Walter Scott: Chronicles of the Canongate
=========================================
a machine-readable transcription
[For archival on the Internet Wiretap, the portions
have been concatenated. No other changes have been made.]
Version 1.0: 1993-03-25
This machine-readable transcription of the
Chronicles of the Canongate is based on the text
published as volumes 41 and 48 of the Waverley
Novels by Archibald Constable and Company in 1896.
Volume 41 also included the Keepsake Stories, which
have been separated from the Chronicles. The tale
`The Surgeon's Daughter' originally appeared in
volume 48, for reasons only printers and publishers
will understand.
The order of the files in this distribution are
as follows:
introduction - the author's introduction
introduction.appendix - account of the first public
announcement of Scott's authorship
of the Waverley novels
introductory - Chrystal Croftangry account of
himself
introductory.notes
the.highland.widow
the highland.widow.notes
the.two.drovers.introduction
the.two.drovers
the two.drovers.notes
the.surgeons.daughter.introduction
the.surgeons.daughter.preface
the.surgeons.daughter
the.surgeons.daughter.conclusion
Changes to the text
-------------------
Page-breaks have been removed
End-of-line hyphenations have been removed, and the
previously hyphenated word placed at the end of the
first text line. The text itself has been the main
guide for keeping or removing the hyphen; in some
cases the Centenary Edition has been consulted.
Small capitals in names have been replaced by
lower-case letters, otherwise by capitals.
appendix.to.introduction
p. lxvi: genius (genuis)
introductory:
p. 11: waistcoat (waistcoast)
p. 17: position (postion)
p. 44: magnificent (magnificient)
p. 83: don't (dont)
p. 87: postscript (postcript)
the.highland.widow
p. xxx: Corrie Dhu (Corri Dhu)
Odd, that 'Dhu' is so spelled here, while previusly
it is spelled 'dhu'. Same in C.E.
p. 223 pedestrians (pedes- || trains)
p. 223 termed (term-)
p. 287 missing '?' (hast thou at lest become sick)
Surgeons Daughter:
p. 153: taken by an eminent artist (arilst)
p. 174: But faith, this Schiller (``But faith)
p. 216: of whose loss she had (lose)
p. 304: adding fuel to fire (feul)
p. 337: use, he apprehended, to enable (apprehended to - missing comma)
p. 339: All these feelings (``All)
p. 382: force on her inclinations.'' (inclinations,'')
p. 383: ``Villain---double-dyed (missing dash)
p. 385: thou art Governor (Go-||venor)
p. 387: garment. In the (garment In)
p. 395: former adventures, the plundering (missing comma)
p. 403: brandished (bran-||nished)
p. 404: we have formerly described (formesly)
p. ???: he presumed him to be entirely ignorant (persumed)
Markup conventions
------------------
_ _ is placed around words that are italicized in
the text
= = is placed around words with extra emphasis --
small caps in the text.
--- is used to represent an em dash. Longer sequences of
hyphens indicates correspondingly longer dashes
<oe> signifies the oe ligature
<ae> signifies the ae ligature
<AE> signifies the <AE> ligature
<a`> signifies the a grave
<e'> signifies the e acute
<e`> signifies the e grave
<e^> signifies an e circumflex
<c,> signifies a c with cedilla
Footnotes
Footnotes in the text were placed at the foot of
the page; in this edition they have been placed
immediately after the line in which they are
referenced. The footnote callout is always an
asterisk,*
* Like this
and the text of the footnote has been placed,
slightly indented, between two empty lines, as
illustrated above. If the footnote comes at the
end of a paragraph, the first line of the
following paragraph is indented two spaces, as
usual.
Most footnotes are just references to end-notes.
In the original text, these appeared at the end of
each chapter -- in this electronic edition, they
have been placed in a file of their own, following
the model used in the Centenary Edition. The page
numbers of the original footnotes have been
replaced by letters A, B, etc, again on the
pattern used in the Centenary Edition.
Notes
-----
In The Surgeon's Daughter, the various amounts of
money are printed as L.100, L.200 and L.2000 etc.
These are so printed in the original, although the
Centenary Edition uses a pound sterling sign
instead of "L.".
The Surgeon's Daughter seems rather unevenly
edited. Here are some of the unevennesses I've
found:
Hindostan, Hindustan
Hindoo, Hindhu
jackall, jackals
Town-Clerk, Town-clerk
There also seems to be some occasional
inconsistence in the use of the following words.
Governor, governor
Government, government
The differences appear in both the original source
and the Cententary Edition
The transcription and proof-reading was done by
Anders Thulin, Rydsvagen 288, S-582 50 Linkoping,
Sweden. Email address: ath@linkoping.trab.se
I'd be glad to learn of any errors that you may
find in the text.
[1. Introduction]
INTRODUCTION
TO
CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
The preceding volume of this Collection concluded
the last of the pieces originally published
under the _nominis umbra_ of The
Author of Waverley; and the circumstances
which rendered it impossible for the writer
to continue longer in the possession of his
incognito, were communicated in 1827, in the
Introduction to the first series of Chronicles
of the Canongate,---consisting (besides a biographical
sketch of the imaginary chronicler)
of three tales, entitled ``The Highland Widow,''
``The Two Drovers,'' and ``The Surgeon's
Daughter.'' In the present volume the two
first named of these pieces are included, together
with three detached stories, which appeared
the year after in the elegant compilation
called ``The Keepsake.'' The ``Surgeon's Daughter''
it is thought better to defer
until a succeeding volume, than to
``Begin and break off in the middle.''
I have, perhaps, said enough on former occasions
of the misfortunes which led to the
dropping of that mask under which I had, for
a long series of years, enjoyed so large a portion
of public favour. Through the success of
those literary efforts, I had been enabled to
indulge most of the tastes, which a retired
person of my station might be supposed to
entertain. In the pen of this nameless romancer,
I seemed to possess something like the secret
fountain of coined gold and pearls vouchsafed
to the traveller of the Eastern Tale; and no
doubt believed that I might venture, without
silly imprudence, to extend my personal expenditure
considerably beyond what I should
have thought of, had my means been limited
to the competence which I derived from inheritance,
with the moderate income of a professional
situation. I bought, and built, and
planted, and was considered by myself, as by
the rest of the world, in the safe possession
of an easy fortune. My riches, however, like
the other riches of this world, were liable to
accidents, under which they were ultimately
destined to make unto themselves wings and
fly away. The year 1825, so disastrous to
many branches of industry and commerce,
did not spare the market of literature; and
the sudden ruin that fell on so many of the
booksellers, could scarcely gave been expected
to leave unscathed one, whose career had
of necessity connected him deeply and extensively
with the pecuniary transactions of that
profession. In a word, almost without one
note of premonition, I found myself involved
in the sweeping catastrophe of the unhappy
time, and called on to meet the demands of
creditors upon commercial establishments
with which my fortunes had long been bound
up, to the extent of no less a sum than one
hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
The author having, however rashly, committed
his pledges thus largely to the hazards of
trading companies, it behoved him, of course,
to abide the consequences of his conduct, and,
with whatever feelings, he surrendered on the
instant every shred of property which he had
been accustomed to call his own. It became
vested in the hands of gentlemen, whose integrity,
prudence, and intelligence, were combined
with all possible liberality and kindness
of disposition, and who readily afforded every
assistance towards the execution of plans, in
the success of which the author contemplated
the possibility of his ultimate extrication, and
which were of such a nature, that, had assistance
of this sort been withheld, he could have
had little prospect of carrying them into effect.
Among other resources which occurred, was
the project of that complete and corrected
edition of his Novels and Romances, (whose
real parentage had of necessity been disclosed
at the moment of the commercial convulsions
alluded to,) which has now advanced with
unprecedented favour nearly to its close; but
as he purposed also to continue, for the behoof
of those to whom he was indebted, the exercise
of his pen in the same path of literature,
so long as the state of his countrymen should
seem to approve of his efforts, it appeared to
him that it would have been an idle piece of
affectation to attempt getting up a new _incognito_,
after his original visor had been thus
dashed from his brow. Hence the personal
narrative prefixed to the first work of fiction
which he put forth after the paternity of the
``Waverley Novels'' had come to be publicly
ascertained: and though many of the particulars
originally avowed in that Notice have
been unavoidably adverted to in the prefaces
and notes to some of the preceding volumes
of the present collection, it is now reprinted
as it stood at the time, because some
interest is generally attached to a coin or medal
struck on a special occasion, as expressing,
perhaps, more faithfully than the same
artist could have afterwards conveyed, the
feelings of the moment that gave it birth. The
Introduction to the first series of Chronicles
of the Canongate ran, then, in these words:
INTRODUCTION.
All who are acquainted with the early history
of the Italian stage are aware, that Arlechino
is not, in his original conception, a
mere worker of marvels with his wooden
sword, a jumper in and out of windows, as
upon our theatre, but, as his party-coloured
jacket implies, a buffoon or clown, whose
mouth, far from being eternally closed, as
amongst us, is filled, like that of Touchstone,
with quips, and cranks, and witty devices, very
often delivered extempore. It is not easy to
trace how he became possessed of his black
vizard which was anciently made in the resemblance
of the face of a cat; but it seems
that the mask was essential to the performance
of the character, as will appear from the following
theatrical anecdote:---
An actor on the Italian stage permitted at
the Foire du St Germain, in Paris, was renowned
for the wild, venturous, and extravagant
wit, the brilliant sallies and fortunate
repartees, with which he prodigally seasoned
the character of the party-coloured jester.
Some critics, whose good-will towards a favourite
performer was stronger than their
judgment, took occasion to remonstrate with
the successful actor on the subject of the
grotesque vizard. They went wilily to their
purpose, observing that his classical and attic
wit, his delicate vein of humour, his happy
turn for dialogue, were rendered burlesque and
ludicrous by this unmeaning and bizzare disguise,
and that those attributes would become
far more impressive, if aided by the spirit of
his eye and the expression of his natural features.
The actor's vanity was easily so far
engaged as to induce him to make the experiment.
He played Harlequin barefaced, but
was considered on all hands as having made a
total failure. He had lost the audacity which
a sense of incognito bestowed, and with it all
the reckless play of raillery which gave vivacity
to his original acting. He cursed his advisers,
and resumed his grotesque vizard; but,
it is said, without ever being able to regain
the careless and successful levity which the
consciousness of the disguise had formerly bestowed.
Perhaps the Author of Waverley is now
about to incur a risk of the same kind, and
endanger his popularity by having laid aside
his incognito. It is certainly not a voluntary
experiment, like that of Harlequin; for it was
my original intention never to have avowed
these works during my lifetime, and the original
manuscripts were carefully preserved,
(though by the care of others rather than
mine,) with the purpose of supplying the necessary
evidence of the truth when the period
of announcing it should arrive.* But the
* These manuscripts are at present (August 1831) advertised
for public sale, which is an addition, though a small one,
to other annoyances.
affairs of my publishers having unfortunately
passed into a management different from their
own, I had no right any longer to rely upon
secrecy in that quarter; and thus my mask,
like my Aunt Dinah's in ``Tristram Shandy,''
having begun to wax a little threadbare about
the chin, it became time to lay it aside with a
good grace, unless I desired it should fall in
pieces from my face, which was now become
likely.
Yet I had not the slightest intention of selecting
the time and place in which the disclosure
was finally made; nor was there any
concert betwixt my learned and respected
friend Lord Meadowbank and myself upon
that occasion. It was, as the reader is probably
aware, upon the 23d February last, at a
public meeting, called for establishing a professional
Theatrical Fund in Edinburgh, that
the communication took place. Just before
we sat down to table, Lord Meadowbank*
* One of the Supreme Judges of Scotland, termed Lords of
Council and Session.
asked me privately, whether I was still anxious
to preserve my incognito on the subject of
what were called the Waverley Novels? I did
not immediately see the purpose of his lordship's
question, although I certainly might
have been led to infer it, and replied, that the
secret had now of necessity become known to
so many people that I was indifferent on the
subject. Lord Meadowbank was thus induced,
while doing me the great honour of proposing
my health to the meeting, to say something
on the subject of these Novels, so strongly
connecting them with me as the author, that
by remaining silent, I must have stood convicted,
either of the actual paternity, or of the
still greater crime of being supposed willing to
receive indirectly praise to which I had no just
title. I thus found myself suddenly and unexpectedly
placed in the confessional, and had
only time to recollect that I had been guided
thither by a most friendly hand, and could not,
perhaps, find a better public opportunity to lay
down a disguise, which began to resemble that
of a detected masquerader.
I had therefore the task of avowing myself,
to the numerous and respectable company assembled,
as the sole and unaided author of
these Novels of Waverley, the paternity of
which was likely at one time to have formed
a controversy of some celebrity, for the ingenuity
with which some instructors of the public
gave their assurance on the subject, was extremely
persevering. I now think it further
necessary to say, that while I take on myself
all the merits and demerits attending these
compositions, I am bound to acknowledge with
gratitude, hints of subjects and legends which
I have received from various quarters, and
have occasionally used as a foundation of my
fictitious compositions, or woven up with them
in the shape of episodes. I am bound, in particular,
to acknowledge the unremitting kindness
of Mr Joseph Train, supervisor of excise
at Dumfries, to whose unwearied industry I
have been indebted for many curious traditions,
and points of antiquarian interest. It
was Mr Train who brought to my recollection
the history of Old Mortality, although I myself
had had a personal interview with that celebrated
wanderer so far back as about 1792,
when I found him on his usual task. He was
then engaged in repairing the gravestones of
the Covenanters who had died while imprisoned
in the Castle of Dunnottar, to which many
of them were committed prisoners at the period
of Argyle's rising; their place of confinement
is still called the Whigs' Vault. Mr Train,
however, procured for me far more extensive
information concerning this singular person,
whose name was Patterson, than I had been
able to acquire during my own short conversation
with him.* He was (as I think I have
* See, for some further particulars, the notes to Old Mortality,
in the present collective edition.
somewhere already stated) a native of the
parish of Closeburn, in Dumfries-shire, and
it is believed that domestic affliction, as well
as devotional feeling, induced him to commence
the wandering mode of life, which he
pursued for a very long period. It is more
than twenty years since Robert Patterson's
death, which took place on the high-road near
Lockerby, where he was found exhausted and
expiring. The white pony, the companion of
his pilgrimage, was standing by the side of its
dying master; the whole furnishing a scene
not unfitted for the pencil. These particulars
I had from Mr Train.
Another debt, which I pay most willingly,
I owe to an unknown correspondent (a lady),*
* The late Mrs Goldie.
who favoured me with the history of the upright
and high-principled female, whom, in
the Heart of Mid-Lothian, I have termed Jeanie
Deans. The circumstance of her refusing to
save her sister's life by an act of perjury, and
undertaking a pilgrimage to London to obtain
her pardon, are both represented as true by
my fair and obliging correspondent; and they
led me to consider the possibility of rendering
a fictitious personage interesting by mere dignity
of mind and rectitude of principle, assisted
by unpretending good sense and temper,
without any of the beauty, grace, talent, accomplishment,
and wit, to which a heroine of
romance is supposed to have a prescriptive
right. If the portrait was received with interest
by the public, I am conscious how much
it was owing to the truth and force of the original
sketch, which I regret that I am unable
to present to the public, as it was written with
much feeling and spirit.
Old and odd books, and a considerable collection
of family legends, formed another
quarry, so ample, that it was much more likely
that the strength of the labourer should be exhausted
than that materials should fail. I
may mention, for example's sake, that the terrible
catastrophe of the Bride of Lammermoor
actually occurred in a Scottish family of rank.
The female relative, by whom the melancholy
tale was communicated to me many years
since, was a near connexion of the family in
which the event happened and always told it
with an appearance of melancholy mystery,
which enhanced the interest, She had known,
in her youth, the brother who rode before the
unhappy victim to the fatal altar, who, though
then a mere boy, and occupied almost entirely
with the gaiety of his own appearance in the
bridal procession, could not but remark that
the hand of his sister was moist, and cold as
that of a statue. It is unnecessary further to
withdraw the veil from this scene of family
distress, nor, although it occurred more than
a hundred years since, might it be altogether
agreeable to the representatives of the families
concerned in the narrative. It may be proper
to say, that the events alone are imitated;
but I had neither the means nor intention of
copying the manners, or tracing the characters,
of the persons concerned in the real story.
Indeed, I may here state generally, that although
I have deemed historical personages
free subjects of delineation, I have never on
any occasion violated the respect due to private
life. It was indeed impossible that traits
proper to persons, both living and dead, with
whom I have had intercourse in society, should
not have risen to my pen in such works as
Waverley, and those which followed it. But
I have always studied to generalize the portraits,
so that they should still seem, on the
whole, the productions of fancy though possessing
some resemblance to real individuals.
Yet I must own my attempts have not in
this last particular been uniformly successful.
There are men whose characters are so peculiarly
marked, and the delineation of some
leading and principal feature, inevitably places
the whole person before you in his individuality.
Thus, the character of Jonathan Oldbuck, in
the Antiquary, was partly founded on that of
an old friend of my youth, to whom I am indebted
for introducing me to Shakspeare, and
other invaluable favours; but I thought I had
so completely disguised the likeness, that his
features could not be recognised by any one
now alive. I was mistaken, however, and indeed
had endangered what I desired should be
considered as a secret; for I afterwards learned
that a highly respectable gentleman, one of the
few surviving friends of my father,* and an
* James Chalmers, Esq. solicitor at law, London, who
died during the publication of the present edition of these
Novels. (Aug. 1831.)
acute critic, had said, upon the appearance of
the work, that he was now convinced who was
the author of it, as he recognised, in the Antiquary
of Monkbarns, traces of the character
of a very intimate friend of my father's family.
I may here also notice, that the sort of exchange
of gallantry, which is represented as
taking place betwixt the Baron of Bradwardine
and Colonel Talbot, is a literal fact. The real
circumstances of the anecdote, alike honourable
to Whig and Tory, are these:---
Alexander Stewart of Invernahyle,---a name
which I cannot write without the warmest recollections
of gratitude to the friend of my
childhood, who first introduced me to the Highlands,
their traditions, and their manners,---
had been engaged actively in the troubles of
1745. As be charged at the battle of Preston
with his clan, the Stewarts of Appine, he saw
an officer of the opposite army standing alone
by a battery of four cannon, of which he discharged
three on the advancing Highlanders,
and then drew his sword. Invernahyle rushed
on him, and required him to surrender, ``Never
to rebels!'' was the undaunted reply, accompanied
with a lounge, which the Highlander
received on his target; but instead of using
his sword in cutting down his now defenceless
antagonist, he employed it in parrying the blow
of a Lochaber axe, aimed at the officer by the
Miller, one of his own followers, a grim-looking
old Highlander, whom I remember to have
seen. Thus overpowered, Lieutenant Colonel
Allan Whitefoord, a gentleman of rank and
consequence, as well as a brave officer, gave up
his sword, and with it his purse and watch,
which Invernahyle accepted, to save them from
his followers. After the affair was over, Mr
Stewart sought out his prisoner, and they were
introduced to each other by the celebrated
John Roy Stewart, who acquainted Colonel
Whitefoord with the quality of his captor, and
made him aware of the necessity of receiving
back his property, which he was inclined to
leave in the hands into which it had fallen. So
great became the confidence established betwixt
them, that Invernahyle obtained from the Chevalier
his prisoner's freedom upon parole; and
soon afterwards, having been sent back to the
Highlands to raise men he visited Colonel
Whitefoord at his own house, and spent two
happy days with him and his Whig friends,
without thinking, on either side, of the civil
war which was then raging.
When the battle of Culloden put an end to
the hopes of Charles Edward, Invernahyle,
wounded and unable to move, was home from
the field by the faithful zeal of his retainers.
But, as he had been a distinguished Jacobite,
his family and property were exposed to the
system of vindictive destruction, too generally
carried into execution through the country of
the insurgents. It was now Colonel Whitefoord's
turn to exert himself, and he wearied
all the authorities, civil and military, with his
solicitations for pardon to the saver of his life,
or at least for a protection for his wife and
family. His applications were for a long time
unsuccessful: ``I was found with the mark of
the Beast upon me in every list,'' was Invernahyle's
expression. At length Colonel Whitefoord
applied to the Duke of Cumberland, and
urged his suit with every argument which he
could think of. Being still repulsed, he took
his commission from his bosom, and, having
said something of his own and his family's
exertions in the cause of the House of Hanover,
begged to resign his situation in their service,
since he could not be permitted to show
his gratitude to the person to whom he owed
his life. The Duke, struck with his earnestness,
desired him to take up his commission,
and granted the protection required for the
family of Invernahyle.
The Chieftain himself lay concealed in a cave
near his own house, before which a small body
of regular soldiers, were encamped. He could
hear their muster-roll called every morning,
and their drums beat to quarters at night, and
not a change of the sentinels escaped him. As
it was suspected that he was lurking somewhere
on the property, his family were closely
watched, and compelled to use the utmost precaution
in supplying him with food. One of
his daughters, a child of eight or ten years old,
was employed as the agent least likely to be
suspected. She was an instance among others,
that a time of danger and difficulty creates a
premature sharpness of intellect. She made
herself acquainted among the soldiers, till she
became so familiar to them, that her motions
escaped their notice; and her practice was, to
stroll away into the neighbourhood of the cave,
and leave what slender supply of food she carried
for that purpose under some remarkable
stone, or the root of some tree, where her father
might find it as he crept by night from his
lurking-place. Times became milder, and my
excellent friend was relieved from proscription
by the Act of Indemnity. Such is the interesting
story which I have rather injured than
improved, by the manner in which it is told in
Waverley.
This incident, with several other circumstances
illustrating the Tales in question, was
communicated by me to my late lamented
friend, William Erskine, (a Scottish Judge,
by the title of Lord Kinedder,) who afterwards
reviewed with far too much partiality
the Tales of my Landlord, for the Quarterly
Review of January 1817.* In the same article,
* Lord Kinedder died in August 1822. Eheu! (Aug.
1831)
are contained other illustrations of the Novels,
with which I supplied my accomplished friend,
who took the trouble to write the review. The
reader who is desirous of such information,
will find the original of Meg Merrilees, and I
believe of one or two other personages of the
same cast of character, in the article referred
to.
I may also mention, that the tragic and savage
circumstances which are represented as
preceding the birth of Allan MacAulay, in
the Legend of Montrose, really happened in
the family of Stewart of Ardvoirlich. The
wager about the candlesticks, whose place
was supplied by Highland torch-bearers, was
laid and won by one of the MacDonalds of
Keppoch.
There can be but little amusement in winnowing
out the few grains of truth which are
contained in this mass of empty fiction.
may, however, before dismissing the subject,
allude to the various localities which have
been affixed to some of the scenery introduced
into these Novels, by which, for example,
Wolf's-Hope is identified with Past-Castle in
Berwickshire,---Tillietudlem with Draphane in
Clydesdale,---and the valley in the Monastery,
called Glendearg, with the dale of the river
Allan, above Lord Somerville's villa, near Melrose.
I can only say, that, in these and other
instances, I had no purpose of describing any
particular local spot; and the resemblance
must therefore be of that general kind which
necessarily exists between scenes of the same
character. The iron-bound coast of Scotland
affords upon its headlands and promontories
fifty such castles as Wolf's-Hope; every
county has a valley more or less resembling
Glendearg; and if castles like Tillietudlem,
or mansions like the Baron of Bradwardine's,
are now less frequently to be met with, it is
owing to the rage of indiscriminate destruction,
which has removed or ruined so many
monuments of antiquity, when they were not
protected by their inaccessible situation.*
* I would particularly intimate the Kaim of Uric, on the
eastern coast of Scotland, as having suggested an idea for the
tower called Wolf's-Crag, which the public more generally
identified with the ancient tower of Fast-Castle.
The scraps of poetry which have been in
most cases tacked to the beginning of chapters
in these Novels, are sometimes quoted either
from reading or from memory, but, in the general
case, are pure invention. I found it too
troublesome to turn to the collection of the
British Poets to discover apposite mottos, and,
in the situation of the theatrical mechanist,
who, when the white paper which represented
his shower of snow was exhausted, continued
the storm by snowing brown, I drew on my
memory as long as I could, and, when that
failed, eked it out with invention. I believe
that, in some cases, where actual names are
affixed to the supposed quotations, it would be
to little purpose to seek them in the works of
the authors referred to. In some cases, I have
been entertained when Dr Watts and other
graver authors, have been ransacked in vain for
stanzas for which the novelist alone was responsible.
And now the reader may expect me, while
in the confessional, to explain the motives why
I have so long persisted iii disclaiming the
works of which I am now writing. To this it
would be difficult to give any other reply, save
that of Corporal Nym---It was the authors
humour or caprice for the time. I hope it will
not be construed into ingratitude to the public,
to whose indulgence I have owed my _sang
froid_ much more than to any merit of my own,
if I confess that I am, and have been, more indifferent
to success, or to failure, as an author,
than may be the case with others, who feel
more strongly the passion for literary fame,
probably because they are justly conscious of
a better title to it. It was not until I had attained
the age of thirty years that I made any
serious attempt at distinguishing myself as an
author; and at that period, men's hopes, desires,
and wishes, have usually acquired something
of a decisive character, and are not eagerly
and easily diverted into a new channel. When
I made the discovery,---for to me it was one,
---that by amusing myself with composition,
which I felt a delightful occupation, I could
also give pleasure to others, and became aware
that literary pursuits were likely to engage in
future a considerable portion of my time, I felt
some alarm that I might acquire those habits
of jealousy and fretfulness which have lessened,
and even degraded, the character even of great
authors, and rendered them, by their petty
squabbles and mutual irritability, the laughing-stock
of the people of the world. I resolved,
therefore, in this respect to guard my
breast, perhaps an unfriendly critic may add,
my brow, with triple brass,* and as much as
* Not altogether impossible, when it is considered that I
have been at the bar since 1792. (Aug. 1831.)
possible to avoid resting my thoughts and
wishes upon literary success, lest I should endanger
my own peace of mind and tranquillity
by literary failure. It would argue either stupid
apathy, or ridiculous affectation, to say
that I have been insensible to the public applause,
when I have been honoured with its
testimonies; and still more highly do I prize
the invaluable friendships which some temporary
popularity has enabled me to form among
those of my contemporaries most distinguished
by talents and genius, and which I venture to
hope now rest upon a basis more firm than the
circumstances which gave rise to them. Yet
feeling all these advantages as a man ought to
do, and must do, I may say, with truth and
confidence, that I have, I think, tasted of the
intoxicating cup with moderation, and that I
have never, either in conversation or correspondence,
encouraged discussions respecting
my own literary pursuits. On the contrary, I
have usually found such topics, even when introduced
from motives most flattering to myself,
rather embarrassing and disagreeable.
I have now frankly told my motives for concealment,
so far as I am conscious of having
any, and the public will forgive the egotism of
the detail, as what is necessarily connected
with it. The author, so long and loudly called
for, has appeared on the stage, and made his
obeisance to the audience. Thus far his conduct
is a mark of respect. To linger in their
presence would be intrusion.
I have only to repeat, that I avow myself in
print, as formerly in words, the sole and unassisted
author of all the Novels published
as works of the ``Author of Waverley.'' I
do this without shame, for I am unconscious
that there is any thing in their composition
which deserves reproach, either on the score
of religion or morality; and without any feeling
of exultation, because, whatever may have
been their temporary success, I am well aware
how much their reputation depends upon the
caprice of fashion; and I have already mentioned
the precarious tenure by which it is
held, as a reason for displaying no great avidity
in grasping at the possession.
I ought to mention, before concluding, that
twenty persons, at least, were, either from intimacy,
or from the confidence which circumstances
rendered necessary, participant of this
secret; and as there was no instance, to my
knowledge, of any one of the number breaking
faith, I am the more obliged to them, because
the slight and trivial character of the mystery
was not qualified to inspire much respect in
those intrusted with it. Nevertheless, like Jack
the Giant-Killer, I was fully confident in the
advantage of my ``Coat of Darkness,'' and had
it not been from compulsory circumstances, I
would have indeed been very cautious how I
parted with it.
As for the work which follows, it was meditated,
and in part printed, long before the avowal
of the novels took place, and originally commenced
with a declaration that it was neither
to have introduction nor preface of any kind.
This long proem, prefixed to a work intended
not to have any, may, however, serve to show
how human purposes, in the most trifling, as
well as the most important affairs, are liable
to be controlled by the course of events.
Thus, we begin to cross a strong river with
our eyes and our resolution fixed on that
point of the opposite shore, on which we purpose
to land; but, gradually giving way to
the torrent, are glad, by the aid perhaps of
branch or bush, to extricate ourselves at some
distant and perhaps dangerous landing-place,
much farther down the stream than that on
which we had fixed our intentions.
Hoping that the Courteous Reader will
afford to a known and familiar acquaintance
some portion of the favour which he extended
to a disguised candidate for his applause, I
beg leave to subscribe myself his obliged humble
servant,
WALTER SCOTT.
Abbotsford, _October_ 1, 1827.
---------
Such was the little narrative which I thought
proper to put forth in October 1827: nor
have I much to add to it now. About to
appear for the first time in my own name in
this department of letters, it occurred to me
that something in the shape of a periodical
publication might carry with it a certain air of
novelty, and I was willing to break, if I may
so express it, the abruptness of my personal
forthcoming, by investing an imaginary coadjutor
with at least as much distinctness of individual
existence as I had ever previously
thought it worth while to bestow on shadows
of the same convenient tribe. Of course, it
had never been in my contemplation to invite
the assistance of any real person in the sustaining
of my quasi-editorial character and
labours. It had long been my opinion, that
any thing like a literary _picnic_ is likely to
end in suggesting comparisons, justly termed
odious, and therefore to be avoided: and, indeed,
I had also had some occasion to know,
that promises of assistance, in efforts of that
order, are apt to be more magnificent than the
subsequent performance. I therefore planned
a Miscellany, to be dependent, after the old
fashion, on my own resources alone, and
although conscious enough that the moment
which assigned to the Author of Waverley
``a local habitation and a name,'' had seriously
endangered his spell, I felt inclined to adopt
the sentiment of my old hero Montrose, and
to say to myself, that in literature, as in war,
``He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.''
To the particulars explanatory of the plan of
these Chronicles, which the reader is presented
with in Chapter II. by the imaginary Editor,
Mr Croftangry, I have now to add, that the
lady, termed in his narrative, Mrs Bethune
Balliol, was designed to shadow out in its
leading points the interesting character of a
dear friend of mine, Mrs Murray Keith,* whose
* The Keiths of Craig, in Kincardineshire, descended
from John Keith, fourth son of William, second Earl Marischal,
who got from his father, about 1480, the lands of Craig,
and part of Garvock, in that county. In Douglas's Baronage,
443 to 445, is a pedigree of that family. Colonel Robert
Keith of Craig (the seventh in descent from John) by his wife,
Agnes, daughter of Robert Murray of Murrayshall, of the
family of Blackbarony, widow of Colonel Stirling, of the
family of Keir, had one son; viz. Robert Keith of Craig, ambassador
to the court of Vienna, afterwards to St Petersburgh,
which latter situation he held at the accession of King George
III.,---who died at Edinburgh in 1774. He married Margaret,
second daughter of Sir William Cunningham of Caprington,
by Janet, only child and heiress of Sir James Dick of Prestonfield;
and, among other children of this marriage, were,
the late well-known diplomatist, Sir Robert Murray Keith,
K. B., a general in the army, and for some time ambassador at
Vienna; Sir Basil Keith, Knight, captain in the navy, who
died governor of Jamaica; and my excellent friend, Anne
Murray Keith, who ultimately came into possession of the family
estates, and died not long before the date of this Introduction,
(1831.)
death occurring shortly before had saddened
a wide circle, much attached to her, as well
for her genuine virtue and amiable qualities of
disposition, as for the extent of information
which she possessed, and the delightful manner
in which she was used to communicate it.
In truth, the author had, on many occasions,
been indebted to her vivid memory for the
_substratum_ of his Scottish fictions---and she
accordingly had been, from an early period, at
no loss to fix the Waverley Novels on the
right culprit.
In the sketch of Chrystal Croftangry's
own history, the author has been accused of
introducing some not polite allusions to respectable
living individuals: but he may safely, he
presumes, pass over such an insinuation. The
first of the narratives which Mr Croftangry
proceeds to lay before the public, ``The Highland
Widow,'' was derived from Mrs Murray
Keith, and is given, with the exception of a few
additional circumstances---the introduction of
which I am rather inclined to regret---very
much as the excellent old lady used to tell the
story. Neither the Highland cicerone Macturk,
nor the demure washingwoman, were
drawn from imagination: and on re-reading
my tale, after the lapse of a few years, and
comparing its effect with my remembrance of
my worthy friend's oral narration, which was
certainly extremely affecting, I cannot but suspect
myself of having marred its simplicity by
some of those interpolations, which, at the time
when I penned them, no doubt passed with
myself for embellishments.
The next tale, entitled ``The Two Drovers,''
I learned from another old friend, the late
George Constable, Esq. of Wallace-Craigie,
near Dundee, whom I have already introduced
to my reader as the original Antiquary of
Monkbarns. He had been present, I think, at
the trial at Carlisle, and seldom mentioned the
venerable judges charge to the jury, without
shedding tears,---which had peculiar pathos,
as flowing down features, carrying rather a
sarcastic or almost a cynical expression.
This worthy gentleman's reputation for
shrewd Scottish sense---knowledge of our national
antiquities---and a racy humour, peculiar
to himself, must be still remembered. For
myself, I have pride in recording that for
many years we were, in Wordsworth's language,
``------- a pair of friends, though I was young,
And `George was seventy-two.''
W. S.
Abbotsford, _Aug_. 15,1831.
[2. Introduction Appendix]
APPENDIX
TO
INTRODUCTION.
[It has been suggested to the Author, that it might be well
to reprint here a detailed account of the public dinner alluded
to in the foregoing Introduction, as given in the newspapers of
the time; and the reader is accordingly presented with the following
extract from the Edinburgh Weekly Journal for
Wednesday, 28th February, 1827.]
------
THEATRICAL FUND DINNER.
Before proceeding with our account of this
very interesting festival---for so it may be termed
---it is our duty to present to our readers the following
letter, which we have received from the
President.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE EDINBURGH WEEKLY
JOURNAL.
Sir,---I am extremely sorry I have not leisure
to correct the copy you sent me of what I am
stated to have said at the Dinner for the Theatrical
Fund. I am no orator; and upon such occasions
as are alluded to, I say as well as I can
what the time requires.
However, I hope your reporter has been more
accurate in other instances than in mine. I have
corrected one passage, in which I am made to
speak with great impropriety and petulance, respecting
the opinions of those who do not approve
of dramatic entertainments. I have restored what
I said, which was meant to be respectful, as every
objection founded in conscience is, in my opinion,
entitled to be so treated. Other errors I left as I
found them, it being of little consequence whether
I spoke sense or nonsense, in what was merely intended
for the purpose of the hour.
I am, sir,
Your obedient servant,
Walter Scott.
_Edinburgh, Monday_.
------
The Theatrical Fund Dinner, which took place
on Friday, in the Assembly Rooms, was conducted
with admirable spirit. The Chairman, Sir Walter
Scott, among his other great qualifications, is well
fitted to enliven such an entertainment. His manners
are extremely easy, and his style of speaking
simple and natural, yet full of vivacity and point;
and he has the art, if it be art, of relaxing into a
certain homeliness of manner, without losing one
particle of his dignity. He thus takes off some of
that solemn formality which belongs to such meetings,
and, by his easy and graceful familiarity,
imparts to them somewhat of the pleasing character
of a private entertainment. Near Sir W. Scott
sat the Earl of Fife, Lord Meadowbank, Sir John
Hope of Pinkie, Bart., Admiral Adam, Baron Clerk
Rattray, Gilbert Innes, Esq., James Walker, Esq.,
Robert Dundas, Esq., Alexander Smith, Esq., &c.
The cloth being removed, ``Non Nobis Domine''
was sung by Messrs Thorne, Swift, Collier,
and Hartley, after which the following toasts were
given from the chair:---
``The King''---all the honours.
``The Duke of Clarence and the Royal Family.''
The Chairman, in proposing the next toast,
which he wished to be drunk in solemn silence,
said it was to the memory of a regretted prince,
whom we had lately lost. Every individual would
at once conjecture to whom he alluded. He had
no intention to dwell on his military merits. They
had been told in the senate; they had been repeated
in the cottage; and whenever a soldier was the
theme, his name was never far distant. But it was
chiefly in connexion with the business of this meeting,
which his late Royal Highness had condescended
in a particular manner to patronise, that
they were called on to drink his health. To that
charity he had often sacrificed his time, and had
given up the little leisure which he had from important
business. He was always ready to attend
on every occasion of this kind, and it was in that
view that he proposed to drink to the memory of
his late Royal Highness the Duke of York.---
Drunk in solemn silence.
The Chairman then requested that gentlemen
would fill a bumper as full as it would hold, while
he would say only a few words. He was in the
habit of hearing speeches, and he knew the feeling
with which long ones were regarded. He was sure
that it was perfectly unnecessary for him to enter
into any vindication of the dramatic art, which they
had come here to support. This, however, be
considered to be the proper time and proper occasion
for him to say a few words on that love of representation
which was an innate feeling in human
nature. It was the first amusement that the child
had---it grew greater as he grow up; and, even in
the decline of life, nothing amused so much as
when a common tale is told with appropriate personification.
The first thing a child does is to ape
his schoolmaster, by flogging a chair. The assuming
a character ourselves, or the seeing others
assume an imaginary character, is an enjoyment
natural to humanity. It was implanted in our very
nature, to take pleasure from such representations,
at proper times and on proper occasions. In all
ages the theatrical art had kept pace with the improvement
of mankind, and with the progress of
letters and the fine arts. As man has advanced
from the ruder stages of society, the love of dramatic
representations has increased, and all works
of this nature have been improved, in character
and in structure. They had only to turn their eyes
to the history of ancient Greece, although he did
not pretend to be very deeply versed in its ancient
drama. Its first tragic poet commanded a body of
troops at the battle of Marathon. Sophocles and
Euripides were men of rank in Athens, when
Athens was in its highest renown. They shook
Athens with their discourses, as their theatrical
works shook the theatre itself. If they turned to
France in the time of Louis the Fourteenth, that
era which is the classical history of that country,
they would find that it was referred to by all
Frenchmen as the golden age of the drama there.
And also in England, in the time of Queen Elizabeth,
the drama was at its highest pitch, when the
nation began to mingle deeply and wisely in the
general politics of Europe, not only not receiving
laws from others, but giving laws to the world,
and vindicating the rights of mankind. (Cheers.)
There have been various times when the dramatic
art subsequently fell into disrepute. Its professors
have been stigmatized; and laws have been
passed against them, less dishonourable to them
than to the statesmen by whom they were proposed,
and to the legislators by whom they were
adopted. What were the times in which these
laws were passed? Was it not when virtue was
seldom inculcated as a moral duty, that we were
required to relinquish the most rational of all our
amusements, when the clergy were enjoined celibacy,
and when the laity were denied the right to
read their Bibles? He thought that it must have
been from a notion of penance that they erected
the drama into an ideal place of profaneness, and
spoke of the theatre as of the tents of sin. He did
not mean to dispute, that there were many excellent
persons who thought differently from him, and
he disclaimed the slightest idea of charging them
with bigotry or hypocrisy on that account. He
gave them full credit for their tender consciences,
in making these objections, although they did not
appear relevant to him. But to these persons,
being, as he believed them, men of worth and
piety, he was sure the purpose of this meeting
would furnish some apology for an error, if there
be any, in the opinions of those who attend. They
would approve the gift, although they might differ
in other points. Such might not approve of going
to the Theatre, but at least could not deny that
they might give away from their superfluity, what
was required for the relief of the sick, the support
of the aged, and the comfort of the afflicted. These
were duties enjoined by our religion itself. (Loud
cheers.)
The performers are in a particular manner entitled
to the support or regard, when in old age or
distress, of those who had partaken of the amusements
of those places which they render an ornament
to society. Their art was of a peculiarly delicate
and precarious nature. They had to serve
a long apprenticeship. It was very long before
even the first-rate geniuses could acquire the mechanical
knowledge of the stage business. They
must languish long in obscurity before they can
avail themselves of their natural talents; and after
that, they have but a short space of time, during
which they are fortunate if they can provide the
means of comfort in the decline of life. That
comes late, and lasts but a short time; after which
they are left dependent. Their limbs fail---their
teeth are loosened---their voice is lost---and they
are left, after giving happiness to others, in a most
disconsolate state. The public were liberal and
generous to those deserving their protection. It
was a sad thing to be dependent on the favour, or,
be might say, in plain terms, on the caprice, of the
public; and this more particularly for a class of
persons of whom extreme prudence is not the
character. There might be instances of opportunities
being neglected; but let each gentleman tax
himself, and consider the opportunities they had
neglected, and the sums of money they had wasted;
let every gentleman look into his own bosom, and
say whether these were circumstances which would
soften his own feelings, were he to be plunged into
distress. He put it to every generous bosom---
to every better feeling---to say what consolation
was it to old age to be told that you might have
made provision at a time which had been neglected
---(loud cheers),---and to find it objected, that if
you had pleased you might have been wealthy.
He had hitherto been speaking of what, in theatrical
language, was called _stars_, but they were
sometimes falling ones. There were another class
of sufferers naturally and necessarily connected
with the theatre, without whom it was impossible
to go on. The sailors have a saying, every man
cannot be a boatswain. If there must be a great
actor to act Hamlet, there must also be people to
act Laertes, the King, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern,
otherwise a drama cannot go on. If even
Garrick himself were to rise from the dead, he
could not act Hamlet alone. There must be generals,
colonels, commanding-officers, subalterns.
But what are the private soldiers to do? Many
have mistaken their own talents, and have been
driven in early youth to try the stage, to which
they are not competent. He would know what to
say to the indifferent poet and to the bad artist.
He would say that it was foolish, and he would
recommend to the poet to become a scribe, and the
artist to paint sign-posts---(loud laughter).---But
you could not send the player adrift, for if he
cannot play Hamlet, he must play Guildenstern.
Where there are many labourers, wages must be
low, and no man in such a situation can decently
support a wife and family, and save something off
his income for old age. What is this man to do
in latter life? Are you to cast him off like an
old hinge, or a piece of useless machinery, which
has done its work? To a person who had contributed
to our amusement, this would be unkind,
ungrateful, and unchristian. His wants are not of
his own making, but arise from the natural sources
of sickness and old age. It cannot be denied that
there is one class of sufferers to whom no imprudence
can be ascribed, except on first entering on
the profession. After putting his band to the dramatic
plough, be cannot draw back; but must continue
at it, and toil, till death release him from
want, or charity, by its milder influence, steps in
to render that want more tolerable. He had little
more to say, except that he sincerely hoped that
the collection to-day, from the number of respectable
gentlemen present, would meet the views entertained
by the patrons. He hoped it would do
so. They should not be disheartened. Though
they could not do a great deal, they might do
something. They had this consolation, that every
thing they parted with from their superfluity would
do some good. They would sleep the better themselves
when they have been the means of giving
sleep to others. It was ungrateful and unkind, that
those who had sacrificed their youth to our amusement
should not receive the reward due to them,
but should be reduced to hard fare in their old
age. We cannot think of poor Falstaff going to
bed without his cup of sack, or Macbeth fed on
bones as marrowless as those of Banquo.---(Loud
cheers and laughter.)---As he believed that they
were all as fond of the dramatic art as he was in
his younger days, he would propose that they
should drink ``The Theatrical Fund,'' with three
times three.
Mr Mackay rose, on behalf of his brethren, to
return their thanks for the toast just drunk. Many
of the gentlemen present, he said, were perhaps
not fully acquainted with the nature and intention of
the institution, and it might not be amiss to enter
into some explanation on the subject. With whomsoever
the idea of a Theatrical Fund might have
originated, (and it had been disputed by the surviving
relatives of two or three individuals,) certain
it was, that the first legally constituted Theatrical
Fund owed its origin to one of the brightest ornaments
of the profession, the late David Garrick.
That eminent actor conceived that, by a weekly
subscription in the Theatre, a fund might be raised
among its members, from which a portion might
be given to those of his less fortunate brethren, and
thus an opportunity would be offered for prudence
to provide what fortune had denied---a comfortable
provision for the winter of life. With the welfare
of his profession constantly at heart, the zeal
with which he laboured to uphold its respectability,
and to impress upon the minds of his brethren, not
only the necessity, but the blessing of independence,
the Fund became his peculiar care. He
drew up a form of laws for its government, procured,
at his own expense, the passing of an Act
of Parliament for its confirmation, bequeathed to
it a handsome legacy, and thus became the Father
of the Drury-Lane Fund. So constant was his
attachment to this infant establishment, that be
chose to grace the close of the brightest theatrical
life on record, by the last display of his transcendent
talent, on the occasion of a benefit for this child
of his adoption, which ever since has gone by the
name of the Garrick Fund. In imitation of his.
noble example, Funds had been established in
several provincial theatres in England; but it remained
for Mrs Henry Siddons and Mr William
Murray to become the founders of the first Theatrical
Fund in Scotland. (Cheers.) This Fund commenced
under the most favourable auspices; it was
liberally supported by the management, and highly
patronised by the public. Notwithstanding, it fell
short in the accomplishment of its intentions.
What those intentions were, he (Mr Mackay)
need not recapitulate, but they failed; and he did
not hesitate to confess that a want of energy on
the part of the performers was the probable cause.
A new set of Rules and Regulations were lately
drawn up, submitted to and approved of at a general
meeting of the members of the Theatre; and
accordingly the Fund was re-modelled on the 1st
of January last. And here he thought he did but
echo the feelings of his brethren, by publicly acknowledging
the obligations they were under to
the management, for the aid given, and the warm
interest they had all along taken in the welfare of
the Fund. (Cheers.) The nature and object of
the profession had been so well treated of by the
President, that he would say nothing; but of the
numerous offspring of science and genius that court
precarious fame, the Actor boasts the slenderest
claim of all; the sport of fortune, the creatures of
fashion, and the victims of caprice---they are seen,
beard, and admired, but to be forgot---they leave
no trace, no memorial of their existence---they
``come like shadows, so depart.'' (Cheers.) Yet
humble though their pretensions be, there was no
profession, trade, or calling, where such a combination
of requisites, mental and bodily) were indispensable.
In all others the principal may practise
after he has been visited by the afflicting hand of
Providence---some by the loss of limb---some of
voice---and many, when the faculty of the mind is
on the wane, may be assisted by dutiful children,
or devoted servants. Not so the Actor---he must
retain all he ever did possess, or sink dejected
to a mournful home. (Applause.) Yet while they
are toiling for ephemeral theatric fame, how very
few ever possess the means of hoarding in their
youth that which would give bread in old age!
But now a brighter prospect dawned upon them,
and to the success of this their infant establishment
they looked with hope, as to a comfortable
and peaceful home in their declining years. He
concluded by tendering to the meeting, in the
name of his brethren and sisters, their unfeigned
thanks for their liberal support, and begged to
propose the health of the Patrons of the Edinburgh
Theatrical Fund. (Cheers.)
Lord Meadowbank said, that by desire of his
Hon. Friend in the chair, and of his Noble Friend
at his right hand, he begged leave to return thanks
for the honour which had been conferred on the
Patrons of this excellent Institution. He could
answer for himself---he could answer for them all
---that they were deeply impressed with the meritorious
objects which it has in view, and of their
anxious wish to promote its interests. For himself,
he hoped he might be permitted to say, that
he was rather surprised at finding his own name
as one of the Patrons, associated with so many
individuals of high rank and powerful influence.
But it was an excuse for those who had placed
him in a situation so honourable and so distinguished,
that when this charity was instituted, he happened
to hold a high and responsible station under
the Crown, when he might have been of use in
assisting and promoting its objects. His Lordship
much feared that he could have little expectation,
situated as he now was, of doing either; but
he could confidently assert, that few things would
give him greater gratification than being able to
contribute to its prosperity and support; and, indeed
when one recollects the pleasure which at
all periods of life he has received from the exhibitions
of the stage, and the exertions of the
meritorious individuals for whose aid this fund has
been established, he must be divested both of gratitude
and feeling who would not give his best
endeavours to promote its welfare. And now
that he might in some measure repay the gratification
which had been afforded himself, he would
beg leave to propose a toast, the health of one of
the Patrons, a great and distinguished individual,
whose name must always stand by itself, and which,
in an assembly such as this, or in any other assembly
of Scotsmen, can never be received, (not
he would say with ordinary feelings of pleasure or
of delight,) but with those of rapture and enthusiasm.
In doing so he felt that he stood in a somewhat
new situation. Whoever had been called
upon to propose the health of his Hon. Friend to
whom he alluded, some time ago, would have found
himself enabled, from the mystery in which certain
matters were involved, to gratify himself and his
auditors by allusions which found a responding
chord in their own feelings, and to deal in the language,
the sincere language, of panegyric, without
intruding on the modesty of the great individual
to whom be referred. But it was no longer possible,
consistently with the respect to one's auditors,
to use upon this subject terms either of mystification,
or of obscure or indirect allusion. The
clouds have been dispelled---the _darkness visible_
has been cleared away---and the Great Unknown
---the minstrel of our native land---the mighty
magician who has rolled back the current of time,
and conjured up before our living senses the men
and the manners of days which have long passed
away, stands revealed to the hearts and the eyes of
his affectionate and admiring countrymen. If he
himself were capable of imagining all that belonged
to this mighty subject---were he even able to give
utterance to all that as a friend, as a man, and as
a Scotsman, he must feel regarding it, yet knowing,
as he well did, that this illustrious individual was
not more distinguished for his towering talents, than
for those feelings which rendered such allusions
ungrateful to himself, however sparingly introduced,
he would, on that account, still refrain from
doing that which would otherwise be no less
pleasing to him than to his audience. But this his
Lordship hoped he would be allowed to say, (his
auditors would not pardon him were be to say less,)
we owe to him, as a people, a large and heavy
debt of gratitude. He it is who has opened to
foreigners the grand and characteristic beauties of
our country. It is to him that we owe that our
gallant ancestors and the struggles of our illustrious
patriots---who fought and bled in order to
obtain and secure that independence and that liberty
we now enjoy---have obtained a fame no
longer confined to the boundaries of a remote and
comparatively obscure nation, and who has called
down upon their struggles for glory and freedom
the admiration of foreign countries. He it is who has
conferred a new reputation on our national character,
and bestowed on Scotland an imperishable name,
were it only by her having given birth to himself.
(Loud and rapturous applause.)
Sir Walter Scott certainly did not think that,
in coming here to-day, he would have the task of
acknowledging, before 300 gentlemen, a secret
which, considering that it was communicated to more
than twenty people, had been remarkably well kept.
He was now before the bar of his country, and
might be understood to be on trial before Lord
Meadowbank as an offender; yet he was sure that
every impartial jury would bring in a verdict of
Not Proven. He did not now think it necessary
to enter into the reasons of his long silence. Perhaps
caprice might have a considerable share in it.
He had now to say, however, that the merits of
these works, if they had any, and their faults, were
entirely imputable to himself. (Long and loud
cheering.) He was afraid to think on what he had
done. ``Look on't again I dare not.'' He had thus
far unbosomed himself, and he knew that it would
be reported to the public. He meant, then, seriously
to state, that when he said he was the author,
he was the total and undivided author. With the
exception of quotations, there was not a single
word that was not derived from himself, or suggested
in the course of his reading. The wand was
now broken, and the book buried. You will allow
me further to say, with Prospero, it is your breath
that has filled my sails, and to crave one single
toast in the capacity of the author of these novels;
and he would dedicate a bumper to the health of
one who has represented some of those characters,
of which he had endeavoured to give the skeleton,
with a degree of liveliness which rendered him
grateful. He would propose the health of his friend
Bailie Nicol Jarvie, (loud applause)---and he was
sure, that when the author of Waverley and Rob Roy
drinks to Nicol Jarvie, it would be received with
that degree of applause to which that gentleman has
always been accustomed, and that they would take
care that on the present occasion it should be =prodigious=!
(Long and vehement applause.)
Mr Mackay, who here spoke with great humour
in the character of Bailie Jarvie.---My conscience!
My worthy father the deacon could not have believed
that his son could hae had sic a compliment
paid to him by the Great Unknown!
Sir Walter Scott.---The Small Known now,
Mr Bailie.
Mr Mackay.---He had been long identified with
the Bailie, and he was vain of the cognomen which
he had now worn for eight years; and he questioned
if any of his brethren in the Council had given
such universal satisfaction. (Loud laughter and applause.)
Before he sat down, he begged to propose
``the Lord Provost and the City of Edinburgh.''
Sir Walter Scott apologized for the absence
of the Lord Provost, who had gone to London on
public business.
Tune---``Within a mile of Edinburgh town.''
Sir Walter Scott gave, ``The Duke of Wellington
and the army.''
Glee---``How merrily we live.''
``Lord Melville and the Navy, that fought till
they left nobody to fight with, like an arch sportsman
who clears all and goes after the game.''
Mr Pat. Robertson---They had heard this
evening a toast, which had been received with intense
delight, which will be published in every
newspaper, and will be hailed with joy by all Europe.
He had one toast assigned him which he had
great pleasure in giving. He was sure that the
stage had in all ages a great effect on the morals
and manners of the people. It was very desirable
that the stage should be well regulated; and there
was no criterion by which its regulation could be
better determined than by the moral character and
personal respectability of the performers. He was
not one of those stern moralists who objected to
the Theatre. The most fastidious moralist could
not possibly apprehend any injury from the stage
of Edinburgh, as it was presently managed, and
so long as it was adorned by that illustrious individual,
Mrs Henry Siddons, whose public exhibitions
were not more remarkable for feminine
grace and delicacy, than was her private character
for every virtue which could be admired in domestic
life. He would conclude with reciting a few
words from Shakspeare, in a spirit not of contradiction
to those stern moralists who disliked the
Theatre, but of meekness:---``Good my lord, will
you see the players well bestowed? do you hear,
let them be well used, for they are the abstract
and brief chronicles of the time.'' He then gave
``Mrs Henry Siddons, and success to the Theatre-Royal
of Edinburgh.''
Mr Murray.---Gentlemen, I rise to return
thanks for the honour you have done Mrs Siddons,
in doing which I am somewhat difficulted,
from the extreme delicacy which attends a brother's
expatiating upon a sister's claims to honours
publicly paid---(hear, hear)---yet, Gentlemen, your
kindness emboldens me to say, that were I to give
utterance to all a brother's feelings, I should not
exaggerate those claims. (Loud applause.) I
therefore, Gentlemen, thank you most cordially
for the honour you have done her, and shall now
request permission to make an observation on the
establishment of the Edinburgh Theatrical Fund.
Mr Mackay has done Mrs Henry Siddons and myself
the honour to ascribe the establishment to us;
but no, Gentlemen, it owes its origin to a higher
source---the publication of the novel of Rob Roy
---the unprecedented success of the opera adapted
from that popular production. (Hear, hear.) It
was that success which relieved the Edinburgh
Theatre from its difficulties, and enabled Mrs Siddons
to carry into effect the establishment of a
fund she had long desired, but was prevented from
effecting, from the unsettled state of her theatrical
concerns. I therefore hope that, in future
years, when the aged and infirm actor derives relief
from this fund, he will, in the language of the gallant
Highlander, ``Cast his eye to good old Scotland,
and not forget Rob Roy.'' (Loud applause.)
Sir Walter Scott here stated, that Mrs Siddons
wanted the means but not the will of beginning
the Theatrical Fund. He here alluded to
the great merits of Mr Murray's management, and
to his merits as an actor, which were of the first
order, and of which every person who attends the
Theatre must be sensible; and after alluding to
the embarrassments with which the Theatre had
been at one period threatened, be concluded by
giving the health of Mr Murray, which was drunk
with three times three.
Mr Murray.---Gentlemen, I wish I Could believe,
that, in any degree, I merited the compliments
with which it has pleased Sir Walter Scott
to preface the proposal of my health, or the very
flattering manner in which you have done me the
honour to receive it. The approbation of such an
assembly is most gratifying to me, and might encourage
feelings of vanity, were not such feelings
crushed by my conviction, that no man holding the
situation I have so long held in Edinburgh, could
have failed, placed in the peculiar circumstances in
which I have been placed. Gentlemen, I shall not
insult your good taste by eulogiums upon your
judgment or kindly feeling; though to the first I
owe any improvement I may have made as an actor,
and certainly my success as a Manager to the
second. (Applause.) When, upon the death of
my dear brother the late Mr Siddons, it was proposed
that I should undertake the management of
the Edinburgh Theatre, I confess I drew back,
doubting my capability to free it from the load of
debt and difficulty with which it was surrounded.
In this state of anxiety, I solicited the advice of
one who had ever honoured me with his kindest
regard, and whose name no member of my profession
can pronounce without feelings of the deepest
respect and gratitude---I allude to the late Mr
John Kemble. (Great applause.) To him I
applied; and with the repetition of his advice I
shall cease to trespass upon your time-(Hear,
hear.)-``My dear William, fear not; integrity
and assiduity must prove an overmatch for all difficulty;
and though I approve your not indulging a
vain confidence in your ownability, and viewing with
respectful apprehension the judgment of the audience
you have to act before, yet be assured that
judgment will ever be tempered by the feeling
that you are acting for the widow and the fatherless.''
(Loud applause.) Gentlemen, those words
have never passed from my mind; and I feel convinced
that you have pardoned my many errors,
from the feeling that I was striving for the widow
and the fatherless. (Long and enthusiastic applause
followed Mr Murray's address.)
Sir Walter Scott gave the health of the
Stewards.
Mr Vandenhoff.---Mr President and Gentlemen,
the honour conferred upon the Stewards, in the
very flattering compliment you have just paid us,
calls forth our warmest acknowledgments. In tendering
you our thanks for the approbation you have
been pleased to express of our humble exertions,
I would beg leave to advert to the cause in which
we have been engaged. Yet, surrounded as I am
by the genius---the eloquence of this enlightened
city, I cannot but feel the presumption which ventures
to address you on so interesting a subject.
Accustomed to speak in the language of others, I
feel quite at a loss for terms wherein to clothe the
sentiments excited by the present occasion. (Applause.)
The nature of the Institution which has
sought your fostering patronage, and the objects
which it contemplates, have been fully explained
to you. But, gentlemen, the relief which it proposes
is not a gratuitous relief---but to be purchased
by the individual contribution of its members towards
the general good. This Fund lends no encouragement
to idleness or improvidence; but it offers
an opportunity to prudence, in vigour and youth,
to make provision against the evening of life and
its attendant infirmity. A period is fixed, at
which we admit the plea of age as an exemption
from professional labour. It is painful to behold
the veteran on the stage (compelled by necessity)
contending against physical decay, mocking the
joyousness of mirth with the feebleness of age,
when the energies decline, when the memory
fails, and ``the big manly voice, turning again towards
childish treble, pipes and whistles in the
sound.'' We would remove him from the mimic
scene, where fiction constitutes the charm; we
would not view old age caricaturing itself. (Applause.)
But as our means may be found, in time
of need, inadequate to the fulfilment of our wishes
---fearful of raising expectations, which we may be
unable to gratify-desirous not ``to keep the word
of promise to the ear, and break it to the hope''---
we have presumed to court the assistance of the
friends of the drama to strengthen our infant institution.
Our appeal has been successful, beyond
oar most sanguine expectations. The distinguished
patronage conferred on us by your presence on
this occasion, and the substantial support which
your benevolence has so liberally afforded to our
institution, must impress every member of the
Fund with the most grateful sentiments---sentiments
which no language can express, no time obliterate.
(Applause.) I will not trespass longer on
your attention. I would the task of acknowledging
our obligation had fallen into abler hands. (Hear,
hear.) In the name of the Stewards, I most respectfully
and cordially thank you for the honour
you have done us, which greatly overpays our
poor endeavours. (Applause.)
[This speech, though rather inadequately reported,
was one of the best delivered on this occasion.
That it was creditable to Mr Vandenhoff's
taste and feelings, the preceding sketch will show;
but how much it was so, it does not show.]
Mr J. Cay gave Professor Wilson and the University
of Edinburgh, of which he was one of the
brightest ornaments.
Lord Meadowbank, after a suitable eulogium,
gave the Earl of Fife, which was drunk with three
times three.
Earl Fife expressed his high gratification at
the honour conferred on him. He intimated his
approbation of the institution, and his readiness to
promote its success by every means in his power.
He concluded with giving the health of the Company
of Edinburgh.
Mr Jones, on rising to return thanks, being
received with considerable applause, said he was
truly grateful for the kind encouragement he had
experienced, but the novelty of the situation in
which he now was, renewed all the feelings he
experienced when he first saw himself announced
in the bills as a young gentleman, being his first
appearance on any stage. (Laughter and applause.)
Although in the presence of those whose indulgence
had, in another sphere, so often shielded
him from the penalties of inability, be was unable
to execute the task which had so unexpectedly devolved
upon him in behalf of his brethren and
himself. He therefore begged the company to
imagine all that grateful hearts could prompt the
most eloquent to utter, and that would be a copy
of their feelings. (Applause.) He begged to trespass
another moment on their attentions, for the
purpose of expressing the thanks of the members
of the Fund to the Gentlemen of the Edinburgh
Professional Society of Musicians, who, finding
that this meeting was appointed to take place on
the same evening with their concert, had in the
handsomest manner agreed to postpone it. Although
it was his duty thus to preface the toast he
had to propose, he was certain the meeting required
no farther inducement than the recollection of the
pleasure the exertions of those gentlemen had
often afforded them within those walls, to join
heartily in drinking ``Health and prosperity to
the Edinburgh Professional Society of Musicians.''
(Applause.)
Mr Pat. Robertson proposed ``the health of
Mr Jeffrey,'' whose absence was owing to indisposition.
The public was well aware that he was
the most distinguished advocate at the bar; he was
likewise distinguished for the kindness, frankness,
and cordial manner in which he communicated
with the junior members of the profession, to the
esteem of whom his splendid talents would always
entitle him.
Mr J. Maconochie gave ``the health of Mrs
Siddons, senior---the most distinguished ornament
of the stage.''
Sir W. Scott said, that if any thing could reconcile
him to old age, it was the reflection that he
had seen the rising as well as the setting sun of
Mrs Siddons. He remembered well their breakfasting
near to the theatre---waiting the whole day
---the crushing at the doors at six o'clock---and
their going in and counting their fingers till seven
o'clock. But the very first step---the very first
word which she uttered, was sufficient to overpay
him for all his labours. The house was literally
electrified; and it was only from witnessing the
effects of her genius, that he could guess to what
a pitch theatrical excellence could be carried.
Those young gentlemen who have only seen the
setting sun of this distinguished performer, beautiful
and serene as that was, must give us old fellows,
who have seen its rise and its meridian, leave to
hold our heads a little higher.
Mr Dundas gave ``The memory of Home, the
author of Douglas.''
Mr Mackay here announced that the subscription
for the night amounted to L.280; and he expressed
gratitude for this substantial proof of their
kindness. [We are happy to state that subscriptions
have since flowed in very liberally.]
Mr Mackay here entertained the company with
a pathetic song.
Sir Walter Scott apologized for having so
long forgotten their native land. He would now give
Scotland, the Land of Cakes. He would give
every river, every loch, every hill, from Tweed to
Johnnie Groat's house--every lass in her cottage
and countess in her castle; and may her sons stand
by her, as their fathers did before them, and he
who would not drink a bumper to his toast, may
he never drink whisky more!
Sir Walter Scott here gave Lord Meadowbank,
who returned thanks.
Mr H. G. Bell said, that he should not have
ventured to intrude himself upon the attention of
the assembly, did be not feel confident, that the
toast he begged to have the honour to propose,
would retake amends for the very imperfect manner
in which be might express his sentiments regarding
it. It had been said, that notwithstanding
the mental supremacy of the present age, notwithstanding
that the page of our history was studded
with names destined also for the page of immortality,
---that the genius of Shakspeare was extinct,
and the fountain of his inspiration dried up. It
might be that these observations were unfortunately
correct, or it might be that we were bewildered
with a name, not disappointed of the reality,
---for though Shakspeare had brought a Hamlet,
an Othello, and a Macbeth, an Ariel, a Juliet, and
a Rosalind, upon the stage, were there not authors
living who had brought as varied, as exquisitely
painted, and as undying a range of characters into
our hearts? The shape of the mere mould into
which genius poured its golden treasures was surely
a matter of little moment,---let it be called a Tragedy,
a Comedy, or a Waverley Novel. But even
among the dramatic authors of the present day, he
was unwilling to allow that there was a great and
palpable decline from the glory of preceding ages,
and his toast alone would bear him out in denying
the truth of the proposition. After eulogizing the
names of Baillie, Byron, Coleridge, Maturin, and
others, he begged to have the honour of proposing
the health of James Sheridan Knowles.
Sir Walter Scott.---Gentlemen, I crave a
bumper all over. The last toast reminds me of a neglect
of duty. Unaccustomed to a public duty of this
kind, errors in conducting the ceremonial of it may
be excused, and omissions pardoned. Perhaps I
have made one or two omissions in the course of the
evening, for which I trust you will grant me your
pardon and indulgence. One thing in particular I
have omitted, and I would now wish to make
amends for it, by a libation of reverence and respect
to the memory of Shakspeare. He was a
man of universal genius, and from a period soon
after his own era to the present day, he has been
universally idolized. When I come to his honoured
name, I am like the sick man who hung up his
crutches at the shrine, and was obliged to confess
that he did not walk better than before. It is
indeed difficult, gentlemen, to compare him to any
other individual. The only one to whom I can at
all compare him, is the wonderful Arabian dervish,
who dived into the body of each, and in this way
became familiar with the thoughts and secrets of
their hearts. He was a man of obscure origin,
and, as a player, limited in his acquirements, but
he was born evidently with a universal genius.
His eyes glanced at all the varied aspects of life,
and his fancy portrayed with equal talents the king
on the throne, and the clown who crackles his
chestnuts at a Christmas fire. Whatever note he
takes, he strikes it just and true, and awakens a
corresponding chord in our own bosoms. Gentlemen,
I propose ``The memory of William Shakspeare.''
Glee,---``Lightly tread, 'tis hallowed ground.''
After the glee, Sir Walter rose, and begged to
propose as a toast the health of a lady, whose living
merit is not a little honourable to Scotland. The
toast (said he) is also flattering to the national
vanity of a Scotchman, as the lady whom I intend
to propose is a native of this country. From the
public her works have met with the most favourable
reception. One piece of hers, in particular, was
often acted here of late years, and gave pleasure
of no mean kind to many brilliant and fashionable
audiences. In her private character she (he begged
leave to say) is as remarkable, as in a public
sense she is for her genius. In short, he would
in one word name-``Joanna Baillie.''
This health being drunk, Mr Thorne was called
on for a song, and sung, with great taste and feeling,
``The Anchor's weighed.''
W. Menzies, Esq., Advocate, rose to propose
the health of a gentleman for many years connected
at intervals with the dramatic art in Scotland.
Whether we look at the range of characters he
performs, or at the capacity which he evinces in
executing those which he undertakes, he is equally
to be admired. In all his parts he is unrivalled.
The individual to whom he alluded is, (said he)
well known to the gentlemen present, in the characters
of Malvolio, Lord Ogleby, and the Green
Man; and, in addition to his other qualities, he
merits, for his perfection in these characters, the
grateful sense of this meeting. He would wish, in
the first place, to drink his health as an actor; but
he was not less estimable in domestic life, and as a
private gentleman; and when be announced him
as one whom the chairman had honoured with his
friendship, he was sure that all present would cordially
join him in drinking ``The health of Mr
Terry.''
Mr William Allan, banker, said, that he did
not rise with the intention of making a speech. He
merely wished to contribute in a few words to the
mirth of the evening---an evening which certainly
had not passed off without some blunders. It had
been understood---at least be had learnt or supposed,
from the expressions of Mr Pritchard---that
it would be sufficient to put a paper, with the name
of the contributor, into the box, and that the gentleman
thus contributing would be called on for the
money next morning. He, for his part, had committed
a blunder, but it might serve as a caution
to those who may be present at the dinner of next
year. He had merely put in his name, written on
a slip of paper, without the money. But he would
recommend that, as some of the gentlemen might
be in the same situation, the box should be again
sent round, and he was confident that they, as well
as he, would redeem their error.
Sir Walter Scott said, that the meeting was
somewhat in the situation of Mrs Anne Page, who
had L.300 and possibilities. We have already got,
said he, L.280, but I should like, I confess, to have
the L.300. He would gratify himself by proposing
the health of ail honourable person, the Lord
Chief Baron, whom England has sent to us, and
connecting with it that of his ``yokefellow on the
bench,'' as Shakspeare says, Mr Baron Clerk---
The Court of Exchequer.
Mr Baron CLERK regretted the absence of his
learned brother. None, he was sure, could be more
generous in his nature, or more ready to help a
Scottish purpose.
Sir Walter Scott.---There is one who ought
to be remembered on this occasion. He is, indeed,
well entitled to our grateful recollection---one, in
short, to whom the drama in this city owes much.
He succeeded, not without trouble, and perhaps at
some considerable sacrifice, in establishing a theatre.
The younger part of the company may not recollect
the theatre to which I allude; but there are
some who with me may remember by name a place
called Carrubber's Close. There Allan Ramsay
established his little theatre. His own pastoral
was not fit for the stage, but it has its admirers in
those who love the Doric language in which it is
written; and it is not without merits of a very peculiar
kind. But, laying aside all considerations of
his literary merit, Allan was a good jovial honest
fellow, who could crack a bottle with the best.---
The memory of Allan Ramsay.
Mr Murray, on being requested, sung, ``'Twas
merry in the hall,'' and at the conclusion was greeted
with repeated rounds of applause.
Mr Jones.---One omission I conceive has been
made. The cause of the fund has been ably advocated,
but it is still susceptible, in my opinion, of
an additional charm---
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh, what were man?---a world without a sun
And there would not be a darker spot in poetry
than would be the corner in Shakspeare Square,
if, like its fellow, the Register Office, the Theatre
were deserted by the ladies. They are, in fact,
our most attractive stars.---``The Patronesses of
the Theatre---the Ladies of the City of Edinburgh.''
This toast I ask leave to drink with all
the honours which conviviality can confer.
Mr Patrick Robertson would be the last
man willingly to introduce any topic calculated to
interrupt the harmony of the evening; yet he felt
himself treading upon ticklish ground when be approached
the region of the Nor' Loch. He assured
the company, however, that he was not about to
enter on the subject of the Improvement bill. They
all knew, that if the public were unanimous---if
the consent of all parties were obtained---if the
rights and interests of every body were therein
attended to, saved, reserved, respected, and excepted
---if every body agreed to it---and finally, a
most essential point---if nobody opposed it---then,
and in that case, and provided also, that due intimation
were given---the bill in question might pass
---would pass---or might, could, would, or should
pass---all expenses being defrayed.---(Laughter.)---
He was the advocate of neither champion,and would
neither avail himself of the absence of the Right
Hon. the Lord Provost, nor take advantage of the
non-appearance of his friend, Mr Cockburn.---
(Laughter.)---But in the midst of these civic broils,
there had been elicited a ray of hope, that, at some
future period, in Bereford Park, or some other place,
if all parties were consulted and satisfied, and if intimation
were duly made at the Kirk doors of all
the parishes in Scotland, in terms of the statute in
that behalf provided---the people of Edinburgh
might by possibility get a new theatre.---(Cheers
and laughter.)---But wherever the belligerent
powers might be pleased to set down this new
theatre, he was sure they all hoped to meet the
Old Company in it. He should therefore propose
---``Better accommodation to the Old Company
in the new theatre, site unknown.''---Mr Robertson's
speech was most humorously given, and he
sat down amidst loud cheers and laughter.
Sir Walter Scott.---Wherever the new
theatre is built, I hope it will not be large.
There are two errors which we commonly commit
---the one arising from our pride, the other from
our poverty. If there are twelve plans, it is odds
but the largest, without any regard to comfort, or
an eye to the probable expense, is adopted. There
was the College projected on this scale, and undertaken
in the same manner, and who shall see the
end of it? It has been building all my life, and
may probably last during the lives of my children,
and my children's children. Let not the same prophetic
hymn be sung, when we commence a new
theatre, which was performed on the occasion of
laying the foundation stone of a certain edifice,
``behold the endless work begun.'' Play-going
folks should attend somewhat to convenience. The
new theatre should, in the first Place, be such as
may be finished in eighteen months or two years;
and, in the second place, it should be one in which
we can hear our old friends with comfort. It is
better that a moderate-sized house should be crowded
now and then, than to have a large Theatre
with benches continually empty, to the discouragement
of the actors, and the discomfort of the spectators.
---(Applause.)---He then commented in flattering
terms on the genius of Mackenzie and his
private worth, and concluded by proposing ``the
health of Henry Mackenzie, Esq.''
Immediately afterwards he said: Gentlemen,---
It is now wearing late, and I shall request permission
to retire. Like Partridge I may say, ``non
sum qualis eram.'' At my time of day, I can agree
with Lord Ogilvie as to his rheumatism, and say,
``There's a twinge.'' I hope, therefore, you will
excuse me for leaving the chair.---(The worthy
Baronet then retired amidst long, loud, and rapturous
cheering.)
Mr Patrick Robertson was then called to the
chair by common acclamation.
Gentlemen, said Mr Robertson, I take the
liberty of asking you to fill a bumper to the very
brim. There is not one of us who will not remember,
while he lives, being present at this day's festival,
and the declaration made this night by the
gentleman who has just left the chair. That declaration
has rent the veil from the features of the
Great Unknown---a name which must now merge
in the name of the Great Known. It will be
henceforth coupled with the name of Scott, which
will become familiar like a household word. We
have heard the confession from his own immortal
lips---(cheering)---and we cannot dwell with too
much, or too fervent praise, on the merits of the
greatest man whom Scotland has produced.
After which, several other toasts were given,
and Mr Robertson left the room about half-past
eleven. A few choice spirits, however, rallied
round Captain Broadhead of the 7th hussars, who
was called to the chair, and the festivity was prolonged
till an early hour on Saturday morning.
The band of the Theatre occupied the gallery,
and that of the 7th hussars the end of the room,
opposite the chair, whose performances were greatly
admired. It is but justice to Mr Gibb to state
that the dinner was very handsome (though slowly
served in) and the wines good. The attention of
the stewards was exemplary. Mr Murray and Mr
Vandenhoff, with great good taste, attended on Sir
Walter Scott's right and left, and we know that
he has expressed himself much gratified by their
anxious politeness and sedulity.
[3. Introductory]
CHRONICLES
OF
THE CANONGATE.
CHAPTER I.
Mr Chrystal Croftangry's account of
Himself.
Sic itur ad astra.
``This is the path to heaven.'' Such is the ancient
motto attached to the armorial bearings of
the Canongate, and which is inscribed, with greater
or less propriety, upon all the public buildings,
from the church to the pillory, in the ancient quarter
of Edinburgh, which bears, or rather once
bore, the same relation to the Good Town that
Westminster does to London, being still possessed
of the palace of the sovereign, as it formerly was
dignified by the residence of the principal nobility
and gentry. I may, therefore, with some propriety,
put the same motto at the bead of the literary
undertaking by which I hope to illustrate the
hitherto undistinguished name of Chrystal Croftangry.
The public may desire to know something of
an author who pitches at such height his ambitious
expectations. The gentle reader, therefore---for
I am much of Captain Bobadil's humour, and could
to no other extend myself so far---the _gentle_ reader,
then, will be pleased to understand, that I am
a Scottish gentleman of the old school, with a fortune,
temper, and person, rather the worse for
wear. I have known the world for these forty
years, having written myself man nearly since
that period---and I do not think it is much mended.
But this is an opinion which I keep to myself
when I am among younger folk, for I recollect,
in my youth, quizzing the Sexagenarians who
carried back their ideas of a perfect state of society
to the days of laced coats and triple ruffles, and
some of them to the blood and blows of the Forty-five:
Therefore I am cautious in exercising the
right of censorship, which is supposed to be acquired
by men arrived at, or approaching, the mysterious
period of life, when the numbers of seven
and nine multiplied into each other, form what
sages have termed the Grand Climacteric.
Of the earlier part of my life it is only necessary
to say, that I swept the boards of the Parliament-House
with the skirts of my gown for the
usual number of years during which young Lairds
were in my time expected to keep term---got no
fees---laughed, and made others laugh---drank claret
at Bayle's, Fortune's, and Walker's---and eat
oysters in the Covenant Close.
Becoming my own master, I flung my gown at
the bar-keeper, and commenced gay man on my
own account. In Edinburgh, I ran into all the
expensive society which the place then afforded.
When I went to my house in the shire of Lanark,
I emulated to the utmost the expenses of men of
large fortune, and had my hunters, my first-rate
pointers, my game-cocks, and feeders. I can more
easily forgive myself for these follies, than for
others of a still more blamable kind, so indifferently
cloaked over, that my poor mother thought
herself obliged to leave my habitation, and betake
herself to a small inconvenient jointure-house,
which she occupied till her death. I think, however,
I was not exclusively to blame in this separation,
and I believe my mother afterwards condemned
herself for being too hasty. Thank God,
the adversity which destroyed the means of continuing
my dissipation, restored me to the affections
of my surviving parent.
My course of life could not last. I ran too fast
to run long; and when I would have checked my
career, I was perhaps too near the brink of the
precipice. Some mishaps I prepared by my own
folly, others came upon me unawares. I put my
estate out to nurse to a fat man of business, who
smothered the babe he should have brought back
to me in health and strength, and, in dispute with
this honest gentleman, I found, like a skilful general,
that my position would be most judiciously
assumed by taking it up near the Abbey of Holyrood.*
* Note A. Holyrood.
It was then I first became acquainted with
the quarter, which my little work will, I hope,
render immortal, and grew familiar with those
magnificent wilds, through which the Kings of
Scotland once chased the dark-brown deer, but
which were chiefly recommended to me in those
days, by their being inaccessible to those metaphysical
persons, whom the law of the neighbouring
country terms John Doe and Richard Roe. In
short, the precincts of the palace are now best
known as being a place of refuge at any time from
all pursuit for civil debt.
Dire was the strife betwixt my quondam doer
and myself; during which my motions were circumscribed,
like those of some conjured demon,
within a circle, which, ``beginning at the northern
gate of the King's Park, thence running northways,
is bounded on the left by the King's garden-wall,
and the gutter, or kennel, in a line wherewith
it crosses the High Street to the Watergate,
and passing through the sewer, is bounded
by the walls of the Tennis-court and Physic-garden,
&c. It then follows the wall of the churchyard,
joins the north west wall of St Ann's Yards,
and going east to the clack mill-house, turns southward
to the turnstile in the King's park-wall, and
includes the whole King's Park within the Sanctuary.''
These limits, which I abridge from the accurate
Maitland, once marked the Girth, or Asylum, belonging
to the Abbey of Holyrood, and which,
being still an appendage to the royal palace, has
retained the privilege of an asylum for civil debt.
One would think the space sufficiently extensive
for a man to stretch his limbs in, as, besides a reasonable
proportion of level ground, (considering
that the scene lies in Scotland,) it includes within
its precincts the mountain of Arthur's Seat, and
the rocks and pasture land called Salisbury Crags.
But yet it is inexpressible how, after a certain
time had elapsed, I used to long for Sunday' which
permitted me to extend my walk without limitation.
During the other six days of the week I
felt a sickness of heart, which, but for the speedy
approach of the hebdomadal day of liberty, I could
hardly have endured. I experienced the impatience
of a mastiff, who tugs in vain to extend the
limits which his chain permits.
Day after day I walked by the side of the kennel
which divides the Sanctuary from the unprivileged
part of the Canongate; and though the
month was July, and the scene the old town of
Edinburgh, I preferred it to the fresh air and verdant
turf which I might have enjoyed in the King's
Park, or to the cool and solemn gloom of the portico
which surrounds the palace. To an indifferent
person either side of the gutter would have seemed
much the same---the houses equally mean, the
children as ragged and dirty, the carmen as brutal,
the whole forming the same picture of low life in a
deserted and impoverished quarter of a large city.
But to me, the gutter, or kennel, was what the
brook Kedron was to Shimei; death was denounced
against him should he cross it, doubtless because
it was known to his wisdom who pronounced the
doom, that from the time the crossing the stream
was debarred, the devoted man's desire to transgress
the precept would become irresistible, and he
would be sure to draw down on his head the penalty
which he had already justly incurred by cursing
the anointed of God. For my part, all Elysium
seemed opening on the other side of the kennel,
and I envied the little blackguards, who, stopping
the current with their little dam-dikes of mud, had
a right to stand on either side of the nasty puddle
which best pleased them. I was so childish as even
to make an occasional excursion across, were it
only for a few yards, and felt the triumph of a
schoolboy, who, trespassing in an orchard, hurries
back again with a fluttering sensation of joy and
terror, betwixt the pleasure of having executed
his purpose, and the fear of being taken or discovered.
I have sometimes asked myself, what I should
have done in case of actual imprisonment, since I
could not bear without impatience a restriction
which is comparatively a mere trifle; but I really
could never answer the question to my own satisfaction.
I have all my life hated those treacherous
expedients called _mezzo-termini_, and it is possible
with this disposition I might have endured more
patiently an absolute privation of liberty, than the
more modified restrictions to which my residence
in the Sanctuary at this period subjected me. If,
however, the feelings I then experienced were to
increase in intensity according to the difference
between a jail and my actual condition, I must have
hanged myself, or pined to death; there could have
been no other alternative.
Amongst many companions who forgot and neglected
me of course, when my difficulties seemed
to be inextricable, I had one true friend; and that
friend was a barrister, who knew the laws of his
country well, and, tracing them up to the spirit of
equity and justice in which they originate, had
repeatedly prevented, by his benevolent and manly
exertions, the triumphs of selfish cunning over
simplicity and folly. He undertook my cause,
with the assistance of a solicitor of a character similar
to his own. My quondam doer had ensconced
himself chin-deep among legal trenches, hornworks,
and, covered ways; but my two protectors shelled
him out of his defences, and I was at length a free
man, at liberty to go or stay wheresoever my mind
listed.
I left my lodgings as hastily as if it had been a
pest-house; I did not even stop to receive some
change that was due to me on settling with my
landlady, and I saw the poor woman stand at her
door looking after my precipitate flight, and shaking
her head as she wrapped the silver which she
was counting for me in a separate piece of paper,
apart from the store in her own moleskin purse.
An honest Highlandwoman was Janet MacEvoy,
and deserved a greater remuneration, had I possessed
the power of bestowing it. But my eagerness
of delight was too extreme to pause for explanation
with Janet. On I pushed through the
groups of children, of whose sports I had been so
often a lazy lounging spectator. I sprung over
the gutter as if it had been the fatal Styx, and I a
ghost, which, eluding Pluto's authority, was making
its escape from Limbo lake. My friend had
difficulty to restrain me from running like a madman
up the street; and in spite of his kindness and
hospitality, which soothed me for a day or two, I
was not quite happy until I found myself aboard of
a Leith smack, and, standing down the Frith with
a fair wind, might snap my fingers at the retreating
outline of Arthur's Seat, to the vicinity of which
I had been so long confined.
It is not my purpose to trace my future progress
through life. I had extricated myself, or rather
had been freed by my friends, from the brambles
and thickets of the law, but, as befell the sheep in
the fable, a great part of my fleece was left behind
me. Something remained, however; I was in the
season for exertion, and, as my good mother used
to say, there was always life for living folk. Stern
necessity gave my manhood that prudence which
my youth was a stranger to. I faced danger, I
endured fatigue, I sought foreign climates, and
proved that I belonged to the nation which is proverbially
patient of labour and prodigal of life. Independence,
like liberty to Virgil's shepherd, came
late, but came at last, with no great affluence in its
train, but bringing enough to support a decent appearance
for the rest of my life, and to induce
cousins to be civil, and gossips to say, ``I wonder
who old Croft will make his heir? he must have
picked up something, and I should not be surprised
if it prove more than folk think of.''
My first impulse when I returned home was
to rush to the house of my benefactor, the only
man who had in my distress interested himself in
my behalf. He was a snuff-taker, and it had been
the pride of my heart to save the _ipsa corpora_ of
the first score of guineas I could hoard, and to have
them converted into as tasteful a snuff-box as Rundell
and Bridge could devise. This I had thrust
for security into the breast of my waistcoat, while,
impatient to transfer it to the person for whom it
was destined, I hastened to his house in Brown's
Square. When the front of the house became
visible, a feeling of alarm checked me. I had been
long absent from Scotland, my friend was some
years older than I; he might have been called to
the congregation of the just. I paused, and gazed
on the house, as if I had hoped to form some conjecture
from the outward appearance concerning
the state of the family within. I know not how it
was, but the lower windows being all closed and
no one stirring, my sinister forebodings were rather
strengthened. I regretted now that I had not
made enquiry before I left the inn where I alighted
from the mail-coach. But it was too late; so I hurried
on, cager to know the best or the worst which
I could learn.
The brass-plate bearing my friend's name and
designation was still on the door, and when it
was opened, the old domestic appeared a good
deal older I thought than he ought naturally
to have looked, considering the period of my absence.
``Is Mr Sommerville at home?'' said I,
pressing forward.
``Yes, sir,'' said John, placing himself in opposition
to my entrance, ``he is at home, but------''
``But he is not in,'' said I. ``I remember your
phrase of old, John. Come, I will step into his
room, and leave a line for him.''
John was obviously embarrassed by my familiarity.
I was some one, lie saw, whom he ought to
recollect, at the same time it was evident he remembered
nothing about me.
``Ay, sir, my master is in, and in his own room,
but------''
I would not hear him out, but passed before him
towards the well-known apartment. A young lady
came out of the room a little disturbed, as it seemed,
and said, ``John, what is the matter?''
``A gentleman, Miss Nelly, that insists on seeing
my master.''
``A very old and deeply indebted friend,'' said
I, ``that ventures to press myself on my much-respected
benefactor on my return from abroad.''
``Alas, sir,'' replied she, ``my uncle would be
happy to see you, but------''
At this moment, something was heard within
the apartment like the falling of a plate, or glass,
and immediately after my friend's voice called
angrily and eagerly for his niece. She entered the
room hastily, and so did I. But it was to see a
spectacle, compared with which that of my benefactor
stretched on his bier would have been a
happy one.
The easy-chair filled with cushions, the extended
limbs swathed in flannel, the wide wrapping-gown
and nightcap, showed illness; but the dimmed
eye, once so replete with living fire, the blabber
lip, whose dilation and compression used to give
such character to his animated countenance,---the
stammering tongue, that once poured forth such
floods of masculine eloquence, and had often swayed
the opinion of the sages whom he addressed,---all
these sad symptoms evinced that my friend was in
the melancholy condition of those, in whom the
principle of animal life has unfortunately survived
that of mental intelligence. He gazed a moment at
me, but then seemed insensible of my presence, and
went on---he, once the most courteous and well-bred!
---to babble unintelligible but violent reproaches
against his niece and servant, because he himself
had dropped a teacup in attempting to Place it on
a table at his elbow. His eyes caught a momentary
fire from his irritation; but he struggled in vain
for words to express himself adequately, as, looking
from his servant to his niece and then to the
table, he laboured to explain that they had placed
it (though it touched his chair) at too great a distance
from him.
The young person, who had naturally a resigned
Madonna-like expression of countenance, listened
to his impatient chiding with the most humble submission,
checked the servant, whose less delicate
feelings would have entered on his justification, and
gradually, by the sweet and soft tone of her voice,
soothed to rest the spirit of causeless irritation.
She then cast a look towards me, which expressed,
``You see all that remains of him whom you
call friend.'' It seemed also to say, ``Your longer
presence here can only be distressing to us all.''
``Forgive me young lady,'' I said, as well as
tears would permit; ``I am a person deeply obliged
to your uncle. My name is Croftangry.''
``Lord! and that I should not hae minded ye,
Maister Croftangry,'' said the servant. ``Ay, I
mind my master had muckle fash about your job.
I hae heard him order in fresh candles as midnight
chappit, and till't again. Indeed, ye had aye his
gude word, Mr Croftangry, for a' that folks said
about you.''
``Hold your tongue, John,'' said the lady, somewhat
angrily; and then continued, addressing herself
to me, ``I am sure, sir, you must be sorry to
see my uncle in this state. I know you are his
friend. I have heard him mention your name, and
wonder he never heard from you.'' A new cut this,
and it went to my heart. But she continued, ``I
really do not know if it is right that any should---
If my uncle should know you, which I scarce think
possible, he would be much affected, and the doctor
says that any agitation------But here comes Dr------
to give his own opinion.''
Dr ------ entered. I had left him a middle-aged
man; he was now an elderly one; but still the same
benevolent Samaritan, who went about doing good,
and thought the blessings of the poor as good a
recompense of his professional skill as the gold of
the rich.
He looked at me with surprise, but the young
lady said a word of introduction, and I, who was
known to the doctor formerly, hastened to complete
it. He recollected me perfectly, and intimated
that he was well acquainted with the reasons
I had for being deeply interested in the fate of his
patient. He gave me a very melancholy account
of my poor friend, drawing me for that purpose a
little apart from the lady. ``The light of life,'' he
said, ``was trembling in the socket; he scarcely
expected it would ever leap up even into a momentary
flash, but more was impossible.'' He then
stepped towards his patient, and put some questions,
to which the poor invalid, though he seemed
to recognise the friendly and familiar voice, answered
only in a faltering and uncertain manner.
The young lady, in her turn, had drawn back
when the doctor approached his patient. ``You see
how it is with him,'' said the doctor, addressing
me; ``I have heard our poor friend, in one of the
most eloquent of his pleadings, give a description
of this very disease, which he compared to the tortures
inflicted by Mezentius, when he chained the
dead to the living. The soul, he said, is imprisoned
in its dungeon of flesh, and though retaining its
natural and unalienable properties, can no more
exert them than the captive enclosed within a prison-house
can act as a free agent. Alas! to see
him, who could so well describe what this malady
was in others, a prey himself to its infirmities! I
shall never forget the solemn tone of expression
with which he summed up the incapacities of the
paralytic,---the deafened ear, the dimmed eye, the
crippled limbs,---in the noble words of Juvenal---
------` omni
Membrorum damno major, dementia, qu<ae> nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultum agnoscit amici.' ''
As the physician repeated these lines, a flash of
intelligence seemed to revive in the invalid's eye---
sunk again---again struggled, and he spoke more
intelligibly than before, and in the tone of one
eager to say something which he felt would escape
him unless said instantly. ``A question of death-bed,
a question of death-bed, doctor---a reduction
_ex capite lecti_---Withering against Wilibus---about
the _morbus sonticus_. I pleaded the cause for the
pursuer---I, and---and---Why, I shall forget my
own name---I,and---he that was the wittiest and
the best-humoured man living---''
The description enabled the doctor to fill up the
blank, and the patient joyfully repeated the name
suggested. ``Ay, ay,'' he said, ``just he---Harry
---poor Harry---'' The light in his eye died
away, and he sunk back in his easy-chair.
``You have now seen more of our poor friend,
Mr Croftangry,'' said the physician, ``than I dared
venture to promise you; and now I must take my
professional authority on me, and ask you to retire.
Miss Sommerville will, I am sure, let you know if
a moment should by any chance occur when her
uncle can see you.''
What could I do? I gave my card to the young
lady, and, taking my offering from my bosom---
``if my poor friend,'' I said, with accents as broken
almost as his own, ``should ask where this came
from, name me; and say from the most obliged and
most grateful man alive. Say, the gold of which
it is composed was saved by grains at a time, and
was hoarded with as much avarice as ever was a
miser's:---to bring it here I have come a thousand
miles, and now, alas, I find him thus!''
I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with
a lingering step. The eye of the invalid was caught
by it, as that of a child by a glittering toy, and with
infantine impatience he faltered out enquiries of Dis
niece. With gentle mildness she repeated again
and again who I was, and why I came, &c. I was
about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful,
when the physician laid his hand on my sleeve---
``Stop,'' he said, ``there is a change.''
There was indeed, and a marked one. A faint
glow spread over his pallid features---they seemed
to gain the look of intelligence which belongs to
vitality---his eye once more kindled---his lip coloured---
and drawing himself up out of the listless posture
he had hitherto maintained, he rose without
assistance. The doctor and the servant ran to give
him their support. He waved them aside, and they
were contented to place themselves in such a postion
behind as might ensure against accident, should
his newly-acquired strength decay as suddenly as
it had revived.
``My dear Croftangry,'' he said, in the tone of
kindness of other days, ``I am glad to see you returned---
You find me but poorly---but my little
niece here and Dr ------ are very kind---God bless
you, my dear friend! we shall not meet again till
we meet in a better world.''
