Chapter 1

THE PRIVATE MEMOIRS
AND CONFESSIONS
OF A JUSTIFIED SINNER

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

WITH A DETAIL OF CURIOUS TRADITIONARY FACTS, AND
OTHER EVIDENCE, BY THE EDITOR

By

James Hogg

THE EDITOR'S NARRATIVE

It appears from tradition, as well as some parish registers still
extant, that the lands of Dalcastle (or Dalchastel, as it is often
spelled) were possessed by a family of the name of Colwan, about one
hundred and fifty years ago, and for at least a century previous to
that period. That family was supposed to have been a branch of the
ancient family of Colquhoun, and it is certain that from it spring the
Cowans that spread towards the Border. I find that, in the year 1687,
George Colwan succeeded his uncle of the same name, in the lands of
Dalchastel and Balgrennan; and, this being all I can gather of the
family from history, to tradition I must appeal for the remainder of
the motley adventures of that house. But, of the matter furnished by
the latter of these powerful monitors, I have no reason to complain: It
has been handed down to the world in unlimited abundance; and I am
certain that, in recording the hideous events which follow, I am only
relating to the greater part of the inhabitants of at least four
counties of Scotland matters of which they were before perfectly well
informed.

This George was a rich man, or supposed to be so, and was married, when
considerably advanced in life, to the sole heiress and reputed daughter
of a Baillie Orde, of Glasgow. This proved a conjunction anything but
agreeable to the parties contracting. It is well known that the
Reformation principles had long before that time taken a powerful hold
of the hearts and affections of the people of Scotland, although the
feeling was by no means general, or in equal degrees; and it so
happened that this married couple felt completely at variance on the
subject. Granting it to have been so, one would have thought that the
laird, owing to his retiring situation, would have been the one that
inclined to the stern doctrines of the reformers; and that the young
and gay dame from the city would have adhered to the free principles
cherished by the court party, and indulged in rather to extremity, in
opposition to their severe and carping contemporaries.

The contrary, however, happened to be the case. The laird was what his
country neighbours called "a droll, careless chap", with a very limited
proportion of the fear of God in his heart, and very nearly as little
of the fear of man. The laird had not intentionally wronged or offended
either of the parties, and perceived not the necessity of deprecating
their vengeance. He had hitherto believed that he was living in most
cordial terms with the greater part of the inhabitants of the earth,
and with the powers above in particular: but woe be unto him if he was
not soon convinced of the fallacy of such damning security! for his
lady was the most severe and gloomy of all bigots to the principles of
the Reformation. Hers were not the tenets of the great reformers, but
theirs mightily overstrained and deformed. Theirs was an unguent hard
to be swallowed; but hers was that unguent embittered and overheated
until nature could not longer bear it. She had imbibed her ideas from
the doctrines of one flaming predestinarian divine alone; and these
were so rigid that they became a stumbling block to many of his
brethren, and a mighty handle for the enemies of his party to turn the
machine of the state against them.

The wedding festivities at Dalcastle partook of all the gaiety, not of
that stern age, but of one previous to it. There was feasting, dancing,
piping, and singing: the liquors were handed, around in great fulness,
the ale in large wooden bickers, and the brandy in capacious horns of
oxen. The laird gave full scope to his homely glee. He danced--he
snapped his fingers to the music--clapped his hands and shouted at the
turn of the tune. He saluted every girl in the hall whose appearance
was anything tolerable, and requested of their sweethearts to take the
same freedom with his bride, by way of retaliation. But there she sat
at the head of the hall in still and blooming beauty, absolutely
refusing to tread a single measure with any gentleman there. The only
enjoyment in which she appeared to partake was in now and then stealing
a word of sweet conversation with her favourite pastor about divine
things; for he had accompanied her home after marrying her to her
husband, to see her fairly settled in her new dwelling. He addressed
her several times by her new name, Mrs. Colwan; but she turned away her
head disgusted, and looked with pity and contempt towards the old
inadvertent sinner, capering away in the height of his unregenerated
mirth. The minister perceived the workings of her pious mind, and
thenceforward addressed her by the courteous title of Lady Dalcastle,
which sounded somewhat better, as not coupling her name with one of the
wicked: and there is too great reason to believe that, for all the
solemn vows she had come under, and these were of no ordinary binding,
particularly on the laird's part, she at that time despised, if not
abhorred him, in her heart.

