The Ayrshire Legatees | Page 8

sound of a ballad-singer, or a Highland piper, varies and
enriches the discords; but here, a multitudinous assemblage of harsh
alarms, of selfish contentions, and of furious carriages, driven by a
fierce and insolent race, shatter the very hearing, till you partake of the
activity with which all seem as much possessed as if a general
apprehension prevailed, that the great clock of Time would strike the

doom-hour before their tasks were done. But I must stop, for the
postman with his bell, like the betherel of some ancient "borough's
town" summoning to a burial, is in the street, and warns me to
conclude.
- Yours, ANDREW PRINGLE.
LETTER V
The Rev. Dr. Pringle to Mr. Micklewham, Schoolmaster and Session-
Clerk, Garnock
LONDON, 49 NORFOLK STREET, STRAND.
Dear Sir--On the first Sunday forthcoming after the receiving hereof,
you will not fail to recollect in the remembering prayer, that we return
thanks for our safe arrival in London, after a dangerous voyage. Well,
indeed, is it ordained that we should pray for those who go down to the
sea in ships, and do business on the great deep; for what me and mine
have come through is unspeakable, and the hand of Providence was
visibly manifested.
On the day of our embarkation at Leith, a fair wind took us onward at a
blithe rate for some time; but in the course of that night the bridle of the
tempest was slackened, and the curb of the billows loosened, and the
ship reeled to and fro like a drunken man, and no one could stand
therein. My wife and daughter lay at the point of death; Andrew Pringle,
my son, also was prostrated with the grievous affliction; and the very
soul within me was as if it would have been cast out of the body.
On the following day the storm abated, and the wind blew favourable;
but towards the heel of the evening it again came vehement, and there
was no help unto our distress. About midnight, however, it pleased
HIM, whose breath is the tempest, to be more sparing with the whip of
His displeasure on our poor bark, as she hirpled on in her toilsome
journey through the waters; and I was enabled, through His strength, to
lift my head from the pillow of sickness, and ascend the deck, where I
thought of Noah looking out of the window in the ark, upon the face of

the desolate flood, and of Peter walking on the sea; and I said to myself,
it matters not where we are, for we can be in no place where Jehovah is
not there likewise, whether it be on the waves of the ocean, or the
mountain tops, or in the valley and shadow of death.
The third day the wind came contrary, and in the fourth, and the fifth,
and the sixth, we were also sorely buffeted; but on the night of the sixth
we entered the mouth of the river Thames, and on the morning of the
seventh day of our departure, we cast anchor near a town called
Gravesend, where, to our exceeding great joy, it pleased Him, in whom
alone there is salvation, to allow us once more to put our foot on the
dry land.
When we had partaken of a repast, the first blessed with the blessing of
an appetite, from the day of our leaving our native land, we got two
vacancies in a stage-coach for my wife and daughter; but with Andrew
Pringle, my son, I was obligated to mount aloft on the outside. I had
some scruple of conscience about this, for I was afraid of my decorum.
I met, however, with nothing but the height of discretion from the other
outside passengers, although I jealoused that one of them was a light
woman. Really I had no notion that the English were so civilised; they
were so well bred, and the very duddiest of them spoke such a fine style
of language, that when I looked around on the country, I thought
myself in the land of Canaan. But it's extraordinary what a power of
drink the coachmen drink, stopping and going into every change-house,
and yet behaving themselves with the greatest sobriety. And then they
are all so well dressed, which is no doubt owing to the poor rates. I am
thinking, however, that for all they cry against them, the poor rates are
but a small evil, since they keep the poor folk in such food and raiment,
and out of the temptations to thievery; indeed, such a thing as a
common beggar is not to be seen in this land, excepting here and there
a sorner or a ne'er-do-weel.
When we had got to the outskirts of London, I began to be ashamed