among the crowd, as they came down the tolbooth stair, chained together
by the cuffs of the coat, one said, "Wae's me! what a weel-faur'd fellow,
wi' the red head, to be found guilty of stealing folk's hen-houses."--And
another one said, "Hech, sirs! what a bonny blackaviced man that little
ane is, to be paraded through the streets for a warld's wonder!" But I
said nothing, knowing the thing was just, and a wholesome example;
holding Benjie on my shoulder to see the poukit hens tied about their
necks like keeking-glasses. But, puh! the fellows did not give one pinch
of snuff; so off they set, and in this manner were drummed through the
bounds of the parish, a constable walking at each side of them with
Lochaber axes, and the town-drummer row-de-dowing the thief's march at
their backs. It was a humbling sight.
My heart was sorrowful, notwithstanding the ills they had done me and
mine, by the nefarious pillaging of our hen-house, to see two human
creatures of the same flesh and blood as myself, undergoing the righteous
sentence of the law, in a manner so degrading to themselves, and so
pitiful to all that beheld them. But, nevertheless, considering what
they had done, they neither deserved, nor did they seem to care for
commiseration, holding up their brazen faces as if they had been taking a
pleasure walk for the benefit of their health, and the poukit hens, that
dangled before them, ornaments of their bravery. The whole crowd, young
and old, followed them from one end of the town to the other, liking to
ding one another over, so anxious were they to get a sight of what was
going on; but when they came to the gate-end, they stopped and gave the
ne'er-do-weels three cheers. What think you did the ne'er-do-weels do in
return? Fie shame! they took off their old scrapers and gave a huzza
too; clapping their hands behind them, in a manner as deplorable to
relate as it was shocking to behold.
Their chains--the things, ye know, that held their cuffs together--were
by this time taken off, along with the poukit hens, which I fancy the
town-offishers took home and cooked for their dinner; so they shook hands
with the drummer, wishing him a good-day and a pleasant walk home,
brushing away on the road to Edinburgh, where their wives and weans, who
had no doubt made a good supper on the spuilzie of the hens, had gone
away before, maybe to have something comfortable for their arrival, their
walk being likely to give them an appetite.
Had they taken away all the rest of the hens, and only left the bantams,
on which they must have found but desperate little eating, and the muffed
one, I would have cared less; it being from several circumstances a pet
one in the family, having been brought in a blackbird's cage by the
carrier from Lauder, from my wife's mother, in a present to Benjie on his
birth-day. The creature almost grat himself blind, when he heard of our
having seen it roasting in a string by the legs before the fire, and
found its bonny muffed head in a corner.
But let alone likings, the callant was otherwise a loser in its death,
she having regularly laid a caller egg to him every morning, which he got
along with his tea and bread, to the no small benefit of his health,
being, as I have taken occasion to remark before, far from being
robusteous in the constitution. I am sure I know one thing, and that is,
that I would have willingly given the louns a crown-piece to have
preserved it alive, hen though it was of my own; but no--the bloody deed
was over and done, before we were aware that the poor thing's life was
sacrificed.
The names of the two Eirishers were John Dochart and Dennis Flint, both,
according to their own deponement, from the county of Tipperary; and
weel-a-wat the place has no great credit in producing two such bairns.
Often, after that, did I look through that part of the Advertizer
newspapers, that has a list of all the accidents, and so on, just above
the births, marriages and deaths, which I liked to read regularly.
Howsoever, it was two years before I discovered their names again, having
it seems, during a great part of that period, lived under the forged name
of Alias; and I saw that they were both shipped off at Leith, for
transportation to some country called the Hulks, for being habit and
repute thieves, and for having made a practice of coining bad silver.
The thing, however, that condemned them, was for having knocked down a
drunk man, in a beastly state of intoxication, on the King's highway in
broad daylight; and having robbed him of his hat, wig, and neckcloth, an
upper and under vest, a coat and great-coat, a pair of Hessian boots
which he had on his legs, a silver watch with four brass seals and a key,
besides a snuff-box made of boxwood, with an invisible hinge, one of the
Lawrencekirk breed, a pair of specs, some odd halfpennies, and a
Camperdown pocket-napkin.
