The Rival Nightcaps

The Rival Nightcaps by Alexander Campbell

Thomas Callender and John Anderson are prosperous weaver-neighbours near Bridgeton, Glasgow, whose matching houses, gardens, and modest wealth feed a bitter rivalry between their wives. The men also resent one another after an expensive legal dispute over the right of their ducks to use a shared dub, which ends with the water divided equally. The feud flares when Mrs Callender sees John Anderson wearing a new striped Kilmarnock nightcap. Determined that her husband must not be outdone, she buys Thomas a brilliant red nightcap and manoeuvres him into displaying it in the garden. Mrs Anderson immediately recognises the challenge. Though John’s striped cap is nearly new, she persuades him to accept an equally bright red replacement and sends him out wearing it. Enraged by this retaliation, Mrs Callender revives an old grievance over a jelly mug lent to Mrs Anderson three years earlier and since broken. Knowing that compensation has repeatedly been offered, she nevertheless sends her daughter Becky to demand the mug. Mrs Anderson’s mocking reply gives Mrs Callender the pretext she wants. She goes to the Anderson house, demands the impossible return of her mug, and soon turns the quarrel openly upon the red nightcap. The women attack one another, tearing off each other’s mutches and hair. John Anderson enters and takes his wife’s side; Thomas Callender arrives immediately after and defends his own. Both men are wearing the red nightcaps that have caused the trouble. Their old resentment revives, and the men begin fighting while the women urge them on. The women then seize and tear away the other man’s red nightcap, pulling out hair with it. As all four struggle together, they crash into Mrs Anderson’s dresser, bringing down shelves full of crockery. Jugs, plates, bowls, cups, and saucers are smashed beyond recovery. The disaster instantly stops the fight. Thomas and Mrs Callender, alarmed by the destruction in their neighbour’s home, slip away. Mrs Anderson vows to bring them before the Sheriff and carefully preserves the broken stoneware in a hamper as evidence. The following evening, the Callenders receive summonses charging them with assault and battery and demanding damages for the destroyed crockery. Thomas proposes to defend the case with the legal language he has picked up from the duck-dub dispute, while Mrs Callender insists that justice and common sense are on her side. At the Sheriff-Court in Glasgow, both couples appear in their best clothes. Mrs Anderson presents the hamper of broken dishes and tells her account of the quarrel, prudently claiming that it arose entirely from the jelly mug and concealing the nightcaps from her husband. Mrs Callender sees her chance to expose her rival’s jealousy. Against Thomas’s attempt to speak for them, she gives the full history of the competing nightcaps, portraying her own purchase as innocent and Mrs Anderson’s as vain imitation. The court bursts into laughter, and both husbands, humiliated to discover how they have been used in their wives’ rivalry, sneak out of the courtroom, leaving the women to continue the case.

By Alexander Campbell · First published 1801 · Genre: Comic Sketch, Humorous Fiction, Domestic Comedy · 7,886 words

First lines

In the neighbourhood of the suburban village of Bridgeton, near Glasgow, there lived, a good many years ago, a worthy man, and an excellent weaver, of the name of Thomas Callender, and his wife, a bustling, active woman, but, if anything, a little of what is called the randy. We have said that Thomas's occupation was the loom. It was so; but, be it known, that he was not a mere journeyman weaver -- one who is obliged to toil for the subsistence of the day that is passing over him, and whose sole dependence is on the labour of his hands. By no means. Thomas had been all his days, a careful, thrifty man, and had made his hay while the sun shone; -- when wages were good, he had saved money -- as much as could keep him in a small way, independent of labour, should sickness or any other casualty render it necessary for him to fall back on his secret resources. Being, at the time we speak of, however, suffering under no bodily affliction of any kind, but, on the contrary, being hale and hearty, and not much past the meridian of life, he continued at his loom, although, perhaps, not altogether with the perseverance and assiduity which had distinguished the earlier part of his brilliant career. The consciousness of independence, and, probably, some slight preliminary touches from approaching eild, had rather abated the energy of his exertions; yet Thomas still made a fair week's wage of it, as matters went.

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Scottish regional fiction · Glasgow · Bridgeton · nineteenth-century Scotland · domestic satire · comic short story · neighbourly rivalry · working-class weavers · marital conflict · female jealousy · consumer status · competitive domesticity

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The Rival Nightcaps is listed on Textopian as a short story by Alexander Campbell, dated 1801 CE.

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