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The Annals of the Parish

J >> John Galt >> The Annals of the Parish




Mr Cayenne had cooled before he got home, and our paper coming to
him in his appeased blood, he immediately came to the manse, and
made a contrite apology for his hasty temper, which I reported in
due time and form, to the session, and there the matter ended. But
here was an example plain to be seen of the truth of the old
proverb, that as one door shuts another opens; for scarcely were we
in quietness by the decease of that old light-headed woman, the Lady
Macadam, till a full equivalent for her was given in this hot and
fiery Mr Cayenne.



CHAPTER XXVII YEAR 1786



From the day of my settlement, I had resolved, in order to win the
affections of my people, and to promote unison among the heritors,
to be of as little expense to the parish as possible; but by this
time the manse had fallen into a sore state of decay--the doors were
wormed on the hinges--the casements of the windows chattered all the
winter, like the teeth of a person perishing with cold, so that we
had no comfort in the house; by which, at the urgent instigations of
Mrs Balwhidder, I was obligated to represent our situation to the
session. I would rather, having so much saved money in the bank,
paid the needful repairs myself, than have done this, but she said
it would be a rank injustice to our own family; and her father, Mr
Kibbock, who was very long-headed, with more than a common man's
portion of understanding, pointed out to me, that, as my life was
but in my lip, it would be a wrong thing towards whomsoever was
ordained to be my successor, to use the heritors to the custom of
the minister paying for the reparations of the manse, as it might
happen he might not be so well able to afford it as me. So in a
manner, by their persuasion, and the constraint of the justice of
the case, I made a report of the infirmities both of doors and
windows, as well as of the rotten state of the floors, which were
constantly in want of cobbling. Over and above all, I told them of
the sarking of the roof, which was as frush as a puddock-stool;
insomuch, that in every blast some of the pins lost their grip, and
the slates came hurling off.

The heritors were accordingly convened, and, after some
deliberation, they proposed that the house should be seen to, and
whitewashed and painted; and I thought this might do, for I saw they
were terrified at the expense of a thorough repair; but when I went
home and repeated to Mrs Balwhidder what had been said at the
meeting, and my thankfulness at getting the heritors' consent to do
so much, she was excessively angry, and told me, that all the
painting and whitewashing in the world would avail nothing, for that
the house was as a sepulchre full of rottenness; and she sent for Mr
Kibbock, her father, to confer with him on the way of getting the
matter put to rights.

Mr Kibbock came, and hearing of what had passed, pondered for some
time, and then said, "All was very right! the minister (meaning me)
has just to get tradesmen to look at the house, and write out their
opinion of what it needs. There will be plaster to mend; so, before
painting, he will get a plasterer. There will be a slater wanted;
he has just to get a slater's estimate, and a wright's, and so
forth, and when all is done, he will lay them before the session and
the heritors, who, no doubt, will direct the reparations to go
forward."

This was very pawkie, counselling, of Mr Kibbock, and I did not see
through it at the time, but did as he recommended, and took all the
different estimates, when they came in, to the session. The elders
commended my prudence exceedingly for so doing, before going to
work; and one of them asked me what the amount of the whole would
be, but I had not cast it up. Some of the heritors thought that a
hundred pounds would be sufficient for the outlay; but judge of our
consternation, when, in counting up all the sums of the different
estimates together, we found them well on towards a thousand pounds.
"Better big a new house at once, than do this!" cried all the
elders, by which I then perceived the draughtiness of Mr Kibbock's
advice. Accordingly, another meeting of the heritors was summoned,
and after a great deal of controversy, it was agreed that a new
manse should be erected; and, shortly after, we contracted with
Thomas Trowel, the mason to build one for six hundred pounds, with
all the requisite appurtenances, by which a clear gain was saved to
the parish, by the foresight of Mr Kibbock, to the amount of nearly
four hundred pounds. But the heritors did not mean to have allowed
the sort of repair that his plan comprehended. He was, however, a
far forecasting man; the like of him for natural parts not being in
our country side; and nobody could get the whip-hand of him, either
in a bargain or an improvement, when he once was sensible of the
advantage. He was, indeed, a blessing to the shire, both by his
example as a farmer, and by his sound and discreet advice in the
contentions of his neighbours, being a man, as was a saying among
the commonality, "wiser than the law and the fifteen Lords of
Edinburgh."

