The Life of Mansie Wauch

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Having no skeel in these matters, I sent up the close for James Batter,
who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-quarter subscription book-club,
had read a power of all sorts of things, sacred and profane. James, as
he was humming it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a
thump on his thigh, "Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good, capital!" and
so on, which astonished me much, kenning who had written it--a callant
that had sleeped with our Benjie, and could not have shaped a pair of
leggins though we had offered him the crown of the three kingdoms.

Seeing what it was thought of by one who knew what was what, and could
distinguish the difference between a B and a bull's foot, I judged it
necessary for me to take a copy of it; which, for the benefit of them
that like poems, I do not scruple to tag to the tail of this chapter.

Oh, wad that my time were ower but,
Wi' this wintry sleet and snaw,
That I might see our house again
I' the bonny birken shaw!--
For this is no my ain life,
And I peak and pine away
Wi' the thochts o' hame, and the young flow'rs
I' the glad green month o' May.

I used to wauk in the morning
Wi' the loud sang o' the lark,
And the whistling o' the ploughmen lads
As they gaed to their wark;
I used to weir in the young lambs
Frae the tod and the roaring stream;
But the warld is changed, and a' thing now
To me seems like a dream.

There are busy crowds around me
On ilka lang dull street;
Yet, though sae mony surround me,
I kenna ane I meet.
And I think on kind, kent faces,
And o' blythe and cheery days,
When I wander'd out, wi' our ain folk,
Out-owre the simmer braes.

Wae's me, for my heart is breaking!
I think on my brithers sma',
And on my sister greeting,
When I came frae hame awa;
And oh! how my mither sobbit,
As she shook me by the hand;
When I left the door o' our auld house,
To come to this stranger land;

There's nae place like our ain hame;
Oh, I wish that I was there!--
There's nae hame like our ain hame
To be met wi' ony where!--
And oh! that I were back again
To our farm and fields so green;
And heard the tongues o' my ain folk,
And was what I hae been!

That's poor Mungo's poem; which I and James Batter, and the rest, think
excellent, and not far short of Robert Burns himself, had he been spared.
Some may judge otherwise, out of bad taste or ill nature; but I would
just thank them to write a better at their leisure.

CHAPTER XXII.--THE JUNE JAUNT.

The lapwing lilteth o'er the lea,
With nimble wing she sporteth;
By vows she'll flee from tree to tree
Where Philomel resorteth:
By break of day, the lark can say,
I'll bid you a good-morrow,
I'll streik my wing, and mounting sing,
O'er Leader hauchs and Yarrow.

NICOL BURN, _the Minstrel_.

After Tammie Bodkin had been working with me on the board for more than
four years in the capacity of foresman, superintending the workshop
department, together with the conduct and conversation of Joe Breeky,
Walter Cuff, and Jack Thorl, my three bounden apprentices, I thought I
might lippen him awee to try his hand in the shaping line, especially
with the clothes of such of our customers as I knew were not very nice,
provided they got enough of cutting from the Manchester manufacture, and
room to shake themselves in. The upshot, however, proved to a moral
certainty, that such a length of tether is not chancey for youth, and
that a master cannot be too much on the head of his own business.

It was in the pleasant month of June, sometime, maybe six or eight days,
after the birth-day of our good old King George the Third--for I
recollect the withering branches of lily-oak and flowers still sticking
up behind the signs, and over the lampposts,--that my respected
acquaintance and customer, Peter Farrel the baker, to whom I have made
many a good suit of pepper-and-salt clothes--which he preferred from
their not dirtying so easily with the bakehouse--called in upon me,
requesting me, in a very pressing manner, to take a pleasure ride up with
him the length of Roslin, in his good-brother's bit phieton, to eat a
wheen strawberries, and see how the forthcoming harvest was getting on.

That the offer was friendly admitted not of doubt, but I did not like to
accept for two-three reasons; among which were, in the first place, my
awareness of the danger of riding in such vehicles--having read sundry
times in the newspapers of folk having been tumbled out of them, drunk or
sober, head-foremost, and having got eyes knocked ben, skulls cloured,
and collar-bones broken; and, in the second place, the expense of feeding
the horse, together with our finding ourselves in meat and drink during
the journey--let alone tolls, strawberries and cream, bawbees to the
waiter, the hostler, and what not. But let me speak the knock-him-down
truth, and shame the de'il,--above all, I was afraid of being seen by my
employers wheeling about, on a work-day, like a gentleman, dressed out in
my best, and leaving my business to mind itself as it best could.