I pressed his extended hand to my lips---I pressed
it to my bosom---I would fain have flung myself
on my knees; but the doctor, leaving the patient
to the young lady and the servant, who wheeled
forward his chair, and were replacing him in it,
hurried me out of the room. ``My dear sir,'' he
said, ``you ought to be satisfied; you have seen
our poor invalid more like his former self than he
has been for months, or than he may be perhaps
again until all is over. The whole Faculty could
not have assured such an interval---I must see whether
any thing can be derived from it to improve
the general health---Pray, begone.'' The last argument
hurried me from the spot, agitated by a crowd
of feelings, all of them painful.
When I had overcome the shock of this great
disappointment, I renewed gradually my acquaintance
with one or two old companions, who, though
of infinitely less interest to my feelings than my
unfortunate friend, served to relieve the pressure
of actual solitude, and who were not perhaps the
less open to my advances, that I was a bachelor
somewhat stricken in years, newly arrived from
foreign parts, and certainly independent, if not
wealthy.
I was considered as a tolerable subject of speculation
by some, and I could not be burdensome to
any: I was therefore, according to the ordinary
rule of Edinburgh hospitality, a welcome guest in
several respectable families; but I found no one
who could replace the loss I had sustained in my
best friend and benefactor. I wanted something
more than mere companionship could give me, and
where was I to look for it?---among the scattered
remnants of those that had been my gay friends of
yore?---alas;
Many a lad I loved was dead,
And many a lass grown old.
Besides, all community of ties between us had
ceased to exist, and such of former friends as were
still in the world, held their life in a different tenor
from what I did.
Some had become misers, and were as eager in
saving sixpence as ever they had been in spending
a guinea. Some had turned agriculturists---their
talk was of oxen, and they were only fit companions
for graziers. Some stuck to cards, and
though no longer deep gamblers, rather played
small game than sat out. This I particularly despised.
The strong impulse of gaming, alas! I
had felt in my time---it is as intense as it is criminal;
but it produces excitation and interest, and I
can conceive how it should become a passion with
strong and powerful minds. But to dribble away
life in exchanging bits of painted pasteboard round
a green table, for the piddling concern of a few
shillings, can only be excused in folly or superannuation.
It is like riding on a rocking-horse, where
your utmost exertion never carries you a foot forward;
it is a kind of mental tread-mill, where you
are perpetually climbing, but can never rise an
inch. From these hints, my readers will perceive
I am incapacitated for one of the pleasures of old
age, which, though not mentioned by Cicero, is
not the least frequent resource in the present day
---the club-room, and the snug hand at whist.
To return to my old companions: Some frequented
public assemblies, like the ghost of Beau
Nash, or any other beau of half a century back,
thrust aside by tittering youth, and pitied by those
of their own age. In fine, some went into devotion,
as the French term it, and others, I fear, went
to the devil; a few found resources in science and
letters; one or two turned philosophers in a small
way, peeped into microscopes, and became familiar
with the fashionable experiments of the day. Some
took to reading, and I was one of them.
Some grains of repulsion towards the society
around me---some painful recollections of early
faults and follies---some touch of displeasure with
living mankind, inclined me rather to a study of
antiquities, and particularly those of my own country.
The reader, if I can prevail on myself to
continue the present work, will probably be able
to judge, in the course of it, whether I have made
any useful progress in the study of the olden times.
I owed this turn of study, in part, to the conversation
of my kind man of business, Mr Fairscribe,
whom I mentioned as having seconded the
efforts of my invaluable friend, in bringing the
cause on which my liberty and the remnant of my
property depended, to a favourable decision. He
had given me a most kind reception on my return.
He was too much engaged in his profession for me
to intrude on him often, and perhaps his mind was
too much trammelled with its details to permit his
being willingly withdrawn from them. In short,
he was not a person of my poor friend Somerville's
expanded spirit, and rather a lawyer of the ordinary
class of formalists, but a most able and excellent
man. When my estate was sold, he retained some
of the older title-deeds, arguing, from his own
feelings, that they would be of more consequence
to the heir of the old family than to the new purchaser.
And when I returned to Edinburgh, and
found him still in the exercise of the profession to
which he was an honour, he sent to my lodgings
the old family-bible, which lay always on my father's
table, two or three other mouldy volumes,
and a couple of sheep-skin bags, full of parchments
and papers, whose appearance was by no
means inviting.
The next time I shared Mr Fairscribe's hospitable
dinner, I failed not to return him due thanks
for his kindness, which acknowledgment, indeed, I
proportioned rather to the idea which I knew he
entertained of the value of such things, than to the
interest with which I myself regarded them. But
the conversation turning on my family, who were
old proprietors in the Upper Ward of Clydesdale,
gradually excited some interest in my mind;
and when I retired to my solitary parlour, the first
thing I did was to look for a pedigree, or sort of
history of the family, or House of Croftangry, once
of that Ilk, latterly of Glentanner. The discoveries
which I made shall enrich the next chapter.
CHAPTER II.
In which Mr Croftangry continues his Story.
``What's property, dear Swift? I see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter.''
Pope.
``Croftangry---Croftandrew---Croftanridge---
Croftandgrey---for sa mony wise hath the name
been spellit---is weel known to be ane house of grit
antiquity; and it is said, that King Milcolumb, or
Malcolm, being the first of our Scottish princes
quha removit across the Firth of Forth, did reside
and occupy ane palace at Edinburgh, and had there
ane valziant man, who did him man-service, by
keeping the croft, or corn-land, which was tilled
for the convenience of the King's household, and
was thence callit Croft-an-ri, that is to say, the
King his croft; quhilk place, though now coverit
with biggings, is to this day called Croftangry, and
lyeth near to the royal palace. And whereas that
some of those who bear this auld and honourable
name may take scorn that it ariseth from the tilling
of the ground, quhilk men account a slavish occupation,
yet we ought to honour the pleugh and
spade, seeing we all derive our being from our father
Adam, whose lot it became to cultivate the
earth, in respect of his fall and transgression.
``Also we have witness, as weel in holy writt
as in profane history, of the honour in quhilk husbandrie
was held of old, and how prophets have
been taken from the pleugh, and great captains
raised up to defend their ain countries, sic as Cincinnatus,
and the like, who fought not the common
enemy with the less valiancy that their arms had
been exercised in halding the stilts of the pleugh,
and their bellicose skill in driving of yauds and
owsen.
``Likewise there are sindry honorable families,
quhilk are now of our native Scottish nobility, and
have clombe higher up the brae of preferment than
what this house of Croftangry hath done, quhilk
shame not to carry in their warlike shield and insignia
of dignity, tile tools and implements the
quhilk their first forefathers exercised in labouring
the croft-rig, or, as the poet Virgilius calleth it
eloquently, in subduing the soil. And no doubt
this ancient house of Croftangry, while it continued
to be called of that Ilk, produced many worshipful
and famous patriots, of quhom I now pr<ae>termit the
names; it being my purpose, if God shall spare me
life for sic ane pious officium, or duty, to resume
the first part of my narrative touching the house of
Croftangry, when I can set down at length the
evidents, and historical witness anent the facts
which I shall allege, seeing that words, when they
are unsupported by proofs, are like seed sown on
the naked rocks, or like an house biggit on the flitting
and faithless sands.''
Here I stopped to draw breath; for the style of
my grandsire, the inditer of this goodly matter, was
rather lengthy, as our American friends say. Indeed,
I reserve the rest of the piece until I can
obtain admission to the Bannatyne Club,* when I
* This Club, of which the Author of Waverley has the honour
to be President, was instituted in February 1823, for the
purpose of printing and publishing works illustrative of the
history, literature, and antiquities of Scotland. It continues
to prosper, and has already rescued from oblivion many curious
materials of Scottish History.
propose to throw off an edition, limited according
to the rules of that erudite Society, with a facsimile
of the manuscript, emblazonry of the family arms,
surrounded by their quartering, and a handsome
disclamation of family pride, with _H<ae>c nos novinus
esse nihil_, or _Vix ea nostra voco_.
In the meantime, to speak truth, I cannot but
suspect, that though my worthy ancestor puffed
vigorously to swell up the dignity of his family, we
had never, in fact, risen above the rank of middling
proprietors. The estate of Glentanner came to us
by the intermarriage of my ancestor with Tib Sommeril,
termed by the southrons Sommerville,* a
* The ancient Norman family of the Sommervilles came
into this island with William the Conqueror, and established
one branch in Gloucestershire, another in Scotland. After the
lapse of 700 years, the remaining possessions of these two
branches were united in the person of the late Lord Sommerville,
on the death of his English kinsman, the well-known
author of ``The Chase.''
daughter of that noble house, but I fear on what
my great-grandsire calls ``the wrong side of the
blanket.'' Her husband, Gilbert, was killed fighting,
as the _Inquisitio post mortem_ has it, ``_sub vexillo
regis, apud pr<ae>lium juxta Branxton_, lie _Floddenfield_.''
We had our share in other national misfortunes
---were forfeited, like Sir John Colville of the Dale,
for following our betters to the field of Langside;
and, in the contentious times of the last Stewarts,
we were severely fined for harbouring and resetting
intercommuned ministers; and narrowly escaped
giving a martyr to the Calendar of the Covenant,
in the person of the father of our family historian.
He ``took the sheaf from the mare,'' however,
as the MS. expresses it, and agreed to accept
of the terms of pardon offered by government, and
sign the bond, in evidence he would give no farther
ground of offence. My grandsire glosses over his
father's backsliding as smoothly as he can, and comforts
himself with ascribing his want of resolution
to his unwillingness to wreck the ancient name and
family, and to permit his lands and lineage to fall
under a doom of forfeiture.
``And indeed,'' said the venerable compiler, ``as,
praised be God, we seldom meet in Scotland with
these belly-gods and voluptuaries, whilk are unnatural
enough to devour their patrimony bequeathed
to them by their forbears in chambering and wantonness,
so that they come, with the prodigal son,
to the husks and the swine-trough; and as I have
the less to dreid the existence of such unnatural
Neroes in mine own family to devour the substance
of their own house like brute beasts out of mere
gluttonie and Epicurishnesse, so I need only warn
mine descendants against over hastily meddling
with the mutations in state and in religion, which
have been near-hand to the bringing this poor
house of Croftangry to perdition, as we have shown
more than once. And albeit I would not that
my successors sat still altogether when called on
by their duty to Kirk and King; yet I would have
them wait till stronger and walthier men than
themselves were up, so that either they may have
the better chance of getting through the day; or,
failing of that, the conquering party having some
fatter quarry to live upon, may, like gorged hawks,
spare the smaller game.''
There was something in this conclusion which at
first reading piqued me extremely, and I was so
unnatural as to curse the whole concern, as poor,
bald, pitiful trash, in which a silly old man was saying
a great deal about nothing at all. Nay, my
first impression was to thrust it into the fire, the
rather that it reminded me, in no very flattering
manner, of the loss of the family property, to which
the compiler of the history was so much attached,
in the very manner which he most severely reprobated.
It even seemed to my aggrieved feelings,
that his unprescient gaze on futurity, in which he
could not anticipate the folly of one of his descendants,
who should throw away the whole inheritance
in a few years of idle expense and folly, was meant
as a personal incivility to myself, though written
fifty or sixty years before I was born.
A little reflection made me ashamed of this feeling
of impatience, and as I looked at the even, concise,
yet tremulous hand in which the manuscript
was written, I could not help thinking, according to
an opinion I have heard seriously maintained, that
something of a man's character may be conjectured
from his handwriting. That neat, but crowded and
constrained small hand, argued a man of a good
conscience, well regulated passions, and, to use his
own phrase, an upright walk in life; but it also indicated
narrowness of spirit, inveterate prejudice,
and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which,
though not natural to the disposition, had arisen out
of a limited education. The passages from Scripture
and the classics, rather profusely than happily
introduced, and written in a half-text character to
mark their importance, illustrated that peculiar sort
of pedantry which always considers the argument
as gained, if secured by a quotation. Then the
flourished capital letters, which ornamented the
commencement of each paragraph, and the name
of his family and of his ancestors, whenever these
occurred in the page, do they not express forcibly
the pride and sense of importance with which the
author undertook and accomplished his task? I
persuaded myself, the whole was so complete a portrait
of the man, that it would not have been a more
undutiful act to have defaced his picture, or even
to have disturbed his bones in his coffin, than to
destroy his manuscript. I thought, for a moment,
of presenting it to Mr Fairscribe; but that confounded
passage about the prodigal and swine-trough---
I settled at last it was as well to lock it up
in my own bureau, with the intention to look at it
no more.
But I do no know how it was, that the subject
began to sit nearer my heart than I was aware of,
and I found myself repeatedly engaged in reading
descriptions of farms which were no longer mine,
and boundaries which marked the property of
others. A love of the _natale solum_, if Swift be right
in translating these words, ``family estate,'' began
to awaken in my bosom; the recollections of my
own youth adding little to it, save what was connected
with field-sports. A career of pleasure is
unfavourable for acquiring a taste for natural beauty,
and still more so for forming associations of a
sentimental kind, connecting us with the inanimate
objects around us.
I had thought little about my estate, while I possessed
and was wasting it, unless as affording the
rude materials out of which a certain inferior race
of creatures, called tenants, were bound to produce
(in a greater quantity than they actually did) a
certain return called rent, which was destined to
supply my expenses. This was my general view
of the matter. Of particular places, I recollected
that Garval-hill was a famous piece of rough upland
pasture, for rearing young colts, and teaching
them to throw their feet,---that Minion-burn had
the finest yellow trout in the country,---that Seggycleugh
was unequalled for woodcocks,---that Bengibbert-moors
afforded excellent moorfowl-shooting,
and that the clear bubbling fountain called
the Harper's Well, was the best recipe in the world
on the morning after a _Hard-go_ with my neighbour
fox-hunters. Still these ideas recalled, by degrees,
pictures, of which I had since learned to appreciate
the merit---scenes of silent loneliness, where extensive
moors, undulating into wild hills, were only
disturbed by the whistle of the plover, or the crow
of the heath-cock; wild ravines creeping up into
mountains, filled with natural wood, and which,
when traced downwards along the path formed by
shepherds and nutters, were found gradually to
enlarge and deepen, as each formed a channel to
its own brook, sometimes bordered by steep banks
of earth, often with the more romantic boundary
of naked rocks or cliffs, crested with oak, mountain-ash,
and hazel,---all gratifying the eye the more
that the scenery was, from the bare nature of the
country around, totally unexpected.
I had recollections, too, of fair and fertile holms,
or level plains, extending between the wooded
banks and the bold stream of the Clyde, which,
coloured like pure amber, or rather having the hue
of the pebbles called Cairngorm, rushes over sheets
of rock and beds of gravel, inspiring a species of
awe from the few and faithless fords which it presents,
and the frequency of fatal accidents, now
diminished by the number of bridges. These
alluvial holms were frequently bordered by triple
and quadruple rows of large trees, which gracefully
marked their boundary, and dipped their long arms
into the foaming stream of the river. Other places
I remembered, which had been described by the old
huntsman as the lodge of tremendous wild-cats, or
the spot where tradition stated the mighty stag to
have been brought to bay, or where heroes, whose
might was now as much forgotten, were said to
have been slain by surprise, or in battle.
It is not to be supposed that these finished landscapes
became visible before the eyes of my imagination,
as the scenery of the stage is disclosed
by the rising of the curtain. I have said, that I
had looked upon the country around me, during
the hurried and dissipated period of my life, with
the eyes indeed of my body, but without those of
my understanding. It was piece by piece, as a
child picks out its lesson, that I began to recollect
the beauties of nature which had once surrounded
me in the home of my forefathers. A natural
taste for them must have lurked at the bottom of
my heart, which awakened when I was in foreign
countries, and becoming by degrees a favourite
passion, gradually turned its eyes inwards, and
ransacked the neglected stores which my memory
had involuntarily recorded, and when excited, exerted
herself to collect and to complete.
I began now to regret more bitterly than ever
the having fooled away my family property, the
care and improvement of which I saw might have
afforded an agreeable employment for my leisure,
which only went to brood on past misfortunes, and
increase useless repining. ``Had but a single
farm been reserved, however small,'' said I one
day to Mr Fairscribe, ``I should have had a place
1 could call my home, and something that I could
call business.''
``It might have been managed,'' answered Fairscribe;
``and for my part, I inclined to keep the
mansion-house, mains, and some of the old family
acres together; but both Mr ------ and you were of
opinion that the money would be more useful.''
``True, true, my good friend,'' said I, ``I was a
fool then, and did not think I could incline to be
Glentanner with L.200 or L.300 a-year, instead of
Glentanner with as many thousands. I was then
a haughty, pettish, ignorant, dissipated, broken
down Scottish laird; and thinking my imaginary
consequence altogether ruined, I cared not bow
soon, or how absolutely, I was rid of every thing
that recalled it to my own memory, or that of
others.''
``And now it is like you have changed your
mind?'' said Fairscribe. ``Well, fortune is apt to
circumduce the term upon us; but I think she may
allow you to revise your condescendence.''
``How do you mean, my good friend?''
``Nay,'' said Fairscribe, ```there is ill luck in
averring till one is sure of his facts. I will look
back on a file of newspapers, and to-morrow you
shall hear from me; come, help yourself---I have
seen you fill your glass higher.''
``And shall see it again,'' said I, pouring out
what remained of our bottle of claret; ``the wine
is capital, and so shall our toast be---To your fireside,
my good friend. And now we shall go beg
a Scots song without foreign graces, from my little
siren Miss Katie.''
The next day accordingly I received a parcel
from Mr Fairscribe with a newspaper enclosed,
among the advertisements of which, one was marked
with a cross as requiring my attention. I read
to my surprise---
``DESIRABLE ESTATE FOR SALE:.
``By order of the Lords of Council and Session,
will be exposed to sale in the New Sessions House
of Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 25th November,
18---, all and whole the lands and barony of Glentanner,
now called Castle-Treddles, lying in the
Middle Ward of Clydesdale, and shire of Lanark,
with the teinds, parsonage and vicarage, fishings in
the Clyde, woods, mosses, moors, and pasturages,''
&c, &c.
The advertisement went on to set forth the advantages
of the soil, situation, natural beauties and
capabilities of improvement, not forgetting its being
a freehold estate, with the particular polypus capacity
of being sliced up into two, three, or, with a
little assistance, four freehold qualifications, and a
hint that the county was likely to be eagerly contested
between two great families. The upset price
at which ``the said lands and barony and others''
were to be exposed, was thirty years' purchase of
the proven rental, which was about a fourth more
than the property had fetched at the last sale. This,
which was mentioned, I suppose, to show the improvable
character of the land, would have given
another some pain; but let me speak truth of myself
in good as in evil---it pained not me. I was
only angry that Fairscribe who knew something
generally of the extent of my funds, should have
tantalized me by sending me information that my
family property was in the market, since he must
have known that the price was far out of my reach.
But a letter dropped from the parcel on the floor,
which attracted my eye, and explained the riddle.
A client of Mr Fairscribe's, a monied man, thought
of buying Glentanner, merely as an investment of
money---it was even unlikely he would ever see it;
and so the price of the whole being some thousand
pounds beyond what cash he had on hand, this accommodating
Dives would gladly take a partner in
the sale for any detached farm, and would make no
objection to its including the most desirable part
of the estate in point of beauty, provided the price
was made adequate. Mr Fairscribe would take care
l was not imposed on in the matter, and said in his
card, he believed, if I really wished to make such
a purchase, I had better go out and look at the
premises, advising me, at the same time, to keep
a strict incognito; an advice somewhat superfluous,
since I am naturally of a retired and reserved disposition.
CHAPTER III.
Mr Croftangry, inter alia, Revisits Glentanner.
Then sing of stage-coaches,
And fear no reproaches
For riding in one;
But daily be jogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
Whilst, whistling and flogging,
The coachman drives on.
Farquhar.
Disguised in a grey surtout which had seen service,
a white castor on my head, and a stout Indian
cane in my hand, the next week saw me on the
top of a mail-coach driving to the westward.
I like mail-coaches, and I hate them. I like
them for my convenience, but I detest them for
setting the whole world a-gadding, instead of sitting
quietly still minding their own business, and
preserving the stamp of originality of character
which nature or education may have impressed on
them. Off they go, jingling against each other in
the rattling vehicle till they have no more variety
of stamp in them than so many smooth shillings---
the same even in their Welsh wigs and great coats,
each without more individuality than belongs to a
partner of the company, as the waiter calls them,
of the North coach.
Worthy Mr Piper, best of contractors who ever
furnished four frampal jades for public use, I bless
you when I set out on a journey myself; the neat
coaches under your contract render the intercourse,
from Johnnie Groat's House to Ladykirk and
Cornhill Bridge, safe, pleasant, and cheap. But,
Mr Piper, you, who are a shrewd arithmetician,
did it never occur to you to calculate how many
fools' heads, which might have produced an idea
or two in the year, if suffered to remain in quiet,
get effectually addled by jolting to and fro in these
flying chariots of yours; how many decent countrymen
become conceited bumpkins after a cattle-show
dinner in the capital, which they could not
have attended save for your means; how many
decent country parsons return critics and spouters,
by way of importing the newest taste from Edinburgh?
And how will your conscience answer one
day for carrying so many bonny lasses to barter
modesty for conceit and levity at the metropolitan
Vanity Fair?
Consider, too, the low rate to which you reduce
human intellect. I do not believe your habitual
customers have their ideas more enlarged than one
of your coach-horses. They _knows the_ road, like
the English postilion, and they know nothing beside.
They date, like the carriers at Gadshill,
from the death of John Ostler;* the succession of
* See the opening scene of the first part of Shakspeare's
Henry IV.
guards forms a dynasty in their eyes; coachmen
are their ministers of state, and an upset is to them
a greater incident than a change of administration.
Their only point of interest on the road is to save
the time, and see whether the coach keeps the hour.
This is surely a miserable degradation of human
intellect. Take my advice, my good sir, and disinterestedly
contrive that once or twice a quarter,
your most dexterous whip shall overturn a coachful
of those superfluous travellers, _in terrorem_ to
those who, as Horace says, ``delight in the dust
raised by your chariots.''
Your current and customary mail-coach passenger,
too, gets abominably selfish, schemes successfully
for the best seat, the freshest egg, the right
cut of the sirloin. The mode of travelling is death
to all the courtesies and kindnesses of life, and goes
a great way to demoralize the character, and cause
it to retrograde to barbarism. You allow us excellent
dinners, but only twenty minutes to eat
them; and what is the consequence? Bashful
beauty sits on the one side of us, timid childhood
on the other; respectable, yet somewhat feeble old
age is placed on our front; and all require those
acts of politeness which ought to put every degree
upon a level at the convivial board. But have we
time---we the strong and active of the party---to
perform the duties of the table to the more retired
and bashful, to whom these little attentions are
due? The lady should be pressed to her chicken
---the old man helped to his favourite and tender
slice---the child to his tart. But not a fraction of
a minute have we to bestow on any other person
than ourselves; and the _prut-prut---tut-tut_ of the
guard's discordant note, summons us to the coach,
the weaker party having gone without their dinner,
and the able-bodied and active threatened with indigestion,
from having swallowed victuals like a
Lei'stershire clown bolting bacon.
On the memorable occasion I am speaking of I
lost my breakfast, sheerly from obeying the commands
of a respectable-looking old lady, who once
required me to ring the bell, and another time to
help the tea-kettle. I have some reason to think
she was literally an _old Stager_, who laughed in her
sleeve at my complaisance; so that I have sworn
in my secret soul revenge upon her sex, and all such
errant damsels of whatever age and degree, whom
I may encounter in my travels. I mean all this
without the least ill-will to my friend the contractor,
who, I think, has approached as near as any one
is like to do towards accomplishing the modest wish
of the Amatus and Amata of the Peri Bathous,
Ye gods, annihilate but time and space,
And make two lovers happy.
I intend to give Mr P. his full revenge when I
come to discuss the more recent enormity of steamboats;
meanwhile, I shall only say of both these
modes of conveyance, that
There is no living with them or without them.
I am perhaps more critical on the ------ mail-coach
on this particular occasion, that I did not
meet all the respect from the worshipful company
in his Majesty's carriage that I think I was entitled
to. I must say it for myself, that I bear, in my
own opinion at least, not a vulgar point about me.
My face has seen service, but there is still a good
set of teeth, an aquiline nose, and a quick grey eye,
set a little too deep under the eyebrow; and a cue
of the kind once called military, may serve to show
that my civil occupations have been sometimes
mixed with those of war. Nevertheless, two idle
young fellows in the vehicle, or rather on the top
of it, were so much amused with the deliberation
which I used in ascending to the same place of
eminence, that I thought I should have been obliged
to pull them up a little. And I was in no
good-humour, at an unsuppressed laugh following
my descent, when set down at the angle, where a
cross road, striking off from the main one, led me
towards Glentanner, from which I was still nearly
five miles distant.
It was an old-fashioned road, which, preferring
ascents to sloughs, was led in a straight line over
height and hollow, through moor and dale. Every
object around me, as I passed them in succession,
reminded me of old days, and at the same time
formed the strongest contrast with them possible.
Unattended, on foot, with a small bundle in my
hand, deemed scarce sufficient good company for
the two shabby genteels with whom I had been
lately perched on the top of a mail-coach, I did not
seem to be the same person with the young prodigal,
who lived with the noblest and gayest in the
land, and who, thirty years before, would, in the
same country, have been on the back of a horse
that had been victor for a plate, or smoking along
in his travelling chaise-and-four. My sentiments
were not less changed than my condition. I could
quite well remember, that my ruling sensation in
the days of heady youth, was a mere schoolboy's
eagerness to get farthest forward in the race in
which I had engaged; to drink as many bottles
as ------; to be thought as good a judge of a horse
as ------; to have the knowing cut of ------'s jacket.
These were thy gods, 0 Israel!
Now I was a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved,
and sometimes an angry spectator, but still
a spectator only, of the pursuits of mankind. I
felt how little my opinion was valued by those
engaged in the busy turmoil, yet I exercised it
with the profusion of an old lawyer retired from
his profession, who thrusts himself into his neighbour's
affairs, and gives advice where it is not
wanted, merely under pretence of loving the crack
of the whip.
I came amid these reflections to the brow of a
hill, from which I expected to see Glentanner; a
modest-looking yet comfortable house, its walls
covered with the most productive fruit-trees in
that part of the country, and screened from the
most stormy quarters of the horizon by a deep and
ancient wood, which overhung the neighbouring
hill. The house was gone; a great part of the
wood was felled; and instead of the gentlemanlike
mansion, shrouded and embosomed among its old
hereditary trees, stood Castle-Treddles, a huge
lumping four-square pile of freestone, as bare as
my nail, except for a paltry edging of decayed
and lingering exotics, with an impoverished lawn
stretched before it, which, instead of boasting deep
green tapestry, enamelled with daisies, and with
crowsfoot and cowslips, showed an extent of nakedness,
raked, indeed, and levelled, but where
the sown grasses had failed with drought, and
the earth, retaining its natural complexion, seemed
nearly as brown and bare as when it was newly
dug up.
The house was a large fabric, which pretended
to its name of castle only from the front windows
being finished in acute Gothic arches (being, by
the way, the very reverse of the castellated style),
and each angle graced with a turret about the size
of a pepper-box. In every other respect it resembled
a large town-house, which, like a fat burgess,
had taken a walk to the country on a holiday,
and climbed to the top of an eminence to look
around it. The bright red colour of the freestone,
the size of the building, the formality of its shape,
and awkwardness of its position, harmonized as
ill with the sweeping Clyde in front, and the
bubbling brook which danced down on the right,
as the fat civic form, with bushy wig, gold-beaded
cane, maroon-coloured coat, and mottled silk stockings,
would have accorded with tile wild and magnificient
scenery of Corehouse Linn.
I went up to the house. It was in that state of
desertion which is perhaps the most unpleasant to
look on, for the place was going to decay, without
having been inhabited. There were about the
mansion, though deserted, none of the slow mouldering
touches of time, which communicate to buildings,
as to the human frame, a sort of reverence,
while depriving them of beauty and of strength.
The disconcerted schemes of the Laird of Castle-Treddles,
had resembled fruit that becomes decayed
without ever having ripened. Some windows
broken, others patched, others blocked up
with deals, gave a disconsolate air to all around,
and seemed to say, ``There Vanity had purposed
to fix her seat, but was anticipated by Poverty.''
To the inside, after many a vain summons, I
was at length admitted by an old labourer. The
house contained every contrivance for luxury and
accommodation;---the kitchens were a model, and
there were hot closets on the office stair-case, that
dishes might not cool, as our Scottish phrase
goes, between the kitchen and the hall. But instead
of the genial smell of good cheer, these temples
of Comus emitted the damp odour of sepulchral
vaults, and the large cabinets of cast-iron looked
like the cages of some feudal Bastille. The eating-room
and drawing-room, with an interior boudoir,
were magnificent apartments, the ceilings
fretted and adorned with stucco-work, which already
was broken in many places, and looked in
others damp and mouldering; the wood panelling
was shrunk and warped, and cracked; the doors,
which had not been hung for more than two years,
were, nevertheless, already swinging loose from
their hinges. Desolation, in short, was where enjoyment
had never been; and the want of all the
usual means to preserve, was fast performing the
work of decay.
The story was a common one, and told in a
few words. Mr Treddles, senior, who bought the
estate, was a cautious money-making person; his
son, still embarked in commercial speculations,
desired at the same time to enjoy his opulence and
to increase it. He incurred great expenses, amongst
which this edifice was to be numbered. To support
these he speculated boldly, and unfortunately;
and thus the whole history is told, which may serve
for more places than Glentanner.
Strange and various feelings ran through my
bosom, as I loitered in these deserted apartments,
scarce bearing what my guide said to me about
the size and destination of each room. The first
sentiment, I am ashamed to say, was one of gratified
spite. My patrician pride was pleased, that
the mechanic, who had not thought the house of
the Croftangrys sufficiently good for him, had now
experienced a fall in his turn. My next thought
was as mean, though not so malicious. ``I have
had the better of this fellow,'' thought I; ``if I
lost the estate, I at least spent the price; and Mr
Treddles has lost his among paltry commercial engagements.''
``Wretch!'' said the secret voice within, ``darest
thou exult in thy shame? Recollect how thy youth
and fortune were wasted in those years, and triumph
not in the enjoyment of an existence which levelled
thee with the beasts that perish. Bethink thee,
how this poor man's vanity gave at least bread to
the labourer, peasant, and citizen; and his profuse
expenditure, like water spilt on the ground, refreshed
the lowly herbs and plants where it fell.
But thou! whom hast thou enriched, during thy
career of extravagance, save those brokers of the
devil, vintners, panders, gamblers, and horse-jockeys?''
The anguish produced by this self-reproof
was so strong, that I put my hand suddenly to my
forehead, and was obliged to allege a sudden megrim
to my attendant, in apology for the action,
and a slight groan with which it was accompanied.
I then made an effort to turn my thoughts into
a more philosophical current, and muttered half
aloud, as a charm to lull any more painful thoughts
to rest---
_Nunc ager Umbrieni sub nomine, nuper Ofelli
Dictus, erit nulli proprius; sed cedit in usum
Nunc mihi, nunc alii. Quocirca vivite fortes
Fortiaque adversis opponite pectora rebus._*
* Horace, Sat. II, Lib. 2. The meaning will be best conveyed
to the English reader in Pope's imitation:---
What's property, dear Swift? you see it alter
From you to me, from me to Peter Walter;
Or in a mortgage prove a lawyer's share;
Or in a jointure vanish from the heir.
* * * * * * *
Shades, that to Bacon could retreat afford,
Become the portion of a booby lord;
And Helmsley, once proud Buckingham's delight,
Slides to a scrivener and city knight.
Let lands and houses have what lords they will,
Let us be fix'd, and our own masters still.
In my anxiety to fix the philosophical precept in
my mind, I recited the last line aloud, which, joined
to my previous agitation, I afterwards found
became the cause of a report, that a mad schoolmaster
had come from Edinburgh, with the idea in
his head of buying Castle-Treddles.
As I saw my companion was desirous of getting
rid of me, I asked where I was to find the person
in whose bands were left the map of the estate,
and other particulars connected with the sale. The
agent who had this in possession, I was told, lived
at the town of------; which I was informed, and
indeed knew well, was distant five miles and a
bittock, which may pass in a country where they
are less lavish of their land, for two or three more.
Being somewhat afraid of the fatigue of walking
so far, I enquired if a horse, or any sort of carriage
was to be had, and was answered in the negative.
``But,'' said my cicerone, ``you may halt a blink
till next morning at the Treddles Arms, a very decent
house, scarce a mile off.''
``A new house, I suppose?'' replied I.
``Na, it's a new public, but it's an auld house:
it was aye the Leddy's jointure-house in the Croftangry-folk's
time; but Mr Treddles has fitted it
up for the convenience of the country. Poor man,
he was a public-spirited man, when he had the
means.''
``Duntarkin a public house!'' I exclaimed.
``Ay?'' said the fellow, surprised at my naming
the place by its former title, ``ye'll hae been in
this country before, I'm thinking?''
``Long since,'' I replied---``and there is good
accommodation at the what-d'ye-call-'em arms, and
a civil landlord?'' This I said by way of saying
something, for the man stared very hard at me.
``Very decent accommodation. Ye'll no be for
fashing wi' wine, I'm thinking, and there's walth
o' porter, ale, and a drap gude whisky''---(in an
under tone) ``Fairntosh, if you can get on the lee-side
of the gudewife---for there is nae gudeman---
They ca' her Christie Steel.''
I almost started at the sound. Christie Steele!
Christie Steele was my mother's body servant, her
very right hand, and, between ourselves, something
like a viceroy over her. I recollected her
perfectly; and though she had, in former times, been
no favourite of mine, her name now sounded in my
ear like that of a friend, and was the first word I
had heard somewhat in unison with the associations
around me. I sallied from Castle-Treddles, determined
to make the best of my way to Duntarkin,
and my cicerone hung by me for a little way,
giving loose to his love of talking; an opportunity
which, situated as he was, the seneschal of a deserted
castle, was not likely to occur frequently.
``Some folk think,'' said my companion, ``that
Mr Treddles might as weel have put my wife as
Christie Steele into the Treddles Arms, for Christie
had been aye in service, and never in the public
line, and so it's like she is ganging back in the
world, as I hear---now, my wife had keepit a
victualling office.''
``That would have been an advantage, certainly,''
I replied.
``But I am no sure that I wad ha' looten Eppie
take it, if they had put it in her offer.''
``That's a different consideration.''
``Ony way, I wadna ha' liked to have offended
Mr Treddles; he was a wee toustie when you
rubbed him again the hair---but a kind, weel-meaning
man.''
I wanted to get rid of this species of chat, and
finding myself near the entrance of a footpath
which made a short cut to Duntarkin, I put half-a-crown
into my guide's band, bade him good-evening,
and plunged into the woods.
``Hout, sir---fie, sir---no from the like of you---
stay, sir, ye wunna find the way that gate---Odd's
mercy, he maun ken the gate as weel as I do
mysell---weel, I wad like to ken wha the chield is.''
Such were the last words of my guide's drowsy,
uninteresting tone of voice; and glad to be rid of
him, I strode out stoutly, in despite of large stones,
briers, and _bad steps_, which abounded in the road
I had chosen. In the interim, I tried as much as I
could, with verses from Horace and Prior, and all
who have lauded the mixture of literary with rural
life, to call back the visions of last night and this
morning, imagining myself settled in some detached
farm of the estate of Glentanner,
Which sloping hills around enclose---
Where many a birch and brown oak grows;
when I should have a cottage with a small library,
a small cellar, a spare bed for a friend, and live
more happy and more honoured than when I had
the whole barony. But the sight of Castle-Treddles
had disturbed all my own castles in the air. The
realities of the matter, like a stone plashed into a
limpid fountain, had destroyed the reflection of the
objects around, which, till this act of violence, lay
slumbering on the crystal surface, and I tried in
vain to re-establish the picture which had been so
rudely broken. Well, then, I would try it another
way; I would try to get Christie Steele out
of her _public_, since she was not thriving in it, and
she who had been my mother's governante should
be mine. I knew all her faults, and I told her history
over to myself.
She was a grand-daughter, I believe, at least
some relative, of the famous Covenanter of the
name whom Dean Swift's friend, Captain Creichton,
shot on his own staircase in the times of the
persecutions,* and had perhaps derived from her
* Note B. Steele, a Covenanter, shot by Captain
Creichton.
native stock much both of its good and evil properties.
No one could say of her that she was the life
and spirit of the family, though, in my mother's
time, she directed all family affairs; her look was
austere and gloomy, and when she was not displeased
with you, you could only find it out by her
silence. If there was cause for complaint, real or
imaginary, Christie was loud enough. She loved
my mother with the devoted attachment of a younger
sister, but she was as jealous of her favour to any
one else as if she had been the aged husband of a
coquettish wife, and as severe in her reprehensions
as an abbess over her nuns. The command which
she exercised over her, was that, I fear, of a strong
and determined over a feeble and more nervous
disposition; and though it was used with rigour,
yet, to the best of Christie Steele's belief, she was
urging her mistress to her best and most becoming
course, and would have died rather than have recommended
any other. The attachment of this
woman was limited to the family of Croftangry,
for she had few relations; and a dissolute cousin,
whom late in life she had taken as a husband, had
long left her a widow.
To me she had ever a strong dislike. Even from
my early childhood, she was jealous, strange as it
may seem, of my interest in my mother's affections;
she saw my foibles and vices with abhorrence, and
without a grain of allowance; nor did she pardon
the weakness of maternal affection, even when, by
the death of two brothers, I came to be the only
child of a widowed parent. At the time my disorderly
conduct induced my mother to leave Glentanner,
and retreat to her jointure-house, I always
blamed Christie Steele for having influenced her
resentment, and prevented her from listening to my
vows of amendment, which at times were real and
serious, and might perhaps, have accelerated that
change of disposition which has since, I trust taken
place. But Christie regarded me as altogether a
doomed and predestinated child of perdition, who
was sure to hold on my course, and drag downwards
whosoever might attempt to afford me support.
Still, though I knew such had been Christie's
prejudices against me in other days, yet I thought
enough of time had since passed away to destroy
all of them. I knew, that when, through the disorder
of my affairs, my mother underwent some
temporary inconvenience about money matters,
Christie, as a thing of course, stood in the gap, and
having sold a small inheritance which had descended
to her, brought the purchase-money to her mistress,
with a sense of devotion as deep as that which inspired
the Christians of the first age, when they
sold all they had, and followed the apostles of the
church. I therefore thought that we might, in
old Scottish phrase, ``let byganes be byganes,'' and
upon a new account. Yet I resolved, like a
skilful general, to reconnoitre a little before laying
down any precise scheme of proceeding, and in the
interim I determined to preserve my incognito.
CHAPTER IV.
Mr Croftangry bids adieu to Clydesdale.
Alas, how changed from what it once had been!
'Twas now degraded to a common inn.
Gay.
An hour's brisk walking, or thereabouts, placed
me in front of Duntarkin, which had also, I found,
undergone considerable alterations, though it had not
been altogether demolished like the principal mansion.
An inn-yard extended before the door of the
decent little jointure-house, even amidst the remnants
of the holly hedges which had screened the
lady's garden. Then a broad, raw-looking, new-made
road intruded itself up the little glen, instead of
the old horseway, so seldom used that it was almost
entirely covered with grass. It is a great
enormity of which gentlemen trustees on the highways
are sometimes guilty, in adopting the breadth
necessary for an avenue to the metropolis, where
all that is required is an access to some sequestered
and unpopulous district. I do not say any thing of
the expense; that the trustees and their constituents
may settle as they please. But the destruction
of silvan beauty is great, when the breadth of
the road is more than proportioned to the vale
through which it runs, and lowers of course the
consequence of any objects of wood or water, or
broken and varied ground, which might otherwise
attract notice, and give pleasure. A bubbling runnel
by the side of one of those modern Appian or
Flaminian highways, is but like a kennel,---the
little hill is diminished to a hillock,---the romantic
hillock to a molehill, almost too small for sight.
Such an enormity, however, had destroyed the
quiet loneliness of Duntarkin, and intruded its
breadth of dust and gravel, and its associations of pochays
and mail-coaches, upon one of the most sequestered
spots in the Middle Ward of Clydesdale.
The house was old and dilapidated, and looked sorry
for itself, as if sensible of a derogation; but the
sign was strong and new, and brightly painted, displaying
a heraldic shield three shuttles in a field
diapr<e'>, a web partly unfolded for crest, and two
stout giants for supporters, each one holding a
weaver's beam proper. To have displayed this
monstrous emblem on the front of the house might
have hazarded bringing down the wall, but for certain
would have blocked up one or two windows.
It was therefore established independent of the
mansion, being displayed in an iron framework,
and suspended upon two posts, with as much wood
and iron about it as would have builded a brig;
and there it hung, creaking, groaning and screaming
in every blast of wind, and frightening for five
miles' distance, for aught I know, the nests of
thrushes and linnets, the ancient denizens of the
little glen.
When I entered the place, I was received by
Christie Steele herself, who seemed uncertain whether
to drop me in the kitchen, or usher me into a
separate apartment. As I called for tea, with something
rather more substantial than bread and butter,
and spoke of supping and sleeping, Christie at
last inducted me into the room where she herself
had been sitting, probably the only one which had
a fire, though the month was October. This answered
my plan; and, as she was about to remove
her spinning-wheel, I begged she would have the
goodness to remain and make my tea, adding, that
I liked the sound of the wheel, and desired not to
disturb her housewife-thrift in the least.
``I dinna ken, sir,''---she replied in a dry _rev<e^>che_
tone, which carried me back twenty years, ``I am
nane of thae heartsome landleddies that can tell
country cracks, and make themsells agreeable; and
I was ganging to put on a fire for you in the Red
Room; but if it is your will to stay here, he that
pays the lawing maun choose the lodging.''
I endeavoured to engage her in conversation;
but though she answered with a kind of stiff civility,
I could get her into no freedom of discourse
and she began to look at her wheel and at the door
more than once, as if she meditated a retreat. I
was obliged, therefore, to proceed to some special
questions that might have interest for a person,
whose ideas were probably of a very bounded description.
I looked round the apartment, being the same
in which I had last seen my poor mother. The
author of the family history, formerly mentioned,
had taken great credit to himself for the improvements
he had made in this same jointure-house of
Duntarkin, and how, upon his marriage, when his
mother took possession of the same as her jointure-house,
``to his great charges and expenses he
caused box the walls of the great parlour,'' (in
which I was now sitting,) ``empanel the same, and
plaster the roof, finishing the apartment with ane
concave chimney, and decorating the same with
pictures, and a barometer and thermometer.'' And
in particular, which his good mother used to say
she prized above all the rest, he had caused his own
portraiture be limned over the mantlepiece by a
skilful hand. And, in good faith, there he remained
still, having much the visage which I was disposed
to ascribe to him on the evidence of his
handwriting,---grim and austere, yet not without
a cast of shrewdness and determination; in armour,
though he never wore it, I fancy; one
hand on an open book, and one resting on the
hilt of his sword, though I dare say his head never
ached with reading, nor his limbs with fencing.
``That picture is painted on the wood, madam,''
said I.
``Ay, sir, or it's like it would not have been
left there,---they took a' they could.''
``Mr Treddles's creditors, you mean?'' said I.
``Na,'' replied she, dryly, ``the creditors of another
family, that sweepit cleaner than this poor
man's, because I fancy there was less to gather.''
``An older family, perhaps, and probably
more remembered and regretted than later possessors?''
Christie here settled herself in her seat, and
pulled her wheel towards her. I had given her
something interesting for her thoughts to dwell
upon, and her wheel was a mechanical accompaniment
on such occasions, the revolutions of which
assisted her in the explanation of her ideas.
``Mair regretted---mair missed?---I liked ane
of the auld family very weel, but I winna say that
for them a'. How should they be mair missed
than the Treddleses? The cotton mill was such
a thing for the country! The mair bairns a cottar
body had the better; they would make their
awn keep frae the time they were five years
auld; and a widow wi' three or four bairns was a
wealthy woman in the time of the Treddleses.''
``But the health of these poor children, my
good friend---their education and religious instruction------''
``For health,'' said Christie, looking gloomily at
me, ``ye maun ken little of the warld, sir, if ye
dinna ken that the health of the poor man's body,
as weel as his youth and his strength, are all at the
command of the rich man's purse. There never
was a trade so unhealthy yet, but men would fight
to get wark at it for twa pennies a day aboon the
common wage. But the bairns were reasonably
weel cared for in the way of air and exercise, and
a very responsible youth heard them their carritch,
and gied them lessons in Reediemadeasy.* Now,
* ``Reading made Easy,'' usually so pronounced in Scotland.
what did they ever get before? Maybe on a winter
day they wad be called out to beat the wood
for cocks or sicklike, and then the starving weans
would maybe get a bite of broken bread, and maybe
no, just as the butler was in humour---that was
a' they got.''
``They were not, then, a very kind family to
the poor, these old possessors?'' said I, somewhat
bitterly; for I had expected to hear my ancestors'
praises recorded, though I certainly despaired of
being regaled with my own.
``They werena ill to them, sir, and that is aye
something. They were just decent bien bodies;
---ony poor creature that had face to beg got an
awmous and welcome; they that were shamefaced
gaed by, and twice as welcome. But they keepit
an honest walk before God and man, the Croftangrys,
and, as I said before, if they did little good,
they did as little ill. They lifted their rents and
spent them, called in their kain and eat them; gaed
to the kirk of a Sunday, bowed civilly if folk took
aff their bannets as they gaed by, and lookit as
black as sin at them that keepit them on.''
``These are their arms that you have on the
sign?''
``What! on the painted board that is skirting
and groaning at the door?---Na, these are Mr
Treddles's arms---though they look as like legs as
arms---ill pleased I was at the fule thing, that cost
as muckle as would hae repaired the house from
the wa' stane to the rigging-tree. But if I am
to bide here, I'll hae a decent board wi' a punch
bowl on it.''
``Is there a doubt of your staying here, Mrs
Steele?''
``Dinna Mistress me,'' said the cross old woman,
whose fingers were now playing their thrift in a
manner which indicated nervous irritation---``there
was nae luck in the land since Luckie turned
Mistress, and Mistress my Leddy; and as for
staying here, if it concerns you to ken, I may stay
if I can pay a hundred pund sterling for the lease,
and I may flit if I canna; and so gude-e'en to you,
Christie,''-and round went the wheel with much
activity.
``And you like the trade of keeping a public
house?''
``I can scarce say that,'' she replied. ``But
worthy Mr Prendergast is clear of its lawfulness,
and I hae gotten used to it, and made a decent living,
though I never make out a fause reckoning,
or give ony ane the means to disorder reason in
my house.''
``Indeed?'' said I; ``in that case, there is no wonder
you have not made up the hundred pounds to
purchase the lease.''
``How do you ken,'' said she sharply, ``that I
might not have had a hundred punds of my ain
fee? If I have it not, I am sure it is my ain faut;
and I wunna ca' it faut neither, for it gaed to her
wha was weel entitled to a' my service.'' Again
she pulled stoutly at the flax, and the wheel went
smartly round.
``This old gentleman,'' said I, fixing my eye on
the painted panel, ``seems to have had his arms
painted as well as Mr Treddles---that is, if that
painting in the corner be a scutcheon.''
``Ay, ay---cushion, just sae, they maun a' hae
their cushions; there's sma' gentry without that;
and so the arms, as they ca' them, of the house of
Glentanner, may be seen on an auld stane in the
west end of the house. But to do them justice,
they didna propale sac muckle about them as poor
Mr Treddles did;---it's like they were better used
to them.''
``Very likely.---Are there any of the old family
in life, goodwife?''
``No,'' she replied; then added, after a moment's
hesitation---``not that I know of,''---and the wheel,
which had intermitted, began again to revolve.
``Gone abroad, perhaps?'' I suggested.
She now looked up, and faced me---``No, sir.
There were three sons of the last laird of Glentanner,
as he was then called; John and William
were hopeful young gentlemen, but they died early
---one of a decline, brought on by the mizzles, the
other lost his life in a fever. It would hae been
lucky for mony ane that Chrystal had gane the
same gate.''
``Oh---he must have been the young spendthrift
that sold the property? Well, but you
should not have such an ill-will against him: remember
necessity has no law; and then, goodwife,
be was not more culpable than Mr Treddles, whom
you are so sorry for.''
``I wish I could think sae, sir, for his mother's
sake; but Mr Treddles was in trade, and though
be had no preceese right to do so, yet there was
some warrant for a man being expensive that imagined
be was making a mint of money. But this
unhappy lad devoured his patrimony, when he
kenned that he was living like a ratten in a Dunlap
cheese, and diminishing his means at a' hands
---I canna bide to think on't.'' With this she
broke out into a snatch of a ballad; but little of
mirth was there either in the tone or the expression:---
``For he did spend, and make an end
Of gear that his forefathers wan;
Of land and ware he made him bare,
So speak nae mair of the auld gudeman.''
``Come, dame,'' said I, ``it is a long lane that
has no turning. I will not keep from you that I
have heard something of this poor fellow, Chrystal
Croftangry. He has sown his wild oats, as
they say, and has settled into a steady respectable
man.''
``And wha tell'd ye that tidings?'' said she,
looking sharply at me.
``Not perhaps the best judge in the world of his
character, for it was himself, dame.''
``And if he tell'd you truth, it was a virtue he
did not aye use to practise,'' said Christie.
``The devil!'' said I, considerably nettled;
``all the world held him to be a man of honour.''
``Ay, ay! he would hae shot onybody wi' his
pistols and his guns, that had evened him to be a
liar. But if he promised to pay an honest tradesman
the next term-day, did he keep his word then?
And if he promised a puir silly lass to make gude
her shame, did he speak truth then? And what
is that, but being a liar, and a black-hearted deceitful
liar to boot?''
My indignation was rising, but I strove to suppress
it; indeed, I should only have afforded my
tormentor a triumph by an angry reply. I partly
suspected she began to recognise me; yet she testified
so little emotion, that I could not think my
suspicion well founded. I went on, therefore, to
say, in a tone as indifferent as I could command,
``Well, goodwife, I see you will believe no good
of this Chrystal of yours, till he comes back and
buys a good farm on the estate, and makes you his
housekeeper.''
The old woman dropped her thread, folded her
hands, as she looked up to heaven with a face of
apprehension. ``The Lord,'' she exclaimed, ``forbid!
The Lord in his mercy forbid! Oh, sir! if
you really know this unlucky man, persuade him
to settle where folk ken the good that you say
he has come to, and dinna ken the evil of his former
days. He used to be proud enough---O dinna
let him come here, even for his own sake.---He
used ance to have some pride.''
Here she once more drew the wheel close to her,
and began to pull at the flax with both hands---
``Dinna let him come here, to be looked down
upon by ony that may be left of his auld reiving
companions, and to see the decent folk that he
looked over his nose at look over their noses at
him, baith at kirk and market. Dinna let him
come to his ain country to be made a tale about
when ony neighbour points him out to another,
and tells what he is, and what he was, and how he
wrecked a dainty estate, and brought harlots to the
door-cheek of his father's house, till he made it nae
residence for his mother; and how it had been
foretauld by a servant of his ain house, that he was
a ne'er-do-weel, and a child of perdition, and how
her words were made good, and---''
``Stop there, goodwife, if you please,'' said I:
``you have said as much as I can well remember,
and more than it may be safe to repeat. I can
use a great deal of freedom with the gentleman
we speak of; but I think were any other person
to carry him half of your message, I would scarce
insure his personal safety. And now, as I see the
night is settled to be a fine one, I will walk on to
------, where I must meet a coach to-morrow, as it
passes to Edinburgh.''
So saying, I paid my moderate reckoning, and
took my leave, without being able to discover whether
the prejudiced and hard-hearted old woman
did, or did not, suspect the identity of her guest
with the Chrystal Croftangry against whom she
harboured so much dislike.
The night was fine and frosty, though, when I
pretended to see what its character was, it might
have rained like the deluge. I only made the excuse
to escape from old Christie Steele. The horses
which run races in the Corso at Rome without any
riders, in order to stimulate their exertion, carry
each his own spurs, namely, small balls of steel,
with sharp projecting spikes, which are attached
to loose straps of leather, and, flying about in the
violence of the agitation, keep the horse to his
speed by pricking him as they strike against his
flanks. The old woman's reproaches had the same
effect on me, and urged me to a rapid pace, as if
it had been possible to escape from my own recollections.
In the best days of my life, when I
won one or two hard walking matches, I doubt if
I ever walked so fast as I did betwixt the Treddles
Arms and the borough town for which I was
bound. Though the night was cold, I was warm
enough by the, time I got to my inn; and it required
a refreshing draught of porter, with half
an hour's repose, ere I could determine to give
no farther thought to Christie and her opinions,
than those of any other vulgar prejudiced old woman.
I resolved at last to treat the thing _en
bagatelle_, and, calling for writing materials, I folded
up a cheque for L.100, with these lines on the
envelope
Chrystal, the ne'er-do-weel,
Child destined to the deil,
Sends this to Christie Steele.
And I was so much pleased with this new mode of
viewing the subject, that I regretted the lateness
of the hour prevented my finding a person to carry
the letter express to its destination.
But with the morning cool reflection came.
I considered that the money, and probably more,
was actually due by me on my mother's account to
Christie, who had lent it in a moment of great
necessity, and that the returning it in a light or
ludicrous manner was not unlikely to prevent so
touchy arid punctilious a person from accepting a
debt which was most justly her due, and which it
became me particularly to see satisfied. Sacrificing
then my triad with little regret, (for it looked better
by candlelight, and through the medium of a
pot of porter, than it did by daylight, and with
bohea for a menstruum,) I determined to employ
Mr Fairscribe's mediation in buying up the lease
of the little inn, and conferring it upon Christie
in the way which should make it most acceptable
to her feelings. It is only necessary to add, that
my plan succeeded, and that Widow Steele even
yet keeps the Treddles Arms. Do not say, therefore,
that I have been disingenuous with you,
reader; since, if I have not told all the ill of myself
I might have done, I have indicated to you a
person able and willing to supply the blank, by
relating all my delinquencies, as well as my misfortunes.
In the meantime, I totally abandoned the idea
of redeeming any part of my paternal property,
and resolved to take Christie Steele's advice, as
young Norval does Glenalvon's, ``although it
sounded harshly.''
CHAPTER V.
Mr Croftangry settles in the Canongate.
------If you will know my house,
'Tis at the tuft of olives here hard by.
_As You Like It._
By a revolution of humour which I am unable
to account for, I changed my mind entirely on my
plans of life, in consequence of the disappointment,
the history of which fills the last chapter. I began
to discover that the country would not at all suit
me; for I had relinquished field-sports, and felt no
inclination whatever to farming, the ordinary vocation
of country gentlemen; besides that, I had no
talent for assisting either candidate in case of an
expected election, and saw no amusement in the
duties of a road trustee, a commissioner of supply,
or even in the magisterial functions of the bench.
I had begun to take some taste for reading; and a
domiciliation in the country must remove me from
the use of books, excepting the small subscription
library, in which the very book which you want is
uniformly sure to be engaged.
I resolved, therefore, to make the Scottish
metropolis my regular resting-place, reserving to
myself to take occasionally those excursions, which,
spite of all I have said against mail-coaches, Mr
Piper has rendered so easy. Friend of our life and
of our leisure, he secures by dispatch against loss
of time, and by the best of coaches, cattle, and
steadiest of drivers, against hazard of limb, and
wafts us, as well as our letters, from Edinburgh to
Cape Wrath, in the penning of a paragraph.
When my mind was quite made up to make Auld
Reekie my head-quarters, reserving the privilege
of _exploring_ in all directions, I began to explore in
good earnest for the purpose of discovering a suitable
habitation. ``And whare trew ye I gaed?''
as Sir Pertinax says. Not to George's Square---
nor to Charlotte Square---nor to the old New
Town---nor to the new New Town---nor to the
Calton Hill; I went to the Canongate, and to the
very portion of the Canongate in which I had formerly
been immured, like the errant knight, prisoner
in some enchanted castle, where spells have
made the ambient air impervious to the unhappy
captive, although the organs of sight encountered
no obstacle to his free passage.
Why I should have thought of pitching my tent
here I cannot tell. Perhaps it was to enjoy the
pleasures of freedom, where I had so long endured
the bitterness of restraint; on the principle of the
officer, who, after he had retired from the army,
ordered his servant to continue to call him at the
hour of parade, simply that he might have the pleasure
of saying---``D-n the parade!'' and turning
to the other side to enjoy his slumbers. Or perhaps
I expected to find in the vicinity some little oldfashioned
house, having somewhat of the _rus in
urbe_, which I was ambitious of enjoying. Enough,
I went, as aforesaid, to the Canongate.
I stood by the kennel, of which I have formerly
spoken, and, my mind being at case, my bodily
organs were more delicate. I was more sensible
than heretofore, that, like the trade of Pompey in
Measure for Measure---it did in some sort---pah
---an ounce of civet, good apothecary!---Turning
from thence, my steps naturally directed themselves
to my own humble apartment, where my little
Highland landlady, as dapper and as tight as ever,
(for old women wear a hundred times better than
the hard-wrought seniors of the masculine sex,)
stood at the door, _teedling_, to herself a Highland
song as she shook a table napkin over the forestair,
and then proceeded to fold it up neatly for
future service.
``How do you, Janet?''
``Thank ye, good sir,'' answered my old friend,
without looking at me; ``but ye might as weel say
Mrs MacEvoy, for she is na a'body's Shanet---
umph.''
``You must be my Janet, though, for all that---
have you forgot me?---Do you not remember
Chrystal Croftangry?''
The light, kind-hearted creature threw her napkin
into the open door, skipped down the stair like
a fairy, three steps at once, seized me by the hands,
---both hands,---jumped up, and actually kissed me.
I was a little ashamed; but what swain, of somewhere
inclining to sixty, could resist the advances
of a fair contemporary? So we allowed the full
degree of kindness to the meeting,---_honi soit qui
mal y pense_,---and then Janet entered instantly
upon business. ``An' yell gae in, man, and see
your auld lodgings, nae doubt, and Shanet will pay
ye the fifteen shillings of change that ye ran away
without, and without bidding Shanet good day.
But never mind,'' (nodding good-humouredly,)
``Shanet saw you were carried for the time.''
By this time we were in my old quarters, and
Janet, with her bottle of cordial in one hand and
the glass in the other, had forced on me a dram of
usquebaugh, distilled with saffron and other herbs,
after some old-fashioned Highland receipt. Then
was unfolded, out of many a little scrap of paper,
the reserved sum of fifteen shillings, which Janet
had treasured for twenty years and upwards.
``Here they are,'' she said, in honest triumph,
``just the same I was holding out to ye when ye
ran as if ye had been fey. Shanet has had siller,
and Shanet has wanted siller, mony a time since
that---and the gauger has come, and the factor has
come, and the butcher and baker---Cot bless us---
just like to tear poor auld Shanet to pieces; but
she took good care of Mr Croftangry's fifteen shillings.''
``But what if I had never come back, Janet?''
``Och, if Shanet had heard you were dead, she
would hae gien it to the poor of the chapel, to pray
for Mr Croftangry,'' said Janet, crossing herself,
for she was a Catholic;---``you maybe do not think
it would do you cood, but the blessing of the poor
can never do no harm.''
I agreed heartily in Janet's conclusion; and, as
to have desired her to consider the hoard as her
own property, would have been an indelicate return
to her for the uprightness of her conduct, I requested
her to dispose of it as she had proposed to do
in the event of my death, that is, if she knew any
poor people of merit to whom it might be useful.
``Ower mony of them,'' raising the corner of her
checked apron to her eyes, ``e'en ower mony of
them, Mr Croftangry.---Och, ay---there is the puir
Highland creatures frae Glensbee, that cam down
for the harvest, and are lying wi' the fever---five
shillings to them, and half-a-crown to Bessie MacEvoy,
whose coodman, puir creature, died of the
frost, being a shairman, for a' the whisky he could
drink to keep it out o' his stamoch---and------''
But she suddenly interrupted the bead-roll of her
proposed charities, and assuming a very sage look,
and primming up her little chattering mouth, she
went on in a different tone---``But, och, Mr Croftangry,
bethink ye whether ye will not need a' this
siller yoursell, and maybe look back and think lang
for ha'en kiven it away, whilk is a creat sin to forthink
a wark o' charity, and also is unlucky, and
moreover is not the thought of a shentleman's son
like yoursell, dear. And I say this, that ye may
think a bit, for your mother's son kens that ye are
no so careful as you should be of the gear, and I
hae tauld ye of it before, jewel.''
I assured her I could easily spare the money,
without risk of future repentance; and she went
on to infer, that, in such a case, ``Mr Croftangry
had grown a rich man in foreign parts, and was
free of his troubles with messengers and sheriff-officers,
and siclike scum of the earth, and Shanet
MacEvoy's mother's daughter be a blithe woman
to hear it. But if Mr Croftangry was in trouble,
there was his room, and his ped, and Shanet to wait
on him, and tak payment when it was quite convenient.''
I explained to Janet my situation, in which she
expressed unqualified delight. I then proceeded
to enquire into her own circumstances, and, though
she spoke cheerfully and contentedly, I could see
they were precarious. I had paid more than was
due; other lodgers fell into an opposite error, and
forgot to pay Janet at all. Then, Janet being ignorant
of all indirect modes of screwing money out
of her lodgers, others in the same line of life, who
were sharper than the poor simple Highland woman,
were enabled to let their apartments cheaper
in appearance, though the inmates usually found
them twice as dear in the long-run.
As I had already destined my old landlady to be
my housekeeper and governante, knowing her honesty,
good-nature, and, although a Scotchwoman,
her cleanliness and excellent temper, (saving the
short and hasty expressions of anger which Highlanders
call a _fuff_,) now proposed the plan to her
in such a way as was likely to make it most acceptable.
Very acceptable as the proposal was, as
I could plainly see, Janet, however, took a day to
consider upon it; and her reflections against our
next meeting had suggested only one objection,
which was singular enough.
``My honour,'' so she now termed me, ``would
pe for biding in some fine street apout the town;
now Shanet wad ill like to live in a place where
polish, and sheriffs, and bailiffs, and sic thieves
and trash of the world, could tak puir shentlemen
by the throat, just because they wanted a wheen
dollars in the sporran. She had lived in the bonny
glen of Tomanthoulick---Cot, an ony of the vermint
had come there, her father wad hae wared a
shot on them, and he could hit a buck within as
mony measured yards as e'er a man of his clan.
And the place here was so quiet frae them, they
durst na put their nose ower the gutter. Shanet
owed nobody a bodle, but she couldna pide to see
honest folk and pretty shentlemen forced away to
prison whether they would or no; and then if
Shanet was to lay her tangs ower ane of the ragamuffin's
heads, it would be, maybe, that the law
would gi'ed a hard name.''
One thing I have learned in life,---never to
speak sense when nonsense will answer the purpose
as well. I should have had great difficulty
to convince this practical and disinterested admirer
and vindicator of liberty, that arrests seldom
or never were to be seen in the streets of Edinburgh,
and to satisfy her of their justice and necessity,
would have been as difficult as to convert her
to the Protestant faith. I therefore assured her
my intention, if I could get a suitable habitation,
was to remain in the quarter where she at present
dwelt. Janet gave three skips on the floor, and
uttered as many short shrill yells of joy; yet doubt
almost instantly returned, and she insisted on
knowing what possible reason I could have for
making my residence where few lived, save those
whose misfortunes drove them thither. It occurred
to me to answer her by recounting the legend
of the rise of my family, and of our deriving our
name from a particular place near Holyrood Palace.
This, which would have appeared to most
people a very absurd reason for choosing a residence,
was entirely satisfactory to Janet MacEvoy.
``Och, nae doubt I if it was the land of her fathers,
there was nae mair to be said. Put it was
queer that her family estate should just lie at the
town tail, and covered with houses, where the
King's cows, Cot bless them hide and horn, used
to craze upon. It was strange changes.'' She
mused a little, and then added, ``Put it is something
better wi' Croftangry when the changes is
frae the field to the habited place, and not from
the place of habitation to the desert; for Shanet,
her nainsell, kent a glen where there were men as
weel as there maybe in Croftangry, and if there
werena altogether sae mony of them, they were as
good men in their tartan as the others in their broadcloth.
And there were houses too, and if they
were not biggit with stane and lime, and lofted
like the houses at Croftangry, yet they served the
purpose of them that lived there; and mony a braw
bonnet, and mony a silk snood, and comely white
curch, would come out to gang to kirk or chapel
on the Lord's day, and little bairns toddling after;
and now,---Och, Och, Ohellany, Ohonari! the
glen is desolate, and the braw snoods and bonnets
are gane, and the Saxon's house stands dull and
lonely, like the single bare-breasted rock that the
falcon builds on---the falcon that drives the heathbird
frae the glen.''
Janet, like many Highlanders, was full of imagination;
and, when melancholy themes came upon
her, expressed herself almost poetically, owing to
the genius of the Celtic language in which she
thought, and in which, doubtless, she would have
spoken, had I understood Gaelic. In two minutes
the shade of gloom and regret had passed from her
good-humoured features, and she was again the
little busy, prating, important old woman, undisputed
owner of one flat of a small tenement in the
Abbey-yard, and about to be promoted to be housekeeper
to an elderly bachelor gentleman, Chrystal
Croftangry, Esq.
It was not long before Janet's local researches
found out exactly the sort of place I wanted, and
there we settled. Janet was afraid I would not be
satisfied because it is not exactly part of Croftangry;
but I stopped her doubts, by assuring her it
had been part and pendicle thereof in my forefathers'
time, which passed very well.
I do not intend to possess any one with an exact
knowledge of my lodging; though, as Bobadil
says, ``I care not who knows it, since the cabin
is convenient.'' But I may state in general, that
it is a house ``within itself,'' or, according to a
newer phraseology in advertisements, self-contained,
has a garden of near half an acre, and a patch
of ground with trees in front. It boasts five rooms
and servants' apartments---looks in front upon the
palace, and from behind towards the hill and crags
of the King's Park. Fortunately the place had a
name, which, with a little improvement, served to
countenance the legend which I had imposed on
Janet, and would not perhaps have been sorry if I
had been able to impose on myself. It was called
Littlecroft; we have dubbed it Little Croftangry,
and the men of letters belonging to the Post Office
have sanctioned the change, and deliver letters
so addressed. Thus I am to all intents and purposes
Chrystal Croftangry of that Ilk.
My establishment consists of Janet, an under
maid-servant, and a Highland wench for Janet to
exercise her Gaelic upon, with a handy lad who
can lay the cloth, and take care besides of a pony,
on which I find my way to Portobello sands, especially
when the cavalry have a drill; for, like an
old fool as I am, I have not altogether become indifferent
to the tramp of horses and the flash of
weapons, of which, though no professional soldier,
it has been my fate to see something in my youth.
For wet mornings, I have my book---is it fine
weather, I visit, or I wander on the Crags, as the
humour dictates. My dinner is indeed solitary,
yet not quite so neither; for though Andrew
waits, Janet, or,---as she is to all the world but her
master, and certain old Highland gossips,---Mrs
MacEvoy, attends, bustles about, and desires to
see every thing is in first-rate order, and to tell me,
Cot pless us, the wonderful news of the Palace for
the day. When the cloth is removed, and I light
my cigar, and begin to husband a pint of port, or
a glass of old whisky and water, it is the rule of
the house that Janet takes a chair at some distance,
and nods or works her stocking, as she may be disposed;
ready to speak, if I am in the talking humour,
and sitting quiet as a mouse if I am rather
inclined to study a book or the newspaper. At
six precisely she makes my tea, and leaves me to
drink it; and then occurs an interval of time which
most old bachelors find heavy on their hands. The
theatre is a good occasional resource, especially if
Will Murray acts, or a bright star of eminence
shines forth; but it is distant, and so are one or
two public societies to which I belong; besides,
these evening walks are all incompatible with the
elbow-chair feeling, which desires some employment
that may divert the mind without fatiguing
the body.
Under the influence of these impressions, I have
sometimes thought of this literary undertaking. I
must have been the Bonassus himself to have mistaken
myself for a genius, yet I have leisure and
reflections like my neighbours. I am a borderer
also between two generations, and can point out
more perhaps than others of those fading traces of
antiquity which are daily vanishing; and I know
many a modern instance and many an old tradition,
and therefore I ask---
What ails me, I may not, as well as they,
Rake up some threadbare tales, that mouldering lay
In chimney corners, wont by Christmas fires
To read and rock to sleep our ancient sires?
No man his threshold better knows, than I
Brute's first arrival and first victory,
Saint George's sorrel and his cross of blood,
Arthur's round board and Caledonian wood.
No shop is so easily set up as an antiquary's.
Like those of the lowest order of pawnbrokers, a
commodity of rusty iron, a bag or two of hobnails,
a few odd shoebuckles, cashiered kail-pots, and
fire-irons declared incapable of service, are quite
sufficient to set him up. If he add a sheaf or two
of penny ballads and broadsides, he is a great man
---an extensive trader. And then---like the pawnbrokers
aforesaid, if the author understands a little
legerdemain, he may, by dint of a little picking
and stealing, make the inside of his shop a great
deal richer than the out, and be able to show you
things which cause those who do not understand
the antiquarian trick of clean conveyance, to wonder
how the devil he came by them.
It may be said, that antiquarian articles interest
but few customers, and that we may bawl ourselves
as rusty as the wares we deal in without any one
asking the price of our merchandise. But I do
not rest my hopes upon this department of my labours
only. I propose also to have a corresponding
shop for Sentiment, and Dialogues, and Disquisition,
which may captivate the fancy of those
who have no relish, as the established phrase goes,
for pure antiquity;---a sort of green-grocer's stall
erected in front of my ironmongery wares, garlanding
the rusty memorials of ancient times with
cresses, cabbages, leeks, and water purpy.
As I have some idea that I am writing too well
to be understood, I humble myself to ordinary language,
and aver, with becoming modesty, that I do
think myself capable of sustaining a publication of
a miscellaneous nature, as like to the Spectator, or
the Guardian, the Mirror, or the Lounger, as my
poor abilities may be able to accomplish. Not that
I have any purpose of imitating Johnson, whose
general learning and power of expression I do not
deny, but many of whose Ramblers are little better
than a sort of pageant, where trite and obvious
maxims are made to swagger in lofty and mystic
language, and get some credit only because they
are not easily understood. There are some of the
great moralist's papers which I cannot peruse without
thinking on a second-rate masquerade, where
the best-known and least-esteemed characters in
town march in as heroes, and sultans, and so forth,
and, by dint of tawdry dresses, get some consideration
until they are found out.---It is not, however,
prudent to commence with throwing stones, just
when I am striking out windows of my own.
I think even the local situation of Little Croftangry
may be considered as favourable to my undertaking.
A nobler contrast there can hardly
exist than that of the huge city, dark with the
smoke of ages, and groaning with the various
sounds of active industry or idle revel, and the
lofty and craggy hill, silent and solitary as the
grave; one exhibiting the full tide of existence,
pressing and precipitating itself forward with the
force of an inundation; the other resembling some
time-worn anchorite, whose life passes as silent
and unobserved as the slender rill which escapes
unheard, and scarce seen, from the fountain of his
patron saint. The city resembles the busy temple,
where the modern Comus and Mammon hold their
court, and thousands sacrifice ease, independence,
and virtue itself, at their shrine; the misty and
lonely mountain seems as a throne to the majestic
but terrible Genius of feudal times, when the same
divinities dispensed coronets and domains to those
who had heads to devise, and arms to execute,
bold enterprises.
I have, as it were, the two extremities of the
moral world at my threshold. From the front door,
a few minutes' walk brings me into the heart of a
wealthy and populous city; as many paces from
my opposite entrance, places me in a solitude
as complete as Zimmerman could have desired.
Surely with such aids to my imagination, I may
write better than if I were in a lodging in the New
Town, or a garret in the old. As the Spaniard
says, ``_Viamos---Caracco!_''
I have not chosen to publish periodically, my
reason for which was twofold. In the first place,
I don't like to be hurried, and have had enough of
duns in an early part of my life, to make me reluctant
to hear of, or see one, even in the less awful
shape of a printer's devil. But, secondly, a periodical
paper is not easily extended in circulation
beyond the quarter in which it is published. This
work, if published in fugitive numbers, would
scarce, without a high pressure on the part of the
bookseller, be raised above the Netherbow, and
never could be expected to ascend to the level of
Prince's Street. Now I am ambitious that my
compositions, though having their origin in this
Valley of Holyrood, should not only be extended
into those exalted regions I have mentioned, but
also that they should cross the Forth, astonish the
long town of Kirkaldy, enchant the skippers and
colliers of the East of Fife, venture even into the
classic arcades of St Andrews, and travel as much
farther to the north as the breath of applause will
carry their sails. As for a southward direction, it
is not to be hoped for in my fondest dreams. I
am informed that Scottish literature, like Scottish
whisky, will be presently laid under a prohibitory
duty. But enough of this. If any reader is dull
enough not to comprehend the advantages which,
in point of circulation, a compact book has over a
collection of fugitive numbers, let him try the
range of a gun loaded with hail-shot, against that
of the same piece charged with an equal weight of
lead consolidated in a single bullet.
Besides, it was of less consequence that I should
have published periodically, since I did not mean
to solicit or accept of the contributions of friends,
or the criticisms of those who may be less kindly
disposed. Notwithstanding the excellent examples
which might be quoted, I will establish no
begging-box, either under the name of a lion's-head
or an ass's. What is good or ill shall be mine
own, or the contribution of friends to whom I may
have private access. Many of my voluntary assistants
might be cleverer than myself, and then I
should have a brilliant article appear among my
chiller effusions, like a patch of lace on a Scottish
cloak of Galashiels grey. Some might be worse,
and then I must reject them, to the injury of the
feelings of the writer, or else insert them, to make
my own darkness yet more opaque and palpable.
``Let every herring,'' says our old-fashioned proverb,
``hang by his own head.''
One person, however, I may distinguish, as she
is now no more, who, living to the utmost term of
human life, honoured me with a great share of her
friendship, as indeed we were blood-relatives in the
Scottish sense---Heaven knows how many degrees
removed---and friends in the sense of Old England.
I mean the late excellent and regretted Mrs Bethune
Baliol. But as I design this admirable picture of
the olden time for a principal character in my
work, I will only say here, that she knew and approved
of my present purpose; and though she
declined to contribute to it while she lived, from a
sense of dignified retirement, which she thought
became her age, sex, and condition in life, she left
me some materials for carrying on my proposed
work, which I coveted when I heard her detail them
in conversation, and which now, when I have their
substance in her own handwriting, I account far
more valuable than anything I have myself to offer.
I hope the mentioning her name in conjunction
with my own, will give no offence to any of her numerous
friends, as it was her own express pleasure
that I should employ the manuscripts, which she
did me the honour to bequeath me, in the manner
in which I have now used them. It must be added,
however, that in most cases I have disguised names,
and in some have added shading and colouring to
bring out the narrative.
Much of my materials, besides these, are derived
from friends, living or dead. The accuracy of some
of these may be doubtful, in which case I shall be
happy to receive, from sufficient authority, the correction
of the errors which must creep into traditional
documents. The object of the whole publication
is, to throw some light on the manners of
Scotland as they were, and to contrast them, occasionally,
with those of the present day. My own
opinions are in favour of our own times in many
respects, but not in so far as affords means for
exercising the imagination, or exciting the interest
which attaches to other times. I am glad to be a
writer or a reader in 1826, but I would be most
interested in reading or relating what happened
from half a century to a century before. We have
the best of it. Scenes in which our ancestors
thought deeply, acted fiercely, and died desperately,
are to us tales to divert the tedium of a winter's
evening, when we are engaged to no party, or beguile
a summer's morning, when it is too scorching
to ride or walk.
Yet I do not mean that my essays and narratives
should be limited to Scotland. I pledge myself to
no particular line of subjects; but, on the contrary,
say with Burns,
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps turn out a sermon.
I have only to add, by way of postcript to these
preliminary chapters, that I have had recourse to
Moliere's recipe, and read my manuscript over to
my old woman, Janet MacEvoy.
The dignity of being consulted delighted Janet;
and Wilkie, or Allan, would have made a capital
sketch of her, as she sat upright in her chair, instead
of her ordinary lounging posture, knitting
her stocking systematically, as if she meant every
twist of her thread, and inclination of the wires, to
bear burden to the cadence of my voice. I am afraid,
too, that I myself felt more delight than I ought
to have done in my own composition, and read a
little more oratorically than I should have ventured
to do before an auditor, of whose applause I was
not so secure. And the result did not entirely encourage
my plan of censorship. Janet did indeed
seriously incline to the account of my previous life,
and bestowed some Highland maledictions more
emphatic than courteous on Christie Steele's reception
of a ``shentlemans in distress,'' and of her own
mistress's house too. I omitted for certain reasons,
or greatly abridged, what related to herself
But when I came to treat of my general views in
publication, I saw poor Janet was entirely thrown
out, though, like a jaded hunter, panting, puffing,
and short of wind, she endeavoured at least to keep
up with the chase. Or rather her perplexity made
her look all the while like a deaf person ashamed
of his infirmity, who does not understand a word
you are saying, yet desires you to believe that he
does understand you, and who is extremely jealous
that you suspect this incapacity. When she saw that
some remark was necessary, she resembled exactly
in her criticism the devotee who pitched on the
``sweet word Mesopotamia,'' as the most edifying
note which she could bring away from a sermon.
She indeed hastened to bestow general praise on
what she said was all ``very fine;'' but chiefly dwelt
on what I had said about Mr Timmerman, as she
was pleased to call the German philosopher, and
supposed he must be of the same descent with the
Highland clan of M`Intyre, which signifies Son of
the Carpenter. ``And a fery honourable name too
---Shanet's own mither was a M`Intyre.''
In short, it was plain the latter part of my introduction
was altogether lost on poor Janet; and so,
to have acted up to Moliere's system, I should have
cancelled the whole, and written it anew. But I
do not know how it is; I retained, I suppose, some
tolerable opinion of my own composition, though
Janet did not comprehend it, and felt loath to retrench
those delilahs of the imagination, as Dryden
calls them, the tropes and figures of which are
caviar to the multitude. Besides, I hate re-writing,
as much as Falstaff did paying back---it is a
double labour. So I determined with myself to
consult Janet, in future, only on such things as
were within the limits of her comprehension, and
hazard my arguments and my rhetoric on the public
without her imprimatur. I am pretty sure she
will ``applaud it done.'' And in such narratives
as come within her range of thought and feeling,
I shall, as I first intended, take the benefit of her
unsophisticated judgment, and attend to it deferentially
---that is, when it happens not to be in peculiar
opposition to my own; for, after all, I say
with Almanzor---
Know that I alone am king of me.
The reader has now my who and my whereabout,
the purpose of the work, and the circumstances
under which it is undertaken. He has also a specimen
of the author's talents, and may judge for
himself, and proceed, or send back the volume to
the bookseller, as his own taste shall determine.
CHAPTER VI.
Mr Croftangry's Account of Mrs Bethune Baliol.
The moon, were she earthly, no nobler.
Coriolanus.
When we set out on the jolly voyage of life,
what a brave fleet there is around us, as stretching
our fresh canvass to the breeze, all ``shipshape and
Bristol fashion,'' pennons flying, music playing,
cheering each other as we pass, we are rather
amused than alarmed when some awkward comrade
goes right ashore for want of pilotage!---Alas!
when the voyage is well spent, and we look about
us, toil-worn mariners, how few of our ancient consorts
still remain in sight, and they, how torn and
wasted, and, like ourselves, struggling to keep as
long as possible of the fatal shore, against which
we are all finally drifting!
I felt this very trite but melancholy truth in all
its force the other day, when a packet with a black
seal arrived, containing a letter addressed to me
by my late excellent friend Mrs Martha Bethune
Baliol, and marked with the fatal indorsation, ``To
be delivered according to address, after I shall be
no more.'' A letter from her executors accompanied
the packet, mentioning that they had found in
her will a bequest to me of a painting of some
value, which she stated would just fit the space
above my cupboard, and fifty guineas to buy a ring.
And thus I separated, with all the kindness which
we had maintained for many years, from a friend,
who, though old enough to have been the companion
of my mother, was yet, in gaiety of spirits, and
admirable sweetness of temper, capable of being
agreeable, and even animating society, for those
who write themselves in the vaward of youth; an
advantage which I have lost for these five-and-thirty
years. The contents of the packet I had no difficulty
in guessing, and have partly hinted at them
in the last chapter. But to instruct the reader in
the particulars, and at the same time to indulge
myself with recalling the virtues and agreeable
qualities of my late friend, I will give a short sketch
of her manners and habits.
Mrs Martha Bethune Baliol was a person of
quality and fortune, as these are esteemed in Scotland.
Her family was ancient, and her connexions
honourable. She was not fond of specially indicating
her exact age, but her juvenile recollections
stretched backwards till before the eventful year
1745; and she remembered the Highland clans
being in possession of the Scottish capital, though
probably only as an indistinct vision. Her fortune,
independent by her father's bequest, was rendered
opulent by the death of more than one brave brother,
who fell successively in the service of their
@@@ 92
beside the gate, and acted as porter. To this office
he had been promoted by my friend's charitable
feelings for an old soldier, and partly by an idea,
that his bead, which was a very fine one, bore some
resemblance to that of Garrick in the character of
Lusignan. He was a man saturnine, silent, and
slow in his proceedings, and would never open the
_porte coch<e`>re_ to a hackney coach; indicating the
wicket with his finger, as the proper passage for all
who came in that obscure vehicle, which was not
permitted to degrade with its ticketed presence the
dignity of Baliol's Lodging. I do not think this
peculiarity would have met with his lady's approbation,
any more than the occasional partiality of
Lusignan, or, as mortals called him, Archy Macready,
to a dram. But Mrs Martha Bethune Baliol,
conscious that, in case of conviction, she could
never have prevailed upon, herself to dethrone the
King of Palestine from the stone bench on which
he sat for hours, knitting his stocking, refused, by
accrediting the intelligence, even to put him upon
his trial; well judging that he would observe more
wholesome caution if he conceived his character
unsuspected, than if be were detected, and suffered
to pass unpunished. For after all, she said, it
would be cruel to dismiss an old Highland Soldier
for a peccadillo so appropriate to his country and
profession.
The stately gate for carriages, or the humble
accommodation for foot-passengers, admitted into
a narrow and short passage, running between two
rows of lime-trees, whose green foliage, during the
spring, contrasted strangely with the swart complexion
of the two walls by the side of which they
grew. This access led to the front of the house,
which was formed by two gable ends, notched, and
having their windows adorned with heavy architectural
ornaments; they joined each other at right
angles; and a half circular tower, which contained
the entrance and the staircase, occupied the point
of junction, and rounded the acute angle. One of
other two sides of the little court, in which there
was just sufficient room to turn a carriage, was
occupied by some low buildings answering the purpose
of offices; the other, by a parapet surrounded
by a highly-ornamented iron railing, twined round
with honeysuckle and other parasitical shrubs,
which permitted the eye to peep into a pretty suburban
garden, extending down to the road called
the South Back of the Canongate, and boasting a
number of old trees, many flowers, and even some
fruit. We must not forget to state, that the extreme
cleanliness of the court-yard was such as
intimated that mop and pail had done their utmost
in that favoured spot, to atone for the general dirt
and dinginess of the quarter where the premises
were situated.
Over the doorway were the arms of Bethune
and Baliol, with various other devices carved in
stone; the door itself was studded with iron nails,
and formed of black oak; an iron rasp,* as it was
* Note C. Iron Rasp.
called, was placed on it, instead of a knocker, for
the purpose of summoning the attendants. He
who usually appeared at the summons was a smart
lad, in a handsome livery, the son of Mrs Martha's
gardener at Mount Baliol. Now and then a servant
girl, nicely but plainly dressed, and fully accoutred
with stockings and shoes, would perform
this duty; and twice or thrice I remember being
admitted by Beauffet himself, whose exterior looked
as much like that of a clergyman of rank as the
butler of a gentleman's family. He had been valet-de-chambre
to the last Sir Richard Bethune Baliol,
and was a person highly trusted by the present
lady. A full stand, as it is called in Scotland, of
garments of a dark colour, gold buckles in his
shoes, and at the knees of his breeches, with his
hair regularly dressed and powdered, announced
him to be a domestic of trust and importance. His
mistress used to say of him,
He's sad and civil,
And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.
As no one can escape scandal, some said that
Beauffet made a rather better thing of the place
than the modesty of his old-fashioned wages would,
unassisted, have amounted to. But the man was
always very civil to me. He had been long in the
family; had enjoyed legacies, and laid by a something
of his own, upon which he now enjoys ease
with dignity, in as far as his newly-married wife,
Tibbie Shortacres, will permit him.
The Lodging---Dearest reader, if you are tired,
pray pass over the next four or five pages---was
not by any means so large as its external appearance
led people to conjecture. The interior accommodation
was much cut up by cross walls and
long passages, and that neglect of economizing
space which characterises old Scottish architecture.
But there was far more room than my old friend
required, even when she had, as was often the
case, four or five young cousins under her protection;
and I believe much of the house was unoccupied.
Mrs Bethune Baliol never, in my presence,
showed herself so much offended, as once with a
meddling person who advised her to have the windows
of these supernumerary apartments built up,
to save the tax. She said in ire, that, while she
lived, the light of God should visit the house of
her fathers; and while she had a penny, king and
country should have their due. Indeed, she was
punctiliously loyal, even in that most staggering
test of loyalty, the payment of imposts. Mr Beauffet
told me he was ordered to offer a glass of wine
to the person who collected the income tax, and
that the poor man was so overcome by a reception
so unwontedly generous, that he had wellnigh
fainted on the spot.
You entered by a matted anteroom into the
eating parlour, filled with old-fashioned furniture,
and hung with family portraits, which, excepting
one of Sir Bernard Bethune, in James the Sixth's
time, said to be by Jameson, were exceedingly
frightful. A saloon, as it was called, a long narrow
chamber, led out of the dining-parlour, and
served for a drawing-room. It was a pleasant
apartment, looking out upon the south flank of
Holyrood-house, the gigantic slope of Arthur's
Seat, and the girdle of lofty rocks, called Salisbury
Crags;* objects so rudely wild, that the mind can
* The Rev. Mr Bowles derives the name of these crags, as
of the Episcopal city in the west of England, from the same
root; both, in his opinion, which he very ably defends and
illustrates, having been the sites of druidical temples.
hardly conceive them to exist in the vicinage of a
populous metropolis. The paintings of the saloon
came from abroad, and had some of them much
merit. To see the best of them, however, you
must be admitted into the very penetralia of the
temple, and allowed to draw the tapestry at the
upper end of the saloon, and enter Mrs Martha's
own special dressing-room. This was a charming
apartment, of which it would be difficult to describe
the form, it had so many recesses which were filled
up with shelves of ebony, and cabinets of japan and
_or molu_; some for holding books, of which Mrs
Martha had an admirable collection, some for a
display of ornamental china, others for shells and
similar curiosities. In a little niche, half screened
by a curtain of crimson silk, was disposed a suit of
tilting armour of bright steel, inlaid with silver,
which had been worn on some memorable occasion
by Sir Bernard Bethune, already mentioned; while
over the canopy of the niche, hung the broadsword
with which her father had attempted to change the
fortunes of Britain in 1715, and the spontoon which
her elder brother bore when he was leading on a
company of the Black Watch* at Fontenoy.
* The well-known original designation of the gallant 42d
Regiment. Being the first corps raised for the royal service
in the Highlands, and allowed to retain their national garb,
they were thus named from the contrast which their dark
tartans furnished to the scarlet and white of the other regiments.
There were some Italian and Flemish pictures
of admitted authenticity, a few genuine bronzes
and other objects of curiosity, which her brothers
or herself had picked up while abroad. In short,
it was a place where the idle were tempted to become
studious, the studious to grow idle---where
the grave might find matter to make them gay, and
the gay subjects for gravity.
That it might maintain some title to its name,
I must not forget to say, that the lady's dressing-room
exhibited a superb mirror, framed in silver
filigree work; a beautiful toilette, the cover of
which was of Flanders lace; and a set of boxes
corresponding in materials and work to the frame
of the mirror.
This dressing apparatus, however, was mere
matter of parade: Mrs Martha Bethune Baliol
always went through the actual duties of the toilette
in an inner apartment, which corresponded
with her sleeping-room by a small detached staircase.
There were, I believe, more than one of
those _turnpike stairs_, as they were called, about
the house, by which the public rooms, all of which
entered through each other, were accommodated
with separate and independent modes of access.
In the little boudoir we have described, Mrs Martha
Baliol had her choicest meetings. She kept
early hours; and if you went in the morning, you
must not reckon that space of day as extending
beyond three o'clock, or four at the utmost. These
vigilant habits were attended with some restraint
on her visitors, but they were indemnified by your
always finding the best society, and the best information,
which was to be had for the (lay in the
Scottish capital. Without at all affecting the blue
stocking, she liked books---they amused her---and if
the authors were persons of character, she thought
she owed them a debt of civility, which she loved
to discharge by personal kindness. When she gave
a dinner to a small party, which she did now and
then, she had the good nature to look for, and the
good luck to discover, what sort of people suited
each other best, and chose her company as Duke
Theseus did his hounds,
matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each,*
* Shakspeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV. Sc. I.
so that every guest could take his part in the cry;
instead of one mighty Tom of a fellow, like Dr
Johnson, silencing all besides by the tremendous
depth of his diapason. On such occasions she afforded
_ch<e`>re exquise_; and every now and then there
was some dish of French, or even Scottish derivation,
which, as well as the numerous assortment
of _vins extraordinaires_ produced by Mr Beauffet,
gave a sort of antique and foreign air to the entertainment,
which rendered it more interesting.
It was a great thing to be asked to such parties,
and not less so to be invited to the early _conversazione_,
which, in spite of fashion, by dint of the best
coffee, the finest tea, and _chasse caf<e'>_ that would
have called the dead to life, she contrived now and
then to assemble in her saloon already mentioned,
at the unnatural hour of eight in the evening. At
such times, the cheerful old lady seemed to enjoy
herself so much in the happiness of her guests, that
they exerted themselves in turn to prolong her
amusement and their own; and a certain charm
was excited around, seldom to be met with in parties
of pleasure, and which was founded on the
general desire of every one present to contribute
something to the common amusement.
But although it was a great privilege to be admitted
to wait on my excellent friend in the morning,
or be invited to her dinner or evening parties,
I prized still higher the right which I had acquired,
by old acquaintance, of visiting Baliol's Lodging,
upon the chance of finding its venerable inhabitant
preparing for tea, just about six o'clock in the
evening. It was only to two or three old friends
that she permitted this freedom, nor was this sort
of chance-party ever allowed to extend itself beyond
five in number. The answer to those who
came later, announced that the company was filled
up for the evening; which had the double effect,
of making those who waited on Mrs Bethune Baliol
in this unceremonious manner punctual in observing
her hour, and of adding the zest of a little
difficulty to the enjoyment of the party.
It more frequently happened that only one or
two persons partook of this refreshment on the
same evening; or, supposing the case of a single
gentleman, Mrs Martha, though she did not hesitate
to admit him to her boudoir, after the privilege
of the French and the old Scottish school,
took care, as she used to say, to preserve all possible
propriety, by commanding the attendance of
her principal female attendant, Mrs Alice Lambskin,
who might, from the gravity and dignity of
her appearance, have sufficed to matronize a whole
boarding-school, instead of one maiden lady or
eighty and upwards. As the weather permitted,
Mrs Alice sat duly remote from the company in
a fauteuil behind the projecting chimney-piece, or
in the embrasure of a window, and prosecuted in
Carthusian silence, with indefatigable zeal, a piece
of embroidery, which seemed no bad emblem of
eternity.
But I have neglected all this while to introduce
my friend herself to the reader, at least so far as
words can convey the peculiarities by which her
appearance and conversation were distinguished.
A little woman, with ordinary features, and an
ordinary form, and hair, which in youth had no
decided colour, we may believe Mrs Martha, when
she said of herself that she was never remarkable
for personal charms; a modest admission, which
was readily confirmed by certain old ladies, her
contemporaries, who, whatever might have been
the youthful advantages which they more than hinted
had been formerly their own share, were now,
in personal appearance, as well as in every thing
else, far inferior to my accomplished friend. Mrs
Marthas features had been of a kind which might
be said to wear well; their irregularity was now
of little consequence, animated as they were by
the vivacity of her conversation; her teeth were
excellent, and her eyes, although inclining to grey,
were lively, laughing, and undimmed by time. A
slight shade of complexion, more brilliant than her
years promised, subjected my friend amongst strangers
to the suspicion of having stretched her foreign
habits as far as the prudent touch of the
rouge. But it was a calumny; for when telling
or listening to an interesting and affecting story,
I have seen her colour come and go as if it played
on the cheek of eighteen.
