The Life of Mansie Wauch Part 13

It was real cleverality in the callant. He said, "Ay, faither, but it was her; and she contrived to bring herself into trouble without a tongue at a'."

I could not help laughing at this, it showed Benjie to be such a genius; so he said,

"Ye needa laugh, faither; for it's as true's death it was her. Do you think I didna ken in a minute our cheese-toaster, that used to hing beside the kitchen fire; and that the sherry-offisher took out frae beneath her grey cloak?"

The smile went off Nanse's cheek like lightning, she said it could not be true; but she would go to the kitchen to see. I'fegs it was too true; for she never came back to tell the contrary.

This was really and truly a terrible business, but the truth for all that; the cheese-toaster casting up not an hour after, in the hands of Daniel Search, to whom I gave a dram. The loss of the tin cheese-toaster would have been a trifle, especially as it was broken in the handle--but this was an awful blow to the truth of the thieving dumbie's grand prophecy. Nevertheless, it seemed at the time gey puzzling to me, to think how a deaf and dumb woman, unless she had some wonderful gift, could have told us what she did.

On the next day, the Friday, I think, that story was also made as clear as daylight to us; for being banished out of the town as a common thief and vagabond, down on the Musselburgh Road, by order of a justice of the peace, it was the bounden duty of Daniel Search and Geordie Sharp to see her safe past the kennel, the length of Smeaton. They then tried to make her understand by writing on the wall, that if ever again she was seen or heard tell of in the town, she would be banished to Botany Bay; but she had a great fight, it seems, to make out Daniel's bad spelling, he having been very ill yedicated, and no deacon at the pen.

Howsoever, they got her to understand their meaning, by giving her a shove forward by the shoulders, and aye pointing down to Inveresk.

Thinking she did not hear them, they then took upon themselves the liberty of calling her some ill names, and bade her good-day as a bad one. But she was upsides with them for acting, in that respect, above their commission; for she wheeled round again to them, and snapping her fingers at their noses, gave a curse, and bade them go home for a couple of dirty Scotch vermin.

The two men were perfectly dumfoundered at hearing the tongue-tied wife speaking as good English as themselves; and could not help stopping to look after her for a long way on the road, as every now and then she stuck one of her arms a-kimbo in her side, and gave a dance round in the whirling-jig way, louping like daft, and lilting like a grey-lintie.

From her way of speaking, they also saw immediately that she too was an Eirisher.--They must be a bonny family when they are all at home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE--ANENT THE YOUNG CALLANT MUNGO GLEN

Perhaps, since I was born, I do not remember such a string of casualties as happened to me and mine, all within the period of one short fortnight.

To say nothing connected with the play-acting business, which was immediately before--first came Mungo Glen's misfortune with regard to the blood-soiling of the new nankeen trowsers, the foremost of his transactions, and a bad omen--next, the fire, and all its wonderfuls, the saving of the old bedridden woman's precious life, and the destruction of the poor cat--syne the robbery of the hen-house by the Eirish ne'er-do-weels, who paid so sweetly for their pranks--and lastly, the hoax, the thieving of the cheese-toaster without the handle, and the banishment of the spaewife.

These were awful signs of the times, and seemed to say that the world was fast coming to a finis; the ends of the earth appearing to have combined in a great Popish plot of villany. Every man that had a heart to feel, must have trembled amid these threatening, judgment-like, and calamitous events. As for my own part, the depravity of the nations, which most of these scenes showed me, I must say, fell heavily upon my spirit; and I could not help thinking of the old cities of the plain, over the house-tops of which, for their heinous sins and iniquitous abominations, the wrath of the Almighty showered down fire and brimstone from heaven till the very earth melted and swallowed them up for ever and ever.

