Monarch of Mincing Lane Author:William Black General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1883 Original Publisher: J. W. Lovell Company Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustratio... more »ns and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: He was inwardly laughing at himself for his own weakness when the carriage was pulled up at the small green gate of the garden in front of James Lawson's house. CHAPTER IV. Old James Lawson, who now sits, with shaggy white hair and keen eyes, over a book at his own fireside, was at one time a Kirkintillock weaver, when hand-loom weaving was a lucrative calling. "Jims," as his neighbors called him, was known as a man of great probity and of a very fierce temper. But his temper, instead of expending itself in his own home, sought relief in getting up bitter and vigorous opposition to anything or anybody out of doors. Needless to say, Jims was at once a Radical and a Seceder, and the prime of his manhood was spent in stirring times, when there was plenty of occasion for his angry invective and his fearless action. In 1843, wnen half the national Church of Scotland went out in secession, Jims was one of the most active and vigorous of the lay agitators who protested against patronage. He left himself without a shilling in getting up the rough rudiments of the great sus- tentation-fund for the relief of the ministers. Two years later came the Puseyite squabble, which was looked upon in Kirkin- tilloch as a demonstration of the Scarlet Woman, and denounced vehemently. Then came the anti-corn-law agitation, the railway mania and the panic of 1845, ai)d tne Chartist riots of 1848. Stirring times, indeed! And the short, thickse...« less