Her hair, whatever its former deficiencies, was
now the most beautiful white that time could bleach,
and was disposed with some degree of pretension,
though in the simplest manner possible, so as to
appear neatly smoothed under a cap of Flanders
lace, of an old-fashioned, but, as I thought, of a
very handsome form, which undoubtedly has a
name, and I would endeavour to recur to it, if I
thought it would make my description a bit more
intelligible. I think I have heard her say these
favourite caps had been her mother's, and had come
in fashion with a peculiar kind of wig used by the
gentlemen about the time of the battle of Ramillies.
The rest of her dress was always rather costly
and distinguished, especially in the evening. A
silk or satin gown of some colour becoming her
age, and of a form, which, though complying to a
certain degree with the present fashion, had always
a reference to some more distant period, was garnished
with triple ruffles; her shoes had diamond
buckles, and were raised a little at heel, an advantage
which, possessed in her youth, she alleged her
size would not permit her to forego in her old age.
She always wore rings, bracelets, and other ornaments
of value, either for the materials or the workmanship;
nay, perhaps she was a little profuse in
this species of display. But she wore them as
subordinate matters, to which the habits of being
constantly in high life rendered her indifferent;
the wore them because her rank required it, and
thought no more of them as articles of finery, than
a gentleman dressed for dinner thinks of his clean
linen and well-brushed coat, the consciousness of
which embarrasses the rustic beau on a Sunday.
Now and then, however, if a gem or ornament
chanced to be noticed for its beauty or singularity,
the observation usually led the way to an entertaining
account of the manner in which it had been
acquired, or the person from whom it had descended
to its present possessor. On such and
similar occasions my old friend spoke willingly,
which is not uncommon, but she also, which is more
rare, spoke remarkably well, and had in her little
narratives concerning foreign parts, or former days,
which formed an interesting part of her conversation,
the singular art of dismissing all the usual
protracted tautology respecting time, place, and
circumstances, which is apt to settle like a mist
upon the cold and languid tales of age, and at the
same time of bringing forward, dwelling upon, and
illustrating, those incidents and characters which
give point and interest to the story.
She had, as we have hinted travelled a good
deal in foreign countries; for a brother, to whom
she was much attached, had been sent upon various
missions of national importance to the continent,
and she had more than once embraced the opportunity
of accompanying him. This furnished a
great addition to the information which she could
supply, especially during the last war, when the
continent was for so many years hermetically scaled
against the English nation. But, besides, Mrs
Bethune Baliol visited different countries, not in the
modern fashion, when English travel in caravans
together, and see in France and Italy little besides
the same society which they might have enjoyed
at home. On the contrary, she mingled when
abroad with the natives of those countries she
visited, and enjoyed at once the advantage of their
society, and the pleasure of comparing it with that
of Britain.
In the course of her becoming habituated with
foreign manners, Mrs Bethune Baliol had, perhaps,
acquired some slight tincture of them herself.
Yet I was always persuaded, that the peculiar vivacity
of look and manner---the pointed and appropriate
action with which she accompanied what
she said---the use of the gold and gemmed _tabati<e`>re_,
or rather I should say _bonbonni<e`>re_, (for she
took no snuff, and the little box contained only a
few pieces of candied angelica, or some such lady-like
sweetmeat,) were of real old-fashioned Scottish
growth, and such as might have graced the
tea-table of Susannah, Countess of Eglinton,* the
* Note D, Countess of Eglinton.
patroness of Allan Ramsay, or of the Hon. Mrs
Colonel Ogilvy, who was another mirror by whom
the maidens of Auld Reekie were required to dress
themselves. Although well acquainted with the
customs of other countries, her manners had been
chiefly formed in her own, at a time when great
folk lived within little space, and when the distinguished
names of the highest society gave to Edinburgh
the _eclat_, which we now endeavour to derive
from the unbounded expense and extended
circle of our pleasures.
l was more confirmed in this opinion, by the
peculiarity of the dialect which Mrs Baliol used.
It was Scottish, decidedly Scottish, often containing
phrases and words little used in the present day.
But then her tone and mode of pronunciation were
as different from the usual accent of the ordinary
Scotch patois, as the accent of St James's is from
that of Billingsgate. The vowels were not pronounced
much broader than in the Italian language,
and there was none of the disagreeable drawl which
is so offensive to southern ears. In short, it seemed
to be the Scottish as spoken by the ancient court
of Scotland, to which no idea of vulgarity could be
attached; and the lively manners and gestures with
which it was accompanied, were so completely in
accord with the sound of the voice and the style
of talking, that I cannot assign them a different
origin. In long derivation, perhaps the manner
of the Scottish court might have been originally
formed on that of France, to which it had certainly
some affinity; but I will live and die in the belief,
that those of Mrs Baliol, as pleasing as they were
peculiar, came to her by direct descent from the
high dames who anciently adorned with their presence
the royal halls of Holyrood.
CHAPTER VII.
Mrs Baliol assists Mr Croftangry in his
Literary Speculations.
Such as I have described Mrs Bethune Baliol,
the reader will easily believe that when I thought
of the miscellaneous nature of my work, I rested
upon the information she possessed, and her communicative
disposition, as one of the principal supports
of my enterprise. Indeed, she by no means
disapproved of my proposed publication, though
expressing herself very doubtful how far she could
personally assist it---a doubt which might be perhaps
set down to a little lady-like coquetry, which
required to be sued for the boon she was not unwilling
to grant. Or, perhaps, the good old lady,
conscious that her unusual term of years must soon
draw to a close, preferred bequeathing the materials
in the shape of a legacy, to subjecting them
to the judgment of a critical public during her lifetime.
Many a time I used, in our conversations of the
Canongate, to resume my request of assistance,
from a sense that my friend was the most valuable
depository of Scottish traditions that was probably
now to be found. This was a subject on which my
mind was so much made up, that when I heard her
carry her description of manners so far back beyond
her own time, and describe how Fletcher of Salton
spoke, how Graham of Claverhouse danced,
what were the jewels worn by the famous Duchess
of Lauderdale, and how she came by them, I
could not help telling her I thought her some fairy,
who cheated us by retaining the appearance of a
mortal of our own day, when, in fact, she had witnessed
the revolutions of centuries. She was much
diverted when I required her to take some solemn
oath that she had not danced at the balls given by
Mary of Este, when her unhappy husband* occupied
* The Duke of York, afterwards James II., frequently resided
in Holyrood-house, when his religion rendered him an
object of suspicion to the English Parliament.
Holyrood in a species of honourable banishment;
---or asked, whether she could not recollect Charles
the Second, when he came to Scotland in 1650, and
did not possess some slight recollections of the bold
usurper, who drove him beyond the Forth.
``_Beau cousin_,'' she said, laughing, ``none of
these do I remember personally; but you must
know there has been wonderfully little change on
my natural temper from youth to age. From which
it follows, cousin, that being even now something
too young in spirit for the years which Time has
marked me in his calendar, I was, when a girl, a
little too old for those of my own standing, and as
much inclined at that period to keep the society of
elder persons, as I am now disposed to admit the
company of gay young fellows of fifty or sixty
like yourself, rather than collect about me all the
octogenarians. Now, although I do not actually
come from Elfland, and therefore cannot boast
any personal knowledge of the great personages
you enquire about, yet I have seen and heard
those who knew them well, and who have given
me as distinct an account of them as I could give
you myself of the Empress Queen, or Frederick
of Prussia; and I will frankly add,'' said she,
laughing and offering her _bonbonni<e`>re_, ``that I
have heard so much of the years which immediately
succeeded the Revolution, that I sometimes am
apt to confuse the vivid descriptions fixed on my
memory by the frequent and animated recitation
of others, for things which I myself have actually
witnessed. I caught myself but yesterday describing
to Lord M------ the riding of the last
Scottish Parliament, with as much minuteness as
if I had seen it, as my mother did, from the balcony
in front of Lord Moray's Lodging in the
Canongate.''
``I am sure you must have given Lord M------ a
high treat.''
``I treated him to a hearty laugh, I believe,'' she
replied; ``but it is you, you vile seducer of youth,
who lead me into such follies. But I will be on
my guard against my own weakness. I do not
well know if the wandering Jew is supposed to have
a wife, but I should be sorry a decent middle-aged
Scottish gentlewoman should be suspected of identity
with such a supernatural person.''
``For all that, I must torture you a little more,
_ma belle cousine_, with my interrogatories; for how
shall I ever turn author unless on the strength of
the information which you have so often procured
me on the ancient state of manners?''
``Stay, I cannot allow you to give your points
of enquiry a name so very venerable, if I am expected
to answer them. Ancient is a term for antediluvians.
You may catechise me about the
battle of Flodden, or ask particulars about Bruce
and Wallace, under pretext of curiosity after ancient
manners; and that last subject would wake
my Baliol blood, you know.''
``Well, but, Mrs Baliol, suppose we settle our
era:---you do not call the accession of James the
Sixth to the kingdom of Britain very ancient?''
``Umph! no, cousin---I think I could tell you
more of that than folk now-a-days remember,---for
instance, that as James was trooping towards England,
bag and baggage, his journey was stopped
near Cockenzie by meeting the funeral of the Earl
of Winton, the old and faithful servant and follower
of his ill-fated mother, poor Mary! It was
an ill omen for the _infare_, and so was seen of it,
cousin.'' *
* Note E. Earl of Winton.
I did not choose to prosecute this subject, well
knowing Mrs Bethune Baliol did not like to be
much pressed on the subject of the Stewarts, whose
misfortunes she pitied, the rather that her father
had espoused their cause. And yet her attachment
to the present dynasty being very sincere, and even
ardent, more especially as her family had served
his late Majesty both in peace and war, she experienced
a little embarrassment in reconciling her
opinions respecting the exiled family, with those
she entertained for the present. In fact, like many
an old Jacobite, she was contented to be somewhat
inconsistent on the subject, comforting herself, that
_now_ every thing stood as it ought to do, and that
there was no use in looking back narrowly on the
right or wrong of the matter half a century ago.
``The Highlands,'' I suggested, ``should furnish
you with ample subjects of recollection. You have
witnessed the complete change of that primeval
country, and have seen a race not far removed from
the earliest period of society, melted down into
the great mass of civilisation; and that could not
happen without incidents striking in themselves,
and curious as chapters in the history of the human
race.''
``It is very true,'' said Mrs Baliol; ``one would
think it should have struck the observers greatly,
and yet it scarcely did so. For me, I was no Highlander
myself, and the Highland chiefs of old, of
whom I certainly knew several, had little in their
manners to distinguish them from the Lowland
gentry, when they mixed in society in Edinburgh,
and assumed the Lowland dress. Their peculiar
character was for the clansmen at home; and you
must not imagine that they swaggered about in
plaids and broadswords at the Cross, or came to the
Assembly-Rooms in bonnets and kilts.''
``I remember,'' said I, ``that Swift, in his Journal,
tells Stella he had dined in the house of a
Scots nobleman, with two Highland chiefs, whom
he had found as well-bred men as he had ever met
with.''*
* Extract of Journal to Stella.---``I dined to-day (12th
March, 1712,) with Lord Treasurer and two gentlemen of the
Highlands of Scotland, yet very polite men.''
Swift's _Works_, _Vol. III. p._ 7. _Edin._ 1824.
``Very likely,'' said my friend. ``The extremes
of society approach much more closely to each
other than perhaps the Dean of Saint Patrick's expected.
The savage is always to a certain degree
polite. Besides, going always armed, and having
a very punctilious idea of their own gentility and
consequence, they usually behaved to each other
and to the lowlanders, with a good deal of formal
politeness, which sometimes even procured them
the character of insincerity.''
``Falsehood belongs to an early period of society,
as well as the deferential forms which we
style politeness,'' I replied. ``A child does not
see the least moral beauty in truth, until he has
been flogged half-a-dozen times. It is so easy, and
apparently so natural, to deny what you cannot be
easily convicted of, that a savage as well as a child
lies to excuse himself, almost as instinctively as he
raises his band to protect his head. The old saying,
`confess and be hanged,' carries much argument
in it. I observed a remark the other day in
old Birrel. He mentions that M`Gregor of Glenstrae
and some of his people had surrendered themselves
to one of the Earls of Argyle, upon the express
condition that they should be conveyed safe
into England. The Maccallan Mhor of the day
kept the word of promise, but it was only to the
ear. He indeed sent his captives to Berwick,
where they had an airing on the other side of the
Tweed, but it was under the custody of a strong
guard, by whom they were brought back to Edinburgh,
and delivered to the executioner. This,
Birrel calls keeping a Highlandman's promise.''*
* Note F. M`Gregor of Glenstrae.
``Well,'' replied Mrs Baliol, ``I might add, that
many of the Highland chiefs whom I knew in former
days had been brought up in France, which
might unprove their politeness, though perhaps it
did not amend their sincerity. But considering,
that, belonging to the depressed and defeated faction
in the state, they were compelled sometimes
to use dissimulation, you must set their uniform
fidelity to their friends against their occasional
falsehood to their enemies, and then you will not
judge poor John Highlandman too severely. They
were in a state of society where bright lights are
strongly contrasted with deep shadows.''
``It is to that point I would bring you, _ma belle
cousine_,---and therefore they are most proper subjects
for composition.''
``And you want to turn composer, my good
friend, and set my old tales to some popular tune?
But there have been too many composers, if that
be the word, in the field before. The Highlands
_were_ indeed a rich mine; but they have, I think,
been fairly wrought out, as a good tune is grinded
into vulgarity when it descends to the hurdy-gurdy
and the barrel-organ.''
``If it be really tune,'' I replied, ``it will recover
its better qualities when it gets into the
hands of better artists.''
``Umph!'' said Mrs Baliol, tapping her box,
``we are happy in our own good opinion this evening,
Mr Croftangry. And so you think you can
restore the gloss to the tartan, which it has lost by
being dragged through so many fingers?''
``With your assistance to procure materials, my
dear lady, much, I think, may be done.''
``Well---I must do my best, I suppose; though
all I know about the Gael is but of little consequence---
Indeed, I gathered it chiefly from Donald
MacLeish.''
``And who might Donald MacLeish be?''
``Neither bard nor sennachie, I assure you, nor
monk nor hermit, the approved authorities for old
traditions. Donald was as good a postilion as ever
drove a chaise and pair between Glencroe and Inverary.
I assure you, when I give you my Highland
anecdotes, you will hear much of Donald MacLeish.
He was Alice Lambskin's beau and mine
through a long Highland tour.''
``But when am I to possess these anecdotes?---
you answer me as Harley did poor Prior---
Let that be done which Mat doth say.
`Yea,' quoth the Earl, `but not to-day.' ''
``Well, _mon beau cousin_, if you begin to remind
me of my cruelty, I must remind you it has struck
nine on the Abbey clock, and it is time you were
going home to Little Croftangry. For my promise
to assist your antiquarian researches, be assured,
I will one day keep it to the utmost extent.
It shall not be a Highlandman's promise, as your
old citizen calls it.''
I by this time suspected the purpose of my
friend's procrastination; and it saddened my heart
to reflect that I was not to get the information
which I desired, excepting in the shape of a legacy.
I found accordingly, in the packet transmitted to
me after the excellent lady's death, several anecdotes
respecting the Highlands, from which I have
selected that which follows, chiefly on account of
its possessing great power over the feelings of my
critical housekeeper, Janet M`Evoy, who wept most
bitterly when I read it to her.
It is, however, but a very simple tale, and may
have no interest for persons beyond Janet's rank
of life or understanding.
[4. Introductory Notes]
NOTE TO CHAPTER I.
Note A. Holyrood.
The reader may be gratified with Hector Boece's narrative
of the original foundation of the famous abbey of Holyrood,
or the Holy Cross, as given in Bellenden's translation:
``Eftir death of Alexander the first, his brothir David come
out of Ingland, and wes crownit at Scone, the yeir of God
MCXXIV yeiris, and did gret justice, eftir his coronation, in
all partis of his realme. He had na weris during the time of
King Hary; and wes so pietuous, that he sat daylie in judgement,
to caus his pure commonis to have justice; and causit
the actionis of his noblis to be decidit be his othir jugis. He
gart ilk juge redres the skaithis that come to the party be his
wrang sentence; throw quhilk, he decorit his realm with
mony nobil actis, and ejeckit the vennomus custome of riotus
cheir, quhilk wes inducit afore be Inglismen, quhen thay
com with Quene Margaret; for the samin wes noisum to
al gud maneris, makand his pepil tender and effeminat.
``In the fourt yeir of his regne, this nobill prince come to
visie the madin Castell of Edinburgh. At this time, all the
boundis of Scotland were ful of woddis, lesouris, and medois;
for the countre wes more gevin to store of bestiall, than ony
productioun of cornis; and about this castell was ane gret
forest, full of haris, hindis, toddis, and sicklike maner of
beistis. Now was the Rude Day cumin, called the Exaltation
of the Croce; and, becaus the samin wes ane hie solempne
day, the king past to his contemplation. Eftir the messis
wer done with maist solempnitie and reverence, comperit
afore him mony young and insolent baronis of Scotland, richt
desirus to haif sum plesur and solace, be chace of hundis in
the said forest. At this time wes with the king ane man of
singulare and devoit life, namit Alkwine, channon eftir the
ordour of Sanct Augustine, quhilk well lang time confessoure,
afore, to King David in Ingland, the time that he wes Erle
of Huntingtoun and Northumbirland. This religious man
dissuadit the king, be mony reasonis, to pas to this huntis;
and allegit the day wes so solempne, be reverence of the haly
croce, that he suld gif him erar, for that day, to contemplation,
than ony othir exersition. Nochtheles, his dissuasion is
litill avalit; for the king wes finallie so provokit, be inoportune
solicitatioun of his baronis, that he past, nochtwithstanding
the solempnite of this day, to his hountis. At last,
quhen he wes cumin throw the vail that lyis to the gret eist
fra the said castell, quhare now lyis the Canongait, the stalk
past throw the wod with sic noyis and din of rachis and bugillis,
that all the bestis were rasit fra thair dennis. Now
wes the king cumin to the fute of the crag, and an his nobilis
severit, heir and thair, fra him, at thair game and solace;
quhen suddenlie apperit to his sicht, the fairist hart that evir
wes sene afore with levand creature. The noyis and din of
this hart rinnand, as apperit, with awful and braid tindis,
maid the kingis hors so effrayit, that na renzeis micht hald
him; bot ran, perforce, ouir mire and mossis, away with the
king. Nochtheles, the hart followit so fast, that he dang
baith the king and his hors to the ground. Than the king
kest abak his handis betwix the tindis of this hart, to haif
savit him fra the strak thairof; and the haly croce slaid, incontinent,
in his handis. The hart fled away with gret violence,
and evanist in the same place quhare now springis the
Rude Well. The pepil richt affrayitly, returnit to him out
of all partis of the wod, to comfort him efter his trubill;
and fell on kneis, devotly adoring the haly croce; for it was
not cumin but sum hevinly providence, as weill apperis;
for thair is na man can schaw of quhat mater it is of, metal
or tre. Sone eftir, the king returnit to his castell; and in
the nicht following, he was admonist, be ane vision in his
sleip, to big ane abbay of channonis regular in the same place
quhare he gat the croce. Als sone as he was awalkinnet, he
schew his visions to Alkwine, his confessoure; and he na
thing suspended his gud mind, bot erar inflammit him with
maist fervent devotion thairto. The king, incontinent, send
his traist servandis in France and Flanderis, and brocht richt
crafty masonis to big this abbay; syne dedicat it in the honour
of this haly croce. The croce remanit continewally in
the said abbay, to tlie time of King David Bruce; quhilk was
unhappily tane with it at Durame, quhare it is haldin yit in
gret veneration.''---Boece, _book_ 12, _ch._ 16.
It is by no means clear what Scottish prince first built a palace,
properly so called, in the precincts of this renowned seat of
sanctity. The abbey, endowed by successive sovereigns and
many powerful nobles with munificent gifts of lands and
tithes, came, in process of time, to be one of the most important
of the ecclesiastical corporations of Scotland; and as
early as the days of Robert Bruce, parliaments were held
occasionally within its buildings. We have evidence that
James IV. had a royal lodging adjoining to the cloister; but
it is generally agreed that the first considerable edifice for
the accommodation of the royal family erected here was that
of James V., anno 1525, great part of which still remains,
and forms the north-western side of the existing palace. The
more modern buildings which complete the quadrangle were
erected by King Charles II. The name of the old conventual
church was used as the parish church of the Canongate
from the period of the Reformation, until James II.
claimed it for his chapel royal, and had it fitted up accordingly
in a style of splendour which grievously outraged the
feelings of his Presbyterian subjects. The roof of this fragment
of a once magnificent church fell in in the year 1768,
and it has remained ever since in a state of desolation.---For
fuller particulars, see the _Provincial Antiquities of Scotland,_
or the _History of Holyrood_, by Mr Charles Mackie.
The greater part of this ancient palace is now again occupied
by his Majesty Charles the Tenth of France, and
the rest of that illustrious family, which, in former ages so
closely connected by marriage and alliance with the house of
Stuart, seems to have been destined to run a similar career of
misfortune. _Requiescant in pace!_
NOTE TO CHAPTER III.
Note, B.---Steele, a covenanter, shot by Captain
Creichton.
The following extract from Swift's Life of Creichton gives
the particulars of the bloody scene alluded to in the text:---
``Having drank hard one night, I (Creichton) dreamed
that I had found Captain David Steele, a notorious rebel in
one of the five farmers' houses on a mountain in the shire of
Clydesdale, and parish of Lismahago, within eight miles of
Hamilton, a place that I was well acquainted with. This
man was head of the rebels, since the affair of Airs-Moss;
having succeeded to Hackston, who had been there taken, and
afterward hanged, as the reader has already heard; for, as to
Robert Hamilton, who was then Commander-in-chief at
Bothwell Bridge, he appeared no more among them, but fled,
as it was believed, to Holland.
``Steele, and his father before him, held a farm in the estate
of Hamilton, within two or three miles of that town. When
he betook himself to arms, the farm lay waste, and the Duke
could find no other person who would venture to take it;
whereupon his Grace sent several messages to Steele, to know
the reason why he kept the farm waste. The Duke received
no other answer, than that he would keep it waste, in spite of
him and the king too; whereupon his Grace, at whose table
I had always the honour to be a welcome guest, desired I
would use my endeavours to destroy that rogue, and I would
oblige him for ever.
* * * * * *
``I return to my story. When I awaked out of my dream,
as I had done before in the affair of Wilson, (and I desire the
same apology I made in the introduction to these Memoirs
may serve for both,) I presently rose, and ordered thirty-six
dragoons to be at the place appointed by break of day. When
we arrived thither, I sent a party to each of the five farmers'
houses. This villain Steele had murdered above forty of the
king's subjects in cold blood; and, as I was informed, had
often laid snares to entrap me; but it happened, that although
he usually kept a gang to attend him, yet at this time he had
none, when he stood in the greatest need, One of the party
found him in one of the farmers' houses, just as I happened to
dream. The dragoons first searched all the rooms below
without success, till two of them bearing somebody stirring
over their heads, went up a pair of turnpike stairs. Steele had
put on his clothes, while the search was making below; the
chamber where he lay was called the Chamber of Deese,*
* Or chamber of state; so called from the _dais_, or canopy and elevation
of floor, which distinguished the part of old halls which was occupied
by those of high rank. Hence the phrase was obliquely used
to signify state in general.
which is the name given to a room where the laird lies, when
he comes to a tenant's house. Steele suddenly opening the
door, fired a blunderbuss down at the two dragoons, as they
were coming up the stairs; but the bullets grazing against
the side of the turnpike, only wounded, and did not kill them.
Then Steele violently threw himself down the stairs among
them, and made towards the door to save his life, but lost it
upon the spot; for the dragoons who guarded the house dispatched
him with their broadswords. I was not with the
party when he was killed, being at that time employed in
searching one of the other houses, but I soon found what
had happened, by hearing the noise of the shot made with the
blunderbuss; from which I returned straight to Lanark,
and immediately sent one of the dragoons express to General
Drummond at Edinburgh.''---_Swift's Works, Vol. XII. (Memoirs
of Captain John Creichton_,) pages 57-59, Edit. Edinb.
1824.
Woodrow gives a different account of this exploit---``In December
this year, (1686,) David Steil, in the parish of Lismahagow,
was surprised in the fields by Lieutenant Creichton,
and after his surrender of himself on quarters, he was in a
very little time most barbarously shot, and lies buried in the
churchyard there.''
NOTES TO CHAPTER VI.
Note C.---IRON RASP.
The ingenious Mr R. Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh
give the following account of the forgotten rasp or risp.
``This house had a _pin_ or _risp_ at the door, instead of the
more modern convenience, a knocker. The pin, rendered interesting
by the figure which it makes in Scottish song, was
formed of a small rod of iron, twisted or notched, which was
placed perpendicularly, starting out a little from the door, and
bore a small ring of the same metal, which an applicant for
admittance drew rapidly up and down the _nicks_, so as to produce
a grating sound. Sometimes the rod was simply stretched
across the _vizzying_ hole, a convenient aperture through which
the porter could take cognisance of the person applying; in
which case it acted also as a stanchion. These were almost all
disused about sixty years ago, when knockers were generally
substituted as more genteel. But knockers at that time did
not long remain in repute, though they have never been altogether
superseded, even by bells, in the Old Town. The comparative
merit of knockers and pins was for a long time a subject
of doubt, and many knockers got their heads twisted off in
the course of the dispute.''
Chamber's _Traditions of Edinburgh_.
Note D.---Countess of Eglinton.
Susannah Kennedy, daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy of
Cullean, Bart. by Elizabeth Lesly, daughter of David Lord
Newark, third wife of Alexander 9th Earl of Eglinton, and
mother of the 10th and 11th Earls. She survived her husband,
who died 1729, no less than fifty-seven years, and died March
1780, in her 91st year. Allan Ramsay's Gentle Shepherd,
published 1726, is dedicated to her, in verse, by Hamilton of
Bangour.
The following account of this distinguished lady is taken
from Boswell's Life of Johnson by Mr Croker.
``Lady Margaret Dalrymple, only daughter of John Earl
of Stair, married in 1700, to Hugh, third Earl of Loudoun.
She died in 1777, aged _one hundred_. Of this venerable lady,
and of the Countess of Eglintoune, whom Johnson visited
next day, he thus speaks in his _Journey_.---`Length of life is
distributed impartially to very different modes of life, in very
different climates; and the mountains have no greater examples
of age than the Lowlands, where I was introduced to
two ladies of high quality, one of whom (Lady Loudoun) in
her ninety-fourth year, presided at her table with the full exercise
of all her powers; and the other, (Lady Eglintoun,)
had attained her eighty-fourth year, without any diminution
of her vivacity, and little reason to accuse time of depredations
on her beauty.''
* * * * * *
``Lady Eglintoune, though she was now in her eighty-fifth
year, and had lived in the retirement of the country for almost
half a century, was still a very agreeable woman. She was of
the noble house of Kennedy, and had all the elevation which
the consciousness of such birth inspires. Her figure was majestic,
her manners high-bred, her reading extensive, and her
conversation elegant. She had been the admiration of the gay
circles of life, and the patroness of poets. Dr Johnson was
delighted with his reception here. Her principles in church
and state were congenial with his. She knew all his merit,
and had heard much of him from her son, Earl Alexander,
who loved to cultivate the acquaintance of men of talents in
every department.''
* * * * * *
``In the course of our conversation this day, it came out that
Lady Eglintoune was married the year before Dr Johnson
was born; upon which she graciously said to him, that she
might have been his mother, and that she now adopted him;
and when we were going away, she embraced him, saying,
`My dear son, farewell!' My friend was much pleased with
this day's entertainment, and owned that I had done well to
force him out.''
* * * * * *
``At Sir Alexander Dick's, from that absence of mind to
which every man is at times subject, I told, in a blundering
manner, Lady, Eglintoune's complimentary adoption of Dr
Johnson as her son; for I unfortunately stated that her ladyship
adopted him as her son, in consequence of her having
been married the year _after_ he was born. Dr Johnson instantly
corrected me. `Sir, don't you perceive that you are
defaming the Countess? For, supposing me to be her son, and
that she was not married till the year after my birth, I must
have been her _natural_ son.' A young lady of quality who was
present, very handsomely said, `Might not the son have justified
the fault?' My friend was much flattered by this compliment,
which he never forgot. When in more than ordinary
spirits, and talking of his journey in Scotland, he has called to
me, `Boswell, what was it that the young lady of quality said
of me at Sir Alexander Dick's?' Nobody will doubt that I was
happy in repeating it.''
NOTES TO CHAPTER VII.
Note E.---Earl of Winton.
The incident here alluded to is thus narrated in Nichols'
Progresses of James I., Vol. III. p. 306.
``The family'' (of Winton) ``owed its first elevation to the
union of Sir Christopher Seton with a sister of King Robert
Bruce. With King James VI. they acquired great favour,
who, having created his brother Earl of Dunfermline in 1599,
made Robert, seventh Lord Seton, Earl of Winton in 1600.
Before the King's accession to the English throne, his Majesty
and the Queen were frequently at Seton, where the Earl
kept a very hospitable table, at which all foreigners of quality
were entertained on their visits to Scotland. His Lordship
died in 1603, and was buried on the 5th of April, on the very
day the King left Edinburgh for England. His Majesty, we
are told, was pleased to rest himself at the south-west round
of the orchard of Seton, on the high-way, tin the funeral was
over, that he might not withdraw the noble company; and he
said that he had lost a good, faithful, and loyal subject.''
Nichols' _Progresses of K. James I. Vol. III. p._ 306.
Note F.---MacGregor of Glenstrae.
The 2 of Octr: (1603) Allester MacGregor of Glenstrae
tane be the laird Arkynles, bot escapit againe; bot after taken
be the Earle of Argyll the 4 of Januarii, and brought to Edr:
the 9 of Januar: 1604, wt: 18 mae of hes friendes MacGregors.
He wes convoyit to Berwick be the gaird, conform to
the Earle's promes; for he promesit to put him out of Scottis
grund: Sua, he keipit an Hielandman's promes, in respect he
sent the gaird to convoy him out of Scottis grund; bot yai
wer not directit to pairt wt: him, bot to fetchs him bak againe.
The 18 of Januar, he came at evin againe to Edinburghe;
and upone the 20 day, he was hangit at the crosse, and ij of
his freindes and name, upon ane gallows: himself being chieff,
he was hangit his awin hight above the rest of hes freindis.---
Birrel's _Diary_, (in Dalzell's _Fragments of Scottish History_,)
p. 60-1.
[5. The Highland Widow]
THE
HIGHLAND WIDOW.
CHAPTER 1.
It wound as near as near could be,
But what it is she cannot tell;
On the other side it seemed to be,
Of the huge broad-breasted old oak-tree.
Coleridge.
Mrs Bethune Baliol's memorandum begins
thus:---
It is five-and-thirty, or perhaps nearer forty
years ago, since, to relieve the dejection of spirits
occasioned by a great family loss sustained two or
three months before, I undertook what was called
the short Highland tour. This had become in some
degree fashionable; but though the military roads
were excellent, yet the accommodation was so indifferent
that it was reckoned a little adventure to
accomplish it. Besides, the Highlands, though
now as peaceable as any part of King George's
dominions, was a sound which still carried terror,
while so many survived who had witnessed the
insurrection of 1745; and a vague idea of fear was
impressed on many, as they looked from the towers
of Stirling northward to the huge chain of mountains,
which rises like a dusky rampart to conceal
in its recesses a people, whose dress, manners, and
language, differed still very much from those of
their Lowland countrymen. For my part, I come
of a race not greatly subject to apprehensions
arising from imagination only. I had some Highland
relatives, knew several of their families of distinction;
and, though only having the company of
my bower-maiden, Mrs Alice Lambskin, I went on
my journey fearless.
But then I had a guide and cicerone, almost
equal to Greatheart in the Pilgrim's Progress, in
no less a person than Donald MacLeish, the postilion
whom I hired at Stirling, with a pair of able-bodied
horses, as steady as Donald himself, to drag
my carriage, my duenna, and myself, wheresoever
it was my pleasure to go.
Donald MacLeish was one of a race of post-boys,
whom, I suppose, mail-coaches and steam-boats
have put out of fashion. They were to be found
chiefly at Perth, Stirling, or Glasgow, where they
and their horses were usually hired by travellers,
or tourists, to accomplish such journeys of business
or pleasure as they might have to perform in the
land of the Gael. This class of persons approached
to the character of what is called abroad a _conducteur_;
or might be compared to the sailing-master
on board a British ship of war, who follows
out after his own manner the course which the
captain commands him to observe. You explained
to your postilion the length of your tour, and the
objects you were desirous it should embrace; and
you found him perfectly competent to fix the places
of rest or refreshment, with due attention that those
should be chosen with reference to your convenience,
and to any points of interest which you
might desire to visit.
The qualifications of such a person were necessarily
much superior to those of the ``first ready,''
who gallops thrice-a-day over the same ten miles.
Donald MacLeish, besides being quite alert at repairing
all ordinary accidents to his horses and
carriage, and in making shift to support them,
where forage was scarce, with such substitutes as
bannocks and cakes, was likewise a man of intellectual
resources. He had acquired a general knowledge
of the traditional stories of the country which
he had traversed so often; and, if encouraged, (for
Donald was a man of the most decorous reserve,)
he would willingly point out to you the site of the
principal clan-battles, and recount the most remarkable
legends by which the road, and the objects
which occurred in travelling it, had been distinguished.
There was some originality in the
man's habits of thinking and expressing himself,
his turn for legendary lore strangely contrasting
with a portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging
to his actual occupation, which made his conversation
amuse the way well enough.
Add to this, Donald knew all his peculiar duties
in the country which he traversed so frequently.
He could tell, to a day, when they would ``be killing''
lamb at Tyndrum or Glenuilt; so that the
stranger would have some chance of being fed
like a Christian; and knew to a mile the last village
where it was possible to procure a wheaten
loaf, for the guidance of those who were little familiar
with the Land of Cakes. He was acquainted
with the road every mile, and could tell to an
inch which side of a Highland bridge was passable,
which decidedly dangerous.* In short, Donald
* This is, or was at least, a necessary accomplishment. In
one of the most beautiful districts of the Highlands was, not
many years since, a bridge bearing this startling caution,
``Keep to the right side, the left being dangerous.''
MacLeish was not only our faithful attendant and
steady servant, but our humble and obliging friend;
and though I have known the half-classical cicerone
of Italy, the talkative French valet-de-place, and
even the muleteer of Spain, who piques himself on
being a maize-eater, and whose honour is not to be
questioned without danger, I do not think I have
ever had so sensible and intelligent a guide.
Our motions were of course under Donald's direction;
and it frequently happened, when the weather
was serene, that we preferred halting to rest
his horses even where there was no established
stage, and taking our refreshment under a crag,
from which leaped a waterfall, or beside the verge
of a fountain, enamelled with verdant turf and
wild-flowers. Donald had an eye for such spots,
and though he had, I dare say, never read Gil Blas
or Don Quixote, yet be chose such halting-places
as Le Sage or Cervantes would have described.
Very often, as he observed the pleasure I took in
conversing with the country people, he would manage
to fix our place of rest near a cottage where
there was some old Gael, whose broadsword had
blazed at Falkirk or Preston, and who seemed the
frail yet faithful record of times which had passed
away. Or he would contrive to quarter us, as far
as a cup of tea went, upon the hospitality of some
parish minister of worth and intelligence, or some
country family of the better class, who mingled
with the wild simplicity of their original manners,
and their ready and hospitable welcome, a sort of
courtesy belonging to a people, the lowest of whom
are accustomed to consider themselves as being,
according to the Spanish phrase, ``as good gentlemen
as the king, only not quite so rich.''
To all such persons Donald MacLeish was well
known, and his introduction passed as current as
if we had brought letters from some high chief of
the country.
Sometimes it happened that the Highland hospitality,
which welcomed us with all the variety of
mountain fare, preparations of milk and eggs, and
girdle-cakes of various kinds, as well as more substantial
dainties, according to the inhabitant's
means of regaling the passenger, descended rather
too exuberantly on Donald MacLeish in the shape
of mountain dew. Poor Donald! he was on such
occasions like Gideon's fleece, moist with the noble
element, which, of course, fell not on us. But it
was his only fault, and when pressed to drink _doch-an-dorroch_
to my ladyship's good health, it would
have been ill taken to have refused the pledge, nor
was he willing to do such discourtesy. It was, I
repeat, his only fault, nor had we any great right
to complain; for if it rendered him a little more
talkative, it augmented his ordinary share of punctilious
civility, and he only drove slower, and talked
longer and more pompously than when he had
not come by a drop of usquebaugh. It was, we
remarked, only on such occasions that Donald talked
with an air of importance of the family of MacLeish;
and we had no title to be scrupulous in censuring
a foible, the consequences of which were
confined within such innocent limits.
We became so much accustomed to Donald's
mode of managing us, that we observed with some
interest the art which he used to produce a little
agreeable surprise, by concealing from us the spot
where he proposed our halt to be made, when it
was of an unusual and interesting character. This
was so much his wont, that when he made apologies
at setting off, for being obliged to stop in
some strange solitary place, till the horses should
eat the corn which be brought on with them for
that purpose, our imagination used to be on the
stretch to guess what romantic retreat he had
secretly fixed upon for our noontide baiting-place.
We had spent the greater part of the morning
at the delightful village of Dalmally, and had gone
upon the lake under the guidance of the excellent
clergyman who was then incumbent at Glenorquhy,*
* This venerable and hospitable gentleman's name was
MacIntyre.
and had heard an hundred legends of the
stern chiefs of Loch Awe, Duncan with the thrum
bonnet, and the other lords of the now mouldering
towers of Kilchurn.* Thus it was later than usual
* Note A. Loch Awe.
when we set out on our journey, after a hint or two
from Donald concerning the length of the way to
the next stage, as there was no good halting-place
between Dalmally and Oban.
Having bid adieu to our venerable and kind cicerone,
we proceeded on our tour, winding round
the tremendous mountain called Cruachan Ben,
which rushes down in all its majesty of rocks and
wilderness on the lake, leaving only a pass, in
which, notwithstanding its extreme strength, the
warlike clan of MacDougal of Lorn were almost
destroyed by the sagacious Robert Bruce. That
King, the Wellington of his day, had accomplished,
by a forced march, the unexpected man<oe>uvre
of forcing a body of troops round the other side of
the mountain, and thus placed them in the flank
and in the rear of the men of Lorn, whom at the
same time he attacked in front. The great number
of cairns yet visible, as you descend the pass on
the westward side, shows the extent of the vengeance
which Bruce exhausted on his inveterate
and personal enemies. I am, you know, the sister
of soldiers, and it has since struck me forcibly that
the man<oe>uvre which Donald described, resembled
those of Wellington or of Bonaparte. He was a
great man Robert Bruce, even a Baliol must admit
that; although it begins now to be allowed that
his title to the crown was scarce so good as that of
the unfortunate family with whom he contended---
But let that pass.---The slaughter had been the
greater, as the deep and rapid river Awe is disgorged
from the lake, just in the rear of the fugitives,
and encircles the base of the tremendous
mountain; so that the retreat of the unfortunate
fliers was intercepted on all sides by the inaccessible
character of the country, which had seemed
to promise them defence and protection.*
* Note B. Battle betwixt the Armies of the Bruce
and Macdougal of Lorn.
Musing, like the Irish lady in the song, ``upon
things which are long enough a-gone,''* we felt no
* This is a line from a very pathetic ballad which I heard
sung by one of the young ladies of Edgeworthstown in 1825.
I do not know that it has been printed.
impatience at the slow, and almost creeping pace,
with which our conductor proceeded along General
Wade's military road, which never or rarely
condescends to turn aside from the steepest ascent,
but proceeds right up and down bill, with the indifference
to height and hollow, steep or level, indicated
by the old Roman engineers. Still, however,
the substantial excellence of these great works
---for such are the military highways in the Highlands---
deserved the compliment of the poet, who,
whether he came from our sister kingdom, and
spoke in his own dialect, or whether he supposed
those whom he addressed might have some national
pretension to the second sight, produced the celebrated
couplet---
Had you but seen these roads _before_ they were made,
You would hold up your hands, and bless General Wade.
Nothing indeed can be more wonderful than to see
these wildernesses penetrated and pervious in every
quarter by broad accesses of the best possible construction,
and so superior to what the country could
have demanded for many centuries for any pacific
purpose of commercial intercourse. Thus the traces
of war are sometimes happily accommodated to
the purposes of peace. The victories of Bonaparte
have been without results; but his road over the
Simplon will long be the communication betwixt
peaceful countries, who will apply to the ends of
commerce and friendly intercourse that gigantic
work, which was formed for the ambitious purpose
of warlike invasion.
While we were thus stealing along, we gradually
turned round the shoulder of Ben Cruachan, and
descending the course of the foaming and rapid
Awe, left behind us the expanse of the majestic
lake which gives birth to that impetuous river.
The rocks and precipices which stooped down perpendicularly
on our path on the right hand, exhibited
a few remains of the wood which once clothed
them, but which had, in latter times, been
felled to supply, Donald MacLeish informed us,
the iron-founderies at the Bunawe. This made
us fix our eyes with interest on one large oak,
which grew on the left hand towards the river. It
seemed a tree of extraordinary magnitude and picturesque
beauty, and stood just where there appeared
to be a few roods of open ground lying
among huge stones, which had rolled down from
the mountain. To add to the romance of the situation,
the spot of clear ground extended round the
foot of a proud-browed rock, from the summit of
which leaped a mountain stream in a fall of sixty
feet, in which it was dissolved into foam and dew.
At the bottom of the fall the rivulet with difficulty
collected, like a routed general, its dispersed
forces, and, as if tamed by its descent, found a
noiseless passage through the heath to join the
Awe.
I was much struck with the tree and waterfall,
and wished myself nearer them; not that I thought
of sketch-book or portfolio,---for, in my younger
days, Misses were not accustomed to black-lead pencils,
unless they could use them to some good purpose,
---but merely to indulge myself with a closer
view. Donald immediately opened the chaise door,
but observed it was rough walking down the brae
and that I would see the tree better by keeping the
road for a hundred yards farther, when it passed
closer to the spot, for which he seemed, however,
to have no predilection. ``He knew,'' he said, ``a
far bigger tree than that nearer Bunawe, and it was
a place where there was flat ground for the carriage
to stand, which it could jimply do on these
braes;---but just as my leddyship liked.''
My ladyship did choose rather to look at the fine
tree before me, than to pass it by in hopes of a
finer; so we walked beside the carriage till we
should come to a point, from which, Donald assured
us, we might, without scrambling, go as near
the tree as we chose, ``though he wadna advise
us to go nearer than the high-road.''
There was something grave and mysterious in
Donald's sun-browned countenance when he gave
us this intimation, and his manner was so different
from his usual frankness, that my female curiosity
was set in motion. We walked on the whilst, and
I found the tree, of which we had now lost sight
by the intervention of some rising ground, was
really more distant than I had at first supposed.
``I could have sworn now,'' said I to my cicerone,
``that yon tree and waterfall was the very place
where you intended to make a stop to-day.''
``The Lord forbid!'' said Donald, hastily.
``And for what, Donald? why should you be
willing to pass so pleasant a spot?''
``It's ower near Dalmally, my leddy, to corn the
beasts---it would bring their dinner ower near their
breakfast, poor things:---an', besides, the place is
not canny.''
``Oh! then the mystery is out. There is a bogle
or a brownie, a witch or a gyre-carlin, a bodach or
a fairy, in the case?''
``The ne'er a bit, my leddy---ye are clean aff
the road, as I may say. But if your leddyship will
just hae patience, and wait till we are by the place
and out of the glen, I'll tell ye all about it. There
is no much luck in speaking of such things in the
place they chanced in.''
I was obliged to suspend my curiosity, observing,
that if I persisted in twisting the discourse
one way while Donald was twining it another, I
should make his objection, like a hempen cord, just
so much the tougher. At length the promised turn
of the road brought us within fifty paces of the
tree which I desired to admire, and I now saw to
my surprise, that there was a human habitation
among the cliffs which surrounded it. It was a
hut of the least dimensions, and most miserable description,
that I ever saw even in the Highlands.
The walls of sod, or _divot_, as the Scotch call it, were
not four feet high---the roof was of turf, repaired
with reeds and sedges---the chimney was composed
of clay, bound round by straw ropes---and the
whole walls, roof and chimney, were alike covered
with the vegetation of house-leek, rye-grass, and
moss, common to decayed cottages formed of such
materials. There was not the slightest vestige of
a kale-yard, the usual accompaniment of the very
worst huts; and of living things we saw nothing,
save a kid which was browsing on the roof of the
hut, and a goat, its mother, at some distance, feeding
betwixt the oak and the river Awe.
``What man,'' I could not help exclaiming, ``can
have committed sin deep enough to deserve such
a miserable dwelling!''
``Sin enough,'' said Donald MacLeish, with a
half-suppressed groan; ``and God he knoweth,
misery enough too;---and it is no man's dwelling
neither, but a woman's.''
``A woman's!'' I repeated, ``and in so lonely a
place---What sort of a woman can she be?''
``Come this way, my leddy, and you may judge
that for yourself,'' said Donald. And by advancing
a few steps, and making a sharp turn to the
left, we gained a sight of the side of the great
broad-breasted oak, in the direction opposed to that
in which we had hitherto seen it.
``If she keeps her old wont, she will be there at
this hour of the day,'' said Donald; but immediately
became silent, and pointed with his finger,
as one afraid of being overheard. I looked, and
beheld, not without some sense of awe, a female
form seated by the stem of the oak, with her head
drooping, her hands clasped, and a dark-coloured
mantle drawn over her head, exactly as Judah is represented
in the Syrian medals as seated under her
palm-tree. I was infected with the fear and reverence
which my guide seemed to entertain towards
this solitary being, nor did I think of advancing towards
her to obtain a nearer view until I had cast
an enquiring look on Donald; to which be replied
in a half whisper---``She has been a fearfu' bad
woman, my leddy.''
``Mad woman, said you,'' replied I, hearing him
imperfectly; ``then she is perhaps dangerous?''
``No---she is not mad,'' replied Donald; ``for
then it may be she would be happier than she is;
though when she thinks on what she has done, and
caused to be done, rather than yield up a hair-breadth
of her ain wicked will, it is not likely she
can be very well settled. But she neither is mad
nor mischievous; and yet, my leddy, I think you
had best not go nearer to her.'' And then, in a few
hurried words, he made me acquainted with the
story which I am now to tell more in detail. I
heard the narrative with a mixture of horror and
sympathy, which at once impelled me to approach
the sufferer, and speak to her the words of comfort,
or rather of pity, and at the same time made
me afraid to do so.
This indeed was the feeling with which she was
regarded by the Highlanders in the neighbourhood,
who looked upon Elspat MacTavish, or the
Woman of the Tree, as they called her, as the
Greeks considered those who were pursued by the
Furies, and endured the mental torment consequent
on great criminal actions. They regarded
such unhappy beings as Orestes and <OE>dipus, as
being less the voluntary perpetrators of their
crimes than as the passive instruments by which
the terrible decrees of Destiny had been accomplished;
and the fear with which they beheld them
was not unmingled with veneration.
I also learned farther from Donald MacLeish,
that there was some apprehension of ill luck attending
those who had the boldness to approach too
near, or disturb the awful solitude of a being so
unutterably miserable; that it was supposed that
whosoever approached her must experience in some
respect the contagion of her wretchedness.
It was therefore with some reluctance that Donald
saw me prepare to obtain a nearer view of the
sufferer, and that he himself followed to assist me in
the descent down a very rough path. I believe his
regard for me conquered some ominous feelings
in his own breast, which connected his duty on this
occasion with the presaging fear of lame horses, lost
linch-pins, overturns, and other perilous chances of
the postilion's life.
I am not sure if my own courage would have
carried me so close to Elspat, had he not followed.
There was in her countenance the stern abstraction
of hopeless and overpowering sorrow, mixed
with the contending feelings of remorse, and of the
pride which struggled to conceal it. She guessed,
perhaps, that it was curiosity, arising out of her
uncommon story, which induced me to intrude on
her solitude---and she could not be pleased that a
fate like hers had been the theme of a traveller's
amusement. Yet the look with which she regarded
me was one of scorn instead of embarrassment.
The opinion of the world and all its children could
not add or take an iota from her load of misery;
and, save from the half smile that seemed to intimate
the contempt of a being rapt by the very intensity
of her affliction above the sphere of ordinary
humanities, she seemed as indifferent to my
gaze, as if she had been a dead corpse or a marble
statue.
Elspat was above the middle stature; her hair,
now grizzled, was still profuse, and it had been of
the most decided black. So were her eyes, in
which, contradicting the stern and rigid features of
her countenance, there shone the wild and troubled
light that indicates an unsettled mind. Her hair
was wrapt round a silver bodkin with some attention
to neatness, and her dark mantle was disposed
around her with a degree of taste, though the materials
were of the most ordinary sort.
After gazing on this victim of guilt and calamity
till I was ashamed to remain silent, though uncertain
how I ought to address her, I began to express
my surprise at her choosing such a desert and deplorable
dwelling. She cut short these expressions
of sympathy, by answering in a stern voice, without
the least change of countenance or posture---
``Daughter of the stranger, he has told you my
story.'' I was silenced at once, and felt how little
all earthly accommodation must seem to the mind
which had such subjects as hers for rumination.
Without again attempting to open the conversation,
I took a piece of gold from my purse, (for
Donald had intimated she lived on alms,) expecting
she would at least stretch her hand to receive
it. But she neither accepted nor rejected the gift
---she did not even seem to notice it, though twenty
times as valuable, probably, as was usually offered.
I was obliged to place it on her knee, saying involuntarily,
as I did so, ``May God pardon you,
and relieve you!'' I shall never forget the look
which she cast up to Heaven, nor the tone in which
she exclaimed, in the very words of my old friend,
John Home---
``My beautiful---my brave!''
It was the language of nature, and arose from the
heart of the deprived mother, as it did from that
gifted imaginative poet, while furnishing with appropriate
expressions the ideal grief of Lady Randolph.
CHAPTER II.
O, I'm come to the Low Country,
Och, och, ohonochie,
Without a penny in my pouch
To buy a meal for me.
I was the proudest of my clan,
Long, long may I repine;
And Donald was the bravest man,
And Donald he was mine.
_Old Song_.
Elspat had enjoyed happy days, though her age
had sunk into hopeless and inconsolable sorrow and
distress. She was once the beautiful and happy
wife of Hamish MacTavish, for whom his strength
and feats of prowess had gained the title of MacTavish
Mhor. His life was turbulent and dangerous,
his habits being of the old Highland stamp,
which esteemed it shame to want any thing that
could be had for the taking. Those in the Lowland
line who lay near him, and desired to enjoy
their lives and property in quiet, were contented to
pay him a small composition, in name of protection
money, and comforted themselves with the old proverb,
that it was better to ``fleech the deil than
fight him.'' Others, who accounted such composition
dishonourable, were often surprised by MacTavish
Mhor, and his associates and followers, who
usually inflicted an adequate penalty, either in person
or property, or both. The creagh is yet remembered,
in which he swept one hundred and fifty
cows from Monteith in one drove; and how be
placed the laird of Ballybught naked in a slough,
for having threatened to send for a party of the
Highland Watch to protect his property.
Whatever were occasionally the triumphs of
this daring cateran, they were often exchanged for
reverses; and his narrow escapes, rapid flights, and
the ingenious stratagems with which he extricated
himself from imminent danger, were no less remembered
and admired than the exploits in which
he had been successful. In weal or woe, through
every species of fatigue, difficulty, and danger,
Elspat was his faithful companion. She enjoyed
with him the fits of occasional prosperity; and
when adversity pressed them hard, her strength of
mind, readiness of wit, and courageous endurance
of danger and toil, are said often to have stimulated
the exertions of her husband.
Their morality was of the old Highland cast,
faithful friends and fierce enemies: the Lowland
herds and harvests they accounted their own, whenever
they had the means of driving off the one, or
of seizing upon the other; nor did the least scruple
on the right of property interfere on such occasions.
Hamish Mhor argued like the old Cretan warrior:
My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield,
They make me lord of all below;
For he who dreads the lance to wield,
Before my shaggy shield must bow.
His lands, his vineyards, must resign,
And all that cowards have is mine.
But those days of perilous, though frequently
successful depredation, began to be abridged, after
the failure of the expedition of Prince Charles
Edward. MacTavish Mhor had not sat still on
that occasion, and he was outlawed, both as a traitor
to the state, and as a robber and cateran. Garrisons
were now settled in many places where a
red-coat had never before been seen, and the Saxon
war-drum resounded among the most hidden recesses
of the Highland mountains. The fate of MacTavish
became every day more inevitable; and it
was the more difficult for him to make his exertions
for defence or escape, that Elspat, amid his
evil days, had increased his family with an infant
child, which was a considerable encumbrance upon
the necessary rapidity of their motions.
At length the fatal day arrived. In a strong
pass on the skirts of Ben Cruachan, the celebrated
MacTavish Mhor was surprised by a detachment
of the Sidier Roy.* His wife assisted him heroically,
* The Red Soldier.
charging his piece from time to time; and as
they were in possession of a post that was nearly
unassailable, he might have perhaps escaped if his
ammunition had lasted. But at length his balls
were expended, although it was not until he had
fired off most of the silver buttons from his waistcoat,
and the soldiers, no longer deterred by fear
of the unerring marksman, who had slain three,
and wounded more of their number, approached
his stronghold, and, unable to take him alive, slew
him, after a most desperate resistance.
All this Elspat witnessed and survived, for she
had, in the child which relied on her for support, a
motive for strength and exertion. In what manner
she maintained herself it is not easy to say.
Her only ostensible means of support were a flock
of three or four goats, which she fed wherever she
pleased on the mountain pastures, no one challenging
the intrusion. In the general distress of the
country, her ancient acquaintances had little to
bestow; but what they could part with from their
own necessities, they willingly devoted to the relief
of others. From Lowlanders she sometimes
demanded tribute, rather than requested alms. She
had not forgotten she was the widow of MacTavish
Mhor, or that the child who trotted by her knee
might, such were her imaginations, emulate one day
the fame of his father, and command the same influence
which he had once exerted without control.
She associated so little with others, went so
seldom and so unwillingly from the wildest recesses
of the mountains, where she usually dwelt with
her goats, that she was quite unconscious of the
great change which had taken place in the country
around her, the substitution of civil order for military
violence, and the strength gained by the law and
its adherents over those who were called in Gaelic
song, ``the stormy sons of the sword.'' Her own diminished
consequence and straitened circumstances
she indeed felt, but for this the death of MacTavish
Mhor was, in her apprehension, a sufficing reason;
and she doubted not that she should rise to her
former state of importance, when Hamish Bean (or
Fair-haired James) should be able to wield the
arms of his father. If, then, Elspat was repelled
rudely when she demanded any thing necessary
for her wants, or the accommodation of her little
flock, by a churlish farmer, her threats of vengeance,
obscurely expressed, yet terrible in their
tenor, used frequently to extort, through fear of
her maledictions, the relief which was denied to
her necessities; and the trembling goodwife, who
gave meal or money to the widow of MacTavish
Mhor, wished in her heart that the stern old carlin
had been burnt on the day her husband had his
due.
Years thus ran on, and Hamish Bean grew up,
not indeed to be of his father's size or strength,
but to become an active, high-spirited, fair-haired
youth, with a ruddy cheek, an eye like an eagle,
and all the agility, if not all the strength, of his
formidable father, upon whose history and achievements
his mother dwelt, in order to form her son's
mind to a similar course of adventures. But the
young see the present state of this changeful world
more keenly than the old. Much attached to his
mother, and disposed to do all in his power for her
support, Hamish yet perceived, when he mixed
with the world, that the trade of the cateran was
now alike dangerous and discreditable, and that if
he were to emulate his father's prowess, it must
be in some other line of warfare, more consonant
to the opinions of the present day.
As the faculties of mind and body began to expand,
he became more sensible of the precarious
nature of his situation, of the erroneous views of his
mother, and her ignorance respecting the changes
of the society with which she mingled so little. In
visiting friends and neighbours, he became aware
of the extremely reduced scale to which his parent
was limited, and learned that she possessed little
or nothing more than the absolute necessaries of
life, and that these were sometimes on the point of
failing. At times his success in fishing and the
chase was able to add something to her subsistence;
but he saw no regular means of contributing to her
support, unless by stooping to servile labour, which,
if he himself could have endured it, would, he
knew, have been like a death's-wound to the pride
of his mother.
Elspat, meanwhile, saw with surprise, that
Hamish Bean, although now tall and fit for the
field, showed no disposition to enter on his father's
scene of action. There was something of the mother
at her heart, which prevented her from urging
him in plain terms to take the field as a cateran,
for the fear occurred of the perils into which the
trade must conduct him; and when she would have
spoken to him on the subject, it seemed to her
heated imagination as if the ghost of her husband
arose between them in his bloody tartans, and laying
his finger on his lips, appeared to prohibit the
topic. Yet she wondered at what seemed his want
of spirit, sighed as she saw him from day to day
lounging about in the long-skirted Lowland coat,
which the legislature had imposed upon the Gael
instead of their own romantic garb, and thought
how much nearer he would have resembled her
husband, had he been clad in the belted plaid and
short hose with his polished arms gleaming at his
side.
Besides these subjects for anxiety, Elspat had
others arising from the engrossing impetuosity of
her temper. Her love of MacTavish Mhor had
been qualified by respect and sometimes even by
fear; for the cateran was not the species of man
who submits to female government; but over his
son she had exerted, at first during childhood, and
afterwards in early youth, an imperious authority,
which gave her maternal love a character of jealousy.
She could not bear, when Hamish, with
advancing life, made repeated steps towards independence,
absented himself from her cottage at such
season, and for such length of time as he chose, and
seemed to consider, although maintaining towards
her every possible degree of respect and kindness,
that the control and responsibility of his actions
rested on himself alone. This would have been
of little consequence, could she have concealed her
feelings within her own bosom; but the ardour
and impatience of her passions made her frequently
show her son that she conceived herself neglected
and ill used. When he was absent for any length
of time from her cottage, without giving intimation
of his purpose, her resentment on his return
used to be so unreasonable, that it naturally suggested
to a young man fond of independence, and
desirous to amend his situation in the world, to
leave her, even for the very purpose of enabling
him to provide for the parent whose egotistical
demands on his filial attention tended to confine
him to a desert, in which both were starving in
hopeless and helpless indigence.
Upon one occasion, the son having been guilty
of some independent excursion, by which the mother
felt herself affronted and disobliged, she had
been more than usually violent on his return, and
awakened in Hamish a sense of displeasure, which
clouded his brow and cheek. At length, as she
persevered in her unreasonable resentment, his
patience became exhausted, and taking his gun
from the chimney corner, and muttering to himself
the reply which his respect for his mother prevented
him from speaking aloud, he was about to
leave the hut which he had but barely entered.
``Hamish,'' said his mother, ``are you again about
to leave me?'' But Hamish only replied by looking
at, and rubbing the lock of his gun.
``Ay, rub the lock of your gun,'' said his parent,
bitterly; ``I am glad you have courage enough to
fire it, though it be but at a roe-deer.'' Hamish
started at this undeserved taunt, and cast a look of
anger at her in reply. She saw that she had found
the means of giving him pain.
``Yes,'' she said, ``look fierce as you will at an
old woman, and your mother; it would be long ere
you bent your brow on the angry countenance of a
bearded man.''
``Be silent, mother, or speak of what you understand,''
said Hamish, much irritated, ``and that is
of the distaff and the spindle.''
``And was it of spindle and distaff that I was
thinking when I bore you away on my back, through
the fire of six of the Saxon soldiers, and you a wailing
child? I tell you, Hamish, l know a hundred-fold
more of swords and guns than ever you will;
and you will never learn so much of noble war by
yourself, as you have seen when you were wrapped
up in my plaid.''
``You are determined at least to allow me no
peace at home, mother; but this shall have an end,''
said Hamish, as, resuming his purpose of leaving
the hut, he rose and went towards the door.
``Stay, I command you,'' said his mother; ``stay!
or may the gun you carry be the means of your
ruin---may the road you are going be the track of
your funeral!''
``What makes you use such words, mother?''
said the young man, turning a little back---``they
are not good, and good cannot come of them.
Farewell just now, we are too angry to speak together---
farewell; it will be long ere you see me
again.'' And he departed, his mother, in the first
burst of her impatience, showering after him her
maledictions, and in the next invoking them on her
own head, so that they might spare her son's. She
passed that day and the next in all the vehemence
of impotent and yet unrestrained passion, now entreating
Heaven, and such powers as were familiar
to her by rude tradition, to restore her dear son,
``the calf of her heart;'' now in impatient resentment,
meditating with what bitter terms she should
rebuke his filial disobedience upon his return, and
now studying the most tender language to attach
him to the cottage, which, when her boy was present,
she would not, in the rapture of her affection,
have exchanged for the apartments of Taymouth
Castle.
Two days passed, during which, neglecting even
the slender means of supporting nature which her
situation afforded, nothing but the strength of a
frame accustomed to hardships and privations of
every kind, could have kept her in existence, notwithstanding
the anguish of her mind prevented
her being sensible of her personal weakness. Her
dwelling, at this period, was the same cottage near
which I had found her but then more habitable by
the exertions of Hamish, by whom it had been in
a great measure built and repaired.
It was on the third day after her son had disappeared,
as she sat at the door rocking herself, after
the fashion of her countrywomen when in distress
or in pain, that the then unwonted circumstance occurred
of a passenger being seen on the high-road
above the cottage. She cast but one glance at him
---he was on horseback, so that it could not be
Hamish, and Elspat cared not enough for any other
being on earth, to make her turn her eyes towards
him a second time. The stranger, however, paused
opposite to her cottage, and dismounting from his
pony, led it down the steep and broken path which
conducted to her door.
``God bless you, Elspat MacTavish!''---She looked
at the man as he addressed her in her native
language, with the displeased air of one whose
reverie is interrupted; but the traveller went on
to say, ``I bring you tidings of your son Hamish.''
At once, from being the most uninteresting object,
in respect to Elspat, that could exist, the form of
the stranger became awful in her eyes, as that of
a messenger descended from Heaven, expressly to
pronounce upon her death or life. She started from
her seat, and with hands convulsively clasped together,
and held up to Heaven, eyes fixed on the
stranger's countenance, and person stooping forward
to him, she looked those enquiries, which her
faltering tongue could not articulate. ``Your son
sends you his dutiful remembrance and this,'' said
the messenger, putting into Elspat's hand a small
purse containing four or five dollars.
``He is gone, he is gone!'' exclaimed Elspat;
he has sold himself to be the servant of the Saxons,
and I shall never more behold him! Tell me, Miles
MacPhadraick, for now I know you, is it the price
of the son's blood that you have put into the mother's
hand?''
``Now, God forbid!'' answered MacPhadraick,
who was a tacksman, and had possession of a considerable
tract of ground under his Chief, a proprietor
who lived about twenty miles off---``God
forbid I should do wrong, or say wrong, to you, or
to the son of MacTavish Mhor! I swear to you
by the hand of my Chief, that your son is well, and
will soon see you; and the rest he will tell you
himself.'' So saying, MacPhadraick hastened back
up the pathway-gained the road, mounted his
pony, and rode upon his way.
CHAPTER III.
Elspat MacTavish remained gazing on the
money, as if the impress of the coin could have conveyed
information how it was procured.
``I love not this MacPhadraick,'' she said to herself;
``it was his race of whom the Bard hath
spoken, saying, Fear them not when their words
are loud as the winter's wind, but fear them when
they fall on you like the sound of the thrush's song.
And yet this riddle can be read but one way: My
son hath taken the sword, to win that with strength
like a man, which churls would keep him from with
the words that frighten children.'' This idea, when
once it occurred to her, seemed the more reasonable,
that MacPhadraick, as she well knew, himself
a cautious man, had so far encouraged her husband's
practices, as occasionally to buy cattle of
MacTavish, although he must have well known
how they were come by, taking care, however,
that the transaction was so made, as to be accompanied
with great profit and absolute safety. Who
so likely as MacPhadraick to indicate to a young
cateran the glen in which he could commence his
perilous trade with most prospect of success, who
so likely to convert his booty into money? The
feelings which another might have experienced on
believing that an only son had rushed forward on
the same path in which his father had perished,
were scarce known to the Highland mothers of
that day. She thought of the death of MacTavish
Mhor as that of a hero who had fallen in his proper
trade of war, and who had not fallen unavenged.
She feared less for her son's life than for his dishonour.
She dreaded on his account the subjection
to strangers, and the death-sleep of the
soul which is brought on by what she regarded as
slavery.
The moral principle which so naturally and so
justly occurs to the mind of those who have been
educated under a settled government of laws that
protect the property of the weak against the incursions
of the strong, was to poor Elspat a book sealed
and a fountain closed. She had been taught to
consider those whom they call Saxons, as a race
with whom the Gael were constantly at war, and
she regarded every settlement of theirs within the
reach of Highland incursion, as affording a legitimate
object of attack and plunder. Her feelings
on this point had been strengthened and confirmed,
not only by the desire of revenge for the death of
her husband, but by the sense of general indignation
entertained, not unjustly, through the Highlands
of Scotland, on account of the barbarous and
violent conduct of the victors after the battle of
Culloden. Other Highland clans, too, she regarded
as the fair objects of plunder when that was
possible, upon the score of ancient enmities and
deadly feuds.
The prudence that might have weighed the slender
means which the times afforded for resisting
the efforts of a combined government, which had,
in its less compact and established authority, been
unable to put down the ravages of such lawless
caterans as MacTavish Mhor, was unknown to a
solitary woman, whose ideas still dwelt upon her
own early times. She imagined that her son had
only to proclaim himself his father's successor in
adventure and enterprise, and that a force of men
as gallant as those who had followed his father's
banner, would crowd around to support it when
again displayed. To her, Hamish was the eagle
who had only to soar aloft and resume his native
place in the skies, without her being able to comprehend
how many additional eyes would have
watched his flight, how many additional bullets
would have been directed at his bosom. To be
brief, Elspat was one who viewed the present state
of society with the same feelings with which she
regarded the times that had passed away. She had
been indigent, neglected, oppressed, since the days
that her husband had no longer been feared and
powerful, and she thought that the term of her
ascendence would return when her son had determined
to play the part of his father. If she permitted
her eye to glance farther into futurity, it
was but to anticipate that she must be for many a
day cold in the grave, with the coronach of her
tribe cried duly over her, before her fair-haired
Hamish could, according to her calculation, die
with his hand on the basket-hilt of the red claymore.
His father's hair was grey, ere, after a hundred
dangers, he had fallen with his arms in his
hands---That she should have seen and survived
the sight, was a natural consequence of the manners
of that age. And better it was---such was her
proud thought---that she had seen him so die, than
to have witnessed his departure from life in a smoky
hovel---on a bed of rotten straw, like an over-worn
hound, or a bullock which died of disease. But the
hour of her young, her brave Hamish, was yet far
distant. He must succeed---he must conquer, like
his father. And when he fell at length,---for she
anticipated for him no bloodless death,---Elspat
would ere then have lain long in the grave, and
could neither see his death-struggle, nor mourn
over his grave-sod.
With such wild notions working in her brain,
the spirit of Elspat rose to its usual pitch, or rather
to one which seemed higher. In the emphatic language
of Scripture, which in that idiom does not
greatly differ from her own, she arose, she washed
and changed her apparel, and ate bread, and was
refreshed.
She longed eagerly for the return of her son, but
she now longed not with the bitter anxiety of doubt
and apprehension. She said to herself, that much
must be done ere he could in these times arise to
be an eminent and dreaded leader. Yet when she
saw him again, she almost expected him at the head
of a daring band, with pipes playing, and banners
flying, the noble tartans fluttering free in the wind,
in despite of the laws which had suppressed, under
severe penalties, the use of the national garb, and
all the appurtenances of Highland chivalry. For
all this, her eager imagination was content only to
allow the interval of some days.
From the moment this opinion had taken deep
and serious possession of her mind, her thoughts
were bent upon receiving her son at the head of
his adherents in the manner in which she used to
adorn her hut for the return of his father.
The substantial means of subsistence she had not
the power of providing, nor did she consider that
of importance. The successful caterans would bring
with them herds and flocks. But the interior of her
hut was arranged for their reception---the usquebaugh
was brewed or distilled in a larger quantity
than it could have been supposed one lone woman
could have made ready. Her hut was put into such
order as might, in some degree, give it the appearance
of a day of rejoicing. It was swept and decorated
with boughs of various kinds, like the house
of a Jewess, upon what is termed the Feast of the
Tabernacles. The produce of the milk of her little
flock was prepared in as great variety of forms as
her skill admitted, to entertain her son and his associates
whom she expected to receive along with
him.
But the principal decoration, which she sought
with the greatest toil, was the cloud-berry, a scarlet
fruit, which is only found on very high hills, and
there only in small quantities. Her husband, or
perhaps one of his forefathers, had chosen this as
the emblem of his family, because it seemed at once
to imply by its scarcity the smallness of their clan,
and by the places in which it was found, the ambitious
height of their pretensions.
For the time that these simple preparations of
welcome endured, Elspat was in a state of troubled
happiness. In fact, her only anxiety was that she
might be able to complete all that she could do to
welcome Hamish and the friends who she supposed
must have attached themselves to his band, before
they should arrive, and find her unprovided for their
reception.
But when such efforts as she could make had
been accomplished, she once more had nothing left
to engage her save the trifling care of her goats;
and when these had been attended to, she had only
to review her little preparations, renew such as were
of a transitory nature, replace decayed branches
and fading boughs, and then to sit down at her
cottage door and watch the road, as it ascended on
the one side from the banks of the Awe, and on the
other wound round the heights of the mountain,
with such a degree of accommodation to hill and
level as the plan of the military engineer permitted.
While so occupied, her imagination, anticipating
the future from recollections of the past, formed
out of the morning mist or the evening cloud the
wild forms of an advancing band, which were then
called ``Sidier Dhu,''---dark soldiers---dressed in
their native tartan, and so named to distinguish
them from the scarlet ranks of the British army.
In this occupation she spent many hours of each
morning and evening.
CHAPTER IV.
It was in vain that Elspat's eyes surveyed the
distant path, by the earliest light of the dawn and
the latest glimmer of the twilight. No rising dust
awakened the expectation of nodding plumes or
flashing arms---the solitary traveller trudged listlessly
along in his brown lowland great-coat, his
tartans dyed black or purple, to comply with or
evade the law which prohibited their being worn
in their variegated hues. The spirit of the Gael,
sunk and broken by the severe though perhaps
necessary laws, that proscribed the dress and arms
which he considered as his birthright, was intimated
by his drooping head and dejected appearance. Not
in such depressed wanderers did Elspat recognise
the light and free step of her son, now, as she concluded,
regenerated from every sign of Saxon
thraldom. Night by night, as darkness came, she
removed from her unclosed door to throw herself
on her restless pallet, not to sleep, but to watch.
The brave and the terrible, she said, walk by night
---their steps are heard in darkness, when all is
silent save the whirlwind and the cataract---the
timid deer comes only forth when the sun is upon
the mountain's peak; but the bold wolf walks in
the red light of the harvest-moon. She reasoned
in vain---her son's expected summons did not call
her from the lowly couch, where she lay dreaming
of his approach. Hamish came not.
``Hope deferred,'' saith the royal sage, ``maketh
the heart sick;'' and strong as was Elspat's
constitution, she began to experience that it was
unequal to the toils to which her anxious and immoderate
affection subjected her, when early one
morning the appearance of a traveller on the lonely
mountain-road, revived hopes which had begun to
sink into listless despair. There was no sign of
Saxon subjugation about the stranger. At a distance
she could see the flutter of the belted-plaid,
that drooped in graceful folds behind him, and the
plume that, placed in the bonnet, showed rank and
gentle birth. He carried a gun over his shoulder,
the claymore was swinging by his side, with its
usual appendages, the dirk, the pistol, and the
_sporran mollach_.* Ere yet her eye had scanned all
* The goat-skin pouch, worn by the Highlanders round
their waist.
these particulars, the light step of the traveller
was hastened, his arm was waved in token of recognition---
a moment more, and Elspat held in her
arms her darling son, dressed in the garb of his
ancestors, and looking, in her maternal eyes, the
fairest among ten thousand!
The first outpouring of affection it would be
impossible to describe. Blessings mingled with
the most endearing epithets which her energetic
language affords, in striving to express the wild
rapture of Elspat's joy. Her board was heaped
hastily with all she had to offer; and the mother
watched the young soldier, as he partook of the
refreshment, with feelings how similar to, yet how
different from, those with which she had seen him
draw his first sustenance from her bosom!
When the tumult of joy was appeased, Elspat
became anxious to know her son's adventures since
they parted, and could not help greatly censuring
his rashness for traversing the hills in the Highland
dress in the broad sunshine,when the penalty
was so heavy, and so many red soldiers were abroad
in the country.
``Fear not for me, mother,'' said Hamish, in a
tone designed to relieve her anxiety, and yet somewhat
embarrassed; ``I may wear the _breacan_* at
* That which is variegated, _i.e._ the tartan.
the gate of Fort-Augustus, if I like it.''
``Oh, be not too daring, my beloved Hamish,
though it be the fault which best becomes thy father's
son---yet be not too daring! Alas, they fight
not now as in former days, with fair weapons, and
on equal terms, but take odds of numbers and of
arms, so that the feeble and the strong are alike
levelled by the shot of a boy. And do not think
me unworthy to be called your father's widow, and
your mother, because I speak thus; for God knoweth,
that, man to man, I would peril thee against
the best in Breadalbane, and broad Lorn besides.''
``I assure you, my dearest mother,'' replied
Hamish, ``that I am in no danger. But have you
seen MacPhadraick, mother, and what has he said
to you on my account?''
``Silver he left me in plenty, Hamish; but the
best of his comfort was, that you were well, and
would see me soon. But beware of MacPhadraick,
my son; for when he called himself the friend of
your father, he better loved the most worthless
stirk in his herd, than he did the life-blood of MacTavish
Mhor. Use his services, therefore, and pay
him for them---for it is thus we should deal with
the unworthy; but take my counsel, and trust him
not.''
Hamish could not suppress a sigh, which seemed
to Elspat to intimate that the caution came too
late. ``What have you done with him?'' she
continued, eager and alarmed. ``I had money of
him, and he gives not that without value---he is
none of those who exchange barley for chaff. Oh,
if you repent you of your bargain, and if it be one
which you may break off without disgrace to your
truth or your manhood, take back his silver, and
trust not to his fair words.''
``It may not be, mother,'' said Hamish; ``I do
not repent my engagement, unless that it must
make me leave you soon.''
``Leave me! how leave me? Silly boy, think
you I know not what duty belongs to the wife or
mother of a daring man? Thou art but a boy yet;
and when thy father had been the dread of the
country for twenty years, he did not despise my
company and assistance, but often said my help was
worth that of two strong gillies.''
``It is not on that score, mother; but since I
must leave the country---''
``Leave the country!'' replied his mother, interrupting
him; ``and think you that I am like a
bush, that is rooted to the soil where it grows, and
must die if carried elsewhere? I have breathed
other winds than these of Ben Cruachan---I have
followed your father to the wilds of Ross, and the
impenetrable deserts of Y Mac Y Mhor---Tush,
man, my limbs, old as they are, will bear me as
far as your young feet can trace the way.''
``Alas, mother,'' said the young man, with a
faltering accent, ``but to cross the sea---''
``The sea! who am I that I should fear the
sea? Have I never been in a birling in my life
---never known the Sound of Mull, the Isles of
Treshornish, and the rough rocks of Harris?''
``Alas, mother, I go far, far from all of these---
I am enlisted in one of the new regiments, and we
go against the French in America.''
``Enlisted!'' uttered the astonished mother---
``against _my_ will---without _my_ consent---You could
not---you would not,''---then rising up, and assuming
a posture of almost imperial command, ``Hamish,
you =dared= not!''
``Despair, mother, dares every thing,'' answered
Hamish, in a tone of melancholy resolution.
``What should I do here, where I can scarce get
bread for myself and you, and when the times are
growing daily worse? Would you but sit down
and listen, I would convince you I have acted for
the best.''
With a bitter smile Elspat sat down, and the
same severe ironical expression was on her features,
as, with her lips firmly closed, she listened
to his vindication.
Hamish went on, without being disconcerted by
her expected displeasure. ``When I left you,
dearest mother, it was to go to MacPhadraick's
house; for although I knew he is crafty and worldly,
after the fashion of the Sassenach, yet he is wise,
and I thought how he would teach me, as it would
cost him nothing, in which way I could mend our
estate in the world.''
``Our estate in the world!'' said Elspat, losing
patience at the word; ``and went you to a base
fellow with a soul no better than that of a cowherd,
to ask counsel about your conduct? Your
father asked none, save of his courage and his
sword.''
``Dearest mother,'' answered Hamish, ``how
shall I convince you that you live in this land of
our fathers, as if our fathers were yet living? You
walk as it were in a dream, surrounded by the
phantoms of those who have been long with the
dead. When my father lived and fought, the great
respected the Man of the strong right hand, and
the rich feared him. He had protection from MacAllan
Mhor, and from Caberfae,* and tribute from
* Caberfae---_Anglice_, the Stag's-head, the Celtic designation
for the arms of the family of the high Chief of Seaforth.
meaner men. That is ended, and his son would
only earn a disgraceful and unpitied death, by the
practices which gave his father credit and power
among those who wear the breacan. The land is
conquered---its lights are quenched,---Glengary,
Lochiel, Perth, Lord Lewis, all the high chiefs are
dead or in exile---We may mourn for it, but we
cannot help it. Bonnet, broadsword, and sporran
---power, strength, and wealth, were all lost on
Drummossie-muir.''
``It is false!'' said Elspat, fiercely; ``you, and
such like dastardly spirits, are quelled by your own
faint hearts, not by the strength of the enemy; you
are like the fearful waterfowl, to whom the least
cloud in the sky seems the shadow of the eagle.''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, proudly, ``lay not faint
heart to my charge. I go where men are wanted
who have strong arms and bold hearts too. I leave
a desert, for a land where I may gather fame.''
``And you leave your mother to perish in want,
age, and solitude,'' said Elspat, essaying successively
every means of moving a resolution, which she
began to see was more deeply rooted than she had
at first thought.
``Not so, neither,'' he answered; ``I leave you
to comfort and certainty, which you have yet never
known. Barcaldine's son is made a leader, and
with him I have enrolled myself; MacPhadraick
acts for him, and raises men, and finds his own in
doing it.''
``That is the truest word of the tale, were all
the rest as false as hell,'' said the old woman, bitterly.
``But we are to find our good in it also,'' continued
Hamish; ``for Barcaldine is to give you a
shieling in his wood of Letter-findreight, with grass
for your goats, and a cow, when you please to have
one, on the common; and my own pay, dearest
mother, though I am far away, will do more than
provide you with meal, and with all else you can
want. Do not fear for me. I enter a private gentleman;
but I will return, if hard fighting and
regular duty can deserve it, an officer, and with half
a dollar a-day.''
``Poor child!''---replied Elspat, in a tone of pity
mingled with contempt, ``and you trust MacPhadraick?''
``I might mother''---said Hamish, the dark red
colour of his race crossing his forehead and cheeks,
``for MacPhadraick knows the blood which flows
in my veins, and is aware, that should he break
trust with you, he might count the days which could
bring Hamish back to Breadalbane, and number
those of his life within three suns more. I would
kill him at his own hearth, did he break his word
with me---I would, by the great Being who made
us both!''
The look and attitude of the young soldier for
a moment overawed Elspat; she was unused to see
him express a deep and bitter mood, which reminded
her so strongly of his father, but she resumed
her remonstrances in the same taunting manner in
which she had commenced them.
``Poor boy!'' she said; ``and you think that at
the distance of half the world your threats will be
heard or thought of! But, go---go---place your neck
under him of Hanover's yoke, against whom every
true Gael fought to the death---Go, disown the
royal Stewart, for whom your father, and his fathers,
and your mother's fathers, have crimsoned
many a field with their blood.---Go, put your head
under the belt of one of the race of Dermid, whose
children murdered---Yes,'' she added, with a wild
shriek, ``murdered your mother's fathers in their
peaceful dwellings in Glencoe!---Yes,'' she again
exclaimed, with a wilder and shriller scream, ``I
was then unborn, but my mother has told me---and
I attended to the voice of _my_ mother---well I remember
her words!---They came in peace, and
were received in friendship, and blood and fire
arose, and screams and murder!''*
* Note C. Massacre of Glencoe.
``Mother,'' answered Hamish, mournfully, but
with a decided tone, ``all that I have thought over
---there is not a drop of the blood of Glencoe on
the noble band of Barcaldine---with the unhappy
house of Glenlyon the curse remains, and on them
God hath avenged it.''
``You speak like the Saxon priest already,'' replied
his mother; ``will you not better stay, and
ask a kirk from MacAllan Mhor, that you may
preach forgiveness to the race of Dermid?''
``Yesterday was yesterday,'' answered Hamish,
``and to-day is to-day. When the clans are crushed
and confounded together, it is well and wise that
their hatreds and their feuds should not survive
their independence and their power. He that cannot
execute vengeance like a man, should not harbour
useless enmity like a craven. Mother, young
Barcaldine is true and brave; I know that MacPhadraick
counselled him, that he should not let
me take leave of you, lest you dissuaded me from
my purpose; but he said, `Hamish MacTavish is
the son of a brave man, and he will not break his
word.' Mother, Barcaldine leads an hundred of
the bravest of the sons of the Gael in their native
dress, and with their fathers' arms---heart to heart
---shoulder to shoulder. I have sworn to go with
him---He has trusted me, and I will trust him.''
At this reply, so firmly and resolvedly pronounced,
Elspat remained like one thunderstruck, and
sunk in despair. The arguments which she had
considered so irresistibly conclusive, had recoiled
like a wave from a rock. After a long pause, she
filled her son's quaigh, and presented it to him with
an air of dejected deference and submission.
``Drink,'' she said, ``to thy father's roof-tree,
ere you leave it for ever; and tell me,---since the
chains of a new King, and of a new Chief, whom
your fathers knew not save as mortal enemies, are
fastened upon the limbs of your father's son,---tell
me how many links you count upon them?''
Hamish took the cup, but looked at her as if uncertain
of her meaning. She proceeded in a raised
voice. ``Tell me,'' she said, ``for I have a right to
know, for how many days the will of those you have
made your masters permits me to look upon you?
---In other words, how many are the days of my
life---for when you leave me, the earth has nought
besides worth living for!''
``Mother,'' replied Hamish MacTavish, ``for six
days I may remain with you, and if you will set
out with me on the fifth, I will conduct you in safety
to your new dwelling. But if you remain here,
then I will depart on the seventh by daybreak---
then, as at the last moment, I =must= set out for
Dunbarton, for if I appear not on the eighth day,
I am subject to punishment as a deserter, and am
dishonoured as a soldier and a gentleman.''
``Your father's foot,'' she answered, ``was free
as the wind on the heath---it were as vain to say
to him where goest thou, as to ask that viewless
driver of the clouds, wherefore blowest thou. Tell
me under what penalty thou must---since go thou
must, and go thou wilt---return to thy thraldom?''
``Call it not thraldom, mother, it is the service
of an honourable soldier---the only service which
is now open to the son of MacTavish Mhor.''
``Yet say what is the penalty if thou shouldst
not return?'' replied Elspat.
``Military punishment as a deserter,'' answered
Hamish; writhing, however, as his mother failed
not to observe, under some internal feelings, which
she resolved to probe to the uttermost.
``And that,'' she said, with assumed calmness,
which her glancing eye disowned, ``is the punishment
of a disobedient hound, is it not?''
``Ask me no more, mother,'' said Hamish; ``the
punishment is nothing to one who will never deserve
it.''
``To me it is something,'' replied Elspat, ``since
I know better than thou, that where there is power
to inflict, there is often the will to do so without
cause. I would pray for thee, Hamish, and I must
know against what evils I should beseech Him who
leaves none unguarded, to protect thy youth and
simplicity.''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, ``it signifies little to
what a criminal may be exposed, if a man is determined
not to be such. Our Highland chiefs used
also to punish their vassals, and, as I have heard,
severely---Was it not Lachlan Maclan, whom we
remember of old, whose head was struck off by
order of his chieftain for shooting at the stag before
him?''
``Ay,'' said Elspat, ``and right he had to lose it,
since he dishonoured the father of the people even
in the face of the assembled clan. But the chiefs
were noble in their ire---they punished with the
sharp blade, and not with the baton. Their punishments
drew blood, but they did not infer dishonour.
Canst thou say, the same for the laws under whose
yoke thou hast placed thy freeborn neck?''
``I cannot---mother---I cannot,'' said Hamish,
mournfully. ``I saw them punish a Sassenach for
deserting as they called it, his banner. He was
scourged---I own it---scourged like a hound who
has offended an imperious master. I was sick at
the sight---I confess it. But the punishment of
dogs is only for those worse than dogs, who know
not how to keep their faith.''
``To this infamy, however, thou hast subjected
thyself, Hamish,'' replied Elspat, ``if thou shouldst
give, or thy officers take, measure of offence against
thee.---I speak no more to thee on thy purpose.---
Were the sixth day from this morning's sun my
dying day, and thou wert to stay to close mine
eyes, thou wouldst run the risk of being lashed like
a dog at a post---yes! unless thou hadst the gallant
heart to leave me to die alone, and upon my desolate
hearth, the last spark of thy father's fire, and
of thy forsaken mother's life, to be extinguished
together!''---Hamish traversed the hut with an
impatient and angry pace.
``Mother,'' he said at length, ``concern not yourself
about such things. I cannot be subjected to
such infamy, for never will I deserve it; and were
I threatened with it, I should know how to die
before I was so far dishonoured.''
``There spoke the son of the husband of my
heart!'' replied Elspat; and she changed the discourse,
and seemed to listen in melancholy acquiescence,
when her son reminded her how short the
time was which they were permitted to pass in
each other's society, and entreated that it might
be spent without useless and unpleasant recollections
respecting the circumstances under which
they must soon be separated.
Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some
of his father's other properties, preserved the
haughty masculine spirit which rendered it impossible
to divert him from a resolution which he had
deliberately adopted. She assumed, therefore, an
exterior of apparent submission to their inevitable
separation; and if she now and then broke out into
complaints and murmurs, it was either that she
could not altogether suppress the natural impetuosity
of her temper, or because she had the wit to
consider, that a total and unreserved acquiescence
might have seemed to her son constrained and suspicious,
and induced him to watch and defeat the
means by which she still hoped to prevent his leaving
her. Her ardent, though selfish affection for
her son, incapable of being qualified by a regard
for the true interests of the unfortunate object of
her attachment, resembled the instinctive fondness
of the animal race for their offspring; and diving
little farther into futurity than one of the inferior
creatures, she only felt, that to be separated from
Hamish was to die.
In the brief interval permitted them, Elspat exhausted
every art which affection could devise, to
render agreeable to him the space which they
were apparently to spend with each other. Her
memory carried her far back into former days, and
her stores of legendary history, which furnish at
all times a principal amusement of the Highlander
in his moments of repose, were augmented by an
unusual acquaintance with the songs of ancient
bards, and traditions of the most approved Seannachies
and tellers of tales. Her officious attentions
to her son's accommodation, indeed, were so
unremitted as almost to give him pain; and be endeavoured
quietly to prevent her from taking so
much personal toil in selecting the blooming heath
for his bed, or preparing the meal for his refreshment.
``Let me alone, Hamish,'' she would reply
on such occasions; ``you follow your own will in
departing from your mother, let your mother have
hers in doing what gives her pleasure while you
remain.''
So much she seemed to be reconciled to the arrangements
which he had made in her behalf, that
she could hear him speak to her of her removing
to the lands of Green Colin, as the gentleman was
called, on whose estate he had provided her an asylum.
In truth, however, nothing could be farther
from her thoughts. From what he had said during
their first violent dispute, Elspat had gathered,
that if Hamish returned not by the appointed time
permitted by his furlough, he would incur the hazard
of corporal punishment. Were he placed
within the risk of being thus dishonoured, she was
well aware that be would never submit to the disgrace,
by a return to the regiment where it might
be inflicted. Whether she looked to any farther
probable consequences of her unhappy scheme,
cannot be known; but the partner of MacTavish
Mhor, in all his perils and wanderings, was familiar
with an hundred instances of resistance or escape,
by which one brave man, amidst a land of
rocks, lakes, and mountains, dangerous passes, and
dark forests, might baffle the pursuit of hundreds.
For the future, therefore, she feared nothing;
her sole engrossing object was to prevent
her son from keeping his word with his commanding
officer.
With this secret purpose, she evaded the proposal
which Hamish repeatedly made, that they
should set out together to take possession of her
new abode; and she resisted it upon grounds apparently
so natural to her character, that her son
was neither alarmed nor displeased. ``Let me
not,'' she said, ``in the same short week, bid farewell
to my only son, and to the glen in which I
have so long dwelt. Let my eye, when dimmed
with weeping for thee, still look around, for
a while at least, upon Loch Awe and on Ben Cruachan.''
Hamish yielded the more willingly to his mother's
humour in this particular, that one or two
persons who resided in a neighbouring glen, and
had given their sons to Barcaldine's levy, were
also to be provided for on the estate of the chieftain,
and it was apparently settled that Elspat was
to take her journey along with them when they
should remove to their new residence. Thus, Hamish
believed that he had at once indulged his
mother's humour, and insured her safety and accommodation.
But she nourished in her mind
very different thoughts and projects!
The period of Hamish's leave of absence was
fast approaching, and more than once he proposed
to depart, in such time as to insure his gaining
easily and early Dunbarton, the town where were
the head-quarters of his regiment. But still his
mother's entreaties, his own natural disposition to
linger among scenes long dear to him, and, above
all, his firm reliance in his speed and activity, induced
him to protract his departure till the sixth
day, being the very last which he could possibly
afford to spend with his mother, if indeed he meant
to comply with the conditions of his furlough.
CHAPTER V.
But for your son, believe it---Oh, believe it---
Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,
If not most mortal to him.---
_Coriolanus._
On the evening which preceded his proposed
departure, Hamish walked down to the river with
his fishing-rod, to practise in the Awe, for the last
time, a sport in which be excelled, and to find, at
the same time, the means for making one social
meal with his mother on something better than
their ordinary cheer. He was as successful as
usual, and soon killed a fine salmon. On his return
homeward an incident befell him, which he
afterwards related as ominous, though probably
his heated imagination, joined to the universal
turn of his countrymen for the marvellous, exaggerated
into superstitious importance some very ordinary
and accidental circumstance.
In the path which he pursued homeward, he was
surprised to observe a person, who, like himself,
was dressed and armed after the old Highland
fashion. The first idea that struck him was, that
the passenger belonged to his own corps, who,
levied by government, and bearing arms under royal
authority, were not amenable for breach of the statutes
against the use of the Highland garb or weapons.
But he was struck on perceiving, as he
mended his pace to make up to his supposed comrade,
meaning to request his company for the next
day's journey, that the stranger wore a white cockade,
the fatal badge which was proscribed in the
Highlands. The stature of the man was tall, and
there was something shadowy in the outline, which
added to his size; and his mode of motion, which
rather resembled gliding than walking, impressed
Hamish with superstitious fears concerning the
character of the being which thus passed before
him in the twilight. He no longer strove to make
up to the stranger, but contented himself with keeping
him in view, under the superstition common to
the Highlanders, that you ought neither to intrude
yourself on such supernatural apparitions as you
may witness, nor avoid their presence, but leave it
to themselves to withhold or extend their communication,
as their power may permit, or the purpose
of their commission require.
Upon an elevated knoll by the side of the road,
just where the pathway turned down to Elspat's
hut, the stranger made a pause, and seemed to await
Hamish's coming up. Hamish, on his part, seeing
it was necessary be should pass the object of his
suspicion, mustered up his courage, and approached
the spot where the stranger had placed himself;
who first pointed to Elspat's hut, and made, with
arm and head, a gesture prohibiting Hamish to
approach it, then stretched his hand to the road
which led to the southward, with a motion which
seemed to enjoin his instant departure in that direction.
In a moment afterwards the plaided form
was gone---Hamish did not exactly say vanished,
because there were rocks and stunted trees enough
to have concealed him; but it was his own opinion
that be had seen the spirit of MacTavish Mhor,
warning him to commence his instant journey to
Dunbarton, without waiting till morning, or again
visiting his mother's hut.
In fact, so many accidents might arise to delay
his journey, especially where there were many ferries,
that it became his settled purpose, though he
could not depart without bidding his mother adieu,
that he neither could nor would abide longer than
for that object; and that the first glimpse of next
day's sun should see him many miles advanced towards
Dunbarton. He descended the path, therefore,
and entering the cottage, he communicated,
in a hasty and troubled voice, which indicated
mental agitation, his determination to take his instant
departure. Somewhat to his surprise, Elspat
appeared not to combat his purpose, but she urged
him to take some refreshment ere he left her for
ever. He did so hastily, and in silence, thinking
on the approaching separation, and scarce yet believing
it would take place without a final struggle
with his mother's fondness. To his surprise, she
filled the quaigh with liquor for his parting cup.
