k home to the farms, followed by bands of townsfolk. They
were a quarrelsome set, the ploughmen and others; and it was generally
admitted in the town that their overbearing behaviour was responsible
for the fights. I mind them being driven out of the square, stones
flying thick; also some stand-up fights with sticks, and others fair
enough with fists. The worst fight I did not see. It took place in a
field. At first it was only between two who had been miscalling one
another; but there was many looking on, and when the town man was like
getting the worst of it the others set to, and a most heathenish fray
with no sense in it ensued. One man had his arm broken. I mind Hobart
the bellman going about ringing his bell and telling all persons to get
within doors; but little attention was paid to him, it being notorious
that Snecky had had a fight earlier in the day himself.

When James was fighting in the field, according to his own account, I
had the honour of dining with the electors who voted for the Captain,
him paying all expenses. It was a lucky accident my mother sending me
to the town-house, where the dinner came off, to try to get my father
home at a decent hour, me having a remarkable power over him when in
liquor but at no other time. They were very jolly, however, and
insisted on my drinking the Captain's health and eating more than was
safe. My father got it next day from my mother for this; and so would
I myself, but it was several days before I left my bed, completely
knocked up as I was with the excitement and one thing or another. The
bonfire, which was built to celebrate the election of Mr. Scrimgour,
was set ablaze, though I did not see it, in honour of the election of
the Captain; it being thought a pity to lose it, as no doubt it would
have been. That is about all I remember of the celebrated election of
'32 when the Reform Bill was passed.

CHAPTER X

A VERY OLD FAMILY

They were a very old family with whom Snecky Hobart, the bellman,
lodged. Their favourite dissipation, when their looms had come to
rest, was a dander through the kirkyard. They dressed for it: the
three young ones in their rusty black; the patriarch in his old blue
coat, velvet knee-breeches, and broad blue bonnet; and often of an
evening I have met them moving from grave to grave. By this time the
old man was nearly ninety, and the young ones averaged sixty. They
read out the inscriptions on the tombstones in