These added to the number, to be sure; but not that I had never before seen signs and wonders in my time. I had seen the friends of the people,--and the scarce years,--and the b.l.o.o.d.y gulleteening over-bye among the French blackguards,--and the business of Watt and Downie nearer home, at our own doors almost, in Edinburgh like,--and the calling out of the volunteers,--and divers sea-fights at Camperdown and elsewhere,--and land battles countless,--and the American war, part o't,--and awful murders,--and mock fights in the Duke's Parks,--and highway robberies,--and breakings of all the Ten Commandments, from the first to the last; so that, allowing me to have had but a common s.p.u.n.k of reflection, I must, like others, have cast a wistful eye on the ongoings of men: and, if I had not strength to pour out my inward lamentations, I could not help thinking, with fear and trembling, at the rebellion of such a worm as man, against a Power whose smallest word could extinguish his existence, and blot him out in a twinkling from the roll of living things.

But, if I was much affected, the callant Mungo was a great deal more.

From the days in which he had lain in his cradle, he had been brought up in a remote and quiet part of the country, far from the bustling of towns, and from man encountering man in the stramash of daily life; so that his heart seemed to pine within him like a flower, for want of the blessed morning dew; and, like a bird that has been catched in a girn among the winter snows, his appet.i.te failed him, and he fell away from his meat and his clothes.

I was vexed exceedingly to see the callant in this dilemmy, for he was growing very tall and thin, his chaft-blades being lank and white, and his eyes of a hollow drumliness, as if he got no refreshment from the slumbers of the night. Beholding all this work of destruction going on in silence, I spoke to his friend Mrs Gra.s.sie about him, and she was so motherly as to offer to have a gla.s.s of port-wine, stirred with best jesuit's barks, ready for him every forenoon at twelve o'clock; for really n.o.body could be but interested in the laddie, he was so gentle and modest, making never a word of complaint, though melting like snow off a d.y.k.e; and, though he must have suffered both in body and mind, enduring all with a silent composure, worthy of a holy martyr.

Perceiving things going on from bad to worse, I thought it was best to break the matter to him, as he was never like to speak himself; and I asked him in a friendly way, as we were sitting together on the board finishing a pair of fustian overalls for Maister Bob Bustle--a riding clerk for one of the Edinburgh spirit shops, but who liked aye to have his clothes of the Dalkeith cut, having been born, bred, and educated in our town, like his forbears before him--if there was anything the matter with him, that he was aye so dowie and heartless? Never shall I forget the look he gave me as he lifted up his eyes, in which I could see visible distress painted as plain as the figures of the saints on old kirk windows; but he told me, with a faint smile, that he had nothing particular to complain of, only that he would have liked to have died among his friends, as he could not live from home, and away from the life he had been accustomed to all his days.

'Od, I was touched to the quick; and when I heard him speaking of death in such a calm, quiet way, I found something, as if his words were words of prophecy, and as if I had seen a sign that told me he was not to be long for this world. Howsoever, I hope I had more sense than to let this be seen, so I said to him, "Ou, if that be a', Mungo, ye'll soon come to like us a' well enough. Ye should take a stout heart, man; and when your prenticeship's done, ye'll gang hame and set up for a great man, making coats for all the lords and lairds in broad Lammermoor."

"Na, na," answered the callant with a trembling voice, which mostly made my heart swell to my mouth, and brought the tear to my eye, "I'll never see the end of my prenticeship, nor Lammermoor again."

"Hout touts, man," quo' I, "never speak in that sort o' way; it's distrustfu' and hurtful. Live in hope, though we should die in despair.

When ye go home again, ye'll be as happy as ever."

"Eh, na--never, never, even though I was to gang hame the morn. I'll never be as I was before. I lived and lived on, never thinking that such days were to come to an end--but now I find it can, and must be otherwise. The thoughts of my heart have been broken in upon, and nothing can make whole what has been shivered to pieces."

This was to the point, as Dannie Thummel said to his needle; so just for speaking's sake, and to rouse him up a bit, I said, "Keh, man, what need ye care sae muckle about the country?--It'll never be like our bonny streets, with all the braw shop windows, and the auld kirk; and the stands with the horn spoons and luggies; and all the carts on the market-days; and the Duke's gate, and so on."

