The Life of Mansie Wauch

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"Ye should make your son ane, then," said I, "if ye think so. Have ye
any bairns?"

"Ye've hit the nail on the head,--'Od, man, if ye wasna so far away, I
would bind our auldest callant to yoursell, I'm sae weel pleased wi' your
gentlemanly manners. But I'm speaking havers."

"Havers here or havers there, what," said I, "is to prevent ye boarding
him, at a cheap rate, either with our friend Mrs Grassie, or with the
wife? Either of the two would be a sort of mother to him."

"'Deed I daur say would they," answered Maister Glen, stroking his chin,
which was gey rough, and had not got a clean since Sunday, having had
four days of sheer growth--our meeting, you will observe by this, being
on the Thursday afternoon--"'Deed would they.--'Od, I maun speak to the
mistress about it."

On the head of this we had another jug, three being cannie, after which
we were both a wee tozy-mozy; and I daresay Mrs Grassie saw plainly that
we were getting into a state where we would not easily make a halt; so,
without letting on, she brought in the tea-things before us, and showed
us a playbill, to tell us that a company of strolling playactors had come
in a body in the morning, with a whole cartful of scenery and grand
dresses; and were to make an exhibition at seven o'clock, at the ransom
of a shilling a-head, in Laird Wheatley's barn.

Many a time and often had I heard of playacting; and of players making
themselves kings and queens, and saying a great many wonderful things;
but I had never before an opportunity of making myself a witness to the
truth of these hearsays. So Maister Glen, being as full of nonsense, and
as fain to have his curiosity gratified as myself, we took upon us the
stout resolution to go out together, he offering to treat me; and I
determined to run the risk of Maister Wiggie, our minister's rebuke, for
the transgression, hoping it would make no lasting impression on his
mind, being for the first and only time. Folks should not on all
occasions be over scrupulous.

After paying our money at the door, never, while I live and breathe, will
I forget what we saw and heard that night; it just looks to me, by all
the world, when I think on it, like a fairy dream. The place was crowded
to the full; Maister Glen and me having nearly got our ribs dung in
before we found a seat, the folks behind being obliged to mount the back
benches to get a sight. Right to the forehand of us was a large green
curtain, some five or six ells wide, a good deal the worse of the wear,
having seen service through two-three summers; and, just in the front of
it, were eight or ten penny candles stuck in a board fastened to the
ground, to let us see the players' feet like, when they came on the
stage--and even before they came on the stage--for the curtain being
scrimpit in length, we saw legs and sandals moving behind the scenes very
neatly; while two blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the
bonniest ye ever heard. 'Od, the very music was worth a sixpence of
itself.

The place, as I said before, was choke-full, just to excess; so that one
could scarcely breathe. Indeed, I never saw any part so crowded, not
even at a tent preaching, when the Rev. Mr Roarer was giving his
discourses on the building of Solomon's Temple. We were obligated to
have the windows opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as
close as a baker's oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red faces with
our hats, to keep us cool; and, though all were half stewed, we certainly
had the worst of it, the toddy we had taken having fermented the blood of
our bodies into a perfect fever.

Just at the time that the two blind fiddlers were playing the Downfall of
Paris, a handbell rang, and up goes the green curtain; being hauled to
the ceiling, as I observed with the tail of my eye, by a birkie at the
side, that had hold of a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all
becoming as still as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a
decent old gentleman at his leisure, well powdered, with an old-fashioned
coat on, waistcoat with flap-pockets, brown breeches with buckles at the
knees, and silk stockings with red gushats on a blue ground. I never saw
a man in such distress; he stamped about, and better stamped about,
dadding the end of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers
of heaven and earth to help him to find out his runaway daughter, that
had decamped with some ne'er-do-weel loon of a half-pay captain, that
keppit her in his arms from her bedroom-window, up two pair of stairs.

