YEAR 1796
THE prosperity of fortune is like the blossoms of spring, or the golden
hue of the evening cloud. It delighteth the spirit, and passeth away.
In the month of February my second wife was gathered to the Lord. She
had been very ill for some time with an income in her side, which no
medicine could remove. I had the best doctors in the country side to
her; but their skill was of no avail, their opinions being that her ail
was caused by an internal abscess, for which physic has provided no cure.
Her death was to me a great sorrow; for she was a most excellent wife,
industrious to a degree, and managed every thing with so brisk a hand,
that nothing went wrong that she put it to. With her I had grown richer
than any other minister in the presbytery; but, above all, she was the
mother of my bairns, which gave her a double claim upon me.
I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, my own cousin
that was, and I inscribed her name upon the same headstone; but time had
drained my poetical vein, and I have not yet been able to indite an
epitaph on her merits and virtues, for she had an eminent share of both.
Her greatest fault—the best have their faults—was an over-earnestness to
gather gear; in the doing of which I thought she sometimes sacrificed the
comforts of a pleasant fireside; for she was never in her element but
when she was keeping the servants eident at their work. But, if by this
she subtracted something from the quietude that was most consonant to my
nature, she has left cause, both in bank and bond, for me and her bairns
to bless her great household activity.
She was not long deposited in her place of rest till I had occasion to
find her loss. All my things were kept by her in a most perjink and
excellent order; but they soon fell into an amazing confusion; for, as
she often said to me, I had a turn for heedlessness; insomuch, that
although my daughter Janet was grown up, and able to keep the house, I
saw that it would be necessary, as soon as decency would allow, for me to
take another wife. I was moved to this chiefly by foreseeing that my
daughter would in time be married, and taken away from me, but more on
account of the servant lasses, who grew out of all bounds, verifying the
proverb, “Well kens the mouse when the cat’s out of the house.” Besides
this, I was now far down in the vale of years, and could not expect to be
long without feeling some of the penalties of old age, although I was
still a hail and sound man. It therefore behoved me to look in time for
a helpmate, to tend me in my approaching infirmities.
Upon this important concern I reflected, as I may say, in the watches of
the night; and, considering the circumstances of my situation, I saw it
would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor yet would
it do for one of my ways to take an elderly maiden, ladies of that sort
being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I therefore resolved
that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet age; and I had a
glimmer in my mind of speaking to Mrs. Malcolm; but when I reflected on
the saintly steadiness of her character, I was satisfied it would be of
no use to think of her. Accordingly, I bent my brows, and looked towards
Irville, which is an abundant trone for widows and other single women;
and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relic of a professor in the
university of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman, without
any children to plea about the interest of my own two, and likewise
because she was held in great estimation by all who knew her, as a lady
of a Christian principle.
It was some time in the summer, however, before I made up my mind to
speak to her on the subject; but one afternoon, in the month of August, I
resolved to do so, and with that intent walked leisurely over to Irville;
and after calling on the Rev. Dr. Dinwiddie, the minister, I stepped in,
as if by chance, to Mrs. Nugent’s. I could see that she was a little
surprised at my visit; however, she treated me with every possible
civility, and her servant lass bringing in the tea-things in a most
orderly manner, as punctually as the clock was striking, she invited me
to sit still, and drink my tea with her; which I did, being none
displeased to get such encouragement. However, I said nothing that time,
but returned to the manse, very well content with what I had observed,
which made me fain to repeat my visit. So, in the course of the week,
taking Janet my daughter with me, we walked over in the forenoon, and
called at Mrs. Nugent’s first, before going to any other house; and Janet
saying, as we came out to go to the minister’s, that she thought Mrs.
Nugent an agreeable woman, I determined to knock the nail on the head
without further delay.
Accordingly, I invited the minister and his wife to dine with us on the
Thursday following; and before leaving the town, I made Janet, while the
minister and me were handling a subject, as a sort of thing in common
civility, go to Mrs. Nugent, and invite her also. Dr. Dinwiddie was a
gleg man, of a jocose nature; and he, guessing something of what I was
ettling at, was very mirthful with me; but I kept my own counsel till a
meet season.
On the Thursday, the company as invited came, and nothing extraordinary
was seen; but in cutting up and helping a hen, Dr. Dinwiddie put one wing
on Mrs. Nugent’s plate, and the other wing on my plate, and said, there
have been greater miracles than these two wings flying together, which
was a sharp joke, that caused no little merriment at the expense of Mrs.
Nugent and me. I, however, to show that I was none daunted, laid a leg
also on her plate, and took another on my own, saying, in the words of
the reverend doctor, there have been greater miracles than that these two
legs should lie in the same nest, which was thought a very clever come
off; and, at the same time, I gave Mrs. Nugent a kindly nip on her sonsy
arm, which was breaking the ice in as pleasant a way as could be. In
short, before anything passed between ourselves on the subject, we were
set down for a trysted pair; and this being the case, we were married as
soon as a twelvemonth and a day had passed from the death of the second
Mrs. Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.
It is, however, but a piece of justice due to my second wife to say, that
this was not a little owing to her good management; for she had left such
a well-plenished house, that her successor said, we had nothing to do but
to contribute to one another’s happiness.
In this year nothing more memorable happened in the parish, saving that
the cotton-mill dam burst about the time of the Lammas flood, and the
waters went forth like a deluge of destruction, carrying off much
victual, and causing a vast of damage to the mills that are lower down
the stream. It was just a prodigy to see how calmly Mr. Cayenne acted on
that occasion; for, being at other times as crabbed as a wud terrier,
folk were afraid to tell him, till he came out himself in the morning and
saw the devastation; at the sight of which he gave only a shrill whistle,
and began to laugh at the idea of the men fearing to take him the news,
as if he had not fortune and philosophy enough, as he called it, to
withstand much greater misfortunes.
[Picture: The Weaver]