hold-fasts, by Johnny Hammer, painted in black letters on a blue ground, with a picture of a jacket on one side, and a pair of shears on the other,—and my shop-door opened to the public, with a wheen ready-made waistcoats, gallowses, leather-caps and Kilmarnock cowls, hung up at the window, than business flowed in upon us in a perfect torrent. First one came in for his measure, and then another. A wife came in for a pair of red worsted boots for her bairn, but would not take them for they had not blue fringes. A bareheaded lassie, hoping to be handsel, threw down twopence, and asked tape at three yards for a halfpenny. The minister sent an old black coat beneath his maid’s arm, pinned up in a towl, to get docked in the tails down into a jacket; which I trust I did to his entire satisfaction, making it fit to a hair. The Duke’s butler himself patronized me, by sending me a coat which was all hair-powder and pomate, to get a new neck put to it. And James Batter, aye a staunch friend of the family, dispatched a barefoot cripple lassie down the close to me, with a brown paper parcel, tied with skinie, and having a memorandum letter sewed on the top of it, and wafered with a wafer. It ran as follows; “Maister Batter has sent down, per the bearer, with his compliments to Mr Wauch, a cuttikin of corduroy, deficient in the instep, which please let out, as required. Maister Wauch will also please be so good as observe, that three of the buttons have sprung the thorls, which he will be obliged to him to replace, at his earliest convenience. Please send me a message what that may be; and have the account made out, article for article, and duly discharged, that I may send down the bearer with the change; and to bring me back the cuttikin and the account, to save time and trouble. I am, dear sir, your most obedient friend, and ever most sincerely,
“James Batter.”
No wonder than we attracted customers, for our sign was the prettiest ye ever saw, though the jacket was not just so neatly painted, as for some sand-blind creatures not to take it for a goose. I daresay there were fifty half-naked bairns glowring their eyes out of their heads at it, from morning till night; and,
after they all were gone to their beds, both Nanse and me found ourselves so proud of our new situation in life, that we slipped out in the dark by ourselves, and had a prime look at it with a lantern.
CHAPTER VII.—THE FOREWARNING.
I had a dream which was not all a dream.
Byron.
Coming events cast their shadows before.
Campbell.
On first commencing business, I have freely confessed, I believe, that I was unco solicitous of custom, though less from sinful, selfish motives, than from the, I trust, laudable fear I had about becoming in a jiffy the father of a small family, every one with a mouth to fill and a back to cleid—helpless bairns, with nothing to look to or lean on, save and except the proceeds of my daily handiwork. Nothing, however, is sure in this world, as Maister Wiggie more than once took occasion to observe, when lecturing on the house built by the foolish man on the sea-sands; for months passed on, and better passed on; and these, added together by simple addition, amounted to three years; and still neither word nor wittens of a family, to perpetuate our name to future generations, appeared to be forthcoming.
Between friends, I make no secret of the matter, that this was a catastrophe which vexed me not a little, for more reasons than one. In the first place, youngsters being a bond of mutual affection between man and wife, sweeter than honey from the comb, and stronger than the Roman cement with which the old Picts built their bridges, that will last till the day of doom. In the second place, bairns toddling round a bit ingle make a house look like itself, especially in the winter time, when hailstanes rattle on the window, and winds roar like the voices of mighty
giants at the lum-head; for then the maister of the dwelling finds himself like an ancient patriarch, and the shepherd of a flock, tender as young lambs, yet pleasant to his eye, and dear to his heart. And, in the third place, (for I’ll speak the truth and shame the deil,) as I could not thole the gibes and idle tongues of a wheen fools, that, for their diversion, would be asking me, “How the wife and bairns were; and if I had sent my auldest laddie to the school yet?”
I have swithered within myself for more than half-an-hour whether I should relate a circumstance bordering a little on the supernatural line, that happened to me, as connected with the business of the bairns of which I have just been speaking; and, were it for no other reason, but just to plague the scoffer that sits in his elbow-chair, I have determined to jot down the whole miraculous paraphernally in black and white. With folk that will not listen to the voice of reason, it is needless to be wasterful of words; so them that like, may either prin their faith to my coat-sleeve, about what I am going to relate, or not—just as they choose. All that I can say in my defence, and as an affidavy to my veracity, is, that I have been thirty year an elder of Maister Wiggie’s kirk—and that is no joke. The matter I make free to consider is not a laughing concern, nor any thing belonging to the Merry-Andrew line; and, if folk were but strong in the faith, there is no saying what may come to pass for their good. One might as well hold up their brazen face, and pretend not to believe any thing—neither the Witch of Endor raising up Samuel; nor Cornel Gardener’s vision; nor Johnny Wilkes and the De’il; nor Peden’s prophecies.