The Ayrshire Legatees

J >> John Galt >> The Ayrshire Legatees

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

On Sunday, according to invitation, as I told you, we dined with the
Argents--and were entertained by them in a style at once most
splendid, and on the most easy footing. I shall not attempt to
describe the consumable materials of the table, but call your
attention, my dear friend, to the intellectual portion of the
entertainment, a subject much more congenial to your delicate and
refined character.

Mrs. Argent is a lady of considerable personal magnitude, of an open
and affable disposition. In this respect, indeed, she bears a
striking resemblance to her nephew, Captain Sabre, with whose
relationship to her we were unacquainted before that day. She
received us as friends in whom she felt a peculiar interest; for
when she heard that my mother had got her dress and mine from
Cranbury Alley, she expressed the greatest astonishment, and told
us, that it was not at all a place where persons of fashion could
expect to be properly served. Nor can I disguise the fact, that the
flounced and gorgeous garniture of our dresses was in shocking
contrast to the amiable simplicity of hers and the fair Arabella,
her daughter, a charming girl, who, notwithstanding the fashionable
splendour in which she has been educated, displays a delightful
sprightliness of manner, that, I have some notion, has not been
altogether lost on the heart of my brother.

When we returned upstairs to the drawing-room, after dinner, Miss
Arabella took her harp, and was on the point of favouring us with a
Mozart; but her mother, recollecting that we were Presbyterians,
thought it might not be agreeable, and she desisted, which I was
sinful enough to regret; but my mother was so evidently alarmed at
the idea of playing on the harp on a Sunday night, that I suppressed
my own wishes, in filial veneration for those of that respected
parent. Indeed, fortunate it was that the music was not performed;
for, when we returned home, my father remarked with great solemnity,
that such a way of passing the Lord's night as we had passed it,
would have been a great sin in Scotland.

Captain Sabre, who called on us next morning, was so delighted when
he understood that we were acquainted with his aunt, that he
lamented he had not happened to know it before, as he would, in that
case, have met us there. He is indeed very attentive, but I assure
you that I feel no particular interest about him; for although he is
certainly a very handsome young man, he is not such a genius as my
brother, and has no literary partialities. But literary
accomplishments are, you know, foreign to the military profession,
and if the captain has not distinguished himself by cutting up
authors in the reviews, he has acquired an honourable medal, by
overcoming the enemies of the civilised world at Waterloo.

To-night the playhouses open again, and we are going to the
Oratorio, and the captain goes with us, a circumstance which I am
the more pleased at, as we are strangers, and he will tell us the
names of the performers. My father made some scruple of consenting
to be of the party; but when he heard that an Oratorio was a concert
of sacred music, he thought it would be only a sinless deviation if
he did, so he goes likewise. The captain, therefore, takes an early
dinner with us at five o'clock. Alas! to what changes am I doomed,-
-that was the tea hour at the manse of Garnock. Oh, when shall I
revisit the primitive simplicities of my native scenes again! But
neither time nor distance, my dear Bell, can change the affection
with which I subscribe myself, ever affectionately, yours,

RACHEL PRINGLE.

At the conclusion of this letter, the countenance of Mrs. Glibbans
was evidently so darkened, that it daunted the company, like an
eclipse of the sun, when all nature is saddened. "What think you,
Mr. Snodgrass," said that spirit-stricken lady,--"what think you of
this dining on the Lord's day,--this playing on the harp; the carnal
Mozarting of that ungodly family, with whom the corrupt human nature
of our friends has been chambering?" Mr. Snodgrass was at some loss
for an answer, and hesitated, but Miss Mally Glencairn relieved him
from his embarrassment, by remarking, that "the harp was a holy
instrument," which somewhat troubled the settled orthodoxy of Mrs.
Glibbans's visage. "Had it been an organ," said Mr. Snodgrass,
dryly, "there might have been, perhaps, more reason to doubt; but,
as Miss Mally justly remarks, the harp has been used from the days
of King David in the performances of sacred music, together with the
psalter, the timbrel, the sackbut, and the cymbal." The wrath of
the polemical Deborah of the Relief-Kirk was somewhat appeased by
this explanation, and she inquired in a more diffident tone, whether
a Mozart was not a metrical paraphrase of the song of Moses after
the overthrow of the Egyptians in the Red Sea; "in which case, I
must own," she observed, "that the sin and guilt of the thing is
less grievous in the sight of HIM before whom all the actions of men
are abominations." Miss Isabella Tod, availing herself of this
break in the conversation, turned round to Miss Nanny Eydent, and
begged that she would read her letter from Mrs. Pringle. We should
do injustice, however, to honest worth and patient industry were we,
in thus introducing Miss Nanny to our readers, not to give them some
account of her lowly and virtuous character.

