have thought, was a participator, for the beast gied a skraik that
made my whole head dirl; and the neighbours came flying and flocking

to see what was the matter, for it was the first parrot ever seen
within the bounds of the parish, and some thought it was but a

foreign hawk, with a yellow head and green feathers.
In the midst of all this, Effie Malcolm had run off to the Breadland

for her sister Kate, and the two lassies came flying breathless,
with Miss Girzie Gilchrist, the Lady Skimmilk, pursuing them like

desperation, or a griffin, down the avenue; for Kate, in her hurry,
had flung down her seam, a new printed gown, that she was helping to

make, and it had fallen into a boyne of milk that was ready for the
creaming, by which issued a double misfortune to Miss Girzie, the

gown being not only ruined, but licking up the cream. For this,
poor Kate was not allowed ever to set her face in the Breadland

again.
When Charlie Malcolm had stayed about a week with his mother, he

returned to his berth in the Tobacco trader, and shortly after his
brother Robert was likewise sent to serve his time to the sea, with

an owner that was master of his own bark, in the coal trade at
Irville. Kate, who was really a surprising lassie for her years,

was taken off her mother's hands by the old Lady Macadam, that lived
in her jointure house, which is now the Cross Keys Inn. Her

ladyship was a woman of high breeding, her husband having been a
great general, and knighted by the king for his exploits; but she

was lame, and could not move about in her dining-room without help;
so hearing from the first Mrs Balwhidder how Kate had done such an

unatonable deed to Miss Girzie Gilchrist, she sent for Kate, and,
finding her sharp and apt, she took her to live with her as a

companion. This was a vast advantage, for the lady was versed in
all manner of accomplishments, and could read and speak French with

more ease than any professor at that time in the College of Glasgow;
and she had learnt to sew flowers on satin, either in a nunnery

abroad, or in a boarding-school in England, and took pleasure in
teaching Kate all she knew, and how to behave herself like a lady.

In the summer of this year, old Mr Patrick Dilworth, that had so
long been doited with the paralytics, died, and it was a great

relief to my people, for the heritors could no longer refuse to get
a proper schoolmaster; so we took on trial Mr Lorimore, who has ever

since the year after, with so much credit to himself, and usefulness
to the parish, been schoolmaster, session clerk, and precentor--a

man of great mildness and extraordinary particularity. He was then
a very young man, and some objection was made, on account of his

youth, to his being session-clerk, especially as the smuggling
immorality still gave us much trouble in the making up of irregular

marriages; but his discretion was greater than could have been hoped
for from his years; and, after a twelvemonth's probation in the

capacity of schoolmaster, he was installed in all the offices that
had belonged to his predecessor, old Mr Patrick Dilworth that was.

But the most memorable thing that befell among my people this year,
was the burning of the lint-mill on the Lugton water, which

happened, of all the days of the year, on the very selfsame day that
Miss Girzie Gilchrist, better known as Lady Skimmilk, hired the

chaise from Mrs Watts of the New Inns of Irville, to go with her
brother, the major, to consult the faculty in Edinburgh concerning

his complaints. For, as the chaise was coming by the mill, William
Huckle, the miller that was, came flying out of the mill like a

demented man, crying fire!--and it was the driver that brought the
melancholytidings to the clachan--and melancholy they were; for the

mill was utterly destroyed, and in it not a little of all that
year's crop of lint in our parish. The first Mrs Balwhidder lost

upwards of twelve stone, which we had raised on the glebe with no
small pains, watering it in the drouth, as it was intended for

sarking to ourselves, and sheets and napery. A great loss indeed it
was, and the vexation thereof had a visible effect on Mrs

Balwhidder's health, which from the spring had been in a dwining
way. But for it, I think she might have wrestled through the

winter: however, it was ordered otherwise, and she was removed from
mine to Abraham's bosom on Christmas-day, and buried on Hogmanay,

for it was thought uncanny to have a dead corpse in the house on the
new-year's day. She was a worthy woman, studying with all her

capacity to win the hearts of my people towards me--in the which
good work she prospered greatly; so that, when she died, there was

not a single soul in the parish that was not contented with both my
walk and conversation. Nothing could be more peaceable than the way

we lived together. Her brother Andrew, a fine lad, I had sent to
the college at Glasgow, at my own cost; and when he came out to the

burial, he stayed with me a month, for the manse after her decease
was very dull, and it was during this visit that he gave me an

inkling of his wish to go out to India as a cadet, but the
transactions anent that fall within the scope of another year--as

well as what relates to her headstone, and the epitaph in metre,
which I indicated myself thereon; John Truel the mason carving the

same, as may be seen in the kirkyard, where it wants a little
reparation and settingupright, having settled the wrong way when

the second Mrs Balwhidder was laid by her side.--But I must not here
enter upon an anticipation.

CHAPTER V YEAR 1764
This year well deserved the name of the monumental" target="_blank" title="a.纪念碑的；不朽的">monumental year in our

parish; for the young laird of the Breadland, that had been my
pupil, being learning to be an advocate among the faculty in

Edinburgh, with his lady mother, who had removed thither with the
young ladies her daughters, for the benefit of education, sent out

to be put up in the kirk, under the loft over the family vault, an
elegant marble headstone, with an epitaph engraven thereon, in fair

Latin, setting forth many excellent qualities which the old laird,
my patron that was, the inditer thereof said he possessed. I say

the inditer, because it couldna have been the young laird himself,
although he got the credit o't on the stone, for he was nae daub in

my aught at the Latin or any other language. However, he might
improve himself at Edinburgh, where a' manner of genteel things were

then to be got at an easy rate, and doubtless the young laird got a
probationer at the College to write the epitaph; but I have often

wondered sin' syne, how he came to make it in Latin, for assuredly
his dead parent, if he could have seen it, could not have read a

single word o't, standing" target="_blank" title="prep.&conj.虽然；还是">notwithstanding it was so vaunty about his virtues,
and other civil and hospitable qualifications.

The coming of the laird's monumental" target="_blank" title="a.纪念碑的；不朽的">monumental stone had a great effect on me,
then in a state of deep despondency for the loss of the first Mrs

Balwhidder; and I thought I could not do a better thing, just by way
of diversion" target="_blank" title="n.转移；消遣">diversion in my heavy sorrow, than to get a well-shapen headstone

made for her--which, as I have hinted at in the record of the last
year, was done and set up. But a headstone without an epitaph, is

no better than a body without the breath of life in't; and so it
behoved me to make a poesy for the monument, the which I conned and

pondered upon for many days. I thought as Mrs Balwhidder, worthy
woman as she was, did not understand the Latin tongue, it would not

do to put on what I had to say in that language, as the laird had
done--nor indeed would it have been easy, as I found upon the

experimenting, to tell what I had to tell in Latin, which is
naturally a crabbed language, and very difficult to write properly.

I therefore, after mentioning her age and the dates of her birth and
departure, composed in sedate poetry the following epitaph, which

may yet be seen on the tombstone.
EPITAPH

A lovely Christian, spouse, and friend,
Pleasant in life, and at her end. -

A pale consumption dealt the blow
That laid her here, with dust below.

Sore was the cough that shook her frame;
That cough her patience did proclaim -

And as she drew her latest breath,
She said, "The Lord is sweet in death."