The Annals of the Parish: Or, the Chronicle of Dalmailing During the Ministry of the Rev. Micah BalwhidderGalt, John
General
The Annals of the Parish: Or, the Chronicle of Dalmailing During the Ministry of the Rev. Micah Balwhidder
Galt, John
Clergy -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
Thus ended the history of Mrs. Malcolm, as connected with our Parish
Annals. Her house was sold, and is the same now inhabited by the
millwright, Mr. Periffery; and a neat house it still is, for the
possessor is an Englishman, and the English have an uncommon taste for
snod houses and trim gardens; but at the time it was built, there was not
a better in the town, though it’s now but of the second class. Yearly we
hear both from Mrs. Macadam and her sister, with a five-pound note from
each to the poor of the parish, as a token of their remembrance; but they
are far off, and, were any thing ailing me, I suppose the gift will not
be continued. As for Captain Malcolm, he has proved, in many ways, a
friend to such of our young men as have gone to sea. He has now left it
off himself, and settled at London, where he latterly sailed from, and, I
understand, is in a great way as a shipowner. These things I have
thought it fitting to record, and will now resume my historical
narration.
CHAPTER XLI
YEAR 1800
THE same quietude and regularity that marked the progress of the last
year, continued throughout the whole of this. We sowed and reaped in
tranquillity, though the sough of distant war came heavily from a
distance. The cotton-mill did well for the company, and there was a
sobriety in the minds of the spinners and weavers, which showed that the
crisis of their political distemperature was over;—there was something
more of the old prudence in men’s reflections; and it was plain to see
that the elements of reconciliation were coming together throughout the
world. The conflagration of the French Revolution was indeed not
extinguished, but it was evidently burning out; and their old reverence
for the Grand Monarque was beginning to revive among them, though they
only called him a consul. Upon the king’s fast I preached on this
subject; and when the peace was concluded, I got great credit for my
foresight, but there was no merit in’t. I had only lived longer than the
most of those around me, and had been all my days a close observer of the
signs of the times; so that what was lightly called prophecy and
prediction, were but a probability that experience had taught me to
discern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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