Miss Nanny was the eldest of three sisters, the daughters of a
shipmaster, who was lost at sea when they were very young; and his
all having perished with him, they were indeed, as their mother
said, the children of Poverty and Sorrow. By the help of a little
credit, the widow contrived, in a small shop, to eke out her days
till Nanny was able to assist her. It was the intention of the poor
woman to take up a girl's school for reading and knitting, and Nanny
was destined to instruct the pupils in that higher branch of
accomplishment--the different stitches of the sampler. But about
the time that Nanny was advancing to the requisite degree of
perfection in chain-steek and pie-holes--indeed had made some
progress in the Lord's prayer between two yew trees--tambouring was
introduced at Irvine, and Nanny was sent to acquire a competent
knowledge of that classic art, honoured by the fair hands of the
beautiful Helen and the chaste and domestic Andromache. In this she
instructed her sisters; and such was the fruit of their application
and constant industry, that her mother abandoned the design of
keeping school, and continued to ply her little huxtry in more easy
circumstances. The fluctuations of trade in time taught them that
it would not be wise to trust to the loom, and accordingly Nanny was
at some pains to learn mantua-making; and it was fortunate that she
did so--for the tambouring gradually went out of fashion, and the
flowering which followed suited less the infirm constitution of poor
Nanny. The making of gowns for ordinary occasions led to the making
of mournings, and the making of mournings naturally often caused
Nanny to be called in at deaths, which, in process of time, promoted
her to have the management of burials; and in this line of business
she has now a large proportion of the genteelest in Irvine and its
vicinity; and in all her various engagements her behaviour has been
as blameless and obliging as her assiduity has been uniform;
insomuch, that the numerous ladies to whom she is known take a
particular pleasure in supplying her with the newest patterns, and
earliest information, respecting the varieties and changes of
fashions; and to the influence of the same good feelings in the
breast of Mrs. Pringle, Nanny was indebted for the following letter.
How far the information which it contains may be deemed exactly
suitable to the circumstances in which Miss Nanny's lot is cast, our
readers may judge for themselves; but we are happy to state, that it
has proved of no small advantage to her: for since it has been
known that she had received a full, true, and particular account, of
all manner of London fashions, from so managing and notable a woman
as the minister's wife of Garnock, her consideration has been so
augmented in the opinion of the neighbouring gentlewomen, that she
is not only consulted as to funerals, but is often called in to
assist in the decoration and arrangement of wedding-dinners, and
other occasions of sumptuous banqueting; by which she is enabled,
during the suspension of the flowering trade, to earn a lowly but a
respected livelihood.

LETTER XV

Mrs. Pringle to Miss Nanny Eydent, Mantua-maker, Seagate Head,
Irvine--LONDON.

Dear Miss Nanny--Miss Mally Glencairn would tell you all how it
happent that I was disabled, by our misfortunes in the ship, from
riting to you konserning the London fashons as I promist; for I
wantit to be partikylor, and to say nothing but what I saw with my
own eyes, that it might be servisable to you in your bizness--so now
I will begin with the old king's burial, as you have sometimes
okashon to lend a helping hand in that way at Irvine, and nothing
could be more genteeler of the kind than a royal obsakew for a
patron; but no living sole can give a distink account of this
matter, for you know the old king was the father of his piple, and
the croud was so great. Howsomever we got into our oun hired shaze
at daylight; and when we were let out at the castel yett of Windsor,
we went into the mob, and by and by we got within the castel walls,
when great was the lamentation for the purdition of shawls and
shoos, and the Doctor's coat pouch was clippit off by a pocket-
picker. We then ran to a wicket-gate, and up an old timber-stair
with a rope ravel, and then we got to a great pentit chamber called
King George's Hall: After that we were allowt to go into another
room full of guns and guards, that told us all to be silent: so
then we all went like sawlies, holding our tongues in an awful
manner, into a dysmal room hung with black cloth, and lighted with
dum wax-candles in silver skonses, and men in a row all in
mulancholic posters. At length and at last we came to the coffin;
but although I was as partikylar as possoble, I could see nothing
that I would recommend. As for the interment, there was nothing but
even-down wastrie--wax-candles blowing away in the wind, and
flunkies as fou as pipers, and an unreverent mob that scarsely could
demean themselves with decency as the body was going by; only the
Duke of York, who carrit the head, had on no hat, which I think was
the newest identical thing in the affair: but really there was
nothing that could be recommended. Howsomever I understood that
there was no draigie, which was a saving; for the bread and wine for
such a multitude would have been a destruction to a lord's living:
and this is the only point that the fashon set in the king's
feunoral may be follot in Irvine.