The good parson again blessed her, and went away. She took leave of him
with tears in her eyes, entreating him often to visit her in that
heathen land of the Amorite, the Hittite, and the Girgashite: to which
he assented, on many solemn and qualifying conditions--and then the
comely bride retired to her chamber to pray.

It was customary, in those days, for the bride's-man and maiden, and a
few select friends, to visit the new-married couple after they had
retired to rest, and drink a cup to their healths, their happiness, and
a numerous posterity. But the laird delighted not in this: he wished to
have his jewel to himself; and, slipping away quietly from his jovial
party, he retired to his chamber to his beloved, and bolted the door.
He found her engaged with the writings of the Evangelists, and terribly
demure. The laird went up to caress her; but she turned away her head,
and spoke of the follies of aged men, and something of the broad way
that leadeth to destruction. The laird did not thoroughly comprehend
this allusion; but being considerably flustered by drinking, and
disposed to take all in good part, he only remarked, as he took off his
shoes and stockings, that, "whether the way was broad or narrow, it was
time that they were in their bed."

"Sure, Mr. Colwan, you won't go to bed to-night, at such an important
period of your life, without first saying prayers for yourself and me."

When she said this, the laird had his head down almost to the ground,
loosing his shoe-buckle; but when he heard of prayers, on such a night,
he raised his face suddenly up, which was all over as flushed and red
as a rose, and answered:

"Prayers, Mistress! Lord help your crazed head, is this a night for
prayers?"

He had better have held his peace. There was such a torrent of profound
divinity poured out upon him that the laird became ashamed, both of
himself and his new-made spouse, and wist not what to say: but the
brandy helped him out.

"It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out
of place to-night," said he. "Allowing that it is ever so beautiful,
and ever so beneficial, were we to ride on the rigging of it at all
times, would we not be constantly making a farce of it: It would be
like reading the Bible and the jestbook, verse about, and would render
the life of man a medley of absurdity and confusion."

But, against the cant of the bigot or the hypocrite, no reasoning can
aught avail. If you would argue until the end of life, the infallible
creature must alone be right. So it proved with the laird. One
Scripture text followed another, not in the least connected, and one
sentence of the profound Mr. Wringhim's sermons after another, proving
the duty of family worship, till the laird lost patience, and tossing
himself into bed, said carelessly that he would leave that duty upon
her shoulders for one night.

The meek mind of Lady Dalcastle was somewhat disarranged by this sudden
evolution. She felt that she was left rather in an awkward situation.
However, to show her unconscionable spouse that she was resolved to
hold fast her integrity, she kneeled down and prayed in terms so potent
that she deemed she was sure of making an impression on him. She did
so; for in a short time the laird began to utter a response so fervent
that she was utterly astounded, and fairly driven from the chain of her
orisons. He began, in truth, to sound a nasal bugle of no ordinary
calibre--the notes being little inferior to those of a military
trumpet. The lady tried to proceed, but every returning note from the
bed burst on her ear with a louder twang, and a longer peal, till the
concord of sweet sounds became so truly pathetic that the meek spirit
of the dame was quite overcome; and, after shedding a flood of tears,
she arose from her knees, and retired to the chimney-corner with her
Bible in her lap, there to spend the hours in holy meditation till such
time as the inebriated trumpeter should awaken to a sense of propriety.

The laird did not awake in any reasonable time; for, he being overcome
with fatigue and wassail, his sleep became sounder, and his Morphean
measures more intense. These varied a little in their structure; but
the general run of the bars sounded something in this way:
"Hic-hoc-wheew!" It was most profoundly ludicrous; and could not have
missed exciting risibility in anyone save a pious, a disappointed, and
humbled bride.