Every father and head of a family must have felt for a man in his
situation, thus to be robbed of his dear bairn, and an only daughter too,
as he told us over and over again, as the salt, salt tears ran gushing
down his withered face, and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered
pocket-napkin. But, ye know, the thing was absurd to suppose that we
should know any inkling about the matter, having never seen him or his
daughter between the een before, and not kenning them by headmark; so,
though we sympathized with him, as folks ought to do with a
fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to hold our tongues, to
see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he went stumping
at the other side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he
should follow them to the world's end, Johnny Groat's House, or something
to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and almost before ye could cry Jack Robison,
in comes the birkie and the very young lady the old gentleman described,
arm-and-arm together, smoodging and laughing like daft. Dog on it! it
was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the
crowd of folk, he put his arm round her waist, and called her his
sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and every thing that is
fine. If they had been courting in a close together on a Friday night,
they could not have said more to one another, or gone greater lengths. I
thought such shame to be an eyewitness to sic ongoings, that I was
obliged at last to hold up my hat before my face, and look down; though,
for all that, the young lad, to be such a blackguard as his conduct
showed, was well enough faured, and had a good coat to his back, with
double gilt buttons and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very well-
made pair of buckskins, a thought the worse of the wear to be sure, but
which, if they had been well cleaned, would have looked almost as good as
new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw chaise
nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is more than likely
that they had lighted at the back-door of the barn from a horse, she
riding on a pad behind him, maybe, with her hand round his waist.

The father looked to be a rich old bool, both from his manner of
speaking, and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his
daughter; but to be sure, when so many of us were present that had an
equal right to the spuilzie, it would not be a great deal a thousand
pounds, when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just
bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsoever, sooner than either
themselves, I daresay, or anybody else present, seemed to have the least
glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of
a coming foot was heard, and the lassie, taking guilt to her, cried out,
"Hide me, hide me, for the sake of goodness, for yonder comes my old
father!"

No sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closet; and, after
shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be
asleep in the twinkling of a walking-stick. The old father came bouncing
in, and seeing the fellow as sound as a top, he ran forward and gave him
such a shake as if he would have shooken him all sundry; which soon made
him open his eyes as fast as he had steeked them. After blackguarding
the chield at no allowance, cursing him up hill and down dale, and
calling him every name but a gentleman, he held his staff over his crown,
and gripping him by the cuff of the neck, asked him, in a fierce tone,
what he had made of his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see
such brazenfaced impudence! The rascal had the brass to say at once,
that he had not seen word or wittens of the lassie for a month, though
more than a hundred folk sitting in his company had beheld him dauting
her with his arm round her jimpy waist, not five minutes before. As a
man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised, for
I aye hated lying as a poor cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten
commandments; and I found my neighbour, Mr Glen, fidgeting on the seat as
well as me; so I thought, that whoever spoke first would have the best
right to be entitled to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act
of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, "Dinna believe
him, auld gentleman--dinna believe him, friend; he's telling a parcel of
lees. Never saw her for a month! It's no worth arguing, or calling
witnesses; just open that press-door, and ye'll see whether I'm speaking
truth or not!"

The old man stared, and looked dumfoundered; and the young one, instead
of running forward with his double nieves to strike me, the only thing I
was feared for, began a-laughing, as if I had done him a good turn. But
never since I had a being, did I ever witness such an uproar and noise as
immediately took place. The whole house was so glad that the scoundrel
had been exposed, that they set up siccan a roar of laughter, and thumped
away at siccan a rate at the boards with their feet, that at long and
last, with pushing and fidgeting, clapping their hands, and holding their
sides, down fell the place they call the gallery; all the folk in't being
hurl'd topsy-turvy, head foremost among the saw-dust on the floor below;
their guffawing soon being turned to howling, each one crying louder than
another at the top note of their voices, "Murder! murder! hold off me;
murder! my ribs are in; murder! I'm killed--I'm speechless!" and other
lamentations to that effect; so that a rush to the door took place, in
the which every thing was overturned--the doorkeeper being wheeled away
like wildfire--the furms stramped to pieces--the lights knocked out--and
the two blind fiddlers dung head foremost over the stage, the bass fiddle
cracking like thunder at every bruise. Such tearing, and swearing, and
tumbling, and squealing, was never witnessed in the memory of man since
the building of Babel: legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in,
eyes knocked out, and lives lost--there being only one door, and that a
small one; so that, when we had been carried off our feet that length, my
wind was fairly gone, and a sick dwalm came over me, lights of all manner
of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that
entirely deprived me of common sense; till, on opening my eyes in the
dark, I found myself leaning with my broadside against the wall on the
opposite side of the close. It was some time before I minded what had
happened; so, dreading skaith, I found first the one arm, and then the
other, to see if they were broken--syne my head--and finally both of my
legs; but all, as well as I could discover, was skin-whole and
scart-free. On perceiving this, my joy was without bounds, having a
great notion that I had been killed on the spot. So I reached round my
hand, very thankfully, to take out my pocket-napkin, to give my brow a
wipe, when lo, and behold! the tail of my Sunday's coat was fairly off
and away, docked by the hainch buttons.