``Go,'' she said, ``my son, since such is thy settled
purpose; but first stand once more on thy
mother's hearth, the flame on which will be extinguished
long ere thy foot shall again be placed
there.''
``To your health, mother!'' said Hamish, ``and
may we meet again in happiness, in spite of your
ominous words.''
``It were better not to part,'' said his mother,
watching him as he quaffed the liquor, of which he
would have held it ominous to have left a drop.
``And now,'' she said, muttering the words to
herself, ``go---if thou canst go.''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, as he replaced on the
table the empty quaigh, ``thy drink is pleasant to
the taste, but it takes away the strength which it
ought to give.''
``Such is its first effect, my son,'' replied Elspat;
``but lie down upon that soft heather couch, shut
your eyes but for a moment, and, in the sleep of
an hour, you shall have more refreshment than in
the ordinary repose of three whole nights, could
they be blended into one.''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, upon whose brain the
potion was now taking rapid effect, ``give me my
bonnet---I must kiss you and begone---yet it seems
as if my feet were nailed to the floor.''
``Indeed,'' said his mother, ``you will be instantly
well, if you will sit down for half an hour---but half
an hour: it is eight hours to dawn, and dawn were
time enough for your father's son to begin such a
journey.''
``I must obey you, mother---I feel I must,'' said
Hamish, inarticulately; ``but call me when the
moon rises.''
He sat down on the bed--reclined back, and
almost instantly was fast asleep. With the throbbing
glee of one who has brought to an end a difficult
and troublesome enterprise, Elspat proceeded
tenderly to arrange the plaid of the unconscious
slumberer, to whom her extravagant affection was
doomed to be so fatal, expressing, while busied in
her office, her delight, in tones of mingled tenderness
and triumph. ``Yes,'' she said, ``calf of my
heart, the moon shall arise and set to thee, and so
shall the sun; but not to light thee from the land
of thy fathers, or tempt thee to serve the foreign
prince or the feudal enemy! To no son of Dermid
shall I be delivered, to be fed like a bondswoman;
but he who is my pleasure and my pride shall be
my guard and my protector. They say the Highlands
are changed; but I see Ben Cruachan rear
his crest as high as ever into the evening sky---no
one hath yet herded his kine on the depths of Loch
Awe---and yonder oak does not yet bend like a
willow. The children of the mountains will be such
as their fathers, until the mountains themselves
shall be levelled with the strath. In these wild
forests, which used to support thousands of the
brave, there is still surely subsistence and refuge
left for one aged woman, and one gallant youth, of
the ancient race and the ancient manners.''
While the misjudging mother thus exulted in
the success of her stratagem, we may mention to
the reader, that it was founded on the acquaintance
with drugs and simples, which Elspat, accomplished
in all things belonging to the wild life which
she had led, possessed in an uncommon degree, and
which she exercised for various purposes. With
the herbs, which she knew how to select as well as
how to distil, she could relieve more diseases than
a regular medical person could easily believe. She
applied some to dye the bright colours of the tartan
---from others she compounded draughts of various
powers, and unhappily possessed the secret of one
which was strongly soporific. Upon the effects of
this last concoction, as the reader doubtless has
anticipated, she reckoned with security on delaying
Hamish beyond the period for which his return was
appointed; and she trusted to his horror for the
apprehended punishment to which he was thus rendered
liable, to prevent him from returning at all.
Sound and deep, beyond natural rest, was the
sleep of Hamish MacTavish on that eventful evening,
but not such the repose of his mother. Scarce
did she close her eyes from time to time, but she
awakened again with a start, in the terror that her
son had arisen and departed; and it was only on
approaching his couch, and hearing his deep-drawn
and regular breathing, that she reassured herself of
the security of the repose in which he was plunged.
Still, dawning, she feared, might awaken him,
notwithstanding the unusual strength of the potion
with which she had drugged his cup. If there remained
a hope of mortal man accomplishing the
journey, she was aware that Hamish would attempt
it, though he were to die from fatigue upon the
road. Animated by this new fear, she studied to
exclude the light, by stopping all the crannies and
crevices through which, rather than through any
regular entrance, the morning beams might find
access to her miserable dwelling; and this in order
to detain amid its wants and wretchedness the
being, on whom, if the world itself had been at her
disposal, she would have joyfully conferred it.
Her pains were bestowed unnecessarily. The
sun rose high above the heavens, and not the fleetest
stag in Breadalbane, were the hounds at his
heels, could have sped, to save his life, so fast as
would have been necessary to keep Hamish's appointment.
Her purpose was fully attained---her
son's return within the period assigned was impossible.
She deemed it equally impossible, that he
would ever dream of returning, standing, as he
must now do, in the danger of an infamous punishment.
By degrees, and at different times, she had
gained from him a full acquaintance with the predicament
in which he would be placed by failing to
appear on the day appointed, and the very small
hope he could entertain of being treated with lenity.
It is well known, that the great and wise Earl
of Chatham prided himself on the scheme, by which
he drew together for the defence of the colonies
those hardy Highlanders, who, until his time, had
been the objects of doubt, fear, and suspicion, on
the part of each successive administration. But
some obstacles occurred, from the peculiar habits
and temper of this people, to the execution of his
patriotic project. By nature and habit, every
Highlander was accustomed to the use of arms,
but at the same time totally unaccustomed to, and
impatient of, the restraints imposed by discipline
upon regular troops. They were a species of militia,
who had no conception of a camp as their
only home. If a battle was lost, they dispersed to
save themselves, and look out for the safety of
their families; if won, they went back to their
glens to hoard up their booty, and attend to their
cattle and their farms. This privilege of going and
coming at pleasure, they would not be deprived
of even by their Chiefs, whose authority was in
most other respects so despotic. It followed as a
matter of course, that the new-levied Highland
recruits could scarce be made to comprehend the
nature of a military engagement, which compelled
a man to serve in the army longer than he pleased;
and perhaps, in many instances, sufficient care was
not taken at enlisting to explain to them the permanency
of the engagement which they came under,
lest such a disclosure should induce them to change
their mind. Desertions were therefore become
numerous from the newly-raised regiment, and the
veteran General who commanded at Dunbarton,
saw no better way of checking them than by causing
an unusually severe example to be made of a deserter
from an English corps. The young Highland
regiment was obliged to attend upon the punishment,
which struck a people, peculiarly jealous of
personal honour, with equal horror and disgust,
and not unnaturally indisposed some of them to the
service. The old General, however, who had been
regularly bred in the German wars, stuck to his
own opinion, and gave out in orders that the first
Highlander who might either desert, or fail to appear
at the expiry of his furlough, should be brought
to the halberds, and punished like the culprit whom
they had seen in that condition. No man doubted
that General --------- would keep his word rigorously
whenever severity was required, and Elspat,
therefore, knew that her son, when he perceived
that due compliance with his orders was impossible,
must at the same time consider the degrading
punishment denounced against his defection as inevitable,
should be place himself within the General's
power.*
* Note D. Fidelity of the Highlanders.
When noon was well passed, new apprehensions
came on the mind of the lonely woman. Her son
still slept under the influence of the draught; but
what if, being stronger than she had ever known
it administered, his health or his reason should be
affected by its potency? For the first time, likewise,
notwithstanding her high ideas on the subject
of parental authority, she began to dread the
resentment of her son, whom her heart told her
she had wronged. Of late, she had observed that
his temper was less docile, and his determinations,
especially upon this late occasion of his enlistment,
independently formed, and then boldly carried
through. She remembered the stern wilfulness of
his father when he accounted himself ill-used, and
began to dread that Hamish, upon finding the deceit
she had put upon him, might resent it even
to the extent of cutting her off, and pursuing his
own course through the world alone. Such were
the alarming and yet the reasonable apprehensions
which began to crowd upon the unfortunate woman,
after the apparent success of her ill-advised
stratagem.
It was near evening when Hamish first awoke,
and then he was far from being in the full possession
either of his mental or bodily powers. From
his vague expressions and disordered pulse, Elspat
at first experienced much apprehension; but she
used such expedients as her medical knowledge
suggested; and in the course of the night, she had
the satisfaction to see him sink once more into a
deep sleep, which probably carried off the greater
part of the effects of the drug, for about sunrising
she heard him arise, and call to her for his bonnet.
This she had purposely removed, from a fear that
he might awaken and depart in the night-time,without
her knowledge.
``My bonnet---my bonnet,'' cried Hamish, ``it
is time to take farewell. Mother, your drink was
too strong---the sun is up---but with the next morning
I will still see the double summit of the ancient
Dun. My bonnet---my bonnet! mother, I
must be instant in my departure.'' These expressions
made it plain that poor Hamish was unconscious
that two nights and a day had passed since
he had drained the fatal quaigh, and Elspat had
now to venture on what she felt as the almost
perilous, as well as painful task, of explaining her
machinations.
``Forgive me, my son,'' she said, approaching
Hamish, and taking him by the hand with an air
of deferential awe, which perhaps she had not always
used to his father, even when in his moody
fits.
``Forgive you, mother---for what?'' said Hamish,
laughing; ``for giving me a dram that was
too strong, and which my head still feels this morning,
or for hiding my bonnet to keep me an instant
longer? Nay, do _you_ forgive _me_. Give me the
bonnet, and let that be done which now must be
done. Give me my bonnet, or I go without it;
surely I am not to be delayed by so trifling a want
as that---I, who have gone for years with only a
strap of deer's hide to tie back my hair. Trifle
not, but give it me, or I must go bareheaded, since
to stay is impossible.''
``My son,'' said Elspat, keeping fast hold of his
hand, ``what is done cannot be recalled; could you
borrow the wings of yonder eagle, you would arrive
at the Dun too late for what you purpose,---
too soon for what awaits you there. You believe
you see the sun rising for the first time since you
have seen him set, but yesterday beheld him climb
Ben Cruachan, though your eyes were closed to
his light.''
Hamish cast upon his mother a wild glance of
extreme terror, then instantly recovering himself,
said---``I am no child to be cheated out of my
purpose by such tricks as these---Farewell, mother,
each moment is worth a lifetime.''
``Stay,'' she said, ``my dear---my deceived son!
run not on infamy and ruin---Yonder I see the
priest upon the high-road on his white horse---ask
him the day of the month and week---let him decide
between us.''
With the speed of an eagle, Hamish darted up
the acclivity, and stood by the minister of Glenorquhy,
who was pacing out thus early to administer
consolation to a distressed family near Bunawe.
The good man was somewhat startled to behold
an armed Highlander, then so unusual a sight, and
apparently much agitated, stop his horse by the
bridle, and ask him with a faltering voice the day
of the week and month. ``Had you been where
you should have been yesterday, young man,'' replied
the clergyman, ``you would have known that
it was God's Sabbath; and that this is Monday,
the second day of the week, and twenty-first of the
month.''
``And this is true?'' said Hamish.
``As true,'' answered the surprised minister,
``as that I yesterday preached the word of God to
this parish.---What ails you, young man?---are you
sick?---are you in your right mind?''
Hamish made no answer, only repeated to himself
the first expression of the clergyman---``Had
you been where you should have been yesterday;''
and so saying, he let go the bridle, turned from the
road, and descended the path towards the hut, with
the look and pace of one who was going to execution.
The minister looked after him with surprise;
but although he knew the inhabitant of the hovel,
the character of Elspat had not invited him to open
any communication with her, because she was
generally reputed a Papist, or rather one indifferent
to all religion, except some superstitious observances
which had been handed down from her
parents. On Hamish the Reverend Mr Tyrie had
bestowed instructions when he was occasionally
thrown in his way, and if the seed fell among the
brambles and thorns of a wild and uncultivated
disposition, it had not yet been entirely checked
or destroyed. There was something so ghastly in
the present expression of the youth's features, that
the good man was tempted to go down to the hovel,
and enquire whether any distress had befallen the
inhabitants, in which his presence might be consoling,
and his ministry useful. Unhappily he did
not persevere in this resolution, which might have
saved a great misfortune, as he would have probably
become a mediator for the unfortunate young
man; but a recollection of the wild moods of such
Highlanders as had been educated after the old
fashion of the country, prevented his interesting
himself in the widow and son of the far-dreaded
robber MacTavish Mhor; and he thus missed an
opportunity, which he afterwards sorely repented,
of doing much good.
When Hamish MacTavish entered his mother's
hut, it was only to throw himself on the bed he
had left, and, exclaiming, ``Undone, undone!'' to
give vent, in cries of grief and anger, to his deep
sense of the deceit which had been practised on
him, and of the cruel predicament to which he was
reduced.
Elspat was prepared for the first explosion of
her son's passion, and said to herself, ``It is but the
mountain torrent, swelled by the thunder shower.
Let us sit and rest us by the bank; for all its present
tumult, the time will soon come when we may
pass it dryshod.'' She suffered his complaints and
his reproaches, which were, even in the midst of
his agony, respectful and affectionate, to die away
without returning any answer; and when, at length,
having exhausted all the exclamations of sorrow
which his language, copious in expressing the feelings
of the heart, affords to the sufferer, he sunk
into a gloomy silence, she suffered the interval to
continue near an hour ere she approached her son's
couch.
``And now,'' she said at length, with a voice in
which the authority of the mother was qualified by
her tenderness, ``have you exhausted your idle
sorrows, and are you able to place what you have
gained against what you have lost? Is the false
son of Dermid your brother, or the father of your
tribe, that you weep because you cannot bind yourself
to his belt, and become one of those who must
do his bidding? Could you find in yonder distant
country the lakes and the mountains that you leave
behind you here? Can you hunt the deer of Breadalbane
in the forests of America, or will the ocean
afford you the silver-scaled salmon of the Awe?
Consider, then, what is your loss, and, like a wise
man, set it against what you have won.''
``I have lost all, mother,'' replied Hamish, ``since
I have broken my word, and lost my honour. I
might tell my tale, but who, oh, who would believe
me?'' The unfortunate young man again clasped
his hands together, and, pressing them to his forehead,
hid his face upon the bed.
Elspat was now really alarmed, and perhaps
wished the fatal deceit had been left unattempted.
She had no hope or refuge saving in the eloquence
of persuasion, of which she possessed no small
share, though her total ignorance of the world as
it actually existed, rendered its energy unavailing.
She urged her son, by every tender epithet which
a parent could bestow, to take care for his own
safety.
``Leave me,'' she said, ``to baffle your pursuers.
I will save your life---I will save your honour---I
will tell them that my fair-haired Hamish fell from
the Corrie dhu (black precipice) into the gulf, of
which human eye never beheld the bottom. I will
tell them this, and I will fling your plaid on the
thorns which grow on the brink of the precipice,
that they may believe my words. They will believe,
and they will return to the Dun of the double-crest;
for though the Saxon drum can call the living
to die, it cannot recall the dead to their slavish
standard. Then will we travel together far northward
to the salt lakes of Kintail, and place glens
and mountains betwixt us and the sons of Dermid.
We will visit the shores of the dark lake, and my
kinsmen---(for was not my mother of the children
of Kenneth, and will they not remember us with
the affection of the olden time, which lives in those
distant glens, where the Gael still dwell in their
nobleness, unmingled with the churl Saxons, or
with the base brood that are their tools and their
slaves.''
The energy of the language, somewhat allied to
hyperbole, even in its most ordinary expressions,
now seemed almost too weak to afford Elspat the
means of bringing out the splendid picture which
she presented to her son of the land in which she
proposed to him to take refuge. Yet the colours
were few with which she could paint her Highland
paradise. ``The hills,'' she said, ``were higher and
more magnificent than those of Breadalbane---Ben
Cruachan was but a dwarf to Skooroora. The lakes
were broader and larger, and abounded not only
with fish, but with the enchanted and amphibious
animal which gives oil to the lamp.* The deer
* The seals are considered by the Highlanders as enchanted
princes.
were larger and more numerous---the white-tusked
boar, the chase of which the brave loved best, was
yet to be roused in those western solitudes---the
men were nobler, wiser, and stronger, than the
degenerate brood who lived under the Saxon banner.
The daughters of the land were beautiful,
with blue eyes and fair hair, and bosoms of snow,
and out of these she would choose a wife for Hamish,
of blameless descent, spotless fame, fixed and
true affection, who should be in their summer bothy
as a beam of the sun, and in their winter abode as
the warmth of the needful fire.''
Such were the topics with which Elspat strove
to soothe the despair of her son, and to determine
him, if possible, to leave the fatal spot, on which
he seemed resolved to linger. The style of her
rhetoric was poetical, but in other respects resembled
that which, like other fond mothers, she had
lavished on Hamish, while a child or a boy, in
order to gain his consent to do something he had
no mind to; and she spoke louder, quicker, and
more earnestly, in proportion as she began to despair
of her words carrying conviction.
On the mind of Hamish her eloquence made no
impression. He knew far better than she did the
actual situation of the country, and was sensible,
that, though it might be possible to hide himself
as a fugitive among more distant mountains, there
was now no corner in the Highlands in which his
father's profession could be practised, even if he,
had not adopted, from the improved ideas of the
time when he lived, the opinion that the trade of
the cateran was no longer the road to honour and
distinction. Her words were therefore poured into
regardless ears, and she exhausted herself in vain
in the attempt to paint the regions of her mother's
kinsmen in such terms as might tempt Hamish to
accompany her thither. She spoke for hours, but
she spoke in vain. She could extort no answer,
save groans and sighs, and ejaculations, expressing
the extremity of despair.
At length, starting on her feet, and changing
the monotonous tone in which she had chanted, as
it were, the praises of the province of refuge, into
the short, stern language of eager passion---``I am
a fool,'' she said, ``to spend my words upon an
idle, poor-spirited, unintelligent boy, who crouches
like a hound to the lash. Wait here, and receive
your taskmasters, and abide your chastisement at
their hands; but do not think your mother's eyes
will behold it. I could not see it and live. My
eyes have looked often upon death, but never upon
dishonour. Farewell, Hamish!---We never meet
again.''
She dashed from the hut like a lapwing, and
perhaps for the moment actually entertained the
purpose which she expressed, of parting with her
son for ever. A fearful sight she would have
been that evening to any who might have met her
wandering through the wilderness like a restless
spirit, and speaking to herself in language which
will endure no translation. She rambled for hours,
seeking rather than shunning the most dangerous
paths. The precarious track through the morass,
the dizzy path along the edge of the precipice, or
by the banks of the gulfing river, were the roads
which, far from avoiding, she sought with eagerness,
and traversed with reckless haste. But the
courage arising from despair was the means of saving
the life, which, (though deliberate suicide
was rarely practised in the Highlands,) she was
perhaps desirous of terminating. Her step on the
verge of the precipice was firm as that of the wild
goat. Her eye, in that state of excitation, was so
keen as to discern, even amid darkness, the perils
which noon would not have enabled a stranger to
avoid.
Elspat's course was not directly forward, else
she had soon been far from the bothy in which she
had left her son. It was circuitous, for that hut
was the centre to which her heartstrings were
chained, and though she wandered around it, she
felt it impossible to leave the vicinity. With the
first beams of morning, she returned to the hut.
Awhile she paused at the wattled door, as if ashamed
that lingering fondness should have brought
her back to the spot which she had left with the
purpose of never returning; but there was yet
more of fear and anxiety in her hesitation---of anxiety,
lest her fair-haired son had suffered from
the effects of her potion---of fear, lest his enemies
had come upon him in the night. She opened the
door of the hut gently, and entered with noiseless
step. Exhausted with his sorrow and anxiety,
and not entirely relieved perhaps from the influence
of the powerful opiate, Hamish Bean again
slept the stern sound sleep, by which the Indians
are said to be overcome during the interval of their
torments. His mother was scarcely sure that she
actually discerned his form on the bed, scarce certain
that her ear caught the sound of his breathing.
With a throbbing heart, Elspat went to the
fire-place in the centre of the hut, where slumbered,
covered with a piece of turf, the glimmering
embers of the fire, never extinguished on a Scottish
hearth until the indwellers leave the mansion
for ever.
``Feeble greishogh,''* she said, as she lighted,
* Greishogh, a glowing ember.
by the help of a match, a splinter of bog pine
which was to serve the place of a candle; ``weak
greishogh, soon shalt thou be put out for ever, and
may Heaven grant that the life of Elspat MacTavish
have no longer duration than thine!''
While she spoke she raised the blazing light
towards the bed, on which still lay the prostrate
limbs of her son, in a posture that left it doubtful
whether he slept or swooned. As she advanced
towards him, the light flashed upon his eyes---he
started up in an instant, made a stride forward
with his naked dirk in his hand, like a man armed
to meet a mortal enemy, and exclaimed, ``Stand
off!---on thy life, stand off!''
``It is the word and the action of my husband,''
answered Elspat; ``and I know by his speech and
his step the son of MacTavish Mhor.''
``Mother,'' said Hamish, relapsing from his tone
of desperate firmness into one of melancholy expostulation;
``oh, dearest mother, wherefore have
you returned hither?''
``Ask why the hind comes back to the fawn,''
said Elspat; ``why the cat of the mountain returns
to her lodge and her young. Know you, Hamish,
that the heart of the mother only lives in the bosom
of the child.''
``Then will it soon cease to throb,'' said Hamish,
``unless it can beat within a bosom that
lies beneath the turf.---Mother, do not blame
me; if I weep, it is not for myself but for you,
for my sufferings will soon be over; but yours
------O who but Heaven shall set a boundary to
them!''
Elspat shuddered and stepped backward, but
almost instantly resumed her firm and upright position,
and her dauntless bearing.
``I thought thou wert a man but even now,''
she said, ``and thou art again a child. Hearken
to me yet, and let us leave this place together.
Have I done thee wrong or injury? if so, yet do
not avenge it so cruelly---See, Elspat MacTavish,
who never kneeled before even to a priest, falls
prostrate before her own son, and craves his forgiveness.''
And at once she threw herself on her
knees before the young man, seized on his hand,
and kissing it an hundred times, repeated as often,
in heart-breaking accents, the most earnest entreaties
for forgiveness. ``Pardon,'' she exclaimed,
``pardon, for the sake of your father's ashes---
pardon, for the sake of the pain with which I bore
thee, the care with which I nurtured thee!---Hear
it, Heaven, and behold it, Earth---the mother asks
pardon of her child, and she is refused!''
It was in vain that Hamish endeavoured to stem
this tide of passion, by assuring his mother, with
the most solemn asseverations, that he forgave entirely
the fatal deceit which she had practised upon
him.
``Empty words,'' she said; ``idle protestations,
which are but used to hide the obduracy of your
resentment. Would you have me believe you, then
leave the but this instant, and retire from a country
which every hour renders more dangerous.---
Do this, and I may think you have forgiven me---
refuse it, and again I call on moon and stars,
heaven and earth, to witness the unrelenting resentment
with which you prosecute your mother
for a fault, which, if it be one, arose out of love to
you.
``Mother,'' said Hamish, ``on this subject you
move me not. I will fly before no man. If Barcaldine
should send every Gael that is under his
banner, here, and in this place, will I abide them;
and when you bid me fly, you may as well command
yonder mountain to be loosened from its foundations.
Had I been sure of the road by which they
are coming hither, I had spared them the pains of
seeking me; but I might go by the mountain,
while they perchance came by the lake. Here I
will abide my fate; nor is there in Scotland a voice
of power enough to bid me stir from hence, and be
obeyed.''
``Here, then, I also stay,'' said Elspat, rising up
and speaking with assumed composure. ``I have
seen my husband's death---my eyelids shall not
grieve to look on the fall of my son. But MacTavish
Mhor died as became the brave, with his
good sword in his right hand; my son will perish
like the bullock that is driven to the shambles
by the Saxon owner who had bought him for a
price.''
``Mother,'' said the unhappy young man, ``you
have taken my life; to that you have a right, for
you gave it; but touch not my honour! It came
to me from a brave train of ancestors, and should
be sullied neither by man's deed nor woman's
speech. What I shall do, perhaps I myself yet
know not; but tempt me no farther by reproachful
words; you have already made wounds more
than you can ever heal.''
``It is well, my son,'' said Elspat, in reply. ``Expect
neither farther complaint nor remonstrance
from me; but let us be silent, and wait the chance
which Heaven shall send us.''
The sun arose on the next morning, and found
the bothy silent as the grave. The mother and
son had arisen, and were engaged each in their
separate task---Hamish in preparing and cleaning
his arms with the greatest accuracy, but with an
air of deep dejection. Elspat, more restless in her
agony of spirit, employed herself in making ready
the food which the distress of yesterday had induced
them both to dispense with for an unusual
number of hours. She placed it on the board before
her son so soon as it was prepared, with the
words of a Gaelic poet, ``Without daily food, the
husbandman's ploughshare stands still in the furrow;
without daily food, the sword of the warrior
is too heavy for his hand. Our bodies are our
slaves, yet they must be fed if we would have their
service. So spake in ancient days the Blind Bard
to the warriors of Fion.''
The young man made no reply, but he fed on
what was placed. before him, as if to gather strength
for the scene which he was to undergo. When
his mother saw that be had eaten what sufficed
him, she again filled the fatal quaigh, and proffered
it as the conclusion of the repast. But he started
aside with a convulsive gesture, expressive at once
of fear and abhorrence.
``Nay, my son,'' she said, ``this time surely, thou
hast no cause of fear.''
``Urge me not, mother,'' answered Hamish; ``or
put the leprous toad into a flagon, and I will drink
but from that accursed cup, and of that mind-destroying
potion, never will I taste more!''
``At your pleasure, my son,'' said Elspat,
haughtily, and began, with much apparent assiduity,
the various domestic tasks which had been interrupted
during the preceding day. Whatever was
at her heart, all anxiety seemed banished from
her looks and demeanour. It was but from an
over activity of bustling exertion that it might have
been perceived, by a close observer, that her actions
were spurred by some internal cause of painful excitement;
and such a spectator, too, might also have
observed bow often she broke off the snatches
of songs or tunes which she hummed, apparently
without knowing what she was doing, in order to
cast a hasty glance from the door of the hut. Whatever
might be in the mind of Hamish, his demeanour
was directly the reverse of that adopted by his
mother. Having finished the task of cleaning and
preparing his arms, which he arranged within the
hut, he sat himself down before the door of the
bothy, and watched the opposite hill, like the fixed
sentinel who expects the approach of an enemy.
Noon found him in the same unchanged posture,
and it was an hour after that period, when his mother,
standing beside him, laid her hand on his
shoulder, and said, in a tone indifferent, as if she
had been talking of some friendly visit, ``When
dost thou expect them?''
``They cannot be here till the shadows fall long
to the eastward,'' replied Hamish; ``that is, even
supposing the nearest party, commanded by Sergeant
Allan Breack Cameron, has been commanded
hither by express from Dunbarton, as it is most
likely they will.''
``Then enter beneath your mother's roof once
more; partake the last time of the food which she
has prepared; after this, let them come, and thou
shalt see if thy mother is an useless encumbrance
in the day of strife. Thy hand, practised as it is,
cannot fire these arms so fast as I can load them;
nay, if it is necessary, I do not myself fear the
flash or the report, and my aim has been held
fatal.''
``In the name of Heaven, mother, meddle not
with this matter!'' said Hamish. ``Allan Breack is
a wise man and a kind one, and comes of a good
stem. It may be, he can promise for our officers,
that they will touch me with no infamous punishment;
and if they offer me confinement in the dungeon,
or death by the musket, to that I may not
object.''
``Alas, and wilt thou trust to their word, my
foolish child? Remember the race of Dermid
were ever fair and false, and no sooner shall they
have gyves on thy hands, than they will strip thy
shoulders for the scourge.''
``Save your advice, mother,'' said Hamish,
sternly; ``for me, my mind is made up.''
But though he spoke thus, to escape the almost
persecuting urgency of his mother, Hamish would
have found it, at that moment, impossible to say upon
what course of conduct he had thus fixed. On one
point alone he was determined, namely, to abide
his destiny, be what it might, and not to add to
the breach of his word, of which he had been involuntarily
rendered guilty, by attempting to
escape from punishment. This act of self-devotion
he conceived to be due to his own honour, and that
of his countrymen. Which of his comrades would
in future be trusted, if he should be considered as
having broken his word, and betrayed the confidence
of his officers? and whom but Hamish Bean
MacTavish would the Gael accuse, for having verified
and confirmed the suspicions which the Saxon
General was well known to entertain against the
good faith of the Highlanders? He was, therefore,
bent firmly to abide his fate. But whether his
intention was to yield himself peaceably into the
bands of the party who should come to apprehend
him, or whether he purposed, by a show of resistance,
to provoke them to kill him on the spot, was
a question which he could not himself have answered.
His desire to see Barcaldine, and explain
the cause of his absence at the appointed time,
urged him to the one course; his fear of the degrading
punishment, and of his mother's bitter upbraidings,
strongly instigated the latter and the
more dangerous purpose. He left it to chance to
decide when the crisis should arrive; nor did he
tarry long in expectation of the catastrophe.
Evening approached, the gigantic shadows of the
mountains streamed in darkness towards the east
while their western peaks were still glowing with
crimson and gold. The road which winds round
Ben Cruachan was fully visible from the door of
the bothy, when a party of five Highland soldiers,
whose arms glanced in the sun, wheeled suddenly
into sight from the most distant extremity, where
the highway is hidden behind the mountain. One
of the party walked a little before the other four,
who marched regularly and in files, according to
the rules of military discipline. There was no dispute,
from the firelocks which they carried, and the
plaids and bonnets which they wore, that they were
a party of Hamish's regiment, under a non-commissioned
officer; and there could be as little doubt
of the purpose of their appearance on the banks of
Loch Awe.
``They come briskly forward''---said the widow
of MacTavish Mhor,---``I wonder how fast or how
slow some of them will return again! But they are
five, and it is too much odds for a fair field. Step
back within the hut, my son, and shoot from the
loophole beside the door. Two you may bring
down ere they quit the high-road for the footpath
---there will remain but three; and your father,
with my aid, has often stood against that number.''
Hamish Bean took the gun which his mother
offered, but did not stir from the door of the hut.
He was soon visible to the party on the high-road,
as was evident from their increasing their pace to
a run the files, however, still keeping together
like coupled greyhounds, and advancing with great
rapidity. In far less time than would have been
accomplished by men less accustomed to the mountains,
they had left the high-road, traversed the
narrow path, and approached within pistol-shot of
the bothy, at the door of which stood Hamish,
fixed like a statue of stone, with his firelock in his
band, while his mother, placed behind him, and almost
driven to frenzy by the violence of her passions,
reproached him in the strongest terms which
despair could invent, for his want of resolution and
faintness of heart. Her words increased the bitter
gall which was arising in the young man's own
spirit, as be observed the unfriendly speed with
which his late comrades were eagerly making towards
him, like hounds towards the stag when he
is at bay. The untamed and angry passions which
he inherited from father and mother, were awakened
by the supposed hostility of those who pursued
him; and the restraint under which these passions
had been hitherto held by his sober judgment,
began gradually to give way. The sergeant now
called to him, ``Hamish Bean MacTavish, lay down
your arms and surrender.''
``Do _you_ stand, Allan Breack Cameron, and
command your men to stand, or it will be the worse
for us all.''
``Halt, men''---said the sergeant, but continuing
himself to advance. ``Hamish, think what you do,
and give up your gun; you may spill blood, but
you cannot escape punishment.''
``The scourge---the scourge---my son, beware
the scourge!'' whispered his mother.
``Take heed, Allan Breack,'' said Hamish. ``I
would not hurt you willingly,---but I will not be
taken unless you can assure me against the Saxon
lash.''
``Fool!'' answered Cameron, ``you know I cannot.
Yet I will do all I can. I will say I met you
on your return, and the punishment will be light---
but give up your musket---Come on, men.''
Instantly he rushed forward, extending his arm
as if to push aside the young man's levelled firelock.
Elspat exclaimed, ``Now, spare not your
father's blood to defend your father's hearth!''
Hamish fired his piece, and Cameron dropped dead.
---All these things happened, it might be said, in
the same moment of time. The soldiers rushed
forward and seized Hamish, who, seeming petrified
with what he had done, offered not the least resistance.
Not so his mother, who, seeing the men
about to put handcuffs on her son, threw herself on
the soldiers with such fury, that it required two
of them to hold her, while the rest secured the
prisoner.
``Are you not an accursed creature,'' said one
of the men to Hamish, ``to have slain your best
friend, who was contriving, during the whole march,
bow he could find some way of getting you off
without punishment for your desertion?''
``Do you hear _that_, mother?'' said Hamish, turning
himself as much towards her as his bonds would
permit-but the mother heard nothing, and saw
nothing. She had fainted on the floor of her hut.
Without waiting for her recovery, the party almost
immediately began their homeward march towards
Dunbarton, leading along with them their prisoner.
They thought it necessary, however, to stay for a
little space at the village of Dalmally, from which
they despatched a party of the inhabitants to bring
away the body of their unfortunate leader, while
they themselves repaired to a magistrate to state
what had happened, and require his instructions as
to the farther course to be pursued. The crime
being of a military character, they were instructed
to march the prisoner to Dunbarton without delay.
The swoon of the mother of Hamish lasted for
a length of time; the longer perhaps that her constitution,
strong as it was, must have been much
exhausted by her previous agitation of three days'
endurance. She was roused from her stupor at
length by female voices, which cried the coronach,
or lament for the dead, with clapping of hands and
loud exclamations; while the melancholy note of
a lament, appropriate to the clan Cameron, played
on the bagpipe, was heard from time to time.
Elspat started up like one awakened from the
dead, and without any accurate recollection of the
scene which had passed before her eyes. There
were females in the hut who were swathing the
corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it from
the fatal spot. ``Women,'' she said, starting up
and interrupting their chant at once and their labour---
``Tell me, women, why sing you the dirge
of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of MacTavish
Mhor?''
``She-wolf, be silent with thine ill-omened yell,''
answered one of the females, a relation of the deceased,
``and let us do our duty to our beloved
kinsman! There shall never be coronach cried, or
dirge played, for thee or thy bloody wolf-burd.*
* Wolf-brood, _i. e_. wolf-cub.
The ravens shall eat him from the gibbet, and the
foxes and wild-cats shall tear thy corpse upon the
hill. Cursed be he that would sain your bones,
or add a stone to your cairn!''
``Daughter of a foolish mother,'' answered the
widow of MacTavish Mhor, ``know that the gibbet
with which you threaten us, is no portion of our
inheritance. For thirty years the Black Tree of
the Law, whose apples are dead men's bodies, hungered
after the beloved husband of my heart; but
be died like a brave man, with the sword in his
hand, and defrauded it of its hopes and its fruit.''
``So shall it not be with thy child, bloody sorceress,''
replied the female mourner, whose passions
were as violent as those of Elspat herself.
``The ravens shall tear his fair hair to line their
nests, before the sun sinks beneath the Treshornish
islands.''
These words recalled to Elspat's mind the whole
history of the last three dreadful days. At first,
she stood fixed as if the extremity of distress had
converted her into stone; but in a minute, the
pride and violence of her temper, outbraved as she
thought herself on her own threshold, enabled her
to reply---``Yes, insulting bag, my fair-haired boy
may die, but it will not be with a white hand---it
has been dyed in the blood of his enemy, in the
best blood of a Cameron---remember that; and
when you lay your dead in his grave, let it be his
best epitaph, that he was killed by Hamish Bean
for essaying to lay hands on the son of MacTavish
Mhor on his own threshold. Farewell---the shame
of defeat, loss, and slaughter, remain with the clan
that has endured it!''
The relative of the slaughtered Cameron raised
her voice in reply; but Elspat, disdaining to continue
the objurgation, or perhaps feeling her grief
likely to overmaster her power of expressing her
resentment, had left the hut, and was walking forth
in the bright moonshine.
The females who were arranging the corpse of
the slaughtered man, hurried from their melancholy
labour to look after her tall figure as it
glided away among the cliffs. ``I am glad she is
gone,'' said one of the younger persons who assisted.
``I would as soon dress a corpse when the
great Fiend himself---God sain us---stood visibly
before us, as when Elspat of the Tree is amongst
us.---Ay---ay, even overmuch intercourse hath she
had with the Enemy in her day.''
``Silly woman,'' answered the female who had
maintained the dialogue with the departed Elspat,
``thinkest thou that there is a worse fiend on earth,
or beneath it, than the pride and fury of an offended
woman, like yonder bloody-minded hag? Know
that blood has been as familiar to her as the dew
to the mountain-daisy. Many and many a brave
man has she caused to breathe their last for little
wrong they had done to her or theirs. But her
hough-sinews are cut, now that her wolf-burd must,
like a murderer as he is, make a murderer's end.''
Whilst the women thus discoursed together, as
they watched the corpse of Allan Breack Cameron,
the unhappy cause of his death pursued her lonely
way across the mountain. While she remained
within sight of the bothy, she put a strong constraint
on herself, that by no alteration of pace or
gesture, she might afford to her enemies the triumph
of calculating the excess of her mental agitation,
nay, despair. She stalked, therefore, with a slow
rather than a swift step, and, holding herself upright,
seemed at once to endure with firmness that
woe which was passed, and bid defiance to that
which was about to come. But when she was beyond
the sight of those who remained in the hut,
she could no longer suppress the extremity of her
agitation. Drawing her mantle wildly round her,
she stopped at the first knoll, and climbing to its
summit, extended her arms up to the bright moon,
as if accusing heaven and earth for her misfortunes,
and uttered scream on scream, like those of an
eagle whose nest has been plundered of her brood.
Awhile she vented her grief in these inarticulate
cries, then rushed on her way with a hasty and
unequal step, in the vain hope of overtaking the
party which was conveying her son a prisoner to
Dunbarton. But her strength, superhuman as it
seemed, failed her in the trial, nor was it possible
for her, with her utmost efforts, to accomplish her
purpose.
Yet she pressed onward, with all the speed which
her exhausted frame could exert. When food became
indispensable, she entered the first cottage;
``Give me to eat,'' she said; ``I am the widow of
MacTavish Mhor---I am the mother of Hamish
MacTavish Bean,---give me to eat, that I may once
more see my fair-haired son.'' Her demand was
never refused, though granted in many cases with
a kind of struggle between compassion and aversion
in some of those to whom she applied, which
was in others qualified by fear. The share she had
had in occasioning the death of Allan Breack Cameron,
which must probably involve that of her
own son, was not accurately known; but, from a
knowledge of her violent passions and former habits
of life, no one doubted that in one way or other
she had been the cause of the catastrophe; and
Hamish Bean was considered, in the slaughter
which he had committed, rather as the instrument
than as the accomplice of his mother.
This general opinion of his countrymen was of
little service to the unfortunate Hamish. As his
captain, Green Colin, understood the manners and
habits of his country, he had no difficulty in collecting
from Hamish the particulars accompanying his
supposed desertion, and the subsequent death of
the non-commissioned officer. He felt the utmost
compassion for a youth, who had thus fallen a victim
to the extravagant and fatal fondness of a parent.
But he had no excuse to plead which could rescue
his unhappy recruit from the doom, which military
discipline and the award of a court-martial denounced
against him for the crime he had committed.
No time had been lost in their proceedings, and
as little was interposed betwixt sentence and execution.
General --------- had determined to make a
severe example of the first deserter who should fall
into his power, and here was one who had defended
himself by main force, and slain in the affray
the officer sent to take him into custody. A fitter
subject for punishment could not have occurred
and Hamish was sentenced to immediate execution.
All which the interference of his captain in his favour
could procure, was that he should die a soldier's
death; for there had been a purpose of executing
him upon the gibbet.
The worthy clergyman of Glenorquhy chanced
to be at Dunbarton, in attendance upon some church
courts, at the time of this catastrophe. He visited
his unfortunate parishioner in his dungeon,
found him ignorant indeed, but not obstinate, and
the answers which he received from him, when
conversing on religious topics, were such as induced
him doubly to regret, that a mind naturally
pure and noble should have remained unhappily so
wild and uncultivated.
When he ascertained the real character and disposition
of the young man, the worthy pastor made
deep and painful reflections on his own shyness and
timidity, which, arising out of the evil fame that
attached to the lineage of Hamish, had restrained
him from charitably endeavouring to bring this
strayed sheep within the great fold. While the
good minister blamed his cowardice in times past,
which had deterred him from risking his person,
to save, perhaps, an immortal soul, he resolved no
longer to be governed by such timid counsels, but
to endeavour, by application to his officers, to obtain
a reprieve, at least, if not a pardon, for the
criminal, in whom he felt so unusually interested,
at once from his docility of temper and his generosity
of disposition.
Accordingly the divine sought out Captain
Campbell at the barracks within the garrison.
There was a gloomy melancholy on the brow of
Green Colin, which was not lessened, but increased,
when the clergyman stated his name, quality,
and errand. ``You cannot tell me better of the
young man than I am disposed to believe,'' answered
the Highland officer; ``you cannot ask me to
do more in his behalf than I am of myself inclined,
and have already endeavoured to do. But it is
all in vain. General --------- is half a Lowlander
half an Englishman. He has no idea of the high
and enthusiastic character which in these mountains
often brings exalted virtues in contact with
great crimes, which, however, are less offences of
the heart than errors of the understanding. I
have gone so far as to tell him, that in this young
man he was putting to death the best and the bravest
of my company, where all, or almost all, are
good and brave. I explained to him by what
strange delusion the culprit's apparent desertion
was occasioned, and how little his heart was accessary
to the crime which his hand unhappily committed.
His answer was, `These are Highland
visions, Captain Campbell, as unsatisfactory and
vain as those of the second sight. An act of gross
desertion may, in any case, be palliated under the
plea of intoxication; the murder of an officer may
be as easily coloured over with that of temporary
insanity. The example must be made, and if it
has fallen on a man otherwise a good recruit, it
will have the greater effect.'---Such being the General's
unalterable purpose,'' continued Captain
Campbell, with a sigh, ``be it your care, reverend
sir, that your penitent prepare by break of day tomorrow
for that great change which we shall all
one day be subjected to.''
``And for which,'' said the clergyman, ``may
God prepare us all, as I in my duty will not be
wanting to this poor youth.''
Next morning, as the very earliest beams of sunrise
saluted the grey towers which crown the summit
of that singular and tremendous rock, the soldiers
of the new Highland regiment appeared on
the parade, within the Castle of Dunbarton, and
having fallen into order, began to move downward
by steep staircases, and narrow passages towards
the external barrier-gate, which is at the very bottom
of the rock. The wild wailings of the pibroch
were heard at times, interchanged with the drums
and fifes, which beat the Dead March.
The unhappy criminal's fate did not, at first,
excite that general sympathy in the regiment which
would probably have arisen had he been executed
for desertion alone. The slaughter of the unfortunate
Allan Breack had given a different colour
to Hamish's offence; for the deceased was much
beloved, and besides belonged to a numerous and
powerful clan, of whom there were many in the
ranks. The unfortunate criminal, on the contrary,
was little known to, and scarcely connected with,
any of his regimental companions. His father had
been, indeed, distinguished for his strength and
manhood; but he was of a broken clan, as those
names were called who had no chief to lead them
to battle.
It would have been almost impossible in another
case, to have turned out of the ranks of the regiment
the party necessary for execution of the sentence;
but the six individuals selected for that
purpose, were friends of the deceased, descended,
like him, from the race of MacDhonuil Dhu; and
while they prepared for the dismal task which
their duty imposed, it was not without a stern feeling
of gratified revenge. The leading company of
the regiment began now to defile from the barrier-gate,
and was followed by the others, each successively
moving and halting according to the orders
of the Adjutant, so as to form three sides of an
oblong square, with the ranks faced inwards. The
fourth, or blank side of the square, was closed up
by the huge and lofty precipice on which the Castle
rises. About the centre of the procession,
bare-headed, disarmed, and with his hands bound,
came the unfortunate victim of military law. He
was deadly pale, but his step was firm and his eye
as bright as ever. The clergyman walked by his
side---the coffin, which was to receive his mortal
remains, was borne before him. The looks of his
comrades were still, composed, and solemn. They
felt for the youth, whose handsome form, and
manly yet submissive deportment had, as soon as
he was distinctly visible to them, softened the
hearts of many, even of some who had been actuated
by vindictive feelings.
The coffin destined for the yet living body of
Hamish Bean was placed at the bottom of the hollow
square, about two yards distant from the foot
of the precipice, which rises in that place as steep
as a stone wall to the height of three or four hundred
feet. Thither the prisoner was also led, the
clergyman still continuing by his side, pouring
forth exhortations of courage and consolation, to
which the youth appeared to listen with respectful
devotion. With slow, and, it seemed, almost unwilling
steps, the firing party entered the square,
and were drawn up facing the prisoner, about ten
yards distant. The clergyman was now about to
retire---``Think, my son,'' he said, ``on what I
have told you, and let your hope be rested on the
anchor which I have given. You will then exchange
a short and miserable existence here, for a life in
which you will experience neither sorrow nor pain.
---Is there aught else which you can intrust to me
to execute for you?''
The youth looked at his sleeve buttons. They
were of gold, booty perhaps which his father had
taken from some English officer during the civil
wars. The clergyman disengaged them from his
sleeves.
``My mother!'' he said with some effort, ``give
them to my poor mother!---See her, good father,
and teach her what she should think of all this.
Tell her Hamish Bean is more glad to die than
ever he was to rest after the longest day's hunting.
Farewell, sir---farewell!''
The good man could scarce retire from the fatal
spot. An officer afforded him the support of his
arm. At his last look towards Hamish, be beheld
him alive and kneeling on the coffin; the few that
were around him had all withdrawn. The fatal
word was given, the rock rung sharp to the sound
of the discharge, and Hamish, falling forward with
a groan, died, it may be supposed, without almost
a sense of the passing agony.
Ten or twelve of his own company then came
forward, and laid with solemn reverence the remains
of their comrade in the coffin, while the
Dead March was again struck up, and the several
companies, marching in single files, passed the
coffin one by one, in order that all might receive
from the awful spectacle the warning which it was
peculiarly intended to afford. The regiment was
then marched off the ground, and reascended the
ancient cliff, their music, as usual on such occasions,
striking lively strains, as if sorrow, or even deep
thought, should as short a while as possible be the
tenant of the soldier's bosom.
At the same time the small party, which we before
mentioned, bore the bier of the ill-fated Hamish
to his humble grave, in a corner of the churchyard
of Dunbarton, usually assigned to criminals.
Here, among the dust of the guilty, lies a youth,
whose name, had he survived the ruin of the fatal
events by which he was hurried into crime, might
have adorned the annals of the brave.
The minister of Glenorquhy left Dunbarton
immediately after he had witnessed the last scene
of this melancholy catastrophe. His reason acquiesced
in the justice of the sentence, which
required blood for blood, and he acknowledged
that the vindictive character of his countrymen
required to be powerfully restrained by the strong
curb of social law. But still he mourned over
the individual victim. Who may arraign the bolt
of Heaven when it bursts among the sons of the
forest; yet who can refrain from mourning, when
it selects for the object of its blighting aim the fair
stem of a young oak, that promised to be the pride
of the dell in which it flourished? Musing on these
melancholy events, noon found him engaged in the
mountain passes, by which he was to return to his
still distant home.
Confident in his knowledge of the country, the
clergyman had left the main road, to seek one of
those shorter paths, which are only used by pedestrians,
or by men, like the minister, mounted on
the small, but sure-footed, hardy, and sagacious
horses of the country. The place which he now
traversed, was in itself gloomy and desolate, and
tradition had added to it the terror of superstition,
by affirming it was haunted by an evil spirit, termed
_Cloght-dearg_, that is, Redmantle, who at all times,
but especially at noon and at midnight, traversed
the glen, in enmity both to man and the inferior
creation, did such evil as her power was permitted
to extend to, and afflicted with ghastly terrors
those whom she had not license otherwise to hurt.
The minister of Glenorquhy had set his face in
opposition to many of these superstitions, which
he justly thought were derived from the dark ages
of Popery, perhaps even from those of Paganism,
and unfit to be entertained or believed by the Christians
of an enlightened age. Some of his more
attached parishioners considered him as too rash in
opposing the ancient faith of their fathers; and
though they honoured the moral intrepidity of
their pastor, they could not avoid entertaining and
expressing fears, that he would one day fall a victim
to his temerity, and be torn to pieces in the
glen of the Cloght-dearg, or some of those other
haunted wilds, which he appeared rather to have a
pride and pleasure in traversing alone, on the days
and hours when the wicked spirits were supposed
to have especial power over man and beast.
These legends came across the mind of the clergyman;
and, solitary as he was, a melancholy smile
shaded his cheek, as he thought of the inconsistency
of human nature, and reflected how many
brave men, whom the yell of the pibroch would
have sent headlong against fixed bayonets, as the
wild bull rushes on his enemy, might have yet feared
to encounter those visionary terrors, which he
himself, a man of peace, and in ordinary perils no
way remarkable for the firmness of his nerves, was
now risking without hesitation.
As he looked around the scene of desolation, he
could not but acknowledge, in his own mind, that
it was not ill chosen for the haunt of those spirits,
which are said to delight in solitude and desolation.
The glen was so steep and narrow, that there
was but just room for the meridian sun to dart a
few scattered rays upon the gloomy and precarious
stream which stole through its recesses, for the
most part in silence, but occasionally murmuring
sullenly against the rocks and large stones, which
seemed determined to bar its further progress. In
winter, or in the rainy season, this small stream
was a foaming torrent of the most formidable magnitude,
and it was at such periods that it had torn
open and laid bare the broad-faced and huge fragments
of rock, which, at the season of which we
speak, hid its course from the eye, and seemed disposed
totally to interrupt its course. ``Undoubtedly,''
thought the clergyman, ``this mountain
rivulet, suddenly swelled by a water-spout, or
thunder-storm, has often been the cause of those
accidents, which, happening in the glen called by
her name, have been ascribed to the agency of the
Cloght-dearg.''
Just as this idea crossed his mind, he heard a
female voice exclaim, in a wild and thrilling accent,
``Michael Tyrie---Michael Tyrie!'' He looked
round in astonishment, and not without some fear.
It seemed for an instant, as if the Evil Being, whose
existence he had disowned, was about to appear for
the punishment of his incredulity. This alarm did
not hold him more than an instant, nor did it prevent
his replying in a firm voice, ``Who calls---
and where are you?''
``One who journeys in wretchedness, between
life and death,'' answered the voice; and the speaker,
a tall female, appeared from among the fragments
of rocks which had concealed her from view.
As she approached more closely, her mantle of
bright tartan, in which the red colour much predominated,
her stature, the long stride with which
she advanced, and the writhen features and wild
eyes which were visible from under her curch, would
have made her no inadequate representative of the
spirit which gave name to the valley. But Mr
Tyrie instantly knew her as the Woman of the
Tree, the widow of MacTavish Mhor, the now
childless mother of Hamish Bean. I am not sure
whether the minister would not have endured the
visitation of the Cloght-dearg herself, rather than
the shock of Elspat's presence, considering her
crime and her misery. He drew up his horse instinctively,
and stood endeavouring to collect his
ideas, while a few paces brought her up to his
horse's head.
``Michael Tyrie,'' said she, ``the foolish women
of the Clachan* hold thee as a god---be one to me,
* _i. e_. The village, literally the stones.
and say that my son lives. Say this, and I too will
be of thy worship-I will bend my knees on the
seventh day in thy house of worship, and thy God
shall be my God.''
``Unhappy woman,'' replied the clergyman,
``man forms not pactions with his Maker as with
a creature of clay like himself. Thinkest thou to
chaffer with Him, who formed the earth, and spread
out the heavens, or that thou canst offer aught of
homage or devotion that can be worth acceptance
in his eyes? He hath asked obedience, not sacrifice;
patience under the trials with which he afflicts
us, instead of vain bribes, such as man offers to his
changeful brother of clay, that he may be moved
from his purpose.''
``Be silent, priest!'' answered the desperate
woman; ``speak not to me the words of thy white
book. Elspat's kindred were of those who crossed
themselves and knelt when the sacring bell was
rung; and she knows that atonement can be made
on the altar for deeds done in the field. Elspat
had once flocks and herds, goats upon the cliffs,
and cattle in the strath. She wore gold around
her neck and on her hair---thick twists as those
worn by the heroes of old. All these would she
have resigned to the priest---all these; and if he
wished for the ornaments of a gentle lady, or the
sporran of a high chief, though they had been great
as Macallanmore himself, MacTavish Mhor would
have procured them if Elspat had promised them.
Elspat is now poor, and has nothing to give. But
the Black Abbot of Inchaffray would have bidden
her scourge her shoulders, and macerate her feet
by pilgrimage, and he would have granted his pardon
to her when he saw that her blood had flowed,
and that her flesh had been torn. These were the
priests who had indeed power even with the most
powerful---they threatened the great men of the
earth with the word of their mouth, the sentence
of their book, the blaze of their torch, the sound
of their sacring bell. The mighty bent to their
will, and unloosed at the word of the priests those
whom they had bound in their wrath, and set at
liberty, unharmed, him whom they had sentenced
to death, and for whose blood they had thirsted.
These were a powerful race, and might well ask
the poor to kneel, since their power could humble
the proud. But you!---against whom are ye strong,
but against women who have been guilty of folly,
and men who never wore sword? The priests of
old were like the winter torrent which fills this
hollow valley, and rolls these massive rocks against
each other as easily as the boy plays with the ball
which he casts before him---But you! you do but
resemble the summer-stricken stream, which is
turned aside by the rushes, and stemmed by a bush
of sedges---Woe worth you, for there is no help in
you!''
The clergyman was at no loss to conceive that
Elspat had lost the Roman Catholic faith without
gaining any other, and that she still retained a
vague and confused idea of the composition with
the priesthood, by confession, alms, and penance,
and of their extensive power, which, according to
her notion, was adequate, if duly propitiated, even
to effecting her son's safety. Compassionating her
situation, and allowing for her errors and ignorance,
he answered her with mildness.
``Alas, unhappy woman! Would to God I
could convince thee as easily where thou oughtest
to seek, and art sure to find consolation, as I can
assure you with a single word, that were Rome
and all her priesthood once more in the plenitude
of their power, they could not, for largesse or penance,
afford to thy misery an atom of aid or comfort.
---Elspat MacTavish, I grieve to tell you the
news.''
``I know them without thy speech,'' said the
unhappy woman---``My son is doomed to die.''
``Elspat,'' resumed the clergyman, ``he _was_
doomed, and the sentence has been executed.''
The hapless mother threw her eyes up to heaven,
and uttered a shriek so unlike the voice of a human
being, that the eagle which soared in middle air
answered it as she would have done the call of her
mate.
``It is impossible!'' she exclaimed, ``it is impossible!
Men do not condemn and kill on the
same day! Thou art deceiving me. The people
call thee holy---hast thou the heart to tell a mother
she has murdered her only child?''
``God knows,'' said the priest, the tears falling
fast from his eyes, ``that were it in my power, I
would gladly tell better tidings---But these which
I bear are as certain as they are fatal---My own
ears heard the death-shot, my own eyes beheld thy
son's death---thy son's funeral.---My tongue bears
witness to what my ears heard and my eyes saw.''
The wretched female clasped her bands close
together, and held them up towards heaven like a
sibyl announcing war and desolation, while, in impotent
yet frightful rage, she poured forth a tide
of the deepest imprecations.---``Base Saxon churl!''
she exclaimed, ``vile hypocritical juggler! May
the eyes that looked tamely on the death of my
fair-haired boy be melted in their sockets with
ceaseless tears, shed for those that are nearest and
most dear to thee! May the ears that heard his
death-knell be dead hereafter to all other sounds
save the screech of the raven, and the hissing of
the adder! May the tongue that tells me of his
death and of my own crime, be withered in thy
mouth---or better, when thou wouldst pray with
thy people, may the Evil One guide it, and give
voice to blasphemies instead of blessings, until men
shall fly in terror from thy presence, and the thunder
of heaven be launched against thy head, and
stop for ever thy cursing and accursed voice! Begone,
with this malison!---Elspat will never, never
again bestow so many words upon living man.''
She kept her word---from that day the world
was to her a wilderness, in which she remained
without thought, care, or interest, absorbed in her
own grief, indifferent to every thing else.
With her mode of life, or rather of existence,
the reader is already as far acquainted as I have
the power of making him. Of her death, I can tell
him nothing. It is supposed to have happened
several years after she had attracted the attention
of my excellent friend Mrs Bethune Baliol. Her
benevolence, which was never satisfied with dropping
a sentimental tear, when there was room for
the operation of effective charity, induced her to
make various attempts to alleviate the condition of
this most wretched woman. But all her exertions
could only render Elspat's means of subsistence less
precarious, a circumstance which, though generally
interesting even to the most wretched outcasts
seemed to her a matter of total indifference. Every
attempt to place any person in her hut to take
charge of her miscarried, through the extreme resentment
with which she regarded all intrusion on
her solitude, or by the timidity of those who had
been pitched upon to be inmates with the terrible
Woman of the Tree. At length, when Elspat became
totally unable (in appearance at least) to turn
herself on the wretched settle which served her
for a couch, the humanity of Mr Tyrie's successor
sent two women to attend upon the last moments
of the solitary, which could not, it was judged, be
far distant, and to avert the possibility that she
might perish for want of assistance or food, before
she sunk under the effects of extreme age, or
mortal malady.
It was on a November evening, that the two
women appointed for this melancholy purpose,
arrived at the miserable cottage which we have
already described. Its wretched inmate lay stretched
upon the bed, and seemed almost already a lifeless
corpse, save for the wandering of the fierce
dark eyes, which rolled in their sockets in a manner
terrible to look upon, and seemed to watch
with surprise and indignation the motions of the
strangers, as persons whose presence was alike
unexpected and unwelcome. They were frightened
at her looks; but, assured in each other's company,
they kindled a fire, lighted a candle, prepared
food, and made other arrangements for the discharge
of the duty assigned them.
The assistants agreed they should watch the
bedside of the sick person by turns; but, about
midnight, overcome by fatigue, (for they had walked
far that morning,) both of them fell fast asleep.
When they awoke, which was not till after the
interval of some hours, the hut was empty, and the
patient gone. They rose in terror, and went to
the door of the cottage, which was latched as it
had been at night. They looked out into the darkness,
and called upon their charge by her name.
The night-raven screamed from the old oak-tree,
the fox howled on the bill, the hoarse waterfall
replied with its echoes, but there was no human
answer. The terrified women did not dare to make
further search till morning should appear; for the
sudden disappearance of a creature so frail as Elspat,
together with the wild tenor of her history,
intimidated them from stirring from the hut. They
remained, therefore, in dreadful terror, sometimes
thinking they heard her voice without, and at other
times, that sounds of a different description were
mingled with the mournful sigh of the night-breeze,
or the dash of the cascade. Sometimes, too, the
latch rattled, as if some frail and impotent hand
were in vain attempting to lift it, and ever and
anon they expected the entrance of their terrible
patient animated by supernatural strength, and in
the company, perhaps, of some being more dreadful
than herself. Morning came at length. They
sought brake, rock, and thicket in vain. Two
hours after daylight, the minister himself appeared,
and, on the report of the watchers, caused the country
to be alarmed, and a general and exact search
to be made through the whole neighbourhood of
the cottage and the oak-tree. But it was all in
vain. Elspat MacTavish was never found, whether
dead or alive; nor could there ever be traced the
slightest circumstance to indicate her fate.
The neighbourhood was divided concerning the
cause of her disappearance. The credulous thought
that the evil spirit, under whose influence she seemed
to have acted, had carried her away in the body;
and there are many who are still unwilling, at untimely
hours, to pass the oak-tree, beneath which,
as they allege. she may still be seen seated according
to her wont. Others less superstitious supposed,
that had it been possible to search the gulf of
the Corri Dhu, the profound deeps of the lake, or
the whelming eddies of the river, the remains of
Elspat MacTavish might have been discovered; as
nothing was more natural, considering her state of
body and mind, than that she should have fallen in
by accident, or precipitated herself intentionally
into one or other of those places of sure destruction.
The clergyman entertained an opinion of his
own. He thought that, impatient of the watch
which was placed over her, this unhappy woman's
instinct had taught her, as it directs various domestic
animals, to withdraw herself from the sight of
her own race, that the death-struggle might take
place in some secret den, where, in all probability,
her mortal relics would never meet the eyes of
mortals. This species of instinctive feeling seemed
to him of a tenor with the whole course of her
unhappy life, and most likely to influence her, when
it drew to a conclusion.
[6. The Highland Widow Notes]
NOTES TO CHAPTER 1.
Note A.---Loch Awe.
``Loch Awe, upon the banks of which the scene of action
took place, is thirty-four miles in length. The north side is
bounded by wide muirs and inconsiderable hills, which occupy
an extent of country from twelve to twenty miles in breadth,
and the whole of this space is enclosed as by circumvallation.
Upon the north it is barred by Loch Eitive, on the south by
Loch Awe, and on the east by the dreadful pass of Brandir,
through which an arm of the latter lake opens, at about four
miles from its eastern extremity, and discharges the river
Awe into the former. The pass is about three miles in length;
its east side is bounded by the almost inaccessible steeps which
form the base of the vast and rugged mountain of Cruachan.
The crags rise in some places almost perpendicularly from
the water, and for their chief extent show no space nor level
at their feet, but a rough and narrow edge of stony beach.
Upon the whole of these cliffs grows a thick and interwoven
wood of all kinds of trees, both timber, dwarf, and coppice;
no track existed through the wilderness, but a winding path,
which sometimes crept along the precipitous height, and sometimes
descended in a straight pass along the margin of the
water. Near the extremity of the defile, a narrow level opened
between the water and the crag; but a great part of this,
as well as of the preceding steeps, was formerly enveloped in
a thicket, which showed little facility to the feet of any but
the martins and wild cats. Along the west side of the pass lies
a wall of sheer and barren crags. From behind they rise in
rough, uneven, and heathy declivities, out of the wide muir
before mentioned, between Loch Eitive and Loch Awe; but in
front they terminate abruptly in the most frightful precipices,
which form the whole side of the pass, and descend at one fan
into the water which fills its trough. At the north end of the
barrier, and at the termination of the pass, lies that part of the
cliff which is called Craiganuni; at its foot the arm of the
lake gradually contracts its water to a very narrow space, and
at length terminates at two rooks (called the Rocks of Brandir),
which form a strait channel, something resembling the lock
of a canal. From this outlet there is a continual descent towards
Loch Eitive, and from hence the river Awe pours out
its current in a furious stream, foaming over a bed broken with
holes, and cumbered with masses of granite and whinstone.
``If ever there was a bridge near Craiganuni in ancient times,
it must have been at the Rocks of Brandir. From the days of
Wallace to those of General Wade, there were never passages of
this kind but in places of great necessity, too narrow for a
boat, and too wide for a leap; even then they were but an unsafe
footway formed of the trunks of trees placed transversely from
rock to rock, unstripped of their bark, and destitute of either
plank or rail. For such a structure, there is no place in the
neighbourhood of Craiganuni, but at the rocks above mentioned.
In the lake and on the river, the water is far too wide;
but at the strait, the space is not greater than might be crossed
by a tall mountain pine, and the rocks on either side are formed
by nature like a pier. That this point was always a place of
passage, is rendered probable by its facility, and the use of
recent times. It is not long since it was the common gate of
the country on either side the river and the pass: the mode of
crossing is yet in the memory of people living, and was performed
by a little currach moored on either side the water,
and a stout cable fixed across the stream from bank to bank,
by which the passengers drew themselves across in the manner
still practised in places of the same nature. It is no argument
against the existence of a bridge in former times, that
the above method only existed in ours, rather than a passage
of that kind, which would seem the more improved expedient.
The contradiction is sufficiently accounted for by the decay of
timber in the neighbourhood. Of old, both oaks and firs of
an immense size abounded within a very inconsiderable distance;
but it is now many years since the destruction of the
forests of Glen Eitive and Glen Urcha has deprived the country
of all the trees of sufficient size to cross the strait of Brandir;
and it is probable, that the currach was not introduced
till the want of timber had disenabled the inhabitants of
the country from maintaining a bridge. It only further remains
to be noticed, that at some distance below the Rocks of
Brandir, there was formerly a ford, which was used for cattle
in the memory of people living; from the narrowness of the
passage, the force of the stream, and the broken bed of the
river, it was, however, a dangerous pass, and could only be
attempted with safety at leisure and by experience.''---_Notes to
the Bridal of Caolchairn_.
Note B.---Battle betwixt the Armies of the Bruce
and Macdougal of Lorn.
``But the King, whose dear-bought experience in war had
taught him extreme caution, remained in the Braes of Balquhidder
till he had acquired by his spies and outskirries a perfect
knowledge of the disposition of the army of Lorn, and the
intention of its leader. He then divided his force into two columns,
intrusting the command of the first, in which he placed
his archers and lightest armed troops, to Sir James Douglas,
whilst he himself took the leading of the other, which consisted
principally of his knights and barons. On approaching
the defile, Bruce dispatched Sir James Douglas by a pathway
which the enemy had neglected to occupy, with directions to
advance silently, and gain the heights above and in front of
the hilly ground where the men of Lorn were concealed; and,
having ascertained that this movement had been executed with
success, he put himself at the head of his own division, and
fearlessly led his men into the defile. Here, prepared as he
was for what was to take place, it was difficult to prevent a
temporary panic, when the yell which, to this day, invariably
precedes the assault of the mountaineer, burst from the rugged
bosom of Ben Cruachan; and the woods which, the moment
before, had waved in silence and solitude, gave forth
their birth of steel-clad warriors, and, in an instant, became
instinct with the dreadful vitality of war. But although appalled
and checked for a brief space by the suddenness of the
assault, and the masses of rock which the enemy rolled down
from the precipices, Bruce, at the head of his division, pressed
up the side of the mountain. Whilst this party assaulted the
men of Lorn with the utmost fury, Sir James Douglas and
his party shouted suddenly upon the heights in their front,
showering down their arrows upon them; and, when these
missiles were exhausted, attacking them with their swords
and battle-axes. The consequence of such an attack, both in
front and rear, was the total discomfiture of the army of Lorn;
and the circumstances to which this chief had so confidently
looked forward, as rendering the destruction of Bruce almost
inevitable, were now turned with fatal effect against himself.
His great superiority of numbers cumbered and impeded his
movements. Thrust, by the double assault, and by the peculiar
nature of the ground, into such narrow room as the pass
afforded, and driven to fury by finding themselves cut to
pieces in detail, without power of resistance, the men of Lorn
fled towards Loch Eitive, where a bridge thrown over the
Awe, and supported upon two immense rocks, known by the
name of the Rocks of Brandir, formed the solitary communication
between the side of the river where the battle took place,
and the country of Lorn. Their object was to gain the bridge,
which was composed entirely of wood, and having availed
themselves of it in their retreat, to destroy it, and thus throw
the impassable torrent of the Awe between them and their
enemies. But their intention was instantly detected by Douglas,
who, rushing down from the high grounds at the head
of his archers and light-armed foresters, attacked the body of
the mountaineers, which had occupied the bridge, and drove
them from it with great slaughter, so that Bruce and his division,
on coming up, passed it without molestation; and, this
last resource being taken from them, the army of Lorn were,
in a few hours, literally cut to pieces, whilst their chief, who
occupied Loch Eitive with his fleet, saw, from his ships, the
discomfiture of his men, and found it impossible to give them
the least assistance.''---Tytler's _Life of Bruce_.
NOTE TO CHAPTER IV.
Note C.--Massacre of Glencoe.
The following succinct account of this too celebrated event,
may be sufficient for this place:---
``In the beginning of the year 1692, an action of unexampled
barbarity disgraced the government of King William Ill. in
Scotland. In the August preceding, a proclamation had been
issued, offering an indemnity to such insurgents as should
take the oaths to the King and Queen, on or before the last
day of December; and the chiefs of such tribes, as had been
in arms for James, soon after took advantage of the proclamation.
But Macdonald of Glencoe was prevented by accident,
rather than design, from tendering his submission within the
limited time. In the end of December he went to Colonel
Hill, who commanded the garrison in Fort William, to take
the oaths of allegiance to the government ; and the latter having
furnished him with a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, Sheriff
of the county of Argyll, directed him to repair immediately
to Inverary, to make his submission in a legal manner before
that magistrate. But the way to Inverary lay through almost
impassable mountains, the season was extremely rigorous, and
the whole country was covered with a deep snow. So eager,
however, was Macdonald to take the oaths before the limited
time should expire, that, though the road lay within half a
mile of his own house, he stopped not to visit his family, and,
after various obstructions, arrived at Inverary. The time
had elapsed, and the sheriff hesitated to receive his submission ;
but Macdonald prevailed by his importunities, and even tears,
in inducing that functionary to administer to him the oath of
allegiance, and to certify the cause of his delay. At this time
Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards Earl of Stair, being in attendance
upon William as Secretary of State for Scotland,
took advantage of Macdonald's neglecting to take the oath
within the time prescribed, and procured from the King a
warrant of military execution against that chief and his whole
clan. This was done at the instigation of the Earl of Breadalbane,
whose lands the Glencoe men had plundered, and
whose treachery to government in negotiating with the Highland
clans, Macdonald himself had exposed. The King was
accordingly persuaded that Glencoe was the main obstacle to
the pacification of the Highlands ; and the fact of the unfortunate
chief's submission having been concealed, the sanguinary
orders for proceeding to military execution against his
clan were in consequence obtained. The warrant was both
signed and countersigned by the King's own hand, and the
Secretary urged the officers who commanded in the Highlands
to execute their orders with the utmost rigour. Campbell
of Glenlyon, a captain in Argyll's regiment, and two
subalterns, were ordered to repair to Glencoe on the first
of February with a hundred and twenty men. Campbell
being uncle to young Macdonald's wife, was received by the
father with all manner of friendship and hospitality. The
men were lodged at free quarters in the houses of his tenants,
and received the kindest entertainment. Till the 13th of the
month the troops lived in the utmost harmony and familiarity
with the people ; and on the very night of the massacre,
the officers passed the evening at cards in Macdonald's house.
In the night Lieutenant Lindsay, with a party of soldiers,
called in a friendly manner at his door, and was instantly admitted.
Macdonald, while in the act of rising to receive his
guest, was shot dead through the back with two bullets. His
wife had already dressed ; but she was stripped naked by the
soldiers, who tore the rings off her fingers with their teeth.
The slaughter now became general, and neither age nor infirmity
was spared. Some women, in defending their children,
were killed; boys, imploring mercy, were shot dead by
officers on whose knees they hung. In one place nine persons,
as they sat enjoying themselves at table, were butchered by
the soldiers. In Inverriggon, Campbell's own quarters, nine
men were first bound by the soldiers, and then shot at intervals,
one by one. Nearly forty persons were massacred by the
troops; and several who fled to the mountains perished by
famine and the inclemency of the season. Those who escaped
owed their lives to a tempestuous night. Lieutenant-Colonel
Hamilton, who had received the charge of the execution from
Dalrymple, was on his march with four hundred men, to
guard all the passes from the valley of Glencoe; but he was
obliged to stop by the severity of the weather, which proved
the safety of the unfortunate clan. Next day he entered the
valley, laid the houses in ashes, and carried away the cattle
and spoil, which were divided among the officers and soldiers.''
---_Article_ ``Britain;'' _Encyc. Britannica---New edition_.
NOTE TO CHAPTER V.
Note D.---Fidelity of the Highlanders.
Of the strong, undeviating attachment of the Highlanders
to the person, and their deference to the will or commands
of their chiefs and superiors---their rigid adherence to duty
and principle---and their chivalrous acts of self-devotion to
these in the face of danger and death, there are many instances
recorded in General Stewart of Garth's interesting Sketches
of the Highlanders and Highland Regiments, which might
not inaptly supply parallels to the deeds of the Romans themselves,
at the era when Rome was in her glory. The following
instances of such are worthy of being here quoted:---
``In the year 1795, a serious disturbance broke out in Glasgow,
among the Breadalbane Fencibles. Several men having
been confined and threatened with corporal punishment, considerable
discontent and irritation were excited among their
comrades, which increased to such violence, that, when some
men were confined in the guard-house, a great proportion of
the regiment rushed out and forcibly released the prisoners.
This violation of military discipline was not to be passed
over, and accordingly measures were immediately taken to
secure the ringleaders. But so many were equally concerned,
that it was difficult, if not impossible, to fix the crime on
any, as being more prominently guilty. And here was shown
a trait of character worthy of a better cause, and which originated
from a feeling alive to the disgrace of a degrading
punishment. The soldiers being made sensible of the nature
of their misconduct, and the consequent necessity of public
example, _several men voluntarily offered themselves to stand
trial_, and suffer the sentence of the law as an atonement for
the whole. These men were accordingly marched to Edinburgh
Castle, tried, and four condemned to be shot. Three
of them were afterwards reprieved, and the fourth, Alexander
Sutherland, was shot on Musselburgh Sands.
``The following demi-official account of this unfortunate
misunderstanding was published at the time:---
`` `During the afternoon of Monday, when a private of the
light company of the Breadalbane Fencibles, who had been
confined for a military offence, was released by that company,
and some other companies, who had assembled in a tumultuous
manner before the guard-house, no person whatever was
hurt, and no violence offered; and however unjustifiable the
proceedings, it originated not from any disrespect or ill-will
to their officers, but from a mistaken point of honour, in a
particular set of men in the battalion, who thought themselves
disgraced by the impending punishment of one of their
number. The men have, in every respect, since that period
conducted themselves with the greatest regularity, and strict
subordination. The whole of the battalion seemed extremely
sensible of the improper conduct of such as were concerned,
whatever regret they might feel for the fate of the few individuals
who had so readily given themselves up as prisoners,
to be tried for their own and others' misconduct.'
``On the march to Edinburgh, a circumstance occurred,
the more worthy of notice, as it shows a strong principle of
honour and fidelity to his word and to his officer in a common
Highland soldier. One of the men stated to the officer commanding
the party, that he knew what his fate would be,
but that he had left business of the utmost importance to a
friend in Glasgow, which he wished to transact before his
death ; that, as to himself, he was fully prepared to meet his
fate; but with regard to his friend, he could not die in peace
unless the business was settled, and that, if the officer would
suffer him to return to Glasgow, a few hours there would be
sufficient, and he would join him before he reached Edinburgh,
and march as a prisoner with the party. The soldier
added, `You have known me since I was a child; you know
my country and kindred, and you may believe I shall never
bring you to any blame by a breach of the promise I now
make, to be with you in full time to be delivered up in the
Castle.' This was a startling proposal to the officer, who was
a judicious, humane man, and knew perfectly his risk and
responsibility in yielding to such an extraordinary application.
However, his confidence was such, that he complied with the
request of the prisoner, who returned to Glasgow at night,
settled his business, and left the town before daylight to redeem
his pledge. He took a long circuit to avoid being seen,
apprehended as a deserter, and sent back to Glasgow, as probably
his account of his officer's indulgence would not have
been credited. In consequence of this caution, and the lengthened
march through woods and over hills by an unfrequented
route, there was no appearance of him at the hour appointed.
The perplexity of the officer when he reached the neighbourhood
of Edinburgh may be easily imagined. He moved
forward slowly indeed, but no soldier appeared; and unable
to delay any longer, he marched up to the Castle, and as he
was delivering over the prisoners, but before any report was
given in, Macmartin, the absent soldier, rushed in among his
fellow prisoners, all pale with anxiety and fatigue, and breathless
with apprehension of the consequences in which his delay
might have involved his benefactor.
``In whatever light the conduct of the officer (my respectable
friend, Major Colin Campbell) may be considered, either by
military men or others, in this memorable exemplification of
the characteristic principle of his countrymen, fidelity to their
word, it cannot but be wished that the soldier's magnanimous
self-devotion had been taken as an atonement for his own misconduct
and that of the whole, who also had made a high sacrifice,
in the voluntary offer of their lives for the conduct of
their brother soldiers. Are these a people to be treated as
malefactors, without regard to their feelings and principles?
and might not a discipline, somewhat different from the
usual mode, be, with advantage, applied to them?''-Vol. II.
p. 413-15. 3d Edit.
``A soldier of this regiment, (The Argyllshire Highlanders,)
deserted, and emigrated to America, where he settled. Several
years after his desertion, a letter was received from him,
with a sum of money, for the purpose of procuring one or two
men to supply his place in the regiment, as the only recompense
he could make for `breaking his oath to his God and
his allegiance to his King, which preyed on his conscience in
such a manner, that he had no rest night nor day.'
``This man had had good principles early instilled into his
mind, and the disgrace which be had been originally taught
to believe would attach to a breach of faith now operated with
full effect. The soldier who deserted from the 42d Regiment
at Gibraltar, in 1797, exhibited the same remorse of conscience
after he had violated his allegiance. In countries where such
principles prevail, and regulate the character of a people, the
mass of the population may, on occasions of trial, be reckoned
on as sound and trustworthy.''-Vol. II. P. 218. 3d Edit.
``The late James Menzies of Culdares, having engaged in the
rebellion of 1715, and been taken at Preston, in Lancashire,
was carried to London, where he was tried and condemned,
but afterwards reprieved. Grateful for this clemency, he remained
at home in 1745, but, retaining a predilection for the
old cause, he sent a handsome charger as a present to Prince
Charles, when advancing through England. The servant who
led and delivered the horse was taken prisoner, and carried to
Carlisle, where he was tried and condemned. To extort a discovery
of the person who sent the horse, threats of immediate
execution in case of refusal, and offers of pardon on his giving
information, were held out ineffectually to the faithful messenger.
He knew, he said, what the consequence of a disclosure
would be to his master, and his own life was nothing in
the comparison; when brought out for execution, he was again
pressed to inform on his master. He asked if they were serious
in supposing him such a villain. If he did what they desired,
and forgot his master and his trust, he could not return
to his native country, for Glenlyon would be no home or
country for him, as he would be despised and hunted out of
the Glen. Accordingly he kept steady to his trust, and was
executed. This trusty servant's name was John Macnaughton,
from Glenlyon, in Perthshire; he deserves to be mentioned,
both on account of his incorruptible fidelity, and of his testimony
to the honourable principles of the people, and to their
detestation of a breach of trust to a kind and honourable master,
however great might be the risk, or however fatal the consequences,
to the individual himself.''-Vol. 1. pp. 52, 53.
3d Edit.
[7. The Two Drovers Introduction]
Mr Croftangry introduces another tale.
Together both on the high lawns appeared.
Under the opening eyelids of the morn
They drove afield.
_Elegy on Lycidas_.
I have sometimes wondered why all the favourite
occupations and pastimes of mankind go to the
disturbance of that happy state of tranquillity, that
_Otium_, as Horace terms it, which he says is the
object of all men's prayers, whether preferred from
sea or land; and that the undisturbed repose, of
which we are so tenacious, when duty or necessity
compels us to abandon it, is precisely what we long
to exchange for a state of excitation, as soon as we
may prolong it at our own pleasure. Briefly, you
have only to say to a man, ``remain at rest,'' and you
instantly inspire the love of labour. The sportsman
toils like his gamekeeper, the master of the
pack takes as severe exercise as his whipper-in,
the statesman or politician drudges more than the
professional lawyer; and, to come to my own case,
the volunteer author subjects himself to the risk
of painful criticism, and the assured certainty of
mental and manual labour, just as completely as his
needy brother, whose necessities compel him to
assume the pen.
These reflections have been suggested by an annunciation
on the part of Janet, ``that the little
Gillie-whitefoot was come from the printing-office.''
``Gillie-blackfoot you should call him, Janet,''
was my response, ``for he is neither more nor less
than an imp of the devil, come to torment me for
_copy_, for so the printers call a supply of manuscript
for the press.''
``Now, Cot forgie your honour,'' said Janet;
``for it is no like your ainsell to give such names
to a faitherless bairn.''
``I have got nothing else to give him, Janet---
he must wait a little.''
``Then I have got some breakfast to give the
bit gillie,'' said Janet; ``and he can wait by the fireside
in the kitchen, till your honour's ready; and
cood enough for the like of him, if he was to wait
your honour's pleasure all day.''
``But, Janet,'' said I to my little active superintendent,
on her return to the parlour, after having
made her hospitable arrangements, ``I begin to
find this writing our Chronicles is rather more tiresome
than I expected, for here comes this little
fellow to ask for manuscript---that is, for something
to print---and I have got none to give him.''
``Your honour can be at nae loss; I have seen
you write fast and fast enough; and for subjects,
you have the whole Highlands to write about, and
I am sure you know a hundred tales better than
that about Hamish MacTavish, for it was but about
a young cateran and an auld carline, when all's
done; and if they had burned the rudas queen for
a witch, I am thinking, may be, they would not
have tyned their coals---and her to gar her neer-do-weel
son shoot a gentleman Cameron! I am
third cousin to the Camerons mysell---my blood
warms to them---And if you want to write about
deserters, I am sure there were deserters enough
on the top of Arthur's Seat, when the MacRaas
broke out, and on that woful day beside Leith
Pier---Ohonari!''---
Here Janet began to weep, and to wipe her
eyes with her apron. For my part, the idea I
wanted was supplied, but I hesitated to make use
of it. Topics, like times, are apt to become common
by frequent use. It is only an ass like Justice
Shallow, who would pitch upon the overscutched
tunes, which the carmen whistled, and
try to pass them off as his _fancies_ and his _good-nights_.
Now, the Highlands, though formerly a
rich mine for original matter, are, as my friend Mrs
Bethune Baliol warned me, in some degree worn
out by the incessant labour of modern romancers
and novelists, who, finding in those remote regions
primitive habits and manners, have vainly imagined
that the public can never tire of them; and so kilted
Highlanders are to be found as frequently, and
nearly of as genuine descent, on the shelves of a
circulating library, as at a Caledonian ball. Much
might have been made at an earlier time out of the
history of a Highland regiment, and the singular
revolution of ideas which must have taken place in
the minds of those who composed it, when exchanging
their native bills for the battle-fields of
the Continent, and their simple, and sometimes
indolent domestic habits for the regular exertions
demanded by modern discipline. But the market
is forestalled. There is Mrs Grant of Laggan, has
drawn the manners, customs, and superstitions of
the mountains in their natural unsophisticated
state;* and my friend, General Stewart of Garth,*
* Letters from the Mountains, 3 vols.---Essays on the Superstitions
of the Highlanders---The Highlanders, and other
Poems, &c.
* The gallant and amiable author of the History of the
Highland Regiments, in whose glorious services his own
share had been great, went out Governor of St Lucie in 1828,
and died in that island on the I8th of December 1829,---no
man more regretted, or perhaps by a wider circle of friends
and acquaintance.
in giving the real history of the Highland regiments,
has rendered any attempt to fill up the
sketch with fancy-colouring extremely rash and
precarious. Yet I, too, have still a lingering fancy
to add a stone to the cairn; and without calling
in imagination to aid the impressions of juvenile
recollection, I may just attempt to embody one or
two scenes illustrative of the Highland character,
and which belong peculiarly to the Chronicles of
the Canongate, to the greyheaded eld of whom
they are as familiar as to Chrystal Croftangry.
Yet I will not go back to the days of clanship and
claymores. Have at you, gentle reader, with a
tale of Two Drovers. An oyster may be crossed
in love, says the gentle Tilburina---and a drover
may be touched on a point of honour, says the
Chronicler of the Canongate.
[8. The Two Drovers]
THE
TWO DROVERS.
CHAPTER 1.
It was the day after Doune Fair when my story
commences. It had been a brisk market, several
dealers had attended from the northern and midland
counties in England, and English money had
flown so merrily about as to gladden the hearts of
the Highland farmers. Many large droves were
about to set off for England, under the protection
of their owners, or of the topsmen whom they employed
in the tedious, laborious, and responsible
office of driving the cattle for many hundred miles,
from the market where they had been purchased,
to the fields or farm-yards where they were to be
fattened for the shambles.
The Highlanders in particular are masters of
this difficult trade of driving, which seems to suit
them as well as the trade of war. It affords exercise
for all their habits of patient endurance and
active exertion. They are required to know perfectly
the drove-roads, which lie over the wildest
tracts of the country, and to avoid as much as possible
the highways, which distress the feet of the
bullocks, and the turnpikes, which annoy the spirit
of the drover; whereas on the broad green or grey
track, which leads across the pathless moor, the
herd not only move at ease and without taxation,
but, if they mind their business, may pick up a
mouthful of food by the way. At night, the drovers
usually sleep along with their cattle, let the
weather be what it will; and many of these hardy
men do not once rest under a roof during a journey
on foot from Lochaber to Lincolnshire. They
are paid very highly, for the trust reposed is of the
last importance, as it depends on their prudence,
vigilance and honesty, whether the cattle reach the
final market in good order, and afford a profit to
the grazier. But as they maintain themselves at
their own expense, they are especially economical
in that particular. At the period we speak of, a
Highland drover was victualled for his long and
toilsome journey with a few handfulls of oatmeal
and two or three onions, renewed from time to
time, and a ram's horn filled with whisky, which he
used regularly, but sparingly, every night and
morning. His dirk, or _skene-dhu_, (_i.e_. black-knife,)
so worn as to be concealed beneath the arm, or by
the folds of the plaid, was his only weapon, excepting
the cudgel with which he directed the movements
of the cattle. A Highlander was never so
happy as on these occasions. There was a variety
in the whole journey, which exercised the Celt's
curiosity and natural love of motion; there were
the constant change of place and scene, the petty
adventures incidental to the traffic, and the intercourse
with the various farmers, graziers, and traders,
intermingled with occasional merry-makings,
not the less acceptable to Donald that they were
void of expense;---and there was the consciousness
of superior skill; for the Highlander, a child
amongst flocks, is a prince amongst herds, and his
natural habits induce him to disdain the shepherd's
slothful life, so that he feels himself nowhere more
at home than when following a gallant drove of his
country cattle in the character of their guardian.
Of the number who left Doune in the morning,
and with the purpose we have described, not a
_Glunamie_ of them all cocked his bonnet more
briskly, or gartered his tartan hose under knee over
a pair of more promising _spiogs_, (legs,) than did
Robin Oig M`Combich, called familiarly Robin
Oig, that is young, or the Lesser, Robin. Though
small of stature, as the epithet Oig implies, and not
very strongly limbed, he was as light and alert as
one of the deer of his mountains. He had an elasticity
of step, which, in the course of a long march,
made many a stout fellow envy him; and the manner
in which he busked his plaid and adjusted his
bonnet, argued a consciousness that so smart a John
Highlandman as himself would not pass unnoticed
among the Lowland lasses. The ruddy cheek, red
lips, and white teeth, set off a countenance, which
had gained by exposure to the weather a healthful
and hardy rather than a rugged hue. If Robin
Oig did not laugh, or even smile frequently, as indeed
is not the practice among his countrymen, his
bright eyes usually gleamed from under his bonnet
with an expression of cheerfulness ready to be
turned into mirth.
The departure of Robin Oig was an incident in
the little town, in and near which he had many
friends, male and female. He was a topping person
in his way, transacted considerable business on
his own behalf, and was intrusted by the best farmers
in the Highlands, in preference to any other
drover in that district. He might have increased
his business to any extent had he condescended to
manage it by deputy; but except a lad or two,
sister's sons of his own, Robin rejected the idea of
assistance, conscious, perhaps, how much his reputation
depended upon his attending in person to
the practical discharge of his duty in every instance.
He remained, therefore, contented with the highest
premium given to persons of his description, and
comforted himself with the hopes that few journeys
to England might enable him to conduct business
on his own account, in a manner becoming his
birth. For Robin Oig's father, Lachlan M`Combich,
(or _son of my friend_, his actual clan-surname
being M`Gregor,) had been so called by the celebrated
Rob Roy, because of the particular friendship
which had subsisted between the grandsire of
Robin and that renowned cateran. Some people
even say, that Robin Oig derived his Christian
name from one as renowned in the wilds of Lochlomond
as ever was his namesake Robin Hood, in
the precincts of merry Sherwood. ``Of such ancestry,''
as James Boswell says, ``who would not
be proud?'' Robin Oig was proud accordingly;
but his frequent visits to England and to the Lowlands
had given him tact enough to know that pretensions,
which still gave him a little right to distinction
in his own lonely glen, might be both obnoxious
and ridiculous if preferred elsewhere. The
pride of birth, therefore, was like the miser's treasure,
the secret subject of his contemplation, but
never exhibited to strangers as a subject of boasting.
Many were the words of gratulation and good-luck
which were bestowed on Robin Oig. The
judges commended his drove, especially Robin's
own property, which were the best of them. Some
thrust out their snuff-mulls for the parting pinch---
others tendered the _doch-an-dorrach_, or parting
cup. All cried---``Good-luck travel out with you
and come home with you.---Give you luck in the
Saxon market---brave notes in the _leabhar-dhu_,''
(black pocketbook,) ``and plenty of English gold in
the _sporran_,'' (pouch of goat-skin.)
The bonny lasses made their adieus more modestly,
and more than one, it was said, would have
given her best brooch to be certain that it was
upon her that his eye last rested as he turned towards
the road.
Robin Oig had just given the preliminary ``Hoo-hoo!''
to urge forward the loiterers of the drove,
when there was a cry behind him.
``Stay, Robin---bide a blink. Here is Janet of
Tomahourich---auld Janet, your father's sister.''
``Plague on her, for an auld Highland witch
and spaewife,'' said a farmer from the Carse of
Stirling; ``she'll cast some of her cantrips on the
cattle.''
``She canna do that,'' said another sapient of the
same profession---``Robin Oig is no the lad to
leave any of them, without tying Saint Mungo's
knot on their tails, and that will put to her speed
the best witch that ever flew over Dimayet upon a
broomstick.''
It may not be indifferent to the reader to know
that the Highland cattle are peculiarly liable to be
taken, or infected, by spells and witchcraft, which
judicious people guard against by knitting knots of
peculiar complexity on the tuft of hair which terminates
the animal's tail.
But the old woman who was the object of the
farmer's suspicion seemed only busied about the
drover, without paying any attention to the drove.
Robin, on the contrary, appeared rather impatient
of her presence.
``What auld-world fancy,'' he said, ``has brought
you so carly from the ingle-side this morning,
Muhme? l am sure I bid you good-even, and had
your God-speed, last night.''
``And left me more siller than the useless old
woman will use till you come back again, bird of
my bosom,'' said the sibyl. ``But it is little I
would care for the food that nourishes me, or the
fire that warms me, or for God's blessed sun itself,
if aught but weal should happen to the grandson of
my father. So let me walk the _deasil_ round you,
that you may go safe out into the far foreign land,
and come safe home.''
Robin Oig stopped, half embarrassed, half laughing,
and signing to those around that he only complied
with the old woman to soothe her humour. In
the meantime, she traced around him, with wavering
steps, the propitiation, which some have thought
has been derived from the Druidical mythology.
It consists, as is well known, in the person who
makes the _deasil_ walking three times round the
person who is the object of the ceremony, taking
care to move according to the course of the sun.
At once, however, she stopped short, and exclaimed,
in a voice of alarm and horror, ``Grandson
of my father, there is blood on your hand.''
``Hush, for God's sake, aunt,'' said Robin Oig;
``you will bring more trouble on yourself with this
Taishataragh'' (second sight) ``than you will be
able to get out of for many a day.''
The old woman only repeated, with a ghastly
look, ``There is blood on your hand, and it is English
blood. The blood of the Gael is richer and
redder. Let us see---let us------''
Ere Robin Oig could prevent her, which, indeed,
could only have been by positive violence, so
hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she
had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in
the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming,
although the weapon gleamed clear and bright
in the sun, ``Blood, blood---Saxon blood again.
Robin Oig M`Combich, go not this day to England!''
``Prutt, trutt,'' answered Robin Oig, ``that will
never do neither---it would be next thing to running
the country. For shame, Muhme---give me
the dirk. You cannot tell by the colour the difference
betwixt the blood of a black bullock and
a white one, and you speak of knowing Saxon
from Gaelic blood. All men have their blood from
Adam, Muhme. Give me my skene-dhu, and let
me go on my road. I should have been half way
to Stirling brig by this time---Give me my dirk, and
let me go.''
``Never will I give it to you,'' said the old woman---
``Never will I quit my hold on your plaid,
unless you promise me not to wear that unhappy
weapon.''
The women around him urged him also, saying
few of his aunt's words fell to the ground; and as
the Lowland farmers continued to look moodily on
the scene, Robin Oig determined to close it at any
sacrifice.
``Well, then,'' said the young drover, giving the
scabbard of the weapon to Hugh Morrison, ``you
Lowlanders care nothing for these treats. Keep
my dirk for me. I cannot give it you, because it
was my father's; but your drove follows ours, and
I am content it should be in your keeping, not in
mine.---Will this do, Muhme?''
``It must,'' said the old woman---``that is, if the
Lowlander is mad enough to carry the knife.''
The strong westlandman laughed aloud.
