YEAR 1801
IT is often to me very curious food for meditation, that as the parish
increased in population, there should have been less cause for matter to
record. Things that in former days would have occasioned great discourse
and cogitation, are forgotten with the day in which they happen; and
there is no longer that searching into personalities which was so much in
vogue during the first epoch of my ministry, which I reckon the period
before the American war; nor has there been any such germinal changes
among us, as those which took place in the second epoch, counting
backward from the building of the cotton-mill that gave rise to the town
of Cayenneville. But still we were not, even at this era, of which this
Ann. Dom. is the beginning, without occasional personality, or an event
that deserved to be called a germinal.
Some years before, I had noted among the callans at Mr. Lorimore’s school
a long soople laddie, who, like all bairns that grow fast and tall, had
but little smeddum. He could not be called a dolt, for he was observant
and thoughtful, and giving to asking sagacious questions; but there was a
sleepiness about him, especially in the kirk, and he gave, as the master
said, but little application to his lessons, so that folk thought he
would turn out a sort of gaunt-at-the-door, more mindful of meat than
work. He was, however, a good-natured lad; and, when I was taking my
solitary walks of meditation, I sometimes fell in with him sitting alone
on the brae by the water-side, and sometimes lying on the grass, with his
hands under his head, on the sunny green knolls where Mr. Cylinder, the
English engineer belonging to the cotton-work, has built the bonny house
that he calls Diryhill Cottage. This was when Colin Mavis was a laddie
at the school, and when I spoke to him, I was surprised at the discretion
of his answers; so that gradually I began to think and say, that there
was more about Colin than the neighbours knew. Nothing, however, for
many a day, came out to his advantage; so that his mother, who was by
this time a widow woman, did not well know what to do with him, and folk
pitied her heavy handful of such a droud.
By-and-by, however, it happened that one of the young clerks at the
cotton-mill shattered his right-hand thumb by a gun bursting; and, being
no longer able to write, was sent into the army to be an ensign, which
caused a vacancy in the office; and, through the help of Mr. Cayenne, I
got Colin Mavis into the place, where, to the surprise of everybody, he
proved a wonderful eident and active lad, and, from less to more, has
come at the head of all the clerks, and deep in the confidentials of his
employers. But although this was a great satisfaction to me, and to the
widow woman his mother, it somehow was not so much so to the rest of the
parish, who seemed, as it were, angry that poor Colin had not proved
himself such a dolt as they had expected and foretold.
Among other ways that Colin had of spending his leisure, was that of
playing music on an instrument, in which it was said he made a wonderful
proficiency; but being long and thin, and of a delicate habit of body, he
was obligated to refrain from this recreation; so he betook himself to
books, and from reading he began to try writing; but, as this was done in
a corner, nobody jealoused what he was about, till one evening in this
year he came to the manse, and asked a word in private with me. I
thought that perhaps he had fallen in with a lass, and was come to
consult me anent matrimony; but when we were by ourselves, in my study,
he took out of his pocket a number of the _Scots Magazine_, and said,
“Sir, you have been long pleased to notice me more than any other body,
and when I got this, I could not refrain from bringing it, to let you
see’t. Ye maun ken, sir, that I have been long in secret given to trying
my hand at rhyme; and, wishing to ascertain what others thought of my
power in that way, I sent by the post twa three verses to the _Scots
Magazine_, and they have not only inserted them, but placed them in the
body of the book, in such a way that I kenna what to think.” So I looked
at the Magazine, and read his verses, which were certainly very well-made
verses for one who had no regular education. But I said to him, as the
Greenock magistrates said to John Wilson, the author of “Clyde,” when
they stipulated with him to give up the art, that poem-making was a
profane and unprofitable trade, and he would do well to turn his talent
to something of more solidity, which he promised to do; but he has since
put out a book, whereby he has angered all those that had foretold he
would be a do-nae-gude. Thus has our parish walked sidy for sidy with
all the national improvements, having an author of its own, and getting a
literary character in the ancient and famous republic of letters.