The building of the new manse occasioned a heavy cess on the
heritors, which made them overly ready to pick holes in the coats of
me and the elders; so that, out of my forbearance and delicacy in
time past, grew a lordliness on their part, that was an ill return
for the years that I had endured no little inconveniency for their
sake. It was not in my heart or principles to harm the hair of a
dog; but when I discerned the austerity with which they were
disposed to treat their minister, I bethought me that, for the
preservation of what was due to the establishment and the upholding
of the decent administration of religion, I ought to set my face
against the sordid intolerance by which they were actuated. This
notion I weighed well before divulging it to any person; but when I
had assured myself as to the rectitude thereof, I rode over one day
to Mr Kibbock's, and broke my mind to him about claiming out of the
teinds an augmentation of my stipend, not because I needed it, but
in case, after me, some bare and hungry gorbie of the Lord should be
sent upon the parish, in no such condition to plea with the heritors
as I was. Mr Kibbock highly approved of my intent; and by his help,
after much tribulation, I got an augmentation both in glebe and
income; and to mark my reason for what I did, I took upon me to keep
and clothe the wives and orphans of the parish, who lost their
breadwinners in the American war. But for all that, the heritors
spoke of me as an avaricious Jew, and made the hard-won fruits of
Mrs Balwhidder's great thrift and good management a matter of
reproach against me. Few of them would come to the church, but
stayed away, to the detriment of their own souls hereafter, in
order, as they thought, to punish me; so that, in the course of this
year, there was a visible decay of the sense of religion among the
better orders of the parish, and, as will be seen in the sequel,
their evil example infected the minds of many of the rising
generation.

It was in this year that Mr Cayenne bought the mailing of the
Wheatrigs, but did not begin to build his house till the following
spring; for being ill to please with a plan, he fell out with the
builders, and on one occasion got into such a passion with Mr
Trowel, the mason, that he struck him a blow on the face, for which
he was obligated to make atonement. It was thought the matter would
have been carried before the Lords; but, by the mediation of Mr
Kibbock, with my helping hand, a reconciliation was brought about,
Mr Cayenne indemnifying the mason with a sum of money to say no more
anent it; after which, he employed him to build his house, a thing
that no man could have thought possible, who reflected on the enmity
between them.



CHAPTER XXVIII YEAR 1787



There had been, as I have frequently observed, a visible improvement
going on in the parish. From the time of the making of the toll-
road, every new house that was built in the clachan was built along
that road. Among other changes hereby caused, the Lady Macadam's
jointure-house that was, which stood in a pleasant parterre,
inclosed within a stone wall and an iron gate, having a pillar with
a pineapple head on each side, came to be in the middle of the town.
While Mr Cayenne inhabited the same, it was maintained in good
order; but on his flitting to his own new house on the Wheatrigs,
the parterre was soon overrun with weeds, and it began to wear the
look of a waste place. Robert Toddy, who then kept the change-
house, and who had, from the lady's death, rented the coach-house
for stabling, in this juncture thought of it for an inn; so he set
his own house to Thomas Treddles the weaver, whose son, William, is
now the great Glasgow manufacturer, that has cotton-mills and steam-
engines, and took, "the Place," as it was called, and had a fine
sign, THE CROSS-KEYS, painted and put up in golden characters, by
which it became one of the most noted inns anywhere to be seen; and
the civility of Mrs Toddy was commended by all strangers. But
although this transmutation from a change-house to an inn was a vast
amendment, in a manner, to the parish, there was little amendment of
manners thereby; for the farmer lads began to hold dancings and
other riotous proceedings there, and to bring, as it were, the evil
practices of towns into the heart of the country. All sort of
licence was allowed as to drink and hours; and the edifying example
of Mr Mutchkins and his pious family, was no longer held up to the
imitation of the wayfaring man.

Saving the mutation of "the Place" into an inn, nothing very
remarkable happened in this year. We got into our new manse about
the middle of March; but it was rather damp, being new plastered,
and it caused me to have a severe attack of the rheumatics in the
fall of the year.

