YEAR 1771
IT was in this year that my troubles with Lady Macadam’s affair began.
She was a woman, as I have by hint here and there intimated, of a
prelatic disposition, seeking all things her own way, and not overly
scrupulous about the means, which I take to be the true humour of
prelacy. She was come of a high episcopal race in the east country,
where sound doctrine had been long but little heard, and she considered
the comely humility of a presbyter as the wickedness of hypocrisy; so
that, saving in the way of neighbourly visitation, there was no sincere
communion between us. Nevertheless, with all her vagaries, she had the
element of a kindly spirit, that would sometimes kythe in actions of
charity, that showed symptoms of a true Christian grace, had it been
properly cultivated; but her morals had been greatly neglected in her
youth, and she would waste her precious time in the long winter nights,
playing at the cards with her visitors; in the which thriftless and
sinful pastime, she was at great pains to instruct Kate Malcolm, which I
was grieved to understand. What, however, I most misliked in her
ladyship, was a lightness and juvenility of behaviour altogether
unbecoming her years; for she was far past three-score, having been long
married without children. Her son, the soldier officer, came so late,
that it was thought she would have been taken up as an evidence in the
Douglas cause. She was, to be sure, crippled with the rheumatics, and no
doubt the time hung heavy on her hands; but the best friends of
recreation and sport must allow, that an old woman, sitting whole hours
jingling with that paralytic chattel a spinnet, was not a natural object!
What, then, could be said for her singing Italian songs, and getting all
the newest from Vauxhall in London, a boxful at a time, with new
novel-books, and trinkum-trankum flowers and feathers, and sweetmeats,
sent to her by a lady of the blood royal of Paris? As for the music, she
was at great pains to instruct Kate, which, with the other things she
taught, were sufficient, as my lady said herself, to qualify poor Kate
for a duchess or a governess, in either of which capacities, her ladyship
assured Mrs. Malcolm, she would do honour to her instructor, meaning her
own self; but I must come to the point anent the affair.
One evening, early in the month of January, as I was sitting by myself in
my closet studying the _Scots Magazine_, which I well remember the new
number had come but that very night, Mrs. Balwhidder being at the time
busy with the lasses in the kitchen, and superintending, as her custom
was, for she was a clever woman, a great wool-spinning we then had, both
little wheel and meikle wheel, for stockings and blankets—sitting, as I
was saying, in the study, with the fire well gathered up, for a night’s
reflection, a prodigious knocking came to the door, by which the book was
almost startled out of my hand, and all the wheels in the house were
silenced at once. This was her ladyship’s flunkey, to beg me to go to
her, whom he described as in a state of desperation. Christianity
required that I should obey the summons; so, with what haste I could,
thinking that perhaps, as she had been low-spirited for some time about
the young laird’s going to the Indies, she might have got a cast of
grace, and been wakened in despair to the state of darkness in which she
had so long lived, I made as few steps of the road between the manse and
her house as it was in my ability to do.
On reaching the door, I found a great light in the house—candles burning
up stairs and down stairs, and a sough of something extraordinar going
on. I went into the dining-room, where her ladyship was wont to sit; but
she was not there—only Kate Malcolm all alone, busily picking bits of
paper from the carpet. When she looked up, I saw that her eyes were red
with weeping, and I was alarmed, and said, “Katy, my dear, I hope there
is no danger?” Upon which the poor lassie rose, and, flinging herself in
a chair, covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly.
“What is the old fool doing with the wench?” cried a sharp angry voice
from the drawing-room—“why does not he come to me?” It was the voice of
Lady Macadam herself, and she meant me. So I went to her; but, oh! she
was in a far different state from what I had hoped. The pride of this
world had got the upper hand of her, and was playing dreadful antics with
understanding. There was she, painted like a Jezebel, with gum-flowers
on her head, as was her custom every afternoon, sitting on a settee, for
she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter. “Sir,” said she, as I
came into the room, “I want you to go instantly to that young fellow,
your clerk, (meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, who was likewise
session-clerk and precentor,) and tell him I will give him a couple of
hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay, and undertake to
procure him a living from some of my friends.”
“Softly, my lady, you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste of
kindness,” said I, in my calm methodical manner. At the which she began
to cry and sob, like a petted bairn, and to bewail her ruin, and the
dishonour of her family. I was surprised, and beginning to be
confounded; at length out it came. The flunkey had that night brought
two London letters from the Irville post, and Kate Malcolm being out of
the way when he came home, he took them both in to her ladyship on the
silver server, as was his custom; and her ladyship, not jealousing that
Kate could have a correspondence with London, thought both the letters
were for herself, for they were franked; so, as it happened, she opened
the one that was for Kate, and this, too, from the young laird, her own
son. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the first words in his
hand of write; and she read, and she better read, till she read all the
letter, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling were trysted,
and that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between
them. She, therefore, tore it in pieces, and sent for me, and screamed
for Kate; in short, went, as it were, off at the head, and was neither to
bind nor to hold on account of this intrigue, as she, in her wrath,
stigmatised the innocent gallanting of poor Kate and the young laird.
I listened in patience to all she had to say anent the discovery, and
offered her the very best advice; but she derided my judgment; and
because I would not speak outright to Mr. Lorimore, and get him to marry
Kate off hand, she bade me good-night with an air, and sent for him
herself. He, however, was on the brink of marriage with his present
worthy helpmate, and declined her ladyship’s proposals, which angered her
still more. But although there was surely a great lack of discretion in
all this, and her ladyship was entirely overcome with her passion, she
would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house with me, but
made her sup with her as usual that night, calling her sometimes a
perfidious baggage, and at other times, forgetting her delirium, speaking
to her as kindly as ever. At night, Kate as usual helped her ladyship
into her bed, (this she told me with tears in her eyes next morning;) and
when Lady Macadam, as was her wont, bent to kiss her for good-night, she
suddenly recollected “the intrigue,” and gave Kate such a slap on the
side of the head, as quite dislocated for a time the intellects of the
poor young lassie. Next morning, Kate was solemnly advised never to
write again to the laird, while the lady wrote him a letter, which, she
said, would be as good as a birch to the breech of the boy. Nothing,
therefore, for some time, indeed, throughout the year, came of the
matter; but her ladyship, when Mrs. Balwhidder soon after called on her,
said that I was a nose-of-wax, and that she never would speak to me
again, which surely was not a polite thing to say to Mrs. Balwhidder, my
second wife.
This stramash was the first time I had interposed in the family concerns
of my people; for it was against my nature to make or meddle with private
actions saving only such as in course of nature came before the session;
but I was not satisfied with the principles of Lady Macadam, and I began
to be weary about Kate Malcolm’s situation with her ladyship, whose ways
of thinking I saw were not to be depended on, especially in those things
wherein her pride and vanity were concerned. But the time ran on—the
butterflies and the blossoms were succeeded by the leaves and the fruit,
and nothing of a particular nature farther molested the general
tranquillity of this year; about the end of which, there came on a sudden
frost, after a tack of wet weather. The roads were just a sheet of ice,
like a frozen river; insomuch that the coal-carts could not work; and one
of our cows, (Mrs. Balwhidder said, after the accident, it was our best;
but it was not so much thought of before,) fell in coming from the glebe
to the byre, and broke its two hinder legs, which obligated us to kill
it, in order to put the beast out of pain. As this happened after we had
salted our mart, it occasioned us to have a double crop of puddings, and
such a show of hams in the kitchen, as was a marvel to our visitors to
see.