第27章 YEAR 1772(2)

What might have been the consequence, no one can tell; but soon after he married Sir Hugh's house-keeper, and went with her into Edinburgh, where he took up a school; and, before the trial came on, that is to say, within three months of the day that I myself married them, Mrs Heckletext was delivered of a thriving lad bairn, which would have been a witness for the elders, had the worst come to the worst.This was, indeed, we all thought, a joyous deliverance to the parish, and it was a lesson to me never to allow any preacher to mount my pulpit, unless I knew something of his moral character.

In other respects, this year passed very peaceably in the parish:

there was a visible increase of worldly circumstances, and the hedges which had been planted along the toll-road, began to put forth their branches, and to give new notions of orderlyness and beauty to the farmers.Mrs Malcolm heard from time to time from her son Charles, on board the man-of-war the Avenger, where he was midshipman; and he had found a friend in the captain, that was just a father to him.Her second son, Robert, being out of his time at Irville, went to the Clyde to look for a berth, and was hired to go to Jamaica, in a ship called the Trooper.He was a lad of greater sobriety of nature than Charles; douce, honest, and faithful; and when he came home, though he brought no limes to me to make punch, like his brother, he brought a Muscovy duck to Lady Macadam, who had, as I have related, in a manner educated his sister Kate.That duck was the first of the kind we had ever seen, and many thought it was of the goose species, only with short bowly legs.It was, however, a tractable and homely beast; and after some confabulation, as my lady herself told Mrs Balwhidder, it was received into fellowship by her other ducks and poultry.It is not, however, so much on account of the rarity of the creature, that I have introduced it here, as for the purpose of relating a wonderful operation that was performed on it by Miss Sabrina, the schoolmistress.

There happened to be a sack of beans in our stable, and Lady Macadam's hens and fowls, which were not overly fed at home through the inattention of her servants, being great stravaigers for their meat, in passing the door went in to pick, and the Muscovy, seeing a hole in the bean-sack, dabbled out a crapful before she was disturbed.The beans swelled on the poor bird's stomach, and her crap bellied out like the kyte of a Glasgow magistrate, until it was just a sight to be seen with its head back on its shoulders.The bairns of the clachan followed it up and down, crying, the lady's muckle jock's aye growing bigger, till every heart was wae for the creature.Some thought it was afflicted with a tympathy, and others, that it was the natural way for such-like ducks to cleck their young.In short, we were all concerned; and my lady, having a great opinion of Miss Sabrina's skill, had a consultation with her on the case, at which Miss Sabrina advised, that what she called the Caesarean operation should be tried, which she herself performed accordingly, by opening the creature's crap, and taking out as many beans as filled a mutchkin stoup, after which she sewed it up, and the Muscovy went its way to the water-side, and began to swim, and was as jocund as ever; insomuch, that in three days after it was quite cured of all the consequences of its surfeit.

I had at one time a notion to send an account of this to the Scots Magazine, but something always came in the way to prevent me; so that it has been reserved for a place in this chronicle, being, after Mr Heckletext's affair, the most memorable thing in our history of this year.