THE AULD LIGHTS IN ARMS.
Arms and men I sing: douce Jeemsy Todd, rushing from his loom, armed
with a bed-post; Lisbeth Whamond, an avenging whirlwind: Neil Haggart,
pausing in his thank-offerings to smite and slay; the impious foe
scudding up the bleeding Brae-head with Nemesis at their flashing heels;
the minister holding it a nice question whether the carnage was not
justified. Then came the two hours' sermons of the following Sabbath,
when Mr. Dishart, revolving like a teetotum in the pulpit, damned every
bandaged person present, individually and collectively; and Lang Tammas
in the precentor's box with a plaster on his cheek, included any one the
minister might have by chance omitted, and the congregation, with most
of their eyes bunged up, burst into psalms of praise.
Twice a year the Auld Lichts went demented. The occasion was the
fast-day at Tilliedrum; when its inhabitants, instead of crowding
reverently to the kirk, swooped profanely down in their scores and tens
of scores on our God-fearing town, intent on making a day of it. Then
did the weavers rise as one man, and go forth to show the ribald crew
the errors of their way. All denominations were represented, but Auld
Lichts led. An Auld Licht would have taken no man's blood without the
conviction that he would be the better morally for the bleeding; and if
Tammas Lunan's case gave an impetus to the blows, it can only have
been because it opened wider Auld Licht eyes to Tilliedrum's desperate
condition. Mr. Dishart's predecessor more than once remarked that at
the Creation the devil put forward a claim for Thrums, but said he
would take his chance of Tilliedrum; and the statement was generally
understood to be made on the authority of the original Hebrew.
The mustard-seed of a feud between the two parishes shot into a tall
tree in a single night, when Davit Lunan's father went to a tattie roup
at Tilliedrum and thoughtlessly died there. Twenty-four hours afterward
a small party of staid Auld Lichts, carrying long white poles, stepped
out of various wynds and closes and picked their solemn way to the house
of mourning. Nanny Low, the widow, received them dejectedly, as one
oppressed by the knowledge that her man's death at such an inopportune
place did not fulfil the promise of his youth; and her guests admitted
bluntly that they were disappointed in Tammas. Snecky Hobart's father's
unusually long and impressive prayer was an official intimation that the
deceased, in the opinion of the session, sorely needed everything of the
kind he could get; and then the silent driblet of Auld Lichts in
black stalked off in the direction of Tilliedrum. Women left their
spinning-wheels and pirns to follow them with their eyes along the
Tenements, and the minister was known to be holding an extra service at
the manse. When the little procession reached the boundary-line between
the two parishes, they sat down on a dyke and waited.
By-and-bye half a dozen men drew near from the opposite direction,
bearing on poles the remains of Tammas Lunan in a closed coffin. The
coffin was brought to within thirty yards of those who awaited it, and
then roughly lowered to the ground. Its bearers rested morosely on their
poles. In conveying Lunan's remains to the borders of his own parish
they were only conforming to custom; but Thrums and Tilliedrum differed
as to where the boundary-line was drawn, and not a foot would either
advance into the other's territory.
For half a day the coffin lay unclaimed, and the two parties sat
scowling at each other. Neither dared move. Gloaming had stolen into
the valley when Dite Deuchars, of Tilliedrum, rose to his feet and
deliberately spat upon the coffin. A stone whizzed through the air; and
then the ugly spectacle was presented, in the gray night, of a dozen
mutes fighting with their poles over a coffin. There was blood on the
shoulders that bore Tammas' remains to Thrums.
After that meeting Tilliedrum lived for the fast-day. Never, perhaps,
was there a community more given up to sin, and Thrums felt “called”
to its chastisement. The insult to Lunan's coffin, however, dispirited
their weavers for a time, and not until the suicide of Pitlums did
they put much fervor into their prayers. It made new men of them.
Tilliedrum's sins had found it out. Pitlums was a farmer in the parish
of Thrums, but he had been born at Tilliedrum; and Thrums thanked
Providence for that, when it saw him suspended between two hams from his
kitchen rafters. The custom was to cart suicides to the quarry at the
Galla pond and bury them near the cairn that had supported the gallows;
but on this occasion not a farmer in the parish would lend a cart,
and for a week the corpse lay on the sanded floor as it had been cut
down--an object of awestruck interest to boys who knew no better than to
peep through the darkened window. Tilliedrum bit its lips at home. The
Auld Licht minister, it was said, had been approached on the subject;
but, after serious consideration, did not see his way to offering up a
prayer. Finally old Hobart and two others tied a rope round the body,
and dragged it from the farm to the cairn, a distance of four miles.
