YEAR 1763
THE An. Dom. 1763, was, in many a respect, a memorable year, both in
public and in private. The King granted peace to the French, and Charlie
Malcolm, that went to sea in the Tobacco trader, came home to see his
mother. The ship, after being at America, had gone down to Jamaica, an
island in the West Indies, with a cargo of live lumber, as Charlie told
me himself, and had come home with more than a hundred and fifty hoggits
of sugar, and sixty-three puncheons full of rum; for she was, by all
accounts, a stately galley, and almost two hundred tons in the burthen,
being the largest vessel then sailing from the creditable town of
Port-Glasgow. Charlie was not expected; and his coming was a great thing
to us all, so I will mention the whole particulars.
One evening, towards the gloaming, as I was taking my walk of meditation,
I saw a brisk sailor laddie coming towards me. He had a pretty green
parrot sitting on a bundle, tied in a Barcelona silk handkerchief, which
he carried with a stick over his shoulder, and in this bundle was a
wonderful big nut, such as no one in our parish had ever seen. It was
called a cocker-nut. This blithe callant was Charlie Malcolm, who had
come all the way that day his leeful lane, on his own legs from Greenock,
where the Tobacco trader was then ’livering her cargo. I told him how
his mother, and his brothers, and his sisters were all in good health,
and went to convoy him home; and as we were going along, he told me many
curious things, and he gave me six beautiful yellow limes, that he had
brought in his pouch all the way across the seas, for me to make a bowl
of punch with, and I thought more of them than if they had been golden
guineas, it was so mindful of the laddie.
When we got to the door of his mother’s house, she was sitting at the
fireside, with her three other bairns at their bread and milk, Kate being
then with Lady Skimmilk, at the Breadland, sewing. It was between the
day and dark, when the shuttle stands still till the lamp is lighted.
But such a shout of joy and thankfulness as rose from that hearth, when
Charlie went in! The very parrot, ye would have thought, was a
participator, for the beast gied a skraik that made my whole head dirl;
and the neighbours came flying and flocking to see what was the matter,
for it was the first parrot ever seen within the bounds of the parish,
and some thought it was but a foreign hawk, with a yellow head and green
feathers.
In the midst of all this, Effie Malcolm had run off to the Breadland for
her sister Kate, and the two lassies came flying breathless, with Miss
Girzie Gilchrist, the Lady Skimmilk, pursuing them like desperation, or a
griffin, down the avenue; for Kate, in her hurry, had flung down her
seam, a new printed gown, that she was helping to make, and it had fallen
into a boyne of milk that was ready for the creaming, by which issued a
double misfortune to Miss Girzie, the gown being not only ruined, but
licking up the cream. For this, poor Kate was not allowed ever to set
her face in the Breadland again.
When Charlie Malcolm had stayed about a week with his mother, he returned
to his berth in the Tobacco trader, and shortly after his brother Robert
was likewise sent to serve his time to the sea, with an owner that was
master of his own bark, in the coal trade at Irville. Kate, who was
really a surprising lassie for her years, was taken off her mother’s
hands by the old Lady Macadam, that lived in her jointure house, which is
now the Cross Keys Inn. Her ladyship was a woman of high breeding, her
husband having been a great general, and knighted by the king for his
exploits; but she was lame, and could not move about in her dining-room
without help; so hearing from the first Mrs. Balwhidder how Kate had done
such an unatonable deed to Miss Girzie Gilchrist, she sent for Kate, and,
finding her sharp and apt, she took her to live with her as a companion.
This was a vast advantage, for the lady was versed in all manner of
accomplishments, and could read and speak French with more ease than any
professor at that time in the College of Glasgow; and she had learnt to
sew flowers on satin, either in a nunnery abroad, or in a boarding-school
in England, and took pleasure in teaching Kate all she knew, and how to
behave herself like a lady.
In the summer of this year, old Mr. Patrick Dilworth, that had so long
been doited with the paralytics, died, and it was a great relief to my
people, for the heritors could no longer refuse to get a proper
schoolmaster; so we took on trial Mr. Lorimore, who has ever since the
year after, with so much credit to himself, and usefulness to the parish,
been schoolmaster, session clerk, and precentor—a man of great mildness
and extraordinary particularity. He was then a very young man, and some
objection was made, on account of his youth, to his being session-clerk,
especially as the smuggling immorality still gave us much trouble in the
making up of irregular marriages; but his discretion was greater than
could have been hoped for from his years; and, after a twelvemonth’s
probation in the capacity of schoolmaster, he was installed in all the
offices that had belonged to his predecessor, old Mr. Patrick Dilworth
that was.
But the most memorable thing that befell among my people this year, was
the burning of the lint-mill on the Lugton water, which happened, of all
the days of the year, on the very selfsame day that Miss Girzie
Gilchrist, better known as Lady Skimmilk, hired the chaise from Mrs.
Watts of the New Inns of Irville, to go with her brother, the major, to
consult the faculty in Edinburgh concerning his complaints. For, as the
chaise was coming by the mill, William Huckle, the miller that was, came
flying out of the mill like a demented man, crying fire!—and it was the
driver that brought the melancholy tidings to the clachan—and melancholy
they were; for the mill was utterly destroyed, and in it not a little of
all that year’s crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder
lost upwards of twelve stone, which we had raised on the glebe with no
small pains, watering it in the drouth, as it was intended for sarking to
ourselves, and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it was, and the
vexation thereof had a visible effect on Mrs. Balwhidder’s health, which
from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I think she might
have wrestled through the winter: however, it was ordered otherwise, and
she was removed from mine to Abraham’s bosom on Christmas-day, and buried
on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the
house on the new-year’s day. She was a worthy woman, studying with all
her capacity to win the hearts of my people towards me—in the which good
work she prospered greatly; so that, when she died, there was not a
single soul in the parish that was not contented with both my walk and
conversation. Nothing could be more peaceable than the way we lived
together. Her brother Andrew, a fine lad, I had sent to the college at
Glasgow, at my own cost; and when he came out to the burial, he stayed
with me a month, for the manse after her decease was very dull, and it
was during this visit that he gave me an inkling of his wish to go out to
India as a cadet, but the transactions anent that fall within the scope
of another year—as well as what relates to her headstone, and the epitaph
in metre, which I indicated myself thereon; John Truel the mason carving
the same, as may be seen in the kirkyard, where it wants a little
reparation and setting upright, having settled the wrong way when the
second Mrs. Balwhidder was laid by her side.—But I must not here enter
upon an anticipation.