surprise, when I
TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL. 57

paraded ben to the room with the grand coat and waistcoat
on, cocking up my head, putting my hands into the haunch
pockets, and strutting about more like a peacock than a
douce elder of Maister Wiggie’s kirk ; so just as, thinking
shame of myself, I was about to throw it off, I found some-
thing bulky at the bottom of the side pocket, which I dis-
covered to be a wheen papers, fastened together with green
tape. Finding they were written in a real neat hand, I put
on my spectacles, and sending up the close for James Batter,
we sat round the fireside, and read away like nine-year-
aulds,

The next matter of consideration was, whether, in buying
the coat as it stood, the paper belonged to me, or the old
flunkie waiting-servant with the peaked hat. James and
me, after an hour and a half’s argle-bargleing pro and con,
in the way of Parliament-house lawyers, came at last to be
unanimously of opinion, that according to the auld Scotch
proverb of

‘“* He that finds keeps, '
And he that loses seeks,”

whatever was part or pendicle of the coat at the time of
purchase, when it hung exposed for sale over the white-
headed Welshman’s little finger, became, according to the
law of nature and nations, as James Batter wisely observed,
part and pendicle of the property of me, Mansie Wauch, the
legal purchaser.

Notwithstanding all this, however, I was not sincerely
convinced in my own conscience; and I daresay if the
creature had cast up, and come seeking them back, I would
have found myself bound to make restitution. This is not
now likely to happen ; for twenty long years have come and
passed away, like the sunshine of yesterday, and neither
word nor wittens of the body have been seen or heard tell
of’; so, according to the course of nature, being a white-
headed old man, with a pigtail, when the bargain was made,
his dust and bones have, in all likelihood, long ago moul-
dered down beneath the green turf of his own mountains,
like his granfather’s before him. This being the case, I
daresay it is the reader’s opinion as well as my own, that I
am quite at liberty to make what use of them I like. Con-
58 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

cerning the poem things that came first in hand, I do not
pretend to be any judge; but James thinks he could scarcely
write any muckle better himself: so here goes; but I can-
not tell you to what tune :—

SONG.

I.

THEY say that other eyes are bright,
I see no eyes like thine ;

So full of heaven’s serenest light,
Like midnight stars they shine.

IL.

They say that other cheeks are fair—
But fairer cannot glow

The rosebud in the morning air,
Or blood on mountain snow.

qi.

Thy voice—oh sweet it streams to me,
And charms my raptured breast ;

Like music on the moonlight sea,
When waves are lull’d to rest.

Iv.

The wealth of worlds were vain to give
Thy sinless heart to buy;

Oh I will bless thee while I live,
And love thee till I die!

From this song it appears a matter beyond doubt—for I
know human nature—that the flunkie’s master had, in his
earlier years, been deeply in love with some beautiful young
lady, that loved him again, and that maybe, with a bounding
and bursting heart, durst not let her affection be shown,
from dread of her cruel relations, who insisted on her marry-
ing some lord or baronet that she did not care one button
about. If so, unhappy pair, I pity them! Were we to
guess our way in the dark a wee farther, I think it not alto-
gether unlikely, that he must have fallen in with his sweet-
heart abroad, when wandering about on his travels; for what
TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL. 59

follows seems to come as it were from her, lamenting his
being called to leave her forlorn, and return home. This
is all merely supposition on my part, and in the antiquarian
style, whereby much is made out of little; but both me
and James Batter are determined to be unanimously of this
opinion, until otherwise convinced to the contrary. Love
is a fiery and fierce passion everywhere; but I am told that
we, who live in a more favoured land, know very little of
the terrible effects it sometimes causes, and the bloody
tragedies which it has a thousand times produced, where
the heart of man is uncontrolled by reason or religion, and
his blood heated into a raging fever, by the burning sun
that glows in the heaven above his head.

Here follows the poem of Taffy’s master’s foreign sweet-
heart ; which, considering it to be a woman’s handiwork, is,
I daresay, not that far amiss.

SONG OF THE SOUTH.

I

OF all the garden flowers,
The fairest is the rose;
Of winds that stir the bowers,
Oh! there is none that blows
Like the south—the gentle south—
For that balmy breeze is ours.

Il.

Cold is the frozen north;
In its stern and savage mood,
"Mid gales, come drifting forth
Bleak snows and drenching flood :
But the south—the gentle south—
Thaws to love the willing blood.

TI.

Bethink thee of the vales,

With their birds and blossoms fair—
Of the darkling nightingales,

That charm the starry air
In the south—the gentle south—

Ah! our own dear home is there.
60 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Iv.
Where doth Beauty brightest glow,
With each rich and radiant charm,
Eye of light, and brow of snow,
Cherry lip, and bosom warm ?
In the south—the gentle south—
There she waits, and works her harm.

v.
Say, shines the Star of Love,
From the clear and cloudless sky,
The shadowy groves above,
Where the nestling ringdoves lie ?
From the south—the gentle south—
Gleams its lone and lucid eye.

VI.

Then turn ye to the home
Of your brethren and your bride ;

Far astray your steps may roam,
But more joys for thee abide,

In the south—our gentle south—
Than in all the world beside.

After reading a lot of the unknown gentleman’s composi-
tions in prose and verse, something like his private history,
James Batter informs me, can be made out, provided we are
allowed to eke a little here and there. That he was an
Englisher we both think amounts toa probability; and from
having an old “Taffy was a Welshman” for a flunkie, it
would not be out of the order of nature to jealouse that he
may have resided somewhere among the hills, where he had
picked him up and taken him into his kitchen, promoting
him thereafter, for sobriety and good conduct, to be his body
servant and gentleman’s gentleman. Where he was born,
however, is a matter of doubt, and also who were his folks ;
but of a surety, he was either born with a silver spoon in
his mouth, or rose from the ranks like many another great
man. That, however, is a matter of moonshine; we are all
descended in a direct line from Adam. Where he was edu-
cated does not appear; but there can scarcely be a shadow
of doubt that he was for a considerable while at some school
or other, where he had a number of cronies. In proof of
SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS. 61

this, and to show that we have good reasons for our supposi-
tions, James recommends me to print the following rigmarole
meditations, on the top of which is written in half-text,

SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS.

‘They who in the vale of years advance,
And the dark eve is closing on their way,
When on the mind the recollections glance
Of early joy, and Hope’s delightful day,
Behold, in brighter hues than those of truth,
The light of morning on the fields of youth.”
—SovurHey.

The morning being clear and fine, full of Milton’s “ vernal
delight and joy,” I determined on a saunter; the inclemency
of the weather having, for more than a week, kept me a
prisoner at home. Although now advanced into the heart
of February, a great fall of snow had taken place ; the roads
were blocked up; the mails obstructed; and, while the
merchant grumbled audibly for his letters, the politician,
no less chagrined, conned over and over again his dingy
rumpled old newspaper, compelled “to eat the leek of his
disappointment.” The wind, which had blown inveterately
steady from the surly north-east, had veered, however, during
the preceding night, to the west; and, as it were by the spell
of an enchanter, an instant thaw commenced. In the low
grounds the snow gleamed forth in patches of a pearly
whiteness; but, on the banks of southern exposure, the
green grass and the black trodden pathway again showed
themselves. The vicissitudes of twenty-four hours were
indeed wonderful. Instead of the sharp frost, the pattering
hail, and the congealed streams, we had the blue sky, the
vernal zephyr, and the genial sunshine; the stream mur-
muring with a broader wave, as if making up for the
season spent in the fetters of congelation ; and that luxuri-
ous flow of the spirits, which irresistibly comes over the
heart, at the reassertion of Nature’s suspended vigour.

As I passed on under the budding trees, how delightful
it was to hear the lark and the linnet again at their cheerful
songs, to be aware that now “the winter was over and
gone;” and to feel that the prospect of summer, with its
62 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

lengthening days, and its rich variety of fruits and flowers,
lay fully before us. There is something within us that
connects the spring of the year with the childhood of our
existence, and it is more especially at that season that the
thrilling remembrances of long departed pleasures are apt
to steal into the thoughts ; the reawakening of nature call-
ing us, by a fearful contrast, to the contemplation of joys
that never can return, while all the time the heart is ren-
dered more susceptible by the beauteous renovation in the
aspect of the external world.

This sensation pressed strongly on my mind as I chanced
to be passing the door of the village school, momentarily
opened for the admission of one, creeping along somewhat
tardily with satchel on back, and “shining morning face.”
What a sudden burst of sound was emitted—what harmoni-
ous discord—what a commixture of all the tones in the
vocal gamut, from the shrill treble to the deep under-hum!
A chord was touched which vibrated in unison; boyish days
and school recollections crowded upon me; pleasures long
vanished ; feelings long stifled; and friendships—ay, ever-
lasting friendships— cut asunder by the sharp stroke of
death !

A public school is a petty world within itself—a wheel
within a wheel—in so far as it is entirely occupied with its
own concerns, affords its peculiar catalogue of virtues and
vices, its own cares, pleasures, regrets, anticipations, and
disappointments — in fact, a Lilliputian fac-simile of the
great one. By grown men, nothing is more common than
the assertion that childhood is a perfect Elysium; but it is
a false supposition that school-days are those of unalloyed
carelessness and enjoyment. It seems to be a great deal too
much overlooked, that “little things are great to little men ;”
and perhaps the mind of boyhood is more active in its con-
ceptions—more alive to the impulses of pleasure and pain—
in other words, has a more extended scope of sensations,
than during any other portion of our existence. Its days
are not those of lack-occupation ; they are full of stir, ani-
mation, and activity, for it is then we are in training for
after -life ; and, when the hours of school restraint glide
slowly over, “like wounded snakes,” the clock, that chimes
to liberty, sends forth the blood with a livelier flow; and
- SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS. 63

pleasure thus derives a double zest from the bridle that duty
has imposed, joy being generally measured according to the
difficulty of its attainment. What delight in life have we
ever experienced more exquisite than that which flowed at
once in upon us from the teacher’s “bene, bene,” our own
self-approbation, and release from the tasks of the day ?—
the green fields around us wherein to ramble, the stream
beside us wherein to angle, the world of games and pastimes
“before us where to choose.” Words are inadequate to ex-
press the thrill of transport with which, on the rush from
the schoolhouse door, the hat is waved in air, and the shout
sent forth !

Then what a variety of amusements succeed each other.
Every month has its favourite ones. The sportsman does not
more keenly scrutinise his calendar for the commencement
of the trouting, grouse-shooting, or hare-hunting season,
than the younker for the time of flying kites, bowling
at cricket, football, spinning peg-tops, and playing at
marbles. Pleasure is the focus, which it is the common aim
to approximate ; and the mass is guided by a sort of unpre-
meditated social compact, which draws them out of doors
as soon as meals are discussed, with a sincere thirst of
amusement, as certainly as rooks congregate in spring to
discuss the propriety of building nests, or swallows in
autumn to deliberate in conclave on the expediency of
emigration.

Then how perfectly glorious was the anticipation of a
holiday—a long summer day of liberty and ease! In anti-
cipation it was a thing boundless and endless, a foretaste of
Elysium. It extended from the prima luce, from the earliest
dawn of radiance that streaked the “severing clouds in
- yonder east,” through the sun’s matin, meridian, post-meri-
dian, and vesper circuit ; from the disappearance of Lucifer
in the reillumined skies, to his evening entrée in the char-
acter of Hesperus. Complain not of the brevity of life 5
tis men that are idle ; a thousand things could be contrived
and accomplished in that space, and a thousand schemes :
were devised by us, when boys, to prevent any portion of
it passing over without improvement. We pursued the
fleet angel of time through all his movements till he blessed

us,
64 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

With these and similar thoughts in my mind, I strayed
down to the banks of the river, and came upon the very
spot which, in those long~ vanished years, had been a
favourite scene of our boyish sports. The impression was
overpowering; and as I gazed silently around me, my
mind was subdued to that tone of feeling which Ossian so
finely designates “the joy of grief” The trees were the
same, but older, like myself; seemingly unscathed by the
strife of years—and herein was a difference. Some of the
very bushes I recognised as our old lurking-places at “hunt
the hare ;” and, on the old fantastic beech-tree, I discovered
the very bough from which we were accustomed to suspend
our swings. What alterations—what sad havoc had time,
circumstances, the hand of fortune, and the stroke of death,
made among us since then! How were the thoughts of the
heart, the hopes, the pursuits, the feelings changed ; and, in
almost every instance, it is to be feared, for the worse! As
I gazed around me, and paused, I could not help reciting
aloud to myself the lines of Charles Lamb, so touching in
their simple beauty :—

“ T have had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
Some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me, all are departed ;
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.”

The fresh green plat, by the brink of the stream, lay
before me. It was there that we played at leap-frog, or
gathered dandelions for our tame rabbits; and, at its western
extremity, were still extant the reliques of the deal-seat, at
which we used to assemble on autumn evenings to have our
round of stories. Many a witching tale and wondrous tradi-
tion hath there been told; many a marvel of-“ figures that
visited the glimpses of the moon ;” many a recital of heroic
and chivalrous enterprise, accomplished ere warriors dwin-
dled away to the mere puny strength of mortals. Sapped
by the wind and rain, the planks lay in a sorely decayed
and rotten state, looking in their mossiness like a sign-post
of desolation, a memento of terrestrial instability. Traces
of the knife were still here and there visible upon the
SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS, 65

trunks of the supporting trees; and with little difficulty I
could decipher some well-remembered initials.

“Cold were the hands that carved them there.”

It is, no doubt, wonderful that the human mind can retain
such a mass of recollections ; yet we seem to be, in general,
little aware that for one solitary incident in our lives, pre-
served by memory, hundreds have been buried m the silent
charnel-house of oblivion. We peruse the past, like a map
of pleasing or melancholy recollections, and observe lines
crossing and recrossing each other in a thousand directions ;
some spots are almost blank; others faintly traced; and
the rest a confused and perplexed labyrinth. A thousand
feelings that, in their day and hour, agitated our bosoms,
are now forgotten; a thousand hopes, and joys, and appre-
hensions, and fears, are vanished without a trace. Schemes,
which cost us much care in their formation, and much
anxiety’ in their fulfilment, have glided, like the clouds of
yesterday, from our remembrance. Many a sharer of our
early friendships, and of our boyish sports, we think. of no
more; they are as if they had never been, till perhaps some
accidental occurrence, some words in conversation, some
object by the wayside, or some passenger in the street, at-
tract our notice—and then, as if awaking from a perplexing
trance, a light darts in upon our darkness; and we discover
that thus some one long ago spoke, that there something
long ago happened; or that the person, who just passed
us like a vision, shared smiles with us long, long years ago,
and added a double zest to the enjoyments of our childhood.

Of our old class-fellows, of those whose days were of “a
mingled yarn” with ours, whose hearts blended in the
warmest reciprocities of friendship, whose joys, whose cares,
almost whose wishes were in common, how little do we
know ? how little will even the severest scrutiny enable
us to discover? Yet at one time we were inseparable,
“like Juno’s swans ;” we were as brothers, nor dreamt we

-of aught else, in the susceptibility of our youthful imagina-
tion, than that we were to pass through all the future scenes
of life side by side; and, mutually supporting and support-
ed, lengthen out the endearments, the ties, and the feelings
of boyhood unto the extremities of existence. What a fine

E
66 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

but a fond dream—alas, how wide of the cruel reality! The
casual relation of a traveller may discover to us where one
of them resided or resides. The page of an obituary may
accidentally inform us how long one of them lingered on
the bed of sickness, and by what death he died. Some we
may perhaps discover in elevated situations, from which
worldly pride might probably prevent their stooping ‘down
to recognise us. Others, immersed in the labyrinths of
business, have forgot all, in the selfish pursuits of earthly
accumulation. While the rest, the children of misfortune
and disappointment, we may occasionally find out amid the
great multitude of the streets, to whom life is but a desert
of sorrow, and against whom prosperity seems to have shut
for ever her golden gates.

Such are the diversities of condition, the varieties of for-
tune to which man is exposed, while climbing the hill of
probationary difficulty. And how sublimely applicable are
the words of Job, expatiating on the uncertainty of human
existence : “Man dieth and wasteth away ; yea, man giveth
up the ghost, and where is he? As the waters fail from the
sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up; so man lieth
down and riseth not till the heavens'be no more.”

While standing on the same spot, where of yore the boyish
multitude congregated in pursuit of their eager sports, a
silent awe steals over the bosom, and the heart desponds at
the thought that all these once smiling faces are scattered
now! Some, mayhap, tossing on the waste and perilous
seas; some the merchants of distant lands; some fighting
the battles of their country ; others dead—inhabitants of the
dark and narrow house, and hearing no more the billows of
life, that thunder and break above their low and lonely
dwelling-place !

Nanse, who was sitting by the table Knitting a pair of
light-blue worsted stockings for Benjie, and myself, who
was sewing on the buttons of a velveteen jacket for a
country lad, were, I must say, not a little delighted, not
only with the way in which the Welshman’s late master
had spoken of his schoolfellows, but with the manner in
which James Batter, with his specs on, had read it over
to us) Upon my word—and that of an elder—I do not
ELEGIAC STANZAS, 67

believe that even Mr Wiggie himself could have done the
thing greater justice. It was just as if he had been a play-
actor man, spouting Douglas’s tragedy.

Having folded up that paper, and turned over not a few
others, the docketings of which he read out to us, James at
last says, “Ou ay, here it is. I think I can now prove to
ye that the gentleman’s sweetheart died abroad; and that,
likely from her name—for it is here mentioned—she must
have been a Portugée or Spaniard.”

“Ay, let us hear it,” cried Nanse. “Do, like a man, let
us hear it, James; for I delight above a’ things to hear about
love-stories. Do ye mind, Maister,” she said, “when ye was
so deep in love aince yoursell ?”

“ Foolish woman,” I said, giving her a kind of severe look ;
“is that all your manners to interrupt Mr Batter? If ye’ll
just keep a calm sough, ye'll hear the long and the short o’t,
in good time.”

By this, James, who did not relish interruption, and was
a thought fidgety in his natural temper, had laid down the
paper on the table, snuffed the candle, and raised his spec-
tacles on his brow. ButI said to him, “ Excuse freedoms,
James, and be so good as resume your discourse.” Then
wishing to smooth him down, I added, by way of compli-
ment—“Do go on; for you really are a prime reader.
Nature surely intended ye for a minister.”

“Dinna flatter me,” said James, looking, however, rather
proudishly at what I had said; and replacing his glasses on
the brig of his nose, he then read us a screed of metre to the
following effect—part of which, I am free to confess, is rather
above my comprehension. But never mind :—

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

I.

’T1s midnight deep; the full round moon,
As ’twere a spectre, walks the sky ;

The balmy breath of gentlest June

Just stirs the stream that murmwrs by ;
Above me frowns the solemn wood ;
Nature, methinks, seems Solitude
Embodied to the eye.
68

LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

I.

Yes, tis a season and a scene,

Inez, to think on thee; the day,

With stir and strife, may come between
Affection and thy beauty’s ray,

But feeling here assumes control,

And mourns my desolated soul

That thou art rapt away !

Im.

Thou wert a rainbow to my sight,
The storms of life before thee fled ;
The glory and the guiding light, ~
That onward cheer’d and upward led
From boyhood to this very hour,
For me, and only me, thy flower

Its fragrance seemed to shed.

Iv.

Dark though the world for me might show
Its sordid faith and selfish gloom,

Yet ’mid life’s wilderness to know

For me that sweet flower shed its bloom
Was joy, was solace :—thou art gone—
And hope forsook me, when the stone
Sank darkly o’er thy tomb.

Vv.

And art thou dead? I dare not think

That thus the solemn truth can be ;

And broken is the only link

That chain’d youth’s pleasant thoughts to me !
Alas! that thou couldst know decay,

That, sighing, I should live to say,

‘The cold grave holdeth thee !’

VIL

For me thou shon’st, as shines a star,
Lonely, in clouds when Heaven is lost ;
Thou wert my guiding light afar,
When on misfortune’s billows tost :
Now darkness hath obscured that light,
And I am left in rayless night,

On Sorrow’s lowering coast.
ELEGIAC STANZAS. 69

VIL.

And art thou gone? I deem’d thee some
Immortal essence—art thou gone ?—

I saw thee laid within the tomb,

And turn’d away to mourn alone:

Once to have loved, is to have loved
Enough ; and, what with thee I proved,
Again I'll seek in none.

VIII.

Earth in thy sight grew faéry-land ;—

Life was Elysium—thought was love,—
When, long ago, hand clasp’d in hand,

We roam’d through Autumn’s twilight grove ;
Or watch’d the broad uprising moon

Shed, as it were, a wizard noon,

The blasted heath above.

Ix.

Farewell !—and must I say farewell ?—
No—thou wilt ever be to me

A present thought ; thy form shall dwell
In love’s most holy sanctuary;

Thy voice shall mingle with my dreams,
And haunt me, when the shot-star gleams
Above the rippling sea.

x.
Never revives the past again ;
But still thou art, in lonely hours,
To me earth’s heaven,—the azure main,—
Soft music,—and the breath of flowers ;
My heart shall gain from thee its hues :
And Memory give, though Truth refuse,
The bliss that once was ours !

After this, Mr Batter read over to us a great many other
curiosities about foreign things wonderful to hear, and
foreign places wonderful to behold. Moreover, also, of
divers adventures by sea and land. But the time wearing
late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-
key, after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I,
70 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

out of good-fellowship, thought we could not do less than
ask the honest man, whose cleverality had diverted us so
much, to sit still and take a chack of supper. James being
up in the air, from having been allowed to ride on his hobby
so briskly, made only a show of objection ; so, after a rizzard
haddo, we had a jug of toddy, and sat round the fire with
our feet on the fender—Benjie having fallen asleep with his
clothes on, and been carried away to his bed. Poor bit
mannikin !

I never remember to have heard James so prime either on
Boston or Josephus; but as his heart warmed with the
liquor and the good fire—for it was a cold rawish night—
he returned to Taffy with the pigtail’s master ; and insisted,
that as we had heard about his foreign sweetheart’s death,
which he appeared to have taken so much to heart, we
should just bear with him once more, as he read over what
he called her dirgie, which was written on a half-sheet of
grey mouldy paper—as if handed down from the days of the
Covenanters. It jingles well; and both Nanse and me
thought it gey and pretty; but eh! if ye only had heard
how James Batter read it. It beat cock-fighting.

DIRGE.

1

Weep not for her !—Oh she was far too fair,
Too pure to dwell on this guilt-tainted earth !
The sinless glory, and the golden air
Of Zion, seem’d to claim her from her birth ;
A Spirit wander’d from its native zone,
Which, soon discovering, took her for its own:
Weep not for Her!

Il.

Weep not for her !—Her span was like the sky,
Whose thousand stars shine beautiful and bright ;
Like flowers that know not what it is to die;
Like long-link’d, shadeless months of Polar light;
Like music floating o’er a waveless lake,
While Echo answers from the flowery brake :
Weep not for Her !
TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL. 71

Iti.

Weep not for her !—She died in early youth,
Ere hope had lost its rich romantic hues ;
When human bosoms seem’d the homes of truth,
And earth still gleam’d with beauty’s radiant dews.
Her summer prime waned not to days that freeze ;
Her wine of life was run not to the lees:
Weep not for Her !

Iv.

Weep not for her !—By fleet or slow decay,
It never grieved her bosom’s core to mark
The playmates of her childhood wane away,
Her prospects wither, or her hopes grow dark;
Translated by her God with spirit shriven,
She pass’d as ’twere in smiles from earth to heaven :
Weep not for Her !

Vv.

Weep not for her !—It was not hers to feel
The miseries that corrode amassing years,
’Gainst dreams of baffled bliss the heart to steel,
To wander sad down age’s vale of tears,
As whirl the wither’d leaves from friendship’s tree,
And on earth’s wintry wold alone to be:
Weep not for Her!

VI.

Weep not for her !—She is an angel now,
And treads the sapphire floors of paradise :
All darkness wiped from her refulgent brow,
Sin, sorrow, suffering, banish’d from her eyes ;
Victorious over death, to her appear
The vista’d joys of heaven’s eternal year :
Weep not for Her!

VII.

Weep not for her !—Her memory is the shrine
Of pleasant thoughts, soft as the scent of flowers,
Calm as on windless eve the sun’s decline,
Sweet as the song of birds among the bowers,
Rich as a rainbow with its hues of light,
Pure as the moonshine of an autumn night :
Weep not for Her!
72 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

VIII.

Weep not for her !—There is no cause for woe;

But rather nerve the spirit that it walk
Unshrinking o’er the thorny paths below,

And from earth’s low defilements keep thee back:
So, when a few fleet severing years have flown,
She’ll meet thee at heaven’s gate—and lead thee on !

Weep not for Her.

Having right and law on my side, as any man of judgment
may perceive with half an eye, nothing could hinder me, if
T so liked, to print the whole bundle; but, in the meantime,
we must just be satisfied with the foregoing curiosities,
which we have picked out. All that I have set down con-
cerning myself, the reader may take on credit as open and
even-down truth; but as to whether Taffy’s master’s nick-
nackets be true or false, every one is at liberty, in this free
country, to think for himself. Old sparrows are not easily
caught with chaff; and unless I saw a proper affidavit, I
would not, for my own part, pin my faith to a single word
of them. But every man his own opinion,—that’s my
motto.

In the Yankee Almanack of Poor Richard, which, besides
the Pilgrim’s Progress and the Book of Martyrs, I whiles
read on the week-days for a little diversion, I see it is set
down with great rationality that “we should never buy for
the bargain sake.” Experience teaches all men, and I found
that to my cost in this matter; for, cheap as the coat and
waistcoat seemed which I had bought from the auld-farrant
Welsh fiunkie with the peaked hat and the pigtail, I made
no great shakes of them after all. Neither the Lord Provost
of Edinburgh, nor any other of the grand public characters,
ever made me an offer for them, as some had led me to ex-
pect; and the playhouse people lay all as quiet as ducks in
a storm. After hanging at my window for two or three
months, collecting all the idle wives and weans of the parish
to glour and gaze at them from morn till night, during
which time I got half of my lozens broken, by their knock-
ing one another’s heads through, I was obliged to get quit
of them at last, by selling them to a man and his son, that
kept dancing-dogs, Pan’s pipes, and a tambourine, and that
made a livelihood by tumbling on a carpet in the middle of
TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL. 73

the street, the one playing “Carle, now the King’s come,” as
the other whummled head over heels, and then jumped up
into the air, cutting capers, to show that not a bone of his
body had been broken. ;

Knowing that the raiment was not for everybody’s wear,
and that the like of it was not to be found in a country side,
I put a decent price on it, “foreign birds with fair feathers”
aye taking the top place of the market. When I mentioned
forty shillings to the dancing-dog man and his son, they said
nothing, but, putting their tongues in their cheeks, took up
their hats, wishing me a good day. Next forenoon, however,
a sleight-of-hand character having arrived, together with a
bass drum and a bugle horn, that was likely to take the
shine out of them, and maybe also purchase my article—
which was capital for his purpose, having famous wide
sleeves—they came back in less than no time, asking the
liberty, before finally concluding with me, of carrying them
home to their lodgings for ten minutes to see how they
would fit; and, in that case, offering me thirty-five shillings
and an old fiute. The old flute was for next to no use at
all, except for wee Benjie, poor thing, too-tooing on, to keep
him good, and I told them so, myself being no musicianer ;
but would take their offer not to quarrel. It would not
do unless some of us were timber-tuned—men not being
meant for blackbirds.

Home went the man, and home went the son, and home
went my grand coat and waistcoat over his arm ; and putting
my hands into my breeches pockets, as if I had satisfactorily
concluded a great transaction, I marched ben to the back
shop, and took my needle into play, as if nothing in the
world had happened ; but where their home lay, or whether
the raiment fitted or not, goodness knows, having never to
this blessed hour heard word or wittens of either of them.
Such a pair of blacks! It just shows us how simple we
Scotch folk are. The London man swindled me out of my
lawful room-rent and my Sunday velveteens ; the Eirishers,
as will be but too soon seen, made free with my hen-
house, committing felonious robbery at the dead hour of
night; and here a decent-looking old Welshman, with a
pigtail tied with black tape, palmed a grand coat and
waistcoat upon me, that were made away with by a
74 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

man and his son, a devilish deal too long out of Botany
Bay.

Benjie, poor doggie, was vastly proud of the fiute, which
he fifed away on morning, noon, and night, and for more
than a fortnight would not go to his bed unless it was laid
under his pillow. But for me I could not bide the sight of
it, knowing whose hands it had been in, and reminding me
as it did of the depravity of human nature.

Verily, verily, this is a wonderfully wicked world. To
find out the two vagabonds would have been hopeless, un-
less I could have followed them to the Back of Beyond,
where the mare foaled the fiddler.

CHAPTER XII.
VOLUNTEERING.

“Come from the hills where your hirsels are grazing,
Come from the glen of the buck and the roe ;
Come to the crag where the beacon is blazing,
Come with the buckler, the lance, and the bow:
Many a banner spread
Flutters above your head,
Many a crest that is famous in story ;
Mount and make ready then,
Sons of the mountain glen,
Fight for the King, and our old Scottish glory.”
—Sir WALTER Scort’s Monastery.

The sough of war and invasion flew over the face of the
land, at this time, like a great whirlwind; and the hearts
of men died within their persons with fear and trembling.
The accounts that came from abroad were just dreadful
beyond all power of description. Death stalked about from
place to place, like a lawless tyrant, and human blood was
spilt like water; while the heads of crowned kings were
cut off; and great dukes and lords were thrown into dark
dungeons, or obligated to flee for their lives into foreign
lands, and to seek out hiding-places of safety beyond the
waves of the sea. What was worst of all, our trouble seemed
a smittal one: the infection spread around; and even our
VOLUNTEERING. 75

own land, which all thought hale and healthy, began to show
symptoms of the plague-spot. Losh me! that men’ in their
seven senses could have ever shown themselves so infatuated !
Johnny Wilkes and liberty was but a joke to what was
hanging over the head of the nation, brewing like a dark
tempest which was to swallow it up. Bills were posted up
through night, by hands that durst not have been seen at
the work through day; and the agents of the Spirit of
Darkness, calling themselves the Friends of the People,
held secret meetings, and hatched plots to blow up our
blessed King and Constitution.

Yet the business, though fearsome in the main, was in
some parts almost laughable. Everything was to be divided,
and every one made alike : houses and lands were to be dis-
tributed by lot; and the mighty man and the beggar—the
auld man and the hobbledehoy —the industrious man and
the spendthrift—the maimed, the cripple, and the blind—
the clever man of business and the haveril simpleton,—made
all just brethren, and alike. Save us! but to think of such
nonsense!! At one of their meetings, held at the sign of
the Tappit Hen and the Tankard, there was a prime fight
of five rounds between Tammy Bowsie the snab, and auld
Thrashem the dominie with the boulie-back, about their
drawing cuts which was to get Dalkeith Palace, and which
Newbottle Abbey. Oh, sic riff-raff !!!

What was worst of all, it was an agreed and determined
on thing among them, these wise men of Gotham, to abolish
all kings, clergy, and religion, as havers. No, no—what
need had such wise pows as theirs of being taught or lec-
tured to? What need had such feelosophers of having a
king to rule over, or a Parliament to direct them? There
was not a single one among their number that did not think
himself, in his own conceit, as wise as Solomon or William
Pitt, and as mighty as King Nebuchadnezzar.

It was full time to put a stop to all such nonsense. The
newspapers told us what it had done abroad; and what
better could we expect from it at home? Weeds will not
grow into flowers anywhere, and no man can handle tar
without being defiled; the first of which comparisons is, I
daresay, true, and the latter must be—for we read of it in
Scripture. Well, as I was saying, it was a brave notion of
76 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

the king to put the loyalty of his land to the test, that the
daft folk’ might be dismayed, and that the clanjamphrey
might be tumbled down before their betters, like windle-
straes in a hurricane :—and so they were.

Such a crowd that day, when the names of the volunteers
came to be taken down! No house could have held them,
even though many had not stepped forward who thought to
have got themselves enrolled. Losh me! did they think
the Government was so far gone as to take characters with
deformed legs, and thrawn necks, and blind eyes, and hashie
lips, and grey hairs on their pows? No, no, they were not
put to such straits; though it showed that the right spirit
was in the creatures, and that, though their bodies might be
deformed, they had consciences to direct them, and souls to
be saved like their neighbours.

I will never forget the first day that I got my regimentals
on, and when I looked myself in the bit glass, just to think
I was a sodger who never in my life could thole the smell of
powder, and had not fired anything but a penny cannon
on a fourth of June, when I was a haflins callant. I
thought my throat would have been cut with the black
corded stock ; for whenever I looked down, without think-
ing like, my chaff-blade played clank against it with such a
dunt that I mostly chacked my tongue off. And as to the
soaping of the hair, that beat cock-fighting. It was really
fearsome. But I could scarcely keep from laughing when I
glee’d round over my shoulder, and saw a glazed leather
queue hanging for half an ell down the braid of my back,
and a pickle horse-hair curling out like a rotten’s tail at
the far end of it. And then the worsted taissels on the
shoulders—and the lead buttons—and the yellow facings,—
oh, but it was grand! I sometimes fancied myself a gen-
eral, and giving the word of command. Then the pipe-
clayed breeches—but that was a sore job; many a weary
arm did they give me—beat-beating camstane into them.

The pipeclaying of the breeches, I was saying, was the
most fashious job, lct alone courtship, that ever mortal man
put his hand to. Indeed, there was no end to the rubbing,
and scrubbing, and brushing, and fyling, and cleaning; for
to the like of me, who was not well accustomed to the thing,
the whitening was continually coming off and destroying my
VOLUNTEERING. 77

red coat, or my black leggings. I had mostly forgot to
speak of the birse for cleaning out the pan, and the piker
for clearing the motion-hole. But time enough till we
come to firing.

Big Sam, who was a sergeant of the Fencibles, and enough
to have put five Frenchmen to flight any day of the year,
whiles came to train us; and a hard battle he had with
more than me. I have already said that nature never in-
tended me for the soldiering trade; and why should I
hesitate about confessing that Sam never got me out of the
awkward squad? But I had two or three neighbours to
keep me in countenance. A weary work we made with
the right, left—left, right,—right-wheel, left-wheel—to the
right about,—at ease,—attention,—by sections,—and all the
rest of it. But then there is nothing in the course of nature
that is useless; and what was to hinder me from acting as
orderly, or being one of the camp-colour-men on head days ?

We all cracked very crouse about fighting, when we heard
of garments rolled in blood only from abroad ; but one dark
night we got a fleg in sober earnest.

There were signal-posts on the hills, up and down all the
country, to make alarms in case of necessity; and I never
went to my bed without giving first a glee eastward to Fal-
side-brae, and then another westward to the Calton-hill, to
see that all the country was quiet. I had just papped in—
it might be about nine o’clock—after being gey hard drilled,
and sore between the shoulders, with keeping my head back
and playing the dumb-bells ; when, lo and behold! instead
of getting my needful rest in my own bed, with my wife and
wean, jow went the bell, and row-de-dow gaed the drums,
and all in a minute was confusion and uproar. I was
seized with a severe shaking of the knees and a flaffing
at the heart; but I hurried, with my nightcap on, up to
the garret window, and there I too plainly saw that the
French had landed —for all the signal-posts were in a
bleeze. This was in reality to be a soldier! I never got
such a fright since the day I was cleckit, Then such a
noise and hullabaloo in the streets— men, women, and
weans all hurrying through ither, and crying with loud:
voices, amid the dark, as if the day of judgment had come,
to find us all unprepared; and still the bells ringing, and
78 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

the drums beating to arms. Poor Nanse was in a bad con-
dition, and I was well worse: she, at the fears of losing me,
their bread-winner; and I, with the grief of parting from
her, the wife of my bosom, and going out to scenes of blood,
bayonets, and gunpowder, none of which I had the least
stomach for. Our little son Benjie mostly grat himself
blind, pulling me back by the cartridge-box; but there
was no contending with fate, so he was obliged at last to
let go.

Notwithstanding all that, we behaved ourselves like true-
blue Scotsmen called forth to fight the battles of our country;
and if the French had come, as they did not come, they would
have found that to their cost, as sure as my name is Mansie,
However, it turned out as well, in the meantime, that it was
a false alarm, and that the thief Buonaparte had not landed
at Dunbar, as it was jealoused: so, after standing under
arms for half the night, with nineteen rounds of ball-car-
tridge in our boxes, and the baggage-carts all loaden, and
ready to follow us to the field of battle, we were sent home
to our beds; and, notwithstanding the awful state of alarm
to which I had been put, never in the course of my life did
I enjoy six hours’ sounder sleep—for we were hippet the
morning parade, on account of our gallant men being kept
so long without natural rest. It is wise to pick a lesson
even out of our adversities; and, at all events, it was at
this time fully shown to us the necessity of our regiment
being taught the art of firing—a tactic to the length of
which it had never yet come.

Next day, out we were taken for the whilk purpose; and
we went through our motions bravely. Prime— load—
handle cartridge—ram down cartridge—return bayonets—
and shoulder hoop,—make ready—present—fire. Such was
the confusion, and the flurry, and the din of the report, that
I was so flustered and confused, thinking that half of us
would have been shot dead, that—will ye believe it ?—I
never yet had mind to pull the tricker. Howsomever, I
minded aye with the rest to ram down a fresh cartridge at
the word of command; and something told me I would
repent not doing like the rest (for I had half a kind of
notion that my piece never went off): so, when the firing
was over, the sergeant of the company ordered all that had
 

« We ae Bele Gyuad.
VOLUNTEERING. 79

loaded pieces to come to the front. I swithered a little,
not being very sure like what to do; but some five or six
stepped out; and our corporal, on looking at my piece, ordered
me with the rest to the front. It was just by all the world
like an execution: we six, in the face of the regiment, in
a little line, going through our manceuvres at the word of
command; and I could hardly stand upon my feet, with
a queer feeling of fear and trembling, till at length the
terrible moment came. I looked straight forward—for I
durst not jee my head about—and turned to the hills and
green trees, as if I was never to see nature more.

Our pieces were cocked; and at the word—Fire !—off
they went. -It was an act of desperation to draw the
tricker, and I had hardly well shut my blinkers, when I
got such a thump in the, shoulder, as knocked me back-
wards head-over-heels on the grass. Before I came to my
senses, I could have sworn I was in another world; but
when I opened my eyes, there,were the men at ease, hold-
ing their sides, laughing like to spleet them, and my gun
lying on the, ground; two or three ell before me..

When I found myself not killed outright, I began to rise
up. As I. was rubbing my breek-knees, I saw one of the
men going forward to lift up the fatal piece ; and my care
for the safety of others overcame the sense of my own peril,
—“Let alane—let alane !” cried I to him, “and take care of
yoursell, for it has to gang off five times yet.”

The-laughing: was now terrible; but being little of a
soldier, I thought, in my innocence, that we should hear
as many, reports-as I had crammed cartridges down her
muzzle. This was a sore joke against me for a length of
time; but. I tholed it patiently, considering cannily within
myself that knowledge is only to be bought by experience,
and that, if we can credit the old song, even Johnny Cope
himself did not learn the art of war in a single morning.
80 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE CHINCOUGH PILGRIMAGE.

** Man hath a weary pilgrimage

As through the world he wends:

On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends.

With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,

And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.”—SovuTHey.

Some folks having been bred up from their cradle to the
writing of books, of course naturally do the thing regularly
and scientifically ; but that’s not to be expected from the
like of me, that have followed no other way of life than the
shaping and sewing line. It behoves me, therefore, to beg
pardon for not being able to carry my history aye regularly
straight forward, and for being forced -whiles to zig-zag and
vandyke. For instance, I clean forgot to give, in its proper
place, a history of one of my travels, with Benjie in my
bosom, in search of a cure for the chincough.

My son Benjie was, at this dividual time, between four
and five years old, when—poor wee chieldie !—he took the
chincough, and in more respects than one was not in a good
way; so the doctor recommended his mother and me, for
the change of air, first to carry him down’a coal-pit, and
syne to the limekilns at Cousland.

The coal-pit I could not think of at all: to say nothing of
the danger of swinging down into the bowels of the earth in
a creel, the thing aye put me in mind of the awful place
where the wicked, after death and judgment, howl, and hiss,
and gnash their teeth; and where, unless Heaven be more
merciful than we are just, we may all be soon enough. So
I could not think of that till other human means failed ;
and I determined, in the first place, to hire Tammie Dob-
bie’s cart, and try a smell of the fresh air about the lime-
kilns.

It was a fine July forenoon, and the cart, filled with clean
straw, was at the door by eleven o’clock ; so our wife handed
us out a pair of blankets to hap round me, and syne little
THE CHINCOUGH PILGRIMAGE. 81

Benjie into my arms, with his big-coatie on, and his leather
cappie tied below his chin, and a bit red worsted comforterie
round his neck ; for though the sun was warm and pleasant
withal, we dreaded cold, as the doctor bade us. Oh, he was
a fine old man, Doctor Hartshorn !

