Their patronage, in my trade, as in most others, is everything. Only get some celebrated country belle to sport a particular and uncommon pattern at a market or at church, and the fate of your napkin-web is fixed. Only get the laird's eldest son to appear in the gallery, at church, in a waistcoat of a particular stripe and combination of colours, and every boor in the parish will purchase the like, at three or four prices. Only get a bride, on her wedding-day, to sport the newest ribbon, and your box is immediately emptied. It is thus that pedlar profit is realized, and a certain degree of notoriety, if not popularity, is obtained. I had got a waistcoat made, for my own use, out of this bit of unsaleable tartan—not, indeed, at the time anticipating any advantage, but the ordinary wear, from the garment. But, as good fortune would have it—and she has much to say in all professions—this very waistcoat was, in a sense, the making of me. I appeared in the town of Moffat in this tartan waistcoat, and had the good fortune, as I stood opposite to the inn-door where the company were to dine, adjusting my pack, and preparing to expose my goods to public view, to be observed from the window by Macpherson himself. He immediately announced the fact of the nature of the tartan which I wore to the gentlemen around him. They immediately began to wonder if the pedlar had any more of the same pattern in his pack; and, from one thing to another, it was agreed, at last, to address me on the subject. Down they came—for they had yet half-an-hour to wait for dinner; and, having made the necessary inquiries, were answered, somewhat shyly, by me, that I "didna ken but I micht hae a wee bit o' the same web." (In fact, I had upwards of two hundred yards deposited snugly in a friend's house, as I passed to England, besides the remnant carried along with me!) So I opened out my supply, and, in a few seconds, I sold the whole of it.
Next day, my pack was exposed at the principal well; and, to my no small delight, I saw Macpherson himself, with upwards of a score of advocates, all sporting the tartan. The thing took like wildfire; piece after piece, (always the last!) I produced and sold; and had I been possessed of double, or even ten times the quantity, I verily believe I might have sold it, at any price. The very shepherd lads, from Queensberry and Errickstane, were down upon me, coaxing and urging me to let them have a waistcoat-piece, at any price. But the more fixed merchants of the place saw my advantage; and, by dismissing an express to Glasgow, in two or three days had their windows filled with the Macpherson. The fever, however, was over. Macpherson himself, waistcoat and all, had set out on his celebrated Highland search; the advocates had returned to their briefs; and the Moffat haberdashers had reason to regret their hasty proceedings in this matter. I had, however, realized a round sum of profit—not less than forty pounds—on this hit; and was content to limit my sale to the more ordinary commodities of my pack, for the rest of the time which I sojourned here.
From Moffat, I took the road, across the hills, to Durrisdeer. At this time, the famous M'Gill was minister of this parish. He was a man celebrated, in his day, for fervency in preaching; for marrying a Miss Goodfellow, (who had paid for his education, and was on the wrong side—I don't say of fifty, but at least of seventeen;) and for his extensive powers and experience in haggis-eating. The "Kirkton" of Durrisdeer—a small cluster of houses around the church—has been celebrated by Burns, in his "Tam o' Shanter"—
"And at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday."
This parish is principally mountainous, and, consequently, pastoral; and the shepherds and sheep-farmers were, at the time of which I speak, in the habit of transacting their worldly affairs, after church time, on the sabbath evenings. This traffic was carried on in small, thatched ale-houses, some of which still remain, kept in general, by old women. (one of whom lived to see 114 years!) and, in one particular exception, by a jolly young lass, yclept "Kirkton Jean." Nobody knew Jean better than Burns; and though, in his admirable poem, he places her near the Doon, yet, in fact, she was a nymph of the Carron, and a parishioner of Durrisdeer. It grieves me sore to say it, but Jean, though a stanch and steady believer and kirk-goer, though a great favourite with the minister, and with all the younger part of the plaided mountaineers, was detested by many decent women, and, in particular, by Mrs. M'Gill, who said she could not bear the sight of her. Her house, however, was much resorted to, and her company, as well as her ale, much sought after; and, when I reposed my pack on Jean's chest-lid, she gave me a hearty welcome, and, telling the old, blind body, her grandmother, that here was the pedlar, greeted me in the most kind and couthy manner possible. It was not my usual wont to put up in a public-house, where I had to pay for my food and bed; but I had my reasons in this case, as the reader will see anon. I arrived on the Tuesday of the sacrament, and attended sermon on Thursday and Saturday, as well as on Sunday.
