YEAR 1784
I HAVE ever thought that this was a bright year, truly an Ann. Dom., for
in it many of the lads came home that had listed to be soldiers; and Mr.
Howard, that was the midshipman, being now a captain of a man-of-war,
came down from England and married Effie Malcolm, and took her up with
him to London, where she wrote to her mother, that she found his family
people of great note, and more kind to her than she could write. By this
time, also, Major Macadam was made a colonel, and lived with his lady in
Edinburgh, where they were much respected by the genteeler classes, Mrs.
Macadam being considered a great unco among them for all manner of
ladylike ornaments, she having been taught every sort of perfection in
that way by the old lady, who was educated at the court of France, and
was, from her birth, a person of quality. In this year, also, Captain
Malcolm, her brother, married a daughter of a Glasgow merchant, so that
Mrs. Malcolm, in her declining years, had the prospect of a bright
setting; but nothing could change the sober Christianity of her settled
mind; and although she was strongly invited, both by the Macadams and the
Howards, to see their felicity, she ever declined the same, saying—“No!
I have been long out of the world, or rather, I have never been in it; my
ways are not as theirs; and although I ken their hearts would be glad to
be kind to me, I might fash their servants, or their friends might think
me unlike other folk, by which, instead of causing pleasure,
mortification might ensue; so I will remain in my own house, trusting
that, when they can spare the time, they will come and see me.”
There was a spirit of true wisdom in this resolution, for it required a
forbearance that in weaker minds would have relaxed; but though a person
of a most slender and delicate frame of body, she was a Judith in
fortitude; and in all the fortune that seemed now smiling upon her, she
never was lifted up, but bore always that pale and meek look, which gave
a saintliness to her endeavours in the days of her suffering and poverty.
But when we enjoy most, we have least to tell. I look back on this year
as on a sunny spot in the valley, amidst the shadows of the clouds of
time; and I have nothing to record, save the remembrance of welcomings
and weddings, and a meeting of bairns and parents, that the wars and the
waters had long raged between. Contentment within the bosom, lent a
livelier grace to the countenance of Nature; and everybody said, that in
this year the hedges were greener than common, the gowans brighter on the
brae, and the heads of the statelier trees adorned with a richer coronal
of leaves and blossoms. All things were animated with the gladness of
thankfulness, and testified to the goodness of their Maker.