The good dame wept bitterly. She could not for her life go and awaken
the monster, and request him to make room for her: but she retired
somewhere, for the laird, on awaking next morning, found that he was
still lying alone. His sleep had been of the deepest and most genuine
sort; and, all the time that it lasted, he had never once thought of
either wives, children, or sweethearts, save in the way of dreaming
about them; but, as his spirit began again by slow degrees to verge
towards the boundaries of reason, it became lighter and more buoyant
from the effects of deep repose, and his dreams partook of that
buoyancy, yea, to a degree hardly expressible. He dreamed of the reel,
the jig, the strathspey, and the corant; and the elasticity of his
frame was such that he was bounding over the heads of maidens, and
making his feet skimmer against the ceiling, enjoying, the while, the
most ecstatic emotions. These grew too fervent for the shackles of the
drowsy god to restrain. The nasal bugle ceased its prolonged sounds in
one moment, and a sort of hectic laugh took its place. "Keep it
going--play up, you devils!" cried the laird, without changing his
position on the pillow. But this exertion to hold the fiddlers at their
work fairly awakened the delighted dreamer, and, though he could not
refrain from continuing, his laugh, beat length, by tracing out a
regular chain of facts, came to be sensible of his real situation.
"Rabina, where are you? What's become of you, my dear?" cried the
laird. But there was no voice nor anyone that answered or regarded. He
flung open the curtains, thinking to find her still on her knees, as he
had seen her, but she was not there, either sleeping or waking.
"Rabina! Mrs. Colwan!" shouted he, as loud as he could call, and then
added in the same breath, "God save the king--I have lost my wife!"

He sprung up and opened the casement: the day-light was beginning to
streak the east, for it was spring, and the nights were short, and the
mornings very long. The laird half dressed himself in an instant, and
strode through every room in the house, opening the windows as he went,
and scrutinizing every bed and every corner. He came into the hall
where the wedding festival had been held; and as he opened the various
windowboards, loving couples flew off like hares surprised too late in
the morning among the early braird. "Hoo-boo! Fie, be frightened!"
cried the laird. "Fie, rin like fools, as if ye were caught in an
ill-turn!" His bride was not among them; so he was obliged to betake
himself to further search. "She will be praying in some corner, poor
woman," said he to himself. "It is an unlucky thing this praying. But,
for my part, I fear I have behaved very ill; and I must endeavour to
make amends."

The laird continued his search, and at length found his beloved in the
same bed with her Glasgow cousin who had acted as bridesmaid. "You sly
and malevolent imp," said the laird; "you have played me such a trick
when I was fast asleep! I have not known a frolic so clever, and, at
the same time, so severe. Come along, you baggage you!"

"Sir, I will let you know that I detest your principles and your person
alike," said she. "It shall never be said, Sir, that my person was at
the control of a heathenish man of Belial--a dangler among the
daughters of women--a promiscuous dancer--and a player of unlawful
games. Forgo your rudeness, Sir, I say, and depart away from my
presence and that of my kinswoman.

"Come along, I say, my charming Rab. If you were the pink of all
puritans, and the saint of all saints, you are my wife, and must do as
I command you."

"Sir, I will sooner lay down my life than be subjected to your godless
will; therefore I say, desist, and begone with you."

But the laird regarded none of these testy sayings: he rolled her in a
blanket, and bore her triumphantly away to his chamber, taking care to
keep a fold or two of the blanket always rather near to her mouth, in
case of any outrageous forthcoming of noise.

The next day at breakfast the bride was long in making her appearance.
Her maid asked to see her; but George did not choose that anybody
should see her but himself. He paid her several visits, and always
turned the key as he came out. At length breakfast was served; and
during the time of refreshment the laird tried to break several jokes;
but it was remarked that they wanted their accustomed brilliancy, and
that his nose was particularly red at the top.

Matters, without all doubt, had been very bad between the new-married
couple; for in the course of the day the lady deserted her quarters,
and returned to her father's house in Glasgow, after having been a
night on the road; stage-coaches and steam-boats having then no
existence in that quarter.