Peter Farrel, however, being a man of determination, stuck to his text
like a horse-leech; so, after a great to-do, and considerable
argle-bargling, he got me, by dint of powerful persuasion, to give him my
hand on the subject. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, I popped up the
back-loan with my stick in my hand--Peter having agreed to be waiting for
me on the roadside, a bit beyond the head of the town, near Gallows-hall
toll. The cat should be let out of the pock by my declaring, that Nanse,
the goodwife, had also a finger in the pie--as, do what ye like, women
will make their points good--she having overcome me in her wheedling way,
by telling me, that it was curious I had no ambition to speel the ladder
of gentility, and hold up my chin in imitation of my betters.

That we had a most beautiful drive I cannot deny; for though I would not
allow Peter to touch the horse with the whip, in case it might run away,
fling, or trot ower fast--and so we made but slow progress--little more
even than walking; yet, as I told him, it gave a man leisure to use his
eyes, and make observation to the right and the left; and so we had a
prime look of Eskbank, and Newbottle Abbey, and Melville Castle, and
Dalhousie, and Polton, and Hawthornden, and Dryden woods--and the powder
mills, the paper mills, the bleachfield--and so on. The day was bright
and beautiful, and the feeling of summer came over our bosoms; the
flowers blossomed and the birds sang; and, as the sun looked from the
blue sky, the quiet of nature banished from our thoughts all the poor and
paltry cares that embitter life, and all the pitiful considerations which
are but too apt to be the only concerns of the busy and bustling, from
their awaking in the morning to their lying down on the pillow of evening
rest. Peter and myself felt this forcibly; he, as he confessed to me,
having entirely forgot the four pan-soled loaves that were, that morning,
left by his laddie, Peter Crust, in the oven, and burned to sticks; and
for my own part, do what I liked, I could not bring myself to mind what
piece of work I was employed on the evening before till, far on the road,
I recollected that it was a pair of mouse-brown spatterdashes for worthy
old Mr Mooleypouch the meal-monger.

Oh, it is a pleasant thing, now and then, to get a peep of the country!
To them who live among shops and markets, and stone-walls, and butcher-
stalls, and fishwives--and the smell of ready-made tripe, red herring,
and Cheshire cheeses--the sights, and sounds, and smells of the country,
bring to mind the sinless days of the world before the fall of man, when
all was love, peace, and happiness. Peter Farrel and I were transported
out of our seven senses, as we feasted our eyes on the beauty of the
green fields. The bumbees were bizzing among the gowans and bluebells;
and a thousand wee birds among the green trees were churm-churming away,
filling earth and air with music, as it were a universal hymn of
gratitude to the Creator for his unbounded goodness to all his creatures.
We saw the trig country lasses bleaching their snow-white linen on the
grass by the waterside, and they too were lilting their favourite songs,
Logan Water, the Flowers of the Forest, and the Broom of the
Cowdenknowes. All the world seemed happy, and I could scarcely
believe--what I kent to be true for all that--that we were still walking
in the realms of sin and misery. The milk-cows were nipping the clovery
parks, and chewing their cuds at their leisure;--the wild partridges
whidding about in pairs, or birring their wings with fright over the
hedges;--and the blue-bonneted ploughmen on the road cracking their whips
in wantonness, and whistling along amid the clean straw in their carts.
And then the rows of snug cottages, with their kailyards and their
gooseberry bushes, with the fruit hanging from the branches like earrings
on the neck of a lady of fashion. How happy, thought we both--both Peter
Farrel and me--how happy might they be who, without worldly pride or
ambition, passed their days in such situations, in the society of their
wives and children. Ah! such were a blissful lot!

During our ride, Peter Farrel and I had an immense deal of rational
conversation on a variety of matters, Peter having seen great part of the
world in his youth, from having made two voyages to Greenland, during one
of which he was very nearly frozen up--with his uncle, who was the mate
of a whale-vessel. To relate all that Peter told me he had seen and
witnessed in his far-away travels, among the white bears, and the frozen
seas, would take up a great deal of the reader's time, and of my paper;
but as to its being very diverting, there is no doubt of that. However,
when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his
noddle to discover, that "a rowing stane gathers no fog;" and, having got
an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked
to the baking trade tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped
butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our
colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world--had bought his
own bounds, and built new ones--could lay down the blunt for his article,
and take the measure of the markets, by laying up wheat in his granaries
against the day of trouble--to wit--rise of prices.