But of all months of the year--or maybe, indeed, of my blessed
lifetime--this one was the most adventurous. It seemed, indeed, as if
some especial curse of Providence hung over the canny town of Dalkeith;
and that, like the great cities of the plain, we were at long and last to
be burnt up from the face of the earth with a shower of fire and
brimstone.
Just three days after the drumming of the two Eirish ne'er-do-weels, a
deaf and dumb woman came in prophesying at our back door, offering to
spae fortunes. She was tall and thin, an unco witch-looking creature,
with a runkled brow, sunburnt haffits, and two sharp piercing eyes, like
a hawk's, whose glance went through ye like the cut and thrust of a
two-edged sword. On her head she had a tawdry brownish black bonnet,
that had not improved from two three years' tholing of sun and wind; a
thin rag of a grey duffle mantle was thrown over her shoulders, below
which was a checked shortgown of gingham stripe, and a green glazed manco
petticoat. Her shoon were terrible bauchles, and her grey worsted
stockings, to hide the holes in them, were all dragooned down about her
heels. On the whole, she was rather, I must confess, an out-of-the-way
creature; and though I had not muckle faith in these bodies that pretend
to see further through a millstone than their neighbours, I somehow or
other, taking pity on her miserable condition, being still a
fellow-creature, though plain in the lugs, had not the heart to huff her
out; more by token, as Nanse, Benjie, and the new prentice Mungo, had by
this time got round me, all dying to know what grand fortunes waited them
in the years of their after pilgrimage. Sinful creatures that we are!
not content with the insight into its ways that Providence affords us,
but diving beyond our deeps, only to flounder into the whirlpools of
error. Is it not clear, that had it been for our good, all things would
have been revealed to us; and is it not as clear, that not a wink of
sound sleep would we ever have got, had all the ills that have crossed
our paths been ranged up before our een, like great black towering
mountains of darkness? How could we have found contentment in our goods
and gear, if we saw them melting from us next year like snow from a dyke;
how could we sit down on the elbow-chair of ease, could we see the
misfortunes that may make next week a black one; or how could we look a
kind friend in the face without tears, could we see him, ere a month
maybe was gone, lying streiked beneath his winding sheet, his eyes closed
for evermore, and his mirth hushed to an awful silence! No, no, let us
rest content that Heaven decrees what is best for us; let us do our duty
as men and Christians, and every thing, both here and hereafter, will
work together for our good.
Having taken a piece of chalk out of her big, greasy, leather pouch, she
wrote down on the table, "Your wife, your son, and your prentice." This
was rather curious, and every one of them, a wee thunderstruck like,
cried out as they held up their hands, "Losh me! did onybody ever see or
hear tell of the like o' that? She's no canny!"--It was gey droll, I
thought; and I was aware from the Witch of Endor, and sundry mentions in
the Old Testament, that things out of the course of nature have more than
once been permitted to happen; so I reckoned it but right to give the
poor woman a fair hearing, as she deserved.
"Oh!" said Nanse to me, "ye ken our Benjie's eight year auld; see if she
kens; ask her how old he is."
I had scarcely written down the question, when she wrote beneath it, "The
bonny laddie, your only son, is eight year old: He'll be an admiral yet."
"An admiral!" said his mother; "that's gey and extraordinar. I never
kenned he had ony inkling for the seafaring line; and I thought, Mansie,
you intended bringing him up to your ain trade. But, howsoever, ye're
wrong ye see. I tell't ye he wad either make a spoon or spoil a horn. I
tell't ye, ower and ower again, that he would be either something or
naething; what think ye o' that noo?--See if she kens that Mungo comes
from the country; and where the Lammermoor hills is."
When I had put down the question, in a jiffie she wrote down beside it,
"That boy comes from the high green hills, and his name is Mungo."