Though Baillie Orde had acquiesced in his wife's asseveration regarding
the likeness of their only daughter to her father, he never loved or
admired her greatly; therefore this behaviour nothing astounded him. He
questioned her strictly as to the grievous offence committed against
her, and could discover nothing that warranted a procedure so fraught
with disagreeable consequences. So, after mature deliberation, the
baillie addressed her as follows:

"Aye, aye, Raby! An' sae I find that Dalcastle has actually refused to
say prayers with you when you ordered him; an' has guidit you in a rude
indelicate manner, outstepping the respect due to my daughter--as my
daughter. But, wi' regard to what is due to his own wife, of that he's
a better judge nor me. However, since he has behaved in that manner to
MY DAUGHTER, I shall be revenged on him for aince; for I shall return
the obligation to ane nearer to him: that is, I shall take pennyworths
of his wife--an' let him lick at that."

"What do you mean, Sir?" said the astonished damsel.

"I mean to be revenged on that villain Dalcastle," said he, "for what
he has done to my daughter. Come hither, Mrs. Colwan, you shall pay for
this."

So saying, the baillie began to inflict corporal punishment on the
runaway wife. His strokes were not indeed very deadly, but he made a
mighty flourish in the infliction, pretending to be in a great rage
only at the Laird of Dalcastle. "Villain that he is!" exclaimed he, "I
shall teach him to behave in such a manner to a child of mine, be she
as she may; since I cannot get at himself, I shall lounder her that is
nearest to him in life. Take you that, and that, Mrs. Colwan, for your
husband's impertinence!"

The poor afflicted woman wept and prayed, but the baillie would not
abate aught of his severity. After fuming and beating her with many
stripes, far drawn, and lightly laid down, he took her up to her
chamber, five stories high, locked her in, and there he fed her on
bread and water, all to be revenged on the presumptuous Laird of
Dalcastle; but ever and anon, as the baillie came down the stair from
carrying his daughter's meal, he said to himself: "I shall make the
sight of the laird the blithest she ever saw in her life."

Lady Dalcastle got plenty of time to read, and pray, and meditate; but
she was at a great loss for one to dispute with about religious tenets;
for she found that, without this advantage, about which there was a
perfect rage at that time, the reading and learning of Scripture texts,
and sentences of intricate doctrine, availed her naught; so she was
often driven to sit at her casement and look out for the approach of
the heathenish Laird of Dalcastle.

That hero, after a considerable lapse of time, at length made his
appearance. Matters were not hard to adjust; for his lady found that
there was no refuge for her in her father's house; and so, after some
sighs and tears, she accompanied her husband home. For all that had
passed, things went on no better. She WOULD convert the laird in spite
of his teeth: the laird would not be converted. She WOULD have the
laird to say family prayers, both morning and evening: the laird would
neither pray morning nor evening. He would not even sing psalms, and
kneel beside her while she performed the exercise; neither would he
converse at all times, and in all places, about the sacred mysteries of
religion, although his lady took occasion to contradict flatly every
assertion that he made, in order that she might spiritualize him by
drawing him into argument.

The laird kept his temper a long while, but at length his patience wore
out; he cut her short in all her futile attempts at spiritualization,
and mocked at her wire-drawn degrees of faith, hope, and repentance. He
also dared to doubt of the great standard doctrine of absolute
predestination, which put the crown on the lady's Christian resentment.
She declared her helpmate to be a limb of Antichrist, and one with whom
no regenerated person could associate. She therefore bespoke a separate
establishment, and, before the expiry of the first six months, the
arrangements of the separation were amicably adjusted. The upper, or
third, story of the old mansion-house was awarded to the lady for her
residence. She had a separate door, a separate stair, a separate
garden, and walks that in no instance intersected the laird's; so that
one would have thought the separation complete. They had each their own
parties, selected from their own sort of people; and, though the laird
never once chafed himself about the lady's companies, it was not long
before she began to intermeddle about some of his.