"Well, Peter," said I to him, "seeing that ye read the newspapers, and
have a notion of things, what think ye, just at the present moment, of
affairs in general?"

Peter cocked up his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he
had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said--

"Is it foreign or domestic affairs that you are after, Maister Wauch? for
the question is a six-quarters wide one."

I was determined not to be beat by man of woman born; so I answered with
almost as much cleverality as himself, "Oh, Mr Farrel, as to our foreign
concerns, I trust I am ower loyal a subject of George the Third to have
any doubt at all about them, as the Buonaparte is yet to be born that
will ever beat our regulars abroad--to say nothing of oar volunteers at
home; but what think you of the paper specie--the national debt--borough
reform--the poor-rates--and the Catholic question?"

I do not think Peter jealoused I ever had so much in my noddle; but when
he saw I had put him to his mettle, he did his best to give me
satisfactory answers to my queries, saying, that till gold came in
fashion, it would not be for my own interest or that of my family, to
refuse bank-notes, for which he would, any day of the year, give me as
many quarter loaves as I could carry, to say nothing of coarse flour for
the prentices' scones, and bran for the pigs--that the national debt
would take care of itself long after both him and I were gathered to our
fathers: and that individual debt was a much more hazardous, pressing,
and personal concern, far more likely to come home to our more immediate
bosoms and businesses--that the best species of reform was every one's
commencing to make amendment in their own lives and conversations--that
poor rates were likely to be worse before they were better; and that, as
to the Catholic question,--"But, Mansie," said he, "it would give me
great pleasure to hear your candid and judicious opinion of Popery and
the Papists."

I saw, with half an e'e, that Peter was trying to put me to my mettle,
and I devoutly wished that I had had James Batter at my elbow to have
given him play for his money--James being the longest-headed man that
ever drove a shuttle between warp and woof; but most fortunately, just as
I was going to say, that "every honest man, who wished well to the good
of his country, could only have one opinion upon that subject,"--we came
to the by-road, that leads away off on the right-hand side down to
Hawthornden, and we observed, from the curious ringle, that one of the
naig's fore-shoon was loose; which consequently put an end to the
discussion of this important national question, before Peter and I had
time to get it comfortably settled to the world's satisfaction.

The upshot was, that we were needcessitated to dismount, and lead the
animal by the head forward to Kittlerig, where Macturk Sparrible keeps
his smith's shop; in order that, with his hammer, he might make fast the
loose nails: and that him and his foresman did in a couple of hurries; me
and Peter looking over them with our hands in our big-coat pockets, while
they pelt-pelted away with the beast's foot between their knees, as if we
had been a couple of grand gentlemen incog.; and so we were to him.

After getting ourselves again decently mounted, and giving Sparrible a
consideration for his trouble, Peter took occasion, from the horse
casting its shoe, to make a few apropos moral observations, in the manner
of the Rev. Mr Wiggie, on the uncertainties which it is every man's lot
to encounter in the weariful pilgrimage of human life. "There is many a
slip 'tween the cup and the lip," said Peter.

"And, indeed, Mr Farrel, ye never spoke a truer word," said I. "We are
here to-day--yonder to-morrow; this moment we are shining like the mid-
day sun, and on the next, pugh! we go out like the snuff of a candle.
'Man's life,' as Job observes, 'is like a weaver's shuttle.'"