"Ay, but, maister," answered Mungo, "ye was never brought up in the country--ye never kent what it was to wander about in the simmer glens, wi' naething but the warm sun looking down on ye, the blue waters streaming ower the braes, the birds singing, and the air like to grow sick wi' the breath of blooming birks, and flowers of all colours, and wild-thyme sticking full of bees, humming in joy and thankfulness--Ye never kent, maister, what it was to wake in the still morning, when, looking out, ye saw the snaws lying for miles round about ye on the hills, breast deep, shutting ye out from the world, as it were; the foot of man never coming during the storm to your door, nor the voice of a stranger heard from ae month's end till the ither. See, it is coming on o' hail the now, and my mother with my sister--I have but ane--and my four brithers, will be looking out into the drift, and missing me away for the first time frae their fireside. They'll hae a dreary winter o't, breaking their hearts for me--their ballants and their stories will never be sae funny again--and my heart is breaking for them."

With this, the tears prap-prapped down his cheeks, but his pride bade him turn his head round to hide them from me. A heart of stone would have felt for him.

I saw it was in vain to persist long, as the laddie was falling out of his clothes as fast as leaves from the November tree; so I wrote home by limping Jamie the carrier, telling his father the state of things, and advising him, as a matter of humanity, to take his son out to the free air of the hills again, as the town smoke did not seem to agree with his stomach; and, as he might be making a sticked tailor of one who was capable of being bred a good farmer; no mortal being likely to make a great progress in any thing, unless the heart goes with the handiwork.

Some folks will think I acted right, and others wrong in this matter; if I erred, it was on the side of mercy and my conscience does not upbraid me for the transaction. In due course of time, I had an answer from Mr Glen; and we got everything ready and packed up, against the hour that Jamie was to set out again.

Mungo got himself all dressed; and Benjie had taken such a liking to him, that I thought he would have grutten himself senseless when he heard he was going away back to his own home. One would not have imagined, that such a sincere friendship could have taken root in such a short time; but the bit creature Benjie was as warm-hearted a callant as ye ever saw.

Mungo told him, that if he would not cry he would send him in a present of a wee ewe-milk cheese whenever he got home; which promise pacified him, and he asked me if Benjie would come out for a month gin simmer, when he would let him see all worthy observation along the country side.

When we had shaken hands with Mungo, and, after fastening his comforter about his neck, wished him a good journey, we saw him mounted on the front of limping Jamie's cart; and, as he drove away, I must confess my heart was grit. I could not help running up the stair, and pulling up the fore-window to get a long look after him. Away, and away they wore; in a short time, the cart took a turn and disappeared; and, when I drew down the window, and sauntered, with my arms crossed, back to the workshop, something seemed amissing, and the snug wee place, with its shapings, and runds, and paper-measurings, and its bit fire, seemed in my eyes to look douff and gousty.

Whether in the jougging of the cart, or what else I cannot say, but it's an unco story; for on the road, it turned out that poor Mungo was seized with a terrible pain in his side; and, growing worse and worse, was obliged to be left at Lauder, in the care of a decent widow woman that had a blind eye, and a room to let furnished.

It was not for two-three days that we learnt these awful tidings, which greatly distressed us all; and I gave the driver of the Lauder coach threepence to himself, to bring us word every morning, as he pa.s.sed the door, how the laddie was going on.

I learned shortly, that his father and mother had arrived, which was one comfort; but that matters with poor Mungo were striding on from bad to worse, being p.r.o.nounced, by a skeely doctor, to be in a galloping consumption--and not able to be removed home, a thing that the laddie freaked and pined for night and day. At length, hearing for certain that he had not long to live, I thought myself bound to be at the expense of taking a ride out on the top of the coach, though I was aware of the danger of the machine's whiles couping, if it were for no more than to bid him fare-ye-weel--and I did so.

It was a cold cloudy day in February, and everything on the road looked dowie and cheerless; the very cows and sheep, that crowded cowering beneath the trees in the parks, seemed to be grieving for some disaster, and hanging down their heads like mourners at a burial. The rain whiles obliged me to put up my umbrella, and there was n.o.body on the top beside me, save a deaf woman, that aye said "ay" to every question I speered, and with whom I found it out of the power of man to carry on any rational conversation; so I was obliged to sit glowering from side to side at the bleak bare fields--and the plashing gra.s.s--and the gloomy dull woods--and the gentlemen's houses, of which I knew not the names--and the fearful rough hills, that put me in mind of the wilderness, and of the abomination of desolation mentioned in scripture, I believe in Ezekiel.