Instead of this incident's humbling Tilliedrum into attending church,
the next fast-day saw its streets deserted. As for the Thrums Auld
Lichts, only heavy wobs prevented their walking erect like men who had
done their duty. If no prayer was volunteered for Pitlums before his
burial, there was a great deal of psalm-singing after it.
By early morn on their fast-day the Tilliedrummers were straggling into
Thrums, and the weavers, already at their looms, read the clattering of
feet and carts aright. To convince themselves, all they had to do was to
raise their eyes; but the first triumph would have been to Tilliedrum if
they had done that. The invaders--the men in Aberdeen blue serge coats,
velvet knee-breeches, and broad blue bonnets, and the wincey gowns of
the women set off with hooded cloaks of red or tartan--tapped at the
windows and shouted insultingly as they passed; but, with pursed lips,
Thrums bent fiercely over its wobs, and not an Auld Licht showed outside
his door. The day wore on to noon, and still ribaldry was master of the
wynds. But there was a change inside the houses. The minister had pulled
down his blinds; moody men had left their looms for stools by the fire;
there were rumors of a conflict in Andra Gowrie's close, from which
Kitty McQueen had emerged with her short gown in rags; and Lang Tammas
was going from door to door. The austere precentor admonished fiery
youth to beware of giving way to passion; and it was a proud day for the
Auld Lichts to find their leading elder so conversant with apt Scripture
texts. They bowed their heads reverently while he thundered forth that
those who lived by the sword would perish by the sword; and when he had
finished they took him ben to inspect their bludgeons. I have a vivid
recollection of going the round of the Auld Licht and other houses to
see the sticks and the wrists in coils of wire.
A stranger in the Tenements in the afternoon would have noted more than
one draggled youth in holiday attire, sitting on a doorstep with a wet
cloth to his nose; and, passing down the commonty, he would have had to
step over prostrate lumps of humanity from which all shape had departed.
Gavin Ogilvy limped heavily after his encounter with Thrummy Tosh--a
struggle that was looked forward to eagerly as a bi-yearly event;
Christy Davie's development of muscle had not prevented her going
down before the terrible onslaught of Joe the miller, and Lang Tammas'
plasters told a tale. It was in the square that the two parties, leading
their maimed and blind, formed in force; Tilliedrum thirsting for its
opponents' blood, and Thrums humbly accepting the responsibility of
punching the fast-day breakers into the ways of rectitude. In the small,
ill-kept square the invaders, to the number of about a hundred, were
wedged together at its upper end, while the Thrums people formed in a
thick line at the foot. For its inhabitants the way to Tilliedrum lay
through this threatening mass of armed weavers. No words were bandied
between the two forces; the centre of the square was left open,
and nearly every eye was fixed on the town-house clock. It directed
operations and gave the signal to charge. The moment six o'clock struck,
the upper mass broke its bonds and flung itself on the living barricade.
There was a clatter of heads and sticks, a yelling and a groaning,
and then the invaders, bursting through the opposing ranks, fled for
Tilliedrum. Down the Tanage brae and up the Brae-head they skurried,
half a hundred avenging spirits in pursuit. On the Tilliedrum fast-day
I have tasted blood myself. In the godless place there is no Auld Licht
kirk, but there are two Auld Lichts in it now who walk to Thrums to
church every Sabbath, blow or rain as it lists. They are making their
influence felt in Tilliedrum.
The Auld Lichts also did valorous deeds at the Battle of Cabbylatch. The
farm land so named lies a mile or more to the south of Thrums. You
have to go over the rim of the cut to reach it. It is low-lying and
uninteresting to the eye, except for some giant stones scattered cold
and naked through the fields. No human hands reared these bowlders, but
they might be looked upon as tombstones to the heroes who fell (to rise
hurriedly) on the plain of Cabbylatch.
