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 small-pox, 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 now 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, running 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 off 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 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 rattling 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 confessed 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 craize about it, had been put
out of the way by Nanse, that no accident might happen. Save us! if the
deacon had sate down upon it, pity on our brick-floor.
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 make
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."
"Weesht, weesht," 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;
"I'll 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 accidentally 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; 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 ado, 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 as flat as a flounder, and as dead as a
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 TEN--RESURRECTION MEN
About this time there arose a great sough and surmise, that some loons
were playing false with the kirkyard, howking 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.
I'll 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 plastered 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.
I counted and counted, but the dread day at length came and I was
summoned. All the live-long afternoon, when ca'ing the needle upon the
board, I tried to whistle Jenny Nettles, Neil Gow, and other funny tunes,
and whiles crooned 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 dispelling 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, tearing 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 lonesome
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.
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 i' my cap?"
"Na, na, lad; we maun bide here, as we are here now.--Leave me alane?
Lord save 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 saw-dust affn't with my hand, "to get a toast; I'se
warrant it for Deacon Jaffrey's best brown stout."
[Picture: Rev. Mr Wiggie]
The wind blew higher, and like a hurricane; the rain began 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 burned, 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. "For the Lord's sake, prime the gun,"
he cried out, "or our throats will be cut frae lug to lug before we can
cry 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,
crying, "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 halfpenny 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 pass-word!"
First came a loud whistle, and then "Copmahagen," answered the voice.
Oh! what a relief! The laddie started up, like one crazy with joy. "Ou!
ou!" cried he, thrawing round the key, and rubbing his hands; "by jingo,
it's the bethrel--it's the bethrel--it's 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
keepit four resurrectioners louping ower the wall."
"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 Thamson'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 daresay, mak mair noise about their sitting up in a
kirkyard than it's a' worth. There's naething here to harm us?"
"I 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--"I could
gie anither version of that story. Did ye no ken of three young
doctors--Eirish students--alang with some resurrectioners, as waff and
wile as themsells, firing shottie for shottie with the guard at
Kirkmabreck, and lodging three slugs in ane of their backs, forbye firing
a ramrod through anither ane's hat?"
This was a wee alarming--"No," quoth I; "no, Isaac, man; I never heard of
it."
"But, let alane resurrectioners, do you 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
wig--him that was the grave-digger? Weel, he saw a ghaist, wi' his
leeving een--aye, and what's better, in this very kirkyard too. It was a
cauld spring morning, and daylight just coming in when he came 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 o't,
he dug away with his spade, casting out the mools, and the coffin
handles, 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 gruing! 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 behold, 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, throwing 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, I'll explain the
hail history of it to ye. Ye see--'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! I daresay there's some auld hag of
a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll
swear. Hae ye a 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
hearth-stane there, where the laddie's lying on?"
I 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
canny'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!" and "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 ELEVEN--TAFFY WITH THE PIGTAIL: SCHOOL RECOLLECTIONS
It was a clear starry night, in the blasty month of January, I mind it
well. The snow had fallen during the afternoon; or, as Benjie came in
crying, that "the auld wives o' the norlan sky were plucking their
geese"; and it continued 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 cleared 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 disappoint 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 morning, 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.