Just at the time that the twa blind fiddles were playing “The Downfall of Paris,” a handbell rang, and up goes the green curtain; being hauled to the ceiling, as I observed wi’ the tail of my ee, by a birkie at the side, that had haud of a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all becoming as still as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a decent old gentleman at his leisure, weel powthered, wi’ an auld fashioned coat on, waistcoat with flap-pockets, brown breeches with buckles at the knees, and silk stockings with red gushets on a blue ground. I never saw a man in sic distress; he stampit about, dadding the end of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers of heaven and yearth to help him to find out his runawa’ daughter, that had decampit wi’ some ne’er-do-weel loon of a half-pay captain, that keppit her in his arms frae her bedroom window, up twa pair o’ stairs. Every father and head of a family maun hae felt for a man in his situation, thus to be rubbit of his dear bairn, and an only daughter too, as he tell’t us ower and ower again, as the saut, saut tears ran gushing down his withered face, and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered pocket napkin. But, ye ken, the thing was absurd to suppose that we should ken onything about the matter, having never seen either him or his daughter between the een afore, and no kenning them by headmark; so though we sympathised with him, as folks ought to do wi’ a fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to haud our tongues, to see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he gaed stumping at the ither side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he should follow them to the world’s end, Johnny Groat’s House, or something to that effect.
Hardly was his back turned, and amaist before ye could cry Jack Robinson, in comes the birkie and the very young leddy the auld gentleman described, arm-in-arm thegither, smoodging and lauching like daft. Dog on it! it was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the crowd of folk, he pat his arm round her waist, and ca’ed her his sweatheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and everything that is sweet. If they had been courting in a close thegither on a Friday night, they couldna hae said mair to ane anither, or gaen greater lengths. I thought sic shame to be an ee-witness to sic ongoings, that I was obliged at last to haud up my hat afore my face, and look down; though, for a’ that, the young lad, to be sic a blackguard as his conduct showed, was weel enough faured, and had a gude coat to his back, wi’ double-gilt buttons, and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very weel-made pair of buckskins, a little the waur o’ the wear to be sure, but which, if they had been weel cleaned, would hae lookit amaist as gude as new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw chaise nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is mair than likely they had lightit at the back-door of the barn frae a horse, she riding on a pad behint him, maybe with her hand round his waist.
The faither lookit to be a rich auld bool, baith from his manner of speaking and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his daughter; but, to be sure, when so many of us were present, that had an equal right to the spulzie, it wadna be a great deal a thousand pounds when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just bidit a wee.
Things were brought to a bearing, howsomever, sooner than either themsels, I daursay, or anybody else present, seemed to hae the least glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of a coming fit was heard, and the lassie taking guilt to her, cried out, “Hide me, hide me, for the sake of gudeness, for yonder comes my auld faither!”
Nae sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closet; and after shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in a moment. The auld faither came bouncing in, and seeing the fellow as sound as a tap, he ran forrit and gaed him sic a shake, as if he wad hae shooken him a’ sundry, which sune made him open his een as fast as he had steekit them.
After blackguarding the chield at no allowance, cursing him up hill and down dale, and ca’ing him every name but a gentleman, he held his staff ower his crown, and gripping him by the cuff o’ the neck, askit him what he had made o’ his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see sic brazen-faced impudence. The rascal had the brass to say at ance, that he hadna seen word or wittens of his daughter for a month, though mair than a hundred folks sitting in his company had seen him dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist not five minutes before. As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised,—for I aye hated leeing, as a puir cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten commandments; and I found my neebour, Mr Glen, fidgeting on the seat as well as me, so I thocht that whaever spoke first wad hae the best right to be entitled to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, “Dinna believe him, auld gentleman—dinna believe him, friend; he’s telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It’s no worth arguing, or ca’ing witnesses; just open that press door, and ye’ll see whether I’m speaking truth or no.”
The auld man stared, and lookit dumfoundered; and the young man, instead of rinnin’ forrit wi’ his doubled nieves to strike me—the only thing I was feared for—began a lauching, as if I had dune him a gude turn. But never since I had a being, did ever I witness sic an uproar and noise as immediately took place. The hale house was sae glad that the scoundrel had been exposed, that they set up siccan a roar o’ lauchter, and they thumpit away at siccan a rate at the boards wi’ their feet, that at lang and last, wi’ pushing and fidgeting, clapping their hands, and hadding their sides, down fell the place they ca’ the gallery, a’ the folk in’t being hurled tapsy-turvy, head foremost amang the sawdust on the floor below; their guffawing sune being turned to howling, ilka ane crying louder than anither at the tap of their voices, “Murder! Murder! haud aff me. Murder, my ribs are in. Murder! I’m killed—I’m speechless!” and ither lamentations to that effect; so that a rush to the door took place, in which everything was overturned—the doorkeeper being wheeled away like wildfire; the furms strampit to pieces; the lights knockit out; and the twa blind fiddlers dung head foremost ower the stage, the bass fiddle cracking like thunder at every bruise. Siccan tearing and swearing, and tumbling and squealing, was never witnessed in the memory of man, since the building of Babel; legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in, een knocked out, and lives lost; there being only one door, and that a sma’ ane; so that, when we had been carried aff our feet that length, my wind was fairly gane, and a sick dwalm cam ower me, lights of a’ manner of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely deprived me o’ my common sense, till on opening my een in the dark, I fand myself leaning wi’ my braid side against the wa’ on the opposite side of the close. It was some time before I mindit what had happened; so, dreading scaith, I fand first the ae arm, and then the ither, to see if they were broken—syne my head—and syne baith o’ my legs; but a’ as weel as I could discover was skin-hale and scart-free; on perceiving which, my joy was without bounds, having a great notion that I had been killed on the spot. So I reached round my hand very thankfully to tak out my pocket napkin, to gie my brow a wipe, when, lo and behold, the tail of my Sunday’s coat was fairly aff an’ away—dockit by the hench buttons.
Sae muckle for plays and play-actors—the first and last, I trust in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect nae better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie had mair than ance gien us frae the puppit on the subject; sae, instead of getting my grand reward for finding the auld man’s daughter, the hale covey o’ them, nae better than a set of swindlers, took legbail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting, and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought frae sunrise to sunset, for twa days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being well paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got naething left him but a rackle of his own gude deals, a’ dung to shivers.
JANE MALCOLM:
A VILLAGE TALE.
Every town in Scotland has its “character,” in the shape of some bedlamite, innocent, or odd fish. There is something interesting about these out-of-the-way beings. Everything they do is a kind of current chapter of biography among their neighbours;—what they say is regarded as the words of an oracle—more worthy of memory than the inquiries of the laird or the advice of the parson. They are in a manner immortalised.