The fight of Cabbylatch belongs to the days of what are now but dimly
remembered as the Meal Mobs. Then there was a wild cry all over the
country for bread (not the fine loaves that we know, but something very
much coarser), and hungry men and women, prematurely shrunken, began
to forget the taste of meal. Potatoes were their chief sustenance, and,
when the crop failed, starvation gripped them. At that time the farmers,
having control of the meal, had the small towns at their mercy, and
they increased its cost. The price of the meal went up and up, until
the famishing people swarmed up the sides of the carts in which it
was conveyed to the towns, and, tearing open the sacks, devoured it in
handfuls. In Thrums they had a stern sense of justice, and for a time,
after taking possession of the meal, they carried it to the square and
sold it at what they considered a reasonable price. The money was handed
over to the farmers. The honesty of this is worth thinking about, but it
seems to have only incensed the farmers the more; and when they saw that
to send their meal to the town was not to get high prices for it, they
laid their heads together and then gave notice that the people who
wanted meal and were able to pay for it must come to the farms. In
Thrums no one who cared to live on porridge and bannocks had money to
satisfy the farmers; but, on the other hand, none of them grudged going
for it, and go they did. They went in numbers from farm to farm, like
bands of hungry rats, and throttled the opposition they not infrequently
encountered. The raging farmers at last met in council, and, noting that
they were lusty men and brave, resolved to march in armed force upon
the erring people and burn their town. Now we come to the Battle of
Cabbylatch.
The farmers were not less than eighty strong, and chiefly consisted of
cavalry. Armed with pitchforks and cumbrous scythes where they were
not able to lay their hands on the more orthodox weapons of war, they
presented a determined appearance; the few foot-soldiers who had no
cart-horses at their disposal bearing in their arms bundles of firewood.
One memorable morning they set out to avenge their losses; and by and
by a halt was called, when each man bowed his head to listen. In Thrums,
pipe and drum were calling the inhabitants to arms. Scouts rushed in
with the news that the farmers were advancing rapidly upon the town, and
soon the streets were clattering with feet. At that time Thrums had its
piper and drummer (the bellman of a later and more degenerate age); and
on this occasion they marched together through the narrow wynds, firing
the blood of haggard men and summoning them to the square. According
to my informant's father, the gathering of these angry and startled
weavers, when he thrust his blue bonnet on his head and rushed out to
join them, was an impressive and solemn spectacle. That bloodshed was
meant there can be no doubt; for starving men do not see the ludicrous
side of things. The difference between the farmers and the town had
resolved itself into an ugly and sullen hate, and the wealthier townsmen
who would have come between the people and the bread were fiercely
pushed aside. There was no nominal leader, but every man in the ranks
meant to fight for himself and his belongings; and they are said to have
sallied out to meet the foe in no disorder. The women they would fain
have left behind them; but these had their own injuries to redress, and
they followed in their husbands' wake carrying bags of stones. The
men, who were of various denominations, were armed with sticks,
blunderbusses, anything they could snatch up at a moment's notice; and
some of them were not unacquainted with fighting. Dire silence prevailed
among the men, but the women shouted as they ran, and the curious army
moved forward to the drone and squall of drum and pipe. The enemy was
sighted on the level land of Cabbylatch, and here, while the intending
combatants glared at each other, a well-known local magnate galloped his
horse between them and ordered them in the name of the king to return to
their homes. But for the farmers that meant further depredation at the
people's hands, and the townsmen would not go back to their gloomy homes
to sit down and wait for sunshine. Soon stones (the first, it is said,
cast by a woman) darkened the air. The farmers got the word to charge,
but their horses, with the best intentions, did not know the way.
There was a stampeding in different directions, a blind rushing of one
frightened steed against another; and then the townspeople, breaking any
ranks they had hitherto managed to keep, rushed vindictively forward.
The struggle at Cabbylatch itself was not of long duration; for their
own horses proved the farmers' worst enemies, except in the cases where
these sagacious animals took matters into their own ordering and bolted
judiciously for their stables. The day was to Thrums.
Individual deeds of prowess were done that day. Of these not the least
fondly remembered by her descendants were those of the gallant matron
who pursued the most obnoxious farmer in the district even to his very
porch with heavy stones and opprobrious epithets. Once when he thought
he had left her far behind did he alight to draw breath and take a pinch
of snuff, and she was upon him like a flail. With a terror stricken cry
he leaped once more upon his horse and fled, but not without leaving his
snuff-box in the hands of the derisive enemy. Meggy has long gone to the
kirk-yard, but the snuff-mull is still preserved.
Some ugly cuts were given and received, and heads as well as ribs were
broken; but the townsmen's triumph was short-lived. The ringleaders were
whipped through the streets of Perth, as a warning to persons thinking
of taking the law into their own hands; and all the lasting consolation
they got was that, some time afterward, the chief witness against them,
the parish minister, met with a mysterious death. They said it was
evidently the hand of God; but some people looked suspiciously at them
when they said it.