The Life of Mansie Wauch

D >> David Macbeth Moir >> The Life of Mansie Wauch

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

THE LIFE
OF
MANSIE WAUCH
TAILOR IN DALKEITH
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

A NEW EDITION

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
M.DCCC.XLV

TO
JOHN GALT, ESQ.
AUTHOR OF "THE ANNALS OF THE PARISH," "THE PROVOST," "THE AYRSHIRE
LEGATEES," &c. &c. &c.
THE FOLLOWING SKETCHES,
PRINCIPALLY OF HUMBLE SCOTTISH CHARACTER,
ARE DEDICATED,
BY HIS SINCERE FRIEND AND ADMIRER,
THE EDITOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

Between the first and last genuine Editions of the following biography,
it has been repeatedly reprinted both in America and France; and portions
of it, pirated in the shape of cheap pamphlets, have, for two or three
years bypast, formed a staple article of commerce with the Peripatetic
Bibliopoles in this country. Popularity to an author must be always
gratifying; but it were well that it came through the proper channels.

* * * * *

The present Edition has been carefully revised, and it embodies all the
additions made to the book since its first appearance. Sixteen years
have now passed over since Mr Wauch joined his name to those of Rousseau
and Franklin as an autobiographer; and it must be pleasing to him in his
venerable old age to learn, that he is still a favourite with the Public.
Nay, more, it is to be hoped that the accommodating moderation in the
rates of charges anent his present fashions and furnishings, may be the
means of yet further enlarging the circle of his literary acquaintances.

PRELIMINARIES.

Having, within myself, made observation of late years, that all notable
characters, whatsoever line of life they may have pursued, and to
whatever business they might belong, have made a trade of committing to
paper all the surprising occurrences and remarkable events that chanced
to happen to them in the course of Providence, during their journey
through life--that such as come after them might take warning and be
benefited--I have found it incumbent on me, following a right example, to
do the same thing; and have set down, in black and white, a good few
uncos, that I should reckon will not soon be forgotten, provided they
make as deep an impression on the world as they have done on me. To this
decision I have been urged by the elbowing on of not a few judicious
friends; among whom I would particularly remark James Batter, who has
been most earnest in his request, and than whom a truer judge on any
thing connected with book-lear, or a better neighbour, does not breathe
the breath of life: both of which positions will, I doubt not, appear as
clear as daylight to the reader, in the course of the work: to say
nothing of the approval the scheme met with from the pious Maister
Wiggie, who has now gone to his account, and divers other advisers, that
wished either the general good of the world, or studied their own
particular profit.

Had the course of my pilgrimage lain just on the beaten track, I would
not--at least I think so--have been o'ercome by ony perswasions to do
what I have done; but as will be seen, in the twinkling of half-an-eye,
by the judicious reader, I am a man that has witnessed much, and come
through a great deal, both in regard to the times wherein I have lived,
and the out-o'-the-way adventures in which it has been my fortune to be
engaged. Indeed, though I say it myself, who might as well be silent, I
that have never stirred, in a manner so to speak, from home, have
witnessed more of the world we live in, and the doings of men, than many
who have sailed the salt seas from the East Indies to the West; or, in
the course of nature, visited Greenland, Jamaica, or Van Diemen's Land.
The cream of the matter, and to which we would solicit the attention of
old and young, rich and poor, is just this, that, unless unco doure
indeed to learn, the inexperienced may gleam from my pages sundry grand
lessons, concerning what they have a chance to expect in the course of an
active life; and the unsteady may take a hint concerning what it is
possible for one of a clear head and a stout heart to go through with.

Notwithstanding, however, these plain and evident conclusions, even after
writing the whole out, I thought I felt a kind of a qualm of conscience
about submitting an account of my actions and transactions to the world
during my lifetime; and I had almost determined, for decency's sake, not
to let the papers be printed till after I had been gathered to my
fathers; but I took into consideration the duty that one man owes to
another; and that my keeping back, and withholding these curious
documents, would be in a great measure hindering the improvement of
society, so far as I was myself personally concerned. Now this is a
business, which James Batter agrees with me in thinking is carried on,
furthered, and brought about, by every one furnishing his share of
experience to the general stock. Let-a-be this plain truth, another
point of argument for my bringing out my bit book at the present time is,
that I am here to the fore bodily, with the use of my seven senses, to
give day and date to all such as venture to put on the misbelieving front
of Sadducees, with regard to any of the accidents, mischances, marvellous
escapes, and extraordinary businesses therein related; and to show them,
as plain as the bool of a pint stoup, that each and every thing set down
by me within its boards is just as true, as that a blind man needs not
spectacles, or that my name is Mansie Wauch.

