I was sitting on Hansel Monday by myself at the parlour fireside,

Mrs Balwhidder being throng with the lassies looking out a washing,
and my daughter at Ayr, spending a few days with her old comrades of

the boarding school. I thought it was the enemy; and then anon the
sound of the fife came shrill to the ear, for the night was lown and

peaceful. My wife and all the lassies came flying in upon me,
crying all in the name of heaven, what could it be? by which I was

obligated to put on my big-coat, and, with my hat and staff, go out
to enquire. The whole town was aloof, the aged at the doors in

clusters, and the bairns following the tattoo, as it was called, and
at every doubling beat of the drum, shouting as if they had been in

the face of their foemen.
Mr Archibald Dozendale, one of my elders, was saying to several

persons around him, just as I came up, "Hech, sirs! but the battle
draws near our gates," upon which there was a heavy sigh from all

that heard him; and then they told me of the sergeant's business;
and we had a serious communing together anent the same. But while

we were thus standing discoursing on the causey, Mrs Balwhidder and
the servant lassies could thole no longer, but in a troop came in

quest of me, to hear what was doing. In short, it was a night both
of sorrow and anxiety. Mr Dozendale walked back to the manse with

us, and we had a sober tumbler of toddy together; marvelling
exceedingly where these fearful portents and changes would stop,

both of us being of opinion that the end of the world was drawing
nearer and nearer.

Whether it was, however, that the lads belonging to the place did
not like to show themselves with the enlistment cockades among their

acquaintance, or that there was any other reason, I cannot take it
upon me to say; but certain it is, the recruiting party came no

speed, and, in consequence, were removed about the end of March.
Another thing happened in this year, too remarkable for me to

neglect to put on record, as it strangely and strikingly marked the
rapid revolutions that were going on. In the month of August at the

time of the fair, a gang of playactors came, and hired Thomas
Thacklan's barn for their enactments. They were the first of that

clanjamfrey who had ever been in the parish; and there was a
wonderful excitement caused by the rumours concerning them. Their

first performance was DOUGLAS TRAGEDY and the GENTLE SHEPHERD: and
the general opinion was, that the lad who played Norval in the play,

and Patie in the farce, was an English lord's son, who had run away
from his parents rather than marry an old cracket lady with a great

portion. But, whatever truth there might be in this notion, certain
it is, the whole pack was in a state of perfect beggary; and yet,

for all that, they not only in their parts, as I was told, laughed
most heartily, but made others do the same; for I was constrained to

let my daughter go to see them, with some of her acquaintance; and
she gave me such an account of what they did, that I thought I would

have liked to have gotten a keek at them myself. At the same time,
I must own this was a sinful curiosity, and I stifled it to the best

of my ability. Among other plays that they did, was one called
MACBETH AND THE WITCHES, which the Miss Cayennes had seen performed

in London, when they were there in the winter time with their
father, for three months, seeing the world, after coming from the

boarding-school. But it was no more like the true play of
Shakespeare the poet, according to their account, than a duddy

betheral, set up to fright the sparrows from the peas, is like a
living gentleman. The hungry players, instead of behaving like

guests at the royal banquet, were voracious on the needful feast of
bread, and the strong ale, that served for wine in decanters. But

the greatest sport of all was about a kail-pot, that acted the part
of a caldron, and which should have sunk with thunder and lightning

into the earth; however, it did quite as well, for it made its exit,
as Miss Virginia said, by walking quietly off, being pulled by a

string fastened to one of its feet. No scene of the play was so
much applauded as this one; and the actor who did the part of King

Macbeth made a most polite bow of thankfulness to the audience, for
the approbation with which they had received the performance of the

pot.
We had likewise, shortly after the "Omnes exeunt" of the players, an

exhibition of a different sort in the same barn. This was by two
English quakers, and a quaker lady, tanners of Kendal, who had been

at Ayr on some leather business, where they preached, but made no
proselytes. The travellers were all three in a whisky, drawn by one

of the best-ordered horses, as the hostler at the Cross-Keys told
me, ever seen. They came to the Inn to their dinner, and meaning to

stay all night, sent round, to let it be known that they would hold
a meeting in Friend Thacklan's barn; but Thomas denied they were

either kith or kin to him: this, however, was their way of
speaking.

In the evening, owing to the notice, a great congregation was
assembled in the barn, and I myself, along with Mr Archibald

Dozendale, went there likewise, to keep the people in awe; for we
feared the strangers might be jeered and insulted. The three were

seated aloft on a high stage, prepared on purpose, with two mares
and scaffold-deals, borrowed from Mr Trowel the mason. They sat

long, and silent; but at last the spirit moved the woman, and she
rose, and delivered a very sensibleexposition of Christianity. I

was really surprised to hear such sound doctrine; and Mr Dozendale
said, justly, that it was more to the purpose than some that my

younger brethren from Edinburgh endeavoured to teach. So, that
those who went to laugh at the sinceresimplicity of the pious

quakers, were rebuked by a very edifying discourse on the moral
duties of a Christian's life.

Upon the whole, however, this, to the best of my recollection, was
another unsatisfactory year. In this we were, doubtless, brought

more into the world; but we had a greater variety of temptation set
before us, and there was still jealousy and estrangement in the

dispositions of the gentry, and the lower orders, particularly the
manufacturers. I cannot say, indeed, that there was any increase of

corruption among the rural portion of my people; for their vocation
calling them to work apart, in the purity of the free air of heaven,

they were kept uncontaminated by that seditious infection which
fevered the minds of the sedentary weavers, and working like

flatulence in the stomachs of the cotton-spinners, sent up into
their heads a vain and diseased fume of infidel philosophy.

CHAPTER XXXVII YEAR 1796
The prosperity of fortune is like the blossoms of spring, or the

golden hue of the evening cloud. It delighteth the spirit, and
passeth away,

In the month of February my second wife was gathered to the Lord.
She had been very ill for some time with an income in her side,

which no medicine could remove. I had the best doctors in the
country side to her; but their skill was of no avail, their opinions

being that her ail was caused by an internal abscess, for which
physic has provided no cure. Her death was to me a great sorrow;

for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree, and
managed every thing with so brisk a hand, that nothing went wrong

that she put it to. With her I had grown richer than any other
minister in the presbytery; but, above all, she was the mother of my

bairns, which gave her a double claim upon me.
I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, my own

cousin that was, and I inscribed her name upon the same headstone;
but time had drained my poetical vein, and I have not yet been able

to indite an epitaph on her merits and virtues, for she had an
eminent share of both. Her greatest fault--the best have their

faults--was an over-earnestness to gather gear; in the doing of
which I thought she sometimes sacrificed the comforts of a pleasant

fireside; for she was never in her element but when she was keeping
the servants eident at their work. But, if by this she subtracted

something from the quietude that was most consonant to my nature,
she has left cause, both in bank and bond, for me and her bairns to