Since the burial, we have been to see the play, where the leddies
were all in deep murning; but excepting that some had black gum-
floors on their heads, I saw leetil for admiration--only that
bugles, I can ashure you, are not worn at all this season; and
surely this murning must be a vast detrimint to bizness--for where
there is no verietie, there can be but leetil to do in your line.
But one thing I should not forget, and that is, that in the vera
best houses, after tea and coffee after dinner, a cordial dram is
handed about; but likewise I could observe, that the fruit is not
set on with the cheese, as in our part of the country, but comes,
after the cloth is drawn, with the wine; and no such a thing as a
punch-bowl is to be heard of within the four walls of London.
Howsomever, what I principally notised was, that the tea and coffee
is not made by the lady of the house, but out of the room, and
brought in without sugar or milk, on servors, every one helping
himself, and only plain flimsy loaf and butter is served--no such
thing as shortbread, seed-cake, bun, marmlet, or jeelly to be seen,
which is an okonomical plan, and well worthy of adaptation in
ginteel families with narrow incomes, in Irvine or elsewhere.

But when I tell you what I am now going to say, you will not be
surprizt at the great wealth in London. I paid for a bumbeseen
gown, not a bit better than the one that was made by you that the
sore calamity befell, and no so fine neither, more than three times
the price; so you see, Miss Nanny, if you were going to pouse your
fortune, you could not do better than pack up your ends and your
awls and come to London. But ye're far better at home--for this is
not a town for any creditable young woman like you, to live in by
herself, and I am wearying to be back, though it's hard to say when
the Doctor will get his counts settlet. I wish you, howsomever, to
mind the patches for the bed-cover that I was going to patch, for a
licht afternoon seam, as the murning for the king will no be so
general with you, and the spring fashons will be coming on to help
my gathering--so no more at present from your friend and well-
wisher, JANET PRINGLE.

CHAPTER VI--PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

On Sunday morning, before going to church, Mr. Micklewham called at
the manse, and said that he wished particularly to speak to Mr.
Snodgrass. Upon being admitted, he found the young helper engaged
at breakfast, with a book lying on his table, very like a volume of
a new novel called Ivanhoe, in its appearance, but of course it must
have been sermons done up in that manner to attract fashionable
readers. As soon, however, as Mr. Snodgrass saw his visitor, he
hastily removed the book, and put it into the table-drawer.

The precentor having taken a seat at the opposite side of the fire,
began somewhat diffidently to mention, that he had received a letter
from the Doctor, that made him at a loss whether or not he ought to
read it to the elders, as usual, after worship, and therefore was
desirous of consulting Mr. Snodgrass on the subject, for it
recorded, among other things, that the Doctor had been at the
playhouse, and Mr. Micklewham was quite sure that Mr. Craig would be
neither to bind nor to hold when he heard that, although the
transgression was certainly mollified by the nature of the
performance. As the clergyman, however, could offer no opinion
until he saw the letter, the precentor took it out of his pocket,
and Mr. Snodgrass found the contents as follows:-

LETTER XVI

The Rev. Z. Pringle, D.D., to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and
Session-Clerk, Garnock--LONDON.

