The Annals of the Parish
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One evening, early in the month of January, as I was sitting by myself in my closet studying the Scots Magazine, which I well remember the new number had come but that very night, Mrs. Balwhidder being at the time busy with the lasses in the kitchen, and superintending, as her custom was, for she was a clever woman, a great wool-spinning we then had, both little wheel and meikle wheel, for stockings and blankets – sitting, as I was saying, in the study, with the fire well gathered up, for a night’s reflection, a prodigious knocking came to the door, by which the book was almost startled out of my hand, and all the wheels in the house were silenced at once. This was her ladyship’s flunkey, to beg me to go to her, whom he described as in a state of desperation. Christianity required that I should obey the summons; so, with what haste I could, thinking that perhaps, as she had been low-spirited for some time about the young laird’s going to the Indies, she might have got a cast of grace, and been wakened in despair to the state of darkness in which she had so long lived, I made as few steps of the road between the manse and her house as it was in my ability to do.
On reaching the door, I found a great light in the house – candles burning up stairs and down stairs, and a sough of something extraordinar going on. I went into the dining-room, where her ladyship was wont to sit; but she was not there – only Kate Malcolm all alone, busily picking bits of paper from the carpet. When she looked up, I saw that her eyes were red with weeping, and I was alarmed, and said, “Katy, my dear, I hope there is no danger?” Upon which the poor lassie rose, and, flinging herself in a chair, covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly.
“What is the old fool doing with the wench?” cried a sharp angry voice from the drawing-room – “why does not he come to me?” It was the voice of Lady Macadam herself, and she meant me. So I went to her; but, oh! she was in a far different state from what I had hoped. The pride of this world had got the upper hand of her, and was playing dreadful antics with understanding. There was she, painted like a Jezebel, with gum-flowers on her head, as was her custom every afternoon, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter. “Sir,” said she, as I came into the room, “I want you to go instantly to that young fellow, your clerk, (meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, who was likewise session-clerk and precentor,) and tell him I will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay, and undertake to procure him a living from some of my friends.”
“Softly, my lady, you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste of kindness,” said I, in my calm methodical manner. At the which she began to cry and sob, like a petted bairn, and to bewail her ruin, and the dishonour of her family. I was surprised, and beginning to be confounded; at length out it came. The flunkey had that night brought two London letters from the Irville post, and Kate Malcolm being out of the way when he came home, he took them both in to her ladyship on the silver server, as was his custom; and her ladyship, not jealousing that Kate could have a correspondence with London, thought both the letters were for herself, for they were franked; so, as it happened, she opened the one that was for Kate, and this, too, from the young laird, her own son. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the first words in his hand of write; and she read, and she better read, till she read all the letter, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling were trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them. She, therefore, tore it in pieces, and sent for me, and screamed for Kate; in short, went, as it were, off at the head, and was neither to bind nor to hold on account of this intrigue, as she, in her wrath, stigmatised the innocent gallanting of poor Kate and the young laird.
I listened in patience to all she had to say anent the discovery, and offered her the very best advice; but she derided my judgment; and because I would not speak outright to Mr. Lorimore, and get him to marry Kate off hand, she bade me good-night with an air, and sent for him herself. He, however, was on the brink of marriage with his present worthy helpmate, and declined her ladyship’s proposals, which angered her still more. But although there was surely a great lack of discretion in all this, and her ladyship was entirely overcome with her passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house with me, but made her sup with her as usual that night, calling her sometimes a perfidious baggage, and at other times, forgetting her delirium, speaking to her as kindly as ever. At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship into her bed, (this she told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and when Lady Macadam, as was her wont, bent to kiss her for good-night, she suddenly recollected “the intrigue,” and gave Kate such a slap on the side of the head, as quite dislocated for a time the intellects of the poor young lassie. Next morning, Kate was solemnly advised never to write again to the laird, while the lady wrote him a letter, which, she said, would be as good as a birch to the breech of the boy. Nothing, therefore, for some time, indeed, throughout the year, came of the matter; but her ladyship, when Mrs. Balwhidder soon after called on her, said that I was a nose-of-wax, and that she never would speak to me again, which surely was not a polite thing to say to Mrs. Balwhidder, my second wife.
