“Now, Heaven guide us,” said the Udaller, “what is the matter with the man? Why, man, if you will put your plough into new land, you must look to have it hank on a stone now and then—You must set us an example of patience, seeing you come here for our improvement.”
“And the deil was in my feet when I did so,” said the Factor; “I had better have set myself to improve the cairn on Clochnaben.”
“But what is it, after all,” said the Udaller, “that has befallen you?—what is it that you complain of?”
“Of every thing that has chanced to me since I landed on this island, which I believe was accursed at the very creation,” said the agriculturist, “and assigned as a fitting station for sorners, thieves, whores, (I beg the ladies’ pardon,) witches, bitches, and all evil spirits!”
“By my faith, a goodly catalogue!” said Magnus; “and there has been the day, that if I had heard you give out the half of it, I should have turned improver myself, and have tried to amend your manners with a cudgel.”
“Bear with me,” said the Factor, “Maister Fowd, or Maister Udaller, or whatever else they may call you, and as you are strong be pitiful, and consider the luckless lot of any inexperienced person who lights upon this earthly paradise of yours. He asks for drink, they bring him sour whey—no disparagement to your brandy, Fowd, which is excellent—You ask for meat, and they bring you sour sillocks that Satan might choke upon—You call your labourers together, and bid them work; it proves Saint Magnus’s day, or Saint Ronan’s day, or some infernal saint or other’s—or else, perhaps, they have come out of bed with the wrong foot foremost, or they have seen an owl, or a rabbit has crossed their path, or they have dreamed of a roasted horse—in short, nothing is to be done—Give them a spade, and they work as if it burned their fingers; but set them to dancing, and see when they will tire of funking and flinging!”
“And why should they, poor bodies,” said Claud Halcro, “as long as there are good fiddlers to play to them?”
“Ay, ay,” said Triptolemus, shaking his head, “you are a proper person to uphold them in such a humour. Well, to proceed:—I till a piece of my best ground; down comes a sturdy beggar that wants a kailyard, or a plant-a-cruive, as you call it, and he claps down an enclosure in the middle of my bit shot of corn, as lightly as if he was baith laird and tenant; and gainsay him wha likes, there he dibbles in his kail-plants! I sit down to my sorrowful dinner, thinking to have peace and quietness there at least; when in comes one, two, three, four, or half-a-dozen of skelping long lads, from some foolery or anither, misca’ me for barring my ain door against them, and eat up the best half of what my sister’s providence—and she is not over bountiful—has allotted for my dinner! Then enters a witch, with an ellwand in her hand, and she raises the wind or lays it, whichever she likes, majors up and down my house as if she was mistress of it, and I am bounden to thank Heaven if she carries not the broadside of it away with her!”
“Still,” said the Fowd, “this is no answer to my question—how the foul fiend I come to find you at moorings here?”
“Have patience, worthy sir,” replied the afflicted Factor, “and listen to what I have to say, for I fancy it will be as well to tell you the whole matter. You must know, I once thought that I had gotten a small godsend, that might have made all these matters easier.”