The errand I was going on, to be sure, helped to make me more sorrowful; and I could not think on human life without agreeing with Solomon, that "all was vanity and vexation of spirit."

At long and last, when we came to our journey's end, and I louped off the top of the coach, Maister Glen came out to the door, and bad me haste me if I wished to see Mungo breathing. Save us! to think that a poor young thing was to be taken away from life and the cheerful sun, thus suddenly, and be laid in the cold damp mools, among the moudiewarts and the green banes, "where there is no work or device." But what will ye say there?

it was the will of Him, who knows best what is for his creatures, and to whom we should--and must submit. I was just in time to see the last row of his glazing een, that then stood still for ever, as he lay, with his face as pale as clay, on the pillow, his mother holding his hand, and sob-sobbing with her face leant on the bed, as if her hope was departed, and her heart would break. I went round about, and took hold of the other one for a moment; but it was clammy, and growing cold with the coldness of grim death. I could hear my heart beating; but Mungo's heart stood still, like a watch that has run itself down. Maister Glen sat in the easy chair, with his hand before his eyes, saying nothing, and shedding not a tear; for he was a strong, little, blackaviced man, with a feeling heart, but with nerves of steel. The rain rattled on the window, and the smoke gave a swarl as the wind rummelled in the lum. The hour spoke to the soul, and the silence was worth twenty sermons.

They who would wish to know the real value of what we are all over-apt to prize in this world, should have been there too, and learnt a lesson not soon to be forgotten. I put my hand in my coat-pocket for my napkin to give my eyes a wipe, but found it was away, and feared much I had dropped it on the road; though in this I was happily mistaken, having, before I went to my bed, found that on my journey I had tied it over my neckcloth, to keep away sore throats.

It was a sad heart to us all to see the lifeless creature in his white nightcap and eyes closed, lying with his yellow hair spread on the pillow; and we went out, that the women-folk might cover up the looking-gla.s.s and the face of the clock, ere they proceeded to dress the body in its last clothes--clothes that would never need changing; but, when we were half down the stair, and I felt glad with the thoughts of getting to the fresh air, we were obliged to turn up again for a little, to let the man past that was bringing in the dead deal.

But why weave a long story out of the materials of sorrow? or endeavour to paint feelings that have no outward sign, lying shut up within the sanctuary of the heart? The grief of a father and a mother can only be conceived by them who, as fathers and mothers, have suffered the loss of their bairns,--a treasure more precious to nature than silver or gold, home to the land-sick sailor, or daylight to the blind man sitting beaking in the heat of the morning sun.

The coffin having been ordered to be got ready with all haste, two men brought it on their shoulders betimes on the following morning; and it was a sight that made my blood run cold to see the dead corpse of poor Mungo, my own prentice, hoisted up from the bed, and laid in his black-handled, narrow housie. All had taken their last looks, the lid was screwed down by means of screw-drivers, and I read the plate, which said, "Mungo Glen, aged 15." Alas! early was he cut off from among the living--a flower snapped in its spring blossom--and an awful warning to us all, sinful and heedless mortals, of the uncertainty of this state of being.

In the course of the forenoon, Maister Glen's cart was brought to the door, drawn by two black horses with long tails and hairy feet, a tram one and a leader. Though the job shook my nerves, I could not refuse to give them a hand down the stair with the coffin, which had a fief-like smell of death and saw-dust; and we got it fairly landed in the cart, among clean straw. I saw the clodhapper of a ploughman aye dighting his een with the sleeve of his big-coat.

The mother, Mistress Glen, a little fattish woman, and as fine a homely body as ye ever met with, but sorely distracted at this time by sorrow, sat at the head, with her bonnet drawn over her face, and her shawl thrown across her shoulders, being a blue and red spot on a white ground.