I should not, in my notations, forget to mark a new luxury that got
in among the commonality at this time. By the opening of new roads,
and the traffic thereon with carts and carriers, and by our young
men that were sailors going to the Clyde, and sailing to Jamaica and
the West Indies, heaps of sugar and coffee-beans were brought home,
while many, among the kail-stocks and cabbages in their yards, had
planted groset and berry bushes; which two things happening
together, the fashion to make jam and jelly, which hitherto had been
only known in the kitchens and confectionaries of the gentry, came
to be introduced into the clachan. All this, however, was not
without a plausible pretext; for it was found that jelly was an
excellent medicine for a sore throat, and jam a remedy as good as
London candy for a cough, or a cold, or a shortness of breath. I
could not, however, say that this gave me so much concern as the
smuggling trade, only it occasioned a great fasherie to Mrs
Balwhidder; for, in the berry time, there was no end to the
borrowing of her brass-pan to make jelly and jam, till Mrs Toddy of
the Cross-Keys bought one, which, in its turn, came into request,
and saved ours.

It was in the Martinmas quarter of this year that I got the first
payment of my augmentation. Having no desire to rip up old sores, I
shall say no more anent it, the worst being anticipated in my
chronicle of the last year; but there was a thing happened in the
payment that occasioned a vexation at the time, of a very
disagreeable nature. Daft Meg Gaffaw, who, from the tragical death
of her mother, was a privileged subject, used to come to the manse
on the Saturdays for a meal of meat; and so it fell out that as, by
some neglect of mine, no steps had been taken to regulate the
disposal of the victual that constituted the means of the
augmentation, some of the heritors, in an ungracious temper, sent
what they called the tithe-ball (the Lord knows it was not the
fiftieth!) to the manse, where I had no place to put it. This fell
out on a Saturday night, when I was busy with my sermon, thinking
not of silver or gold, but of much better; so that I was greatly
molested and disturbed thereby. Daft Meg, who sat by the kitchen
chimley-lug, hearing a', said nothing for a time; but when she saw
how Mrs Balwhidder and me were put to, she cried out with a loud
voice, like a soul under the inspiration of prophecy--"When the
widow's cruse had filled all the vessels in the house, the Lord
stopped the increase. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if your barns
be filled, and your girnell-kists can hold no more, seek till ye
shall find the tume basins of the poor, and therein pour the corn,
and the oil, and the wine of your abundance; so shall ye be blessed
of the Lord." The which words I took for an admonition, and
directing the sacks to be brought into the dining-room and other
chambers of the manse, I sent off the heritors' servants, that had
done me this prejudice, with an unexpected thankfulness. But this,
as I afterwards was informed, both them and their masters attributed
to the greedy grasp of avarice, with which they considered me as
misled; and having said so, nothing could exceed their mortification
on Monday, when they heard (for they were of those who had deserted
the kirk) that I had given by the precentor notice to every widow in
the parish that was in need, to come to the manse and she would
receive her portion of the partitioning of the augmentation. Thus,
without any offence on my part, saving the strictness of justice,
was a division made between me and the heritors; but the people were
with me; and my own conscience was with me; and though the fronts of
the lofts and the pews of the heritors were but thinly filled, I
trusted that a good time was coming, when the gentry would see the
error of their way. So I bent the head of resignation to the Lord,
and, assisted by the wisdom of Mr Kibbock, adhered to the course I
had adopted; but at the close of the year my heart was sorrowful for
the schism; and my prayer on Hogmanay was one of great bitterness of
soul, that such an evil had come to pass.



CHAPTER XXIX YEAR 1788



It had been often remarked by ingenious men, that the Brawl burn,
which ran through the parish, though a small, was yet a rapid
stream, and had a wonderful capability for damming, and to turn
mills. From the time that the Irville water deserted its channel
this brook grew into repute, and several mills and dams had been
erected on its course. In this year a proposal came from Glasgow to
build a cotton-mill on its banks, beneath the Witch-linn, which
being on a corner of the Wheatrig, the property of Mr Cayenne, he
not only consented thereto, but took a part in the profit or loss
therein; and, being a man of great activity, though we thought him,
for many a day, a serpent-plague sent upon the parish, he proved
thereby one of our greatest benefactors. The cotton-mill was built,
and a spacious fabric it was--nothing like it had been seen before
in our day and generation--and, for the people that were brought to
work in it, a new town was built in the vicinity, which Mr Cayenne,
the same being founded on his land, called Cayenneville, the name of
the plantation in Virginia that had been taken from him by the
rebellious Americans. From that day Fortune was lavish of her
favours upon him; his property swelled, and grew in the most
extraordinary manner, and the whole country side was stirring with a
new life. For, when the mill was set a-going, he got weavers of
muslin established in Cayenneville; and shortly after, but that did
not take place till the year following, he brought women all the way
from the neighbourhood of Manchester, in England, to teach the
lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring.

