After paying our money at the door, never, while I live and breathe,
will I forget what we saw and heard that night. It just looks to me by
a' the world, when I think on't, like a fairy dream. The place was
crowded to the e'e, Maister Glen and me having nearly gob our ribs dung
in before we fand a seat, and them behint were obliged to mount the back
benches to get a sight. Right to the fore hand of us was a large green
curtain some five or six ells wide, a guid deal the waur of the wear,
having seen service through two or three simmers, and just in the front
of it were eight or ten penny candles stuck in a board fastened to the
ground to let us see the players' feet like when they came on the stage,
and even before they came on the stage, for the curtain being scrimpit
in length we saw legs and feet moving behind the scenes very neatly,
while twa blind fiddlers they had brought with them played the bonniest
ye ever heard. Od, the very music was worth a sixpence of itsel'.
The place, as I said before, was choke full, just to excess, so that ane
could scarcely breathe. Indeed I never saw ony pairt sae crowded, not
even at a tent preaching when Mr. Roarer was giving his discourses on
the building of Solomon's Temple. We were obligated to have the windows
opened for a mouthful of fresh air, the barn being as close as a baker's
oven, my neighbour and me fanning our red faces with our hats to keep us
cool; and, though all were half stewed, we had the worst o't, the toddy
we had ta'en having fomented the blood of our bodies into a perfect
fever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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