Perhaps, as a person willing and anxious to give every man his due, it is
necessary for me explicitly to mention, that, in the course of this book,
I am indebted to my friend James Batter, for his able help in assisting
me to spell the kittle words, and in rummaging out scraps of poem-books
for headpieces to my different chapters.

CHAPTER I.--OUR OLD GRANFATHER.

The sun rises bright in France,
And fair sets he;
But he has tint the blithe blink he had
In my ain countree.

ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.

Some of the rich houses and great folk pretend to have histories of the
auncientness of their families, which they can count back on their
fingers almost to the days of Noah's ark, and King Fergus the First; but
whatever may spunk out after on this point, I am free to confess, with a
safe conscience, in the mean time, that it is not in my power to come up
within sight of them; having never seen or heard tell of any body in our
connexion, further back than auld granfaither, that I mind of when a
laddie; and who it behoves to have belonged by birthright to some parish
or other; but where-away, gude kens. James Batter mostly blinded both
his eyes, looking all last winter for one of our name in the Book of
Martyrs, to make us proud of; but his search, I am free to confess, worse
than failed--as the only man of the name he could find out was a Sergeant
Jacob Wauch, that lost his lug and his left arm, fighting like a Russian
Turk against the godly, at the bloody battle of the Pentland Hills.

Auld granfaither died when I was a growing callant, some seven or eight
years old; yet I mind him full well; it being a curious thing how early
such matters take hold of one's memory. He was a straught, tall, old
man, with a shining bellpow, and reverend white locks hanging down about
his haffets; a Roman nose, and two cheeks blooming through the winter of
his long age like roses, when, poor body, he was sand-blind with
infirmity. In his latter days he was hardly able to crawl about alone;
but used to sit resting himself on the truff seat before our door,
leaning forward his head on his staff, and finding a kind of pleasure in
feeling the beams of God's own sun beaking on him. A blackbird, that he
had tamed, hung above his head in a whand-cage of my father's making; and
he had taken a pride in learning it to whistle two three turns of his own
favourite sang, "Oure the water to Charlie."

I recollect, as well as yesterday, that, on the Sundays, he wore a braid
bannet with a red worsted cherry on the top of it; and had a
single-breasted coat, square in the tails, of light Gilmerton blue, with
plaited white buttons, bigger than crown-pieces. His waistcoat was low
in the neck, and had flap pouches, wherein he kept his mull for rappee,
and his tobacco-box. To look at him, with his rig-and-fur Shetland hose
pulled up over his knees, and his big glancing buckles in his shoon,
sitting at our door-cheek, clean and tidy as he was kept, was just as if
one of the ancient patriarchs had been left on earth, to let succeeding
survivors witness a picture of hoary and venerable eld. Poor body, many
a bit Gibraltar-rock and gingerbread did he give to me, as he would pat
me on the head, and prophesy I would be a great man yet; and sing me bits
of old songs about the bloody times of the Rebellion, and Prince Charlie.
There was nothing that I liked so well as to hear him set a going with
his auld-warld stories and lilts; though my mother used sometimes to say,
"Wheest, granfaither, ye ken it's no canny to let out a word of thae
things; let byganes be byganes, and forgotten." He never liked to give
trouble, so a rebuke of this kind would put a tether to his tongue for a
wee; but, when we were left by ourselves, I used aye to egg him on to
tell me what he had come through in his far-away travels beyond the broad
seas; and of the famous battles he had seen and shed his precious blood
in; for his pinkie was hacked off by a dragoon of Cornel Gardener's, down
by at Prestonpans, and he had catched a bullet with his ankle over in the
north at Culloden. So it was no wonder that he liked to crack about
these times, though they had brought him muckle and no little mischief,
having obliged him to skulk like another Cain among the Highland hills
and heather, for many a long month and day, homeless and hungry. Not
dauring to be seen in his own country, where his head would have been
chacked off like a sybo, he took leg-bail in a ship over the sea, among
the Dutch folk; where he followed out his lawful trade of a cooper,
making girrs for the herring barrels and so on; and sending, when he
could find time and opportunity, such savings from his wages as he could
afford, for the maintenance of his wife and small family of three
helpless weans, that he had been obligated to leave, dowie and destitute,
at their native home of pleasant Dalkeith.

