I. TALES OF MY LANDLORD
COLLECTED AND REPORTED BY JEDEDIAH CLEISHBOTHAM,
SCHOOLMASTER AND PARISH-CLERK OF GANDERCLEUGH.
INTRODUCTION.
As I may, without vanity, presume that the name and official
description prefixed to this Proem will secure it, from the sedate and
reflecting part of mankind, to whom only I would be understood to
address myself, such attention as is due to the sedulous instructor of youth,
and the careful performer of my Sabbath duties, I will forbear to hold up a
candle to the daylight, or to point out to the judicious those
recommendations of my labours which they must necessarily anticipate
from the perusal of the title-page. Nevertheless, I am not unaware, that,
as Envy always dogs Merit at the heels, there may be those who will
whisper, that albeit my learning and good principles cannot (lauded be the
heavens) be denied by any one, yet that my situation at Gandercleugh hath
been more favourable to my acquisitions in learning than to the
enlargement of my views of the ways and works of the present generation.
To the which objection, if, peradventure, any such shall be started, my
answer shall be threefold:
First, Gandercleugh is, as it were, the central part--the navel (SI FAS
SIT DICERE) of this our native realm of Scotland; so that men, from
every corner thereof, when travelling on their concernments of business,
either towards our metropolis of law, by which I mean Edinburgh, or
towards our metropolis and mart of gain, whereby I insinuate Glasgow, are
frequently led to make Gandercleugh their abiding stage and place of rest
for the night. And it must be acknowledged by the most sceptical, that I,
who have sat in the leathern armchair, on the left-hand side of the fire, in
the common room of the Wallace Inn, winter and summer, for every
evening in my life, during forty years bypast (the Christian Sabbaths only
excepted), must have seen more of the manners and customs of various
tribes and people, than if I had sought them out by my own painful travel
and bodily labour.