CHAPTER XXX
YEAR 1789
This I have always reflected upon as one of our blessed years. It was not remarkable for any extraordinary occurrence; but there was a hopefulness in the minds of men, and a planning of new undertakings, of which, whatever may be the upshot, the devising is ever rich in the cheerful anticipations of good.
Another new line of road was planned, for a shorter cut to the cotton-mill, from the main road to Glasgow, and a public-house was opened in Cayenneville: the latter, however, was not an event that gave me much satisfaction; but it was a convenience to the inhabitants, and the carriers that brought the cotton-bags and took away the yarn twice a-week, needed a place of refreshment. And there was a stage-coach set up thrice every week from Ayr, that passed through the town, by which it was possible to travel to Glasgow between breakfast and dinner time, a thing that could not, when I came to the parish, have been thought within the compass of man.
This stage-coach I thought one of the greatest conveniences that had been established among us; and it enabled Mrs. Balwhidder to send a basket of her fresh butter into the Glasgow market, by which, in the spring and the fall of the year, she got a great price; for the Glasgow merchants are fond of excellent eatables, and the payment was aye ready money—Tam Whirlit the driver paying for the one basket when he took up the other.
In this year William Malcolm, the youngest son of the widow, having been some time a tutor in a family in the east country, came to see his mother, as indeed he had done every year from the time he went to the college; but this occasion was made remarkable by his preaching in my pulpit. His old acquaintance were curious to hear him; and I myself had a sort of a wish likewise, being desirous to know how far he was orthodox; so I thought fit, on the suggestion of one of the elders, to ask him to preach one day for me, which, after some fleeching, he consented to do. I think, however, there was a true modesty in his diffidence, although his reason was a weak one, being lest he might not satisfy his mother, who had as yet never heard him. Accordingly, on the Sabbath after, he did preach, and the kirk was well packed, and I was not one of the least attentive of the congregation. His sermon assuredly was well put together and there was nothing to object to in his doctrine; but the elderly people thought his language rather too Englified, which I thought likewise; for I never could abide that the plain auld Kirk of Scotland, with her sober presbyterian simplicity, should borrow, either in word or in deed, from the language of the prelatic hierarchy of England. Nevertheless, the younger part of the congregation were loud in his praise, saying, there had not been heard before such a style of language in our side of the country. As for Mrs. Malcolm, his mother, when I spoke to her anent the same, she said but little, expressing only her hope that his example would be worthy of his precepts; so that, upon the whole, it was a satisfaction to us all, that he was likely to prove a stoop and upholding pillar to the Kirk of Scotland. And his mother had the satisfaction, before she died, to see him a placed minister, and his name among the authors of his country; for he published at Edinburgh a volume of Moral Essays, of which he sent me a pretty bound copy, and they were greatly creditable to his pen, though lacking somewhat of that birr and smeddum that is the juice and flavour of books of that sort.
CHAPTER XXXI
YEAR 1790
The features of this Ann. Dom. partook of the character of its predecessor. Several new houses were added to the clachan; Cayenneville was spreading out with weavers’ shops, and growing up fast into a town. In some respects it got the start of ours; for one day, when I was going to dine with Mr. Cayenne at Wheatrig House, not a little to my amazement, did I behold a bookseller’s shop opened there, with sticks of red and black wax, pouncet-boxes, pens, pocket-books, and new publications, in the window, such as the like of was only to be seen in cities and borough towns. And it was lighted at night by a patent lamp, which shed a wonderful beam, burning oil, and having no smoke. The man sold likewise perfumery, powder-puffs, trinkets, and Dublin dolls, besides penknives, Castile soap, and walking-sticks, together with a prodigy of other luxuries too tedious to mention.
Upon conversing with the man, for I was enchanted to go into this phenomenon, for as no less could I regard it, he told me that he had a correspondence with London, and could get me down any book published there within the same month in which it came out; and he showed me divers of the newest come out, of which I did not read even in the Scots Magazine till more than three months after, although I had till then always considered that work as most interesting for its early intelligence. But what I was most surprised to hear, was, that he took in a daily London newspaper for the spinners and weavers, who paid him a penny a-week a-piece for the same; they being all greatly taken up with what, at the time, was going on in France.
This bookseller in the end, however, proved a whawp in our nest, for he was in league with some of the English reformers; and when the story took wind three years after, concerning the plots and treasons of the corresponding societies and democrats, he was fain to make a moonlight flitting, leaving his wife for a time to manage his affairs. I could not, however, think any ill of the man notwithstanding; for he had very correct notions of right and justice, in a political sense, and when he came into the parish he was as orderly and well-behaved as any other body; and conduct is a test that I have always found as good for a man’s principles as professions. Nor, at the time of which I am speaking, was there any of that dread or fear of reforming the government that has since been occasioned by the wild and wasteful hand which the French employed in their revolution.
But, among other improvements, I should mention that a Doctor Marigold came and settled in Cayenneville, a small, round, happy-tempered man, whose funny stories were far better liked than his drugs. There was a doubt among some of the weavers if he was a skilful Esculapian; and this doubt led to their holding out an inducement to another medical man, Dr. Tanzey, to settle there likewise, by which it grew into a saying, that at Cayenneville there was a doctor for health as well as sickness; for Dr. Marigold was one of the best hands in the country at a pleasant punch-bowl, while Dr. Tanzey had all the requisite knowledge for the faculty for the bedside.