here to-day--yonder to-morrow; this moment we are shining like the
mid-day sun, and on the next, pugh! we go out like the snuff of a candle.
'Man's life,' as Job observes, 'is like a weaver's shuttle.'"
"But, Maister Waugh," quo' Peter, who was a hearer of the Parish Church,
"you dissenting bodies aye take the black side of things; never
considering that the doubtful shadows of affairs sometimes brighten up
into the cloudless daylight. For instance, now, there was an old
fellow-apprentice of my father's, who, like myself, was a baker, his name
was Charlie Cheeper; and, both his father and mother dying when he was
yet hardly in trowsers, he would have been left without a hame in the
world, had not an old widow woman, who had long lived next door to them,
and whose only breadwinner was her spinning-wheel, taken the wee wretchie
in to share her morsel. For several years, as might naturally have been
expected, the callant was a perfect dead-weight on the concern, and
perhaps, in her hours of greater distress, the widow regretted the
heedlessness of her Christian charity; but Charlie had a winning way with
him, and she could not find it in her heart to turn him to the door. By
the time he was seven--and a ragged coute he was as ever stepped without
shoes--he could fend for himself, by running messages--holding horses at
shop doors--winning bools and selling them--and so on; so that when he
had collected half-a-crown in a penny pig, the widow sent him to the
school, where he got on like a hatter, and in a little while, could both
read and write. When he was ten, he was bound apprentice to Saunders
Snaps in the Back-row, whose grandson has yet, as you know, the sign of
the Wheat Sheaf; and for five years he behaved himself like his betters.
"Well, sir, when his time was out, Charlie had an ambition to see the
world; and, by working for a month or two as journeyman in the
Candlemaker-row at Edinburgh, he raked as much together as took him up to
London in the steerage of a Leith smack. For several years nothing was
heard of him, except an occasional present of a shawl, or so on, to the
widow, who had been so kind to him in his helpless years; and at length a
farewell present of some little money came to her, with his blessing for
past favours, saying that he was off for good and all to America.
"In the course of time, Widow Amos became frail and sand-blind. She was
unable to work for herself, and the charity she had shown to others no
one seemed disposed to extend to her. Her only child, Jeanie Amos, was
obliged to leave her service, and come home to the house of poverty, to
guard her mother's grey hairs from accident, and to divide with her the
little she could make at the trade of mangling; for, with the money that
Charlie Cheeper had sent, before leaving the country, the old woman had
bought a calender, and let it out to the neighbours at so much an hour;
honest poverty having many shifts.
"Matters had gone on in this way for two or three fitful years; and
Jeanie, who, when she had come home from service, was a buxom and
blooming lass, although yet but a wee advanced in her thirties, began to
show, like all earthly things, that she was wearing past her best. Some
said that she had lost hopes of Charlie's return; and others, that, come
hame when he liked, he would never look over his left shoulder after her.
"Well, sir, as fact as death, I mind mysell, when a laddie, of the rumpus
the thing made in the town. One Saturday night, a whole washing of old
Mrs Pernickity's that had been sent to be calendered, vanished like
lightning, no one knew where: the old lady was neither to hold nor bind:
and nothing would serve her, but having both the old woman and her
daughter committed to the Tolbooth. So to the Tolbooth they went,
weeping and wailing; followed by a crowd, who cried loudly out at the sin
and iniquity of the proceeding; because the honesty of the prisoners,
although impeached, was unimpeachable; the mob were furious; and before
the Sunday sun arose old Mrs Pernickity awakened with a sore throat,
every pane of her windows having been miraculously broken during the dead
hours.
[Picture: Country lassies bleaching their snow-white linen]
"The mother and the daughter were kept in custody until the Monday; when,
as they were standing making a declaration of their innocence before the
justices, who should come in but Francie Deep, the Sheriff-officer, with
an Irish vagrant and his wife--two tinklers who were lodging in the
Back-row, and in whose possession the bundle was found bodily, basket and
all. Such a cheering as the folk set up! it did all honest folk's hearts
good to hear it. Mrs Pernickity and her lass, to save their bacon, were
obliged to be let out by a back door; and, as the justices were about to
discharge the two prisoners, who had been so unjustly and injuriously
suspected, a stranger forced his way to the middle of the floor, and took
the old woman in his arms!"
"Charlie Cheeper returned, for a gold guinea," said I.