This stramash was the first time I had interposed in the family concerns of my people; for it was against my nature to make or meddle with private actions saving only such as in course of nature came before the session; but I was not satisfied with the principles of Lady Macadam, and I began to be weary about Kate Malcolm’s situation with her ladyship, whose ways of thinking I saw were not to be depended on, especially in those things wherein her pride and vanity were concerned. But the time ran on – the butterflies and the blossoms were succeeded by the leaves and the fruit, and nothing of a particular nature farther molested the general tranquillity of this year; about the end of which, there came on a sudden frost, after a tack of wet weather. The roads were just a sheet of ice, like a frozen river; insomuch that the coal-carts could not work; and one of our cows, (Mrs. Balwhidder said, after the accident, it was our best; but it was not so much thought of before,) fell in coming from the glebe to the byre, and broke its two hinder legs, which obligated us to kill it, in order to put the beast out of pain. As this happened after we had salted our mart, it occasioned us to have a double crop of puddings, and such a show of hams in the kitchen, as was a marvel to our visitors to see.
CHAPTER XIII
YEAR 1772
On New-Year’s night, this year, a thing happened, which, in its own nature, was a trifle; but it turned out as a mustard-seed that grows into a great tree. One of the elders, who has long been dead and gone, came to the manse about a fact that was found out in the clachan, and after we had discoursed on it some time, he rose to take his departure. I went with him to the door with the candle in my hand – it was a clear frosty night, with a sharp wind; and the moment I opened the door, the blast blew out the candle, so that I heedlessly, with the candlestick in my hand, walked with him to the yett without my hat, by which I took a sore cold in my head, that brought on a dreadful toothache; insomuch, that I was obligated to go into Irville to get the tooth drawn, and this caused my face to swell to such a fright, that, on the Sabbath-day, I could not preach to my people. There was, however, at that time, a young man, one Mr. Heckletext, tutor in Sir Hugh Montgomerie’s family, and who had shortly before been licensed. Finding that I would not be able to preach myself, I sent to him, and begged he would officiate for me, which he very pleasantly consented to do, being, like all the young clergy, thirsting to show his light to the world. ’Twixt the fore and afternoon’s worship, he took his check of dinner at the manse, and I could not but say that he seemed both discreet and sincere. Judge, however, what was brewing, when the same night Mr. Lorimore came and told me, that Mr. Heckletext was the suspected person anent the fact that had been instrumental, in the hand of a chastising Providence, to afflict me with the toothache, in order, as it afterwards came to pass, to bring the hidden hypocrisy of the ungodly preacher to light. It seems that the donsie lassie who was in fault, had gone to the kirk in the afternoon, and seeing who was in the pulpit, where she expected to see me, was seized with the hysterics, and taken with her crying on the spot, the which being untimely, proved the death of both mother and bairn, before the thing was properly laid to the father’s charge.
This caused a great uproar in the parish. I was sorely blamed to let such a man as Mr. Heckletext go up into my pulpit, although I was as ignorant of his offences as the innocent child that perished; and, in an unguarded hour, to pacify some of the elders, who were just distracted about the disgrace, I consented to have him called before the session. He obeyed the call, and in a manner that I will never forget; for he was a sorrow of sin and audacity, and demanded to know why, and for what reason, he was summoned. I told him the whole affair in my calm and moderate way; but it was oil cast upon a burning coal. He flamed up in a terrible passion; threepit at the elders that they had no proof whatever of his having had any trafficking in the business, which was the case; for it was only a notion, the poor deceased lassie never having made a disclosure: called them libellous conspirators against his character, which was his only fortune, and concluded by threatening to punish them, though he exempted me from the injury which their slanderous insinuations had done to his prospects in life. We were all terrified, and allowed him to go away without uttering a word; and sure enough he did bring a plea in the courts of Edinburgh against Mr. Lorimore and the elders for damages, laid at a great sum.
What might have been the consequence, no one can tell; but soon after he married Sir Hugh’s house-keeper, and went with her into Edinburgh, where he took up a school; and, before the trial came on, that is to say, within three months of the day that I myself married them, Mrs. Heckletext was delivered of a thriving lad bairn, which would have been a witness for the elders, had the worst come to the worst. This was, indeed, we all thought, a joyous deliverance to the parish, and it was a lesson to me never to allow any preacher to mount my pulpit, unless I knew something of his moral character.