Dog on it! this astonished us more and more, and fairly bamboozled my
understanding; as I thought there surely must be some league and paction
with the Old One; but the further in the deeper. She then pointed to my
wife, writing down, "Your name is Nancy"--and turning to me, as she made
some dumbie signs, she chalked down, "Your name is Mansie Wauch, that
saved the precious life of an old bedridden woman from the fire; and will
soon get a lottery ticket of twenty thousand pounds."
Knowing the truth of the rest of what she had said, I could not help
jumping on the floor with joy, and seeing that she was up to everything,
as plain as if it had happened in her presence. The good news set us all
a skipping like young lambs, my wife and the laddies clapping their hands
as if they had found a fiddle; so, jealousing they might lose their
discretion in their mirth, I turned round to the three, holding up my
hand, and saying, "In the name o' Gudeness, dinna mention this to ony
leeving sowl; as, mind ye, I havena taken out the ticket yet. The doing
so might not only set them to the sinful envying of our good fortune, as
forbidden in the tenth commandment, but might lead away ourselves to be
gutting our fish before we get them."
"Mind then," said Nanse, "about your promise to me, concerning the silk
gown, and the pair--"
"Wheesht, wheesht, gudewifie," answered I. "There's a braw time coming.
We must not be in ower great a hurry."
I then bade the woman sit down by the ingle cheek, and our wife to give
her a piece of cold beef, and a shave of bread, besides twopence out of
my own pocket. Some, on hearing siccan sums mentioned, would have
immediately struck work, but, even in the height of my grand
expectations, I did not forget the old saying, that "a bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush"; and being thrang with a pair of leggins for
Eben Bowsie, I brushed away ben to the workshop, thinking the woman, or
witch, or whatever she was, would have more freedom and pleasure in
eating by herself.--That she had, I am now bound to say by experience.
[Picture: James Batter]
Two days after, when we were sitting at our comfortable four-hours, in
came little Benjie, running out of breath--just at the dividual moment of
time my wife and me were jeering one another, about how we would behave
when we came to be grand ladies and gentlemen, keeping a flunkie
maybe--to tell us, that when he was playing at the bools, on the
plainstones before the old kirk, he had seen the deaf and dumb spaewife
harled away to the tolbooth, for stealing a pair of trowsers that were
hanging drying on a tow in Juden Elshinder's back close. I could
scarcely credit the callant, though I knew he would not tell a lie for
sixpence; and I said to him, "Now be sure, Benjie, before ye speak. The
tongue is a dangerous weapon, and apt to bring folk into trouble--it
might be another woman."
It was real cleverality in the callant. He said, "Ay, faither, but it
was her; and she contrived to bring herself into trouble without a tongue
at a'."
I could not help laughing at this, it showed Benjie to be such a genius;
so he said,
"Ye needa laugh, faither; for it's as true's death it was her. Do you
think I didna ken in a minute our cheese-toaster, that used to hing
beside the kitchen fire; and that the sherry-offisher took out frae
beneath her grey cloak?"
The smile went off Nanse's cheek like lightning, she said it could not be
true; but she would go to the kitchen to see. I'fegs it was too true;
for she never came back to tell the contrary.
This was really and truly a terrible business, but the truth for all
that; the cheese-toaster casting up not an hour after, in the hands of
Daniel Search, to whom I gave a dram. The loss of the tin cheese-toaster
would have been a trifle, especially as it was broken in the handle--but
this was an awful blow to the truth of the thieving dumbie's grand
prophecy. Nevertheless, it seemed at the time gey puzzling to me, to
think how a deaf and dumb woman, unless she had some wonderful gift,
could have told us what she did.
On the next day, the Friday, I think, that story was also made as clear
as daylight to us; for being banished out of the town as a common thief
and vagabond, down on the Musselburgh Road, by order of a justice of the
peace, it was the bounden duty of Daniel Search and Geordie Sharp to see
her safe past the kennel, the length of Smeaton. They then tried to make
her understand by writing on the wall, that if ever again she was seen or
heard tell of in the town, she would be banished to Botany Bay; but she
had a great fight, it seems, to make out Daniel's bad spelling, he having
been very ill yedicated, and no deacon at the pen.