"And no other it was," said Peter, resuming his comical story. "The
world had flowed upon him to his heart's desire. Over in Virginia he had
given up the baking business, and commenced planter; and, after years of
industrious exertion, having made enough and to spare, he had returned to
spend the rest of his days in peace and plenty, in his native town."
"Not to interrupt you," added I, "Mr Farrel, I think I could wager
something mair."
"You are a witch of a guesser I know, Mansie," said Peter; "and I see
what you are at. Well, sir, you are right again. For, on the very day
week that Patrick Makillaguddy and his spouce got their heads shaved, and
were sent to beat hemp in the New Bridgewell on the Caltonhill, Jeanie
Amos became Mrs Cheeper; the calender and the spinning-wheel were both
burned by a crowd of wicked weans before old Mrs Pernickity's door,
raising such a smoke as almost smeaked her to a rizzar'd haddock; and the
old widow under the snug roof of her ever grateful son-in-law, spent the
remainder of her Christian life in peace and prosperity."
"That story ends as it ought," said I, "Mr Farrel; neither Jew nor Gentle
dare dispute that; and as to the telling of it, I do not think man of
woman born, except maybe James Batter, who is a nonsuch, could have
handled it more prettily. I like to hear virtue aye getting its ain
reward."
As these dividual words were falling from my lips, we approached the end
of our journey, the Roslin Inn house heaving in sight, at the door of
which me and Peter louped out, an hostler with a yellow striped
waistcoat, and white calico sleeves, I meantime holding the naig's head,
in case it should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the
horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our shirt necks,
and after looking at our watches, as if time was precious, oxtered away,
arm-in-arm, to see the Chapel, which surpasses all, and beats
cock-fighting.
It is an unaccountable thing to me, how the auld folk could afford to
build such grand kirks and castles. If once gold was like slate stones,
there is a wearyful change now-a-days, I must confess; for, so to speak,
gold guineas seem to have taken flight from the land along with the
witches and warlocks, and posterity are left as toom in the pockets as
rookit gamblers.
But if the mammon of precious metals be now totally altogether out of the
world, weel-a-wat we had a curiosity still, and that was a clepy woman
with a long stick, and rhaemed away, and better rhaemed away, about the
Prentice's Pillar, who got a knock on the pow from his jealous blackguard
of a master--and about the dogs and the deer--and Sir Thomas this-thing
and my Lord tother-thing, who lay buried beneath the broad flag stones in
their rusty coats of armour--and such a heap of havers, that no throat
was wide enough to swallow them for gospel, although gey an' entertaining
I allow. However, it was a real farce; that is certain.
Oh, but the building was a grand and overpowering sight, making man to
dree the sense of his own insignificance, even in the midst of his own
handiwork! First, we looked over our shoulders to the grand carved
roofs, where the swallows swee-swee'd, as they darted through the open
windows, and the yattering sparrows fed their gorbals in the far boles;
and syne we looked shuddering down into the dark vaults, where nobody in
their senses could have ventured, though Peter Farrel, being a rash
courageous body, was keen on it, having heard less than I could tell him
of such places being haunted by the spirits of those who have died or
been murdered within them in the bloody days of the old times; or of
their being so full of foul air, as to extinguish man's breath in his
nostrils like the snuff of a candle. Though no man should throw his life
into jeopardy, yet I commend all for taking timeous recreation--the King
himself on the throne not being able to live without the comforts of
life; and even the fifteen Lords of Session, with as much powder on their
wigs as would keep a small family in loaves for a week, requiring air and
exercise, after sentencing vagabonds to be first hanged, and then their
clothes given to Jock Heich, and their bodies to Doctor Monro.
Before going out to inspect the wonderfuls, we had taken the natural
precaution to tell the goodman of the inn, that we would be back to take
a smack of something from him, at such and such an hour; and, having had
our bellyful of the Chapel,--and the Prentice's Pillar,--and the
vaults,--and the cleipy auld wife with the lang stick,--we found that we
had still half an hour to spare; so took a stroll into the Kirkyard, to
see if we could find out any of the martyrs had been buried
there-away-abouts.
