trailin’ a muckle tail efter it, that filled us a’ wi’ fear. I min’
hoo it wis said, if the thing lost its eckwillebrim, or broke
lowse frae the invisible power that controlled its movements,
it micht fa’ doon on us wi’ a clash, and burn up the worl’ like
a shavin’. This wis the popular fear; but Peter Spale said
such a thing wis not necessary to oor total destruction. He
argued that the same purpose wud be ser’t if we just got a wap
wi’ its tail. The comet, hooever, at length passed, and we
were left face to face wi’ dear leather and the ither troubles I
have already described.
My faither aye looket deeper into things than Peter Spale, wha wis but a superfishal observer. He held that the true cause o’ oor temporal trials didna lie in the movement o’ the heavenly bodies, which were governed by immutable laws. We had to look lower for the root o’ the evil. The cause o’ a’ the mischief, he believed, lay in the kirk itsel’. Moderatism, Patronage, forced Settlements—the placin’ o’ the messengers o’ peace ower congregations at the point o’ the bayonet—wis at the bottom o’t.
But a’ these disputations and troubles were rudely dung oot o’ oor heads by the crowning misfortune o’ a’—my mither’s death. I hadna sense at the time to ken what a loss it wis, but I min’ a’ the incidents braw an’ weel to this day. Babie Brewster, my mither’s sister-in-law, wha leeved in the Cowcaddens, cam’, as sune as she heard o' the sad event, to pay the last services to the dead; and, as she said, “ to see that everything wis dune decent and wycelike.” Honest Mrs. Spale, oot o’ regaird for my mither, her close friend and nearest neighbour, offered to dae what wis needed, but my auntie wud hear o’ nae such thing. So she cam’ in and took the management o’ everything in her ain hands, makin’ the offensive remark to Mrs. Spale, that “ bluid wis thicker nor water.”