So much for plays and playactors--the first and last, I trust in grace,
that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect no better, after the
warning that Maister Wiggie had more than once given us from the pulpit
on the subject. Instead, therefore, of getting my grand reward for
finding the old man's daughter, the whole covey of them, no better than a
set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made that very night a moonlight
flitting, and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought from sunrise to
sunset for two days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being
well paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got nothing left him but a
ruckle of his own good deals, all dung to shivers.

CHAPTER XVIII.--THE BARLEY-FEVER--AND REBUKE.

Sages their solemn een may steek,
And raise a philosophic reek,
And, physically, causes seek,
In clime and season;
But tell me _Whisky's_ name in Greek,
I'll tell the reason.

BURNS.

On the morning after the business of the playhouse had happened, I had to
take my breakfast in my bed, a thing very uncommon to me, being generally
up by cock-craw, except on Sunday mornings whiles, when each one,
according to the bidding of the Fourth Commandment, has a license to do
as he likes; having a desperate sore head, and a squeamishness at the
stomach, occasioned, I jealouse in a great measure, from what Mr Glen and
me had discussed at Widow Grassie's, in the shape of warm toddy, over our
cracks concerning what is called the agricultural and manufacturing
interests. So our wife, poor body, put a thimbleful of brandy, Thomas
Mixem's real, into my first cup of tea, which had a wonderful virtue in
putting all things to rights; so that I was up and had shaped a pair of
lady's corsets, an article in which I sometimes dealt, before ten
o'clock, though, the morning being rather cold, I did not dispense with
my Kilmarnock.

At eleven in the forenoon, or thereabouts, maybe five minutes before or
after, but no matter, in comes my crony Maister Glen, rather dazed-like
about the een; and with a large piece of white sticking-plaister, about
half a nail wide, across one of his cheeks, and over the bridge of his
nose; giving him a wauf, outlandish, and rather blackguard sort of
appearance; so that I was a thought uneasy at what neighbours might
surmise concerning our intimacy; but the honest man accounted for the
thing in a very feasible manner, from the falling down on that side of
his head of one of the brass candlesticks, while he was lying on his
broadside before one of the furms in the stramash.

His purpose of calling was to tell me, that he could not leave the town
without looking in upon me to bid me farewell; more betoken, as he
intended sending in his son Mungo by the carrier for trial, to see how
the line of life pleased him, and how I thought he would answer--a thing
which I was glad came from his side of the house, being likely to be in
the upshot the best for both parties. Yet I thought he would find our
way of doing so canny and comfortable, that it was not very likely he
could ever start objections; and I must confess, that I looked forward
with no small degree of pride, seeing the probability of my soon having
the son of a Lammermoor farmer sitting crosslegged, cheek for jowl with
me on the board, and bound to serve me at all lawful times, by night and
day, by a regular indenture of five years. Maister Glen insisted on the
laddie having a three months' trial; and then, after a trifling show of
standing out, just to make him aware that I could be elsewhere fitted if
I had a mind, I agreed that the request was reasonable, and that I had no
earthly objections to conforming with it. So, after giving him his
meridian and a bite of shortbread, we shook hands, and parted in the
understanding that his son would arrive on the top of limping Jamie the
carrier's cart, in the course, say, of a fortnight.

