In the following spring I placed my affections, with due consideration, on Miss Lizzy Kibbock, the well-brought-up daughter of Mr. Joseph Kibbock, of the Gorbyholm, farmer; and we were married on the 29th day of April, on account of the dread we had of being married in May, for it is said, “Of the marriages in May, the bairns die of a decay.”  The second Mrs. Balwhidder had a genius for management, and started a dairy, and set the servant lassies to spin wool for making blankets and lint for sheets and napery.  She sent the butter on market days to Irville, her cheese and huxtry to Glasgow.  We were just coining money, in so much that, after the first year, we had the whole tot of stipend to put into the bank.

The opening of coal-pits in Douray Moor brought great prosperity to the parish, but the coal-carts cut up the roads, especially the Vennel, a narrow and crooked street in the clachan.  Lord Eglesham came down from London in the spring of 1767 to see the new lands he had bought in our parish.  His coach couped in the Vennel, and his lordship was thrown head foremost into the mud.  He swore like a trooper, and said he would get an act of parliament to put down the nuisance.  His lordship came to the manse, and, being in a woeful plight, he got the loan of my best suit of clothes.  This made him wonderful jocose both with Mrs. Balwhidder and me, for he was a portly man, and I but a thin body, and it was really droll to see his lordship clad in my garments.  Out of this accident grew a sort of neighbourliness between Lord Eglesham and me.

III.—­A Runaway Match

About Christmas, Lady Macadam’s son, having been perfected in the art of war at a school in France, had, with the help of his mother’s friends and his father’s fame, got a stand of colours in the Royal Scots Regiment.  He came to show himself in his regimentals to his lady mother, and during the visit he fell in love and entered into correspondence with Kate Malcolm.  A while after, her ladyship’s flunkey came to the manse and begged me to go to her.  So I went; and there she was, with gum-flowers on her head, sitting on a settee, for she was lame, and in her hand she held a letter.

“Sir,” she said, as I came into the room, “I want you to go instantly to your clerk,” meaning Mr. Lorimore, the schoolmaster, “and tell him I will give him a couple of hundred pounds to marry Miss Malcolm without delay.”

“Softly, my lady; you must first tell me the meaning of all this haste of kindness,” said I, in my calm, methodical manner.  At which she began to sob, and bewail her ruin and the dishonour of her family.  I was confounded, but at length it came out that she had accidentally opened a letter that had come from London for Kate, that she had read it, by which she came to know that Kate and her darling son were trysted, and that this was not the first love-letter which had passed between them.  Mr. Lorimore promptly declined her ladyship’s proposal, as he was engaged to be married to his present worthy helpmate.  Although her ladyship was so overcome with passion, she would not part with Kate, nor allow her to quit the house.