YEAR 1787
THERE had been, as I have frequently observed, a visible improvement
going on in the parish. From the time of the making of the toll-road,
every new house that was built in the clachan was built along that road.
Among other changes hereby caused, the Lady Macadam’s jointure-house that
was, which stood in a pleasant parterre, inclosed within a stone wall and
an iron gate, having a pillar with a pineapple head on each side, came to
be in the middle of the town. While Mr. Cayenne inhabited the same, it
was maintained in good order; but on his flitting to his own new house on
the Wheatrigs, the parterre was soon overrun with weeds, and it began to
wear the look of a waste place. Robert Toddy, who then kept the
change-house, and who had, from the lady’s death, rented the coach-house
for stabling, in this juncture thought of it for an inn; so he set his
own house to Thomas Treddles the weaver, whose son, William, is now the
great Glasgow manufacturer, that has cotton-mills and steam-engines, and
took, “the Place,” as it was called, and had a fine sign, THE CROSS-KEYS,
painted and put up in golden characters, by which it became one of the
most noted inns anywhere to be seen; and the civility of Mrs. Toddy was
commended by all strangers. But although this transmutation from a
change-house to an inn was a vast amendment, in a manner, to the parish,
there was little amendment of manners thereby; for the farmer lads began
to hold dancings and other riotous proceedings there, and to bring, as it
were, the evil practices of towns into the heart of the country. All
sort of licence was allowed as to drink and hours; and the edifying
example of Mr. Mutchkins and his pious family, was no longer held up to
the imitation of the wayfaring man.
Saving the mutation of “the Place” into an inn, nothing very remarkable
happened in this year. We got into our new manse about the middle of
March; but it was rather damp, being new plastered, and it caused me to
have a severe attack of the rheumatics in the fall of the year.
I should not, in my notations, forget to mark a new luxury that got in
among the commonality at this time. By the opening of new roads, and the
traffic thereon with carts and carriers, and by our young men that were
sailors going to the Clyde, and sailing to Jamaica and the West Indies,
heaps of sugar and coffee-beans were brought home, while many, among the
kail-stocks and cabbages in their yards, had planted groset and berry
bushes; which two things happening together, the fashion to make jam and
jelly, which hitherto had been only known in the kitchens and
confectionaries of the gentry, came to be introduced into the clachan.
All this, however, was not without a plausible pretext; for it was found
that jelly was an excellent medicine for a sore throat, and jam a remedy
as good as London candy for a cough, or a cold, or a shortness of breath.
I could not, however, say that this gave me so much concern as the
smuggling trade, only it occasioned a great fasherie to Mrs. Balwhidder;
for, in the berry time, there was no end to the borrowing of her
brass-pan to make jelly and jam, till Mrs. Toddy of the Cross-Keys bought
one, which, in its turn, came into request, and saved ours.
It was in the Martinmas quarter of this year that I got the first payment
of my augmentation. Having no desire to rip up old sores, I shall say no
more anent it, the worst being anticipated in my chronicle of the last
year; but there was a thing happened in the payment that occasioned a
vexation at the time, of a very disagreeable nature. Daft Meg Gaffaw,
who, from the tragical death of her mother, was a privileged subject,
used to come to the manse on the Saturdays for a meal of meat; and so it
fell out that as, by some neglect of mine, no steps had been taken to
regulate the disposal of the victual that constituted the means of the
augmentation, some of the heritors, in an ungracious temper, sent what
they called the tithe-ball (the Lord knows it was not the fiftieth!) to
the manse, where I had no place to put it. This fell out on a Saturday
night, when I was busy with my sermon, thinking not of silver or gold,
but of much better; so that I was greatly molested and disturbed thereby.
Daft Meg, who sat by the kitchen chimley-lug, hearing a’, said nothing
for a time; but when she saw how Mrs. Balwhidder and me were put to, she
cried out with a loud voice, like a soul under the inspiration of
prophecy—“When the widow’s cruse had filled all the vessels in the house,
the Lord stopped the increase. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if your
barns be filled, and your girnell-kists can hold no more, seek till ye
shall find the tume basins of the poor, and therein pour the corn, and
the oil, and the wine of your abundance; so shall ye be blessed of the
Lord.” The which words I took for an admonition, and directing the sacks
to be brought into the dining-room and other chambers of the manse, I
sent off the heritors’ servants, that had done me this prejudice, with an
unexpected thankfulness. But this, as I afterwards was informed, both
them and their masters attributed to the greedy grasp of avarice, with
which they considered me as misled; and having said so, nothing could
exceed their mortification on Monday, when they heard (for they were of
those who had deserted the kirk) that I had given by the precentor notice
to every widow in the parish that was in need, to come to the manse and
she would receive her portion of the partitioning of the augmentation.
Thus, without any offence on my part, saving the strictness of justice,
was a division made between me and the heritors; but the people were with
me; and my own conscience was with me; and though the fronts of the lofts
and the pews of the heritors were but thinly filled, I trusted that a
good time was coming, when the gentry would see the error of their way.
So I bent the head of resignation to the Lord, and, assisted by the
wisdom of Mr. Kibbock, adhered to the course I had adopted; but at the
close of the year my heart was sorrowful for the schism; and my prayer on
Hogmanay was one of great bitterness of soul, that such an evil had come
to pass.