As my grandfather came in sight of Kilwinning, and beheld the abbey with
its lofty horned towers and spiky pinnacles and the sands of Cunningham
between it and the sea, it seemed to him as if a huge leviathan had come
up from the depths of the ocean and was devouring the green inland,
having already consumed all the herbage of the wide waste that lay so
bare and yellow for many a mile, desert, and lonely in the silent
sunshine, and he ejaculated to himself that the frugal soil of poor
Scotland could ne'er have been designed to pasture such enormities.
As he rode on, his path descended from the heights into pleasant tracks
along banks feathered with the fragrant plumage of the birch and hazel,
and he forgot, in hearkening to the cheerful prattle of the Garnock
waters, as they swirled among the pebbles by the roadside, the
pageantries of that mere bodily worship which had worked on the
ignorance of the world to raise such costly monuments of the
long-suffering patience of Heaven, while they showed how much the divine
nature of the infinite God and the humility of His eternal Son had been
forgotten in this land among professing Christians.
When he came nigh the town he inquired for an hostel, and a stripling,
the miller's son, who was throwing stones at a flock of geese belonging
to the abbey, then taking their pleasures uninvited in his father's
mill-dam, guided him to the house of Theophilus Lugton, the chief
vintner, horse-setter and stabler in the town, where, on alighting, he
was very kindly received; for the gudewife was of a stirring, household
nature, and Theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a
publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in
his trade but from a disinterested good-will. He was, indeed, as my
grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great
respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the
abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of Irvine, the most
regular of his customers. For they being then in the darkness of
papistry, were as much given to the idolatry of holidays and masses as,
thanks be and praise! they are now to the hunting out of sound gospel
preachers and sacramental occasions. Many a stoup of burnt wine and
spiced ale they were wont at Pace and Yule and other papistal high times
to partake of together in the house of Theophilus Lugton, happy and well
content when their possets were flavoured with the ghostly conversation
of some gawsie monk well versed in the mysteries of requiems and
purgatory.
Having parted with his horse to be taken to the stable by Theophilus
himself, my grandfather walked into the house, and Dame Lugton set for
him an elbow-chair by the chimla lug, and while she was preparing
something for a repast they fell into conversation, in the course of
which she informed him that a messenger had come to the abbey that
forenoon from Edinburgh, and a rumour had been bruited about soon after
his arrival that there was great cause to dread a rising among the
heretics, for, being ingrained with papistry, she so spoke of the
Reformers.
This news troubled my grandfather not a little, and the more he inquired
concerning the tidings the more reason he got to be alarmed and to
suspect that the bearer was Winterton, who being still in the town, and
then at the abbey--his horse was in Theophilus Lugton's stable--he could
not but think that in coming to Kilwinning instead of going right on to
Kilmarnock he had run into the lion's mouth. But, seeing it was so, and
could not be helped, he put his trust in the Lord and resolved to swerve
in no point from the straight line which he had laid down for himself.
While he was eating of Dame Lugton's fare with the relishing sauce of a
keen appetite, in a manner that no one who saw him could have supposed
he was almost sick with a surfeit of anxieties, one James Coom, a smith,
came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale, and he, seeing a traveller, said,--
"Thir's sair news! The drouth of cauld iron will be slockened in men's
blood ere we hear the end o't."
"'Deed," replied my grandfather, "it's very alarming; Lucky, here, has
just been telling me that there's likely to be a straemash among the
Reformers. Surely they'll ne'er daur to rebel."
"If a' tales be true, that's no to do," said the smith, blowing the
froth from the cap in which Dame Lugton handed him the ale, and taking a
right good-willy waught.
"But what's said?" inquired my grandfather, when the smith had fetched
his breath.
"Naebody can weel tell," was his response; "a' that's come this length
is but the sough afore the storm. Within twa hours there has been a
great riding hither and yon, and a lad straight frae Embro' has come to
bid my Lord Abbot repair to the court; and three chiels hae been at me
frae Eglinton Castle to get their beast shod for a journey. My Lord
there is hyte and fykie; there's a gale in his tail, said they, light
where it may. Now, atween oursels, my Lord has na the heart of a true
bairn to that aged and worthy grannie of the papistry, our leddy the
Virgin Mary--here's her health, poor auld deaf and dumb creature--she
has na, I doubt, the pith to warsle wi' the blast she ance in a day
had."
