Transcribed from the 1911 T. N. Foulis edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org
[Picture: One of the Duke's huntsmen]
THE LIFE OF
MANSIE WAUCH
TAILOR IN DALKEITH WRITTEN
BY HIMSELF AND EDITED BY
D. M. MOIR
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR BY
CHARLES MARTIN HARDIE, R.S.A.
T.N.FOULIS
London & Edinburgh
1 9 1 1
_October_ 1911
_Turnbull & Spears_, _Printers_, _Edinburgh_
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.
[Picture: Mansie's shop door]
PRELIMINARIES TO THIS VOLUME
Having, 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 neighbour, 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 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 witnessed 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
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 personally 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 rummaging out scraps of poem-books
for headpieces to my different chapters which appear in the table of
contents.
LIST OF CONTENTS
PRELIMINARIES
I. OUR OLD GRANDFATHER,
II. MY OWN FATHER,
The weaver he gied up the stair,
Dancing and singing;
A bunch o' bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.
_Old Song_.
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.
HOGG'S _Poetic Mirror_.
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_.
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
Gleam'd from his pouch, and thirsted for sheep's lives.
ODOHERTY'S _Miscellanea Classica_.
VI. PUSHING MY FORTUNE,
Oh, love, love, lassie,
Love is like a dizziness,
It winna let a puir bodie
Gang about their business.
JAMES HOGG.
VII. THE FOREWARNING,
I had a dream which was not all a dream.
BYRON.
Coming events cast their shadows before.
CAMPBELL.
VIII. LETTING LODGINGS,
Then first he ate the white puddings,
And syne he ate the black, O;
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, O.
_Old Song_.
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,
Broad-cloth 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.
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.
XI. TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL,
Song,
Song of the South,
School Recollections,
Elegiac Stanzas,
Dirge,
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.
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 SCOTT'S _Monastery_.
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.
SOUTHEY.
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 of Tillyben, Joe.
_Old Song_.
He went a little further,
And turn'd his head aside,
And just by Goodman Whitfield's gate,
Oh there the mare he spied.
He ask'd 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 Mo_.
XV. THE RETURN,
That sweet home is there 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.
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.
DRYDEN'S _Palamon and Arcite_.
Nay, never shake thy gory looks at me;
Thou canst not say I did it!
_Macbeth_.
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
With 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_.
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,
I'll tell the reason.
BURNS.
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_.
XX. ADVENTURES IN THE SPORTING LINE,
A fig for them by law protected,
Liberty's 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.
I'll 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.
KING JAMES V.
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.
MILMAN.
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.
NICOL BURN, _the Minstrel_.
XXIII. CATCHING A TARTAR,
_Fr. Sol._ O, prennez misericorde! ayez pitie de moy!
_Pist._ Moy shall not serve, I will have forty moys!
For I will fetch my rim out at thy throat,
In drops of crimson blood.
_Henry V._
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.
DRYDEN _Revised_.
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.
KEATS.
XXV. A PHILISTINE IN THE COAL-HOLE,
They steeked doors, they steeked yetts,
Close to the cheek and chin;
They steeked them a' but a wee wicket,
And Lammikin crapt 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_.
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.
XXVII. "PUGGIE, PUGGIE,"
Saw ye Johnie coming? quo' she,
Saw ye Johnie coming?
Wi' his blue bonnet on his head,
And his doggie running?
_Old Ballad_.
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.
WORDSWORTH.
XXIX. CONCLUSION,
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.
COLERIDGE.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_FROM OIL PAINTINGS BY_
_CHARLES MARTIN HARDIE_, _R.S.A._
ONE OF THE DUKE'S HUNTSMEN _Frontispiece_
MANSIE'S SHOP DOOR _Title-page_
MANSIE'S WEDDING: THE DANCE GAED _Page_ 8
THROUGH THE LIGHTED HALL
MANSIE AND NANCY 24
THE MINISTER'S LASSIE JESS: A 40
BLUE-EYED LASSIE OF A SERVING
MAID
MANSIE'S FATHER 56
REV. MR WIGGIE 72
THE FIRST DAY I GOT MY 104
REGIMENTALS ON
THOMAS BURLINGS: ELDER 136
MUNGO GLEN 184
JAMES BATTER, MOSTLY BLINDED IN 216
BOTH HIS EYES, LOOKING FOR OUR
NAME IN THE BOOK OF MARTYRS
COUNTRY LASSIES BLEACHING THEIR 248
SNOW-WHITE LINEN
THE WAITING GIRL, JEANIE AMOS 264
PETER FARREL 280
AN OLD DALKEITH BODY 312
THE LAZY CORNER, DALKEITH 344
* * * * *
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.
CHAPTER ONE--IN THE TIME OF MY GRANDFATHER
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 conscience, 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
connexion, further back than auld granfaither, that I mind of when a
laddie; 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 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, "Oure 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 Shetland 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 patriarchs 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,
"Wheest, granfaither, ye ken it's no canny to let out a word of thae
things; let byganes be byganes, 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 egg 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 Gardener'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 perished 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 happened between them, before she would allow
my father to lift the sneck, or draw the bar. Many and many a year, for
gude 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 without 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, however, 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!"
CHAPTER TWO--MY OWN FATHER
My own father, that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch with regard to myself,
but young Mansie with reference to my granfather 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, prosecuted
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 something 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
any thing 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
beneath the mools of Dalkeith kirkyard, made their beds there, leaving a
better name behind them; and as to industry, 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, 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, howsoever, 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.
[Picture: Mansie's wedding]
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 forgather; 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
malt-barn at five shillings, for the express purpose.
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 numerousness 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 potatoes,--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 less 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 keeping 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, whereby 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 every thing famous and remarkable
for me, allowed little or nothing of consequence 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 unwary 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. He kept flunkies with plush small-clothes and
sky-blue coats with scarlet-velvet cuffs and collars,--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 prideful and full of
power as old King Nebuchadneisher; and 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
him.
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 Jeddert 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
invitation 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 expressing 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 summoned 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 forward 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
a way 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 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 flunkies 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 every thing 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 red damask towel, put down by a smart
flunkie before him; and many of them that had not helped themselves well
to the wine, 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 eating; 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 hindmost; so in brushed a powdered valet, with three
dishes on his arm of twisted black things, just like sticks of
Gibraltar-rock, but different in the 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 himself 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 dumfoundered,
was aye keeping his eye on them. So away they chewed, and better chewed,
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 ecstacy 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 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 THREE--THE COMING INTO THE WORLD OF MANSIE WAUCH
I 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
o'clock 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-a-going--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! I have 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 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 in a 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 (such like as I have often since made to growing callants) were
tied round his ankles with a string; and he had a rusty spur on one shoe,
which I saw a man 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 wearyful 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 crowds 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 FOUR--CALF-LOVE
The long and the short is, that I was sent to school, where I learned to
read and spell, making great progress in the Single and Mother's
Carritch. No, what is more, few could 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 kail-yard 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.
[Picture: Mansie and Nancy]
Having come into the world before my time, and being of a pale face and
delicate make, Nature never could have intended me for the naval or
military line, or for any robustious 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 chimney-lug as quickly as I dowed; and, rather than double a nieve to
a school-fellow, 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 yapness and
stiff appetite, as if eating and they had broken up acquaintanceship. My
blue jacket seemed in the sleeves to have picked a quarrel with the
wrists, and had retreated to a tait below the elbows. The
haunch-buttons, on the contrary, 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.