The Life of Mansie Wauch Part 11

"Just so," answered Thomas; "but where was I at?--Ou, about the whisky.

Weel, speaking about the whisky, ye see the offisher, Lovetenant Todrick I b'lief they called him, had made an observe about Duncan's kettle; so, when he came to him, Duncan was sitting in the lown side of a d.y.k.e, with his red nose, and a pipe in his cheek, on a big stane, glowring frae him anither way; and, as I was saying, when he came to him he said,

"'Weel, Duncan MacAlpine, what have ye in your kettle the day, man?'

"And Duncan, rinning down his lang fork, answered in his ain Highland brogue way--'Please your honours, just my auld favourite, tripe.'

"''Deed, Duncan,' said Lovetenant Todrick, or whatever they caa'd him, 'it is an auld favourite surely, for I have never seen ye have onything else for your dinner, man.'

"'Every man to his taste, please your honour,' answered Duncan MacAlpine; 'let ilka ane please her nain sell'--hauling up a screed half a yard lang. 'Ilka man to his taste, please your honour, Lovetenant Todrick.'"

"'Od, man," said I to him, "'Od, man, ye're a deacon at telling a story.

Ye're a queer hand. Weel, what came next?"

"What think ye should come next?" quo' Thomas drily.

"I'm sure I dinna ken," answered I.

"Weel," said he, "I'll tell--but where was I at?"

"Ou, at the observe of Lovetenant Todrick, or what they caa'd him, about the tripe; and the answer of Duncan MacAlpine on that head, 'That ilka man has his ain taste.'"

"'Vera true,' said Lovetenant Todrick, 'but lift it out a' the-gither on that dish, till I get my specs on; for never since I was born, did I ever see before boiled tripe with b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.ton-holes intill't.'"

At this I set up a loud laughing, which I could not help, though it was like to split my sides; but Thomas Burlings bade me whisht till I heard him out.

"'b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.ton-holes!' quo' Duncan MacAlpine. 'Look again, wi' yer specs; for ye're surely wrang, Lovetenant Todrick.'"

"'b.u.t.tons and b.u.t.ton-holes! and 'deed I am surely right, Duncan,'

answered the Lovetenant Todrick, taking his specs deliberately off the brig o' his nose, and faulding them thegither, as he put them first into his s.h.a.green case, and syne into his pocket--'Howsomever, Duncan MacAlpine, I'll pa.s.s ye ower for this time, gif ye take my warning, and for the future ware your pay-money on wholesome butcher's meat, like a Christian, and no be trying to delude your ain stamick, and your offisher's een, by holding up, on a fork, such a heathenish mak-up for a dish, as the leg of a pair o' buckskin breeches!'"

"Buckskin breeches!" said I, "and did he really and actually boil siccan trash to his dinner?"

"Nae sae far south as that yet, friend," answered Thomas. "Duncan was not so bowed in the intellect as ye imagine, and had some spice of cleverality about his queer manoeuvres.--Eat siccan trash to his dinner!

Nae mair, Mansie, than ye intend to eat that iron guse ye're rinning along that piece claith; but he wanted to make his offishers believe that his pay gaed the right way: like the Pharisees of old that keepit praying, in ell-lang faces, about the corners of the streets, and gaed hame wi' hearts full of wickedness and a' manner of cheatrie."

"And what way did his pay gang, then?" asked I; "and how did he live?"

"I telled ye before, frien," answered Thomas, "that he was a deboshed creature; and, like ower mony in the world, likit weel what didna do him ony good. It's a wearyfu' thing that whisky. I wish it could be banished to Botany Bay.

"It is that," said I. "Muckle and nae little sin does it breed and produce in this world."

"I'm glad," quoth Thomas, stroking down his chin in a slee way, "I'm glad the guilty should see the folly o' their ain ways; it's the first step, ye ken, till amendment;--and indeed I tell't Maister Wiggie, when he sent me here, that I could almost become guid for your being mair wary of your conduct for the future time to come."

This was like a thunder-clap to me, and I did not know for a jiffie what to feel, think, or do, more than perceiving that it was a piece of devilish cruelty on their parts, taking things on this strict. As for myself, I could freely take sacred oath on the Book, that I had not had a dram in my head for four months before; the knowledge of which made my corruption rise like lightning, as a man is aye brave when he is innocent; so, giving my pow a bit scart, I said briskly, "So ye're after some session business in this visit, are ye?"

"Ye've just guessed it," answered Thomas Burlings, sleeking down his front hair with his fingers in a sober way; "we had a meeting this forenoon; and it was resolved ye should stand a public rebuke in the meeting-house on Sunday next."

"Hang me, if I do!" answered I, thumping my nieve down with all my might on the counter, and throwing back my cowl behind me in a corner. "No, man!" added I, snapping with great pith my finger and thumb in Thomas's eyes, "not for all the ministers and elders that ever were cleckit! They may do their best; and ye may tell them so, if ye like. I was born a free man; I live in a free country; I am the subject of a free king and const.i.tution; and I'll be shot before I submit to such rank, diabolical papistry."

"Hooly and fairly," quoth Thomas, staring a wee astonished like, and not a little surprised to see my birse up in this manner; for, when he thought upon shearing a lamb, he found he had catched a tartar; so, calming down as fast as ye like, he said, "Hooly and fairly Mansie" (or Maister Wauch, I believe, he did me the honour to call me), "they'll maybe no be sae hard as they threaten. But ye ken, my friend, I'm speaking to ye as a brither; it was an unco-like business for an elder, not only to gang till a play, which is ane of the deevil's rendevouses, but to gang there in a state of liquor: making yoursell a world's wonder--and you an elder of our kirk! I put the question to yourself soberly."

His threatening I could despise, and could have fought, cuffed, and kicked with all the ministers and elders of the General a.s.sembly, to say nothing of the Relief Synod and the Burgher Union, before I would have demeaned myself to yield to what my inward spirit plainly told me to be rank cruelty and injustice; but ah! his calm, brotherly, flattering way I could not thole with, and the tears came rapping into my eyes, faster than it cared my manhood to let be seen; so I said till him, "Weel, weel, Thomas, I ken I have done wrong; and I am sorry for't: they'll never find me in siccan a sc.r.a.pe again."

Thomas Burlings then came forward in a friendly way, and shook hands with me; telling that he would go back and plead before them in my behalf. He said this over again, as we parted at my shop-door; and, to do him justice, surely he had not been worse than his word, for I have aye attended the kirk as usual, standing, when it came to my rotation, at the plate, and n.o.body, gentle or semple, ever spoke to me on the subject of the playhouse, or minted the matter of the Rebuke from that day to this.

[Picture: Mungo Glen]

CHAPTER NINETEEN--MANSIE'S ADVENTURES OF THE AWFUL NIGHT

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 anything 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 ap.r.o.n-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 anything 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 give 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 crook 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 st.i.tching 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 everyone 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 Gra.s.sie 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 pa.s.sion, 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 grey-hound, 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 head-foremost among the flames.