In other respects, this year passed very peaceably in the parish: there was a visible increase of worldly circumstances, and the hedges which had been planted along the toll-road, began to put forth their branches, and to give new notions of orderlyness and beauty to the farmers. Mrs. Malcolm heard from time to time from her son Charles, on board the man-of-war the Avenger, where he was midshipman; and he had found a friend in the captain, that was just a father to him. Her second son, Robert, being out of his time at Irville, went to the Clyde to look for a berth, and was hired to go to Jamaica, in a ship called the Trooper. He was a lad of greater sobriety of nature than Charles; douce, honest, and faithful; and when he came home, though he brought no limes to me to make punch, like his brother, he brought a Muscovy duck to Lady Macadam, who had, as I have related, in a manner educated his sister Kate. That duck was the first of the kind we had ever seen, and many thought it was of the goose species, only with short bowly legs. It was, however, a tractable and homely beast; and after some confabulation, as my lady herself told Mrs. Balwhidder, it was received into fellowship by her other ducks and poultry. It is not, however, so much on account of the rarity of the creature, that I have introduced it here, as for the purpose of relating a wonderful operation that was performed on it by Miss Sabrina, the schoolmistress.
There happened to be a sack of beans in our stable, and Lady Macadam’s hens and fowls, which were not overly fed at home through the inattention of her servants, being great stravaigers for their meat, in passing the door went in to pick, and the Muscovy, seeing a hole in the bean-sack, dabbled out a crapful before she was disturbed. The beans swelled on the poor bird’s stomach, and her crap bellied out like the kyte of a Glasgow magistrate, until it was just a sight to be seen with its head back on its shoulders. The bairns of the clachan followed it up and down, crying, the lady’s muckle jock’s aye growing bigger, till every heart was wae for the creature. Some thought it was afflicted with a tympathy, and others, that it was the natural way for such-like ducks to cleck their young. In short, we were all concerned; and my lady, having a great opinion of Miss Sabrina’s skill, had a consultation with her on the case, at which Miss Sabrina advised, that what she called the Cæsarean operation should be tried, which she herself performed accordingly, by opening the creature’s crap, and taking out as many beans as filled a mutchkin stoup, after which she sewed it up, and the Muscovy went its way to the water-side, and began to swim, and was as jocund as ever; insomuch, that in three days after it was quite cured of all the consequences of its surfeit.
I had at one time a notion to send an account of this to the Scots Magazine, but something always came in the way to prevent me; so that it has been reserved for a place in this chronicle, being, after Mr. Heckletext’s affair, the most memorable thing in our history of this year.
CHAPTER XIV
YEAR 1773
In this Ann. Dom. there was something like a plea getting to a head, between the session and some of the heritors, about a new school-house; the thatch having been torn from the rigging of the old one by a blast of wind, on the first Monday of February, by which a great snow storm got admission, and the school was rendered utterly uninhabitable. The smaller sort of lairds were very willing to come into the plan with an extra contribution, because they respected the master, and their bairns were at the school; but the gentlemen, who had tutors in their own houses, were not so manageable; and some of them even went so far as to say, that the kirk, being only wanted on Sunday, would do very well for a school all the rest of the week, which was a very profane way of speaking; and I was resolved to set myself against any such thing, and to labour, according to the power and efficacy of my station, to get a new school built.
Many a meeting the session had on the subject; and the heritors debated, and discussed, and revised their proceedings, and still no money for the needful work was forthcoming. Whereupon it happened one morning, as I was rummaging in my scrutoire, that I laid my hand on the Lord Eaglesham’s letter anent Charles Malcolm; and it was put into my head at that moment, that if I was to write to his lordship, who was the greatest heritor, and owned now the major part of the parish, that by his help and influence I might be an instrument to the building of a comfortable new school. Accordingly, I sat down and wrote my lord all about the accident, and the state of the school-house, and the divisions and seditions among the heritors, and sent the letter to him at London by the post the same day, without saying a word to any living soul on the subject.
This in me was an advised thought; for, by the return of post, his lordship with his own hand, in a most kind manner, authorized me to say that he would build a new school at his own cost, and bade me go over and consult about it with his steward at the castle, to whom he had written by the same post the necessary instructions. Nothing could exceed the gladness which the news gave to the whole parish, and none said more in behalf of his lordship’s bounty and liberality than the heritors; especially those gentry who grudged the undertaking, when it was thought that it would have to come out of their own pock-nook.
