The alarm of the Irish rebellion in this year was likewise another source of affliction to us; for many of the gentry coming over in great straits, especially ladies and their children, and some of them in the hurry of their flight having but little ready money, were very ill off. Some four or five families came to the Cross-Keys in this situation, and the conduct of Mr. Cayenne to them was most exemplary. He remembered his own haste with his family from Virginia, when the Americans rebelled; and immediately on hearing of these Irish refugees, he waited on them with his wife and daughter, supplied them with money, invited them to his house, made ploys to keep up their spirits, while the other gentry stood back till they knew something of the strangers.
Among these destitute ladies was a Mrs. Desmond and her two daughters, a woman of most august presence, being indeed more like one ordained to reign over a kingdom, than for household purposes. The Miss Desmonds were only entering their teens, but they also had no ordinary stamp upon them. What made this party the more particular, was on account of Mr. Desmond, who was supposed to be a united man with the rebels, and it was known his son was deep in their plots; yet although this was all told to Mr. Cayenne, by some of the other Irish ladies who were of the loyal connexion, it made no difference with him, but, on the contrary, he acted as if he thought the Desmonds the most of all the refugees entitled to his hospitable civilities. This was a wonderment to our strait-laced narrow lairds, as there was not a man of such strict government principles in the whole country side as Mr. Cayenne: but he said he carried his political principles only to the camp and the council. “To the hospital and the prison,” said he, “I take those of a man”—which was almost a Christian doctrine, and from that declaration Mr. Cayenne and me began again to draw a little more cordially together; although he had still a very imperfect sense of religion, which I attributed to his being born in America, where even as yet, I am told, they have but a scanty sprinkling of grace.
But before concluding this year, I should tell the upshot of the visitation of the Irish, although it did not take place until some time after the peace with France.
In the putting down of the rebels Mr. Desmond and his son made their escape to Paris, where they stayed till the treaty was signed, by which, for several years after the return to Ireland of the grand lady and her daughters, as Mrs. Desmond was called by our commonalty, we heard nothing of them. The other refugees repaid Mr. Cayenne his money with thankfulness, and, on their restoration to their homes, could not sufficiently express their sense of his kindness. But the silence and seeming ingratitude of the Desmonds vexed him; and he could not abide to hear the Irish rebellion mentioned without flying into a passion against the rebels, which every body knew was owing to the ill return he had received from that family. However, one afternoon, just about half an hour before his wonted dinner hour, a grand equipage, with four horses and outriders, stopped at his door, and who was in it but Mrs. Desmond and an elderly man, and a young gentleman with an aspect like a lord. It was her husband and son. They had come from Ireland in all their state on purpose to repay with interest the money Mr. Cayenne had counted so long lost, and to express in person the perpetual obligation which he had conferred upon the Desmond family, in all time coming. The lady then told him, that she had been so straitened in helping the poor ladies, that it was not in her power to make repayment till Desmond, as she called her husband, came home; and not choosing to assign the true reason, lest it might cause trouble, she rather submitted to be suspected of ingratitude than to an improper thing.
Mr. Cayenne was transported with this unexpected return, and a friendship grew up between the families, which was afterwards cemented into relationship by the marriage of the young Desmond with Miss Caroline Cayenne. Some in the parish objected to this match, Mrs. Desmond being a papist: but as Miss Caroline had received an episcopalian education, I thought it of no consequence, and married them after their family chaplain from Ireland, as a young couple both by beauty and fortune well matched, and deserving of all conjugal felicity.
CHAPTER XL
YEAR 1799
There are but two things to make me remember this year; the first was the marriage of my daughter Janet with the reverend Dr. Kittlewood of Swappington, a match in every way commendable; and on the advice of the third Mrs. Balwhidder, I settled a thousand pounds down, and promised five hundred more at my death if I died before my spouse, and a thousand at her death if she survived me; which was the greatest portion ever minister’s daughter had in our country side. In this year likewise I advanced fifteen hundred pounds for my son in a concern in Glasgow,—all was the gathering of that indefatigable engine of industry the second Mrs. Balwhidder, whose talents her successor said were a wonder, when she considered the circumstances in which I had been left at her death, and made out of a narrow stipend.
The other memorable was the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on this earth, she was surely one. She had been for some time bedfast, having all her days from the date of her widowhood been a tender woman; but no change made any alteration on the Christian contentment of her mind. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her earnings, although ever so little. She bent her head to the Lord in resignation when her first-born fell in battle; nor was she puffed up with vanity when her daughters were married, as it was said, so far above their degree, though they showed it was but into their proper sphere by their demeanour after. She lived to see her second son, the captain, rise into affluence, married, and with a thriving young family; and she had the very great satisfaction, on the last day she was able to go to church, to see her youngest son the clergyman standing in my pulpit, a doctor of divinity, and the placed minister of a richer parish than mine. Well indeed might she have said on that day, “Lord, let thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”
For some time it had been manifest to all who saw her, that her latter end was drawing nigh; and therefore, as I had kept up a correspondence with her daughters, Mrs. Macadam and Mrs. Howard, I wrote them a particular account of her case, which brought them to the clachan. They both came in their own carriages; for Colonel Macadam was now a general, and had succeeded to a great property by an English uncle, his mother’s brother; and Captain Howard, by the death of his father, was also a man, as it was said, with a lord’s living. Robert Malcolm, her son the captain, was in the West Indies at the time; but his wife came on the first summons, as did William the minister.
They all arrived about four o’clock in the afternoon, and at seven a message came for me and Mrs. Balwhidder to go over to them, which we did, and found the strangers seated by the heavenly patient’s bedside. On my entering, she turned her eyes towards me, and said, “Bear witness, sir, that I die thankful for an extraordinary portion of temporal mercies. The heart of my youth was withered like the leaf that is scared with the lightning; but in my children I have received a great indemnification for the sorrows of that trial.” She then requested me to pray, saying, “No; let it be a thanksgiving. My term is out, and I have nothing more to hope or fear from the good or evil of this world. But I have had much to make me grateful; therefore, sir, return thanks for the time I have been spared, for the goodness granted so long unto me, and the gentle hand with which the way from this world is smoothed for my passing.”