There had been, as I have frequently observed, a visible improvement going on in the parish. From the time of the making of the toll-road, every new house that was built in the clachan was built along that road. Among other changes hereby caused, the Lady Macadam’s jointure-house that was, which stood in a pleasant parterre, inclosed within a stone wall and an iron gate, having a pillar with a pineapple head on each side, came to be in the middle of the town. While Mr. Cayenne inhabited the same, it was maintained in good order; but on his flitting to his own new house on the Wheatrigs, the parterre was soon overrun with weeds, and it began to wear the look of a waste place. Robert Toddy, who then kept the change-house, and who had, from the lady’s death, rented the coach-house for stabling, in this juncture thought of it for an inn; so he set his own house to Thomas Treddles the weaver, whose son, William, is now the great Glasgow manufacturer, that has cotton-mills and steam-engines, and took, “the Place,” as it was called, and had a fine sign, The Cross-Keys, painted and put up in golden characters, by which it became one of the most noted inns anywhere to be seen; and the civility of Mrs. Toddy was commended by all strangers. But although this transmutation from a change-house to an inn was a vast amendment, in a manner, to the parish, there was little amendment of manners thereby; for the farmer lads began to hold dancings and other riotous proceedings there, and to bring, as it were, the evil practices of towns into the heart of the country. All sort of licence was allowed as to drink and hours; and the edifying example of Mr. Mutchkins and his pious family, was no longer held up to the imitation of the wayfaring man.

Saving the mutation of “the Place” into an inn, nothing very remarkable happened in this year. We got into our new manse about 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.