About the month of February, a recruiting party came to our neighbour town of Irville, to beat up for men to be soldiers against the rebels; and thus the battle was brought, as it were, to our gates; for the very first man that took on with them was one Thomas Wilson, a cottar in our clachan, who, up to that time, had been a decent and creditable character. He was at first a farmer lad, but had forgathered with a doited tawpy, whom he married, and had offspring three or four. For some time it was noticed that he had a down and thoughtful look, that his cleeding was growing bare, and that his wife kept an untrig house, which, it was feared by many, was the cause of Thomas going o’er often to the change-house; he was, in short, during the greater part of the winter, evidently a man foregone in the pleasures of this world, which made all that knew him compassionate his situation.
No doubt, it was his household ills that burdened him past bearing, and made him go into Irville, when he heard of the recruiting, and take on to be a soldier. Such a wally-wallying as the news of this caused at every door; for the red-coats—from the persecuting days, when the black-cuffs rampaged through the country—soldiers that fought for hire were held in dread and as a horror among us, and terrible were the stories that were told of their cruelty and sinfulness; indeed, there had not been wanting in our time a sample of what they were, as witness the murder of Jean Glaikit by Patrick O’Neil, the Irish corporal, anent which I have treated at large in the memorables of the year 1774.
A meeting of the session was forthwith held; for here was Thomas Wilson’s wife and all his weans, an awful cess, thrown upon the parish; and it was settled outright among us, that Mr. Docken, who was then an elder, but is since dead, a worthy man, with a soft tongue and a pleasing manner, should go to Irville, and get Thomas, if possible, released from the recruiters. But it was all in vain; the sergeant would not listen to him, for Thomas was a strapping lad; nor would the poor infatuated man himself agree to go back, but cursed like a cadger, and swore that, if he stayed any longer among his plagues, he would commit some rash act; so we were saddled with his family, which was the first taste and preeing of what war is when it comes into our hearths, and among the breadwinners.
The evil, however, did not stop here. Thomas, when he was dressed out in the king’s clothes, came over to see his bairns, and take a farewell of his friends, and he looked so gallant, that the very next market-day another lad of the parish listed with him; but he was a ramplor, roving sort of a creature, and, upon the whole, it was thought he did well for the parish when he went to serve the king.
The listing was a catching distemper. Before the summer was over, the other three of the farming lads went off with the drum, and there was a wailing in the parish, which made me preach a touching discourse. I likened the parish to a widow woman with a small family, sitting in her cottage by the fireside, herself spinning with an eident wheel, ettling her best to get them a bit and a brat, and the poor weans all canty about the hearthstane—the little ones at their playocks, and the elder at their tasks—the callans working with hooks and lines to catch them a meal of fish in the morning—and the lassies working stockings to sell at the next Marymas fair.—And then I likened war to a calamity coming among them—the callans drowned at their fishing—the lassies led to a misdoing—and the feckless wee bairns laid on the bed of sickness, and their poor forlorn mother sitting by herself at the embers of a cauldrife fire; her tow done, and no a bodle to buy more; drooping a silent and salt tear for her babies, and thinking of days that war gone, and, like Rachel weeping for her children, she would not be comforted. With this I concluded, for my own heart filled full with the thought, and there was a deep sob in the Church; verily it was Rachel weeping for her children.
In the latter end of the year, the man-of-war, with Charles Malcolm in her, came to the tail of the Bank at Greenock, to press men as it was thought, and Charles got leave from his captain to come and see his mother; and he brought with him Mr. Howard, another midshipman, the son of a great parliament man in London, which, as we have tasted the sorrow, gave us some insight into the pomp of war, Charles was now grown up into a fine young man, rattling, light-hearted, and just a cordial of gladness, and his companion was every bit like him. They were dressed in their fine gold-laced garbs and nobody knew Charles when he came to the clachan, but all wondered, for they were on horseback, and rode to the house where his mother lived when he went away, but which was then occupied by Miss Sabrina and her school. Miss Sabrina had never seen Charles, but she had heard of him; and when he enquired for his mother, she guessed who he was, and showed him the way to the new house that the captain had bought for her.