Some of the ancient families, in their turreted houses, were not
pleased with this innovation, especially when they saw the handsome
dwellings that were built for the weavers of the mills, and the
unstinted hand that supplied the wealth required for the carrying on
of the business. It sank their pride into insignificance, and many
of them would almost rather have wanted the rise that took place in
the value of their lands, than have seen this incoming of what they
called o'er-sea speculation. But, saving the building of the
cotton-mill, and the beginning of Cayenneville, nothing more
memorable happened in this year, still it was nevertheless a year of
a great activity. The minds of men were excited to new enterprises;
a new genius, as it were, had descended upon the earth, and there
was an erect and outlooking spirit abroad that was not to be
satisfied with the taciturn regularity of ancient affairs. Even
Miss Sabrina Hooky, the schoolmistress, though now waned from her
meridian, was touched with the enlivening rod, and set herself to
learn and to teach tambouring, in such a manner as to supersede by
precept and example that old time-honoured functionary, as she
herself called it, the spinning-wheel, proving, as she did one night
to Mr Kibbock and me, that, if more money could be made by a woman
tambouring than by spinning, it was better for her to tambour than
to spin.

But, in the midst of all this commercing and manufacturing, I began
to discover signs of decay in the wonted simplicity of our country
ways. Among the cotton-spinners and muslin weavers of Cayenneville
were several unsatisfied and ambitious spirits, who clubbed
together, and got a London newspaper to the Cross-Keys, where they
were nightly in the habit of meeting and debating about the affairs
of the French, which were then gathering towards a head. They were
represented to me as lads by common in capacity, but with unsettled
notions of religion. They were, however, quiet and orderly; and
some of them since, at Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, even, I am
told, in London, have grown into a topping way.

It seems they did not like my manner of preaching, and on that
account absented themselves from public worship; which, when I
heard, I sent for some of them, to convince them of their error with
regard to the truth of divers points of doctrine; but they
confounded me with their objections, and used my arguments, which
were the old and orthodox proven opinions of the Divinity Hall, as
if they had been the light sayings of a vain man. So that I was
troubled, fearing that some change would ensue to my people, who had
hitherto lived amidst the boughs and branches of the gospel
unmolested by the fowler's snare, and I set myself to watch
narrowly, and with a vigilant eye, what would come to pass.

There was a visible increase among us of worldly prosperity in the
course of this year; insomuch that some of the farmers, who were in
the custom of taking their vendibles to the neighbouring towns on
the Tuesdays, the Wednesdays, and Fridays, were led to open a market
on the Saturdays in our own clachan, the which proved a great
convenience. But I cannot take it upon me to say, whether this can
be said to have well begun in the present Ann. Dom., although I know
that in the summer of the ensuing year it was grown into a settled
custom; which I well recollect by the Macadams coming with their
bairns to see Mrs Malcolm, their mother, suddenly on a Saturday
afternoon; on which occasion me and Mrs Balwhidder were invited to
dine with them, and Mrs Malcolm bought in the market for the dinner
that day, both mutton and fowls, such as twenty years before could
not have been got for love or money on such a pinch. Besides, she
had two bottles of red and white wine from the Cross-Keys, luxuries
which, saving in the Breadland House in its best days, could not
have been had in the whole parish, but must have been brought from a
borough town; for Eaglesham Castle is not within the bounds of
Dalmailing, and my observe does not apply to the stock and stores of
that honourable mansion, but only to the dwellings of our own
heritors, who were in general straitened in their circumstances,
partly with upsetting, and partly by the eating rust of family
pride, which hurt the edge of many a clever fellow among them, that
would have done well in the way of trade, but sunk into divors for
the sake of their genteelity.



