Ha!--'twas but a dream;
But then so terrible, it shakes my soul!
Cold drops of sweat hang on my trembling flesh;
My blood grows chilly, and I freeze with horror.
_Richard the Third_.
The Fire-king one day rather amorous felt;
He mounted his hot copper filly;
His breeches and boots were of tin, and the belt
Was made of cast-iron, for fear it should melt
With the heat of the copper colt's belly.
Oh! then there was glitter and fire in each eye,
For two living coals were the symbols;
His teeth were calcined, and his tongue was so dry,
It rattled against them as though you should try
To play the piano on thimbles.
_Rejected Addresses_.
In the course of a fortnight from the time I parted with Maister Glen,
the Lauder carrier, limping Jamie, brought his callant to our shop-door
in his hand. He was a tall slender laddie, some fourteen years old, and
sore grown away from his clothes. There was something genty and delicate-
like about him, having a pale sharp face, blue eyes, a nose like a
hawk's, and long yellow hair hanging about his haffets, as if barbers
were unco scarce cattle among the howes of the Lammermoor hills. Having
a general experience of human nature, I saw that I would have something
to do towards bringing him into a state of rational civilization; but,
considering his opportunities, he had been well educated, and I liked his
appearance on the whole not that ill.
To divert him a while, as I did not intend yoking him to work the first
day, I sent out Benjie with him, after giving him some refreshment of
bread and milk, to let him see the town and all the uncos about it. I
told Benjie first to take him to the auld kirk, which is one wonderful
building, steeple and aisle; and as for mason-work, far before any thing
to be seen or heard tell of in our day; syne to Lugton brig, which is one
grand affair, hanging over the river Esk and the flour-mills like a
rainbow--syne to the Tolbooth, which is a terror to evil-doers, and from
which the Lord preserve us all!--syne to the Market, where ye'll see
lamb, beef, mutton, and veal, hanging up on cleeks, in roasting and
boiling pieces--spar-rib, jigget, shoulder, and heuk-bane, in the
greatest prodigality of abundance;--and syne down to the Duke's gate, by
looking through the bonny white-painted iron-stanchels of which, ye'll
see the deer running beneath the green trees; and the palace itself, in
the inside of which dwells one that needs not be proud to call the king
his cousin.
Brawly did I know, that it is a little after a laddie's being loosed from
his mother's apron-string, and hurried from home, till the mind can make
itself up to stay among fremit folk; or that the attention can be roused
to any thing said or done, however simple in the uptake. So, after
Benjie brought Mungo home again, gey forfaughten and wearied-out like, I
bade the wife gave him his four-hours, and told him he might go to his
bed as soon as he liked. Jealousing also, at the same time, that
creatures brought up in the country have strange notions about them with
respect to supernaturals--such as ghosts, brownies, fairies, and
bogles--to say nothing of witches, warlocks, and evil-spirits, I made
Benjie take off his clothes and lie down beside him, as I said, to keep
him warm; but, in plain matter of fact, (between friends,) that the
callant might sleep sounder, finding himself in a strange bed, and not
very sure as to how the house stood as to the matter of a good name.
Knowing by my own common sense, and from long experience of the ways of a
wicked world, that there is nothing like industry, I went to Mungo's
bedside in the morning, and wakened him betimes. Indeed, I'm leeing
there--I need not call it wakening him--for Benjie told me, when he was
supping his parritch out of his luggie at breakfast-time, that he never
winked an eye all night, and that sometimes he heard him greeting to
himself in the dark--such and so powerful is our love of home and the
force of natural affection. Howsoever, as I was saying, I took him ben
the house with me down to the workshop, where I had begun to cut out a
pair of nankeen trowsers for a young lad that was to be married the week
after to a servant-maid of Maister Wiggie's,--a trig quean, that
afterwards made him a good wife, and the father of a numerous small
family.
Speaking of nankeen, I would advise every one, as a friend, to buy the
Indian, and not the British kind--the expense of outlay being ill hained,
even at sixpence a-yard--the latter not standing the washing, but making
a man's legs, at a distance, look like a yellow yorline.
It behoved me now as a maister, bent on the improvement of his prentice,
to commence learning Mungo some few of the mysteries of our trade; so
having showed him the way to crock his hough, (example is better than
precept, as James Batter observes,) I taught him the plan of holding the
needle; and having fitted his middle-finger with a bottomless thimble of
our own sort, I set him to sewing the cotton-lining into one leg, knowing
that it was a part not very particular, and not very likely to be seen;
so that the matter was not great, whether the stitching was exactly
regular, or rather in the zigzag line. As is customary with all new
beginners, he made a desperate awkward hand at it, and of which I would
of course have said nothing, but that he chanced to brog his thumb, and
completely soiled the whole piece of work with the stains of blood;
which, for one thing, could not wash out without being seen; and, for
another, was an unlucky omen to happen to a marriage garment.
