A bunch o’ bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.
Old Song.
My own faither, that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch, with regard to myself, but young Mansie, with reference to my grandfaither, after having run the errands, and done his best to grannie during his early years, was, at the age of thirteen, as I have heard him tell, bound a ’prentice to the weaver trade, which, from that day and date, for better for worse, he prosecuted to the hour of his death;—I should rather have said to within a fortnight o’t, for he lay for that time in the mortal fever, that cut through the thread of his existence. Alas! as Job says, “How time flies like a weaver’s shuttle!”
He was a tall, thin, lowering man, blackaviced, and something in the physog like myself, though scarcely so weel-faured; with a kind of blueness about his chin, as if his beard grew of that colour,—which I scarcely think it would do, but might arise either from the dust of the blue cloth, constantly flying about the shop, taking a rest there, or from his having a custom of giving it a rub now and then with his finger and thumb, both of which were dyed of that colour, as well as his apron, from rubbing against and handling the webs of checkit claith in the loom.
Ill would it become me, I trust a dutiful son, to say that my faither was anything but a decent, industrious, hardworking man, doing everything for the good of his family, and winning the respect of all that kenned the value of his worth. As to his decency, few—very few indeed—laid beneath the mools of Dalkeith kirkyard, made their beds there, leaving a better name behind them; and as to industry, it is but little to say that he toiled the very flesh off his bones, ca’ing the shuttle from Monday morning till Saturday night, from the rising up of the sun even to the going down thereof; and whiles, when opportunity led him, or occasion required, digging and delving away at the bit kail-yard, till moon and stars were in the lift, and the dews of heaven that fell on his head were like the oil that flowed from Aaron’s beard, even to the skirts of his garment. But what will ye say there? Some are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and others with a parritch-stick. Of the latter was my faither, for, with all his fechting, he never was able much more than to keep our heads above the ocean of debt. Whatever was denied him, a kind Providence, howsoever, enabled him to do that; and so he departed this life, contented, leaving to my mother and me, the two survivors, the prideful remembrance of being, respectively, she the widow, and me the son, of an honest man. Some left with twenty thousand cannot boast so much; so ilka ane has their comforts.
Having never entered much into public life, further than attending the kirk twice every Sabbath, and thrice when there was evening service, the days of my faither glided over like the waters of a deep river that make little noise in their course; so I do not know whether to lament or rejoice at having almost nothing to record of him. Had Bonaparte as little ill to account for, it would be well this day for him; but, losh me! I had amaist skipped ower his wedding.
In the five-and-twentieth year of his age, he had fallen in love with my mother, Marion Laverock, at the christening of a neebour’s bairn, where they both happened to forgather, little, I daresay, jalousing, at the time their een first met, that fate had destined them for a pair, and to be the honoured parents of me, their only bairn. Seeing my father’s heart was catched as in the net of the fowler, she took every lawful means, such as adding another knot to her cockernony, putting up her hair in screw curls, and so on, to follow up her advantage; the result of all which was, that after three months’ courtship, she wrote a letter out to her friends at Loanhead, telling them of what was more than likely to happen, and giving a kind invitation to such of them as might think it worth their whiles, to come in and be spectators of the ceremony. And a prime day I am told they had of it, having, by advice of more than one, consented to make it a penny wedding; and hiring Deacon Lawrie’s malt-barn at five shillings for the express purpose.
Many yet living, among whom James Batter, who was the best man, and Duncan Imrie, the heel-cutter in the Fleshmarket Close, are yet aboveboard to bear solemn testimony to the grandness of the occasion, and the uncountable numerousness of the company, with such a display of mutton broth, swimming thick with raisins,—and roasted jiggets of lamb,—to say nothing of mashed turnips and champed potatoes,—as had not been seen in the wide parish of Dalkeith in the memory of man. It was not only my faither’s bridal day, but it brought many a lad and lass together by way of partners at foursome reels and Hieland jigs, whose courtship did not end in smoke, couple above couple dating the day of their happiness from that famous forgathering. There were no less than three fiddlers, two of them blind with the sma’-pox, and one naturally, and a piper with his drone and chanter, playing as many pibrochs as would have deaved a mill-happer,—all skirling, scraping, and bumming away throughither, the whole afternoon and night, and keeping half the country-side dancing, capering, and cutting, in strathspey step and quick time, as if they were without a weary, or had not a bone in their bodies. In the days of darkness the whole concern would have been imputed to magic and glamour; and douce folk, finding how they were transgressing over their usual bounds, would have looked about them for the wooden pin that auld Michael Scott the warlock drave in behind the door, leaving the family to dance themselves to death at their leisure.
Had the business ended in dancing, so far well, for a sound sleep would have brought a blithe wakening, and all be tight and right again; but, alas and alackaday! the violent heat and fume of foment they were all thrown into caused the emptying of so many ale-tankers, and the swallowing of so muckle toddy, by way of cooling and refreshing the company, that they all got as fou as the Baltic; and many ploys, that shall be nameless, were the result of a sober ceremony, whereby two douce and decent people, Mansie Wauch, my honoured faither, and Marion Laverock, my respected mother, were linked together, for better for worse, in the lawful bonds of honest wedlock.