Broad-cloth without, and a warm heart within.—Cowper.
This great globe and all that it inherits shall dissolve,
And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind!—Shakspeare.
At the christening of our only bairn, Benjie, two or three remarkable circumstances occurred, which it behoves me to relate. It was on a cold November afternoon; and really when the bit room was all redd up, the fire bleezing away, and the candles lighted, every thing looked full tosh and comfortable. It was a real pleasure, after looking out into the drift that was fleeing like mad from the east, to turn one’s neb inwards, and think that we had a civilised home to comfort us in the dreary season. So, one after another, the bit party we had invited to the ceremony came papping in; and the crack began to get loud and hearty; for, to speak the truth, we were blessed with canny friends and a good neighbourhood. Notwithstanding, it was very curious that I had no mind of asking down James Batter, the weaver, honest man, though he was one of our own elders; and in papped James, just when the company had hafflins met, with his stocking-sleeves on his arms, his nightcap on his head, and his blue-stained apron hanging down before him, to light his pipe at our fire.
James, when he saw his mistake, was fain to retreat; but we would not hear tell of it, till he came in, and took a dram out of the bottle, as we told him the not doing so would spoil the wean’s beauty, which is an old freak (the smallpox, however, afterwards did that); so, with much persuasion, he took a chair for a gliff, and began with some of his drolls—for he is a clever, humoursome man, as ye ever met with. But he had not got far on with his jests, when lo! a rap came to the door, and Mysie whipped away the bottle under her apron, saying, “Wheesht, wheesht, for the sake of gudeness—there’s the minister!”
This room had only one door, and James mistook it, running his head, for lack of knowledge, into the open closet, just as the minister lifted the outer-door sneck. We were all now sitting on nettles, for we were frightened that James would be seized with a cough, for he was a wee asthmatic; or that some, knowing there was a thief in the pantry, might hurt good manners by breaking out into a giggle. However, all for a considerable time was quiet, and the ceremony was performed; little Nancy, our niece, handing the bairn upon my arm to receive its name. So we thought, as the minister seldom made a long stay on similar occasions, that all would pass off well enough. But wait a wee.
There was but one of our company that had not cast up, to wit, Deacon Paunch, the flesher, a most worthy man, but tremendously big, and grown to the very heels; as was once seen on a wager, that his ankle was greater than my brans. It was really a pain to all feeling Christians, to see the worthy man waighling about, being, when weighed in his own scales, two-and-twenty stone ten ounces, Dutch weight. Honest man, he had had a sore fecht with the wind and sleet, and he came in with a shawl roppined round his neck, peching like a broken-winded horse; so fain was he to find a rest for his weary carcass in our stuffed chintz pattern elbow-chair by the fire-cheek.
From the soughing of wind at the window, and the rattling in the lum, it was clear to all manner of comprehension, that the night was a dismal one; so the minister, seeing so many of his own douce folk about him, thought he might do worse than volunteer to sit still and try our toddy; indeed, we would have pressed him before this to do so, but what was to come of James Batter, who was shut up in the closet, like the spies in the house of Rahab the harlot, in the city of Jericho?
James began to find it was a bad business; and having been driving the shuttle about from before daylight, he was fain to crook his hough, and felt round about him quietly in the dark for a chair to sit down upon, since better might not be. But, wae’s me! the cat was soon out of the pock.