In the course of the summer, just as the roof was closing in of the school-house, my lord came to the castle with a great company, and was not there a day till he sent for me to come over, on the next Sunday, to dine with him; but I sent him word that I could not do so, for it would be a transgression of the Sabbath, which made him send his own gentleman, to make his apology for having taken so great a liberty with me, and to beg me to come on the Monday, which I accordingly did, and nothing could be better than the discretion with which I was used. There was a vast company of English ladies and gentlemen, and his lordship, in a most jocose manner, told them all how he had fallen on the midden, and how I had clad him in my clothes, and there was a wonder of laughing and diversion; but the most particular thing in the company, was a large, round-faced man, with a wig, that was a dignitary in some great Episcopalian church in London, who was extraordinary condescending towards me, drinking wine with me at the table, and saying weighty sentences, in a fine style of language, about the becoming grace of simplicity and innocence of heart, in the clergy of all denominations of Christians, which I was pleased to hear; for really he had a proud red countenance, and I could not have thought he was so mortified to humility within, had I not heard with what sincerity he delivered himself, and seen how much reverence and attention was paid to him by all present, particularly by my lord’s chaplain, who was a pious and pleasant young divine, though educated at Oxford for the Episcopalian persuasion.
One day, soon after, as I was sitting in my closet conning a sermon for the next Sunday, I was surprised by a visit from the dean, as the dignitary was called. He had come, he said, to wait on me as rector of the parish – for so, it seems, they call a pastor in England – and to say, that, if it was agreeable, he would take a family dinner with us before he left the castle. I could make no objection to this kindness; but said I hoped my lord would come with him, and that we would do our best to entertain them with all suitable hospitality. About an hour or so after he had returned to the castle, one of the flunkeys brought a letter from his lordship, to say, that not only he would come with the dean, but that they would bring his other guests with them; and that, as they could only drink London wine, the butler would send me a hamper in the morning, assured, as he was pleased to say, that Mrs. Balwhidder would otherwise provide good cheer.
This notification, however, was a great trouble to my wife, who was only used to manufacture the produce of our glebe and yard to a profitable purpose, and not used to the treatment of deans and lords, and other persons of quality. However, she was determined to stretch a point on this occasion; and we had, as all present declared, a charming dinner; for fortunately one of the sows had a litter of pigs a few days before, and in addition to a goose, that is but a boss bird, we had a roasted pig with an apple in its mouth, which was just a curiosity to see; and my lord called it a tithe pig; but I told him it was one of Mrs. Balwhidder’s own clecking, which saying of mine made no little sport when expounded to the dean.
But, och how! this was the last happy summer that we had for many a year in the parish; and an omen of the dule that ensued, was in a sacrilegious theft that a daft woman, Jenny Gaffaw, and her idiot daughter, did in the kirk, by tearing off and stealing the green serge lining of my lord’s pew, to make, as they said, a hap for their shoulders in the cold weather – saving, however, the sin, we paid no attention at the time to the mischief and tribulation that so unheard-of a trespass boded to us all. It took place about Yule, when the weather was cold and frosty, and poor Jenny was not very able to go about seeking her meat as usual. The deed, however, was mainly done by her daughter, who, when brought before me, said, “her poor mother’s back had mair need of claes than the kirk-boards;” which was so true a thing, that I could not punish her, but wrote anent it to my lord, who not only overlooked the offence, but sent orders to the servants at the castle to be kind to the poor woman, and the natural, her daughter.
CHAPTER XV
YEAR 1774
When I look back on this year, and compare what happened therein with the things that had gone before, I am grieved to the heart, and pressed down with an afflicted spirit. We had, as may be read, trials and tribulations in the days that were past; and in the rank and boisterous times of the smuggling there was much sin and blemish among us, but nothing so dark and awful as what fell out in the course of this unhappy year. The evil omen of daft Jenny Gaffaw and her daughter’s sacrilege, had soon a bloody verification.
About the beginning of the month of March in this year, the war in America was kindling so fast that the government was obligated to send soldiers over the sea, in the hope to quell the rebellious temper of the plantations; and a party of a regiment that was quartered at Ayr was ordered to march to Greenock, to be there shipped off. The men were wild and wicked profligates, without the fear of the Lord before their eyes; and some of them had drawn up with light women in Ayr, who followed them on their march. This the soldiers did not like, not wishing to be troubled with such gear in America; so the women, when they got the length of Kilmarnock, were ordered to retreat and go home, which they all did but one Jean Glaikit, who persisted in her intent to follow her joe, Patrick O’Neil, a Catholic Irish corporal. The man did, as he said, all in his capacity to persuade her to return, but she was a contumacious limmer, and would not listen to reason; so that, in passing along our toll-road, from less to more, the miserable wretches fell out, and fought, and the soldier put an end to her with a hasty knock on the head with his firelock, and marched on after his comrades.
The body of the woman was, about half an hour after, found by the scholars of Mr. Lorimore’s school, who had got the play to see the marching, and to hear the drums of the soldiers. Dreadful was the shout and the cry throughout the parish at this foul work. Some of the farmer lads followed the soldiers on horseback, and others ran to Sir Hugh, who was a justice of the peace, for his advice. – Such a day as that was!