"Who is that fat bouncing dame that visits the laird so often, and
always by herself?" said she to her maid Martha one day.

"Oh dear, mem, how can I ken? We're banished frae our acquaintances
here, as weel as frae the sweet gospel ordinances."

"Find me out who that jolly dame is, Martha. You, who hold communion
with the household of this ungodly man, can be at no loss to attain
this information. I observe that she always casts her eye up toward our
windows, both in coming and going; and I suspect that she seldom
departs from the house emptyhanded."

That same evening Martha came with the information that this august
visitor was a Miss Logan, an old an intimate acquaintance of the
laird's, and a very worthy respectable lady, of good connections, whose
parents had lost their patrimony in the civil wars.

"Ha! very well!" said the lady; "very well, Martha! But, nevertheless,
go thou and watch this respectable lady's motions and behaviour the
next time she comes to visit the laird--and the next after that. You
will not, I see, lack opportunities."

Martha's information turned out of that nature that prayers were said
in the uppermost story of Dalcastle house against the Canaanitish
woman, every night and every morning; and great discontent prevailed
there, even to anathemas and tears. Letter after letter was dispatched
to Glasgow; and at length, to the lady's great consolation, the Rev.
Mr. Wringhim arrived safely and devoutly in her elevated sanctuary.
Marvellous was the conversation between these gifted people. Wringhim
had held in his doctrines that there were eight different kinds of
FAITH, all perfectly distinct in their operations and effects. But the
lady, in her secluded state, had discovered another five, making twelve
[sic] in all: the adjusting of the existence or fallacy of these five
faiths served for a most enlightened discussion of nearly seventeen
hours; in the course of which the two got warm in their arguments,
always in proportion as they receded from nature, utility, and common
sense. Wringhim at length got into unwonted fervour about some disputed
point between one of these faiths and TRUST: when the lady, fearing
that zeal was getting beyond its wonted barrier, broke in on his
vehement asseverations with the following abrupt discomfiture: "But,
Sir, as long as I remember, what is to be done with this case of open
and avowed iniquity?"

The minister was struck dumb. He leaned him back on his chair, stroked
his beard, hemmed--considered, and hemmed again, and then said, in an
altered and softened tone: "Why, that is a secondary consideration; you
mean the case between your husband and Miss Logan?"

"The same, Sir. I am scandalized at such intimacies going on under my
nose. The sufferance of it is a great and crying evil."

"Evil, madam, may be either operative, or passive. To them it is an
evil, but to us none. We have no more to do with the sins of the wicked
and unconverted here than with those of an infidel Turk; for all
earthly bonds and fellowships are absorbed and swallowed up in the holy
community of the Reformed Church. However, if it is your wish, I shall
take him to task, and reprimand and humble him in such a manner that he
shall be ashamed of his doings, and renounce such deeds for ever, out
of mere self-respect, though all unsanctified the heart, as well as the
deed, may be. To the wicked, all things are wicked; but to the just,
all things are just and right."

"Ah, that is a sweet and comfortable saying, Mr. Wringhim! How
delightful to think that a justified person can do no wrong! Who would
not envy the liberty wherewith we are made free? Go to my husband, that
poor unfortunate, blindfolded person, and open his eyes to his
degenerate and sinful state; for well are you fitted to the task."

"Yea, I will go in unto him, and confound him. I will lay the strong
holds of sin and Satan as flat before my face as the dung that is
spread out to fatten the land."

"Master, there's a gentleman at the fore-door wants a private word o'
ye."

"Tell him I'm engaged: I can't see any gentleman to-night. But I shall
attend on him to-morrow as soon as he pleases."

"'He's coming straight in, Sir. Stop a wee bit, Sir, my master is
engaged. He cannot see you at present, Sir."

"Stand aside, thou Moabite! My mission admits of no delay. I come to
save him from the jaws of destruction!"

"An that be the case, Sir, it maks a wide difference; an', as the
danger may threaten us a', I fancy I may as weel let ye gang by as
fight wi' ye, sin' ye seem sae intent on 't.--The man says he's comin'
to save ye, an' canna stop, Sir. Here he is."