At long and last, when the breeze had blown over, and the feverish pulse
of the country began to grow calm and cool, auld granfaither took a
longing to see his native land; and though not free of jeopardy from
king's cutters on the sea, and from spies on shore, he risked his neck
over in a sloop from Rotterdam to Aberlady, that came across with a
valuable cargo of smuggled gin. When granfaither had been obliged to
take the wings of flight for the preservation of his life and liberty, my
father was a wean at grannie's breast: so, by her fending--for she was a
canny industrious body, and kept a bit shop, in the which she sold
oatmeal and red herrings, needles and prins, potatoes and tape, and
cabbage, and what not--he had grown a strapping laddie of eleven or
twelve, helping his two sisters, one of whom perished of the measles in
the dear year, to go errands, chap sand, carry water, and keep the housie
clean. I have heard him say, when auld granfaither came to their door at
the dead of night, tirling, like a thief of darkness, at the window-brod
to get in, that he was so altered in his voice and lingo that no living
soul kenned him, not even the wife of his bosom; so he had to put grannie
in mind of things that had happened between them, before she would allow
my father to lift the sneck, or draw the bar. Many and many a year, for
gude kens how long after, I have heard tell, that his speech was so
Dutchified as to be scarcely kenspeckle to a Scotch European; but Nature
is powerful, and, in the course of time, he came in the upshot to gather
his words together like a Christian.

Of my auntie Bell, that, as I have just said, died of the measles in the
dear year, at the age of fourteen, I have no story to tell but one, and
that a short one, though not without a sprinkling of interest.

Among her other ways of doing, grannie kept a cow, and sold the milk
round about to the neighbours in a pitcher, whiles carried by my father,
and whiles by my aunties, at the ransom of a halfpenny the mutchkin.
Well, ye observe, that the cow ran yeild, and it was as plain as pease
that she was with calf:--Geordie Drouth, the horse-doctor, could have
made solemn affidavy on that head. So they waited on, and better waited
on for the prowie's calfing, keeping it upon draff and oat-strae in the
byre; till one morning every thing seemed in a fair way, and my auntie
Bell was set out to keep watch and ward.

Some of her companions, howsoever, chancing to come by, took her out to
the back of the house to have a game at the pallall; and, in the interim,
Donald Bogie, the tinkler from Yetholm, came and left his little jackass
in the byre, while he was selling about his crockery of cups and saucers,
and brown plates, on the old one, through the town, in two creels.

In the middle of auntie Bell's game, she heard an unco noise in the byre;
and, knowing that she had neglected her charge, she ran round the gable,
and opened the door in a great hurry; when, seeing the beastie, she
pulled it to again, and fleeing, half out of breath, into the kitchen,
cried--"Come away, come away, mother, as fast as ye can. Eh, lyst, the
cow's cauffed,--and it's a cuddie!"

CHAPTER II.--MY OWN FATHER.

The weaver he gied up the stair,
Dancing and singing;
A bunch o' bobbins at his back,
Rattling and ringing.

_Old Song_.

My own father, that is to say, auld Mansie Wauch with regard to myself,
but young Mansie with reference to my granfather, after having run the
errands, and done his best to grannie during his early years, was, at the
age of thirteen, as I have heard him tell, bound a prentice to the weaver
trade, which from that day and date, for better for worse, he prosecuted
to the hour of his death:--I should rather have said to within a
fortnight of it, for he lay for that time in the mortal fever, that cut
through the thread of his existence. Alas! as Job says, "How time flies
like a weaver's shuttle!"

He was at all, thin, lowering man, blackaviced, and something in the
physog like myself, though scarcely so weel-faured; with a kind of
blueness about his chin, as if his beard grew of that colour--which I
scarcely think it would do--but might arise either from the dust of the
blue cloth, constantly flying about the shop, taking a rest there, or
from his having a custom of giving it a rub now and then with his finger
and thumb, both of which were dyed of that colour, as well as his apron,
from rubbing against, and handling the webs of checkit claith in the
loom.