Monday, however, came at last; and it was towards this Monday that I was looking during all the previous days; for this Monday was, in fact, the great market day of the parish. After M'Gill had preached in the open air to a vast multitude, (for he was the most popular preacher of the presbytery,) man, wife, and wean, master, servant, merchant—all classes and denominations of Christians—were immediately up to the ears in drink and traffic, buying, selling, hiring, niffering, as if religion and its observances had been unknown amongst them. The mind of man is a queer concern—at least, the heart, on the best authority, is "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" and, really, the "Kirkton" of Durrisdeer, in the days of M'Gill, and on the Monday of the sacrament in particular, but too manifestly exhibited the truth of this observation. I had placed my pack on a stand, by the kirk-stile; and, as the congregation dispersed, they had one and all an opportunity of seeing my goods in a state of full display. I had no rival, unless a very decent old woman might be considered as such. She sold a few articles of dress, such as stockings and plaids, all of her own and her daughter's manufacture; but mine were Manchester and Glasgow goods of the very newest fashion, and worn by every lady and gentleman of quality betwixt the two great marts. As the evening advanced, Jean's house became more and more difficult of access. My station was what is termed the spence, or the mid-room or closet, betwixt the kitchen and the ben. There I stood, with my ellwand in my hand, measuring off waistcoat-pieces, displaying shawls, and exhibiting watch-chains and knives, till late in the evening. Some moorland farmers purchased largely on credit—a mode of dealing which I greatly relished, for two reasons: first, because it gave me an opportunity of visiting them in their mountain homes; and, secondly, because I could then with a safe conscience, or, at least, without challenge, charge double the original price. I need not, and I shall not, proceed with the sequel of the evening's events. From Jean, I learned that old Fingland, who was now a widower, had actually asked her in marriage; and that, in a few days, she should, in all probability, be Mrs. Gibson. The poor, doited, drunken body had a good farm from the Duke of Buccleuch; and, having got rid of his family by his first spouse, thought himself entitled to enter anew into the hallowed and often-tried state. He lived to repent his precipitancy and indiscretion; for Jean ruined him in a few months, and making a moonlight flitting, was afterwards found in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh, mistress of the public-house called the Harrow. But here my narrative must conclude for the present.
DUNCAN SCHULEBRED'S VISION OF JUDGMENT.[2]
Well, it is always the same. We are fed by the moralities just as we are by potatoes. We must be always repeating the dose to keep the world in order, and thus it is that we go on. We see many examples of the extraordinary discovery of evil designs attempted to be concealed by all the craft of cunning man; nay, it is impossible to doubt, even with the many cases before us of the apparent success of criminal schemes, that it is a part of God's providence to lay open the secret actings—often the secret thoughts—of those who contravene his laws. The modes by which this purpose is fulfilled are as various as the designs themselves; and though some of them may not appear to be consistent with the seriousness and gravity of an avenging and punishing retribution, we are not, on that account, to doubt their authority or undervalue their effect. Now, we have a case to record of an extraordinary and ludicrous discovery of roguery, which, as well on account of its truth as the moral which, amidst all its grotesqueness, it inculcates, deserves to be remembered. It may do good too to that "muckle ne'er-do-weel," Human Nature, who is still enjoying his grin at the schoolmaster, the philanthropist, and the bible.
In that manufacturing town which has lately risen to considerable eminence, called Dunfermline, there lived, some time ago, a person of the name of Duncan Schulebred, by trade a weaver—or, as he chose rather to be called, a manufacturer, a term which the inhabitants love to apply to every man who can boast the property of a loom and its restless appendage. We believe the people of that town to be as honest and industrious as those of any mercantile place in the kingdom; but they have too much good sense to think of claiming for their entire community, a total exemption from the inroads of dishonesty and deceit—vices which prevail in every corner of this land. Unhappily, the individual we have mentioned had allowed himself to become a slave to those evil propensities which are concerned in the collecting together of ill-gotten wealth, and never left any feasible plan unattempted, which might present any chance of gratifying the ruling passion by which he was mastered. He was a little man, with a florid complexion, and the small twinkling eye which almost invariably accompanies cunning. His walk was that of a man accustomed to carry under his left arm a web of huckaback, and in his right hand a staff ellwand; and his style of speech, bland, conciliating, and persuasive, was derived from the habit of wheedling customers into exorbitant terms. He was a great coward, as well physical as moral—the consequence, doubtless, of being a dishonest trader. Altogether too contemptible to be hated, his greatest enemy was his own conscience, of which he stood in such terrible awe, that his wife was often obliged, during the dark hours of the reign of that mysterious agent, to rise and light a lamp for the purpose of exorcising the spirit which, seated on his heart, tormented him with the gnawing inflictions of its pain.