Every man should be on his guard: this was a lesson I learned when I was
in the volunteers, at the time Buonaparte was expected to land down at
Dunbar. Luckily for me in this case, I had, by some foolish mistake or
another, made an allowance of a half yard, over and above what I found I
could manage to shape on; so I boldly made up my mind to cut out the
piece altogether, it being in the back seam. In that business I trust I
showed the art of a good tradesman, having managed to do it so neatly
that it could not be noticed without the narrowest inspection; and having
the advantage of a covering by the coat-flaps, had indeed no chance of
being so, except on desperately windy days.
In the week succeeding that on which this unlucky mischance happened, an
accident almost as bad befell, though not to me, further than that every
one is bound by the Ten Commandments, to say nothing of his own
conscience, to take a part in the afflictions that befall their
door-neighbours.
When the voice of man was wheisht, and all was sunk in the sound sleep of
midnight, it chanced that I was busy dreaming that I was sitting one of
the spectators, looking at another play-acting piece of business. Before
coming this length, howsoever, I should by right have observed, that ere
going to bed I had eaten for my supper part of a black pudding, and two
sausages, that Widow Grassie had sent in a compliment to my wife, being a
genteel woman, and mindful of her friends--so that I must have had some
sort of nightmare, and not been exactly in my seven senses--else I could
not have been even dreaming of siccan a place. Well, as I was saying, in
the playhouse I thought I was; and all at once I heard Maister Wiggie,
like one crying in the wilderness, hallooing with a loud voice through
the window, bidding me flee from the snares, traps, and gin-nets of the
Evil One; and from the terrors of the wrath to come. I was in a terrible
funk; and just as I was trying to rise from the seat, that seemed somehow
glued to my body, and would not let me, to reach down my hat, which, with
its glazed cover, was hanging on a pin to one side, my face all red, and
glowing like a fiery furnace, for shame of being a second time caught in
deadly sin, I heard the kirk bell jow-jowing, as if it was the last trump
summoning sinners to their long and black account; and Maister Wiggie
thrust in his arm in his desperation, in a whirlwind of passion,
claughting hold of my hand like a vice, to drag me out head-foremost.
Even in my sleep, howsoever, it appears that I like free-will, and ken
that there are no slaves in our blessed country; so I tried with all my
might to pull against him, and gave his arm such a drive back, that he
seemed to bleach over on his side, and raised a hullaballoo of a yell,
that not only wakened me, but made me start upright in my bed.
For all the world such a scene! My wife was roaring "Murder,
murder!--Mansie Wauch, will ye no wauken?--Murder, murder! ye've felled
me wi' your nieve,--ye've felled me outright,--I'm gone for evermair,--my
haill teeth are doun my throat. Will ye no wauken, Mansie Wauch?--will
ye no wauken?--Murder, murder!--I say murder, murder, murder, murder!!!"
"Who's murdering us?" cried I, throwing my cowl back on the pillow, and
rubbing my eyes in the hurry of a tremendous fright.--"Who's murdering
us?--where's the robbers?--send for the town-officer!!"
"O Mansie!--O Mansie!" said Nanse, in a kind of greeting tone, "I daursay
ye've felled me--but no matter, now I've gotten ye roused. Do ye no see
the haill street in a bleeze of flames? Bad is the best; we maun either
be burned to death, or out of house and hall, without a rag to cover our
nakedness. Where's my son?--where's my dear bairn Benjie?"
In a most awful consternation, I jumped at this out to the middle of the
floor, hearing the causeway all in an uproar of voices; and seeing the
flichtering of the flames glancing on the houses in the opposite side of
the street, all the windows of which were filled with the heads of half-
naked folks, in round-eared mutches or Kilmarnocks; their mouths open,
and their eyes staring with fright; while the sound of the fire-engine,
rattling through the streets like thunder, seemed like the dead-cart of
the plague, come to hurry away the corpses of the deceased for interment
in the kirk-yard.
Never such a spectacle was witnessed in this world of sin and sorrow
since the creation of Adam. I pulled up the window and looked out--and,
lo and behold! the very next house to our own was all in a low from
cellar to garret; the burning joists hissing and cracking like mad; and
the very wind that blew along, as warm as if it had been out of the mouth
of a baker's oven!!