Howsoever, they got her to understand their meaning, by giving her a
shove forward by the shoulders, and aye pointing down to Inveresk.
Thinking she did not hear them, they then took upon themselves the
liberty of calling her some ill names, and bade her good-day as a bad
one. But she was upsides with them for acting, in that respect, above
their commission; for she wheeled round again to them, and snapping her
fingers at their noses, gave a curse, and bade them go home for a couple
of dirty Scotch vermin.
The two men were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing the tongue-tied wife
speaking as good English as themselves; and could not help stopping to
look after her for a long way on the road, as every now and then she
stuck one of her arms a-kimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the
whirling-jig way, louping like daft, and lilting like a grey-lintie.
From her way of speaking, they also saw immediately that she too was an
Eirisher.--They must be a bonny family when they are all at home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE--ANENT THE YOUNG CALLANT MUNGO GLEN
Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties
as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight.
To say nothing connected with the play-acting business, which was
immediately before--first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the
blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his
transactions, and a bad omen--next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the
saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of
the poor cat--syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish
ne'er-do-weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks--and lastly, the
hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the
banishment of the spaewife.
These were awful signs of the times, and seemed to say that the world was
fast coming to a finis; the ends of the earth appearing to have combined
in a great Popish plot of villany. Every man that had a heart to feel,
must have trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calamitous
events. As for my own part, the depravity of the nations, which most of
these scenes showed me, I must say, fell heavily upon my spirit; and I
could not help thinking of the old cities of the plain, over the
house-tops of which, for their heinous sins and iniquitous abominations,
the wrath of the Almighty showered down fire and brimstone from heaven
till the very earth melted and swallowed them up for ever and ever.
These added to the number, to be sure; but not that I had never before
seen signs and wonders in my time. I had seen the friends of the
people,--and the scarce years,--and the bloody gulleteening over-bye
among the French blackguards,--and the business of Watt and Downie nearer
home, at our own doors almost, in Edinburgh like,--and the calling out of
the volunteers,--and divers sea-fights at Camperdown and elsewhere,--and
land battles countless,--and the American war, part o't,--and awful
murders,--and mock fights in the Duke's Parks,--and highway
robberies,--and breakings of all the Ten Commandments, from the first to
the last; so that, allowing me to have had but a common spunk of
reflection, I must, like others, have cast a wistful eye on the ongoings
of men: and, if I had not strength to pour out my inward lamentations, I
could not help thinking, with fear and trembling, at the rebellion of
such a worm as man, against a Power whose smallest word could extinguish
his existence, and blot him out in a twinkling from the roll of living
things.
But, if I was much affected, the callant Mungo was a great deal more.
From the days in which he had lain in his cradle, he had been brought up
in a remote and quiet part of the country, far from the bustling of
towns, and from man encountering man in the stramash of daily life; so
that his heart seemed to pine within him like a flower, for want of the
blessed morning dew; and, like a bird that has been catched in a girn
among the winter snows, his appetite failed him, and he fell away from
his meat and his clothes.
I was vexed exceedingly to see the callant in this dilemmy, for he was
growing very tall and thin, his chaft-blades being lank and white, and
his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he got no refreshment from the
slumbers of the night. Beholding all this work of destruction going on
in silence, I spoke to his friend Mrs Grassie about him, and she was so
motherly as to offer to have a glass of port-wine, stirred with best
jesuit's barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o'clock; for
really nobody could be but interested in the laddie, he was so gentle and
modest, making never a word of complaint, though melting like snow off a
dyke; and, though he must have suffered both in body and mind, enduring
all with a silent composure, worthy of a holy martyr.