``Goodwife,'' said he, ``I am Hugh Morrison from
Glenae, come of the Manly Morrisons of auld langsyne,
that never took short weapon against a man
in their lives. And neither needed they: They
had their broadswords, and I have this bit supple,''
showing a formidable cudgel---``for dirking ower
the board, I leave that to John Highlandman.---
Ye needna snort, none of you Highlanders, and
you in especial, Robin. I'll keep the bit knife,
if you are feared for the auld spaewife's tale, and
give it back to you whenever you want it.''
Robin was not particularly pleased with some
part of Hugh Morrison's speech; but he had learned
in his travels more patience than belonged to
his Highland constitution originally, and he accepted
the service of the descendant of the Manly
Morrisons, without finding fault with the rather
depreciating manner in which it was offered.
``If he had not had his morning in his bead, and
been but a Dumfries-shire hog into the boot, he
would have spoken more like a gentleman. But
you cannot have more of a sow than a grumph. It's
shame my father's knife should ever slash a haggis
for the like of him,''
Thus saying, (but saying it in Gaelic,) Robin
drove on his cattle, and waved farewell to all behind
him. He was in the greater haste, because
he expected to join at Falkirk a comrade and brother
in profession, with whom he proposed to travel
in company.
Robin Oig's chosen friend was a young Englishman,
Harry Wakefield by name, well known at
every northern market, and in his way as much
famed and honoured as our Highland driver of
bullocks. He was nearly six feet high, gallantly
formed to keep the rounds at Smithfield, or maintain
the ring at a wrestling match; and although
he might have been overmatched, perhaps, among
the regular professors of the Fancy, yet, as a yokel
or rustic, or a chance customer, he was able to
give a bellyful to any amateur of the pugilistic art.
Doncaster races saw him in his glory, betting his
guinea, and generally successfully; nor was there
a main fought in Yorkshire, the feeders being persons
of celebrity, at which he was not to be seen
if business permitted. But though a _sprack_ lad,
and fond of pleasure and its haunts, Harry Wakefield
was steady, and not the cautious Robin Oig
M`Combich himself was more attentive to the main
chance. His holidays were holidays indeed; but
his days of work were dedicated to steady and persevering
labour. In countenance and temper,
Wakefield was the model of Old England's merry
yeomen, whose clothyard shafts, in so many hundred
battles, asserted her superiority over the nations,
and whose good sabres, in our own time, are
her cheapest and most assured defence. His mirth
was readily excited; for, strong in limb and constitution,
and fortunate in circumstances, he was
disposed to be pleased with every thing about him;
and such difficulties as he might occasionally encounter,
were, to a man of his energy, rather matter
of amusement than serious annoyance. With
all the merits of a sanguine temper, our young
English drover was not without his defects. He
was irascible, sometimes to the verge of being
quarrelsome; and perhaps not the less inclined to
bring his disputes to a pugilistic decision, because
he found few antagonists able to stand up to him in
the boxing ring.
It is difficult to say how Harry Wakefield and
Robin Oig first became intimates; but it is certain
a close acquaintance had taken place betwixt
them, although they had apparently few common
subjects of conversation or of interest, so soon as
their talk ceased to be of bullocks. Robin Oig,
indeed, spoke the English language rather imperfectly
upon any other topics but stots and kyloes,
and Harry Wakefield could never bring his broad
Yorkshire tongue to utter a single word of Gaelic.
It was in vain Robin spent a whole morning, during
a walk over Minch Moor, in attempting to teach
his companion to utter, with true precision, the
shibboleth _Llhu_, which is the Gaelic for a calf.
From Traquair to Murder-cairn, the hill rung with
the discordant attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable
monosyllable, and the heartfelt laugh
which followed every failure. They had, however,
better modes of awakening the echoes; for Wakefield
could sing many a ditty to the praise of Moll,
Susan, and Cicely, and Robin Oig had a particular
gift at whistling interminable pibrochs through all
their involutions, and what was more agreeable to
his companion's southern ear, knew many of the
northern airs, both lively and pathetic, to which
Wakefield learned to pipe a bass. Thus, though
Robin could hardly have comprehended his companion's
stories about horse-racing, and cock-fighting,
or fox-hunting, and although his own legends
of clan-fights and _creaghs_, varied with talk of Highland
goblins and fairy folk, would have been caviare
to his companion, they contrived nevertheless
to find a degree of pleasure in each other's
company, which had for three years back induced
them to join company and travel together, when
the direction of their journey permitted. Each,
indeed, found his advantage in this companionship;
for where could the Englishman have found
a guide through the Western Highlands like Robin
Oig M`Combich? and when they were on
what Harry called the _right_ side of the Border,
his patronage, which was extensive, and his purse,
which was heavy, were at all times at the service
of his Highland friend, and on many occasions his
liberality did him genuine yeoman's service.
CHAPTER II.
Were ever two such loving friends
How could they disagree?
O thus it was, he loved him dear,
And thought how to requite him,
And having no friend left but he,
He did resolve to fight him.
_Duke upon Duke_.
The pair of friends had traversed with their
usual cordiality the grassy wilds of Liddesdale,
and crossed the opposite part of Cumberland, emphatically
called The Waste. In these solitary
regions, the cattle under the charge of our drovers
derived their subsistence chiefly by picking their
food as they went along the drove-road, or sometimes
by the tempting opportunity of a _start and
owerloup_, or invasion of the neighbouring pasture,
where an occasion presented itself. But now the
scene changed before them; they were descending
towards a fertile and enclosed country, where no
such liberties could be taken with impunity, or
without a previous arrangement and bargain with
the possessors of the ground. This was more
especially the case, as a great northern fair was upon
the eve of taking place, where both the Scotch and
English drover expected to dispose of a part of
their cattle, which it was desirable to produce in
the market, rested and in good order. Fields were
therefore difficult to be obtained, and only upon
high terms. This necessity occasioned a temporary
separation betwixt the two friends, who went
to bargain, each as he could, for the separate accommodation
of his herd. Unhappily it chanced
that both of them, unknown to each other, thought
of bargaining for the ground they wanted on the
property of a country gentleman of some fortune,
whose estate lay in the neighbourhood. The English
drover applied to the bailiff on the property,
who was known to him. It chanced that the Cumbrian
Squire, who had entertained some suspicions
of his manager's honesty, was taking occasional
measures to ascertain how far they were well
founded, and had desired that any enquiries about
his enclosures, with a view to occupy them for a temporary
purpose, should be referred to himself. As
however, Mr Ireby had gone the day before upon a
journey of some miles distance to the northward, the
bailiff chose to consider the check upon his full powers
as for the time removed, and concluded that be
should best consult his master's interest, and perhaps
his own, in making an agreement with Harry Wakefield.
Meanwhile, ignorant of what his comrade
was doing, Robin Oig, on his side, chanced to be
overtaken by a good-looking smart little man upon
a pony, most knowingly bogged and cropped, as
was then the fashion, the rider wearing tight leather
breeches, and long-necked bright spurs. This
cavalier asked one or two pertinent questions about
markets and the price of stock. So Robin, seeing
him a well-judging civil gentleman, took the freedom
to ask him whether he could let him know if
there was any grass-land to be let in that neighbourhood,
for the temporary accommodation of his
drove. He could not have put the question to
more willing ears. The gentleman of the buckskins
was the proprietor, with whose bailiff Harry
Wakefield had dealt, or was in the act of dealing.
``Thou art in good luck, my canny Scot,'' said
Mr Ireby, ``to have spoken to me, for I see thy
cattle have done their day's work, and I have at
my disposal the only field within three miles that
is to be let in these parts.''
``The drove can pe gang two, three, four miles
very pratty weel indeed''---said the cautious Highlander;
``put what would his honour pe axing for
the peasts pe the head, if she was to tak the park
for twa or three days?''
``We won't differ, Sawney, if you let me have
six stots for winterers, in the way of reason.''
``And which peasts wad your honour pe for
having?''
``Why---let me see---the two black---the dun
one---yon doddy---him with the twisted horn---the
brockit---How much by the head?''
``Ah,'' said Robin, ``your honour is a shudge---
a real shudge---I couldna have set off the pest six
peasts petter mysell, me that ken them as if they
were my pairns, puir things.''
``Well, how much per head, Sawney,'' continued
Mr Ireby.
``It was high markets at Doune and Falkirk,''
answered Robin.
And thus the conversation proceeded, until they
had agreed on the _prix juste_ for the bullocks, the
Squire throwing in the temporary accommodation
of the enclosure for the cattle into the boot, and
Robin making, as he thought, a very good bargain,
provided the grass was but tolerable. The Squire
walked his pony alongside of the drove, partly to
show him the way, and see him put into possession
of the field, and partly to learn the latest news of
the northern markets.
They arrived at the field, and the pasture seemed
excellent. But what was their surprise when
they saw the bailiff quietly inducting the cattle of
Harry Wakefield into the grassy Goshen which
had just been assigned to those of Robin Oig
M`Combich by the proprietor himself! Squire
Ireby set spurs to his horse, dashed up to his servant,
and learning what had passed between the
parties, briefly informed the English drover that
his bailiff had let the ground without his authority,
and that he might seek grass for his cattle wherever
he would, since he was to get none there. At
the same time he rebuked his servant severely for
having transgressed his commands, and ordered
him instantly to assist in ejecting the hungry and
weary cattle of Harry Wakefield, which were just
beginning to enjoy a meal of unusual plenty, and
to introduce those of his comrade, whom the English
drover now began to consider as a rival.
The feelings which arose in Wakefield's mind
would have induced him to resist Mr Ireby's decision;
but every Englishman has a tolerably accurate
sense of law and justice, and John Fleecebumpkin,
the bailiff, having acknowledged that
he had exceeded his commission, Wakefield saw
nothing else for it than to collect his hungry and
disappointed charge, and drive them on to seek
quarters elsewhere. Robin Oig saw what had
happened with regret, and hastened to offer to his
English friend to share with him the disputed possession.
But Wakefield's pride was severely hurt,
and he answered disdainfully, ``Take it all, man
---take it all---never make two bites of a cherry---
thou canst talk over the gentry, and blear a plain
man's eye---Out upon you, man---I would not kiss
any man's dirty latchets for leave to bake in his
oven.''
Robin Oig, sorry but not surprised at his comrade's
displeasure, hastened to entreat his friend to
wait but an hour till he had gone to the Squire's
house to receive payment for the cattle he had sold,
and he would come back and help him to drive the
cattle into some convenient place of rest, and explain
to him the whole mistake they had both of
them fallen into. But the Englishman continued
indignant: ``Thou hast been selling, hast thou?
Ay, ay---thou is a cunning lad for kenning the
hours of bargaining. Go to the devil with thyself,
for I will neer see thy fause loon's visage again---
thou should be ashamed to look me in the face.''
``I am ashamed to look no man in the face,''
said Robin Oig, something moved; ``and, moreover,
I will look you in the face this blessed day,
if you will bide at the Clachan down yonder.''
``Mayhap you had as well keep away,'' said
his comrade; and turning his back on his former
friend, he collected his unwilling associates, assisted
by the bailiff, who took some real and some
affected interest in seeing Wakefield accommodated.
After spending some time in negotiating with
more than one of the neighbouring farmers, who
could not, or would not, afford the accommodation
desired, Henry Wakefield at last, and in his necessity,
accomplished his point by means of the
landlord of the alehouse at which Robin Oig and
he had agreed to pass the night, when they first
separated from each other. Mine host was content
to let him turn his cattle on a piece of barren
moor, at a price little less than the bailiff had asked
for the disputed enclosure; and the wretchedness
of the pasture, as well as the price paid for it,
were set down as exaggerations of the breach of
faith and friendship of his Scottish crony. This
turn of Wakefield's passions was encouraged by the
bailiff, (who had his own reasons for being offended
against poor Robin, as having been the unwitting
cause of his falling into disgrace with his master,)
as well as by the innkeeper, and two or three
chance guests, who stimulated the drover in his
resentment against his quondam associate,---some
from the ancient grudge against the Scots, which,
when it exists anywhere, is to be found lurking in
the Border counties, and some from the general
love of mischief, which characterises mankind in
all ranks of life, to the honour of Adam's children
be it spoken. Good John Barleycorn also, who
always heightens and exaggerates the prevailing
passions, be they angry or kindly, was not wanting
in his offices on this occasion; and confusion to
false friends and hard masters, was pledged in more
than one tankard.
In the meanwhile Mr Ireby found some amusement
in detaining the northern drover at his ancient
hall. He caused a cold round of beef to be placed
before the Scot in the butler's pantry, together
with a foaming tankard of home-brewed, and took
pleasure in seeing the hearty appetite with which
these unwonted edibles were discussed by Robin
Oig M`Combich. The Squire himself lighting his
pipe, compounded between his patrician dignity
and his love of agricultural gossip, by walking up
and down while he conversed with his guest.
``I passed another drove,'' said the Squire,
with one of your countrymen behind them---they
were something less beasts than your drove, doddies
most of them---a big man was with them---
none of your kilts though, but a decent pair of
breeches---D'ye know who he may be?''
``Hout aye---that might, could, and would be
Hughie Morrison---I didna think he could hae
peen sae weel up. He has made a day on us; but
his Argyleshires will have wearied shanks. How
far was he pehind?''
``I think about six or seven miles,'' answered
the Squire, ``for I passed them at the Christenbury
Crag, and I overtook you at the Hollan Bush.
If his beasts be leg-weary, he will be maybe selling
bargains.''
``Na, na, Hughie Morrison is no the man for
pargains---ye maun come to some Highland body
like Robin Oig hersell for the like of these---put
I maun pe wishing you goot night, and twenty of
them let alane ane, and I maun down to the Clachan
to see if the lad Harry Waakfelt is out of his
humdudgeons yet.''
The party at the alehouse were still in full talk,
and the treachery of Robin Oig still the theme of
conversation, when the supposed culprit entered
the apartment. His arrival, as usually happens in
such a case, put an instant stop to the discussion
of which he had furnished the subject, and he was
received by the company assembled with that
chilling silence, which, more than a thousand exclamations,
tells an intruder that he is unwelcome.
Surprised and offended, but not appalled by the
reception which he experienced, Robin entered
with an undaunted and even a haughty air, attempted
no greeting, as he saw he was received
with none, and placed himself by the side of the
fire, a little apart from a table, at which Harry
Wakefield, the bailiff, and two or three other persons,
were seated. The ample Cumbrian kitchen
would have afforded plenty of room, even for a
larger separation.
Robin thus seated, proceeded to light his pipe,
and call for a pint of twopenny.
``We have no twopence ale,'' answered Ralph
Heskett the landlord; ``but as thou find'st thy own
tobacco, it's like thou mayst find thy own liquor
too---it's the wont of thy country, I wot.''
``Shame, goodman,'' said the landlady, a blithe
bustling housewife, hastening herself to supply the
guest with liquor---``Thou knowest well enow
what the strange man wants, and it's thy trade to
be civil, man. Thou shouldst know, that if the
Scot likes a small pot, he pays a sure penny.''
Without taking any notice of this nuptial dialogue,
the Highlander took the flagon in his hand,
and addressing the company generally, drank the
interesting toast of ``Good markets,'' to the party
assembled.
``The better that the wind blew fewer dealers
from the north,'' said one of the farmers, ``and
fewer Highland runts to cat up the English meadows.''
``Saul of my pody, put you are wrang there,
my friend,'' answered Robin, with composure; ``it
is your fat Englishmen that eat up our Scots cattle,
puir things.''
``I wish there was a summat to eat up their drovers,''
said another; ``a plain Englishman canna
make bread within a kenning of them.''
``Or an honest servant keep his master's favour
but they will come sliding in between him and the
sunshine,'' said the bailiff.
``If these pe jokes,'' said Robin Oig, with the
same composure, ``there is ower mony jokes upon
one man.''
``It is no joke, but downright earnest,'' said the
bailiff. ``Harkye, Mr Robin Ogg, or whatever is
your name, it's right we should tell you that we
are all of one opinion, and that is, that you, Mr
Robin Ogg, have behaved to our friend Mr Harry
Wakefield here, like a raff and a blackguard.''
``Nae doubt, nae doubt,'' answered Robin, with
great composure; ``and you are a set of very pretty
judges, for whose prains or pehaviour I wad
not gie a pinch of sneeshing. If Mr Harry Waakfelt
kens where he is wronged, he kens where he
may be righted.''
``He speaks truth,'' said Wakefield, who had
listened to what passed, divided between the offence
which he had taken at Robin's late behaviour,
and the revival of his habitual feelings of
regard.
He now rose, and went towards Robin, who got
up from his seat as he approached, and held out
his hand.
``That's right, Harry---go it---serve him out,''
resounded on all sides---``tip him the nailer---show
him the mill.''
``Hold your peace all of you, and be ------,'' said
Wakefield; and then addressing his comrade, he
took him by the extended band, with something
alike of respect and defiance. ``Robin,'' he said,
``thou hast used me ill enough this day; but if
you mean, like a frank fellow, to shake hands, and
take a tussle for love on the sod, why I'll forgie
thee, man, and we shall be better friends than
ever.''
``And would it not pe petter to pe cood friends
without more of the matter?'' said Robin; ``we
will be much petter friendships with our panes hale
than proken.''
Harry Wakefield dropped the band of his friend,
or rather threw it from him.
``I did not think I had been keeping company
for three years with a coward.''
``Coward pelongs to none of my name,'' said
Robin, whose eyes began to kindle, but keeping
the command of his temper. ``It was no coward's
legs or hands, Harry Waakfelt, that drew you out
of the fords of Frew, when you was drifting ower
the plack rock, and every eel in the river expected
his share of you.''
``And that is true enough, too,'' said the Englishman,
struck by the appeal.
``Adzooks!'' exclaimed the bailiff---``sure Harry
Wakefield, the nattiest lad at Whitson Tryste,
Wooler Fair, Carlisle Sands, or Stagshaw Bank, is
not going to show white feather? Ah, this comes
of living so long with kilts and bonnets---men forget
the use of their daddies.''
``I may teach you, Master Fleecebumpkin, that
I have not lost the use of mine,'' said Wakefield
and then went on. ``This will never do, Robin.
We must have a turn-up, or we shall be the talk
of the country-side. I'll be d------d if I hurt thee
---I'll put on the gloves gin thou like. Come, stand
forward like a man.''
``To be peaten like a dog,'' said Robin; ``is
there any reason in that? If you think I have done
you wrong, I'll go before your shudge, though I
neither know his law nor his language.''
A general cry of ``No, no---no law, no lawyer!
a bellyful and be friends,'' was echoed by the bystanders.
``But,'' continued Robin, ``if I am to fight, I
have no skill to fight like a jackanapes, with hands
and nails.''
``How would you fight then?'' said his antagonist;
``though I am thinking it would be hard to
bring you to the scratch anyhow.''
``I would fight with proadswords, and sink point
on the first plood drawn---like a gentlemans.''
A loud shout of laughter followed the proposal,
which indeed had rather escaped from poor Robin's
swelling heart, than been the dictate of his sober
judgment.
``Gentleman, quotha!'' was echoed on all sides,
with a shout of unextinguishable laughter; ``a
very pretty gentleman, God wot---Canst get two
swords for the gentleman to fight with, Ralph
Heskett?''
``No, but I can send to the armoury at Carlisle,
and lend them two forks, to be making shift with
in the meantime.''
``Tush, man,'' said another, ``the bonny Scots
come into the world with the blue bonnet on their
heads, and dirk and pistol at their belt.''
``Best send post,'' said Mr Fleecebumpkin, ``to
the Squire of Corby Castle, to come and stand
second to the gentleman.''
In the midst of this torrent of general ridicule,
the Highlander instinctively griped beneath the
folds of his plaid,
``But it's better not,'' he said in his own language.
``A hundred curses on the swilie-eaters,
who know neither decency nor civility!''
``Make room, the pack of you,'' he said advancing
to the door.
But his former friend interposed his sturdy bulk,
and opposed his leaving the house; and when Robin
Oig attempted to make his way by force, he
hit him down on the floor, with as much ease as a
boy bowls down a nine-pin.
``A ring, a ring!'' was now shouted, until the
dark rafters, and the hams that hung on them,
trembled again, and the very platters on the _bink_
clattered against each other. ``Well done, Harry''
---``Give it him home Harry''---``Take care of
him now-he sees his own blood!''
Such were the exclamations, while the Highlander,
starting from the ground, all his coldness and
caution lost in frantic rage, sprung at his antagonist
with the fury, the activity, and the vindictive
purpose of an incensed tiger-cat. But when could
rage encounter science and temper? Robin Oig
again went down in the unequal contest; and as
the blow was necessarily a severe one, he lay motionless
on the floor of the kitchen. The landlady
ran to ofter some aid, but Mr Fleecebumpkin would
not permit her to approach.
``Let him alone,'' he said, ``he will come to
within time, and come up to the scratch again. He
has not got half his broth vet.''
``He has got all I mean to give him, though,''
said his antagonist, whose heart began to relent
towards his old associate; ``and I would rather by
half give the rest to yourself, Mr Fleecebumpkin,
for you pretend to know a thing or two, and Robin
had not art enough even to peel before setting to,
but fought with his plaid dangling about him.---
Stand up, Robin, my man! all friends now; and
let me hear the man that will speak a word against
you, or your country, for your sake.''
Robin Oig was still under the dominion of his
passion, and eager to renew the onset; but being
withheld on the one side by the peace-making
Dame Heskett, and on the other, aware that Wakefield
no loner meant to renew the combat, his fury
sunk into gloomy sullenness.
``Come, come, never grudge so much at it, man,''
said the brave-spirited Englishman, with the placability
of his country, ``shake hands, and we will
be better friends than ever.''
``Friends!'' exclaimed Robin Oig with strong
emphasis---``friends!---Never. Look to yourself,
Harry Waakfelt.''
``Then the curse of Cromwell on your proud
Scots stomach, as the man says in the play, and you
may do your worst, and be d---; for one man
can say nothing more to another after a tussle, than
that he is sorry for it.''
On these terms the friends parted; Robin Oig
drew out, in silence, a piece of money, threw it on
the table, and then left the alehouse. But turning
at the door, he shook his hand at Wakefield, pointing
with his forefinger upwards, in a manner which
might imply either a threat or a caution. He then
disappeared in the moonlight.
Some words passed after his departure, between
the bailiff, who piqued himself on being a little of
a bully, and Harry Wakefield, who, with generous
inconsistency, was now not indisposed to begin a
new combat in defence of Robin Oig's reputation,
``although he could not use his daddles like an
Englishman, as it did not come natural to him.''
But Dame Heskett prevented this second quarrel
from coming to a head by her peremptory interference.
``There should be no more fighting in her
house,'' she said; ``there had been too much already.
---And you, Mr Wakefield, may live to learn,''
she added, ``what it is to make a deadly enemy out
of a good friend.''
``Pshaw, dame! Robin Oig is an honest fellow,
and will never keep malice.''
``Do not trust to that---you do not know the
dour temper of the Scots, though you have dealt
with them so often. I have a right to know them,
my mother being a Scot.''
``And so is well seen on her daughter,'' said
Ralph Heskett.
This nuptial sarcasm gave the discourse another
turn; fresh customers entered the tap-room or
kitchen, and others left it. The conversation turned
on the expected markets, and the report of
prices from different parts both of Scotland and
England---treaties were commenced, and Harry
Wakefield was lucky enough to find a chap for a
part of his drove, and at a very considerable profit;
an event of consequence more than sufficient
to blot out all remembrances of the unpleasant
scuffle in the earlier part of the day. But there
remained one party from whose mind that recollection
could not have been wiped away by the
possession of every head of cattle betwixt Esk and
Eden.
This was Robin Oig M`Combich.---``That I
should have had no weapon,'' he said, ``and for the
first time in my life!---Blighted be the tongue that
bids the Highlander part with the dirk---the dirk
---ha! the English blood!---My Muhme's word---
when did her word fall to the ground?''
The recollection of the fatal prophecy confirmed
the deadly intention which instantly sprang up in
his mind.
``Ha! Morrison cannot be many miles behind;
and if it were an hundred, what then!''
His impetuous spirit had now a fixed purpose
and motive of action, and he turned the light foot
of his country towards the wilds, through which be
knew, by Mr Ireby's report, that Morrison was
advancing. His mind was wholly engrossed by
the sense of injury---injury sustained from a friend;
and by the desire of vengeance on one whom be
now accounted his most bitter enemy. The treasured
ideas of self-importance and self-opinion---of
ideal birth and quality, had become more precious
to him, (like the hoard to the miser,) because he
could only enjoy them in secret. But that hoard
was pillaged, the idols which he had secretly worshipped
had been desecrated and profaned. Insulted,
abused, and beaten, he was no longer worthy,
in his own opinion, of the name he bore, or
the lineage which he belonged to---nothing was
left to him---nothing but revenge; and as the reflection
added a galling spur to every step, he determined
it should be as sudden and signal as the
offence.
When Robin Oig left the door of the alehouse,
seven or eight English miles at least lay betwixt
Morrison and him. The advance of the former
was slow, limited by the sluggish pace of his
cattle; the last left behind him stubble-field and
hedge-row, crag and dark heath, all glittering with
frost-rime in the broad November moonlight, at
the rate of six miles an hour. And now the distant
lowing of Morrison's cattle is heard; and now
they are seen creeping like moles in size and slowness
of motion on the broad face of the moor; and
now he meets them---passes them, and stops their
conductor.
``May good betide us,'' said the Southlander---
``Is this you, Robin M`Combich, or your wraith?''
``It is Robin Oig M`Combich,'' answered the
Highlander, ``and it is not.---But never mind that,
put pe giving me the skene-dhu.''
``What! you are for back to the Highlands---
The devil!---Have you selt all off before the fair?
This beats all for quick markets!''
``I have not sold---I am not going north---May
pe I will never go north again.---Give me pack my
dirk, Hugh Morrison, or there will pe words petween
us.''
``Indeed, Robin, I'll be better advised before I
gie it back to you---it is a wanchancy weapon in a
Highlandman's hand, and I am thinking you will
be about some barns-breaking.''
``Prutt, trutt! let me have my weapon,'' said
Robin Oig impatiently.
``Hooly and fairly,'' said his well-meaning
friend. ``I'll tell you what will do better than
these dirking doings---Ye ken Highlander, and
Lowlander, and Border-men, are a' ae man's bairns
when you are over the Scots dyke. See, the Eskdale
callants, and fighting Charlie of Liddesdale,
and the Lockerby lads, and the four Dandies of
Lustruther, and a wheen mair grey plaids, are
coming up behind; and if you are wronged, there
is the hand of a Manly Morrison, we'll see you
righted, if Carlisle and Stanwix baith took up the
feud. ''
``To tell you the truth,'' said Robin Oig, desirous
of eluding the suspicions of his friend, ``I
have enlisted with a party of the Black Watch, and
must march off to-morrow morning.''
``Enlisted! Were you mad or drunk?---You
must buy yourself off---I can lend you twenty notes,
and twenty to that, if the drove sell.''
``I thank you---thank ye, Hughie; but I go with
good will the gate that I am going,---so the dirk---
the dirk!''
``There it is for you then, since less wunna
serve. But think on what I was saying.---Waes
me, it will be sair news in the braes of Balquidder,
that Robin Oig M`Combich should have run an ill
gate, and ta'en on.''
``Ill news in Balquidder, indeed!'' echoed poor
Robin: ``but Cot speed you, Hughie, and send you
good marcats. Ye winna meet with Robin Oig
again, either at tryste or fair.''
So saying, he shook hastily the hand of his acquaintance,
and set out in the direction from which
he had advanced, with the spirit of his former
pace.
``There is something wrang with the lad,'' muttered
the Morrison to himself; ``but we will maybe
see better into it the morn's morning.''
But long ere the morning dawned, the catastrophe
of our tale had taken place. It was two
hours after the affray had happened, and it was
totally forgotten by almost every one, when Robin
Oig returned to Heskett's inn. The place was
filled at once by various sorts of men, and with
noises corresponding to their character. There
were the grave low sounds of men engaged in
busy traffic, with the laugh, the song, and the
riotous jest of those who had nothing to do but to
enjoy themselves. Among the last was Harry
Wakefield, who, amidst a grinning group of smock-frocks,
hobnailed shoes, and jolly English physiognomies,
was trolling forth the old ditty,
``What though my name be Roger,
Who drives the slough and cart---''
when he was interrupted by a well-known voice
saying in a high and stern voice, marked by the
sharp Highland accent, ``Harry Waakfelt---if you
be a man stand up!''
``What is the matter?---what is it?'' the guests
demanded of each other.
``It is only a d---d Scotsman,'' said Fleecebumpkin,
who was by this time very drunk, ``whom
Harry Wakefield helped to his broth to-day, who
is now come to have his cauld kail het again.''
``Harry Waakfelt,'' repeated the same ominous
summons, ``stand up, if you be a man!''
There is something in the tone of deep and concentrated
passion, which attracts attention and imposes
awe, even by the very sound. The guests
shrunk back on every side, and gazed at the Highlander
as he stood in the middle of them, his brows
bent, and his features rigid with resolution.
``I will stand up with all my heart, Robin, my
boy, but it shall be to shake hands with you, and
drink down all unkindness. It is not the fault of
your heart, man, that you don't know how to clench
your hands.''
By this time he stood opposite to his antagonist;
his open and unsuspecting look strangely contrasted
with the stern purpose, which gleamed
wild, dark, and vindictive in the eyes of the Highlander.
``'Tis not thy fault, man, that, not having the
luck to be an Englishman, thou canst not fight
more than a school-girl.''
``I can fight,'' answered Robin Oig sternly, but
calmly, ``and you shall know it. You, Harry Waakfelt,
showed me to-day how the Saxon churls fight
---I show you now how the Highland Dunni<e`>-wassel
fights.''
He seconded the word with the action, and
plunged the dagger, which he suddenly displayed,
into the broad breast of the English yeoman, with
such fatal certainty and force, that the hilt made a
hollow sound against the breast-bone, and the
double-edged point split the very heart of his victim.
Harry Wakefield fell and expired with a
single groan. His assassin next seized the bailiff
by the collar, and offered the bloody poniard to his
throat, whilst dread and surprise rendered the man
incapable of defence.
``It were very just to lay you beside him,'' he
said, ``but the blood of a base pick-thank shall
never mix on my father's dirk, with that of a brave
man.''
As he spoke, he cast the man from him with so
much force that he fell on the floor, while Robin,
with his other hand, threw the fatal weapon into
the blazing turf-fire.
``There,'' he said, ``take me who likes---and let
fire cleanse blood if it can.''
The pause of astonishment still continuing, Robin
Oig asked for a peace-officer, and a constable
having stepped out, he surrendered himself to his
custody.
``A bloody night's work you have made of it,''
said the constable.
``Your own fault,'' said the Highlander. ``Had
you kept his hands off me twa hours since, he would
have been now as well and merry as he was twa
minutes since.''
``It must be sorely answered,'' said the peace-officer.
``Never you mind that---death pays all debts;
it will pay that too.''
The horror of the bystanders began now to give
way to indignation; and the sight of a favourite
companion murdered in the midst of them, the
provocation being, in their opinion, so utterly inadequate
to the excess of vengeance, might have
induced them to kill the perpetrator of the deed
even upon the very spot. The constable, however,
did his duty on this occasion, and with the assistance
of some of the more reasonable persons present,
procured horses to guard the prisoner to Carlisle,
to abide his doom at the next assizes. While the
escort was preparing, the prisoner neither expressed
the least interest, nor attempted the slightest reply.
Only, before he was carried from the fatal apartment,
he desired to look at the dead body, which,
raised from the floor, had been deposited upon the
large table, (at the head of which Harry Wakefield
had presided but a few minutes before, full of
life, vigour, and animation,) until the surgeons
should examine the mortal wound. The face of
the corpse was decently covered with a napkin.
To the surprise and horror of the bystanders,
which displayed itself in a general _Ah!_ drawn
through clenched teeth and half-shut lips, Robin
Oig removed the cloth, and gazed with a mournful
but steady eye on the lifeless visage, which had
been so lately animated, that the smile of good-humoured
confidence in his own strength, of conciliation
at once, and contempt towards his enemy,
still curled his lip. While those present expected
that the wound, which had so lately flooded
the apartment with gore, would send forth fresh
streams at the touch of the homicide, Robin Oig
replaced the covering with the brief exclamation
---``He was a pretty man!''
My story is nearly ended. The unfortunate
Highlander stood his trial at Carlisle. I was myself
present, and as a young Scottish lawyer, or
barrister at least, and reputed a man of some quality,
the politeness of the Sheriff of Cumberland
offered me a place on the bench. The facts of the
case were proved in the manner I have related
them; and whatever might be at first the prejudice
of the audience against a crime so un-English
as that of assassination from revenge, yet when the
rooted national prejudices of the prisoner had been
explained, which made him consider himself as
stained with indelible dishonour, when subjected
to personal violence; when his previous patience,
moderation, and endurance, were considered, the
generosity of the English audience was inclined
to regard his crime as the wayward aberration of
a false idea of honour rather than as flowing from
a heart naturally savage, or perverted by habitual
vice. I shall never forget the charge of the venerable
Judge to the jury, although not at that time
liable to be much affected either by that which was
eloquent or pathetic.
``We have had,'' he said, ``in the previous part
of our duty,'' (alluding to some former trials,) ``to
discuss crimes which infer disgust and abhorrence,
while they call down the well-merited vengeance
of the law. It is now our still more melancholy
task to apply its salutary though severe enactments
to a case of a very singular character, in
which the crime (for a crime it is, and a deep one)
arose less out of the malevolence of the heart, than
the error of the understanding---less from any idea
of committing wrong, than from an unhappily perverted
notion of that which is right. Here we
have two men, highly esteemed, it has been stated,
in their rank of life, and attached, it seems, to each
other as friends, one of whose lives has been already
sacrificed to a punctilio, and the other is
about to prove the vengeance of the offended laws;
and yet both may claim our commiseration at least,
as men acting in ignorance of each other's national
prejudices, and unhappily misguided rather than
voluntarily erring from the path of right conduct.
``In the original cause of the misunderstanding,
we must in justice give the right to the prisoner
at the bar. He had acquired possession of the
enclosure, which was the object of competition, by
a legal contract with the proprietor Mr Ireby; and
yet, when accosted with reproaches undeserved in
themselves, and galling doubtless to a temper at
least sufficiently susceptible of passion, he offered
notwithstanding to yield up half his acquisition, for
the sake of peace and good neighbourhood, and his
amicable proposal was rejected with scorn. Then
follows the scene at Mr Heskett the publican's,
and you will observe how the stranger was treated
by the deceased, and, I am sorry to observe, by
those around, who seem to have urged him in a
manner which was aggravating in the highest degree.
While he asked for peace and for composition,
and offered submission to a magistrate, or to
a mutual arbiter, the prisoner was insulted by a
whole company, who seem on this occasion to have
forgotten the national maxim of `fair play;' and
while attempting to escape from the place in peace,
he was intercepted, struck down, and beaten to the
effusion of his blood.
``Gentlemen of the Jury, it was with some impatience
that I heard my learned brother, who
opened the case for the crown, give an unfavourable
turn to the prisoner's conduct on this occasion.
He said the prisoner was afraid to encounter his
antagonist in fair fight, or to submit to the laws of
the ring; and that therefore, like a cowardly Italian,
he had recourse to his fatal stiletto, to murder
the man whom he dared not meet in manly encounter.
I observed the prisoner shrink from this part
of the accusation with the abhorrence natural to a
brave man; and as I would wish to make my words
impressive, when I point his real crime, I must
secure his opinion of my impartiality, by rebutting
every thing that seems to me a false accusation.
There can be no doubt that the prisoner is a man
of resolution---too much resolution---I wish to
Heaven that he had less, or rather that he had had
a better education to regulate it.
``Gentlemen, as to the laws my brother talks of,
they may be known in the Bull-ring, or the Bear-garden,
or the Cockpit, but they are not known
here. Or, if they should be so far admitted as
furnishing a species of proof that no malice was
intended in this sort of combat, from which fatal
accidents do sometimes arise, it can only be so admitted
when both parties are _in pari casu_, equally
acquainted with, and equally willing to refer themselves
to, that species of arbitrement. But will it
be contended that a man of superior rank and education
is to be subjected, or is obliged to subject
himself, to this coarse and brutal strife, perhaps in
opposition to a younger, stronger, or more skilful
opponent? Certainly even the pugilistic code, if
founded upon the fair play of Merry Old England,
as my brother alleges it to be, can contain nothing
so preposterous. And, gentlemen of the jury, if
the laws would support an English gentleman,
wearing, we will suppose, his sword, in defending
himself by force against a violent personal aggression
of the nature offered to this prisoner, they
will not less protect a foreigner and a stranger,
involved in the same unpleasing circumstances.
If, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, when thus
pressed by a _vis major_, the object of obloquy to a
whole company, and of direct violence from one at
least, and, as he might reasonably apprehend, from
more, the panel had produced the weapon which
his countrymen, as we are informed, generally
carry about their persons, and the same unhappy
circumstance had ensued which you have heard
detailed in evidence, I could not in my conscience
have asked from you a verdict of murder. The
prisoner's personal defence might indeed, even in
that case, have gone more or less beyond the _Moderamen
inculpat<ae> tutel<ae>_, spoken of by lawyers, but
the punishment incurred would have been that of
manslaughter, not of murder. I beg leave to add,
that I should have thought this milder species of
charge was demanded in the case supposed, notwithstanding
the statute of James I. cap. 8, which
takes the case of slaughter by stabbing with a short
weapon, even without malice prepense, out of the
benefit of clergy. For this statute of stabbing, as
it is termed, arose out of a temporary cause; and
as the real guilt is the same, whether the slaughter
be committed by the dagger, or by sword or pistol,
the benignity of the modern law places them all
on the same, or nearly the same footing.
``But, gentlemen of the jury, the pinch of the
case lies in the interval of two hours interposed
betwixt the reception of the injury and the fatal
retaliation. In the heat of affray and _chaude mel<e'>e_,
law, compassionating the infirmities of humanity,
makes allowance for the passions which rule such
a stormy moment---for the sense of present pain,
for the apprehension of further injury, for the difficulty
of ascertaining with due accuracy the precise
degree of violence which is necessary to protect
the person of the individual, without annoying
or injuring the assailant more than is absolutely necessary.
But the time necessary to walk twelve
miles, however speedily performed, was an interval
sufficient for the prisoner to have recollected
himself; and the violence with which he carried
his purpose into effect, with so many circumstances
of deliberate determination, could neither be
induced by the passion of anger, nor that of fear.
It was the purpose and the act of predetermined
revenge, for which law neither can, will, nor ought
to have sympathy or allowance.
``It is true, we may repeat to ourselves, in alleviation
of this poor man's unhappy action, that
his case is a very peculiar one. The country which
he inhabits was, in the days of many now alive,
inaccessible to the laws, not only of England, which
have not even yet penetrated thither, but to those
to which our neighbours of Scotland are subjected,
and which must be supposed to be, and no doubt
actually are, founded upon the general principles of
justice and equity which pervade every civilized
country. Amongst their mountains, as among the
North American Indians, the various tribes were
wont to make war upon each other, so that each
man was obliged to go armed for his own protection.
These men, from the ideas which they entertained
of their own descent and of their own
consequence, regarded themselves as so many cavaliers
or men-at-arms, rather than as the peasantry
of a peaceful country. Those laws of the ring,
as my brother terms them, were unknown to the
race of warlike mountaineers; that decision of
quarrels by no other weapons than those which nature
has given every man, must to them have
seemed as vulgar and as preposterous as to the
Noblesse of France. Revenge, on the other hand,
must have been as familiar to their habits of society
as to those of the Cherokees or Mohawks. It
is indeed, as described by Bacon, at bottom a kind
of wild untutored justice; for the fear of retaliation
must withhold the hands of the oppressor where
there is no regular law to check daring violence.
But though all this may be granted, and though
we may allow that, such having been the case of
the Highlands in the days of the prisoner's fathers,
many of the opinions and sentiments must still
continue to influence the present generation, it
cannot, and ought not, even in this most painful
case, to alter the administration of the law, either
in your hands, gentlemen of the jury, or in mine.
The first object of civilisation is to place the general
protection of the law, equally administered, in
the room of that wild justice, which every man cut
and carved for himself, according to the length of
his sword and the strength of his arm. The law
says to the subjects, with a voice only inferior to
that of the Deity, `Vengeance is mine.' The instant
that there is time for passion to cool, and
reason to interpose, an injured party must become
aware that the law assumes the exclusive cognisance
of the right and wrong betwixt the parties,
and opposes her inviolable buckler to every attempt
of the private party to right himself. I repeat,
that this unhappy man ought personally to be
the object rather of our pity than our abhorrence,
for he failed in his ignorance, and from mistaken
notions of honour. But his crime is not the less
that of murder, gentlemen, and, in your high and
important office, it is your duty so to find. Englishmen
have their angry passions as well as Scots;
and should this man's action remain unpunished,
you may unsheath, under various pretences, a
thousand daggers betwixt the Land's-end and the
Orkneys.''
The venerable Judge thus ended what, to judge
by his apparent emotion, and by the tears which
filled his eyes, was really a painful task. The jury,
according to his instructions, brought in a verdict
of Guilty; and Robin Oig M`Combich, _alias_
McGregor, was sentenced to death, and left for execution,
which took place accordingly. He met
his fate with great firmness, and acknowledged the
justice of his sentence. But he repelled indignantly
the observations of those who accused him
of attacking an unarmed man. ``I give a life
for the life I took,'' he said, ``and what can I do
more?''*
* Note A. Robert Donn's Poems
[9. The Two Drovers Notes]
NOTE TO CHAPTER II.
Note A.---Robert Donn's Poems.
I cannot dismiss this story without resting attention for a
moment on the light which has been thrown on the character
of the Highland Drover since the time of its first appearance,
by the account of a drover poet, by name Robert Mackay, or,
as he was commonly called, Rob Donn, i.e. brown Robert,
and certain specimens of his talents, published in the 90th
Number of the Quarterly Review. The picture which that
paper gives of the habits and feelings of a class of persons with
which the general reader would be apt to associate no ideas
but those of wild superstition and rude manners, is in the
highest degree interesting; and I cannot resist the temptation
of quoting two of the songs of this hitherto unheard of poet of
humble life. They are thus introduced by the reviewer:---
``Upon one occasion, it seems, Rob's attendance upon his
master's cattle business detained him a whole year from home,
and at his return he found that a fair maiden, to whom his
troth had been plighted of yore, had lost sight of her vows, and
was on the eve of being married to a rival, (a carpenter by
trade,) who had profited by the young Drover's absence.
The following song was composed during a sleepless night, in
the neighbourhood of Creiff, in Perthshire, and the home sickness
which it expresses appears to be almost as much that of
the deer-hunter as of the loving swain.
`_Easy in my bed, it is easy,
But it is not to sleep that I incline:
The wind whistles northwards, northwards,
And my thoughts move with it_.
More pleasant were it to be with thee
In the little glen of calves,
Than to be counting of droves
In the enclosures of Creiff.
_Easy is my bed, &c_
'Great is my esteem of the maiden,
Towards whose dwelling the north wind blows;
She is ever cheerful, sportive, kindly,
Without folly, without vanity, without pride.
True is her heart---were I under hiding,
And fifty men in pursuit of my footsteps,
I should find protection, when they surrounded me most closely,
In the secret recess of that shieling.
_Easy is my bed, &c_
'Oh for the day for turning my face homeward,
That I may see the maiden of beauty:---
Joyful will it be to me to be with thee,---
Fair girl with the long heavy locks!
Choice of all places for deer-hunting
Are the brindled rock and the ridge!
How sweat at evening to be dragging the slain deer
Downwards along the piper's cairn!
_Easy is my bed, &c_
'Great is my esteem for the maiden!
Who parted from me by the west side of the enclosed field;
Late yet again will she linger in that fold,
Long after the kine are assembled.
It is I myself who have taken no dislike to thee,
Though far away from thee am I now.
It is for the thought of thee that sleep flies from me;
Great is the profit to me of thy parting kiss!
_Easy is my bed, &c_
`Dear to me are the boundaries of the forest;
Far from Creiff is my heart;
My remembrance is of the hillocks of sheep,
And the hath of many knolls.
Oh for the red-streaked fissures of the rock,
Where in spring time, the fawns leap;
Oh for the crags towards which the wind is blowing---
Cheap would be my bed to be there!
_Easy is my bed, &c_
``The following describes Rob's feelings on the first discovery
of his damsel's infidelity. The airs of both these pieces
are his own, and, the Highland ladies say, very beautiful.
`Heavy to me is the shieling, and the hum that is in it,
Since the ear that was wont to listen is now no more on the watch.
Where is Isabel, the courteous, the conversable, a sister in kindness?
Where is Anne, the slender-browed, the turret-breasted, whose glossy
hair pleased me when yet a boy?
_Heich! what an hour was my returning!
Pain such as that sunset brought, what availeth me to tell it?_
`I traversed the fold, and upward among the trees---
Each place, far and near, wherein I was wont to salute my love.
When I looked down from the crag, and beheld the fair-haired stranger
dallying with his bride,
I wished I had never revisited the glen of my dreams.
_Such things came into my heart as that sun was going down.
A pain of which I shall never be rid, what availeth me to tell it?_
`Since it has been heard that the carpenter had persuaded thee,
My sleep is disturbed---busy is foolishness within me at midnight.
The kindness that has been between us,---I cannot shake off that memory
in visions;
Thou callest me not to thy side; but love is to me for a messenger.
_There is strife within me, and I toss to be at liberty;
And ever closer it clings, and the delusion is growing to me as a tree._
`Anne, yellow-haired daughter of Donald, surely thou knowest not
how it is with me---
That it is old love, unrepaid, which has worn down from me my strength;
That when far from thee, beyond many mountains, the wound in my
heart was throbbing,
Stirring, and searching for ever, as when I sat beside thee on the turf.
_Now, then, hear me this once, if for ever I am to be without thee,
My spirit is broken--give me one kiss ere I leave this land!_
`Haughtily and scornfully the maid looked upon me;
Never will it be work for thy fingers to unloose the band from my curls;
Thou hast been absent a twelwemonth, and six were seeking me diligently;
Was thy superiority so high, that there should be no end of abiding for thee?
_Ha! ha! ha!---hast thou at last become sick?
Is it love that is give death to thee? surely the enemy has been in no haste._
`But how shall I hate thee, even though towards me thou hast become cold?
When my discourse is most angry concerning thy name in thine absence,
Of sudden thine image, with its old dearness, comes visibly into my mind;
And a secret voice whispers that love will yet prevail!
_And I become surety for it anew, darling,
And it springs up at that hour lofty as a tower._'
``Rude and bald as these things appear in a verbal translation,
and rough as they might possibly appear, even were the
originals intelligible, we confess we are disposed to think they
would of themselves justify Dr Mackay (their Editor) in
placing this herdsman-lover among the true sons of song.''---
_Quarterly Review, No. XC. July 1831_.
[10. The Surgeon's Daughter Introduction]
INTRODUCTION
TO THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
The tale of the Surgeon's Daughter formed
part of the second series of Chronicles of the
Canongate, published in 1827; but has been
separated from the stories of The Highland
Widow, &c., which it originally accompanied,
and deferred to the close of this collection, for
reasons which printers and publishers will understand,
and which would hardly interest the
general reader.
The Author has nothing to say now in reference
to this little Novel, but that the principal
incident on which it turns, was narrated to
him one morning at breakfast by his worthy
friend, Mr Train, of Castle Douglas, in Galloway,
whose kind assistance he has so often had
occasion to acknowledge in the course of these
prefaces; and that the military friend who is
alluded to as having furnished him with some
information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel
James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the
sons of the venerable historian and philosopher
of that name---which name he took the liberty
of concealing under its Gaelic form of MacErries.
W. S.
Abbotsford,
_Sept_. 1831.
APPENDIX
TO
INTRODUCTION.
[Mr Train was requested by Sir Walter Scott to
give him in writing the story as nearly as possible
in the shape in which he had told it; but the
following narrative, which he drew up accordingly,
did not reach Abbotsford until July 1832.]
In the old Stock of Fife, there was not perhaps
an individual whose exertions were followed by
consequences of such a remarkable nature as those
of Davie Duff, popularly called ``The Thane of
Fife,'' who, from a very humble parentage, rose to
fill one of the chairs of the magistracy of his native
burgh. By industry and economy in early life, he
obtained the means of erecting, solely on his own
account, one of those ingenious manufactories for
which Fifeshire is justly celebrated. From the
day on which the industrious artisan first took his
seat at the Council Board, he attended so much
to the interests of the little privileged community
that civic honours were conferred on him as rapidly
as the Set of the Royalty* could legally admit.
* The Constitution of the Borough.
To have the right of walking to church on holyday,
preceded by a phalanx of halberdiers, in habiliments
fashioned as in former times, seems, in
the eyes of many a guild brother, to be a very
enviable pitch of worldly grandeur. Few persons
were ever more proud of civic honours than the
Thane of Fife, but he knew well how to turn his
political influence to the best account. The council,
court, and other business of the burgh, occupied
much of his time, which caused him to intrust the
management of his manufactory to a near relation
whose name was D*******, a young man of dissolute
habits; but the Thane, seeing at last, that
by continuing that extravagant person in that
charge, his affairs would, in all probability, fall into
a state of bankruptcy, applied to the member of
Parliament for that district to obtain a situation
for his relation in the civil department of the
state. The knight, whom it is here unnecessary to
name, knowing how effectually the Thane ruled
the little burgh, applied in the proper quarter, and
actually obtained an appointment for D*******
in the civil service of the East India Company.
A respectable surgeon, whose residence was in a
neighbouring village, had a beautiful daughter named
Emma, who had long been courted by D*******.
Immediately before his departure to India, as a
mark of mutual affection, they exchanged miniatures,
taken by an eminent artist in Fife, and each
set in a locket, for the purpose of having the object
of affection always in view.
The eyes of the old Thane were now turned
towards Hindostan with much anxiety; but his
relation had not long arrived in that distant quarter
of the globe before he had the satisfaction of receiving
a letter, conveying the welcome intelligence of
his having taken possession of his new station in a
large frontier town of the Company's dominions, and
that great emoluments were attached to the situation;
which was confirmed by several subsequent
communications of the most gratifying description to
the old Thane, who took great pleasure in spreading
the news of the reformed habits and singular
good fortune of his intended heir. None of all his
former acquaintances heard with such joy the favourable
report of the successful adventurer in the
East, as did the fair and accomplished daughter of
the village surgeon; but his previous character
caused her to keep her own correspondence with
him secret from her parents, to whom even the circumstance
of her being acquainted with D*******
was wholly unknown, till her father received a
letter from him, in which he assured him of his
attachment to Emma long before his departure
from Fife; that having been so happy as to gain
her affections, he would have made her his wife
before leaving his. native country, had he then had
the means of supporting her in a suitable rank
through life; and that, having it now in his power
to do so, he only waited the consent of her parents
to fulfil the vow he had formerly made.
The Doctor, having a large family, with a very
limited income to support them, and understanding
that D******* had at last become a person of sober
and industrious habits, he gave his consent, in which
Emma's mother fully concurred.
Aware of the straitened circumstances of the
Doctor, D******* remitted a sum of money to
complete at Edinburgh Emma's Oriental education,
and fit her out in her journey to India; she was to
embark at Sheerness, on board one of the Company's
ships, for a port in India, at which place, he
said, he would wait her arrival, with a retinue
suited to a person of his rank in society.
Emma set out from her father's house just in
time to secure a passage, as proposed by her intended
husband, accompanied by her only brother, who,
on their arrival at Sheerness, met one C******, an
old schoolfellow, captain of the ship by which
Emma was to proceed to India.
It was the particular desire of the Doctor that
his daughter should be committed to the care of
that gentleman, from the time of her leaving the
shores of Britain, till the intended marriage ceremony
was duly performed on her arrival in India;
a charge that was frankly undertaken by the generous
sea-captain.
On the arrival of the fleet at the appointed port,
D*******, with a large cavalcade of mounted
Pindarees, was, as expected, in attendance, ready
to salute Emma on landing, and to carry her direct
into the interior of the country. C******, who
had made several voyages to the shores of Hindostan,
knowing something of Hindoo manners
and customs, was surprised to see a private individual
in the Company's service with so many
attendants; and when D******* declined having
the marriage ceremony performed, according to
the rites of the Church, till he returned to the
place of his abode, C******, more and more confirmed
in his suspicion that all was not right, resolved
not to part with Emma, till he had fulfilled,
in the most satisfactory manner, the promise he had
made before leaving England, of giving her duly
away in marriage. Not being able by her entreaties
to alter the resolution of D*******, Emma
solicited her protector C****** to accompany her
to the place of her intended destination, to which he
most readily agreed, taking with him as many of
his crew as he deemed sufficient to ensure the safe
custody of his innocent proteg<e'>e, should any attempt
be made to carry her away by force.
Both parties journeyed onwards till they arrived
at a frontier town, where a native Rajah was waiting
the arrival of the fair maid of Fife, with whom
he had fallen deeply in love, from seeing her miniature
likeness in the possession of D*******, to
whom he had paid a large sum of money for the
original, and had only intrusted him to convey her
in state to the seat of his government.
No sooner was this villainous action of D*******
known to C******, than he communicated the
whole particulars to the commanding officer of a
regiment of Scotch Highlanders that happened to
be quartered in that part of India, begging at
the same time, for the honour of Caledonia, and
protection of injured innocence, that he would use
the means in his power, of resisting any attempt
that might be made by the native chief to wrest
from their hands the virtuous female who had been
so shamefully decoyed from her native country by
the worst of mankind. Honour occupies too large
a space in the heart of the Gael to resist such a
call of humanity.
The Rajah, finding his claim was not to be acceded
to, and resolving to enforce the same, assembled
his troops, and attacked with great fury
the place where the affrighted Emma was for a
time secured by her countrymen, who fought in
her defence with all their native valour, which at
length so overpowered their assailants, that they
were forced to retire in every direction, leaving
behind many of their slain, among whom was found
the mangled corpse of the perfidious D*******.
C******* was immediately afterwards married to
Emma, and my informant assured me he saw them
many years afterwards, living happily together in
the county of Kent, on the fortune bequeathed
by the ``Thane of Fife.''
J. T.
Castle Douglas
_ July_, 1832.
[11. The Surgeon's Daughter Preface]
THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
Mr Croftangry's Preface.
Indite, my muse, indite,
Subp<oe>na'd is thy lyre,
The praises to requite
Which rules of court require.
_Probationary Odes_.
The concluding a literary undertaking, in whole
or in part, is, to the inexperienced at least, attended
with an irritating titillation, like that which
attends on the healing of a wound---a prurient
impatience, in short, to know what the world in
general, and friends in particular, will say to our
labours. Some authors, I am told, profess an
oyster-like indifference upon this subject; for my
own part, I hardly believe in their sincerity.
Others may acquire it from habit; but in my poor
opinion, a neophyte like myself must be for a long
time incapable of such _sang froid_.
Frankly I was ashamed to feel how childishly
I felt on the occasion. No person could have said
prettier things than myself upon the importance of
stoicism concerning the opinion of others, when
their applause or censure refers to literary character
only; and I had determined to lay my work
before the public, with the same unconcern with
which the ostrich lays her eggs in the sand, giving
herself no farther trouble concerning the incubation,
but leaving to the atmosphere to bring forth
the young, or otherwise, as the climate shall serve.
But though an ostrich in theory, I became in practice
a poor hen, who has no sooner made her deposit,
but she runs cackling about, to call the attention
of every one to the wonderful work which she
has performed.
As soon as I became possessed of my first volume,
neatly stitched up and boarded, my sense of
the necessity of communicating with some one became
ungovernable. Janet was inexorable, and
seemed already to have tired of my literary confidence;
for whenever I drew near the subject,
after evading it as long as she could, she made, under
some pretext or other, a bodily retreat to the
kitchen or the cockloft, her own peculiar and inviolate
domains. My publisher would have been a natural
resource; but he understands his business too
well, and follows it too closely, to desire to enter
into literary discussions, wisely considering, that
he who has to sell books has seldom leisure to read
them. Then my acquaintance, now that I have
lost Mrs Bethune Baliol, are of that distant and
accidental kind, to whom I had not face enough to
communicate the nature of my uneasiness, and who
probably would only have laughed at me had I made
any attempt to interest them in my labours.
Reduced thus to a sort of despair, I thought of
my friend and man of business Mr Fairscribe. His
habits, it was true, were not likely to render him
indulgent to light literature, and, indeed, I had
more than once noticed his daughters, and especially
my little songstress, whip into her reticule
what looked very like a circulating library volume,
as soon as her father entered the room. Still he was
not only my assured, but almost my only friend,
and I had little doubt that he would take ail interest
in the volume for the sake of the author,
which the work itself might fail to inspire. I sent
him, therefore, the book, carefully scaled up, with
an intimation that I requested the favour of his
opinion upon the contents, of which I affected to
talk in the depreciatory style, which calls for point-blank
contradiction, if your correspondent possess
a grain of civility.
This communication took place on a Monday,
and I daily expected (what I was ashamed to anticipate
by volunteering my presence, however sure
of a welcome) an invitation to eat an egg, as was
my friend's favourite phrase, or a card to drink tea
with Misses Fairscribe, or a provocation to breakfast,
at least, with my hospitable friend and benefactor,
and to talk over the contents of my enclosure.
But the hours and days passed on from
Monday till Saturday, and I had no acknowledgment
whatever that my packet had reached its destination.
``This is very unlike my good friend's
punctuality,'' thought I; and having again and
again vexed James, my male attendant, by a close
examination concerning the time, place, and delivery,
I had only to strain my imagination to conceive
reasons for my friend's silence. Sometimes
I thought that his opinion of the work had proved
so unfavourable, that he was averse to hurt my
feelings by communicating it---sometimes, that,
escaping his hands to whom it was destined, it had
found its way into his writing-chamber, and was
become the subject of criticism to his smart clerks
and conceited apprentices. ``'Sdeath!'' thought I,
``if I were sure of this, I would------''
``And what would you do?'' said Reason, after
a few moments' reflection. ``You are ambitious of
introducing your book into every writing and reading
chamber in Edinburgh, and yet you take fire at
the thoughts of its being criticised by Mr Fairscribe's
young people? Be a little consistent, for
shame.''
``I will be consistent,'' said I doggedly; ``but for
all that, I will call on Mr Fairscribe this evening.''
I hastened my dinner, donn'd my great-coat,
(for the evening threatened rain,) and went to Mr
Fairscribe's house. The old domestic opened the
door cautiously, and before I asked the question,
said, ``Mr Fairscribe is at home, sir; but it is
Sunday night.'' Recognising, however, my face
and voice, he opened the door wider, admitted me,
and conducted me to the parlour, where I found
Mr Fairscribe and the rest of his family engaged
in listening to a sermon by the late Mr Walker of
Edinburgh,* which was read by Miss Catherine
* [Robert Walker, the colleague and rival of Dr Hugh Blair,
in St Giles's Church, Edinburgh.]
with unusual distinctness, simplicity, and judgment.
Welcomed as a friend of the house, I had
nothing for it but to take my seat quietly, and
making a virtue of necessity, endeavour to derive
my share of the benefit arising from an excellent
sermon. But I am afraid Mr Walker's force of
logic and precision of expression were somewhat
lost upon me. I was sensible I had chosen an improper
time to disturb Mr Fairscribe, and when
the discourse was ended, I rose to take my leave,
somewhat hastily, I believe. ``A cup of tea, Mr
Croftangry?'' said the young lady. ``You will
wait and take part of a Presbyterian supper?'' said
Mr Fairscribe.---``Nine o'clock---I make it a point
of keeping my father's hours on Sunday at e'en.
Perhaps Dr ------ [naming an excellent clergy-
man] may look in.''
I made my apology for declining his invitation;
and I fancy my unexpected appearance, and hasty
retreat, had rather surprised my friend, since,
instead of accompanying me to the door, he conducted
me into his own apartment.
``What is the matter,'' he said, ``Mr Croftangry?
This is not a night for secular business, but
if any thing sudden or extraordinary has happened------''
``Nothing in the world,'' said I, forcing myself
upon confession, as the best way of clearing myself
out of the scrape,---``only---only I sent you a little
parcel, and as you are so regular in acknowledging
letters and communications, I---I thought
it might have miscarried---that's all.''
My friend laughed heartily, as if he saw into
and enjoyed my motives and my confusion. ``Safe?
---it came safe enough,'' he said. ``The wind of
the world always blows its vanities into haven.
But this is the end of the session, when I have little
time to read any thing printed except Inner-House
papers; yet if you will take your kail with
us next Saturday, I will glance over your work,
though I am sure I am no competent judge of such
matters.''
With this promise I was fain to take my leave,
not without half persuading myself that if once the
phlegmatic lawyer began my lucubrations, he would
not be able to rise from them till he had finished
the perusal, nor to endure an interval betwixt his
reading the last page, and requesting an interview
with the author.
No such marks of impatience displayed themselves.
Time, blunt or keen, as my friend Joanna
says, swift or leisurely, held his course; and on the
appointed Saturday, I was at the door precisely as
it struck four. The dinner hour, indeed, was five
punctually; but what did I know but my friend
might want half an hour's conversation with me
before that time? I was ushered into an empty
drawing-room, and, from a needle-book and work-basket,
hastily abandoned, I had some reason to
think I interrupted my little friend, Miss Katie,
in some domestic labour more praiseworthy than
elegant. In this critical age, filial piety must hide
herself in a closet, if she has a mind to darn her
father's linen.
Shortly after, I was the more fully convinced
that I had been too early an intruder, when a
wench came to fetch away the basket, and recommend
to my courtesies a red and green gentleman
in a cage, who answered all my advances by croaking
out, ``You're a fool---you're a fool, I tell you!''
until, upon my word, I began to think the creature
was in the right. At last my friend arrived, a little
overheated. He had been taking a turn at golf,
to prepare him for ``colloquy sublime.'' And
wherefore not? since the game, with its variety of
odds, lengths, bunkers, teed balls, and so on may
be no inadequate representation of the hazards attending
literary pursuits. In particular, those formidable
buffets, which make one ball spin through
the air like a rifle-shot, and strike another down
into the very earth it is placed upon, by the maladroitness
or the malicious purpose of the player---
what are they but parallels to the favourable or
depreciating notices of the reviewers, who play at
golf with the publications of the season, even as
Altisidora, in her approach to the gates of the
infernal regions, saw the devils playing at racket
with the new books of Cervantes' days.
Well, every hour has its end. Five o'clock came,
and my friend, with his daughters, and his handsome
young son, who, though fairly buckled to the
desk, is every now and then looking over his shoulder
at a smart uniform, set seriously about satisfying
the corporeal wants of nature; while I, stimulated
by a nobler appetite after fame, wished that
the touch of a magic wand could, without all the
ceremony of picking and choosing, carving and
slicing, masticating and swallowing, have transported
a _quantum sufficit_ of the good things on my
friend's hospitable board, into the stomachs of those
who surrounded it, to be there at leisure converted
into chyle, while their thoughts were turned on
higher matters. At length all was over. But the
young ladies sat still, and talked of the music of
the Freischutz, for nothing else was then thought
of; so we discussed the wild hunters' song, and the
tame hunters' song, &c. &c. in all which my young
friends were quite at home. Luckily for me, all this
horning and hooping drew on some allusion to the
Seventh Hussars, which gallant regiment, I observe,
is a more favourite theme with both Miss Catherine
and her brother than with my old friend, who
presently looked at his watch, and said something
significantly to Mr James about office hours. The
youth got up with the ease of a youngster that would
be thought a man of fashion rather than of business,
and endeavoured, with some success, to walk out of
the room, as if the locomotion was entirely voluntary;
Miss Catherine and her sisters left us at the
same time, and now, thought I, my trial comes on.
Reader, did you ever, in the course of your life,
cheat the courts of justice and lawyers, by agreeing
to refer a dubious and important question to
the decision of a mutual friend? If so, you may
have remarked the relative change which the arbiter
undergoes in your estimation, when raised,
though by your own free choice, from an ordinary
acquaintance, whose opinions were of as little consequence
to you as yours to him, into a superior
personage, on whose decision your fate must depend
_pro tanto_, as my friend Mr Fairscribe would
say. His looks assume a mysterious if not a minatory
expression; his hat has a loftier air, and his
wig, if he wears one, a more formidable buckle.
I felt, accordingly, that my good friend Fairscribe,
on the present occasion, had acquired something
of a similar increase of consequence. But a
week since, he had, in my opinion, been indeed an
excellent-meaning man, perfectly competent to
every thing within his own profession, but immured
at the same time among its forms and technicalities,
and as incapable of judging of matters of
taste as any mighty Goth whatsoever, of or belonging
to the ancient Senate House of Scotland. But
what of that? I had made him my judge by my
own election; and I have often observed that an
idea of declining such a reference, on account of
his own consciousness of incompetency, is, as it
perhaps ought to be, the last which occurs to the
referee himself. He that has a literary work subjected
to his judgment by the author, immediately
throws his mind into a critical attitude, though the
subject be one which he never before thought of.
No doubt the author is well qualified to select his
own judge, and why should the arbiter whom he
has chosen doubt his own talents for condemnation
or acquittal, since he has been doubtless picked out
by his friend, from his indubitable reliance on their
competence? Surely the man who wrote the production
is likely to know the person best qualified
to judge of it.
Whilst these thoughts crossed my brain, I kept
my eyes fixed on my good friend, whose motions
appeared unusually tardy to me, while he ordered
a bottle of particular claret, decanted it with scrupulous
accuracy with his own hand, caused his old
domestic to bring a saucer of olives, and chips of
toasted bread, and thus, on hospitable thoughts
intent, seemed to me to adjourn the discussion which
I longed to bring on, yet feared to precipitate.
``He is dissatisfied,'' thought I, ``and is ashamed
to show it, afraid doubtless of hurting my feelings.
What had I to do to talk to him about any thing
save charters and sasines?---Stay, he is going to
begin.''
``We are old fellows now, Mr Croftangry,''
said my landlord; ``scarcely so fit to take a poor
quart of claret between us, as we would have been
in better days to take a pint, in the old Scottish
liberal acceptation of the phrase. Maybe you
would have liked me to have kept James to help
us. But if it is not on a holyday or so, I think it
is best he should observe office hours.''
Here the discourse was about to fall. I relieved
it by saying, Mr James was at the happy time of
life, when he had better things to do than to sit
over the bottle. ``I suppose,'' said I, ``your son
is a reader.''
``Um---yes---James may be called a reader in a
sense; but I doubt there is little solid in his studies
---poetry and plays, Mr Croftangry, all nonsense---
they set his head a-gadding after the army, when
he should be minding his business.''
``I suppose, then, that romances do not find
much more grace in your eyes than dramatic and
poetical compositions?''
``Deil a bit, deil a bit, Mr Croftangry, nor historical
productions either. There is too much fighting
in history, as if men only were brought into
this world to send one another out of it. It nourishes
false notions of our being, and chief and
proper end, Mr Croftangry.''
Still all this was general, and I became determined
to bring our discourse to a focus. ``I am
afraid, then, I have done very ill to trouble you
with my idle manuscripts, Mr Fairscribe; but you
must do me the justice to remember, that I had
nothing better to do than to amuse myself by writing
the sheets I put into your hands the other day.
I may truly plead---
`I left no calling for this idle trade.' ''
``I cry your mercy, Mr Croftangry,'' said my
old friend, suddenly recollecting---``yes, yes, I
have been very rude; but I had forgotten entirely
that you had taken a spell yourself at that idle
man's trade.''
``I suppose,'' replied I, ``you, on your side,
have been too _busy_ a man to look at my poor
Chronicles?''
``No, no,'' said my friend, ``I am not so bad as
that neither. I have read them bit by bit, just as
I could get a moment's time, and I believe I shall
very soon get through them.''
``Well, my good friend?'' said 1, interrogatively.
And ``_Well_, Mr Croftangry,'' cried he, ``I really
think you have got over the ground very tolerably
well. I have noted down here two or three bits
of things, which I presume to be errors of the press,
otherwise it might be alleged, perhaps, that you
did not fully pay that attention to the grammatical
rules which one would desire to see rigidly observed.''
I looked at my friend's notes, which, in fact,
showed, that in one or two grossly obvious passages,
I had left uncorrected such solecisms in
grammar.
``Well, well, I own my fault; but, setting apart
these casual errors, how do you like the matter and
the manner of what I have been writing, Mr Fairscribe?''
``Why,'' said my friend, pausing, with more
grave and important hesitation than I thanked him
for, ``there is not much to be said against the
manner. The style is terse and intelligible, Mr
Croftangry, very intelligible; and that I consider
as the first point in every thing that is intended to
be understood. There are, indeed, here and there
some flights and fancies, which I comprehended
with difficulty; but I got to your meaning at last.
There are people that are like ponies; their judgments
cannot go fast, but they go sure.''
``That is a pretty clear proposition, my friend;
but then how did you like the meaning when you
did get at it? or was that, like some ponies, too
difficult to catch, and, when catched, not worth the
trouble?''
``I am far from saying that, my dear sir, in respect
it would be downright uncivil; but since you
ask my opinion, I wish you could have thought
about something more appertaining to civil policy,
than all this bloody work about shooting and dirking,
and downright hanging. I am told it was the
Germans who first brought in such a practice of
choosing their heroes out of the Porteous Roll;*
* List of criminal indictments, so termed in Scotland.
but, by my faith, we are like to be upsides with
them. The first was, as I am credibly informed,
Mr Scolar, as they call him; a scholar-like piece
of work he has made of it, with his Robbers and
thieves.''
``Schiller,'' said I, ``my dear sir, let it be
Schiller.''
``Shiller, or what you like,'' said Mr Fairscribe;
``I found the book where I wish I had found a
better one, and that is, in Kate's work-basket. I
sat down, and, like an old fool, began to read; but
there, I grant, you have the better of Schiller, Mr
Croftangry.''
``I should be glad, my dear sir, that you really
think I have _approached_ that admirable author;
even your friendly partiality ought not to talk of
my having _excelled_ him.''
``But I do say you have excelled him, Mr Croftangry,
in a most material particular. For surely
a book of amusement should be something that one
can take up and lay down at pleasure; and I can
say justly, I was never at the least loss to put
aside these sheets of yours when business came in
the way. But, faith, this Shiller, sir, does not let
you off so easily, I forgot one appointment on
particular business, and I wilfully broke through
another, that I might stay at home and finish his
confounded book, which, after all, is about two brothers,
the greatest rascals I ever heard of. The
one, sir, goes near to murder his own father, and
the other (which you would think still stranger)
sets about to debauch his own wife.''
``I find, then, Mr Fairscribe, that you have no
taste for the romance of real life, no pleasure in
contemplating those spirit-rousing impulses, which
force men of fiery passions upon great crimes and
great virtues?''
``Why, as to that, I am not just so sure. But
then, to mend the matter,'' continued the critic,
``you have brought in Highlanders into every story,
as if you were going back again, _velis et remis_, into
the old days of Jacobitism. I must speak my plain
mind, Mr Croftangry. I cannot tell what innovations
in Kirk and State may be now proposed, but
our fathers were friends to both, as they were settled
at the glorious Revolution, and liked a tartan
plaid as little as they did a white surplice. I wish
to Heaven, all this tartan fever bode well to the
Protestant succession and the Kirk of Scotland.''
``Both too well settled, I hope, in the minds of
the subject,'' said I, ``to be affected by old remembrances,
on which we look back as on the portraits
of our ancestors, without recollecting, while we
gaze on them, any of the feuds by which the originals
were animated while alive. But most happy
should I be to light upon any topic to supply the
Place of the Highlands, Mr Fairscribe. I have been
just reflecting that the theme is becoming a little
exhausted, and your experience may perhaps supply---''
``Ha, ha, ha---my experience supply!'' interrupted
Mr Fairscribe, with a laugh of derision.
``Why, you might as well ask my son James's experience
to supply a case about thirlage. No, no,
my good friend, I have lived by the law, and in the
law, all my life, and when you seek the impulses
that make soldiers desert and shoot their sergeants
and corporals, and Highland drovers dirk English
graziers, to prove themselves men of fiery passions,
it is not to a man like me you should come. I
could tell you some tricks of my own trade, perhaps,
and a queer story or two of estates that have
been lost and recovered. But, to tell you the truth,
I think you might do with your Muse of Fiction,
as you call her, as many an honest man does with
his own sons in flesh and blood.''
``And how is that, my dear sir?''
``Send her to India, to be sure. That is the
true place for a Scot to thrive in; and if you carry
your story fifty years back, as there is nothing to
hinder you, you will find as much shooting and
stabbing there as ever was in the wild Highlands.
If you want rogues, as they are so much in fashion
with you, you have that gallant caste of adventurers,
who laid down their consciences at the Cape of
Good Hope as they went out to India, and forgot
to take them up again when they returned. Then
for great exploits, you have in the old history of
India, before Europeans were numerous there, the
most wonderful deeds, done by the least possible
means, that perhaps the annals of the world can
afford.''
``I know it,'' said I, kindling at the ideas his
speech inspired. ``I remember in the delightful
pages of Orme, the interest which mingles in his
narratives, from the very small number of English
which are engaged. Each officer of a regiment
becomes known to you by name, nay, the non-commissioned
officers and privates acquire an individual
share of interest. They are distinguished
among the natives like the Spaniards among the
Mexicans. What do I say? they are like Homer's
demigods among the warring mortals. Men, like
Clive and Caillaud, influenced great events, like
Jove himself. Inferior officers are like Mars or
Neptune, and the sergeants and corporals might
well pass for demigods. Then the various religious
costumes, habits, and manners of the people of
Hindustan,---the patient Hindhu, the warlike Rajahpoot,
the haughty Moslemah, the savage and
vindictive Malay---Glorious and unbounded subjects!
The only objection is, that I have never
been there, and know nothing at all about them.''
``Nonsense, my good friend. You will tell us
about them all the better that you know nothing
of what you are saying; and come, we'll finish the
bottle, and when Katie (her sisters go to the assembly)
has given us tea, she will tell you the
outline of the story of poor Menie Gray, whose
picture you will see in the drawing-room, a distant
relation of my father's, who had, however, a handsome
part of cousin Menie's succession. There are
none living that can be hurt by the story now,
though it was thought best to smother it up at the
time, as indeed even the whispers about it led poor
cousin Menie to live very retired. I mind her well
when a child. There was something very gentle,
but rather tiresome, about poor cousin Menie.''
When we came into the drawing-room, my friend
pointed to a picture which I had before noticed,
without, however, its having attracted more than
a passing look; now I regarded it with more attention.
It was one of those portraits of the middle
of the eighteenth century, in which artists endeavoured
to conquer the stiffness of hoops and brocades,
by throwing a fancy drapery around the
figure, with loose folds like a mantle or dressing
gown, the stays, however, being retained, and the
bosom displayed in a manner which shows that our
mothers, like their daughters, were as liberal of
their charms as the nature of their dress might
permit. To this, the well-known style of the
period, the features and form of the individual
added, at first sight, little interest. It represented a
handsome woman of about thirty, her hair wound
simply about her head, her features regular, and her
complexion fair. But on looking more closely,
especially after having had a hint that the original
had been the heroine of a tale, I could observe a
melancholy sweetness in the countenance, that
seemed to speak of woes endured, and injuries sustained,
with that resignation which women can and
do sometimes display under the insults and ingratitude
of those on whom they have bestowed their
affections.
``Yes, she was an excellent and an ill-used woman,''
said Mr Fairscribe, his eye fixed like mine
on the picture---``She left our family not less, I
dare say, than five thousand pounds, and I believe
she died worth four times that sum; but it was
divided among the nearest of kin, which was all
fair.''
``But her history, Mr Fairscribe,'' said I---``to
judge from her look, it must have been a melancholy
one.''
``You may say that, Mr Croftangry. Melancholy
enough, and extraordinary enough too---
But,'' added he, swallowing in haste a cup of the
tea which was presented to him, ``I must away to
my business---we cannot be gowffing all the morning,
and telling old stories all the afternoon. Katie
knows all the outs and the ins of cousin Menie's
adventures as well as I do, and when she has given
you the particulars, then I am at your service, to
condescend more articulately upon dates or particulars.''
Well, here was I, a gay old bachelor, left to
hear a love tale from my young friend Katie Fairscribe,
who, when she is not surrounded by a bevy
of gallants, at which time, to my thinking, she shows
less to advantage, is as pretty, well behaved, and
unaffected a girl as you see tripping the new walks
of Prince's Street or Heriot Row. Old bachelorship
so decided as mine has its privileges in such a
t<e^>te-<a`>-t<e^>te, providing you are, or can seem for the
time, perfectly good-humoured and attentive, and
do not ape the manners of your younger years, in
attempting which you will only make yourself
ridiculous. I don't pretend to be so indifferent to
the company of a pretty young woman as was desired
by the poet, who wished to sit beside his
mistress-
------``As unconcern'd, as when
Her infant beauty could beget
Nor happiness nor pain.''
On the contrary, I can look on beauty and innocence,
as something of which I know and esteem
the value, without the desire or hope to make them
my own. A young lady can afford to talk with an
old stager like me without either artifice or affectation;
and we may maintain a species of friendship,
the more tender, perhaps, because we are of
different sexes, yet with which that distinction has
very little to do.
Now, I hear my wisest and most critical neighbour
remark, ``Mr Croftangry is in the way of
doing a foolish thing. He is well to pass---Old
Fairscribe knows to a penny what he is worth, and
Miss Katie, with all her airs, may like the old brass
that buys the new pan. I thought Mr Croftangry
was looking very cadgy when he came in to play a
rubber with us last night. Poor gentleman, I am
sure I should be sorry to see him make a fool of
himself.''
Spare your compassion, dear madam, there is not
the least danger. The _beaux yeux de ma cassette_
are not brilliant enough to make amends for the
spectacles which must supply the dimness of my
own. I am a little deaf too, as you know to your
sorrow when we are partners; and if I could get a
nymph to marry me with all these imperfections,
who the deuce would marry Janet M`Evoy? and
from Janet M`Evoy Chrystal Croftangry will not
part.
Miss Katie Fairscribe gave me the tale of Menie
Gray with much taste and simplicity, not attempting
to suppress the feelings, whether of grief or resentment,
which justly and naturally arose from the circumstances
of the tale. Her father afterwards confirmed
the principal outlines of the story, and furnished
me with some additional circumstances
which Miss Katie had suppressed or forgotten. Indeed,
I have learned on this occasion, what old Lintot
meant when he told Pope, that he used to propitiate
the critics of importance, when he had a work in the
press, by now and then letting them see a sheet of
the blotted proof, or a few leaves of the original
manuscript. Our mystery of authorship hath something
about it so fascinating, that if you admit any
one, however little he may previously have been disposed
to such studies, into your confidence, you will
find that he considers himself as a party interested,
and, if success follows, will think himself entitled
to no inconsiderable share of the praise.
The reader has seen that no one could have been
naturally less interested than was my excellent
friend Fairscribe in my lucubrations, which I first
consulted him on the subject; but since he bas
contributed a subject to the work, be has become
a most zealous coadjutor; and half-ashamed, I believe,
yet half-proud of the literary stock-company,
in which he has got a share, he never meets me
without jogging my elbow, and dropping some
mysterious hints, as, ``I am saying---when will you
give us any more of yon?''---or, ``Yon's not a bad
narrative---I like yon.''
Pray Heaven the reader may be of his opinion.
[12. The Surgeon's Daughter]
THE
SURGEON'S DAUGHTER.
CHAPTER 1.
When fainting Nature call'd for aid,
And hovering Death prepared the blow,
His vigorous remedy display'd
The power of Art without the show;
In Misery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely Want retired to die;
No summons mock'd by cold delay,
No petty gains disclaim'd by pride
The modest wants of every day
The toil of every day supplied.
Samuel Johnson.
The exquisitely beautiful portrait which the
Rambler has painted of his friend Levett, well
describes Gideon Gray, and many other village
doctors, from whom Scotland reaps more benefit
and to whom she is perhaps more ungrateful, than
to any other class of men, excepting her schoolmasters.
Such a rural man of medicine is usually the inhabitant
of some petty borough or village, which
forms the central point of his practice. But, besides
attending to such cases as the village may
afford, he is day and night at the service of every
one who may command his assistance within a
circle of forty miles in diameter, untraversed by
roads in many directions, and including moors,
mountains, rivers, and lakes. For late and dangerous
journeys through an inaccessible country for
services of the most essential kind, rendered at the
expense, or risk at least, of his own health and life,
the Scottish village doctor receives at best a very
moderate recompense, often one which is totally
inadequate' and very frequently none whatsoever.
He has none of the ample resources proper to the
brothers of the profession in an English town. The
burgesses of a Scottish borough are rendered, by
their limited means of luxury, inaccessible to gout,
surfeits, and all the comfortable chronic diseases,
which are attendant on wealth and indolence. Four
years, or so, of abstemiousness, enable them to
stand an election dinner; and there is no hope of
broken heads among a score or two of quiet electors,
who settle the business over a table. There
the mothers of the state never make a point of
pouring, in the course of every revolving year, a
certain quantity of doctor's stuff through the bowels
of their beloved children. Every old woman from
the Townhead to the Townfit, can prescribe a dose
of salts, or spread a plaster; and it is only when a
fever or a palsy renders matters serious, that the
assistance of the doctor is invoked by his neighbours
in the borough.
But still the man of science cannot complain of
inactivity or want of practice. If he does not find
patients at his door, he seeks them through a wide
circle. Like the ghostly lover of Barger's Leonora,
he mounts at midnight, and traverses in
darkness paths which, to those less accustomed to
them, seem formidable in daylight, through straits
where the slightest aberration would plunge him
into a morass, or throw him over a precipice, on
to cabins which his horse might ride over without
knowing they lay in his way, unless he happened
to fall through the roofs. When he arrives at such
a stately termination of his journey, where his services
are required, either to bring a wretch into
the world, or prevent one from leaving it, the scene
of misery is often such, that far from touching the
hard-saved shillings which are gratefully offered
to him, he bestows his medicines as well as his attendance---
for charity. I have heard the celebrated
traveller Mungo Park, who had experienced
both courses of life, rather give the preference
to travelling as a discoverer in Africa, than to
wandering by night and day the wilds of his native
land in the capacity of a country medical practitioner.
He mentioned having once upon a time
rode forty miles, sat up all night, and successfully
assisted a woman under influence of the primitive
curse, for which his sole remuneration was a
roasted potato and a drought of buttermilk. But
his was not the heart which grudged the labour
that relieved human misery. In short, there is no
creature in Scotland that works harder and is more
poorly requited than the country doctor, unless
perhaps it may be his horse. Yet the horse is,
and indeed must be, hardy, active, and indefatigable,
in spite of a rough coat and indifferent condition;
and so you will often find in his master,
and an unpromising and blunt exterior, professional
skill and enthusiasm, intelligence, humanity,
courage, and science.
Mr Gideon Gray, surgeon in the village of Middlemas,
situated in one of the midland counties of
Scotland, led the rough, active, and ill-rewarded
course of life which we have endeavoured to describe.
He was a man between forty and fifty,
devoted to his profession, and of such reputation
in the medical world, that he had been more than
once, as opportunities occurred, advised to exchange
Middlemas and its meagre circle of practice,
for some of the larger towns in Scotland, or
for Edinburgh itself. This advice he had always
declined. He was a plain blunt man, who did not
love restraint, and was unwilling to subject himself
to that which was exacted in polite society. He
had not himself found out, nor had any friend hinted
to him, that a slight touch of the cynic, in manner
and habits, gives the physician, to the common
eye, an air of authority which greatly tends to
enlarge his reputation. Mr Gray, or, as the country
people called him, Doctor Gray, (he might
hold the title by diploma for what I know, though
he only claimed the rank of Master of Arts,) had
few wants, and these were amply supplied by a
professional income which generally approached
two hundred pounds a-year, for which, upon an
average, he travelled about five thousand miles on
horseback in the course of the twelve months. Nay,
so liberally did this revenue support himself and
his ponies, called Pestle and Mortar, which he
exercised alternately, that he took a damsel to
share it, Jean Watson, namely, the cherry-cheeked
daughter of an honest farmer, who being herself
one of twelve children, who had been brought up
on an income of fourscore pounds a-year, never
thought there could be poverty in more than double
the sum; and looked on Gray, though now
termed by irreverent youth the Old Doctor, as a
very advantageous match. For several years they
had no children, and it seemed as if Doctor Gray,
who had so often assisted the efforts of the goddess
Lucina, was never to invoke her in his own behalf.
Yet his domestic roof was, on a remarkable occasion,
decreed to be the scene where the goddess's
art was required.
Late of an autumn evening three old women
might be observed plying their aged limbs through
the single street of the village at Middlemas towards
the honoured door, which, fenced off from
the vulgar causeway, was defended by a broken
paling, enclosing two slips of ground, half arable,
half overrun with an abortive attempt at shrubbery.
The door itself was blazoned with the name of
Gideon Gray, M.A. Surgeon, &c. &c. Some of
the idle young fellows, who had been a minute or
two before loitering at the other end of the street
before the door of the alehouse, (for the pretended
inn deserved no better name,) now accompanied
the old dames with shouts of laughter, excited by
their unwonted agility; and with bets on the winner,
as loudly expressed as if they had been laid
at the starting-post of Middlemas races. ``Half-a-mutchkin
on Luckie Simson!''---``Auld Peg
Tamson against the field!''---``Mair speed, Alison
Jaup, ye'll take the wind out of them yet!''---
``Canny against the hill, lasses, or we may have a
brusten auld carline amang ye!'' These, and a
thousand such gibes, rent the air, without being
noticed, or even heard, by the anxious racers,
---whose object of contention seemed to be, which
should first reach the Doctor's door.
``Guide us, Doctor, what can be the matter
now?'' said Mrs Gray, whose character was that
of a good-natured simpleton; ``Here's Peg Tamson,
Jean Simson, and Alison Jaup, running a race
on the hie street of the burgh!''
The Doctor, who had but the moment before
hung his wet great-coat before the fire, (for he was
just dismounted from a long journey,) hastened
down stairs, auguring some new occasion for his
services, and happy, that, from the character of the
messengers, it was likely to be within burgh, and
not landward.
He had just reached the door as Luckie Simson,
one of the racers, arrived in the little area before
it. She had got the start, and kept it, but at the
expense, for the time, of her power of utterance;
for when she came in presence of the Doctor, she
stood blowing like a grampus, her loose toy flying
back from her face, making the most violent efforts
to speak, but without the power of uttering a single
intelligible word. Peg Thomson whipped in
before her.
``The leddy, sir, the leddy---''
``Instant help, instant help''---screeched, rather
than uttered, Alison Jaup; while Luckie Simson,
who had certainly won the race, found words to
claim the prize which had set them all in motion.
``And I hope, sir, you will recommend me to be
the sick-nurse; I was here to bring you the tidings
lang before ony o' thae lazy queans.''
Loud were the counter protestations of the two
competitors, and loud the laugh of the idle loons
who listened at a little distance.
``Hold your tongue, ye flyting fools,'' said the
Doctor; ``and you, ye idle rascals, if I come out
among you---``So saying he smacked his long-lashed
whip with great emphasis, producing much
the effect of the celebrated _Quos ego_ of Neptune,
in the first <AE>neid. ``And now,'' said the Doctor,
``where, or who, is this lady?''
The question was scarce necessary; for a plain
carriage, with four horses, came at a foot's-pace
towards the door of the Doctor's house, and the old
women, now more at their case, gave the Doctor
to understand that the gentleman thought the accommodation
of the Swan Inn totally unfit for his
lady's rank and condition, and had, by their advice,
(each claiming the merit of the suggestion,) brought
her here, to experience the hospitality of the _west-room_;---
a spare apartment, in which Dr Gray
occasionally accommodated such patients, as he
desired to keep for a space of time under his own
eye.
There were two persons only in the vehicle.
The one a gentleman in a riding dress, sprung out,
and having received from the Doctor an assurance
that the lady would receive tolerable accommodation
in his house, he lent assistance to his companion
to leave the carriage, and with great apparent satisfaction,
saw her safely deposited in a decent sleeping
apartment, and under the respectable charge of
the Doctor and his lady, who assured him once
more of every species of attention. To bind their
promise more firmly, the stranger slipped a purse
of twenty guineas (for this story chanced in the
golden age) into the hand of the Doctor, as an
earnest of the most liberal recompense, and requested
he would spare no expense in providing
all that was necessary or desirable for a person in
the lady's condition, and for the helpless being to,
whom she might immediately be expected to give
birth. He then said he would retire to the inn,
where he begged a message might instantly acquaint
him with the expected change in the lady's
situation.
``She is of rank,'' he said, ``and a foreigner;
let no expense be spared. We designed to have
reached Edinburgh, but were forced to turn off the
road by an accident.'' Once more he said, ``let
no expense be spared, and manage that she may
travel as soon as possible.''
``That,'' said the Doctor, ``is past my control.
Nature must not be hurried, and she avenges herself
of every attempt to do so.''
``But art,'' said the stranger, ``can do much,''
and he proffered a second purse, which seemed as
heavy as the first.
``Art,'' said the Doctor, ``may be recompensed,
but cannot be purchased. You have already paid
me more than enough to take the utmost care I can
of your lady; should I accept more money, it could
only be for promising, by implication at least, what
is beyond my power to perform. Every possible
care shall be taken of your lady, and that affords
the best chance of her being speedily able to travel.
---Now, go you to the inn, sir, for I may be instantly
wanted, and we have not yet provided
either an attendant for the lady, or a nurse for the
child; but both shall be presently done.''
``Yet a moment, Doctor---what languages do
you understand?''
``Latin and French I can speak indifferently,
and so as to be understood; and I read a little
Italian.''
``But no Portuguese or Spanish?'' continued the
stranger.
``No, sir.''
``That is unlucky. But you may make her
understand you by means of French. Take notice,
you are to comply with her request in every thing
---if you want means to do so, you may apply to
me.''
``May I ask, sir, by what name the lady is to
be------''
``It is totally indifferent,'' said the stranger, interrupting
the question; `` you shall know it at
more leisure.''
So saying, he threw his ample cloak about him,
turning himself half round to assist the operation,
with an air which the Doctor would have found it
difficult to imitate, and walked down the street to
the little inn. Here he paid and dismissed the
postilions, and shut himself up in an apartment,
ordering no one to be admitted till the Doctor
should call.
The Doctor, when he returned to his patient's
apartment, found his wife in great surprise, which,
as is usual with persons of her character, was not
unmixed with fear and anxiety.
``She cannot speak a word like a Christian
being,'' said Mrs Gray.
``I know it,'' said the Doctor.
``But she threeps to keep on a black fause-face,
and skirls if we offer to take it away.''
``Well then, let her wear it---What harm will
it do?''
``Harm, Doctor! Was ever honest woman
brought to bed with a fause-face on?''
``Seldom, perhaps. But, Jean, my dear, those
who are not quite honest must be brought to bed
all the same as those who are, and we are not to
endanger the poor thing's life by contradicting her
whims at present.''
Approaching the sick woman's bed, he observed
that she indeed wore a thin silk mask, of the kind
which do such uncommon service in the elder
comedy; such as women of rank still wore in travelling,
but certainly never in the situation of this
poor lady. It would seem she had sustained importunity
on the subject, for when she saw the
Doctor, she put her hand to her face, as if she was
afraid he would insist on pulling off the vizard. He
hastened to say, in tolerable French, that her will
should be a law to them in every respect, and that
she was at perfect liberty to wear the mask till it was
her pleasure to lay it aside. She understood him;
for she replied, by a very imperfect attempt in the
same language, to express her gratitude for the
permission, as she seemed to regard it, of retaining
her disguise.
The Doctor proceeded to other arrangements;
and, for the satisfaction of those readers who may
love minute information, we record that Luckie
Simson, the first in the race, carried as a prize the
situation of sick-nurse beside the delicate patient;
that Peg Thomson was permitted the privilege of
recommending her good-daughter, Bet Jamieson,
to be wet-nurse; and an _oe_, or grandchild of
Luckie Jaup was hired to assist in the increased
drudgery of the family; the Doctor thus, like a
practised minister, dividing among his trusty adherents
such good things as fortune placed at his
disposal.
About one in the morning the Doctor made his
appearance at the Swan Inn, and acquainted the
stranger gentleman, that he wished him joy of
being the father of a healthy boy, and that the mother
was, in the usual phrase, as well as could be
expected.
The stranger heard the news with seeming satisfaction,
and then exclaimed, ``He must be christened,
Doctor! he must be christened instantly!''
``There can be no hurry for that,'' said the
Doctor.
``_We_ think otherwise,'' said the stranger, cutting
his argument short. ``I am a Catholic, Doctor,
and as I may be obliged to leave this place before
the lady is able to travel, I desire to see my child
received into the pale of the church. There is, I
understand, a Catholic priest in this wretched
place?''
``There is a Catholic gentleman, sir, Mr Goodriche,
who is reported to be in orders.''
``I commend your caution, Doctor,'' said the
stranger; ``it is dangerous to be too positive on
any subject. I will bring that same Mr Goodriche
to your house to-morrow.''
