Pla. I’ faith
I like the audience that frequenteth there
With much applause: a man shall not be chokt
With the stench of garlick, nor be pasted firm
To the barmy jacket of a beer-brewer.
Bra. ’Tis a good gentle audience, and I hope
The boys will come one day in great request.

Jack Drum’s Entertainment. 1601.

Out cam the gudeman, and laigh he louted;
Out cam the gudewife, and heigh she shouted;
And a the toun-neibours gather’d about it;
And there he lay, I trow.

The Cauldrife Wooer.

The time of Tammie Bodkin’s apprenticeship being nearly worn through, it behoved me, as a man attentive to business, and the interests of my family, to cast my eyes around me in search of a callant to fill his place; as it is customary in our trade for young men, when their time is out, taking a year’s journeymanship in Edinburgh, to perfect them in the more intricate branches of the business, and learn the newest manner of the French and London fashions, by cutting cloth for the young advocates, the college students, the banking-house clerks, the half-pay ensigns, and the rest of the principal tip-top bucks.

Having, though I say it myself, the word of being a canny maister, more than one brought their callants to me, on reading the bill of “An apprentice wanted,” pasted on my shop-window.

Offering to bind them for the regular time, yet not wishing to take but one, I thought best not to fix in a hurry, and make choice of him that seemed more exactly cut out for my purpose. In the course of a few weeks three or four cast up, among whom was a laddie of Ben Aits the mealmonger, and a son of William Burlings the baker; to say little of the callant of Saunders Broom the sweep, that would fain have put his blackit-looking bit creature with the one eye and the wooden leg under my wing; but I aye looked to respectability in these matters; so glad was I when I got the offer of Mungo Glen.—But more of this in half a minute.

I must say I was glad of any feasible excuse to make to the sweep, to get quit of him and his laddie, the father being a drucken ne’er-do weel, that I wonder did not fall long ere this time of day from some chimney-head, and get his neck broken. So I told him at long and last, when he came papping into my shop, plaguing me every time he passed, that I had fitted myself; and that there would be no need of his taking the trouble to call again. Upon which he gave his blacked nieve a desperate thump on the counter, making the observation, that out of respect for him I might have given his son the preference. Though I was a wee puzzled for an answer, I said to him for want of a better, that having a timber leg, he could not well creuk his hough to the shop-board for our trade.

“Hout, touts,” said Saunders, giving his lips a smack—“Creuk his hough, ye body you! Do you think his timber leg canna screw off?—That’ll no pass.”

I was a little dumfoundered at this cleverness. So I said, more on my guard—“True, true, Saunders, but he’s ower little.”

“Ower little, and be hanged to ye!” cried the disrespectful follow, wheeling about on his heel, as he grasped the sneck of the shop-door, and gave a girn that showed the only clean parts of his body—to wit the whites of his eyes, and his sharp teeth:—“Ower little!—Pu, pu!—He’s like the blackamoor’s pig, then, Maister Wauch—he’s like the blackamoor’s pig—he may be ver’ leetle, but he be tam ould;” and with this he showed his back, clapping the door at his tail without wishing a good-day; and I am scarcely sorry when I confess, that I never cut cloth for either father or son from that hour to this one, the losing of such a customer being no great matter at best, and almost clear gain compared with saddling myself with a callant with only one eye and one leg; the one having fallen a victim to the dregs of the measles, and the other having been harled off by a farmer’s threshing-mill. However, I got myself properly suited;—but ye shall hear.

Our neighbour Mrs Grassie, a widow woman, unco intimate with our wife, and very attentive to Benjie when he had the chin-cough, had a far-away cousin of the name of Glen, that held out among the howes of the Lammermoor hills—a distant part of the country, ye observe. Auld Glen, a decent-looking body of a creature, had come in with his sheltie about some private matters of business—such as the buying of a horse, or something to that effect, where he could best fall in with it, either at our fair, or the Grassmarket, or such like; so he had uppitting, free of expense, from Mrs Grassie, on account of his relationship; Glen being second cousin to Mrs Grassie’s brother’s wife, which is deceased. I might, indeed, have mentioned, that our neighbour herself had been twice married, and had the misery of seeing out both her gudemen; but such was the will of fate, and she bore up with perfect resignation.

Having made a bit warm dinner ready, for she was a tidy body, and knew what was what, she thought she could not do better than ask in a reputable neighbour to help her friend to eat it, and take a cheerer with him; as, maybe, being a stranger here, he would not like to use the freedom of drinking by himself—a custom which is at the best an unsocial one—especially with none but women-folk near him; so she did me the honour to make choice of me—though I say it, who should not say it;—and when we got our jug filled for the second time, and began to grow better acquainted, ye would really wonder to see how we became merry, and cracked away just like two pen-guns. I asked him, ye see, about sheep and cows, and corn and hay, and ploughing and threshing, and horses and carts, and fallow land, and lambing-time, and har’st, and making cheese and butter, and selling eggs, and curing the sturdie, and the snifters, and the batts, and such like;—and he, in his turn, made enquiry regarding broad and narrow cloth, Kilmarnock cowls, worsted comforters, Shetland hose, mittens, leather-caps, stuffing and padding, metal and mule buttons, thorls, pocket-linings, serge, twist, buckram, shaping and sewing, back-splaying, cloth-runds, goosing the labroad, botkins, black thread, patent shears, measuring, and all the other particulars belonging to our trade, which he said, at long and last after we had joked together, was a power better one than the farming line.