"But, Maister Wauch," quo' Peter, who was a hearer of the Parish Church,
"you dissenting bodies aye take the black side of things; never
considering that the doubtful shadows of affairs sometimes brighten up
into the cloudless daylight. For instance, now, there was an old fellow-
apprentice of my father's, who, like myself, was a baker, his name was
Charlie Cheeper; and, both his father and mother dying when he was yet
hardly in trowsers, he would have been left without a hame in the world,
had not an old widow woman, who had long lived next door to them, and
whose only breadwinner was her spinning-wheel, taken the wee wretchie in
to share her morsel. For several years, as might naturally have been
expected, the callant was a perfect deadweight on the concern, and
perhaps, in her hours of greater distress, the widow regretted the
heedlessness of her Christian charity; but Charlie had a winning way with
him, and she could not find it in her heart to turn him to the door. By
the time he was seven--and a ragged coute he was as ever stepped without
shoes--he could fend for himself, by running messages--holding horses at
shop doors--winning bools and selling them--and so on; so that, when he
had collected half-a-crown in a penny pig, the widow sent him to the
school, where he got on like a hatter, and in a little while, could both
read and write. When he was ten, he was bound apprentice to Saunders
Snaps in the Back-row, whose grandson has yet, as you know, the sign of
the Wheat Sheaf; and for five years he behaved himself like his betters.

"Well, sir, when his time was out, Charlie had an ambition to see the
world; and, by working for a month or two as a journeyman in the
Candlemaker-row at Edinburgh, he raked as much together as took him up to
London in the steerage of a Leith smack. For several years nothing was
heard of him, except an occasional present of a shawl, or so on, to the
widow, who had been so kind to him in his helpless years; and at length a
farewell present of some little money came to her, with his blessing for
past favours, saying that he was off for good and all to America.

"In the course of time, Widow Amos became frail and sand-blind. She was
unable to work for herself, and the charity she had shown to others no
one seemed disposed to extend to her. Her only child, Jeanie Amos, was
obliged to leave her service, and come home to the house of poverty, to
guard her mother's grey hairs from accident, and to divide with her the
little she could make at the trade of mangling; for, with the money that
Charlie Cheeper had sent, before leaving the country, the old woman had
bought a calender, and let it out to the neighbours at so much an hour;
honest poverty having many shifts.

"Matters had gone on in this way for two or three fitful years; and
Jeanie, who, when she had come home from service, was a buxom and
blooming lass, although yet but a wee advanced in her thirties, began to
show, like all earthly things, that she was wearing past her best. Some
said that she had lost hopes of Charlie's return; and others, that, come
hame when he liked, he would never look over his left shoulder after her.

"Well, sir, as fact as death, I mind mysell, when a laddie, of the rumpus
the thing made in the town. One Saturday night, a whole washing of old
Mrs Pernickity's that had been sent to be calendered, vanished like
lightning, no one knew where: the old lady was neither to hold nor bind;
and nothing would serve her, but having both the old woman and her
daughter committed to the Tolbooth. So to the Tolbooth they went,
weeping and wailing; followed by a crowd, who cried loudly out at the sin
and iniquity of the proceeding; because the honesty of the prisoners,
although impeached, was unimpeachable; the mob were furious; and before
the Sunday sun arose, old Mrs Pernickity awakened with a sore throat,
every pane of her windows having been miraculously broken during the dead
hours.

"The mother and the daughter were kept in custody until the Monday; when,
as they were standing making a declaration of their innocence before the
justices, who should come in but Francie Deep, the Sheriff-officer, with
an Irish vagrant and his wife--two tinklers who were lodging in the Back-
row, and in whose possession the bundle was found bodily, basket and all.
Such a cheering as the folk set up! it did all honest folk's hearts good
to hear it. Mrs Pernickity and her lass, to save their bacon, were
obliged to be let out by a back door; and, as the justices were about to
discharge the two prisoners, who had been so unjustly and injuriously
suspected, a stranger forced his way to the middle of the floor, and took
the old woman in his arms!"

"Charlie Cheeper returned, for a gold guinea," said I.

"And no other it was," said Peter, resuming his comical story. "The
world had flowed upon him to his heart's desire. Over in Virginia he had
given up the baking business, and commenced planter; and, after years of
industrious exertion, having made enough and to spare, he had returned to
spend the rest of his days in peace and plenty, in his native town."

"Not to interrupt you," added I, "Mr Farrel, I think I could wager
something mair."

"You are a witch of a guesser I know, Mansie," said Peter; "and I see
what you are at. Well, sir, you are right again. For, on the very day
week that Patrick Makillaguddy and his spouse got their heads shaved, and
were sent to beat hemp in the New Bridewell on the Caltonhill, Jeanie
Amos became Mrs Cheeper; the calender and the spinning-wheel were both
burned by a crowd of wicked weans before old Mrs Pernickity's door,
raising such a smoke as almost smeaked her to a rizzar'd haddock; and the
old widow under the snug roof of her ever grateful son-in-law, spent the
remainder of her Christian life in peace and prosperity."