Through the whole of the forepart of the day, I remained rather queerish,
as if something was working about my inwards, and a droll pain between my
eyes. The wife saw the case I was in, and advised me, for the sake of
the fresh air, to take a step into the bit garden, and try a hand at the
spade, the smell of the new earth being likely to operate as a cordial;
but no--it would not do; and when I came in at one o'clock to my dinner,
the steam of the fresh broth, instead of making me feel, as usual, as
hungry as a hawk, was like to turn my stomach, while the sight of the
sheep's head, one of the primest ones I had seen the whole season,
looked, by all the world, like the head of a boiled blackamoor, and made
me as sick as a dog; so I could do nothing but take a turn out again, and
swig away at the small beer, that never seemed able to slocken my drouth.
At long and last, I minded having heard Andrew Redbeak, the
excise-officer, say, that nothing ever put him right after a debosh
except something they call a bottle of soda-water; so my wife dispatched
Benjie to the place where we knew it could be found, and he returned in a
jiffie with a thing like a blacking-bottle below his daidly, as he was
bidden. There being a wire over the cork for some purpose or other, or
maybe just to look neat, we had some fight to get it torn away, but at
last we succeeded. I had turned about for a jug, and the wife was
rummaging for the screw, while Benjie was fiddling away with his fingers
at the cork--Save us! all at once it gave a thud like thunder, driving
the cork over poor Benjie's head, while it squirted there-up in his eyes
like a fire-engine, and I had only just time to throw down the jug, and
up with the bottle to my mouth. Luckily, for the sixpence it cost, there
was a drop left, which tasted, by all the world, just like brisk dish-
washings; but for all that, it had a wonderful power of setting me to
rights; and my noddle in a while began to clear up, like a March-day
after a heavy shower.

I mind very well too, on the afternoon of the dividual same day, that my
door-neighbour, Thomas Burlings, popped in; and, in our two-handed crack
over the counter, after asking me in a dry, curious way, if I had come by
no skaith in the business of the play, he said, the thing had now spread
far and wide, and was making a great noise in the world. I thought the
body a wee sharp in his observes; so I pretended to take it quite
lightly, proceeding in my shaping-out a pair of buckskin breeches, which
I was making for one of the Duke's huntsmen; so seeing he was off the
scent, he said in a more jocose way--

"Well, speaking about buckskins, I'll tell ye a good story about that."

"Let us hear't," said I; for I was in that sort of queerish way, that I
did not care much about being very busy.

"Ye'se get it as I heard it," quo' Thomas; "and it's no less worth
telling, that it bears a good moral application in its tail; after the
same fashion that a blister does good by sucking away the vicious humours
of the body, thereby making the very pain it gives precious." And
here--though maybe it was just my thought--the body stroked his chin, and
gave me a kind of half gley, as much as saying, "take that to ye,
neighbour." But I deserved it all, and could not take it ill off his
hand; being, like myself, one of the elders of our kirk, and an honest
enough, precise-speaking man.

"Ye see, ye ken," said Thomas, "that the Breadalbane Fencibles, a wheen
Highland birkies, were put into camp at Fisherrow links, maybe for the
benefit of their douking, on account of the fiddle {120}--or maybe in
case the French should land at the water-mouth--or maybe to give the
regiment the benefit of the sea air--or maybe to make their bare houghs
hardier, for it was the winter time, frost and snaw being as plenty as ye
like, and no sae scarce as pantaloons among the core--or for some ither
reason, guid, bad, or indifferent, which disna muckle matter; but ye see
the lang and the short o' the story is, that there they were encamped,
man and mother's son of them, going through their dreels by day, and
sleeping by night--the privates in their tents, and the offishers in
their marquees, living in the course of nature on their usual rations of
beef, and tammies, and so on. So, ye understand me, there was nae such
smart ordering of things in the army in those days, the men not having
the beef served out to them by a butcher, supplying each company or
companies by a written contract, drawn up between him and the paymaster
before 'sponsible witnesses; but ilka ane bringing what pleased him,
either tripe, trotters, steaks, cow's-cheek, pluck, hough, spar-rib,
jigget, or so forth."

"'Od!" said I, "Thomas, ye crack like a minister. Where did ye happen to
pick up all that knowledge?"

"Where should I have got it, but from an auld half-pay sergeant-major,
that lived in our spare room, and had been out in the American war,
having seen a power of service, and been twice wounded, once in the aff-
cuit, and the other time in the cuff of the neck."

"I thought as muckle," said I--"Weel, say on, man, it's unco
entertaining."