Ill would it become me, I trust a dutiful son, to say that my father was
any thing but a decent, industrious, hard-working man, doing every thing
for the good of his family, and winning the respect of all that knew the
value of his worth. As to his decency, few--very few indeed--laid
beneath the mools of Dalkeith kirk-yard, made their beds there, leaving a
better name behind them; and as to industry, it is but little to say that
he toiled the very flesh off his bones, driving the shuttle from Monday
morning till Saturday night, from the rising up of the sun, even to the
going down thereof; and whiles, when opportunity led him, or occasion
required, digging and delving away at the bit kail-yard, till moon and
stars were in the lift, and the dews of heaven that fell on his head,
were like the oil that flowed from Aaron's beard, even to the skirts of
his garment. But what will ye say there? Some are born with a silver
spoon in their mouths, and others with a parritch-stick. Of the latter
was my father; for, with all his fechting, he never was able much more
than to keep our heads above the ocean of debt. Whatever was denied him,
a kind Providence, howsoever, enabled him to do that; and so he departed
this life contented, leaving to my mother and me, the two survivors, the
prideful remembrance of being, respectively, she the widow, and me the
son, of an honest man. Some left with twenty thousand cannot boast as
much; so every one has their comforts.

Having never entered much into public life, further than attending the
kirk twice every Sabbath--and thrice when there was evening service--the
days of my father glided over like the waters of a deep river that make
little noise in their course; so I do not know whether to lament or to
rejoice at having almost nothing to record of him. Had Buonaparte as
little ill to account for, it would be well this day for him:--but, losh
me! I had almost skipped over his wedding.

In the five-and-twentieth year of his age, he had fallen in love with my
mother, Marion Laverock, at the christening of a neighbour's bairn, where
they both happened to forgather; little, I daresay, jealousing, at the
time their eyes first met, that fate had destined them for a pair, and to
be the honoured parents of me, their only bairn. Seeing my father's
heart was catched as in the net of the fowler, she took every lawful
means, such as adding another knot to her cockernony, putting up her hair
in screw curls, and so on, to follow up her advantage; the result of all
which was, that, after three months' courtship, she wrote a letter out to
her friends at Loanhead, telling them of what was more than likely to
happen, and giving a kind invitation to such of them as might think it
worth their whiles to come in and be spectators of the ceremony.--And a
prime day I am told they had of it, having, by advice of more than one,
consented to make it a penny wedding; and hiring Deacon Laurie's maltbarn
at five shillings, for the express purpose.

Many yet living, among whom James Batter, who was the best-man, and
Duncan Imrie, the heelcutter in the Flesh-Market Close, are still above
board to bear solemn testimony to the grandness of the occasion, and the
uncountable numerousness of the company, with such a display of mutton-
broth, swimming thick with raisins,--and roasted jiggets of lamb,--to say
nothing of mashed turnips and champed potatoes,--as had not been seen in
the wide parish of Dalkeith in the memory of man. It was not only my
father's bridal day, but it brought many a lad and lass together by way
of partners at foursome reels and Hieland jigs, whose courtship did not
end in smoke, couple above couple dating the day of their happiness from
that famous forgathering. There were no less than three fiddlers, two of
them blind with the small-pox, and one naturally; and a piper with his
drone and chanter, playing as many pibrochs as would have deaved a mill-
happer,--all skirling, scraping, and bumming away throughither, the whole
afternoon and night, and keeping half the countryside dancing, capering,
and cutting, in strathspey step and quick time, as if they were without a
weary, or had not a bone in their bodies. In the days of darkness, the
whole concern would have been imputed to magic and glamour; and douce
folk, finding how they were transgressing over their usual bounds, would
have looked about them for the wooden pin that auld Michael Scott the
warlock drave in behind the door, leaving the family to dance themselves
to death at their leisure.

Had the business ended in dancing, so far well, for a sound sleep would
have brought a blithe wakening, and all be tight and right again; but,
alas and alackaday! the violent heat and fume of foment they were all
thrown into, caused the emptying of so many ale-tankers, and the
swallowing of so muckle toddy, by way of cooling and refreshing the
company, that they all got as fou as the Baltic; and many ploys, that
shall be nameless, were the result of a sober ceremony, whereby two douce
and decent people, Mansie Wauch, my honoured father, and Marion Laverock,
my respected mother, were linked thegither, for better for worse, in the
lawful bonds of honest wedlock.