“Ye should make your son ane, then,” said I, “if ye think so. Have ye any bairns?”

“Ye’ve hit the nail on the head.—’Od, man, if ye wasna so far away, I would bind our auldest callant to yoursell, I’m sae weel pleased wi’ your gentlemanly manners. But I’m speaking havers.”

“Havers here or havers there, what,” said I, “is to prevent ye boarding him, at a cheap rate, either with our friend Mrs Grassie, or with the wife? Either of the two would be a sort of mother to him.”

“’Deed I daur say would they,” answered Maister Glen, stroking his chin, which was gey rough, and had not got a clean since Sunday, having had four days of sheer growth—our meeting, you will observe by this, being on the Thursday afternoon—“’Deed would they.—’Od, I maun speak to the mistress about it.”

On the head of this we had another jug, three being cannie, after which we were both a wee tozy-mozy; and I daresay Mrs Grassie saw plainly that we were getting into a state where we would not easily make a halt; so, without letting on, she brought in the tea-things before us, and showed us a playbill, to tell us that a company of strolling playactors had come in a body in the morning, with a whole cartful of scenery and grand dresses; and were to make an exhibition at seven o’clock, at the ransom of a shilling a-head, in Laird Wheatley’s barn.

Many a time and often had I heard of playacting; and of players making themselves kings and queens, and saying a great many wonderful things; but I had never before an opportunity of making myself a witness to the truth of these hearsays. So Maister Glen, being as full of nonsense, and as fain to have his curiosity gratified as myself, we took upon us the stout resolution to go out together, he offering to treat me; and I determined to run the risk of Maister Wiggie, our minister’s rebuke, for the transgression, hoping it would make no lasting impression on his mind, being for the first and only time. Folks should not on all occasions be over scrupulous.

After paying our money at the door, never, while I live and breathe, will I forget what we saw and heard that night; it just looks to me, by all the world, when I think on it, like a fairy dream. The place was crowded to the full; Maister Glen and me having nearly got our ribs dung in before we found a seat, the folks behind being obliged to mount the back benches to get a sight. Right to the forehand of us was a large green curtain, some five or six ells wide, a good deal the worse of the wear, having seen service through two-three summers; and, just in the front of it, were eight or ten penny candles stuck in a board fastened to the ground, to let us see the players’ feet like, when they came on the stage—and even before they came on the stage—for the curtain being scrimpit in length, we saw legs and sandals moving behind the scenes very neatly; while two blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the bonniest ye ever heard. ’Od, the very music was worth a sixpence of itself.

The place, as I said before, was choke-full, just to excess; so that one could scarcely breathe. Indeed, I never saw any part so crowded, not even at a tent preaching, when the Rev. Mr Roarer was giving his discourses on the building of Solomon’s Temple. We were obligated to have the windows opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as close as a baker’s oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red faces with our hats, to keep us cool; and, though all were half stewed, we certainly had the worst of it, the toddy we had taken having fermented the blood of our bodies into a perfect fever.

Just at the time that the two blind fiddlers were playing the Downfall of Paris, a handbell rang, and up goes the green curtain; being hauled to the ceiling, as I observed with the tail of my eye, by a birkie at the side, that had hold of a rope. So, on the music stopping, and all becoming as still as that you might have heard a pin fall, in comes a decent old gentleman at his leisure, well powdered, with an old-fashioned coat on, waistcoat with flap-pockets, brown breeches with buckles at the knees, and silk stockings with red gushats on a blue ground. I never saw a man in such distress; he stamped about, and better stamped about, dadding the end of his staff on the ground, and imploring all the powers of heaven and earth to help him to find out his runaway daughter, that had decamped with some ne’er-do-weel loon of a half-pay captain, that keppit her in his arms from her bedroom-window, up two pair of stairs.

Every father and head of a family must have felt for a man in his situation, thus to be robbed of his dear bairn, and an only daughter too, as he told us over and over again, as the salt, salt tears ran gushing down his withered face, and he aye blew his nose on his clean calendered pocket-napkin. But, ye know, the thing was absurd to suppose that we should know any inkling about the matter, having never seen him or his daughter between the een before, and not kenning them by headmark; so, though we sympathized with him, as folks ought to do with a fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to hold our tongues, to see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he went stumping at the other side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he should follow them to the world’s end, Johnny Groat’s House, or something to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and almost before ye could cry Jack Robison, in comes the birkie and the very young lady the old gentleman described, arm-and-arm together, smoodging and laughing like daft. Dog on it! it was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the crowd of folk, he put his arm round her waist, and called her his sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and every thing that is fine. If they had been courting in a close together on a Friday night, they could not have said more to one another, or gone greater lengths. I thought such shame to be an eyewitness to sic ongoings, that I was obliged at last to hold up my hat before my face, and look down; though, for all that, the young lad, to be such a blackguard as his conduct showed, was well enough faured, and had a good coat to his back, with double gilt buttons and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very well-made pair of buckskins, a thought the worse of the wear to be sure, but which, if they had been well cleaned, would have looked almost as good as new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw chaise nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is more than likely that they had lighted at the back-door of the barn from a horse, she riding on a pad behind him, maybe, with her hand round his waist.