We saw a good few head-stones, you may make no doubt, both ancient and
modern; but nothing out of the course of nature; so, the day being
pleasant, Mr Farrell and me sat down on a throughstane, below an old
hawthorn, and commenced chatting on the Pentland Hills--the river
Esk--Penicuik--Glencorse--and all the rest of the beautiful country
within sight. A mooly auld skull was lying among the grass, and Peter,
as he spoke, was aye stirring it about with his stick.
"I never touched a dead man's bones in my life," said I to Peter, "nor
would I for a sixpence. Who might that have belonged to, now, I wonder?
Maybe to a baker or a tailor, in his day and generation, like you and I,
Peter; or maybe to ane of the great Sinclairs with their coats-of-mail,
that the auld wife was cracking so crousely about?"
"Deil may care," said Peter; "but are you really frighted to touch a
skull, Mansie? You would make a bad doctor, I'm doubting, then; to say
nothing of a resurrection man."
"Doctor! I would not be a doctor for all the gold and silver on the
walls of Solomon's Temple--"
"Yet you would think the young doctors suck in their trade with their
mother's milk, and could cut off one another's heads as fast as look at
you.--Speaking of skulls," added Peter, "I mind when my father lived in
the under-flat of the three-storey house at the top of Dalkeith Street,
that the Misses Skinflints occupied the middle story, and Doctor
Chickenweed had the one above, with the garrets, in which was the
laboratory.
"Weel, ye observe, in getting to the shop, it was not necessary to knock
at the Doctor's door, but just proceed up the narrow wooden stairs,
facing the top of which was the shop-door, which, for light to the
customer's feet, was generally allowed to stand open.
"For a long time, the Doctor had heard the most unearthly noises in the
house--as if a thunderbolt was in the habit of coming in at one of the
sky-lights, and walking down stairs; and the Misses Skinflints had more
than once nearly got their door carried off the hinges; so they had not
the life of dogs, for constant startings and surprises. At first they
had no faith in ghosts; but, in the course of time, they came to be alike
doubtful on that point; but you shall hear.
"The foundation of the mystery was this. The three mischievous
laddies--the apprentices--after getting their daily work over, of making
pills and potions for his Majesty's unfortunate subjects, took to the
trick of mounting a human skull, like that, upon springs, so that it
could open its mouth, and setting it on a stand at the end of the
counter, could make it gape, and turn from side to side, by pulling a
string.
"The door being left purposely ajee--whenever the rascals saw a fit
subject, they set the skull a-moving and a-gaping; the consequence of
which was, that many a poor customer descended without counting the
number of steps, and after bouncing against Dr Chickenweed's panels,
played flee down to try the strength of Misses Skinflints'. One of the
three instantly darted down, behind the evanished patient; and, after
assisting her or him--whichever it might chance to be--to gain their
feet, begged of them not to mention what they had seen, as the house was
haunted by the ghost of an old maiden aunt of their master's who had died
abroad; and that the thing would hurt his feelings if ever it came to his
ears."
"Dog on me," said I, "if ever I heard of such a trick since ever I was
born! What was the upshot?"
"The upshot was, that the thing might have continued long enough, and the
laboratory been left as deserted as Tadmor in the Wilderness, had not a
fat old woman fallen one day perfectly through the doctor's door, and
dislocated her ankle--which unfortunately incapacitated her from making a
similar attack on that of the Misses Skinflints. The consequence was,
that the conspiracy was detected--the Doctor's aunt's ghost laid, and the
fat old woman carried down on a shutter to her bed, where she lay till
her ankle grew better in the course of nature."
It being near the hour at which we had ordered our dinner to be ready, we
rose up from the tombstone; and, after taking a snuff out of Peter's box,
we returned arm-in-arm to the tavern, to lay in a stock of provisions.
Peter Farrel was a warm-hearted, thorough-going fellow, and did not like
half-measures, such as swollowing the sheep and worrying on the tail; so,
after having ate as many strawberries as we could well stow away, he
began trying to fright me with stories of folk taking the elic
passion--the colic--the mulligrubs--and other deadly maladies, on account
of neglecting to swallow a drop of something warm to qualify the coldness
of the fruit; so, after we had discussed good part of a fore-quarter of
lamb and chopped cabbage--the latter a prime dish--we took first one jug,
and syne another, till Peter was growing tongue-tied, and as red in the
face as a bubbly-jock; and, to speak the truth, my own een began to reel
like merligoes. In a jiffy, both of us found our hearts waxing so brave
as to kick and spur at all niggardly hesitation; and we leuch and thumped
on the good-man of the inn-house's mahogany table, as if it had been
warranted never to break. In fact, we were as furious and obstrapulous
as two unchristened Turks; and it was a mercy that we ever thought of
rising to come away at all. At the long and the last, however, we found
ourselves mounted and trotting home at no allowance, me telling Peter, as
far as I mind, to give the beast a good creish, and not to be frighted.