It was a most awful spectacle! more by token to me, who was likely to be
intimately concerned with it; and beating my brow with my clenched nieve,
like a distracted creature, I saw that the labour of my whole life was
likely to go for nought, and me to be a ruined man; all the earnings of
my industry being laid out on my stock in trade, and on the plenishing of
our bit house. The darkness of the latter days came over my spirit like
a vision before the prophet Isaiah; and I could see nothing in the years
to come but beggary and starvation; myself a fallen-back old man, with an
out-at-the-elbows coat, a greasy hat, and a bald pow, hirpling over a
staff, requeeshting an awmous--Nanse a broken-hearted beggar wife, torn
down to tatters, and weeping like Rachel when she thought on better
days--and poor wee Benjie going from door to door with a meal-pock on his
back.
The thought first dung me stupid, and then drove me to desperation; and
not even minding the dear wife of my bosom, that had fainted away as dead
as a herring, I pulled on my trowsers like mad, and rushed out into the
street, bareheaded and barefoot as the day that Lucky Bringthereout
dragged me into the world.
The crowd saw in the twinkling of an eyeball that I was a desperate man,
fierce as Sir William Wallace, and not to be withstood by gentle or
semple. So most of them made way for me; they that tried to stop me
finding it a bad job, being heeled over from right to left, on the broad
of their backs, like flounders, without respect of age or person; some
old women that were obstrapulous being gey sore hurt, and one of them
with a pain in her hainch even to this day. When I had got almost to the
door-cheek of the burning house, I found one grupping me by the back like
grim death; and, in looking over my shoulder, who was it but Nanse
herself, that, rising up from her faint, had pursued me like a whirlwind.
It was a heavy trial, but my duty to myself in the first place, and to my
neighbours in the second, roused me up to withstand it; so, making a
spend like a greyhound, I left the hindside of my shirt in her grasp,
like Joseph's garment in the nieve of Potiphar's wife, and up the stairs
headforemost among the flames.
Mercy keep us all! what a sight for mortal man to glowr at with his
living eyes! The bells were tolling amid the dark, like a summons from
above for the parish of Dalkeith to pack off to another world; the drums
were beat-beating as if the French were coming, thousand on thousand, to
kill, slay, and devour every maid and mother's son of us; the fire-engine
pump-pump-pumping like daft, showering the water like rainbows, as if the
windows of heaven were opened, and the days of old Noah come back again;
and the rabble throwing the good furniture over the windows like onion
peelings, where it either felled the folk below, or was dung to a
thousand shivers on the causey. I cried to them, for the love of
goodness, to make search in the beds, in case there might be any weans
there, human life being still more precious than human means; but not a
living soul was seen but a cat, which, being raised and wild with the
din, would on no consideration allow itself to be catched. Jacob Dribble
found that to his cost; for, right or wrong, having a drappie in his
head, he swore like a trooper that he would catch her, and carry her down
beneath his oxter; so forward he weired her into a corner, crouching on
his hunkers. He had much better have let it alone; for it fuffed over
his shoulder like wildfire, and scarting his back all the way down,
jumped like a lamplighter head-foremost through the flames, where, in the
raging and roaring of the devouring element, its pitiful cries were soon
hushed to silence for ever and ever, Amen!
At long and last, a woman's howl was heard on the street, lamenting, like
Hagar over young Ishmael in the wilderness of Beersheba, and crying that
her old grannie, that was a lameter, and had been bedridden for four
years come the Martinmas following, was burning to a cinder in the fore-
garret. My heart was like to burst within me when I heard this dismal
news, remembering that I myself had once an old mother, that was now in
the mools; so I brushed up the stair like a hatter, and burst open the
door of the fore-garret--for in the hurry I could not find the sneck, and
did not like to stand on ceremony. I could not see my finger before me,
and did not know my right hand from the left, for the smoke; but I groped
round and round, though the reek mostly cut my breath, and made me cough
at no allowance, till at last I catched hold of something cold and
clammy, which I gave a pull, not knowing what it was, but found out to be
the old wife's nose. I cried out as loud as I was able for the poor
creature to hoise herself up into my arms; but, receiving no answer, I
discovered in a moment that she was suffocated, the foul air having gone
down her wrong hause; and, though I had aye a terror at looking at, far
less handling a dead corpse, there was something brave within me at the
moment, my blood being up; so I caught hold of her by the shoulders, and
harling her with all my might out of her bed, got her lifted on my back
heads and thraws, in the manner of a boll of meal, and away as fast as my
legs could carry me.
