CHAPTER VIII YEAR 1767



All things in our parish were now beginning to shoot up into a great
prosperity. The spirit of farming began to get the upper hand of
the spirit of smuggling, and the coal-heughs that had been opened in
the Douray, now brought a pour of money among us. In the manse, the
thrift and frugality of the second Mrs Balwhidder throve
exceedingly, so that we could save the whole stipend for the bank.

The king's highway, as I have related in the foregoing, ran through
the Vennel, which was a narrow and a crooked street, with many big
stones here and there, and every now and then, both in the spring
and the fall, a gathering of middens for the fields; insomuch that
the coal-carts from the Douray moor were often reested in the middle
of the causey, and on more than one occasion some of them laired
altogether in the middens, and others of them broke down. Great
complaint was made by the carters anent these difficulties, and
there was, for many a day, a talk and sound of an alteration and
amendment; but nothing was fulfilled in the matter till the month of
March in this year, when the Lord Eaglesham was coming from London
to see the new lands that he had bought in our parish. His lordship
was a man of a genteel spirit, and very fond of his horses, which
were the most beautiful creatures of their kind that had been seen
in all the country side. Coming, as I was noting, to see his new
lands, he was obliged to pass through the clachan one day, when all
the middens were gathered out, reeking and sappy, in the middle of
the causey. Just as his lordship was driving in with his prancing
steeds, like a Jehu, at one end of the vennel, a long string of