The evening was fine and warmer than we could have wished, our cheeks
glowing like dragons' jackets; and as we passed like lightning through
among the trees, the sun was setting with a golden glory in the west,
between the Pentland and the Corstorphine Hills, and flashing in upon us
through the branches at every opening. About half-way on our road back,
we foregathered with Robbie Maut, drucken body, with his Shetland
rig-and-fur hose on, and his green umbrella in his hand, shug-shugging
away home, keeping the trot, with his tale, and his bit arm shak-shaking
at his tae side, on his grey sheltie; so, after carhailing him, we
bragged him to a race full gallop for better than a mile to the toll.
The damage we did I dare not pretend to recollect. First, we knocked
over two drunk Irishmen, that were singing "Erin-go-Bragh,"
arm-in-arm--syne we rode over the top of an old woman with a wheelbarrow
of cabbages--and when we came to the toll, which was kept by a fat man
with a red waistcoat, Robbie's pony, being, like all Highlanders, a
wilful creature, stopped all at once; and though he won the half mutchkin
by getting through first, after driving over the tollman, it was at the
expense of poor Robbie's being ejected from his stirrups like a
battering-ram, and disappearing head-foremost through the toll-house
window, which was open, hat, wig, green umbrella, and all--the tollman's
wife's bairn making a providential escape from Robbie's landing on
all-fours, more than two yards on the far-side of the cradle in which it
was lying asleep, with its little flannel nightgown on.
At the time, all was war and rebellion with the tollman, assault and
battery, damages, broken panes, and what not; but with skilful
management, and a few words in the private ear of Mr Rory Sneckdrawer,
the penny-writer, we got matters southered up when we were in our sober
senses; though I shall not say how much it cost us both in preaching and
pocket, to make the man keep a calm sough as to bringing us in for the
penalty, which would have been deadly. I think black-burning shame of
myself to make mention of such ploys and pliskies; but, after all, it is
better to make a clean breast.
Hame at last we got, making fire flee out of the Dalkeith causey stones
like mad: and we arrived at our own door between nine and ten at night,
still in a half-seas-overish state. I had, nevertheless, sense enough
about me remaining, to make me aware that the best place for me would be
my bed; so, after making Nanse bring the bottle and glass to the door on
a server, to give Peter Farrel a dram by way of "doch-an-dorris," as the
Gaelic folk say, we wished him a good-night, and left him to drive home
the bit gig, with the broken shaft spliced with ropes, to his own bounds;
little jealousing, as we heard next morning, that he would be thrown over
the back of it, without being hurt, by taking too sharp a turn at the
corner.
After a tremendous sound sleep, I was up betimes in the morning, though a
wee drumly about the head, anxious to enquire at Tammie Bodkin, the head
of the business department, me being absent, if any extraordinars had
occurred on the yesterday; and found that the only particular customer
making enquiries anent me was our old friend Cursecowl, savage for the
measure of a killing-coat, which he wanted made as fast as directly.
Though dreadfully angry at finding me from home, and unco swithering at
first, he at length, after a volley of oaths enough to have opened a
stone wall, allowed Tammie Bodkin to take his inches; but, as he swore
and went on havering and speaking nonsense all the time, Tammie's hand
shook, partly through fear, and partly through anxiety; and if he went
wrong in making a nick in the paper here and there in a wrong place, it
was no more than might have been looked for, from his fright and
inexperience.