It seems as if Providence, reserving every thing famous and remarkable
for me, allowed little or nothing of consequence to happen to my father,
who had few cruiks in his lot; at least I never learned, either from him
or any other body, of any adventures likely seriously to interest the
world at large. I have heard tell, indeed, that he once got a terrible
fright by taking the bounty, during the American war, from an Eirish
corporal, of the name of Dochart O'Flaucherty, at Dalkeith Fair, when he
was at his prenticeship: he, not being accustomed to malt-liquor, having
got fouish and frisky--which was not his natural disposition--over a half
a bottle of porter. From this it will easily be seen, in the first
place, that it would be with a fight that his master would get him off,
by obliging the corporal to take back the trepan money; in the second
place, how long a date back it is since the Eirish began to be the death
of us; and, in conclusion, that my honoured faither got such a fleg, as
to spain him effectually, for the space of ten years, from every
drinkable stronger than good spring-well water. Let the unwary take
caution; and may this be a wholesome lesson to all whom it may concern.

In this family history it becomes me, as an honest man, to make passing
mention of my father's sister, auntie Mysie, that married a carpenter and
undertaker in the town of Jedburgh; and who, in the course of nature and
industry, came to be in a prosperous and thriving way; indeed, so much
so, as to be raised from the rank of a private head of a family; and at
last elected, by a majority of two votes over a famous cow-doctor, a
member of the town-council itself.

There is a good story, howsoever, connected with this business, with
which I shall make myself free to wind up this somewhat fusty and
fushionless chapter.

Well, ye see, some great lord,--I forget his name, but no matter,--that
had made a most tremendous sum of money, either by foul or fair means,
among the blacks in the East Indies, had returned, before he died, to lay
his bones at home, as yellow as a Limerick glove, and as rich as Dives in
the New Testament. He kept flunkies with plush small-clothes and sky-
blue coats with scarlet-velvet cuffs and collars,--lived like a princie,
and settled, as I said before, in the neighbourhood of Jedburgh.

The body, though as brown as a toad's back, was as prideful and full of
power as old King Nebuchadneisher; and how to exhibit all his purple and
fine linen, he aye thought and better thought, till at last the happy
determination came over his mind like a flash of lightning, to invite the
bailies, deacons, and town-council, all in a body, to come and dine with
him.

Save us! what a brushing of coats, such a switching of stoury trowsers,
and bleaching of white cotton stockings, as took place before the
catastrophe of the feast, never before happened since Jeddert was a
burgh. Some of them that were forward and geyan bold in the spirit,
crowed aloud for joy, at being able to boast that they had received an
invitation letter to dine with a great lord; while others as proud as
peacocks of the honour, yet not very sure as to their being up to the
trade of behaving themselves at the tables of the great, were mostly dung
stupid with not knowing what to think. A council meeting or two was held
in the gloamings, to take such a serious business into consideration;
some expressing their fears and inward down-sinking, while others cheered
them up with a fillip of pleasant consolation. Scarcely a word of the
matter, for which they were summoned together by the town-officer--and
which was about the mending of the old bell-rope--was discussed by any of
them. So after a sowd of toddy was swallowed, with the hopes of making
them brave men, and good soldiers of the magistracy, they all plucked up
a proud spirit, and do or die, determined to march in a body up to the
gate, and forward to the table of his lordship.

My uncle, who had been one of the ringleaders of the chicken-hearted,
crap away up among the rest, with his new blue coat on, shining fresh
from the ironing of the goose, but keeping well among the thick, to be as
little kenspeckle as possible; for all the folk of the town were at their
doors and windows to witness the great occasion of the town-council going
away up like gentlemen of rank to take their dinner with his lordship.
That it was a terrible trial to all cannot be for a moment denied; yet
some of them behaved themselves decently; and, if we confess that others
trembled in the knees, as if they were marching to a field of battle, it
was all in the course of human nature.

Yet ye would wonder how they came on by degrees; and, to cut a long tale
short, at length found themselves in a great big room, like a palace in a
fairy tale, full of grand pictures with gold frames, and looking-glasses
like the side of a house, where they could see down to their very shoes.
For a while they were like men in a dream, perfectly dazzled and
dumfoundered; and it was five minutes before they could either see a
seat, or think of sitting down. With the reflection of the
looking-glasses, one of the bailies was so possessed within himself, that
he tried to chair himself where chair was none, and landed, not very
softly, on the carpet; while another of the deacons, a fat and dumpy man,
as he was trying to make a bow, and throw out his leg behind him,
stramped on a favourite Newfoundland dog's tail, that, wakening out of
its slumbers with a yell that made the roof ring, played drive against my
uncle, who was standing abaft, and wheeled him like a butterfly, side
foremost, against a table with a heap of flowers on it, where, in trying
to kep himself, he drove his head, like a battering-ram, through a
looking-glass, and bleached back on his hands and feet on the carpet.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20