There was a providence in this haste; for, ere I was half-way down the
stair, the floor fell with a thud like thunder; and such a combustion of
soot, stour, and sparks arose, as was never seen or heard tell of in the
memory of man since the day that Samson pulled over the pillars in the
house of Dagon, and smoored all the mocking Philistines as flat as
flounders. For the space of a minute I was as blind as a beetle, and was
like to be choked for want of breath; however, as the dust began to clear
up, I saw an open window, and hallooed down to the crowd for the sake of
mercy to bring a ladder, to save the lives of two perishing
fellow-creatures, for now my own was also in imminent jeopardy. They
were long of coming, and I did not know what to do; so thinking that the
old wife, as she had not spoken, was maybe dead already, I was once
determined just to let her drop down upon the street; but I knew that the
so doing would have cracked every bone in her body, and the glory of my
bravery would thus have been worse than lost. I persevered, therefore,
though I was fit to fall down under the dead weight, she not being able
to help herself, and having a deal of beef in her skin for an old woman
of eighty; but I got a lean, by squeezing her a wee between me and the
wall.
I thought they would never have come, for my shoeless feet were all
bruised, and bleeding from the crunched lime and the splinters of broken
stones; but, at long and last, a ladder was hoisted up, and having
fastened a kinch of ropes beneath her oxters, I let her slide down over
the upper step, by way of a pillyshee, having the satisfaction of seeing
her safely landed in the arms of seven old wives, that were waiting with
a cosey warm blanket below. Having accomplished this grand manoeuvre,
wherein I succeeded in saving the precious life of a woman of eighty,
that had been four long years bedridden, I tripped down the steps myself
like a nine-year-old, and had the pleasure, when the roof fell in, to
know that I for one had done my duty; and that, to the best of my
knowledge, no living creature except the poor cat had perished within the
jaws of the devouring element.
But, bide a wee; the work was, as yet, only half done. The fire was
still roaring and raging, every puff of wind that blew through the black
firmament, driving the red sparks high into the air, where they died away
like the tail of a comet, or the train of a skyrocket; the joisting
crazing, cracking, and tumbling down; and now and then the bursting cans
playing flee in a hundred flinders from the chimney-heads. One would
have naturally enough thought that our engine could have drowned out a
fire of any kind whatsoever in half a second, scores of folks driving
about with pitcherfuls of water, and scaling half of it on one another
and the causey in their hurry; but, woe's me! it did not play puh on the
red-het stones, that whizzed like iron in a smiddy trough; so, as soon as
it was darkness and smoke in one place, it was fire and fury in another.
My anxiety was great; seeing that I had done my best for my neighbours,
it behoved me now, in my turn, to try and see what I could do for myself;
so, notwithstanding the remonstrances of my friend James Batter--whom
Nanse, knowing I had bare feet, had sent out to seek me, with a pair of
shoon in his hand; and who, in scratching his head, mostly rugged out
every hair of his wig with sheer vexation--I ran off, and mounted the
ladder a second time, and succeeded, after muckle speeling, in getting
upon the top of the wall; where, having a bucket slung up to me by means
of a rope, I swashed down such showers on the top of the flames, that I
soon did more good, in the space of five minutes, than the engine and the
ten men, that were all in a broth of perspiration with pumping it, did
the whole night over; to say nothing of the multitude of drawers of
water, men, wives, and weans, with their cuddies, leglins, pitchers,
pails, and water-stoups; having the satisfaction, in a short time, to
observe every thing getting as black as the crown of my hat, and the
gable of my own house becoming as cool as a cucumber.
Being a man of method, and acquainted with business, I could have liked
to have given a finishing stitch to my work before descending the ladder;
but, losh me! sic a whingeing, girning, greeting, and roaring, got up all
of a sudden, as was never seen or heard of since bowed Joseph raised the
meal-mob, and burned Johnnie Wilkes in effigy: and, looking down, I saw
Benjie, the bairn of my own heart, and the callant Glen, my apprentice on
trial, that had both been as sound as tops till this blessed moment,
standing in their nightgowns and their little red cowls, rubbing their
eyes, cowering with cold and fright, and making an awful uproar, crying
on me to come down and not be killed. The voice of Benjie especially
pierced through and through my heart, like a two-edged sword, and I could
on no manner of account suffer myself to bear it any longer, as I
jealoused the bairn would have gone into convulsion fits if I had not
heeded him; so, making a sign to them to be quiet, I came my ways down,
taking hold of one in ilka hand, which must have been a fatherly sight to
the spectators that saw us. After waiting on the crown of the causey for
half an hour, to make sure that the fire was extinguished, and all tight
and right, I saw the crowd scaling, and thought it best to go in too,
carrying the two youngsters along with me. When I began to move off,
however, siccan a cheering of the multitude got up as would have deafened
a cannon; and though I say it myself, who should not say it, they seemed
struck with a sore amazement at my heroic behaviour, following me with
loud cheers even to the threshold of my own door.
