the middle of March; but it was rather damp, being new plastered,
and it caused me to have a severe attack of the rheumatics in the

fall of the year.
I should not, in my notations, forget to mark a new luxury that got

in among the commonality at this time. By the opening of new roads,
and the traffic thereon with carts and carriers, and by our young

men that were sailors going to the Clyde, and sailing to Jamaica and
the West Indies, heaps of sugar and coffee-beans were brought home,

while many, among the kail-stocks and cabbages in their yards, had
planted groset and berry bushes; which two things happening

together, the fashion to make jam and jelly, which hitherto had been
only known in the kitchens and confectionaries of the gentry, came

to be introduced into the clachan. All this, however, was not
without a plausible pretext; for it was found that jelly was an

excellent medicine for a sore throat, and jam a remedy as good as
London candy for a cough, or a cold, or a shortness of breath. I

could not, however, say that this gave me so much concern as the
smuggling trade, only it occasioned a great fasherie to Mrs

Balwhidder; for, in the berry time, there was no end to the
borrowing of her brass-pan to make jelly and jam, till Mrs Toddy of

the Cross-Keys bought one, which, in its turn, came into request,
and saved ours.

It was in the Martinmas quarter of this year that I got the first
payment of my augmentation. Having no desire to rip up old sores, I

shall say no more anent it, the worst being anticipated in my
chronicle of the last year; but there was a thing happened in the

payment that occasioned a vexation at the time, of a very
disagreeable nature. Daft Meg Gaffaw, who, from the tragical death

of her mother, was a privileged subject, used to come to the manse
on the Saturdays for a meal of meat; and so it fell out that as, by

some neglect of mine, no steps had been taken to regulate the
disposal of the victual that constituted the means of the

augmentation, some of the heritors, in an ungracious temper, sent
what they called the tithe-ball (the Lord knows it was not the

fiftieth!) to the manse, where I had no place to put it. This fell
out on a Saturday night, when I was busy with my sermon, thinking

not of silver or gold, but of much better; so that I was greatly
molested and disturbed thereby. Daft Meg, who sat by the kitchen

chimley-lug, hearing a', said nothing for a time; but when she saw
how Mrs Balwhidder and me were put to, she cried out with a loud

voice, like a soul under the inspiration of prophecy--"When the
widow's cruse had filled all the vessels in the house, the Lord

stopped the increase. Verily, verily, I say unto you, if your barns
be filled, and your girnell-kists can hold no more, seek till ye

shall find the tume basins of the poor, and therein pour the corn,
and the oil, and the wine of your abundance; so shall ye be blessed

of the Lord." The which words I took for an admonition, and
directing the sacks to be brought into the dining-room and other

chambers of the manse, I sent off the heritors' servants, that had
done me this prejudice, with an unexpected thankfulness. But this,

as I afterwards was informed, both them and their masters attributed
to the greedy grasp of avarice, with which they considered me as

misled; and having said so, nothing could exceed their mortification
on Monday, when they heard (for they were of those who had deserted

the kirk) that I had given by the precentor notice to every widow in
the parish that was in need, to come to the manse and she would

receive her portion of the partitioning of the augmentation. Thus,
without any offence on my part, saving the strictness of justice,

was a division made between me and the heritors; but the people were
with me; and my own conscience was with me; and though the fronts of

the lofts and the pews of the heritors were but thinly filled, I
trusted that a good time was coming, when the gentry would see the

error of their way. So I bent the head of resignation to the Lord,
and, assisted by the wisdom of Mr Kibbock, adhered to the course I

had adopted; but at the close of the year my heart was sorrowful for
the schism; and my prayer on Hogmanay was one of great bitterness of

soul, that such an evil had come to pass.
CHAPTER XXIX YEAR 1788

It had been often remarked by ingenious men, that the Brawl burn,
which ran through the parish, though a small, was yet a rapid

stream, and had a wonderful capability for damming, and to turn
mills. From the time that the Irville water deserted its channel

this brook grew into repute, and several mills and dams had been
erected on its course. In this year a proposal came from Glasgow to

build a cotton-mill on its banks, beneath the Witch-linn, which
being on a corner of the Wheatrig, the property of Mr Cayenne, he

not only consented thereto, but took a part in the profit or loss
therein; and, being a man of great activity, though we thought him,

for many a day, a serpent-plague sent upon the parish, he proved
thereby one of our greatest benefactors. The cotton-mill was built,

and a spaciousfabric it was--nothing like it had been seen before
in our day and generation--and, for the people that were brought to

work in it, a new town was built in the vicinity, which Mr Cayenne,
the same being founded on his land, called Cayenneville, the name of

the plantation in Virginia that had been taken from him by the
rebellious Americans. From that day Fortune was lavish of her

favours upon him; his property swelled, and grew in the most
extraordinary manner, and the whole country side was stirring with a

new life. For, when the mill was set a-going, he got weavers of
muslin established in Cayenneville; and shortly after, but that did

not take place till the year following, he brought women all the way
from the neighbourhood of Manchester, in England, to teach the

lassie bairns in our old clachan tambouring.
Some of the ancient families, in their turreted houses, were not

pleased with this innovation, especially when they saw the handsome
dwellings that were built for the weavers of the mills, and the

unstinted hand that supplied the wealth required for the carrying on
of the business. It sank their pride into insignificance, and many

of them would almost rather have wanted the rise that took place in
the value of their lands, than have seen this incoming of what they

called o'er-sea speculation. But, saving the building of the
cotton-mill, and the beginning of Cayenneville, nothing more

memorable happened in this year, still it was nevertheless a year of
a great activity. The minds of men were excited to new enterprises;

a new genius, as it were, had descended upon the earth, and there
was an erect and outlooking spirit abroad that was not to be

satisfied with the taciturn regularity of ancient affairs. Even
Miss Sabrina Hooky, the schoolmistress, though now waned from her

meridian, was touched with the enlivening rod, and set herself to
learn and to teach tambouring, in such a manner as to supersede by

precept and example that old time-honoured functionary, as she
herself called it, the spinning-wheel, proving, as she did one night

to Mr Kibbock and me, that, if more money could be made by a woman
tambouring than by spinning, it was better for her to tambour than

to spin.
But, in the midst of all this commercing and manufacturing, I began

to discover signs of decay in the wonted simplicity of our country
ways. Among the cotton-spinners and muslin weavers of Cayenneville

were several unsatisfied and ambitious spirits, who clubbed
together, and got a London newspaper to the Cross-Keys, where they

were nightly in the habit of meeting and debating about the affairs
of the French, which were then gathering towards a head. They were

represented to me as lads by common in capacity, but with unsettled
notions of religion. They were, however, quiet and orderly; and

some of them since, at Glasgow, Paisley, and Manchester, even, I am
told, in London, have grown into a topping way.

It seems they did not like my manner of preaching" target="_blank" title="n.说教 a.说教的">preaching, and on that
account absented themselves from public worship; which, when I

heard, I sent for some of them, to convince them of their error with
regard to the truth of divers points of doctrine; but they

confounded me with their objections, and used my arguments, which
were the old and orthodox proven opinions of the Divinity Hall, as

if they had been the light sayings of a vain man. So that I was
troubled, fearing that some change would ensue to my people, who had

hitherto lived amidst the boughs and branches of the gospel
unmolested by the fowler's snare, and I set myself to watch

narrowly, and with a vigilant eye, what would come to pass.