It seems as if Providence, reserving every thing famous and remarkable for me, allowed little or nothing of consequence to happen to my faither, who had few crooks in his lot; at least, I never learned, either from him or any other body, of any adventures likely seriously to interest the world at large. I have heard tell, indeed, that he once got a terrible fright by taking the bounty, during the American war, from an Eirish corporal, of the name of Dochart O’Flaucherty, at Dalkeith fair, when he was at his ’prenticeship; he, not being accustomed to malt-liquor, having got fouish and frisky—which was not his natural disposition—over half-a-bottle of porter. From this it will easily be seen, in the first place, that it would be with a fecht that his master would get him off, by obliging the corporal to take back the trepan money; in the second place, how long a date back it is since the Eirish began to be the death of us; and in conclusion, that my honoured faither got such a fleg as to spane him effectually, for the space of ten years, from every drinkable stronger than good spring-well water. Let the unwary take caution; and may this be a wholesome lesson to all whom it may concern.
In this family history it becomes me, as an honest man, to make passing mention of my faither’s sister, auntie Mysie, that married a carpenter and undertaker in the town of Jedburgh; and who, in the course of nature and industry, came to be in a prosperous and thriving way; indeed so much so, as to be raised from the rank of a private head of a family, and at last elected, by a majority of two votes over a famous cow-doctor, a member of the town-council itself.
There is a good story, howsoever, connected with this business, with which I shall make myself free to wind up this somewhat fusty and fuzzionless chapter.
Well, ye see, some great lord,—I forget his name, but no matter,—that had made a most tremendous sum of money, either by foul or fair means, among the blacks in the East Indies, had returned before he died, to lay his bones at home, as yellow as a Limerick glove, and as rich as Dives in the New Testament. He kept flunkies with plush small-clothes, and sky-blue coats with scarlet-velvet cuffs and collars,—lived like a princie, and settled, as I said before, in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh.
The body, though as brown as a toad’s back, was as pridefu’ and full of power as auld king Nebuchadneisher; and how to exhibit all his purple and fine linen, he aye thought and better thought, till at last the happy determination came ower his mind like a flash of lightning, to invite the bailies, deacons, and town-council, all in a body, to come in and dine with him.
Save us! what a brushing of coats, such a switching of stoury trousers, and bleaching of white cotton stockings, as took place before the catastrophe of the feast, never before happened since Jeddart was a burgh. Some of them that were forward, and geyan bold in the spirit, crawed aloud for joy at being able to boast that they had received an invitation letter to dine with a great lord; while others, as proud as peacocks of the honour, yet not very sure as to their being up to the trade of behaving themselves at the tables of the great, were mostly dung stupid with not kenning what to think. A council meeting or two was held in the gloamings, to take such a serious business into consideration; some expressing their fears and inward down-sinking, while others cheered them up with a fillip of pleasant consolation. Scarcely a word of the matter for which they were summoned together by the town-offisher—and which was about the mending of the old bell-rope—was discussed by any of them. So, after a sowd of toddy was swallowed, with the hopes of making them brave men, and good soldiers of the magistracy, they all plucked up a proud spirit, and, do or die, determined to march in a body up to the gate, and forward to the table of his lordship.
My uncle, who had been one of the ringleaders of the chicken-hearted, crap away up among the rest, with his new blue coat on, shining fresh from the ironing of the goose, but keeping well among the thick, to be as little kenspeckle as possible; for all the folk of the town were at their doors and windows to witness the great occasion of the town-council going away up like gentlemen of rank to take their dinner with his lordship. That it was a terrible trial to all cannot be for a moment denied; yet some of them behaved themselves decently; and if we confess that others trembled in the knees, as if they were marching to a field of battle, it was all in the course of human nature.
Yet ye would wonder how they came on by degrees; and, to cut a long tale short, at length found themselves in a great big room, like a palace in a fairy tale, full of grand pictures with gold frames, and looking-glasses like the side of a house, where they could see down to their very shoes. For a while they were like men in a dream, perfectly dazzled and dumfoundered; and it was five minutes before they could either see a seat, or think of sitting down. With the reflection of the looking-glasses, one of the bailies was so possessed within himself that he tried to chair himself where chair was none, and landed, not very softly, on the carpet; while another of the deacons, a fat and dumpy man, as he was trying to make a bow, and throw out his leg behind him, tramped on a favourite Newfoundland dog’s tail, that, wakening out of his slumbers with a yell that made the roof ring, played drive against my uncle, who was standing abaft, and wheeled him like a butterflee, side foremost, against a table with a heap o’ flowers on’t, where, in trying to kep himself, he drove his head, like a battering ram, through a looking-glass, and bleached back on his hands and feet on the carpet.
Seeing what had happened, they were all frightened; but his lordship, after laughing heartily, was politer, and kent better about manners than all that; so, bidding the flunkies hurry away with the fragments of the china jugs and jars, they found themselves, sweating with terror and vexation, ranged along silk settees, cracking about the weather and other wonderfuls.
Such a dinner! The fume of it went round about their hearts like myrrh and frankincense. The landlord took the head of the table, the bailies the right and left of him; the deacons and councillors were ranged along the sides like files of sodgers; and the chaplain, at the foot, said grace. It is entirely out of the power of man to set down on paper all that they got to eat and drink; and such was the effect of French cookery, that they did not ken fish from flesh. Howsoever, for all that, they laid their lugs in everything that lay before them, and what they could not eat with forks, they supped with spoons; so it was all to one purpose.