In the twinkle of an eyelid, I saw that there was some mortal mistake in
the measurement; as, unless Cursecowl had lost beef at no allowance, I
knew, judging from the past, that it would not peep on his corpus by four
inches. The matter was, however, now past all earthly remede, and there
was nothing to be done but trusting to good fortune, and allowing the
killing-coat to take its chance in the world. How the thing happened, I
have bothered and beat my brains to no purpose to make out, and it
remains a wonderful mystery to me to this blessed day; but, by long
thought on the subject, both when awake and in my bed, and by
multifarious cross-questionings at Tammie's self concerning the paper
measurings, I am devoutly inclined to think, that he mistook the nicking
of the side-seams and the shoulder-strap for the girth of the belly-band.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE--ON CATCHING A TARTAR--CURSECOWL
From the first moment I clapped eye on the caricature thing of a coat,
that Tammie Bodkin had, in my absence, shaped out for Cursecowl the
butcher, I foresaw, in my own mind, that a catastrophe was brewing for
us; and never did soldier gird himself to fight the French, or sailor
prepare for a sea-storm, with greater alacrity, than I did to cope with
the bull-dog anger, and buffet back the uproarious vengeance of our
heathenish customer.
At first I thought of letting the thing take its natural course, and of
threaping down Cursecowl's throat that he must have been feloniously
keeping in his breath when Tammie took his measure; and, moreover, that
as it was the fashion to be straight-laced, Tammie had done his utmost
trying to make him look like his betters; till, my conscience checking me
for such a nefarious intention, I endeavoured, as became me in the
relations of man, merchant, and Christian, to solder the matter
peaceably, and show him, if there was a fault committed, that there was
no evil intention on my side of the house. To this end I dispatched the
bit servant wench, on the Friday afternoon, to deliver the coat, which
was neatly tied up in a brown paper, and directed--"Mr Cursecowl, with
care," and to buy a sheep's head; bidding her, by the way of being civil,
give my kind compliments, and enquire how Mr and Mrs Cursecowl, and the
five little Miss Cursecowl's, were keeping their healths, and trusting to
his honour in sending me a good article. But have a moment's patience.
Being busy at the time, turning a pair of kuttikins for old Mr
Molleypouch the mealmonger, when the lassie came back, I had no mind of
asking a sight of the sheep's head, as I aye like the little blackfaced,
in preference to the white, fat, fozy Cheviot breed: but, most
providentially, I catched a gliskie of the wench passing the shop window,
on the road over to Jamie Coom the smith's, to get it singed, having been
dispatched there by her mistress. Running round the counter like
lightning, I opened the sneck, and halooed to her to wheel to the right
about, having, somehow or other, a superstitious longing to look at the
article. As I was saying, there was a Providence in this, which, at the
time, mortal man could never have thought of.
James Batter had popped in with a newspaper in his hand, to read me a
curious account of a mermaid, that was seen singing a Gaelic song, and
combing its hair with a tortoise-shell comb, someway terrible far north
about Shetland, by a respectable minister of the district, riding home in
the gloaming after a presbytery dinner. So, as he was just taking off
his spectacles cannily, and saying to me--"And was not that droll?"--the
lassie spread down her towel on the counter, when, lo and behold! such an
abominable spectacle, James Batter observing me run back, and turn white!
put on his glasses again, cannily taking them out of his well-worn
shagreen case, and, giving a stare down at the towel, almost touched the
beast's nose with his own.
"And what, in the name of goodness, is the matter?" quo' James Batter;
"ye seem in a wonderful quandary."
"The matter!" answered I, in astonishment; looking to see if the man had
lost his sight or his senses--"the matter! who ever saw a sheep's head
with straight horns, and a visnomy all colours of the rainbow--red, blue,
orange, green, yellow, white, and black?"
'"Deed it is," said James, after a nearer inspection; "it must be a
lowsy-naturay. I'm sure I have read most of Buffon's books, and I have
never heard tell of like. It's gey an' queerish."
'"Od, James," answered I, "ye take every thing very canny; you're a
philosopher, to be sure; but, I daresay, if the moon was to fall from the
lift, and knock down the old kirk, ye would say no more than it's gey an'
queerish!"
"Queerish, man! do ye not see that?" added I, shoving down his head
mostly on the top of it. "Do ye not see that? awful, most awful!
extonishing!! Do ye not see that long beard? Who, in the name of
goodness, ever was an eyewitness to a sheep's head, in a Christian land,
with a beard like an unshaven Jew crying 'owl clowes,' with a green bag
over his left shoulder!"
"Dog on it," said James, giving a fidge with his hainches; "Dog on it, as
I am a living sinner, that is the head of a Willie-goat."
"Willie or Nannie," answered I, "it's not meat for me; and never shall an
ounce of it cross the craig of my family:--that is as sure as ever James
Batter drave a shuttle. Give counsel in need, James: what is to be
done?"