The father looked to be a rich old bool, both from his manner of speaking, and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his daughter; but to be sure, when so many of us were present that had an equal right to the spuilzie, it would not be a great deal a thousand pounds, when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsoever, sooner than either themselves, I daresay, or anybody else present, seemed to have the least glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of a coming foot was heard, and the lassie, taking guilt to her, cried out, “Hide me, hide me, for the sake of goodness, for yonder comes my old father!”

No sooner said than done. In he stappit her into a closet; and, after shutting the door on her, he sat down upon a chair, pretending to be asleep in the twinkling of a walking-stick. The old father came bouncing in, and seeing the fellow as sound as a top, he ran forward and gave him such a shake as if he would have shooken him all sundry; which soon made him open his eyes as fast as he had steeked them. After blackguarding the chield at no allowance, cursing him up hill and down dale, and calling him every name but a gentleman, he held his staff over his crown, and gripping him by the cuff of the neck, asked him, in a fierce tone, what he had made of his daughter. Never since I was born did I ever see such brazenfaced impudence! The rascal had the brass to say at once, that he had not seen word or wittens of the lassie for a month, though more than a hundred folk sitting in his company had beheld him dauting her with his arm round her jimpy waist, not five minutes before. As a man, as a father, as an elder of our kirk, my corruption was raised, for I aye hated lying as a poor cowardly sin, and an inbreak on the ten commandments; and I found my neighbour, Mr Glen, fidgeting on the seat as well as me; so I thought, that whoever spoke first would have the best right to be entitled to the reward; whereupon, just as he was in the act of rising up, I took the word out of his mouth, saying, “Dinna believe him, auld gentleman—dinna believe him, friend; he’s telling a parcel of lees. Never saw her for a month! It’s no worth arguing, or calling witnesses; just open that press-door, and ye’ll see whether I’m speaking truth or not!”

The old man stared, and looked dumfoundered; and the young one, instead of running forward with his double nieves to strike me, the only thing I was feared for, began a-laughing, as if I had done him a good turn. But never since I had a being, did I ever witness such an uproar and noise as immediately took place. The whole house was so glad that the scoundrel had been exposed, that they set up siccan a roar of laughter, and thumped away at siccan a rate at the boards with their feet, that at long and last, with pushing and fidgeting, clapping their hands, and holding their sides, down fell the place they call the gallery; all the folk in’t being hurl’d topsy-turvy, head foremost among the saw-dust on the floor below; their guffawing soon being turned to howling, each one crying louder than another at the top note of their voices, “Murder! murder! hold off me; murder! my ribs are in; murder! I’m killed—I’m speechless!” and other lamentations to that effect; so that a rush to the door took place, in the which every thing was overturned—the doorkeeper being wheeled away like wildfire—the furms stramped to pieces—the lights knocked out—and the two blind fiddlers dung head foremost over the stage, the bass fiddle cracking like thunder at every bruise. Such tearing, and swearing, and tumbling, and squealing, was never witnessed in the memory of man since the building of Babel: legs being likely to be broken, sides staved in, eyes knocked out, and lives lost—there being only one door, and that a small one; so that, when we had been carried off our feet that length, my wind was fairly gone, and a sick dwalm came over me, lights of all manner of colours, red, blue, green, and orange, dancing before me, that entirely deprived me of common sense; till, on opening my eyes in the dark, I found myself leaning with my broadside against the wall on the opposite side of the close. It was some time before I minded what had happened; so, dreading skaith, I found first the one arm, and then the other, to see if they were broken—syne my head—and finally both of my legs; but all, as well as I could discover, was skin-whole and scart-free. On perceiving this, my joy was without bounds, having a great notion that I had been killed on the spot. So I reached round my hand, very thankfully, to take out my pocket-napkin, to give my brow a wipe, when lo, and behold! the tail of my Sunday’s coat was fairly off and away, docked by the hainch buttons.

So much for plays and playactors—the first and last, I trust in grace, that I shall ever see. But indeed I could expect no better, after the warning that Maister Wiggie had more than once given us from the pulpit on the subject. Instead, therefore, of getting my grand reward for finding the old man’s daughter, the whole covey of them, no better than a set of swindlers, took leg-bail, and made that very night a moonlight flitting, and Johnny Hammer, honest man, that had wrought from sunrise to sunset for two days, fitting up their place by contract, instead of being well paid for his trouble, as he deserved, got nothing left him but a ruckle of his own good deals, all dung to shivers.