It was a dismal-like-looking thing to see her sitting there, with the dead body of her son at her feet; and, at the side of it, his kist with his claes, on the top of which was tied--not being room for it in the inside like (for he had twelve shirts, and three pair of trowsers, and a Sunday and every day's coat, with stockings and other things)--his old white beaver hat, turned up behind, which he used to wear when he was with me. His Sunday's hat I did not see; but most likely it was in among his claes, to keep it from the rain, and preserved, no doubt, for the use of some of his little brothers, please G.o.d, when they grew up a wee bigger.

Seeing Maister Glen, who had cut his chin in shaving, in a worn-out disjasket state, mounted on his sheltie, I shook hands with them both; and, in my thoughtlessness, wished them "a good journey,"--knowing well what a sorrowful home-going it would be to them, and what their bairns would think when they saw what was lying in the cart beside their mother.

On this the big ploughman, that wore a broad blue bonnet and corduroys cutikins, with a grey big-coat slit up behind in the manner I commonly made for laddies, gave his long whip a crack, and drove off to the eastward.

It would be needless in me to waste precious time in relating how I returned to my own country, especially as I may be thankful that nothing particular happened, excepting the coach-wheels riding over an old dog that was lying sleeping on the middle of the road, and, poor brute, nearly got one of his fore-paws chacked off. The day was sharp and frosty and all the pa.s.sengers took a loup off at a yill-house, with a Highlandman on the sign of it, to get a dram, to gar them bear up against the cold; yet knowing what had but so lately happened, and having the fears of Maister Wiggie before my eyes, I had made a solemn vow within myself, not to taste liquor for six months at least; nor would I here break my word, tho' much made a fool of by an Englisher, and a fou Eirisher, who sang all the road; contenting myself, in the best way I could, with a tumbler of strong beer and two b.u.t.ter-bakes.

It is an old proverb, and a true one, that there is no rest to the wicked; so when I got home, I found business crying out for me loudly, having been twice wanted to take the measure for suits of clothes. Of course, knowing that my two customers would be wearying, I immediately cut my stick to their houses, and promised without fail to have my work done against the next Sabbath. Whether from my hurry, or my grief for poor Mungo, or maybe from both, I found on the Sat.u.r.day night, when the clothes were sent home on the arm of Tammie Bodkin, whom I was obliged to hire by way of foresman, that some awful mistake had occurred--the dress of the one having been made for the back of the other, the one being long and tall, the other thick and short; so that Maister Peter Pole's cuffs did not reach above half-way down his arms, and the tails ended at the small of his back, rendering him a perfect fright; while Maister Watty Firkin's new coat hung on him like a dreadnought, the sleeves coming over the nebs of his fingers, and the hainch b.u.t.tons hanging down between his heels, making him resemble a mouse below a firlot. With some persuasion, however, there being but small difference in the value of the cloths, the one being a west of England bottle-green, and the other a Manchester blue, I caused them to niffer, and hushed up the business, which, had they been obstreperous, would have made half the parish of Dalkeith stand on end.

After poor Mungo had been beneath the mools, I daresay a good month, Benjie, as he was one forenoon diverting himself dozing his top in the room where they sleeped, happened to drive it in below the bed, where, scrambling in on his hands and feet, he found a half sheet of paper written over in Mungo's hand-writing, the which he brought to me; and, on looking over it, I found it jingled in metre like the Psalms of David.

Having no skeel in these matters, I sent up the close for James Batter, who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-quarter subscription book-club, had read a power of all sorts of things, sacred and profane. James, as he was humming it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a thump on his thigh, "Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good, capital!" and so on, which astonished me much, kenning who had written it--a callant that had sleeped with our Benjie, and could not have shaped a pair of leggins though we had offered him the crown of the three kingdoms.

Seeing what it was thought of by one who knew what was what, and could distinguish the difference between a B and a bull's foot, I judged it necessary for me to take a copy of it; which, for the benefit of them that like poems, I do not scruple to tag to the tail of this chapter.