The laird was going to break out into a volley of wrath against Waters,
his servant; but, before he got a word pronounced, the Rev. Mr.
Wringhim had stepped inside the room, and Waters had retired, shutting
the door behind him.

No introduction could be more mal-a-propos: it was impossible; for at
that very moment the laird and Arabella Logan were both sitting on one
seat, and both looking on one book, when the door opened. "What is it,
Sir?" said the laird fiercely.

"A message of the greatest importance, Sir," said the divine, striding
unceremoniously up to the chimney, turning his back to the fire, and
his face to the culprits. "I think you should know me, Sir?" continued
he, looking displeasedly at the laird, with his face half turned round.

"I think I should," returned the laird. "You are a Mr.
How's--tey--ca'--him, of Glasgow, who did me the worst turn ever I got
done to me in my life. You gentry are always ready to do a man such a
turn. Pray, Sir, did you ever do a good job for anyone to
counterbalance that? For, if you have not, you ought to be--"

"Hold, Sir, I say! None of your profanity before me. If I do evil to
anyone on such occasions, it is because he will have it so; therefore,
the evil is not of my doing. I ask you, Sir, before God and this
witness, I ask you, have you kept solemnly and inviolate the vows which
I laid upon you that day? Answer me!"

"Has the partner whom you bound me to kept hers inviolate? Answer me
that, Sir! None can better do so than you, Mr. How's--tey--ca'--you."

"So, then, you confess your backslidings, and avow the profligacy of
your life. And this person here is, I suppose, the partner of your
iniquity--she whose beauty hath caused you to err! Stand up, both of
you, till I rebuke you, and show you what you are in the eyes of God
and man."

"In the first place, stand you still there, till I tell you what you
are in the eyes of God and man. You are, Sir, a presumptuous,
self-conceited pedagogue, a stirrer up of strife and commotion in
church, in state, in families, and communities. You are one, Sir, whose
righteousness consists in splitting the doctrines of Calvin into
thousands of undistinguishable films, and in setting up a system of
justifying-grace against all breaches of all laws, moral or divine. In
short, Sir, you are a mildew--a canker-worm in the bosom of the
Reformed Church, generating a disease of which she will never be
purged, but by the shedding of blood. Go thou in peace, and do these
abominations no more; but humble thyself, lest a worse reproof come
upon thee."

Wringhim heard all this without flinching. He now and then twisted his
mouth in disdain, treasuring up, meantime, his vengeance against the
two aggressors; for he felt that he had them on the hip, and resolved
to pour out his vengeance and indignation upon them. Sorry am I that
the shackles of modern decorum restrain me from penning that famous
rebuke; fragments of which have been attributed to every divine of old
notoriety throughout Scotland. But I have it by heart; and a glorious
morsel it is to put into the hands of certain incendiaries. The
metaphors are so strong and so appalling that Miss Logan could only
stand them a very short time; she was obliged to withdraw in confusion.
The laird stood his ground with much ado, though his face was often
crimsoned over with the hues of shame and anger. Several times he was
on the point of turning the officious sycophant to the door; but good
manners, and an inherent respect that lie entertained for the clergy,
as the immediate servants of the Supreme Being, restrained him.

Wringhim, perceiving these symptoms of resentment, took them for marks
of shame and contrition, and pushed his reproaches farther than ever
divine ventured to do in a similar case. When he had finished, to
prevent further discussion, he walked slowly and majestically out of
the apartment, making his robes to swing behind him in a most
magisterial manner; he being, without doubt, elated with his high
conquest. He went to the upper story, and related to his metaphysical
associate his wonderful success; how he had driven the dame from the
house in tears and deep confusion, and left the backsliding laird in
such a quandary of shame and repentance that he could neither
articulate a word nor lift up his countenance. The dame thanked him
most cordially, lauding his friendly zeal and powerful eloquence; and
then the two again set keenly to the splitting of hairs, and making
distinctions in religion where none existed.