Dear Sir--You will recollect that, about twenty years ago, there was
a great sound throughout all the West that a playhouse in Glasgow
had been converted into a tabernacle of religion. I remember it was
glad tidings to our ears in the parish of Garnock; and that Mr.
Craig, who had just been ta'en on for an elder that fall, was for
having a thanksgiving-day on the account thereof, holding it to be a
signal manifestation of a new birth in the of-old-godly town of
Glasgow, which had become slack in the way of well-doing, and the
church therein lukewarm, like that of Laodicea. It was then said,
as I well remember, that when the Tabernacle was opened, there had
not been seen, since the Kaimslang wark, such a congregation as was
there assembled, which was a great proof that it's the matter
handled, and not the place, that maketh pure; so that when you and
the elders hear that I have been at the theatre of Drury Lane, in
London, you must not think that I was there to see a carnal stage
play, whether tragical or comical, or that I would so far demean
myself and my cloth, as to be a witness to the chambering and
wantonness of ne'er-du-weel play-actors. No, Mr. Micklewham, what I
went to see was an Oratorio, a most edifying exercise of psalmody
and prayer, under the management of a pious gentleman, of the name
of Sir George Smart, who is, as I am informed, at the greatest pains
to instruct the exhibitioners, they being, for the most part, before
they get into his hands, poor uncultivated creatures, from Italy,
France, and Germany, and other atheistical and popish countries.

They first sung a hymn together very decently, and really with as
much civilised harmony as could be expected from novices; indeed so
well, that I thought them almost as melodious as your own singing
class of the trades lads from Kilwinning. Then there was one Mr.
Braham, a Jewish proselyte, that was set forth to show us a specimen
of his proficiency. In the praying part, what he said was no
objectionable as to the matter; but he drawled in his manner to such
a pitch, that I thought he would have broken out into an even-down
song, as I sometimes think of yourself when you spin out the last
word in reading out the line in a warm summer afternoon. In the
hymn by himself, he did better; he was, however, sometimes like to
lose the tune, but the people gave him great encouragement when he
got back again. Upon the whole, I had no notion that there was any
such Christianity in practice among the Londoners, and I am happy to
tell you, that the house was very well filled, and the congregation
wonderful attentive. No doubt that excellent man, Mr. W-, has a
hand in these public strainings after grace, but he was not there
that night; for I have seen him; and surely at the sight I could not
but say to myself, that it's beyond the compass of the understanding
of man to see what great things Providence worketh with small means,
for Mr. W- is a small creature. When I beheld his diminutive
stature, and thought of what he had achieved for the poor negroes
and others in the house of bondage, I said to myself, that here the
hand of Wisdom is visible, for the load of perishable mortality is
laid lightly on his spirit, by which it is enabled to clap its wings
and crow so crously on the dunghill top of this world; yea even in
the House of Parliament.

I was taken last Thursday morning to breakfast with him his house at
Kensington, by an East India man, who is likewise surely a great
saint. It was a heart-healing meeting of many of the godly, which
he holds weekly in the season; and we had such a warsle of the
spirit among us that the like cannot be told. I was called upon to
pray, and a worthy gentleman said, when I was done, that he never
had met with more apostolic simplicity--indeed, I could see with the
tail of my eye, while I was praying, that the chief saint himself
was listening with a curious pleasant satisfaction.

As for our doings here anent the legacy, things are going forward in
the regular manner; but the expense is terrible, and I have been
obliged to take up money on account; but, as it was freely given by
the agents, I am in hopes all will end well; for, considering that
we are but strangers to them, they would not have assisted us in
this matter had they not been sure of the means of payment in their
own hands.

The people of London are surprising kind to us; we need not, if we
thought proper ourselves, eat a dinner in our own lodgings; but it
would ill become me, at my time of life, and with the character for
sobriety that I have maintained, to show an example in my latter
days of riotous living; therefore, Mrs. Pringle, and her daughter,
and me, have made a point of going nowhere three times in the week;
but as for Andrew Pringle, my son, he has forgathered with some
acquaintance, and I fancy we will be obliged to let him take the
length of his tether for a while. But not altogether without a curb
neither, for the agent's son, young Mr. Argent, had almost persuaded
him to become a member of Parliament, which he said he could get him
made, for more than a thousand pounds less than the common price--
the state of the new king's health having lowered the commodity of
seats. But this I would by no means hear of; he is not yet come to
years of discretion enough to sit in council; and, moreover, he has
not been tried; and no man, till he has out of doors shown something
of what he is, should be entitled to power and honour within. Mrs.
Pringle, however, thought he might do as well as young Dunure; but
Andrew Pringle, my son, has not the solidity of head that Mr. K-dy
has, and is over free and outspoken, and cannot take such pains to
make his little go a great way, like that well-behaved young
gentleman. But you will be grieved to hear that Mr. K-dy is in
opposition to the government; and truly I am at a loss to understand
how a man of Whig principles can be an adversary to the House of
Hanover. But I never meddled much in politick affairs, except at
this time, when I prohibited Andrew Pringle, my son, from offering
to be a member of Parliament, notwithstanding the great bargain that
he would have had of the place.

