YEAR 1789
THIS I have always reflected upon as one of our blessed years. It was
not remarkable for any extraordinary occurrence; but there was a
hopefulness in the minds of men, and a planning of new undertakings, of
which, whatever may be the upshot, the devising is ever rich in the
cheerful anticipations of good.
Another new line of road was planned, for a shorter cut to the
cotton-mill, from the main road to Glasgow, and a public-house was opened
in Cayenneville: the latter, however, was not an event that gave me much
satisfaction; but it was a convenience to the inhabitants, and the
carriers that brought the cotton-bags and took away the yarn twice
a-week, needed a place of refreshment. And there was a stage-coach set
up thrice every week from Ayr, that passed through the town, by which it
was possible to travel to Glasgow between breakfast and dinner time, a
thing that could not, when I came to the parish, have been thought within
the compass of man.
This stage-coach I thought one of the greatest conveniences that had been
established among us; and it enabled Mrs. Balwhidder to send a basket of
her fresh butter into the Glasgow market, by which, in the spring and the
fall of the year, she got a great price; for the Glasgow merchants are
fond of excellent eatables, and the payment was aye ready money—Tam
Whirlit the driver paying for the one basket when he took up the other.
In this year William Malcolm, the youngest son of the widow, having been
some time a tutor in a family in the east country, came to see his
mother, as indeed he had done every year from the time he went to the
college; but this occasion was made remarkable by his preaching in my
pulpit. His old acquaintance were curious to hear him; and I myself had
a sort of a wish likewise, being desirous to know how far he was
orthodox; so I thought fit, on the suggestion of one of the elders, to
ask him to preach one day for me, which, after some fleeching, he
consented to do. I think, however, there was a true modesty in his
diffidence, although his reason was a weak one, being lest he might not
satisfy his mother, who had as yet never heard him. Accordingly, on the
Sabbath after, he did preach, and the kirk was well packed, and I was not
one of the least attentive of the congregation. His sermon assuredly was
well put together and there was nothing to object to in his doctrine; but
the elderly people thought his language rather too Englified, which I
thought likewise; for I never could abide that the plain auld Kirk of
Scotland, with her sober presbyterian simplicity, should borrow, either
in word or in deed, from the language of the prelatic hierarchy of
England. Nevertheless, the younger part of the congregation were loud in
his praise, saying, there had not been heard before such a style of
language in our side of the country. As for Mrs. Malcolm, his mother,
when I spoke to her anent the same, she said but little, expressing only
her hope that his example would be worthy of his precepts; so that, upon
the whole, it was a satisfaction to us all, that he was likely to prove a
stoop and upholding pillar to the Kirk of Scotland. And his mother had
the satisfaction, before she died, to see him a placed minister, and his
name among the authors of his country; for he published at Edinburgh a
volume of Moral Essays, of which he sent me a pretty bound copy, and they
were greatly creditable to his pen, though lacking somewhat of that birr
and smeddum that is the juice and flavour of books of that sort.