Perceiving things going on from bad to worse, I thought it was best to
break the matter to him, as he was never like to speak himself; and I
asked him in a friendly way, as we were sitting together on the board
finishing a pair of fustian overalls for Maister Bob Bustle--a riding
clerk for one of the Edinburgh spirit shops, but who liked aye to have
his clothes of the Dalkeith cut, having been born, bred, and educated in
our town, like his forbears before him--if there was anything the matter
with him, that he was aye so dowie and heartless? Never shall I forget
the look he gave me as he lifted up his eyes, in which I could see
visible distress painted as plain as the figures of the saints on old
kirk windows; but he told me, with a faint smile, that he had nothing
particular to complain of, only that he would have liked to have died
among his friends, as he could not live from home, and away from the life
he had been accustomed to all his days.
'Od, I was touched to the quick; and when I heard him speaking of death
in such a calm, quiet way, I found something, as if his words were words
of prophecy, and as if I had seen a sign that told me he was not to be
long for this world. Howsoever, I hope I had more sense than to let this
be seen, so I said to him, "Ou, if that be a', Mungo, ye'll soon come to
like us a' well enough. Ye should take a stout heart, man; and when your
prenticeship's done, ye'll gang hame and set up for a great man, making
coats for all the lords and lairds in broad Lammermoor."
"Na, na," answered the callant with a trembling voice, which mostly made
my heart swell to my mouth, and brought the tear to my eye, "I'll never
see the end of my prenticeship, nor Lammermoor again."
"Hout touts, man," quo' I, "never speak in that sort o' way; it's
distrustfu' and hurtful. Live in hope, though we should die in despair.
When ye go home again, ye'll be as happy as ever."
"Eh, na--never, never, even though I was to gang hame the morn. I'll
never be as I was before. I lived and lived on, never thinking that such
days were to come to an end--but now I find it can, and must be
otherwise. The thoughts of my heart have been broken in upon, and
nothing can make whole what has been shivered to pieces."
This was to the point, as Dannie Thummel said to his needle; so just for
speaking's sake, and to rouse him up a bit, I said, "Keh, man, what need
ye care sae muckle about the country?--It'll never be like our bonny
streets, with all the braw shop windows, and the auld kirk; and the
stands with the horn spoons and luggies; and all the carts on the
market-days; and the Duke's gate, and so on."
"Ay, but, maister," answered Mungo, "ye was never brought up in the
country--ye never kent what it was to wander about in the simmer glens,
wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters
streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow
sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and
wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness--Ye
never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when,
looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the
hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot
of man never coming during the storm to your door, nor the voice of a
stranger heard from ae month's end till the ither. See, it is coming on
o' hail the now, and my mother with my sister--I have but ane--and my
four brithers, will be looking out into the drift, and missing me away
for the first time frae their fireside. They'll hae a dreary winter o't,
breaking their hearts for me--their ballants and their stories will never
be sae funny again--and my heart is breaking for them."
With this, the tears prap-prapped down his cheeks, but his pride bade him
turn his head round to hide them from me. A heart of stone would have
felt for him.
I saw it was in vain to persist long, as the laddie was falling out of
his clothes as fast as leaves from the November tree; so I wrote home by
limping Jamie the carrier, telling his father the state of things, and
advising him, as a matter of humanity, to take his son out to the free
air of the hills again, as the town smoke did not seem to agree with his
stomach; and, as he might be making a sticked tailor of one who was
capable of being bred a good farmer; no mortal being likely to make a
great progress in any thing, unless the heart goes with the handiwork.
Some folks will think I acted right, and others wrong in this matter; if
I erred, it was on the side of mercy and my conscience does not upbraid
me for the transaction. In due course of time, I had an answer from Mr
Glen; and we got everything ready and packed up, against the hour that
Jamie was to set out again.
Mungo got himself all dressed; and Benjie had taken such a liking to him,
that I thought he would have grutten himself senseless when he heard he
was going away back to his own home. One would not have imagined, that
such a sincere friendship could have taken root in such a short time; but
the bit creature Benjie was as warm-hearted a callant as ye ever saw.
Mungo told him, that if he would not cry he would send him in a present
of a wee ewe-milk cheese whenever he got home; which promise pacified
him, and he asked me if Benjie would come out for a month gin simmer,
when he would let him see all worthy observation along the country side.