And since we are on public concerns, I should tell you, that I was
minded to send you a newspaper at the second-hand, every day when we
were done with it. But when we came to inquire, we found that we
could get the newspaper for a shilling a week every morning but
Sunday, to our breakfast, which was so much cheaper than buying a
whole paper, that Mrs. Pringle thought it would be a great
extravagance; and, indeed, when I came to think of the loss of time
a newspaper every day would occasion to my people, I considered it
would be very wrong of me to send you any at all. For I do think
that honest folks in a far-off country parish should not make or
meddle with the things that pertain to government,--the more
especially, as it is well known, that there is as much falsehood as
truth in newspapers, and they have not the means of testing their
statements. Not, however, that I am an advocate for passive
obedience; God forbid. On the contrary, if ever the time should
come, in my day, of a saint-slaying tyrant attempting to bind the
burden of prelatic abominations on our backs, such a blast of the
gospel trumpet would be heard in Garnock, as it does not become me
to say, but I leave it to you and others, who have experienced my
capacity as a soldier of the word so long, to think what it would
then be. Meanwhile, I remain, my dear sir, your friend and pastor,
Z. PRINGLE.

When Mr. Snodgrass had perused this epistle, he paused some time,
seemingly in doubt, and then he said to Mr. Micklewham, that,
considering the view which the Doctor had taken of the matter, and
that he had not gone to the playhouse for the motives which usually
take bad people to such places, he thought there could be no
possible harm in reading the letter to the elders, and that Mr.
Craig, so far from being displeased, would doubtless be exceedingly
rejoiced to learn that the playhouses of London were occasionally so
well employed as on the night when the Doctor was there.

Mr. Micklewham then inquired if Mr. Snodgrass had heard from Mr.
Andrew, and was answered in the affirmative; but the letter was not
read. Why it was withheld our readers must guess for themselves;
but we have been fortunate enough to obtain the following copy.

LETTER XVII

Andrew Pringle, Esq., to the Rev. Mr. Charles Snodgrass--LONDON.

My Dear Friend--As the season advances, London gradually unfolds,
like Nature, all the variety of her powers and pleasures. By the
Argents we have been introduced effectually into society, and have
now only to choose our acquaintance among those whom we like best.
I should employ another word than choose, for I am convinced that
there is no choice in the matter. In his friendships and
affections, man is subject to some inscrutable moral law, similar in
its effects to what the chemists call affinity. While under the
blind influence of this sympathy, we, forsooth, suppose ourselves
free agents! But a truce with philosophy.

The amount of the legacy is now ascertained. The stock, however, in
which a great part of the money is vested being shut, the transfer
to my father cannot be made for some time; and till this is done, my
mother cannot be persuaded that we have yet got anything to trust
to--an unfortunate notion which renders her very unhappy. The old
gentleman himself takes no interest now in the business. He has got
his mind at ease by the payment of all the legacies; and having
fallen in with some of the members of that political junto, the
Saints, who are worldly enough to link, as often as they can, into
their association, the powerful by wealth or talent, his whole time
is occupied in assisting to promote their humbug; and he has
absolutely taken it into his head, that the attention he receives
from them for his subscriptions is on account of his eloquence as a
preacher, and that hitherto he has been altogether in an error with
respect to his own abilities. The effect of this is abundantly
amusing; but the source of it is very evident. Like most people who
pass a sequestered life, he had formed an exaggerated opinion of
public characters; and on seeing them in reality so little superior
to the generality of mankind, he imagines that he was all the time
nearer to their level than he had ventured to suppose; and the
discovery has placed him on the happiest terms with himself. It is
impossible that I can respect his manifold excellent qualities and
goodness of heart more than I do; but there is an innocency in this
simplicity, which, while it often compels me to smile, makes me feel
towards him a degree of tenderness, somewhat too familiar for that
filial reverence that is due from a son.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11