We had not well got out of the town, when Tammy Dob-
bie lowped up on the fore-tram. He was a crouse, cantie
auld cock, having seen much and not little in his day; so
he began a pleasant confab, pointing out all the gentlemen’s
houses round the country, and the names of the farms on
the hillsides. To one like me, whose occupations tie him
to the town-foot, it really is a sweet and grateful thing to
be let loose, as it were, for a wee among the scenes of peace
and quietness, where nature is in a way wild and wanton—
where the clouds above our heads seem to sail along more
grandly over the bosom of the sky, and the wee birds to
cheep and churm, from the hedges among the fields, with
greater pleasure, feeling that they are God’s free creatures.

I cannot tell how many thoughts came over my mind, one
after another, like the waves of the sea down on Mussel-
burgh beach: but especially the days when I was a wee
callant with a daidly at Dominie Duncan’s school, were fresh
in my mind as if the time had been but yesterday ; though
much, much was I changed since then, being at that time a
little, careless, ragged Jaddie, and now the head of a family,
earning bread to my wife and wean by the sweat of my
brow. I thought on the blythe summer days when I
dandered about the braes and bushes seeking birds’-nests
with Alick Bowsie and Samuel Search; and of the time
when we stood upon one another’s backs, to speil up to the
ripe cherries that hung over the garden walls of Woodburn.
Awful changes had taken place since then. I had seen Sammy
die of the black jaundice—an awful spectacle! and poor Alick
, Bowsie married to a drucken randie, that wore the breeks, and
did not allow the misfortunate creature the life of a dog.

When I was meditating thus, after the manner of the
patriarch Isaac, there was a pleasant sadness at my heart,
though it was like to loup to my mouth; but I could not
get leave to enjoy it long for the tongue of Tammie Dobbie.
He bade me look over into a field, about the middle of which
were some wooden railings round the black gaping mouth of

F
82 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

a coal-pit. “Div ye see that dark bit owre yonder amang
the green clover, wi’ the sticks about it?” asked Tammie.

“Ves,” said I; “and what for ?”

“Weel, do you ken,” quo’ Tammie, “that has been a
weary .place to mair than ane. Twa-three year ago, some
o’ the collyer bodies were choked to death down below wi’
a blast o’ foul air; and a pour o’ orphan weans they left
behint them on the cauldrife parish ! But ye’ll mind Horn-
em, the sherry-officer with the thrawn shouther ?”

“Ou, bravely ; I believe he came to some untimeous end
hereaway about ?”

“Just in that spat,” answered Tammie. “He was a
drucken, blustering chield, as ye mind, fearing neither man
nor del, and living a wild, wicked, regardless life; but,
puir man, that couldna aye last. He had been bousing about
the countryside somehow— maybe harrying out of house
and hald some puir bodies that hadna the wherewith to pay
their rents; so, in riding hame fou—it was pitmirk, and
the rain pouring down in bucketfu’s—he became dumfoun-
‘dered wi’ the darkness and the dramming thegither, and,
losing his way, wandered about the fields, hauling his mare
after him by the bridle. In the morning the beast was
found nibbling away at the grass owre by yonder, wi’ the
saddle upon its back, and a broken bridle hinging down
about its fore-legs, by the which the folks round were
putten upon the scent; for, on making search down yon
pit, he was fund at the bottom, wi’ his brains smashed about
him, and his legs and arms broken to chitters !”

“Save us,” said I, “it makes a’ my flesh grue.”

“Weel it may,” answered Tammie, “or the story’s lost
in the telling; for the collyers that fand him shook as if
they had been seized wi’ the ague. The dumb animal, ye
observe, had far mair sense than him,—for, when his fitting
gaed way, instead of following, it had plunged back; and
the bit o’ the bridle, that had broken, was still in his grup
when they spied him with their lanterns.”

“Tt was an awful like way to leave the world,” said I.

“Deed it was; and nae less,” answered Tammie, “to gang
to his lang account in the middle of his mad thochtlessness,
without a moment’s warning. But see, yonder’s Cousland
lying right forrit to the east hand.”
MY LORD’S RACES. 83

At this very nick of time Benjie was seized with a severe
kink ; so Tammie stopped his cart, and I held his head owre
the side of it till the cough went by. I thought his inside
would have jumped out ; but he fell sound asleep in two or
three minutes, and we jogged on till we came to the yill-
house door, where, after louping out, we got a pickle pease-
strae to Tammie’s horse.

CHAPTER XIV.

MY LORD’S RACES.

** Aff they a’ went galloping, galloping;
Legs and arms a’ walloping, walloping;
De’il take the hindmost, quo’ Duncan M‘Calapin,
The laird o’ Tillyben, joe.”—Old Song.

“‘He went a little further,

And turned his head aside,

And just by Goodman Whitfield’s gate,
Oh there the mare he spied.

He asked her how she did,
She stared him in the face,

Then down she laid her head again—
She was in wretched case.”—Old Poulter’s Mare.

It happened curiously that, of all the days of the year,
this should have been the one on which the Carters’-play
was held; and, by good luck, we were just in time to see
that grand sight. The whole regiment of carters were
paraded up at my lord’s door, for so they call their box-
master; and a beautiful thing it was, I can assure ye.
What a sight of ribands was on the horses! Many a crame
must have been emptied ere such a number of manes and
long tails could have been busked out. The beasts them-
selves, poor things, I dare say, wondered much at their
bravery, and no less I am sure did the riders. They looked
for all the world like living haberdashery shops. Great
bunches of wallflower, thyme, spearmint, batchelor buttons,
gardeners’ gartens, peony roses, gillyflower, and southern-
wood, were stuck in their buttonholes; and broad belts of
stripped silk, of every colour in the rainbow, were flung
84 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

across their shoulders. As to their hats, the man would
have had a clear ee that could have kent what was their
shape or colour. They were all rowed round with ribands,
and puffed about the rim with long green or white feathers ;
and cockades were stuck on the off side, to say nothing of
long strips fleeing behind them in the wind like streamers.
Save us! to see men so proud of finery: if they had been
peacocks, one would have thought less; but in decent sober
men, the heads of small families, and with no great wages,
the thing was crazy like. Was it not?

At long and last we saw them all set in motion, like a
regiment of dragoons, two and two, with a drum and fife
at their head, as if they had been marching to the field of
battle. By the by, it was two of our own volunteer lads
that were playing that day before them—Rory Skirl the
snab, and Geordie Thump the dyer: so this, ye see, verified
the old proverb, that travel where ye like, to the world’s
end, ye’ll aye meet with kent faces,—Tammie and me com-
ing out to the yill-house door to see them pass by.

Behind the drum and fife came a big, half-crazy-looking
chield, with a broad blue bonnet on his head, and a red
worsted cherry sticking in the crown of it. He was carry-
ing a new car-saddle over his shoulder on a well-cleaned
pitchfork. Syne came three abreast, one on each side of my
lord, being the key-keepers; he keeping the box, and they
keeping the keys, in case like he should take anything out.
And syne came the auld my lord—him that was my lord
last year, ye observe ; and syne came the colours, as bright
and bonny as mostly anything ye ever saw. On one of
them was painted a plough and harrows, and a man sowing
wheat ; over the top of which were gilded letters, the which
T was able to read when I put on my specs, being, if I mind
well, “Speed the Plough.” On the other one, which was a
mazarine blue with yellow fringes, was the picture of two
carters, with flat bonnets on their heads, the tane with a
whip in his hand, and the tither a rake, making hay like.
Then came they all passing by, two and two, looking as if
each one of them had been the Duke of Buccleuch himself,
every one rigged out in his best; the young callants, such
like as had just entered the box, coming hindmost, and
thinking themselves, I daresay, no small drink, and the day
MY LORD’S RACES. 85

a great one when they were first allowed to be art and part
in such a grand procession.

But losh me! I had mostly forgot the piper, that played
in the middle, as proud as Hezekiah, that we read of in
Second Kings, strutting’ about from side to side with his
bare legs and big buckles, and bit Macgregor tartan jacket—
his cheeks blown up with wind like a smith’s bellows—the
feathers dirling with conceit in his bonnet—and the drone,
below his oxter, squeeling and skirling like an evil spirit tied
up in a green bag. Keep us all! what gleys he gied about
him to observe that the folk were looking at him! He put
me in mind of the song that old Barny used to sing about
the streets—

“Tika ane his sword and dirk has,
Ilka ane as proud’s a Turk is ;
There’s the Grants o’ Tullochgorum,
Wi their pipers gaun before ’em ;
Proud the mithers are that bore ’em.
Feedle, faddle, fa, fum.”

But who do ye think should come up to us at this blessed
moment, with a staff in his hand, being old now, and not
able to ride in the procession, as he had many a time and
often done before, but honest Saunders Tram, that had been
a staunch customer of mine since the day on which I opened
shop, and to whom I had made countless pairs of corduroy
spatterdashes ; so we shook hands jocosely together, like old
acquaintances, and the body hodged and leuch as if he had
found a fiddle, he was so glad to see me.

Benjie having fallen asleep, Luckie Barm of the Change,
a douce woman, put him to his bed, and promised to take
care of him till we came back; Saunders Tram insisting on
us to go forward along with him to see the race. I had no
great scruple to do this, as I thought Benjie would likely
sleep for an hour, being wearied with the joogling of the
cart, and having supped a mutchkin bowlful of Luckie
Barm’s broo and bread.

By the time we had tramped on to the braehead, two or
three had booked for the race, and were busy pulling away
the flowers that hung over about their horses’ lugs, to say
little of the tapes and twine; and which made them look,
poor brutes, as if they were not very sure what was the
86 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

matter with them. Meanwhile, there was a terrible uproar
between my lord and a man from Edinburgh Grassmarket,
leading a limping horse, covered with a dirty sheet, with
two holes for the beast’s een looking out at.

But, for all this outward care, the poor thing seemed very
like as if wind was more plenty in the land than corn, being
thin and starved-looking, and as lame as Vulcan in the off
hind-leg. So ye see the managers of the box insisted on its
not running; and the man said “it had a right to run as
well as any other horse ;” and my lord said “it had no such
thing, as it was not in the box;” and the man said “he
would take out a protest ;” and my lord said “he didna gie
a bawbee for a protest ; and that he would not allow him to
run on any account whatsoever :” but the man was throng
all the time they were argle-bargling taking the cover off
the beast’s back, that was ready saddled, and as accoutred
for running as our regiment of volunteers was for fighting on
field-days. So he swore like a trooper that, notwithstand-
ing all their debarring, he would run in spite of their teeth
—hboth my lord’s teeth, ye observe, and that of the two key-
keepers ;—maybe, too, of the man that carried the saddle,
for he aye lent in a word at my lord’s back, egging him on
to stand out for the laws to the last drop of his blood.

To cut a long tale short, the drum ruffed, and off set four
of them, a black one, and a white one, and a brown one, and
the man’s one, neck and neck, as neat as you like. The
racecourse was along the highroad; and, dog on it, they
made a noise like thunder, throwing out their big heavy
feet behind them, and whisking their tails from side to side
as if they would have dung out one another's een ; till, not
being used to gallop, they at last began to funk and fling;
syne first one stopping, and then another, wheeling round
and round about like peeries, in spite of the riders whipping
them, and pulling them by the heads. The man’s mare,
however, from the Grassmarket, with the limping leg, car-
ried on, followed by the white one, an old tough brute that
had belonged in its youth to a trumpeter of the Scots Greys;
and, to tell the truth, it showed mettle still, though far past
its best: so back they came, neck and neck, all the folk
crying, and holloing, and clapping their hands — some
“Weel dune the lame ane—five shillings on the lame ane;’
MY LORD’S RACES. 87

—and others, “Weel run, Bonaparte—at him, auld Bona-
parte,—two to one that Whitey beats him all to sticks,”—
when, dismal to relate, the limping-legged ane couped the
creels, and old white Bonaparte came in with his tail
cocked, amid loud cheering and no small clapping of hands.

We all ran down the road to the place where the limping
horse was lying, for it was never like to rise up again any
more than the bit rider, that was thrown over its head like
an arrow out of a bow; but on helping him to his feet, save
and except the fright, two wide screeds across his trowser-
knees, and a scratch along the brig of his nose, nothing
visible was to be perceived. It was different, however, with
the limping horse. Misfortunate brute! one of its fore-legs
had folded below it, and snapped through at the fetlock
joint. There was it lying with a sad sorrowful look, as if
it longed for death to come quick and end its miseries, the
blood all the while gush-gushing out at the gaping wound.
To all it was as plain as the A, B, C, that the bones would
never knit; and that, considering the case it was in, it
would be an act of Christian charity to put the beast out of
pain. The maister gloomed, stroked his chin, and looked
down, knowing, weel-a-wat, that he had lost his bread-
winner, then gave his head a nod, nod—thrusting both his
hands down to the bottom lining of the pockets of his long
square-tailed jockey-coat. He was a wauf, hallanshaker-
looking chield, with an old broad-snouted japanned beaver
hat pulled over his brow—one that seemed by his phisog
to hold the good word of the world as nothing, and that
had, in the course of circumstances, been reduced to a kind
of wild desperation, either by chance-misfortunes, cares and
trials, or, what is more likely, by his own sinful, regardless
way of life.

“Tt canna be helpit,” he said, giving his head a bit shake;
“it canna be helpit, friends. Ay, Jess, ye were a gude ane
in yere day, lass—mony a penny and pound have I made
out of ye. Which o’ ye can lend me a hand, lads? Rin
away for a gun some 0’ ye.”

Here Thomas Clod interfered with a small bit of advice—
a thing that Thomas was good at, being a Cameronian elder,
and accustomed to giving a word. “Wad ye no think it
better,” said Thomas, “to stick her with a long gully-knife,
88 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

or a sharp shoemaker’s parer? It wad be an easier way,
I’m thinking.”

Dog on it! I could scarcely keep from shuddering when
I heard them speaking in this wild, heathenish, bloody sort
of a manner.

“Deed no,” quo’ Saunders Tram, at whose side I was
standing ; “far better send away for the smith’s forehammer,
and hit her a smack or twa betwixt the een; so ye wad
settle her in half a second.”

“No, no,” cried Tammie Dobbie, lending in his word;
“a better plan than a’ that wad be to make a strong kinch
of ropes and hang her.”

Lovey ding ! such ways of showing how to be merciful !!
But the old jockey himself interfered. “Haud yere tongues,
fules,” was his speech; “yonder’s the man coming wi’ a
gun. We'll shune put an end to her. She would have won
for a hunder pounds, if she hadna broken her leg, Wha’ll
wager me that she wadna hae won? But she’s the last of
my stable, puir beast ; and I havena ae plack to rub against
anither, now that I have lost her. Gi’e me the gun and the
penny candle. Is she loaded?” speired he at the man that
carried the piece.

“Troth is she,” was the answer,—“ double-charged.”

“Then stand back, lads,” quod the old round-shouthered
horse-couper; and ramming down the candle, he lifted up the
piece, cocking it as he went four or five yards in front of
the poor bleeding brute, that seemed, though she could not
rise, to know what he was about with the weapon of destruc-
tion, casting her black eye up at him, and looking pitifully
in his face.

When I saw him taking his aim and preparing to draw
the trigger, I turned round my back, not being able to stand
it, and brizzed the flats of my hands with all my pith
against the opening of my ears: nevertheless, I heard a
faint boom; so, heeling round, I observed the miserable
bleeding creature lift her head, and pulling up her legs,
give them a plunge down again on the divots; after which
she lay still, and we all saw, to our satisfaction, that death
had come to her relief.

We are not commanded to be the judges of our fellow- 2
creatures, but to think charitably of all men, hoping every-
MY LORD'S RACES. 89

thing for the best; and though the horse-couper was a
thought suspicious, both in look, speech, dress, and outward
behaviour, still, ever and anon, we were bound by the ten
commandments to consider him only in the light of a
fellow-mortal in distress of mind and poverty of pocket: so
we made a superscription for the poor man; and though he
did not look much like one that deserved our charity,
nevertheless and howsoever, maybe he was a bad halfpenny,
and maybe not; yet one thing was visibly certain, that he
was as poor as Job—misery being written in big-hand letters
on his brow. So it behoved each one to open his purse as
he could afford it; and though I say not what I put into
the hat, proud am I to tell that he collected two or three
shillings to help him home.

This job being over to his mind as well as mine, and the
money safely stowed into his big hinder coat-pocket—would
ye believe it? ere yet the beast was scarcely cold, just as
we were decamping from the place, and buttoning up our
breeches-pockets, we saw him casting his coat, and had the
curiosity to stand still for a jiffy, to observe what he was
after, in case, in the middle of his misfortunes, he was bent
on some act of desperation ; when, lo and behold! he out
with a gully-knife, and began skinning his old servant, as if
he had been only peeling the bark off a fallen tree !

One cannot sit at their ingle-cheek and expect, without
casting their eyes about them, to grow experienced in the
ways of men or the ongoings of the world. This spectacle
gave me, I can assure you, much and no little insight ; and so
dowie was I with the thoughts of what I had witnessed of
the selfishness, the sinfulness, and perversity of man, that I
grew more and more home-sick, thinking never so much in
my life before of my quiet hearthstone and cheerful ingle ;
and though Thomas Clod insisted greatly on my staying to
their head-meeting dinner, and taking a reel with the lassies
in the barn ; and Tammie Dobbie, the bit body, had got so
much into the spirit of the thing, that little persuasion
would have made him stay all night and reel till the dawing,
—yet I was determined to make the best of my way home ;
more be token, as Benjie might take skaith from the night
air, and our jaunt therefrom might, instead of contributing
to his welfare, do him more harm than good. So, after
90 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

getting some cheese and bread, to say nothing of a glass or
two of strong beer and a dram at Luckie Barm’s, we waited
in her parlour, which was hung round with most beautiful
pictures of Joseph and his Brethren, besides two stucco
parrots on the chimney-piece, amusing ourselves with look-
ing at them, as a pastime like, till Benjie wakened ; on the
which I made Tammie yoke his beast, and- rowing the bit
callant in his mother’s shawl, took him into my arms in the
cart, and, after shaking hands with all and sundry twice
or thrice over, we bade them a “good night,” and drove
away.

CHAPTER XV.

THE RETURN.

** That sweet home is their delight,
And thither they repair,
Communion with their own to hold!
Peaceful as, at the fall of night,
Two little lambkins gliding white
Return unto the gentle air,
That sleeps within the fold.
Or like two birds to their lonely nest,
Or wearied waves to their bay of rest,
Or fleecy clouds when their race is run,
That hang in their own beauty blest,
’Mid the calm that sanctifies the west
Around the setting sun.”—WILson.

I may confess, without thinking shame, that I was glad
when I found our nebs turned homeward; and, when we
got over the turn of the brae at the old quarry-holes, to see
the blue smoke of our own Dalkeith hanging like a thin
cloud over the tops of the green trees, through which I per-
ceived the glittering weathercock on the old kirk steeple.
Tammie, poor creature, I observed, was a whit ree with the
good cheer; and as he sat on the fore-tram, with his whip-
hand thrown over the beast’s haunches, he sang, half to him-
self and half aloud, a great many old Scotch songs, such as
“The Gaberlunzie,” “ Aiken Drum,” “ Tak’ yere Auld Cloak
about Ye,” and “the Deuk’s dang ower my Daddie ;” besides
THE RETURN. 91

“The Mucking o’ Geordie’s Byre,” and “ Ca’ the Ewes to the
Knowes,” and so on; but do what I liked, I could not keep
my spirits up, thinking of the woful end of the poor old
horse, and of the ne’er-do-weel loon its master. Many an
excellent instruction of Mr Wiggie’s came to my mind, of
how we misguided the good things that were lent us for our
use here, by a gracious Provider, who would, however, bid
us render a final account to Him of our conduct and con-
versation. I thought of how many were aye complaining
and complaining, myself whiles among the rest, of the hard-
ships, the miseries, and the misfortunes of their lot ; putting
all down to the score of fate, and never once thinking of the
plantations of sorrow reared up from the seeds of our own
sinfulness—or how anything, save punishment, could come
of the breaking of the ten commandments delivered to the
patriarch Moses. Perhaps, reckoned I with myself,—perliaps
in this, even I myself may have in this day’s transactions
erred. Here am I wandering about in a cart, exposing my-
self to the defilement of the world, to the fear of robbers
and to the night air, in the search of health for a dwining
laddie, as if the hand that dealt that blessing out was not as
powerful at home as it is abroad. Had I remained at my
own lapbroad, the profits of my day’s work would have been
over and above for the maintenance of my family, outside
and inside ; instead of which, I have been at the expense of
a cart-hire and a horse’s up-putting, let alone Tammie’s de-
bosh and my own, besides the trifle of threepence to the
round-shouldered old horse-couper with the slouched japan
beaver hat. The story was too true a one; but, alack-a-day,
it was now over-late to repent !

As I was thus musing, the bright red sun of summer sank
down behind the top of the Pentland Hills, and all looked
bluish, dowie, and dreary, as if the heart of the world had
been seized with a sudden dwalm, and the face of nature had
at once withered from blooming youth into the hoariness of
old age. Now and then the birds gave a bit chitter; and
whiles a cow mooed from the fields; and the dew was fall-
ing like the little tears of the fairies out of the blue lift,
where the gloaming-star soon began to glow and glitter
bonnily.

What I had seen and witnessed made my thoughts heavy
92 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

and my heart sad; I could not get the better of it. 1
looked round and round me, as we jogged along over the
height, down on the far distant country, that spread out as
if it had been a great big picture, with hills, and fields, and
woods; and I could still see to the norward the ships lying
at their anchors on the sea, and the shores of Fife far, far
beyond it. It was a great and a grand sight, and made me
turn from the looking at it into my own heart, causing me
to think more and more of the glory of the Maker’s handi-
works, and less and less of the littleness of prideful man.
But Tammie had gotten his drappikie, and the tongue of the
body would not lie still a moment; so he blethered on from
one thing to another as we jogged along, till I was forced at
the last to give up thinking, and begin a twa-handed crack
with him.

“Have you your snuff-box upon ye?” said Tammie.
“Ge me a pinch.”

Having given him the box, I observed to him that “ it
was beginning to grow dark and dowie.”

“Deed is’t,” said Tammie ; “but a body can now scarcely
meet on the road wi’ onything waur than themsell. Mony
a witch, de’il, and bogle, however, did my grannie see and
hear tell of, that used to scud and scamper hereaway lang-
syne like maukins.”

“ Witches!” quo’ I. “No, no, Tammie, all these things
are out of the land now; and muckle luck to them. But
we have other things to fear; what think ye of highway
robbers ?”

“ Highway robbers!” said Tammie. “Kay, kay; I'll tell
ye of something that I met in wi’ mysell. Ae dark winter
night, as I was daundering hame frae Pathhead,—it was pit-
mirk, and about the twall—losh me, I couldna see my
finger afore me !—that a stupid thocht cam into my head
that I wad never wun hame, but be either killed, lost, mur-
dered, or drowned, between that and-the dawing. Allo’a
sudden I sees a light coming dancing forrit amang the trees,
and my hair began to stand up on end. Then, in the next
moment—save us a’ !—I sees anither light ; and forrit, forrit
they baith cam, like the een of some great fiery monster, let
loose frae the pit o’ darkness by its maister, to seek whom it
might devour.”
THE RETURN. 93

“Stop, Tammie,” said I to him, “ye’ll wauken Benjie.
How far are we from Dalkeith ?”

“Twa mile and a bittock,” answered Tammie. “But
wait a wee. Up cam the two lights snoov-snooving, nearer
and nearer; and I heard distinctly the sound of feet that
werena men’s—cloven feet, maybe—but nae wheels. Sae
nearer it cam and nearer, till the sweat began to pour owre
my een as cauld as ice; and, at lang and last, I fand my
knees beginning to gi’e way; and, after tot-tottering for
half a minute, I fell down, my staff playing bleach out
before me. When I cam to mysell, and opened my een,
there were the twa lights before me, bleez-bleezing, as if
they wad blast my sight out. And what did they turn out
to be, think ye? The de’il or spunkie, whilk o’ them ?”

“Tm sure I canna tell,” said I.

“Naething mair then,” answered Tammie, “but twa
bowets, ane tied to ilka knee of auld Doofie, the half-crazy
horse-doctor, mounted on his lang-tailed naig, and away
through the dark by himsell, at the dead hour o’ night, to
the relief of a man’s mare seized with the batts, somewhere
down about Oxenford.”

I was glad that Tammie’s story had ended in this way,
when out came another tramping on its heels.

“Do you see the top of yon black trees to the eastward
there, on the braehead ?”

“T think I do,” was my reply. “ But how far, think ye,
are we from home now ?”

“ About a mile and a half,” said Tammie. ‘Weel, as to
the trees, I'll tell ye something about them.

“There was an auld widow-leddy lived langsyne about the
town-end of Dalkeith. A sour, cankered, curious body—
she’s dead and rotten lang ago. But what I was gaun to
say, she had a bonny bit fair-haired, blue-ee’d lassie of a
servant-maid that lodged in the house wi’ her, just by all
the world like a lamb wi’ a wolf—a bonnier quean, Pve
heard tell, never steppit in leather shoon: so all the young
lads in the Gate-end were wooing at her, and fain to have
her; but she wad only have ae joe for a’ that. He was a
journeyman wright, a trades-lad, and they had come, three
or four year before, frae the same place thegither — may-
be having had a liking for ane anither since they were
94 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

bairns; so they were gaun to be married the week after
Da’keith Fair, and a’ was settled. But what, think ye,
happened? He got a drap drink, and a recruiting-party
listed him in the king’s name, wi’ pitting a white shilling
in his loof.

“When the poor lassie heard what had come to pass, and
how her sweetheart had ta’en the bounty, she was like to
gang distrackit, and took to her bed. The doctor never
took up her trouble; and some said it was a fever. At
last she was roused out o’t, but naebody ever saw her laugh
after ; and frae ane that was as cantie as a lintie, she became
as douce as a Quaker, though she aye gaed cannily about her
wark, as if amaist naething had happened. If she was ony
way light-headed before, to be sure she wasna that noo, but
just what a decent quean should be, sitting for hours by the
kitchen fire her lane, reading the Bible, and thinking, wha
kens, of what wad become o’ the wicked after they died;
and so ye see——”

“What light is yon?” said I, interrupting him, wishing
him like to break off.

“Qu, it’s just the light on some of the coal-hills. The
puir blackened creatures will be gaun down to their wark.
It’s an unyearthly kind of trade, turning night intil day,
and working like moudiewarts in the dark, when decent
folks are in their beds sleeping. And so, as I was saying,
ye see, it happened ae Sunday night that a chap cam to the
back door; and the mistress too heard it. She was sitting
in the foreroom wi’ her specs on, reading some sermon book ;
but it was the maid that answered.

“Tn a while thereafter she rang her bell, being a curious
body, and aye anxious to ken a’ thing of her ain affairs, let
alane her neighbours’: so, after waiting a wee, she rang
again,—and better rang; then lifting up her stick, for she
was stiff with the rheumaticks and decay of nature, she
hirpled into the kitchen,—but feint a hait saw she there,
save the open Bible lying on the table, the cat streekit
out before the fire, and the candle burning—the candle—
na, I daursay I am wrang there; I believe it was a lamp,
for she was a near ane. As for her maiden, there was no
trace of her.”

“What do ye think came owre her then ?” said I to him,
THE RETURN. 95

mer to be at my wits’ end. “ Naething uncanny, I daur-
say

“Ye'll hear in a moment,” answered Tammie, “a’ that I
ken o’ the matter. Ye see—as I asked ye before—yon
trees on the hill-head to the eastward, just below yon
black cloud yonder ?”

“ Preceesely,” said I—“I see them well enough.”

“Weel, after a’ thochts of finding her were gi’en up, and
it was fairly concluded that it was the auld gudeman that
had come and chappit her out, she was fund in a pond
among yon trees, floating on her back, wi’ her Sunday
claes on!!”

“Drowned ?” said I to him.

“ Drowned—and as stiff as a deal board,” answered Tam-
mie. “But when she was drowned—or how she came to
be drowned—or who it was drowned her—has never been
found out to this blessed moment.”

“ Maybe,” said I, lending in my word—“ maybe she had
grown demented, and thrown herself in i’ the dark.”

“Or maybe,” said Tammie, “the de’il flew away wi’ her
in a flash o’ fire, and, soosing her down frae the lift, she
landit in that hole, where she was fund floating. But—wo!
—wo!” cried he to his horse, coming across its side with
his whip—“we maun be canny; for this brig has a sharp
turn [it was the Cow Brig, ye know], and many a one, both
horse and man, have got their necks broken by not being
wary enough of that corner.”

This made me a thought timorous, having the bit laddie
Benjie fast asleep in my arms, and as I saw that Tammie’s
horse was a wee fidgety, and glad, I daresay, poor thing,
to find itself so near home. We heard the water, far down
below, roaring and hushing over the rocks, and thro’ among
the Duke’s woods—hig, thick, black trees, that threw their
branches, like giants’ arms, half across the Esk, making all
below as gloomy as midnight ; while over the tops of them,
high, high aboon, the bonnie wee starries were twink-twink-
ling far amid the blue. But there was no end to Tammie’s
tongue.

“Weel,” said he, “speaking o’ the brig, I'll tell you a
gude story about that. Auld Jamie Bowie, the potato-mer-
chant, that lived at the Gate-end, had a horse and cart that
96 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

met wi’ an accident just at the turn o’ the corner yonder;
and up cam a chield, sair forfaughten and a’ out of breath,
to Jamie’s door, crying like the prophet Jeremiah to the
auld Jews, ‘Rin, rin away doun to the Cow Brig, for your
cart’s dung to shivers, and the driver’s killed, as weel as the
horse !’

“James ran in for his hat; but, as he was coming out at
the door, he met another messenger, such as came running
across the plain to David to acquaint him of the death of
Absalom, crying, ‘Rin away doun, Jamie, rin away doun;
your cart is standing yonder, without either horse or
driver, for they’re baith killed !’

“Jamie thanked Heaven that the cart was to the fore;
then, rinning back for his stick, which he had forgotten,
he stopped a moment to bid his wife not greet so loud,
and was then rushing out in full birr, when he ran foul of
a third chield, that mostly knocked doun the door in his
hurry. ‘Awfw news, man, awfu’ news,’ was the way ot
with this second Eliphaz the Temanite. ‘Your cart and
horse ran away, and threw the driver, puir fellow, clean
owre the brig into the water. No a crunch o’ him is to be
seen or heard tell of, for he was a? smashed to pieces!! It’s
an awfu’ business !’

“¢But where’s the horse? and where’s the cart, then ?’
askit Jamie, a thought brisker. ‘Where’s the horse and
cart, then, my man? Can ye tell me ought of that?’

“¢Ou,’ said he, ‘they’re baith doun at the Toll yonder, no
a hair the waur.’

“¢That’s the best news I’ve heard the nicht, my man.
Goodwife,—I say, goodwife, are ye deaf or donnart? Give
this lad a dram; and as it rather looks like a shower, Pll
e’en no go out the night. T’ll easily manage to find another
driver, though half a hundred o’ the blockheads should get
their brains knocked out.’

“Ts not that a gude ane noo?” quo’ Tammie, laughing.
“Od, Jamie Bowie was a real ane. He wadna let them
light a candle by his bedside to let him see to dee; he gied
them a curse, and said that was needless extravagance.”

Dog on it, thought I to myself, the further in the deeper !
This beats the round -shouldered horse-couper with the
japan hat, skinning his reeking horse, all to sticks; and
THE RETURN. 97

so I again fell into a gloomy sort of a musing, when, just
as we came opposite the Duke’s gate, with the deers on each
side of it, two men rushed out upon us, and one of them
seized Tammie’s horse by the bridle, as the other one held
his horse-pistol to my nose, and bade me stop in the King’s
name!

“Hold your hand, hold your hand, for the sake of
mercy!” cried I. “Spare the father of a small family that
will starve on the street if ye take my life!! Hae—hae—
there’s every coin and copper I have about me in the world !
Be merciful, be merciful; and do not shed blood, that will
not, cannot be rubbed out of your conscience. Take all that
we have—horse and cart and all if ye like; only spare
our lives, and let us away home!”

“De’il’s in the man,” quo’ Tammie, “horse and cart!
that’s a gude ane! Na, na, lads; fire away gin ye like; for
as lang as I hae a drap o’ bluid in me, ye’ll get neither.
Better be killed than starve. Do your best, ye thieves that
ye are; and I'll hae baith of ye hanged neist week before
the Fifteen !” ‘

Every moment I expected my head to be shot off, till I
got my~hand clapped on Tammie’s mouth, and could get
cried to them—“Shoot him then, lads; shoot him then,
lads, if he wants it; but take my siller like Christians, and
let me away with my poor deeing bairn !”

The two men seemed a something dumfoundered with
what they heard; and I began to think them, if they were
highway robbers, a wee slow at their trade; when, what
think ye did they turn out to be—only guess? Nothing
more nor less than two excise officers, that had got informa-
tion of some smuggled gin, coming up in a cart from Fisher-
row harbour, and were lurking on the roadside, looking
out for spuilzie!!

When they quitted us giggling, I could not keep from
laughing too; though the sights I had seen, and the fright
I had got, made me nervish and eerie; so blithe was I
when the cart rattled on our own street, and I began to
waken Benjie, as we were not above a hundred yards from
our own door.

In this day’s adventures I saw the sin and folly of my
conduct visibly, as I jumped out of the cart at our close

G
98 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

mouth. So I determined within myself, with a strong
determination, to behave more sensibly for the future, and
think no more about lime-kilns and coal-pits ; but to trust,
for Benjie’s recovery from the chincough, to a kind Provi-
dence, together with Daffy’s elixir and warm blankets.

CHAPTER XVI.
THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE.

“ So stands the Thracian herdsman with his spear
Full in the gap, and hopes the hunted bear;
And hears him in the rustling wood, and sees
His course at distance by the bending trees ;
And thinks—Here comes my mortal enemy,
And either he must fall in fight or I.”
—Drypven’s Palamon and Arcite.

«‘ Nay, never shake thy gory locks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it!” —Macbeth.

It was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four
o'clock, when I wakened from my night’s rest, and was
about thinking to bestir myself, that I heard the sound of
voices in the kail-yard stretching south from our back win-
dows. I listened—and I listened—and I better listened—
and still the sound of the argle-bargling became more dis-
tinct, now in a fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones,
as if some quarrelsome disagreement had taken place. I
had not the comfort of my wife’s company in this dilemmy,
—she being away, three days before, on the top of Tammy
Trundle the carrier’s cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks
there; her mother (my gudemother like) having been for
some time ill with an income in her leg, which threatened
to make a lameter of her in her old age, the two doctors
there—not speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely
old women—being able to make nothing of the business;
so nobody happened to be with me in the room saving wee
Benjie, who was lying asleep at the back of the bed, with
his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a top. Never-
theless, I looked for my clothes; and, opening one half of
THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE. 99

the window shutter, I saw four young birkies, well dressed
—indeed three of them customers of my own—all belonging
to the town; two of them young doctors, one of them a
writer’s clerk, and the other a grocer. The whole appeared
very fierce and fearsome, like turkey-cocks; swaggering
about with warlike arms as if they had been the king’s
dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which one of the
surgeons, a spirity, outspoken lad, Maister Blister, was
holding in his grip.

I jealoused at once what they were after, being now a wee
up to firearms; so I saw that scaith was to come of it,
and that I would be wanting in my duty on four heads,—
first, as a Christian ; second, as a man; third, as a subject;
and fourth, as a father,—if I withheld myself from the
scene, nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against
such crying iniquity as the wanton letting out of human
blood; so forth I hastened, half dressed, with my grey
stockings rolled up my thighs over my corduroys, and my
old hat above my cowl, to the kail-yard of contention.

I was just in the nick of time; and my presence checked
the effusion of blood for a little—but wait a wee. So high
and furious were at least three of the party, that I saw it
was catching water in a sieve to waste words on them,
knowing as clearly as the sun serves the world, that inter-
ceding would be of no avail. Howsoever, I made a feint,
and threatened to bowl away for a magistrate, if they would
not desist from their barbarous and bloody purpose; but,
?fegs, I had better kept my counsel till it was asked for.

“Tailor Mansie,” blustered out Maister Thomas Blister,
with a furious cock of his eye—he was a queer Hirish birkie,
come over for his education—‘“since ye have ventured to
thrust your nose, ma vourneen,” said he, “where nobody
invited ye, you must just stay,” added he, “and abide by
the consequences. This is an affair of honour, you take,
don’t ye? and if ye venture to stir one foot from the spot,
och then, ma bouchal,” said he, “by the poker of St Patrick,
but whisk through ye goes one of these leaden playthings,
as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat or cabbaged broadcloth !
Ye have now come out, ye observe,—hark ye,” said he,
“and are art and part in the business; and if one, or
both, of the principals be killed, poor devils,” said he, “we
100 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

are all alike liable to take our trial before the Justiciary
Court, hark ye; and by the powers,” said he, “I doubt not
but, on proper consideration, machree, that they will allow
us to get off mercifully, on this side of swinging, by a ver-
dict of manslaughter—and be hanged to them !”

Od, I found myself immediately in a scrape; but how to
get out of it baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering ;
yet I thought that, come the worst when it should, they
surely would not hang the father of a helpless small family,
that had nothing but his needle for their support, if I made
a proper affidavy, about having tried to make peace between
the youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I abode
in silence, though not without many queer and qualmish
thoughts, and a pit-patting of the heart, not unco pleasant
in the tholing.

“Blood and wounds!” bawled Maister Thomas Blister,
“it would be a disgrace for ever on the honourable profes-
sion of physic,” egging on poor Maister Willy Magneezhy,
whose face was as white as double-bleached linen, “to make
an apology for such an insult. Arrah, my honey! you not
fit. to doctor a cat,—you not fit to bleed a calf,—you not fit
to poultice a pig, —after three years’ apprenticeship,” said
he, “and a winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping-
glasses of ’Pocrates,” said he, “and by the pistol of Gallon,
but I would have caned him on the spot if he had just let
out half as much to me! Look ye, man,” said ye—“look
ye, man, he is all shaking” (this was a God’s truth); “he'll
turn tail. At him like fire, Willie.”

Magneezhy, though sadly frightened, looked a thought
brighter, and made a kind of half step forward. “Say that
yell ask my pardon once more,—and if not,” whined the
poor lad, with a voice broken and trembling, “then we must
just shoot one another.”

“Devil a bit,” answered Maister Bloatsheet—“ devil a bit.
No, sir; you must down on your bare knees, and beg ten
thousand pardons for calling me out here, in a raw morn-
ing; or I'll have a shot at you, whether you will or not.”

“Will you stand that?” said Blister, with eyes like burn-
ing coals. “By the living jingo, and the holy poker, Mag-
neezhy, if you stand that,—if you stand that, I say, I
stand no longer your second, but leave you to disgrace and
THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE. 101

a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not as
a gentleman, then, cuishla machree,—let him do it, and be
done |”

“No, sir,” replied Magneezhy, with a quivering voice,
which he tried in vain, poor fellow, to render warlike (he
had never been in the volunteers like me). “Hand us the
pistols, then, and let us do or die !”

“Spoken like a hero, and brother of the lancet: as little
afraid at the sight of your own blood as at that of your
patients,” said Blister. “Hand over the pistols.”

It was an awful business. Gude save us, such goings on
in a Christian land! While Mr Bloatsheet, the young
writer, was in the act of cocking the bloody weapon, I again,
but to no purpose, endeavoured to slip in a word edgeways.
Magneezhy was in an awful case; if he had been already
shot, he could not have looked more clay and corpse-like ;
so I took up a douce earnest confabulation, while the stra-
mash was drawing to a bloody conclusion, with Mr Harry
Molasses, the fourth in the spree, who was standing behind
Bloatsheet with a large mahogany box under his arm, some-
thing in shape like that of a licensed packman, ganging
about from house to house, through the country-side, sell-
ing toys and trinkets, or niffering plaited ear-rings, and
suchlike, with young lasses, for old silver coins or cracked
teaspoons,

“Oh !” answered he, very composedly, as if it had been a
canister full of black-rapee or black-guard, that he had just
lifted down from his top-shelf, “it’s just Doctor Blister’s
saws, whittles, and big knives, in case any of their legs or
arms be blown away, that he may cut them off.” Little
~ would have prevented me sinking down through the ground,
had I not remembered at the preceese moment that I my-
self was a soldier, and liable, when the hour of danger
threatened, to be called out, in marching order, to the field
of battle. But by this time the pistols were in the hands
of the two infatuated young men, Mr Bloatsheet, as fierce
as a hussar dragoon, and Magneezhy as supple in the knees
as if he was all on oiled hinges; so the next consideration
was to get well out of the way, the lookers-on running
nearly as great a chance of being shot as the principals,
they not being accustomed, like me for instance, to the use
102 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

of arms; on which account I scougged myself behind a
big pear-tree,—both being to fire when Blister gave the
word “ Off !”

I had scarcely jouked into my hidy-hole, when “ crack—
crack” played the pistols like lightning; and as soon as 1
got my cowl taken from my eyes and looked about, woes
me! I saw Magneezhy clap his hand to his brow, wheel
round like a peerie, or a sheep seized with the sturdie,
and then play flap down on his broadside, breaking the
necks of half a dozen cabbage-stocks—three of which were
afterwards clean lost, as we could not put them all into
the pot at one time. The whole of us ran forward, but
foremost was Bloatsheet, who, seizing Magneezhy by the
hand, cried, with a mournful face, “ I hope you forgive me?
Only say this as long as you have breath, for I am off to
Leith harbour in half a minute.”