From this folk should condescend to take a lesson, seeing that, though
the world is a bitter bad world, yet that good deeds are not only a
reward to themselves, but call forth the applause of Jew and Gentile; for
the sweet savour of my conduct on this memorable night remained in my
nostrils for goodness knows the length of time, many praising my brave
humanity in public companies and assemblies of the people, such as
strawberry ploys, council meetings, dinner parties, and so forth; and
many in private conversation at their own ingle-cheek, by way of
two-handed crack; in stage-coach confab, and in causey talk in the
forenoon, before going in to take their meridians. Indeed, between
friends, the business proved in the upshot of no small advantage to me,
bringing to me a sowd of strange faces, by way of customers, both gentle
and semple, that I verily believe had not so muckle as ever heard of my
name before, and giving me many a coat to cut, and cloth to shape, that,
but for my gallant behaviour on the fearsome night aforesaid, would
doubtless have been cut, sewed, and shaped by other hands. Indeed,
considering the great noise the thing made in the world, it is no wonder
that every one was anxious to have a garment of wearing apparel made by
the individual same hands that had succeeded, under Providence, in saving
the precious life of an old woman of eighty, that had been bedridden,
some say, four years come Yule, and others, come Martinmas.
When we got to the ingle-side, and, barring the door, saw that all was
safe, it was now three in the morning; so we thought it by much the best
way of managing, not to think of sleeping any more, but to be on the look-
out--as we aye used to be when walking sentry in the volunteers--in case
the flames should, by ony mischancy accident or other, happen to break
out again. My wife blamed my hardihood muckle, and the rashness with
which I had ventured at once to places where even masons and sclaters
were afraid to put foot on; yet I saw, in the interim, that she looked on
me with a prouder eye--knowing herself the helpmate of one that had
courageously risked his neck, and every bone in his skin, in the cause of
humanity. I saw this as plain as a pikestaff, as, with one of her
kindest looks, she insisted on my putting on a better happing to screen
me from the cold, and on my taking something comfortable inwardly towards
the dispelling of bad consequences. So, after half a minute's stand-out,
by way of refusal like, I agreed to a cupful of het-pint, as I thought it
would be a thing Mungo Glen might never have had the good fortune to have
tasted; and as it might operate by way of a cordial on the callant
Benjie, who kept aye smally, and in a dwining way. No sooner said than
done--and off Nanse brushed in a couple of hurries to make the het-pint.
After the small beer was put into the pan to boil, we found to our great
mortification, that there were no eggs in the house, and Benjie was sent
out with a candle to the hen-house, to see if any of the hens had laid
since gloaming, and fetch what he could get. In the middle of the mean
time, I was expatiating to Mungo on what taste it would have, and how he
had never seen any thing finer than it would be, when in ran Benjie, all
out of breath, and his face as pale as a dishclout.
"What's the matter, Benjie, what's the matter?" said I to him rising up
from my chair in a great hurry of a fright--"Has onybody killed ye? or is
the fire broken out again? or has the French landed? or have ye seen a
ghost? or are"--
"Eh, crifty!" cried Benjie, coming till his speech, "they're a' aff--cock
and hens and a'--there's naething left but the rotten nest-egg in the
corner!"
This was an awful dispensation, of which more hereafter. In the midst of
the desolation of the fire--such is the depravity of human nature--some
ne'er-do-weels had taken advantage of my absence to break open the hen-
house door; and our whole stock of poultry, the cock along with our seven
hens--two of them tappit, and one muffed--were carried away bodily, stoop
and roop.
On this subject, howsoever, I shall say no more in this chapter, but
merely observe in conclusion, that, as to our het-pint, we were obligated
to make the best of a bad bargain, making up with whisky what it wanted
in eggs; though our banquet could not be called altogether a merry one,
the joys of our escape from the horrors of the fire being damped, as it
were by a wet blanket, on account of the nefarious pillaging of our hen-
house.