"That story ends as it ought," said I, "Mr Farrel; neither Jew nor Gentle
dare dispute that; and as to the telling of it, I do not think man of
woman born, except maybe James Batter, who is a nonsuch, could have
handled it more prettily. I like to hear virtue aye getting its ain
reward."

As these dividual words were falling from my lips, we approached the end
of our journey, the Roslin Inn house heaving in sight, at the door of
which me and Peter louped out, an hostler with a yellow striped
waistcoat, and white calico sleeves, I meantime holding the naig's head,
in case it should spend off, and capsize the concern. After seeing the
horse and gig put into the stable, Peter and I pulled up our shirt necks,
and after looking at our watches, as if time was precious, oxtered away,
arm-in-arm, to see the Chapel, which surpasses all, and beats
cock-fighting.

It is an unaccountable thing to me, how the auld folk could afford to
build such grand kirks and castles. If once gold was like slate stones,
there is a wearyful change now-a-days, I must confess; for, so to-speak,
gold guineas seem to have taken flight from the land along with the
witches and warlocks, and posterity are left as toom in the pockets as
rookit gamblers.

But if the mammon of precious metals be now totally altogether out of the
world, weel-a-wat we had a curiosity still, and that was a cleipy woman
with a long stick, that rhaemed away, and better rhaemed away, about the
Prentice's Pillar, who got a knock on the pow from his jealous blackguard
of a master--and about the dogs and the deer--and Sir Thomas this-thing
and my Lord tother-thing, who lay buried beneath the broad flag-stones in
their rusty coats of armour--and such a heap of havers, that no throat
was wide enough to swallow them for gospel, although gey an' entertaining
I allow. However, it was a real farce; that is certain.

Oh, but the building was a grand and overpowering sight, making man to
dree the sense of his own insignificance, even in the midst of his own
handiwork! First, we looked over our shoulders to the grand carved
roofs, where the swallows swee-swee'd, as they darted through the open
windows, and the yattering sparrows fed their gorbals in the far boles;
and syne we looked shuddering down into the dark vaults, where nobody in
their senses could have ventured, though Peter Farrel, being a rash
courageous body, was keen on it, having heard less than I could tell him
of such places being haunted by the spirits of those who have died or
been murdered within them in the bloody days of the old times; or of
their being so full of foul air, as to extinguish man's breath in his
nostrils like the snuff of a candle. Though no man should throw his life
into jeopardy, yet I commend all for taking timeous recreation--the King
himself on the throne not being able to live without the comforts of
life; and even the fifteen Lords of Session, with as much powder on their
wigs as would keep a small family in loaves for a week, requiring air and
exercise, after sentencing vagabonds to be first hanged, and then their
clothes given to Jock Heich, and their bodies to Doctor Monro.

Before going out to inspect the wonderfuls, we had taken the natural
precaution to tell the goodman of the inn, that we would be back to take
a chack of something from him, at such and such an hour; and, having had
our bellyful of the Chapel,--and the Prentice's Pillar,--and the
vaults,--and the cleipy auld wife with the lang stick,--we found that we
had still half an hour to spare; so took a stroll into the Kirkyard, to
see if we could find out if any of the martyrs had been buried there-away-
abouts.

We saw a good few head-stones, you may make no doubt, both ancient and
modern; but nothing out of the course of nature; so, the day being
pleasant, Mr Farrel and me sat down on a throughstane, below an old
hawthorn, and commenced chatting on the Pentland Hills--the river
Esk--Penicuik--Glencorse--and all the rest of the beautiful country
within sight. A mooly auld skull was lying among the grass, and Peter,
as he spoke, was aye stirring it about with his stick.

"I never touched a dead man's bones in my life," said I to Peter, "nor
would I for a sixpence. Who might that have belonged to, now, I wonder?
Maybe to a baker or a tailor, in his day and generation, like you and I,
Peter; or maybe to ane of the great Sinclairs with their coats-of-mail,
that the auld wife was cracking so crousely about?"

"Deil may care," said Peter; "but are you really frighted to touch a
skull, Mansie? You would make a bad doctor, I'm doubting, then; to say
nothing of a resurrection man."

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