The blood was running over poor Magneezhy’s eyes, and
drib-dribbling from the neb of his nose, so he was truly in
a pitiful state; but he said with more strength than I
thought he could have mustered,—“ Yes, ‘yes, fly for your
life. I am dying without much pain—fly for your life,
for I am a gone man!”

Bloatsheet bounced through the kail-yard like a maukin,
clamb over the bit wall, and off like mad; while Blister was
feeling Magneezhy’s pulse with one hand, and looking at
his doctor’s watch, which he had in the other. “Do ye
think that the poor lad will live, doctor?” said I to him.

He gave his head a wise shake, and only observed, “I
daresay it will be a hanging business among us. In what
direction do you think, Mansie, we should all take flight ?”

But I answered bravely, “Flee them that will, I’se flee
nane. If I am taken prisoner, the town-officers maun haul
me from my own house; but, nevertheless, I trust the visi-
bility of my innocence will be as plain as a pikestaff to the
eyes of the Fifteen !”

“What, then, Mansie, will we do with poor Magneezhy ?
Give us your advice in need.”

“Let us carry him down to my own bed,” answered I;
“T would not desert a fellow-creature in his dying hour!
Help me down with him, and then flee the country as fast
as you are able!”
THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE. 103

We immediately proceeded, and lifted the poor lad, who
had now dwalmed away, upon our wife’s hand-barrow—
Blister taking the feet, and me the oxters, whereby I got
my waistcoat all japanned with blood; so, when we got
him laid right, we proceeded to carry him between us down
the close, just as if he had been a sticked sheep, and in at
the back door, which cost us some trouble, being narrow, and
the barrow getting jammed in; but, at long and last, we got
him streeked out above the blankets, having previously
shooken Benjie, and wakened him out of his morning’s nap.

All this being accomplished and got over, Blister de-
camped, leaving me my leeful lane, excepting Benjie, who
was next to nobody, in the house with the dying man.
What a frightful face he had, all smeared over with blood
and powder—and I really jealoused, that if he died in that
room it would be haunted for evermair, he being in a
manner a murdered man; so that, even should I be ac-
quitted of art and part, his ghost might still come to bother
us, making our house a hell upon earth, and frighting
us out of our seven senses. But in the midst of my
dreadful surmises, when all was still, so that you might
have heard a pin fall, a knock-knock-knock came to the
door, on which, recovering my senses, I dreaded first that it
was the death-chap, and syne that the affair had got wind,
and that it was the beagles come in search of me; so I
kissed little Benjie, who was sitting on his creepie, blubber-
ing and greeting for his parritch, while a tear stood in my
own eye as I went forward to lift the sneck to let the officers,
as I thought, harrie our house, by carrying off me, its master ;
but it was, thank Heaven, only Tammie Bodkin, coming in
whistling to his work, with some measuring papers hanging
round his neck.

“Ah, Tammie,” said I to him, my heart warming at a
kent face, and making the laddie, although my bounden ser-
vant by a regular indenture of five years, a friend in my
need, “come in, my man. I fear ye’ll hae to take charge
of the business for some time to come; mind what I tell’d
ye about the shaping and the cutting, and no making the
goose ower warm ; as 1 doubt I am about to be harled away
to the tolbooth.”

Tammie’s heart swelled to his mouth. “Ah, maister,” he
104 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

said, “ye’re joking. What should ye have done that ye
should be ta’en to sic an ill place?”

“ Ay, Tammie, lad,” answered I, “it is but ower true.”

“Weel, weel,” quo’ Tammie—I really thought it a great
deal of the laddie—“weel, weel, they canna prevent me
coming to sew beside ye; and if I can take the measure
of customers without, ye can cut the claith within. But
what is’t for, maister ?” ;

“Come in here,” said I to him, “and believe your ain
een, Tammie, my man.”

“Tosh me!” cried the poor laddie, glowring at the bloody
face of the man in the bed, and starting back on his tip-toes.
“ Ay—ay—ay! maister; save us, maister; ay—ay—ay—
you have na cloured his harnpan with the guse? Ay,
maister, maister! whaten an unearthly sight!! I doubt
they'll hang usa’: you for doing’t—and me on suspicion—
and Benjie as art and part, puir thing! But Il rin for
a doctor. Will I, maister?”

The thought had never struck me before, being in a sort
of a manner dung stupid ; but catching up the word, I said
with all my pith and birr, “ Rin, rin, Tammie—rin for life
and death !”

Tammie bolted like a nine-year-old, never looking behind
his tail; so in less than ten minutes he returned, hauling
along old Doctor Peelbox, whom he had waukened out of
his bed, in a camblet morning- gown and a pair of red
slippers, by the lug and horn, at the very time I was trying
to quiet young Benjie, who was following me up and down
the house, as I was pacing to and fro in distraction, girning
and whingeing for his breakfast.

“Bad business, bad business; bless us, what is this?”
said the old Doctor, who was near-sighted, staring at Mag-
neezhy’s bloody face through his silver spectacles—“ what's
the matter ?”

The poor patient knew at once his master’s tongue, and
lifting up one of his eyes, the other being stiff and barkened
down, said in a melancholy voice, “ Ah, master, do you think
Tl get better ?”

Doctor Peelbox, old man as he was, started back as if he
had been a French dancing-master, or had stramped on a hot
bar of iron. “Tom, Tom, is this you? what, in the name of
THE BLOODY CARTRIDGE. 105

wonder, has done this?” Then feeling his wrist—“ but your
pulse is quite good. Have you fallen, boy? Where is the
blood coming from ?”

“Somewhere about the hairy scalp,” answered Magneezhy,
in their own queer sort of lingo. “1 doubt some artery’s
cut through.”

The Doctor immediately bade him lie quiet and hush, as
he was getting a needle and silken thread ready to sew it
up, ordering me to have a basin and water ready to wash
the poor lad’s physog. I did so as hard as I was able, though
I was not sure about the blood just,—old Doctor Peelbox
watching over my shoulder with a lighted penny candle in
one hand, and the needle and thread in the other, to see
where the blood spouted from. But we were as daft as wise ;
so he bade me take my big shears, and cut out all the hair on
the fore-part of the head as bare as my loof—and syne we
washed, and better washed ; so Magneezhy got the other eye
up, when the barkened blood was loosed—looking, though
as pale as a clean shirt, more frighted than-hurt—auntil it
became plain to us all, first to the Doctor, syne to me, and
syne to Tammie Bodkin, and last of all to Magneezhy him-
self, that his skin was not so much as peeled. So we helped
him out of the bed, and blithe was I to see the lad standing
on the floor, without a hold, on his own feet.

I did my best to clean his neckeloth and shirt of the blood,
making him look as decentish as possible, considering cir-
cumstances ; and lending him, as the Scripture commands,
my tartan mantle to hide the infirmity of his bloody trousers
and waistcoat. Home went he and his master together,—me
standing at our close mouth, wishing them a good morning,
and blithe to see their backs. Indeed a condemned thief
with the rope about his neck, and the white cowl tied over
his eyes, to say nothing of his hands yerked together behind
his back, and on the nick of being thrown over, could not
have been more thankful for a reprieve than I was at the
same blessed moment. It was like Adam seeing the deil’s
rear marching out of Paradise, if one may be allowed to
think such a thing.

The whole business, tag-rag and bobtail, soon, however,
spunked out, and was the town talk for more than one day.
But yowll hear.
106 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

At the first I pitied the poor lads, that I thought had fled
for ever and aye from their native country, to Bengal, Ser-
ingapatam, Copenhagen, Botany Bay, or Jamaica, leaving
behind them all their friends and old Scotland, as they
might never hear of the goodness of Providence in their
behalf. But wait a wee.

Would you believe it? As sure’s death, the whole was
but a wicked trick, played by that mischievous loon Blister
and his cronies, upon one that was a simple and soft-headed
callant. Deil a hait was in the one pistol but a pluff of
powder ; and in the other a cartridge-paper, full of blood,
was rammed down upon the charge,—the which, hitting
Magneezhy on the ee-bree, had caused a business that
seemed to have put him out of life, and nearly put me
(though one of the volunteers) out of my seven senses,

CHAPTER XVII.

MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY.

“ Pla, I’ faith
I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: a man shall not be chokt
With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted firm
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.

Bra. ’Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope
The boys will come one day in great request.”

—Jack Drum’s Entertainment: 1601.

“* Out cam the gudeman, and laigh he louted ;
Out cam the gudewife, and heigh she shouted ;
And a’ the toun-neibours gather’d about it ;
And there he lay, I trow.”
—The Cauldrife Wooer.

The time of Tammie Bodkin’s apprenticeship being nearly
worn through, it behoved me, as a man attentive to business
and the interests of my family, to cast my eyes around me
in search of a callant to fill his place: as it is customary in
our trade for young men, when their time is out, taking a
year’s journeymanship in Edinburgh, to perfect them in the
more intricate branches of the business, and learn the newest
MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY. 107

manner of the French and London fashions, by cutting cloth
for the young advocates, the college students, the banking-
house clerks, the half-pay ensigns, and the rest of the princi-
pal tip-top bucks.

Having, though I say it myself, the word of being a canny
maister, more than one brought their callants to me on
reading the bill of “An apprentice wanted” pasted on my
shop-window.

Offering to bind them for the regular time, yet not wish-
ing to take but one, I thought best not to fix in a hurry,
and make choice of him that seemed more exactly cut out
for my purpose. In the course of a few weeks three or four
cast up, among whom was a laddie of Ben Aits the meal-
monger, and a son of William Burlings the baker, to say
little of the callant of Saunders Broom the sweep, that
would fain have put his blackit-looking bit creature with
the one eye and the wooden leg under my wing; but I aye
looked ‘to respectability in these matters, so glad was I
when I got the offer of Mungo Glen. But more of this in
half a minute.

I must say I was glad of any feasible excuse to make to
the sweep to get quit of him and his laddie, the father
being a drucken ne’er-do-weel, that I wonder did not fall
long ere this time of day from some chimney-head and get
his neck broken. So I told him at long and last, when he
came papping into my shop, plaguing me every time he
passed, that I had fitted myself, and that there would be
no need of his taking the trouble to call again. Upon
which he gave his blacked nieve a desperate thump on the
counter, making the observation, that out of respect for him
I might have given his son the preference. Though I was
a wee puzzled for an answer, I said to him, for want of a
better, that having a timber leg, he could not well creuk his
hough to the shop-board for our trade.

“Hout, touts,” said Saunders, giving his lips a smack—
“ereuk his hough, ye body you! Do you think his timber
leg canna screw off? That'll no pass.”

I was a little dumfoundered at this cleverness. So I said,
more on my guard, “True, true, Saunders, but he’s ower
little.”

“ Ower little, and be hanged to ye,” cried the disrespect-
108 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

ful fellow, wheeling about on his heel, as he grasped the
sneck of the shop-door, and gave a girn that showed the
only clean parts of his body—to wit, the whites of his eyes
and his sharp teeth. “Ower little! Pu, pu! He’s like
the blackamoor’s pig, then, Maister Wauch—he’s like the
blackamoor’s pig—he may be ver’ leetle, but he be tam
ould;” and with this he showed his back, clapping the door
at his tail without wishing a good-day. And I am scarcely
sorry when I confess, that I never cut cloth for either father
or son from that hour to this one, the losing of such a cus-
tomer being no great matter at best, and almost clear gain
compared with saddling myself with a callant with only one
eye and one leg,—the one having fallen a victim to the dregs
of the measles, and the other having been harled off by a
farmer’s threshing - mill. However, I got myself properly
suited. But ye shall hear.

Our neighbour, Mrs Grassie, a widow woman, unco inti-
mate with our wife, and very attentive to Benjie when he
had the chincough, had a far-away cousin of the name of
Glen, that held out among the howes of the Lammermoor
hills—a distant part of the country, ye observe. Auld Glen,
a decent-looking body of a creature, had come in with his
sheltie about some private matters of business—such as the
buying of a horse, or something to that effect, where he
could best fall in with it, either at our fair, or the Grass-
market, or suchlike; so he had up-pitting, free of expense,
from Mrs Grassie, on account of his relationship,—Glen
being second cousin to Mrs Grassie’s brother’s wife, which is
deceased. I might, indeed, have mentioned that our neigh-
bour herself had been twice married, and had the misery of
seeing out both her gudemen ; but such was the will of fate,
and she bore up with perfect resignation. :

Having made a bit warm dinner ready, for she was a tidy
body, and knew what was what, she thought she could not
do better than ask in a reputable neighbour to help her
friend to eat it, and take a cheerer with him, as maybe,
being a stranger here, he would not like to use the freedom
of drinking by himself—a custom which is at the best an
unsocial one—especially with none but women -folk near
him. So she did me the honour to make choice of me—
though I say it, who should not say it,—and when we got
MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY. 109

our jug filled for the second time, and began to grow better
acquainted, ye would really wonder to see how we became
merry, and cracked away just like two pen-guns. I asked
him, ye see, about sheep and cows, and corn and hay, and
ploughing and threshing, and horses and carts, and fallow
land, and lambing-time, and har’st, and making cheese and
butter, and selling eggs, and curing the sturdie, and the
snifters, and the batts, and suchlike; and he, in his turn,
made inquiry regarding broad and narrow cloth, Kilmarnock
cowls, worsted comforters, Shetland hose, mittens, leather-
caps, stuffing and padding, metal and mule buttons, thorls,
pocket-linings, serge, twist, buckram, shaping and sewing,
back-splaying, cloth-runds, goosing the labroad, botkins,
black thread, patent shears, measuring, and all the other
particulars belonging to our trade, which he said, at long
and last, after we had joked together, was a power better one
than the farming line.

“Ye should make your son ane, then,” said I, “if ye
think so. Have ye any bairns?”

“Ye've hit the nail on the head. ’Od, man, if ye wasna
so far away, I would bind our auldest callant to yoursell,
I’m sae weel pleased wi’ your gentlemanly manners. But
I’m speaking havers.”

“Havers here or havers there, what,” said I, “is to pre-
vent ye boarding him, at a cheap rate, either with our
friend Mrs Grassie, or with the wife? Hither of the two
would be a sort of mother to him.”

“Deed I daur say would they,” answered Maister Glen,
stroking his chin, which was gey rough, and had not got a
clean since Sunday, having had four days of sheer growth—
our meeting, you will observe by this, being on the Thursday
afternoon—“ ’deed would they. ’Od, I maun speak to the
mistress about it.”

On the head of this we had another jug, three being
cannie, after which we were both a wee tozy-mozy; and I
daresay Mrs Grassie saw plainly that we were getting into a
state where we would not easily make a halt; so, without
letting on, she brought in the tea-things before us, and
showed us a playbill, to tell us that a company of strolling
play-actors had come in a body in the morning, with a whole
cartful of scenery and grand dresses, and were to make an
110 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

exhibition at seven o'clock, at the ransom of a shilling
a-head, in Laird Wheatley’s barn.

Many a time and often had I heard of play-acting, and of
players making themselves kings and queens, and saying a
great many wonderful things, but I had never before an
opportunity of making myself a witness to the truth of these
hearsays. So Maister Glen, being as full of nonsense, and
as fain to have his curiosity gratified as myself, we took
upon us the stout resolution to go out together, he offering
to treat me; and I determined to run the risk of Maister
Wiggie, our minister’s, rebuke for the transgression, hoping
it would make no lasting impression on his mind, being for
the first and only time. Folks should not on all occasions
be over-scrupulous. Z

After paying our money at the door, never, while I live
and breathe, will 1 forget what we saw and heard that night;
it just looks to me, by all the world, when I think on it,
like a fairy dream. The place was crowded to the full,
Maister Glen and me having nearly got our ribs dung in
before we found a seat, the folks behind being obliged to
mount the back benches to get asight. Right to the fore-
hand of us was a large green curtain, some five or six ells
wide, a good deal the worse of the wear, having seen service
through two-three summers; and just in the front of it
were eight or ten penny candles, stuck in a board fastened
to the ground, to let us see the players’ feet like, when they
came on the stage—and even before they came on the stage ;
for the curtain being scrimpit in length, we saws legs and
sandals moving behind the scenes very neatly ; while two
blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the
ponniest ye ever heard. ’Od, the very music was worth a
sixpence of itself.

The place, as I said before, was choke-full, just to excess,
so that one could scarcely breathe. Indeed I never saw
any part so crowded, not even at a tent-preaching, when the
Rev. Mr Roarer was giving his discourses on the building of
Solomon’s Temple. We were obligated to have the windows
opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as close
as a baker’s oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red
faces with our hats to keep us cool; and though all were
half stewed, we certainly had the worst of it, the toddy we
MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY. 111

had taken having fermented the blood of our bodies into a
perfect fever. /

Just at the time that the two blind fiddlers were playing
the Downfall of Paris, a hand-bell rang, and up goes the
green curtain—being hauled to the ceiling, as I observed with
the tail of my eye, by a birkie at the side that had hold of
a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all becoming as still
as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a decent
old gentleman at his leisure, well powdered, with an old-
fashioned coat on, waistcoat with flap-pockets, brown breeches
with buckles at the knees, and silk stockings with red gushats
on a blue ground. I never saw a man in such distress: he
stamped about, and better stamped about, dadding the end
of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers of
heaven and earth to help him to find out his runaway
daughter, that had decamped with some ne’er-do-weel loon
of a half-pay captain, that keppit her in his arms from her
bedroom-window, up two pair of stairs.

Every father and head of a family must have felt for a
man in his situation, thus to be robbed of his dear bairn,
and an only daughter too, as he told us over and over again,
as the salt, salt tears ran gushing down his withered face,
and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered pocket-
napkin. But, ye know, the thing was absurd to suppose
that we should know any inkling about the matter, having
never seen him or his daughter between the een before, and
not kenning them by headmark ; so, though we sympathised
with him, as folks ought to do with a fellow-creature in
affliction, we thought it best to hold our tongues, to see
what might cast up better than he expected. So out he
went stumping at the other side, determined, he said, to
find them out, though he should follow them to the world’s
end, Johnny Groat’s House, or something to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and almost before ye could
cry Jack Robison, in comes the birkie and the very young
lady the old gentleman described, arm-and-arm together,
smoodging and laughing like daft. Dog on it! it was a
shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all
the crowd of folk, he put his arm round her waist, and
called her his sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling,
and everything that is fine. If they had been courting in a
112 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

close together on a Friday night, they could not have said
more to one another, or gone greater lengths. I thought
such shame to be an eyewitness to sic on- goings, that I
was obliged at last to hold up my hat before my face and
look down; though, for all that, the young lad, to be such
a blackguard as his conduct showed, was well enough faured,
and had a good coat to his back, with double gilt buttons
and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very well-made pair
of buckskins, a thought the worse of the wear, to be sure,
but which, if they had been well cleaned, would have looked
almost as good as new. How they had come we never could
learn, as we neither saw chaise nor gig; but from his hay-
ing spurs on his boots, it is more than likely that they had
lighted at the back-door of the barn from a horse, she rid-
ing on a pad behind him, maybe, with her hand round his
waist.

The father looked to be a rich old bool, both from his
manner of speaking and the rewards he seemed to offer for
the apprehension of his daughter; but to be sure, when
so many of us were present that had an equal right to the
spuilzie, it would not be a great deal a thousand pounds
when divided, still it was worth the looking after: so we
just bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsoever, sooner than
either themselves, I daresay, or anybody else present, seemed
to have the least: glimpse of ; for just in the middle of their
fine goings-on, the sound of a coming foot was heard, and
the lassie, taking guilt to her, cried out, “Hide me, hide
me, for the sake of goodness, for yonder comes my old
father !”

No sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a
closet, and, after shutting the door on her, he sat down
upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in the twinkling of a
walking-stick. The old father came bouncing in, and seeing
the fellow as sound as a top, he ran forward and gave him
such a shake as if he would have shooken him all sundry,
which soon made him open his eyes as fast as he had steeked
‘them. After blackguarding the chield at no allowance,
cursing him up hill and down dale, and calling him every
name but a gentleman, he held his staff over his crown, and
gripping him by the cuff of the neck, asked him, in a fierce
MY FIRST AND LAST PLAY. 113

tone, what he had made of his daughter. Never since
I was born did I ever see such brazen-faced impudence !
The rascal had the brass to say at once, that he had not
seen word or wittens of the lassie for a month, though more
than a hundred folk sitting in his company had beheld him
dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist, not five
minutes before. As a man, asa father, as an elder of our
kirk, my corruption was raised, for I aye hated lying as a
poor cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten command-
ments, and I found my neighbour, Mr Glen, fidgeting on
the seat as well as me; so I thought that whoever spoke
first would have the best right to be entitled to the reward;
whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took
the word out of his mouth, saying, “Dinna believe him,
auld gentleman—dinna believe him, friend; he’s telling a
parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It’s no worth
arguing, or calling witnesses—just open that press-door, and
ye’ll see whether I’m speaking truth or not!”

The old man stared, and looked dumbfoundered ; and the
young one, instead of running forward with his double
nieves to strike me, the only thing I was feared for, began
a-laughing, as if I had done him a good turn. But never
since I had a being did I ever witness such an uproar and
noise as immediately took place. The whole house was so
glad that the scoundrel had been exposed, that they set up
siccan a roar of laughter, and thumped away at siccan a
rate at the boards with their feet, that, at long and last, with
pushing and fidgeting, clapping their hands and holding
their sides, down fell the place they call the gallery, all the
folk in’t being hurled topsy-turvy, head foremost among the
sawdust on the floor below, their guffawing soon being
turned to howling, each one crying louder than another at
the top note of their voices, “ Murder! murder! hold off me ;
murder! my ribs are in; murder! I’m killed—I’m speech-
less!” and other lamentations to that effect, so that a rush
to the door took place, in the which everything was over-
turned—the door-keeper being wheeled away like wildfire—
the furms stramped to pieces—the lights knocked out—
and the two blind fiddlers dung head foremost over the
stage, the bass fiddle cracking like thunder at every bruise.
Such tearing, and swearing, and tumbling, and squealing,

H
114 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

was never witnessed in the memory of man since the build-
ing of Babel : legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in,
eyes knocked out, and lives lost—there being only one door,
and that a small one; so that when we had been carried off
our feet that length, my wind was fairly gone, and a sick
dwalm came over me, lights of all manner of colours, red,
blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely
deprived me of common sense, till, on opening my eyes in
the dark, I found myself leaning with my broadside against
the wall on the opposite side of the close. It was some time
before I minded what had happened, so, dreading skaith,
I found first the one arm, and then the other, to see if they
were broken; syne my head; and finally, both of my legs;
but all, as well as I could discover, was skin-whole, and
scart-free. On perceiving this, my joy was without bounds,
having a great notion that I had been killed on the spot.
So I reached round my hand, very thankfully, to take out
my pocket-napkin to give my brow a wipe, when, lo and
behold! the tail of my Sunday’s coat was fairly off and
away, docked by the hainch buttons.

So much for plays and play-actors—the first and last,
I trust in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could
expect no better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie
had more than once given us from the pulpit on the sub-
ject. Instead, therefore, of getting my grand reward for
finding the old man’s daughter, the whole covey of them,
no better than a set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made
that very night a moonlight flitting ; and Johnny Hammer,
honest man, that had wrought from sunrise to sunset for
two days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of
being well paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got nothing
left him but a ruckle of his own good deals, all dung to
shivers,
THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE. 115

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE.

“* Sages their solemn een may steek,
And raise a philosophic reek,
And, physically, causes seek,
In clime and season ;
But tell me Whisky’s name in Greek,
T'll tell the reason.”—Bourns.

On the morning after the business of the play-house had
happened, I had to take my breakfast in my bed, a thing
very uncommon to me, being generally up by cock-craw,
except on Sunday mornings whiles, when each one, accord-
ing to the bidding of the Fourth Commandment, has a
licence to do as he likes, having a desperate sore head, and
a squeamishness at the stomach, occasioned, I jealouse in a
great measure, from what Maister Glen and me had discussed
at Widow Grassie’s, in the shape of warm toddy, over our
cracks concerning what is called the agricultural and manu-
facturing interests. So our wife, poor body, put a thimble-
ful of brandy, Thomas Mixem’s real, into my first cup of
tea, which had a wonderful virtue in putting all things to
rights, so that I was up and had shaped a pair of lady’s
corsets, an article in which I sometimes dealt, before ten
o'clock, though, the morning being rather cold, I did not
dispense with my Kilmarnock.

At eleven in the forenoon, or thereabouts, maybe five
minutes before or after, but no matter, in comes my crony
Maister Glen, rather dazed-like about the een, and with a
large piece of white sticking-plaister, about half a nail wide,
across one of his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose,
giving him a wauf, outlandish, and rather blackguard sort
of appearance, so that I was a thought uneasy at what
neighbours might surmise concerning our intimacy ; but the
honest man accounted for the thing in a very feasible
manner, from the falling down on that side of his head of
one of the brass candlesticks while he was lying on his
broadside before one of the furms in the stramash.

His purpose of calling was to tell me that he could not
leave the town without looking in upon me to bid me fare-
116 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

well, more betoken as he intended sending in his son
Mungo by the carrier, for trial, to see how the line of life
pleased him, and how I thought he would answer—a thing
which I was glad came from his side of the house, being
likely to be in the upshot the best for both parties. Yet I
thought he would find our way of doing so canny and com-
fortable, that it was not very likely he could ever start
objections: and I must confess, that I looked forward with
no small degree of pride, seeing the probability of my soon
having the son of a Lammermoor farmer sitting cross-legged,
cheek for jowl with me on the board, and bound to serve me
at all lawful times, by night and day, by a regular indenture
of five years. Maister Glen insisted on the laddie having a
three months’ trial; and then, after a trifling show of standing
out, just to make him aware that I could be elsewhere fitted
if I had a mind, I agreed that the request was reasonable,
and that I had no earthly objections to conforming with it.
So, after giving him his meridian and a bite of shortbread,
we shook hands, and parted in the understanding that his
son would arrive on the top of limping Jamie the carrier’s
cart, in the course, say, of a fortnight.

Through the whole of the forepart of the day I remained
rather queerish, as if something was working about my
inwards, and a droll pain between my eyes. The wife saw
the case I was in, and advised me, for the sake of the fresh
air, to take a step into the bit garden, and try a hand at the
spade, the smell of the new earth being likely to operate as
a cordial; but no—it would not do; and when I came in
at one o’clock to my dinner, the steam of the fresh broth,
instead of making me feel, as usual, as hungry as a hawk,
was like to turn my stomach, while the sight of the sheep’s
head, one of the primest ones I had seen the whole season,
looked, by all the world, like the head of a boiled black-
amoor, and made me as sick as a dog: so I could do nothing
but take a turn out again, and swig away at the small beer,
that never seemed able to slocken my drouth. At long and
last, I minded having heard Andrew Redbeak, the excise-
officer, say that nothing ever put him right after a debosh
except something they call a bottle of soda-water; so my
wife despatched Benjie to the place where we knew it could
be found, and he returned in a jiffy with a thing like a
THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE. 117

blacking-bottle below his daidly, as he was bidden. There
being a wire over the cork for some purpose or other, or
maybe just to look neat, we had some fight to get it torn
away, but at last we succeeded. I had turned about for a
jug, and the wife was rummaging for the screw, while Benjie
was fiddling away with his fingers at the cork—Save us ! all
at once it gave a thud like thunder, driving the cork over
poor Benjie’s head, while it squirted there-up in his eyes
like a fire-engine, and I had only just time to throw down
the jug, and up with the bottle to my mouth. Luckily, for
the sixpence it cost, there was a drop left, which tasted, by
all the world, just like brisk dish-washings; but for all that,
it had a wonderful power of setting me to rights; and my
noddle in a while began to clear up, like a March day after
a heavy shower.

I mind very well, too, on the afternoon of the dividual same
day, that my door-neighbour, Thomas Burlings, popped in,
and, in our two-handed crack over the counter, after asking
me in a dry, curious way, if I had come by no skaith in the
business of the play, he said the thing had now spread far
and wide, and was making a great noise in the world. I
thought the body a wee sharp in his observes; so I pre-
tended to take it quite lightly, proceeding in my shaping-
out a pair of buckskin breeches, which I was making for one
of the Duke’s huntsmen ; so seeing he was off the scent, he
said in a more jocose way—

“Well, speaking about buckskins, I’ll tell ye a good story
about that.”

“Tet us hear’t,” said I; for I was in that sort of queerish
way, that I did not care much about being very busy.

“VYe’se get itas I heard it,” quo’ Thomas; “and it’s no less
worth telling, that it bears a good,moral application in its
tail,—after the same fashion that a blister does good by suck-
ing away the vicious humours of the body, thereby making
the very pain it gives precious.” And here—though maybe
it was just my thought — the body stroked his chin, and
gave me a kind of half gley, as much as saying, “take that
to ye, neighbour.” But I deserved it all, and could not take
it ill off his hand—being, like myself, one of the elders of
our kirk, and an honest enough, precise-speaking man.
118 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“Ye see, ye ken,” said Thomas, “that the Breadalbane
Fencibles, a wheen Highland birkies, were put into camp at
Fisherrow links, maybe for the benefit of their douking, on
account of the fiddle !—or maybe in case the French should
land at the water-mouth—or maybe to give the regiment
the benefit of the sea air—or maybe to make their bare
houghs hardier, for it was the winter time, frost and snaw
being as plenty as ye like, and no sae scarce as pantaloons
among the core—or for some ither reason, guid, bad, or indif-
ferent, which disna muckle matter ; but ye see, the lang and
the short o’ the story is, that there they were encamped, man
and mother’s son of them, going through their dreels by day,
and sleeping by night—the privates in their tents, and the
offishers in their marquees, living in the course of nature on
their usual rations of beef, and tammies, and so on. So, ye
understand me, there was nae such smart ordering of things
in the army in those days, the men not having the beef
served out to them by a butcher, supplying each company
or companies by a written contract, drawn up between him
and the paymaster before sponsible witnesses ; but ilka ane
bringing what pleased him—either tripe, trotters, steaks,
cow’s-cheek, pluck, hough, spar-rib, jigget, or so forth.”

“70d!” said I, “Thomas, ye crack like a minister.
Where did ye happen to pick up all that knowledge?”

“Where should I have got it, but from an auld half-pay
sergeant-major, that lived in our spare room, and had been
out in the American war, having seen a power of service,
and been twice wounded—once in the aff-cuit, and the other
time in the cuff of the neck.”

“T thought as muckle,” said I. “Weel, say on, man, it’s
unco entertaining.”

“Weel,” continued he, “let me see where I was at when
ye stoppit me; for maybe I'll hae to begin at the beginning
again. For gif ye yinterrupt me, or edge in a word, or put
me out by asking questions, I lose the thread of my dis-
course, and canna proceed.”

“Ou, let me see,” said I, “ye was about the contract con-
cerning the beef.”

1 See Dr Jamieson.—P. D.
THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE. 119

“Preceesely,” quo’ Thomas, stretching out his fore-finger
—“ye’ve said it toa hair. At that time, as I was observing,
the butcher didna supply a company or companies, accord-
ing to the terms of a contract, drawn up before ’sponsible
witnesses, between him and the paymaster; but the soldiers
got beef-money along with their pay,—with which said
money, given them, ye observe, for said purpose, they were
bound and obligated, in terms of the statute, to buy, pur-
chase, and provide the said beef, twice a-week or oftener, as
it might happen; an orderly offisher making inspection of
the camp-kettles regularly every forenoon, at one o’clock or
thereabouts.

“So, as yell pay attention to observe, there was a private
in Captain M‘Tavish’s company, the second to the left of
the centre, of the name of Duncan MacAlpine, a wee,
hardy, black-aviced, in-knee’d creature, remarkable for
nothing that ever I heard tell of, except being reported to
have shotten a gauger in Badenough, or thereabouts—and
for having a desperate red nose, the effects, ye observe, of
drinking spirituous liquors ; ye observe, I daur say, what I
am saying—the effects of drinking malt speerits.

“Weel, week after week passed over, and better passed
over, and Duncan played aff his tricks, like anither Herman
Boaz, the slight-o’-hand juggler, him that’s suspeckit to be
in league and paction with the de’il. But ye’ll hear.”

“Od, it’s diverting, Thomas,” said I to him; “gang on,
man.”

“Weel, ye see, as I was observing—Let me see, where was
I at ?—Ou ay, having a paction with the de’il. So, when all
were watching beside the camp-kettles, some stirring them
with spurtles, or parritch-sticks, or forks, or whatever was
necessary, the orderly offisher made a point and practice of
regularly coming by, about the chap of one past meridian,
as I observed to ye before, to make inspection of what ilka
ane had wared his pay on, and what he had got simmering
in the het water for his dinner.

“So, on the day concerning which I am about to speak, it
fell out, as usual, that he happened to be making his rounds,
halting a moment, or twa‘maybe, before ilka pot; the man
that had the charge thereof, by the way of stirring like,
120 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

clapping down his lang fork, and bringing up the piece of
meat, or whatever he happened to be making kail of, to let
the inspector see whether it was lamb, pork, beef, mutton,
or veal. For, ye observe,” continued Thomas, giving me,
as I took it to myself, another queer side-look, “the purpose,
of the offisher making the inspection was to see that they
laid out their pay-money conform to military regulation ;
and not to fyling their stamicks, and ruining baith sowl and
body, by throwing it away on whisky—as but ower mony,
that aiblins should have kenned better, have dune but too
often.”

“Tis but ower true,” said I till him; “but the best will
fa’ intil a faut sometimes. We have a’ our failings, Thomas.”

“Just so,” answered Thomas; “but where was I at ?—Ou,
about the whisky. Weel, speaking about the whisky, ye
see the offisher, Lovetenant Todrick I b’lief they called him,
had made an observe about Duncan’s kettle; so, when he
came to him, Duncan was sitting in the lown side of a dyke,
with his red nose, and a pipe in his cheek, on a hig stane,
glowring frae him anither way ; and, as I was saying, when
he came to him he said—

“Weel, Duncan MacAlpine, what have ye in your kettle
the day, man?’

“ And Duncan, rinning down his lang fork, answered in
his ain Highland brogue way,—‘ Please your honours, just
my auld favourite—tripe.’

“Deed, Duncan,’ said Lovetenant Todrick, or whatever
they caa’d him, ‘it is an auld favourite, surely, for I have
never seen ye have onything else for your dinner, man.’

«“<¢Hvery man to his taste, please your honour, answered
Duncan MacAlpine; ‘let ilka ane please her nain sell)—
hauling up a screed half a yard Jang. ‘Ilka man to his
taste, please your honour, Lovetenant Todrick.’”

‘Od, man,” said I to him,—“’Od, man, ye’re a deacon at
telling a story. Ye’re a queer hand. Weel, what came
next ?”

“What think ye should come next?” quo’ Thomas, drily.

“T’m sure I dinna ken,” answered I.

“ Weel,” said he, “I'll tell—but where was I at?”

“Ou, at the observe of Lovetenant Todrick, or what
 
THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE. 121

they caa’d him, about the tripe; and the answer of Duncan
MacAlpine on that head, ‘That ilka man has his ain
taste.’”

“¢Vera true,’ said Lovetenant Todrick, ‘but lift it out
athegither on that dish, till I get my specs on; for never
since I was born did I ever see before boiled tripe with
buttons and button-holes intill’t.’”

At this I set up a loud laughing, which I could not help,
though it was like to split my sides; but Thomas Burlings
bade me whisht till I heard him out.

“Buttons and button-holes !’ quo" Duncan MacAlpine.
‘Look again, wi’ yer specs; for ye’re surely wrang, Love-
tenant Todrick.’

“¢ Buttons and button-holes! and ’deed I am surely right,
Duncan,’ answered the Lovetenant :Todrick, taking his specs
deliberately off the brig o’ his nose, and faulding them
thegither, as he put them ‘first into his shagreen case, and
syne into his pocket. ‘Howsomever, Duncan MacAlpine,
Tll pass ye ower for this-time, gif ye take my warning, and
for the.future ware your pay-money on wholesome butcher’s
meat, like a Christian, and no be trying to delude your ain
stamick, and your offisher’s een, by holding’ up, on a fork,
such a heathenish mak- -up for a dish as the leg of a pair o’
buckskin breeches !’”

“Buckskin breeches!” said. I;- “and did he really and
actually boil siccan trash to his dinner?”

“Nae sae far south as that yet, friend,” answered Thomas.
“Duncan was not so bowed in the intellect as ye imagine,
and had some spice of cleverality about his queer man-
ceuvres. Eat siccan trash: to his dinner! Nae mair, Mansie,
than ye intend to eat that.iron guse ye’re rinning along
that piece claith; but he wanted to make his offishers
believe that his pay gaed the right way—like the Pharisees
of old that keepit praying, in ell-lang faces, about the cor-
ners of the streets, and gaed hame wi’ hearts full of wicked-
ness and a’ manner of cheatrie.”

“ And what way did his pay gang, then ?” asked I; “and
how did he live ?”

“T telled ye before, frien,” answered Thomas, “that he
was a deboshed creature; and, like ower mony in the
122 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

world, likit weel what didna do him ony good. It’s a
wearyfw’ thing that whisky. I wish it could be banished
to Botany Bay.”

“Tt is that,” said I. “Muckle and nae little sin does it
breed and produce in this world.”

“Tm glad,” quoth Thomas, stroking down his chin in a
slee way—‘“ I’m glad the guilty should see the folly o’ their
ain ways; it’s the first step, ye ken, till amendment ;—and
indeed I tell’t Maister Wiggie, when he sent me here, that I
could almost become guid for your being mair wary of your
conduct for the future time to come.”

This was like a thunder-clap to me, and I did not know
for a jiffie what to feel, think, or do, more than perceiving
that it was a piece of devilish cruelty on their parts, taking
things on this strict. As for myself, I could freely take
sacred oath on the Book, that I had not had a dram in my
head for four months before; the knowledge of which made
my corruption rise like lightning, as a man is aye brave
when he is innocent; so, giving my pow a bit scart, I said
briskly, “So ye’re after some session business in this visit,
are ye?”

“Ye’ve just guessed it,” answered Thomas Burlings, sleek-
ing down his front hair with his fingers in a sober way ;
“we had a meeting this forenoon; and it was resolved ye
should stand a public rebuke in the meeting- house on
Sunday next.”

“Hang me if I do!” answered I, thumping my nieve
down. with all my might on the counter, and throwing back
my cowl behind me into a corner. “No, man!” added I,
snapping with great pith my finger and thumb in Thomas's
eyes, “not for all the ministers and elders that ever were
“ cleckit! They may do their best; and ye may tell them
so, if ye like. I was born a free man; I live in a free
country ; I am the subject of a free king and constitution ;
and I'll be shot before I submit to such rank diabolical
papistry.”

“Hooly and fairly,” quoth Thomas, staring a wee as-
tonished like, and not a little surprised to see my birse up
in this manner; for, when he thought upon shearing a
lamb, he found he. had catched a tartar: so, calming down as
THE BARLEY-FEVER—AND REBUKE. 123

fast as ye like, he said, “Hooly and fairey, Mansie” (or
Maister Wauch, I believe he did me the honour to call me),
“they'll maybe no be sae hard as they threaten. But ye
ken, my friend, I’m speaking to ye as a brither; it was an
unco-like business for an elder, not only to gang till a play,
which is ane of the deevil’s rendevouses, but to gang there in
a state of liquor; making yourself a world’s wonder—and
you an elder of our kirk!! I put the question to yourself
soberly.”

His threatening I could despise, and could have fought,
cuffed, and kicked with all the ministers and elders of the
General Assembly, to say nothing of the Relief Synod and
the Burgher Union, before I would have demeaned myself to
yield to what my inward spirit plainly told me to be rank
cruelty and injustice ; but ah! his calm, brotherly, flattering
way I could not thole with, and the tears came rapping into
my eyes, faster than it cared my manhood to let be seen; so
I said till him, “Weel, weel, Thomas, I ken I have done
wrong; and I am sorry for’t: they'll never find me in
siccan a scrape again.”

Thomas Burlings then came forward in a friendly way,
and shook hands with me; telling that he would go back and
plead before them in my behalf. He said this over again
as we parted at my shop-door. And to do him justice, surely
he had not been worse than his word; for I have aye attended
the kirk as usual, standing, when it came to my rotation, at
the plate, and nobody, gentle or semple, ever spoke to me on
the subject of the playhouse, or minted the matter of the
Rebuke, from that day to this.
124 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE AWFUL NIGHT.

“ Ha !—’twas but a dream ;
But then so terrible, it shakes my soul!
Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh ;
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror.”
—Richard the Third.

“ The Fire-king one day rather amorous felt ;
He mounted his hot copper filly;
His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt
Was made of cast-iron, for fear it should melt
With the heat of the copper colt’s belly.

“Oh! then there was glitter and fire in each eye,
For two living coals were the symbols ;
His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry, ,
It rattled against them as though you should try
To play the piano on thimbles.”—Rejected Addresses.