Gray hesitated for a moment. ``I am a Presbyterian
Protestant, sir,'' he said, ``a friend to the
constitution as established in church and state, as
I have a good right, having drawn his Majesty's pay,
God bless him, for four years, as surgeon's mate in
the Cameronian regiment, as my regimental Bible
and commission can testify. But although I be
bound especially to abhor all trafficking or trinketing
with Papists, yet I will not stand in the way
of a tender conscience. Sir, you may call with Mr
Goodriche, when you please, at my house; and
undoubtedly, you being, as I suppose, the father
of the child, you will arrange matters as you please;
only, I do not desire to be thought an abettor or
countenancer of any part of the Popish ritual.''
``Enough, sir,'' said the stranger haughtily, ``we
understand each other.''
The next day he appeared at the Doctor's house
with Mr Goodriche, and two persons understood
to belong to that reverend gentleman's communion.
The party were shut up in an apartment with the
infant, and it may be presumed that the solemnity
of baptism was administered to the unconscious
being, thus strangely launched upon the world.
When the priest and witnesses had retired, the
strange gentleman informed Mr Gray, that, as the
lady had been pronounced unfit for travelling for
several days, he was himself about to leave the
neighbourhood, but would return thither in the
space of ten days, when he hoped to find his companion
able to leave it.
``And by what name are we to call the child
and mother?''
``The infant's name is Richard.''
``But it must have some sirname---so must the
lady---She cannot reside in my house, yet be without
a name.''
``Call them by the name of your town here---
Middlemas, I think it is?''
``Yes, sir.''
``Well Mrs Middlemas is the name of the mother,
and Richard Middlemas of the child---and I
am Matthew Middlemas, at your service. This,''
he continued, ``will provide Mrs Middlemas in
everything she may wish to possess---or assist her
in case of accidents.'' With that he placed L.100
in Mr Gray's hand, who rather scrupled receiving
it, saying, ``He supposed the lady was qualified to
be her own purse-bearer.''
``The worst in the world, I assure you, Doctor,''
replied the stranger. ``If she wished to change
that piece of paper, she would scarce know how
many guineas she should receive for it. No, Mr
Gray, I assure you you will find Mrs Middleton---
Middlemas---what did I call her---as ignorant of the
affairs of this world as any one you have met with
in your practice: So you will please to be her treasurer
and administrator for the time, as for a patient
that is incapable to look after her own affairs.''
This was spoke, as it struck Dr Gray, in rather
a haughty and supercilious manner. The words
intimated nothing in themselves, more than the
same desire of preserving incognito, which might
be gathered from all the rest of the stranger's conduct;
but the manner seemed to say, ``I am not a
person to be questioned by any one---What I say
must be received without comment, how little soever
you may believe or understand it.'' It strengthened
Gray in his opinion, that he had before him
a case either of seduction, or of private marriage,
betwixt persons of the very highest rank; and the
whole bearing, both of the lady and the gentleman,
confirmed his suspicions. It was not in his nature
to be troublesome or inquisitive, but he could not
fail to see that the lady wore no marriage-ring;
and her deep sorrow, and perpetual tremor, seemed
to indicate an unhappy creature, who had lost the
protection of parents, without acquiring a legitimate
right to that of a husband. He was therefore
somewhat anxious when Mr Middlemas, after a
private conference of some length with the lady,
bade him farewell. It is true, he assured him of
his return within ten days, being the very shortest
space which Gray could be prevailed upon to assign
for any prospect of the lady being moved with
safety.
``I trust in Heaven that he will return,'' said
Gray to himself, ``but there is too much mystery
about all this, for the matter being a plain and well-meaning
transaction. If he intends to treat this poor
thing, as many a poor girl has been used before, I
hope that my house will not be the scene in which
he chooses to desert her. The leaving the money
has somewhat a suspicious aspect, and looks as if
my friend were in the act of making some compromise
with his conscience. Well---I must hope the
best. Meantime my path plainly is to do what I
can for the poor lady's benefit.''
Mr Gray visited his patient shortly after Mr Middlemas's
departure---as soon, indeed, as he could
be admitted. He found her in violent agitation.
Gray's experience dictated the best mode of relief
and tranquillity. He caused her infant to be brought
to her. She wept over it for a long time, and the
violence of her agitation subsided under the influence
of parental feelings, which, from her appearance
of extreme youth, she must have experienced
for the first time.
The observant physician could, after this paroxysm,
remark that his patient's mind was chiefly
occupied in computing the passage of the time, and
anticipating the period when the return of her husband---
if husband he was---might be expected. She
consulted almanacks, enquired concerning distances,
though so cautiously as to make it evident she desired
to give no indication of the direction of her
companion's journey, and repeatedly compared her
watch with those of others; exercising, it was evident,
all that delusive species of mental arithmetic
by which mortals attempt to accelerate the passage
of Time while they calculate his progress. At
other times she wept anew over her child, which was
by all judges pronounced as goodly an infant as
needed to be seen; and Gray sometimes observed
that she murmured sentences to the unconscious
infant, not only the words, but the very sound and
accents of which were strange to him, and which,
in particular, he knew not to be Portuguese.
Mr Goodriche, the Catholic priest, demanded
access to her upon one occasion. She at first declined
his visit, but afterwards received it, under
the idea, perhaps, that he might have news from
Mr Middlemas, as he called himself. The interview
was a very short one, and the priest left the
lady's apartment in displeasure, which his prudence
could scarce disguise from Mr Gray. He never
returned, although the lady's condition would have
made his attentions and consolations necessary, had
she been a member of the Catholic Church.
Our Doctor began at length to suspect his fair
guest was a Jewess, who had yielded up her person
and affections to one of a different religion; and
the peculiar style of her beautiful countenance went
to enforce this opinion. The circumstance made
no difference to Gray, who saw only her distress
and desolation, and endeavoured to remedy both
to the utmost of his power. He was, however,
desirous to conceal it from his wife, and the others
around the sick person, whose prudence and liberality
of thinking might be more justly doubted.
He therefore so regulated her diet, that she could
not be either offended, or brought under suspicion,
by any of the articles forbidden by the Mosaic law
being presented to her. In other respects than
what concerned her health or convenience, he had
but little intercourse with her.
The space passed within which the stranger's
return to the borough had been so anxiously expected
by his female companion. The disappointment
occasioned by his non-arrival was manifested
in the convalescent by inquietude, which was at
first mingled with peevishness, and afterwards
with doubt and fear. When two or three days
had passed without message or letter of any kind,
Gray himself became anxious, both on his own
account and the poor lady's, lest the stranger should
have actually entertained the idea of deserting this
defenceless and probably injured woman. He
longed to have some communication with her,
which might enable him to judge what enquiries
could be made, or what else was most fitting to be
done. But so imperfect was the poor young woman's
knowledge of the French language, and perhaps
so unwilling she herself to throw any light on
her situation, that every attempt of this kind proved
abortive. When Gray asked questions concerning
any subject which appeared to approach to explanation,
he observed she usually answered him by
shaking her head, in token of not understanding
what he said; at other times by silence and with
tears, and sometimes referring him to _Monsieur_.
For _Monsieur's_ arrival, then, Gray began to become
very impatient, as that which alone could put
an end to a disagreeable species of mystery, which
the good company of the borough began now to
make the principal subject of their gossip; some
blaming Gray for bringing foreign _landloupers_* into
* Strollers.
his house, on the subject of whose morals the most
serious doubts might be entertained; others envying
the ``bonny hand'' the doctor was like to make
of it, by having disposal of the wealthy stranger's
travelling funds; a circumstance which could not
be well concealed from the public, when the honest
man's expenditure for trifling articles of luxury
came far to exceed its ordinary bounds.
The conscious probity of the honest Doctor enabled
him to despise this sort of tittle-tattle, though
the secret knowledge of its existence could not be
agreeable to him. He went his usual rounds with
his usual perseverance, and waited with patience
until time should throw light on the subject and
history of his lodger. It was now the fourth week
after her confinement, and the recovery of the stranger
might be considered as perfect, when Gray,
returning from one of his ten-mile visits, saw a
post-chaise and four horses at the door. ``This
man has returned,'' he said, ``and my suspicions
have done him less than justice.'' With that he
spurred his horse, a signal which the trusty steed
obeyed the more readily, as its progress was in the
direction of the stable door. But when, dismounting,
the Doctor hurried into his own house, it
seemed to him, that the departure as well as the
arrival of this distressed lady was destined to bring
confusion to his peaceful dwelling. Several idlers
had assembled about his door, and two or three
had impudently thrust themselves forward almost
into the passage, to listen to a confused altercation
which was heard from within.
The Doctor hastened forward, the foremost of the
intruders retreating in confusion on his approach,
while he caught the tones of his wife's voice, raised
to a pitch which he knew, by experience, boded
no good; for Mrs Gray, good-humoured and tractable
in general, could sometimes perform the high
part in a matrimonial duet. Having much more
confidence in his wife's good intentions than her
prudence, he lost no time in pushing into the parlour,
to take the matter into his own hands. Here
he found his helpmate at the head of the whole
militia of the sick lady's apartment, that is, wet
nurse, and sick nurse, and girl of all work, engaged
in violent dispute with two strangers. The
one was a dark-featured elderly man, with an eye of
much sharpness and severity of expression, which
now seemed partly quenched by a mixture of grief
and mortification. The other, who appeared actively
sustaining the dispute with Mrs Gray, was
a stout, bold-looking, hard-faced person, armed
with pistols, of which he made rather an unnecessary
and ostentatious display.
``Here is my husband, sir,'' said Mrs Gray in a
tone of triumph, for she had the grace to believe
the Doctor one of the greatest men living,---``Here
is the Doctor---let us see what you will say now.''
``Why just what I said before, ma'am,'' answered
the man, ``which is, that my warrant must
be obeyed. It is regular, ma'am, regular.''
So saying, he struck the forefinger of his right
hand against a paper which he held towards Mrs
Gray with his left.
``Address yourself to me, if you please, sir,''
said the Doctor, seeing that he ought to lose no
time in removing the cause into the proper court.
``I am the master of this house, sir, and I wish to
know the cause of this visit.''
``My business is soon told,'' said the man. ``I
am a King's messenger, and this lady has treated
me, as if I was a baron-bailies officer.''
``That is not the question, sir,'' replied the Doctor.
``If you are a king's messenger, where is
your warrant, and what do you propose to do
here?'' At the same time he whispered the little
wench to call Mr Lawford, the town-clerk, to come
thither as fast as he possibly could. The good-daughter
of Peg Thomson started off with all activity
worthy of her mother-in-law.
``There is my warrant,'' said the official, ``and
you may satisfy yourself.''
``The shameless loon dare not tell the Doctor his
errand,'' said Mrs Gray exultingly.
``A bonny errand it is,'' said old Lucky Simson,
``to carry away a lying-in woman, as a gled*
* Or Kite.
would do a clocking-hen.''
``A woman no a month delivered''---echoed the
nurse Jamieson.
``Twenty-four days eight hours and seven minutes
to a second,'' said Mrs Gray.
The Doctor having looked over the warrant,
which was regular, began to be afraid that the females
of his family, in their zeal for defending the
character of their sex, might be stirred up into
some sudden fit of mutiny, and therefore commanded
them to be silent.
``This,'' he said, ``is a warrant for arresting the
bodies of Richard Tresham, and of Zilia de Mon<c,>ada,
on account of high treason. Sir, I have
served his Majesty, and this is not a house in which
traitors are harboured. I know nothing of any of
these two persons, nor have I ever heard even their
names.''
``But the lady whom you have received into
your family,'' said the messenger, ``is Zilia de
Mon<c,>ada, and here stands her father, Matthias de
Mon<c,>ada, who will make oath to it.''
``If this be true,'' said Mr Gray, looking towards
the alleged officer, ``you have taken a singular
duty on you. It is neither my habit to
deny my own actions, nor to oppose the laws of
the land. There is a lady in this house slowly recovering
from confinement, having become under
this roof the mother of a healthy child. If she be
the person described in this warrant, and this gentleman's
daughter, I must surrender her to the laws
of the country.''
Here the Esculapian militia were once more in
motion.
``Surrender, Doctor Gray! It's a shame to hear
you speak, and you that lives by women and weans,
abune your other means!'' so exclaimed his fair
better part.
``I wonder to hear the Doctor!''---said the
younger nurse; ``there's no a wife in the town
would believe it o' him.''
``I aye thought the Doctor was a man till this
moment,'' said Luckie Simson; ``but I believe
him now to be an auld wife, little baulder than
mysell; and I dinna wonder now that poor Mrs
Gray------''
``Hold your peace, you foolish women,'' said the
Doctor. ``Do you think this business is not bad
enough already, that you are making it worse with
your senseless claver?*---Gentlemen, this is a
* Tattling.
very sad case. Here is a warrant for a high crime
against a poor creature, who is little fit to be moved
from one house to another, much more dragged to a
prison. I tell you plainly, that I think the execution
of this arrest may cause her death. It is your
business, sir, if you be really her father, to consider
what you can do to soften this matter, rather
than drive it on.''
``Better death than dishonour,'' replied the
stern-looking old man, with a voice as harsh as
his aspect; ``and you, messenger,'' he continued,
``look what you do, and execute the warrant at
your peril.''
``You hear,'' said the man, appealing to the
Doctor himself, ``I must have immediate access to
the lady.''
``In a lucky time,'' said Mr Gray, ``here comes
the town-clerk.---You are very welcome, Mr Lawford.
Your opinion here is much wanted as a man
of law, as well as of sense and humanity. I was
never more glad to see you in all my life.''
He then rapidly stated the case; and the messenger,
understanding the new-comer to be a man
of some authority, again exhibited his warrant.
``This is a very sufficient and valid warrant, Dr
Gray,'' replied the man of law. ``Nevertheless,
if you are disposed to make oath, that instant removal
would be unfavourable to the lady's health,
unquestionably she must remain here, suitably
guarded.''
``It is not so much the mere act of locomotion
which I am afraid of,'' said the surgeon; ``but I
am free to depone, on soul and conscience, that
the shame and fear of her father's anger, and the
sense of the affront of such an arrest, with terror
for its consequences, may occasion violent and dangerous
illness---even death itself.''
``The father must see the daughter, though they
may have quarrelled,'' said Mr Lawford; ``the
officer of justice must execute his warrant, though
it should frighten the criminal to death; these
evils are only contingent, not direct and immediate
consequences. You must give up the lady, Mr
Gray, though your hesitation is very natural.''
``At least, Mr Lawford, I ought to be certain
that the person in my house is the party they
search for.''
``Admit me to her apartment,'' replied the man
whom the messenger termed Mon<c,>ada.
The messenger, whom the presence of Lawford
had made something more placid, began to become
impudent once more. He hoped, he said, by means
of his female prisoner, to acquire the information
necessary to apprehend the more guilty person. If
more delays were thrown in his way, that information
might come too late, and he would make
all who were accessary to such delay responsible
for the consequences.
``And l,'' said Mr Gray, ``though I were to be
brought to the gallows for it, protest, that this
course may be the murder of my patient.---Can
bail not be taken, Mr Lawford?''
``Not in cases of high treason.'' said the official
person; and then continued in a confidential tone,
``Come, Mr Gray, we all know you to be a person
well affected to our Royal Sovereign King George
and the Government; but you must not push this
too far, lest you bring yourself into trouble, which
every body in Middlemas would be sorry for. The
forty-five has not been so far gone by, but we can
remember enough of warrants of high treason---
ay, and ladies of quality committed upon such
charges. But they were all favourably dealt with
---Lady Ogilvy, Lady MacIntosh, Flora Macdonald,
and all. No doubt this gentleman knows
what he is doing, and has assurances of the young
lady's safety---So you must just jouk and let the
jaw gae by, as we say.''
``Follow me, then, gentlemen,'' said Gideon,
``and you shall see the young lady;'' and then,
his strong features working with emotion at anticipation
of the distress which he was about to inflict,
he led the way up the small staircase, and
opening the door, said to Mon<c,>ada who had followed
him, ``This is your daughter's only place
of refuge, in which I am, alas! too weak to be her
protector. Enter, sir, if your conscience will permit
you.''
The stranger turned on him a scowl, into which
it seemed as if he would willingly have thrown
the power of the fabled basilisk. Then stepping
proudly forward, he stalked into the room. He
was followed by Lawford and Gray at a little distance.
The messenger remained in the doorway.
The unhappy young woman had heard the disturbance,
and guessed the cause too truly. It is Possible
she might even have seen the strangers on
their descent from the carriage. When they entered
the room, she was on her knees, beside an
easy chair, her face in a silk wrapper that was hung
over it. The man called Mon<c,>ada uttered a single
word; by the accent it might have been something
equivalent to _wretch_; but none knew its import.
The female gave a convulsive shudder, such as that
by which a half-dying soldier is affected on receiving
a second wound. But without minding her
emotion, Mon<c,>ada seized her by the arm, and with
little gentleness raised her to her feet, on which
she seemed to stand only because she was supported
by his strong grasp. He then pulled from her
face the mask which she had hitherto worn. The
poor creature still endeavoured to shroud her face,
by covering it with her left hand, as the manner
in which she was held prevented her from using
the aid of the right. With little effort her father
secured that hand also, which, indeed, was of itself
far too little to serve the purpose of concealment,
and showed her beautiful face, burning with blushes
and covered with tears.
``You, Alcalde, and you, Surgeon,'' he said to
Lawford and Gray, with a foreign action and accent,
``this woman is my daughter, the same Zilia
Mon<c,>ada who is signal'd in that protocol. Make
way, and let me carry her where her crimes may
be atoned for.''
``Are you that person's daughter?'' said Lawford
to the lady.
``She understands no English,'' said Gray; and
addressing his patient in French, conjured her to
let him know whether she was that man's daughter
or not, assuring her of protection if the fact were
otherwise. The answer was murmured faintly,
but was too distinctly intelligible---`` He was her
father.''
All farther title of interference seemed now
ended. The messenger arrested his prisoner,
and, with some delicacy, required the assistance of
the females to get her conveyed to the carriage in
waiting.
Gray again interfered.---``You will not,'' he said,
``separate the mother and the infant?''
Zilia de Mon<c,>ada heard the question, (which,
being addressed to the father, Gray had inconsiderately
uttered in French,) and it seemed as if it
recalled to her recollection the existence of the
helpless creature to which she had given birth,
forgotten for a moment amongst the accumulated
horrors of her father's presence. She uttered a
shriek, expressing poignant grief, and turned her
eyes on her father with the most intense supplication.
``To the parish with the bastard!''---said Mon<c,>ada;
while the helpless mother sunk lifeless into
the arms of the females, who had now gathered
round her.
``That will not pass, sir,'' said Gideon.---``If
you are father to that lady, you must be grandfather
to the helpless child; and you must settle
in some manner for its future provision, or refer
us to some responsible person.''
Mon<c,>ada looked towards Lawford, who expressed
himself satisfied of the propriety of what
Gray said.
``I object not to pay for whatever the wretched
child may require,'' said he; ``and if you, sir,'' addressing
Gray, ``choose to take charge of him,
and breed him up, you shall have what will better
your living.''
The doctor was about to refuse a charge so uncivilly
offered; but after a moment's reflection, he
replied, ``I think so indifferently of the proceedings
I have witnessed, and of those concerned in
them, that if the mother desires that I should
retain the charge of this child, I will not refuse to
do so.''
Mon<c,>ada spoke to his daughter, who was just
beginning to recover from her swoon, in the same
language in which he had first addressed her. The
propositions which he made seemed highly acceptable,
as she started from the arms of the females,
and, advancing to Gray, seized his hand, kissed it,
bathed it in her tears, and seemed reconciled, even
in parting with her child, by the consideration,
that the infant was to remain under his guardianship.
``Good, kind man,'' she said in her indifferent
French, ``you have saved both mother and child.''
The father, meanwhile, with mercantile deliberation,
placed in Mr Lawford's hands notes and
bills to the amount of a thousand pounds, which
he stated was to be vested for the child's use, and
advanced in such portions as his board and education
might require. In the event of any correspondence
on his account being necessary, as in case
of death or the like, he directed that communication
should be made to Signior Matthias Mon<c,>ada,
under cover to a certain banking-house in London.
``But beware,'' he said to Gray, ``how you
trouble me about these concerns, unless in case of
absolute necessity.''
``You need not fear, sir,'' replied Gray; ``I have
seen nothing to-day which can induce me to desire
a more intimate correspondence with you than may
be indispensable.''
While Lawford drew up a proper minute of this
transaction, by which he himself and Gray were
named trustees for the child, Mr Gray attempted
to restore to the lady the balance of the considerable
sum of money which Tresham (if such was
his real name) had formerly deposited with him.
With every species of gesture, by which hands,
eyes, and even feet, could express rejection, as
well as in her own broken French, she repelled the
proposal of reimbursement, while she entreated
that Gray would consider the money as his own
property; and at the same time forced upon him a
ring set with brilliants, which seemed of considerable
value. The father then spoke to her a few
stern words, which she heard with an air of mingled
agony and submission.
``I have given her a few minutes to see and
weep over the miserable being which has been the
seal of her dishonour,'' said the stern father. ``Let
us retire and leave her alone.---You,'' to the messenger,
``watch the door of the room on the outside.''
Gray, Lawford, and Mon<c,>ada, retired to the
parlour accordingly, where they waited in silence,
each busied with his own reflections, till, within the
space of half an hour, they received information
that the lady was ready to depart.
``It is well,'' replied Mon<c,>ada; ``I am glad she
has yet sense enough left to submit to that which
needs must be.''
So saying, he ascended the stair, and returned,
leading down his daughter, now again masked and
veiled. As she passed Gray, she uttered the
words---``My child, my child!'' in a tone of unutterable
anguish; then entered the carriage, which
was drawn up as close to the door of the Doctor's
house as the little enclosure would permit. The
messenger, mounted on a led horse, and accompanied
by a servant and assistant, followed the carriage,
which drove rapidly off, taking the road
which leads to Edinburgh. All who had witnessed
this strange scene, now departed to make their conjectures,
and some to count their gains; for money
had been distributed among the females who had
attended on the lady, with so much liberality, as
considerably to reconcile them to the breach of the
rights of womanhood inflicted by the precipitate
removal of the patient.
CHAPTER II.
The last cloud of dust which the wheels of the
carriage had raised was dissipated, when dinner,
which claims a share of human thoughts even in
the midst of the most marvellous and affecting incidents,
recurred to those of Mrs Gray.
``Indeed, Doctor, you will stand glowering out
of the window till some other patient calls for you,
and then have to set off without your dinner;---
and I hope Mr Lawford will take pot-luck with us,
for it is just his own hour; and indeed we had
something rather better than ordinary for this poor
lady---lamb and spinage, and a veal Florentine.''
The surgeon started as from a dream, and joined
in his wife's hospitable request, to which Lawford
willingly assented.
We will suppose the meal finished, a bottle of
old and generous Antigua upon the table, and a
modest little punch-bowl, judiciously replenished
for the accommodation of the Doctor and his guest.
Their conversation naturally turned on the strange
scene which they had witnessed, and the Town-Clerk
took considerable merit for his presence of
mind.
``I am thinking, Doctor,'' said he, ``you might
have brewed a bitter browst to yourself if I had not
come in as I did.''
``Troth, and it might very well so be,'' answered
Gray; ``for, to tell you the truth, when I saw
yonder fellow vapouring with his pistols among the
women folk in my own house, the old Cameronian
spirit began to rise in me, and little thing would
have made me cleek to the poker.''
``Hoot! hoot! that would never have done.
Na, na,'' said the man of law, ``this was a case
where a little prudence was worth all the pistols
and pokers in the world.''
``And that was just what I thought when I sent
to you, Clerk Lawford,'' said the Doctor.
``A wiser man he could not have called on to
a difficult case,'' added Mrs Gray, as she sat with
her work at a little distance from the table.
``Thanks t'ye, and here's t'ye, my good neighbour,''
answered the scribe; ``will you not let me
help you to another glass of punch, Mrs Gray?''
This being declined, he proceeded. ``I am jalousing
that the messenger and his warrant were just
brought in to prevent any opposition. Ye saw how
quietly he behaved after I had laid down the law---
I'll never believe the lady is in any risk from him.
But the father is a dour chield; depend upon it, he
has bred up the young filly on the curb-rein, and
that has made the poor thing start off the course.
I should not be surprised that he took her abroad
and shut her up in a convent.''
``Hardly,'' replied Doctor Gray, ``if it be true,
as I suspect, that both the father and daughter are
of the Jewish persuasion.''
``A Jew!'' said Mrs Gray; ``and have I been
taking a' this fyke about a Jew?---l thought she
seemed to gie a scunner at the eggs and bacon that
Nurse Simson spoke about to her, But I thought
Jews had aye had lang beards, and yon man's face
is just like one of our ain folks---I have seen the
Doctor with a langer beard himsell, when he has
not had leisure to shave.''
``That might have been Mr Mon<c,>ada's case,''
said Lawford, ``for he seemed to have had a hard
journey. But the Jews are often very respectable
people, Mrs Gray---they have no territorial property,
because the law is against them there, but
they have a good bank in the money market---
plenty of stock in the funds, Mrs Gray, and, indeed,
I think this poor young woman is better with
her ain father, though he be a Jew and a dour chield
into the bargain, than she would have been with the
loon that wronged her, who is, by your account,
Dr Gray, baith a papist and a rebel. The Jews
are well attached to government; they hate the
Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender, as much as
any honest man among ourselves.''
``I cannot admire either of the gentleman,'' said
Gideon. ``But it is but fair to say, that I saw Mr
Mon<c,>ada when he was highly incensed, and to all
appearance not without reason. Now, this other
man Tresham, if that be his name, was haughty to
me, and I think something careless of the poor
young woman, just at the time when he owed her
most kindness, and me some thankfulness. I am,
therefore, of your opinion, Clerk Lawford, that the
Christian is the worst bargain of the two.''
``And you think of taking care of this wean
yourself, Doctor? That is what I call the good
Samaritan.''
``At cheap cost, Clerk; the child, if it lives, has
enough to bring it up decently, and set it out in
life, and I can teach it an honourable and useful
profession. It will be rather an amusement than
a trouble to me, and I want to make some remarks
on the childish diseases, which, with God's blessing,
the child must come through under my charge;
and since Heaven has sent us no children------''
``Hoot, hoot!'' said the Town-Clerk, ``you are
in ower great a hurry now---you have na been sae
lang married yet.---Mrs Gray, dinna let my daffing
chase you away---we will be for a dish of tea belive,
for the Doctor and I are nae glass-breakers.''
Four years after this conversation took place,
the event happened, at the possibility of which the
Town-Clerk had hinted; and Mrs Gray presented
her husband with an infant daughter. But good
and evil are strangely mingled in this sublunary
world. The fulfilment of his anxious longing for
posterity was attended with the loss of his simple
and kind-hearted wife; one of the most heavy
blows which fate could inflict on poor Gideon, and
his house was made desolate even by the event
which had promised for months before to add new
comforts to its humble roof. Gray felt the shock
as men of sense and firmness feel a decided blow,
from the effects of which they never hope again
fully to raise themselves. He discharged the duties
of his profession with the same punctuality as
ever, was easy, and even, to appearance, cheerful
in his intercourse with society; but the sunshine of
existence was gone. Every morning he missed the
affectionate charges which recommended to him to
pay attention to his own health while he was labouring
to restore that blessing to his patients.
Every evening, as he returned from his weary
round, it was without the consciousness of a kind
and affectionate reception from one eager to tell,
and interested to hear, all the little events of the
day. His whistle, which used to arise clear and
strong so soon as Middlemas steeple was in view,
was now for ever silenced, and the rider's head
drooped, while the tired horse, lacking the stimulus
of his master's hand and voice, seemed to shuffle
along as if it experienced a share of his despondency.
There were times when he was so much
dejected as to be unable to endure even the presence
of his little Menie, in whose infant countenance
he could trace the lineaments of the mother,
of whose loss she had been the innocent and unconscious
cause. ``Had it not been for this poor
child''---he would think; but, instantly aware that
the sentiment was sinful, he would snatch the infant
to his breast, and load it with caresses---then hastily
desire it to be removed from the parlour.
The Mahometans have a fanciful idea, that the
true believer, in his passage to Paradise, is under
the necessity of passing barefooted over a bridge
composed of red-hot iron. But on this occasion,
all the pieces of paper which the Moslem has preserved
during his life, lest some holy thing being
written upon them might be profaned, arrange
themselves between his feet and the burning metal,
and so save him from injury. In the same manner,
the effects of kind and benevolent actions are sometimes
found, even in this world, to assuage the
pangs of subsequent afflictions.
Thus, the greatest consolation which poor Gideon
could find after his heavy deprivation, was in the
frolic fondness of Richard Middlemas, the child
who was in so singular a manner thrown upon his
charge. Even at this early age he was eminently
handsome. When silent or out of humour, his
dark eyes and striking countenance presented some
recollections of the stern character imprinted on the
features of his supposed father; but when he was
gay and happy, which was much more frequently
the case, these clouds were exchanged for the most
frolicsome, mirthful expression, that ever dwelt on
the laughing and thoughtless aspect of a child.
He seemed to have a tact beyond his years in discovering
and conforming to the peculiarities of
human character. His nurse, one prime object of
Richard's observance, was Nurse Jamieson, or, as
she was more commonly called for brevity, and _par
excellence_, Nurse. This was the person who had
brought him up from infancy. She had lost her
own child, and soon after her husband, and being
thus a lone woman, had, as used to be common in
Scotland, remained a member of Dr Gray's family.
After the death of his wife, she gradually obtained
the principal superintendence of the whole household;
and being an honest and capable manager, was
a person of very great importance in the family.
She was bold in her temper, violent in her feelings,
and, as often happens with those in her condition,
was as much attached to Richard Middlemas,
whom she had once nursed at her bosom, as if he
had been her own son. This affection the child
repaid by all the tender attentions of which his age
was capable.
Little Dick was also distinguished by the fondest
and kindest attachment to his guardian and benefactor,
Dr Gray. He was officious in the right time
and place, quiet as a lamb when his patron seemed
inclined to study or to muse, active and assiduous
to assist or divert him whenever it seemed to be
wished, and, in choosing his opportunities, he
seemed to display an address far beyond his childish
years.
As time passed on, this pleasing character seemed
to be still more refined. In every thing like exercise
or amusement, he was the pride and the
leader of the boys of the place, over the most of
whom his strength and activity gave him a decided
superiority. At school his abilities were less distinguished,
yet he was a favourite with the master,
a sensible and useful teacher.
``Richard is not swift,'' he used to say to his
patron, Dr Gray, ``but then he is sure; and it is
impossible not to be pleased with a child who is so
very desirous to give satisfaction.''
Young Middlemas's grateful affection to his patron
seemed to increase with the expanding of his
faculties, and found a natural and pleasing mode
of displaying itself in his attentions to little Menie*
* Marion.
Gray. Her slightest wish was Richard's law, and
it was in vain that he was summoned forth by a
hundred shrill voices to take the lead in hye-spye,
or at foot-ball, if it was little Menie's pleasure that
he should remain within, and build card-houses for
her amusement. At other times he would take
the charge of the little damsel entirely under his
own care, and be seen wandering with her on the
borough common, collecting wild flowers, or knitting
caps made of bulrushes. Menie was attached
to Dick Middlemas, in proportion to his affectionate
assiduities; and the father saw with pleasure
every new mark of attention to the child on the
part of his proteg<e'>.
During the time that Richard was silently advancing
from a beautiful child into a fine boy, and
approaching from a fine boy to the time when he
must be termed a handsome youth, Mr Gray wrote
twice a-year with much regularity to Mr Mon<c,>ada,
through the channel that gentleman had pointed
out. The benevolent man thought, that if the
wealthy grandfather could only see his relative, of
whom any family might be proud, he would be
unable to persevere in his resolution of treating as
an outcast one so nearly connected with him in
blood, and so interesting in person and disposition.
He thought it his duty, therefore, to keep open the
slender and oblique communication with the boy's
maternal grandfather, as that which might, at some
future period, lead to a closer connexion. Yet
the correspondence could not, in other respects, be
agreeable to a man of spirit like Mr Gray. His
own letters were as short as possible, merely rendering
an account of his ward's expenses, including
a moderate board to himself, attested by Mr Lawford,
his co-trustee; and intimating Richard's state
of health, and his progress in education, with a few
words of brief but warm eulogy upon his goodness
of head and heart. But the answers he received
were still shorter. ``Mr Mon<c,>ada,'' such was their
usual tenor, ``acknowledges Mr Gray's letter of
such a date, notices the contents, and requests Mr
Gray to persist in the plan which he has hitherto
prosecuted on the subject of their correspondence.''
On occasions where extraordinary expenses seemed
likely to be incurred, the remittances were made
with readiness.
That day fortnight after Mrs Gray's death, fifty
pounds were received, with a note, intimating that
it was designed to put the child R. M. into proper
mourning. The writer had added two or three
words, desiring that the surplus should be at Mr
Gray's disposal, to meet the additional expenses of
this period of calamity; but Mr Mon<c,>ada had left
the phrase unfinished, apparently in despair of
turning it suitably into English. Gideon, without
farther investigation, quietly added the sum to the
account of his ward's little fortune, contrary to the
opinion of Mr Lawford, who, aware that he was
rather a loser than a gainer by the boy's residence
in his house, was desirous that his friend should
not omit an opportunity of recovering some part of
his expenses on that score. But Gray was proof
against all remonstrance.
As the boy advanced towards his fourteenth
year, Dr Gray wrote a more elaborate account of
his ward's character, acquirements, and capacity.
He added, that he did this for the purpose of enabling
Mr Mon<c,>ada to judge how the young man's
future education should be directed. Richard, he
observed, was arrived at the point where education,
losing its original and general character,
branches off into different paths of knowledge,
suitable to particular professions, and when it was
therefore become necessary to determine which of
them it was his pleasure that young Richard should
be trained for; and he would, on his part, do all
he could to carry Mr Mon<c,>ada's wishes into execution,
since the amiable qualities of the boy made
him as dear to him, though but a guardian, as he
could have been to his own father.
The answer, which arrived in the course of a
week or ten days, was fuller than usual, and written
in the first person.---``Mr Gray,'' such was the
tenor, ``our meeting has been under such circumstances
as could not make us favourably known to
each other at the time. But I have the advantage
of you, since, knowing your motives for entertaining
an indifferent opinion of me, I could respect
them, and you at the same time; whereas you, unable
to comprehend the motives---I say, you, being
unacquainted with the infamous treatment I had
received, could not understand the reasons that I
have for acting as I have done. Deprived, sir, by
the act of a villain, of my child, and she despoiled
of honour, I cannot bring myself to think of beholding
the creature, however innocent, whose look
must always remind me of hatred and of shame.
Keep the poor child by you---educate him to your
own profession, but take heed that he looks no
higher than to fill such a situation in life as you
yourself worthily occupy, or some other line of
like importance. For the condition of a farmer, a
country lawyer, a medical practitioner, or some
such retired course of life, the means of outfit and
education shall be amply supplied. But I must
warn him and you, that any attempt to intrude
himself on me further than I may especially permit,
will be attended with the total forfeiture of
my favour and protection. So, having made known
my mind to you, I expect you will act accordingly.''
The receipt of this letter determined Gideon to
have some explanation with the boy himself, in
order to learn if he had any choice among the professions
thus opened to him; convinced, at the same
time, from his docility of temper, that he would
refer the selection to his (Dr Gray's) better judgment.
He had previously, however, the unpleasing task
of acquainting Richard Middlemas with the mysterious
circumstances attending his birth, of which
he presumed him to be entirely ignorant, simply
because he himself had never communicated them,
but had let the boy consider himself as the orphan
child of a distant relation. But though the Doctor
himself was silent, he might have remembered
that Nurse Jamieson had the handsome enjoyment
of her tongue, and was disposed to use it liberally.
From a very early period, Nurse Jamieson,
amongst the variety of legendary lore which she
instilled into her foster son, had not forgotten what
she called the awful season of his coming into the
world---the personable appearance of his father, a
grand gentleman, who looked as if the whole world
lay at his feet---the beauty of his mother, and the
terrible blackness of the mask which she wore, her
een that glanced like diamonds, and the diamonds
she wore on her fingers, that could be compared to
nothing but her own een, the fairness of her skin,
and the colour of her silk rokelay, with much proper
stuff to the same purpose. Then she expatiated
on the arrival of his grandfather, and the awful
man, armed with pistol, dirk, and claymore,
(the last weapons existed only in Nurse's imagination,)
the very Ogre of a fairy tale---then all the
circumstances of the carrying off his mother, while
bank-notes were flying about the house like screeds
of brown paper, and gold guineas were as plenty
as chuckie-stanes. All this, partly to please and
interest the boy, partly to indulge her own talent
for amplification, Nurse told with so many additional
circumstances, and gratuitous commentaries,
that the real transaction, mysterious and odd as it
certainly was, sunk into tameness before the
Nurse's edition, like humble prose contrasted with
the boldest flights of poetry.
To hear all this did Richard seriously incline,
and still more was he interested with the idea of
his valiant father coming for him unexpectedly at
the head of a gallant regiment, with music playing
and colours flying, and carrying his son away on
the most beautiful pony eyes ever beheld: Or his
mother, bright as the day, might suddenly appear
in her coach-and-six, to reclaim her beloved child;
or his repentant grandfather, with his pockets stuffed
out with bank-notes, would come to atone for
his past cruelty, by heaping his neglected grandchild
with unexpected wealth. Sure was Nurse
Jamieson, ``that it wanted but a blink of her
bairns bonny ee to turn their hearts, as Scripture
sayeth; and as strange things had been, as they
should come a'thegither to the town at the same
time, and make such a day as had never been seen
in Middlemas; and then her bairn would never be
called by that lowland name of Middlemas any
more, which sounded as if it had been gathered out
of the town gutter; but would be called Galatian,*
* Galatian is a name of a person famous in Christmas gambols.
or Sir William Wallace, or Robin Hood, or after
some other of the great princes named in storybooks.''
Nurse Jamieson's history of the past, and prospects
of the future, were too flattering not to excite
the most ambitious visions in the mind of a
boy, who naturally felt a strong desire of rising in
the world, and was conscious of possessing the
powers necessary to his advancement. The incidents
of his birth resembled those he found commemorated
in the tales which he read or listened
to; and there seemed no reason why his own adventures
should not have a termination corresponding
to those of such veracious histories. In a word,
while good Doctor Gray imagined that his pupil
was dwelling in utter ignorance of his origin,
Richard was meditating upon nothing else than the
time and means by which he anticipated his being
extricated from the obscurity of his present condition,
and enabled to assume the rank to which, in
his own opinion, he was entitled by birth.
So stood the feelings of the young man, when,
one day after dinner, the Doctor snuffing the
candle, and taking from his pouch the great leathern
pocketbook in which be deposited particular papers,
with a small supply of the most necessary
and active medicines, he took from it Mr Mon<c,>ada's
letter, and requested Richard Middlemas's
serious attention, while he told him some circumstances
concerning himself, which it greatly imported
him to know. Richard's dark eyes flashed
fire---the blood flushed his broad and well-formed
forehead---the hour of explanation was at length
come. He listened to the narrative of Gideon
Gray, which, the reader may believe, being altogether
divested of the gilding which Nurse Jamieson's
imagination had bestowed upon it, and reduced
to what mercantile men termed the _needful_,
exhibited little more than the tale of a child of
shame, deserted by its father and mother, and
brought up on the reluctant charity of a more
distant relation, who regarded him as the living
though unconscious evidence of the disgrace of his
family, and would more willingly have paid for
the expenses of his funeral, than that of the food
which was grudgingly provided for him. ``Temple
and tower,'' a hundred flattering edifices of Richard's
childish imagination, went to the ground at
once, and the pain which attended their demolition
was rendered the more acute, by a sense of shame
that he should have nursed such reveries. He remained,
while Gideon continued his explanation,
in a dejected posture, his eyes fixed on the ground,
and the veins of his forehead swoln with contending
passions.
``And now, my dear Richard,'' said the good
surgeon, ``you must think what you can do for
yourself, since your grandfather leaves you the
choice of three honourable professions, by any of
which, well and wisely prosecuted, you may become
independent if not wealthy, and respectable
if not great. You will naturally desire a little
time for consideration.''
``Not a minute,'' said the boy, raising his head,
and looking boldly at his guardian. ``I am a free-born
Englishman, and will return to England if I
think fit.''
``A free-born fool you are''---said Gray; ``you
were born, as I think, and no one can know better
than I do, in the blue room of Stevenlaw's Land,
in the Town-head of Middlemas, if you call that
being a free-born Englishman.''
``But Tom Hillary,''---this was an apprentice of
Clerk Lawford, who had of late been a great friend
and adviser of young Middlemas---``Tom Hillary
says that I am a free-born Englishman, notwithstanding,
in right of my parents.''
``Pooh, child! what do we know of your parents?---
But what has your being an Englishman
to do with the present question?''
``Oh Doctor!'' answered the boy, bitterly, ``you
know we from the South side of Tweed cannot
scramble so hard as you do. The Scots are too
moral, and too prudent, and too robust, for a poor
pudding-eater to live amongst them, whether as a
parson, or as a lawyer, or as a doctor---with your
pardon, sir.''
``Upon my life, Dick,'' said Gray, ``this Tom
Hillary will turn your brain. What is the meaning
of all this trash?''
``Tom Hillary says that the parson lives by the
sins of the people, the lawyer by their distresses,
and the doctor by their diseases---always asking
your pardon, sir.''
``Tom Hillary,'' replied the Doctor, ``should be
drummed out of the borough. A whipper-snapper
of an attorney's apprentice, run away from Newcastle!
If I hear him talking so, I'll teach him to
speak with more reverence of the learned professions.
Let me bear no more of Tom Hillary, whom
you have seen far too much of lately. Think a
little, like a lad of sense, and tell me what answer
I am to give Mr Mon<c,>ada.''
``Tell him,'' said the boy, the tone of affected
sarcasm laid aside, and that of injured pride substituted
in its room, ``tell him, that my soul revolts
at the obscure lot he recommends to me. I am
determined to enter my father's profession, the
army, unless my grandfather chooses to receive
me into his house, and place me in his own line of
business.''
``Yes, and make you his partner, I suppose, and
acknowledge you for his heir?'' said Dr Gray;
``a thing extremely likely to happen, no doubt,
considering the way in which he has brought you
up all along, and the terms in which he now writes
concerning you.''
``Then, sir, there is one thing which I can demand
of you,'' replied the boy. ``There is a large
sum of money in your hands belonging to me; and
since it is consigned to you for my use, I demand
you should make the necessary advances to procure
a commission in the army---account to me for
the balance---and so, with thanks for past favours,
I will give you no trouble in future.''
``Young man,'' said the Doctor, gravely, ``I am
very sorry to see that your usual prudence and good
humour are not proof against the disappointment
of some idle expectations which you had not the
slightest reason to entertain. It is very true that
there is a sum, which, in spite of various expenses,
may still approach to a thousand pounds or better,
which remains. in my hands for your behoof. But
I am bound to dispose of it according to the will of
the donor; and at any rate, you are not entitled to
call for it until you come to years of discretion;
a period from which you are six years distant, according
to law, and which, in one sense, you will
never reach at all, unless you alter your present
unreasonable crotchets. But come, Dick, this is
the first time I have seen you in so absurd a humour,
and you have many things, I own, in your situation
to apologise for impatience even greater than
you have displayed. But you should not turn
your resentment on me, that am no way in fault.
You should remember, that I was your earliest
and only friend, and took charge of you when
every other person forsook you.''
``I do not thank you for it,'' said Richard, giving
way to a burst of uncontrolled passion. ``You
might have done better for me had you pleased.''
``And in what manner, you ungrateful boy?''
said Gray, whose composure was a little ruffled.
``You might have flung me under the wheels of
their carriages as they drove off, and have let them
trample on the body of their child, as they have
done on his feelings.''
So saying, he rushed out of the room, and shut
the door behind him with great violence, leaving
his guardian astonished at his sudden and violent
change of temper and manner.
``What the deuce can have possessed him? Ah,
well. High-spirited, and disappointed in some
follies which that Tom Hillary has put into his
head. But his is a case for anodynes, and shall
be treated accordingly.''
While the Doctor formed this good-natured resolution,
young Middlemas rushed to Nurse Jamiesons
apartment, where poor Menie, to whom his
presence always gave holyday feelings, hastened
to exhibit, for his admiration, a new doll, of which
she had made the acquisition. No one, generally,
was more interested in Menie's amusements than
Richard; but at present Richard, like his celebrated
namesake, was not i'the vein. He threw
of the little damsel so carelessly, almost so rudely
that the doll flew out of Menie's hand, fell on
the hearth-stone, and broke its waxen face. The
rudeness drew from Nurse Jamieson a rebuke,
even although the culprit was her darling.
``Hout awa,' Richard---that wasna like yoursell,
to guide Miss Menie that gate.---Haud your
tongue, Miss Menie, and I'll soon mend the baby's
face.''
But if Menie cried, she did not cry for the doll;
and while the tears flowed silently down her cheeks,
she sat looking at Dick Middlemas with a childish
face of fear, sorrow, and wonder. Nurse Jamieson
was soon diverted from her attention to Menie
Gray's distresses, especially as she did not weep
aloud, and her attention became fixed on the altered
countenance, red eyes, and swoln features
of her darling foster-child. She instantly commenced
an investigation into the cause of his distress,
after the usual inquisitorial manner of matrons
of her class. ``What is the matter wi' my
bairn?'' and ``Wha has been vexing my bairn?''
with similar questions, at last extorted this reply:
``I am not your bairn---I am no one's bairn---
no one's son. I am an outcast from my family,
and belong to no one. Dr Gray bas told me so
himself.''
``And did he cast up to my bairn that he was
a bastard?---troth he was na blate---my certie,
your father was a better man than ever stood on
the Doctor's shanks---a handsome grand gentleman,
with an ee like a gled's, and a step like a
Highland piper.''
Nurse Jamieson had got on a favourite topic,
and would have expatiated long enough, for she
was a professed admirer of masculine beauty, but
there was something which displeased the boy in
her last simile; so he cut the conversation short,
by asking whether she knew exactly how much
money his grandfather had left with Dr Gray for
his maintenance. ``She could not say---didna ken
---an awfu' sum it was to pass out of ae man's
hand---She was sure it wasna less than ae hundred
pounds, and it might weel be twa.'' In short, she
knew nothing about the matter; ``but she was
sure Dr Gray would count to him to the last farthing;
for everbody kend that he was a just man
where siller was concerned. However, if her bairn
wanted to ken mair about it, to be sure the Town-clerk
could tell him all about it.''
Richard Middlemas arose and left the apartment,
without saying more. He went immediately
to visit the old Town-clerk, to whom he
had made himself acceptable, as, indeed, he had
done to most of the dignitaries about the burgh.
He introduced the conversation by the proposal
which had been made to him for choosing a profession,
and after speaking of the mysterious circumstances
of his birth, and the doubtful prospects
which lay before him, he easily led the Town-clerk
into conversation as to the amount of the
funds, and heard the exact state of the money in
his guardian's hands, which corresponded with the
information he had already received. He next
sounded the worthy scribe on the possibility of
his going into the army; but received a second
confirmation of the intelligence Mr Gray had
given him; being informed that no part of the
money could be placed at his disposal till he was
of age: and then not without the especial consent
of both his guardians, and particularly that of his
master. He therefore took leave of the Town-clerk,
who, much approving the cautious manner
in which he spoke, and his prudent selection of
an adviser at this important crisis of his life, intimated
to him, that should he choose the law, he
would himself receive him into his office, upon a
very moderate apprentice-fee, and would part
with Tom Hillary to make room for him, as the
lad was ``rather pragmatical, and plagued him
with speaking about his English practice, which
they had nothing to do with on this side of the
Border---the Lord be thanked!''
Middlemas thanked him for his kindness, and
promised to consider his kind offer, in case he
should determine upon following the profession of
the law.
From Tom Hillary's master Richard went to Tom
Hillary himself, who chanced then to be in the
office. He was a lad about twenty, as smart as
small, but distinguished for the accuracy with which
he dressed his hair, and the splendour of a laced
hat and embroidered waistcoat, with which he
graced the church of Middlemas on Sunday. Tom
Hillary had been bred an attorney's clerk in Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
but, for some reason or other,
had found it more convenient of late years to reside
in Scotland, and was recommended to the Town-clerk
of Middlemas, by the accuracy and beauty
with which he transcribed the records of the burgh.
It is not improbable that the reports concerning the
singular circumstances of Richard Middlemas's
birth, and the knowledge that he was actually possessed
of a considerable sum of money, induced
Hillary, though so much his senior, to admit the lad
to his company, and enrich his youthful mind with
some branches of information, which, in that retired
corner, his pupil might otherwise have been some
time in attaining. Amongst these were certain
games at cards and dice, in which the pupil paid,
as was reasonable, the price of initiation by his
losses to his instructor. After a long walk with
this youngster, whose advice, like the unwise son
of the wisest of men, he probably valued more than
that of his more aged counsellors, Richard Middlemas
returned to his lodgings in Stevenlaw's Land,
and went to bed sad and supperless.
The next morning Richard arose with the sun,
and his night's rest appeared to have had its frequent
effect, in cooling the passions and correcting
the understanding. Little Menie was the first
person to whom he made the _amende honorable_;
and a much smaller propitiation than the new doll
with which he presented her would have been accepted
as an atonement for a much greater offence.
Menie was one of those pure spirits, to whom a
state of unkindness, if the estranged person has
been a friend, is a state of pain, and the slightest
advance of her friend and protector was sufficient
to regain all her childish confidence and affection.
The father did not prove more inexorable than
Menie had done. Mr Gray, indeed, thought he
had good reason to look cold upon Richard at their
next meeting, being not a little hurt at the ungrateful
treatment which he had received on the
preceding evening. But Middlemas disarmed him
at once, by frankly pleading that he had suffered
his mind to be carried away by the supposed rank
and importance of his parents, into a idle conviction
that he was one day to share them. The
letter of his grandfather, which condemned him to
banishment and obscurity for life, was, he acknowledged,
a very severe blow; and it was with
deep sorrow that he reflected, that the irritation of
his disappointment had led him to express himself
in a manner far short of the respect and reverence
of one who owed Mr Gray the duty and affection
of a son, and ought to refer to his decision every
action of his life. Gideon, propitiated by an admission
so candid, and made with so much humility,
readily dismissed his resentment, and kindly enquired
of Richard, whether he had bestowed any
reflection upon the choice of profession which had
been subjected to him; offering, at the same time,
to allow him all reasonable time to make up his
mind.
On this subject, Richard Middlemas answered
with the same promptitude and candour.---``He
had,'' he said, ``in order to forming his opinion
more safely, consulted with his friend, the Town-clerk.''
The Doctor nodded approbation. ``Mr
Lawford had, indeed, been most friendly, and had
even offered to take him into his own office. But
if his father and benefactor would permit him to
study, under his instructions, the noble art in
which he himself enjoyed such a deserved reputation,
the mere hope that he might by-and-by be of
some use to Mr Gray in his business, would greatly
overbalance every other consideration. Such a
course of education, and such a use of professional
knowledge when he had acquired it, would be a
greater spur to his industry, than the prospect
even of becoming Town-clerk of Middlemas in his
proper person.''
As the young man expressed it to be his firm
and unalterable choice, to study medicine under
his guardian, and to remain a member of his
family, Dr Gray informed Mr Mon<c,>ada of the
lad's determination; who, to testify his approbation,
remitted to the Doctor the sum of L.100 as
apprentice fee, a sum nearly three times as much
as Gray's modesty had hinted at as necessary.
Shortly after, when Dr Gray and the Town-clerk
met at the small club of the burgh, their
joint theme was the sense and steadiness of Richard
Middlemas.
``Indeed,'' said the Town-clerk, ``he is such a
friendly and disinterested boy, that I could not
get him to accept a place in my office, for fear he
should be thought to be pushing himself forward
at the expense of Tam Hillary.''
``And indeed, Clerk,'' said Gray, ``I have
sometimes been afraid that he kept too much
company with that Tam Hillary of yours; but
twenty Tam Hillarys would not corrupt Dick
Middlemas.''
CHAPTER III.
Dick was come to high renown
Since he commenced physician;
Tom was held by all the town
The better politician.
_Tom and Dick._
At the same period when Dr Gray took under
his charge his youthful lodger Richard Middlemas,
he received proposals from the friends of one
Adam Hartley, to receive him also as an apprentice.
The lad was the son of a respectable farmer
on the English side of the Border, who, educating
his eldest son to his own occupation, desired to
make his second a medical man, in order to avail
himself of the friendship of a great man, his landlord,
who had offered to assist his views in life,
and represented a doctor or surgeon as the sort of
person to whose advantage his interest could be
most readily applied. Middlemas and Hartley
were therefore associated in their studies. In
winter they were boarded in Edinburgh, for attending
the medical classes which were necessary
for taking their degree. Three or four years thus
passed on, and, from being mere boys, the two
medical aspirants shot up into young men, who,
being both very good-looking, well dressed, well
bred, and having money in their pockets, became
personages of some importance in the little town
of Middlemas, where there was scarce any thing
that could be termed an aristocracy, and in which
beaux were scarce and belles were plenty.
Each of the two had his especial partisans; for
though the young men themselves lived in tolerable
harmony together, yet, as usual in such cases,
no one could approve of one of them, without at
the same time comparing him with, and asserting
his superiority over his companion.
Both were gay, fond of dancing, and sedulous
attendants on the _practeezings_ as he called them,
of Mr M`Fittoch, a dancing-master, who, itinerant
during the summer, became stationary in the winter
season, and afforded the youth of Middlemas
the benefit of his instructions at the rate of twenty
lessons for five shillings sterling. On these occasions,
each of Dr Gray's pupils had his appropriate
praise. Hartley danced with most spirit---Middlemas
with a better grace. Mr M`Fittoch would
have turned out Richard against the country-side
in the minuet, and wagered the thing dearest to
him in the world, (and that was his kit,) upon his
assured superiority; but he admitted Hartley was
superior to him in hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys,
and reels.
In dress, Hartley was most expensive, perhaps
because his father afforded him better means of
being so; but his clothes were neither so tasteful
when new, nor so well preserved when they began
to grow old, as those of Richard Middlemas. Adam
Hartley was sometimes fine, at other times rather
slovenly, and on the former occasions looked rather
too conscious of his splendour. His chum was at
all times regularly neat and well dressed; while at
the same time he had an air of good-breeding,
which made him appear always at ease; so that his
dress, whatever it was, seemed to be just what he
ought to have worn at the time.
In their persons there was a still more strongly
marked distinction. Adam Hartley was full
middle size, stout, and well limbed; and an open
English countenance, of the genuine Saxon mould,
showed, itself among chestnut locks, until the hair-dresser
destroyed them. He loved the rough exercises
of wrestling, boxing, leaping, and quarterstaff,
and frequented, when he could obtain leisure,
the bull-baitings and foot-ball matches, by which
the burgh was sometimes enlivened.
Richard, on the contrary, was dark, like his
father and mother, with high features, beautifully
formed, but exhibiting something of a foreign character;
and his person was tall and slim, though
muscular and active. His address and manners
must have been natural to him, for they were, in
elegance and case, far beyond any example which
he could have found in his native burgh. He
learned the use of the small-sword while in Edinburgh,
and took lessons from a performer at the
theatre, with the purpose of refining his mode of
speaking. He became also an amateur of the
drama, regularly attending the playhouse, and assuming
the tone of a critic in that and other lighter
departments of literature. To fill up the contrast,
so far as taste was concerned, Richard was a dexterous
and successful angler---Adam, a bold and
unerring shot. Their efforts to surpass each other
in supplying Dr Gray's table, rendered his housekeeping
much preferable to what it had been on
former occasions; and, besides, small presents of
fish and game are always agreeable amongst the
inhabitants of a country town, and contributed to
increase the popularity of the young sportsmen.
While the burgh was divided, for lack of better
subject of disputation, concerning the comparative
merits of Dr Gray's two apprentices, he himself
was sometimes chosen the referee. But in this, as
on other matters, the Doctor was cautious. He
said the lads were both good lads, and would be
useful men in the profession, if their heads were
not carried with the notice which the foolish people
of the burgh took of them, and the parties of
pleasure that were so often taking them away from
their business. No doubt it was natural for him
to feel more confidence in Hartley, who came of
ken'd folk, and was very near its good as a born
Scotsman. But if he did feel such a partiality, he
blamed himself for it, since the stranger child, so
oddly cast upon his hands, had peculiar good right
to such patronage and affection as he had to bestow;
and truly the young man himself seemed so
grateful, that it was impossible for him to hint the
slightest wish, that Dick Middlemas did not hasten
to execute.
There were persons in the burgh of Middlemas
who were indiscreet enough to suppose that Miss
Menie must be a better judge than any other person
of the comparative merits of these accomplished
personages, respecting which the public opinion
was generally divided. No one even of her greatest
intimates ventured to put the question to her
in precise terms; but her conduct was narrowly
observed, and the critics remarked, that to Adam
Hartley her attentions were given more freely and
frankly. She laughed with him, chatted with him,
and danced with him; while to Dick Middlemas
her conduct was more shy and distant. The premises
seemed certain, but the public were divided
in the conclusions which were to.be drawn from
them.
It was not possible for the young men to be the
subject of such discussions without being sensible
that they existed; and thus contrasted together by
the little society in which they moved, they must
have been made of better than ordinary clay, if
they had not themselves entered by degrees into
the spirit of the controversy, and considered themselves
as rivals for public applause.
Nor is it to be forgotten, that Menie Gray was
by this time shot up into one of the prettiest young
women, not of Middlemas only, but of the whole
county, in which the little burgh is situated. This,
indeed, had been settled by evidence, which could
not be esteemed short of decisive. At the time of
the races, there were usually assembled in the
burgh some company of the higher classes from the
country around, and many of the sober burghers
mended their incomes, by letting their apartments,
or taking in lodgers of quality for the busy week.
All the rural thanes and thanesses attended on
these occasions; and such was the number of cocked
hats and silken trains, that the little town seemed
for a time totally to have changed its inhabitants.
On this occasion, persons of a certain quality only
were permitted to attend upon the nightly balls
which were given in the old Townhouse, and the
line of distinction excluded Mr Gray's family.
The aristocracy, however, used their privileges
with some feelings of deference to the native beaux
and belles of the burgh, who were thus doomed to
hear the fiddles nightly, without being permitted
to dance to them. One evening in the race-week,
termed the Hunters' Ball, was dedicated to general
amusement, and liberated from the usual restrictions
of etiquette. On this occasion all the
respectable families in the town were invited to
share the amusement of the evening, and to wonder
at the finery, and be grateful for the condescension,
of their betters. This was especially the
case with the females, for the number of invitations
to the gentlemen of the town was much more limited.
Now, at this general muster, the beauty of
Miss Gray's face and person had placed her, in the
opinion of all competent judges, decidedly at the
head of all the belles present, saving those with
whom, according to the ideas of the place, it would
hardly have been decent to compare her.
The Laird of the ancient and distinguished house
of Louponheight did not hesitate to engage her
hand during the greater part of the evening; and
his mother, renowned for her stern assertion of
the distinctions of rank, placed the little plebeian
beside her at supper, and was heard to say, that
the surgeon's daughter behaved very prettily indeed,
and seemed to know perfectly well where
and what she was. As for the young Laird himself,
he capered so high, and laughed so uproariously,
as to give rise to a rumour, that he was
minded to ``shoot madly from his sphere,'' and to
convert the village Doctor's daughter into a lady
of his own ancient name.
During this memorable evening, Middlemas, and
Hartley, who had found room in the music gallery,
witnessed the scene, and, as it would seem,
with very different feelings. Hartley was evidently
annoyed by the excess of attention which the
gallant Laird of Louponheight, stimulated by the
influence of a couple of bottles of claret, and by
the presence of a partner who danced remarkably
well, paid to Miss Menie Gray. He saw from his
lofty stand all the dumb show of gallantry, with
the comfortable feelings of a famishing creature
looking upon a feast which he is not permitted to
share, and regarded every extraordinary frisk of
the jovial Laird, as the same might have been
looked upon by a gouty person, who apprehended
that the dignitary was about to descend on his
toes. At length, unable to restrain his emotion, he
left the gallery and returned no more.
Far different was the demeanour of Middlemas.
He seemed gratified and elevated by the attention
which was generally paid to Miss Gray, and by
the admiration she excited. On the valiant Laird
of Louponheight he looked with indescribable contempt,
and amused himself with pointing out to the
burgh dancing-master, who acted _pro tempore_ as
one of the band, the frolicsome bounds and pirouettes,
in which that worthy displayed a great deal
more of vigour than of grace.
``But ye shouldna laugh sae loud, Master Dick,''
said the master of capers; ``he hasna had the advantage
of a real gracefu' teacher, as ye have had;
and troth, if he listed to tak some lessons, I think
I could make some hand of his feet, for he is a
souple chield, and has a gallant instep of his ain;
and sic a laced hat hasna been seen on the causeway
of Middlemas this mony a day.---Ye are standing
laughing there, Dick Middlemas; I would have
you be sure he does not cut you out with your
bonny partner yonder.''
``He be ------!'' Middlemas was beginning a
sentence which could not have concluded with
strict attention to propriety, when the master of
the band summoned M`Fittoch to his post, by the
following ireful expostulation:---``What are ye
about sir? Mind your bow-band. How the deil
d'ye think three fiddles is to keep down a bass, if
yin o' them stands girning and gabbling as ye're
doing? Play up, sir!''
Dick Middlemas, thus reduced to silence, continued,
from his lofty station, like one of the gods of
the Epicureans, to survey what passed below, without
the gaieties which he witnessed being able to
excite more than a smile, which seemed, however,
rather to indicate a good-humoured contempt for
what was passing, than a benevolent sympathy
with the pleasures of others.
CHAPTER IV.
Now hold thy, tongue, Billy Berwick, he said,
Of peaceful talking let me be;
But if thou art a man, as I think thou art,
Come ower the dike and fight with me.
_Border Minstrelsy._
On the morning after this gay evening, the two
young men were labouring together in a plot of
ground behind Stevenlaw's Land, which the Doctor
had converted into a garden, where he raised,
with a view to pharmacy as well as botany, some
rare plants, which obtained the place from the
vulgar the sounding name of the Physic Garden.*
* The Botanic Garden is so termed by the vulgar of Edinburgh.
Mr Gray's pupils readily complied with his wishes,
that they would take some care of this favourite
spot, to which both contributed their labours, after
which Hartley used to devote himself to the cultivation
of the kitchen garden, which he had raised,
into this respectability from a spot not excelling a
common kail-yard, while Richard Middlemas did
his utmost to decorate with flowers and shrubs a
sort of arbour, usually called Miss Menie's bower.
At present, they were both in the botanic patch
of the garden, when Dick Middlemas asked Hartley
why he had left the ball so soon the evening before?
``I should rather ask you,'' said Hartley, ``what
pleasure you felt in staying there?---l tell you,
Dick, it is a shabby low place this Middlemas of
ours. In the smallest burgh in England, every decent
freeholder would have been asked if the Member
gave a ball.''
``What, Hartley!'' said his companion, ``are
you, of all men, a candidate for the, honour of mixing
with the first born of the earth? Mercy on us!
How will canny Northumberland (throwing a truer
northern accent on the letter R,) acquit himself?
Methinks I see thee in thy pea-green suit, dancing
a jig with the Honourable Miss Maddie MacFudgeon
while chiefs and thanes around laugh as they
would do at a hog in armour!''
``You don't, or perhaps you won't, understand
me,'' said Hartley. ``I am not such a fool as to
desire to be hail-fellow-well-met with these fine
folks---I care as little for them as they do for me.
But as they do not choose to ask us to dance, I
don't see what business they have with our partners.''
``Partners, said you!'' answered Middlemas;
``I don't think Menie is very often yours.''
``As often as I ask her,'' answered Hartley, rather
haughtily.
``Ay? Indeed?---I did not think that.---And
hang me, if I think so yet,'' said Middlemas, with
the same sarcastic tone. ``I tell thee, Adam, I
will bet you a bowl of punch, that Miss Gray will
not dance with you the next time you ask her. All
I stipulate, is to know the day.''
``I will lay no bets about Miss Gray,'' said Hartley;---
``her father is my master, and I am obliged to
him---I think I should act very scurvily, if I were
to make her the subject of any idle debate betwixt
you and me.''
``Very right,'' replied Middlemas; ``you should
finish one quarrel before you begin another. Pray,
saddle your pony, ride up to the gate of Louponheight
Castle, and defy the Baron to mortal combat,
for having presumed to touch the fair hand of
Menie Gray.''
``I wish you would leave Miss Gray's name out
of the question, and take your defiances to your
fine folks in your own name, and see what they
will say to the surgeon's apprentice.''
``Speak for yourself, if you please, Mr Adam
Hartley. I was not born a clown, like some folks,
and should care little, if I saw it fit, to talk to the
best of them at the ordinary, and make myself
understood too.''
``Very likely,'' answered Hartley, losing patience;
``you are one of themselves, you know---
Middlemas of that Ilk.''
``You scoundrel!'' said Richard, advancing on
him in fury, his taunting humour entirely changed
into rage.
``Stand back,'' said Hartley, ``or you will come
by the worst; if you will break rude jests, you
must put up with rough answers.''
``I will have satisfaction for this insult, by Heaven!''
``Why, so you shall, if you insist on it,'' said
Hartley; ``but better, I think, to say no more about
the matter. We have both spoken what would
have been better left unsaid. I was in the wrong
to say what I said to you, although you did provoke
me.---And now I have given you as much
satisfaction as a reasonable man can ask.''
``Sir,'' repeated Middlemas, ``the satisfaction
which I demand, is that of a gentleman---the Doctor
has a pair of pistols.''
``And a pair of mortars also, which are heartily
at your service, gentlemen,'' said Mr Gray, coming
forward from behind a yew hedge, where he had
listened to the whole or greater part of this dispute.
``A fine story it would be of my apprentices shooting
each other with my own pistols! Let me see
either of you fit to treat a gunshot wound, before
you think of inflicting one. Go, you are both very
foolish boys, and I cannot take it kind of either of
you to bring the name of my daughter into such
disputes as these. Hark ye, lads, ye both owe me,
I think, some portion of respect, and even of gratitude---
it will be a poor return, if, instead of living
quietly with this poor motherless girl, like brothers
with a sister, you should oblige me to increase my
expense, and abridge my comfort, by sending my
child from me, for the few months that you are to
remain here. Let me see you shake hands, and
let us have no more of this nonsense.''
While their master spoke in this manner, both
the young men stood before him in the attitude of
self-convicted criminals. At the conclusion of his
rebuke, Hartley turned frankly round, and offered
his hand to his companion, who accepted it, but
after a moment's hesitation. There was nothing
further passed on the subject, but the lads, never
resumed the same sort of intimacy which had existed
betwixt them, in their earlier acquaintance.
On the contrary, avoiding every connexion not
absolutely required by their situation, and abridging
as much as possible even their indispensable intercourse
in professional matters, they seemed as
much estranged from each other as two persons,
residing in the same small house had the means of
being.
As for Menie Gray, her father did not appear
to entertain the least anxiety upon her account,
although from his frequent and almost daily absence
from home, she was exposed to constant intercourse
with two handsome young men, both, it
might be supposed, ambitious of pleasing her more
than most parents would have deemed entirely
prudent. Nor was Nurse Jamieson,---her menial
situation, and her excessive partiality for her foster-son,
considered,---altogether such a matron as
could afford her protection. Gideon, however,
knew that his daughter possessed, in its fullest extent,
the upright and pure integrity of his own
character, and that never father had less reason to
apprehend that a daughter should deceive his confidence;
and, justly secure of her principles, he
overlooked the danger to which he exposed her
feelings and affections.
The intercourse betwixt Menie and the young
men seemed now of a guarded kind on all sides.
Their meeting was only at meals, and Miss Gray
was at pains, perhaps by her father's recommendation,
to treat them with the same degree of attention.
This, however, was no easy matter; for
Hartley became so retiring, cold, and formal, that
it was impossible for her to sustain any prolonged
intercourse with him; whereas Middlemas, perfectly
at his ease, sustained his part as formerly upon
all occasions that occurred, and without appearing
to press his intimacy assiduously, seemed nevertheless
to retain the complete possession of it.
The time drew nigh at length when the young
men, freed from the engagements of their indentures,
must look to play their own independent
part in the world. Mr Gray informed Richard
Middlemas that he had written pressingly upon
the subject to Mon<c,>ada, and that more than once,
but had not yet received an answer; nor did he
presume to offer his own advice, until the pleasure
of his grandfather should be known. Richard
seemed to endure this suspense with more patience
than the Doctor thought belonged naturally to his
character. He asked no questions---stated no conjectures---
showed no anxiety, but seemed to await
with patience the tum which events should take.
``My young gentleman,'' thought Mr Gray, ``has
either fixed on some course in his own mind, or he
is about to be more tractable than some points of
his character have led me to expect.''
In fact, Richard had made an experiment on
this inflexible relative, by sending Mr Mon<c,>ada a
letter full of duty, and affection, and gratitude,
desiring to be permitted to correspond with him
in person, and promising to be guided in every
particular by his will. The answer to this appeal
was his own letter returned, with a note from the
bankers whose cover had been used, saying, that
any future attempt to intrude on Mr Mon<c,>ada,
would put a final period to their remittances.
While things were in this situation in Stevenlaw's
Land, Adam Hartley one evening, contrary
to his custom for several months, sought a private
interview with his fellow-apprentice. He found
him in the little arbour, and could not omit observing,
that Dick Middlemas, on his appearance,
shoved into his bosom a small packet, as if afraid
of its being seen, and snatching up a hoe, began to
work with great devotion, like one who wished to
have it thought that his whole soul was in his occupation.
``I wished to speak with you, Mr Middlemas,''
said Hartley; ``but I fear I interrupt you.''
``Not in the least,'' said the other, laying down
his hoe; ``I was only scratching up the weeds
which the late showers have made rush up so numerously.
I am at your service.''
Hartley proceeded to the arbour, and seated
himself. Richard imitated his example, and seemed
to wait for the proposed communication.
``I have had an interesting communication with
Mr Gray''---said Hartley, and there stopped, like
one who finds himself entering upon a difficult
task.
``I hope the explanation has been satisfactory?''
said Middlemas.
``You shall judge.---Doctor Gray was pleased
to say something to me very civil about my proficiency
in the duties of our profession; and, to
my great astonishment, asked me, whether, as he
was now becoming old, I had any particular objection
to continue in my present situation, but with
some pecuniary advantages, for two years longer;
at the end of which he promised to me that I
should enter into partnership with him.''
``Mr Gray is an undoubted judge,'' said Middlemas,
``what person will best suit him as a professional
assistant. The business may be worth L.200
a-year, and an active assistant might go nigh to
double it, by riding Strath-Devan and the Carse.
No great subject for division after all, Mr Hartley.''
``But,'' continued Hartley, ``that is not all.
The Doctor says---he proposes---in short, if I can
render myself agreeable, in the course of these two
years, to Miss Menie Gray, he proposes, that when
they terminate, I should become his son as well as
his partner.''
As he spoke, he kept his eye fixed on Richard's
face, which was for a moment strongly agitated;
but instantly recovering, he answered, in a tone
where pique and offended pride vainly endeavoured
to disguise themselves under an affectation of indifference,
`` Well, Master Adam, I cannot but
wish you joy of the patriarchal arrangement. You
have served five years for a professional diploma---
a sort of Leah, that privilege of killing and curing.
Now you begin a new course of servitude for a
lovely Rachel. Undoubtedly---perhaps it is rude
in me to ask---but undoubtedly you have accepted
so flattering an arrangement?''
``You cannot but recollect there was a condition
annexed,'' said Hartley, gravely.
``That of rendering yourself acceptable to a
girl you have known for so many years?'' said
Middlemas, with a half-suppressed sneer. ``No
great difficulty in that, I should think, for such a
person as Mr Hartley, with Doctor Gray's favour
to back him. No, no---there could be no great
obstacle there.''
``Both you and I know the contrary, Mr Middlemas,''
said Hartley, very seriously.
``I know?---How should I know any thing more
than yourself about the state of Miss Gray's inclinations?''
said Middlemas. ``I am sure we have
had equal access to know them.''
``Perhaps so; but some know better how to
avail themselves of opportunities. Mr Middlemas,
I have long suspected that you have had the inestimable
advantage of possessing Miss Gray's affections,
and------''
``I?''---interrupted Middlemas; ``you are jesting,
or you are jealous. You do yourself less, and
me more, than justice; but the compliment is so
great, that I am obliged to you for the mistake.''
``That you may know,'' answered Hartley, ``I
do not speak either by guess, or from what you
call jealousy, I tell you frankly, that Menie Gray
herself told me the state of her affections. I naturally
communicated to her the discourse I had
with her father. I told her I was but too well
convinced that at the present moment I did not
possess that interest in her heart, which alone
might entitle me to request her acquiescence in
the views which her father's goodness held out to
me; but I entreated her not at once. to decide
against me, but give me an opportunity to make
way in her affections, if possible, trusting that
time, and the services which I should render to
her father, might have an ultimate effect in my
favour.''
``A most natural and modest request. But what
did the young lady say in reply?''
``She is a noble-hearted girl, Richard Middlemas;
and for her frankness alone, even without
her beauty and her good sense, deserves an emperor.
I cannot express the graceful modesty with
which she told me, that she knew too well the
kindliness, as she was pleased to call it, of my
heart, to expose me to the protracted pain of an
unrequited passion. She candidly informed me
that she had been long engaged to you in secret
---that you had exchanged portraits;---and though
without her father's consent she would never become
yours, yet she felt it impossible that she should
ever so far change her sentiments as to afford the
most distant prospect of success to another.''
``Upon my word,'' said Middlemas, ``she has
been extremely candid indeed, and I am very much
obliged to her!''
``And upon _my_ honest word, Mr Middlemas,''
returned Hartley, `` You do Miss Gray the greatest
injustice---nay, you are ungrateful to her, if
you are displeased at her making this declaration.
She loves you as a woman loves the first object of
her affection---she loves you better''---He stopped,
and Middlemas completed the sentence.
``Better than I deserve, perhaps?---Faith, it
may well be so, and I love her dearly in return
But after all, you know, the secret was mine as
well as hers, and it would have been better that she
had consulted me before making it public.''
``Mr Middlemas,'' said Hartley earnestly, ``if
the least of this feeling, on your part, arises from
the apprehension that your secret is less safe because
it is in my keeping, I can assure you that
such is my grateful sense of Miss Gray's goodness,
in communicating, to save me pain, an affair of
such delicacy to herself and you, that wild horses
should tear me limb from limb before they forced
a word of it from my lips.''
``Nay, nay, my dear friend,'' said Middlemas,
with a frankness of manner indicating a cordiality
that had not existed between them for some time,
``you must allow me to be a little jealous in my
turn. Your true lover cannot have a title to the
name, unless he be sometimes unreasonable; and
somehow, it seems odd she should have chosen for
a confidant one whom I have often thought a formidable
rival; and yet I am so far from being displeased,
that I do not know that the dear sensible
girl could after all have made a better choice. It
is time that the foolish coldness between us should
be ended, as you must be sensible that its real
cause lay in our rivalry. I have much need of good
advice, and who can give it to me better than the
old companion, whose soundness of judgment I
have always envied, even when some injudicious
friends have given me credit for quicker parts?''
Hartley accepted Richard's proffered hand, but
without any of the buoyancy of spirit with which
it was offered.
``I do not intend,'' he said, ``to remain many
days in this place, perhaps not very many hours.
But if, in the meanwhile, I can benefit you, by
advice or otherwise, you may fully command me.
It is the only mode in which I can be of service to
Menie Gray.''
``Love my mistress, love me; a happy _pendant_
to the old proverb, Love me, love my dog. Well,
then, for Menie Gray's sake, if not for Dick Middlemas's,
(plague on that vulgar tell-tale name,)
will you, that are a stander-by, tell us who are the
unlucky players, what you think of this game of
ours?''
``How can you ask such a question, when the
fields lies so fair before you? I am sure that Dr
Gray would retain you as his assistant upon the
same terms which he proposed to me. You are the
better match, in all worldly respects, for his daughter,
having some capital to begin the world with.''
``All true---but methinks Mr Gray has showed
no great predilection for me in this matter.''
``If he has done injustice to your indisputable
merit,'' said Hartley drily, ``the preference of his
daughter has more than atoned for it.''
``Unquestionably; and dearly, therefore, do I
love her; otherwise, Adam, I am not a person to
grasp at the leavings of other people.''
``Richard,'' replied Hartley, `` that pride of yours,
if you do not check it, will render you both ungrateful
and miserable. Mr Gray's ideas are most
friendly. He told me plainly, that his choice of me
as an assistant, and as a member of his family, had
been a long time balanced by his early affection for
you, until he thought he had remarked in you a
decisive discontent with such limited prospects as
his offer contained, and a desire to go abroad into
the world, and push, as it is called, your fortune.
He said, that although it was very probable that
you might love his daughter well enough to relinquish
these ambitious ideas for her sake, yet the
demons of Ambition and Avarice would return
after the exorciser Love had exhausted the force
of his spells, and then he thought he would have
just reason to be anxious for his daughter's happiness.''
``By my faith, the worthy senior speaks scholarly
and wisely,'' answered Richard---``I did not think
he had been so clear-sighted. To say the truth,
but for the beautiful Menie Gray, I should feel like
a mill horse, walking my daily round in this dull
country, while other gay rovers are trying how the
world will receive them. For instance, where do
you yourself go?''
``A cousin of my mother's commands a ship in
the Company's service. I intend to go with him
as surgeon's mate. If I like the service, I will
continue in it; if not, I will enter some other line.''
This Hartley said with a sigh.
``To India!'' answered Richard; ``happy dog---
to India! Yon may well bear with equanimity all
disappointments sustained on this side of the globe.
Oh, Delhi! oh, Golconda! have your names no
power to conjure down idle recollections?---India,
where gold is won by steel; where a brave man
cannot pitch his desire of fame and wealth so high,
but that he may realize it, if he have fortune to his
friend? Is it possible that the bold adventurer
can fix his thoughts on you, and still be dejected at
the thoughts that a bonny blue-eyed lass looked
favourably on a 1less lucky fellow than himself?
Can this be?''
``Less lucky?'' said Hartley. ``Can you, the
accepted lover of Menie Gray, speak in that tone,
even though it be in jest!''
``Nay, Adam,'' said Richard, ``don't be angry
with me, because, being thus far successful, I rate
my good fortune not quite so rapturously as perhaps
you do, who have missed the luck of it. Your
philosophy should tell you, that the object which
we attain, or are sure of attaining, loses, perhaps,
even by that very certainty, a little of the extravagant
and ideal value, which attached to it while the
object of feverish hopes and aguish fears. But for
all that I cannot live without my sweet Menie. I
would wed her to-morrow with all my soul, without
thinking a minute on the clog which so early a
marriage would fasten on our heels. But to spend
two additional years in this infernal wilderness,
cruizing after crowns and half-crowns, when worse
men are making lacs and crores of rupees---It is a
sad falling of, Adam. Counsel me, my friend,---
can you not suggest some mode of getting off from
these two years of destined dulness?''
``Not I,'' replied Hartley, scarce repressing his
displeasure; ``and if I could induce Dr Gray to
dispense with so reasonable a condition, I should
be very sorry to do so. You are but twenty-one,
and if such a period of probation was, in the Doctor's
prudence, judged necessary for me, who am
fall two years older, I have no idea that he will
dispense with it in yours.''
``Perhaps not,'' replied Middlemas; ``but do
you not think that these two, or call them three,
years of probation, had better be spent in India,
where much may be done in a little while, than
here, where nothing can be done save just enough
to get salt to our broth, or broth to our salt?
Methinks I have a natural turn for India, and so
I ought. My father was a soldier, by the conjecture
of all who saw him, and gave me a love of
the sword, and an arm to use one. My mother's
father was a rich trafficker, who loved wealth, I
warrant me, and knew how to get it. This petty
two hundred a-year, with its miserable and precarious
possibilities, to be shared with the old
gentleman, sounds in the ears of one like me, who
have the world for the winning, and a sword to
cut my way through it, like something little better
than a decent kind of beggary. Menie is in herself
a gem---a diamond---I admit it. But then,
one would not set such a precious jewel in lead or
copper, but in pure gold; ay, and add a circlet of
brilliants to set it off with. Be a good fellow,
Adam, and undertake the setting my project in
proper colours before the Doctor. I am sure, the
wisest thing for him and Menie both, is to permit
me to spend this short time of probation in the
land of cowries. I am sure my heart will be there
at any rate, and while I am bleeding some bumpkin
for an inflammation, I shall be in fancy relieving
some nabob, or rajahpoot, of his plethora of wealth.
Come --- will you assist, will you be auxiliary?
Ten chances but you plead your own cause, man,
for I may be brought up by a sabre, or a bow-string,
before I make my pack up; then your road
to Menie will be free and open, and as you will
be possessed of the situation of comforter _ex officio_,
you may take her with the tear in her ee,' as old
saws advise.''
``Mr Richard Middlemas,'' said Hartley, ``I wish
it were possible for me to tell you, in the few
words which I intend to bestow on you, whether
I pity or despise you the most. Heaven has
placed happiness, competence, and content within
your power, and you are willing to cast them
away, to gratify ambition and avarice. Were I
to give an advice on this subject, either to Dr
Gray or his daughter, it would be to break off all
connexion with a man, who, however clever by
nature, may soon show himself a fool, and however
honestly brought up, may also, upon temptation,
prove himself a villain.---You may lay aside
the sneer, which is designed to be a sarcastic
smile. I will not attempt to do this, because I
am convinced that my advice would be of no use,
unless it could come unattended with suspicion of
my motives. I will hasten my departure from
this house, that we may not meet again; and I
will leave it to God Almighty to protect honesty
and innocence against the dangers which must attend
vanity and folly.'' So saying, he turned contemptuously
from the youthful votary of ambition,
and left the garden.
``Stop,'' said Middlemas, struck with the picture
which had been held up to his conscience---``Stop,
Adam Hartley, and I will confess to you------''
But his words were uttered in a faint and hesitating
manner, and either never reached Hartley's
ear, or failed in changing his purpose of departure.
When he was out of the garden, Middlemas
began to recall his usual boldness of disposition---
``Had he stayed a moment longer,'' he said, ``I
would have turned Papist, and made him my
ghostly confessor. The yeomanly churl!---I would
give something to know how he has got such
a hank over me. What are Menie Gray's engagements
to him? She has given him his answer,
and what right has he to come betwixt her and
me? If old Mon<c,>ada had done a grandfather's
duty, and made suitable settlements on me, this
plan of marrying the sweet girl, and settling here
in her native place, might have done well enough.
But to live the life of the poor drudge her father
---to be at the command and call of every boor for
twenty miles round!---why, the labours of a higgler,
who travels scores of miles to barter pins,
ribands, snuff and tobacco, against the housewife's
private stock of eggs, mort-skins, and tallow,
is more profitable, less laborious, and faith,
I think, equally respectable. No, no,---unless I
can find wealth nearer home, I will seek it where
every one can have it for the gathering; and so I
will down to the Swan Inn, and hold a final consultation
with my friend.''
CHAPTER V.
The friend whom Middlemas expected to meet
at the Swan, was a person already mentioned in
this history by the name of Tom Hillary, bred an
attorney's clerk in the ancient town of Novum
Castrum---_doctus utriusque juris_, as far as a few
months in the service of Mr Lawford, Town-Clerk
of Middlemas, could render him so. The last
mention that we made of this gentleman, was when
his gold-laced hat veiled its splendour before the
fresher mounted beavers of the 'prentices of Dr
Gray. That was now about five years since, and
it was within six months that he had made his
appearance in Middlemas, a very different sort of
personage from that which he seemed at his departure.
He was now called Captain; his dress was regimental,
and his language martial. He seemed to
have plenty of cash, for he not only, to the great
surprise of the parties, paid certain old debts,
which he had left unsettled behind him, and that
notwithstanding his having, as his old practice told
him, a good defence of proscription, but even sent
the minister a guinea, to the assistance of the parish
poor. These acts of justice and benevolence
were bruited abroad greatly to the honour of one,
who, so long absent, had neither forgotten his just
debts, nor hardened his heart against the cries of
the needy. His merits were thought the higher,
when it was understood he had served the honourable
East India Company---that wonderful company
of merchants, who may indeed, with the
strictest propriety, be termed princes. It was
about the middle of the eighteenth century, and
the directors in Leadenhall Street were silently
laying the foundation of that immense empire,
which afterwards rose like an exhalation, and now
astonishes Europe, as well as Asia, with its formidable
extent, and stupendous strength. Britain
had now begun to lend a wondering ear to the
account of battles fought, and cities won, in the
East; and was surprised by the return of individuals
who had left their native country as adventurers,
but now reappeared there surrounded by
Oriental wealth and Oriental luxury, which dimmed
even the splendour of the most wealthy of the
British nobility. In this new-found El Dorado,
Hillary had, it seems, been a labourer, and, if he
told truth, to some purpose, though he was far
from having completed the harvest which he meditated.
He spoke, indeed, of making investments,
and, as a mere matter of fancy, he consulted his
old master, Clerk Lawford, concerning the purchase
of a moorland farm, of three thousand acres,
for which he would be content to give three or
four thousand guineas, providing the game was
plenty, and the trouting in the brook such as had
been represented by advertisement. But he did
not wish to make any extensive landed purchase
at present. It was necessary to keep up his interest
in Leadenhall Street; and in that view, it
would be impolitic to part with his India stock and
India bonds. In short, it was folly to think of
settling on a poor thousand or twelve hundred
a-year, when one was in the prime of life, and had
no liver complaint; and so he was determined to
double the Cape once again, ere he retired to the
chimney corner of life. All he wished was, to
pick up a few clever fellows for his regiment, or
rather for his own company; and as in all his
travels he had never seen finer fellows than about
Middlemas, he was willing to give them the preference
in completing his levy. In fact, it was
making men of them at once, for a few white faces
never failed to strike terror into these black rascals;
and then, not to mention the good things
that were going at the storming of a Pettah, or
the plundering of a Pagoda, most of these tawny
dogs carried so much treasure about their persons,
that a won battle was equal to a mine of gold to
the victors.
The natives of Middlemas listened to the noble
Captain's marvels with different feelings, as their
temperaments were saturnine or sanguine. But
none could deny that such things had been; and
as the narrator was known to be a bold dashing
fellow, possessed of some abilities, and, according
to the general opinion, not likely to be withheld
by any peculiar scruples of conscience, there was
no giving any good reason why Hillary should not
have been as successful as others in the field, which
India, agitated as it was by war and intestine disorders,
seemed to offer to every enterprising adventurer.
He was accordingly received by his old
acquaintances at Middlemas rather with the respect
due to his supposed wealth, than in a manner corresponding
with his former humble pretensions.
Some of the notables of the village did indeed
keep aloof. Among these, the chief was Dr Gray,
who was an enemy to every thing that approached
to fanfaronade, and knew enough of the world to
lay it down as a sort of general rule, that he who
talks a great deal of fighting is seldom a brave
soldier, and he who always speaks about wealth is
seldom a rich man at bottom. Clerk Lawford was
also shy, notwithstanding his _communings_ with
Hillary upon the subject of his intended purchase.
The coolness of the Captain's old employer towards
him was by some supposed to arise out of certain
circumstances attending their former connexion;
but as the Clerk himself never explained what
these were, it is unnecessary to make any conjectures
upon the subject.
Richard Middlemas very naturally renewed his
intimacy with his former comrade, and it was from
Hillary's conversation, that he had adopted the
enthusiasm respecting India, which we have heard
him express. It was indeed impossible for a youth,
at once inexperienced in the world, and possessed
of a most sanguine disposition, to listen without
sympathy to the glowing descriptions of Hillary,
who, though only a recruiting captain, had all the
eloquence of a recruiting sergeant. Palaces rose
like mushrooms in his descriptions; groves of lofty
trees, and aromatic shrubs unknown to the chilly
soils of Europe, were tenanted by every object of
the chase, from the royal tiger down to the jackall.
The luxuries of a Natch, and the peculiar Oriental
beauty of the enchantresses who perfumed their
voluptuous Eastern domes, for the pleasure of the
haughty English conquerors, were no less attractive
than the battles and sieges on which the Captain
at other times expatiated. Not a stream did
he mention but flowed over sands of gold, and not
a palace that was inferior to those of the celebrated
Fata Morgana. His descriptions seemed steeped
in odours, and his every phrase perfumed in ottar
of roses. The interviews at which these descriptions
took place, often ended in a bottle of choicer
wine than the Swan Inn afforded, with some other
appendages of the table, which the Captain, who,
was a _bon-vivant_, had procured from Edinburgh.
From this good cheer Middlemas was doomed to
retire to the homely evening meal of his master,
where not all the simple beauties of Menie were
able to overcome his disgust at the coarseness of
the provisions, or his unwillingness to answer
questions concerning the diseases of the wretched
peasants who were subjected to his inspection.
Richard's hopes of being acknowledged by his
father had long since vanished, and the rough repulse
and subsequent neglect on the part of Mon<c,>ada,
had satisfied him that his grandfather was
inexorable, and that neither then, nor at any future
time, did he mean to realize the visions which
Nurse Jamieson's splendid figments had encouraged
him to entertain. Ambition, however, was not
lulled to sleep, though it was no longer nourished
by the same hopes which had at first awakened it.
The Indian Captain's lavish oratory supplied the
themes which had been at first derived from the
legends of the nursery; the exploits of a Lawrence
and a Clive, as well as the magnificent opportunities
of acquiring wealth to which these exploits
opened the road, disturbed the slumbers of
the young adventurer. There was nothing to
counteract these except his love for Menie Gray,
and the engagements into which it had led him.
But his addresses had been paid to Menie as much
for the gratification of his vanity, as from any decided
passion for that innocent and guileless being.
He was desirous of carrying of the prize, for which
Hartley, whom he never loved, had the courage
to contend with him. Then Menie Gray had been
beheld with admiration by men his superiors in
rank and fortune, but with whom his ambition incited
him to dispute the prize. No doubt, though
urged to play the gallant at first rather from vanity
than any other cause, the frankness and modesty
with which his suit was admitted, made their natural
impression on his heart. He was grateful
to the beautiful creature, who acknowledged the
superiority of his person and accomplishments, and
fancied himself as devotedly attached to her, as
her personal charms and mental merits would have
rendered any one who was less vain or selfish than
her lover. Still his passion for the surgeon's
daughter ought not, he prudentially determined,
to bear more than its due weight in a case so very
important as the determining his line of life;
and this he smoothed over to his conscience, by repeating
to himself, that Menie's interest was as
essentially concerned as his own, in postponing
their marriage to the establishment of his fortune.
How many young couples had been ruined by a
premature union!
The contemptuous conduct of Hartley in their
last interview, had done something to shake his
comrade's confidence in the truth of this reasoning,
and to lead him to suspect that he was playing a
very sordid and unmanly part, in trifling with the
happiness of this amiable and unfortunate young
woman. It was in this doubtful humour that he
repaired to the Swan Inn, where he was anxiously
expected by his friend the Captain.
When they were comfortably seated over a
bottle of Paxarete, Middlemas began, with characteristical
caution, to sound his friend about the
ease or difficulty with which a individual, desirous
of entering the Company's service, might have an
opportunity of getting a commission. If Hillary
had answered truly, he would have replied, that it
was extremely easy; for, at that time, the East
India service presented no charms to that superior
class of people who have since struggled for admittance
under its banners. But the worthy Captain
replied, that though, in the general case, it
might be difficult for a young man to obtain a commission,
without serving for some years as a cadet,
yet, under his own protection, a young man entering
his regiment, and fitted for such a situation,
might be sure of an ensigncy if not a lieutenancy,
as soon as ever they set foot in India. ``If you,
my dear fellow,'' continued he, extending his hand
to Middlemas, ``would think of changing sheep-head
broth and haggis for mulagatawny and curry,
I can only say, that though it is indispensable that
you should enter the service at first simply as a
cadet, yet, by------, you should live like a brother
on the passage with me; and no sooner were we
through the surf at Madras, than I would put you
in the way of acquiring both wealth and glory.
You have, I think, some trifle of money---a couple
of thousands or so?''
``About a thousand or twelve hundred,'' said
Richard, affecting the indifference of his companion,
but feeling privately humbled by the scantiness
of his resources.
``It is quite as much as you will find necessary
for the outfit and passage,'' said his adviser; ``and,
indeed, if you had not a farthing, it would be the
same thing; for if I once say to a friend, I'll help
you, Tom Hillary is not the man to start for fear
of the cowries. However, it is as well you have
something of a capital of your own to begin upon.''
