Galt's 'The Gathering of the West' 1822

 

First book edition - 1823

John Galt was in Edinburgh in August 1822, basking in the success of his latest work - The Steam Boat. He was being pressed by William Blackwood for an article for Maga. On 13th August, Galt wrote to Lady Blessington, Here all are on tip-toe for the King. The result was The Gathering in the West, which took up nearly 30 pages of Blackwood's September issue. Largely because of it, the issue sold out and a second edition had to be printed. It was issued in book form, twice in the following year.

This short story, or long sketch, is markedly from the author's pen. It is full of witty personalities and sayings, with lashings of irony but no real malice, even though the narrator can be sharp-tongued.. We meet, or hear of, old acquaintances/friends from previous works: the Pringle family (son Andrew, who is in one scene, has not improved and now scoffs at his parents' old-fashioned values); Sir Andrew Wylie, clearly regarded as a big-shot returned to his homeland; Mr Duffle, referred to as the ingenious author of the Steam-Boat; his landlady Mrs Maclecket, and neighbour Mr Sweeties, a short plump little bustling body; and even Mrs Ogle of Balbogle and Mr Solomon, the court dress furnisher of Charing Cross! Much of the humour revolves around the relationship between Captain Sawners and Mrs Leizy M'Auslan and Mr and Mrs Jenny Goroghan,  the latter female trying to get one ahead of the former - whether in Miss Menie M'Neil's emporium of fashion in Greenock, the method of travel to Embro', the rooms at Edinburgh and the subsequent attempts to gain a good position to view the king. All's well that ends well. The Goroghans and the M'Auslans prepared to return home, excellent friends, and for ever knit into intimacy by the remembrance of the pleasures they had enjoyed together.

Galt's humour abounds throughout the tale: Whether there is any truth in the allegation of the Glasgow people, that nothing walks in the middle of the street but cows and Greenock folk...; the day was wet, as the weather always is at Greenock, except when it happens to snow...; the brass-plate inscription being truncated from 'The Right Honourable The Lord Provost of Glasgow' to just 'The Lord Provost of Glasgow; Mrs Lorn's maid invading the drawing room with a complexion that rivalled the grate, and her arms besmeared with soot. All these scenes made me chuckle.

Essentially, and ostensibly, the story concerns itself with King George IV's visit to Edinburgh and the effect it has on the Scots who travelled from the 'West' (Glasgow, Greenock, Paisley etc.) as well as its  own citizens. But, there is also an obvious disparagement of the radical Paisley weavers who were particularly subject to the moral flatulency of hypothetical ideas. Clattering Tam - a thorough and engrained radical  and auld gash-gabbit Jamie o' the Sneddon are contrasted with the impulses of loyal curiosity of the Greenock inhabitants. Moreover, Galt is at pains to highlight the more responsible and reasonable Peter Gauze - one of those clever and shrewd fellows who, by the exercise of their natural sagacity, rise from the loom into the warehouse, and ultimately animate the vast machinery of the cotton-mills. Gauze is of Galt's totem; as the critic Christopher Whatley shrewdly writes, Common folk should know their place, and win favour from the king by being respectful; good behaviour will induce good legislation. Gauze gets his just reward - the hand of Nanny Eydent, who we first met in the pages of The Ayrshire Legatees, being regularly informed by Mrs Pringle of the London fashions.  I returned to the latter work to refresh my memory of Nanny. She was the eldest of three sisters, the daughters of a shipmaster, who was lost at sea when they were very young. Galt devotes a further three pages to this unsung heroine. Thanks to Mrs Pringle's information, Nanny was not only consulted as to funerals, but is often called in to assist in the decoration and arrangement of wedding-dinners...by which she is enabled...to earn a lowly but a respected livelihood. We now meet Nanny again - a plain, demure, patient-looking single woman, somewhat hard-favoured, but modest and calm in her demeanour, and possessed of considerable intelligence of countenance, and a serious observant eye. It is heart-warming to see her take centre stage in influence once the party get to Embro'. Long live the King; long live Nanny Gauze (née Eydent).