In the course of a fortnight from the time I parted with
Maister Glen, the Lauder carrier, limping Jamie, brought
his callant to our shop-door in his hand. He was a tall
slender laddie, some fourteen years old, and sore grown away
from his clothes. There was something genty and delicate-
like about him, having a pale sharp face, blue eyes, a nose like
a hawk’s, and long yellow hair hanging about his haffets, as
if barbers were unco scarce cattle among the howes of the
Lammermoor hills. Having a general experience of human
nature, I saw that I would have something to do towards
bringing him into a state of rational civilisation ; but con-
sidering his opportunities, he had been well educated, and I
liked his appearance on the whole not that ill.

To divert him a while, as I did not intend yoking him to
work the first day, I sent out Benjie with him, after giving
him some refreshment of bread and milk, to let him see the
town and all the uncos about it. I told Benjie first to take
him to the auld kirk, which is one wonderful building,
steeple and aisle—and as for mason-work, far before any-
thing to be seen or heard tell of in our day ; syne to Lugton
brig, which is one grand affair, hanging over the river Esk
and the flour-mills like a rainbow; syne to the Tolbooth,
which is a terror to evil-doers, and from which the Lord
THE AWFUL NIGHT. 125

preserve us all! syne to the Market, where ye’ll see lamb,
beef, mutton, and veal hanging up on cleeks, in roasting
and boiling pieces—spar-rib, jigget, shoulder, and heuk.
bane, in the greatest prodigality of abundance; and syne
down to the Duke’s gate, by looking through the bonny
white-painted irons tanchels of which ye’ll see the deer
running beneath the green trees,—and the palace itself, in
the inside of which dwells one that needs not be proud to
call the king his cousin.

Brawly did I know that it is a little after a laddie’s being
loosed from his mother’s apron-string and hurried from
home, till the mind can make itself up to stay among fremit
folk ; or that the attention can be roused to anything said
or done, however simple in the uptake. So, after Benjie
brought Mungo home again, gey forfaughten and wearied-
out like, I bade the wife give him his four-hours, and told
him he might go to his bed as soon as he liked. Jealousing
also, at the same time, that creatures brought up in the
country have strange notions about them with respect to
supernaturals—such as ghosts, brownies, fairies, and bogles—
to say nothing of witches, warlocks, and evil-spirits, I made
Benjie take off his clothes and lie down beside him,—as
I said, to keep him warm; but, in plain matter of fact
(between friends), that the callant might sleep sounder,
finding himself in a strange bed, and not very sure as to
how the house stood as to the matter of a good name.

Knowing by my own common-sense, and from long
experience of the ways of a wicked world, that there is
nothing like industry, I went to Mungo’s bedside in the
morning and wakened him betimes. Indeed, I’m leeing
there; I need not call it wakening him, for Benjie told me
when he was supping his parritch out of his luggie at break-
fast-time, that he never winked an eye all night, and that
sometimes he heard him greeting to himself in the dark—
such and so powerful is our love of home and the force of
natural affection. Howsoever, as I was saying, 1 took him
ben the house with me down to the workshop, where I had
begun to cut out a pair of nankeen trowsers for a young lad
that was to be married the week after to a servant-maid of
Maister Wiggie’s—a trig quean, that afterwards made him a
good wife, and the father of a numerous small family.
126 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Speaking of nankeen, I would advise every one, as a
friend, to buy the Indian and not the British kind—the
expense of outlay being ill hained, even at sixpence a yard
—the latter not standing the washing, but making a man’s
legs at a distance look like a yellow yorline.

It behoved me now as a maister, bent on the improvement
of his ’prentice, to commence learning Mungo some few of
the mysteries of our trade ; so having showed him the way
to crook his hough (example is better than precept, as James
Batter observes), I taught him the plan of holding the
needle ; and having fitted his middle finger with a bottom-
less thimble of our own sort, I set him to sewing the
cotton-lining into one leg, knowing that it was a part not
very particular, and not very likely to be seen; so that the
matter was not great whether the stitching was exactly
regular or rather in the zigzag line. As is customary with
all new beginners, he made a desperate awkward hand at it,
and of which I would of course have said nothing, but that
he chanced to brog his thumb, and completely soiled the
whole piece of work with the stains of blood, which, for one
thing, could not wash out without being seen, and for
another, was an unlucky omen to happen to a marriage
garment.

Every man should be on his guard: this was a lesson I
learned when I was in the volunteers, at the time Buona-
parte was expected to land down at Dunbar. Luckily for
me in this case, I had, by some foolish mistake or another,
made an allowance of a half-yard over and above what I
found I could manage to shape on, so I boldly made up my
mind to cut out the piece altogether, it being in the back
seam. In that business I trust I showed the art of a good
tradesman, having managed to do it so neatly that it could
not be noticed without the narrowest inspection ; and hav-
ing the advantage of a covering by the coat-flaps, had indeed
no chance of being so, except on desperately windy days.

In the week succeeding that on which this unlucky
mischance happened, an accident almost as bad befell,
though not to me, further than that every one is bound by
the Ten Commandments, to say nothing of his own con-
science, to take a part in the afflictions that befall their
door-neighbours.
THE AWFUL NIGHT. 127

When the voice of man was wheisht, and all was sunk in
the sound sleep of midnight, it chanced that I was busy
dreaming that I was sitting, one of the spectators, looking at
another play-acting piece of business. Before coming this
length, howsoever, I should by right have observed that
ere going to bed I had eaten for my supper part of a black
pudding and two sausages, that Widow Grassie had sent in
a compliment to my wife, being a genteel woman and mind-
ful of her friends—so that I must have had some sort of
nightmare, and not been exactly in my seven senses, else I
could not have been even dreaming of siccan a place. Well,
as I was saying, in the play-house I thought I was; and all at
once I heard Maister Wiggie, like one crying in the wilder-
ness, hallooing with a loud voice through the window, bid-
ding me flee from the snares, traps, and gin-nets of the Evil
One, and: from the terrors of the wrath to come. I was in
a terrible funk ; and just as I was trying to rise from the
seat, that seemed somehow glued to my body, and would not
let me, to reach down my hat, which, with its glazed cover,
was hanging on a pin to one side, my face all red and glow-
ing like a fiery furnace for shame of being a second time
caught in deadly sin, I heard the kirk-bell jow-jowing as if
it was the last trump summoning sinners to their long and
black account ; and Maister Wiggie thrust in his arm in his
desperation, in a whirlwind of passion, claughting hold of
my hand like a vice, to drag me out head-foremost. Even in
my sleep, howsoever, it appears that I like free-will, and
ken that there are no slaves in our blessed country; so I
tried with all my might to pull against him, and gave his
arm such a drive back that he seemed to bleach over on his
side, and raised a hullaballoo of a yell that not only wakened
me, but made me start upright in my bed.

For all the world such a scene! My wife was roaring
“Murder, murder! Mansie Wauch, will ye no wauken?
Murder, ‘murder! ye’ve felled me wi’ your nieve, — ye’ve
felled me outright,—I’m gone for evermair,—my haill teeth
are doun my throat. Will ye no wauken, Mansie Wauch ?—
will ye no wauken? Murder, murder! I say murder,
murder, murder, murder !!!”

“Who's murdering us?” cried I, throwing my cowl back
on the pillow, and rubbing my eyes in the hurry of a tre-
128 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

mendous fright. “Who's murdering us?—where’s the
robbers ?—send for the town-officer !”

“O Mansie! O Mansie!” said Nanse, in a kind of greet-
ing tone, “I daursay ye’ve felled me—but no matter, now
I’ve gotten ye roused. Do ye no see the haill street in a
pleeze of flames? Bad is the best; we maun either be
burned to death, or out of house and hall, without a rag to
cover our nakedness. Where’s my son? where’s my dear
bairn  Benjie ?”

In a most awful consternation, I jumped at this out to the
middle of the floor, hearing the causeway all in an uproar of
voices, and seeing the flichtering of the flames glancing on
the houses in the opposite side of the street, all the windows
of which were filled with the heads of half-naked folks,
in round-eared mutches or Kilmarnocks, their mouths
open, and their eyes staring with fright; while the sound
of the fire-engine, rattling through the streets like thunder,
seemed like the dead-cart of the plague, come to hurry
away the corpses of the deceased for interment in the
kirkyard.

Never such a spectacle was witnessed in this world of sin
and sorrow since the creation of Adam. I pulled up the
window and looked out—and lo and behold! the very next
house to our own was all in a low from cellar to garret, the
burning joists hissing and cracking like mad, and the very
wind that blew along as warm as if it had been out of the
mouth of a baker’s oven !

Tt was a most awful spectacle ! more by token to me, who
was likely to be intimately concerned with it; and beating
my brow with my clenched nieve, like a distracted creature,
I saw that the labour of my whole life was likely to go for
nought, and me to be a ruined man—all the earnings of my
industry being laid out on my stock in trade, and on the
plenishing of our bit house. The darkness of the latter
days came over my spirit like a vision before the prophet
Isaiah, and I could see nothing in the years to come but
beggary and starvation ; myself a fallen-back old man, with
an out-at-the-elbows coat, a greasy hat, and a bald pow,
hirpling over a staff, requeeshting an awmous—Nanse a
broken - hearted beggar wife, torn down to tatters, and
weeping like Rachel when she thought on better days—and
THE AWFUL NIGHT. 129

poor wee Benjie going from door to door with a meal-pock
on his back.

The-thought first dung me stupid, and then drove me to
desperation ; and not even minding the dear wife of my
bosom that had fainted away as dead as a herring, I pulled
on my trousers like mad, and rushed out into the street,
bareheaded and barefoot as the day that Lucky Bringthere-
out dragged me into the world.

The crowd saw in the twinkling of an eyeball that I was
a desperate man, fierce as Sir William Wallace, and not to
be withstood by gentle or semple. So most of them made
way for me; they that tried to stop me finding it a bad job,
being heeled over from right to left on the broad of their
backs like flounders, without respect of age or person ; some
old women that were obstrapulous being gey sore hurt, and
one of them with a pain in her hainch even to this day.
When I had got almost to the door-cheek of the burning
house, I found one grupping me by the back like grim
death ; and in looking over my shoulder, who was it but
Nanse herself, that, rising up from her faint, had pursued
me like a whirlwind. It was a heavy trial, but my duty to
myself in the first place, and to my neighbours in the second,
roused me up to withstand it; so, making a spend like
a greyhound, I left the hindside of my shirt in her grasp,
like Joseph’s garment in the nieve of Potiphar’s wife, and
up the stairs head-foremost among the flames.

Mercy keep us all! what a sight for mortal man to glowr
at with his living eyes! The bells were tolling amid the
dark, like a sunimons from above for the parish of Dalkeith
to pack off to another world; the drums were beat-beating
as if the French were coming, thousand on thousand, to kill,
slay, and devour every maid and mother’s son of us; the
fire-engine pump-pump-pumping like daft, showering the
water like rainbows, as if the windows of heaven were
opened and the days of old Noah come back again; and the
rabble throwing the good furniture over the windows like
onion-peelings, where it either felled the folk below or was
dung to a thousand shivers on the causey. I cried to them,
for the love of goodness, to make search in the beds, in case
there might be any weans there, human life being still more
precious than human means ; but not a living soul was seen

I
1380 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUOCH.

but a cat, which, being raised and wild with the din, would
on no consideration allow itself to be catched. Jacob Dribble
found that to his cost ; for, right or wrong, having a drappie
in his head, he swore like a trooper that he would catch her,
and carry her down beneath his oxter; so forward he weired
her into a corner, crouching on his hunkers. He had much
better have let it alone, for it fuffed over his shoulder like
wildfire, and scarting his back all the way down, jumped
like a lamplighter head-foremost through the flames, where,
in the raging and roaring of the devouring element, its
pitiful cries were soon hushed to silence for ever and ever,
Amen !

At long and last, a woman’s howl was heard on the street,
lamenting, like Hagar over young Ishmael in the wilderness
of Beersheba, and crying that her old grannie, that was a
lameter, and had been bedridden for four years come the
Martinmas following, was burning to a cinder in the fore-
garret. My heart was like to burst within me when I heard
this dismal news, remembering that I myself had once an
old mother, that was now in the mools; so I brushed up
the stair like a hatter, and burst open the door of the fore-
garret—for in the hurry I could not find the sneck, and did
not like to stand on ceremony. I could not see my finger
before me, and did not know my right hand from the left,
for the smoke; but I groped round and round, though the
reek mostly cut my breath, and made me cough at no allow-
ance, till at last I catched hold of something cold and clammy,
which I gave a pull, not knowing what it was, but found
out to be the old wife’s nose. I cried out as loud as I was
able for the poor creature to hoise herself up into my arms;
but receiving no answer, I discovered in a moment that she
was suffocated, the foul air having gone down her wrong
hause ; and though I had aye a terror at looking at, far less
handling, a dead corpse, there was something brave within
me at the moment, my blood being up; so I caught hold
of her by the shoulders, and harling her with all my might
out of her bed, got her lifted on my back heads and thraws,
in the manner of a boll of meal, and away as fast as my legs
could carry me.

There was a providence in this haste, for, ere I was half-
way down the stair, the floor fell with a thud like thunder ;
THE AWFUL NIGHT. 131

and such a combustion of soot, stour, and sparks arose, as
was-never seen or heard tell of in the memory of man since
the day that Samson pulled over the pillars in the house of
Dagon, and smoored all the mocking Philistines as flat as
flounders. For the space of a minute I was as blind as a
beetle, and was like to be choked for want of breath. How-
ever, as the dust began to clear up, I saw an open window,
and hallooed down to the crowd for the sake of mercy to
bring a ladder, to save the lives of two perishing fellow-
creatures, for now my own was also in imminent jeopardy.
They were long of coming, and I did not know what to do;
so thinking that the old wife, as she had not spoken, was
maybe dead already, I was once determined just to let her
drop down upon the street; but I knew that the so doing
would have cracked every bone in her body, and the glory
of my bravery would thus have been worse than lost. I
persevered, therefore, though I was fit to fall down under
the dead weight, she not being able to help herself, and hav-
ing a deal of beef in her skin for an old woman of eighty ;
but I got a lean, by squeezing her a wee between me and the
wall,

I thought they would never have come, for my shoeless
feet were all bruised, and bleeding from the crunched lime
and the splinters of broken stones; but at long and last a
ladder was hoisted up, and having fastened a kinch of ropes
beneath her oxters, I let her slide down over the upper step,
by way of a pillyshee, having the satisfaction of seeing her
safely landed in the arms of seven old wives that were
waiting with a cosey warm blanket below. Having accom-
plished this grand manceuvre, wherein I succeeded in saving
the precious life of a woman of eighty, that had been four
long years bedridden, I tripped down the steps myself like
a nine-year-old, and had the pleasure, when the roof fell in,
to know that I for one had done my duty, and that, to the
best of my knowledge, no living creature except the poor
cat had perished within the jaws of the devouring element.

But bide a wee; the work was as yet only half done.
The fire was still roaring and raging, every puff of wind that
blew through the black firmament driving the red sparks
high into the air, where they died away like the tail of a
comet or the train of a sky-rocket; the joisting crazing,
132 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

cracking, and tumbling down, and now and then the burst-
ing cans playing flee in a hundred flinders from the chim-
ney-heads. One would have naturally enough thought that
our engine could have drowned out a fire of any kind what-
soever in half a second, scores of folks driving about with
pitcherfuls of water, and scaling half of it on one another
and the causey in their hurry; but, woe’s me! it did not
play puh on the red-het stones, that whizzed like iron in a
smiddy trough ; so, as soon as it was darkness and smoke
in one place, it was fire and fury in another.

My anxiety was great. Seeing that I had done my best
for my neighbours, it behoved me now, in my turn, to try
and see what I could do for myself; so, notwithstanding
the remonstrances of my friend James Batter—whom Nanse,
knowing I had bare feet, had sent out to seek me with a pair
of shoon in his hand, and who, in scratching his head,
mostly rugged out every hair of his wig with sheer vexation
—TI ran off, and mounted the ladder a second time, and suc-
ceeded, after muckle speeling, in getting upon the top of the
wall, where, having a bucket slung up to me by means of
a rope, I swashed down such showers on the top of the
flames that I soon did more good, in the space of five
minutes, than the engine and the ten men that were all in a
broth of perspiration with pumping it, did the whole night
over—to say nothing of the multitude of drawers of water,
men, wives, and weans, with their cuddies, leglins, pitchers,
pails, and water-stoups; having the satisfaction, in a short
time, to observe everything getting as black as the crown of
my hat, and the gable of my own house. becoming as cool
as a cucumber.

Being a man of method and acquainted with business, I
could have liked to have given a finishing stitch to my work
before descending the ladder; but, losh me! sic a whingeing,
girning, greeting, and roaring got up all of a sudden, as was
never seen or heard of since bowed Joseph raised the meal-
mob and burned Johnnie Wilkes in effigy; and looking down,
I saw Benjie, the bairn of my own heart, and the callant
Glen, my apprentice on trial, that had both been as sound
as tops till this blessed moment, standing in their night-
gowns and their little red cowls, rubbing their eyes, cower-
ing with cold and fright, and making an awful uproar,
THE AWFUL NIGHT. 133

erying on me to come down and not be killed. The voice
of Benjie especially pierced through and through my heart
like a two-edged sword, and I could on no manner of account
suffer myself to bear it any longer, as I jealoused the bairn
would have gone into convulsion-fits if I had not heeded
him; so, making a sign to them to be quiet, I came my
ways down, taking hold of one in ilka hand, which must
have been a fatherly sight to the spectators that saw us.
After waiting on the crown of the causey for half an hour,
to make sure that the fire was extinguished, and all tight
and right, I saw the crowd scaling, and thought it best to go
in too, carrying the two youngsters along with me. When
I began to move off, however, siccan a cheering of the
multitude got up as would have deafened a cannon; and
though I say it myself, who should not say it, they seemed
struck with a sore amazement at my heroic behaviour, fol-
lowing me with loud cheers even to the threshold of my
own door.

From this folk should condescend to take a lesson, seeing
that, though the world is a bitter bad world, yet that good
deeds are not only a reward to themselves, but call forth the
applause of Jew and Gentile; for the sweet savour of my
conduct on this memorable night remained in my nostrils
for goodness knows the length of time, many praising my
brave humanity in public companies and assemblies of the
people, such as strawberry ploys, council meetings, dinner-
parties, and so forth; and many in private conversation at
their own ingle-cheek, by way of two-handed crack; in
stage-coach confab; and in causey talk in the forenoon,
before going in to take their meridians. Indeed, between
friends, the business proved in the upshot of no small advan-
tage to me, bringing to me a sowd of strange faces, by way of
customers, both gentle and semple, that I verily believe had
not so muckle as ever heard of my name before, and giving
me many a coat to cut and cloth to shape, that, but for my
gallant behaviour on the fearsome night aforesaid, would
doubtless have been cut, sewed, and shaped by other hands.
Indeed, considering the great noise the thing made in the
world, it is no wonder that every one was anxious to have
a garment of wearing apparel made by the individual same
hands that had succeeded, under Providence, in saving the
134 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

precious life of an old woman of eighty, that had been bed-
ridden, some say four years come Yule, and others come
Martinmas.

When we got to the ingle-side, and, barring the door, saw
that all was safe, it was now three in the morning; so we
thought it by much the best way of managing not to think
of sleeping any more, but to be on the look-out—as we aye
used to be when walking sentry in the volunteers—in case
the flames should, by ony mischancy accident or other,
happen to break out again. My wife blamed my hardihood
muckle, and the rashness with which I had ventured at once
to places where even masons and sclaters were afraid to put
foot on; yet I saw in the interim that she looked on me
with a prouder eye—knowing herself the helpmate of one
that had courageously risked his neck and every bone in his
skin in the cause of humanity. I saw this as plain as a
pikestaff, as, with one of her kindest looks, she insisted on
my putting on a better happing to screen me from the cold,
and on my taking something comfortable inwardly towards
the dispelling of bad consequences. So, after half a minute’s
stand-out by way of refusal like, I agreed to a cupful of het-
pint, as I thought it would be a thing Mungo Glen might
never have had the good fortune to have tasted; and as it
might operate by way of a cordial on the callant Benjie,
who kept aye smally, and in a dwining way. No sooner
said than done—and off Nanse brushed in a couple of
hurries to make the het-pint.

After the small beer was put into the pan to boil, we
found, to our great mortification, that there were no eggs in
the house; and Benjie was sent out with a candle to the hen-
house, to see if any of the hens had laid since gloaming, and
fetch what he could get. In the middle of the meantime, I
was expatiating to Mungo on what taste it would have, and
how he had never seen anything finer than it would be, when
in ran Benjie, all out of breath, and his face as pale as a
dishclout.

“What's the matter, Benjie—what’s the matter?” said I to
him, rising up from my chair in a great hurry of a fright.
“Has onybody killed ye? or is the fire broken out again?
or has the French landed? or have ye seen a ghost? or

are——”
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE. 135

“Eh, crifty!” cried Benjie, coming till his speech, “ they’re
a aff—cock and hens and a’,—there’s naething left but the
rotten nest-egg in the corner !”

This was an awful dispensation, of which more hereafter.
In the midst of the desolation of the fire—such is the de-
pravity of human nature—some ne’er-do-weels had taken
advantage of my absence to break open the hen-house door ;
and our whole stock of poultry, the cock along with our
seven hens—two of them tappit and one muffed—were
carried away bodily, stoop and roop.

On this subject, howsoever, I shall say no more in this
chapter, but merely observe in conclusion, that, as to our
het-pint, we were obligated to make the best of a bad bar-
gain, making up with whisky what it wanted in eggs,—
though our banquet could not be called altogether a merry
one, the joys of our escape from the horrors of the fire being
damped, as it were, by a wet blanket, on account of the
nefarious pillaging of our hen-house.

CHAPTER XxX.

ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE.

“ A fig for them by law protected,
Liberty’s a glorious feast;
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.”—Jolly Beggars.

* Wi’ cauk and keel I’ll win your bread,
And spindles and whorles for them wha need,
Whilk is a gentle trade indeed,
To carry the Gaberlunzie on.
Tl bow my leg and crook my knee,
And draw a black clout owre my ee,
A cripple or blind they will ca’ me,
While we shall be merry and sing.”—Kina James V.

The situation of me and my family at this time affords an
example of the truth of the old proverb, that “ae evil never
comes its lane ;” being no sooner quit of our dread concern-
ing the burning, than we were doomed by Providence to
undergo the disaster of the rookery of our hen-house. I
136 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

believe I have mentioned the number of our stock—to wit,
a cock and seven hens, eight in all; but I neglected, on
account of their size, or somehow overlooked, the two ban-
tams, than which two more neat or curiouser-looking crea-
tures were not to be seen in the whole country-side. The
hennie was quite a conceit of a thing, and laid an egg not
muckle bigger than my thimble; while, for its size, the bit
he-ane was, for spirit in the fechting line, a perfect. wee
deevil incarnate.

Most fortunately for my family in this matter, it so
happened that, by paying in half-a-crown a-year, I was
a regular member of a society for prosecuting all whom
it might concern, that dabbled with foul fingers in the
sinful and lawless trade of thievery, breaking the eighth
commandment at no allowance, and drawing on their heads
not only the passing punishments of this world, by way of
banishment to Botany Bay, or hanging at the Luckenbooths,
but the threatened vengeance of one that will last for ever
and ever.

Accordingly, putting on my hat about nine o’clock or
thereabouts, when the breakfast things were removing from
the bit table, I popped out, in the first and foremost instance,
to take a vizzy of the depredation the flames had made in
our neighbourhood. Losh keep us all, what a spectacle of
wreck and ruination! The roof was clean off and away,
as if a thunderbolt from heaven had knocked it down
through the two floors, carrying everything before it liké a
perfect whirlwind. Nought were standing but black, bare
walls, a perfect picture of desolation; some with the bit
pictures on nails still hanging up where the rooms were
like; and others with old coats hanging on pins; and
empty bottles in boles, and so on. Indeed, Jacob Glowr,
who was standing by my side with his specs on, could see,
as plain as a pikestaff, a tea-kettle still on the fire, in the
hearthplace of one of the gable garrets, where Miss Jenny
Withershins lived, but happened luckily, at the era of the
conflagration, to be away to Prestonpans, on a visit to some
of her far-away cousins, providentially, for her safety, griev-
ously, at that very time, smitten with the sciatics,

Having satisfied my eyes with a daylight view of the ter-
rible devastation, I went away leisurely up the street with
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE, 137

my hands in my breeches-pockets, comparing the scene in
my mind with the downfall of Babylon the Great, and
Sodom and Gomorrah, and Tyre and Sidon, and Jerusalem,
and all the lave of the great towns that had fallen to decay,
according to the foretelling of the sacred prophets, until I
came to the door of Donald Gleig, the head of the Thief
Society, to whom I related, from beginning to end, the
whole business of the hen-stealing. ’Od he was a mettle
bodie of a creature—far north, Aberdeen-awa like, and look-
ing at two sides of a halfpenny; but, to give the devil his
due, in this instance he behaved to me like a gentleman.
Not only did Donald send through the drum in the course
of half an hour, offering a reward of three guineas for the
apprehension of the offenders, names concealed, but he got
a warrant granted to Francie Deep, the sherry-officer, to
make search in the houses of several suspicious persons.

The reward offered by tuck of drum failed, nobody making
application to the crier; but the search succeeded—as, after
turning everything topsy-turvy, the feathers were found in
a bag, in the house of an old woman of vile character, who
contrived to make out a way of living by hiring beds at
twopence a-night to Eirish travellers—south-country pack-
men—sturdy beggars, men and women, and weans of them
—Yetholm tinklers—wooden-legged sailors without Chelsea
pensions—dumb spaewomen—keepers of wild-beast shows—
dancing-dog folk—spunk-makers, and suchlike pickpockets.
The thing was as plain as the loof of my hand ; for, besides
great suspicion, what was more, was the finding the head of
the muffed hen, to which I could have sworn, lying in a
bye-corner ; the body itself not being so kenspeckle in its
disjasket state—as it hung twirling in a string by its legs
before the fire, all buttered over with swine’s seam, and half
roasted.

After some little ado, and having called in two men that
were passing to help us to take them prisoners, in case of
their being refractory, we carried them by the lug and the
horn before a justice of peace.

Except the fact of the stolen goods being found in their
possession, it so chanced, ye observe, that we had no other
sort of evidence whatsoever; but we took care to examine
them one at a time, the one not hearing what the other said;
138 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

so, by dint of cross-questioning by one who well knew how
to bring fire out of flint, we soon made the guilty convict
themselves, and brought the transaction home to two wauf-
looking fellows that we had got smoking in a corner. From
the speerings that were put to them during their examina-
tion, it was found that they tried to make a way of doing
by swindling folks at fairs by the game of the garter.
Indeed, it was stupid of me not to recognise their faces at
first sight, having observed both of them loitering about
our back bounds the afternoon before, and one of them,
the tall one with the red head and fustian jacket, having
been in my shop in the fore-part of the night, about the
gloaming like, asking me as a favour for a yard or two of
spare runds or selvages.

T have aye heard that seeing is believing; and that youth
might take a warning from the punishment that sooner or
later is ever tacked to the tail of crime, I took Benjie and
Mungo to hear the trial,—and two more rueful faces than
they put on, when they looked at the culprits, were never
seen since Adam was a boy. It was far different with the
two Eirishers, who showed themselves so hardened by a long
course of sin and misery, that, instead of abasing themselves
in the face of a magistrate, they scarcely almost gave a civil
answer to a single question which was speered at them.
Howsoever, they paid for that at a heavy ransom, as ye
shall hear by-and-by.

Having been kept all night in the cold tolbooth on bread
and water, without either coal or candle to warm their toes
or let them see what they were doing, they were harled out
amid an immense crowd of young and old, more especially
wives and weans, at eleven o’clock on the next forenoon, to
the endurance of a punishment which ought to have afilicted
them almost as muckle as that of death itself.

When the key of the jail-door was thrawn, and the two
loons brought out, there was a bumming of wonder, and
maybe sorrow, among the terrible crowd, to see fellow-crea-
tures so left alone to themselves as to have robbed an honest
man’s hen-house at the dead hour of night, when a fire was
bleezing next door, and the howl of desolation soughing over
the town like a visible judgment. One of them, as I said
before, had a red pow and a foraging-cap, with a black nap-
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE. 139

kin roppined round his weasand; a jean jacket with six
pockets, and square tails; a velveteen waistcoat with plated
buttons ; corduroy breeches buttoned at the knees; rig-and-
fur stockings; and heavy, clanking wooden clogs. The
other—who was little and round-shouldered, with a bull-neck
and bushy black whiskers, just like a shoebrush stuck to
each cheek of his head, as if he had been a travelling agent
for Macassar—had on a low-crowned, plated beaver-hat, with
the end of a peacock’s feather stuck in the band; a long-
tailed old black coat, as brown as a berry, and as bare as my
loof, to say nothing of being out at both elbows. His trousers,
I daresay, had once been nankeen; but as they did not
appear to have seen the washing-tub for a season or two,
it would be rash to give any decided opinion on that head.
In short, they were two awful-like ragamuffins.

Women, however, are aye sympathising and merciful ; s0,
as I was standing among the crowd, as they came down the
tolbooth-stair, chained together by the cuffs of the coat, one
said, “Wae’s me! what a weel-faur’d fellow, wi’ the red
head, to be found guilty of stealing folk’s hen-houses.” And
another one said, “Hech, sirs! what a bonny blackaviced
man that little ane is, to be paraded through the streets for
a warld’s wonder!” But I said nothing, knowing the thing
was just, and a wholesome example; holding Benjie on my
shoulder to see the poukit hens tied about their necks like
keeking-glasses. But, puh! the fellows did not give one
pinch of snuff; so off they set, and in this manner were
drummed through the bounds of the parish, a constable
walking at each side of them with Lochaber axes, and the
town-drummer row-de-dowing the thief’s march at their
backs. It was a humbling sight.

My heart was sorrowful, notwithstanding the ills they had
done me and mine by the nefarious pillaging of our hen-
house, to see two human creatures, of the same flesh and
blood as myself, undergoing the righteous sentence of the
law, in a manner so degrading to themselves and so pitiful
to all that beheld them. But nevertheless, considering what
they had done, they neither deserved, nor did they seem to
care for commiseration, holding up their brazen faces as if
they had been taking a pleasure-walk for the benefit of their
health, and the poukit hens, that dangled before them,
140 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

ornaments of their bravery. The whole crowd, young and
old, followed them from one end of the town to the other,
liking to ding one another over, so anxious were they to get
a sight of what was going on; but when they came to the
gate-end, they stopped and gave the ne’er-do-weels three
cheers. What think you did the ne’er-do-weels do in return ?
Fie shame! they took off their old scrapers and gave a
huzza too; clapping their hands behind them, in a manner
as deplorable to relate as it was shocking to behold.

Their chains—the things, ye know, that held their cuffs
together—were by this time taken off, along with the poukit
hens, which I fancy the town-offishers took home and cooked
for their dinner: so they shook hands with the drummer,
wishing him a good day and a pleasant walk home, brushing
away on the road to Edinburgh, where their wives and weans,
who had no doubt made a good supper on the spuilzie of the
hens, had gone away before, maybe to have something com-
fortable for their arrival, their walk being likely to give
them an appetite.

Had they taken away all the rest of the hens, and only
left the bantams, on which they must have found but des-
perate little eating, and the muffed one, I would have cared
less—it being from several circumstances a pet one in the
family, having been brought in a blackbird’s cage by the
carrier from Lauder, from my wife’s mother, in a present to
Benjie on his birthday. The creature almost grat himself
blind when he heard of our having seen it roasting in a
string by the legs before the fire, and found its bonny muffed
head in a corner.

But let alone likings, the callant was otherwise a loser in
its death, she having regularly laid a caller egg to him every
morning, which he got along with his tea and bread, to the
no small benefit of his health, being, as I have taken occa-
sion to remark before, far from robusteous in the constitu-
tion. Iam sure I know one thing, and that is, that I would
have willingly given the loons a crown-piece to have pre-
served it alive, hen though it was of my own; but no—the .
bloody deed was over and done before we were aware that
the poor thing’s life was sacrificed.

The names of the two Eirishers were John Dochart and
Dennis Flint, both, according to their own deponement,
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE. 141

from the county of Tipperary; and weel-a-wat the place
has no great credit in producing two such bairns. Often,
after that, did I look through that part of the Advertizer
newspapers that has a list of all the accidents, and so on,
just above the births, marriages, and deaths, which I liked
to read regularly. Howsoever, it was two years before I dis-
covered their names again, having, it seems, during a great
part of that period, lived under the forged name of Alias ;
and I saw that they were both shipped off at Leith, for trans-
portation to some country called the Hulks, for being habit
and repute thieves, and for having made a practice of coining
bad silver. The thing, however, that condemned them, was
for having knocked down a drunk man, in a beastly state
of intoxication, on the king’s highway in broad daylight ;
and having robbed him of his hat, wig, and neckcloth, an
upper and under vest, a coat and greatcoat, a pair of Hes-
sian boots which he had on his legs, a silver watch with four
brass seals and a key, besides a snuff-box made of boxwood,
with an invisible hinge, one of the Laurencekirk breed, a
pair of specs, some odd halfpennies, and a Camperdown
pocket-napkin.

But of all months of the year—or maybe, indeed, of my
blessed lifetime—this one was the most adventurous. It
seemed, indeed, as if some especial curse of Providence
hung over the canny town of Dalkeith; and that, like the
great cities of the plain, we were at long and last to be burnt
up from the face of the earth with a shower of fire and
brimstone.

Just three days after the drumming of the two Hirish
ne’er-do-weels, a deaf and dumb woman came in prophesy-
ing at our back door, offering to spae fortunes. She was
tall and thin, an unco witch-looking creature, with a runkled
brow, sunburnt haffits, and two sharp piercing eyes, like a
hawk’s, whose glance went through ye like the cut and
thrust of a two-edged sword. On her head she had a tawdry
brownish- black bonnet, that had not improved from two
three years’ tholing of sun and wind; a thin rag of a grey
duffle mantle was thrown over her shoulders, below which
was a checked shortgown of gingham stripe, and a green
glazed manco petticoat. Her shoon were terrible bauchles,
and her grey worsted stockings, to hide the holes‘in them,
142 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

were all dragooned down about her heels. On the whole,
she was rather, I must confess, an out-of-the-way creature ;
and though I had not muckle faith in these bodies that
pretend to see further through a millstone than their neigh-
bours, I somehow or other, taking pity on her miserable
condition, being still a fellow-creature, though plain in the
lugs, had not the heart to huff her out; more by token, as
Nanse, Benjie, and the new prentice Mungo had by this
time got round me, all dying to know what grand fortunes
waited them in the years of their after pilgrimage. Sinful
creatures that we are! not content with the insight into
its ways that Providence affords us, but diving beyond our
deeps, only to flounder into the whirlpools of error. Is it
not clear, that had it been for our good, all things would
have been revealed to us? and is it not as clear, that not a
wink of sound sleep would we ever have got, had all the ills
that have crossed our paths been ranged up before our een, like
great black towering mountains of darkness? How could
we have found contentment in our goods and gear, if we saw
them melting from us next year like snow from a dyke?
how could we sit down on the elbow-chair of ease, could we
see the misfortunes that may make next week a black one?
or how could we look a kind friend in the face without tears,
could we see him, ere a month maybe was gone, lying
streiked beneath his winding-sheet, his eyes closed for ever-
more, and his mirth hushed to an awful silence? No, no,
let us rest content that. Heaven decrees what is best for
us: let us do our duty as men and Christians, and everything,
both here and hereafter, will work together for our good.

Having taken a piece of chalk out of her big, greasy,
leather pouch, she wrote down on the table, “Your wife,
your son, and your prentice.” This was rather curious,
and every one of them, a wee thunderstruck like, cried out
as they held up their hands, “Losh me! did onybody
ever see or hear tell of the like o’ that? She’s no canny !”
It was gey droll, I thought; and I was aware from the
Witch of Endor, and sundry mentions in the Old Tes-
tament, that things out of the course of nature have more
than once been permitted to happen; so I reckoned it
but right to give the poor woman a fair hearing, as she
deserved.
eo a4

 
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE. 143

“Oh!” said Nanse to me, “ye ken our Benjie’s eight
year auld; see if she kens; ask her how old he is.”

I had scarcely written down the question when she wrote
beneath it, “The bonny laddie, your only son, is eight year
old: he’ll be an admiral yet.”.

“An admiral!” said his mother; “that’s gey and extra-
ordinar, I never kenned he had only inkling for the sea-
faring line; and I thought, Mansie, you intended bringing
him up to your ain trade. . But, howsoever, ye’re wrong, ye
see. I tell’t ye he wad either make a spoon or spoil a horn.
I tell’t’ ye, ower and ower again, that he would be either
something or naething; what think ye o’ that noo? See
if she kens that Mungo comes from the country ; and where
the Lammermoor hills is.”

When I had -put-down the question, in a jiffie she wrote
down -beside it, “That hoy | comes from the high: green hills,
and his name is Mungo.”

Dog on it! this astonished us more and more, and fairly
bamboozled * my understanding, as I thought’ there surely
must be some league and paction with the Old One ; but the
further in the deeper. She then: pointed tomy. wife, writ-
ing down, “Your name is Nancy”—and turning to me, as
she mud. some dumbie signs, she chalked down, “Your
name is Mansie Wauch, that saved the precious life of an
old bedridden woman from the fire, and will soon Bet a
lottery ticket of twenty thousand’ pounds.” -

Knowing the truth of the rest of ‘what she - had sata, I
could not help jumping on the floor with joy, and seeing
that she was up to everything, as plain as if it had happened
in her presence. The good news‘set us all a skipping like
young lambs, my wife and the laddies clapping their hands
as if they had found a fiddle; so, jealousing they might lose
their discretion in their mirth, I turned round to the three,
holding up my hand, and saying, “In the nameo’ Gude-
ness, dinna mention this to ony leeving sowl, as, mind ye, I
havena taken out the ticket yet. The doing so might not
only set them to the sinful envying of our good fortune, as
forbidden in the tenth commandment, but might lead away
ourselves to be gutting our fish before we get them.”

“Mind, then,” said Nanse, “about your promise to me
concerning the silk gown and the pair

 
144 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“Wheest, wheest, gudewifie,” answered I. “There’s a
braw time coming. We must not be in ower great a hurry.”

I then bade the woman sit down by the ingle cheek, and
our wife to give her a piece of cold beef and a shave of
bread, besides twopence out of my own pocket. Some, on
hearing siccan sums mentioned, would have immediately
struck work, but even in the height of my grand expecta-
tions I did not forget the old saying, that “a bird in the
hand is worth two in the bush;” and being thrang with a
pair of leggins for Eben Bowsie, I brushed away ben to the
workshop, thinking the woman, or witch, or whatever she
was, would have more freedom and pleasure in eating by
herself. That she had, I am now bound to gay by experience.

Two days after, when we were sitting at our comfortable
four-hours, in came little Benjie, running out of breath—
just at the dividual moment of time my wife and me were
jeering one another about how we would behave when we
came to be grand ladies and gentlemen, keeping a flunkie
maybe—to tell us that when he was playing at the bools on
the plainstones before the old kirk, he had seen the deaf and
dumb spaewife harled away to the tolbooth for stealing a
pair of trousers that were hanging drying on a tow in
Juden Elshinder’s back close. I could scarcely credit the
callant, though I knew he would not tell a lie for sixpence ;
and I said to him, “Now be sure, Benjie, before ye speak.
The tongue is a dangerous weapon, and apt to bring folk
into trouble—it might be another woman.”

It was real cleverality in the callant. He said, “Ay,
faither, but it was her; and she contrived to bring herself
into trouble without a tongue at a’.”

I could not help laughing at this, it showed Benjie to be
such a genius; so he said—

“Ye needna laugh, faither; for it’s as true’s death it
was her. Do you think I didna ken in a minute our
cheese-toaster that used to hing beside the kitchen fire,
and that the sherry-offisher took out frae beneath her grey
cloak ?”

The smile went off Nanse’s cheek like lightning, and she
said it could not be true; but she would go to the kitchen
to see. I’fegs it was too true; for she never came back to
tell the contrary.
ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE. 145

This was really and truly a terrible business, but the truth
for all that; the cheese-toaster casting up not an hour after,
in the hands of Daniel Search, to whom I gave a dram. The
loss of the tin cheese-toaster would have been a trifle, espe-
cially as it was broken in the handle—but this was an awful
blow to the truth of the thieving dumbie’s grand prophecy.
Nevertheless, it seemed at the time gey puzzling to me, to
think how a deaf and dumb woman, unless she had some
wonderful gift, could have told us what she did.

On the next day, the Friday, I think, that story was also
made as clear as daylight to us; for being banished out of
the town as a common thief and vagabond, down on the
Musselburgh road, by order of a justice of the peace, it was
the bounden duty of Daniel Search and Geordie Sharp to
see her safe past the kennel, the length of Smeaton. They
then tried to make her understand by writing on the wall
that if ever again she was seen or heard tell of in the town,
she would be banished to Botany Bay; but she had a great
fight, it seems, to make out Daniel’s bad spelling, he having
been very ill yedicated, and no deacon at the pen.