"Weel," continued he, "let me see where I was at when ye stoppit me; for
maybe I'll hae to begin at the beginning again. For gif ye yinterrupt
me, or edge in a word, or put me out by asking questions, I lose the
thread of my discourse, and canna proceed."

"Ou, let me see," said I, "ye was about the contract concerning the
beef."

"Preceesely," quo' Thomas, stretching out his fore-finger--"ye've said it
to a hair. At that time, as I was observing, the butcher didna supply a
company or companies, according to the terms of a contract, drawn up
before 'sponsible witnesses, between him and the paymaster; but the
soldiers got beef-money along with their pay; with which said money,
given them, ye observe, for said purpose, they were bound and obligated,
in terms of the statute, to buy, purchase, and provide the said beef,
twice a-week or oftener, as it might happen; an orderly offisher making
inspection of the camp-kettles regularly every forenoon, at one o'clock
or thereabouts.

"So, as ye'll pay attention to observe, there was a private in Captain
M'Tavish's company, the second to the left of the centre, of the name of
Duncan MacAlpine, a wee, hardy, blackaviced, in-knee'd creature,
remarkable for nothing that ever I heard tell of, except being reported
to have shotten a gauger in Badenough, or thereabouts; and for having a
desperate red nose, the effects, ye observe, of drinking spirituous
liquors; ye observe, I daur say, what I am saying--the effects of
drinking malt speerits.

"Weel, week after week passed over, and better passed over, and Duncan
played aff his tricks, like anither Herman Boaz, the slight-o'-hand
juggler, him that's suspeckit to be in league and paction with the de'il.
But ye'll hear."

"'Od, it's diverting, Thomas," said I to him; "gang on, man."

"Weel, ye see, as I was observing--Let me see, where was I at?--Ou ay,
having a paction with the de'il. So, when all were watching beside the
camp-kettles, some stirring them with spurtles, or parritch-sticks, or
forks, or whatever was necessary, the orderly offisher made a point and
practice of regularly coming by, about the chap of one past meridian, as
I observed to ye before, to make inspection of what ilka ane had wared
his pay on, and what he had got simmering in the het water for his
dinner.

"So, on the day concerning which I am about to speak, it fell out, as
usual, that he happened to be making his rounds, halting a moment, or twa
maybe, before ilka pot; the man that had the charge thereof, by the way
of stirring like, clapping down his lang fork, and bringing up the piece
of meat, or whatever he happened to be making kail of, to let the
inspector see whether it was lamb, pork, beef, mutton, or veal. For, ye
observe," continued Thomas, giving me, as I took it to myself, another
queer side-look, "the purpose of the offisher making the inspection, was
to see that they laid out their pay-money conform to military regulation;
and not to fyling their stamicks, and ruining baith sowl and body, by
throwing it away on whisky--as but ower mony, that aiblins should have
kenned better, have dune but too often."

"'Tis but ower true," said I till him; "but the best will fa' intil a
faut sometimes. We have a' our failings, Thomas."

"Just so," answered Thomas; "but where was I at?--Ou, about the whisky.
Weel, speaking about the whisky, ye see the offisher, Lovetenant Todrick
I b'lief they called him, had made an observe about Duncan's kettle; so,
when he came to him, Duncan was sitting in the lown side of a dyke, with
his red nose, and a pipe in his cheek, on a big stane, glowring frae him
anither way; and, as I was saying, when he came to him he said,

"'Weel, Duncan MacAlpine, what have ye in your kettle the day, man?'

"And Duncan, rinning down his lang fork, answered in his ain Highland
brogue way--'Please your honours, just my auld favourite, tripe.'

"'Deed, Duncan,' said Lovetenant Todrick, or whatever they caa'd him, 'it
is an auld favourite surely, for I have never seen ye have onything else
for your dinner, man.'

"'Every man to his taste, please your honour,' answered Duncan MacAlpine;
'let ilka ane please her nain sell,'--hauling up a screed half a yard
lang. 'Ilka man to his taste, please your honour, Lovetenant Todrick.'"

"'Od, man," said I to him, "'Od, man, ye're a deacon at telling a story.
Ye're a queer hand. Weel, what came next?"

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