"Haud that heretical tongue o' thine, Jamie Coom," exclaimed Dame
Lugton. "It's enough to gaur a body's hair stand on end to hear o' your
familiarities wi' the Holy Virgin. I won'er my Lord Abbot has na
langsyne tethert thy tongue to the kirk door wi' a red-het nail for sic
blasphemy. But fools are privileged, and so's seen o' thee."
"And wha made me familiar wi' her, Dame Lugton, tell me that?" replied
James; "was na it my Lord himself at last Marymas, when he sent for me
to make a hoop to mend her leg that sklintered aff as they were dressing
her for the show. Eh! little did I think that I was ever to hae the
honour and glory of ca'ing a nail intil the timber hip o' the Virgin
Mary! Ah, Lucky, ye would na hae tholed the dirl o' the dints o' my
hammer as she did. But she's a saint, and ye'll ne'er deny that ye're a
sinner."
To this Dame Lugton was unable to reply, and the smith, cunningly
winking, dippet his head up to the lugs in the ale-cap.
"But," said my grandfather, "no to speak wi' disrespeck of things
considered wi' reverence, it does na seem to me that there is ony cause
to think the Reformers hae yet rebelled."
"I am sure," replied the smith, "if they hae na they ought, or the de'il
a spunk's amang them. Isna a' the monks frae John o' Groat's to the
Border getting ready their spits and rackses, frying-pans and branders
to cook them like capons and doos for Horney's supper? I never hear my
ain bellows snoring at a gaud o' iron in the fire but I think o' fat
Father Lickladle, the abbey's head kitchener, roasting me o'er the low
like a laverock in his collop-tangs; for, as Dame Lugton there weel
kens, I'm ane o' the Reformed. Heh! but it's a braw thing this
Reformation. It used to cost me as muckle siller for the sin o' getting
fu', no aboon three or four times in the year, as would hae kept ony
honest man blithe and ree frae New'erday to Hogmanae; but our worthy
hostess has found to her profit that I'm now ane of her best customers.
What say ye, Lucky?"
"Truly," said Dame Lugton, laughing, "thou's no an ill swatch o' the
Reformers; and naebody need be surprised at the growth o' heresy wha
thinks o' the dreadfu' cost the professors o't used to be at for
pardons. But maybe they'll soon find that the de'il's as hard a taxer as
e'er the kirk was; for ever since thou has refraint frae paying penance,
thy weekly calks ahint the door ha'e been on the increase, Jamie, and no
ae plack has thou mair to spare. So muckle gude thy reforming has done
thee."
"Bide awee, Lucky," cried the smith, setting down the ale-cap which he
had just emptied; "bide awee, and ye'll see a change. Surely it was to
be expecket, considering the spark in my hass, that the first use I
would mak' o' the freedom o' the Reformation would be to quench it,
which I never was allowed to do afore; and whenever that's done, ye'll
see me a geizen't keg o' sobriety, tak the word o' a drouthy smith
for't."
At this jink o' their controversy who should come into the house,
ringing ben to the hearth-stane with his iron heels and the rattling
rowels o' his spurs, but Winterton, without observing my grandfather,
who was then sitting with his back to the window light, in the arm-chair
at the chimla lug; and when he had ordered Dame Lugton to spice him a
drink of her best brewing, he began to joke and jibe with the
blacksmith, the which allowing my grandfather time to compose his wits,
which were in a degree startled. He saw that he could not but be
discovered, so he thought it was best to bring himself out. Accordingly,
in as quiet a manner as he was able to put on, he said to Winterton,--
"I hae a notion that we twa ha'e forgathered no lang sincesyne."
At the sound of these words Winterton gave a loup, as if he had tramped
on something no canny, syne a whirring sort of triumphant whistle, and
then a shout, crying,--
"Ha, ha! tod lowrie! hae I yirded you at last?" But instanter he
recollected himsel', and giving my grandfather a significant look, as if
he wished him no to be particular, he said, "I heard o' you, Gilhaize,
on the road, and I was fain to hae come up wi' you, that we might hae
travelled thegither. Howsever, I lost scent at Glasgow." And then he
continued to haver with him, in his loose and profligate manner, anent
the Glasgow damsels, till the ale was ready, when he pressed my
grandfather to taste, never letting wot how they had slept together in
the same bed; and my grandfather, on his part, was no less circumspect,
for he discerned that Winterton intended to come over him, and he was
resolved to be on his guard.