Howsoever, they got her to understand their meaning by
giving her a shove forward by the shoulders, and aye point-
ing down to Inveresk. Thinking she did not hear them,
they then took upon themselves the liberty of calling her
some ill names, and bade her good-day as a bad one. But
she was upsides with them for acting in that respect above
their commission; for she wheeled round again to them,
and, snapping her fingers at their noses, gave a curse, and
bade them go home for a couple of dirty Scotch vermin.

The two men were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing
the tongue-tied wife speaking as good English as themselves,
and could not help stopping to look after her for a long way
on the road, as every now and then she stuck one of her
arms akimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the whirl-
ing-jig way, louping like daft, and lilting like a grey-lintie.
From her way of speaking, they also saw immediately that
she too was an Eirisher. They must be a bonny family
when they are all at home.
146 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

CHAPTER XXI.

ANENT MUNGO GLEN.

««¢ Earth to earth,’ and ‘dust to dust,’

The solemn priest hath said,

So we lay the turf above thee now,
And we seal thy narrow bed;

But thy spirit, brother, soars away
Among the faithful blest,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.” —Mitman,

Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a
string of casualties as happened to me and mine all within
the period of one short fortnight. To say nothing connected
with the play-acting business, which was immediately before
—first came Mungo Glen’s misfortune with regard to the
blood-soiling of the new nankeen trousers, the foremost of
his transactions and a bad omen—next, the fire, and all its
wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman’s pre-
cious life, and the destruction of the poor cat—syne the
robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne’er-do-weels, who
paid so sweetly for their pranks—and lastly, the hoax, the
thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the
banishment of the spaewife. —

These were awful signs of the times, and seemed to say
that the world was fast coming to a finis—the ends of the
earth appearing to have combined in a great Popish plot of
villany. Every man that had a heart to feel, must have
trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calam-
itous events. As for my own part, the depravity of the
nations which most of these scenes showed me, I must say,
fell heavily upon my spirit ; and I could not help thinking
of the old cities of the plain, over the house-tops of which,
for their heinous sins and iniquitous abominations, the
wrath of the Almighty showered down fire and brimstone
from heaven, till the very earth melted and swallowed
them up for ever and ever.

These added to the number, to be sure; but not that I
had never before seen signs and wonders in my time. I
had seen the friends of the people,—and the scarce years,—
ANENT MUNGO GLEN, 147

and the bloody gulleteening over-bye among the French
blackguards,—and the business of Watt and Downie nearer
home, at our own doors almost, in Edinburgh like,—and
the calling out of the volunteers, and divers sea - fights
at Camperdown and elsewhere,—and land battles countless,
and the American war, part o’t,—and awful murders,—and
mock fights in the Duke’s parks,—and highway robberies,
—and breakings of all the Ten Commandments, from the first
to the last ; so that, allowing me to have had but a common
spunk of reflection, I must, like others, have cast a wistful
eye on the ongoings of men: and, if I had not strength to
pour out my inward lamentations, I could not help thinking,
with fear and trembling, at the rebellion of such a worm as
man against a Power whose smallest word could extinguish
his existence, and blot him out in a twinkling from the roll
of living things.

But if I was much affected, the callant Mungo was a great
deal more. From the days in which he had lain in his
cradle, he had been brought up in a remote and quiet part
of the country, far from the bustling of towns, and from man
encountering man in the stramash of daily life; so that his
heart seemed to pine within him like a flower, for want of
the blessed morning dew; and, like a bird that has been
catched in a girn among the winter snows, his appetite
failed him, and he fell away from his meat and clothes.

I was vexed exceedingly to see the callant in this dilemmy,
for he was growing very tall and thin, his chaft-blades being
Jank and white, and his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he
got no refreshment from the slumbers of the night. Behold-
ing all this work of destruction going on in silence, I spoke
to his friend Mrs Grassie about him, and she was so motherly
as to offer to have a glass of port-wine, stirred with best
jesuit’s barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o’clock ;
for really nobody could be but interested in the laddie, he
was so gentle and modest, making never a word of complaint,
though melting like snow off a dyke ; and though he must
have suffered both in body and mind, enduring all with a
silent composure worthy of a holy martyr.

Perceiving things going on from bad to worse, I thought
it was best to break the matter to him, as he was never
like to speak himself; and I asked him in a friendly way,

 
148 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

as we were sitting together on the board finishing a pair of
fustian overalls for Maister Bob Bustle—a riding clerk for
one of the Edinburgh spirit shops, but who liked aye to
have his clothes of the Dalkeith cut, having been born, bred,
and educated in our town, like his forbears before him—if
there was anything the matter with him, that he was aye
so dowie and heartless? Never shall I forget the look he
gave me as he lifted up his eyes, in which I could see visible
distress painted as plain as the figures of the saints on old
kirk windows; but he told me, with a faint smile, that he
had nothing particular to complain of, only that he would
have liked to have died among his friends, as he could not
live from home, and away from the life he had been accus-
tomed to all his days.

Od, I was touched to the quick; and when I heard him
speaking of death in such a calm, quiet way, I found some-
thing, as if his words were words of prophecy, and as if
I had seen a sign that told me he was not to be long for
this world. Howsoever, I hope I had more sense than to
let this be seen, so I said to him, “Ou, if that be a’, Mungo,
yell soon come to like us a’ well enough. Ye should take
a stout heart, man ; and when your prenticeship’s done, ye’ll
gang hame and set up for a great man, making coats for all
the lords and lairds in broad Lammermoor.”

“Na, na,” answered the callant with a trembling voice,
which mostly made my heart swell to my mouth, and
brought the tear to my eye, “I'll never see the end of my
prenticeship, nor Lammermoor again.”

“Hout touts, man,” quo I, “never speak in that sort o?
way ; it’s distrustfw and hurtful. Live in hope, though we
should die in despair. When ye go home again, yell be as
happy as ever.”

“Eh na—never, never, even though I was to gang hame
the morn. I'll never be as I was before. I lived and lived
on, never thinking that such days were to come to an end—
but now I find it can, and must be otherwise. The thoughts
of my heart have been broken in upon, and nothing can
make whole what has been shivered to pieces.”

This was to the point, as Dannie Thummel said to his
needle; so just for speaking’s sake, and to rouse him up a
bit, I said, “Keh, man, what need ye care sae muckle about
ANENT MUNGO GLEN. 149

the country? Itll never be like our bonny streets, with all
the braw shop-windows, and the auld kirk; and the stands
with the horn-spoons and luggies ; and all the carts on the
market-days ; and the Duke’s gate, and so on.”

“Ay, but, maister,” answered Mungo, “ye was never
brought up in the country—ye never kent what it was to
wander about in the simmer glens, wi’ naething but the
warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters streaming
ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow
sick wi? the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all
colours, and wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in
joy and thankfulness! Ye never kent, maister, what it was
to wake in the still morning, when, looking out, ye saw the
snaws lying for miles round about ye on the hills, breast
deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot
of man never coming during the storm to your door, nor
the voice of a stranger heard from ae month’s end till the
ither. See, it is coming on o’ hail the now, and my mother,
with my sister—I have but ane—and my four brithers, will
be looking out into the drift, and missing me away for the
first time frae their fireside. They'll hae a dreary winter
o’t, breaking their hearts for me—their ballants and their
stories will never be sae funny again—and my heart is
breaking for them.”

With this, the tears prap-prapped down his cheeks, but
his pride bade him turn his head round to hide them from
me. A heart of stone would have felt for him.

I saw it was in vain to persist long, as the laddie was
falling out of his clothes as fast as leaves from the November
tree; so I wrote home by limping Jamie the carrier, telling
his father the state of things, and advising him, as a matter
of humanity, to take his son out to the free air of the hills
again, as the town smoke did not seem to agree with his
stomach ; and, as he might be making a sticked tailor of one
who was capable of being bred a good farmer—no mortal
being likely to make a great progress in any thing unless
the heart goes with the handiwork.

Some folks will think I acted right, and others wrong in
this matter ; if I erred, it was on the side of mercy, and my
conscience does not upbraid me for the transaction. In due
course of time I had an answer from Mr Glen; and we got
150 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

every thing ready and packed up, against the hour that J; cased
was to set out again.

Mungo got himself all dressed ; and Benjie had taken sie
a liking to him, that I thought he would have grutten him-
self senseless when he heard he was going away back to his
own home. One would not have imagined that such a
sincere friendship could have taken root in such a short
time; but the bit creature Benjie was as warm-hearted a
callant as ye ever saw. Mungo told him, that if he would
not cry he would send him in a present of a wee ewe-milk
cheese whenever he got home; which promise pacified him,
and he asked me if Benjie would come out for a month gin
simmer, when he would let him see all worthy observation
along the country-side.

When we had shaken hands with Mungo, and, after fasten-
ing his comforter about his neck, wished him a good journey,
we saw him mounted on the front of limping Jamie’s cart ;
and as he drove away, I must confess my heart was grit.
I could not help running up the stair, and pulling up the
fore-window to get a long look after him. Away and away
they wore; in a short time the cart took a turn and dis-
appeared ; and when I drew down the window, and saun-
tered, with my arms crossed, back to the workshop, some-
thing seemed amissing, and the snug wee place, with its
shapings, and runds, and paper-measurings, and its bit fire,
seemed in my eyes to look douff and gousty.

Whether in the jougging of the cart, or what else I cannot
say, but it’s an unco story; for on the road, it turned out
that poor Mungo was seized with a terrible pain in his side,
and, growing worse and worse, was obliged to be left at
Lauder, in the care of a decent widow woman that had a
blind eye, and a room to let furnished.

It was not for two-three days that we learnt these awful
tidings, which greatly distressed us all; and I gave the
driver of the Lauder coach threepence to himself to bring
us word every morning, as he passed the door, how the
laddie was going on.

I learned shortly that his father and mother had arrived,
which was one comfort; but that matters with poor Mungo
were striding on from bad to worse, being pronounced, by: a
skeely doctor, to be in a galloping consumption, and not
ANENT MUNGO GLEN. 151

able to be removed home, a thing that the laddie freaked
and pined for night and day. At length, hearing for certain
that he had not long to live, I thought myself bound to be
at the expense of taking a ride out on the top of the coach,
though I was aware of the danger of the machine’s whiles
couping, if it were for no more than to bid him fare-ye-weel
—and I did so.

It was a cold cloudy day in February, and everything on
the road looked dowie and cheerless; the very cows and
sheep, that crowded cowering beneath the trees in the parks,
seemed to be grieving for some disaster, and hanging down
their heads like mourners at a burial. The rain whiles obliged
me to put up my umbrella, and there was nobody on the top
beside me save a deaf woman, that aye said “ay” to every
question I speered, and with whom I found it out of the
power of man to carry on any rational conversation; so I
was obliged to sit glowering from side to side at the bleak
bare fields—and the plashing grass—and the gloomy dull
woods—and the gentlemen’s houses, of which I knew not
the names—and the fearful rough hills, that put me in mind
of the wilderness, and of the abomination of desolation
mentioned in Scripture, I believe in Ezekiel. The errand
I was going on, to be sure, helped to make me more sorrow-
ful; and I could not think on human life without agreeing
with Solomon, that “all was vanity and vexation of spirit.”

At long and last, when we came to our journey’s end, and
I louped off the top of the coach, Maister Glen came out to
the door, and bade me haste me if I wished to see Mungo
breathing. Save us! to think that a poor young thing
was to be taken away from life and the cheerful sun thus
suddenly, and be laid in the cold damp mools, among the
moudiewarts and the green banes, “where there is no work
or device.” But what will ye say there? it was the will of
Him who knows best what is for His creatures, and to whom
we should—and must submit. I was just in time to see the
last row of his glazing een, that then stood still for ever,
as he lay, with his face as pale as clay, on the pillow, his
mother holding his hand, and sob-sobbing with her face
leant on the bed, as if her hope was departed and her heart
would break. I went round about, and took hold of the
other one for a moment; but it was clammy, and growing
152 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

cold with the coldness of grim death. I could hear my heart
beating ; but Mungo’s heart stood still, like a watch that has
run itself down. -Maister Glen sat in the easy-chair, with
his hand before his eyes, saying nothing, and shedding not
a tear; for he was a strong, little, blackaviced man, with a
‘feeling heart, but with nerves of steel. The rain rattled on
the window, and the smoke gave a swurl as the wind
rummelled in the lum. The hour spoke to the soul, and
the silence was worth twenty sermons.

They who would wish to know the real value of what we
are all over-apt to prize in this world should have been
there too, and learnt a lesson not soon to be forgotten. I
put my hand in my coat-pocket for my napkin to give my
eyes a wipe, but found it was away, and feared much I had
dropped it on the road ; though in this I was happily mis-
taken, having, before I went to my bed, found that on my
journey I had tied it over my neckcloth, to keep away sore
throats.

It was a sad heart to us all, to see the lifeless creature in
his white nightcap and eyes closed, lying with his yellow
hair spread on the pillow; and we went out, that the
women-folk might cover up the looking-glass and the face
of the clock, ere they proceeded to dress the body in its last
clothes—clothes that would never need changing ; but when
we were half down the stair, and I felt glad with the thoughts
of getting to the fresh air, we were obliged to turn up again
for a little, to let the man past that was bringing in the dead
deal.

But why weave a long story out of the materials of sorrow 2
or endeavour to paint feelings that have no outward sign,
lying shut up within the sanctuary of the heart? The grief
of a father and a mother can only be conceived by them who,
as fathers and mothers, have suffered the loss of their bairns,
——a treasure more precious to nature than silver or gold,
home to the land-sick sailor, or daylight to the blind man
sitting beaking in the heat of the morning sun,

The coffin having been ordered to be got ready with all
haste, two men brought it on their shoulders betimes on the
following morning ; and it was a sight that made my blood
run cold to see the dead corpse of poor Mungo, my own
ANENT MUNGO GLEN. 153

prentice, hoisted up from the bed, and laid in his black-
handled, narrow housie. All had taken their last looks, the
lid was screwed down by means of screw-drivers, and I read
the plate, which said, “Mungo Glen, aged 15.” Alas! early
was he cut off from among the living—a flower snapped
in its spring blossom —and an awful warning to us all,
sinful and heedless mortals, of the uncertainty of this state
of being.

In the course of the forenoon Maister Glen’s cart was
brought to the door, drawn by two black horses with long
tails and hairy feet, a tram one and a leader. Though the
job shook my nerves, I could not refuse to give them a
hand down the stair with the coffin, which had a fief-like
smell of death and sawdust; and we got it fairly landed
in the cart, among clean straw. I saw the clodhapper of
a ploughman aye dighting his een with the sleeve of his
big-coat.

The mother, Mistress Glen, a little fattish woman, and as
fine a homely body as ye ever met with, but sorely dis-
tracted at this time by sorrow, sat at the head, with her
bonnet drawn over her face, and her shawl thrown across
her shoulders, being a blue and red spot on a white ground.
It was a dismal-like-looking thing to see her sitting there,
with the dead body of her son at her feet, and at the side
of it his kist with his claes, on the top of which was tied—
not being room for it in the inside like (for he had twelve
shirts, and three pair of trousers, and a Sunday and every-
day’s coat, with stockings and other things)—his old white
beaver hat, turned up behind, which he used to wear when
he was with me. His Sunday’s hat I did not see; but most
likely it was in among his claes, to keep it from the rain,
and preserved, no doubt, for the use of some of his little
brothers, please God, when they grew up a wee bigger.

Seeing Maister Glen, who had cut his chin in shaving,
in a worn-out disjasket state, mounted on his sheltie, I
shook hands with them both; and, in my thoughtlessness,
wished them “a good journey,” knowing well what a sorrow-
ful home-going it would be to them, and what their bairns
would think when they saw what was lying in the cart
beside their mother. On this the big ploughman, that
154 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

wore a broad blue bonnet and corduroy cutikins, with a
grey big-coat slit up behind in the manner I commonly
made for laddies, gave his long whip a crack, and drove off
to the eastward.

It would be needless in me to waste precious time in
relating how I returned to my own country, especially as I
may be thankful that nothing particular happened, excepting
the coach-wheels riding over an old dog that was lying sleep-
ing on the middle of the road, and, poor brute, nearly got one
of his fore-paws chacked off. The day was sharp and frosty,
and all the passengers took a loup off at a yill-house, with a
Highlandman on the sign of it, to get a dram, to gar them
bear up against the cold; yet knowing what had but so
lately happened, and having the fears of Maister Wiggie
before my eyes, I had made a solemn vow within myself
not to taste liquor for six months at least ; nor would I here
break my word, tho’ much made a fool of by an Englisher,
and a fou Eirisher, who sang all the road—contenting my-
self, in the best way I could, with a tumbler of strong beer
and two butter-bakes.

It is an old proverb, and a true one, that there is no rest
to the wicked ; so when I got home, I found business crying
out for me loudly, having been twice wanted to take the
measure for suits of clothes. Of course, knowing that my two
customers would be wearying, I immediately cut my stick
to their houses, and promised without fail to have my work
done against the next Sabbath. Whether from my hurry,
or my grief for poor Mungo, or maybe from both, I found
on the Saturday night, when the clothes were sent home on
the arm of Tammie Bodkin, whom I was obliged to hire by
way of foresman, that some awful mistake had occurred—the
dress of the one having been made for the back of the other,
the one being long and tall, the other thick and short; so
that Maister Peter Pole’s cuffs did not reach above half-way
down his arms, and the tails ended at the small of the back,
rendering him a perfect fright ; while Maister Watty Firkin’s
new coat hung on him like a dreadnought, the sleeves com-
ing over the nebs of his fingers, and the hainch buttons
hanging down between his heels, making him resemble a
mouse below a firlot. With some persuasion, however,
ANENT MUNGO GLEN. 155

there being but small difference in the value of the cloths,
the one being a West of England bottle-green, and the other
a Manchester blue, I caused them to niffer, and hushed
up the business, which, had they been obstreperous, would
have made half the parish of Dalkeith stand on end.

After poor Mungo had been beneath the mools, I daresay
a good month, Benjie, as he was one forenoon diverting him-
self dozing his top in the room where they sleeped, happened
to drive it in below the bed, where, scrambling in on his
hands and feet, he found a half-sheet of paper written over
in Mungo’s hand-writing, the which he brought to me; and
on looking over it, I found it jingled in metre like the
Psalms of David.

Having no skeel in these matters, I sent up the close for
James Batter, who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-
quarter subscription book-club, had read a power of all sorts
of things, sacred and profane. James, as he was humming
it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a
thump on his thigh, “ Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good,
capital!” and so on, which astonished me much, kenning
who had written it—a callant that had sleeped with our
Benjie, and could not have shaped a pair of leggins though
we had offered him the crown of the three kingdoms.

Seeing what it was thought of by one who knew what was
what, and could distinguish the difference between a B and
a bull’s foot, I judged it necessary for me to take a copy of
it; which, for the benefit of them that like poems, I do not
scruple to tag to the tail of this chapter.

‘© Oh, wad that my time were ower but,

Wi’ this wintry sleet and snaw,

That I might see our house again
T the bonny birken shaw !—

For this is no my ain life,
And I peak and pine away

Wi’ the thochts o’ hame, and the young flowers
T the glad green month o’ May.

I used to wauk in the morning
Wi’ the loud sang o’ the lark,

And the whistling 0’ the ploughman lads
As they gaed to their wark ;
156 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

I used to weir in the young lambs
Frae the tod and the roaring stream ;

But the warld is changed, and a’ thing now
To me seems like a dream.

There are busy crowds around me
On ilka lang dull street ;
Yet, though sae mony surround me,
I kenna ane I meet.
And I think on kind, kent faces,
And o’ blythe and cheery days,
When I wander’d out, wi’ our ain folk,
Out-owre the simmer braes.

Wae's me, for my heart is breaking !
I think on my brithers sma’,
And on my sister greeting,
When I came frae hame awa 3
And oh! how my mither sobbit,
As she shook me by the hand,
When I left the door o’ our auld house,
To come to this stranger land.

There’s nae place like our ain hame ;
Oh, I wish that I was there !—
There's nae hame like our ain hame
To be met wi’ ony where !—
And oh! that I were back again
To our farm and fields so green;
And heard the tongues o’ my ain folk,
And was what I hae been !”

That’s poor Mungo’s poem—which I and James Batter,
and the rest, think excellent, and not far short of Robert
Burns himself, had he been spared. Some may judge other-
wise, out of bad taste or ill nature; but 1 would just thank
them to write a better at their leisure.
THE JUNE JAUNT. 157

CHAPTER XXII

THE JUNE JAUNT.

“The lapwing lilteth o’er the lea,
With nimble wing she sporteth ;
By vows she’ll flee from tree to tree
Where Philomel resorteth :
By break of day, the lark can say,
I'll bid you a good-morrow ;
I'll streik my wing, and mounting sing,
O’er Leader hauchs and Yarrow.”
—Nicou Burn, the Minstrel.

After Tammie Bodkin had been working with me on the
board for more than four years in the capacity of foresman,
superintending the workshop department, together with the
conduct and conversation of Joe Breeky, Walter Cuff, and
Jack Thorl, my three bounden apprentices, I thought I
might lippen him awee to try his hand in the shaping line,
especially with the clothes of such of our customers as I
knew were not very nice, provided they got enough of cut-
ting from the Manchester manufacture, and room to shake
themselves in. The upshot, however, proved to a moral
certainty that such a length of tether is not chancey for
youth, and that a master cannot bé too much on the head of
his own business.

It was in the pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe
six or eight days, after the birthday of our good old King
George the Third—for I recollect the withering branches of
lily-oak and flowers still sticking up behind the signs and
over the lamp-posts—that my respected acquaintance and
customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made
many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes—which he
preferred from their not dirtying so easily with the bake-
house—called in upon me, requesting me, in a very pressing
manner, to take a pleasure ride up with him the length of
Roslin, in his good-brother’s bit phieton, to eat a wheen
strawberries and see how the forthcoming harvest was get-
ting on.

That the offer was friendly admitted not of doubt, but I
did not like to accept for two-three reasons ; among which
158 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

were, in the first place, my awareness of the danger of riding
in such vehicles—having read sundry times in the news-
papers of folk having been tumbled out of them, drunk or
sober, head - foremost, and having got eyes knocked ben,
skulls cloured, and collar-bones broken; and in the second
place, the expense of feeding the horse, together with our
finding ourselves in meat and drink during the journey—
let alone tolls, strawberries and cream, bawhees to the waiter,
the hostler, and what not. But let me speak the knock-him-
down truth, and shame the de’il,—above all, I was afraid of
being seen by my employers wheeling about on a work-day,
like a gentleman, dressed out in my best, and leaving my
business to mind itself as it best could.

Peter Farrel, however, being a man of determination,
stuck to his text like a horse-leech ; so after a great to-do,
and considerable argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of power-
ful persuasion, to give him my hand on the subject. Accord-
ingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the back-loan
with my stick in my hand—Peter having agreed to be wait-
ing for me on the road-side a bit beyond the head of the
town, near Gallows-hall toll. The cat should be let out of
the pock by my declaring that Nanse, the goodwife, had
also a finger in the pie—as, do what ye like, women will
make their points good—she having overcome me in her
wheedling way by telling me that it was curious I had no
ambition to speel the ladder of gentility, and hold up my
chin in imitation of my betters.

That we had a most beautiful drive I cannot deny; for
though I would not allow Peter to touch the horse with the
whip, in case it might run away, fling, or trot ower fast—
and so we made but slow progress—little more even than
walking ; yet, as I told him, it gave a man leisure to use his
eyes, and make observation to the right and the left; and so
we had a prime look of Eskbank, and Newbottle Abbey, and
Melville Castle, and Dalhousie, and Polton, and Hawthorn-
den, and Dryden woods—and the powder-mills, the paper-
mills, the bleachfield—and so on. The day was bright and
beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms ;
the flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and as the sun
looked from the blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from
our thoughts all the poor and paltry cares that embitter life,
THE JUNE JAUNT. 159

and all the pitiful considerations which are but too apt to
be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from their
awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow
of evening rest. Peter and myself felt this forcibly,—he, as
he confessed to me, having entirely forgot the four pan-soled
loaves that were that morning left by his laddie, Peter Crust,
in the oven, and burned to sticks; and for my own part, do
what I liked, I could not bring myself to mind what piece of:
work I was employed on the evening before, till, far on the
road, I recollected that it was a pair of mouse-brown spatter-
dashes for worthy old Mr Mooleypouch the meal-monger.
Oh, it is a pleasant thing, now and then, to get a peep of
the country! To them who live among shops and markets,
and stone-walls, and butcher-stalls, and fishwives—and the
smell of ready-made tripe, red herring, and Cheshire cheeses
—the sights, and sounds, and smells of the country bring to
mind the sinless days of the world before the fall of man,
when all was love, peace, and happiness. Peter Farrel and
I were transported out of our seven senses as we feasted our
eyes on the beauty of the green fields. The bumbees were
bizzing among the gowans and bluebells, and a thousand
wee birds among the green trees were churm-churming
away, filling earth and air with music, as it were a universal
hymn of gratitude to the Creator for His unbounded good-
ness to all His creatures. We saw the trig country lasses
bleaching their snow-white linen on the grass by the water-
side, and they too were lilting their favourite songs,—Logan
Water, the Flowers of the Forest, and the Broom of the
Cowdenknowes. All the world seemed happy, and I could
‘scarcely believe—what I kent to be true for all that—that
we were still walking in the realms of sin and misery. The
milk -cows were nipping the clovery parks, and chewing
their cuds at their leisure,—the wild partridges whidding
about in pairs, or birring their wings with fright over the
hedges,—and the blue-bonneted ploughmen on the road
cracking their whips in wantonness, and whistling along
amid the clean straw in their carts. And then the rows of
snug cottages, with their kailyards and their gooseberry
bushes, with the fruit hanging from the branches like ear-
rings on the neck of a lady of fashion. How happy, thought
we both—both Peter Farrel and me —how happy might they

\
160 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

be who, without worldly pride or ambition, passed their days
in such situations, in the society of their wives and children.
Ah! such were a blissful lot !

During our ride, Peter Farrel and I had an immense deal
of rational conversation on a variety of matters, Peter having
seen great part of the world in his youth, from having made
two voyages to Greenland—during one of which he was very
nearly frozen up—with his uncle, who was the mate of a
whale-vessel. To relate all that Peter told me he had seen
and witnessed in his far-away travels, among the white bears
and the frozen seas, would take up a great deal of the reader’s
time, and of my paper; but as to its being very diverting,
there is no doubt of that. However, when Peter came to
the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his noddle
to discover that “a rowing stane gathers no fog ;” and having
got an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was
a wee smout, he yoked to the baking trade tooth and nail,
and in the course of years thumped butter-bakes with his
elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our col-
leaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world—had
bought his own bounds, and built new ones—could lay
down the blunt for his article, and take the measure of the
markets, by laying up wheat in his granaries against the
day of trouble—to wit, rise of prices.

“Well, Peter,” said I to him, “seeing that ye read the
newspapers, and have a notion of things, what think ye, just
at the present moment, of affairs in general ?”

Peter cocked up his lugs at this appeal, and looking as
wise as if he had been Solomon’s nephew, gave a knowing
smirk, and said—

“Ts it foreign or domestic affairs that you are after, Maister
Wauch ? for the question is a six-quarters wide one.”

I was determined not to be beat by man of woman born;
so I answered with almost as much cleverality as himself,
“Oh, Mr Farrel, as to our foreign concerns, I trust I am
ower loyal a subject of George the Third to have any doubt
at all about them, as the Buonaparte is yet to be born that
will ever beat our regulars abroad—to say nothing of our
volunteers at home; but what think you of the paper specie
—the national debt—borough reform—the poor-rates—and
the Catholic question ?”
THE JUNE JAUNT. 161

I do not think Peter jealoused I ever had so much in my
noddle; but when he saw I had put him to his mettle, he
did his best to give me satisfactory answers to my queries,
saying, that till gold came in fashion, it would not be for
my own interest, or that of my family, to refuse bank-notes,
for which he would, any day of the year, give me as many
quarter loaves as I could carry, to say nothing of coarse flour
for the prentices’ scones, and bran for the pigs: that the
national debt would take care of itself long after both him
and I were gathered to our fathers; and that individual debt
was a much more hazardous, pressing, and personal concern,
far more likely to come home to our more immediate bosoms
and businesses: that the best species of reform was every
one’s commencing to make amendment in their own lives
and conversations: that poor-rates were likely to be worse
before they were better : and that, as to the Catholic ques-
tion,—“ But, Mansie,” said he, “it would give me great
pleasure to hear your candid and judicious opinion of Popery
and the Papists.”

I saw, with half an e’e, that Peter was trying to put me to
my mettle, and I devoutly wished that 1 had had James
Batter at my elbow to have given him play for his money—
James being the longest-headed man that ever drove a shuttle
between warp and woof; but most fortunately, just as I was
going to say that “every honest man, who wished well to
the good of his country, could only have one opinion upon
that subject,” we came to the by-road, that leads away off
on the right-hand side down to Hawthornden, and we
observed, from the curious ringle, that one of the naig’s
fore-shoon was loose; which consequently put an end to
the discussion of this important national question, before
Peter and I had time to get it comfortably settled to the
world’s satisfaction.

The upshot was, that we were needcessitated to dismount,
and lead the animal by the head forward to Kittlerig, where
Macturk Sparrible keeps his smith’s shop, in order that,
with his hammer, he might make fast the loose nails; and
that him and his foresman did in a couple of hurries, me
and Peter looking over them with our hands in our big-coat
pockets, while they pelt-pelted away with the beast’s foot

L
162 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

between their knees, as if we had been a couple of grand
gentlemen incog. ; and so we were to him. ee

After getting ourselves again decently mounted, and giving
Sparrible a consideration for his trouble, Peter took occasion,
from the horse casting its shoe, to make a few apropos moral
observations, in the manner of the Rev. Mr Wiggie, on the
uncertainties which it is every man’s lot to encounter in the
weariful pilgrimage of human life. “There is many a slip
tween the cup and the lip,” said Peter.

“ And indeed, Mr Farrel, ye never spoke a truer word,”
said I. “We are here to-day— yonder to-morrow; this
moment we are shining like the mid-day sun, and on the
next, pugh ! we go out like the snuff of a candle. ‘Man’s
life,’ as Job observes, ‘is like a weaver’s shuttle.’”

“But, Maister Wauch,” quo’ Peter, who was a hearer of
the Parish Church, “you dissenting bodies aye take the black
side of things ; never considering that the doubtful shadows
of affairs sometimes brighten up into the cloudless daylight.
For instance, now, there was an old fellow-apprentice of my
father’s, who, like myself, was a baker—his name was Charlie
Cheeper ; and, both his father and mother dying when he
was yet hardly in trousers, he would have been left without
a hame in the world, had not an old widow woman, who
had long lived next door to them, and whose only bread-
winner was her spinning-wheel, taken the wee wretchie in
to share her morsel. For several years, as might naturally
have been expected, the callant was a perfect dead-weight on
the concern, and perhaps, in her hours of greater distress,
the widow regretted the heedlessness of her Christian charity ;
but Charlie had a winning way with him, and she could not
find it in her heart to turn him to the door. By the time
he was seven—and a ragged coute he was as ever stepped
without shoes—he could fend for himself, by running
messages —holding horses at shop-doors— winning bools
and selling them—and so on; so that, when he had col-
lected half-a-crown in a penny pig, the widow sent him to
the school, where he got on like a hatter, and in a little
while could both read and write. When he was ten, he was
bound apprentice to Saunder Snaps in the Back Row, whose
grandson has yet, as you know, the sign of the Wheat Sheaf ;
and for five years he behaved himself like his betters,
THE JUNE JAUNT. 163

“Well, sir, when his time was out, Charlie had an ambi-
tion to see the world; and, by working for a month or two
as a journeyman in the Candlemaker Row at Edinburgh, he
raked as much together as took him up to London in the
steerage of a Leith smack. For several years nothing was
heard of him, except an occasional present of a shawl, or so
on, to the widow, who had been so kind to him in his help-
less years; and at length a farewell present of some little
money came to her, with his blessing for past favours, saying
that he was off for good and all to America.

“Tn the course of time, Widow Amos became frail and
sand-blind. She was unable to work for herself, and the
charity she had shown to others no one seemed disposed to
extend to her. Her only child, Jeanie Amos, was obliged
to leave her service, and come home to the house of poverty,
to guard her mother’s grey hairs from accident, and to divide
with her the little she could make at the trade of mangling :
for with the money that Charlie Cheeper had sent, before
leaving the country, the old woman had bought a calender,

-and let it out to the neighbours at so much an hour,—honest
poverty having many shifts.

“Matters had gone on in this way for two or three fitful
years; and Jeanie, who, when she had come home from
service, was a buxom and blooming lass, although yet but a
wee advanced in her thirties, began to show, like all earthly
things, that she was wearing past her best. Some said that
she had lost hopes of Charlie’s return ; and others, that come
hame when he liked, he would never look over his left
shoulder after her.

“Well, sir, as fact as death, I mind mysell, when a laddie,
of the rumpus the thing made in the town. One Saturday
night, a whole washing of old Mrs Pernickity’s that had
been sent to be calendered, vanished like lightning, no one
knew where: the old lady was neither to hold nor bind,
and nothing would serve her but having both the old woman
and her daughter committed to the Tolbooth. So to the
Tolbooth they went, weeping and wailing, followed by a
crowd who cried loudly out at the sin and iniquity of the
proceeding ; because the honesty of the prisoners, although
impeached, was unimpeachable: the mob were furious; and
before the Sunday sun arose, old Mrs Pernickity awakened
164 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

with a sore throat, every pane of her windows having been
miraculously broken during the dead hours.

“The mother and the daughter were kept in custody until
the Monday ; when, as they were standing making a declara-
tion of their innocence before the justices, who should come
in but Francie Deep, the Sheriff-officer, with an Irish vagrant
and his wife—two tinklers who were lodging in the Back
Row, and in whose possession the bundle was found bodily,
basket and all. Such a cheering as the folk set up! it did
all honest folk’s hearts good to hear it. Mrs Pernickity and
her lass, to save their bacon, were obliged to be let out by
a back door; and as the justices were about to discharge
the two prisoners, who had been so unjustly and injuriously
suspected, « stranger forced his way to the middle of the
floor, and took the old woman in his arms !”

“Charlie Cheeper returned, for a gold guinea,” said I.

“And no other it was,” said Peter, resuming his comical
story. “The world had flowed upon him to his heart’s:
desire. Over in Virginia he had given up the baking busi-
ness, and commenced planter ; and after years of industrious
exertion, having made enough and to spare, he had returned
to spend the rest of his days in peace and plenty in his
native town.”

“Not to interrupt you,” added I, “Mr Farrel, I think I
could wager something mair.”

“You are a witch of a guesser, I know, Mansie,” said
Peter; “and I see what you are at. Well, sir, you are right
again. For, on the very day week that Patrick Makilla-
guddy and his spouse got their heads shaved, and were sent
to beat hemp in the New Bridewell on the Calton Hill, Jeanie
Amos became Mrs Cheeper ; the calender and the spinning-
wheel were both burned by a crowd of wicked weans before
old Mrs Pernickity’s door, raising such a smoke as almost
smeaked her to a rizzar’d haddock; and the old widow,
under the snug roof of her ever grateful son-in-law, spent
the remainder of her Christian life in peace and prosperity.”

“That story ends as it ought,” said I, “Mr Farrel ; neither
Jew nor Gentile dare dispute that; and as to the telling of
it, I do not think man of woman born, except maybe James
Batter, who is a nonsuch, could have handled it more prettily.
T like to hear virtue aye getting its ain reward.”
THE JUNE JAUNT. 165

As these dividual words were falling from my lips, we
approached the end of our journey, the Roslin Inn house
heaving in sight, at the door of which me and Peter louped
out, an hostler with a yellow striped waistcoat, and white
calico sleeves, meantime holding the naig’s head, in case it
should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the
horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our
shirt necks, and after looking at our watches as if time was
precious, oxtered away, arm in arm, to see the Chapel, which
surpasses all, and beats cock-fighting.

It is an unaccountable thing to me how the auld folk
could afford to build such grand kirks and castles. If once
gold was like slate stones, there is a wearyful change nowa-
days, I must confess; for, so to speak, gold guineas seem to
have taken flight from the land along with the witches and
warlocks, and posterity are left as toom in the pockets as
rookit gamblers.

But if the mammon of precious metals be now totally
altogether out of the world, weel-a-wat we had a curiosity
still, and that was a cleipy woman with a long stick, that
rhaemed away, and better rhaemed away, about the Prentice’s
Pillar, who got a knock on the pow from his jealous black-
guard of a master—and about the dogs and the deer—and
Sir Thomas this-thing and my Lord t’other-thing, who lay
buried beneath the broad flag-stones in their rusty coats
of armour—and such a heap of havers, that no throat was
wide enough to swallow them for gospel, although gey an’
entertaining, I allow. However, it was a real farce, that is
certain.

Oh, but the building was a grand and overpowering sight,
making man to dree the sense of his own insignificance, even
in the midst of his own handiwork! First, we looked over
our shoulders to the grand carved roofs, where the swallows
swee-swee'd, as they darted through the open windows, and
the yattering sparrows fed their gorbals in the far boles ;
and syne we looked shuddering down into the dark vaults,
where nobody in their senses could have ventured, though
Peter Farrel, being a rash, courageous body, was keen on it,
having heard less than I could tell him of such places being
haunted by the spirits of those who have died or been
murdered within them in the bloody days of the old times ;
166 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

or of their being so full of foul air, as to extinguish man’s
breath in his nostrils like the snuff of a candle. Though no
man should throw his life into jeopardy, yet I commend all
for taking timeous recreation—the King himself on the
throne not being able to live without the comforts of life ;
-and even the fifteen Lords of Session, with as much powder
on their wigs as would keep a small family in loaves for a
week, requiring air and exercise, after sentencing vagabonds
to be first hanged, and then their clothes given to Jock
Heich, and their bodies to Doctor Monro.

Before going out to inspect the wonderfuls, we had taken
the natural precaution to tell the goodman of the inn that
we would be back to take a chack of something from him
at such and such an hour, and having had our bellyful of
the Chapel,—and the Prentice’s Pillar,—and the vaults,—and
the cleipy auld wife with the lang stick,—we found that we
had still half an hour to spare, so took a stroll into the
Kirkyard, to see if we could find out if any of the martyrs
had been buried there-away-abouts.

‘We saw a good few headstones, you may make no doubt,
both ancient and modern, but nothing out of the course of
nature ; so, the day being pleasant, Mr Farrel and me sat
down on a throughstane below an old hawthorn, and com-
menced chatting on the Pentland Hills—the river Esk—Peni-
cuik—Glencorse—and all the rest of the beautiful country
within sight. A mooly auld skull was lying among the
grass, and Peter, as he spoke, was aye stirring it about with
his stick.

“TI never touched a dead man’s bones in my life,” said I
to Peter, “nor would I for a sixpence. Who might that
have belonged to, now, I wonder? Maybe to a baker ora
tailor, in his day and generation, like you and I, Peter; or
maybe to ane of the great Sinclairs with their coats-o f-mail,
that the auld wife was cracking so crousely about.”

“Deil may care,” said Peter; “but are you really frighted
to touch a skull, Mansie ? You would make a bad doctor,
I’m doubting, then, to say nothing of a resurrection man.”

“Doctor! I would not be a doctor for oe the gold and
silver on the walls of Solomon’s temple

“Yet you would think the young doctors suck in their
trade with their mother’s milk, and could cut off one an-

 
THE JUNE JAUNT. 167

other’s heads as fast as look at you.—Speaking of skulls,”
added Peter, “I mind when my father lived in the under-
flat of the three-storey house at the top of Dalkeith Street,
that the Misses Skinflints occupied the middle storey, and
Doctor Chickenweed had the one above with the garrets, in
which was the laboratory.

“Weel, ye observe, in getting to the shop it was not
necessary to knock at the Doctor’s door, but just proceed up
the narrow wooden stair, facing the top of which was the
shop-door, which, for light to the customer’s feet, was gener-
ally allowed to stand open.

“For a long time the Doctor had heard the most unearthly
noises in his house, as if a thunderbolt was in the habit of
coming in at one of the skylights and walking down-stairs,
and the Misses Skinflints had more than once nearly got
their door carried off the hinges; so they had not the life of
dogs for constant startings and surprises. At first they had
no faith in ghosts; but, in the course of time, they came to
be alike doubtful on that point ;—but you shall hear.

“The foundation of the mystery was this. The three
mischievous laddies—the apprentices—after getting their
daily work over of making pills and potions for his Majesty’s
unfortunate subjects, took to the trick of mounting a human
skull, like that, upon springs, so that it could open its mouth,
and setting it on a stand at the end of the counter, could
make it gape, and turn from side to side, by pulling a string.

