When the laying on of the hands upon me was adoing, Mr. Given, minister of Lugton, a jocose man, who could not get near, stretched out his staff and touched my head, saying, to the great diversion of the rest, "This will do well enough--timber to timber."
After the ceremony we went to the manse, and there had an excellent dinner. Although my people received me in this unruly manner, I was resolved to cultivate civility among them; and next morning I began a round of visitations. But, oh! it was a steep brae to climb. The doors in some places were barred against me; in others the bairns ran crying to their mothers, "Here's the feckless Mess-John." But Thomas Thorl received me kindly, and said that this early visitation was a symptom of grace, and that not to condemn me without trial he and some neighbours would be at the kirk at the next Lord's day, so that I would not have to preach just to the bare walls and the laird's family.
As to Mrs. Malcolm, she was the widow of a Clyde shipmaster that was lost at sea with his vessel. A genty body, she never changed her widow's weeds, and span frae morning tae nicht to keep her bairns and herself. When her daughter Effie was ill, I called on her in a sympathising way, and offered her some assistance frae the Session, but she refused help out of the poor's-box, as it might be hereafter cast up to her bairns.
It was in the year 1761 that the great smuggling trade corrupted the west coast. Tea was going like chaff, and brandy like well-water. There was nothing minded but the riding of cadgers by day and excisemen by night, and battles between the smugglers and the king's men, both by sea and land; continual drunkenness and debauchery, and our Session had an awful time o't.
I did all that was in my power to keep my people from the contagion. I preached sixteen times from the text, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's." I visited, exhorted, warned, and prophesied, but the evil got in among us. The third year of my ministry was long held in remembrance. The small-pox came in among the poor bits o' weans of the parish, and the smashing it made among them was woeful. When the pestilence was raging, I preached a sermon about Rachel weeping for her children, which Thomas Thorl, a great judge of good preaching, said, "was a monument of divinity whilk searched the heart of many a parent that day"--a thing I was well pleased to hear, and was minded to make him an elder the next vacancy. But, worthy man, it was not permitted him to arrive at that honour; for that fall it pleased Him that alone can give and take to pluck him from this life.
In this year Charlie Malcolm, Mrs. Malcolm's eldest son, was sent to sea in a tobacco-trader that sailed between Port Glasgow and Virginia. Tea-drinking was beginning to spread more openly, in so much that by the advice of the first Mrs. Balwhidder, Mrs. Malcolm took in tea to sell to eke out something to the small profits of her wheel. I lost some of my dislike to the tea after that, and we had it for breakfast at the manse as well as in the afternoon. But what I thought most of it for was that it did no harm to the head of the drinkers, which was not always the case with the possets in fashion before, when I remember decent ladies coming home with red faces from a posset-masking. So I refrained from preaching against tea henceforth, but I never lifted the weight of my displeasure from off the smuggling trade, until it was utterly put down by the strong hand of government.
II.--The Minister's Second Marriage
A memorable year, both in public and private, was 1763. The king granted peace to the French. Lady Macadam, widow of General Macadam, who lived in her jointure-house, took Kate Malcolm to live with her as companion, and she took pleasure in teaching Kate all her accomplishments and how to behave herself like a lady. The lint-mill on Lugton Water was burned to the ground, with not a little of the year's crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrs. Balwhidder lost upwards of twelve stone, which was intended for sarking to ourselves and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on her health, which from the spring had been in a dwining way. But for it, I think she might have wrestled through the winter. However, it was ordered otherwise, and she was removed from mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas Day, and buried on Hogmanay, for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on the New Year's Day.
Just by way of diversion in my heavy sorrow, I got a well-shapen headstone made for her; but a headstone without a epitaph being no better than a body without the breath of life in't, I made a poesy for the monument, not in the Latin tongue, which Mrs. Balwhidder, worthy woman as she was, did not understand, but in sedate language, which was greatly thought of at the time. My servant lassies, having no eye of a mistress over them, wasted everything at such a rate that, long before the end of the year, the year's stipend was all spent, and I did not know what to do. At lang and length I sent for Mr. Auld, a douce and discreet elder, and told him how I was situated. He advised me, for my own sake, to look out for another wife, as soon as decency would allow.
In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration, on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it is said, "Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay." The second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy, and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint for sheets and napery. She sent the butter on market days to Irville, her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow. We were just coining money, in so much that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into the bank.