In the green hedge-row lane, leading to the tent of the preacher, various stalls were established by persons who thought—as godliness was great gain, great gain was godliness. Here refreshments of all kinds, particularly liquid consolation, abounded, and one tent, rivalling in dimensions the tabernacle of the preacher, looked presumptuously down from the very crest of the hill on its more devout neighbour below. Here the owner of a neighbouring public house had established himself, and into this canvass mansion, in a moment of weakness, I was tempted to enter. I had sundry reasons for this piece of backsliding;—first, I had become wearied with the unexampled length and tediousness of the before-mentioned four hour's sermon; secondly, I was desirous to partake of either Ram-Jam, Mid-Row, or Pinkie, three denominations of ale, for which the landlord was become deservedly famous, and in the brewing of which, weak nerves, as well as a good head, had been doubtlessly consulted—and; thirdly and lastly, a dark-eyed damsel from the mountains wished for my private opinion anent the sinfulness of dancing, and to instruct me in a near road over the hills to her father's house, which stood in a remote glen on the stream of Ae. While deeply employed in taking a chart of this desart path, I could not avoid remarking with what particular gravity all were drinking, and many getting drunk. Consolation had been poured forth in no stinted tide, for a huge wall of empty vessels flanked the entrance. The proprietor of this house of call for the thirsty, was a ruddy carroty-headed rustic, who had contrived to draw down his cheeks for the occasion, in a manner unusually solemn. He sat apart busied, or apparently busied, with that chief of all sage books, the Young Man's Best Companion; while his daughter, as active a girl as ever chalked a score to a thirsty man, managed the business. But his mind had wandered into a long and studious calculation of the probable profit in his fermentations, and the Book, which was only put there as a decoy to the godly, was neglected. I contrived to withdraw it unperceived from before him, and for this feat I was rewarded by a grim smile from a broad bonneted son of Cameron, and a snuff from a tuphorn with a silver lid.
On returning to the meeting, the stars were beginning to glimmer, amongst the thin mist of the summer evening, and I could see groupes, already at some distance, of the spectators retiring home. Far differently demeaned themselves the pious remnant. They crowded round their preacher's tent after the repose of a brief intermission, and I left them enjoying a mysterious lecture on Permission, Predestination, Free Grace, The Elect, and Effectual Calling.
I am now, and I say it with sorrow, far removed from the society of those exemplary and pious people; and I heard, I confess, with something of an old Cameronian spirit and regret, that a proposition has been made to remove the meeting house into the neighbouring town of Dumfries. Of my old favourites, few I understand survive, and year after year lessens the number of those devout men who regularly passed my father's window on the Sabbath morn. Mr. Farely has long since been numbered with the blessed—and Jean Robson, a very singular and devout character, has also rested from her labour of instructing the youth of the Cameronians. She taught the writer of this imperfect account to read—the Bible, and the famed Prophecies of Alexander Peden. She tore the leaf from the Bible which said, "James, by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith," and denounced the name of Sunday as Popish, or what was worse, Prelatical, and caused us all to call it the Sabbath. She died 83 years old. She used to flog her scholars, and exclaim,—"Thou art an evil one—a worker of iniquity," while the tawse and tongue kept time and told sharply.
The Cameronians make few converts—few people are fond of inflicting on themselves willingly the penance of controversial prayers and interminable sermons. There is a falling off in the amount of the flock.—My friend, the weaver, became a convert from conviction. Another of the converts joined the cause in the decline of life, not without suspicion of discontent, because his gifts had been overlooked by the minister of the parish kirk, in a recent nomination of elders. He was fond of argument, and seemed not unwilling to admit the potent auxiliaries of sword and gun on behalf of the cause. On one occasion, he grew wroth with the ready wit of a neighbouring peasant, on the great litigated point of patronage—and seizing the readiest weapon of his wrath, a hazel hoop—for he was a cooper—exclaimed, "Reviler—retire—else I'll make your head saft with this rung." On another time, he became exasperated at the irreverent termination of an epigram on a tippling blacksmith, which was attributed to Burns, who then resided within sight—at Elisland.
On the last day,
When sober men to judgment rise,
Go drunken dog, lie still incog.
And dinna stir if ye be wise.
The honest Covenanter, after three days and three nights meditation, brought forth his expostulation with the mighty bard of Caledonia. It commenced thus—
Robert Burns ye were nae wise
To gie to Rodds sic an advice.
It has lost all its attraction since the voice of its author is mute, for who can repeat it as he did—the pithy preliminary remarks on the great poet's morals—the short Cameronian cough—the melodious trail of the tongue—and the frequent intrusion of explanatory notes, which the uninspired could not always distinguish from the poem itself, all these things are departed and passed away, and the verses sleep as quietly as the dust of the poet. Two other occasional converts scarcely deserve notice—one of them was saved from thorough conviction by the well-timed exaltation to a neighbouring precentorship, and the other has returned to his seat in the kirk, since the dark-eyed daughter of an adjacent Cameronian gave her hand, and it was a white one, to one of the chosen who was laird of an acre of peat-moss—and I have not heard of any other damsel of the covenant having caused him to relapse.