“The door being left purposely ajee—whenever the rascals
saw a fit subject, they set the skull a-moving and a-gaping ;
the consequence of which was, that many a poor customer
descended without counting the number of steps, and after
bouncing against Dr Chickenweed’s panels,.played flee down
to try the strength of Misses Skinflints’. One of the three
instantly darted down behind the evanished patient; and
after assisting her or him—whichever it might chance to be
—to gain their feet, begged of them not to mention what they
had seen, as the house was haunted by the ghost of an old
maiden aunt of their master’s who had died abroad, and
that the thing would hurt his feelings if ever it came to his
ears.”

“Dog on me,” said I, “if ever I heard of such a trick
since ever I was born! What was the upshot?”
168 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“The upshot was, that the thing might have continued
long enough, and the laboratory been left as deserted as
Tadmor in the Wilderness, had not a fat old woman fallen
one day perfectly through the doctor’s door and dislocated
her ankle, which unfortunately incapacitated her from
making a similar attack on that of the Misses Skinflints’.
The consequence was that the conspiracy was detected—the
Doctor’s aunt’s ghost laid—and the fat old woman carried
down on a shutter to her bed, where she lay till her ankle
grew better in the course of nature.”

It being near the hour at which we had ordered our
dinner to be ready, we rose up from the tombstone, and
after taking a snuff out of Peter’s box, we returned arm in
arm to the tavern to lay in a stock of provisions.

Peter Farrel was a warm-hearted, thorough-going fellow,
and did not like half-measures, such as swallowing the
sheep and worrying on the tail; so, after having ate as
many strawberries as we could well stow away, he began try-
ing to fright me with stories of folk taking the elic passion—
the colic—the mulligrubs—and other deadly maladies, on
account of neglecting to swallow a drop of something warm
to qualify the coldness of the fruit; so, after we had dis-
cussed good part of a fore-quarter of lamb and chopped cab-
bage—the latter a prime dish—we took first one jug, and
syne another, till Peter was growing tongue-tied, and as red
in the face as a bubbly-jock ; and, to speak the truth, my
own een began to reel with the merligoes. In a jiffy both
of us found our hearts waxing so brave as to kick and spur
at all niggardly hesitation, and we leuch and thumped on
the goodman of the inn-house’s mahogany table as if it had
been warranted never to break. In fact, we were as furi-
ous and obstrapulous as two unchristened Turks, and it
was a mercy that we ever thought of rising to come away at
all. At the long and the last, however, we found ourselves
mounted and trotting home at no allowance, me telling
Peter, as far as I mind, to give the beast a good creish, and
not to be frighted.

The evening was fine, and warmer than we could have
wished, our cheeks glowing like dragoon’s jackets, and as we
passed like lightning through among the trees, the sun was
‘setting with a golden glory in the west, between the Pent-
THE JUNE JAUNT. 169

land and the Corstorphine Hills, and flashing in upon us
through the branches at every opening. About half-way on
our road back we foregathered with Robbie Maut, drucken
body, with his Shetland rig-and-fur hose on, and his green
umbrella in his hand, shug-shugging away home, keeping
the trot, with his tale, and his bit arm shake-shaking at his
tae side, on his grey sheltie; so, after carhailing him, we
bragged him to a race full gallop for better than a mile to
the toll. The damage we did I dare not pretend to recol-
lect. First, we knocked over two drunk Irishmen, that
were singing “ Erin-go-Bragh” arm in arm; syne we rode
over the top of an old woman with a wheelbarrow of cab-
bages ; and when we came to the toll, which was kept by a
fat man with a red waistcoat, Robbie’s pony, being, like all
Highlanders, a wilful creature, stopped all at once; and
though he won the half-mutchkin by getting through first,
after driving over the tollman, it was at the expense of poor
Robbie’s being ejected from his stirrups like a battering-ram,
and disappearing head-foremost through the tollhouse win-
dow, which was open, hat, wig, green umbrella, and all—the
tollman’s wife’s bairn making a providential escape, from
Robbie landing on all-fours more than two yards on the
far side of the cradle in which it was lying asleep, with its
little flannel nightgown on.

At the time all was war and rebellion with the tollman—
assault and battery, damages, broken panes, and what not ;
but with skilful management, and a few words in the pri-
vate ear of Mr Rory Sneckdrawer, the penny-writer, we got
matters southered up when we were in our sober senses ;
though I shall not say how much it cost us both in preach-
ing and pocket to make the man keep a calm sough as to
bringing us in for the penalty, which would have been
deadly. I think black-burning shame of myself to make
mention of such ploys and pliskies—but after all it is better
to make a clean breast.

Hame at last we got, making fire flee out of the Dalkeith
causey stones like mad; and we arrived at our own door
between nine and ten at night, still in a half-seas-overish
state. I had nevertheless sense enough about me remaining
to make me aware that the best place for me would be my
bed ; so, after making Nanse bring the bottle and glass to
170 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

the door on a server to give Peter Farrel a dram by way of
“doch:an-dorris,” as the Gaelic folk say, we wished him a
good-night, and left him to drive home the bit gig, with the
broken shaft spliced-with ropes, to his own bounds—little
jealousing, as we heard next morning, that he would be
thrown over the back of it without being hurt, by taking
too sharp a turn at the corner.

After a tremendous sound sleep, I was up betimes in the
morning, though a wee drumly about the head, anxious to
inquire at Tammie Bodkin, the head of the business depart-
ment, me being absent, if any extraordinars had occurred
on the yesterday ; and found that the only particular cus-
tomer making inquiries anent me was our old friend Curse-
cowl, savage for the measure of a killing-coat, which he
wanted made as fast as directly. Though dreadfully angry
at finding me from home, and unco swithering at first, he
at length, after a volley of oaths enough to have opened a
stone wall, allowed Tammie Bodkin to take his inches; but
as he swore and went on havering and speaking nonsense
all the time, Tammie’s hand shook, partly through fear and
partly through anxiety ; and if he went wrong in making a
nick in the paper here and there in a wrong place, it was no
more than might have been looked for from his fright and
inexperience.

In the twinkle of an eyelid I saw that there was some
mortal mistake in the measurement; as, unless Cursecowl
had lost beef at no allowance, I knew, judging from the past,
that it would not peep on his corpus by four inches. The
matter was, however, now past all earthly remede, and
there was nothing to be done but trusting to good fortune,
and allowing the killing-coat to take its chance in the world.
How the thing happened I have bothered and beat my
brains to no purpose to make out, and it remains a wonder-
ful mystery to me to this blessed day ; but by long thought
on the subject, both when awake and in my bed, and by
multifarious cross-questionings at Tammie’s self concerning
the paper measurings, I am devoutly inclined to think that
he mistook the nicking of the side-seams and the shoulder-
strap for the girth of the belly-band.
CATCHING A TARTAR. 171

CHAPTER XXIII

CATCHING A TARTAR.

‘« Fr, Sol. O, prennez miséricorde! ayez pitié de moy !
Pist. Moy shall not serve, 1 will have forty moys;
For I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat,
In drops of crimson blood.”—Henry V.

From the first moment I clapped eye on the caricature
thing of a coat that Tammie Bodkin had in my absence
shaped out for Cursecowl the butcher, I foresaw in my own
mind that a catastrophe was brewing for us, and never did
soldier gird himself to fight the French, or sailor prepare for
a sea-storm, with greater alacrity than I did to cope with
the bull-dog anger, and buffet back the uproarious vengeance
of our heathenish customer.

At first I thought of letting the thing take its natural
course, and of threaping down Cursecowl’s throat that he
must have been feloniously keeping in his breath when
Tammie took his measure—and, moreover, that as it was
the fashion to be strait-laced, Tammie had done his utmost
trying to make him look like his betters—till, my conscience
checking me for such a nefarious intention, I endeavoured, as
became me in the relations of man, merchant, and Christian,
to solder the matter peaceably, and show him, if there was a
fault committed, that there was no evil intention on my side
of the house. To this end I despatched the bit servant
wench on the Friday afternoon to deliver the coat, which
was neatly tied up in brown paper, and directed, “ Mr Curse-
cowl, with care,” and to buy a sheep’s head—bidding her, by
way of being civil, give my kind compliments, and inquire
how Mr and Mrs Cursecowl, and the five little Miss Curse-
cowls, were keeping their healths, and trusting to his hon-
our in sending me a good article. But have a moment’s
patience.

Being busy at the time turning a pair of kuttikins for
old Mr Mooleypouch the mealmonger when the lassie came
back, I had no mind of asking a sight of the sheep’s head,
as I aye like the little blackfaced in preference to the white,
fat, fozy Cheviot breed; but, most providentially, I catched
172 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

a gliskie of the wench passing the shop window on the road
over to Jamie Coom the smith’s, to get it singed, having
been despatched there by her mistress. Running round
the counter like lightning, I opened the sneck and halooed
to her to wheel to the right-about, having, somehow or
other, a superstitious longing to look at the article. As I
was saying, there was a Providence in this, which, at the
time, mortal man could never have thought of.

James Batter had popped in with a newspaper in his hand
to read me a curious account of a mermaid that was seen
singing a Gaelic song and combing its hair with a tortoise-
shell comb, someway terrible far north about Shetland, by
a respectable minister of the district, riding home in the
gloaming after a presbytery dinner. So, as he was just
taking off his spectacles cannily, and saying to me, “And
was not that droll?” the lassie spread down her towel on
the counter, when, lo and behold, such an abominable spec-
tacle! James Batter observing me run back and turn white,
put on his glasses again, cannily taking them out of his well-
worn shagreen case, and giving a stare down at the towel,
almost touched the beast’s nose with his own.

“ And what, in the name of goodness, is the matter?” quo’
James Batter; “ye seem in a wonderful quandary.”

“The matter!” answered I, in astonishment, looking to
see if the man had lost his sight or his senses,—“ the matter !
whoever saw a sheep’s head with straight horns, and a vis-
nomy all colours of the rainbow—red, blue, orange, green,
yellow, white, and black ?”

“Deed it is,” said James, after a nearer inspection; “it
must be a lowsy-naturay. I’m sure I have read most of
Buffon’s books, and I have never heard tell of the like. It’s
gey an’ queerish.”

“’Od, James,” answered I, “ye take everything very
canny ; youre a philosopher, to be sure, but I daresay if the
moon was to fall from the lift and knock down the old kirk,
ye would say no more than ‘it’s gey an’ queerish!’”

“Queerish, man! do ye not see that?” added I, shoving
down his head mostly on the top of it. “Do ye not see that?
awful, most awful! extonishing!! Do ye not see that long
beard? Who, in the name of goodness, ever was an eye-
witness to a sheep’s head, in a Christian, land, with a beard
CATCHING A TARTAR. 173

like an unshaven Jew crying ‘owl clowes, with a green bag
over his left shoulder !”

“Dog on it,” said James, giving a fidge with his hainches ;
“dog on it, as I am a living sinner, that is the head of a
Willie-goat.”

“Willie or Nannie,” answered 1, “it’s not meat for me;
and never shall an ounce of it cross the craig of my family,
—that is as sure as ever James Batter drave a shuttle. Give
counsel in need, James: what is to be done ?”

“That needs consideration,” quo’ James, giving a bit hoast.
“Unless he makes ample apology, and explains the mistake
in a feasible way, it is my humble opinion that he ought to
be summoned before his betters. That is the legal way to
make him smart for his sins.”

At last a thought struck me, and I saw farther through my
difficulties than ever mortal man did through a millstone ;
but, like a politician, I minted not the matter to James.
Keeping my tongue cannily within my teeth, I then laid the
head, wrapped up in the bit towel, in a corner behind the
counter ; and turning my face round again to James, I put
my hands into my breeches-pockets, as if nothing in the
world had happened, and ventured back to the story of the
mermaid. I asked him how she looked—what kind of dress
she wore—if she swam with her corsets—what was the colour
of her hair—where she would buy the tortoise-shell comb—
and so on; when, just as he was clearing his pipe to reply, who
should burst open the shop-door like a clap of thunder, with
burning cat’s een, and a face as red as a soldier’s jacket, but
Cursecowl himself, with the new killing-coat in his hand—
which, giving a tremendous curse, the words of which are
not essentially necessary for me to repeat, being an elder of
our kirk, he made play flee at me with such a birr, that it
twisted round my neck, and, mostly blinding me, made me
doze like a tottum. At the same time, to clear his way, and
the better to enable him to take a good mark, he gave James
Batter a shove that made him stoiter against the wall, and
snacked the good new farthing tobacco-pipe that James was
taking his first whiff out of; crying, at the same blessed
moment—* Hold out o’ my road, ye long withered wabster.
Ye’re a pair of havering idiots; but Ill have pennyworths
out of both your skins, as I’m a sinner !”
174 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

What was to be done? There was no time for speaking,
for Cursecowl, foaming like a mad dog with passion, seized
hold of the ell-wand, which he flourished round his head
like a Highlander’s broadsword, and stamping about, with
his stockings drawn up his thighs, threatened every moment
to commit bloody murder. ,

If James Batter never saw service before, he learned a
little of it that day, being in’a pickle of bodily terror not
to be imagined by loins man; but his presence of mind did
not forsake him, and he cowered for-safety and succour into
a far corner, holding out a web of buckram before him—me
crying all the time, “Send for the town-officer ! will ye not
send for the town-officer ?”

You may talk of your General Moores and your Lord
Wellingtons as ye like; but never, since I was born, did I
ever see or hear tell of-anything braver than the way
Tammie Bodkin behaved,-in saving both our precious
lives, at-that blessed nick‘of time, from touch-and-go jeo-
pardy.: for, when Cursecowl was rampaugizig about, cursing
and sweating like a Russian bear, hurling out volleys of
oaths-that would have frighted John Knox, forbye the like
of us, Tammie stole in behind him like a wild-cat, followed
by Joseph Breekey, Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl, the three
apprentices, on their stocking soles; and, having strong and
dumpy:arnis, pinned back his elbows like a flash of light-
ning, ‘giving the other callants time to jump on his back,
and-hold him like a vice; while, having got. time to draw
my breath and screw up my pluck, I ran forward like a
lion, and houghed the whole concern—Tammie Bodkin, the
three faithful apprentices, Cursecowl and all, coming to the
ground like a battered castle.

It was now James Batter’s time to come up in line;
and though a douce man (being savage for the insulting
way that Cursecowl had dared to use him), he dropped down
like mad, with his knees on Cursecowl’s breast—who was
yelling, roaring, and grinding his buck-teeth like a mad
bull, kicking right and spurring left with fire and fury—
and, taking his Kilmarnock off his head, thrust it, like a
battering-ram, into Cursecowl’s mouth, to hinder him from
alarming the neighbourhood, and bringing the whole world
about our ears. Such a stramash of tumbling, roaring,
 

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@: ‘weee cowl! 4 Mhe- AAifrentices
CATCHING A TARTAR, 175

tearing, swearing, kicking, pushing, cuffing, rugging and
riving about the floor!! I thought they would not have
left one another with a shirt on: it seemed a combat even to
the death. Cursecowl’s breath was choked up within him
like wind in an empty bladder, and when I got a gliskie of
his face, from beneath James’s cowl, it was growing as black
as the crown of my hat. It feared me much that murder
would be the upshot, the webs being all heeled over, both
of broad-cloth, buckram, cassimir, and Welsh flannel; and
the paper shapings and worsted runds coiled about their
throats and bodies like fiery serpents. At long and last,
I thought it became me, being the head of the house, to
sound a parley, and bid them give the savage a mouth-
ful of fresh air, to see if he had anything to say in his
defence.

Cursecowl, by this time, had forcible assurance of our
ability to overpower him, and finding he had by far the
worst of it, was obliged to grow tamer, using the first breath
he got to cry out, “A barley, ye thieves! a barley! I tell
ye, give me wind. There’s not a man in nine of ye!”

Finding our own strength, we saw, by this time, that we
were masters of the field ; nevertheless, we took care to make
good terms when they were in our power; nor would we
allow Cursecowl to sit upright, till after he had said, three
times over, on his honour as a gentleman, that he would
behave as became one.

After giving his breeches-knees a skuff with his loof, to
dad off the stoure, he came, right foot foremost, to the
counter side, while the laddies were dighting their brows,
and stowing away the webs upon their ends round about,
saying, ‘“Maister Wauch, how have ye the conscience to
send hame such a piece o’ wark as that coat to ony decent
man? Do ye dare to imagine that I am a Jerusalem spider,
that I could be crammed, neck and heels, into such a thing
as that? Fye, shame—it would not button on yourself, man,
scarecrow-looking mortal though ye be !”

James Batter’s blood was now up, and boiling like an old
Roman’s; so he was determined to show Cursecowl that I
had a friend in court, able and willing to keep him at stave’s-
end. “Keep a calm sough,” said James Batter, interfering,
“and not miscall the head of the house in his own shop ; or,
176 LIFE OF -MANSIE WAUCH.

to say nothing of present consequences, by way of showing
ye the road to the door, perhaps Maister Sneckdrawer, the
penny-writer, ll give ye a caption paper with a broad
margin, to claw your elbow with at your leisure, my good
fellow.”

“Pugh, pugh,” cried Cursecowl, snapping his finger and
thumb at James’s beak, “I do not value your threatening
an ill halfpenny. Come away out your ways to the crown
of the causey, and I’ll box any three of ye, over the bannys,
for half-a-mutchkin. But ’odsake, Batter, my man, nobody’s
speaking to you,” added Cursecowl, giving a hack now and
then, and a bit spit down on the floor; ‘go hame, man, and
get your cowl washed ; I dare say you have pushioned me,
so I have no more to say to the like of you. But now,
Maister Wauch, just speaking hooly and fairly, do you not
think black burning shame of yourself, for putting such
an article into any decent Christian man’s hand, like mine ?”

“Wait a wee—wait a wee, friend, and Ill give ye a lock
salt to your broth,” answered I, in a calm and cool way ; for,
being a confidential elder of Maister Wiggie’s, I kept myself
free from the sin of getting into a passion, or fighting, except
in self-defence, which is forbidden neither by law nor gospel;
and stooping down, I took up the towel from the corner,
and spreading it upon the counter, bade him look, and see
if he knew an auld acquaintance !

Cursecowl, to be such a dragoon, had some rational points
in his character; so, seeing that he lent ear to me with a
smirk on his rough red face, I went on: “Take my advice
as a friend, and make the best of your way home, killing-
coat and all; for the most perfect will sometimes fall into
an innocent mistake, and, at any rate, it cannot be helped
now. But if ye show any symptom of obstrapulosity, I'll
find myself under the necessity of publishing you abroad to
the world for what you are, and show about that head in the
towel for a wonder to broad Scotland, in a manner that will
make customers flee from your booth, as if it was infected
with the seven plagues of Egypt.”

At sight of the goat’s-head, Cursecowl clapped his hand
on his thigh two or three times, and could scarcely muster
good manners enough to keep himself from bursting out
a-laughing.
CATCHING A TARTAR. 177

“Ye seem to have found a fiddle, friend,” said I; “but
give me leave to tell you, that ye’ll maybe find it liker a
hanging-match than a musical matter. Are you not aware
that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on two special
indictments? In the first place, for an action of assault
and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder of our kirk, with
a sticked killing-coat, in my own shop; and, in the second
place, as a swindler, imposing on his Majesty’s loyal subjects,
taking the coin of the realm on false pretences, and palming off
goat’s flesh upon Christians, as if they were perfect Pagans.”

Heathen though Cursecowl was, this oration alarmed him
in a jiffie, soon showing him, in a couple of hurries, that it
was necessary for him to be our humble servant: so he said,
still keeping the smirk on his face, “ Keh, keh, it’s not worth
making a noise about after all. Gie me the jacket, Mansie
my man, and it'll maybe serve my nephew, young Killim,
who is as lingit in the waist asa wasp. Let us take a shake
of your paw over the counter, and be friends. Bye-ganes
should be bye-ganes.”

Never let it be said that Mansie Wauch, though one of the
king’s volunteers, ever thrust aside the olive branch of
peace ; so, ill-used though I had been, to say nothing of
James Batter, who had got his pipe smashed to crunches,
and one of the eyes of his spectacles knocked out, I gave
him my fist frankly.

James Batter’s birse had been so fiercely put up, and no
wonder, that it was not so easily sleeked down; so, for a while,
he looked unco glum, till Cursecowl insisted that our meet-
ing should not be a dry one; nor would he hear a single
word on me and James Batter not accepting his treat of a
mutchkin of Kilbagie.

I did not think James would have been so doure and
refractory—funking and flinging like old Jeroboam; but at
last, with the persuasion of the treat, he came to, and, sleek-
ing down his front hair, we all three took a step down to the
far end of the close, at the back street, where Widow Tham-
son kept the sign of “The Tankard and the Tappit Hen ;”
Cursecowl, when we vot ourselves seated, ordering in the
spirits with a loud rap on the table with his knuckles, and
a whistle on the landlady through his fore-teeth, that made
the roof ring. A bottle of beer was also brought; so, after

M
178 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

drinking one another’s healths round, with a tasting out of
the dram glass, Cursecowl swashed the rest of the raw
creature into the tankard, saying,—“ Now take your will
ot; there’s drink fit for a king; that’s real ‘Pap-in.’”

He was an awful body, Cursecowl, and had a power of
queer stories, which, weel-a-wat, did not lose in the telling.
James Batter, beginning to brighten up, hodged and leuch
like a nine-year-old ; and I freely confess, for another, that
I was so diverted, that, I dare say, had it not been for his
fearsome oaths, which made our very hair stand on end, and
were enough to open the stone-wall, we would have both
sate from that time to this.

We got the whole story of the Willie-goat, out and out; it
seeming to be, with Cursecowl, a prime matter of diversion,
especially that part of it relating to the head, by which he
had won a crown-piece from Deacon Paunch, who wagered
that the wife and me would eat it, without ever finding out
our mistake. But, aha, lad !

The long and the short of the matter was this. The
Willie-goat had, for eighteen year, belonged to a dragoon
marching regiment, and, in its better days, had seen a power
of service abroad; till, being now old and infirm, it had
fallen off one of the baggage-carts, and got its leg broken on
the road to Piershill, where it was sold to Cursecowl, by a
corporal, for half-a-crown and a dram. The four quarters
he had managed to sell for mutton, like lightning—this one
buying a jigget, that one a back-ribs, and so on. However,
he had to weather a gey brisk gale in making his point good.
One woman remarked, that it had an unearthly, rank smell ;
to which he said, “No, no—ye do not ken your blessings,
friend, —that’s the smell of venison, for the beast was
brought up along with the deers in the Duke’s parks.” And
to another wife, that, after smell-smelling at it, thought it was
a wee humphed, he replied, “Faith, that’s ‘all the thanks
folk gets for letting their sheep crop heather among the
Cheviot Hills ;” and such like lies. But as for the head, that
had been the doure business. Six times had it been sold and
away, and six times had it been brought back again. One
bairn said, that her “mother didna like a sheep’s head with
horns like these, and wanted it changed for another one.”
A second one said, that “it had tup’s een, and her father
CATCHING A TARTAR, 179

liked wether mutton.” A third customer found mortal fault
with the colours, which, she said, were not canny, or in the
course of nature.” What the fourth one said, and the fifth
one took Jeave to observe, I have stupidly forgotten, though,
I am sure, I heard both; but 1 mind one remarked, quite
off-hand, as she sought back her money, that “unless sheep
could do without beards, like their neighbours, she would
keep the pot boiling with a piece beef, in the mean time.”
After all this, would any mortal man believe it, Deacon
Paunch, the greasy Daniel Lambert that he is, had taken
the wager, as I before took opportunity to remark, that our
family would swallow the bait? But, aha, he was off his
eggs there !

James and me were so tickled with Cursecowl’s wild, out-
rageous, off-hand, humoursome way of telling his crack, that,
though sore with neighering, none of the two of us ever
thought of rising ; Cursecowl chapping in first one stoup, and
then another, and birling the tankard round the table, as if
we had been drinking dub-water. I dare say I would never
have got away, had I not slipped out behind Lucky Tham-
son’s back —for she was a broad fat body, with a round-
eared mutch, and a full-plaited check apron—when she was
drawing the sixth bottle of small beer, with her corkscrew
between her knees ; Cursecowl lecturing away, at the divid-
ual moment, like a Glasgow professor, to James Batter,
whose een were gathering straws, on a pliskie he had once, in
the course of trade, played on a conceited body of a French
sicknurse, by selling her a lump of fat pork to make beef-tea
of to her mistress, who was dwining in the blue Beelzebubs.

Ohone, and woes me, for old Father Adam and the fall of
man! Poor, sober, good, honest James Batter was not, by a
thousand miles, a match for such company. Every thing,
, however, has its moral, and the truth will out. When
Nanse and me were sitting at our breakfast next morning,
we heard from Benjie, who had been early up fishing for eels
at the water-side, that the whole town-talk was concerning
the misfortunate James Batter, who had been carried home,
totally incapable, far in the night, by Cursecowl and an
Trish labourer—that sleeped in Widow Thamson’s garret—on
a hand-barrow, borrowed from Maister Wiggie’s servant-lass,
Jenny Jessamine.
180 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

CHAPTER XXIV.
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS.

“ He chose a mournful muse
Soft pity to infuse ;
He sung the Weaver wise and good,
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And weltering in his blood.”—DrvypEn Revised.

On the morning after the debosh with Mr Cursecowl, my
respected friend, James Batter, the pattern of steadiness and
sobriety, awoke in a terrible pliskie. The decent man came
to the use of his senses as from a trance, and scarcely knew
either where he was, or whether his head or heels were
uppermost. He found himself lying without his Kilmar-
nock, from which he might have received deadly damage,
being subject to the rheumatics in the cuff of the neck;
and everything about him was in a most fearful and dis-
jaskit state. It was a long time before he could, for the life
of him, bring his mind or memory to a sense of his condi-
tion, having still on his corduroy trousers, and his upper
and under vest, besides one of his stockings :—his hat, his
wig, his neckeloth, his shoes, his coat, his snuff-box, his
spectacles, and the other stocking, all lying on the floor,
together with a table, a chair, a candlestick, with a broken
candle, which had been knocked over ;—the snuffers stand-
ing upright, being sharp in the point, and having stuck in
the deal floor.

It was a terrible business! and might have been a life-
long lesson to every one, of the truth of St Paul’s maxim,
that “evil communication corrupts good manners ; ”—Curse-
cowl being the most incomprehensible fellow that ever
breathed’ the breath of life. To add to his calamities, James
found, on attempting to rise, that he had, in some way or
other, of which he had not a shadow of recollection, dismally
sprained his left ankle, which, to his consternation, was
swelled like a door-post, and as blue as his apron. There
was also a black ugly lump on his brow, as big as a
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 181

pigeon’s egg, which was horrible to look at in the bit glass.
Many a gallant soldier escaped from Waterloo with less
scaith—and that they did. Poor innocent sowl! I pitied
him from the very bottom of my heart—as who would
not ?

Having got an inkling of the town-talk by breakfast-time,
and knowing also that many a one—such is the corruption
of human nature—would like to have a hair in the neck of
James, by taking up an evil report, I remembered within
myself that a friend in need is a friend indeed, and cannily
papped up the close, after I had got myself shaved, to see
how the land lay. And a humbling spectacle it was!
James could scarcely yet be said to be himself, for his eyes
were like scored collops, and his stomach was so sick that
his face was like ill-bleached linen—pale as a dishclout.
When he tried to speak, it was between a bock and a hiccup
with him, and my feeling for his situation was such—know-
ing, as I did, all the ins and outs of the business—that I
could not help being very wae for him. It therefore be-
hoved me to make Nanse send him a cup of well-made tea,
to see if it would act asa settler, but his heart stood at it,
as if it had been ’cacuana, and do as he liked, he could not
let a drop of it down his craig. When the wife informed
me of this, I at last luckily remembered the old saying
about giving one a hair of the dog that bit him; and I
made poor James swallow a thimbleful of malt spirits—the
real unadulterated creatur—with wonderfully good effects.
Though then in his sixty-first year, James declares on his
honour as a gentleman, that this was the first time he ever
had fallen a victim to the barley-fever !

How could we do otherwise! it afforded Nanse and I
great pleasure—and no mistake—in acting the part of good
Samaritans, by pouring oil and wine into his wounds; I
having bound up his brow with a Sunday silk-napkin, and
she having fomented his unfortunate ankle with warm
water and hog’s lard. The truth is, that I found myself in
conscience bound and obligated to take a deep interest in
the decent man’s distresses, he having come to his catas-
trophe in a cause of mine, and having fallen a victim to the
snares and devices of Cursecowl, instead of myself, for whom
the vagabond’s girn was set. Providence decided that, in
182 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

this particular case, I should escape; but a better man,
James Batter, was caught in it by the left ankle. What
will a body say there?

The web of Lucky Caird, which James had promised to
carry home to her on the Saturday night, was still in the
loom, and had I been up to the craft, I would not have hesi-
tated to have driven the shuttle myself till I had got it off
hand for him; but every man to his trade; so, afraid of
consequences, I let the batter and the bobbin-box lie still,
trusting to Lucky Caird’s discretion, and my friend’s speedy
recovery. But the distress of James Batter was not the
business of a day. In the course of the next night, to be
sure, he had some natural sleep, which cleared his brain
from the effects of that dangerous and deluding drink, the
“Pap-in ;” but his ankle left him a grievous lameter, hirp-
ling on a staff; and, although his brown scratch and his
Kilmarnock helped to hide the bump upon his temple, the
dregs of it fell down upon his e’e-bree, which, to the con-
sternation of everybody, became as green as a docken leaf.

My friend, however, be it added to this, was not more a
sufferer in body than in estate; for the illness, being of his
own bringing on, he could not make application to the
Weavers’ Society—of which he had been a regular member
for forty odd years—for his lawful sick-money. But, being
a philosopher, James submitted to his bed of thorns without
a murmur; Nanse and I soothing his calamities, as we best
could, by a bowl of sheep-head broth ; a rizzar’d haddock ;
a tankard of broo-and-bread; a caller egg; a swine’s trotter;
and other circumstantialities needless to repeat—as occasion
required.

As for Cursecowl, the invincible reprobate, so ashamed
was he of his infamous conduct, that he did not dare, for the
life in his body, to show himself before my shop-window—
far less in my presence—for more than a week ; yet, would
ye believe it! he made a perfect farce of the whole business
among his own wauf cronies; and, instead of repentance,
I verily believe, would not have cared twopence to have
played me the same pliskie that he did my douce and
worthy friend. But away with him! he is not worth
speaking about; and ye’ll get nothing from a sow but—
grumph !
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 183

Being betimes on the mending order, James sent down,
one forenoon, to request, with his compliments, that I would
hand him up by the bearer old Taffy with the Pigtail’s
bundle of papers,—as having more leisure in his hands than
either he liked, or well knew how to dispose of, it might
afford him some diversion to take a reading of them, for the
purpose of inquiring farther into the particulars of the
Welsh gentleman’s history—which undoubtedly was a wee
mysterious, consisting of matters lying heads and thraws,
and of odds and ends that no human skill could dovetail
into a Christian consistency.

On the night of the next day—I mind it weel, for it was
on that dividual evening that Willie, the minister’s man,
married Mysie Clouts, the keeper of the lodging-house called
the Beggars’ Opera—it struck me, seeing the general joy of
the weans on the street, and the laughing, daffing, and
hullabaloo that they were making, that poor James must be
lonely at his ingle side, and that a drink of porter and a
crack would do his old heart good. Accordingly, I made
Nanse send the bit lassie, our servant, Jenny Heggins, for a
couple of bottles of Deacon Jaffrey’s best brown stout, asking
if he could pawn his word anent its being genuine, as it
was for a gentleman in delicate health. So, brushing the
sawdust off the doup of one of them, and slipping it into my
coat pocket, which was gey an’ large, I popped at leisure up
the close to pay my neighbour a friendly visit.

Od, but comfort is a grand thing. If ever ye saw an
ancient patriarch, there was one. James was seated in his
snug old easy-chair by the fireside, as if he had been an
Edinburgh Parliament House lawyer, studying his hornings,
duplies, and fugie warrants, with his left leg paraded out on
a stool, with a pillow smoothed down over it, and all the
Welshman’s papers docketed on the bit table before him.
The cat was lying streaked out on the hearth, pur-purring
away to herself, and the kettle by the fire cheek was sing-
ing along with her, as if to cheer the heart of their mutual
master. As for Mr Batter, he looked as prejinct as a pike-
staff, and so taken up was he with his papers, that, when I
asked him how he felt, his answer, to my wonderment, was,
that “in the Song of Songs, Solomon had likened the nose
of his beloved to the tower of Lebanon, which looketh
184 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

towards Damascus.” So brown was he in his studies, that,
for a while, I feared the fall had produced some crack in
his pan, and that his seven senses had gone a wool-gather-
ing; but the story will out, as ye will hear, and being
naturally a wee-camstairie, I gave him time to gather the
feet of his faculties before pressing him too hard; but even
the sight of the bottle of porter, toasting by the cheek of the
fire, hardly brought him at once to his right mind.

Mr Batter’s noddle, however, after a little patience, clear-
ing up, we leisurely discussed between us the porter, which
was in prime condition, with a ream as yellow as a mari-
gold; together with half a dozen of butter-bakes, crimp
and new-baked, it being batch-day with Thomas Burlings,
who, like his father and grandfather before him, have been
notorious in the biscuit department. It soon became clear
to me, that the dialogue about Lebanon and Damascus,
which was followed up with a clishmaclaver anent dirks,
daggers, red cloaks, and other bloody weapons which made
all my flesh grue, had some connection with Taffy’s papers
on the table—out of which James had been diverting him-
self by reading bits here and there, at random like.

In the course of our confab, he told me a monstrous heap
about them; but, in general, the things were so out of the
course of Providence, and so queer and leeing-like, that I,
for one, would not believe them without solemn affidavy.
Indeed, I began at length to question within myself—for
the subject naturally resolved itself into two heads—firstly,
whether Taffy’s master might not have had a bee in his
bonnet; or, secondly, whether he was a person not over-
scrupulous regarding the matter of truth. As for James, he
declared him a nonsuch, and said, that although poor, he
would not have hesitated to have given him sixpence for a
lock of his hair, just to keep beside him for a keepsake—(did
any body ever hear such nonsense?) Before parting, he in-
sisted that I should bear with him, till he read me over the
story he had just finished as I came in, and which had been
running in his noddle. At such a late hour, for it was now
wearing on to wellnigh ten o’clock, I was not just clear about
listening to anything bloody ; but not to vex the old boy,
who, I am sure, would not have sleeped a wink through the
night for disappointment, had he not got a free breast made
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 185

of it, I at long and last consented—provided his story was
not too long. My chief particularity on this point, as I
should mention, was, that it was past Benjie’s bedtime, and
the callant had a hoast, which required all his mother’s as
well as my own good doctoring—having cost us two bottles
of Dantzic black beer, with little effect; besides not a few
other recommendations of friends and skielly acquaintances,

It was best, therefore, to consent with a good grace; so,
after clearing his windpipes, James wiped the eyes of his
spectacles with the corner of his red-check pocket-napkin ;
and thereafter fixing them on his beak, he commenced
preaching away in grand style at some queer outlandish
stuff, which fairly baffled my gumption. I must confess,
however, both in fairness to Taffy and to James, that, as I
had been up since five in the morning (having pawned my
word to send home Duncan Imrie, the heel-cutter’s new
duffle great-coat by breakfast-time, as he had to go into the
Edinburgh Jeather-market by eleven), my een were gather-
ing straws; and it was only at the fearsome parts that 1
could for half a moment keep them sundry. “Many men,”
however, “many minds,” as the copy-line book says; and
as every one has a right to judge for himself, I requested
James to copy the concern out for me; and ye here have
it, word for word, without subtraction, multiplication, or
addition.

THE MAID OF DAMASCUS.

** All close they met, all eves, before the dusk
Had taken from the stars its pleasant veil,
Close in a bower of hyacinth and musk,
Unknown of any, free from whispering tale.”—Kerars.

In the reign of the Greek Emperor Heraclius, when the
beautiful city of Damascus was at the height of its splen-
dour and magnificence, dwelt therein a young noble, named
Demetrius, whose decayed fortunes did not correspond with
the general prosperity of the times. He was a youth of
ardent disposition, and very handsome in person: pride
kept him from bettering his estate by the profession of mer-
chandise, yet more keenly did he feel the obscurity to which
186 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

adverse fates had reduced him, that in his lot was involved
the fortune of one dearer than himself.

It so happened that, in that quarter of the city which
faces the row of palm-trees, within the gate Keisan, dwelt
a wealthy old merchant, who had a beautiful daughter.
Demetrius had by chance seen her some time before, and
he was so struck with her loveliness, that, after pining for
many months in secret, he ventured on a disclosure, and, to
his delighted surprise, found that Isabelle had long silently
nursed a deep and almost hopeless passion for him also; so,
being now aware that their love was mutual, they were as
happy as the bird that, all day long, sings in the sunshine
from the summits of the cypress-trees.

True is the adage of the poet, that “the course of true love
never did run smooth;” and, in the father of the maiden,
they found that a stumbling-block lay in the path of their
happiness, for he was of an avaricious disposition, and they
knew that he valued gold more than nobility of blood.
Their fears grew more and more, as Isabelle, in her private
conversations, endeavoured to sound her father on this
point; and although the suspicions of affection are often
more apparent than real, in this they were not mistaken ;
for, without consulting his child—and as if her soul had
been in his hand—he promised her in marriage to a rich old
miser, ay, twice as rich, and nearly as old as himself.

Isabelle knew not what to do; for, on being informed by
her father of the fate he had destined for her, her heart for-
sook her, and her spirit was bowed to the dust. Nowhere
could she rest, like the Thracian bird that knoweth not to
fold its wings in slumber—a cloud had fallen for her over
the fair face of nature—and, instead of retiring to her couch,
she wandered about weeping under the midnight stars, on
the terrace on the housetop—wailing over her hapless fate,
and calling on death to come and take her from her sorrows.

At morning she went forth alone into the garden; but
neither could the golden glow of the orange-trees, nor the
perfumes of the rosiers, nor the delicate fragrance of the
clustering henna and jasmine, delight her; so she wearied
for the hour of noon, having privately sent to Demetrius,
inviting him to meet her by the fountain of the pillars at
that time.
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 187

Poor Demetrius had, for some time, observed a settled
sorrow in the conduct and countenance of his beautiful Isa-
belle —he felt that some melancholy revelation was to be
made to him ; and, all eagerness, he came at the appointed
hour. He passed along the winding walks, unheeding of
the tulips streaked like the ruddy evening clouds—of the
flower betrothed to the nightingale—of the geranium blaz-
ing in scarlet beauty,—till, on approaching the place of
promise, he caught a glance of the maid he loved—and, lo!
she sate there in the sunlight, absorbed in thought; a book
was on her knee, and at her feet lay the harp whose chords
had been for his ear so often modulated to harmony.

He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, as he seated
himself beside her on the steps; and seeing her sorrowful,
he comforted her, and bade her be of good cheer, saying,
that Heaven would soon smile propitiously on their fortunes,
and that their present trials would but endear them the
more to each other in the days of after years. At length,
with tears and sobs, she told him of what she had learned ;
and, while they wept on each other’s bosoms, they vowed
over the Bible, which Isabelle held in her hand, to be faith-
ful to each other to their dying day.

Meantime the miser was making preparations for the mar-
riage ceremony, and the father of Isabelle had portioned
out his daughter’s dowry ; when the lovers, finding them-
selves driven to extremity, took the resolution of escaping
together from the city.

Now, it so happened, in accordance with the proverb,
which saith that evils never come single, that, at this very
time, the city of Damascus was closely invested by a mighty
army, commanded by the Caliph Abubeker Alwakidi, the
immediate successor of Mahomet ; and, in leaving the walls,
the lovers were in imminent hazard of falling into their
cruel hands; yet, having no other resource left, they re-
solved to put their perilous adventure to the risk.

‘Twas the Mussulman hour of prayer Magrib: the sun
had just disappeared, and the purple haze of twilight rested
on the hills, darkening all the cedar forests, when the porter
of the gate Keisan, having been bribed with a largess, its
folding leaves slowly opened, and forthwith issued a horse-
man closely wrapt up in a mantle; and behind him, at a
188 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

little space, followed another similarly clad. Alas! for the
unlucky fugitives, it so chanced that Derar, the captain of
the night-guard, was at that moment making his rounds, and
observing what was going on, he detached a party to throw
themselves between the strangers and the town. The fore-
most rider, however, discovered their intention, and he
called back to his follower to return. Isabelle—for it was
she—instantly regained the gate, which had not yet closed,
but Demetrius fell into the hands of the enemy.

As wont in those bloody wars, the poor prisoner was
immediately carried by an escort into the presence of the
Caliph, who put the alternative in his power of either, on
the instant, renouncing his religion, or submitting to the
axe of the headsman. Demetrius told his tale with a noble
simplicity; and his youth, his open countenance, and
stately bearing, so far gained on the heart of Abubeker, that,
on his refusal to embrace Mahomedism, he begged of him
seriously to consider of his situation, and ordered a delay of
the sentence, which he must otherwise pronounce, until the
morrow.

Heart-broken and miserable, Demetrius was loaded with
chains, and carried to a gloomy place of confinement. In
the solitude of the night-hours he cursed the hour of his
birth—bewailed his miserable situation—and feeling that
all his schemes of happiness were thwarted, almost rejoiced
that he had only a few hours to live.

