There had been, as I have frequently observed, a visible improvement going on in the parish. From the time of the ****** of the toll- road, every new house that was built in the clachan was built along that road. Among other changes hereby caused, the Lady Macadam's jointure-house that was, which stood in a pleasant parterre, inclosed within a stone wall and an iron gate, having a pillar with a pineapple head on each side, came to be in the middle of the town. While Mr Cayenne inhabited the same, it was maintained in good order; but on his flitting to his own new house on the Wheatrigs, the parterre was soon overrun with weeds, and it began to wear the look of a waste place. Robert Toddy, who then kept the change- house, and who had, from the lady's death, rented the coach-house for stabling, in this juncture thought of it for an inn; so he set his own house to Thomas Treddles the weaver, whose son, William, is now the great Glasgow manufacturer, that has cotton-mills and steam- engines, and took, "the Place," as it was called, and had a fine sign, THE CROSS-KEYS, painted and put up in golden characters, by which it became one of the most noted inns anywhere to be seen; and the civility of Mrs Toddy was commended by all strangers. But although this transmutation from a change-house to an inn was a vast amendment, in a manner, to the parish, there was little amendment of manners thereby; for the farmer lads began to hold dancings and other riotous proceedings there, and to bring, as it were, the evil practices of towns into the heart of the country. All sort of licence was allowed as to drink and hours; and the edifying example of Mr Mutchkins and his pious family, was no longer held up to the imitation of the wayfaring man.
Saving the mutation of "the Place" into an inn, nothing very remarkable happened in this year. We got into our new manse about the middle of March; but it was rather damp, being new plastered, and it caused me to have a severe attack of the rheumatics in the fall of the year.
