path by Dinglewood-burn; but naebody ever kend a word about it frae Cuddie; I ken I’m gay thick in the head, but I’m as honest as our auld fore-hand ox, puir fallow, that I’ll ne’er work ony mair—I hope they’ll be as kind to him that come ahint me as I hae been.—But, as I was saying, we’ll awa down to Milnwood and tell Mr Harry our distress They want a pleughman, and the grund’s no unlike our ain—I am sure Mr Harry will stand my part, for he’s a kind-hearted gentleman.—I’ll get but little penny-fee, for his uncle, auld Nippie Milnwood, has as close a grip as the deil himsell. But we’l, aye win a bit bread, and a drap kale, and a fire-side and theeking ower our heads, and that’s a’ we’ll want for a season.—Sae get up, mither, and sort your things to gang away; for since sae it is that gang we maun, I wad like ill to wait till Mr Harrison and auld Gudyill cam to pu’ us out by the lug and the horn.”
CHAPTER VIII
The devil a puritan, or any thing else he is, but a time-server.
It was evening when Mr Henry Morton perceived an old woman, wrapped in her tartan plaid, supported by a stout, stupid-looking fellow, in hoddin-grey, approach the house of Milnwood. Old Mause made her courtesy, but Cuddie took the lead in addressing Morton. Indeed, he had previously stipulated with his mother that he was to manage matters his own way; for though he readily allowed his general inferiority of understanding, and filially submitted to the guidance of his mother on most ordinary occasions, yet he said, “For getting a service, or getting forward in the warld, he could somegate gar the wee pickle sense he had gang muckle farther than hers, though she could crack like ony minister o’ them a’.”
Accordingly, he thus opened the conversation with young Morton: “A braw night this for the rye, your honour; the west park will be breering bravely this e’en.”
“I do not doubt it, Cuddie; but what can have brought your mother—this is your mother, is it not?” (Cuddie nodded.) “What can have brought your mother and you down the water so late?”
“Troth, stir, just what gars the auld wives trot—neshessity, stir—I’m seeking for service, stir.”
“For service, Cuddie, and at this time of the year? how comes that?”
Mause could forbear no longer. Proud alike of her cause and her sufferings, she commenced with an affected humility of tone, “It has pleased Heaven, an it like your honour, to distinguish us by a visitation”—“Deil’s in the wife and nae gude!” whispered Cuddie to his mother, “an ye come out wi’ your whiggery, they’ll no daur open a door to us through the haill country!” Then aloud and addressing Morton, “My mother’s auld, stir, and she has rather forgotten hersell in speaking to my leddy, that canna weel bide to be contradickit, (as I ken nae-body likes it if they could help themsells,) especially by her ain folk,—and Mr Harrison the steward, and Gudyill the butler, they’re no very fond o’ us, and it’s ill sitting at Rome and striving wi’ the Pope; sae I thought it best to flit before ill came to waur—and here’s a wee bit line to your honour frae a friend will maybe say some mair about it.”
Morton took the billet, and crimsoning up to the ears, between joy and surprise, read these words: “If you can serve these poor helpless people, you will oblige E. B.”
It was a few instants before he could attain composure enough to ask, “And what is your object, Cuddie? and how can I be of use to you?”
“Wark, stir, wark, and a service, is my object—a bit beild for my mither and mysell—we hae gude plenishing o’ our ain, if we had the cast o’ a cart to bring it down—and milk and meal, and greens enow, for I’m gay gleg at meal-time, and sae is my mither, lang may it be sae—And, for the penny-fee and a’ that, I’ll just leave it to the laird and you. I ken ye’ll no see a poor lad wranged, if ye can help it.”
Morton shook his head. “For the meat and lodging, Cuddie, I think I can promise something; but the penny-fee will be a hard chapter, I doubt.”
“I’ll tak my chance o’t, stir,” replied the candidate for service, “rather than gang down about Hamilton, or ony sic far country.”