However, the murderer was taken, and, with his arms tied behind him with a cord, he was brought back to the parish, where he confessed before Sir Hugh the deed, and how it happened. He was then put in a cart, and, being well guarded by six of the lads, was taken to Ayr jail.
It was not long after this that the murderer was brought to trial, and, being found guilty on his own confession, he was sentenced to be executed, and his body to be hung in chains near the spot where the deed was done. I thought that all in the parish would have run to desperation with horror when the news of this came, and I wrote immediately to the Lord Eaglesham to get this done away by the merciful power of the government, which he did, to our great solace and relief.
In the autumn, the young Laird Macadam, being ordered with his regiment for the Americas, got leave from the king to come and see his lady mother, before his departure. But it was not to see her only, as will presently appear.
Knowing how much her ladyship was averse to the notion he had of Kate Malcolm, he did not write of his coming, lest she would send Kate out of the way, but came in upon them at a late hour, as they were wasting their precious time, as was the nightly wont of my lady, with a pack of cards; and so far was she from being pleased to see him, that no sooner did she behold his face, but, like a tap of tow, she kindled upon both him and Kate, and ordered them out of her sight and house. The young folk had discretion: Kate went home to her mother, and the laird came to the manse, and begged us to take him in. He then told me what had happened; and that, having bought a captain’s commission, he was resolved to marry Kate, and hoped I would perform the ceremony, if her mother would consent. “As for mine,” said he, “she will never agree; but, when the thing is done, her pardon will not be difficult to get; for, with all her whims and caprice, she is generous and affectionate.” In short, he so wiled and beguiled me, that I consented to marry them, if Mrs. Malcolm was agreeable. “I will not disobey my mother,” said he, “by asking her consent, which I know she will refuse; and, therefore, the sooner it is done the better.” So we then stepped over to Mrs. Malcolm’s house, where we found that saintly woman, with Kate and Effie, and Willie, sitting peacefully at their fireside, preparing to read their Bibles for the night. When we went in, and when I saw Kate, that was so ladylike there, with the decent humility of her parent’s dwelling, I could not but think she was destined for a better station; and when I looked at the captain, a handsome youth, I thought surely their marriage is made in heaven; and so I said to Mrs. Malcolm, who after a time consented, and likewise agreed that her daughter should go with the captain to America; for her faith and trust in the goodness of Providence was great and boundless, striving, as it were, to be even with its tender mercies. Accordingly, the captain’s man was sent to bid the chaise wait that had taken him to the lady’s, and the marriage was sanctified by me before we left Mrs. Malcolm’s. No doubt, they ought to have been proclaimed three several Sabbaths; but I satisfied the session, at our first meeting, on account of the necessity of the case. The young couple went in the chaise travelling to Glasgow, authorising me to break the matter to Lady Macadam, which was a sore task; but I was spared from the performance. For her ladyship had come to herself, and thinking on her own rashness in sending away Kate and the captain in the way she had done, she was like one by herself. All the servants were scattered out and abroad in quest of the lovers; and some of them, seeing the chaise drive from Mrs. Malcolm’s door with them in it, and me coming out, jealoused what had been done, and told their mistress outright of the marriage, which was to her like a clap of thunder; insomuch that she flung herself back in her settee, and was beating and drumming with her heels on the floor, like a madwoman in Bedlam, when I entered the room. For some time she took no notice of me, but continued her din; but, by-and-by, she began to turn her eyes in fiery glances upon me, till I was terrified lest she would fly at me with her claws in her fury. At last she stopped all at once, and in a calm voice, said, “But it cannot now be helped, where are the vagabonds?” – “They are gone,” replied I. – “Gone?” cried she, “gone where?” – “To America, I suppose,” was my answer; upon which she again threw herself back in the settee, and began again to drum and beat with her feet as before. But not to dwell on small particularities, let it suffice to say, that she sent her coachman on one of her coach horses, which, being old and stiff, did not overtake the fugitives till they were in their bed at Kilmarnock, where they stopped that night; but when they came back to the lady’s in the morning, she was as cagey and meikle taken up with them, as if they had gotten her full consent and privilege to marry from the first. Thus was the first of Mrs. Malcolm’s children well and creditably settled. I have only now to conclude with observing, that my son Gilbert was seized with the smallpox about the beginning of December, and was blinded by them for seventeen days; for the inoculation was not in practice yet among us, saving only in the genteel families that went into Edinburgh for the education of their children, where it was performed by the faculty there.