``Yes,'' replied the proselyte. ``I should not
like to be a burden on any one. I have some
thoughts, to tell you the truth, to marry before I
leave Britain; and in that case, you know, cash'
will be necessary, whether my wife goes out with
us, or remains behind, till she hear how luck goes
with me. So, after all, I may have to borrow a
few hundreds of you.''
``What the devil is that you say, Dick, about
marrying and giving in marriage?'' replied his
friend. ``What can put it into the head of a gallant
young fellow like you, just rising twenty-one,
and six feet high on your stocking-soles, to make
a slave of yourself for life? No, no, Dick, that
will never do. Remember the old song
'Bachelor Bluff, bachelor Bluff,
Hey for a heart that's rugged and tough!' ''
``Ay, ay, that sounds very well,'' replied Middlemas;
``but then one must shake off a number of
old recollections.''
``The sooner the better, Dick; old recollections
are like old clothes, and should be sent off
by wholesale; they only take up room in one's
wardrobe, and it would be old-fashioned to wear
them. But you look grave upon it. Who the
devil is it has made such a hole in your heart?''
``Pshaw!'' answered Middlemas, ``I'm sure you
must remember---Menie---my master's daughter.''
``What, Miss Green, the old pottercarrier's
daughter?---a likely girl enough, I think.''
``My master is a surgeon,'' said Richard, ``not
an apothecary, and his name is Gray.''
``Ay, ay, Green or Grey---what does it signify?
He sells his own drugs, I think, which we in the
south call being a pottercarrier. The girl is a
likely girl enough for a Scottish ball-room. But
is she up to any thing? Has she any _nouz?_''
``Why, she is a sensible girl, save in loving me,''
answered Richard; ``and that, as Benedict says,
is no proof of her wisdom, and no great argument
of her folly.''
``But has she spirit---spunk---dash---a spice of
the devil about her?''
``Not a penny-weight---the kindest, simplest,
and most manageable of human beings,'' answered
the lover.
``She won't do then,'' said the monitor, in a decisive
tone. ``I am sorry for it, Dick; but she will
never do. There are some women in the world
that can bear their share in the bustling life we live
in India---ay, and I have known some of them drag
forward husbands that would otherwise have stuck
fast in the mud till the day of judgment. Heaven
knows how they paid the turnpikes they pushed
them through! But these were none of your simple
Susans, that think their eyes are good for nothing
but to look at their husbands, or their fingers
but to sew baby-clothes. Depend on it, you must
give up your matrimony, or your views of preferment.
If you wilfully tie a clog round your throat,
never think of running a race; but do not suppose
that your breaking off with the lass will make any
very terrible catastrophe. A scene there may be at
parting; but you will soon forget her among the
native girls, and she will fall in love with Mr Tapeitout,
the minister's assistant and successor. She
is not goods for the Indian market, I assure you.''
Among the capricious weaknesses of humanity,
that one is particularly remarkable which inclines
us to esteem persons and things not by their real
value, or even by our own judgment, so much as
by the opinion of others, who are often very incompetent
judges. Dick Middlemas had been urged
forward, in his suit to Menie Gray, by his observing
how much her partner, a booby laird, had
been captivated by her; and she was now lowered
in his esteem, because an impudent low-lived coxcomb
had presumed to talk of her with disparagement.
Either of these worthy gentlemen would
have been as capable of enjoying the beauties of
Homer, as judging of the merits of Menie Gray.
Indeed the ascendency which this bold-talking,
promise-making soldier had acquired over Dick
Middlemas, wilful as he was in general, was of a
despotic nature; because the Captain, though greatly
inferior in information and talent to the youth
whose opinions be swayed, had skill in suggesting
those tempting views of rank and wealth, to which
Richard's imagination had been from childhood
most accessible. One promise he exacted from
Middlemas, as a condition of the services which he
was to render him---It was absolute silence on the
subject of his destination for India, and the views
upon which it took place. ``My recruits,'' said the
Captain, ``have been all marched off for the depot
at the Isle of Wight; and I want to leave Scotland,
and particularly this little burgh, without
being worried to death, of which I must despair,
should it come to be known that I can provide
young griffins, as we call them, with commissions.
Gad, I should carry off all the first-born of Middlemas
as cadets, and none are so scrupulous as I
am about making promises. I am as trusty as a
Trojan for that; and you know I cannot do that for
every one which I would for an old friend like Dick
Middlemas.''
Dick promised secrecy, and it was agreed that
the two friends should not even leave the burgh in
company, but that the Captain should set off first,
and his recruit should join him at Edinburgh,
where his enlistment might be attested; and then
they were to travel together to town, and arrange
matters for their Indian voyage.
Notwithstanding the definitive arrangement
which was thus made for his departure, Middlemas
thought from time to time with anxiety and regret
about quitting Menie Grey, after the engagement
which had passed between them. The resolution
was taken, however; the blow was necessarily to
be struck; and her ungrateful lover, long since determined
against the life of domestic happiness,
which he might have enjoyed had his views been
better regulated, was now occupied with the means,
not indeed of breaking off with her entirely, but
of postponing all thoughts of their union until the
success of his expedition to India.
He might have spared himself all anxiety on this
last subject. The wealth of that India to which he
was bound would not have bribed Menie Gray to
have left her father's roof against her father's commands;
still less when, deprived of his two assistants,
he must be reduced to the necessity of continued
exertion in his declining life, and therefore
might have accounted himself altogether deserted,
had his daughter departed from him at the same
time. But though it would have been her unalterable
determination not to accept any proposal of
an immediate union of their fortunes, Menie could
not, with all a lover's power of self-deception, succeed
in persuading herself to be satisfied with
Richard's conduct towards her. Modesty, and a
becoming pride, prevented her from seeming to
notice, but could not prevent her from bitterly
feeling, that her lover was preferring the pursuits
of ambition to the humble lot which he might have
shared with her, and which promised content at
least, if not wealth.
``If he had loved me as he pretended,'' such was
the unwilling conviction that rose on her mind, ``my
father would surely not have ultimately refused
him the same terms which he held out to Hartley.
His objections would have given way to my happiness,
nay, to Richard's importunities, which
would have removed his suspicions of the unsettled
cast of his disposition. But I fear---I fear Richard
hardly thought the terms proposed were worthy
of his acceptance. Would it not have been natural
too, that he should have asked me, engaged as we
stand to each other, to have united our fate before
his quitting Europe, when I might either have remained
here with my father, or accompanied him
to India, in quest of that fortune which he is so
eagerly pushing for? It would have been wrong
---very wrong---in me to have consented to such a
proposal, unless my father had authorized it; but
surely it would have been natural that Richard
should have offered it? Alas! men do not know
how to love like women. Their attachment is only
one of a thousand other passions and predilections,
---they are daily engaged in pleasures which blunt
their feelings, and in business which distracts them.
We---we sit at home to weep, and to think bow
coldly our affections are repaid!''
The time was now arrived at which Richard
Middlemas had a right to demand the property
vested in the hands of the Town-Clerk and Doctor
Gray. He did so, and received it accordingly.
His late guardian naturally enquired what views
he had formed in entering on life? The imagination
of the ambitious aspirant saw in this simple
question a desire, on the part of the worthy man,
to offer, and perhaps press upon him, the same
proposal which he had made to Hartley. He hastened,
therefore, to answer drily, that he had some
hopes held out to him which he was not at liberty
to communicate; but that the instant he reached
London, he would write to the guardian of his
youth, and acquaint him with the nature of his prospects,
which he was happy to say were rather of
a pleasing character.
Gideon, who supposed that at this critical period
of his life, the father or grandfather of the young
man might perhaps have intimated a disposition to
open some intercourse with him, only replied,---
``You have been the child of mystery, Richard;
and as you came to me, so you leave me. Then,
I was ignorant from whence you came, and now, I
know not whither you are going. It is not, perhaps,
a very favourable point in your horoscope,
that every thing connected with you is a secret.
But as I shall always think with kindness on him
whom I have known so long, so when you remember
the old man, you ought not to forget that he
has done his duty to you, to the extent of his means
and power, and taught you that noble profession,
by means of which, wherever your lot casts you,
you may always gain your bread, and alleviate, at
the same time, the distresses of your fellow-creatures.''
Middlemas was excited by the simple kindness
of his master, and poured forth his thanks
with the greater profusion, that he was free from
the terror of the emblematical collar and chain,
which a moment before seemed to, glisten in the
hand of his guardian, and gape to enclose his neck.
``One word more,'' said Mr Gray, producing a
small ring-case. ``This valuable ring was forced
upon me by your unfortunate mother. I have no
right to it, having been amply paid for my services;
and I only accepted it with the purpose of keeping
it for you till this moment should arrive. It may
be useful, perhaps, should there occur any question
about your identity.''
``Thanks, once more, my more than father, for
this precious relic, which may indeed be useful.
You shall be repaid, if India has diamonds left.''
``India, and diamonds!''---said Gray. ``Is your
head turned, child?''
``I mean,'' stammered Middlemas, ``if London
has any Indian diamonds.''
``Pooh! you foolish lad,'' answered Gray, ``how
should you buy diamonds, or what should I do
with them, if you gave me ever so many? Get
you gone with you while I am angry.''---The tears
were glistening in the old man's eyes.---``If I get
pleased with you again, I shall not know how to
part with you.''
The parting of Middlemas with poor Menie was
yet more affecting. Her sorrow revived in his mind
all the liveliness of a first love, and he redeemed
his character for sincere attachment, by not only
imploring an instant union, but even going so far
as to propose renouncing his more splendid prospects,
and sharing Mr Gray's humble toil, if by
doing so he could secure his daughter's hand. But
though there was consolation in this testimony of
her lover's faith, Menie Gray was not so unwise as
to accept of sacrifices which might afterwards have
been repented of.
``No, Richard,'' she said, ``it seldom ends happily
when people alter, in a moment of agitated
feelings, plans which have been adopted under mature
deliberation. I have long seen that your
views were extended far beyond so humble a station
as this place affords promise of. It is natural
they should do so, considering that the circumstances
of your birth seem connected with riches and with
rank. Go, then, seek that riches and rank. It is
possible your mind may be changed in the pursuit,
and if so think no more about Menie Gray. But
if it should be otherwise, we may meet again,
and do not believe for a moment that there can be
a change in Menie Gray's feelings towards you.''
At this interview, much more was said than it is
necessary to repeat, much more thought than was
actually said. Nurse Jamieson, in whose chamber
it took place, folded her _bairns_, as she called them,
in her arms, and declared that Heaven had made
them for each other, and that she would not ask of
Heaven to live beyond the day when she should
see them bridegroom and bride.
At length, it became necessary that the parting
scene should end; and Richard Middlemas, mounting
a horse which he had hired for the journey,
set off for Edinburgh, to which metropolis he had
already forwarded his heavy baggage. Upon the
road the idea more than once occurred to him, that
even yet he had better return to Middlemas, and
secure his happiness by uniting himself at once to
Menie Gray, and to humble competence. But from
the moment that he rejoined his friend Hillary at
their appointed place of rendezvous, he became
ashamed even to hint at any change of purpose;
and his late excited feelings were forgotten, unless
in so far as they confirmed his resolution, that as
soon as he had attained a certain portion of wealth
and consequence, he would haste to share them
with Menie Gray. Yet his gratitude to her father
did not appear to have slumbered, if we may judge
from the gift of a very handsome cornelian seal,
set in gold, and bearing engraved upon it Gules, a
lion rampant within a bordure Or, which was carefully
dispatched to Stevenlaw's Land, Middlemas,
with a suitable letter. Menie knew the handwriting,
and watched her father's looks as he read
it, thinking, perhaps, that it had turned on a different
topic. Her father pshawed and poohed a good
deal when he had finished the billet, and examined
the seal.
``Dick Middlemas,'' he said, ``is but a fool after
all, Menie. I am sure I am not like to forget him,
that he should send me a token of remembrance;
and if he would be so absurd, could he not have
sent me the improved lithotomical apparatus? And
what have I, Gideon Gray, to do with the arms of
my Lord Gray?---No, no---my old silver stamp,
with the double G upon it, will serve my turn---
But put the bonnie dye* away, Menie, my dear---
* ``Pretty toy.''
it was kindly meant, at any rate.''
The reader cannot doubt that the seal was safely
and carefully preserved.
CHAPTER VI.
A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were laid
Numbers of all diseased.
Milton.
After the Captain had finished his business,
amongst which he did not forget to have his recruit
regularly attested, as a candidate for glory in the
service of the Honourable East India Company,
the friends left Edinburgh. From thence they
got a passage by sea to Newcastle, where Hillary
had also some regimental affairs to transact, before
he joined his regiment. At Newcastle the Captain
had the good luck to find a small brig, commanded
by an old acquaintance and schoolfellow, which
was just about to sail for the Isle of Wight. ``I
have arranged for our passage with him,'' he said
to Middlemas---``for when you are at the dep<o^>t,
you can learn a little of your duty, which cannot
be so well taught on board of ship, and then I will
find it easier to have you promoted.''
``Do you mean,'' said Richard, ``that I am to
stay at the Isle of Wight all the time that you are
jigging it away in London?''
``Ay, indeed do I!,'' said his comrade, ``and it's
best for you too; whatever business you have in
London, I can do it for you as well, or something
better than yourself.''
``But I choose to transact my own business
myself, Captain Hillary,'' said Richard.
``Then you ought to have remained your own
master, Mr Cadet Middlemas. At present you
are an enlisted recruit of the Honourable East
India Company; I am your officer, and should
you hesitate to follow me aboard, why, you foolish
fellow I could have you sent on board in handcuffs.''
This was jestingly spoken; but yet there was
something in the tone which hurt Middlemas's
pride, and alarmed his fears. He had observed
of late, that his friend, especially when in company
of others, talked to him with an air of command
or superiority, difficult to be endured, and yet so
closely allied to the freedom often exercised betwixt
two intimates, that he could not find any
proper mode of rebuffing, or resenting it. Such
manifestations of authority were usually followed
by an instant renewal of their intimacy; but in
the present case that did not so speedily ensue.
Middlemas, indeed, consented to go with his
companion to the Isle of Wight, perhaps because
if he should quarrel with him, the whole plan of
his Indian voyage, and all the hopes built upon it,
must fall to the ground. But he altered his purpose
of entrusting his comrade with his little fortune,
to lay out as his occasions might require, and
resolved himself to overlook the expenditure of
his money, which, in the form of Bank of England
notes, was safely deposited in his travelling trunk.
Captain Hillary, finding that some hint he had
thrown out on this subject was disregarded, appeared
to think no more about it.
The voyage was performed with safety and celerity;
and having coasted the shores of that beautiful
island, which he who once sees never forgets,
through whatever part of the world his future
path may lead him, the vessel was soon anchored
off the little town of Ryde; and, as the waves
were uncommonly still, Richard felt the sickness
diminish, which, for a considerable part of the
passage, had occupied his attention more than any
thing else.
The master of the brig in honour to his passengers,
and affection to his old schoolfellow, had
formed an awning upon deck, and proposed to have
the pleasure of giving them a little treat before
they left his vessel. Lobscous, sea-pie, and other
delicacies of a naval description, had been provided
in a quantity far disproportionate to the number of
the guests. But the punch which succeeded was
of excellent quality, and portentously strong.
Captain Hillary pushed it round, and insisted upon
his companion taking his full share in the merry
bout, the rather that, as he facetiously said, there
had been some dryness between them, which good
liquor would be sovereign in removing. He renewed,
with additional splendours, the various
panoramic scenes of India and Indian adventures,
which had first excited the ambition of Middlemas,
and assured him, that even if he should not be able
to get him a commission instantly, yet a short delay
would only give him time to become better acquainted
with his military duties; and Middlemas
was too much elevated by the liquor he had drank
to see any difficulty which could oppose itself to
his fortunes. Whether those who shared in the
compotation were more seasoned topers---whether
Middlemas drank more than they---or whether, as
he himself afterwards suspected, his cup had been
drugged, like those of King Duncan's body-guard,
it is certain that on this occasion he passed, with
unusual rapidity, through all the different phases
of the respectable state of drunkenness,---laughed,
sung, whooped, and hallooed, was maudlin in his
fondness, and frantic in his wrath, and at length
fell into a fast and imperturbable sleep.
The effect of the liquor displayed itself, as usual,
in a hundred wild dreams of parched deserts, and
of serpents whose bite inflicted the most intolerable
thirst---of the suffering of the Indian on the
death-stake---and the torments of the infernal regions
themselves; when at length he awakened,
and it appeared that the latter vision was in fact
realized. The sounds which had at first influenced
his dreams, and at length broken his slumbers, were
of the most horrible, as well as the most melancholy
description. They came from the ranges of
pallet-beds, which were closely packed together in
a species of military hospital, where a burning
fever was the prevalent complaint. Many of the
patients were under the influence of a high delirium,
during which they shouted, shrieked, laughed,
blasphemed, and uttered the most horrible imprecations.
Others, sensible of their condition, bewailed
it with low groans, and some attempts at
devotion, which showed their ignorance of the
principles, and even the forms of religion. Those
who were convalescent talked ribaldry in a loud
tone, or whispered to each other in cant language,
upon schemes which, as far as a passing phrase
could be understood by a novice, had relation to
violent and criminal exploits.
Richard Middlemas's astonishment was equal to
his horror. He had but one advantage over the
poor wretches with whom he was classed, and it
was in enjoying the luxury of a pallet to himself
---most of the others being occupied by two unhappy
beings. He saw no one who appeared to
attend to the wants, or to heed the complaints, of
the wretches around him, or to whom he could offer
any appeal against his present situation. He looked
for his clothes, that he might arise and extricate
himself from this den of horrors; but his
clothes were nowhere to be seen, nor did he see
his portmanteau, or sea-chest. It was much to be
apprehended he would never see them more.
Then, but too late, he remembered the insinuations
which had passed current respecting his
friend the Captain, who was supposed to have been
discharged by Mr Lawford, on account of some
breach of trust in the Town-Clerk's service. But
that he should have trepanned the friend who had
reposed his whole confidence in him---that he should
have plundered him of his fortune, and placed him
in this house of pestilence, with the hope that
death might stifle his tongue, were iniquities not
to have been anticipated, even if the worst of these
reports were true.
But Middlemas resolved not to be awanting to
himself. This place must be visited by some
officer, military or medical, to whom he would
make an appeal, and alarm his fears at least, if he
could not awaken his conscience. While he revolved
these distracting thoughts, tormented at
the same time by a burning thirst which he had no
means of satisfying, he endeavoured to discover if,
among those stretched upon the pallets nearest
him, he could not discern some one likely to enter
into conversation with him, and give him some information
about the nature and customs of this
horrid place. But the bed nearest him was occupied
by two fellows, who, although to judge from
their gaunt cheeks, hollow eyes, and ghastly looks,
they were apparently recovering from the disease,
and just rescued from the jaws of death, were deeply
engaged in endeavouring to cheat each other of a
few half-pence at a game of cribbage, mixing the
terms of the game with oaths not loud but deep;
each turn of luck being hailed by the winner as
well as the loser with execrations, which seemed
designed to blight both body and soul, now used
as the language of triumph, and now as reproaches
against fortune.
Next to the gamblers was a pallet, occupied indeed
by two bodies, but only one of which was
living---the other sufferer had been recently relieved
from his agony.
``He is dead---he is dead!'' said the wretched
survivor.
``Then do you die too, and be d---d,'' answered
one of the players, ``and then there will be a pair
of you, as Pugg says.''
``I tell you he is growing stiff and cold,'' said
the poor wretch---``the dead is no bed-fellow for
the living. For God's sake, help to rid me of th e
corpse.''
``Ay, and get the credit of having _done_ him---
as may be the case with yourself, friend---for he
has some two or three hoggs about him---''
``You know you took the last rap from his
breeches-pocket not an hour ago,'' expostulated
the poor convalescent---``But help me to take the
body out of the bed, and I will not tell the _jigger-dubber_
that you have been before-hand with him.''
``You tell the _jigger-dubber_!'' answered the
cribbage player. `` Such another word, and I will
twist your head round till your eyes look at the
drummer's handwriting on your back. Hold your
peace, and don't bother our game with your gammon,
or I will make you as mute as your bedfellow.''
The unhappy wretch, exhausted, sunk back beside
his hideous companion, and the usual jargon
of the game, interlarded with execrations, went
on as before.
From this specimen of the most obdurate indifference,
contrasted with the last excess of misery,
Middlemas became satisfied how little could
be made of an appeal to the humanity of his fellow-sufferers.
His heart sunk within him, and
the thoughts of the happy and peaceful home, which
he might have called his own, arose before his
over-heated fancy, with a vividness of perception
that bordered upon insanity. He saw before him
the rivulet which wanders through the burgh-muir
of Middlemas, where he had so often set
little mills for the amusement of Menie while she
was a child. One drought of it would have been
worth all the diamonds of the East, which of late
he had worshipped with such devotion; but that
drought was denied to him as to Tantalus.
Rallying his senses from this passing illusion,
and knowing enough of the practice of the medical
art, to be aware of the necessity of preventing
his ideas from wandering if possible, he endeavoured
to recollect that he was a surgeon, and, after
all, should not have the extreme fear for the interior
of a military hospital, which its horrors
might inspire into strangers to the profession.
But though he strove, by such recollections, to
rally his spirits, he was not the less aware of the
difference betwixt the condition of a surgeon, who
might have attended such a place in the course of
his duty, and a poor inhabitant, who was at once
a patient and a prisoner.
A footstep was now heard in the apartment,
which seemed to silence all the varied sounds of
woe that filled it. The cribbage party hid their
cards, and ceased their oaths; other wretches,
whose complaints had arisen to frenzy, left off
their wild exclamations and entreaties for assistance.
Agony softened her shriek, Insanity hushed
its senseless clamours, and even Death seemed desirous
to stifle his parting groan in the presence
of Captain Seelencooper. This official was the
superintendent, or, as the miserable inhabitants
termed him, the Governor of the Hospital. He
had all the air of having been originally a turnkey
in some ill-regulated jail---a stout, short, bandy-legged
man, with one eye, and a double portion
of ferocity in that which remained. He wore an
old-fashioned tarnished uniform, which did not
seem to have been made for him; and the voice
in which this minister of humanity addressed the
sick, was that of a boatswain, shouting in the midst
of a storm. He had pistols and a cutlass in his
belt; for his mode of administration being such as
provoked, even hospital patients to revolt, his life
had been more than once in danger amongst them.
He was followed by two assistants, who carried
handcuffs and strait-jackets.
As Seelencooper made his rounds, complaint and
pain were hushed, and the flourish of the bamboo,
which he bore in his hand, seemed powerful as the
wand of a magician to silence all complaint and remonstrance.
``I tell you the meat is as sweet as a nosegay---
and for the bread, it's good enough, and too good,
for a set of Tubbers, that lie shamming Abraham,
and consuming the Right Honourable Company's
victuals---I don't speak to them that are really sick,
for God knows I am always for humanity.''
``If that be the case, sir,'' said Richard Middlemas,
whose lair the Captain had approached, while
he was thus answering the low and humble complaints
of those by whose bed-side he passed---``if
that be the case, sir, I hope your humanity will
make you attend to what I say.''
``And who the devil are you?'' said the governor,
turning on him his single eye of fire, while a
sneer gathered on his harsh features, which were
so well qualified to express it.
``My name is Middlemas---I come from Scotland,
and have been sent here by some strange
mistake. I am neither a private soldier, nor am I
indisposed, more than by the heat of this cursed
Place.''
``Why then, friend, all I have to ask you is,
whether you are an attested recruit or not?''
``I was attested at Edinburgh,'' said Middlemas,
but------''
``But what the devil would you have, then
you are enlisted---the Captain and the Doctor sent
you here---surely they know best whether you are
private or officer, sick or well.''
``But I was promised,'' said Middlemas, ``promised
by Tom Hillary------"
``Promised, were you? Why, there is not a man
here that has not been promised something by
somebody or another, or perhaps has promised
something to himself. This is the land of promise,
my smart fellow, but you know it is India that must
be the land of performance. So good morning to
you. The Doctor will come his rounds presently,
and put you all to rights.''
``Stay but one moment---one moment only---I
have been robbed.''
``Robbed! look you there now,'' said the Governor---
``everybody that comes here has been
robbed.---Egad, I am the luckiest fellow in Europe
---other people in my line have only thieves and
blackguards upon their hands; but none come to
my ken but honest decent, unfortunate gentlemen,
that have been robbed!''
``Take care how you treat this so lightly, sir,''
said Middlemas; ``I have been robbed of a thousand
pounds.''
Here Governor Seelencooper's gravity was totally
overcome, and his laugh was echoed by several
of the patients, either because they wished to
curry favour with the superintendent, or from the
feeling which influences evil spirits to rejoice in
the tortures of those who are sent to share their
agony.
``A thousand pounds!'' exclaimed Captain Seelencooper,
as he recovered his breath,---``Come,
that's a good one---I like a fellow that does not
make two bites of a cherry---why, there is not a
cull in the ken that pretends to have lost more than
a few hoggs, and here is a servant to the Honourable
Company that has been robbed of a thousand
pounds! Well done, Mr Tom of Ten Thousand---
you're a credit to the house, and to the service,
and so good morning to you.''
He passed on, and Richard, starting up in a
storm of anger and despair, found, as he would have
called after him, that his voice, betwixt thirst and
agitation, refused its office. ``Water, water!'' he
said, laying hold, at the same time, of one of the
assistants who followed Seelencooper by the sleeve.
The fellow looked carelessly round; there was a
jug stood by the side of the cribbage players,
which he reached to Middlemas, bidding him,
``Drink and be d------d.''
The man's back was no sooner turned, than the
gamester threw himself from his own bed into that
of Middlemas, and grasping firm hold of the arm of
Richard, ere he could carry the vessel to his head,
swore he should not have his booze. It may be
readily conjectured, that the pitcher thus anxiously
and desperately reclaimed, contained something
better than the pure element. In fact, a large proportion
of it was gin. The jug was broken in the
struggle, and the liquor spilt. Middlemas dealt a
blow to the assailant, which was amply and heartily
repaid, and a combat would have ensued, but for
the interference of the superintendent and his assistants,
who, with a dexterity that showed them
well acquainted with such emergencies, clapped a
strait-waistcoat upon each of the antagonists.
Richard's efforts at remonstrance only, procured
him a blow from Captain Seelencooper's rattan,
and a tender admonition to hold his tongue, if he
valued a whole skin.
Irritated at once by sufferings of the mind and
of the body, tormented by raging thirst, and by the
sense of his own dreadful situation, the mind of
Richard Middlemas seemed to be on the point of
becoming unsettled. He felt an insane desire to
imitate and reply to the groans, oaths, and ribaldry,
which, as soon as the superintendent quitted
the hospital, echoed around him. He longed, though
he struggled against the impulse, to vie in curses
with the reprobate, and in screams with the maniac.
But his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, his
mouth itself seemed choked with ashes; there came
upon him a dimness of sight, a rushing sound in his
ears, and the powers of life were for a time suspended.
CHAPTER VII.
A wise physician, skill'd our wounds to heal,
Is more than armies to the common weal.
Pope's _Homer_.
As Middlemas returned to his senses, he was
sensible that his blood felt more cool; that the
feverish throb of his pulsation was diminished;
that the ligatures on his person were removed,
and his lungs performed their functions more
freely. One assistant was binding up a vein, from
which a considerable quantity of blood had been
taken; another, who had just washed the face of
the patient, was holding aromatic vinegar to his
nostrils. As he began to open his eyes, the person
who had just completed the bandage, said in
Latin, but in a very low tone, and without raising
his head, ``Annon sis Ricardus ille Middlemas, excivitate
Middlemassiense? Responde in lingua
Latina.''
``Sum ille miserrimus,'' replied Richard, again
shutting his eyes; for strange as it may seem, the
voice of his comrade Adam Hartley, though his
presence might be of so much consequence in this
emergency, conveyed a pang to his wounded pride.
He was conscious of unkindly, if not hostile, feelings
towards his old companion; he remembered
the tone of superiority which he used to assume
over him, and thus to lie stretched at his feet, and
in a manner at his mercy, aggravated his distress,
by the feelings of the dying chieftain, ``Earl Percy
sees my fall.'' This was, however, too unreasonable
an emotion to subsist above a minute. In the
next, he availed himself of the Latin language,
with which both were familiar, (for in that time
the medical studies at the celebrated University of
Edinburgh were, in a great measure, conducted in
Latin,) to tell in a few words his own folly, and
the villainy of Hillary.
``I must be gone instantly,'' said Hartley---
``Take courage---I trust to be able to assist you.
In the meantime, take food and physic from none
but my servant, who you see holds the sponge in
his hand. You are in a place where a man's life
has been taken for the sake of his gold sleeve-buttons.''
``Stay yet a moment,'' said Middlemas---``Let
me remove this temptation from my dangerous
neighbours.''
He drew a small packet from his under waistcoat,
and put it into Hartley's hands.
``If I die,'' he said, ``be my heir. You deserve
her better than l.''
All answer was prevented by the hoarse voice of
Seelencooper.
``Well, Doctor, will you carry through your
patient?''
``Symptoms are dubious yet,'' said the Doctor
---``That wag an alarming swoon. You must have
him carried into the private ward, and my young
man shall attend him.''
``Why, if you command it, Doctor, needs must;
---but I can tell you there is a man we both know,
that has a thousand reasons at least for keeping
him in the public ward.''
``I know nothing of your thousand reasons,''
said Hartley; ``I can only tell you that this young
fellow is as well-limbed and likely a lad as the Company
have among their recruits. It is my business
to save him for their service, and if he dies by your
neglecting what I direct, depend upon it I will not
allow the blame to lie at my door. I will tell the
General the charge I have given you.''
``The General!'' said Seelencooper, much embarrassed---
``Tell the General?---ay, about his
health. But you will not say any thing about what
he may have said in his light-headed fits? My
eyes! if you listen to what feverish patients say
when the tantivy is in their brain, your back will
soon break with tale-bearing, for I will warrant
you plenty of them to carry.''
``Captain Seelencooper,'' said the Doctor, ``I
do not meddle with your department in the hospital:
My advice to you is, not to trouble yourself
with mine. I suppose, as I have a commission in
the service, and have besides a regular diploma as
a physician, I know when my patient is light-headed
or otherwise. So do you let the man be
carefully looked after, at your peril.''
Thus saying, he left the hospital, but not till,
under pretext of again consulting the pulse, he
pressed the patient's hand, as if to assure him once
more of his exertions for his liberation.
``My eyes!'' muttered Seelencooper, ``this
cockerel crows gallant, to come from a Scotch
roost; but I would know well enough how to fetch
the youngster off the perch, if it were not for the
cure he has done on the General's pickaninies.''
Enough of this fell on Richard's ear to suggest
hopes of deliverance, which were increased when
he was shortly afterwards removed to a separate
ward, a place much more decent in appearance, and
inhabited only by two patients, who seemed petty
officers. Although sensible that he had no illness,
save that weakness which succeeds violent agitation,
he deemed it wisest to suffer himself still to
be treated as a patient, in consideration that he
should thus remain under his comrade's superintendence.
Yet while preparing to avail himself
of Hartley's good offices, the prevailing, reflection
of his secret bosom was the ungrateful sentiment,
``Had Heaven no other means of saving me than
by the hands of him I like least on the face of the
earth?''
Meanwhile, ignorant of the ungrateful sentiments
of his comrade, and indeed wholly indifferent
how he felt towards him, Hartley proceeded
in doing him such service as was in his power,
without any other object than the discharge of his
own duty as a man and as a Christian. The manner
in which he became qualified to render his
comrade assistance, requires some short explanation.
Our story took place at a period, when the Directors
of the East India Company, with that hardy
and persevering policy which has raised to such a
height the British Empire in the East, had determined
to send a large reinforcement of European
troops to the support of their power in India, then
threatened by the kingdom of Mysore, of which
the celebrated Hyder Ally had usurped the government,
after dethroning his master. Considerable
difficulty was found in obtaining recruits for that
service. Those who might have been otherwise
disposed to be soldiers, were afraid of the climate,
and of the species of banishment which the engagement
implied; and doubted also how far the engagements
of the Company might be faithfully
observed towards them, when they were removed
from the protection of the British laws. For these
and other reasons, the military service of the King
was preferred, and that of the Company could
only procure the worst recruits, although their
zealous agents scrupled not to employ the worst
means. Indeed the practice of kidnapping, or
crimping, as it is technically called, was at that
time general, whether for the colonies, or even for
the King's troops; and as the agents employed in
such transactions must be of course entirely unscrupulous,
there was not only much villainy committed
in the direct prosecution of the trade, but it
gave rise incidentally to remarkable cases of robbery,
and even murder. Such atrocities were of
course concealed from the authorities for whom the
levies were made, and the necessity of obtaining
soldiers made men, whose conduct was otherwise
unexceptionable, cold in looking closely into the
mode in which their recruiting service was conducted.
The principal depot of the troops which were
by these means assembled, was in the Isle of Wight,
where the season proving unhealthy, and the men
themselves being many of them of a bad habit of
body, a fever of a malignant character broke out
amongst them, and speedily crowded with patients
the military hospital, of which Mr Seelencooper,
himself an old and experienced crimp and kidnapper,
had obtained the superintendence. Irregularities
began to take place also among the soldiers
who remained healthy, and the necessity of
subjecting them to some discipline before they
sailed was so evident, that several officers of the
Company's naval service expressed their belief
that otherwise there would be dangerous mutinies
on the passage.
To remedy the first of these evils, the Court of
Directors sent down to the island several of their
medical servants, amongst whom was Hartley,
whose qualifications had been amply certified by
a medical board, before which he had passed an
examination, besides his possessing a diploma from
the University of Edinburgh as M.D.
To enforce the discipline of their soldiers, the
Court committed full power to one of their own
body, General Witherington. The General was an
officer who had distinguished himself highly in
their service. He had returned from India five
or six years before, with a large fortune, which he
had rendered much greater by an advantageous
marriage with a rich heiress. The General and
his lady went little into society, but seemed to live
entirely for their infant family, those in number
being three, two boys and a girl. Although he
had retired from the service, he willingly undertook
the temporary charge committed to him, and
taking a house at a considerable distance from the
town of Ryde, he proceeded to enrol the troops
into separate bodies, appoint officers of capacity to
each, and by regular training and discipline, gradually
to bring them into something resembling
good order. He heard their complaints of ill
usage in the articles of provisions and appointments,
and did them upon all occasions the strictest
justice, save that he was never known to restore
one recruit to his freedom from the service, however
unfairly or even illegally his attestation might
have been obtained.
``It is none of my business,'' said General
Witherington, ``how you became soldiers,---soldiers
I found you, and soldiers I will leave you.
But I will take especial care, that as soldiers you
shall have every thing, to a penny or a pin's head,
that you are justly entitled to.'' He went to work
without fear or favour, reported many abuses to
the Board of Directors, had several officers, commissaries,
&c. removed from the service, and made
his name as great a terror to the peculators at
home, as it had been to the enemies of Britain in
Hindostan.
Captain Seelencooper, and his associates in the
hospital department, heard and trembled, fearing
that their turn should come next; but the General,
who elsewhere examined all with his own eyes,
showed a reluctance to visit the hospital in person.
Public report industriously imputed this to fear of
infection. Such was certainly the motive; though
it was not fear for his own safety that influenced
General Witherington, but he dreaded lest he
should carry the infection home to the nursery,
on which he doated. The alarm of his lady was
yet more unreasonably sensitive; she would scarcely
suffer the children to walk abroad, if the wind
but blew from the quartet where the Hospital was
situated.
But Providence baffles the precautions of mortals.
In a walk across the fields, chosen as the
most sheltered and sequestered, the children, with
their train of Eastern and European attendants,
met a woman who carried a child that was recovering
from the smallpox. The anxiety of the
father, joined to some religious scruples on the
mother's part, had postponed inoculation, which
was then scarcely come into general use. The infection
caught like a quick-match, and ran like
wildfire through all those in the family who had
not previously had the disease. One of the General's
children, the second boy, died, and two of
the Ayas, or black female servants, had the same
fate. The hearts of the father and mother would
have been broken for the child they had lost, had
not their grief been suspended by anxiety for the
fate of those who lived, and who were confessed
to be in imminent danger. They were like persons
distracted, as the symptoms of the poor patients
seemed gradually to resemble more nearly
that of the child already lost.
While the parents were in this agony of apprehension,
the General's principal servant, a native
of Northumberland like himself, informed him one
morning that there was a young man from the
same county among the hospital doctors, who had
publicly blamed the mode of treatment observed
towards the patients, and spoken of another which
he had seen practised with eminent success.
``Some impudent quack,'' said the General,
``who would force himself into business by bold
assertions. Doctor Tourniquet and Doctor Lancelot
are men of high reputation.''
``Do not mention their reputation,'' said the
mother, with a mother's impatience; ``did they not
let my sweet Rueben die? What avails the reputation
of the physician, when the patient perisheth?''
``If his honour would but see Doctor Hartley,''
said Winter, turning half towards the lady, and
then turning back again to his master. ``He is a
very decent young man, who, I am sure, never
expected what he said to reach your honour's ears;
---and he is a native of Northumberland.''
``Send a servant with a led horse,'' said the General:
``let the young man come hither instantly.''
It is well known, that the ancient mode of treating
the smallpox was to refuse to the patient
every thing which Nature urged him to desire;
and, in particular, to confine him to heated rooms,
beds loaded with blankets, and spiced wine, when
nature called for cold water and fresh air. A
different mode of treatment had of late been adventured
upon by some practitioners, who preferred
reason to authority, and Gideon Gray had
followed it for several years with extraordinary
success.
When General Witherington saw Hartley, he
was startled at his youth; but when he heard him
modestly, but with confidence, state the difference
of the two modes of treatment, and the rationale
of his practice, he listened with the most serious
attention. So did his lady, her streaming eyes
turning from Hartley to her husband, as if to
watch what impression the arguments of the former
were making upon the latter. General Witherington
was silent for a few minutes after Hartley
had finished his exposition, and seem buried in
profound reflection. ``To treat a fever,'' he said,
``in a manner which tends to produce one, seems
indeed to be adding fuel to fire.''
``It is---it is,'' said the lady. ``Let us trust this
young man, General Witherington. We shall at
least give our darling the comforts of the fresh air
and cold water, for which they are pining.''
But the General remained undecided. ``Your
reasoning,'' he said to Hartley, ``seems plausible;
but still it is only hypothesis. What can you show
to support your theory, in opposition to the general
practice?''
``My own observation,'' replied the young man.
``Here is a memorandum-book of medical cases
which I have witnessed. It contains twenty cases
of smallpox, of which eighteen were recoveries.''
``And the two others?'' said the General.
``Terminated fatally,'' replied Hartley; ``we
can as yet but partially disarm this scourge of the
human race.''
``Young man,'' continued the General, ``were
I to say that a thousand gold mohrs were yours in
case my children live under your treatment, what
have you to peril in exchange?''
``My reputation,'' answered Hartley, firmly.
``And you could warrant on your reputation the
recovery of your patients?''
``God forbid I should be so presumptuous! But
I think I could warrant my using those means,
which with God's blessing, afford the fairest chance
of a favourable result.''
``Enough---you are modest and sensible, as well
as bold, and I will trust you.''
The lady, on whom Hartley's words and manner
had made a great impression, and who was eager to
discontinue a mode of treatment which subjected
the patients to the greatest pain and privation, and
had already proved unfortunate, eagerly acquiesced,
and Hartley was placed in full authority in the sick
room.
Windows were thrown open, fires reduced or
discontinued, loads of bed-clothes removed, cooling
drinks superseded mulled wine and spices. The
sick-nurses cried out murder. Doctors Tourniquet
and Lancelot retired in disgust, menacing something
like a general pestilence, in vengeance of
what they termed rebellion against the neglect of
the aphorisms of Hippocrates. Hartley proceeded
quietly and steadily, and the patients got into a
fair road of recovery.
The young Northumbrian was neither conceited
nor artful; yet, with all his plainness of character,
he could not but know the influence which a successful
physician obtains over the parents of the
children whom he has saved from the grave, and
especially before the cure is actually completed.
He resolved to use this influence in behalf of his old
companion, trusting that the military tenacity of
General Witherington would give way on consideration
of the obligation so lately conferred upon
him.
On his way to the General's house, which was
at present his constant place of residence, he examined
the packet which Middlemas had put into
his hand. It contained the picture of Menie Gray,
plainly set, and the ring, with brilliants, which
Doctor Gray had given to Richard, as his mother's
last gift. The first of these tokens extracted from
honest Hartley a sigh, perhaps a tear of sad remembrance.
``I fear,'' he said, ``she has not chosen
worthily; but she shall be happy, if I can make
her so.''
Arrived it the residence of General Witherington,
our Doctor went first to the sick apartment,
and then carried to their parents the delightful
account that the recovery of the children might be
considered as certain. ``May the God of Israel
bless thee, young man!'' said the lady, trembling
with emotion; ``thou hast wiped the tear from the
eye of the despairing mother. And yet-alas!
alas! still it must flow when I think of my cherub
Reuben. Oh! Mr Hartley, why did we not know
you a week sooner?---my darling had not then
died.''
``God gives and takes away, my lady,'' answered
Hartley; ``and you must remember, that two are
restored to you out of three. It is far from certain,
that the treatment I have used towards the convalescents
would have brought through their brother;
for the case, as reported to me, was of a very
inveterate description.''
``Doctor,'' said Witherington, his voice testifying
more emotion than he usually or willingly gave
way to, ``you can comfort the sick in spirit as well
as the sick in body. But it is time we settle our
wager. You betted your reputation, which remains
with you, increased by all the credit due to your
eminent success, against a thousand gold mohrs, the
value of which you will find in that pocketbook.''
``General Witherington,'' said Hartley, ``you
are wealthy, and entitled to be generous---I am
poor, and not entitled to decline whatever may be,
even in a liberal sense, a compensation for my professional
attendance. But there is a bound to extravagance,
both in giving and accepting; and I
must not hazard the newly acquired reputation with
which you flatter me, by giving room to have it
said, that I fleeced the parents, when their feelings
were all afloat with anxiety for their children.
Allow me to divide this large sum; one half I will
thankfully retain, as a most liberal recompense for
my labour; and if you still think you owe me any
thing, let me have in the advantage of your good
opinion and countenance.''
``If I acquiesce in your proposal, Doctor Hartley,''
said the General, reluctantly receiving back
a part of the contents of the pocketbook, ``it is
because I hope to serve you with my interest, even
better than with my purse.''
``And indeed, sir,'' replied Hartley, ``it was
upon your interest that I am just about to make a
small claim.''
The General and his lady spoke both in the same
breath, to assure him his boon was granted before
asked.
``I am not so sure of that,'' said Hartley; ``for
it respects a point on which I have heard say, that
your Excellency is rather inflexible---the discharge
of a recruit.''
``My duty makes me so,'' replied the General---
``You know the sort of fellows that we are obliged
to content ourselves with---they get drunk---grow
pot-valiant---enlist over-night, and repent next
morning. If I am to dismiss all those who pretend
to have been trepanned, we should have few volunteers
remain behind. Every one has some idle
story of the promises of a swaggering Sergeant
Kite---It is impossible to attend to them. But let
me hear yours, however.''
``Mine is a very singular case. The party has
been robbed of a thousand pounds.''
``A recruit for this service possessing a thousand
pounds! My dear Doctor, depend upon it, the
fellow has gulled you. Bless my heart, would a
man who had a thousand pounds think of enlisting
as a private sentinel?''
``He had no such thoughts,'' answered Hartley.
``He was persuaded by the rogue whom he trusted,
that he was to have a commission.''
``Then his friend must have been Tom Hillary,
or the devil; for no other could possess so much
cunning and impudence. He will certainly find
his way to the gallows at last. Still this story of
the thousand pounds seems a touch even beyond
Tom Hillary. What reason have you to think that
this fellow ever had such a sum of money?''
``I have the best reason to know it for certain,''
answered Hartley; ``he and I served our time
together, under the same excellent master; and
when he came of age, not liking the profession
which he had studied, and obtaining possession of
his little fortune, he was deceived by the promises
of this same Hillary.''
``Who has had him locked up in our well-ordered
Hospital yonder?'' said the General.
``Even so, please your Excellency,'' replied
Hartley; ``not, I think, to cure him of any complaint,
but to give him the opportunity of catching
one, which would silence all enquiries.''
``The matter shall be closely looked into. But
how miserably careless the young man's friends
must have been to let a raw lad go into the world
with such a companion and guide as Tom Hillarys
and such a sum as a thousand pounds in his pocket.
His parents had better have knocked him on the
head. It certainly was not done like canny Northumberland,
as my servant Winter calls it.''
``The youth must indeed have had strangely
hard-hearted, or careless parents,'' said Mrs Witherington,
in accents of pity.
``He never knew them, madam,'' said Hartley;
``there was a mystery on the score of his birth. A
cold, unwilling, and almost unknown hand, dealt
him out his portion when he came of lawful age,
and he was pushed into the world like a bark forced
from shore, without rudder, compass, or pilot.''
Here General Witherington involuntarily looked
to his lady, while, guided by a similar impulse, her
looks were turned upon him. They exchanged a
momentary glance of deep and peculiar meaning,
and then the eyes of both were fixed on the ground.
``Were you brought up in Scotland?'' said the
lady, addressing herself, in a faltering voice, to
Hartley---``And what was your master's name?''
``I served my apprenticeship with Mr Gideon
Gray of the town of Middlemas,'' said Hartley.
``Middlemas! Gray!'' repeated the lady, and
fainted away.
Hartley offered the succours of his profession;
the husband flew to support her head, and the instant
that Mrs Witherington began to recover, he
whispered to her, in a tone betwixt entreaty and
warning, ``Zilia, beware---beware!''
Some imperfect sounds which she had begun to
frame, died away upon her tongue.
``Let me assist you to your dressing-room, my
love,'' said her obviously anxious husband.
She arose with the action of an automaton, which
moves at the touch of a spring, and half hanging
upon her husband, half dragging herself on by her
own efforts, had nearly reached the door of the
room, when Hartley following, asked if he could
be of any service.
``No, sir,'' said the General sternly; ``this is no
case for a stranger's interference; when you are
wanted I will send for you.''
Hartley stepped back on receiving a rebuff in a
tone so different from that which General Witherington
had used toward him in their previous intercourse,
and disposed, for the first time, to give
credit to public report, which assigned to that gentleman,
with several good qualities, the character
of a very proud and haughty man. Hitherto, he
thought, I have seen him tamed by sorrow and
anxiety, now the mind is regaining its natural tension.
But he must in decency interest himself for
the unhappy Middlemas.
The General returned into the apartment a
minute or two afterwards, and addressed Hartley
in his usual tone of politeness, though apparently
still under great embarrassment, which he in vain
endeavoured to conceal.
``Mrs Witherington is better,'' he said, ``and
will be glad to see you before dinner. You dine
with us, I hope?''
Hartley bowed.
``Mrs Witherington is rather subject to this
sort of nervous fits, and she has been much harassed
of late by grief and apprehension. When she recovers
from them, it is a few minutes before she
can collect her ideas, and during such intervals---
to speak very confidentially to you, my dear Doctor
Hartley---she speaks sometimes about imaginary
events which have never happened, and sometimes
about distressing occurrences in an early period of
life. I am not, therefore, willing that any one but
myself, or her old attendant Mrs Lopez, should be
with her on such occasions.''
Hartley admitted that a certain degree of light-headedness
was often the consequence of nervous fits.
The General proceeded. ``As to this young
man---this friend of yours---this Richard Middlemas---
did you not call him so?''
``Not that I recollect,'' answered Hartley; ``but
your Excellency has hit upon his name.''
``That is odd enough---Certainly you said something
about Middlemas?'' replied General Witherington.
``I mentioned the name of the town,'' said
Hartley.
``Ay, and I caught it up as the name of the
recruit---I was indeed occupied at the moment by
my anxiety about my wife. But this Middlemas,
since such is his name, is a wild young fellow, I
suppose?''
``I should do him wrong to say so, your Excellency.
He may have had his follies like other
young men; but his conduct has, so far as. I know,
been respectable; but, considering we lived in the
same house, we were not very intimate.''
``That is bad---I should have liked him---that
is---it would have been happy for him to have had
a friend like you. But I suppose you studied too
hard for him. He would be a soldier, ha?---Is he
good-looking?''
``Remarkably so,'' replied Hartley; ``and has a
very prepossessing manner.''
``Is his complexion dark or fair?'' asked the
General.
``Rather uncommonly dark,'' said Hartley,---
darker, if I may use the freedom, than your Excellency's.''
``Nay, then, he must be a black ouzel indeed!---
Does he understand languages?''
``Latin and French tolerably well.''
``Of course he cannot fence or dance?''
``Pardon me, sir, I am no great judge; but
Richard is reckoned to do both with uncommon
skill.''
``Indeed!---Sum this up, and it sounds well.
Handsome, accomplished in exercises, moderately
learned, perfectly well-bred, not unreasonably wild.
All this comes too high for the situation of a private
sentinel. He must have a commission, Doctor---
entirely for your sake.''
``Your Excellency is generous.''
``It shall be so; and I will find means to make
Tom Hillary disgorge his plunder, unless he prefers
being hanged, a fate he has long deserved.
You cannot go back to the Hospital to-day. You
dine with us, and you know Mrs Witherington's
fears of infection; but to-morrow find out your
friend. Winter shall see him equipped with every
thing needful. Tom Hillary shall repay advances,
you know; and he must be off with the first detachment
of the recruits, in the Middlesex Indiaman,
which sails from the Downs on Monday fortnight;
that is, if you think him fit for the voyage.
I dare say the poor fellow is sick of the Isle of
Wight.''
``Your Excellency will permit the young man
to pay his respects to you before his departure?''
``To what purpose, sir?'' said the General, hastily
and peremptorily; but instantly added, ``You are
right---I should like to see him. Winter shall let
him know the time, and take horses to fetch him
hither. But he must have been out of the Hospital
for a day or two; so the sooner you can set him at
liberty the better. In the meantime, take him to
your own lodgings, Doctor; and do not let him form
any intimacies with the officers, or any others, in
this place, where he may light on another Hillary.''
Had Hartley been as well acquainted as the
reader with the circumstances of young Middlemas's
birth, he might have drawn decisive conclusions
from the behaviour of General Witherington,
while his comrade is the topic of conversation.
But as Mr Gray and Middlemas himself were both
silent on the subject, he knew little of it but from
general report, which his curiosity had never induced
him to scrutinize minutely. Nevertheless,
what he did apprehend interested him so much,
that he resolved upon trying a little experiment,
in which he thought there could be no great harm.
He placed on his finger the remarkable ring intrusted
to his care by Richard Middlemas, and
endeavoured to make it conspicuous in approaching
Mrs Witherington; taking care, however, that
this occurred during her husband's absence. Her
eyes had no sooner caught a sight of the gem, than
they became riveted to it, and she begged a nearer
sight of it, as strongly resembling one which she
had given to a friend. Taking the ring from his
finger, and placing it in her emaciated band, Hartley
informed her it was the property of the friend
in whom he had just been endeavouring to interest
the General. Mrs Witherington retired in great
emotion, but next day summoned Hartley to a
private interview, the particulars of which, so far
as are necessary to be known, shall be afterwards
related.
On the succeeding day after these important
discoveries, Middlemas, to his great delight, was
rescued from his seclusion in the Hospital, and
transferred to his comrade's lodgings in the town
of Ryde, of which Hartley himself was a rare inmate;
the anxiety of Mrs Witherington detaining
him at the General's house, long after his medical
attendance might have been dispensed with.
Within two or three days a commission arrived
for Richard Middlemas, as a lieutenant in the
service of the East India Company. Winter, by
his master's orders, put the wardrobe of the young
officer on a suitable footing; while Middlemas,
enchanted at finding himself at once emancipated
from his late dreadful difficulties, and placed under
the protection of a man of such importance as
the General, obeyed implicitly the hints transmitted
to him by Hartley, and enforced by Winter,
and abstained from going into public, or forming
acquaintances with any one. Even Hartley
himself he saw seldom; and, deep as were his obligations,
he did not perhaps greatly regret the
absence of one, whose presence always affected
him with a sense of humiliation and abasement.
CHAPTER VIII.
The evening before he was to sail for the Downs,
where the Middlesex lay ready to weigh anchor,
the new lieutenant was summoned by Winter to
attend him to the General's residence, for the purpose
of being introduced to his patron, to thank
him at once, and to bid him farewell. On the
road, the old man took the liberty of schooling his
companion concerning the respect which he ought
to pay to his master, ``who was, though a kind
and generous man as ever came from Northumberland,
extremely rigid in punctiliously exacting
the degree of honour which was his due.''
While they were advancing towards the house,
the General and his wife expected their arrival
with breathless anxiety. They were seated in a
superb drawing-room, the General behind a large
chandelier, which shaded opposite to his face,
threw all the light to the other side of the table,
so that he could observe any person placed there,
without becoming the subject of observation in
turn. On a heap of cushions, wrapped in a glittering
drapery of gold and silver muslins, mingled
with shawls, a luxury which was then a novelty in
Europe, sate, or rather reclined, his lady, who,
past the full meridian of beauty, retained charms
enough to distinguish her as one who had been formerly
a very fine woman, though her mind seemed
occupied by the deepest emotion.
``Zilia,'' said her husband, ``you are unable for
what you have undertaken---take my advice---retire---
you shall know all and every thing that
passes---but retire. To what purpose should you
cling to the idle wish of beholding for a moment
a being whom you can never again look upon?''
``Alas!'' answered the lady, ``and is not your declaration,
that I shall never see him more, a sufficient
reason that I should wish to see him now---should
wish to imprint on my memory the features and
the form which I am never again to behold while
we are in the body? Do not, my Richard, be more
cruel than was my poor father, even when his
wrath was in its bitterness. He let me look upon
my infant, and its cherub face dwelt with me, and
was my comfort, among the years of unutterable
sorrow in which my youth wore away.''
``It is enough, Zilia---you have desired this boon
---I have granted it---and, at whatever risk, my
promise shall be kept. But think how much depends
on this fatal secret---your rank and estimation
in society---my honour interested that that
estimation should remain uninjured. Zilia, the
moment that the promulgation of such a secret
gives prudes and scandal-mongers a right to treat
you with scorn, will be fraught with unutterable
misery, perhaps with bloodshed and death, should
a man dare to take up the rumour.''
``You shall be obeyed, my husband,'' answered
Zilia, ``in all that the frailness of nature will permit.
But oh, God of my fathers, of what clay
hast thou fashioned us, poor mortals, who dread so
much the shame which follows sin, yet repent so
little for the sin itself!'' In a minute afterwards
steps were heard---the door opened---Winter announced
Lieutenant Middlemas, and the unconscious
son stood before his parents.
Witherington started involuntarily up, but immediately
constrained himself to assume the easy
deportment with which, a superior receives a dependent,
and which, in his own case, was usually
mingled with a certain degree of hauteur. The
mother had less command of herself. She too
sprung up, as if with the intention of throwing
herself on the neck of her son, for whom she had
travailed and sorrowed. But the warning glance
of her husband arrested her, as if by magic, and she
remained standing, with her beautiful head and
neck somewhat advanced, her hands clasped together,
and extended forward in the attitude of
motion, but motionless, nevertheless, as a marble
statue, to which the sculptor has given all the appearance
of life, but cannot impart its powers. So
strange a gesture and posture might have excited
the young officer's surprise; but the lady stood in
the shade, and he was so intent in looking upon his
patron that he was scarce even conscious of Mrs
Witherington's presence.
``I am happy in this opportunity,'' said Middlemas,
observing that the General did not speak,
``to return my thanks to General Witherington,
to whom they never can be sufficiently paid.''
The sound of his voice, though uttering words
so indifferent, seemed to dissolve the charm which
kept his mother motionless. She sighed deeply, relaxed
the rigidity of her posture, and sunk back on
the cushions from which she had started up. Middlemas
turned a look towards her at the sound of
the sigh, and the rustling of her drapery. The
General hastened to speak.
``My wife, Mr Middlemas has been unwell of
late---your friend, Mr Hartley, might mention it
to you---an affection of the nerves.''
Mr Middlemas was, of course, sorry and concerned.
``We have had distress in our family, Mr Middlemas,
from the ultimate and heart-breaking consequences
of which we have escaped by the skill
of your friend, Mr Hartley. We will be happy if
it is in our power to repay a part of our obligations
in services to his friend and proteg<e'>, Mr
Middlemas.''
``I am only acknowledged as his proteg<e'>, then,''
thought Richard; but he said, ``Every one must
envy his friend, in having had the distinguished
good fortune to be of use to General Witherington
and his family.''
``You have received your commission, I presume.
Have you any particular wish or desire respecting
your destination?''
``No, may it please your Excellency,'' answered
Middlemas. ``I suppose Hartley would tell your
Excellency my unhappy state---that I am an orphan,
deserted by the parents who cast me on the
wide world, an outcast about whom nobody knows
or cares, except to desire that I should wander far
enough, and live obscurely enough, not to disgrace
them by their connexion with me.''
Zilia wrung her hands as he spoke, and drew her
muslin veil closely around her head, as if to exclude
the sounds which excited her mental agony.
``Mr Hartley was not particularly communicative
about your affairs,'' said the General; ``nor
do I wish to give you the pain of entering into
them. What I desire to know is, if you are pleased
with your destination to Madras?''
``Perfectly, please your Excellency---anywhere,
so that there is no chance of meeting the villain
Hillary.''
``Oh! Hillary's services are too necessary in the
purlieus of Saint Giles's, the Lowlights of Newcastle,
and such like places, where human carrion
can be picked up, to be permitted to go to India.
However, to show you the knave has some grace,
there are the notes of which you were robbed.
You will find them the very same paper which you
lost, except a small sum which the rogue had spent,
but which a friend has made up, in compassion for
your sufferings.'' Richard Middlemas sunk on one
knee, and kissed the band which restored him to
independence.
``Pshaw!'' said the General, ``you are a silly
young man;'' but he withdrew not his hand from
his caresses. This was one of the occasions on which
Dick Middlemas could be oratorical.
``O, my more than father,'' he said, ``how much
greater a debt do I owe to you than to the unnatural
parents, who brought me into this world by
their sin, and deserted me through their cruelty!''
Zilia, as she heard these cutting words, flung
back her veil, raising it on both hands till it floated
behind her like a mist, and then giving a faint
groan, sunk down in a swoon. Pushing Middlemas
from him with a hasty movement, General
Witherington flew to his lady's assistance, and
carried her in his arms, as if she had been a child,
into the anteroom, where an old servant waited
with the means of restoring suspended animation,
which the unhappy husband too truly anticipated
might be useful. These were hastily employed,
and succeeded in calling the sufferer to life, but in
a state of mental emotion that was terrible.
Her mind was obviously impressed by the last
words which her son had uttered.---``Did you hear
him, Richard!'' she exclaimed, in accents terribly
loud, considering the exhausted state of her strength
---``Did you hear the words? It was Heaven speaking
our condemnation by the voice of our own child.
But do not fear, my Richard, do not weep! I will
answer the thunder of Heaven with its own music.''
She flew to a harpsichord which stood in the
room, and, while the servant and master gazed on
each other, as if doubting whether her senses were
about to leave her entirely, she wandered over the
keys, producing a wilderness of harmony, composed
of passages recalled by memory, or combined
by her own musical talent, until at length
her voice and instrument united in one of those
magnificent hymns in which her youth had praised
her Maker, with voice and harp, like the Royal
Hebrew who composed it. The tear ebbed insensibly
from the eyes which she turned upwards---
her vocal tones, combining with those of the instrument,
rose to a pitch of brilliancy seldom attained
by the most distinguished performers, and then
sunk into a dying cadence, which fell, never again
to rise,---for the songstress had died with her strain.
The horror of the distracted husband may be
conceived, when all efforts to restore life proved
totally ineffectual. Servants were despatched for
medical men---Hartley, and every other who could
be found. The General precipitated himself into
the apartment they had so lately left, and in his
haste ran against Middlemas, who, at the sound of
the music from the adjoining apartment, had naturally
approached nearer to the door, and, surprised
and startled by the sort of clamour, hasty steps,
and confused voices which ensued, had remained
standing there, endeavouring to ascertain the cause
of so much disorder.
The sight of the unfortunate young man wakened
the General's stormy passions to frenzy. He seemed
to recognise his son only as the cause of his wife's
death. He seized him by the collar, and shook him
violently as he dragged him into the chamber of
mortality.
``Come hither,'' he said, ``thou for whom a life
of lowest obscurity was too mean a fate---come
hither, and look on the parents whom thou hast so
much envied---whom thou hast so often cursed.
Look at that pale emaciated form, a figure of wax,
rather than flesh and blood---that is thy mother---
that is the unhappy Zilia Mon<c,>ada, to whom thy
birth was the source of shame and misery, and to
whom thy ill-omened presence has now brought
death itself. And behold me''---he pushed the lad
from him, and stood up erect, looking wellnigh in
gesture and figure the apostate spirit be described
---``Behold me''---he said; ``see you not my hair
streaming with sulphur, my brow scathed with
lightning?---l am the Arch-Fiend---I am the father
whom you seek---I am the accursed Richard Tresham,
the seducer of Zilia, and the father of her
murderer!''
Hartley entered while this horrid scene was passing.
All attention to the deceased, he instantly
saw, would be thrown away; and understanding,
partly from Winter, partly from the tenor of the
General's frantic discourse, the nature of the disclosure
which had occurred, he hastened to put an
end, if possible, to the frightful and scandalous
scene which had taken place. Aware how delicately
the General felt on the subject of reputation,
he assailed him with remonstrances on such
conduct, in presence of so many witnesses. But
the mind had ceased to answer to that once powerful
key-note.
``I care not if the whole world hear my sin and
my punishment,'' said Witherington. ``It shall
not be again said of me, that I fear shame more
than I repent sin. I feared shame only for Zilia,
and Zilia is dead!''
``But her memory, General---spare the memory
of your wife, in which the character of your children
is involved.''
``I have no children!'' said the desperate and
violent man. ``My Reuben is gone to Heaven,
to prepare a lodging for the angel who has now
escaped from earth in a flood of harmony, which
can only be equalled where she is gone. The
other two cherubs will not survive their mother.
I shall be, nay, I already feel myself, a childless
man.''
``Yet I am your son,'' replied Middlemas, in a
tone sorrowful, but at the same time tinged with
sullen resentment---``Your son by your wedded
wife. Pale as she lies there, I call upon you both
to acknowledge my rights, and all who are present
to bear witness to them.''
``Wretch!'' exclaimed the maniac father, ``canst
thou think of thine own sordid rights in the midst
of death and frenzy? My son!---thou art the fiend
who hast occasioned my wretchedness in this world,
and who will share my eternal misery in the next.
Hence from my sight, and my curse go with
thee!''
His eyes fixed on the ground, his arms folded on
his breast, the haughty and dogged spirit of Middlemas
yet seemed to meditate reply. But Hartley,
Winter, and others bystanders interfered, and
forced him from the apartment. As they endeavoured
to remonstrate with him, he twisted himself
out of their grasp, ran to the stables, and seizing
the first saddled horse that he found, out of
many that had been in haste got ready to seek for
assistance, he threw himself on its back, and rode
furiously off. Hartley was about to mount and
follow him; but Winter and the other domestics
threw themselves around him, and implored him
not to desert their unfortunate master, at a time
when the influence which he had acquired over
him might be the only restraint on the violence of
his passions.
``He had a _coup de soleil_ in India,'' whispered
Winter, ``and is capable of any thing in his fits.
These cowards cannot control him, and I am old
and feeble.''
Satisfied that General Witherington was a
greater object of compassion than Middlemas,
whom besides he had no hope of overtaking, and
who he believed was safe in his own keeping, however
violent might be his present emotions, Hartley
returned where the greater emergency demanded
his immediate care.
He found the unfortunate General contending
with the domestics, who endeavoured to prevent
his making his way to the apartment where his
children slept, and exclaiming furiously---``Rejoice,
my treasures---rejoice!---He has fled who
would proclaim your father's crime, and your mother's
dishonour!---He has fled, never to return,
whose life has been the death of one parent, and
the ruin of another!---Courage, my children, your
father is with you---he will make his way to you
through a hundred obstacles!''
The domestics, intimidated and undecided, were
giving way to him, when Adam Hartley approached,
and placing himself before the unhappy man,
fixed his eye firmly on the General's while he said
in a low but stern voice---``Madman, would you kill
your children?''
The General seemed staggered in his resolution,
but still attempted to rush past him. But Hartley,
seizing him by the collar of his coat on each side,
``You are my prisoner,'' he said; ``I command
you to follow me.''
``Ha! prisoner, and for high treason? Dog,
thou hast met thy death!''
The distracted man drew a poniard from his
bosom, and Hartley's strength and resolution might
not perhaps have saved his life, had not Winter
mastered the General's right hand, and contrived
to disarm him.
``I am your prisoner, then,'' he said; ``use me
civilly---and let me see my wife and children.''
``You shall see them to-morrow,'' said Hartley;
``follow us instantly, and without the least resistance.''
General Witherington followed like a child, with
the air of one who is suffering for a cause in which
he glories.
``I am not ashamed of my principles,'' he said
---``I am willing to die for my king.''
Without exciting his frenzy, by contradicting
the fantastic idea which occupied his imagination,
Hartley continued to maintain over his patient the
ascendency he had acquired. He caused him to be
led to his apartment, and beheld him suffer himself
to be put to bed. Administering then a strong
composing drought, and causing a servant to sleep
in the room, he watched the unfortunate man till
dawn of morning.
General Witherington awoke in his full senses,
and apparently conscious of his real situation, which
he testified by low groans, sobs, and tears. When
Hartley drew near his bedside, he knew him perfectly,
and said, ``Do not fear me---the fit is over
---leave me now, and see after yonder unfortunate.
Let him leave Britain as soon as possible, and go
where his fate calls him, and where we can never
meet more. Winter knows my ways, and will
take care of me.''
Winter gave the same advice. ``I can answer,''
he said, ``for my master's security at present; but
in Heaven's name, prevent his ever meeting again
with that obdurate young man!''
CHAPTER IX.
Well, then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
_Merry Wives of Windsor_.
When Adam Hartley arrived at his lodgings in
the sweet little town of Ryde, his first enquiries
were after his comrade. He had arrived last night
late, man and horse all in a foam. He made no reply
to any questions about supper or the like, but
snatching a candle, ran up stairs into his apartment,
and shut and double-locked the door. The servants
only supposed, that, being something intoxicated,
he had ridden hard, and was unwilling to expose
himself.
Hartley went to the door of his chamber, not
without some apprehensions; and after knocking
and calling more than once, received at length the
welcome return, ``Who is there?''
On Hartley announcing himself, the door opened,
and Middlemas appeared, well dressed, and
with his hair arranged and powdered; although,
from the appearance of the bed, it had not been
slept in on the preceding night, and Richard's
countenance, haggard and ghastly, seemed to bear
witness to the same fact. It was, however, with
an affectation of indifference that he spoke.
``I congratulate you on your improvement in
wordly knowledge, Adam. It is just the time to
desert the poor heir, and stick by him that is in
immediate possession of the wealth.''
``I staid last night at General Witherington's,''
answered Hartley, ``because he is extremely ill.''
``Tell him to repent of his sins, then,'' said
Richard. ``Old Gray used to say, a doctor had
as good a title to give ghostly advice as a parson.
Do you remember Doctor Dulberry, the minister,
calling him an interloper? Ha! ha! ha!''
``I am surprised at this style of language from
one in your circumstances.''
``Why, ay,'' said Middlemas, with a bitter smile,
it would be difficult to most men to keep up
their spirits, after gaining and losing father, mother,
and a good inheritance, all in the same day.
But I had always a turn for philosophy.''
``I really do not understand you, Mr Middlemas.''
``Why, I found my parents yesterday, did I
not?'' answered the young man. ``My mother,
as you know, had waited but that moment to die,
and my father to become distracted; and I conclude
both were contrived purposely to cheat me
of my inheritance, as he has taken up such a prejudice
against me.''
``Inheritance?'' repeated Hartley, bewildered
by Richard's calmness, and half suspecting that the
insanity of the father was hereditary in the family.
``In Heaven's name, recollect yourself, and get rid
of these hallucinations. What inheritance are you
dreaming of?''
``That of my mother, to be sure, who must have
inherited old Mon<c,>ada's wealth---and to whom
should it descend, save to her children?---I am the
eldest of them---that fact cannot be denied.''
``But consider, Richard---recollect yourself.''
``I do,'' said Richard; ``and what then?''
``Then you cannot but remember,'' said Hartley,
``that unless there was a will in your favour,
your birth prevents you from inheriting.''
``You are mistaken, sir, I am legitimate.---Yonder
sickly brats, whom you rescued from the grave,
are not more legitimate than I am.---Yes! our parents
could not allow the air of Heaven to breathe
on them---me they committed to the winds and the
waves---I am nevertheless their lawful child, as
well as their puling offspring of advanced age and
decayed health. I saw them, Adam---Winter
showed the nursery to me while they were gathering
courage to receive me in the drawing-room.
There they lay, the children of predilection, the
riches of the East expended that they might sleep
soft, and wake in magnificence. I, the eldest brother---
the heir---I stood beside their bed in the
borrowed dress which I had so lately exchanged
for the rags of an hospital. Their couches breathed
the richest perfumes, while I was reeking from a
pest-house; and I---I repeat it---the heir, the produce
of their earliest and best love, was thus treated.
No wonder that my look was that of a basilisk.''
``You speak as if you were possessed with an
evil spirit,'' said Hartley; ``or else you labour
under a strange delusion.''
``You think those only are legally married over
whom a drowsy parson has read the ceremony
from a dog's-eared prayer-book? It may be so in
your English law---but Scotland makes Love himself
the priest. A vow betwixt a fond couple, the
blue heaven alone witnessing, will protect a confiding
girl against the perjury of a fickle swain, as
much as if a Dean had performed the rites in the
loftiest cathedral in England. Nay, more; if the
child of love be acknowledged by the father at the
time when he is baptized---if he present the mother
to strangers of respectability as his wife, the laws
of Scotland will not allow him to retract the justice
which has, in these actions, been done to the female
whom he has wronged, or the offspring of their
mutual love. This General Tresham, or Witherington,
treated my unhappy mother as his wife
before Gray and others, quartered her as such in
the family of a respectable man, gave her the same
name by which he himself chose to pass for the
time. He presented me to the priest as his lawful
offspring; and the law of Scotland, benevolent to
the helpless child, will not allow him now to disown
what he so formally admitted. I know my
rights, and am determined to claim them.''
``You do not then intend to go on board the
Middlesex? Think a little---You will lose your
voyage and your commission.''
``I will save my birth-right,'' answered Middlemas.
``When I thought of going to India, I
knew not my parents, or how to make good the
rights which I had through them. That riddle is
solved. I am entitled to at least a third of Mon<c,>ada's
estate, which, by Winter's account, is considerable.
But for you, and your mode of treating
the smallpox, I should have had the whole. Little
did I think, when old Gray was likely to have his
wig pulled off, for putting out fires, throwing open
windows, and exploding whisky and water, that
the new system of treating the smallpox was to
cost me so many thousand pounds.''
``You are determined, then,'' said Hartley, ``on
this wild course?''
``I know my rights, and am determined to make
them available,'' answered the obstinate youth.
``Mr Richard Middlemas, I am sorry for you.''
``Mr Adam Hartley, I beg to know why I am
honoured by your sorrow.''
``I pity you,'' answered Hartley, ``both for the
obstinacy of selfishness, which can think of wealth
after the scene you saw last night, and for the idle
vision which leads you to believe that you can obtain
possession of it.''
``Selfish!'' cried Middlemas; ``why, I am a
dutiful son, labouring to clear the memory of a
calumniated mother---And am I a visionary?---
Why, it was to this hope that I awakened, when
old Mon<c,>ada's letter to Gray, devoting me to perpetual
obscurity, first roused me to a sense of my
situation, and dispelled the dreams of my childhood.
Do you think that I would ever have submitted to
the drudgery which I shared with you, but that, by
doing so, I kept in view the only traces of these
unnatural parents, by means of which I proposed
to introduce myself to their notice, and, if necessary,
enforce the rights of a legitimate child? The
silence and death of Mon<c,>ada broke my plans, and
it was then only I reconciled myself to the thoughts
of India.''
``You were very young to have known so much
of the Scottish law, at the time when we were first
acquainted,'' said Hartley. ``But I can guess your
instructor.''
``No less authority than Tom Hillary's,'' replied
Middlemas. ``His good counsel on that head is a
reason why I do not now prosecute him to the
gallows.''
``I judged as much,'' replied Hartley; ``for I
heard him, before I left Middlemas, debating the
point with Mr Lawford; and I recollect perfectly,
that he stated the law to be such as you now lay
down.''
``And what said Lawford in answer?'' demanded
Middlemas.
``He admitted,'' replied Hartley, ``that in circumstances
where the case was doubtful, such presumptions
of legitimacy might be admitted. But
he said they were liable to be controlled by positive
and precise testimony, as, for instance, the evidence
of the mother declaring the illegitimacy of the
child.''
``But there can exist none such in my case,'' said
Middlemas hastily, and with marks of alarm.
``I will not deceive you, Mr Middlemas, though
I fear I cannot help giving you pain. I had yesterday
a long conference with your mother, Mrs
Witherington, in which she acknowledged you as
her son, but a son born before marriage. This
express declaration will, therefore, put an end to
the suppositions on which you ground your hopes.
If you please, you may hear the contents of her declaration,
which I have in her own handwriting.''
``Confusion! is the cup to be for ever dashed
from my lips?'' muttered Richard; but recovering
his composure, by exertion of the self-command of
which he possessed so large a portion, he desired
Hartley to proceed with his communication. Hartley
accordingly proceeded to inform him of the
particulars preceding his birth, and those which
followed after it; while Middlemas, seated on a
sea-chest, listened with inimitable composure to a
tale which went to root up the flourishing hopes of
wealth which he had lately so fondly entertained.
Zilia Mon<c,>ada was the only child of a Portuguese
Jew of great wealth, who had come to London,
in prosecution of his commerce. Among the
few Christians who frequented his house, and occasionally
his table, was Richard Tresham, a gentleman
of a high Northumbrian family, deeply engaged
in the service of Charles Edward during his short
invasion, and though holding a commission in the
Portuguese service, still an object of suspicion to
the British government, on account of his well-known
courage and Jacobitical principles. The
high-bred elegance of this gentleman, together
with his complete acquaintance with the Portuguese
language and manners, had won the intimacy
of old Mon<c,>ada, and, alas! the heart of the
inexperienced Zilia, who, beautiful as an angel,
had as little knowledge of the world and its wickedness
as the lamb that is but a week old.
Tresham made his proposals to Mon<c,>ada, perhaps
in a manner which too evidently showed that
he conceived the high-born Christian was degrading
himself in asking an alliance with the wealthy
Jew. Mon<c,>ada rejected his proposals, forbade
him his house, but could not prevent the lovers
from meeting in private. Tresham made a dishonourable
use of the opportunities which the poor
Zilia so incautiously afforded, and the consequence
was her ruin. The lover, however, had every
purpose of righting the injury which he had inflicted,
and, after various plans of secret marriage,
which were rendered abortive by the difference of
religion, and other circumstances, flight for Scotland
was determined on. The hurry of the journey,
the fear and anxiety to which Zilia was subject,
brought on her confinement several weeks before
the usual time, so that they were compelled to
accept of the assistance and accommodation offered
by Mr Gray. They had not been there many
hours ere Tresham heard, by the medium of some
sharp-sighted or keen-eared friend, that there were
warrants out against him for treasonable practices.
His correspondence with Charles Edward had become
known to Mon<c,>ada during the period of
their friendship; he betrayed it in vengeance to
the British cabinet, and warrants were issued, in
which, at Mon<c,>ada's request, his daughter's name
was included. This might be of use, he apprehended,
to enable him to separate his daughter
from Tresham, should he find the fugitives actually
married. How far he succeeded, the reader already
knows, as well as the precautions which he
took to prevent the living evidence of his child's
frailty from being known to exist. His daughter
he carried with him, and subjected her to severe
restraint, which her own reflections rendered
doubly bitter. It would have completed his revenge,
had the author of Zilia's misfortunes been
brought to the scaffold for his political offences.
But Tresham skulked among friends in the Highlands,
and escaped until the affair blew over.
He afterwards entered into the East India Company's
service, under his mother's name of Witherington,
which concealed the Jacobite and rebel,
until these terms were forgotten. His skill in
military affairs soon raised him to riches and eminence.
When he returned to Britain, his first
enquiries were after the family of Mon<c,>ada. His
fame, his wealth, and the late conviction that his
daughter never would marry any but him who had
her first love, induced the old man to give that
encouragement to General Witherington, which
he had always denied to the poor and outlawed
Major Tresham; and the lovers, after having been
fourteen years separated, were at length united in
wedlock.
General Witherington eagerly concurred in the
earnest wish of his father-in-law, that every remembrance
of former events should be buried, by
leaving the fruit of the early and unhappy intrigue
suitably provided for, but in a distant and obscure
situation. Zilia thought far otherwise. Her heart
longed, with a mother's longing, towards the object
of her first maternal tenderness, but she dared
not place herself in opposition at once to the will
of her father, and the decision of her husband.
The former, his religious prejudices much effaced
by his long residence in England, had given consent
that she should conform to the established
religion of her husband and her country,---the
latter, haughty as we have described him, made it
his pride to introduce the beautiful convert among
his high-born kindred. The discovery of her former
frailty would have proved a blow to her respectability,
which he dreaded like death; and it
could not long remain a secret from his wife, that
in consequence of a severe illness in India, even
his reason became occasionally shaken by any thing
which violently agitated his feelings. She had,
therefore, acquiesced in patience and silence in
the course of policy which Mon<c,>ada had devised,
and which her husband anxiously and warmly approved.
Yet her thoughts, even when their marriage
was blessed with other offspring, anxiously
reverted to the banished and outcast child, who
had first been clasped to the maternal bosom.
All these feelings, ``subdued and cherished
long,'' were set afloat in full tide by the unexpected
discovery of this son, redeemed from a lot of
extreme misery, and placed before his mother's
imagination in circumstances so disastrous.
It was in vain that her husband had assured
her that he would secure the young man's prosperity,
by his purse and his interest. She could
not be satisfied, until she had herself done something
to alleviate the doom of banishment to which
her eldest-born was thus condemned. She was
the more eager to do so, as she felt the extreme
delicacy of her health, which was undermined by
so many years of secret suffering.
Mrs Witherington was, in conferring her maternal
bounty, naturally led to employ the agency
of Hartley, the companion of her son, and to whom,
since the recovery of her younger children, she
almost looked up as to a tutelar deity. She placed
in his hands a sum of L.2000, which she had at
her own unchallenged disposal, with a request,
uttered in the fondest and most affectionate terms,
that it might be applied to the service of Richard
Middlemas in the way Hartley should think most
useful to him. She assured him of further support,
as it should be needed; and a note to the following
purport was also intrusted to him, to be delivered
when and where the prudence of Hartley
should judge it proper to confide to him the secret
of his birth.
``Oh, Benoni! Oh, child of my sorrow!'' said
this interesting document, ``why should the eyes of
thy unhappy mother be about to obtain permission
to look on thee, since her arms were denied the
right to fold thee to her bosom? May the God of
Jews and of Gentiles watch over thee, and guard
thee! May he remove, in his good time, the darkness
which rolls between me and the beloved of my
heart---the first fruit of my unhappy, nay, unhallowed
affection. Do not---do not, my beloved!---
think thyself a lonely exile, while thy mother's
prayers arise for thee at sunrise and at sunset, to
call down every blessing on thy head---to invoke
every power in thy protection and defence. Seek
not to see me---Oh, why must I say so!---But let
me humble myself in the dust, since it is my own
sin, my own folly, which I must blame;---but seek
not to see or speak with me---it might be the death
of both. Confide thy thoughts to the excellent
Hartley, who hath been the guardian angel of us
all---even as the tribes of Israel had each their
guardian angel. What thou shalt wish, and be
shall advise in thy behalf, shall be done, if in the
power of a mother---And the love of a mother! Is
it bounded by seas, or can deserts and distance
measure its limits? Oh, child of my sorrow! Oh,
Benoni! let thy spirit be with mine, as mine is
with thee.
`` Z. M.''
All these arrangements being completed, the
unfortunate lady next insisted with her husband
that the should be permitted to see her son in
that parting interview which terminated so fatally.
Hartley, therefore, now discharged as her executor,
the duty intrusted to him as her confidential
agent.
``Surely,'' he thought, as, having finished his
communication, he was about to leave the apartment,
``surely the demons of Ambition and Avarice
will unclose the talons which they have fixed
upon this man, at a charm like this.''
And indeed Richard's heart had been formed of
the nether millstone, had he not been duly affected
by these first and last tokens of his mother's affection.
He leant his head upon a table, and his tears
flowed painfully. Hartley left him undisturbed
for more than an hour, and on his return found
him in nearly the same attitude in which he had
left him.
``I regret to disturb you at this moment,'' he
said, ``but I have still a part of my duty to discharge.
I must place in your possession the deposit
which your mother made in my hands---and
I must also remind you that time flies fast, and
that you have scarce an hour or two to determine
whether you will prosecute your Indian voyage,
under the new view of circumstances which I have
opened to you.''
Middlemas took the bills which his mother had
bequeathed him. As he raised his head, Hartley
could observe that his face was stained with tears.
Yet he I counted over the money with mercantile
accuracy; and though he assumed the pen for the
purpose of writing a discharge with an air of inconsolable
dejection, yet he drew it up in good set
terms, like one who had his senses much at his
command.
``And now,'' he said, in a mournful voice, ``give
me my mother's narrative.''
Hartley almost started, and answered hastily,
``You have the poor lady's letter, which was addressed
to yourself---the narrative is addressed to
me. It is my warrant for disposing of a large sum
of money---it concerns the rights of third parties,
and I cannot part with it.''
``Surely, surely it were better to deliver it into
my hands, were it but to weep over it,'' answered
Middlemas. ``My fortune, Hartley, has been very
cruel. You see that my parents purposed to have
made me their undoubted heir; yet their purpose
was disappointed by accident. And now my mother
comes with well-intended fondness, and while
she means to advance my fortune, furnishes evidence
to destroy it.---Come, come, Hartley---you
must be conscious that my mother wrote those details
entirely for my information. I am the rightful
owner, and insist on having them.''
``I am sorry I must insist on refusing your demand,''
answered Hartley, putting the papers in
his pocket. ``You ought to consider, that if this
communication has destroyed the idle and groundless
hopes which you have indulged in, it has, at
the same time, more than trebled your capital;
and that if there are some hundreds or thousands
in the world richer than yourself, there are many
millions not half so well provided. Set a brave
spirit, then, against your fortune, and do not
doubt your success in life.''
His words seemed to sink into the gloomy mind
of Middlemas. He stood silent for a moment, and
then answered with a reluctant and insinuating
voice,---
``My dear Hartley, we have long been companions---
you can have neither pleasure nor interest
in ruining my hopes---you may find some in forwarding
them. Mon<c,>ada's fortune will enable me
to allow five thousand pounds to the friend who
should aid me in my difficulties.''
``Good morning to you, Mr Middlemas,'' said
Hartley, endeavouring to withdraw.
``One moment---one moment,'' said Middlemas,
holding his friend by the button at the same time,
``I meant to say ten thousand---and---and---marry
whomsoever you like---I will not be your hinderance.''
``You are a villain!'' said Hartley, breaking
from him, ``and I always thought you so.''
``And you,'' answered Middlemas, ``are a fool,
and I never thought you better. Off he goes---
Let him---the game has been played and lost---I
must hedge my bets: India must be my back-play.''
All was in readiness for his departure. A small
vessel and a favouring gale conveyed him and several
other military gentlemen to the Downs, where
the Indiaman which was to transport them from
Europe, lay ready for their reception.
His first feelings were sufficiently disconsolate.
But accustomed from his infancy to conceal his
internal thoughts, he appeared in the course of a
week the gayest and best bred passenger who ever
dared the long and weary space betwixt Old England
and her Indian possessions. At Madras,
where the sociable feelings of the resident inhabitants
give ready way to enthusiasm in behalf of
any stranger of agreeable qualities, he experienced
that warm hospitality which distinguishes the British
character in the East.
Middlemas was well received in company, and
in the way of becoming an indispensable guest at
every entertainment in the place, when the vessel,
on board of which Hartley acted as surgeon's mate,
arrived at the same settlement. The latter would
not, from his situation, have been entitled to expect
much civility and attention; but this disadvantage
was made up by his possessing the most
powerful introductions from General Witherington,
and from other persons of weight in Leadenhall
Street, the General's friends, to the principal
inhabitants in the settlement. He found himself
once more, therefore, moving in the same sphere
with Middlemas, and under the alternative of living
with him on decent and distant terms, or of breaking
of with him altogether.
The first of these courses might perhaps have
been the wisest; but the other was most congenial
to the blunt and plain character of Hartley, who
saw neither propriety nor comfort in maintaining a
show of friendly intercourse, to conceal hate, contempt,
and mutual dislike.
The circle at Fort Saint George was much more
restricted at that time than it has been since. The
coldness of the young men did not escape notice;
it transpired that they had been once intimates and
fellow-students; yet it was now found that they
hesitated at accepting invitations to the same parties.
Rumour assigned many different and incompatible
reasons for this deadly breach, to which
Hartley gave no attention whatever, while Lieutenant
Middlemas took care to countenance those
which represented the cause of the quarrel most
favourably to himself.
``A little bit of rivalry had taken place,'' he said,
when pressed by gentlemen for an explanation;
``he had only had the good luck to get further in
the good graces of a fair lady than his friend Hartley,
who had made a quarrel of it, as they saw.
He thought it very silly to keep up spleen, at such
a distance of time and space. He was sorry, more
for the sake of the strangeness of the appearance
of the thing than any thing else, although his friend
had really some very good points about him.''
While these whispers were working their effect
in society, they did not prevent Hartley from receiving
the most flattering assurances of encouragement
and official promotion from the Madras government
as opportunity should arise. Soon after,
it was intimated to him that a medical appointment
of a lucrative nature in a remote settlement was
conferred on him, which removed him for some time
from Madras and its neighbourhood.
Hartley accordingly sailed on his distant expedition;
and it was observed, that after his departure,
the character of Middlemas, as if some check had
been removed, began to display itself in disagreeable
colours. It was noticed that this young man,
whose manners were so agreeable and so courteous
during the first months after his arrival in India,
began now to show symptoms of a haughty and
overbearing spirit. He had adopted, for reasons
which the reader may conjecture, but which appeared
to be mere whim at Fort St George, the
name of Tresham, in addition to that by which he
had hitherto been distinguished, and in this be
persisted with an obstinacy, which belonged more
to the pride than the craft of his character. The
Lieutenant-Colonel of the regiment, an old cross-tempered
martinet, did not choose to indulge the
Captain (such was now the rank of Middlemas) in
this humour.
``He knew no officer,'' he said, ``by any name
save that which he bore in his commission,'' and
he Middlemass'd the Captain on all occasions.
One fatal evening, the Captain was so much provoked,
as to intimate peremptorily, ``that he knew
his own name best.''
``Why, Captain Middlemas,'' replied the Colonel,
``it is not every child that knows its own father,
so how can every man be so sure of his own name?''
The bow was drawn at a venture, but the shaft
found the rent in the armour, and stung deeply.
In spite of all the interposition which could be attempted,
Middlemas insisted on challenging the
Colonel, who could be persuaded to no apology.
``If Captain Middlemas,'' he said, ``thought the
cap fitted, he was welcome to wear it.''
The result was a meeting, in which, after the
parties had exchanged shots, the seconds tendered
their mediation. It was rejected by Middlemas,
who, at the second fire, had the misfortune to kill
his commanding officer. In consequence, he was
obliged to fly from the British settlements; for,
being universally blamed for having pushed the
quarrel to extremity, there was little doubt that
the whole severity of military discipline would be
exercised upon the delinquent. Middlemas, therefore,
vanished from Fort St George, and, though
the affair had made much noise at the time, was soon
no longer talked of. It was understood, in general,
that he had gone to seek that fortune at the court
of some native prince, which he could no longer
hope for in the British settlements.
CHAPTER X.
Three years passed away after the fatal rencounter
mentioned in the last Chapter, and Doctor
Hartley returned from his appointed mission, which
was only temporary, received encouragement to
settle in Madras in a medical capacity; and, upon
having done so, soon had reason to think he had
chosen a line in which he might rise to wealth and
reputation. His practice was not confined to his
countrymen, but much sought after among the natives,
who, whatever may be their prejudices against
the Europeans in other respects, universally esteem
their superior powers in the medical profession.
This lucrative branch of practice rendered it necessary
that Hartley should make the Oriental languages
his study, in order to hold communication
with his patients without the intervention of an
interpreter. He had enough of opportunities to
practise as a linguist, for, in acknowledgment, as he
used jocularly to say, of the large fees of the wealthy
Moslemah and Hindoos, he attended the poor of all
nations gratis, whenever he was called upon.
It so chanced, that one evening he was hastily
summoned by a message from the Secretary of the
Government, to attend a patient of consequence.
``Yet he is, after all, only a Fakir,'' said the message.
``You will find him at the tomb of Cara Razi,
the Mahomedan saint and doctor, about one coss
from the fort. Enquire for him by the name of
Barak El Hadgi. Such a patient promises no fees;
but we know how little you care about the pagodas;
and, besides, the Government is your paymaster
on this occasion.''
``That is the last matter to be thought on,'' said
Hartley, and instantly repaired in his palanquin to
the place pointed out to him.
The tomb of the Owliah, or Mahomedan Saint,
Cara Razi, was a place held in much reverence by
every good Mussulman. It was situated in the
centre of a grove of manges and tamarind-trees,
and was built of red stone, having three domes,
and minarets at every corner. There was a court
in front, as usual, around which were cells constructed
for the accommodation of the Fakirs who
visited the tomb from motives of devotion, and
made a longer or shorter residence there as they
thought proper, subsisting upon the alms which the
Faithful never fail to bestow on them in exchange
for the benefit of their prayers. These devotees
were engaged day and night in reading verses of
the Koran before the tomb, which was constructed
of white marble, inscribed with sentences from the
book of the Prophet, and with the various titles
conferred by the Koran upon the Supreme Being.
Such a sepulchre, of which there are many, is, with
its appendages and attendants, respected during
wars and revolutions, and no less by Feringis,
(Franks, that is,) and Hindoos, than by Mahomedans
themselves. The Fakirs, in return act as spies for
all parties, and are often employed in secret missions
of importance.
Complying with the Mahomedan custom, our
friend Hartley laid aside his shoes at the gates of
the holy precincts, and avoiding to give offence by
approaching near to the tomb, he went up to the
principal Moullah, or priest, who was distinguishable
by the length of his beard, and the size of the
large wooden beads, with which the Mahomedans,
like the Catholics, keep register of their prayers.
Such a person, venerable by his age, sanctity of
character, and his real or supposed contempt of
worldly pursuits and enjoyments, is regarded as
the head of an establishment of this kind.
The Moullah is permitted by his situation to be
more communicative with strangers than his younger
brethren, who in the present instance remained
with their eyes fixed on the Koran, muttering their
recitations without noticing the European, or attending
to what he said, as he enquired at their
superior for Barak el Hadgi.
The Moullah was seated on the earth, from which
he did not arise, or show any mark of reverence;
nor did he interrupt the tale of his beads, which he
continued to count assiduously while Hartley was
speaking. When he finished, the old man raised his
eyes, and looking at him with an air of distraction,
as if he was endeavouring to recollect what he had
been saying, he at length pointed to one of the
cells, and resumed his devotions like one who felt
impatient of whatever withdrew his attention from
his sacred duties, were it but for an instant.
Hartley entered the cell indicated, with the usual
salutation of Salam Alaikum. His patient lay on
a little carpet in a corner of the small white-washed
cell. He was a man of about forty, dressed in the
black robe of his order, very much torn and patched.
He wore a high conical cap of Tartarian felt,
and had round his neck the string of black beads
belonging to his order. His eyes and posture indicated
suffering, which he was enduring with stoical
patience.
``Salam Alaikum,'' said Hartley; ``you are in
pain, my father?''---a title which he gave rather to
the profession than to the years of the person be
addressed.
``_Salam Alaikum bema sebastem_,'' answered the
Fakir; ``Well is it for you that you have suffered
patiently. The Book saith, such shall be the greeting
of the angels to those who enter paradise.''
The conversation being thus opened, the physician
proceeded to enquire into the complaints of the
patient, and to prescribe what he thought advisable.
Having done this, he was about to retire, when, to
his great surprise, the Fakir tendered him a ring of
some value.
``The wise,'' said Hartley, declining the present,
and at the same time paying a suitable compliment
to the Fakir's cap and robe,---``the wise of every
country are brethren. My left hand takes no guerdon
of my right.''
``A Feringi can then refuse gold!'' said the Fakir.
