I thought Mr. Cayenne would have louped out of his skin with mirth at this notion; and, being a prompt man, he sat down at my scrutoire, and answered the letter which gave him so much uneasiness. No notice was taken of it for some time; but in the course of a month he was informed, that it was not considered expedient at that time to make any change in the company. I thought the old man was gone by himself when he got this letter. He came over instantly in his chariot, from the cotton-mill office to the manse, and swore an oath, by some dreadful name, that I was a Solomon. However, I only mention this to show how experience had instructed me, and as a sample of that sinister provisioning of friends that was going on in the world at this time—all owing, as I do verily believe, to the uncertain state of governments and national affairs. Besides these generalities, I observed another thing working to effect—mankind read more, and the spirit of reflection and reasoning was more awake than at any time within my remembrance. Not only was there a handsome bookseller’s shop in Cayenneville, with a London newspaper daily, but magazines, and reviews, and other new publications. Till this year, when a chaise was wanted we had to send to Irville; but Mr. Toddy of the Cross-Keys being in at Glasgow, he bought an excellent one at the second-hand, a portion of the effects of a broken merchant, by which, from that period, we had one of our own, and it proved a great convenience; for I, who never but twice in my life before hired that kind of commodity, had it thrice during the summer, for a bit jaunt with Mrs. Balwhidder to divers places and curiosities in the county that I had not seen before, by which our ideas were greatly enlarged; indeed, I have always had a partiality for travelling, as one of the best means of opening the faculty of the mind, and giving clear and correct notions of men and things. CHAPTER XLIV YEAR 1803 DURING the tempestuous times that ensued, from the death of the King of France by the hands of the executioner in 1793, there had been a political schism among my people that often made me very uneasy. The folk belonging to the cotton-mill, and the muslin-weavers in Cayenneville, were afflicted with the itch of jacobinism, but those of the village were stanch and true to king and country; and some of the heritors were desirous to make volunteers of the young men of them, in case of anything like the French anarchy and confusion rising on the side of the manufacturers. I, however, set myself, at that time, against this, for I foresaw that the French business was but a fever which would soon pass off; but no man could tell the consequence of putting arms in the hands of neighbour against neighbour, though it was but in the way of policy.