Miss Sabrina, who was a little overly perjink at times, behaved herself on this occasion with a true spirit, and gave her lassies the play immediately; so that the news of Charles’s return was spread by them like wildfire, and there was a wonderful joy in the whole town. When Charles had seen his mother, and his sister Effie, with that douce and well-mannered lad William, his brother—for of their meeting I cannot speak, not being present—he then came with his friend to see me at the manse, and was most jocose with me, and, in a way of great pleasance, got Mrs. Balwhidder to ask his friend to sleep at the manse. In short, we had just a ploy the whole two days they stayed with us, and I got leave from Lord Eaglesham’s steward to let them shoot on my lord’s land; and I believe every laddie wean in the parish attended them to the field. As for old Lady Macadam, Charles being, as she said, a near relation, and she having likewise some knowledge of his comrade’s family, she was just in her element with them, though they were but youths; for she a woman naturally of a fantastical, and, as I have narrated, given to comical devices, and pranks to a degree. She made for them a ball, to which she invited all the bonniest lassies, far and near, in the parish, and was out of the body with mirth, and had a fiddler from Irville; and it was thought by those that were there, that had she not been crippled with the rheumatics, she would have danced herself. But I was concerned to hear both Charles and his friend, like hungry hawks, rejoicing at the prospect of the war, hoping thereby, as soon as their midship term was out, to be made lieutenants; saving this, there was no allay in the happiness they brought with them to the parish, and it was a delight to see how auld and young of all degrees made of Charles; for we were proud of him, and none more than myself, though he began to take liberties with me, calling me old governor; it was, however, in a warm-hearted manner, only I did not like it when any of the elders heard. As for his mother, she deported herself like a saint on the occasion. There was a temperance in the pleasure of her heart, and in her thankfulness, that is past the compass of words to describe. Even Lady Macadam, who never could think a serious thought all her days, said, in her wild way that the gods had bestowed more care in the making of Mrs. Malcolm’s temper, than on the bodies and souls of all the saints in the calendar. On the Sunday the strangers attended divine worship, and I preached a sermon purposely for them, and enlarged at great length and fulness on how David overcame Goliath; and they both told me that they had never heard such a good discourse; but I do not think they were great judges of preachings. How, indeed, could Mr. Howard know anything of sound doctrine, being educated, as he told me, at Eton school, a prelatic establishment! Nevertheless, he was a fine lad; and though a little given to frolic and diversion, he had a principle of integrity, that afterwards kythed into much virtue; for, during this visit, he took a notion of Effie Malcolm, and the lassie of him, then a sprightly and blooming creature, fair to look upon, and blithe to see; and he kept up a correspondence with her till the war was over, when being a captain of a frigate, he came down among us, and they were married by me, as shall be related in its proper place.
CHAPTER XVIII
YEAR 1777
This may well be called the year of the heavy heart, for we had sad tidings of the lads that went away as soldiers to America. First, there was a boding in the minds of all their friends that they were never to see them more; and their sadness, like a mist spreading from the waters and covering the fields, darkened the spirit of the neighbours. Secondly, a sound was bruited about that the king’s forces would have a hot and a sore struggle before the rebels were put down, if they were ever put down. Then came the cruel truth of all that the poor lads’ friends had feared. But it is fit and proper that I should relate at length, under their several heads, the sorrows and afflictions as they came to pass.
One evening, as I was taking my walk alone, meditating my discourse for the next Sabbath—it was shortly after Candlemas—it was a fine clear frosty evening, just as the sun was setting. Taking my walk alone, and thinking of the dreadfulness of Almighty power, and how that, if it was not tempered and restrained by infinite goodness, and wisdom, and mercy, the miserable sinner, man, and all things that live, would be in a woeful state, I drew near the beild where old Widow Mirkland lived by herself, who was grand-mother to Jock Hempy, the ramplor lad, that was the second who took on for a soldier. I did mind of this at the time; but, passing the house, I heard the croon, as it were, of a laden soul busy with the Lord, and, not to disturb the holy workings of grace, I paused and listened. It was old Mizy Mirkland herself, sitting at the gable of the house, looking at the sun setting in all his glory behind the Arran hills; but she was not praying—only moaning to herself—an oozing out, as it might be called, of the spirit from her heart, then grievously oppressed with sorrow, and heavy bodements of grey hairs and poverty.—“Yonder it slips awa’,” she was saying, “and my poor bairn, that’s o’er the seas in America, is maybe looking on its bright face, thinking of his hame, and aiblins of me, that did my best to breed him up in the fear of the Lord; but I couldna warsle wi’ what was ordained. Ay, Jock! as ye look at the sun gaun down, as many a time, when ye were a wee innocent laddie at my knee here, I hae bade ye look at him as a type of your Maker, ye will hae a sore heart; for ye hae left me in my need, when ye should hae been near at hand to help me, for the hard labour and industry with which I brought you up. But it’s the Lord’s will. Blessed be the name of the Lord, that makes us to thole the tribulations of this world, and will reward us, through the mediation of Jesus, hereafter.” She wept bitterly as she said this, for her heart was tried, but the blessing of a religious contentment was shed upon her; and I stepped up to her, and asked about her concerns, for, saving as a parishioner, and a decent old woman, I knew little of her. Brief was her story; but it was one of misfortune.—“But I will not complain,” she said, “of the measure that has been meted unto me. I was left myself an orphan; when I grew up, and was married to my gude-man, I had known but scant and want. Our days of felicity were few; and he was ta’en awa’ from me shortly after my Mary was born. A wailing baby, and a widow’s heart, was a’ he left me. I nursed her with my salt tears, and bred her in straits; but the favour of God was with us, and she grew up to womanhood as lovely as the rose, and as blameless as the lily. In her time she was married to a farming lad. There never was a brawer pair in the kirk, than on that day when they gaed there first as man and wife. My heart was proud, and it pleased the Lord to chastise my pride—to nip my happiness, even in the bud. The very next day he got his arm crushed. It never got well again; and he fell into a decay, and died in the winter, leaving my Mary far on in the road to be a mother.