``I thought they took it from every hand,
whether pure as that of an Houri, or leprous like
Gehazi's---even as the hungry dog recketh not whether
the flesh he eateth be of the camel of the prophet
Saleth, or of the ass of Degial---on whose
head be curses!''
``The Book says,'' replied Hartley, ``that it is
Allah who closes and who enlarges the heart.
Frank and Mussulman are all alike moulded by his
pleasure.''
``My brother hath spoken wisely,'' answered
the patient. ``Welcome the disease, if it bring thee
acquainted with a wise physician. For what saith
the poet---`It is well to have fallen to the earth,
if while grovelling there thou shalt discover a
diamond.' ''
The physician made repeated visits to his patient,
and continued to do so even after the health of El
Hadgi was entirely restored. He had no difficulty
in discerning in him one of those secret agents frequently
employed by Asiatic Sovereigns. His intelligence,
his learning, above all, his versatility
and freedom from prejudices of every kind, left no
doubt of Barak's possessing the necessary qualifications
for conducting such delicate negotiations;
while his gravity of habit and profession could not
prevent his features from expressing occasionally
a perception of humour, not usually seen in devotees
of his class.
Barak El Hadgi talked often, amidst their private
conversations, of the power and dignity of the
Nawaub of Mysore; and Hartley had little doubt
that he came from the Court of Hyder Ali, on some
secret mission, perhaps for achieving a more solid
peace betwixt that able and sagacious Prince and
the East India Company's Government,---that which
existed for the time being regarded on both parts
as little more than a hollow and insincere truce.
He told many stories to the advantage of this Prince,
who certainly was one of the wisest that Hindostan
could boast; and amidst great crimes, perpetrated
to gratify his ambition, displayed many instances
of princely generosity, and, what was a
little more surprising, of even-handed justice.
On one occasion, shortly before Barak El Hadgi
left Madras, he visited the Doctor, and partook of
his sherbet, which he preferred to his own, perhaps
because a few glasses of rum or brandy were usually
added to enrich the compound. It might be owing
to repeated applications to the jar which contained
this generous fluid, that the pilgrim became more
than usually frank in his communications, and not
contented with praising his Nawaub with the most
hyperbolic eloquence, he began to insinuate the influence
which he himself enjoyed with the Invincible,
the Lord and Shield of the Faith of the
Prophet.
``Brother of my soul,'' he said, ``do but think
if thou needest aught that the all-powerful Hyder
Ali Khan Bahauder can give; and then use not the
intercession of those who dwell in palaces, and wear
jewels in their turbans, but seek the cell of thy
brother at the Great City, which is Seringapatam.
And the poor Fakir, in his torn cloak, shall better
advance thy suit with the Nawaub [for Hyder did
not assume the title of Sultaun] than they who sit
upon seats of honour in the Divan.''
With these and sundry other expressions of regard,
he exhorted Hartley to come into the Mysore,
and look upon the face of the Great Prince, whose
glance inspired wisdom, and whose nod conferred
wealth, so that Folly or Poverty could not appear
before him. He offered at the same time to requite
the kindness which Hartley had evinced to him, by
showing him whatever was worth the attention of
a sage in the land of Mysore.
Hartley was not reluctant to promise to undertake
the proposed journey, if the continuance of
good understanding betwixt their governments
should render it practicable, and in reality looked
forward to the possibility of such an event with a
good deal of interest. The friends parted with
mutual good wishes, after exchanging, in the Oriental
fashion, such gifts as became sages, to whom
knowledge was to be supposed dearer than wealth.
Barak el Hadgi presented Hartley with a small
quantity of the balsam of Mecca, very hard to be
procured in an unadulterated form, and gave him at
the same time a passport in a peculiar character,
which he assured him would be respected by every
officer of the Nawaub, should his friend be disposed
to accomplish his visit to the Mysore. ``The head
of him who should disrespect this safe-conduct,''
he said, ``shall not be more safe than that of the
barley-stalk which the reaper has grasped in his
hand.''
Hartley requited these civilities by the present
of a few medicines little used in the East, but such
as he thought might, with suitable directions, be
safely intrusted to a man so intelligent as his Moslem
friend.
It was several months after Barak had returned
to the interior of India, that Hartley was astonished
by an unexpected rencounter.
The ships from Europe had but lately arrived,
and had brought over their usual cargo of boys
longing to be commanders, and young women without
any purpose of being married, but whom a
pious duty to some brother, or some uncle, or other
male relative, brought to India to keep his house,
until they should find themselves unexpectedly in
one of their own. Doctor Hartley happened to
attend a public breakfast given on this occasion by
a gentleman high in the service. The roof of his
friend had been recently enriched by a consignment
of three nieces, whom the old gentleman,
justly attached to his quiet hookah, and, it was
said, to a pretty girl of colour, desired to offer to
the public, that he might have the fairest chance to
get rid of his new guests as soon as possible. Hartley
who was thought a fish worth casting a fly for,
was contemplating this fair investment with very
little interest, when he heard one of the company
say to another in a low voice,---
``Angels and ministers! there is our old acquaintance,
the Queen of Sheba, returned upon
our hands like unsaleable goods.''
Hartley looked in the same direction with the
two who were speaking, and his eye was caught
by a Semiramis-looking person, of unusual stature
and amplitude, arrayed in a sort of riding habit,
but so formed, and so looped and gallooned with
lace, as made it resemble the upper tunic of a native
chief. Her robe was composed of crimson silk,
rich with flowers of gold. She wore wide trowsers
of light blue silk, a fine scarlet shawl around her
waist, in which was stuck a creeze, with a richly
ornamented handle. Her throat and arms were
loaded with chains and bracelets, and her turban,
formed of a shawl similar to that worn around
her waist, was decorated by a magnificent aigrette,
from which a blue ostrich plume flowed in one direction,
and a red one in another. The brow, of
European complexion, on which this tiara rested,
was too lofty for beauty, but seemed made for
command; the aquiline nose retained its form, but
the cheeks were a little sunken, and the complexion
so very brilliant, as to give strong evidence that
the whole countenance had undergone a thorough
repair since the lady had left her couch. A black
female slave, richly dressed, stood behind her with
a chowry, or cow's tail, having a silver handle,
which she used to keep off the flies. From the
mode in which she was addressed by those who
spoke to her, this lady appeared a person of too
much importance to be affronted or neglected, and
yet one with whom none desired further communication
than the occasion seemed in propriety to
demand.
She did not, however, stand in need of attention.
The well-known captain of an East Indian vessel
lately arrived from Britain was sedulously polite
to her; and two or three gentlemen, whom Hartley
knew to be engaged in trade, tended upon her
as they would have done upon the safety of a rich
argosy.
``For Heaven's sake, what is that for a Zenobia?''
said Hartley, to the gentleman whose whisper
had first attracted his attention to this lofty
dame.
``Is it possible you do not know the Queen of
Sheba?'' said the person of whom he enquired, no
way loath to communicate the information demanded.
``You must know, then, that she is the
daughter of a Scotch emigrant, who lived and died
at Pondicherry, a sergeant in Lally's regiment.
She managed to marry a partisan officer named
Montreville, a Swiss or Frenchman, I cannot tell
which. After the surrender of Pondicherry, this
hero and heroine---But hey---what the devil are
you thinking of?---If you stare at her that way,
you will make a scene; for she will think nothing
of scolding you across the table.''
But without attending to his friend's remonstrances,
Hartley bolted from the table at which he sat,
and made his way, with something less than the
decorum which the rules of society enjoin, towards
the place where the lady in question was seated.
``The Doctor is surely mad this morning---''
said his friend Major Mercer to old Quartermaster
Calder.
Indeed Hartley was not perhaps strictly in his
senses; for looking at the Queen of Sheba as he
listened to Major Mercer, his eye fell on a light
female form beside her, so placed as if she desired
to be eclipsed by the bulky form and flowing robes
we have described, and to his extreme astonishment,
he recognised the friend of his childhood, the
love of his youth---Menie Gray herself!
To see her in India was in itself astonishing. To
see her apparently under such strange patronage,
greatly increased his surprise. To make his way
to her, and address her, seemed the natural and
direct mode of satisfying the feelings which her
appearance excited.
His impetuosity was however checked, when,
advancing close upon Miss Gray and her companion,
he observed that the former, though she
looked at him, exhibited not the slightest token of
recognition, unless he could interpret as such, that
she slightly touched her upper-lip with her forefinger,
which, if it happened otherwise than by
mere accident, might be construed to mean, ``Do
not speak to me just now.'' Hartley, adopting such
an interpretation, stood stock still, blushing deeply;
for he was aware that he made for the moment
but a silly figure.
He was the rather convinced of this, when, with
a voice which in the force of its accents corresponded
with her commanding air, Mrs Montreville
addressed him in English, which savoured slightly
of a Swiss patois,---``You have come to us very
fast, sir, to say nothing at all. Are you sure you
did not get your tongue stolen by de way?''
``I thought I had seen an old friend in that lady,
madam,'' stammered Hartley, ``but it seems I am
mistaken.''
``The good people do tell me that you are one
Doctors Hartley, sir. Now, my friend and I do
not know Doctors Hartley at all.''
``I have not the presumption to pretend to your
acquaintance, madam, but him------''
Here Menie repeated the sign in such a manner,
that though it was only momentary, Hartley could
not misunderstand its purpose; he therefore
changed the end of his sentence, and added, ``But
I have only to make my bow, and ask pardon for
my mistake.''
He retired back accordingly among the company,
unable to quit the room, and enquiring at those
whom he considered as the best newsmongers for
such information as---``Who is that stately-looking
woman, Mr Butler?''
``Oh, the Queen of Sheba, to be sure.''
``And who is that pretty girl, who sits beside
her?''
``Or rather behind her,'' answered Butler, a
military chaplain; ``faith, I cannot say---Pretty did
you call her?'' turning his opera-glass that way---
``Yes, faith, she is pretty---very pretty---Gad, she
shoots her glances as smartly from behind the old
pile yonder, as Teucer from behind Ajax Telamon's
shield.''
``But who is she, can you tell me?''
``Some fair-skinned speculation of old Montreville's,
I suppose, that she has got either to toady
herself, or take in some of her black friends with.
---Is it possible you have never heard of old Mother
Montreville?''
``You know I have been so long absent from
Madras''---
``Well,'' continued Butler, ``this lady is the
widow of a Swiss officer in the French service, who,
after the surrender of Pondicherry, went off into
the interior, and commenced soldier on his own
account. He got possession of a fort, under pretence
of keeping it for some simple Rajah or other;
assembled around him a parcel of desperate vagabonds,
of every colour in the rainbow; occupied a
considerable territory, of which he raised the duties
in his own name, and declared for independence.
But Hyder Naig understood no such interloping
proceedings, and down he came, besieged
the fort and took it, though some pretend it was
betrayed to him by this very woman. Be that as
it may, the poor Swiss was found dead on the ramparts.
Certain it is, she received large sums of
money, under pretence of paying of her troops,
surrendering of hill-forts, and Heaven knows what
besides. She was permitted also to retain some
insignia of royalty; and, as she was wont to talk
of Hyder as the Eastern Solomon, she generally
became known by the title of Queen of Sheba. She
leaves her court when she pleases, and has been as
far as Fort St George before now. In a word, she
does pretty much as she likes. The great folks here
are civil to her, though they look on her as little
better than a spy. As to Hyder, it is supposed he
has ensured her fidelity by borrowing the greater
part of her treasures, which prevents her from
daring to break with him,---besides other causes
that smack of scandal of another sort.''
``A singular story,'' replied Hartley to his companion,
while his heart dwelt on the question, How
it was possible that the gentle and simple Menie
Grey should be in the train of such a character as
this adventuress?
``But Butler has not told you the best of it,''
said Major Mercer, who by this time came round
to finish his own story. ``Your old acquaintance,
Mr Tresham, or Mr Middlemas, or whatever else
he chooses to be called, has been complimented by
a report, that he stood very high in the good graces
of this same Boadicea. He certainly commanded
some troops which she still keeps on foot, and
acted at their head in the Nawaub's service, who
craftily employed him in whatever could render
him odious to his countrymen. The British prisoners
were intrusted to his charge, and, to judge
by what I felt myself, the devil might take a lesson
from him in severity.''
``And was he attached to, or connected with,
this woman?''
``So Mrs Rumour told us in our dungeon. Poor
Jack Ward had the bastinado for celebrating their
merits in a parody on the playhouse song,
`Sure such a pair were never seen,
So aptly formed to meet by nature.' ''
Hartley could listen no longer. The fate of
Menie Gray, connected with such a man and such
a woman, rushed on his fancy in the most horrid
colours, and he was struggling through the throng
to get to some place where he might collect his
ideas, and consider what could be done for her protection,
when a black attendant touched his arm,
and at the same time slipt a card into his hand.
It bore, ``Miss Gray, Mrs Montreville's, at the
house of Ram Sing Cottah, in the Black Town.''
On the reverse was written with a pencil, ``Eight
in the morning.''
This intimation of her residence implied, of
course, a permission, nay, an invitation, to wait
upon her at the hour specified. Hartley's heart
beat at the idea of seeing her once more, and still
more highly at the thought of being able to serve
her. At least, he thought, if there is danger near
her, as is much to be suspected, she shall not want
a counsellor, or, if necessary, a protecter. Yet, at
the same time, he felt the necessity of making himself
better acquainted with the circumstances of
her case, and the persons with whom she seemed
connected. Butler and Mercer had both spoke to
their disparagement; but Butler was a little of a
coxcomb, and Mercer a great deal of a gossip. While
he was considering what credit was due to their
testimony, he was unexpectedly encountered by a
gentleman of his own profession, a military surgeon,
who had had the misfortune to have been in
Hyder's prison, till set at freedom by the late pacification.
Mr Esdale, for so he was called, was
generally esteemed a rising man, calm, steady, and
deliberate in forming his opinions. Hartley found
it easy to turn the subject on the Queen of Sheba,
by asking whether her Majesty was not somewhat
of an adventuress.
``On my word, I cannot say,'' answered Esdale,
smiling; ``we are all upon the adventure in India,
more or less; but I do not see that the Begum
Montreville is more so than the rest.''
``Why, that Amazonian dress and manner,''
said Hartley, ``savour a little of the _picaresca_.''
``You must not,'' said Esdale, ``expect a woman
who has commanded soldiers, and may again, to
dress and look entirely like an ordinary person;
but I assure you, that even at this time of day, if
she wished to marry, she might easily find a
respectable match.''
``Why, I heard that she had betrayed her husband's
fort to Hyder.''
``Ay, that is a specimen of Madras gossip. The
fact is, that she defended the place long after her
husband fell, and afterwards surrendered it by capitulation.
Hyder who piques himself on observing
the rules of justice, would not otherwise have admitted
her to such intimacy.''
``Yes, I have heard,'' replied Hartley, ``that
their intimacy was rather of the closest.''
``Another calumny, if you mean any scandal,''
answered Esdale. ``Hyder is too zealous a Mahomedan
to entertain a Christian mistress: and besides,
to enjoy the sort of rank which is yielded to
a woman in her condition, she must refrain, in appearance
at least, from all correspondence in the
way of gallantry. Just so they said that the poor
woman had a connexion with poor Middlemas of
the ------- regiment.''
``And was that also a false report?'' said Hartley,
in breathless anxiety.
``On my soul, I believe it was,'' answered Mr
Esdale. ``They were friends, Europeans in an
Indian court, and therefore intimate; but I believe
nothing more. By the by, though, I believe there
was some quarrel between Middlemas, poor fellow,
and you; yet I am sure that you will be glad to
bear there is a chance of his affair being made up?''
``Indeed!'' was again, the only word which
Hartley could utter.
``Ay, indeed,'' answered Esdale. ``The duel
is an old story now; and it must be allowed that
poor Middlemas, though he was rash in that business,
had provocation.''
``But his desertion---his accepting of command
under Hyder---his treatment of our prisoners---
How can all these be passed over?'' replied Hartley.
``Why, it is possible---I speak to you as a cautious
man, and in confidence---that he may do us
better service in Hyder's capital, or Tippoo's camp,
than he could have done if serving with his own
regiment. And then, for his treatment of prisoners,
I am sure I can speak nothing but good of him, in
that particular. He was obliged to take the office,
because those that serve Hyder Naig, must do or
die. But he told me himself---and I believe him---
that he accepted the office chiefly because, while he
made a great bullying at us before the black
fellows, he could privately be of assistance to us.
Some fools could not understand this, and answered
him with abuse and lampoons; and he was obliged
to punish them, to avoid suspicion. Yes, yes,
I and others can prove he was willing to be kind,
if men would give him leave. I hope to thank him
at Madras one day soon.---All this in confidence---
Good morrow to you.'
Distracted by the contradictory intelligence he
had received, Hartley went next to question old
Captain Capstern, the Captain of the Indiaman,
whom he had observed in attendance upon the Begum
Montreville. On enquiring after that commander's
female passengers, he heard a pretty long
catalogue of names, in which that he was so much
interested in did not occur. On closer enquiry,
Capstern recollected that Menie Gray, a young
Scotchwoman, had come out under charge of Mrs
Duffer, the master's wife. ``A good decent girl,''
Capstern said, ``and kept the mates and guinea-pigs
at a respectable distance. She came out,'' he believed,
``to be a sort of female companion, or upper-servant,
in Madame Montreville's family. Snug
birth enough,'' he concluded, ``if she can find the
length of the old girl's foot.''
This was all that could be made of Capstern; so
Hartley was compelled to remain in a state of uncertainty
until the next morning, when an explanation
might be expected with Menie Gray in
person.
CHAPTER XI.
The exact hour assigned found Hartley at the
door of the rich native merchant, who, having some
reasons for wishing to oblige the Begum Montreville,
had relinquished, for her accommodation and
that of her numerous retinue, almost the whole of
his large and sumptuous residence in the Black
Town of Madras, as that district of the city is called
which the natives occupy.
A domestic, at the first summons, ushered the
visitor into an apartment, where he expected to be
joined by Miss Gray. The room opened on one
side into a small garden or parterre, filled with the
brilliant-coloured flowers of eastern climates; in
the midst of which the waters of a fountain rose
upwards in a sparkling jet, and fell back again into
a white marble cistern.
A thousand dizzy recollections thronged on the
mind of Hartley, whose early feelings towards the
companion of his youth, if they had slumbered
during distance and the various casualties of a busy
life, were revived when he found himself placed so
near her, and in circumstances which interested
from their unexpected occurrence and mysterious
character. A step was heard---the door opened---
a female appeared-but it was the portly form of
Madame de Montreville.
``What you do please to want, sir?'' said the
lady; ``that is, if you have found your tongue this
morning, which you had lost yesterday.''
``I proposed myself the honour of waiting upon
the young person, whom I saw in your excellency's
company yesterday morning,'' answered Hartley,
with assumed respect. ``I have had long the honour
of being known to her in Europe, and I desire
to offer my services to her in India.''
``Much obliged---much obliged; but Miss Gray
is gone out, and does not return for one or two
days. You may leave your commands with me.''
``Pardon me, madam,'' replied Hartley; ``but
have some reason to hope you may be mistaken
in this matter---And here comes the lady herself.''
``How is this, my dear?'' said Mrs Montreville,
with unruffled front, to Menie, as she entered;
``are you not gone out for two or three days, as I
tell this gentleman?---_mais c'est <e'>gal_---it is all one
thing. You will say, How d'ye do, and good-by,
to Monsieur, who is so polite as to come to ask
after our healths, and as he sees us both very well,
he will go away home again.''
``I believe, madam,'' said Miss Gray, with appearance
of effort, ``that I must speak with this
gentleman for a few minutes in private, if you will
permit us.''
``That is to say, get you gone? but I do not
allow that---I do not like private conversation between
young man and pretty young woman; _cela
n'est pas honne<e^>te_. It cannot be in my house.''
``It may be out of it, then, madam,'' answered
Miss Gray, not pettishly nor pertly, but with the
utmost simplicity.---``Mr Hartley, will you step
into that garden?---and you, madam, may observe
us from the window, if it be the fashion of the
country to watch so closely.''
As she spoke this she stepped through a lattice-door
into the garden, and with an air so simple,
that she seemed as if she wished to comply with
her patroness's ideas of decorum, though they appeared
strange to her. The Queen of Sheba,
notwithstanding her natural assurance, was disconcerted
by the composure of Miss Gray's manner,
and left the room, apparently in displeasure.
Menie turned back to the door which opened into
the garden, and said, in the same manner as
before, but with less nonchalance,---
``I am sure I would not willingly break through
the rules of a foreign country; but I cannot refuse
myself the pleasure of speaking to so old a
friend,---if, indeed,'' she added, pausing and looking
at Hartley, who was much embarrassed, ``it
be as much pleasure to Mr Hartley as it is to me.''
``It would have been,'' said Hartley, scarce knowing
what he said---``it must be, a pleasure to me,
in every circumstance---But, this extraordinary
meeting---But your father------''
Menie Gray's handkerchief was at her eyes.---
``He is gone, Mr Hartley. After he was left
unassisted, his toilsome business became too much
for him---he caught a cold, which hung about him,
as you know he was the last to attend to his own
complaints, till it assumed a dangerous, and, finally,
a fatal character. I distress you, Mr Hartley,
but it becomes you well to be affected. My father
loved you dearly.''
``Oh, Miss Gray!'' said Hartley, ``it should
not have been thus with my excellent friend at
the close of his useful and virtuous life---Alas,
wherefore---the question bursts from me involuntarily---
wherefore could you not have complied
with his wishes? wherefore------''
``Do not ask me,'' said she, stopping the question
which was on his lips; ``we are not the formers
of our own destiny. It is painful to talk on such
a subject; but for once, and for ever, let me tell
you that I should have done Mr Hartley wrong,
if, even to secure his assistance to my father, I
had accepted his hand, while my wayward affecations
did not accompany the act.''
``But wherefore do I see you here, Menie?
---Forgive me, Miss Gray, my tongue as well as
my heart turns back to long-forgotten scenes---
But why here?---why with this woman?''
``She is not, indeed, every thing that I expected,''
answered Menie; ``but I must not be prejudiced
by foreign manners, after the step I have
taken---She is, besides, attentive, and generous
in her way, and I shall soon''---she paused a
moment, and then added, ``be under better protection.''
``That of Richard Middlemas?'' said Hartley,
with a faltering voice.
``I ought not, perhaps, to answer the question,''
said Menie; ``but I am a bad dissembler, and those
whom I trust, I trust entirely. You have guessed
right, Mr Hartley,'' she added, colouring a good
deal, ``I have come hither to unite my fate to
that of your old comrade.''
``It is, then, just as I feared!'' exclaimed
Hartley.
``And why should Mr Hartley fear?'' said
Menie Gray. ``I used to think you too generous
---surely the quarrel which occurred long since
ought not to perpetuate suspicion and resentment.''
``At least, if the feeling of resentment remained
in my own bosom, it would be the last I should
intrude upon you, Miss Gray,'' answered Hartley.
``But it is for you, and for you alone, that I am
watchful.---This person---this gentleman whom you
mean to intrust with your happiness---do you know
where he is---and in what service?''
``I know both, more distinctly perhaps than Mr
Hartley can do. Mr Middlemas has erred greatly,
and has been severely punished. But it was not in
the time of his exile and sorrow, that she who has
plighted her faith to him should, with the flattering
world, turn her back upon him. Besides, you have,
doubtless, not heard of his hopes of being restored
to his country and his rank?''
``I have,'' answered Hartley, thrown off his
guard; ``but I see not how he can deserve it, otherwise
than by becoming a traitor to his new master,
and thus rendering himself even more unworthy of
confidence than I hold him to be at this moment.''
``It is well that he hears you not,'' answered
Menie Gray, resenting, with natural feeling, the
imputation on her lover. Then instantly softening
her tone, she added, ``My voice ought not to
aggravate, but to soothe your quarrel . Mr Hartley,
I plight my word to you that you do Richard
wrong.''
She said these words with affecting calmness,
suppressing all appearance of that displeasure, of
which she was evidently sensible, upon this depreciation
of a beloved object.
Hartley compelled himself to answer in the same
strain.
``Miss Gray,'' he said, ``your actions and
motives will always be those of an angel; but let
me entreat you to view this most important matter
with the eyes of worldly wisdom and prudence.
Have you well weighed the risks attending
the course which you are taking in favour of
a man, who,---nay, I will not again offend you---
who may, I hope, deserve your favour?''
``When I wished to see you in this manner, Mr
Hartley, and declined a communication in public,
where we could have had less freedom of conversation,
it was with the view of telling you every
thing. Some pain I thought old recollections
might give, but I trusted it would be momentary;
and, as I desire to retain your friendship, it is proper
I should show that I still deserve it. I must
then first tell you my situation after my father's
death. In the world's opinion, we were always
poor, you know; but in the proper sense I had not
known what real poverty was, until I was placed
in dependence upon a distant relation of my poor
father, who made our relationship a reason for
casting upon me all the drudgery of her household,
while she would not allow that it gave me a claim
to countenance, kindness, or any thing but the relief
of my most pressing wants. In these circumstances
I received from Mr Middlemas a letter, in
which he related his fatal duel, and its consequence.
He had not dared to write to me to share his
misery---Now, when he was in a lucrative situation,
under the patronage of a powerful prince,
whose wisdom knew how to prize and protect such
Europeans as entered his service---now, when he
had every prospect of rendering our government
such essential service by his interest with Hyder
Ali, and might eventually nourish hopes of being
permitted to return and stand his trial for the death
of his commanding officer---now he pressed me to
come to India, and share his reviving fortunes, by
accomplishing the engagement into which we had
long ago entered. A considerable sum of money
accompanied this letter. Mrs Duffer was pointed
out as a respectable woman, who would protect me
during the passage. Mrs Montreville, a lady of
rank, having large possessions and high interest in
the Mysore, would receive me on my arrival at
Fort St George, and conduct me safely to the dominions
of Hyder. It was further recommended,
that, considering the peculiar situation of Mr Middlemas,
his name should be concealed in the transaction,
and that the ostensible cause of my voyage
should be to fill an office in that lady's family.
---What was I to do?---My duty to my poor father
was ended, and my other friends considered the
proposal as too advantageous to be rejected. The
references given, the sum of money lodged, were
considered as putting all scruples out of the question,
and my immediate protectress and kinswoman
was so earnest that I should accept of the offer
made me, as to intimate that she would not encourage
me to stand in my own light, by continuing
to give me shelter and food, (she gave me little
more,) if I was foolish enough to refuse compliance.
``Sordid wretch!'' said Hartley, ``how little
did she deserve such a charge!''
``Let me speak a proud word, Mr Hartley, and
then you will not perhaps blame my relations so
much. All their persuasions, and even their threats,
would have failed in inducing me to take a step,
which has an appearance, at least, to which I found
it difficult to reconcile myself. But I had loved
Middlemas---I love him still---why should I deny
it?---and I have not hesitated to trust him. Had
it not been for the small still voice which reminded
me of my engagements, I had maintained
more stubbornly the pride of womanhood, and, as
you would perhaps have recommended, I might
have expected, at least, that my lover should have
come to Britain in person, and might have had the
vanity to think,'' she added, smiling faintly, ``that
if I were worth having, I was worth fetching.''
``Yet now---even now,'' answered Hartley, ``be
just to yourself while you are generous to your,
lover.---Nay, do not look angrily, but hear me. I
doubt the propriety of your being under the charge
of this unsexed woman, who can no longer be
termed a European. I have interest enough with
females of the highest rank in the settlement---this
climate is that of generosity and hospitality---there
is not one of them, who, knowing your character
and history, will not desire to have you in her society,
and under her protection, until your lover
shall be able to vindicate his title to your hand in
the face of the world.---I myself will be no cause
of suspicion to him, or of inconvenience to you,
Menie. Let me but have your consent to the arrangement
I propose, and the same moment that
sees you under honourable and unsuspected protection,
I will leave Madras, not to return till your
destiny is in one way or other permanently fixed.''
``No, Hartley,'' said Miss Gray. ``It may, it
must be, friendly in you thus to advise me; but it
would be most base in me to advance my own affairs
at the expense of your prospects. Besides, what
would this be but taking the chance of contingencies,
with the view of sharing poor Middlemas's
fortunes should they prove prosperous, and casting
him off, should they be otherwise? Tell me only,
do you, of your own positive knowledge, aver that
you consider this woman as an unworthy and unfit
protectress for so young a person as I am?''
``Of my own knowledge I can say nothing; nay,
I must own, that reports differ even concerning
Mrs Montreville's character. But surely the mere
suspicion------''
``The mere suspicion; Mr Hartley, can have no
weight with me, considering that I can oppose to
it the testimony of the man with whom I am willing
to share my future fortunes. You acknowledge
the question is but doubtful, and should not the assertion
of him of whom I think so highly decide my
belief in a doubtful matter? What, indeed, must
he be, should this Madam Montreville be other than
he represented her?''
``What must he be, indeed!'' thought Hartley
internally, but his lips uttered not the words. He
looked down in a deep reverie, and at length started
from it at the words of Miss Gray.
``It is time to remind you, Mr Hartley, that we
must needs part. God bless and preserve you.''
``And you, dearest Menie,'' exclaimed Hartley,
as he sunk on one knee, and pressed to his lips the
hand which she held out to him, ``God bless you!
---you must deserve blessing. God protect you!
---you must need protection.---Oh, should things
prove different from what you hope, send for me
instantly, and if man can aid you, Adam Hartley
will!''
He placed in her band a card containing his address.
He then rushed from the apartment. In
the hall he met the lady of the mansion, who made
him a haughty reverence in token of adieu, while
a native servant of the upper class, by whom she
was attended, made a low and reverential salam.
Hartley hastened from the Black Town, more
satisfied than before that some deceit was about to
be practised towards Menie Gray---more determined
than ever to exert himself for her preservation;
yet more completely perplexed, when he began
to consider the doubtful character of the danger
to which she might be exposed, and the scanty
means of protection which he had to oppose to it.
CHAPTER XII.
As Hartley left the apartment in the house of
Ram Sing Cottah by one mode of exit, Miss Gray
retired by another, to an apartment destined for
her private use. She, too, had reason for secret
and anxious reflection, since all her love for Middlemas,
and her full confidence in his honour, could
not entirely conquer her doubts concerning the character
of the person whom he had chosen for her
temporary protectress. And yet she could not rest
these doubts upon any thing distinctly conclusive;
it was rather a dislike of her patroness's general
manners, and a disgust at her masculine notions
and expressions, that displeased her, than any
thing else.
Meantime, Madam Montreville, followed by her
black domestic, entered the apartment where Hartley
and Menie had just parted. It appeared from
the conversation which follows, that they had from
some place of concealment overheard the dialogue
we have narrated in the former chapter.
``It is good luck, Sadoc,'' said the lady, ``that
there is in this world the great fool.''
``And the great villain,'' answered Sadoc, in
good English, but in a most sullen tone.
``This woman, now,'' continued the lady, ``is
what in Frangistan you call an angel.''
``Ay, and I have seen those in Hindostan you
may well call devil.''
``I am sure that this---how you call him---Hartley,
is a meddling devil. For what has he to do?
She will not have any of him. What is his business
who has her? I wish we were well up the
Ghauts again, my dear Sadoc.''
``For my part,'' answered the slave, ``I am half
determined never to ascend the Ghauts more. Hark
you, Adela, I begin to sicken of the plan we have
laid. This creature's confiding purity---call her
angel or woman, as you will---makes my practices
appear too vile, even in my own eyes. I feel myself
unfit to be your companion farther in the daring
paths which you pursue. Let us part, and part
friends.''
``Amen, coward. But the woman remains with
me,'' answered the Queen of Sheba.*
* In order to maintain uninjured the tone of passion
throughout this dialogue, it has been judged expedient to discard,
in the language of the Begum, the patois of Madame
Montreville.
``With thee!'' replied the seeming black---
``never. No, Adela. She is under the shadow
of the British flag, and she shall experience its
protection.''
``Yes---and what protection will it afford to you
yourself?'' retorted the Amazon. ``What if I
should clap my hands, and command a score of my
black servants to bind you like a sheep, and then
send word to the Governor of the Presidency that
one Richard Middlemas, who had been guilty of
mutiny, murder, desertion, and serving of the enemy
against his countrymen, is here, at Ram Sing Cottah's
house, in the disguise of a black servant?''
Middlemas covered his face with his hands, while
Madam Montreville proceeded to load him with
reproaches.---``Yes''; she said, ``slave, and son of
a slave! Since you wear the dress of my household,
you shall obey me as fully as the rest of them,
otherwise,---whips, fetters---the scaffold, renegade,
---the gallows, murderer! Dost thou dare to reflect
on the abyss of misery from which I raised
thee, to share my wealth and my affections? Dost
thou not remember that the picture of this pale,
cold, unimpassioned girl was then so indifferent to
thee, that thou didst sacrifice it as a tribute due to
the benevolence of her who relieved thee, to the affection
of her who, wretch as thou art, condescended
to love thee?''
``Yes, fell woman,'' answered Middlemas, ``but
was it I who encouraged the young tyrant's outrageous
passion for a portrait, or who formed the
abominable plan of placing the original within his
power?''
``No---for to do so required brain and wit. But
it was thine, flimsy villain, to execute the device
which a bolder genius planned; it was thine to entice
the woman to this foreign shore, under pretence
of a love, which, on thy part, cold-blooded
miscreant, never had existed."
``Peace, screech-owl!'' answered Middlemas,
``nor drive me to such madness as may lead me to
forget thou art a woman.''
``A woman, dastard! Is this thy pretext for
sparing me?---what, then, art thou, who tremblest
at a woman's looks, a woman's words?---I am a
woman, renegade, but one who wears a dagger,
and despises alike thy strength and thy courage. I
am a woman who has looked on more dying men
than thou hast killed deer and antelopes. Thou
must traffic for greatness?---thou hast thrust thyself
like a five-years' child, into the rough sports of
men, and wilt only be borne down and crushed for
thy pains. Thou wilt be a double traitor, forsooth
---betray thy betrothed to the Prince, in order to
obtain the means of betraying the Prince to the
English, and thus gain thy pardon from thy countrymen.
But me thou shalt not betray. I will not
be made the tool of thy ambition---I will not give
thee the aid of my treasures and my soldiers, to be
sacrificed at last to this northern icicle. No, I will
watch thee as the fiend watches the wizard. Show
but a symptom of betraying me while we are here,
and I denounce thee to the English, who might
pardon the successful villain, but not him who can
only offer prayers for his life, in place of useful
services. Let me see thee flinch when we are beyond
the Ghauts, and the Nawaub shall know thy
intrigues with the Nizam and the Mahrattas, and
thy resolution to deliver up Bangalore to the English,
when the imprudence of Tippoo shall have
made thee Killedar. Go where thou wilt, slave,
thou shalt find me thy mistress.''
``And a fair, though an unkind one,'' said the
counterfeit Sadoc, suddenly changing his tone to
an affectation of tenderness. ``It is true I pity this
unhappy woman; true I would save her if I could
---but most unjust to suppose I would in any circumstances
prefer her to my Nourjehan, my light
of the world, my Mootee Mahul, my pearl of the
palace---''
``All false coin and empty compliment,'' said the
Begum. ``Let me hear, in two brief words, that
you leave this woman to my disposal.''
``But not to be interred alive under your seat,
like the Circassian of whom you were jealous,'' said
Middlemas, shuddering.
``No, fool; her lot shall not be worse than that
of being the favourite of a prince. Hast thou, fugitive
and criminal as thou art, a better fate to offer
her?''
``But,'' replied Middlemas, blushing even through
his base disguise at the consciousness of his abject
conduct, ``I will have no force on her inclinations.''
``Such truce she shall have as the laws of the
Zenana allow,'' replied the female tyrant. ``A
week is long enough for her to determine whether
she will be the willing mistress of a princely and
generous lover.''
``Ay,'' said Richard, ``and before that week
expires------'' He stopped short.
``What will happen before the week expires?''
said the Begum Montreville.
``No matter---nothing of consequence. I leave
the woman's fate with you.''
``'Tis well---we march to-night on our return,
so soon as the moon rises. Give orders to our
retinue.''
``To hear is to obey,'' replied the seeming slave,
and left the apartment.
The eyes of the Begum remained fixed on the
door through which he had passed. ``Villain---
double-dyed villain!'' she said, ``I see thy drift;
thou wouldst betray Tippoo, in policy alike and in
love. But me thou canst not betray.---Ho, there,
who waits? Let a trusty messenger be ready to set
off instantly with letters, which I will presently make
ready. His departure must be a secret to every
one.---And now shall this pale phantom soon know
her destiny, and learn what it is to have rivalled
Adela Montreville.''
While the Amazonian Princess meditated plans
of vengeance against her innocent rival and the
guilty lover, the latter plotted as deeply for his own
purposes. He had waited until such brief twilight
as India enjoys rendered his disguise complete,
then set out in haste for the part of Madras inhabited
by the Europeans, or, as it is termed, Fort
St George.
``I will save her yet,'' he said; ``ere Tippoo can
seize his prize, we will raise around his ears a storm
which would drive the God of War from the arms
of the Goddess of Beauty. The trap shall close
its fangs upon this Indian tiger, ere he has time to
devour the bait which enticed him into the snare.''
While Middlemas cherished these hopes, he
approached the Residency. The sentinel on duty
stopped him, as of course, but he was in possession
of the counter-sign, and entered without opposition.
He rounded the building in which the President
of the Council resided, an able and active, but
unconscientious man, who, neither in his own
affairs, nor in those of the Company, was supposed
to embarrass himself much about the means which
he used to attain his object. A tap at a small postern-gate
was answered by a black slave, who admitted
Middlemas to that necessary appurtenance
of every government, a back stair, which, in its
turn, conducted him to the office of the Brahmin
Paupiah, the Dubash, or steward of the great man,
and by whose means chiefly he communicated with
the native courts, and carried on many mysterious
intrigues, which he did not communicate to his
brethren at the council-board.
It is perhaps justice to the guilty and unhappy
Middlemas to suppose, that if the agency of a British
officer had been employed, he might have been
induced to throw himself on his mercy, might have
explained the whole of his nefarious bargain with
Tippoo, and, renouncing his guilty projects of
ambition, might have turned his whole thoughts
upon saving Menie Gray, ere she was transported
beyond the reach of British protection. But the
thin dusky form which stood before him, wrapped
in robes of muslin embroidered with gold, was that
of Paupiah, known as a master-counsellor of dark
projects, an oriental Machiavel, whose premature
wrinkles were the result of many an intrigue, in
which the existence of the poor, the happiness of
the rich, the honour of men, and the chastity of
women, had been sacrificed without scruple, to
attain some private or political advantage. He did
not even enquire by what means the renegade
Briton proposed to acquire that influence with
Tippoo which might enable him to betray him---
he only desired to be assured that the fact was real.
``You speak at the risk of your head, if you
deceive Paupiah, or make Paupiah the means of
deceiving his master. I know, so does all Madras,
that the Nawaub has placed his young son, Tippoo,
as Vice-Regent of his newly-conquered territory
of Bangalore, which Hyder hath lately added to his
dominions. But that Tippoo should bestow the
government of that important place on an apostate
Feringi, seems more doubtful.''
``Tippoo is young,'' answered Middlemas, ``and
to youth the temptation of the passions is what a
lily on the surface of the lake is to childhood---they
will risk life to reach it though, when obtained, it
is of little value. Tippoo has the cunning of his
father and his military talents, but he lacks his cautious
wisdom.''
``Thou speakest truth---but when thou art Governor
of Bangalore, hast thou forces to hold the
place till thou art relieved by the Mahrattas, or by
the British?''
``Doubt it not---the soldiers of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, whom the Europeans call Montreville,
are less hers than mine. I am myself her
Bukshee, [General,] and her Sirdars are at my
devotion. With these I could keep Bangalore for
two months, and the British army may be before
it in a week. What do you risk by advancing General
Smith's army nearer to the frontier?''
``We risk a settled peace with Hyder,'' answered
Paupiah, ``for which he has made advantageous
offers. Yet I say not but thy plan may be most
advantageous. Thou sayest Tippoo's treasures are
in the fort?''
``His treasures and his Zenana; I may even be
able to secure his person.''
``That were a goodly pledge---'' answered the
Hindoo minister.
``And you consent that the treasures shall be
divided to the last rupee, as in this scroll?''
``The share of Paupiah's master is too small,''
said the Bramin; ``and the name of Paupiah is
unnoticed.''
``The share of the Begum may be divided between
Paupiah and his master.'' answered Middlemas.
``But the Begum will expect her proportion,''
replied Paupiah.
``Let me alone to deal with her,'' said Middlemas.
``Before the blow is struck, she shall not
know of our private treaty, and afterwards her disappointment
will be of little consequence. And
now, remember my stipulations---my rank to be
restored---my full pardon to be granted.''
``Ay,'' replied Paupiah, cautiously, ``should you
succeed. But were you to betray what has here
passed, I will find the dagger of a Lootie which
shall reach thee, wert thou sheltered under the
folds of the Nawaub's garment. In the meantime,
take this missive, and when you are in possession
of Bangalore, dispatch it to General Smith, whose
division shall have orders to approach as near the
frontiers of Mysore as may be, without causing
suspicion.''
Thus parted this worthy pair; Paupiah to report
to his principal the progress of these dark machinations,
Middlemas to join the Begum on her return
to the Mysore. The gold and diamonds of
Tippoo, the importance which he was about to
acquire, the ridding himself at once of the capricious
authority of the irritable Tippoo, and the troublesome
claims of the Begum, were such agreeable
subjects of contemplation, that he scarcely thought
of the fate of his European victim unless to salve
his conscience with the hope that the sole injury
she could sustain might be the alarm of a few days,
during the course of which he would acquire the
means of delivering her from the tyrant, in whose
Zenana she was to remain a temporary prisoner.
He resolved, at the same time, to abstain from seeing
her till the moment he could afford her protection,
justly considering the danger which his whole
plan might incur, if he again awakened the jealousy
of the Begum. This he trusted was now
asleep; and, in the course of their return to Tippoo's
camp, near Bangalore, it was his study to
sooth this ambitious and crafty female by blandishments,
intermingled with the more splendid
prospects of wealth and power to be opened to
them both, as he pretended, by the success of his
present enterprise.*
* It is scarce necessary to say, that such things could only be
acted in the earlier period of our Indian settlements, when the
cheek of the Directors was imperfect, and that of the Crown
did not exist. My friend Mr Fairscribe is of opinion, that
there is an anachronism in the introduction of Paupiah, the
Bramin Dubash of the English governor.---C. C.
CHAPTER XIII.
It appears that the jealous and tyrannical Begum
did not long suspend her purpose of agonizing
her rival by acquainting her with her intended
fate. By prayers or rewards, Menie Gray prevailed
on a servant of Ram Sing Cottah, to deliver
to Hartley the following distracted note:---
``All is true your fears foretold---He has delivered
me up to a cruel woman, who threatens to
sell me to the tyrant Tippoo.---Save me if you can
---if you have not pity, or cannot give me aid, there
is none left upon earth.---M. G.''
The haste with which Dr Hartley sped to the
Fort, and demanded an audience of the Governor,
was defeated by the delays interposed by Paupiah.
It did not suit the plans of this artful Hindhu,
that any interruption should be opposed to the departure
of the Begum and her favourite, considering
how much the plans of the last corresponded
with his own. He affected incredulity on the
charge, when Hartley complained of an Englishwoman
being detained in the train of the Begum
against her consent, treated the complaint of Miss
Gray as the result of some female quarrel unworthy
of particular attention, and when at length he took
some steps for examining further into the matter,
he contrived they should be so tardy, that the Begum
and her retinue were far beyond the reach of
interruption.
Hartley let his indignation betray him into reproaches
against Paupiah, in which his principal
was not spared. This only served to give the impassible
Bramin a pretext for excluding him from
the Residency, with a hint, that if his language
continued to be of such an imprudent character, he
might expect to be removed from Madras, and
stationed at some hill-fort or village among the
mountains, where his medical knowledge would
find full exercise in protecting himself and others
from the unhealthiness of the climate.
As he retired, bursting with ineffectual indignation,
Esdale was the first person whom Hartley
chanced to meet with, and to him, stung with impatience
he communicated what he termed the infamous
conduct of the Governor's Dubash, connived at,
as he had but too much reason to suppose, by the
Governor himself; exclaiming against the want of
spirit which they betrayed, in abandoning a British
subject to the fraud of renegades, and the force
of a tyrant.
Esdale listened with that sort of anxiety which
prudent men betray when they feel themselves
like to be drawn into trouble by the discourse of
an imprudent friend.
``If you desire to be personally righted in this
matter,'' said he at length, ``you must apply to
Leadenhall Street, where, I suspect---betwixt ourselves---
complaints are accumulating fast, both
against Paupiah and his master.''
``I care for neither of them,'' said Hartley; ``I
need no personal redress---I desire none---l only
want succour for Menie Gray.''
``In that case,'' said Esdale, ``you have only
one resource---you must apply to Hyder himself------''
``To Hyder---to the usurper---the tyrant?''
``Yes, to this usurper and tyrant,'' answered
Esdale, `` you must be contented to apply. His
pride is, to be thought a strict administrator of
justice; and perhaps he may on this, as on other
occasions, choose to display himself in the light of
an impartial magistrate.''
``Then I go to demand justice at his footstool.''
said Hartley.
``Not so fast, my dear Hartley,'' answered his
friend; ``first consider the risk. Hyder is just
by reflection, and perhaps from political consideration;
but by temperament, his blood is as unruly
as ever beat under a black skin, and if you do not
find him in the vein of judging, he is likely enough
to be in that of killing. Stakes and bowstrings
are as frequently in his head as the adjustment of
the scales of justice.''
``No matter---I will instantly present myself at
his Durbar. The Governor cannot for very shame
refuse me letters of credence.''
``Never think of asking them,;; said his more
experienced friend; ``it would cost Paupiah little
to have them so worded as to induce Hyder to rid
our sable Dubash at once and for ever, of the
sturdy free-spoken Dr Adam Hartley. A Vakeel,
or messenger of government, sets out to-morrow
for Seringapatam; contrive to join him on the road,
his passport will protect you both. Do you know
none of the chiefs about Hyder's person?''
``None, excepting his late emissary to this
place, Barak el Hadgi,'' answered Hartley.
``His support,'' said Esdale, ``although only a
Fakir, may be as effectual as that of persons of
more essential consequence. And, to say the truth,
where the caprice of a despot is the question in
debate, there is no knowing upon what it is best to
reckon.---Take my advice, my dear Hartley, leave
this poor girl to her fate. After all, by placing
yourself in an attitude of endeavouring to save her,
it is a hundred to one that you only ensure your
own destruction.''
Hartley shook his head, and bade Esdale hastily
farewell; leaving him in the happy and self-applauding
state of mind proper to one who has
given the best advice possible to a friend, and
may conscientiously wash his hands of all consequences.
Having furnished himself with money, and with
the attendance of three trusty native servants,
mounted like himself on Arab horses, and carrying
with them no tent, and very little baggage, the
anxious Hartley lost not a moment in taking the
road to Mysore, endeavouring, in the meantime,
by recollecting every story he had ever heard of
Hyder's justice and forbearance, to assure himself
that he should find the Nawaub disposed to protect
a helpless female, even against the future heir of
his empire.
Before he crossed the Madras territory, he
overtook the Vakeel, or messenger of the British
Government, of whom Esdale had spoken. This
man, accustomed for a sum of money to permit
adventurous European traders who desired to visit
Hyder's capital, to share his protection, passport,
and escort, was not disposed to refuse the same
good office to a gentleman of credit at Madras;
and, propitiated by an additional gratuity, undertook
to travel as speedily as possible. It was a
journey which was not prosecuted without much
fatigue and considerable danger, as they had to
traverse a country frequently exposed to all the
evils of war, more especially when they approached
the Ghauts, those tremendous mountain-passes
which descend from the table-land of Mysore, and
through which the mighty streams that arise in the
centre of the Indian peninsula, find their way to
the ocean.
The sun had set ere the party reached the foot
of one of these perilous passes, up which lay the
road to Seringapatam. A narrow path, which in
summer resembled an empty water-course, winding
upwards among immense rocks and precipices,
was at one time completely overshadowed by dark
groves of teak-trees, and at another, found its way
beside impenetrable jungles, the habitation of jackals
and tigers.
By means of this unsocial path the travellers
threaded their way in silence,---Hartley, whose
impatience kept him before the Vakeel, eagerly
enquiring when the moon would enlighten the
darkness, which, after the sun's disappearance,
closed fast around them. He was answered by the
natives according to their usual mode of expression,
that the moon was in her dark side, and that he
was not to hope to behold her bursting through a
cloud to illuminate the thickets and strata of black
and slaty rocks, amongst which they were winding.
Hartley had therefore no resource, save to keep
his eye steadily fixed on the lighted match of the
Sowar, or horseman, who rode before him, which,
for sufficient reasons, was always kept in readiness
to be applied to the priming of the matchlock.
The vidette, on his part, kept a watchful eye on
the Dowrah, a guide supplied at the last village,
who, having got more than half way from his own
house, was much to be suspected of meditating how
to escape the trouble of going further.* The Dowrah,
* In every village the Dowrah, or Guide, is an official person,
upon the public establishment, and receives a portion of
the harvest or other revenue, along with the Smith, the Sweeper,
and the Barber. As he gets nothing from the travellers
whom it is his office to conduct, he never scruples to shorten
his own journey and prolong theirs by taking them to the
nearest village, without reference to the most direct line of
route, and sometimes deserts them entirely. If the regular
Dowrah is sick or absent, no wealth can procure a substitute.
on the other hand, conscious of the lighted
match and loaded gun behind him, hollowed from
time to time to show that he was on his duty, and
to accelerate the march of the travellers. His cries
were answered by an occasional ejaculation of Ulla
from the black soldiers, who closed the rear, and
who were meditating on former adventures, the
plundering of a _Kaffila_, (party of travelling merchants,)
or some such exploit, or perhaps reflecting
that a tiger, in the neighbouring jungle, might be
watching patiently for the last of the party, in order
to spring upon him, according to his usual practice.
The sun, which appeared almost as suddenly as
it had left them, served to light the travellers in
the remainder of the ascent, and called forth
from the Mahomedans belonging to the party the
morning prayer of Alla Akber, which resounded in
long notes among the rocks and ravines, and they
continued with better advantage their forced march
until the pass opened upon a boundless extent of
jungle, with a single high mud fort rising through
the midst of it. Upon this plain rapine and war
had suspended the labours of industry, and the rich
vegetation of the soil had in a few years converted
a fertile champaign country into an almost impenetrable
thicket. Accordingly, the banks of a small
nullah, or brook, were covered with the footmarks
of tigers and other animals of prey.
Here the travellers stopped to drink, and to refresh
themselves and their horses; and it was near
this spot that Hartley saw a sight which forced him
to compare the subject which engrossed his own
thoughts, with the distress that had afflicted another.
At a spot not far distant from the brook, the
guide called their attention to a most wretched-looking
man, overgrown with hair, who was seated
on the skin of a tiger. His body was covered with
mud and ashes, his skin sun-burnt, his dress a few
wretched tatters. He appeared not to observe the
approach of the strangers, neither moving nor speaking
a word, but remaining with his eyes fixed on a
small and rude tomb, formed of the black slate-stones
which lay around, and exhibiting a small recess
for a lamp. As they approached the man, and
placed before him a rupee or two, and some rice,
they observed that a tiger's skull and bones lay beside
him, with a sabre almost consumed by rust.
While they gazed on this miserable object, the
guide acquainted them with his tragical history.
Sadhu Sing had been a Sipahee, or soldier, and
freebooter of course, the native and the pride of a
half-ruined village which they had passed on the
preceding day. He was betrothed to the daughter
of a Sipahee, who served in the mud fort which
they saw at a distance rising above the jungle. In
due time, Sadhu, with his friends, came for the
purpose of the marriage, and to bring home the
bride. She was mounted on a Tatoo, a small
horse belonging to the country, and Sadhu and his
friends preceded her on foot, in all their joy and
pride. As they approached the mullah near which
the travellers were resting, there was heard a dreadful
roar, accompanied by a shriek of agony. Sadhu
Sing, who instantly turned, saw no trace of his
bride, save that her horse ran wild in one direction,
whilst in the other the long grass and reeds of the
jungle were moving like the ripple of the ocean,
when distorted by the course of a shark holding
its way near the surface. Sadhu drew his sabre
and rushed forward in that direction; the rest of
the party remained motionless until roused by a
short roar of agony. They then plunged into the
jungle with their drawn weapons, where they
speedily found Sadhu Sing holding in his arms the
lifeless corpse of his bride, where a little farther
lay the body of the tiger, slain by such a blow
over the neck as desperation itself could alone have
discharged.---The brideless bridegroom would permit
none to interfere with his sorrow. He dug a
grave for his Mora, and erected over it the rude
tomb they saw, and never afterwards left the spot.
The beasts of prey themselves seemed to respect
or dread the extremity of his sorrow. His friends
brought him food and water from the nullah, but
he neither smiled nor showed any mark of acknowledgment
unless when they brought him flowers
to deck the grave of Mora. Four or five years,
according to the guide, had passed away, and there
Sadhu Sing still remained among the trophies of
his grief and his vengeance, exhibiting all the
symptoms of advanced age, though still in the
prime of youth. The tale hastened the travellers
from their resting-place; the Vakeel because it
reminded him of the dangers of the jungle, and
Hartley because it coincided too well with the
probable fate of his beloved, almost within the
grasp of a more formidable tiger than that whose
skeleton lay beside Sadhu Sing.
It was at the mud fort already mentioned that
the travellers received the first accounts of the
progress of the Begum and her party, by a Peon
(or foot-soldier) who had been in their company,
but was now on his return to the coast. They had
travelled, he said, with great speed, until they ascended
the Ghauts, where they were joined by a
party of the Begum's own forces; and he and
others, who had been brought from Madras as a
temporary escort, were paid and dismissed to their
homes. After this, he understood it was the purpose
of the Begum Mootee Mahul, to proceed by
slow marches and frequent halts, to Bangalore,
the vicinity of which place she did not desire to
reach until Prince Tippoo, with whom she desired
an interview, should have returned from an expedition
towards Vandicotta, in which he had lately
been engaged.
From the result of his anxious enquiries, Hartley
had reason to hope, that though Seringapatam
was seventy-five miles more to the eastward than
Bangalore, yet by using diligence, he might have
time to throw himself at the feet of Hyder, and
beseech his interposition, before the meeting betwixt
Tippoo and the Begum should decide the
fate of Menie Gray. On the other hand, he trembled
as the Peon told him that the Begum's Bukshee,
or General, who had travelled to Madras with her
in disguise, had now assumed the dress and character
belonging to his rank, and it was expected
he was to be honoured by the Mahomedan Prince
with some high office of dignity. With still deeper
anxiety, he learned that a palanquin, watched with
sedulous care by the slaves of Oriental jealousy,
contained, it was whispered, a Feringi, or Frankish
woman, beautiful as a Houri, who had been
brought from England by the Begum, as a present
to Tippoo. The deed of villainy was therefore in
full train to be accomplished; it remained to see
whether, by diligence on Hartley's side, its course
could be interrupted.
When this eager vindicator of betrayed innocence
arrived in the capital of Hyder, it may be believed
that he consumed no time in viewing the
temple of the celebrated Vishnoo, or in surveying
the splendid Gardens called Loll-baug, which were
the monument of Hyder's magnificence, and now
hold his mortal remains. On the contrary, he was
no sooner arrived in the city, than he hastened to
the principal Mosque, having no doubt that he was
there most likely to learn some tidings of Barak
el Hadgi. He approached accordingly the sacred
spot, and as to enter it would have cost a Feringi
his life, he employed the agency of a devout Mussulman
to obtain information concerning the person
whom he sought. He was not long in learning
that the Fakir Barak was within the Mosque, as
he had anticipated, busied with his holy office of
reading passages from the Koran, and its most approved
commentators. To interrupt him in his
devout task was impossible, and it was only by a
high bribe that he could prevail on the same Moslem
whom he had before employed, to slip into the
sleeve of the holy man's robe a paper containing
his name, and that of the Khan in which the Vakeel
had taken up his residence. The agent brought
back for answer, that the Fakir, immersed, as was
to be expected, in the holy service which he was
in the act of discharging, had paid no visible attention
to the symbol of intimation which the Feringi
Sahib (European gentleman) had sent to him. Distracted
with the loss of time, of which each moment
was precious, Hartley next endeavoured to
prevail on the Mussulman to interrupt the Fakir's
devotions with a verbal message; but the man was
indignant at the very proposal.
``Dog of a Christian!'' he said, ``what art thou
and thy whole generation, that Barak el Hadgi
should lose a divine thought for the sake of an infidel
like thee?''
Exasperated beyond self-possession, the unfortunate
Hartley was now about to intrude upon the
precincts of the Mosque in person, in hopes of interrupting
the formal prolonged recitation which
issued from its recesses, when an old man laid his
hand on his shoulder, and prevented him from a
rashness which might have cost him his life, saying,
at the same time, ``You are a Sahib Angrezie,
[English gentleman;] I have been a Telinga,
[a private soldier,] in the Company's service, and
have eaten their salt. I will do your errand for
you to the Fakir Barak el Hadgi.''
So saying, he entered the Mosque, and presently
returned with the Fakir's answer, in these enigmatical
words:---``He who would see the sun rise
must watch till the dawn.''
With this poor subject of consolation, Hartley
retired to his inn, to meditate on the futility of the
professions of the natives, and to devise some other
mode of finding access to Hyder than that which
he had hitherto trusted to. On this point, however,
he lost all hope, being informed by his late
fellow-traveller, whom he found at the Khan, that
the Nawaub wass absent from the city on a secret
expedition, which might detain him for two or three
days. This was the answer which the Vakeel himself
had received from the Dewan, with a farther
intimation, that he must hold himself ready, when
he was required, to deliver his credentials to Prince
Tippoo, instead of the Nawaub; his business being
referred to the former, in a way not very promising
for the success of his mission.
Hartley was now nearly thrown into despair.
He applied to more than one officer supposed to
have credit with the Nawaub, but the slightest
hint of the nature of his business seemed to strike
all with terror. Not one of the persons he applied
to would engage in the affair, or even consent to
give it a hearing; and the Dewan plainly told him,
that to engage in opposition to Prince Tippoo's
wishes, was the ready way to destruction, and exhorted
him to return to the coast. Driven almost
to distraction by his various failures, Hartley betook
himself in the evening to the Khan. The
call of the Muezzins thundering from the minarets,
had invited the faithful to prayers, when a black
servant, about fifteen years old, stood before Hartley,
and pronounced these words, deliberately, and
twice over,---``Thus says Barak el Hadgi, the
watcher in the Mosque. He that would see the
sunrise, let him turn towards the east.'' He then
left the caravanserai; and it maybe well supposed
that Hartley, starting from the carpet on which he
had lain down to repose him self, followed his youthful
guide with renewed vigour and palpitating hope.
CHAPTER XIV.
'Twas the hour when rites unholy
Call'd each Paynim voice to prayer.
And the star that faded slowly,
Left to dews the freshen'd air.
Day his sultry fires had wasted,
Calm and cool the moonbeams shone;
To the Vizier's lofty palace
One bold Christian came alone.
Thomas Campbell. _Quoted from memory_.
The twilight darkened into night so fast, that it
was only by his white dress that Hartley could discern
his guide, as he tripped along the splendid
Bazaar of the city. But the obscurity was so far
favourable, that it prevented the inconvenient attention
which the natives might otherwise have bestowed
upon the European in his native dress, a
sight at that time very rare in Seringapatam.
The various turnings and windings through which
he was conducted, ended at a small door in a wall,
which, from the branches that hung over it, seemed
to surround a garden or grove.
The postern opened on a tap from his guide, and
the slave having entered, Hartley prepared to follow,
but stepped back as a gigantic African brandished
at his head a scimitar three fingers broad.
The young slave touched his countryman with a
rod which he held in his hand, and it seemed as if
the touch disabled the giant, whose arm and weapon
sunk instantly. Hartley entered without farther
opposition, and was now in a grove of mango-trees,
through which an infant moon was twinkling faintly
amid the murmur of waters, the sweet song of the
nightingale, and the odours of the rose, yellow
jasmine, orange and citron flowers, and Persian
Narcissus. Huge domes and arches, which were
seen imperfectly in the quivering light, seemed to
intimate the neighbourhood of some sacred edifice,
where the Fakir had doubtless taken up his residence.
Hartley pressed on with as much haste as he
could, and entered a side-door and narrow vaulted
passage, at the end of which was another door.
Here his guide stopped, but pointed and made indications
that the European should enter. Hartley
did so, and found himself in a small cell, such
as we have formerly described, wherein sate Barak
el Hadgi, with another Fakir, who, to judge from
the extreme dignity of a white beard, which ascended
up to his eyes on each side, must be a man
of great sanctity, as well as importance.
Hartley pronounced the usual salutation of Salam
Alaikum in the most modest and deferential
tone; but his former friend was so far from responding
in their former strain of intimacy, that
having consulted the eye of his older companion,
he barely pointed to a third carpet, upon which the
stranger seated himself cross-legged after the country
fashion, and a profound silence prevailed for
the space of several minutes. Hartley knew the
Oriental customs too well to endanger the success
of his suit by precipitation. He waited an intimation
to speak. At length it came, and from Barak.
``When the pilgrim Barak,'' he said, ``dwelt at
Madras, he had eyes and a tongue; but now he is
guided by those of his father, the holy Scheik Hali
ben Khaledoun, the superior of his convent.''
This extreme humility Hartley thought inconsistent
with the affectation of possessing superior
influence, which Barak had shown while at the
Presidency; but exaggeration of their own consequence
is a foible common to all who find themselves
in a land of strangers. Addressing the senior
Fakir, therefore, he told him in as few words
as possible the villainous plot which was laid to
betray Menie Gray into the hands of the Prince
Tippoo. He made his suit for the reverend father's
intercession with the Prince himself, and with his
father the Nawaub, in the most persuasive terms.
The Fakir listened to him with an inflexible and
immovable aspect, similar to that with which a
wooden saint regards his eager supplicants. There
was a second pause, when, after resuming his
pleading more than once, Hartley was at length
compelled to end it for want of matter.
The silence was broken by the elder Fakir, who,
after shooting a glance at his younger companion
by a turn of the eye, without the least alteration
of the position of the bead and body, said, ``The
unbeliever has spoken like a poet. But does be
think that the Nawaub Khan Hyder Ali Behauder
will contest with his son Tippoo the Victorious,
the possession of an infidel slave?''
Hartley received at the same time a side glance
from Barak, as if encouraging him to plead his own
cause. He suffered a minute to elapse, and then
replied,---
``The Nawaub is in the place of the Prophet, a
judge over the low as well as high. It is written,
that when the Prophet decided a controversy between
the two sparrows concerning a grain of rice,
his wife Fatima said to him, `Doth the Missionary
of Allah well to bestow his time in distributing
justice on a matter so slight, and between such
despicable litigants?'---`Know, woman,' answered
the Prophet, ` that the sparrows and the grain of
Rice are the creation of Allah. They are not worth
more than thou hast spoken; but justice is a treasure
of inestimable price, and it must be imparted
by him who holdeth power to all to require it at
his hand. The Prince doth the will of Allah, who
gives it alike in small matters as in great, and to
the poor as well as the powerful. To the hungry
bird, a grain of rice is as a chaplet of pearls to a
sovereign.'---l have spoken.''
``Bismallah!---Praised be God! he hath spoken
like a Moullah,'' said the elder Fakir, with a little
more emotion, and some inclination of his head
towards Barak, for on Hartley he scarcely deigned
even to look.
``The lips have spoken it which cannot lie,''
replied Barak, and there was again a pause.
It was once more broken by Scheik Hali, who,
addressing himself directly to Hartley, demanded
of him, ``Hast thou heard, Feringi, of aught of
treason meditated by this Kafr [infidel] against
the Nawaub Behauder?''
``Out of a traitor cometh treason,'' said Hartley,
``but, to speak after my knowledge, I am not conscious
of such design.''
``There is truth in the words of him,'' said the
Fakir, ``who accuseth not his enemy save on his
knowledge. The things thou hast spoken shall
be laid before the Nawaub; and as Allah and he
will, so shall the issue be. Meantime, return to
thy Khan, and prepare to attend the Vakeel of
thy government, who is to travel with dawn to
Bangalore, the strong, the happy, the holy city.
Peace be with thee!---Is it not so, my son?''
Barak, to whom this appeal was made, replied,
``Even as my father hath spoken.''
Hartley had no alternative but to arise and take
his leave with the usual phrase, ``Salam---God's
peace be with you!''
His youthful guide, who waited his return
without conducted him once more to his Khan,
through by-paths which he could not have found out
without pilotage. His thoughts were in the meantime
strongly engaged on his late interview. He
knew the Moslem men of religion were not implicitly
to be trusted. The whole scene might be a
scheme of Barak, to get rid of the trouble of patronising
a European in a delicate affair; and he
determined to be guided by what should seem to
confirm or discredit the intimation which he had
received.
On his arrival at the Khan, be found the Vakeel
of the British government in a great bustle, preparing
to obey directions transmitted to him by
the Nawaub's Dewan, or treasurer, directing him
to depart the next morning with break of day for
Bangalore.
He expressed great discontent at the order, and
when Hartley intimated his purpose of accompanying
him, seemed to think him a fool for his pains,
hinting the probability that Hyder meant to get rid
of them both by means of the freebooters, through
whose countries they were to pass with such a feeble
escort. This fear gave way to another, when
the time of departure came, at which moment there
rode up about two hundred of the Nawaub's native
cavalry. The Sirdar who commanded these troops
behaved with civility, and stated that he was directed
to attend upon the travellers, and to provide
for their safety and convenience on the journey;
but his manner was reserved and distant, and the
Vakeel insisted that the force was intended to prevent
their escape, rather than for their protection.
Under such unpleasant auspices, the journey between
Seringapatam and Bangalore was accomplished
in two days and part of a third, the distance
being nearly eighty miles.
On arriving in view of this fine and populous
city, they found an encampment already established
within a mile of its walls. It occupied a tope or
knoll, covered with trees, and looked full on the
gardens which Tippoo had created in one quarter
of the city. The rich pavilions of the principal
persons flamed with silk and gold; and spears
with gilded points, or poles supporting gold knobs,
displayed numerous little banners, inscribed with
the name of the Prophet. This was the camp of
the Begum Mootee Mahul, who, with a small body
of her troops, about two hundred men, was waiting
the return of Tippoo under the walls of Bangalore.
Their private motives for desiring a meeting the
reader is acquainted with; to the public the visit
of the Begum had only the appearance of an act of
deference, frequently paid by inferior and subordinate
princes to the patrons whom they depend
upon.
These facts ascertained, the Sirdar of the Nawaub
took up his own encampment within sight of that
of the Begum, but at about half a mile's distance,
dispatching to the city a messenger to announce
to the Prince Tippoo, so soon as he should arrive,
that he had come hither with the English Vakeel.
The bustle of pitching a few tents was soon over,
and Hartley, solitary and sad, was left to walk under
the shade of two or three mango-trees, and
looking to the displayed streamers of the Begum's
encampment, to reflect that amid these insignia of
Mahomedanism Menie Gray remained, destined by
a profligate and treacherous lover to the fate of
slavery to a heathen tyrant. The consciousness of
being in her vicinity added to the bitter pangs with
which Hartley contemplated her situation, and reflected
how little chance there appeared of his
being able to rescue her from it by the mere force
of reason and justice, which was all he could oppose
to the selfish passions of a voluptuous tyrant. A
lover of romance might have meditated some means
of effecting her release by force or address; but
Hartley, though a man of courage, had no spirit of
adventure, and would have regarded as desperate
any attempt of the kind.
His sole gleam of comfort arose from the impression
which he had apparently made upon the elder
Fakir, which he could not help hoping might be of
some avail to him. But on one thing he was firmly
resolved, and that was, not to relinquish the cause
he had engaged in whilst a grain of hope remained.
He had seen in his own profession a quickening
and a revival of life in the patient's eye, even when
glazed apparently by the hand of Death; and he
was taught confidence amidst moral evil by his success
in relieving that which was physical only.
While Hartley was thus meditating, he was roused
to attention by a heavy firing of artillery from
the high bastions of the town; and turning his eyes
in that direction, he could see advancing on the
northern side of Bangalore, a tide of cavalry, riding
tumultuously forward, brandishing their spears
in all different attitudes, and pressing their horses
to a gallop. The clouds of dust which attended
this vanguard, for such it was, combined with the
smoke of the guns, did not permit Hartley to see
distinctly the main body which followed; but the
appearance of howdahed elephants and royal banners
dimly seen through the haze, plainly intimated
the return of Tippoo to Bangalore; while shouts,
and irregular discharges of musketry, announced
the real or pretended rejoicing of the inhabitants.
The city gates received the living torrent, which
rolled towards them; the clouds of smoke and dust
were soon dispersed, and the horizon was restored
to serenity and silence.
The meeting between persons of importance,
more especially of royal rank, is a matter of very
great consequence in India, and generally much address
is employed to induce the person receiving the
visit, to come as far as possible to meet the visitor.
From merely rising up, or going to the edge of the
carpet, to advancing to the gate of the palace, to
that of the city, or, finally, to a mile or two on the
road, is all subject to negotiation. But Tippoo's
impatience to possess the fair European induced
him to grant on this occasion a much greater degree
of courtesy than the Begum had dared to expect,
and he appointed his garden, adjacent to the city
walls, and indeed included within the precincts of
the fortifications, as the place of their meeting; the
hour noon, on the day succeeding his arrival; for
the natives seldom move early in the morning, or
before having broken their fast. This was intimated
to the Begum's messenger by the Prince in person,
as, kneeling before him, he presented the _nuzzur_,
(a tribute consisting of three, five, or seven gold
Mohurs, always an odd number,) and received in
exchange a Khelaut, or dress of honour. The
messenger, in return, was eloquent in describing
the importance of his mistress, her devoted veneration
for the Prince, the pleasure which she experienced
on the prospect of their motakul, or meeting,
and concluded with a more modest compliment to
his own extraordinary talents, and the confidence
which the Begum reposed in him. He then departed;
and orders were given that on the next
day all should be in readiness for the _Sowarree_, a
grand procession, when the Prince was to receive
the Begum as his honoured guest at his pleasure-house
in the gardens.
Long before the appointed hour, the rendezvous
of Fakirs, beggars, and idlers, before the gate of
the palace, intimated the excited expectations of
those who usually attend processions; while a more
urgent set of mendicants, the courtiers, were hastening
thither, on horses or elephants, as their means
afforded, always in a hurry to show their zeal,
and with a speed proportioned to what they hoped
or feared.
At noon precisely, a discharge of cannon, placed
in the outer courts, as also of matchlocks and of
small swivels, carried by camels, (the poor animals
shaking their long ears at every discharge,) announced
that Tippoo had mounted his elephant.
The solemn and deep sound of the naggra, or state
drum, borne upon an elephant, was then heard
like the distant discharge of artillery, followed by
a long roll of musketry, and was instantly answered
by that of numerous trumpets and tom-toms, (or
common drums,) making a discordant, but yet a
martial din. The noise increased as the procession
traversed the outer courts of the palace in succession,
and at length issued from the gates, having
at their head the Chobdars, bearing silver sticks
and clubs, and shouting, at the pitch of their voices,
the titles and the virtues of Tippoo, the great, the
generous, the invincible---strong as Rustan, just as
Noushirvan---with a short prayer for his continued
health.
After these came a confused body of men on foot,
bearing spears, matchlocks, and banners, and intermixed
with horsemen, some in complete shirts of
mail, with caps of steel under their turbans, some
in a sort of defensive armour, consisting of rich silk
dresses, rendered sabre-proof by being stuffed with
cotton. These champions preceded the Prince, as
whose body-guards they acted. It was not till after
this time that Tippoo raised his celebrated Tiger-regiment,
disciplined and armed according to the
European fashion. Immediately before the Prince
came, on a small elephant, a hard-faced, severe-looking
man, by office the distributor of alms, which
be flung in showers of small copper money among
the Fakirs and beggars, whose scrambles to collect
them seemed to augment their amount; while the
grim-looking agent of Mahomedan charity, together
with his elephant, which marched with half
angry eyes, and its trunk curled upwards, seemed
both alike ready to chastise those whom poverty
should render too importunate.
Tippoo himself next appeared, richly apparelled,
and seated on an elephant, which, carrying its head
above all the others in the procession, seemed
proudly conscious of superior dignity. The howdah,
or seat, which the Prince occupied, was of
silver, embossed and gilt, having behind a place for
a confidential servant, who waved the great chowry,
or cow-tail, to keep off the flies; but who could
also occasionally perform the task of spokesman,
being well versed in all terms of flattery and compliment.
The caparisons of the royal elephant were
of scarlet cloth, richly embroidered with gold. Behind
Tippoo came the various courtiers and officers
of the household, mounted chiefly on elephants, all
arrayed in their most splendid attire, and exhibiting
the greatest pomp.
In this manner the procession advanced down
the principal street of the town, to the gate of the
royal gardens. The houses were ornamented by
broad-cloth, silk shawls, and embroidered carpets
of the richest colours, displayed from the verandahs
and windows; even the meanest hut was adorned
with some piece of cloth, so that the whole street
had a singularly rich and gorgeous appearance.
This splendid procession having entered the royal
gardens, approached, through a long avenue of
lofty trees, a chabootra, or platform of white marble,
canopied by arches of the same material, which
occupied the centre. It was raised four or five feet
from the ground, covered with white cloth and
Persian carpets. In the centre of the platform was
the musnud, or state cushion of the Prince, six feet
square, composed of crimson velvet, richly embroidered.
By especial grace, a small low cushion
was placed on the right of the Prince, for the occupation
of the Begum. In front of this platform
was a square tank, or pond of marble, four feet
deep, and filled to the brim with water as clear as
crystal, having a large jet or fountain in the middle,
which threw up a column of it to the height of
twenty feet.
The Prince Tippoo had scarcely dismounted from
his elephant, and occupied the musnud, or throne
of cushions, when the stately form of the Begum
was seen advancing to the Place of rendezvous.
The elephant being left at the gate of the gardens
opening into the country, opposite to that by which
the procession of Tippoo had entered, she was carried
in an open litter, richly ornamented with silver,
and borne on the shoulders of six black slaves.
Her person was as richly attired as silks and gems
could accomplish.
Richard Middlemas, as the Begum's general or
Bukshee, walked nearest to her litter, in a dress
as magnificent in itself as it was remote from all
European costume, being that of a Banka, or Indian
courtier. His turban was of rich silk and
gold, twisted very hard, and placed on one side
of his head, its ends hanging down on the shoulder.
His mustaches were turned and curled, and his
eyelids stained with antimony. The vest was of
gold brocade, with a cummerband or sash, around
his waist, corresponding to his turban. He carried
in his hand a large sword, sheathed in a scabbard
of crimson velvet, and wore around his middle a
broad embroidered sword-belt. What thoughts
he had under this gay attire, and the bold bearing
which corresponded to it, it would be fearful to unfold.
His least detestable hopes were perhaps
those which tended to save Menie Gray, by betraying
the Prince who was about to confide in
him, and the Begum, at whose intercession Tippoo's
confidence was to be reposed.
The litter stopped as it approached the tank,
on the opposite side of which the Prince was seated
on his musnud. Middlemas assisted the Begum
to descend, and led her, deeply veiled with silver
muslin, towards the platform of marble. The rest
of the retinue of the Begum followed in their
richest and most gaudy attire, all males, however;
nor was there a symptom of woman being in her
train, expect that a close litter, guarded by twenty
black slaves, having their sabres drawn, remained
at some distance in a thicket of flowering shrubs.
When Tippoo Saib, through the dim haze which
hung over the Waterfall, discerned the splendid
train of the Begum advancing, he arose from his
musnud, so as to receive her near the foot of his
throne, and exchanged greetings with her upon
the pleasure of meeting, and enquiries after their
mutual health. He then conducted her to the
cushion placed near to his own, while his courtiers
anxiously showed their politeness in accommodating
those of the Begum with places upon the carpets
around, where they all sat down cross-legged
---Richard Middlemas occupying a conspicuous
situation.
The people of inferior note stood behind, and
amongst them was the Sirdar of Hyder Ali, with
Hartley and the Madras Vakeel. It would be
impossible to describe the feelings with which Hartley
recognised the apostate Middlemas, and the
Amazonian Mrs Montreville. The sight of them
worked up his resolution to make an appeal against
them in full Durbar, to the justice which Tippoo
was obliged to render to all who should complain
of injuries. In the meanwhile, the Prince, who
had hitherto spoken in a low voice, while acknowledging,
it is to be supposed, the services
and the fidelity of the Begum, now gave the sign
to his attendant, who said, in an elevated tone,
``Wherefore, and to requite these services, the
mighty Prince, at the request of the mighty Begum,
Mootee Mahul, beautiful as the moon, and
wise as the daughter of Giamschid, had decreed to
take into his service the Bukshee of her armies, and
to invest him, as one worthy of all confidence, with
the keeping of his beloved capital of Bangalore.''
The voice of the crier had scarce ceased, when
it was answered by one as loud, which sounded
from the crowd of bystanders, ``Cursed is he who
maketh the robber Leik his treasurer, or trusteth
the lives of Moslemah to the command of an apostate!''
With unutterable satisfaction, yet with trembling
doubt and anxiety, Hartley traced the speech
to the elder Fakir, the companion of Barak. Tippoo
seemed not to notice the interruption, which
passed for that of some mad devotee, to whom the
Moslem princes permit great freedoms. The Durbar,
therefore, recovered from their surprise; and,
in answer to the proclamation, united in the shout
of applause which is expected to attend every annunciation
of the royal pleasure.
Their acclamation had no sooner ceased than
Middlemas arose, bent himself before the musnud,
and, in a set speech, declared his unworthiness of
such high honour as had now been conferred, and
his zeal for the Prince's service. Something remained
to be added, but his speech faltered, his
limbs shook, and his tongue seemed to refuse its
office.
The Begum started from her seat, though contrary
to etiquette, and said, as if to supply the deficiency
in the speech of her officer, ``My slave
would say, that in acknowledgment of so great
an honour conferred on my Bukshee, I am so
void of means, that I can only pray your Highness
will deign to accept a lily from Frangistan,
to plant within the recesses of the secret garden
of thy pleasures. Let my Lord's guards carry
yonder litter to the Zenana.''
A female scream was heard, as, at a signal from
Tippoo, the guards of his Seraglio advanced to
receive the closed litter from the attendants of the
Begum. The voice of the old Fakir was heard
louder and sterner than before.---``Cursed is the
prince who barters justice for lust! He shall die
in the gate by the sword of the stranger.''
``This is too insolent!'' said Tippoo. `Drag
forward that Fakir, and cut his robe into tatters
on his back with your chabouks.''*
* Long Whips.
But a scene ensued like that in the hall of Seyd.
All who attempted to obey the command of the,
incensed despot fell back from the Fakir, as they
would from the Angel of Death. He flung his
cap and fictitious beard on the ground, and the
incensed countenance of Tippoo was subdued in
an instant, when he encountered the stern and
awful eye of his father. A sign dismissed him
from the throne, which Hyder himself ascended,
while the officious menials hastily disrobed him of
his tattered cloak, and flung on him a robe of regal
splendour, and placed on his head a jewelled
turban. The Durbar rung with acclamations to
Hyder Ali Khan Behauder, ``the good, the wise,
the discoverer of hidden things, who cometh into
the Divan like the sun bursting from the clouds.''
The Nawaub at length signed for silence, and
was promptly obeyed. He looked majestically
around him, and at length bent his look upon Tippoo,
whose downcast eyes, as he stood before the
throne with his arms folded on his bosom, were
strongly contrasted with the haughty air of authority
which he had worn but a moment before.
``Thou hast been willing,'' said the Nawaub, ``to
barter the safety of thy capital for the possession
of a white slave. But the beauty of a fair woman
caused Solomon ben David to stumble in his path;
how much more, then, should the son. of Hyder
Naig remain firm under temptation!---That men
may see clearly, we must remove the light which
dazzles them. Yonder Feringi woman must be
placed at my disposal.''
``To hear is to obey,'' replied Tippoo, while the
deep gloom on his brow showed what his forced
submission cost his proud and passionate spirit.
In the hearts of the courtiers present reigned the
most eager curiosity to see the _d<e'>nouement_ of the
scene, but not a trace of that wish was suffered to
manifest itself on features accustomed to conceal
all internal sensations. The feelings of the Begum
were hidden under her veil; while, in spite of a
bold attempt to conceal his alarm, the perspiration
stood in large drops on the brow of Richard Middlemas.
The next words of the Nawaub sounded
like music in the ear of Hartley.
``Carry the Feringi woman to the tent of the
Sirdar Belash Cassim, [the chief to whom Hartley
had been committed.] Let her be tended in all
honour, and let him prepare to escort her, with the
Vakeel and the Hakim Hartley, to the Payeen-Ghaut,
[the country beneath the passes,] answering
for their safety with his head.'' The litter was
on its road to the Sirdar's tents ere the Nawaub
had done speaking. ``For thee, Tippoo,'' continued
Hyder, ``I am not come hither to deprive
thee of authority, or to disgrace thee before the
Durbar. Such things as thou hast promised to this
Feringi, proceed to make them good. The sun
calleth not back the splendour which he lends to
the moon; and the father obscures not the dignity
which he has conferred on the son. What thou
hast promised, that do thou proceed to make good.''
The ceremony of investiture was therefore recommenced,
by which the Prince Tippoo conferred
on Middlemas the important government of the city
of Bangalore, probably with the internal resolution,
that since he was himself deprived of the fair
European, he would take an early opportunity to
remove the new Killedar from his charge; while
Middlemas accepted it with the throbbing hope
that he might yet outwit both father and son. The
deed of investiture was read aloud---the robe of
honour was put upon the newly-created Killedar,
and a hundred voices, while they blessed the prudent
choice of Tippoo, wished the governor good
fortune, and victory over his enemies.
A horse was led forward, as the Prince's gift.
It was a fine steed of the Cuttyawar breed, high-crested,
with broad hind-quarters; he was of a
white colour, but had the extremity of his tail and
mane stained red. His saddle was red velvet, the
bridle and crupper studded with gilded knobs.
Two attendants on lesser horses led this prancing
animal, one holding the lance, and the other the
long spear of their patron. The horse was shown
to the applauding courtiers, and withdrawn, in
order to be led in state through the streets, while
the new Killedar should follow on the elephant,
another present usual on such an occasion, which
was next made to advance, that the world might
admire the munificence of the Prince.
The huge animal approached the platform, shaking
his large wrinkled head, which be raised and
sunk, as if impatient, and curling upwards his
trunk from time to time, as if to show the gulf
of his tongueless mouth. Gracefully retiring with
the deepest obeisance, the Killedar, well pleased
the audience was finished, stood by the neck of the
elephant, expecting the conductor of the animal
would make him kneel down, that he might ascend
the gilded howdah, which awaited his occupancy.
``Hold, Feringi,'' said Hyder. ``Thou hast
received all that was promised thee by the bounty
of Tippoo. Accept now what is the fruit of the
justice of Hyder.''
As he spoke, he signed with his finger, and the
driver of the elephant instantly conveyed to the
animal the pleasure of the Nawaub. Curling his
long trunk around the neck of the ill-fated European,
the monster suddenly threw the wretch prostrate
before him, and stamping his huge shapeless
foot upon his breast, put an end at once to his life
and to his crimes. The cry which the victim uttered
was mimicked by the roar of the monster, and a
sound like an hysterical laugh mingling with a
scream, which rung from under the veil of the Begum.
The elephant once more raised his trunk
aloft, and gaped fearfully.
The courtiers preserved a profound silence; but
Tippoo, upon whose muslin robe a part of the victim's
blood had spirted, held it up to the Nawaub,
exclaiming, in a sorrowful, yet resentful tone,---
``Father---father---was it thus my promise should
have been kept?''
``Know, foolish boy,'' said Hyder Ali, ``that
the carrion which lies there was in a plot to deliver
Bangalore to the Feringis and the Mahrattas. This
Begum [she started when she heard herself named]
has given us warning of the plot, and has so merited
her pardon for having originally concurred in it,---
whether altogether out of love to us we will not
too curiously enquire.---Hence with that lump of
bloody clay, and let the Hakim Hartley and the
English Vakeel come before me.''
They were brought forward, while some of the
attendants flung sand upon the bloody traces, and
others removed the crushed corpse.
``Hakim,'' said Hyder, ``thou shalt return with
the Feringi woman, and with gold to compensate
her injuries, wherein the Begum, as is fitting, shall
contribute a share. Do thou say to thy nation,
Hyder Ali acts justly.'' The Nawaub then inclined
himself graciously to Hartley, and then turning to
the Vakeel, who appeared much discomposed, ``You
have brought to me,'' he said, ``words of peace,
while your masters meditated a treacherous war.
It is not upon such as you that my vengeance ought
to alight. But tell the Kafr [or infidel] Paupiah
and his unworthy master, that Hyder Ali sees too
clearly to suffer to be lost by treason the advantages
he has gained by war. Hitherto I have been in
the Carnatic as a mild prince---in future I will be a
destroying tempest! Hitherto I have made inroads
as a compassionate and merciful conqueror---hereafter
I will be the messenger whom Allah sends to
the kingdoms which he visits in judgment! ''
It is well known how dreadfully the Nawaub
kept this promise, and how he and his son afterwards
sunk before the discipline and bravery of the
Europeans. The scene of just punishment which
he so faithfully exhibited might be owing to his
policy, his internal sense of right, and to the ostentation
of displaying it before an Englishman of
sense and intelligence, or to all of these motives
mingled together---but in what proportions it is
not for us to distinguish.
Hartley reached the coast in safety with his precious
charge, rescued from a dreadful fate when
she was almost beyond hope. But the nerves and
constitution of Menie Gray had received a shock
from which she long suffered severely, and never
entirely recovered. The principal ladies of the
settlement, moved by the singular tale of her distress,
received her with the utmost kindness, and
exercised towards her the most attentive and affectionate
hospitality. The Nawaub, faithful to
his promise, remitted to her a sum of no less than
ten thousand gold Mohurs, extorted, as was surmised,
almost entirely from the hoards of the Begum
Mootee Mahul, or Montreville. Of the fate
of that adventuress nothing was known for certainty;
but her forts and government were taken
into Hyder's custody, and report said, that, her
power being abolished and her consequence lost,
she died by poison, either taken by herself, or administered
by some other person.
It might be thought a natural conclusion of the
history of Menie Gray, that she should have married
Hartley, to whom she stood much indebted
for his heroic interference in her behalf. But her
feelings were too much and too painfully agitated,
her health too much shattered, to permit her to entertain
thoughts of a matrimonial connexion, even
with the acquaintance of her youth, and the champion
of her freedom. Time might have removed
these obstacles, but not two years after their adventures
in Mysore, the gallant and disinterested
Hartley fell a victim to his professional courage, in
withstanding the progress of a contagious distemper,
which he at length caught, and under which
he sunk. He left a considerable part of the moderate
fortune which he had acquired to Menie Gray,
who, of course, did not want many advantageous
offers of a matrimonial character. But she respected
the memory of Hartley too much, to subdue
in behalf of another the reasons which induced her
to refuse the hand which he had so well deserved
---nay, it may be thought, had so fairly won.
She returned to Britain---what seldom occurs---
unmarried though wealthy; and, settling in her
native village, appeared to find her only pleasure
in acts of benevolence which seemed to exceed the
extent of her fortune, had not her very retired
life been taken into consideration. Two or three
persons with whom she was intimate, could trace
in her character that generous and disinterested
simplicity and affection, which were the groundwork
of her character. To the world at large her
habits seemed those of the ancient Roman matron,
which is recorded on her tomb in these four words,
Domum mansit---Lanam fecit.
[13. The Surgeon's Daughter Conclusion]
Mr Croftangry's Conclusion.
If you tell a good jest,
And please all the rest,
Comes Dingley, and asks you, ``What was it?''
And before she can know,
Away she will go
To seek an old rag in the closet.
Dean Swift.
While I was inditing the goodly matter which
my readers have just perused, I might be said to go
through a course of breaking-in to stand criticism,
like a shooting-pony to stand fire. By some of
those venial breaches of confidence, which always
take place on the like occasions, my private flirtations
with the Muse of Fiction became a matter
whispered in Miss Fairscribe's circle, some ornaments,
of which were, I suppose, highly interested
in the progress of the affair, while others ``really
thought Mr Chrystal Croftangry might have had
more wit at his time of day.'' Then came the sly
intimation, the oblique remark, all that sugar-lipped
raillery which is fitted for the situation of a
man about to do a foolish thing, whether it be to
publish or to marry, and that accompanied with
the discreet nods and winks of such friends as are
in the secret, and the obliging eagerness of others
to know all about it.
At length the affair became so far public, that I
was induced to face a tea-party with my manuscript
in my pocket, looking as simple and modest as any
gentleman of a certain age need to do upon such
an occasion. When tea had been carried round,
handkerchiefs and smelling bottles prepared, I
had the honour of reading the Surgeon's Daughter,
for the entertainment of the evening. It went
off excellently; my friend Mr Fairscribe, who had
been seduced from his desk to join the literary
circle, only fell asleep twice, and readily recovered
his attention by help of his snuff-box. The ladies
were politely attentive, and when the cat, or the
dog, or a next neighbour, tempted an individual to
relax, Katie Fairscribe was on the alert, like an
active whipper-in, with look, touch, or whisper
to recall them to a sense of what was going on.
Whether Miss Katie was thus active merely to
enforce the literary discipline of her coterie, or
whether she was really interested by the beauties
of the piece, and desirous to enforce them on others,
I will not venture to ask, in case I should end in
liking the girl---and she is really a pretty one---
better than wisdom would warrant, either for my
sake or hers.
I must own, my story here and there flagged a
good deal; perhaps there were faults in my reading,
for while I should have been attending to nothing
but how to give the words effect as they existed,
I was feeling the chilling consciousness, that
they might have been, and ought to have been, a
great deal better. However, we kindled up at last
when we got, to the East Indies, although on the
mention of tigers, an old lady, whose tongue had
been impatient for an hour, broke in with, ``I wonder
if Mr Croftangry ever heard the story of Tiger
Tullideph?'' and had nearly inserted the whole
narrative as an episode in my tale. She was,
however, brought to reason, and the subsequent
mention of shawls, diamonds, turbans, and cummerbands,
had their usual effect in awakening the
imaginations of the fair auditors. At the extinction
of the faithless lover in a way so horribly
new, I had, as indeed I expected, the good fortune
to excite that expression of painful interest, which
is produced by drawing in the breath through the
compressed lips; nay, one Miss of fourteen actually
screamed.
At length my task was ended, and the fair
circle rained odours upon me, as they pelt beaux
at the Carnival with sugar-plums, and drench them
with scented spices. There was ``Beautiful,'' and
``Sweetly interesting,'' and ``O Mr Croftangry,''
and ``How much obliged,'' and ``What a delightful
evening,'' and ``O Miss Katie, how could
you keep such a secret so long!'' While the dear
souls were thus smothering me with rose-leaves,
the merciless old lady carried them all off by a
disquisition upon shawls, which she had the impudence
to say, arose entirely out of my story.
Miss Katie endeavoured to stop the flow of her
eloquence in vain; she threw all other topics out
of the field, and from the genuine Indian, she made
a digression to the imitation shawls now made at
Paisley, out of real Thibet wool, not to be known
from the actual Country shawl, except by some
inimitable cross-stitch in the border. ``It is well,''
said the old lady, wrapping herself up in a rich
Kashmire, ``that there is some way of knowing
a thing that cost fifty guineas from an article that
is sold for five; but I venture to say there are not
one out of ten thousand that would understand
the difference.''
The politeness of some of the fair ladies would
now have brought back the conversation to the
forgotten subject of our meeting. ``How could
you, Mr Croftangry, collect all these hard words
about India?---you were never there?''---``No,
madam, I have not had that advantage; but, like
the imitative operatives of Paisley, I have composed
my shawl by incorporating into the woof a
little Thibet wool, which my excellent friend and
neighbour, Colonel Mackerris, one of the best fellows
who ever trode a Highland moor, or dived into
an Indian jungle, had the goodness to supply
me with.''
My rehearsal, however, though not absolutely
and altogether to my taste, has prepared me in
some measure for the less tempered and guarded
sentence of the world. So a man must learn to
encounter a foil before he confronts a sword; and
to take up my original simile, a horse must be accustomed
to a _feu de joie_ before you can ride him
against a volley of balls. Well, Corporal Nym's
philosophy is not the worst that has been preached,
``Things must be as they may.'' If my lucubrations
give pleasure, I may again require the
attention of the courteous reader; if not, here end
the
CHRONICLES OF THE CANONGATE.
[End of the Chroncicles of the Canongate]