The Houses Of This Towne, On Both Sides Of The
Street, Have Their Several Gardens Belonging To Them; And In
The
lower street there be some pretty orchards, that yield store of
good fruit.' As Patterson says, this description
Is near enough
even to-day, and is mighty nicely written to boot. I am bound to
add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumbledown and dreary.
Prosperous enough in reality, it has an air of decay; and though
the population has increased, a roofless house every here and there
seems to protest the contrary. The women are more than well-
favoured, and the men fine tall fellows; but they look slipshod and
dissipated. As they slouched at street corners, or stood about
gossiping in the snow, it seemed they would have been more at home
in the slums of a large city than here in a country place betwixt a
village and a town. I heard a great deal about drinking, and a
great deal about religious revivals: two things in which the
Scottish character is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, I
heard of clergymen who were employing their time in explaining to a
delighted audience the physics of the Second Coming. It is not
very likely any of us will be asked to help. if we were, it is
likely we should receive instructions for the occasion, and that on
more reliable authority. And so I can only figure to myself a
congregation truly curious in such flights of theological fancy, as
one of veteran and accomplished saints, who have fought the good
fight to an end and outlived all worldly passion, and are to be
regarded rather as a part of the Church Triumphant than the poor,
imperfect company on earth. And yet I saw some young fellows about
the smoking-room who seemed, in the eyes of one who cannot count
himself strait-laced, in need of some more practical sort of
teaching. They seemed only eager to get drunk, and to do so
speedily. It was not much more than a week after the New Year; and
to hear them return on their past bouts with a gusto unspeakable
was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for the
accuracy of which I can vouch-
'Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?'
'We had that!'
'I wasna able to be oot o' my bed. Man, I was awful bad on
Wednesday.'
'Ay, ye were gey bad.'
And you should have seen the bright eyes, and heard the sensual
accents! They recalled their doings with devout gusto and a sort
of rational pride. Schoolboys, after their first drunkenness, are
not more boastful; a cock does not plume himself with a more
unmingled satisfaction as he paces forth among his harem; and yet
these were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was hard to
suppose they were very eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as
if some elementary notions of temperance for the men and seemliness
for the women would have gone nearer the mark.
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