“Well; step into the kitchen, Cuddie, and I’ll do what I can for you.”
The negotiation was not without difficulties. Morton had first to bring over the housekeeper, who made a thousand objections, as usual, in order to have the pleasure of being besought and entreated; but, when she was gained over, it was comparatively easy to induce old Milnwood to accept of a servant, whose wages were to be in his own option. An outhouse was, therefore, assigned to Mause and her son for their habitation, and it was settled that they were for the time to be admitted to eat of the frugal fare provided for the family, until their own establishment should be completed. As for Morton, he exhausted his own very slender stock of money in order to make Cuddie such a present, under the name of arles, as might show his sense of the value of the recommendation delivered to him.
“And now we’re settled ance mair,” said: Cuddie to his mother, “and if we’re no sae bien and comfortable as we were up yonder, yet life’s life ony gate, and we’re wi’ decent kirk-ganging folk o’ your ain persuasion, mither; there will be nae quarrelling about that.”
“Of my persuasion, hinnie!” said the too-enlightened Mause; “wae’s me for thy blindness and theirs. O, Cuddie, they are but in the court of the Gentiles, and will ne’er win farther ben, I doubt; they are but little better than the prelatists themsells. They wait on the ministry of that blinded man, Peter Poundtext, ance a precious teacher of the Word, but now a backsliding pastor, that has, for the sake of stipend and family maintenance, forsaken the strict path, and gane astray after the black Indulgence. O, my son, had ye but profited by the gospel doctrines ye hae heard in the Glen of Bengonnar, frae the dear Richard Rumbleberry, that sweet youth, who suffered martyrdom in the Grassmarket, afore Candlemas! Didna ye hear him say, that Erastianism was as bad as Prelacy, and that the Indulgence was as bad as Erastianism?”
“Heard ever ony body the like o’ this!” interrupted Cuddie; “we’ll be driven out o’ house and ha’ again afore we ken where to turn oursells. Weej, mither, I hae just ae word mair—An I hear ony mair o’ your din—afore folk, that is, for I dinna mind your clavers mysell, they aye set me sleeping—but if I hear ony mair din afore folk, as I was saying, about Poundtexts and Rumbleberries, and doctrines and malignants, I’se e’en turn a single sodger mysell, or maybe a sergeant or a captain, if ye plague me the mair, and let Rumbleberry and you gang to the deil thegither. I ne’er gat ony gude by his doctrine, as ye ca’t, but a sour fit o’ the batts wi’ sitting amang the wat moss-hags for four hours at a yoking, and the leddy cured me wi’ some hickery-pickery; mair by token, an she had kend how I came by the disorder, she wadna hae been in sic a hurry to mend it.”
Although groaning in spirit over the obdurate and impenitent state, as she thought it, of her son Cuddie, Mause durst neither urge him farther on the topic, nor altogether neglect the warning he had given her. She knew the disposition of her deceased helpmate, whom this surviving pledge of their union greatly resembled, and remembered, that although submitting implicitly in most things to her boast of superior acuteness, he used on certain occasions, when driven to extremity, to be seized with fits of obstinacy, which neither remonstrance, flattery, nor threats, were capable of overpowering. Trembling, therefore, at the very possibility of Cuddie’s fulfilling his threat, she put a guard over her tongue, and even when Poundtext was commended in her presence, as an able and fructifying preacher, she had the good sense to suppress the contradiction which thrilled upon her tongue, and to express her sentiments no otherwise than by deep groans, which the hearers charitably construed to flow from a vivid recollection of the more pathetic parts of his homilies. How long she could have repressed her feelings it is difficult to say. An unexpected accident relieved her from the necessity.
The Laird of Milnwood kept up all old fashions which were connected with economy. It was, therefore, still the custom in his house, as it had been universal in Scotland about fifty years before, that the domestics, after having placed the dinner on the table, sate down at the lower end of the board, and partook of the share which was assigned to them, in company with their masters. On the day, therefore, after