The heavy hours lagged on towards daybreak, and, quite
exhausted by the intense agony of his feelings, he sank
down upon the ground in a profound sleep, from which a
band, with crescented turbans and crooked sword-blades,
awoke him. Still persisting to reject the Prophet’s faith, he
was led forth to die; but, in passing through the camp,
the Soubachis of the Caliph stopped the troop, as he had
been commanded, and Demetrius was ushered into the tent,
where Abubeker, not yet arisen, lay stretched on his sofa.
For a while the captive remained resolute, preferring death
to the disgrace of turning a renegado; but the wily Caliph,
who had taken a deep and sudden interest in the fortunes
of the youth, knew well the spring, by the touch of which
his heart was most likely to be affected. He pointed out to
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 189

Demetrius prospects of preferment and grandeur, while he
assured him that, in a few days, Damascus must to a cer-
tainty surrender, in which case his mistress must fall into
the power of a fierce soldiery, and be left to a fate full of
dishonour, and worse than death itself; but, if he assumed
the turban, he pledged his royal word that especial care
should be taken that no harm should alight on her he
loved.

Demetrius paused, and Abubeker saw that the heart of
his captive was touched. He drew pictures of power, and
affluence, and domestic love, that dazzled the imagination
of his hearer ; and while the prisoner thought of his Isabelle,
instead of rejecting the impious proposal, as at first he had
done, with disdain and horror, his soul bent like iron in the
breath of the furnace flame, and he wavered and became
irresolute. The keen eye of the Caliph saw the working of
his spirit within him, and allowed him yet another day to
form his resolution. When the second day was expired,
Demetrius craved a third; and on the fourth morning,
miserable man, he abjured the faith of his fathers, and
became a Mussulman.

Abubeker loved the youth, assigning him a post of dignity,
and all the mighty host honoured him whom the Caliph
delighted to honour. He was clad in rich attire, and mag-
nificently attended, and, to all eyes, Demetrius seemed a
person worthy of envy; yet, in the calm of thought, his
conscience upbraided him, and he was far less happy than
he seemed to be.

Ere yet the glow of novelty had entirely ceased to bewilder
the understanding of the renegade, preparations were made
for the assault, and after a fierce but ineffectual resistance,
under their gallant leaders Thomas and Herbis, the Damas-
cenes were obliged to submit to their imperious conqueror,
on condition of being allowed, within three days, to leave
the city unmolested.

When the gates were opened, Demetrius, with a heart
overflowing with love and delight, was among the first to
enter. He inquired of every one he met of the fate of
Isabelle ; but all turned from him with disgust. At length
he found her out, but what was his grief and surprise—in
190 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

anunnery! Firm to the troth she had so solemnly plighted,
she had rejected the proposition of her mercenary parent ;
and, having no idea but that her lover had shared the fate
of all Christian captives, she had shut herself up from the
world, and vowed to live the life of a vestal.

The surprise, the anguish, the horror of Isabelle, when
she beheld Demetrius in his Moslem habiliments, cannot be
described. Her first impulse, on finding him yet alive, was
to have fallen into his arms; but, instantly collecting her-
self, she shrunk back from him with loathing, as a mean
and paltry dastard. “No, no,” she cried, “you are no longer
the man I loved; our vows of fidelity were pledged over
the Bible; that book you have renounced as a fable; and
he who has proved himself false to Heaven, can never be
true to me!”

Demetrius was conscience -struck ; too late he felt his
crime, and foresaw its consequences. The very object for
whom he had dared to make the tremendous sacrifice had
deserted him, and his own soul told him with how much
justice; so, without uttering a syllable, he tured away,
heart-broken, from the holy and beautiful being whose
affections he had forfeited for ever.

When the patriots left Damascus, Isabelle accompanied
them. Retiring to Antioch, she lived with the sisterhood
for many years; and, as her time was passed between acts
of charity and devotion, her bier was watered with many a
tear, and the hands of the grateful duly strewed her grave
with flowers. To Demetrius was destined a briefer career.
All-conscious of his miserable degradation, loathing himself,
and life, and mankind, he rushed back from the city into
the Mahomedan camp; and entering, with a hurried step,
the tent of the Caliph, he tore the turban from his brow,
and eried aloud—-“ Oh, Abubeker! behold a God-forsaken
wretch. Think not it was the fear of death that led me to
abjure my religion—the religion of my fathers—the only
true faith. No; it was the idol of Love that stood between
my heart and heaven, darkening the latter with its shadow ;
and had I remained as true to God as I did to the Maiden
of my love, I had not needed this.” So saying, and ere
the hand of Abubeker could arrest him, he drew a poniard
JAMES BATTER AND THE MAID OF DAMASCUS. 191

from his embroidered vest, and the heart-blood of the
renegade spouted on the royal robes of the successor of
Mahomet.

So grandly had James spooted this bloody story, that not-
withstanding my sleepiness, his words whiles dirled through
my marrow like quicksilver, and set all my flesh a grueing.
In the middle of it, he was himself so worked up, that twice
he pulled his Kilmarnock from his head, silk - napkin,
bandage and all, and threw them down with a thump on
the table, which once wellnigh capsized the candlestick.

The porter and the stabbing, also, very nearly put me
beside myself; and I felt so queerish and eerie when I took
my hat to wish him a good-night—knowing that baith Nanse
and Benjie would be neither to hold nor bind, it being now
half-past ten o’clock—that, had it not been for the shame
of the thing, and that I remembered being one of the
King’s gallant volunteers, I fear I would have asked James
for the lend of his lantern, to show me down the dark close.

The reader will thus perceive that the adventure of the
killing-coat, stuck alike in the measurement and in the
making by Tammie Bodkin, was destined, in the great
current of human events, to form a prominent feature, not
only in my own history, but in that of worthy James Batter.
To me it might be considered as a passing breeze—having
been accustomed to see and suffer a vast deal; but my
friend, I fear much, will bear marks of it to his grave.
Yet I cannot blame myself with a safe conscience for James
having fallen the victim to Cursecowl. I had tried every
thing to solder up matters which the heart of man could
suggest; and knowing that it was a catastrophe which
would bring down open war and rebellion throughout the
whole parish, my thoughts were all of peace, and how
to stave off the eruption of the bloody heathen. I had
thought over the thing seriously in my bed; and reckoning
plainly that Cursecowl was not one likely soon to hold
out a flag of truce, I had come to the determination within
myself to sound a parley—and offer either to take back
the coat, or refund part of the purchase-money. I may
add, that having an unbounded regard for his judgment and
192 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

discretion, I had, in my own mind, selected James Batter
to be sent as the ambassador. The same day, however,
brought round the extraordinary purchase of the Willie-
goat’s head, and gave a new and unexpected turn to the
whole business.

Folk, moreover, should never be so over-proud as not to
confess when they are in fault; and from what happened,
I am free to admit, that James, harmless as a sucking dove,
was no match in such a matter for the like of Cursecowl,
who was a perfect incarnation, for devilry and cunning, of
the old Serpent himself.

My intentions, however, were good, and those of a Chris-
tian ; for had Cursecowl accepted the ten shillings by way
of blood- money, which it was thus my intention to have
offered, this fearful and bloody stramash would have been
hushed up without the world having become a whit the
wiser. But “there is many a slip,” as the proverb says,
“between the cup and the lip;” and the best intentions
often fall to the ground, like the beggarman between the
two stools.

The final conclusion of the whole tragedy was, as it
behoves me to mention, that Cursecowl, in consideration
of a month’s gratis work in the slaughter -house, made a
brotherly legacy of the coat to his nephew, young Killim.
The laddie was a perfect world’s wonder every Sunday, and
would have been laughed at out of his seven senses, had he
not at last rebelled and fairly thrown it off. I make every
allowance for the young man; and am sorry to confess
that it was indeed a perfect shame to be seen. At Dalkeith,
where one is well known, any thing may pass; but I was
always in bodily terror, that, had he gone to Edinburgh, he
would have been taken up by the police, on suspicion of
being either a Spanish pawtriot or a highway robber.
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. 193

CHAPTER XXYV.

A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE.

“ They steeked doors, they steecked yetts,
Close to the cheek and chin ;
They steeked them a’ but a wee wicket,
And Lammikin crap in.”—Ballad of the Lammikin.

‘* Hame cam our gudeman at een,

And hame cam he;

And there he spied a man
Where a man shouldna be.

Hoo cam this man, kimmer,
And who can it be;

Hoo cam this carle here,
Without the leave o’ me?”—Old Song.

Years wore on after the departure and death of poor
Mungo Glen, during the which I had a sowd of prentices,
good, bad, and indifferent, and who afterwards cut, and are
cutting, a variety of figures in the world. Sometimes I had
two or three at a time; for the increase of business that
flowed in upon me with a full stream was tremendous, ena-
bling me—who say it that should not say it—to lay by a wheen
bawbees for a sore head, or the frailties of old age. Some-
how or other, the clothes made on my shopboard came into
great vogue through all Dalkeith, both for neatness of shape
and nicety of workmanship; and the young journeymen
of other masters did not think themselves perfected, or
worthy a decent wage, till they had crooked their houghs
for three months in my service. With regard to myself,
some of my acquaintances told me, that if I had gone into
Edinburgh to push my fortune, I could have cut half the
trade out of bread, and maybe risen, in the course of nature,
to be Lord Provost himself; but I just heard them speak,
and kept my wheisht. I never was overly ambitious; and
I remembered how proud Nebuchadnaazer ended with eating
grass on all-fours. Every man has a right to be the best
judge of his own private matters; though, to be sure, the
advice of a true friend is often more precious than rubies,
and sweeter than the Balm of Gilead.

It was about the month of March, in the year of grace
anno Domini eighteen hundred, that the whole country

N
194 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

trembled, like a giant ill of the ague, under the consterna-
tion of Buonaparte, and all the French vagabonds emigrat-
ing over, and landing in the Firth. Keep us all! the folk,
doitit bodies, put less confidence than became them in what
our volunteer regiments were able and willing to do; yet
we had a remnant among us of the true blood, that with
loud laughter laughed the creatures to scorn; and I, for
one, kept up my pluck, like a true Highlander. Does any
living soul believe that Scotland—the land of the Tweed,
and the Clyde, and the Tay—could be conquered, and the
like of us sold, like Egyptian slaves, into captivity? Fie,
fie—I despise such haivers. Are we not descended, father
and son, from Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace, hav-
ing the bright blood of freemen in our veins, and the
Pentland Hills, as well as our own dear homes and firesides
to fight for? The rascal that would not give cut-and-thrust
for his country as long as he had a breath to draw, or a leg
to stand on, should be tied neck and heels, without benefit
of clergy, and thrown over Leith pier, to swim for his life
like a mangy dog!

Hard doubtless it is—and I freely confess it—to be called
by sound of bugle, or tuck of drum, from the counter and
the shopboard—men, that have been born and bred to
peaceful callings, to mount the red-jacket, soap the hair,
buckle on the buff-belt, load with ball-cartridge, and screw
bayonets; but it’s no use talking. We were ever the free
British ; and before we would say to Frenchmen that we
were their humble servants, we would either twist the very
noses off their faces, or perish in the glorious struggle.

It was aye the opinion of the Political folk, the Whigs,
the Black-nebs, the Radicals, the Papists, and the Friends
of the People, together with the rest of the clan-jamphrey,
that it was a done battle, and that Buonaparte would lick
us back and side. All this was in the heart and heat of the
great war, when we were struggling, like drowning men, for
our very life and existence, and when our colours—the true
British flag—were nailed to the mast-head. One would
have thought these rips were a set of prophets, they were all
so busy prophesying, and never anything good. They kent
(believe them) that we were to be smote hip and thigh; and
that to oppose the vile Corsican was like men with strait-
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. 195

jackets out of Bedlam. They could see nothing brewing
around them but death, and disaster, and desolation, and
pillage, and national bankruptcy—our brave Highlanders,
with their heads shot off, lying on the bloody field of battle,
all slaughtered to a man; our sailors, handcuffed and
shackled, musing in a French prison on the bypast days of
Camperdown, and of Lord Rodney breaking through the
line ; with all their fleets sunk to the bottom of the salt sea,
after being raked fore and aft with chain-shot; and our
timber, sugar, tea, and treacle merchants, all fleeing for
safety and succour down to lodgings in the Abbey Strand,
with a yellow stocking on the ae leg and a black one on
the other, like a wheen mountebanks. Little could they
foresee, with their spentacles of prophecy, that a battle of
Waterloo would ever be fought, to make the confounded
fugies draw in their horns, and steek up their scraighing
gabs for ever. Poor fushionless creatures !

I do not pretend to be a politician,—having been bred to
the tailoring line syne ever I was a callant, and not seeing
the Adverteezer Newspapers, or the Edinburgh Evening
Courant, save and except at an orra time,—so I shall say no
more, nor pretend to be one of the thousand-and-one wise
men, able and willing to direct his Majesty’s Ministers on
all matters of importance regarding Church or State. One
thing, howsoever, I trust I ken, and that is, my duty to my
King as his loyal subject, to old Scotland as her unworthy
son, and to my family as their prop, support, and bread-
winner ;—so I shall stick to all three (under Heaven) as
long as I have a drop of blood in my precious veins. But
the truth is—and I will let it out and shame the de’il—that
I could not help making these general observations (as
Maister Wiggie calls the spiritualeezing of his discourses),
as what I have to relate might well make my principles
suspected, were they not known to all the world to be as
firm as the foundations of the Bass Rock. Ye shall never-
theless judge for yourselves.

It was sometime in the blasty month of March, the
weather being rawish and rainy, with sharp frosty nights
that left all the window-soles whitewashed over with frost
rind in the mornings, that as I Was going out in the dark,
before lying down in my bed, to give a look into the hen-
196 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

hous@, and lock the coal-cellar, so that I might hang the
bit key on the nail behind our room window-shutter, I hap-
pened to give a keek in, and, lo and behold! the awful
apparition of a man with a yellow jacket, lying sound asleep
on. a great lump of parrot-coal in a corner !

In the first hurry of my terror and surprise at seeing a
man with a yellow jacket and a green foraging-cap in such
a situation, I was like to drop the good twopenny candle,
and faint clean away; but, coming to myself in a jiffie, I
determined, in case it might be a highway robber, to thraw
about the key, and, running up for the firelock, shoot him
through the head instantly, if found necessary. In turning
round the key, the lock, being in want of a feather of oil,
made a noise, and wakened the poor wretch, who, jumping
to the soles of his feet in despair, cried out in a voice that
was like to break my heart, though I could not make out
one word of his paraphernally. It minded me, by all the
world, of a wheen cats fuffing and fighting through ither, and
whiles something that sounded like “Sugar, sugar, measure
the cord,” and “dabble dabble.” It was worse than the
most outrageous Gaelic ever spoken in the height of passion
by a Hieland shearer.

“Oho!” thinks I, “friend, ye cannot be a Christian from
your lingo, that’s one thing poz ; and I would wager tippence
youre a Frenchy. Who kens, keep us all, but ye may be
Buonaparte himself in disguise, come over in a flat-bot-
tomed boat to spy the nakedness of the land. So ye may
just rest content, and keep your quarters good till the morn’s
morning.”

It was a wonderful business, and enough to happen to a
man in the course of his lifetime, to find Mounseer from
Paris in his coal-neuk, and have the enemy of his country
snug under lock and key; so, while he kept rampauging,
fuffing, stamping, and diabbling away, I went in and brought
out .Benjie, with a blanket rowed round him, and my jour-
neyman, Tommy Staytape—who, being an orphan, I made
a kind of parlour-boarder of, he sleeping on a shake-down
beyond the kitchen fire—to hold a consultation and be wit-
ness of the transaction.

I got my musket, and Tommy Staytape armed himself
with the goose—a deadly weapon, whoever may get a clour
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. 197

with it—and Benjie took the poker in one hand, and the
tongs in the other; and out we all marched briskly, to
make the Frenchman, that was locked up from the light of
day in the coal-house, surrender. After hearkening at the
door for a while, and finding all quiet, we gave a knock to
rouse him up, and see if we could bring anything out of
him by speering cross-questions. Tommy and Benjie trem-
bled from top to toe, like aspen leaves, but fient a word
could we make common-sense of at all. I wonder who edu-
cates these foreign creatures? It was in vain to follow him,
for he just gab-gabbled away, like one of the stone-masons
at the Tower of Babel. At first I was completely bam-
boozled, and almost dung stupid, though I kent one word
of French which I wanted to put to him—so I cried through,
“Canna ye speak Scotcha, Mounseer ?”

He had not the politeness to stop and make answer, but
just went on with his string of haivers, without either
thyme or reason, which we could make neither top, tail,
nor main of,

It was a sore trial to us all, putting us to our wits’ end,
and how to come on was past all visible comprehension ;
when Tommy Staytape, giving his elbow a rub, said, “Od,
maister, I wager something that’s he broken loose frae Peni-
euik, We have him like a rotten in a fa’.”

On Penicuik being mentioned, we heard the foreign crea-
ture in the coal-house groaning out, “och,” and “ochone,”
and “parbleu,” and “ Mysie Rabble,’—that I fancy was his
sweetheart at home, some bit French quean, that wondered
he was never like to come from the wars and marry her.
I thought on this, for his voice was mournful, though I
could not understand the words; and kenning he was a
stranger in a far land, my bowels yearned within me with
compassion towards him.

I would have given half-a-crown at that blessed moment
to have been able to wash my hands free of him; but I
swithered, and was like the cuddie between the two bundles
of hay. At long and last a thought struck me, which was
to give the deluded simple creature a chance of escape ;
reckoning that, if he found his way home, he would see the
shame and folly of fighting against us any more, and,
marrying Mysie Rabble, live a contented and peaceful life,
198 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

under his own fig and bay tree. So wishing him a sound
sleep, I cried through the door, “ Mounseer, gooda nighta,”
decoying away Benjie and Tommy Staytape into the house.
Bidding them depart to their beds, I said to them after shut-
ting the door, “Now, callants, we have the precious life of
a fellow-creature in our hand, and to account for. Though
he has a yellow jacket on, and speaks nonsense, yet, never-
theless, he is of the same flesh and blood as ourselves.
Maybe we may be all obliged to wear green foraging-caps
before we die yet ! Mention what we have seen or heard to
no living soul; for maybe, if he were to escape, we would
be all taken up on suspicion of being spies, and hanged on
a gallows as high as Haman.” After giving them this
wholesome advice, I despatched them to their beds like
lamplighters, binding them to never fash their thumbs, but
sleep like tops, as I would keep a sharp look-out till
morning.

As soon, howsoever, as I heard them sleeping, and playing
on the pipes through their noses, I cried first “Tommy,”
and syne “Benjie,” to be sure; and, glad to receive no
answer from either, I went to the aumrie and took out a
mutton-bone, gey sair pyked, but fleshy enough at the
mouse end ; and, putting a penny row beside it, crap out to
the coal-house on my tiptaes. All was quiet as pussie,—so
I shot them through the hole at the corner made for letting
the gaislings in by; and giving a tirl, cried softly through,
“‘Halloa, Mounseer, there’s your suppera fora youa; for I
dara saya you are yauppa.”

The poor chiel commenced again to grunt and grane, and
groan and yelp, and cry ochone, and make such woful
lamentations, that heart of man could not stand it; and I
found the warm tears prap-prapping to my een. Before
being put to this trial of my strength, I thought that, if ever
it was my fortune to foregather with a Frenchman, either
him or me should do or die; but, i’fegs, one should not
crack so crouse before they are put to the test; and, though
I had taken a prisoner without fighting at all—though he
had come into the coal-hole of the Philistines of his own
accord, as it were, and was as safe as the spy in the house of
Rahab at Jericho—and though we had him like a mouse
beneath a firlet, snug under custody of lock and key, yet I
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE, 199

considered within myself, with a pitiful consideration, that,
although he could not speak well, he might yet feel deeply ;
that he might have a father and mother, and sisters and
brothers, in his ain country, weeping and wearying for his
return; and that his true love Mysie Rabble might pine
away like a snapped Hower, and die of a broken heart.

Being a volunteer, and so one of his Majesty’s confidential
servants, I swithered tremendously between my duty as a
man and a soldier; but, do what you like, nature will aye
be uppermost. The scale weighed down to the side of pity.
I hearkened to the Scripture that promises a blessing to
the merciful in heart, and determined, come of it what
would, to let the Frenchy take his chance of falling into
other hands.

Having given him a due allowance by looking at my
watch, and thinking he would have had enough of time to
have taken his will of the mutton-bone in the way of
pyking, I went to the press and brought out a bottle of
swipes, which I also shoved through the hole ; although, for
lack of a tanker, there being none at hand, he would be
obliged to lift it to his head, and do his best. To show the
creature did not want sense, he shoved, when he was done,
the empty plate and the toom bottle through beneath the
door, mumbling some trash or other which no living crea-
ture could comprehend, but which, I dare say, from the way
it was said, was the telling me how much he was obliged for
his supper and poor lodging. From my kindness towards
him, he grew more composed ; but as he went back to the
corner to lie down, I heard him give two-three heavy sighs.
I could not thole’t, mortal foe though the man was of mine ;
so I gave the key a canny thraw round in the lock, as it
were by chance, and wishing him a good-night, went to
my bed beside Nanse.

At the dawn of day, by cock-craw, Benjie and Tommy
Staytape, keen of the ploy, were up and astir, as anxious as
if their life depended on it, to see that all was safe and snug,
and that the prisoner had not shot the lock. They agreed
to march sentry over him half an hour the piece, time
about, the one stretching himself out on a stool beside the
kitchen fire, by way of a bench in the guard-house, while
the other went to and fro like the ticker of a clock. I dare-
200 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUOH.

say they saw themselves marching him after breakfast-time,
with his yellow jacket, through a mob of weans with glower-
ing een and gaping mouths, up to the Tolbooth.

The back-window being up a jink, I heard the two con-
fabbing, “We'll draw cuts,” said Benjie, “which is to walk
sentry first; see, here’s two straws, the longest gets the
choice.” “I’ve won,” cried Tommy; “so gang you in a
while, and if I need ye, or grow frightened, 1’ll beat leather-
ty-patch wi? my buckles on the back-door. But we had
better see first what he is about, for he may be howking a
hole through aneath the foundations; thae fiefs can work
like moudiwarts.” “T’ll slip forret,” said Benjie, “and gie
a peep.” “Keep to a side,” cried Tommy Staytape, “for,
dog on it, Moosey’ll maybe hae a pistol; and if his birse be
up, he would think nae mair o’ shooting ye as dead as a red
herring, than I would do of taking my breakfast.”

“Tl rin past, and gie a knock at the door wi’ the poker
to rouse him up?” asked Benjie.

“Come away then,” answered Tommy, “and ye’ll hear
him gie a yowl, and commence gabbling like a goose.”

As all this was going on, I rose and took a vizzy between
the chinks of the window-shutters ; so, just as I got my neb
to the hole, I saw Benjie, as he flew past, give the door a
drive. His consternation, on finding it flee half open, may
be easier imagined than described; especially, as on the
door dunting to again, it being soople in the hinges, they
both plainly heard a fistling within. Neither of them ever
got such a fleg since they were born; for, expecting the
Frenchman to bounce out like a roaring lion, they hurried
like mad into the house, couping the creels over one another,
Tommy spraining his thumb against the back-door, and
Benjie’s foot going into Tommy’s coat-pocket, which it
carried away with it, like a cloth-sandal.

At the noise of this stramash, I took opportunity to come
fleeing down the stair, with the gun in my hand; in the
first place, to show them I was not frightened to handle
fire-arms; and, in the second, making pretence that I
thought it was Mounseer with his green foraging-cap mak-
ing an attempt at housebreaking. Benjie was in a terrible
pickle; and though his nose was blooding with the drive
he had come against Tommy’s teeth, he took hold of my
  

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A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. 201

arm like grim death, crying, “Take tent, faither, take tent;
the door is open, and the Penicuiker hiding himself behind
it. He'll brain some of us with a lump of coal—and will he!”

I jealoused at once that this was nonsense ; judging that,
by all means of rationality, the creature would be off and
away like lightning to the sea-shore, and over to France in
some honest man’s fishing-boat, down by at Fisherrow ; but,
to throw stoure in the een of. the two callants, I leaded with
a wheen draps- in their. presence, and warily priming’ the
pan, went forward with the piece at full-cock.

Tommy and Benjie came behind me, while, pushing the
door wide open with the muzzle, as I held my finger at the
tricker, I cried, “Stand or be shot;” when young Curse-
cowl’s big ugly mastiff-dog, with the bare mutton bone in
its teeth, bolted through between-my legs like a fury, and
with such a force as to heel me over on the braid of my
back, while I went a dunt on the causey that-made the gun
go off, and riddled Nanse’s best’ washing-tub’ in a manner
that laid . it on the superannuated list as to the matter of
holding in-water. The- -goose that was sitting on! her. eggs,
among clean straw in the-inside of it, was’ also. rendered
a lameter for life. :

What became of the French: vagrant was never seen or
heard tell of from that day to this. Maybe he was’ catchéd,
and, tied neck’ and heels, hurried back’to Penicuik as dont
as he left ‘it; or maybe—as one of-the Fisherrow’ oyster-
boats was aniissing- next morning—he succeeded ‘in giving
our brave fléets:the slip, and rowing night and ‘day- -against
wind and tide, got home in a safe skin: but this is all
matter of surmise—nobody kens.

On making search in the coal-house at our leistire after-
wards, we found a boxful of things with black’ dots on them,
some with one, some with two, and four, and six, and so on,
for playing at an outlandish game they call the dominoes.
It was the handiwork of the poor French creature, that had
no other Christian employment but making these and such-
like, out of sheep-shanks and marrow-bones. I never liked’
gambling all my life, it being contrary to the Ten Command-
ments; and mind of putting on the back of the fire the old
pack of cards, with the Jack of Trumps among them, that
the deboshed journeymen tailors, in the shop with me in the
202 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Grassmarket, used to play birkie with when the maister’s
back was turned. This is the first time I have acknow-
ledged the transaction to a living soul: had they found me
out at the time, my life would not have been worth a pinch
of snuff. But as to the dominoes, considering that the
Frenchy must have left them as a token of gratitude, and as
the only payment in his power for a bit comfortable supper,
it behoved me—for so I thought—not to turn the wrong
side of my face altogether on his present, as that would be
unmannerly towards a poor stranger.

Nevertheless, and notwithstanding all these reasons, the
dominoes, after everything that can be said of good anent
them, were a black sight, and for months and months pro-
duced a scene of riot and idleness after working hours, that
went far to render our housie, that was before a picture of
decorum and decency, a tabernacle of confusion, and a hell
upon earth. Whenever time for stopping work came about,
down we regularly all sat, night after night, the wife, Benjie,
Tommy Staytape, and myself, playing for a ha’penny the
game, and growing as anxious, fierce, and keen about it, as
if we had been earning the bread of life. After two or
three months’ trial, I saw that it would never do, for all
subordination was fast coming to an end in our bit house,
and, for lack of looking after, a great number of small
accounts for clouting elbows, piecing waistcoats, and mend-
ing leggins, remained unpaid; a great number of wauf
customers crowding about us, by way of giving us their
change, but with no intention of ever paying a single frac-
tion, The wife, that used to keep everything bien and snug,
behaving herself like the sober mother of a family, began
to funk on being taken through hands, and grew obstrapu-
lous with her tongue. Instead of following my directions
—who was his born maister in the cutting and shaping
line—Tommy Staytape pretended to set up a judgment of his
own, and disfigured some ploughmen’s jackets in a manner
most hideous to behold ; while, to crown all, even Absalom,
the very callant Benjie, my only bairn, had the impudence
to contradict me more than once, and began to think him-
self as clever as his father. Save us all! it was a terrible
business, but I determined, come what would, to give it the
finishing stitch.
A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE. 203

Every night being worse than another, I did not wait
long for an opportunity of letting the whole of them ken |
my mind, and that, whenever I chose, I could make them
wheel to the right about. So it chanced, as we were play-
ing, that I was in prime luck, first rooking the one and syne
the other, and I saw them twisting and screwing their
mouths about as if they were chewing bitter aloes. Finding
that they were on the point of being beaten roop and stoop,
they all three rose up from the chairs, crying with one
voice, that I was a cheat. An elder of Maister Wiggie’s kirk
to be called a cheat! Most awful!!! Flesh and blood
could not stand it, more especially when I thought on who
had dared to presume to call me such; so, in a whirlwind
of fury, I swept up two nievefuls of dominoes off the table,
and made them flee into the bleezing fire, where, after fizz-
ing and cracking like a wheen squeebs, the whole tot, except
about half-a-dozen which fell into the porritch-pot, which
was on boiling at the time, were reduced to a heap of
grey aizles. I soon showed them who was the top of the
tree, and what they were likely to make of undutiful
rebellion.

So much for a Mounseer’s legacy: being in a kind of
doubt whether, according to the Riot Act and the Articles
of War, I had a clear conscience in letting him away, I
could not expect that any favour granted at his hands was
likely to prosper. In fighting, it is well kent to themselves
and all the world, that they have no earthly chance with
us; so they are reduced to the necessity of doing what they
can, by coming to our firesides in sheep’s clothing, and
throwing ram-pushion among the family broth. They had
better take care that they do not get their fingers scadded.

Having given the dominoes their due, and washed my
hands free of gambling I trust for evermore, I turned my-
self to a better business, which was the going, leaf by leaf,
back through our bit day-book, where I found a tremendous
sowd of wee outstanding debts. I daresay, not to tell a lee,
there were fifty of them, from a shilling to eighteenpence,
and so on; but small and small, reckoned up by simple
addition, amount to a round sum; while, to add to the
misery of the matter, I found we were entangling ourselves
to work to a wheen ugly customers, skemps that had not
204 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

wherewithal to pay lawful debts, and downright rascals, rag-
gamuffins, and ne’er-do-weels. According to the articles of
indenture drawn up between me and Tommy Staytape, by
Rory Sneckdrawer the penny-writer, when he was bound
a prentice to me for seven years, I had engaged myself to
bring him up to be a man of business. Though now a
journeyman, I reckoned the obligation still binding; s0,
tying up two dockets of accounts with a piece of twine, I
gave one parcel to Tommy, and the other to Benjie, telling
them, by way of encouragement, that I would give them a
penny the pound for what silver they could bring me in
by hook or crook.

After three days’ toil and trouble, wherein they mostly
wore their shoon off their feet, going first up one close and
syne down another, up trap-stairs to garrets and ben long
trances that led into dirty holes—what think ye did they
collect? Not one bodle—not one coin of copper! This
one was out of work ;—and that one had his house-rent to
pay ;—and a third one had an income in his nose ;—and a
fourth was bedridden with rheumatics ;—and a fifth one’s
mother’s auntie’s cousin was dead ;—and a sixth one’s good-
brother’s nevoy was going to be married come Martymas ;—
and a seventh one was away to the back of beyond to see his
granny in the Hielands;—and so on. It was a terrible
business, but what wool can ye get by clipping swine?

The only rational answers I got were two: one of them,
Geggie Trotter, a natural simpleton, told Tommy Staytape,
“that, for part-payment, he would give me a prime leg of
mutton, as he had killed his sow last week.” And what,
said I to Benjie, did Jacob Truff the gravedigger tell ye by
way of news? “He just bad me tell ye, faither, that hoo
could ye expect he cou’d gie ye onything till the times grew
better ; as he hadna buried a living soul in the kirkyard for
mair nor a fortnight.”
BENJIE ON THE CARPET. 205

CHAPTER XXVI.

BENJIE ON THE CARPET.

“It’s no in titles, nor in rank—
It’s no in wealth, like Lon’on bank,
To purchase peace and rest ;
It’s no in making muckle mair,
It’s no in books—it’s no in lear,
To make us truly blest.”—Burns

It is a most wonderful thing to the eye of a philosopher,
to make observation how youth gets up, notwithstanding all
the dunts and tumbles of infancy—to say nothing of the
spaining-brash and the teeth-cutting; and to behold the
visible changes that the course of a few years produces.
Keep us all! it seemed but yesterday to me, when Benjie,
a wee bit smout of a wean, with long linty locks and
docked petticoats, toddled but and ben, with a coral gum-
stick tied round his waist with a bit knitten; and now,
after he had been at Dominie Threshem’s for four years,
he had learned to read Barrie’s Collection almost as well
as the master could do for his lugs; and was up to all
manner of accounts, from simple addition and the multi-
plication-table, even to vulgar fractions, and all the lave
of them.

At the yearly examination of the schoolroom by the
Presbytery and Maister Wiggie, he aye sat at the head of
the form, and never failed getting a clap on the head and a
wheen carvies. They that are fathers will not wonder that
this made me as proud as a peacock ;, but when they asked his
name, and found whose son he was, then the matter seemed
to cease being a business of wonder, as nobody could suppose
that an only bairn, born to me in lawful wedlock, could be
a dult. Folk’s cleverness—at least I should think so—lies
in their pows; and, that allowed, Benjie’s was a gey droll
one, being of the most remarkable sort of a shape ye ever
saw ; but, what is more to the purpose both here and here-
after, he was a real good-hearted callant, though as gleg as
a hawk and as sharp asa needle. Everybody that had the
smallest gumption prophesied that he would be a real
clever one; nor could we grudge that we took pains in his
206 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

rearing —he having been like a sucking-turkey, or a hot-
house plant from far away, delicate in the constitution—
when we saw that the debt was likely to be paid with bank-
interest, and that, by his uncommon cleverality, the callant
was to be a credit to our family.

Many and long were the debates between his fond mother
and me, what trade we would breed him up to—for the
matter now became serious, Benjie being in his thirteenth
year; and, though a wee bowed in the near leg, from a
suppleness about his knee-joint, nevertheless as active as a
hatter, and fit for any calling whatsoever under the sun.
One thing I had determined in my own mind, and that was,
that he should never with my will go abroad. The gentry
are no doubt philosophers enough to bring up their bairns
like sheep to the slaughter, and despatch them as cadies to
Bengal and the Cape of Good Hope, as soon as they are
grown up; when, lo and behold! the first. news they hear
of them is in a letter, sealed with black wax, telling how
they died of the liver complaint, and were buried by six
blacks two hours after.

That was one thing settled and sealed, so no more need
be said about it; yet, notwithstanding of Nanse’s being
satisfied that the spaewife was a deceitful gipsy, perfectly
untrustworthy, she would aye have a finger in the pie, and
try to persuade me in a coaxing way. “I’m sure,” she
would say, “ane with half an e’e may see that our son
Benjie has just the physog of an admiral. It’s a great
shame contradicting nature.”

“Po, po,” answered I, “woman, ye dinna ken what ye’re
saying. Do ye imagine that, if he were made a sea-admiral,
we could ever live to have any comfort in the son of our
bosom? Would he not, think ye, be obliged with his ship
to sail the salt seas, through foul weather and fair; and,
when he met the French, to fight, hack, and hew them
down, lith and limb, with grape-shot and cutlass; till some
unfortunate day or other, after having lost a leg and an arm
in the service, he is felled as dead as a door-nail, with a cut
and thrust over the crown, by some furious rascal that saw
he was off his guard, glowring with his blind e’e another
way ?7—Ye speak havers, Nanse; what are all the honours
of this world worth? No worth this pinch of snuff I have
BENJIE ON THE CARPET. 207

between my finger and thumb—no worth a bodle, if we
never saw our Benjie again, but he was aye ranging and ram-
pauging far abroad, shedding human blood; and when we
could only aye dream about him in our sleep, as one that was
‘wandering night and day blindfold, down the long, dark,
lampless avenue of destruction, and destined never more to
visit Dalkeith again, except with a wooden stump and a
brass virl, or to have his head blown off his shoulders, mast
high, like ingan peelings, with some exploding earthquake of
combustible gunpowder.—Call in the laddie, I say, and see
what he would like to be himsell.”

Nanse ran but the house, and straightway brought Ben-
jie, who was playing at the bools, ben by the lug and
horn. I had got a glass, so my spirit was up. “Stand
there,” I said; “Benjie, look me in the face, and tell me
what trade ye would like to be.”

“Trade?” answered Benjie ; “I would like to be a gentle-
man.”

Dog on it, it was more than I could thole, and I saw that
his mother had spoiled him; so, though I aye liked to give
him wholesome reproof rather than lift my fist, I broke
through this rule in a couple of hurries, and gave him such
a yerk in the cheek with the loof of my hand, as made, I am
sure, his lugs ring, and sent him dozing to the door like a
peerie.

“Ye see that,” said I, as the laddie went ben the house
whingeing ; “ye see what a kettle of fish yé have made o't ?”

“Weel, weel,” answered Nanse, a wee startled by my
strong decisive way of managing, “ye ken best, and, I fancy,
maun tak’ the matter your ain way. But ye can have no
earthly objection to making him a lawer’s advocatt ?”

“T would see him hanged first,” answered I. “What! do
you imagine I would set a son of mine to be a sherry-offisher,
ganging about rampauging through the country, taking up
fiefs and robbers, and suspicious characters with wauf looks
and waur claes; exposed to all manner of evil communica-
tion from bad company, in the way of business ; and rouping
out puir creatures that cannot find wherewithal to pay their
lawful debts, at the Cross, by warrant of the Sherry, with
an auld chair in ae hand and an eevery hammer in the
ither? Siccan a sight wad be the death o’ me.”
208 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

“What think ye then of the preaching line?” asked
Nanse.

“The preaching line!” quo’ I—‘“No, no, that'll never
do. Not that I want respect for ministers, who are the
servants of the Most High; but the truth is, that unless ye
have great friends and patronage of the like of the Duke
down by, or the Marquis of Lothian up by, or suchlike, ye
may preach yoursell as hoarse as a corbie, from June to
January, before ony body will say, ‘Hae, puir man, there’s
a kirk.” And if no kirk casts up—which is more nor likely
—what can a young probationer turn his hand to? He has
learned no trade, so he can neither work nor want. He
daurna dig nor delve, even though he were able, or he
would be hauled by the cuff of the neck before his betters
in the General Assembly, for having the impudence to go
for to be so bold as dishonour the cloth; and though he
may get his bit orra half-a-guinea whiles, for holding forth
in some bit country kirk, to a wheen shepherds and their
‘dogs, when the minister himself, staring with the fat of
good living and little work, is lying ill of a bile fever, or
has the gout in his muckle toe, yet he has aye the miseries
of uncertainty to encounter; his coat grows bare in the
cuffs, greasy in the neck, and brown between the shouthers ;
his jawbones get long and lank, his een sunk, and his head
grey wi’ vexation, and what the wise Solomon calls ‘hope
deferred ;’ so at long and last, friendless and penniless,
he takes the incurable complaint of a broken heart, and
is buried out of the gate, in some bit strange corner of the
kirkyard.”

“Stop, stop, gudeman,” cried Nanse, half greeting, “that’s
an awfw’ business; but I daresay it’s owre true. But
mightna we breed him a doctor? It seems they have
unco profits; and, as he’s sae clever, he might come to be
a graduit.”

“Doctor!” answered I—“Keh, keh, let that flee stick to
the wa’; it’s a ye ken about it. If ye was only aware of
what doctors had to do and see, between dwining weans and
erying wives, ye would have thought twice before ye let that
out. How do ye think our callant has a heart within him
to look at folk bluiding like sheep, or to sew up eutted
throats with a silver needle and silk thread, as I would
BENJIE ON THE CARPET, 209

stitch a pair of trousers; or to trepan out pieces of cloured
skulls, filling up the hole with an iron plate; and pull
teeth, maybe the only ones left, out of auld women’s heads,
and so on, to say nothing of rampauging with dark lanterns
and double-tweel dreadnoughts, about gousty kirkyards,
among humlock and long nettles, the haill night over,
like spunkie— shoving the dead corpses, winding - sheets
and all, into corn-sacks, and boiling their bones, after they
have dissected all the red flesh off them, into a big caudron,
to get out the marrow to make drogs of?

“Eh, stop, stop, Mansie!” cried Nanse, holding up her
hands.

“Na,” continued I, “but it’s a true bill—it’s as true as
ye are sitting there. And do ye think that any earthly
compensation, either gowpins of gowd by way of fees, or
yellow chariots to ride in, with a black servant sticking up
behind, like a sign over a tobacconist’s door, can ever make
up for the loss of a man’s having all his feelings seared
to iron, and his soul made into whinstone, yea, into the
nether-millstone, by being art and part in sic dark and
devilish abominations? Go away wi’ siccan downright
nonsense. Hearken to my words, Nanse, my dear. The
happiest man is he that can live quietly and soberly on the
earnings of his industry, pays his day and way, works not
only to win the bread of life for his wife and weans, but
because he kens that idle-set is sinful; keeps a pure heart
towards God and man; and, caring not for the fashion of
this world, departs from it in the hope of going, through the
merits of his Redeemer, to a better.”

“Ye are right, after a’,” said Nanse, giving me a pat on
the shouther ; and finding who was her master as well as
spouse—“Tll wad it become me to gang for to gie advice
to my betters. Tak’ your will of the business, gudeman ;
and if ye dinna mak’ him an admiral, just mak’ him what
ye like.”