CHAPTER XXX YEAR 1789



This I have always reflected upon as one of our blessed years. It
was not remarkable for any extraordinary occurrence; but there was a
hopefulness in the minds of men, and a planning of new undertakings,
of which, whatever may be the upshot, the devising is ever rich in
the cheerful anticipations of good.

Another new line of road was planned, for a shorter cut to the
cotton-mill, from the main road to Glasgow, and a public-house was
opened in Cayenneville: the latter, however, was not an event that
gave me much satisfaction; but it was a convenience to the
inhabitants, and the carriers that brought the cotton-bags and took
away the yarn twice a-week, needed a place of refreshment. And
there was a stage-coach set up thrice every week from Ayr, that
passed through the town, by which it was possible to travel to
Glasgow between breakfast and dinner time, a thing that could not,
when I came to the parish, have been thought within the compass of
man.

This stage-coach I thought one of the greatest conveniences that had
been established among us; and it enabled Mrs Balwhidder to send a
basket of her fresh butter into the Glasgow market, by which, in the
spring and the fall of the year, she got a great price; for the
Glasgow merchants are fond of excellent eatables, and the payment
was aye ready money--Tam Whirlit the driver paying for the one
basket when he took up the other.

In this year William Malcolm, the youngest son of the widow, having
been some time a tutor in a family in the east country, came to see
his mother, as indeed he had done every year from the time he went
to the college; but this occasion was made remarkable by his
preaching in my pulpit. His old acquaintance were curious to hear
him; and I myself had a sort of a wish likewise, being desirous to
know how far he was orthodox; so I thought fit, on the suggestion of
one of the elders, to ask him to preach one day for me, which, after
some fleeching, he consented to do. I think, however, there was a
true modesty in his diffidence, although his reason was a weak one,
being lest he might not satisfy his mother, who had as yet never
heard him. Accordingly, on the Sabbath after, he did preach, and
the kirk was well packed, and I was not one of the least attentive
of the congregation. His sermon assuredly was well put together and
there was nothing to object to in his doctrine; but the elderly
people thought his language rather too Englified, which I thought
likewise; for I never could abide that the plain auld Kirk of
Scotland, with her sober presbyterian simplicity, should borrow,
either in word or in deed, from the language of the prelatic
hierarchy of England. Nevertheless, the younger part of the
congregation were loud in his praise, saying, there had not been
heard before such a style of language in our side of the country.
As for Mrs Malcolm, his mother, when I spoke to her anent the same,
she said but little, expressing only her hope that his example would
be worthy of his precepts; so that, upon the whole, it was a
satisfaction to us all, that he was likely to prove a stoop and
upholding pillar to the Kirk of Scotland. And his mother had the
satisfaction, before she died, to see him a placed minister, and his
name among the authors of his country; for he published at Edinburgh
a volume of Moral Essays, of which he sent me a pretty bound copy,
and they were greatly creditable to his pen, though lacking somewhat
of that birr and smeddum that is the juice and flavour of books of
that sort.



CHAPTER XXXI YEAR 1790



The features of this Ann. Dom. partook of the character of its
predecessor. Several new houses were added to the clachan;
Cayenneville was spreading out with weavers' shops, and growing up
fast into a town. In some respects it got the start of ours; for
one day, when I was going to dine with Mr Cayenne at Wheatrig House,
not a little to my amazement, did I behold a bookseller's shop
opened there, with sticks of red and black wax, pouncet-boxes, pens,
pocket-books, and new publications, in the window, such as the like
of was only to be seen in cities and borough towns. And it was
lighted at night by a patent lamp, which shed a wonderful beam,
burning oil, and having no smoke. The man sold likewise perfumery,
powder-puffs, trinkets, and Dublin dolls, besides penknives, Castile
soap, and walking-sticks, together with a prodigy of other luxuries
too tedious to mention.

Upon conversing with the man, for I was enchanted to go into this
phenomenon, for as no less could I regard it, he told me that he had
a correspondence with London, and could get me down any book
published there within the same month in which it came out; and he
showed me divers of the newest come out, of which I did not read
even in the Scots Magazine till more than three months after,
although I had till then always considered that work as most
interesting for its early intelligence. But what I was most
surprised to hear, was, that he took in a daily London newspaper for
the spinners and weavers, who paid him a penny a-week a-piece for
the same; they being all greatly taken up with what, at the time,
was going on in France.

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