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.