Now is the time, thought I to myself, to carry my
point, finding the drappikie I had taken with Donald
M‘Naughton, in settling his account for the green jacket,
still working in my noddle, and giving me a power of words
equal to Mr Blouster, the Cameronian preacher,—now is the
time, for I still saw the unleavened pride of womankind

0
210 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

wambling within her, like a serpent that has got a knock on
the pow, and been cast down but not destroyed ; so, taking
a hearty snuff out of my box, and drawing it up first one
nostril, then another, syne dighting my finger and thumb
on my breek-knees, “ What think ye,” said I, “of a sweep?
Were it not for getting their faces blacked like savages, a
sweep is not such a bad trade after a’; though, to be sure,
going down lums six stories high, head-foremost, and land-
ing upon the soles of their feet upon the hearthstone, like a
kittlin, is no just so pleasant.”, Ye observe, it was only to
throw cold water on the unthrifty flame of a mother’s pride
that I said this, and to pull down uppishness from its
heathenish temple in the heart, head-foremost. So I looked
to her, to hear how she would come on.

“Haivers, haivers,” said Nanse, birsing up like a cat
before a colley. “Sweep, say ye? I would sooner send
him up wi’ Lunardi to the man i?’ the moon; or see him
banished, shackled neck and heels, to Botany Bay.”

“ A weel, a weel,” answered I, “what notion have ye of the
packman line? We could fill his box with needles, and
prins, and tape, and hanks of worsted, and penny thimbles,
at a small expense; and, putting a stick in his hand, send
him abroad into the wide world to push his fortune.”

The wife looked dumfoundered. Howsoever — “ Or
breed him a rowley-powley man,” continued I, “to trail
about the country frequenting fairs; and dozing thro’ the
streets selling penny cakes to weans, out of a basket slung
round the neck with a leather strap; and parliaments, and
quality, brown and white, and snaps well peppered, and
gingerbread nits, and so on. The trade is no a bad ane, if
creatures would only learn to be careful.”

“Mansie Wauch, Mansie Wauch, ha’e ye gane out o’ yere
wuts?” cried Nanse—“ are ye really serious ?”

I saw what I was about, so went on without pretending to
mind her. “Or what say ye to a penny-pie-man? Tfegs,
it’s a cozy berth, and ane that gars the cappers birl down.
What’s the expense of a bit daigh, half an ounce weight,
pirled round wi’ the knuckles into a case, and filled half
full o’ salt and water, wi’ twa or three nips o’ braxy floating
about in’t? Just naething ava ;—and consider on a winter
night, when iceshockles are hinging from the tiles, and
BENJIE ON THE CARPET. 211

stomachs relish what is warm and tasty, what a sale they
can get, if they go about jingling their little bell, and
keep the genuine article! Then ye ken in the afternoon,
he can show that he has two strings to his bow, and have
a wheen cookies, either new baked for ladies’ tea-parties, or
the yesterday’s auld shopkeepers’ het up i’ the oven -again—
which is all to ae purpose.”

“ Are ye really in your seven natural senses—or can I be-
lieve my ain een? I could almost believe some warlock
had thrown glamour into them,” said Nanse, staring me
broad in the face.

“Take a good look, gudewife, for seeing’s believing,” quo’
I; and then continued, without drawing breath or bridle, at
full birr—

“Or if the baking line does not please ye, what say ye to
binding him regularly to a man-cook? There he'll see life
in all its variorums. Losh keep us a’, what an insight into
the secrets of roasting, brandering, frying, boiling, baking,
and brewing—nicking of geese’s craigs—hacking the necks
of dead chickens, and cutting out the tongues of leeving
turkeys! Then what a steaming o’ fat soup in the nostrils ;
and siccan a collection o’ fine smells, as would persuade a
man that he could fill his stomach through his nose! No
weather can reach such cattle: it may be a storm of snow
twenty feet deep, or an even-down pour of rain, washing the
very cats off the house tops; when a weaver is shivering at
his loom, with not a drop of blood at his finger nails, and a
tailor like myself, so numb with cauld, that instead of driv-
ing the needle through the claith, he brogs it through his
ain thumb—then, fient a hair care they; but, standing be-
side a ranting, roaring, parrot-coal fire, in a white apron
and a gingham jacket, they pour sauce out of ae pan into
anither, to suit the taste of my Lord this, and my Lady
that, turning, by their legerdemain, fish into fowl, and fowl
into flesh; till, in the long-run, man, woman, and wean,
a’ chew and champ away, without kenning more what
they are eating than ye ken the day ye'll dee, or whether
the Witch of Endor wore a demity falderal or a manco
petticoat.”

“Weel,” cried Nanse, half rising to go ben the house, “Tl
sit nae langer to hear ye gabbling nonsense like a magpie.
212 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Mak’ Benjie what ye like; but ye’ll mak’ me greet the een
out o’ my head.”

“ Hooly and fairly,” said I; ‘ Nanse, sit still like a woman,
and hear me out.” So, giving her a pat on the shouther, she
sat her ways down, and I resumed my discourse.

“Ye’ve heard, gudewife, from Benjie’s own mouth, that he
has made up his mind to follow out the trade of a gentleman ;
—who has put such outrageous notions in his head I’m sure
Tll not pretend to guess at. Having never myself been
above daily bread, and constant work—when I could get it—
I dare not presume to speak from experience; but this I can
say, from having some acquaintances in the line, that, of all
easy lives, commend me to that of a gentleman’s gentleman.
It’s true he’s caa’d a flunky, which does not sound quite the
thing ; but what of that? what’s in a name? pugh! it does
not signify a bawbee—no, nor that pinch of snuff: for, if
we descend to particulars, we’re all flunkies together, except
his Majesty on the throne.—Then William Pitt is his
flunky—and half the house of Commons are his flunkies,
doing what he bids them, right or wrong, and no daring to
disobey orders, not for the hair in their heads—then the
Earl waits on my Lord Duke—Sir Something waits on my
Lord Somebody—and his tenant, Mr So-and-so, waits on
him—and Mr So-and-so has his butler—and the butler has
his flunky—and the shoeblack brushes the flunky’s jacket—
and soon. We all hang at one another’s tails like a rope of
ingans—so ye observe, that any such objection in the sight
of a philosopher like our Benjie would not weigh a straw’s
weight.

“Then consider for a moment—just consider, gudewife—
what company a flunky is every day taken up with, stand-
ing behind the chairs, and helping to clean plates and
porter ; and the manners he cannot help learning, if he is
in the smallest gleg in the uptake, so that, when out of
livery, it is the toss up of a halfpenny whether ye find out
the difference between the man and the master. He learns,
in fact, everything. He learns French—he learns dancing
in all its branches—he learns how to give boots the finish-
ing polish—he learns how to play at cards, as if he had been
born and bred an Earl—he learns, from pouring the bottles,
the name of every wine brewed abroad—he learns how to
BENJIE ON THE CARPET. 213

brush a coat, so that, after six months’ tear and wear, one
without spectacles would imagine it had only gotten the fin-
ishing stitch on the Saturday night before ; and he learns to
play on the flute, and the spinnet, and the piano, and the
fiddle, and the bagpipes; and to sing all manner of songs,
and to skirl, full gallop, with such a pith and birr, that
though he was to lose his precious eyesight with the small-
pox, or a flash of forked lightning, or fall down a three-
storey stair dead drunk, smash his legs to such a degree that
both of them required to be cut off, above the knees, half an
hour after, so far all right and well—for he could just tear
off his shoulder-knot, and make a perfect fortune—in the
one case, in being led from door to door by a ragged laddie,
with a string at the button-hole, playing ‘Ower the Border,’
‘The Hen’s March,’ ‘Donald M‘Donald,’ ‘Jenny Nettles,’
and suchlike grand tunes, on the clarinet; or, in the other
case, being drawn from town to town, and from door to door
on a hurdle, like a lord, harnessed to four dogs of all colours,
at the rate of two miles in the hour, exclusive of stoppages.—
What say ye, gudewife ?”

Nanse gave a mournful look, as if she was frighted I had
grown demented, and only said, “Tak’ your ain way, gude-
man; ye’se get your ain way for me, I fancy.”

Seeing her in this Christian state of resignation, I deter-
mined at once to hit the nail on the head, and put an end
to the whole business as I intended. “Now, Nanse,” quo’ I,
“to come to close quarters with ye, tell me candidly and
seriously what ye think of a barber? Every one must allow
it’s a canny and cozy trade.”

“A barber that shaves beards!” said Nanse. “’Od,
Mansie, ye’re surely gaun gyte. Ye’re surely joking me all
the time?”

“Joking !” answered I, smoothing down my chin, which
was gey an’ rough. “Joking here or joking there, I should
not think the settling of an only bairn in an honourable way
of doing for all the days of his natural life is any joking
business. Ye dinna ken what ye’re saying, woman. Bar-
bers! i’fegs, to turn up your nose at barbers! did ever
living hear such nonsense! But to be sure, one can blame
nobody if they speak to the best of their experience. I’ve
heard tell of barbers, woman, about London, that rode up
214 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

this street, and down that other street, in coaches and four,
jumping out to every one that hallooed to them, sharping
razors both on stone and strap, at the ransom of a penny the
pair ; and shaving off men’s beards, whiskers and all, stoop
and roop, for a three-ha’pence. Speak of barbers! it’s all
ye ken about it. Commend me to a safe employment, and
a profitable. They may give others a nick, and draw blood,
but catch them hurting themselves. They are not exposed
to colds and rheumatics, from east winds and rainy weather;
for they sit, in white aprons, plaiting hair into wigs for auld
folks that have bell-pows, or making false curls for ladies
that would fain like to look smart in the course of nature.
And then they go from house to house, like gentlemen in
the morning ; cracking with Maister this or Madam that, as
they soap their chins with scented-soap, or put their hair up
in marching order either for kirk or playhouse. Then at
their leisure, when they’re not thrang at home, they can
pare corns to the gentry, or give ploughmen’s heads the
bicker-cut for a penny, and the hair into the bargain for
stuffing chairs with; and between us, who knows—many
rottener ship has come to land—but that some genty Miss,
fond of plays, poems, and novels, may fancy our Benjie
when he is giving her red hair a twist with the torturing
irons, and run away with him, almost whether he will or
not, in a stound of unbearable love !”

Here making an end of my discourse, and halting to draw
breath, I looked Nanse broad in the face, as much as to say,
“Contradict me if ye daur,” and, “What think ye of that
now !”—The man is not worth his lugs that allows his
wife to be maister; and being by all laws, divine and
human, the head of the house, I aye made a rule of keeping
my putt good. To be candid, howsoever, I must take leave
to confess that Nanse, being a reasonable woman, gave me
but few opportunities of exerting my authority in this way.
As in other matters, she soon came, on reflection, to see
the propriety of what I had been saying and setting forth.
Besides, she had such a motherly affection towards our bit
callant, that sending him abroad would have been the death
of her.

To be sure, since these days—which, alas, and woe’s me!
are not yesterday now, as my grey hair and wrinkled brow
PUGGIE, PUGGIE. 215

but too visibly remind me—such ups and downs have taken
place in the commercial world, that the barber line has been
clipped of its profits and shaved close, from a patriotic com-
petition among its members, like all the rest. Among other
things, hair-powder, which was used from the sweep on the
lum-head to the king on the throne, is only now in fashion
with the Lords of Session and valy-deshambles ; and pig-tails
have been cut off from the face of the earth, root and branch.
Nevertheless, as I have taken occasion to make observation,
the foundations of the cutting and shaving line are as sure
as that of the everlasting rocks; beards being likely to
roughen, and heads to require polling, as long as wood grows
and water runs.

CHAPTER XXVII.

“PpUGGIE, PUGGIE”—A STORY WITHOUT A TAIL,

“Saw ye Johnie coming? quo’ she,
Saw ye Johnie coming?
Wi’ his blue bonnet on his head,
And his doggie running? "—Old Ballad.

The welfare of the human race and the improvement of
society being my chief aim in this record of my sayings
and doings through the pilgrimage of life, I make bold at
the instigation of Nanse, my worthy wife, to record in black
and white a remarkably curious thing, to which I was an
eyewitness in the course of nature. I have little reluctance
to consent, not only because the affair was not a little
striking in itself—as the reader will soon see—but be-
cause, like Aisop’s Fables, it bears a good moral at the
end of it.

Many a time have I thought of the business alluded to,
which happened to take place in our fore-shop one bonny
summer afternoon, when I was selling a coallier wife, from
the Marquis of Lothian’s upper hill, a yard of serge at our
counter-side. At the time she came in, although busied in
reading an account of one of Buonaparte’s battles in the
‘Courant’ newspaper, I observed at her foot a bonny wee
216 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

doggie, with a bushy black tail, of the dancing breed—
that could sit on its hind-legs like a squirrel, cast biscuit
from its nose, and play a thousand other most diverting
tricks. Well, as I was saying, I saw the woman had a
pride in the bit creature—it was just a curiosity like—
and had belonged to a neighbour’s son that volunteered
out of the Berwickshire militia (the Birses, as they were
called) into a regiment that was draughted away into Egypt,
Malta, or the East Indies, I believe—so, it seems, the lad’s
father and mother thought much more about it, for the
sake of him that was off and away—being to their fond eyes
a remembrancer, and to their parental hearts a sort of living
keepsake.

After bargaining about the serge—and taking two or three
other things, such as a leather-cap edged with rabbit-fur for
her little nevoy—a dozen of plaited buttons for her good-
man’s new waistcoat, which was making up at Bonnyrig by
Nicky Sharpshears, my old apprentice—and a spotted silk
napkin for her own Sunday neck wear—I tied up the soft
articles with grey paper and skinie, and was handing over
the odd bawbees of change, when, just as she was lifting the
leather-cap from the counter, she said with a terrible face,
looking down to the ground as if she was short-sighted—
“Pity me! what’s that ?”

I could not imagine, gleg as I generally am, what had
happened ; so came round about the far end of the counter,
with my spectacles on, to see what it was, when, lo and
behold! I perceived a dribbling of blood all along the
clean sanded floor, up and down, as if somebody had been
walking about with a cut finger; but, after looking around
us for a little, we soon found out the thief—and that we
did.

The bit doggie was sitting cowering and shivering, and
pressing its back against the counter, giving every now and
then a mournful whine, so we plainly saw that everything
was not right. On the which, the wife, slipping a little
back, snapped her finger and thumb before its nose, and
cried out—Hiskie, poor fellow!” but no—it would not
do. She then tried it by its own name, and bade it rise,
saying, “ Puggie, Puggie!” when—would ever mortal man
of woman born believe it?—its bit black, bushy, curly tail
PUGGIE, PUGGIE. 217

was off by the rump—docked and away, as if it had been
for a wager.

“Eh, megstie !” cried the woman, laying down the leather-
cap and the tied-up parcel, and holding out both her hands
in astonishment. “Eh, my goodness, what’s come o’ the
brute’s tail? Lovy ding! just see, it’s clean gane! Losh
keep me! that’s awfu’! Div ye keep rotten-fa’s about your
premises, Maister Wauch? See a bonny business as ever
happened in the days of ane’s lifetime !”

As a furnishing tailor, as a Christian, and as an inhabitant
of Dalkeith, my corruption was raised—was up like a flash
of lightning, or a cat’s back. Such doings in an enlightened
age and a civilised country !—in a town where we have
three kirks, a grammar school, a subscription library, a
ladies’ benevolent society, a mechanics’ institution, and a
debating club! My heart burned within me like dry tow,
and I could mostly have jumped up to the ceiling with
vexation and anger—seeing as plain as a pikestaff, though the
simple woman did not, that it was the handiwork of none
other than our neighbour Reuben Cursecowl, the butcher.
Dog on it, it was too bad—it was a rascally transaction ;
so, come of it what would, I could not find it in my heart
to screen him. “Il wager, however,” said I, in a kind
of off-hand way, not wishing exactly, ye observe, to be
seen in the business, “that it will have been running away
with beef-steaks, mutton-chops, sheep-feet, or something else
out of the booth; and some of his prentice laddies may
have come across its hind- quarters accidentally with the
cleaver.”

“Mistake here, or mistake there,” said the woman, her
face growing as red as the sleeve of a soldier’s jacket, and
her two eyes burning like live coals—“’Od the butcher, but
Pll butcher him, the nasty, ugly, ill-faured vagabond ; the
thief-like, cruel, malicious, ill-hearted, down-looking black-
guard! He would go for to offer for to presume for to dare
to lay hands on an honest man’s son’s doug! It sets him
weel, the bloodthirsty Gehazi, the halinshaker ne’er-do-weel !
I'll gie him sic a redding up as he never had since the day
his mother boor him!” Then looting down to the poor bit
beast, that was bleeding like a sheep—“ Ay, Puggie, man,”
she said in a doleful voice, “ they’ve made ye an unco fright ;
218 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

but I'll gie them up their fit fort: I’ll show them in a couple
of hurries that they have catched a Tartar!” and with that
out went the woman, paper-parcel, leather-cap and all,
randying like a tinkler from Yetholm; the wee wretchie
cowering behind her, with the mouse-wabs sticking on the
place I had put them to stop the bleeding, and looking, by all
the world, like a sight I once saw when I was a boy, on a
visit to my father’s half-cousin, Aunt Heatherwig, on the
Castle-hill of Edinburgh—to wit, a thief going down Leith
Walk, on his road to be shipped for transportation to Botany
Bay, after having been pelted for a couple of hours with
rotten eggs in the pillory.

Knowing the nature of the parties concerned, and that
intimately on both sides, I jealoused directly that there
would be a stramash; so not liking, for sundry reasons,
to have my neb seen in the business, I shut to the door and
drew the long bolt; while I hastened ben to the room, and
softly pulling up a jink of the window, clapped the side of
my head to it, that, unobserved, I might have an opportun-
ity of overhearing the conversation between Reuben Curse-
cowl and the coallier wife—which, weel-a-wat, was likely
to become public property.

“Hollo! you man, do ye ken onything about that ?” cried
the randy woman ;—but wait a moment, till I give a skiff of
description of our neighbour Reuben.

By this time—it was ten years after James Batter’s tragedy
—Mr Cursecowl was an oldish man—he is gathered to his
fathers now—and was considerably past his best, as his wife,
douce honest woman, used to observe. His dress was a
little in the Pagan style, and rendered him kenspeckle to
the eye of observation. Instead of a hat, he generally wore
a long red Kilmarnock nightcap, with a cherry on the top
of it, through foul weather and fair ; and having a kind of
trot in his walk, from a bink forward in his knees, it dang-
dangled behind him, like the cap of Mr Merryman with the
painted face, the show-folks’ fool. On the afternoon alluded
to he was in full killing-dress, having on an auld blue short
coatie, once long, but now docked in the tails, so that the
pocket-flaps and the hainch-buttons were not above three
inches from the place where his wife had snibbed it across
by ; and, from long use in his bloodthirsty occupation, his
PUGGIE, PUGGIE. 219

sleeves flashed in the daylight as if they had been double
japanned. Tied round his beer - barrel -like waist was a
stripped apron, blue and white ; and at his left side hung a
bloody gaping leather pouch, as if he had been an Israelite
returned from the slaughter of the Philistines, filled with
steels and knives, straight and crooked, that had done ample
execution in their day, Il warrant them. Up his thighs
were rolled his coarse rig-and-fur stockings, as if it were to
gird him for the battle, and his feet were slipped into a pair
of bauchles—that is, the under part of old boots cut from
the legs. As to his face, lo and behold! the moon shining
in the nor-west—yea, the sun blazing in all his glory—had
not a more crimson aspect than Reuben. Like the pig-eyed
Chinese folk on tea-cups, his peepers were diminutive and
twinkling ; but his nose made up for them—and that it did
—being portly in all its dimensions, broad and long, and as
to colour, liker a radish than any other production in nature,
In short, he was as bonny a figure as ever man of woman
born clapped eye on; and was cleaving away, most devoutly,
at a side of black-faced mutton, when the woman, as I said
before, cried out, “Hollo! you man, do ye ken onything
about that ?” pointing to the dumb animal that crawled and
crouched behind her.

“ Aweel, what ot?” cried Cursecowl, still hacking and
cleaving away at the meat.

“What ot? 7 faith, billy, that’s a gude ane,” answered the
wife. “But yell no get aff that way; catch me, my man.
My name’s no Jenny Mathieson an I haena ye afore your
betters. Ill learn ye what soommenses are.”

Looking at her with a look of lightning for a couple of
seconds—“ Aff wi’ ye, gin you’re wise,” quo’ Cursecow], still
cleaving away, “or Il maybe bring ye in for the sheep’s
head it was trying to make off with in its teeth. Do ye
understand that?” And he gave a girn, that stretched his
mouth from ear to ear.

This was too much for the subterranean daughter of Eve ;
it was like putting a red-hot poker among the coals of her
own pit. “Oh, ye incarnate cannibal !” she bawled out, doub-
ling her nieve, and shaking it in Reuben’s face ; “if ye have
a conscience at a’, think black-burning shame o’ yoursell !
Just look, ye bluidy salvage; just take a look there, my
220 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

bonny man, o’ your handiwark now. Isn’t that very pretty ?”
“ Aff wi’ ye,” continued Cursecowl, still cleaving away
with the chopping-axe, and muttering a volley of curses
through the knife, which he held between his teeth—* Aff
wi’ ye, and keep a calm sough.”

“The dog’s no mine, or I wadna have cared sae muckle.
Siccan a like beast! Siccan a fright to be seen!!! faith
I think shame to tak’ it hame again!! Ay, man, ye’re a
pretty fellow! Ye’ve run fast when the noses were dealing ;
ye’re a bonny man to hack off a poor dumb animal’s tail.
If it had been a Christian like yoursell, it wad have mat-
tered less—but a puir bit dumb, harmless animal !” 7

“ Aff wi’ ye there, and nane o’ your chatter,” thundered
Reuben, stopping in his cleaving, and turning the side of
his red face round to the woman. “ Flee—vanish—and be
cursed to ye—baith you and your doug thegither, ye infernal
limmer! It’s weel for’t, luckie, it was not its head instead of
its tail, Ye had better steik your gab—cut your stick—and
pack off, gin ye be wise.”

“Think shame—think shame—think black-burning shame
0’ yoursell, ye born and bred ruffian!” roared out the wife
at the top story of her voice—shaking her doubled nieve
before him—stamping her heels on the causey—then, draw-
ing herself up, and holding her hands on her hainches—
“Just look, I tell ye, you unhanged blackguard, at your
precious handiwark! Just look, what think ye of that,
now? Tak’ another look now, ower that fief-like fiery nose
o yours, ye regardless Pagan !”

Flesh and blood could stand this no longer; and I saw
Cursecowl’s anger boiling up within him, as in a red-hot fiery
furnace.

“Wait a wee, my woman,” muttered Cursecowl to himself,
as, swearing between his teeth, he hurried into the killing-
booth. :

Furious as the woman however was, she had yet enough
of common-sense remaining within her to dread skaith ; so,
apprehending the bursting storm, she had just taken to her
heels when out he came, rampauging after her like a Green-
land bear, with a large liver in each hand ;—the one of
which, after describing a circle round his head, flashed after
her like lightning, and hearted her between the shoulders
SERIOUS MUSINGS. 221

like a clap of thunder ; while the other, as he was repeating
the volley, slipping sideways from his fingers while he was
driving it with all his force, played drive directly through
the window where I was standing, and gave me such a yerk
on the side of the head, that it could be compared to nothing
else but the lines written on the stucco image of Shakspeare,
the great play-actor, on our parlour chimneypiece—

“« The great globe itself,
Yea, all that it inherits, shall dissolve ;

and I lay speechless on the floor for goodness knows the
length of time. Even when I came to my recollection, it was
partly to a sense of torment; for Nanse, coming into the
room, and not knowing the cause of my disastrous over-
throw, attributed it all to a fit of the apoplexy, and, in her
frenzy of affliction, had blistered all my nose with her Sunday
scent-bottle of aromatic vinegar.

For some weeks after there was a bumming in my ears,
as if all the bee-skeps on the banks of the Esk had been pent
up within my head; and though Reuben Cursecowl paid,
like a gentleman, for the four panes he had broken, he drove
into me, I can assure him, in a most forcible and striking
manner, the truth of the old proverb—which is the moral of
this chapter—that “listeners seldom hear anything to their
own advantage.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

SERIOUS MUSINGS.

** My eyes are dim with childish tears,

My heart is idly stirr’d,

For the same sound is in mine ears,
Which in those days I heard.

Thus fares it still in our decay ;
And yet the wiser mind

Mourns less for what age takes away,
Than what it leaves behind.”—WorDswortTH.

After consultation with friends, and much serious con-
sideration on such a momentous subject, it having been
finally settled on between the wife and myself to educate
222 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Benjie to the barber and haircutting line, we looked round
about us in the world for a suitable master to whom we
might intrust our dear laddie, he having now finished his
education, and reached his fourteenth year.

It was visible in a twinkling to us both, that his appren-
ticeship could not be gone through with at home in that
first-rate style which would enable him to reach the top of
the tree in his profession; yet it gave us a sore heart to
think of sending away, at so tender an age, one who was so
dear to his mother and me, and whom we had, as it were,
in a manner made a pet of : so we reckoned it best to article
him for a twelvemonth with Ebenezer Packwood at the
corner, before finally sending him off to Edinburgh, to get
his finishing in the wig, false-curl, and hair-baking depart-
ment, under Urquhart, Maclachlan, or Connal. Accordingly,
I sent for Eben to come and eat an egg with me—matters
were entered upon and arranged—Benjie was sent on trial ;
and though at first he funked and fought refractory, he came,
to the astonishment of his master and the old apprentice, in
less than no time to cut hair without many visible shear-
marks; and, within the first quarter, succeeded, without
so much as drawing blood, to unbristle, for a wager of his
master’s, the Saturday night’s countenance of Daniel Shoe-
brush himself, who was as rough as a badger.

Having thus done for Benjie, it now behoved me to have
an eye towards myself; for having turned the corner of man-
hood, I found that I was beginning to be wearing away down
the hillside of life. Customers, who had as much faith in
me as almost in their Bible with regard to everything con-
nected with my own department, and who could depend on
their cloth being cut according to the newest and most ap-
proved fashions, began now and then to return a coat upon
my hand for alteration, as being quite out of date; while
my daily work, to which in the days of other years I had
got up blithe as the lark, instead of being a pleasure,
came to be looked forward to with trouble and anxiety,
weighing on my heart as a care, and on my shoulders as a
burden.

Finding but too severely that such was the case, and that
there is no contending with the course of nature, I took
sweet counsel together with James Batter over a cup of tea
SERIOUS MUSINGS. 223

and a cookie, concerning what it was best for a man placed
in my circumstances to betake myself to.

As industry ever has its own reward, let me without brag
or boasting be allowed to state that, in my own case, it did
not disappoint my exertions. I had sat down a tenant, and
I was now not only the landlord of my own house and shop,
but of all the back tenements to the head of the garden, as
also of the row of one-storey houses behind, facing to the
loan, in the centre of which Lucky Thamson keeps up the
sign of the Tankard and Tappit Hen. It was also a relief
to my mind, as the head of my family, that we had cut
Benjie loose from his mother’s apron-string, poor fellow, and
set him adrift in an honest way of doing to buffet the stormy
ocean of life ; so, everything considered, it was found that
enough and to spare had been laid past by Nanse and me
to spend the evening of our days by the lound dykeside of
domestic comfort.

In Tammie Bodkin, to whom I trust I had been a dutiful,
as I know I was an honoured master, I found a faithful
journeyman, he having served me in that capacity for nine
years ; so it is not miraculous, being constantly, during that
period, under my attentive eye, that he was now quite a
deacon in all the departments of the business. As an eident
scholar he had his reward ; for customers, especially during
the latter years, when my sight was scarcely so good, came
at length to be not very scrupulous as to whether their cloth
was cut by the man or his master. Never let filial piety be
overlooked. When I first patronised Tammie, and pro-
moted him to the dignity of sitting crosslegged along with
me on the working-board, he was a hatless and shoeless raga-
muffin, the orphan lad of a widowed mother, whose husband
had been killed by a chain-shot, which carried off his head,
at the bloody battle of the Nile, under Lord Nelson. Tammie
was the oldest of four, and the other three were lasses, that
knew not in the morning where the day’s providing was to
come from, except by trust in Him who sent the ravens to
Elijah. By allowing Tammie a trifle for board-wages, I was
enabled to add my mite to the comforts of the family ; for
he was kind, frugal, and dutiful, and would willingly share
with them to the last morsel. In the course of a few years
he became his mother’s bread-winner, the lasses being sent
224 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

to service—I myself having recommended one of them to
Deacon Burlings, and another to Springheel the dancing-
master; retaining Katie, the youngest, for ourselves, to
manage the kitchen and go messages when required.

Providence having thus blessed Tammie’s efforts in the
paths of industrious sobriety, what could I do better—
James Batter being exactly of the same opinion—than make
him my successor; giving him the shop at a cheap rent,
the stock-in-trade at a moderate valuation, and the goodwill
of the business as a gratis gift.

Having recommended Tammie to public patronage and
support, he is now, as all the world knows, a thriving man ;
nor, from Berwick Bridge to Johnny Groat’s, is it in the
power of any gentleman to have his coat cut in a more
fashionable way, or on more moderate terms, than at the
sign of the Goose and the Pair of Shears rampant.

Leaving Tammie to take care of his own matters, as he is
well able to do, allow me to observe, that it is curious how
habit becomes a second nature, and how the breaking in
upon the ways we have been long and long accustomed to,
through the days of the years that are past, is as the cut-
ting asunder of the joints and marrow. This I found bit-
terly, even though I had the prospect before me of spending
my old age in peace and plenty. I could not think of leav-
ing my auld house—every room, every nook in it, was famil-
iar to my heart. The garden trees seemed to wave their
branches sorrowfully over my head, as bidding me a, fare-
well; and when I saw all the scraighing hens catched out
of the hen-house I had twenty years before built and tiled
with my own hands, and tumbled into a sack, to be carried
on limping Jock Dalgleish’s back up to our new abode at
Lugton, my heart swelled to my mouth, and the mist of
gushing tears bedimmed my eyesight. Four of Thomas
Burlings’ flour carts stood laden before the door with our
furniture, on the top of which were three of Nanse’s grand
geraniums in flower-pots, with five of my walking-sticks
tied together with a string; and as I paced through the
empty rooms, where I had passed so many pleasant and
happy hours, the sound of my feet on the bare floor seemed
in my ears like an echo from the grave. On our road to
Lugton I could scarcely muster common-sense to answer a
SERIOUS MUSINGS. 225

person who wished us a good-day ; and Nanse, as we daun-
dered on arm-in-arm, never once took her napkin from her
een. Oh, but it was a weary business !

Being in this sober frame of mind, allow me to wind up
this chapter—the last catastrophe of my eventful life that I
mean at present to make public—with a few serious re-
flections; as it fears me that, in much of what I have set
down, ill-natured people may see a good deal scarcely con-
sistent with my character for douceness and circumspection ;
but if many wonderfuls have befallen to my share, it would
be well to remember that a man’s lot is not of his own
making.

Musing within myself on the chances and changes of
time, the uncertainties of life, the frail thread by which we
are tacked to this world, and how the place that now knows
us shall soon know us no more, I could not help, for two or
three days previous to my quitting my dear old house and
shop, taking my stick into my hand, and wandering about
all my old haunts and houffs—and need I mention that
among these were the road down to the Duke’s south gate
with the deers on it, the waterside by Woodburn, the Cow-
brigg, up the back street, through the flesh-market, and
over to the auld kirk in among the headstones? For three
walks, on three different days, I set out in different direc-
tions; yet, strange to say! I aye landed in the kirkyard :—
and where is the man of woman born proud enough to brag
that it shall not be his fate to land there at last ?

Headstones and headstones around me! some newly put
up, and others mossy and grey; it was a humbling yet an
edifying sight, preaching, as forcibly as ever Maister Wiggie
did in his best days, of the vanity and the passingness of all
human enjoyments. Mouldered to dust beneath the turfs
lay the blithe laddies with whom I have a hundred times
played merry games on moonlight nights: some were soon
cut off ; others grew up to their full estate ; and there stood
I, a greyhaired man, among the weeds and nettles, mourn-|
ing over times never to return!

The reader will no doubt be anxious to hear a few words
regarding my son Benjie, who has turned out just as his
friends and the world expected. After his time with Eben-
ezer Packwood in Dalkeith, he served for four years in

P
226 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

Edinburgh, where he cut a distinguished figure, having
shaved and shorn lots of the nobility and gentry—among
whom was a French Duchess, and many other foreigners of
distinction. In short, nothing went down at the principal
hotels but the expertness of Mr Benjamin Wauch ; and, had
he been so disposed, he could have commenced on his own
footing with every chance of success; but knowing himself
fully young, and being anxious to see more of the world
before settling, he took out a passage in one of the Leith
smacks, and set sail for London, where he arrived, after a
safe and prosperous voyage, without a hair of his head in-
jured. The only thing that I am ashamed to let out about
him is, that he is now, and has been for some time past,
principal shopman in a Wallflower Hair-powder and Gen-
uine Macassar-oil Warehouse, kept by three Frenchmen,
called Moosies Peroukey.

But though our natural enemies, he writes me that he
has found them agreeable and chatty masters, full of good
manners and pleasant discourse, first-rate in their articles,
and, except in their language, almost Christians.

I aye thought Benjie was a genius; and he is beginning
to show himself his father’s son, being in thoughts of taking
out a patent for making hair-oil from rancid butter. If he
sticceeds it will make the callant’s fortune. But he must
not marry Madamoselle Peroukey without my especial con-
sent, as Nanse says that her having a Frenchwoman for her
daughter-in-law would be the death of her.

CONCLUSION. renee

“ He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man, and bird, and beast—
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”—Co.eRipGE.

On first commencing this memoir of my life, I put pen to
paper with the laudable view of handing down to posterity
—to our children, and to their children’s children — the
CONCLUSION. 227

accidents, adventures, and mischances that may fall to the
lot of a man placed by Providence even in the loundest
situation of life. where he seemed to lie sheltered in the
bield of peace and privacy; and at that time it was my
intention to have carried down my various transactions to
this dividual day and date. My materials, however, have
swelled on my hand like summer corn under sunny showers:
one thing has brought another to remembrance; sowds of
bypast marvels have come before my mind’s eye in the
silent watches of the night, concerning the days when I sat
working crosslegged on the board; and if I do not stop at
this critical juncture—to wit, my retiring from trade, and
the settlement of my dear and only son Benjie in an honour-
able way of doing; as who dares to deny that the barber
and haircutting line is a safe and honourable employment ?
—I do not know when I might get to the end of my tether,
and the interest which every reasonable man must take in
the extraordinary adventures of my early years might be
grievously marred and broken in upon through the garrulity
of old age.

Perhaps I am going a little too far when I say that the
whole world cannot fail to be interested in the occurrences
of my life; for since its creation, which was not yesterday,
I do not believe—and James Batter is exactly of the same
mind—that there ever was a subject concerning which the
bulk of mankind have not had two opinions. Knowing
this to be the case, I would be a great gomeril to expect that
I should be the only white swan that ever appeared; and
that all parties in church and state, who are for cutting each
other’s throats on every other great question, should be
unanimous only in what regards me. Englishmen, for
instance, will say that I am a bad speller, and that my
language is kittle ; and such of the Irishers as can read will
be threaping that I have abused their precious country ;
but, my certie, instead of blaming me for letting out what I
could not deny, they must just learn to behave themselves
better when they come to see us, or bide at home.

Being by nature a Scotsman—being, I say, of the blood
of Robert Bruce and Sir William Wallace—and having in
my day and generation buckled on my sword to keep the
battle from our gates in the hour of danger, ill would it be-
228 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

come me to speak but the plain truth, the whole truth, and
anything but’ the truth. No; although bred to a peaceable
occupation, I am the subject of a free king and constitution ;
and if I have written as I speak, I have just spoken as I
thought. The man of learning, that kens no language
saving Greek, and Gaelic, and Hebrew, will doubtless laugh
at the curiosity of my dialect; but I would just recommend
him, as he is a philosopher, to consider for a wee that
there are other things, in mortal life and in human nature,
worth a moment’s consideration besides old Pagan heathens—
pot-hooks and hangers—the asses’ bridge and the weary walls
of Troy; which last city, for all that has been said and
sung about it, would be found, I would stake my life upon
it, could it be seen at this moment, not worth half a thought
when compared with the New Town of Edinburgh. Of all
towns in the world, however, Dalkeith for my money. If
the ignorant are dumfoundered at one of their own kidney
—a tailor laddie, that got the feck of his small education
leathered into him at Dominie Threshem’s school—thinking
himself an author, I would just remind them that seeing is
believing ; and that they should keep up a good heart, as it
is impossible to say what may yet be their own fortune
before they die. The rich man’s apology I would beg, if,
in this humble narrative, in this detail of manners almost
hidden from the sphere of his observation, I have in any
instance tramped on the tender toes of good breeding, or
given just offence in breadth of expression or Vulgarity of
language. Let this, however, be my apology, that the only
value of my wonderful history consists in its being as true
as death—a circumstance which it could have slender pre-
tensions to, had I coined stories, or coloured them so as to
please my own fancy and that of the world. In that casé
it would have been very easy for me to have made a Sin-
bad the Sailor’s tale out of it—to have shown myself up a
man such as the world has never seen except on paper—to
have made Cursecowl behave like a gentleman, and the
Frenchman from Penicuik crack like a Christian. And to
the poor man—him whom the wise Disposer of all events
has seen fit to place in a situation similar to that in which
I have been placed, ordaining him to.earn daily bread by
the labour of his hands and the sweat of his brow—if my
CONCLUSION. 229

adventures shall afford an hour or two’s pleasant amusement,
when, after working hours, he sits by his bleezing ingle
with a bairn on each knee, while his oldest daughter is sew-
ing her seam, and his goodwife with her right foot birls
round the spinning-wheel, then my purpose is gained, and
more than gained; for it is my firm belief that no man,
who has by head or hand in any way lightened an ounce
weight of the load of human misery, can be truly said to
have been unprofitable in his day, or disappointed the pur-
pose of his creation. For what more can we do here below ?
The God who formed us, breathing into our nostrils the breath
of life, is, in His almighty power and wisdom, far removed
beyond the sphere of our poor and paltry offices. We are of
the clay, and return to the elements from which we are
formed. He is a Spirit, without beginning of days or end
of years. The extent of our limited exertions reaches no
further than our belief in, and our duty towards Him;
which, in my humble opinion, can be best shown by us in
our love and charity towards our fellow - creatures — the
master-work of His hands.

I would not willingly close this record of my life, without
expressing a few words of heartfelt gratitude towards the
multitude from whom, in the intercourse of the world, I
have experienced good offices; and towards the few who, in
the hour of my trials and adversities, remained with faces
towards me steadfast and unalterable, scorning the fickle
who scoffed, and the Levite who passed by on the other side.
Of old hath it been said, that a true friend is the medicine
of life; and in the day of darkness, when my heart was
breaking, and the world with all its concerns seemed shaded
in a gloom never to pass away, how deeply have I acknow-
ledged the truth of the maxim! How shall I repay such
kindness? Alas! it is out of my power. But all I can do,
Ido. I think of it on my pillow at the silent hour of mid-
night; my heart burns with the gratitude it hath not—may
never have an opportunity of showing to the world; and I
put up my prayer in faith to Him who seeth in secret, that
He may bless and reward them openly.

Sorrows and pleasures are inseparably mixed up in the
cup set for man’s drinking, and the sunniest day hath its
cloud. But I have made this observation, that if true
230 LIFE OF MANSIE WAUCH.

happiness, or anything like true happiness, is to be found
in this world, it is only to be purchased by the practice of
virtue. Things will fall out—so it hath been ordained in
this scene of trial—even to the best and purest of heart,
which must carry sorrow to the bosom and bring tears to
the eyelids; and then to the wayward and the wicked,
bitter is their misery as the waters of Marah. But never
can the good man be wholly unhappy; he has that within
which passeth show; the anchor of his faith is fixed on the
‘Rock of Ages; and when the dark cloud hath glided over—
and it will glide—it leaves behind it the blue and unclouded
heaven.

If, concerning religious matters, a tone of levity at any
time seems to infect these pages, I cry ye mercy, for
nothing was further from my intention; yet, though ac-
knowledging this, I maintain that it is a vain thing to look
on religion as on a winter night, full of terror, and dark-
ness, and storms. No one, it strikes me, errs more widely
than he who supposes that man was made to mourn—that
the sanctity of the heart is shown by the length of the face
—and that mirth, the pleasant mirth of innocent hearts, is
sinful in the sight of Heaven. I will never believe that.
The very sun may appear dim to such folks as choose only
to look at him through green spectacles; as by the poor
wretch who is dwining in the jaundice, the driven snow
could be sworn to as a bright yellow. Such opinions, how-
ever, lie between man and his Maker, and are not for the
like of us to judge of. For myself, I have enjoyed a plea-
sant run of good health through life, reading my Bible
more in hope than fear—our salvation, and not our de-
struction, being I should suppose its purpose. So when I
behold bright suns and blue skies, the trees in blossom, and
birds on the wing, the waters singing to the woods, and
earth looking like the abode of them who were at first
formed but a little lower than the angels, I trust that the
overflowing of a grateful heart will not be reckoned against
me for unrighteousness.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS,